Expected Learning Outcomes

The purpose of the Language Acquisition and Teaching Program is to provide students with a fundamental understanding of the processes of second language acquisition, and with the skills of how best to teach, prepare materials, and assess language proficiency in ways that are consistent with that understanding. The five primary learning outcomes of this program include:

1. Graduates will be able to summarize the general state of the discipline of Language Acquisition, including what is known and not known in each of the subfields such as contrastive linguistics, curriculum design, testing, instruction methods, research design, and explain how interaction among these factors affect language programs.
2. Graduates will be able to demonstrate expertise in at least one of the subfields within the Language Acquisition field.
3. Graduates will be able to collect, analyze, and interpret data relevant to testing a hypothesis related to the nature of language and/or how language is learned.
4. Graduates will be able to apply critical thinking skills when designing a research study involving a small number of independent and dependent variables to test a specific research hypothesis.
5. Graduates will use technology to communicate and to analyze information.