All students are invited to a free trial lesson/ assessment prior to joining a group.

Beginners

The majority of my adult “beginners” have been taught some French at school but retained very little. They come to me fearing having to deal with learning verbs by rote, worried that they do not understand grammar and asking for “conversation lessons” in the hope they can avoid the above.

As I assess all my students prior to them joining a group, this first free trial lesson convinces them that my methods are poles apart from what they have experienced. 

Lower Intermediate

Lower intermediate students are either existing students who started as beginners with me or students who studied French at school to O level/ GCSE and have retained a fair amount. At this stage, we have to cover a number of tenses and idioms and introduce more complicated interactions – to give an example based on a restaurant situation,  rather than saying “ I would like a table for two” you will be able to say “ could we have a table for two ?”, “ could we seat in the shade?”

At this stage, the learning curve is still very sharp as there is so much to cover until students can reach “ Intermediate” level.

Intermediate

Intermediate students can hold a conversation, albeit making mistakes and may still have difficulties understanding what is said to them at times, but they can make themselves understood, whatever the situation. This is the stage when I move away from the similarities between French and English and start introducing more French idioms and more advanced French grammar.  

My long term students report that when in France, their accent and grammar is so good that it is assumed they speak French better than they do, and so people will speak “naturally” and use many idioms and grammatical structures we have not studied…This is when students find that they now have to learn yet another language, idiomatic French,  and French grammar which does not make sense in English..

For example,  students who relied on translating word for word “ I must leave= je dois partir”, would find it hard understand a French person saying, phonetically “ fook-juh-part”…  ( il faut que je parte).

Students joining such groups are usually students who did well in their GCSE, or studied A level, or lived in France for a while but not long enough to achieve genuine fluency.

Higher Intermediate and Advanced Level

Although students at this level can hold a conversation on any topic, I do feel it is important to brush up on grammar. I introduce more advanced grammar, idioms and vocabulary and to ensure we cover a wide range of topics. Many lessons are based on extracts of videos, partly to fuel conversations but also to improve their listening skills.

The range of topics is very broad but I try to include very topical issues within each term so there will always be a couple of lessons each term I prepare at the last minute, depending on what is happening in the world, especially in the French speaking world. Students are provided with ample notes and transcripts of the videos for every lesson in their booklet.

A successful lesson, for my part, is when we simply do not have time to cover all I have prepared because the students keep chatting away. This happens a lot, to my immense satisfaction!

For more information on adult courses, request a brochure, emailing me at paty.daniels@gmail.com