Teaching

The main goal of this class is to achieve a better understanding of Spanish people, their national identities, their way of being, and the most pressing concerns of Spanish society during the first two decades of the 21st century. We will analyze how historical events have shaped aspects of linguistics, literature, society, and economics. Students will have the opportunity to explore these themes through films, novels, and newspaper articles. After successful completion of this course, students will be familiar with Spanish ways of thinking, linguistics, culture, traditions, politics, and folklore and will also feel comfortable discussing current topics in an informed way.

This is a three-credit course that provides an introduction to Second Language Acquisition (i.e., SLA) in general, and more specifically, to the acquisition of Spanish in different learning contexts, particularly the Study Abroad context. This course covers an introduction to Second Language Acquisition and the origins of this field of research, as well as important aspects that influence second language learner outcomes in different learning contexts. Specifically, the acquisition of grammatical abilities, pragmatic and communicative abilities as well as the development of fluency and cognitive abilities and the lexicon in different learning contexts. Other aspects such as the type of instruction in the Study Abroad setting and cultural adaptations to different learning contexts are also addressed in the course. The goal of this course is to provide students with a level of knowledge that enables them to succeed in future Spanish linguistics courses and in careers involving knowledge of the L2 learning process as well as in the study abroad context.

This course provides an introduction to Second Language Acquisition (i.e., SLA) in general, and more specifically, to the acquisition of Spanish by second language learners. Thus, the content includes the most relevant theories of Second Language Acquisition as well as research in L2 Spanish. Students will apply their knowledge of course content in various data analysis activities, quizzes, exams, and a final research paper. The goal of this course is to provide students with a level of knowledge that enables them to succeed in future Spanish linguistics courses and in careers involving knowledge of the L2 learning process.

This is a three-credit course that provides an introduction to second language learning and teaching with a particular emphasis on L2 Spanish. Students are introduced to the most relevant theories of second language learning and to different teaching methodologies that have developed from these theories. In this course students will have the opportunity to learn how to effectively teach various linguistics skills and put that knowledge into practice with their classroom peers. The goal of this course is to provide students with a level of knowledge that enables them to succeed in future SLA/linguistics courses and in careers involving knowledge of second language learning development and foreign language teaching.

This is a three-credit course that provides an introduction to Spanish Linguistics and establishes the basis for future application of linguistic principles. The content included is an overview of basic linguistic properties with a focus on Spanish. First students are introduced basic principles and concepts in linguistic theory and linguistic structure, to later examine the linguistic structure of the Spanish language based on the following fields of linguistic inquiry: word formation (morphology), word order (syntax), the sound system (phonetics and phonology), history of the language, and second language acquisition. The goal of this course is to provide students with a level of knowledge that enables them to succeed in future Spanish Linguistics courses.

In Winter 2015, I mentored Bryan Frederick's Honors Thesis entitled The effect of learning context on the acquisition of L2 spirantization, which investigates whether intensive immersion contexts may help to overcome the difficulties of equivalence classification for Spanish /b,d,g/.

This is a three-credit course that enable students interested in linguistics to pursue a topic of their academic interest conducting a research project throughout a semester. Recent projects include the following: Andrés Espinoza studied the development of cognitive abilities in a study abroad context Winter 2014. Angeline Gonyea & Yumi Masuda studied the development of syntactic complexity in L2 learners of Spanish in Fall 2014, and Sarah Awad-Farid, Stephen Daniels, & Jeremy Neuman investigated the development of the perception of foreign access in Winter 2013.

This is a three-credit course for an internship that involves the extensive use of Spanish in a country in which Spanish is the primary language. Internships take place during the Spring and Summer terms only, and students registered for the class during the following Fall term.