I have been teaching English to speakers of other languages for ten years. I worked with many different kinds of learners in a variety of contexts:
In Brazil, I taught for two years at Access International School, a private language school. I taught middle and high school students, did standardized test prep, and held one-on-one tutoring for everyone from toddlers to business professionals.
At Georgia State University, I taught in the Intensive English Program, where international students prepare for college through full-time training in ESL and academic skills. The program attracted college-age students from all over the world, but our largest group was from Saudi Arabia. In addition to ESL, I taught a semester of intermediate Portuguese to American college students in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages.
In Atlanta, I was a part-time instructor at the Language Institute at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where the student population was more diverse in terms of ages and cultural backgrounds (South America, Africa, and East Asia).
For one year I taught undergraduate and graduate courses in writing and speaking at the Center for English as a Second Language at the University of Cincinnati. There my students were primarily in their twenties and the largest population was from China.
Most recently, I spent five years as the ESL department chair at Cincinnati State Technical and Community College working with a very diverse group of mostly immigrant resident students. In time, I became aware of many prejudices and barriers to social advancement that my students faced, and in response I created partnerships with faculty allies and community organizations including immigration lawyers, local scholarship foundations, free ESOL programs, and professional development networks geared towards the immigrant community.
I have studied several languages and traveled to over 20 countries. I have also lived and worked abroad on more than one occasion. My international experience allows me to relate to the challenges my students face.
As part of my undergraduate degree, I spent a year studying international affairs in Paris and living with a French host family. I had to learn how to survive in a completely different college system in another language. Like my current ESL students, I had to attend courses taught in another language, learn how to write academic papers in a foreign style, and navigate unfamiliar bureaucracy.
After undergraduate studies, I immigrated to Brazil and lived there for three years. Even more than in France, I was fully immersed in Brazilian culture. I had a full-time job, coworkers, personal friends, Brazilian permanent residency card, social security number, bank account, etc. I had to become fluent in Portuguese, and I took on a completely new lifestyle and way of seeing the world.