About
Foreign Language House is your source for training videos, articles, activities, printables, and worksheets for PK-12 French, Spanish, and ESL teachers and homeschooling parents. Hundreds of original downloads created especially for world language teachers make their home here at ForeignLanguageHouse.com
Catherine Fortin and Diane Farrug are experienced teachers and trainers who offer workshops, ecourses, and consulting services.
Catherine hails from the borderland of El Paso, TX where English and Spanish have lived side-by-side since the Spanish colonial 1600′s. She is a career Spanish, ESL, and English teacher now teaching homeschool groups, groups, and individuals. Catherine began her teaching career in bilingual schools in Albuquerque, NM. She then taught at the Charlotte Country Day School in Charlotte, nC for nine years and was the Department Chair of foreign languages in the Middle School. She feels that teaching people how to communicate in another language is both a thrill and a gift.
Training, coaching, and mentoring teachers of all grades is her specialty. Every teacher has a gift, and she loves supporting and emphasizing this. She gives teacher workshops nationally.
Catherine’s passion is Hispanic culture. She loves enigmatic Mexico, where there is art on every street corner and great food on every block. She’s logged extensive travels there, and she has studied flamenco dancing in Seville, Spain.
Some of Catherine’s Publications:
- Several educational articles on suite101.com
- Mexico Autentico! A cooking class at Oaxaca, Mexico’s Cafe El Naranjo showcasing and detailing the preparation of traditional mole sauce in The Charlotte Observer, Charlotte, NC, and The Westsider El Paso, Texas.
Diane is a K-12 certified foreign language teacher and writer who is passionate about early language learning. She has shared her love of the French language with students as young as 2 and as old as 18. Most recently a high school teacher, she has also piloted preschool foreign language programs, created home-based mom-tot classes, written a fifth grade French workbook, and developed an innovative story-based middle school curriculum. Her vast experience spans not only PK-12, but also private, parochial, and public schools. She is a frequent speaker at state, regional, and national foreign language teacher conferences. There is no greater compliment than to be called “a teacher’s teacher.”
Diane received her BA in French and English Language and Literature in 1990, and she has done post-graduate work in Elementary Education. She has studied in both France and Quebec and travels to these wonderful places frequently, leading student trips and exchange programs. The Loire Valley and Quebec City have taken up permanent residency in her heart.
Besides creating innovative educational content with Catherine for Foreign Language House, Diane also writes articles, stories, poems, and crafts for children’s magazines. She has been published in Highlights for Children, Hopscotch for Girls, Faces magazine, and Wee Ones e-zine. Several professional online articles can be found on Suite101.com, where she was formerly the feature writer for Education/Language Study.
Contact Diane and Catherine at foreignlanguagehouse@gmail.com
