EUS4100 ¨C Second and third language acquisition and learner corpora

Course content

The course gives an overview of the field second/third language acquisition and explores some of the central topics within the field in more detail: multilingualism, cross-linguistic influence, interlanguage and stages, and corrective feedback. The topics are illuminated through examples from and searches in the TRAWL Corpus, a learner corpus with texts in French, Spanish, German, English and Norwegian written by students in Norwegian schools. The coursework concludes with an individual piece of research (a term paper) about the acquisition of your target language.

Learning outcome

After completing this course, you can:

• describe theories of multilingualism, cross-linguistic influence, interlanguage, stages of second/third language development, and corrective feedback
• show how these topics fit into the larger field of second/third language acquisition
• conduct systematic searches in a corpus and handle and analyse corpus data to explore these topics
• use corpus data to carry out research, written up in an academic text

Admission to the course

Students who are admitted to study programmes at UiO must each semester register which courses and exams they wish to sign up for?in Studentweb.

If you are not already enrolled as a student at UiO, please see our information about?admission requirements and procedures.

Teaching

Seminars, two hours per week for 10 weeks, 20 hours in total. One of these weeks is devoted to oral presentations (obligatory activity).

Obligatory activities:

• A first draft of the term paper and an oral presentation of this draft.??Read more here about rules concerning valid excuses and how to apply for postponements.?Information about?guidelines for obligatory activities.

Fulfilled course requirements are only valid the semester you attend the course.

Examination

The obligatory requirements must be fulfilled in order to qualify for the exam.

The assessment of the course is based on a term paper of approximately ten pages (a standard page consists of 2,300 characters). The paper must contain references and a bibliography. The bibliography is not included in the page count.

Language of examination

Students write their term paper in the language that is the focus of their masters degree (French, Spanish, German or English respecitively).

Grading scale

Grades are awarded on a scale from A to F, where A is the best grade and F is a fail. Read more about?the grading system.

Resit an examination

A term paper or equivalent that is passed may not be resubmitted in revised form.

More about examinations at UiO

• Use of sources and citations
• Special exam arrangements due to individual needs
• Withdrawal from an exam
• Illness at exams / postponed exams
• Explanation of grades and appeals
• Resitting an exam
• Cheating/attempted cheating

You will find further guides and resources at the web page on examinations at UiO.