French Classes for American Expats
Hi, I'm Chris. Owner of OuiCommunicate.
I created this school to offer adults an effective way to learn French.
Our classes combine personal coaching and online homework.
We offer results you can quantify and a goal you can understand.
If your French teacher doesn't quite "get" you
If you need flexible bookings
Try an English-to-French bilingual school
We make failure impossible!
How we use billingualism
It’s nice that a teacher be a native speaker of the language they teach, it’s better if they also speak yours as a native. Press play to learn about our bilingual teaching of French.
Explore our resources
There’s so much depth to this website, we think it’s easier to show a video than to try to lay it all out in pictures and in writing. This is why we deliver results: no more grey zones!
French Classes for American Expats
Being an American and learning a foreign language comes with its share of challenges. There are self-imposed challenges such as the belief that “we are usually no good at languages” and those that find their origin in high school.
I’ve personally never been of the opinion that Americans were any less good than anyone else. After, all what does it even mean? But I do recognize those cultural challenges which I propose to pick apart one by one.
Firstly, many Americans are left with a lasting feeling of inadequacy because of high school. Many took a few years of Spanish, only to realize they were nowhere close to speaking it as adults. The problem we must address is that high school was not designed to make you good speakers of Spanish despite appearances. Just as they were not designed to make you great chemists or geographers.
The mission of high school is to give you an overall taste of different subjects. Even if some kids seem to have done well in Spanish, it is likely due to factors outside of school.
Next there is the self-imposed belief that Americans are “no good at languages”. Many British people believe the same thing of themselves which turns into a a self-fulfilling prophecy. No one can magically be good at something they have decided can’t work.
We understand that America is a huge territory on which only English need be spoken. But this does not “condition” a person to only be able to function in English.
The last point I’ve noticed very often with American students is the absence of a method, or rather a misunderstanding of the proper way of learning. Many figure that French is just another version of English and that it takes just a few words to “survive” in French.
But French is a different language system that has to be learned in a different way you learned English. It’s not just a transfer from one word to another. In this, we have to trust the teacher who might point out priorities that seem to contradict reason!
Dear American expats, you are entirely capable of learning French. Please check out the video below for proof!
Become our next "success story"!
The lady in this video is originally from NY and wished for us to help prepare her move to France.
Today, she is fluent and happily lives in France where she meets new people and uses French daily.
The “secret” to her success is nothing more than what we offer you: the same learning material and the same approach.
But don’t take our word for it: read the review she wrote for our Google Business page!
How we can help you
We’re the only school who is as much English-spoken as they are French-spoken. Usually, teachers are native speakers of one, with a good understanding of the second. We are native level in both.
Where this can help you is that we exactly know where you are coming from. We’ve taken the engine apart and looked into English, which we teach as a first AND a second language. We exactly know how English works as a system.
This implies that we can “read” into your use of French, almost as if we were reading into your English-speaking mind. We know exactly how you think about language. But not just in terms of the accent. We also know how you built sentences, use intonation, use tenses…and we know how this will influence your French.
The second advantage (of many) is that you avoid a French way of teaching you French. It is often too deeply rooted in tradition without taking into account your identity. French teachers do what they think is best according to FLE teaching norms.
We can also help you make sense of French and explain things in a way that properly resonates with you. We can say “whether English does this, French does that”. You have an answer to every question in a second. We also pick up on errors just as fast.
Ultimately, we don’t offer a miracle solution towards French. But we do offer a step up from what is usually found in language schools and that in itself is valuable. Every little advantage gets you closer.
Book a free Q&A!
No preparation needed
Wish to know more? Phone Chris now or send a Whatsapp message to +1 860-339-6480.
You can book a trial class with no preparation through the booking calendar.
No French skills needed!
Classes are on Skype for reasons of convenience.
Find us on Skype at:
live:reulandchristopher
To conclude...
If you still have hesitations about the help we can offer you, please do contact us for an informal chat. We are always very happy to take you through the slightest point of our approach to teaching French. Sometimes, it helps to hear it in ways we can properly relate to.
From experience, I have seen that France has an almost mythical quality that keeps expats from leaning French. Almost as if a lot of the pleasure was in a certain incomprehension of our surroundings. We wish for the magic of the cheese and the wine to go on forever.
To this I would answer that fully appreciating France necessarily goes through the language. To us who know the essence of the French people, their way of thinking is only appreciated when we understand their language.
Perhaps it will be a bittersweet realization that the food and the other stereotypes do not define French people. Getting lost in the French fruit markets may be a pleasure for now, but a true understanding of the people around us is in communication, not in observation. I hope to meet you soon! Thanks for stopping by, Chris.
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