Applied Linguistics And Language Learning/Teaching

Applied Linguistics And Language Learning/Teaching

A.      CLAIMS

In spite of the widening range of activities undertaken by applied linguistics and in spite of the general agreement about the reach of its provenance claimed in the Statutes of the International Association of Applied Linguistics:

(The Association’s purpose is to promote research in the areas of applied linguist - tics, for example language learning, language teaching, language use and language planning, to publish the results of this research and to promote international and interdisciplinary cooperation in these areas. (Article 2 of the AILA Statutes 1964)

B.       A PERSONAL ACCOUNT

Language learning and language teaching are ‘problems’ because they are so often ineffectual. The temptation is always to seek new and therefore ‘better’ methods of teaching, better methods of learning. Such an unthought-through solution results from faulty diagnosis, which itself derives from a lack of objectivity.

The informal foreign language learner who is not making progress is all too easily persuaded that what is needed is to change the methods of learning. And that is also true in formal instruction where the teacher becomes dispirited because the methods in use are not working. Again the solution is to change the method.

C.      APPLIED LINGUISTICS AND INSTITUTIONAL PROBLEMS

The starting-point is typically to be presented with an institutional language problem. The purpose of the activity is to provide relevant information which will help those involved understand the issues better; in some cases on the basis of the information it will be possible to offer a solution to the problem. More likely is an explanation of what is involved, setting out the choices available, along with their implications. In earlier chapters we have discussed some of these language problems and indicated certain of the choices that would face those interested in finding a solution. We have suggested that if they are to contribute to a solution, all choices must be fully informed by the local context.

D.      OPTIMUM AGE

One approach to the optimum age question has been the appeal to the sensitive age or critical period view: this view considers that developments in the brain at puberty change the way in which we learn. Before puberty we acquire languages (one or in a bilingual setting two or more) as native speakers. After puberty we learn in a more intellectual manner as second- or foreign-language speakers. This idea, based on the sensitive or critical period hypothesis, if true (and it has been difficult to refute), would support a universal optimum age for starting a second or foreign language, namely as early as possible, in order to allow for possible acquisition as a native speaker.

Research into second-language learning suggests that there may be no optimum age since adults can learn as efficiently as children and indeed more quickly. What matters are local conditions. To illustrate the applied linguist’s insistence on the need to take account of local conditions I refer to three very different contexts: an Australian private girls’ school; the Nepal government school system; and French immersion in Canada.

·      Presbyterian Ladies Collage (PLC)

The situation of a private girls’ school, with its own primary and secondary departments, where there is keenness to learn French and resources are ample is on the face of it an ideal setting for the critical period to operate. It appears not to. For the applied linguist this is a problem that invites explanation and that neatly combines theoretical interest and practical involvement.

·      English teaching in Nepal

Making decisions about English teaching in Nepal is more than a language problem. What the applied linguist is able to do is to clarify the choices and explain the parameters of those choices, what the implications are of starting English at different ages. In this local context (as in any other) there is no one general recipe (such as the critical period) that can be served up to determine the way forward.

·      Immersion language teaching

Canadian immersion programmes of various types (early total, early partial, late partial, beginning in Grade 8) have all been shown to be successful in terms of their objectives. But they require the presence of four factors:

1. The parents of the students need to be involved in establishing and ensuring the continuation of the immersion programme.

2. The immersion students (and their parents) must be members of the majority community in the local bilingual setting.

3. Both students and their parents must have a positive attitude towards the target language and its speakers.

4. The immersion programme must be optional.

·      Factors relevant to the problem

The range of factors taken into account was hinted at above in our discussion of the optimum age for starting a second/foreign language in an Australian secondary school. In relation to that school they include:

1. the educational

2. the social and sociolinguistic

3. the psychological and psycho-linguistic

4. the anthropological and cultural

5. the political

6. the religious

7. the economic

8. the business  aspect

9. the planning/policy aspect

10. the linguistic

·      Doing applied linguistics: the process

As in any applied profession (e.g. general medicine) the data are not necessarily collected or analyses by the same person: applied linguistics has its own specialism which provide for professional expertise where necessary. Thus there are within applied linguistics those who specialize in pedagogic grammar, curriculum planning, applied sociolinguistics, programmer evaluation, language testing, language-teacher training, second-language acquisition research, applied stylistics, language planning for education, computer-assisted language learning, language-teaching method- logy, language in the workplace, languages for specific purposes, bilingualism, cross- cultural communication, clinical applied linguistics, forensic language studies, and so on. In addition there are textbook writers, lexicographers, interpreting and translating specialists, as well as theoretical and descriptive linguists, whose advice and expertise may be called on.

E.       FACTORS RELEVANT TO THE  ELTS EVALUATION

There are some factors that relevant to the ELTS evaluation, They are :

1.      Educational (including the psychometric) factors

2.      Social (and its interface with the linguistic and sociolinguistic) factors

3.      Psychological (and its interface, the psycholinguistic) factors

4.      Anthropological factors (for insights on cultural matters)

5.      Political factors

6.      Religious factors

7.      Economic factors

8.      Business factors

9.      Planning/policy (including the ethnical) factors

10.  Linguistic and phonetic factors

F.             INVESTIGATING THE PROBLEMS : THE METHODOLOGY OF APPLIED  LINGUISTICS

The four areas are:

1.      Second-language acquisition research

Starting then from a problem, what error means, SLA research has developed its study of the learner’s language (or ‘interlanguage’) into the most abstract of applied- linguistic projects (Birdsong 2004). So much so that applied linguists (not just language teachers) have begun to query what the current paradigm has to offer to the understanding and improvement of communication, which we have suggested is the overall aim of applied linguistics.

2.      Language proficiency testing

What language proficiency testing is about is the setting of appropriate targets for and in appropriate quantities. The applied linguistic interest in language proficiency testing is now central but that was not always the case. What has become clear over the last thirty years is the role of the test in encapsulating both what the learner needs to know for a particular purpose and what amount of that knowledge counts as success. This is a major contribution both to the practice of language learning and teaching, and to the theoretical understanding of language learning and language need.varying levels and uses of language. Such tests aim to provide the rigours of test guidelines, while ensuring that the right kinds of language behaviour are included

3.      Teaching of LSP

Richards et al. (1985) define LSP thus:

Second or foreign languages used for particular purposes and restricted types of communication (e.g. for medical reports, scientific writing, air-traffic control) and which contain lexical, grammatical and other linguistic features which are different from ordinary language … In language teaching decisions must be made as to whether a learner or groups of learners require a language for general pur - poses or for special purposes.

4. Curriculum design

According to Richards, Platt and Platt (1985), curriculum design (also curricu - lum development) refers to: the study and development of the goals, content, imple - mentation, and evaluation of an education system. In language teaching, curriculum development (also called syllabus design) includes:

1. the study of the purposes for which a learner needs a language (needs analysis);

     2. the setting of objectives, and the development of a syllabus, teaching methods and materials; and

3. the evaluation of the effects of these procedures on the learner’s language ability.

G.           EDUCATIONAL LINGUISTICS

  Spolsky writes in his editor’s Introduction to the 1999 Pergamon Concise Encyclo- pedia of Educational Linguistics that educational linguistics was: 

a term modelled on educational psychology and educational sociology. It describes the commingling of an academic discipline (linguistics) with a practical academic profession (education). While it maintains the higher status for the academic field through using it as the head of the noun clause, it rejects the notion that linguistics is just waiting to be applied, as a hammer is waiting for a nail to drive it in. Rather, the use of the term asserts the need for a careful consideration of the educational side as well, producing a responsible new field. [Its task] is to define the set of knowledge from the many and varied branches of the scientific study of language that may be relevant to formal or informal education … [T]he term also includes those branches of formal or informal education that have direct concern with the language and linguistic proficiency of learners. (Spolsky 1999: 1)

Bibliography 

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 Hilda Kebeya (2013).  Inter- and Intra-Sentential Switching: Are they really Comparable?. nternational Journal of Humanities and Social Science   Department of English & Linguistics Kenyatta University