Rachel Clarke is a Senior Language Acquisition Consultant with 22 years in the field of second language acquisition, particularly improving the academic and linguistic proficiency of Emergent Bilinguals (EBs). Throughout her career, she has been an elementary and secondary teacher, an ESL/Bilingual/Dual Language instruction specialist, a campus administrator, and a program specialist at the district level.
As a Content-Based Instruction (CBI) Specialist at the Secondary Summit Alternative Education Program in Pasadena ISD, Ms. Clarke designed instructional programs tailored to Grade 6-12 EBs. In this capacity, she co-taught in the classroom alongside content-area teachers in addition to providing intensive English language instruction to newcomers.
Ms. Clarke also played a key role as the PK-12 ESL/Dual Language/Bilingual Program Specialist in two major school districts in the Houston area. In this role, she provided model lessons for teachers and held workshops for specific grade clusters as a way for teachers to learn new strategies as well as to share ideas with other EB instructors. Furthermore, Ms. Clarke developed the Spanish Language Arts curriculum for K-2, district-level exams, and provided language acquisition instructional best practices training for secondary elective Spanish and French teachers.
As an Assistant Principal, Ms. Clarke wrote a $120,000 winning grant for the TEA Science and Technology for English Language Learners Achieving Results (STELLAR) for her campus, which opened multiple opportunities in the field of Science for EBs. She has continued her relationship with the TEA as a committee member to provide feedback on Spanish and English Language Arts STAAR assessments and, most recently, to learn about new question formats on the revised STAAR exams.
Ms. Clarke has a Master of Science degree in Educational Management from the University of Houston-Clear Lake and a Bachelor of Arts in Criminology and Spanish from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She is fluent in English and Spanish.
Rachel Clarke is one of the senior consultants for Dr. Yacovodonato Educational Consulting LLC.
