Faculty Information

Karen Schwelle, Instructor and Acting Director

Larenda Mielke, Instructor

Luisette Behmer, Part-time Instructor
Pamela Guntharp, Part-time Instructor
Margorie J. Maclin, Part-time Instructor
Jackie Militello, Part-time Instructor
Hannah Song, Part-time Instructor

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Larenda M. Mielke
M.A. (Cross-Cultural Education, TESL emphasis) Wheaton College Graduate School

Larenda M. Mielke began teaching with the English Language Programs at WUSTL in August, 2004. She has been on the faculties of the College of DuPage, Evergreen College, the University of California at Santa Cruz, the University of Memphis, and the University of Denver. She has also been a full-time consultant with LinguaTec, a high tech consulting company meeting the needs of Silicon Valley’s non-native speakers in the engineering and management fields. Larenda was the higher education associate chair for the board of CoTESOL (Colorado Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) in 2004, and has presented at CaTESOL (in California), Rocky Mountain TESOL (in Colorado), and MidTESOL (in the Midwest). She also presented at the national conference of the American Medical Writers Association (AMWA) in 2007.

Larenda enjoys collaborating with faculty members in various university divisions, including schools of medicine, business, communication, and biological science. She specializes in teaching presentation skills in classes tailored to the students’ interests. These classes include the study and practice of cross-cultural communication as applied to academic and professional environments in the United States. Larenda’s other specialty is research writing for publishing in the sciences; she teaches the IMRAD format with an emphasis on clarity and style at the Washington University School of Medicine.

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Karen Schwelle
M.A. (TESL), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
M.A. (German Literature), Indiana University at Bloomington

Karen Schwelle joined the English Language Programs (ELP) in 1998 and has been teaching since 1994. Her overseas experiences include having studied in Vienna, Austria as an exchange student and having taught in Magdeburg, Germany as a Fulbright Teaching Assistant for English and American Studies.

She has served on the Executive Board of Mid-America Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages and as Chair (2007-08) of the English for Specific Purposes (ESP) Interest Section of Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages. The ESP Interest Section supports collaboration between language specialists and subject area specialists to analyze the specialized language demands of a learner’s field of work/study and to design a curriculum and materials to help language learners meet those demands.

Karen has developed courses and workshops geared to the needs of international students in WUSTL's School of Law, Olin School of Business, and George Warren Brown School of Social Work. She also collaborates with the English Department in teaching a tutorial to support non native English speaking undergraduates concurrently enrolled in EComp 1001 (Fundamentals of Academic Writing). Other courses she has recently taught include ELP 1511 (Academic Writing for Second Language Writers), ELP 250/251 (Research Writing for the Sciences I and II), and ELP 101/102 (Advanced Pronunciation I and II). In addition to teaching, Karen is currently serving as Acting Director of the ELP and as a four-year academic advisor for the College of Arts & Sciences.

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Luisette Behmer
M.A. (Secondary Education and ESL), University of Puerto Rico

Luisette Behmer has been teaching ESL since 1973 and has been teaching at WUSTL since 1988. In Puerto Rico, she taught on the summer faculty of the Sacred Heart High School, part time at Sacred Heart College, and at the University of Puerto Rico (Humacao Campus). While in Puerto Rico, she served on the Executive Board of Puerto Rico TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages). She has also worked as a clinical supervisor and coordinator in the Teaching Techniques Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and conducted TA training workshops through the Office of Instructional Resources on that campus.

Of the courses offered by the ELP, Luisette has taught reading and speaking/listening in ESL 126, the summer intensive English program. She has also taught ELP 1301 (Conversation and Pronunciation), ELP 1311 (Grammar, Writing, and Reading), ELP 115 (Writing Workshop for Non-Native Speakers of English), ELP 1403 (Idioms and Slang), and ELP 170 (Oral Presentation Skills for the Non-Native English Speaker).

In addition to teaching ESL part-time, Luisette is the coordinator of the Host Family Program, OISS contact for the Be Our Guest dinner program, and the editor of The International Voice, the newsletter of the Office for International Students and Scholars. She has also served as President of the Woman’s Club at WUSTL.

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Pamela Guntharp
M.A. (TESL), Southern Illinois University at Carbondale

Pamela Guntharp has been a part-time instructor at Washington University since 2003. She studied at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, where she also was an instructor in the ESL Writing Program. She has taught ESL since 1993 and has travelled throughout Asia and Africa, including Azerbaijan and Ethiopia, in each of which she lived and worked for two years. In addition to teaching part-time at WUSTL, Pamela is currently a part-time instructor at St. Louis Community College at Forest Park. She is a member of Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and Mid-America Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (MIDTESOL).

Of the courses offered by the ELP, Pamela has taught ELP 1301, Conversation and Pronunciation; ELP 1302, Listening and Speaking; ELP 175, Academic and Professional Seminar Speaking Skills; and ELP 201, Speaking and Grammar II. She has also taught in the ELP's summer intensive English program.

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Margorie J. Maclin
M.A. (TESL), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Margorie Maclin joined the English Language Program in 2004. She teaches research writing for students and employees on the WUSTL Medical School Campus and on the Hilltop Campus. She is a member of Mid-America Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (MIDTESOL).

While Margorie has taught a variety of adult ESL courses at four different institutions, her focus has been academic writing for international graduate students. She has also taught academic writing for native English speaking students and served as a writing consultant.

At WU she has taught ELP 211, Research Reporting, Grammar, and Editing I; ELP 212, Research Reporting, Grammar, and Editing II; ELP 115, Writing Workshop for Non-Native English Speakers; ELP 1311, Grammar, Writing and Editing; and ELP 1411, Rhetoric, Reading and Writing.

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Jackie Militello
MIA, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University

Jackie Militello has taught English as a foreign language to business executives and children with intellectual disabilities, in addition to working in banking and consulting during her 18 years in Tokyo.  She has taught Competitive Communications to entering international students at the Olin School of Business and worked on presentation skills, business communication and pronunciation with international employees at Ascension Healthcare and Peabody Energy.  In Fall 2009 Jackie is teaching ELP 270, Presentation Skills for the Sciences; ELP 470 Language, Culture, and Interaction Strategies for Teaching Assistants; ELP 499, Writing Intensive Tutorial; and MGT 550L, Conversation Skills for Academic and Career Success.

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Hannah Song
M.A. (TESL), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Hannah has been teaching ESL since 2000. She began her teaching career at the Intensive English Institute in Urbana-Champaign, where she taught a variety of courses including academic listening/speaking, reading/writing, pronunciation, conversation, and grammar. In 2002, she went overseas and taught English to undergraduate students in Thailand and Myanmar and served as the program director for a summer English program. At the University of Illinois, she taught presentation skills and pronunciation to international MBA students.

In addition to teaching, Hannah has tutored international employees of Nestle/Purina in St. Louis.  Hannah is teaching ELP 101 (Advanced Pronunciation I) in Fall 2008.

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