Aline Godfroid
Aline Godfroid is Professor in Second Language Studies and TESOL at Michigan State University, where she co-directs the Second Language Studies Eye-Tracking Lab. Her work does what a lot of SLA promises and comparatively little delivers: it takes the implicit/explicit distinction out of the lab armchair and anchors it in online attentional evidence, through eye-tracking, reading-time measures, and carefully designed experimental tasks.
The research spans three threads that reinforce each other. Eye-tracking as a window on attention in L2 input processing (more gaze, better retention, but only under specifiable conditions). The interface between implicit and explicit knowledge, tested on tasks whose time-pressure and awareness demands are explicitly controlled. And incidental vocabulary acquisition from reading, where the eye-tracking evidence has clarified which encounters actually leave a trace. Her 2020 Eye Tracking in Second Language Acquisition and Bilingualism (Routledge) is the standard methods reference; the 2023 Routledge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition and Psycholinguistics (co-edited with Holger Hopp) maps the current field.
Career
- Professor, Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African Languages, Michigan State University
- Co-director, MSU Second Language Studies Eye-Tracking Lab
- Editorial-board positions across SLA and bilingualism journals
Published Work
- Eye Tracking in Second Language Acquisition and Bilingualism: A Research Synthesis and Methodological Guide (2020, Routledge)
- The Routledge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition and Psycholinguistics (ed. with Hopp, 2023)
- "Reporting Eye-Tracking Research in SLA and Bilingualism," Language Learning (2025)
- Papers on implicit/explicit processing, incidental vocabulary, and attention in SLA
Influence
- Set the methodological bar for eye-tracking in SLA through reporting guidelines and synthesis
- Made incidental-vocabulary and implicit-learning claims answerable to online processing data
- Trains a growing cohort of eye-tracking-literate SLA researchers