To what extent to teachers in secondary school adopt a metalinguistic focus in vocabulary teaching?
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2017-01-31
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en
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Abstract
This research examines the degree to which secondary school teachers in the Netherlands use teaching methods that increase students’ language awareness. Language awareness can be defined as metalinguistic, explicit knowledge about language and the relation between languages. Previous research has pointed to the benefits of emphasising systematicity in a foreign language, focusing on the differences between the first and second language and using translation exercises in class. Seven teachers were interviewed in semi-structured 45-minute interviews in order to determine what methods teachers use to teach vocabulary, to what degree these methods are in line with previous research and to what extent teachers incorporate teaching for language awareness into their lessons. The potential discrepancy between language teaching theory and teaching practice was investigated. The qualitative data indicated that although teachers believe that improving students’ language awareness is important, they do not use methods that have been suggested to improve metalinguistic knowledge. Several teachers doubt the efficacy of explicit instruction and prefer a meaning-oriented approach to language teaching. Others believe that translation comes at the cost of their English-taught program. In addition, participants argue that exercises that enhance language awareness are too challenging for their students. These findings can be of value to teacher training programs and may form the basis for further research on the relation between vocabulary teaching and language awareness.
Keywords: Language awareness, vocabulary acquisition, Contrastive Analysis and Translation (CAT), semantic restructuring.
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