Meet the ELI Faculty and Staff!
All the ELI faculty and administration are dedicated professionals in language education, and over half have graduate-level qualifications in the field, including PhD and Master's degrees.
Currently, all ELI teachers and our Testing Specialists hold Graduate Assistantships from our department. Some teachers have Master's degrees are working on their PhDs. Others are working toward their Master's degrees in Second Language Studies.
She enjoys singing, dancing, swimming, travelling and cooking (a hobby that she discovered after she arrived in Hawaii). She also loves to try new, challenging and fun activities. Her passion is to help the underprivileged and marginalized people to feel loved and be able to improve their life. One of her dreams is to have a community place that can accommodate homeless or orphans and provide them with self-development programs that enable them to be independent and be able to function socially in the future. Her motto is: “Smile … and share it to the world” Riana Helen Agnesia |
In her free time, she enjoys watching movies, listening to music, chatting with friends and traveling. She has traveled to Canada, USA, Mexico, Peru, the Philippines, Thailand, Myanmar, Indonesia, Laos, Cambodia, Japan, Hong Kong, and Australia.
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Gavin Furukawa is a PhD student in the Second Language Studies department at UH Manoa. He has taught both writing and reading classes in the ELI and was a supervisor for the Writing and Learning Center at UH West O‘ahu. Born and raised in Hawai‘i, Gavin has spent the last several years working in retail management and as a private English instructor/tutor specializing in writing, listening/speaking, and pronunciation. Gavin’s research interests include Hawai‘i Creole and Japanese sociolinguistics, Conversation Analysis, and Critical Discourse Analysis. In his free time Gavin enjoys reading mystery novels and watching Japanese variety shows. Gavin K. Furukawa |
Picture coming soon!
Amy Goodman-Bide currently teaches writing in the ELI. She also works as a tutor at the Writing Center. Amy grew up in Washington State and completed a BA in French Language and Literature at Whitman College in Walla Walla, WA. For the past ten years, she has been traveling and learning about the world. She spent about two years in France, between finishing her undergraduate degree and then teaching English in the public schools. Since returning to the U.S., Amy has lived in 7 different states, teaching English and French in a variety of settings and to a variety of people. Last year, she lived on the Big Island and worked in a public high school. Her research interests include sociolinguistics, teacher education, radical pedagogy and discourse analysis. She loves reading and writing in all forms and writes poetry and short fiction. She also loves to sing, go for walks before the sun comes up and hang out with her husband and two cats. Amy Goodman-Bide |
Curt Hutchison is an MA candidate in the Second Language Studies department at UH. He joined the ELI at the beginning of 2008 and is currently teaching ELI 83. Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, Curt lived in South Korea for ten years before coming to Hawaii. In Korea, he worked primarily as an instructor at a university in Seoul. Curt’s scholarly interests include materials development, program development, syntax and pragmatics. In his free time, Curt enjoys cycling, swimming, reading, collecting music, and exploring O’ahu with his wife. Curt Hutchison |
Aside from studying and teaching, Hanbyul has a long time hobby of reading and traveling and recently she has picked up a new hobby of cooking and photography. Hanbyul Jung |
Josephine Lee |
Becky Plas was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio until she moved to Kentucky to pursue her B.A. in Spanish and linguistics. She learned Spanish as an an exchange student in Chile, and spent a year teaching English in France and learning French. Back in Kentucky, she spent a year as an Americorps*VISTA member running a tutoring program for a wonderful literacy center in Lexington. She loves the language-learning process, and is happy to be working towards her master's in the department of Second Language Studies here at UH. Becky is excited to be tutoring at the Writing Center as well as teaching at the ELI. When not teaching or learning language, Becky can be found curled up with a good book, sprawled on the beach with a good book, enjoying delicious Thai food and chatting with friends. Becky Plas |
Bal Krishna Sharma was born and grew up in Nepal. He joined the ELI in Spring 2009, and he teaches ELI 83. He is pursuing his MA degree in Second Language Studies, and is concurrently doing Graduate Certificate in Conflict Resolution. He received his M. Ed. Degree in English Education from Nepal. He also spent a year in Japan as an exchange student and learned Japanese. Before he moved to Hawaii, he was a university teacher at Tribhuvan University (Nepal), where he taught English language and linguistics courses to undergraduate and graduate students. He is interested in sociolinguistics and critical pedagogy. In his free time, Bal Krishna enjoys swimming with his wife and playing volleyball on Sundays. He is interested in learning new languages, and can speak four languages: Nepali, English, Japanese, and Hindi. Bal Krishna Sharma |
Bonnie Sylwester is a PhD candidate in Second Language Studies. She teaches writing at the ELI. Originally from Washington DC, she has spent over a third of her life living abroad. She loves studying languages because it provides an opportunity to learn about different people, places and cultures. She loves teaching English for the same reason. Before coming to Hawaii she taught English in Namibia, Korea, Bolivia, Spain and San Francisco. In her free time Bonnie enjoys reading, jogging, going for long walks or hikes and most water sports. Her newest hobby is sailing. Her academic interests include program evaluation and development.
Bonnie Sylwester |
In her free time, she enjoys playing tennis, practicing yoga, playing ukulele, going to the beach and watching movies. She has lived in and visited various parts of US, and traveled to South Korea and India. Aya Watanabe |
Susannah grew up in Tennessee and attended college in southern California. She spent a semester studying in Costa Rica where she assisted with a lower school English class and discovered a passion for teaching English. After college, she spent a year in Andorra, teaching English as a foreign language in a local high school. In her free time, Susannah enjoys hiking, camping, horseback riding, and anything that involves a beach. Susannah Welch |
Our Lead Teachers
are experienced, exemplary teachers, usually qualified at or above the MA level,
and have responsibilities for curriculum development and teacher mentoring (for
which they receive course release time).
Tsui-Ping Cheng (Ping) teaches listening/speaking courses in the ELI and serves as the lead teacher in this curriuculum area. Before coming to Hawaii, she taught English at the college level in Taiwan for two years. This experience solidified her interest in language education and further motivated her to pursue an MA degree in SLS. Currently, she is studying towards a PhD degree in SLA at UH. Besides teaching, Ping enjoys dancing, swimming, and everything that involves music, wine and great food. Bitten by the travel bug at the age of 16, she has been seized by a desire to travel. In order to learn more about tango, her next dream vacation is to meet the dancing feet in Argentina. Tsui-Ping Cheng, Listening/Speaking Area Lead Teacher |
Before joining the ELI, he worked as a high school English teacher in Korea for 3 years. He is interested in theories of linguistics, especially on syntax-semantics interface, and applications of those theories to foreign language teaching and learning. He loves traveling, swimming, watching movies, and talking with people from various cultures. Munhong Choe, Online Area Lead Teacher |
She likes holidays, especially Buddha’s Birthday and Christmas, swimming, noodles, relaxing at a jjimjilbang (Korean sauna), and traveling with her family; she hates cooking, doing laundry, mingling among strangers at a party, pride and prejudice, rudeness, and violence. Kyae-Sung Park, Reading Area Lead Teacher |
Troy gets a strong sense of accomplishment from helping students reach their personal and educational goals through language learning. He speaks English, French and Japanese. In his spare time, he enjoys hiking, singing karaoke and working with computers. Troy Rubesch, Writing Area Lead Teacher |
Our Testing Specialists have expertise in areas related to language testing and assessment, and are usually qualified at or above the MA level. They have responsibilities for ensuring that our placement process maintains the highest standards for validity and reliability, as well as for research and development related to testing and assessment in the ELI.
Soo Jung Youn serves as the ELI's Testing Specialisst and also teaches in the reading area. She is currently a PhD candidate in Second Language Acquisition. Although she majored in computer science during her BS, she has always been interested in learning and teaching second/foreign languages, so she came to Hawaii to pursue her studies in second language acquisition. Especially her own second/foreign language learning experience has greatly helped her understand students’ language learning in many ways. Besides experience of teaching computer technology in high school, she has been an ESL and EFL teacher in Korea, Vietnam, and Hawaii. Soo Jung’s academic interests include technology-assisted language assessment, interaction-involved speaking assessment, and teaching pragmatics. Also, she loves anything involving a process, such as movies, crafting, traveling and cooking. Soo Jung Youn, Testing Specialist |
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Dr. Graham Crookes (pictured above with his wife, Hildre and their son Ikaika) has been associated with the Dept. of SLS since 1982, as he did his MA here (and also taught in the ELI at that time). After completing his PhD, he came on board as a faculty member in 1988 (and again taught in the ELI on occasion). Graham has always been interested in teaching (he began his career as a high school teacher) and in improving teaching. After some years in which his research was in mainstream SLA areas, and even theory construction, his practical concerns with teaching have manifested in a recent book on teaching practice, a long-term interest in teacher research (a.k.a action research), and alternative pedagogies, particularly those associated with a concern for social justice (critical and feminist pedagogy). More recently, as ELI Director he has naturally become more interested in program administration and teacher development. In
his "spare" time, Graham is a newly minted and quite busy parent
(and husband). Dr. Graham Crookes, Executive Director of ESL Programs, Associate Professor, Department of Second Language Studies PhD,
Educational Psychology, University of Hawai`i |
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Priscilla Chen Faucette, Coordinator of Curriculum and Teacher Development Graduate
Certificate in Conflict Resolution, University of Hawai`i (in progress) |
Outside the world of work, Kenny gets a lot of enjoyment from involvement in his daughter's activities (currently these include school band, Wu Shu and piano). He also spends time on things like reading, music, walks to Kailua Beach, and all kinds
of family time. He is originally from Washington state, and spent a number
of years in Seattle (and he's still a diehard fan of the Seattle Mariners). Kenton
Harsch, Director |