Education
- Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction, concentration in Languages, Literacies, Cultures and Communities, University of Louisville (December 2021)
- M.A. Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), Southern Illinois University.
- B.A. in Teaching English as a Foreign Language.
Line of research
My research examines how language ideologies impacts ESL immigrant students’ learning and experiences in the K-12 classrooms as well as in higher education spaces.
Research and scholarship
- Sivira, Y. (2020) Language ideologies in the ESL classroom. Invited panel presentation at Irish Association for Applied Linguistics (IRAAL) Postgraduate Special Interest Group. August 2020
- Sivira, Y, Pino, B (2020) A Critical and Social Semiotic Analysis of a Venezuelan EFL textbook Collection. Individual presentation. Spring Research Conference, University of Cincinnati, March 2020.
- Sivira, Y, Pino, B (2020) A Critical and Social Semiotic Analysis of a Venezuelan EFL textbook Collection. Individual presentation accepted to be presented at AAAL2020 (Conference cancelled).
- Gast, M., Chisholm, J., Sivira, Y., & Allen, J. (2020) Bilingual Peer Mentoring, Symbolic Power, and Racialization of ESL Students in a Diverse School. Invited presentation. MOSAIC Seminar, University of Birmingham, UK. February 18, 2020
- Gast, M., Chisholm, J., Sivira, Y., & Allen, J. (2020) Bilingual Peer Mentoring, Symbolic Violence, and Racialization of ESL Students in a Diverse School. Sociology of Education Conference. Monterey, CA. February 2020.
- Sivira, Y. (2019). How do Bilingual Adolescents Use Technology to Advance their Literacy Skills? Spring Research Conference, University of Kentucky, March 2019.
Sivira (2019) Managing effective Group work to engage ELLs in in classroom interaction. NCTE 2019, Baltimore, MD. November 2019. - Sivira, Y. (2017) Teaching grammar to young learners. TESOL international Association Conference. Seattle, WA. April 2017.
Bio
Yohimar is a PhD candidate in Curriculum and Instruction: Languages, Literacies, Cultures and Communities and the UofL Holmes Scholar 2019. She holds a MA in TESOL from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. Yohimar came to the US through a Fulbright Scholarship for the Faculty Development Program 2016-2018 after working in Venezuela for 9 years as an EFL instructor. Her research interests are related to bilingual education, English Language Learners (ELLs) and language policies supporting ELLs in elementary and secondary education. Yohimar is the graduate research associate for the Early Childhood Research Center at the College of Education and Human Development. She is a voluntary graduate research assistant for the Cooperative Consortium for Transdisciplinary Social Justice Research at the University of Louisville.
