Bonjour! This school year is my third year of full-time teaching at L'Etoile du Nord. Previously, I was working here as a long-term substitute in first grade. I come from Belarus, a small East-European country between Poland and Russia, where I grew up bilingual. I studied French and English there and graduated with a MA in French. After graduation, I taught French at college for one year. I spent the following six years in Magdeburg, Germany where I worked as a tour guide in a 1200-year old city, continued to study English, and took pleasure in discovering German culture, nature and people. At Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg, I had the opportunity to make second language acquisition and bilingualism the focus of my studies, and was fortunate to work on a neurolinguistic project examining Russian-German bilinguals.
I came with my family to Minnesota in 2008 because my husband had won a Green Card Lottery. We've been living here for three years, and are fascinated by Minnesota's nature and the people from all over the world who make this their home. Before coming to LNFI, I taught German and Russian at the Germanic-American Institute in St Paul, where I also continue to teach cultural-historical summer camps with my husband.
I hold a French license K-12 and I recently finished Elementary Licensure Program at Hamline University.
I am looking forward to working with 4th graders and their families. Please feel free to contact me at galina.solakhava@spps.org with any questions, ideas, suggestions or concerns.