First of all, the first year gives you a broad theoretical base reflecting the current state of the art regarding the structure of language, how language interacts with cognition and what kind of factors are driving language acquisition. Second, you will learn the basics of adjacent research fields, such as communication studies and discourse analysis. Last but not least, you will work on some indispensable general academic skills, such as research methodologies and academic writing.

In the second year, your knowledge of language learning will be further developed as we dive deeper into a number of linguistic domains, such as phonetics, morphology, semantics. This will help you become more proficient in recognizing typical and atypical language patterns in both monolingual and bilingual children. You will also be introduced to the field of language teaching and you will learn and experience how language teaching may influence second and foreign language learning, for instance in the module ‘second language learning’. We also help you to further develop your academic skills, in the courses ‘statistics’ and ‘philosophy’.

In the first semester of the third year of this Bachelor’s programme, you will choose a minor programme. You are completely free in your choice, depending predominantly on your future plans and your personal interests. You can choose from minor programmes such as Brain and Mind, European History and Culture, Digital Humanities, and many others. In the second semester of this year, you will dot the i’s and cross the t’s by focusing on language teaching, dyslexia and on assessing language proficiency. You will round off your programme by writing a Bachelor’s thesis.