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Dr Lluisa Astruc

Profile summary

  • Central Academic Staff
  • Academic Lead for Level 1 Languages
  • Faculty of Wellbeing, Education & Language Studies
  • School of Languages & Applied Linguistics
  • Languages
  • lluisa.astruc

Professional biography

Before joining the Department of Spanish as Lecturer, I have worked as Affiliated Lecturer  in the Department of Spanish, University of Cambridge (since 2007), Associate Researcher at the Centre Neuroscience in Education, University of Cambridge (2008), Research Assistant at The Open University (2006), and as an Associate Lecturer of Spanish (The Open University, 2006-2008). 

Research interests

My research has dealt with all areas of Modern Languages and Linguistics. For instance, my first research interest was dystopian novels written by women. After completing a Master and a PhD in the Laboratory of Phonetics, University of Cambridge, my expertise expanded to speech and the interfaces of prosody, pragmatics, and syntax.

I have led or collaborated in several research projects over the last few years.  My work on these projects has contributed to advance the knowledge of the intonation of Catalan and Spanish dialects, of the interrelation between prosodic sensitivity and reading ability, and between intonation and politeness.

My new research interests include the application of playful learning and gaming principles to education (e.g. leading on an internally-funded project, 2019-20) and communication (leading on an internally-funded project involving a climate change simulation game, 2020-ongoing).

Teaching interests

Spanish language and linguistics. For instance, I coordinate, the OU advanced-level course in Spanish. I have taught Spanish linguistics as an Affiliated Lecturer (University of Cambridge) and Spanish language at beginners and intermediate level as an Associated Lecturer (The Open University).

Publications

Accessibility of Open Educational Resources: how well are they suited for English learners? (2023-01)
Rets, Irina; Coughlan, Tim; Stickler, Ursula and Astruc, Lluïsa
Open Learning: The Journal of Open and Distance Learning, 38(1) (pp. 38-57)

Approaches to simplifying academic texts in English: English teachers’ views and practices (2022-10)
Rets, Irina; Astruc, Lluïsa; Coughlan, Tim and Stickler, Ursula
English for Specific Purposes, 68 (pp. 31-46)

An exploratory study of translanguaging practices in an online beginners' foreign language classroom (2017-05-24)
Adinolfi, Lina and Astruc, Lluïsa
Language Learning in Higher Education. Journal of the European Confederation of Language Centres in Higher Education (CercleS), 7(1) (pp. 185-204)

Intonational phonology and politeness in L1 and L2 Spanish (2016-05-01)
Astruc, Lluïsa and del Mar Vanrell, Maria
Probus, 28(1) (pp. 91-118)

Current challenges for bilingual teacher education – the multilingual classroom (2024-03-28)
Astruc, Lluïsa and García, M. Paz Marín
In: Ramírez-Verdugo, M. Dolores ed. Transnational Approaches to Bilingual and Second Language Teacher Education (pp. 137-158)
ISBN : 9781003348580 | Publisher : Routledge | Published : New York

Simplification of open educational resources in English: Its effect on text processing of English learners (2022)
Rets, Irina; Stickler, Ursula; Coughlan, Tim and Astruc, Lluïsa
In: Rienties, Bart; Hampel, Regine; Scanlon, Eileen and Whitelock, Denise eds. Open World Learning: Research, Innovation and the Challenges of High-Quality Education. Routledge Research in Digital Education and Educational Technology (pp. 89-102)
ISBN : 9781003177098 | Publisher : Routledge | Published : London

Cost of the action and social distance affect the selection of question intonation in Catalan (2016-03-31)
Astruc, Lluisa; Vanrell, Maria del Mar and Prieto, Pilar
In: Armstrong, Meghan E.; Henriksen, Nicholas and Vanrell, Maria del Mar eds. Intonational Grammar in Ibero-Romance: Approaches across linguistic subfields (pp. 91-114)
ISBN : 9789027258052 | Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing Company