By Zani Muller

Zani Muller from Johannesburg recently returned from a trip to Paris where she lived with a French family and attended a French-language school for two weeks. She describes her trip as an incredible experience ...

My course in Paris ran for two weeks, comprising eight days of four-hour sessions in a class with a maximum of 15 people.

The language school I attended is centrally located, and people of all ages go there from all over the world. In my class alone, we had people from Ukraine, Brazil, Austria, Turkey and Texas, USA; and their ages ranged from 15 to 43.

This enriched my experience because I got to spend time with Parisians

The classes themselves were fantastic: after an initial assessment, the class gets divided into beginners, intermediate and advanced classes. Each level has its class at a different time.

Our instructor, Michelle, was a real entertainer. Every day she would give us a current-affairs-type article and we would go round and discuss it, writing down any new vocabulary learnt along the way.

We did a bit of role-playing, too, and even watched some French films.

The course really helped my oral expression in French, as Michelle wouldn't allow us to hold any English discourse so, whenever we would speak too slowly or in broken French, she would say: "Regardez-moi bien dans les yeux! Ne traduisez pas." ("Look me in the eye: don't translate.")

You meet a lot of people at the school itself, yet it is entirely up to you when and how you mingle since there is absolutely no structured interaction, and I found that great.

This meant that I was never considered rude when I ventured off to explore on my own, yet had people around to do all the fun things with.

I stayed with a host family, a lady of 70 and her husband of 73.

They were fabulous, really friendly and very accommodating. I hardly ever saw them, but made a point of having tea and a little discussion every morning.

I found the host family experience an absolutely ideal way of avoiding the all-too-common tourist syndrome, in that they could point out the little hidden unglobalised nooks in the city.

This enriched my experience because I got to spend time with Parisians on a personal level, which is nearly impossible to do as "just another tourist".

Comparing the host family with the youth hostelling I did for the rest of my trip, I definitely preferred the homely, personal, French experience of living with a host family.

The only criticism I would make of the experience is that some of the host families seemed to be quite far out of the city centre.

I spent at least two hours per day on the Metro, which became tiresome once the novelty of a properly functioning public transport system wore off.

A couple of other students were staying with the same family so it was also a good way to meet other interesting people and lovely to have companions for my daily Metro rail journey.

What I loved most of all was the recognition one morning on the way to school by the same man I had seen the day before, hastily drinking his café noir and shoving pain de chocolat in his mouth while trying to read Le Monde and have a political debate with his colleague.

We greeted each other every morning after that. This reminded me that I was truly living in Paris, if even just for two weeks. I could sit with the friends I had made at the annual jazz festival and say: "Yuk, these bloody tourists."

I would say the experience is for anybody who is keen to learn or improve a language while having an awesome holiday.

The best time to go, in my opinion, is before the Parisians abandon their beautiful capital to the tourists in the July-August holidays. I went in the last two weeks of June and returned briefly in July to find the city completely transformed - for the worse.

l Zani travelled to Paris on one of STA Travel's Global Languages packages. Global Languages offers the opportunity to learn a foreign language in one of 17 countries around the world.

All language schools in the programme have been carefully chosen and are in safe, central neighbourhoods with excellent access to public transport.

Almost all of them are accredited with a local or international language school organisation.

Students can choose to live with a host family, in a school residence or in a shared flat.

As Zani found out, staying with a host family is the best option if you want to learn local customs and traditions. Host family accommodation always includes breakfast.

Prices for the various Global Languages courses differ, depending on the country and type of accommodation you choose.

If you are keen to learn French in Paris and would like to live with a French family for one week, it will cost from R4 700, including your enrolment fee, course fees, accommodation and breakfasts.

A flight to Paris will cost from R4 000 in the low season (exclusive of airport taxes and valid for students and youths only).

For further information on courses and to see where schools are located, you should go to www.statravel.co.za and click on the Global Languages option. Or phone STA Travel, on 0861-782-782.

• This article was originally published on page 19 of Saturday Star on October 15, 2005