About the Authors

Anne Agard has been teaching English to speakers of other languages in many different places and settings since the 1970s. For the past 25 years, she has taught classes in academic writing, reading and grammar in the ESOL Department at Laney College, where she also especially enjoys curriculum and materials development. She holds an M.A. in TESOL from San Francisco State University. She loves theater, opera, and her two little dogs.

Clare Corcoran teaches at San Francisco City College in the ESL Department. She enjoys teaching noncredit literacy classes to immigrant students with little prior formal education. Clare also tutors young children in reading, using a Structured Literacy approach. Prior to teaching at City College of SF, she also taught ESL to international students at the Academy of Art University, specializing in pronunciation . At AAU and CCSF, she provided ESL support in courses in the departments of construction, industrial design, and fashion design. She holds an M.A. in TESOL and previously worked as an editor and proofreader. Clare is interested in evidence-supported literacy methods, affordable materials for teachers and students, and enjoying the natural areas of California.

Marit ter Mate-Martinsen is a full-time member of the ESL department at Santa Barbara City College where she currently teaches one level below transfer-level English and a section of transfer-level English for multilingual writers in the English department. Marit holds an MA in TESOL with distinction from the Monterey Institute of International Studies and loves to take an inquiry and project-based approach to teaching. When she’s not developing materials or frantically grading essays, you can catch her hiking the local trails with her family, biking in the foothills, or swimming in the ocean!

Susie Naughton teaches at Santa Barbara City College in the ESL Department and enjoys teaching intermediate and advanced writing classes to resident and international students. Susie also teaches American Culture and Communication classes for international students participating in a study abroad semester at UC Santa Barbara. For UCSB Extension she also teaches a TESOL class via zoom for university teachers in China as well as programs for visiting Japanese high school students.

Cynthia Spence is a full-time English Associate Professor at Imperial Valley College and an adjunct English Professor at College of the Desert. Her academic interest is focused on community college intervention strategies and acceleration. Dr. Spence completed her Doctorate in Educational Leadership at CSUSB and she currently serves as a fellow for the Ed.D program. Her dissertation examined the role of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation focusing on Self-Determination Theory in relation to Summer Bridge Students and community college retention and persistence rates. Dr. Spence served as IVC’s OER coordinator and is currently helping IVC implement AB705 requirements, expand their embedded tutor program, and is directing IVC’s co-requisite transfer English option for incoming students. Other areas of expertise are English literature, English composition and rhetoric, education reading and language arts, second language acquisition, and e-Learning.

Elizabeth Wadell is an ESOL faculty member Laney College in Oakland where she generally teaches intermediate through advanced reading and writing, advanced listening and speaking, and vocational English. She has taught English at a number of colleges and programs around the San Francisco Bay Area and also in Mexico.

Gabriel Winer has been teaching ESOL and participating in collaborative projects at Berkeley City College in Berkeley, CA since 2007. Before that, they taught English and ESL at Contra Costa College and Berkeley High School, and before that, worked in construction, food service, and retail. They hold an M.A. in Cross-cultural Communication/Teaching English as a Second Language from St. Mary’s College.

Jenny Yap is a librarian at Berkeley City College and teaches a for-credit research and information literacy class and visits many classrooms to talk about research. She holds an M.A. in English and previously taught composition for six years before getting an MLIS and becoming a librarian. Jenny is interested in critical librarianship, books by BIPOC authors, and is always on the hunt for the best french fries in town.

Clara Hodges Zimmerman lives in the Southern Sierra with her husband and daughter and teaches English, ESL, and linguistics courses at Porterville College. She has lived and worked as an English teacher in Indonesia, China, and Washington State. She holds an M.A. in English: TESOL from Central Washington University.