Shondel Nero is Professor of Language Education in the Department of Teaching and Learning in the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University. She is an applied linguist whose research examines the politics, challenges, and strategies of educating students who speak and/or write in vernacular varieties of English, World Englishes, and Creoles. A native of Guyana and transnational scholar, Dr. Nero has extensively researched the linguistic and educational experiences of speakers of Caribbean Creole English in the US and the Caribbean as well as related issues on language and identity, and language education policy. She has authored four books, and her work has been published in prominent peer-reviewed journals such as TESOL Quarterly, Linguistics and Education, World Englishes, and Language Policy. She is the inaugural recipient of the James E. Alatis Prize (2016) for an outstanding article on research in language policy and planning in educational contexts based on her work as a Fulbright scholar in Jamaica; and recipient of the Distinguished Guyanese Linguist Award by the Society for Caribbean Linguistics (2024).
Dr. Nero directs a study-abroad program in the Dominican Republic as a means of developing teachers' intercultural competence and culturally responsive pedagogy. She also serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL), and Associate Editor of TESOL Journal. She and her co-author, Raul Lejano, won the AAAL Book Award (2022), the AERA Narrative Research SIG Outstanding Publication of the Year Award (2021) and the NYU Steinhardt Daniel E. Griffiths Research Award (2021) for their book, The Power of Narrative, Climate Skepticism and the Deconstruction of Science (Oxford University Press, 2020).
Selected Publications
BOOKS
- Lejano, R., & Nero, S. (2020). The power of narrative: Climate skepticism and the deconstruction of science. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Nero, S. and Ahmad, D. (2014). Vernaculars in the Classroom: Paradoxes, pedagogy, possibilities. New York: Routledge.
- Nero, S. (Ed.). (2006). Dialects, Englishes, Creoles, and Education. New York: Routledge.
- Nero, S. (2001). Englishes in contact: Anglophone Caribbean students in an urban college. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.
SELECTED ARTICLES & BOOK CHAPTERS
- Li, S., Prior, M., Nero, S., Hiver, P., Al-Hoorie, A., Murakami, A., Wei, L., & Ortega, L. (2023). Methodological innovation in applied linguistic research: Perspectives, strategies, and trends. Language Teaching, 56, 551-556.
- Nero, S. (2022). Slicing the onion: Reflections and projections on language education policy in the Caribbean. Educational Linguistics. DOI:10.1515/eduling-2022-0008.
- Nero, S. (2022). When teachers become the "other": Studying abroad in the Dominican Republic. In G. Barkhuizen (Ed.). Language teachers studying abroad: Identities, emotions and disruptions (pp. 174-190). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.
- Nero, S. (2020). Language practices of a Jamaican transnational. In I. Buchstaller & R. Blake (Eds.). The Routledge Companion to the work of John. R. Rickford (pp. 420-427). New York, NY: Routledge.
SELECTED TALKS/INTERVIEWS
- Interview on climate change language
- The future sound of Black English
- Critical Conversations on Language with Tasha Austin
- Dean's Public Square Series: A conversation on climate change attitudes
- 7th Annual Cassidy Le-Page Distinguished Lecture, UWI
- The power of narrative: Climate skepticism and the deconstruction of science
- Sharing thoughts on teachers working with diverse learners
