230001 Introduction to Second Language Acquisition (S) (WiSe 2012/2013)

The course will introduce students to what is known about how languages are learned. We will first look briefly at the stages children go through in acquiring their first language and review the major theories which attempt to account for this remarkable achievement. We will then look at how the theories of first language acquisition are reflected in the multitude of second language acquisition theories, briefly touching on the Monitor Hypothesis, Comprehensible Output Hypothesis and Input Processing, for example. We will also consider what makes a language learner successful, looking at factors such as intelligence, aptitude and age. We will then reflect on the idea of language learner language. In the middle of the semester, we will analyse different classroom settings, language error, different types of error feedback and teacher questions. As the course draws to a close we will consider the implications of what we have learned for language teaching in schools, examining six different approaches of teaching English as a foreign language.