Roll no:34
Subject: English Language teaching(ELT)
Topic: Language Awareness by Leo Van Lier
Submitted to S.B. Gardi Department of English
Year: 2015-17, MA sem-3(part-2).
Language awareness by leo van lier
Introduction:
Language awareness has been conceptualized in several different ways. In
round table discussion in the UK in 1982 it was defined as a person’s sensitivity
to and conscious awareness of the nature of language and its role in human
life’(Donmall 1985: 7). Van Lier (1995:xi)defines it similarly as “an
understanding of the human faculty of language and its role in thinking, learning,
and social life”. These definitions are quite broad and accommodate various
interpretations and practices. In this review I look at the most common ways in
which language awareness has been understood
in the past ,the ways in which it is currently being interpreted , practiced
and promoted.
Background:
The concept of
language awareness is not new. Language awareness proponents have always firmly
opposed a view of language learning (both first and second) that focuses on
prescriptive instruction and is concerned primarily with correctness, and only
secondarily with understanding, appreciation and creative expression.
In US
language awareness, especially in the English language ( first language) education of college students, has been conducted through
the study of texts examining language from a variety of perspectives, including
literary, political, cultural and everyday uses. In more current interest in
language awareness stems largely from three sources: first, a practical,
pedagogically oriented language awareness such as that of the language
awareness movement in UK, ; second a more psycholinguistic focus on
consciousness- raising and explicit attention to language form; and, third, a
critical , ideological perspective that looks at language and power, control
and emancipation.
The Language awareness movement in the UK
The language awareness movement of the early
1980s in the UK followed a period of intense debate about the role of language
in education, spurred on by the influential report of a national commission (Department
of education and science 1975), and the work of linguists and educators
including Douglas Barnes, Michel Halliday, Lawrence Stenhouse and Harold Rosen.
In 1982 the national council on language in
education (NCLE) set up a language awareness working party, which formulated
the definition mentioned in the introduction. The NCLE Initiative, chaired by
john trim and later john Sinclair, led to several developments. In 1986 a
National Consortium of centers for language awareness (NCcLA) was set up by
Gillian Donmall which promoted a range of innovative activities.
In
1992 an association for language awareness was founded that has since had
conferences in wales, England, Ireland and Canada, and produced an
international journal called language awareness.
A number
of publications have established language awareness as an active area in
educational linguistics. Some of these publications are discussed in the next
section, but it is worth mentioning the pioneering work of Eric Hawkins (1987a,
1987 b). Hawkins also produced a series of booklets for secondary school
students (described in Hawkins 1987a). A more overtly critical language
awareness stance is illustrated in a series of small secondary school books
published in south Africa (Janks 1993), and in a resource book produced for
students and teachers in multilingual and multiethnic schools in London(ILEA
1990)
Another major initiative was the
language in the National Curriculum(LINC)project directed by professor Ronald Carter, which
produced materials for teacher education and was commissioned by the British
government, only to be rejected as soon as it was completed for not
sufficiently addressing basic grammar and correctness. It took a critical
approach to language which displeased the then Conservative government.
Nevertheless, the materials have had a significant impact as a publication of
the University of Nottingham (Carter 1990,1997;Donmall-Hicks1997).
Consciousness-raising, Focus on forms and various
approaches to explicit teaching and metalinguistic awareness:
Many researchers and teachers argue that awareness, attention and
noticing particular features of language adds to learning. In 1981, Sharwood
Smith published an influential article proposing that the teaching of formal
aspects of language need not necessarily proceed by rules and drills, but can
be done by judiciously highlighting relevant aspects of language (Sherwood
smith 1981, 1994).
Second
language (L2) learners regularly have misconception about the target language;
e.g. they may misuse a lexical item due to its similarity to their first
language (L1) or because of the context in which they learned the word. By
making explicit this problem, L2 learners’ knowledge of their own language can
be similarly used to raise conscious awareness about features of the target
language.
Language Awareness assumes that some form or level of awareness about
linguistic use, knowledge and learning is beneficial for learners. There are
widely varying opinions of how such awareness can be brought about. At the
traditional end this might include explicit teaching of form, metalinguistic
rules and terminology. However, most advocates of language awareness question
the effectiveness of the explicit teaching of prescriptive grammar and warn
against a return to the ‘ The ghost of
the grammar past’ (Donmall 1985). Currently, more inductive and implicit ways
of focusing on form generally preferred, and it is usually regarded as
essential that a focus on form must derive from a focus on meaning and context.
In this sense, Long (1996) distinguishes a focus on form within a meaningful
context from a focus on forms when teaching is driven by grammatical items.
Critical perspectives on language and discourse:
According to Clark and Ivanic, the purpose of
critical language awareness is to ‘present the view that language use is part
of a wider social struggle and that language education has the opportunity to
raise learners’ awareness of this’(1997: 220). As such, the target audiences of
critical work in classrooms are often discriminated minorities or otherwise
disenfranchised populations, i.e. ‘children from oppressed social groupings’.
However, Janks points to frequent ‘slippage’ from awareness or critical
literacy to ‘emancipation’, and warns that claims for the empowerment of
learners need to be further researched. In addition, both learners from
privileged and oppressed backgrounds need a critical perspective on the
circumstances and mechanisms of inequality.
Research:
The approaches to language
awareness discussed above have led to a variety of research efforts, although
researchers active in this field agree that solid evidence of the success of
the language awareness is rather scarce. Garrett and James report a number of
classroom-based studies illustrating diverse aspects of language awareness, but
few report solid research findings. Indeed, Garrett and James’s chief message
is a call for research showing evidence of the benefits of language awareness.
They discuss the research agenda in terms of five interdependent domains:
affective (including attention and curiosity), social, power, cognitive and
performance.
In the Realm of
affective and other individual factors, researchers have looked at attention
and focusing (Schmidt 1995; N. Ellis 1995a), and the relationships between implicit and
explicit learning (N.Ellis 1994). Schmidt (1994b) reviews much of the
experimental research in this area, and concludes that attention to input is a
necessary condition of learning, at the very least for explicit learning and
probably also for implicit learning, i.e. learning that occurs unconsciously
and automatically.
One of the claims of
proponents of language awareness is that drawing attention to and working with
interesting and meaningful manifestations of language enhances motivation and
positive attitudes to language and language learning. So far the evidence for
this is largely anecdotal, based on reports of action research in elementary schools
(Bain et al.1992) and teacher development (van Lier 1996; Wright and Bolitho
1997). Similarly, the reasonable expectation that a greater awareness of
language fosters a better understanding of speakers of other languages and
dialects, and thus might enhance inter-group relations, awaits confirmation by
research studies(Wolfran 1993).
Practice
The preceding section was dominated
by the familiar theme in our field that ‘further research is needed’. Fortunately
, the teacher interested in the practical side of language awareness can find a
large number of useful tips, examples and descriptive accounts. In this section
some of the resources that are available are introduced without distinguishing
between different age or proficiency levels, nor between formal, ludic (playful)
or critical language awareness work. The interested teacher or teacher educator
can use published examples as ideas for the development of suitable activities
for specific classes and contexts. In addition, there are many ideas available
outside educational settings that can be enormously productive, such as puzzle
and word-game publications available at newsstands.
Most work in language awareness is
inductive. This means that, using data provided or collected, leaners observe
and analyze patterns of interest and come up with descriptions or tentative
rules, usually in group work. In most cases the data are from authentic
sources, the learners’ environment, the internet or elsewhere. In my own work I
have used field work conducted by learners as data, e.g. by asking learners to
bring examples of target language use to class, written down on 3x5 cards that
I collected as ‘entry tickets’(van lier 1996). Although field work and data
collection are easiest in L2 environments, most foreign-language environments
should also allow for such work, particularly if the internet and its
inexhaustible resources are used well. Teachers can also use concordancers with
authentic texts in order to raise awareness of grammatical, stylistic, and
lexical features (Johns and King1991).
Awareness – raising itself is not
sufficient. It must be integrated with action/collaboration and with
reflection/interpretation/analysis. Thus, one possible approach is a
progression from perception to (inter)action to interpretation and so on, in
cyclical and spiral fashion.
Current and future trends and
directions:-
There is a perpetual tension in
language teaching between form and meaning, and the pendulum swings back and
forth. Thus, the recommendations made by the LINC project in the UK were soon
followed by a call for a return to teaching proper (i.e. Prescriptive) grammar.
Similarly, the enthusiasm for the whole language approach to literacy in the US
has recently been replaced by a backlash demanding a phonics approach(Goodman
1997), and in some school districts in California even calling for an explicit
ban on the use of whole language methodology.
There is no reason to
expect that this pattern will disappear at the start of the twenty-first
century, although one hopes that certain gains will endure. An increasingly
important role for perception (including awareness, attention and focusing) in
language learning is predicted along with a realization that perception and
action go hand in hand. The use of authentic resources will continue to favour
inductive approaches to the integration of formal and functional aspects of
language.
In terms of research there
is likely to be a growing role for contextualized research such as case
studies, action research and classroom observation studies. A number of
researchers are now looking at complexity theory for ideas to develop rigorous
procedures for researching learning processes in intact complex settings (Larsen-freeman1997b;Van
Lier1998a).
In the last two decades, language
awareness has created an identity that assures it a place within educational
linguistics. The variety of approaches and the opinions within language
awareness are a strength rather than weakness, since they allow for healthy
debate and act as incentives to explore different options, methods and
directions. Two particular areas that should gain in strength are concerted and
integrative approaches to language awareness across the curriculum, and a
strong push for language awareness in teacher education.
