Au Revoir: Popular French Teacher Retires

By PEYTON WALTER 
The Tower 

Madame Touchon is a retiring French teacher at Manteca High after teaching for 32 years.

Madame Touchon is a retiring French teacher at Manteca High after teaching for 32 years. She’s left a positive mark at this school and is retiring because the district is doing away with French and she’s been here a long time.  

Touchon plans on keeping herself busy during retirement with several activities. 

“I need to stay busy so some things I’ll do are gardening, quilting, I like to sew and I belong to a guild.” Said Touchon. “And also, I’d like to take some classes, maybe at Delta or JOP, like fun classes like singing or ceramics.”  

Touchon is originally from Switzerland and has travelled back and forth over the 50 years she’s lived here. She plans to stay here for the rest of her time in retirement. 

Some of her favorite memories are the friendships with other teachers and students that she’s developed over the years of teaching. She’s worked under about six or seven different principals in her time here and two that she said stood out the most to her were Mrs. Waltzer and Mr. Gonzalez. 

Touchon recommends students take French because it’s an official language in over 43 countries and is widely used internationally. She argues that French can be useful for travel and international work like UPS or Microsoft. 

She enjoyed autonomy in teaching; as the only French teacher she had flexibility with the curriculum. After French is gone from Manteca High, only two of the five high schools in the district will offer it. 

“Out of the five High Schools in Manteca Unified, only three ever had French.” Touchon explained. “And of those three, I’m the only native speaker.” 

Touchon has had many students go all the way from French 1 to taking AP French.  

Senior Kyra De La Barrera Marquez has been a regular on Touchon’s rosters throughout her high school career. Marquez, a native Spanish speaker, began her pursuit of a third language as a freshman and will finish high school with a biliteracy seal and the honor of being trilingual. 

“I’ve taken French for 4 years, now I’m an AP student and I chose to take it because I’m already fluent in Spanish, so I thought why not challenge myself and take French. It’s also pretty easy because French is very similar to Spanish.” 

While learning to speak French has been the goal, Marquez also appreciates the hospitality and safe environment that Touchon has provided her students. Her four walls and cheery disposition have a way of brightening everyone’s day.  

Marquez will never forget the apple pies and French cuisine that were a staple in her classes. 

“Her ability to make class fun, I think it’s a really good class to get your mood up during the day like I laugh a lot at her jokes because they’re corny, but it makes it better,” Marquez said. “She also cooks a lot for us so having a teacher that really cares about our well-being and wants to make class fun is really nice.” 

“I’m going to miss her personality,” she later added. “I think she has a very fun personality, and a lot of people don’t know that if you don’t know her too well, so having a teacher to laugh with will definitely be something I’ll miss.”