PAULA M. WINKE
I am a Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African Languages at Michigan State University. I teach and advise students primarily in the the Second Language Studies Ph.D. Program and the Master of Arts in TESOL Program. I am an affiliate with the Master of Arts in Foreign Language Teaching (MAFLT) Program. I am co-editor of the journal Language Testing, with Luke Harding (Lancaster University, UK).
My primary area of research is second and foreign language testing, though I research other issues in second language acquisition (SLA). As an applied linguist, I investigate language problems or issues (especially those tied to language assessment), and then I try to solve them, or at least I try to suggest ways in which they can be solved.
Right now I am investigating the English-language reading development by 3rd grade English Language Learners (ELLs) in the state of Michigan. With my graduate research assistant Xiaowan Zhang, I am using reading-test data from the Michigan Department of Education to investigate theories related to how English language learners develop their English reading and language arts skills. We are actively pursuing funding for our research, and are publishing papers along the way.
These days of COVID-19, I am working and teaching from home. I have upped my outside running (my mental escape). There are some really nice, tree-lined paths along the Red Cedar River that runs through our beautiful MSU campus. It’s pretty quiet on campus now, with most MSU classes fully online. I miss our in-person meetings, and look forward to being back in person after COVID-19.