(2012/3/14) Pamela Ward - French

Teaching Pamela has been a new experience for us at CHICLE. We usually send our students who want intensive immersion off to some country where the language is native. We have loved having Pamela here! It is amazing to observe someone going from zero to fluency in six months. She has worked so hard. The Department of Commerce is lucky to have her.

Bonjour!  Jo napot kivanok!  Dobro jutro!  I’m Pamela and if you have been at CHICLE during the day anytime since September, you’ve probably seen or heard me working with a very patient and very professional group of instructors trying to help me reach working fluency in French in just six months. You may have even seen my husband, Corey, and son, Ryan, taking beginning French lessons at CHICLE.  Why, you may ask, has French become such an important part of lives?

The simple answer is that for the next four years our lives will be lived in French.  As part of my job as a Foreign Commercial Officer for the U.S. Department of Commerce I am assigned to a new country every few years with the gratifying task of representing and promoting U.S. companies and products in overseas markets.  To do that effectively I need to be able to operate in the local language and that’s why I’ve been spending six hours a day/five days a week at CHICLE preparing for my next posting in Paris, France. 

I have previously worked and lived in Hungary, The Netherlands, South Africa, and Croatia. While I’m finding that learning to speak French well is just as challenging as learning Hungarian and Croatian, I am enjoying the opportunity to learn one of the “world languages” and the cultural insights I am getting from the instructors here at CHICLE.  My teachers (all seven of them) have succeeded in making a difficult task an enjoyable experience and together we are accomplishing my goal. 

And, it’s been great working with the friendly and caring staff and the outstanding instructors at CHICLE.  If you’re reading this, you probably already know it’s a great team and a wonderful place to learn and use a foreign language. A bientot!