ILCF portraits

Kwamé Sorrell is originally from New York City, and a student at CUNY Queens College. He is also an ILCF alumni. Read more about his experience learning French at ILCF.

Diego Fasciati is the Executive Director of the Irish National Opera. He is originally from Switzerland, but has lived in Dublin, Ireland since 2001. Read more about his experience learning French at ILCF.

Azizah Syiami Mutik is an ILCF student from Indonesia. Read more about her experience moving to France and learning French.

Yunxuan Chen is from China and currently a rising sophomore at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, USA.

Kaylie Williams, is currently a student at Florida State University (FSU), in Tallahassee, Florida. She was a student at ILCF during Summer 2019. Read more about her experience below.

Charli James is a journalist for the French news channel, France 24. She also runs the blog "Am I French Yet?". She was a student at ILCF in 2017, read more about her experience:

Morgan is a former ILCF student from the U.S., who still lives in Paris. She shares her experience as an ILCF student with us below.

Yumi TSUKAMOTO is a student at Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan. She is currently studying at ICP as an exchange student for a year. Read more about her unique experience.

Annie Ospeck is studying International Relations and Art History at the American University in Washington, DC. She is currently studying French at ICP for a semester, read about her experience.

At 67, I must be one of ILCF’s oldest students. I previously worked as a producer with both the BBC and the Irish broadcasting service RTÉ, before becoming Arts Editor of the English Catholic weekly The Tablet. Now here I am in Paris surrounded by students a third of my age.

Gisela, 55, is an architect from Venezuela. She studied at ILCF when she was 27 and just registered her daughter Mariana for the semester.

Camila, 28, is from Medellin, Colombia’s second largest city after Bogota. As a lawyer specialized in business law, she has worked for Colombia’s leading bank, BanColombia.

Carla Destro, 28, hails from Sao Paulo in Brazil. She has always loved French and sports.

Hailing from Damascus in Syria, where he worked as a lawyer, Michel arrived in France over a year ago. Specialized in business law, Michel chose this profession with the goal of helping others. Due to the present conflict, he decided to flee Syria to find refuge in Europe.

A dual national holding French and American citizenship, Irène has been teaching French as a Foreign Language (FLE) at ILCF since 2004. She currently teaches French language classes and courses on French History in Film. She also teaches university-prep “general knowledge” classes.

Originally from Aleppo in Syria, Youssef arrived in France in the autumn of 2014. An ENT specialist for 38 years, he decided to leave their “lovely city” with his wife, a French teacher in Aleppo, and their two youngest children to join their eldest son in Paris.

Waneque is a 31-year-old American from Bloomfield Hills in Michigan. Since the age of 19, she has worked as a financial analyst at a bank, specialized in real estate.

Koki Kai is 21 and a native of Hiroshima in Japan. Koki first came to France 5 years ago, studying French in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region. After obtaining his baccalauréat degree back in Japan, Koki decided to return to France, but this time opting for Paris, where he arrived in 2014.

18 years old and from Tuxtla in southern Mexico, Pauline is Franco-Mexican thanks to her French mother.

Ade Malino, student at ILCF in love with the French language Ade, 25, hails from Bandung, 2 hours from Jakarta, in Indonesia. He holds a bachelor's degree in Business Tourism Management.

Lynn, 32, was born in Namwon in South Korea. After studying international relations in Seoul, she worked for the Korean Ministry of Culture in Gwangju.

Fadi was born 36 years ago in Baghdad, Iraq. A priest for the past 11 years, he arrived in Paris last September to dedicate himself to the Notre-Dame de Chaldée parish in the 18th arrondissement.

Yuki is a former ILCF student who first arrived in Paris 6 years ago as a beginning French learner. She studied at ILCF until she obtained her B1 French competency in 2008. Today, she lives in Paris. She stopped by to relate to us her journey à la française.