Using newspapers in the classroom.

Hay una serie de argumentos en favor del uso de los periódicos en el aula de idiomas: valor educativo general, información cultural, cambio de idioma, variedades de inglés, interés del lector, materiales auténticos. multi-nivel de la planificación de las clases. Este recurso ofrece una colección de más de ciento treinta actividades prácticas y creativas para el uso del periódico en el aula con adultos jóvenes y adultos desde el nivel pre-intermedio al avanzado. Las actividades, que muestran cómo los profesores pueden aprovechar las distintas características y secciones, están diseñadas para proporcionar la motivación y las experiencias de aprendizaje, así como la práctica del idioma. Planificaciones de lecciones, muestra de materiales y guías prácticas se combinan para dar a los profesores de inglés general e inglés para fines específicos el máximo apoyo para la utilización de este material en el aula.

Ways of doing : students explore their everyday and classroom processes.

Recurso para que los estudiantes lleguen a trazar sus propios procesos mentales, sus esquemas, sus sistemas de representación, y así ayudarles a construir un nuevo cuerpo de conocimientos profesionales, investigados por los mismos estudiantes. Basado en gran medida en principios humanistas, ofrece más de cien actividades destinadas a animar a los alumnos a pensar, hablar y escribir en inglés sobre áreas que, probablemente, nunca han discutido en su lengua materna. Las actividades, que son adecuadas para una variedad de niveles y edades, se ocupan de: examen de los patrones y procesos de los estudiantes en su vida cotidiana tanto en la exploración de la lengua materna como de la lengua extranjera; dinámica de grupo; formas de aprendizaje; la corrección y la retroalimentación. También hay una sección especial en el desarrollo del profesor.

The French Constitutional Council as the Rottweiler of the Republican Ideal in the Language Field: Does Jurisprudence Really Reflect Reality? EDAP 03/2012, 2012

France is known for being a champion of individual rights as well as for its overt hostility to any form of group rights. Linguistic pluralism in the public sphere is rejected for fear of babelization and Balkanization of the country. Over recent decades the Conseil Constitutionnel (CC) has, together with the Conseil d’État, remained arguably the strongest defender of this Jacobin ideal in France. In this article, I will discuss the role of France’s restrictive language policy through the prism of the CC’s jurisprudence. Overall, I will argue that the CC made reference to the (Jacobin) state-nation concept, a concept that is discussed in the first part of the paper, in order to fight the revival of regional languages in France over recent decades. The clause making French the official language in 1992 was functional to this policy. The intriguing aspect is that in France the CC managed to standardise France’s policy vis-à-vis regional and minority languages through its jurisprudence; an issue discussed in the second part of the paper. But in those regions with a stronger tradition of identity, particularly in the French overseas territories, the third part of the paper argues, normative reality has increasingly become under pressure. Therefore, a discrepancy between the ‘law in courts’ and the compliance with these decisions (‘law in action’) has been emerging over recent years. Amid some signs of opening of France to minorities, this contradiction delineates a trend that might well continue in future.

A study of students' metacognitive beliefs about foreign language study and their impact on learning

This article reports on an investigation into the language learning beliefs of students of French in England, aged 16 to 18. It focuses on qualitative data from two groups of learners (10 in total). While both groups had broadly similar levels of achievement in French in terns of examination success, they dffered greatly in the self-image they had of themselves as language learners, with one group displaying low levels of self-eficacy beliefs regarding the possibility of future success. The implica tions of such beliefs for students' levels of motivation and persistence are discussed, together with their possible causes. The article concludes by suggesting changes in classroom practice that might help students develop a more positive image of them selves as language learners.

English-only language-in-education policy in multilingual classrooms in Ghana

This paper, based on the findings of a qualitative study, discusses the influence of Ghana's recently introduced English-only language-in-education policy on pupils' classroom communicative practices and learning generally. It highlights how the use of English- an unfamiliar language- creates anxiety among students and stalls effective classroom participation. The paper first considers the key issues that impinge on the literacy development in multilingual classrooms in postcolonial Africa including the uninformed attitudes towards mother tongue/bilingual education. It then draws on the empirical data from Africa and elsewhere to refute the negative perceptions about mother-tongue education, and examines the prospects for bilingual/mother-tongue education in multilingual classrooms in Ghana.

Sustaining linguistic diversity within the global cultural economy: issues of language rights and linguistic possibilities

This paper draws on ethnographic case-study research conducted amongst a group of first and second generation immigrant children in six inner-city schools in London. It focuses on language attitudes and language choice in relation to cultural maintenance, on the one hand, and career aspirations on the other. It seeks to provide insight into some of the experiences and dilemmatic choices encountered and negotiations engaged in by transmigratory groups, how they define cultural capital, and the processes through which new meanings are shaped as part of the process of defining a space within the host society. Underlying this discussion is the assumption that alternative cultural spaces in which multiple identities and possibilities can be articulated already exist in the rich texture of everyday life amongst transmigratory groups. The argument that whilst the acquisition of 'world languages' is a key variable in accumulating cultural capital, the maintenance of linguistic diversity retains potent symbolic power in sustaining cohesive identities is a recurring theme.

Second tier professionals: English teachers in England

The policy context for mother-tongue educators at all levels in England has been dominated by a matrix with four key elements,running along two spectra, one of learning (content↘assessment) and one of teaching (autonomy↘accountability). In each case the trend has been towards increasing external control and decreasing professional autonomy. Whilst some imposed changes have been recognised as intrinsically valuable, the majority are viewed as detrimental to teachers' status and obstructive for students. The research community has been largely marginalised and has had little scope to influence proceedings. A rapidly developing crisis in teacher retention may yet reverse these trends as the government is forced to recognise the long-term implications of their treatment of the profession.

The impact of overseas training on curriculum innovation and change in English language education in Western China

This article assesses the impact of a UK-based professional development programme on curriculum innovation and change in English Language Education (ELE) in Western China. Based on interviews, focus group discussions and observation of a total of 48 English teachers who had participated in an overseas professional development programme influenced by modern approaches to education and ELE, and 9 of their colleagues who had not taken part, it assesses the uptake of new approaches on teachers’ return to China. Interviews with 10 senior managers provided supplementary data. Using Diffusion of Innovations Theory as the conceptual framework, we examine those aspects of the Chinese situation that are supportive of change and those that constrain innovation. We offer evidence of innovation in classroom practice on the part of returnees and ‘reinvention’ of the innovation to ensure a better fit with local needs. The key role of course participants as opinion leaders in the diffusion of new ideas is also explored. We conclude that the selective uptake of this innovation is under way and likely to be sustained against a background of continued curriculum reform in China.

Writing in French in secondary schools in England and Germany: are the British really 'bad language learners’?

It is widely assumed that the British are poorer modern foreign language (MFL) learners than their fellow Europeans. Motivation has often been seen as the main cause of this perceived disparity in language learning success. However, there have also been suggestions that curricular and pedagogical factors may play a part. This article reports a research project investigating how German and English 14- to 16-year-old learners of French as a first foreign language compare to one another in their vocabulary knowledge and in the lexical diversity, accuracy and syntactic complexity of their writing. Students from comparable schools in Germany and England were set two writing tasks which were marked by three French native speakers using standardised criteria aligned to the Common European Framework of Reference (CEF). Receptive vocabulary size and lexical diversity were established by the X_lex test and a verb types measure respectively. Syntactic complexity and formal accuracy were respectively assessed using the mean length of T-units (MLTU) and words/error metrics. Students' and teachers' questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were used to provide information and participants' views on classroom practices, while typical textbooks and feedback samples were analysed to establish differences in materials-related input and feedback in the two countries. The German groups were found to be superior in vocabulary size, and in the accuracy, lexical diversity and overall quality – but not the syntactic complexity – of their writing. The differences in performance outcomes are analysed and discussed with regard to variables related to the educational contexts (e.g. curriculum design and methodology).

Conceptual representation in bilinguals: the role of language specificity and conceptual change

Most prominent models of bilingual representation assume a degree of interconnection or shared representation at the conceptual level. However, in the context of linguistic and cultural specificity of human concepts, and given recent findings that reveal a considerable amount of bidirectional conceptual transfer and conceptual change in bilinguals, a particular challenge that bilingual models face is to account for non-equivalence or partial equivalence of L1 and L2 specific concepts in bilingual conceptual store. The aim of the current paper is to provide a state-of-the-art review of the available empirical evidence from the fields of psycholinguistics, cognitive, experimental, and cross-cultural psychology, and discuss how these may inform and develop further traditional and more recent accounts of bilingual conceptual representation. Based on a synthesis of the available evidence against theoretical postulates of existing models, I argue that the most coherent account of bilingual conceptual representation combines three fundamental assumptions. The first one is the distributed, multi-modal nature of representation. The second one concerns cross-linguistic and cross-cultural variation of concepts. The third one makes assumptions about the development of concepts, and the emergent links between those concepts and their linguistic instantiations.