French classes, and how to find them

I have made several efforts to get enrolled on a French course. Arriving in the country in the week that most classes were starting for the summer term helped me focus. I spoke to a man at the CEGEP in Gatineau on my third day and he was most helpful – but their classes are only available (free of charge) to immigrants to Canada.

 

Then I found some grammar and conversation courses at a place called Heritage College – unfortunately the classes were running at the same time on the same nights of the week, but the price was good, they were starting that very week, so I rang only to find that they had been cancelled due to lack of interest.

 

Then I looked up the Centre for Continuing Education at uOttawa who were offering a three-day French grammar brush-up course in May, but it was very expensive.

 

At the end of the second week, I went to a private school for an evaluation regarding conversation classes. These cost $34 per hour, but they were aiming to match me up with someone of a similar level (to reduce the cost). I learned that my use of the subjunctive and the passé imparfait need improvement, and also my use of qualitative adjectives (I had to look what these are on the internet). A term-time course is over $1,000.

 

Close to where I live, there is the WQCC (Western Quebec Career Centre) so I cycled there only to find they haven’t run any courses for two years!

 

By now, I was beginning to feel quite despondent, so I went out and borrowed some French grammar books from the library in Hull Sector, and bought a third in order to do some practice at home. One of librarians told me about the Centre Nouvel Horizon offering lessons in the Gatineau area (a long way from Aylmer) but when I rang them, they were not starting any new courses before September 2013.

 

Someone gave me the name of another local language school in Aylmer, Academie de Formation Linguistique, but again – one-to-one conversation is $32 per hour.

 

The end of the tale is that I have now registered (and paid up) at Éducation Permanente in Ottawa*. They run intensive month-long courses all year round, with breaks of a week between.  I start on the 27^th May. You have three hours in the class room, and three hours online every day. I can’t wait to start.

 

 

* The school is situated on the other side of Ottawa, and I have just looked it up on Google maps (who now have a handy bicycle directions tab). It is 18.6km each way -  1hr 7mins (I doubt this is LadyMieleRider speed) – and I can get there most of the way on a cycle path. This distance is equivalent to London home to work, back home, and then turn round and go back to work again. Each way. The good cycle fairy (you know who you are) tells me that doing this once in the first week, twice in the second week, three times in the third week, and four times in the fourth week "would be very beneficial to your cycle training". The alternative? Two buses there and three back – or vice versa. The Quebec bus system (STO) and the Ontario bus system (OC Transpo) are completely separate, different buses/routes/timetables/fares. They don’t have a Zone system here, but a transfer one instead. Go on however many buses you like within a 2 hr period. Which is great until you are in a 3hr class. Mutter, mutter.