First Class

Today I had my first university class here: "Introduction to Qualitative Research". The title is a little bit misleading because it's only about qualitative research in second language teaching and learning. I will still take it though I think. Guess how big the class was ;) we were three people + instructor. Apparently next week two more people will come, so let's see. Class size isn't bigger than what I'm used to from Bayreuth :)
We will go through two textbooks:

• Second Language Research: Methodology and Design by Alison Mackey and Susan M. Gass (2005)
• Research Methods in Language Learning by David Nunan (1992)

Unfortunately they are quite expensive :(
We are reading 1 or 2 chapters every week and are supposed to hand in a short essay (~ 1 page) in every class. I think we also have to do a presentation (didn't really get that). The nice things is: we don't have to write a mid term and final exam but instead just one final paper (15-20 pages). Usually you have to write exams in every class but we are allowed to change it because it is a graduate school class :)
Today we didn't really do anything and instead of 3 hours of class we were allowed to leave after 1 hour. The instructor is really nice and friendly. She prepared some ice-breaking questions and we were also allowed to give her one question each. The Korean girl sitting next to me, asked her whether she had a boyfriend. Haha, never would have dared that! But the instructor didn't mind and now I know everything about her current dating status ;)