DEPARTMENT OF SPANISH & PORTUGUESE

Ana Williams currently teaches Portuguese 115 - Portuguese for Spanish Speakers, Portuguese 201 - Portuguese Reading and Speaking, Portuguese 202 - Portuguese Reading and Writing, and Portuguese 303 – Topics in Advanced Portuguese.

Her areas of research and interest are:

• Intercultural Communication
• Foreign and second language acquisition by speakers of Spanish, French, English and Portuguese
• Portuguese language teaching and learning in the USA
• Technology in the Foreign Language Classroom
• Lusophone studies


Ana C. Thomé Williams holds both her MA and her PhD in Linguistics from the University of São Paulo. 
In her MA research, she did a study in Applied Linguistics where she observed the relationship between age and the onset of learning a foreign language at school. She did a study with preschool children learning English in public schools in Brazil. Her findings were published in journals in Brazil and Italy.


In her PhD research, she was concerned with cultural matters and their application to language teaching and learning. She did a cross-linguistic and cultural comparison between French and Brazilian soccer announcers’ discourse. She published a book that discusses her findings. 

In her book, "O Jogo Narrado, um cruzamento linguístico-cultural da locução de futebol no Brasil e na França", published by Paco Editorial, São Paulo, 2013, she analyzes cultural and linguistic aspects in mass media communication through language uses in Portuguese and French.  

She is the co-editor of the book the book  "Práticas em Português língua estrangeira em isolamento social - provocações para uma era pós-covid",  published by Editora Pontes, Campinas, 2022.  This book, on Portuguese language teaching/learning around the world, reflects the pedagogical challenges during the Pandemic and the outcomes. It received the American Organization of Teachers of Portuguese AOTP Prize for Best Academic Publication (2023).

Currently, she is preparing a book for Intermediate Students in Portuguese (Open Educational Resource) and is
Ana has been giving lectures on teaching and learning languages for a long time. In the last few years, she has presented research findings, led workshops or have been a guest speaker in conferences in North or South America, Europe, Africa (Cape Verde) and Asia (Japan and Macao).   

She is the co-founder and the co-chair of the Illinois Portuguese Language Connection, a program that connects Portuguese language students in Illinois;  board member of the International Association of Intercultural Communication Studies Association (IAICS) and Executive Director of the “Encontro Mundial do Ensino do Português” (EMEP), an international conference on Portuguese Language Teaching,  organized by the American Organization of Teachers of Portuguese.