Beaujolais Wine Country French Immersion At Teacher's In France

The students below stayed at Marion’s former house (in the same region)

My french immersion homestay with Marion truly exceeded my expectations.

It was evident immediately that she is  a very skilled and qualified teacher. She uses many different tools and techniques to help make learning a difficult  language much more enjoyable. We would play word games as we walked through the vineyards of Beaujolais, and enjoy conversation (in french) while taking long walks by the river.

The trips to the open market on Tuesdays were fascinating for someone from a big city, and I loved that all the produce we ate was locally grown. A true highlight in my 2 week stay was an all day excursion to my new favorite city of Lyon, only about an hour away by car. Of course it always helps to have your own personal guide when you visit a new city.

My apartment was next to the home of Marion’s lovely mother, Nicole. It was clean, spacious and very comfortable. I was surprised and impressed to learn that Marion and her very talented brother, Lambert, built this apartment themselves!

And at that time they were in the middle of construction of her own house which I see has been completed. It has incredible views of the countryside full of lush green meadows and rolling hills-perfect for biking! I can’t wait to stay there on my next visit, which I have already scheduled.

I spent one week in Beaujolais with Marion at her new beautiful home in the countryside. Her village of Ouroux was absolutely beautiful, located in the countryside with green rolling hills surrounded by vineyards nearby.

The accommodations were very nice and comfortable; I had my own flat with its own kitchen. This is great for quiet getaway, while also getting to learn French in a beautiful setting. I bought food from the local épicerie, enjoyed a romantic meal in the village’s local restaurant.

My lessons with Marion consisted of walking through the countryside, playing games in French, sharing discussions in French, followed by a delicious afternoon meal prepared by Marion.

Marion caters to your needs and will personalize the lessons for you based on your preferred learning style. This was a great way to learn French! The beaujolais wine was delicious as well!

I highly recommend this immersion program with Marion. Thanks again!!

What a pleasure to study with Marion! I’ve now been twice her student and it only gets better.

Last December I was the first “guest” at her newly constructed, truly awesome “chalet” on a hill overlooking the charming village of Ouroux, with a spectacular view of the mountains beyond. In her new, commodious residence, where students are provided a private, fully equipped and independent apartment with kitchenette.

Marion offers the same exceptionally professional language immersion experience, with the wonderful bonuses of fabulous meals and delightful walks in the surrounding hills.

Cannot recommend Marion and her unforgettable program more highly.

I spent 3 weeks avec Marion in Lancie. It was my second immersion with her. That shows you how much I enjoyed myself the first time !

Once gain, I very much enjoyed my stay. Marion helped me with my speaking skills (which was my main objective). She was patient and encouraging which is exactly what I needed. I now feel more confident.

Marion is also a great cook, and she was more than happy to cook traditional french dishes which were all excellent. Marion’s mum, Nicole, even cooked a delicious « poulet de bresse » for me twice !

I also got to see Marion’s new house in Ouroux which was really exciting. Unfortunately it was not quite ready for my stay this time but I look forward to staying there on my next visit. The house is awesome, in beautiful location with a lovely view. The student apartment is going to be even more amazing than the one here which I didn’t think was possible.

It gives me another excuse to return ! (une bonne excuse pour revenir!)

Thank you and your Mum far a very lovely two weeks in Beaujolais, we really had a great time.

The two weeks with your tuition has really boosted Cynthia’s confidence in speaking French and has now inspired me to start to learn the French. You made the French Language  come to life and I can see why you are so successful in teaching people of all ages. Tu es magnifique !!!

The added bonus of staying in your flat was the very excellent food you offer, we thoroughly enjoyed your breakfast and lunches, and thank your Mum as well.

Cynthia had been concerned that the small village would be too far from any places of interest, but you were able take us around many interesting places of interest. I particularly enjoyed the old farm Museum and the visit to the wine factory and rail station.

The day out in Lyon was very much enjoyed by us both, so much to see and learn about. Cynthia enjoyed the shops and speaking in French and was pleased people understood her. The Cathedral was very beautiful, and great to be able to see all over the city from the high viewing point with you as an excellent guide.

Then the visit to your lovely house on the hill top, what a beautiful place! We both think you and your brother have done an incredible and imaginative job in renovating the wonderful old barn. You brought the building to life without losing the essential character of the building and its surrounds. Your students cannot fail to enjoy their visits in such wonderful surroundings.

Once we have our schedule for next year worked out in the next few days we will definitely be booking again for next year.

My husband and I just returned from a wonderful week with Marion in the Beaujolais region. This is our third immersion experience through French Today and each time is a leap forward in our french language skills.

Although my husband and I take weekly french classes in the US, there is just nothing that compares to an immersion course.

Marion’s teaching expertise identified our strengths and weaknesses immediately . She then worked with us to pull together and polish our french grammar and conversation. It was so rewarding for us to actually have a full conversation in french.

At the same time, the Beaujolais region is beautiful to visit. Our immersion week was during the fall grape harvest and the weather was perfect, so we often did “walking classes” through the vineyards. We felt like we were in a virtual Monet painting!

Needless to say, it was a memorable week and we are already dreaming of our next french adventure.

My wife and I moved to a French-speaking country and recognized the need to take intensive French lessons to improve our speaking, listening, writing and overall comprehension skills. To maximise our learning, we felt a one-week homestay in France, immersed in French and spending much of the day working on our French, would be ideal for us. We didn’t know of any programs, so I went online and searched, emailing language institutes but not thrilled at the thought of large class groups and lack of personalized learning. Then I found the French Today website with homestays and thus, Marion.

Marion was easy to communicate with, provided details about the course, and explained the process to us in advance, requesting a self-assessment of our French proficiency to help guide her in preparing for our lessons. Directions were given to find the residence and it was easily located (we drove down from Paris). Marion was at all times very supportive, very professional and kept our lessons moving along each day. The days began with breakfast and French conversation, segueing into French lessons, followed by lunch, more conversation and writing, ending with homework assigned for the next day. Marion kept a ‘diary’ of unfamiliar terms (to  us!) in French and emailed them to us at the end of each day. We also had two outings – one to the local street market in Maçon and one for the day to Lyons, where Marion took the time to help us find French study books in the bookstores and suggested which ones would be most beneficial to us. We also appreciated spending time talking with Marion’s mother, who was very gracious in spending her time  conversing with us (and we loved the two cats, Tarzan and Lily).

The apartment behind the main house where we stayed was clean, comfortable and well-equipped for making meals, relaxing, and doing homework! Overall, we were very happy with our stay and hope to return to study more. We learned a lot. Our French is more fluent, we are  more willing to speak in French, but more importantly our writing and comprehension skills in reading and listening have also improved. We both highly recommend Marion to anybody who is considering studying French intensively via a homestay.

Jeremy and I spend a week with Marion in her lovely home in Lancié.

We had done French Immersion before but always in a larger class so we were nervous about working with just the two of us.  We need not have worried.

Marion managed to make learning fun while still making sure that we learnt a lot.  Her methods meant that our confidence in speaking really grew and we took our conversation and vocabulary to a higher level.

We loved the apartment and the food was great.

Especial thanks to Nicole, Marion’s mother, who is a great cook and lovely to talk to about almost any subject.

We enjoyed our week with Marion. We chose Marion because her approach seemed to meet our wishes and she delivered just what we wanted.

From the moment that we arrived we spoke only in our hesitant French and Marion spoke only in French to us, with the occasional word of English if necessary to explain some point. This provided us with an immersion experience and an opportunity to speak and to listen to French being spoken by a native speaker.

Marion’s various learning activities provided opportunities to practice speaking and listening in an informal setting and our week with her has encouraged us and given us the confidence to continue to work on improving our French language skills.

My daughter and I spent a fantastic week in a beautiful little village in Beaujolais.

The countryside, the wine, the home cooking, the charming apartment were simply paradise.

Our host/teacher Marion is a very skilled and patient French language instructor. We learned a lot of language during our week of immersion. Our classes were held mainly in the swimming pool or walking in the vineyards, however there are plenty of books, tables, and chairs for those who prefer a more traditional learning environment!

Marion was a gracious host, an engaging tour guide, and fun to be around. Her delightful family-mom, brother, two cats, and some chickens-were also part of our learning experience.

I highly recommend this way of learning French language and culture.

The one week French language immersion course that my wife and I spent in June 2019 with Marion and family in Lancie was very welcoming, motivating and relaxing.

Although we live in France close to the Swiss border, we really needed to practice conversational French in a family environment before our naturalisation interview at the Prefecture du Rhone. This was our objective. Marion is a really wonderful, attentive and experienced teacher. She took us gently but firmly through sentence construction using random word cards, and corrected our grammar during the early morning lessons while walking through the vineyards. This is really an excellent way to practice French, and so the conversation flowed just like the Beaujolais wine.

Yes, we also visited a XVth century chateau that produces a good vintage and had an interesting wine tasting session. On another occasion we drove with Marion to Lyon and spent the day enjoying the local history and important sites of the city with our expert. We finally ended up having a delicious meal in one of her favourite restaurants in the old part of the city. My wife really appreciated the family lunchtimes in Lancie with Marion and her mother sharing in the conversation and jokes of our morning’s adventures.

Our confidence in French casual talking and vocabulary has improved greatly during this immersion week and we thoroughly recommend Marion’s method to all.

I had left my run a little late in January to book an immersion week for the end of spring (last week of May) in France and there were not many options left. More by luck than planning I found myself signing up for a week’s immersion at the home of Marion Ferret and her mother, Nicole and brother, Lambert. Thankfully Marion still had space for the week I needed, in the small town of Lancié in the Beaujolais region.

I had no firm expectations of the location, the classes or the teacher, as this was only the second immersion week I had done. While I was the French student, my husband, Mark, was travelling with me, as part of a longer trip in Europe.

Right from the time we arrived, we both felt welcomed by Marion and her family and settled into the separate, self-contained apartment in a building adjoining the large old house, overlooking a rambling country garden, complete with fruit trees, veges and chooks.

My goal was to increase my fluency with listening and speaking in French, and Marion was a firm believer in the use of language in context as the best way to achieve this. I found her approach very engaging and felt at ease quite quickly when Marion advised we would not spend much time sitting at a desk.

Rather our daily lessons consisted of using the French language in context, as we took an extended walk around the area for several hours each morning after breakfast, addressing a subject of interest as well as what we saw around us. We also played some games (such as Tabou) which increased my skills in finding French synonyms to explain other words.

With Marion, we also visited the market in Belleville, a large centre in the region, buying food for our meals later in the day. Breakfast and lunch were provided in the main house for us both by Marion, who enjoyed preparing dishes using local produce. Nicole and any visiting friends also joined us. The conversations were lively and often addressed controversial but very interesting topics. These were also great opportunities to extend not only my, but my husband’s French, even though he was not the student.

In the evenings, we were able to cater for ourselves as there was a functional kitchen in our apartment. Any equipment we needed to cook with, Nicole was happy to provide us with if it wasn’t already in the apartment. Marion also took us for a Beaujolais wine discovery experience at Chateau Le Pizay in a nearby village. Here we were able to take a mini course in training our senses to notice different aspects of the local wines and test ourselves as we went. Surprisingly I qualified for a “Bronze Diplôme”, a bit of fun as part of the experience, along the way increasing our French wine vocab as well as knowledge about Beaujolais wine and the region.

On our afternoons off, Mark and I took some very exploratory drives around the region, including in the higher parts of Beaujolais beyond the wine growing areas. There were plenty of panoramic views over the valleys and hills, picturesque villages and interesting insights into local life, including the public holiday celebrations in Beaujeu, with men and boys taking part in a Petanque tournament.

Next time we visit, perhaps Marion will be in her new house in the small village of Ouroux up in the hills. We accompanied her one day to see the building work that she and her brother are doing, including the new apartment for French students, adjacent to the main house. It was a beautiful location with great views over the valley. I’d love to visit again and spend a week there in a different part of the region, on the pretext of improving my French.

I cannot thank Marion enough for the experience. She and her family were engaging, warm and very natural in the way they included us in their lives for a week. They generously shared their space and themselves with us. It is an experience we both appreciated greatly and will remember positively.

Dear Marion,
I just wanted you to know how much I thoroughly enjoyed, and benefited from, my week stay with you and your family as part of French Today’s residential immersion program.

You focused right away on my most important need—conversation—and helped me get over my fear of speaking French. Your structured but nonstressful, and patient approach encouraged me to speak at my own pace. Whether we were sitting around the fireplace or walking in the fields, the three hours of daily conversation flew by and, after a couple of days, I could hear my self improving. Incroyable!

In addition, the meals prepared by your mother, Nicole, were delicious and you both made me feel very much at home. The accommodations were more than comfortable and more spacious than I needed. I also enjoyed the visits to the Cluny Abbey, the Pouilly-Fuissé winery and the farmers market in nearby Belleville.

All told, it was a wonderful experience and I thank you again for making it possible.

I just wanted to let you know what a wonderful language teacher (and human!) Marion is!

Kate and I had a beautiful week in the Beaujolais region with Marion and her lovely family; it was one of the best weeks of my life.

Merveilleux!  Inoubliable!  Only these French superlatives can convey how pleased I am with the two weeks I spent with Marion.  I have studied in two other French immersion programs.  I can attest that Marion’s was by far the most enjoyable and productive.  Everything was perfect:  the classic village of Lancié in the heart of the Beaujolais; the very private, spacious, and fully equipped accommodations.  But most of all the disciplined professionalism and energy with which Marion undertook to took work on my weaknesses, as well as her truly sympa, friendly, and engaging personality.

What was truly special about the program was that every morning, just after breakfast, we would head out together for a brisk one hour walk through the lanes of the village, along the roads leading to the vineyards, and then through the fields themselves.  All the while we would converse in French, often in great depth, on a variety of topics according to Marion’s structured format.   While correcting my errors in grammar and usage, and providing new vocabulary, she would enter the corrections in her cellphone and later email this “homework” to me for study.

I must also mention what a pleasure it was during breakfast and lunch sharing conversation about France and the world with Marion’s exceptionally engaging mother.  I regret not taking a photo of mother-daughter together, but plan to do so next year.

French Today students are truly fortunate to have a chance to study with Marion.