On October 24, I had the chance to attend the Florida Foreign Language Association Conference in Daytona Beach to present a study that I worked on with Dr. DeMil over the past year. The study was about third language acquisition and asked whether learners rely more on their first or second language when learning a third. It also looked at the aspects of language that learners paid attention to in conversation-based lessons. Through funding from the Honors Program and the Office of Undergraduate Research and Inquiry, I was able to get my trip fully funded so I could attend this conference and present alongside Dr. DeMil.
The experience was incredible and from the preliminary stages of gathering research articles for Dr. DeMil to talking about findings at a research conference, I feel that I’m prepared to start my own thesis research, now knowing what the process entails and how rewarding the outcomes will be.
Thank you, Dr. Tillman, Dr. Rukholm, and the staff at the Office of Undergraduate Research! This wouldn’t be possible without you. I especially thank Dr. DeMil for taking me under his wing this past year in this research study.
Drew Barnes