Gulf High Students Give French Lessons to Elementary Kids

Katrina Enoch stood in front of a class of active students at Richey Elementary School and tried to teach them French.

"Don’t make me be a policier,” she warned the students.

"What's that?" one of the elementary students asked.

"A police," replies another.

Tres bien.

Enoch is one of a group of French Honor Society students at Gulf High School who are tutoring local elementary students.

Anne Currelly is a French teacher at Gulf High. She has decades of experience teaching the language. She used to teach French to students in younger grades than high school.

Currelly now teaches French to all high school grades at Gulf. Previous French Honor Society students taught French to elementary school kids, but the program was discontinued when Gulf students stopped participating last decade.

In the fall of the current school year, members of the French Honor Society started a new effort to go into classes and give French lessons. The high school students can receive community service credits for teaching the classes.

“I’m very pleased they’ve taken the initiative,” she said.

The students contacted teachers at local elementary schools and negotiated times to go their classes. They've been going to the classes and holding brief lessons. The schools include , Marlowe Elementary, and others, including a Fundamentas pre-school.

James Boyle, a Gulf High senior, has started teaching French to fifth grade students at . Lessons have included teaching the French words for colors and basic nouns and then quizzing the students. 

“It gives them a background for when they come into high school,” he said.

When Enoch did a lesson at Richey Elementary last week with fellow Gulf Honors student Erin Jacobs, she taught kids the French translations for careers like police officer and postal worker.

"Look how easy this is for you guys," she said.

Madison Kistler, a 15-year-old Gulf High student, said she is negotiating with staff at Odessa Elementary to start the tutoring program there.

“I want these kids to realize that there’s more out there than they think,” Kistler said.