Some of us had the opportunity to work with Bernard last summer in Las Vegas. He is the real deal. Thank you for the bio, Bernard:
Ben,
Je me présente…
Born in the heart of Africa, I’ve lived a wandering life as an army brat until my parents settled in the South of France. Along the way, I picked up German, English and Spanish, mostly by myself. With teachers who didn’t have the ability to tap into my interest and potential in languages, I could never have imagined that I would be able to teach high school French and Spanish in America one day.
I met a pair of blue eyes in San-Francisco about 20 years ago and followed them back to Park City, Utah… Ah, ces belles Américaines! She is a fine art professor at the University of Utah, and when I saw how much passion she would bring home everyday, the enthusiasm, the laughter and the crying after her classes, I knew this was a job for me. Going back to many years of studies, I was blown away by the quality and care of the American professors and then met a couple of mentors who introduced me to TPRS during my student teaching. I was hooked, right away! I have been teaching using comprehensible input since then, about 9 years ago.
I am not a frequent contributor to the discussions on the PLC, to say the least and I want to find the time to do so more often. I know that since the last NTPRS conference in Las Vegas and with the help of this community’s posts, I have learned a lot and my teaching has improved tremendously. Thank you Ben, thank you all.
Bernard Rizzotto