After graduating from Wellesley College with a B.A. in biology and pre-med, I spent 20 years in Arequipa, Peru.  There I taught English and directed language programs at Prescott Anglo American School and the Universidad Católica Santa María.  On returning to the U.S., I started graduate work at the University of Arizona, eventually earning a Ph.D. in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching.  My dissertation topic was Quechua first language acquisition, specifically the acquisition of morphosyntax, and I have been exploring this topic ever since.  I have carried out fieldwork in the Peruvian Andes of Arequipa and Ancash, and I continue collecting Quechua child language data in Cusco, Peru.  I have published articles on the acquisition of Quechua verb meaning, relative clauses, and evidentiality, and I have presented my research at professional meetings such as the Penn Linguistics Colloquium, the Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, the Congress of the International Association for the Study of Child Language, and the Workshop on American Indigenous Languages. 

Here in the Juárez-El Paso border region, I have had the opportunity to investigate school-aged children’s ability to interpret figurative language in English and Spanish.  At UTEP, I co-direct the Language Acquisition Research Lab (LAR Lab), which provides students the opportunity of learning how to do research in language acquisition and bilingualism through hands-on experience.  Additionally, I have directed foreign language programs (English and Spanish) in Peru and the U.S., and I have given workshops and courses for language teachers in the U.S., Peru, and Ecuador.

Please visit my Selected Works website: http://works.bepress.com/ellenhcourtney/