“We are teachers as well as students and our students are our teachers.” This is the belief that drives Judy Wong. Judy is a performing artist, a visual artist, a writer, and foremost a teacher of English to speakers of other languages. Her extensive background, spanning over 50 years, in the arts is the basis of her unique teaching style. She is currently an adjunct faculty member at the State University of New York Westchester Community College and the Long Island Business Institute. When she isn’t teaching at the colleges, she has an active private student practice and has been known to occasionally collaborate with her international colleagues in Armenia and Croatia. Judy holds a BS in liberal arts/teaching academics through the arts and an MA in TESOL from the New School University, in New York City.

Judy began her teaching career teaching dance, acting, and elocution. She is a graduate of a visual arts high school and studied extensively in college, sculpture, furniture design, and graphic art. She has had a long successful career as a professional performing and visual artist. Judy began teaching academics (English, science, and math) in a preschool setting in the early 1980s. Having come from an arts background and with no formal teaching training, she drew on her art background to convey the academic subjects to her students. She guided her students to finding connections between the various performing and visual arts and the academic principles of reading, writing, speaking, science, and math. With no formal teaching training and a need to give the best to her students, she took it upon herself to independently study everything she could on child development and the various pedagogical theories at the time.

Judy continued to teach as a guest artist in various public and private school settings through the 1990s. There she would teach students, that were struggling in school, academics using the arts. Many of the students did not have learning disabilities but rather were not native English speakers. She found teaching students through art leveled the playing field because this was a universal language that any student would understand, making it easier and possible to learn English better. In the act of creating, students became immersed in the English they needed to learn.

In 2001, Judy developed her first adult ESL program in a public elementary school in New York City. The students in the Pre-K–3 levels were struggling with their studies, yet they seemed to cognitively test well. They were predominantly immigrant children from highly educated parents but the parents were not fluent in English. With the permission of the principal, Judy created a program for the parents to learn English and the subjects their children were learning while attending school. Therefore, parents and student were learning almost side by side. This resulted in the students’ achievement levels increasing by more than 50%. Seeing this need for adult education, she began working as a volunteer with various community groups teaching English.

In 2011, Judy returned to school to formally complete her two degrees from the New School University. Having grown up as fifth-generation New Yorker among a myriad of different cultures, it became her mission to give the best of what she had to share of her passion for the arts and teaching. In 2013, as she was completing her MA TESOL, it was proposed to her that she consider investigating theater for ESOL audiences and developing a curriculum for the New School University. After extensive research into the current state of theater for ESOL audiences, she found it extremely lacking. Most theater, in the United States and abroad, was either culturally insulting to the various cultures, very poor versions of the classics, or stories that were totally irrelevant to the audiences they were being delivered to. In addition, the educational materials that were being given to educators were antiquated in pedagogical theory and practice. This gave birth to the newest chapter in Judy’s journey.

Judy is currently working on bringing together a forward-thinking group of artists and educators to develop new original culturally relevant theater for ESOL audiences. The premise is that there are universal themes that prevail throughout all cultures and it isn’t necessary to alienate the English learner of any particular culture. The English learner should receive not just a great English lesson, but a wonderful immersive cultural theater experience as well. Judy feels that educational materials should be engaging and use the visual arts and the technology that the students of today interact with. She is hoping through her newly forged connections with TESOL International to be able to bridge the cultures and bring her vision to reality. Judy continues to share, learn, and be inspired by her students and fellow teacher colleagues.

Judy Wong currently works at the State University of New York, Westchester Community College, and the Long Island Business Institute.