Rifka Cook

Born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela, Rifka completed her high school education in Caracas, and proceeded to pursue her first BA degree, Hebrew teaching, in Israel. Coming back to Venezuela, Rifka completed her BA in Spanish Language and Literature, then her M.Cs. in Linguistics. Last winter and spring quarters, 2010 she attended three courses concerning the Sephardic language at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.  She taught at a religious school in Caracas and at the Universidad de Oriente in Nueva Esparta, Venezuela for more than two decades. In the States, Rifka taught at Northeastern Illinois University before coming to Northwestern, during the academic year 2001-2002, and she has since worked here as a Faculty Lecturer in Spanish. At the University, Rifka currently teaches first and second-year Spanish and has developed a few computer projects for Spanish 101 and 115. In addition, Rifka is a Faculty Affiliate of the Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities in 2010-2011, a faculty fellow at Shepard Residence College and a member of the Language Proficiency Committee (for Spanish language). Her research interests include the Judeo-Español language, the influence of Hebrew on Spanish, teaching and learning styles, and the use of clickers and other technology tools in the foreign language classroom. Her work has been published in the United States and abroad.

http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~rco450/,  http://shajar18.blogspot.com