___________________________________________________________________________ SOCIOLINGUISTIC THEORY -- divided into 2 components: sociology of language and sociolinguistics A. Sociology of language deals with language problems/issues and language treatments at the national level as problems arise within and between ethnic and national groups Examples: national language; writing system; bilingual education; language maintenance A sociology of language issue can be -- the choice of teaching English to Nigerian children or choosing to read in Spanish to Hispanic children. B. Sociolinguistics -- this approach to describing language takes into account social features of a far from ideal speaker and seeks to account for the rules of linguistic variability. Examples: social status; regional; cultural; gender So in reality sociolinguistics is interested in pragmatics, discourse analysis, cross-cultural communication. It combines several disciplines: anthropology, linguistics, and sociology. (Exponents- Labov, Hymes, Bernstein). In practice we see that the use of sociolinguistics theory tends to be problem oriented in its application frequently dealing with language learning difficulties of students from other than the mainstream.
SOCIOLINGUISTIC SITUATIONS -- use of real world situations in which students are going to use English. The question for us teachers is: how do we define English teaching in terms of the functions of these needs? SOCIOLINGUISTIC DESCRIPTION -- is what we call communicative competence. When - how - to whom - is appropriate to speak, learn about social interactional rules Sociolinguistics description present questions in terms of which approach to use when teaching ESL Should the focus of language teaching be on language usage rather than form? If so, then, language teaching moves from only the discrete units and grammatical sequence to becoming "speech acts."
Issues in First Language Revisited, H. Douglas Brown, pp. 66-72
_________________________________________________________________________ The following should be considered when teaching language -- DESCRIPTION OF LANGUAGES Working into patterns of English language What is rule-governed behavior? What needs to be memorized? What structures are similar and different?
DEFINING CONTENT ITEMS - the selection and sequencing of language materials for the curriculum or the sequencing of language items
PSYCHOLINGUISTIC THEORY (Exponent: Ausubel, Slobin, and Wardhaugh) reflects the cognitive psychology influence on teaching language language learning must be meaningful (not habit forming) emphasis on analysis and developing competence
DESCRIPTION OF LEARNING STRATEGIES AND MODELS OF PERFORMANCE - Four skills introduced simultaneously Meaningful learning with the purpose of communication
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