Bio


Dr. Alice (Ali) Miano teaches Spanish at all levels from an antiracist, social justice standpoint. She also incorporates and studies the effects of community-engaged language learning (CELL), both in her classes and in the Spanish-speaking communities in which she and her students interact. Her work examines reciprocal gains as well as challenges in CELL, and likewise interrogates traditional notions of "service" and “help” while underscoring the community cultural wealth, resistance, and resilience (Yosso, 2005) found in under-resourced communities and communities of color. She and her second-year students of Spanish have teamed up on joint art projects with a local chapter of the Boys & Girls Club of the Peninsula and currently collaborate with the Mountain View Dayworker Center. Many of her third-year students have co-created digital storytelling projects with Stanford workers. 
 
Dr. Miano's current work examines the use of Critical Race Theory (CRT) as an analytical tool for students of Spanish who wish to gain deeper understandings of some of the social, cultural, and historical forces linking race and language. This work has found that CRT vitally engages students in the language classroom and may likewise lead to more robust communicative proficiency. In addition, her ethnographic research has examined the literate practices and parental school efforts of Mexican immigrant mothers in the Silicon Valley, finding that regardless of the mothers' (in)access to formal education, they supported their children's schooling in a variety of ways, many of which go unrecognized by educators and the society at large.
 
Dr. Miano has also volunteered to assist asylum seekers through the CARA Probono Project at the South Texas Family Detention Center in Dilley, TX; Al Otro Lado in Tijuana, Mexico; the Services, Immigration Rights, and Education Network (SIREN) in the San Francisco Bay Area, and Freedom for Immigrants.
 
In addition, as a workshop facilitator certified by ACTFL in the Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) and Writing Proficiency Test (WPT), Dr. Miano has been privileged to engage with language instructors at various points around the globe--including Madagascar and Timor Leste, as well as a variety of Latin American countries from Paraguay to Mexico--on behalf of both ACTFL and the U.S. Peace Corps.

Academic Appointments


Administrative Appointments


  • Coordinator, Spanlang Language Program (1996 - Present)

Honors & Awards


  • Faculty Fellow, Stanford University Haas Center for Public Service (2018)
  • Gores Award for Excellence in Teaching, Stanford University (1997)
  • Outstanding Dissertation, American Educational Research Association Family, School & Community Partnership SIG (2012)

Boards, Advisory Committees, Professional Organizations


  • President, California Language Teachers Association (CLTA) (2024 - Present)
  • Secretary, ACTFL African American Students Special Interest Group (AAS SIG) (2023 - Present)
  • Board Member, California World Language Project (2022 - Present)
  • Board Member and CLTA Affiliate Representative, National Federation of Modern Language Teachers Associations (2022 - Present)
  • Chair, ACTFL Critical & Social Justice Approaches Special Interest Group (CSJA SIG) (2020 - 2022)
  • President, American Association of Teachers of Spanish & Portuguese (AATSP), Northern California Chapter (2020 - 2022)
  • Board Member and Affiliate Representative to CLTA, Foreign Language Association of Northern California (FLANC) (2019 - 2022)

Additional Program Affiliations


  • Center for Latin American Studies

2024-25 Courses


All Publications


  • Abriendo caminos: Breaking new ground in community-engaged learning Engaging the world: Social pedagogies and language learning Brates, V., Del Carpio, C., Miano, A. A., Houts, P., Carvajal, I., Barco, M. Cengage. 2018: 87–108
  • Building community connections with the Boys & Girls Clubs of America The Language Educator Miano, A. A. 2018; 13 (4): 48-50
  • Exploring blended learning in a postsecondary Spanish Language Program: Observations, perceptions and proficiency ratings Foreign Language Annals Romeo, K., Bernhardt, E. B., Miano, A. A., Malik Lefell, C. 2017; 50 (4): 681-696

    View details for DOI 10.1111/flan.12295

  • Exploring the Effects of a Short-Term Spanish Immersion Program in a Postsecondary Setting FOREIGN LANGUAGE ANNALS Miano, A. A., Bernhardt, E. B., Brates, V. 2016; 49 (2): 287-301

    View details for DOI 10.1111/flan.12194

    View details for Web of Science ID 000379551100008

  • Schools reading parents' worlds: Mexican immigrant mothers building family literacy networks Multicultural Education Miano, A. A. 2011; 18 (2): 25-33
  • A chronicle of standards-based curricular reform in a research university Principles and practices of the standards in college foreign language education Bernhardt, E. B., Valdés, G., Miano, A. A. edited by Scott, V. Heinle & Heinle. 2009: 54–85
  • Hybridity as literacy, literacy as hybridity: Dialogic responses to a heteroglossic world. Bakhtinian Perspectives on Language, Literacy and Learning. Miano, A. A. edited by Ball, A., Freedman, S. Cambridge University Press. 2004