Denise's Biography
My name is Denise Stewart and I have been a teacher for close to 22 years. With my masters hot in my hands in 1978, I went right into adult refugee education for 3 years. Then with federal funding drying up, I moved on to higher education as a full time ESL lecturer for the State University of New York at New Paltz. The program at SUNY New Paltz was in its infancy but had the full support of the administration. This allowed us complete freedom in meeting the needs of our students. It was a great learning experience for me and probably contributed the most to my "teaching style."
From 1988 to 1998, I taught for LAUSD at the high school level. LA was overwhelmed with non-native speakers at that time so finding a teaching assignment with my background was fairly easy. Then, in 1989, I was offered a part time instructor position with the Bilingual Master Plan Teacher Training Program to teach LDS. The reviews from the teacher participants were great so I was later asked to teach Bilingual Methodology Classes and then later still CLAD and Multicultural Classes on weekends. Life was definitely good but it was about to get better!
In 1998, I relocated to the Bay Area and start from ground zero with a new school district. However, the district that I am in now, San Jose Unified, is on the cutting edge of anything and everything related to ELD/SDAIE so that was a good move. My present school site, Willow Glen High School, has been unbelievably supportive in helping me adjust to my new teaching environment. It is a pleasure working there.