Your Personalized Language Courses In Geneva & Vaud

Language Courses in Geneva and Vaud

Enroll in a language course in which everyone is active for one hundred percent of the time, and everyone actually speaks for about forty percent of it. Join a course in which students are not inhibited because there is no audience effect; in which students work in small classes of two independently of those around them; in which all the students know what to do and how to do it at all times. Join a language course where a teacher coaches the students towards their objectives.

Schedule your free trial lesson

language courses, Geneva, Vaud, business

My Linguistics provides language courses aimed, first and foremost, at helping students improve their communication skills. Whether for personal or business needs, we focus on helping our students use the language rather than learn about the language.

French courses Geneva, Language courses, Private, Geneva, Learn French, FIDE, Lausanne, French courses

About us

Our Story

We provide language training courses around the Swiss Leman region. Our training courses focus on helping our students improve their communication skills. To improve their spoken communication, students must first and foremost practice speaking. Our classes focus on helping our students speak as from the first course. Rather than learn about the language, students learn to use and acquire it intuitively. We divide our time between teaching, research, and course development to provide optimal langue training services.

Why Our Method Works

Our method is built around a core question: What is the most efficient approach to learning languages in a classroom? Our solution to this question is built around several fundamental considerations. Integrating the following considerations into each lesson creates an atmosphere conducive to language acquisition.

Condition 1

The student must use the language

For a student to learn how to speak, they must first and foremost Speak. It is inconceivable that a student learns how to speak solely by reading or writing. In a typical 1-hour course split between 1 teacher and 10 students, a single student may speak for 3 minutes, if not less. Our method, therefore, focuses on creating an environment where each student speaks for at least 40 percent of the class.

Condition 2

Lowering the audience effect

The audience effect can be described as the student’s inhibition to practice speaking when around an audience. Many students feel that those around them will judge them if they make mistakes. In a classroom, the teacher is also seen as a significant audience. By dividing students into groups, we lower this constraining factor. The teacher will move from group to group, offering help and advice.

When working in pairs, students will no longer feel inhibited by the presence of others and will no longer feel inhibited by the presence of a teacher.

Condition 3

Motivation

Personal motivation is a powerful tool when learning a language. The method used, and the teacher, are essential to help keep students motivated. A boring method will result in a loss of motivation; an overly convoluted method will also result in a loss of motivation. Our approach presents a diverse range of exercises and keeps students continually active.

By placing the students into groups, the student is forced to participate and will not be lost at the back end of a class. Students are also presented with materials on par with their current level.

Condition 4

Understandable and pertinent content

For students to acquire a language, they must understand what they are hearing and be presented with content that will be useful to their daily use. A student with little to no exposure to a language will not understand complex texts or concepts. Simply being spoken to will not help the student learn. The method and teacher must present information so that it is understandable and relevant to the student.

Condition 5

Long terms subconscious memory

Our ability to speak our first or second language is innately linked to our subconscious long-term memory. Our classes focus on providing students with content via a set of exercises built to target and improve language acquisition through their subconscious long-term memory.

Condition 6

Acquire the language, not learn about the language

In contrast to many methods, we focus on helping the student acquire the language rather than learn about the language. Students are taught to use the language to give them autonomy when communicating. Traditional classes focus on teaching students about the language, typically grammar. The issue is that this is done through memorization exercises, targeting short-term conscious memory. Unless the student is interested in grammar, this may lower the student’s motivation and is not optimal for subconscious long-term retention.

Condition 7

Have a good time!

This is probably the most important condition. Relax and have fun! A lot of serious people have put a lot of serious time into creating the course so that you can enjoy each lesson. So, have fun and enjoy the classes.

The Method FAQ

The method was first conceptualized in the early 1970s and was developed over decades by prominent linguists and neuroscientists. It was developed, tested, and applied in an international environment. Students included employees of international organizations, diplomatic missions in Switzerland, global 500 companies as well as private individuals.

The method was created by experts from a diverse set of disciplines. The heart of the method was developed by a team of prominent linguists specializing in various fields of linguistics. Experts in phonetics and phonology worked with experts in syntax, grammar, and pragmatics, to research and build a course focused on helping students acquire languages naturally in record times.

To build on traditional methods without rethinking their foundation means not addressing the critical challenges in language teaching. To optimize teaching and learning output, the underlying structure of the conventional class needs to change.

Traditional classrooms are composed of a single teacher facing a class. A teacher may spend 50 percent, or more, of a lesson speaking. In a class of 10 students, this means that each student may only talk for 3 minutes per lesson, if not less. It is hardly conceivable for a student to speak effectively in these conditions.

Students work in groups of two or three. Instructions for the course are given by the teacher and by a set of recordings provided to each student. Students use recordings to guide them across the course. The teacher becomes a facilitator and makes their way around the different groups to drive them forward.

To improve their comprehension, students must train their ear to the target language, particularly intonations, stresses, inflections, and nuances. Voices are recorded at a natural rhythm to help students understand native speakers who generally do not slow down or alter their speech when speaking. Recordings presented progressively and repeatedly in various forms and accents help students train their ear to the language and acquire new vocabulary.

Rather than learn about the language, students will learn to use it and acquire it intuitively. Students are presented with materials relevant to daily use. They learn to use the language, acquiring sentence structures naturally without thinking about their rules.

In its spoken form, language is innate to all human beings. We are all born with the ability to speak. However, no one is born with the ability to read or write.

Children learn their spoken language reasonably well by the age of three. Chinese, English, Greek, Russian, German… All perform equally well. Why then do we say that such and such a language is difficult (German, for instance)? Very simply because teachers make the language artificially difficult.

How? By focusing on teaching grammar. If grammar were so essential to learn to speak, why do we not teach 2-year-olds grammar? Traditional classes focus on teaching students about grammar, with all its intricacies, rather than teaching them how to use the language as a native speaker. This is not unlike teaching a dance student how to dance by sitting them down to read a book on the theory of rhythm, combined with 1-minute of dance practice.

Our classes focus on helping students acquire the language naturally and subconsciously. Students will not need to think about how a sentence is built, but rather express themselves intuitively. As the course progresses, they will be presented with written and reading exercises to help them build on the spoken language they will have already acquired.

Over three years, starting in 2019, MyLinguistics Sàrl worked on digitalizing the method previously in book and CD format. Digitalization also included a substantial modernization of content to ensure that the language is adapted to our current context.

Since the 1970s, language has evolved. New vocabulary exists, there have been shifts in grammar trends as well as social constructs. Digitalization also needed to integrate these changes to ensure students use and acquire pertinent and contemporary language.

No. The heart of the method revolves around human interactions. Students will always work in groups of two or three. Students do not work alone by interacting with a machine. Communication, this is to say speaking, is a distinctively human trait. This is done between people and not with a screen. Students need to feel comfortable speaking to other people, not machines.

Students use the digital format as they would have used a book: as a tool to help them move forwards in the class. While the method is now digitalized, this digital tool remains a tool. This is to say that the heart of the method still gravitates around communication between groups of people.

Why learn with us?

A method based on improving communication

Learn to use the language, not about the language.

Quick results

Students participate 100 % of the time and speak 40 %. Students, therefore, acquire the language faster than in traditional classrooms.

Classes in Geneva and Vaud

Students can take courses directly in our offices in central Geneva, 5 minutes from the train station, or we can provide onsite classes in the cantons of Geneva and Vaud.