CO-CABE 2020 Professional Development Conference: Muchos Idiomas, Una Visión

Dr. Valdés is a founding partner of Understanding Language, an initiative that focuses attention on the role of language in subject-area learning. Dr. Valdés’ research explores many of the issues of bilingualism relevant to teachers in training, including methods of instruction, typologies, measurement of progress, and the role of education in national policies on immigration. She studies the sociolinguistic processes of linguistic acquisition by learners in different circumstances – those who set out to learn a second language in a formal school setting (elective bilingualism) and those who must learn two languages in order to adapt to immediate family-based or work-based communicative needs within an immigrant community (circumstantial bilingualism). As a professor at Stanford, Dr. Valdés teaches several courses including, Growing up Bilingual, Theories and Issues in the Study of Bilingualism, Inglés Personal: Coaching Everyday Community English, and others. Much of her work has focused on the English-Spanish bilingualism of Latinos in the United States and on discovering and describing how two languages are developed, used, and maintained by individuals who become bilingual in immigrant communities. Her research has included the areas of Diversity and Identity, Literacy and Language, and Poverty and Inequality. She has also published and studied the areas of Teaching/learning of additional languages, Immigrant families in Latino communities, The challenge of "curricularizing" language, and Heritage language teaching and learning.