Maximising Intensivity and Continuity in Language Learning Mount Gambier Cluster August 2013 Angela Michelle

An ecology: Policy dimensions Structural dimensions Curriculum dimensions ‘Cultural’/people dimensions Resource dimensions A focus on transition

Centrality of learning and continuity in learning The planned program/curriculum The lived program/curriculum →Inevitable framing through local policies and practices →Inevitable compression The program as ‘proxy’ for learning

Scope of learning nature, extent/depth, complexity of learning Level of learning → Cultures of understanding learning → Need to establish common understanding The concept of ‘scope and sequence’

Rationale for the design: ●Learners and learning ●Reconceptualising Language, Culture and Learning ●Reconceptualising teaching and learning practices ●The specificity of particular languages ●Curriculum content and its sequencing ●Achievement standards An introduction to the Australian Curriculum: Languages as a resource 4

Learners and learning ●Increasing diversity of learners ●Who are our learners linguistically and culturally? ●The notion of life-worlds (experiences, affiliations, desires, memories) ●Learner ‘background’ or traits vs background as constitutive of learning ●Language and culture have a mediating role; learning emerges through linguistically and culturally mediated, historically-developing practical activity (Gutiérrez & Rogoff 2003) 5

Byrnes (2006) states: The profession is being challenged… to find principled ways of linking foreign, heritage and native language instruction, to suggest ways of engaging all language users in continued language development toward high functional multilingualism in diverse hybrid spaces. Kramsch (2009, 2011) states: Today it is not sufficient for learners to know how to communicate meanings; they have to understand the practice of meaning-making.  language learning as a bi-or multilingual act (Scarino 2010; Liddicoat & Scarino 2013) Beyond communicative language teaching 7

Expanding language, culture and learning - 1 View of language Language as word; structural, grammatical system; code ↔ Language as social practice involving diverse contexts of use ↔ Elaborate social practice to highlight not just the act or the practice itself, but people and their meaning- making. ↔ Participants in a practice ↔ Elaborate participation as the reciprocal process of interpreting the language and culture, the person and the self, and of reflecting on the process of meaning- making, self and other. View of culture Culture as facts, artefacts, information ↔ Culture as social practices; ways of doing things in diverse cultures ↔ Elaborate to highlight not only diverse practices, but cultural practices as a lens through which people mutually interpret, create, and exchange meaning and reflecting on the cultural situatedness of self and other. View of learning Acquisition of new knowledge ↔ Participation in use of knowledge/knowing how to use language ↔ Elaborate to highlight how learning as a process of making sense or coming to understand, involves becoming aware of how learners reciprocally interpret knowledge to others and themselves through their language and culture, and its use with others, and reflect upon the process of learning. 10

A move towards – ●a conception of language as form, as a social practice and as the interpretation and creation of meaning: this interpretive turn includes a reflective dimension that adds value to both communication and learning ●Understanding the crucial role of language and culture in meaning-making ●understanding the role of language and culture in learning when learning itself is understood as ‘learning how to mean (Halliday 1993) ●reflection Expanding language, culture and learning

Consider the learning of language and culture In learning to use the target language, learners learn to: ●exchange meanings reciprocally through interaction with people and/or texts ●‘move between’ and come to understand the linguistic and cultural systems of the language they are learning, and at the same time referencing these to their own linguistic and cultural systems ●develop metacognitive and metalinguistic awareness of what it means to interpret and to act in the world, and to be interpreted reciprocally by others (ACARA 2011) 13

The Languages Design - Aims ●communicate in the target language ●understand language, culture, and learning and their relationship, and thereby develop an intercultural capability in communication ●understand themselves as communicators 14

Strands and sub-strands Communicating Socialising and taking action Obtaining and using information Responding to and expressing imaginative experience Moving between/translating Expressing and performing identity Reflecting on intercultural language use Understanding Systems of language Variability in language use Language awareness Role of language and culture 15

Socialising and taking action Sub-strand 1.1: Socialising and taking action Socialising with others (orally and in writing) to exchange ideas, opinions, experiences, thoughts, feelings, intentions and plans, and to take action with others. Students learn to socialise with others in the target language (both orally and in writing); to interact with others to build relationships and participate in shared activities; to negotiate, to make decisions and arrangements and take individual and collective action. 16

Socialising and taking action Concepts Text-types Processes friendship (experiences, values, conflict, reconciliation) relationships (family, generations) leisure celebration neighbourhood (geography, distance, environment) etiquette (greetings, politeness) naming attitude education (learning, knowledge) journey community time space/place negotiation health/wellbeing interconnection across concepts and actions Conversation: face-to-face interaction; telephone conversations; participating in shared communicative activities, discussions, debates Correspondence: s, text messages, class blog/chat forums, notes, invitations, greeting cards, letters, postcards listening, speaking, reading and writingexplaining expressing preferences and feelingspersuading comparingadvising negotiatingcommenting making decisions and arrangementsdescribing giving and following instructionsdebating invitingtransacting accepting and decliningthanking discussingplanning and participating expressingconnecting/relating justifying 17

Socialising and taking action: sequencing Examples of sequencing in broad terms (predominantly for second language learning) Early primary years (pre-literacy/early literacy) Upper primary (developing literacy) Junior secondary (expanding literacy) interacting/socialising is guided; often occurs as a whole-class response; is based on the learner’s own experience interacting/socialising to give, share, role-play; articulate and exchange ideas, feelings, preferences interacting/socialising to state and exchange thoughts, feelings, plans; begin to discuss/debate; take social/community action; express opinion; reflect on and compare self with others; understand reciprocally interacting/socialising takes place within the context of the classroom and is connected to the home and local environment interacting/socialising takes place within the neighbourhood and local community; beginning to take community action interacting/socialising takes place in diverse contexts, local and global, in real time and virtual; taking group action; understanding consequences; communicating with parents/others student as participant with teacher; students participate by naming, pointing, miming, participating in games and action- related talk peer to peer; student to teacher; student to known people; with one of multiple participants student to diverse participants repeated language; active listening accessing resources, including digital resources; can find out/research/ compare; supported writing students vary their language according to age and gender; socialising through a range of texts, including narratives, diaries, records of experience; intercultural exchange 18

Content descriptions: Italian Obtaining and using information Sub-strand 1.2: Obtaining and using information Obtaining and processing information Identify and order factual information from a range of spoken, written, digital and multimodal texts, and process and represent meaning, e.g. through classification, sequence and summary [Key processes: ordering, classifying, tabulating]  obtaining information as a dimension of this sub- strand  the fact that it is factual information suggests the appropriate level  key processes here give a sense of the level of information giving Giving information Convey ideas and information through a range of spoken, written, digital and multimodal texts in ways that allow comparison of diverse perspectives and practices [Key processes: describing, presenting]  giving information as a dimension of the sub-strand  the fact that it is factual information suggests the appropriate level  key processes here give a sense of the level of information giving Note: This is an introduction only to the reality of diverse perspectives. 19

An example: Signs in every-day life Learners will be taught to: recognise, identify, interpret and respond to the meaning being communicated in signs (e.g. warning, instruction, direction) and other graphic representation (e.g. illustrations, cartoons) Concept presentation presentation and comparison of signs and placards used in signs discussion of language used in signs (commands, instructions, warnings) and their function in society examination and discussion of cultural values reflected by the language of signs e.g. responsibility of state for providing warning, expectations of public, shorthand ways of mediating meanings Concept’s key language features linguistic structures that convey commands, instructions and warnings that require actions (Do x; Don’t’ do Y); demands (More parks now!) examination of social consequences of language structures that indicate power relations 20

The interrelationship of the strands and sub-strands The interrelationship of the strands and sub-strands is best seen as three facets of the same experience: 1.performance and experience of communication (performance) 2.analysis of various aspects of language and culture involved in communication (analysis) 3.reflection on the comparative and reciprocal dimensions of language learning and use (reflection) 21

Refer to handout Content Descriptions and Achievement Standards

Discussion 22

References ACARA (2011) Shape of the Australian Curriculum: Languages +Languages+-+FINAL.pdf +Languages+-+FINAL.pdf ACARA (unpublished) The Australian Curriculum Languages Design Paper. Byrnes, H. (2006) Perspectives, Modern Language Journal, 90 (2), Gutierrez, K. & Rogoff, B. (2003) Cultural ways of learning: individual traits or repertoires of practice, Educational Researcher, 32 (5), Halliday, M.A.K. (1993). Towards a language-based theory of learning. Linguistics and Education. 4, Kramsch, C. (2011). The symbolic dimension of the intercultural. Language Teaching. 44, 3, Kramsch, C. (2009). The multilingual subject. Oxford. Oxford University Press. Scarino, A. (2010). Assessing intercultural capability in learning languages: A renewed understanding of language, culture, learning and the nature of assessment. The Modern Language Journal, 94(2), 324. Liddicoat, A.J. & Scarino, A. (2013) Intercultural language teaching and learning. Malden. Wiley-Blackwell. 23