KAs a child, I used to spend hours on end looking at world maps and reading about other cultures. When I was on my own playing in the little wood at the bottom of my street, I would pretend I could speak a rare language from an unknown country. I have always been fascinated by how very much alike all human beings are, despite the differences in our environments, cultures, traditions, beliefs and languages. 

Like a lot of children, I had many dreams. One of them was to travel the world to meet people from other cultures. Although I did travel around Europe and went to China and the United States, I certainly did not visit all the countries I had in mind then.
However, that did not prevent me from at least partly achieving my dream: I have met and still meet people from all over the world. That has been made possible through teaching French and English as foreign languages.

Teaching French and English necessarily means teaching people from other countries. Over the years, I have taught people from all continents and no less than 67 countries to this day!

I taught in Germany, in England, in Luxembourg, in France and now offer online conversation classes, which opens the door to even more opportunities, so I expect that number to keep growing.

I am so grateful that I have been able to meet people from so many different countries and cultures. They have taught and brought me so much. Thanks to them, I have a much more thorough understanding of others. They all helped me remain curious, open-minded, receptive to ways of thinking and ideals that are different from the ones I was brought up with. Above all, they helped me see very clearly that we all are much more alike than we are different. They are a life lesson!

I cannot thank enough every single one of my students for always being so kind and willing to open up. I consider myself extremely fortunate to have such a wonderful job that enables me to meet absolutely wonderful people from all over the world!

It feels great to be able to share this with you. The map highlights all the countries the learners I have taught either French or English to are from, whether in groups or one-to-one classes. Here is the list of these countries in alphabetical order. 

Albania, Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bahrein, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Denmark, Egypt, El Salvador, England, Estonia, Finland, France, Gambia, Germany, Greece, India, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Monaco, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Northern Ireland, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tunisia, Turkey, UAE (Dubai), Ukraine, USA, Vietnam, Wales

I wonder where the next language learner who will ask me for a conversation class will be from. Still, whatever the answer is, what I already know is that person will help me learn something more from their culture and I relish the idea!

To all my former, current and future students, I want to extend my most sincere thanks for everything I can learn from you! 🙂