ANOTHER STEP TO BE TAKEN

TCCRISLS 2012 - INTERLANGUAGE: 40 YEARS LATER

In her presentation, Larsen-Freeman suggested, “We should close the separation between learning and teaching and bring them back together.”

The topics on which she focused in the presentation

Part A

1- Definition of success

2- Attempted meaningful performance

3- Five processes

Second Language Learning; First Language transfer, second language learning, language transfer, transfer of training, and overgeneralization of TL rules

4- Fossilization

5- No necessary connection between units

The Ultimate Yardstick of Linguistic Success

Larsen-Freeman stated, “There is no ultimate homogeneous state to aspire to. The persistent instability of complex systems (Percival 1993) is due to the fact that a person’s use of language resources changes them, and I don’t just mean growth in the lexicon.”

Part B

Is it possible to reconcile the non-normativism of learning with the [apparent] need for normativism in language learning?

1-    Think in terms of capacity rather than competence.

2-    Think in terms of discourse domain.

3-    Think not in terms of telic conformity, but in terms of semiotic agility- the capacity for shifting “rapidly and fluently between and among semiotic words (Prior 2010, p. 233)

4-    Assess learning as a self referential way.

Part C

How does this play out in practice, you ask…

1-    Engage learners in activities that are rich in affordances (for particular discourse domain)

2-    Activity should be psychologically authentic (where the learning/ use are aligned)- making meaning

3-    Activities that can be iterated.

4-    That teach adaptation

5-    Then, stand back and respond in the service of learning.

Closing

“Knowing how to negotiate our way through a world that is not fixed and pregiven, but that is continually shaped by the types of actions in which we engage,” is a challenge of being human. (Varela, Thomson & Rosch 1991)