Personal information

Contact details

Rob Schoonen 

Associate professor Second Language Acquisition
Department of Second Language Acquisition
Vice Director of the Amsterdam Center for Language and Communication (ACLC)

Faculty of Humanities
University of Amsterdam 

Spuistraat 210
1012 VT Amsterdam
The Netherlands 

T +31 20 525-3848
F +31 20 525-3021
E rob.schoonen[at]uva.nl  or j.j.m.schoonen[at]uva.nl    

Teaching topics

• General Linguistics
• Psycholinguistics
• Research methodology and statistics
• Second Language Acquisition

Research interests

• Language assessment: Vocabulary (depth of vocabulary knowledge), Writing assessment (task effects and rating problems), Speaking assessment (levels within the CEF).
• Automaticity of lower-order information processing (e.g. word access and retrieval) as a prerequisite for fluency in L2 reading and writing; the causal role of automaticity in the expansion of L2 knowledge.
• The co-construction of academic language skills of 3-6 year-old Dutch children of lower socio-economic backgrounds, in communicative contexts at home and in school.

My research comes under the Amsterdam Center for Language and Communication (ACLC), and is part of the Research Group Cognitive Approaches to Second Language Acquisition (CASLA).

CASLA

ACLC

Ranking Linguistics at the UvA

Currently involved in the following (NWO-funded) research projects:

• Vocabulary learning by young children (Sylvia Bacchini)
• DASH: Academic language development of 3-6-year-old Turkish-Dutch, Moroccan-Dutch and Dutch children: linguistic, psychological and educational determinants
• How do judges weigh fluency, linguistic accuracy, and pronunciation when globally rating L2 speaking? (Klaartje Duijm)
• ACCESS: Accessibility of semantic networks in the mental lexicon of Dutch L1 and L2 children
• WISP: What is (second language) speaking proficiency (also Margarita Steinel) 
• NELSON: Transfer of higher-order processes and skills in reading and writing in Dutch and English

Other professional work & award

• Member at large of the Executive Board of International Language Testing Association (2008-2009)
• Member of the Committee of Examiners of TOEFL (2008-    )
• Member of the editorial board of Language Testing (2001- )
• Member of the editorial board of Journal of Second Language Writing (2010-   )
• Associate editor Language Learning (2004-2007)
• Visiting Lecturer, University of Aarhus, Denmark (March 1999 & September 2004)
• Co-editor of a (Dutch) journal for study of language, Gramma/TTT (1998-2006)
• Co-winner of the Paul Pimsleur Award (1998/1999).

Doctoral dissertation (with an English summary)

Schoonen, R. (1991). De evaluatie van schrijfvaardigheidsmetingen. Een empirische studie naar betrouwbaarheid, validiteit en bruikbaarheid van schrijfvaardigheidsmetingen in de achtste groep van het basisonderwijs. Amsterdam: Universiteit van Amsterdam/SCO.

[The evaluation of writing assessments. An empirical study into the reliability, validity and utility of writing assessments in final grade of elementary school.]

English summary dissertation