Alissa Cohen

Alissa Cohen is a Senior Academic Specialist on the faculty of the English Language Center at MSU, where she has taught English as a second language and teacher training courses since 1999. She is currently the coordinator of the International Teaching Assistant Program, which assists international teaching assistants at MSU by providing advising and support courses focused on classroom language and academic culture. Alissa has worked with Fulbright students and various groups of visiting English teachers from around the world and occasionally teaches pedagogy courses in the Language Learning and Teaching (LLT) program.

Alissa’s professional interests include promoting strategies for active learning, teacher training, and creating inclusive learning environments for students from all backgrounds. Her ongoing passion includes creating service and outreach projects that create meaningful connections between diverse groups of people both at MSU and in the greater community. Alissa has received a Lilly Fellowship for her work featuring diverse student voices from across the campus community and twice received a Creating Inclusive Excellence Grant (CIEG) for her work designing and running a mentorship program that brought international and domestic students from across the university together to share in leadership and mentoring of new international students. She has completed an Adams Academy Fellowship and has received multiple fellowships from the Center for Language Teaching Advancement (CeLTA) for her outreach work promoting linguistic and cultural understanding and appreciation at local public schools.  In addition, she was one of the founding members of the Marble Elementary School Equity Committee.

Alissa received her B.A. from the University of Michigan in English literature and French language and her M.A. in applied linguistics from the University of Illinois in Chicago. In addition, she completed study abroad programs at l’Université Paul Valéry in Montpellier, France and at the University of Oxford in England. Alissa has taught English as a second language at the University of Illinois, University of Iowa, University of Michigan, and at a private institute and in the public school system in Tokyo, Japan.