At the National Mississippi River Museum in Dubuque, Iowa, a group of high school students sit outside the building’s front steps, talking and basking in the shade.

The students have come a long way for this field trip — more than 4,000 miles, in fact.

Forty students and four teachers from Thionville, France, are visiting the Quad-Cities on a language and culture program co-sponsored by Language and Friendship Inc., an organization that promotes educational-exchange programs.

Most of the French students are living with host families from Bettendorf High School and United Township High School in East Moline, although families from Davenport Central, West and North high schools, as well as Pleasant Valley High School and Bettendorf Middle School, are hosting them as well.

Laura Kaufman, French teacher at Bettendorf High School, said the trip gives the opportunity for local school districts to bring France to their students.

“We’re trying to make a real connection between France and the United States,” she said. “We want to give language experience to our kids, especially to those who don’t have the means or the availability to go to France.”

Josyane Moscone, a freshman English teacher in Thionville, a small town in northeast France, said the group chose the Quad-Cities because it has a student-exchange relationship with the city — and also because it is a low-cost city to visit.

Julien Dupont, 16, a Thionville freshman, said he thinks the Quad-Cities is beautiful and added that he enjoyed its architecture.

Dupont compared the French and American high school systems. He said although class sizes are the same, the buildings in the United States are much bigger and classes are less strict. Students in Thionville, for example, have to wear uniforms to school, he said.

Melita Tunnicliff of Bettendorf is a host mother for French student Quentin Eberhart.

Tunnicliff, who spent a semester in France with a French host family, said she knew she wanted to repay the debt to another student some day.

“I think it’s very valuable for someone to have experience with a native speaker,” she said. Eberhart shadowed Tunnicliff’s daughter, Anna, to class at Pleasant Valley High School last week.

So far, the Tunnicliffs have had conversations with Eberhart about the differences between France’s schools and cities. They also have taken him to places such as NorthPark Mall, Carlos O’ Kelly’s Mexican Café and Wiebler’s Harley-Davidson store.

Meanwhile, the French students have taken the Celebration Belle riverboat along the Mississippi River, visited River Music Experience and Figge Art Museum in Davenport, and made pottery at Fireworks Coffee House in Moline. The French students plan to stay in the Quad-Cities until Friday.

“They’re having a good time,” Kaufman said. “They seem to be having fun. Everything is huge, and quite different from where they live.”

Wayne Ma can be contacted at

(563) 383-2360 or wma@qctimes.com.