 |
Teacher Training Faculty
- Dr. Joan Kang Shin
- Silvio Avendano
- Mary Tabaa
- Colleen Grisham
- Sonja Follett
- Dr. Helena Curtain
- Dr. Sarah Shin
- Dr. Fernando Fleurquin
Director, TESOL Professional Training
Project Director, E-Teacher Program
Dr. Joan Kang Shin, jshin2@umbc.edu
Research Associate, English Language Center, UMBC
Clinical Assistant Professor, Education Department, UMBC
Ph.D., Language, Literacy and Culture, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, 2008
M.A., Instructional Systems Development, Bilingual/ESOL Education, UMBC, 1999
B.A., Economics, Cornell University, 1993
JoanShin
Dr. Joan Kang Shin is the Project Director of the UMBC STEP T for ELLs Program (Secondary Teacher Education and Professional Training for English Language Learners). This five-year program funded by the U.S. Department of Education provides professional development to secondary math, science, and social studies teachers in Maryland to give effective content instruction to English language learners (ELLs).
Dr. Shin is also the Director of TESOL Professional Training Programs at the English Language Center at UMBC. In this position she administers and teaches Teaching English to Young Learners which is one course in the U.S. Department of State's E-Teacher Program, a fully online teacher training program for EFL teachers around the world. Through this online program, Dr. Shin has worked with hundreds of teachers from over 45 different countries across the globe – from Senegal to Indonesia, from Mexico to Argentina. In addition, Dr. Shin keeps herself busy as an English Language Specialist for the Office of English Language Programs (OELP) in the U.S. Department of State and has conducted EFL teacher training programs with teachers in Libya, Egypt, Morocco, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, India, Cuba, El Salvador, and Taiwan.
E-TEACHER INSTRUCTORS
(No picture)
Silvio Avendano, savend1@umbc.edu
E-TEACHER TEACHING ASSISTANTS
(No picture)
Colleen Grisham, grisham@umbc.edu
Sonja Follett, sonjaf1@umbc.edu
E-TEACHER GUEST SPEAKERS
Dr. Helena Curtain has varied experience as a foreign/second language educator and has taught at elementary school through high school levels. She served as Foreign Language Curriculum Specialist for the Milwaukee Public Schools for many years and in that capacity coordinated and supervised K-12 foreign language and ESL programs She served as associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and directed the Foreign Language and ESL teacher preparation programs. She is the author of various articles dealing with language instruction and the co-author (with Carol Ann Dahlberg) of Languages and Children: Making the Match, a well-known resource for language educators.
Helena Curtain is active professionally and has received both state and national awards for her service to the language teaching profession. She is an internationally known expert on second language teaching methodology and curriculum development, bilingual education, immersion programs and two-way immersion programs, especially at the elementary school level.
She has also served as a speaker, consultant and visiting professor both nationally throughout the United States including Alaska and Hawaii, and internationally in Austria, Colombia, Ecuador, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Korea, Kuwait, Laos, Malaysia, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Spain, Taiwan. Thailand, Trinidad, Turkey and Uruguay.
Dr. Sarah Shin is an Associate Professor in Education at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Her primary area of research is childhood bilingualism. She is interested in children’s acquisition of two languages and the role that language plays in their education and growth. In her book, Developing in Two Languages: Korean Children in America (2005), she argues that the bilingual abilities of language minority children are a resource to be cultivated, and not a problem to be overcome. She explores various educational, social and economic pressures which hamper intergenerational transmission of heritage languages, and offers suggestions for helping children develop in two languages despite these pressures. Dr. Shin's other line of research examines second language writing and professional development of teachers. She is interested in teacher feedback on student writing, individual conferencing, and the role of reflection on teacher development. Finally, her most recent projects investigate the development of academic English by ESL students in middle and high schools.
Dr. Fernando Fleurquin is the Associate Director of the English Language Center. He oversees strategic planning processes, new program developments, and marketing efforts for the ELC. He has over 25 years of experience in the field of teaching English to speakers of other languages. He worked as a teacher, teacher educator and Academic Director at the Binational Center in Montevideo, Uruguay. He worked at the English Language Institute of the University of Michigan as the Manager of Test Administration and as lecturer (Second language assessment). He is a consultant for publishing companies, a program evaluator for educational institutions, and a frequent presenter at different professional events for English teachers in the US, Latin America, Europe and Asia. He designed several assessment programs for EFL textbook series and is co-author of “The Michigan Guide to the ECCE: Developing High Intermediate Competency in English” volumes 1 and 2. He is an English teacher, a medical doctor and holds a Master’s degree in Marketing and Business Administration.