Judit Kormos

Judit Kormos ([ˈjudit ˈkormoʃ]) (born 1970) is a Hungarian-born British linguist. She is a professor and the Director of Studies for the MA TESOL Distance programme at the Department of Linguistics and English Language at Lancaster University, United Kingdom. She is renowned for her work on motivation in second language learning, and self-regulation in second language writing. Her current interest is in dyslexia in second language learning.

Along with Rosa Manchón she has been noted for her work on the cognitive dimension of the acquisition and use of second languages, with emphasis on the psycholinguistic dimension of textual production and along with Cumming, Hyland, Manchón, Matsuda, Ortega, Polio, Storch and Verspoor she has been considered as one of the most influential researchers on second language writing.

Career

Kormos graduated at the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary in 1994. Kormos gained her PhD at the Eötvös Loránd University in 1999. Her PhD was supervised by Zoltán Dörnyei. Kormos took up a lecturer position at the Lancaster University in 2008. and was promoted to a Readership in 2012. She chose to be called Reader in Second Language Acquisition. On 8 January 2015, Kormos was awarded a personal chair. Her title became "Professor of Second Language Acquisition".

She is the coordinator of the Dyslexia For Teachers Of English Foreign Language Project, funded by the European Commission. Since 2011, she has been a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Second Language Writing. She has been an Editor of Special Thematic Issues and Associate Journal Editor of the Language Learning.

In 2012, Kormos was interviewed by the Hungarian television channel ATV on recent changes in foreign language teaching policies in Hungary. She emphasised the important role of teaching students to learn foreign languages independently and autonomously with the help of modern technological tools. On 21 May 2014, Pearson Education released a new video lecture series on dyslexia and foreign language learning on YouTube. Kormos features in the first video of the series and discusses the psychological effects of dyslexia on the processes of foreign language learning.

In 2014, Kormos together with a European team from five partner countries won the ELTons award of the British Council in the Excellence in Course Innovation category.

Research

On 20 June 2014, she was cited in the Education webpage of the Guardian in a recent article on teaching languages to students with disabilities. She said that teaching methods and materials need to be adapted for dyslexic students, instead of taking them out of second language classes. Dyslexic students are able to acquire another language successfully and they have to be provided a chance. The teacher should be aware of the dyslexia and teach a bit differently. For example, teachers should include more visual materials, act things out and explain things slightly more explicitly than they would to other students. Some learners are more receptive to audio channels of learning, others to visual. Therefore using a combination of the two may be really effective.

Academic Awards

• 2012: Duke of Edinburgh Book Prize Shortlist
• 2012: Pilkington Teaching Award
• 2013: National Teaching Fellowship