News and Events

Brandon Sherman, assistant research professor of applied linguistics and assistant director of Penn State’s Center for Language Acquisition, spent this summer working with educators in Tunisia through the U.S. Department of State’s English Language Specialist Program.

The grant allowed Sherman to spend three weeks training 40 English teachers and 25 supervisors on how to conduct action research as a means of improving student performance and assessment. He and another program specialist, Tammy Johnson, collaborated closely with the U.S. Embassy in Tunisia's capital city of Tunis.

Celeste Kinginger, Kirby Professor in Language Learning and professor of applied linguistics at Penn State, recently received the Modern Language Association’s (MLA) Kenneth W. Mildenberger Prize for her book, “The Professional Lives of Language Study Abroad Alumni: A Mixed Methods Investigation” (Multilingual Matters).

Penn State’s Department of Applied Linguistics continues to stand out globally, with six of its faculty members ranked among the top 2% most cited scholars in the world, according to the latest to statistics compiled by Stanford University professor John P.A. Ioannidis and available through the Elsevier Data Repository. The scholars—Suresh Canagarajah, Xiaofei Lu, James P. Lantolf, Karen E. Johnson, Matthew E. Poehner, and Tommaso M. Milani—are recognized for their groundbreaking contributions to key areas of applied linguistics, including translanguaging, corpus-based approaches to language learning, critical discourse analysis, second language acquisition, teacher education, and Vygotskian-inspired dynamic assessment.

This continued recognition highlights the department’s sustained excellence in research. The Stanford list, which evaluates scholars based on citation metrics, affirms the global relevance and impact of Penn State’s applied linguistics research.

Faculty and staff in the College of the Liberal Arts participated in the college's annual Office Olympics last week. In addition to competing in several events, the Department of Applied Linguistics won the fundraising trophy for helping to raise more than $3,000 for Centre County United Way!