ELI founder to retire

Dr. Louis Arena, founder of the English Language Institute and an ESL pioneer at the University of Delaware, will soon write a new chapter in his long and distinguished career.

ELI founder Dr. Louis Arena will retire in December

Arena emigrated from his native Italy to America with his parents. Growing up in the New York City area, he mastered English, his second language, and developed a love of baseball and the Brooklyn Dodgers. He has fond memories of the players and of the ingenious ways he and his friends were able to get into the famous Ebbetts Field baseball stadium.

After a career with the U.S. government which took him to Japan and Hawaii and after obtaining degrees in Japanese, philosophy, psycholinguistics and applied linguistics, Arena found his way to the University of Delaware. During his employment interview, a chance question revealed Dr. Arena's ability to recite the Lord's Prayer from memory in Middle English. This apparently cinched the job, and Arena became a professor of linguistics, also becoming the first director of the UD Writing Center in 1967. The Center proved to be an useful resource for all students, American and international, and Arena encouraged learners for whom English was a second language to take full advantage of it.

In 1970, Arena established the UD master's degree in ESL and Literature. This rigorous program evolved into the current master's program in ESL and Bilingual Education in the School of Education.

In 1976, Arena proposed that the University of Delaware form an English Language Institute to assist international students. The first ELI, housed at Wesley College in Dover, was moved to the UD main campus in Newark in 1978.

Originally located in the Writing Center in Morris Library, ELI was later moved to the first floor of the sociology building on Amstel Avenue, across the street from the current Smith Hall and Purnell Hall structures.

Arena served as the executive director of the newly founded ELI. In 1982, he was succeeded by Patricia Dyer. Scott Stevens took the helm in 1985 and currently directs the Institute.

But Arena's influence in the area of second language teaching and learning was to extend far beyond ELI and the University of Delaware.

Under the guidance of Arena, Bob Zaetta (from the Delaware Department of Public Instruction), and others, Delaware in 1975 became the first state in the United States to offer certification for ESOL teachers in a public school system. With the flood of new immigrants from Vietnam and other nations of Southeast Asia in the 1970s, there was a great need for qualified teachers of English. New Jersey and Maryland soon followed Delaware's example, and from there the new ESOL certification spread across the nation.

Through numerous projects, Arena has touched the lives of international students not only in Delaware but also all over the globe. International students everywhere are familiar with the Test Of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), required for entrance into American universities. Since the late 1970s, Arena has worked with TOEFL creator Russell Webster to develop new TOEFL tests, and he has also served as chairman of the TOEFL Examining Committee for the Educational Testing Service. He helped develop the Test of Spoken English in 1980 and the Test of Written English in 1986.

Since 1982, Arena has taught English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teacher training seminars for Sophia University, one of the foremost EFL institutions in Japan. The participants were sponsored by the Japanese Ministry of Education. As a result, Arena served on committees with Sophia professor Kensaku Yoshida, the current director of foreign language education in Japan. In this way, Arena has had an effect on EFL instruction throughout the Japanese high school system and particularly on second language testing. Furthermore, Arena has served as a liaison between UD and such outstanding schools as Sophia University, the Hiroshima Institute of Technology and Kobe Shoin Women's University.

Dr. Arena has also been extremely supportive of his graduate students and of ELI faculty.

"He was a positive influence in the careers of several ELI teachers, opening many doors of opportunity," said ELI Assistant Professor Ruth Jackson. "When he offered his 'Methods of Testing,' five of us took his graduate seminar at the same time."

After serving as president of the College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Senate, Arena leaves his post at UD on December 31. He is not "retiring" but rather "graduating," as he prefers to put it. In addition to his deep love for his family and his pioneering efforts in the field of ESL, Arena has many other interests to pursue: his love of world cultures, of flying and of cooking. He plans to keep busy serving the community and the university. Whether it be teaching groups of UD students traveling abroad in his native Italy, or serving meals in local shelters for the homeless, Dr. Louis Arena will undoubtedly bring humor, energy and intelligence to the task.