Student Spotlight: Sarah and Matt
Learning Together
We love teaching couples and are always curious about their motivation, inspiration and how learning in tandem affects home life, homework and, ahhh, future travel experiences! Sarah and Matt offer some interesting answers and insights!
What inspired or motivated you to start learning French together?
I (Sarah) wanted to take French because j'adore le vin! We are planning several wine trips to France. Matt also lived there as a child and dreamed of owning a pied-à-terre in Paris one day. At the very least we plan on making France a more frequent travel destination. Matt already spoke elementary French and decided to join just to be able to practice with me. It has become so much more than just a hobby!
On a rooftop in Barcelona
What are some of the benefits of learning a language together? During Covid, French class feels like an oasis of exoticism. You not only learn the language, but it is impossible to not absorb a great deal of culture, FRENCH CUISINE, history, and French literature (we have an informal 'book club' now in class). Matt and I have so much fun around the house practicing French with our dogs, Alexa, and trying to form jokes/witty remarks. It feels like a secret language just for the two of us, making the most romantic language in the world feel even more intimate. It has also opened an entirely new genre of entertainment, as we now mostly watch French movies and television shows.
How would you describe your couples' course to a friend? What three adjectives would you use? We tell friends that while Duo and other programs teach vocabulary,, Speak! (Anne) makes French learning fun and conversational, quickly! Matt and I started at very different levels of French and Anne has been able to tailor the class to meet both of our needs as one novice and one intermediate learner. Anne is so special because English is her second language so she understands how adult learners learn best from personal experience. She is patient and gentle with corrections, never making you feel dumb. We play games like guess who and murder mystery or present your favorite recipe. My french learning went from a few words a week to putting together sentences after the first session!
If I was FORCED to condense my explanation of Speak! to 3 adjectives (which is so hard because I can talk about it for hours) I would say our class is: stimulating, rewarding, and high yield. I would also add we laugh A LOT! This is NOT your high school French class and it is NOT staring at your phone for 10 minutes a day never ACTUALLY being able to converse in French.
An Oasis of Exoticism :
“During Covid, French class feels like an oasis of exoticism. You not only learn the language, but it is impossible to not absorb a great deal of culture, FRENCH CUISINE, history, and French literature (we have an informal 'book club' now in class). Matt and I have so much fun around the house practicing French with our dogs, Alexa, and trying to form jokes/witty remarks. It feels like a secret language just for the two of us...”
A Word from Their Teacher: Anne Padilla
What’s it like teaching couples?
Well the pandemic has been hard on us, teachers, too ! So meeting couples around “apéro” time, has been my entire social life for a while ! And it has been a wonderful journey !
Do you do anything special when teaching couples?
When I teach couples, I want them to have the same experience as an individual lesson - tailored to their needs, levels and expectations. But obviously (even in a couple), you can’t have 2 people with the same level, the same personality, the same disponilility or the same way of learning.
My 2 secrets are:
Give each of them really quickly the vocabulary they need to be able to talk about their passion! Spoiler alert : It works ! I know more now about wine (thanks to Sarah and Matt), about Sci-Fi (I even discover a new French series thanks to Leslie and Ben), and about my own country (thanks to Jody and Jeffrey !)
I also try my best to avoid English (which is easy now as most of them don’t understand my accent ;-)
And Sarah is right, we laugh so much and en français évidemment !
