Sophia Bello
Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, Department of French
Sophia Bello is an assistant professor, teaching stream at the Department of French and she defended her dissertation in 2017 at the University of Toronto. Prior to 2018, she taught courses in French and English linguistics at the University of Toronto Mississauga, created pedagogical material and assessments for future teacher candidates of the Concurrent Teacher Education Program, and assisted with recruitment of camp counsellors and summer program coordination of the French Camp.
Bello now focuses on the pedagogy of French as a second language (FSL), and her teaching interests include the application and exploration of various active learning strategies and digital tools. Following the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning approach, she examines their effectiveness in FSL and linguistics courses, and seeks to modify and redevelop her teaching practice by valuing peer cooperation and learner autonomy.
Bello also works as a techno-pedagogue, having developed a departmental website entitled French Teaching Support & Planning to provide resources, announcements, up-to-date digital tools and teaching strategies as well as Quercus training to colleagues, course coordinators, course instructors and teaching assistants. In 2022, she published a linguistics paper, L’acquisition des objets directs et indirects en Français L1, on the production of direct and indirect objects in francophone children with Professor Mihaela Pirvulescu.
Presently, she is co-coordinating the A&S Teaching and Learning Community of Practice, starting the Experiential Learning Faculty Fellows Program to develop a new course that aims to prepare future teacher candidates, and is a member of multiple committees including the Global Languages Initiative.