American Language Institute

Lucienne Aarsen, MA English Teaching, BA International Relations. Lucienne Aarsen has extensive experience in teaching English in diverse, cultural, academic and business environments internationally and nationally. Overseas, she taught in Indonesia, Israel, and London, where she earned her MA in English Teaching at the University of London Institute of Education. Locally, she has taught Business English and English for Academic Purposes at UCLA and USC.Currently, she is the ITA Program Coordinator at USC providing pedagogical training to international PhD candidates who are assigned TA duties.

In addition to language instruction in the classroom, her experience includes training in the workplace. She has worked for private and government sectors, customizing lessons, material, and activities based on trainee and company needs. She is very passionate about fostering educational exchanges with people from various cultures, and enjoys picking up languages in the process.

She speaks Dutch and Italian and has studied French, Russian, and Spanish. Her approach to teaching is to actively engage students in topics related to their professional, academic, and social interests in order to help students gain confidence in their English language skills.

Kimberley Briesch Sumner is a Senior Lecturer of English as a Second Language at USC and has always had an affinity for learning languages and visiting cultures around the world. Originally from Oklahoma, she obtained her Bachelor’s degrees in both French and psychology from the University of Oklahoma but moved to Los Angeles to pursue her graduate studies in the department of Applied Linguistics and Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) at UCLA. Since obtaining her Master’s degree from UCLA her focus has been on teaching and service. She has served on the CATESOL Board of Directors for over 8 years and has recently completed a 3-year term as President of this bi-state organization which helps ESL teaching professionals network and develop teaching skills.

Reka Clausen is an Assistant Professor of English as a Second Language and received her MA in TESOL from California State University, Los Angeles. Since joining the ALI faculty in 2002, she has taught both writing and oral skills courses, though her passion lies primarily in teaching oral skills courses for international teaching assistants (ITAs), combining language instruction with teacher training. She has also served as assistant coordinator of the ITA Summer Institute, co-chair of the CATESOL Regional Conference at USC, and liaison between the Viterbi School of Engineering Writing Program and the ALI. Prior to joining the ALI faculty, she taught ESL at UCLA Extension, Santa Monica College, and in Bologna, Italy, where she lived for nine years. She is fluent in Italian and Farsi and has studied French, Spanish and Portuguese, as learning foreign languages and traveling overseas have always been a passion.

Barry Griner is a Master Lecturer and is a contributing author of Teaching Pronunciation: A Course Book and Reference Guide (2nd ed, Cambridge University Press, 2010). He received a BS in Mathematics Education before spending ten years teaching English in Hiroshima, Japan (seven as Head Teacher). After returning to the States, he got an MA in Applied Linguistics and TESL at UCLA. He also did several years of study in the Applied Linguistics PhD program there, doing research on the morphophonotactics of Japanese and on intonational phonology. More recently, he spent two years teaching writing at the Centre for English Language Communication, National University of Singapore. Barry’s 28 years of teaching experience also includes program evaluation/development and teacher training as an Academic Specialist for the US State Department in Uzbekistan and Armenia.

Nina Kang, Ed.D., MA, MLIS is a Master Lecturer and ISE Assessment & Testing Coordinator at the American Language Institute, University of Southern California, with over 25 years of teaching experience. She has taught internationally in Bulgaria, China, Korea, Serbia & Montenegro, Uganda, and Uzbekistan.

At USC, she chairs the Teaching and Pedagogy Caucus on the Dornsife Faculty Council and serves on the Dornsife Committee on Teaching Excellence. Dr. Kang has presented at numerous international conferences, including as a keynote speaker at the 12th OpenTESOL International Conference in Vietnam. She has served as an English Language Specialist with the U.S. Department of State in Vietnam and Lebanon, focusing on teacher training and curriculum development.

Her research interests include technology-enhanced instruction including integration of AI tools and hybrid/HyFlex modalities of learning, high-quality language assessments, intercultural writing and academic integrity, and academic help-seeking behavior of international students. She recently collaborated with Vietnam’s Ministry of Education to develop a national teacher training curriculum on AI integration in language classrooms. In 2024–2025, she served as a Fulbright Scholar at Al-Balqa Applied University in Amman, Jordan, leading faculty training on AI-assisted language teaching.

Eric Roth teaches students the pleasures and perils of academic writing and public speaking. He has taught numerous English and writing courses at USC since 2003. A former journalist and Congressional aide, Roth also directed the CES Adult Education Center from 1996-1999. Roth received his MA in Media Studies from The New School University, and his B.A. in philosophy from Wabash College. He has taught in Spain, France, and Vietnam, regularly presented at professional (TESOL, CATESOL) conventions, and traveled to over 40 countries. Roth also co-authored the fluency-focused Compelling Conversations series and served on the Fulbright English Teaching Assistant national selection committee (2015-2017).

Anastassia (Tessy) is Master Lecturer at the University of Southern California and has been with the American Language Institute since 2022. She earned her Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics and a certificate in TESOL from Biola University and her Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of California Irvine. At the ALI, she has developed and taught oral communication courses for international students, and in more recent years, she has been specializing in teacher training courses for international teaching assistants. She has also served as Adjunct Assistant Professor with Rossier School of Education where she co-developed a course on assessment and taught teacher training courses in the MAT-TESOL program. For service to her department, Anastassia has served as Chair of the Merit Evaluation Committee and Chair of the Faculty Evaluation Committee resulting in the promotion of several of her colleagues in her department. For her service to the University, Anastassia has served as USC Academic Senator, as Secretary for a year and as Chair of the Dornsife Faculty Council for two years. Anastassia has also worked with publishers including Oxford University Press, Pearson Education, and Houghton-Mifflin in the development of ESL textbooks and instructional materials. She has studied French, Ancient Greek, and is fluent in Modern Greek.