EDU 701 Interlanguage Pragmatics

This course will familiarize participants with research investigating interlanguage pragmatics and examine how instruction can effectively develop L2 pragmatic competence. Students will be required to prepare a set of teaching materials for teaching ONE speech act (e.g., requests or compliments). They will also be asked to try out and evaluate their materials on their own students or students with whom they are familiar.

EDU 702 Individual Learner Differences in Language Learning and Teaching

This course reviews research that has investigated a number of key individual learner factors (e.g., language aptitude, motivation, learner beliefs) and how these impact on language teaching. The course also considers how individual differences in classroom learners can be accommodated instructionally. There will be opportunity for students to analyze quantitative and qualitative data in order to investigate individual learner factors. Students will be required to carry out a qualitative study of two language learners – one successful and one unsuccessful learner.

EDU 703 Sociolinguistics and Language Teaching

This course introduces participants to concepts and issues in sociolinguistics which are relevant to their lives as prospective or practicing language teachers. The course combines topics from two theoretical and research fields: sociolinguistics, which examines the relationship between language and society, and language teaching, which includes the examination of what happens in the classroom with teachers and learners, and also how these practices relate to the broader socio-political contexts in which the teaching and learning take place.

EDU 704 Discourse Analysis for Language Teachers

The objective of this course is to define ‘discourse’ and introduce students to a range of models for describing and critically evaluating authentic oral and written discourse.

EDU 705 Language Testing

The goal of this course is to develop student’s critical understanding of different types of language tests, their theoretical underpinnings, their design, and the uses to which they can be put.

EDU 706 Special Topic

This course provides students with a hands-on, project-based experience in running an empirical study. The course will cover all major phases of conducting a study, from conceptualization to design, instrumentation to analysis.

EDU 710 Curriculum Design

This course is intended to familiarize students with the issues and procedures involved in developing a language curriculum and to enable them to design their own curriculum for a specific group of learners.

EDU 711 Technology and Language Education

This course takes the view that technology can be both tool and tutor in language education. The role of technology in language education is examined as an aspect of curriculum design, that is, the starting point is needs analysis and resulting curriculum, rather than technology. The course will describe the characteristics of various applications such as email, computer-assisted language learning (CALL) and webpages. It will help participants evaluate the role of information technology in language teaching and learning. Participants will explore the use of technology in different educational settings, and how to integrate it in course design. Students will be required to develop a unit of work for an ELT class, integrating technology and to prepare a research proposal to investigate an aspect of technology in language education.

EDU 712 ELT Materials Development

The course aims to help the participants to gain the knowledge and to develop the awareness and skills required by an expert practitioner of materials development for language learning and teaching. It intends in particular to help them to become principled and effective materials evaluators, adapters, writers, users and researchers. In addition it aims to make use of materials development to deepen the participants’ understanding of second language acquisition, of language use and of principled pedagogy as well as contributing to the further development of analytical, critical and creative thinking skills.

EDU 713 Special Topic

This project-based class focuses on developing an instructed second language acquisition (ISLA) study that addresses a pedagogical issue. Students are encouraged to situate themselves in the classroom and identify a pedagogical, as opposed to theoretical, issue that has a direct impact on students’ learning outcomes. Although qualitative research will be discussed, a primary focus will be given to quantitative and mixed-methods research. Throughout the course, students work on key components required to conduct a rigorous ISLA study, with a hands-on support from the instructor. By the end of the course, students will have developed theoretically and methodologically sound materials and tools to conduct an ISLA study.

EDU 720 ELT Leadership and Management

There is an on-going dearth of books, articles and other publications on leadership in education, and an even greater scarcity of publications on language education leadership (abbreviated in this course as ‘LEL’). Consequently, courses like this often end up having to choose between out-of-date LEL publications, or using texts written by and from the corporate, for-profit world. However, education, including language teaching and learning, is a markedly different endeavour from making and selling, for example, cars or other commercial commodities. Therefore, the literature from the for-profit world is often not applicable to and not appropriate for language education. This course is designed to address those limitations and deficiencies by drawing on, to the greatest extent possible, leadership literature from education, and wherever possible, language education. This course also makes a significant distinction between management and leadership, rejecting the interchangeable use of those two terms. As the literature on leadership and on management has grown exponentially in recent years, the two areas can still be considered to overlap with each other, but the two areas are now also distinctive and identifiably different. This course will, therefore, focus as much as possible on leadership in language education.

EDU 721 Language Teacher Education

This course will examine the socio-cultural perspectives on the following: 1. how teachers learn to teach a second language 2. the nature of language 3. how second languages are taught and learned 4. social, cultural, and historical influences on the second language teaching profession 5. the spectrum and roles of second language teachers’ professional development.

EDU 730 Qualitative Research Methods

This course will define qualitative research and differentiate it from quantitative research, describe the evolution of qualitative research, provide a framework for doing qualitative research, present the ‘ground rules’ for doing qualitative research, and demonstrate the centrality of the writing process to qualitative research.

EDU 731 Quantitative Research Methods

The objective of this course is to enable students to design and evaluate quantitative studies of language learning and teaching and to equip them with the statistical tools for analyzing data.

EDU 732 Dissertation Writing Proposal

The goal of this course is to assist students in preparing and critiquing a research proposal.

EDU 733 Dissertation

Students conduct research for the dissertation, and write and defend the dissertation.