I'm going to Paris for a week in February and would like to devote the time to improving my French.

I've found three schools that look promising, and have found a few good reports on this board for them, but since our search function isn't working well, and there may also be a few of you who have been to one of these schools but not posted, I'm asking for advice.

The ones I've found are Accord, E.L.F.E., and l'Institut Parisien.

E.L.F.E.'s a bit pricier, but has a lower student/teacher ratio. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Eurocentre Paris is one of the best French language schools in France, and in Paris, in particular. The Paris location is excellently located, in the 6th arr. in the heart of the Latin Quarter, just off the Blvd. St. Germain and Rue Mazzarine, and a couple of blocks from the Seine. Excellent instruction, very nice school building, (with parts of the ancient city wall through parts of the classrooms) and a wide variety of cultural offerings in the afternoons and evenings.

Do not, however, expect it to be easy, because it isn't. Eurocentres take language instruction very seriously, and they expect the students to do the same.

http://www.eurocentres.com/en/langua...,11,x48,2.html

I forgot to add, that, like most language schools, Eurocentres does not offer one week courses (except for private instruction)-the group courses are two weeks, minimum.

Thanks. I agree that Eurocentre looks like the best, but I'm limited to one week this winter. (Hoping for 2-3 next fal).

I've been to l'Institut Parisien and it was excellent. They have a good school there with good teachers. I don't think girlspytravel said eurocentre looked the best, she only knew about that one place.

One advantage of l'Institut Parisien is that it is very flexible and you can sign up for a week at a time. I don't know how useful that would be for beginners or people wanting serious grammar study, though. I used them for more of a conversation class, and it was very good for that purpose if you only have a short time frame. I think any school can be good for a week if you need to brush up a bit and get more in the habit of using a language, though.

I'm going to spend a week at the ELFE school in Paris in December. I'll report back on how it is.

You might look at these two threads about it:

http://fodors.com/forums/threadselec...p;tid=34860545

http://fodors.com/forums/threadselec...p;tid=34785476

I don't know the other two schools.

Actually, Christina, Eurocentres is considered one of the top language schools in France. Not THE best, as I don't know whether there is such an appellation, but one of the top ones, certainly.

I'm really torn between l'Institut Parisien and E.L.F.E. I prefer the lower student/teacher ration of ELFE, but the 2-hour conversation session plus 3 hours of language study each day at l'Institut sure seems like it would give lagging French a jump-start. Thanks for the personal recommendations.