Language Awareness

Language awareness (LA) is knowledge about language and also a movement with an ideological stance towards language related issues, and an approach to teaching and learning languages. The chapter describes and discusses LA from both theoretical and practical perspectives, in EFL, ESL, English Mother Tongue and World Languages contexts. It places LA in a historical and social context, relating it to concerns about low literacy and uptake of Modern Languages in UK Schools and, more widely, to population movements and changing linguistic landscapes around the world. Relevant research is reviewed and related to LA issues. How LA may be developed through engagement with language is discussed and the complexity of this learning process described in some detail and related to constructs such as for example ‘noticing’ and ‘languaging’. This leads to a discussion of what is known about language teachers’ LA, its importance, and how it may be developed. For language teachers and teacher educators, the chapter provides examples of LA as a teaching approach, discussing the underlying principles and some of the classroom activities and techniques used in LA classrooms, including textual enhancement and the use of corpus material and other types of authentic text

The Problem of False Language Awareness

The boldness of the Language Awareness undertaking is encapsulated in the word 'awareness', implying knowledge of 'the truth', as evidenced in the collocation 'to be aware of with 'the fact that'. Thus a Language Awareness approach tries to guide learners towards discovery and understanding of truths about language. This paper tries to show that sometimes, on the contrary, learners are lead to acquire a false awareness. That is to say, instruction may create or reinforce misconceptions about the language. Explanations, choice of context and visual illustrations can all be misleading. It has been found, for example, that would is more strongly associated with unreality among Malay-speaking learners that among native speakers of English (Svalberg, 1998 and forthcoming). The classroom focus on conditional contexts encourages this particular association above other equally valid ones. It will also be shown that instruction may encourage learners to construe alternative, non-English tense systems. The overall purpose of the paper is to raise the question of whether the descriptive models teachers work with are adequate for the aims of a Language Awareness approach to language teaching

Peer interaction, cognitive conflict, and anxiety on a Grammar Awareness course for language teachers

This study explored some MA students’ perceptions of a Grammar Awareness course for language teachers. The aim was to understand how group tasks might help students build Grammar Awareness. Two cohorts of students were surveyed and interviewed. In this paper the survey responses are discussed in some depth. While the first cohort was left to organize their groups as they wished, the second cohort used a more structured, cooperative framework. The paper compares the two cohorts, and novice and experienced teachers, to see 1/ whether novice and experienced teachers benefitted equally or differentially and 2/ what effect the changes had. Central features of the pedagogy were the use of authentic texts and open ended group tasks. The intention was to create cognitive conflict as an impetus for engagement and in depth negotiations, leading to knowledge creation. The novice teachers on the whole found tasks and texts more difficult, and had greater problems focusing on the task. The more structured group work led to increased task focus in both groups, and more active participation by the TESOL students, and thus appeared to facilitate engagement with the language, but anxiety was high and increased for the TESOL students in the second cohort

Language Awareness in language learning and teaching: A research agenda

Following on from my state-of-the-art article on Language Awareness and language learning (Svalberg 2007), in this paper I will discuss specific research tasks which are centrally concerned with different aspects of LANGUAGE AWARENESS (LA): ‘explicit knowledge about language, and conscious perception and sensitivity in language learning, language teaching and language use’. The overall argument is that research is needed into how LA is constructed by language learners and teachers through ENGAGEMENT WITH LANGUAGE (Svalberg 2007; 2009). I will sometimes refer specifically to awareness of grammar (form-meaning) but hope the paper will stimulate ideas for research into other LA aspects of language learning and teaching. The absence of other issues and areas (such as LA and multilingualism, intercultural LA, critical LA, LA and language policy) is a function of the personal nature of the paper and the limitations of space

Language Awareness research: where we are now

This paper outlines the context in which Language Awareness (LA) research is currently situated and where it might be going. The starting point is Eric Hawkins's vision (40 years ago) of LA as a bridge between school subjects and, in wider society, between people of different backgrounds and languages. Although considerable progress has been made in language education, this vision remains very relevant in today's society, characterised by large population movements and economic instability. In the UK, there is a mismatch between the multilingualism of communities with roots outside the UK and the shortage of foreign language skills sought by employers. Globally, English as a foreign language dominates, especially in higher education. Against this background, The paper reflects on LA research in the last four years; the topic areas which are most commonly addressed, the languages targeted, and the context in which research is taking place. It is noted that a complex dynamic systems world view is evident in much of current LA research, and discuss some of the implications

Engagement with language: interrogating a construct

In 'Language awareness and language learning' (Svalberg, 2007) I concluded that the otherwise diverse and multidisciplinary field of language awareness (LA) is given coherence by its focus on engagement with language. I argued that LA is seen as active and not merely as a state of conscious awareness or sensitivity. This paper goes one step further by developing and testing the construct. It discusses what engagement with language might consist of and contrasts with and how it can be identified. Cognitive, social, and affective aspects of engagement, including notions such as attention, autonomy, and agency, are posited. Having arrived at first at a working definition and then an expanded and refined definition, the construct is applied to some classroom and student interview data. Some tentative conclusions about English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) students' engagement with language, what motivates, facilitates, and hinders it, are drawn. The main purpose of the paper is, however, to try and determine the usefulness or otherwise of the construct as such, how it relates to other constructs in the literature, and where it might be taken in future research

Consciousness Raising Activities in some Lebanese English Language Classrooms: Teacher Perceptions and Learner Engagement

The article starts from the premise that approaches to the teaching of English can only be assessed in the particular settings where they may be used. Cultures of learning, teachers’ and students’ beliefs and prevailing material conditions will all have a bearing on how a particular approach is received. In the case study reported on here, four teachers implemented a consciousness-raising (CR) approach to grammar instruction with nearly 200 students in years 7, 8 and 9 of a Lebanese secondary school. The teachers’ and students’ reactions to the particular set of activities trialled were recorded in teacher diaries and reports and through interviews with the teachers and their coordinator, and discussions with the participating students. Both teachers and students felt generally positive towards the approach. The prevailing culture of learning, which encourages learner autonomy and an analytical approach to language, seems to have contributed. It was found, however, that in order to avoid discrepancies in the use of metalanguage and classifications and to allow insights from CR to be used in language production-for-practice, CR would need to be an integral part of the regular integrated skills syllabus

Mapping tense form and meaning for L2 learning – from theory to practice

English tense presents second/foreign language learners with considerable cognitive challenges and, it will be argued, grammars and textbooks are generally inadequate sources of knowledge of the tense system as system. A modified version of Reichenbach's (1947. Elements of Symbolic Logic. New York: Macmillan) tense model is then presented. The original model has been criticized for its inability to deal with temporal relationships in natural text (e. g. Declerck, R. 1986. From Reichenbach (1947) to Comrie (1985) and beyond. Towards a theory of tense. Lingua 70. 305–364; Declerck, R. 2015. Tense in English. Its structure and use in discourse. London: Routledge; Carroll, M., C. Von Stutterheim & W. Klein. 2003. Two ways of construing complex temporal structures. In F. Lenz (ed.), Deictic Conceptualisation of Time, Space and Person, 97–134. Amsterdam: Benjamins). It is argued here instead that speakers employ the limited choices the system provides creatively, to express a wide range of temporal and interpersonal relations in the real world. The tense - aspect and tense - modality interfaces are briefly discussed. A pedagogical Language Awareness approach (Svalberg, A. M-L. 2007. Language Awareness and Language Learning. Language Teaching 40(4). 287–308) is then illustrated, with the theoretical model as mediating artefact providing visual and metalinguistic scaffolding, allowing learners to investigate tense use in context while drawing on both intuitive understanding and conscious knowledge

Language awareness and language learning

This article reviews Language Awareness (LA) as a field of research and practice. It deals with the period from 1990 to the present, asking what LA is, how it has been collectively constructed during this time, what the theoretical underpinnings might be and what it means in practical, methodological terms in the classroom and for society. It is recognized that its multidisciplinary nature and wide scope could lead to fragmentation, but it is argued that the holistic view evident in LA research and practice is a strength, and that its different sub-fields have certain core notions in common which give LA coherence. The paper begins with a brief background sketch and outline, and goes on to discuss the literature on cognitive aspects of LA, such as awareness, attention and noticing. The review then enquires into the characteristics of LA teaching methodology, and what LA is needed for teachers to implement it. Social and political perspectives are then explored in brief reviews of Critical Language Awareness, Inter-/Cross-cultural Awareness, and multilingualism. The paper closes by drawing conclusions and making suggestions for further research

Language standards and language variation in Brunei Darussalam: The understanding of would by native and non-native speakers of English

An assumption of this paper is that non-standard use of language will be accompanied by non-standard features of understanding. An attempt is made to access the meaning perceptions of learners at different levels of proficiency. The paper reports on what English learners in Brunei think English modal verb forms mean. It focuses specifically on would and discusses its use in Standard British English and in Brunei English. Bruneian perceptions of the meaning of this modal are compared with its use. It is claimed that the non-standard use of would for non-assertiveness in Brunei English can partly be explained by users overfocusing on its non-factivity meaning. The issues of what the target variety may be and the appropriacy of non-standard features in this sociocultural and linguistic context are briefly discussed