About

Bonjour, I’m Léa!

I’m a French teacher, writer and lifelong language learner, born and raised in the Loire Valley, France.

I began teaching in 2013 and have since taught more than 10,000 hours of French lessons to students from all over the world.

Over the years, I’ve taught learners in Finland, Latvia, Sweden, Switzerland, Japan, Korea, and many other places. More recently, much of my teaching has focused on students in the United States and the United Kingdom — two countries, and two groups of learners, that have become especially close to my heart.

And yes, I’ve fully embraced some of the cultural pleasures along the way. I love the fall atmosphere in America — the colors, the pumpkins, the pecan treats, and, naturally, a very hot pumpkin latte. And I never quite fell out of love with the Cotswolds after spending an immersion holiday there as a teenager.

As for British Christmas traditions: if anyone has an authentic brandy-and-plum Christmas pudding recipe to share, je suis preneuse !

I hold a Master’s degree in Language Education from Sorbonne University (Paris IV), but some of the most important things I know about teaching have come from thousands of hours spent across the table — or the screen — from my students.

Pour apprendre à parler, il faut parler !

My teaching philosophy begins with one very simple idea:

Pour apprendre à parler, il faut parler.To learn to speak, you have to speak.

French is not something I want my students simply to study. I want them to use it: to tell a story, make a joke, express an opinion, understand a film, order dinner, discuss a book, travel, work — and gradually feel more and more like themselves in another language.

That doesn’t mean ignoring grammar. Quite the opposite! We work on grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary, listening and accuracy, but always with a purpose: helping you communicate with greater ease, precision and confidence.

My lessons are highly personalized. Some students want structured grammar consolidation. Others need conversation practice, pronunciation work or help understanding fast-spoken French. Many need a mixture of everything.

And because learning does not stop when our 55 minutes together are over, I also create audio series, podcasts, worksheets and personalized review activities designed to keep French present between lessons.

Teaching language — and the culture behind it

One of the things I value most in teaching is helping students bridge not only a language gap, but a cultural one.

I know from experience that translating words is often the easy part. The more interesting questions are things like: Would a French person actually say this? Why does this sound too formal? Why does this joke work in English but fall flat in French? Why does this conversation feel perfectly normal in one country and strangely uncomfortable in another?

Living abroad has made me particularly sensitive to those questions.

I have lived and taught in Finland, Switzerland and the United States, and my experience in America has gone far beyond visiting or observing from the outside. I have studied here, earned an American degree, built a family life here and raised my son here.

I also know the wonderfully ordinary parts of American life: driving everywhere, figuring out health insurance, dealing with paperwork, schools, appointments, customer service, everyday conversations and all the little assumptions that become invisible when you grow up inside a culture.

That experience has taught me how much can get lost even when a translation is technically correct.

When I teach American and British students, I therefore try to do more than translate French into English. I help them understand the cultural logic behind the language — what sounds natural, what carries an unspoken implication, what may come across differently in France, and where French and Anglophone habits unexpectedly overlap.

And there is a lot of overlap.

After years of teaching students in the US and the UK, I’m continually struck by how much we have in common — our humor, family stories, frustrations, curiosity, books, food, work, travel and the countless ordinary things we end up talking about during lessons.

For me, that human connection is one of the best parts of language teaching.

Language, sound and memory

I have always been fascinated by the way languages sound.

I love literature and poetry, and I memorize poems in different languages simply for the pleasure of hearing their rhythms take shape. I also write poetry myself; in 2025, one of my poems received a prize in the humour category.

That fascination with sound, repetition and memory naturally finds its way into my teaching and into projects such as Par cœur and Le Vignoble.

I want learners not only to know French, but to hear its patterns so often that the language begins to feel familiar — almost instinctive.

The best part of my work

After all these years, my students are still the reason I love this job.

I have had the privilege of teaching people with extraordinarily different lives, personalities and goals. They make me think, laugh, research obscure grammar questions, discover books and films, rethink my own language, and continually become a better teacher.

Some have been studying with me for years. Over time, lessons naturally become more than exercises and corrections: we follow each other’s lives, celebrate progress, exchange recommendations, laugh at the same running jokes and occasionally spend far too long discussing something that began as a vocabulary question.

I have the most wonderful job because I have the most wonderful students.

I’m incredibly grateful for the trust they place in me — and for everything they have taught me in return.

And perhaps you’ll be next 🙂

Bienvenue chez Léacafé.