Experiential Learning in Foreign Language Education

Viljo Kohonen, Riitta Jaatinen, Pauli Kaikkonen, Jorma Lehtovaara

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317883067
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

The goal of foreign language teaching is expanding from communicative competence towards an intercultural action competence. Essential in the new orientation is the shift towards a more balanced emphasis between the external factors in the learning environment and the personal capacity, conceptions, beliefs and assumptions inside the learner's mind. As part of the changes, assessment is seen as an important means of enhancing the elearning processes, emphasising the role of refelctive self-assessment. The text explores and integrates the necessary knowledge base and practices in foreign language education in terms of the basic concepts of experiential learning, intercultural learning, autobiographical knowledge and teacher development, together with the philosophical underpinnings of foreign language education.

Chapter 1
Introduction

Viljo Kohonen, Pauli Kaikkonen, Riitta Jaatinen and Jorma Lehtovaara

Current shifts in foreign language teaching. As noted by Diane Larsen-Freeman at the 1996 AILA Congress in Jyväskylä, Finland, there is a certain turmoil in the field of applied linguistics. The boundaries between the different disciplines are getting permeable and blurred. In order to broaden our professional knowledge base and understanding, we need to look into different disciplines that are relevant to foreign language education in the changing world.

We need to put together the developments in a number of related fields of research, such as philosophy, epistemology, linguistics, applied linguistics, learning psycholog)’, intercultural learning, evaluation, the teacher’s professional growth, society restructuring and the culture of schools and other teaching institutions. We also need to consider what kind of a new research orientation might emerge for promoting foreign language education and what possibilities it could open for language educators and learners.

In this book we attempt to explore and integrate some elements that we believe are important for such an expanded knowledge base. We wish to support language educators in developing their sense of direction in the seemingly turbulent context of being a language teacher in the middle of a professional paradigm shift at the time of major social changes in a number of national settings. Foreign language education does not take place in a social vacuum – if this has ever been the case. The ongoing developments suggest a need for a deep reorientation in the language teaching profession.

We give some brief snapshots of the processes as experienced by the participants, to serve as an introduction to the topics to be discussed further in the book.

As a language teacher I feel like being on a scenic point when working with young students. We get along well together. Previously I used to make detailed lesson plans and wanted to cam’ them through as well as possible. Now I have the courage to be in touch with my students and listen to them. I have become a keen experimenter. Currently I am inspired by cooperative learning… Very often I feel I am an educator more than a language teacher… I feel like a social educator, a psychologist, a family therapist, a listener, a comforter, a referee… At times I find it difficult to distinguish between mv personal growth and being a language teacher… what I am as a person impinges on what I am as a teacher… The school of life has made me humble. I can do the kind of work I like.

On my lessons we also talk about other things than the language … I have tried to help my students to see their learning and personal growth as a broad cross-curricular goal on which they can influence themselves if they wish to… I see this as my duty. The teacher cannot any longer be confined to the language curricula alone, but I find it difficult to communicate this view to mv students, the parents and the colleagues in school… School is still like an island detached from the rest of society… There should be more cooperation with the parents… The staff should have a strong feeling of belonging together before any radical changes can be brought about… but the lack of time is a persistent problem.

The quotes by two Finnish foreign language teachers show that language teaching has a broader goal than promoting linguistic and communicative skills only. It contributes to the wider task of fostering the students’ personal growth and thus educates them for life in a changing society. The foreign language teaching profession is becoming increasingly aware of the broad educational values in language learning. The emerging values emphasise the need to support socially responsible learner education and affective learning. Developing learner autonomy in language learning entails holistic goals for language learning as learner education. Accordingly, language learning involves a broad range of complex thinking and learning skills and emphasises the importance of such qualities as self-direction, self-control, self reflection and a capacity for responsible social interaction.

To enhance their learners’ social and learning skills in their classes, language teachers need to cooperate not just within the foreign languages department but also across the curriculum. This means developing a new culture of teacher collaboration in school. Language teachers need to give up their traditional isolation and assume an increasing responsibility for developing their school as a collegial work place. This new orientation invites them to expand their professional identity towards becoming a language educator and a community developer.

The developments pose a number of challenging questions for foreign language educators:

• How might foreign language education prepare students to face the complexities of living as responsible citizens in the changing world?
• In what ways could teaching arrangements foster the learner’s capacity for self-directed, autonomous learning?
• How could foreign language learning be designed so that it promotes the development of the learner’s holistic personal and intercultural competence?
• How do the changes affect the teacher’s professional knowledge base, identity and role in the class and in the work place? What kind of new institutional cultures might schools develop in different cultural settings?

Obviously such questions are interpreted differently in different cultural environments, leading to diverse strategies and practices of developing language learning. So there is no one (and even less any ‘right’) way of tackling the pedagogical problems. Rather, the solutions need to be worked out with regard to the values, traditions and resources in the given national, regional or local context. In any case, the developments suggest the need for a clear shift towards more learner-centred ways of organising language learning, however these are conceptualised and carried out in the different national contexts.

The concept ‘foreign language’ is a peculiar one. All over the world people speak in a foreign language except here at home. We no matter who we are speak a language; everybody else speaks a foreign language. The bartender in New York knows not only about our cows, our mountains and our watches, but also that in Switzerland we have four languages no, not three but four, he is duly impressed by that and he asks the name of the fourth.

This is always awkward for me. To be modest for once, I have to admit that I cannot speak Romansch. And I do not live in a quadrilingual Switzerland, but rather in a country where my own language is a foreign language. Those who share my fate, my compatriot Swiss tourists, have spun my bartender a yarn. They have explained that Switzerland is quadrilingual; and yet it is monolingual just like other regions of the world. French is a foreign language even in Switzerland, and so is German. There’s a good measure of arrogance in the myth of quadrilingualism that we spread among bartenders all over the world. Since Switzerland is quadrilingual, then so are we Swiss. Moreover we are convinced that we are the only ones who are good at foreign languages – the Germans certainly aren’t, and nor are the English. We believe, so to speak, that quadrilingualism is something we collectively own. I, an individual Swiss, might not speak the four languages, but we Swiss do.

There are people who speak a language and people who speak a foreign language. Those who speak a foreign language are the ones who are different. They are indeed quite different, they have a lot more temperament, are more superficial or more profound, have the soulfulness of the Slav or the dourness of the Portuguese. In any case, the middle ground is occupied by us and by me. Anyone who is sad is sadder than me, anyone who is jolly is jollier than me. Foreign (the foreign language) can be better or worse. It cannot be the same. It is only us who are the same, only me.

(Peter Bichsel: Only One Language)

The quote by Bichsel suggests that the processes of learning the native language and the foreign language are qualitatively different at the emotional level. While the first language is acquired more as an affective process of developing a belonging to the native culture in early childhood, the foreign language remains inevitably foreign, no matter how well we learn to master it. Therefore, foreign language instruction needs to be enhanced by the emerging goals of intercultural learning. Important in this goal orientation is to see foreign language learning as developing a capacity’ to encounter foreignness and otherness in intercultural communication. It is not enough to know the language primarily as a formal linguistic system. Language use is always contextualised, purposeful and interactive communication which involves negotiation between the participants, the tolerance of ambiguity and respect for diversity. These views pose new challenges for developing affective, experiential language learning processes. Literary and cultural texts are also used increasingly as an important means of promoting authenticity’ in the language classroom. The construction of the learning tasks is a crucial question of pedagogical design and implementation, aiming at both communicatively and personally meaningful processes and contents.

I’m very interested in English even though my threshold for speaking is quite high. When begin to speak or translate texts into English and notice that I cannot do it I get immensely tense and anxious, I feel kind of back-locked. I hope the course will strengthen my self-esteem and unlock my vocabulary and language skills… [pre-course expectations by ‘Tiina’].

I have experienced the course as meaningful learning… The best experience on the course has been die feedback from the teacher and the class mates. I had thought that I cannot do anything. Being able to understand and talk after all has been a good experience for me. I am now enthusiastic about learning more English. Even though I haven’t been able to understand everything word by word, I’ve been able to understand the essential meanings, and that has been a strong experience for me [after-course reflections by ‘Tiina’].

The quote shows the importance of attending to learner beliefs, assumptions and expectations about her own learning. The learner’s role is changing from a relatively passive recipient of language knowledge and skills towards an active and creative role in constructing the foreign language system for herself. Prior knowledge gives a valuable bridge for new learnings and needs to be utilised with care. The learner is also a responsible member of the social group and is actively involved in co-managing the learning process. This underscores the importance of the emotions and attitudes as part of foreign language education. More emphasis is thus placed on the affective component in language learning: the impact of learner beliefs about language, herself and her own role as a student.

As part of the changes, assessment is not merely a matter of measuring the learning outcomes, but also an important means of enhancing the learning processes. Reflective self-assessment develops learners’ awareness of their thinking and learning skills as well as of their social skills and intercultural attitudes. In addition to the traditionally important verbal-linguistic skills, learners are taught to develop their interpersonal and intrapersonal skills that are necessary for responsible social interaction. They learn to take an increasing amount of responsibility for their learning and thus socialise their own learning.

Essential in the new orientation is the shift towards a more balanced emphasis between factors external to the learner and the properties that are inside the mind of the learner. While the former include class size, time on task and the teacher effectiveness variables, the latter properties include the learner’s prior knowledge, beliefs and assumptions of language and learning; his or her information-processing capacity’, emotional intelligence, anxiety and ambiguity tolerance, and motivation and ownership.

Outline of the book. In his chapter Towards experiential foreign language education Viljo Kohonen considers foreign language education in the context of the current changes and ongoing developments in society, teaching, learning and communication. The developments suggest the need to redefine the traditional roles of teachers, learners and curricula and work towards a new institutional culture based on an active collaboration of all participants. Experiential learning provides new perspectives for such a fundamental process of redesigning foreign language education. Kohonen discusses the basic concepts and some foundations in experiential learning and examines current directions in experiential learning.

Kohonen then proposes a theoretical framework of experiential foreign language education which includes the following elements: (1) language teaching as learner education, with reference to the essential concepts of awareness, autonomy and authenticity; (2) evaluation as a shift towards authentic assessment; (3) coherence through the teacher’s professional growth; and (4) coherence through the development of a collegial institutional culture and the relationships between the school and society at large. These developments are interdependent, and together they constitute the powerful concept of coherence in experiential foreign language education. This goal orientation entails redesigning the language teaching profession and reculturing the schools.

Pauli Kaikkonen provides a chapter on Intercultural learning through foreign language education in which he discusses the needs and foundations for intercultural learning in the increasingly multicultural world. He suggests the notion of intercultural action competence as the new goal of foreign language education. The chapter considers foreign language learning and teaching both in relation to the learner’s native language and culture and to the foreign language and culture. The author then discusses the important concepts of foreignness and diversity and the culture-based conceptions of nature, space and time. He examines some usual terms (like racism, ethnocentrism, prejudice, stereotype) which are connected with how individuals shape foreignness. He moves on to discuss some central concepts in the culture-based foreign language education.

Kaikkonen also considers the connections between language and culture and presents his model of culture which he used as the basis for his teaching experiments on the foreign language education. The chapter concludes with a presentation of the findings and experiences from the work with some student groups in senior secondary school and describes an action research teaching experiment to advance intercultural learning in the school context. In addition to this experiment, Kaikkonen offers perspectives to foreign language learning based on the individually and culturally orientated experiences of the learners. Finally he gives some examples of the tasks which were developed in the teaching experiment.

Riitta Jaatinen has written the chapter Autobiographical knowledge in foreign language education and teacher development. She outlines some important goals of teaching and learning a foreign language. She discusses the nature, content and advantages of using an autobiographic approach in foreign language learning. The language learning environment is seen as a valuable resource for human growth, as an opportunity to learn encountering other people in a dialogue and to broaden one’s views through understanding different patterns of thought, societies, cultures, systems and traditions.

She suggests an extensive use of students’ experiential autobiographical knowledge in language learning classes: the opportunity to reminisce about, narrate and explore oneself and one’s life, and to be a subject in the classroom. She explores the use of autobiographical knowledge in foreign language teaching and relates it to a teaching experiment conducted as a dialogical process. She discusses some guiding principles and the role of the autobiographical content in a language course for specific purposes. She gives examples of the language learning tasks and activities utilised in one of her English courses.

Jaatinen claims that the teacher’s autobiographical knowledge functions as the basis for how the teacher understands his or her experiences, the uniqueness of human learning, and foreign language learning. She discusses some important aspects of autobiographical knowledge in teacher development. As a subjective interpretation of the teacher’s life, autobiographical knowledge offers a down-to-earth and valuable starting-point for teacher education. By inquiring into and interpreting their autobiographical knowledge – lived experiences – teachers learn to disclose their implicit pedagogical theories. Jaatinen concludes by suggesting that reminiscing about, interpreting and reinterpreting our lives is a way to assemble ourselves when reaching towards a better personal integration in life. Such a process helps us to see ourselves anew in constantly changing times and environments.

In his chapter What is it – (FL) teaching? Jorma Lehtovaara seeks to clarify the essence of (FL) teaching and learning. He intends to provide (FL) teachers with a conceptual framework which helps them to investigate questions concerning all aspects of (FL) teaching for themselves. He first outlines the current Zeitgeist immersed in which (FL) teaching takes place nowadays. He highlights the importance of seriously considering the effects which the basic mode of approaching reality inherent in modern science and technology exerts on (FL) teaching and our way’s of understanding in general. Although appreciative of the merits of modern science and technology, Lehtovaara claims that we should see the alliance of modern science and technology’ only as a possible rational(istic) theory of reality. The essence...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• General Editor’s Preface
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Towards experiential foreign language education
• 3 Intercultural learning through foreign language education
• 4 Autobiographical knowledge in foreign language education and teacher development
• 5 What is it – (FL) teaching?
• Index