Linguistics Teaching Associate Professor and շDirector, Dr. Rai Farrelly, was profiled in a recent Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine article.
In the piece, she discusses building a virtual collaboration with colleagues in Ukraine through the , highlighting the pedagogical challenges of teaching large, mixed-level classes - challengeswhich are severly compounded by the extraordinary circumstances of war facing those educators and their students.
A common thread running through Dr. Farrelly's TESOL work is an understanding of and apprehension for English as an imperial language, and a sensitivity to the importance of mother languages and the specificitiesof local contexts: "There’s a depth and breadth of proper preparation that goes beyond how to teach a language. It’s about understanding individual differences, personalities, motivations, culture, howyour (first language) influences acquisition, classroom management, curriculum design. There’s so much that goes into it that’s beyond simply speaking English.”
You can read furtherabout Dr. Farrelly's life's work in this recent feature in VoyageDenver: