OUR TEAM
THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Shane Farmer | President and Co-Founder
While traveling overseas, Shane witnessed the advantages that English speakers have in our new globalist world, as well as the disadvantages experienced by those who are not able to speak English. In many places globally, he learned that costly language schools are inherently exclusive to the most privileged of society and that speaking English has become the most common denominator of those in privileged positions of business and commerce. Shane Farmer graduated Summa Cum Laude with a degree in speech communication from Southwestern Oklahoma State University. He is a communicator and author who has discovered the unique gift native English speakers have to help and serve. Shane lives in Denver, Colorado, with his wife Wendy and their three sons.
Rebekah Layton | Vice-President and Co-Founder
Rebekah is passionate about equipping the under-resourced with access to English courses, knowing that this skill is often the differentiator that lifts people out of poverty and also helps fight against the exploitation of women and minors (who without this skill often have to travel longer distances for employment opportunities). Rebekah Layton graduated Summa Cum Laude from Monmouth College with a dual degree in communication and French. She lives in Denver, Colorado, with her husband Josh and their daughter.
Rebecca Adams | Board Member
Rebecca graduated from Birmingham Southern College with a degree in Elementary and Collaborative Education and then received a masters degree from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She spent the early part of her career teaching kindergarten in Birmingham, Alabama followed by two years of middle school special education and mathematics in Jackson, Mississippi. Her final year of teaching was in a third grade classroom at a private school in Jacksonville, Florida. Now residing in Davidson, North Carolina, Rebecca lives with her husband, Grant and their two children, Norah (10) and Drew (8).
Amy Guthrie | Board Member
Amy is passionate about reaching under-resourced youth and providing opportunities for them to be lifted out of poverty and set on a path for success. Amy has a degree in Psychology and Learning and a Master's Degree in Administrative Leadership and Policy Studies from the University of Colorado Denver. She taught in the public school system in Westminster, Colorado for five years where she taught eighth grade science, second grade and fourth grade. She also received her ESL certification and many of her students were ESL learners. Amy lives in Denver, Colorado with her husband Tim and son Jacob.
OUR STAFF
Jillian Smith received her Master of Arts in Linguistics with First Class Honors from The University of Edinburgh, Scotland, in June 2016. She spent a year completing masters level coursework at the University of Tromsø in Norway as part of her degree and completed an honors dissertation during her final year, “A Community’s Contribution in Input Overcoming Age Effects: Comparing Attrition Outcomes in Childhood and Adult Immigrant Russian-English Bilinguals in a Community in Southern California,” for which she conducted original field research studying factors for bilingualism outcomes in a minority community under supervision of Dr. Antonella Sorace, founder of Bilingualism Matters.
While a student, Jillian loved to apply the knowledge she was gaining from her linguistic coursework to her language elective courses to enhance her language learning. She received the Class Medal for French 1A and was the recipient of the Clark-Robinson Prize for high-quality work in Russian Studies. She completed projects in speech synthesis, advanced phonetics, laboratory phonology, English word formation, and second language acquisition, among others.
Jillian is passionate about language science and applying linguistic research to foreign language acquisition to enhance classroom learning and help students of all ages achieve their language learning goals!
Passionate about language science.
Evie Dawkins is the TEA Coordinator, both assisting in the design of course offerings and fielding communication requests. She graduated from Oral Roberts University with an International Business degree and a minor in Mandarin Chinese. Evie is passionate about seeing language connect people from different backgrounds, and having first-hand experience teaching English in Asia, she has seen how the ability to speak English can impact and benefit people’s lives. Evie is married to Judah, and they and their children reside in Colorado.
Passionate about seeing language connect people