Undergraduate program

Overview

• Much of the curriculum is based on close reading of literary and cultural texts, including video-assisted teaching materials to help guide students in thinking critically and discussing related cultural and social issues.
• Literature, language and culture are approached with historical depth in the survey and elective courses, and with some beginning and advanced courses also using a sociological approach essential for the social relevance of humanities study.
• Critical thinking, a mainstay in specialization courses, is also imparted into language training courses focusing on interpretive, argumentative and analytical skills. We offer oral training and writing courses at every level of undergraduate study. Our linguists, literary studies scholars, cultural studies scholars, and visual/performance studies scholars all contribute basic skills courses and some of our strongest researchers teach freshman writing classes.
• Our hard-working linguists cover a broad spectrum of the field both theoretical and applied, and at the same time they contribute at least 6 courses per year to the Teacher Training Program.

Our Specialties

• NCU English replaced the compulsory system made up of individual required (必修) courses with required-elective (必選) courses. We encourage students to choose courses carefully and independently, according to their own interests, abilities and career plans.
• The interest-based and career-oriented professional training attends to disciplinary trends, paradigmatic shifts, and pedagogical innovations, providing enough flexibility for students to independently plan other secondary specialties and/or develop other interests. The department stipulates that students must take a minimum of 84 credits in this department, and for the remaining credits, students are free to take other general education courses or courses from other departments. We have an increasing number of double majors and students pursuing minors or certificates in other departments.
• Upper division undergraduates can take graduate courses, and the advanced undergraduate and graduate courses are designed to be complementary.
• The curriculum committee works hard and operates effectively in order to optimize the level of freedom both in student course selection and faculty course assignments and scheduling.