‘I didn’t speak for the first year’: Silence, Self-Study and Student Stories of English Language Learning in Mainstream Education  

Oleh:

Safford, Kimberly ; Costley, Tracey

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching (Full Text) vol. 2 no. 2 (2008), page 136-151.
Topik: bilingualism; English as an Additional Language (EAL); language and identity; language learning experiences; language learning strategies; multilingualism
Fulltext: vol. 2, no. 2, 2008, 136-151.pdf (128.44KB)

Isi artikel

The paper draws on interviews with 17- and 18-year-old students learning English as an Additional Language (EAL) in mainstream secondary schools in the UK, where the students describe their experiences as new arrivals and their resources and strategies for accessing and learning English in multiple social and academic contexts. Silence and self-study emerge as key survival strategies for these students, whilst multilingual family and friendship networks play key roles in supporting their day-to-day school work and future ambitions. In these student narratives, school policies and practices do not appear to take account of the multilayered nature of learning English for a wide range of purposes which demand the integration of discrete linguistic skills with culturally situated registers and practices. Although the UK daily grows more, not less, multilingual, interviews over several years with different cohorts of students learning EAL seem to suggest that their experiences and strategies have not changed. The paper reflects on how the mainstream classroom looks and sounds to such students, and how their voices might effectively influence pedagogy and practice in these contexts.

Opini Anda

Klik untuk menuliskan opini Anda tentang koleksi ini!

Kembali