About TESOL Trainers: 25 Years of Transforming K-12 Teaching

John's Story

I started TESOL Trainers because I believed there was a better way to do professional development. After years of watching teachers sit through PD sessions, take notes, feel inspired, and then go back to teaching the exact same way they always had, I knew the problem wasn't the teachers. It was the model.

So I built something different. I built training where teachers experience every strategy as learners before they apply it as educators. Where engagement is 100% of the time, not 10%. Where the techniques are so practical that teachers use them the next morning, not the next month. And where peer coaching ensures that what teachers learn actually makes it into their classrooms - not just their notebooks.

Over 25 years, that vision has grown into something I never imagined. TESOL Trainers has trained over 50,000 educators in schools across the United States and around the world. We've worked with districts of 20 teachers and districts of 3,000+. We've delivered training onsite in schools from Texas to Alaska, and remotely through the English Learner Institute to teachers in every state and multiple countries.

But the core hasn't changed. I still deliver every training session myself. I still teach SIOP®  using SIOP®. I still believe that the best PD happens when teachers are doing the learning, not watching the teacher trainer do it. And I still sign every email with the Bambara phrase 'I' n'i ce' - 'I and you, we are' - because this work is never something I do alone. It's something we do together.

Dr. John R. Kongsvik holds a PhD in education and has 25 years of experience in K-12 professional development, specializing in SIOP® methodology and English Learner instruction. He is the founder and director of TESOL Trainers, Inc. and the creator of iCOACH a structured peer coaching model used in schools across the country.

John has trained over 50,000 educators worldwide, working with schools and districts ranging from small rural programs to large urban systems. He delivers both onsite and remote training, and his English Learner Institute is the most popular online sheltered instruction PD in the United States.

John's approach is built on one principle: I model everything. I teach engagement by engaging the teachers. I show them how to scaffold by scaffolding everything. I use SIO® to teach SIOP®.  Every workshop, every institute, every coaching session is designed so that participants experience the strategies firsthand as learners before they apply them as educators. This experiential approach is what makes TESOL Trainers training different - and what makes it stick.

No sit-and-get. Every TESOL Trainers session is 100% experiential. Teachers participate, collaborate, discuss, create, and practice. If I can't engage a room full of adults, how can I ask them to engage a room full of kids?

No lofty theory. Every strategy we teach is research-based, practical, and classroom-ready. Teachers walk out with techniques they can use the next day - in any subject, at any grade level, with any student.

No one-size-fits-all. Every engagement is customized to your school's needs, your students' demographics, and your instructional goals. We design programs from one-day workshops to multi-year partnerships with iCOACH peer coaching

Connecting students to the content, the language, and one another. That's our mission. That's what SIOP® does. And that's what we help your teachers learn to do every single day.