Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL)

Laura Schall-Leckrone teaches in the graduate Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages and English Language Learners (TESOL/ELL) programs at Lesley. Prior to completing her doctorate, she worked for seventeen years as a bilingual teacher, Spanish teacher, and K-12 curriculum director in urban and suburban public school settings. Her teaching and research center on the preparation of teachers to teach linguistically diverse youth and pedagogy that promotes disciplinary and critical literacies.

Laura is currently engaged in collaborative classroom-based research with high school history teachers aimed at teaching adolescent bilingual learners literacy skills of civic engagement, such as telling a compelling story, explaining phenomena, and advancing an argument.

Laura was one of the speakers at a 2018 Lesley-hosted dual-language conference sponsored by the Multistate Association for Bilingual Educators, with colleagues Meg Burns and Amanda Wager. Read more.

Education

BA, Swarthmore College
MAT, School for International Training
PhD, Boston College

Meg is a faculty member in the English Language Learning/TESOL programs at Lesley. She specializes in the theoretical and pedagogical foundations of bilingual education, with a focus on Spanish-English paired literacy instruction in elementary Dual Language schools. Her research also investigates issues of culture, race, and power in linguistically diverse settings, specifically Two-Way Dual Language schools.

Meg teaches courses in first and second language acquisition, early language and literacy development, sheltered English instruction, culturally responsive pedagogy, family and community engagement, and qualitative research methods. In professional development settings, Meg works with both monolingual and bilingual teachers to build classroom practices which support emerging bilingual learners’ oral language development as a foundation for biliteracy.  

After learning Spanish as a second language, Meg began her teaching career as a first grade Two-Way Dual Language Spanish immersion teacher. She currently serves on the board of the Massachusetts Association for Bilingual Education and is a member of the Bilingual Education Research Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association.

Meg is the incoming president of the Multistate Association for Bilingual Education. Lesley recently hosted a dual-language MABE conference featuring Meg and Lesley colleagues Laura Schall-Leckrone and Amanda Wager. Read more.

Education: BA, Vassar College; MA in Applied Linguistics, University of Massachusetts, Boston; PhD in Bilingual Multicultural Education, University of Colorado, Boulder.

Amanda's educational background and scholarship is informed by 15 years of experience as an educator in the United States, Peru, Canada, and the Netherlands. She taught children, youth and adults from diverse backgrounds in formal and informal learning spaces. As a recent awardee of Lesley’s Junior Faculty Fellowship, she is continuing research on the use of the arts as a tool for language learning in public schools within the Boston area.

She has presented and published internationally on her research interests: feminist/critical/public pedagogy, applied theatre, youth studies, multicultural education, research-based theatre, and additional language learning. Amanda’s passion lies in building safe spaces in which individuals can creatively and critically co-construct pedagogy. She teaches in both the Language and Literacy and Creative Arts in Learning programs. Amanda is chair of Lesley’s Diversity Council.

Amanda was one of the speakers at a 2018 Lesley-hosted dual-language conference sponsored by the Multistate Association for Bilingual Educators, with colleagues Meg Burns and Laura Schall-Leckrone. Read more. 

Education

BFA, Emerson College
MAT, Dominican University
PhD, University of British Columbia

Maria de Lourdes B. Serpa, now professor emerita, spent her time at Lesley as a bilingual professor who is committed to high quality teacher education and equity in educational practice for all students. She is a doctoral senior advisor and has designed Master's programs and doctoral specializations in Bilingual-ESL Special Education. Dr. Serpa served as the director and co-director of two major 5-year teacher education projects funded by the US Department of Education, and Assessing ELLs with Disabilities Institute funded by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary & Secondary Education. She also co-directs the UDL-Teaching Portuguese Worldwide Project and is the co-founder of the Portuguese World Language Institute. She maintains international collaborations with University of the Azores, Universidade Aberta, University of Madeira, and CAST.org. Responsible for implementing UDL in Portuguese.

Education

BS, Boston State College and Magisterie Primario, Azores, Portugal
M.Ed., University of Massachusetts, Boston
EdD, Boston University