Jump to ContentJump to Main Navigation
Show Summary Details
More options …

 

Language Learning in Higher Education

Journal of the European Confederation of Language Centres in Higher Education (CercleS)

Editor-in-Chief: Szczuka-Dorna, Liliana / O’Rourke, Breffni

Online
ISSN
2191-6128
See all formats and pricing
Online
Institutional Subscription
€ [D] 233.00 / US$ 350.00 / GBP 191.00*
Individual Subscription
€ [D] 49.00 / US$ 74.00 / GBP 40.00*
Print
Institutional Subscription
€ [D] 233.00 / US$ 350.00 / GBP 191.00*
Individual Subscription
€ [D] 233.00 / US$ 350.00 / GBP 191.00*
Print + Online
Institutional Subscription
€ [D] 277.00 / US$ 420.00 / GBP 227.00*
Individual Subscription
€ [D] 277.00 / US$ 420.00 / GBP 227.00*
*Prices in US$ apply to orders placed in the Americas only. Prices in GBP apply to orders placed in Great Britain only. Prices in € represent the retail prices valid in Germany (unless otherwise indicated). Prices are subject to change without notice. Prices do not include postage and handling if applicable. RRP: Recommended Retail Price.
More options …

Does a picture say more than 7000 words? Windows of opportunity to learn languages – an attempt at a creative reflective poster

Iris Schaller-Schwaner
Published Online: 2015-04-30 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/cercles-2015-0001

30,00 € / $42.00 / £23.00

Get Access to Full Text

Abstract

This article originated in a creative attempt to engage audiences visually, on a poster, with ideas about language(s), teaching and learning which have been informing language education at university language centres. It was originally locally grounded and devised to take soundings with colleagues and with participants at the CercleS 2014 Conference hosted at the University of Fribourg. It uses a local campus building as a reflective canvas, as it were. Simultaneously, it deals with concepts of wider currency which may influence and engage language teachers’ awareness and practices in other tertiary contexts. The poster’s visual appeal not only contrasts with the linearity of academic writing but its open-endedness creates a space for exchange and discussion. It also creates a space for theory, which few practitioners will engage with of their own accord. The poster’s inherent dimension of interpretation by the viewer extends an invitation to respond. This article may render its content more tangible or accessible through verbal elaboration that complements the visual. The notions and cognitions discussed include reflection(s), languaging, a language formula, the Indo-European tree of languages, a multilingual linguistic sign, Douglas Adams’s Babel fish, the IPA vowel quadrilateral, a syntactic tree, and a pyramid of learning. Presenting this poster and article to a wider audience can be framed as a novel dialogue and dialectic about conceptualisations that are influential for university language teaching. It is also an unorthodox way of approaching theory didactically and with language teacher cognitions (Borg 2009) in mind, and a means of stimulating engagement with multilingualism.

Key words: reflective practice; communicating foreign language teaching (theory); language conceptualisations; teacher cognitions; ideas about multilingualism

References

  • Adams, Douglas. 1979. The hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy. London: Pan Books.Google Scholar

  • Anderson, Lorin W. & Lauren A. Sosniak (eds.). 1994. Bloom’s Taxonomy: A forty-year retrospective. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar

  • Bloom, Benjamin S. (ed.). 1956. Taxonomy of educational objectives. Handbook I: Cognitive domain. London: Longman.Google Scholar

  • Borg, Simon. 2009. Introducing language teacher cognition. http://www.education.leeds.ac.uk/research/files/145.pdf (accessed 12November2014)

  • Brohy, Claudine. 2005. Overt bilingualism, covert multilingualism? Official languages and “other” languages in a bilingual French-German university. Paper presented at the “Bi- and multilingual universities: challenges & future prospects” Conference. 1-3 September 2005, Helsinki University.Google Scholar

  • Butterfield, Ardis. 2012. Fuzziness and perceptions of language in the Middle Ages. Part I: Explosive fuzziness: The Duell. In Jeffrey M. Perl (ed.), Fuzzy studies: A symposium on the consequences of blur, special issue, Common Knowledge 18(2). 255–266.Google Scholar

  • Chafe, Wallace. 1994. Discourse, consciousness and time. The flow and displacement of conscious experience in speaking and writing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar

  • Cook, Vivian. 2001. Knowledge of writing. International Review of Applied Linguistics 39. 1–18.CrossrefGoogle Scholar

  • Cook, Vivian. 2005. Written language and foreign language teaching. In Vivian Cook & Benedetta Bassetti (eds.), Second language writing systems, 424–441. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar

  • Coray, Renate. 2004. Minderheitenschutz und Beziehungspflege: die Zweite Revision des Sprachenartikels (1985–1996). In Jean Widmer, Renata Coray, Dunya Acklin Musi & Eric Godel (eds.), Die Schweizer Sprachenvielfalt im öffentlichen Diskurs/La diversité des langues en Suisse dans le débat public, 247–427. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar

  • de Bot, Kees. 2004. The multilingual lexicon: Modelling selection and control. International Journal of Multilingualism 1(1). 17–32.CrossrefGoogle Scholar

  • de Bot, Kees, Wander Lowie, Steven L. Thorne & Marjolijn Verspoor. 2013. Dynamic Systems Theory as a comprehensive theory of second language development. In Maria del Pilar García Mayo, Maria Junkal Gutierrez Mangado & Maria Martínez Adrián (eds.), Contemporary approaches to second language acquisition, 199–220. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar

  • de Groot, Annette M. B. 2011. Language and cognition in bilinguals and multilinguals: An introduction. New York: Psychology Press.Google Scholar

  • Dewaele, Jean-Marc. 2010. Emotions in multiple languages. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacmillanGoogle Scholar

  • Douglas, Scott. 2013. Pathways to production: Exploring lexical thresholds in speaking and writing. Keynote address, TESL Association of Ontario Annual Conference, Toronto, Ontario.Google Scholar

  • Ellis, Nick & Diane Larsen-Freeman. 2006. Language emergence: Implications for applied linguistics. Applied Linguistics 27(4). 558–589.CrossrefGoogle Scholar

  • Fischer, Andreas. 2010. Baum des Lebens, Baum der Sprache. Dies Academicus 2010 Address, Zürcher Universitätsschriften 12, University of Zürich. http://www.uzh.ch/about/portrait/dies/2010/reden/UZH_Dies_Rede.pdf (accessed 15November2014).

  • Gamkrelidze, Thomas V. & Vjaceslav V. Ivanov. 1990. The early history of Indo-European languages. Scientific American 262(3). 110–116. http://rbedrosian.com/Classic/sciam2.htm and http://rbedrosian.com/Classic/sciam1.htm (accessed 2January2015).Crossref

  • Gogolin, Ingrid. 1994. Der monolinguale Habitus der multilingualen Schule. Münster: Waxmann.Google Scholar

  • Gogolin, Ingrid. 1998. The “monolingual habitus” as the common feature in teaching in the language of the majority in different countries. Per Linguam 13(2). 38–49. http://perlinguam.journals.ac.za/pub/article/viewFile/187/298 (accessed 16January2015).

  • Grosjean, François. 1989. Neurolinguists, beware! The bilingual is not two monolinguals in one person. Brain and Language 36(1). 3–15.CrossrefPubMedGoogle Scholar

  • Grünert, Matthias. 2012. Does the territoriality principle work in practice? The principle’s applicability to the Romansh area in the Swiss canton of Grisons. In Andrea Ender, Adrian Leemann & Bernhard Wälchi (eds.), Methods in contemporary linguistics, 463–486. Berlin: de Gruyter.Google Scholar

  • Herdina, Philip & Ulrike Jessner. 2002. A dynamic model of multilingualism: Perspectives of change in psycholinguistics. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar

  • Hopper, Paul J. 1998. Emergent grammar. In Michael Tomasello (ed.), The new psychology of language: Cognitive and functional approaches to language structure, 155–175. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar

  • Hutton, Christopher. 2014. Racial and linguistic theories of human diversity in the context of National Socialism. Paper presented at the Colloquium on the History of Ideas on Multilingualism, 3–4 November, University of Fribourg, Institute of Multilingualism.Google Scholar

  • IPA (International Phonetics Association). 2005. International Phonetic Alphabet. https://www.langsci.ucl.ac.uk/ipa/IPA_chart_(C)2005.pdf (accessed 05May2014).

  • Jessner, Ulrike. 2006. Linguistic awareness in multilinguals: English as a third language. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar

  • Kaiser, Irmtraud, Elisabeth Peyer & Raphael Berthele. 2014. Does different mean difficult? Contrastivity and foreign language reading: Some data on reading in German. International Journal of Bilingualism 18(3). 222–243.Web of ScienceCrossrefGoogle Scholar

  • Lambelet, Amelia & Raphael Berthele. 2014. Alter und schulisches Fremdsprachenlernen. Stand der Forschung. Bericht des wissenschaftlichen Kompetenzzentrums für Mehrsprachigkeit. Institut für Mehrsprachigkeit. Freiburg, Switzerland.Google Scholar

  • Larsen-Freeman, Diane, 2009. Adjusting expectations: The study of complexity, accuracy, and fluency in Second Language Acquisition. Applied Linguistics 30(4). 579–589.Web of ScienceCrossrefGoogle Scholar

  • Li Wei. 2011. Moment analysis and translanguaging space: Discursive construction of identities by multilingual Chinese youth in Britain. Journal of Pragmatics 43(5). 1222–1235.CrossrefWeb of ScienceGoogle Scholar

  • Lindsey, Geoff. 2013. The vowel space. Posted 27 March. http://englishspeechservices.com/blog/the-vowel-space/ (accessed 03May2014).

  • Makoni, Sinfree. & Alastair Pennycook. 2012. Disinventing multilingualism: From monological multilingualism to multilingual francas. In Martin-Jones, Marilyn; Adrian Backledge & Angela Creese (eds.), Routledge handbook of multilingualism, 439–453. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.Google Scholar

  • Montgomery, Scott. 2004. Of towers, walls, and fields: Perspectives on language in science. Science 303 (27 February) Issue 5662: 1333–1335.PubMedCrossrefGoogle Scholar

  • Mufwene, Salikoko. 2001. The ecology of language evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

  • Nunan, David. 2012. What is this thing called language?, 2nd ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar

  • Pallotti, Gabriele. 2009. CAF: Defining, refining and differentiating constructs. Applied Linguistics 30(4). 590–601.CrossrefWeb of ScienceGoogle Scholar

  • Pavlenko, Aneta (ed.). 2009. The bilingual mental lexicon: Interdisciplinary approaches. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar

  • Pennisi, Elisabeth. 2004. Speaking in tongues. Science 303 (27 February) Issue 5662: 1321–1323.CrossrefPubMedGoogle Scholar

  • Rajagopalan, Kanavillil. 2003. The philosophy of applied linguistics. In Alan Davies & Catherine Elder (eds.), Handbook of applied linguistics, 397–420. New York: Blackwell.Google Scholar

  • Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1916 [1971]. Cours de linguistique générale. éd. Charles Bally et Alberte Sechehaye avec la collaboration de Albert Riedlinger. Paris: Payot.Google Scholar

  • Schaller-Schwaner, Iris. 2011. The eye of the beholder: Is English as a Lingua Franca in academic settings a monolingual or multilingual practice? Language Learning in Higher Education 1(2). 423–446.Google Scholar

  • Schaller-Schwaner, Iris. 2012. Researching English as a Lingua Franca and teaching English for Plurilingual Academic Purposes. In Blons-Pierre, Catherine (ed.) Apprendre, enseigner et évaluer les langues dans le context de Bologne et du CECR. Sprachen lernen, lehren und beurteilen im Kontext von Bologna und dem GER. Bern etc.: Peter Lang: 141–167.Google Scholar

  • Smith, Tom. 2014. The flipped pyramid and the snaggle-toothed edifice. Posted 5 January. http://eltcriticalmoments.wordpress.com/2014/01/05/the-flipped-pyramid-and-the-snaggle-toothed-edifice/ on http://eltcriticalmoments.wordpress.com/ (accessed 28April2014).

  • Stern, Hans Heinrich. 1983. Fundamental concepts of language teaching: Historical and interdisciplinary perspectives on applied linguistic research. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

  • Swain, Merrill. 2006. Languaging, agency and collaboration in advanced second language learning. In Heidi Byrnes (ed.), Advanced language learning: The contributions of Halliday and Vygotsky, 95–108. London: Continuum.Google Scholar

  • Swain, Merrill, Sharon Lapkin, Ibtissem Knouzi, Wataru Suzuki & Lindsay Books. 2009. Languaging: University students learn the grammatical concept of voice in French. The Modern Language Journal 93(1). 5–29. DOI:10.1111/j.1540-4781.2009.00825.xCrossrefWeb of ScienceGoogle Scholar

  • Verschueren, Jef. 2009. Introduction: The pragmatic perspective. In Jef Verschueren & Jan-Ola Östman (eds.), Key notions for pragmatics, 1–27. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.Google Scholar

About the article

Iris Schaller-Schwaner

Iris Schaller-Schwaner has been teaching English at university level for more than 20 years, mostly as an EFL lecturer at the University of Freiburg/Fribourg Language Centre and the Department of Languages and Literatures, Multilingualism & Foreign Language Education. Her current research focus is English as a lingua franca in multilingual academic contexts; she has also published on pedagogical grammar and English in Swiss billboard advertising.

Published Online: 2015-04-30

Published in Print: 2015-05-01

Citation Information: Language Learning in Higher Education, Volume 5, Issue 1, Pages 1–23, ISSN (Online) 2191-6128, ISSN (Print) 2191-611X, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/cercles-2015-0001.

Export Citation

©2015 by De Gruyter Mouton.Get Permission

Comments (0)

Please log in or register to comment.
Log in