Programme

The Doctoral Programme in Language Acquisition in Multilingual Settings has two main bases: the Micaela Portilla Research Centre and the Faculty of Arts. The work spaces in both places include different types of classrooms that adapt to different teaching-learning methodologies and styles. The classrooms are equipped with the latest technology, which allows for real-time connections with teachers at other universities in Spain and abroad. The Micaela Portilla Research Centre is a new building that takes in top researchers in Social Sciences and Humanities from the UPV/EHU. It has spaces for teaching and research, work rooms, meeting rooms, as well as state-of-the-art laboratories, all with the purpose of enabling high quality research and teaching. It also offers an Assembly Hall with a capacity for 108 people, where the congresses organised by the Programme are held, as well as being the venue for the defence of doctoral theses. The Doctoral and Master¿s School has an office in this building, which facilitates any procedures that the programme¿s teachers and students need to carry out. As well as the regular classrooms that are used for postgraduate teaching, the Faculty also has a Main Lecture Hall and an Assembly Hall. The Main Lecture Hall has 284 seats and is fully equipped with audiovisual and IT systems, which enable videos and slides to be created and shown, etc. In addition, it has two simultaneous translation booths, which are also used for interpreting practice in real situations. The Faculty¿s Assembly Hall has 94 seats and is fully equipped with audiovisual and IT systems, which enable videos and slides to be created and shown, etc. In addition, it has two simultaneous translation booths, which are also used for interpreting practice in real situations. Both the Main Lecture Hall and the Assembly Hall are used to hold congresses and seminars that are organised by the research groups, and for the defence of the programme members¿ doctoral theses (Assembly Hall). The classrooms and halls (Main Lecture Hall and Assembly Hall) have recently been renovated and include the latest teaching support techniques.

The Faculty of Arts has modern laboratories appropriate for research into phonetics, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics and translation.In the phonetics laboratory teaching and research activities are conducted. For this purpose it has modern equipment capable of performing quality acoustic research (soundproof recording booth, control station, diverse recording and reproduction equipment and acoustic analysis programs). To access and use the laboratories it is necessary to have the permission of the Professor in charge or that of the Coordinator of the laboratories. The phonetics laboratory has regulations for its users. The psycholinguistics laboratory is assigned to three Research Groups in the Areas of English and German Philology, Basque Philology and Linguistics, working in the field of psycholinguistics (acquisition and learning of L1, L2 and multilingualism). Two of the groups (Language and Speech - led by Dr García Nayo - and Acquisition and Use of Language - led by Dr Idiazabal) endorse this proposal. Use of the laboratory is intended for the research of the professors and the pre-doctoral, post-doctoral and Ikerbasque reseasrchers, related to the above Research Groups.The audiovisual laboratory is a classroom equipped with 20 computers and a teaching position. All the places have a TV capture card, so that students can access TV channels all over the world and do listening comprehensions in different languages. It is also used for teaching.We also have resources of the LEMMCA (Laboratory for the Preparation of Audiovisual Materials) where activities are conducted to support research, of great use to the doctoral students. This laboratory, located in another building adjoining the Faculty of Arts, was primarily created as an Assisted Room for the appropriate carrying out of the following activities by the PDI of the Campus:- Support activities for teaching (classes and practical work, etc.) - Activities for the preparation of didactic material by the PDI - Activities to support research - Conducting of training courses for the PDI - Place of reference and support for the technical and audiovisual services of the rest of the campus. This laboratory performs loans of audiovisual material, creates images and DVDs supporting oral presentations at congresses and advises on videostreaming.

The library of the UPV/EHU on the Álava campus has computerized databases which may be viewed by the researchers from their computers. Most of the scientific journals in theoretical and applied linguistics for which they have paper subscriptions also have their electronic versions, thereby facilitating the use of such resources by the doctoral students.The smooth running of the service for the acquisition of documents and bibliographical material means we have excellent access to bibliographical resources such as monographs, collective editions and the recently-published minutes of international congresses. The library also provides a service for students whereby they can make specific requests for books.Moreover, the doctoral students have access to the bibliographical resources of all the universities and institutions which currently have an agreement with the UPV/EHU, such as access to the catalogues of the Jon Bilbao library (where they can find extensive information concerning Basque studies) and HABE, where they can find an extensive bibliography on language acquisition in multilingual contexts.