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Child Language Acquisition (Q1079)

15 credits, Level 6

Spring teaching

In this module, you explore how children learn their first language. 

During the module we'll look at language data from children and their carers to investigate questions such as:

• what processes are involved in learning language and learning to use it?
• to what extent is language an innate faculty in humans?
• does it matter how we talk to children or will they acquire good language skills regardless?
• does one lose language-learning ability as one gets older?
• is language learning dependent on general cognitive abilities or intelligence?
• to what extent are language acquisition processes universal or language-specific?

Contact hours and workload

This module is approximately 150 hours of work. This breaks down into about 22 hours of contact time and about 128 hours of independent study. The University may make minor variations to the contact hours for operational reasons, including timetabling requirements.

We regularly review our modules to incorporate student feedback, staff expertise, as well as the latest research and teaching methodology. We’re planning to run these modules in the academic year 2024/25. However, there may be changes to these modules in response to feedback, staff availability, student demand or updates to our curriculum.

We’ll make sure to let you know of any material changes to modules at the earliest opportunity.