Fabiola Ehlers-Zavala
Bio
Dr. Fabiola Ehlers-Zavala
is a native of Chile and currently teaching at Colorado State
University. She
is an Associate Professor
Fabiola is also currently serving as co-director of the Center for
Community Literacy, Research and Outreach in the Department of
English at Colorado State University.
The primary mission of the Center is to create alternative literacy
opportunities in order to educate and empower underserved
populations (e.g. incarcerated juveniles and adults, adult learners,
women, at-risk youth, English Language Learners) and to support
university-community literacy outreach programs. They recognize that
there are many teens and adults who do not succeed in traditional
school settings, and aim to offer alternative opportunities for
these individuals to practice and improve their reading, writing and
critical thinking skills.
Dr. Ehlers-Zavala’s research includes the following areas of
expertise: second language reading, second language assessment, and
ESL/bilingual teacher preparation.
She is the co-author of
Reading Strategies for
Spanish Speakers. Other publications in journals and books
include: Assessing English language learners (ELLs) in Mainstream
Classrooms, The Reading Teacher (2006); Bilingual reading from a
dual coding perspective. Proceedings of the 4th International
Symposium on Bilingualism. (2005); Preparing quality
bilingual/bicultural teachers in the 21st Century: A PDS Model for
Educational Change and Success, Transforming Teacher Education
Through Partnerships (2004)
Through the years, Fabiola has been extensively involved with
professional organizations.
She
serves in the editorial board of the The International Multilingual
Research Journal, and
has been an active member, and frequent presenter at the annual
meetings of the American Association for Applied Linguistics,
Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), and the
International Reading Association
(IRA). In addition to serving on
various TESOL committees, she is Past-President of Illinois TESOL,
and a current member of Colorado TESOL.
