Author: ucunn

Reading

and while we are at it, a last treat from my friend and colleague in Lodz, Ewa Waniek-Klimczak:

• Waniek-Klimczak, E. (2015). Correctness in pronunciation instruction: Teachers’ and learners’ views. Konińskie Studia Językowe, 3(1), 75-88.

Reading questions

Lots of reading this time, but choose what ever you find interesting and relevant to dig into. Here are some questions to help focus your reading. Feel free to comment below, join our live conversation (sign up below), and/or set up one of your own.

1. Pronunciation teaching has been called the Cinderella of language teaching. Do you agree that pronunciation teaching is not given enough attention? Why do/don’t you think pronunciation should have more focus in language teaching?
2. Going back to Nation’s Four Strands model of language teaching (re-view Tore’s presentation in the module on Grammar teaching if you need to refresh your memory on that), where would the teaching of pronunciation fit in. Is it only in the language-focussed strand, or is there a way to make pronunciation teaching more meaning-focussed.
3. What about the input and output side of it? Pronunciation has both a role for the speaker and for the listener. Can learners hear sound distinctions they cannot pronounce, and vice-versa?
4. Where do you yourself stand on the teaching of pronunciation? What is the role of “say after me” vs explicit teaching using phonetic symbols and terminology? How can we help learners notice sounds and sound combinations that they are mispronouncing?

Interview

In this module the interview is with two pronunciation teaching researchers who have not (yet) published together, Anna Jarosz and my colleague at the Department of Language Education at Stockholm University, Mara Haslam.

Live conversation

There was a live conversation about Teaching pronunciation on 26 August 2021.

Readings

In Sweden, the topic of the language learning that happens outside the classroom was brought to the attention of many teachers through Pia Sundqvist’s Ph.D. thesis:

Sundqvist, P. (2009). Extramural English matters: Out-of-school English and its impact on Swedish ninth graders’ oral proficiency and vocabulary (Doctoral dissertation, Karlstad University).

Well worth reading, or at least delving into parts of! Pia has continued her work in this area, and another open-access text:

Sundqvist, P. (2019). Commercial-off-the-shelf games in the digital wild and L2 learner vocabulary. Language Learning & Technology, 23(1), 87–113. https://doi.org/10125/44674

Hayo Reinders and Phil Benson, both based in Australia, are also key players in the field of Language learning beyond the classroom. This article from 2017 set out a research agenda:

Reinders, H., & Benson, P. (2017). Research agenda: Language learning beyond the classroom. Language Teaching, 50(4), 561-578.

Reading questions – feel free to comment on these questions, the readings, the interview or anything else relevant to the topic in the comments section at the end of this page

1. What is your own experience of language learning beyond the classroom, as a learner or as a teacher?
2. Do you recognise the aspects that Pia mentions in her article about learners’ vocabulary and their gaming habits?
3. Reinders and Benson point out that “classroom learners can also engage in language beyond the classroom”. Can teachers encourage this, or must the entire activity be learner initiated?

Interview

We are delighted to have had the opportunity to interview Pia Sundqvist herself about her work in the area of extramural English.

Pia refers to the work of James Paul Gee, e.g. Gee, J. P. (2007). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. Revised and updated edition. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. That is a book, and not available through open access, but Gee wrote this open access article which may be of interest:

Gee, J. P. (2013). Learning systems, not games. Texas Education Review, 1.

There was a live conversation about Language learning beyond the classroom on 30 September 2021.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

This module will be developed for Autumn 2021

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

In many language teaching contexts, teachers work hard to help their students to dare to use the target language for spontaneous communication. Classroom culture is very different across the world, and learners are often unused to speaking in class at all, let alone in a language they are learning. The perceived risk of losing face is one aspect of this. Another is teacher and student beliefs about how languages are learned.

Peter D. MacIntyre applied the term Willingness to communicate (WTC), referring to the intention to speak or to remain silent given free choice, to second language learning. Since then researchers have investigated the relationship between WTC and other relevant concepts, such as self-confidence, classroom environment, personality traits, language anxiety, perceived communicative competence and motivation.

Reading

Henry, A., Thorsen, C., & MacIntyre, P. D. (2021). Willingness to communicate in a multilingual context: Part one, a time-serial study of developmental dynamics. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 1-20.

Shirvan, M. E., Khajavy, G. H., MacIntyre, P. D., & Taherian, T. (2019). A meta-analysis of L2 willingness to communicate and its three high-evidence correlates. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 48(6), 1241-1267.

Khajavy, G. H., MacIntyre, P. D., & Hariri, J. (2021). A closer look at grit and language mindset as predictors of foreign language achievement. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 43(2), 379-402.

Reading questions

1. Is WTC different for learners of a third language than for learners of a second language? If so, is this related to their perceived communicative competence as suggested in Shirvan et al.’s article?
2. How is WTC affected by factors in a) the learners, b) the teaching, or c) the context?
3. How has the move to online teaching during the pandemic affected WTC?
4. What can language teachers do to help learners build WTC?
5. What is your experience as a language teacher or language learner of individual variation in WTC and its consequences?

Interview

 We are very happy to offer you an interview with Professor Alastair Henry from Högskolan Väst in Sweden, on the topic of his research into WTC and related matters.

During the interview Alastair mentions the work of Zoltan Dörnyei, specifically this book:

Dörnyei, Z. (2001). Motivational strategies in the language classroom. Cambridge University Press. It is not available as open access, but those with access to a Stockholm university account will find it as an e-book in the university library.

See also the second part of the research discussed in the interview:

Henry, A., Thorsen, C., & MacIntyre, P. D. (2021). Willingness to communicate in a multilingual context: Part two, person-context dynamics. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 1-16.

Please feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of this page.

Discussion

Share your thoughts about the reading and the interview in the forum at the bottom of this page. Feel free to respond to others when you have posted your own text. Please try to build on others’ responses. The discussion is moderated, so your text will not appear immediately.

You can fill in your email address and/or your name if you choose, or you can remain anonymous.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

The importance of vocabulary

Paul Nation (1994) wrote “Vocabulary is not an end in itself. A rich vocabulary makes the skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing easier to perform.” Generations of language teachers since have worked intensively with both incidental and intentional vocabulary development. This module offers some of Paul Nation’s work on vocabulary, as well as the work of Per Snoder and his collaborator Barry Lee Reynolds. Per is our colleague at the Department of Language Education at Stockholm University, and we are very happy to be working on an interview with him for this page.

Reading

Nation, P. (2014). How much input do you need to learn the most frequent 9,000 words? Reading in a Foreign Language, 26(2), 1-16.

Nation, P. (2015). Principles guiding vocabulary learning through extensive reading. Reading in a Foreign Language, 27(1), 136-145.

Snoder, P., & Reynolds, B. L. (2019). How dictogloss can facilitate collocation learning in ELT. ELT Journal, 73(1), 41-50.

Video

Compass Publishing shared this video of Professor Paul Nation talking in at a conference in 2013 about Dealing with Vocabulary in Class: Vocabulary and Intensive Reading

Reading and viewing questions

1. In the above video, Paul Nation talks about both extensive reading and intensive reading and the difference between them in terms of a) vocabulary development and b) the Four Strands. What do you think about the claim that intensive reading belongs to the Language-focussed strand rather than to the Meaning-focussed input strand?
2. Why is it important to focus on the most frequent words in the language, and how can this be done?
3. Why is it interesting to look at collocations? How can knowledge of a word’s collocations contribute to learners’ vocabulary development?
4. Dictogloss is a popular learning activity. Which of the four strands are involved in a dictogloss activity?

Interview

We had the pleasure of an interview with Dr. Per Snoder, first author of the article above. Enjoy the conversation, and please feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of this page.

Live conversation

Join us for a live conversation on this topic on Thursday 18 November at 16:00-17:00

Discussion

Share your thoughts about the reading and the interview in the forum at the bottom of this page. Feel free to respond to others when you have posted your own text. Please try to build on others’ responses. The discussion is moderated, so your text will not appear immediately.

You can fill in your email address and/or your name if you choose, or you can remain anonymous.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Reading

Siegel, J., & Siegel, A. (2015). Getting to the bottom of L2 listening instruction: Making a case for bottom-up activities. Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching, 5(4), 637-662.

Turan Öztürk, D., & Tekin, S. (2020). Encouraging extensive listening in language learning. Language Teaching Research Quarterly, 14, 80-93.

Reading questions – feel free to comment on these questions, the readings, the interview or anything else relevant to teaching listening in the comments section at the end of this page

1. The two articles deal with very different kinds of listening activities. Consider how these are relevant for your students.
2. What is the point of teaching listening?
3. Think about the way you yourself listen to material in a language you are not very proficient in. What helps you to understand the material? Possible answers may be: visual aids, seeing the text that is being read, seeing the face/lips of the speaker. How does this kind of listening develop the student’s proficiency in the target language?

Interview

For the Teaching Listening module, CIRCLE has the pleasure of sharing an interview with another colleague at Stockholm University, this time from the English Dept, Dr. Joseph Siegel.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Developing fluency in the target language, that is the ability to read, speak, write and listen to the language with ease for spontaneous communication, is the target of contemporary language teaching. But what can language teachers do to help learners develop fluency?

Reading

Paul Nation’s recent work has often been involved with helping learners to develop fluency in reading, writing and speaking. This involves extensive practice as well as an element of time pressure. The first article is from 2018, but based on a much older text from 1974. The second article by Tavakoli and Hunter suggests that teachers may not be working with fluency even when they think they are.

Take a look at the tips on reading research at the bottom of our landing page.

Quinn, E., Nation, I. S. P., & Millett, S. (2018). Asian and Pacific reading for EFL learners. Twenty passages written at the one thousand word-level. School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies. Victoria University of Wellington.

Tavakoli, P. & Hunter, A-M. (2018). Is fluency being ‘neglected’ in the classroom? Teacher understanding of fluency and related classroom practices. Language Teaching Research 22(3): 330—349.

Reading questions

You can write answers to these questions in the discussion forum at the bottom of this page

1. The text by Quinn, Nation, and Millet describes a set of activities that can be used as daily fluency training in reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Might this be worth doing with the learners you are familiar with? Could you use the twenty reading texts supplied, either directly or as inspiration for an activity of your own?
2. Tavakoli and Hunter write that their findings “highlight a mismatch between what fluency research recommends and what teachers do in class”, and that teachers conflate speaking proficiency and fluency. Comment on this (and any other aspect of the article) from the perspective of your own experience as a language teacher and/or learner.

Video

Take a look at Paul Nation’s lecture on Developing Reading Fluency (42 minutes) given for Compass Publishing in 2014.

Listen to Tore and Una in conversation about Teaching fluency

There was a live conversation about Teaching fluency on 7 June 2021.

Discussion

Share your thoughts about the reading and your answers to the fourth reading question in the forum at the bottom of this page. Feel free to respond to others when you have posted your own text. Please try to build on others’ responses. The discussion is moderated, so your text will not appear immediately.

You can fill in your email address and/or your name if you choose, or you can remain anonymous.

The subject plan for English teaching at upper secondary school in Swedish stipulates that teaching should, as far as possible, be in the target language, English. (This is not the case for English at lower levels, nor for other target languages.) This stems from an understanding that meaning-focused input is essential for language learning. The optimal use of the target language, the learners’ first language(s) and other languages by the teacher and students in a language class is controversial, and the topic of heated debate and fast-held conviction among teachers, students and researchers alike. In this module we look at some recent research which challenges the target language-only approach in foreign and second language classrooms.

Reading

Take a look at the tips on reading research at the bottom of our landing page.

Tammenga-Helmantel, M., Mossing Holsteijn, L., & Bloemert, J. (2020). Target language use of Dutch EFL student teachers: Three longitudinal case studies. Language Teaching Research. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362168820911195

Slaughter, Y., & Cross, R. (2021). Challenging the monolingual mindset: Understanding plurilingual pedagogies in English as an Additional Language (EAL) classrooms. Language Teaching Research, 25(1), 39–60. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362168820938819

Study questions

1. What is the context(s) of the research in each article?
2. What is the question each article is addressing?
3. What are the main findings of each article?
4. How are the articles relevant to or interesting for your own teaching?

Interview

We are very happy to be able to share our interview with BethAnne Paulsrud from Dalarna University in Sweden on the topic of how the teacher’s and learners’ linguistic resources can be used in the teaching of additional languages.

Online seminar

There was a Zoom seminar to discuss the topic of Target language only? on Monday 3 May 2021. Welcome to register for the next seminar on 7 June on Teaching Fluency!

Discussion

Share your thoughts about the reading and your answers to the fourth reading question in the forum at the bottom of this page. Feel free to respond to others when you have posted your own text. Please try to build on others’ responses. The discussion is moderated, so your text will not appear immediately.

You can fill in your email address and/or your name if you choose, or you can remain anonymous.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

In the spirit of Anne Burns and Christine Goh and their book Teaching Speaking. A Holistic Approach, how can we move from “doing speaking” to “teaching speaking”, that is how can we activate our students in more systematic ways so that speaking activities become genuine learning opportunities?

In this module we explore ways in which meaning-focused output activities can be used in the language classroom and we discuss aspects of learning and teaching speaking. We also explore teachers thoughts/conceptions on important aspects of teaching these skills.

Reading

Burns, A. (2012). A holistic approach to teaching speaking in the language classroom. In M. Olofsson (Ed.) Symposium 2012. Lärarrollen i svenska som andraspråk. Nationellt centrum för svenska som andraspråk. Stockholms universitets förlag. sid 165-178. Available here.

Pakula, H.-M. (2019). Teaching speaking. Apples – Journal of Applied Language Studies, 13(1), 95-111. https://doi.org/10.17011/apples/urn.201903011691

Reading questions

Take a look at the tips on reading research at the bottom of our landing page. Feel free to post your answer to question 4 in the discussion forum right at the bottom of this page.

1. What is the context of the research in Burns’ chapter? And in Pakula’s article?
2. What is the question addressed in each case?
3. What are the main take-away messages of the chapter and article?
4. How are the texts relevant or interesting to your own teaching?

Interview

We had the great pleasure of a conversation with Professor Christine Goh of the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore on the topic of teaching speaking and the Teaching speaking cycle. She takes us through the steps of this approach to teaching speaking. We look forward to reading your comments!

Online seminar

There was a seminar to discuss the topic of Teaching speaking on Monday 19 April 2021.

Discussion

Share your answers to point 4 in the study questions in the forum at the bottom of this page. Feel free to respond to others when you have posted your own text. Please try to build on others’ responses. The discussion is moderated, so your text will not appear immediately.

You can fill in your email address and/or your name if you choose, or you can remain anonymous.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.