Unveiling quality language education insights: LEA Newsletter May 2023 Edition

Greetings on the Language Educators Assemble LEA Newsletter for May 2023!

I sincerely hope this post finds you in the best of health and soaring spirits. This has been an exciting month as we experiment with more alternative means to create content to support all our language educators. Remembered when I wrote about how peer teaching aids learning for the peer teacher? The journey to produce content to support your work has been rewarding for me as I become more informed about the means and ways we should be approaching language education. So much so, that I hope that you can join me in such an endeavour one day, if you are not doing already.

As part of ongoing exploration of research, I happen to come across this report by British Council
“Language Trends 2022: Language teaching in primary and secondary schools in England”. As declared within the introduction of the page, “Language Trends is an annual survey of primary and secondary schools in England, designed to gather information about the situation for language teaching and learning. Its aims are: (i) to assess the impact of policy measures in relation to languages; and, (ii) to analyse strengths and weaknesses based both on quantitative evidence and on views expressed by teachers.”

Whether or not you are a language teacher in England, this report can be insightful for us to reflect on our practices as an individual and as an institution (or even as a nation). In Singapore, the learning of languages is almost a staple right at the point where a child enters formal education, either within pre-schooling or in public primary schools; and either as specific language lessons or learned as part of content instruction. Due to the sociolinguistic diversity in Singapore, most families are probably bilingual/multilingual with a variety of probably language/variety combinations. As such, all public schools (from primary 1 to pre-university levels) promotes bilingualism by dedicating curriculum time (a few hours per week) to language subjects specifically – though English is the medium of instruction.

Notwithstanding such, we still engaged in debates on the optimal exposure to different languages (focusing on English vis-à-vis our official mother tongue languages – Mandarin, Malay and Tamil). Yet in the report, the finding that majority of primary schools in England are merely allocated an hour or less for language learning is rather glaring from my perspective – a biased one nevertheless. Within the report, it is also acknowledged that language instruction in primary schools requires an emphasis on implicit learning, since we are talking about younger students here, and it is recognised that this approach is gradual and necessitates abundant exposure to high-quality language input. One hour per week has been acknowledged and advised as the minimum contact time for language learning, but the majority of surveyed primary schools fall short of meeting this requirement, let alone stretching to achieve a more optimal contact time.

Different contexts will face different challenges – that is a no-brainer. However, there are some fundamental principles on which language education is premised, and I guess we all have to fight the battles in our context to negotiate a more favourable environment for the language education of our learners. Where languages represent cultures, I cannot emphasise enough how important it is to build a more cohesive global society where we can enhance our cross-cultural understanding and empathy across nations and cultures through expanding our linguistic repertoire.

Returning to Language Educators Assemble, I’m thrilled to bring you three insightful articles that delve into different aspects of language education and offer practical tips for our practice.

The first article shines light on a lesser-explored phenomenon called LANGUAGE ATTRITION. We often focus on language acquisition and development, but what happens when linguistic performance start to decline? In this insightful piece, we’ll explore 3 essential questions on language attrition pertaining to its definition (within the context of first languages and second languages); the components of the language system that are vulnerable to or resistant against attrition; and the possible causes of attrition. Within the end of every question, I also provided some strategies to mitigate its effects within our locus of control.

Moving on, we delve into the techniques of INPUT ENHANCEMENT, a powerful tool to induce the “noticing” of linguistic forms so that our learners may be able to catch them more efficiently. Following that, our additional instruction can either expedite the learning; or that learners get to incidentally acquire them as part and parcel of their daily linguistic experience. Discover how simple adjustments in our instructional techniques and materials can provide learners with such enhanced input, fostering more effective language acquisition on a longer term.

Lastly, we shift our attention to the invaluable role of parental involvement in language learning. Building a supportive partnership between a parent and a teacher can be powerful in ensuring continuity and coherence in a child’s language learning experience that nurtures linguistic growth. In this article, I drew wisdom from case studies and academic arguments to consolidate 21 tips on how we can maximise the impact of a PARENT TEACHER PARTNERSHIP to drive effective language learning for our learners.

Moving forward into June, I might slow down a bit as it is the mid-year break in Singapore. I will be on vacation (I hope you will had yours or is going to have one any time soon) with my family for a short period. In between, the focus of the next month will be to update the resources that I have been promising to work on for some time. In the next newsletter, I might not have so many comprehensive articles to share per se, but I will definitely share how I make use of the vacation to also support language learning for my children – though that might only get published in July.

Thank you for your continued support and dedication to the field of language education. Let’s continue to make a difference in the lives of our students, one language lesson at a time.

Warm Regards,
Chin Yew KIEU
Founder, Language Educators Assemble