Rob Stewart

Review of Alliance Française de Paris Il...

Two months into an expected three-month stay, I qu...

Two months into an expected three-month stay, I quit, I was simply out of patience. Highly variable professor quality/enthusiasm, professors are often out sick or otherwise not there, one professor routinely came 15min late without excusing himself, homework isn't returned in a timely fashion (1-3 weeks wait in the WRITING course!)...all of this leads to the experienced students sharing the good prof-course combinations they've found. I can recommend Catherine H., Isabella M., and Arnaude L. as profs, and heard Denise/Daniele Baltazar (name is likely off a bit) is wonderful. This said, professors change courses each month, so you must restart the trial-and-error search process. The administration is fairly cold, incompetent (lost my online placement test), and has stonewalled the same completely reasonable request for reimbursement from multiple students. There's a seeming lack of desire from the administration and certain professors to respect you as the paying client and earn your business.

On top of this, from what I've seen, the quality doesn't earn time-pressed students' long-term business. If you come to learn a little French while on vacation/sabbatical, the AF is fine. This is much of the clientele. If you come because you NEED to learn French, be aware that you can learn most French skills more time- and cost-efficiently by studying independently, or by taking private lessons (local university students are useful for this).

What the AF can uniquely provide is a group conversational context (if you don't have this on your own in France), a social context (again, if you lack this in France), motivation if you can't study independently, a work space and book source in its quiet library (warning, books can't be checked out, and WiFi is often unavailable), professors who can answer your gritty, specific questions, and - in my opinion, it's best value - a chance to meet and make friends with interesting young people from all over the globe.