Lorraine Valdez Pierce
FLARE Assessment Toolbox, Student Self-Assessment, and Professional Development Leader
Lorraine Valdez Pierce is an Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Education at George Mason University and Co-Coordinator of the Multilingual/ Multicultural Education Program. She also coordinates the English as a Second Language (ESOL) Teacher Licensure Program. The program prepares ESOL, Foreign Language, and Content Area teachers to work with ESOL students to improve their English language acquisition and academic achievement in the content areas. Dr. Pierce designs and teaches courses on assessment, literacy development, standards-based curriculum design, teacher action research, and education policy. Her work experience for the past thirty years ranges from teaching in an inner city middle school to serving as an assessment consultant to the U.S. Department of Education.
Dr. Pierce also serves as a consultant to international professional organizations such as Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and has made presentations in over 30 states to state departments of education and local school systems. In addition, she has worked at the Mid-Atlantic Equity Center, funded by the Office for Civil Rights, the National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education, the Georgetown University Evaluation Assistance Center, and the Center for Applied Linguistics, all in the Washington, D.C. area. She also had the distinct privilege of serving as a Fulbright Scholar to Italy and living in that country for three years. Dr. Pierce is fluent in Italian and Spanish and a novice in French.
For the past decade, Dr. Pierce has led teachers in northern Virginia school districts in developing performance-based assessments of oral language, reading, and writing. She is the author, co-author, or editor of over 70 books, book chapters, articles, and monographs, including the popular pioneering book co-authored with Mike O'Malley, Authentic Assessment for English Language Learners: Practical Approaches for Teachers (Longman, 1996). Her most recent book, released by the National Education Association in 2003, is titled Assessing English Language Learners. She is working on the second editions of each of these books during 2007-08.
Contact information: lpierce@gmu.edu
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