Alan V. Brown | University of Kentucky College of Arts & Sciences

Alan V. Brown

Professor of Spanish Applied Linguistics

Director of Graduate Studies

On a personal level, I am the happy father of 4 children [Grace, Ashton (deceased), Abigail, and Amanda)] and an even happier husband to my wife, Andrea! I enjoy commuting to the university on my bike year round when the weather permits and pull out the tennis/pickleball racket, beach volleyball, and basketball when time permits. I also enjoy performing in local (musical) theater when time allows and directors consent!

Contact Information

alan.brown@uky.edu

1127 Patterson Office Tower

859-257-7093

Education

Ph.D., Second Language Acquistion and Teaching, University of Arizona, 2006; M.A., Spanish Teaching, Brigham Young University, 2001; TESOL Graduate Certificate, 1999; B.A., Spanish Teaching--Secondary Certification, Brigham Young University, 1998

Research Interests

Spanish Applied Linguistics
Second Language Acquisition
L2 Pedagogy and Assessment

Affiliations

Hispanic Studies
Masters in Teaching World Languages
Teaching English as a Second Language

Curriculum Vitae (CV)

Research

My research interests relate to the myriad issues involved in the teaching and learning of Spanish, particularly those concerning acquisition, pedagogy, and assessment. I have had articles appear in the Modern Language Journal, Language Testing, Hispania, Journal of Teaching Spanish, Foreign Language Annals, and the Journal of Hispanic Higher Education. In 2018, Georgetown University Press published a book I co-authored with my colleague, Dr. Greg L. Thompson at BYU, related to the changing nature of post-secondary Spanish language education in the United States. More recently in 2021, my co-authors (Yanira Paz and Earl Brown) and I published a pedagogical grammar of Spanish which incorporated spoken and written corpora entitled ¨El léxico-gramática del español: Una aproximación mediante la linguística de corpus¨ as part of Routledge´s Introductions to Spanish Language and Linguistics series. I served as third author for the recently published second edition of Vista Higher Learning's beginning and intermediate Spanish language textbook series entitled "Experiencias". I am currently finishing a 52-chapter edited book project entitled "The Routledge Handbook of Language Program Development and Administration", for which I have served as co-editor with three colleagues (Beatrice Dupuy, Cori Crane, and Estela Ene).

Areas of Specialty

L2 Spanish language pedagogy
L2 Spanish language assessment
(Spanish) Second Language Acquisition
(Spanish) Applied Linguistics

Selected Publications

Selected Publications:

BOOKS

Brown, A.V., Crane, C., Dupuy, B., & Ene, E. (Editors). The Routledge Handbook of Language Program Administration. Routledge. (forthcoming).

Ceo-DiFrancesco, D., Thompson, G., Brown, A., & Barton, K. (2025). Experiencias: Beginning Spanish (2nd. ed.) Vista Higher Learning.

Ceo-DiFrancesco, D., Thompson, G., Brown, A., & Barton, K. (2025). Experiencias: Intermediate Spanish (2nd. ed.) Vista Higher Learning.

Brown, A.V., Paz, Y., & Brown, E. (2021). El léxico-gramática del español: Una aproximación mediante la lingüística de corpus. Routledge Press.

Brown, A.V., & Thompson, G. (2018). The Changing Landscape of Spanish Language Curricula: Designing Higher Education Programs for Diverse Students. Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press.

ARTICLES/BOOK CHAPTERS

Isabelli-García, C., Brown, A.V., & Lord, G. (forthcoming). Spanish language program design and administration: Fundamental Considerations. In M. Lacorte (Ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Hispanic Applied Linguistics (pagination pending). Routledge.

Muñoz-Basols, J., & Brown, A.V. (forthcoming). Spanish language program development and administration. In AV. Brown, C. Crane, B. Dupuy, E. Ene (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Language Program Development and Administration (pagination pending). Routledge.

Cox, T., Brown, A.V., & Malone, M.E. (forthcoming). Understanding the role of standardized exams in second language programs. In A.V. Brown, C. Crane, B. Dupuy, E. Ene (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Language Program Development and Administration (pagination pending). Routledge.

Brown, A., DuBravac, S., Toland, M., & Brown, E.K. (2023). Metalinguistic awareness in Spanish partial immersion and English-only elementary students. Journal of Spanish Language Teaching, 10, 29-44.

Cox, T., Brown, A., & Thompson, G. (2023). Temporal Fluency Features in the ACTFL Spanish OPIc: An Investigation into Floor and Ceiling Scoring. Language Testing, 40(2), 325-351. https://doi.org/10.1177/02655322221114614

Dueber, D. M., Toland, M. D., Lingat, J. E. M., Love, A. M. A., Qiu, C., Wu, R., & Brown, A. V. (2022). To reverse item orientation or not to reverse item orientation, that is the question. Assessment, 29(7), 1422-1440. https://doi.org/10.1177/10731911211017635

Brown, A., Thompson, G., & Cox, T. (2021). ACTFL OPIc Question Prompt and Advanced Spanish Fluency. In M. Menke & P. Malovrh (Eds.), Advancedness in Second Language Spanish: Definitions, Challenges and Possibilities (pp. 41-63). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.