Dianna Murphy, Language Institute, received 2025 Stephen A. Freeman Award for Best Published Article
Dianna Murphy, Language Institute Director, for being recognized as a co-author of “the most impactful article on teaching techniques published by a professional journal” in 2024! With colleagues from Michigan State University Koen Van Gorp, Emily Heidrich Uebel, and Felix A. Kronenberg, Dianna has been honored with the prestigious 2025 Stephen A. Freeman Award for Best Published Article, which was presented by the Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (NECTFL).
The award-winning article, titled “How important is studying languages for undergraduate students and why (not) study languages?” is based on a partial replication of a study originally conducted by the Language Institute at UW-Madison. It explores the value undergraduate students place on proficiency in languages other than English (LOTEs) in terms of their personal interests, major(s), and career plans.
SLA PhD student Martiniano Etchart received 2024 AAAL Graduate Student Award
(February 2025) SLA PhD student Martiniano Etchart is one of only seven recipients of a merit-based 2024 American Association of Applied Linguistics (AAAL) Graduate Student Award. The award supports the attendance of AAAL graduate student members at the annual conference. Eligibility to apply is based on the quality of an accepted proposal for a poster or paper. Martiniano joins a small group of our program's alumni, including Peter De Costa (graduated 2011), Elizabeth Tremmel (2014), and Bingjie Zheng (2020) who received this award in the past.
WPR interview with K. D. Thompson, Religious Studies Program, on Celebrating African Languages
(August, 2024) In their Wisconsin Public Radio interview, SLA director K.D. Thompson discusses their experience with learning, teaching, and researching African languages and cultures. In addition to addressing class, ethnicity, race, and other issues, they make a case for studying African languages at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, including the Multilanguage Seminar, a self-instructional model for learning less commonly taught African and other languages.