Many of us remember learning a foreign language in school by memorizing dialogues and repeating phrases (“écoutez et répétez!”), with the occasional levity of a song or film. What if there were a more engaging way to learn? 

Madame Alexa, (or Madame A, as she is known online) is a French teacher in Quebec, Canada, who is creating a fresh approach to French language immersion at her educational website, Madame A’s. She develops interactive e-learning modules for the early childhood levels of French study, available for individuals or schools. The courses include self-paced content and exercises for reading, speaking, and writing, plus weekly video calls with parents. 

Engaging and fun, Madame A’s lessons are developed with her littlest learners in mind.

From Teacher to “Edupreneur”

Like other entrepreneurs who dove into online education during the pandemic, Madame A was forced to switch to a virtual classroom in 2020. The change in teaching environment posed a challenge to many of her colleagues who were not comfortable with the sudden change in instruction methodology. 

However, for Madame Alexa, who is interested in educational technology, this was an “aha moment.” She realized that the online environment offered an opportunity to do things she could not do in a traditional classroom, and she started creating self-paced plans for her students. Even so, making her quest challenging was the fact that there were precious few resources for younger students, and especially so for French immersion learning. 

Without many options readily available, Madame A decided to create interactive games for her students, and eventually the entertaining games replaced homework assignments altogether. The positive responses she got from appreciative parents who no longer had to fight with their children to do their homework encouraged her to devote herself to developing her instructional modules further. 

Finally, in July of last year she left her job at the school to become a full-time “edupreneur.”

WordPress and LifterLMS for the First Time

Without much tech background, Madame Alexa had a lot to learn, so it is quite impressive to see all she put into her website, a project which was a completely new experience. Initially she found that many LMS (learning management system) platforms were not only very busy, they were ill suited for children and would have necessitated modifications that were simply not possible.

Alexa came to WordPress when it became clear that she needed a solid foundation that would also allow her to build her website to her specifications. With the help of Elementor to drive the site design and structure, she built her very first WordPress site.

She still needed an LMS, however. It took months of researching many LMS systems that eventually led her to LifterLMS, which offered her the flexibility and customization she needs.

One of the key issues Alexa faced when setting up her courses was formatting for young children and making sure it was uncluttered. She points out that the more buttons and click prompts there are for a child, the more chances of their getting lost. 

She also had to figure out a way for the system to recognize when a child completed an activity to prompt moving on to the next one without counting on the child. Only LifterLMS let her not to only add and integrate what she needed, but also remove what she didn’t need.

I could take out what I didn’t need. I could embed what I did need. That was really amazing. And it worked seamlessly with the different tools that I was using.

Finally, the technical support at Lifter is there when she needs it.

Making Learning Self-Paced and Fun 

Madame Alexa stresses that above all, her goal is to teach children by making French fun. Her MadameA’s website content consists of different types of activities and colorful resources for the children. Interactive exercises allow a child to click through and explore on their own while listening to her voice. Games may include scrambled letters or word search. There are also video lessons for concepts that need more explaining, which are convenient for young kids with short attention spans who can always come back to the video and run it again.

The fun, however, is based on sound teaching methodology, with each activity specifically developed to serve as an educational building block to language learning.

To create the games, Alexa uses Genially, an app that allows digital educators to create presentations with interactivity, gamification, and animation. She uses recording tools to add her voice to the elements. Once Genially generates an iframe code, Alexa embeds it into LifterLMS, and ensures that it is accessible to course enrollees only.

To accommodate classroom teaching in schools, Alexa makes use of LifterLMS’ Groups Add On, and defines a teacher role so that teachers can use the courses as she has intended, without their having to add content. They can then present the activities in class on iPads or on a smart board, or have the students work on them at home.

Future plans include expanding to other grade levels, schools in other areas of Canada, and possibly even the United States. Artificial intelligence may also play a part in Madame A’s development, as Alexa is looking at an exciting idea to create an AI generated cartoon version of herself to interact with students as a conversational tool. 

I feel like I can trust these guys and Will is amazing. Every time I was stuck I could go look at a video that he’d done and I was like, alright I feel like somebody’s holding my hand here at all times every time I need him.

Marketing a New Idea in Education

Marketing her courses was admittedly a challenge for Madame Alexa, especially when she reached out to schools. By pivoting to parents and offering a free trial, she is able to demonstrate to parents the value she offers. Parents who follow her on Instagram or join her Facebook page are only be part of her free monthly story reading in French, but will also learn some tricks to encourage their children in their French learning journey.

Coming up with pricing was another hurdle. After speaking with parents, Alexa got a good sense of the price point most would be comfortable with, and the encouragement to set it as a monthly fee. Madame A’s was profitable within six months of launching the website.

Base on her own learning process, Madame Alexa shares her thoughts on how other language instructors might approach creating course modules: have a clear plan in mind, expect the road to be difficult, and carefully research the tools you will be using to handle everything your business depends on.

We have published a podcast episode with Madame Alexa on LMScast. You can learn more in detail about, “How Madame Alexa Makes Learning French Fun for Young Pupils with LifterLMS” from this podcast.