Home > Events > MRC Speaker Series: Jin Sook Lee (UC Santa Barbara)
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MRC Speaker Series: Jin Sook Lee (UC Santa Barbara)

Time: 
Tuesday, February 06, 2018 - 3:30 PM to 4:30 PM
Location: 
ASY 3203


Title: Making connections across spaces: Understanding the opportunities and constraints for multilingual development among immigrant children

Abstract: The future welfare of our society will be greatly influenced by our ability to successfully educate the nearly 18 million children of immigrants, who are not only the fastest growing US student population, but also among the most vulnerable to academic hardships and poverty. Studies have shown that immigrant children with high levels of multilingual competence have stronger academic performance, enhanced cognitive flexibility, and greater self-esteem in comparison to their monolingual counterparts. Despite these advantages, children of immigrants typically are not able to develop or maintain their multilingual skills in our current educational system. The first part of the talk will present findings from a longitudinal study investigating how variations in interactions, resources, and spaces shape the outcomes of young Korean and Mexican children’s multilingual development. The second part will discuss the need for more deliberate strategies to support multilingual development in schools. 

Bio: Jin Sook Lee is Professor of Education in the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she is also an affiliate faculty member in the Department of Linguistics and Asian American Studies. Her research examines sociocultural factors that influence the learning and teaching processes of bilingual children as well as the maintenance and development of heritage languages among children of immigrant families. Her work has been supported by the Foundation for Child Development, National Institute of Health, and National Science Foundation and has been published in journals such as Review of Research in Education, International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, Bilingual Research Journal, Linguistics and Education, and the Journal of Early Childhood Research. She is a Fulbright Senior Scholar in Applied Linguistics (2011) and a recipient of the Foundation of Child Development Young Scholars Award (2008). At UCSB, she teaches courses on second language learning and teaching, language and culture, and language research methods and is the current director of an academic outreach program, SKILLS (School Kids Investigating Language in Life and Society), and UCSB’s Interdisciplinary Emphasis in Applied Linguistics.