Below are required courses and possible elective courses for SLA majors that will be offered in Fall 2022. Courses marked with an asterisk (*) are taught by core SLA faculty. Courses marked with an ampersand (&) can typically count towards the SLA minor. Courses are for 3 credits unless otherwise noted.
All students, majors and minors, should check with their advisor on course selections. Please also consult Course Search & Enroll for additional information or courses not listed below. If you find a course that you think should be on this list, please let us know!
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African 703: Topics in Teaching African Languages (1 cr.)
Information for this class taken directly from Course Search and Enroll.
Instructor: Adeola Agoke
Day(s) and time: Fridays, 1:30-3:00 pm
Modality: In person
Prerequisites: Graduate/professional standing
Description: Theories and teaching methodologies for second language acquisition plus practical classroom techniques for teaching and directing programs in African language.
*African 926: Literary Ethnography
Instructor: Katrina Daly Thompson
Day(s) and time: Wednesdays 2:00-4:30
Modality: In person
Prerequisites: None
Description: This graduate-level methods seminar is an intensive introduction to reading and writing “new ethnographies”—what H. L. Goodall calls an “emerging, alternative style of qualitative writing” that “combines the personal and the professional, … work that may be rendered as a story …, or an account that derives rhetorical force from blurring or blending of literary genres.” Taking a discourse-centered approach to culture and to writing as a form of qualitative analysis, we will explore theories and examples of autoethnographies, autobiographies, ethnographic fiction, poetry, and drama, and literary ethnographies. Our main examples will be writing by Africans and Africanists, but students working in other world areas are welcome. Important themes will include language, voice, dialogic research, transcription, and translation. The course will help students whose primary interests are in literature, languages, and second language acquisition to gain expertise in ethnographic research practices and evocative writing. Seminar meetings will involve both discussion of readings and workshopping participants’ writing.
Description at https://african.wisc.edu/african-926-literary-ethnography/
Meets with: Anthropology 940
*Asian Languages and Cultures 775: Japanese Applied Linguistics: Multimodal Analysis of Social Interaction
Instructor: Junko Mori
Day(s) and time: Thursdays, 3:30 pm – 6:00 pm
Modality: In person
Prerequisites: Graduate/professional standing
Description: During the last few decades, a growing number of applied linguists have expanded their attention from a focus on linguistic forms to the coordination of a range of semiotic resources, including gaze, gesture, body posture, and manipulation of artifacts that contribute to the meaning-making process. They have examined video-recorded naturally occurring interactions to investigate the relationship between linguistic forms and social actions, teaching and learning practices observed in the classroom, identity negotiations occurring in mundane and institutional interactions, the co-constructed nature of interactional competence and professional expertise, and so on.
This course offers an overview of different analytical frameworks that have been adopted for the study of video data, including conversation analysis (CA), interactional sociolinguistics (IS), and membership categorization analysis (MCA). In addition, through a series of hands-on activities, the course addresses practical issues concerning data collection, transcription, analysis, and presentation of research findings. Students who are interested in analyzing video-recorded interactions taking place in diverse linguistic, cultural, mundane or institutional contexts are welcome.
No knowledge of the Japanese language is required.
Communication Arts 402: Psychology of Communication
Information for this class taken directly from Course Search and Enroll.
Instructor: Zhongdang Pan
Day(s) and time: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2:30 pm – 3:45 pm
Modality: In person
Prerequisites: Sophomore standing
Description: The role and function of information processing in human communication behavior.
This course offers an overview of different analytical frameworks that have been adopted for the study of video data, including conversation analysis (CA), interactional sociolinguistics (IS), and membership categorization analysis (MCA). In addition, through a series of hands-on activities, the course addresses practical issues concerning data collection, transcription, analysis, and presentation of research findings.
Curriculum & Instruction 719: Introduction to Qualitative Research
Information for this class taken directly from Course Search and Enroll.
Instructors: Rosemary Russ and Leema Berland
Day(s) and Time: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1:45-3:00 pm
Modality: In person
Prerequisite: Graduate/professional standing
Description: Provides an overview of qualitative inquiry, examining assumptions, standards, and methods for generating and communicating interpretations. Methodological and theoretical works illustrate case study, ethnography, narrative, and action research. Does not include a field method component. Enroll Info: None
*Curriculum & Instruction 736: Educating Linguistically and Culturally Diverse Students
Instructor: Maggie Hawkins
Day(s) and time: Tuesdays, 11:00 am – 1:30 pm
Modality: In person
Prerequisites: Graduate standing
Description: Addresses issues related to schooling for linguistically and culturally diverse students, emphasizing sociocultural approaches to language acquisition, use and development and to learning. From a sociocultural perspective, languages, literacies and cultures are fully intertwined with schooling, and with the lives and identities of students and families, and can only be understood in relation to the larger contexts of the spaces and places within which they are situated. Explores the multiple facets of ecologies of schooling for multilingual learners, including: theories relating to languaging, literacies, learning, globalization and mobility; programming, policies and curriculum; school and classroom environments; and connections between families, communities and schools.
Curriculum & Instruction 775: Theories of Race, Racism, and Racialization in Education Research
This course is not on the electives list. Please talk to your advisor before enrolling. Information for this class taken directly from Course Search and Enroll.
Instructor: Erika Bullock
Day(s) and time: See Course Search and Enroll
Modality: In person
Prerequisites: Graduate standing
Description: Studies of race-related issues in education often borrow from a narrow conceptual field that can limit how the researcher forms and investigates questions. It is important for education researchers to develop a solid conceptual understanding of race, racism, and racialization, and the analytical concepts that relate to these ideas determine appropriate questions and theories to apply to the analysis of educational phenomena. Bringing together concepts related to race, racism, and racialization via core conceptual literature from philosophy, sociology, and cultural studies supports the design of education research that attends to these issues.
Curriculum and Instruction 916: Special Topics in Research & Evaluation in Curriculum & Instruction: Post-Modern Methods
This course is not on the electives list. Please talk to your advisor before enrolling. Information for this class taken directly from Course Search and Enroll.
Instructor: Thomas Popkewitz
Day(s) and time: Mondays, 1:45-4:15 pm
Modality: In person
Prerequisites: Graduate/professional standing
Description: In the past few decades, social thought and philosophy have provided alternative arguments and styles of reasoning in thinking about the history and sciences of education. Explores readings and the importance of this literature to education is in multiple layers; provides ways of thinking about difference outside of theories of representation and identity; embodies ways of engaging the knowledge of science and the political in schooling; provides alternative strategies for discourse analyses; problematizes the givenness of the subject of schooling as the object of change; (re)vises notions of materialism and power in understanding the effects of schooling; provides ways of thinking about knowledge and language as not merely an epiphenomena to structures; and historically explores the limits of theories of practice that are given as what is real and useful. Enroll Info: None
Educational Policy Studies 595: Language Politics and Education
This course is not on the electives list. Please talk to your advisor before enrolling. Information for this class taken directly from Course Search and Enroll.
Instructor: Ariel Borns
Day(s) and time: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 4:00-5:15 pm
Modality: In person
Prerequisites: Graduate/professional standing
Description: Overview of language politics, policies, and practices in global perspective; draws on the work of anthropologists, sociolinguists, and language policy scholars to examine how language choices in and regarding schooling interact with ethnic and linguistic diversity. Consider the following questions: How and under what conditions do language policies, practices, and pedagogies redress or exacerbate inequalities? How people at the local level, including educators, negotiate language and literacy policies and politics. Uses a global lens to expand local understandings and practices.
Educational Psychology 760: Statistical Methods Applied to Education I
Information for this class taken directly from Course Search and Enroll.
Instructor: Check Course Search and Enroll
Day(s) and Time: Multiple sections, offered, all with labs. Please check Course Search and Enroll.
Modality: In person
Prerequisite: Graduate/professional standing
Description: Introductory descriptive statistics and statistical inference; measures of central tendency and variability, confidence intervals, theory of hypothesis testing, correlation techniques. Enroll Info: None
English 314: Structure of English
Information for this class taken directly from Course Search and Enroll.
Instructor: Tom Purnell
Day(s) and Time: Tuesdays, Thursdays, 9:30-10:45
Modality: In person
Prerequisite: Sophomore standing
Description: Linguistic methods of analysis and description of English syntax and morphology
English 315: English Phonology
Information for this class taken directly from Course Search and Enroll.
Instructor: Eric Raimy
Day(s) and Time: Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, 11:00-11:50 am
Modality: In person
Prerequisite: Sophomore standing
Description: Basic principles of phonetics and phonology applied to the description of English.
English 316: English Language Variation in the United States
Information for this class taken directly from Course Search and Enroll.
Instructor: Juliet Huynh
Day(s) and Time: Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, 9:55-10:45 am
Modality: In person
Prerequisite: Sophomore standing
Description: Description and analysis of geographical and social variation in English in the United States.
English 318: Second Language Acquisition
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Instructor: Juliet Huynh
Day(s) and Time: Mondays and Wednesdays, 2:30-3:45 pm
Modality: In person
Prerequisite: Sophomore standing
Description: Systematic study of how people learn ESL and other second languages. An interdisciplinary survey emphasizing research in linguistics, psychology, education, and sociology into the phenomenon of second language acquisition.
&English 414: Global Spread of English
Information for this class taken directly from Course Search and Enroll.
Instructor: Tom Purnell
Day(s) and Time: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11:00 am – 12:15 pm
Modality: In person
Prerequisite:Sophomore standing
<Description: Examination of the linguistic, social, and political impact of the spread of English around the world. Analysis of geographical, social, and stylistic variation in English in diverse world contexts.
English 415: Introduction to TESOL Methods
Information for this class taken directly from Course Search and Enroll.
Instructor: Check Course Search and Enroll
Day(s) and Time: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1:00-2:15 pm
Modality: In person
Prerequisite: Sophomore standing
Description: Teaching of English to speakers of other languages. Exploration of the contexts in which English is taught, and methods and materials used to teach it.
English 515: Techniques and Materials for TESOL
Information for this class taken directly from Course Search and Enroll.
Instructor: Check Course Search and Enroll
Day(s) and Time: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9:30-10:45 am
Modality: In person
Prerequisite: None listed
Description: Supervised practice in the use of current techniques and materials in the teaching of English to speakers of other languages, including peer and community teaching with videotaped sessions
English 700: Introduction to Composition Studies
Information for this class taken directly from Course Search and Enroll.
Instructor: Michael Bernard-Donals
Day(s) and Time: Mondays, 10:00 am – 12:30 pm
Modality: In person
Prerequisite: Graduate/professional standing
Description: Rhetorical, linguistic, psychological, and social foundations of writing; implications for instruction.
ENGL 706: Special Topics in Composition Theory (Writing Affect)
Instructor: Eileen Lagman
Day and time: Wednesdays 10:00 am-12:30 pm
Modality: In person
Requisite: Graduate/professional standing
Description: This course will explore interdisciplinary approaches to the study of writing and the study of affect. Drawing from work in literacy studies, rhetoric, and composition theory, and putting it alongside scholarship from such fields as anthropology, literary studies, education and queer studies, the course will explore how writing and affect, emotion, and feeling intersect, and what the affective turn means to the study, practice, and teaching of writing. Course readings may include work from Kevin Leander and Christian Ehret, Paul Prior, David Cisneros, Denise Riley, William Mazzarella, Kathleen Stewart, Ben Anderson, Lauren Berlant, Sianne Ngai, David Eng, and Melissa Gregg.
*&English 711: Research Methods in English Applied Linguistics
Instructor: Jacee Cho
Day(s) and Time: Mondays and Wednesdays, 9:30-10:45 am, Helen C White Hall Room 7109
Modality: In person
Prerequisites: None
Course Description: This course provides an introduction to quantitative, qualitative, and mixed research methods in applied linguistics. The main goals of the course are (1) to develop knowledge about fundamentals of research design and quantitative & qualitative research methods and (2) to design your own research study. To address the first goal, we will read book chapters on linguistic research methodology. We will also read and critically evaluate papers reporting studies that used methods covered in this course. To address the second goal, we will learn to identify a research problem, formulate a research question, choose the type of research method appropriate for the research question, and develop research instruments. You will write a research proposal by Week 11 and will present your project in Weeks 14-15. We will also learn and practice writing a research report throughout the semester.
*There is no required textbook. All reading materials will be available electronically on the course website.
*&French 820: College Teaching of French/Italian 821: Teaching Italian as a Foreign Language
Instructors: Heather Willis and Loren Eadie
Day(s) and time: Fridays 10:00 am – 12:00 pm
Description: This course is designed to help elementary- and intermediate-level language instructors understand key concepts of communicative, literacy-oriented teaching. Readings, reflections, class discussions and activities, and course assessments seek to integrate theoretical and practical elements of language teaching and to facilitate course participants becoming more confident in designing instructional materials.
SPECIAL NOTE: Although this course’s official title is “College Teaching of French,” it is taught in English and its focus is world language instruction more largely and recent course participants have included French, Italian, Japanese, and Arabic graduate student instructors.
Italian 340: Structures of Italian
Information for this class taken directly from Course Search and Enroll.
Instructor: Stefania Buccini
Day(s) and Time: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9:30-10:45 am
Modality: In person
Prerequisites: Italian 202, 204, or graduate/professional standing
Course Description: Examination of Italian phonetics and phonology, morphology and word formation, and syntax, with attention to contrasts with English. Prepares for advanced courses in Italian linguistics
German 720: College Teaching of German (1 cr.) (also enroll in German 722)
Information for this class taken directly from Course Search and Enroll.
Instructor: Jeanne Schueller
Day(s) and Time: Fridays, 9:55-10:45 am
Modality: In person
Prerequisites: Graduate/professional standing.
Course Description: Discuss German-language specific instruction. Emphasis on teaching German and developing identity as a language instructor.
Note: This course is primarily intended for students with a TA appointment and/or Minor (or joint degree) in German. Other graduate students may participate pending the course instructor’s approval.
German 722: Theory of Teaching German (2 cr.) (also enroll in German 720)
Information for this class taken directly from Course Search and Enroll.
Instructor: Jeanne Schueller
Day(s) and Time: Mondays and Wednesdays, 9:55-10:45 am
Modality: In person
Prerequisites: Graduate/professional standing.
Course Description: Theory and methodology of teaching German as a second language
Note: This course is primarily intended for students with a TA appointment and/or Minor (or joint degree) in German. Other graduate students may participate pending the course instructor’s approval.
Linguistics 522: Advanced Morphology
Information from this class taken directly from Course Search and Enroll.
Instructor: Ryan Henke
Day(s) and Time: Mondays and Wednesdays, 2:30-3:45 pm
Modality: In person
Prerequisite: Linguistics 322
Description: Advanced morphological theory
Psychology 414: Cognitive Psychology
Information from this class taken directly from Course Search and Enroll.
Instructor: Jonathan Gallimore
Day(s) and Time: Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, 11:00-11:50 am
Modality: In person
Prerequisites: PSYCH 202, (BIOLOGY/ZOOLOGY 101 and 102), BIOLOGY/BOTANY/ZOOLOGY 151, or (BIOCORE 381 and 382)
Description: How people perceive, learn, remember, plan, solve problems, make decisions, and communicate. The main approach is psychological but will also consider contributions from computer science, linguistics, and neurobiology.
Philosophy 516: Language and Meaning
Information from this class taken directly from Course Search and Enroll.
Instructor: John Mackay
Day(s) and Time: Mondays and Wednesdays, 2:30-3:45 pm
Modality: In person
Prerequisite: Junior standing or 3 Credits in PHILOS
Description: The nature and function of language, theories of meaning, semantic and syntactic paradoxes, proper names, private languages, rules, and linguistic relativity. Enroll Info: None
Psychology 711: Language Comprehension: Adult and Child
Instructor: Maryellen MacDonald
Day(s) and time: Wednesdays, 9:30-11:30 am
Modality: In person
Prerequisites: Graduate standing or consent of instructor
Description: This course introduces theories and methods investigating language comprehension processes in adults and children. Most discussion addresses the case of typical native speakers, but other situations, including comprehension in an L2, atypical development, changes with brain injury will also get some attention, depending on students’ interests. A major goal is to introduce research methods used in comprehension research to support students’ own research plans. In keeping with this goal, students write two papers proposing followup experiments to ones presented in the course readings; this exercise offers an opportunity for students to further their research-oriented thinking, proposing how to adapt a method to answer a question, addressing how this hypothetical proposed experiment could address theories, etc. For more information and a sample syllabus from a previous year, please email Maryellen, mcmacdonald@wisc.edu
*Slavic 804: Methods of Teaching Slavic Languages (2 cr.)
Instructor: Karen Evans-Romaine
Day(s) and time: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1:20-2:10 pm
Modality: In person
Prerequisites: Graduate/professional standing
Description: Investigates the history of foreign language instruction, various models of adult foreign language acquisition, methods for teaching Russian, the creation of testing instruments, issues relevant to course design, and criteria for textbook selection.
Sociology 360: Statistics for Sociologists I
Information from this class taken directly from Course Search and Enroll.
Day(s) and Time: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9:30-10:45 am. There are two labs listed: Wednesdays 9:55-11:50 am or 1:20-3:15 pm.
Modality: In-person
Description: Presentation of sociological data; descriptive statistics; probability theory and statistical inference; estimation and tests of hypotheses; regression and correlation and the analysis of contingency tables. Presentation of sociological data; descriptive statistics; probability theory and statistical inference; estimation and tests of hypotheses; regression and correlation and the analysis of contingency tables.
Sociology 535: Language and Social Interaction
Information from this class taken directly from Course Search and Enroll.
Day(s) and Time: Mondays and Wednesdays, 2:30-3:45 pm
Modality: In-person
Description: Focus on the systematic observation and analysis of face-to-face interaction. Sociological approaches to naturally occurring interaction–i.e., human talk and behavior that has been observed, audiorecorded, or videorecorded–will be explored. The approaches include ethnomethodology, conversational analysis, and Goffmanian sociology.
Spanish 630: Spanish Intonation
Instructor: Rajiv Rao
Day(s) and time: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11:00 am – 12:15 pm
Modality: In person
Prerequisites: Graduate/professional standing
Description: Advanced course focusing on particular theories, approaches, and/or methodologies concerned with Spanish linguistics.