Teaching English in Multilingual Settings:

An ACELT Certificate Course

September 2021
Isabel Pefianco Martin, PhD
Schola brevis
● Module 1: English education policy and ideology
● Module 2: Teaching English, teaching in English
● Module 3: English language testing
● Module 4: English changing: the story thus far

2
Schola brevis
● Profiles
● Learning contract
● Grading system
● Deadlines
Photo by Ivan Aleksic on Unsplash

3
Schola brevis

4
Nine ideas about
language

True or False?
Take a poll!

5
Photo by Hannah Wright on Unsplash
 NINE IDEAS ABOUT
LANGUAGE
(Daniels 1985)

Daniels, Harvey. (1985). Nine Ideas about Language. In Clark, V., Paul Escholz, and Alfred Rosa, eds.
Language: Introductory Readings, 4th ed. (pp. 18-36). New York: St. Martin's Press.
Idea No. 1: Children learn their native language
swiftly, efficiently, and largely without instruction

● Children appear to learn language partly by

imitation.
● The language of the home and the community is
the native language.
● Common estimate: 90% adult structures are learned
before the age of seven.
Idea No. 2: Language operates by rules

● A child acquires a vast system of mostly subconscious

rules of sound, words, word order, and aspects of the
social act of speaking.
● The assignment of meanings of sounds is arbitrary.
● Grammar is also arbitrary.
Idea No. 3: All languages have three major components

1. Sound system (Phonology)

2. Vocabulary (Lexicon, storehouse of words)
3. System of grammar (Rules used to arrange
words into meaningful units)
Idea No. 4: Everyone speaks a dialect

● A variety of a particular language with its own lexical,

phonological and grammatical rules.
● Dialects result from isolation and language change.
● Standardized dialects, or lingua franca, are not
inherently superior to any other dialect, but is
conferred a certain status because of the social,
economic, political power of its users.
Idea No. 5: Speakers of all languages employ a
range of styles and a set of sub-dialects or jargons

● In our speech communities, speech patterns vary

constantly in our everyday routine. We constantly make
adjustments to our speech.
● Learning the sociolinguistic rules which tell us what style
to use is as much a part of language acquisition as
learning how to produce sounds.
Idea No. 6: Language change is normal

● New words, new sounds are constantly being added

to a language.
● Meanings change
■ friend, unfriend, defriend
■ fashionista, burquini
■ emoticon, snail mail, tweet
Idea No. 7: Languages are intimately related to
societies and individuals who use them.

● We are conditioned to some degree by the language we

speak, and our language does teach us habitual ways of
looking at the world.
● Human adaptability enables us to transcend the
limitations of language---to learn to see the world in
new ways and voice new concepts---when we must.
Idea no. 8: Value judgments about different languages
or dialects are matters of taste

● All languages are equal and efficient in their own

sphere of use.
● However, we constantly make judgments about
people on the basis of the language they use.
Idea No. 9: Writing is derivative of speech

● Writing systems are always based upon systems of

oral language which of necessity develop first.
● People have been talking for at least a half million
years, but the earliest known writing system
appeared fewer than 5,000 years ago.
Nine ideas about language
● Children learn their native language
swiftly, efficiently, and largely without
instruction.
● Language operates by rules.
● All languages have three major
components: A sound system, a
vocabulary, and a system of grammar.

17
Photo by Hannah Wright on Unsplash
Nine ideas about language
● Everyone speaks a dialect.
● Speakers of all languages employ a
range of styles and a set of subdialects
or jargons.
● Language change is normal.

18
Photo by Hannah Wright on Unsplash
Nine ideas about language
● Languages are intimately related to
societies and individuals who use them.
● Value judgments about different
languages or dialects are matters of taste.
● Writing is derivative of speech.

19
Photo by Hannah Wright on Unsplash
 Language is actually analogous to

“
cloud formations. We look at a cloud
formation with full awareness of its
inherently transitory nature: we know
that if we look up again in an hour,
the formation will almost certainly be
different and that if it isn’t, then this is
due to an unusually windless interval
that will surely not last long.
(John McWhorter
The Power of Babel, 2001)

Photo by Taylor Van Riper on Unsplash

 Thanks and see you
in Canvas ☺

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Teaching English in Multilingual Settings:
An ACELT Certificate Course

September 2021
Isabel Pefianco Martin, PhD