How tutor Gemma came to love all things French
Our tutor Gemma Lawley loves all things French. In fact, she’s a self-confessed Francophile. And she says it was 1980s hit song ‘Joe le Taxi’ by Vanessa Paradis that left her smitten with the French language.
After living for some years in France, Gemma spent a decade teaching French in a secondary school in Greater London before she moved north. In York, she worked at the city’s university delivering French to adult learners.
With such a wealth of experience and deep understanding of the language, she was a natural choice to become a French tutor at CasaLingua.
Gemma, who was born in Shropshire, delivers our online French classes and GCSE French group tutorials. So, let’s find out a little more about Gemma…
Tell us a bit more about your passion for all things French.
I’ve got a big passion for French things. I love the music, the food and wine! I’m taking it a bit easier on the cheese at the minute as I’m very much into fitness.
And what sparked your interest in the country?
I think I was about 9 or 10 when I heard ‘Joe le Taxi’, the song by Vanessa Paradis. I was smitten and wanted to study French at a very early age as a result. But I waited until secondary school, and it’s been a part of my daily life since. I managed to get to a Vanessa Paradis concert recently where she sang the song that started it all. It was a nice, full circle.
You deliver CasaLingua lessons online, how do you find that?
I enjoy it, although I had to adapt to teaching online. It started in 2020 when I worked for York University for their Languages for All programme, which is extracurricular. It was for adults outside of university, PhD students and undergrad and postgrad students. When Covid happened, I started teaching online – that’s already 6 years ago. So, I have been teaching online for a long time now.
When did you start working with CasaLingua?
I’ve completed a couple of years now. I would say it’s about two-and-a-half years.
How did you meet our founder, Kim?
She found me online and we arranged an interview. I was looking for some French tutoring online and she wanted to expand the business. I knew I had the skills she would need for a reliable, dynamic teacher. I’ve got used to working in the classroom and making people feel comfortable, and I’ve developed that online, too. I knew I could do it and the interview went well. Kim watched me leading a lesson where we used some of her existing students to get a feel for my teaching. It’s gone from there and really worked out for both of us.
What’s the difference between your lessons?
I teach French GCSE tuition for students who want to supplement their school-based learning and boost their chances of passing their GCSE French exam. It really helps some students to learn away from the school classroom. They learn from structured, guided sessions.
We’ve also had some individual one-to-one sessions where students are fairly fluent but want to develop their grammar. I also teach CasaLingua’s French lessons and the newer Holiday French lessons.
For Holiday French, we focus on basic introductions and key language to use for conversations while you’re away. It helps you get around town, order food and drink, go shopping and discuss problems, such as allergies. It also helps you become more confident with pronunciation as well.
What do you do when you’re not teaching?
I love to go swimming and cycling as I am very much into fitness. I’m now living in Powys, so I go for walks and enjoy being outside as it’s such a lovely, hilly area. I also love gardening and travelling. And I enjoy going on solo trips to explore cultures and art. I also do some paper marbling, where I make items such as lampshades with papers and have a website selling my work as a side line. Also, I love to cook, particularly French, of course, and I’m really into independent film festivals as well as jazz music!