English: The Global Language

Staff and Student Profiles from the
Institute for English Language Programs

This fall the Institute for English Language Programs (IEL) recorded an eight percent increase in enrollments over last year; 776 students accounted for 816 course enrollments--the largest total in the history of this Extension School program.

The expanded student body is worthy of demographic comment. The median age of students this term is 27; two-thirds of the students are women; and 69 countries are represented: Brazil, with 164 students, is followed by Mexico with 85, Colombia with 51, Japan with 49, Korea with 31, and Germany with 24 students. IEL students speak languages including Albanian, Bosnian, Djiluba, Nepalese, Thai, and Umana; Cantonese, Cape Verdean Portuguese, and Mandarin; Haitian Creole, Moroccan Arabic, and Romansch. Many IEL students are bilingual or multilingual when they come to the Extension School, and this term some have reported combinations such as Armenian/Russian/Iranian, Portuguese/Flemish/French, and Arabic/Italian. The predominant language this term is Spanish, with 212 speakers.

Anticipating the growing student demand for instruction at all levels of proficiency, the IEL Program hired four preceptors--Cheryl Ernst, Kimberly McGrath, Jennifer Robinson-Sharapi, and Jilani Warsi--on a full-time basis before the start of the fall term.

IEL preceptors with Dr. Lilith Haynes, director (center) Jennifer Robinson-Sharpi, Cheryl Ernst, Jilani Warsi, and Kimberly McGrath.

Cheryl Ernst, formerly of the University of Findlay in Ohio, was born in Alaska and earned her BA and MA degrees--in general studies and TESOL, respectively--at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff before teaching in Germany, Japan, Finland, and locations in Arizona and Alaska.

Kimberly McGrath, most recently at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Asia-Pacific Institute, is a Canadian who spent some of her formative years in Nigeria and South Africa. She earned a BA in political science at the University of Western Ontario and a MA in TESOL at St. Mary's University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, before teaching in Japan and then in IEL and in CELOP at Boston University from 1993 to 1997.

Jennifer Robinson-Sharapi, who holds a BA in Russian language, literature, and history from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and an MEd in TESOL and a PhD in curriculum and instruction from the University of Maryland at College Park, taught in the Maryland area as well as in Moscow, Kirghizstan, and Kazakhstan before working two years at the DeVry Institute of Technology in Long Beach, California.

Jilani Warsi, who was born in India, earned an MA in English at the University of Patna before pursuing an MA in linguistics at California State University in Northridge and then progressing to ABD status in the doctoral program in applied linguistics at Boston University. He has taught in all of these locations, as well as at Salem State, Fisher, and Newbury Colleges; in the Framingham State College's overseas programs in Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana; and, since summer 1998, in IEL at Harvard.

Housing the offices of full-time staff at 51 Brattle Street has additionally afforded IEL the opportunities to enhance its response to student interest. An immediate result has been the surge in "office traffic"--a steady stream of students coming to discuss their work with the preceptors throughout their day and evening office hours.