Arcene Bilegue’s

I hired Arcene to help maintain my son’s French while he was on summer break from his immersion program at the French American International School. When the school year started up again, we couldn’t imagine quitting. Arcene puts my son at ease and has ensured that he always receives excellent grades in French grammar. In fact, even his grades in Spanish and English have been influenced by all the grammar he learned from Arcene. My son is always happy to see Arcene arrive at the door. By now he feels like family. While he is a stickler for detail, we love Arcene’s easy going manner. What started as a chore quickly became a delight.

I’ve been studying French off and on since I was a kid. It had been many many years since I spoke French when I contacted Arcene for some private lessons, something I’d never done before. Although I was nervous, he put me immediately at ease. His knowledge of grammar is superior to any other teacher I’ve studied with, and he has a unique ability to explain complicated grammar concepts and rules in a clear, easy to understand way. He tailored each lesson to my needs and interests. My French has improved immensely and I feel confident expressing myself thanks to him. He is a consummate professional, a very nice person and has a wonderful sense of humor. I would not take lessons from anyone else. I feel very lucky to have found him.

Simply, Arcene was the best. In a very limited time he was able to prepare me, with no prior experience speaking French, for moving to Paris. He was flexible with our meetings and tailored a plan just for me. I was able to live and communicate with a family that didn’t speak more than 5 combined words in English, and now I’m living in Paris getting compliments from other students in my French class who have studied for years, as well as from the French friends I’m making. And it’s all thanks to Arcene. So don’t think twice about getting started speaking French with him.

Arcene is great.
I met him a few years ago while I was studying for law school at Maxfields café in the Mission. I overheard his lesson at the next table and immediately wanted in on it. I asked for his info, then I had a few lessons with him before I headed to Paris for a month. I felt like my lessons with Arcene really helped me communicate with Parisians, whether it be ordering breakfast, asking for directions, or exchanging something at a small hardware store (my biggest achievement thus far).
Last year, my friend and I asked Arcene to lead our «French Club,» which consisted of meeting at a French café for some coffee and conversation every other week. Arcene gave us little homework assignments, and was very flexible as far as just letting us do as much or as little as we wanted.
I would recommend Arcene to anyone, whether as a supplement to a formal class or just for conversation. He is extremely intuitive at telling where each person is and what they need to know. Plus, he is super interesting so you actually want to figure out what he’s saying!

I have been improving my french now for many years, using classes and individual lessons both in San Francisco and France (many locations). Arcene is the only french tutor I have used in SF, and would not switch to any other. For the price that Arcene charges, he is really unbeatable value for a very skilled teacher.
I know all this sounds hyperbole, so some specifics may help;
— A part of each lesson is conversation. Arcene is a good conversationalist, by which I mean that he draws out the student with leading questions, and gets the student to talk about themselves. e.g. on my very first lesson with him we went through the vocabulary for my ‘life story’ — how I was going to introduce myself to others during an upcoming visit to France.
— Arcene listens well, takes notes, and corrects after the conversation, point by point, without breaking your flow at the time. He will suggest better ways of expressing things, and use your bad grammar usage as launching points for instructions in some point of grammar (pronouns, tenses, verbs etc).
— Arcene would usually then go through a structured description of that point of grammar, whatever it might be, and write down the information at an appropriate level of difficulty, using examples. Sometimes the writing was a little untidy, but I would rewrite these later into my own book anyway.
— There is a good mix of technically correct grammar and good daily phrases.
— He’s quite funny, does not take himself too seriously, and as I can see from the other reviews, many of his students also consider themselves to be friends with Arcene.

I’ve had the pleasure of being Arcene’s student for the last two years. Arcene is very accommodating, and meets me at a café near my work one day a week during my lunch hour.
Arcene makes the most of the hour. We start with a conversation and then do some reading and translating. Last year we spent more time on grammar but then moved on to reading a novel, and now a non-​fiction book of my choosing.
Arcene is great a gauging your knowledge level and working with you at your level while pushing you to the next. He’s good at striking the balance between not overwhelming you with information but still challenging you. He introduces vocabulary and concepts at a reasonable pace. He also knows grammar extremely well and is good and presenting it.
My only criticism of Arcene is that he is often late a few minutes late to class. It’s literally a only a few minutes so it’s not a big deal, plus I realize that he is traversing the city by bicycle (which I think is great). But even if I get a tiny bit annoyed at his not being prompt I do always forget about it once we start talking, because Arcene is a fun person to hang out with.

The best way to describe Arcene as a tutor is someone who has a lot of «patience.» I was looking for someone to teach my daughter a second language and thought of introducing her to French. At that time, I emailed three people who advertised their tutorial services on Craigslist but only one person graciously responded with detailed information. He gave his phone number and so I had the chance to speak to him over the phone. The voice on the other line was very pleasant and courteous. We set up an appointment to meet that same week on a Friday at Zephyr Café in Balboa Street. My daughter and I were surprise to meet someone who is very friendly, cordial, fully prepared, and has a thorough knowledge of the French Language including its history and all. After the first meeting, we both decided to study French with Arcene. He is such a wonderful teacher who truly assists his students with their questions and lessons. He is a very hardworking teacher who takes pride of what he does as a teacher. He takes his time according to his student’s learning phase and does not rush them. I am sure that any of his students will vouch for this.
Arcene, we are so lucky to have you as our teacher. You are a wonderful professeur!

I have been working with Arcene for over 8 years. He makes it easy to meet at coffee shops in any neighborhood at my convenience. We work on anything that I need to work on –from intense grammar to conversation and reading… he is very experienced and understands what you need to make progress. It turned out also that I had several friends that worked with him also and it is a great little community of Arcene tutees!

I took my first intensive French class 40 years ago at Alliance Francaise, and continued to take classes on and off over the years. A couple of years ago I decided to brush up, and contacted Arcene. I think he’s an excellent teacher, and his course material was tailored to my specific needs, which was that I could speak fairly fluently on some things, and not at all in others. I had weak spots in grammar, prepositions, but I could understand spoken French fairly well. My French really improved over the year that I took lessons from him. I highly recommend Arcene.

I called on Arcene to learn survival French six months before cycle touring in the South of France. I am an over-​scheduled, working mother, who could not remember a thing from week to week, yet Arcene was patient, accomodating, kind, and even put up with my four year old interupting our lessons at the café we met in when I could not find a sitter. As promised, I was fluent enough to get by in tiny moutain towns, and order food, drinks, hotel and get directions, and even converse about my life and job, my son with strangers. He is a great teacher-​never made me feel stupid for not getting it– really one of the best teachers I ever had. If I was not so busy, and did not live in Marin, I would still be taking lessons from Arcene, and would count him as a friend. Who knows, maybe he cooks French food too?

I’ve been a student of Arcene for several years now. I started having no knowledge of French whatsoever! We started conversation immediately, talking about ourselves, our professions, our lives in general. I can now understand, read and speak and I feel great about my progress. He is an excellent teacher, I’m so glad to be one of his students.

I first met Arcèné about 3 years ago and he was my first French tutor… first tutor in anything for that matter. Needless to say, I had no idea what to look for when searching for a tutor. I just remember reading his add on craigslist and being like «why not?” — best decision I’ve ever made.
I wasn’t necessarily fluid with my French, but with Arcèné I felt extremely comfortable to the point where I was unfazed by making mistakes. Granted anytime I did, Arcèné would be right on me saying «non non Ghio». Ask him anything about French grammar and he knows a simple yet effective way of explaining it. Aside from the grammar, the main thing I’ve learned from Arcèné is the ability to not be afraid to make mistakes. Also, you’ll learn a lot about French humor — or maybe it’s Arcèné humor — either way it’s in French! and that’s what matters. Lastly, I no longer see Arcèné as a tutor but a friend, and that says a lot about the type of person he is.
If you’re really interested in being motivated about learning French and making a French friend, see Arcèné.