CHAPTER 1: Considering the <i>Standards for Foreign Language Learning</i> in Postsecondary Instruction

Magnan, Sally Sieloff; Murphy, Dianna; Sahakyan, Narek

doi:10.1111/j.1540-4781.2013.12056_4.x

Cited by 7 publications

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“…Graham (, ) also found that when pupils felt that FL classes were too hard this had damaging consequences for their motivation (see also, e.g., Archambault, Eccles, & Vida, ; Eccles, Lord, & Buchanan, , for similar findings related to other school subjects). Interestingly, our observations of deteriorating attitudes to language classes and decreasing intentions to study a FL are broadly in line with deterioration of other indicators of motivation observed in other longitudinal (Busse, ; Busse & Walter, ) and cross‐sectional (Magnan, Murphy, & Sahakyan, ) studies with older participants.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Perceptions, Attitudes, and Choosing to Study Foreign Languages in England: An Experimental Intervention

Taylor

Marsden

2014

The Modern Language Journal

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The declining interest in foreign languages in English-speaking countries has been attributed to negative societal attitudes and specific pupil attitudes and perceptions. While various initiatives have aimed to encourage language study, little research has systematically documented the relationship among perceptions, attitudes, and actually opting to study a language (henceforth, uptake). This article reports on an experiment involving 604 13/14-year-old pupils in 3 secondary schools in England that tested whether perceived relevance of languages can be improved through 2 different interventions (a panel discussion with external speakers versus a lesson with an external tutor) and whether pupil perceptions and attitudes can be linked explicitly to foreign language uptake at an optional level. Findings show that only pupils who participated in the panel discussion subsequently reported more positive attitudes and higher personal relevance of languages, though participating in either intervention may have contributed to higher uptake compared to a nonactive control group. Boys appeared to have generally more negative attitudes toward both language learning and advocacy than girls. Declared intentions to study or drop a language did not align with final decisions for one quarter of the pupils. Critically, perceptions of language lessons (French, German, or Spanish) and attitudes to languages were reliable predictors of uptake, though the strongest predictor was whether pupils considered languages to be important for themselves. Perceived wider importance of languages was not, in itself, a sufficient incentive.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Perceptions, Attitudes, and Choosing to Study Foreign Languages in England: An Experimental Intervention

Taylor

Marsden

2014

The Modern Language Journal

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“…The development and implementation of the Standards for Foreign Language Learning in the 21st Century (National Standards in Foreign Language Education Project, ; hereafter National Standards), now the World‐Readiness Standards for Learning Languages (National Standards Collaborative Board, ), have significantly impacted the world language teaching profession by providing a framework that guides curriculum, instructional approaches, and assessments at both the national and, in many cases, the state level across much of the United States (Ohio Department of Education, ). While a number of large‐ and small‐scale research studies have examined various ways in which the standards have influenced the teaching and learning of world languages (e.g., Allen, ; Magnan, Murphy, & Sahakyan, ; Sarroub, ; Wood, ), studies of the relationship between the standards and teachers’ assessment practices have been less prevalent, including in K–12 contexts (Troyan, ). This multiple case study examined how the assessment practices of four high school world language teachers aligned with the competencies specified in their state's Learning Standards for 9–12 World Language Programs (Ohio's Learning Standards, ), which were developed from the Standards for Foreign Language Learning 1 (National Standards, ) and with the five major goal areas in that nationally accepted standards framework.…”

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confidence: 99%

Alignment of World Language Standards and Assessments: A Multiple Case Study

Kaplan

2016

Foreign Language Annals

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Previous research has examined world language classroom‐based assessment practices as well as the impact of the Standards for Foreign Language Learning in the 21st Century (National Standards in Foreign Language Education Project, 1999) on practice. However, the extent to which K–12 teachers’ assessment practices reflect national and state standards has not been made clear. This article presents a multiple case study examining how the classroom‐based assessments used by four secondary world language teachers provided insight into students’ progress toward achieving the competencies that are specified by Ohio's Learning Standards for 9–12 World Language Programs and the five goal areas as they were described in the 1999 version of the nationally accepted standards framework. Qualitative analysis of assessment artifacts and interview transcripts showed that assessments principally targeted presentational writing and interpretive reading and that some assessments did not directly align with any of the goals or standards. Findings provide continuing evidence to support the results of the Standards Impact Survey (ACTFL, 2011) and have implications for world language teachers’ professional development needs and the role of standards in world language education.

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“…The need to extend conceptions of teacher language knowledge in mainstream (K–12) teacher education, alongside the traditional proficiency measures of formal qualifications and knowledge audits, has been slow to gather momentum despite the broader conceptualisation of language in the literature (Byrnes, ). One of the limitations cited in the call to extend the scope of the ACTFL (American Council on Teaching Foreign Languages) assessment framework, for example, is the examination of attitudes and perceptions (Phipps & Levine, ) in order to “understand better what learners think about language learning” (Magnan, Murphy, & Sahakyan, , p. 28). As stated by these authors, “the notion of the agency of an individual within multiple communities points toward what might well be the most serious, unattended to issue in the Standards” (p. 34).…”

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Reframing Teachers’ Language Knowledge Through Metaphor Analysis of Language Portraits

Coffey

2015

The Modern Language Journal

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As theoretical developments in applied linguistics challenge the dominant mentalist framing of cognition as knowledge residing in the head, new ways of understanding and recording teachers' and students' engagement with languages are needed. Structural and competence-based formats for measuring proficiency posit an incremental model of learning as sequential mastery of language features acquired in a predictable order, but this is only one story of how languages are learnt. An alternative and emerging paradigm seeks to understand how different languages are experienced and appropriated subjectively in individual lives. In this article, I point to recent scholarship in language teacher education to show how critical language awareness entails reflecting not only on language content but also on perceptions of language(s) and language learning. I analyse a set of language portraits, produced in a workshop with teacher candidates, to demonstrate that language autobiographies, when used within a phenomenological perspective, elicit a broader reflexivity vis-à-vis teachers' own language learning history (plurilingual repertoire) through recourse to different metaphors that are both embodied and emotional. This reframing extends the research agenda into language teacher cognition by bringing into teacher education different modes of reflexivity to encourage a more nuanced picture of how individuals relate to and personally invest in languages.

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CHAPTER 1: Considering the Standards for Foreign Language Learning in Postsecondary Instruction

Cited by 7 publications

References 0 publications

Perceptions, Attitudes, and Choosing to Study Foreign Languages in England: An Experimental Intervention

Perceptions, Attitudes, and Choosing to Study Foreign Languages in England: An Experimental Intervention

Alignment of World Language Standards and Assessments: A Multiple Case Study

Reframing Teachers’ Language Knowledge Through Metaphor Analysis of Language Portraits

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