Charles Larson

Welcome! I have over eight years of experience in international education. I spent over six years teaching English as a Second Language to adults from over 30 countries around the world. I have taught courses in all four primary linguistic areas, including reading, writing, listening, and speaking, and I have taught other specific topical courses that include pronunciation, grammar, cross-cultural communication, "survival English", research skills, study skills, and more. In my courses, I have used Learning Management Systems (LMS) to create a hybrid in-class and online educational experience for my students. I have used LMS such as Blackboard, CourseSites, Claroline, MyLanguageLabs, and Moodle.

I have also spent time teaching basic Spanish to domestic students at the university level. My course was designed as a flipped-classroom, where the students watched grammar and vocabulary tutorials at home prior to class, and then in class we spent more time practicing what they had learned at home rather than reviewing the same material again.

For three years of my experience, I was the Academic Coordinator of an intensive English program. I was directly in charge of the curriculum at our center. I hired quality teachers and worked with them to help them develop their teaching skills by providing both observational feedback as well as providing professional development sessions. I worked with a team of peers across the US to help evaluate and develop the curriculum, a project that took over two years. I also designed smaller-scale curricula for specialized courses and projects, including experiential learning, service learning, "survival English", grammar courses, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) English, and academic vocabulary building. It was also my duty to fill in for the director in his or her absence, and for four the last five months of 2015, I was the Acting Director of the program until a permanent replacement was found.

Currently, I am the International Program Specialist at Mission College Institute of International Studies in Santa Clara, California. I directly manage the intensive English program here. For more information about my role or experience and background, please visit my LinkedIn page.

A little bit more about me...I have always enjoyed language learning. I began learning Spanish in high school. I went to high school in rural Indiana where the only two languages that were offered were Spanish and French. I wanted to take both, but I could not. I took three years of Spanish in high school. Once I began college, I began to learn French and took four years of French as well as continuing Spanish. I also took a year of German. Since then, I started learning Portuguese and Persian as well as bits and pieces of other languages. I consider myself a student of languages for life. It's an enormous passion of mine.