SLRF 2016 - Conference Report

This past weekend hundreds of academics interested in second languages, from novices-still-in-training like myself to the titans of the field, met at Columbia University in New York for the 2016 Second Language Research Forum (SLRF). My highlights and take-aways:

• Dr. Roy Lyster's plenary was fantastic. Lyster is probably known by most people in the field as "the corrective feedback guy", but his plenary drew back the curtains a bit and revealed how in actuality, much of his research has been concerned with content-rich classroom instruction. He also laid out his experience with teacher training, which is really impressive. To me, this plenary exemplifies how an SLA researcher can engage with classroom teaching.
• There were a few presentations on L2 pronunciation! I didn't get to see them all, but the ones I managed to catch were all quite interesting. Dr. Mary O'Brien gave a very interesting talk on lexical stress in L2 German, and what I was particularly fascinating to me was how/whether learners were able to articulate the correct rule, an incorrect rule, or no rule at all. Yan Chen's talk on iconic enhancements to Cantonese scripts to facilitate tone learning was also really interesting. Although the effect of the iconic diacritics (Chao letters) was not particularly strong, it really made me think about the Korean script and how teachers might focus on letter shapes to reinforce particular vowel or consonant qualities for beginning learners.
• Our group's presentation on Duolingo was surprisingly well-attended. Our timeslot was during the mid-to-late afternoon of the last day, and the schedule was so packed with concurrent sessions that I was expecting a smaller crowd, but we had people standing in the hall! But that actually sounds more impressive than it really was... our room was a bit on the cramped side. But a good turnout nonetheless, and a lively Q&A session. 
• On a more personal note, NYC was pretty enjoyable. I got to visit family and an old friend from high school. I set very low expectations for sightseeing, and I was happy with the experience. The major sights will still be there next time.
• The only negative experience with NYC was my train getting delayed Saturday morning, which caused me to miss a couple presentations I was hoping to see. On the sort-of bright side, that led to a walk through the Upper West Side and finding a tasty breakfast sandwich and super-sweet coffee for a very modest price at a little deli- it was a nice consolation.