ENGLISH FOR SURVIVED

My family has always told me that English is a very important language because it
is universal and you can communicate with people from different parts of the world.
Because of this, since I was a child I had to learn English and they chose to
register me in a school where they teach it. When I was 4 years old they started
teaching me English and from then on they didn´t stop until I graduated at the age
of 17. The English they were teaching me at school was very basic, so my family
decided to send me to English classes outside of school. I entered an institution
called Británico, where I learned other levels of English and was able to improve
my vocabulary. I studied at that institution for about two and a half years. However,
I had to leave the classes for personal reasons, which caused my level of English
to drop.
The congregation of my school started in France, so they also teach French. We
also had activities to commemorate French celebrations. In the case of French, I
had more difficulties, because I did not have the opportunity to take French classes
outside of school, so I did not have any language support. But I was able to get
good qualifications in that course. When I was in the fourth year of high school I
took an exam to go on an exchange trip to France. With a lot of effort I managed to
pass the exam and be selected for the exchange trip. I was very proud of myself
for getting this position, since it would be very useful for me in the future, at the
same time, I was a little scared because I didn't speak French very well. Still, I
decided to accept the exchange student position.
The itinerary for the trip consisted of a variety of activities for three weeks, which
were divided into study and tourist activities. The program stated that each
exchange student would stay with a family in France who attended the same high
school where we would be taking classes. It also stated that the first two weeks
would be spent studying in a high school in the town of sables d'lonne, which is
located two hours from poitierres, where my school's congregation was founded,
but we would also see some of the tourist sites in the town. The last week would be
where we would travel to Paris, the capital of France, where we could rest from our
studies and get to know the most touristic and emblematic places of the country.
On January 15, 2020, we, the group of exchange students, left for our trip. We had
to make a stopover in Amsterdam and hours later we were already in France. We
arrived at midnight the next day and I was able to meet the family that was going to
host me for two weeks. They were very nice, but we had some communication
problems, as I did not know much French and they did not speak Spanish. But I
realized that they did speak English, so we decided to communicate, for the most
part, in English. When I went to high school, I noticed that some of my classmates
were also communicating in English. That was how we communicated for the first
two weeks. In the last week we went to Paris. There were some people there who
did speak Spanish, but in most of the places we went we spoke English, so we
could all understand each other.
When we came back from the trip, we were quite impressed to realize that we had
not spoken much French, because we had a necessity to communicate and since
we did not understand each other well, we decided to use English as a survival
method. Thanks to it we were able to have a more fun and communicative
experience. Since that trip I realized how important it is to know the English
language, because it is universal and mandatory to learn in certain countries. For
that reason I decided to register again at the institute, to continue improving my
English and to expand my vocabulary. So when I will travel to countries with
languages I don't understand, I will always have an option to communicate.

Rafaella Merino Vinces U202221148