ABOUT ME:

I am a once accidental now career boarding school French teacher. I live with my family on campus in the the freshmen girls' dorm at the Williston Northampton School in Easthampton, Massachusetts, where I have been a dorm parent, adviser, and French teacher since 1999 -- and thus count many, many other “kids” in my extended family as well.

Language has always fascinated me, but I fell in love with French during my undergraduate time at Dartmouth College, where I trained and worked with language pioneer John Rassias. My subsequent studies abroad changed me, and I have dedicated my adult life to teaching French. For twenty years, it has been my craft, my passion, and, I believe, my purpose. I feel everyone can and should learn more than one language (I send/sent my daughters to a Chinese immersion school). In my own immersion classroom, I strive to keep language learning alive, active, and always fun, for language is intrinsically all of this. Above all, I encourage my students to make mistakes, to embrace them, and to learn from them (something that any one of them will tell you I model regularly!)