1,721,931 research outputs found
'SLA in action': raising teachers' awareness of English lexicogrammar and its acquisition
No full textIntroduction. Taking stock of research in applied linguistics: implications for second language pedagogy
No full textComparing Tails. An exploratory study of tails in native spoken English and Italian EFL learners’ interlanguage
No full textThis paper is an investigation into the form, functions and patterns of distribution of tails (right-dislocated phenomena) in native spoken English and Italian EFL learners’ interlanguage. It draws upon two native speaker corpora (CANCODE, Longman Spoken and Written English Corpus) and a learner corpus which is being assembled in the Department of English of Milan State University, Italy. Although the study is exploratory in nature, I report preliminary findings which seem to point to the fact that tails do emerge in Italian EFL learners’ interlanguage, but with different patterns of distribution than they have in native speaker speech. Possible learning and teaching implications are also discussed
The ideology of spoken English in English grammaticography
Full text linkIt is widely and uncontroversially believed that English grammaticography has almost exclusively focused on written language, ignoring the distinctive features of spoken English. Even when spoken language features have been described, an ideological view of spoken English has led grammarians to place more emphasis on written language norms. This paper aims to illustrate the findings of a grammaticographical investigation into the grammar of spoken English as conceived of and presented in a restricted corpus of Italian grammars of English authored by academics and published between the second half of the 19th and the mid-20th centuries. The textual and paratextual materials in the grammars were analysed in order to ascertain whether the presentation of traditional ‘prescriptive’ rules accounts for less formal and spoken usage, what—if any—phenomena of spoken grammar are dealt with and whether evaluative terms are used with regard to spoken English. The results of the analysis show that the authors of the Italian grammar books were able to push the boundaries of pedagogical grammaticography, placing an increasingly greater emphasis on the role of spoken usage in the description of the English language
Grammar by the book : the passive in pedagogical grammars for EFL/ESL teachers
No full textGrammar by the Book is a study of how the English passive, as both a linguistic phenomenon and a learning/teaching issue, is presented in pedagogical grammars for EFL/ESL teachers – grammar books aimed at trainee and practising teachers of English as a foreign/second language and intended to supply metalinguistic information on English grammar, practice in language analysis and error correction as well as an overview of grammar teaching activities and the typical problems experienced by EFL/ESL learners. Whereas a great deal of ink has been poured by theoretical and descriptive linguists in the last fifty years in attempts to conceptualise and describe the passive, very little awareness appears to exist of this recent research among language teachers. Pedagogical grammars for teachers are arguably a concrete attempt to redress the situation inasmuch as they are primarily aimed at bridging the gap between linguistic research and the practical concerns of the teacher. Spanning approximately thirty years (1978-2004), the sample of ten grammars on which this study is based originated not only in Inner Circle countries (Canada, USA, UK, New Zealand), but also in former British colonies (India, Hong Kong, Singapore) and in a country where English is learnt as a foreign language (Colombia). Through the analysis of the verbal descriptions, the examples and the diagrams featured in the corpus of ten presentations of the passive as well as the subject-specific metalanguage used, the book pieces together a picture of the way an important grammatical phenomenon has been turned into a grammaticographical product and explores how insights from the last one hundred years of linguistic and applied linguistic research have been mediated and represented for a non-academic audience. A subsidiary focus of the analysis is the evaluation of the ‘fitness-for-purpose’ of the grammars, i.e. whether they achieve the purposes that a teacher-oriented pedagogical presentation should serve
Learning to teach the passive: the representation of subject matter knowledge for grammar teaching in pedagogical grammars for EFL/ESL teachers
No full textThe article reports on an ongoing study which aims at identifying how the learning and teaching of grammar is conceptualised and represented in ‘pedagogical grammars for EFL/ESL teachers’, viz. those grammar books aimed specifically at trainee and practising teachers of English as a foreign/second language and intended to supply comprehensive and exhaustive information on English grammar, combined with information on the typical problems experienced by EFL/ESL learners in acquiring different grammatical areas, suggestions on suitable teaching activities and practice in error correction and language analysis. Given they are expressly meant as teacher education tools, ‘pedagogical grammars for EFL/ESL teachers’ are arguably an ideal ‘laboratory’ for investigating how theory/research in second language acquisition and language teaching is operationalized for the benefit of the non-academic language teaching professional. The study has singled out seven pedagogical grammars for EFL/ESL teachers, from which the descriptions of the grammatical area of the passive are sampled. The analysis has focused on the information about the acquisition and the teaching of the passive featured in the seven grammars, which has been coded and categorised using (in part) Ellis’ (1997, 1998) framework of methodological options in grammar teaching. The article illustrates the findings of this analysis, highlighting in particular what they reveal about the way theory/research in second language acquisition and language teaching is selected and represented for the EFL/ESL teacher
Prescriptivism and the genre of pedagogical reference grammars for Italian students
No full textDespite being thought of as – rightly or wrongly – one of the essential tools for instructed
language learning, pedagogical reference grammar books are still mainly uncharted territory
within English grammaticographical research. The aim of this paper is to illustrate some
distinctive features of the genre of pedagogical reference grammar books for Italian students of
English vis- -vis the notion of prescriptivism. The genre originated in Italy in the 80s of last century
as communicative approaches started to become mainstream in Italian schools. The analysis
is based on a corpus of eleven grammar books and shows that the genre is rooted in a view of
grammar and an approach to grammar selection and presentation which may be dubbed ‘pedagogical prescriptivism’
Writing in English in Italy – from ‘compositions’ to ‘academic writing’
Full text linkThis article aims to investigate the evolution of L2 English writing instruction in the 20th century, focusing on the ‘pre-history’ of academic writing in Italy – when writing was mainly viewed as an ancillary activity, often added to grammar/translation language classes. To shed some light on the principles underlying L2 English ‘composition’ writing instruction, the article illustrates the findings of the analysis of a sample of English writing materials published in Italy between the 1940s and the 1990s. Against the background of a mostly stagnant institutional context, English writing pedagogy appears to have evolved in Italy throughout the 20th century as a result of wider social and cultural changes, as well as developments in applied linguistics. This evolution led to a reappraisal of the role of the learner writer, who was increasingly viewed as an active agent in the process of knowledge transformation
BEYOND MONOLINGUALISM: A VIEW FROM THE PAST
Full text linkThe 21st century is often dubbed as the era of multilingualism in applied linguistics and language teaching, in contrast to the previous century, when the monolingual approach prevailed. The importance of this paradigm shift cannot be overestimated as it is also enshrined in the recently compiled Companion to the CEFR. However, the multilingual approach has a long history and arguably underpins several language teaching textbooks that rely on the learners’ L1 as a bridge to the L2 and as such are associated with the often reviled Grammar Translation method. Recent research has shown that the negative portrayals of L1 use and translation as featured in historical language teaching materials are based on second-hand information, and close analyses of these pedagogical materials may provide a different picture. Against this background, this article focuses on a corpus of English language materials published in Italy in the 20th century, an area of investigation that is still under-researched. The analysis shows that the learners’ L1 – Italian – is extensively exploited across the corpus, although the impact of the monolingual paradigm can be detected in the more recent materials. Several instances were found in the corpus where the L1 acts as a cognitive, cultural as well as linguistic mediation tool, in ways that are not far removed from what is envisaged in the CEFR Companion.
Oltre il monolinguismo: uno sguardo al passato
Il XXI secolo è spesso definito come l’era del multilinguismo nella linguistica applicata e nell’insegnamento delle lingue, in contrasto con il secolo precedente, in cui prevaleva l’approccio monolingue. L’importanza di questo cambiamento di paradigma non può essere sopravvalutata, in quanto è sancita anche nel Volume Complementare del QCER, recentemente pubblicato. Tuttavia, l’approccio multilingue ha una lunga storia e probabilmente è alla base di molti libri di testo per l’insegnamento delle lingue che si basano sulla L1 dell’apprendente come ponte verso la L2 e che, in quanto tali, sono associati al metodo della traduzione grammaticale, spesso vituperato. Recenti ricerche hanno dimostrato che le rappresentazioni negative dell’uso della L1 e della traduzione presenti nei materiali storici di insegnamento delle lingue si basano su informazioni di seconda mano e che un’analisi attenta di questi materiali pedagogici può fornire un quadro diverso. In questo contesto, il presente articolo si concentra su un corpus di materiali in lingua inglese pubblicati in Italia nel XX secolo, un’area di indagine ancora poco studiata. L’analisi mostra che la L1 degli apprendenti – l’italiano – è ampiamente sfruttata in tutto il corpus, anche se l’impatto del paradigma monolingue può essere rilevato nei materiali più recenti. Nel corpus sono stati individuati diversi casi in cui la L1 agisce come strumento di mediazione cognitiva, culturale e linguistica, in modi che non si discostano molto da quanto previsto dal Companion del QCER
A return to grammar amid the communicative ‘revolution’: Italian pedagogical grammar books for EFL students (1980-2000)
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