Debra’s passion for the German language was first inspired by a visit with her childhood best friend’s grandparents in Vienna in the early 70’s and was further fueled by her engaging and enthusiastic high school German teacher. After graduating from Purdue University with a Teaching Minor in German, Debra decided she wanted to teach German but knew she needed to improve her language skills, so she enlisted in the US Army with a duty station in Frankfurt International Airport. That experience led to fluency and her first German teaching job in Florida. After marrying a US Air Force pilot, having 3 children, living in Ohio, Washington DC and Okinawa, Japan, the Mol family found themselves back in Germany, where they lived and raised their family for the next 19 years. It was here that Debra landed her dream job of teaching German 1-AP at an American high school in Germany. She quickly realized that her students would not communicate outside of the classroom unless she stressed that effective communication over grammatical perfection.

Thus began her journey into teaching German communicatively. Debra has taught several professional developments sharing her communicative methods and materials, as well as presenting numerous times at ACTFL on various topics revolving around teaching communicatively. She retired from active teaching in 2017, but still feeds her “inner German teacher” by rating German proficiency assessments. She and her husband live in Northern Colorado where they enjoy cycling, skiing and being grandparents.