My Story

Finding My Place..

For many years I taught English as a Second Language, however that had not ever been my plan. In fact, teaching was a profession that didn't interest me at all.  As a kid I always felt I didn’t quite fit in. I dreamed of traveling the world and having adventures. Growing up all of my friends were also “out of the box”, going on to become artists, actors, musicians..

​

I did however, have two ideas about how I was going to live my life. One, I was going to go to France, learn French and marry a Frenchman. Secondly, I wanted to be an actress. I never thought about a career or how I was going to make money.

My life has taken me around the world, and I did accomplish my goals - in part. I went to France, married a Frenchman, and became French. I have acted in plays, in both English and French, and have since become a storyteller here in Chicago.

I also became a teacher. After moving to France, and settling down in Orléans,(the city of Joan of Arc, 84 miles south of Paris) I needed to find a job.  I had no work skills and no idea of what I could do to make a living.

I saw an ad for an English teacher to work with French adults. I had a B.A.S. from the University of Illinois, so they hired me. My training consisted of watching a one-hour class. Talk about being thrown in at the deep end. My first student was learning the present perfect tense, and I had no idea what it was. After fumbling through my first lesson I grabbed a grammar book from the school library, started learning grammar and figuring out how to teach. I discovered that I had a knack for it, because I was interested in helping the people who needed to communicate in another language. I could certainly emphasize with them.

My teaching career took off, and with the help of a few training courses at the British Council in Paris, I became a good teacher (at least, that’s what my students have told me). Many years later I even became a teacher-trainer at a big language school in Paris.

I believe that never having had formal instruction in teaching is why I could be very creative. I probably broke all the "regular" rules about how to teach, and just followed those of my heart. I discovered that I enjoyed finding new ways to explain things, and that the most important part of keeping students interested was to have fun!

France was my home base for many years while I lived and taught English in Pakistan, Egypt, and Qatar. I also taught in Chicago when I moved back to the United States. Luck allowed me to join amateur theater troupes nearly everywhere I lived. So I acted in French and English and enjoyed every minute of it.

I always preach to my students to jump in at the deep end to try new things and challenge themselves - and I practice what I preach. In addition to acting and teaching, I worked as a journalist in Doha, Qatar, doing radio programs in two languages on the State radio station, writing for local newspapers and magazines, and producing TV shows. 

Along the way I also joined Toastmasters International, completed the program, and honed in on my leadership and presentation skills. That training has been influential in becoming a storyteller on Chicago stages, and leading a group of over 150 volunteers in my work at Literacy Chicago.

As Director of Program Development at Literacy Chicago, Chicago’s oldest non-profit offering free educational programs to adults, I have finally found my place. A place where I can use everything I have learned to develop new ways to help people, especially those who can’t read, and help them empower themselves through education.

​