EF Language Year Abroad in France

One day, there was an activity in school to Ventimille. I decided to go, but didn't know we went there by train. Once we arrived in the station, we found the platform, so we went to the platform and for some odd reason the train arrived early. Alex saw it was our train on the screen, so we took it. After 30 min we arrived in the station of Menton. Over there we stopped like a normal stop, but we stayed there a very long time. After 10 minutes Alex assured us it was normal to stay in the station for that long. But then the unthinkable happened, we drove backwards, back in the direction of Nice. Eventually we had to wait for 45 minutes for another train. After all the problems, we finally arrived in Ventimille. Because of the delay, our time in the town was shortened quite a bit. Anyway, we decided to make the most of it and two hours afterwards our return train was scheduled. So all said and done, at 12 pm, when the train was scheduled was still on the big screen without any platform. After another 5 minutes the train just disappeared, so we asked somebody what had happened. Lovely France had decided to go on a strike, so we didn't have a train at that hour. In the end we arrived 1h30 too late and missed our class. So now I decided to never take a French train again.

I was already living in France before I went to Paris with EF. I was spending five months in Bretagne, and had a two week vacation from school. I decided I wanted to see Paris, so I did so with EF. I was familiar with EF because my mother used to work in the AuPair program, and knew someone who worked at the school in Paris.

I had been to Paris before, but being there with people from all over the world was amazing. My only piece of advice would be, LIVE WITH A FAMILY. If you really want to learn a new language, the only way to do it is living with a family and completely immersing yourself. That's not saying that the residential accomodations were bad, it's just, everyone speaks english, or whatever native language they speak. Since I was already pretty satisfied with my proficiancy in french, I was fine, and it was amazing living with so many different people.

The school is very new and modern, and I thought all the profs were awesome! The structures of the classes were also very nice, interactive and interesting.

Thank you EF!

I'm super thankful to this school because everyday I was here everyone has a big smile with a big welcome and that simply make your day, here they will always is going to accept you with open arms. This institut is not normal is amazing, you won't have friends here you will have an amazing family. Really the best school in the world, if you have the opportunity to come here don't have a doubt that you will love it here.

At 14 I told my parents I was going abroad. EF made that dream a reality, and for 12 months I was given the chance to attend the Opera in Paris, ski the French Alps, and pass the French Baccalaureate with flying colours. My host family took me even further and we travelled to NYC for a week for my host sisters 21 birthday. I climbed monolithic boulders, attended Gaelic festivals, improved my spanish aswell as my french, made life long friends and improved my self confidence. I became a young woman in France and EF gave me the liberty to do that. I went to wine tastings, visited Reims and tasted real Champagne, watched my favourite Bri cheese being made, and visited the parfumeries down on the Cote d'Azur. I went to lunch in Monaco and was back in France in time for dinner. I drove through Italy for a week over Easter Break and saw everything from a town with sky high chimneys to the famous leaning tower of Pisa. EF organised these trips and more, book ending my adventure in France with first an intensive language camp in a beautiful old boarding school in the north of France and ending it with a week long trip to the Alps. These two trips particularly brought me into contact with kids from Norway, New Zealand, Mexico, Columbia, the US, Japan and Australia, kids who I still to this day, 4 years on, see every summer.

EF took me on board, took me abroad, and kept me abroad, enjoying the world with my own eyes.