SLA Lab Director
Jacee Cho, founder and director of the SLA Lab at UW Madison, is an Associate Professor in the Department of English and a member of the Second Language Acquisition Program’s Steering Committee. Since completing her PhD at the University of Iowa in 2012, she has published numerous articles and given a number of presentations on the acquisition of articles, definiteness and specificity, covert and overt features. Her current work focuses on the second language acquisition of English articles by Russian and Korean speakers.
https://english.wisc.edu/staff/cho-jacee/
Office: 6107 Helen C. White
Email: jacee.cho@wisc.edu
Lab members
Carolina Bernales is a postdoctoral researcher in the Language Science Program. She holds a PhD in Second Language Acquisition from UW-Madison and is currently an associate professor in the Linguistics Department at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso (Chile). Her research focuses on the role of instruction, attention, and previously acquired language(s) in lexical and syntactic processing and language learning. (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9382-7183)
Sophie Boes is an undergraduate student majoring in English language and linguistics and political science at UW-Madison. Her interest in second language acquisition as a psycholinguistic phenomenon derives from her experience tutoring fourth-grade English Language Learners at Orchard Ridge Elementary in Madison. In her free time, she enjoys thrifting, hiking, and reading.
Vatcharit (Pond) Chantajinda is a PhD student in English Language & Linguistics at UW-Madison. He obtained his BA in Spanish and MA in Linguistics from Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand. His research interests include L2 acquisition of morphosyntax and its interfaces, and psycholinguistics. His information can be found on this site.
Aruzhan Dauletkhan is a PhD student in the Second Language Acquisition program at UW-Madison. She earned her B.A. and M.A. in Foreign Philology (English) from KazUIR&WL in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Since 2019, she has been teaching EFL and IELTS courses at various language schools in Almaty and Astana. Her research interests focus on L2/L3 acquisition, particularly in Kazakh-Russian-English contexts, as well as morphosyntax and experimental design.
Yongjia Deng is a PhD student in the Language Sciences Program at UW-Madison. Yongjia completed her B.A. with distinction in Linguistics at Purdue University. Her research interests are psycholinguistics and L2/Ln acquisition. And she is a fan of K-pop.
Zimo Kong is a PhD student in the Second Language Acquisition program at UW-Madison. Her research interests focus on psycholinguistics, child language development, second and third language (L2/L3) acquisition, particularly in morphosyntax and its interfaces. With a background in linguistics and educational policy, she has extensive teaching experiences with bilingual children in charter schools as well as adult learners at UW-Madison.
Kai W. Li is an undergraduate student studying English Language & Linguistics and Computer Science at UW-Madison. His interests within the scope of second language acquisition lie mainly in syntax, pragmatics, and sociolinguistics. He also likes other things too, like collecting records. And pets.
Jill McLeod holds BS Edu SLD from UW-Milwaukee and has privately and publicly taught for over 30 years in the US, UK, and New Zealand. Jill is currently a second year M.A. student in the Applied Linguistics and Languages program with a strong interest in SLA and Sociolinguistics, particularly Pragmatics. Jill is the current Applied Linguistics Student Association president. Away from campus she lives with 5 chickens, 2 cats, one dog, and a husband. Besides a growing population of animals, she also grows copious amounts of edible, flowery, and spiky plants
Joseph Moran is a PhD student in English Language & Linguistics at UW-Madison. His research interests include L2 acquisition at the syntax-semantics and syntax-pragmatics interfaces, especially the acquisition of modality. Prior to enrolling at UW, he taught English to L2 learners in the United States, Czechia, and Japan. He received his MA in Linguistics from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, his BA in Philosophy from Beloit College, and his TESOL certificate from Trinity College London.
Paul Oshefsky is a staff member here at UW-Madison. He earned his B.S. in Biology and minored in French at UW-Milwaukee. He then received his M.A. in College Counseling from Western Michigan University. Paul is interested in English secondary language acquisition for adult learners, especially for L1 Mandarin L2 English speakers. He is in the process of learning Mandarin now, and that experience as an adult language learner informs his interest in linguistics.
Moldir Oskenbay, PhD, is a research analyst with SLA LAB. She specializes in education and Central Eurasian history, with an interest in linguistic development from past to present. Moldir has taught university courses in Russian, Kazakh, and English, and has published original research in those languages.
Zachary Peterson is an undergraduate student majoring in English Language and Linguistics as well as Spanish at UW-Madison. His research interests include multilingualism (L2/Ln), morphosyntax, language variation and experimental design. Zachary is also involved in the creation of a tokenized corpus of the Asturian language.
Piyaboot Sumonsriworakun is a PhD student in English Language and Linguistics at UW-Madison. His research interests are second language acquisition, corpus linguistics, and English language teaching. Prior to his PhD pursuit, he taught various courses such as TOEFL, IELTS, Effective English writing, English for work, English for Academic purposes for science and architecture. He received his MA in English from Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand.
Jun Wang is a Ph.D. candidate majoring in Chinese linguistics and minoring in Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition at UW-Madison. Her research interest areas are SLA, experimental syntax, experimental pragmatics, and syntax-pragmatics interface. Jun also teaches Chinese language courses at different levels. Prior to her pursuit of a Ph.D., she received her MA at Binghamton University and M.Ed. at Carthage College. She is currently teaching Chinese at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville.