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Gilles’s Musings on the ILA French Immersion School in Montpellier

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Gilles's Musings on the ILA French Immersion School in Montpellier

I recently interviewed a Belgian guy called Gilles for this blog about his thoughts about his time learning French in France. We had decided to do the interview over a few bottles of Belgian beer so, inevitably, later on in the interview the conversation got a little deeper and I decided it deserved another article to do it justice. Gilles has been at the ILA French language school for roughly 3 months so he has progressed significantly throughout his time but also built many strong relationships. As he approached the end of his time in the beautiful city of Montpellier he has become a bit reflective and wanted to share his feelings on the amazing experience of learning French in the south of France.

What Was it Like at the Residence of The ILA French Language School?

It was really nice to meet so many cool people here. I have been here for 3 months which is a fairly long time relative to the other students many of which were doing language stays of a month or so. When I first arrived there were many people who arrived at the residence at the same time, I thought this was normal at first but since I have learned that is not always the case. Sometimes students arrive in clusters like me but sometimes just one or two students arrive at the weekend. I felt quite lucky to arrive with a group that were all fresh off the boat. We were all eager to meet new people and really enjoyed hearing everyones’ back stories. That is not to say that the students who had been here for a while were not friendly but they already had established relationships so were perhaps less interested in going out for drinks or dinner as often as we were.

I came with one of my best friends Robert who studied with me at university so it was nice to have him with me but we made a pact that we would not just hang out with each other. As comfy and relaxed as it was we wanted to mix with the others and enjoy our time with them during our French course in France. This worked well and we both integrated into slightly different circles and then we were able to bring them together and we developed a really strong group with a great dynamic. We used to go to Parc Peyrou with a bottle of wine and my big speaker to watch the sunset and it was amazing. The Parc is in a great spot and is slightly raised so the sunset is beautiful almost every day because it is rarely cloudy.

People say you learn more French with a host family which I think is probably true. In the student residence you make strong connections with other students and you are more independent and make lots of new friends. There is a great family atmosphere and I loved the little community feel. However what goes up must come down. Now we are leaving, because I have these strong connections with people who I have hung out with every day and shared so much, it is hard to say goodbye. It is fairly easy to travel around Europe cheaply but it is not super easy so I don’t know when I might see these wonderful people again. It is definitely a bitter sweet symphony and now is more bitter than sweet but it makes you all too aware of how great the past few months have been doing this French immersion stay in Montpellier. The sweet part is knowing that everyone is going to begin a new chapter of their lives in their different corners of the world and it is great to know cool people are scattered all over the globe. All of them will be doing whatever they are doing with the beautiful memories of learning French in Montpellier.

Who Were Your Favourite Teachers on Your French Course?

I enjoyed working with all the teachers at the ILA French Immersion School but my last teacher Audrey had a huge impact on me. This may be because she taught me for B2 which I think is a big step as you are starting to get momentum and having more meaningful conversations with your teachers and the other students in the French class. I feel with all the teachers though if you speak with them you have more the feeling that it’s just like meeting interesting people. They are not authoritative but still push you and are really funny and open minded and willing to talk about adult subjects. There was such a big range of topics, funny stuff to political social ideas.