This year, the Department of Romance and Classical Studies has new graduate assistantship roles, one of which is the GA role with the Center for Language Teaching Advancement’s Spanish Writing Center (SWC), whose main aim is to guide students in the writing process and improve their writing skills. This year, RCS M.A. student Maria Laura Zalazar (she/her/hers) is serving in that role. Among other responsibilities, Laura works closely with CeLTA leadership to oversee undergraduate employees of the Spanish Writing Center, serves as a Writing Consultant, interfaces with student organizations, and collaborates on research with other Big10 universities.

Laura is a second-year MA student in the Spanish as a Second or Bilingual Language Program. In addition to her role with the SWC, she has previously taught introductory and intermediate Spanish courses at MSU. Originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina, Laura graduated with a BA in Teaching English as a Foreign Language. For five years, she worked as a Teacher of English in various institutions ranging from elementary to adult education in Greater Buenos Aires. In 2018 she was the recipient of a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistantship and served as an instructor of Spanish and a cultural ambassador at Amherst College, Massachusetts.

Laura’s research interests primarily focus on second language acquisition, especially bi/multilingualism and second and heritage language development with a focus on reading and writing, teacher education, and language assessment.