Yolanda Joy Calvo Benzies has been a full-time lecturer within the Department of Spanish, Modern and Classic Philology at the University of the Balearic Islands since September 2016. She currently holds a post of Senior Lecturer (Tenure Contract Lecturer, profesora permanente laboral) and is the Vicedean of Coordination and Projection at the Faculty of Tourism.

Academic background:

Yolanda obtained a BA in English Philology from the University of Santiago de Compostela in 2008. At the same university she completed her MA studies in 2010 and in 2016 she defended her Doctoral Dissertation about the role of pronunciation in EFL classes in Spain. From 2011 to 2014, she was awarded a grant by the Xunta de Galicia to work on her PhD.

Teaching experience:

Yolanda teaches several ESP courses at the Faculty of Tourism. She is also a lecturer within the MA in Modern Languages and Literatures. She is currently the coordinator for the subjects English 1 and English 3 at the Faculty of Tourism. She has participated in several teaching innovation projects at the University of the Balearic Islands and the University of la Rioja. She was the PI of the teaching innovation project 'Desarrollo de competencias en expresión oral y vocabulario específico en inglés a través de la plataforma Anchor' which was funded by the IRIE. Yolanda has taught some teacher innovation courses on a) giving talks in English at international conferences (University of Castilla la Mancha, 2021), b) the teaching of English pronunciation (University of Santiago de Compostela, 2019; University of la Rioja, 2021), and c) using AI tools in the language classroom (University of la Rioja, 2024; University of Santiago de Compostela, 2024). She also regularly participates in (inter)national conferences focused on teaching (IATEFL, SEDLL, CIINECO, CUICIID, jornadas de innovación docente organized by the UIB…). She has been the tutor of more than 20 BA dissertations (GTUR, GATU, GEAN, GEP2) and more than 20 MA dissertations (MLLM, MFPR).

Experience at management level:

From February 2020 to February 2024, Yolanda was one of the mobility coordinators at the Faculty of Tourism. She was in charge of incoming students, outgoing students´ internships and both incoming and outgoing staff visits (STTs and STAs). From February 2024 she is Vicedean of the Faculty of Tourism.

Research:

Her research interests are directly related to the teaching of English at university level; more particularly, she works on the following topics: applied linguistics to the teaching of English as a Foreign Language and English for Specific Purposes (especially English for Tourism), teaching spoken production and interaction skills, the teaching of English pronunciation, the use of innovative techniques and ICTs in the language classroom (series, mobile apps, social networks, AI, songs, games, podcasts, videogames, role-plays…) and new varieties of English (EIL, ELF). She carried out research stays at the University of Reading (February-May 2013) and at the University of Jaume I (February-March 2020). She has participated in more than 50 national and international conferences and was one of the plenary speakers of the 2nd UPCEL Conference (2017). She also has experience organising several conferences. Yolanda has published more than 25 articles and/or book chapters in indexed journals and internationally recognized publishing houses such as Peter Lang. She has participated in more than 12 local and national research projects and is currently a member of the research project 'El inglés en los medios sociales. Perspectivas teóricas y aplicadas (INMESO)', funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (PID2021-122267NB-I00). She is also the PI of the research group GRALing (Grupo de investigación en análisis lingüístico) at the University of the Balearic Islands and a collaborator of SPERTUS (Spoken English Research Team at the University of the Santiago de Compostela).