Matthew Cook

Matthew Cook was born and raised in Southern Missouri, in the hills of the Ozarks. He holds one BA in French, International Political Science, and European History, and another BA in Spanish. He earned his first MA in Romance Languages and Literature from the University of Chicago in 2002, and a second MA in Romance Linguistics from the University of Texas at Austin in 2010. His literature focus was in WW II era writing and existentialism, and his linguistics focus was in SLA and Sociolinguistics (although he is also very interested in language contact, creolization, and dialect variations). Matthew has taught French, Spanish, and ESL since the year 2000, and he has worked for several different programs including the Universities of Nebraska, Chicago, and Texas. In addition to teaching languages, Matthew has spent several years as an intercultural and interpersonal communication coach for graduate students, post-grads, and international professionals working here in the US, and he has been interviewing international researchers who hope to work at UT for the last several years. Before coming to the English Language Center in 2014, he spent five years teaching academic English courses at Texas Intensive English Program in Austin. He has lived, studied, and taught in France and Mexico, has traveled to several other countries, and he enjoys fishing, hiking, and watching squirrels and birds with his son and daughter. Matthew is fluent in French and Spanish, and he is always working on German, Italian, Arabic, Portuguese, Mandarin, and several other languages.