Welcome to Learning to Teach Language! I’m happy you’ve stopped by to check out the site, which was born out of a need for a space where I could bring together the theories, research and pedagogical knowledge with the practical reality of the classroom. Full disclosure: I am a language teaching noob. While I’m no stranger to learning languages, the teaching gig is new for me. I welcome your comments and advice, as well as ideas for posts and contributions. I’ll be graduating soon, but the one thing I have learned during my time at school is that the process of teaching requires a lifetime of learning. I hope you’ll join me in my effort to bridge the gap many of us teachers (especially those fresh out school!) experience between research and the classroom.

My “heart is in the work” as a Masters student in Applied Second Language Acquisition at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I am currently student teaching ESL at the university and high school levels. My main interest is in learning more about applying translanguaging practices to the English language classroom in order to draw on the vast linguistic repertoire available to the emerging bilingual student.