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Applied Linguistics in FLT and Learning

This course, which all students of the Faculty are required to take during their third year of study, is offered in the Winter term and it's a prerequisite to the ELT Methods and Practices. Its overall purpose is to provide course participants with awareness, knowledge and skills related to the teaching and learning of languages, particularly relating to English as a foreign language in Greece as a member state of the European Union. Therefore, European language education policies and recommendations are taken into serious account.

Specifically, the basic aims of the course are:

  • to demonstrate the relationships between theory and practice so that course participants may understand the underlying rationale of mainstream and alternative foreign language pedagogy.
  • to introduce course participants to theories of language and theories of language learning which have influenced the development of current thought regarding foreign language teaching and learning practices and approaches to curriculum/syllabus design, to materials development, and to the development of tools for the assessment of linguistic and communicative competence.
  • to familiarize students with curriculum/syllabus documents for the teaching of English in Greek schools, with the national curricula for languages in other member states, and with European language curricula guidelines.
  • to enable students to evaluate teaching/learning approaches and methodology in relation to the pedagogic, political and social goals that these fulfill.
  • to enable students to assess pedagogic aims and suggested classroom practices in connection with educational and language policy aims.
  • to build a framework for conceptualising approaches to language teaching and learning that serve the needs of their prospective students operating in particular sociocultural contexts.
  • to introduce students to the principles of communicative theory underlying the evaluation and analysis of classroom interaction.

The work in class moves from theory to practice and from practice to theory. Students are encouraged to do reading and guided project work. Students enrolled in the course can find useful course material for support and self-access learning through our e-class, accessed with a special password.