I arrived at CMLL at Concordia in Fall 2010 as an Assistant Professor of Spanish and Applied Linguistics, and as such, my research and teaching interests are interdisciplinary. My current research, stemming from my dissertation, involves second and third language acquisition of phonetic inventories. So far I have worked on languages such as English, Spanish and Portuguese, more specifically on the learning of the vowel sounds of these languages as second or third languages. As a relatively new researcher in the field of third language acquisition and phonetics, I am delighted to be at Concordia, as the linguistic profile of the Montreal population provides endless possibilities. I am also the director of the newly created Multilingual Speech Lab, open to faculty and student research needs.
As for my teaching interests, I especially enjoy teaching Phonetics and Phonology of Spanish, although I also very much enjoy teaching courses on Second Language Acquisition, Spanish Pedagogy and Hispanic Linguistics. I sometimes get to teach general Spanish Grammar and Composition courses as well. During my first year at Concordia I was involved in the Alternative Spring Break program, leading a group of fantastic Concordia students to the Dominican Republic on an amazing service learning trip.
On year 2 of my Concordia experience, I created the Concordia in Spain field school program with, a Spanish Language & Culture Summer program that has been going on every Summer since 2011 with the support of Concordia International and the Classics, Modern Languages and Linguistics Department. I directed the program for the first five Summers and look forward to many more Concordia in Spain programs to come.
Education
PhD in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching - University of Arizona (2011)
Dissertation: L2 and L3 phonetic acquisition.
Co-directed by Dr. Natasha Warner and Dr. Miquel Simonet
Major: Second Language Linguistic Analysis
Minor: Instructional Technology
MA Second Language Acquisition and Teaching - University of Arizona (2009)
MA Hispanic Linguistics - University of Arizona (2004) Thesis: Las oraciones existenciales con haber en español en el marco minimalista / Spanish existential sentences with the verb haber in the minimalist framework. Directed by Dr. Antxon Olarrea.
BA, English Philology - Universidad de Deusto, Bilbao (2000)
Research and teaching interests
- Applied Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition
- Third Language Acquisition
- Phonetics
- Multilingualism
- Hispanic Linguistics
SPAN 201
First semester Introductory Spanish (undergraduate)
SPAN 301
Grammar and the process of writing I (undergraduate)
SPAN 398B / SPAN 371
Phonetics and phonology of Spanish (undergraduate)
SPAN 455
Perspectives on the teaching of Spanish (undergraduate)
SPAN 498B / SPAN 498
Introduction to Hispanic Linguistics (undergraduate)
SPAN 461 / SPAN 622
History of the Spanish language (undergraduate and graduate combined)
SPAN 603
Introduction to the teaching of Spanish (graduate)
SPAN 621
Introduction to Hispanic Linguistics (graduate)
Conference papers
“Discrimination of cross-linguistic mid front vowel contrasts: the case of native English speakers learning Brazilian Portuguese”. Hispanic Linguistics Symposium 2010 in Bloomington, Indiana. October 2010.
“Native English speakers’ productions of Brazilian Portuguese vowels”. Laboratory Approaches to Romance Phonology 2010 in Provo, Utah. September 2010.
“A percepção das vogais do português por falantes bilingües de espanhol e inglês: um teste de percepção categórica”. III Simpósio sobre Ensino de Português para Falantes de Espanhol. UNICAMP, Brazil. July 2008.
“On the acquisition of Brazilian Portuguese mid-vowels by Spanish/English bilingual learners: A pilot study”. SCMLA Annual Convention in Memphis. October 2007.
