PLACING LANGUAGE IN THE CENTRE OF SCHOOLING (click to view)
Volume 2022-1(7), 102 pages
* Intro
* Contents
* Authors
* Reviewers
Placing language where it – in the world of education – truly belongs
Educational systems which ignore language as its unequivocal foundation can be regarded as essentially haphazard. Not resting education on language is tantamount to disregard for four basic truths following from one another: (1) Language shapes one’s identity and understanding of the world, (hence) (2) All education rests on language, (hence) (3) Every teacher is a language teacher, (hence) (4) Language merits a special position in education. These four straightforward statements – constituting the key premises of ERL Framework, to which ERL Association as the publisher of ERL Journal belongs to – point to such evident priority of language to be assigned to it that does not apply to any other subject or discipline. They also imply that in order to take them all into account in a sufficient degree, educational systems would need to be practically devised completely anew, which, with education remaining an ongoing process across the globe, may be hard to envisage as plausible for implementation too soon. Yet, it still remains not only possible, but unequivocally necessary if the education of our children and next generations is not to fall behind what we know today about how people learn and how significant a role is played by language in the entire process.
More specifically, what the world of education call been calling for is a thorough reconsideration of students’ development marking the presence of language of four different levels (ranging from its one-off classroom uses to its pivotal role in life-changing processes). First, as we can read on ERL Association’s website, on the instructional level, language needs to be “invited” more into classrooms of different subjects as it has been shown to underlie students’ reality and to enable sense-making, genuine learning, and knowledge construction (or knowledge composition, as I myself tend to refer to the process of language use encompassing, like in music, the fixed and the novel, meaning well-known “pieces” (formulaic language), on the one hand, and authorial or artistic combinations of words and phrases). Second, on the systemic level language needs to be assigned a paradigmatic role in the construction of hybrid educational systems owing to its today-unquestioned developmental potential and interdisciplinary presence providing bases for educational alternatives resting on criticality, equality of languages, plurilingual and transdisciplinary literacy and oracy. Third, on the cultural level, language needs to be viewed as a platform of cultural change and intercultural communication, with cultural diversity resting predominantly on language and the quality of educational systems depending on the level of subject literacy and oracy being the fundamental indicator of effective teaching and meaningful learning. And fourth, on the societal level, language needs to be prioritized as the dominant “player” in civilizational change, with its omnipresence in social life serving international cooperation and formation of learners’ and teachers’ linguistic (culturally-conditioned) identities, and language determining the equalization of educational opportunities and thus fostering democracy.
To serve the language-oriented breakthrough in question, under the ERL Framework we join inguistic and educational “forces” by combining the aims of the two disciplines developing and drawing on interdisciplinary theories and devising joint research and practices. These four ‘joints” have recently provided grounds for the fifth international Educational Role of Language conference, which took place at the point when we were all coming out of the pandemic period and experiencing new – not only technological – solutions in linguistic education. Following a roughly two-year period during which we had all functioned essentially online without the possibility of natural and direct language exchange, we could approach the issue of combining educational and linguistic sciences from freshly developed perspectives and with remote-education experience that had made us crave for renewed face-to-face interaction and for the possibility of hearing and telling new educational and pedagogical “strokes” (as we have recently come to refer to such items of exchange as stories, jokes, riddles, or scientific discoveries). Besides all the hardship and toil brought about by the pandemic, numerous educationally-linguistic initiatives arose from the fact that when teaching online linguists had to reach out to pedagogical concepts in order to make their students more involved, all the educators who had had little to do with language in their everyday work could experience on an everyday basis the salience of language and (frequently faceless) communication.
This volume of ERL Journal tells a part of this ERL “tale” aiming at PLACING LANGUAGE IN THE CENTRE OF SCHOOLING. It covers two parts, one in which focuses on centralizing spoken and written text, and the other on centralizing language-oriented methods and policies. Jointly, the texts, seven papers and two reports, well exemplify the subject matter, which has always been educationally crucial but which had gained even more weight as a result of the pandemic. In relating to the pandemic aftermath the volume continues the theme undertaken by the previous volume, which was devoted to the notion of linguistic well-being (before, during, and after the pandemic). The volume does not aspire to tell the entire eponymous “story” , but only touches the surface as the problem of how to place language in the center of schooling requires extensive theoretical and empirical studies which we, under the ERL Framework, try to – in our pedagogically-linguistic circle, jointly undertake. We do encourage our readers to join these efforts and to submit texts (as scientific papers or other types of writings) which may help to put language in the at the heart of education, that is the place where it truly belongs.
CONTENTS
CENTRALISING SPOKEN AND WRITTEN TEXT
CENTRALISING LANGUAGE-ORIENTED METHODS AND POLICIES
7. Rini Singh – Systemic functional linguistics and inclusivity in the classroom
8. Soňa Grofčíková, Jana Trníková – Theoretical and practical aspects of team teaching
FULL Article (PDF)
List of Volume 2022-1(7) Authors
List of Volume 2022-1(7) Reviewers
Anita Bright orcid.org/ 0000-0002-6163-853X: USA, Portland State University, College of Education. Anita Bright is a Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, and serves as the Program Coordinator for the ESOL Endorsement. During the 2022-23 academic year, she is a Senior Fulbright Scholar at Bethlehem University in Bethlehem, in the Palestinian Occupied Territories. Her ongoing projects engage Critical Race Theory, and explore power, privilege, and the ways educators conceptualize ideas of social justice. Further, her work highlights the ways educators address systemic inequities, including racism, sexism, classism, linguicism, and their intersections. She may be reached at abright@pdx.edu
Valerija Drozdova orcid.org/0000-0001-5051-7057: LATVIA, Turiba University, Faculty of International Tourism, Language Department. Valerija Drozdova is an Assistant Professor in Turiba University in Riga, teaching English for Special Purposes and Intercultural Communication. She holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics and Literature and her research interests are in ESP, applied linguistics, discourse studies, genre studies and intercultural communication studies. She is currently involved in a NordTourNet-3 project “Solving Communication Problems of Different Generations in Tourism Companies”, project no. NPAD-2017/10129. valerija.malavska@turiba.lv
Kakha Gabunia orcid.org/0000-0002-2789-9138: GEORGIA, Ivane Javakhishvili, Tbilisi State University. Kakha Gabunia graduated from Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University. He defended his doctoral dissertation at the Institute of Linguistics of the Georgian Academy of Sciences (in linguistics). Kakha Gabunia is the author of 5 monographs, more than 80 scientific articles, 50 textbooks, and the editor of up to 100 books. Kakha Gabunia was actively involved in digitizing the Georgian language and corpus linguistics. He is an expert in SLE and multilingual education. Kakha Gabunia is involved in many international projects implemented by international or local organizations (Funded by OSCE, USAID, European Commission, etc.). kakha.gabunia@tsu.ge
Ketevan Gochitashvili orcid.org: 0000-0001-5599-7002: GEORGIA, Tbilisi State University and University Geomedi. She is an author of publications and textbooks in language education, academic writing, lexicology, linguo-cultural aspects of Georgian language. She has participated in more than 20 international and local research projects. With her participation, an electronic course of Georgian language (https://www.ice.ge/web/elearning_geo.html) and an electronic orthographic dictionary of Georgian language (http://ena.ge/) have been developed. ketevan.gochitasvili@tsu.ge
Sona Grofcikova orcid.org/0000-0002-0264-4825: SLOVAKIA, Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, Faculty of Education, Department of Education. Sona is an Assistant Professor whose interests are pedagogy, general didactics, theory of instruction, theory of education, preschool and elementary education. She is Involved in projects: Playing-2-gether: Teacher sensitivity as a basis for inclusion in preschool (Erasmus+ KA2 project); Development of a Diagnostic Tool to Assess the Level of Phonemic Awareness of Children in Preschool Age (National project); Individual Conception and Strategy of Education Within the Context of Teacher's Professional Development (National project). sgrofcikova@ukf.sk
Ivana Horváthová orcid.org/0000-0002-8388-7692: SLOVAKIA, Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra. Ivana Horváthová is an Assistant Professor at the Department of English and American Studies, Faculty of Arts, Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, Slovakia. Her research interests focus on methodology of teaching English language at primary level of education and the potential of (wordless) picture books in a teaching process. She is an author and a co-author of several papers dedicated to methodology of teaching foreign languages, one course book “Picture Books in English Language Teaching” (2020) which is primarily designed as supplementary material for the students of teacher training study programs and other participants in academic courses dedicated to children’s literature and an author of the monograph “Skúmanie cudzojazyčných a metodických kompetencií učiteľa anglického jazyka a ich vplyvu na deti na predprimárnom stupni vzdelávania” (2021). As a full-time PhD student, she was a co-investigator of the project APVV “Evaluation of Teacher’s Competences” (2015-2019) and currently she is a co-investigator of the project KEGA Poetry as lingua franca – effective approaches to teaching poetry as a vehicle for personal growth within the context of international cross-cultural communication (2022-2024). ihorvathova@ukf.sk
Elvira Küün orcid.org/0000-0003-2088-1418: ESTONIA, Narva College of University of Tartu, Department of Estonian Language and Culture, Junior Lecturer of Estonian Language. Elvira is currently also a doctoral student at Tallinn University. She is interested in teaching methods for new immigrant pupils and linguistic and ethnic identity of Russian-language people in Estonia. elvira.kuun@ut.ee
Luisito M. Nanquil orcid.org/0000-0001-8501-0731: PHILIPPINES, Bulacan State University. Luisito Nanquil has been a language and literature professor for a number of years. He is handling professional courses in education and linguistics at Bulacan State university. His research interests are TESOL, educational leadership, language and culture, curriculum and instructional design, and educational linguistics. He holds doctorate degrees in Educational Leadership and English Language Studies. Furthermore, he obtained TESOL Diplomas from London Teacher Training College and Concordia International College. luisito.nanquil@bulsu.edu.ph
Jean-Baptiste M.B. Sanfo orcid.org/0000-0002-5615-0919: JAPAN, University of Shiga Prefecture, Institute for Promotion of General Education. Jean-Baptiste Sanfo is a lecturer at the Institute for Promotion of General Education of The University of Shiga Prefecture. He has a Ph.D. from Kobe University, Japan, and his research focuses on education development. His papers highlight factors determining education quality in developing countries and how educational inequalities can be reduced by targetting these factors. Jean-Baptiste is currently involved in research projects focusing on education in African and Asian countries and he can be reached at sanfo.j@office.usp.ac.jp
Giuli Shabashvili orcid.org/0000-0002-5022-0760: GEORGIA, Tbilisi State University. She is an associate professor at the Faculty of Humanities at TSU. Her Ph.D. thesis was in the field of linguistics. She is also interested in the issues of sociolinguistics, language teaching, and pragmatics. She is the author of more than 30 publications, 3 monographs, and 9 textbooks. She participates in both local and international projects. giuli.shabashvili@tsu.ge
Rini Singh orcid.org/0000-0002-1682-814X: INDIA. Rini Singh is a PhD student at the School of English Language Education at English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, India. For her doctoral study she is looking at how SFL informed genre-based pedagogy can be used to enhance English language writing skills of grade 8 learners in a government school in New Delhi. Her interests include classroom instruction and teacher training. rinisingh108@gmail.com
Abdoul-Karim Soubeiga 0000-0002-7740-0948: JAPAN, Kobe University, Graduate School of International Cooperation Studies. Abdoul-Karim Soubeiga is a master’s student in economics in the Graduate School of International Cooperation Studies at Kobe University, Japan. His research interest lies in education development. More specifically, his study looks at the factors that influence education quality in developing countries and how these factors might be addressed to improve learning outcomes and reduce educational disparities. soubeigaabdoulkarim@gmail.com
Jana Trníková orcid.org/0000-0002-9645-4415: SLOVAKIA, Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, Faculty of Education. Jana is an Assistant Professor whose interests are pedagogy, didactics, preschool and elementary education, innovations in education. She is involved in projects Neuropedagogy and Neurodidactics as an innovative approach to teaching process, Improvement of Future Teachers´ and Employments´ Practice in Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, Development of Cognitive Competences of Children in Conditions of Nursery School through Physical Experiment. jtrnikova@ukf.sk
Sanoh Yusuf orcid.org/0000-0002-8268-7410: JAPAN, Japan, Kobe University, Graduate School of International Cooperation Studies. Sanoh Yusuf is currently working as a Trust Fund Administration Intern at the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC) at the United Nations Headquarters, New York, United States. He has a master of Economics degree from Kobe University, Japan. His research focuses on education economics and international development. sanohyusuf2015@gmail.com
Vesna Bogdanović (Serbia, University of Novi Sad)
Jurga Cibulskienė (Lithuania, Vilnius University)
Deniz Copur (Turkey, Middle East Technical University)
Dorothy Valcarcel Craig (USA, Middle Tennessee State University)
Oumaima Elghazali (Morocco, Mohammed V University)
Antonia Estrella (Portugal, Higher School of Education of the Polytechnic Institute of Lisbon)
Jelena Filipović (Serbia, University of Belgrade)
Immaculada Fortanet-Gomez (Spain, Universitat Jaume)
Daiva Jakavonytė-Staškuvienė (Lithuania, Vytautas Magnus University Education Academy)
Intakhab Alam Khan (South Arabia, King Abdulaziz University)
Kendall A. King (USA, University of Minnesota)
Karla Kubitz (USA, Towson University)
Jason Litzenberg (USA, The Pennsylvania State University)
Gabriel Pincas (Bosnia and Herzegovina, University of Tuzla)
Danica Pirls (Serbia, University of Nis)
Thorsten Schröter (Sweden, Mälardalen University)
Agnieszka Szplit (Poland, Jan Kochanowski University in Kielce)
Silvana Tokic (Croatia, University of Split)
Zuzanna Zbróg (Poland, Jan Kochanowski University in Kielce)