Applied Linguistics and Multilingualism

Can you learn a new language the same way you learned your mother tongue? How does our brain cope with multiple languages? Is there a teaching pedagogy that is the most effective?
This Master's track focuses on research into second or foreign language learning and teaching. You study the learning process and the use of new languages and the track allows you to focus your research on your language of choice: English as a second language, Dutch, French, German, Swedish, Chinese, etc. The skills and knowledge you acquire in this track are highly valued in areas of language teaching and testing, educational publishing, language policy making, and linguistic research.
You will approach second language acquisition from many angles, including linguistics, (social and cognitive) psychology, social interaction, and language teaching and assessment. The dynamic aspects of language development—how a wide range of factors (e.g. a learner's age, motivation, the amount of input) affect the learning process—receives particular attention. As such, our MA track trains you to become an all-round expert on second language development.
While this is not a teacher training programme, there is ample opportunity to discuss teaching-related issues and it is possible in some cases to do a language teaching internship.
Read more about the Department of Applied Linguistics.