Description and contextualization of the subject

This course is offered in the first term of the Master’s degree. Its main goal is to familiarize students with the theoretical foundations of one aspect of language, semantics, and its application to the didactics of language teaching and learning. This course, together with the courses on phonetics, pragmatics, and morphosyntax that are also part of the Master’s degree, contributes to a full understanding of language and language acquisition. No prerequisites are needed, but some background in linguistics is recommended. This course will be useful for those students who are interested in teaching English as a foreign language and/or students who want to conduct research on language acquisition and teaching.

Ordinary call: orientations and renunciation

The type of assessment is continuous. Students will be assessed according to their performance in the following two assignments:



- Assignment 1: Class presentation of an article/chapter of a book: 30%:

- Assignment 2: Paper: 70%:



Class participation will also be taken into account.



Withdrawal from an exam call: Not submitting one of the assignments qualifies as an automatic withdrawal [no presentado/a] from the corresponding call.



Information on the use of resources and materials in the assignments



Home-assignments: the work submitted by the students must be their own

work and must have been written completely by themselves. The students

must identify and include the source of all facts, ideas, opinions and

viewpoints of others through in-text referencing and the relevant

sources should all be included in the list of references at the end of

their work. Direct quotations from books, journal articles, internet

sources or any other source must be acknowledged and the sources cited

must be identified in the list of references.

Extraordinary call: orientations and renunciation

The mark will be based on the same assignments as in the first call (convocatoria ordinaria).

Those assignments which earned a passing grade in the first call may be kept in the second call.



Marking criteria: The same marking criteria apply as in the first call.



Withdrawal from an exam call: Not submitting one of the assignments qualifies as an automatic withdrawal [no presentado/a] from the corresponding call.



Information on the use of resources and materials in the assignments



Home-assignments: the work submitted by the students must be their own

work and must have been written completely by themselves. The students

must identify and include the source of all facts, ideas, opinions and

viewpoints of others through in-text referencing and the relevant

sources should all be included in the list of references at the end of

their work. Direct quotations from books, journal articles, internet

sources or any other source must be acknowledged and the sources cited

must be identified in the list of references.

Temary

During the course, the following topics will be addressed:



1. Semantic analysis and didactics of language: setting the scene

2. Prepositions

3. Vocabulary

4. Lexicalization patterns

5. Constructions

6. Word order constructions

Bibliography

Compulsory materials

A list of obligatory articles will be made available for the students at the beginning of the course.



The students will also be provided with a list of the articles to prepare their class presentation.







The reading material dealing with the theoretical topics will be supplemented with a number of practical exercises to be carried out in the classroom to ensure full understanding of the issues. Furthermore, the readings will serve as a model for the development of research skills, including that of writing academic papers. The exercises will help students apply the theoretical constructs to language teaching and learning.

Basic bibliography

Unit 1: Theoretical foundations



García Bermejo, M. L. (2021). Foreign language education in Spain: A historical view. European Journal of Applied Linguistics 9(1): 115–135.



Unit 2: Prepositions



Tyler, Andrea. (2012). Applying cognitive linguistics to English prepositions. Chapter 5. Cognitive linguistics and second language learning. New York: Routledge.



Unit 3: Vocabulary





Gutiérrez Pérez, Regina. (2019). The development of a metaphoric competence. A didactic proposal of education innovation. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching 13(4):331-357.



Macis, Marijana and Schmitt, Norbert. (2017). The figurative and polysemous nature of collocations and their place in ELT. ELT Journal 71(1): 50-59



Unit 4: Lexicalization patterns



Cadierno, Teresa. (2008). Motion events in Danish and Spanish: a focus-on-form pedagogical approach. In de Knop, S. and De Rycker, T. (eds.), Cognitive Approaches to Pedagogical Grammar: A Volume in Honour of René Dirven, pp. 259-294. Berlin; New York: Moutoun de Gruyter.



Unit 5: Constructions



Goldberg, Adele and Bencini, Giulia. (2005). Support from Language Processing for a Constructional Approach to Grammar. In Tyler, A., Takada, M., Kim, Y., and Marinova, D. (eds.) Language in use: Cognitive and discourse perspectives on language and language learning, pp. 3-18. Georgetown: Georgetown University Press.



Unit 6: Word order constructions



Blyth, Carl. (2000). Toward a Pedagogical Discourse Grammar: Techniques for Teaching Word-Order Constructions. In Lee, J. and Valdman, A. (eds.), Form and Meaning: Multiple Perspectives, pp. 183-229. Boston: Heinle & Heinle.

Journals

Some useful journals where you may find some interesting articles for your papers/presentations:







- AILA Review Annual Review of Applied Linguistics



- Applied linguistics Cognitive linguistics



- English Language and Linguistics English Language Teaching journal



- Journal of English for Academic Purposes International Journal of English Studies



- Language Acquisition Language Awareness



- Language Learning Language Teaching Research



- English for Specific Purposes RELC journal



- Review of Cognitive Linguistics TESL Canada journal



- Revista Española de Lingüística Aplicada Second Language Research



- Studies in Second Language Acquisition Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching



- System TESOL Quarterly