We’d like to warmly welcome Dr. Inez A. Heath who is joining our TESOL/AL program as a lecturer. Dr. Heath, who is originally from Gainesville, Florida earned her PhD in Multilingual, Multicultural Education from Florida State University, with a secondary concentration in International Development Education.
Dr. Heath has a passion for indigenous cultures and South American bilingual education, focusing specifically on indigenous and Spanish bilingual education in Peru. As a Fulbright Scholar, she began her research at the Universidad Femenina del Sagrado Corazon in La Molina, Peru and also worked with educators in Bolivia, and Chile, helping to develop policies and practices on bilingual education for indigenous children, particularly those in rural Andean schools
In addition to her work with educators in rural areas, Dr. Heath taught and lectured at various university teacher preparation programs in Lima and Arequipa Peru. As a Fulbright Senior Fellow in 2007 she was invited to teach in the foreign language department at the Universidad Autonoma Francisco Murazan in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Dr. Heath has also co-authored several scholarly publications in Spanish and English, and has presented papers on her research in Switzerland, Italy, Canada. and Australia.
Before receiving her PhD, she was a bilingual classroom teacher in the Boston Public Schools, and later became an ESL classroom teacher in Miami and Tallahassee, Florida. As a Manhattan native, she says, “I have always had a special interest in working with inner-city students which is why I wanted to come back to my hometown to work with students and teachers in the New York public schools.”
Most recently, Dr. Heath retired as Professor Emerita from Valdosta State University in Georgia where she taught courses in TESOL, Diversity, Multicultural Education, and Communication Disabilities in the College of Education for 17 years. She has a daughter who lives in Singapore with her husband and 2 young children.
