Caroline Riches

I am an associate professor and program director in the Department of Integrated Studies in Education at McGill. I completed my Bachelor’s and Master’s in linguistics at the University of Alberta, and my PhD in Second Language Education at McGill.

I was born in Toronto but have lived in Ontario, Alberta and Quebec, in the USA and in Caracas, Venezuela. I mention the places I have lived in order to highlight Caracas as my water shed moment in terms of my interest in linguistics and second language learning. I lived in the infamous Anglo West Island of Montreal from grade 5 to CEGEP and while I had learned French as a Second Language in school, my French level was far from proficient, despite hours of classroom time reciting verb conjugations! In Caracas, along taking Spanish classes (also full of pattern drills), I became proficient in Spanish in about 6 months. The mysterious outcomes these very different language learning experiences intrigued me. In addition to this lived reality, while in Caracas, someone lent me a book on the history of the English language. Thus, my lifelong interest and passion for language learning began. My current interests involve language teacher professional identity most specifically within the second language teaching of Canada’s official languages.