We now offer an undergraduate minor in TESOL. The minor consists of a minimum of 15 credit hours. Participation in this minor will develop the critical skills and knowledge necessary to work with learner of English as an additional language. Check out the program sheet for details.

Brian Seilstad, a former advisee, has a book coming out with Multilingual Matters. Educating Adolescent Newcomers in the Superdiverse Midwest: Multilingual Students in English-centric Contexts is based on his 2018 dissertation. Brian will be doing a webinar with Wayne Wright, Nancy Hornberger, Nelson Flores, and Maria Cioe Pena on April 1st, at 7 pm GMT. You can register for the webinar here.

While a doctoral student at UCLA, I had the honor and pleasure of working with Chuck Goodwin, whose work on the moment-by-moment conduct of face-to-face social interaction informed the work of scholars across disciplines, inside and outside the academy. Fred Erickson has written a beautiful obituary for Chuck, published in American Anthropologist.

The College of Education and Human Ecology’s newly reorganized Office of Research, Innovation, and Collaboration (ORIC), under the leadership of our Associate Dean for Research Natasha Slesnick, PhD, is pleased to announce a new ORIC Affiliates Program. Building on the former Research Methodology Center (RMC) Affiliates Program, ORIC will be expanding the program with the goal of deepening our engagement with scholars in EHE and across Ohio State. While the program will still serve as catalyst for interactions with others who are interested in research methodology, the new program will expand this focus to include scholars with a particular affinity for working on culturally sustainable research. As a community, our ORIC Affiliates will be invited twice yearly to come together for networking, brainstorming and interdisciplinary discussion. Through these gatherings we will facilitate the formation of working groups with interest in innovative and collaborative approaches to research.

FLRT is hosting a workshop on the ins and outs of the Job Search, Job Interview, & Job Talk in the fields of language research & teaching, SLA, Applied Linguistics, Sociolinguistics, and language education. The speakers are 3 faculty members – Dr. Wynne Wong (French & Italian), Dr. Carmen Taleghani-Nikazm (Germanic), and me – and Devin Grammon (Spanish & Portuguese) who will take up an assistant professor position at University of Oregon this coming fall. The workshop will be April 6th, 2:30-4:30 pm in Mendenhall 125.

The Language Pod course EDUTL/LING/PSYC 5700 Training in Informal Science Outreach is featured in OnCampus. I am teaching it this semester and having a great time teaching at COSI and in one of OSU’s Innovative Spaces on campus.

October 17-21, Columbus, Ohio

OSU will welcome ScienceWriters2014 this fall, October 17-21, 2014. The event is a meeting for science writers, by science writers. It includes professional development workshops, briefings on scientific research presented by the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing, and lab tours and science field trips organized by OSU. On Saturday, October 18th, 5:45 to 9:30 pm, there will be an awards gala at COSI, and the Language Pod will be in full effect for the occasion.

My promotion and award of tenure were approved by the Board of Trustees on June 7, 2013. I haven’t gotten my letter yet, but the approval was posted on the website of OSU’s Office of Academic Affairs, so it’s official: effective September 1, 2013 I will be Associate Professor with tenure.

WOSU has posted on youtube ‘Women, War, and Resettlement: Nasro’s Journey’, the newest video documentary by the Somali Documentary Project. The 27-minute video tells the story of one Somali woman’s journey from her war-torn homeland to a new home in Columbus, Ohio.