Larry Vandergrift
Laurens "Larry" Vandergrift (1947–2015) was a Canadian applied linguist whose work made L2 listening a properly researchable skill instead of a testing artefact. He spent most of his career at the University of Ottawa's Official Languages and Bilingualism Institute, where he built a research programme around how learners actually manage listening in real time and how teachers can intervene in that process.
Vandergrift's signature move was to treat listening as something learners could be taught to regulate, not merely exposed to. With Christine Goh he formalized a metacognitive approach that gave teachers a concrete cycle to run in class, and with colleagues he built the measurement instrument (the MALQ) that let the field track the construct empirically.
Career
- Began in high-school second-language teaching before moving into university research
- Long tenure at the Official Languages and Bilingualism Institute (OLBI), University of Ottawa; retired in 2012 and continued as Professor Emeritus and adjunct
- Co-editor of The Canadian Modern Language Review
- Recipient of the Prix Robert Roy for Second Language Teaching and Learning (2009)
- Died 1 November 2015; OLBI established the Larry Vandergrift Award in his memory
Published Work
- Vandergrift, Goh, Mareschal & Tafaghodtari (2006), "The Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire: Development and Validation", Language Learning 56(3): 431–462. The MALQ paper, validated on N=966 with a five-factor structure (problem-solving, planning and evaluation, mental translation, person knowledge, directed attention).
- Vandergrift & Tafaghodtari (2010), "Teaching L2 Learners How to Listen Does Make a Difference: An Empirical Study", Language Learning
- Vandergrift & Goh (2012), Teaching and Learning Second Language Listening: Metacognition in Action, Routledge. Sets out the metacognitive pedagogical sequence (plan and predict, first listen and verify, second listen and monitor, third listen and confirm, reflect).
- Numerous articles on listening strategies in L2 French and on learner variables in listening comprehension
Influence
- Established metacognition as a central construct in L2 listening pedagogy and assessment
- The MALQ is now the standard self-report instrument in listening-strategy research and has been translated and re-validated across many languages
- His pedagogical sequence sits alongside John Field's decoding-focused Process Approach to Listening as the two dominant routes into principled listening instruction
- Shaped Canadian French-as-a-second-language research and teacher education through OLBI and CASLT