Ellen S. Knell

Ellen S. Knell is the associate director of instruction and curriculum at the Center for Language Studies and serves as the dual language immersion minor/endorsement coordinator at Brigham Young University. Knell’s career in language education spans more than two decades, teaching in various locations such as San Francisco, Chicago, Hong Kong, China, and Utah. Her international experience includes more than 10 years in Asia, where she became fluent in Mandarin Chinese and worked with English language immersion programs in Xi’an, China. Later, she worked with Chinese dual language immersion programs in Utah. 

Knell attended graduate school at Hong Kong University and then the University of Utah. After earning her doctorate, she contributed to the Utah State Board of Education and the BYU Chinese Flagship, where she supervised Chinese language programs. Since her appointment at BYU in 2019, she has supervised more than 60 less commonly taught languages and has advanced the curriculum and instruction for these languages. 

Knell’s research interests include dual language immersion, second language teacher training, bilingual literacy acquisition, remote language learning, and adult literacy learners. She has also taught many university courses on language learning at both the University of Utah and BYU.