Classroom language management

Classroom language management

1. Content-obligatory language (students must know)

2. Content-compatible language (students use it to express themselves about the topic)

   • Includes
     • Technical vocabulary
     • Special expressions
     • Multiple meanings of words
     • Syntactical features
     • Language functions: informing, defining, analysing...

3. Scaffolding strategies

   • To learn specialized disciplinary language and English
     • Ex.: Students learn to read and write science texts best by to do so in authentic contexts for authentic purposes
     • To provide additional scaffolding for language
     • To make connections to students' linguistic resources in L1
     • To provide additional opportunities for practice
     • To support the development of strategic behaviour

4. Supporting language learning in content classes

   • Oral interaction
   • Focus on students' interests
   • Peer co-operate work
   • Critical thinking
   • English elements
     • Create a psychologically and physically safe environment
       • Safe from ridicule, sarcasm, and pshysical aggression
       • To make them feel successful
     • Consistently use one language
       • To try use the target language
         • At the primary level, students initially expresses themselves in their L1
         • To help with new vocabulary
     • Speak slowly and articulate clearly
       • To speak clearly when introducing new language and structures
       • Only teach the necessary words or structures
     • Use an appropiate level of language
       • To avoid structures too complicated but challenging
       • Use facial expressions, gestures and pictures to reinforce meaning
         • To discover the meaning in the target language before showing visual aids
       • Repetition is required
         • To grasp meaning and create security
       • Make it meaningful
         • Themes of interest
         • To work in groups
       • Provide a variety of language models
         • To invite guests
         • To use native-language resources
         • To join international projects
       • Create a wealth of opportunities to use the language
         • To present relevant activities to the students
         • Problem-solving activities
         • To develop collaborative skills and gain confidence
       • Communication is of primary importance
         • Self- or peer-correction
       • Develop all four language skills
         • To combine all four skills into one activity or a series of activities
       • Work systematically to build equal status for languages used in the school
         • To use CLIL language and sudent's mother tongue
       • Set high, but realistic expectations
         • If they have problems, build scaffolds to support them
       • Find ways of recognizing student effort and success
         • Analysis and some form of public recognition
         • Do not use the word "but"

5. Oral expression

   • To promote oral interaction to make learners feel comfortable
   • Speaking activities
     • Individual talk and input
     • Open and closed question-and-answer sessions
     • Speaking in pairs
     • Speaking in groups
     • Role-playing of the subject
     • Speaking as a whole class
     • Reading aloud
   • Oral presentation
     • To develop a theme in front of the audience
       • Select the information
       • Script and speech structure
       • Support material
       • Linguistic and non-verbal strategies
   • Oral discussion
     • Oral text for convincing someone or expressing the opinions
       • To control gestures and body movements
       • To avoid oral repetitions
       • Intonation and tone
       • To keep the audience's attention (humour, questions...)
   • To achieve fluency and accuracy trough scaffolding

6. Written expression

   • Texts as linguistic units
     • Textual genres and typologies
   • Linguistic norms and varieties of the language
   • Textuality
   • Pragmatic adequacy, semantic coherence, and syntactic cohesion
   • Pre-writing
     • To get the information
       • Be divided into logical criteria
         • Paragraphs
     • Title, structures for the body, and closing paragraph
   • Writing
     • To write coherent, cohesive, and stylistically correct
       • Cohesion
         • Deixis resources, anaphoric ...
         • Paragraphs
         • Linking words
         • Punctuation marks
   • The style
     • Text should be normative and stylistically correct
       • Proper register
     • To use synonyms
     • Subject+verb+complement
     • Proper structure
     • Avoid abstraction
     • Do not write subsections too long
   • The review
     • Content
     • Structure
     • Objectives
     • Typography
   • Structures and types of written texts
     • Types
       • Narrative
       • Descriptive
       • Expository
         • To give information about a topic
           • Introduction
           • Development
           • Conclusion
           • Structures
             • Cause-consequence
             • Problem-solution
             • Comparison-contrast
             • Description of a process
             • Temporary sequence
       • Argumentative
         • To try to convince by exposing opinions and arguments
           • Introduction
           • Development
           • Conclusion
           • Resources
             • Irony
             • Repetition
             • Authority argument
             • Rhetorical resources
       • Instructive
       • Conversational
       • Rhetorical

7. Typology of dictionaries

   • A type
     • Encyclopedic dictionaries - dictionaries of language
     • General - specialized dictionaries
     • Monolingual - bilingual dictionaries
     • Descriptive - prescriptive dictionaries
     • Synchronous - diachronic dictionaries
   • Another type
     • Dictionary of the language : words and its meaning
     • Encyclopaedic dictionary: words, its meaning, and further information
     • Etymological dictionary: origin of the words
     • Historical dictionary: evolution of the meaning and the use of the words
     • Ideological dictionary: lexicon ordered in semantic fields
     • Reverse dictionary: words ordered from right to left
     • Terminology dictionary: definitions of a specific area
     • Visual dictionary: illustrations with its names
     • Rhyming dictionary: used in versification for word endings
     • Dictionary of idioms: idioms on diverse themes
     • Dictionary of pronunciation: correct pronunciation with a phonetic alphabet

8. The linguistic variation and English language

   • Sociolinguistics studies the variation of language among social groups, situations or places
     • Language acquisition involves the use properly the language in diverse situations and uses
   • Diachronic variation
     • Linguistic changes through history
       • Pronunciation change
         • "Sound shift": sounds of related languages are similar in apparently systematic ways
       • Changes in syntax
         • Affect the patterning of sentences
         • English - German: OV- VO
       • Semantic change
         • Affect meaning and uses
           • Change related to social changes
           • To add or lost meanings
           • Identical or similar referential meanings with different stylistic meaning
           • Vocabulary borrowed from other languages
           • Native words replaced by words from other languages
   • Synchronic variation
     • A language at a specific moment and time
     • Diatopic variation
       • Small linguistic differences in distant parts of a region (dialects)
     • Diastratic variation
       • Linguistic uses of social classes
     • Diaphasic variation
       • Variation of a language in terms of register
         • Formal
         • Informal
   • Pidginisation and creolisation
     • Pidginisation: process when two languages come into contact
       • Process of simplification or hybridisation
         • To mix words and syntactic structures
       • Some instances of pidgins
         • Based on European languages (English, French, Spanish, Dutch...)
         • Lack of inflection in nouns,, verbs...
         • Nouns without number or gender
         • Verbs lack tense markers
         • No distinction personal pronouns (they/them)
         • No clausal structures
     • Creoles: variations formed when pidgins were acquired as a mother tongue by children exposed to them
       • Some instances of creoles
         • English-based creoles
           • Atlantic group (West Africa, Caribbean area)
           • Pacific group (Hawaiian Creole English, Tok Pisin)
       • Decreolisation
         • Creole speakers in prolonged contact with the standard variety
           • In Barbados, Cameroon, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea)