Elisa has taught in high school and college classrooms in New Hampshire and Massachusetts and most recently taught French and Spanish at Souhegan High School in Amherst, New Hampshire. She has considerable experience converting the traditional grammar-focused textbook-style classroom to an authentic, acquisition driven and proficiency-based experience both in instruction and assessment. Elisa has received oral proficiency (OPI) training through ACTFL and has worked with authentic resource integration experts to bring the most immersive experience possible into the language classroom. Certified in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Elisa is extraordinarily devoted to the whole student, promoting wellness and mindfulness in her practice by developing relationships with her students based on their individual needs. She also brings this practice to her clients through her consulting work with Idioma. She currently teaches graduate-level courses with Idioma focusing on topics including comprehensible input through novice-level novels, grammar in context using the PACE model, social justice and social and emotional learning. Elisa has presented about backward design, social and emotional learning and differentiation at several regional conferences, and has worked with school districts to design culturally-driven authentic resource and proficiency-based curriculum aligned to the 2021 Massachusetts World Language Frameworks and 2024 ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines.

After studying French in Minnesota at Concordia College and working at the Concordia Language Villages, then studying abroad in France through Montana State University, Elisa ultimately earned her B.A. in French from Merrimack College. Elisa earned her M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction specializing in teaching through the arts from Lesley University.