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seat the immigrant children in the front rows
in the classroom thus facilitating their effort
to follow the classes, whereas other teachers
would put them in the back, leaving them to
themselves. At the end of the school day, he
would continue giving French classes to these
children. The caretakers of the school were
not very happy about his arrangements, so,
Mr Henri started giving private lessons in the
pupils’ homes. People kept asking him: why
don’t you set up a school? So, after some time,
giving in to the pressure, he set up the first
French language school, the Moser School.
Later, the parents, happy with the French
classes, asked him if he could expand the
classes and to teach other subjects.
In 1986, he opened the school in Nyon. He
had noticed that many of the pupils came a
long way, going from one side of Lake Geneva
to the other, so he decided that it would be
better if he set up something on the other
side, in Nyon. People told him, “You must be
out of your mind. Nyon is a village. You won’t
find anybody who will attend a private school
there!” This proved wrong because as soon as
we opened up, there were 80 pupils attending
classes. So, we were the first school in this
region, and the others followed one by one. sense. I think that common sense has largely
Over the years, we went from a few pupils to disappeared in the schools, and I think it’s
approximately 600 altogether, both in Nyon important to go back to basics.
and Geneva, when I took over in 2001. We all know that you do not learn to speak a
language simply by attending language classes.
What is the pedagogy behind the school? A language is properly learned by immersion,
From the very beginning we used what either by going to a school in the country
specialists call active pedagogy, or learning by where it is spoken, or by being taught subjects
doing. It’s always been the case at the school. in that particular language. At Moser, we teach
The pupils come here to learn. Our mission drawing in German, biology in English, maths
can be summarized as cultivating a desire to in German or English or French and so forth.
learn and developing creativity. It is often said We use the languages to teach the subjects.
that a good school is one where the students In this way, the children use the language in
work at school. My father, and this is also varying contexts. There are of course language
my stance, tried to reduce the homework as classes where the children learn grammar,
much as possible. It is also often said that a vocabulary etc., but by using this approach we
good teacher gives little homework whereas a see the children making tremendous progress.
poor teacher gives lots of homework. Because They do not learn the language by learning
the poor teacher does so little with the pupils, vocabulary by heart but by using it in different
they have to work at home. It is not right that settings.
children spend eight hours at school and then My father was a pioneer in teaching by
spend several hours at home in the evening immersion, teaching German in particular.
doing homework. Owing to his efforts, the school was accredited
My father had simple principles. He was for the German-English bilingual maturité
very pragmatic and had lots of common (the Swiss baccalaureate). He set up the

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