Spanish/Bilingual-Multicultural Education Concentration

Combines courses in the Spanish program with select courses in the College of Education and Human Development

Russell Galloway, 2022

Russell Galloway

After completing his MA in Foreign Languages with a concentration in Spanish at Mason, Russell heads to the University of Alabama, where he will pursue a PhD in Spanish. We asked him to share his thoughts about his time at Mason and to offer advice for future students and applicants.

 What are your career plans and goals?

Although I am staying in education, I’m transitioning from the K-12 level to college. I hope to eventually teach undergraduate Spanish at a liberal arts institution. Additionally, I’d like to promote positive attitudes towards Spanish and heritage language education in the southern US’s rural public schools.

 What do you enjoy about teaching?

I like helping students see how bi/multilingualism comes as a malleable treasure. Through linguistics and language learning, students can enjoy and employ Spanish in their various occupations and (hopefully!) cross-cultural friendships. Through literature, I help students both critique and appreciate a cultural inheritance while also becoming good judges of vice and virtue who empathize with narrative and characters. As my students learn Spanish language, culture, and literature, I hope to inspire them toward a common vocation of seeking the public good.

How did your Mason degree program prepare you for your career?

My professors illustrated (via their research) and instilled (via their good teaching) a robust view of language learning and learner profiles. For monolinguals, the language learning experience puts an otherwise competent, apt student in a place of need and powerlessness–– and when monolingual students can embrace such linguistic ignorance, it engenders competence, humility, and even empathy for bi/multilinguals. For bi/multilinguals, the language learning experience can (and should!) draw upon the students’ competencies without problematizing or penalizing their linguistic status–– which teaches heritage language students the value of their prior life experiences and classroom contributions.

What did you like best about your time at Mason?

Even as I took classes online due to COVID19, the professors were interpersonal and focused on student development. They complete research and move fields forward while maintaining a student focus and giving detailed feedback on our assignments. The professors are a talented group!

Do you have any advice for current students or applicants?

Read the articles assigned for class! This enriches the class time and honors the investment of your classmates and professors.  Moreover, contribute to academic discourse beyond GMU! Try to engage with the authors you read on social media, or via email. Connecting the articles and theory with authors’ faces and research goals helps the student see the practical value of the research and reading.

Read faculty webpages to learn about the research our GMU professors are doing! Several professors are building sociolinguistically informed approaches to language teaching that supplant and disrupt traditional classroom models and learner categories. These new framings help to honor Hispanic students in ways that bestow dignity, draws them out, and legitimizes their presence. Other faculty are publishing exciting research in other fields as well.