Linda Wesley, MA, has more than 30 years of experience in foreign language education as a K-12, adult education, junior college, and university teacher. She is now the owner/operator of Linda Teaches English, a private business which provides individual and small group instruction as well as daily Instagram lessons to students around the world.
Linda Marie Chu, former English Language Fellow in TJK
Linda attended graduate school at Eastern Michigan University where she received her M.A. in TESOL. Linda has organized teaching training programs and has trained teachers from many parts of the world. Currently Linda is a member of the TESOL Career Path Development Professional Learning Network Leadership Team.
Laura G. Holland teaches English Language and teacher training courses at the University of Oregon where she is also a Faculty Mentor and Teaching Assistant Supervisor. She is the external reviewer for BNCs in northern Peru. She has published numerous articles and co-authored the teacher training guidebook Shaping the Way We Teach English: From Observation to Action, published by the US Department of State (2013).
Lara Ravitch is a Senior Instructor at the American English Institute at the University of Oregon and has been a language camp director for over 15 years. She holds two master's degrees, in Teaching Foreign Languages and Special Education, and has worked as a language teacher and program administrator in a variety of contexts in the US and abroad.
Lisa Mann holds two master’s degrees: one in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and another in Translation and Localization. She has worked as an English Language Specialist twice in Tajikistan to provide professional development workshops to university and secondary school English language instructors. She currently works as a training consultant, translator, translation professor and editor in Spain.
Lisa Horvath has a M.A. in TESOL. For the past decade, she has been using stories to teach English to young learners in Hungary. She is the co-editor of the TESOL Materials Writers Interest Section (MWIS) newsletter and a frequent presenter at international conferences.
Judith Elliott is an English Language teacher trainer who for the past 20 years has conducted methodology workshops and academic writing classes in Tajikistan, Russia, Far East, Serbia, and Georgia. Most recently, she has returned to Tajikistan as a Fulbright Specialist giving workshops on writing and lesson planning to Access teachers as well as online writing courses.
Jennifer Rice (she, her) has been an instructor at the University of Oregon for over 13 years where she focuses on teaching academic reading and speaking skills to university English language learners and designing evidence-based, student-centered online classes. She also teaches online for the US Department of State’s Online Professional English Network (OPEN).
Vivian Leskes, Professor Emerita of ESL at Holyoke Community College in Massachusetts, USA, has been recognized by the US Department of State as a member of 30@30, a select group of English Language Specialists who have made a unique and lasting impact on the Specialist Program worldwide and the TESOL field. She has offered training in all the five post-Soviet countries of Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, the Far East, Eurasia, and South America. Most recently she conducted mentor training for teachers and university faculty in Tajikistan and Egypt and presented the first English Language Programs Master Webinar.
Nancy Ackles is an English teacher and teacher trainer who has taught in Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan as a Fulbright scholar and a US State Department specialist. She hold a Ph.D. degree from the University of Washington in Seattle and is the author of American Teens Talk and The Grammar Guide: Developing Language Skills for Academic Success.
Kitty Purgason trained teachers in Tajikistan in 2011, 2013, and 2017, and has also worked in many other countries around the world. She is professor emerita of TESOL at Biola University in California. She has a Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from UCLA. She is a three-time Fulbright fellow and a U.S. State Department English Language Specialist.
Jane George has Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Professional Diplomas in English as a Second Language and English Literature from the University of Hawaii, Manoa.
Jane George taught adults ESL in Japan, Massachusetts, Hawaii, and Rhode Island. From 1999 to 2019 she taught ESL in public schools in Rhode Island.
Jordan Earl served in the US Peace Corps at the National University of Uzbekistan Foreign Philology Faculty in Tashkent. He is now the director of the American Language Center Marrakesh in Morocco, which includes a 130-hour teacher certification program branch of Via Lingua International. He has been an English Language Specialist in Ethiopia and Tajikistan, and was sent by the US Department of State to Sana'a, Yemen and Praia, Cape Verde, for teacher training events.
Roni Medrano has been working as an EFL teacher since 2009. He holds a BA in English Language Teaching for EFL settings. In 2018, he got a Fulbright scholarship to study a master's in TESOL at Saint Michael's College, in Vermont, USA.
Nathan Doan has taught English for nearly 20 years all over the world. He spent two years in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, and loved learning about the culture, people, and especially the food there.
DJ Kaiser is the Associate Dean for the School of Education and Director of Teaching English as a Second Language at Webster University in St. Louis, Missouri. He currently serves as a director for a five-year National Professional Development grant from the U.S. Department of Education.
Jill Tyson has held several positions in Kyrgyzstan since 2018 that include English Language Fellow, English Language Specialist and English Language Consultant sponsored by the US Embassy in Bishkek. Currently, she is working as a Virtual English Language Fellow with Lingua Foundation for Innovative Education in Bishkek.
Maiko Hata serves as an Early Childhood Special Education Specialist at Early Childhood CARES at the University of Oregon. After completing her master’s degree in TESOL, she has taught and advised thousands of international students.
Ben Taylor is an English Language Coordinator contracted with the RELO Central Asia team, offering trainings and resources for Access Microscholarship programs in Kazakhstan and teacher training initiatives in Central Asia.
Dr. Constance E. Dziombak has 39 years of experience in the TESOL field. She has worked with all age groups and levels of proficiency from kindergarten through university. Currently, Dr. Dziombak is supervising student teachers in the TESOL program at the Pace University School of Education in New York and facilitating educational seminars for the New York State Union of Teachers (NYSUT) Education Learning Trust (ELT).
