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Amy Bratten
Assistant Professor of Education
E-mail Professor Bratten

BA in English literature, University of Florida
MA in teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL), University of Central Florida
PhD (studies) in organizational leadership/adult education, Nova Southeastern University

Biography
For Amy Bratten, teaching at Southeastern was a natural choice because it kept her in Polk County, where she has been living, learning, and teaching for all but five years of her life. Bratten stumbled onto TESOL classes as an undergraduate at the University of Florida, but she quickly got hooked on the subject, compiling enough classes for an undergraduate minor and then taking an MA specifically in TESOL. She began her teaching career in the Polk County School District (PCSD) in 2000 and has taught language arts, intensive reading, and ESOL classes. Her classes have been populated with students from varying countries, cultural backgrounds, and linguistic backgrounds, one class representing 14 languages at one time! In addition to her work as a classroom teacher, Bratten has served as a dance team coach, department chair, teacher trainer, cooperative learning trainer, and ESOL coordinator at four schools in PCSD. She has also served as a Teacher Resource Specialist Trainer at the District Office ESOL Department, facilitating teacher, counselor, and administrator training sessions. Bratten and her husband, Jake, have also recently adopted two pre-teen children.

Alongside her teaching in secondary schools, Bratten has also had experience in post-secondary education, teaching adult ESOL classes at Valencia Community College and education classes at University of South Florida. She has also conducted guest lectures on ESOL at Florida Southern College and Walt Disney World, the latter a seminar for managers working with employees whose native language is not English. Bratten is excited to be teaching at Southeastern because it allows her to help shape the teachers of the future, preparing them for more fulfilling teaching experiences, ones that help them transition from the theory of the textbook to the reality of the classroom. She hopes that her students catch the joy of being a K-12 educator and that they see how Christian principles naturally blend with education on a daily basis, no matter who the students are.

Bratten teaches a variety of education courses at Southeastern, but she will be found most regularly in Empowering ESOL Teachers: An Overview and Applied Linguistics. Her research interests, focused on her dissertation, are the efficacy of ESOL teacher training programs and curriculums, specifically Florida's ESOL teacher training module.