Students Benefit From Alumni Connection During the J-term Dr. Kathi Bailey offers a course that is an introduction to language program administration. The students complete a shadowing assignment and a fifteen-hour administrative internship. As in previous years, MIIS TESOL/TFL alumni have been instrumental in helping current students accomplish these tasks. Here are a few attestations from current students: Last winter, I did an internship with an alumna of the TESOL program, Reiko Morishita (MATESOL ‘02), who is currently working in Tokyo for a company called Westgate Corporation. Westgate provides English programs to universities in the Kanto region of Japan (an area around Tokyo prefecture). They employ native speaking teachers as three-month contract workers and send them to various schools to give English lessons following the curricula that the company establishes based on the needs of individual schools. Reiko is a Curriculum Director; it is her responsibility to develop these curricula, and help ensure that the teachers give coherent and creative lessons based on them. It was very inspiring to work with her and see and learn about the challenges and rewards that a language program administrator faces being a middleman between teachers and the company, and simultaneously pursuing what is best for the clients: the students who actually receive instruction. Reiko told me that what she learned at MIIS has really helped her in implementing the tasks at work successfully, and that she is so grateful that she chose MIIS to pursue this career despite the demanding coursework over the two years. Thanks to my experience with Reiko and her encouragement, I feel more motivated to complete this MA and work as a professional in the language teaching field. — Aiko Nakamura Reiko (left) with Aiko I shadowed Patricia Szasz (MATESOL ‘06) for my shadowing assignment in LPA. Patricia was recently promoted from her position as the Director of the Intensive English Programs to the Assistant Dean for Language and Professional Programs, GSTILE. During my afternoon with Patricia, I was able to get a small glimpse into the world of Language Program Administration and observe several of the topics that we were reading about, such as budgeting and strategic planning, being put into action. I am currently completing the internship component of the LPA class with Molly Lewis (MATESOL ‘84). Molly Lewis is currently the Director of Community Collaboratives and Articulation at Hartnell College in Salina, CA. She has provided me an opportunity to learn about college administration. We are currently establishing a contract education program at Hartnell College. Molly's willingness to help to me learn about administration has provided me with an invaluable opportunity. I will undoubtedly take the experiences I've learned workMolly Lewis ing with her into my career after MIIS. —John Alexander
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I shadowed Heather Kokesch (MATESOL ‘11), the T&I Short Programs Coordinator, as part of an assignment for Introduction to Language Program Administration. Heather graduated from MIIS herself not long ago, so I was very happy to get a peek in what could be the near future for someone in TESOL. During our shadowing session, I watched an orientation for the Computer Assisted Translation short course that is run several times over the course of the year. It was great to see so many students from across the world come to MIIS for the first time to take one of the courses for which Heather is responsible. Heather has a lot on her plate with her position as coordinator, but she pulls it all off really well and has run two brand new courses this year: Advanced Medical Interpreting and Portuguese Simultaneous Interpretation. —Claire Ballon
Graduate School of Translation, Interpretation, and Language Education
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