The Presence of Language Research in Undergraduate

EducationMatilde Sainz

matilde_sainz@huhezi.eduPili Sagasta

pili_sagasta@huhezi.eduJulia Barnes

julia_barnes@huhezi.eduFaculty of Education and Humanities HUHEZI

Mondragon Unibertsitatea Eskoriatza, Guipuzcoa,

Basque Country – Spain

Parts of the presentation:• 1. Introduction to the talk and the degree• 2. The curriculum• 3. How the curriculum is implemented

– Personalised– Reflective– Global and interdisciplinary

• 4. The role of research• 5. Final project

• 1. Introduction to the talk and the degree• Much described here is related to 2nd language

learning and acquisition in a bilingual context. Nevertheless it is our aim to demonstrate a teaching methodology based on research which could be used in language teaching in general

• Language Psychology and Pedagogy • Psychology = how to learn (age factors, special needs) • Pedagogy = how to teach, • Language Learning and Teaching • This degree is called Psicopedagogia de las Lenguas• Not present in British tradition• Very related to the world of work.

• It is a second cycle degree/licenciatura. • This degree fulfils a need that was detected related to

languages and the teaching of languages in schools. • The design corresponds to a number of different areas of

knowledge which can provide the answer to this. • We need to know in relation to language teaching what

to learn, how it is learnt and how language is taught.• In this particular case it is closely related to the linguistic

situation and needs in the Basque Country in the north of Spain.

• Organisation• The course is semi on-line, a type of distance

learning • The activities are individual and group ones. It is

highly interactive and controlled. They also have forums in the virtual classroom. The classes are normally to clear up doubts, to complete the information and so on.

• 4 attended classes per week. Students attend on Mondays from 5-9. According to the number of credits a subject has they will see the teacher either 3 or 4 times during each term, 2 or 3 times

• 2. Curriculum • When to introduce minority language for those who do

not have Basque as an L1• Which methodology for the L2• When to introduce the L2 majority language in the

curriculum• Which languages in the curriculum• What linguistic skills does the student need to be able to

carry out the curriculum in the L2 (either Basque or Spanish)

• What are the benefits of a multilingual education?• What training do the teachers need?

The degree trains students to be: • Special needs advisors (in relation to language)• Researchers• Teachers• Advisors• Curriculum designers• Education advisors• Careers advisors• …………….

• Year 1 Core Subjects: • Social Psychology• Psychological processes• Educational psychology• Adult education and literacy• Language teaching and learning (pychopedagocical base) • Personality• Faculty related subjects:• Research methods• Multilingualism• Sociolinguistics• Communication Technologies• Practicum• Statistics• Language related subjects:• Discourse theory• Discourse theory and language teaching• Language acquisition (written and spoken)• Multilingual education

Year 2 Core SubjectsCurriculum designLearning and teaching interventionCareers adviceSpecial needs educationLearning difficulties and interventionEducation diagnosticsFaculty related subjectsProject management and people involvementResearch methodsPracticumLinguistic variety and normalizationMulticulturalismEnd of course projectLanguage related subjectsSociolinguistic situation of the Basque

CountryLanguage TeachingText typology

All these subjects are interrelated and form the profile of the trained person (professional) that will meet the need that has been described above.

3. Development of the curriculum – how it is implemented

Personalisedthe student reflects on their linguistic autobiographyon the languages they know, how they were learnton each one of themhow they dealt with each of the languages at school. They situate this on a continuun. - what is my history, - learnt to speak Lx - then went to school,- learn to read and write- learned another language, and so on.

• Students show evidence of this,• when I learnt to read and write I used such and

such exercises• when I started English I learnt with this

methodology• when I went to French classes I used another• when I was abroad I learnt Quechua without any

methodology but through contact with people• Students reflect on the way they learnt, and to

which theories this corresponds.

• Personal language learning process is taken as the starting point and as multilingual individuals, they learn how to go to the theory to identify in their teaching and learning process.

• We think this can be very helpful for people who will be involved in helping people to improve their process of learning.

• Starting from one’s own personal experience we feel it is easier to organise a curriculum in the school, design it and to be involved in the classroom.

• From this personal starting point they go on to develop other areas of the curriculum.

• Other subjects such as curricular design, study of bilingualism, multilingualism or sociolinguistics are studied initially from the point of view of the person, and then work towards a global view of something which is multidimensional

• Reflection • Everything is based on reflection. • How do they learn to reflect? The strategies are

included in the materials design. They first learn how to reflect by reflecting on their linguistic profile.

• The techniques of reflection itself is dealt with within the subjects. The process is to develop an attitude towards reflection which is then further developed through reflection itself. The process of reflection is systematicized.

• They also carry out observation and use reflection techniques to draw conclusions about this.

• They learn to reflect by comparing teachers and writing a report ( making judgements based on theoretical principals)

• So through reflection on the use(s) of language, and on the learning and teaching bases of multilingual teaching, conclusions can be reached on how people learn, and how they are taught in a variety of contexts

• Global and interdisciplinary

• Content learnt in one subject will be taken advantage of elsewhere to carry out a common piece of work. The area in which this interdisciplinary focus is most seen is in the end of course project.

The role of research• A research focus permeates the whole degree, but is

specifically dealt with formally way in years 1 and 2 in two 6 credit subjects.

• Methodology used to give the two 6 credit subjects in 1º and 2º is direct teaching and though reading about other projects, group readings, lectures,

• Qualitative analysis is the focus in the 1st year• Quantitative (based on reflection) in the 2nd year• This is pre-teaching for the End of Course Project where

a research design is put into practice.

First Year Research Methods Course • Students receive basic background in the 1st year from

the general to the specific. • Students learn how a research project is designed and

are given the instruments necessary to do this. • Students learn how to use computer programmes for

researcher needs in social science, e.g. SPSS. • The research basics from first year are then put into

practice in some of the subjects, for instance, in multilingualism they have to do a study on attitudes towards languages, and they apply SPSS.

Second Year Research Methods Course• Students individually or in pairs design a

research project in the second year course. • They learn to write real research projects,

without actually implementing them. • Some take advantage of the subject in the 2nd

year to write their end of course project, but the end- of course project is a separate assignment.

Process of Research Design • In the first level students learn to:

-Formulate a problem for the facts that s/he wants to research, in other words identify a problem-Delimit what is going to be researched-Contextualise where s/he wants to study these phenomena-Use a systematic point of view, and not arbitrary-Decide what social interest is there-Decide on the strong and weak points of the study

• In the second level the student is directed to find out the state of the question and analyse what others have done in relation to this.

• Students learn-to interpret the theoretical framework-to step back a distance to get the point of view of a researcher- to be critical in relation to what others say- to synthesise, and also to interrelate what authors say with aspects of the research

• On a third level s/he is asked to consider their own point of view in relation to the literature Students are asked

• What point of view will you adopt?

• They are taught to distinguish between knowledge and beliefs and invited to read with 1. knowledge and 2. reasoning and 3. logic rather than with intuition.

Furthermore they have to learn • how to back up all of this knowledge• how to formulate research questions and hypotheses

about what they want to know• how to link these questions to the context• how to link the issues to be addressed Whilst doing this they have to learn to decide :• What do we need to know more about?• How far do we need to go?• Is this of interest to society, the scientific community, the

school?

• Then they have to work out a rigorous research design.

• The methodology has to satisfy the condition of being reproducible, i.e. that any person who read it would be able to say exactly how the research was carried out and if necessary reproduce it and do the same with another sample in another context, etc.

• The students’ design must

show scientific rigour

explain the criteria for analysis

present a protocol with the steps

contain the steps of analysis and

indicate how to quantify the data • Lastly students learn how a bibliography has to be

done, how to avoid personal references (I think that etc….).

• EXAMPLES OF SECOND YEAR PROJECTS• Sociolinguistic integration of north African

immigrants in Basque Immersion (D model) in a Basque speaking environment.

• Changes and motives for the use of Basque in pre-adolescent and adolescent youth aged 10-16.

• Analysis of tutor questions in the co-construction of knowledge in a problem based methodology.

Final project• Final project which can be done individually or in pairs.• Must be contextualised in a centre/school• Students analyse the needs of the centre, situation, the context of the school, the area to be improved and why, • Students look at theoretical background, • Students develop the research tools for data collection from those

they have learnt, • e.g. interviews, questionnaires, diaries, the most suited to the study

• they will carry out.

• Students collect the data, analyse it, explain results, draw conclusions, propose a series of improvements. However students do not always complete full cycle and are not always able to return to school to implement improvements.

• However they send the possible improvements to the school and those at work in school may be able to implement improvements.

• Examples of End of Course Projects- E-learning and linguistic models- Content-based language teaching- Transfer from Basque to Spanish- Language evaluation from a pragmatic perspective- Unified language curriculum: the experoence in one

school- Multilingual education: the description of three models- The use of diaries by teachers to promote oral work

in English , Basque and Spanish

Conclusions• Basic studies for teaching and other training not

enough to deal with the complex phenomenon of languages in the Basque Country requiring specialist training.

• Necessary for institutions to have trained members of staff to deal with the complexities of the sociolinguistic situation and multilingual contexts.

• Out of this need came Language Learning and Teaching (Psicopedagogia de Lenguas) degree.

• For maximum benefit students should have already been in school and have teaching experience.

• The training described has its basis in centres and schools allows students

- to reflect on reality - to propose solutions through designing relevant

research projects. • The research work carried out by the students in

different subjects, as well as the second year and end of course projects, guides them towards a better knowledge and situates what is being learned.

• Learning about e.g. bilingualism, sociolinguistics, motivation etc., does not take place in isolation but always within a context.

• Much here is related to 2nd language learning and acquisition in a bilingual context. Nevertheless it is our aim to demonstrate a teaching methodology based on research which could be used in language teaching in general.

REFERENCESCamps, A. (2000), Introducció : objecte, modalitat i ambits de la recerca en

didàctica de la llengua. In A. Camps, I.Rios, and M.Cambra. Recerca i formació en didactica de la lengua . Barcelona: Grau

Taylor, S.J. and Bogdan, R. (1987) Introducción, Ir hacia la gente. In Introducción a los métodos cualitativos de investigación (pp. 15-27) Barcelona: Paidós Básica.

Wittrock, M.C. (ed.) (1986) Handbook of Research on Teaching: a project of the American Educational Research Association. New York: Simon and Schuster

Thank you for your attention