My school life in France 1

Studying in private language school

My school life 1 - Private lanugage school

I entered in a private language school called 'Accord', rather large school
to learn daily conversation for the first 4 months.

On the first day, we take a test
to decide the class.

From the next day, we attend the class.
In the morning,
we have the the conversation class.

The teacher uses French songs,
radio, newspaper,
or sometimes we act a skit
to learn a practical conversation.
It was fun to go out for the interview.

In the afternoon, we sometimes take a grammar class,
and sometimes go out for the little excursion,
visiting historical areas or city hall which is difficult to visit indivisually.

Before the excustion, we receive an assignment paper.
We answer the questions when I visit the place
by reading an explanation board or asking a local people.
Sometimes, we visited the historical cafe and had a cup of coffee.
It was a very good way to know the area, much better than just reading a guidebook.

There were a lot of Japanese students and we exchanged information.
I still communicate with some of them.

I stayed with a French family by the introduction from the school.
The monthly charge was 4,000 FF (about 80,000 Japanese Yen in 1998).
I think I had a good luck to meet a good family.
.
The location was 20 arrondissement, near the metro station Jourdain.
Beyond Bellville, lively old town atomesphere area.

My host family let the students stay as their business.
3-4 students always stay with this family.
They live on the 7th floor of the apartment.
So the view was nice, but when elevator
went out of order, it was terrible!

Host mother was a working woman.
She came home about 19:30 and
the dinner time was 20:00.
So, she mainly used frozen food.

But even if the meal was simple,
they serve wine and at least 3 kinds of cheese.
This is what I liked a lot.

On Sunday, she sometimes took time for cooking.
In the morning, everyone ate indivisually bread or sereal.

Maid came to their house twice a week and did cleaning the room and laundry.
So I didn't have to wash my close.
I could use telephone and I paid at the end of the month by my record.

No one of the host family spoke English,
even the high school kid who learn English at school could spoke only a little.
I used to hear that French people 'don't want to' speak English,
but it was not true. They 'cannot' speak English.

So, for the first weeks, I had a hard time.
I could not hear even if they spoke very simple sentences.
Especially, during dinner time, when family started their conversation,
I could not follow thier fast talk and I was very quiet.
But when I became to understand little by little, I felt very happy!

It was nice that the family had several students at the same time.
Principally, they don't have students from the same country,
so the common language was French.
We sometimes went out for the movies and events.

In total, homestay was a very good experience.