Residential courses

[briwy]

My other half is looking at going on a week long residential course in France.

She is more or less a total beginner and is looking for something where you can get tution coupled with going out and actually putting into practice what you have learned.

Has anyone got any recommendations from experience for this type of course please.

Must be close to a airport where she can either get picked up or good transport links as she doesnt want to hire a car.

Thanks for any info.

Brian

[plod]

I'm sure that a well-organised course would be very enjoyable, however, before you spend a lot of money make sure you understand what she wants from such a course. If the aim is to kick-start French language learning then, in my opinion, she must have something in place to continue once the week is over. If not, any learning that takes place will rapidly subside. (I write as a former teacher of French.)

[briwy]

Thanks for the links and plod, yes I agree entirely.

Fortunatley, we will be having a few weeks at our place in the Pyrenees soon after she is thinking of the doing the course so I will make sure she endeavors to use what she has learnt.

[plod]

Sorry to go on but that won't be enough. I think she will need to study a course of some kind pretty well every day. Language learning can be tedious because you have to keep covering the same ground to acquire the basics. I studied foreign languages for about ten years at school and university, and still do now in a less formal way.

[mint]

You're right, Plod about having to cover the same ground again and again.  In fact, even if you know a language really well, if you don't get a chance to use it fairly frequently, it's horrendous how much you have forgotten when you do come to use it.  Not nice, at all.