EFL461 HISTORY OF ENGLISH
| Course Code: | 3660461 |
| METU Credit (Theoretical-Laboratory hours/week): | 3(3-0) |
| ECTS Credit: | 4,5 |
| Department: | Teaching English As A Foreign Language |
| Language of Instruction: | English |
| Level of Study: | Undergraduate |
| Course Coordinator: | Assoc.Prof.Dr. MARY ANN WALTER |
| Offered Semester: | Spring Semesters. |
Course Content
Exploration of the development of English over the last 1500 years. Discussion ofEnglish’s Indo-European and Germanic roots and various linguistic and historical
influences on the development of English. Analysis of historical English varieties and changes in the grammar and social role of English. Contrast of historical varieties of English with contemporary Englishes using principles of historical linguistics.
The TEFL program aims to provide its graduates with an academic background in
language arts and language science as a whole. Our view as a faculty is that our graduates’
own language proficiency as well as their future teaching competence is enhanced by a
broad understanding of the historical and social context of the English language in
particular.
This goal is accomplished by requiring courses in literature and linguistics as well as strictly pedagogy-oriented ones in the program, and also through offering an array of departmental electives which connect students’ thorough knowledge of the English
language as it is currently spoken, with other historical and contemporary varieties of English and its use in creative artistic expression (as in our courses on global English,comparative literature, mythology, and so on).
The History of English course will add to this array of departmental elective courses by tracing commonalities and differences of earlier stages of English. Students will come to understand better the grammatical and orthographic idiosyncrasies of English based on its historical development. Specifically, many puzzling patterns of English grammar will become more transparent to students with an understanding of how they came to exist.
The History of English course, like other TEFL departmental electives, will be open to the general student body as a non-technical elective. It can provide historical background on the English language to the general student population of this English-medium university.