fluent.in.teaching

A little about me.

Bonjour, and welcome to the first post of my blog. This site is going to be a collection of teaching thoughts, ideas, reviews, and FREE resources. Life is expensive enough – at this point, I’d like to give away anything I find or have developed to the educators who could use them in their classrooms.

I live on the east coast of Canada 🇨🇦, in Sydney, Nova Scotia. Sydney is located on the beautiful Cape Breton Island. There are small pockets of Acadian French communities where I live, but it is mostly an Anglophone area. French is my second language, and I learned it as a student in the same schools that I have taught in. My maiden name was MacDonald (there are lots of MacDonalds where I live), but I traded it for Dubois when I married an amazing man from Quebec. I have to say that Dubois sounds a lot more authentic for a French educator, but I definitely have an anglophone accent.

Most of the students do not begin learning French until they are in Grade 4, and upper elementary is where I spent most of my teaching career. It was an absolute pleasure to share my enthusiasm and love of French with students new to learning the language. I also have some experiences in middle school French immersion and Core French as well as a little bit of experience in High School grade 10.

This year, I switched things up completely by becoming a French mentor for Grades 4-12 for all programs in our Region. This consists of Core French, Integrated French, French Immersion, and Intensive French. It is a dream job, and I’m so grateful to have this opportunity. My team members inspire and motivate me, plus I am constantly learning from the teachers I collaborate with. I’m excited to share the ideas I’ve learned this year.

As for my personal life, my husband is also a teacher, but he teaches at the Acadian French school in our city. Our two daughters (aged 6 + 8) attend this school as well. We enjoy the quiet things in life – playing outside, reading together, gardening, going to the beach, hiking, and doing arts and crafts. We have two pets: a gecko leopard lizard named Marie Soleil who is also a class pet (more to come on her) and our rescue puppy, Aspy.

I’d love to hear more about who my readers are. Feel free to say bonjour with quick description of what you teach and where you’re from.

Check me out on Instagram: @fluent_in_teaching

If you read this through, thank you, and I hope you will check in regularly.