Sharon Ahlquist

The Storyline Approach, second language education

I am an applied linguist and my interests lie within the teaching and learning of English as a second language.

Most of my work concerns teacher education, preparing students to teach English at lower and upper primary levels, as well as secondary and upper secondary. Besides pre-service teacher education, I also work with in-service courses for teachers.

My research interests include all aspects of second language education. I have a particular focus on the Storyline approach, the subject of my doctorate, for which I studied the impact of working with Storyline on the development of pupils' English in grades 5 and 6 (ages 11 to 13). Current research includes a project on using children's literature to teach English in school grade 4.

I am a visiting lecturer at the University of Zagreb, Croatia, a member of the expert panel for the Faculty of Foreign Languages, Tomsk State University, Russia, and on the editorial advisory board for the Foreign Language Teaching Journal.

Research

I have just completed a book on the theory and practice of teaching young language learners. I am continuing to investigate how the integration of cooperative learning principles into Storyline group work can increase student teachers' awareness of group dynamics and its effects on language learning. My next research project concerns how to teach English in year 4 using children's literature.

Publications