Course syllabus
Langtchg 763 Discourse Analysis and Language Teaching
15 points
Semester 2, 2019
Course dates Monday 22 July to Friday 18 November
Class: Tuesday 2-4 pm
Course lecturer Associate Professor Michael Barlow
Email: mi.barlow@auckland.ac.nz
Course aim and outcomes
The course aims to help participants develop an understanding of approaches to discourse analysis and apply this understanding in the analysis of texts, and to examine ways to focus on discourse in language teaching. A number of approaches to analysis are introduced and opportunities are provided for participants to analyse spoken and written texts and discuss applications for language teaching. The course focuses in particular on four areas/approaches: pragmatics, cohesion and coherence, genre analysis and critical discourse analysis.
By the end of this course, you should be:
1. aware of ways in which texts are organised
2. aware of major approaches to the analysis of discourse
3. able to analyse texts using a range of approaches
4. able to use approaches and findings from discourse analysis in teaching language
SET TEXT
The set textbook for this course is:
Paltridge, B. (2012). Discourse Analysis, 2nd edition. London: Bloomsbury
There is also a list of set chapters and articles (see Reading List).
I would like to welcome you to the module on discourse analysis for language teachers. My name is Helen Basturkmen and I am the convenor of this course. I hope you will find the course interesting and that you will be able to use ideas from it in your thinking about language teaching and learning. Discourse analysis is fast becoming as relevant to language teaching today as grammatical analysis has been. This is because discourse analysis is about texts (written and spoken). It is now well recognised that texts are the units of language we use in real life. Everyday we write and read texts and everyday we participate in them in speaking and listening. People are interested in knowing how these units are constructed, what features they have and how best they can be described for pedagogical purposes. Take a few moments to think and note down the texts that you have encountered or produced today. It is hard to conceive of communication without the concept of texts and in teaching language how can we not offer some description to our learners of the nature of text?
Course summary:
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