Adrien Jourdan
Director, manager and course creator
ISpeakSpokeSpoken
I’m firmly convinced that anyone can express themselves in English with the right methods, the right trainer and… a bit of time and the means to get there.
That’s why, since 2016, I’ve devoted most of my days to developing the ISpeakSpokeSpoken community and coordinating the team so I can help YOU learn English and speak it fluently.
My favorite word in English? Ombudsman /ˈɑːm.bədz.mən/ which means mediator and comes straight from Scandinavia.
A piece of my story
I grew up on my parents’ goat farm in a remote hamlet between Saint Etienne and Clermont Ferrand in the Massif Central.
After a month of English at college, the first English mark fell: 6.5 / 20, the worst in the class. To top it all off, the teacher graded the papers from best to worst…
By the end of high school, I was doing quite well in English, but I couldn’t make myself understood orally. Mostly because of my poor pronunciation, my French accent.
But I was firmly convinced that mastering English would be an indispensable asset for my career. Without knowing that I was going to make it my profession… to help YOU.
With a degree in Applied Foreign Languages (English and German) and a Master’s degree from a business school, I’ve since learned Russian, can speak Spanish and am starting to get by in Estonian. I even taught F.L.E. (French as a Foreign Language) in Russia almost 10 years ago.
As a traveler, I spent 2 years in Germany, 3 years in Russia and 2 years in Estonia.
My approach
to teach you English
on ISpeakSpokeSpoken
A language is above all a tool for communication. I deeply believe that language learning should not be an academic subject for most of you. But that’s how learning English often feels: technical, boring, uninteresting, impractical. Outside ALL concrete reality.
Particular attention needs to be paid to pronunciation (through phonetics, for example). Indeed, if a language is used to communicate, you need to be understood by your interlocutors. And in English, that means working specifically on your accent. Otherwise, your oral presentation will never be up to scratch.
Learning grammar is essential. But it should be done in a concrete way: with as many examples as possible! The same goes for learning vocabulary: there are many tricks to help you memorize words and expressions more easily.
These elements are essential for practicing English. PRACTICE is the only way to finally speak English correctly and with confidence. It allows you to memorize and apply what you’ve already seen, while having fun at the same time. If it’s well done.
You can see my training style and pedagogy in action by clicking on this link to access the YouTube videos.
My qualifications
to help you
I have a degree in foreign languages from France (Université Jean Monnet de Saint-Étienne) and Germany (Bergische Universität Wuppertal), with honors.
I taught French as a foreign language in a private school (mostly Russian-speaking students).
I took the Cambridge Proficiency Exam (CPE), the highest certification awarded by the organization. It corresponds to level C2 in English.
5 years after its launch, ISpeakSpokeSpoken now has over 10,000 students and a community of over 250,000 regular course participants.
My approach
is for you, if…
You have no opportunity to practice English, so you make little or no progress.
You need to be able to talk to English speakers to improve your skills.
You think your accent is (really) bad.
You’re (a little) ashamed of your English and it frustrates you every time you have to say a word. It even prevents you from making yourself understood when you’re trying to get a sentence across.
You’ve already started learning English again after a break, but you soon gave up…
Or maybe you’re feeling (hyper) unmotivated. Because you think, and rightly so, that you’re not using the right method(s) to FINALLY be able to speak English.
Not to mention the fact that, when speaking, you often lack one or more words or basic expressions to make yourself understood and to form your sentences correctly.
