Language Acquisition: Social Psychological Dimensions

Course details

This is an interdisciplinary module that explores how people acquire bilingual or multilingual ability, and what happens in the process of their doing so. The exploration draws on theory and research from linguistics, psychology and sociology as well as the interrelated sub-disciplines and research areas (e.g. psycholinguistics, developmental psychology, sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology and bilingual studies). The overall goal is to help course participants understand the complexity of language acquisition and development, as well as acquire a framework for observing, explaning and evaluating the beliefs and assumptions underpinning learning and teaching practices, research reports and other writing about language learning.

Learning Objectives

The Blended Postgraduate Diploma in Applied Linguistics is designed to enhance the theoretical understanding and practical teaching skills of English language professionals in the Asia-Pacific region who are interested in obtaining a postgraduate qualification in teaching ESL/EFL. The Diploma will benefit language lecturers, teachers and specialists in the region who have a first degree plus teaching experience. Course participants who complete this course successfully should be able to:

• apply the  knowledge and  principles of linguistic study to practical language teaching in their own context;
• discuss the main processes involved in second language acquisition and development;
• demonstrate an understanding of the major approaches and methods that have influenced second language education.

Course Requirements

To complete the course, a course participant must:

• obtain a pass in all modules.
• satisfy face-to-face class attendance requirements.
• satisfy online mandatory course requirements in terms of forum postings and quiz and assignment completion.

A course participant whose progress has not been satisfactory may be required to terminate her/his candidature.

Course Award

The course will lead to the award of Blended Postgraduate Diploma in Applied Linguistics.

Admission Requirements

Candidates must possess a Bachelor of Arts degree or other acceptable qualification in an area approved by RELC.  Consideration may be given to a mature candidate without this qualification who in the opinion of RELC will profit from the programme.

The candidate must have a sufficient command of English to follow advanced study conducted in the English Language and to prepare written and oral assignments. Those from non-English medium education systems must have a recent TOEFL score of at least 550 for the paper-based test, 213 for the computer-based test or 80 for the internet-based test. Alternatively, an IELTS result of 6.5 is required.

(If you are registering for the TOEFL test, please quote our code number 2042. Your official score report will be sent to us directly from Educational Testing Service.)

I.T Requirements

As this is an online course, participants must ensure that they have the following minimum requirements being they can use the LMS program:

** Internet Explorer (IE) 8.0 or Mozilla's Firefox browsers**

*Desktop/Notebook PC(PC/NB) Technical Specification (minimum)

• CPU -  Intel Core i3  (minimum)
• Main memory - 2 GB (minimum)
• Hard Disk - 320GB
• Webcam

*Internet speed - minimum at least 1 MB/sec

*Software Specification

• PC/NB* OS - Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP SP3
• Web Browser - Windows Explorer 8 or later for PC/NB; Mozilla Firefox for PC/NB
• Adobe Flash Player 11 or later
• Adobe Shockwave Player 11.5 or later
• Sun Java TM 6 Update 23 or later
• Cookies (activated)
• Microsoft Office (2003 upwards) or OpenOffice