Hello and introduction

I'm Paige Hamer, and I am a second year Master's student in Linguistics with a focus in TESL. Born and raised in Iowa, English is my native language and the only language I am proficient in. I've studied various languages over the years but always on more of a surface level or for a short period of time, including high school Spanish and a semester of two of Latin or German here or there.

I don't have a lot of experience with writing other than to say that it interests me. All of my academic and personal reading and writing is done in English and is somewhat limited but thoroughly enjoyed. Helping people improve their writing is a favorite pastime of mine; many of friends that are international students ask to sit down and read their papers together to make sure their language is correctly expressing their thoughts. I would say that I process things externally-- writing is my way of doing that without driving my husband crazy by constantly talking his ear off.

I am teaching ESL Grammar (for academic writing) at the university for my second semester now. Thinking through how to correctly assess and teach grammar for writing is really what piqued my interest in this course.

My research interests are fairly varied. TESL would be my main area of interest in addition to linguistics (I haven't fully committed to the syntax camp versus the phonetics camp and don't intend to unless forced). I'm hoping to begin a more serious study of Hindi in the next few years. I am looking forward to meeting all of you and learning from all of you!