Take lessons with a French teacher in Stoke-on-trent

While the popularity of French at GCSE has dipped in recent years, it remains one of the most popular languages for students to learn at secondary school. It's widely taught in schools around the UK and is largely considered one of the most important languages in the world.

Let's see why you should study French, the challenges you'll face, what students will learn about it in school, and how a private French tutor can help you improve your foreign language skills.

Why It's Important to Study French

If you're going to learn a foreign language, French is often at the top of many students' lists as it's still an important language both in the countries where it's an official language and internationally.

As an official language, French is spoken in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, as well as in Canada and several countries across Africa. Additionally, French is the official language for several international and political organisations including the UN, EU, NATO, WTO, and the IOC.

In terms of careers, speaking French will help you find work in any country or organisation where French is the official language, in business with French companies or customers, and language careers like translation and interpreting.

For native English speakers, learning French can also be useful as, according to EF's English Proficiency Index, the level of English spoken in France is among the worst in Europe.

Challenges in French

Of course, learning foreign languages isn't always easy and French is no exception. Firstly, reaching a decent level in any foreign language can take years of teaching, especially if you only have a few lessons a week at school or university.

It's a lot of work and many students will struggle with unlearning the rules they know in English since you can't just translate directly from English into French and hope that it makes sense; you need to learn the grammatical rules, structures, and protocols of the language.

Some students will struggle a lot with pronunciation since French uses a lot of sounds that don't exist in English. You'll need to learn to make new shapes with your mouth and make sounds that you've never made before in your life.

As we said, learning a foreign language is a long process and it'll be many years before you sound like a native. A private tutor can help, but more on that later...

Areas of French Studied at School

For many students, the first official language exam that they'll take will be their GCSE, even if they've been studying French since primary school.

We've taken the AQA exam in French as an example so make sure you check the course content for your French GCSE if you're studying with a different exam board.

On the French GCSE, students will learn vocabulary to help them talk about a variety of topics including themselves, their family, and friends, technology, hobbies, food, French customs and festivals, shopping, travel and tourism, and their studies, jobs, and career choices.

French GCSE students also learn some fundamental grammar including nouns and articles, prepositions, adjectives, adverbs, and pronouns as well as grammatical tenses including the present, perfect, pluperfect, imperfect, future, and conditional tenses.

While the GCSE is the first step for many students, the level of teaching is quite low and it's unlikely that your level will be high enough to secure any work with your French skills. It's highly recommended that students continue studying French at A Level and study it at university either as a dedicated subject or alongside other subjects in fields they'd like to work in.

Private Tuition in French

The main problem with teaching languages in primary school, secondary school, or even university is the fact that the teaching isn't adapted to each student's level, ability, or aptitude.

When it comes to learning a language, be it French, Spanish, German, or Chinese, students can learn in very different ways and need opportunities to practice their new language. In larger classes, they rarely get an opportunity to speak or there isn't the time to spend several lessons focusing on a single point for one student when all the other students in the class need to be moving onto other topics or subjects.

Of course, you can't blame the teacher for this as they're rarely given the time and resources they need to teach their classes as effectively as they'd like. Private tutors, on the other hand, can ensure that each of their classes is tailored to their student's experience in the language, what they want to learn, and how they like to learn.

For those no longer attending school, private tutors can help you bolster your CV with foreign language skills and teach you vocabulary and language skills relevant to the field you work in, too!

Finding a French Tutor in Stoke-on-Trent

If you're looking for private French tutors in Stoke-on-Trent, just search for them on the Superprof website. You can browse the tutors' profiles and compare their experience, level, rates and read reviews left by their other students.

If there aren't any suitable tutors available in Stoke-on-Trent, you can always broaden your search to include online private tutors. When it comes to learning foreign languages, online tutorials are a great option as you can more easily find native speakers and when it comes to academic subjects like foreign languages or even hard sciences like maths, chemistry, or physics, online tutorials can be just as effective as face-to-face tutoring.

For those on a budget, group tutoring is a useful way to learn a foreign language while sharing the cost of the tutor's time and expertise with the other students. While you won't enjoy all the benefits of face-to-face or online tutoring, small groups are useful as they allow students to practise their language skills with other learners of the same level while still having more access to their teacher than they would in a larger class.

A lot of the tutors on Superprof offer the first lesson or hour of tutoring for free. Use these sessions to try out various private tutors before choosing the one that's right for you or your child. After all, with foreign language tutors, students will be spending a lot of time talking to them so they must get on well with them.