Kate Spike

What excites you about TESOL and writing?
For me traveling is a big enticement. I had a natural affinity for languages and linguistics. I like putting myself into completely different cultures and contexts.

What is your favorite class to teach?
Any of the TESOL classes really. It is a great feeling to be around people who get it and want to learn.

My favorite place/ time on campus is...
Driving through campus during the fall. You always have a good view of the trees and the sky as you drive through the campus. It's beautiful.

When not teaching I like to...
I like to spend time with my family and play with my kids. Gardening, baking, biking, traveling, and learning languages are also some things I enjoy doing. I also collect tongue twisters!

My favorite elementary/middle/high school teacher was who and why....
My second grade teacher Mrs. Dingledine, one because that was really her name and two, she had bright orange hair and she used to play old-fashioned music and we'd sing along to it. She taught me how to write in cursive and she made learning fun. She was the only teacher that ever stood out to me.

My first job was...
I worked in a movie theater for a few years and I got to sneak in and watch free movies.

As a college student, I was involved in...
Camerata Singers, Forensics, Choir, drama, as in musicals and plays, I traveled abroad (I went to the Soviet Union after the fall of Communism!), I was an English department assistant. I was also the baccalaureate speaker and I got to share the stage with Phyllis Diller!

Places I would like to visit...
I would love to go back to the Czech Republic and Japan sometime. I would also like to visit Thailand, Botswana and Ethiopia...really anywhere, the more different the better.

What I did before becoming a faculty member at Bluffton...
I spent three years at the University of West Bohemia in the Czech Republic teaching English. I came back and taught at Bowling Green State University for a year then taught at St. Michael's College in Vermont. I then went to Japan and taught there for a few years. For the last five years, I've been the director of the ESL program at BGSU.

Someday I would like to (what's on my bucket list)...
When I retire from teaching I would like to move back to Vermont and open a bakery. I would work in the bakery a few days a week and travel abroad as well.