My name is Julien Galliot, and I have been a teacher for 20 years for students of all ages and levels. I am Certified from the French Ministère de l’Éducation Nationale, and I have both a Masters in Education (CAPES) and a Masters in Literature from the University of Orléans.

     I am French – as you may have figured! – and I love movies, books and graphic novels, which I collect shamelessly. In my spare time, I like playing board games with my children, petting our two cats, and enjoying a date night from time to time with my delightful wife. I come from Laval, a small town in Brittany, the westernmost part of France near the coast of England. Ten years ago in 2009, my wife and I had an opportunity to move to the USA and we seized it. We’d always been fascinated by the American culture, and it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. With our two children in tow, we landed in Dallas, Texas, and started our new life in the USA. Our children, then aged 6 and 4, quickly learned the language, and are now fluent in both French and English. As a man in my 30s - my journey wasn’t as smooth.

     I studied English at school for 10 years, all the way up to College. My teachers were all French natives. In the classroom, we would follow a textbook and work on reading, writing and listening. We would study grammar and vocabulary, learn the intricacies of the English language, memorize lists after lists of words and irregular verbs. By the end of it, I felt pretty confident. I could write 100-page long papers, I could read Shakespeare, I could translate to and from English. And I would always pass proficiency tests with flying colors. That is, until I had to take a proficiency test with a native English speaker.

     I still remember it as if it were yesterday: the cold September air outside, the big, empty classroom, the lone table and the two chairs. The person in charge of the test was a Teaching Assistant from England. Barely older than me, he seemed nice enough and I felt confident in my ability anyway. After all, I had been taking many tests like this one before.

     Except this time, it all went wrong. He could barely make sense of what I was trying to say. My pronunciation, I realized, was awful. The words I knew were almost useless in daily conversation. I couldn’t convey my meaning the way I should have. This proved to be a grueling experience. By the end of it, the examiner took pity on me and graded my overall performance 13 out of 30, which amounts to an F anywhere in the US. I was badly shaken. I had always performed well in tests before, using the same English I had learned for years. So what had just happened?

     That day, I realized that, although I had been taught English, I couldn’t use it to actually interact with native speakers.

     The following year, I travelled to New York City with my wife on Valentine’s Day. And it happened again: at the airport, in the cab, at the hotel, at the restaurant, in stores.

​

     From that day, I decided the way I was learning and the way I would be teaching needed to change completely.

     As it happens, fluency is not a matter of the number of words you know, or the amount of grammar you have studied. It is about being able to have successful interactions with native speakers. It is about being able to speak in a way others will understand, and being able to understand the majority of what’s being said to you in everyday situations. It is about being able to use a language accurately, in a natural manner and in a way that’s consistent with the social codes of the people you are interacting with.

     And what I offer you is to embark on your very own journey toward French fluency.