Welcome to The Language Library

Hi, I’m Valérie! I thought it best to take the word here directly to welcome you to The Language Library and to tell you about the passion of languages, the idea and ambition of TLL!

Born and raised in Switzerland, and even having grown up in an international family, the value of any language as a tool for communication became apparent to me rather late – in my late teens I would say. It should have been obvious to me, but let’s be honest: we are all forced to learn a language at one stage of our life, and most often it is in school and we didn’t even choose the language! And I would bet that most of us actually have a story about a horrible French, English, Italian, Spanish, or German teacher who influenced our attitude towards the respective language …

This also happened to me – what most got to me was the environment that was hostile towards open learning (meaning being impatient and micro-manage smallest mistakes) and inviting students to practice the language speaking out aloud without having a safe space to do so. There was a lot of shame when giving wrong answers, ridiculing when pronouncing words the wrong way, or eye rolling when you tried something new and a little out-of-the-box. It blocked me getting more involved with the language in question and made going to these lessons always painful and stressful… everything that it shouldn’t be!

The hope of better language teaching led me to study Chinese, Arabic and Japanese in different universities. It also took me around the world, making me appreciate all the ways of and the varied approaches people have to learning and teaching. I came out of university, well packed with linguistic principles and first experience in creative teaching of children and young adults, promising myself that I want to give my students the best possible learning environment: fun, engaging, demanding, encouraging, and safe. Having tried myself in teaching for different schools, including teaching adults and professionals from all flocks of the business spectrum, I decided to wanting more freedom in setting up my language lessons: this is how The Language Library was born.

My personal approach to teaching and the methodology all our teachers employ is one of high engagement, a well-paced curriculum tailored to your needs and with an abundant variety of content. All fancy words to say that we do not bury our heads and you in boring, run-off-the-mill language learning content, but that we want to teach you language skills in a creative and interactive way. We want students to be speaking as much as they can during the lessons, we use different media, such as series, podcasts, and short stories to give you a real-life learning environment rather than clinically sterile grammar exercises … some might not to be avoided, but we operate along the guidelines of “as much as needed, as little as necessary” 😊.

During all my own language learnings I encountered that there are ups and downs when acquiring language skills. We are dedicated to cater to those needs, being your cheerleader when you need cheering on and your coach when you need good guidelines. What we are first and foremost interested in is that you can advance towards your language goals and that in a safe and inspiring environment. This is why we set up all lessons individually for the students in a class – some might need more listening practice, other want to speak more and prepare presentations, speeches, or negations. No two people are the same and no two people learn in the same manner – but in the end, we all need some curiousness and fun to learn a new language.

Of course, life does not only constitute of work (even though I joke once in a while that I have a “work-work balance” rather than a “work-life balance”) and whenever I am not working, you can find me cooking my favorite dishes from all over the world, being outdoors doing some long-distance hiking, traveling, and catching up with my friends and family. 

I would be more than happy to welcome you to The Language Library as a new student and of course I always love to chat about languages, culture, food, travels, and your goals and progress! So, please do not hesitate to contact me directly with your questions via valerie@the-language-library.com!

All the best,

Valérie