You are here: American University College of Arts & Sciences TESOL Faculty and Staff

TESOL Faculty and Staff

Polina Vinogradova Hurst Senior Professorial Lecturer & TESOL Program Director CAS | World Languages and Cultures

Dr. Vinogradova is interested in the use of digital technology, specifically digital stories, in language education and in postmethod pedagogy and advocacy in language teacher development. Her recent …

Ìý vinograd@american.edu

Ìý (202) 885-1446

Faculty Research Interests


Reading in print versus digitally, mobile communication, electronically-mediated communication, relationship between spoken and written language, history and structure of English, language in social context.


Indo-European and psycholinguistics, morphology, relationship between language learning and language change.


Advocacy and student empowerment; multiliteracies and multimodality; pedagogical uses of digital storytelling; postmethod pedagogy in teacher education.

Sarah Knowles
Second language acquisition, language teaching methods, applied linguistics, metalinguistic awareness, and working with low-literate adult learners.


Language teacher education, culture in language teaching and learning, student-centered and interactive language teaching methods, equitable learning opportunities for ELLs.

Faculty

Naomi Baron Prof Emerita

Naomi Baron’s research interests include language and technology, reading, first language acquisition, the relationship between speech and writing, the history and structure of English, and higher edu…

Ìý (202) 885-2455

Robin Barr Linguist-in-Residence CAS | World Languages and Cultures

Prof. Barr holds a PhD in Linguistics from Harvard with concentrations in both Indo-European and psycholinguistics. Her research on morphology involves the relationship between language learning and l…

Ìý rbarr@american.edu

Ìý (202) 885-2582

Tabitha Kidwell Senior Professorial Lecturer CAS | World Languages and Cultures

Tabitha Kidwell is a language teacher and teacher educator interested in innovative approaches to language teaching, language teacher education, and the development of intercultural competence. She ha…

Ìý tkidwell@american.edu

Sarah Knowles Senior Professorial Lecturer CAS | World Languages and Cultures

Sarah Young Knowles specializes in second language acquisition, language teaching methods and teacher education, and instructional design. She earned her doctorate in applied linguistics at Georgetown…

Ìý syoung@american.edu

Ìý (202) 885-2130