We are pleased to introduce Florencia Henshaw as our keynote speaker for the 2023 conference!
Biography
Florencia G. Henshaw has a PhD in second language acquisition and teacher education from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where she is now the director of Advanced Spanish. She has taught 19 different undergraduate and graduate courses, and she has designed eight online courses. Henshaw has published and presented nationally and internationally on technology integration, heritage language instruction, and research-based pedagogical practices, and she has been an invited speaker at prominent institutions, including Harvard and Yale, among many others.
Henshaw is as passionate about helping students develop communicative ability in the target language as she is about helping teachers make the connection between what we know and what we do. To that end, she launched a YouTube channel and podcast called Unpacking Language Pedagogy, where she summarizes and discusses research articles, activities, terms, and various topics related to language teaching. Furthermore, her new co-authored book, Common Ground: Second Language Acquisition Theory goes to the Classroom, aims to help educators visualize how to put principles into action.
Henshaw’s work has been recognized through a number of awards, including the Postsecondary Award for Excellence in World Language Instruction Using Technology, granted by ACTFL and IALLT, as well as two highly competitive campus awards at the University of Illinois: the Chancellor's Academic Professional Excellence Award and the Campus Award for Excellence in Online and Distance Teaching.