Every undergraduate student in the Department is assigned to a personal tutor, who is the first port of call for queries and problems that cannot be resolved by module teachers or the School administrative staff. Students taking French with other subjects based in the School of Languages and Cultures will have a single personal tutor within the School. Students taking French with subjects outside the School will have a personal tutor in the French Department (and they will normally have a tutor in their other department as well).

Arrangements for personal tutoring are the responsibility of the School Director of Pastoral Care, who has oversight of pastoral matters within the School. Lists of personal tutors and their tutees are published at the beginning of each session on MOLE (the University's internal on-line learning environment).

Personal tutors in the School are academic members of staff, whose main role is to monitor developments (such as illness, family/personal problems, absence from classes) that may have an impact on students' academic progress. Tutors have two "office hours" per week, when students can drop in without an appointment; they will also arrange meetings with individual students to discuss particular issues. Personal tutors are not available outside the normal working week: other support services are on hand in the evenings and at weekends.

Personal tutors will always lend a sympathetic ear to students in difficulty, but they are not trained as counsellors, so there may well be situations that they are not equipped to deal with. However, they are always in a position to direct students towards a range of central and professional support services within the University. Some of the more important sources of support and guidance are listed below.