Michael Dabrowski

Biography

Michael Dabrowski is the coordinator for all the Spanish courses offered at Athabasca University. He is currently working on developing a Latin American civilization and culture course, a Spanish civilization and culture course, an intermediate conversation course, and introductory Hispanic literature courses. Michael was born in Warsaw, Poland and spent his youth there. He and his parents immigrated to Canada when he was nine. After a five year stay in Niagara Falls, they moved to Guatemala for two years where he experienced firsthand Hispanic and Mayan cultures which later sparked his interest in Spanish literature when he was in university. In addition to his full-time position with Athabasca, Michael taught a variety of first, second and third year Spanish courses at the University of British Columbia, Mount Royal College, Red Deer College and most recently at the University of Calgary. His teaching experience is complemented by over 10 years as an IT manager and instructional technology specialist Since 2003 he has been creating collaborative learning environments for developing foreign language writing skills in his composition courses at the University of Calgary and hopes to bring this experience to on-line learning. He is also developing an open educational resource library of student created materials for use in language instruction at the secondary and post-secondary level.

Research Interest

His research interests include collaborative peer teaching, technology assisted language learning, cultural studies, border studies, peninsular golden age theatre, and contemporary Hispanic short story, theatre and film. He is also interested in the application of theoretical scientific models to aesthetics.