The Robert L. Baker
Summer Research Fellowship
for Second Language Acquisition
in an Environment of Immersion
Program Description
The Baker Research Fellowship will be awarded for a residency on the Middlebury College campus to study adult language acquisition. Research will be carried out during the summer session of the Language Schools. Each fellow may hold only one summer fellowship. Applicants should be experienced researchers in second-language acquisition or applied linguistics. They must be native or near-native speakers of one or more of the ten languages taught at Middlebury: Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian or Spanish. Researchers who have interests or expertise in secondary education, or in teacher preparation are encouraged to apply. Successful fellows will live with the faculty and students of the target Language School, will be expected to participate linguistically and socially in the life of the School and to return the following summer to present findings. The fellowship carries a stipend of $3,000-$4,000, depending upon the fellow's experience and the scope of the project, plus room and board.
An applicant's proposed research plan should address the questions:
How do adults learn second languages?
What are the strategies used by expert learners of second languages?
What results does an immersion program produce? Why?
Selection Criteria
Middlebury will not determine specific projects but will consider the following criteria in evaluating proposals:
1) The achievement of the project's objectives will add significantly to our understanding of how adult learners learn languages.
2) The achievement of the project's objectives will add significantly to our knowledge of effective language teaching methods.
3) The project design takes the immersion conditions of language learning at Middlebury into consideration, e.g., by incorporating both classroom and non-classroom activities.
4) Methods of data collection will be seamlessly incorporated in the curriculum and therefore non-intrusive in nature.
5) The methods of data collection will make appropriate use of technology to ensure accurate and objective results.
6) The conclusions drawn from the research project will create a framework of assumptions about language acquisition upon which curriculum development can be based.
We assume that each project will adhere to a commonly accepted typology of educational research with such necessary components as participant observation, surveys, in-depth interviews, case studies, computer-aided tracking of learner behavior, data collection and analysis.
Application process
Applicants should submit a three-page application consisting of the following:
A one-page narrative describing the proposed project.
A one-page outline of the plan of action to be followed in carrying out research.
A one-page resume that should reflect the applicant's experience in language research, linguistics, teaching, materials development, or any work done in furthering language pedagogy in secondary or higher education that would support the candidacy for a research fellowship.
The complete application should consist of no more than three pages. If supporting material is needed we will request that it be forwarded after reviewing the initial application. Applications should be submitted to:
Middlebury College Language Schools
(Name of School you are applying to)
Sunderland Language Center
Middlebury VT 05753
Deadline for receipt of applications is March 15, 2008.
Robert L. Baker Fellows (1994-2007)
1994 - Guy Spielmann and Mary Radnofsky - French
Georgetown University
The Role of Euphoric and Dysphoric Tension in Language Acquisition: An Ethnographic Study of the Beginners' Experience at the Middlebury French School
1995 - Gerry Russo - Italian
A Study of Metaphorical Competence of Anglophone Learners of Italian at Middlebury College
1996 - Judith Liskin Gasparro - Spanish
University of Iowa
Linguistic Development in an Immersion Context: How Advanced Learners of Spanish Perceive SLA
1997 - Catherine Jarvis - Russian
Literal and Metaphoric 'Stages" in Case Acquisition: A Cognitive View
1998 - Nan Jiang - Chinese
Vocabulary Acquisition in a Second Language under Immersion Conditions
1999 - Sonoko Sakakibara - Japanese
Vassar College
Construction of the Taxonomy of the Comity Strategies in NNS Discourse
2000 - Dan Dewey - Japanese
University of Pittsburgh
Acquistion of reading skills by learners of Japanese and French at Middlebury.
2001 - none chosen
2002 - Heather Allen - French
Emory University
Student Perceptions of the Culture of Learning at Middlebury
2003 - Lina Lee - Spanish
A Study of Conversational Interaction in an Immersion Context: the Role of Feedback in the Process of Negotiation
2004 - Lyris Wiedemann - Portuguese
Stanford University
The Impact of Using Grammars in the Oral Acquisition of the Target Language in Immersion Programs
2005 - Guiling Hu - Chinese
Georgia State Univewrsity
Developing Second Language Automaticity at Middlebury: An Investigation of Auditory Word Recognition.
2006 -Viktoria Driagina- Davis School of Russian
Pennsylvania State University
Acquisition of Motion Expressions by American Learners of Russian: Investigation in the Immersion Context
2007- Maria Antonia Cowles- Portuguese School
Lauder Institute of Management and International Studies, University of Pennsylvania
The Impact of Target Country vs. Home Country Immersion Programs on Intermediate Second Language Learners