Speak French: A Practical Conversation Course

Part-time recreational conversational language course held by the Language Centre.

Course Description

The Language Centre offers part-time courses to which all adults are welcome to attend. Courses are offered in the evenings.

In the autumn and winter terms the courses involve 10-week classes designed to consolidate language skills, suitable for a range of learners from complete beginners to those looking for something more advanced. In the spring term, we offer 5-week courses designed to strengthen your conversational skills which consists of five units with different discussion topics.

Please note that all our part-time courses are for recreational purposes only. They are not intended as preparation for any formal examinations that participants may wish to take in their own time (apart from the IELTS courses). Our part-time courses do not include any assessments or tests.

Conversational Course

Speak French: A Practical Conversation Course

Level of Study

A recreational conversational French course for students with level 1 and level 2 language knowledge or above (not for higher levels 5-7).  To ascertain if the conversational course is suitable for you, we recommend looking at the French course content descriptor.  The 10-week course descriptor details the content covered in each level.

You do not need to have to previously attended our classes, you may enrol on the conversational course if your current knowledge of the language is level 2 or above (not for higher levels 5-7).

Learn how to express yourself accurately in typical everyday situations

This is a five-week practical conversational course. The course is designed to enable students to express themselves accurately in French in typical everyday situations.

The course covers the following topics:

§  Travel and tourism

§  Health

§  Family and society

§  Education and work

§  Food and the French culinary tradition

Cultural elements from France and French speaking countries are included in the lessons. Students will be equipped with the vocabulary, expressions, and grammatical structures needed to talk fluently about the above-mentioned topics and speak correctly in related daily conversational contexts. The course adopts a communicative approach. The emphasis is on communicating real meaning. Phonetics is also taught to improve pronunciation.

The course will be based on a series of activities aimed at developing students’ oral skills. These include guided conversations, exercises in group, and dialogues based on real-life scenarios. French texts and/or videos connected with the week’s topic and context will be used as the basis to guide conversations and improve students’ skills. Students will be also provided with vocabulary lists to learn new words and improve communication.

Books: Not required

Classes:  5 x 2-hour classes

Term dates for 2025:

Spring: starting w/c 26/05/2025 - ending w/c 26/06/2025 (5 weeks)

Spring Timetable

Option to book on either the Monday or Thursday course: 

Language	Day	Start Date—End Date	Time	Fee
French	Thursday	29th May – 26th June	6-8PM	£100/£90
French	Monday	26th May – 23rd June	6-8PM	£100/£90

Autumn: starting w/c 06/10/25 - ending w/c 08/12/25 (10 weeks)

Term dates for 2026 

Winter: February - April (10 weeks)

Please note we will only advertise one term at a time. 

5 Week Course fees:

Course Fee	General Public	£100.00
Course Fee	University of Aberdeen Student/Staff/NHS Staff – you must use your UoA email/NHS email when booking.	£90.00

 Course Information:

The status of each course (running, postponed or cancelled) will be emailed to participants approx. 1 week before the scheduled start date.

Important: Upon completion of booking, you will receive an email to confirm your place.   Approx. 1 week before the scheduled start date an email with details of class location, start date, time, and tutor will be sent out. Please look out for an email entitled "Course Details".

Terms and Conditions:

Your registration on an evening language course will be subject to the following terms and conditions:

• Terms and Conditions

FAQs:

Have a look through our frequently asked questions page for further information.

In-person teaching:

Our teaching will be done in-person in. Rather than allocate rooms at this stage, we will make decisions just before courses begin, based on the numbers enrolled.

To contact the Language Centre:

email:                lc-eveningclasses@abdn.ac.uk