French Archives

Charlotte Kent

April 15, 2016

Raised in a diplomatic family, Charlotte Kent wandered across Europe with her parents, becoming fluent in French while attending the Lyçée Français, before settling in the United States to attend boarding school at Philips Academy Andover. She then pursued a “great books” education, receiving her BA in Philosophy and the History of Math in 2002 at St. John’s College in Santa Fe, NM. She worked for an art school and then ran the education division of a medical publishing company in New York before returning to graduate school in 2009. While pursuing her graduate work, she was a Fellow at The Writer’s Institute, working under Leo Carey (The New Yorker), John Freeman (Freeman, formerly of Granta), among others. She has written for both academic and general audience journals and magazines. In 2014, Charlotte completed a PhD in Comparative Literature at the CUNY Graduate Center on contemporary experiments in art writing.

Charlotte Kent, PhD, has taught at New York University, the School for Visual Arts, Mercy College, as well as CUNY’s The City College of New York and Baruch College. As a private tutor, she has worked with high schools students from around the world and across the NYC area through the college application essay and across diverse subjects, including all levels of French. Most of her work focuses on helping students improve their reading comprehension and critical writing across all subjects in preparation for papers, exams, standardized tests, and applications. Beyond her work tutoring in-person, Charlotte has worked via Skype and other collaborative tools with students who live abroad, move, or travel frequently with their families.

Alba Dwass

April 7, 2013

Alba Dwass has extensive experience teaching Italian in schools and as a private tutor. Her students have included children of all ages, as well as adults. She has coached actors and opera singers preparing for roles requiring Italian and has held intensive sessions with corporate leaders and their families who are relocating to Italy. She is an expert in teaching pre-school age children and provides supplementary training in Italian for those preparing for selective school entrance exams.

Alba was born and raised in the Piedmont region of Italy and has lived in New York City for the past 25 years. She holds a Master’s degree in History and Literature from the University of Turin, Italy. Alba is a US citizen and is bilingual in Italian and English. She has familiarity with French, Spanish, and Hebrew.

Since moving to New York Alba has worked for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey at the World Trade Institute Language Center, Michel Thomas Language Center, Scuola Italiana Del Greenwich Village, Prudential Relocation Services, among others. Besides teaching Italian, Alba has translated everything from business correspondence to annual reports, from literature to cookbooks and is certified to teach history in the New York City public schools.

In her free-time Alba enjoys volunteering, swimming and cycling with her family. She has a passion for cooking and preparing nutritious food from scratch. Her experience in grinding flour at home led to a collaboration on an article and recipes published in the Los Angeles Times.

Alexandra Cohen-Spiegler

March 3, 2013

Alexandra Cohen-Spiegler has been working as a private tutor for over fifteen years. Alexandra attended high school at Trinity School and the United Nations International School through eighth grade, both in New York City. Coming from a New York City preparatory school background, she perfectly understands the demands made on her students. An actress, she majored in French and Theater at Pomona College, where she received a BA and graduated Cum Laude, with special honors on her French thesis. While in college, Alix spent a year in Paris, studying at the Institut Catholique (French literature) and the Ecole Jacques Lecoq (theater). She also has studied at the Stella Adler Conservatory (New York) and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (London).

Alexandra’s clients have ranged in age from 3 to 65-years-old. She is fluent in French and also excels at teaching English, acting, math through pre-calculus, and standardized test preparation, including the ISEE, SSAT, SHSAT, ACT, and SAT. Alexandra frequently focuses on “filling in the gaps” in her students’ math knowledge, making sure they have strong foundations so they don’t get stuck remembering, for instance, how to work with negative numbers when approaching advanced algebra. She makes a point of bringing in outside resources, including math games and online work, to keep lessons fun and engaging for her students, no matter their age and level. She helps students raise their confidence and ensures they have tools available to problem-solve so they never feel overly reliant on tutoring.

Having lived abroad, Alexandra also teaches English-as-a-second (or third or fourth!) language. Creating lesson plans that are tailor-made to her clients, Alexandra is able to use her varied subject knowledge and students’ unique interests to keep lessons exciting, focusing on reading (at whatever level is appropriate), playing games (including some acting improvisational games) and talking about the student’s native culture as well as American. Alexandra also brings math into her ESL lessons, to remind students that math changes very little across languages and countries and to bring up their confidence levels. She shares family stories and personal anecdotes to help make various points.

A working actress, Alexandra specializes in Shakespeare and in developing new work. Recently, she played the role of Cordelia in a new feature film of King Lear. She studied Shakespeare at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, England and movement-based theater at the Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris, France, as well as more traditionally American-based methods at the Stella Adler Conservatory in New York. She combines all three of these methods in her own performances, as well as in her lessons. She focuses primarily on imagination and improvisation-based exercises. She also does monologue coaching, including Shakespearean and contemporary works. She teaches students how to break down a script and create a character from what the playwright has written and then works on bringing that character to three-dimensional life.

Rebecca Sunde

November 24, 2012

Rebecca Sunde began tutoring math when she was 13, and it has been been a passion of hers ever since. When working with her students as a Private Tutor, Rebecca enjoys working with students across a wide range of ages and topics, particularly math, French, and organizational and executive functioning coaching. She especially loves teaching the math sections of standardized tests (SAT, ACT, ISEE, SSAT, SHSAT, and GRE) and test-taking strategies in general. She believes that harnessing a student’s own intuition and logic is the key to mastering a complex subject—rote memorization begone!

Rebecca Sunde earned her Bachelor’s degrees in Organizational Studies and French at the University of Michigan, where she was awarded the Mastery of a Foreign Language Award as well as a scholarship based on her performance in math coursework. She spent her junior year studying art history in Aix-en-Provence, France.

Originally from Augusta, Georgia, and Holland, Michigan, Rebecca moved to Manhattan to work remotely as a full-time research assistant for one of her professors at the University of Michigan. She spent several years conducting historical research in New York’s archives as well as those in Philadelphia, Boston, Washington, D.C., and Paris. The resulting book, American Eden: David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic by Victoria Johnson, was a finalist for the 2018 National Book Award in Nonfiction and a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in History.

Rebecca also holds an Associate’s degree in Womenswear Fashion Design from Parsons and has interned at several fashion design houses, including Oscar de la Renta and Rosie Assoulin.

In her free time, Rebecca enjoys reading, organizing friends’ apartments, visiting France, learning about nutrition, and practicing yoga and pilates. She lives on the Upper West Side with her husband and dog, a playful Australian Shepherd.

Lilyan Aloma

April 3, 2011

Lilyan Aloma is an established educator with more than 20 years of experience as a Spanish teacher in New York City independent schools. Lilyan specializes in developing creative foreign language programs in Spanish and French for individuals and small groups, elementary level through high school. In addition, Lilyan is a highly acclaimed Fine Art Photographer, who has taught photography to Grades 5 through 12 for Project Arts, a division of the Department of Education, as well for independent schools.

Whether she is in a classroom or privately tutoring a small group or an individual student, Lilyan bases her teaching on the Language Experience Approach. This approach makes the clear distinction between learning a new language and truly acquiring a new language. The idea is to allow the student to “pick-up” the language almost in a subconscious manner, in much the same way we acquired our first language. Opportunities for listening comprehension are an essential component of this method. Language acquisition is fostered by the use of age-appropriate tasks that are meaningful. Props, games, stories, poetry, and visual art provide authenticity and help support traditional textbooks. Students acquire new languages when engaged in activities that are fun and relevant to their development. Lilyan provides individualized study plans that challenge her students and inspire a love of language learning.

Education and the arts have been interwoven throughout the course of Lilyan’s teaching career. As a Fine Artist and professional photographer, Lilyan has received international recognition for her work through acquisition, competition, and exhibition. In 2010, she was awarded a Fellowship from the Aaron Siskind Foundation for outstanding achievement in photography. Lilyan sculpts individualized photography classes for MLS students interested in learning the basics of photography or for those who are interesting in expressing themselves through the creative vehicle of photography.

Finally, Lilyan has professional experience in the world of school admissions, specifically at the elementary level. She worked closely with the Former Director of Admissions at the Village Community School (VCS), a K-8 independent school in Greenwich Village. She was responsible for conducting parent interviews, managing children’s playgroup assessments for incoming kindergarten placement, and visiting nursery schools to observe potential candidates. Lilyan played a similar role at Waterfront Montessori in Jersey City, NJ. She has a keen ability to determine what schools might be the right match for a particular child and enjoys working closely with families throughout the challenging admissions process.

Charlotte Kent

Alba Dwass

Alexandra Cohen-Spiegler

Rebecca Sunde

Lilyan Aloma

Company Overview

School Planning

Private Tutoring

Test Preparation