Alliance Française... learn worldwide

Each Alliance Française is an autonomous non-profit-making association but they all share three aims: to offer French lessons in France and throughout the world to all, to make French and Francophone cultures better known, and to promote cultural diversity.

Jean-Philippe Perez, directeur adjoint at the AF in Nice, explains that most associations use the same teaching method, based on the Alter Ego text book.

This means the teaching is fully structured from beginner to advanced student and can lead to an internationally-recognised qualification.

It is a type of immersive learning – although less intensive than the Institut de Français – and it uses exclusively French mother-tongue teachers who have had at least a year’s teaching experience and who have an aptitude for working with adults. Teaching is in French with only the bare minimum of English in the early stages.

Many AF schools have video libraries with French films and documentaries and students are encouraged to listen to French TV and radio to keep the immersion process going and to keep the brain active in the language.

It sees language learning as being based on communication and not on the old-style of grammar and written texts – which it says was “fine for dead languages but not conducive to speaking a living language”.

That does not mean that grammar has no place, just that its place is not in the beginner classes. It is picked up in context and then, later, once you already speak French you study grammar in detail.

In Nice, the AF holds intensive classes during the day Monday to Friday and also offers a couple of two-hour evening sessions. There are five levels (A1 Basic to C2 Mastery) defined by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages and one of the keys to AF teaching is to keep students of similar abilities together.

Class sizes are limited to 18 students, placement tests are carried out at the beginning and assessments made at the end of each session.