Qui suis-je? Who am I?

Bonjour et bienvenue à la classe de français ! Je m’appelle Madame Rebecca Peters, mais vous pouvez m’appeler Madame Rebecca ou Madame Peters. Je suis ravie d’être votre professeure cette session!

I’m very excited to be working with you in Madame Henry’s absence.  I know that I have big shoes to fill and I’ve heard wonderful things about the Scarsdale family and its language program, so I’m thrilled to be here during my sabbatical from my job teaching English to French speakers on the south shore of Montreal at Cegep Edouard-Montpetit.

In my loisirs (free time), I like to bike, hike, read, binge-watch TV shows, and travel. I’ve lived and taught in the US, Canada, Senegal, and France but my travels have taken me to almost 50 other countries, many of them French speaking. As a teacher, my goal is to help you learn about countries in the world where French is spoken (La Francophonie) and to better understand French grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation so you can add another skill to your communication toolbox.

I look forward to getting to know each of you a little more and helping you achieve the goals you've set for yourself.  If you’d like to introduce yourself before the first day of classes, please feel free to introduce yourself here (use your @scarsdaleschools.org email address) and share anything you’d like to me know before we get started.

All of your course assignments and due dates will be posted on Schoology. I will also be posting weekly newsletters with random cultural and linguistic factoids as well as music from the francophone world. These are just for fun and aren’t mandatory, but I hope you’ll take advantage of them and enjoy them.

Please don't be shy. You can contact me with any questions about the course or with any random questions you might have about learning French all the wonderful things that come with it. Extra help will be from 2:30-3:15 in T01 on Tuesdays (mardi), Wednesdays (mercredi), and Thursdays (jeudi).

la ville de Québec :  Je suis allée à Québec pour voir le spectacle de Red Bull Crashed Ice . 

 Dakar, Sénégal : J'ai habité à Dakar pendant un an où j'ai enseigné l'anglais.

Paris, France :  Quand j'étais à l'université, j'ai étudié à Paris pendant une session.  Dans cette photo, je suis avec mes camarades de classe au jardin de Luxembourg.  Pouvez-vous me trouver?           

Pourquoi apprendre le français? Why Learn French?

The simplest reason is that learning a new language is fun!  Embrace the experience and enjoy the learning experience.  It’s normal not to understand everything at first.  The French language has approximately 80 million native speakers, as well as 190 million secondary speakers, meaning that around 270 million people speak the French language worldwide. It is an official language in 29 countries, with most of these being part of the community of French-speaking nations known as la Francophone. It is estimated that around 12 percent of the European Union’s population speaks French as a mother tongue, making it the fourth most widely-spoken European language; 20 percent of EU citizens report knowing how to speak French, making it the third most understood language on the continent. That being said, the language’s reach extends far beyond Europe and, in fact, the largest share of the world’s French-speaking population resides in Africa. French is recognized as an official language of several global institutions, including the United Nations, NATO and the World Trade Organization as well as being the official language of the Olympics along with English and the language of the host nation.