FWEN 1

BICS = Basic language and every day language (level A)

CALP = higher levels (B2+, C1, C2). Academic language. Going out of your comfort zone.

Stage where you are at starting to gain words.

F.E: child - children. baby - babies.

• Kids hear the language and learn a lot by just listening.
• They gain confidence.
• They repeat while listening.
• Receptive to productive: need to hear before they can speak.

• Teachers may have limited English fluency in language
• Incorrect models.
• May be difficult to do any reflection on learning or discjss pupils opinions on learning English
• maybe too much effort to understand for not highly motivated pupils

Zone of proximal Development: difference between what a learner can do without help and what he/se can’t. Concept of Vygotsky.

People learn language best trough imitation (by what the teacher says and you repeat). Stimulus and response. Drilling of patterns and positive reinforcement. Behaviourists are looking for perfection. The students don’t learn to use the language in a creative way. They just learn the patterns.

By Skinner

Criticism: L1 learning in U-Modell (first by imitation, than creativity and then correcting). This shows that children learn language not simply by imitating but by working out grammar for themselves.

17th and 18th century: Theories there were innate (biological) and therefore universal features of the human mind.

Theory was revived by Chomsky in the 1950s: children are pre-programmed, they automatically notice and focus on language around them rather than simply imitating and responding to stimulus. Function of the brain helps them to process what they hear, to structure language and to produce their own creative and meaningful sentences = „Language Acquisition Devise“.

CPH = Critical Period Hypothesis: critical period for learning language. Children up to the age of eleven are more open to learning foreign languages than older children or adults.

By Chomsky around 1959 and then also Lennenberg 1967.

Criticism: one-sided focus on how learners learn language structures and one-sided in age factor.

„Learner is lone scientist who is looking for answer“. 1964 Piaget argued that language develops in stages, with each stages building on the stage before. Language development is linked to development of motor skills of a child & ability to to think abstract. He assumed that children learn by doing - they actively construct knowledge through solving problems and by being given time to explore. „Child as central to his/her own learning“.

Criticism: view of lone scientist neglects the social aspects in language learning - in particular, how language learning is influenced by interaction w/ others.

„Language is a code which children learn to use by interacting with people around them“. Expose learner to simplified language and interaction to find a common understanding. 1934 Vygotsky emphasized the importance of social interaction for language acquisition process. Children learn better with the help of more knowledgeable people. ZPD = Zone of proximal development = state between what children could do alone and with support. Scaffolding, structure or framework. Scaffolding & ZPD good for teachers because gives idea of how they can both support and challenge learners through careful design and sequencing tasks.

Growing importance of oracy, communication important for modern languages.

Focus on translations, written language, rules, language system, grammatical accuracy

Language is not learnt by imitation and repetition only but is created from an innate rule-based competence, Universal Grammar (Chomsky) — cognitive Change: constructivism.

Focus on oral language production, drilling of sentence patterns, language lab, mistakes are eliminated.

Total Physical Response. Method based on findings from L1 research had only marginal impact, methodology based on acting out commands cannot really work on the long run.

Focus on input first, physical reactions to commands, students are only ask to speak when they are ready.

Method replicates real communication. The search for real authentic communication led to the development of task-based learning and CLIL.

Focus on real-life communication, goal to reach communicative competence, transmitting meaning is more important than correct language use

Content and Language Integrated Learning.

Works well if there is a lot of exposure to the foreign language of if there’s a basic knowledge of the foreign language. Return to focus on form to prevent language fossilization.

Focus: English is the medium for studying another subject, transmitting meaning is more important than correct use of language.

Process in which incorrect language becomes habit and can’t easily be corrected

Language acquisition device is the innate device Chomsky feels we all have, it enables us to acquire language. Later referred to as the „Universal Grammar“ or UG in short.

European Language Portfolio or Europäisches Sprachenportfolio is structured in 3 parts:

• Language Biografie
• Language Passport
• Dossier

The ELP can be used for every language and age based versions (Portfolino/ Portfolio I/ II/ III). It is meant to assure horizontal and vertical coherence and raises the cultural awareness by making the user reflect their own language and languages they came in contact with.

There are two main forms of curriculum coherence. The vertical and horizontal coherence.

Is given if what students learn in one lesson or course prepares them for the next lesson or courses. A purposefully structured and logically sequenced teaching. So that the knowledge and skills are progressively learned and thought.

Is given when content of e.g. a 3rd grade mirrors the content of an other 3rd grade. In addition, the tests and assessments are based on what has been thought to the students and on the learning standards that the students are expected to meet.

Common European Framework of Reference

Gemeinsamer Europäischer Referenzrahmen

Seeks to analyze and describe in a comprehensive way language teaching and learning, language use and language performance in all possible contexts. It also explores in detail a wide range of types of assessment (scales, levels, performance indicators etc.)

It also describes the foreign language proficiency at six levels: A1/2 - B1/2 - C1/2

How one analyses/ understands a text or story.

• The world (pre-knowledge)
• Text (gist)
• Sentences (detail)
• Words
• Syllables (spoken) or Morphemes (written)
• Sounds-Letters

Top down process is suitable for primary as it begins with the pre-knowledge and doesn’t focus on single words in the beginning.

However, the process isn’t linear, it rather jumps up and down in the process of understanding a text/story.

Implements the cognitive aspect

—> learners learn better if they have to think actively, solve problems etc.

Trying to make sense of a text by repeating following steps.

reading - searching for clues - making hypothesis - checking hypothesis - producing temporary rule - verifying rule - new hypothesis - reading …

Learners who can set appropriate learning goals and take charge of their own learning.

The way one learns content. Basically one can say that poor learners lack those strategies whereas rich learners have more strategies. It’s the teachers job to develop learning strategies with the pupils.

Eveil aux langue

Language awareness

Begegnung mit Sprachen

The curriculum obligates us to involve ELBE in our class. It supports the curiosity, interest, and motivation towards language learning.

ELBE stands for raising the language and cultural awareness and is one of three parts for „Mehrsprachigkeitsdidaktik“.

ELBE has four dimensions:

• affective dimension
• social dimension
• political dimension
• cognitive dimension

• attitudes
• curiosity
• aesthetic-playful use

• effective communication
• gender specific language use
• inter- and intracultural language use

• manipulation through language
• Language as tool for dominance
• …

• textual awareness
• sentence awareness
• word and phrase awareness (e.g. Brot/bread)
• sound awareness

Teaching English to speakers of other Languages

Linguistics is the scientific study of language which has two main branches.

1.    Theoretical linguistics

Concerned with the nature of language and its components (Sound, Structure and Meaning)

2.   Applied linguistics

Concerned with language use, how it is learned, acquired and may be thought.

Phonology

Focuses on the pronunciation systems of a language. The study of the various sounds available.