French conversation is a lively class with slightly mixed abilities, but a basic level of French is needed, even if it was acquired long ago. None of us is a native French speaker, but we try to pool our knowledge of the language to help one another to improve our fluency in the language as best we can. The emphasis is on communication, rather than on grammatically perfect French. Each week, a couple of members have the task of presenting a short ‘histoire’ on a topic of their own choice, which gives rise to questions and discussion in the whole group.We aim to spend the second part of the session in a group activity, maybe a puzzle or quiz, sometimes discussion of a topical subject. In order to allow a conversation to develop and because of the size of the venue, we have to limit the number of members, but we are happy to add names to our waiting list at times when the class is full.