NEWS

ELA (English for Liberal Arts Program) Instructor Kimberly Klassen Wins Christopher Brumfit Essay Prize 2020

Update: March 30, 2021

Cambridge University Press and Language Teaching presented the winner for the Christopher Brumfit Essay Prize 2020 to Dr. Kimberly Klassen.

The prize given to the best essay which presents an argument of relevance to second/foreign language learning or acquisition, and the winner will be nominated for a one-year period as a member of the Language Teaching Editorial Board and designated in all outlets of the journal as the "Christopher Brumfit Award Winner".

Comment from Dr. Kimberly Klassen :

I am very honored to have been named the winner of the Christopher Brumfit Essay Prize 2020. The essay prize was set up in memory of Christopher Brumfit, a British applied linguist and one of the founding editors of Language Teaching journal. This international award is sponsored by Cambridge University Press and Language Teaching.

My essay was based on work I had undertaken for my PhD, concerning theoretical perspectives on proper names. In the essay, I challenge an assumption in the research literature that proper names are unproblematic for second language readers. The essay will be published in Language Teaching journal later this year, hopefully in the October issue, for interested readers.