Frequently Asked Questions

Currently, Living Lingo covers most of Cheshire and some parts of the surrounding counties. Please contact us to find out if we are able to visit your care home; we’ll always try our best to accommodate requests from further afield.

You can book them as often as you like. A monthly French session works really well for most care homes, but we are very flexible and will try to work around your timetable.

Although French is our main teaching language, we also offer a one-off session in Spanish, Italian and German. These sessions can work well if you are running a travel-themed day in your care home, or celebrating Oktoberfest, for example. Contact us for more details.

Yes, definitely! Fluent French speakers are always welcome to take part; we will always adapt what we do in the session to the needs of each member of the group.

It absolutely does not matter! Our dementia-friendly sessions are designed to cater for everyone, including those who have never learnt any French before.

Our sessions work best when there are between 6 and 10 participants. We can cater for a maximum of 18 learners per session. There is no minimum amount.

Experience has shown us that French is the best language to use in our sessions, because many older people will have learnt a little French at school, or may know some famous French songs (e.g. Frère Jaques!). Our French sessions frequently evoke memories of past holidays, travel, friends, and even school French lessons, and lead to some very interesting conversations among residents about their past experiences.

We focus just on French, rather than changing between different languages, because we have found that residents gain the maximum benefits from the continuity of learning one language over a period of time. Repetition and familiarity of the language help the residents to learn, as we build up our skills from one session to the next.