01:940:363 Bilingualism in the Spanish-Speaking World
Requirement for the course: successful completion of 940:261 or 615:1101
Synopsis:
This course is an introduction to the science of bilingualism in children and adults with emphasis in Spanish. The course combines lectures with group exercises, critical reading of empirical studies, class discussions, and oral presentations.
Learning Goals:
- To understand the cognitive, linguistic and socio-politic complexity of bilingualism
- To reason about what it means to be bilingual and about common prejudices of bilingualism
- To become familiar about the main theories of bilingualism and second language acquisition
- To learn about cognitive, usage, and biological aspects that affect bilingualism
- To learn about cognitive, linguistic and socio-political consequences of bilingualism
- To develop and strengthen problem-solving skills, critical thinking, and creative mind to do research in bilingualism
- To analyze a contemporary global issue from a multidisciplinary perspective
- For further information about learning goals, please visit: http://span-port.rutgers.edu/learning-goals
Required Readings:
Readings may change each semester, but some examples of empirical studies are:
- Hopp (2010), Morphosyntactic processing in late second language learners.
- Montrul & Potowski (2007), Command of gender agreement in school-age Spanish-English bilingual children
- Huguet (2005), La educación bilingüe en el estado español
- Lynch & Klee (2005), Estudio comparativo de actitudes hacia el español en los EEUU: Educación, política y entorno social.
Course Evaluation:
Class participation and attendance
Questions about empirical studies
Discussion leader
Attendance to two professional talks in bilingualism/SLA
Participation in a research project
Presentation about bilingualism in the world
Research project
