Université François Rabelais

I thought my French was ok before I arrived in France, but the first couple of weeks terrified me! The administration at Francois-Rabelais is chaotic - prepare for a meltdown. I struggled to understand conversations between French students at first as the speed was faster than what your lecturers use in class, but now my comprehension has greatly improved. I still feel slightly uncomfortable if I need to speak in huge groups of people, but it has got better.

At the beginning it was difficult to speak French, I wasn´t used to speak it but to write it, but French people helps you a lot, they explain you what you don´t understand and speak slower when they see you´ve problems.Courses are easy to follow, the most difficult thing for me was to understand slang but after a month you realiza they use always the same words

I tried to be with French natives so that I use the language, I avoided the groups of only foreign students and I approached the French society within the University. They are very warm and welcoming as long as you are nice and friendly to them too.

I went to learn to speak more fluidly, and I was very happy to be assigned a room in a hallway with nothing but native French people (most foreigners are put together in one hallway): this was awesome, it's the best way to meet French people and to really speak French every day. If you're coming for the language: ASK EXPLICITLY for a room in a "French hallway" when you check into Grandmont, they will be happy to give it to you.

Learnt a lot, but lack of interaction with locals makes me feel employment would have been better for my language learning

My host family was the most help in my communication experience