Professor
Rena Helms-Park
Linguistics
 

Associate Professor, Linguistics, University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC)
Associated Faculty, Graduate Second Language Education Program & Graduate Linguistics, University of Toronto, St. George

Email: rhelms@utsc.utoronto.ca

Research and Teaching Interests

  • Second language acquisition; child language acquisition; cross-linguistic transfer in L2 acquisition and creolization; L2 lexical acquisition; cognate facilitation; psycholinguistics of reading; electronic literacy

Book

  • Chen Bum-Gardner, X., Dronjic, V., & Helms-Park, R..(forthcoming). Second Language Reading: Psycholinguistic and Cognitive Perspectives

Selected Articles

  • Dronjic, V., & Helms-Park, R. (forthcoming). Fixed-choice word association tasks as L2 lexical tests: What native-speaker performance reveals about their potential weaknesses. Applied Psycholinguistics.
  • Helms-Park, R., & Dronjic, V. (forthcoming). Cognates. Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics, vol. 11 (The Lexicon), Wiley Blackwell.
  • Dronjic, V., & Helms-Park, R.(in press). Comparing two independent groups. Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics, vol. 1 (Quanitative Methods in Applied Linguistics), Wiley Blackwell.
  • Stapleton, P., & Helms-Park, R..(2008). A response to Matsuda and Tardy’s “Voice in academic writing: The rhetorical construction of author identity in blind manuscript review”. English for Specific Purposes , 16, 1, 94-99.
  • Helms-Park, R., Radia, P., & Stapleton, P. (2007). A preliminary assessment of Google Scholar as a source of EAP students' research materials. The Internet and Higher Education , 10, 1.
  • Stapleton, P., Helms-Park, R., & Radia, P. (2006). The Web as a source of unconventional research materials in second language academic writing. The Internet and Higher Education, 9, 1, 63-74.
  • Stapleton, P., & Helms-Park, R. (2006). Evaluating Web sources in an EAP course: Introducing a multi-trait instrument for feedback and assessment. English for Specific Purposes, 15, 4, 438-455.
  • Helms-Park, R., & Stapleton, P. (2006). How the views of faculty can inform undergraduate Web-based research: Implications for academic writing. Computers and Composition, 23, 4, 444-461.
  • Helms-Park, R. (2004). From a serializing L1 to a non-serializing L2: A preliminary discussion of transfer and Tense-driven restructuring in language contact situations. Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics, 22, 41-51.
  • Helms-Park, R. (2003). Transfer in SLA and creoles: The implications of causative serial verb constructions in the interlanguage of Vietnamese ESL learners. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 25, 2, 211-244.
  • Helms-Park, R., & Stapleton, P. (2003). Questioning the importance of individualized voice in undergraduate L2 argumentative writing: An empirical study with pedagogical implications. J. of Second Language Writing, 12, 3, 245-265.
  • Helms-Park, R. (2002). The need to draw second language learners’ attention to the semantic boundaries of syntactically relevant verb classes. Canadian Modern Language Review, 58, 4, 576-598.
  • Helms-Park, R. (2001). Evidence of lexical transfer in learner syntax: The acquisition of English causatives by speakers of Hindi-Urdu and Vietnamese. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 23, 1, 71-102.
  • Helms-Park, R. (2000). Two decades of heritage language education. In J. Teixeira & V. Da Rosa (Eds.), The Portuguese in Canada (pp. 127-144). Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Articles submitted/in preparation on the following topics:

  • Helms-Park, R., Retention of transferred lexical features in SLA and creolization.
  • Helms-Park, R. (with Paul Stapleton & Vedran Dronjic), L2 acquisition of Mandarin compounds.
  • Helms-Park, R. (with Maria Claudia Petrescu & Vedran Dronjic). Various articles on the cognate facilitation hypothesis (based on an on-going study investigating the acquisition of English cognates and non-cognates by speakers of Romanian, with Vietnamese speakers as the comparison group).
  • Helms-Park, R.(with Zhanna Pergan), Elaborate processing of Ukrainian-English cognates and retention.
  • Helms-Park, R.(with Vanessa Rukholm & Ron Smyth), Influence of music on the acquisition of L2 Italian lexis.
  • Helms-Park, R.(with Marina Sherkina), Creating a lexical test for Labrador Inuttitut.
  • Helms-Park, R.(with Ruiying Niu), Modality of interaction and L2 lexical retention.

Some Recent Grants

  • SSHRC Standard Research Grant (2004-8): “Transfer in second language acquisition and creolization: L1/substrate influence in emergent and stable grammars.”
  • Connaught New Faculty Match-Up Grant (2002-4): “An empirical study of the divergent roles of voice and content in second-language academic writing.”
  • Teaching Enhancement Grants, Teaching and Learning Services, UTSC

  • 2005-6 (with P. Radia). On an explicit pedagogy in classroom-based genre analysis.
    2004-5 (with P. Radia). On the use of the Internet in undergraduate research.
    2002-4 On peer review in undergraduate academic writing.

Courses Taught Recently

  • Graduate (UTSG)
    CTL3010 Second Language Learning
    CTL3799 Special Topic: Second Language Lexical Acquisition
  • Undergraduate (Psycholinguistics Specialist Program, UTSC)
    PLIB25 Second Language Acquisition
    PLIC34 First Language Acquisition
    PLID34 The Psycholinguistics of Reading
    PLID44 Acquisition of the Mental Lexicon

Special Interests

  • Classical music; concerts & shows; book learning; gardening; travel outside North America; museums, galleries; politics; any local, national, & global effort to minimize inequity or environmental degradation; animals; the wilderness; meaningful discussions


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