Elizabeth Polli

Spanish Language Program Director

Department of Spanish and Portuguese
6072 Dartmouth Hall
Hanover, NH 03755-3511

Office: 204B Dartmouth Hall
2008 Fall office hours: Monday 3:30 pm to 4:30 pm & Wednesday 2 pm to 3 pm or by appointment
Telephone: (603) 646-2590
Fax: (603) 646-3695
E-mail: elizabeth.polli@dartmouth.edu

Ph.D. Columbia University

Primary Interests

• Second Language Acquisition
• Teaching of Foreign Languages
• Use of literature and art in foreign language teaching
• Contemporary Spanish Literature
• Translation

Projects

• Web site: Modulos Culturales, a multimedia literacy project designed for first-year Spanish language students at Dartmouth.
• Video Series: "Entre amigos", a 14 part dialog based video series starring bilingual Dartmouth College students and produced by the Dartmouth Media Production Group. The videos are used in the Spanish 1 and 2 courses at Dartmouth College.

Publications

Books

Merino, Ana. Cell Mate. Trans. Elizabeth Polli. Vermont: Harbor Mountain Press, 2007.

Additional information

I have taught both English as a Second Language (in Spain) and Spanish as a Foreign Language (in the US) since 1982. As a life-long language learner myself, I have studied Spanish (of course), French, German, Latin and Italian, I understand the difficulties associated with thinking about and in a foreign language/culture, as well as the situations (both frustrating and hilarious) which can arise when attempting to use a foreign language to communicate effectively in the target country. I thus strive to create a learning environment, which combines formal instruction with lots of practice, and as much as possible, I try to encourage students to engage in communicative situations they are likely to encounter outside of the classroom.