'Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM Press)'
Doi
Abstract
This is a reflective article on “precision language education”. This concept is derived in part
from “precision education” which, in turn, is derived from “precision medicine”. Precision
language education heralds a new way of dealing with individual differences by effecting as
precise a diagnosis as possible on each language learner, thus triggering specific interventions
designed to target and respond to each person’s specific language-learning problems. The
article develops the logic of precision language education, including the ways of eliciting and
making visible, for both learner and observer, problems and difficulties to be diagnosed and
remedied. It then briefly discusses the connection between personalized education and
precision education before moving on to offer illustrative examples of precision language
education at work which draw on a multiplicity of ways of addressing learning issues,
including exploiting neuroplasticity. They include: an answer-evaluation and markup system,
a phonetic correction system for three pairs of vowels and a neurological profiling system for
guiding the forms of intervention applied. The article concludes with an argument that, in
addition to offering a framework for action, precision language education enables the
development of a flexible, coherent, “precision” mindset that is of benefit for generating
individualized language learning systems to better meet the demands of the highly mobile,
globalizing world of the 21st century