Dr. Elite Olshtain, Professor of Applied Linguistics, School of Education at Hebrew University, Israel.
3 credits - Core (I) for Group 17.
Letter Grade (P/F option)

Course Description

The course will present students with a literature survey and discussion of major theoretical models in the field of research in second language acquisition to date.

Some of the main themes will consist of:

• First versus Second language acquisition,
• Social and Psychological factors affecting SLA,
• Child versus Adult language acquisition,
• Instructed and Naturalistic learning environments,
• Bilingualism and multilingualism,
• Language attrition and others.

Students will be required to read, work on selected problems and carry out a small field study.

TEXTBOOKS

• Lightbown and Spada (1999) How Languages are Learned, Oxford University Press.
• Ellis, R. (1997) Second Language Acquisition Oxford University Press.
• A reading packet provided by the TC Office

TC LIBRARY RESERVE TEXTS

• Gass, S. and L. Selinker, (1994) Second Language Acquisition An Introductory Course. Lawrence Erlbaum Ass.
• Tarone, E., Gass, S and Cohen, A (eds.) (1994), Research Methodology In Second Language Acquisition, Lawrence Erlbaum Ass.
• Genesee, F. (1994), Educating Second Language Children, Cambridge University Press

PRE-COURSE ASSIGNMENTS

The pre-course assignment is to read the first chapter in the Lightbown and Spada (L&S) text.

BIO

Elite Olshtain (Ph.D.), University of California (1979) teaches Second Language Acquisition, Discourse Analysis, Course Design and Policy Making, and Classroom Oriented Research at the Schools of Education at Hebrew University and Tel Aviv University in Israel. She is presently also the Director of the NCJW Research Institute for Innovation in Education in the School of Education at Hebrew University. Elite Olshtain established the MA in Language Teaching at Tel Aviv University and headed it for ten years. From 1984 to 1989 she was Head of Teacher Education and from 1990 to 1992 she was Dean of the School of Education at Tel Aviv University. Her research focuses on language acquisition, language attrition, discourse analysis and curriculum development. She co-authored a book with Marianne Celce-Murcia on Discourse, Context and Language Teaching (2000), and has also co-edited Language, Identity and Immigration with G. Horezcyk, (2000), published by Jerusalem: Magness Press. Elite Olshtain first taught in the Columbia MA in TESOL program in Tokyo in 1992, and has been teaching every year from1998 to 2004.