For Student Teachers & Researchers

The Language Academy is ripe for innovative initiatives that benefit society. We seek to apply university knowledge about how we learn additional languages directly and tangibly to real needs in our community. By teaching language and social studies to youth, we enrich their personal and academic future.

As a lab school, the Language Academy also provides a research site for studies of language development in children, for studies of language teaching interventions, and for studies of curricular innovations conducted by faculty and graduate students at the University of Illinois.

Student Teachers

In the area of teaching, the Language Academy for Children provides a teacher-training and early field experience site for undergraduate students enrolled in the Bachelors of Arts in Teaching program who need to have classroom experience with Spanish language in K-12, and for graduate students who want to expand their Spanish language teaching experience to include children.

The Language Academy also involves high school volunteers with knowledge of Spanish who can practice their language skills as they serve our community.

Researchers

The Language Academy has a research mission and collaborates with University of Illinois faculty and graduate students from the Departments of Spanish and Portuguese, Linguistics, Psychology, Speech and Hearing Sciences, and Curriculum and Instruction, among others, who study monolingual and bilingual language development and instruction during the school-age period.

Get Involved

Students or researchers interested in observing classes or conducting research at the University Language Academy should contact the director, Professor Silvina Montrul, at montrul@illinois.edu. The Institutional Review Board on campus must approve all research.