Profile

Career

2011- to date: Senior Lecturer  

2004-2011: Lecturer, University of York

2004: ESRC post-doctoral research fellow (£25K) University of Southampton, Implicit learning of French grammar

2000-2004: ESRC funded PhD student, University of Southampton, Foreign language grammar teaching in secondary schools

2001-2002: Part time research assistant on ESRC “Linguistic Progression” project, University of Southampton

2000-2001: Part time research assistant on DfES “Action Research language teaching” projects, University of Southampton

1995-2000: Foreign language teacher (French, Spanish and English). Including: Head of Spanish, 11-18 school, Derby, Special Needs co-coordinator, Head of post 16 French; English teacher, Universidad Catolica, Santiago, Chile.

1998-1999: Masters in Applied Linguistics with ESRC funded studentship, University of Southampton

1994-1995: PGCE, French, Spanish & TESOL, Secondary Education, University of Manchester.

1990-1994: BA Joint Honours in French and Hispanic Studies, University of Nottingham

Research

Overview

I am interested in most aspects of second language teaching and learning including: second language acquisition, grammar pedagogy, implicit learning, morphosyntactic development, second language input processing, and second language education policy and practice. I am also interested in the role and design of experiments in educational research.

I have recently been awarded a grant by the ESRC to establish a digital repository of instruments used to collect data for research into second language learning and teaching (IRIS). The two year project is in collaboration with Alison Mackey (Co-I, Georgetown University, US), Julie Allinson (Digital Library, University of York), and a wide international network of researchers, journal editors and professional associations. This searchable and sustainable resource will facilitate collaboration and replication, and enhance the scrutiny of research instruments, amongst many other benefits. You can read more about IRIS here: IRIS (PDF , 762kb)

I am currently co-Investigator on two research projects led by Dr.Florentina Taylor (Dept of Education, York): a British Academy funded project entitled "The perceived relevance of foreign languages amongst 13-14 year olds: An experimental intervention"; and a British Council funded English Language Teaching Research Partnership, entitled "Identity in foreign language learning and teaching: A comparison of five European countries".

I was a Co-Investigator on an ESRC funded project "Linguistic development in L2 Spanish: creation and analysis of a learner corpus", with Prof. Ros Mitchell (University of Southampton) and Prof. F. Myles (University of Newcastle) (see http://www.splloc.soton.ac.uk/). To date, I have used this corpora to investigate progression in Spanish L2 lexical and inflectional morphology, in collaboration with Dr. Annabelle David (University of Newcastle).

I also work on experiments using priming techniques to investigate constraints on L2 input processing, specifically on the processing of inflectional morphology. This was initially funded by the ESRC, and then a University of York Innovation and Research Priming Fund and an Anniversary Lectureship. Recently this has involved working in collaboration with Dr. John Williams (University of Cambridge) and Dr. Xierong Liu (University of York).

Working in collaboration with teachers and post-graduate students, we have developed sets of “Processing Instruction” grammar teaching materials in French, English, Spanish and German. One such project was funded by the Higher Education Academy’s subject centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies (see http://www.llas.ac.uk/resources/mb/2820).

Current projects

• IRIS (Instruments for Research into Second Languages)
• Perceptions and identity in foreign language learning.
  A project, funded by the British Academy and led by Dr Florentina Taylor, is investigating how young school aged learners perceive the relevance of foreign languages, the role this has in choosing whether to continue tostudy the language, and whether this can be influenced by a tailored intervention.
• Another project, funded by the British Council and led by Dr FlorentinaTaylor, is investigating how European teenagers' sense of identity plays a role in their attitudes to learning languages. 

Research group(s)

• Centre for Language Learning Research
  

Supervision

On-going

Lauren Hird  - Evaluating the effectiveness of a Content and Language Integrated Learning programme to 13 year old learners of French in the UK

Laura Taylor (from Jan 2012) – The progression of first-time ESL teachers in a South Korean private preschool.

Rowena Hanan -"Explicit knowledge about language amongst primary school children: Is it useful for foreign language learning, and can it be trained?"

Alaidde Berenice Villanueva Aguillera "Reading strategies in L1 and L2 learning in Mexico" 2010-

Haifaa Faqueih “Feedback during second language interaction” 2008 –

Liviana Ferrari “A longitudinal study of motivation amongst adult foreign language learners” 2005-6

Completed

Hsin-Ying Chen “What are the components of Processing Instruction and what are their roles?” 2005- 2009

Publications

Selected publications

Marsden, E. & Chen, H.-Y. (2012). What is the role of the different input activities in Processing Instruction, and what kind of knowledge do they promote? Language Learning, 62, 1.

Marsden, E. (in press). Language testing in second language research. In Chapelle, C. (Ed.) Encyclopaedia of Applied Linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell.

Marsden, E. & Graham, S. (2009). Review of doctoral research in second-language teaching and learning in England from 2006, Language Teaching, 42, 369-396.

Marsden, E. (2009) What is 'priming', and what might it be able to tell us about L2 learning and proficiency? In Benati, A. & Roehr, K. (Eds) Attaining L2 Proficiency. London:Continuum.

Marsden, E., David, A. (2008) Vocabulary use during conversation: a cross-sectional study of development from year 9 to year 13 among learners of Spanish and French. Language Learning Journal, 36, 2, 181–198.   

Mitchell, R., Domínguez, L., Arche, M., Myles, F., Marsden, E. (2008) SPLLOC: A new corpus for Spanish second language acquisition research. EUROSLA Yearbook 8: 287-304.

Marsden, E. (2007). Can educational experiments both test a theory and inform practice? British Educational Research Journal, 33, 4, 565-588.

Marsden, E. (2006) Exploring Input Processing in the classroom: An experimental comparison of Processing Instruction and Enriched Input, Language Learning, 56, 3, pp507-566.

Rule, S. & Marsden, E. (2006) "The acquisition of functional categories in early French L2 grammars: the use of finite and non-finite verbs in negative contexts" Second Language Research, 22, 2, pp188-218.

Marsden, E. (2005) Input-based grammar pedagogy: a comparison of two possibilities Language Learning Journal, 31, pp 9-20.

Marsden, E., Myles, F., Rule, S., & Mitchell, R. (2003). Using CHILDES tools for researching second language acquisition. In S. Sarangi & T. van Leeuwen (Eds.), Applied Linguistics and Communities of Practice (Vol. 18, pp. 98-113). London : BAAL/Continuum.

Rule, S., Marsden, E., Myles, F. & Mitchell, R. (2003): Constructing a database of French interlanguage oral corpora. In Archer, D., Rayson, P., Wilson, E. & McEnery, T. (eds) Proceedings of the Corpus Linguistics 2003 Conference, UCREL Technical Papers no. 16, pp. 669-77, University of Lancaster.

Marsden, E., (2001) "Implications of the developments in the National Curriculum for MFL and GCSE specifications" Liaison, 3, pp19-22.

External activities

Memberships

• Co-convenor of the British Association of Applied Linguistics “Language Learning and Teaching” Special Interest Group. http://www.baal.org.uk/sigs_learnteach.htm
• Former invited member of 'Languages Specialist Group' of HE Academy's Subject centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies.