South Asian Languages: Rethinking Curriculum Rakesh M. Bhatt University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Curriculum Development Goals and Methods

Goal of Language Teaching  Communicative Competence  Focus on meaning (making)  Meaning as bound to a cultural context  Meaning as negotiated through discourse  Meaning as negotiated through communicative strategies

Communicative Competence  …[some]

occasions call for being appropriately ungrammatical

… child acquires knowledge of sentences, not only as grammatical, but also as appropriate, … [child] acquires competence as to when to speak, when not, and as to

what

to talk about

with whom

,

when

,

where

,

in what manner

… [s/he] becomes able to accomplish a repertoire of speech acts, to take part in speech events, an to evaluate their accomplishments by others.

Appropriately Ungrammatical: An Examplar  Hindi  aap caay pi yeNge vs.

 *aap caay pi yoge  What is the function of the two variants?

Communicative Competence  Knowledge of

how

, when, and why to say

what

to whom.  Focus: language functions linguistic items perform.

 Ex: achaa,

cal uN

?

Discussion point: What is the form-function correlation here?

Why Communicative Competence  Kashmiri: “Would you like to have a cup of tea?”  caay  caay  caay  caay  caay  caay  caay cakh aa cakh ay cakh ba cakh bi cakh sa ca yiv mahraa ca yiv haz

Components of “CC” 

Grammatical competence

: knowledge of the vocabulary, word structure, and sentence structure of a language; 

Sociolinguistic competence

: the ability to use language in a contextually appropriate way, taking into account the roles of the participants, the setting, and the purpose of the interaction;

Components of “CC” 

Discourse competence

: the ability to connect utterances to an overall theme or topic (discourse coherence), and the ability to infer the meaning of larger units (pragmatics); 

Strategic competence

: ability to compensate for imperfect knowledge of linguistic, sociolinguistic and discourse rules.

Discussion break: Reflection points  Language classes should focus on  A. meaning B. grammar  Students learn best by using plenty of  A. intuition B. analysis   A class should give special attention to  A. fluency B. accuracy Teacher’s feedback to students be  A. frequent B. infrequent

Focus of FL teaching  Theoretical focus  How do learners learn?

 What do they learn?

 Methodological focus  What are learners’ “needs”?

 First step: Needs analysis

Communicative Language Teaching  Meaningful, goal oriented use of target language —focus on the “active” learner;  Language input is vital, grammar explanations help;   Some errors are creations of productive engagement with input; Teacher’s role: selection of material and tasks, facilitator.

CLT: Methodology  Mainly TL use in class  Optimal use of L1; code-switching   Authentic texts Focus on “functions” (in addition to grammar and vocabulary)  Group and paired activity  Meaningful and realistic interactions

Competing Methodologies  Input processing: Input => Intake  PPP model:  Presentation-practice-production  OHE model:  Observe-hypothesize-experiment

Lets take a 10 min break

CHOOSING TEXTS  Authentic, but what are they?

 *Making travel arrangements, going to bars, eating out, booking into hotels, buying gas  Focus on the culture(s) of the TL  An essay on cricket?  Compare with baseball!

 Whose culture?

Diglossic Variation  Bengali: Calit bhasha vs. Sadhu bhasha  Tamil: Colloquial vs. Literary  Also Kannada, Malayalam, Telugu  What about Hindi?

Hindi Language Variation  Eastern vs. Western  Hindi vs. Urdu vs. Hindustani  Polyglossic variation  paati, ciThii, , patr,

Hindi: Use and Identity  maine janaa hai <> mujhko janaa hai  aap caay piyeNgee <> aap caay piyoge  kyaa ek gilaas shiital jal uplabdh hogaa

APPROPRIATE CONTEXTS  Learning SALs as:  Foreign Languages  Less Commonly Taught Languages  Heritage Languages

SAL as Foreign Language  Affective Variables: Needs “Needs Analysis”  Motivation?

 Integrative and/or Instrumental  Attitude?

 Positive or negative

SAL as Heritage Language  Heritage and cognate-heritage  Motivation?

 Ethno-linguistic identity  Maintenance of cultural practices  Pop culture

HL and FL: the vital difference  Input processing  Strategies and mechanisms that promote form meaning connections during comprehension  Cross-language (and skills) transfer effects  Sociolinguistic competence  Discourse competence  Linguistic competence

Less Commonly Taught Languages  Motivation?

 Cultural awareness  Diversity

Socio-political context of LCTLs  Lack of resources  Lack of classroom research on LCTLs  Lack of institutional support  Lack of formal training in language pedagogy  Abundance of heritage students  Variable class size and offerings  Lack of professional development and networking

Contexts of texts  Are they teen-appropriate?

 Are they HL-appropriate?

Skills in contexts  Foreign language  Heritage language  Literacy  Accuracy  Fluency  Fluency  Literacy  Accuracy

L2 Literacy  Issues  Transfer of skills: Supports or interferes  Language Threshold Hypothesis  Onset of L2 literacy vs. L2 learning  Limited language knowledge of L2 reader/writer  For a LCTL, the problem is worse  Role of strategies: mental translation, cognates  Scripts: The embarrassment of choices  Script choice and identity politics

L2 Reading  Abilities and skills  Rapid, interactive, strategic, linguistic, and purposeful  Purposes:    To find information: scan, skim To learn: basic comprehension of main ideas To critique/evaluate: reflections, connections and integration with prior knowledge  What works: Texts must be grounded in learner contexts

L2 Writing  Writing is  Text  Composing (process)  Social construction (context)  What about L2 writing?

L2 Writing contd.

 What is good L2 writing?

 Cultures affects texts  Different cultures produce culturally influenced and rhetorically distinguishable types of text.

 Some useful pointers     Focus on the process of writing Group writing tasks, peer correction Drafting and re-drafting Teacher as advisor and editor

L2 Listening Comprehension  How does comprehension work?

 Intelligibility  Comprehensibility  Interpretability

L2 speaking   Talk across cultures In U.S., but not in South Asia, we  Talk around        Talk up Talk down Talk it out Talk it through/over Have talk radio and tv stations Have talk show hosts Take turns talking

Conclusions  Language learning must proceed within the socio-cultural contexts of its use  Learning language, learning culture  Goal: Communicative language teaching, tailored to appropriate goals and needs of learners and learning.