Our Dialogue Experience

Over the years enterprises which "promise their customers less, yet deliver more" are the successful ones. Exceeding clients' expectations as a routine matter happens only through careful attention to every aspect...down to the smallest detail... of the enterprise. While such business terminology is not often applied to the educational and training process, in the case of Dialogue it most certainly deserves to be.

We arrived at Dialogue with a common interest in learning French, but differences in experience level, language skills and learning styles.

Between us we've had exposure over the years to many different training methods in dozens of settings, thus we feel competent to compare and measure Dialogue against other approaches.

Some of our key observations are:

oThe excellence and consistency among our several trainers were remarkable. They obviously loved their work. They were patient, helpful, enthusiastic, encouraging, creative, skilled at regularly delivering constructive, corrective feedback, and moving from one good-natured trainer to the next was a virtually seamless process for us the learners.

oWhile all trainers were clearly adhering to a common method, their individual creativity, sense of humor and enthusiasm shone through. As promised, training was strictly one-on-one; no group sessions.

oThe personalized subject matter developed on-the-spot to be taken back home on individualized cassettes comprises current and immediately useable autobiographical phrases and sentences...essential to meaningful later conversation.

oLiving at Jean-Luc and Claudine Godard's villa in comfortable, private rooms and partaking of Claudine's delicious home-cooked meals, accompanied by French-only conversations with fellow students and ever-present friendly faculty added tremendously to the experience.

In summation, we've arrived home with a very clear understanding of the ongoing steps we must take to insure that we not only keep alive the language skills we've gained, but also to move ahead. We are already planning our return to Dialogue within a year for another rewarding and satisfying experience.

Margot Dexter and Palmer Swanson