Meet Our NY Teachers

Jim Osborne

Brad Nield's dedication to the field of English as a Second Language is sometimes a seven-day-a-week commitment.

"I was born in Massachusetts, raised in Connecticut, and lived in California and Brazil, but I have called New York City home for 32 years. I have a B.A. in English from the University of Connecticut, a J.D. from Brooklyn Law School, and I am currently in my third semester in the M.A. English program at Brooklyn College. My teaching career goes back to 1989, when a friend of mine asked me to teach a class for her at a Manhattan night school. As luck would have it, that first job - as a sub for an ESL class - led to a full-time teaching career in ESL and EFL, here in New York and, from 1995-99, in Porto Alegre, Brazil."

My wife Denise and I have lived in Astoria since August 2001. Denise is a teacher of Portuguese and in her second year of a Master's program at Teachers College, Columbia University. We share our apartment with our cat, Oscar, several hundred books, and two over-worked laptop computers."

My favorite moments in teaching are when I can give my students the conversational ball and let them run with it. It takes work to get them to that point, but after that it's just great to watch and listen."