简介

Dorothy M. Chun is a Professor in the Department of Education. She received her Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in historical Germanic linguistics but transitioned to the fields of second language acquisition and applied linguistics shortly thereafter. Her passion has been researching and exploring how second languages are learned and how technology can be leveraged to enhance the learning of language and culture. Her research areas include: L2 phonology and intonation, L2 reading and vocabulary acquisition, computer-assisted language learning (CALL) and telecollaboration for intercultural learning. She has conducted studies on cognitive process in learning with multimedia and has authored courseware for language and culture acquisition. Her recent research investigates how computer applications can help speakers of non-tonal languages learn tonal languages by visualizing the pitch curves they produce and comparing them with the pitch curves of native speakers. Other research projects involve using online communication tools to help second language learners interact with native speakers of the L2, thereby being exposed to authentic language use and having the opportunity to co-construct knowledge with their peers about another culture. Since 2000, she has been the Editor in Chief of the online journal Language Learning and Technology and in 2004 became the founding director of the Ph.D. Emphasis in Applied Linguistics at UCSB.