This study reports on EFL teachers' self-reported teaching practices aimed at stimulating students' language awareness. It investigates whether, and to what extent, awareness-raising practices are currently implemented in EFL secondary education in the Netherlands, how these practices can be characterised, and how awareness-raising practices can be developed and further integrated into foreign language education. In a semistructured interview, 10 teachers were asked to provide examples which they believed stimulated students' awareness of language. A total of 41 teaching practices were collected. Analysis of teaching practices revealed that approximately half of all self-reported practices could be characterised as awareness-raising. These practices often integrated multiple topics, included authentic contexts, back-and-forth interaction and provided students with the opportunity to reflect on their own and other students' language difficulties. At the same time, numerous practices which were reported as awareness-raising could not yet be characterised as such, indicating that teachers' notion of what constitutes an awareness-raising practice may be incomplete. Nevertheless, these practices provide interesting leads for awarenessraising opportunities. In sum, the analysis of practices presents a valuable opportunity for teachers to discuss their notion of awarenessraising practices. In addition, such an analysis could support teachers in adjusting their own teaching practices.
This study presents an in-depth inquiry into teachers' beliefs about a language awareness approach to secondary school foreign language education. The study aims to deepen our insight into (the differences in) teachers' beliefs about language awareness and facilitate the discussion about including language awareness in foreign language curricula. Ten EFL teachers were interviewed about their beliefs about language awareness. Analysis of the interviews revealed that teachers do not have a shared understanding of the concept of language awareness as related to the five domains of language awareness set out. Furthermore, several beliefs could be characterised as conflicting. These conflicts were found in the context of student learning, teacher collaboration, the curriculum and the link with other languages. The results suggest a number of challenges that need to be addressed when including language awareness in foreign language education. These challenges could serve as a point of departure for a dialogue with and between teachers. Furthermore, they could support teachers to find out how language awareness fits best within the existing EFL curricula.
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