French

Step inside France and discover its hidden worlds. In this session, we journey through the diverse regions of France, exploring how geography, history and local identity shape everyday life. From food traditions and cultural quirks to language varieties, accents and regional mindsets, you’ll get a rich, colourful picture of what it’s really like to live in different parts of the country, and useful info if this is your plan! Expect stories, insights, surprises and plenty of chances to compare regions, challenge stereotypes and deepen your cultural understanding.

This session is designed to increase your fluency, by introducing a series of discussion points around topics.  You will develop your vocabulary range both in terms of individual words and expressions.  You will practise structures and grammatical elements in context.  Lots of fun, and you will increase your confidence! The idea is to have you conversing and debating for all of the class. We feel the key skills to master (being of most interest to the majority of our learners) are speaking and listening, so that you can communicate when travelling.  Listening is probably the harder of these, as you may make yourself understood but understanding what comes back can be demanding, as how people phrase responses is unpredictable!

You can’t go very far without verbs, so need to master them!  Our French verbs workout will involve drilling some key verbs and you will be asked to do some “mini-translations” to put them into practice. You will cover the gerund, pluperfect, conditional, and subjunctive.

Our French Songs sessions will unashamedly take you back to the days when France was the pinnacle of romance, the smoke of Gauloise cigarettes hung permanently in the air and Brigitte Bardot (RIP) was more of a sex symbol than a glorified zoo-keeper!  Each of these 2 sessions (French Songs 1 & 2) will introduce 3 classic French songs by singers such as Edith Piaf.  You will not regret joining us (did you see how we did that?).  Come to either or both – the sessions will be indepent of each other and you don’t need to have attended the previous one!  Suitable for all but will be appreciated most by lovers of all things French, with some language knowledge.