Students sing praise of Carroll

Leanne Natividad, Reporter

Mari Carroll’s second year of teaching French 1-2

Mari Carroll teaches French 1-2 in room 507. She has been teaching French for two years.

“I became a French teacher because I love teaching languages to people. I have fun in class everyday except when I have to be mean because students are

misbehaving,”Carroll said.

When Carroll was younger, she wanted to use her French speaking skills to be an international diplomat. However, she realized that it didn’t align well with some of her other life goals such as having a family so she decided to become a French teacher.

“I had a lot of influential teachers my senior year of high school. I decided that if I could make an impact in one student’s life, like they did for mine, the low pay and many hours would be worth it,” Carroll said.

Before Carroll became a teacher, she had several different jobs as she worked her way through school.

“I have been a camp counselor, an assistant plant pathologist, and a research technician,” Carroll said.

In high school, Carroll ran cross-country and was a team captain. In addition, she participated in track and field, she was vice president of Speech and Debate and she competed in policy (where competitors play government and speak faster than usual) and humorous interpretations.

“ [Some talents people might not know I have are] rhyming and making up my own lyrics to songs,” Carroll said

Carroll went to the college at Utah State University where she earned a BA in French education, a minor in linguistics, and a BS in Health Education. In addition, she applied and went to school in France for a year. While in France, she studied at the Université de Nantes. There, she took classes such as French Literature, the History of France, linguistics, and stellar sociology classes.

“I lived in France so I could improve my French. I was there from Sept. 2009 to July 2010. It was fun studying abroad. I recommend it to everyone! However, my first day there was awful. No one was at the train station to pick me up. The phone numbers they gave me were not working, the school was closed, and I had no place to stay. I was ready to turn around and go back home when luckily some students who were also going to the Université de Nantes helped me out,” Carroll said.

The most difficult thing to become a French teacher for Carroll was the exams she had to pass.

“The Université de Nantes did not tell me I had to pass a really difficult oral interview until I was almost done with my schooling. I had just come home from serving an 18-month mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Latvia (west of Russia, south of Finland) so I had not read or spoken French for 18 months. I had also just learned a new language, Latvian so I kept mixing up the two,” Carroll said.

At the time, Carroll did not have anymore-French classes to take, so it was difficult to study and practice to regain her French language skills on her own.

The hardest part of being a teacher for Carroll is when students are rude.

“It can be difficult to not take things personally. Often a student will act out and be unkind, but there is generally a different issue that upset the student and the teacher is an outlet for him/her. Teachers just have to remember that 99% of the time, it is not personal,” Carroll said.

Besides teaching, Carroll enjoys cooking, baking, eating, getting lost in a good book, and playing the guitar. In addition, Carroll and her husband like to work out together and do exercises such as running, yoga, and play ultimate Frisbee. She also enjoys playing card games where she could become competitive.

“Madame Carroll is a fun, caring, positive, and outgoing person. I like how she does Kahoot to help us remember words in French and how she gives us review games to

study for a unit. Also, I like how she gives us chocolate to reward us,” freshman Stephanie Mandujano said.

Carroll’s favorite part about being a teacher is helping students to be successful and do things that they didn’t know they could do. She likes when she sees the metaphorical “light bulb” go on when something clicks. Additionally, Carroll loves the relationships she forms with classes and specific students.

“The best piece of advice that I have learned from Madame Carroll is do not be worried if people tease or judge you for saying something wrong in French. She tells us not to be afraid to try because we are all in French 1-2 to learn the language,” Mandujan said.