Shannon Millikin
Associate Professor of Instruction
M.A., University of Illinois, Chicago
- s-millikin@northwestern.edu
- 847-467-0227
- 3-132 Crowe
Shannon Millikin is an Associate Professor of Instruction in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. She received her M.A. in Hispanic Studies from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Areas of special interests include second language acquisition, task-based language teaching, phonetics and phonology and Spanish for the professions.
Shannon currently teaches Intermediate Spanish 121 and Spanish Phonetics and Phonology. At Northwestern and other institutions Shannon has taught at many levels from elementary Spanish to content courses to Linguistics to the graduate methods course. In her language courses Shannon prioritizes a foundation of compelling, diverse, and comprehensible input, ample time dedicated to interpersonal communication, the completion of real-world tasks, and the development of intercultural competence.
Shannon currently teaches Intermediate Spanish 121 and Spanish Phonetics and Phonology. At Northwestern and other institutions Shannon has taught at many levels from elementary Spanish to content courses to Linguistics to the graduate methods course. In her language courses Shannon prioritizes a foundation of compelling, diverse, and comprehensible input, ample time dedicated to interpersonal communication, the completion of real-world tasks, and the development of intercultural competence.
She has secured grants for many pedagogical projects and research from a variety of sources, including six Weinberg Hewlett Grants. Most recently these include a WCAS Curricular Funding Grant a project titled “A Seat at the table for Afro-Latinx Voices,” and a Hewlett Grant for Curricular Innovation titled “Colombian Partnerships for Spanish Language and Cultural Competence.” Read more here. Shannon cares deeply about diversity, equity and inclusion and has dedicated years to listening and learning to be able to make informed, positive change in the curriculum, in the workplace, and off campus. In turn, she has shared her work at regional, national, and international conferences and invited talks.
Shannon is active in the profession and in the community. In the department she has served in the roles of Spanish Placement Coordinator, Assistant Director of the Spanish Language Program, Intermediate Spanish course coordinator, mentor for graduate students and colleagues, coordinator of several extracurricular activities, and equity representative for faculty searches. Additionally, she is the faculty advisor for the Northwestern student group Knitwestern, a long-standing fellow of the International Studies Residential College, and a member and funds subcommittee member of the Council on Language Instruction.
Beyond Northwestern Shannon is a board member of Central States and serves as the Program Chair for the 2025 conference. She is excited to bring together hundreds of language faculty, advocates, researchers in 2025 to learn about Global Goals, Global Languages: the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals in the language classroom. She is also a member of the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese and the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, SIG Comprehension-Based Communicative Language Teaching, where she enjoys connecting with colleagues and staying up to date in the field.