Lost in Translation: Gratitude, Growth, and Looking Ahead

As 2025 comes to a close, I find myself reflecting with a full heart. This year gave me more moments of connection and professional joy than I could have hoped for. I was able to return home to Long Island to deliver a keynote, facilitate workshops for teachers across the region, and collaborate with French and world language educators in spaces rooted in growth, culture, and meaningful language use. Each session reminded me why this work matters. Teaching is not easy. Doing it through acquisition-driven methods requires creativity, trust, and persistence. And doing it in community makes it sustainable.

I also want to take a moment to honor the members of the AfroFranco Teacher Collective PLC. Thank you for learning alongside me, sharing resources, offering insights, and building a collaborative space where French teachers can feel supported and inspired. Watching our conversations evolve each month has pushed my thinking, sharpened my practice, and reminded me that our work becomes stronger when we do it together. This was my 18th year teaching French, but my first year teaching without Thanksgiving break and in a new country. My students welcomed me into their world, their interests, and their stories. I am grateful for every learner who made space for language to feel compelling and personal in 2025.

Looking ahead to 2026, I feel the excitement I’ve been missing in the quieter months. The book club is returning, and our first meeting will be January 9th to discuss Jacaranda by Gaël Faye. I’m also working toward finally publishing my first CI French reader, drafting long-form acquisition-driven curriculum for teachers who juggle multiple levels, and creating more turn-key lessons built around real, culturally rich, unmodified French media.

Cali, Colombia has become a classroom for me too. Living here has given me a front-row seat to what language acquisition feels like again, this time as a learner myself. That experience continues to affirm what I believe: high-frequency language, compelling stories, and culturally responsive teaching are not extras. They are the foundation.

To the teachers who have shared classrooms, conversations, and learning spaces with me this year, thank you. To the students who took risks with language in front of me and invited me into their lives through stories, thank you. To the educators who make this work feel joyful, rigorous, culturally grounded, and possible for all learners, thank you.

As we move into 2026, I hope you feel the same momentum that I do right now. We are planting seeds that our students will harvest for years. We are building fluency, curiosity, confidence, interculturality, and belonging through language. I am honored to be part of that work with you.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you for showing up for your students and for one another. Keep doing the beautiful work that you do in your classrooms. Our kids deserve it, and the world needs it.

Ben Tinsley

AfroFranco