"I know that the most motivating force in the world of learning a foreign language and appreciating another culture is to live it," says Linda Jordan, who teaches French and A.P. English at Pass Christian High School in Pass Christian. In 1989, together with a French counterpart in the French City of Carentan, Mrs. Jordan created the Carentan Exchange program. Funded almost entirely through Mrs. Jordan's fundraising efforts, the program has allowed dozens of her students to travel abroad and has brought dozens of French students to the U.S. Believing that foreign-language acquisition should be accessible to all students, Mrs. Jordan has adopted a variety of classroom techniques to achieve that end. By using cooperative learning groups, total physical response method and videography, Mrs. Jordan has turned French class into a major academic attraction that draws over one-third of the students at Pass Christian High School.
1972 University of Oregon, B.A.
