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French immersion: More than just language

By Kim Gamel, Associated Press

SANCERRE, France (AP) — En route to France for a language immersion course, I decided to get started by watching a French movie on the plane. “Manon des Sources” was about a girl who avenges her father’s death by cutting off the town’s source of water _ at least that’s what I figured out from reading the subtitles.

After two years of sporadic study, I tested at intermediate level, but understanding French spoken at a normal pace by somebody other than my Berlitz instructors was another matter. I was in for a long two weeks, but the program was paid for and there was no turning back.

Sancerre, a medieval town of 2,000 people, traces its history to a 12th-century castle overlooking the Loire Valley. It’s in a region best known for dry, white wines and sharp goat cheese. But the husband-and-wife team of Gerard and Marianne Chartrand have made it a destination for foreigners seeking to learn or improve their French.

I was drawn to their Coeur de France (Heart of France) language school by its user-friendly Web site, which opens with a beautiful panoramic view of the hilltop town surrounded by vineyards. The reality doesn’t disappoint.

To get there, I flew to Paris, then took the train about two hours south to the town of Cosne-sur-Loire, where the always-cheerful Marianne was waiting to drive me and two other new students – also American women – to the school, 15 minutes away.

Coeur de France, set in an elegant 16th century mansion, has a rolling enrollment and flexible programming to fit the needs of single tourists, business people and families alike. Among the other students were a pharmaceutical marketing researcher from Chicago who had minored in French and an English couple who had bought a villa in the area.

The French-only rule began immediately with Marianne pointing out sites along the way, including the best place to buy a croissant and the few stores that would be open on Sundays.

She spoke slowly and I understood much of what she said, but I kept my responses simple, noting often that the scenery was indeed “tres jolie” – very pretty.

English was limited to a single piece of paper explaining local business hours and pleading with students to only speak French, even outside of class.

After a quick tour of Sancerre, I found myself dropped off at a supermarket at the foot of the hill, where I understood I was to buy groceries for the cottage where I would be staying a few miles from Sancerre. The other two students were taken to their housing closer to the school.

I was suddenly nervous about being the only one who needed to stock up on supplies. I was staying in the Maison de Vinon, a two-story cottage near the Chartrand’s house in the tiny hamlet of Vinon. Lodging options for the program – usually part of a package deal with language lessons – ranged from houses like mine in nearby villages to three apartments above the classrooms, each named after Marianne and Gerard’s adorable children, Louis, Margaux and Gabriel.

The village where I was didn’t offer much more than houses and an ancient church with a bell that tolled every 15 minutes. I managed a half-hour walk on Sunday afternoon without seeing another soul.

I realized belatedly that staying in the village might be a better option in the summer, with a rental car, than in the fall, when I was there. Marianne kindly offered to drive me to the school that week and so I piled into her minivan at 8 a.m. with her two older children, who greeted me every day in unison with a friendly “Bonjour, Kim.”

I often stayed in Sancerre for dinner with the other students and relied heavily on the taxi services of Madame Annie Frottier. The program’s accommodations lack telephones, so I made my cab reservations by ringing the doorbell and negotiating pickup times with Madame Frottier and her husband as they leaned out their upstairs window.

Since it was a slow off-season, I was upgraded and spent my second week in the one-bedroom Margaux apartment at the school.

Classes are held in group or private sessions. Marianne, a native of Sancerre who taught French for several years in San Diego, leads a team of four other instructors.

I chose a two-week combination program, which usually includes 40 hours of group class and six hours of private instruction. I ended up with fewer hours because the minimum of three students weren’t available for the group.

Instead, I was paired with Joanne Campbell, a 39-year-old Australian doctor living in London who has a passion for France but never had formal language instruction. We talked about ourselves and acted out scenarios like shopping and traveling, using playclothes and other props. Marianne asked us questions, corrected our mistakes and used them to decide what grammar to explain.

She also taught us mnemonic devices like the unforgettable “Mrs. Vandertramp,” in which each letter starts a verb that takes “etre” in the past tense instead of “avoir” – V for venir, A for aller and so on.

Group classes were about four hours a day, with a break in which students and instructors mingled over coffee. One day, as a special treat, we had wine to mark the debut of the 2004 Beaujolais Nouveau, an event much anticipated by wine-lovers worldwide.

Twice a week I had private 90-minute lessons, which I used to focus on reading and discussing newspaper articles.

Homework was intense but not overwhelming. Marianne’s main method is to keep you talking.

In Paris, so many people speak English that it can be difficult for an American to get a French word in edgewise. But in Sancerre, Gerard and Marianne have drawn many of the locals into their enterprise, and a day of shopping will yield wonderful conversations in French, especially if you mention that you’re one of their students.

I was pleasantly surprised when Catherine Pierre, who makes beautiful hand-painted silk clothing that she sells in a shop on the main square, politely corrected my grammar before I shelled out $60 for a scarf. Madame Frottier also quizzed me on my day and dining experiences during our rides.

The school also offers cultural excursions for an extra fee that range from wine tastings to a tour of the region’s chateaux.

Most of the tours were led by Gerard, an American of French Canadian ancestry who grew up in California and handles the school’s business. He also dabbles in photography and keeps the Web site updated, including a photo of the day.

A weekly cooking lesson by Marianne for $30 was another highlight. We memorized the vocabulary of the ingredients and cooking utensils, donned paper chef’s hats and somehow produced tasty dishes like onion soup, profiteroles (cream puffs), quiche Lorraine and crepes.

Coeur de France doesn’t promise fluency, only that students who work hard will be able to hold their own with a French speaker. I felt my confidence growing daily and went home feeling able to do just that.

School’s in for the summer

How would your children react if you told them they were going on a French course in the holidays? John Clare’s weren’t keen, until they arrived in class.

A vacation with homework. To the average middle-school student it might sound like a nightmare. But for lifelong learners who wish they’d paid more attention in “Spanish for Beginners”—or for anyone looking for extra insight and access to the country they’re visiting—a foreign-language holiday can add les mots justes that separate a mere trip from a truly meaningful overseas experience.

These days, learning a foreign tongue often involves much more than vocab quizzes and verb conjugations. Jay Jamieson, accreditation services manager for the Canada Language Council (CLC), says language instruction used to adhere more strictly to the “here’s your text and we’re gonna go through it” model. Now, he says, many schools are “starting to carve out more of a niche … for travelers wanting experiences that are unique and different.”

That new niche includes experiential learning—several of the French schools on the CLC’s accredited list, for example, offer skiing or golf as part of the curriculum….

In Montezuma, Costa Rica, La Escuela del Sol has taken experiential language learning to new extremes: This seaside center offers surfing, yoga, and fire dancing instruction to complement its Spanish language classes.

Still other international language schools cater to a slightly slower-paced lifestyle. Gérard Chartrand, who, along with his wife Marianne, founded the Coeur de France École de Langues in the fabled winemaking region of Sancerre, said the school and the area are places for people to sample some of the finer things in life. We’re used to visitors who are interested in wine, gourmet food, etc. For accommodations, students can choose from Coeur de France’s three luxury apartments in a restored 17th-century mansion (which also houses the school).

Alex Anderson, a retired American investment banker, has been visiting Coeur de France annually for about eight years with his wife, Rebecca. They typically stay for two or three weeks at a time, rent a house near the school, and walk to their private French lessons at the chateau each morning, picking up croissants and French newspapers on the way. Alex says he likes to play golf in Sancerre the afternoon. “It’s a great way to meet French people. And it’s easier to have meaningful conversations than if you’re meeting in a store. You can talk about your families, and what you do.”

Chartrand says those kinds of real, personal interactions are part of the reason he and his wife chose the smaller, village setting of Sancerre for their school. Often, in a major metro area like Paris, says Chartrand, students “try so hard to learn French, and then they go to a café and try it out on a waiter—who answers in perfect English.”

By contrast, says Chartrand, most of the waiters in the Sancerre cafes will actually help correct visitors’ grammar and pronunciation. The local bistros, wineries, and goat-cheese farms thus become a kind of living language lab for eager Francophones-in-training.

School’s in for the summer

How would your children react if you told them they were going on a French course in the holidays? John Clare’s weren’t keen, until they arrived in class.

I can’t believe my ears. My nine-year-old son, completely unprompted, is standing in a chateau in France, doing his best to strike up a conversation in French with an adult. Just a week ago we had to fight to keep our frustration in check as the present tense of regular -er verbs refused to stick in his brain. Around our own kitchen table our efforts at elementary French conversation elicited no more than a grunted, embarrassed “Bonjour”.

What’s changed is that we’re spending half-term week on a French course in Sancerre. No English is spoken during classes or breaks, even with other English speakers. That’s how I find myself discussing French wines in French with an accountant from Manchester, and my eight-year-old daughter attempts (in French) to quiz an elderly American woman about life in Hawaii. A very different kind of French leave.

In this region, a week of total immersion in all things French means great wine, cheese and food – but all topics are encouraged, as long as you discuss them in the right language. During the week the four of us got through a huge range, from Harry Potter and the Roman armies (Julius Caesar pitched the first camp in Sancerre 2,000 years ago), to the debate over GM crops and the British fascination with hospital dramas.

Oliver’s attempts at l’entente cordiale are in stark contrast to the family’s response when I first suggested the idea. Even my wife was hardly encouraging. “If you think you can sell that to the children, good luck,” was her helpful response. Oliver and India were united in their initial opposition. “That doesn’t sound like much of a holiday for us,” they said.

In reality, it worked even better than we’d hoped. The courses are run by Coeur de France, a business run by husband and wife team Gerard and Marianne Chartrand (He’s American, she’s French). The setting is the first surprise – Sancerre, which for me was previously only a name on wine labels, is a beautiful town perched atop a hillside by the banks of the Loire. The town has hardly changed for hundreds of years, and the most impressive building is La Thaumassière, right in the centre of town. Built in the 16th century for the physician of a prince of the region, it’s an imposing sight complete with a fairytale-style turret and gargoyles around the eaves. This would be our home for the week.

We in one of the building’s family apartments – self-catering, so if you don’t go shopping in French, you don’t eat. Although it was well-furnished and very comfortable, those thoughts were far from our minds as we arrived, nervously, for our first class at 8.45 on Monday morning.

None of us knew what to expect in the four hours of French that lay ahead. On the way into class we met fellow students, all adults who were taking individual tuition in separate classrooms. We introduced ourselves in English and were gently encouraged to speak French by Marianne, our teacher for the week.

The four of us filed into the brightly-decorated “family classroom” where we would receive our 20 hours of tuition over the five days. Marianne overcame the initial awkwardness by speaking to the children, very slowly, asking their names, ages and inquiring about family pets. She quickly adapted to the very different standards of French in the family, and the children relaxed.

We chose Coeur de France because among their wide range of courses they specialise in teaching families. It soon became clear that this had been a good idea because the lessons were structured to accommodate our different standards and flexible enough to “go with the flow” when the children began to lose concentration. Very quickly the children got into the swing of things, and joined in the French songs and games Marianne introduced. We adults were encouraged to read French newspapers and magazines, and bring articles to class as discussion subjects. I wanted to gain confidence in spoken French, and improve my business vocabulary. I achieved both to the extent that on the fourth day I made a PowerPoint presentation in French for the first time in my life.

But cultural immersion means far more than sitting in a classroom, so once the lessons were over we took ourselves off around the area to try out our new skills. Unlike Paris, many local people don’t speak English, so we avoided the frustration of speaking to someone in French, only for them to recognise your accent and reply in English. The only exception was Didier Turpin, who delighted in telling us how, when he was a trainee chef in England, he shared a flat with Marco Pierre White. With that pedigree, we had to try out his restaurant, The Pomme D’Or. We weren’t disappointed.

Sancerre is worth a visit, because of its rich history – in the 16th century the town was a walled city and a renowned Protestant stronghold. After a long siege the walls and towers were destroyed, but one still remains, mysteriously preserved.

The town’s position on a hilltop means that you get fabulous views of the Loire Valley and can see the patchwork quilt of vineyards – 400 in all. Then there’s the Crottin de Chavignol, the goat’s cheese which, like the wine, comes with an appellation contrôle certification. Ironically, there are no goats left in Chavignol itself, despite the name. “The goats need feeding and milking twice a day, every day. But vines need harvesting once or twice a year – so the farmers have turned into vintners,” explained Valerie, our guide and another teacher at the school.

Then of course there’s the food. As with so many places in France, the local restaurants are independent, often family run, and conjure up tremendously high-class cuisine. Immersion here for the children meant that Oliver was determined to try snails (such a big success he had them twice), while India was keen to try her new words and phrases.

So what’s the end of term report on the école des langues? Full marks from the adults.

OLIVER’S VIEW

“My friends at school all said how unlucky I was to be going on the trip, but in the end I really enjoyed it. It was great fun, and everybody was great. I was nervous but once I started joining in it was OK. I didn’t expect French lessons to be fun.”

INDIA’S VIEW

“I was scared that it would be a bit complicated but actually it turned out well. Everyone was very nice to me, especially Marianne, and we made friends very quickly. I want to go back next year.”

Immersing themselves in village life, three generations of American women study more than language

By Becca Hensley

SANCERRE, France — We arrive in Sancerre, a renowned wine village two hours south of Paris, with wolves in our bellies. While hunger can be a good thing in a town known for its food and wine, on this Sunday afternoon in early June, there is not a baguette in sight.

All the shops and cafes are closed, and all the villagers are home with their families. It’s so quiet we can hear our stomachs grumble.

But we’re not discouraged. This is why we’ve come — my daughter and I from Austin and my mother from Boulder, Colo. We’ve come for immersion, even when it’s a bit inconvenient. We’ve come to inhale the essence of this tiny medieval town that sits atop a hill in the heart of France.

Though we hope to learn French, we’re happy just to behold the colors of the buildings that surround the Nouvelle Place. Like earthy Fauvist brushstrokes, they line the town square in tones of apricot, blue-gray, ivory and taupe. In particular, the turreted roofs in grays and copper (much like burnished pennies) divert me.

And just steps away, at Sancerre’s highest point, we gaze upon at least 10 fabulous miles of the Loire River valley in all its verdant hues. I have read that Caesar stood here to track his enemies, and I can see why — the vista seems to roll on forever.

At last, my daughter leads me down a winding street to her discovery, a fromagerie that has reopened for the afternoon. Thrilled, we buy crottin de chavignol, the creamy goat cheese native to the region; sweet, nutty homemade crackers; and a bottle of Sancerre white wine. It’s the feast of our dreams, and we hurry down narrow streets, past half-timbered houses, to our new home.

We’ve rented a two-bedroom apartment above the Coeur de France Ecole de Langues, an immersion school where we will take our French lessons each morning. Located in a restored 16th-century Renaissance mansion known as La Thaumassière, the school holds classes all year. Students come from all over the world and range in age from pre-schoolers to octogenarians.

Our trio — three generations, three experience levels, all eager to pursue French in its own environment — will be accommodated in a family program where we will study together, led by our instructor, Valérie. Walking to class will be as simple as descending a stone spiral staircase.

For now, we’ve pulled chairs up to the apartment’s picture windows overlooking Sancerre’s famous tower (Tour des Fifes) to eat our snack and watch a thunderstorm rumble over the village. The Sancerre white wine, made from sauvignon blanc grapes, is crisp and dry, a lovely complement to the buttery crottin smeared on our crackers.

Sated, we look around, noting the polished oak floors, period furniture, marble bathroom, hand-painted and embossed walls, laundry room and completely equipped kitchen. We have plenty of space in our elegant suite on the mansion’s top floor; we could stay here for months. Too bad we’ll only be here for a couple of weeks.

Our lofty view puts us eye-to-eye with La Thaumassière’s whimsical gargoyles. There’s a winemaker, holding a cask and a basket of grapes; a drinker clutching a pitcher of wine; a musician playing Renaissance-era bagpipes (the Scots once settled in Sancerre to fight against the English); and a cherub displaying a parchment that depicts La Thaumassière’s coat of arms.

From one window, I spy vineyards — green and purple splotches, a patchwork that cascades downward, outside the town’s ramparts. Nearly 400 vineyards surround Sancerre, many with intriguing names like Blanche De Castille, the White Queen. The wines, made mostly by families, vary in taste due to many factors, including which of the area’s three grape-loving soils (clay, pebbly limestone or siliceous clay) begat them.

Most aficionados know Sancerre for its white wine, though the red and a rosé are also highly regarded. Looking ahead to my first lessons tomorrow, I wonder whether we will be taught tasting words and phrases. I imagine myself sipping and using erudite French wine words.

On our first day of classes, my 12-year-old, enamored with all things French, can’t wait to leap into the language. She expects to be fluent in short order. My 75-year-old mother, a former Spanish teacher, worries that her “language ear” won’t help her replicate sounds like it once did. And me, well, I’m just willing to make a fool of myself, as I do again and again in that first hour by speaking Italian and Spanish back to Valérie without even realizing it.

Ensconced in a private classroom, we torture Valérie with our accents. For more than two hours, we grunt, bawl and whinny, a cacophonous attempt to emulate the sounds that come so elegantly from our teacher’s mouth.

We take a break, standing around the coffee machine with teachers and students from other classrooms. Because it’s immersion we’re all after, no English is allowed. So introductions are bravely uttered in various levels of French.

We try to discuss the weather with some college students from Kansas. We discover that Valérie’s husband is a farmer. We meet Gérard and Marianne Chartrand, the school’s owners, who ask about our apartment. Before returning, we take a quick walk around the building to sip fresh air. We try not to speak English, but we give in, guiltily.

“This is a lot of work,” says my mother, and I can tell she’s considering walking straight to the Place Nouvelle for a glass of mineral water at the Cafe des Arte. I grab her arm and lead her back to school.

Doggedly, for three more arduous but surprisingly entertaining hours, we repeat after Valérie, conjugate verbs, act out dialogues and study new words.

When we break for the day, it’s lunchtime, and our heads are as full as our stomachs are empty. The only thing to do is to set forth into Sancerre and find food. Quickly, we learn that everything we do here requires French because, happily, nobody speaks English. This forces us to do our homework. It surprises us all when we succeed in ordering lunch. When we tell our waitperson that we are students, he smiles. Later, as we talk, he gently corrects our pronunciation, sometimes making us repeat words several times. His kindness liberates us, and our language inhibitions are cast away.

And so it goes. Each morning, we meet Valérie for class, and each afternoon we wander about Sancerre practicing our French on the folks we encounter.

One day, my mother, unhappy with the state of her hair, makes an appointment at a local beauty shop. Dictionary in hand, she tells the stylist she does not want a cut or color, just a hairdo. “A coupe? A coupe?” they say, and she frowns, shaking her head. “A coiffure,” she corrects, nervously.

My daughter and I leave her to her experiment and take a hike around Sancerre’s walled ramparts. We don’t know what to expect when we return, but we find Mother, beautifully coiffeured, surrounded by village ladies who all seem to be talking to her at once.

“I love your hair,” one says. “You look like a Parisienne.”

Feeling pretty triumphant, we celebrate with a glass of wine — Evian for my daughter — and watch Sancerre’s children play in the square on their way home from school.

Another day, we visit a winery a few miles away. Escorted by Gerard, we taste old wines, new wines, red ones and white. Later we drive through the green countryside to visit chateaus, the magnificent mansions for which the Loire Valley is known.

Perhaps most moving is a stop in Marianne’s childhood village. Here, Gerard tells of the Nazi occupation. He points out a wall where resistance fighters were executed and shows us the place where nervous German soldiers killed a little boy chasing a ball.

Most afternoons, we simply fool around and make friends. I become especially close to one little old lady, less than 5 feet tall. She likes my lace socks, and I love her red shoes. She warns me when rain is imminent and tries to teach me about cheese.

My daughter has become fond of the bakery lady. She loves to stand in the boulangerie in the morning before class, even after buying her croissants, to greet each villager as they come for their morning baguette. Her “bonjour, madame” has become flawless.

When our language course ends, we receive a certificate, congratulatory kisses and — what else? — bottles of Sancerre wine. We’ve done more than just learn French here, we’ve become one with the village, if only for a short time. We’re still hungry when we leave, but not for food. This time, it is more immersion in Sancerre that we crave.

If you go :

Getting there: We flew into Paris and took a rental car to Sancerre. Gerard Chartrand, founder of the Coeur de France Ecole de Langues, suggests spending a few days in Paris before making the two-hour drive. “This way,” he says, “students can get the urban out of their system before experiencing the charm and inconveniences of our French countryside.”

Lodging: A luxury, two-bedroom apartment atop the school cost about $900 for a one-week rental. Coeur de France also offers lodging in hotels and in various houses and apartments in the Sancerre area.

What to bring: Good walking shoes, an umbrella, an ATM card and an extra suitcase for your souvenirs.