Bienvenidos

Welcome to the Viña del Mar 2017 Blog. We are so excited to work with our students this summer. This will be a great learning experience and we can't wait to show you the wonders that Chile, its people and its culture have to offer. As we prepare for our departure, we will post some useful information. For now, let's meet our instructors:

Lindsay Giacomino (Student Coordinator, Grammar Instructor)

Lindsay is originally from California, but grew up in central Minnesota, where she received a double major in Linguistics and Spanish. She studied abroad in Chile and attended the Universidad de Concepción. After receiving her degree, she was a Fulbright Scholar, living and teaching in a colonial town in the Andes Mountains in Colombia. She is currently teaching Spanish at IU, where she is also pursuing a Ph.D. in Hispanic Linguistics. Her research interests include Instructed Second Language Acquisition, Task-Basked Language Teaching, Phonetics and Phonology. In her free time, she enjoys spending time outdoors, swimming, playing guitar, cooking up a storm, and traveling any chance she gets! She will teach the Spanish Grammar course, where students will sharpen their understanding of grammatical concepts through communicative activities and experiential learning.

Matt Johnson (Financial Coordinator, Literature Instructor) Matt is from Bloomington, Indiana. After graduating high school (BHSN, 2002), he attended the University of Florida, where he received a double major in Political Science and Spanish. During undergraduate studies he spent one semester studying abroad in Santiago, Chile, and two semesters in Buenos Aires, Argentina. After graduating, he was an English Language Instructor in the United States Peace Corps, living and teaching in a rural village on the eastern steppe of Mongolia. Upon returning to the United States, he found his way back to Bloomington and began his graduate studies at IU in 2011. He received an MA in Hispanic Literatures in 2013, and is currently working on his doctorate. His research focuses on 20^th-and 21^st-century Argentine literature. During his time at IU, he has taught introductory and intermediate language courses in Spanish, as well as advanced grammar courses and an introductory course in Hispanic Literatures. In his free time, he enjoys reading, cooking, playing and watching sports, and spending time outdoors in the beautiful forests of Southern Indiana. 

Fernando Melero García( Logistics Coordinator, Linguistics Instructor)

Fernando is from Martos, Spain. After completing a B.A. in Translation and Interpretation at the University of Granada, Fernando came to the United States to teach Spanish. After a year of teaching Spanish for native speakers at a high school in Houston, TX, he moved to New Mexico where he got an M.A. in Hispanic Linguistics and where he taught Spanish as a second language. He is currently teaching Spanish at IU, where he is also pursuing a Ph.D. in Hispanic Linguistics. His research interests include Sociolinguistics, Second Language Acquisition, and Phonetics and Phonology. In his free time, he enjoys traveling, the outdoors, biking, and going out with friends. In Viña del Mar, Fernando will teach the Introduction to Hispanic Linguistics course where students will discover and further explore some of the components of Linguistics such as Phonetics, Morphology, Pragmatics, Sociolinguistics, and languages in contact in Chile.

Cecilia Stanton-Verduzco (Public Relations, Culture Instructor) 

Cecilia was born in Arizona, but grew up most of her life in Linares, Chile. She returned to the US to attend the University of Notre Dame where she received her BA in Romance Languages and Literature and a minor in Latin American Studies. She then realized that she wanted to be a teacher, and while starting her career she received her Masters in Secondary Education from IUSB. She has taught Spanish in Northern Indiana for the past 10 years and has absolutely loved it. Her favorite part of teaching is opening a door into the world for her students to explore. In her free time, she loves to spend time with her family, watch movies, travel, play the guitar and dance. She will be teaching the culture class and she is excited to share her beautiful country with her new students.