French Immersion At Teacher’s In Provence, Avignon, France

My time with Julie was one of the best weeks of my life. French is hard, but I’m convinced that Julie has designed a program with the very best circumstances to learn. Studying French with Julie was very different from formal classes I’ve taken in the past – it was practical, real, and actually useful. I feel much more confident in my speaking and listening abilities thanks to her. The lessons were fun, very hands on and interactive. I especially loved learning with the different games she has. Julie is a joy to be around, and a joy to learn from. Her teaching style instantly put me at ease. Her playful, funny demeanor helped me feel comfortable making mistakes and not take myself too seriously. I believe I have seriously up-leveled my French with her and expanded my horizons.

The apartment is lovely. The photos on her site are beautiful but they don’t do it justice – it’s even better in person. First of all, it’s huge! The ceilings are so tall with beautiful detailed molding on the walls. The floors are beautiful, classic provencal red tile. It was perfectly clean, beautifully decorated, and met our every need. It’s clear that Julie has put a lot of thought and care into creating a space to help her students feel comfortable, relaxed, and inspired during their stay.

I can’t say enough about the food. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten better in my life! Every meal with Julie was divine. Not only is she a great cook, she has great taste and knows what is good. It was so fun to try new things with her and experience real Provençal eating. It’s also really nice to not have to think about what you’re going to eat for breakfast and lunch, she takes care of it so you can focus on learning.

During the immersion she takes you out on excursions. She went to great lengths to pack them with learning experiences and fun! I loved that she really enjoys the experience with you instead of feeling like a tour guide and a tour group. She has fun with you which makes it all the more fun!

Although the lessons, the space, the food, and the adventures were amazing, getting to spend time with Julie is the best part of the week. She is simply a delight to be around. She is charming, smart, hilarious, and has great energy. Her excitement and passion for language, food, and the region of Provence is contagious. You can tell Julie genuinely loves what she does. I’m really going to miss her but I’m positive I’ll be back again and again in the years to come. Don’t hesitate. I’m so glad I didn’t. It was an unforgettable experience and I can’t wait to do it again.

Truly a magical week spent in Avignon with our lovely, charming teacher Julie! She teaches clearly and with patience, keeps the excursions interesting, and makes tasty food. Plus, the apartment is beautiful, comfortable and in the middle of town. I went with 2 friends and we are already planning a return trip so we can continue improving our French with Julie. WORTH THE MONEY AND THE TIME! You won’t regret it.

I spent a week in Avignon in Julie’s program, and it was excellent! Julie is engaging and works hard to help her students learn. The lessons were entertaining which helped with retention. Activities included trips to cafes or local markets, allowing opportunities to interact with locals and speak the language. She also offers options for excursions to experience other areas in the region. Overall I give this program my highest recommendations and look forward to going again soon!

In January, 2022, I arrived with my wife in Avignon for my immersion course with Julie. I’d had some courses at the Alliance Française and had studied intensively on my own. I felt comfortable with the grammar and had acquired a reasonable vocabulary, but couldn’t express myself freely nor did I feel my pronunciation was up to par. It’s also probably fair to say that I’m generally somewhat reserved and diffident.

I came to Julie with high expectations and even higher hopes and can honestly say that she succeeded in every category. Yes, the apartment is great, the meals superb, Avignon is lovely, but Julie makes it truly special. She’s an intelligent, experienced, interested and patient teacher with a stellar personality. She quickly and pleasantly had me learning and advancing from the very start. She has a variety of means to enjoyably draw one out of oneself and stretch the limits of one’s talents in French. She pointed out subtleties of French pronunciation that go beyond the liaison and dropping of ‘e’s that really gave me confidence that I could one day sound truly ‘French’.

Finally, upon arriving in Paris before our flight home, we spent the evening with our dear friends, Patricia and Didier. After dinner Patricia took my wife aside to say how impressed she was with my progress in French. She could not believe my ability to express myself and the depth and breadth of our conversation. Needless to say this made me and my wife very happy. And I know that Julie was instrumental in making this possible.

I spent a week with Julie in December 2021. I can say honestly that the whole experience was far better than I could have imagined.

As a beginner, my French skills were very limited, which made me a little nervous, as my week with Julie drew closer. The minute we met at the train station; those fears quickly vanished. Julie has the type of welcoming personality that, as soon as you meet her, you felt as if you had known her for a long time.

The lessons we had were focused on filling in the many gaps in my learning (and there were many!!) Throughout my entire stay, Julie was extremely patient and very encouraging. She used a few different approaches during our sessions, and it helped my understanding of the language structure. She identified my issues and then found a way to help me understand and progress. I left with a clear sense of direction on how to continue my studies at home, along with all of the notes she took during our class time. Julie’s apartment, inside the walls of old Avignon, is awesome!

The 17th-century building is the perfect setting for her classes. Everything the city has to offer is easily walkable. All of the locals that I interacted with in Avignon were very friendly and helpful. I am sure anyone would feel comfortable & safe walking anywhere in the city. Julie has an infectious passion for everything Provençal and will give you many tips for things to see and to experience while in Avignon and the surrounding area.

The breakfast & lunches provided by Julie were always phenomenal! She is an excellent cook! She takes the time to prepare almost everything herself. She will appear every morning with a freshly baked loaf of bread from a local boulangerie, or a few amazing pastries! I follow a plant-based diet and Julie went out of her way to make every delicious meal for me, very special. The meals times were always a fun time with great conversations.

As you read through these reviews, you will see (as I did) they all begin to sound very similar. There is a very good reason for this…. Julie is absolutely the best! And I am confident that your time with her, in Avignon, will be very productive for your language skills. You will also leave with many wonderful memories of an amazing village and a very kind, warm & gifted French Professor.

I have been studying French for many years and have attended many immersion courses all over France and Belgium. Some of these courses have been good; others terrible. Julie’s was the best.

And, bonus, after two weeks I felt sufficiently confident in my French to talk the ear off every French person within reach. All understood what I was saying and not once did any of the French speakers resort to English.

The apartment Julie has rented for her students is large, stunningly decorated, and located within the “old town” fortifications of Avignon.

Julie herself is beyond personable, knowledgeable, and patient. The lessons are demanding and the results evident. If you want to improve your French; if you want to gain the confidence to use your French in an everyday setting; if you want to leave school French behind and enter the world of everyday French speakers; then, this is the place to come. Bon courage!

This program was superb! Julie is an excellent teacher. Every day we learned and practiced grammar while at the same time learning commonly used phrases and words. She was a perfect host and exposed us to French/Provençal cooking. After my class I went to Montpellier and practiced what I learned. Everyone said my French was very good and they understood everything I said. I thank Julie for this. My confidence improved with each story I told in class. Avignon is a beautiful city ! Highly recommend this class.

This was my first immersion program, and Julie made it a delightful experience! I feel much more confident with my French after spending a week with Julie.

She taught 3 of us friends in her beautiful Avignon apartment, and she did an excellent job of managing to make learning fun and relevant for us, with games and conversations and story telling.

Julie is the best cook, and her meals were delicious! And our excursions to Châteauneuf-du-Pape and Villeneuve-les-Avignon were great excuses to see more of the area and to continue practicing our French.

I highly recommend Julie as an immersion teacher.

My sister and I thoroughly enjoyed our time spent with Julie. Julie is a delightful young woman with a mature world view.. She endured our struggles with the French language with patience and humor. While I still find it difficult to form a complete sentence in French, I felt Julie’s tips and methods were very helpful – I would love to be able to spend a month with her to improve my communication skills!

Julie’s 17th century apartment is gorgeous and conveniently located.

She prepared 5 breakfasts and 5 lunches for us – she is a wonderful cook and served unusual dishes like duck breast, blanquette de veau, escargot etc. When my sister expressed a desire for “French Onion Soup” Julie prepared a delicious one for our next day’s lunch. She brought unique cheeses, pastries, fresh fruits, mushrooms, etc from Les Halles. Every lunch was served with a delicious, specially chosen wine, and followed by dessert! We rarely had the need to eat any dinner after such sumptuous lunches!

Our afternoon excursions were really fun, and gave us an opportunity to practice French in the real world. (mostly with Julie in the car and on our walk to Pont du Gard. The folks at the winery and wine cellar preferred to converse in English.)

While a month with Julie is probably not in the cards for me, I do hope to spend another week with her next year. Highly recommend!

I had the most amazing one-week French immersion with Julie at Avignon in early September. I took almost one-year online classes with Julie before I came to Avignon for this much anticipated immersion experience.

When Julie welcomed me at the train station, I felt instant connection with her. Julie was an excellent teacher, cook and cultural guide. She was very good in determining what I needed to focus to get the most out of the short one-week learning experience. By the end of the week, I felt that I have improved and built much confidence in speaking French, and knowing clearly what I should focus in my future French learning journey.

In addition, Julie wowed me with the meals she prepared, and I enjoyed every one of her dishes. It was a treat to stay at her spacious, charming and historic apartment located in the center of Avignon, which was very convenient to walk to many restaurants and attractions in town. Julie also offered me excellent recommendations on restaurants and activities that I might enjoy on my own.

Most importantly, I had so much fun going with her to shop fresh produce at the market, visit an old medieval village, learning language and culture even without realizing it. It was awesome to go to a piano recital with her in an old castle, and it was pretty cool.

Julie worked very hard to make my one-week stay with her so memorable. I have already decided to come back again next year for another week of immersion with Julie.

I write this as I am finishing a one week French language immersion with Julie. I am not ready to leave tomorrow because this has been such a wonderful experience.

I had the opportunity to converse one-on-one with Julie everyday while she focused on areas to improve and answered all of my questions about the French life and language. It was the perfect mix of personal and professional. I also had the opportunity to explore and fall in love with a new city. Avignon has so much to offer and all of Julie’s recommendations for dinner (and more importantly gelato!) were perfect.

Over the past week, I not only improved my French, which was the main goal, but I made a new friend and found a new place to visit again. I look forward to the next time and highly recommend Julie’s French language immersion to anyone that wants to improve their French.

My wife (who is not learning French) and I (who speak French at roughly the B1 level) spent the first two weeks of August 2021 at Le Français Chez Julie. It was a wonderful experience! Julie performs three principal roles for her clients, and she is outstanding in each of them: French instructor, cook, and local guide.

FRENCH INSTRUCTOR. Every weekday morning from 9:30 until 12:30, Julie and I worked on improving my ability to speak French and to hear French with understanding. The focus was on French as it is spoken in the streets today, which entailed a lot of work on contractions, liaisons, and omitting the “ne” from negations. Her pedagogical methods included:

• Me extemporaneously relating stories from my life and discussing them with Julie.
• Playing games that entailed me speaking extemporaneously at some length; for example, drawing from a deck a card on which was written a situation and a list of words to be incorporated in a story about the situation.
• Listening to French popular songs, repeating the lyrics with proper pronunciation, and discussing the lyrics and the artists with Julie.
• As homework, watching one- or two-minute YouTube clips from a recent French movie and doing a dictation of the dialogue. The next morning, Julie and I would watch the clip together and I would repeat the dialogue, trying my best to mimic the actors. We enjoyed discussing the plot and the performances.
• Julie also engaged me in conventional drills on conjugation, gender/number agreement, etc.

COOK. Julie prepares breakfast and lunch every weekday and picnics for outings. She is an excellent cook who enjoys sharing her extensive knowledge of French cuisine with her clients. She avoids processed foods, preferring fresh products from the market in town, her garden, and a neighbor’s small farm. She introduced my wife and me to so many great French cheeses, mmm! They were so good!

LOCAL GUIDE. Julie took us on two or three afternoon or evening outings each week. Some were in town (a tour of one of the grand old houses, a visit to a private garden, afternoon tea at a Michelin restaurant), others were in the surrounding countryside (river canoeing and an outstanding piano recital in a medieval chateau, preceded by a picnic).

The apartment that Julie provides for her clients is located in the center of town, which made it very convenient for my wife to walk to interesting destinations while Julie and I were engaged in our lessons.

One perhaps obvious thing that I would point out about being accompanied by a non-French speaking/learning spouse or partner is that the overall experience may be less immersive than it otherwise would be if, as I did, you encourage Julie to switch to primarily English during meals and outings when your partner is present.

To summarize, I give Le Français Chez Julie, my enthusiastic positive recommendation, without reservation. In fact, I will be following my own advice by returning to Avignon in April 2022 to study again with Julie.

I just spent a week of French immersion with Julie Gaudin.
All I can say is that “SHE IS THE BEST”.
Here is what I loved about my experience.
Julie is so easy to get along with.
Julie is remarkably good at what she does: understanding the needs of her student and then structuring her lessons in a manner that optimizes the end result.
Julie is an excellent host. The apartment has historical equity. The meals that she prepares are out of this world. Mon Dieu!
She is so knowledgeable about the area that you need not to do any research. She has it all.
I give her an A++
Harris

I have been to several language schools in France, but the groups there were usually too large and not adapted to my language level. Of course I learned a lot but it was far too little grammar and how to speak French.
A week of intensive language studies with Julie is the best choice I have ever made, when it comes to language courses in French.
She was able to listen and decide what weaknesses I had and with the help of various games and problems I got drilled into what I needed to learn.
Julie is a social and nice person. I liked and had fun during the lessons with her. When it ended, she always found a way forward.
Food and accommodation were included in the course cost and my wife and I lived in a spacious nice three-room apartment. During the XVII century this apartment belonged to Nicolas Mignard, court painter to Louis XIV and also a friend of Molière, who performed some of his plays in the courtyard of this house from 1655 to 1657.
Good French food was served prepared by Julie, who is an excellent cook. She was careful to find out what food I could not stand or could not eat.
At the lunch table we could sit for a long time and talk, which was a good language lesson.
The excursions were very interesting, because Julie has knowledge and is a good narrator.
One day was a whole day trip with lessons, food and mountain hiking in Provance. One day we went to the halls and she showed me ingredients and taught them what they are called in French.
So I really want to encourage you to get in touch with Julie.
Lennart

Siv says :

Hello!
My name is Siv. I’m from Sweden and I was a companion to my husband Lennart on his trip to France.
As I consider myself quite good in speaking French I didn’t take any language lessons.
So if you want to study French and your companionship won’t, but want to follow you to France, I can recommend you to be in contact with Julie.
I had a marvellous time in the beautiful apartment, where I lived with my husband and where we had our breakfast and lunch with Julie.
When my husband had his lessons I was on my own discovering Avignon, which I found was a nice city.
I have also been to France many times, but this week was absolutely the best one up until now without exaggerating.
So if you only had a covid-19 test negativ certificate you can easily go to France.

Siv

I’ve done a number of immersions in France, and my week in Avignon with Julie was number one. It was a superb week, time very well spent, working on improving my French, but it was oh, so incredibly enjoyable. Julie is generous with her time and instruction and genuine in her desire to help you improve in a short period. I liked her system of taking notes for you, so you can concentrate on listening and thinking. She’s multilingual, so that probably helps her understand the language learning process, and thus her explanations are clear and concise. I appreciated and benefitted from the amount of time she gives you to try to express yourself. And, she’s not afraid to point out repeated mistakes. By the end of the week, you won’t be making them. She’s immediately attune to strengths and weakness in French as well as your personal interests. She surprised me, a design lover, with a terrific excursion: a tour of a magnifient private residence. Through extended conversations, a few drills, some games, and a couple of homework sheets, I benefitted tremendously from my immersion with her and look forward to a repeat.
Julie also wants you to enjoy Avignon. From the moment I arrived at the train station, she was ready to share the city, its history, and culture. Breakfasts and lunches together, which she prepared on site, always included something to present the regional cuisine as well as other specialties of France. Her beautiful, spacious apartment in the center of the city is your private home for the week. Imagine studying in a grand, richly detailed apartment in a historic building dating back centuries. How could you not want to be more proficient in French?