Sarah Raphael
B.A., Sociology, Social Anthropology, René Descartes University, Paris
M.A., Social Anthropology and Ethnozoology, with honors, René Descartes University, Paris, France
Born in France, Sarah spent her childhood in France and Spain and went to school at the Maison d'Education de la Légion d'Honneur. She studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem where she lived for 5 years and did anthropological research on the Druze community. After graduating, she worked for thirteen years assisting the internationally renowned artist painter Yaacov Agam, in his studio in Paris, where she coordinated artistic projects all over the world. She wrote and edited Agam's Visual Educational Method's training documents, which are displayed in 36 books. The method, created for children in preschool up to elementary school, enhances the development of visual memory and visual skills. In 1993, she came (finally) to the United States with her husband, David, and their three daughters, Eva, Jessica and Roxane.
In 1996 and 1997, Sarah was a trainer and lecturer on intercultural communications at Geonexus Communications, Palo Alto. She trained U.S. expatriates and their families preparing to live in Europe as well as Europeans or Africans coming to work in California, for companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Levi's, and the Gap.
In 1999, after several years of teaching private remedial French classes for students of Ecole Bilingue, she joined the faculty of The Crowden School and taught French until 2005, when she moved to Southern California.
Teaching French to non-speakers made her realize the need for a different system in teaching languages. This is how she developed a socio-cultural approach to present languages which helps students change their mindset. Her French grammar program is called "Think French, Speak French". It is now in the process of being applied to Cantonese, Farsi, Spanish and Hebrew.
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