Jorge H. Cubillos
227 Jastak-Burgess Hall
Office Hours: M: 3-4 pm & W: 2-3 pm
e-mail: cubillos@udel.edu
phone: x2041
FLLT626 – FOREIGN LANGUAGE PEDAGOGY RESEARCH SEMINAR
COURSE SYLLABUS
Course Description and Course Goals:
This graduate seminar is designed to provide an overview of current knowledge on Foreign
Language Pedagogy, and to introduce students to quantitative and qualitative research methods
in applied linguistics. Through readings, class activities, and individual research projects,
students will have the opportunity to explore in depth a Foreign Language Pedagogy (FLP) topic
of their choosing, while gaining experience in the design and implementation of action-research
projects in the foreign language classroom.
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
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
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demonstrate familiarity with current perspectives on Foreign Language Pedagogy
demonstrate an understanding of the action research process
plan and design an action research project pertaining to issues related to FLP
discuss the background, methods, results, and implications of an action research project
General Assignments and Expectations
Students are expected to attend all classes and to participate actively in classroom discussions.
Absences will result in a lowering of the final course grade.
Required texts
Saville-Troike, M. (2006). Introducing Second Language Acquisition. Cambridge,
CambridgeUniversity Press.
Mertler, C. (2006). Action Research. Teachers as researchers in the Classroom. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Grading
The goal of this course is to familiarize students with current SLA research and to design an
action research investigation of their own. In addition to a mid-term examination, each major
component of the action-research process will be graded as follows:
Mid-term examination
Research question & hypotheses
Research design & instrumentation
Review of related literature
30%
10%
30%
30%
Class Schedule
Date
Topic/Activity
Assignments
Aug. 31
Foundations of Second Language
Acquisition
- Read Saville-Troike, Ch.1 & 2
Sept. 7
The Linguistics of Second Language
Acquisition
- Read Saville-Troike, Ch. 3
Sept. 14
The Psychology of Second Language
Acquisition
- Read Saville-Troike, Ch. 4
Sept. 21
Social Contexts of Second Language
Acquisition
- Read Saville-Troike, Ch. 5
Sept. 28
Acquiring Knowledge for L2 use
- Read Saville-Troike, Ch. 6
Oct. 5
L2 Learning and Teaching
- Read Saville-Troike, Ch. 7
Oct. 12
Review
Oct. 19
MID-TERM EXAMINATION
Oct. 26
Introduction to Action Research & Overview
of the Action Research Process
- Read Mertler, Ch. 1 & 2
Nov. 2
Planning for Action Research & Developing
a Research Plan
- Read Mertler, Ch. 3 & 4
- Present Research Question and
Hypotheses for peer feedback
Nov. 9
Time to work on Literature Review
Nov. 16
Collecting & Analyzing Data
Nov. 23
Developing an Action Plan & Sharing and
Reflecting
Nov. 30
Time to work on presentation
Dec. 7
Presentations of Research Design &
Instrumentation for peer feedback
Dec. 9
Research project due at noon in 227 JBH
(Research question/s & Hypotheses, Lit.
Review, Research Design, Instrumentation)
- Read Mertler, Ch. 5 & 6
- Present Summary of Literature
Review for peer feedback
- Read Mertler, Ch. 7 & 8