French Language Schools in Toulouse

former student of Langue Onze here, and very satisfied! The fee is slightly higher than Alliance Francais, but group is usually much smaller than in AF and I had a very very good teacher, second to none.
Heard AF is good too, its just in bigger groups, and you can only start in Jan / Apr / Jul / Oct.
While at LO, you can start basically whenever you want. Goodluck!

I definitely wouldn't do Langue Onze. I am there right now and have really learned nothing.
I also have a few friends there right now and we are definitely not happy with the learning progress. You don't learn what you want. If you really are ambitious, I would find a private tutor. I know it costs more, but it is indefinitely worth it...plus you can pick your own class times.
The only thing I would say is beneficial about the school is you meet people.

Aw hettyvh - that sounds bad.
I took evening classes in 2011 and had really great time with very ambitious students and an awesome teacher.
In any case I would recommend everyone to ask the language institution for a free trial session at least once - before you go deciding for one.

I've tried AF and Institut Catholique and I thought AF was much better out of the two. The teaching method at AF was far better and made learning French seem less complicated. I improved far quicker there. I've never tried Langue Onze, so can't advise you on that school.

Thanks for all the feedback!!

I was thinking about Alliance, because they do a Summer Course that starts in July. It seems a little bit cheaper and offers a Host Family accommodation.

Hi to all! To continue this thread, I am interested in a language course in Toulouse during the summer period, and considering AF or Langue Onze. Perhaps now, a year later after the last post, some more people with experiences can comment on these two options? AF is cheaper, but Langue Onze seems to offer also a language exam in the price, and some other services. At AF they don't do exams in the summer, I was told.
I have heard some good comments about Langue Onze, and also some negative comment in the previous posts here, but I haven't head much about the opinions about the teaching and studying at AF. Hope to find some helpful replies soon! Thank you! 

Just to update this thread a little for anyone looking for info on this topic: I'm at Langue Onze in Toulouse now doing a four-week course and my experience is the same as hettyvh. I feel like I'm making almost no progress here. Our class mostly involves listening to the teacher talk endlessly about grammar and repeating herself a lot and boring everyone senseless, then we do a few basic exercises with very short answers. There is virtually no real speaking practice and no writing exercises at all except homework, which the teacher doesn't even check the next day half the time. One of the worst things is that the teacher seems to be very unresponsive to the students - she just goes on and on with her explanations, long after everyone in the class has fully understood what she's getting at. She doesn't adjust her teaching to suit the class at all, she just seems to be on autopilot a lot of the time.

The teaching quality at Langue Onze seems to vary hugely depending on what teacher you get. I've heard that another teacher there is even worse than the one we have now, but at least two teachers seem to be a lot better. But you have no control over which teacher you get. They do rotate the teachers somewhat from class to class, but we've had the same (bad) teacher for three weeks now. Last year I did a 4-week course at a different school elsehwere in France and there we had a different teacher every week (and every single one of them was better than my Langue Onze teacher now).

The school has other problems too: the wifi doesn't work all the time, the admin is somewhat disorganised, and some class time is lost every day because of people turning up late.

Alliance Française is a LOT cheaper than Langue Onze, and although its classes are usually bigger, I have heard from people who have been to both that the teaching is better there on average and you learn a lot more. They also offer more optional afternoon classes for extra practice in speaking, writing and pronunciation - these classes cost a little extra, but the total is still less than what you'll pay for just the basic course at Langue Onze. In other words, Alliance Française is a much safer bet in terms of value for money: you pay less without so much risk of being stuck with a crap teacher.

Having said all that, Langue Onze might be okay for beginners (A1 and A2 level) because at that level you probably need more explanation of grammar and not so much speaking and writing practice, and the smaller class sizes might be more significant at that level. But for the more advanced levels (B1, B2, C1) Alliance Française definitely seems the way to go if you want to learn French in Toulouse.

Thanks for your updated information natlet. I am about to move to Toulouse in 3 weeks and have been looking for french courses. Had been tossing up between Langue Onze and and AF. Was actually leaning towards Langue onze as I had seen some bad reviews about AF and how there was no emphasis on speaking, but the bad reviews of Langue Onze on this thread have definitely got me thinking!

I am wondering whether Langue Onze and AF are the 'best' french language schools available in Toulouse? From my online research, it seems there aren't many other choices.

Yeah, there's not a lot of options and these two are probably the best of the bunch, or at least the least-bad... I chose Langue Onze over Alliance Francaise for two reasons: you can only start short intensive courses at AF on certain dates and I wanted to start one week earlier than their date, and I had developed a generally poor impression of Alliance Francaise from other cities. But I've since realised that the quality of Alliance Francaise varies a lot from city to city and the Toulouse branch definitely seems to be one of their better ones. Which reviews were you reading? I saw one on expatforum that says "Alliance Francaise and possibly Institut Catholique are generally taught in the French tradition - which means lots of grammar and translation with perhaps not as much emphasis on speaking" but that person clearly has not actually gone to either of those schools in Toulouse and is just going by the general reputation of the organisation. I've been told specifically that Alliance Francaise in Toulouse is really good at getting students to speak in class, whereas "lots of grammar and not much emphasis on speaking" has been exactly my experience at Langue Onze!

If you're at beginner level, you could always start out with a couple of weeks at Langue Onze and see what you think - their classes are a little smaller (maximum about 12 instead of about 16 at AF) and you might be lucky with the teacher. If you're at intermediate level, I would definitely recommend going straight to Alliance Francaise. It's almost certainly going to be better value for money at that level.

Thanks natlet. From your recommendations, I'm definitely leaning towards AF. I'm a bit more than a beginner as I studied french for 5 years in high school, but it's definitely very rusty and as I'm relocating to Toulouse indefinitely, I need something a bit more serious and long-term that will hopefully bring me up to the level I need to be. Indeed the expatforum review is the one I had seen!
I've already emailed both asking whether I can do a trial class, but if not then I will probably go for AF as I'm able to join their starting date in Jan.

Thought I'd post a quick update. I ended up going to AF and did the 1 month intensive course in Jan 2016 (I was put into Lvl 3 which is equivalent to A2 as AF has a slightly different system). There were 10 people in my class and I was happy with the quality of the teaching (structured and professional). There was a big emphasis on oral speaking and listening (the teacher always encouraged everyone to participate and speak during classroom exercises). The topics  were interesting and relevant to daily life. I actually decided to continue on with AF in Feb and am currently doing B1. I have a different teacher and the quality of teaching is still good so I can now safely say it wasn't because I was lucky with having a good first teacher. Lessons are taught in French so the first few days were overwhelming with 3.5hrs of 100% french everyday, however you do get used to it and it's really the best way to immerse yourself in a language.

I have been considering French classes in Toulouse as well. And I would like to know about more experiences in AF or Catholic School. I am more towards to AF due to its price since it is cheaper than others.