Correspondence Courses - Advice Sought

[Barry]

I live permanently in France, want to improve my French and have been thinking a correspondence course to "A" level standard might best suit my needs and circumstances. I have looked at the Open Learning Centre International on the internet but before committing myself I'd very much like to know if anyone has knowledge of OCLI. Or if anyone has a better recommendation. I can speak, write and understand pretty well, I guess, but I want to push on a bit further, have the discipline of a structured course, and with the satisfaction of possibly gaining at A level in my late fiftiues! I'm willing to allocate a budget of say £400-500 for a 2 year correspondence course. Also, does anyone know whether if I did opt for an "A" level correspondence course whether there are exam centres in France or does one have to register and return to UK?

[Chief]

[quote user="Barry"]I live permanently in France, want to improve my French and have been thinking a correspondence course to "A" level standard might best suit my needs and circumstances. I have looked at the Open Learning Centre International on the internet but before committing myself I'd very much like to know if anyone has knowledge of OCLI. Or if anyone has a better recommendation. I can speak, write and understand pretty well, I guess, but I want to push on a bit further, have the discipline of a structured course, and with the satisfaction of possibly gaining at A level in my late fiftiues! I'm willing to allocate a budget of say £400-500 for a 2 year correspondence course. Also, does anyone know whether if I did opt for an "A" level correspondence course whether there are exam centres in France or does one have to register and return to UK?[/quote]

My advice is to have many different learning media at your disposal. I have CDs, books, video, recorded TV, newspapers, even childrens videos and colouring books.  Use whatever medium takes your fancy on the day, rather than stick rigidly to a single course or type. I progressed much quicker than i thought i would, by having several learning routes at my disposal. I also did an immersion week in La Rochelle which was extremely useful as a learning curve.

[Will]

I think taking a A-level correspondence course is an excellent idea, particularly as you are in France and can actually use what you are learning, as you learn it.

It's not too difficult to pick up basic conversational French, even in your fifties, if you have more than a couple of functioning brain cells, and if you are contemplating A-levels you must have. Where this approach normally falls down is with grammar etc, and A-level will probably give you better French grammar than the average rural Frenchman.

And of course, wanting to do the course is a big positive. For your purposes, it probably isn't necessary to take the exam, but |I can understand that you may want to do so anyway. It will probably (thinking of exam courses I have done) be necessary to go to an exam centre, which will most likely mean a trip to England.