Abstract
The term teacher language awareness (TLA) refers to teachers’ cognitions (knowledge and beliefs) about language in general and the language they teach. TLA research considers how these cognitions are developed and their impact on teaching and learning. An underlying assumption is that conscious knowledge about language facilitates language development, whether in the mother tongue or subsequent languages, and hence that language teachers need such knowledge (TLA) in order to facilitate their students’ learning. The chapter focuses in particular on language teachers’ subject-matter knowledge.
Research has revealed the complexity of TLA. The language teacher is at the same time language user, analyst, and teacher (Edge, ELT Journal 42(1), 9–13, 1988). To carry out those three roles successfully, teachers need well-developed language proficiency plus conscious (declarative) TLA and the ability to draw on that declarative knowledge when enacting the curriculum in the language classroom (Andrews, Teacher language awareness, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2007). TLA research explores the interrelationships between these three components and other factors that influence TLA development. Examples include studies on the impact of teachers’ knowledge and beliefs about grammar on their teaching (Borg, Teacher cognition and language education: research and practice, Continuum, London, 2006) and work on the development of TLA through consciousness raising in teacher education (Wright and Bolitho, ELT Journal, 47(4), 292–304, 1993; Svalberg and Askham, Language Awareness, 23(1/2), 122–136, 2014). One of the challenges for researchers is the difficulty of establishing empirically the link between TLA and the facilitation of language learning. Future research is likely to be influenced by new conceptions of language as complex and dynamic and should consider in greater depth the importance of affective and identity issues in the development of TLA.
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Notes
- 1.
In the remainder of this chapter, the terms LA and KAL are treated as if they are synonymous. Where one term is used instead of the other, this is a reflection of the terminology used by the authors of the original work(s) being discussed.
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Andrews, S., Svalberg, A.ML. (2016). Teacher Language Awareness. In: Cenoz, J., Gorter, D., May, S. (eds) Language Awareness and Multilingualism. Encyclopedia of Language and Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02325-0_17-2
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Teacher Language Awareness- Published:
- 31 January 2017
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02325-0_17-2
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Teacher Language Awareness- Published:
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02325-0_17-1