Language Acquisition 1: The Spoken Word

In this course, you will acquire and develop the skills that will enable you to express yourself accurately and fluently in spoken English. Your active vocabulary will be increased, enabling you to speak comfortably about everyday things, as well as academic, social and cultural topics.

Linguistics 1: The Phonetics of English

An introduction to the phonetics, or pronunciation, of modern English. In this course, you will learn how sounds are formed, how they can be described, classified and combined and how they influence one another. You will also learn how to transcribe phonemically.

Introduction to Old English Language and Literature

This course introduces you to the language, culture and history of early medieval England. At the end of the course, you will be able to read, translate and understand short texts, including saints' lives, riddles and heroic poetry. Leiden's course offerings for Old English are unique within the Netherlands.

Language Acquisition 3: Grammar in Writing

The emphasis of this series of courses in the second year lies on the use of correct language, in terms of vocabulary, grammar and style. The aim is to give students knowledge and insights into English written grammar, knowledge of the terminology used in traditional English grammar and the capacity to apply it all when writing English texts.

Language and Linguistics: Tools and Methods

In this course, you will be familiarised with the different ways in which language can be studied. Among other things, you will learn about several important sub-disciplines and common research methods in the field of linguistics. You will also acquire experience in summarising relevant background literature and recent research findings.

Literature 3A: The American Renaissance, American Literature, 1620-1865

The main focus of the course will be on the American Renaissance (1836-1861). With the publication of The Scarlet Letter (1850), Moby-Dick (1851), and Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), the literature of the new American republic came to rank with the classics of world literature for the first time. The period also marked the beginning of an African American literary tradition, as fugitive slaves published autobiographical narratives that had a great impact on black writers in the following centuries.

Language Acquisition 5: Writing a Research Report in Applied Linguistics

This course will show you how research reports function and it will team you up with other students to conduct research in applied linguistics and write a report. The course will develop your knowledge of theory and research in applied linguistics, teach you methods of collecting and analysing data, improve your academic writing in English and prepare you for your thesis.

Literature 5: Introduction to American Film

This course explores the breadth of mid-twentieth-century film, and includes examining the relationship between the cinema and other modes of performance, whether in the theatre, radio or television. This course considers these works of art in their cultural context, and scrutinises the ways in which popular film expressed, critiqued or questioned developments within American society.

Language Acquisition 6: Contemporary Literatures in English

This course offers a selection of texts from the various literatures in English of the period 1969-2019, with an emphasis on the last 15 years. We will study the work of authors like John Fowles, Salman Rushdie, J.M. Coetzee, Jhumpa Lahiri, Philip Roth, Ali Smith and Chimamanda Ngozie Adiche in relation to the great shifts taking place within late 20th-century literature (e.g. Postmodernism and Postcolonialism), but also in relation to the social, political and cultural changes after World War II (with themes such as ‘feminism’, ‘race’, ‘migration and globalisation’).

Thesis in English language and Culture

Your thesis, comprising between 7,500 and 10,000 words, will be written in the final semester of the third year. Its assessment includes the student’s ability to devise and clearly define a research topic, the processing of the secondary literature and source material, and the use of language, structure and layout.