Humanities Award for Research Excellence

Dean Archibald is pleased to announce that Dr. Hossien Nassaji of the Department of Linguistics is the recipient of the Faculty of Humanities Annual Award for Research Excellence for 2012.

Dr. Nassaji’s research contributions are in the area of applied linguistics and second language acquisition (SLA).  He sustains active research programs in four distinct but related areas of SLA: a) second language (L2) reading processes, b) lexical inferencing and vocabulary learning, c) sociocultural theory, and d) form-focused instruction. His current research focuses on interactional feedback and focus on form in both classroom and naturalistic settings, involving experimental/quantitative and descriptive/qualitative research. His research in these areas has contributed substantially to our current understanding of what role attention to linguistic forms plays in the development of L2 communicative competence.

During the past five years, Dr. Nassaji has produced 33 publications including 3 books (co-edited and co-authored), 16 major articles in refereed journals, 8 book chapters and encyclopedia entries, and 6 book reviews. His refereed journal articles have been published in leading journals in the field such as Language Learning, Modern Language Journal, TESOL Quarterly, Canadian Modern Language Review, Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, Language Teaching Research, Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics, Foreign language Annals, and Reading Research Quarterly. His three books have been published by internationally recognized academic publishers and include Form-Focused Instruction and Teacher Education: Studies in Honour of Rod Ellis, (Oxford University Press, 2007, with Sandra Fotos), Teaching Grammar in Second Language Classrooms: Integrating Form-Focused Instruction in Communicative Context (Routledge, Taylor & Francis, 2010, first author with Sandra Fotos) and Current Developments in Form-focused Interaction and Second Language Development (special volume of Canadian Modern Language Review, 2010, first co-editor with Daphnée Simard from the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM).

In addition, in the past five years, Dr. Nassaji has given over 35 conference presentations, keynote addresses, and invited talks at various scholarly meetings and venues here in Canada and abroad. He has organized two conference symposiums, one at the American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL) and the other at the Canadian Association for Applied linguistics (CAAL). During the past five years, he has also performed a number of editorial duties and services for the academic community. He is currently serving on editorial, advisory, or review boards of scholarly journals such as TESL Canada Journal, Journal of Language and Literature Education, Language Teaching Research, Theory and Practice in Language Studies, The Iranian Journal of Language Studies, Language Teaching, International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature, and System: An International Journal of Educational Technology and Applied Linguistics.  He has served as evaluator of research grant proposals for grant institutions such as The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), Research Grant Program of the journal of Language Learning, Council for the Humanities of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO, the Dutch Research Council), and Christopher Brumfit Outstanding Thesis Award of the journal of Language Teaching. He has also been adjudicator of applications for tenure and promotion to Associate Professor and full Professor, and has also served as academic program reviewer for scholarly institutions.

Dr. Nassaji has been the recipient of the prestigious twenty-first annual Kenneth W. Mildenberger Prize of Modern Language Association of America (MLA) for the article he co-authored with Gordon Wells of the University of California, Santa Cruz, What's the Use of Triadic Dialogue?: An Investigation of Teacher-Student Interaction. The selection committee described the study as “well researched, well argued, and well written,” and praised it for offering “a much more thoughtful and meaningful way of dealing with instruction and learning.” His other contributions have earned awards in other venues. His 2002 article in the journal of Language Learning titled “Schema Theory and Knowledge-Based Processes in Second Language Reading Comprehension: A need for Alternative Perspectives” was selected as the Best of Language Learning and republished in The Best of Language Learning Series, a supplement to the journal that reprints outstanding research articles published previously in that journal. His 2004 article, “The Relationship Between Depth of Vocabulary Knowledge and L2 Learners' Lexical Inferencing Strategy Use and Success” published in the Canadian Modern Language Review (CMLR), and also an earlier 1999 article, “Towards Integrating Form-Focused Instruction and Communicative Interaction in the Second Language Classroom: Some Pedagogical Possibilities,” originally published in CMLR, were both selected and republished as Exchange articles in Modern Language Journal. Exchange articles are selected by a joint committee of the Modern Language Journal and the Canadian Modern Language Review on the basis of quality and potential impact on second language learning and teaching. His review article on grammar teaching (Nassaji & Fotos, 2004) titled “Current Developments in Research on the Teaching of Grammar, published in the Annual Review of Applied Linguistics (24, pp. 126-145) is a state-of-the-art review of recent research into the role of grammar instruction in language classrooms. The article has been very well received by researchers, teachers, and teacher educators, and has been cited on Betty Azar’s website on grammar teaching as an outstanding article in the field of grammar instruction. Betty Azar is a renowned authority in the area of grammar instruction and is the author of many well known grammar textbooks. Azar states “This 2004 article by Nassaji and Fotos surveys twenty-plus years of recent research and concludes that grammar teaching is effective and beneficial . . . I believe this is an informative and important article in today’s discussion of the teaching of grammar” (http://azargrammar.com/assets/authorsCorner/notesQuotes/NQ-BN_Nassaji-Fotos_v2.pdf).  Dr. Nassaji’s other published works, both past and recent, have also been widely cited and some have been ranked among the top most-read articles by the journals in which they appear.

 

Previous Recipients

2000	Patrick Grant
2001	Angus McLaren
2002	John Oleson
2003	Christine St. Peter
2004	Paul Wood
2005	Eike-Henner Kluge
2006	Peter Baskerville
2007	John Esling
2008	Lisa Surridge
2009	Ray Siemens
2010	Gary Kuchar Marc Lapprand
2011	Serhy Yekelcyhk