Having obtained a Degree in French and Spanish back in 1999 it wasn't until her daughter arrived in 2012 that the idea of finally using her own language skills as a business became a reality - years of not feeling good enough or struggling to find a career that would value and use her language skills led her to join La Jolie Ronde as a licensee teaching children aged 0-12 in schools, nurseries and
open centres and then to join Language for Fun teaching adults in the community as a self-employed franchise business owner. Christianne is a compassionate, passionate, considerate and encouraging French and Spanish learner, teacher and coach. Christianne believes that learning anything is a journey and with languages the need to ask quesitons, have support, accountability and a gentle nudge from a smiling face is essential. Through her Language for Fun classes this is exactly what Christianne provides for adults. When Covid hit in 2020, whilst attempting to home school and keep her language business alive she managed to flip most of her face to face classes to online learning which meant a steep learning curve for learners and teacher alike - and all in all it was a success! Technology is wonderful (when it works and you know what you are doing)! As a result of this experience Christianne realised more than ever that building connections is a key part to learning a language and there are so many people who want to or have started to learn a language but who don't have a safe place to practise or ask questions, who want to know more but feel intimidated by either;
a)the Big Language providers who project that "learning is easy, it only takes 2 weeks" and are overwhelmed with information and different resources or
b) those who say whats the point?, everyone speaks English these days, why are you bothering? and who put learners on the spot by saying "go on then, whats the word for (insert random word here)? Christianne believes that providing a safe space to help learners move from fumbling to flourishing is more valuable than promoting fluency - what does that even mean anyway? Through her experience of online teaching Christianne is expanding her offer to parents of teenagers studying languages. At the same time she is embarking on a journey to challenge the gap between what language skills the UK needs in a post-brexit world and the reasons why they are not there. When not learning, teaching or coaching Christianne is found in the garden practising tai chi (taught by one of her own French learners during the first lockdown, thank you V), playing ipad games with her daughter (currently gardenscapes and roblox), being in nature, walking and training her young black lab Skyla (to not take other dogs balls and give them back rather than running off) playing cricket (joined a local team in 2021 and currently playing friendlies), cooking nutritional meals with her husband, David (he is marathon training so lots of carbs for him), listening to music, journalling and enjoying the odd G&T in the hottub.
