DEPARTMENT OF SPANISH & PORTUGUESE

María Jesús Barros García is a Professor of Instruction at Northwestern University, where she also serves as Director of the Spanish Language Program. She earned her Ph.D. with Honors in Spanish Linguistics and an M.A. in Teaching Spanish as a Second Language from the University of Granada. From 2011 to 2012, she completed postdoctoral research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research interests include intercultural pragmatics, politeness theory, and second language acquisition. Dr. Barros has authored over thirty publications in these areas and has presented her work at numerous national and international conferences.

Dr. Barros has a broad range of teaching experience across undergraduate and graduate programs. Her undergraduate courses span linguistics, literature, culture, border studies, language pedagogy, film, Spanish as a heritage language, Spanish for specific purposes, community-based learning, and all levels of Spanish as a second/foreign language. At the graduate level, she teaches curriculum development and assessment, methods for teaching Spanish as a second language, intercultural communication, and pragmatic competence in language learners.

At Northwestern, she actively contributes to university life through service on multiple committees. She has coordinated Spanish 121 and co-organized Tacita de Café, an extracurricular initiative that fosters community among Spanish heritage speakers by celebrating and engaging with their cultural and linguistic heritage.

Beyond Northwestern, Dr. Barros is an ACTFL OPI Certified Tester and a certified DELE examiner, accredited by the Spanish Ministry of Education. Her professional service includes roles such as member of the AP Spanish Language and Culture Development Committee, Vice-Chair of ACTFL’s Critical and Social Justice Approaches SIG, Vice-President and Communications/PD Coordinator for the Downstate Illinois chapter of AATSP, and Collaborator Member of the North American Academy of the Spanish Language, among other leadership positions in the field.