Academics Tom Means - Applied Linguistics and Italian

Tom Means attained his Ph.D. in Italian and Second Language Acquisition from Rutgers University in 2006. His dissertation explored the effectiveness of task-based and traditional instruction of Italian: findings on accuracy and fluency. He is the founder and president of the Means Language Center in New York City, which offers instruction in French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Japanese, Chinese, and English as a second language.

Research Interests

Tom's research looks at the effectiveness of language teaching methodologies; the sub-field he works in is called method comparison research. He looks at how competing language-teaching methodologies differentially influence students' acquisition of fluency, accuracy and complexity in classroom settings.

Recent Publications

Books

2007 Instant Italian Vocabulary Builder, Second Edition (book and CD) Hippocrene Books, New York City

2007 Contributing Author, Oggi in Italia, Eighth Edition, Houghton Mifflin, Boston

Works in Progress

"An Empirical Pedagogy: Input-heavy Task-based instruction"
(Monograph manuscript)

"Empirical support for the claims of task-based instruction. Findings from a longitudinal method comparison study"
(Journal article)

"Interlanguage-stretching activities within a task-based empirical pedagogy"
(Journal article; co-authored with Larry Selinker)

B.A., Rutgers College, 1997; M.A., Rutgers University, 1999; Ph.D., Rutgers University, 2006; Marlboro College 2008 -