Dr. Jocelyn Van Tuyl was hired to fill a vacant French teacher position for the 2023-2024 school year at St. Andrew’s.
St. Andrew’s has had a difficult time keeping a French teacher for longer than a year in the past. But St. Andrew’s is not the only school. According to France-Amérique, in an article titled, “Teaching French in the United States: Difficult, but not Impossible”, by Barbara Landrevie, schools all over the United States are having a rough time hiring language teachers. “47 out of the 50 American states find it difficult to recruit language teachers,” Landrevie said. “Increasingly few US students are turning to the teaching profession.” This is due to many people not being interested in teaching, and some are moving away from the teaching profession altogether. Some students have felt that having a new teacher each year for French has had a negative effect. “We get new teachers with new teaching styles, so adjusting to that can be sometimes challenging,” AP French student Gabriella Zevallos said. “It brings you a new experience of learning a language.”
St. Andrew’s new French teacher had taught at the same college for over 29 years. Van Tuyl got her undergraduate degree and PHD from Yale. After graduation, she taught at Yale, Wesleyan University, and the New College of Florida. After New College, she came to St. Andrew’s. New College has made recent headlines after six new conservative trustees of the board were appointed by Governor Ron DeSantis causing many controversial changes on campus. Van Tuyl was drawn to the friendly atmosphere at St. Andrew’s. “I specifically came here for this school,” Van Tuyl said, “because of the people here, and how kind and helpful they are and it’s a really academic school.”
Because Van Tuyl had taught at a college for so long, her teaching style is different from past teachers at St. Andrew’s. “She really tries to engage with me in conversation,” Zevallos said. “We try to discuss the material, we work things out on the board, and it’s a very interactive class that I think is really good so far.”
French is known as the language of the future. It is one of the top languages used for business, and it develops critical thinking skills. Van Tuyl hopes that all of her students, grades 8-12, will be interested in French enough so that they will be motivated to excel in the class. “My main goal would be for everyone who isn’t an outright beginner,” Van Tuyl said, “to feel like they’re capable of learning French, and make progress from where they are.”
