Programme
Programme
Contact hours
- Weeks 2–5: 3 hours lectures + 1 hour seminar per week
- Week 7: 1 hour lecture on presentation skills + 1 hour library skills workshop + 1 hour seminar
- Week 8: 1 hour seminar
- Weeks 9–10: 3-hour presentation sessions (each student will attend one session, either in Week 9 or Week 10) + 1-hour seminar in Week 9 or Week 10, and 1-hour final lecture in Week 10
Teaching programme
This course is divided into two distinct learning periods:
- Weeks 2–5: introduction to key language acquisition topics through lectures
- Weeks 7–10: preparation and presentation of group projects
Weekly seminars will go on throughout the course, with exercises designed to review and develop lecture content, and to provide time for discussion of progress with project work.
Teaching materials
A reading pack of materials will be available for purchase.
Suggestions for reading before the module starts
- Ambridge Ben & Elena V. M. Lieven. 2011. Theoretical approaches to grammar acquisition. Chapter 4 in Child language acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 144–157. (Available for download via the module VLE site, under ‘reading lists’.)
- O’Grady, William. 2005. Words all in a row. Chapter 4 in How children learn language. Cambridge: CUP. (Available as e-book via the library.)
Also, the introductory chapters of any of the following provide useful background:
- Guasti, Maria Teresa. 2002. Language acquisition: the growth of grammar. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
- Lust, Barbara C. 2006. Child language: acquisition and growth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Gass, Susan & Larry Selinker. 2008. Second language acquisition: an introductory course. Third edition. New York & London: Routledge.