Applied Linguistics to Foreign Language Teaching and Learning

Bessie Dendrinos

Description

The overall purpose of this course is to provide course participants with awareness, knowledge and skills related to the teaching and learning of languages, particularly to English as a foreign language inGreece as a member state of the European Union. Therefore, European language education policies and recommendations are taken into serious account. 

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Course Objectives
  • To demonstrate the relationships between theory and practice so that course participants may understand the underlying rationale of mainstream and alternative foreign language pedagogy. 
  • To introduce course participants to theories of language and theories of language learning which have influenced the development of current thought regarding foreign language teaching and learning practices and approaches to curriculum/syllabus design, to materials development and to the development of tools for the assessment of linguistic and communicative competence. 
  • To familiarize them with curriculum/syllabus documents for the teaching of English in Greek schools, with the national curricula for languages in other member states and with European language curricula guidelines. 
  • To enable them to evaluate teaching/learning approaches and methodology in relation to the pedagogic, the political and the social goals that these fulfill. 
  • To enable them to assess pedagogic aims and suggested classroom practices in connection with educational and language policy aims. 
  • To build a framework for conceptualising approaches to language teaching and learning that serve the needs of their prospective students operating in particular sociocultural contexts. 
  • To introduce them to recent methodological approaches to the teaching of English as a foreign language including experiential learning, differentiated instruction etc. 
Instructors

Bessie Dendrinos

Bessie Dendrinos completed her undergraduate studies at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in Greece, her postgraduate studies in the USA, at Claremont Graduate School and University Centre and at UCLA, and her postdoctoral studies in the U.K. (at the University of Cambridge). Mainly concerned with the discursive practices of TEFL and European educational language planning, she has carried out research in Greece and other European member states, particularly in England, Portugal and Spain. Her areas of expertise are language politics in the European Union and foreign language pedagogy, curriculum and materials development, as well as language testing and assessment. She has worked in the field of applied linguistics for language teaching and learning and, since the early 90s, she has been working in educational linguistics, but also in critical discourse analysis of language policy documents and foreign language teaching materials. Her keen interest in socially accountable applied linguistics has also led her to investigate linguistically construed gender ideology, the linguistic representation of poverty and the bureaucratic discourse in Greek public documents. Since 2002, she has devoted much of her time to developing a foreign language examination suite for six languages on the 6-level scale of the Council of Europe. The exams prepared by expert teams from the University of Athens and the University of Thessaloniki are conducted by the Ministry of Education, which issues the certificates of language proficiency. In 2004 she founded the Research Centre for Language Teaching, Testing and Assessment, which she has been directing ever since, and which is presently fully equipped and staffed. Since 2010, she has been very involved with two multidimensional projects, funded by the European Union and the Greek state, which are concerned with language teaching and assessment. She is also involved with the work of the DG EAC of the European Commission to promote multilingualism in Europe. 

Textbook

The Applied Linguistics Reader and Workbook. (2008). Athens: University of Athens. 

Bibliography
  • Brown D. (1994). Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. New York: Prentice Hall. 
  • Cook G. and Seidlhofer B. (1995) Principles and Practice in Applied Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University press. 
  • Council of Europe (2001). Common European Framework for Languages: Teaching, Learning and Assessment. 
  • Dendrinos, B. (1992). The EFL Textbook and Ideology. Athens: N.C. Grivas Publications. 
  • Dendrinos, B. (2001). The Politics of ELT. The University of Athens Publications. 
  • Johnson, K. (2001) An Introduction to Foreign Language Learning and Teaching. London and New York: Longman-Pearson Education. (Chapters 2-12) 
  • Kohonen, Viljo et al. (2001). Experiential learning in Foreign Language Education. London and New York: Longman-Pearson Education. 
  • Lantolf, J.P. (ed). (2000). Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 
  • Macedo, D., Dendrinos, B. & Gounari, P. (2003). The Hegemony of English. Boulder, Colorado: Paradigm Publishers. 
  • Morrow, K. (ed). (2004). Insights from the Common European Framework. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 
  • Papakonstantinou, A. (1991) Suggestopedia. An art of teaching, an art of living. Athens: Hellenika Grammata. 
  • Papakonstantinou, Α. (1997) Creating the Whole Person in New Age. Athens: A. Kardamitsa. 
  • Papaefthymiou-Lytra S. (1987a) Communicating and Learning Strategies in English as a Foreign Language with Particular Reference to the Greek Learner of English. Athens: University of Athens press 
  • Papaefthymiou-Lytra S. (1987b) Language, Language Awareness and Foreign Language Learning. Athens: Athens University Press. 
  • Papaefthymiou-Lytra S. (1990) Explorations in Foreign Language Classroom Discourse. Athens: Athens University Press. 
  • Richards, J.C. & Rodgers, T.S. (2001). Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 
  • Τοκατλίδου, Β. (2003). Γλώσσα, Επικοινωνία και Γλωσσική Εκπαίδευση. Αθήνα: Εκδόσεις Πατάκη. 
  • Willis, J. (1996). A Framework for Task-Based Learning, London and New York: Longman. 

Units

open box

  • What is linguistics?
  • What is the relation between linguistics and applied linguistics? How do they differ?
  • What is applied linguistics?
  • When did applied linguistics develop as an independent area of study?
  • What are the main areas of concern of applied linguistics?
  • What will this course focus on? How is this course organised?

Diamond

  • What is a method?
  • What are the components of a method?
  • What is an approach?
  • Overview of most well known methods in language teaching.
  • Do methods help teachers?
  • Problems with methods.
  • Is there a super method?

light bulb

  • The formalist/structuralist trend (Bloomfield and structuralism/Chomsky and formalism).
  • How has the formalist/structural theory of language affected foreign language teaching practices.
  • The functionalist trend (Hymes, Halliday).
  • How has functionalism affected foreign language teaching practices.

 

Plan

  • What kinds of knowledge does a language user need to have in order to use the language effectively?
  • What is competence and performance?
  • What is communicative competence?
  • What is declarative and procedural knowledge?
  • Is competence related to performance?
  • What is participatory and official knowledge?
  • What is our starting point in language course design?

Design

  • What is a curriculum?
  • What is a syllabus?
  • Defining characteristics of syllabi.
  • Organising principles of syllabi.
  • International perspectives on curriculum development and the Greek case.
  • The new Integrated Foreign Languages Curriculum.
  • Steps in designing a course.
  • Expressing objectives.
  • A priori and a posteriori syllabi.

Brain

  • The source of language learning theories.
  • Principles of Behaviourism.
  • Principles of Mentalism (Chomsky).
  • Principles of Cognitivism.
  • Principles of Constructivism.
  • Principles of Humanism.
  • Principles of Social Interactionism.
  • Comprehensible input and comprehensible output.

Person

  • Variables affecting language learning (affective variables: motivation and attitudes, personality variables: Introversion/extroversion, tolerance of ambiguity, inhibition/risk taking, cognitive variables: learning styles, intelligence, learning strategies).
  • Learner autonomy.

 

Arrow

  • The main principles of the communicative approach (background, goals, differences with the audiolingual method, structure of the lesson, principles of communicative activities, criticisms).
  • The main principles of task based language teaching (background, task, underlying principles, the task based lesson).
  • The main principles of the intercultural approach.

 

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