Chapter
10 Linguistics and Foreign Language Teaching
10.1 Foreign language teaching as a system
Linguistics plays its role in foreign language teaching. In order to
understand the role of linguistics we need to sketch how foreign language
teaching as a system operates. In China, foreign language teaching as
a component of education is composed of activities on four levels. The
first level is educational planning. The government decides what languages
are taught, to whom, and what educational resources are provided. The
decision is in accordance with the socio-economic needs of the society.
The social aim or objective is clearly stated.
The second level is preparation. On this level, there are two parallel
sets of activities. One is syllabus design and material development. The
syllabus and the textbooks are prepared according to the social aim for
teaching a language. They turn social aims into pedagogic objectives.
The syllabus authoritatively decides what to teach and what principles
guide the teaching and learning. These practices are guided by theories
of relevant disciplines, such as linguistics, psychology, pedagogy, etc.
These activities are the commitment of specialists. The other set of activities
is teacher preparation and retraining. The two parallel sets of activities
keep abreast of professional advancement. When new syllabi and textbooks
come out following a new approach to language teaching, teachers have
to be retrained in order to bring the new ideas into practice in the classroom.
The third level is operation in the classroom. There are three main
variables that determine the outcome of teaching and learning --- the
learners, the teacher, and the textbook. The learners' attitude toward
the learning task and their motivation are strongly influenced by the
social milieu. The teacher's view of language and language learning determine
what he/she teaches and how. The textbook decides, to a great extent,
the content of teaching, but what the students really learn also depends
on what goes on in the classroom. Behind the teacher's practice and the
textbook are certain theories of language and language acquisition.
The fourth level is evaluation, mostly in the form of testing. Educational
administrators need to find out the efficiency of teaching and learning,
as the cost is tremendous. Students need to be credited and selected.
Therefore, language tests must be administered at various levels of education.
Language testing is a complex activity which is guided by linguistic and
psychological theories.
The whole system of foreign language teaching can be represented by
a conceptual framework below. As shown by the figure, linguistics and
other relevant disciplines contribute to the levels of preparation, operation
and evaluation. The rest of this chapter will survey the contribution
of linguistics to foreign language teaching.
A conceptual framework of foreign language teaching as a system
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