Victoria Smith
Senior Lecturer in Hispanic Studies:
Hispanic Studies
Phone: +1 401 863 2675
Victoria_Smith@Brown.EDU
Professor Smith's areas of interest pertain to foreign language education.
Biography
I served as the Language Coordinator for the Department of Hispanic Studies from 1984 to 2005, during a time of tremendous expansion. In addition to designing, teaching and supervising language courses, I regularly teach an interdepartmental graduate seminar on Theory and Methods of Foreign Language Teaching. As the recipient of numerous grants (NEH, Brown Curricular Development, Consortium for Language Teaching and Learning), I've been able to design courses, develop programs to train teaching assistants, create instructional material using interactive media, and become a certified Oral Proficiency Tester. I am interested in the use of the arts and performance in my teaching. I also work in the area of Contemplative Studies and explore the use of contemplative practices in foreign language education. For fun, I like to hang out with my family and friends, play with my dogs, sing, and watch movies.
Interests
I continue to focus on issues that affect language learning such as substance use, mind-body disturbance (stress, mental illness, etc.), and learning disabilities. I have a longstanding interest in the use of music in language class and lately am interested in the role contemplative practices might play in language and intercultural education.
Degrees
B.A. Stanford University. Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley.
Awards
Recipient of University of California Distinguished Teaching Award, 1981. Recipient of various grants at Brown.
Affiliations
Member: Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education, American Council of Teachers of Foreign Language (ACTFL)
American Association of University Supervisors and Coordinators of Foreign Language Programs (AAUSC)
American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese (AATSP)
Member, Ivy consortium on Learning Disabled students and language learning, 1995-97
Funded Research
Curricular Development Grant, to revise SP10-20, 2001
Curricular Development Grant, to revise SP40, 2000
Curriculum Vitae
