Setting up weekly meetings and taking work home is not the only way to work with teachers…
In today’s podcast episode, we are talking about:
- How you can work with French teachers differently,
- According to your goals and your style of learning,
How to work with French teachers.
So the usual way to do it, and most teachers will offer you their services like this.
It’s to have a weekly one hour session in which you learn new concepts, you look at videos, you do exercices, you might follow a textbook, or simply speak with your teacher.
You come with your questions, you usually have a small sort of homework to do for the next session,…
The thing is, this way of doing is not bad, but it shouldn’t be automatic.
It’s helpful for the student because it’s weekly, it’s recurrent, and so it keeps you on your toes.
And it’s also good for the teacher, which can keep track of their students, and are assured some sort of monthly income.
But, there are others ways.
There are actually for me, three main types of situations in which you should hire a teacher.
For a one time session, for a monthly session, and for a weekly session.
Let me explain the details.
One time French lessons
One time sessions are for very specific reasons.
You are not going to see your teacher regularly, and it actually won’t really be ‘your’ teacher. It’s ‘a’ teacher.
You go to this teacher when you need something specific.
So it can be:
Because you need a structure to follow
You can hire a teacher and ask him or her to give you a specific structure to follow.
Of course, you shouldn’t expect to pay for one hour and get off with an amazingly structure path to your learning. No.
This is going to take some time to your teacher to create for you something like this.
I’m not sure how many teachers do that, but it should done more often.
It can also be a one-time thing to answer specific questions
For example, I know that a lot of people are trying to understand the French subjonctive.
It’s not an easy thing.
And most ressources out there are not going to answer your question directly.
So you could, hire a teacher and expressively tell him or her that you are looking for someone to teach you how to use the French subjonctive.
You’d be with the teacher for one hour or maybe two if the question you have is big, and then you go on with your usual learning process.
It can also be a one-time thing to answer specific questions
I know I was doing that for a while, and generally, this is called coaching.
So you hire a teacher, so it’s someone who is used to dealing with French learners, and you talk about your problems.
Not your personal problems, but problems you have when you are learning French.
For examples, you could find that you don’t have enough results when it comes to your learning. You are thinking that there is something wrong with the way you learn.
So you could hire a teacher and talk about what you are doing, and they would give you feedback on that.
I’ve helped many students go through problems like their learning routine not working, or their French being not as good as they would like, or helping them find what was wrong with their approach.
So there are many instances where you could only hire a teacher for one time. Obviously you need to be clear with your teacher about what it is you want when you hire someone for one time.
Monthly French lessons
Then you could decide to hire someone on the regular. But here again, it doesn’t always have to be a weekly thing. It could be monthly.
To check progress for example
If your learning routine is good enough, and that you found a way to practice your French. You could still need a teacher to keep you accountable.
You know, motivation is easier when you know you’ll have to explain what you’ve been doing this month to someone.
Having a teacher like this is immensely useful, because you avoid learning things that are not correct over the long term, you can check if what you are doing is working over the long term, and you have someone there to ask questions to.
A monthly session would look something like – speaking a bit in French to check pronunciation progress, and practical progress ; talking about what you have been doing, if it has been working ; if progress has been made, because it’s something hard to realise if you have progressed or not ; and talking about goals and what is planned for you in the next month…
Weekly French lessons
For practice
To practice your French, there’s no better way than to have a tutor, someone you are going to speak French to, about anything, every week. Or even twice a week.
I do that with my learners. Two sessions of 30mins per week.
And it’s just wonderful. Because you practice the language you are learning, you are having fun at the same time, you know it’s like talking with a friend, it is talking with a friend.
One of my student even told me it was very relaxing. Because we are talking about her life, her problems, her goals, the world in general. It’s really having a conversation. A true conversation.
And it’s an exchange, you get to know your teacher as well. What they think, how their life is, maybe even their problems.
And then, there’s a last situation, in which you should have at least weekly session: when you need intensive / fast progress
When you need to learn French fast, when you need French for a specific reason. Could be for work, but also could be because you are going to travel, or you are going to a wedding with French people and you want to be able to speak with them.
Then, hiring someone to be there for you several times a week is going to assure you you will get to that result, you will learn French as fast as you can.
Providing you actually do the work as well obviously ahah.
So, you see, there are many ways to work with teachers, and it doesn’t always have to be a weekly thing.
If you’re looking for a complete programme to learn French, to support your learning, check out this 👇
