Lee B. Abraham
Lee B. Abraham (Ph.D. in Educational Linguistics, University of New Mexico) joined the Department in Fall 2012. Lee served as Co-Director of the Spanish Language Program from 2015 to 2019, first with Diana Romero and later with Angelina Craig-Flórez. He then served as Director of the Spanish Language Program from May 2019 through December 2024, collaborating with colleagues to navigate unprecedented times locally, nationally, and globally. In spring 2025, Lee began serving as Interim Director of Undergraduate Studies while also rotating back and serving as a Co-Director with Francisca Aguiló-Mora, who rotated into the role of Director of the Spanish Language Program on July 1, 2025.
Are you interested in a minor in Spanish, a minor in Portuguese, a minor in Catalan or a major in Hispanic Studies? Please feel free to schedule a meeting here. Lee looks forward to meeting with you!
Lee has taught undergraduate- and graduate-level courses in Spanish language and linguistics, applied linguistics, language teaching methodology, and instructional technologies at the Pennsylvania State University-Abington, Temple University, and Villanova University. He also served as a Language Program Coordinator at Villanova and also at Temple.
Lee was recently appointed to serve a term on the Executive Committee of the Modern Language Association's (MLA) Second-Language Teaching and Learning Forum. He previously served a term on the Executive Committee of the MLA's Forum/Division of Applied Linguistics.
Academic Statement
TEACHING
Lee believes in the importance of understanding the relationships between cultures, communities, and communication. He strives to create a classroom environment that encourages critical thinking, collaboration, and creativity.
Representing Lee's long-held commitment to interdisciplinary teaching, learning, research, and collaboration, Lee recently served on the organizing committee of the Columbia Language Resource Center's 2024 Annual Symposium of the Consortium for Language Teaching and Learning Language and Climate: Making Connections for a Sustainable Future.
In 2024, Lee was invited by Dr. Idoia Elola, Texas Tech University and Dr. Ana Oskoz, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, to present in the series they organize with the Instituto Cervantes Manchester and Leeds, United Kingdom (UK), “Acquiring a Second Language: Why do we find it so difficult?”. Lee’s talk “The Cultures and Languages Around Us: The Benefits and Challenges of Linguistic Landscapes for Language Learning and Teaching in a Globalized World” is available here.
In a May 2019 talk "Culture, Memory, and Identity: Engaging the City to Transform Language Education in a Diverse, Mobile, and Interconnected World" at the Annual Symposium of The Consortium for Language Teaching and Learning Language Education in a Time of Crisis: Innovation, Adaptation, Transformation, Lee highlights the ways in which students' collaboration, dialogue, and active engagement with multicultural and multilingual communities outside of the classroom can make the world a better place for everyone. All of these ongoing projects began with Lee receiving an instructional innovation grant "Mapping, Data Visualization, and Digital Literacies for Learning within Urban Spaces" and also in a course that Lee co-taught with Stéphane Charitos, Reading the Multilingual City: New York, Urban Landscapes and Urban Multilingualism through Columbia's Institute for Comparative Literature and Society (ICLS). In 2016, in collaboration with his colleagues at Columbia and Barnard, Lee organized a 2-day workshop titled Language Learning and Teaching with Urban and Linguistic Landscapes (schedule and plenary videos).
RESEARCH
His current research, aligned with his teaching, focuses on assessment, urban studies, interdisciplinary approaches to language learning and teaching, multiliteracies, and the use of new media.
He co-edited with Lawrence Williams, Electronic Discourse in Language Learning and Language Teaching (John Benjamins), a volume that analyzes language use and communicative practices in new media. His work has appeared in Language Teaching Research, Hispania, Foreign Language Annals, and Computer Assisted Language Learning.