Native speaker of French with teaching and tutoring experience

Said B.

I am a native speaker of French who emigrated to the United States some 30 years ago. Although I have moved away from teaching as way to earn a living, my first career was as a language instructor. I have close to 15 years' experience teaching both French and English as a Second Language in France and in the U.S. I was born, grew up, and graduated from college in France, in the Lyon area, but hold a Master's in Language Education from Indiana-Purdue University at Indianapolis.

I would say that my greatest strength is my ability to genuinely and passionately engage in meaningful communication in the target language with my students. How this comes about is a complex social interaction involving planned instruction, deliberate and purposeful guidance, and the ability to respond to emerging occasions.

I have an explicit knowledge of the structure of the French language, the ability to convey all notions that relate to the use and structure of the language, the capacity to evaluate individual language needs, as well as the ability to design and implement student-specific instructional goals. That said, one of the maxims I stand by as a teacher and learner is that "you learn what you do," meaning that if what you do is analyze language structure, then you learn to analyze language structure. If what you do is sit in class and listen, then you have learned to sit in class and listen. If what you do is converse in the target language, then that is also what you learn.

I also believe language learning is one of the most exciting learning experiences you can have. No other kind of learning can give you access to an entirely new, cultural, physical, and internal universe the way language learning does. It is one of the most transformative and enriching learning experiences you can have. In fact, I believe, as some have pointed out before me, that all education is language education. I look forward to joining you on that journey.