Issues in Contemporary Foreign Language Education

Prof. He GangEast China Normal University

2015 Yue Xiu Institute of Foreign Studies

Larry Horn’s lesson

• In 2010, one day in April, I made a trip to Yale University , and Prof. Lawrence Horn showed me around the campus. But the first thing he showed me was the statute that all Yale community members feel so proud of. What was that? Can you guess?

• It was that of Nathan Hale. You might ask me how this is related to my topic of discussion, and I must admit that this experience has set me into deep thought about what education, esp. foreign language education is really about…

Questions to Address

• What is foreign language education about?• What is the most important obligation in

teaching foreign languages to Chinese students?

• How shall we manage to fulfill our obligations?

• What qualifications and prospects to achieve?

What is FLE about?

• The first and foremost important mission of FLE is to understand what we can do to help our students to grow in a prospective way , preparing them not just linguistically, but also intellectually as well as spiritually to meet future challenges and dissolve crisis , and achieve objectives in the interest of our country , society and themselves.

The most important obligation

• For FLE :• To bring about open-minded, responsible and

competent Chinese citizens with a world vision.

• To teach a foreign language to an individual is not to create a slave to that language or culture, but to make him/her a master , a well-informed, well-trained and well-principled language artist , like an acrobat, who is always able to keep the balance when walking on a tight-rope and skilled in making wise decisions in view of prospective outcomes.

How can we manage ?

• Three orientations:• Future-orientation: future needs, prospects

and challenges;• Patriotic-orientation: open-minded,

constructive and defensive regarding our national interests over personal interests;

• Culture-orientation: target-language relevant cultures, home cultures, and world cultures;

Competence models

• Foreign language competence vs 2nd language competence?

• Linguistic competence (grammatical?)

• Communicative competence?

• Intercultural competence or multi-cultural competence?

•

FLC vs L2 C

• FLC L2C

• FL as a system L2 as a local tool

• Systematic training Situated acquiring

• Organized testing Situated evaluating

• Future-orientation Present-survival

• Potential developing Immediately real

• challenge

Linguistic competence

• Learners of a foreign language must be able to:• Master the sound system of that L and indentify what is ri

ght and what is wrong;• Master the lexicon and know how a word can be rightly c

onstructed;• Master the grammatical rule system and know how to dis

cover regularity from the mass of linguistic facts;• Master the meaning system and know how to disambigu

ate, how to be fuzzy, vague, explicit and implicit in constructing the meaning of a sentence

• Interface-competence that requires a connecting skill or flexibility based on a comprehensive understanfing of all linguistic levels , rules, categories and concepts:

Examples

• An ice-box , a nice box;• The leaf feels thorny. • My shoes need mending.

• The seniors were told not to demonstrate on campus.

• "Emily had tried everything to get better but nothing seemed to help her. I took a gun and shot her in the head and now she is migraine free and floating in the clouds on a sunny afternoon, her long beautiful brown hair glowing in the breeze, a true angel," the post, obtained by local news sites, reads.

• (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/triple-murder-confession-posted-canadian-dad-facebook-article-1.2215677)

Socio-linguistic competence

• A foreign language learner must be able to:• Identify variations or changes from the

standard variety of a foreign language;• Know what possible social factors

contribute to such changes;• Know how a language can contribute to

changes in social communities, how to make the best of a sociolinguistic variation

What do we have to know?

• Obama has made a concerted effort this year to complete the list, focusing on Republican-leaning states that he had little reason to visit, politically speaking.

• (http://www.usatoday.com/story/theoval/2015/05/08/obama-50-states-south-dakota-south-carolina-idaho-utah-bush-nixon-clinton/26971401

Pragmatic vs. rhetorical competence

• Pragmatic competence specifies speaker ability to construct a contextually appropriate utterance in order to perform an intended speech act or make a conversational contribution as is required, or a hearer ability to at least appropriately process the utterance inferentially in order to arrive at an acceptable interpretation. In both cases , creative selection of contextual information or solution to an identified problem is critical. The least possible message is the point.

Rhetorical competence

• On the basis of an identified context or situation, the speaker ability to construct the strongest / most forceful utterance to accomplish an intended task, or the hearer ability to detect the rhetorical effect communicated through the utterance in context.

• E.g. My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.

• John F. Kennedy

Cultural competence

• Cultural pragmatic competence—to speak and understand appropriately in a cultural context (prioritizing assumptions over facts);

• Intercultural competence---cultural stance,• Inter-cultural perspective taking, negotiating , and conse

nsus achieving;• Multicultural competence– cultural code-switching, rule-s

etting and following, stance-defending , interest-maximization and disputes-resolving, win-win conclusion.

• Cultural inference over cultural reference, indexing • (Mit Romney’s comment on Obama’s too long stay at H

arvard)

Nathan Hale’s last words

• Patriot Nathan Hale Was Hanged September 22, 1776 "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country." American patriot Nathan Hale said it on September 22, 1776, his last words before he was hanged for spying on British troops.

Istvan Kecskes’ example

• (At the professor’s office)• Prof. Why don’t you sit down?• Student : Because you didn’t ask me.• Prof. Now I ask you to sit down.• Student: (sits down)• What cultural stance is that of the student?• Is this merely a second language

acquisition problem?

Cultural pragmatic competence?

• (On June 11, they plan to offer a 10% discount to all white customers and no one else.)

• "We have a whole month for Black History Month," Antillon said. "We have a whole month for Hispanic heritage month, so we thought the least we could do was offer one day to appreciate white Americans.“

• "It's a perpetuation of racism," said Ricardo Romero, a civil rights activist and community organizer in Weld County. "It's wrong, if you're going to give a discount, give it to the whole community.“

• (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/05/08/bbq-joint-to-host-white-appreciation-day/70993400/)

Summary

• The point in foreign language education is to bring about future members of a society qualified not merely in language skills or competency, but more importantly citizens with strongly national obligations as well as international visions, constructive, regulative, integrated, respective and defensive, and …

Conclusion

• The End!

• Questions?

• Comments?

• Thank you!