Most recently, Marjorie Vai coauthored a book for Routledge (January 2011) on online course design. The idea for Essentials of Online Course Design: A Standards-based Guide came to her while she was developing an online MA in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) at The New School in New York City. She was at The New School for several years as Acting Chair of Foreign Languages, then Director of English Language Studies, and finally Chair of English Language Studies and Director of the MATESOL.Marjorie is passionate about bringing clarity and simplicity to the process of online teaching and learning. Marjorie Vai received her A.B. from Rutgers University majoring in French and Fine Arts. She lived France, where she did her graduate study in French with a strong emphasis on linguistics. After teaching, here and abroad, for several years, she worked for Thomson International Publishing as product manager for the ESOL list. She was later promoted to director of product development. She traveled throughout the US, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and to Japan and Pakistan for this purpose. During her years at the New School, she conceived of, designed, developed, and coauthored a courseware/textbook series (English on Call!) with McGraw-Hill, and authored the textbook, The Heart of the Matter, for what is now Cengage Learning. Befor that she coauthored a book, Read On! Speak Out! for Newbury House Publishers.In addition to the above she has written and done consulting work for a number of publishing entities including: Dow Jones; Time Magazine; The Guardian Weekly; Cambridge University Press; McGraw-Hill; Heinle & Heinle; Pearson-Longman UK & US; Berlitz-Edustar; Scholastic Publishing; Prentice-Hall; Holt, Rinehart & Winston; Harper & Row; and Newbury House. She was also writer and contributing editor for Dowline, the magazine of Dow Jones Online Services.She lives in Manhattan and has a son, Daniel.