TESTIMONIALS
Students
Learning French with Jessica is a blast! My knowledge of (and confidence in) the language improved right away! She puts a lot of care into making sure our time together is engaging, and just the right level of challenging. Her enthusiasm helps me stay motivated and focused. I would recommend working with Jessica as a sure way to improve your French!
Arriving from San Fransisco, Jessica coached me for four months in conversational French so that I can more readily use it both personally and professionally in international development. I appreciated her way of integrating lessons with my everyday and professional life experiences, and she got me to enjoy practicing and refining my language skills. Jessica cleverly creates ways to serve a student’s specific needs keeping the study fun and interesting.
Jessica is a very professional, polite, and welcoming tutor. As a queer person, I felt comfortable and respected, and I was able to learn the terminology that is often used within the LBGTIQIA2+ community. It is clear that she takes time to customize and deliver material in a way that matches your learning style, and she is flexible if things need to change. I would recommend Jessica’s services to anyone who has specific needs in learning French and wants a tutor who is patient and adaptable
French classes with Jess really helped give me a boost, with a better perspective on my language learning process and tools for continuing to practice. Thank you Jess for helping me bring down that anxiety, and make practicing French practical and dynamic!
As musicians from New Foundland, we came to Jessica looking to study French together, and she crafted a lesson plan for us that included both simultaneous and separate sessions, and accommodated travel we had planned with remote lessons via Skype. She helped us build up our confidence speaking French, identified important areas of grammar and vocabulary where we could improve, and was often able to situate a language usage topic in contexts that were familiar to us. Working with her was a great experience and a valuable investment for us.
It’s now been 16 months! Learning with Jessica has greatly improved my French skills and increased my confidence in my ability to use those skills. Self-study and course work gave me basic French skills, but never the confidence to use them. After lessons with Jessica, I’m finally comfortable using what I’ve learned outside of the classroom! I’m now able to represent myself professionally in French, and am even participating in 100% French meetings regularly where I volunteer. Huge steps up from where I was a year ago!
As a professional Mexican photographer based in Montreal, Jessica’s lessons positively impacted my performance and communication with my clients, but also helped generate growth for my business. She gave me the confidence to speak to Quebeckers and enter the Quebec market in a very pleasant way. Her knowledge was insightful for situations that involved legal agreements, social media, and client negotiations. She helped me clarify the message I want to convey. Jessica is a very professional, patient and creative teacher.
Jessica is a great resource for artists learning french. She is very patient, knowledgable, and most importantly she understands the art world! She was able to offer specific/customizable learning plans that centered around my work in grant writing and theatre creation.
If you have tried to learn French before, then you know that the vocabulary and grammatical rules found in textbooks do not always reflect how the language is used in day to day life. It’s important because when it comes to communicating with real, live, native Francophones, knowing the right colloquialisms and idioms is as important as knowing how to correctly conjugate your verb tenses. Jess covers all these bases. She will help make sure that your French is not only technically correct but also appropriate for the specific, real-life contexts in which you’re speaking or writing!
As I arrived from Vancouver, Jessica was an excellent resource in terms of increasing my comprehension and comfort with the french language. Her teaching style is supportive and encouraging and she pays special attention to you as a student and the ways that you learn best. We connected as artists as well and her engagement in the arts made the lessons more interesting because she was able to incorporate my interests into the material. Definitely a great teacher!
Coming from L.A., I approached Jess looking to improve my French conversation skills and language comfortability so that I can better understand and communicate in social situations. Jess’ background as an artist and musician made it easy to relate to each other and helped me learn new vocabulary to talk about my own artistic practice in French. Aside from her artistic background, Jess has a very non-judgmental and encouraging attitude, which helped me gain confidence in speaking outside of our weekly lessons.
Collaborators
Jessica was invited to Vanier College in the Spring of 2019 to facilitate a 15ft x 6ft collaborative art mural as part of a campaign centering and celebrating our queer and trans communities at Vanier and beyond. She brought vision, passion to the project and invited students to help her color the mural offering explanations on her process and the piece. She was reliable and consistent in her work despite limiting scheduling constraints, communicated her needs clearly, and was very easygoing. She was well-organized, remained within the budget provided, and coordinated her team of two effectively and efficiently. It was a pleasure to work with Sika and the finished mural is both magnificent and meaningful – come by Vanier to check it out!
Jessica Valmé occupe un rôle clé dans mon obtention du poste de Directrice à la programmation du Centre des Arts de la Maison d’Haïti. Intuitive, elle a vu un potentiel sous-estimé et a investi son savoir-faire pour m’accompagner, et m’aider à relever mon mandat mesurant son impact dans la communauté. Jessica est une personne ressource avec qui j’ai partagé idées créatives, et avec qui j’ai réfléchi sur comment atteindre mes objectifs en affaire. Tout est dans son style, Jessica est réellement à l’écoute, impacte mon travail et sa passion est contagieuse!
Que des expériences enrichissantes avec Jessica! Massimadi est fier d’avoir collaboré avec Jessica (2018-17-16). Une personne méticuleuse qui sait ce qu’elle veut, encourage la créativité, favorise discipline et rigueur dans le travail. Elle a offert ses services à l’organisme Arc-en-ciel d’Afrique en créant des œuvres contribuant à promouvoir le festival. Sika fait preuve d’initiative artistique, a le sens des affaires gardant un esprit communautaire.