l.a.c.
Language Acquisition Center
Instructors of Language
This page displays the instructors of the Language and Humanities department. There's a brief description about the instructor and ways you may get in contact with them.
Concetta Calandra
Benvenuti! ¡Bienvenidos! My name is Concetta Calandra and I was born in a small town 48 km from the capital of Sicily. My parents, brother and I left our home in Italy and moved to New York when I was nine years old. At first, the journey seemed exciting, however, I soon realized that my world would never be the same. I would forever be a product of two very different cultures, belonging to both and to neither at the same time. Within three months of our arrival in the United States, I was speaking English and serving as the family interpreter. I loved that role, and thus, my fascination with learning languages began. I studied French, Italian and Spanish at Hunter College in New York City and graduated with a BA in Italian. In addition to my Italian degree, I have a BA and a Master's degree in Spanish Literature from San Diego State University. After receiving my MA, I taught at Mesa College, Grossmont College, Cuyamaca College and SDSU. While teaching at these different colleges, I continued to hone my teaching skills by enrolling in graduate courses and attending workshops and conferences on foreign language pedagogy. In 1999 I was hired as a full-time instructor at Southwestern College, where I now teach Spanish and Italian. I enjoy teaching both languages and I strive to make language learning easy, interesting and rewarding for all my students.
Deana Alonso
Deana Alonso-Post was born and raised in Mexico City. After graduating from High School and studying for a year at the Universidad Autónoma de México (UNAM) her family moved to The United States. She earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Mathematics and two Master's Degrees: one in Spanish, with emphasis on Linguistics from San Diego State University and the other one in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) from California State University, Los Angeles. She served for four years as consultant and teacher leader at the Los Angeles Area Site of the California Foreign Language Project (LASTARS) before joining the team in San Diego in 2005. As a consultant for Southern Area International Language Network, (SAILN) Deana worked with SDUSD and LARC to train World Language teachers. She was also the president of FLCSD for 5 years.
In addition, Deana has written several textbooks: a textbook of Spanish for Spanish Speakers (Entre mundos, 1996, 2004) and the Workbook to Accompany Entre Mundos 2nd Ed. Both books published by Prentice Hall and an introductory level college Spanish textbook level 1 and level 2 (Invitaciones, 2004, 20010) for Vista Higher Learning. She is also a frequent presenter at ACTFL and CLTA. She has been teaching for thirty years, the last twenty three at Southwestern College where she was honored with the Board of Trustees Teaching Excellence Award in 2005.
Deana loves to travel. She has traveled extensively throughout Europe and Latin America. She has been to Argentina, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Perú, Colombia, Chile, Argentina, Puerto Rico, Spain, Uruguay and Panamá.
Lastly, she has spent the last three years perfecting her French by spending long periods of time in France so she is well aware of the difficulties and challenges of becoming a fluent speaker of other languages. She lived with French families and she studied at La Sorbonne, L'Alliance Française, Langue Onze and others Écoles de langue française. She has traveled amply throughout France, visiting more that 25 cities.
Nora Portillo
Bonjour, Hola, Ciao, Oi everyone!
My name is Nora Corral and love teaching and learning foreign languages. I believe that teaching foreign languages is like giving our students a key that will open many doors of new worlds and opportunities to them.
I have a B.A. degree in Spanish and a B.A. in French from San Diego State University. While finishing my Bachelor's degrees, I studied Italian, a little of Portuguese, and I also had the opportunity to study abroad in Paris, France. I also have two Master's degrees, one in Latin American Literature and the second one in French Literature (both from San Diego State). As I was completing my M.A. in French, I taught Spanish and French as adjunct instructor at San Diego State, Mesa College, Cuyamaca College and Southwestern College for two years. Then I got a full-time position as Professor of Spanish and French at Mesa College, where I worked for 2 years. Now, I am very happy and excited to be back again at Southewestern, this time as full-time instructor of French.
I enjoy writing poetry and short stories, and have done research work on Argentinean Literature, Art, and Human rights. In the present, I have focused more on writing for language books. I wrote the lesson plans for "Invitaciones: Segunda Parte," and was a contributing writer for the French textbook "Espaces," of which I wrote the "Contextes" activities, and served as bookmap/content reviewer.
I also enjoy traveling. I've traveled extensively in Mexico (Baja, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Oaxaca, Michoacán, Guerrero, Quintanaroo, Yucatán, Chihuahua) have been to England, Spain, France, Argentina, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, and hope the list keeps growing : )
I keep updated on second language acquisition/teaching methodologies by attending workshops, conferences, and by keeping memberships with ACTFL, and MLA.
Bienvenue!