EDU 565 Language and Learning: Sociolinguistic Considerations for Educators of ELL Students

This course will help teacher educators in understanding how language is used and how language functions both within and outside of classroom walls.  The course will investigate topics such as globalization and the relationship between language and social settings, including language and gender, identity, ethnicity, and culture.  The course will study how language is used globally, in a variety of local/global situations (e.g., World English, language variation), and will examine language use critically (e.g., power, discourse, policy).  A wide range of topics in this course will address many of the sociolinguistic phenomena described above, and may include the following: heritage language maintenance, language contact, investment, imagined communities, dialects and idiolects, discourse, language policy, digital literacies, and language socialization.  This course will help future educators distinguish and form opinions on these key topics, and discover how sociopolitical, sociocultural, and sociolinguistic elements can affect language learning and language use in and outside of the classroom.  Educators will come to understand the broad spectrum of English language in use, the complexities associated with the multiple varieties of English, and how this may impact their classroom in order to be reflective, responsive practitioners.

Credits

3

Offered

Every year