Setting up an English language school in France: Real Life

A huge old property bought by Joanne and Bruno Leroux in the Beaujolais made the perfect English language school…

Originally a British national, I I have always felt European as I studied French at university, spent many wonderful holidays in France and did a one-year internship in Lille. In 1991, I met my French husband, Bruno, while working in Chartres and was lucky enough to be married in the beautiful Chartres cathedral two years later. We then moved to the UK where we had our two boys, Nathan and Tom.

After six happy years we decided it was time to return to France to live permanently. Our children were then three and five and we thought this would be the perfect time for them to move back to France and integrate into primary school as they would be able to pick up French (which they already understood, but didn’t yet speak fluently) more quickly.

My main stipulation was that we should find somewhere below Dijon, the imaginary line in France for sunshine and warmer weather. So I gave up my job as a purchasing consultant and trained as an ESL (English as a second language) teacher. This one-month intensive course has proved very useful. My husband found work in Villefranche-sur-Saône, 40 minutes north of Lyon, in the Beaujolais, and we left behind house, cars, jobs – everything about our previous life – and headed back to France with only our clothes in suitcases.

For the first six months we lived in a rented apartment while looking for a house. We wanted a modern property in or just outside the town, but nothing the estate agents showed us seemed to fit what we were looking for. I finally realised why when we were shown a house that was exactly the opposite of what we had been seeking. My specification had been all wrong!

The moment I saw it I was blown away. It was a huge house, more than 100 years old, in the centre of a village in the Beaujolais, surrounded by vines. Not only was there a 230m² house, garden and swimming pool, there was also an independent apartment attached to it, plus a massive two-storey, 400m² building that had been a textile factory employing 50 people in the 1950s and 60s. All of this for the same price as the little house we had just sold in the UK.

The village had everything we needed a butcher, baker, doctor, dentist… and could be reached from the house in two minutes on foot! As I visited this never-ending property, I knew it was the one for us but had no idea what we were going to do with it!

A few months later, we found ourselves living in this beautiful, enormous house with absolutely no plans for it other than the vague idea that family could use the apartment when they came over to stay. Practically all the renovation work had already been done and so our only necessity in the short term was some painting, outside rendering, adding two new kitchens and a new bathroom. All very easy!

Eventually, after the first year settling our family in, we started to think about what we could do with all this space and how I could use my ESL training as a career. I had been teaching English as a volunteer in the children’s school and the parents were very happy with my lessons. In fact, they asked if I intended to offer English lessons outside school as an extra-curricular activity. I had a light bulb moment. The factory!

I had the space to do it, so soon afterwards, I opened a room on the ground floor of the former factory to teach 10 children. Nobody thought it would take off because I was told the village was too far from the two closest towns (although these were only 10 minutes away) and that parents wouldn’t come that far for an extra-curricular activity. Some 22 years later, we are a team of eight teachers working at Lime Tree School.

We now use the whole of the ground floor of the former factory, and 220 children come from as far as 40 minutes away. We even appeared on the French TV channel TF1 for our innovative hands-on approach to teaching English.

This has happily occupied me and provided a salary for 22 years. It has allowed us to balance family and professional life in this wonderful country. Moreover, as the school year runs from September to the end of June, I decided to use the apartment as a gîte for the summer months to generate some additional income.

Our French home has been a gift. It’s completely self-financing and even generates revenue. It’s been a wonderful place for the boys to grow up, with a garden and pool for summer, and space at the top of the factory for a huge playground, football pitch, table tennis and basketball nets Meeting people from all over the world who have stayed in our gîte has broadened their minds and given them the confidence to talk to anyone.

Growing up in this house has played a large part in shaping their futures. Bilingualism is one of the greatest gifts we could have given them, as it opens so many doors.

Now we’re downsizing and selling our beautiful property in St Etienne des Oullieres (€698,000, seloger.com) but I would encourage anyone dreaming of living in France to follow their hearts. There’s a lot of paperwork involved in moving, in fact there’s a lot of paperwork for anything you do in France, which can be very frustrating but it’s most definitely worth it.

Tel: 0033 (0)4 48 18 10 04

<a href=”http://limetreeschool.com” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>limetreeschool.com</a>

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