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Dan Isbell

@danielrisbell.bsky.social
1K followers 632 following 1.5K posts

Associate Professor of Second Language Studies, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, specializing in language assessment. Associate Editor at Language Learning journal (onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/146…). Views own. isbell.github.io

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Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
How happy that man looks. Guinness should offer to buy the rights to that photo for advertising - I am definitely craving Guinness now. I get just a fraction of that joy when I get to tell students the story behind Student's t-test in quant methods class. Stats helped perfect Guinness!
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Erin J. Wamsley 🧠📈😴 @wamsleylab.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
The fiscal year is over. The dying Social, Behavioral, and Economic division of NSF ended up awarding 90 total grants this year, as opposed to ~700-800 in recent past years. Source: grantwitness.org/nsf/analyses...
The graph shows the cumulative number of awards made by month across this fiscal year, as compared to the last 6 fiscal years. The line for this year is total flat until June, but then finally gets up to 91 by October. In prior years the increase starts building earlier and ends on average in the 700-800 range (with variability, last year was only between 400-500).
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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Writing something where I will be liberally citing @lilymasonphd.bsky.social's latest and realizing that I can't cite every single thing I would like to because then I'm just reprinting her work. So, I've gotta thread about it instead. muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl...
Screenshot of the article website. Title is: Polarization Is Not the Problem. Author is Lilliana Mason. Journal is the Journal of Democracy, Volume 37, Number 4, October 2026. From Johns Hopkins University Press.
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Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Interesting plans to modernize the TOPIK, including AI item generation and scoring as well as home administration (for lower proficiency levels) and improved security. I hope the AI scoring will primarily be feature-based ML models, though - wholly GenAI scoring systems are sub-par.
www-koreatimes-co-kr.cdn.ampproject.org
Korea turns to AI to modernize TOPIK national language exam - The Korea Times
Korea’s national Korean language proficiency exam is preparing for a major digital overhaul, introducing artificial intelligence (AI) to draft test...
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Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
ACTFL exams, for one, are available much more readily, though considerably more expensive and rely on English knowledge for directions and questions. But I'd imagine some enterprising test developers could build a Japanese equivalent to their flagship English test.
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Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
and continually kicked down the road. Other 'hot' languages like Korean may face similar issues in testing - outdated admin/delivery makes upgrades a crisis response and opens up markets for competitors (Sejong Korean Assessment, for one). Foreign-made tests are also options...
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Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
The JLPT is not a 'small' test! It probably has more yearly test takers than Duolingo and comes close to TOEFL. I am not so familiar with the business side of things, but it seems like there has been some complacency - upgrading delivery and administration infrastructure seen as too big of a lift
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Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Demand for the JLPT is outstripping capacity to deliver exams, promoting the govt to encourage use of other tests. mnews.sbs.co.kr/english/arti...
mnews.sbs.co.kr
SBS 뉴스
대한민국 뉴스의 기준, 중심을 지키는 저널리즘 SBS 뉴스 - 시청자의 눈높이에 맞는, 더욱 품격 있는 뉴스를 제공합니다.
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Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
It's the best Weezer album, no contest. They've got a great catalog, but as an album Pinkerton is in a tier of its own and even on a song by song basis, you have Pink Triangle, Across the Sea, Tired of Sex, etc that hang with anything else Weezer has made.
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Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I'd be okay with undergrads not majoring in history or linguistics or Japanese if we just made blanket gen ed reqs (with no STEM or business program being exempted) that feature courses from those departments. Hopefully some still would, but we could just stop with the must-grad-30/yr-or-die stuff
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Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
What's happening in Iowa is also instructive - you don't need majors if you have gen ed requirements for humanities courses and you exempt the units providing them from the typical bean counting of majors graduated by legislatively exempting/protecting units providing the humanities courses.
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Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
That makes the whole endeavor a massive investment of time and effort. Most of my projects involve small teams of colleagues/grad students, and on top of that I supervise loads of grad student research. Maybe it's a me problem, but coming up with and supervising even more projects is beyond me.
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Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
My uni has a program and modest funding for undergrad research/scholarship/creative activity, but it seems to work best when a student can be brought into a physical/bio science lab. Folks in many humanities/soc sci disciplines would have to *come up with new/tailored projects* for mentees.
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Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Without disagreeing, we often also lack the infrastructure/resources to meaningfully bring undergrads into humanities/soc sci research. In many disciplines we lack actual 'labs' with ongoing, large-team projects that trainees can join as well as money to pay them.
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Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
I don't want this to come across as victim blaming, but this story also highlights why it just isn't worth being on X. The reach isn't worth the Nazi trolling, because you're mostly reaching Nazi trolls.
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Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
I will go out on a limb and say responding to trolling, particularly racist trolling, with some variation of "fuck off" is actually okay. Even if you're a professor.
chronicle.com
A Carnegie Mellon Professor’s Comments Were Explosive. Are They a Firing Offense?
Free-speech wars have become ever-present in academe. And Uju Anya, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, has experienced more than her share.
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Jan Vanhove @janhove.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
New blog post: "Cluster analysis: A skeptic’s guide". In which I ask a few questions that social scientists wishing to identify hidden classes in their data ought to address. janhove.github.io/posts/2026-0...
A two-dimensional scatterplot showing a three-cluster solution.

Caption: "Figure 2: A visualisation of a Latent Profile Analysis fit. Such visualisations may help readers appreciate that the clusters aren’t nicely separated and that the researchers’ notion of clusters may not correspond to their own."Table of contents:

Refresher: What is cluster analysis?
What are the clusters for?
What clusters, exactly?
Does the pipeline work?
What does the solution look like?
When running follow-up analyses, how is the uncertainty in the cluster assignments taken into account?
Was it worth it?
Conclusion
References
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Victor Ray @victorerikray.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Shout out to the student journalists at The Daily Iowan for reporting on the travesty that is Iowa's Center for Intellectual Freedom. With quotes from me dailyiowan.com/2026/09/15/u...
dailyiowan.com
Uncertainty in leadership, curriculum surrounds UI Center for Intellectual Freedom
In the barren walls of his Calvin Hall office, where the Center for Intellectual Freedom resides, interim director and University of Iowa economics professor Luciano de Castro shuffles a stack of pape...
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Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Slop Titan
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Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Very good news. The proposed rule has had universities, from the top all the way down to individual departments, scrambling to figure out how to continue supporting international students. Good to be relieved of all that... for now.
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Matt Bors @mattbors.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
It was exactly ten years ago today, on my 33rd birthday, that I posted this comic online.
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
A recurrent theme in this excellent story about China’s progress is that people there regard Trump as essential to their success, including his ability to drive scientific talent from the US www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
In Beijing, a think tank at Renmin University recently published an assessment titled
"Thank Trump," which wryly hailed his efforts to hasten the "twilight of an empire," by undermining America's alliances, civil service, scientific institutions, and democratic credibility. In the past two years, the international approval rating of the U.S. has dropped nearly forty points, according to a worldwide survey by the Alliance of Democracies; in multiple polls, China now rates higher than the U.S.
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Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
I always have trouble recalling typical expenditures, but database/journal subscriptions also cost universities in the millions of dollars (up to about 10 million). Some unis try to resist that via OA policies/agreements. Crazy how AI fees are going to make that look like a small sum.
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Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Balbir Singh Sodhi was murdered on Sept 15, 2001 in Mesa, AZ (suburb of Phoenix). Those days and months that followed 9/11 were not a good time for this country. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_...
en.wikipedia.org
Murder of Balbir Singh Sodhi - Wikipedia
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Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Imagine looking at these PISA reading results and thinking "what if we keep all the screentime in schools, but have an AI assistant on all the screens?"
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Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
(spoilers: I am not a particularly notable person.) (spoilers: This will go into my bloated promotion dossier supplementary materials.)
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Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
I grudgingly use LinkedIn because it is useful for connecting with people in my field and keeping up to date on relevant industry news. But man, sometimes the slop and spam on that website...
Spammy linked in message regarding selection for a Notable Men feature, which is totally needed because men lack visibility.

I am also guessing this is a weird matchmaking/dating service.
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Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Nice article on fostering bi/multilingualism among children in the Japan Times: #lingsky www.japantimes.co.jp/community/20...
japantimes.co.jp
How to navigate parenthood in a multilingual home
Language experts have advice for parents that should be reassuring in its simplicity: read, make friends and have fun.
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Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
New Pew survey on attitudes toward additional language study in the US: www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/...
pewresearch.org
What do Americans think about language learning in U.S. schools?
Four-in-ten Americans say it is extremely or very important for children growing up in the U.S. to learn a language other than English.
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Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
We're also like, pound for pound among the least physically dangerous primates, right? Gorillas, chimps, baboons got the raw strength. Evolution got us language, intelligence, and social cooperation.
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Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Tufekci is the one who was pushing lab leak theories a year or two ago, right?
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Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Was not expecting this in the middle of a Hanroro (rock/pop musician whose songs are frequently featured in K-Dramas) playlist. Brain was very confused hearing Korean from the start with that melody, but this is very good.
youtu.be
[Special Clip] 한로로 (HANRORO)_ 잔혹한 천사의 테제 : J-POP REMAKE Vol.2
YouTube video by 동네친구 강나미 [Kangnami]
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Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Being good is also what enabled a lot of the predation - it made them money and (impressionable, devoted) fans, and put them in charge of teams where I'd imagine there's a lot of deference to and desire to protect talent at the helm.
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Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Dems should play dumb with questions about Piker. Who? Is he running for local office somewhere? Is he working on someone's campaign? What does he do? Twitch? What's that? Is he a major donor? Has he given gifts to a Dem and then, coincidentally, gotten a gov't contract? Is he in the Epstein files?
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Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Assistant Vice Provost of Academic Technology Integration and Entrepreneurship Post
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Trevon Logan @trevondlogan.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
I can’t wait for the 18 part series in the Atlantic about “The Crisis at Business Schools” which will detail of every instance of academic fraud at the nation’s top business schools, the coverups, lack of accountability, and their implications for business ethics and academic standards at B schools.
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Dan "Mr. Bones and Me" Greene @dmgreene.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
What's the ratio of op-eds about Claudine Gay paraphrasing someone vs op-eds about Ariely just straight up fabricating data
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Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
It's like all the stuff right-NIMBYs imagined about windmills but real.
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Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
The best part of starting a new academic year is the pile-on of recurring mandatory training deadlines. All at the same time.
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Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
And apps (and textbooks, and classroom instruction) can give lots of give lots of useful opportunities for learning and practice. They won't be enough in the end, but can definitely be a useful start and continued supplement. Just be sure to add in other activities and resources.
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Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
What matters more, for communication and for digesting input to support more implicit learning of syntax, is vocabulary and decoding. Rote memorization and deliberate practice works for establishing those initial form-meaning connections!
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Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
some of those things don't matter so much from a communicative standpoint. I communicate, daily and successfully, with people whose L2 English grammar doesn't match my L1 grammar on things like plurals or articles. And my continued flubbing of Korean particles also doesn't matter much.
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Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Some purists in language teaching like to point out that you can never really develop mental representations of complex grammatical phenomena (read: syntax) through explicit instruction and deliberate practice, whether it comes from a textbook, teacher, or app. They're probably right! But...
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Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Part of why apps work is, in my view, because they deliver structured opportunity to get familiar with the forms of a new language. Even if they can get a bit rote at times, or turn into mindless games, but they still give you something that leads to usable knowledge of the language.
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Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
I'm glad about the subtitle for this article - and I'm someone who readily acknowledges that yes, you can learn a language (to some extent) from an app. But to really reach higher levels, you'll need more. And interacting with other humans in a new language is going to be more personally rewarding.
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Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
I was quoted in a new Popular Science article on language learning apps (alongside Luke Plonsky and Gillian Lord, who bring much more expertise to the topic!): www.popsci.com/science/do-l... #lingsky
popsci.com
Can apps really make you fluent in another language?
A green owl can nudge you to practice, but it doesn't replace talking to a person.
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Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Sad news for #linguistics. Lots of post-grad earnings pressure from (and soon to be on, from federal govt) universities is influencing programs and curricula, with language and linguistics getting pinched at many institutions. (ling/lang refugees welcome here at the University of Hawaiʻi)
ntdaily.com
‘My program’s going to sh-t’: Linguistics students move forward knowing major is being ‘phased out’
A small program at the university, the linguistics department has taken pride in documenting endangered languages and preparing the next generation to research language.
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Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Not having spent much time in NYC, I had no clue what Bergdorf is - but based on the headline I assumed it was an investment firm or consulting outfit. It's a (fancy) department store? Jeez, does NYT think rich people work in rich-people stores?
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Dan Isbell @danielrisbell.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
He was hired to a particular position. If he's wasting his time doing pseudoscience that doesn't pass peer review and blogging to harass fellow academics, it's not out of bounds to get fired for not doing/being able to do the job. People are denied tenure/renewal for much less!
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Emma Monk @monkemma.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
One of the first "outrageous" claims I saw as Jason Arday's media hounding unfolded was that he ran 30 marathons in 35 days! Wow! What a thing to claim! And the newspapers all suggested there was no evidence he actually did it. Well, they clearly didn't look very hard 🙄 🧵 1/26
Photo after Jason's final marathon taken from his archived blog showing Jason surrounded by supporters in orange charity t-shirts
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