Be sure and let us hear from you.  We love to share your stories, ideas and comments with other former and current students!

Melanie Marcom '81, '96 -- Currently Director of Music at Walnut Hill Lutheran Church in Dallas and Assistant Music Director at Ursuline Academy of Dallas.  Also, working towards Teacher Certification.  "I ...get to use my Spanish at my church job.  My church has a Latino ministry and I play the organ for the Spanish services.  I have made many friends and have enjoyed getting to know the culture by actively participating in it.  The Latinos are so appreciative of my speaking their language to them and I have lost my fear of making a mistake.  They don't laugh at me...instead they help me to say it right.  I also got to go to France in September '00.  It had been 20 years since I had studied French at Union, but I remembered quite a bit and could communicate with French people and could translate written French quite well.  I am so glad I studied Spanish and French and I hope to study German in the future!"

Michelle Finley (actually Burch now) '04. "I am writing to let you know what is going on here in Beauvais, France where my husband, Brandon, and I have been living for the last two weeks.

I started teaching on Thursday and I really enjoy it so far... Mostly I just play games and speak English with the students. We were told at our training not to have them do a lot of writing because some of them can barely read and write in French much less in English. Plus we were told that if they see it before they hear it, they will teach themselves to pronounce it incorrectly by nature of the French language. Therefore I use a lot of TPR and mostly just have fun with it.

Living in France is of course much different from the US, but I really like it so far...  We have fun shopping at the outside markets that come twice a week and they are cheaper than the grocery stores for things like meat and fruits and vegetables. My favorite part is the French bread and the pastries!

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know how it was going. Keep in touch!