The College by the Harbour - St Aloysius

The next two days were packed with a tour of the Châteaux of
the Loire Valley, a bus tour of Paris, a trip up the Eiffel Tower and
a reception at the Australian Embassy, dinner just off the Champs
Elysée and an excursion to Versailles.
Versailles was impressive despite the wintry aspect to the
gardens, however the thing that caused the greatest excitement was
the news that the staff of Versailles had decided to go on strike.
Finally we were let in and were rushed through by our Guide
Elizabeth. We were dropped off at the Moulin Rouge, which
produced comments of disappointment and ‘I told you so’ from
Madame Downes and then we walked to Sacré Coeur and up the
338 steps to the dome. We met a young Nun in a real habit who
invited us into her office for a chat that lasted 40 minutes. She was
quite amazing and held our boys spellbound. We then did the
obligatory Arc De Triomphe and watched Parisians risk life, limb
and their no-claims bonus as they endeavoured to tackle the traffic
on the 12-road roundabout.
Our short stay in Paris over, the next part of our trip took us to
the Provençal town of Avignon, to our home stay with families
from Lycée St Joseph. To catch our TGV at the Gare De Lyon in
Paris, we fought our way through three Metro changes during the
morning peak period with suitcases and backpacks. Three hours
later we were standing on the platform in Avignon surrounded by
suitcases and French mothers kissing everyone. We did manage to
unload two suitcases that weren’t ours and this was only discovered
as the TGV slipped gently out of the station. We reported the
mistake quickly and the SNCF organised the reunion of suitcases
and owners.
The next two weeks were packed with excursions and
activities. We spent the first day wandering around the magnificent
Palais des Papes and Pont St Bénézet. On the weekends the boys
and teachers were spoilt with the lavish attention of their host
families.
Other days included a tour of the villages de Provence, Uzès,
Pont du Gard and Nîmes. The classic quote comes from a Year 9
student who asking about the Pont du Gard, asked what is was for
and how old it was. Having received the answer that it was a 2000-
year-old Roman aqueduct, he asked ‘ do they still use it as an
aqueduct?’ When the answer was no, he replied, ‘why don’t they
pull it down, it is so old and is no use anymore?’ What comment
could we make in response to such logic?
We were very impressed with our boys and how they wanted
to attend classes at the Lycée every day. What was more impressive
was the fact that classes in a typical private Lycée, years 10-12 are
taught to silent students, in a very teacher centred environment.
Two-hour lessons of advanced physics and two-hour lessons of
philosophy were tolerated by our boys. The two-hour PE lesson
they had, we could appreciate them wanting to attend, but two
hours of sitting in silence, listening to the great thoughts of the
French philosophers, in fluent French, made us wonder what the
attraction was for such dry lessons. We think it may have had
something to do with the fact that the school was co-educational.
We visited Marseille and had a short ferry trip into the surf less
Mediterranean Sea. Finally our stay in Avignon came to an end.
We said our goodbyes to forlorn French students and weeping
mothers, who were still kissing everyone! We travelled back to
Paris in a double decker TGV train with some interesting
companions in the same carriage.
On our last day in Paris we visited the Catacombes, the Louvre
and had a slap-up lunch overlooking the River Seine. Our last
evening was memorable in that a group of German students,
abandoned by their teachers, insisted upon making an enormous
The boys enjoying the view of the Pont du Gard (the Roman
aquaduct) near Nîmes in southern France
amount of noise until the early hours of the morning, which didn’t
impress our students as they had to get up at 4 am the next day to
leave for Australia.
Everyone had a marvellous time. We have wonderful
memories of the trip and our boys were excellent ambassadors for
their families, St Aloysius’ College and Australia.
Karen Downes
Reverend Father Iain Radvan SJ
Head of Languages
Chaplain
Leap into Language
The Young Australia Drama Workshop Company came to
school to entertain our boys in Years 9 and 10 with their
drama activities in French. Due to the number of students,
we had two sessions, a group of Year 9 boys only and a mixed group
of Year 9 and 10 boys. The activities started off simply, with
listening games such as Jacques a dit (Simon says) and a quiz and
lead into more sophisticated theatre sports activities, culminating
in a short skit with props and clothing.
The students got involved very quickly, and the French started
to flow. They produced some excellent performances, which were
very funny, and which were conveyed in very good French.
Delivering comedy in their own language is difficult, but to succeed
in a foreign language is outstanding. Danielle, the facilitator and
professional actress, commented on the ability of the boys’ language
skills and their confidence at using those skills.
Some of the highlights were Daniel Hyde (Year 10) chasing
his group around with an imaginary pineapple in a whodunit,
Michael Gemmell’s (Year 9) dress sense as he strode around in a
hot pink sequined dress, Matthew Mazza (Year 9) floating around
as the quizmaster’s assistant, looking more like a wizard in his red
cape than an assistant, the fight scenes between Ben Mills (Year 9)
and Brent McCarthy (Year 9), which were very convincing,
Alessandro Perna’s (Year 9) sense of style and his line ‘Oui, non,
Évian’, and Anthony Koorey’s (Year 9) French accent rivalled that
of a real Frenchman.
All the boys must be congratulated for their excellent French
and their stunning performances.
Mrs Karen Downes
Head of Languages
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