Interaction in the Language Curriculum

The AAA Curriculum

Introduction

  • The book presents a curriculum that emerged from an action research project conducted on a beginning ESL grammar class.
  • The central research question was: "Standing with both feet firmly planted on the classroom floor, what are the theoretical issues in linguistics, education, and other fields, that are relevant, here and now, to the teaching job and the learning job?"
  • The research investigated the relevance of academic content to the ESL class and vice versa.
  • While some SLA research may not have direct pedagogical applications, it shouldn't be ignored as theoretical knowledge can be useful in ways beyond immediate applicability.
  • The book intends to prioritize professional awareness over theoretical subject matter.
  • Theory, research, and practice are viewed as a unified process in curriculum development, or "curriculizing."
  • The curriculum is holistic, with every part related to all others, and process-oriented, focusing on learning rather than solely on outcomes.
  • The curriculum draws from various disciplines and classroom experiences.
  • Main ingredients:
    • Three foundational principles
    • Relationships between theory, research, and practice
    • Theory of learning
    • Theory of curriculum and instruction
    • The centrality of interaction
  • The curriculum is based on three foundational principles: awareness, autonomy, and authenticity (AAA), which are considered essential properties of education and represent a consensus of intellectual knowledge and moral aspirations.
  • The foundational principles are modeled on the Peircean concepts of firstness, secondness, and thirdness, forming a genuine triad.
  • The curriculum emphasizes understanding learners and their goals.

Theory, Practice, and Research

  • The concepts of theory, practice, and research are reexamined to develop an educational theory of practice.
  • Notions such as action research and pedagogical thoughtfulness are motivated by this theory of practice.
  • Any curriculum must be based on knowledge of the learning process and context, as well as values and purposes of stakeholders.
  • Understanding the learner is key to effective pedagogical interaction.

Learning Theory and Interaction

  • The learning theory is based on Vygotsky's developmental psychology, where social interaction is seen as key to learning, and language and cognition are interdependent.
  • Vygotsky's zone of proximal development (ZPD) relates to Bruner's scaffolding, Piaget's grasp of consciousness, and the growth of self-determination.
  • Interaction is a crucial element and is manifested in several ways:
    • Study of interaction is a major focus of teacher research and development.
    • Learning tasks should promote optimal interaction for learning.
    • The concept of interaction should be illuminated to avoid superficial communication.

AAA Principles and Curriculum Design

  • The three principles (Awareness, Autonomy, Authenticity) allow language education to unfold in a regulated yet creative manner, within a framework of individual and social constraints and resources.
  • The AAA curriculum is grounded in both knowledge and human values.
  • The curricular framework can be realized in various practical syllabuses.
  • The book aims to construct a language curriculum based on classroom experience, while considering the wider social and political context.
  • The AAA curriculum is relevant to all branches of language education.
  • The aim is to draw together shared professional concerns and options, regardless of differences.
  • The journey will show language education in a new light, even though its components, if inspected one by one, may reveal things we have always known.
  • The purpose of a curriculum is to guide the processes of teaching and learning.
  • The curriculum proposed in this book will address basic human principles of language education that remain constant however much the practical demands of language use may change because they are not simply based on particular pieces of content, but rather on what, to the best of our current knowledge, we know about learning, and even more importantly, what we agree are basic human values we wish to strive for.

Curriculum Constructs

  • The book defines basic concepts such as principle, choice, curriculum, constraints, and resources.
  • Language teaching is a principled problem-solving activity, with teachers as the primary researchers.
  • Teachers are assisted in their research by auxiliary packages like curricular frameworks and textbooks, which can also exert control.
  • There is an interplay between controlling and helping, or constraints and resources.
  • Constraints and resources depend on each other.
  • Teacher research should distinguish between intrinsic constraints and artificial constraints.
  • The process curriculum involves exploring, articulating, examining, and developing constraints and resources from the perspective of clear principles.
  • It moves from problem-solving to problem-posing, critically examining educational reality.
  • Teachers make principled choices in their lessons based on articulated principles.
  • They develop pedagogical tact in dealing with unpredictable challenges.
  • Successful teaching is a blend of planning and improvisation.
  • The AAA curriculum opens up choices for teachers and students by formulating educational principles and proposing strategies.

Foundational Principles

  • Link the basic epistemological questions of language learning (the knowledge base of our field) to the axiological or ethical issues which I believe concern most dedicated teachers (our values).
  • Three foundational principles to form the basis of the language curriculum:
    • Awareness
    • Autonomy
    • Authenticity
  • Principles and their maxims will form the basis of the curriculum.
  • The principles, though examined one at a time, only make sense as a unity.
Awareness
  • New learning must relate to existing knowledge and experience.
  • To learn something new, one must first notice it, enhancing awareness by paying attention.
  • Paying attention involves focusing consciousness and linking external perceptions to mental structures.
  • We therefore have to attend to different kinds of things and in different ways, depending on the precise job of learning before us.
  • Slobin's operating principles address various aspects of the child's awareness in acquiring the first language
  • From the ecological perspective of J.J. Gibson (1979) input becomes affordance
  • Language awareness is crucial for language learning.
  • Educational settings require awareness of learning strategies, classroom structures, and learning/teaching styles.
Autonomy
  • Learning has to be done by the learner; teaching can only encourage and guide.
  • The impetus for learning must come from the learner, who must want to learn.
  • Two features are central to autonomy: choice and responsibility.
  • Most learning requires high cognitive effort, determined by positive affect.
  • Positive affect derives partly from feelings of control, ownership, and competence.
  • The autonomous learner makes decisions about what, how, and when to learn.
  • Vygotsky, Piaget, Bruner, Deci, and Ryan's work on intrinsic motivation is relevant here.
Authenticity
  • Authentic texts are not written or prepared specifically for language learners, but are taken from the world at large.
  • An action is authentic when it realizes a free choice and is an expression of what a person genuinely feels and believes.
  • Authentic actions are intrinsically motivated.
  • Authenticity is closely related to awareness and autonomy.
  • To understand this, we need to go all the way back to Kant's categories, in which the third category in a class 'arises from the combination of the second with the first' (Kant 1934: 82) and to Peirce's transformation of these in his notions of 'firstness, secondness, and thirdness,' roughly equivalent to object (e.g. the language itself), action (or engagement with the language, e.g. through interaction), and interpretation (success and understanding).
  • The AAA principles form a genuine Peircean triad, in which each member cannot be conceptualized without the other two.
Achievement
  • Suggestions to add other principles, such as accountability, assessment, and achievement (note the uncanny coincidence that they all start with A as well!), indicate an existing problem and therefore need to be taken into account.
  • The three principles of awareness, autonomy, and authenticity refer basically to personal (or, to be precise, intrapersonal) properties relating to a person's motivations, aspirations, actions, and development.
  • The dynamic intertwining of the intra personal and the interpersonal is one of the focal concerns of Vygotskyan developmental psychology.
  • The second triad consists of the three concepts of achievement, assessment, and accountability, or knowledge of success (and for success read also progress, competence, proficiency, etc.), demonstration of success, and justification of pedagogical action.
  • What 'counts as' success is determined by a host of factors, historical, social, cultural, genetic, and so on