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- Volume 1, Issue 2, 2020
Pedagogical Linguistics - Volume 1, Issue 2, 2020
Volume 1, Issue 2, 2020
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From pedagogical input to learner output
Author(s): Verena Möllerpp.: 95–124 (30)More LessAbstractEnglish as a Foreign Language (EFL) materials have often been criticized for a lack of authenticity. However, their direct impact on learner language has rarely been assessed. We compare pedagogical input from EFL and Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) materials to texts produced by learners taught via the textbooks in question. The analysis of corpus data showed that EFL textbooks did not systematically differ from CLIL materials in terms of conditional frequency and verb forms combinations. No significant difference was detected for CLIL and non-CLIL learner texts either. Both groups did, however, deviate from novice native writing in that conditionals expressing low hypotheticality were overrepresented while conditionals expressing a higher level of hypotheticality were underrepresented and frequently erroneous. Misrepresentations revealed for EFL textbooks in previous research were found to match the deviations in learner language in a way that aids L2 development rather than impairing it. Hence, fundamental changes are not required, even though more studies should be undertaken to investigate the direct impact of teaching materials on learner output.
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Towards a functional literacy approach to teach the language of science in the Singapore classroom
Author(s): Jonathon Adams and Fei Victor Limpp.: 125–148 (24)More LessAbstractThis paper describes a pilot study exploring how an approach drawing on systemic functional linguistics can inform science teaching. This study is an exploratory effort between researchers from a linguistics background and secondary school science teachers in the Singapore science classroom. The teachers designed activities in the joint construction of texts to support students’ negotiation of meanings and clarification of conceptual understandings. With this, the teachers applied strategies to draw attention to the language of science in their lessons. The study points to the value of the functional literacy approach in science teaching and presents implications on teacher professional learning as well as the role of linguistics in developing disciplinary literacy in students.
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Sentence imitations in monolingual and early second language learners and the implications for grammar teaching
Author(s): Valentina Cristantepp.: 149–183 (35)More LessAbstractIn the present article I investigated whether data obtained from 7-year-old German L1 and German-Turkish eL2 children by means of an elicited imitation task including grammatical and ungrammatical sentences mirrored current findings in acquisition research concerning case marking, adjective inflection, V2 position and finiteness. The results show that L1 children have full mastery of all four phenomena, as they revealed a greater tendency to correct ungrammatical sentences than to introduce errors into grammatical sentences. On the other hand, eL2 children differed from L1 children in terms of how they dealt with the noun-related phenomena, as they did not reveal a clear preference for either changing grammatical items or correcting ungrammatical items. In the discussion, I propose how to minimise the likelihood that participants simply repeat ungrammatical items verbatim in further imitation studies and be thus able to collect more reliable data on their grammatical knowledge. The article ends with a proposal for a primary school exercise on case marking that involves correcting errors on case marking. The suggestion is that ungrammatical sentences can be used in grammar teaching to assess pupils’ linguistic knowledge and also to guide their attention to specific regularities of the language, thus stimulating language reflection.
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German discourse particles in the second language classroom
Author(s): Andreas Trotzke, Ermenegildo Bidese and Manuela Caterina Moronipp.: 184–210 (27)More LessAbstractOne of the main pedagogical objectives for language learners at high proficiency levels is to use ‘cohesive devices’ when writing a text or conducting a conversation. Usually, curricula stress the importance of clause-internal cohesion (by means such as connectives: and, but, when, because, etc.). By contrast, we stress the importance of cohesion at the level of the dialogue and in this context focus on discourse (aka ‘modal’) particles as a means to yield cohesion at that level. In this domain, German discourse particles represent a challenging learning objective for second language learners of German. This paper explores some production patterns of German discourse particles in L2 German by L1 Italian learners. We show that looking at those elements can provide new insights because these elements allow us to tease apart problems within syntax as compared to the lexicon-pragmatics interface in second language learning.
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Why are there growing divisions between traditional grammars and theoretical and experimental linguistic works (and how can they be overcome)?
Author(s): Volker Struckmeierpp.: 211–233 (23)More LessAbstractThe present article discusses a worrying development, whereby some traditional grammars become less aligned with the findings of linguistics research. The article gives examples of such discrepancies, illustrated here on the basis of the description of German. It also aims to describe a possible cause for this development. On the one hand, it seems that the grammatical descriptions found in school grammars have in some cases ceased to reflect discussions in (and formats of) current theories of grammar. They have also chosen, to a degree, to ignore empirical findings made by linguistic research. However, the article seeks to demonstrate that this may in large part be caused by the nature of the linguistic theories and experimental research approaches themselves, as well as the presentation of these projects in the literature: The granularity of the descriptions (and the objects described) that theoretical and experimental research assess simply does not match the kinds of generalisations that traditional grammars (school grammars, especially) aim for. To illustrate this point, specific issues with linguistic theories, methods and conventions are presented, which may make it difficult for school grammars to react to the results in a principled way.
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