Frances Shapiro-Skrobe

Professor of English

Educational Background: B.A.: Brooklyn College , The City University of New York (English major, History minor, Secondary English teaching certification.)

M.A.: Teachers College, Columbia University (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL)); M.Ed.: Teachers College, Columbia University (TESOL);

M. Phil. Columbia University , Graduate Faculties of Arts and Sciences (TESOL);

Ph.D.: Columbia University , Graduate Faculties of Arts and Sciences (TESOL).

Arrived at Ramapo College :

Areas of specialization: The English Language; Applied Linguistics; Second Language Acquisition and the Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages; Teacher Education; Writing Across the Curriculum; College Writing; Reading Pedagogy.

Courses regularly taught: Grammar: Theory and Pedagogy; Secondary Writing and Language Arts; Teaching: Principles and Practices; ESL: 4dvanced Reading ; ESL: Intermediate Reading ; Reading in American Language and Culture. (I also previously taught College English on a regular basis.)

Scholarship: Former (Co-) Editor of Transformations , the refereed journal of The New Jersey Project designed to help faculty in higher education integrate issues of race, class, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality into their course curricula. Leading author of a chapter in Creating an Inclusive Curriculum: A Teaching Sourcebook-from The New Jersey Project (Teachers College Press). Author of reviews in Idiom and of an article in Lenguaje y Ciencias . Consultant on ESL and Developmental Reading/Writing Programs in Higher Education. Presenter of scholarly papers at such professional conferences as The College Reading Association, The Conference on College Composition and Communication, the international association of Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, the National and New Jersey Associations for Developmental Education, the National Women's Studies Association, and The Institute for the Study of Post-Secondary Pedagogy.

Points of interest:

I am interested in the structure of the English language and in the teaching of English to both native and non-native speakers of English. I am also interested in ways to transform pedagogy and integrate issues of race, class, gender, ethnicity, disability, and sexuality into the Curriculum.

As the Convener of the English as a Second Language Program, I work with international students and other non-native speakers of English and am a member of the New Jersey Council of Directors of ESL and Bilingual Programs in Higher Education. As a member of the Teacher Education Program, I work with pre-service teachers, developing innovative experiential models to help students learn how to respond to student writing and integrate writing into all certification areas. I have also trained English and ESL teachers in India as a Peace Corps Volunteer and in Peru as a Visiting Professor of Linguistics (through the Fulbright-Hays Program.)

My research interests are varied, as a sampling of my papers reveals. One recent paper focused on how awareness of such grammatical features of English as functional shift, voice, polysemy, and sentence complexity can aid the reading comprehension of ESL students. Another explored the development of innovative models of experiential learning for teacher certification students, while a third paper, entitled "Invisible Faces, Unheard Voices in ESL Textbooks," reported on my study of the relative absence of women, people of color and people with disabilities in college-level ESL textbooks. A fourth paper discussed ways to teach Holocaust literature in ESL classes in elementary and secondary schools. All, in one way or another, grow from my interests in pedagogy and language and from my desire to integrate the theoretical with the practical.