Robert D. Leier is an Assistant Professor and program coordinator for the Masters in English for Speakers of Other Languages Education Program in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching in the College of Education.  He has been at Auburn since August 2006.  He teaches graduate courses in the areas of second language acquisition, assessment and evaluation, foundations of ESOL/Bilingual education and teaching methods. In addition, he supervises ESOL graduate student internships. 

Prior to coming to Auburn, he was ESOL program coordinator and taught graduate and undergraduate courses at the University of West Florida in Applied Linguistics, ESOL Materials and Curriculum Development, ESOL Principles and Practices, ESOL Testing and Evaluation and Cross-cultural Communications.  He also taught graduate and undergraduate Social Foundations course at the University of South Alabama since 1995. Recently, Dr. Leier has worked with the Alabama State Department of Education as an ESOL consultant and taught ESOL at the Middle School level in Mobile County.  Prior to his move to Alabama, Dr. Leier was co-coordinator of a grant-supported Bilingual-Spanish/ESOL program at Western Illinois University, which produced over forty teachers to serve bilingual and ESOL classrooms in the greater Chicago area. Earlier in his ESOL career, Dr. Leier taught ESOL to secondary students at a private school in PA and a public school in MA. He has also taught ESOL to adults at a two-year college in MA.  Dr. Leier is fluent in Spanish and has taken coursework in French, Italian, German and Mayan-Quiche. He has lived, worked and traveled in the Latin countries of Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru and Puerto Rico.

Dr. Leier's research interests include teaching, assessment and certification issues in ESOL Education, school reform in rural Alabama, progressive school education (nationally and internationally), immigrant and refugee students, and ethnographic field research. His current research interests are with the bilingual private K-12 school, Thomas Jefferson Institute, located in Mexico City and with progressive education in Costa Rica. 

Academic Degrees

Ph.D.	The Pennsylvania State University, 1991	Education Theory and Policy
M.A.	The University of Massachusetts-Boston, 1987	ESL/Bilingual Education
B.S.	Ball State University, 1977	Science Education

Professional Experience

2006 - Present		Auburn University
2005-2006		University of West Florida, Visiting Assistant Professor
2004-2005		Alabama State Department of Education, ESL Technical Consultant
2002-2004		Mobile County Public Schools, Mobile, AL, ESL Curriculum Developer and Teacher
1997-2000		Harvard Graduate School of Education, Research Associate
1995-2005		University of South Alabama, Adjunct Professor
1992-1994		Western Illinois University, Assistant Professor
1991		The Pennsylvania State University, Instructor
1989-1991		Grier School, Tyrone, PA, ESL Teacher
1988-1990		The Pennsylvania State University, Teaching Assistant
1987-1988		Brockton Public Schools, Brockton, MA, ESL Program Coordinator and Teacher
1987		Massachusetts Bay Community College, Westwood, MA,  Workplace ESL Teacher
1984-1985		Hale Reservation, Westwood, MA, Environmental Educator
1982-1984		CEDEN (Honduran Development Agency), On-site Consultant
1981-1982		University of San Carlos, Guatemala, Conservation/Development Consultant
1977-1979		U.S. Peace Corps, Guatemala, Agricultural/Conservation Extensionist