scholarly journals The Editor’s Note: A love-hate affair with language

2020 ◽  
Vol 101 (5) ◽  
pp. 4-4
Author(s):  
Rafael Heller
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Instruction ◽  
Foreign Language Instruction ◽  
Bilingual Instruction ◽  
New Research

Debates about children’s language development, bilingual instruction, and foreign language instruction have swung back and forth, with many of the same arguments being made across the decades. Yet new research continues to inform our understandings of language and how best to use it and instruct students in its use. Rafael Heller encourages Kappan readers to consider how they and others use language.

Tweetalige Ontwikkeling en Tweetalig Onderwijs

2011 ◽  
Vol 86 ◽  
pp. 61-70
Author(s):  
Rick de Graaff ◽  
Sharon Unsworth ◽  
Sophie ter Schure
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Bilingual Education ◽  
Teaching Practice ◽  
Research Policy ◽  
Language Instruction ◽  
Foreign Language Instruction ◽  
Afternoon Session ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Future Policy ◽  
New Research

The topic of bilingualism in education continues to generate much debate. Issues under discussion include for example how best to support the Dutch language development of multilingual children and how to successfully implement bilingual secondary education and early foreign language instruction. This paper reports upon the symposium Bilingual Acquisition and Bilingual Education which brought together key players in this debate from the fields of research, policy and teaching practice to exchange ideas and insights with a view to formulating recommendations for future policy on multilingualism as well as generating new research questions. In the morning session, the discussion concerned recent results from research on multilingual acquisition and education in a variety of contexts, and in the afternoon session, the focus lay on issues concerning policy and teaching practice. This report consists of a summary of the main issues discussed there and ends with a list of points for future attention.

THE POWER OF LANGUAGE AND THE LANGUAGE OF POWER

2020 ◽  
pp. 96-105
Author(s):  
Lyudmila A. Khalilova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Instruction ◽  
Educational Process ◽  
Foreign Language Instruction ◽  
Conceptual Approach ◽  
Analytical Skills ◽  
The People ◽  
Innovative Environment ◽  
A Chain ◽  
And Behavior

A language cannot be a simple template of human activity; a language is the history and culture of the people, their long and thorny road to civilization. The informative nature of a discourse will be insignificant if we only take into consideration the visible data of the text. The single viable way to carry out research on the mentality and behavior of the representatives of different cultures is to dig into the implication and the conceptual framework of the discourse. The author’s idea might be interpreted according to the background knowledge of the reader. Such an approach turns the text into a conglomerate of sense messages that reveal the power of the language and its inextricable link to the history, culture and civilization of the nation whose language the students learn. This notional “intervention” is akin to a chain reaction and the language develops into a means of power over a human being. The conceptual approach to a foreign language material helps improve students’ cognitive and analytical skills, turns the educational process into a particular type of an innovative environment, leads to motivation increase in a foreign language instruction.

Exploring young learners’ L2 development and perceptions of mixed-age and same-age peer interactions in EFL mixed-age classrooms

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomas Kos
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Peer Interactions ◽  
Language Instruction ◽  
Data Sources ◽  
Foreign Language Instruction ◽  
Young Learners ◽  
Multiple Data ◽  
L2 Development ◽  
Post Test ◽  
Mixed Age

Abstract Although foreign language instruction in mixed-age (M-A) is gaining popularity (Heizmann and Ries and Wicki 2015; Lau and Juby-Smith and Desbiens, 2017; Shahid Kazi and Moghal and Aziz 2018; Thurn 2011), the research is scarce. Drawing from multiple data sources, this study investigated to what extent do peer interactions among M-A and same-age (S-A) pairs aid L2 development and how students perceive their interactions. In this study, the same learners (N=24) aged between 10 and 12 interacted with the same and different age partners during common classroom lessons in two EFL classrooms. The results suggest that both S-A and M-A peer interactions aided L2 development. Although S-A pairs outperformed M-A pairs on the post-test, the results are not statistically significant. The analysis of students’ perceptions revealed that the majority of students prefer working in S-A to M-A pairs. In addition to age/proficiency differences, factors such as students’ relationships and perceptions of one’s own and partner’s proficiency greatly impact how they interact with one another.

scholarly journals Examining foreign language teaching and learning in Nepal: an ecological perspective

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Prem Prasad Poudel ◽  
Madan Prasad Baral
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Ecological Model ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
Language Instruction ◽  
Foreign Language Teaching ◽  
Foreign Languages ◽  
Foreign Language Instruction ◽  
Ecological Relationship ◽  
Language Teaching And Learning

Abstract In recent years, in Nepal, while some languages of the nation are on the verge of extinction, some foreign languages (such as Japanese, Korean, Chinese) are emerging as new attractions among the youths and adults and are widely taught in the marketplaces through the private sector initiative. Against this backdrop, in this article, we have examined the current foreign language teaching and learning situation drawing on qualitative empirical data obtained from the institutes involved in foreign language instruction in a city in Gandaki Province of Nepal. The data were collected from a survey in forty institutes, ten individual interviews and five focus group discussions. Drawing on the data, an ecological model was adopted, which focused on dynamic interaction, co-existence, and competition among languages, and findings were discussed in line with these aspects of ecological understanding. Findings revealed that learning foreign languages has been established as a conduit towards economic gains and opportunities for employment and education, which has largely been contributory towards reshaping the ecological relationship among the foreign languages in Nepal.

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