At the moment it looks like my wife (main applicant) is 1 point short of the 67 points. We were advised by an immigration specialist to look for an immersion course in France for 2 weeks or more and then take the TEF test as soon as she could after that.

A friend brought up the idea, more to complement an immersion course than replace it, the idea of finding a French speaking penpal, especially one that might be wanting to learn English. That way my wife could write in French with the 'pp' correcting it and the 'pp' could reply in English with my wife correcting it.

Are there merits to this idea? Is it something that anyone on the forum has tried as a way to learn French, even if it is only going to be useful for reading/writing French rather than speaking/hearing it?

Also as my wife would only need the 1 point, could she do abysmally in the TEF tests for speaking/listening, but do well in the reading/writing and get the point in that manner?

Cheers in advance.

Anyone got any thoughts?

All I will say is that Quebecois French spoken in Canada is VERY different to the French language spoken in France so you might want to consider this when looking for lessons...

Thanks for that. If we are taking the TEF exams (which we will be) are we better learning French French or Quebecois French?

I thought such tests were regulated by the Alliance Francaise and so based on 'standard' French, i.e. that spoken in France but I could be mistaken...

I've been learning French again for the last 14 months or so, partly for interest/fun but also partly for possible Canadian immigration. I've found practice at conversation the most difficult thing to get, I'm not sure where you live but she might want to look for a group like this:

http://www.meetup.com/birminghamfrench/

Thanks for that Rodge. We are on the Wirral and the nearest active meetup group seems to be in Manchester, which is a bit of a hike. There is a group in Liverpool, but it doesnt look like it is active.

We have a couple of friends that have lived in France and they are bi-lingual themselves, it was actually them that came up with the idea of penpals.

Standard "Paris" French is what's required.

There's an Alliance Francaise in Liverpool, not to mention a French consulate.

Im trying to find Alliance Francaise in Liverpool but not coming up with anything, the nearest I can find on Google is in Manchester. Do you have an address by any chance?

...and according to this page http://www.ambafrance-uk.org/spip.ph...id_rubrique=2# the only French consulates in the UK are Edinburgh and London?

My husband had a French 'pen pal' as part of his French studies with the OU. He posted on a website and this guy contacted him. They spoke regularly using Skype, mainly conversation with some typing to clarify points of language. OH found it very useful and picked up lots of colloquial French.