Le Anne Spino-Seijas

Dr. Spino-Seijas received her Ph.D. from Michigan State University in Second Language Studies. She has been a lecturer at Princeton University since fall of 2015. This semester is her last semester at Princeton University, as she has accepted a position as an Assistant Professor of Spanish at the University of Rhode Island for the fall of 2018.

In terms of teaching, Dr. Spino-Seijas specializes in technology-enhanced language learning, creating flipped language classes that help students improve their language proficiency.

Le Anne has taught Spanish courses at Princeton University and Michigan State University. At Princeton, she has taught courses in the basic language sequence (SPA 101, 102 & 103), and coordinated SPA 103 in the fall of 2016. She also worked with Andie Faber, Anais Holgado Lage, Catalina Méndez Vallejo, Adriana Merino, and Sylvia Zetterstrand to create Aprendo, an in-house online language learning platform.

At Michigan State University, she was the Coordinating Assistant to Bill VanPatten, working closely with him to restructure the beginning and intermediate language sequence into a well-articulated, proficiency-oriented program. She also created online input activities that accompanied the textbook Sol y viento. At Michigan State, she also taught an Introduction to Second Language Acquisition course and a Language Teaching Methodology course.

Dr. Spino-Seijas conducts theoretically motivated psycholinguistic research, as well as survey research that is motivated by questions that arise in the language classroom. Her psycholinguistic research primarily investigates how second language learners process inflectional morphology. To do this, she uses a variety of online methodologies (e.g., eye-tracking, self-paced reading, self-paced listening, concurrent verbalizations, etc.). For example, her dissertation examined how  second language Spanish learners process grammatical gender agreement in three syntactic contexts. She was particularly interested in whether the online methodology she selected, eye-tracking, was a valid measure of online processing. She has also conducted studies that look at the efficacy of different online methodologies, and statistical practices in the field of Second Language Acquisition.

Her survey research examines questions that relate directly to the language classroom. For example, she has studied language teachers’ perceptions of the field of Second Language Acquisition, and is currently working on a study that investigates language teachers’ perceptions of and satisfaction with language textbooks.

Recent publications

• Spino, L., & Loewen, S. (2018). The mentalist learning theory. The TESOL Encyclopedia of English Language Teaching, First Edition. Edited by John I. Liontas (Project Editor: Margo DelliCarpini; Volume Editor: Ali Shehadeh), Hoboken, USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
• Godfroid, A., & Spino, L. (2016). Under the radar: Triangulating think-alouds and finger tracking to detect the unnoticed. In A. Mackey & E. Marsden (Eds.), Advancing methodology and practice: The IRIS repository of instruments for research into second languages. New York: Routledge, pp. 73-90.
• Godfroid, A., & Spino, L. (2015). Reconceptualizing reactivity of think-alouds and eye-tracking: Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Language Learning, 65(4), 896-928.
• Spino, L., & Trego, D. (2015). Strategies for flipping communicative language classrooms. Center for Language Education and Research Newsletter, 19(2).