For nearly two decades I’ve been providing English Language Services to a wide variety of students from across the world. I’ve worked personally with individuals and groups from Elementary School students to Retirees.
QUALIFICATIONS
I graduated from San Diego State University in early 2005, double majoring in Japanese and Pacific Asian Studies. SDSU is where I began to pick up my love for culture and language, and where I was encouraged to consider a career in teaching as I was invited to work as a tutor and assistant teacher from the American Language Institute, an extension of SDSU.
Upon graduation, I joined the ALI’s amTEFL program and received my certification to teach English as a foreign language.
With these qualifications in hand, I headed across the Pacific Ocean to teach in Japanese universities as well as teaching to businesspeople from major international companies (Nestle, Mitsubishi, Fujitsu, etc). These students were high-demand English Language Learners who needed to learn practical English quickly.
During my years in Japan I realized that teaching was more than just a job to pay the bills, it was a passion to help people with specific language goals. Having realized that I could offer more to my students with a better education, I decided to pursue my Master’s Degree in TESOL (TeachingEnglish as a Second or Other Language) at the University of Southern California.
USC’s Rossier School of Education was one of the first schools to experiment with a true online blended learning model – allowing students to take courses 100% online, but with required synchronous and asynchronous meeting times. Although USC was within driving distance, I decided to pursue the online model as it was clear to see that this was the first step in the future of education. I wanted to see what the online learning experience was like from a student’s perspective. This was an eye-opening experience and it showed me many of the strengths and pitfalls of technology in education, lessons that I continue to draw from to this day.
Immediately upon receiving my Master’s Degree in 2012, I was hired to work as the Academic Manager at Kaplan International Centers in Irvine, on the campus of Irvine Valley College. This position allowed me to understand the administrative side of running a school and to see the ins and outs of students’ learning process beyond the four walls of the classroom. In the two years I worked as Academic Manager, our small team was able to bring up our internal rankings to the highest rated campus worldwide and we were proud to set a precedent that our students were not only learning English, but were truly college-bound.
In 2014 I decided that I wanted to return to the classroom, so I began work as an Adjunct Professor for Irvine Valley College, Saddleback College, and Orange Coast College. This work reinvigorated my passion for the community college system and allowed me to pursue my own passions in teaching and technology integration.
In 2015 a colleague encouraged me to apply for a full-time lecturer position back at the University of Southern California at the International Academy where I was quickly hired. Beyond teaching advanced academic writing for students on track to join any number of USC’s Master’s programs, I was soon elected as the chair of the Technology and Professional Development Committee where we worked to create program-wide solutions to a number of issues facing the quickly expanding program.
In the summer of 2016 I was offered the opportunity to join Irvine Valley College as a full-time faculty member. The rest of this website is dedicated to my ongoing contributions to IVC as well as to the development of ESL and technology integration in higher education.
PEDAGOGY
I’m a firm believer in the communicative approach and favor the Sociocultural Theory in my teaching. Through my years of experience I’ve specialized in getting my students to take their English out of the classroom and into the real world. This is my goal with every student, and I teach to help students succeed.