Instructors
James Hall and Takashi Miura
Our Goal
The overall goal of this class is to develop foundational knowledge of second language acquisition (SLA) to give teachers a new perspective on issues in English education as well as possibilities for innovative practice. Although many findings of SLA are not directly applicable to English teaching, knowledge of SLA can help teachers understand why a particular English lesson is effective for language learning and why it is not. SLA can also help teachers develop instructional principles that represent valid ways to encourage student language learning.
Course Objectives
- Be able to summarize various theories of language learning.
- Be able to describe ways of describing learner characteristics and their relationship with language learning.
- Be able to articulate typical patterns of language acquisition.
- Be able to describe the characteristics of a proficient speaker.
- Be able to evaluate school English education through the perspective of SLA.
Materials
All materials can be found here.
We will be reading two books:
Brown, H.D., Lee, H. (2025). Principles of Language Learning and Teaching 7th Ed. Routledge
Brown, H.D. (2014). Principles of Language Learning and Teaching 6th Ed. Pearson.
Student Profiles
- WS: やり取りを中心とした話す力を育てる中学校英語授業の工夫
- YK：中学校英語読解授業における概要把握の強化について
Schedule
(1) 10/8 Orientation and the Principled Communicative Approach
(2) 10/15Language, Learning, and Teaching
(3) 10/22 Direction of English education based on the Course of Study (Miura)
(4) 10/29 The current state and challenges of English education in Iwate (Miura)
(5) 11/5First language acquisition
(6) 11/12 First language acquisition
(7) 11/26 Age and Acquisition & Neurobiology of Language Learning
(8) 12/3 Age and Acquisition & Neurobiology of Language Learning Part 2
(9) 12/10 Motivation, Identity & Agency
(10) 12/17 → 12/24 Aptitude and Cognitive Differences
(11) 1/7 Key points for improving “reading” skills (Miura)
(12) 1/14 Learner Language and Cross-linguistic Influences
(13) 1/21 Cognitive and processing approaches
(14) 1/28 Sociocultural theory and additional language learning