Factors in Targeting Proficiency Levels and an Approach to “Real” and “Realistic” Practice

1980 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-41
Author(s):  
Gail Guntermann
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Communicative Competence ◽  
The United States ◽  
Operational Definition ◽  
Teaching Profession ◽  
Coherent System ◽  
Course Content ◽  
Communication Events ◽  
Present Decade ◽  
Communication Needs

During most of the present decade the foreign-language teaching profession in the United States has devoted prodigious efforts to the creation and publication of classroom exercises to develop the learners' ability to communicate. While the resulting diversity of activities bears testimony to the ingenuity of foreign language educators, it also manifests the lack of a coherent system for specifying objectives and creating or selecting appropriate activities for practice. That ubiquitous term “communicative competence” has lacked an operational definition. The concept of functional syllabus design, founded on the identification of the sociolinguistic factors that comprise communication events, suggests some means to fill that void. Once the learners' communication needs have been ascertained, inventories of functions, notions, and keys should be valuable tools for selecting appropriate linguistic exponents and generally determining course content.

scholarly journals Teaching Computer Science with CLIL Methodology

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 64-73
Author(s):  
Olena Serhiivna Hrytsiuk ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Computer Science ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
The United States ◽  
Practical Significance ◽  
Topic Area ◽  
Course Content ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
National University ◽  
Learning And Collaboration

In this paper, methodological and organizational aspects of applying CLIL methodology in teaching computer science for students of universities are analyzed. It is shown that European countries, as well as the United Kingdom, the United States of America, and Canada, where part of the curriculum has been taught in a foreign language for several decades, are most actively introducing content and language integration and promoting an interdisciplinary approach to education. CLIL methodology features and benefits are identified, namely, a comprehensive focus, stimulating learning environment, authenticity, active learning, gradual learning and collaboration. The peculiarity of CLIL methodology is that its use requires a stable elementary skill in the grammar of a foreign language, as well as knowledge of subject-specific language. In accordance with various conditions, CLIL model can be presented in various forms: it can be a full course of a foreign language discipline, a module from a specific topic area, a part of any course, a project, a laboratory workshop, and a research, too. The paper presents a plan for computer science lectures and labs in a foreign language, which contains seven stages, each of which is performed in English. Integration of computer science and teaching in English at the Kremenchuk Mykhailo Ostrohradskyi National University is implemented using developed bilingual course program “Computer for beginners”. The course content includes a study of the material necessary for obtaining skills in using modern ICT and a personal computer using English glossary. Conclusions are drawn regarding conditions and principles of teaching computer science in a foreign language. The scientific novelty of the work is that for the first time a comprehensive analysis of the expediency of using CLIL methodology was carried out at the Kremenchuk Mykhailo Ostrohradskyi National University. The practical significance of the work is that its results can be used for further implementation of content and language integration in Ukraine universities. The development of new content and language integrated courses with CLIL methodology for teaching courses in a foreign language is considered promising.

Authentic Assessment: Evaluating the Saudi EFL Tertiary Examination System

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (8) ◽  
pp. 597
Author(s):  
Fahad Saleh Suleiman Alfallaj ◽  
Arif Ahmed Mohammed Hassan Al-Ahdal
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Classroom Practices ◽  
Communicative Competence ◽  
Authentic Assessment ◽  
Teaching Profession ◽  
Language Training ◽  
Examination System ◽  
Second Language Teaching ◽  
Curriculum And Pedagogy ◽  
Evaluation Patterns

As early as 1983, Rossi propounded that one of the issues of particular interest and development within the foreign and second language teaching profession is that of proficiency testing or the evaluation of a learner's level of linguistic and communicative competence. This still holds true. On the contrary our pilot study using the Question Paper Evaluating Checklists (included in this paper) indicates that all is not right with the designing of EFL question papers in Saudi Arabia though EFL assessment patterns in the KSA have undergone much change from the time that English was first introduced into the curriculum as a compulsory foreign language. It is the demand of time that evaluation patterns be evaluated on the touchstone of latest research and their relationship with classroom practices be established. This will help the learner-teacher combine to plug the loopholes in language training. In other words, we have to realise as educators that good assessment forms the basis of a wealth of learner information that has direct and indirect ramifications on curriculum and pedagogy. Hence the need to study this aspect of EFL in the light of modern literatures in order come up with constructive recommendations.

Bilingualism as a Resource in the United States

1985 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 10-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Björn H. Jernudd ◽  
Sung-Hwan Jo
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Foreign Language Learning ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Communication ◽  
Government Involvement ◽  
Private Incentives ◽  
Communication Needs ◽  
Market Solutions

This paper specifies characteristics of language as a resource and demonstrates that it is possible from the perspective of economics to make a case for government involvement in foreign language learning and maintenance of skills in the U.S.A. Market solutions based on private incentives to learn and maintain language skills alone fail to provide nationally optimal solutions to international communication needs. What is required is an alternative system which combines market with non-market incentives to foreign language learning and use.

Teaching Partners to Support Communication for Adults with Acquired Communication Impairment

2013 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura J. Ball ◽  
Joanne Lasker
Keyword(s):  
Practice Patterns ◽  
Communicative Competence ◽  
Communication Disorders ◽  
Communication Impairment ◽  
Communication Partner ◽  
Communication Partners ◽  
Selection For ◽  
Communication Needs ◽  
End Of Life Communication ◽  
Lateral Sclerosis

Abstract For adults with acquired communication impairment, particularly those who have communication disorders associated with stroke or neurodegenerative disease, communication partners play an important role in establishing and maintaining communicative competence. In this paper, we assemble some evidence on this topic and integrate it with current preferred practice patterns (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, 2004). Our goals are to help speech-language pathologists (SLPs) identify and describe partner-based communication strategies for adults with acquired impairment, implement evidence-based approaches for teaching strategies to communication partners, and employ a Personnel Framework (Binger et al., 2012) to clarify partners? roles in acquiring and supporting communication tools for individuals with acquired impairments. We offer specific guidance about AAC techniques and message selection for communication partners involved with chronic, degenerative, and end of life communication. We discuss research and provide examples of communication partner supports for person(s) with aphasia and person(s) with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis who have complex communication needs.

Klára Buzássyová V Kontexte Sémantizácie Slovenskej Lexiky Cudzincom

2018 ◽  
Vol 69 (3) ◽  
pp. 616-625
Author(s):  
Jana Pekarovičová
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Foreign Students ◽  
Summer School ◽  
European Language ◽  
Dynamic Changes ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
Current Trends ◽  
Communication Needs ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Slovak Language

Abstract This paper deals with the characteristics of the scientific research of the renowned Slovak linguist Klára Buzássyová who – as a lecturer at the Studia Academica Slovaca summer school of Slovak language and culture – presented to foreign students the specifics of Slovak lexis and their function in speech within the context of intraand interlingual relationships. In her lectures, she helped students to see Slovak as a developped and modern Central European language which has its own genetic and typological properties and as a language capable of reacting to dynamic changes emerging from the communication needs of language users while respecting current trends in European language policy. Klára Buzássyová presented students with the latest results of her linguistic research and discussed the issues regarding the dynamics of vocabulary with an emphasis on the methods of wordformation, motivation, and the impact on the semantic and stylistic value of lexical units. Her papers, published in the Studia Academica Slovaca proceedings from 1980 to 2001 presented her scientific orientation and became an inspiration for the linguistic and didactic conception of Slovak as a foreign language in the context of the development of Slovak studies in Slovakia as well as abroad.

Grammatical Competence within L2 Communication: Language Production, Monitor Hypothesis, and Focus on Forms Instruction

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Moh. Rofid Fikroni
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Language Production ◽  
Communicative Competence ◽  
Focus On Form ◽  
Grammatical Competence ◽  
Foreign Language Learners ◽  
Speaking Skill ◽  
Focus On Forms ◽  
Learning Language

Bearing in mind that the learners’ speaking skill had become the main goal in learning language, grammatical competence is believed to have a big role within foreign language learners’ language production, especially in spoken form. Moreover, the learners’ grammatical competence is also closely related to the Monitor Hypothesis proposed by Krashen (1982) in which it says that the acquired system will function as monitor or editor to the language production. The students’ monitor performance will vary based on how they make use of their acquired system. They may use it optimally (monitor optimal user), overly (monitor over-user), or they may not use it at all (monitor under-user). Therefore, learners’ grammatical competence has its own role, which is very crucial, within learners’ language production, which is not only to produce the language, but also to monitor the language production itself. Because of this reason, focus on form instruction will give a great impact for students’ grammatical competence within their communicative competence. This paper aims to present ideas about the how crucial the role grammatical competence within learners’ L2 communication.

scholarly journals Scientific Conferences as Way to Develop Students’ Foreign Language Communicative Competence

2018 ◽  
Vol 50 ◽  
pp. 01155
Author(s):  
Yuliya Savinova ◽  
Tatiana Akhmetzyanova ◽  
Svetlana Pozdnyakova ◽  
Ekaterina Dvorak ◽  
Zhanna Zarutskaya
Keyword(s):  
Critical Thinking ◽  
Student Engagement ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Communicative Competence ◽  
Thinking Skills ◽  
Critical Thinking Skills ◽  
Foreign Languages ◽  
Research Skills ◽  
High Level ◽  
Development Of Students

The issues of the student engagement in science-related activities and the development of students’ language communicative competence are especially relevant in a technical university, where due to the prevailing of the Sciences, the professional communicative competence has become increasingly vital. The goal of this article is to examine how interdisciplinary scientific conferences for students held in foreign languages can foster the foreign language communicative competence of students. In the article, we present the definition and the three basic models of communicative competence. A method of pedagogical observation is used that represents comprehension and analysis of goal-oriented preparation of students for practical scientific conferences. We reveal the fact that interdisciplinary scientific conferences for students held in foreign languages allow educators to foster the foreign language communicative competence of students and deepen their knowledge in professional area, as well as to equip them with research skills since students’ participation in the conferences increases their attention and focus, motivates them to practice critical thinking skills of high level.

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