Office Hours:

Spring 2007

No classes

Professor Meredith was born in Glendale, CA and reared in North Hollywood, in the San Fernando Valley. He developed an early interest in automobiles due to the vocational pursuits of his family. Preferring "cruisin' and surfin'" to homework and classroom activities, he graduated from high school Summa Come Lucky, and proceeded to flunk out of Los Angeles Valley Jr. College. In the meantime however, he turned 19 and accepted a call to serve in the West Mexican Mission of the LDS church. But, failing to receive a visa to Mexico, after four months in Provo he was transferred to the Uruguay/Paraguay Mission where he served for 24 months and met important people such as Dr. Marian Labrum of the Spanish Department and Dr. Ray Graham of the Linguistics Department.

Education: Following his mission, Alan petitioned Brigham Young University for admission, was admitted, and began studying in the pre-architecture program. During that time he was introduced to Professor James Taylor, who discussed with Alan the many opportunities in education. Not long after that discussion, Alan made the decision to major in Spanish Teaching. He graduated in 1969 and taught at Valley Junior High School in Salt Lake City for the next two years.During the summer of 1971, Alan returned to BYU and began the MA program with an emphasis in pedagogy. In 1973, following a six-month visit to Spain with Dr. Taylor and the BYU program, Alan began work on his Ph.D. in Foreign Language Education at the Ohio State University. Upon completion of that degree in 1976, he returned again to BYU where he began work as a Senior Research Associate for the Language and Intercultural Research Center (now the David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies). In 1980, Dr. Meredith accepted his current position in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese.

Teaching/Research: His work has focused on the training and supervison of the graduate instructors who teach the beginning Spanish courses; teaching pedagogy courses in the MA program; publishing the first-year Spanish text ¡Háblame! with C. Dixon Anderson; and conducting research in language teaching methodology, teacher training, oral proficiency testing and computer-administered speaking tests.

Family Life: Alan met Kathleen Belle Katz just following his graduation from high school. While Alan was on his mission, Kathy attended BYU and join the LDS church. They were married in 1967 and became the happy but busy parents of nine wonderful children. Kathy passed away in early 1994. Later that year, Alan married Annebel Christine Eklof Mathews, who already had five children of her own. By 1998, the 14 children, nine grandchildren and six sons- and daughters-in-law marked the beginning of a major impact on the world population explosion.