What to expect from the O.R.A. program?
First of all I stayed in St.Etienne. So this may not be very helpful to others staying in other more awesome cities like Grenoble and Lyon.
Yes, it's true that St.Etienne pails in comparison to these wonderful, much more populous and metropolitan cities. For many accepted to St.Etienne it was not our first choice nonetheless we made the best of it. St.Etienne is a quirky city with interesting people roaming the streets and for such a small city there were quite alot of beggars. The residences (at least the one I stayed at Le Littre) was not in the most exciting area but downtown St.Etienne is quite nice!
The School
The school you will be studying at is called 'Cilec' and it is connected with Jean Monet Universite. If you're staying at residence Le Littre, the school is right around the corner and depending on how fast you walk you can get there in as little as 3 minutes *Yay*
Staying at other residences such as La Cotonne be prepared for a 20 minute walk (that includes hiking up a giant hill.)
The oral testing felt like an interrogation. Then I learned that for others it was a breeze (they were asked hardly any questions and very easy ones.) For instance on a whim I was told to talk about global warming or president Obama's election (along with other completely random topics) in French. Gulp. Explaining global warming even in English is not the easiest thing but I struggled my way through it and the tester seemed to understand me.
I was placed in a class that I assume was a high intermediate one (they don't actually tell you what level you're in...at least my prof didn't.) Your class level doesn't matter anyway because you all learn the same stuff. Excluding the beginner classes the differences in class difficulty is negligible. As my friends in "more advanced" classes were learning the exact same material as our class.
I got to learn subjonctif and imperatif for at least the fourth/fifth time in my life and everyday we got photocopies of work sheets. Oh Joy.
It seemed like a joke course.
If anyone has already taken the similar program offered in Canada called "Explore" the similarities and contrasts were stark. O.R.A. seemed like a BAD version of the Explore program. In the Explore program I learned drastically more than from the O.R.A. program. They actually take learning seriously, only French policy in the school (if you're caught speaking another language other than French three times you're sent home), and the professeurs were outstanding. At Explore they really strived not just in teaching you French but in helping you retain it and that's what really counts. We would go over verb tenses repeatedly in the Explore program and we actually had homework and things were actually taken seriously. The professeurs at Explore really cared about their students learning and I didn't get the same vibe from the O.R.A. program.
The O.R.A. school itself is veeery laissez-faire and some of the "professeurs" seem veeeery young. For instance it was my "professeur"'s first and last stint teaching for Cilec...o.O
To be honest, the school experience was disappointing if not very disappointing. When leaving the course I felt like I barely improved in French and this was not attributed to lack of effort or motivation. I did however learn quite a bit of French slang called 'argot', that was pretty cool and I learned a little of 'Gaga' St.Etienne dialect.
The marks they give you are very sketchy. You never see the rubric (if there is one) that they grade you with. And after heavily participating throughout class I received a measly 13/20 for participation. Thanks Agathe...
Residence Life at Le Littre
I stayed at Le Littre therefore this review will only be applicable for Le Littre.
Couple things to get used to: loud ass drapes, a shit tonne of noise from the street if you're staying on the street side like I did, second hand smoke wafting into your room at all hours of the day/night, the smallest kitchen in the world, broken things that will never get fixed, sketchy hallways and stairwells.
A very unique thing about Le Littre is that it's not only a residence for students but also an apartment for the 'everyone else demographic.' You will encounter elderly and middle aged people, at least one family and a good helping of creepers living in Le Littre. The fourth floor is the Twilight zone. It is almost solely inhabited by non-students. One of which inhabitants is a creepy old lady who stinks up the whole building because of her extreme smoking habit (which by the way is illegal.)
The lady running the residence (never knew her name) is very nice and on top of it, unfortunately for a good junk of our stay we had a sit-in person who didn't do much of anything except stare at you.
I easily got back my deposit without a room check, even.
Last but not least. Bed Bugs.
Our building had bed bugs. That's not the worst part. It took 2 weeks for them to do anything about it.
Fortunately only a few rooms were infested (mine not being one of them.)
Even after they sprayed, they returned. So watch out.
A couple basic tips: Keep your bed away from walls. Make sure no blankets on your bed are touching the floor. Have your room well ventilated (keep your window open.)
Of course we received no kind of reimbursement for this drama unless you count free laundry service 20 minutes away as "reimbursement."
St.Etienne
St.Etienne is known for two things: for being a industrial town *woop* and for their soccer team which is called 'Asse.'
Downtown St.Etienne is very charming, with a beautiful large church, a very large gazebo (that is never open), a carousel, nice fountains and a plethora of cafes, restos and bars.
The food in St.Etienne is generally very good. Although vegetarian options are very scarce.
Be prepared to wait for upwards of 2 hours for your food.
And tipping is not generally practised in France... so don't do it (unless the service is outstanding.)
Also, there are a tonne of superb boulangeries, patisseries and venoiseries. Be sure to try a crepe, a venoise, a baguette, a mille-feuille and the macaroon. But really anything is delicieuse. For the macaroons I recommend the chocolate store Weiss au centre ville.
Cuisine de St.Etienne
Be sure to do a lot of travelling! I visited Lyon, Grenoble and Geneve (Geneva.) Another highly recommended place to visit, one I wish I would have done is Lac Annecy. You can take the TGV out of Chateaucreux. All the trips were well worth it and were easily highlights of my stay.
All in all, I'm really glad I took the O.R.A. exchange program not for the school but for the everything else part. For the wonderful people I befriended, for the awesome places I visited and for the awesome food and wine I tasted. Do it!
