Achievement

An IGERT seminar on Input and Outcomes in Language Acquisiton, examining the relative contributions of the learner and the environment in first language acquisition, was co-taught by Meredith Rowe (Human Development) and Jeff Lidz (Linguistics). The course aims to bridge two traditions in the study of language learning that rarely connect. One tradition aims to explain the uniform success in learners’ mastery of specific linguistic constructions. The other is motivated by evidence from education research that children’s language learning outcomes, as reflected in coarse-grained measures, are profoundly impacted by input and socioeconomic status. A mark of the success of this course is that participation was 3 times greater than the number of registered students, including students and faculty from 6 departments.