Keynote Speakers

        Friday Keynote Address: "The Efficient Use of Literature in Second Language Education: Listening to Stories and Reading books"

  Dr. Beniko Mason (and Saturday workshop)

Beniko Mason, Ed. D. is a faculty member at Shitennoji University Junior College in Osaka, Japan. She first began her Extensive Reading (ER) program in 1984 at a vocational school in Osaka, Japan based on the Input Hypothesis (Krashen, 1981, 1982, 1985).  Her first research question was whether ER was more effective than Intensive Reading (IR), then whether ER alone was better than the eclectic method (ER plus IR), and finally whether ER alone was more efficient. Her research studies using her Japanese college and adult students confirmed that reading alone is not only effective but also efficient, with ER students gaining more per unit time than comparisons. She began to add auditory comprehensible input, “storytelling” into her reading program in 1990. She now calls it “Story-Listening.” She also calls her reading program “Story-Reading” instead of ER, distinguishing her language program from others, which are not fully consistent with current Second Language Acquisition Theory.

Her current interest is to determine the amount of input needed to help low beginning level students reach the high intermediate or low advanced level of the target language in order to prepare them for academic and business language.  SL and SR are theory-based and supported by research. Also, the methodology reduces the load on both students and teachers; and students don’t need to buy learning materials and textbooks.

 Saturday Keynote Address: "Critical Pedagogies for Spanish Heritage Language Programs: Implementing a Complete Curriculum"

  Dr. Claudia Holguín Mendoza (and Saturday workshop)

Dr. Claudia Holguín Mendoza is an Assistant Professor of Spanish linguistics at the University of Oregon and the Director of the Spanish Heritage Language Program at the Department of Romance Languages. She grew up in the Mexico-US border region of Juarez, México and El Paso, Texas. Dr. Holguín Mendoza worked as K-12, and high school teacher in Mexico for 10 years. She obtained her MA at the New Mexico State University, Las Cruces in 2004, and her PhD in Hispanic Linguistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign in 2011.

Dr. Holguín Mendoza’s research is focused on the field of Sociolinguistics; specifically in the areas of socio-pragmatics and linguistic variation. Her focus in Spanish heritage language education encompasses critical pedagogical approaches, the interplay of identity and language, ideologies and representations of language, racial formations in the US, and the sociopolitics of language education.