Begona Arechabaleta Regulez

Begoña Arechabaleta Regulez was born and raised in Bilbao, a city located in the Basque Country region of Spain. She holds a BA in Modern Languages from Universidad de Deusto as well as MA and PhD degrees in Spanish Linguistics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her PhD dissertation focused on understanding language variation in monolingual and bilingual communities from a psycholinguistic perspective. She has also conducted extensive research on language acquisition, especially by bilingual children and heritage speakers of Spanish living in the United States.

At the University of Illinois, Begoña had the opportunity to teach not only a wide variety of subjects but also a diverse range of students of all ages and abilities. One of her main priorities when teaching is to create an engaging learning environment in which students are enthusiastic about the process of learning a new language. For example, as a graduate student, she worked to implement virtual reality technologies into language classrooms by designing activities that immerse students in linguistic and cultural contexts of their target language. Begoña believes that new technologies, like virtual reality, can play a significant role in language classrooms of the future. She is committed to continue developing and utilizing innovative teaching strategies suitable for all learners.