Two very different needs, often confused
Families ask for “French lessons” in two quite distinct situations, and giving the wrong one wastes a term.
French as a second language
Your family has recently settled in Cannes or nearby. Your child may attend a British school and need French for daily life, or may have joined a French collège or lycée and need the language urgently in order to access every other subject. The goal is comprehension and confidence, fast.
School French in the French system
Your child has been in French schools for years and speaks fluently, but struggles with the subject itself: the brevet French paper, then the commentary, the essay and the oral of the early French exam in première. Fluency is not the issue; method is.
If you have just arrived on the Riviera
When a child is placed in a French-language classroom, the instinct is to book tutoring in the subject where marks are worst — often maths. That is usually the wrong first move. If the child cannot follow the instructions, the maths tutoring is treating a symptom.
We would normally suggest starting with French for comprehension: the classroom language, the vocabulary of instructions and assessments, and enough grammar to make written work possible. Subject tutoring follows once the language is no longer the bottleneck. This sequencing matters more than the number of hours booked, and we will say so even when it means recommending fewer lessons at the start.
If your child follows the French curriculum
School French is a method subject as much as a language subject. Two exams structure it: the French paper of the brevet at the end of troisième — comprehension, grammar, dictation and a written composition — and the early French exam at the end of première, written and oral. The work divides into a few identifiable skills.
- Reading a text closely. Noticing what the text does, not only what it says: the effect of a tense, a repetition, a shift in register.
- Structuring an answer. The commentaire and the dissertation have an expected architecture, and marks are awarded for it. It can be taught explicitly.
- Writing accurately. Agreement, tenses and punctuation, corrected on the student’s own work rather than through decontextualised exercises.
- Preparing the oral. Reading a text aloud, explaining it, answering a grammar question and discussing a chosen work is a rehearsable sequence.
A note on the language of the lesson
Lessons are conducted in French. For a complete beginner who needs instructions explained in English at the very start, tell us in the first conversation and we will confirm what is possible with the tutor available.
