“Bonjour! Qu’est-ce que vous avez fait ce week-end?”
Every sixth period in room 408 starts calm and collectively with Madame Bergkamp leading a discussion of the past weekend or plans for the exciting weekend to come. However, what follows for the next 90 minutes in our French 4 Honors class can never be expected; sometimes we can be found reading magazines, singing French songs, playing vocabulary tag, doing yoga or eating lots and lots of food.
From when we started learning the alphabet rap in sixth grade exploratory French in Redwood Middle School, our French “famille” has grown and expanded to include new recruits into the program. Together we’ve suffered through the imperfect verb tense, possessive pronouns and extra credit nights with French students from Los Gatos. But these experiences have made our bonds tighter than an overstuffed crepe.
Sadly, our beloved French department has been threatened to with extermination in recent years, but each year our “famille” gets closer and closer as we struggle to keep the flame alive. Although French is the language class with the least participation in our school, we will always cherish it and hope that it continues to bring happy memories to future students.
Some of our favorite memories of high school have come from this class. We love poking fun at the Renalds’ bickering and Madame Bergkamp’s attempts at whiteboard pictures. And we can always expect amazement when Jessica and Vickie present their art projects, which honestly could be displayed in a museum. Maddy also never ceases to amaze when she stands on chairs to get a better angle from the air conditioner.
Despite all the fun times, our “famille” has lost some members over the years. We miss Matt’s constant grammatical errors and Ron’s wonderful accent. Next year, we’ll lose our seniors and some lame juniors who no longer have time to learn the “language of love”. But most importantly, we’re losing our queen bee: Madame Bergkamp.
Madame has courageously taken care of our class for the last two years. We will not be continuing with Madame Bergkamp as we wrap up our French 5 AP lessons with Madame Lizundia, the same teacher who bravely took us in as scared little freshmen. Teaching our rowdy class has not been an easy task these past two years. We talk out of turn and in English, we want to watch movies every day, and we burst out into random choruses of “Joyeux Anniversaire.” Even through the craziest times, Madame Bergkamp has put up with us and kept us on track. We’ll definitely miss her a lot next year.
Don’t worry Madame Bergkamp, we know you’ll miss us, too. That’s why we’re taking a trip to France together next summer, right? Oui!