Editorial introduction: A reflection on the role of foreign
language learning in today’s education
Rigoberto Castillo
Universidad
Distrital Francisco José de Caldas
(Bogotá, Colombia)
Introduction
As a guest editor of this edition of the Latin American Journal of Content and
Language Integrated Learning (LACLIL),
I would like to share with the readers a reflection on what I perceive as the
evolving role of foreign language (FL) learning in today’s educational
settings. I offer some ideas on what institutions need to consider in FL
teaching and propose some questions for these to think about.
Many people are in contact with
other languages in mass communication as well as in private communication. Education,
research, entertainment, edutainment, news, and social networks, Web sites and
platforms—to name a few—pervade work and home routines. These serve the most
diverse audiences and purposes. On the other hand, academic and professional
mobility has become the norm. People work in networks; they are connected by
interests, often independently of nationality, culture, or language.
Today the study of an FL may
provide people with opportunities to interact with other cultures and to gain
awareness on a global citizenship. Information technologies have facilitated
the purposeful or the incidental contact with world communities; these factors
have transformed the way we learn, we teach, and we interact with others. Along
those lines, I see that FL education allows access to global knowledge. In
addition to promoting communication and culture, it serves as an instrument for
disseminating the knowledge generated locally. Thus, connections with other
communities become of utmost importance.
How Can educational institutions adapt to the new roles of FL study?
In the last decade, FL learning and use has evolved in its
purposes, in its genres, in its means, and in its substance. Business
transactions, academic communication, social interactions, and everyday
routines (for just some examples) tend to be diverse, multilingual, and
multicultural. The educational system has been challenged to prepare people to
use a FL for communication as opposed to as a subject of study.
The challenge to adapt to the new
roles of FL learning and use covers funding, large-scale program development,
syllabus design, methodology, implementation of ICT, testing, assessment, and
evaluation (see Ruane, 2003). In addition, the educational sector has been
required to not only start FL education earlier, but to be held accountable for
faster, better, and more tangible results in FL proficiency. In this panorama,
I feel institutions would need to offer:
·
practical language training especially for
learners not specializing in languages,
·
the use and development of appropriate
technology for language learning,
·
research and development in the field of
language teaching and learning,
·
contribution of FL study to international
academic communication with the consolidation of programs that promote
scholarship and divulgation of institutional projects, achievements,
publications and research,
·
an agenda with the libraries and the resource
centers to promote access to academic databases and to reliable sources of
information since the FL is so important in this endeavor,
·
constitution of language programs that meet the
demand for high standards,
·
offer activities to promote the arts from
diverse cultures
Along the lines of assuming new roles, I would like to argue
for the specificity of FL teaching. The instruction received in classrooms may
lag behind the education received in the environment. Meeting the present and
the future needs of learners requires a revision of syllabi and of classroom
practices. Learners need exposure to, and study of, the genres they encounter
daily and those genres they encounter in disciplines of study. Genres such as
reviews of books, movies, television shows, as well as scientific reports and
specialized lectures, would add meaning and usefulness to FL study.
Hyland (2002) argues that
“effective language teaching involves taking specificity seriously. It means
that we must go as far as we can” (p. 394).For teachers, this means introducing
learners to the relevant genres with the purpose of allowing them to
participate in a discourse community organized around specific and purposeful
activities. This can be approached in pragmatic or critical ways, and there has
been a considerable amount of discussion about the need to avoid uncritical
induction of students into disciplinary discourses and identities (Canagarajah,
2002; Harwood & Hadley, 2004; Pennycook, 1997 ).
In closing I would like to pose
some of the questions that academic institutions need to ask themselves:
·
How can language programs propose ways to
address the teaching of the FL as meaningful and useful to their learners and
to their institution?
·
How can institutions propose internal and
external assessment and evaluation that are coherent with the FL programs?
·
How can new spaces be created to stimulate
learner’s agency and autonomy in FL learning?
·
How can FL study better relate to the agenda of
internationalization of education?
References
Canagarajah, A. S. (2002). Critical academic writing and multilingual students. Ann Arbor, MI:
University of Michigan Press.
Harrabi, A. (2009) Education in English for
Specific Purposes in Tunisia: The case of the Higher Institute of Commerce of
Sousse. ESP World, 27. Retrieved from http://www.esp-world.info/articles_27/abdelfatteh.pdf
Harwood, N., & Hadley, G. (2004). Demystifying
institutional practices: critical pragmatism and the teaching of academic
writing. English for Specific Purposes, 23(4), 355–377.
doi:10.1016/j.esp.2003.08.001
Hyland, K. (2002). Specificity revisited: How far
should we go now? English for Specific Purposes, 21(4), 385–395.
doi:10.1016/S0889-4906(01)00028-X
Pennycook, A. (1997). Cultural alternatives and
autonomy. In P. Benson & P. Voller (Eds.). Autonomy and independence in
language learning (pp. 35-53).
Harlow, England: Longman.
Ruane, M. (2003). Language centres in higher education:
Facing the challenge, ASp, 41-42, 5-20. doi:10.4000/asp.1127
Biodata
Rigoberto Castillo, Ph.D., teaches in the
College of Education at the Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas in
Bogotá, Colombia.
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