Profile

Chris is an ESOL teacher at Wilde Lake High School in Howard County, where he teaches language and literacy to English Language Learners.  Like most ESOL teachers, he uses content-based language teaching and sheltered instruction in an attempt to provide these students with grade-appropriate content and the English language development they need.  Because he is certified to teach social studies, he also teaches U.S. History and American Government classes to ESOL students.  Chris often supports his county as a curriculum designer and hopes to have more opportunities to make other contributions in the future.

Chris’ primary area of interest is focused on English language learners with limited-formal schooling in secondary schools.  He has joined the LLC program in order to have the guidance he needs to conduct quality research on this growing subgroup.  Chris hopes that research on this group, including the challenges they face in the public school system and promising practices that may help these students develop needed academic language and literacy skills, will help inform educational practices and policies.

Chris has a B.A. in Political Science and an Ed.M.A. in TESOL from the State University of New York at Buffalo.  Before settling back in the United States in 2002, he spent nearly ten years overseas.  Chris has taught English in Korea, Thailand, India, Mongolia, and the United States.  He has also taught TESOL courses for students preparing to be English teachers in the Sookmyung Women’s University TESOL Program that UMBC helped to establish in Seoul, Korea.

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