Multilingual Language Awareness and Teacher Education
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MULTILINGUAL LANGUAGE AWARENESS AND TEACHER EDUCATION
INTRODUCTION
In the last two decades, we have developed a substantial, although incomplete, body of knowledge about what teachers need to know and be able to do, to build on and/or develop many languages and literacies present in twenty-first century classrooms and communities. Less understood, however, is how to educate teachers in ways that ensure not only the acquisition of those understandings, but also the teachers’ enactment of those understandings in their teaching, as well as the relationship that this kind of teaching holds for their children’s learning. This chapter starts out by describing different kinds of language awareness that are necessary in diverse schools, specifically focusing on what we call multilingual awareness (MLA) for today’s multilingual schools. The chapter focuses on the pedagogy of MLA that must be the core of ALL teachers education programs. Although the discussion that follows is relevant for the entire world, we focus here on North America and Europe. E A R LY D E V E L O P M E N T S : L A N G U A G E A WA R E N E S S A N D A WA R E N E S S O F L A N G U A G E
Since the publication of Bolitho and Tomlinson’s Discover English: A Language Awareness Workbook in 1980, the term “language awareness” has been increasingly used in the language teaching field, especially as a result of the burgeoning of the TESOL profession. Generally, language awareness (LA) or knowledge about language (KAL) in teaching is used to encompass three understandings: about language, its teaching, and its learning (Andrews, 1999, 2001; Wright, 2002; Wright and Bolitho, 1993, 1997; building on the roles described by Edge, 1988): 1. Knowledge of language (proficiency). (The language user) Includes ability to use language appropriately in many situations; awareness of social and pragmatic norms. 2. Knowledge about language (subject–matter knowledge). (The language analyst) Includes forms and functions of systems—grammar, phonology, vocabulary. J. Cenoz and N. H. Hornberger (eds), Encyclopedia of Language and Education, 2nd Edition, Volume 6: Knowledge about Language, 385–400. #2008 Springer Science+Business Media LLC.
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3. Pedagogical practice. (The language teacher) Includes creating language learning opportunities; classroom interaction. The Association for Language Awareness (ALA) defines language awareness as “explicit knowledge about language, and conscious perception and sensitivity in language learning, language teaching and language use” (ALA home page). Its journal Language Awareness, published since 1992, states its goal as the study of, the role of explicit KAL in the process of language learning; the role that such explicit KAL plays in language teaching and how such knowledge can best be mediated by teachers; the role of explicit KAL in language use: e.g., sensitivity to bias in language, manipulative aspects of language, literary use of language, etc. Wright (2002) distinguishes two roles for language awareness: 1. As a goal of te
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