Andrés Ramírez

“I work diligently for the day when the accomplishments of Latinos and other linguistic and cultural minorities in the United States are so vast and quotidian that celebrating them would almost seem redundant and unnecessary. The good that is intrinsic part of the ordinary fabric of an equitable society is not often celebrated boisterously, it is simply enjoyed, cherished, and built upon for the benefit of all future generations”
Andrés Ramírez

Dr. Andrés Ramírez is Associate Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Florida Atlantic University. His research explores culturally and linguistically responsive pedagogies that promote the literacy and language development of Emergent to Advanced Bilingual students (EABs) with special emphasis on Latinx EABs populations. More specifically, his work explores the economic, cultural, and linguistic intricacies constraining and enabling the academic literacy achievement of culturally and linguistically diverse students in the US and on connecting these issues to advocacy and sound curricular practice.

Dr. Ramírez particular attention to linguistic analysis of both landmark educational texts and classroom practices pertinent to linguistically and culturally diverse students hightlight key economic, cultural, and linguistic taken for granted assumptions that disproportionately affect English language learners. While most of the issues identified have been addressed in the existing literature, namely, the detrimental effect of poverty on academic achievement of underrepresented students, the inadequacy of monolingual instruction in English for linguistically diverse students, the damaging effect of equating oral proficiency and academic language proficiency among others, identifying these issues with different populations and in different settings and providing a detailed linguistic description of the language demands of different academic texts and what good teachers do to engage and provide sound curricular academic literacy practice for English Language Learners is quite important and that is why such concerns are central to his research agenda.

Dr. Ramírez teaches courses in TESOL education, curriculum theory, systemic functional linguistics (SFL) and critical discourse analysis. Andrés has extensive teaching experience in ESL and TESOL teacher education both in his native Colombia and in the United States. He has presented his work in Australia, Indonesia, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Argentina, China, Israel, Canada and the United States. He enjoys playing and coaching soccer, playing the guitar, and overall learning from and with his two daughters and family in their everyday bilingual and bicultural home environment.