Teresa P. Pica (26 September 1945 – 15 November 2011), also known as Tere Pica, was Professor of Education at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

Graduate School of Education Graduate may refer to: Education * The subject of a graduation, i.e. someone awarded an academic degree ** Alumnus, a former student who has either attended or graduated from an institution * High school graduate, someone who has completed high ...

, a post she held from 1983 until her death in 2011. Her areas of expertise included

second language acquisition Second-language acquisition (SLA), sometimes called second-language learning — otherwise referred to as L2 (language 2) acquisition, is the process by which people learn a second language. Second-language acquisition is also the scientific dis ...

, language curriculum design, approaches to classroom practice, and classroom discourse analysis. Pica was well known for her pioneering work in

task-based language learning Task-based language teaching (TBLT), also known as task-based instruction (TBI), focuses on the use of authentic language to complete meaningful tasks in the target language. Such tasks can include visiting a doctor, conducting an interview, or cal ...

and published widely in established international journals in the field of English as a foreign or second language and

applied linguistics Applied linguistics is an interdisciplinary field which identifies, investigates, and offers solutions to language-related real-life problems. Some of the academic fields related to applied linguistics are education, psychology, communication rese ...

Early years

Before entering the field of TESOL, Pica was a speech and language pathologist. She earned her Ph.D. in educational linguistics from the

University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education The University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, commonly known as Penn GSE, is an Ivy League top-ranked educational research school in the United States. Formally established as a school at the University of Pennsylvania in 1914, Penn ...

in three years, graduating in 1982. Pica graduated from the College of New Rochelle (bachelor's degree, English and speech communications, 1967) and

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

with a master's degree in speech pathology in 1969. In 1983, she took over the position of her advisor, Michael Long, who left Penn in 1982.

Teaching

Pica's passion in life was teaching and advising students. She was known for never taking summers or sabbatical years off and for always teaching multiple sections of two core courses in the TESOL MSEd program: "EDUC 527: Approaches to Teaching English and Other Modern Languages" and "EDUC 670: Second Language Acquisition". By doing this, she taught thousands of TESOL Master's degree seekers from all over the world over her 30-year tenure at Penn GSE. Pica supervised more than 50 doctoral dissertations at Penn and at universities abroad. Some of her best-known advisees include her first two doctoral students, Jessica Williams (1987) and Catherine Doughty (1988), as well as Richard Young, Valerie Jakar, Joanna Labov, and Shannon Sauro. Tere's last doctoral student to complete was Elizabeth Scheyder (dissertation defended 10/26/11, degree awarded 2012).

References

External links

Teresa P. Pica's profile at the University of PennsylvaniaTeresa P. "Tere" Pica's Memorial Site
Educators from Philadelphia Linguists Applied linguists 1945 births 2011 deaths University of Pennsylvania faculty University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education alumni College of New Rochelle alumni Teachers College, Columbia University alumni American women academics 21st-century American women {{US-academic-bio-stub