CEC 2010 Speaker Bios

Keynote Speaker: Cathy Bao Bean

Cathy Bao Bean, author of The Chopsticks-Fork Principle, A Memoir and Manual and co-author of The Chopsticks-Fork Principle x 2, A Bilingual Reader for ESL and CFL learners, is a daughter, mother, wife, friend, sister, aerobics instructor, business manager, President of the Society for Values in Higher Education (www.svhe.org), advisor to the NJ Council for the Humanities (www.njch.org), and board member of the NJ Chinese Cultural Studies Foundation (http://www.njccsf-info.org).

In a previous incarnation, she was a philosophy teacher, cook, student, carpool driver, and on the Board of Advisors of the Claremont Graduate University School of the Arts and Humanities as well as founding member of the Ridge and Valley Conservancy.

In the process, she has been learning how to make the "foreign" more familiar and the ordinary and extraordinary into each other…and telling everybody on www.twitter.com/chopsticksfork and as co-host of “The Balancing Act 4 Women” on http://mommiesline.wordpress.com/mommies-line-radio/ .

None of it has been painless. All of it has been fun - except the cooking.

Pre-Conference Workshop Presenters

Ji-Mei Chang, Ph.D.

Professor Ji-Mei Chang is a teacher educator and educational researcher in the Department of Special Education, Connie L. Lurie College of Education at San Jose State University. She received both of her Master of Arts Degree and Doctor of Philosophy (1989) at the University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles, with an emphasis on Chinese and English reading-learning abilities and disabilities and research methodology. She also minored in research methodology and bilingual education.

As a teacher educator at SJSU, Dr. Chang received the Teacher Scholar Award in 1998 representing the College of Education and Dean’s Recognition for Teaching and Scholarly work in 2008. She has also volunteered and collaborated with colleagues across departments to develop the K-8 Mandarin Bilingual Teaching Authorization Program. As an educational researcher, Dr. Chang specializes in cross-language research in reading ability and disabilities, effective pedagogy for language learners, as well as school-based professional development. Her goals are to guide teachers to design and implement meaningful curriculum units for coherent learning experiences and to differentiate K-12 classroom instruction.

Janna Chiang

Janna Chiang is a certified K-12 Mandarin Chinese teacher at Stopher Elementary School in Louisville, Kentucky. Ms. Chiang has a MBA degree and a master’s degree in education program - Teacher as Leader. She has helped to develop curriculum materials for the Jefferson County Public School's World Languages in the Elementary School program and worked on refining Kentucky Mandarin Chinese online courses. She is the appointed Director of Professional Development for Chinese teachers in Kentucky by the Kentucky Department of Education. Ms. Chiang has presented many sessions at state, regional and national language conferences with sessions focusing on 21st century learners. She was a lead teacher for CAIS Institute’s 2009 summer teacher training program and an apprentice leader for the 2009 STARTALK institute in Iowa. Ms. Chiang was the 2009 Kentucky delegate at the Central States Conference, where she completed and presented her leadership project. She is currently serving as the President of the Kentucky Association of Chinese Language Teachers and is a member of the board of directors of the Kentucky World Language Association. She has been accepted to participate in a two-year grant project called the Kentucky World Language Teacher Network, which focuses on the development of end-of-course assessments for high school world language courses, and she works as the technology consultant for the grant.

Dr. Jennifer Eddy

Dr. Jennifer Eddy is Assistant Professor of World Language Education in the department of Secondary Education and Youth Services (SEYS) at Queens College of the City University of New York. Dr. Eddy teaches undergraduate and graduate courses as well as directs workshops, and seminars for pre, in-service teachers and post secondary faculty.

A world language educator for 22 years, Dr. Eddy is consultant to school districts and states on performance-based curriculum and assessment design for transfer. She designed a protocol aligning Understanding by Design/Backward Design with the National Standards (5Cs). The teacher training program at Queens College has adopted this model for program, unit and lesson design. Dr. Eddy wrote and recorded five television broadcasts on performance assessment and wrote accompanying publications for the educational television network of the Department of Education of South Carolina specifically for their world language curriculum reform initiative. Most recently, she developed the Online Curriculum Guide for STARTALK, an NSLI funded project for student and teacher summer programs across the country in critical languages.

Dr. Eddy is author of Sonidos, Sabores, Y Palabras (ThomsonHeinle), a book using songs and lyrics as authentic material for performance assessment within a backward design framework, several articles on the arts and language learning, standards-based curriculum and performance assessment, and a book chapter for the People's University Press of Beijing. She is frequent presenter at local, regional, and national conferences on UbD/Backward Design and performance assessment, is on the editorial board of the Journal of the New York State Association of Foreign Language Teachers and is on the taskforce of STARTALK at the National Foreign Language Center.

Featured Speakers

Dongdong Chen, Ph.D.

Dr. Dongdong Chen is an Assistant Professor and Director of the Chinese Program at the Department of Asian Studies in Seton Hall University. Believing in effectiveness of technology in language instruction, Dongdong has tried hard to create innovative projects for her students to experience and explore the Chinese language and culture. She developed a web-based Chinese-learning program in the summer of 2003 to target at English-speaking learners’ difficulty of associating pinyin, character and meaning. During the year of 2004-2006 she engaged her students to produce Chinese videos, part of which, now available on YouTube and MERLOT, serves as teaching and learning materials. In Fall 2008, she developed a language exchange project to enable students to practice Chinese with native Chinese-speaking students in China via the technology of VOIP. In Fall 2009 she designed tasks to enhance student learning through Second Life, a virtual world education tool. Dr. Chen has presented her study on the use of technology at various conferences, such as NEALLT/NERALLT, CALICO, International Conference and Workshops on Technology and Chinese Language Teaching, International Conference on Task-based Language Learning. Some of her research articles appear on Journal of Chinese Language Teachers Association, Global Chinese Journal on Computers in Education.

Helena Curtain, Ph.D.

Helena Curtain has varied experience as a foreign/second language educator and has taught at elementary school through high school levels. She served as Foreign Language Specialist for the Milwaukee Public Schools for many years and later directed the Foreign Language and ESL teacher preparation programs at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She is the author of various articles dealing with language instruction and the co-author (with Carol Ann Dahlberg) of Languages and Children: Making the Match a well-known resource for language educators.

Helena Curtain is active professionally and has received both state and national awards for her service to the language teaching profession. She is an internationally known expert on second language teaching methodology, curriculum development, bilingual education, and immersion programs, especially at the elementary school level. She has also served as speaker, consultant and visiting professor both nationally throughout the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii, and internationally in 27 countries.

Dr. Myriam Met

Dr. Myriam Met was a supervisor of foreign language instruction for major urban and suburban school districts for over 25 years. In that capacity, and as a consultant to educational agencies, she has planned, implemented, and evaluated Mandarin programs including elementary FLES and immersion programs, STARTALK summer programs, and secondary school programs.

Bonnie Tsui

Bonnie Tsui is the author of AMERICAN CHINATOWN: A People's History of Five Neighborhoods, a San Francisco Chronicle bestseller. Author Gish Jen called the book “a fascinating and thoughtful look at a thoroughly American phenomenon;” Evan Osnos, Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker, called it “a wonderfully revealing and compassionate trip into the real lives of men and women who straddle the world’s two great powers.” Tsui is a frequent contributor to The New York Times and has appeared on NPR and CNN. A graduate of Harvard University and a former editor at Travel + Leisure, she has also written for The Atlantic Monthly, National Geographic Adventure, and Condé Nast Traveller, among other publications. She is the editor of A Leaky Tent Is a Piece of Paradise, a collection of essays on the outdoors, and is a recipient of the Radcliffe Traveling Fellowship, the Lowell Thomas Award for travel journalism, and the Jane Rainie Opel Award from the Radcliffe Institute, for outstanding contribution to her profession.

Please visit the book's companion site www.americanchinatown.com; Tsui can be reached at www.bonnietsui.com.