There are two very consistent entities in my professional career: TESOL and Peace Corps. Interestingly enough, I am one of the lucky ones: When I graduated university, I knew I was going to be an ESL teacher. When I agreed to do my service in Ethiopia, 1996-1998, I knew one day, I would return to the United States to get my master’s in TESOL. But for so many TEFL Peace Corps volunteers, making a career of teaching English as a second language didn’t enter their minds until they stood in front of a class and started practicing the craft we have all come to love. The stories in this blog, from returning Peace Corps volunteers (RCPVs), look back at individual Peace Corps service and illustrate connections to the current TESOL professional.

I would like to thank the individuals who contributed to this blog post. Your stories made me smile and remember the mud hut that once was my classroom.

And, thank you Peace Corps for being around for 50 years. We, at TESOL, wish you many more years to come.

Diane Larsen-Freeman

I am a returning Peace Corps volunteer (RPCV). I served in Sabah, Malaysia (1967-1969), and I have been a member of TESOL for many years. I was a TEFL teacher in a government secondary school. I am currently a professor of education, professor of linguistics, and former director and current research scientist at the English Language Institute, all at the University of Michigan.

Incidentally, my life has been intertwined with the Peace Corps in other ways. My graduate education was, and my current positions are, at the University of Michigan, where in 1960, on the steps of the Michigan Union, John F. Kennedy challenged students to dedicate themselves to global peace and justice by living and working in developing nations. From that challenge grew the Peace Corps, which Kennedy established after his election. Directing the English Language Institute (ELI) at the university, years later, I learned how much of my Peace Corps training was influenced by Charles Fries and others at the ELI. I have also been long associated with the SIT Graduate Institute, which designed and delivered much of the early predeparture training of Peace Corps volunteers.

I have the Peace Corps to thank for starting me on my path to what has proven to be a wonderful international career. I feel very fortunate indeed.

Diane Larsen-Freeman served as a TEFL teacher with a government secondary school in Sabah, Malaysia, 1967-1969. She currently works at the University of Michigan.

Rashid Ocheltree

Rashid Ocheltree and his Moroccan students, 1975:

Vivian Hazel Adzaku

I am married to a Ghanaian whom I met when he was my student in Ghana. He was in my English classes all 3 Peace Corps years. We married in Ghana in 1978. We left Ghana in 1981. We have one daughter and one granddaughter.

I lived in Ghana as a child. My mother was a missionary there, and she was still serving when I went there in the Peace Corps. She lived 13 miles from me! I got a lot of ribbing about this. As it happened, Ghana was the only country they would accept me for, after initially rejecting me, because I had lived there as a child, and I had told them I had asthma.

Vivian Hazel Adzaku (Ghana, 1968-1971) worked mainly English in a secondary boarding school in the town of Tsito. For the past 8 years, Vivian has been teaching remedial writing, mainly, at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, Arkansas. 

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