L'Introduction

I am a French teacher.

How did that happen?  Well, there's a lot of things that made that happen.

When I was in middle school, I wanted to be a fashion designer.  I figured French was the language of fashion, so I started French in 9th grade.  By the time I graduated high school, my dream was to become a journalist.  However, I was only 17 when I graduated, and I wasn't quite ready for college.

I was blessed with the opportunity to study abroad with Rotary Youth Exchange.  Silly me wanted to go somewhere like Australia or England.  I had no desire to pursue my French.  But Rotary had a different idea.  They sent me to France.  But honestly, it was possibly the best thing to ever happen to me (well...aside from meeting my husband of course).

After spending that year in France, I fell madly in love with the language.  I saw how much I benefited from knowing another language and I knew I wanted to share that benefit with other students.  That's how teaching happened.  Once I got back, I majored in French and got my teaching license.

My first year of teaching (last year) was an odd one.  I taught at a very small private school in the same town where I went to college.  I was teaching kindergarten, while, at the same time, teaching French grades 1-10.  The French was probably only about 1/3 of my week, so I was missing it.

Then, this past summer, my husband was offered a job closer to where we grew up.  It just so happened that a school district nearby (our high school rivals I might add...) was looking for a French teacher at the two middle schools.  I was feeling really confident after the interview, and sure enough, I got the job!

The main purpose of this blog is for my reflections.  I'm starting the PDP process (Professional Development Plan) and many have recommended that we use a journal to organize our thoughts.  It makes the process a lot easier and the writing of the final PDP is apparently a lot easier this way as well. 

I also figured it's a good place just to put my ideas down and share them.  Nothing is more fun than collaborating with colleagues and getting some fun new ideas.