Second Language Acquisition
Directors
- Judith E. Liskin-Gasparro (Spanish and Portuguese), Roumyana Slabakova (Linguistics)
Affiliated faculty
- Stephen M. Alessi (Psychological and Quantitative Foundations), Jill N. Beckman (Linguistics), William D. Davies (Linguistics), Sarah Fagan (German), Elena Gavruseva (Linguistics), Richard Hurtig (Communication Sciences and Disorders), Chuanren Ke (Asian and Slavic Languages and Literatures), Paula Kempchinsky (Spanish and Portuguese), Judith E. Liskin-Gasparro (Spanish and Portuguese), Kristine Fitch Muñoz (Communication Studies), Sue K. Otto (Spanish and Portuguese), Lia Plakans (Teaching and Learning), Leslie Schrier (Teaching and Learning), Kathy L. Schuh (Psychological and Quantitative Foundations), Carol Severino (Rhetoric), Christine Shea (Spanish and Portuguese), Helen Shen (Asian and Slavic Languages and Literatures), Roumyana Slabakova (Linguistics), Bruce H. Spencer (German), Pam Wesely (Teaching and Learning)
Graduate degree: Ph.D. in second language acquisition
Web site: http://international.uiowa.edu/flare
Second language acquisition (SLA) is a multidisciplinary field whose goal is to understand the processes that underlie non-native language learning. The Second Language Acquisition Program draws from varied academic disciplines, among them linguistics, psychology, psycholinguistics, sociology, sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, conversation analysis, and education.
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Graduate Program
- Doctor of Philosophy in second language acquisition
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Doctor of Philosophy
The Doctor of Philosophy program in second language acquisition requires 72 s.h., including a maximum of 33 s.h. earned in work toward a master's degree. The program is interdisciplinary and focuses on languages other than English. Students interested in pursuing the Ph.D. must hold a master's degree in an appropriate field (e.g., linguistics, foreign language education, English as a second language) or have equivalent academic experience. Students begin the program in the fall.
Doctoral students may specialize in one of three areas: linguistics, language program direction, or technology. They may pursue their interdisciplinary interests in courses offered by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Departments of Asian and Slavic Languages and Literatures, Communication Sciences and Disorders, French and Italian, German, Linguistics, Rhetoric, and Spanish and Portuguese, and the College of Education Departments of Psychological and Quantitative Foundations, and Teaching and Learning.
The program is divided into foundation courses (13 courses, or 39 s.h.); specialization courses (5 courses, or 15 s.h.), and dissertation work (18 s.h.). A course may be used to fulfill only one requirement.
FOUNDATION COURSES
All of these:
Two of these:
To complete the foundation requirement, students select one course from each of the following eight areas, in consultation with their advisor. With the advisor's approval, students may use courses not listed here to fulfill the requirement.
Curriculum
Quantitative Research Tools
Qualitative Research Tools
Testing, Evaluation, Measurement
Methodology
Phonetics, Phonology
Morphology, Syntax
General Linguistics
SPECIALIZATION COURSES
Each student selects one of three specialization areas—linguistics, language program direction, or technology—and takes five courses (total of 15 s.h.) in that area.
Linguistics Specialization
The linguistics specialization requires the following courses.
One of these three-course sequences (group 1 or group 2):
Group 1:
Group 2:
One of these:
One of these:
Language Program Direction Specialization
Students who choose the language program direction specialization take five of the following courses (chosen from those not taken to satisfy the foundation requirements).
Some students may include an internship experience as part of the specialization.
Technology Specialization
The technology specialization requires the following courses.
A three-course sequence in psychological and quantitative foundations:
One of these:
Both of these:
Students choose their remaining specialization course work from these (other courses may be approved by the student's advisor).
May include one of these (if not taken for the three-course sequence in psychological and quantitative foundations, above):
*May include one of these:
*May be taken after students have completed the core design and technology courses 07P:205 (PSQF:6205) Design of Instruction or 07P:275 (PSQF:6275) Constructivism and Design of Instruction, 07P:208 (PSQF:6208) Designing Educational Multimedia, and 07P:215 (PSQF:6215) Web-Based Learning.
THESIS
All candidates must complete a thesis [164:303 (SLA:7030) Ph.D. Thesis], for which they may earn up to 18 s.h. of credit.
OPTIONAL COURSE WORK
Students may include the following optional course work in their degree programs.
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Admission
Admission is for fall semester; students are admitted only for full-time study. Applicants must meet the admission requirements of the Graduate College; see the Manual of Rules and Regulations of the Graduate College or the Graduate College section of the Catalog. Strong applicants hold a master's degree in a related area, have a cumulative g.p.a. of at least 3.50 in master's degree work, and speak and write English and another language at a professional level. Applicants must submit a writing sample that demonstrates their ability to synthesize and analyze information using standard academic English.
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Financial Support
Teaching assistantships are available through the Foreign Language Acquisition Research and Education Program (FLARE). Assistantships usually involve teaching elementary or intermediate language courses. FLARE also offers a limited number of research assistantships. Visit the FLARE web site for details.
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Courses
| 164:125 (SLA:4202) Conversational Indonesian | 1 s.h. |
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Open conversation in Indonesian language; active participation. Prerequisites: 164:120 and 164:121.
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| 164:157 (SLA:4080) Linguistic Theory and Second Language Acquisition | 3 s.h. |
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Introduction of research results obtained by generative second language acquisition framework and their implications for classroom teaching methods; current views of language architecture; focus on inflectional morphology and linguistic interfaces, which have been proposed to be severe bottlenecks for acquisition; research findings on acquisition of syntax, phonology, semantics, linguistic pragmatics; pedagogical implications of these findings. Prerequisites: 103:111 (LING:3010) and 103:112 (LING:3020).
Same as 103:157 (LING:4080). | | |
| 164:160 (SLA:3400) Articulatory and Acoustic Phonetics | 3 s.h. |
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Production and transcription of sounds in human languages; physics of sound, computer analysis of speech sounds. Offered fall semesters.
Same as 103:110 (LING:3000). | | |
| 164:163 (SLA:4401) Methods of Teaching English as a Second Language | 3 s.h. |
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Observations of ESL and intensive English classes at the University; design and presentation of short lessons, text evaluation, demonstrations of innovative approaches of the last decade; materials. Offered spring semesters. Prerequisites: 103:110 (LING:3000) and 103:141 (LING:4040).
Same as 103:145 (LING:4050). | | |
| 164:170 (SLA:6500) Issues in Foreign Language Education | 3 s.h. |
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Theoretical perspectives of pivotal research issues at the forefront of foreign language education; systems available to foreign language professionals for disseminating research.
Same as 07S:180 (EDTL:6480). | | |
| 164:171 (SLA:6506) Second Language Classroom Learning | 3 s.h. |
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Synthesis of empirical findings on children's and adults' learning of a second or foreign language; emphasis on theoretical underpinnings of approaches, methods, techniques in language teaching.
Same as 039:177 (ASIA:6483), 07S:183 (EDTL:6483). | | |
| 164:172 (SLA:6501) Reading in a Second Language | 3 s.h. |
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Current theory, research, practice in second language reading field; role of textual features and the reader in reading comprehension.
Same as 07S:184 (EDTL:6484). | | |
| 164:173 (SLA:5501) Curriculum Foundations | 2-3 s.h. |
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Elementary and secondary background developments in curriculum; definitions, historical perspective, philosophies, theories of knowledge, models, learning theories, directions of development and shaping forces; emphasis on development of a curriculum project.
Same as 07S:186 (EDTL:5086). | | |
| 164:174 (SLA:6502) Principles of Course Design for Second Language Instruction | 3 s.h. |
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Contemporary views of second language curriculum design; guidelines necessary for the creation of prototypical curriculum units to be transposed into classroom‑ready forms; for individuals interested in foreign language materials development.
Same as 07S:197 (EDTL:6497). | | |
| 164:200 (SLA:5000) Teaching and Learning Languages | 3 s.h. |
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Readings in pedagogical theory and practice, second language acquisition; experience designing activities for teaching and assessment with critiques based on current theories and approaches; development of reflective practices toward one's language teaching.
Same as 218:200 (WLLC:5000). | | |
| 164:203 (SLA:5020) Introduction to Phonology | 3 s.h. |
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Analysis of sound systems, focus on early generative phonological theory; extensive practice in analysis using data from a variety of languages; linguistic argumentation. Prerequisites: 103:110 (LING:3000).
Same as 103:203 (LING:5020). | | |
| 164:211 (SLA:6920) Multimedia and Second Language Acquisition | 3 s.h. |
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Foreign language multimedia in context of current second language acquisition theories and research; readings on interactivity, interface design, feedback, learner control; acquisition of vocabulary, grammar, and culture. Requirements: foreign language teaching methodology course.
Same as 009:238 (FREN:6920), 013:253 (GRMN:6920), 035:212 (SPAN:6920). | | |
| 164:212 (SLA:7010) Practicum in CALL Software Development | 1-4 s.h. |
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Supervised experience in an applied setting involving development of computer‑assisted language learning (CALL) software. Prerequisites: 164:211 (SLA:6920). Requirements: faculty sponsor.
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| 164:225 (SLA:5973) Grammar in Second Language Teaching/Learning | 3 s.h. |
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Grammar, second language acquisition, and teaching. Taught in English, projects in varied languages.
Same as 013:259 (GRMN:3540). | | |
| 164:229 (SLA:6970) Cultural Curriculum | 3 s.h. |
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Culture's role in foreign/second language teaching; definition, pedagogy, assessment, and materials that allow culture to be taught and learned.
Same as 07S:209 (EDTL:6409). | | |
| 164:240 (SLA:6466) Cognitive Development | 3 s.h. |
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Theoretical and empirical analyses of children's cognitive development; spatial and numerical concepts, causal reasoning, categorization, metacognition, memory.
Same as 031:218 (PSY:6430). | | |
| 164:241 (SLA:5010) Introduction to Syntax | 3 s.h. |
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Methods and argumentation for formal analysis of sentence structure through induction from language data of central concepts and relations; hypothesis testing, empirical bases of theoretical concepts. Corequisites: 103:200 (LING:5000).
Same as 103:201 (LING:5010). | | |
| 164:242 (SLA:6010) Syntactic Theory | 3 s.h. |
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Current syntactic theory examined through analysis of data sets, readings in recent research; emphasis on argument construction, statement of formal principles. Offered spring semesters. Prerequisites: 103:201 (LING:5010).
Same as 103:202 (LING:6010). | | |
| 164:260 (SLA:6300) Foreign Language Teaching Methods | 3 s.h. |
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Readings in pedagogical theory and practice and second language acquisition; experience designing activities for teaching and assessment, with critiques based on current theories and approaches; development of reflective practices toward one's own language teaching.
Same as 035:200 (SPAN:6000). | | |
| 164:261 (SLA:6301) Topics in Spanish Language Acquisition | 3 s.h. |
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Theoretical linguistic approaches to monolingual, bilingual, and second language acquisition of Spanish and Portuguese; varied topics. Requirements: at least one course in linguistics (e.g., general introduction to linguistics).
Same as 035:206 (SPAN:6150). | | |
| 164:263 (SLA:6303) Spanish Phonology | 3 s.h. |
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Modern approaches to synchronic phonology as applied to Spanish; focus on traditional descriptive problems, recent generative analyses. Requirements: phonology or linguistics course.
Same as 035:209 (SPAN:6110). | | |
| 164:264 (SLA:6304) Spanish Syntax | 3 s.h. |
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Spanish syntactic constructions examined in framework of selected syntactic theory; emphasis on development of syntactic argumentation. Requirements: one course in syntax.
Same as 035:210 (SPAN:6120). | | |
| 164:270 (SLA:6503) Fundamentals of Second Language Assessment | 3 s.h. |
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How to write language tests; discussion of fundamental issues in development of new tests or selection of existing tests.
Same as 07S:200 (EDTL:6400). | | |
| 164:271 (SLA:6504) Second Language Program Management | 3 s.h. |
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Preparation for supervising, administering foreign language programs at all levels; for precollegiate language teachers and graduate students.
Same as 07S:202 (EDTL:6402). | | |
| 164:272 (SLA:6505) Designing Materials for Second Language Instruction | 3 s.h. |
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Critical perspective on creating and using media for second language learning and teaching; research on materials design, development of media. Prerequisites: 07S:183 (EDTL:6483).
Same as 07S:208 (EDTL:6408). | | |
| 164:274 (SLA:7804) Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language IV | 3 s.h. |
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Overview of goals, concepts, principles, research, and issues in assessment and testing of Chinese as a foreign language.
Same as 039:208 (CHIN:7404). | | |
| 164:282 (SLA:7408) Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language II | 3 s.h. |
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Multiple levels of major Chinese textbooks, curricular organizational schemes, language programs, communicative language instruction; development of supplementary materials for a University of Iowa Chinese course.
Same as 039:203 (CHIN:7402). | | |
| 164:298 (SLA:6111) Semantics | 3 s.h. |
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Meaning in natural language, with focus on German; lexical semantics (sense relations, semantic fields, componential analysis), modality, temporal and spatial deixis, aspect.
Same as 013:255 (GRMN:6800). | | |
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