Dr. Dieter Thoma, senior lecturer at the Chair of Psycholinguistics (Anglistik I) and Professor Dr. Holder Hopp of TU Braunschweig receive the award for the best study on foreign language acquisition published in international journals. The linguists have received the 2022 Paul Pimsleur Award of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL).
The award honors their contribution in Modern Language Journal, in which the two researchers show that the targeted use of grammatical comparisons to other languages leads to significant learning progress in primary-school children learning English as a foreign language. Children develop a better understanding of English grammar if the teacher addresses similarities with and differences to other languages. The study was part of a project on the effects of plurilingual teaching on English acquisition among primary-school students, funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (MEG-SKoRE).
ACTFL, based in the US, has more than 13,000 members, who are language educators and administrators from elementary through graduate education, as well as government and industry. The organization is dedicated to the improvement and expansion of the teaching and learning of all languages at all levels of instruction.
The Paul Pimsleur Award is worth 500 US dollars and was awarded on 20 November in Boston.