Research Interests: Intercultural negotiation. Less commonly taught languages (LCTL)--theoretical, political and pedagogical issues. Foreign language acquisition, pedagogy and teacher training. Scandinavian immigration to the United States and Danish-American literature.

Teaching Experience: Scandinavian Culture and History, Foreign Language Teacher Pedagogy (teacher training), Danish as a Foreigh Language, Heritage Language use among Denmark's immigrants.

Current Project: An ethnographic project mapping out language choice and language use among Danish-Turkish immigrants. The first part examines the psycho- and sociolinguistic motives behind the choice of using Turkish and/or Danish in daily life. The second part of the project studies whether a shift takes place among the 3rd generation from using/choosing Turkish as "mother tongue" (L1) to using it as a functional heritage language. The last part of the project is a comparative study of language use and choice among 3rd generation Latino-American heritage speakers in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Selected publications

Karen Møller Irving, Nelleke Van Deusen-Scholl and Linda von Hoene. "The Professionalization of Language Teachers: A Case Study of the Professional Development Needs of Lecturers at the University of California, Berkeley." AAUSC Research Issues and Language Program Direction, ed. L. Kathy Heilenman, Boston: Heinle & Heinle Publishers, 2000. 245-265.

Contributor to Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, article: "Scandinavian Languages", 1999.

Review of CD-ROM "Study Denmark" published 1996 by Waves Information Technology, Søborg, Denmark. Published in Kulturbrev 9, Undervisningsministeriet, Copenhagen, Denmark, May 1996.

Editor: "Danish-Language/30" series. Published by Educational Services Corporation, Washington, D.C., 1995.

"Hvis jeg må-kunne du så..." FORUM-Tidsskrift for køn og kultur, vol. 14, no. 4 Journal published by KVINFO, Copenhagen, Denmark, December 1994.

Review: Norsk i Sammenheng by Margaret Hayford O'Leary and Frankie Schackelford. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1993. Published in Norwegian Teachers' Newsletter (NORTANA), February 1993.

Review: "'The Way to Danish' goes on-line", in Kulturbrev 7, published by the Ministry of Education, Copenhagen, Denmark, 1992.

Co-author: Karen Møller and Grethe Vangkilde: "Survival Danish." Denmark's International Study Program, Copenhagen, Denmark, 1989.

Cand. Phil. Dissertation at the University of Copenhagen. "Writing One's Own Destiny: Patterns of Dual Identity in Enok Mortensen's Authorship: (On Danish-American Culture and Literature).