Francophone festival celebrates language, culture
by Peggy McEwan | Staff Writer
Students carrying glasses of water on trays raced a slalom course around the pillars outside Richard Montgomery High School
in Rockville recently as they competed in French waiter races like those held to celebrate Bastille Day.
Winners had to be fast and careful, and Jennifer Setzler, 14, a freshman at Damascus High School, had the right combination
for the high school competition.
"Just look at the cup and hope you don't spill it," Jennifer said after beating two boys in the final heat.
Inside, the halls of Richard Montgomery resounded Nov. 1 with students, parents and teachers speaking French as they participated
in presentations, played games and ate food — all part of the second Festival Francophone de Montgomery County.
The festival was started last year by French teachers from across the county.
"Our goal is to generate enthusiasm for our French programs," Lucie Austin, a French teacher at Northwest High School in
Germantown, said. "There are so many wonderful things you can do with French."
Skyler Mingo, 15, a junior at Seneca Valley High School in Germantown, talked about her first year French class and why
she chose to take French over other languages.
"It's pretty," Skyler said. "I took three years of Latin and I decided to take something else."
Students were invited to create short films and give dramatic presentations and recitations of French poetry.
Camille Awono, 8, who lives in Clarksburg but is in the third grade in the French immersion program at Maryvale Elementary
School in Rockville, won an award for her recitation of a poem in French.
"I had to practice and practice and I learned movements to perform on stage," Camille said.
Camille also had her face painted and played a version of Jeopardy devoted to questions on French language and culture.
Her mother, Jeanne Awono, is a French teacher at Seneca Valley and one of the festival's organizers.
"As French teachers we see many students asking, ‘Why study French?'" Awono said. "So we decided to have a day of
activities to inspire and encourage them."
Posters based on the festival's theme: Je parle francais, donc je suis (I speak French, therefore I am), a takeoff on the
famous phrase of philosopher Rene Descartes, lined the walls of the school's main hallway.
Emma Hourigan, 5, of Rockville, a kindergartener in the Maryvale program, excitedly showed her parents the poster she drew
that included the Eiffel Tower.
As Emma and her father, Tom Hourigan, sat in the sidewalk cafe area eating French pastries, Hourigan explained the decision
to have Emma study in the immersion program.
"Both my wife and I have done international work and thought it would be a good opportunity," he said.
Kevin Assie, 16, a junior at James Hubert Blake High School in Cloverly and a native French speaker from the Ivory Coast
is studying advanced placement French. He was at the festival to help students play Jeopardy and guide them in the art workshop
where they made spatter paintings.
"It was hard because they didn't really speak French," Assie said. "Not everyone is bilingual."
French is not a language spoken only in France, there are French-speaking people on all continents, said Ellen Briggs,
foreign language resource teacher at Damascus High School.
Several parents mentioned taking trips to Quebec to give their children exposure to French speakers. One Maryvale parent
brought boxes of books back from her trip there this summer for the Maryvale parents group to sell at the event.
"It's hard to come across good French books and hard to find such a large selection," said Anne-Marie Kim of Germantown,
who has two children at Maryvale. She was helping other parents with their book purchases.
One rule of the day was for festival-goers to only speak French.
"Everyone's on different levels of French, so you can't understand everything, but it's kind of cool to say ‘bonjour'
and other things and know they will understand," said Deborah April, 16, a sophomore at Winston Churchill High School in Potomac.
