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CASLS would like to welcome our newest student hires to the team.

Katherine Wylie was hired in Spring 2016 as a Writing Assistant for the Oregon InternationalInternship Program (OIIP).  Students from China and Taiwan participate in a 5-month internship in local elementary schools in Eugene and Springfield. They also enroll in a class at the UO where they explore intercultural communication, teaching pedagogy, advanced English pragmatics and U.S. culture. Each week students submit a journal entry on an assigned topic. Katherine reads and provides feedback on the students’ journal entries. She gives them each detailed feedback along with a graded rubric for them to review and internalize in order to help them improve their written English communication. Katherine is from Orange County, California and is a Summit scholarship recipient here at the University of Oregon (UO) where she studies Journalism with an emphasis in public relations. “I enjoy working at CASLS because I appreciate the unique opportunity to see real improvement in the writing conventions of each student I work with,” says Katherine on why she enjoys working for CASLS on OIIP. “It is extremely gratifying to be able to see, first-hand, the difference my help is making for these incredibly hard-working students.” After graduation she plans to seek employment as a copy editor.

Iryna Zagoruyko is a graduate employee (GE) at CASLS and a full-time LTS (Language Teaching Specialization) masters program student at the University of Oregon (UO). Iryna works on the Russian version of CASLS’ Bridging Project, a year-long hybrid course centered on exploring student identities. This project encourages students with high levels of proficiency, especially heritage students and those who graduate from immersion programs, to continue language study at the college level has become increasingly more challenging. “I really enjoy working on this project. I come from Ukraine, and have Russian and Ukrainian as my native language. I have been teaching Russian at the UO for two years. Among my students are heritage learners of Russian. My experience of a teacher working with those heritage learners really helps me with my work at CASLS,” says Iryna.  She continues, “CASLS is a great environment where people support and value each other. It's a big honor for me to work in such a highly-valued and highly-recognized National Foreign Language Resource Centers as CASLS. I truly believe that our work will improve teaching and learning of world languages. I want to say a special thanks to my mentor, Stephanie Knight [CASLS' Language Technology Specialist], who supports me greatly with my project.” Iryna plans to work in the language teaching field when she finishes her (third!) masters degree. She recently gave birth to her daughter, Ariella, who is now 1.5 months old.

Negina Pirzad has joined the CASLS team to work as a script writer for a project that helps refugees in Germany learn the German language. She completed a double Bachelor of Arts degree this June from UO in International Studies and Journalism with a minor in Arabic Studies. Throughout her time in college, Negina worked for various campus efforts including the Yamada Language Center for four years as a Language Lab Assistant, the Center for Multicultural Academic Excellence as a Writing Tutor, and the Emerald newspaper as an Opinion Columnist. Negina looks forward to integrating her passion for writing, cultural awareness, linguistics and technology during her time with CASLS, and believes her ethnic Afghan background and knowledge of the Arabic language and the Muslim world in general will help her effectively contribute to the innovative project at hand. "I'm lucky to be working with such an admirable and knowledgeable group of people! I work closest with Kathrin Kaiser [CASLS' Instructional Designer] and she is so encouraging. I'm learning so much from her!"