Handbook of Research in Second Language Teaching and Learning

Volume III

Eli Hinkel

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781138859814
• eBook ISBN: 9781317508359
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Volume III of the Handbook of Research in Second Language Teaching and Learning, like Volumes I and II, is a comprehensive, state-of-the-art overview of current research into social contexts of second language (L2)/foreign language (FL) teaching and learning; language policy; curriculum; types of instruction; incremental language skills such as listening, speaking, reading, writing, vocabulary, and grammar; international communication; pragmatics; assessment and testing. It differs from earlier volumes in its main purpose—to provide a more in-depth discussion and detailed focus on the development of the essential language skills required for any type of communication: speaking, listening, reading, vocabulary, grammar, and writing.

Volume III preserves continuity with previous volumes in its coverage of all the classical areas of research in L2/FL teaching and learning and applied linguistics, but rather than offering a historical review of disciplinary traditions, it explores innovations and new directions of research, acknowledges the enormous complexity of teaching and learning the essential language abilities, and offers a diversity of perspectives. Chapter authors are all leading authorities in their disciplinary areas.

What's new in Volume III?

• Updates the prominent areas of research, including the sub-disciplines addressed in Volumes I and II, and represents the disciplinary mainstays
• Considers and discusses perspectives held by different schools of thought on the what, the how, and the why of teaching foundational language skills, including theories, pedagogical principles, and their implementation in practice
• Captures new and ongoing developments and trends in the key areas of L2/FL teaching and learning, and innovative research topics that have gained substantial recognition in current publications, including the role of corpora, technology, and digital literacy in L2/FL teaching and learning
• Examines new trends in language pedagogy and research, such as an increased societal emphasis on teaching academic language for schooling, somewhat contradictory definitions of literacy, and the growing needs for instruction in intercultural communication.

I
Social Contexts, Language Policy, and Language Learners

1
The Sociology of Language Teaching and Learning¹

John Edwards

Introduction

This handbook is concerned with second-language teaching and learning, and this chapter focuses upon the social settings in which these activities take place. My title, however, omits the word ‘second’ because I intend here to discuss elements of the broader picture of which second-language learning and teaching are a part. While the formal context of the classroom is the focal point here, it is worth mentioning at the outset that the teaching-learning nexus very often—most often, perhaps, if we were to approach the topic from broad temporal and geographic bases—arises outside the school gates. Considering the longstanding and ubiquitous efforts by which people have expanded their language repertoires in response to real-life pressures and requirements, one might object that extra-educational linguistic settings suggest learning much more than teaching. But this is only to restrict the latter to formal and regularized procedures, and neglects the obvious fact that there is always a ‘teacher’ of sorts for every language learner. One might then imagine that studying the language dynamics of the home, the streets, the market and the workplace could reveal elements profitably transferrable to narrower milieus.

One might imagine that… and one would be right, because the impulse is exactly what underpinned the beginning attempts, a couple of generations ago, to make classrooms more like the informal places in which people interact because of immediate necessity or desire. A great range of approaches—from ‘language laboratories’ prioritizing conversational skills over grammatical precision, to field trips, to immersion programs, to study terms abroad—can be seen as emanating from this impulse.² It seems so obvious now, and yet we recall that for a long time children in language classes had little or no exposure to the real social life of language. For most of them language learning was just another subject and, in the absence of any extracurricular activities (rare enough, and particularly so in anglophone settings), the results after years of formal study—after sustained emphasis on construal over conversation, on parsing over production—were entirely predictable.³

Language diversity in the classroom falls into several main categories. In many (perhaps most) contexts, they are not to be found in ‘pure’ form and do not exist as mutually exclusive types. There are classrooms with children who speak either ‘foreign’ languages or non-standard forms of locally dominant ones. A third variant introduces speakers of ‘foreign’ languages who learn and use, sometimes before coming to school, one of those local non-standard forms. A fourth classification—involving another sort of non-standard usage—is one that now emerges increasingly frequently in a world where English is becoming more and more globalized, but where its apparently permanent incursions are spawning sturdy local ‘Englishes.’ Teachers may expect to encounter more speakers of such ‘Englishes’ and, in the opinion of Ferguson (2006: 174), this will necessitate the replacement of ‘absolutist conceptions of what is proper and correct in language with greater flexibility and principled pragmatism regarding norms and models.’ To strengthen and broaden the point, one might add that any effect on linguistic ‘absolutism’ brought about by the presence of these variant ‘Englishes’ will also be beneficial where more indigenous non-standard forms are concerned. Two final categories reflect consciously specialized intentions: bilingual and immersion classrooms (each having variants along substantive, temporal and other dimensions).⁴

Attitudes, Motivation, Necessity

Approaches to teaching and learning that try to bring classroom practices a bit closer to those operating beyond the school gates are clearly on the right track. Attempting to replace decontextualized and often quite artificial environments with ones more related to ‘natural’ pressures and requirements is good. These attempts are easier in some settings than in others, and they imply degrees of relevance of favorable motivations and attitudes—although not always in immediately obvious ways.

Where social necessity is evident—consider, for instance, immigrants and their children in situations in which they must expand their language repertoire—classroom teaching is reinforced by extra-educational forces; in some instances, it may be driven by them. Conversely, where necessity is not a feature, schools act more in isolation and, needless to say, their task is much more difficult. These simple facts account for many of the disparities observed in the success of language teaching and learning. One need not be a Solomon to see that there are more difficulties teaching German in Nevada than in Nijmegen. In the Nevadas of the world (and there are many of them), the difficulty of creating an instrumental linguistic need means that favorable attitudes may become more important than in the Nijmegens; see also below, this section. Here, as already implied, schools have typically done a poor job. Traditional classes, with their emphasis upon grammar and writing skills, have often made the learning of languages a passive, receptive matter for students. This is hardly likely to induce in pupils any sense that learning German is a different sort of exercise than learning trigonometry or ancient history. It does nothing to reduce the artificiality of a classroom in which students (and often their teachers) routinely use a language which is neither the maternal variety nor one that can be put to any immediate use. It is neither an extension of the way first languages are acquired, in which communication is stressed and where grammatical refinements come afterwards, nor a representation of normal, interactive conversation. Language learning at school will always either benefit from externally imposed necessity or suffer for the lack of it.

The perceived importance of language attitudes and motivation, reinforced by the enduring difficulties in encouraging and maintaining interest in many classroom settings, have led to a specialist literature on language attitudes; Garrett (2010) provides an excellent broad-brush treatment, and the collection edited by Dörnyei and Ushioda (2009) focuses more particularly on language-learning matters. Throughout this literature, the general point is that favorable attitudes contribute to the ease and depth of language acquisition. The specific point is that the more such attitudes can be created and/or sustained in the classroom, the better. While a great deal of consideration has been given to the varied forms that motivation may take, to the ways in which it can best be encouraged, and to its intertwinings with other personal and social factors, acceptance of its centrality has become the received wisdom among many scholars. As Gass and Selinker (2008: 426) point out, ‘motivation appears to be the second strongest predictor of [language-learning] success, trailing only aptitude.’ This implies continuing difficulties for formal teaching and learning contexts. At the very best, after all, schools can never be more than restricted microcosms of wider society; classrooms can never become streets.

It is many years ago now that Macnamara (1973) appeared to take the contrary view, that attitudes were of little importance in language learning. His argument remains succinct and noteworthy, as well as one that is insufficiently borne in mind. It reminds us that language learning frequently occurs outside the academic precinct. It is instructive even where it errs.

Macnamara first noted that necessity may overpower attitudes: someone who moves from Birmingham to Berlin will probably learn German. Confirmation of this common-sense observation was found in the report of a large-scale Irish survey: the use of that language was more associated with ability than with attitudes (Committee on Irish Language Attitudes Research, 1975). As I commented shortly afterwards, this suggests that attitudes may often assume significant importance only after some minimal competence has been achieved, and not before (Edwards, 1977), and that, in ‘real-life’ settings, attitudes may indeed be secondary elements in language learning. Macnamara’s second point also had to do with language learning in those larger settings. He cited the adoption of English by the Irish population, a massive 19th-century language shift not accompanied by favorable attitudes. (We might note here that, indeed, most historical changes in language use owe more to socioeconomic and political exigencies than they do to attitudes.) However, he acknowledged that explanatory room could be made for attitudes of a sort: not intrinsically favorable postures but, rather, ones arising from perceptions of practical necessity. For example, while many mid-19th-century Irish people disliked English and what it represented, they also grudgingly realized its utility. No ‘integrative’ motivation, then, to cite a term popularized by Gardner and Lambert (1972), but a reluctantly instrumental one.

A useful distinction may be made between attitudes that are favorable and those that are unfavorable but positive (Edwards, 1983). A positive position is, stricto sensu, one of certainty or assurance: it need not be pleasant or desirable. To stay with the Irish example, while bearing in mind that the essential element here is widely applicable, one might say that general opinions of the English language, and general attitudes towards learning it, were positive and instrumental but not favorable (and certainly not integrative).

A final strand in Macnamara’s assessment brings us back to the classroom. He made the familiar point that language learning at school has traditionally been an unreal and artificial affair, an undertaking in which communication is subordinate to an appreciation of language as an academic subject. It was this lack of communicative purpose, and not children’s attitudes, that he felt accounted for their poor language competence. However, while it is clear that a great failing in language classrooms has been the absence of any realistic usage, it does not follow that attitudes are necessarily of small importance. To repeat: the argument that the classroom is an ‘artificial’ context may reflect a condemnation of traditional approaches, but it does not of itself indicate that attitudes are trivial. In fact, attitudes may take on quite particular importance precisely because of the disembodied nature of the traditional classroom. That is, if a context is not perceived as pertinent to real life, or does not arise from necessity, then attitudes may make a real difference.⁵

With even a minimal sense of the interactions among attitude, motivation and perceived necessity, it becomes easy to understand the major problems associated with teaching and learning foreign languages in ‘big-language’ contexts and, conversely, the relative lack of them among speakers of ‘smaller’ varieties. Both relative ease and difficulty are importantly related to contextual conditions having to do with power and dominance. This explains why so many anglophones (for instance) are monolingual; it also explains, incidentally, why the vast majority of second-language learners are learning English. In a world made increasingly safe for anglophones, there is less and less reason (or so it seems to many) to learn other languages. Swaffar (1999: 10–11) made some suggestions ‘to help foreign language departments assume command of their destinies,’ and the usual suspects were pedantically rounded up: a redefinition of the discipline (‘as a distinct and sequenced inquiry into the constituents and applications of meaningful communication’), more emphasis upon communication and less upon narrow grammatical accuracy, the establishment of standards, models and common curricula (for ‘consistent pedagogical rhetoric’), and so on. These points are all very laudable but hardly unfamiliar and—more bluntly—not very useful. It has always been difficult to sell languages in Kansas: wherever you go, for many hundreds of miles, English will take you t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Part I Social Contexts, Language Policy, and Language Learners
• Part II Curriculum and Instruction
• Part III Listening and Speaking
• Part IV Literacies, Reading, and Writing
• Part V Vocabulary and Grammar
• Part VI International Communication and Pragmatics
• Part VII Assessment and Testing
• List of Contributors
• Index