Six professors from the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences have been named Conrad Humanities Scholars, and three of them come from the School of Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics, including Melissa Bowles, Associate Professor Spanish and Portuguese.
Bowles’ interest in language began as a young child. Though her own parents only spoke English, her introduction to Spanish from Cuban American family friends sparked a lifelong pursuit of the language.
In graduate school specialized in instructed second language acquisition, with a focus on how adolescents and adults acquire a new language in a classroom setting. This is an environment most people can relate to, since students very often study a foreign language, such as Spanish or French, in high school or college.
It wasn’t until she arrived at Illinois in 2005 to teach Spanish, however, that she noticed that it wasn’t just English-speaking adults taking the Spanish class, but another group of learners: the children of Spanish-speaking families in America. She has subsequently developed a primary research interest in understanding how the two types of learners respond to instruction, as well as their similarities and differences.
Currently, Bowles is finishing her book, Instructed Heritage Language Acquisition, (Oxford Press), which examines the effects of heritage language instruction. In it, Bowles explores how heritage languages, or the minority languages that are spoken at home rather than the dominant language outside the home, develop and change. She also examines the effects of receiving instruction on the heritage language whether one is an adult or a young child.
Bowles said there’s evidence that providing instruction in a minority language not only helps students maintain and develop their home language skills and cultural connections; it also allows for similar or better learning outcomes in the learning and expression of English and other academic subjects. It backs up years of research identifying the cognitive benefits of bilingualism, she said.
She will use the grant money as a Conrad Humanities Scholar to recruit research participants, as well as to travel to national and international conferences.
“It really was an honor to find out I was one of the Conrad Humanities Scholars,” Bowles said. “It shows a real commitment on the part of LAS to humanities research. It’s a wonderful thing.”
The Conrad Humanities Scholar awards are funded by a gift from the late Arlys Conrad, whose estate gift shared by the College of LAS and the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences is intended to assist and retain promising mid-career faculty.