{"id":67270,"date":"2021-05-03T16:53:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-03T20:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/?post_type=bu-article&p=67270"},"modified":"2023-09-28T16:22:30","modified_gmt":"2023-09-28T20:22:30","slug":"how-second-language-learners-become-proficient","status":"publish","type":"bu-article","link":"https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/news\/articles\/2021\/how-second-language-learners-become-proficient\/","title":{"rendered":"How Second Language Learners Become Proficient"},"content":{"rendered":"\t
\n\t\t
\n\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\"Kathy\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t
\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLanguage & Literacy<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tHow Second Language Learners Become Proficient\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

Kathy MinHye Kim explores how adult language learners retain what they are learning<\/h4>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\n\t<\/div>\n\n\t\n
\n\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
May 3, 2021<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
\n\t\t\tTwitter<\/span><\/span>\n\t\t\tFacebook<\/span><\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\t\n\n\n

Kathy MinHye Kim is a clinical assistant professor of language education at Boston University Wheelock College of Education & Human Development. Her work specializes in understanding how adult learners encode and retain second language (L2) knowledge. She examines how L2 learners develop implicit and explicit knowledge and factors that mediate their development; these factors include situational features (e.g., input modality), sleep conditions, and individual differences in cognitive (e.g., intelligence, working memory capacity) and biographical (e.g., education level and reading experiences) variables. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an interdisciplinary scholar, Kim also develops and validates measures of language usage and explores construct validity of L2 knowledge type measures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is your research focus?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a second language acquisition (SLA) researcher, I examine how second language learners become proficient in learning languages. I\u2019m especially interested in the factors that impact the development of implicit knowledge\u2014being able to use a second language spontaneously and intuitively without referring to explicit knowledge, that is knowledge of syntax and grammatical rules\u2014among adult learners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What has your research shown regarding factors that impact the development of implicit knowledge? How could these findings inform effective teaching practices?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of my papers, which was published in The Modern Language Journal<\/em><\/a>, bridged cognitive science and SLA research frameworks and looked at the role of modality in learning second languages and forming implicit and explicit knowledge. We manipulated the physical medium and the presentation method and found that the permanence of visual input seemed to help facilitate the development of implicit knowledge. What this may look like in every-day teaching practices would be providing written materials to beginning language learners to ease their cognitive burden and achieve better learning outcomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And in a recently accepted paper in Studies in Second Language Acquisition<\/em>, my co-author and I found a strong association between aptitude and implicit knowledge. In particular, we found that one\u2019s ability (or aptitude) to detect hidden patterns predicts implicit L2 knowledge formation. In other words, if you are good at detecting pattern sequences (i.e., predicting \u201c2\u201d in the third position in a \u201c5-3-2-1\u201d sequence), there is a greater chance to develop implicit L2 knowledge than those who are not good at picking up hidden rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are some challenges that you have encountered in your research?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recruitment and methodology. It\u2019s often difficult to find participants, especially for longitudinal studies. In a one-year longitudinal study, I needed to recruit over 100 students. I collaborated with computational linguists and cognitive scientists to program my own web-based measurements to make the study more accessible. Participants could record their voice at home and wouldn\u2019t have to come to the lab. This was done prior to COVID-19, and I was very happy to contribute to this program and share this resource to other researchers who may find it helpful in conducting their research right now. It really helps to have perspectives from different domains to develop new approaches and to address challenges in research. There is a strong interdisciplinary component in my research, and I look forward to continuing to facilitate collaborative research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can you talk about the selection of language(s) in your studies?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are many considerations when it comes to selecting a language for a study. In particular, the first language a person speaks could impact how well he or she learns a second language. For instance, Korean and English is very different in terms of lexicon and sentence structure, whereas English and German share a lot of lexical overlap but differ in grammatical rules. To minimize these confounding variables, we try to choose a language in a sophisticated manner that would be most appropriate for a study. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When examining implicit knowledge\/learning, we are not always able to find participants who don\u2019t have any knowledge of, say, Korean or English. In those situations, we would use an artificial or semi-artificial language (i.e., English words structured in German grammar; for instance, After dinner Susan the envelope sealed with wax.<\/em>). In general, with SLA research, we are investigating some common underlying mechanisms in learning second languages. We are collecting evidence from studies on various languages and hope to find a common phenomenon across the board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where is your research headed?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My ultimate goal is to inform educators about the best practices in teaching and supporting international and study-abroad students. Another important focus is on diversifying the sample population in research, making sure that underrepresented communities could be better represented in and benefited by research. Again, these considerations push me to collaborate more with experts in different fields to advance a socially responsible research agenda and practices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kathy MinHye Kim is a clinical assistant professor of language education at Boston University Wheelock College of Education & Human Development. Her work specializes in understanding how adult learners encode and retain second language (L2) knowledge. She examines how L2 learners develop implicit and explicit knowledge and factors that mediate their development; these factors include […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9274,"featured_media":56099,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"bu_prepress_billboard":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term":"Language & Literacy","_bu_prepress_primary_term_manual":""},"tags":[5899],"bu-publication":[6614],"magazine-article-category":[],"magazine-topic":[],"news-article-category":[6769,6645,6648,6768,6647,6646],"news-topic":[6789],"bu_edition":[],"media_type":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/67270"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/bu-article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9274"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67270"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/67270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73417,"href":"https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/67270\/revisions\/73417"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67270"},{"taxonomy":"bu-publication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-publication?post=67270"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-article-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/magazine-article-category?post=67270"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/magazine-topic?post=67270"},{"taxonomy":"news-article-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-article-category?post=67270"},{"taxonomy":"news-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-topic?post=67270"},{"taxonomy":"bu_edition","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu_edition?post=67270"},{"taxonomy":"media_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/wheelock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media_type?post=67270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}