Nottingham Language Academy is launching creative writing workshops in French for lovers of the French language.

The sessions will be run by French native speaker Lucille Venn and are suitable for those who have at least a French A-level or equivalent.

Based at The Ropewalk, Nottingham, the academy offers lessons in seven different modern languages, as well as English as a foreign language.

The latest creative writing workshops, which will last three hours a session, will be held fortnightly, starting in April, either during the evening or at weekends - depending on what suits those taking part.

They are designed for lovers of the French language or for those who need it for their professional work.

Using examples drawn from literature but far from the restrictions of academic essay writing, the workshops will be lively and interactive, and explore language in a playful way to enable students to widen their vocabulary, to polish their grammar, to play with syntax and to find their own style.

"This course is ideal for someone who's fond of writing and who has a certain level of French and would like to write more creatively in the language," said Linda Walker, who is a Business Language Champion in the East Midlands and who launched Nottingham Language Academy in September 2010.

The school, which offers tuition to individuals and businesses, teaches the modern languages of French, Spanish, German, Italian, Japanese, Greek and Mandarin.

Classes are run during the day, evenings and at weekends, and are designed for people who want to improve their job prospects, travel and see the world, live and work abroad, gain a place at university or learn something new for the fun of it.

The modern foreign languages courses are linked to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) which now forms the basis of language teaching and learning in most EU countries.