CETT-ELTE BUDAPEST B.Ed. Programme
AFN-321 (ex AT-320) Applied
Linguistics Lecture Series/Exam (2hrs/wk, 3 credits)
This series of lectures
provide an overview of the theoretical underpinnings of current principles and
practices of language teaching, focusing particularly on theories of language
learning and teaching, the English language as a system, and relevant areas of
general pedagogy. It is designed to enhance participants’ capacity for
self-evaluation and to increase awareness of the possibilities for research in
their own teaching.
APPLIED
LINGUISTICS AND THE HUNGARIAN LANGUAGE LEARNER
Very broadly, APPLIED LINGUISTICS has been defined as
using knowledge about language for some practical purpose, e.g., Literature,
Politics, Advertising, Crime, Language Planning, Materials writing, Testing,
Syllabus design, and Language Teaching. For us as language teachers, it also
makes sense to use a narrower definition: the scientific study of language and
language learning for the purpose of professional success and development. This
lecture series is intended for teachers of English in the Hungarian
context and will involve notions and concepts from areas such as psychology,
sociology and even history which are relevant to our understanding of the
processes of teaching and learning.
Aims
To enable trainees to:
(i) develop their understanding of the theoretical
underpinnings of current principles and practices of language teaching, focusing
particularly on theories of language learning and teaching, the English
language as a system, and general pedagogy;
(ii) thus move closer to a reflective, principled
approach to teaching;
(iii) acquaint themselves with scholarly study that has
relevance for language teachers, and increase their ability to interact
effectively with a variety of professionals;
(iv) enhance their capacity to engage in
self-evaluation, and to pursue autonomously learning and development
opportunities that are relevant to their perceived needs;
(v) become further aware of the possibilities for, and
potential of, research in their own future teaching;
The series is
delivered by various CETT tutors, who prepare and distribute handouts during
their lectures. Each lecturer sets one or more required reading texts, which
are available in the Library and/or the Self Access centre. A set of these
required reading texts is kept in the photocopying office near the library, on
the Ajtosi Durer sor campus. In addition, there is a collection of 17 articles
and extracts on various areas of Applied Linguistics, which you can download
(as a Winword 6.0 file) by right-clicking here
Content
Lecture 1:
(Dávid Gergely) APPLIED LINGUISTICS AND
THE HUNGARIAN LANGUAGE LEARNER: an introduction
Strictly speaking, the field of
APPLIED LINGUISTICS concerns itself with the scientific study of language and
language learning for the purpose of professional success and development. More
broadly, though, APPLIED LINGUISTICS has also been defined as the domain of a
wide variety of professionals who use knowledge about language for some
practical purposes, e.g., Literature, Politics, Advertising, Crime, Language
Planning, Materials writing, Testing, Syllabus design and Language Teaching.
This introductory lecture will preview how the lecture series draws on findings
in both domains with view to
illuminating important aspects of the learning process of Hungarian learners of
English and offer some further
definitions from the field. LECTURE
NOTES
Lecture
2: (Christopher Ryan) WHY BOTHER TO LEARN ENGLISH AT
SCHOOL?:
the role of student attitudes and motivation
What is motivation? How many types of motivation are there
and how can they be categorised and described? Is there such a thing as ‘negative’
motivation? What are the implications for us as teachers? LECTURE NOTES
Lecture 3: (Christopher
Ryan) HOW DO LEARNERS LEARN? Second Language Acquisition Theories and Research
Looking to the findings of applied linguists who work in
this field, may help you come to grips with questions like: Is language -
teaching just a question of habit-formation? Are there any modern scientific
theories that explain how my students learn English … or why they don’t? Is
there any real evidence to support these theories? Are any of these theories
relevant to my day-to-day work in the classroom? LECTURE
NOTES
Lecture 4 (Enyedi Ági) CLASSROOM
DYNAMICS: creating and maintaining a cooperative learning
group
Methods do matter, but there
may be other significant factors affecting the efficiency of language learning.
One such aspect to consider is "what goes on inside and between people in
the classroom". (Stevick 1980:84) The first lecture in the series will
give you an insight into what teachers as group leaders can do to learn about
and influence these group processes. The key questions will be:
- How can effective,
supportive groups be set up and made to work for an extensive period of
time?
- How should we help group members to respect
each other and enable them to work with each other in order to achieve
both their individual and group learning goals? LECTURE NOTES
Lecture
5: (Ági
Enyedi) CULTURES IN CONFLICT: The EFL
classroom in Hungarian schools
The role of culture in the language
classroom is a hot issue in EFL today. What do we mean by ‘Culture’ and
‘culture’? What to teach and how much of it? Yet, there are other aspects of
culture, apart from the culture of the target language countries, that might be
a concern in the EFL classroom. One is the cultural load of the language itself
that is enough to trouble our learners. The other is the cultural context of
TEFL, where roles and responsibilities for the teacher and the students are often
in conflict with our traditional Hungarian instincts. This talk is going to
look into the background of these issues and offer some possible solutions. LECTURE NOTES
Lecture 6: (Dávid Gergely)
ENGLISH - HUNGARIAN LANGUAGE DIFFERENCES AS A SOURCE OF LEARNING: The concept
of interlanguage
The lecture will try to address teacher questions such as
‘Are mistakes by Hungarian learners predictable and therefore avoidable? Are
mistakes to be avoided at all? Can they be of any use? How am I supposed to
maintain a positive learning environment if I keep correcting my students?’LECTURE NOTES
Lecture
7: (Kimmel Magdolna) THE COMMON EUROPEAN FRAMEWORK OF REFERENCE FOR LANGUAGES:
another ‘useless’ theoretical invention or something that readily links to the
practice of teaching?
To be able to answer this question, others must be addressed
first. To start with, we need to clarify what exactly is meant by the Common
European Framework of Reference; how it was created and why; what areas of
language teaching and learning it relates to; and thirdly, how it can (should?)
inform our everyday practice as teachers. LECTURE NOTES+ READING
(Please note that there is no lecture on November 1st - Autumn Break
Lecture 8: (Uwe Pohl) THE
COMPONENTS OF COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE: coping and carrying on coherent
communication in (and outside) the classroom
The
lecture will address questions like the following: What does it mean to become
a competent user of English? What knowledge and skills are needed to process
and produce coherent and appropriate stretches of language? To what extent can
a teacher take into account different
aspects of communicative compentence in the limited and artificial environment
of the language classroom? LECTURE
NOTES
Lecture 9: (Uwe Pohl) LOOKING AT NATIVES AND NON-NATIVES: a
basic orientation in EFL
It
seems that many students prefer to be taught by native-speaker teachers, even
if they happen to be unqualified teachers of English. But are natives
intrinsically better than non-natives? And, how relevant is a native speaker
orientation, given the increasing role of English as a ‘ lingua franca’? LECTURE NOTES
Lecture
10: (Major Éva) WHAT DO WE TEST AND HOW?
Establishing standards in the classroom
It is important to understand the purpose and the basic
notions of standardised testing in order to be able to improve the tests(or
other assessment tools) a teacher uses in the classroom. This lecture will give
you an idea of the relationship between these two ways of testing, and address
questions like: How can I improve my tests? How can my tests be more than a set
of improvised questions at the end of a course?
How can I better select what I include in my tests?LECTURE NOTES
Lecture
11: Ági Enyedi) SECOND THOUGHTS ON ASSESSING OUR STUDENTS
Testing, assessing, grading, evaluating, giving feedback..
Just a few of the things that we do in class along with teaching. But what is
the relationship between teaching and assessment? Is a classroom test in
reality a testing tool or a teaching tool? And what are the practical pitfalls
of giving assessment - or of giving a test? LECTURE NOTES
Lecture 12: (Christopher
Ryan) DWARVES SITTING ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS? A (very) short History of
English Language Teaching.
If we consider teaching as a profession, and ourselves as
professionals, it’s worth wondering what we can learn from our predecessors. In
fact, you may already have asked yourselves some of the following questions:
“Has ELT always been like this?” “How ‘revolutionary’ is all this Communicative
Language Teaching stuff?” “Has ELT actually become more effective?” “Have the
aims of ELT changed?” “Why shouldn’t I teach the way I was taught?” This
lecture is intended to suggest a few answers…. LECTURE NOTES
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EXAM ORIENTATION HANDOUT
Exam
There are two parts of the Applied Linguistics
examination. In Part I you will be asked to give a short explanation of
the 13 terms as they were used in the lectures and/or the readings. Express
your answers clearly and unambiguously; do not just list a few related terms,
and do not copy out everything you remember about the topic. If you give an
example make sure it clarifies your answer.
In Part II. you will choose a teaching problem (out of
a choice of three) and write an essay (of between 300 and 500 max. words)
explaining in detail how insights from minimum two and maximum four areas of
applied linguistics may help teachers to understand the problem better and/or
offer possibilities of how to deal with the problem.
Marking:
For Part I about half the max. score will be the
passmark. Papers with a score just below the passmark will be double-marked for
reliability. This is important because students whose score for this part of
the test is below the passmark will fail the whole test. In Part II, the papers
will be judged on the student’s awareness of AL areas, the ability to relate
chosen AL areas to the teaching problem (with references to sources such as
lectures or reading), the effectiveness of argumentation and the
appropriateness of language/ discourse features.
NB:
WHILE THE LECTURE SERIES IS ONLY AVAILABLE IN THE AUTUMN SEMESTER, THE
EXAMINATION MAY BE TAKEN IN BOTH SEMESTERS.