Second Language Education & Culture (SLEC) Program: Student Profiles
Anthony is from Ghana and obtained his M.A degree in TESL at the University of Ghana, Legon. For his dissertation, he concentrated on the attitude of secondary school students to literature education, and the implications this has for TESL. His choice of the Ph.D program in SLEC is to enable him pursue his research interests, which include: SLA, L2 writing, literature education and curriculum studies. He is also interested in secondary and higher education.
Maria Dolores Joie Austria
Joie earned her M.A. in Education from Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines. She also pursued two other Masters’ programs in TESOL and Special Education. She earned a professional development certificate from Harvard University for Project Zero: Multiple Intelligence and Teaching for Understanding. She taught college and graduate courses in the Philippines. She is the founder/owner of Multiple Intelligence Kid’s Academy and Study Hall Tutorial and Review Center in the Philippines. She wrote and published books for children. She is currently working as an ESOL department chair at Rockledge Elementary School in PG County. She is a curriculum writer and a content editor for ESOL in PG County. She taught professional development courses for teachers at UMBC. Her research interests include professional development for teachers and enhancing technology in the ESOL classroom.
Yu Bai comes from China with a Mongolian nationality which is a minority group identity in China. She was an English major in college. Then she came to the United States to pursue her Master’s study in TESOL. After graduation, she pursued another Master’s study in Computer Science and worked in the Information Technology field for about six and half years. In spring 2007, sheI joined SLEC program. Her research interests include children and adult ESL learning, children literacy development, computer-assisted language learning, educational statistics, etc. Yu Bai would love to participate in both researching and teaching in the future. She aslo has dreams to publish a book, open a school, travel around the world, do different things with meaning, and enjoy the process of life.
Julian earned his M.Ed. in TESL from the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Canada. He also got his TESOL cerfiticate during his graduate studies in Candaa. He had taught English at the college level and participated in in-service school teacher training in Taiwan for three and half years. Driven by implementing technology into enhancing English language learning, he set up his own e-learning site for his teaching and student learning in Taiwan. He then joined SLEC program in 2007 to pursue a doctoral degree and is currently working as a graduate assistant for developing and maintaining SLEC/MCERT websites and assisting EDCI385 course "Computers for Teachers". His current research interests include computer-assisted language learning (CALL), computer-mediated communication (CMC), web-based learning in EFL context and language and literacy in online/out-of-school settings.
Mindy is the fourth-year doctoral student in the Second Language Education and Culture Program. Her research interests are bilingualism, biliteracy, reading strategies, and self-regulation. Her recent research attempts to examine the strategic reading process of L2 readers with a focus on self-regulation, and further to investigate the relationship between L1 and L2 readings.
Rashi is an international student from multicultural and multilingual India. She joined the Program of Second Language Education and Culture in 2004 as a masters' student, and is now continuing into the doctoral program. In India, Rashi did simultaneous undergraduate studies in English and German language and literature, and then worked for three years in a publishing house before deciding to return to academics. Rashi wishes to become a full-time practitioner in the field of TESOL, and would like to complement this with research that focuses on teacher identity and pedagogy. She has participated actively in WATESOL's NNEST caucus activities, and is also working towards enhancing the international student experience within her own program.
Chien-Yu is a second-year doctorate student in SLEC program. She had earned a M.S. in educational psychology and worked as an English teacher in the middle school in Taiwan. Her research interests center around L2 reading, reading strategies and learners’ cognitive process in the web-based environment. She is currently exploring L2 readers’ text comprehension and strategy uses with non-linear hypertexts.
Eunjou had earned her M.Ed. at SUNY, Buffalo in 1999. She taught English in Korea and China before she came to the U.S. in 2005. Her research interests are Content-based Langauge Teaching, Individual differences (interaction between proficiency and working memory), Grammar teaching, and Computer-assisted Language Teaching.
Jing is the first-year student in the doctoral program in SLEC. Before joining this program at UMCP, she completed an undergraduate degree in English Language and Literature at Shanghai International Studies University, and a master degree in Research in Second Language Education at Cambridge University in England. She has had the experience of teaching English as a foreign language to university level students in Wuhan, China. Her research interests are mainly comprised of the following: collaborative learning task, teachers’ codeswitching and its impact on FL learning.
Ali Fuad is currently a second-year doctoral student in Second Language Education and Culture program. He obtained his bachelor's and master's degrees in English language teaching from Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey where he also worked as a research/teaching assistant and offered freshmen Spoken English I & II classes. He joined the doctoral program in Second Language Education and Culture in August 2007. He is currently working as a research and teaching assistant in the program and also actively participates in the WATESOL (Washington Area TESOL) activities. His particular research interests include but not limited to the global spread of English, globalization and language, World Englishes, applied linguistics as well as the issues related to non-native English speaking language teachers. http://www.terpconnect.umd.edu/~alifuad/
