How to choose your French teacher

 I get asked all the time, “How do I choose the right French teacher who will help me achieve my French Speaking goals?”

So I made a video to help you make an informed choice. Discover: 

•  The 5 key criteria you, as a student, should look out for when investing in teacher 
•  Why it is important your French teacher is invested in YOU 
•  What Professional Empathy in a teacher is and why it matters

Who is the right teacher for you? 

It’s not the easiest thing to do these days. 

I mean, there are so many people who say they can help you speak French these days, from enthusiastic French speakers to teachers with amazing qualifications.

Finding the one that is just right for you, who will be totally tuned in to what you need to learn, and how you need to learn, can feel like trying to pick the perfect star in the sky, or find the needle in a haystack. They all just look the same on the surface and it can be so confusing.

I want to share with you my 5 key criteria on how to find your own perfect teacher so you can finally Speak French confidently!

So, finding the right teacher to help you speak French is daunting at first: you want to learn French well and in a way that allows you to be able to speak confidently and fluently. Of course you do. 

It’s possible to start out at the Free option and flick through YouTube, download a pile of apps, and think that you are on the path to being fluent in French. 

You can buy expensive packages and courses that declare great promises to have you fluent fast, they have hundreds of lessons for you to work through, but even after that you still find yourself alone in the minefield of speaking: 

Whether it be a free video or a guided course - Nobody is talking back to you, answering your questions, or guiding you through the grammar and vocabulary that you are getting stuck on. 

As much as you might understand some phrases and words here or there, you freeze in a real conversation because you’ve never really been able to have that opportunity to speak spontaneously with other people.

There is one thing that many successful people have in life, and that is a coach, mentor or teacher who truly believes in them and is invested in YOUR success. There is no difference when learning French. Isn’t it time you found someone like that for you? 

So to help you find the treasure of a teacher that you have been searching for, one who totally matches what you need, not what the teacher needs or wants to teach, here are my 5 golden nuggets of guidance.

Do you connect with your teacher? 

Before you invest in a complete stranger, you can connect with them online via Facebook Lives, watch them on YouTube or speak with them in a personal call. This is a crucial first step because how they show up here will be likely how they show up when working with you.  Do they listen, are they engaging? Do they bring energy to the room - are they someone that you want to spend time with?  Once you have identified that you connect with them, you also need to see if they are connecting with you as well, are you the type of person they enjoy working with? Are you ready to invest in yourself and put in the work as well? Connection for both of you is key to a productive and healthy teacher-student relationship.

Does THE teacher show passion for French learning? 

They don’t necessarily need to know it all, just be able to motivate you and keep you accountable.  They need to show how they are going to guide you through all the vocabulary and grammar and make it really engaging for you in a way that you love learning too.

It’s this passion that is a real game-changer - just when you feel you’re flagging with all the other commitments in life, you turn up to your lesson and the energy and excitement is contagious. You immerse yourself in French, you find your frustrations dissolving as you start crafting conversations, even if they are messy ones! You are encouraged to take adventurous action too and you start seeing results, you are becoming a confident conversor!

What does the teacher care most about most?

Far too often I hear of people opting into online teaching systems where the teacher seems to change every other week and deliver a pre-planned lesson. You turn up and sit through what is more like a fast-food menu, and you’re still left feeling, well, hungry, and it’s finding the learning hard to digest.

Are you just another student in their class, or is it about helping you make great speaking progress by understanding your learning needs? Are they able to pick up on ways of teaching that suit your personality and advance you in the difficult areas without the overwhelm by the learning feeling heavy?

When you feel inquisitive about how to apply a new phrase or grammar point, will they take the time to explore it, to feed your intrigue, and satisfy your sense of adventure? Or will you be turning the pages of the textbook one by one and be following all the exercises, regardless of how realistic they are? 

This is an important one, choose a teacher that truly cares about you, your learning and guiding you to get the results you want.

Make sure the teacher you choose is one who has Professional Empathy

Being English and having a qualification in teaching French is different from being French and speaking it. It affords professional empathy. What I mean by this is that make sure your teacher has already walked the learning path and experienced some of the difficulties of being an adult learning to speak French. They need to have felt what it is like to practise French out loud and to have struggled to find a word, or to feel worried about picking up the phone to book a holiday. Empathy is often an overlooked key part of teaching and learning. 

Once you know they have walked the path then make sure they also have the professional expertise to help guide you on your journey to speak French.  You don’t want someone who just going to tell you that because they made it to the other end of the journey so can you. You want someone beside you, showing you the shortcuts and accelerating your learning by removing the obstacles or helping the penny drop faster. This is sometimes where native French speakers struggle, if they are not fluent in English or haven’t undertaken a basic teaching or French language study they may not be able to explain why certain words don’t match or be able to explain a difficult grammar concept in a way that YOU understand.  

This means looking for teachers that not only already have the results that you desire to create but will share and speed up the journey with you, encouraging you when it gets difficult as well as making it exciting and fun along the way. 

Find a teacher who understands your goals and plans your learning journey with you 

Check your teacher is dedicated and committed to helping you achieve your dreams in a way that you enjoy so you are not overwhelmed.  

It’s so easy to follow a structured learning path in a textbook.  Books are great resources.  But they don’t talk back or analyse what you’re saying to help you more. They don’t even understand what you actually want to learn either -> just prescribe words and grammar for you to digest. 

So if you want to feel like you are mastering the language so you can achieve your goals such as having a spontaneous conversation, then make sure that your teacher is able to bring the language alive, is able to close the book and get you adapting the language, and creating sentences that leave you feel proud of yourself.  After all, if your goal is to be part of the conversation, then you don’t want to be spending your time just scripting one out! 

5 essential features your ideal French teacher should have.

So let’s recap very briefly: Make sure your teacher is 

• 1) Easy to connect with on a personal level - you are going to be working together after all!
• 2) Really and truly passionate about French learning - enthusiasm and energy is infectious!
• 3) Dedicated to you and your learning - someone who can get you the results!
• 4) Has professional empathy, someone who is experienced enough to be able to adapt intuitively to what you need and support you when it gets difficult.
• 5) Understands your goals so that you can plan your unique learning journey together

If you think you are ready for an immersion experience with me, download your 21 really pertinent questions you could consider before even doing your research.