About

Tracy Quan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Colorado Boulder. She is a Spanish applied linguist who researches second and heritage language development and education, study abroad, identity, and critical pedagogies. Her work explores how language learning and teaching can serve as a transformative or oppressive experience depending on the context, background, and approaches used. She holds a PhD in Hispanic linguistics with a designated emphasis in Second Language Acquisition from the University of California, Davis. Her research contributions include publications in venues such as the Bilingual Research Journal, L2 Journal, and Study Abroad Research in Second Language Acquisition and International Education, as well as the Routledge Handbook of Study Abroad Research and Practice.

Research topics

• Linguistics
• Psychology
• Pedagogy
• Sociology
• Political Science
• Computer Science
• History
• Philosophy

Selected publications

• Critical Approaches to Spanish Language Teacher Education: Challenging Raciolinguistic Ideologies and Fostering Critical Language Awareness

  Hispania · 2021 · 38 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Pedagogy
  • Sociology

  Drawing on raciolinguistics and critical pedagogies, this article discusses critical approaches to Spanish language teacher education. Previous research highlights how racialized, monolingual, and native speaker language ideologies underlie Spanish language instruction and subsequently influence teachers’ impressions of themselves and of their students. As such, this paper presents a model of a critically oriented methods course that includes content knowledge (sociolinguistics, critical language awareness, translanguaging) and pedagogical content knowledge (different “Spanishes,” social justice teaching) that may be incorporated to heighten preservice teachers’ critical awareness and encourage them to challenge language ideologies in their future profession. Case studies of two preservice teachers of Spanish: Ari, a Mexican American heritage speaker of Spanish, and Ray, an African American language learner of Spanish, are also discussed in order to highlight the impact of such a course on developing teacher identities and their praxis, especially for teachers of minoritized backgrounds.

  DOI

• Heritage Speakers of Spanish and Study Abroad

  2021 · 19 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Linguistics
  • History
  • Philosophy
  DOI

• Critical language awareness and L2 learners of Spanish: An action‐research study

  Foreign Language Annals · 2020 · 31 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Pedagogy
  • Psychology

  Abstract This action‐research study describes a course that emphasized critical language awareness (CLA)—an understanding of how language intersects with identity and power—for additional language (L2) learners of Spanish. As L2 learners have been shown to reproduce racist and monolingual discourses, educating them to recognize and question language ideologies are crucial. First, this paper explores the current state of Spanish language curricula in the United States and how CLA is a necessary, yet missing, component of L2 Spanish instruction. Second, the article describes a course that integrated critical service learning, structured reflection, and CLA to encourage participants to reflect on their beliefs about Spanish, bilingualism, and Hispanics in the United States. Next, survey and written reflection data are presented and analyzed to investigate how participating in a critically oriented course develops L2 Spanish learners' CLA.

  DOI

Frequent coauthors

• Julia Menard‐Warwick

  University of California, Davis

  3 shared

• Chelsea Escalante

  University of Wyoming

  2 shared

• Christian A. Bracho

  California State University, Long Beach

  1 shared

• Rebecca Pozzi

  California State University, Monterey Bay

  1 shared

• Jazmina Isordia

  San Jose State University

  1 shared

• Michelle Hoda Wilkerson

  1 shared

• Rebecca Pozzi

  California State University, Monterey Bay

  1 shared

• Monica Clark

  1 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Hispanic linguistics with a designated emphasis in Second Language Acquisition

  University of California, Davis

Similar researchers at University of Colorado Boulder

• Jose-Luis Jimenezh-233
• Joost de Gouwh-186
• Roy Parkerh-161
• Kristi S. Ansethh-159
• Thomas R. Cechh-156