Tema 1 - Dosier - Variables, Contexts and Communities

During the first session after the Christmas break, Gonzalo gave us an introduction to the course and the topics we would be covering over the next few weeks.  I have to say that I am looking forward to this part of the course as I think we’ll finally get down to the nitty-gritty of language teaching. 

In the first activity we used a Venn diagram to discuss the differences and similarities between the concepts of mother tongue and foreign language.  This activity can be used effectively to activate previous knowledge and offers a visual variation to a traditional brainstorming activity. 

In our group, our Venn diagram looked something like this:

Next we discussed our ideas with another group and with the rest of the class.

We then moved on to the different contexts that language is acquired.  In English, we refer to ‘mother tongue’, ‘first language’ or ‘native language’. However, in our globalized world, the term mother tongue is becoming less and less used in sociolinguistics, and the preferred term is now usually ‘first language’.  Mother tongue and native language are, in my opinion, a little too emotionally connected with culture and leave little room for inter-culturality. However, the term ‘lingua inicial’ or initial language seems to me a much more fitting term. Rather than setting up a hierarchy, like first language, or barring those speakers not of a certain ‘culture’, like mother tongue or native tongue; initial language seems to me to be a much more fitting description - it’s a shame that it isn’t used in English!  In any case, regardless of the term used, it is agreed that this language is learnt unconsciously, without any concrete intention (except communication) and before the child begins school.  The child of course may have two initial languages.  Another problem with ‘first language’ and ‘mother tongue’ if the child speaks two languages learnt from his parents - which one is which?!

The term second language, usually refers to the language acquired after the initial language, it could be acquired at school, at home or in the ‘street’.  It could be a lingua franca, a language used in administration or a language used in the education system (rather than taught in the system) This is the case with many children in Galicia, Galician may be there initial language at home but they may learn Spanish later, or vice-versa.  With that in mind, second language should not be confused with the term L2, used mainly in English speaking countries that are generally more monolingual, and refers to a foreign language.  Finally, when we refer to a foreign language, it is in an educational environment, learnt consciously for a specific intention.

Our next activity was to look at these concepts in concrete situations. 

For this activity we used the ‘placemat’ technique.  Each group of four or five has an A3 piece of paper.  The paper is sectioned off around the outside to allow each student to note their own thoughts and a section in the middle is reserved for conclusions made by the group.  Our group was asked to consider the following:

In the European Union, over 40 different languages are spoken.  Are all of them used in the European Parliament? 

My initial thought was that members of parliament have the right to use whatever language they wish. From the point of view of politicians, I supposed that they would want to use the language of the people they represent, for example an MEP from a Welsh-speaking constituency would insist on using Welsh, however, I recognise that with more than 40 languages, this would be far too unwieldy and the poor interpreters would end up with sore heads!  The correct answer was that each of the 27 member states chooses their official language.  This makes a lot more sense, but does end up being a little unrepresentative - Irish is the official language of Ireland, but there are far fewer speakers of the language than Welsh, Galician or Catalan. 

The other questions put to the other groups were as follows:

In the European Union, over 40 different languages are spoken.  Are all of them used in the European Commission?

In this case, English, French and German are used, though English is the most used.

Inditex has more that 7,000 shops in the 5 continents.  What language do the employees use with the customers? In what language do they communicate with the headquarters in Arteixo?

Of course, here the employees use the language(s) of the country where the shops are.  To communicate with the headquarters, English or Spanish is used. 

Citroen has 13 factories in 7 countries.  In what language do the heads of the factories use to communicate between each other?

Usually, the managers of the factories are native French speakers, so they communicate in French. 

For the next placemat activity we looked at other more concrete situations. 

The question for my group was as follows:

Pedro is from A Coruna, he works in the Zara in Marineda City and he learnt to speak Spanish.  What language would he speak to a Galician customer? And to an English customer? 

            In this case, it is likely that Pedro would speak Spanish to the Galician customer, and would try to communicate with the English customer in English. 

For the other groups, the questions were as follows:

A Spanish-speaking History teacher is working in a public school in Galicia, in what language would she give classes?

            By law, she would have to use Galician. 

A group of Erasmus students from 5 different countries are deciding where to go for a night out.  What language would they use?

            It depends on the country, but the most likely is English. 

In a digital technology trade fair, there is a group of sales people from companies in France, Belgium, Côte d'Ivoire and Spain.  What language would they speak amongst themselves?

The most likely is that they would speak English, but it could be French depending on the knowledge of the Spanish representative. 

We then looked at the concepts of habitual language, working language and lingua franca.  The habitual language is the language used the majority of the time by a speaker to communicate with those around him.  The habitual language and initial language are not always the same, for example, for an immigrant. The working language, refers to those used in certain business contexts, so in the example of Citroen, the working language between the directors is French.  And finally, the lingua franca is the language used as a medium of communication between speakers of different languages. 

In the second session, we looked at the linguistic community and communities of languages in the class.  First, using the placemat technique we noted down all the languages and variations that we have knowledge of.  We then used Google Docs to collate all the languages in the class.  In groups, we then decided on what linguistic communities and what communities of languages there were.  At first, we were all a bit stumped by the differences between them, but to illustrate the difference, the results of my group was as follows:

The linguistic community refers to the repertoire of languages in our group, so:

English, Galicia, Castilian, French, German, Scottish Gaelic. 

The communities of languages were as follows:

English, Galicia, Castilian and French. 

All four of us can communicate in English, Castilian and Galician (slowly but surely, I’m learning a lot of Galician on this course!) Three of us can communicate in French.  As only Pablo speaks German and I am the only one who speaks any Scottish Gaelic - these languages aren’t communities of languages. 

We then turned to Google Docs again and looked at the didactics of language teaching.  It was interesting to note that apart from primary and online courses the Flipped Classroom is applicable to practically every situation. 

Gonzalo then presented the variables that arise in distinct contexts of learning and we did another Venn diagram to compare adult and young learners. 

Our Venn diagram looked like this:

Then we talked briefly about the effect of L1 on learning an L2.  For me, the biggest impact is pronunciation and syntax.  Something I’ll explore later, along with error correction, in the diario post. 

Finally, Gonzalo quickly took us through some key points regarding motivation, aptitude and multicompetences.  It’s a pity that this part isn’t on the syllabus for the masters as it was thoroughly interesting… perhaps a topic for the TFM?