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 Miriam Palacio is CHICLE’s Program Director. She is the person you
are most likely to communicate with in the office. Miriam is married to Enrique
Palacio and ran a Mexican handicrafts import business for 18 years. She loves Mexican
arts and crafts. She has an MA in English, has taught ESL in New York, Chicago, Mobile,
and Mexico City. She volunteers at the animal shelter and for hospice.
Jane Stein is CHICLE’s Business Director and computer guru. She has
a doctorate in Public Health from UNC where she has taught research methods and seminars
in international health. Jane has worked as a research consultant in Africa, Asia,
Mexico, and Central America. She is on the board of the Institute for Southern Studies and
Piedmont Health Services.
Sharon Mújica has recently retired after many years as Outreach Director of Latin American Studies at UNC-CH.
She grew up in Chapel Hill and lived in Mexico for 20 years where she taught English
and translated for the Office of the President. Sharon also has a passion for Mexican
art and Latin American literature and cinema. She created and organized the Latin American film
festival held each November at local universities and still manages UNC's Mayan language program.
Perla Saitz is CHICLE’s Program Coordinator. Perla is from Mexico
City where she taught both English and Spanish. She has taught at CHICLE since
we opened in 1999 and, with Craig Snyder, developed our new curriculum. She hires
and coordinates our teachers, which is, as they say, a little like herding
cats. Perla also translates, manages translations, and develops our intensive and
profession-specific materials. She is also a perfectionist.
Ashley Yoder is our Children's Program Coordinator. After growing up in a highly diverse area on the west coast (a mariachi band played her high school graduation), she went on to study and live in Spain and Rome. She is a certified k-12 Spanish teacher and spent a few years teaching high school Spanish before joining us at CHICLE. She also worked with university level ESL students while living in Seattle. Ashley loves to explore the world, spend time outside, and read contemporary literature.
Sue Mathias teaches ESL and occasionally Japanese. She has been passionate aboutstudying foreign language and language learning since her first study abroad experience (in Japan) as an undergraduate. She has since earned graduate degrees (M.A. TESL and M.Ed.) from Penn State University in Teaching ESL and Foreign Language Education. She loves her children dearly and cannot wait until they are old enough for full-day school, so she can return to being a student in the foreign language classroom more frequently! It turns out that in a previous life Sue was an auditor, so she has been drafted to help us with our accounting.
Marina Jones teaches German, is a Ph.D. candidate in history at UNC, and has an M.A. in translation and German Literature. She also helps us in the office in the evening. She is a language afficionado, speaking German, English, Spanish, French, and some Italian and KiSwahili. She spent a few childhood years in Michigan, growing up mainly in Zweibrücken, Germany.
Pilar Lotero Peters comes from Bogotá, Colombia where she worked
for Berlitz teaching Spanish and English for 14 years. She is CHICLE’s most
experienced teacher and a strict taskmaster whose students always request that she
continue to be their teacher. Pilar has worked at CHICLE since 2000. She is our
resident artist and her art is on display in our offices.
Giusy Leone did classical studies in Rome, studying and translating ancient Greek and Latin, which are the roots of the modern Italian language. She became passionate about teaching during her time as trainer in a multinational company. She began to teach Italian in 2003 when she moved to Florence with her husband. Giusy has three children, and has been working at CHICLE for two years.
Bernard Luscans teaches some of our French classes. He is a native
of Toulouse. Bernard finished his doctoral studies in UNC’s Romance Languages department,
focusing on 21st century French novels. He now teaches at St. Augustine's University in Raleigh. He has coordinated our French program since
its inception and developed courses in history, film, and current events. He has
a group of very loyal students.
Barbara Roeder is a native of Bavaria, Germany where she received her B.A. in Language Education from Julius-Maximilian-Universitaet Wuerzburg. She came to North Carolina in 1987 with a scholarship to Davidson College, and also has a M.A. from Appalachian State University. She has lived and taught in this area for more than 20 years. She really enjoys showing her students that German grammar is not as bad as its reputation!
Grazia Sala teaches our Italian language and cooking classes. She is originally
from Milan and has been with us since 2003. She much prefers cold weather to our
climate.
Vaneep Sandhu teaches English and Hindi. She is from Punjab, India. She also teaches at Durham Tech and is a graduate student in Intercultural Relations. She is also a multicultural trainer. Vaneep has lived in North Carolina since 1989.
Susan Soranno teaches French through film and other French courses at CHICLE. She first learned the language as an exchange student to Grenoble and later got degrees in French literature from Smith and the Université d’Amiens. She discovered a passion for film while doing graduate work at Berkeley, and returned to France where she taught courses in Anglo-American culture and business English. After being an instructor in various private schools in the Boston area, she came to CHICLE, where she loves the students because they are so interested and interesting. She also enjoys non-verbal communication with her large collection of rescue animals.
We have about fifteen to twenty additional teachers at any given time. All of our
teachers have teaching experience and are trained to use our materials. Most of our
teachers are native speakers. Those who are not have lived in a
country where the language they teach is spoken and are completely bilingual.
Please call us at (919) 933-0398 or e-mail
us if you want more information. |
