Jan Dormer, director of Taylor’s TESOL and ESL programs at Taylor, is stepping down after five years. Her passion for preparing students to teach English and helping students in the ESL program at Taylor stems from her time serving as a missionary all over the world.
Dormer has served in places including Indonesia and Kenya. Previous to that, she grew up in Brazil as a missionary kid. In her free time, she would help tutor students that wanted to learn English. She knew her passion was teaching and engaging with other cultures early on.
Dormer has a firm conviction about the ministry that teaching English can be. Although her time as the head of the TESOL/ESL program at Taylor is coming to an end, she still plans to fill in as an adjunct.
“I have seen the opportunity to build relationships for Kingdom purposes through TESOL,” she said. “I have seen people's lives changed because they took an English class where the teacher was a Christian, and their lives were impacted, and they became followers of Jesus.”
The TESOL program equips students who are interested in teaching English worldwide to become excellent teachers, offering courses on methodology, English grammar and linguistic methods, Dormer said.
She first seeks to equip students well, because their first ministry is always excellent teaching. She also encourages students to be open to cross-cultural growth and to excel at cross-cultural engagement. This requires humility, time and willingness to be open to new relationships.
Dormer also works to correct stereotypes that exist that may prevent a student from trying out TESOL.
“One prominent myth is that you have to know the other person's native language in order to teach them if they're a beginner. And that's not true,” she said. “So in my teaching, for example, I taught immigrants, refugees in Canada, where I would have a group of 20 refugees from different parts of the world. They would have 12 different languages. They were beginners. It works. You learn the strategies to teach language, even when they are at such a low proficiency level that they can't really communicate. There are strategies that we can use to start building their language.”
TESOL offers more flexibility for those interested in teaching adult learners, teaching internationally or those feeling a call to ministry. Four classes provide a student with the comprehensive knowledge necessary to successfully teach English in any country, which is a very good investment, Dormer said. Additionally, English is now the dominant language that connects the world. The demand to learn English has never been clearer, and it is something Christians at Taylor should be excited for because of the ministry opportunity it provides, she said.
Dormer is firmly convinced about the power of teaching English as an instrument for God’s glory.
“I can see how God brings students into the field of TESOL,” she said. “He brings them into my classroom, and we can have such good interaction about the subject of missions, and about TESOL being one avenue that God is using tremendously in missions. And so I see his presence in who he calls to this field, who he brings into the class. Overarching, God is at work in astounding ways, and I see him at work in the field of TESOL.”
