Meet the 2023 TESOL Bloggers
Meet the current writers for the TESOL Blog. They
are English language professionals with decades of combined experience, and
they each have unique perspectives and stories to share, across all contexts and
levels, to help you improve your teaching, better your student outcomes, and
discover a little more about yourself and your journey. Learn about your TESOL
bloggers, including their favorite posts, what other blogs they read often, and
where you can find them on social media.
Laura Baecher
Professional
Development Blog
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Greetings TESOL colleagues worldwide! I am
delighted to be able to share ideas around professional development in this
blog—it is something I love to engage in and to learn about doing better. I
began teaching ESL in 1991 at a refugee center in Washington DC, and fell in
love with this profession. I studied in New York to get my master's in TESOL
and taught high school ESL in the New York City public schools for years while
I went on for my doctorate. I have now been in teacher education in the MA
TESOL program at Hunter College, City University of New York for more than 20
years. It's been incredibly rewarding to see generations of teachers grow and
move into leadership roles, and to have been part of our wide, vibrant, and
passionate global community of TESOL.
Blog post I've written that I'm most
proud of: Frolleagues:
Why Friendships at Work Matter
- I think when it comes down to it, our work is all
about relationships—with our students, of course, but also with our work
families. When we have authentic and sustaining relationships with
"frolleagues," we can do anything!
An outside blog that I read all the
time: tiny
buddha
- It has a dropdown menu under "blogs"
where you can find a lot of life-development topics.
Darlyne de Haan
STEM
in ELT Blog
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I'm an avid cross-fitter, I love athletic
challenges, and I love being with the family. I have two grown children who are
living their best lives traveling and living abroad, although both are
presently living in the United States, which I'm enjoying very much. I have no
grandchildren yet, but am anticipating the day I can be called
"Nana." In my spare time, I love to create videos and am presently
working on a major project converting the family's home photos and videos from
8mm and video cassettes to digital versions so that my children will have them
forever. I'm looking forward to retiring in the next 3 years and traveling to
all of the places on my and my husband's bucket list.
Visit my websites: Brain
Based Science and Neighborhood-Science
Blog post I've written that I'm most
proud of: STEM
and ELT: What I Learned From My TESOL 2022 Participants
-
I feel it's the backbone of what should be occurring in each
classroom, regardless of the content area.
Betsy Gilliland
Second
Language Writing Blog
I have always been passionate about
teaching, since early elementary school when I would force my younger sister
and some stuffed animals to sit and listen to me lecture at a small blackboard
about whatever I was most interested in at the moment. As I advanced through
the levels of French at school, I started realizing that languages were my
passion. I finished French and took Spanish and Latin in high school, while at
the same time studying Russian at summer camp. By the time I was teaching
Russian at the same camp during my university studies, I knew that language
teaching was what I really wanted to do in life. Study abroad in Russia and
Peace Corps in Uzbekistan solidified my desire to use language teaching as a
way to explore the world. And it seems the world agrees with me—I have by
chance found ways to continue traveling while teaching language teachers (most
recently in Thailand and Chile) and have forged lasting friendships with
English language teachers in many countries. I'm glad the TESOL convention is
returning to in-person meetings, too, as that's another place where I can
reconnect with like-minded colleagues from across the globe.
The blog post I've written that I'm
most proud of: Self-Care
for Writing Teachers
An outside blog that I read all the
time: Concordia
Language Villages Blog (bonus: the
post I wrote for the CLV blog)
Judie Haynes
Elementary
Education Blog
Hi! I'm Judie Haynes, and have been writing a blog
for TESOL since April 2014. I'm now retired from teaching elementary ESL. I
grew up in New Jersey "down the shore" (as we say in NJ). Living near
the ocean and spending time at the beach are important to me. My husband Joe
and I have a family of three children (two boys and a girl) and two grandsons.
My daughter is a special ed teacher, and one of my grandsons works in the
Boston Public Schools. The other grandson is graduating from college next
Spring.
When I'm not at the beach, I live in Northern NJ
and love to attend Broadway plays and operas in the New York City area. This
has been difficult during the pandemic, but it's something I hope to get back
to in the spring. I also spend a lot of time with my mother, who is 102 years
old. Writing is one of my passions—as well as supporting teachers who are
working with multilingual learners of English.
The blog post I've written that I'm
most proud of: 8 Books to Read About Teaching MLLs
An outside blog that I read all the
time: Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites
of the Day and Classroom
Q&A With Larry Ferlazzo) and Valentina Gonzalez’s Serving Multilingual Learners of
All Ages
Naashia Mohamed
Multicultural
Education Blog
My passion for languages and for teaching began
early. I must have been barely 5 years old when I started teaching English.
These early classes were aimed at my toys, who sat obediently around the bed as
I put on my best teacher performance. I acquired English alongside Dhivehi at
home in the Maldives, prior to beginning school, and later became fascinated
with other languages I encountered. Many of the things I enjoy doing are
language oriented. I can lose myself in a crossword puzzle, become fiercely
competitive about Scrabble, read everything I can get my hands on, including
the dictionary, and make sense of the world around me through writing. My ideal
way to relax involves a combination of long walks in nature, family time, and
lots of good food.
Blog post I've written that I'm most
proud of: Supporting
Muslim Students During Ramadan
An outside blog I read all the time: Cult
of Pedagogy (they also have a great podcast)
Spencer Salas
Teaching
Reading Blog
Hi, Teachers! For 15 years, I've been a professor
of TESOL in the Department of Middle, Secondary, and K–12 Education at The
University of North Carolina at Charlotte. But, I actually began my career in
1991 at the American Language Center in Casablanca, Morocco followed by a
decade with the District of Columbia Public School System, Washington DC as an
ESL teacher (1994–2001). Along the way, I've been a Fulbright Fellow to Romania
(1998), Guatemala (2007), and South Africa (2013); an Erasmus Fellow to Germany
(2017); and a Senior English Language Fellow to Peru (2001–2003).
These days, I write for a broad range of audiences
with recent feature manuscripts in The Urban Review, Equity & Excellence in Education, and The New Educator. I also coedited Vygotsky in
21st Century Society (Peter Lang, 2011), U.S. Latinos and
Education Policy (Routledge, 2014), Education in the New
Latino South (SUNY Press, 2017), and The TESOL
Encyclopedia of English Language Teaching, First Edition (TESOL,
2018). I'm excited to be writing for the TESOL Blog! It's been a terrific way
to reconnect with old colleagues and to make new ones!
Blog post I've written that I'm most
proud of: Reading
the Sun, Moon, and Stars: Intergenerational Literacy
- I wrote this post about intergenerational
literacies for my dad's 90th birthday.
An outside blog I read all the time:
I love to learn from my colleagues.
Brent Warner
Educational
Technology Blog
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I'm Brent and I've been in the TESOL field
for…getting close to 20 years! When I'm not teaching (or talking about
teaching), you can usually find me exploring coffee shops or taquerias around
southern California. Before everything crashed and burned, I also liked to
travel. I've been around the world by plane and by boat, and I had a plan to
travel around the world by train, but that's on hiatus until the world learns
to catch its breath. Plans to pogo around the world were permanently suspended
with my entry into middle age. I'm a fan of bad 80s action movies and even
worse 80s horror movies, as well as the occasional high-brow art film. I also
recently took up guitar, so if you have any tips on how to be a better
shredder, let me know!
Blog post I've written that I'm most
proud of: 5
No Prep Activities Using Photo Apps
An outside blog I read all the time:
I don't read a lot of blogs lately, but I love James
Hoffmann's YouTube Channel
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