1.     Course Introduction

Language awareness can be quite simply defined as a speaker’s explicit knowledge about the language they speak. This may include both socio-cultural and linguistic aspects, though in this course we will be focusing largely on the latter. Language awareness is integral to a teacher’s pedagogic portfolio. It enables them to better anticipate their students’ problems and plan lessons pitched at the right level; also to interpret coursebook materials and adapt these to the specific needs of the students; and finally to understand, anticipate and more satisfactorily deal with learners’ errors. To this end, a language teacher’s awareness will need to encompass a  wide range of systems: phonology, grammar, vocabulary and discourse.

2.     Aims & Objectives 

The aim of the course is to briefly survey the language’s underlying systems in order to put the teacher in a better position to be able to deal with them in the classroom. This course will therefore analyze the four main areas of language that teachers will encounter: phonology, grammar, vocabulary and discourse – focusing largely on the first two – as well as consider their intersection with the teaching / learning process. The standpoint adopted is therefore not only an informative but also a pedagogical one: what the teacher needs to know about English in order to teach it more effectively.

3.     Course Design

Across the four main language areas, the course is made up of a series of units subdivided into tasks consisting of a variety of inductive activity types. These constitute a form of ‘guided research’ into language whose aim is to clarify for the teacher the relevant underlying rules and/or principles and debate their applicability to the classroom. All the language extracts examined will be instances of real usage and any differences from the inaccurate or stilted examples often seen in Korean English language textbooks will be noted. 

4.     Assessment

Will be by means of a number of practical written assignments.