NAME:
Maureen Rispoli
SCHOOL:
Hope Elementary School
CLASS:
K-8
SCHOOL PHONE:
785-4081
I love teaching French and have taught it to most age groups, adults included.
Teaching at the elementary and middle levels is very rewarding and a lot of
fun. I am pleased to be back at HES this year and look forward to many more.
I have a BA in French and an MA in TESL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other
Languages). I spent my junior year of college as a student at the Université
de Strasbourg in France (the Alsace region, bordering Germany) and following
graduation, I taught conversational English classes in a high school in
Créteil, a suburb of Paris. I have taught a variety of ages and levels. Most
recently, before HES, I taught a combination of French and Spanish at Troy
Howard Middle School in Belfast. Prior to this, I taught ESOL to both adults
and children (K-5) and French immersion (K-2) in Florida. At one point, I
thought I wanted to earn a Master's degree in French literature, and during my
one year of study at Boston College before changing my mind, I taught
French II as a Teaching Fellow, mostly to freshmen and sophomores.
In addition to living in France, I have traveled there many times. Twice I led
high school groups to France for 5-week long home stay and excursion
experiences with The School for International Training's World Learning Summer
Abroad Program. I have yet to explore Québec since moving to Maine, but that
will soon change. I did get to experience Montréal a few times in the past.
My husband, Bill, and I moved to Maine from Florida in February 2003. We fell
in love with Maine after spending quite a while hiking here, and since we had
some family connections as well, decided to move here and give it a go. Maine
winters are vastly different than those down South, but they remind me of
growing up in CT and of my school years in MA and VT. I miss Florida the most
in the dead of a Maine winter.
We are finding that Maine is a wonderful place to raise a child. Our daughter
is four years old and brings immeasurable joy to our lives. She likes to tell
people that she speaks French, even though only a few words, songs, phrases so
far.