Visit Nominations/Elections page for more information about joining the board in 2024.
2023 WAESOL Board
2023 Board Meetings:
January 28, 2023 – Online
March 18, 2023 – Online
April 22, 2023 – Online
August 12, 2023 – at conference venue
September 23, 2023
October 21, 2023 – Annual Member Business Meeting at Annual Conference
December 10, 2023 – Online Meeting
Your 2023 WAESOL Board
Officers of the Board:
President
David Martin (2023)
Affiliation: Washington State University
David has been teaching in ESL, English language arts, and college composition for over 22 years. He has also served as a member-at-large on the WAESOL board for the past two years. His research interests are varied and include professional identities in transition, visual literacy in the composition classroom, and literacy development in general. He is excited by the prospect of stepping into the position of President Elect and advocating for the needs of the ESL profession from a new perspective.
President-Elect
Rosemary Colon (2023)
Affiliations: Mukogawa US Campus and Gonzaga University
Rosemary Colón is an ESL educator. Having attended the MATESOL program at Gonzaga University, she has been able to build on her experience over the last 4 years teaching in university and community settings in the Spokane area where she currently resides after having spent most of her life in the Bay Area, California. Rosemary has also worked with KSPS PBS as an education consultant developing curriculum and facilitating workshops. She is an advocate not only for ELs, but for education by taking an interest in policy and advocacy learning how educators can build their support for students and communities. She continues to grow her experience and learning through professional development opportunities, collaborating with her peers, being creative with tech resources like Twitter. ¡Sí se puede!
Past President
Christina Mitma Momono (2023)
Affiliation: Community Colleges of Spokane
Christina Mitma Momono has been teaching ESL nearly 13 years at the Community Colleges of Spokane and Gonzaga University working with visiting international students, and immigrant and refugee students who have resettled in the United States. She has taught low and advanced levels. Ms. Mitma Momono has also presented on workshops on topics such as sociocultural and intercultural communication, various ESL interactive communicative projects and adult literacy. Furthermore, Ms. Mitma Momono has worked at a Northwest Fair Housing Alliance for 16 years advocating for housing equity in eastern Washington. Through her fair housing work, she has done many trainings and workshops on equity. She has worked with her colleagues in collaborative team environments and has a strong commitment to the TESOL profession.
Treasurer
Krissy Wilcox (2022-2023)
Affiliation: Spokane Pulbic Schools
I have found great joy in my second career as an ELD teacher tin Spokane Public Schools to high school ELLs in sheltered history and ELA classes and now supporting elementary ELLs to learn how to read and increase their vocabulary through a variety of literacy methods. I love to collaborate and learn through professional development with other colleagues. Before becoming an educator, I was in banking after earning a BA in Economics/Finance. I was treasurer for Junior League of Spokane, Tri-Delta Alumna group, and Mead Co-op while raising my children. I returned to college for a history degree and earned my teaching certificate though the MIT program. While student teaching, I worked on my ELD endorsement, since those were my favorite students. Working with beginning levels of ELLs, I knew I needed the skills to be able to teach them how to read, so this last school year I obtained a reading endorsement.
Recording Secretary
Hanna Hong (2023)
Affiliation: University of Washington /Bellevue School District
Hanna Hong is a doctoral candidate of Teaching, Learning, and Curriculum at the University of Washington. Her research focuses on multilingual learners, teacher instruction, and school organization to ensure multilingual learners experience equitable education. Currently she serves as an instructor and instructional coach across various Seattle based university teacher education programs. Prior to this role, she served as a multilingual instructional coach and classroom teacher.
Executive Director
Joan Johnston Nelson, PhD
Affiliation: Independent ELL Trainer and Consultant
Joan has been engaged in English language teaching since 1986. Since her first experience teaching in Taiwan, she has taught in a wide variety of teaching situations at all levels from kindergarten through adult literacy, workplace literacy, and academic English. Joan is an active advocate, teacher trainer, and consultant, as well as a frequent presenter at local, state, and international conferences. She obtained her Masters degree in TESL from Gonzaga University. In 2013, she completed her doctoral dissertation on elementary ELL interaction and earned her Ph.D. through Washington State University. Joan has been serving on the WAESOL Board of Directors since June of 2011. Her passion is for working with students on the margins, especially in the refugee/immigrant communities and her own Native American community.
Members-at-Large:
Margaret Diehl (2022-2023)
Affiliations: Mukogawa US Campus/SCC/Gonzaga
Margaret (Maggie) Diehl is an adjunct instructor in the Spokane area. She teaches at Spokane Community College, teaching ESL in the Adult Basic Education division, Mukogawa Women’s University US Campus, Spokane Falls Community College, and Gonzaga University teaching English for Academic Purposes, both in ESL and EFL. She has her masters in TESOL and taught abroad in Costa Rica. Juggling adjunct work can be difficult, but the varied experiences and contexts have given many opportunities for her to challenge herself and continue learning. Recently, exploring online teaching has been the newest opportunity for growth. Her father always told her “The secret to a happy life is to find what you love, then find a way to make money doing it.” She has been successful creating a happy life in Spokane, WA, teaching (and learning from) immigrant, refugee, and international students.
Catherine Kelly (2023-2024)
Affiliation: Shelton School District
Cat Kelly is the Multilingual Education Coordinator for Shelton School District at the south end of the Olympic Peninsula. She has been working with multilingual students and their families in the K-12 setting for seven years. She is bilingual in Spanish and English and is passionate about multilingual students accessing all educational spaces. She lives in Olympia, WA with her husband, 5-year old son, and big dog.
James Hunter (2023-2024)
Affiliation: Gonzaga University
James Hunter has taught ESL/EFL for over 30 years in the USA, Japan, Spain, the UAE, and the UK. He is the director of the MA in TESOL program at Gonzaga University in Spokane, WA, and has taught in that program for 20 years. He is also the director of the B.Ed. in Community, Culture, and Language degree in the School of Education at Gonzaga. He has a PhD in Applied Linguistics from the University of Birmingham, UK, and his research interests include: Second Language Acquisition, corrective feedback, corpus linguistics, construction grammar, instructional technologies, and teacher development.
Ali Asiri (2023-2024)
Affiliation: Washington State University
Ali Asiri is a Ph.D. candidate in the Language, Literacy, and Technology program at Washington State University. He has a BA in English Language, an MA in Teaching English as a Second Language from Gonzaga University, and he is now pursuing a Ph.D. degree with a focus on Educational Technology for English Language teachers. Ali’s research interests include CALL, Teacher Education, and Educational Technologies.
Jenny Ahn (2023-2024)
Affiliation: Pullman Public Schools
Jenny is an ELD Specialist at Pullman Public Schools and also works with pre-service teachers who are earning their ELL endorsements at Washington State University. She earned her Bachelors in Arts in Elementary Education in 2018 and Masters in Education in Instructional Design in 2020. As a former ELL student in Washington public schools, Jenny has a passion for the students who are learning English and as a result, it drove her into the education field. Jenny hopes to work with other educators and policy makers in the state one day to create a more equitable environment for ELL students.
Grace Blum (2023)
Affiliation: Seattle Pacific University
Grace Inae Blum is an Associate Professor of Curriculum and Instruction-ELL/Bilingual Education at Seattle Pacific University. Her experiences as a daughter of first-generation Korean immigrants, mother to two school-aged, biracial children, and former P-12/ Adult Literacy educator greatly inform her commitments toward culturally sustaining teaching, scholarship, and service. Prior to her work as a teacher educator, she was an elementary school teacher having worked in both bilingual and mainstream classrooms in public schools in the greater Chicagoland and Los Angeles areas. She has also worked as an adult literacy/ESL educator both in immigrant communities in the US and in northern Iraq. Most recently, Dr. Blum was an Assistant Professor of Early Childhood/ Elementary/ TESL-Bilingual Education at Central Washington University. Her current research interests include humanizing teacher education, teacher preparation for culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms and the recruitment/retention of BIPOC educators.
Board Information
All WAESOL Board members are volunteers who are also professionals in the TESOL field. Please consider joining the board. Elections take place in November. Learn more by visiting the Nominations and Elections page!
Board meetings, held four times a year, are open to any WAESOL member. WAESOL reimburses board member’s travel expenses based on WAESOL travel policy when attending board meetings and the annual conference.
Board minutes are available upon request.