Teaching Experience

Teresa Reber Bell joined the faculty of the Department of German and Russian at BYU in August 2013. She teaches German 377/378 (German Teaching Methods), FLANG 276 (Exploring Foreign Language Teaching), and German. She supervises the student instructors and the student teachers and is the advisor for the German Teaching Major. She also oversees the annual German Fair.

Research

Since May 2009, she teaches the online methods course for the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. In 2008, she was President of the Oklahoma Foreign Language Teachers’ Association. In April 2009, she was awarded the Longmire Prize for dedication to teaching and the scholarship of teaching. In 2012, she was elected the 2012 Foreign Language Teacher of the Year for the state of Oklahoma. In 2013, she received the Excellence in Teaching Award from the Oklahoma Foreign Language Teachers’ Association. In 2018, she received the Excellence in Post-Secondary Teaching Award from SWCOLT. She regularly presents at ACTFL, CSCTFL, and SWCOLT. Her research focuses on successful FL teaching and learning and foreign language teacher development. Since April 2016 she has been serving as the ACTFL Program Review Coordinator for the Council for the Accreditation of Education Preparation (CAEP).

Selected Publications

• Bell, T. R. (2005). Behaviors and attitudes of effective foreign language teachers: Results of a questionnaire study. Foreign Language Annals, 38(2), 259-270. (As of January 3, 2021, this article has been cited 274 times.)
• Bell, T. R. (2015). Matching student and teacher perceptions for the retention of university German students. In R. J. Halverson, & C. A. Constabile-Heming (Eds.), Taking stock of German studies in the United States: The new millennium. (pp. 200-225.) Rochester, NY: Camden House.
• Cox, T., Bown, J., & Bell, T. R. (2019). Does the question language in advanced L2 reading proficiency assessments make a difference? In S. Gass & P. Winke (Eds.), Foreign language proficiency in higher education. (pp. 117-136.) New York, NY: Springer.
• Gates, G., Cox, T. L., Bell, T. R., Eggington, W. (2020). An analysis of rehearsed speech characters on the Oral Proficiency Interview–Computer (OPIc). Language Testing in Asia.
• Bell, T. R. (2020). Intercultural competence through products, practices, and perspectives of big C culture. In B. M. Burke (Ed.), Room for all at the table (pp. 95-123).

Service

My focus on citizenship is primarily in the area of advocating for quality language teaching and language learning opportunities for everyone. I serve at the national level as the ACTFL program review coordinator for CAEP and as the major and minor advisor for German Teaching.

Citizenship assignments

• AP German Advisory Board (September 2020-present)
• Selection Committee Chair, ACTFL Wilga Rivers Award for Foreign Language Education (Post-secondary) Award Committee, June-November 2020.
• Chair, ACTFL/CAEP Standards Revision Task Force, July 2017-December 2021
• ACTFL Program Review Coordinator for CAEP (Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation), 2016-present
• Utah Chapter of AATG Membership Chair (2014-present)