DENIS C.

Mr. Cheng graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a B.A. in Anthropology and has an M.A. in English (Teaching and Applied Linguistics) and another M.A. in Education (Instructional Design and Technologies). In addition to instructing courses in English language and academic writing and American and European history at various institutes of higher education in the U.S., Europe, the Middle East and Asia, he has developed and conducted teacher training workshops as a Fulbright Scholar and English Language Fellow with the U.S. State Department. He has also worked as an instructional technologist developing online courses and instructional materials and as a testing materials developer. His most recent occupations were instructing high school graduates in a university preparatory program at Khalifa University of Science and Technology in Abu Dhabi, U.A.E., and as a substitute teacher in various subjects in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Mr. Cheng is an amateur astronomer and likes working one on one with students to improve their academic writing skills and coaching them in American and European history and the physical sciences of geology, physics and, especially, astronomy.

CELIA J.

Celia Josephson, B.A., The University of Chicago, MPA, Harvard University, brings a passion to her love of teaching.  Her skills range from essay writing to foreign languages, (Spanish, French and ESL) from mathematics to social studies.  Though trained as an attorney and journalist, Celia discovered that teaching was her vocation.

She taught most recently at her local library in East Hampton, New York, offering courses in ESL, citizenship preparation and high school equivalency.  Celia’s year-long stay in Mexico, after college, prepared her well to teach ESL and to understand the dynamics of teaching Spanish speakers to learn English. Her legal training provided a solid base from which to teach citizenship preparation and her training in quantitative methods as a graduate student at Harvard enabled her to tackle the mathematics portion of the high school equivalency curriculum.

For the past several years, Celia has focused on tutoring.  She has privately taught elementary age students as well as aspiring college students, particularly in English composition and math.  She is equally comfortable teaching in English or Spanish.

As a mother of three, Celia is also aware of the challenges and rewards of nurturing a love of learning in young people, so that they can fully harvest their abilities as adults.