I’m Alexandre Thiercelin. I was born in Paris, where I studied philosophy — I hold a PhD and passed the agrégation, France’s highly competitive national teaching exam. That background still shapes how I think about teaching: less about reciting the right answer, more about following an idea until it makes sense.

Before moving into language teaching, I taught philosophy for several years at both lycée and university level in France.

Fifteen years ago, I moved to Berlin, where I later studied mathematics. That move gave me something a language teacher doesn’t always have: I know, from the inside, what it feels like to rebuild a life and a way of thinking in a second language and a different culture. I hold dual French and German citizenship, and I move between both cultures every day, not just on paper.

For the past two years, I’ve taught French as a foreign language at the Institut français de Berlin. I’m currently completing the DAEFLE (Diplôme d’aptitude à l’enseignement du français langue étrangère), the CNED’s professional qualification for teaching French to non-native speakers, to formalize and deepen that practice.

My background in mathematics also gives me the technical grounding to experiment extensively with AI alongside my students — not as a buzzword, but as a practitioner who tests, seriously and often, what actually helps them think and communicate in French, while keeping a sharp eye on what stays pedagogically relevant.

All of this feeds into how I teach conversation: not rehearsed small talk, but the ability to make the most of whatever situation you find yourself in, in French, and to actually reach your goals within it. I want students to leave equipped to handle a real conversation wherever it goes and get what they came for — not just able to recite the right script.

What I care about most is real, living French — the French people actually speak in France. That means grammar and vocabulary, of course, but also syntax: word order, and the way a sentence is shaped to carry rhythm and texture. But it goes beyond the language itself: it’s also about the habits that come with it — typically French ways of thinking, speaking, interacting, even feeling. That’s the French I want students to leave speaking, not a textbook version of it.