Current Students

Anansa graduated from the University of Rochester with a B.A. in Linguistics in 2015. As an undergraduate, she was most interested in the linguistic connection between West African languages and liturgical languages used in African-based religions in Latin America. From 2015-2017, Anansa worked with middle school and high school students in Providence, RI through City Year, an AmeriCorps education non-profit. She used this time to explore the connections between education and linguistics. Her academic interests lie in sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, phonetics & phonology, and psycholinguistics. Anansa is fueled by the power that language has in including and empower others, particularly multilingual learners and speakers of non-standard dialects of English. She believes that nuances of communication are vital in humanizing, affirming, and validating our lives. Anansa also enjoys Sudoku puzzles, card writing, reading memoirs, and playing pick-up basketball.

Born in Beijing, China, Yu has just graduated from Capital Normal University with a B.A. in English Education in 2018. As an undergraduate, she was most interested in teaching English to Chinese students, especially in high school settings. Being a current student of TESOL with Initial Certificate program, her academic interests lie in teaching methodology, second language acquisition and psychology. The reason why Yu chose to further her study at Teachers College, Columbia University is that she believes what Karl Jaspers said in his book, that is, education is a tree shaking a tree, a cloud to promote a cloud, a soul to awaken another soul. In her spare times, Yu also enjoys traveling, swimming and watching movies.

Marcus Cheung Yuen-Yiu graduated in 2017 from The University of Hong Kong with a B.A. in Chinese Language, Literature and Culture, minored in Chinese History, and a B.Ed. in Chinese Language Education. With his international insight, he had joined the exchange programs in Stanford University, Free University of Berlin and Beijing Normal University. His experience of being a research assistant for professor and a teacher in different local schools had inspired him to concentrate his attention on education technology. He worked in an education publishing startup which allows schools to customize books and different social enterprises for consolidating his business and computer science knowledge. Implementation speaks louder than passion and planning. He won in Startup Weekend and different innovation competitions with his ideas. Setting up Youltron, a newborn NGO with his friends, he aims at eliminating gender stereotype among grade school students. Campaigns related to society contribution in poor local districts are held also. He would like to equip himself with bilingual method after finishing the program and dedicate himself into related edutech industry. Get to know him more in marcuscheung.weebly.com and say hi.

Gabriela graduated in 2015 from Jacobs University (Bremen, Germany) with a BA degree in Integrated Cultural Studies (Comparative Literature and Art History). Her senior thesis used feminist theory to analyze the language use and the plot development of three ‘princess movies’. She pursued an MFA in Creative Writing in Spanish at NYU, from where she graduated in 2017 with a three-act play, 'Tres veces suicidado', as her thesis project. During her time at NYU, she did research on the acquisition of modality by native Spanish speakers. From 2016 to 2018 she was an adjunct instructor at NYU, teaching Spanish to undergraduate students.

She often links her work, literary or academic, to activist practices, particularly advocating for the de-stigmatization of mental health. Gabriela’s core belief is that academia and education are integral to societal development, and can (and should) be used as a catalyst for social change.

John graduated in 2015 from Georgetown University with a BA in Linguistics. While there he minored in Mandarin and also worked as a research assistant in the Learning and Development Lab in the Department of Neurology. After graduation, John put his skills to use in China as an educational ambassador and English instructor. His current interests lie at the intersection of language acquisition, psycholinguistics, and intercultural language use. When not over-analyzing accents and etymologies, John can be found running in Central Park (where he is probably still listening to all the languages he hears).

Laurel graduated from Olivet Nazarene University with a double major in Spanish and Intercultural Studies. While in her undergraduate program, Laurel took several ESL classes and participated in several service trips, where she was able to put what she learned in the classroom into practice. In her last semester, she was a TA, which allowed her to get her feet wet in teaching. After graduating, she moved to Beijing, China, to work for a nonprofit organization training Chinese English Teachers through an English immersion program. During her time in China, she discovered her love for training others. In addition, her love for the language learning process grew through self-studying Mandarin.

She loves learning languages and traveling in order to truly get to know other cultures. Studying and completing several internships abroad has deepened her passion and interest in the many facets of language, especially language acquisition, code switching, and sociolinguistics. Language isn’t just a tool for communication, but also a window into the culture and history of a people group. Language isn’t just words, but also a way to find your voice. Teaching isn’t just something that happens in a classroom, but it’s also a tool for transformation.

Zhixing Guo graduated with a B.A. in English Literature from Renmin University of China. She interned in China in Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press as digital course editor, Hebei Winter Olympic Committee to bid for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games as foreign affairs assistant and Beijing Education First English School as teaching assistant. She has been a volunteer English teacher in Yushu, Dongbei Province in China, customizing teaching plan for local students and designing diverse classroom activities. She has also been a volunteer to introduce advanced English-teaching methods and ideas to the English teachers in Keshiketengqi, Inner Mongolia in China. Through all these internships and volunteer programs, Zhixing Guo finds her passion for second language acquisition and determines to promote the research in this field and help more ESL learners to achieve confident language proficiency. 

Joel Henderson was born and raised in upstate New York. After completing his bachelors in Philosophy at Nyack College, he spent a year with the English Language Institute China, teaching English to elementary students in Beijing, while volunteering with university students. Then, he continued his career teaching for the next 7 years in South Korea. After completing the Cambridge CELTA, he transitioned to teaching adults in NYC, where he has spent the last year working at ASA College and the Empire State Building branch of Kaplan International.

Heather Himes is a 2014 graduate of Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana, where she earned bachelor's degrees in German and Music. In 2014, she was an intern with the African Community Center in Denver, Colorado, where she helped refugees transition to life in the U.S. Since 2015, she has served Denver Public Schools through Americorps as a 9th grade Algebra teacher. Her goal is to advocate for and teach English to newly arriving refugees in the United States.

Ayano worked as an English teacher in Japanese high school for 5 years. She loved her students and job so much, but was frustrated with the Japanese traditional way of teaching based on grammar translation. Although she herself tried to teach English in a communicative way, she felt that she lacked knowledge regarding language learning, and so her argument was not strong enough to persuade the fellow teachers to change their mindset; then, she realized the importance of gaining fundamental knowledge related to second language acquisition. While working as a teacher, Ayano acquired a certification in Teaching English as a Foreign Language in University of California, Irvine, which motivated her to pursue an MA in the field. Therefore, she decided to quit her job and came TC to acquire the foundation of second language acquisition and effective teaching methodologies. She has a strong passion to contribute to the improvement of Japanese English education after going back to Japan. Ayano is also a Fulbright grantee and has a clear mission to improve mutual understandings and peaceful relationships between the US and Japan.

Tommy Yonathan Kumala graduated summa cum laude from Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia in 2014 with a Bachelor's degree in English Language Education. He has several solid years of professional English teaching experience under his belt—among others, he taught business English to the board of directors of Bank Central Asia, taught ESL to international students in Tarrytown, taught EFL to kids, teens, professionals, and seniors, volunteered to teach ESL to immigrants in Harlem, and taught an IELTS exam preparation class to high school and college students. Awarded a full scholarship from the Ministry of Finance of The Republic of Indonesia, he decided to pursue a Master's degree abroad at Teachers College, Columbia University in the City of New York, and grow even further as a leader while expanding his networks around his passion for ELT practice.

Through English education, he dreams to empower his country’s younger generation with the wisdom of valuing the cultural heritage but, at the same time, being able to adapt to a more internationalized and pluralized world. In his spare time, you can find him traveling around the US for Instagrammable picture spots or exercising at Dodge Fitness Center.

Tiffany Laiyin Lao graduated from the University of California, Irvine, in 2013 with Bachelor’s Degrees in Sociology and East Asian Cultures. After graduating, Tiffany worked as a substitute teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District for one year. Then, she wanted to broaden her knowledge about different cultures by working as an English teacher under the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program (JET) in Japan for four years. It was in Japan where she found her true passion for teaching English to speakers of other languages as she taught highly driven and motivated high school students. Therefore, she decided to attend Teachers College in order to improve her teaching skills in the TESOL field. After graduating, she plans to become a community college professor and dedicate herself to improving the lives of immigrants.

Hope (Heewon) Lee graduated from Yonsei University with a B.A. in Asian Studies, focusing on East Asian history, literature, philosophy, and language. She completed a one-semester exchange student program at Kyushu University with a focus on Japanese language and culture, which inspired her to do her masters in TESOL. She hopes to join an NGO to advocate the voiceless by teaching English. She enjoys teaching English and interacting with ESL students, so that she can assist them in thriving beyond surviving their life in New York.

Jia Li graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University with a BA in German Language and Literature. Upon graduation, she worked as a Mandarin teacher in the Confucius Class and Albert Einstein School in Quito, Ecuador and then moved to Dusseldorf, Germany. Since she never had professional knowledge about pedagogy, she encountered some difficulties while teaching students. That is why she chose to study further and learn how to be a better teacher.

I am from Chengdu, China, which is the home of pandas. I graduated from University of Electronics Science and Technology of China (UESTC), majored in Translation and Interpretation. During my volunteer experiences as a Teacher Assistant in Harvard Summit of Young Leaders in China (Hsylc), I noticed my strong interest in education. I went to Canada and worked as a research intern in an educational technology lab for three months. And after a year teaching EFL to adults and another year to children from 2 to 8 years old, I decided to learn more theories and practical knowledge in teaching English to speakers of other languages. Now I am interested in teaching methodologies as well as second language acquisition.

Personally, I am also interested in learning foreign languages. I have learned some French and I am learning Japanese. I enjoy listening to Japanese songs and watching Japanese TV shows.

Chiaki Oda graduated from Keio University in Tokyo with a degree in American Literature. She was a competitive figure skater until she retired at the age of 22. She has worked as an English teacher in Japan for the past seven years where she grew her passion for teaching English to middle school and high school students. She also confronted with the many problems and issues that English education in Japan provides. Her eventual goal is to return to Japan and not only continue teaching middle school and high school students but to train teachers to be able to conduct effective English classes entirely in English. She also hopes to work with Ministry of Education to change and better the core parts of Japanese English education.

Yulin Pan graduated from the Northeastern University in China with a B.A. in English in 2018. During her undergraduate program, Yulin and her peers started an International Communication Club for the benefit of improving local students' English level and also helping international students to fit in. As an undergraduate student, Yulin took several opportunities in studying in the U.S. She visited University of California, San Diego in 2016 and 2018 for its ESL program and TEFL Certificate program. In 2017, Yulin attended University of Wisconsin, Madison, where, as a visiting international student, she took several TESOL/AL related courses and found out her passion in pragmatics research. Moreover, Yulin also taught English in a local community after-school program and presented culture associated lectures in a neighborhood primary school after-school program during that period.

Back in her home country China, Yulin had several internships in domestic and international EFL training institutions. She was a TA in Education First (EF) for its 2018 summer course, teaching young learners natural spelling. She also interned as an online instructor for Huijiang, providing English proficiency assessment.

Ultimately, Yulin is passionate about pragmatics problems in English learning and teaching; thus, she is hoping to get more insight on these issues throughout the MA in TESOL program in Teachers College, Columbia University.

Angie Papageorgiou graduated from Binghamton University in 2017 where she earned a Bachelors degree in History and Spanish and a minor in education. Angie has done service abroad in Peru with two nonprofit organizations. Most recently, she has interned with a Bystander Intervention and Sexual Assault Prevention Program in Binghamton. She hopes to use her passion for culture and compassion to teach students language one day.

Chinnachart Poola-or was born and raised in Bangkok, Thailand and graduated with first class honors in English. After having graduated, he enrolled in a graduate degree in Linguistics at Chulalongkorn University where he discovered that he was more into the use of language rather than the theoretical perspectives of language. During which time, he also worked as an English tutor, helping his students preparing for IELTS and TOEFL test as well as working as a research assistant for the Director of Linguistics Department, Chulalongkorn University. His academic interest regarding linguistics are Pragmatics, (Critical) Discourse Analysis, Cognitive Linguistics and language use in general. He is also interested in Cognitive Psychology. He is particularly interested in how language could reflect our ways of thinking and how our ways of thinking can be seen from our choice of language use. He is also interested in how different people with different backgrounds process and interpret the meaning of language differently. He is hoping to conduct a research study and use a collaborative approach by combining theoretical perspectives in linguistics, applications of linguistics, and a state of the art in cognitive psychology in the future of his academic career.

Becca Pred-Sosa is a 2011 graduate of Grinnell College in Iowa with a B.A. in Spanish and a concentration in Linguistics. After graduating, she spent a year in Miacatlan, Mexico as a caregiver and English teacher with Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos. She lived and worked in Washington, DC for 5 years, most recently at the Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) where she was a Research Assistant on the Test Development team. Her work at CAL included developing rubrics and rater training materials for English writing assessments, and writing test items for reading and speaking English proficiency tests.

Veronica Salas comes to the AL/TESOL program after teaching 5-6 grade English Language Arts in Phoenix for three years. She entered the classroom in 2014 as a Teach for America Corp Member and holds a standard Arizona elementary teaching certificate. Before her time in the classroom, Veronica earned a B.A. in International Relations from Claremont McKenna College. As an undergraduate, she studied comparative education in South America and worked as a tutor at the Center for Writing & Public Discourse, where she coordinated outreach at Pomona High School. Her most recent community activities include facilitating ESL classes for aspiring citizens and advocating for district policies that better protect immigrant families.

Kate Sanford is from Houston, Texas and graduated with a degree in English from Davidson College in 2015. Following graduation, she worked as an impact fellow for a leather goods company in Trujillo, Peru and then as an editorial assistant at a publishing house in New York. In New York, she began volunteering with the Petey Greene Program as a tutor at Rikers Island, eventually working exclusively with English language learners there. Kate is now pursuing a Master of Arts in TESOL with teacher certification.

Zoé Schroeder earned her B.A. in Spanish and Geography from the University of Wisconsin - Madison in 2012. Upon graduating, she joined the Peace Corps where she taught ESL in Lesotho for over 2 years. It was there that she committed herself to a career in language education. She has experience in a variety of teaching roles, and prior to joining the TC community, worked as a teaching assistant in a Montessori school. Her goal is to work with young non-native English speakers in a bilingual or multilingual school.

Maria Tierney studied Linguistics at New York University, where she wrote her honors thesis on the syntax of negation and quantification in Latin. In addition to her extensive cross-linguistic research in theoretical syntax, she has also pursued coursework and research in cognitive science and language acquisition. She enjoys studying languages from both a theoretical and pedagogical perspective, and has spent a lot of time working with Latin, Korean, and Mandarin. She previously tutored high school and college students in both English and Latin, and has tutored ESL students in academic writing and standardized test preparation. She also enjoys creative writing, hosting English conversation groups, and experiencing new cultures and cuisines.

Maria is now pursuing graduate study in Applied Linguistics at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she plans to focus on language acquisition and in particular the acquisition of syntax. Although most of her time is spent on research and teaching, she also likes to get involved in student organizations and currently enjoys working for the student senate. Her other interests include writing/performing stand-up comedy, taking improv classes, listening to all sorts of podcasts and early 2000s music, watching Korean dramas, and visiting tea and coffee shops around NYC.

Joe Tropeano is a graduate candidate in the MA TESOL PK-12 program. An aspiring high school educator, he is a teaching resident in the TR@TC2 program and is also a teacher coordinator for the ESOL program at Community Impact, Columbia University. Prior to studying at TC, Joe taught English in Chile with Beyond English and worked in Nashville at Social Enterprise Alliance. He received his BS in Human and Organizational Development from Vanderbilt University in 2015.

Chander Kuo-Yi Tseng graduated from National Taiwan University with a Bachelor’s degree in Foreign Languages and Literatures. He also completed the Educational Program for Secondary School Teachers. During his undergraduate studies, he worked closely as a teaching assistant and a research assistant with his professors of linguistics and education. After he graduated, he taught EFL as a student teacher in a local public high school in Taipei. Now he holds an official certificate issued by Ministry of Education of Taiwan as a secondary school teacher of English. Most recently, he started teaching in more diverse settings. He worked as an ESL instructor for adults at Elite language institute. Before attending Teachers College, he enjoyed teaching adults ESL in an interactive setting online at AMC Tutor4U. This experience not only enhanced his proficiency in communicative language teaching and English speaking assessment, but also accumulated his first-hand observations of linguistic discourse. He’s looking forward to the new journey ahead at Teachers College in New York City, where he aspires to pursue his passion for applied linguistics at the graduate education level.

Deepika Vasudevan graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science in 2012. During her short stint in the software industry, she had the opportunity to develop lesson plans for a not-for-profit endeavor by the organization to teach their security personnel day-to-day English. This sparked an interest in her, and she went on to obtain a certificate in teaching English (CELTA) offered by Cambridge ESOL and the British Council. Deepika then became a full time teacher of English at the British Council in Chennai, India, where she taught a variety of courses to both adults and children for two years. It was here that she explored through experimentation some of the aspects of teaching; materials development, classroom strategy and level assessment. More recently, Deepika volunteered as an ESL tutor at the public library in Charlotte, NC, where she taught international students and immigrant workers general English on a one-on-one basis.

Deepika enters Teachers College with the aspiration to learn from the best and elevate her teaching techniques to create an impact in the ESL community. Eventually, she intends to work towards improving awareness in India about the importance of English and make the learning of the language more accessible to adults.

Dylan Walker graduated from The University of Alabama in 2017, where she double-majored in journalism and political science. Through working with a DC-based anti-genocide advocacy organization, a human trafficking prevention operation in NYC, and her university Honors College, Dylan found a passion for cross-cultural and international collaboration, particularly for displaced persons and diasporic communities. Upon graduation, Dylan received the Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship and taught local and international students at an undergraduate college in Macau, China. She is now pursuing her Master of Arts in TESOL and teacher certification at Teachers College. She is interested in marginalized youth mentorship, cultural and language exchange, and the preservation of cultural and linguistic identity for immigrants in the United States. Her other interests include free events in NYC, french fries, Taco Bell, stand-up comedy and live music of all genres.

Yutong Xie has completed an LL.B. degree at the University of International Relations, Beijing in 2017, and received her LL.M. degree with Business Law concentration at the University of Texas at Austin in 2018. She has passed the TEM-8 in China. She is now pursuing her M.A of TESOL at Teachers College, Columbia University. She had been a part-time English teacher for more than three years in Beijing, China before she came to New York City, and has taught a number of students with various ages, regions, educational backgrounds, working experience, and study motivations over the Internet. She also created her own English channel on Tik Tok sharing her short videos for English learners and has over 500,000 followers.

Yumeng (Sophie) graduated with a B.S. from Fudan University in Shanghai, China. Although majoring in Material Chemistry, she gradually discovered her passion for literature and language teaching. She took Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages as a second major. Being a volunteer of Confucius Institute in The University of Adelaide in Australia and having chances to tutoring Chinese learning during her exchange semester, her interests in getting into the field of language teaching was significantly strengthened. Later, she went to Baoshan, Yunan Province in China to do voluntary teaching of Chinese literature. Through these experiences, she realized her desire to learn teaching approaches systematically. Thus, she applied for both TESOL and TCSOL program of Teachers College.

After coming to New York, she obtained some experience of teaching ESL classes for adults in Community Language Program, Teachers College. She also taught SAT Essay for high school students back in China. Besides, she received the Certificate of Completion from the TCSOL program. Currently, she is working as a TA at the Chinese Language Program, Columbia University while studying for her M.A. degree. She is enthusiastic about experimenting with different teaching techniques and styles in both English and Chinese. She would like to become a bridge of different cultures for her students except for a language teacher after graduation.

Eunice Chung received her B.A. in English Education from Korea University, Seoul, Korea and M.A. in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, K-12) from Teachers College, Columbia University, NY in 2011. She has taught English as a second/foreign language in the K-12 setting and has been teaching Korean since 2010. Eunice is currently an Ed.M. student in Applied Linguistics, Second Language Acquisition Track at Teachers College, Columbia University and a full-time lecturer in Korean at Columbia University in the East Asian Languages and Cultures Department. Prior to joining Columbia faculty in 2015, she has taught Korean at Boston University and at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests include second language acquisition, language pedagogy, and interactive approaches in teaching.

Alexii Lazaridis is a current Ed.M in Applied Linguistics candidate. She is a 2018 graduate with her MA in TESOL as well as a 2013 graduate from UNC-Chapel Hill (Go Heels!) where she majored in Political Science and International Studies. During her time at UNC and post-graduation, she blogged for several different freelance publications (Let’s Go! Student Travel, Huffington Post) with tips ranging from traveling on a college budget to healthy living tips for twenty-somethings. She continued these projects via her own personal platform and published her first book, 21 & Counting. While writing on this platform, she found herself in a small village in Himachal-Pradesh, India in 2013. While there, she volunteered as an EFL teacher and returned home only to find herself looking for TESOL programs! She is especially passionate about the K-12 track that TC offers as the program highlights the importance of both the research and pedagogy in the K-12 context. Her MA project allowed her to focus on this balance as she researched the role of intrinsic motivation in the high school realm with specifically Latino, immigrant youth. She is extremely passionate about this demographic and is currently a full-time ENL teacher at a high school in the Bronx.

Hong Gao is an EdM student in the Second Language Acquisition (SLA) track. She holds a bachelor degree in English from Jilin University, China. She continued to pursue a master degree in English Language and Literature from the alma mater where upon graduation, she has worked for eight years as a college English teacher for non-English major freshmen and sophomores. Prior to attending TC in Fall 2017 as an MA student, she completed a two-year in-service English teacher training on Linguistics in Peking University, China. She has been the rater of the composition section of China's College Entrance Examination (Chinese Gaokao), College English Test Band 4 and Band 6(CET 4 & 6), and Public English Test System (PETS) since she embarked on a college English teaching career at Jilin University in 2007. She tutored students in FLTRP Cup "National English Speaking, Reading and Writing Contest" and National English Competition for College Students (NECCS) in China in 2015 and 2016. Her passions for language teaching and research led to her participation in the book of Professor Xiyan Liu of Jilin University, The Art of Fast Reading in English (2013) of which she collected psycholinguistic materials and helped edit four chapters. She attended the 7th International Symposium on EFL Writing Research & Teaching in 2010 and 40th International Systemic Functional Congress (ISFC 40) in 2013.