Christelle Palpacuer Lee

Christelle Palpacuer Lee, Ed.D. is an assistant professor in Language Education in the Department of Learning and Teaching. Growing up in a monolingual, rural south of France, Palpacuer Lee discovered that there weren’t many other languages available to her. This gap in her own language education inspired Palpacuer Lee to explore language education further. Throughout her time traveling and learning new languages, she has met a lot of people using multiple different languages. To Palpacuer Lee, language is not only a communication tool, but a way to build a life, friendships and relationships. As an undergraduate, Palpacuer Lee studied North American Literatures and Civilizations at the Université Le Mirail in Toulouse, France where she focused on language, culture, and history and also received a teaching certificate. She then went on to earn her master’s degree in International Education and French from Université Lyon 2 in Lyon, France. After studying in France, Palpacuer Lee moved to the United States where she pursued an Ed.D. degree in Language Education from the Graduate School of Education here at Rutgers University.

In 2012, Palpacuer Lee joined the Rutgers GSE faculty as assistant professor in language education where she would spread her knowledge of language with her students. Her classes are language focused, community-based courses in which she expands on what is learned about service as teachers. Language Education is currently at the local level, but Palpacuer Lee looks at how we can identify and develop as global citizens in an ever changing, multilingual, and multimodal world. She has published, and is in the process of publishing, multiple refereed journals. Palpacuer Lee is involved in many organizations such as the American Educational Research Association (AERA), the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), the Modern Language Association (MLA) and the Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL).

• Research Work With Students

  Applied linguistics

  Museum Education

  Intercultural Education

• Research Work With Students

  Dr. Palpacuer Lee’s work centers on providing world languages teachers with opportunities to learn in public settings, such as museums and community-based service-learning programs. Drawing on interdisciplinary and qualitative research, she studies the discursive learning opportunities that emerge from the teachers’ negotiation of various cultural narratives in interaction.

  Palpacuer Lee, C., Lee, Y.C., Melendez, D., & Khapulkova, N. (2016). Unmasked: Designing Inquiries into Cultures as Thematic Units. The NECTFL Review, 79, Special Issue: Developing Intercultural Competence through World Languages, pp. 89-109.

• Recent & Selected Publications

  Refereed Journals

  Palpacuer Lee, C. and Curtis, J.H. (accepted). Service-Learning and Language Education: Disrupting Discourses of Disempowerment. American Association of University Supervisors and Coordinators (AAUSC), Volume 2019.

  Palpacuer Lee, C. (2018). Multiliteracies in Action at the Art Museum, L2 Journal, 10(2), pp. 134-157. DOI:10.5070/L210235237

  Palpacuer Lee, C., Curtis, J. & Curran, M. E., (2018). Shaping the Vision for Service-Learning in Language Education. Foreign Language Annals, 51(1), pp. 169-184. DOI:10.1111/flan.12329.

  Palpacuer Lee, C., Curtis, J.H., & Curran, M.E. (2018). Stories of Engagement: Pre-Service Foreign Language Teachers Negotiate Intercultural Citizenship in a Community-based English Language Program.Language Teaching Research, 22(5), pp. 590-609.

  Palpacuer Lee, C., Curtis, J.H. (2017). Into the realm of the politically incorrect: Negotiating intercultural encounters in a service-learning program. International Journal of Multilingual Education, 19(2), pp. 163-181.

  Palpacuer Lee, C., Lee, Y.C., Melendez, D., & Khapulkova, N. (2016). Unmasked: Designing Inquiries into Cultures as Thematic Units. The NECTFL Review, 79, Special Issue: Developing Intercultural Competence through World Languages, pp. 89-109.

  Palpacuer Lee, C. (in preparation). Unlocking the Potential of Museum Objects for Foreign Language Teaching and Learning.

  Refereed Electronic Publication

  Curtis, J. H. & Palpacuer Lee, C. (2019). Interculturality in Language-Focused Service-Learning. InterCommonline newsletter (TESOL, Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, interest group)

• Honors & Awards

  ACTFL Research grant award, with Dr. Curran and Ms. Curtis for a project titled “Investigating the impact of a community-based service-learning program on the multilingual community it serves.”

  Early-career Award in Language Teacher Education, Teacher Education SIG

  Graduate/Law Fellowship, Rutgers Graduate School of Education