About

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“We are teachers as well as students and our students are our teachers”

             Judy is a performing artist, a visual artist, a writer, and foremost an English teacher to speakers of other languages. Her extensive background, spanning over fifty years, in the arts, is the basis of her unique teaching style. She currently works with a local public elementary school on reading literacy and is an Adjunct Faculty at Pace University. When she isn’t teaching in a classroom, she has an active private student practice, teaches English and Professional Development courses online,  is presenting at various international education conferences and occasionally collaborates with various educational colleagues across the globe. Judy holds a BS in Liberal Arts /Teaching Academics through the Arts and a MA in TESOL from the New School University in NYC, USA.

            Judy began her teaching career, teaching dance, acting, singing and elocution. She is a graduate of a visual arts High School and studied extensively in college, sculpture, furniture design, and graphic art. She has had a long successful career as a professional performing and visual artist. Judy began teaching academics (English, Science, and Math) in a Pre-School setting in the early 1980’s. Having come from an arts background and with no formal teaching training, she drew on her art background to convey the academic subjects to her students. She guided her students to finding connections between the various performing & visual arts and the academic principles of reading, writing, speaking, science and math. Needing to give the best to her students, she took it upon herself to independently study everything on child development and the various pedagogical theories at the time.

            Judy continued to teach as a guest artist in various public and private school settings through the 1990’s. There she would teach students, that were struggling in school, academics using the arts. Many of the students were not learning disabled but rather students that were not native English speakers. She found that in teaching the student through art, it leveled the playing field because this was a universal language that any student would understand, making it easier and possible for the student to learn English better. In the act of creating, the student became immersed in the English they needed to learn.

            In 2001, Judy developed her first adult ESL program in a local NYC Public Elementary School. The students in the Pre-K – 3rd grade levels were struggling with their studies yet they seem to cognitively test well. They were predominantly immigrant children from highly educated parents but the parents were not fluent in English. With the permission of the principal, Judy created a program for the parents to learn English and the subjects their children were learning while attending school. Therefore, parents and student were learning almost side by side. This resulted in the students’ achievement levels increasing by more than fifty percent. Seeing this need for adult education, she began working as a volunteer with various community groups teaching English.

            In 2011, Judy returned to school to formally complete her two degrees from the New School University in NYC. Having grown up as fifth generation New Yorker amongst a myriad of different cultures, it became her mission to give the best of what she had to share, of her passion for the arts and teaching. In 2013, as she was completing her MA TESOL it was proposed to her that she consider investigating theater for ESOL audiences and developing a curriculum for the New School University. After extensive research into the current state of existing theater for ESOL audiences, she found it extremely lacking. Most theater, in the USA and abroad, was either culturally insulting to the various cultures, very poor versions of the classics or stories that were totally irrelevant to the audiences it was being delivered to. In addition the educational materials that were being given to the educators were antiquated in pedagogical theory and practice. This gave birth to the newest chapter in Judy’s journey.

            Judy is currently working on bringing together a forward thinking group of artists and educators to develop new original culturally relevant theater for ESOL audiences. The premise is that there are universal themes that prevail throughout all cultures and it isn’t necessary to alienate the English learner of any particular culture. The English learner should receive not just a great English lesson, but a wonderful immersive cultural theater experience as well. She feels that the educational materials should be engaging and utilize the visual arts and the technology that the students of today interact with. She is hoping through her newly forged connections with International TESOL and IATEFL to be able to bridge the cultures and bring her vision to reality.

In addition to TELL (Theater for English Language Learners), Judy’s theater company, she has recently began a specialty practice teaching non English speaking singers, wishing to sing in English, proper English pronunciation. This began when a fellow singer approached her, frustrated that all the English pronunciation classes were not helping her sing in English properly, and asked if Judy could help. Judy quickly realized that her experience as a singing teacher and her expertise in pronunciation were a perfect combination for helping this singer. Thus was born English Pronunciation for Singers singing classes.

Judy continues to share, learn and be inspired by her students and fellow teacher colleagues.

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