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— Instructors
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Teaching a language requires more than speaking it well. It is, in fact, an art that combines knowledge of how we learn languages with appreciation of why we want to learn a particular language. Good teachers help students succeed through the risky times of looking foolish, and good teachers give students a window onto the new worlds a second language provides.

In the I.E.P. we choose instructors who know the language well and who understand the variety of ways in which students become good language users. We teach English as it is used, and provide students with many opportunities to learn from natural settings. In addition, instructors and tutors are drawn from international native speakers of English as well as second language learners of English.

Trudeau PhotoBill Trudeau is Director of the International English Program. He worked for ten years at a rural campus of the University of Alaska Southeast, responsible for international student admissions and the second language English program. A six month sabbatical teaching in Russia’s Far East, focused him on language acquisition and to school at Northern Arizona University for an MA-TESL. At NAU, he taught in the writing and in the intensive English programs, inaugurating in both a web-based instructional component. He then taught for three years at Koç University, Istanbul, Turkey. Academically, he is interested in the role of reading in non-native language development and the use of technology for language teaching.
Willems PhotoBetty Willems was born and raised in Belgium and is a second language learner of English. She is fluent in Dutch and French, with scholastic knowledge of German. She earned a degree in teaching and moved to Hull, England where she taught French and Dutch to young adolescents. In Belgium, she became a full-time teacher in English as a Second Language and Life Skills. In South-Korea, she volunteered at the International School and for the last six years has volunteered in the Carl Junction schools and at Joplin NALA. She teaches French at Discovery School, Joplin.
She loves to read, cook, entertain friends, but above all to travel. She has visited many places around the world and enjoys making new friends and learning about other cultures.
Su LiuyanSu Liuyan is visting instructor in the IEP for Spring semester 2009. She is Associate Professor and Vice Director of the Second English Department of China Medical University in Shenyang, China. She has also been a visiting scholar at the University of Oxford, England, and had translated a number of publications for the Chinese market. Her most recent work was chief translator for A Fiddler’s Tale by Louise Kaufman and Annette Kaufman, to be published later this year. She has also published in her discipline, including The Function of the Mother Tongue in ELT in Teaching English in China, March, 2005.
Brenda White Photo Brenda White is an adjunct instructor teaching Reading for Pronunciation and Vocabulary for the first time this fall. By day, Brenda is a high school English teacher.
Every year she takes students to Europe and feels that the experience abroad can’t be matched by any other. She loves to travel on her own, and has spent time in England teaching English. She loves learning about new places and meeting the people from those places.
She received her ESL education at Pittsburg State University and enjoyed tutoring a mother and daughter from China this past summer.