Program Overview

Language Research & Teaching Graduate Program

Master's Program in Language Research & Teaching

The faculty members in the MA program in Language Research and Teaching have rich research interests and experiences that complement each other, including TESOL, Second Language Acquisition, Psycholinguistics, Neurolinguistics, and Technology Use and Language Teaching. We offer graduate courses that systematically merge theories and applications to provide solid and comprehensive training in applied linguistics. Our goal is to cultivate future language teaching and pedagogy researchers and language-learning experts. Our students, after graduating, are expected to have knowledge and skills that qualify them for both traditional roles (e.g., schoolteachers, teacher trainers, material design experts, academic researchers) and emerging job markets related to language teaching (e.g., language-teaching YouTubers, AI and VR application in language teaching, the learning and promotion of minor languages or languages of new immigrants).

Application

The application process is managed by the NTHU Office of Global Affairs.

Language Research & Teaching Course Plan

Graduate students of the MA Program in Language Research and Teaching must complete all three Required Courses (9 credits), at least 18 credits of Elective Courses, and 4 credits of Thesis Courses. Students are strongly advised to complete the required courses in the first year, and at the same time try various courses offered by different faculty members to understand their research expertise and decide the future research topics. We suggest students to take no more than 9 credits per semester. Usually by the end of the second year, students are able to complete all course requirements.

Required Courses (9 Credits)

• Research Method
• Second Language Acquisition
• Thesis Writing

Elective Courses (18 Credits)

• Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism (Instructor: I-Ru Su, Professor) The course discusses how multiple language systems are represented in the bilingual mind; how the bilingual processes them in comprehension and production; what role the learner's first language plays in her/his acquisition of a new language; whether the learner's knowledge of a new language in turn has an impact on his/her competence and use of the mother tongue.
• Topics in Language Acquisition (Instructor: Chun-Chieh Hsu, Associate Professor) This course takes a linguistic and psycholinguistic perspective to look into grammar acquisition by second language learners. Relevant linguistic theories, experimental methods, and empirical evidence will be introduced and discussed.
• Language Processing and Learning (Instructor: Chun-Chieh Hsu, Associate Professor) Students will learn the theories and the research findings related to L2 sentence comprehension. How various factors such as L2 proficiency, L1 influence, working memory may play a role during online sentence comprehension will be discussed.
• Language Learning and Motivation (Instructor: Hung-Tzu Huang, Associate Professor) This course offers an introduction to theories of motivation which has been applied to understand how motivation functions in second and foreign language settings.
• Language and Cognition (Instructor: Fang-Pei Gloria Yang, Professor) We will introduce students to major topics related to language and brain. The course will address some of the myths regarding language learning in the brain and key questions of bilingualism, aging and linguistic deficits.
• Experimental Design in Neurolinguistics (Instructor: Fang-Pei Gloria Yang, Professor) To introduce students to experimental design and common techniques used in neurolinguistics.
• Implicit and Explicit Language Learning (Instructor: Tsung-Ying Chen, Associate Professor) First language acquisition is commonly assumed as "implicit". That is, learners are unaware of the language learning process. Is foreign language learning implicit or explicit, then?
• Childhood Bilingualism (Instructor: I-Ru Su, Professor) The course discusses how bilingual children acquire the different components of the linguistic system of the second language.
• Pedagogical Grammar
• Teaching Speaking and Listening Skills
• Teaching Reading and Writing Skills
• Identity in Language Teaching and Learning
• Language Learners' Individuality and Language Teaching (Instructor: Hung-Tzu Huang, Associate Professor) This course introduces to students individual influences related to differential success in L2 learning.
• Computer-Assisted Language Learning (Instructor: Huifen Lin, Professor) This course aims to provide an overview of emerging technologies that could be used alone or integrated into classes to facilitate the learning of a second/foreign language.
• Computer-Assisted Writing Instruction (Instructor: Huifen Lin, Professor) The course provides an overview of the roles that computers or technology play in the foreign language writing instruction.
• Web-based Language Teaching Tool Design (Instructor: Tsung-Ying Chen, Associate Professor) There are many different ways to teach and learn a foreign language with a multimedia or computer-assisted paradigm.
• Introduction to Statistics (Instructor: Huifen Lin, Professor) This course deals with data analysis in TESOL, including both general language learning and CALL (computer-assisted language learning) applications.
• Empirical Research of Foreign Language Pronunciation Development (Instructor: Tsung-Ying Chen, Associate Professor) In foreign language learning, the development of learners' sound production and perception is vital to their foreign language communication.
• Discourse analysis & Language teaching (Instructor: Chen-Yu Chester Hsieh, Assistant Professor) This course is designed to familiarize students with essential methods and tools for discourse analysis, as well as the literature of discourse studies that can inform language teaching practices and policies.

Faculty Research Background

• Huifen Lin (Professor) My research interests include the application of technology in all aspects of foreign language teaching and learning.
• I-Ru Su (Professor) I'm interested in psycholinguistic issues of bilingualism: how the multiple languages are represented and processed in one single mind.
• Fang-Pei Gloria Yang (Professor) The main focus of my research is the exploration of using psycho-neurological experiment and medical imaging in seeking the medical mechanism in varies kinds of cognitive functions.
• Yu-Jung Chang (Associate Professor) 我的研究方向涵括身分認同與語言教學、質性研究、以及文體研究等領域。
• Chun-Chieh Hsu (Associate Professor) I investigate human language from a psycholinguistic perspective, and I am particularly interested in understanding the mechanisms of how people comprehend complex sentences.
• Hung-Tzu Huang (Associate Professor) My main area of research is in second language acquisition and I have long-standing interests in language learning/teaching motivation, corpus linguistics and its application to language teaching, and meta-analytical methods in applied linguistics.
• Tsung-Ying Chen (Associate Professor) My primary research interest is to study how human language learners acquire the underlying structure of their native languages or L2 with their innate language faculty in different conditions.
• Chen-Yu Chester Hsieh (Assistant Professor) My research primarily employs methods such as discourse analysis and corpus linguistics to investigate topics related to pragmatics, cognitive linguistics, and applied linguistics.