Home Department: School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies (MENAS)
SLAT Areas of Specialization: Instructional Dimensions of L2 Learning, Sociocultural Dimensions of L2 Learning
Dr. Sonia Shiri is a Professor in MENAS, the Middle East Language Programs Coordinator for MENAS, and the Director of the Arabic Flagship Program at the University of Arizona. In 2019, she became Director of the Center for Arabic Study Abroad (CASA). Her research interests and publications focus on Second Language Acquisition and Teaching, languages in contact, study abroad, and CALL. She is a faculty member of the Second Language Acquisition & Teaching (SLAT) Interdisciplinary Graduate Program.
Before joining MENAS, Dr. Sonia Shiri coordinated the Arabic Program at the University of California, Berkeley, taught Arabic at Oxford University where she was a Senior Fellow at St. Antony’s College, and held a Research Fellowship at the Center for Women and Gender at Stanford University. From 2009-2012, she acted as Senior Academic Director of the Critical Language Scholarship (CLS), overseeing curriculum development, program administration, and teacher training in Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, and Oman. During 2002-2005, she served as the Academic and Outreach Coordinator for the Berkeley Language Center.
In 2007, Dr. Sonia Shiri received UC Berkeley’s Faculty Award for Outstanding Mentorship of Graduate Student Instructors” then CALICO’s “Access to Language Education Award” in 2008. In 2017, she was a Fellow of the UA Academic Leadership Institute, was nominated in 2016 for the ACTFL Paul Pimsleur Award for Research in Foreign Language Education, and currently serves on the editorial board of the Foreign Language Annals and Critical Multilingualism Studies.
Dr. Shiri is currently the Director of the following programs and the PI for the related grants:
- The Arabic Overseas Flagship Capstone Program
- The Arizona Arabic Flagship Program
- Project GO
- Qatar Foundation International (QFI) for the pre-collegiate Arabic Summer Jumpstart Program
- US Department of Education Fulbright-Hays Long-Term Group Projects Abroad for CASA Program in Jordan
- Fulbright Language Teaching Assistant Program, US Department of State