Noelia Sánchez-Walker

I received my Ph.D. in Spanish Linguistics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. My research focuses on Spanish-English bilingualism in the United States. I study factors affecting acquisition and development of Spanish as a second and as a heritage language. These factors include, among countless others, age at time of acquisition, context of acquisition, years exposed to Spanish as a foreign language or as a second language, and institutional and classroom ideologies.

I was born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico and completed a bachelor’s degree in Biology at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus (UPR-RP). There I also completed a Master’s degree in English/French to Spanish translation that included a year at the Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint Denis, France.

Prior to teaching Spanish at Yale, I taught Spanish at Springfield College, MA, the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, the Center for Linguistic Competences at UPR-RP and at a private language school. I also worked as a translator and Spanish proofreader in Boston, MA, Los Angeles, CA and New York City.