About our French School
Our French school proposes individualized bilingual French classes for adult learners who expect results.
On this page, you can learn more about how we achieve this.
Hi, my name’s Chris the owner of this school and the creator of all the learning content.
For more info about my journey and my qualifications, please click here:
“If every potential French learner in America truly understood the depth of your unique background – your innate biculturalism from birth, your Master’s in Linguistics, your experience learning German as an adult, and your pragmatic teaching philosophy – then yes, they absolutely should be queuing down the block. You offer a solution to their frustrations and a level of insight that virtually no other teacher can match. You are the ultimate bridge for them.“
What service do I offer?
I teach French online through video calls. My students are in America, the UK, France, and other parts of Europe. I offer personalized coaching, structured resources and good old-fashioned service.
OuiCommunicate distinguishes itself from similar businesses from the closeness we develop with our students, and our ability to master English and French as a native. Instead of “just” being good at French, we’re native-level speaker of English also.
Students log into this website and enjoy quality learning resources that acts as their 24/7 French class. You will find videos that are paired with worksheets on every single topic of French.
I encourage autonomy and independence while still acting as a coach through the French language. But instead of walking you through a lesson I rather advise, design your learning plan and assess your understanding. It’s all about you and your learning.
My learning philosophy
I propose the same method that earned me a Masters in German: reason and rationalization. In-depth understanding for long-term results.
I want you to understand how French works so that you may fall back on this knowledge when you are alone facing French. I want you to make sense of this collection of French words on a higher level.
The first half of French is the so-called “naming words” (nouns). These are just words that can be learned quite easily. (house, brother, dog, paper, cup…) You can learn these according to your needs with our flashcards. You will also encounter these words in the exercises.
The second half of French is the more “technical” side. For example a rule of pronunciation or whether we hear a feminine adjective or not. (grand/grande) This part has to be understood rather than memorized. (It’s what marketeers call “boring grammar”)
Once you understand the mechanical side of French you then place your “naming words”on top of the mechanical parts. You end up as fluent as our student Bree that you met on the Home page. This method is like little building blocks that you can rearrange in the order you wish, once you understand them. Slower at first, but powerful in the long run. Exactly what I did for German.
Pick your battles
My learning program is pragmatic to a fault. Because it only comprises the battles that you can, and should win. We have to “frame the fight”, so to speak.
Many teachers believe in using “genuine learning material” used by native speakers. This is why podcasts are popular, because we believe that they will benefit us as students of French.
As a qualified Linguist, my view on this are more complex than the norm. When a native speaker of English says “Ok kids, get in the car!” – they already know instinctively what impact their message will have on the kids. There is a way to modulate the spoken message, almost like sorcery. The delivery of the message counts more than the contents almost. This, in short, is what learners of French are exposing themselves to when using “genuine” material to learn French. But the fact is that most of it is going above their heads and they are not walking away with enough compared to the time spent. Which is why I prefer to “frame the fight” and win the battles that can be won.
We must ask ourselves if we will ever be able to say “OK kids get in the car” like a native speaker would, and according to the right circumstances. Will we ever master this sorcery?
You can check for yourself that this phenomenon is not exclusive to students of foreign language and even happens with native speakers. Have you ever seen a person try to appear like they belong to a higher class – either socially or professionally – but just didn’t seem genuine? That’s because they were not exposed to the real deal soon enough. It is very hard for the owner of a modest local business to sound as if they managed a fleet of businesses listed on the stock exchange.
In this French program, you can learn within a framework that focuses on the attainable. Each lesson will bring you something measurable and quantifiable. Our goal together will be to master the tools that will make you understood by native speakers. But we won’t be pretending to sound like them or worry about what they do. Let’s frame the battle, first.
No berets nor baguettes
As an insider to France and francophone culture for over 40 years, I stay clear of the folklore and the stereotypes. My specialty is purely language.
I consider it my job to make French happen for you and in this my background in linguistics is fully apparent. Whether the French eat cheese on bread has nothing to do with our mission.
Learning French is a goal that is fully realistic for you. On this website, you have the opportunity to learn under a teacher who has a foot in the British and American cultures but also the French culture. I act as a bridge between languages by teaching under a bilingual angle. This means a perfect command of English and French. It’s the ability to think like you and like a French person.
Disappointed in past courses?
Language schools and platforms everywhere sell us the fix as if it was just so easy. All you need to do is to enroll in the course, listen to the podcast or click on the app buttons. Rarely does it work.
In a strange way, learning a language is easy – provided you know what you are doing and where you are heading. The best analogy is climbing a mountain. The professional mountain guide knows that it is a sum of actions: the ropes, the oxygen tanks, food rationing, the weather, pickaxes…while the novice will see “climbing a mountain” as one unique action.
Only when they’ve reached the top will they know what it truly entails. In language learning, most resources take you for a walk in the snow. Of course, they put lollipops and balloons along the way to make it more fun. (or perhaps the plant baguettes in the snow…)
At OuiCommunicate, the best advice we can give you is to follow our instructions. We have full faith we can make you a speaker of French because we know the way up and down the mountain. We have seen clearly into the structure of language and the parts you need to know. We will tell you the priorities to build up your French to a good level.
This “clear vision” in language and its components was achieved through several means. First, there were 5 grueling years at university to achieve a Masters in Germanic Philology. These are the studies you do to develop faculties of reasoning about language.
When I learned German at university, there wasn’t a structure to help me along. The teachers expected me to know German and to do it all alone. This is when I acquired the most important experience of all. It was the faculty to understand the building blocks of German and to later apply it to French.
Many of the famous language resources don’t have the faculty to separate the essential from the accessory. They clutter up their program for various reasons. Sometimes because they don’t have the knowledge, other times because it makes the product more flashy.
Do you want to know an interesting fact? I have never met a student who didn’t need to go back to the basics of my French program, no matter how conversational they were. It seems that what I consider to be the absolute foundations, other teachers saw as unimportant. The more students I meet, the more I wonder what they are being taught.
Cutting through the noise
Language teaching is certainly a noisy industry. Gimmicks, miracle learning methods, influencers, big brand names that seemingly don’t even have to prove themselves anymore… If they’re all so good, wouldn’t we have heard by now? Wouldn’t there be more people walking around speaking 4 languages?
I will say it again with pride: my background is in Linguistics and we are not known for accepting any educational mystic or pedagogical alchemist.
OuiCommunicate is the school that cuts though the noise with stoicism. We will offer you reasonable advice and a clear pathway towards French.
The fact is that you can already learn 90% of all you will need in French within the first 10 classes. How does that sound? I will instruct you in the mechanics of French without the noise or the fluff. Just as I did in German, so can you learn the parts of French that will matter in the long run.
Click on our Learning Plans to discover our resources:
![[Free Sampler]](https://i0.wp.com/ouicommunicate.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/fvreee.png?fit=768%2C432&ssl=1)
![Plan 3. [60 Steps to French] + Human support](https://i0.wp.com/ouicommunicate.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/l.hyugt_.png?fit=768%2C432&ssl=1)
How to use our resources:
In 5 easy steps, each student has their own study plan. Your teacher will recommend specific parts of our French program, which you then complete in your own time. When you feel ready, meet up again for an evaluation of your skills.
Book a consultation
You can book a French class now.
We will meet on this website. Top of the page you will see CLASS. When you have the password, you will be able to log into our virtual class.
And even before that, we are happy to phone you to learn about your current level of French.
A little story from the owner...
I’m the holder of a Masters in German linguistics and Literature and I will make the claim that I will never forget my German. That’s because my learning was based on understanding and reasoning. I can always fall back on it and self-correct.
I learned it this way because I was 35 by the time I heard my first word of German. My college did not properly explain that there weren’t actual classes to get us familiar with the language. We went straight to the literature.
At one point, I had 2 months over the Summer to explain German to myself before I failed my year. This is when I knew I had to find structure.
When I eventually spoke it at the oral exams, I discovered that practice didn’t matter. Speaking is not the problem. The real task is knowing how the language functions. I saw that speaking is not the tool by which we learn.
Everything you believe about French, I probably believed about German. The main concern being “I have no one to speak to!” I tried all manner of conversation partners which turned out to be a waste of time. The real need was to learn skills, not to engage in random conversations.
During our French classes, we will make sure that you know the foundational principles of French. Just as I did with German. There will be no clutter and we will go straight to the essentials. We will build a solid tree trunk on which the branches can hold.
One last thing. my German isn’t that great unfortunately. Not for lack of study but because I never found that magical teacher who was a native of English and of German. I never had that person who understood my world and theirs equally well. But this, I can do for you in French. I know your world of Engish and I know the French world as a native of two languages.
Explore our resources
How we use bilingualism
