Search results for "Language education"
showing 10 items of 117 documents
Becoming a Language Teacher
2015
In this qualitative study the author examined personal narratives written by 14 Finnish speaking student teachers of Swedish, in order to find out what they tell about their thoughts and feelings concerning their future work as language teachers. The following three themes were in focus: firstly, what university students tell about their reasons for wanting to become teachers in the first place; secondly, what kinds of worries concerning their future work they mention in their narratives; and thirdly, how student teachers could be supported during transition from teacher education to teaching. According to the study, students choose teaching for reasons that are related to: (a) teacher iden…
New media and perennial problems in foreign language learning and teaching
2015
The book concerns the ways in which the new media shape communication along with educational expectations and practices in foreign language classrooms. Although foreign language learners have cheap and easy access to information and ways of communication, they also wrestle with problems that have always accompanied language learning. The focus of the book is two-fold. On the one hand, the authors demonstrate how using social networks, videoconferencing, mobile phones, wikis, and computer-mediated interaction contributes to the development of language skills, negotiated interaction, autonomy, and intercultural competence. On the other, they discuss “old” issues pertaining to the role of voca…
Blending Literature and Foreign Language Learning: Current Approaches
2013
The aim of this chapter is to discuss the place of literature in foreign language learning and teaching contexts, and to show reasons of using literary texts for the development of communicative competence, intercultural communicative competence, and for individual as well as social human growth. Although literature and language teaching had been following separate paths, currently a strong tendency emerges of integrating language and literature teaching across proficiency levels. This tendency results from the recognition of the roles that literacy, multiliteracies and multimodality play in the life of humans in the 21st century. Respected bodies such as the Council of Europe or Modern Lan…
The Cultural Component in the First Language (L1) Teaching: Cultural Heritage, Identity and Motivation in Language Learning
2015
Abstract After almost three decades since the insertion of Catalan (Valencian) within the Valencian education system, its use hasn’t spread through all of the geographical domains and social scopes. In a context of language minorisation, an actual usage of a language is not guaranteed by just acquiring a sounder language competence. For a start we take into consideration a hipothesis defending that even though a comprehension of the goal culture in L2 is not just necessary for a significant use of the language within its society, we also have to realise the importance of the cultural import when using L1. We’ve framed our working field within some research projects which focus on the value …
Learning paths on elementary university courses in Finnish as a second language
2015
Along with the growing degree of internationalisation, Finnish university education needs to address issues related to learning and teaching Finnish as a second language. From the perspective of teaching Finnish and related pedagogical development, it is essential to recognise when, where and for which purposes learners need Finnish at the various stages of the language acquisition process. This article focuses on the learning paths of three international students who studied Finnish on a one-term elementary course at the University of Jyvaskyla Language Centre. The article is based on a socio-cultural and ecological view on language learning and teaching. The data consist of learning diary…
Grammar is the heart of language : grammar and its role in language learning among Finnish university students
2015
This article presents and discusses views on grammar and its role in formal language learning amongst Finnish university students. The results are based on a questionnaire which was distributed to students at the University of Jyväskylä as part of institutional action research. The background to the project was a feeling amongst some teachers of increased divergence between student respectively language teacher understandings of the role of grammar in language teaching. This concern raised the need to find out how students view grammar. The knowledge about thoughts on grammar amongst students would then help teachers to adjust and adept the way grammar is used in language teaching. The main…
Language Learning Methodology for Adults: A Study of Linguistic Transfer
2014
Abstract The purpose of the present research is to bring together the evidence on transfer in adult L2 and L3 language acquisition and investigate the use and the relationship between languages in contact. The role of linguistic transfer ( Odlin, 1989 ) i.e. the imposition of previously learned patterns onto a new learning situation, has a facilitation or inhibition effect on the learner's progress in mastering a new language (L2 or L3). Our findings reveal that the cross-linguistic influence occurs both from the direction of the L2 to the L3 and from the L3 to the L2 ( Odlin, 2003 , Jarvis and Pavlenko, 2008 ). In the case of our participants, in the acquisition of L2 as the foreign langua…
La lengua materna y la traducción en el aula de lenguas extranjeras: ¿dos recursos perjudiciales?
2020
Mother tongue (MT) and translation have been two undervalued resources in foreign language (FL) classrooms since the rise of monolingual methods. However, already in the 21st century, the Council of Europe promotes the adoption of plural approaches to language teaching (see Candelier et al., 2013), in which the teacher may work with the entire linguistic repertoire found within the classroom, including the MT. Therefore, our aim in this article is to review and reassess the criticisms that claim that MT and translation slow down the learning of the new language with the aim of moving away from this position and defending the importance of these two resources in today’s classrooms, in which …
Multimodal approach to foster the Multiliteracies pedagogy in the teaching of EFL through picturebooks: The Snow Lion
2020
espanolEnsenar lenguas en el siglo veintiuno implica prestar atencion a las demandas pedagogicas multimodales de un mundo digital global. Para alcanzar este objetivo, la ensenanza efectiva del ingles requiere una preparacion de los instructores para guiar de manera consciente el desarrollo de la literacidad de los alumnos e integrar las distintas maneras de construir significado que van mucho mas alla del mero uso de la lengua. Este articulo suscribe la nocion de literacidad como un concepto multidimensional y propone un conjunto de herramientas multimodales como medio para que los maestros de ingles como lengua extranjera (ILE) trabajen con elementos literarios y visuales clave. Centrandon…
Danish language tests for adult migrants
2016
In 1999, a new law on Danish language education came into force. In this law, the final examinations in Danish were introduced and set under national governance, and the requirements were defined. Since then the tests in Danish for adult migrants have developed and there has been an ongoing revision of both the language education and tests offered. nonPeerReviewed