230261 Introduction to Second Language Acquisition (S) (SoSe 2015)

The course will introduce students to what is known about how languages are learned. Connecting to the courses Linguistics I and II we will first revise briefly the stages children go through in acquiring their first language and review the major theories which attempt to account for this remarkable achievement. Further, contexts and characteristics of first and second language learning will be compared to then take a closer look at second language acquisition. We will start with examining developmental sequences of grammatical features of English as a second language, also reflecting on the idea of interlanguage as well as the development of pragmatics, phonology and vocabulary. Further we'll consider what makes a language learner successful, looking at factors such as intelligence, ethnic identity and age. We will then look at how the theories of first language acquisition are reflected in the multitude of second language acquisition theories, touching on some of the most important innatist, cognitive, interactionist and sociocultural theories of language learning. Towards the end of the semester we will analyse different classroom settings and go further into detail with learning and teaching a second language. We'll spend some time on errors, in particular different types of corrective feedback. Another aspect dealt with is teacher questions ans wait time. 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.
Throughout the whole semester we'll take a close look at the practical side of doing empirical research in second language acquisition - in particular finding topics of interest, formulating research questions, planning research designs and developing appropriate research instruments to gather, analyse and interprete empirical data. The basics of this process should be clear after finishing the course. You'll further learn how to present a research project through a poster, podcast or video.

Requirements for participation, required level

It is recommended that this course be taken after Linguistics 1 & 2 in BM3 for students of the Studienmodell 2011 and 2013

Bibliography

Students are required to buy the course book, which we'll closely work with in class (already in the first session!):
Lightbown, P. and Spada, N. (2013). How Languages are Learned. 4th edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.