L2 teaching – Educational Sociolinguistics

Geraldine Gras (1):

Je me permets d’écrire ma première publication sur ce blogue en français. Tentative après tentative, je rencontre de la difficulté à m’exprimer tel que je le voudrais en anglais alors je sors mon autre paquet de cartes, celui-ci francophone. Cette envie d’écrire en français est aussi la conséquence d’un évènement survenu lors d’une rencontre avec les parents d’un de mes élèves. Ma partenaire d’enseignement (l’enseignante d’anglais) et moi-même avions rendez-vous avec des parents afin de discuter les besoins particuliers de leur enfant. Étant enseignante dans une commission scolaire anglophone, et de plus dans un secteur anglophone tel que Westmount, la rencontre fut en anglais afin de faciliter la communication. À la fin de la rencontre, la mère m’approcha et me dit : « Geraldine, you are [very] anglophone French teachers ». En premier lieu, cela m’a fait sourire. Après tout, c’est bien sympathique de se faire dire que l’on s’exprime convenablement, sans accent lié à sa première langue, lors de l’utilisation de sa deuxième langue. Puis, ce commentaire m’a tout de suite ramenée au deuxième cours lors qu’on adressait l’idée de l’identité langagière. Suis-je devenue trop anglophone pour mon rôle d’enseignante de français?

Continue reading “Addition > Division”

Mansour Ahmed:

Hi folks,

As we delve deeper into the area of educational sociolinguistics, I hope everyone is enjoying the variety of topics that we have surveyed thus far. Today, I am going to write about dialect incorporation in L2 learning settings/curriculum. I am sure most of you, if not all, have been in L2 (or L3) teaching-learning settings one way or another, i.e. as language learner (L2ers) or as language teachers. Typically, the goal of most L2ers is to become proficient in the target language (and culture) such that they actively and appropriately can participate in a range of communicative contexts and situations. Put differently, while it is vital that L2ers achieve a superb mastery of the grammar and phonology of the TL, it is pivotal that they be Sociolinguistically/interactionally competent. Part of this sociolinguistic competency, I argue, is to have a strong command of the TL dialect(s) and/or varieties; therefore, we as teachers should give them access to informal registers and dialects that are geographically and ethnically different, particularly in foreign language contexts. While textbooks and teaching materials should be designed with this goal in mind, almost all, unfortunately, however, lack this linguistic feature for a range of political and pedagogical reasons. What’s more, most language educators adhere to the prescribed curriculum. As L2 instructors, would you supplement the curriculum and consider integrating common dialectal expressions and use into your L2 activities/teaching? I know that this may be sensitive as some languages have multiple dialects, I am curious which dialect would you choose? Would you be eclectic? Or would you choose one or two dialects over others? Ultimately, we all want our students to use the language effectively and fittingly. For instance, L2ers of Arabic should be able to use and comprehend the language well whether they are in the streets of Sana’a, Damascus, or Cairo. Similarly, L2ers of French should be able to use it suitably whether they are in Quebec City or Paris, and the list goes on.

Continue reading “Dialect Integration into L2 Classrooms”