Translation in the UK language classroom

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katrina Barnes
Keyword(s):  
Secondary School ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Education ◽  
Foreign Languages ◽  
Creative Activity ◽  
Reading And Writing ◽  
Language Classroom ◽  
Language Classrooms ◽  
Dynamic Translation ◽  
The Uk

Abstract Pedagogical translation in UK secondary school language classrooms appears to have returned to favour after years of demonisation brought about by Grammar Translation pedagogy and the rise of L2-only approaches. This renewed interest is reflected in the recent inclusion of translation in the reading and writing sections of GCSE exams (taken by students in all countries within the UK except Scotland). However, there is still some uncertainty around how translation is perceived and utilised in the language classroom. What function has translation been thus far ascribed within language education? What could it be used to achieve? This article presents an overview of where translation currently sits within the secondary Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) landscape in the UK. It then examines how translation may be redefined as ‘dynamic’ and used as a communicative, creative activity to aid students with various aspects of their language learning. Examples of such activities are provided and explained. Finally, recommendations are made as to how to make Dynamic Translation accessible to students in future, namely through task-based translation projects and new forms of pedagogical translation assessment.

scholarly journals Ethnographic approaches to developing intercultural competence through intercultural interactions in the higher education context in China

2020 ◽  
pp. 11-36
Author(s):  
Yi’an Wang ◽  
Liyang Miao
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Intercultural Competence ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Language Education ◽  
Foreign Language Education ◽  
Language Classroom ◽  
Language Classrooms ◽  
Intercultural Interactions

With the recent developing trend of redefining ‘culture’ across disciplines in intercultural and foreign language education (Corbett, 2003; Shaules, 2007; Spencer-Oatey & Franklin, 2010), it is widely agreed that culture requires a broader definition to improve the teaching and learning of it. Wilkinson (2012) suggests “a redefinition of culture in anthropological rather than aesthetic terms” (p. 302) to ensure that intercultural and language learning leads to Intercultural Competence (IC). Others (Buttjes, 1991; Risager, 2006) also note the importance of anthropological conceptualization when culture is taught in foreign and/or second language classrooms, because motivation to learn the language is increased. Byram (1991) similarly emphasized the need to include active ‘cultural experience’ in the foreign language classroom, and provided examples including cooking and geography lessons, in which students learn about the food and geography of the country whose language they are studying. A crucial element in research within the anthropology field is ethnography. Thus, to achieve a fuller understanding of culture “as the full gauntlet of social experience that students of foreign languages both learn and participate in” (Wilkinson, 2012, p. 302), including Holliday's (2004) concept of ‘small culture’, students should take on the role of ethnographer too; ethnography practices, in a variety of forms, have become central to intercultural approaches to culture and language teaching and learning (Corbett, 2003).

Using Interactive Whiteboards to Teach Grammar in the MFL Classroom

2010 ◽  
pp. 216-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Bettsworth
Keyword(s):  
Secondary School ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Interactive Whiteboards ◽  
Interactive Whiteboard ◽  
Strong Preference ◽  
Foreign Languages ◽  
Visual Features ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Before And After ◽  
The Uk

The purpose of this study was to examine, from the pupil’s perspective, how effective the interactive whiteboard is in promoting understanding and retention of specific grammar points in the Modern Foreign Languages classroom within the secondary school sector. Fifty-eight pupils, in two parallel teaching groups, participated in the study over an eight-week period at a secondary school in the UK. The lessons were delivered entirely from the IWB, using a wide range of interactive features. Pupils completed a questionnaire designed to assess their perceptions of language learning before and after the study. In addition, six pupils from each of the groups were interviewed in more detail. The results of the questionnaires and interviews indicated a strong preference for IWB enhanced lessons, particularly where these related visual features of the IWB to elements of language. The results will inform future training within the languages department, and then within other teaching areas at the school.

scholarly journals Assemblage theory: coping with complexity in technology enhanced language learning

2019 ◽  
pp. 280-284
Author(s):  
Blair Matthews
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Complex Systems ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Assemblage Theory ◽  
The Social ◽  
Language Classroom ◽  
Language Classrooms ◽  
Theory Of Complexity

Language classrooms are complex systems, but theory often simplifies these processes making researching effectiveness difficult. Assemblage theory – a theory of complexity in the social sciences – allows us to examine complexity in the language classroom. In this paper, I present an account of the language classroom that captures the complexity, subjectivity, and temporality of technology enhanced language learning.

scholarly journals NATIONALLY ORIENTED FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING IN THE CONTEXT OF THE LINGUO-DIDACTIC PARADIGM OF THE 21ST CENTURY

2020 ◽  
pp. 37-48
Author(s):  
N. Zaichenko
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Foreign Language Learning ◽  
Language Education ◽  
Matter Content ◽  
Foreign Language Teaching ◽  
Foreign Languages ◽  
Practical Implementation ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Subject Matter Content

The article deals with modern views on the concept of “nationally oriented foreign language teaching”, presented in the linguo-didactic discourse of domestic and foreign scholars of the last decades. The author reveals and characterizes its evolution as one of the basic concepts of Russian and Ukrainian language education as foreign languages. It is found that they relate to the subject matter, content, and operational components of this phenomenon. There are significant changes in the views of scholars on taking into account students’ native language in teaching these languages by speakers of languages with different systems. There is a growing interest in didactic and linguistic data processing of the analysis of Chinese and Russian (Ukrainian) languages and their practical implementation. In terms of content, priority is given to culturally oriented and ethno-psychological aspects of mastering foreign language in a monocultural and multicultural educational environment. The innovative approach to this issue is also manifested in the increasing attention of researchers to the peculiarities of cognitive, mental and educational activities of Chinese-speaking students, formed by the national linguistic and methodological tradition, which is radically different from the national communicative and active lingvodidactic paradigm and needs appropriate methodological correction. Prospects for further study of the issues raised in our investigation are related to the research of a number of “new” terms in the terminological field of the basic concept of “nationally oriented foreign language learning”, as well as from the normative and codification side.

The Role of Social Networking Sites for Language Learning in UK Higher Education

2014 ◽  
pp. 1745-1764
Author(s):  
Billy Brick
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Social Networking ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Peer Review ◽  
Social Networking Sites ◽  
Language Education ◽  
Text Chat ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Uk Higher Education

This paper seeks to assess the potential for Social Networking Sites (SNSs) to play a role in language learning in the UK Higher Education (HE) sector. These sites are characterised by certain features including learning materials, synchronous and asynchronous video and text chat facilities, a peer review feature, and some sites also incorporate an award system, in the form of points (http://www.livemocha.com) or ‘berries' (http://www.busuu.com). This serves to motivate participants by rewarding them for their progress and for their peer review activities. In order to consider if, or how, to integrate SNSs into the UK HE curriculum it is important to consider the views of practitioners and learners towards such sites and whether they consider them to have a potential role in HE language education. The paper will report on the outcomes of two small research projects which have sought to establish the view of both practitioners and students towards SNSs in the HE context. When considered overall the practitioners were more positive about the site than the learners.

Hong Kong Literary Landscape: A MediaWiki for literary reading and writing

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leo F. H. Ma ◽  
L. M. Mak
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Secondary School ◽  
Secondary School Students ◽  
Language Education ◽  
Research Centre ◽  
Literary Reading ◽  
School Students ◽  
Reading And Writing ◽  
Junior Secondary School ◽  
Chinese University

For almost three decades, literary walk has been used by various education and public institutions in Hong Kong as an effective way to promote reading and writing to secondary school students. Funded by the Standing Committee on Language Education and Research of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government in 2013, the Hong Kong Literature Research Centre (HKLRC) of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Chinese University of Hong Kong Library (CUHK Library) jointly kicked off a two-year proposal entitled “Fun with Learning Chinese Language through Literary Walk” aimed at promoting literary reading and writing skills to junior secondary school students in Hong Kong. In this paper, the authors discuss a key deliverable of this project, the Hong Kong Literary Landscape MediaWiki, jointly developed by the HKLRC and the CUHK Library, which provides literary walk materials on the wiki platform including video clips, critically selected literary works, literary maps, creative writings of the student participants, and so on. Apart from the project participants, the Hong Kong Literary Landscape MediaWiki is also a useful tool for other secondary school teachers, students, and a wider group of audience in the Hong Kong community.

The Use of Weblogs in Language Education

2009 ◽  
pp. 274-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Raith
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Web 2.0 ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Foreign Language Learning ◽  
Language Education ◽  
Discourse Communities ◽  
The Social ◽  
Language Classroom ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter explores in how far Web 2.0, Weblogs in particular, has changed foreign language learning. It argues that Weblogs, along with Web 2.0, have created new genres for which users need new forms of literacy. A qualitative study on the relationship between the online audience of Web 2.0 and learners’ writing processes is presented and the findings are discussed. The study supports the assumption that learners are aware of the social interaction taking place through weblogs and that this awareness of audience influences the writing process. The author’s intention is to point out that Web 2.0 has created new communities of language practice and that foreign language learning is happening in these discourse communities through social interaction. The challenge in foreign language education is to integrate these communities of practice into the foreign language classroom.

“No” — A Case Study in Corrective Feedback in a Secondary Chinese Language Classroom in Australia

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
pp. 1032
Author(s):  
Xinxin Li ◽  
Hui Huang
Keyword(s):  
Secondary School ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Corrective Feedback ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Language Classroom ◽  
Grammatical Errors ◽  
Chinese Teacher ◽  
Chinese Teaching ◽  
Overall Effectiveness

Corrective feedback has been studied for decades in classrooms both for children and adults. Among different subjects, language learning, especially second language (L2) learning is one of the significant targets of corrective feedback studies. Compared to English and other European languages, however, Chinese as L2 classroom has get little attention. This paper investigates what types of corrective feedback (CF) a teacher of Chinese working at a secondary school in Melbourne provided to what kinds of errors made by students, and the effectiveness of each CF type. The data was obtained from 2 random lessons and the parts involving CF were transcribed to further analyze. The results suggest that Chinese beginners made more mistakes in pronunciation and vocabulary than in grammar, however, the teacher provided feedback to all of the lexical and grammatical errors, ignoring nearly half of the phonological mistakes. In addition, the overall effectiveness of CF was not satisfactory, especially for elicitations and recasts, which were used the most commonly by the teacher. Some pedagogical implications for Chinese teaching and Chinese teacher training are also provided.

Intersecting scapes and new millennium identities in language learning

2014 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 373-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Higgins
Keyword(s):  
Secondary School ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Identity Construction ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
Urban Residents ◽  
Language Classroom ◽  
Working Class Students ◽  
University Level

This paper examines how flows of people, media, money, technology, and ideologies move through the world, with attention to how these scapes (Appadurai 1990, 1996, 2013) shape identity construction among language learners, both in and out of classrooms. After illustrating intersecting scapes in sociolinguistic terms, I explore the relevance of these ideas to identity formation among language learners, using three case studies. First, I examine the mediascape of hip hop in the ideoscape of education in Hong Kong, where an ELT Rap curriculum was designed for working class students in a low-banded secondary school. Next, I discuss how the confluence of transnationals and cosmopolitan urban residents in Tanzania provides a range of identity options for learners of Swahili that challenge nation-state-based associations of language. Finally, I consider how learners’ engagement in anime and manga from the mediascape is taken up in an introductory university-level Japanese language classroom in Hawai’i. These examples demonstrate how individuals are increasingly learning and using additional languages in the contexts of cultural mélange and new identity zones.

scholarly journals Using peer assessment in the language classroom

2011 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 29
Author(s):  
Mayumi Asaba ◽  
Paul Marlowe
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Student Involvement ◽  
Peer Assessment ◽  
Foreign Language Learning ◽  
Teacher Assessment ◽  
Learning Context ◽  
Student Centered ◽  
Language Classroom ◽  
Language Classrooms

Abstract Educators often speak of creating student-centered classes that increase student involvement, responsibility, and motivation. Peer assessment, if thoughtfully implemented, can help promote these goals while supplementing and increasing the reliability of traditional forms of teacher assessment. This article first outlines reasons why and how peer assessment can be used in a foreign language learning context. Then it explains when and how to use peer assessment successfully in foreign language classrooms. Finally, it introduces six tips to consider when using peer assessment. 学生の授業参加を促し、責任感や動機を高める学習者中心のクラス作りは、しばしば教師たちの話題となる。相互評価を正しく行えば、従来の教師評価の信用性を高めると同時に、学習者中心のクラスを実現することも可能となる。本論では、まず外国語学習でなぜ、どのように相互評価が行われるかを概説する。次に、いつ、どのように効果的に相互評価を行うべきかを説明する。最後に、相互評価の際に留意すべき6点を紹介する。

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