USU Education Lecturer Receives National Recognition for Dissertation

Marilee Coles-Ritchie, lecturer in the Elementary and Secondary Education Programs at Utah State University, was awarded 3rd place in the National Association of Bilingual Education Outstanding Dissertations Competition.

The National Association for Bilingual Education is the only professional organization at the national level entirely devoted to representing both English language learners and bilingual education professionals. Susan Meyers, committee member of the NABE, said the response to the competition was overwhelming, and Coles-Ritchie was among several exceptional candidates.

 

“The committee agreed unanimously that the dissertation was exemplary,” Meyers said. “The writing was scholarly and the research brings new insights that constitute a valuable contribution to the field of bilingual education.”

 

The dissertation, “National/Community Discourse, Language Ideologies and Teacher Change: English as a Second Language Programming at Cherry High School,” is a longitudinal study of teachers working with English language learners in high schools with rapidly growing minority populations.

 

“I was very honored and surprised by this award as it is very competitive,” Coles-Ritchie said. “It feels good to know that others feel your work is contributing to this area of language education that is in such need.”

 

She found her inspiration for the dissertation when she began working at Utah State and found that an ESL endorsement program did not exist. She and Grace Huerta wrote grants and petitioned departments to develop an ESL endorsement program. They were successful and teachers received their endorsements.

 

Coles-Ritchie said it has been extremely satisfying to see the growth of the ESL program at local high schools. She admires the teachers’ dedication to the program and believes that is what makes the ESL program successful.

 

Coles-Ritchie developed a love of teaching ESL while she was in college. She wanted to travel but didn’t have a lot of money to do it.

 

“I heard that American university students were teaching English in Taiwan, so I bought a plane ticket and saved $100,” Coles-Ritchie said. “I got a variety of jobs teaching English as a foreign language,”

 

A year later, she was off to rural Africa to teach high school in Kenya. She also taught in Taiwan and on the Navajo Nation.

 

She was hired to teach in USU’s Secondary Education Department eight years ago and continues to lecture in the Education Department. She also supervises clinical experiences in the schools for secondary education students getting an ESL minor.

 

“Teaching at the university has been very rewarding,” she said.

 

Coles-Ritchie said the more she studied for classes and lectures, the more she wanted to learn about diversity in education and how to better prepare teachers for the school landscape. After a year or two of teaching at the university she began her doctoral program at the University of Utah. She received her doctorate in 2006.

 

“Each experience I had teaching students from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds made me realize how much more I needed to learn so that I could become a better teacher,” Coles-Ritchie said. “That cycle has propelled me to continue meeting people from different circumstances than my own.”

 

Contact: Marilee Coles-Ritchie 435-797-0398, mcoles@cc.usu.edu