By C. Brandon Chapman, College of Education

Yuliya Ardasheva, a faculty member at Washington State University Tri鈥慍ities, has received one of two聽national Mid鈥慍areer Awards from the American Educational Research Association鈥檚 Second Language Research Special Interest Group.

Ardasheva is an associate professor within the College of Education, where she focuses her research on English/Bilingual learners鈥� language and academic development. The awards committee were impressed with Ardasheva鈥檚 鈥渞obust and coherent research portfolio.鈥�

It鈥檚 research that, for Ardasheva, hits close to home. She said she came to the United States at 27聽years old, 鈥渘ot speaking a single word of English,鈥� having already earned bachelor鈥檚 and master鈥檚 degrees in her native language.聽She planned on earning her Ph.D. in the United聽States.

鈥淚 originally got interested in second language development because I have an understanding what individual students of different ages may need to build on their strengths and what they may need to capitalize on what they already know in their native languages,鈥� she said.

This line of research began with Ardasheva鈥檚 dissertation and her first externally funded project as a postdoctoral student at the University of Louisville. Her role was to develop literacy supports at a portable planetarium for middle and high school students, all part of a Newcomer Academy in Louisville. They spoke 25聽primary languages and most of them were refugees from war or conflict zones. As a result, most had interrupted schooling.

鈥淭he Academy students only had one year to gain enough English language and content knowledge to integrate the following year into regular education schools, where the majority of teachers typically have no language support preparation,鈥� Ardasheva said.

Her focus was on developing pre- and post-instructional literacy activities aligned with the planetarium experiences. This was to improve students鈥� science vocabulary knowledge, learning strategy use, oral and reading comprehension. Ultimately, this would allow for building science background knowledge and science concept elaboration.

Since, Ardasheva has published 38聽peer-reviewed articles and six book chapters on this and other topics and presented her work at more than 70聽national and international conferences.

While the committee cited Ardasheva鈥檚 endeavors to advance the field as 鈥渆vident in (her) prolific and high鈥憅uality publications鈥� and having made a 鈥渟ignificant contribution,鈥� Ardasheva herself said the teacher learning and development area of her research is still shaping up.

This work is, in part, supported by a current $2.3聽million U.S.聽Department of Education professional development grant, as well as a recently completed Samuel聽H. and Patricia聽W. Smith Teaching and Learning Endowment Grant.