Our Teachers

Victoria has worked professionally in the ESL world in various positions as a teacher, tutor, and administrator for the past 8 years. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Teaching in English from University of Illinois at Chicago, and holds a TEFL Professional Certificate from TEFL Institute, Chicago.
Victoria is from Chicago and has been enjoying living in California for about 2 years now. She was also a volunteer teaching ESL students in Costa Rica in 2011.
She loves hiking, traveling, dancing, photography, as well as learning new languages. She’s a native English and Polish speaker. In addition, she also speaks Spanish. Her goal is to be fluent in 5 languages one day!

Ned has been teaching English in the US and overseas for over 8 years. He is passionate about connecting with students and helping them have the best possible experience in the US. He has had the opportunity to live many places and today calls LA his home. In his free time he enjoys cooking, surfing and cycling.

Daniel Palacio has worked as a professional language educator and content developer since 2008. At LASC, Daniel has put his extensive experience in content development to work by adding a diverse range courses, such as Business English, to our curriculum.  After earning a Linguistics BA from CSULB, Daniel taught and wrote ESL content at several highly-praised institutions in South Korea and Colombia. As the faculty manager at our Rowland Heights campus, Daniel strives to maintain an engaging and beneficial academic environment for students and teachers alike. Daniel also runs “English Corner”, a free supplementary program where students can practice and improve their English. To get a taste of Daniel’s own written work, and learn more about studying at LASC, check out the LASC blog.

Samuel is an evening teacher at the Los Angeles Campus. Prior to teaching ESL in Japan in 2013, Samuel began his teaching career in 2011 as a high school English Teacher in North Carolina, and he began working with LASC in 2016. Currently, Samuel teaches evening courses for LASC and during the day he teaches middle school and high school English at a private school in Beverly Hills. Samuel is the father of two wonderful little boys, and in the limited free time that he has, Samuel is an actor and musician.

Krystie has been teaching at LASC Irvine Campus for two years. She has a Bachelor’s in Linguistics from Purdue University, and Master’s in Teaching ESL from University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign. She has worked with all ages and levels of ESL learners. She has conducted research on establishing a university ESL academic writing corpus and has presented her work at conferences.
Krystie is from Detroit, Michigan and moved to Seal Beach, California in 2018. She has lived in 7 U.S. states and 3 countries.
She loves languages and has studied 6 so far (English, Spanish, German, Latin, Swedish, and Icelandic). She also loves learning about other cultures; she’s been a host mom to 4 high school students from Mexico, Germany, Brazil, and Thailand, respectively.

Ceres has been teaching and tutoring at LASC for more than 2 years. She was born in Chino, California, and graduated from California State University, Fullerton. She owns the Teaching Engish to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and California Basic Education Skill Test (CBEST) teaching credentials.
Ceres has 10 years of teaching experience and has taught a wide range of students from preschool to high school, and also adults. She also worked overseas in Osaka and Kishiwada through the JET (Japan Exchange Teaching) Program for 6 years. Needless to say, she’s a good Japanese speaker.
Ceres enjoys meeting people from all over the world and learning about different cultures. She’s a homebody but she also likes traveling to new places. She’s curious about a million things and thoroughly enjoys learning.

Scott Peterson has been a language teacher since 1990. He brings a unique perspective into the field of language education as he began learning his second language late in life. The adage, that children learn languages easier than adults is just not true. Scott’s international experience includes working and studying in Mexico and Quito, Ecuador and traveling extensively throughout Latin America. He graduated with a degree in Spanish and K-12 education from the University of Western Washington. Scott earned his master’s degree from Walden University and has been working at LASC since 2014.

Jonathan has been teaching at LASC since 2016. He studied Liberal studies at Cal Poly Pomona, and also minored in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL). He has taught and tutored all different subjects, such as ESL, TOEFL, IELTS, SAT, and Business English in the past 10 years. He especially enjoys teaching reading, writing, and grammar.
Jonathan is a big reader and an aspiring writer. He enjoys reading fantasy and has also written and published books.