Parlons French: Opening doors to French learners around the world

While searching online for a trumpet teacher for her son, Estelle Materne kept running into the same problem: every platform expected payment before she knew if the teacher was the right fit. 

She couldn’t speak to anyone beforehand, making it impossible to understand who the teachers were or how they taught.

The experience left her wondering why something so simple felt so difficult. “Why didn’t more teachers have their own websites?” she thought.

That question stayed with her. As a French teacher herself, Estelle realized her own prospective students might have the same problem. A website could help solve this by letting them know who she is and how she teaches before they commit to lessons.

Teaching without borders

Estelle is a native of France and has spent more than 15 years teaching languages. She started with both English and French before focusing exclusively on French, teaching in international schools across France, the UK, China, and the US.

Every country and every classroom shaped her teaching philosophy. Yet wherever she taught, she found herself imagining ways to improve her students’ learning experience.

“I just wanted to know how to do things the way I would really want things to be done,” she explained.

Living in Michigan turned out to be the final piece of the puzzle, as that was where she decided to teach independently. Her first students weren’t in France; they were Americans looking for a French teacher they could trust.

Today, back in France, she teaches students from around the world through Parlons French. It brings together everything she learned over 15 years in classrooms across four countries, shaped by a belief that students should be able to get to know their teacher before they commit.

To bring that vision to life, Estelle needed a website where prospective students could learn about her teaching style and book lessons directly.

As an independent teacher just starting out, hiring a web developer wasn’t an option, as Estelle preferred to invest more in high-quality textbooks and teaching resources instead.

So she started researching what she could do and found Hostinger’s easy website builder. 

Among other similar options she researched, she eventually chose Hostinger because it offered a middle ground between starting from scratch and relying on a template. It gave her a foundation she could easily personalize as a complete beginner.

Because she had a clear vision for the website, Estelle wanted to stay in control of the creative process.

She built each page herself, using the available website templates as a starting base before tailoring every element to fit her style. She reserved AI for repetitive work, such as generating image captions.

The first version of the Parlons French website took just two to three days to build. “It was operational and beautiful and efficient,” she described.

Making herself visible to the right students

Estelle’s marketing strategy centers on useful content that helps people discover Parlons French through search engines, rather than social media. In many ways, she’s built the kind of website she wished she’d found years earlier while searching for a trumpet teacher for her son.

Every article she publishes creates another opportunity for someone to find her through Google. “If you only have one homepage, you’re reducing the chance for people to stumble on your website,” she explained.

To make her content easier to find, Estelle regularly checks the SEO suggestions in her website builder’s dashboard. When a page shows a yellow SEO aspect indicator, she opens it and follows the AI’s recommendations until it turns green with a checkmark.

“I let AI offer its best insights for my keywords and update my content accordingly,” she explained.

The strategy has paid off. Around 80% of her students discover Parlons French through Google, while the remaining 20% come from Facebook groups, which she says convert less consistently.

In just two years, Estelle has taught roughly 50 students through Parlons French. Around 20 of them are currently taking private lessons or conversation classes with her – the maximum workload she can comfortably manage, as she jokes, without “dying under lessons.”

Staying connected beyond the classroom

Today, the Parlons French website includes a bilingual blog filled with practical learning tips, a weekly podcast called Le French Vocal – de Parlons French, and a newsletter where Estelle shares additional exercises, resources, and updates with her students.

She built the newsletter herself with Hostinger Reach. As the tool is part of the same Hostinger ecosystem, she was able to get started quickly without learning an entirely new platform, while AI helped her design the newsletter and bring her ideas to life.

Each newsletter edition includes a short activity inspired by that week’s podcast episode, giving subscribers something they can put into practice immediately.

“The people who listen to the podcast and do the activity love it so far,” she recounted.

While she appreciates the AI features, Estelle still handles all the creative decisions. She duplicates her newsletter template each week and edits it herself, believing that the personal touch is worth the extra effort.

The road ahead for Parlons French

Estelle is full of ideas for where her business goes from here. Group classes are scheduled for the summer, and she’s exploring a self-paced learning platform that would let students learn French on their own time, alongside or instead of private lessons.

Estelle can see herself expanding the business and building a team one day, but she’s content to take her time. “Give me five years,” she said, laughing. “But not right now.” 

For now, Parlons French remains a one-woman business, giving Estelle the freedom to grow it thoughtfully and stay close to the students she set out to help.