Ginger Farrell
Ginger Farrell holds an MA in French from the University of Washington as well as an MBA from the University of Oklahoma. She is currently working on her Interdisciplinary PhD. Her previous work experience is diverse. While living in France she taught at the Sorbonne University and worked in Finance at Arthur Andersen Consulting in Paris. She has been teaching French in Seattle since 2011. Her current research focuses on improving language learning motivation by enhancing students’ social cognitive repository and thereby elaborating their L2 self-schema.
What attracted you to the IPhD program?
It was a logical place to house my PhD as my research interests could not be supported within one program alone. Once I started to investigate the program, I found I had direct and timely answers to my questions and the application process was very clear and straightforward. Within academia there is an increasing demand for scholars to operate within interdisciplinary frameworks. Monographic research within language studies is becoming rarer these days because of its restrictive nature. The Modern Language Association recommends that higher education language departments promote interdisciplinary scholarship in an effort to maintain viability. This is not always easy for language departments to do as many language professors are trained literary specialists. IPhD provided a place for me to pursue my research interests while being supported by experts across multiple disciplines.
What is your research focus?
My research revolves around foreign language acquisition and student motivation. I am articulating pedagogical interventions using guided task-imagery to allow students to explore and develop prominent and vivid mental representations (self-schemas) of their foreign language (L2) possible selves. The desired aim of these interventions is to help activate students’ social cognitive repository in order to elaborate this part of their self-schema and thereby increase their desire and effort to learn a foreign language.
How does pursuing the IPhD degree benefit your long-term research goals?
The process of obtaining the IPhD diploma teaches students how to pursue novel research outside traditional, curated lines of study. It is an exercise in approaching problems from previously unexplored angles and setting up intellectual lines of enquiry across disciplines. For scholars who have not had to manage interdisciplinary research, it can be daunting. I am grateful for the opportunity to undergo this process under guidance so that I will know how best to do it in future pursuits. Additionally, interdisciplinary research exposes students to a breadth of contacts across academic fields providing broader access and more visibility than they would have in a singular academic field.
What was/were your favorite course(s) as a master’s student?
My favorite classes were always ones where the professors were enthusiastic. I took Creative Problem Solving, which opened my eyes to how we often stifle our own problem-solving abilities at crucial moments where intellectual breakthroughs are found. I learned to not be overly critical of initial ideas as they often lead towards solutions.
What advice would you give to other people thinking about the IPhD program?
If you feel that your research interests are too “big” and can’t be handled within one department then come talk to IPhD. It may very well be the right place to support your creative research project. It can never hurt to understand what your options are.
What is something about you that might surprise people to learn?
I worked for many years in the fashion photographer industry in Paris. There was never a dull moment, and I enjoyed the daily exercise in emotional resiliency and putting order to chaos.