You really want to do a langage stay in Nice to learn French ?

You dream of discovering the French culture, enjoy the sun of the French Riviera, discover the local gastronomy, share moments with a French family ?

But you are worried : your diet is different.

You are a vegetarian, vegan, you don’t eat gluten or you are lactose intolerant.

And you heard that France is not a very welcoming place for people with a different diet.

I won’t lie to you, of course France is a lot behind compare to Germany, UK or Switzerland regarding the vegan food but rest assured, you will still live a great experience if you come to Nice and especially at alpha.b !

Why choose alpha.b if you are a vegan / vegetarian or any other « special diet » ?

For many years, alpha.b team is very involved in giving the best experience possible to our vegan/vegetarian students.

First of all, regarding your accommodation :

If you want to live with a host family, alpha.b team has selected for you families that are completely open to this type of diet and they will gladly good for you vegan, vegetarian or gluten free meals for you.
We even have some host families that are vegetarian.

And to help our host families to welcome you in the best possible conditions, alpha.b is the only school in Nice that organised awarness meeting about special diets.

We also offer to all our families a PDF book with all information about each diet + recipes.

The help is offered by Emeline, who has been working at the school for 10 years and has been a vegan for the last 5 years. She is always available for the host families or the students who would have questions or problems about this subject.

We are also very glad to have received last summer several testimonials of vegan/vegetarian students who were really happy about the host family like this one :

I’m really happy with my stay at alpha.b and I am really pleasantly surprised that my family cooks vegan food very well for me ! They asked me what I ate or not and they really did their best.

If you don’t want to live in a host family but rather at a hotel or in a residence, you just need to come to the office and we would give you a list of all the stores and restaurants which offer vegan, vegetarian or gluten free food in Nice.

Regarding the activities :

When our guide Pacôme offers activities such as food tasting or restaurant, he always makes sure there will be a vegan, vegetarian or gluten free option for the students.

In addition, for the last 4 years, our school boycotts all activities that use animal exploitation such as Marineland, circus, zoo…

The directors of the school Pascal and Anja are very invested in animal welfare and are completely supportive of these initiatives.

Niçoise gastronomy is very plant-based

Another important thing when you do a langage stay is to discover the local gastronomy. And sometimes you can feel frustrated if as a vegan or a vegetarian you can not taste anything !

Rest assured, Niçoise gastronomy has a very strong plant-based influence.

We are in the South of France and we have a lot of vegetables, olive oil, chick peas … and they play an important part in our gastronomy. Niçoise cuisine is very simple, with a few products, nothing fancy because for a long time, Nice was very poor.

Here are some specialities you can taste while you are in Nice and that are 100% plant-based.

– La Socca : chick pea flour + olive oil + water – It is Nice’s speciality and it is 100% vegan

– La pissaladière : a bread dough with caramelized onions.

– La pichade mentonaise : a very simple pizza with tomato sauce, onions and italian seasonning.

– La ratatouille : lots of veggies cooked with olive oil

– Les beignets de fleurs de courgette (vegetarian)

– La tourte aux blettes salées et sucrées (vegetarian)

– La panisse : another speciality with chick pea 100% vegan

– La tapenade : olive paste

Vegan restaurants in Nice ?

Nice is getting more and more vegan friendly and you can eat in a lot of restaurants with vegan options or 100% vegan.

Here are some choices :

• Koko Green
• Vegan Gorilla
• Copper Branch
• Paper Plane
• Pâtisserie Amour
• Utopia
• Pekin
• ….

So don’t worry if you have a vegan, vegetarian, gluten or lactose free diet, do not give up the idea of a langage stay in Nice to learn French !

The city of Nice and alpha.b French school are waiting for you so you can enjoy your stay fully !

6 maanden geleden vertrok in België naar Nice, klaar voor een nieuw avontuur: een administratieve stage doen in Alpha.b in functie van mijn Business administration studies. Binnen een korte week loopt deze op zijn einde. Met een positieve kijk blik ik terug op deze ervaring in het zonnige Nice.

Alpha.b Institut Linguistique

Alpha.b is een talenschool gesitueerd in Nice, Zuiden van Frankrijk. Tussen de palmbomen en de azuurblauwe zee hebben de leerlingen de kans om hun Frans bij te schaven op een gevarieerde manier. Indien ze wensen kunnen ze de duik in de franse cultuur verdiepen door te logeren bij een gastfamilie. Iedereen tussen 15 en 150 jaar, van starter tot expert kan terecht in Alpha.b voor een cursus Frans op maat. Dit doen we door verschillende programmas opstellen naargelang de leeftijd van de studenten en hun doel (basis frans, intensieve cursus, voorbereiden van een examen, privélessen). Daarnaast worden we de leerlingen binnen hun type cursus ook nog in inverdeeld in verschillende niveaus na het afleggen van een test.

Mijn ervaring als stagiaire

Mijn taken als stagiaire in Alpha.b waren heel verschillend. Van receptie verzorgen, tot vertalen tijdens een doktersvisite en Pacôme helpen bij het organiseren van activiteiten. Mijn dagen begonnen om 8:30 of 10:30 en eindigde om 16:00 of 17:30. De dagen vlogen voorbij sinds er altijd veel te doen was. Maandagen samen met Pacôme de activiteiten in de klassen gaan presenteren, enquêtes invoeren op vrijdag. Assisteren tijden de excursies en nog veel meer. Eén van de dingen waar ik veel voldoening uithaalde was het wegwijzen, helpen, ontvangen van studenten. Ik vond het dan ook belangerijk omdit met dezelfde warmte te doen als ik ooit heb gekregen als student hier in Alpha.b. Binnen het domein sociale media kreeg ik veel verantwoordelijkheid van Alpha.b, ik heb samen met Emeline een plan rechtgezet en een doel bereikt met het aantal volgers te verdubbelen. Dat was een mooie kers op de taart op het einde van mijn stage.

Het harmonisch team van Alpha.b

Werken in het team van Alpha.b was voor mij één van de hoogtepunten van mijn stage. Ik heb nog nooit zo een samenhangend wel functioneerd team gezien als hier. Binnen het administratieve team houd iedereen zijn hoofd in dezelfde richting maar tegelijkertijd hielden we het luchtig. Een team waaraan je alles aan kan vragen en bijleren voorop staat. Dit harmonisch team ga ik zeker missen en hoop in mijn verdere carrière terecht te komen in een even leuk team als hier.

De taalbarrière

De grootste uitdaging binnen mijn stage was de taal. Mijn niveau frans was zeker niet slecht voor mijn stage. Maar het kon uiteraard nog geperfectioneerd worden. In het begin beschikte ik ook nog niet over de juiste vocabulaire om helemaal zelfstandig te werk te gaan in het kantoor. Je voelt jezelf vaak niet verbeteren in een taal als je dagelijks oefent, maar als ik nu terugkijk naar de vooruitgang die ik heb gemaakt kan ik zeggen dat ik fier mag zijn! Dit heb ik natuurlijk ook te danken aan de geduldigheid en behulpzaamheid van het team.

Kortom

Tot op de dag van vandaag ben ik zeer tevreden met de moedige keuze die ik 6 maanden geleden heb gemaakt. Ik rond hier mijn laatste week af, met een berg van ervaring, een enorme vooruitgang in het spreken van Frans en ook met een traan om dit geweldig team achter te moeten laten.

Instituut Alpha.b is een unieke taalschool met enorm kwalitatief team en onderwijs, iedereen de overweegt om hier een stage te doen moedig ik ten volle aan!

6 months ago I left from Belguim to Nice, ready for a new adventure : an admin internship at alpha.b in function of my Business administration studies.

In less than a week this all comes to an end. With positive thoughts I reflect on my internship in the sunny Nice.

Alpha.b Institut Linguistique

Alpha.b is a language school located in Nice, South of France.

In between palm trees and the azur blue sea, the students benefit to learn and practice their French in a varied way.

If they wish they can complete their French experience by staying with a host family.

Everyone with the age between 15 and 150 years, from starter to advanced is welcome in Alpha.b for a customized program.

This we do by proposing different kind of programs along the goal and desires of the student. (basic French, intensive French, exam preparation, private lessons).

Once they’ve chosen their program they will be dispatched into different levels along their test results.

My experience as an intern

My missions were very differing.

Taking care of the reception, to translating during a doctors appointment and helping Pacôme with the organization of the activities.

My days usually started at 8:30 or 10:00 and finished at 16:00 or 17:30.

The days flew by since there was always a lot to do.

On Mondays for example we present the activities in class with Pacôme, Friday we evaluate the questionnaries, assisting during excursions and many more.

One of the things that was for me the most satisfying was helping and welcoming of the students.

For me it was very important to do this the same charming way as they did when I was a student.

In the department social media it was very nice that I’ve got a lot of responsibility.

Together with Emeline we organized a plan and we reach the goal the double the amount of followers on Instagram.

This was a nice way to finish my internship.

The harmony of the Alpha.b admin team

Working in the team of Alpha.b was probably one of the highlights of my internship.

I’ve never seen such a coherent, well functioning team as I did here.

The admin team keeps theirs head in the same direction but at the same time we kept it light.

I could ask anything to this team and learning always came first.

I will definitely miss this harmonic team and hope in my further career to work in a team as nice as here.

Language barrier

The biggest challenge during my intership was definitely the language.

My level was not bad before I came here.

But of course I could improve still many things. In the beginning I didn’t manage yet the right vocab to work totally independent in the office.

But this was absolutely no problem for my collegues and they were always happy to help me.

You often don’t notice your improvement when you practice a language daily, but now looking back to the progress that I’ve made.

I can say that I should be proud. Of course I have to thank this to the sweet help of the entire team.

Voir cette publication sur Instagram

Une publication partagée par Alpha B – Cours de Francais (@alphabfrenchschool) le 31 Oct. 2019 à 7 :24 PDT

Long story short

Until the day of today I am very satisfied with the choice I made 6 months ago.

I finish my last week here, with a mountain of experience, an enorm progress in speaking French, and also a small tear to leave this team behind.

Institut Alpha.b is a unique language school with a qualitatively team and education, everyone who is thinking about doing an internship or language course here, I encourage you all !