Alliance Franaise

[Pucette<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>Pucette<FONT><P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt">"Qui ne connaît pas la campagne lhiver, ne connaît pas la campagne et ne connaît pas]

There are at least three people on the forum recommending their courses (I am one of these satisfied customers); is there anyone out there who has tried them and not been happy?
They provide both intensive courses and regular evening classes.
The only people I remember being unhappy with the courses were those who had underestimated the effort that would be involved in the intensive ones; some people dropped out rapidly, notably one who was doing the courses in the morning then a full 8-hour day's late shift at work... to benefit to the full really you needed to have plenty of time for the homework and to immerse yourself in the language.

[Cjb]

LAST EDITED ON 08-Aug-04 AT 02:41 PM (BST)

I was pleased with my course at Inetrnational House, although it worked out to be one of the more costly options I've come across. Classes were never any bigger than 10 and in the winter months were as low as 4 or 5.
I know it's been mentioned before, but exactly how much does it cost at Alliance Francaise, how many hours is it per day and what are class numbers like?
I mentioned in an earlier post that French Universities also offer courses. These work out far cheaper than at private language schools, but the demand for places is high and the classes tend to be fairly large.
I still firmly believe, as you mentioned before, that a lot of it comes down to effort. If my Japanese friends were able to start from scratch (firstly learning a new alphabet!) and make incredible amounts of progress in 6 months, I'm sure that it's within the reach of most people, providing they make the necessary sacrifices.

Chris

[mascamps.com]

In Belfast, the maximum class size is 7 but it's usually only 3 or 4. In practice, 3 is their minimum.

If anyone is thinking about such a class, bear in mind that it can be VERY intimidating at the start. You just need to be stubborn enough to keep going regardless of how dreadful you think you are (and I was in the absolutely dreadful category at the start!).

The one problem I found was that the conversation classes tend to reinforce your current level of French rather than move it ahead. Well, in time they would move your level of French up but it would take a very long time I think. What I did to improve my level of French was start the OU L120 course (you need to be around A-level conversation to do it, not GCSE/O-Level as they say).

Price-wise, it was £8 an hour or £20 for individual or couple tuition.

 

Arnold