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Rebeca Bataller

Rebeca Bataller
Assistant Professor
Rebeca.Bataller@usm.edu

Education

Rebeca Bataller joined the faculty of The University of Southern Mississippi in the fall of 2008, after receiving an M.A. in Spanish from New Mexico State University and a Ph.D. in Foreign and ESL Education from the University of Iowa.

Research Interests

Her research interests include the acquisition of pragmatic aspects of the Spanish language in both the foreign and the second language settings. In addition, she is interested in exploring how pragmatics can be taught and assessed in the language classroom both for students studying abroad and for students in the foreign language setting. Moreover, she has a strong interest in studying the different variables that affect second language acquisition in the study abroad context. Aspects such as the degree of contact that learners establish with native speakers once they are abroad and the characteristics of the study abroad programs in which students participate are factors that she plans to investigate in her future research.

Teaching Interests

In addition to teaching Spanish at all levels of proficiency, she is interested in teaching courses in language education and second language acquisition and plans to include discussions of the acquisition of Interlanguage Pragmatics in these courses.