SEALC congratulates our two new SEALC liaisons, Pittaya Paladroi-Shane (Ohio University) and ThuyAnh Nguyen (University of Michigan), on their appointment for the 2021-2022 term. The goal of these volunteer positions is to inform and enrich discussions on and planning for SEALC activities via increased SEA language instructor representation on the Committee, as well as to provide additional opportunities for instructors to serve on professional committees at the national level. You can find out more about our liaisons and their goals for the 2021-2022 term below.
Pittaya Paladroi-Shane
World Languages Coordinator
Associate Professor of Thai and World Language Instruction
Center for International Studies
Ohio University
Pittaya Paladroi-Shane (Fon) has been a member of COTSEAL since 2008 and served as Vice President from 2017 to 2020. She is also one of the key founding members of the Council for the Advancement of Thai Language Instruction (CATI) and Vice President (2020-present). Throughout her years of service as an officer and active member of both COTSEAL and CATI, she has realized that collaboration between different parties that involves the instruction of Southeast Asian Languages is key to the success and continuation of this field in American higher education. She would like to serve as a SEALC liaison for 3 main reasons: to share her insights and experience, contribute to the field, and have the opportunity to serve. As a liaison, she hopes to share her insights, voice her concerns, as well as address the needs of language teachers in the field. In addition to her unique experience working with diverse groups of peoples through COTSEAL professional development projects, SEASSI, CATI, COTI, she is committed to strengthening working relations and collaboration between language faculty and the SEALC Steering Committee. Lastly, she believes that this opportunity will provide her with intellectual stimulation and allow her to use this unique experience to further her research and complete her dissertation.
Thúy Anh Nguyễn
Vietnamese Language Lecturer
Department of Asian Languages and Cultures
University of Michigan
Thúy Anh Nguyễn began teaching Vietnamese at college level in the United States in 2002, as an instructor at the SEASSI program hosted by the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She has always been committed to language teaching, and her strong interest in language teaching has solidly developed ever since. As a language teacher, she has been involved in numerous professional development activities for Southeast Asian language teachers and has grown significantly in her teaching methodology and curricular material development skills. She has worked and collaborated with Vietnamese language colleagues as well other language teachers in projects and at conferences. Her additional strength as a language teacher lies in her expertise with technology in language teaching, and she is an ardent and calm problem solver who would generously like to share practical teaching tips with colleagues and support them with any technical challenge they may encounter. Her philosophy is Simplicity may be the best policy to our teaching creativity. Her ultimate goal in volunteering as a SEALC liaison is to promote more active involvement with and stronger commitment to professional development activities among language teachers, so that training can be applied directly to in-classroom teaching.