Born
and brought up in England, I discovered my fascination for foreign languages
already in the
1970's
while on
holiday
with my family in the
Val d'Hérens,
in the Valais
region of Switzerland.
This
motivated me to later study
modern
languages
and Latin at school,
which in 1988 led to
a
4 year
B.A. (Hons) Degree
in European Languages and Institutions
at the
Leeds
Language Centre and
Business School, Leeds Polytechnic (now part of the Leeds Metropolitan
University). Majoring in French and Politics,
accompanied by Spanish, History and Economics, I also spent
a summer working in Avignon, worked as an English Language Assistant in a
secondary school in Saverne, Alsace, France for 10 months and spent a summer
in Spain studying the Spanish language and culture.
On completion of my
studies in
1992,
I set off for
Turin in northern Italy
as
part of the European Community Exchange Programme "PETRA", where I first of
all learnt Italian and then worked for 2 months for the
Turin
Tourist
Board.
In
1993, I started
working for the
leading British Tour Operator
Cresta Holidays
where, as Contracts Manager, I was responsible for researching, contracting and
preparing city break, short break, and tailor-made holiday products in Europe,
and in particular
in
France, Italy, Ireland, Switzerland and Spain.
This
job involved
extensive
travel,
which eventually led me to the next chapter in my life - married to a Swiss
national, I have now been living and working in German-speaking Switzerland
since 1998.
The
move to Switzerland presented me with the opportunity to further develop both my
private and professional interests - skiing, walking, biking, camping,
swimming... and of course my love for languages.
Between 1998 and 2000, my
first priority being to learn German to the level required for the
Goethe
Institute certificates, I attended 3 semesters of evening classes at the DOZ (Zürich
School of Interpreting).
During this time, I continued working in tourism -
first of all for 6 months in the Great Britain
Department of Falcon Travel and
then from 1999-2000 as Product Manager for the France specialist
Opus Tours
(both
members of the Reisebaumeister group
based
in Zürich).
In
Autumn 2000, I decided to take my language studies
to a higher level at the SAL (School of Applied Linguistics) in Zürich, where I have,
on a part-time basis,
completed courses
in
grammatical
analysis,
linguistics,
literature
and
translation in German, English
and
French.
I am currently attending
further courses in translation and teaching,
with particular emphasis on methods for teaching English to German speakers in
Switzerland. At the same time, I am delighted to be building up my newly started language
company “Language Factory”, offering various services
allowing me to use and pass on my knowledge and enthusiasm for languages.
I
hope that you, as a future client, will appear in the next chapter - I look
forward to it!
