Teaching Mathematics in English to Swedish Speaking Students : A systematic review of strategies for teaching mathematics to second language learners

The Swedish government has authorised the teaching of mathematics in English to Swedish speaking students. Much of that teaching is performed by foreign trained native English speaking teachers lacking training in second language learners. This systematic review summarises international studies from the last ten years that deal with the teaching of mathematics to second language learners. The review shows that second language students working in a bilingual environment achieve higher rates of content and language knowledge than learners in a monolingual environment. This study also summarises some of the teacher practices that are effective for teaching mathematics in English to second language learners.

Authentic Texts in English Language Teaching : An empirical study on the use of and attitudes towards authentic texts in the Swedish EFL upper elementary classroom

International assessments indicate that Swedish students achieve high results in reading, writing and understanding English. However, this does not mean that the students display oral proficiency, despite an emphasis on functional and communicative language skills in the current English Syllabus. While a previous literature study by this researcher has shown that authentic texts are a way to increase these skills, most of the results shown are from an international viewpoint. Thus an empirical study was conducted within Sweden with the aim to examine the use of authentic texts in the Swedish EFL upper elementary classroom. Twelve teachers have answered a questionnaire on how they use authentic texts in their language teaching, as well as their opinions about these as a teaching tool. Additionally, 37 students have answered a questionnaire on their attitudes about authentic texts. Results indicate that all of the teachers surveyed see authentic texts as an effective way to increase students’ communicative competence and English language skills; however, only a few use them with any frequency in language teaching. Furthermore, this seems to affect the students’ attitudes, since many say that they read authentic texts in their free time, but prefer to learn English out of a textbook at school. These findings are based on a small area of Sweden. Therefore, further research is needed to learn if these opinions hold true for the entire country or vary dependent upon region or other factors not taken into consideration in this study.

English collocations extracted from a corpus of university learners and its contribution to a language teaching pedagogy

Taking into consideration the relevance of foreign language teaching and the learning of collocations (ALTENBERG; EEG-OLOFSSON, 1990; FONTENELLE, 1994; MEUNIER; GRANGER, 2008), this paper aims at showing results of an investigation on whether the teaching of collocations should be implicit or explicit to the Brazilian university students. Furthermore, the research has the purpose of presenting some collocational aspects from a corpus of the written language learners made up of intermediate, upper intermediate and advanced university students' argumentative essays at a public university in Brazil. With the help of WordSmith Tools (SCOTT, 2007), it was possible to raise students' most frequent collocational choices and patterns, the most/least used type of collocations, the influence of the mother tongue on their choices, among other aspects. With the purpose of motivating and involving students in classroom research, it was also introduced The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), created by Mark Davies. By doing so, students could compare their collocational choices with the patterns found in the online corpus, extract more collocational patterns and, consequently, be aware of the potential of corpora for the foreign learning process, specifically for raising language awareness, with focus on prefabricated chunks.

Brazilian Portuguese idiom list, selected on the basis of range and frequency of occurrence;

"Issued under the auspices of the Committee on Foreign Language Teaching of the American Council on Education in conjunction with the Institute for Brazilian Studies in Vanderbilt University."

Language Teaching Methodologies, Intercultural Awareness and Autonomous Learning

This paper will examine familiar reasons for including the teaching of intercultural competence within Language Teaching before adding some less familiar ones. It will focus in particular on the question of how far intercultural competence can be learned when students are formally studying languages and how far such competence needs to be acquired autono-mously. It will though also ask to what extent being initiated to the very varied facets of in-tercultural competence during formal language study plays an important role in allowing ef-fective autonomous acquisition to take place. The paper will conclude that a significant part of the intercultural development that students need to undertake if they are to be able to communicate effectively in a foreign language must happen autonomously, but that it is, nonetheless, vital that language courses at least sow the seeds of intercultural learning in ways that will facilitate autonomous learning. As such, language courses, if they are genuinely to meet student needs, should incorporate elements of intercultural training. The paper also concludes by outlining the type of empirical research that would need to be carried out for these claims to be fully substantiated.

Review of The young language learner: Research-based insights into teaching and learning

Introduction For a long time, language learning research focusing on young learners was a neglected field of research. Most empirical studies within the broad area of second/foreign language acquisition were instead carried out among adults in tertiary education and it was not until in the 1990s that the scope of research broadened to include also young learners, then loosely defined as children in primary and/or secondary education (see, for example, Hasselgreen & Drew, 2012; McKay, 2006; Nikolov, 2009a). In fact, some agreement upon how to define ‘young learners’ was not properly discussed until in 2013, when Gail Ellis (2013) provided some useful clarifications as regards how to label learners within the broad age-span that encompasses both primary and secondary school. In short, based on a literature overview, she concludes that the term young learners is most often used for children between the ages of five and eleven/twelve, which in most countries would be equivalent to learners in primary school.   Thus, since young learners did not catch much scholarly attention until fairly recently, research volumes on the topic have been scarce. However, with a rapidly growing interest in examining how small children learn foreign languages, there has been a sudden increase in terms of the number of books available targeting young language learners. A first, major contribution was Nikolov’s (2009b) Early learning of modern foreign languages, in which 16 studies of young language learners from different countries are accounted for. Another important contribution is the edited book that will be reviewed here, which specifically targets studies about various aspects of second/foreign language learning among young (mainly Norwegian) learners. Bearing in mind that Norway and Sweden are very similar countries in terms of schooling, language background, and demographics – only to give three examples of similarities between these two nations – it is particularly relevant for Swedish scholars within the fields of education and second language acquisition to become familiar with research findings from the neighboring country.   In this review, the editors and the outline of the book are first described, then brief summaries of each chapter are provided, before the text closes with an evaluation of the volume. 

A literary approach to teaching english language in a multicultural classroom

Literature is not generally considered as a coherent branch of the curriculum in relation to language development in either native or foreign language teaching. As teachers of English in multicultural Indian classrooms, we come across students with varying degrees of competence in English language learning. Although language learning is a natural process for natives, students of other languages put in colossal efforts to learn it. Despite their sincere efforts, they face challenges regarding pronunciation, spelling, and vocabulary. Indian classrooms are a microcosm of the larger society, so teaching English language in a manner that equips the students to face the cutthroat competition has become a necessity and a challenge for English language teachers. English today has become the key determinant for being successful in their careers. The hackneyed and stereotypical methods of teaching are not acceptable now. Teachers are no longer arbitrary dispensers of knowledge, but they are playing the role of a guide and facilitator for the students. Teachers of English are using innovative ideas to make English language teaching and learning interesting and simple. Teachers have started using literary texts and their analyses to explore and ignite the imagination and creative skills of the students. One needs to think and rethink the contribution of literature to intelligent thinking as well as its role in the process of teaching/learning. This article is, therefore, an attempt at exploring the nature of the literary experience in the present-day classrooms and the broader role of literature in life.

Resonancias discursivas y cortesía en prácticas de lecto-escritura

In this paper we present a study of reading comprehension based on a contrastive argumentative-discursive approach. We examine the relationship between linguistic materiality and discursive processes, observing the connection between reading in a foreign language, writing production and textual memories in the mother tongue. In addition to an interest in practical language teaching and learning processes (in this case of Spanish and Portuguese), we investigate the question of politeness and the theoretical relationship between subjectivity, language, and textuality. The latter, being understood as the result of discourse regularities, is unique for each and every production, yet is also conditioned by plural discursive memories resulting from contradictory social relationships in a specific historical context (Foucault, 1986; Pêcheux, 1990). In the experiment presented here, we follow some of the procedures of the methodology applied in the European Galatea Project developed for the study of reading strategies in the inter-comprehension between Romance languages (Dabène, 1996). We use the procedure of simulation and the subjective projection of participants as well as the notion of discursive resonance in the analysis. The results, having to do with directness and indirectness in speech and the question of politeness in two typologically close languages, lead to the conclusion that the concept of politeness goes beyond a pragmatic strategy used to avoid conflicts to be approached as a marker of cultural identity constitution. The relevance of discursive awareness and its theoretical and practical consequences are then emphasized.

Bicas, pacotes e outros embrulhos. materiais para o ensino de português com fins específicos

O trabalho consiste na descrição pormenorizada do processo de elaboração dos cursos Portugués para Restauración y Servicio de Bar (A1-A2) e Portugués para Dependiente de Comercio (A1-A2) (2008), cujo objetivo é certificar o nível de conhecimento linguístico dos membros da União Europeia para a realização de ocupações profissionais. Apresentamos os diferentes contextos que a equipa de língua portuguesa teve em conta antes da elaboração dos cursos ─ suportes, níveis de língua, fins ocupacionais, estudantes, região e cultura, línguas de origem dos alunos ─, bem como uma amostra das propostas desenvolvidas a nível de conteúdos culturais, gramaticais, fonéticos, lexicais, de atividades e exercícios e da avaliação.

The economics of language or how can language be an asset? General reflections on the European case and brief focus on the case of portuguese

In this paper, we will focus on the importance of languages as an asset to people and companies in knowledge-based society, giving special attention to the case of portuguese, not forgetting the role of Higher Education Institutions in preparing students to be part of the new creative multilingual and sucsessful class.

Ensino do inglês no 1º ciclo: perceções dos professores de inglês do 1º e 2º ciclos e alunos do 2º ciclo

Sendo a escola uma instituição concebida para a formação académica e social da criança, a aprendizagem duma língua estrangeira torna-se crucial para que a criança desenvolva uma atitude positiva perante outras línguas e culturas. É, portanto, necessário que a escola encontre formas de ensinar línguas estrangeiras que sejam adequadas ao 1º ciclo do Ensino Básico. O presente projeto de mestrado, intitulado Ensino do Inglês no 1º ciclo: perceções dos professores de Inglês do 1º e 2º ciclos e dos alunos do 2º ciclo reflete uma investigação baseada nas opiniões e perceções de profissionais e alunos de escolas públicas portuguesas que, direta ou indiretamente, estão envolvidos com o Inglês no 1º ciclo. Inicialmente apresenta-se um enquadramento legal que permite perceber quais as normas e orientações existentes na Europa e em Portugal, em termos de ensino precoce de línguas estrangeiras. A introdução do Programa de Generalização do Ensino de Inglês em 2005 começou por refletir um caminho de convergência com as políticas educativas europeias. No entanto, muitas das vitórias conseguidas por este Programa, pertencem ao passado. Os profissionais no ensino das línguas estrangeiras questionam-se acerca de muitos aspetos, originados pela forma como se cumpre atualmente o Ensino do Inglês, enquanto Atividade de Enriquecimento Curricular no 1º ciclo. Os questionários aplicados neste projeto pretendem dar voz às perceções e opiniões destes mesmos profissionais.

Competência intercultural: conteúdos culturais na aquisição da língua estrangeira e sua integração didáctica no ensino do alemão

Dissertação apresentada à Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas da Universidade Nova de Lisboa para obtenção do grau de Doutor em Cultura Alemã.

A abordagem intercultural e plurilingue no ensino de línguas estrangeiras no ensino básico

Numa era global marcada por avanços tecnológicos e pela diversidade cultural e linguística, é necessária uma nova linha de pensamento educativo e didático que conduza à formação de falantes cada vez mais pluriculturais e plurilingues, capazes de compreender, respeitar e interagir com outros povos e culturas. O desenvolvimento de competências comunicativas em, pelo menos, dois idiomas do espaço europeu é uma das medidas promovidas pelas politicas linguísticas europeias, que visam preparar os cidadãos para um diálogo intercultural, que fomente o respeito e a abertura face a essas diferenças, e pela construção de uma identidade intercultural e plurilingue nos próprios cidadãos exercendo, assim, a sua cidadania. Este paradigma tem implicações quer na aula de Língua Estrangeira, como ferramenta que permite ao aluno a ampliar a sua visão do mundo, quer no papel do professor, que nela intervém, enquanto, responsável pela construção social e formativa dos seus aprendentes. Estrutura-se, assim, um modelo educativo que abraça todas as culturas e reportórios linguísticos presentes dentro e fora do âmbito escolar. Neste relatório de estágio, resultante da prática pedagógica centrada no ensino do Inglês e do Espanhol, teci uma reflexão crítica sobre os diferentes cenários pedagógicos construídos durante três semestres académicos, com alunos portugueses do Ensino Básico. O fio condutor de toda a prática desenvolvida centrou-se no paradigma da abordagem intercultural e, com base nessa linha de pensamento, propus-me aferir os contributos que as minhas opções metodológicas tiveram quer no processo de aprendizagem dos meus alunos, quer na sua construção pessoal e social.

The role of literature: english textbooks and literature in secondary teaching in Portugal

Trabalho de Projecto apresentado para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Mestre em Ensino de Inglês

Developing Young Learners’ Logical/Deductive Thinking Skills and Second Language Skills through a CLIL approach

Trabalho de Projecto apresentado para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Mestre em Teaching English as a Second / Foreign Language.