 Poster: A snowHead
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| Frosty wrote: |
ESF in La Rosiere have been amazing for my kids this year. I was really looking forward to using the "other" ski school but they had lost my booking and were then full. IMO ESF stepped up brilliantly. with 10 in the class (less by the end of the week) and good teaching at 2 star and bronze level. Free badges (we'd had to pay 2.50e for them in Morzine the year before).  |
Ditto - extremely happy with both the lessons and also their kids club last week...
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| NoDosh wrote: |
| I'm also going to contact my credit card provider and arrange to a charge back for failing to provide the service I ordered and paid for. |
Hmmm, bordering on attempted fraud. Watch that your little Pandora doesn't turn round and bite you.
I have absolutely no affiliation to the ESF (although I do know quite a few people who work for them) but I would hazard a guess that you weren't provided with a ski class that was specifically designed to be difficult for certain nationalities. I also very much doubt that there is “any” political agenda going on here. It may sound strange but sometimes, when you’re in a foreign country, you will come across people who don’t speak English. You may feel that you were entitled to an instructor who could speak your language and I’m sure that, if they had prior knowledge of this requirement, that the school’s admin would have arranged it, “if possible”, sometime it just isn’t. In a peculiarly British way, the “I want what I paid for. I want ....., etc” doesn't always mean that's it possible.
You are going (or went) on a holiday to a foreign country where they speak a different language. If you or your daughter can’t speak the local language then sometimes there are going to be problems, but this doesn’t mean that the local shop keepers, bar owners, ski schools, coach drivers are all plotting against you.
May be better to accept that, in this case, as sometimes happens, as you say you’ve had many good experiences with this school, that things didn’t go exactly as you wanted. Would a word with the school’s admin possibly provide a more positive result for the future (than a Pandora).
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Perhaps the 'Brits' should understand the fact they are in a different country and perhaps respect that a little more. They really are a horrendous bunch of prentetious tw*ts when it comes to things like this. How many teachers/ instructors in any field over here could do a week in French?
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I spend many months a year in a French resort where little english is spoken. people are invariably helpful and friendly and quite polite about my poor French. Most people who come here are the kind of more independent traveller who understands about foreign countries.  However, I did encounter a couple of caricature English women who marced into the tourist office one day and without so much as a "Bonjour" or a "good morning" or a "Do you speak English" just demanded "Where's the nail bar?".
I had visions of their skier husbands persuading them that they could spend a few days being "pampered" and getting their nails done, and they were in for a rude shock. The very charming receptionist, who speaks pretty good English if people give her half a chance, explained (when I'd told her what a "nail bar" was) that the nearest one was probably in Megeve, 40 minutes drive away.
So, not only were they rather rude, and unable to speak any French, they were also too dim to do a bit of research on the internet.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| pam w wrote: |
| People are invariably helpful and friendly and quite polite about my poor French. |
Not so much when skiing, but certainly during my youthful backpacking days (early to mid 90s) in remote parts of the Alps and Pyrenees, I found that my very basic attempts to communicate in French were very well received, and with some sign-language on both sides, we could get by.
By the early 2000s, the same attempts were by and large met with a response in fluent, or at least highly competent English, even in very remote parts of the country. If I was just having a chat, we would end up in a bizarre conversation with me speaking French and my counterpart speaking English, so we could both practice our linguistic skills! Speaking French badly appears to be most acceptable - in fact, I'm sure I detect a hint of Gallic pride when communications in French break down and I am asked if I would like to continue the conversation in English, as this is a clear sign - to the French, at least - of the superiority of France over the UK. 
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Our experience over the last 10 years with the ESF comes down to first the difference in our kids temperaments - one is diligent and determined to pass everything . She has done all levels , got lots out of the lessons .
The other is headstrong and dislikes authority and formal teaching. ESI and English ski schools have suited her better.
Secondly we have found the higher the level the better the instructor and the smaller the class size.
Third, both have at times been the only English kids in a French speaking class. This has been fine as the instructors have explained in English and we have never had the unfortunate experience of the OP.
Fourth, the ESF are quite inflexible compared to ESI and the English schools.
John
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| Quote: |
the same attempts were by and large met with a response in fluent, or at least highly competent English, even in very remote parts of the country.
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The French are getting much better at English, it seems, in tourist regions but there are a number of people in Les Saisies who speak pretty well NONE - including one of the women who sell ski passes. And many who speak less English than I do French. When I correspond with my Belgian neighbour (who speaks English a bit better than I speak French, I think) we have agreed to write in our own language - that way we both read good examples! When we speak, often for hours over a boozy meal, we speak a "mélange bizarre" and it works just fine.
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Brings back memories of a bizarre conversation I had when we first arrived in St Gervais. Very early one morning I was down putting the bin out when a gentleman pulled up in his car and asked in French where he could find the nearest petrol station. 5 minutes of 'french' and lots of gesticulating on both parts later he drove off in the right direction leaving me congratulating myself on having been able to help, despite my only a bit better than schoolgirl french- Which was the point at which I first noticed the number plate and clicked that he was on the 'wrong' side of the car......Yep, he was a Brit. I do hope he found his petrol!
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