Most people who come to me need French for a specific unlock: a CRS score, a CSQ, a bilingual role, a life in Montréal. Others are starting with their very first sentence. Both get the same standard. This page covers what I teach, who it's for, and how a free 30-minute consultation tells you whether we're a fit.

Two kinds of students

Roughly half my practice is exam prep. These students have a test date on the calendar, or one coming soon, and a number to hit: usually NCLC 7 for a federal immigration file, or a strong TEFAQ oral for Québec selection. The stakes are concrete. Points, deadlines, application windows.

The other half are beginners in the true sense. No French at all, starting with their first sentence. Many of them will eventually need an exam too, but that's a year away. Right now they need to speak.

The two groups need different things week to week, but they get the same standard: French you can produce under pressure, not French you recognize on a page.

What exam prep looks like

Exam rubrics reward specific moves. TEF writing, for example, is scored on six criteria, and the difference between NCLC 6 and NCLC 7 comes down to a short list of them: a nuanced position, real connectors, correct subjunctive where it belongs, lexical range, a concrete example. General "French improvement" moves those needles slowly. Training the moves directly is faster.

That's why everything starts with a diagnostic. You write and you speak, I score both against the same rubrics the examiners use, and you get a written report: your estimated level per skill, your main bottleneck, and the path to your target. The plan is built around your bottleneck, not a generic curriculum.

What beginner lessons look like

You speak French in the first ten minutes of lesson one. Badly, and that's fine. Confidence comes before competence, because the student who is willing to sound wrong practices ten times more than the one who waits to be ready.

We skip the things that stall beginners: no alphabet drills, no memorizing numbers to fifty, no accent-mark lectures. You learn useful sentences first and patterns instead of rules. Each session covers a handful of concepts drilled well, and homework is short and daily: flashcards, listening, and one small speaking or writing task.

Format

One-on-one, online, anywhere in Canada. I'm based in Montréal and work in English or French, whichever gets you further on a given day. Lessons run 60 to 75 minutes, and every lesson comes with a written walk-through you keep.

Where to start

A free 30-minute consultation. We talk about your goal and your timeline, and I give you a straight read on what it will take. No pressure and no pitch. You leave with a clear next step whether you book lessons or not. If you want the full process laid out first, it's here: diagnostic first, program second.