Ellen Licht

I am still living in the Northern Bay Area in California, still teaching ESL at Santa Rosa Junior College, and quite involved in making bridges to help non-traditional students to succeed at Community College and in other higher education settings. I enjoy teaching at community-based sites and also on campus, in the high-level academic writing courses. It's all interesting to me. My students are the salt of the earth.

 

I also recently obtained a certificate in American Sign Language. I first had a Deaf student a few years ago and he inspired me to start learning the language and the culture. It has truly opened up a whole new world, as every new language does. Who was it that said that with each language we learn, we grow another soul? I am now at times involved in guiding language instructors to better work with Deaf students.

 

CIE continues to be an important foundation for me in all that I do and in how I think about the world. I have been involved in training in what is called "Reading Apprenticeship," a method developed at WestEd in Oakland... ways to guide students through deeper and more engaged reading than they might be used to. When teaching writing to students from other countries came up, I started talking about Helen Fox, and Mainus Sultan....a journalist and poet who came to the US and was told he couldn't write. It's not just about English but how we expect people to think in academic settings. What are the expectations and how do we teach that? And what are we really saying to students when we tell them that they have "failed" at it? [2-15]

 

Email:  ellenlicht61@gmail.com

 

Degree: 
M.Ed.
Entrance Year: 
Graduation Year: 
5-year span: 
Status: 
CIE Graduate