BSc Education

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Child language acquisition and second language acquisition, covering relevant areas such as the poverty of the stimulus, Language Acquisition Device (LAD), the critical period and sensitive period, Universal Grammar (UG) and the stages involved in language learning.  Adult language acquisition will also be covered, thus focusing on the acquisition of a second language later in life and how this differs from acquiring language as a child, but also including of course a prominent focus on children learning a second or foreign language, and the linguistic, cultural and sometimes political implications of this.

This unit aims to:

• Cover the development of language in terms of the early acquisition of one’s first language and the acquisition and learning of a second language. 
• Enable students to better appreciate the remarkable fact that we all acquire our first language in particular with comparatively little learning input
• Discuss babbling and gesturing to the development of words and sentences, and then progress to adult language acquisition and relevant issues regarding bilingualism.
• Focus on the pedagogical implications for learning a second language, as opposed to acquiring it, discussing relevant topics such as teaching and learning theories (e.g. Krashen’s comprehensible input), as well as the political aspects of language (e.g. using speakers’ first language as a means to discriminate if they are not native speakers of the dominant language).

Week One – How do we acquire our first language? The Nature Argument [Chapter 1, Clark]
Week Two – How do we acquire our first language? The Nurture Argument
Week Three – Child-directed speech, and early perception [Chapters 2 and 3, Clark]
Week Four – Sign Language/dyslexia and writing based on a child’s L1
Week Five – Early production [Chapters 4 and 5, Clark]
Week Six – Developing pragmatic skills [Chapter 13, Clark] 
Week Seven – Bilingual acquisition in children [Chapter 14, Clark]
Week Eight – Adult second language acquisition, Part I [Chapters 1-3, Ellis]
Week Nine – Adult second language acquisition, Part II [Chapters 4-6, Ellis], to include global EMI instruction
Week Ten – Issues in child second language learning: home and school perspectives
Week Eleven – The politics of second-language learning

The lectures form the bedrock of the class, with much interactive content consisting of groupwork, and YouTube clips as a means to help make the abstract discussion more concrete. Students are also encouraged to meet one on one to discuss their assessment ideas, as well as attend the writing centre and study skills sessions.

• Understand the theoretical frameworks and relevant topics in the study of language acquisition, both child language acquisition and that of second language acquisition.
• Access their awareness of the psycholinguistic aspects involved with language acquisition and the relationship of the brain to language learning.
   

• Have developed skills relevant to close reading of texts in order to evaluate hypotheses and data
• Apply psycholinguistic theories to future studies of language and within a future work setting with children, be it L1 acquisition or L2 learning

• Close read texts better and have developed improved critical thinking skills
• Engage with scholarly texts more and critique theories where necessary
   

• Develop skills relevant to a career in teaching children
• Access skills that can be transferred to other branches of linguistics, such as syntax and pragmatics

Feedback is provided via the normal channel of submission of coursework per Faculty guidelines

Clark, E. 2003. First language acquisition.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ellis, R. 1997. Second language acquisition.  Oxford: Oxford University Press.