Diana Noonan
Diana
Noonan taught French and Spanish in the Denver Public Schools for
30 years. The last 20 years of her career she was at East High School
where she served as the department chair and taught French levels
1 - AP Language and Literature and an honors course in French Culture
and Civilization. She is currently working as the World Languages
Coordinator for the Denver Public Schools, a large urban school
district. Diana has a B.A. in French from Colorado Women's College
which includes a year of study in Geneva, Switzerland. Her M.A.
is from the University of Denver in French literature and secondary
education. During her 30 years as a teacher, Diana served as a writer
for several DPS foreign language publications including Curriculum
guides for Teaching Foreign Language in DPS, Teaching Exploratory
Language, Scope and Sequence and FL Objectives and Outcomes for
French levels 1 - 4. In 1988 she wrote a Guide for teaching AP French
Language, which was published by the College Board. Her awards include
Colorado Outstanding Foreign language Teacher from the University
of Northern Colorado, nominations for Who's Who Among America's
Teachers and the CCFLT Outstanding Teacher of the Year. Diana has
won several awards for exemplary teaching and for outstanding foreign
language programs from the Colorado Department of Education. She
belongs to CCFLT, Colorado Congress of Foreign Language Teachers,
AATF, and ACTFL. In 1994 she was a Task Force Member of the State
Standards for Foreign Languages and has served as a presenter for
the Colorado Department of Education.
In
1997, she discovered Blaine Ray and TPRS®. Feeling as if she
had been in a coma and just woken up, Diana was so excited about
this new method of teaching that she brought it to the East High
School FL Department and in 1999 all of the teachers in the department
were using TPRS® as the primary method of instruction. The numbers
in the advanced classes soared and for the first time ever reflected
the diverse student body of East. She started working as a presenter
for Blaine in 2005 after her retirement from teaching and has presented
workshops in TPRS® for DPS World Languages teachers, including
teachers of Chinese and Japanese language.
Diana taught Fluency Fast French classes this year at the Denver Language Institute and the 2007 National TPRS® Conference and will also teach Beginning French in Denver in October and February.
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| Diana teaching French in Denver, July 2007 | ...telling a story.... | ...with, of course, a happy ending! |