Allons-y!

The important bit!

Allons-y! is a new French Conversation Group and it meets twice a month on the second and fourth Wednesday at 10 30 am.  We normally meet at Kathy’s house in Minehead – please contact Kathy for directions.   Please remember to check the Calendar in case of any late changes to schedule.

Our group is led by Kathy Barnes, and she may be contacted at 07766103175, or by email at .  Please note that this group has limited membership, and is now full. If you are interested in adding your name to a waiting list, click here.

About the Group

We use a mix of resources (online, magazine, CD) to improve speaking and listening skills.  At each meeting, a topic is chosen that members prepare to talk about at the next meeting.  So far, topics have included: History of Minehead, Wine, Christmas and Cheese!  We are working through a French text book to improve our grammar, but this is done as voluntary homework.  The focus of meetings is very much on speaking and listening.  The standard of French is Elementary plus. 

Latest news

As our new French conversation group is becoming established we are trying various activities to find a format that suits us all. One of our priorities is to listen to French spoken by a native speaker so at each of our fortnightly meetings we listen to a French podcast which deals with topics of interest in the news, in science/technology and in the arts. Having listened and translated our chosen articles we use them as a basis for discussion. Our most recent discussions have been on ‘Might we increase our lifespan thanks to an anti-aging vaccine?’ and ‘National Geographic magazine’s 25 must-see destinations’. We are pleased to have promoted ourselves from the ‘Beginner’ to the ‘Intermediate’ section of the podcast, though we are often challenged by the speed of spoken French! At each meeting we also choose a topic for us all to be prepared to talk about at the next meeting. The most recent have been ‘Horses’ and ‘Spring’. As a fun activity at our last meeting we tried a wordsearch which proved much more difficult in French than in English!