Iris Siekman

Teacher at De Esdoorn since 2020

I have been living in Canada for 23 years. My husband and I started in Ontario, where our two children were also born. After four years we moved to BC where we have been enjoying ourselves ever since. Our children are fully bilingual (and our daughter is even trilingual) and are now following further education in the Netherlands. The only thing that sometimes causes some problems is writing in Dutch (there was no “De Esdoorn” at the time). In the Netherlands I worked for a while as a speech therapist in special education, where I was mainly concerned with language development delays and disorders, articulation, alternative means of communication and eating-drinking problems. Here in BC I work as an education assistant at a school in North Delta. There I help both English and French immersion students with special needs. Two years ago I took the “Teaching English Abroad” course in Coquitlam together with our daughter, where I gained many ideas for teaching a second language to children. In my spare time I love to go out in beautiful BC: walking, cycling, kayaking. If the weather is not so nice, you can find me with a book, in the pool or in the kitchen to try out a new recipe and enjoy it with friends. A game after that makes the day complete!