Friday, April 28, 2017

Gaby Cordero, 1983-2017



We have lost a good friend and promising "Haptician" (an ESL or EFL instructor who is highly skilled and certified in haptic pronunciation teaching.) Earlier this week, Gaby (the one on the left in the picture) died tragically in a car accident near her home in Costa Rica.

She had reported on her MA Thesis research with us in a research colloquium on haptic pronunciation teaching recently at the TESOL Convention in Seattle. She and her two colleagues, also pictured, had done their combined MA research through the University of Costa Rica on the application of haptic pronunciation teaching to L1 and L2 literacy instruction with 4th and 5th graders. It was a wonderful, action-research study, done by classroom instructors, themselves, demonstrating the potential of "haptic" in surprising and highly effective ways.

Her commitment and enthusiasm were contagious, as was her joie de vivre. We had many recent conversations, exploring how we would bring more HaPT there.

Gaby touched many lives. She will be greatly missed.