Allison N Yakel Ph.D.

Dr. Allison Yakel holds a Ph.D. in Hispanic Linguistics from the University of Houston. She has more than 7 years of teaching Spanish at the university level, from basic conversation to more complex industry-specific terminology. She has had the opportunity to teach Spanish as a second language and as a heritage language. Allison has also worked as an assistant instructor in elementary Japanese courses for gifted and talented children, alongside one of her dearest mentors. Her other specialties include phonology, phonetics, sociolinguistics and dialectology.

A Wisconsin native, Allison speaks Spanish as a second language, but is rated as a near-native speaker. She has lived and worked in Spanish-speaking countries, completed both her MA and Ph.D. completely in Spanish, and has an article published in Spanish-language academic journal based in Spain. She understands the language-learning process, because she has been through it. As a result, Allison excels at teaching tedious grammar concepts in the context of authentic communication. In other words: if we have to learn to conjugate verbs, we may as well be able to use them! In addition to Spanish, Allison has a working knowledge of Italian and basic Japanese.

Outside of teaching and tutoring, Allison works as a conversation designer in the tech industry. She also creates random coloring books depicting potatoes doing things.