Gale Stam, Ph.D.

Programs/Classes Taught:

B.A. in Psychology
M.A. in Psychology
Ph.D. in Community Psychology

PSY 303 Introduction to Psycholinguistics

PSY 348 Cross-Cultural Communication

PSY 350 Culture and Self

PSY 351 Language and Identity

PSY 441 Psychology of Artistic Expression

PSY 499 Psychology Seminar 

LAP 507 Theories of Cognitive Psychology

LAP 513 Advanced Human and Cognitive Development

LAP 516 Research Design for Psychology

LAP 518 Child and Adolescent Development

LAP 548 Ethics and Legal Issues in Psychology

INT 512A Research Design and Methodology

LAP 598 APA Workshop

LAP 670 Advanced Cross-Cultural Communication

Areas of Expertise:

Psycholinguistics, Speech and Gesture, Language and Culture, Language and Cognition, Cognitive Development, First and Second Language Acquisition and Gesture, Linguistics, Teachers' Gestures, Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, Writing, Grammar

Biography:

Gale Stam, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology at National Louis University in Chicago, Illinois. She is an alumna of the McNeill Lab Center for Gesture and Speech Research at the University of Chicago, was an invited researcher at the Laboratoire Parole et Langage (LPL) in Aix-en-Provence, France (February - June 2010), and retains close ties to both labs. Her research interests include language and culture, language and cognition, gesture, and first language and second language acquisition, and teachers' gestures. She has published articles on changes in thinking for speaking, the importance of looking at gesture in second language (L2) acquisition, gesture and lexical retrieval in a L2, and language teachers’ gestures. She is a member of editorial board of the journal Language and Sociocultural Theory (2013-present) and was a member of the editorial board for the journal Gesture (2010-2018). She has also co-edited two volumes on speech and gesture – Gesture: Second Language Acquisition and Classroom Research (Routledge, 2008) and Integrating Gestures: The Interdisciplinary Nature of Gesture (John Benjamins, 2011) and is co-convener with Kimi Nakatsukasa of AILA ReN (Research Network): Gesture, Multimodality, and SLA (2018-2021).

Education:

Ph.D. Psychology — Cognition and Communication June 2006 The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL M.A. Linguistics — TESL April 1985 Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago, IL B.A. with Honors Political Science, Minor History June 1974 University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL

Research and Interests:

Prof. Stam's research interests include language and culture, language and cognition, gesture, and first language and second language acquisition. She is particularly interested in thinking for speaking and gesture (the development of first language thinking for speaking and how thinking for speaking about motion changes both linguistically and gesturally with second language acquisition), speech and gesture interlanguage, the effect of gesture in oral proficiency interviews, the function of gesture in lexical retrieval, and language teachers' gestures.

Her current research projects include a study of gestures in teacher talk (GTT) with Marion Tellier, Aix-Marseille University and CNRS Laboratoire Parole et Langage, a longitudinal study of L1 thinking for speaking, a longitudinal study of changes in L2 thinking for speaking, a project on teaching thinking for speaking with Jim Lantolf, Penn State University, a project on gesture and preposition learning with Kimi Nakatsukasa, Texas Tech University, and Benjamin White, St. Michael's College, and a project on understanding of thinking for speaking in isiXhosa language speakers learning English in South Africa with Heather Brookes, University of Cape Town.

Prof. Stam is a frequent presenter at conferences and as an invited speaker. Some of her most recent presentations include the following:

2018-2019

“Explicitly Teaching Thinking for Speaking in a Second Language Works” with James Lantolf, Kimberly Buescher, and Tetyana Smotrova, 4^th international conference Thinking, doing, learning: Usage based perspectives on second language learning, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland, June 17-19, 2019.

“Gesture: A Window Onto the Mind in Thinking, Learning, and Teaching” at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal, March 25, 2019.

“Changes in gestural representational during early and late language development” panel discussant, ISGS8, 8th Conference of the International Society for Gesture Studies: Gesture and Diversity, Cape Town, South Africa, July 4-July 8, 2018.

 “Speech and gesture development of Xhosa speakers learning English” with Heather Brookes, ISGS8, 8th Conference of the International Society for Gesture Studies: Gesture and Diversity, Cape Town, South Africa, July 4-July 8, 2018.

“What makes a good gesturer?” with Marion Tellier, ISGS8, 8th Conference of the International Society for Gesture Studies: Gesture and Diversity, Cape Town, South Africa, July 4-July 8, 2018.

2017-2018

"Can Co-Speech Gesture Disambiguate the Function of the Word And?" with Heather Brookes, XXIV Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning Research Working Group Meeting, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, November 2-4, 2017.

2016-2017

“How Task and Participants Affect Speech and Gesture in Second Language Acquisition” at the Université Grenoble Alpes in Grenoble, France, March 1, 2017.

"Gesture as a Window onto Learners' L2 Thinking for Speaking," University of Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain, February 7, 2017.

"How Task Affects Speech and Gesture: Implications for Second Language Acquisition," iGesto'17, International Conference on Gesture and Multimodality, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal, February 2-3, 2017.

"Gesture: A Window onto the Mind in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching," Lund University, Lund, Sweden, December 5, 2016.

"Gesture: A Window onto the Mind in Second Language Acquisition," University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark, December 2, 2016.

“Gesture and speech in pedagogical discourse with a non-native speaker in two settings” with Marion Tellier, ISGS7, 7^th Conference of the International Society for Gesture Studies: Gesture, Creativity, Multimodality, Sorbonne Nouvelle University, Paris, France, July 18-22, 2016.

“Gesture and Preposition Learning” with Kimi Nakatsukasa and Benjamin White, ISGS7, 7^th Conference of the International Society for Gesture Studies: Gesture, Creativity, Multimodality, Sorbonne Nouvelle University, Paris, France, July 18-22, 2016.

“Teaching Thinking for Speaking in a Second Language” with James Lantolf, Tetyana Smotrova, and Kimberly Buescher, ISGS7, 7^th Conference of the International Society for Gesture Studies: Gesture, Creativity, Multimodality, Sorbonne Nouvelle University, Paris, France, July 18-22, 2016.

2015-2016

"Task Effects on Speech and Gesture: Implications for Second Language Acquisition," American Association of Applied Linguistics, Orlando, Florida, April 9-12, 2016.

"How Gesture Reveals Learners' Thinking for Speaking in their Second Language," Texas Tech University, November 10, 2015.

"Gesture and Preposition Learning" with Kimi Nakatsukasa and Benjamin White, XXII Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning Research Working Group Meeting, Rutgers University, Camden, NJ, October 1-3, 2015.

"Gesture as a Window Onto Conceptualization", Seminaire BLRI (Brain and Language Research Institute), Aix en Provence, France, June 19, 2015.

"Converging evidence in Thinking, Doing, Learning from one dataset" invited colloquium,Thinking, Doing, Learning (TDL2), Usage-based Perspectives on Second Language Learning Conference, University of Groningen, the Netherlands, June 3-5, 2015.

"Gesture and Thinking for Speaking,"Exploring the Role of Thinking-for-Speaking in Second Language Education," American Association of Applied Linguistics, Toronto, Canada, March 2015.

Here most recent publications include the following:

Stam, G. (2018). Gesture as a window onto conceptualization in second language acquisition: A Vygotskian perspective. In J. Lantolf, M. Poehner, and M. Swain (Eds.), Routledge handbook of Sociocultural theory and second language development (pp. 165-177).London/New York: Routledge.

Stam, G. & Buescher, K. (2018). Gesture research. In A. Phakiti, P. De Costa, L. Plonsky and S. Starfield (Eds.), Palgravehandbook of applied linguistics research methodology. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Tellier, M., Stam, G., & Ghio, A. (2018) « Tout ça c'est abstrait »: Comment le degré d'abstraction d'un mot expliqué affecte-t-il la parole multimodale? In Y. Meynadier et A. Ghio (Eds.), Actes des 32e Journées d’Etudes sur la Parole (JEP), Aix en Provence, 4 au 8 juin 2018. https://www.isca-speech.org/archive/JEP_2018/

Stam, G. (2018). Gesture and speaking a second language. In R. Alonso (Ed.), Speaking in a L2 (pp. 51-69). Philadelphia/Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Stam, G. (2017). Verb framed, satellite framed or in between? A L2 learner’s thinking for speaking in her L1 and L2 over 14 years. In I. Ibarretxe-Antuñano (Ed.), Motion and space across languages: theory and applications, 329-365. Philadelphia/Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Stam, G., & Tellier, M. (2017). Gestures: The sound of silence: how gestures in pauses can enhance interaction. In R. B. Church, M. W. Alibali and S. D. Kelly (Eds.), Why gesture? How the hands function in speaking, thinking and communicating, 353-377. Philadelphia/Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Stam, G. (2016). Gesture as a window onto conceptualization in multiple tasks: Implications for second language teaching. Yearbook of the German Cognitive Linguistics Association (GCLA), 4, 289-314.

Sekine, K., Stam, G., Yoshioka, K., Tellier, M. and Capirci, O. (2015). Cross-linguistic views of gesture usage. Vigo International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 12, 91-105.

Stam, G. (2015). Changes in thinking for speaking: A longitudinal case study. In E. Bylund & P. Athanasopolous, (Guest Editors), The language and thought of motion in second language speakers. Modern Language Journal, 99(S1), 83-99.

Stam, G. (2014). Further changes in L2 thinking for speaking? In C. Mller, A. Cienki, E. Fricke, S. H. Ladewig, D. McNeill and S. Tessendorf (Eds.) Body Language Communication: An international handbook on multimodality in human interaction. Volume 2, 1875-1886.Handbooks of Linguistics and CommunicationScience/Handbcher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft. Berlin, New York: Mouton De Gruyter.

Stam, G. (2014). Why Gesture! AL Forum - The Newsletter of the Applied Linguistics Section, TESOL, September 2014.

Prof. Gale Stam also writes fiction and has published a short story, "Andrei's Chance," about an individual's struggle with drug addiction and the choices he makes. The story can be found on Amazon Kindle. She has also published a fairy tale "In Ten Days," which is not a fairy tale of a prince saving the day, but one where children learn about cooperation and the value of women. "In Ten Days" can also be found on Amazon Kindle.

Contact Information: 

Gale Stam, Ph.D.

Professor of Psychology

National Louis University

5202 Old Orchard Road

Skokie, IL 60077-4409

USA

Phone: 1.224.233.2231

Email: gstam@nl.edu

For a selected list of publications and presentations and for her CV see http://works.bepress.com/gale_stam/.