Deana Alonso-Lyrintsis was born and raised in Mexico City. After graduating from high school and studying for a year at the Universidad Autónoma de México (UNAM), her family moved to the United States. She earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Mathematics and a Master’s Degree in Spanish from San Diego State University. She also holds a Master’s Degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages from California State University, Los Angeles. She served for four years as consultant and teacher leader at the Los Angeles area site of the California Foreign Language Project. In addition, Deana co-authored several texts for teaching Spanish to non natives. Deana taught for five years at Citrus College. She is currently Professor of Spanish as Southwestern College. She has traveled extensively throughout Europe and Latin America. Brandon Zaslow was born and educated in the United States. He holds graduate degrees in Spanish and Education from the University of California, Los Angeles where he was a University Distinguished Scholar and from California State University, Los Angeles. From 1990 to 1995, he held a teaching position in UCLA’s Graduate School of Education where he taught Methods of Foreign Language Instruction and Primary and English Language Development. Since 1995, he serves as Director of the Los Angeles Area Site of the California Foreign Language Project, which is funded by the legislature through the Office of the President of the University of California to improve K-16 foreign, second and heritage language programs. In addition to serving on a team that authored a program for Spanish for non native speakers, Brandon worked to develop California’s Classroom Oral Competency Interview (COCI), Classroom Writing Competency Assessment (CWCA), and Classroom Receptive Competency Matrix (CRCM) and was a contributor and consultant to the current Foreign Language Framework for California Public Schools. Recently, Brandon was honored by his colleagues being named California’s Language Teacher of the Year.
