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Since 1987, I moved to France and attended my initial college years there. When I returned I lived for one year in NYC and then in Miami Beach for one more year. In 1993, I moved to Atlanta and I am a graduate of Georgia State University with a BA in French/Teacher Education and an MA in French with a concentration in Applied Linguistics and Foreign Language Pedagogy. I also hold a degree from The Art Institute of Atlanta in Computer Animation and Multimedia Development.
In the 1990s, I worked for Emory University’s School of Public Health creating and maintaining their website as well as online lessons for the professors. I also helped to develop and localize educational and testing software in French for Quiz, Inc.,Bingwa Multimedia, and Spire Multimedia in Atlanta. I also served as a key Animator for the Stone Mountain Laser Show. I played an active role as a Language Coordinator/Interpreter for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.
Since 2001, I have been actively pursuing a career in teaching which began at Fullsail University in Orlando, Florida teaching Media Arts as the Associate Course Director.
In 2002-2003, I worked as an EFL teacher overseas in South Korea and continued to teach ESL in the Atlanta area until 2012.
Since returning to the USA in 2004, I taught a wide variety of CG courses such as graphic design, multimedia and web development, video/sound editing, PHP & MySQL programming, 2D/3D modeling and animation, and portfolio development at Anthem College in Atlanta, Georgia.
In 2011, I received the Dr. Carol Semonsky Award for excellence in Foreign Language Education from Georgia State University. I am a GACE certified in both French K-12 and Art K-12 and I currently serve on the French GACE Bias Review Committee for the state of Georgia.
Recently, I published my first two books of a young-adult science fiction trilogy titled, "The Locals" which has been described as "Twilight meets Little House on the Prairie." You can check them out on Amazon or through my website at www.thelocalsnovel.com
“I started studying French back in high school and knew on the second day of that class that I wanted to one day speak French fluently. My teacher never spoke much in class and I always wanted more. Having aspirations to be an artist with the intention of wanting to speak French better, I decided to move to France after high school and tried to get into a French fine arts program or university. After a year in the country and immersed in the language, I was able to communicate well enough to become accepted to L’École des Beaux Arts in Angers. I continued on a path as an artist for the next fifteen years becoming a computer animator and graphic designer. I discovered teaching in 2001 and never looked back. After five years of teaching CGI, I began to search for more ways to utilize my language skills more productively; thus dropping out of the “biz”. I wanted to continue to teach, but not art. I decided to fall back on my love of the French language and pursued my certification at GSU in 2009. I am passionate about speaking the language and feel that I can elicit this passion in other students by immersing them in class and sharing with them the opportunities that were available to me because of my language skills. For example, I was able to travel throughout Europe and the Caribbean Islands easier and to understand the complexities of world languages while teaching and living in South Korea from 2002-2003, I had the wonderful opportunity of working in the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta as a French Translator, and I had the unique experience of being on a game show in France where I ended up winning the grand-prize, which by the way can be seen on YouTube. Every day, I share these memories (and videos) with my students in my classes in order to awaken in them the advantages of learning and using a foreign language.”
