French peacekeepers go back to school

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10 Dec 2015

French peacekeepers go back to school

In a classroom in Quallawiyah primary school, South Lebanon, students practice French vocabulary and grammar with their teachers. With native French speakers guiding them, these students will be have a higher chance of commanding the accent and inflection of this melodic language. In the future, some may even attain the holy grail of language learning: to be mistaken for a native speaker.

The francophone teachers leading these Lebanese students towards fluency are the UNIFIL French peacekeeping soldiers of the Force Commander Reserve (FCR). Each unit of the FCR work with a different school, and each school receives up to four hours of lessons per week. This means more than fifteen Southern Lebanese schools, with over 3,000 students between the ages of 6 and 16, benefit from this program.

French is the only language other than English spoken on all five continents, and these are an estimated 220 million people speaking French every day. The French peacekeeping contingent of UNIFIL have been providing these classes since 2012 to benefit the local community and to promote the French language in Lebanon.

 

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Article: Aoibheann O'Sullivan
Photo: CPT Guillaume E.
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