The colourful decorations and sparkling Christmas tree inside the Alliance Francaise of Madurai in The American College set the tone for an evening of festive celebration on Tuesday in which students and faculty participated and celebrated Christmas, the French way.
The celebration began with Bible reading in French by Milton Powers, a professor of French at the Alliance Francaise, and was followed by a rendering of famous Christmas carols and songs in French.
More than 10 students sung the popular carols ‘Silent Night, Holy Night’ and ‘Joy to the World’ in French. A student dressed as Santa Claus also made his presence felt at the celebration and distributed sweets to those present, while dancing to the tune of the French version of ‘Jingle Bells’. Speaking about the celebration, Mr. Milton Powers said that while the Alliance Francaise had been functional from 2002, it was only from 2013 that Christmas celebration in French was initiated.
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“The celebration ensures that the festive spirit is ushered in here and the students too learn a lot. Since the model of French teaching and learning here follows an activity-based syllabus, this celebration helps students learn a lot through songs,” he explained.
Gayathri Warrier, a student from the A1 level batch, said that they had been practising carols and songs for over a month as part of the Christmas celebration.
“Learning the French version of these popular English carols ensured that we picked up a lot of new words and improved our vocabulary. We were able to compare the words from the English version to the French carols and learn the meanings easily,” she said.
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S. Samyukta, who was part of the celebration during the previous year as well, said that they looked forward to the fun activities and games which were part of the celebration.
“It is also a great exercise in helping us build our vocabulary and communicating better,” she said.
A few students further read out essays that they had written in French on Christmas-based topics such as the origin of Santa Claus.