This article examines the language choices made by native-speaker teachers of Japanese, Korean, German and French in foreign language (FL) classrooms in New Zealand secondary schools. It explores these teachers’ patterns of alternation between English, the majority language, and the TL, using both AS-units (Analysis of Speech units), devised by Foster et al. (2000) and a multiple-category coding system entitled ‘Functional Language Alternation Analysis of Teacher Talk’ (FLAATT), developed expressly to allow a cross-linguistic comparison of the relationship between teachers’ language choices and particular pedagogic functions. Findings suggest that the participating teachers differed markedly from one another not only in the amount of TL used but also in the pedagogic functions they used most frequently and in the language (TL or English) they chose for these functions. There was a tendency by most teachers to avoid complex interactions in the TL, limiting the potential for intake and for real communication on the part of the students. Implications are drawn for research and for teacher education.
The question of what language skills and competence are required of teachers, in order to be able to deliver lesson content appropriately and effectively, has been the subject of considerable debate given the growing numbers of non‐native teaching professionals employed in contexts where the medium of instruction is not their mother tongue. On the one hand, there is a view that a teacher should be native‐like or have complete control of the language that is the medium of instruction, the object of instruction, or both; on the other hand, it is argued that teacher language proficiency standards should be defined in relation to the particular context of instruction and in light of what is realistic given available training resources. The chapter demonstrates how these competing views play out by reviewing a variety of models for assessing the language proficiency of teachers as operationalized in the USA, the UK, Australia, Hong Kong, Brazil, and elsewhere. The models range from those that characterize the teacher proficiency construct in general linguistic terms to others that conceive of it as context specific, and as hence requiring performance‐based tasks and assessment criteria that mirror the target language use domain in very particular ways; for example, by requiring the test candidate to assume the role of the teacher when undertaking test tasks, or by assessing the teacher in the actual classroom situation. Contexts considered include higher education, with its demand for international teaching assistants capable of delivering high‐level subject content in a manner that is intelligible and acceptable to students, and school foreign language classrooms, where metalinguistic knowledge or knowledge about the target language can be considered part of the assessment construct. The chapter also considers issues of policy surrounding the delivery of teacher language tests or assessments and their impact on educational systems.
This paper investigates the code-switching behaviour of two native speaker teachers teaching their mother tongue -French and Korean, respectively -to predominantly English monolingual students in New Zealand secondary schools. A close analysis of these teachers' classroom discourse and their perceptions about classroom language use reveals a range of factors which, in spite of their proficiency, constrain their use of the target language (TL) for teaching purposes. While the individual teachers' attitude toward TL use appeared to be the main determinant of their differing degrees of TL use for instruction, there were also institutional and societal factors which influenced the way they constructed their bilingual identities and manifested in different patterns of language choice. These factors included the status of the TL within the educational system, and the pervasive presence of English as the convenient vehicle for message conveyance in the wider context. Implications are drawn for teacher training and language policy.
The father's role in children's L1 maintenance and L2 learning is a relatively unexplored area. This study considers the L1 and L2 proficiency of 30 KoreanÁ English late bilinguals who immigrated to New Zealand during their adolescence and how their L1 and L2 proficiency is influenced by the language use of family members. Data were collected through a questionnaire, a vocabulary test and a story-retelling task, and analysed in terms of language use and language proficiency measures. While language use of Korean siblings and fathers is shown to have a dual role in both affecting language use and L1 proficiency, the language use of Korean mothers is not associated with their children's patterns of language use or their children's L1 proficiency. We attribute the differences to different types of interaction between Korean mothers and fathers, and their adolescent children. The data also show that parental language use plays a minimal role in the adolescent L2 acquisition. IntroductionOne of the challenges that many immigrants face is a change in their linguistic environment. While it would be ideal for languages to co-exist in harmony, ideal bilingualism is outside of the reach of many immigrants, who need to juggle their first language (L1) and their second language (L2) to fulfil their individual, family and wider societal needs.In an L2 dominant environment, few migrants succeed in this endeavour, and many go through varying degrees of L1 attrition. Although increasing L2 proficiency is generally considered to affect the process of L1 attrition (Seliger and Vago 1991), findings from empirical studies on the relationship between L1 and L2 proficiency are inconclusive. While some studies report a negative relationship between L1 and L2 performance in bilingual speakers (e.g. Major 1992; Segalowitz 1991), others find no significant effect of L2 proficiency on L1 performance (e.g. Waas 1996;Yȃgmur, de Bot, and Korzillus 1999).A second issue is the age of the participants. Whereas most studies on child L1 attrition report evidence of L1 attrition (
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.