C&I PhD candidate receives excellence in research award

Darren LaScotte, a PhD candidate in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction (C&I), was recently honored with the 2023 TESOL Award for Excellence in Research for a paper on second language teaching and learning. The paper was written with Professor Emerita Elaine Tarone, a former faculty member in the MA TESOL program in C&I.

The award recognizes excellence in research on language teaching and learning and is given for empirical research that advances English language teaching policies, programs, or practices, or generates new knowledge about additional language acquisition.

LaScotte will receive the award at the upcoming TESOL International Conference in Portland, Oregon. He is the keynote speaker for the TESOL Graduate Student Forum on March 21, and will receive the award later that day at the opening plenary presentation. He will give a second featured presentation on March 22.

The award-winning paper, “Channeling ‘voices’ to improve L2 English intelligibility,” was published in The Modern Language Journal last year. The article documents ways that seven adult second language learners in an intensive English program improved their English intelligibility, while some of them also improved their delivery, as they all mirrored and subsequently channeled the voices of model speakers in rehearsed oral presentations over the course of seven weeks.