College of Arts and Sciences

Departmental E-mail: dsls [at] indiana [dot] edu

Departmental URL: www.indiana.edu/~dsls

Curriculum

Curriculum
Courses
Faculty

Degrees Offered

Master of Arts in TESOL/Applied Linguistics, Master of Arts in Second Language Studies, Doctor of Philosophy in Second Language Studies, Doctoral Minor in Second Language Studies, Certificate in Applied Linguistics (TESOL).

Special Departmental Requirements

(See also general University Graduate School requirements.)

Master of Arts in TESOL and Applied Linguistics

Admission Requirements

Admission to the M.A. program will be based on evaluations of

1. undergraduate grade record,
2. level of achievement on the Graduate Record Examination General Test,
3. three letters of recommendation, and
4. undergraduate exposure to linguistics and related course work,
5. statement of purpose,
6. curriculum vitae.

Students not satisfying requirement (4) may be admitted, but may be required to do course work prerequisite to introductory graduate courses.

Requirements

A total of thirty (30) credit hours is required, including the core courses: T510 Modern English Grammar, S511 Second Lan­guage Syntax, T514 English Phonology for Language Learning and Teaching, S532 Models of Second Language Acquisition, T534 Methods in Teaching ESL/EFL to Adults (TESOL), T535 TESOL Practicum, and T550 Language Testing. Additional electives are required as approved by the department. A grade point average of 3.0 (B) must be maintained in 500-level courses in Second Language Studies; any student who falls below a GPA of 3.0 will be put on probation and unless the student brings this record up to a 3.0 grade point average in the following semester may be dismissed from the program.
 
Foreign Language Requirements

Reading knowledge of one foreign language approved by the department.
 
Thesis

Optional; maximum of 4 credit hours.

Final Examination

None.

Master of Arts in Second Language Studies

Admission Requirements

Admission to the M.A. program will be based on evaluations of

1. undergraduate grade record,
2. level of achievement on the Graduate Record Examination General Test,
3. three letters of recommendation,
4. undergraduate exposure to linguistics and related course work,
5. statement of purpose,
6. curriculum vitae.

Students not satisfying requirement (4) may be admitted, but may be required to do course work prerequisite to introductory graduate courses.

Requirements

A total of thirty (30) credit hours is required, including the core courses: S511 Second Language Syntax, S512 Second Language Phonology, S532 Models of Second Language Acquisition, S533 Second Language Acquisition Research Design, and S536 Research in Second Language Pedagogical Contexts. Addi­tional electives are required as approved by the department. A grade point average of 3.0 (B) must be maintained in 500-level courses in Second Language Studies; any student who falls below a GPA of 3.0 will be put on probation and unless the student brings this record up to a 3.0 grade point average in the following semester may be dismissed from the program.

Foreign Language Requirements

Reading knowledge of one foreign language approved by the department.

Thesis

Optional; maximum of 4 credit hours.

Final Examination

None.

Doctor of Philosophy in Second Language Studies

Admission Requirements

Admission to the Ph.D. program will be based upon evaluation of

1. previous academic record,
2. level of achievement on the Graduate Record Examination General Test,
3. three letters of recommendation,
4. previous exposure to TESOL/Applied Linguistics and related course work,
5. statement of purpose,
6. statement of research interests,
7. curriculum vitae.

Degree Requirements

A total of ninety (90) credit hours are required, with at least 66 credit hours of course work plus up to 24 credit hours of dissertation research. A grade point average of 3.0 (B) must be maintained in Second Language Studies coursework; any student who falls below a GPA of 3.0 will be put on probation and unless the student brings this record up to a 3.0 grade point average in the following semester may be dismissed from the program.

Required Core Courses

Every student in the program will take six core courses (18 cr. total):
S511    Second Language Syntax (3 cr.)
S512    Second Language Phonology (3 cr.)
S532    Models of Second Language Acquisition (3 cr.)
S533    Second Language Acquisition Research Design (3 cr.)
S536    Research in Second Language Pedagogical Contexts     (3 cr.)
S670    Language Typology (3 cr.)

Seminars (3 cr. each)

All students will complete at least 6 credits in two seminars in Second Language Studies. These courses may be applied to other requirements as well.
 
Breadth requirements

All students will complete at least 3 credits each in four of the following five areas for a total of 12 credits. There is no restric­tion on the department in which these courses may be com­pleted. Courses in the Second Language Studies core cannot be used to complete this requirement.

    Historical Linguistics/Language Contact/Language Revitalization
    Sociolinguistics/Pragmatics/Discourse Analysis
    Morphology/Syntax/Semantics
    Pedagogy
    Phonetics/Phonology

Research Concentration

Students will establish a research concentration in consulta­tion with their committees. A research concentration may be established by enrolling in five courses in the area of specialty, by working in an appropriate research laboratory or research group, by undertaking appropriate field work or training, by conducting approved independent research and publication, or by a combination of these. Students who satisfy their research concentrations through participation in a research lab or research group or through independent research and publica­tion may count the equivalent of up to three courses (9 credits) of S690 (Directed Readings) toward the 66 credits required for the doctorate. The research concentration is represented in the research qualifying examination.

Minor and Language Concentrations

All students will be required to have a minor. The selected minor should be appropriate to the student’s choice of subdis­cipline within Second Language Studies. Appropriate minors include Anthropology, Cognitive Science, Communication and Culture, foreign languages, Language Education, Linguistics, Psycholinguistics, and Sociology. In all cases the number of hours to be included in the minor will be consistent with the requirements of the unit granting the minor.

Some students may wish to pursue a significant concentration in a particular language area or in English as a Second Lan­guage. Students pursuing a language concentration in French, German, or Spanish will ordinarily take at least 21 hours in the Department of French and Italian, the Department of Ger­manic Studies, or the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, as appropriate. (Additional language concentrations may be added in the future.) Providing a student has completed all the requirements for the minor in the language department, there is no need to complete both a minor and a language concentra­tion. The language concentration will be the student’s minor of record.
 
Language Requirements

The language requirement for the Ph.D. is two research lan­guages, which will ordinarily be languages of scholarship in the student’s specialty. In addition, students will take 1-2 courses in a language outside of the language family of the student’s native language (for example, a native English speaker would take courses in a non-Indo-European language; in contrast, a native speaker of Chinese might take courses in Russian). To satisfy this requirement, a student could complete a one-year language class, take the Field Methods sequence in Linguistics (L653-L654), or take a course on the structure of an appropriate language.

Qualifying Examinations

All students must pass a set of examinations, consisting of a General Qualifying Examination (GQE) and a Research Qualify­ing Examination (RQE). These examinations are intended to provide an institutional structure for students as they move from taking courses to writing a dissertation.

General Qualifying Examination (GQE)

The GQE is meant to demonstrate the ability to synthesize ma­terial explored in courses and in independent reading. The GQE will consist of two cloistered examinations, each three hours in duration. Students will elect two of the following five areas, corresponding to the breadth requirements.

Historical Linguistics/Language Contact/Language Revitalization
Second Language Morphology/Syntax/Semantics
Second/Foreign Language Pedagogy
Second Language Phonetics/Phonology
Second Language Sociolinguistics/Pragmatics/Discourse Analysis

Most students will take the GQE the semester after coursework is completed. In general, the two cloistered exams will be of­fered on two consecutive days in October and in February. The GQE schedule will be posted by the end of each semester by the committee, each student will inform the Director of Gradu­ate Studies of his or her two areas no later than one month in advance of the scheduled exam.  Appropriate faculty members will submit potential questions to the Director of Graduate Studies, who in turn will select and edit questions and coordi­nate grading.

On any given cloistered exam, the student will have the op­portunity to de-select at least one question; the student will be required to answer two of three questions. All students selecting a given area in a given semester will receive the same questions. All responses to any given exam question will be graded by the same two faculty members. The grades are Pass and Fail. To pass any given cloistered exam, at least three of the four grades assigned must be Pass. If a student fails to pass one or both sections, s/he may take it a second time when the GQE is offered in the next semester. After consultation with his or her advisory committee, such a student may also select a differ­ent exam area.

Research Qualifying Examination (RQE) 

The RQE is designed to demonstrate that students have de­veloped sufficient depth in their understanding of a particular constellation of research questions and that their academic writing skills are sufficiently well honed that they are able to begin meaningful work on their dissertations. In contrast to the GQE, the research exams will be scheduled individually. We rec­ommend that the research exam be completed in the semester following the successful completion of the GQE. Nevertheless, students are required to have demonstrated preparation in a research focus to the satisfaction of their advisory commit­tees before they will be permitted to proceed with the RQE. In contrast to the GQE, the advisory committee administers the RQE and reports successful completion of the examination to the Director of Graduate Studies.

The RQE may take one of two forms:

Option 1: a publishable research paper which pilots the stu­dent’s dissertation research, or
 
Option 2: a research essay which will be completed by the student over the course of one full week.

For Option 1, the student must complete, to the advisory com­mittee’s satisfaction, an original sole-authored research paper in the student’s intended area of dissertation research, which in the committee’s judgment, is ready for submission to one of the following journals: Studies in Second Language Acquisition, Second Language Research, Language Learning, TESOL Quar­terly, or Applied Linguistics. Research papers are 8,000-10,000 words in length including text, references, tables, figures, and appendices.

For Option 2, the advisory committee will assign a single question arising from extensive consultation with the student reflecting the individual student’s research focus, as defined through a series of courses, approved independent research, participation in research groups or labs, outside publications, or a combination of these. The student is to complete the essay within exactly one week, but is free to employ data collected and analyzed ahead of time.

Dissertation Proposal

The proposal for the dissertation must be approved by the stu­dent’s research committee. Proposals should include pilot stud­ies. The research committee may have the same membership as the advisory committee or the student may choose different members. The advisor for the dissertation will be a faculty member in the Department of Second Language Studies and a member of the Graduate Faculty. One of the three other mem­bers of the committee will be based in the minor department or in the department of the student’s language concentration. The student will defend the proposal at a public colloquium.

Dissertation (up to 24 cr.)

Students are required to complete a dissertation that consti­tutes an original and significant contribution to the field of Second Language Studies. The dissertation must be success­fully presented to the research committee in an oral defense as described in the University Graduate School Academic Bulletin.

Ph.D. Minor in Second Language Studies

The minor consists of a minimum of four courses (12 credit hours) in Second Language Studies. Courses should be at the 500 level or above. A grade point average of 3.0 (B) or bet­ter must be achieved in these courses. All SLS minors must include S532. The prerequisite for S532 is a graduate level course in morphosyntax; if taken in SLS this prerequisite will count toward the minor. A specific program for satisfying the minor requirement must be developed in consultation with the student’s minor advisor.

Graduate Certificate in Applied Linguistics (TESOL)

Students not intending to get a Master’s degree may wish to pursue a program leading to the Certificate in TESOL and Ap­plied Linguistics. The requirements for this certificate include twenty (20) credit hours, approved by the department. Nor­mally, students will complete T510, S511, T514, S532, T534, T535, and T550. Other hours will be selected in consultation with a departmental advisor. A grade point average of 3.0 (B) must be maintained for the 20 credit hour certificate program. The certificate is a postbaccalaureate award.

English as a Foreign Language

The Department of Second Language Studies also offers English language instruction, including T501 Academic English for In­ternational Graduate Students (2-3 cr.). For more information, please see the English Language Instruction website.