Department of Spanish and Portuguese

I have been teaching Spanish since 2006 and have taught at numerous universities including Miami University (OH), IPFW (now Purdue, Fort Wayne), the University of Saint Francis, University at Albany SUNY, and Indiana University. I am currently the supervisor for First-Year Spanish (S105). In 2022, I received a Summer Instructional Development Fellowship from IU’s Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning to redesign First-Year Spanish (S105) incorporating a semester-long series of low-stakes task-based assessments.

My teaching is informed by my research (and my research by my teaching). My research agenda lies at the intersection of second language acquisition, sociolinguistics, and phonetics/phonology. I explore topics such as the acquisition of sociophonetic variation, acquisition of phonetics and phonology in the classroom and during study abroad, and the application of task-based language teaching to pronunciation learning. I am also interested in second language acquisition research methods.

 

Recent and forthcoming publications

Books and edited volumes:

• Geeslin, K. L., Long, A. Y., & Solon, M. (2021). The acquisition of Spanish as a second language: Foundations and new developments. Routledge.
• Kanwit, M., & Solon, M. (Eds.). (under contract). Communicative competence in a second language: Theory, method, and applications. Routledge.

Journal special issues:

• Solon, M., & Park, H. I. (Eds.). (accepted). Elicited imitation in second language acquisition research: New insights to advance methodological rigor. Research Methods in Applied Linguistics.
• Gurzynski-Weiss, L., Long, A. Y., & Solon, M. (Eds.) (2017). TBLT and L2 pronunciation: Do the benefits of tasks extend beyond grammar and lexis? Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 39(2) [thematic issue].

Peer-reviewed articles and chapters:

• Geeslin, K. L., Daidone, D., Long, A. Y., & Solon, M. (in press). Usage-based models of second language acquisition: Language use in context and additional language learning. In M. Díaz-Campos & S. Balasch (Eds.), The handbook of usage-based linguistics. Wiley
• Kanwit, M., & Solon, M. (in press). Variable outcomes abroad: Exploring the role of pre-program proficiency in the development of Spanish future-time expression. In S. Zahler, A. Y. Long, & B. Linford (Eds.), Study abroad and the second language acquisition of sociolinguistic variation in Spanish. Benjamins.
• Solon, M., & Kanwit, M. (2022). New methods for tracking development of sociophonetic competence: Exploring a preference task for Spanish /d/ deletion. Applied Linguistics. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1093/applin/amac009
• Montenegro, M., Valdez, D., Solon, M., Turner, R. C., Lo, W.-J., Crawford, B. C., & Jozkowski, K. N. (2022). Abortion legality and morality: A pilot study examining the influence of religiosity on abortion attitudes among a sample of US Latinxs. Journal of Religion & Society, 24, 1-22.
• Solon, M., Park, H. I., Dehghan-Chaleshtori, M.*, Carver, C., & Long, A. Y. (2022). Exploring an elicited imitation task as a measure of heritage language proficiency. Studies in Second Language Acquisition. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1017/S0272263121000905
• Solon, M., & Pozzi, R. (2022). Language-specific research on second language sociolinguistics in Spanish. In K. L. Geeslin (Ed.), Routledge handbook of second language acquisition and sociolinguistics (pp. 408-419). Routledge.
• Park, H. I., Solon, M., Dehghan-Chaleshtori, M.*, & Ghanbar, H. (2022). Proficiency reporting practices in SLA research: Have we made any progress? Language Learning, 72(1), 198-236.
• Long, A., Y., & Solon, M. (2021). The impact of a short-term stay abroad on L2 Spanish syntactic complexity development in narratives. Study Abroad Research in Second Language Acquisition and International Education, 6, 163-188.
• Geeslin, K., Gudmestad, A., Hasler Barker, M., Kanwit, M., Long, A., & Solon, M. (2021). Sociolinguistic competence among heritage speakers of Spanish abroad: Key findings, critical gaps, and contributions to variation theory. In R. Pozzi, T. Quan, & C. Escalante (Eds.), Heritage speakers of Spanish and study abroad (pp. 13-32). Routledge.