Coordinator, Less Commonly Taught Languages

Germán Torres

Dr. Germán Torres serves as CIBER’s coordinator for less commonly taught languages. In this capacity, he implements additional business language sections and refines teaching materials for existing courses. He also creates and enriches intermediate and advanced sections for select less commonly taught languages.

Germán is an associate professor of Spanish and coordinator of the 5-Year Joint Degree in Spanish and International Business, and International Economics and Modern Languages.

Germán’s main research interest is in the area of curriculum for language for business programs, particularly the cultural component. In Visiones (Yale University Press, 2002), an anthology of Hispanic literature, he proposes the use of the literary text as the vehicle to discuss cultural and business-related issues pertinent to the Spanish-speaking world. The incorporation of literature as a cultural component in language for business programs is taken one step further in Temas del comercio y la economía en la narrativa hispana (Yale University Press, 2007), an edited collection of critical essays that explores business and economic issues as they are presented in Hispanic literature. Both books have been adopted as supplementary material in commercial Spanish programs.

Articles by Germán on these and other topics related to language for business curriculum have appeared in Foreign Language Annals and Global Business Languages. He has been a frequent participant and presenter at the annual Language for Business Conference sponsored by CIBER.