MEET THE TEAM

WILLIE WASHINGTON

Director/Founder/Coach

Willie is currently a college instructor at CSU Fullerton and Irvine Valley College. He is a member of the coaching staff for Irvine Valley College’s national championship speech and debate team. He obtained his Communication B.A. from San Francisco State University and M.A. from CSU Fullerton. At CSUF, Willie developed a program that combined the collegiate discipline of Communication Studies with Speech and Debate and implemented this material at a local primary school in the Fullerton area. This program is the foundation of ACLA’s curriculum. It is his goal to see speech and debate activities spread and competent communication skills developed in young people everywhere.

ASHA TAYLOR

Director of Operations

Coach Asha has had the privilege to work with ACLA for the last year and a half. She came on board the team officially, after volunteering to sub for a class for a semester, fast forward a year and she really loves coaching and mentoring the students who are apart of ACLA. Asha has taught at multiple schools including Oak creek, Parkview, Columbus Tustin, etc. A lot of her teaching experience comes from having also competed in forensics in high school. However, it was not until college that she really began to hone her skills while competing on Irvine Valley College’s Speech and Debate team. It was through communication courses and competing at IVC that she decided to double major in Communication Studies and Psychology. She has multiple awards in Dramatic Interpretation, Cultural Artifact, Impromptu, Persuasion, Parliamentary Debate and IPDA debate. She was also selected to compete on the state and national teams for both years she was on the team and in 2017 received an award at the state championship tournament for top debate speaker for the state of California. Along with her motivation to continue her education in communication and psychology; She has also found a passion for teaching communication skills such as debate, interpretation and platform events to the students that she serves. Her main focus is helping students grow as competitors and excellent public speakers.

COACH SANA

Coach and Social Media Director

Coach Sana is a student at Cal State Fullerton majoring in Communications Studies. Her interest in communication led her to join her school’s Speech and Debate team. As an active member for over 2 years now, she is a National Champion in Informative Speaking, an award winning Parliamentary Debater, and was even honored by Irvine Valley College as their Most Outstanding Platform Speaker for 2018-19. She believes competing has helped boost her confidence and find her voice, and she loves passing on her knowledge to her students. Learning and growing are the most important part of any class, and Coach Sana teaches her students how to take their skills and develop them into amazing talents in Speech and Debate. She became involved with the ACLA in 2019, and currently coaches at many different schools in our organization. Sana also runs our Instagram account, check it out!

COACH IAN

Coach

Coach Ian has been apart of the ACLA team since October 2019. He has found coaching very rewarding for him and loves to see his students develop into confident communicators. Ian previously attended Irvine Valley College, and plans to transfer to Cal State Fullerton for Business Administration. He became involved in speech and debate in high school and fell in love with it. He continued to compete on the Irvine Valley College debate team and received the 2019 Mark Elliot Coaches Award for his hard work and dedication. He values critical thinking and believed debate is the best place in education to develop this skill.