Vita V. Kogan
Email: [email protected]
- Ludic keywords: smart games, educational quests, grand simulations, puzzle-based learning
- Language keywords: psycholinguistics, learner’s cognition, speech perception, language aptitude
- Pedagogy keywords: content- and task-based language instruction, textbook-free authentic materials-only approach, open architecture curricular design
👨🏫 Profile
“I love languages: I love speaking, researching and teaching them. Currently, I am a lecturer in linguistics at the University of Kent, the U.K., where I research second language acquisition. My research concerns the cognitive mechanisms of speech perception and how individuals differ in this regard. Previously, I was an Assistant Professor at the Defense Language Institute, a language school for military linguists in California, USA, where I taught Russian as a second language.”
I am also interested in multilingualism and innovative pedagogy such as content- and task-based learning (see my interview on it), open architecture curricular design, and cognitive/neurolinguistic approaches to L2 teaching. In the past 10 years, I have been designing, leading and teaching language programs at several postgraduate and undergraduate educational institutions in the U.S. Just as my research interests are guided by my teaching experiences, I make sure to bring research back into the classroom. I create and teach highly pragmatic curricula with an emphasis on thought-stimulating content, contextualized authentic input, and creative use of technology.
I also designed and commercialized Linguapolis, a board game for teaching conversational English. Currently, it sells all around the world; we also organize game nights and inform teachers on the topic of gamification in education.
🧪 Research connections
💬 Social connections
📰 Publications
Nieuwland, M. S., Politzer-Ahles, S., Heyselaar, E., Segaert, K., Darley, E., Kazanina, N., Zu Wolfsthurn, S.V.G., Bartolozzi, F., Kogan, V., … & Mézière, D. (2018). Large-scale replication study reveals a limit on probabilistic prediction in language comprehension. eLife, 7, e33468.
Kogan, V., & Mora, J. C. (2017). What language sounds good to you? Researching sources of individual differences in processing unfamiliar non-native vowel contrasts. In E. Babatsouli (ed.), Proceedings of the International Symposium on Monolingual and Bilingual Speech 2017 (pp. 168-173).
Kogan, V. (2016). Language-specific aptitude and the role of phonological short-term memory in second language acquisition. In Conference proceedings. ICT for language learning (p. 425). libreriauniversitaria.it Edizioni.