Biography:
I come from a small town in Central New York called Auburn, and I'm a sophomore. I enjoy learning the Spanish language and enjoy immersing myself in different cultures. After falling in love with Costa Rica, and even more so with Spain, I decided that I'd love to return, and found the opportunity to do so with PIRE, while researching how bilinguals process idioms. The reason that this research is so important, is because to become fluent in any language, figurative language is imperative to know. In many Spanish classes, the basics are taught which is the first step to becoming fluent, but many people say the key to becoming fluent is immersion. One of the reasons immersion is so important is because that person can then understand the native idioms, or "lingo" that are used in that country.
Project Summary:
In Granada, Spain we will be measuring how bilinguals process idioms and with positive results, we hope to be able to include more teaching of figurative language in university classes, to help people become stronger speakers--in any language.