124092 VK BEd 09.2: VK Linguistics for Language Teachers (2017W)

This course aims to introduce students to corpus-based genre analysis, as an aid in familiarising themselves with new genres and in using and developing English for specific purposes (ESP) teaching materials.
Students
1) become familiar with theoretical and methodological foundations of genre analysis
2) have analytical skills in working with samples of ESP genres
3) gain first-hand experience in undertaking a genre analysis for developing ESP teaching materials

In this course, we will focus on ESP texts of different kinds within an educational linguistic framework. By keeping the overall aim of ESP teaching in mind, we will describe and analyse the features and structures of a selection of text types or genres. For this end, we will also work with language corpora, i.e. computerised collections of texts, and learn to use some relevant concordancing software packages. Additionally, we will discuss the underlying assumptions of various theoretical approaches and their implications for doing ESP-related discourse and genre analysis. During the last third of the course, students will work on their self-selected ESP genre analytical projects.

This course combines mini-lectures, on- & offline assignments, reading-based group work and discussion, and individual research work leading to a small-group presentation and a written project report. BEd students who decide to write their bachelor paper will produce a research paper based on their ESP genre project.

Extra information for students in the ‘Diplom-Lehramtsstudium UF Englisch’):
You can register for this course (which is course 2 of the ESP module “Teaching English for Specific Purposes”) as ‘Freies Wahlfach’. Please note that you will be signed in after the BEd students, for whom this is a compulsory class, have been assigned places.