The Importance Of Tutoring Support In French Outside The Classroom

Learning a second language is a tricky business. Regular practice is an essential, and helps massively in retaining new vocabulary and grammatical structures. However, it’s also important not to burn students out or overwhelm them with too much information, lest they lose interest or become put off.

That said, the evidence is there to support at least some level of tutoring support outside the classroom – and this goes for second languages such as French just as much as anything else. 

What Is Learning Outside The Classroom? 

It’s exactly what it sounds like – reviewing new language or putting it into action beyond the four walls of the classroom. It can be done independently but is often much more effective with tutoring support. Such tutoring support can take many forms; let’s take a look at the most effective. 

French Immersion

‘Immersion’ language learning is where the student is plunged into an environment where their second language (in this case, French) is all around them, thus requiring that the student use that language to navigate the situation. 

Immersion is great because it grounds the language, making it more ‘real’ to students, and the nature of the environment means that the students need to use the language to get by. It transforms French into an academic subject into a necessary life skill, and thus cements it in the student’s mind much more effectively. 

Virtual Learning With A Virtual Tutor 

If the 2020 pandemic taught us anything, it’s the value of virtual learning. By practicing once or twice a week with a virtual tutor, students are able to reinforce newly acquired grammatical structures and lexical sets rather than simply forgetting about them for a week. Language is retained when it is used regularly; not left to gather dust in your memory attic until the next in-classroom class. 

Bilingual Learning 

An effective way of teaching French outside the classroom is to communicate bilingually. In this way, students are able to use their primary point of reference – their mother tongue – to contextualize a second language such as French and better understand it. 

Bilingual learning can be as simple as spending time with a tutor who communicates only in French, but allows the student to use their mother tongue to ask questions and communicate with the tutor. 

Conclusion 

We’ve only scratched the surface of how tutor support outside the classroom can help students, but we hope that this have given you an idea of the many benefits of extracurricular tutor support for students of French. Harness the power of tutoring support for you or your children today!