Camille Chevalier-Karfis
| Sep 23, 2016
Onomatopoeia is the written version of a sound – think ssh, ouch or bang. And like everything else, the rules are a little bit different in French. The French don’t make a kissing noise or say mwa – they say smack (or even smack smack) for the sound…
PJ Heslin
| Aug 05, 2016
One of the employment opportunities available to expats with certain qualifications is teaching English. Before I left the US in 2009, the prospect of finding full-time work as a teacher, or even as a temp, seemed an impossibility, despite my…
Suzanna Chambers
| Dec 14, 2015
The pertinent issue of our children’s education is forever circulating amongst groups of concerned parents here on the French Riviera, with the age-old question ever-relevant: “To which international school can I send my child to ensure that he/she…
Riviera Reporter
| Dec 13, 2014
For the third consecutive year, a student from Mougins School has come first in the International Schools’ Speech Competition held at the International School of Nice on 10 December, 2014. Five schools competed with two students from each school.…
Joe Dziedziak
| Nov 17, 2014
“Enseigner, c’est apprendre deux fois.” Though unbeknownst to 18th-century moralist Joseph Joubert, he has written perhaps the perfect maxim for TAPIF – the Teaching Assistant Program in France, created in 1993. Every year, the Higher Education…
Nancy Heslin
| Oct 12, 2014
With another school year underway, newly arrived expats may be feeling the impact from the decision to move to a foreign country and put their children into a local school where instruction is not in their mother tongue. Research from Jim Cummins at…
Riviera Reporter
| Sep 12, 2014
The French training website Frantastique was developed by its parent company A9 SAS, along with its sister, Gymglish, a professional English training that has been used in 5236 organisations around the world, including the Suez Group, IBM, Shell and…
Riviera Reporter
| Jul 25, 2014
Director Marie Boselli-Berenguer has the scoop. RR: The École du Journalisme (EDJ) in Nice offers Bachelor Degrees in both Journalism and Sports Journalism. What’s the story behind EDJ? MB: We were tired of hearing the same old thing … “It’s the…
Margo Lestz
| May 23, 2014
We’ve had a home in Nice, France for six years now and for six years we’ve been meaning to go to Parc Phoenix. But something always came up and we just never made it. Now we can finally say that we went, we saw, and we loved it! It’s a beautiful…
Margo Lestz
| Mar 02, 2014
At this café in Nice, France, minding your manners can significantly reduce the price of your coffee. “A cup of coffee” – € 7.00 “A cup of coffee, please“ – € 4.25 “Hello, a cup of coffee, please“ – € 1.40 Of course, this was meant as a humorous way…
Riviera Reporter
| Jul 10, 2013
End of year information 2013 Thirty two students will be graduating from Mougins School this year in order to follow higher education. They represent 11 of the 41 nationalities at the School which has 520 students. Seventy per cent of the students…
Riviera Reporter
| Feb 25, 2013
Julie Belleudi, from Wellington, New Zealand, came to Nice in 2002 with her French husband Guy whom she’d met in London. They have three children (pictured) – Chloe, nearly 9, Estelle, 7 and William, who’s 5 this month. I spoke to her down the line…
Riviera Reporter
| Feb 18, 2013
One advantage, you might think, is that it’s free. Well, not quite. That’s to overlook the rather long list of items that parents are expected to pay for at the start of each school year. Actually, there’s a bit of good news this time round.…
Jill Penton-Browne
| Feb 04, 2013
Going international Our region is well served by international schools such as the three I write about here which have excellent reputations. A very significant part of their market is drawn from the expat community where parents want their children…
Nancy Heslin
| Jun 13, 2012
We caught up with Grisel Damgaard to discuss “Real Life” individual language courses offered at Carfax in Monaco Last issue we looked at Carfax Educational Consultants (
carfax-education.com), now well-known on the Riviera for their academic top-up…
Nancy Heslin
| Apr 19, 2012
The Educational Consultant, essential for your childrens' futures. Things have changed in the years since I applied for university in Canada some years back. This became apparent to me last fall when my niece in Toronto started her university…
Nancy Wilson
| Jan 07, 2012
As the government claps a new rule on immigrants from outside the EU, requiring them to demonstrate a working knowledge of French as a condition of residence, latest figures printed in Le Monde indicate that around 200 million people worldwide speak…
Jill Penton-Browne
| Jan 07, 2012
Jill Penton-Browne asks that question yet again Surely, many among our enlightened readership will say, that’s a no-brainer. Anyone who chooses to live in another country will surely realise that learning the local language is a priority. Not so.…
Phil Heinlein
| Jan 07, 2012
The time’s gone when a career as a business executive was open to anyone with energy and enthusiasm ... and maybe not a clue about what’s really involved in management. Such people are likely to get stuck at quite an early point in their career.…
Nancy Wilson
| Jan 07, 2012
Nancy Wilson talks to heads of local international schools in Monaco, Mougins and Nice Mary Maccaud, International School of Monaco (IB) "At ISM, students in years 12 and 13 study the IB Diploma, an internationally recognised qualification which is…
Nancy Wilson
| Jan 07, 2012
... admits the parent of a child enrolled at one of the local international schools. In the first of two articles on education, Nancy Wilson reports on primary years Family life in the South of France, at least in the expat community, is not like…
Christine Holt
| Jan 07, 2012
With reference to your article on the above subject in the June-July edition of the Reporter, you might be interested to hear of my experience with bringing up bilingual children. As soon as my children were born, I spoke nothing but English to…
Jill Penton-Browne
| Jan 07, 2012
“Mum, I think they’re going to make me stay in the same class next year ...” And young Barry doesn’t look too happy about it. Along with four in a hundred other French school pupils when he returns to the classroom after the summer holidays he won’t…
Riviera Reporter
| Oct 27, 2011
Je te dis vous: the title of that Patricia Kaas song sums up the difficulty for foreigners of coming to terms with the use of vous and tu, without doubt the trickiest aspect of the language. Anyone who learned French in a British school would have…