Title: Multilingual Teacher
Company: Kalamazoo Public Schools
Location: Battle Creek, Michigan, United States
Rachel S. Sharma, multilingual teacher at Kalamazoo Public Schools, has been recognized by Marquis Who’s Who Top Educators for dedication, achievements, and leadership in language education.
Across more than 20 years as an instructor in the English language, Ms. Sharma has built an esteemed reputation while helping thousands of students learn to speak English in classrooms around the world. This journey began in Japan, followed by teaching in an elementary school English immersion program in Istanbul, Turkey. After a brief return to Japan, Ms. Sharma moved to India, showcasing her capacity for adaptation by teaching in her third country in less than five years. In 2009, she relocated to Saudi Arabia, becoming one of the first English as a second language (ESL) instructors for Princess Nourah Bint Abdul Rahman University, the largest women’s university in Asia.
Having established herself as an excellent ESL instructor, Ms. Sharma took on the role of senior English instructor in curriculum design at Cactus Communications, where she developed curriculum related to reading comprehension and helped expand the company’s client base. She also contributed for two years as an ESL teacher and curriculum designer at Woospeak, developing strategies to aid a global team of English language teachers. For seven years beginning in 2014, Ms. Sharma worked for the U.S. Department of Defense as part of the Defense Language Institute English Language Center. In this position, she helped increase English proficiency and cultural integration in soldiers, officers and other government officials working with the U.S. military.
Continuing to add to her extensive professional history, Ms. Sharma assisted as an international program coordinator with West Catholic High School, a first and fourth grade teacher with Marshall Public School District and an elementary teacher with Riverside Elementary School. Since 2024, she has served as a multilingual teacher with Kalamazoo Public Schools, where she supports a district with students from 50 different language backgrounds. Ms. Sharma plans daily lessons for nine different classes across multiple grade levels, teaching around 80 to 90 students every week. With her vast past experience in teaching students of different languages, she specializes in addressing specific challenges based on each student’s home language.
Ms. Sharma’s performance in the field was born of her academic journey. She obtained a bachelor’s degree in health care administration from the University of Phoenix in 2004. Returning to school after starting her career, Ms. Sharma earned a Master of Education in secondary education, curriculum, instruction and design with a concentration in teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) from the University of South Florida in 2014. She is certified in TESOL and teaching kindergarten through fifth grade, and received a renewed ESL endorsement in 2024.
Among her many career accomplishments, Ms. Sharma is particularly proud of the work she has done teaching English in other countries. Alongside helping build up Princess Nourah Bint Abdul Rahman University as a leading institution for learning English in Asia, she played a part in establishing schools in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, and Doha, Qatar. Ms. Sharma was one of the first female instructors in a Qatari military school and one of the first women ever invited to a Qatari military graduation ceremony. Able to speak Japanese, Hindi and Arabic fluently, she takes great satisfaction in the global scale of her work, including teaching the first Nigerian woman to ever attend a war college, for which the student was later recognized with an award from first lady Melania Trump.
Beyond her professional achievements, Ms. Sharma is a loving mother to her 15-year-old son, Noah, who was born during her time teaching in India and has joined her on her international travels. Being half Indian and Jewish, her son has faced adversity and challenges both in the United States and abroad, but those experiences have reinforced her resilience and belief in the value of diversity. Ms. Sharma often tells her son that being different is not weird; it is special. She continues to teach him and all her students about the importance of respecting and celebrating the identities of yourself and others.
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