Staff

About our Staff:

All teachers are skilled professionals with Master's Degrees or TESOL certificates and a minimum of one year teaching experience in innovative and student-centered teaching. ILI's staff has over 100 years of combined experience working with learners from beginning to advanced levels. The staff has lived and worked in many countries including Spain, Mexico, China, France, Guatemala, Bulgaria, Korea, Mariana Islands, U.K., Germany, Italy, Peru and Argentina. To see articles that staff have written click on this link.

Alexis Johnson

Alexis Johnson co-founded ILI in 1984 and has been its Executive Director since that time. With an undergraduate degree from Georgetown University and a Masters in Teaching ESOL and Spanish from the School for International Training (SIT), Alexis has taught languages for over 30 years, including nine years in Barcelona, Spain. She is a master Trainer for SIT's TESOL Certificate and a member of the SIT TESOL Certificate Council. She is a former commissioner for ACCET, the Accrediting Council for Continuing Education & Training, and continues to evaluate schools across the country. Alexis has presented at numerous conferences and authored an ESOL manual "Techniques and Activities" for the Massachusetts System for Adult Basic Education Support. In addition to Spanish, Alexis speaks varying degrees of French, Italian, Esperanto and Catalan. She would like to learn at least five more languages.

Caroline Gear

Caroline Gear has been at the International Language Institute of Massachusetts located in Northampton, MA since 1986 as teacher, administrator and teacher trainer. She has been the Director of Programs at the school since 1989. Caroline is a co-developer and co-facilitator for an on-line hybrid course "Rethinking Supervision" and New Hampshire's Adult Basic Education ESOL Certificate Program. She is a Master Trainer for the School for International Training's TESOL Certificate Course. Caroline has written articles on assessment and evaluation and presented in the area of teacher training and supervision both regionally and nationally. She continues to teach ESOL and Spanish to various adult populations. Caroline has lived and worked in Peru, Mexico and Spain and has a Masters in Spanish Literature from Michigan State University. She has served as secretary on the Executive Board of Directors for AAIEP (American Association of Intensive English Programs). She is currently serving on the Executive Board of the Northampton International Rotary Club and is the ELTA (English Language Training and Administration) network leader for NAFSA's Recruitment, admissions and preparation knowledge community.

Chris Elliott

Chris is the Coordinator of the Intensive English Program. He has a BA in Languages and Literature from Bard College and an MFA in Poetry from Emerson College. He has over ten years experience in Massachusetts schools teaching ESL at all levels, including prep for the Cambridge exams, as well as several years teaching English composition at Emerson College and the Harvard Extension School. In addition to an English teacher, Chris is a singer/songwriter, guitarist, poet, and musician, releasing CDs and performing around New England as a solo artist and in the duo Austin and Elliott. You can find him at www.austinandelliott.com, www.chriselliott.org, and www.myspace.com/austinandelliott

Amy Ben-Ezra

Amy is the Volunteer Tutor Program Coordinator, the Educational Counselor for the DOE Free English Program, and the Host Family Coordinator for the Intensive English and TESOL Programs. After 25 years as a social worker specializing in the problems of abuse, neglect, and self-neglect of the elderly, Amy's arrival at ILI in January 2007 represented a career change and a return to her passion for language learning and international study and contact. Amy holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and in Latin American and Caribbean Area Studies from SUNY-Binghamton, and a Masters in Social Work from Hunter College School of Social Work, NYC. She is fluent in Spanish and has lived and studied in France, Mexico, and Costa Rica.

Susan G. Curewitz Arthen

Susan is the Business Manager for ILI, a position she accepted in 1999. She has spent over 25 years as a financial administrator for non-profit organizations and has served on several non-profit Boards of Directors as well. She has a life-long interest in earth-centered spirituality.

Daniel Cuenca

Before moving to the US in 2001, Daniel worked in the Argentine public school system for five years teaching Spanish Grammar and Literature, English as a Foreign Language and Portuguese. He is a graduate of the Instituto Nacional del Profesorado de Buenos Aires and the School for International Training's TESOL Certificate Program. He has done work as a translator and interpreter in Spanish, English and Portuguese in Argentina, Brazil and the US. Daniel is fascinated with constructed languages such as Esperanto and how these languages work without being connected to one particular culture. He is currently translating Gabriel Garcia Marquez' novel, 100 Years of Solitude, into his own constructed language. He teaches Spanish in the World Language Program and at Hampshire College, and English in the Department of Education's Free English for Immigrants and Refugees program.

Nina Dudley

Nina comes to ILI from teaching ESOL and Citizenship classes in Chicopee at Valley Opportunity Council where she continues to teach a Literacy class. She has experience teaching in the public schools as well as in continuing education for several institutions including HCC and The Art Institute of Boston. She holds a B.S. from Boston University, as well as a Masters in Fine Arts from Massachusetts College of Art and a Masters in Teaching from Elms College. She lives in Northampton and is the proud parent of two college students. And needs 2 jobs to help pay for them!

Macey Faiella

Macey is the coordinator of the Department of Education's Free English for Immigrants and Refugees program as well as Admission's Coordinator for the Intensive English program. She holds an MA in teaching ESOL from San Francisco State University, and has been teaching in a variety of settings for the past 10 years. Prior to coming to ILI, Macey taught ESOL at the City University of New York, while also serving as a staff developer, teacher trainer and curriculum writer for several CUNY campuses.

Heather Hall

Heather is the coordinator of the World Language Program as well as the General Office Administrative coordinator at ILI, occasionally she teaches in the Intensive English Program or substitutes in the DOE Free English Program classes. Before joining ILI in 2003, she spent her time between organic gardening and her art studio. She has taught a Multicultural Arts Program for elementary school children, basic ceramics to differently-abled high school students and feltmaking classes to adults. Currently she expresses her artistic side through feltmaking and textile surface design. Heather holds a Bachelor of Arts in Cultural Studies for Education from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and is a graduate of the SIT TESOL Certificate Program. She is also trained in multicultural conflict transformation. She has lived and studied Spanish in Guatemala and has traveled in Europe, Central America and Mexico.

Maya Krinsky

Maya teaches Spanish and English for Speakers of Other Languages at ILI. She is a graduate of Bard College and the School for International Training's TESOL Certificate program, and has four years of teaching experience.  She speaks French and Spanish and has lived, studied and worked abroad in Reunion Island, Egypt and Spain. Maya teaches ESOL in the Evening English Program and Spanish in the World Language Program and Hampshire College.

Luis Loya

As a Chicano who lives in la frontera of language and culture between the American and Mexican worlds, Luis Loya is interested in the nexus between cultural studies, sociolinguistics, gender studies, and literature. His own personal experiences inform his scholarship and research into the study of the evolving identity of Latinos in the United States, particularly the Chicanos, as well as analysis of the relationship that Chicanos as a unique social group have within the broader American and Hispanic cultures. He is currently studying the representation of Latinos in cinema through a focus on the intersection of race, gender, social and immigration status, and language. Luis has a double B.A. in Spanish and French from California State University, Fresno, and a Master's in Hispanic Studies from Western Michigan University. Currently he is a PhD candidate in Chicano/Latino Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He presently teaches Spanish at the ILI and Hampshire College.

Betsy Rider

Betsy comes to ILI after working for 20 years at a national educational testing company overseeing Operations and Human Resources. After completing her TESOL certificate at ILI, she taught ESL at Worcester State College for two years. When she moved to Northampton, she significantly shortened her commute by taking a job here at ILI. Betsy teaches ESL and also works to expand enrollment at ILI. She holds a B.A. from Smith College in German.

Karine Roesch

Karine is ILI's TESOL Training Coordinator. Since joining the school in 1992, she has taught ESOL and French, conducted teacher training courses, as well as trained and supervised teachers in various ILI programs. She has presented at state and national conferences and holds a Master's Degree in International Affairs from American University in Washington, D.C. Before discovering her love of teaching, Karine worked as a writer for an environmental organization in Guatemala, where she lived for two
years. Prior to that, she conducted research and wrote for news organizations, including The Wall Street Journal and Congressional Quarterly. Karine is a native of France.

Board of Directors