Creating a Culture of Language Awareness in Content-Based Contexts

Abstract

A toolkit approach to professional development is frequently used to assist teachers of English language learners (ELLs), wherein teachers are provided a grab bag of activities and strategies to implement in their classrooms. However, today's heightened language demands call for teachers to develop teacher language awareness (TLA), a language lens that teachers use as a filter for text and material selection, instructional planning, and responsive teaching. Deeper professional development experiences are required to help teachers develop knowledge and expertise in the three domains of TLA: the user domain, the analyst domain, and the teacher domain. This article provides justification for TLA development, explanations of each TLA domain, plus concrete professional development ideas that can be implemented at a school, institution, or district level. doi: 10.1002/tesj.223Educators in both English as a second language (ESL) and English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts require continued professional development to stay abreast of new research and pedagogical innovations in the TESOL field. This article is directed at those TESOL educators who belong to the content-based instruction community of participation, that is, language teaching environments wherein content and language are taught simultaneously. Often referred to as CBI (for content-based

Repositioning Culture in Teaching Target Language: Local Culture or Target Culture?

“…Likely, a report on language and culture has conffirmed that they are so interwoven. In this regard separating them would lose the significance of their own (Huda, 2015;Lindahl & Watkins, 2015).…”

“…Therefore, of greater importance in teaching English as the target language is making use of its culture as a teaching context. English teachers should teach their students the culture ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- of L2 (Couper & Watkins, 2016;Lindahl & Watkins, 2015;Mahmoud, 2015;Marhamah, Daud, & Samad, 8AD;Miska et al, 2017;Tajeddin & Pezeshki, 2014;Yang & Li, 2019) to put the language barriers away and help them to do a culture adjustment regarding their language production. Likely, since language and culture are interrelated, teacher should give a space in which the target culture is embedded (Couper & Watkins, 2016;Limberg, 2015;Lindahl & Watkins, 2015;Tajeddin, 2012).…”

Socio-Pragmatic Errors and Their Pedagogical Implication in ELT

“…Therefore, of greater importance in treating the errors is that the pedagogical implication in English Language Teaching (ELT). Aside from L1 [36]- [43], leaners should be taught to understand the culture of L2 [18], [19], [27], [44]- [47]. Having intercultural and pragmatic competence are the requirements for L2 leaners, particularly English learners, to put the language barriers away.…”

“…Likely, as highlighted by [18], [19], [59], [60], the way how the teacher teaches the target language to his/her students is definitely considered to be the most important aspect in teachinglearning process. Since language is a part of the culture and both are interrelated, the teacher should also be able to provide a space in which the target culture is embedded.…”

“…Without culture, language would be dead, and without language culture would have no shape [17]. They are so interwoven that separating one from the other would lose the significance of the other [18], [19]. To add on, a study of [20] has emphasized that language is something socially shared meaning system.…”