Lecturer in Spanish

Email: mary.thornton@tudublin.ie

Mary Thornton graduated from Trinity College Dublin in 1986 with a BA, Joint Hons Moderatorship in Spanish and French. In 1988 she completed a M.Phil. in Trinity College Dublin and two years later she completed a Post Graduate Diploma in Marketing Management in the former Dublin Institute of Technology (now TUD). 

Following her graduation from the M.Phil. Mary worked on the first phase of a Lingua Programme set up by the Commission of the European Communities. The Programme established joint educational projects for language teachers from participating countries. 

Mary spent four years working on the first pilot programme for the introduction of Modern Languages in Primary School. Mary was involved initially in the syllabus design for languages and then delivered the Spanish module over a period of three years to teachers from participating primary schools.  

Mary has 35 years’ experience teaching Spanish at Third Level. Her teaching areas include Spanish for general and business purposes. She has also delivered modules on Spanish History (Inquisition, Moors of Spain, Sephardic Jews). Other areas of interest include EFL and English for Academic purposes. Recently she has worked with Apprentice Electricians delivering a Communications module on Phase 2 of a Solas programme. 

Mary has acted as external examiner for AIT (TUS midlands campus), IT Tralee (MTU), GMIT (ATU Galway) and LYIT (ATU Letterkenny).