Marina Tsylina is a specialist in Second Language Acquisition. Her research interests include the interaction between learners and teachers. Specifically, Marina is interested in understanding learner and teacher beliefs about how Russian is acquired both inside and outside the classroom. Currently, Marina is studying what learners think of themselves as writers in FL Russian, how their self-perceptions are formed, and why self-perceptions are important in the process of second language acquisition. Marina’s research also deals with “affordances,” which are language learning and teaching resources available to FL learners and teachers, but which they may not recognize or make use of. Marina is collaborating with instructors in Russian, Spanish, and Farsi to explore what affordances learners and teachers in each of these languages are aware of, and whether and how they make use of them or enable others to make use of them.