The Literacy Practicum team consists of faculty and graduate students in the Department of Linguistics who are committed to CU Boulder’s mission of forging meaningful relationships with organizations, schools, and families in the broader Boulder community. The Program Director, Prof. Kira Hall, manages a devoted group of MA and PhD students who act as liaisons between the undergraduates who take part in the Literacy Practicum, the faculty who teach our TESOL and sociocultural linguistic courses, and our outstanding community partners.
Kira Hall, Literacy Practicum Program Director
Email: kira.hall@colorado.edu
CU Boulder website
Dr. Kira Hall is Associate Professor in the Departments of Linguistics and Anthropology at the University of Colorado Boulder and Director of the Program in Culture, Language, and Social Practice (CLASP). Her research examines issues of language and social identity in India and United States. As Director of the Literacy Practicum, Kira works with our four community partners and a team of graduate student liaisons to place CU Boulder undergraduates with literacy and language learners in the Boulder community.
Rai Farrelly, Literacy Practicum Program Assistant Director
Email: rai.farrelly@colorado.edu
CU Boulder website
Raichle (Rai) Farrelly (Ph.D., Linguistics, University of Utah) is a Teaching Associate Professor, as well as the TESOL Director, in the Department of Linguistics. She is also an English language instructor in the International English Center. She is currently serving a 3-year term (2022-2025) for the TESOL International Assocciation. She has offered courses on a range of topics, including language teaching methods, L2 teaching practicum, teaching L2 oral skills, teaching L2 reading and writing, foundations of linguistics, teaching adult emergent readers, and content-based instruction. Her professional interests include second language teacher education, reflective teaching, community engaged learning, and teaching refugee-background adults.
Emily Reynolds, Literacy Practicum Program Graduate Student Director
Email: emily.reynolds-1@colorado.edu
Emily (she/her) is a Masters student in Linguistics at CU Boulder, and holds Bachelor's degrees in Linguistics and Anthropology (also from CU Boulder). She has been a Writing Center tutor for three years and works in Volunteer Services at the Boulder Public Library, so literacy and community engagement are an important part of her life! Emily is a former LING 1900 student and loved being a Big Buddy to an adorable third grader. She is thrilled to support current LING 1900 students as they practice engaging with their community through literacy.
Ann Yoshinaga, Literacy Practicum Program Graduate Liaison
Email: an.yoshinaga@colorado.edu
CU Boulder website
Ann is a Masters student in Linguistics and teaching assistant for Japanese at the University of Colorado Boulder. She was raised in Tokyo, Japan and attended Waseda University, where she graduated with a BA in Global Political Economy. Ann has taught English to middle-school and high-school students in Japan, and is an enthusiastic language learner herself. She is excited to share the fun of language learning and teaching with the CU student volunteers and the Boulder community.
Shay Sullivan, Literacy Practicum Program Graduate Liaison
Email: shay.sullivan@colorado.edu
Shay (BA Linguistics from the University of Montana) is a Masters student and teaching assistant in the linguistics department. As a practitioner of a highly effective immersion-style method of teaching language, Accelerated Second Language Acquisition (ASLA©™), Shay has conducted extensive fieldwork modeling this method of teaching language to speakers and educators of Indigenous languages in many communities around the world, where she has had contact with 25+ Indigenous languages as a result.
Cayden Gardner, Literacy Practicum Program Undergraduate Liaison
Email: cayden.gardner@colorado.edu
Cayden Gardner is a current undergraduate student at the University of Colorado at Boulder studying Linguistics with an emphasis and certification in TESOL as well as a minor in Spanish and a minor in Education. He hopes to teach English in a foreign country after graduating and then returning to graduate school to get his Masters in Education.
Kendall Goldenson, Literacy Practicum Program Undergraduate Liaison
Email: kendall.goldenson@colorado.edu
Kendall Goldenson is a current undergraduate at The University of Colorado Boulder studying Elementary Education with a Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Endorsement. In addition, she has a minor in TESOL which has given her the opportunity to earn a TESOL certificate. She hopes to teach Kindergarten for a few years and then end up working at the Colorado Department of Education to help bring a teachers voice to the table to ensure active change that is beneficial to all students and teachers! In her free time she loves to read, hike, run, drink coffee and explore restaurants and coffee shops all around the Boulder area.