Santa Clara University

Cheryl McElvain, Ed.D.

Lecturer, Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Education and Basic Teacher Credential Programs.

Cheryl McElvain currently teaches first and second language acquisition, psycholinguistics, and literacy development classes in the teacher education program for Santa Clara University.

Her higher education experience is supported by 30 years of teaching K-8th grade multilingual populations in northern California public schools. She has also worked as an educational consultant in the San Francisco Bay Area and provided district-wide English Language Development staff trainings. Dr. McElvain has presented teacher workshops in second language literacy development at NABE, CABE and CATESOL conventions. Recently she was invited to present her paper on Transactional Learning Communities at the Oxford Roundtable on Literacy in England.

In 2005 she earned an Ed.D. in International and Multicultural Education with an emphasis in Second Language Acquisition from the University of San Francisco. Other graduate degrees include a M.A. in Language and Literacy from San Jose State University.

In 2006, Dr. McElvain collaborated with a literacy delegation from the People to People Ambassador Program to review reading reform initiatives with the South African Department of Education, the University of South Africa, and the University of Capetown. In December 2007 she will again be traveling with People to People as a peace initiative delegate to Egypt.

The major focus of her research is in the areas of literacy instruction for underserved English language learners, and developing transactional learning communities for second-generation immigrants. Dr. McElvain is currently collaborating with the South County Housing Non-profit Corporation to provide after school tutorial programs for at-risk preschool-high school English language learners and their families.