Job Discussion Forums

hfpardue · Joined: 12 Mar 2005 Posts: 19

Hey everyone, I apologize for making an entire topic just to ask one person a few questions, but since I could not PM, I didn�t know of any other option.
I noticed you are a French and German teacher. That is very interesting to me. How did you become a French and German teacher? In addition to Chinese, I am also very interested in French and German. Did you spend years in France and Germany? Please, tell me about it if you did. Thanks a lot.
My e-mail address is [email protected]
It may be better to send an e-mail than continuing this thread. You decide. Take care!

Roger · Joined: 19 Jan 2003 Posts: 9138

I sent a PM today, and got feedback from Dave's informing me the message had been sent successfully! Don't know if that was an April Fools' Day joke.

I did live in France for a number of years. The reason was romance, and I am grateful to Fortuna to have taken care of me that way!
But I knew French from long before. At school it was a compulsory subject.
Whether you believe this or not is not in my power to influence, but the truth is: I was out of touch wit one of my sisters for the better part of my life. When my old man died she bounced back into my life. You can hardly imagine my feelings! Read an Amy Tan novel to get an idea of it!
The truth is that my father was a native French speaker but he divorced my mother early on before I turned 5; they would speak French with each other but not to me! I later hated French, the more so since apparently my parents had implanted a francophone germ in my mind that responded to the stimulus of formal French classroom teaching way too well - so much so that my teacher pronounced me her best French learner, "better at French than even myself..." Can you imagine that I hated her for saying that?
My sister only speaks English and French now, and she chose to impose on me the use of French. She has spent her adult years in a French-speaking environment.
German too was one of the compulsory subjects at school.
I taught it for some time to secondary students.

How did I become a teacher? I studied linguistics, and the mastery of languages other than English was a prerequisite. Latin, French and German were the basis for me.
If you have further queries, contact me via another website:
www.linguasinicayangshuo.com

friedrich nietzsche · Joined: 29 Oct 2005 Posts: 155

Nice to see you taking the initiative, Roger. If it is not too much of an intrustion, please tell us more of the school and how you are getting on.

friedrich nietzsche · Joined: 29 Oct 2005 Posts: 155

Good luck with the venture, by the way.

carken · Posted: Sun Nov 20, 2005 1:31 pm Post subject:

Roger, don't let Amy Tan hear about this! This is too great a story to just let lie! You need to write a book.