Language Competence Center 1 Fostering learner autonomy through bilingual and multilingual...

Language Competence Center 1

Fostering learner autonomy through bilingual and multilingual activities in the

classroom

Edgar M. Petter, M.A., Lecturer of English and German as a Foreign Language, Language Competence Centre, Zurich University of

Applied Sciences (ZHAW)

Language Competence Center

Overview

Background

Activities

Conclusion

Questions

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Background

“ The monolingual principle (Howard 1984)

Questionable assumptions concerning best practice in second/foreign language teaching (Cummins 2007, Hall and Cook 2012):

• L2=L1: L2, L3….should be acquired in the same way• Interference Hypothesis, so languages are best

taught in isolation, reference to other languages and translation is discouraged, sometimes even banned

• Even in bilingual courses or CLIL-contexts the two languages should be kept rigidly apart.

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Edgar Marc Petter


Background

“ The monolingual principle

Language learning and teaching research has neglected or simply ignored the field of bi-/multilingual practice in the classroom for a long time.

Reasons:• The Direct Method /Communicative Approach replacing

the Grammar Translation Method • Monolingual native speaker as role model for L2-speakers• One nation – one language ideology

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Background

The bi-/multilingual principleAlthough bi-/multilingual activities in the classroom have been and often still are discouraged if not discredited, they are commonplace all over the world. Teachers’ attitudes range from:• reluctant acceptance of students’ “own-language use”

(Guy Cook 2010/2012) in the foreign language classroom, often accompanied by feelings of guilt,

to• whole-hearted inclusion of an optimal / a judicious / an

informed use of the L1 in the L2-classroom.

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Background

The bi/multilingual principle

Arguments for crosslingual activities / code-switching translanguaging (Baker 2001, Garcia 2009):• Bi-/Multilinguals are not monolinguals: no

compartmentalisation of languages, but joint activation in the brain.

• Building on students’ prior knowledge (socio-constructivist paradigm)

• Knowledge / Metalinguistic repertoire transferred between languages (Interdependence Hypothesis)

• Dual / Multiple anchoring of content

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Background

The bi/multilingual principle

In a nutshell:• Better / faster comprehension• Developing L2 as well as L1• Fostering learner autonomy

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Activities

English for Architects

Use of monolingual and bilingual dictionaries

_____________________

Using online-dictionaries

Find appropriate translations for the underlined words in the following text passage. Check out the words in a bilingual dictionary first (www.dict.cc), then verify your answer with a monolingual dictionary (http://dictionary.cambridge.org). If you can’t find a good translation right away, don’t give up! Guess the word from the context and double-check in one of your dictionaries (or both, if needed!).

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http://www.dict.cc/

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/


Activities

High and Mighty

[...] People seem to enjoy the energy, excitement and functionality of the new, particularly when it is (2) juxtaposed with the best of the old. Renzo Piano's Shard, planned for London Bridge, is a positive addition because of its mixed use - getting people living, working and playing in the same high-density areas.

Compare this to the Thames Gateway (3) sprawl, a place with no infrastructure and no sense of community because it lengthens people's commuting, leaving no time other than to rise early and travel to work. [...]

(from: The Guardian)

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Activities

Cambridge sprawl noun (CITY): a large area of land covered with buildings that have been added at different times so that it looks untidy: the urban sprawl of South Florida

dict.cc. urban sprawl Zersiedelung

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Activities

English for Architects

Translating content (from English to German)

Mediating/Summarizing content (from German to English)

___________________

Read the following short news item about this year's laureate and translate it orally into German. Try to be as accurate as possible:

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Activities

Tamedia building architect gets Prize

Japanese star architect Shigeru Ban, who has designed various buildings in Switzerland, including the Tamedia office in Zurich, has been awarded the 2014 Pritzker prize, regarded as the world’s top architecture award. [hat entworfen / Preis / Auszeichnung]

The Tamedia building, of timber and glass - housing one of Switzerland's leading newspaper publishers - opened in 2013.

Ban has also designed the new headquarters for the Swatch Group in the western Swiss town of Biel. Building is due to start on it this year.

[Holz/Die Bauarbeiten sollen noch dieses Jahr beginnen]

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Activities

Now read the following news item in German and summarize it in English. Don't translate word by word, but rather try to convey the main points of the text. Leave out information you have already talked about.

[…] Der Architekt mit Büros in Tokio, Paris und New York schaffe elegante und innovative Arbeiten für private Auftraggeber, setze aber auch seine "kreative Verwendung unkonventioneller Materialien" bei vielen Hilfsaktionen in Krisengebieten ein, hiess es weiter. [...]

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Activities

English for Psychologists

Mediating / Negotiatiating Content (from German to English)

_____________

Learning languages with movement

Group A: Watch a report (in German!) about a new approach to vocabulary learning. Take notes in English using the following keywords: [...]

Group B: Watch a report about someone who overcame his (language) learning difficulties by using body movements for vocabulary learning. Take notes using the following keywords: [...]

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Activities

English for Health Professionals (David Stamm)

Same content in both languages

_______________

Anatomy of the heart

Watch the tutorial on the heart and label the diagram.

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Activities

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Activities

Multilingual Module French-English in Organisational Communication (Hans Schütz, Sibylla Lämmel)

Mediating from from L2/3 (English) to L2/3 (French)

Translating from L2/3 (English) to L2/3 (French)

Comparing specialised/non-specialised vocabulary based on Latin and Greek

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Activities

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Activities

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Translation


Activities

German for Engineers (mixed group: Aviation, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, IT)

Mediating/Translating (from several languages into German)

____________________________

Ein Text in mehreren Sprachen, aber erst am Schluss auf deutsch!

Arbeiten Sie in Kleingruppen: Lesen und vergleichen Sie die drei Titel zum Text. Worum geht es wohl?

Casse-tête linguistique pour managers étrangers

Language edict found tricky for foreign managers

Il rompicapo linguistico dei manager stranieri

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Activities

Lesen Sie nun den Text auf französich weiter, ohne zu versuchen, jedes Wort zu verstehen. Welches ist die Problemstellung des Textes? Welche Lösung steht im Vordergrund?

Fragen zum Vorgehen: Wie entschlüsseln Sie den Text? Was hilft Ihnen? Und ein Tipp: Falls Sie Mühe mit dem Französisch haben, holen Sie sich Hilfe (in der lingua franca Deutsch!) bei jemandem, der es besser kann.

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Activities

Les cadres étrangers en Suisse devraient apprendre une langue nationale. Mais est-ce bien réaliste de l’exiger de managers qui souvent n’ont besoin que de l’anglais? swissinfo a notamment posé la question à ses lecteurs. [...]

[...] I manager stranieri vengono in Svizzera generalmente per tre anni. Molti di loro hanno giornate lavorative assai lunghe e preferiscono trascorrere il resto del tempo con la loro famiglia piuttosto che spenderlo per imparare un nuova lingua. [...]

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Activities

Lesen Sie nun den nächsten Teil des Textes auf Englisch.

Im Text wird eine Definition von Integration eingeführt. Beschreiben Sie diese hier in einem Satz (auf Deutsch):

Welcher Unterschied besteht zu andern Ländern, gemäss den Aussagen von Frau Sabine Baerlocher

But Baerlocher sees integration as much more than language. “It goes both ways. If we want people to be integrated we need to integrate them too. And that’s not very Swiss.”

Expatriates can feel separate, simply because of different cultural norms, she said. Some cross-cultural training for the Swiss “to become a little more open” could also help.

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Activities

Lesen Sie nun den Rest auf deutsch (endlich!).

Welche Argumente (dafür und dagegen) werden genannt, ob Expats eine Landessprache lernen sollen oder nicht (Stichworte)?

[...] "Ich halte es für extrem wichtig, eine Fremdsprache zu lernen, gerade, wenn man aus den USA oder einem anderen englischsprachigen Land stammt", so Shepperd. "Man lernt nicht nur eine Sprache, sondern eine Kultur. Das ist vielleicht der grösste Spass

daran.” (Der deutsche Titel war übrigens: Ausländische Manager beissen auf Sprachen-Granit)

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Activities

English / German in non-specialised contexts

Speakers from several countries (taking notes in English)

_______________________

Book fair in Frankfurt 2012

Listen to (and watch the second time) the following report on the question whether the traditional book will survive or not. Take notes in English on the statements of the people. Careful: Not all of them speak English!

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Activities

Names Statements

Albrecht Oldenburg

Dominique Raccah

Renate Herre

Rodolpho Bolanos Sierra

Soazig Le Bail

Neil Jeffries

Eduardo Carqueja

Manasi Subramaniam

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Conclusions

Optimal use of L1• “English mainly” instead of “English only”• The classroom as a training field or a playground for the

use of ELF (English as a Lingua Franca)• Vocabulary (monolingual and bilingual

dictionaries/wordlists, “sandwich” technique, etc.)• Contrastive analysis of structures• Mediation and/or translation (a 5th skill!) as a learning tool,

but also as an attainable goal for life outside the classroom

• Students’ own language used surprisingly/jokingly at times for help or rapport

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Conclusions

Answers to questionnaire

Do you think you will have to use translation and mediation in your future career?

“Yes, for sure.“

„Of course yes.”

“I think so because I’m interested to work maybe some years in foreign countries or even here in Switzerland a lot of architecture offices has architects from different countries.”

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Conclusions

:W CLIL-/EMI-contexts

When teaching a subject through English (EMI), activities should not only integrate content and language, but also students’ own language(s) and possibly other languages:• By allowing students to access their previous knowledge

through their own language, bilingual or multilingual activities facilitate processing and securing new content.

• Bilingual and multilingual activities develop language (learning) awareness, thus helping students to become more independent learners.

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Conclusions

:W

“An approach to softening the boundaries between languages […] aims at improving efficiency in language teaching by using the resources pluriligual learners have at their disposal. At the same time, this approach aims at raising researchers’ awareness about the need to adopt a holistic plurilingual perspective. It explores the possibility of establishing bridges between second and foreign language teaching and school and plurilingualism in real-life communication.”

Jasone Cenoz and Durk Gorter (2013), p. 595f.

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References

• Butzkamm, W. & J. Caldwell (2009). The bilingual reform: A paradigm shift in foreign language teaching. Tübingen: Narr Studienbücher.

• Cook, G. (2010). Translation in language teaching: An argument for reassessment. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

• Cook, V. (1999); Going beyond the Native Speaker in Language Teaching, TESOL Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 2, pp. 185-209

• Jasone Cenoz and Durk Gorter (2013), Towards a Plurilingual Approach in English Language Teaching: Softening the Boundaries Between Languages, TESOL Quarterly, Vol. 47, No. 3, September, 2013, 591-599

• Cummins, J. (2007). Rethinking monolingual instructional strategies in multilingual classrooms. Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics (CJAL) 10.2, 221–240.

• Maria Gonzalez Davies (2014) Towards a plurilingual development paradigm: from spontaneous to informed use of translation in additional language learning, The Interpreter and Translator Trainer, 8:1, 8-31

• Graham Hall and Guy Cook (2012). Own-language use in language teaching and learning. Language Teaching, 45, pp 271-308

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Questions

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Thank you!

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