Inge Franco
French
✉︎ ifranco@millerschool.org
☏ 434-823-4805
As a native of Germany, Inge Franco completed her studies in Germany before she came to live in the United States in 1989. She got married one year later and had two daughters, Alexa and Kiki, both young adults now. She is a permanent resident of the U.S., otherwise known as a green card resident. Still feeling German at heart, she has not applied for naturalization, as Germany doesn’t allow for dual citizenship.
Inge attended the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz in her home state of Rheinland-Pfalz with a B.A. in teaching foreign languages. She majored in French and English with a minor in Latin. After completion of her studies, she worked for a short while as a language secretary /translator for a French company. During a visit to relatives in the U.S., she was offered a teaching job at Grymes Memorial School in Orange and returned a few months later to accept the position as French teacher at Grymes.
After her first child was born, Inge took a four year break from teaching to dedicate herself to raising her young daughters. As the wife of a Salvadoran native, she got immersed into learning Spanish during the years as a stay-at-home mom. In 1994, she went back to teaching at St. Luke’s School in Culpeper where she taught Spanish for seventeen years.
However, Inge has always had a deep passion for the French language and culture, and when the opportunity presented itself to go back to teaching French again, she accepted the position of French teacher at Wakefield Country Day School in Flint Hill in 2011. For the past eight years, she has taught mainly French at WCDS. In addition, she also taught British literature, German, ELL TOEFL Prep and U.S. history throughout her time at WCDS.
Inge is very passionate about the importance of being at least bi-lingual in today’s global environment. In fact, her daughters grew up in a trilingual household, learning Spanish, German and English from early childhood on. She strongly believes that everyone has the ability to acquire and master a second language if they are taught with a natural approach.