What makes a good teacher?

1. The tutor should have a background that is suitable with teaching the french language as a foreign language.

2. The French teacher’s ability to communicate at your level. If you’re a beginner, the tutor should be able to pass on explanations in your mother tongue or at least in English.

3. The tutor’s accent. Your French tutor should speak with a clear and neutral accent.

4. The working hours and schedule flexibility. You should be able to book lessons easily, at your convenience. Be careful with the time difference to see if it’s compatible with your availability.

5. The rapport you develop with your teacher. Learning the french language should be a pleasure and your teacher should be nice and encouraging. If your teacher helps you in a friendly way, you will be more likely to improve your French and won’t be scared to talk.

Exceptional is what we all want but most of us do not know what that is till we find it.  I need to be quite clear here, so you will immediately notice when you don’t have it!  It is much harder to recognise that you don’t have one, than when you do have one unless you have already an experienced one. Mediocre meals are not recognised as that until you know what an exceptional one is. When you have one of those it will stand out! The higher the standard of food you get, the more fussy you can become with ones that don’t hit the mark. That’s exactly the same in realising that the teaching you are getting is not what you expect.

The first thing to look for is a teacher who engages you. When you are engaged, you want to pay attention to what is going on because your attention and interest are magnetised to what is going on.  Having to drag yourself to an exercise is not what will inspire you to put your best into it. Engaging comes in many forms. One is being challenged at a level that you believe is manageable. The challenge needs to evolve and change as you develop.  It is the exceptional teacher who can keep track of that and manage that for not only an individual, but also for the individuals in a class.

The next thing to look for is an environment that you think you could feel comfortable in. Language classes may well not be comfortable because learning new things can be challenging and may cause you some discomfort at times however the exceptional teacher makes you feel that you belong there so that any discomfort you feel seems to be less of an issue. Such a teacher may use humour to help you get over these feelings. 

Boring happens when it’s too far either side of that mark. Another way that can engage are exercises, materials or topics that are appealing in their own right. This is what happens when you are asked to engage your awareness, your perceptions, your attention and your feelings. You just feel more alive and better able to learn by participating.

Another important characteristic you are looking for is a teacher who works towards you recognising and implementing your latent powers as a language learner.  We all have them, just that some are well hidden!  The exercises s/he gives challenge you to work things out (at your level), cause you to think about what the answers could be and the exercises always seem to evolve and develop in line with your development.  S/he does not spoon feed you or give you “mindless” exercises, but encourages you to use your mind all the time “forcing” you to be more attentive by the exercises s/he gives, as s/he knows that this is an essential ingredient in effective language learning.

These are just a few signposts I have put up, but do look for them as when you find a great language teacher who has some (hopefully all!) of these characteristics, you will become a very satisfied and happy language learner. Few language teachers will have all of these characteristics, so in a nutshell, be alert to see if the experience in the class is helping you to to grow or is it making you shrink. If it’s the latter, the best thing you can do for yourself is to go and look for another class as this experience will do you more harm than good.

How I personally teach the french language

My way to teach the french language is very friendly, with a lot of oral speaking and conversation. Indeed, it is the better way to progress, especially with a French native !
I also give the choice to all my clients on the contents of the lessons, according to their mood, their wish, their demands.

What about grammar ?

The Grammar-Translation Method, based on the Classical Method employed since as far back as the Middle Ages for teaching Latin and Greek, forces students to memorize declension and conjugation patterns, vocabulary lists, and other grammatical rules. Essentially a medieval method of teaching languages based on rote learning; sounds irresistible, doesn’t it?
As surprising as it may seem (maybe not if you actually remember what it was like to learn a language during high school), this method remains one of the most popular up to this day, partly because it allows to easily gauge “foreign language ability” (whatever that means) through standardized tests.

This method has been particularly successful at making people hate learning foreign languages, and it has been particularly unsuccessful, I’m afraid, at making people fluent in foreign languages. In fact, the method’s severe shortcomings has sparked a debate (better late than never, as they say) that rages up to this day: really how important is grammar in language learning, and should language schools get over their grammar and standardized tests fetish?
I like to think that there is no one-size-fits-all solution; in other words, we all learn differently, and some methods will work well for some and not so well for others. If true, this statement brings up a serious issue: language classes typically cater to one type of student. If you’re not the ideal learner for the method used in a particular language school, too bad. You might feel discouraged and give up since the kid next to you seems to be doing so damn well, and you’re not. You weren’t born with the “language gene,” after all.

While I do believe we all learn differently (up to a certain degree), my experience learning languages in high school and university, as well as the experience of numerous highly successful language learners I’veinterviewed over the past year, all point to a similar direction: focusing on grammar at first is simply not the way to go. Does that mean you don’t have to learn grammar at all? Not really. Just later, and with moderation.

Don’t make grammar a priority. Think about it: why exactly are you learning a foreign language? If it’s to actually communicate with human beings, you should consider mostly skipping grammar andcoming back to it at a later point. The best thing with this approach is that you’ll get all those “ha-ha!” moments. After having been exposed to the language for a while, you’ll read about a certain rule and then suddenly all the pieces of the puzzle will fall into place. 

I’m also sorry to say, but people, especially native speakers of your target language, are highly unlikely to be impressed by your grammatical prowess. In fact, it can at times serve as a dividing bridge between you, the “foreigner” who’s learning to speak the local language, and the locals.
Remember this: in many languages,spoken language is in fact entirely different from the written one. Speaking the “written version” of the language will make you sound foreign and unnatural. On the other hand, if you sound natural when you speak, people will be honestly impressed and feel closer to you.
In the end, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to language learning. But, if there’s one common thread that seems to bind a huge majority of successful language learners, it’s the fact that they don’t make grammar a priority. They tend to learn more inductively and take a top-down approach to language learning.
Why Skype lessons ?
If you’ve decided to learn the french language online with a private tutor by Skype, you’ve made the right decision. It’s a convenient and affordable way to quickly improve your french language.
However, make sure you select the right teacher for french language and the right French school to avoid bad surprises.

So take into account:

1. The French tutor’s qualification and experience. The ideal French online tutor should have a background that is suitable with teaching French as a foreign language.

Many language learners don’t understand that having a great language teacher is as important as going to a language class.  What happens if the teacher is boring, or if what is taught does not interest you?  Or worse still, what happens if because of the way the language is taught you leave believing you are a poor language learner. If you stay on despite the problems, you may end up thinking, “I need to persevere if I am to learn the new language” even if you are getting nowhere.  I am here to tell you that you need to be very careful, as the way you are taught can not only determine whether you will learn the new language but can also heavily influence you in your language learning for the rest of your life.

2. The French teacher’s ability to communicate at your level. If you’re a beginner, the tutor should be able to pass on explanations in your mother tongue or at least in English.3. The tutor’s accent. Your French tutor should speak with a clear and neutral accent.4. The working hours and schedule flexibility. You should be able to book lessons easily, at your convenience. Be careful with the time difference to see if it’s compatible with your availability.5. The rapport you develop with your teacher. Learning the french language should be a pleasure and your teacher should be nice and encouraging. If your teacher helps you in a friendly way, you will be more likely to improve your french language and won’t be scared to talk.