Ana Fernández Dobao works as an Assistant Professor at the University of Washington, Director of the Spanish Language Program. She had previously taught at the University of Montreal, Brown University and the University of Santiago de Compostela. She obtained her Ph.D from the University of Santiago de Compostela in 2005, with a dissertation on the use of communicative strategies by Spanish learners of English. She conducts research in the field of second language acquisition and her areas of interest include conversational interaction, sociocultural theory and task-based learning. She has published several articles in these areas and is now working on a project on the use of the first language as a cognitive tool in second language learning. She has also participated in SULEC (Santiago University Learner of English Corpus), a research project on learner language conducted at the University of Santiago de Compostela and funded by the Galician Ministry of Education.

Contact information:

Division of Spanish and Portuguese Studies

University of Washington

Padelford C-104

Box 354360

Seattle, WA 98195-4360, USA

E-mail: anadobao@u.washington.edu