I have been been teaching college-based adult education language and computer literacy courses since 2010. I have helped clients at Varsity Tutors improve their writing, listening, and speaking skills, especially in preparation for test settings and workplace interaction. I also teach students of all levels to read the Hebrew and Arabic alphabets. I regularly use MS Office packages, including doing database development with Visual BASIC and SQL in MS Access.

I earned an MA in linguistics and a BA in computer science. These degrees were from UC San Diego. I also completed graduate coursework and fieldwork in lifespan communicative (speech and language) disorders.

I have experience with all ages, from 3 years to 93. My past volunteer teaching positions include ESL (English as a Second Language) with senior citizens; an after-school homework program with middle school immigrants; computer basics with 4th graders; and computer instruction in Spanish with adult learners.

I have used praat and audacity to model phonetic features of foreign and native accent. While at UMD, I participated in sociolinguistics research related to discourse-level word choice. Read my review looking at the evolution of Ukrainian in Canadian heritage speakers: http://lvcesl.blogspot.com/2017/08/explorations-in-bilingual-metrics.html
For Hebrew, see http://nilmad.blogspot.com

I have three sons who keep me busy. Although they are academically on target, two have special needs related to autism. Through my sons and through my own college students, I recognize that learning differences require approaches that build on a student's strengths. There are three approaches to presenting new material: visual, aural, and kinesthetic. Experiential learning promotes retention.

It is important to check for understanding, especially when a student processes pragmatics in a different way from a neurotypical student. It is also important to check for understanding when a student is an English language learner whose written and oral English are at different levels. The current trend in academic work is group projects. Without extra preparation, these two types of students can easily get left behind.

My hobbies include a book club (East Asian literature in translation), Tai Chi, and cooking for my family. I recently completed ASL I and welcome the opportunity to work with Deaf students.