Shoba Bandi-Rao
Associate Professor
Academic Literacy and Linguistics
EMAIL: sbandirao@bmcc.cuny.edu
Office: N-481
Office Hours:
Phone: +1 (212) 346-8547
Shoba Bandi-Rao received her Ph. D in Applied Linguistics/TESOL from New York University. Her dissertation Rule Learning in Second Language examined the underlying cognitive mechanisms involved in the acquisition of the regular and irregular past-tense forms in English by adult language learners. Bandi-Rao has a Master’s degree in Language Arts Education from Western Illinois University and a Bachelor’s degree in the Humanities from Bangalore University, India.
Currently, Bandi-Rao teaches Linguistics and English as a Second Language to undergraduates. Prior to joining BMCC, she taught ESL/Developmental Writing to college freshmen at NYU’s Higher Educational Opportunity Programs, and she also taught Linguistics to graduate students at NYU’s school of education and at the College of New Rochelle.
Bandi-Rao is interested in the emergence of new literacies in formal/informal learning to address the college readiness gap. Her research examines how mobile technology and social media are changing the way students learn and use language(s). She has worked on digital storytelling (i.e., the art of combining narratives with multimodal media such as images, sound, video and text to create a short story in interesting ways) to engage students to craft stories in interesting ways.
In her free time, Bandi-Rao avidly reads up on evolutionary linguistics, dabbles in amateur astronomy, and from time to time, ponders on alien communicative systems. If interested in stargazing, join the amateur astronomers on Tuesdays evenings (dusk to 10:00 PM); location–The High Line at 14th street (April through October).
Expertise
Second-Language Acquisition, Second Language Writing, Linguistics, Language and Literacy, Freshman writing pedagogy, Educational Technology, Bilingual Education, Applied Linguistics
Degrees
- B.A. Bangalore University, English Literature, Psychology, Home Science,
- M.S. Western Illinois University, Language Arts Education,
- Ph.D. New York University, TESOL/Applied Linguistics,
Courses Taught
- This advanced level course emphasizes writing and reading skills; however, oral skills are not neglected. In writing, students focus on introducing, developing, supporting, and organizing their ideas in expository essays as well as in narrative and descriptive writing.
- This intensive writing course for ESL students focuses on basic components of effective writing, including paragraph development and structure, sentence structure, word choice, and content. Students read and respond to a variety of texts and use argumentation, narrative, and description as modes of developing ideas in writing.
- This course will introduce the student to the study of Language and Culture. The course will introduce related topics, such as bilingual/bidialectal families and bilingual education, language and gender, literacy in a changing, technological society, child language acquisition, and different dialects and registers of English. The readings will draw on works in linguistics, literature and related fields. Students will work on critical reading and produce writing based on the readings in connections with their own experiences and backgrounds.
