Masterarbeit, 2021
85 Seiten, Note: 1.7
List of Tables
List of Illustrations
List of Abbreviations
1. Introduction
2. Literature Review & Analysis
2.1 Theory
2.1.1 Second Language Acquisition
2.1.1.1 Definition
2.1.1.2 Explicit vs Implicit Knowledge
2.1.1.3 Emerging Adulthood and Andragogy
2.1.2 Language Teaching
2.1.2.1 Contextual Factors
2.1.2.2 Syllabus & Lesson Design
2.1.2.3 Teaching Language
2.2 Linguistic Concepts
2.2.1 Language Systems
2.2.2 Metalinguistic Awareness
2.2.3 Constructed Languages
2.2.3.1 Overview
2.2.3.2 Language Construction Processes
2.2.3.3 Language Construction in Teaching
3. Methodology & Results
3.1 Methodology
3.2 Curriculum Presentation
3.3 Discussion & Analysis
4. Conclusion
4.1 Limitations
4.2 Implications
References
Appendices
Appendix A
Appendix B
Table 1: Second Language vs Foreign Language
Table 2: Developmental Markers of Emerging Adulthood (Konstam, 2015, p. 2)
Table 3: Assumptions of Andragogy (Knowles et al., 2005, pp. 64-68)
Table 4: Basic Syllabus Design (Grimm et al., 2015, pp. 247-248)
Table 5: Syllabus Types, based on Richards & Rodgers (2014) and Robinson (2009), examples from (McDonough et al., 2013, p. 13)
Table 6: Teaching Methods (Grimm et al., 2015, pp. 87-88; Richards & Rodgers, 2014, p. 391)
Table 7: Types of Clarification (Scrivener, 2011, pp. 163-169)
Table 8: Language Systems (Bieswanger & Becker, 2017; Mair, 2015)
Table 9: Structure of Language Construction in Selected Literature
Table 10: Advanced Course - Objectives (Landesamt für Schule und Bildung Sachsen, 2019b, pp. 62-63)
Table 11: Assumptions for Curriculum Content
Table 12: Curricula Overview
Table 13: Curriculum 2 Year 1 - Grade
Table 14: Curriculum 2 Year 2 - Grade
Table 15: Curriculum in Numbers
Table 16: Curriculum 3 Year 1 - Grade
Table 17: Curriculum 3 Year 2 - Grade
Figure 1: The Reflection Process (Grimm et al., 2015, p. 228)
Figure 2: Curriculum 1 - Excerpt
Figure 3: Top-Down: Linguistics
Figure 4: Bottom-Up: Language Construction
EFL = English as a Foreign Language e.g. = exempli gratia, for example
i. e. = id est, that is
LC = Language Construction
LB = Lernbereich, learning area
SLA =Second Language Acquisition
« THE ECHOES OF OUR CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCE LIVE ON IN OUR UNCONSCIOUS. »
This quote by Nick C. Ellis (2005, p. 340) was brought forward in his argumentation on how conscious (explicit) knowledge influences unconscious (implicit) knowledge and this approach gravely influences the steps taken in this thesis. Explicit and implicit learning occur at almost all stages and situations in a person's life, which also applies to language learning. Learning the native language may be an unconscious endeavor at first, but once a learner enters the school system, conscious learning of the native and even a foreign language comes into play. Foreign language teaching has been an essential part of education for approximately two centuries (Mihailovna Kuznetsova, 2015; Rasakumaran, 2019). Whenever individuals with different native tongues encounter each other, they also experience the critical role language plays in human communication and the problem of no shared language knowledge. Foreign language teaching aims to build the bridge to common communication ground. In Europe, this common communication ground used to be Latin. Even long after it was the native tongue in the Roman empire, it stayed the agreed-upon language in science, politics and spirituality (Mihailovna Kuznetsova, 2015; Rasakumaran, 2019). Today, despite still being taught in German secondary education, Latin has lost much of its impact on the everyday life of society. Instead, English language teaching has been part of curricula in the German education system since the 18th century (Grimm et al., 2015, p. 6). According to the Education First English Proficiency Index (EF EPI), Germany is currently ranked 8 out of 100 countries worldwide. This may be an acceptable position, but it should not be taken as a reason to neglect the importance of English proficiency. The 2020 report (EF Education First, 2020) established several key factors in society that are highly influenced by the English proficiency in the respective country. Not only is English proficiency “positively correlated with [.] measures of innovation” (p. 12), but the same positive correlation is found regarding human and economic development (p. 16), work situations (p. 14), and the global connectedness of countries (p. 18). However, looking at the EPI by industry, the educational sector worldwide shows the lowest number of workforce English proficiency of all listed industries. Even though this cannot be directly traced back to the education system in Germany, it coincides with a publication by the Landesamt für Schule und Bildung in Saxony. This publication shows that the need for English teachers is not sufficiently covered in any type of school at the moment (Staatsministerium für Kultus des Freistaates Sachsen, 2017). Combining the immense importance of a high English proficiency for learners' future careers with the increasing lack of English teaching in Saxony due to teacher shortage and low level of English proficiency in education in general, the quality of English teaching in schools becomes more important. Moreover, with the developing globalization and English consolidating its position as lingua franca in business and academia (Melitz, 2018), learners need to be provided with a set of tools that will enable them to improve their foreign language proficiency in the long run. To meet these modern English proficiency requirements, foreign language teaching is undergoing a process towards student-centered, communicative approaches (Staatsministerium für Kultus des Freistaates Sachsen, 2019, p. 3). While most of these changes are aimed at language learning from a young student age, some adaptations can and must be made at later ages. In German secondary education, students get to choose advanced courses they want to take in the last two years of their regular education. For students choosing English as an advanced course, there is the opportunity to work on the English language for 5 hours every week, opposed to the regular 2-3 hours in basic courses. The state curriculum states that language reception and reflection are significant factors in advanced English teaching. Students should also learn how to use language as a tool (Staatsministerium für Kultus des Freistaates Sachsen, 2019, p. 3). All these aims and considerations create an entry point for language construction into advanced language learning and teaching. Language construction describes the intentional development of a language. Even though this is often used for fictional works or linguistic experiments, the processes of language construction could also be used for natural languages. Not only does language construction require and foster the ability to reflect on language, meaning metalinguistic awareness; but it leads learners to an active engagement with the language. Learners would be given the toolset of metalinguistic awareness as an approach to all languages and language features they encounter. Therefore, the research questions of this thesis are:
A. What benefits can teaching language construction processes bring to teaching English as a foreign language?
B. How can language construction processes be integrated into the Saxon state curriculum for advanced English courses?
Throughout this thesis, extensive literature research will aim at answering the first of these questions. As a more practical part, a curriculum will be developed based on insights from the literature and the Saxon state curriculum as a framework for all teaching in Saxon state schools. After the presentation of the curriculum, its content and the theoretical background will be discussed, decisions in its development will be justified, and its advantages and challenges presented honestly and academically. In the conclusion, the results will be summarized as final answers to the research questions, and the presentation of limitations and implications will complete the thesis.
In this literature review, all concepts necessary to answer the research questions as well as support and understand the development of the curriculum will be presented. The review is separated into two sections. The first section includes theories on research areas, including second language acquisition, explicit and implicit knowledge, emerging adulthood and andragogy, and lastly, language teaching. The second section then introduces linguistic concepts such as language systems, metalinguistic awareness, and language construction.
The first theoretical topic that needs to be discussed is Second Language Acquisition (SLA). In the following chapter, the term Second Language Acquisition will be defined, and the prominent terminology of the research field will be presented. Considering the direction of the thesis, which does not explicitly focus on Second Language Acquisition, only the approaches and ideas most relevant to the thesis will be regarded. In this case, this will cover the fields of explicit/implicit knowledge and learning, as well as certain observations of second language acquisition. Speaking about the term second language acquisition, it will be noted that in the title and research question of this thesis, the term foreign language is used instead of second language. Hence, the first distinctions in this chapter will be between the several uses of ‘language', including first, second, and foreign. Based on these definitions, conflicts in the terminology will be shown, and the terms will be defined for their use in this specific thesis.
Second Language Acquisition (SLA) is a broad field of studies and research. De Bot et al. (2005) define SLA as research focused on “how languages are learned” (p. 3). A similar definition is given by Gass & Selinker (2008), who also add that it is “the study of the acquisition of a non-primary language; that is, the acquisition of a language beyond the native language” (p.1) According to Doughty & Long (2003), it encompasses basic and applied work on the acquisition and loss of second (third, etc.) languages and dialects by children and adults, learning naturalistically and/or with the aid of formal instruction, as individuals or in groups, in foreign, second language, and lingua franca settings (p. 3).
Now, this definition contains several points of information that need to be examined. Doughty & Long first mention second language acquisition and later foreign and second language settings. From the use of second language and foreign language as separate concepts arises the question, how these terms are differentiated in research and literature. Considering that the study field itself is named Second Language Acquisition, it is not clear what exactly separates second language from foreign language and how the study of SLA applies to both of them. For a closer inspection, Saville-Troike (2012) provides separate definitions for different language- related terms. Regarding the term second language, she states that it is an “official or societally dominant language needed for education, employment, and other basic purposes [.] often acquired by minority group members or immigrants who speak another language natively” (2012, p. 4). In contrast, a foreign language is described as one that the learner does not need in their natural social context and that is, among other factors, used for future traveling and/or learned as required or voluntary subject in school, “but with no immediate or necessary practical application” (Saville-Troike, 2012, p. 4). Hence, the main point of distinction between second language and foreign language is the use of the language - either in the learner's natural communicative surroundings or for future intercultural communication outside day-to-day settings. However, if it is assumed that this distinction can be applied to the terminology, that would exclude all non-primary language acquisition outside the learner's natural, daily communication. Nonetheless, the definitions given before do seem inclusive of this type of communication, especially Doughty & Long (2003) specifically mention ‘foreign language settings' in theirs. To explain why foreign language acquisition is, in fact, included in the field of SLA, second language can be seen as two different ambiguous concepts depending on the setting of the term. The first setting becomes clear from the definition of Gass & Selinker (2008), who contrast second language with native language. Hereby, the terms are chosen depending on the number and order of languages spoken by the learner. At first, there is the native language, which is broadly synonymous with primary or first language, as well as mother tongue, which is commonly shortened to L1. Every language a learner acquires afterwards is considered a second language (L2) even though some research proceeds with L3 for the third language, continuing in the same pattern for all further languages. The second setting was described in the distinction by Saville-Troike (2012), who introduced the terms second and foreign language depending on the use and setting of the respective languages.
Therefore, according to the former, foreign and second language are not necessarily in contrast with each other, whereas they are according to the latter definition. Their contrasting points can also be viewed in the following table.
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Table 1: Second Language vs Foreign Language
However, the definitions by Doughty & Long (2003) as well as by Gass & Selinker (2008) clearly show that in the field and research of SLA, there is no distinction between foreign and second language. Instead, SLA focuses on any non-primary language acquisition (Gass & Selinker, 2008, p. 1), making it just as relevant for teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL). Some authors explicitly explain that they use the term SLA to describe both second and foreign language acquisition (De Bot et al., 2005; Gass & Selinker, 2008). Rod Ellis (2010) states this even more clearly, saying that in the context of SLA, “ ‘second' can refer to any language that is learned subsequent to the mother tongue. Thus it can refer to the learning of a third or fourth language” (p. 3). He continues explaining that in this sense, ‘second' is not to be placed opposite ‘foreign' but that second language acquisition is a generic description of L2 acquisition (p.3). One further interesting distinction found in Ellis' book Second Language Acquisition (2010) is that L2 acquisition describes the process of learning a non-primary language, and Second Language Acquisition (SLA) can be defined as the study of this process (p.3).
For this thesis, the term ‘foreign language' was therefore chosen as a specifier of second language because it describes the setting in which the language acquisition and thus, the research is taking place in more detail. In 2008, 63% of Germans stated that they speak English relatively well (Fremdsprachenkenntnisse, 2008); and it can be assumed that for the vast majority, English is both the second language (in the sense of language acquisition order) and a foreign language (in the sense of language acquisition setting). The assumption is insofar justified that English is a mandatory subject in German schools, at the latest beginning with the third grade in primary school (Fremdsprachen, n.d.). This distinction is relevant to this thesis because that is exactly the setting the research will focus on: learners of English as a foreign language in the setting of a German secondary education curriculum.
One important concept that needs discussion is the distinction between explicit and implicit learning as well as explicit and implicit knowledge and the role they play in L2 acquisition. Since discussions about explicit and implicit knowledge have led to controversies in teaching, they need to be considered both as concepts and regarding their influence on language teaching. To avoid misunderstandings, it is best to begin with the definition of the two terms. Rod Ellis (2009) describes explicit learning as “memorizing a series of successive facts”, which leads to heavy demand on the working memory of the learner (p. 3). Another characteristic of explicit learning is that it takes place consciously (R. Ellis, 2009, p. 3). In contrast to this, the learner is unaware of implicit learning occurring and is not able to verbalize the knowledge (R. Ellis, 2009, p. 3). According to Ellis (2009), however, this kind of learning does not demand resources of working memory (p. 3). Hereby, explicit and implicit knowledge are the results of the explicit and implicit learning processes (R. Ellis, 2009, p. 6).
Another distinction that needs to be made in this context is between learning and instruction. It may be assumed that explicit instruction would lead to explicit learning and similarly for implicit instruction and learning, but that is not necessarily the case due to the individual factors each learner brings into the learning situation (R. Ellis, 2009, p. 6). Since it was stated that implicit learning takes place without the learners' awareness, it must also be defined what exactly awareness is supposed to mean in this case. While awareness in the sense of noticing includes attention to superficial aspects, the second kind of awareness - metalinguistics awareness, which will be discussed in 2.2.2 - describes being aware of the underlying linguistic patterns (R. Ellis, 2009, p. 7). Rod Ellis (2009) also states that there is disagreement among researchers as to which of these two kinds of awareness are meant when it is said that implicit learning happens without awareness (p. 7).
Lastly, in terms of language learning, “explicit knowledge is knowledge about language” (R. Ellis, 2004, p. 229). Nick C. Ellis elaborately discusses how explicit and implicit knowledge interact with each other in several of his works. He states that “the bulk of language acquisition is implicit learning from usage. Most knowledge is tacit knowledge; most learning is implicit; the vast majority of our cognitive processing is unconscious” (2005, p. 306). Nonetheless, it has become evident that L2 acquisition is not as successful with only implicit approaches, and it is suggested that explicit learning plays a necessary role in language learning (N. C. Ellis, 2015, p. 13). Not all researchers agree on this, and there are three cognitive perspectives on the influence of explicit on implicit knowledge. One is the noninterface position stating that implicit and explicit language knowledge are located in different parts of the brain and can therefore not influence each other (R. Ellis, 2005, p. 144). The weak interface position claims that explicit knowledge can influence implicit knowledge, but there is no consensus on how this influence takes place (R. Ellis, 2005, p. 144). Lastly, according to the strong interface position, explicit knowledge can become implicit and the other way around through practice, even though there is disagreement on the kind of nature (R. Ellis, 2005, p. 144).
Considering all previous statements, there seems to be no consensus on any approach regarding explicit and implicit knowledge. Instead, there are only suggestions from different perspectives. Green & Hecht (1992) found in their study that learners “corrected largely by implicit rules, which very possibly had been facilitated by explicit rules” (p. 178). A similar idea is given by Rod Ellis (2002), who explained that adult learners in particular tend to construct explicit representations of a rule even when the practice is directed at implicit learning (p. 169). In a different publication, he states that “although there is controversy regarding the interface of explicit and implicit knowledge at the level of learning, there is wide acceptance that they interact at the level of performance” (2004, p. 235). In the midst of the debates on the existence and use of the two kinds of knowledge, Nick C. Ellis explains the following:
The facts (a) that implicit and explicit learning are different, (b) that they promote different aspects of language proficiency, and (c) that attentional focus in input processing and output processing provide different opportunities for the interface of explicit and implicit knowledge, when taken together, have simple but profound consequences for language learning and instruction [...], there must be a balanced learning curriculum that provides opportunities for meaning focused [sic] input, meaning-focused output, form-focused learning, and fluency development. (2005, pp. 339-340)
He comes to the conclusion that “the echoes of our conscious experience live on in our unconscious” and that “conscious and unconscious processes are dynamically involved together in every cognitive task and in every learning episode” (2005, p. 340). His very, arguably overly, simplified process novice + externally scaffolded attention internally motivated attention explicit learning explicit memory implicit learning implicit memory, automatization, and abstraction = expert will nevertheless serve as the basic guideline for whenever explicit and implicit learning and knowledge become relevant in this thesis because it can be assumed that in some way, explicit and implicit knowledge do influence one another. There are many more discussions and approaches related to explicit and implicit knowledge that could be explained here, but since this thesis is not directly aimed at researching these phenomena, further elaborations would go beyond the scope of the thesis.
The focus of this theoretical chapter lies on adult education. Considering that the research in this thesis is directed at learners between the ages of 16-19 years, principles of adult education must be taken into account, as well as general approaches to teaching. However, one conflict can already be anticipated: With an age group that possibly contains members both above and under the German age of majority of 18 years (Toyka-Seid & Schneider, 2021), the term ‘adult' as well as the use of adult teaching methodology poses a challenge. Hence, it will be researched how the term ‘adult' is defined in general and in the literature pertaining to adult education. Later on in this thesis, it will be discerned if and how adult education principles apply to the aforementioned group of learners.
The first and most obvious source of definition is the legislature of the Federal Republic of Germany. According to the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (Federal Agency for Civic Education), the legal age of majority in Germany is 18 years (Toyka-Seid & Schneider, 2021), which changes the legal status of a person from underage to adult and individuals move on from childhood into adulthood. It is similar in the law of the United States of America, based on which Vivian E. Hamilton defines the term by the legal changes that happen in a person's status. Among others, these changes include losing “entitlement to parental support” or gaining “the ability to participate in civic and political life” (Hamilton, 2016, p. 57). However, from a developmental perspective, the definition and perimeter of majority may not be as simple. The American Psychological Association (APA) defines adulthood as such: “the period of human development in which full physical growth and maturity have been achieved and certain biological, cognitive, social, personality, and other changes associated with the aging process occur” (American Psychological Association, n.d.-a). The association furthermore divides adulthood into three categories. The first category is called young adulthood, which begins at approximately 20 years of age and ends at 35 years. It is followed by middle adulthood from 36 to 64 years of age and later adulthood, which starts at age 65 (American Psychological Association, n.d.-a). Considering both the legal and psychological definitions of adulthood, it is obvious that there is a gap between the two. The age between 18-19 years of age is not accounted for in the definition by the American Psychological Association. It is exactly this age that needs clarification in order for this thesis to appropriately apply education strategies during the research process. Hence, the question is posed how these two years of age are considered in developmental and psychological research.
One term that frequently occurs in recent literature on development is emerging adulthood. The APA dictionary calls emerging adulthood “a developmental stage that is neither adolescence nor young adulthood [...] spanning the late teens through the twenties, with a focus on ages 18 to 25” (n.d.-b). Emerging adulthood is considered as a time of “identity exploration, a process of trying out various life possibilities [.] and gradually moving toward making enduring decisions” (American Psychological Association, n.d.-b). Key aspects of emerging adulthood are discussed in literature by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, a developmental psychologist who coined the term and proposed the concept of emerging adulthood. The developmental markers of emerging adulthood are presented in the table below.
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Table 2: Developmental Markers of Emerging Adulthood (Konstam, 2015, p. 2)
Especially the third developmental marker of emerging adulthood could be relevant for this thesis because if the learners of this age group are especially self-focused, it is more important than for other age groups that the teaching is focused on the learners as well. This coincides with the andragogical model presented by Malcolm Knowles. This model consists of six assumptions about adult learners:
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Table 3: Assumptions of Andragogy (Knowles et al., 2005, pp. 64—68)
These commonly acknowledged principles of adult education (or andragogy) will be examined in the latter chapters of the thesis to determine how they can be applied to language teaching and the curriculum that will be developed.
Another theoretical field that needs to be explored is the theory of language teaching. To keep the presented theories and methods relevant to the thesis, the focus will be on principles of teaching English in particular. In some parts, the underlying general teaching theories may need to be explained, but for the greater part, approaches to English teaching will be explained and examined. Before continuing with the more specific approaches to teaching English, there needs to be a general framework of the topics and steps that are included in language teaching in general, which will furthermore be used in the methodology section in order to create a foundation for the curriculum production. Grimm et al. (2015) provide a reflection process, which can also serve as a guideline in the process of designing a framework for English teaching. In the reflection process, there are several steps leading up to the actual teaching of a lesson as well as its evaluation. In the following chapters, it will be examined how far different approaches to English teaching fit into and can be combined with this process to provide a basic approach to language teaching and teaching design. Since there will be no practical teaching as part of this thesis, steps 4 and 5 will be disregarded in the process.
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Figure 1: The Reflection Process (Grimm et al., 2015, p. 228)
For the purpose of establishing this framework, several guides to teaching language and teaching English will be reviewed. These guides include Learning Teaching (Scrivener, 2011), Teaching English (Grimm et al., 2015), The Teaching of English as an International Language (Abbott & Wingard, 1992), The Handbook of Language Teaching (Long & Doughty, 2009), Language Teaching (Lado, 1964), and Materials and Methods in ELT (McDonough et al., 2013). Considering their different settings and publishing times, it is not surprising that these books also differ greatly in their approach to language teaching. The most general structure can be found in McDonough et al. (2013), who focus mainly on the design of materials, teaching language skills, and aspects of classroom methods.
Nonetheless, they also introduce a factor that can be found in some of the other books and that will be the first in this chapter's framework: context. As subcategories of context, McDonough et al. (2013) mention learners and setting (p. 6) . Learner characteristics are considered so- called contextual factors and these characteristics are listed as learner age, interests, level of proficiency, aptitude, mother tongue, academic and educational level, attitudes to learning, motivation, reasons for learning, preferred learning styles, and personality (McDonough et al., 2013, pp. 7-8). The second subcategory of context, setting, is defined as “the whole teaching and learning environment, in a wide sense” (McDonough et al., 2013, p. 8). Specifically, setting includes the role of English in the respective country, the role of English in the respective school, the teacher, management and administration, available physical and facility resources, support personnel, number of learners, available time resources, physical environment, sociocultural environment, tests used, and procedures for monitoring and evaluation of language teaching (McDonough et al., 2013, pp. 8-9). In addition to these two contextual factors, Long & Doughty (2009) mention social and sociolinguistic contexts as well as politics and policies of language teaching. These two categories of context can be considered part of the setting explained in McDonough et al. (2013), as they coincide with the socio-cultural environment and the role of English in the respective country listed before. This concludes the first aspect of the framework as contextual factors, including learner characteristics and teaching setting.
The next larger field is mentioned in Long & Doughty (2009) and called program design. Since the type of program in this thesis is determined by the German education system and Saxon state syllabus, the official publications by the Saxon ministry of education will be examined instead. These predefined factors also include some of the points of setting explained earlier, such as the role of English at the school and time resources. Additionally, the Saxon ministry of education provides a guideline on the content to be taught in each grade. These are subjectspecific and will therefore be discussed elaborately in the appropriate chapters. Similarly, syllabus and lesson design are partly covered by the predetermined structures given by the Saxon ministry of education. This includes the teaching hours per week and the general content of the lessons.
As a next step, the actual teaching approaches will be examined. This is the one aspect that is covered in all previously mentioned books in one form or the other. Lado (1964), for example, focuses much more on the linguistic aspects of teaching, whereas Abbot & Wingard (1992) and Scrivener (2011) explain their approaches to teaching in a very elaborate manner. Generally, Scrivener (2011) distinguishes between two parts of teaching language. On one hand, there are the language systems, including phonology, lexis, grammar, function, and discourse (Scrivener, 2011, p. 24). These will recur in the chapter on language construction processes. On the other hand, there are language skills. These have been previously mentioned and include receptive and productive skills (Scrivener, 2011, p. 26). In most of the books, language teaching includes receptive skills such as reading and listening as well as productive skills, such as speaking and writing. Lado (1964), Abbot & Wingard (1992), and Scrivener (2011) also focus on phonological factors and pronunciation, while Scrivener (2011) and Grimm et al. (2015) additionally write about teaching lexis and grammar specifically. Following Scrivener's distinction, teaching language systems and teaching language skills will be discussed separately in the next chapter. In summary, the discussion of these teaching approaches and principles combines the two steps ‘specifying learning objectives and competences' and ‘designing teaching program, sequence(s), lesson(s) including methods & materials' in the reflection process.
After having presented introductions to each main factor of the guide - context, syllabus design, teaching language - these factors will be examined in more detail. Therefore, the different steps will also be discussed in this previously determined order.
As explained before, contextual factors can be further divided into learner and setting. Since the evaluation of the learner itself does not require literature but rather the examination of the assumed learners, it will be disregarded for now and instead be considered in the methodology. In order to conduct an examination and presentation of the assumed learners, the theoretical approach to the learner needs analysis will be briefly explained in this chapter.
McDonough et al. (2013) mention, among others, the role of English in the country, the role of English at the school, and time as parts of the setting (p. 8). All of these factors are mainly covered by the Kultusministerkonferenz (KMK - Standing Commission of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Länder) and the state of Saxony. Hence, two official documents published by these sources will be analyzed to provide a basic frame. The first source is a handout about the so-called Sekundarstufe II (grades 11 and 12), the second source is the Saxon state curriculum for English, both published by the Saxon ministry of education and cultural affairs and based on decisions by the Kultusministerkonferenz. These two sources will determine the contextual factor setting as far as it is possible without a particular school or class. As stated before, the Sekundarstufe II describes the grades 11 and 12, which are the last two years before graduating secondary school. These grades are also called Gymnasiale Oberstufe, which can be translated to secondary school senior grades. In this thesis, the focus is on the Sekundarstufe II, which is why only these two years will be relevant. Before entering the senior grades, pupils choose their basic (Grundkurs) and advanced (Leistungskurs) courses out of the subjects they have had in the years before. As standard school subject, English as a foreign language is mandatory in most cases - either as basic or as advanced course (Sächsisches Staatsministerium für Kultus, 2016, p. 4). EFL basic courses are set for two or three lessons per week, EFL advanced courses are taught five lessons per week (Sächsisches Staatsministerium für Kultus, 2016, p. 4). Hence, the hours determined by the state curriculum provide the setting time-wise.
Now, the role of English in the school will be examined. This role finds its groundwork in the Saxon state curriculum for English. The basic goals of EFL teaching in Saxon state schools are as follows:
-Development of a differentiated communication and discourse ability1
-Development of the ability to reflect on language2
-Development of the ability to reflect on texts3
-Development of an intercultural ability to act4
-Development of the ability to apply specialized strategies5
(Landesamt für Schule und Bildung Sachsen, 2019b, p. 2)
These goals build the frame for defining the role of English in Saxon schools. Summarizing the statements from the state curriculum, the goal of teaching English in Saxon schools is developing the abilities to communicate, reflect on language, and use language appropriately. Teaching EFL as advanced course is furthermore based on the learning areas provided in the Saxon state curriculum. The three learning areas explained in this document are specialized strategies, linguistic principles, as well as texts and topics (Landesamt für Schule und Bildung Sachsen, 2019b, pp. 64-66). Keeping in mind that English is also a mandatory school subject, next to German and mathematics, EFL teaching can be considered of high importance in the Saxon school system.
The role of English in the country, however, is more challenging to evaluate but important for determining the relevance of EFL teaching to the learners' lives. As briefly mentioned in the introduction, there is an English Proficiency Index that measures the English language proficiency within different countries but also presents the influence English has on other aspects of life. In the most recent publication, Germany was placed as number 8 out of 100 countries (EF Education First, 2020, p. 6). This suggests that the role of English, despite not being a native or official language, is an important one. Furthermore, the index also shows the importance of English has in work and academia. Even though the data is not specific to Germany, high English proficiency is an increasing factor in innovation (p. 12), scholarship (p. 13), and net income per capita (p. 16). This does not represent the role of English in Germany per se but it does show the relevance of English to the job-related success.
Since the lessons are embedded in the Saxon state curriculum, theories on and evaluation of program design would be redundant in this thesis. Therefore, the main attention of this chapter will be syllabus and lesson design. In order to create a consistent syllabus, the creator must be aware of the different types of syllabi that exist in second language acquisition. There are three styles of basic design:
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Table 4: Basic Syllabus Design (Grimm et al., 2015, pp. 247—248)
After having explained the general styles of curriculum and syllabus design, what follows is a more precise introduction to syllabi. In the past, different types of syllabus have been developed and used in language teaching. Five of these types are presented in the table below.
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Table 5: Syllabus Types, based on Richards & Rodgers (2014) and Robinson (2009), examples from (McDonough et al., 2013, p. 13)
Regarding syllabus design, Peter Robinson (2009) presents several approaches, the first of which is the grammatical syllabus. As the name states, this syllabus focuses on the teaching of grammatical structures. Therefore, it is similar to the structural syllabus, which is why these two types will be combined to one category. The first to propose the so-called structural syllabus was Thomas Prendergast after observing that “children use contextual and situational cues to interpret utterances and that they use memorized phrases and ‘routines' in speaking” (Richards & Rodgers, 2014, p. 8). Prendergast therefore suggested that learners be taught the basic patterns of the target language structure (Richards & Rodgers, 2014, p. 8). This argumentation was elaborated by Rod Ellis, who stated that “explicit, declarative knowledge of L2 grammar can influence the development of implicit declarative knowledge, and through communicative activity, implicit declarative knowledge can be proceduralized and used in spontaneous skilled performance” (Robinson, 2009, p. 298). Declarative knowledge describes the knowledge of facts and its counterpart is procedural knowledge, which describes the knowledge of skills (Robinson, 2009, p. 298). Based on this, Ellis argues that teaching grammar and knowing about grammar is useful for acquiring language proficiency (Robinson, 2009, p. 299).
The next type of syllabus is notional/functional. It is based on the suggestion that grammatical syllabi are not an effective way of teaching language because “language learning is not complete when the content of a grammatical syllabus has been mastered” (Wilkins, 1976, p. 8). In an explanation of this claim, Wilkins (1976) continues that if the content is planned with general linguistic considerations in mind and with inadequate attention paid to the grammatical (and lexical) characteristics of the language performance implicit in the learners' objectives, much time may be spent in the acquisition of language that is at best marginally relevant and too little time on forms that are of particular value to this group of learners. (p. 8)
Instead, it is proposed to determine the so-called semantic-grammatical categories and the communicative functions that are required for the learners' expression in the target language (Richards & Rodgers, 2014, p. 92). The communicative events this is supposed to prepare for includes everyday situations, professional discourse, or academic settings (Richards & Rodgers, 2014, p. 93).
The third type of syllabus is the lexical syllabus. This approach was introduced by Dave Willis and explained by the development of an exemplary course called COBUILD (Robinson, 2009, p. 300). The main feature of this syllabus is that it focuses on teaching lexis. The reason for this approach is the claim that 70% of English texts are constructed out of only 700 words (Willis, 1993, p. vi). Based on this, Willis (1993) describes the approach of this style of teaching as follows:
Level 1 would aim to cover the most frequent 700 words together with their common patterns and uses. Level 2 would recycle these words and go on to cover the next 800 to bring us up to the 1,500 level, and Level 3 would recycle those 1,500 and add a further 1,000. We would of course inevitably cover many other words in the texts to which students were exposed, but we would highlight first the most frequent 700, then 1,500 and finally 2,500 words in the language. (p. vi)
While building the teaching around lexical units and words, Willis (1993) also claims that the syllabus is “emphasising [sic] the importance of natural language” by being based “entirely on activities involving real language use” and the learners' exposure to “almost entirely [...] authentic native speaker language” (p. vii).
For the skill-based syllabus, it is argued that second language acquisition and skill acquisition in general use the same cognitive mechanisms (Robinson, 2009, p. 300). Keith Johnson proposes four tiers of teaching in a skill-based syllabus, including language-specific skills, semantic categories (notions and functions), writing skills, and lastly processing demands of classroom tasks (Robinson, 2009, p. 301).
The last type of syllabus to be discussed is the task-based syllabus. In this syllabus, the learning unit are tasks. Such tasks are units of real-world activity involving language use identified on the basis of a needs analysis, subsequently broken down into simpler versions, which are presented in order of increasing complexity, so as eventually to approximate full complexity of the target task demands. (Robinson, 2009, p. 301)
According to Nunan, these tasks can be of two natures: real-world tasks, which are based on the results of the previously conducted needs analysis, or pedagogical tasks, which are based on second language acquisition theory rather than the real world (Richards & Rodgers, 2014, p. 184).
With these different approaches in mind and with enough freedom given, a teacher must decide which principles to apply to their syllabus design as well as if and how to combine different factors brought forth in the theories. A more practical part of syllabus design was already discussed in the previous chapter. That part is the factor time, which is usually given by the school, especially in the proposed context of Sekundarstufe II in Saxony. It was established, that the advanced course is taught in five weekly lessons or, more likely, in two blocks of 90 minutes and one single lesson of 45 minutes. Hence, as well as deciding on their teaching methodology based on the syllabus design theories, teachers must also create a course plan that entails all lessons and their content. This is where the shift begins from syllabus planning to lesson planning. With the course plan being determined by the state curriculum and statespecific school year including public holidays and so-called Brückentage (bridging days usually covering Friday as free of classes after Thursday being a public holiday) timewise, the predetermined session must be filled with content. The state curriculum presets the content per school year but teachers may have the freedom to teach this content in the order of their choice. Of course, this is different if the school provides different guidelines and restricts the teaching order in any way.
In conclusion, the syllabus planning is based on the syllabus types and the course times as given by the state and school.
After introducing the organizational and structural framework for syllabus and lesson planning, it is important to fill this framework with the desired content. Before going into more detail regarding the actual teaching of English language systems and skills, a few important methods of language teaching will be presented to provide the basis for classifying the approach to teaching taken in the methodology section. This overview of teaching method will be adapted from Grimm et al. (2015) as well as Richards & Rodgers (2014) and shortened according to the focus of this thesis.
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Table 6: Teaching Methods (Grimm et al., 2015, pp. 87—88; Richards & Rodgers, 2014, p. 391)
While there are more teaching methods than can be seen in this overview, only those most popular and coming into question for this thesis were presented.
Following the distinction made by Scrivener (2011), it will first be discussed what language systems are and how they can be taught. Afterwards, the focus will be on both receptive and productive language skills. The first language system that is mentioned is phonology (Scrivener, 2011, p. 24). Per definition, phonology is concerned with the speakers' knowledge of the sound system of one specific language. It is the branch of linguistics that studies the sounds used by a given language, the so- called sound inventory, and investigates the function and (mental) organization of these sounds in the specific language in question. (Bieswanger & Becker, 2017, p. 58)
Considering this linguistic definition, phonology is usually taught in the form of pronunciation in the classroom. Pronunciation is taught in foreign language education for a number of reasons. On one hand, learners tend to transfer the sound inventory of their L1 to their pronunciation of an L2 (Lado, 1964, p. 71). According to Lado (1964), this does not only apply to phonetic realizations of sounds but also stress patterns and not only in the production but also the reception of sounds (p. 72). He states that “each hears the word in accordance with the dominant stress pattern of his own language” and that this “transfer of the native sound system occurs in the phonemes, allophones, and their distribution” (p. 72). It is, however, not necessary to teach the entire target sound system when there are sounds occurring in both the first and the target language because these sounds can be transferred (Lado, 1964, p. 75). It is more important to make the learners aware of the differences they may not be recognizing right away and work on these problematic areas. When teaching English to German native speakers, this could be the dental fricatives /0/ and /Ö/, which are realizations of the th and do not exist in German phonology (Busch & Stenschke, 2018, p. 54). It is also recommended to focus on connected speech. Connected speech is language how it would naturally occur in conversations (Scrivener, 2011, p. 281). There are four typical features of connected speech, as Scrivener (2011) explains: Stress patterns may tend to weaker vowel sounds in unstressed syllables, sounds may be deleted or clipped (elision), sounds may be changed (assimilation), and linking sounds may be added as a bridge between words (p. 282). Hence, whenever focusing on natural language and conversation, learners should be made aware of the phonology and connected speech processes. However, Grimm et al. (2015) only mention pronunciation briefly when writing about teaching vocabulary (p. 104). Their book is the only one considered that was published in the German context and as guide for German English language teachers, which is why its lack of pronunciation instruction suggests that phonology does not take a high priority in EFL teaching in Germany.
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1 Translated from German: Entwickeln einer differenzierten Kommunikations- und Diskursfähigkeit
2 Translated from German: Entwickeln der Fähigkeit zur Sprachreflexion
3 Translated from German: Entwickeln der Fähigkeit zur Textreflexion
4 Translated from German: Entwickeln einer interkulturellen Handlungsfähigkeit
5 Translated from German: Entwickeln der Fähigkeit zur Anwendung von fachbezogenen Strategien
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