Latin; Spanish; French

Before joining the Oak Meadow School 4 years ago I had taught junior and senior high school students for many years. Thus far, my experience in working with home-schoolers has been for me a springboard for even greater satisfaction in the field of education. I was born into a French Canadian family. I am therefore a native speaker of French. I have been extremely fortunate to live, study and travel in several French and Spanish speaking countries. Languages, including Latin, and cultures have been my passion. Since coming to the Oak Meadow School, after teaching in the public high school setting, I have discovered in students something that, for me, places home-schoolers in a different category of learners. Students at Oak Meadow want to learn and are self-directed learners. Even students who need scheduling and structure perform very well, once they too realize that they are in charge of their own learning. They perform well because they have a more personal investment in what they learn. I find that Oak Meadow home schooled students generally achieve a higher rate of success because they discover for themselves, through their own efforts, how to "crack the nut" of knowledge in working the lessons, the scope and the sequence of either our Traditional or Online courses.

Working with students individually most certainly has its benefits. In dealing with students through the mail or online, I have come to know them more personally than in any classroom. We are able to communicate at a level that immediately fosters sincerity, confidence and growth in the learning process. It is my experience that a home-schooler learns and grows more quickly because his or her working environment is uncluttered by the many distractions of their would-be peers.

To meet the challenge of working with our students, I find myself continually adjusting my objectives in teaching French, Latin and Spanish. We constantly update our program in Foreign Languages to meet the interest and expectations of our families. My goal is that my students will make their own discoveries; that they will acquire a strong knowledge of their language of choice, that they will come to appreciate the culture of the people who speak the language; that they will perhaps wish someday to travel in order to learn more about the world they live in and in turn share what they know within their own society.