The present paper describes various psycho-social phenomena that occur in groups, in particular in the language classroom. Each group passes through five developmental stages called forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning. During these phases learners’ behavior and attitudes change, which often leads to conflicts between the teacher and the students. The structure of the group develops in parallel with its dynamics. Students adopt several roles in the group, such as, for example, leader, expert or outsider.
Traditional communication in foreign language classes, even if varied by the use of diverse games and simulations, takes place in a sterile classroom environment, and therefore, is rarely encouraging. However, the new generation of pupils is growing up on computer games, and this fact is changing their expectations and demands on education. The dynamically changing virtual world of videogames may be the perfect environment for them to develop various skills. In this paper, I would like to present my preliminary conclusions made while implementing videogames into foreign language classes in a high school.
This paper deals with a controversial perspective of language teaching and learning from the view of critical theories. From the assumption of the oppressed (learners) and the oppressors (teachers in the language classroom), the authors propose the idea to revisit the issues relevant to how languages are learned. The paper discusses the reality of language learning from the narrow view of non-European practitioners and learners to discuss the phenomenon of teaching from the oppressive perspectives. From that, proposals for different language classrooms with equality, ignorance-free, and especially real demands were suggested to be the main motivation for communication. Additionally, the paper also indicates that the issues of lexicon and learners’ fears were not the main reasons for communication failure. The authors borrow the terms from and grasp the literal implications of Lightbown and Spada (2006) and simultaneously employ the critical theories of Freire (2005) and Rancière (1991) as a counterbalance in the call to revisit “how languages should be learned” in the new era of technology and the matter of learning and teaching from critical perspectives.
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W niniejszym artykule ukazano kontrowersyjną perspektywę nauczania i uczenia się języków z punktu widzenia teorii krytycznych. Z założenia istnienia uciśnionych – uczących się i ciemiężących – nauczycieli w klasie językowej, autorzy zaproponowali pomysły, aby ponownie przeanalizować kwestie związane ze sposobem nauczania języków. W artykule omówiono rzeczywistość uczenia się języków z wąskiej wizji pozaeuropejskich praktyków i uczniów, aby omówić zjawisko nauczania z perspektywy opresyjnej. W efekcie wysunięto sugestię, że główną motywacją do komunikacji są propozycje różnych zajęć językowych uwzględniających równość, pozbawionych ignorancji, a zwłaszcza biorących pod uwagę rzeczywiste potrzeby. Poza tym wykazuje się, że problemy leksykalne i lęki uczniów nie były głównymi przyczynami niepowodzenia w komunikacji. Autorzy zapożyczyli terminy i implikacje z publikacji How Languages are Learnt (Lightbown i Spada 2006), a jednocześnie wykorzystali krytyczne teorie (Freire 2005, Rancière 1991) jako przeciwwagę w wezwaniu do ponownego przyjrzenia się „jak należy się uczyć języków” w nowej erze technologii oraz kwestii uczenia się i nauczania z krytycznych perspektyw.
Digital skills are an important part of the skills required in the 21st century, enabling users to better utilise information and communication technologies (ICT) in different spheres of life. This article examines the integration of these skills into foreign language teaching. The first part of the article studies the notion of digital skills through initiatives undertaken at the European and the national level as well as the current role of digital technology in the language classroom. The second part of the article focuses on the possible integration of digital skills with the development of productive language skills through active methods (collaborative learning, project-based learning, problem-based learning). The preliminary examination shows that the use of these teaching strategies could possibly ensure the parallel development of language and digital skill.
Willingness to communicate (WTC) in a second language is the outcomeof mutual influences of a wide array of psychological, linguistic, educationaland communicative factors, including those that are dependenton a specific situation, such as the character of a particular class or thetask being performed. All of them can increase or decrease the level ofWTC on a minute-by-minute basis (MacIntyre and Legatto, 2011). Theaim of the study presented in this paper was to obtain greater insightsinto the motives underlying willingness and unwillingness to take partin a conversation in a foreign language with a view to creating in thelanguage classroom conditions that would stimulate communicationand thus contribute to the attainment of greater proficiency. More specifically,an attempt was made to determine and measure factors affectingWTC in one group of English majors, as they were engaged in a conversationclass. The data were collected by means of self-reports, completedduring the class, in which the levels of WTC were indicated ona scale of -10 to +10, as well as short questionnaires filled in right afterwards.A combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis showedthat WTC in a conversation class is subject to constant fluctuations andmade it possible to identify factors responsible for such changes.
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