Madame Shea is Waterford High School’s French teacher. She teaches French from French 1 to AP French 5.
Shea decided to teach French to high school students because of an exchange program she participated in during high school. When she was 16, Madame had a student stay with her for two weeks, then she was able to travel to France for two weeks. She loved French culture and how the French language communicated, so she decided to major in French. Madame also says she teaches French to kids to “hopefully inspire other kids to learn the language and travel and meet other people from francophone cultures as well.”
Madame Shea has many favorite memories while working at WHS. Her most memorable moment was when she and some other teachers got pied in the face by students at a pep rally when raising money for class council. She says, “The whole thing was messy, but it was hilarious to be a part of.”
Though she loves to speak French, she would love to learn how to communicate through sign language. She finds it an impressive skill
Madame has traveled to France before, but she wants to travel all around Europe. She wants to go to Spain because her husband speaks a little bit of Spanish and to Italy for the food. She also would love to travel to other francophone countries including Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria in North Africa.
Madame’s favorite color is purple. She does not have a specific reason why she likes purple, but she finds the color pretty. Her favorite holiday drink is hot chocolate and she drinks it a lot during the winter time: “Sometimes I drink it in the summer too, even though it is so hot.”
She would choose Dunkin coffee over Starbucks, but she picks Starbucks food over Dunkin. Madame just does not like eating Dunkin’s food, but she drinks Dunkin coffee because it is way cheaper: “$10 for a latte with almond milk is ridiculous.”
Madame is the oldest sibling out of four. She has a younger sister and two younger brothers, and her youngest brother is now a freshman in college. Her older brother has a cool job at the Pentagon and also shares a love for speaking different languages, including Chinese and French.
Growing up, she had a dog named Megan and three pet birds. Unfortunately, her birds did not last very long. The first bird got eaten by her dog, the second bird flew away because of the dog chasing it around, and the third bird also just flew away. She decided she was done with birds after that fiasco.
Not only does she teach her students French, but she also teaches her children French when she is not at school.
Last fall, Madame had twin girls, Kennedy and Sadie. During car rides, she listens to French songs with the girls, so they can learn the basics of French and she speaks to them fully in French because she believes that languages are very important. “They understand French better than English which is really cool.” Her goal is to raise her kids to be bilingual.
