Frank Daugherty

Frank Daugherty, Program Coordinator of the English Language Center and a Senior Instructor, grew up in Mobile and received his B.A. in English and German at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. During his junior year he studied at the University of Munich in Germany, and after graduation he received a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service for a year of post-graduate studies at the Freie Universität in Berlin.  He holds an M.A. in German literature from Tulane University and did two years of graduate work in German literature at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.  In 1996, he earned an M.A. in the Teaching of Foreign Languages with TESOL emphasis from the University of Southern Mississippi. He has worked as a journalist and has taught German at the university level. He has taught English as a Second Language at Loyola University of New Orleans and Mt. Hood Community College of Gresham, Oregon. He taught English overseas for a number of years in Japan, Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Argentina. He has taught ESL at the University of South Alabama in 1983-84, 1988, and from 1996 to the present. He has published numerous book reviews, interviews and articles about the arts, authors, historic preservation, the history of Mobile and other topics in the Mobile Press-Register, Mobile Bay Monthly, Mississippi Magazine, Southern Exposure, Southern Living and Paste. He is the author of a satirical comic novel about Mobile, Isle of Joy.

Mark Basque

Mark Basque received his B.A. and M.A in English at the University of South Alabama, where he has taught since 1983. In 2004 he attained the position of Senior Instructor in the English Language Center. As a Senior Instructor he has had the opportunity to teach every class offered in the curriculum to students from around the world. In addition, he worked in the University Writing Center for ten years, where he helped many international students formulate and revise essays and other compositions. Partly for this reason he feels particularly qualified to teach writing to our international students, but he also enjoys teaching grammar, reading and vocabulary, and TOEFL test preparation. He has always loved studying foreign languages and is fluent in French, with some facility in Portuguese and Spanish as well. When not in the classroom, Mark enjoys reading, especially in science and history topics, and his hobby of family history research has taught him that some of his own ancestors had to learn English as a second language.
Joy Burroughs

Joy Burroughs received her B.A. in Spanish from the University of Alabama in 1998 (cum laude). In 2003, she earned an M.A. in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) from Southern Illinois University. She has taught English as a Second Language (ESL) at the Center for English as a Second Language (CESL) in Carbondale, Illinois as well as at the English Language Institute (ELI) of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. She taught ESL in public schools in Walker County, Alabama and Prince George's County, Maryland for three years before settling in Mobile, Alabama in 2008. She has tutored ESL students of all ages, managed programs which provided assistance for international students, and edited thesis papers for international scholars. She has traveled to and lived in Mexico, Ecuador, Venezuela, South Korea, and Germany and hopes to visit more countries in the future. She loves learning other languages, but more importantly loves meeting and interacting with people from other countries.
Helga Castano

Helga M. Castaño received her BA in Teaching English as a Second Language and her MA in Administration and Supervision in Education at the Interamerican University of Puerto Rico. She is currently working on her Education Doctorate in Curriculum and Instruction specialized in Teaching and Learning at the University of West Florida. She grew up in Puerto Rico where she started her teaching career and taught ESL for five years. She moved to Mobile, AL in 2008 and began teaching in the English Language Center in 2009. As a bilingual person herself, she enjoys teaching the diverse population of students at the University of South Alabama ELC because it allows her to learn about many cultures and other languages.
Chimène Gecewicz

Chimène Gecewicz has lived in the United Kingdom, Ghana, and various states within the United States. She holds an M.A. in Cultural Anthropology and an M.A. in the Teaching of Foreign Languages with TESOL emphasis from the University of Southern Mississippi. In addition to teaching at the University of Southern Mississippi from 1995 to 2008, Ms. Gecewicz has worked as an editorial assistant at the University of Mississippi Press, a staff writer for a monthly publication on a U.S.A.F. base in the United Kingdom, the director of an after school program for low income students, and a public school teacher with English as a Second Language students in grades K-12. She has presented on ESL teaching methods at a number of conferences, and she is presently working on an oral history project to examine the impact of Hurricane Katrina on the Hispanic residents of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. She loves to travel and has a fascination with foreign languages and cultures.

Jan Joseph

Jan Joseph received her B.A. in English from the University of South Alabama in 1987 (magna cum laude) and her M.A. in English from USA in 1991.  She has been teaching ESL since 1993, specializing in composition and reading.  She has also tutored ESL students and taught writing to Americans and international students in USA’s English Department.  Prior to teaching, she also worked as a research assistant, administrative assistant, and technical writer.  Having grown up in rural Alabama, she really enjoys the diversity of meeting and teaching students from other cultures.

Sylvia Koestner

Sylvia Koestner received her B.A. in English and German for Secondary Education from the Otto-Friedrich Universität Bamberg, Germany. She holds an M.A. in German Literature and an M.A. in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) from the University of Alabama. She taught for Accent Courses summer camp programs based at the University of Reading, U.K. as well as various English as a Second Language courses at the English Language Institute (ELI) at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Most recently Ms. Koestner taught at the Intensive English Program (IEP) at the University of Dayton, Ohio. In addition to teaching Freshmen Composition courses at the University of Alabama during her graduate studies, she administered the English Proficiency Placement Exam (EPPE) for incoming international students. In her free time, she enjoys reading, traveling and learning about other cultures.

Carla Saint-Paul

Carla Saint-Paul grew up in Mobile and received a B. A. in Philosophy from the University of South Alabama. After designing educational programs for low income children and their families, she studied philosophy and phenomenology at the Catholic Université de Louvain in Belgium for two years, where she earned a First License. She also studied the French language at the Université de Bordeaux in France, where she received a Diplôme Nationale. She lived in France for ten years and taught EFL at Institute National de Telecommunications, was director of Export for a French company and worked as a translator for the French Trade Commission. In 1990 she moved to Silicon Valley, CA and created American Language and Culture, a company offering English language training for non-native speakers of English- both executives and their families. She received her M.A. in Applied Linguistics with TESOL emphasis from San Jose State University, CA in 1996. She is vice-president of the Alliance Francaise of Mobile, and an active member of Mobile’s Sister City Association and the Mobile International Association.

Marvin Taylor

After graduating from the University of South Alabama, with a B.A. in international studies, Marvin Taylor went on to Indiana University in Bloomington, earning an MS in Education with a concentration in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages). He worked fourteen years outside the United States, teaching over three years in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for its Ministry of Defense and Aviation, then spending the next eleven years as EFL Lecturer at the United Arab Emirates University, where he served additionally on the student services committee, conducting tutorials. During this time abroad, Mr. Taylor acquired further credentials, such as the Royal Society of Arts/University of Cambridge Licensing Examination Syndicate Certificate of Teaching English to Adults (RSA/UCLES CELTA) and a Certificate in Education Technology from Michigan State University. At conferences (such as TESOL Arabia), he gave presentations on the subject of Arabic-English transfer. Upon returning to Mobile in 2004, he joined the faculty of the English Language Center of the University of South Alabama. "Mr. Marvin" also has administered the Center of Applied Linguistics’ widely acclaimed Basic English Skills Test (BEST) orally to over 600 immigrants since 2006. In June 2009, he started an ESL program in Saraland, teaching English to Hispanic workers employed in building the Thyssen-Krupp steel mill in Calvert. Mr. Taylor has a working knowledge of Spanish, Arabic, German, Russian and French.

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