SPAN-313 Bilingualism: The Mind and Its Context

Faculty:

Sanz, Cristina

Course Description
The course covers external factors as they relate to bilingualism, including language policy and bilingual education as well as internal, cognitive factors and the relationship between both. Readings focus on individual and societal bilingualism in Latin America, Spain, and the US. The course fulfills one of the two linguistics requirements for the major and the College social science requirement and is offered every other Fall semester.

Course Goals
1.Identify common patterns and differences among Spanish bilingual speech communities in the US, Latin America, and Spain.
2.Understand the external conditions, including language policy and bilingual education, that determine the development of individual bilingualism.
3.Understand the relationship between cognitive development and cognition and the individual’s ability to speak two languages.
4.Critical thinking, Research Methods: Develop students’ abilities to critically review the literature in the area, generate a hypothesis, and design an empirical study to test said hypothesis.
5.Language Skills: Develop students’ academic Spanish, both oral and written, with special attention to the development of descriptive and argumentative abilities and manuscript preparation following APA guidelines.

Texts & Readings
Textbooks: Baker, C. (1997). Fundamentos de educación bilingüe y bilingüismo. Madrid: Cátedra.
A collection of book chapters and articles will be available in pdf format on Blackboard.

Topics covered
Bilingualism in Latin America, Spain, and the US
Language Policy: Language revival and reversal
Bilingual education: Types & effectiveness (1)
Bilingual Education, multiculturalism and antiracism
Cognitive theories of bilingualism
Individual variables: level of bilingualism, biliteracy, and aptitude
The cognitive neuropsychology of bilingualism
Multilingualism: Learning a third language and beyond

Credits: 3.0

Prerequisites: None

Other academic years
There is information about this course number in other academic years:

• 2012-2013 Fall and Spring

More information
Look for this course in the schedule of classes.

The academic department web site for this program may provide other details about this course.