A current graduate student at the University of California at Berkeley, I hold a B.A. in French and Russian languages and literature from Dickinson College and an M.A. in Slavic Languages and literature from Berkeley. I have taught Russian at the college-level since 2008,and my experience as an instructor of French extends as far back as 1998, when I served as a tutor to my high school peers. In addition to having taught French to high school students in an immersion setting (at the time I was a precocious high school student), I have experience working as an assistant in the university-level French classroom. Moreover, I have spent nearly three years of my life abroad, both in France and in Russia, and it was between Toulouse and Moscow that I completed research in French and Russian comparative literature, the Moscow stay funded by a William J. Fulbright grant in 2006.
Language teachers have exerted the most formative influences on my personal and academic development alike: from high school onward, a handful of instructors of French and Russian have instilled in me an abiding passion and mirthful enthusiasm for learning languages. Early on in my studies, however, I became pleasantly afflicted with the desire to share my love of languages with others—at first my peers, whom I tutored in French, and then a myriad of students, whom I undertook to teach both inside out outside of the academic setting. I have effectively amassed experience teaching French, Russian—and English—since my Sophomore year of high school, and to this day the challenge inherent in fostering linguistic and cultural fluency in my students has remained for me among the most rewarding and stimulating endeavors I have known. My love of learning languages has matured into a desire to share them, to engage with students of all levels, and to promote the practice and expansion of language skills in the classroom and in life.
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