inlingua La Rochelle (Junior)

My daughter was a complete beginner in French and only attended one week, so her experience is limited. But the class was wonderful, just three students aged 9,5-11,5, which was very good for her. The became friends and felt at ease with each other. They looked forward to spending time together. The teaching methods were good, and it was good to practice the new language through playing. It was also very good with a boulangerie nextdoor to practice French directly for lunch. We found our own housing nearby, by chance in the same complex as her two new friends in the class, and we really appreciated the well-kept swimming pool there.

As for teachers there was a wonderful teacher the first two days, but then she had to have some serious dentistwork done so they got a substitute for the next three days. She seemed to not quite understand what a beginner is. The children felt they were at fault if they didn't understand her, and they sometimes had to repeat things after her that they didn't know what meant, they felt it was meaningless and they felt forced to do it. I figure she used too long sentences for beginners, and didn't have enough self-awareness. Maybe she hasn't tried language immersion herself and doesn't have the instinct for it to compensate for it. But the first teacher was absolutely wonderful. She used "sign language" to support the most important words in her sentences, and she used shorter sentences, and when she used sentences she did it with a gentle smile, well knowing that they could not understand everything, and that this was merely exposing them to the new language and that their child brains would sooner or later get to used to the sounds and make out separate words. That was her attitude, and the children felt safe, felt they learnt a lot, and looked forward to the next day. I thanked her from the bottom of my heart on her last day, I knew she was exceptional.

I don't know how to rate the quality of teaching below, so I will tell you here: The quality of teaching of the first teacher, Blandine, was excellent. The quality of teaching of the second teacher was average.
We didn't participate in any social activities, it was for older students. The brochure mentioned Saturday excursions might be possible, but it wasn't the Saturday when we were there.

Tom and Pierre are both very accomandating and flexible, the class are very well-organized, though with less experiences teaching Asian students, I feel the staff are all very helpful and try to immerse Brenda with local environment as much as possible.

we love the school and will definitely bring more friends to study here.

I liked the teachers, the classes and the sailing course.

I like it at all. It was first such experience for me and for sure I will continue it next vacation. Teachers and people form the schools were really very friendly. What was surprising to my parents that the area around the school is easily excessively to everybody but I enjoyed it much.

Teachers were amazing and helpful, comfortable accommodation, top location. Food quality could be improved and it was sad that kids were not allowed to leave accommodation on their own (so kids could not really enjoy location in the old city and close beach)

First of all the host family was great. The lady I was staying at was very kind and I lived one minute by foot from the school. The classes were fine it was just very hot in the first week which of course isn’t the teacher’s fault. The teachers tried the lessons as interesting as possible. The activities were fun but most importantly I made a lot of new friends which was the best part of my stay.