Alumni News 2011

Alumni News

2011

News from Lane A. Igoudin on January 12, 2011

Last summer I was hired as a full-time, tenure-track English/ESL professor with Los Angeles City College. LACC … I have since been elected to the district ESL committee, and got involved in a few curricular projects like SLO development, CB 21, course outline update, restructuring of ESL courses, as well as the establishment of a partnership with LA Unified School District easing enrollment for high school graduates, the majority of whom are multilingual. I remain involved in the research on the use of art in teaching ESL. Last summer I presented a study of use of L1 visual arts in L2 academic writing, based on an original curriculum I had developed, at the International Conference on Language Education in a Multilingual/Multicultural World in Paris. … With a few revisions since, the paper is under consideration for publishing in the upcoming conference proceedings volume. This spring I am going to give 2 talks related to the use of arts in TESOL and hope to give a half-day workshop on this subject at the next year statewide conference. Furthermore, I continue to be interested in the issues of student motivation and social identity in language acquisition. One paper I presented at the 2008 World Congress of Applied Linguistics (AILA)will be coming out in a volume on multilingual identities published by Mouton de Gruyter. Another was published in the peer-reviewed CATESOL Journal (abstracted in LLBA, ERIC).

News from Mitch and Stacey Porter on February 7, 2011

I wanted to give … the department an update on our status abroad at BLCU. We just celebrated Chinese New Year, and now we are planning for next semester. I am now working for the National Education Examination Authority part time, editing and writing the PETS 1-5 (Public English Testing Services). Stacey and I also both work for Beijing Normal University part time, teaching various English content courses. I hope these experiences will open doors once we come back to the U.S. in a few years. Hopefully there are more job opportunities when we return.

Mitch Porter
Pre-Departure Training Department
Beijing Language and Culture University
15 Xueyuan Road, Haidian District
Beijing 100083, China

News from Cynthia Azarcon on April 14, 2011

Hello Dear Professors!
I hope this finds you well! I just wanted to say hello and let you know that I finally landed a teaching job (for the time being) at long last! I’m at Cypress College’s School of Continuing Education. I’m an adjunct professor there and I’m teaching a VERY large multi-level class, teaching a variety of English skills, M – Th, 8 am – 10 am and subbing for the same type of class in the evenings, Mondays and Tuesdays. So thank you very much for all of your support, training, mentoring, and recommending!

This class in particular is perfect for all of the different scaffolding and interactive type activities that I learned during my time with you. Thank you so much. I am living my dream, teaching ESL and still singing and teaching music as well. I know the teaching in So Cal is not looking good for most (my husband’s class load has been cut over 50%), and indeed, it’s slim pickings for Fall. So, I’m enjoying it while I can!

Best,
Cynthia Azarcon

News from Terry Dip on October 11, 2011

Hi Dr. Finney,
I feel a little awkward writing this […], since this is technically advertisement, but I guess I can also look at it as sharing my endeavours/accomplishments with my professors. I have some e-books published. So if you know anyone who might be interested in reading travel fiction or urban fantasy in the form of an e-book, please let them know about my work.

Thank you!
Hope all is well.
Terry Dip

You can download Terry Dip’s books at  smashwords.com (… make sure to turn off the adult filter, found on lower righthand corner of homepage! )