Department of Language and Literacy Education

Degrees Offered: M.A., M.Ed., Ph.D.

Program Overview

The Department of Language and Literacy Education offers programs and courses leading to the Master of Education, Master of Arts, and Ph.D. in Language and Literacy Education (LLED). Program areas within LLED are Literacy Education (LITR), which includes English and Drama Education, Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL), Modern Language Education (MLED), and Teacher Librarianship (LIBE). The department also offers Diploma and Certificate Programs in these fields. Faculty members also participate in the cross-departmental Masters of Arts Degree in Children's Literature (MACL).

The Department of Language and Literacy Education includes scholars in a comprehensive range of language and literacy-education related fields. These fields relate to the teaching of the following subjects:

  • Literacy Education (LITR): composition, early literacy, content area literacy, drama, adult literacy, family literacy, children's and young adult literature, oral language, poetry, Indigenous literacy, multi-modal approaches to literacy learning and educational linguistics
  • English as a Second Language (TESL): TESL methods, applied linguistics, UBC/Ritsumeikan Joint Academic Exchange Program
  • Modern Languages (MLED): French Immersion, French as a First and Second Language, Asia Pacific language and curriculum study, and other modern languages

The Department of Language and Literacy Education is committed to excellence in scholarship, teaching, and professional leadership and is responsive to Canada's multicultural, multilingual context. Its goal is to advance the study of language learning, and the teaching and learning of language, literacy, and literature in their broadest frames of reference including perspectives from postructuralism, socio-cultural theory, and curriculum theory.

Graduate courses in research in the various subject matter fields as well as departmental doctoral seminars are offered on a rotating basis. Department members are actively involved with graduate students in local, provincial, national, and international research. A complete listing of individual faculty research interests may be found at LLED. A limited number of teaching assistantships and research assistantships are available to exceptionally qualified students.

The Department of Language and Literacy Education includes a recently established Digital Literacy Centre, which supports research and scholarship in the digital literacy field.

Contact Information

Department of Language and Literacy Education
2013-6445 University Boulevard
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2
Tel: 604.822.8259
Fax: 604.822.3154
Email: lled.gradassistant@ubc.ca
Website: www.lled.educ.ubc.ca
Graduate Programs Assistant


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