Any experience with language camps in France?

@SometimesYouWinSometimesYouLearn Like you, I am White and had never encountered racism in France before. No surprise there. If your entire family is White, why do you think you can comment on experiences of racism? What qualifies you?

My children encountered racism everywhere we went to on those two holidays. They were followed in every shop they entered, were accused of theft even though I was standing right behind them and could see that they had done nothing wrong (the shop assistant hadn't realised that I was their mother), shouted at, told to go away when they sat down on a chair in front of a restaurant, told "there is nothing to see here" when they were browsing in a shop with my husband, I could go on. We had never experienced anything like this before. It was relentless and disgusting, and we will never visit those areas again.

The amount of Brown or Black people says nothing about how racist a country is, see South Africa during the Apartheid era.

In case you are French, instead of claiming "there is nothing to see here", how about you do something about the racism in your country?

Both my daughters did FIL (fil-ado.com/en/) 10 years ago when 15 and 13. My eldest made a couple of life long friends (from Sweden) and my youngest went on to do a french degree. Looks like FIL is still going

What an odd response towards someone just offering some advice…. Lucky you to be privileged enough never to have to experienced racism but maybe don’t just just be really dismissive of someone who has.

If your child is Black or Brown, I would avoid the Province and Tours areas. We have never before encountered racism as overt and persistent as we experienced it there. This wasn't about subtle microaggressions, this was overt racism. Many interactions we had were marked by hostility and aggression. It was shocking.

Last year, I spent two weeks in La Rochelle with one of my daughters during which she attended Inlingua. We very much enjoyed our time there. However, my older daughter can pass as white, so I can’t speak to how much racism someone might encounter there.

Try Inlingua inlingua-france.fr - they do full immersion with students in host families.

@SometimesYouWinSometimesYouLearn I think @WingingIt101 was supporting your intention to arrange an immersive experience for your DC, not suggesting that they study BA French.

My child went to Centre International d’Antibes for two weeks of intensive French last summer and enjoyed it.

Graduate of BA French here and immersion in the language is absolutely the best way to develop it!

I attended a language camp in my first summer of uni so not age appropriate for your 12yo but it was in Montpellier and the first morning was intensive assessment to sort into ability groups. It was also about 20 years ago now so may no longer exist but it was excellent. Sorry that’s not much help for you in this specific case but they are absolutely worth investigating!

my family live on the south coast and get a lot of language students in the area - I’d suggest at 12 your child may prefer forming a more natural relationship and chats with someone close to their own age. Their language teacher at school may be able to make introductions with penpal type agency or a partner school to make introductions with too!

my parents also used to take in language students as we lived near Windsor so there was lots of interest there for them and they got to practice English at home with us but had I been a little older and realised my passion for languages I’d have definitely asked them to talk with me in their native tongues!