Contact Information
707 S. Mathews Ave. | MC-168
Urbana, IL 61801
Office Hours
Research Interests
Second Language Acquisition, Phonetics, Phonology, Pronunciation teaching, Portuguese as a Foreign Language, English as a Second Language
Research Description
My research interests lie within several branches of applied linguistics: second language acquisition, phonetics, phonology, and language teaching methods. I am particularly interested in how phonetics and phonology can inform the teaching of second language pronunciation. One example of the interface between linguistics and language pedagogy involves analyzing the relationship between fluency and measurable phenomena, such as speech rate, pausing, and word boundary features.
Education
PhD (2014), Linguistics, University of Georgia
MA (1991), TESL, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale
Additional Campus Affiliations
Teaching Assistant Professor, Lemann Center for Brazilian Studies
Teaching Assistant Professor, Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies
Highlighted Publications
Franks, S., & Barbosa, R. (2014). The importance of word-final vowel duration for non-native portuguese speaker identification by means of Support Vector Machines. Revista Brasileira de Linguistica Aplicada, 14(3), 689-714. https://doi.org/10.1590/S1984-63982014000300009
Recent Publications
Eida, M., & Franks, S. C. (2022). Innovation in ITA course design: Incorporating student-designed field-specific corpora. In S. McCrocklin (Ed.), Technological resources for second language pronunciation learning and teaching: Research-based approaches (pp. 305-326). Lexington Books.
Franks, S. C., Spezzini, S., & Prado, J. (2018). Role of Speaking in Academic Language. In J. I. Liontas (Ed.), The TESOL Encyclopedia of English Language Teaching Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118784235.eelt0865
Spezzini, S., Franks, S. C., & Carter, D. (2018). Accent Reduction Versus Intelligibility. In J. I. Liontas (Ed.), The TESOL Encyclopedia of English Language Teaching Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118784235.eelt0707
Franks, S., & Barbosa, R. (2014). The importance of word-final vowel duration for non-native portuguese speaker identification by means of Support Vector Machines. Revista Brasileira de Linguistica Aplicada, 14(3), 689-714. https://doi.org/10.1590/S1984-63982014000300009