Page 187 - Beyond Methods

Fostering language awareness 175 how you can make use of their linguistic and cultural knowledge to en-
rich class discussion
7.2.10 Design an appropriate take-home writing assignment for your students on any aspect of political apologies.
7.2.11 Finally, reflect on the desirability or the difficulty of dis- cussing topics such as political apology in your class—in other words, what difficulties you anticipate if you do decide to take up such topics for discussion in class. Later, compare your anticipated difficulties with how the students actually reacted to the classroom activity.
In Closing
An unmistakable lesson we learn from this chapter is that language awareness, general as well as critical, should form an integral part of language education as well as content education. Language aware- ness is essential for the realization of an individual’s full potential and, through that, for the realization of a nation’s democratic ideals. Fostering general and critical language awareness is one way of con- necting the curricular agenda of a teaching program with the learn- ing purpose of an individual learner, and both with contemporary sociopolitical order.
While language awareness activities are commonly associated with the development of advanced skills in critical thinking, read- ing, and writing, they are useful for grammar learning and teaching as well. Clearly, language awareness facilitates the process of notic- ing or consciousness-raising on the part of the learners. It is then possible that such a process of noticing could activate the learners’ intuitive heuristics, ultimately enhancing their state of readiness to internalize the grammatical system of their L2. We will explore that possibility in the next chapter.