I have been involved into Linguistics from the moment I started my undergraduate study with a major in EFL and English literature from Egypt. After graduation, I was fortunate enough to take an English instructor job at my home university where I started to shape my teaching philosophy and approach to applied linguistics. I taught English for specific purposes, conversation, and TOEFL preparation.
Seeking professional development, I earned a Fulbright grant to the United States in 2008-2009 to pursue a Masters degree in Linguistics and ESL at the University of North Texas. It was at that time when my research personality came into being, and I realized there was so much to learn about how students learn.
When I started my PhD degree at MSU, I worked for the Arabic Flagship Program. As a teacher, I was most enthusiastic about building my students’ vocabulary and was curious to explore effective ways to activate and enhance the learners’ vocabulary knowledge. I developed online, short courses in Arabic and Egyptian conversation, specially focused on vocabulary teaching. I stressed incidental learning and the power of repetition, contextual exposure, and productive output. I devoted all my research to exploring task-based incidental learning and fostering the incremental development of learner lexicon.
Recently in my dissertation, I adopted an eye-tracking methodology to investigate how repetition and context can predict the learning of unknown words in story reading. I also investigated how repetition and context can affect learners’ processing and attention, as reflected in reading times, and whether these processing patterns predict various aspects of L2-vocabulary-learning outcomes.
Now with more than 12 years of English and Arabic teaching, I am looking forward to a professional career in which I can thrive as a teacher and researcher in applied linguistics. My academic goal is to fill the gap between research and practice and put AFL on the map of SLA literature. My lifetime goal is to inspire new graduates and convey the message about the beauty of our mission; i.e., teaching and learning languages. Please check my website for more about me: http://aymanmohamed.weebly.com/