A Dedicated Team of Teachers

We are a team of qualified native French speakers who strive to offer you a full “Language Experience”!
Our teachers maintain a passion for the French language and culture and their bubbly and supportive personalities make learning fun and interesting.

Marion KermannSchool Director

Marion joined French à la Carte as a teacher in November 2019, and as its director in July 2020. Born and raised in Paris, she has been teaching French and English for over 15 years, in France, Burkina Faso, Belgium, and Estonia, before settling down in Sydney, where she has also worked at the Alliance Française and Macquarie University. Her experience in Customer Service and Project Management combined with years of teaching in various organisations are put to very good use to run French à la Carte and organise various new projects and activities for its students.

Her favourite French word is ‘voyage’, because it is what best describes the last 10 years of her life, and the many more to come!

Cathlin BarrettProject Coordinator

Cathlin is an Australian-born Francophile who looks after the marketing and communications for French à la Carte. Her French learning journey began at the age of 12, and she’s been in love with the language ever since. Her 2 young sons share this passion, as they are being raised in a bilingual household.
With a background in PR and event management, Cathlin is also an experienced language teacher who has worked in Canada, France and West Africa.

Her favourite French word is ‘patatras’ as it perfectly describes the sound when a tower of blocks comes crashing down, a common occurrence in a house of young boys!

Florence Perino-BertTeacher

Florence joined the French à la Carte team in 2013. She comes from Avignon and moved to Australia in 2012. She has a Languages Teaching degree from the University of Montpellier.
Her career spans more than ten years teaching French and Italian to corporate professionals and diplomats in Paris and Provence.

Florence’s favourite French word is ‘pipelette’ – because she has a lot of them in her classes!

Fanny GeppTeacher

Fanny comes from Paris. She moved to Australia in 2007 with her family after having lived in London for many years.
In 2013, after 20 years’ work experience in the hospitality industry, Fanny undertook a career change to follow her passion and genuine enthusiasm for the French language and its culture. Fanny is now a qualified DAEFLE teacher and joined French à la Carte in 2015.

Her favourite French word is ‘bienveillance’ – a difficult word to translate in English, she likes what it represents: empathy and kindness.

Blandine ContonTeacher

Blandine joined French à la Carte in October 2017, only a few weeks after arriving from France! She holds a Master’s degree in teaching French as a foreign language from the Paris Sorbonne University. She started working as a French teacher in various language schools around Paris and moved for a year to Latvia and two years to the Philippines, teaching French to university students.

Her favourite French word is ‘gourmandise’ because it promises the pleasure of chocolate and other sweet things. And Blandine has a sweet tooth!

Marie-Françoise AlexanderTeacher

Marie-Françoise has been teaching at French à la Carte for many years. She has become our conversation class specialist thanks to her enthusiastic personality and extensive cultural knowledge of all things French.

She regularly travels to her second home in Franche-Comté, a beautiful region in Eastern France near the border of Switzerland.

Marie-Françoise’s favourite French word is ‘libellule’ because this insect, with its translucent wings, evokes the lightness and fragility of people and objects.

Marie RauturierTeacher

Marie is a French native-speaker from Paris, who came to Australia in 2018 with her family. She previously lived in the US, where she was a French teacher for 7 years (she also taught French cuisine, ask her about it!). She joined French a la Carte in October 2020.

Marie’s favourite word in French is ‘écureuil’, because this is a word as hard to pronounce in French for her French students, as its English translation (squirrel) is tricky for her to say!

Daniela PlassardTeacher

Daniela worked for 13 years in Paris in marketing, helping her clients to reach their goals, before moving with her family to Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where she started to teach French. Living in Sydney since 2018, she loves teaching her students about the French “art de vivre”, especially gastronomy, fashion and travel in order to discover the most fascinating and exciting French gems.

Her favourite word to teach is “bonheur”, since this is what we are all looking for, right?

Samuel HuetTeacher

Samuel spent part of his childhood in Sydney before returning to France at the age of 12, then leaving again at 25 to spend the next decade in Malaysia, China and Indonesia, teaching French, English, and even a little bit of Spanish. Back in Sydney since 2007, he has continued as a language teacher, while also doing some freelance research and writing work. More recently, he has trained to become a meditation teacher and aims to get as many people as possible to take up effortless meditation.

Samuel’s favourite French word is ‘persévérance’, an essential ingredient to make progress in mastering a new language, kung fu (his new hobby / obsession) or indeed anything else in life.

?? THIS MIGHT BE YOU!!

Interested in joining our Team ?
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