French lessons for teenagers, online and one to one

Most teenagers who are behind in French are not bad at languages — they are behind on one specific thing, and nobody has had twenty minutes to find out which. That is what a one-to-one lesson is for. Thirty or sixty minutes, online, with a French teacher in France, for A1 up to B2 and exam years. A first lesson is thirty minutes for €20.

What one-to-one changes that a classroom cannot

In a class of thirty, a teenager speaks French for perhaps two minutes an hour. In a one-to-one lesson they speak for forty. That single ratio is most of the difference, and it is why an hour a week can move someone who has been stuck for two years.

• Nobody is watchingThe biggest obstacle at this age is not grammar, it is being wrong in front of classmates. Online and one to one, that audience disappears.
• The gap gets foundBeing "bad at French" is almost always one missing foundation — usually verbs, sometimes sounds — under two years of material built on top of it.
• The pace is theirsFaster where it is easy, slower where it is not. A class cannot do either.
• It can be about something they likeA song, a YouTuber, a game. The grammar is identical and the attention is not.

Exam years

School French exams reward specific, learnable behaviours, and most teenagers lose marks on format rather than on French. Speaking assessments in particular are marked on structure — a position, reasons, an opinion — which can be rehearsed independently of how good someone's French is.

The English GCSE is the clearest example, because the mark scheme is public. AQA's French specification (8652) splits the speaking test into three tasks worth 50 marks between them: a role-play worth 10, a reading-aloud task worth 15, and a photo-card discussion worth 25, in a test lasting 7–9 minutes at Foundation and 10–12 at Higher. Read that second one again — nearly a third of the speaking marks are for pronunciation alone, examined on a text the student has never seen, and it is the part almost nobody practises. Bring the mark scheme to a lesson and we work on what it actually rewards.

If the goal is a certificate rather than a school grade, the DELF is the one that matters internationally. It is awarded by France Éducation International on behalf of the French Ministry of Education, runs from A1 to B2, and does not expire — sat once at sixteen, it is still valid on a university application at twenty-two, which is not true of the tests that lapse after two years. Preparation for it is a separate page. For school exams, bring the mark scheme. It is more useful than any textbook.

What the lessons are actually like

Conversation first, correction second, and no lecture. A teenager who has decided French is not for them will not be argued out of it — but they will usually keep talking if the subject is theirs and they are not being marked. The French gets fixed inside that, not instead of it.

1. Ten minutes of talkingAbout anything. It tells me where they are more accurately than a test, and it is not experienced as one.
2. One thing per lessonNot a syllabus. The single thing that is blocking the most, fixed properly.
3. Homework only if it will happenTen minutes that gets done beats an hour that does not, and I would rather set nothing than set something ignored.

For the parent paying

You will hear from me if it is not working. Some teenagers do not want lessons and no amount of paying changes that. If we get three or four in and it is not going anywhere, I will tell you rather than keep taking the money — that is worth more to me than a package.

Practically: lessons are on Google Meet with nothing to install, you are welcome to sit in on the first one — though most teenagers do better if you do not — and the invoice comes with every purchase. Teenagers only. Younger children are a genuinely different craft and someone else does it better than I would.

What it costs

€60 an hour, VAT included, no platform commission. A first lesson is thirty minutes for €20. For teenagers, thirty or forty-five minutes weekly usually works better than a full hour — attention, not budget, is the limit.

Ten thirty-minute lessons is €255 — €25.50 each. Prices are final: VAT included, nothing added at checkout.

Questions parents ask

See also: DELF preparation · starting from zero · French films worth watching.