Faculty | Center for English as a Second Language | SIU

Kathryn Carpenter earned her master's degree in TESL from Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, and her bachelor's degree in Spanish with a minor in Latin American Studies at Indiana University of Pennsylania in Indiana, Pennsylvania. She has taught for over 15 years, both in the U.S. and in Mexico. As part of her undergraduate program, Kathryn studied abroad in Valladolid, Spain. This experience has helped her be empathetic to the challenge language learners face. Kathryn has presented at ATE on the importance of scholarly discussion in educator development. She has been at CESL in both teaching and administrative roles since 2010.

Stacie Lawley earned her master's degree in TESOL from Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, and her bachelor's degree in Plant and Soil Science at SIU. She has taught for more than 30 years, both in the U.S. and abroad in Korea and Mexico. She was a participant in the Fulbright Seminars Abroad program in Pakistan, and spent two years in Sierra Leone, West Africa as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Stacie has presented at TESOL conferences at both the state and regional levels, most recently on building rapport in the ESL classroom. One of her current fields of interest is the application of methods based on the science of learning to second language acquisition.

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Alli Ramsay earned her bachelor's degree in French and Political Science from Southern Illinois University Carbondale. She then went on to receive a master's degree in international development at Sciences Po, Paris, at the Paris School of International Affairs. By living in France for a few years, Alli became familiar with the trials and triumphs of being a language learner in a different country. Alli returned to Carbondale in the summer of 2023 to begin her dual master's degree in linguistics and TESOL at SIUC. Her linguistic interests lie in societal influences on collocation and how those impact language learners. She is a native speaker of English and is fluent in French. She is currently studying Korean and in her free time, she enjoys hiking, embroidering, reading, and writing.

Dr. Colin Robinson has a PhD (2015) in Curriculum and Instruction with a Reading and Language Studies Focus from SIU. His dissertation was a mixed methods longitudinal study on Spanish-English code-switching and code-maintenance patterns in bilingual boy-girl twins. He holds a Master’s Degree in Foreign Languages and Literatures (Spanish - 2001). His thesis was on the training of teaching assistants regarding rude and disruptive behavior in the classes they teach. He also completed a Master’s Degree in Linguistics at SIU (1999). His thesis examined linguistic freedom in the Catalan Language Law of 1998. Mr. Robinson holds a TESOL Teaching Certicificate from the University of California, Riverside Extension (1994) and has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science, with a minor in Spanish, from the University of California – Riverside. His interests include family language planning, bilingual children, heritage languages, teacher mentoring, and international relations. He has taught at four different Intensive English Programs at university campuses in the United States, published articles in peer-refereed journals, and presented at multiple professional ESL and foreign language conferences. Dr. Robinson has taught at CESL full-time since 2005.

Rebecca Shaw Sullivan has a Master's Degree in TESL from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Bachelor's Degree in Linguistics and Spanish from the University of Central Arkansas. Since 2017, she has been teaching adult ESL learners with the focus of helping them transition into American workplaces and universities. Rebecca's primary research interests are dialectal diversity in the ESL classroom, gamification of language, and digital communication. In her free time, she enjoys gardening, traveling, and playing the piano.

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Geoff Young holds a master’s degree in Applied Second Language Acquisition from Carnegie Mellon University and a bachelor’s degree in Music from Cleveland State University. He began his career in teaching English to non-native speakers after completing his CELTA at the Berlin School of English. Geoff has taught EFL at universities in Colombia and Mexico; he has also worked with younger learners in the US, Russia, and Finland. Content and language integrated learning is one of his primary research interests. Outside of work, Geoff enjoys reading, hiking, and attending live music events.

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