Intensive French Immersion Programs in Quebec City

Edu-Inter French School had everything it needed to be a successful school and to deliver what it promises. Unfortunately, the only thing it truly excels at is its sales department. Before you enroll, they are extremely attentive and responsive. Once you become a student, however, the experience changes completely. After the first-day tour, the on-site sales representative becomes a very different person, someone clearly uninterested in listening to complaints, let alone helping students receive what they paid for. I suppose that if the student is a teenager enrolled in their Summer Program, the focus on immersion through field trips and fun may work. However, as a language teacher myself, I was deeply disappointed to see how unprepared the teachers are to handle a multicultural group of adult learners. One of my roommates, from Bosnia, explicitly stated that she did not want to discuss war-related topics, yet the subject continued to come up in class. There is a complete lack of cultural sensitivity. Teachers fail to distinguish between purposeful classroom discussion and sharing their personal opinions, often spending a significant portion of the class talking while students sit quietly, confused, and struggling to follow along. When I raised these concerns, I was told this was simply part of “exposing students to the language” — LOL. As if listening to a teacher rant for over 40 minutes about how angry she was with the Canadian government for allegedly stealing billions from the motor vehicle department were an effective method of “listening with a purpose.” That is both disrespectful and laughable. The school invests heavily in marketing and promotions, yet not at all in equipment or teacher training. Lessons lack structure and progression. Teachers introduce delicate, politically sensitive topics, freely share personal opinions, and speak nonstop for entire class periods. There is no pedagogical plan whatsoever. In fact, one teacher even asked students to teach grammar to one another. Perhaps this mediocre curriculum works with young students who don’t know any better, but the school needs to seriously revamp its pedagogical planning and raise its standards if it wants to remain competitive. I did not pay for six weeks of French classes to listen to other students teach. Student presentations can be valuable for language production and practice, but the level of confusion in class was unbearable. Toward the end, I became so frustrated that I stopped attending altogether. Ironically, I learned more by studying on my own. Teachers urgently need proper training, and the school desperately needs better customer service. AVOID this school if you value your money.

The academic aspect was very good- the teaching staff gets 4 out of 5 stars. But, from the school failing to advise the volunteer driver that I needed to be picked up and taken to the airport, to them failing to find or let me know about my accommodations until the afternoon before I left to fly there, I found the organization and management very poor. I am a senior citizen with mobility issues, and most of there local activities were geared toward young people and adolescents. When I wrote a letter about being owed $500 by them, they never even acknowledged receiving my letter, and when I phoned to complain, nobody called back. Overall I am forced to give the school 4 out of 10.

My wife and I just spent a week at Edu-Inter, an intensive, full immersion French school located in Québec City. My wife was almost a rank beginner, while I was placed into an advanced class. (I’m not sure, but I think many schools do not have beginner and advanced classes in the same week.) We both elected the Super-Intensive option, which is 27 1/2 hours per week and both learned a LOT! I’d guess my wife learned as much in the week as she had in a semester in her introductory college course. My self-confidence increased dramatically. The only problem we had during the week was that many of the teachers and staff members had Québec accents, ranging from very slight to fairly thick. We’re used to the Parisian accent, so we really had to concentrate to understand the Québec accent. We chose the “home stay” option and the school placed us with a wonderful family. Both the food and the conversation were great, (I heard from some other students that not everyone has such a wonderful experience with their host family, but ours was really great.) Just FYI, we’re both senior citizens, while most of the students appeared to be in their 20’s or 30’s, but this didn’t present a problem to them or to us.