HENK00061U English - Free topic 1: Focus on form and assessment in oral and written communication

Foreign language acquisition: Course part A) Focus on Form in oral and written communication (Dorte Albrechtsen) and course part B) Assessment in the Teaching Context: Oral and Written (Slobodanka Dimova).

Course part A will mainly focus on research addressing what it takes to get learners to improve their language proficiency i.e. to get them to focus on form, incidental and planned focus on language in written and oral production. Course part B explores the issues and practices in language testing and assessment of oral and written communication, including the construction, administration and interpretation of assessment instruments.

Combining the two course elements allows for in-depth understanding of the language learning potential and the assessment of this in oral and written communication, addressing pedagogical implications in relation to language teaching. In order to develop a critical understanding and evaluation of results of empirical investigations of oral and written production, various research methods exploring language use and acquisition will be discussed in both course sections.

Courses in foreign language acquisition give participants a theoretical background for understanding different issues related to the acquisition, use and teaching of English as a foreign language.