2024 NFMLTA-NCOLCTL Graduate Research Support Grant Recipients

Danwei Li

University of Connecticut

I am a Ph.D. student in Applied Linguistics and Discourse Studies in the Department of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages at the University of Connecticut. My broad research interests include second language acquisition, bilingualism, psycholinguistics, intercultural communicative competence, and language pedagogy. I also have a great passion for teaching Chinese. I am deeply honored to receive the 2024 NFMLTA-NCOLCTL Graduate Research Award. This grant will support data collection for my dissertation, which focuses on the cross-script phonological priming effect from L2 to L1 during visual word recognition in English-speaking Learners of Mandarin at different levels. I am grateful for the support and believe it can help me contribute to a better understanding of the bilingual mental lexicon.

Kexuan Wu

University of Oklahoma

Nihao! I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Instructional Leadership and Academic Curriculum at the University of Oklahoma. I am deeply honored to receive the 2024 NFMLTA-NCOLCTL Research Grant. My study aims to explore Chinese as a Foreign Language learners’ perceptions of using multicultural picture books as comprehensible input for language learning and how the use of these books influences the learners’ multicultural awareness. Through this study, I hope to provide instructional insights into using multicultural picture books to teach university Chinese courses, enhancing learners’ language proficiency and multicultural awareness, as well as shedding light on instructional practices in other languages. I sincerely thank NFMLTA and NCOLCTL for granting me the opportunity to advance my research on the intersection of language acquisition and multicultural awareness.

Leeseul Park

Indiana University

I am a PhD student in the Department of Second Language Studies at Indiana University Bloomington. In my university, I teach Japanese at East Asian Languages and Cultures and Summer Language Workshop. My research interest is L2 phonetics and phonology and their implications to pronunciation teaching. The current project tries to identify exactly where L1 Mandarin learners of Japanese have perceptual difficulty in Japanese voicing contrast. I am truly honored to receive the 2023 NFMLTANCOLCTL Research Award and share my research with other language educators all over the world

WeiHsuan Lo

University of Northern Colorado

I am a Ph.D. student in the Technology, Innovation, and Pedagogy Program at the University of Northern Colorado. I am also an experienced Chinese language Instructor with a Master’s degree in Teaching Chinese as a Second Language from the National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan. I’m passionate about exploring the intersection between language learning and educational technology. It is a great honor to receive this year’s NFMLTA/NCOLCTL Graduate Research Award supporting my doctoral dissertation research. My dissertation involves designing an educational card game that promotes language development and problem-solving skills. This grant will help me tremendously with data collection and analysis, contributing to valuable foreign language learning experiences through gameplay.

Hunter Brakovec

Indiana University

I am greatly honored to receive the 2023 NFMLTA-NCOLCTL graduate research award, which will support data collection for my dissertation on the third language (L3) acquisition of Korean, Mandarin, and Russian. I am a PhD candidate in the Second Language Studies department at Indiana University. My research interests center on the effects of an adult’s previously acquired languages in the acquisition of an L3. In my dissertation, I examine these effects at three levels: at initial exposure (prebeginner), at the end of the initial stages (late-beginner), and throughout further development (intermediate and advanced).

Thong Vang

University of Minnesota Twin Cities

Nyob zoo hab ua tsaug! My name is Thong Vang and I am a PhD candidate in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities. I am honored to have been considered and awarded the 2023 NFMLTANCOLCTL Research Grant. My research focuses on language and culture, particularly in the HMoob community in the United States. The funding from this award will help me with the initial data collection phase as I hope to record and archive the voices of community elders and their stories for their families and future kin. Once more, I am grateful and I look forward to sharing my research at future conferences!

Wei William Zhou

Ohio State University

I am honored to receive the NFMLTA/NCOLCTL Graduate Student Research Supports Grant. My sincere thanks go to NFMLTA and NCOLCTL for providing me with the opportunity to advance my research on Mandarin Chinese as an L2. My project will examine the impact of orthography on L2 word recognition and lexical access in Mandarin Chinese, and how it interacts with other linguistic aspects such as phonology in L2 acquisition and processing. Through this research, I hope to contribute to a deeper understanding of the complex mechanisms involved in Mandarin Chinese acquisition and offer fresh insights into L2 Chinese teaching and learning. I am thankful for this recognition and for NFMLTA/NCOLCTL’s dedication to promoting language education and scholarship

Rossina Soyan

Carnegie Mellon University

I am very happy to get support from NCOLTCL/NFMLTA. I am a PhD student at the Department of Modern Languages at Carnegie Mellon University. My research interests include biliteracy development, in particular, reading and writing development in first and second languages. My dissertation project focuses on the connection between morphological awareness and lexical inferencing in L2 Russian. The overall goal guiding the project is to help Russian learners become independent readers and to understand how various reading subskills contribute to this process. This award will allow me to reach out to more participants and to contribute to the science of reading.

Kaidi Chen

University of Connecticut

Kaidi Chen is a PhD candidate in Applied Linguistics and Discourse Studies in the Department of Literatures, Cultures and Languages at the University of Connecticut. He is also a member in the UConn Laboratory for Spoken Language Processing, a student in the Certificate Program of UConn Cognitive Science, and affiliated to the Connecticut Institute of Brain and Cognitive Science. His broad research interests are on bilingualism/second language acquisition, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics and language pedagogy. In recent years he mainly works on speech perception, second language speech and open science. He is also an experienced language teacher passionate about real-world pedagogical innovations. With the support of this award/grant, he will investigate the influence of semantic context, fundamental frequency (F0), and background noise on Mandarin spoken word recognition in American learners of Mandarin with different proficiency levels.

Matthew Ajibade

Indiana University

I am thrilled and deeply honored to receive the 2023 NFMLTANCOLCTL research grant in support of my dissertation research. I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Linguistics at Indiana University Bloomington. My research focuses on the influence of language background and exposure on Yoruba heritage and second language learners’ phonological perception. The recent increase in the enrolment of heritage and L2 learners has posed a challenge to many LCTLs, especially those with a mixture of both groups, such as Yoruba. Thanks to this grant, my research will be able to help Yoruba instructors better understand how to address specific phonological needs of heritage and L2 learners of the language.

Bianca Brown

Carnegie Mellon University

I am a PhD student in Second Language Acquisition at Carnegie Mellon University. My research interests focus on the development of multilingual identity in study abroad, and what kinds of social networks and interactions support that identity. The NCOLCTL grant will help me follow study abroad students of Turkish in an intensive program this summer, which will be a distinct opportunity to contribute to the learning and teaching of Turkish, as well as diversify study abroad perspectives often situated within more commonly taught languages. I am honored and grateful for the support of the NFMLTA-NCOLTL community.

Hanyu Jia

The University of Arizona

I am truly honored to be one of the recipients of the 2023 NFMLTANCOLCTL Research Award to support the data collection of my dissertation project. I am a Ph.D. candidate in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching at the University of Arizona. My research focuses on advancing our understanding of the affordances of high-immersive virtual reality environments for the development of pragmatic competence of Chinese as Foreign Language Learners. I aim to understand how cutting-edge virtual reality technologies can create an immersive, authentic, and engaging learning experience for Chinese language learners. This award will enable me to carry out my research with greater rigor and to share my findings with the broader community of language educators and researchers.