South Asian Languages: Rethinking Curriculum

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

2. Curriculum Development Goals and Methods

3. 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

4. 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 towhen 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.

5. Appropriately Ungrammatical:An Examplar • Hindi • aap caay piyeNge vs. • *aap caay piyoge • What is the function of the two variants?

6. Communicative Competence • Knowledge of how, when, and why to say what to whom. • Focus: language functions linguistic items perform. • Ex: achaa, caluN? Discussion point: What is the form-function correlation here?

7. Why Communicative Competence • Kashmiri: “Would you like to have a cup of tea?” • caay cakh-aa • caay cakh-ay • caay cakh-ba • caay cakh-bi • caay cakh-sa • caay cayiv-mahraa • caay cayiv-haz

8. 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;

9. 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.

10. 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

11. Focus of FL teaching Theoretical focus How do learners learn? What do they learn? Methodological focus What are learners’ “needs”? First step: Needs analysis

12. 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.

13. 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

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

15. Lets take a 10 min break

16. 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? CHOOSING TEXTS

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

18. Hindi Language Variation • Eastern vs. Western • Hindi vs. Urdu vs. Hindustani • Polyglossic variation • paati, ciThii, <khat>, patr, <letter>

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

20. APPROPRIATE CONTEXTS • Learning SALs as: • Foreign Languages • Less Commonly Taught Languages • Heritage Languages

21. SAL as Foreign Language • Affective Variables: Needs “Needs Analysis” • Motivation? • Integrative and/or Instrumental • Attitude? • Positive or negative

22. SAL as Heritage Language • Heritage and cognate-heritage • Motivation? • Ethno-linguistic identity • Maintenance of cultural practices • Pop culture

23. 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

24. Less Commonly Taught Languages • Motivation? • Cultural awareness • Diversity

25. 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

26. Contexts of texts • Are they teen-appropriate? • Are they HL-appropriate?

27. Foreign language Literacy Accuracy Fluency Heritage language Fluency Literacy Accuracy Skills in contexts

28. 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

29. 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

30. L2 Writing • Writing is • Text • Composing (process) • Social construction (context) • What about L2 writing?

31. 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

32. L2 Listening Comprehension • How does comprehension work? • Intelligibility • Comprehensibility • Interpretability

33. 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

34. 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.