Embedded Files
Though my appointment at MSU does not include a research component, I have continued working with data from my dissertation research on investment in young learners of Arabic and also collected and analyzed data for six further projects. Also, my students regularly complete action research and ethnographic research projects under my supervision. Some of those have been expanded into Experiential Modules, and I hope to present more of those projects at conferences with those students. Projects over the last five years have dealt with the following topics:
- a collaborative effort with Dustin De Felice and Paula Winke to consider the educational needs and barriers to entry in the field of Arabic language teaching through the experiences of two MAFLT students,
- a project that involved training teachers, helping them develop a customized speaking assessment, and studying the motivations of adolescent learners in a summer critical language institute;
- an action research project with Shannon Spasova in which we reviewed and enhanced the digital literacy components in her university Russian courses;
- a collaboration with faculty at the University of Portland, who asked me to offer guidance and support in the areas of theory, qualitative research design, and analysis as they evaluated intercultural awareness in student nurses;
- an analysis of the emergence of “culture” and “intercultural competence” as conceptual tools in online learning, again focusing on MAFLT students; and
- an investigation of teacher cognition and agency in novice world language teachers.
I have presented on these projects, individually and in partnership with Shannon, Dustin, and Paula, at national conferences including the American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL), the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), the National Council for Less-Commonly-Taught Languages (NCOLCTL), and the Computer-Assisted Language Instruction Consortium (CALICO). Dustin and I have also presented on priorities we emphasize in the MAFLT at the annual meeting of the Michigan World Language Association (MIWLA). Our students have also presented work they initiated in my courses at state conferences, and a student and I have been accepted to present a paper at NCOLCTL in Spring 2018. In this semester alone, I have 25 students completing projects in regular courses that involve empirical data collection and analysis and 4 students working on EM projects that involve research, so I hope to facilitate more collaborative presentations with students in the coming year.
Report abuse