Profile

Biography

Carmen is a linguist, a philologist and a highly qualified and experienced Spanish language teacher, who has taught a great variety of courses covering a wide ability range of students – from complete beginners to advanced level (C2). She is a qualified teacher of both Spanish and English as a foreign language with over 20 years of teaching experience.

During the 2013/14 academic year Carmen designed, developed and coordinated TANGO (Themed Autonomous Navigation Global Opus), a long distance collaborative e-learning project. TANGO was piloted between February and May 2014. Using TANGO our students in York practised and learnt Spanish while they discovered Asturias, the Spanish Northern region where Carmen is from, learning about its main cities and their traditions, were introduced to Spanish political geography, learnt about Spanish food, pop and alternative music, hobbies, art, film, literature and festivals, etc. Similarly, in return, students at the University of Oviedo (Asturias) discovered Yorkshire and its cities, British political geography, traditions, etc. Students in both countries following the themes presented in each task, studied and researched a variety of topics, as well as being exposed to new vocabulary and expressions. They discussed what they had discovered with their partners and shared opinions and experiences. Furthermore, they helped one another clarifying any issues they encountered in a student led learning partnership.

The following academic year, 2014/15 Carmen presented TANGO at the Area 8 MFL Conference 2015, celebrated in Ampleforth College on 6th of March 2015; at the Languages in the Globalised World (LGW) Conference, an international conference celebrated at Leeds Beckett University on 27th-28th May; at the Innovative Language Teaching and Learning at University (#InnoConf15) Conference: Enhancing Participation and Collaboration, which took place at the University of Nottingham (University Park Campus) on 19th June; and, at EDULEARN15, the 7th International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies, celebrated in Barcelona on 6th-8th July 2015. 

Carmen taught more than 4,500 hours at Instituto Cervantes during seven years. In 2005 she was part of the Manchester Instituto Cervantes team who worked side by side with every other Instituto Cervantes around the world in order to adapt the complete academic curriculum of the Spanish Institution to the European Language Portfolio (ELP) levels. Carmen has also played a key role in the design and development of the Spanish Programme for the University of York Language and Linguistic Science department. As a voice over actress she has collaborated with various British organisations, such as: Greenwich Observatory, the National Portrait Gallery and St Martin’s-in-the-Fields. She has been recording Spanish AQA exams since 1999; and, has a wide and varied experience in translation.

Carmen’s academic background and her ample experience both as a learner and a teacher of foreign languages have given her a sound understanding of the learning process. In 2004 she studied an online course at the Universidad de La Rioja, as well as completing the Instituto Cervantes’s AVE course qualifying her as a distance learning Spanish tutor. This, her experience as a web and graphic designer, and her creative mind have influenced her to cultivate an interest in the design and development of teaching materials in digital formats: http://www.geocities.ws/elementary_01/. She has been actively involved in the use, development and promotion of the University’s VLE since 2008.

She is an inquisitive person with vast eclectic interests and tastes, and a thirst for knowledge. Carmen completed her PhD dissertation in Spanish Literature and Non-Verbal Communication in 1998, a field which has come into its own within academic fields in the new millennium.

Carmen is a socially aware woman, committed to striving for improvement at every level both professionally and personally. She supports Sands, Cancer Research UK and Macmillan charities. She is a spirited sportswoman, has been a volunteer in the 2012 London Olympics, and has a keen interest in music, literature, art and film.

Departmental Roles

• Athena SWAN Self-Assessment Team (SAT)
• MFL PAL and Intercultural PAL Coordinator

University Roles

• Facilitator and Assessor on the York Professional and Academic Development (YPAD) Scheme

Teaching

Current Teaching

Spanish Degree Programme:

Spanish Grammar (LAN00008C)

Languages for All Programme:

LFA Spanish Level 2 (LFA00010L)

Previous Teaching

Management IT and Languages (MITL) Management Degree core modules (Y1-3) Taught from 2005 to 2008

• Spanish Language For Business (LFB) 2
• Spanish LFB 2 Plus
• Spanish LFB 3 
• Spanish LFB 4
• Spanish LFB 5

English Department (new) modules (Y1-2) Taught from 2007 to 2011

• Spanish Reading Skills (RS) 1 (20 credits)
• Spanish RS 2, Lorca preparatory module (20 credits)

History of Art Department (new module) (Y1) Taught in 2010/2011

• Spanish for Art Historians Level 2 (20 credits)

Language and Linguistic Science (new module) (Y1) Taught in 2008/9

• Spanish Grammar

Languages For All (LFA) Year modules are worth 20 credits when chosen as an elective (Y1-Y3) Taught from 2005

• Spanish LFA 1
• Spanish LFA 2
• Spanish LFA 4 and 5 (two-level-group)
• Spanish LFA 5

Career

• LFA Spanish & Portuguese Coordinator, University of York (2016–2019)
• LFA Spanish Coordinator, University of York (2005-2016)
• LFB Spanish Coordinator, University of York (2005-2008)
• Leeds Beckett University, West Yorkshire, UK Spanish Lecturer
• Instituto Cervantes de Mánchester, Lancashire, UK Full-time Spanish Teacher & Spanish Coordinator
• Instituto Cervantes de Leeds, West Yorkshire, UK Spanish Tutor & Translation Teacher
• Instituto de Enseñanza Secundaria Padre Feijoo de Gijón, Asturias,Spain English as a Foreign Language Teacher
• Distinguished English Linguistics and Literature Alumnus of the University of Oviedo. 
  30th Anniversary of the Department of Anglo-Germanic and French Philology, University of Oviedo, Spain (13th November 2013).

Education

• University of Oviedo (Asturias), Spain - Doctorate in Spanish Philology
• University of Oviedo (Asturias), Spain - Curso de Adaptación Pedagógica. PGCE
• University of Leeds, West Yorkshire, UK - Completed my English degree with an Erasmus grant
• University of Oviedo (Asturias), Spain - Degree in English Philology. BA/MA

Publications

• Por qué nos gustan unas palabras más que otras The Conversation, September 2019
• Becerra, Nelson; Biasini, Rosalba; Magedera-Hofhansl, Hanna; Reimão, Ana (Eds). (2019). Innovative language teaching and learning at university: a look at new trends. Research-publishing.net. https://doi.org/10.14705/rpnet.2019.32.9782490057368 (Member of the Peer Reviewing Committee)
• Language: why we like some words more than others The Conversation, September 2018
• Álvarez-Mayo, Carmen; Gallagher-Brett, Angela; Michel, Franck (Eds). (2017). Innovative language teaching and learning at university: enhancing employability. Research-publishing.net. https://doi.org/10.14705/rpnet.2017.innoconf2016.9781908416506
• CMALT portfolio
• Álvarez-Mayo, Carmen (2016). TANGO, an international collaborative bilingual e-learning project. In Goria, Cecilia; Speicher, Oranna; Stollhans, Sascha (Eds), Innovative language teaching and learning at university: enhancing participation and collaboration (pp. 37-48). Research-publishing.net. https://doi.org/10.14705/rpnet.2016.00040
• Álvarez-Mayo, Carmen (2015). TANGO (Themed Autonomous Navigation Global Opus), A Bilingual International Collaborative E-Learning Project EDULEARN15 Proceedings, pp. 272-281. IATED, ISBN: 978-84-606-8243-1
• TANGO, a collaborative e-learning project. Forum Magazine, issue 37, Spring 2015
• TANGO website
• La Funcionalidad de lo No-Verbal en Una Comedia Ligera de Eduardo Mendoza. PhD dissertation, University of Oviedo, September 1998
• Richard Fleischer, entre el cielo y el infierno. (1997) Filmoteca Valenciana, ISBN: 84-482-1595-8. Published transcription and translation

External Activity