Learning French In Chamonix

Language Courses in Chamonix

The INSTED school in Chamonix is an alpine branch of the Université Stendhal in Grenoble and offers high quality french language courses for all abilities. The school was established in the winter of 1999 with the aim of encouraging students to combine their academic studies with their passion for the mountains. This concept has proven to be a big success with the school now not only providing 2-15 week courses during the winter months; they have also launched a 2-6 week summer programme enabling students to improve their french skills whilst making the most of the plentiful hiking, mountain biking and more hardcore mountaineering opportunities that a summer in Chamonix offers. I enrolled on a 3 week course in July having spent the last 3 years living and working in Chamonix for a UK based company. Although my level of french was not too shabby (having done GCSE many moons ago and subsequent dabblings at university and during seasons) I knew that grammatically I had a lot to re-learn and I was also guilty of making up words quite a lot of the time! This may seem fairly poor after such a time spent in France but with its enormous tourist influx and a large english speaking ex-pat community, Chamonix is not always the easiest place to learn french under your own steam. That’s why for me, undertaking a structured language course was the only way that I was ever going to blow the dust off my french books! From day one you are encouraged to speak french the whole time, including the enrolment and introduction to the course. There were ten of us in the group this summer (2005) (including a number of other Chamonix regulars) from 8 different countries and with almost as many different ability levels. Initially I thought our varied knowledge and confidence levels would lead to a pretty dysfunctional group, but Kristof, “notre professeur”, used an array of well chosen texts and exercises that somehow managed to get everyone thinking and working together either as a group or in pairs. Due to the range of levels in our group, we didn’t work from one specific text book but used exercises from a variety of different books, current newspaper and magazine articles, cartoons and even a bit of cheesy french pop music for aural comprehension. When appropriate, the class was spilt into two groups so the teacher could vary the difficulty of material used. However, for the rest of the time if you were working with someone less confident than yourself, it meant you had to try harder to explain the objective of the exercise to your partner using vocab that they understood. Or on the other hand, if you were paired with someone who already had a good working vocabulary then you could discuss the topics in more depth. Even when the whole group was working in pairs, nothing escaped the sharp ears of Kristof (especially not our sneaky english whisperings!) who was always there to answer questions or correct repeated pronunciation or grammatical errors. Tuition was not always restricted to the classroom and on occasion the lesson was based around a local museum, exhibition or in the town itself where we had the opportunity to test our new found knowledge and confidence on real french people!! The school also arranged a number of optional activities, such as, guided hikes, trips to local vineyards; social evenings in the local (french!) bars, which students could partake in if they wanted. What we actually learned during the course varied throughout the group. Some of the more experienced students found parts of the content of the course too basic and wanted to gain a more in-depth grammatical knowledge. At other times you could see the gist of a particular exercise was lost on the beginners in the group because they didn’t have a broad enough vocabulary. However, our teacher was always encouraging and enthusiastic and ensured that nobody was ever left feeling frustrated or left out and certainly, we were all speaking more and more french with growing confidence as the course progressed. This division of interests should become less of a problem in the future as word spreads and the popularity of the summer courses increases. During the winter, class sizes tend to be bigger but the ability level within each group is more consistent. Personally, I found the whole course very enjoyable, I learned a lot, I had a laugh and it really helped my confidence in speaking french and as a result I now use it more. It also totally revived my motivation to blow the dust of my french books and carry on with a little studying on my own. INSTED’s school in Chamonix is open for the majority of the year which means that you can choose a start date and duration to match your plans. Whether you decide to spend a classic four month ski season in the Alps or combine your French studies with exciting summer activities such as trekking, mountain biking or climbing, they have the course to suit. Lessons programmes are available for two to fifteen weeks and the school can also help you arrange tailor-made courses with your own teacher. All the teachers in Chamonix are French and teach their mother tongue. They are motivated and educated for their task and all have university degrees and experience in teaching French as a foreign language. Courses cost €220 per week with a minimum booking requirement of 2 weeks. For more information on courses and availability click here Language Services Listings

last updated 28-May-2008