She graduated from the Universidad de Oviedo, Spain, with a degree in Spanish Philology, and holds a Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia in Madrid. She has published various articles in sociolinguistics, and authored a number of pedagogical materials for foreign languages. She is a co-author of Trato hecho, and Hoy día: Spanish for Real Life published by Pearson-Prentice Hall.