TC NY Professors

(who have taught in Japan for the past 2 years)

Name (click for Bio Data)	Courses	Institution
Dr. James E. Purpura	Second Language Assessment	Associate Professor of Language and Education, Teachers College, Columbia University
Dr. ZhaoHong Han	Introduction to Second Language Acquisition TESOL Methodologies: Task-based Language Instruction	Associate Professor of Language and Education, Teachers College, Columbia University
Dr. Barbara Hruska	Research and independent study in TESOLK-12 Methods	Assistant Professor of Language and Education, TESOL K-12 Field Coordinator, Teachers College, Columbia University
Dr. Michelle G. Knight-Diop	R&I Study in Curriculum. Topic: Curriculum Design in Context	Associate Professor of Education, Department of Curriculum &Teaching, Teachers College, Columbia University
Dr. Young-Sun Lee	Basic Concepts in Statistics	Associate Professor of Psychology and Education, Department of Human Development, Teachers College, Columbia University
Dr. Christian Muench	Cross-cultural Communication and Classroom Ecology	Visiting Assistant Professor, Bilingual Education Program, Teachers College, Columbia University
Dr. Marjorie Siegel	Literacy, Culture, and the Teaching of Reading	Associate Professor of Education, Teachers College, Columbia University
Dr. Maria E Torres-Guzman	Bilingualism and Bilingual Education: International Perspectives	Teachers College, Columbia University

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Dr. James E. Purpura

• Educational Background: B.A., Marietta College; M.A., University of Colorado; Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles
• Scholarly Interests: Second and foreign language assessment; Language Program Evaluation; Assessment of Grammatical Ability; Cognitive Dimensions of L2 Assessments
• Selected Publications
  Assessing Grammar (Cambridge University Press, 2004).
  Strategy Use and Second Language Test Performance (Cambridge University Press).
  Validating Questionnaires to Examine Personal Factors in L2 Test Performance. In M. Milanovich & C. Weir (Eds.), European Language Testing in a Global Context. Proceedings of the Association of Language Testers of Europe (ALTE) Conference of Barcelona. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  An analysis of the relationships between test takers' cognitive and metacognitive strategy use and second language test performance" (Language Learning).
  The development and construct validation of an instrument designed to investigate the cognitive background characteristics of test takers (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates).
  "A Review of Bialystok's Communication Strategies" (Issues in Applied Linguistics). (top)

Dr. ZhaoHong Han
Educational Background: Ph.D.,Applied Linguistics (specializing in second language acquisition), Birkbeck College, University of London; M.A.,TESOL, Moray House Institute of Education, University of Edinburgh; B.A.,English and English Literature, Central China Normal University
Scholarly Interests: Second language learnability, Second language teachability, Comparative grammar, Language typology, The interface of lexical semantics and syntax, Linguistic relativity, Second language reading processes
Selected Publications:

• Han, Z.-H. (2009). Interlanguage and fossilization: Towards an analytic model. In V. Cook & L. Wei (Eds.), Contemporary Applied Linguistics (Vol. I: Language Teaching and Learning pp. 137-162). London: Continuum.
• Han, Z-H. & Anderson, N. (Eds.) (2009). Second Language Reading Research and Instruction: Crossing the Boundaries. Ann Arbor:University of Michigan Press.
• Han, Z-H., Park, E.S., & Combs, C. (2008). Textual enhancement of input: Issues and possibilities. Applied Linguistics, 29(4), 597-618.
• Han, Z.-H. (2008). On the role of meaning in focus on form. In Understanding Second Language Process (pp. 45-79). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. (top)

Dr. Hruska has 25 years of teaching experience at the elementary, secondary, and adult levels. She has taught in rural, urban, public, private, US, and international settings. For the past seven years she has been training elementary, secondary, ESL, and EFL teachers to work with English language learners in K-12 school settings. Her research interests include teacher development, teaching content in ESL/ EFL classes, early literacy, and social interaction patterns in classrooms. Publications have appeared journals such as TESOL Quarterly, Multicultural Perspectives, and Ethnography and Education. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Practice at Teachers College, Columbia University in the K-12 TESOL teacher certification program.(top)

Dr. Michelle G. Knight-Diop has a B.A. from Franklin and Marshall College (French and Secondary Education Teacher Certification), an M.A. from the Monterey Institute of International Studies (TESOL, Language Development Specialist Credential/CLAD), and obtained her Ph.D from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in Curriculum and Teaching. Her scholarly interests include equity issues in urban education, teacher education, multicultural feminisms and feminist pedagogies, as well as African-American teaching practices with diverse populations.(top)

Dr. Young-Sun Lee is Assistant professor of Psychology and Education in the Department of Human Development at Teachers College, Columbia University. She received a B.S. and M.A. from Ewha Womans University in Seoul, Korea, and Ph.D in Educational Measurement and Statistics (Department of Educational Psychology) with a minor in Statistics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Dr. Lee's research interests reside in the field of Educational and Psychological Measurement, a branch of field where statistics (i.e., Psychometrics) are applied to problems related to educational and psychological testing. Psychometricians or measurement specialists work in departments such as Statistics, Educational Psychology, and Quantitative Psychology, as well as in testing companies (e.g., ETS, ACT, CTB, Harcourt, etc.). Her specific interests focus on approaches to solving practical problems in a sub-area known as item response theory (IRT), including its application to issues such as item and examinee's ability parameter estimation, differential item functioning (DIF), and linking/equating. IRT is a class of measurement models that offers a variety of methods not only to measure latent properties (i.e., evaluate item characteristics such as item difficulty and discrimination). In addition, she is also interested in the development and applications of nonparametric item response models that provide more flexibility and efficiency of IRT estimation by relaxing modeling assumptions in many testing applications.(top)

Christian Muench, a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Program in Bilingual/Bicultural Education, Department of International & Transcultural Studies at Teachers College, Columbia University has taught and conducted research in New York City, Frankfurt (Germany), Barcelona (Spain) and Sao Paulo (Brazil). His research focuses on issues of literacy, language policy and language and identity in the United States, Europe and South America, and extends into fields such as urban sociolinguistics, immigration studies and sociology of religion. His interests also include written language acquisition, European language planning and bilingual education in minority languages. His recent book on language policy and adult literacy in Catalonia (Spain) examines the writing practices of adult bilingual speakers in the context of Spanish/Catalan bilingualism and minority language planning. It was published in 2006 with Peter Lang in Frankfurt.(top)

Dr. Marjorie Siegel

• Educational Background: B.S., University of Wisconsin, Madison (1973); M.S., Major: Reading Education (1979), Indiana University; Ed.D. Major: Reading Education, Minors: Socio-Psyholinguistics and Educational Inquiry Methodology, Indiana University.
• Dissertation Title: "Reading as Signification"
• Scholarly Interests: Reading in mathematics classrooms. Cultural and critical perspectives on literacy education. Literacy and the arts. Literacy and Technology.
• Selected Publications: Reading Counts: Expanding the Role of Reading in Mathematics Classrooms (Teachers College Press). "Critical approaches" (Handbook of Research on Reading, Vol 3). "Supporting students' mathematical inquiries through reading" (Journal for Research in Mathematics Education). "More than words: The generative power of transmediation for learning" (Canadian Journal of Education). (top)

Dr. Maria E Torres-Guzman
Educational Background: B.A., Universidad de Puerto Rico, major field of study in Spanish language and literature with minors in History and French; M.A., University of Michigan, major field of study in Spanish language and literature with further study in Humanities; M.A., Ph.D., Stanford University, major field of study in Bilingual/Bicultural Education, Dissertation (1983): Participatory Democracy and Bilingual Education: The Case of San Jose, California.
Scholarly Interests: My interests lie in the space where culture and language meet in classroom interactions as well as in broader society. I am interested in understanding how teachers deal with the issues of language and culture within strong bilingual education models; how parents support their children both linguistically and culturally, and how the linguocultural spaces are created in curricular social organization and in the development of materials.(top)