Visiting Assistant Professor
OFFICE LOCATION
Education 379
OFFICE HOURS
MAILING ADDRESS
Box 41071
Lubbock TX 79409-41071
DIRECT PHONE
(806) 742-1997 ext. 285
DEPARTMENT PHONE
(806) 742-1997
FAX NUMBER
(806) 742-2179
EMAIL ADDRESS
Ana Torres
biography
I am a native of Lubbock, and received my bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees at Texas Tech University. I am currently in my second year of teaching as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the College of Education. I received my Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction with a Bilingual Education emphasis in 2006. My dissertation topic was heritage language shift among adolescent Chicanos and their families on the South Plains. Before coming to teach full-time at Texas Tech I taught high school Spanish at Roosevelt I.S.D. for seven years, and for three years I taught Spanish over interactive video to eight small high schools in the Rolling Plains Educational Technology Consortium. My academic background includes a combination of bilingual curriculum, secondary education, linguistics and sociology. My areas of interest in research include heritage language maintenance and shift; English Language Learners at the middle and high school levels; language and ethnic identity; distance education and language learning; and teaching Spanish as a foreign language.
current academic work
Torres, A. B., & Sheets, R. H. (pending). Bilingual curriculum/bilingual. In C. Kridel (Ed.) Encyclopedia of curriculum studies. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE
I am currently working on manuscripts regarding the influence of parental language behavior on heritage language shift; teaching foreign language at a distance; and the effects of foreign language teacher attitudes on student learning. I am also beginning research on ELLs at the secondary school level.