Oui! R-FH Students Win French Podcast Contest: Lost in the Translation?

Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School French students are at it again. This time they've taken their language fluency talents to video with an award-winning production.

Under teacher Christine Berg's tutelage, sophomores Rebecca Karol and Max Reynolds became first-place runners-up in the Foreign Language Educators of New Jersey state-wide podcast competition.

The two used fluent French to create a comedic lesson-to-be-learned-type prize-winning video story, which is posted on the organization's Web site.

This is how it goes: "Max bumps into Rebecca on the streets of Paris and she offers him a tour of France," said Berg. "They visit the Eiffel Tower, the French countryside, a boulangerie (a bakery). When Max says he doesn't like bread, Rebecca hits him over the head with a baguette! Rebecca pushes him into the water when he says he doesn't like the beach. At the end, Max thanks her and says how much he loves France. Rebecca asks him to write to her often." 

Tres bien, Rebecca and Max! That means very good, I think. Though when you're a former honors French student from R-FH and are a bit stumped in translation of a short video, you start to wonder how you managed to go from fluent to flailing to grasp one correct word or phrase. OK, so there were decades in between.

Still, it's a familiar story. You know this one. Straight A's in that world language all through middle and high school. Fluency in a world language. Pride and pristine wealth of knowledge, like Max and Rebecca, right?

Then, one day, you find yourself repeatedly hitting rewind on a video flush with a just over a minute's worth of French dialogue to catch the drift. What a task: trying to piece together some of those words that used to fall out of your mouth and into the classroom with the zest of and confidence of curse words that fly when you stub your toe.

Then it all starts coming back to you, right? Well, some of it, anyway. There are a few strong recollections of teaching moments with R-FH's former Monseiur Guillory. And I doubt I'm the only one.

He did teach us very well. And we taught him how painful it can be to teach teens. But, it was all done in French — and quite well. Class with Monsieur Guillory on the day we presented our "bavardages," or all-French stories, made us all a little antsy, shall we say.

We had one take each — no video — when we stood and blathered some litany about a picture or something that happened or, well, just some plain crazy story we made up that made no sense. 

Monsieur Guillory loved listening to our kooky bavardages, probably because they were really nutty and usually the concoctions of our bright, menacing minds.

He would sit on the end of his desk, foot on an empty student's chair, tug on his socks and laugh. Then it would be time to settle back into the class routine. That was a letdown that we handled in our own special way.

It went something like this ...

"Ou est Elaine? Bobby? Q'est que c'est? Allo? Allo? Viens ici! Mon Dieu!"

Those are the words that were frequently heard from Monsieur Guillory, as he turned from his routine chalkboard drawing and note-to-self chatter to find an empty classroom.

Oui. We bright, but menacing students would speak French all through class, answer questions, do presentations and ... when Monsieur Guillory turned his back, we'd all quickly exit into the empty classroom next door behind the makeshift divider. Now that, we thought, was something to talk about — in French, of course.

Poor man. He taught us well. We knew the language. We learned it with fluency from him. However, we somehow missed the manners part of the lesson. Mon Deiu! (OK, I was going to use another word that begins with m, but I digress.)

Then is when the Monseiur Guillory (I really don't think anyone knew the man's first name) fluent ramblings would start. We liked that. He inadvertently taught us to curse in French. And we soon understood everything he said. What's a good teacher for, anyway?

And, guess what, Monsieur Guillory, it's all coming back to me now ...

So, in honor of all the patient world language teachers between the middle schools and R-FH, tell us your favorite memories of them. Who and what do you remember as part of the fun of learning a foreign language at R-FH?

And, does anyone remember Mr. Guillory's first name? In the same era, there was Madame Steele as well and then there was the Spanish teacher all feared, who happened to be the guy who held detention, Senor Koharski! What words and/or phrases do you remember most?