Keynote Speaker:
Dr. Soria E. Colomer is Assistant Professor of Bilingual Education at Oregon State University. Committed to transforming the educational landscape for marginalized youth, her research explores the negotiation of language and identity in new immigrant communities. In particular, Dr. Colomer considers how language teachers’ perceptions, ethnic identities, and linguistic skills impact their roles and practices in schools with growing emergent bilingual student populations. Her work can be found in the Journal of Literacy Research, TESOL Quarterly, Bilingual Research Journal, Foreign Language Annals, and Qualitative Research, among others.
Academic Director:
Dr. Glenn Martinez is a professor of Hispanic Linguistics and Director of The Ohio State University’s Center for Languages, Literatures, and Cultures (CLLC). His research focuses on sociolinguistics and applied linguistics of Spanish-speaking communities in the United States and along the U.S.-Mexico border. He has made significant contributions in the area of language policies affecting Spanish-speakers in the United States and has also written extensively on the teaching of Spanish to heritage learners. Professor Martínez’s most recent line of research is in the area of language and health care. In this vein, he has published extensively on language policies in the health delivery system in the United States and abroad, on the linguistic practices of Spanish-speaking patients and providers in healthcare settings, and on the development and evaluation of language pedagogy for healthcare professionals. Dr. Martinez will discuss the social benefits of heritage language maintenance and describe the sociolinguistic diversity in the state of Ohio. He will also overview the positive impacts multilingual communities in Ohio.
Summit Scholars:
Dr. Elena Foulis is a project scholar and student-centered educator with over 15 years of experience in higher education. She teaches undergraduate courses in service-learning, Latin American Literature and Spanish for Heritage Speakers in The Department of Spanish and Portuguese. She is the author of the iBook, Latin@ Stories across Ohio and director of a podcast about Latin@ experiences, OhioHabla
Topic: HL curriculum, project-based learning, participatory and community-engaged pedagogy
Research interests: Latina/o Studies, Latin American Literature, service and heritage learning
Dr. Peter Sayer is an Associate Professor of Language Education Studies in the Department of Teaching and Learning. Principal Investigator and leader of the Senderos project, a collaborative professional development/research project with teachers in a public two-way dual language magnet school in Columbus, Ohio.
Topic: identification of heritage language learners and pedagogically appropriate testing models.
Research interests: applied linguistics and educational sociolinguistics, with a focus on language learners in bilingual and ESOL programs.
Stacey Alex, Ph.D. Candidate, is a Latina/o Studies and Latin American Literary and Cultural Studies Ph.D. student in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. She researches pedagogy and curriculum development for Spanish as a heritage language and Spanish for specific purposes.
Topic: Project-based learning, best practices for HL reading and writing
Research Interests: Undocumented Latinx narratives, Borderlands and Immigration, and Latinx Children’s Literature