You are here: American University College of Arts & Sciences TESOL News & Events Spring 2019 Newsletter

Back to top

TESOL Newsletter, Spring 2019

Student, Alumni & Faculty Notes

American Association For Applied Linguistics (AAAL) Conference, March 2019, Atlanta, GA

  • Valeriya Minakova (MA TESOL, 2016): "Managing Space in the Communicative Competence of STEM Scholars" with Suresh Canagarajah, March 9, Saturday, 8:00am-8:20am. 

TESOL 2019 International Convention & English Language Expo, March 2019 | Atlanta, GA) 

  • Jordan Brown (MA TESOL student): “A Chinese Student Describing and Implementing Directness in EAP Writing”, MA Forum, March 12, Tuesday, 1:45pm-2:05pm, Grand Ballroom C, Omni Hotel. 
  • Professor Jennifer Himmel: "Enacting Core Practices for Teaching ELLs: Examples From the Field", March 13, Wednesday, 4:00pm-4:45pm, GWCC-A309. 
  • Dr. Polina Vinogradova: "Diverse Voices of Advocacy: In Conversation with the TESOL Community" with Heather Linville, March 14, Thursday, 4:00pm-4:45pm, International Ballroom E, Omni Hotel. 

Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), March 2019, Pittsburgh, PA

  • Valeriya Minakova (MA TESOL, 2016): "What’s up dawg?: A Multilingual Student’s Performance in a Class Blog"; Panel: Power and Performance in Translingual Academic Writing. March 14, Thursday, 3:15pm-3:30pm. 

American Educational Research Association (AERA): Annual Meeting April 2019, Toronto, Canada

  • Professor Jennifer Himmel, “Beyond the Methods Fetish” at 25: Preparing Teachers of Emergent Bilinguals. Time and date: TBD. 

International Symposium on Bilingualism (ISB 12), June 2019, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

  • Ingrid Rodrick Beiler (MA TESOL, 2010): “Translation as Translingual Writing Practice in English as an Additional Language with Joke Dewilde”. Time and date: TBD. 

Jordan Brown and Melissa Krut (MA TESOL students) had their creative pieces published in this spring AAALGrad’s Newsletter. Congratulations on their accomplishment!  

Dr. Sarah Knowles shares her experience in conducting qualitative research as a non-native speaker in Spanish — and how the use of the participants’ L1 Spanish impacted the study as well as the relationship between ‘researcher’ and ‘participant’ in the newly published book “Critical reflections on research methods: Power and equity in complex multilingual contexts”:

Knowles, S. (2019). Researcher-Participant Relationships in Cross-Language Research: Becoming Cultural and Linguistic Insiders. In D. S. Warriner & M. Bigelow (Eds.), Critical reflections on research methods: Power and equity in complex multilingual contexts (pp. 85-97). Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.

Betsy Lindeman Wong (WATESOL President): Wong, B. L. (2019). Getting started with writing from the beginning. In K. Schaetzel, J. K. Peyton & R. Fernández (Eds.), Preparing adult English learners to write for college and the workplace (pp. 163-189). Michigan, USA: University of Michigan Press. 

Megan Fullarton (MA TESOL student): 

WATESOL Travel Grant to attend the TESOL 2019 International Convention & English Language Expo in Atlanta, GA.

  • Ingrid Rodrick Beiler (MA TESOL, 2010) is a PhD student at the University of Oslo. Her research project is a study of writing instruction in English as an additional language at the secondary level in Norway.  
  • Jessie Ebersole (MA TESOL 2018), Megan Fullarton, Mariana Grassi, Tracey Ryan (MA TESOL students) and Dr. Sarah Knowles gave a practice-oriented presentation “Using Reading A-Z for Content-Based Reading and Writing Instruction” at the WATESOL Fall 2018 Conference, Washington, DC in October 2018. 
  • Bill Lalli (MA TESOL, 2005) retired from the federal government in 2009. Since then, he has taught English primarily as a volunteer, as an education assistant in a middle school and as a private tutor.  On 11/8/2013, Bill was serving in the Peace Corps, teaching English in the Philippines at Leyte Normal University in Tacloban, Leyte, when Typhoon Haiyan, the strongest typhoon ever to make landfall, destroyed most of Tacloban, leaving thousands dead, injured, and homeless. The devastation ended Bill's Peace Corps service. But Tacloban recovered. In 2016, after two years of his own emotional recovery, Bill returned to Tacloban to volunteer at an orphanage run by the Missionaries of Charity, Mother Teresa's order.  He became attached to the children and returned to the orphanage several times during 2016 and 2017.  
  • Mary Mateus (MA TESOL, 2017), after spending a year teaching at Montgomery College and Carlos Rosario International Public Charter School, she returned to Colombia. She is now working at the International Polytechnic Institution in Bogota, where she is teaching ESP to students from different technological careers including Software Engineering, Commerce and Tourism. She is also working independently with a group of Software engineers that are eager to enhance their communicative skills. 
  • Elizabeth Quillin (MA TESOL, 2018) has been an adjunct at NOVA (teaching an intensive high beginning reading and writing course, and a part time high beginning career readiness course), at GMU (teaching an intensive advanced reading and writing course and a Chemistry support class), and at AU Accelerator (teaching a Live Learn Grow course). 
  • Erin Haskell Ross (MA TESOL, 2016) teaches English for Vermont's office of the US Committee on Refugees & Immigrants. She finds it reassuring to see the small but steady arrival of refugees - most recently from Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi. She has also joined the board of the Northern New England TESOL affiliate covering Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. She returns to DC regularly for board meetings and fundraisers at the Washington English Center. Erin and Polina Vinogradova continue to work together on issues of professional development for volunteer teachers.  

Dr. Polina Vinogradova  

  • She gave two workshops in Canberra, Australia, in August 2018; organized and hosted by the Education Directorate of Australia Capital Territory (ACT) and Australia TESOL – ACT:  
    1. “Creative and Engaging English Language Learning with Digital Stories,” Teacher Quality Institute: Teacher accreditation workshop.
    2. “Diverse Voices of Advocacy: Preparing to Support Students, Colleagues, and the TESOL Profession,” Professional development workshop for members of Australia TESOL – ACT.
  • She was elected to serve on the WATESOL Executive Board as Advocacy Chair for 2018-2019. 

Spotlights

Student Spotlight: Ghislaine Kadouno

Ghislaine Kadouno

Through determination, a teacher will go above and beyond to find appropriate materials and create outstanding lesson plans.

Ghislaine Kadouno Spotlight

Alumni Spotlight: AU TESOL Alumni on the WATESOL Executive Board

AUTESOL-WATESOL

AU TESOL program is proud to have been consistently involved in WATESOL’s leadership. Currently, there are six alumni serving on the WATESOL 2018/2019 executive board.

WATESOL Board: Alumni Spotlight

Welcome the new TESOL Students!

Natasha Bennett MA TESOL Student

Natasha Bennett

Natasha Bennett is from Brazil. She had only lived and worked there until recently, when she moved to DC. Back home, she had been teaching EFL in private schools and language institutes for more than ten years. She has always enjoyed teaching languages, but teaching ESL students for the last few months has broadened her teaching spectrum and has made her fall deeply in love with teaching again. Hence, being accepted for the MA TESOL was perfect timing! She is looking forward to improving her linguistic and teaching skills at American University.

Zhenru Hong MA TESOL Student

Zhenru Hong

Zhenru Hong comes from Southern China. She earned her BA in Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages in China. Through tutoring Chinese to foreign students, she found pleasure in teaching during college time. To challenge herself in English teaching, she came to the United States and joined the MA TESOL Program at AU. She hopes she can gain teaching skills and various teaching experience to get a great job in the future.

Ching Yin Hsieh MA TESOL Student

Ching Yin Hsieh

Ching Yin Hsieh is from a southern city in Taiwan, Kaohsiung. She got her undergraduate degree in Psychology. While leading class consulting sessions during her college volunteer program, she found her interest in teaching. Therefore, she decided to study education and teaching. She did not have much teaching experience before, so she hopes to do more teaching during her time at American University. She loves traveling, and her future dream is teaching English in many different countries.

Amina Rahman MA TESOL Student

Amina Rahman

Amina Rahman is a native New Yorker who moved to Washington, DC to work as a computer specialist in a non-profit science association. She has BA degrees in International Studies and English. After receiving her BA in English, she transitioned from a career in computer technology to become an English language teacher and tutor. Amina recently earned an AU Certificate in TESOL and is thrilled to be able to continue her studies in the MA TESOL program. 

Zhiyu Wang MA TESOL Student

Zhiyu Wang

Zhiyu Wang comes from Xu Zhou, China. He has a Bachelor’s degree in English Language and Culture. This experience made him interested in being an English teacher. He did some English tutoring in a local community service center and in English educational institutions. To expand his horizons, he joined the MA TESOL Program to have a better understanding of English teaching and the multicultural environment here.

Puming Xie MA TESOL Student

Puming Xie

Puming Xie comes from China; she was born in Beijing. She studied Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language when she was an undergraduate student. After she graduated from university, she worked as an adjunct teacher in a Chinese language class. Because of that, she will make sure that she uses her own way to change some intrinsic learning model in the Chinese education system. That's the reason why she came to the US: to study in the TESOL program. She hopes she can use more creative ways to help more students become fonder of learning English in the future.

Tianhan (Summer) Yang MA TESOL Student

Tianhan (Summer) Yang

Tianhan (Summer) Yang comes from southwest China. She majored in English at the Sichuan International Studies University as an undergraduate. She is very excited to be a member of the MA TESOL program because not only is she interested in English, but she can also become a teacher. She expects to have more contact with different EFL/ESL learners after systematic training at American University.

Shuying Yu MA TESOL Student

Shuying Yu

Shuying Yu is from Hangzhou, China. She has worked part time at Hangzhou Youth Palace teaching primary school kids. She realized that she was really interested in teaching English, so she is really excited to study TESOL at American University. She likes traveling, hiking, enjoying the local food, and communicating with different people from different cultures. She really likes the local museums and parks in Washington, DC.

Hui Zhang MA TESOL Student

Hui Zhang

Hui Zhang comes from Wenzhou, a city located at the southeast of China. She studied law when she was an undergraduate student. Hui changed her mind and decided to become an English teacher because of her internship experience with young offenders and because of her interest in linguistics. It is her second year in America and she has gained some teaching experience from tutoring in the Washington English Center (WEC) and communicating with experienced TESOL teachers from different schools. She is excited to join the AU TESOL program and hopes to learn more from her professors and classmates.