Dr. Liudmila Klimanova (Russian and Slavic Studies) was awarded a research fellowship for summer 2019 to fund her project “The Phenomenology of Experience in an Intensive Language Immersion Program”.
Dr. Klimanova's research is supported by the Kathryn Wasserman Davis School of Russian and Steven J. Baker Endowed Fellowship. In addition to conducting research, she will be giving lectures on topics of language teaching in the context of immersion while in residence at Middlebury College.
Her study investigates how second language speakers construct their experiences in an immersive language learning environment based on their prior experiences with second language use. In this research, she uses the phenomenological definition of 'experience' - as a lived event narrated from the first-person point of view with the focus on the elements of the experience that carries life significance for the ‘experiencer.’ The primary research question is, what does it mean to experience oneself as a second language speaker in an language immersive learning environment?