Firdaus Jones | French & Latin

First Year at ACA: 2023

Originally from Siberia, Russia, Firdaus always had a strong interest, appreciation, and eventually a deep passion for foreign languages. Having started learning English as her third language at the age of nine, she has been able to maintain and add on a few more to the mix as she eventually entered and graduated cum laude Nizhnevartovsk Siberian State University and earned her Bachelor and Master of Arts in Education of Foreign Languages with concentration on ESL and French. As part of her linguistic studies, she has taken many courses of Latin language and absolutely enjoyed it.

With over 12 years of teaching experience in private and public high schools in Eastern Europe and USA, Firdaus has also been able to work as a synchronized, commercial, and literary translator, as well as organizing and teaching adult and children Russian language and ESL private study groups. Prior to joining Augustine Classical Academy, she has taught English Composition and Literature Analysis at Valor Christian High School and Colorado Christian University. But her biggest joy and honor in the recent five years have come from fully dedicating herself to homeschooling her own kids.

With her husband of 16 years - Derek, Firdaus is actively involved in the ministry of a local church as well as raising their three boys. She is a self-professed soccer mom (as well as baseball/basketball & golf mom) and wears these titles with great pride. Among her absolute favorite things in the world are seeing students learn new things while playing an active part in it, gardening, reading, traveling the world, anthropology, and photography.