CORESLA Assessment  

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A 3500-word essay on one of the following three topics, submitted by the beginning of term 2.

I. Justify or reject one of the following principles of 20th century language teaching and decide how far it is useful for teaching in the 21st century in the light of SLA research and theories, referring to a particular teaching situation with which you are familiar: the goal of language teaching is to become as close as possible to the native speaker; students learn best through spoken, not written, lang­uage; teachers and students should use the L2 rather than the L1 in the classroom.

Reading (apart from that on the original reading list)

general

Howatt, A. (1984), A History of English Language Teaching, OUP
Stern, H. 1983. Fundamental Concepts of Language Teaching. Oxford: OUP.

native speaker

Cook, V.J. (1999), ‘Going beyond the native speaker in language teaching’, TESOL Quarterly, 33, 2, 185‑209 ) Web version

Davies, A. (1996). Proficiency or the native speaker: what are we trying to achieve in ELT? In Cook, G. & Seidlhofer, B. (eds.), Principle and Practice in Applied Linguistics (pp. 145-157). Oxford: OUP

Firth, A. & Wagner, J. (1997). On discourse, communication, and (some) fundamental concepts in SLA research. Modern Language Journal, 81, 285-300

Kramsch, C. (1998). The privilege of the intercultural speaker. In Byram, M. & Fleming, M. (Eds.), Language Learning in Intercultural Perspective, (pp.16-31), Cambridge: CUP

Rampton, M.B.H. (1990). Displacing the “native speaker”: expertise, affiliation and inheritance. ELT Journal, 44/2, 338-43

speech and writing

Banathy, B.H. & Sawyer, J.O. (1969), ‘The primacy of speech: an historical sketch’, Modern Language Journal, 53, 537-44

Bygate, M. (1998), 'Theoretical perspectives on speaking', Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 18, 20-42

Cook, V.J. (2001). ‘Knowledge of writing’, IRAL, 39, 1-18

 

Cook, V.J. (2001). ‘Written language and foreign language teaching’, in V. Cook & B. Bassetti (eds.), Second Language Writing Systems, Multilingual Matters, 424-442, 2005

Halliday, M.A.K. (1985), Spoken and Written Language, OUP

Haynes, M. & Carr, T.H. (1990), ‘Writing system background and second language reading: a component skills analysis of English reading by native-speaking readers of Chinese’, in T.H. Carr & B.A. Levy (eds.), Reading and its Development: Component Skills Approaches, San Diego: Academic Press, 375-421

Olson, D.R. (1996), ‘Toward a psychology of literacy: on the relations between speech and writing’, Cognition, 60, 83-104

Treiman, R. (1993), Beginning to Spell, Oxford University Press

L2 rather than L1

Butzkamm, W. (2003), ‘We only learn language once. The role of mother tongues in the classroom’, Language Learning Journal, 28, 29-39

Dodson, C.J. (1967), Language Teaching and the Bilingual Method, London: Pitman

Hawkins, E. (1987), Modern Languages in the Curriculum, second edition, CUP

Macaro, E. (1997), Target Language, Collaborative Learning and Autonomy, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters

Mitchell, R. 1988), Communicative Language Teaching in Practice, London: CILT

Stern, H.H. (1992), Issues and Options in Language Teaching, Oxford: OUP

II. How would you define the goals for language teaching for your teaching situation? In the light of the work covered in the course, describe both the situation as it is now and as you think it should be. 

Canagarajah, A.S. (ed.): Reclaiming the Local in Language Policy and Practice. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 3-24.

Holliday, A. (1994), Appropriate Methodology and Social Context, CUP

Phillipson, R. (1992), Linguistic Imperialism, OUP

And either look at the national syllabuses for your own country or find one on-line – most countries have them on the web from Japan to Israel

    III. A case study of a second language user, applying the ideas from the course to a particular individual. One possibility is to study a young Newcastle child or bilingual family through Surestart but this will need setting up very early.

Submission date:  Monday 25th January 2010 by 1 pm to Sandra Lovell and on BlackBoard. In principle marking should take about a month, but this depends on the sheer number of assignments .

School rules for late submission and plagiarism should be consulted on ECLS websites and handouts.