Visiting Speaker - Dr. Ana Pellicer Sanchez

Please join us for a public talk about "Investigating Vocabulary Learning Through Eye Movements" by Dr. Ana Pellicer Sanchez, Associate Professor, IOE - Culture, Communications & Media, University College London Institute of Education.

Dr. Pellicer Sanchez is hosted by Dr. Stuart Webb.

A major concern of vocabulary researchers has been to find the most effective way to teach and learn new vocabulary. Although the lexical gains accruing from different learning approaches have traditionally been measured by offline tests, researchers have recently started to use eye-tracking to examine vocabulary learning, providing a direct record of learners’ allocation of attention during the learning process. The combination of offline and eye-movement data provides a new and fuller picture of the vocabulary acquisition process. The last few years have witnessed a remarkable increase in the number of vocabulary studies using eye-tracking to explore the online processing of new words in different learning conditions, with a particular focus on learning from reading (e.g., Elgort et al., 2018; Godfroid et al., 2013, 2018; Pellicer-Sánchez, 2016, under review). 
This presentation will first provide an overview of existing eye-tracking research on vocabulary learning from different conditions. It will then present results of recent eye-tracking studies examining the acquisition of vocabulary from different reading conditions. It will then discuss the empirical evidence available exploring the relationship between eye movements and learning gains. This presentation will illustrate how the use of eye-tracking has helped researchers gain a better understanding of the process of vocabulary learning from reading and of the relationship between eye-movements and performance measures. Directions for further research will also be identified.

Bio:
Ana Pellicer-Sánchez is Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics and TESOL at the UCL Institute of Education (UK). Her research centres around the teaching and learning of vocabulary in a second or foreign language, including both the learning of single words and formulaic sequences. Her recent research has made use of eye-tracking to explore the cognitive processes involved in vocabulary learning from a range of learning conditions. She is the co-author of Eye-tracking: A guide for Applied Linguistics Research (2018, Cambridge University Press) and co-editor of Understanding Formulaic Language: A Second Language Acquisition Perspective (2019, Routledge).

All welcome!