Transcript Slide 1

Languages in the Australian curriculum:
more of the same or different?
Association of French Teachers of Victoria
Melbourne, 22 July 2011
Angela Scarino
Research Centre for Languages and Cultures
University of South Australia
Email: [email protected]
Outline
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An opening question
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Context and process of development
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Making the curriculum
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The changes
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An example
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A return to the opening question and implications
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An opening question
Is the shape of Languages in the Australian
curriculum more of the same…. or different?
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Context and process of development
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The Melbourne Declaration
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Consultation on the draft Shape of the Australian
Curriculum: Languages
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languages included: “especially Asian languages”
a national curriculum is signalled
national forum (October 2010)
widespread consultation (January-April 2011)
revision process (April-July 2011)
Curriculum development
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procedures and guidelines ( August 2011)
commencement of writing: broad outline, then detail (
September onwards)
national consultation and trialling
next phase of writing, consultation, trialling, re-writing
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Making the curriculum
The Australian, March 2, 2011
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Making the curriculum
The Age June 29, 2011
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Making the curriculum
The Australian, March 2, 2011
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Making the curriculum - consultation feedback - 1
Key strengths:
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The strong positioning of languages within school
education.
The development of language-specific curricula.
The strong positioning of Australian Languages.
Recognition of the diversity of language learners and
pathways.
The rationale for learning languages.
Key concepts and understandings in learning languages.
The aims of learning a language.
The nature of knowledge, skills and understanding in
learning a language.
The discussion of general capabilities.
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Making the curriculum - consultation feedback - 2
Key issues:
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Indicative hours.
Selection of languages and pathways for development.
The staging of language-specific curriculum
development.
‘Home user’ learner category.
‘Reciprocating’ .
Expectations of the shape paper.
Implementation and policy issues e.g. national
languages policy, teacher supply and professional
development, eligibility.
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Making the curriculum - consultation feedback - 3
Q 7 - The Draft Shape of the Australian Curriculum: Languages paper captures the essential
features of languages as a learning area and the rationale for learning them
Percentage of total responses (less missing values)
60
50
54
40
Strongly agree
30
Agree
31
Disagree
Strongly disagree
20
10
10
5
0
Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Responses
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Making the curriculum - consultation feedback - 4
Q 14 - The strands proposed capture important dimensions of language learning
Percentage of total responses (less missing values)
70
60
59
50
40
Strongly agree
Agree
30
Disagree
Strongly disagree
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19
16
10
6
0
Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Responses
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Responses for French
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69 responses [total 2150]
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Mainly from Victoria; mainly individuals; some
associations (including AFTV)
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57% (independent school); 19% (catholic school);
6% (government school)
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Approximately 60% agreement
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Responses for French: key strengths
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A great basis for language rationale and policies into the
future.
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The paper gives excellent reasons for learning languages.
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“the emphasis on Australian languages as well as Asian
languages is welcome but could be interpreted as an overemphasis on these at the expense of other languages”.
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“I really like the term ‘reciprocating’”.
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Responses for French: key issues
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Indicative hours
Need for compulsory languages till Year 9/10
“the use of the term ‘second language learners’… assumes a
monolingual baseline”
“in its current form (the paper) does nothing to encourage students
to continue” learning languages
“the paper outlines the challenges of promoting languages in order
to increase student participation but it does little to provide
incentives for this to happen”
“students should be better defined from the beginning”
“Australian languages should be considered in a different paper”
“too broad and too demanding for the classroom”
“these three strands should not be seen as discrete” – why not?”
“will funding be guided by this?”
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Responses for French: key issues
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(cont.)
“we should consider adopting the Common European
Framework”
“…assessment: is it to be done in the L1?”
“the paper is lacking in solid reference to future skills
needed by students”
“the AFTV suggests … a larger number of (student)
groupings”
“More clarification of reciprocating required”
“…providing a ‘framework’ often seems to me to be a way
of not saying what you’re really going to do”
“the content appears to be over-ambitious”
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Policy  curriculum policy  curriculum
Structuring the curriculum
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learner background
time-on-task (intensity, continuity)
program-types
The substance of the curriculum
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organisation of teaching and learning
language
language AND culture, learning, literacy, content/knowledge,
identity  within and across languages and cultures
A monolingual or a plurilingual curriculum?
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The changes
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explicit statement that all languages are important
language-specific curricula
different pathways for learning and differentiation of learner
groups
recognition of various entry points
the allocation of indicative hours in the context of extreme
variability in languages provision
avoids a narrowly-focussed instrumental view of languages
an expanded view of language
achievement standards as more appropriate in curriculum
design than proficiency standards
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Re-framing the languages curriculum:
beyond CLT
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Difficult to define what it means to learn to know another
language (Larsen-Freeman and Freeman 2008)
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Communicative language teaching:
 a theoretical construct, a goal, an approach to pedagogy
 as interactive, transactional ‘communication’ in the target
language (isolated from social, historical, cultural
contexts)
 absence of cultural content(?)
 differing positions: questioning the appropriateness of the
construct itself  questioning the restrictive ways in which
we have understood it
 K-12 frameworks: interface with constructs of ‘proficiency’
and standards (Byrnes 2006, Kramsch 2006)
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need to re/frame and expand the construct
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Expanding the construct - 1
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An expanding view of language; language as personal,
expressive – how we want to be in a language (Shohamy)
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Learning a language is not a monolingual activity as there
are always at least two languages at play (Kramsch)
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Language mediates learning – learning to mean (Halliday)
Language is not only something that we use; we are “at
home” in language; to learn a language is to learn an
inheritance (Gadamer)
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Expanding the construct - 2
View of language
Language as word;
structural, grammatical
system; code
View of culture
culture as facts;
artefacts;
information
View of learning
acquisition of new
knowledge
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language as social
practice
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elaborate, social practice to highlight
not just the act or the practice itself,
but people and their interpretation and
meaning making
participants in a
practice
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reciprocal process of interpretation
of the language and the person
culture as social
practices; ways of
doing things
in diverse cultures
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elaborate to highlight not just diverse
practices; but culture as the lens
through which people mutually interpret
and communicate meaning
participation in use
of knowledge
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elaborate to highlight how learning,
as making sense or coming to
understand involves becoming
aware of how learners themselves
interpret knowledge through their
language and culture
Reciprocal exchange of meanings across languages and cultures in communicating and learning
to communicate, better and better; return to self as language user and language learner.
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Reciprocating
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As an overall theoretical orientation to communication,
learning, education.
As a goal of communication and learning – mutual
interpretation and exchange of meaning  mutual
understanding of self and other.
As a driving force in communicating and learning – an
integral characteristic of the act of communication and of
learning  as experience and reflection on that
experience; talk and talk about talk; language use and
exploration/analyses/reflection on use.
As a meta-process: knowing why.
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Expanding language learning
Multicultural unit (Year 10/11 French)
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Joe Van Dalen, 2008
The students
Interactions
Texts/data as ‘inputs’ for exploration
Issues: explosion des banlieues
le port du foulard
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The journal reflection
(See Handout)
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An example
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A return to the opening question
- more of the same or different?
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Implications
• for programs
• for students
• for teachers
• for the AFTV and similar organisations
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Action and interpretive understanding
across languages and cultures
Understanding, like action, always remains a risk and never
leaves the room for the simple application of a general
knowledge of rules to the statements or texts to be
understood. Furthermore, where it is successful,
understanding means a growth in inner awareness, which as
a new experience enters into the texture of our own mental
experience. Understanding is an adventure and, like any
other adventure is dangerous… But … it is capable of
contributing in a special way to theU, for everything
understanding mediates is mediated along with ourselves
(Gadamer, 1981, pp.109-110)
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References
Byrnes, H. (2006). Perspectives: Interrogating communicative competence as a
framework for collegiate foreign language study. Modern Language Journal, 90, 244246.
Gadamer, H.-G. (1981). Reason in the Age of Science (F. G. Lawrence, Trans.).
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Gadamer, H-G. (1976). Philosophical Hermeneutics. D.E. Linge (editor and translator).
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Gallagher, S. (1992) Hermeneutics and education. Albany, N.Y., SUNY Press.
Halliday, M.A.K. (1993). Towards a language-based theory of learning. Linguistics and
Education. 4, 93-116.
Kramsch, C. (2003). Language acquisition and language socialization: Ecological
perspectives. New York. Continuum.
Kramsch, C. (2006). From communicative competence to symbolic competence. Modern
Language Journal. 90, 249-252.
Kramsch, C. (2009). The multilingual subject. Oxford. Oxford University Press.
Kramsch, C. (2010). The symbolic dimensions of the intercultural. Language Teaching.
pp.1-14.
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Ortega, L. (2009). Understanding second language acquisition. London. Hodder
Education.
Shohamy, E. (1996). Language testing. Matching assessment procedures with language
knowledge. In Birenbaum, M. and Dochy, F. (Eds). Alternatives in assessment of
achievements, learning processes and prior knowledge. Boston, MA. Kluwer Academic
Publishers. pp.143-159.
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