Learn Languages With Nina

My personal, academic and professional experiences have all contributed to my teaching philosophy. I was born in Paris, in an American hospital, to a French mother and American father. At 5 days old, I began my first international voyage, taking residence in a laundry basket in the back of the car as my parents drove me to Istanbul, where they were... living. My father later worked as a French professor at the University of Michigan. Even in the mid-west, I lived in a bilingual and bi-cultural household. At 17, I joined my family in France and attended a French lycée. My appreciation and love for cultural and linguistic differences grew exponentially at this time. It was this experience that put me on the trajectory of my life. French was no longer simply my mother's language, but it was the language of a people, of a culture, of a world I yearned to know better and feel a part of. As a student and life long language learner, I have become fluent in Spanish, and conversant in Russian and Indonesian. My classroom studies prepared me for the exciting step of going to a country where that language is spoken. I've studied and taught in the following countries: Living and teaching internationally created even more opportunity to deepen my cross-cultural understanding and strengthen my own language skills. More importantly, it allowed me to share that understanding with my students, whose own varied backgrounds ensured that my classrooms were always a crossroads for international understanding. Ultimately, seeing my students own linguistic and cultural passions ignited in the language classroom over the past twenty-five years has been extremely rewarding. The importance of knowing other languages and cultures is vital today. Language learning provides the springboard to launch students on their own path not only to discovering a new language and culture but also seeing their own language and culture in a new way. I believe students should be immersed in the language the moment they begin learning the language. ...Read More