Rate My Professor Anna Mikhaylova

Dr Anna Mikhaylova is a Lecturer in Russian at the University of Queensland's School of Languages and Cultures within the Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences. She currently holds the positions of Honours Coordinator and Russian Major Convenor. Her academic journey began with a BA/MA equivalent in Teaching Foreign Languages from Ryazan State Pedagogical University in Russia. She then pursued an MA in English with a concentration in Linguistics and TESOL at East Carolina University in the USA, followed by a PhD in Linguistics from the University of South Carolina. Before joining UQ, Mikhaylova taught for 13 years at tertiary institutions in Russia and the USA, where she delivered courses in Russian, English, Linguistics, and Language Teaching, and supervised undergraduate and postgraduate teaching practicums and research projects.

Mikhaylova's research lies at the intersection of bilingualism, second language acquisition, sociolinguistics, and language teaching. She explores cognitive, social, and pedagogical implications of bilingualism, focusing on similarities and differences between language development in second/foreign language learners and heritage speakers, particularly which linguistic phenomena are challenging to acquire and the factors influencing bilingual acquisition success. Her work aims to inform classroom pedagogy and language policy. Key publications include the book chapter "Disrupting, decentring and diversifying languages and cultures in Australian higher education" (2025, with Díaz et al.), "Foreign and heritage language learners’ pragmalinguistic choices in Russian imperatives" (Russian Language Journal, 2024, with Tsylina), "What We Know about the Acquisition of Russian Aspect as a First, Second, and Heritage Language: State of the Art" (Heritage Language Journal, 2019), "Multisite replication in second language acquisition research: attention to form during listening and reading comprehension" (Language Learning, 2018, multisite study), and "Morphological bottleneck: the case of Russian heritage speakers" (Journal of Language Contact, 2018). She served as Associate Editor of The Heritage Language Journal from 2013 to 2021, supervises PhD students on topics in heritage and second language development, and secured UQ funding for a project on community schools supporting diaspora language maintenance (2021–2022).