Come welcome the newest students who have been accepted to the SLAT PhD program
Join us on Zoom as we welcome our newest cohort of students who will be starting SLAT in Fall 2025! This event is open to all current SLAT students and faculty at the University of Arizona.
Dr. Jill Castek, Dr. Jon Reinhardt, Dr. Verónica Oguilve Araya
Panelists: Dr. Jill Castek, Dr. Jon Reinhardt, Dr. Verónica Oguilve Araya
Moderator: Onur Ural Burns
Dr. Jill Castek is a Professor of Literacy, Technology, & Bi/multilingual Learners & STEM Education in the Department of Teaching, Learning, and Sociocultural Studies in the College of Education, and a faculty member in SLAT, at the University of Arizona. Jill serves as the Technology in Second Language Teaching Graduate Certificate and Ph.D. Minor Advisor for SLAT and works in the areas of Instructional Dimensions and Sociocultural Dimensions for L2 Learning. In 2023, Jill was awarded the Maria Urquides Laureate Award for extraordinary contributions to bilingual education. Her research focuses on learning interactions and digital literacies across communities and instructional spaces. She is the Director of the Digital Innovation and Learning Lab (DIALL) and has worked with CERCLL on the Worlds of Experience for Language Learning (WELL) and the creation and implementation of Virtual Field Experiences.
Dr. Jonathon Reinhardt (Ph.D., Pennsylvania State University) is a Professor of English Applied Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition and Teaching at the University of Arizona. His research is on the theory and practice of technology-enhanced additional language pedagogy, especially with emergent technologies like social media and digital gaming, digital literacies, language teacher preparation and learning, and critical language awareness.
Dr. Verónica Oguilve Araya completed her Ph.D. at the University of Arizona in the SLAT program, with an emphasis in TLS and Technology. She specializes in SLA, focusing on interaction in both in-person and online learning environments. Her research explores teaching and learning in digital literacy processes and equity. She has established connections across various disciplines. She collaborates on multiple projects that connect second language teaching and learning with the interdisciplinary areas of digital literacy. She has worked with the SLAT program, the College of Education at UofA, K-12 schools, and community organizations in Tucson. She has also been involved in CRAFT, a STEM Initiative, working to create a network that supports equitable and innovative approaches in education and research. Currently, Dr. Oguilve Araya is a teacher trainer at Universidad Técnica Nacional (UTN), where she teaches in both the Mechatronics major and the EFL major, and at Universidad Estatal a Distancia (UNED) in the Department of Methodology and Assessment for English Language Teaching.
TBA
We're sorry, but this colloquium has been postponed until Fall 2025.
Learn about the minor programs and graduate certificate programs that SLAT offers
Did you know that SLAT has 3 doctoral minors and 2 certificate programs? Are you interested in finding out what the different minors and certificate programs are all about? Then come to our information session! Some of the topics we’ll talk about are:
The Zoom link for the session will be posted here by early Spring 2025. Come with your questions, and we hope to see you there! For any questions about the information session, please email the SLAT Program Coordinator, Debbie Shon Buhler at dshon@arizona.edu.
This webinar has been postponed until Fall 2025
This webinar has been postponed until the Fall 2025 semester. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Get a refresher on the IRB process at the University of Arizona
This event is for SLAT majors and SLAT minors at the University of Arizona.
Do you want to know more about the Institutional Review Board (IRB) process at the University of Arizona? Do you need a refresher on what is needed for IRB applications and research/data collection with human subjects? Join us on Friday, March 1st, from 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm for Institutional Review Board (IRB) 101, given by Chelsea Quinn, IRB Coordinator in the Human Subjects Protection Program (HSPP) Office at the University of Arizona.
Come learn about how to work legally and ethically with human participants in language studies. What training do you need? What guidelines and restrictions are there? Are some people more protected than others? How do you submit your project for review and approval?
All these questions will be answered, and more!
Closing out the Qualifying Review process for SLAT first-year students
First year students will go through the results of this year's Qualifying Review, and have the opportunity to ask questions and get information to prepare for years 2 - 5 in SLAT. Stay on for the second hour, when there will be a presentation by an IRB representative about how to begin an IRB proposal.
Presenters: Dr. Suzanne Panferov Reese (SLAT Chair), Dr. Chris Tardy (SLAT Grad Advisor), Debbie Shon Buhler (SLAT Program Coordinator)
Chinese Language Teachers in American K-12 Schools
Colloquium Title: Chinese Language Teachers in American K-12 Schools
Colloquium Abstract: This mixed-methods study investigates the negotiation of their professional identity among Chinese language teachers in K-12 schools, and how it may intersect with their ethnic and racial positionings. Although the field of language teaching is paying increasing attention to how ethnicity and race may enter teachers’ professional lives is an increasingly important topic in the field of language teaching, the published research continues to be dominated by the teaching/learning of English as a second language (Von Esch, Motha, & Kubota, 2020). Set mostly in 2021 when there was widespread surge of anti-Asian violence, this project directs our attention to the experience of Chinese language teachers in a particular moment. Here the focus is the interviews and journal data collected from 27 Chinese teachers, who were selected as a balanced representative sample from the 221 participants who completed our national survey. The themes that emerged in our data highlight the intersectionality between language, nation, ethnicity, and race in Chinese language teachers’ professional work. In particular, the teachers’ discourse highlights three themes: 1) linguistic alienation of Chinese-ness, 2) culture-based exclusion, and 3) dealing with other forms of discrimination. Moreover, as the teachers described these challenges also as opportunities for inclusive language pedagogies, and they show examples of how to address justice in their own language classrooms, the findings here underscore anti-discrimination possibilities in and through language teaching.
Wenhao Diao is an Associate Professor and interim Head in the Department of East Asian Studies and an affiliated faculty member in the interdisciplinary doctoral program of Second Language Acquisition and Teaching at the University of Arizona. She founded and co-directs the Center for East Asian Studies, a Title VI National Resource Center supported by the U.S. Department of Education, at the University of Arizona. She received her Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University and her B.A. and M.A. from East China Normal University. As an applied linguist, she is interested in the identities and ideologies that Chinese language learning and teaching (re)produce and (re)distribute. Her research has primarily focused on Chinese language teachers in K-16 contexts, as well as the phenomenon of study abroad - particularly going to and from China. Her work has been funded by the U.S. Department of Education and the Chinese Language Teachers Association (USA). She was awarded a Fulbright-Hays grant in 2017 for her proposed project that connects educators in the U.S. with their peers in China. Her articles have appeared in journals such as Applied Linguistics, Modern Language Journal, System, and so on. With her colleagues in the field, she has published an edited book entitled Language Learning in Study Abroad: The Multilingual Turn (Multilingual Matters, 2021) and a guest-edited special issue themed Study Abroad in the 21st Century for the L2 Journal in 2016. Prior to joining the University of Arizona, she taught at Middlebury College, Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Virginia, and East China Normal University.
Dr. Dan MacDonald, Andrew Waldum, Dr. Stefan Vogel
Panelists: Dr. Dan MacDonald, Andrew Waldum, Dr. Stefan Vogel
Moderator: Maryah Converse, 4th-year SLAT Candidate
Dr. Dan McDonald is the Director of the Take Charge America Institute for Consumer Financial Education and Research, is an Extension Specialist in Financial Education, and a Distinguished Outreach Professor. Dr. McDonald has worked at the University of Arizona for 24 years, designing, implementing, and evaluating community programs. He oversees personal finance outreach programming offered through Cooperative Extension throughout the State of Arizona, including five Tribal Nations, and he is the project director for the Children, Youth, and Families at Risk sustainable communities project.
Andrew Waldum, M.B.A, CFP is an Associate Professor of Practice in Personal and Family Financial Planning at the University of Arizona’s Norton School of Human Ecology. He has worked in a number of different settings and roles, but for several years now he has been teaching university courses with an emphasis in Personal and Family Financial Planning at Central Washington University and at the University of Arizona. He is passionate about financial planning education and truly believes that crafting and following a solid financial plan can truly change people’s lives for the better. Professor Waldum has a M.B.A. with concentrations in Finance and International Management from the University of New Mexico - Albuquerque, and a Graduate Certificate in Personal Financial Planning from Kansas State University.
Dr. Stefan Vogel is a lecturer at the University of Albany, SUNY, where he teaches in the Writing and Critical Inquiry Program. He graduated from the SLAT PhD program in August 2021. As a former international student in SLAT, he has a unique perspective on how financial literacy can affect graduate students and prepare them for life in graduate school and beyond. Dr. Vogel’s primary academic interests and areas of specialization are second language writing, second language teacher education, as well as leadership and program administration.
Giving a hand to learning: Pedagogical gestures in the language classroom
Colloquium Title: Giving a hand to learning: Pedagogical gestures in the language classroom
Colloquium Abstract: Several studies in classroom contexts from the fields of language teaching, gesture studies, and cognitive science have demonstrated the usefulness of communicative teacher actions performed with the body (e.g. gesture, gaze, posture, and facial expressions) (Azaoui, 2020; Matsumoto & Canagarajah, 2020; Nakatsukasa, 2016; Tellier, 2014). The teacher’s ‘pedagogical gestures’, as we refer to it here, contribute to the teacher’s functions in the classroom such as informing (i.e. providing information about the language), assessing (i.e. giving feedback to learners) and managing (i.e. managing speech turns and giving instructions) (Tellier, 2008a). Language teachers have a specific way of combining speech and gestures to convey their message, especially when they use only the target language in the classroom.
The effect of pedagogical gestures on learning has been a recent focus in both ecological and experimental studies, underscoring its positive role in helping learners acquire an additional language. For instance, gestures and other visual cues help learners to access meaning in the target language (Sime, 2008; Sueyoshi & Hardison, 2005; Tellier, 2008a). Moreover, a number of experimental studies have also demonstrated the significant effect of hand gestures on memorization, particularly on lexicon learning (Allen, 1995; Macedonia & Klimesch, 2014; So et al., 2012; Tellier, 2008b).
Experienced teachers tend to use their body as a pedagogical tool, and they are aware of it. Inexperienced teachers, however, often struggle to use their bodies effectively (Tellier & Yerian, 2018; Yerian & Tellier, 2024) and must develop awareness of how to use their bodies as pedagogical affordances. In this talk, the developmental aspect of gesture as a professional technique will also be addressed.
Speaker Bio: Marion Tellier, Ph.D., is a professor of foreign language didactics at Aix Marseille Université and affiliated to the Laboratoire Parole et Langage (CNRS). Her research interests include foreign language teaching, pedagogical gestures, gestural adaptation, foreign language teacher training and professional gestural development. She has co-edited two volumes: Le corps et la voix de l’enseignant: théorie et pratique (The Teacher’s Body and Voice: A Theoretical and Practical Context) (Maison des Langues, 2014) and Enseigner à l’oral en ligne: une approche multimodale (Teaching orally online: a multimodal approach) (Didier, 2017). She is one of the co-founders of ISGS France (one of the national hubs of ISGS - International Society for Gesture Studies). She is currently the president of ASDIFLE (Association for French Didactics).
Location: Please register for this event at: https://arizona.zoom.us/meeting/register/bhNcSUZkSga_JG0YAhdGKA The Zoom link will be sent to you after registration. If you don’t receive the Zoom information by the date of the event, email GIDP-SLAT@arizona.edu.
