Sara Katherine Hillman
Professor
Liberal Arts
Texas A&M University at Qatar
Qatar
Biography
Sara Hillman is an applied linguist with specialization in second language studies, particularly in the fields of second language acquisition (SLA), applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, and discourse analysis. Her research takes a sociological and anthropological approach to understanding how people learn and use other languages as well as their ideologies about languages and the intersection of language learners’ social identities, language ideologies, and language use. Most of her research has been conducted within the context of Arabic second language (L2) and heritage language learners in the United States and bilingual Arabic-English university students in Qatar. Her dissertation focused on humor and identity amongst Arabic heritage language learners in the classroom and she is currently working on projects examining.
Research Interest
social identity and heteroglossia amongst Qatari students in Education City; multilingualism and multiculturalism in private spheres and public spaces in Qatar; Qataris’ language ideologies and perspectives on learning languages other than English and Arabic; university professors’ use of Arabic in English-Medium Instruction (EMI) classrooms; language experiences and attitudes of Filipina domestic workers in Qatar; perspectives on being female and an engineering student in Qatar
Publications
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Hillman, S. K. (2015). Basic Arabic for health care professionals. In J. Trace, T. Hudson, & J. D. Brown, Developing Courses in Languages for Specific Purposes (pp. 36–48) (NetWork #69) [PDF document]. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i. doi: http://hdl.handle.net/10125/14573
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Hillman, S., Salama, G., Ocampo Eibenschutz, E., Awadh, S., and El-Said, L. (2017). Being female and an engineering student in Qatar: Successes, challenges, and recommendations. 2017 American Society for Engineering Education. ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition Proceedings, June 25-28, Columbus, Ohio.
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Hillman, S. and Salama, G. (forthcoming). Female participation in engineering fields: Successes, challenges, and recommendations in a non-western context. In M. Auer, D. Guralnick, & I. Simonics (Eds.), Teaching and learning in a digital world – Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning. Series in advances in intelligent systems and computing. Sydney, Springer.
