October 2, 2003.
Professor Roumyana Slabakova (University of Iowa)
Talk Title: Acquiring Russian Aspect: Challenges and Giveaways
Abstract:Aspect has widely been identified as an area presenting the most significant challenge to second language learners of Russian. I argue that acquiring aspect combines two different learning tasks that are worth teasing apart: acquiring that a prefixed verb denotes a complete event, and learning all individual prefixes that combine with a specific verb. The first type of knowledge involves acquisition of grammatical meaning, while the second task essentially involves lexical learning of derivational morphemes. The experimental results indicate that advanced and intermediate Russian L2 learners have successfully acquired the grammatical mechanism of marking completion, while still having considerable difficulty with learning the lexical items signaling the same thing. I will elaborate on the differences between learning the grammar and learning the lexicon and will argue that the former is often a giveaway while the latter is a challenge for adult second language learners.

October 30, 2003.
Ms. Sabine Gläsmann (University of Sheffield) and Professor Gary Cziko (University of Illinois)
Talk Title: Tandem and beyond: Collaborative on-line language learning
Abstract: Tandem language learning involves peer learning between two speakers of different languages who are learning each other's language. Based on the principles of autonomy and reciprocity, tandem learning has existed in various forms, primarily in Europe, since the 1980s. Ms. Gläsmann has been involved in a European Union's "Lingua-D Project", a pilot project introducing both face-to-face and eTandem in secondary schools in the United Kingdom. She will provide a short history of tandem and discuss her experiences administering tandem projects. She will also consider the future potential of tandem learning for facilitating second language and culture acquisition that she is researching in a joint eTandem project involving UIUC and Heidelberg University. In addition, Gary Cziko will provide a short demonstration of ENLACE, a web-based synchronous audiovideo communication network that will allow worldwide eTandem learning for students of participating colleges and universities.

December 4, 2003
Professor Micheal H. Long (University of Maryland)
Title: Recasts in SLA: The story so far
Abstract: Theorizing and research on the role of negative feedback in SLA has a long and somewhat turbulent history, and scholars today remain divided. Some appear to believe that almost all overt “error correction” is beneficial, while often doubting the value of negative feedback delivered incidentally, while speakers (or writers) are focused on communication, not linguistic forms. Others suggest that a complex array of linguistic and psychological factors affect its utility. Still others claim that negative feedback plays no role at all.
Partly inspired by results in first language acquisition, much recent L2 research in this area has focused on the role of implicit negative feedback, and in particular, on the efficacy of so-called corrective recasts. Corrective recasts are defined as reformulations of all or part of a learner’s immediately preceding utterance in which one or more non-target-like (lexical, grammatical, etc.) items are replaced by the corresponding target-language form(s), and where, throughout the exchange, the focus of both interlocutors is on meaning, not language as object. Work on L2 recasts to date has included well over 30 descriptive, quasi-experimental, and experimental studies of their occurrence, usability, and use in classrooms, laboratory settings, and other kinds of non-instructional conversation. Questions have been raised as to their potential non-salience and/or ambiguity, their value as positive or negative evidence, the difficulty of distinguishing acquisition and deployment, and other matters, but results have generally been encouraging.
Researchers have also begun to compare the impact of recasts and other more explicit forms of negative feedback on classroom discourse, and of particular significance for language teaching, the relative utility of models and recasts for language development. Illustrative studies from each of these major lines of work are briefly described and critiqued, and suggestions made for the design of future studies. Finally, some implications are drawn for language teaching methodology and pedagogy: What kinds of negative feedback in the classroom can best promote accuracy without diverting teachers and students from a focus on communication?

February 12, 2004.
Professor Batia Laufer (University of Haifa)
Title: Word focused instruction and second language vocabulary learning
Abstract: In this presentation, I will challenge the claim that reading is the major source of vocabulary acquisition in a foreign language, by examining the basic assumptions which underlie the claim: the 'noticing' assumption, the ‘guessing ability’ assumption, the 'guessing-retention link' assumption, and the 'cumulative gain' assumption. I will argue that word focused instruction is a more realistic and efficient method of expanding second language vocabulary, and that effective vocabulary tasks share a high degree of 'involvement load' (the combination of need, search and evaluation). Empirical evidence will be presented to support the argument that involvement load is indeed a predictor of task effectiveness in vocabulary learning. Finally, I will suggest that 'word learnability' (the ease or difficulty with which a particular word can be acquired) should play an important role in vocabulary instruction.

March 11, 2004.
Professor Fred Genesee (McGill University)
Title: Dual Language Learning: Exploring the Limits of the Language Faculty
Abstract: Children who grow up learning two, or more, languages simultaneously provide a unique opportunity to explore the limits of the language faculty. Under some early views, the language faculty was thought to be limited so that children with simultaneous dual language exposure were thought to be at risk for delayed or, worse, higher incidence of impaired language development in comparison to monolingual language learners. Findings from recent research paint a radically different picture. Discussion of the cognitive as well as linguistic implications of recent findings on bilingual infants will be highlighted. The picture that is emerging is one of bi- and possible even multilingual innate competence for language acquisition.

April 7, 2004.
Professor Monica Heller (University of Toronto)
Title: Language, identity and commodification in the new economy
Abstract: Many sectors of the globalized new economy are centred on multilingual communication, and, despite widespread complaints about the McDonaldization of the linguistic landscape, varied aspects of language and identity have turned out to be important in some perhaps unexpected ways. In this paper, I want to explore some other angles of the complexities and contradictions of the commodification of language and identity in the globalized new economy. I will focus on some recent ethnographic, sociolinguistic research in francophone areas of Canada, in particular those where new economy businesses like call centres and various tourism-related service industries are emerging out of the wreckage of the old economy, which was based on heavy industry and primary resource exploitation. The skilling or commodification of language, as well as the simultaneous marketing of authenticity, challenge community-based systems of producing and distributing linguistic resources, redefine the relationship between language and identity, and produce new forms of competition and social selection.

April 14, 2004.
Professor Roger Hawkins (University of Essex)
Title: Explaining full and partial success in the acquisition of second language grammatical properties
Abstract: Universal Grammar (UG), a theory of the human language faculty proposing that some aspects of linguistic knowledge are innate while others have to be fixed on the basis of experience, has proved to be a rich source of hypotheses about second language acquisition in recent years. In this talk I will compare two approaches within a UG framework to explain cases of `full' and `partial' success of L2 learners. One approach considers that L2 speakers are always fully successful in establishing appropriate mental representations for L2 properties (given enough exposure) but have difficulty accessing that knowledge under certain circumstances. The other claims that L2 speakers' representations for some properties are different from those of native speakers of the target language, and it is this that gives rise to different surface effects. Whichever of these approaches turns out to be correct has important implications for our understanding of where difficulty arises for second language learners. Do they have difficulty accessing already-established grammatical knowledge, or do they have difficulty establishing some areas of grammatical knowledge in the first place?

April 29, 2004
Professor Jerry Packard (UIUC)
Title:Sentence Processing in L2 Speakers and Native Speakers of English and Mandarin
Abstract: In this talk I present the results of experiments that compared aspects of sentence processing in native and second-language speakers of English and Mandarin Chinese. Using a self-paced reading task, I examined the processing of subject- versus object-extracted relative clauses, and the processing of relative clauses serving as the subject or object of matrix sentences. The first finding is a difference between the native-speaker and L2 groups in the processing of subject- versus object-extracted relative clauses, with the L2 groups but not the native-speaker groups showing theoretically-predicted extraction effects. The second finding is that the two native speaker groups and the L2 English speaker group processed the matrix sentences more slowly when the relative clause was center-embedded, and the relative clauses themselves were processed more quickly when they were center-embedded. The L2 Mandarin speaker group showed the exact reverse of the latter two findings: matrix sentence processing speed was faster when relative clauses were center-embedded, and the relative clauses were processed more slowly when center-embedded. These results are explained by positing a general locality (distance) effect mitigated by an anticipation effect based on the prediction of incoming units. I will argue that L2 speakers are more sensitive to locality than anticipation, and that sensitivity to anticipation increases as proficiency in L2 develops.