Notes on Session 2 of Understanding Language Acquisition

Notes on Session 2 of Understanding Language Acquisition: Does My Curriculum Reveal My Theory of Learning?

Are my relationships with students
controlling, condescending, denigrating = coercive
or
positive and supportive = collaborative ?

"Schools must educate people who can fill technical and highly literate jobs. More importantly such citizens are needed to produce a humane, loving, and civil society." (Linda Darling-Hammond, 2-7)

Sociocultural Theory: means that learning is constrained by culture and emerges from social interactions. It integrates social, cultural, and intellectual elements of schooling. Other educational theories are simply not powerful enough to guide today's classrooms. (Pinegar and Teemant, 2-8) . . . it's about teachers and students doing things together. (James P. Lantolf, 2-9) . . . attends to al the elements of classrooms: students, teachers, learning, activites, behavior, thinking, and context. (2-10) . . . Vygotsky's theory.
1. Learning requires social interaction.
2. Classroom activity occurs on three planes.
a. the individual or psychological
b. the social or interactional
c. the community or institutional
3. Language itself plays a central role in learning.
Language is used to assign meaning during social interaction. It has to do with the way emotion is labeled, the meaning of events, and the things communicated during activities.
Language is learned best when it is contextualized.
4. Learning occurs in the Zone of Proximal Development [ZPD].
The zone is fluid.

Planning for linguistic diversity --
helping students to crack the academic code (Teemant, 2-16)

Discourse: any sample of language use that occurs when people communicate orally or in writing.

Thinking takes place through language and discourses. (Paraphrase of Corson, 2-17)
Discourses shape the brain, shape the mind. (Paraphrase of Corson, 2-17)
As teachers, we need to understand how language works. (Paraphrase of Adger, 2-17)

Many students need these things:
4Vocabulary levels to be modified
4Readability of materials controlled
4Written output demands modified
4Language demands considered
4Classroom discourse level modified
4Teacher talk to be comprehensible
4to be full participants in class

Three Components for Successful Classroom Language Learning:
1. A learner who is motivated to learn English and sees a need for English
2. A teacher, or other native speakers of English, who help learners get access to the language they need.
3. A social setting that provides opportunities for interaction and language use between native and non-native speakers of English.


Three Key Concepts for Teachers from Second Language Acquisition Research:
Focus of Communication: This concept attends to the authentic needs humans have to connect and communicate with one another.
1. Input: The importance of making content comprehensible to learners
Student work: 'To break language up and figure out meaning. 'To learn academic content
Teacher work: m To make content more comprehensible

2. Interaction: The role of interaction in second language acquisition
Student work: ' To use language with others ' To learn academic content
Teacher work: m To create opportunities for interaction

Focus of Pattern: This concept shows that second language acquisition is a long-term process.
1. Stages of Development: Language learning is a gradual process marked by patterns of development.

Student work: ' To make marked progress in language learning
Teacher work: m To recognize level of development m To see errors as signs of learning

2. Errors and Feedback: Errors aer a sign of learning in that errors provide evidence that students are trying to master ever more complex aspects of language.

Student work and Teacher work: ' m To attend to the linguistic features of language: word choice, word endings, sentence structures, and the social nuances of language.

Focus of Variability: This concept considers what factors make one language learner more or less successful than another.

1. Types of Proficiencies: This allows us to study both the social and academic language students need to master.
2. Types of Performances: How fluently and accurately a student produces language depends on what the student is being asked to do in the classroom.

Student work: ' To manage the social factors and individual factors that influence motivation to learn and conceptions of identity.

Teacher work: m To pay attention to the individual differences among learners.