Natalie Amgott
Associate Director of Online Language Learning
Department of Languages, Cultures & Applied Linguistics
4980 Margaret Morrison St
Posner Hall 341
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Education
Ph.D., Second Language Acquisition & Teaching, University of Arizona
M.A., French & Francophone Linguistics, University of Florida
B.A., French & Francophone Studies and Chinese, University of Florida
Bio
Natalie Amgott's interdisciplinary work centers the iterative theory-practice loop of language program evaluation, research, curriculum design and language teaching. Specifically, her research focuses on how higher education can redesign language curricula to engage students through multimodal and multiliteracies learning – or engaging with images, sounds, texts and audio made for and by users of a language. In her publications, she has explored how study abroad students in France traverse language, culture and identity through vlogs and blogs. Amgott has additionally sought to understand how stakeholders experience the implementation of a French multiliteracies curriculum. Her work further focuses on how language students leverage embodied modes like gestures and facial expressions when communicating in a second language via video. These research projects have direct applications to instructional design, teaching and professional development of instructors.
As Associate Director of Online Language Learning, Amgott participates in the evaluation and improvement of pre-existing course offerings as part of the Open Learning Initiative (OLI). She also helps to develop new online language courses. By conducting research to understand user (i.e., student and teacher) experiences with the OLI language courses, she aims to triangulate quantitative and qualitative data to optimize user experience for language learning with OLI materials.
As an educator for French courses and Applied Linguistics & Second Language Acquisition courses in the department, it is her goal to cultivate critical thinking and digital literacies that a) help language learners to communicate in diverse contexts, and b) support graduate students in developing applied linguistics research.
Areas of Interest
- Multiliteracies and multimodality
- French & Francophone studies
- Language program evaluation
- Technology-enhanced language teaching
- Second language pedagogies
Selected Awards and Honors
- Early Career Research Award, American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), 2023
- Dissertation Award Finalist, American Association for Applied Linguistics, 2022
- Dissertation Award for Research on Technology and Language Learning, Mango, 2021
- Andrew C. Comrie Graduate Fellowship for Interdisciplinary Dissertation Research, University of Arizona, 2021-2022
- Excellence in Teaching French Award, Department of French & Italian, University of Arizona, 2018
Selected Community, University & Professional Service
- Facilitator for virtual community “Table Francophone”
- Ici RDI: Radio Canada Recurring Francophone Panelist for Television on American Election Coverage (2020)
Selected Publications
- Amgott, N. (2023).
. System, 113. - Amgott, N. & Gorham, J. A. (2022). . Foreign Language Annals.
- Amgott, N. (2022). . Journal of Language, Identity, & Education. Advance Online Version.
- Amgott, N. (2020). . L2 Journal, 12(3).
- Pacheco, M. B., Smith, B. E., Combs, E., Amgott, N. (2022). . Pedagogies: An International Journal, 17(4), 389-407.