The course introduces those wishing to teach English to speakers of other languages to research methods and findings in the field of second language acquisition. The focus is on basic questions regarding the process of language learning, rather than on explicitly pedagogical issues. The material in this course should encourage new teachers to question assumptions and to formalize their own ideas about what goes on in the classroom and in second language learning in general. These should summarize the material for a given topic. There is a choice of four out of the eight topics.
Students select an aspect of second language learning.
They will collect and analyze the data in terms of current second language acquisition theory. This course is divided into 2 major areas of focus. The first is theory and practice in ESOL curriculum design. This course focuses on test design for the ESOL classroom. We also discuss test preparation, administration and scoring procedures.