Dr. Elizabeth Zwanziger’s passion for languages began during an undergraduate semester abroad through Luther College, where she quickly discovered that oral language is distinctly different from the written language in textbooks. Her interest in oral language continued to develop while teaching world language with a communicative approach and while completing a Master’s at the University of Missouri in the Department of Romance Languages. Through her Ph.D. work in Applied Linguistics at Boston University, she was able to study language development across various languages, including French, Spanish, German, Latin, and Inuktitut. This work continues to inform her instruction in both world language and teacher education courses at the University of Northern Iowa.

Zwanziger has been an integral part of the author teams for several Wayside Publishing titles, including Conversemos juntos with Lourdes Cuellar and Joseph Scott, En Parlant with Joseph Scott, APprenons, 2nd ed with Brittany Goings, Elizabeth Rench, and Brittany Selden Griffin. She is on the author teams for EntreCultures 1 with Helene Schuster, Brittany Goings, and Ed Weiss; EntreCultures 2 with Florence Falloux, Erin Gibbons, and Jan Hagedorn;  EntreCultures 3 with Sara Deveaux, Francoise Vandenplas, and Kyle Woollums; and EntreCultures 4 with Florence Falloux, Erin Gibbons, and Ed Weiss.