I have had life experiences as a teacher and learner that have been both challenging and rewarding. These life experiences have, of course, influenced my writing. In this “Author Page” I will share with prospective readers some of the factors that have influenced me as an author.
My undergraduate major at the University of California at Santa Barbara was in English literature. I loved the poetry, the plays, the essays, the epics—all the way back to Beowulf. My plan was to complete my bachelor’s degree, and then my California Standard Secondary Teaching Credential, so that I could share my love of literature with teenagers in the United States.
I did pursue that plan for a little while. But life and love caused a change in course, and I found myself living in Uijeongbu, South Korea, as the wife of a US Army serviceman. What an amazing year! I had studied both Latin and Spanish as a secondary school student, and had even taken college-level Spanish courses, but I’d never before been immersed in another culture or language for an extended period of time.
What a great blessing that life took me to Uijeongbu! It was beautiful. I arrived in June, and the room I rented looked out over the rice paddies, across the village, and on to the mountains beyond. I was very fortunate to find a job with St. Louis High School Korea, teaching remedial reading classes to US infantry soldiers, whose reading skills were so low that they interfered with the men’s ability to complete their high school diplomas on duty.
As autumn arrived, the rice fields turned golden and then brown. My neighbors banded together to harvest the rice, the weather turned cold overnight, and with the rice fields denuded, the rats moved into the roof of my rented room. The Korean winter gave me a new understanding of the expression “bitterly cold.” I was glad to have a job that let me fill the bleak days with purposeful and rewarding work. In addition, my basic knowledge of Korean allowed me to interact with my neighbors and learn more about their culture.
That year passed very quickly. When it was over, I knew that I’d no longer be satisfied teaching Shakespeare to American high school students. I had found to find a new life path, and fortunately, I was given opportunities to pursue my new dreams.
The director of the program I worked in at St. Louis High School Korea was a man named Dr. Art Picard. He had done his doctorate at UCLA—the University of California at Los Angeles. He had also completed a certificate in TESL—Teaching English as a Second Language—there. Dr. Picard encouraged me to apply to the TESL program at UCLA and I did. I will forever be indebted to him for setting me on this course.
One thing led to another, and in the fall of 1974, I began my MA coursework at UCLA. Later, I was very fortunate to be accepted into the new doctoral program in Applied Linguistics. What an amazing opportunity! My teachers were Evelyn Hatch, John Schumann, Diane Larsen-Freeman, Cliff Prator, Marianne Celce-Murcia, Frances Butler Hinofotis, Jose Galván, Harold Levine, and Russ Campbell. Their guidance opened new worlds of scholarship and leadership for me.
Through a happy series of events, after I completed my MA, I found myself working as the Coordinator for the ESL Service Courses at UCLA. My classmates and colleagues were amazingly talented people, and—though we didn’t know it at the time—the future leaders of the profession: JD Brown, Thom Hudson, Donna Brinton, Charlene Sato, Sabrina Peck, Robert Ochsner, Bill Gaskill, Cherry Campbell, Margaret Early, Melinda Erickson, Britta Butler Wall, Cheryl Brown, Ann Snow, Elite Olshtain, and Mike Long among others. If you’ve read anything in applied linguistics in the past twenty years, you’ll know some of these names.
In 1981, I had another extraordinary opportunity. I was offered a job as the director and first full-time faculty member in the TESOL MA Program at the Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS). That first year I taught nine graduate courses I’d never taught before, in addition to trying to build a new collection in the library, recruiting students, and finishing my doctoral dissertation. It was the beginning of a new curriculum for MIIS and a new life for me. Now, after nearly 35 years of teaching at the Monterey Institute, I can once again say that I’ve truly been blessed. What amazing colleagues and students I’ve known! My work has been deeply influenced by them. In particular, I owe a debt of gratitude to Peter Shaw, Ruth Larimer, Leo van Lier, Lynn Goldstein, Bob Oprandy, Jean Turner, John Hedgcock, Gary Buck, Heekyeong Lee, Netta Avineri, Jason Martel, and Thor Sawin.
In addition to teaching courses at MIIS in areas for which I was prepared, I’ve been stretched to the limit, and have grown in the process. My initial focus on second language acquisition and sociolinguistics was subsumed by the need to develop expertise in other areas. In recent years, my graduate teaching has focused on language assessment, language teacher supervision, applied linguistics research, the teaching of speaking, language program administration, and language teacher education (to help my graduate students prepare for their future roles as teacher trainers). As a result, my research and writing have gone in these directions too.
I am also deeply grateful that my position at the Monterey Institute has allowed me to get involved with our professional organizations. I was supported first in running for the TESOL Board of Directors, and later in running for TESOL’s presidential line. In all, I was fortunate to spend seven years as a volunteer member of the TESOL Board of Directors, including a year as President (1998-1999).
In 1998, the TESOL Board voted to establish an independent foundation to support research in our field. It has been my good fortune to serve as a member of the Board of Trustees of TIRF—The International Research Foundation for English Language Education—for several years. From 2009 to the present, I have held the role of President and Chairman of the Board of Trustees. It is through TIRF, and particularly the Sheikh Nahayan Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship Program, that I had the opportunity to edit the new Routledge book, "Teaching and Learning English in the Arabic-speaking World," with my colleague, Ryan Damerow. Ryan is the Executive Assistant and Webmaster for TIRF. The book edited by Bailey and Damerow is the first of three volumes that TIRF will co-publish with Routledge. The second will be a collection of empirical studies on the teaching and learning of grammar. The third will consist of research on language teacher education.
Volunteering with TIRF has been a great source of satisfaction. In particular, I enjoy working on the Doctoral Dissertations Grants Program. Each year TIRF issues a call for proposals related to priority research topics identified by the Foundation’s Board of Trustees. The highest rated applicants receive up to US $5,000 to help them finish their doctoral research. It is truly exciting to see graduate students from around the world benefit from the generosity of the Foundation’s donors.
My next adventure entails serving a four-year term in the presidential line of AAAL—The American Association for Applied Linguistics. My duties as second Vice President will commence in March, 2014. Once again a new avenue has opened before me, ready to be explored, and I look forward to the exciting experiences which await me.
