Expertos

Aída Walqui directs the Institute of Education Sciences, IES-funded National Research and Development Center for Improving the Education of English Learners in Secondary Schools housed at WestEd . There she started one of its signature programs, the Quality Teaching for English Learners (QTEL) initiative. QTEL focuses on the development of educator expertise to support the development of elementary and secondary English Learners’ conceptual, analytic, and language practices in disciplinary subject matter areas.

Under her leadership, QTEL has been funded by federal and private institutions to develop and research professional development tools and processes which support the academic success of English Language Learners. Dr. Walqui taught in the Division of Education at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and at the School of Education, Stanford University. A native Peruvian, she received an MS in Sociolinguistics from Georgetown University, and her Ph.D. from Stanford University. She has ample experience in the field of second language teaching in schools and at the university level, nationally and internationally. She is the author of many books and articles, including the recent Reconceptualizing the Role of Critical Dialogue in American Classrooms. Promoting equity through dialogic education.

Throughout her career Dr. Walqui has received many honors, among them, in 2016 on the 50^th anniversary of the International TESOL Association, she was selected as one of the 50 most influential researchers in the last 50 years in the field of English Language development.

Vanessa Garcia holds a Master’s Degree in Bilingual Teaching: English by the Catholic University of San Antonio (UCAM), a Bachelor’s Degree in Primary Education by the UCAM and Degree in Foreign Language Teaching: English by the University of Murcia (UMU). She is a part- time professor in subjects related to teaching foreign languages: English, bilingualism and evaluation within CLIL at UCAM. She is also a part-time professor at the Faculty of English Philology (UMU), where she teaches English for Specific Purposes. She is principal at “La Flota” Infant and Primary school (Murcia) and she was principal at “Aljorra” Infant and Primary School in La Aljorra (Cartagena) for two years. She was a full time English teacher at ‘Nuestra Señora de Atocha’ Bilingual School (Murcia), where she coordinated the bilingual programme for the last 11 years. Overall, she has worked as an English teacher for 20 years in different Primary Education schools. She also teaches courses to other Primary and Secondary teachers at the Resources and Teachers Centre (CPR) in Murcia and collaborates with the Board of Education of the Regional Government in Murcia by carrying out training courses, projects and publications with a CLIL/AICLE focus.