IEC Teacher Profile - Suzanne Stoddard

Suzanne Stoddard has been at IEC since August of 2000. Born
on a farm in La Grande, Oregon, she grew up in Palo Alto, California. Although she loves traveling, she finds the San Francisco Bay Area the most magical place in the world to live. She relishes time with her family, bicycling, running, writing, reading and cooking, as well as camping and discovering new hiking trails.

Suzanne formerly taught English to American high school students but much prefers working with college-age international students. She has also worked in the corporate world and for nonprofit organizations. She has been an active community volunteer all her life and co-founded Invest in Kids, a nonprofit that provides mentors and scholarships to troubled, low-income teens to help them graduate from high school and pay for college.

Suzanne co-authored a book published in 2000, Taking Back Our Lives in the Age of Corporate Dominance. She has taught English in Ukraine and led trips to the former Soviet Union for teachers and journalists. She loves being an ESL teacher and finds IEC students both serious and fun to teach. She really enjoys the small classroom size at IEC that allows time to get to know each student. Suzanne has a B.A. from U.C. Berkeley in English Literature and a Master’s degree from San Francisco State University in teaching ESL. She finds inspiration in the activism and energy of friends and family members and only wishes there were more hours in the day to explore the mind, the world, and the meaning of life. She thinks having a conversation with a friend over a glass of red wine is about the best form of entertainment there is.