I was born and raised on Nantucket. When I was eight years old, my family spent a year on a farm in the south of France, where I learned French and got my first taste of a foreign culture. I attended the public school in a tiny town, and I was blown away by how different school life was. That experience of becoming completely immersed in a new culture is something that has stuck with me, and it continues to guide my life and my teaching.

In college, I took an opportunity to discover another part of the francophone world by studying abroad in Cameroon. Living, traveling and studying in Cameroon was such an amazing introduction to the country’s unique, complex and diverse culture. After college, I was able to once again return to France, when I spent a year as an English language assistant in Normandy. Most recently, I have lived in New York, a city where you can’t help but hear French on a daily basis.

I hope that my students will leave my classroom ready to take advantage of the many opportunities that knowing French will offer in life, whether abroad or at home.