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Students of SLA at Georgetown regularly have the opportunity
to take classes and special seminars with distinguished
visitors. Previous classes have included the following:
2008-2009:
Dr.
Patrick Rebuschat (University of Cambridge)
Dr.
Rod Ellis (Univeristy of Auckland)
2007-2008:
Dr. Andrea Révész (University of Lancaster)
Spring & Fall 2006
Dr. Elana Shohamy (University of Tel Aviv)
LING 350 Language Testing and Assessment
LING 572 Language Policy in Multilingual Societies
Special Course: Topics in SLA (co-taught)
Dr. Susan M. Gass (Michigan State
University)
Dr. Patsy M. Lightbown, Emeritus (Concordia
University)
Dr. Zoltán Dörnyei (University
of Nottingham)
Dr. Rod Ellis (University of Auckland,
New Zealand)
Dr. Teresa Pica (University of Pennsylvania)
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Six internationally prominent researchers gave guest lectures in this course, considering a variety of perspectives related to current issues in the study of second language acquisition. The semester began with a focused discussion of theoretical, empirical, and methodological issues related to second language acquisition, taking into account class participants' previous coursework, reading, and research experience. Approximately every other week from that point on, one of the guest lecturers led the class. In the sessions between the speakers' visits, students debriefed on the previous speaker's lecture, updating their ongoing discussions about how the different approaches were connected, examining questions and unresolved issues, and then preparing for the upcoming speaker by introducing the readings selected by the speaker and discussing relevant biographical information.
Special Intensive Seminar
Dr. David Birdsong (University of Texas at Austin, Department of French and Italian)
LING 753: The End State in Second Language Acquisition
May 13 - June 7, 2002
Dr.
Birdsong's research interests include SLA theory, research
design and statistics, applied linguistics, and descriptive
French linguistics.
The study of the end state or asymptote in second language acquisition provides a unique perspective on the upper limits of L2 attainment. End-state data represent potentially decisive evidence on the possibility that a critical period constrains learning, while informing various cognitive, neurological, and linguistic models of learner outcomes in SLA.
This course investigated the SLA asymptote from a variety of perspectives, including historical (the sources of the conventional wisdom that failure to attain nativelikeness in late SLA is inevitable), behavioral (experimental studies relating to end-state pronunciation, syntax, and morphology), and neurological (imaging and electrophysiological evidence from late and early binlinguals). Topics included models of non-nativelike grammars; operationalizing the final state; fossilization; age effects versus critical period effects; the incidence of nativelike attainment; initial state, end state, and Universal Grammar; asymmetries and dissociations at the asymptote; and cortical function in late bilingualism. The practicum part of the course was comparable to a psycholinguistics research laboratory, with data feeding into the following.
ENGLISH L2: Acquisition of Regular/Irregular inflectional morphology. Analysis of accuracy and RT data from Spanish learners of English not at end state, and from Native English controls. (Collaboration with Michael Ullman)
ENGLISH L2: Various. Analysis of perception, production, and judgment data from Korean L1, varying ages of acquisition; Time 1/Time 2 comparisons. (Collaboration with Jim Flege)
FRENCH L2: Is comprehensive nativelikeness possible? Fine-grained and global analyses of individual subjects' pronunciation and morphosyntax, across 8 experimental tasks. English L1 at French L2 end state.
GERMAN L2: Data from researchers at the Max-Planck Institut
fur Psycholonguistik, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
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