If you have ever wanted to take a foreign language class here at Canyon High School, and Spanish is not your thing, French might be the perfect choice for you. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to interview Canyon’s very own French teacher, Madame Moulden, to get to know all about her and what goes on in her life as well as in her classes.
Madame has been teaching for 12 years, and this is her ninth year at Canyon. She teaches all four levels of French as well as College and Career Seminar. Madame has also worked in the states of Nevada and Massachusetts.
Growing up, she wanted to be many things, including a ballerina, the first female kicker in the NFL (a joke in her family from a book), an interior designer, an architect, and an English teacher in a foreign country/missionary. She didn’t think about teaching until her 20s; she just wanted to travel the world and help people while speaking French.
Her interest in France and the French language began when she was a student. Along with her choir classmates, Madame visited France for the first time when she was in high school. No, she couldn’t sing; she just wanted to go to France.
She eventually lived in the south of France for two years at a university in Pau and worked as a ‘jeune fille au pair’ (nanny) near Cannes. One of her favorite memories was spending Christmas with her host family in Lyon. She had a true French Christmas with snow and amazing food. She has continued to travel to France even after moving back to the United States. In 2018, she took one group of students to Paris and another group of students to Canada in 2022.
Although Madame only speaks English and French, she has a very basic structural understanding of other languages as well, specifically Spanish and Italian due to their structural similarities. In the future, she would love to learn Swedish because she has family there.
Speaking of family, Madame’s family is mainly spread across the U.S., including Long Beach, Northern Nevada (where she grew up,) Georgia, Utah, Indiana (where her dad was from), Kentucky, and Illinois. Growing up, it was pretty much just Madame, her brother, and their mom. They called themselves the three musketeers. Madame’s brother is her twin who is a minute older because his foot was in the way.
She also has one niece who is three years old and the best little girl ever. Her niece loves to dance like her ‘tatie’ (aunt), who grew up dancing. Madame also has Annie, her six-year-old spaniel lab mix who is her doggy daughter. She is a support pup for Madame.
Now, to know more about her classes, we got some advice from Madame. Madame stated, “French is not as hard as people say. Pronunciation is the hardest part, but when you know the rules, it becomes easier. Learning any language takes work and time. Students cannot expect to become capable or fluent by just coming to class. They must use it and experience it for it to stick. Anyone can learn anything with time and practice. It won’t always come easily, but that only means it will come to them even stronger. Learning makes one smarter and more capable, but it also makes one a better human being. They will be more open to experiences and people.”
Madame tries to make learning fun, changing up tasks and providing everything and anything needed for success. However, students must remember that they are the ones learning, so they need to ensure they are focused and engaged. They should connect with the material as much as possible, ask questions, and try. Mistakes are when they learn; they are not bad. The goal of each class is to help students find what they learned and how it could help them in their future.
Not everything will have a direct impact on their lives or future careers. However, there will be skills or lessons learned. When it comes to French, Madame knows many students will not speak French outside of the classroom unless they visit a French-speaking country or meet a French person. However, they will become more empathetic humans and more open-minded.
They will have seen and heard how the world works differently than their own. They will be kinder and more patient with others who might not speak their language(s) because they will understand the stresses and fears of learning a language, as well as how language structures differ. They will be stronger in their language(s) and better communicators as world citizens. Everything is a lesson; they should take what they need from it.
If you have any questions, make sure to go visit Madame in her classroom, D4!
