What is your title/position? How long have you worked in your position?

Assistant Professor since Fall 2022

What is your area of focus?

Bi/multilingualism in K-12/compulsory education in international contexts

Use of students' other languages in English-medium instruction (EMI), Content Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), sheltered instruction, etc.

Classroom discourse analysis

Critical applied linguistics

What are you working on right now? 

I received an HRI (Humanities Research Institute) summer grant of $3,000 for my in-progress ethnography of a French dual immersion program in Urbana-Champaign. I will be tracking the language acquisition outcomes and motivation/investment to learn French among different students who speak French as a second or a heritage language. In summer 2023, I will be using the grant towards interpreter and participant compensation as I interview a representative sample of 30 families who send their children to the school's English-French dual immersion program from Congolese, Moroccan, Algerian, African American and Euro American heritage. I am to find out why they placed their kids in the program; what academic, linguistic, and socioemotional outcomes they hope to see; and how they perceive the roles of, and relationship between, home and school in facilitating the children's bilingualism.

Contact: annamend AT illinois DOT edu

Posted: 4/14/2023