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Bridging Contexts, Making Connections - Featured Speaker
Equipping Teachers to be Language Explorers |
| Elaine Tarone, University of Minnesota |
Abstract
Explorers are problem-solvers who are well-equipped to discover and thrive
in previously-unknown territory. This presentation will make the
case that preparing language teachers entails equipping them with the tools
of language
analysis that they will need to become language explorers. Language
teacher education is not a matter of merely transmitting facts to passive
teacher
minds; it is primarily a matter of equipping teachers to analyze
language in continuously new settings so as to develop creative and effective
environments
for language learning.
In some teacher development textbooks and
programs, the teacher’s
knowledge base relating to language and second language acquisition
(SLA) is conceptualized as consisting of a body of facts that teachers must
memorize
in order to ‘demonstrate learning’ by repeating those facts
on exams. “Here are the grammar rules of the second language: memorize
them. Here are the SLA researchers and their findings: memorize
them.” But
this way of operationalizing the language and SLA knowledge base
does not provide language teachers with the ability to research and resolve
new language
learning issues in their classrooms. The presenter makes the case
that every language teacher’s knowledge base should include, not just
knowledge ABOUT language and SLA, but the ability to USE this knowledge
creatively
to resolve learning and assessment problems, and to explore interesting
questions as these arise in the local classroom. She shows an example
introductory SLA class that moves beyond a survey of published research
to develop teachers’ abilities
to examine the language learning processes of their own students
and to relate their findings to pedagogical decision-making.
Plenary PowerPoint (HTML)
Plenary PowerPoint (PPt Show
.pps)
- you may have to save to harddrive, then open
 Elaine
E. Tarone
Professor, Program in English as a Second Language
Director, Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition
University of Minnesota
Elaine Tarone is the Director of the Center
for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA). She is also
Professor and Head of the English as a Second Language Program
in the Institute
of Linguistics, English as a Second Language, and Slavic Languages
and Literatures at the University
of Minnesota. Professor Tarone's research publications focus on
the impact of social context on learner language and second language
acquisition. She
has published work on interlanguage variation, learners' interactions
in immersion classrooms, the communication strategies used by
second language learners, language play, and genre analysis.
She is a recipient
of the College
of Liberal Arts Distinguished Teaching Award, and the University
of Minnesota Award for Outstanding Contributions to Postbaccalaureate,
Graduate, and
Professional Education.
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