The Five-Minute Linguist - Bite-sized Essays on Language and Languages Third Edition - Caroline Myrick
41. How Have Our Ideas about Language Learning Changed through the Years?
The Five-Minute Linguist - Bite-sized Essays on Language and Languages Third Edition - Caroline Myrick
June K. Phillips [+]
Weber State University
June K. Phillips is Professor and Dean of Arts & Humanities Emeritus from Weber State University in Utah. She has taught French (at the junior high school through college levels) and methods of foreign language teaching. She served as President of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) in 2001. She was ACTFL’s project director for the National Standards for Foreign Language Education and was co-director of a project looking at their influence after a decade or more; she also co-chaired the development of Program Standards for the Preparation of Foreign Language Teachers, jointly promulgated by ACTFL and the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education. She served as a consultant to the National Assessment of Educational Progress evaluation of Spanish teaching in the U.S. and to the WGBH/Annenberg Video Library for Foreign Languages, a nonprofit educational resource. She has published and edited extensively on pedagogical topics.
Description
In the early days of the colonies, languages were learned to survive in a new environment and culture. Soon, language learning shifted to an academic enterprise with an emphasis on how the language worked and on reading it. From World War II onward, people were encouraged to learn to communicate, to use the language actively. Today’s students go far beyond that as they discover and work with authentic materials, oral and written, from the internet and become adept with the tools offered by technology. Teachers, curriculum, programs have to use those resources skillfully to advance language acquisition.