Welcome to the Ph.D. Program in Second Language Studies (SLS). The SLS Ph.D. Program is designed to provide students a firm foundation in the field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) and how to apply it to current second language (L2) research and teaching. The field of SLA is the study of the acquisition of a non-primary language. As such, the field addresses questions such as how L2 learning occurs, why learners often do not achieve proficiency levels similar to their first language, how individual differences contribute to L2 learning and how classroom instruction affects L2 learning. The SLS Ph.D. Program at MSU draws from a number of disciplines as students are trained to explore some of these and related questions.

• Soo Hyon Kim has been awarded the 2012 Michigan Marckwardt Travel Grant for her outstanding scholarship and involvement in the TESOL profession. Her award will fund her travel to the TESOL convention in Philadelphia in March.
  
  
• Paula Winke has been chosen as the 2012 recipient of the TESOL Award for Distinguished Research for her 2011 TESOL Quarterly paper "Evaluating the validity of a high-stakes ESL test: Why teachers' perceptions matter." She will be presented with the award at the annual TESOL convention in Philadelphia in March. For a news brief on the paper's subject matter, click here.
  
  
• At the 2011 International Language Testing Research Colloquium’s closing awards banquette, SLS graduate Ching-Ni Hsieh was presented with the Russell N. Campbell Doctoral Dissertation award from The International Research Foundation (TIRF). Her dissertation “Rater effects in ITA testing: ESL teachers’ versus American undergraduates’ judgments of oral proficiency, accentedness, and comprehensibility” was recognized by TIRF as the top-ranked dissertation in second-language testing in 2010.


• Baburhan Uzum received an Interdisciplinary Inquiry and Teaching (IIT) Fellowship for the 2011-2012 academic year. This year-long fellowship comes with a $5000 stipend, funded by the MSU Graduate School.


• Paula Winke assumed the presidency of The Midwest Association of Language Testers (MwALT).


• Senta Goertler was elected to the CALICO Executive Board


• Charlene Polio assumed editorship of ARAL (Annual Review of Applied Linguistics)


• Shawn Loewen was elected to the AILA Executive Board as Member-at-Large of AILA. Susan Gass remains on the Board as Past President.