Last Wednesday, Mont des Accords College welcomed around ten multilingual speakers, students, parents, and teachers to celebrate the linguistic and cultural diversity of Saint-Martin.
From 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Creole, French, Spanish, English and Pakistani sounds resonated in the college's multipurpose room.
For this third day of the Languages, Arts and Cultures Festival (FLAC), Ange-Marie Venthou-Dumaine, the school's librarian, led an enriching and warm meeting under the theme "Let's talk languages, let's talk cultures".
For the occasion, the 5th grade classese and 4e from the Educational Unit for Newly Arrived Allophone Students (UPE2A, a system allowing those who do not speak French to join a so-called ordinary class, while perfecting the language, 12 hours per week) and their teacher, Lucie Devouge, came to discuss with the rest of the guests the benefits of speaking and mixing several languages.
Former professor, now president of the Saint-Martin History Society, Serge Gumbs took the opportunity to remind these students “that they should not be ashamed of their Saint-Martin English and that the uniqueness of each individual is what makes this island so rich!”
Each in turn, students, parents and teachers took the microphone to talk about their language, their country and its culinary delights.
It was the aromas of simmering dishes that sounded the end of this meeting before inviting the assembly to gather around a tasting of the flavors of the world. _LM
https://faxinfo.fr/en/education-flac-2025-parlons-langues-parlons-cultures/
