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2015 Keynote Speaker

“How I Became a Language Activist”

Kim Potowski, Associate Professor of Spanish Linguistics

University of Illinois at Chicago

Kim Potowski is associate professor of Spanish linguistics at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her research focuses on describing and promoting Spanish use in the United States.

She has authored, co-authored, and edited works including Language and identity in a dual immersion school (Multilingual Matters 2007), Bilingual youth: Spanish in English-speaking societies (John Benjamins 2008), Language diversity in the USA (Cambridge University Press 2011), Heritage language teaching: Research and practice (McGraw Hill 2014) and El español de los Estados Unidos (Cambridge University Press 2015).

She has also authored two Spanish textbooks, one for beginners and a composition book for heritage speakers and advanced second language learners. She is executive editor of the journal Spanish in Context and co-director of the Language in Context Research Group at the University of Illinois at Chicago. You can learn more about her work at potowski.org.