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 arrived in Geneva. Your child may be at an English-medium school and needs French for daily life, or may have been placed in the Swiss or French system and needs the language urgently in order to access every other subject. The goal is comprehension and confidence, fast.
School French, Swiss or French curriculum
Your child has been in a French-language system for years and speaks fluently, but struggles with the subject itself: text commentary, essay structure, grammar, and oral presentation. Fluency is not the issue; method is.
If you have just arrived in Geneva
When a child is dropped into 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 intensive 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 a French-language curriculum
School French is a method subject as much as a language subject. 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 French-language school essay has 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 an oral presentation. Presenting a text or an argument and answering questions on it is a rehearsable skill.
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.
