Bruna Sommer Farias
- (she/her)
- Assistant Professor
- Center for Language Teaching Advancement
Biography
Bruna Sommer-Farias is core faculty and an Assistant Professor in the Master of Arts in Foreign Language Teaching (MAFLT) program at Michigan State University. She is also affiliated with the Second Language Studies (SLS) program and the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS). She holds a Ph.D. in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching from the University of Arizona.
Her research explores multiliteracies and genre-based approaches to world language instruction with special attention to how meaning is created together by teachers and students across multiple languages, genres and proficiency levels. She has also worked on corpus-informed approaches to world language instruction and less-commonly-taught languages, with special attention to asset-oriented approaches to learner corpora.
Works
Selected publications
Staples, S., Gorlova, A., Sommer-Farias, B., Vinokurova, V., Centanin-Bertho, Novikov, A. (2025). Asset-oriented approaches to learner corpora. L2 journal, 17(1), pp. 1-9. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5mt3w059
Sommer-Farias, B; Abdel-Malek, M. (2025) Literacy-based approaches to world language education. The Handbook of Research in World Language Instruction. Edited by Victoria Russell, Kathryn Murphy-Judy, Francis Troyan, Aleidine Moeller, Krishauna Hines-Gaither. Routledge.
Sommer-Farias, B. (2024) Multilingualism and Multicompetence. Conducting Genre-based Research in Applied Linguistics: A Methodological Guide. In C. Polio & M. Kessler (Eds.). Routledge.
Sommer-Farias, B., Vinokurova, V., Gorlova, A., Centanin-Bertho, M. (2023). Teaching with Learner Corpus Data. The FLTMAG (November, 2023). https://fltmag.com/teaching-learner-corpus-data/
Tardy, C., Sommer-Farias, B., Gevers, J. (2020). Teaching and Researching Genre Knowledge: Toward an Enhanced Theoretical Framework. Written Communication, 37(3), 287-321.
Research projects
Teaching toward multiliteracies in world language courses, funded by The Center for Educational Resources in Culture, Language and Literacy (CERCLL, University of Arizona) (co-director Kristin Michelson, Texas Tech University)
Virtual Video-Based Inquiry for Development of Less-Commonly-Taught Language Teachers, funded by the National Less-Commonly-Taught-Languages Language Resource Center (NLRC, Michigan State University)(co-facilitators Amanda Lanier, Frederick Poole, Michigan State University)
Multilingual Academic Corpus of Assignments, Writing and Speech (MACAWS), funded by the Department of Education and CERCLL (PI Shelley Staples, University of Arizona). Available at https://macaws.corporaproject.org/
Videos
College of Arts & Letters News
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