The session for October 3rd has been cancelled. Sessions will resume on Tuesday, October 10th.

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Dear SLAT students and SLAT minors,

Would you like to be a more productive writer? If you are working on an intensive writing project like a dissertation, journal article, course paper, or grant proposal, and you would like to increase your writing productivity in a safe and friendly space, consider joining the SLAT Writing Sessions this Fall 2023!

Each focused 2-hour session is set up to have unstructured writing time with short breaks, followed by a short discussion aimed at helping you improve your writing productivity. This is an informal way to create accountability, meet a few SLAT friends, and get some writing done. 

The sessions will be on Zoom every Tuesday afternoon, from 4:30 pm – 6:30 pm (AZ). The first session will take place on September 19, and the sessions will continue until December 5 (except for the week of Thanksgiving). The recurring Zoom link for the sessions is: https://arizona.zoom.us/j/89779868688 No advance registration necessary – just show up and work on your writing goals! 

Please reach out to Amable (amableribeiro@arizona.edu) or Kate (kateshea@arizona.edu) with any questions.

Dear SLAT students and SLAT minors,

Would you like to be a more productive writer? If you are working on an intensive writing project like a dissertation, journal article, course paper, or grant proposal, and you would like to increase your writing productivity in a safe and friendly space, consider joining the SLAT Work Sessions this Fall 2023!

Each focused 2-hour session is set up to have unstructured writing time with short breaks, followed by a short discussion aimed at helping you improve your writing productivity. This is an informal way to create accountability, meet a few SLAT friends, and get some writing done. 

The sessions will be on Zoom every Tuesday afternoon, from 4:30 pm – 6:30 pm (AZ). The first session will take place on September 19, and the sessions will continue until December 5 (except for the week of Thanksgiving). The recurring Zoom link for the sessions is: https://arizona.zoom.us/j/89779868688 No advance registration necessary – just show up and work on your writing goals! 

Please reach out to Amable (amableribeiro@arizona.edu) or Kate (kateshea@arizona.edu) with any questions.

Dear SLAT major and minor students,

Would you like to be a more productive writer? If you are working on an intensive writing project like a dissertation, journal article, course paper, or grant proposal, and you would like to increase your writing productivity in a safe and friendly space, consider joining the SLAT Work Sessions this Fall 2023!

Each focused 2-hour session is set up to have unstructured writing time with short breaks, followed by a short discussion aimed at helping you improve your writing productivity. This is an informal way to create accountability, meet a few SLAT friends, and get some writing done. 

The sessions will be on Zoom every Tuesday afternoon, from 4:30 pm – 6:30 pm (AZ). The first session will take place on September 19, and the sessions will continue until December 5 (except for the week of Thanksgiving). The recurring Zoom link for the sessions is: https://arizona.zoom.us/j/89779868688 No advance registration necessary – just show up and work on your writing goals! 

Please reach out to Amable (amableribeiro@arizona.edu) or Kate (kateshea@arizona.edu) with any questions.

Dissertation Proposal Title: L2 Word Learning

Dissertation Committee Members: Dr. Janet Nicol (Chair), Dr. Mahmoud Azaz, Dr. Vicky Lai, Dr. Miquel Simonet

Dissertation Proposal Title: Bringing Digital Games Into the L2 Classroom: Examining the Various Aspects of Games for L2 Teaching and Learning

Dissertation Committee Members: Dr. Jon Reinhardt (Chair), Dr. Carmen King de Ramirez, Dr. Liudmila Klimanova

Dissertation Proposal Title: Corpus-based Materials Implementation in Writing Classrooms: Teachers' Experiences, Perceptions, and Training Initiatives

Dissertation Committee Members: Dr. Shelley Staples (Chair), Dr. Jon Reinhardt, Dr. Chris Tardy, Dr. Gail Shuck (Special External Member, Boise State University)

Abstract: Over the last few decades, the tools of corpus linguistics have allowed teachers to engage learners in an examination of language patterns and language use through authentic texts and from there assist learners on appropriate language uses in different contexts, registers and genres (Friginal, 2018; Reppen, 2010). Previous research has shown that corpus-based analysis and data-driven learning, also known as the direct use of corpora in language teaching (DDL; Johns, 1991), can effectively guide students to understand language patterns across texts and grammatical features typically used in different genres (Boulton & Cobb, 2017; Flowerdew, 2005). Many studies (Chang, 2014; Luo, 2016; Tono et al., 2014) testing the effectiveness of DDL materials use a teacher/researcher (or a team of experts) as the creator and deliverer of the materials. Thus, it seems to be that creating and presenting DDL materials have mostly been done by researchers and teachers who already have years of experiences using corpus linguistics in their own practices (Callies, 2019; Chambers, 2019; Leńko-Szymańska, 2014; Mukherjee, 2004; Poole, 2022; Tribble, 2012), yet, the question remains on how DDL can be used more widely and effectively by the majority of teachers, who might not be as well-versed in corpus methodologies.

The goal of this three-article dissertation project is to respond to the issues and gaps in how instructors are involved in the process of receiving training, designing and implementing corpus-based instructional materials in their own teaching contexts, focusing on namely: 1) establishing a systematic review on teachers’ engagement with corpus-based instructions; 2) analyzing teachers’ experiences and perceptions of corpus-based materials implementation in second language writing (SLW) classes; and 3) investigating whether a PLC training model can foster teachers’ development of DDL understanding and implementation in SLW classrooms.

This in-person workshop will be an introduction to qualitative research methods in relation to SLA-related topics. The workshop will cover how qualitative research engages with the relational, how to consider the ways that positionality influences data collection and analysis, and more! 

The location for the workshop will be posted here closer to the date of the event.

Facilitator: Dr. Janice McGregor 

Dr. McGregor is a faculty member in the Department of German Studies and SLAT. Her research projects draw on lived experiences with identity, authenticity, and multilingualism and center around three interrelated strands: Language (learning) ideologies and learner beliefs, culture and intercultural learning, especially in study abroad, and qualitative research methods in German applied linguistics.