I am an Assistant Professor of ESL (English as a Second Language) Writing at Kean University and have been teaching ESL Writing for 14 years.
My ESL teaching career began in the Preparatory Program of Marmara University, Istanbul (1990-1994), where I taught a mix of reading and writing. Returning to the U.S. to pursue my doctorate, I taught first-year composition to international students and native speakers of English at The University of Texas at Austin (1997-2002). Upon graduating, I began my present position at Kean University (2002-Present), where I teach first-year composition, a research writing course, and "Writing in Cyberspace."
Teaching writing and researching how people learn in general, and more specifically learn to write, fascinates me. In teaching my students, of course, I have to learn quite a bit myself. Naturally, every class is different, so part of my learning is adapting flexibly to student needs. More recently, another part has been learning to use weblogs and wikis to help my students and me to reflect: they on their learning (plus they must write more), and I on my teaching, learning, and research.
As Einstein said, "We wouldn't call it research if we knew what we were doing." Much of what fascinates me is figuring out how students (and I) learn and trying to formulate a theory to guide my practice. Theories influencing me are radical constructivism, activity theory, and complexity theory. In particular, I have been considering how John Holland's model of complexity theory can be applied practically to describe and promote learning.