Why pursue the GAC in SLA?
The Graduate Academic Certificate (GAC) provides doctoral students in with both a theoretical and practical knowledge of language acquisition. Graduate students at Davis not only teach English to speakers of other languages but also teach foreign languages to undergraduates. Graduate students who more fully understand the process of SLA contribute to improving the overall delivery of undergraduate language instruction. Choosing the GAC gives graduate students the opportunity to integrate theory with the methods they use in the classroom and to move beyond being a well-trained teacher to understanding curricular choices in undergraduate language education. These are important parts of graduate student professionalization, and the GAC makes them available to all graduate students whether their main area of study is anthropology, education, literature or linguistics, among other areas. Graduate students who complete the GAC will significantly increase their prospects in the foreign-language and ESL job market.
The GAC is administered by the Designated Emphasis (DE) program in second language acquisition, and the Chair of the DE is also Chair of the GAC. Students are admitted to the GAC in the second year of their program, or in the first year if they have completed an MA and are continuing on towards the PhD degree. The GAC program is designed for students with a commitment to gaining competence in the theory and practice of language acquisition and who want that officially recognized but for whom their degree program or discipline requires a different intellectual focus for the dissertation. The only formal difference between the GAC and the DE is that for graduate students pursuing the DE, their qualifying exam and dissertation committees must include at least one member of the DE, and their chosen dissertation topic must have some relevance to the area of second language acquisition. For graduate students pursuing the GAC, there is no qualifying examination or dissertation requirement.
Requirements and Procedures
- GAC Requirements Checklist (Keep track of progress and approvals with this checklist)
- GAC Application to be completed in GradSphere (Apply after completing at least one course.)
- GAC Report Form - Final Verification to be completed in GradSphere (Complete after fulfilling all requirements of the GAC.)
Contact
For GAC advising, contact Prof. Travis Bradley, DE Chair, tgbradley@ucdavis.edu. For process advising, please contact the staff Graduate Coordinator, Maria Ruby at (530) 752-2239 or mruby@ucdavis.edu.