Page 175 - Beyond Methods

Fostering language awareness 163
additional courses in linguistics or grammar, “not on sweeping changes or reforms of great magnitude, but on one small moment in the educational process: teachers and students talking to each other” (p. 85). He would like a LATE course for teachers that would “examine the reality of language use in relevant educational set- tings, preferably incorporating classroom observation and gather- ing of data by students” (p. 88). He suggests three things a LATE course should do:
• Take an experimental approach to LA, one that acknowledges that teachers have a great deal of knowledge and know-how of lan- guage, and which systematically draws upon that experiential base.
• Reject language-as-product, i.e., focus not on language as a body of content matter that can be transmitted piecemeal to an audi- ence, but rather as a living thing that shapes our existence and that we use to make sense of our world and our work.
• Study language critically, i.e., emphasize that language study is not only relevant to teacher education and classroom practice, but that it is essential to human growth and self-fulfillment.
(van Lier, 1996, p. 88–9)
Van Lier argues that within each of these three components, teach- ers should explore issues that are of interest to them and to their learners, and he believes that linguistic features of phonology, syn- tax, discourse, etc., will automatically become a part of that larger exploration.
Reflective task 7.5
To what extent, do you think, has the teacher education program you are as- sociated with helped you to “examine the reality of language use in relevant educational settings” in order for you to develop language awareness?
It is clear from the above that American and British educators have made serious attempts to promote general language aware- ness among language teachers in particular and among teachers in general. For most part, however, they narrowly focused on language structures and literacy skills rather than on the broader role lan-