In the Second Language Studies Program at Michigan State University, the faculty and graduate students conduct cutting-edge research on topics that span a large variety of areas within second language acquisition, bilingualism, psycholinguistics, and applied linguistics.
The faculty publish widely, and often with their graduate students (see the list of recent faculty publications). All faculty and students have access to research and data collection laboratories, where they can collect and analyze data (see information on our labs). SLS labs and other research facilities in Wells Hall that SLS faculty and students use include state-of-the-art computer labs, eye-tracking technology, data analysis software, digital recording studios, satellite television distribution, video and audio recording equipment, streaming media services, online oral data collection tools, and much more.
A few questions that the faculty and students address in their research in the Second Language Studies Program at Michigan State University are listed below.
- How do captions aid video-based listening comprehension?
- How does attention affect foreign and second language learning?
- How can eye-tracking technology be used to gauge L2 learning processes?
- How can SLA researchers maintain ethical boundaries both in research and in mentoring?How can pedagogues best teach languages online?
- How do context and visual cues affect spoken-language processing?
- How can teachers promote intercultural competence and awareness of sociolinguistic variation?
- How does interaction and feedback promote second language learning in instructional settings?
- How can SLA researchers best investigate and measure L2 writing advancement?
- How do individuals acquire a new language’s morphsyntax (such as grammatical gender, case, number and tense)?
- How do explicit information and language aptitude (grammatical sensitivity) aid learning during processing instruction?
- How can language testing programs best measure individuals’ progress in learning a foreign or second language?