Unveiling quality language education insights: LEA Newsletter Oct 2023 Edition

Greetings on the LEA Newsletter Oct 2023!

I hope this email finds you in state of good health and freedom from violence. The relentless war in Ukraine continues without a discernible end in sight, while a series of conflicts in the Gaza Strip follows recently, challenging any notion of tranquility in our world.

This disconcerting state of affairs is compounded by the fact that we, as a global community, have only recently emerged from the clutches of a pandemic that has left an indelible mark on this generation. Despite having collectively weathered this crisis, I find it disheartening to witness the continued capacity of humanity to inflict suffering upon fellow human beings.

I am sorry if I have to place these issues in our face, despite this not been the focus of Language Educators Assemble (LEA). To me, war is the most catastrophic and devastating man-made disaster, although it is also probably one of the most powerful tests of humanity. As language educators, while much of our focus may fall on linguistic knowledge and skills (which is mostly covered in my articles at LEA), I do feel that we have a duty in nurturing a wider range of literacies: civic, global and cross-cultural literacies.

The capacity to take perspectives and stay empathetic with fellow human beings of diverse backgrounds are integral to shaping our collective future as a humanity. As we strive to navigate this rapidly changing world, our profession holds great significance in shaping the future of individuals and society as a whole. Moving into November, I would spend some time to bring insights on approaches related to culture and intercultural competence.

LEA is about the exploration of interdisciplinary issues that have an impact on language education. Looking back at October, before the compounding events unfold, one of my main goals was to uncover concepts and knowledge that some of us might not usually encounter in our practice. In this month, my article about SURVIVORSHIP BIAS is an example of such an attempt.

SURVIVORSHIP BIAS happens when we pay attention to the entities or individuals who emerged successfully from a selection process, such as a challenging event or screening exercise, but unintentionally overlook those who did not. If I have the liberty to rename it, I would call it the “success stories bias” – our tendency to be allured to such narratives and derive our “wisdom” on factors and measures underpinning success.

You may then be wondering: how does this apply to language education? Well, do read the article to find out. Therein I presented a comprehensive list of real-life examples to illustrate the presence of survivorship bias. Equally crucial, I outlined five valuable tips for mitigating this bias in the context of language learning, benefiting us as educators and our learners.

Moving on, I tackled one perennial debate in language input of utmost importance for language educators: when it comes to LANGUAGE INPUT, is QUANTITY more important than QUALITY? If you have been following LEA, you would not be unfamiliar with my previous articles that discussed about the different types of language input that can facilitate language acquisition as well as the various aspects of language input which we can strategically engineer to cultivate a more productive and enriching learning experience.

In the current article, I zoomed in to the debate and offered my contribution by consolidating a compendium of 9 critical insights substantiated by decades of research. Irrespective of our roles as language educators guiding others or as enthusiastic learners charting our own linguistic paths, wrapping our heads around the balance between QUANTITY AND QUALITY OF LANGUAGE INPUT can greatly impact our approaches to language learning.

Last but not least, I also made updates in nuancing within two related and important articles, especially considering that most of us are either dealing with bilingual/multilingual learners or that we are enacting language learning in a bilingual/multilingual society. If you have not read them, I recommend you to read them in this sequence: “What is TRANSLANGUAGING and 9 compelling reasons why it is important” and “EFFECTIVENESS OF TRANSLANGUAGING PEDAGOGY: A Comprehensive Review (7 Benefits and 3 Drawbacks)”.

TRANSLANGUAGING has definitely emerged as an important linguistic and pedagogical concept within the field of applied linguistics (which includes language education). The trend of research that has taken place thereafter its inception, in addition to the various schools of thought on its place in language classrooms, has placed it in an important nexus of discussion on how we conceive of and approach learning within the context of bilingualism/multilingualism. Do read both articles, and share with me your thoughts and experiences!

As I close this email, let us do spend some time reflecting on the global events that are very much connected to us. If we do believe that language education more than just building linguistic competence and proficiency, then let us also reflect on how we can facilitate difficult conversations in an age-appropriate manner on such events to build civic, global and cross-cultural literacies.

Warm Regards,
Chin Yew KIEU
Founder, Language Educators Assemble