My name is Gabriel (Gabi) Guillén, and I am a Professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies (MIIS) at Monterey, California, and Director of the School of Spanish at Middlebury Language Schools, starting September of 2026. In addition to my role at MIIS, I also advise, consult, and partner with leading publishers, edtech companies, and nonprofit organizations.
At MIIS, I have designed and taught courses across five different modalities: in person, blended, online synchronous, online asynchronous, and experiential learning in Colombia and Salinas, California. Some of my recent courses include:
- Technology in Planning for the Secondary World Classroom, Language Analysis, Communication in Multicultural Settings (asynchronous Canvas courses I designed in collaboration with our Digital Learning & Inquiry team)
- Using Technology for Teaching (Hebrew Middlebury Language Schools)
- Pedagogical Grammar in Foreign Language Teaching, Language Analysis (TESOL and Teaching Foreign Language)
- Cybersecurity: Securing a Digital Future, Topics in Latin American Politics, Spanish Digital Projects, Spanish Talks for Social Change, Spanish Social Entrepreneurship, Spanish Fake News & Persuasion, Spanish Current Events, Communication & Society (Language Studies)
- Spanish in the Community, Spanish in the Global Community, Communication in Multicultural Settings (Intercultural Communicative Competence)
- Exploring Sustainable Agriculture Transitions in Rural Colombia (Environmental Policy and Management)
- Spanish Preparation for Translation & Interpretation (Translation & Interpretation).
Recent projects and positions include:
- Secured a 5-year grant from the Transportation Agency of Monterey County to create the TAMC Fellowship at the Middlebury Institute (2024).
- Chaired World Languages for the Academic Assembly Council of the College Board (2023-2026)
- Led the creation of four OER Spanish Textbooks for the Middlebury Language Schools in Vermont, Sabor y Amor (2024-2025), as a School of Spanish Instructor (2022-present).
- Participated as a fellow in the Project-Based Language Learning (PBLL) Summer Institute at the University of Hawaiʻi and incorporated PBLL (2023) into Team Tandem, our intercultural exchange program in Salinas (2015-present).
- Developed the Intercultural Communicative Competence curriculum for all McGraw Hill Spanish titles (2022).
- Created the infographic 37 Years of Computer-Assisted Language Learning Research: Is CALL for ALL? as a capstone project for a data analytics bootcamp
(2021). - Launched a school site and provided pedagogical advice for Jiveworld, the startup behind the Spanish app Lupa (2020).
- Led the creation of a language specialization for professional purposes for six languages at the Middlebury Institute (2020).
- Co-authored the third edition of the book Brave New Digital Classroom with Robert Blake, an overview on key concepts and challenges of teaching and learning languages with technology, with a new focus on social CALL (2020).
I completed my PhD at the University of California, Davis, where I developed some of the first online and hybrid Spanish courses in the UC system and wrote a dissertation on virtual exchanges. I have also published and taught seminars on Spanish film studies at the International University Menéndez Pelayo.
In a previous life I was an AECID lecturer, a study abroad coordinator, a web developer, an instructional designer, and a journalist. I have published more than 300 articles in the Spanish media and founded the first community of blogs dedicated to the interchange of languages, which I built using Drupal and hosted on my own server (2007).
