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Elisa Baena

Professor of Instruction

Ph.D. University of Illinois, Chicago

Received her Ph.D. in Hispanic Linguistics from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2004. In her time at Northwestern University, she has taught a wide variety of classes at all the levels offered in the Spanish Language Program. She has mostly taught Spanish 203, Individual and Society through Written Expression; Spanish 204, Artivism in Times of Political Change; Spanish 280, Introduction to Spanish Linguistics; and Spanish 302, Advanced Grammar. She also teaches lower language level courses. She is a fully certified tester of the Spanish Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) and an Assessment of Performance towards Proficiency in Languages (AAPPL) rater, both by the American Council of Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). She is a certified tester of the the DELE Spanish Diplomas (Diploma de Español como Lengua Extranjera) A1-C2 levels granted by the Ministry of Education from Spain. She is also an AP Spanish Language and Culture reader.

While at Northwestern, she received the Weinberg Arts and Sciences Alumni Teaching Award in 2014; and has been named to the Faculty Honor Roll by the Associated Student Government (ASG) in 2007, 2015 and 2018.


She is the Spanish Placement coordinator and serves as the Director of the Spanish Language and Culture Study Abroad Program in Barcelona, working in this capacity with the Global Learning Office since 2008. Since 2015, she is the chair of the Weinberg Language Proficiency committee working in this capacity with AccessibleNU.