Topic 2
Topic 2
Topic 2
TOPIC 2.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION
4. EXTRALINGUISTIC STRATEGIES
5. CONCLUSION
6. REFERENCES
1
Raquel Molina Ríos
1. INTRODUCTION
The aim of teaching and learning English as a foreign language, according to the
Primary Education curriculum (RD 126/2014; Decree for Primary Education in Andalusia,
181/2020) is the acquisition of seven key competences which are defined by LOMLOE as
capacities needed to apply the different contents of each stage so that our students can
succeed when carrying out activities as well as solving complex learning situations.
LOMLOE proposes the following competences: Communicative competence, Mathematical
competence and competences based on science and technology, Digital competence,
Learning to Learn, Social and civic competences, Entrepreneurship and sense of initiative,
Cultural awareness and expressions.
In the Spanish Educational Law, we can find within the General Aims for Primary Education
(RD 126/2014), the objective (f) which is directly related to teaching a foreign language.
According to the Order 15th of January 2021, the teaching of a foreign language
aims the development of the abilities for Primary Education as do an effective use of the
knowledge, experience and communication strategies acquired in other languages and show
a receptive attitude of progressive confidence in one’s capacity for learning and for the use
of the foreign language.
This topic emphasizes not only the importance of language as a means of
communication but other kinds of communication.
Following Breen and Candlin (1980), Morrow (1977) and Widdowson (1978) and
others, communication is understood to have the following characteristics:
- It involves two persons (sender and receiver)
- It is a form of social interaction
- It takes place in discourse and sociocultural contexts
- It always has a purpose
- It involves authentic language
2
Raquel Molina Ríos
3
Raquel Molina Ríos
The FL teacher should be a facilitator of students’ learning. Other roles for the
teacher are those of group process manager, organizer and consultant. It that sense, the FL
teacher should:
- Broaden the students’ experiences
- Give the students the words and expressions they will need to talk about their
experiences
- Present the new language items
- Teach as quickly as possible the formulaic expressions and create situations to use
them in the class
- Exploit every language-learning task so that it will reinforce and facilitate
communication.
4
Raquel Molina Ríos
The notion of non-verbal communication is too wide and comprises all non-linguistic
elements.
1) Body movement/language: it includes gestures, facial expressions, movements of
the hands/head/feet… eye behaviour and also posture. All these elements play an
important role in human communication and express feelings and emotions in
personal social interaction.
2) Tactile conduct: It is an important factor in the first development stages of
childhood. This category includes caressing, guiding someone else´s movements,
hitting…
3) Paralanguage or paralinguistic elements: It refers to how something is said and
not to what is actually said. The following elements can be distinguished: vocal
qualities, vocal characterizers, vocal qualifiers and personal vocal devices.
4) Proxemics: it is the way a person uses space as a specific cultural element, the
study of the use and perception of social and personal space.
5) Physical characteristics: This category includes physical appearance, hair, skin
tone… and generally remains unchanged during the interaction period of time.
6) Artifacts: It refers to objects used by interacting persons, which can act as
non-verbal stimuli (clothes, perfumes…)
7) Surrounding factors: This category includes those elements that interfere in human
relations, but they are not a direct part of it, such as furniture, decoration, and other
elements within interactions.
We can say that every serious study on communication must have integrative
nonverbal elements, and FL teachers must take them into account in the FL curriculum.
4. EXTRALINGUISTIC STRATEGIES
We must look at research carried out in the field of SLA to find some bibliography on
strategies.
In 1980, the applied linguistics Canale and Wain distinguished four different
sub-competences:
- Grammatical competence
- Sociolinguistic competence
- Discourse competence
- Strategic competence
In this model, the strategic component refers to the ability to solve problems during
communication and communicators must have the ability to repair the inevitable
miscommunication.
O’Malley & Chamot define Learning Strategies as ‘the special thoughts or behaviours
that learners use to help them comprehend, learn, retain and use the information’. There are
three categories:
- Metacognitive strategies
- Cognitive strategies
- Social/Affective strategies
Finally, Rebecca Oxford (1990) provides this useful definition: ‘learning strategies are
specific actions taken by the learner to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable,
more self-directed, more effective and more transferable to new situations.’
5
Raquel Molina Ríos
However, Rebecca Oxford (1990) states: ‘At this stage in the short history of
language learning strategies research, there is no complete agreement on exactly what
strategies are, how many strategies exist, how the should be defined and categorized and
whether it is possible to create a real, scientifically validated hierarchy of strategies.’
Other authors claim that we react emotionally to our setting (milieu) and the nature of
our reactions can be explained by the influence that the setting has on us. Every milieu
consists of three components: the setting, the presence or absence of other people and the
architectural and designing features. Movable objects.
We are going to see some communication activities that are carried out without
verbal production on the part of pupils:
Total Physical Response (TPR) is a method that attempts to coordinate speech and
actions. It was developed by J. Asher who parallels foreign language learning to first
language acquisition. He argues that very young children learn their mother tongue through
commands and react to them physically before producing verbal responses.
TPR is related to several methods that share the ‘Comprehension first’ approach.
They consider:
Asher considers the verb, and particularly the imperative form, as the central unit of
the lessons. The objective of TPR is to teach oral proficiency at a beginning level using
action-based drills in the imperative form.
6
Raquel Molina Ríos
Lessons are not based on text-book or materials for beginners but on the teacher’s
voice, actions and gestures.
5. CONCLUSION
6. REFERENCES