United States
Sweden
Turkey
Thai
ArabicIEP Teachers
Vicki Callagan
Now in her twenty-second year of teaching English as a Second Language, Vicki still keeps learning new things to bring to her IEP classroom. “What I like best about teaching international students,” she says, “is that I learn a lot about other cultures while continuing to learn about my own culture through the eyes of my students.”
Vicki has eight years of international experience living and working in Germany and Italy, and holds an M.A. in Multicultural Education and ESL, and a B.S. in Secondary English Education. She has also studied web site design and video and digital film production.
Her classes include a wide variety of activities which involve the use of computers, the Internet, and film because she believes that technology brings fun, excitement and real world experience into learning English.
In her free time, Vicki enjoys computers and Web page design, film production, skiing, kayaking and watching foreign films. Visit Vicki’s IEP class website at: http://www.pierce.ctc.edu/VCallagan
Diana Casey
Diana has been teaching at Pierce College since 1986, and has been teaching ESL for the last eighteen years. She has an M.A. in English, B.A. degrees in French and Latin, and several years of international experience working in Germany and Mexico. “What I like best about teaching English to international students,” Diana says, “is that I am able to take a ‘virtual’ trip around the world each day by visiting with students from so many diverse countries and backgrounds.” She also enjoys the enthusiasm her students bring to learning English, and finds their excitement contagious. Diana sees teaching and learning English as participatory and interactive, and works to provide opportunities for her international students to interact with American students in the classroom. Her hobbies include skiing, reading, swimming, poetry, oil painting, sewing, cycling, and hiking.
Bob Koch
Bob has been teaching English as a Second Language since 1976 and has been in the Pierce College Intensive English Program since 1996. He holds an MA in TESOL and a BA in Fine Arts, along with a Washington State K-12 teaching certificate for Art and Japanese. He spent several years living and teaching in Japan and loves working with international students here in the U.S. He believes that the perfect learning environment is one that is secure, friendly, and allows for students to acquire naturally new language skills from the energy of the people around them, as well as from their own strengths and weaknesses. Bob enjoys travel, world music, foreign films, and the study of other languages and cultures.
Mishelle Pasinato
Mishelle knew that she wanted to be an English teacher by the time she was in the eighth grade. Now, many years later, she finds joy every day with her students as she bounces around the classroom. The words “energetic” and “outgoing” are two of the most-used adjectives to describe her teaching style and her personality.
Mishelle graduated with Bachelors degrees in English, Sociology, and Secondary Education from Washington State University in 1990. She taught for one year in the public schools, and then bought a one-way ticket to Korea to teach English as a Foreign Language. Mishelle loved both Korean food and culture, and learned as much from her students as they learned from her. Three years later, she returned to Washington State to work for the American Cultural Exchange at Pacific Lutheran University, where she taught ESL and ran the Community Interaction section of the program. She also finished her TESOL teaching degree while working there.
She came to Pierce College in 1999, teaching college English composition courses while working on her Masters degree in education, with a focus on reading and literacy, from City University. While at C.U., she concentrated her research on ESL reading comprehension. She now teaches ESL certification courses for City University in addition to her IEP and college composition courses here at Pierce College.
Mishelle's hobbies include reading, making scrapbooks and photo albums for her family, and volunteering at her children's school.
