Second Language Acquisition Undergraduate Opportunities

SLAA498 is designed to offer undergraduate students a unique research experience in the area of second language acquisition. Select students will work as undergraduate research assistants (UGRA) to help conduct research on a variety of research topics, such as “Individual differences in Second Language Acquisition,” “Implicit and explicit learning of a second language,” “Heritage language learning,” “Second Language Processing,” etc. A specific research topic can be determined with the Ph.D. graduate supervisor. As an outcome of the course, students will gain knowledge in a particular second language acquisition area, be able to understand the relationship between data and hypotheses, learn how to set up an experiment, create experimental stimuli and analyze data using analytic software.

UGRAs register for 2 credits (8 hours/week) or 3 credits (12 hours/week). Students will be selected based on their application materials (a resume, a cover letter, the name of a reference as well as next semester’s schedule) and their explicit motivation to work in a research lab. Evaluation factors that go into assigning a grade include effort, attitude, quality of work and participation over the course of the semester.