Au secours! Ideas for entertaining French exchange student?

[gramercy]

A French boy is coming to stay with us for a week shortly. He is 14.

We live in a very boring place - not unpleasant as such, but far from exciting. Not near London or any other decent metropolis. The French party will be doing heavy duty tourist trips all week (the schedule sounds exhausting, frankly) but we have to entertain the boy for a weekend.

Anyone any ideas or any recommendations of things that went down well with an exchange person your dcs had? I am really scratching my head to think what there is to do in a suburb in March.

Thanks for the suggestions; le rosbif is definitely on the menu!

Unless the school have specifically banned it (I know some do!) it might be worth getting your son to speak to some of the other English hosts and arranging to do something as a group for some of the time. The exchange student will enjoy meeting other people as well as getting to spend some time with some of his friends. If you are happy with leaving them alone for a short time the chance to do some souvenir shopping/eat lunch out without being closely chaperoned will probably go down well also. Bonne chance!

Our French student just arrived (13 yr old girl)!! dd spent a week in France over half term - she had a fabulous time and basically the weekend there was spent with her french partner, her friends and their English partners..they went bowling as a group, cooked pizzas (very authentically French ) and at friends houses hanging out playing board games etc. dd loved it and her French did improve!
As someone else said, the child will have been busy doing the touristy stuff during the week, so chilling out at the weekend doing normal teenage activities will be best.

We've just had a parents' meeting at the school about the Exchange. The teacher said that one family last year took their French student to Butlins for the weekend. She said it was a nice, thoughtful idea, but had rather traumatised the French child - not because it was Butlins (?!?) but they had been alarmed at being whisked off and separated from the other French pupils. I suppose it depends on the student.

A bit left field, but the Imperial War Museum is genuinely interesting to more serious European kids. The WW1 and WW2 sections describe the misery of war very well and I assume it is one of the best museums of its kind in Europe.

Borough market for lunch afterwards and a walk along or trip on the river. Or take the Jubilee line from Waterloo (walking distance from the IWM) or from London Bridge (eg Borough Market) takes you to Westfield East at Stratford. Superdry recommended. Or then take one stop on the DLR to Pudding Mill Lane and have lunch at the Container Cafe overlooking the Olympic Park.

On a Sunday Colombia Road, Brick Lane and Spitalfields markets make for a good day out, with lots of places to stop and eat: beigals, curry, etc, and the sense of the different waves of immigration which make London the cosmopolitan city it is now.

I would agree with encouraging them to do some things in a group. It gives the English kids some responsibility as well.

Why oh why did I let DC drop Latin in favour of two MFL. Roman centurians would not expect to come and stay. And how do schools select partners? On paper at least, our exchange appears to have nothing in common with DD.

We live in France and have had several french kids come and stay with us to better their english over here, instead of going to the UK. We take them out a few times (as unlike an exchange trip they are with just us all week) we cook very English food for them, we play lots of board games as these encourage speech and understanding - Old Maid, Happy Families, Snap, being typically English, plus Uno, Monopoly, Countdown, Piratology.

We watch a few dvds in English with subtitles, and let our son and the child chill out and get to know one another. Our DS loves it (particularly likes having girls to stay, even though he is only eleven) and is very helpful at speaking lots of english to them. However, if they both get tired, they revert back to French!
English breakfast
Toad in the Hole (Crapaud dans le trou makes them laugh)
Shepherd's Pie (torte de berger?)
Roast dinner with yorkshire pud, roast potatoes etc
Custard!
Marmite on toast
Dog walking in the country
Visit a local stately home, or park
supermarket trip as theirs are so different to ours
bowling (we always do that and everyone has a good time and gets cheered on or commiserated with in both languages!)
look at photos - his or yours as this can stimulate conversation
Have a nice time

Crapaud dans le trou?! Sounds just charming in French!