Rai Farrelly

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. Prior to coming to the University of Colorado, Dr. Farrelly served as an Assistant Professor in the MA TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) Program at the American University of Armenia in Yerevan, and as an Assistant Professor in the Applied Linguistics Department and MA TESOL Program at St. Michael’s College in Vermont. 

She has offered courses on a range of topics, including language teaching principles and practices, TESOL teaching practicum, teaching L2 oral skills, teaching L2 reading and writing, foundations of linguistics, teaching adult emergent readers, content-based instruction, world language policy, and introduction to linguistics. Her professional interests include language teacher education, reflective teaching, community engaged learning, and teaching refugee-background adults. In addition to delivering TESOL courses, she has taught English as an additional language in both academic and community-based settings. Her passion is teaching adult immigrant and refugee-background individuals with emerging literacy, as well as advocacy for these communities. She served on the board of directors as the Communications Director for Literacy Education and Second Language Learning for Adults (LESLLA) from 2018-2021. She served on the board of the TESOL International Association from 2022-2025. In 2026, she will serve as the Vice-President of Colorado TESOL (CoTESOL).

Dr. Farrelly has presented extensively on a range of topics related to TESOL teacher education, language pedagogy, and language revitalization at national and international conferences. In addition to peer-reviewed articles and chapters, she co-authored the book Fostering International Student Success in Higher Education and co-edited the following volumes: Educating Refugee-background Students: Critical Issues and Diverse Contexts; Handbook of Research on Cultivating Literacy in Diverse and Multilingual Classrooms, Continuing Professional Development of TESOL Professionals: A Global Landscape; and Developing materials for innovative teaching and sustainable learning: ELT practitioners’ experiences from diverse global contexts. She is currently working on an edited volume with Routledge: Research on Teaching and Learning English in Forced Migration Contexts.

In addition to her professional interests, Dr. Farrelly is the former Executive Director of the nonprofit organization, Girls Education International (www.girlsed.org), which strives to increase access to education for women and girls in Pakistan and Tanzania. She is also the co-founder of the nonprofit organization, Project Wezesha (www.projectwezesha.org) which elevates educational opportunities for young people in Western Tanzania.