I was born and raised in Québec city where the majority of people only speak French. From a really young age, I quickly realized that I soon as I left the province of Quebec, everything was English or Spanish to the south. I knew right away that I wanted to speak these 3 languages. I started with English, as a teenager, I immersed myself in an English environment and learned the hard way. I then studied teaching in Montreal and then lived in Vancouver, BC for 15 years where I learned and adapted to an English location and co-founded a successful international import and wholesale company.

Later, as a young already bilingual adult, I plunged into Spanish. This time, I did it in a more conventional way and studied in language schools in Guatemala and Mexico. I then followed my first love - teaching - and went to Costa Rica in Central America as the Director of Students’ Services in a small language school. I studied again a new language and adapted to a very different culture.

I just loved the way languages were taught in all of these Latin American Schools, it was intense but fun. And it worked. I totally fell in love with this type of schooling and discovered at the same time my passion for teaching. I'm obsessed with languages and different cultures. I love meeting new people, share views on life, exchange ideas or simply learning new things. I love nature, animals, planet earth, food, wine, strong coffee, Blues or World music and dancing to name a few. I am a positive person, patient, organized and hard worker. I can't wait to meet you and help you become a French speaker.

https://www.facebook.com/sijeparlaisfrancais/

My professional and personal paths have given me an understanding and a love appreciation for other cultures and language learning.

In Costa Rica, my school offered immersion classes in a Spanish environment. I took on a TEFL course in 2007 as my responsibilities varied from teaching French and English as a second language, helping in social and cultural integration as student advisor, designing educational programs, organizing educational and cultural activities, student supervision, group coordination to public relations and general administration. Rich with these experiences, I became quite knowledgeable in the linguistic field, cultural integration and language acquisition in an immersion environment. I used my own experience as a learner to find ways to make learning as effortless as possible.

In 2012, I came back to my beloved Quebec to unite again with my family and I chose Montreal, the multicultural metropolis, as my residence. I soon started working in the francization services at the English Montreal School Board's International Program. My expertise and love of French teaching made me refine a method of teaching based on my experience and appreciation of the language. In my program of about 20 teachers, I'm very proud to say that I became the one with the most successful students passing their TEFAQ!

Now, since the beginning of 2017, I have been an independent teacher, using methods that work best to help my students for immigration exams or simply make a living here, meeting new friends, going shopping etc. In the past 15 years, my passion for teaching has only increased and I feel privileged to do a job I love so much.

I greatly favour writing and speaking skills, as they are the keystones for interpersonal communication and cultural integration. With that in mind, reading and listening do play a powerful role in the learning process as they are easily acquired at the beginning phase of the learning development. As the student learns to master the receptive methods, he will be a lot more incline to develop, in a second phase the production modes.

To achieve great and fast results, I strongly believes that classes have to offer not only an educational atmosphere, but also an enjoyable one, where real life situations will be played out, grammar will be simply explained, aiming for the students to live an immersion experience and have a good receptive and production knowledge of their second language.

I believe that building a solid base is key to make progress, so you will hear me going back to basic stuff and giving out clues on how to improve your French skills. I'm very good at simplifying French grammar, keeping the learning process fun and gratifying. I have worked predominantly with adults and young adults.

I understand that having a little accent can be very charming, but too much can make it difficult for people to understand you so one of my goals will be to work on pronunciation and intonation to make you speak like a native. I do think that a little accent is charming though! It's unique to you and shows you can speak more than one language ,-)

My Quebec accent is not very strong and I will teach you a slightly more international accent and vocabulary. For advanced students curious about this way of speaking, I can, of course, help you understand and speak it like a pro. It's your class and you decide how you want it done. You also get to choose how much or how little homework you would like - it is completely up to you and at your convenience.