David Barrett
David Barrett has been a faculty member in the ESL Department at Golden West College since 1996. He received his education in the United Kingdom, gaining his bachelor’s degree in Human Geography from the University of Kent, Canterbury and his master’s degree in Education with an emphasis on TESL and Linguistics from the University of Surrey.
David has taught at every level of the ESL program at Golden West College but specializes in quickly raising the language skills and abilities of students at the lower and intermediate levels. He is experienced in teaching all discrete ESL skills (listening, speaking, writing, grammar and reading) but particularly loves using his creative methods to inspire students to advance their listening, speaking and grammar. Before becoming full-time at Golden West, David taught at both Irvine Valley College and Santa Ana College. In addition, he spent two years teaching abroad, working in schools in Japan, China, Australia and Fiji. Over the years, David has worked extensively with students in the Reading and Writing Center, authored writing center courses and materials and co-created the Conversation Lab for students to practice their English skills with volunteer tutors from the community.
Wyatt Cox
Wyatt Cox received his M.A. in East Asian Studies from California State University, Long Beach, and was recognized as the outstanding graduate in the program. He later received his M.A. in Education with a TESOL emphasis from California State University, San Bernardino.
He started teaching English more than 20 years ago in China. He taught varied student populations including junior high school, high school, and university. He later relocated to Japan where he lived and worked for 11 years teaching English. He first taught business English to large corporate clients in the Tokyo area. Later he joined the faculty at Kanda University of International Studies where he taught courses in English, American culture, and media studies. Since returning to the U.S., Wyatt has continued to teach college courses around Southern California, focusing on academic writing and English grammar.
He was responsible for assisting in program and curriculum development while employed at university in Japan. In addition, he co-developed and operated the Japan-US Academic and Employment Transfer Program while at Kanda University of International Studies. This program sought to assist Japanese students and professionals in relocating to English speaking countries for education and employment purposes.
Wyatt has always had a passion for teaching and is committed to helping students at Goldenwest College improve their skills and enjoy the journey of English language development.
Sylvia Henel
Sylvia Henel is adjunct faculty in ELL at Golden West College, in AESL at Irvine Valley College, and in ESL at NOCE. She has a master’s degree in East Asian Studies and a doctorate in East Asian Languages & Literatures. She earned her TESOL certificate from Anaheim University.
Teaching English is something Sylvia has done since she was a little girl. She grew up in Europe and the Middle East, where she was often asked to speak or sing in English. At the same time, she had to learn many different languages. Once she graduated from college in the US, Sylvia returned to living abroad teaching English to a wide variety of students and teachers in China. Settling down in Southern California, she continued to teach English to immigrants, expatriates, and international students. She has taught every proficiency level and skill, and loves using materials and activities that engage students. Sylvia likes to teach integrated skills the most, especially when combined with cross-cultural learning. Class is never boring that way.
Sylvia’s doctoral dissertation on the second language acquisition of Mandarin tone was published as a technical report by the National Foreign Language Resource Center. She is a frequent presenter of her classroom practices and research results at CATESOL annual conferences. While working as full-time faculty at CSU Fullerton, Sylvia developed a vocabulary diagnostic tool for the American Language Program. The diagnostic was used for both current and incoming international students. In 2016, she was recognized by CSUF for Outstanding Achievements in Teaching, which took special note of her high-impact classroom practices. More recently, she was a featured presenter on best practices for online teaching and instructional practices for the South OC Regional Consortium. There is no greater reward for Sylvia than having her students enjoy their classroom learning experiences be they in-person or online.
Tiffany Laiyin Lao
Tiffany Laiyin Lao is a part-time instructor at Golden West College. She has a Master’s in applied linguistics and two Bachelor’s in sociology and East Asian culture.
Tiffany has taught English to high school students in Japan for four years. She has also taught English to the adult community in New York when she was in graduate school. In addition, she worked as a substitute teacher teaching various subjects to students in Kindergarten to high school in the Los Angeles community. Overall, her favorite subject to teach is ESL because she loves working with students from all around the world and learning about their vibrant cultures (and amazing food)!
Along with teaching, Tiffany is also a content writer for the language-learning application Duolingo! She is also a researcher who has published articles about motivation and collaboration for adult ESL learners. She has presented her research at various conferences in Hawaii, Qatar, Oregon, and California.
January van Leeuwen
January van Leeuwen graduated from UCLA and received a Bachelor of Arts Degree with a major in World Arts and Cultures and a minor in Dance, as well as a minor in Linguistics. She went on to study at the University of Pittsburgh, where she attained the degree of Master of Education. She has K-12 teaching certification with ELL (English Language Learners) authorization in the state of California. She is currently an Elementary Reading Teacher and an Instructor in the ELL / ESL (English as a Second Language) Department.
A dedicated and passionate teacher, January van Leeuwen has eighteen years of experience teaching ESL to adult learners at Huntington Beach Adult School (HBAS) and Golden West College. She has taught online and in-person classes, as well as hybrid classes that allow students to learn online and in person simultaneously. She has been an intermediate ESL Level Lead Teacher at HBAS where she provided training and created pacing guides. She has been on the curriculum team and involved in testing development.
Proficient in leading ESL support classes for students in early childhood education, adult and elementary ESL classes, Civics, and Citizenship, January van Leeuwen has taught a wide variety of ESL classes. In addition to teaching all levels of ESL, she has taught Math Refresher, Reading, and various self-contained elementary classrooms, including Kindergarten and Third Grade. January van Leeuwen has had a wide range of teaching experience that spans from kindergarten to college, and she has a proven record of helping students achieve strong results in literacy, second language learning, and career skills.
Michelle M. Luster
Michelle M. Luster is an adjunct faculty member at Golden West College located in Huntington Beach, California. She earned her Master’s degree in TESOL at CSU Fullerton where she taught for 14 years as a Lecturer in the American Language Program. She has been passionately committed to teaching English both here in the States and abroad for the past 25 years.
Along with her teaching at CSU Fullerton, she was promoted to serve as an Assistant Director of the Intensive English Language Program there. She was the Faculty Advisor for two on-campus clubs to cultivate communication and friendships between international students and domestic students. Michelle also served as the language program Student Life Coordinator where she planned, promoted, and participated in numerous co-curricular and extra-curricular events throughout the academic year to enhance and nurture the living and learning experiences of her students. In 2018, Michelle was awarded the Faculty Member of the Year by the Women’s Center at CSUF. She was invited to serve as a field practicum advisor for English teachers in their Master’s training from Beijing, China. She was also given and invitation from the U.S. Department of State International Education Institute to serve on the National Screening Committee for the Fulbright Scholar Program to recommend candidates for the awards, which she found most rewarding.
Since she has been at Golden West, she has been enriched by the opportunity to teach and experience immigrants and refugees from our own Orange County community teaching Adult Education and English Language Learners (ELL). More recently, Michelle has been teaching in the English as a Second Language (ESL) credit division of the Arts and Letters Department here at GWC for students who have higher education aspirations.
In addition to her teaching, she is an active member of several professional teaching organizations. Luster has served on conference committees for CATESOL as well as TESOL, and she has traveled to present internationally throughout Japan. Additionally, she has presented at several professional teacher conferences including TESOL international conferences in New Orleans, Los Angeles, and Boston, MA., as well as presenting at the CATESOL conferences in San Jose, California (2019), San Diego, CA., and Fullerton, CA. Her presentations focus on Communicative Competencies, Proverbs as Reflections of Culture, English for Science, Technology and Engineering, and the benefits of Comprehensive Extended Orientation Programs for international students new to the academic culture of the US.
She lives with her dear and darling husband and two kitties in the city of Orange, and they enjoy hiking, camping, reading, traveling, dancing, singing, and going to the beach in their free time.
Debra Martin
Debra Martin, a Michigan native and California resident, completed an ethnographic research project at Universitas Negeri Padang, Indonesia towards an M.Ed. in TESOL from the University of Wollongong in NSW Australia where she earned honors of high distinction. At that time, she taught English in Japan to students of all ages with occasional visits to Padang as a guest lecturer for twelve years. She also proofread and edited A Three-Language Dictionary – Japanese, English, and Indonesian, edited Terminologi Inggris – Indonesia, and proofread Terminologi Inggris – Indonesia. In 2000, she was awarded permanent residency in Japan for influential activities as a cultural bridge between Japan, the U.S., and Indonesia, and as an active member of a world peace organization in Hiroshima.
Ms. Martin enjoyed EFL teaching, curriculum development, and coordinating fellow composition professors in the Foreign Language and Literature Department at Tunghai University in Taichung, Taiwan for six years. She returned to California and trained adults for ten years in TESOL certification courses who were keen to teach abroad. After teaching ESL at California State University at Dominguez Hills, she worked on a curriculum development project affiliated with McGill University in Montreal, Canada at Jubail University College in Saudi Arabia, followed by directorship of foreign teachers at five high schools in northern China. After returning to Long Beach, she created videos for Chinese English teachers to enhance their teaching and gladly joined the ELL faculty at Golden West College. She enjoys teaching English for Communication and Grammar 1 and 2 classes.
As a volunteer, Debra Martin co-founded the Kayu Pasak Education Scholarship Program for village children in West Sumatra, Indonesia and has co-directed it since 1993. Over 300 children have completed degrees with assistance through this program. In recent years, she was the vice president of the California Writers Club for the Long Beach branch. You’ll find her digging in her garden when she’s not teaching or writing.
Teresa X. Nguyen
Teresa X. Nguyen is Department Chair and full-time faculty of ESL and Noncredit at Golden West College located in surf-city Huntington Beach, California. After receiving her Master’s in Linguistics, she became committed to teaching English both abroad and in the States.
Her YouTube education projects, materials writing, and classrooms reflect over 15 years of learning and teaching experience. The experiential basis for her communicative creative projects is her own struggles and successes as an international student studying abroad in Korea, Spain, and China as well as the depth and breadth of her teaching experience. She has taught specialized English to immigrant adults in corporate America and to Vietnamese programmers in corporate Vietnam. She has taught academic English to elementary, high school, undergraduate, graduate, and re-entry students from over 30 different countries. Yet her most rewarding teaching experience thus far is with immigrants and refugees from our own Orange County community.
In addition to her teaching, she is also a content creator. She is the creator of ESL Garage, a bilingual (English-Vietnamese) YouTube channel for English language learners. She is the co-author of four books including Compelling Conversations: Vietnam (2018) and 60 Positive Activities for Every Classroom (2018). Additionally, she has presented at several teacher conferences including TESOL international conferences in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania (2022) and Autumn Virtual International Publishers Exhibition hosted by Greece (2021). Her presentations focus on the optimal use of EdTech pedagogy and student mental health. One of her most memorable experiences is being a Specialist for the U.S. Embassy Department of Education in Jordan to produce short videos teaching basic, everyday English (2021).
A mother to a Dare Devil and a Princess, she likes to sit with a nice cup of barley tea when she has alone time. Feel free to come say hi to her!
Aileen X. Nguyen
Aileen X. Nguyen is a part-time ESL/ELL instructor at Golden West College. In 2007, she received her B.A. in Psychology from UCI and later her Master’s in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) from USC.
In 1993 at the age of eight, she immigrated to the United States from Vietnam with her family and has since lived in Orange County. She began teaching English as a Second Language at Golden West College in 2013. Prior to her teaching career, she tutored
K-12 students in math, Vietnamese, and English. She has also taught academic English to first and second-year university students as well as worked one-on-one with adults to help them improve their language skills. She enjoys teaching ESL at GWC the most.
In addition to teaching, she enjoys reading and learning about how the brain works. She is also a caregiver to a multiple-stroke survivor who happens to be her father. She very much enjoys the outdoors and in her free time would often go hiking with friends.
Sergio Sanchez
Sergio Sanchez is currently a part-time faculty member of the ESL/ELL department at Golden West College located in Huntington Beach, California. He received his TESOL certification and master’s degree in Linguistics from California State University, Long Beach.
Having graduated from Golden West College, it was Sergio’s dream to go back one day and teach at the institution that opened the doors and gave him the knowledge and experience he needed to pursue higher education. With over 8 years of teaching experience in both the private and public sectors, Sergio’s passion for linguistics has also led him to explore new territory as a linguist and researcher in the ever-growing industry of translation, localization, artificial intelligence, and digital assistant technology. In addition to teaching ELL at Golden West College, he is also a lecturer in the Linguistics department at Cal State Long Beach. With specializations in areas such as phonetics and phonology, discourse analysis, syntax, and sociolinguistics, Sergio enjoys teaching pronunciation, grammar, everyday idioms, and communication.
After receiving the “Outstanding Comps Project Award” from the Linguistics department at CSULB in 2018, Sergio continued his work on the Pahka’anil language, a native American language from California. The community-based project that started in 2017 not only gave him the opportunity to help a Native American community in their efforts to preserve and revitalize their language, but also a chance to publish some of his original research. Sergio’s first publication comes out this year and it will appear in Texts in the Indigenous Languages of the Americas, a supplement of the International Journal of American Linguistics.
Tracy Sattler
Tracy Sattler is a part-time faculty member of ESL/ELL at Golden West College. After receiving her Bachelor’s degree from CSU Long Beach, she moved to Madrid, Spain where she completed a TEFL certification course. She ultimately returned to her home state of California and earned her Master’s degree in TESOL from CSU Fullerton.
Her earliest teaching experience came as an independent teacher in Madrid, Spain, teaching both adults in corporate settings and children in private classes. She also taught English to elementary school children while volunteering in Trujillo, Peru. After earning her Master’s degree, Tracy began teaching both credit and noncredit ESL classes at several colleges in the Orange County / Los Angeles area, and has continued to do so for the last eight years. She enjoys her job as a teacher particularly because her immigrant and refugee students are consistently so friendly and hardworking.
Along with teaching, Tracy has mentored graduate students in her classroom and participated in a panel discussion for TEFL trainees at the American Language Institute at CSU Long Beach. She has presented at conferences (2013, 2015), and she is currently an active member in professional teaching organizations.
Nancy Tumbas
Nancy Tumbas has been part of the ESL faculty at Golden West College for over 20 years. Though born and raised in Huntington Beach, Nancy moved to Europe at age 19 and lived in several countries abroad. Learning three unrelated languages gave her a great interest in Linguistics which inspired her to complete a Master’s Degree in that field with an emphasis in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL).
While in Austria, Nancy’s first language teaching experience came knocking on her door when asked to teach a conversational English class at Niederösterreich Community College in St. Pölten. Many other EFL teaching opportunities followed, including teaching English to refugees fleeing the Yugoslavian Civil War. After returning to the U.S, Nancy had more wonderful opportunities to connect to other cultures through language acquisition. She taught at a private Korean school while completing her graduate studies. Ms. Tumbas joined the ESL faculty at Cal State University Long Beach, Long Beach City College, and Golden West College all within a few months of her graduation.
Nancy edited and collaborated with Dr. Francesca Armendaris on the most recent edition of A Guide for English as a Second Language Writers. She also works as a freelance editor in her spare time. Another inspirational teaching opportunity Nancy has recently taken on is teaching piano to children and adults with special needs. Music is a beautiful gateway into other kinds of learning and stimulation, and being a lifelong musician and singer herself, she has seen the incredible benefits music education brings to all students. Yes, she incorporates music into her ESL curriculum as well, and her students love it!
Norbert Voisard
Norbert Voisard is Part-Time faculty of ESL/ELL at Golden West College. He received his Master’s degree in Linguistics with a special concentration in TESOL (Teaching English to Students of Other Languages) from Cal State University, Long Beach.
He has taught in many outstanding southern California private and public colleges since he started teaching ESL back in 2003. His teaching career at Golden West College began in 2010 and is currently his most dedicated institution due to his love for the community that surrounds the beautiful college. During his time at Saddleback Community College in Mission Viejo, he taught the Business and Workplace English course to immigrant business owners. In addition, for the past 15 years or so, he has privately taught English, math, and social studies to high school students of all ages and with special needs such as autism, ADHD, and learning disabilities. His favorite subject to teach is writing because he highly values the complexity and imagination involved with written communication and story telling.
Some of his personal achievements include providing the translation/subtitles for numerous short English films and news videos to Spanish/Castilian for a Spanish channel news program, coaching youth soccer teams to four league championships, and teaching ESL to elementary students for a semester in the country of Argentina (2005).
He is passionate about experiencing other cultures, connecting with foreign people, and traveling to exotic places. Teaching ESL allows him to directly improve people’s lives and that is why he loves teaching ESL!
