About MeI am an Assistant Professor of Spanish at University at Albany, SUNY. My primary research interest is language variation and change, and I have completed research projects on first, additional and heritage languages. I take a usage-based approach to my research, with the assumption that the cognitive mechanisms and abilities that are involved in first language acquisition and use are the same as those that are at play for additional and heritage languages. In all my research, I seek to describe, explain and track changes in patterns of variation in order to approach a better understanding of the role of variation in the acquisition and mental architecture of language.
I also have had a wide range of teaching experiences. I have taught all levels of foreign language courses as well as several upper level undergraduate and graduate linguistics and culture courses, including Spanish Syntax and Morphology, History of the Spanish Language, Grammaticalization, Foreign Language Teaching Methods, Second Language Acquisition, Individual Differences in SLA, Project-Based Language Learning, Sociolinguistics, Spanish in the U.S. and Language Variation and Change. In all my teaching, I connect the course material to my students' experiences and create opportunities for my students to conduct real linguistic analysis and research in and outside of class. I am also a huge proponent of High Quality Project-Based Learning and incorporate this pedagogical approach into my courses frequently. |
Contact Meszahler@albany.edu
University at Albany, SUNY Department of Languages, Literatures & Cultures HUM 235 1400 Washington Ave Albany, NY, 12222 |