Grenoble
The third day of CUEF classes, phew! We spent class discussing the article we had read for homework the night before. It concerned the nature of media consumption.
Following our CUEF classes, the UM students met up and walked with our professors to a nearby technical schools for students who were working to become “office managers.” These were all students roughly our age who had graduated high school and were participating in a work-study program for the next two years. They all were learning English. We broke into groups of three and the American students sat across from 3 French students. For about 20 minutes we would discuss one subject, before moving on to discuss another at a different table with another group. We got to talk about the environment, stereotypes held by each group about the other, television, work environments, and accents. It was an interesting experience and pretty eye opening. The French students struggled to communicate in English, but I was proud that my group was about to hold our own in French for the entire period. We had one really uncomfortable moment at the movie table. We asked the students for a film suggestion and the French boy suggested a comedy. All of us wanted to know more so he gave us the name. We asked for a small summary and he said “it’s a movie about slavery, it’s super funny.” My group looked at each other with mouths open, as one of our group members was African American. She asked the boy if he thought slavery was funny, to which he replied that this film certainly was. It went completely over his head that what he had said was insensitive and offensive. Following our encounter with the group, we all went outside for small treats and unstructured conversation. The second they stepped outside the door, all the French students whipped out their cigarettes and started smoking. It was bizarre. We collected each other’s snapchat information so we could meet up later in the week for a drink or a small get together.
Mary-Est-En-France 