I nonchalanatly divulged my plan on the school run just before the end of term. "Oh, by the way, we're having a French girl to stay with us this summer."

My announcement was met with incredulity by our 14-year-old: "Oh my God! That's so random! Why?"

"It'll be fun... and interesting. I did loads of exchanges when I was at school. It'll be fun," I repeated encouragingly.

"I meant why's she coming here? French people hate English people."

Now it was my turn to be horrified. Where on earth had she got that idea?

"The news - because of Brexit."

If I'd had any hesitation about my decision, this swung it. An urgent rapprochement was needed. An entente cordiale. I rang the local co-ordinator for the scheme and filled in the forms. With our eldest away at university we had a spare bedroom and besides there was a £400 hosting incentive - handy in times of financial stress. This was happening, whatever my family's misgivings.

I have long been a staunch Francophile. I read French at university and in my 20s, I lived and worked in France for three years. My first UK job involved syndicating UK newspaper content to French news agencies.

This appreciation of all things Gallic was fuelled in no small part by the school French exchanges in which I participated as a teenager. Growing up in rural Suffolk in the 1980s, opportunities for the expansion of horizons were rare, so the annual French exchange was a massive deal. Our town, Newmarket, was twinned with Maisons-Laffitte, on the outskirts of Paris. Each year, a coach would show up and discharge a posse of impossibly exotic Delphines, Sabines and Célines to stay with our far less glamorous group of Traceys, Karens and Mandys.

We'd then spend a week punting on the River Cam, roller-skating at the rink in Bury St Edmunds or dancing at the local working men's club to a soundtrack of Duran Duran and Joe le Taxi.

Then - having much the better deal - our group would venture back across the Channel to climb the Eiffel Tower, shop in La Défense and see Versailles.

It was only when describing them to my kids that I realised the extent to which these trips had shaped me and informed many of my subsequent life choices. Of course, there were challenges: aged 12, I was inexplicably paired with a 16-year-old boy called Eloïc, who sported a full beard and refused to leave his room. The year after, I awoke on my first morning to an empty house and a note in French informing me that everyone was busy, but I could meet the parents on their lunch break in the 17th arrondissement, which involved taking a train and navigating the Métro entirely solo.

Fast forward to 2025, however, and the school exchange trip is no longer the ubiquitous rite of passage it once was. A new report from the Higher Education Policy Institute and sponsored by Duolingo (The Languages Crisis: Arresting Decline by Megan Bowler, HEPI Report 192) shows a devastating decline in formal language learning, with the trend particularly noticeable in French and German.

According to figures from the British Council, since the Brexit vote in 2016, 10,000 fewer pupils in the UK are taking French GCSE and more students now take A-level physical education than French, German and classical languages combined.

Brexit, red tape, increased financial pressures on schools and safeguarding concerns have combined to mean that more than 50 per cent of schools say they have cut exchanges. Those that continue to visit France offer cultural visits to sites rather than homestays.

As July approached, it was I who became anxious - what would this French teenager be like and what would they think of us, our slightly chaotic house, my culinary shortcomings? Then a well-meaning colleague related a horror story of hosting a 17-year-old French girl who'd railed at not being allowed out all night and instead secretly smoked Gitanes in her room, accidentally setting fire to the bedding!

Finally, 10 days before arrival, we received confirmation of our student's identity: Elodie, 13, liked swimming and music and seemed unlikely to have a smoking habit. I fired off a WhatsApp message saying we were looking forward to welcoming her. Her response was full of excitement: this would be her first visit to England, she couldn't wait to meet us. By the time she arrived, she and Merryn had exchanged smiling emoji messages on social media. It was a start.

Elodie arrived on July 5 and we went straight out for an ice-breaking pizza. Within minutes, we had relaxed. Her English was fantastic and she was so smiley and friendly, she instantly put us at ease. By the end of the evening, Merryn was even trying out her French vocabulary, explaining that her sister is bavarde (a chatterbox) and exclaiming when we spotted some feux d'artifice (fireworks). Before the evening was out, I was certain this had been one of my better ideas.

This proved the case. Elodie was an absolute sweetheart. Not only was she warm, polite and eager to embrace English culture, she lifted the mood in the house. Our home was suddenly filled with cheery bonjours and cheek kissing. Best of all, she brought the family together. With everyone in and out at different times, eating en famille is usually a rarity, but meals are revered in France and I knew this would be the time where Elodie could practise her English by recounting her day.

So, I cooked from scratch, laid the table, called everyone down. And it wasn't just dinner that changed. "What is going on?" asked our girls when they arrived downstairs to find that breakfast, usually a piece of toast or fruit hastily shoved down on the hoof, was instead a beautifully presented smorgasbord of cereals, granola, yogurts, fruit, bagels, jams, waffles and so on.

During Elodie's stay, we became the best versions of ourselves - instead of sitting goggle-eyed on devices in different rooms, we actually hung out, conversed, played games. There was a constant exchange of conversation as the girls discussed their lives and passions. Elodie wasn't into musicals. But phew, she could sing along to Taylor Swift. She didn't follow a football team, but was happy to try her hand at Merryn's sport - golf - while explaining in detail the rules of her own passion, handball.

As the stay continued, the points of mutual connection kept coming. It turns out that both French and British teenagers enjoy a bubble tea, a mooch around the shops, a hoop earring, a barbecue...

We visited Hever Castle, the childhood home of Anne Boleyn, and had fun explaining the megalomaniac tendencies of Henry VIII, went night racing at Epsom and through dog walks to Box Hill and Nonsuch Park we fell in love with our beautiful country as we saw it through Elodie's eyes.

When she boarded the coach two weeks later, laden with friendship bracelets, cuddly toys and our best wishes for a safe journey, I shed a tear or two. My husband, not given to displays of emotion, declared he would "really miss her". She'd met the girls' friends, our friends, my mother-in-law, and was universally and without exception a multigenerational hit.

After she'd left, I learnt that Emmanuel Macron, the French president, who had visited during Elodie's stay, had spoken particularly of the importance of fixing the relationship with our young people in his address to Parliament. We need a strong relationship to counter a multitude of global threats so nurturing engagement between our children and "facilitating the exchange of students", he said, "is key to that."

When I asked my girls what they'd taken from Elodie's visit, they were effusive: "It's good to meet new people"; "I'm not as bad at French as I thought"; "It's possible to communicate even when you don't speak the same language." They have kept in touch and Elodie's family have kindly extended an invitation for a return visit.