As a French teacher I am teaching from the standpoint of French as my second language and I find that to be valuable because I know the trials and triumphs of what it means to learn French very personally. Coming from an English speaker’s mindset we may want to make certain assumptions, mistakes or think that a word may mean one thing when it doesn’t, etc, and it’s also hard to learn French when we’re not surrounded by it and that inspires me to encourage others to keep at it and to explain another way of thinking. I love sharing French with others because it has a relationship to English yet it’s an entirely different way of thinking and when I am able to witness the aha moments on a student’s face when they make sense of a phrase and it suddenly opens up a whole new space of understanding, I feel like ok, that is my job- to open up someone’s mind a bit and I love to be part of that.

I have always been a language person, always trying to figure out how to say things in another language so that I can find a small way to connect with others. After studying Czech in Prague for a year and then teaching English and art in Panama, and learning Spanish, I took off to Marseille, France to live and work on a film project. Landing in a place that was not English friendly as a young adult was truly an act of starting over and re-learning the world through new eyes. I plunged into French and studied Fine arts and research at L’école des Beaux-Arts in Marseille where I received my masters and continued to work there for several years. As I was teaching English as a foreign language in public high schools there I truly began to see how much I was simultaneously teaching French rules as a way to understand English and realized that I could be teaching this due to my unique experience in learning French as a foreigner. Here in Los Angeles I have been teaching French privately for around 7 years while continuing to embody this practice through speaking French with my husband who is French, my French friends here in LA and back in France, as well as reading books and articles, listening to podcasts, and watching French cinema. The French language has an infinitely rich depth of media- films, art, etc, so I rarely have to wonder how to access the language.

As a teacher my work is extremely student centered which means that although I put together an agenda and I have high expectations for my students and what we’re able to achieve together, my main goal is to stay focused on what a student is very excited about and what they’re struggling with, then we can re-orient towards what we need to be focusing on. This means that my classes are tailored to the individual and they’re also very light and friendly and fun. I’m not trying to make you struggle and stress about the work that you’re doing, this isn’t a punishment, this isn’t high school French class anymore, this is you trying to actually speak another language. I hope to create a feel good experience for my students by listening intently to the student os that they feel heard - I genuinely believe in people and I know that our culture and society tend to make things seem like there is a “right way,” but I constantly try to keep compassion in the forefront. Trying to learn something new like a new language involves an enormous amount of vulnerability because we have to be beginners at some point and we’re often quite hard on ourselves because we don’t know if we’re actually improving- we can’t measure ourselves very easily while we’re in process so it’s hard to see if we’re doing it right or not. I know this feeling all too well and whether or not you’re making mistakes, if you’re trying and you’re showing up I’m the one mirroring back and cheering you through the process of becoming. Keeping in mind what it takes to show up I am genuinely so excited for my students and I feel that that shines through. My focus is on getting my students to see that they’re learning how to communicate with other human beings not on getting a good grade which means that I try to create a space where one can bust through ego blocks and actually have fun learning.

Wandering and being out in the world keep me incredibly inspired- like everyone else who lives in LA, I can spend a lot of car time in the car going from point a to point b, but one of the activities that centers me the most and brings new, fresh ideas is walking without a destination and just observing the world around me. But, I also am constantly re-reminded that being in nature, traveling, reading and looking at art almost always open my mind.