CWU professor selected by U.S. State Department to teach in Cameroon

Dr. Kate Mastruserio Reynolds’ career has brought her all over the world, to share her knowledge and experience in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and help educators across the globe better serve their students.

This month, Reynolds’ work brings her to Cameroon on behalf of the U.S. State Department. As part of the English Language Specialist (ELS) program, she will help equip local English teachers with the tools they need to assess students’ needs and meet those needs in a low-resource environment.

Reynolds, a professor of TESOL and literacy at Central Washington University, said the two-week assignment, scheduled for April 22-May 7, 2024, will present her with an opportunity to adapt her teaching methods to a new kind of learning context.

“It’s easy to work in a low-resource teaching environment with oral language, such as listening and speaking, because you can design activities for those skills without the need for additional materials,” she said. “When you’re talking about reading and writing, though, things get a lot more difficult. I have some exercises planned, as well as ways for teachers to create their own reading and writing materials. It’s a challenge I’m looking forward to.”

Schools in Cameroon are rarely equipped with resources like computers, books, and internet, so Reynolds will work with the teachers there to develop exercises to engage students in learning English without the use of such classroom tools. The project will also involve developing needs assessments in order to determine each student’s prior English knowledge, areas for improvement, and develop instructional objectives to teach them. The work will be broadly collaborative, drawing on teachers’ knowledge of their students and the teaching environment in order to meet learners where they are.

“I don’t approach anything as though I’m in charge and all my hosts have to do what I say,” Reynolds said. “Of course, I need to bring ideas, but it’s truly a collaborative discussion to work out what’s best for the students involved in the specific instructional setting. Talking to teachers and helping them work through their challenges, that’s always good stuff. Until you’re there in that reality, you don’t really know how practical your experience is to the educators in that situation.”

The ELS program is an English teacher preparation outreach program run by the U.S. State Department with the support of Georgetown University. The program pairs qualified TESOL professionals with partners across the world to help facilitate English learning through a variety of projects and programs. Participants submit their credentials and experience to an annual pool, and they are selected based on relevant experience for each project. This will be Reynolds’ fourth project with the ELS program, following previous projects in Ukraine (2009), Colombia (2010), and Egypt (2023).

While participants are limited to one project per year, Reynolds hopes to continue her work with the ELS program. She even has some ideas about where she’d like to teach.

“It all depends on where my skill sets and experience are needed, but I’d love to do more work with the English Language Specialist program in the future,” she said. “I think it would be really cool to do a project in Nepal.”

In addition to her service with the ELS program, Reynolds serves as program coordinator for CWU’s Bilingual Education and TESOL programs, and sits on TESOL International’s Board of Directors.