TO FOREIGN LANGUAGE EDUCATION
Date: 2015-10-07; view: 489.
LECTURE 4 – CONTRIBUTIONS OF OTHER DISCIPLINES
Aims & objectives:
· To introduce some of the scientific disciplines, which contribute to the development of FLT.
· Students should be able to define and identify the scopes of interdisciplinary sciences and language studies such as Linguistics, Education, Psychology, Sociology, Psycholinguistics, Sociolinguistics, Applied Linguistics, Educational Psychology, etc
Key terms:
Linguistics, Psychology, Sociology, Psycholinguistics, Sociolinguistics, behaviourist, cognitive,
Brief summary:
· Contributions of Other Disciplines to Foreign Language Teaching
Foreign language education has been evolving in new directions under the influence of research in certain social sciences that emerged relatively recently as a result of interdisciplinary approaches in science and education. The interaction between foreign language education and linguistics, and further interaction between linguistics and the other scientific disciplines such as psychology, sociology, anthropology, history caused the emergence of new disciplines such as psycholinguistics (and neurolinguistics), sociolinguistics, anthropological linguistics, historical linguistics, the philosophy of science and language, computational linguistics, mathematical linguistics. These disciplines have had significant impact on the nature and methods of foreign language teaching and learning.
The linguistics training which is sufficiently broad to include knowledge about the formal, functional, pragmatic, and sociolinguistic aspects of language is important for language teachers. The early contribution of Linguistics to foreign language teaching can be viewed in Structural linguistics which when combined with the behaviourist theory of learning led to the development of the audio-lingual method. For instance, Chomsky's “linguistic revolution” in the late 60's and the introduction of ‘universal grammar' (UG) was an influential contribution of Modern Linguistics to foreign language teaching. Chomsky's emphasis on linguistic competence greatly stimulated the development of the related disciplines of psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics.
Another significant interdisciplinary contribution to contemporary foreign language teaching and to CLT in particular, can be found in the theory of communicative competence proposed by the sociolinguist, Dell Hymes in the early 70's.
| TABLE 1-1 Linguistic-Psychological Parallels | ||
| SCHOOLS OF PSYCHOLOGY | SCHOOLS OF LINGUISTICS | CHARACTERISTICS |
| Behavioristic | Structural Descriptive | Repetition and reinforcement Learning, conditioning Stimulus - response Publicly observable responses Empiricism Scientific method Performance Surface structure Description - "what" |
| Cognitive | Generative Transformational | Analysis and insight Acquisition and insight Acquisition, innateness States of consciousness Rationalism Process Mentalism, intuition Competence Deep structure Explanation - "why" |
Questions:
· What is the subject of ‘Sociolinguistics'? What are the contributions of ‘Sociolinguistics' to foreign language teaching?
· What issues does ‘Psycholinguistics' involve? What are the contributions of ‘Psycholinguistics' to foreign language teaching?
· Which scientific discipline(s) that contributed to the evolution of foreign language teaching studies subjects such as ‘discourse analysis', ‘concept of language universals', ‘grammar & lexicon', ‘surface vs. deep structure of language'?
Conclusion:
Some of the paradigmatic contributions of significant interdisciplinary aspects of science and scientific disciplines to the development of foreign language teaching approaches and methods have been reviewed in this lesson. Interdisciplinary approaches continue to influence foreign language teaching. In a recent study* (Bayyurt, 2013) for instance, the position and significance of sociolinguistics in foreign language education is examined along three dimensions: attitudes towards learning a foreign language, inclusion of culture in foreign language lessons, and the contribution of language planning to foreign language education.
*The Journal of Language Teaching and Learning, 2013–1, 69-78
Recommended reading:
Bayyurt, Y. (2013) The Journal of Language Teaching and Learning, 2013–1, 69-78, available at http://www.academia.edu/2507617/Current_Perspectives_on_Sociolinguistics_and_English_Language_Education
Brown, H.D. in Richards, J., & Rodgers, T. (2001). Approaches and methods in language teaching (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp 9-18
Harmer, Jeremy (2007) The Practice of English Teaching. Pearson Education Limited. pp 62-80
Supplementary materials:
(Handouts _+__ Visuals___ PPT presentations___ Videos____ )
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