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Language Awareness – principles and practice
Agneta M-L Svalberg
School of Education
Outline
What is LA?
Why does it matter?
Current issues in the UK
Enhancing LA: theory and practice
Examples
Keeping in touch
What is Language Awareness?
From the Association for Language Awareness website: Language Awareness is the explicit knowledge about
language, and conscious perception and sensitivity in language learning, language teaching and language use.
It includes awareness of how language works as a formal system (grammar, phonology, lexis, etc), socially, politically, and culturally.
Some near equivalents: prise de conscience de la langue/des langues éveil aux langages / éveil aux langues sprachbewußtsein / sprachreflexion conciencia lingüística språkmedvetande / språkmedvetenhet
LA is described by James & Garrett (1991) as covering five domains:
affective social power cognitive performance
WHY DOES IT MATTER?
The founder of the LA movement in the UK: Eric Hawkins (in particular Hawkins 1981, 1984).
ALA emerged both out of a concern about
literacy levels in L1 and poor performance in the learning of foreign languages, and as a reaction to prejudice (Hawkins1999)
Hawkins saw language – and therefore LA - as central to all learning and all school subjects. He envisaged a “language apprenticeship” model which would require “close, on-going cooperation between teachers across the curriculum”. His 1999 paper closed with the hope that: “Perhaps in the new millennium it may become more than an idle dream.” (p.140) Hawkins, E. (1999). Foreign Language Study and Language Awareness. Language Awareness, 8(3-4), 124-141.
In continental Europe:
the LA movement has been propelled less by literacy skills concerns and more by sociolinguistic issues.
Research and practice often revolve around multilingualism, language attitudes, and citizenship.
http://jaling.ecml.at/english/welcome_page.htm
Example: Intercultural understanding and engagement in a French primary school (Young & Helot 2004; Helot & Young 2006)
EVLANG (‘L’eveil aux langues dans l’ecole primaire’) http://enseignement.be/index.php?page=24998&navi=2184
Current issues in the UK Modern Languages are still in decline, in schools and at
universities
Prejudice and intolerance seem to be increasing
In schools, explicit grammar teaching is back with a focus on knowledge about spelling, grammar and punctuation (SPAG)
Many teachers have insufficient subject knowledge, and low confidence
The SPAG test is poorly constructed and has a negative backwash effect
LANGUAGE AWARENESS IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER
HOW IS LANGUAGE AWARENESS ENHANCED?
THEORY PRACTICE
Engagement With Language (EWL) • Cognitively, the Engaged individual is alert, pays focused attention and constructs their own knowledge. • Affectively, the Engaged individual has a positive, purposeful, willing and autonomous disposition towards the object (language, the language and/ or what it represents) • Socially, the Engaged individual is interactive and initiating
(Adapted from Svalberg 2009, p.247)
THEORY
The Engagement With Language – Language Awareness Cycle (Svalberg 2009, p. 248)
Language as Object LA as Outcome
ENGAGEMENT LANGUAGE AWARENESS
Language as Vehicle LA as Resource
Kearney & Ahn (2014).
World Language Learning (WLL) in Head Start pre-school in the US (3-5 yo). Video recordings and field notes over two years.
They used the EWL model to answer questions about what EWL looked like in this context, and whether it might have contributed to enhanced LA.
53 EWL episodes were identified.
The children’s body language and actions were important indicators of EWL
Meaningfulness was central to their engagement
The EWL of Young Learners World Language Learning (WLL)
Learners EWL is usually expressed through ‘languaging’, i.e. their talk about language, but other signs can also be important, e.g. body language.
LA practitioners have different aims:
improved cross-cultural understanding or communication skills
enhanced critical understanding and skills (using language as a political or persuasive tool )
greater interest in learning languages
more independent language learners
enhanced language skills (reading, writing etc)
improvement in linguistic form, i.e. better grammar.
Practice
Principles of LA pedagogy: ongoing investigation of language as a dynamic
phenomenon learners talk analytically about language, often to each
other. involvement of learners in exploration and discovery is
essential. aims to develop learners’ knowledge about and
understanding of language aims to develop learning skills, thus promoting learner
independence. aims to involve learners on both a cognitive and an
affective level. (Borg 1994)
Language Awareness in British Schools: Modern & Community Languages
Schools sometimes take their own initiatives. A Primary school may decide to focus on Japan and
Japanese across the curriculum (history, geography, language ... ) for a month.
Schools sometimes draw on language resources in the school/community (children, parents, teachers, teaching assistants)
BUT Coordination of LA initiatives is lacking Structures for such coordination are lacking
LLAWEN (Literacy and Language Awareness in Education)
Bilingual setting (Wales)
Main aim: “to support teachers in developing their confidence and competence, including how language works and how it is used” https://blogs.cardiff.ac.uk/digitalwriting/about-the-literacy-and-language-awareness-project/
Language Awareness in British Schools: Literacy
The Bucks WRITE Project (Wonder, Rigour, Innovation, Transformation and Empowerment in and through Literacy)
Buckinghamshire Primary schools 2014-2015
“The Project's aims were to develop teachers' subject knowledge and pedagogical skills so that they could create classrooms where rigorous and precise instruction sits beside freedom, creativity and imagination in the belief that this balance is the key to children becoming confident, enthusiastic and effective communicators.” http://www.buckswriteproject.com/
One approach used in the Bucks WRITE project was storytelling.
It focuses very much on meaning making in context,
The importance of grammar and punctuation is that (like vocabulary) the children’s choices help to put meaning across and create particular effects.
http://www.storytellingschools.com
Both projects used SFL (functional grammar)
Teachers trained in projects such as these may become mentors for other teachers
Grammar for Writing
Debra Myhill’s work on Grammar for Writing
Also using SFL (emphasis on speaker choice, grammatical function and meaning making)
Working with teachers and schools, and researching the effects of teaching Grammar on children’s writing
The children’s enhanced Grammar Awareness had a significant positive effect on their writing
On Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXr09X86K20 Powerpoint http://www.oxes.org.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Grammar-In-the-
Curriculum.pdf
Myhill arrived at a set of principles for teaching grammar, among them:
• The grammar must be linked to genre (to make it meaningful). Examples: Modal verbs in persuasive text; Noun Phrases in fairy tales.
• Metalanguage should be encouraged but give examples so children can understand even if they do not remember the terms
• The children need opportunities to discuss the choices they have made and their effect.
An example of a task used by Myhill:
The text: CHILD ON TOP OF A GREENHOUSE, 1948 The wind billowing out the seat of my britches,
My feet crackling splinters of glass and dried putty, The half-grown chrysanthemums staring up like accusers, Up through the streaked glass, flashing with sunlight, A few white clouds all rushing eastward, A line of elms plunging and tossing like horses, And everyone, everyone pointing up and shouting!
Task instructions: http://www.oxes.org.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Grammar-In-the-Curriculum.pdf
Examples of task types in form-focused LA instruction: identification tasks
such as ‘underline all the verbs in this text’
meaning-form matching such as ‘match the pictures with the sentences’
noticing the gap activities such as ‘dictogloss’ and ‘recasting’
The term ‘consciousness raising’ is used for LA tasks which do not involve ‘production for practice’.
Discussion tasks can also be Consciousness Raising.
Consciousness Raising Tasks in EFL
TASK 8 In the examples below, • underline all the VGrs • highlight the finite verbs only (If necessary, test by changing the tense of the sentence,
from past to present, or from present to past. Verbs that change are finite.) • then complete the rule 1. - Do you want to go for a coffee? - I’ll have to take a rain check ... I need to get back to pick up my son. 2. Tessa is a sculptor. These days she was working with marble. (HTP Ch 14) 3. The great man kept me waiting twelve minutes – exactly the same amount of time that I was late. (HTP Ch 12) 4. Many of the youngsters seem to have been arrested before reaching high school, although usually for shoplifting. (HTP Ch 13) RULE: Tense is marked on _________________ verb in the VGr only.
KEY to TASK 8
1. - Do you want to go for a coffee? - I’ll have to take a rain check ... I need to get back to pick up my son.
2. Tessa is a sculptor. These days she was working with marble. (HTP Ch 14) 3. The great man kept me waiting twelve minutes – exactly the same amount of time that
I was late. (HTP Ch 12) 4. Many of the youngsters seem to have been arrested before reaching high school,
although usually for shoplifting. (HTP Ch 13)
RULE: Tense is marked on the first verb in the VGr only.
An Example: Indicate which function best fits the meaning of each underlined modal . 1. There must be hundreds of women like me who just want to get back
safely on a Saturday night. 2. In the summer, people used to queue up down the street waiting for the
buses. There were about 11 of us drivers going to Blackpool; we would have a dinner in the bus station, then play football on the beach. At seven we'd get back on the coach with the passengers and drive home.
3. My mum always said, "You're one that can look after yourself." 4. You never know when the wrong type of passenger might be sitting in the
back of your cab. 5. I'll keep driving until I retire. What else would I do? 6. I should have retired, but I love the job that much I held my pension back. 7. After that, I decided I'd never work nights again. 8. I'm a single mother, and I knew I could fit the job around my son. Some suggestions: ability, opinion ,volition, habit; certain, likely, ‘possible
that’
Consciousness Raising: textual enhancement
1. Spotting the verbs.
Underline all the verbs in the text.
Compare your underlinings with your group.
Discuss any differences and try to agree what the right answer is. Try to think of reasons why.
2. Now answer these questions
How many verbs did you underline in the text?_________________________
Which is the most common verb in this text?___________________________
Why is this particular verb used so often? (Discuss this with your friends.)
Svalberg (2005)
5. In this exercise, you will see how clauses are combined to make sentences. When there is more than one clause in a sentences, there is sometimes a special word to connect the clauses. We will use the term ‘linker’ for such a word. Here are some examples:
My friend fell over because she forgot to tie her shoe laces! I try to make sure that my laces are tied but sometimes they come undone when I am playing.
The words in italics are 'linkers' between clauses. Can you spot the verb group in each clause? • In the text, put a squiggly line under words that connect one clause to another clause. • Then complete the table below and answer the questions that follow.
[The text is repeated]
• Now complete the table below. Complete the sentences that have been started below. They are all from the text you have just read. Put any linkers in the narrow columns and one clause in each of the fat columns.
Clause 1 Clause 2 Clause 3 Clause 4
1. One night 2. I opened my eyes [The table continues.]
Linker Linker Linker
Now answer these questions:
• How many clauses does the longest sentence have?______________________
• How many clauses does the shortest sentence have?_____________________ Make a list of the linkers you have found._______________________________________________________________________________________________
Svalberg (2005)
Consciousness Raising Tasks: Spoken, advanced
http://www.btplc.com/BetterFuture/ConnectedSociety/LearningAndSkillsFreeResources/AllTalk/
Keeping in touch with the field of LA
Organizations:
The Association for Language Awareness: International conferences; the journal Language Awareness
EDiLiC (Education et Diversité Linguistic et Culturelle ): International conferences
References and links Association for Language Awareness http://www.languageawareness.org/web.ala/web/about/tout.php
EDiLiC (Education et Diversité Linguistic et Culturelle ) - Awakening to languages around the world: http://www.edilic.org/gb/gb_monde.php?monde=site
Hawkins, E. (1999). Foreign language study and language awareness. Language Awareness, 8(3-4), 124-141.
Helot, C. & A. S.Young (2006). Imagining Multilingual Education in France : A language and cultural awareness project at primary level. In T. Skutnabb-Kangas, O. Garcia & M.E. Torrez Guzman (eds.) Imagining multilingual schools, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 69–90.
Kearney, E. & Ahn, S-Y. (2014). Preschool world language learners’ engagement with language: what are the possibilities? Language Awareness 23(4), 319-333.
Svalberg, A. M-L. (2016). The Eric Hawkins Lecture - Language Awareness research: where we are now. Special Issue. Language Awareness: Achievements & Challenges. Language Awareness. 25(1), 1-13.
Svalberg, A. M-L. (2009). Engagement with Language: Developing a Construct. Language Awareness, 18/3&4: 242-258.
Svalberg, A. M-L. (2005). Consciousness Raising Activities in some Lebanese English Language Classrooms: Teacher Perceptions and Learner Engagement’, Language Awareness, 14(2-3), 70-190.
WLL (World Languages; Early Language Experiences.) State of Washington, Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction: http://www.k12.wa.us/WorldLanguages/WorldLanguageExperiences.aspx
[See also web links on slides.]
