PAPER

KEY CONCEPTS IN LANGUAGE LEARNING AND LANGUAGE EDUCATION

Presented as an Assignment for Applied Linguistics

Compiled by:
Wahyudi Asri (20222009)
Fatimah Firdaus (20222005)

Lecturer:
Dr. Irwandi Nashir, S.S, M.Pd

ENGLISH EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM

FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING
UIN SYECH M DJAMIL DJAMBEK BUKITTINGGI
 Contents
Contents......................................................................................................................................i
BAB I INTRODUCTION..........................................................................................................1
A. Introduction.....................................................................................................................1
BAB II DISCUSSION...............................................................................................................2
A. Background of language learning and language education.............................................2
B. Historical Overview of Language Learning and Language Education...........................3
C. The Concept of Language and Teaching........................................................................9
D. Future Trajectory- Questions of Language Education..................................................12
E. Technology....................................................................................................................13
BAB III CONCLUDING REMARKS.....................................................................................14
References................................................................................................................................15

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 BAB I INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION

A. Introduction

This paper aims to identify the key concepts in language learning and
language education. This paper refers to the work of Diane Larsen-Freeman by a
generative, question-posing approach to gain the development in the field. By making
the questions and illustrate the answer to each question. The contexts of this work
perform in a form of triangle, which are ‘what is language? What is culture?’, what is
learning? Who are the learners?’ and ‘what is teaching? Who are the teachers?’
The past two decades have witnessed profound changes in the social,
economic and political contextualization language. In the rapidly changing, language
teaching, perhaps more than many other activies, reflects the times it takes perhaps
more than many other activies, reflects the times it takes place in. Language is about
communication after all, and perhaps that is why philosophies and techniques for
learning languages seem to develop and change in tune with societies which give rise
to them. Teaching and learning are very human activities; they are social and
technological just as much as they are in lingusitic

In linguistics there are several key concepts in language learning and language
education that shoul be identified. Heuristic in form of triangle has been described as
the description of concept in language learning and language education, in the top of
triangle there is the teacher, who does the teaching, in the lower left angle, there is the
subject matter, in the case of language education, this has meant the language and
usually the culture in which iis embedded. The lower right angle of the triangle refers
to the language learners in the process of the learning. the triangle situated within a
context, broadly interpreted to mean any place, situation or time in which language
education takes place.

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 BAB II DISCUSSION
DISCUSSION

A. Background of language learning and language education

It takes only a small number of instances to suggest how diverse are

the contexts in which LTE is situated. In his account of LTE in Spain,
Portugal,Ireland, the USA, and England and Wales, Byram (1994, p. 7) argues that
“the situation in teacher training reflects the historical development of an education
system, of a socioeconomic system and of the political character of a country.”
In Spain a policy of decentralization since the mid-1980s had led to the
rise of autonomous regions and the establishment of teachers’ centers as the main
location for continuing education courses. In Portugal, the rights of teachers to
continuing education within normal working hours had been established by law, along
with the right to apply for sabbatical leave in order to take a higher degree or do
research which would be of professional benefit.
In Ireland the emphasis in initial teacher education (ITE) was on the
teacher as a teacher rather than as a subject specialist, which led to some languages
teaching being undertaken by teachers without a formal language qualification or
expertise, and with a consequent role for in-service of compensating for ITE. More
recently, in many parts of the “developed world” LTE has become more problematical
than at any time in its past, as a new political and managerial ideology of education
overtakes it. Mitchell (2000)
for example claims that in “developed” countries such as the UK,
USA, and Australia educational policy-making has become increasingly political,
with increasing state intervention in matters previously seen as professional, leading
to the standardized delivery of a teaching product and to a prioritization of
measurable, evidencebased outcomes over processes. Underlying this trend has been a
feeling among politicians in power that not only has teaching at school failed to
deliver a fully satisfactory product, but also that teacher education must shoulder
much of the blame.
With reference to the “developing” world, Hallemariam, Kroom, and
Walters (1999) describe the languages situation in Eritrea, where there are major
challenges of textbook preparation, teacher training, low salaries, difficult living
conditions, and ambivalent languages attitudes of parents of language minority

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 children, since some prefer Arabic to their own vernaculars. The emerging post-
independence policy supports the equality of the various nationalities and a
multilingual approach based on recognizing each of the nine Eritrean languages, with
mother tongue education at the center.
Bruthiaux (2000) argues that in the developing world, with a major
need to improve living standards, “language education” and “development
economics” should go hand in hand, but in fact “language education has managed to
stay aloof from mainstream economics” (p. 273).
The context for LTE is not determined solely by conditions specific to
any one state, and all states are affected by globalization. In most states where English
is not a national or official language there is an increasingly perceived need to equip
many if not all citizens with a command of international English. This in turn can
have negative consequences for the uptake of other “foreign” languages and also for
local heritage or community languages.
On the other hand, in many states where English is the dominant
language, there may be relatively little motivation for learning or maintaining any
other language at all. In their White Paper (1995) the European Commission
recommended that all member states of the European Union (EU) should equip all
students at school with a working command of three languages by the end of
compulsory schooling, so that all students across the EU would be in a position to
benefit from “mobility” (which is a fundamental political right of all citizens of the
EU) and to participate meaningfully in “citizenship” at European as well as at local
and national level. Thus, as a result of globalization or Europeanization, LTE is
immediately “engaged” in diverse ways. These may include the promotion of
international English, the promotion of other major languages in order to restrain or at
least complement the seemingly irresistible rise of international English, the
maintenance and revitalization of lesser-used heritage or community languages, and
the development of a strategy for “languages education” which brings together first
language and additional language development within a broad framework of
international mobility and citizenship

B. Historical Overview of Language Learning and Language Education

Languages have been taught and learned for centuries. Over the years,
circumstances have differed, resulting in one or more of the angles of the triangle

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 being more influential than the others. Even within a given angle, the questions have
not always been accorded equal treatment educators have sometimes stressed the
inseparability of language and culture, and sometimes ignored treatment of culture
altogether. The latter has been the case, for instance, given national needs during
times of war because it has been assumed that explicit treatment of culture could be
sacrificed in order to train proficient speakers and listeners of a ‘strategic’ language in
as expeditious a manner as possible.
Language is viewed in various theories as a genetic inheritance, a
mathematical system, a social fact, the expression of individual identity, the expression
of cultural identity, the Language learning and language education outcome of
dialogical interaction, a social semiotic, the intuitions of native speakers, the sum of
attested data, a collection of memorized chunks, a rule-governed discrete combinatory
system, or electrical activation in a distributed network. Cook and Seidlhofer (1995: 4)
Moreover, Becker (1983), a linguist, has written that ‘Our “picture” of
language is the single most important factor in determining the way we choose to teach
it.’ Of course, even if this is so, it is not always the individual teacher who defines
language for pedagogical purposes. It is often the curriculum designer or materials
developer who has more say. Still, the answers to the question have had a formative
influence on language education, either directly through the textbook author’s
interpretation of language or the teacher’s, sometimes tacit, assumption about its nature.
After all, we teach something as we understand it ourselves.
Of course, these definitions are not all distinct in that several are
implicationally apply to different levels of scales, however, it is easy to see even from
this selective rendition that there is quite a range of views concerning language. Indeed,
they are sufficiently distinctive to inform different approaches to language teaching and
learning. For purposes of illustration, and because they are responsible more than any
for pendulum swings in the field, let me now contrast two of Cook and Seidlhofer’s
characterizations of language: ‘language as a rule-governed discrete combinatory
system’ and ‘language as social fact

1. Language As Rule Governed Discrets Combinatory System

Unpacking the definition ‘language as a rule-governed discrete

combinatory system’, we see that language is a system, a system comprised of

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 discrete segments: phonemes, lexemes, morphemes. These forms combine to
make words, phrases, clauses, and sentences that comply with an established set
of word order rules. Traditional, structural, descriptive, and generative linguistics
have all adopted and contributed to this understanding of language
Furthermore, Langacker’s observation (1968: 3) of four decades ago still
holds true: Despite its prevalence in human affairs, language is poorly understood.
Misconceptions are legion, even among well-educated people, and not even
professional linguists can claim to understand it fully. A person is radically
mistaken to assume that the nature of language is self-evident or to conclude that
we know all about a language just because we speak it. Unpacking the definition
‘language as a rule-governed discrete combinatory system’, we see that language
is a system, a system comprised of discrete segments: phonemes, lexemes,
morphemes. These forms combine to make words, phrases, clauses, and sentences
that comply with an established set of word order rules. Traditional, structural,
descriptive, and generative linguistics have all adopted and contributed to this
understanding of language.
Finally, we can comprehend that language is a system, a system comprised
of discrete segments: phonemes, lexemes, morphemes. These forms combine to
make words, phrases, clauses, and sentences that comply with an established set
of word order rules. Traditional, structural, descriptive, and generative linguistics

2. Language As Social Fact

Language ‘as a social fact’ contrasts with a structural perspective. The
social-fact view of language was propelled in part by Hymes’ (1972) call for
language education to move beyond linguistic competence to communicative
competence: the knowledge of when and how to say what to whom. Focusing on
language use, this view privileges language functions and meanings over language
forms. Functions or speech acts such as promising, complaining, and inviting
replace the structures of grammatical syllabi, and together with notions such as
modality and temporality, make up notional-functional syllabi. Functional
approaches to language have been realized in communicative language teaching
approaches, widely practised these days.
Based on the experts above, we can comprehend that laguage as social fact
means a language that focusing on communicative competence, language
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 functions and meaning rather than focusing on form of the language such as the
grammatical syllabi.
3. Language As Functional View
A functional view of language includes how texts are organized to realize
the meaning potential of language (Halliday 1978), stylistics or the distinctive
patterns and choices people make when using language (Widdowson 1992), how
different registers and genres are patterned (Swales 1990), how various
conversational moves are structured (e.g., conversation openings and closings)
(Sacks et al. 1974), how these are performed differently in different speech
communities/cultures, the work of cross-cultural pragmatics (Blum-Kulka et al.
1989), and how the use of language differs across professional and academic
contexts

4. Definition of Learning and Learners

a. Behaviourism
One version of behaviourism (Skinner 1957) has it that learning takes
place through operant conditioning. There is no mental process involved;
instead, learner behaviour is reinforced in order to condition a voluntary
response to a particular stimulus. Key to this approach is the behavioural
shaping, such as learning to make a new sound that comes from selective
reinforcement.
Moreover, Bloomfield (1942), had already introduced the idea that
learning took place through habit formation. When language is construed as
verbal behaviour, acquired through habit formation, it seems that the best way
to learn a new language in the classroom is to ‘overlearn’ it – i.e. learners
should practise the new patterns of the target language so thoroughly that they
can choose the appropriate forms of the language while focusing their
attention on the meanings they wish to express.

b. Innatism
Innatism entered the scene with Chomsky (1965). Chomsky questioned
how it was possible for a child learning its native language to induce the rules
necessary to produce grammatical sentences, given the impoverished input to

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 which the child was exposed. There had to be, he reasoned, some innate
faculty, a Language Acquisition Device (LAD) that guides the child in the
language acquisition process. Without it, the child would generate countless
hypotheses about the rules such that the induction problem would be insoluble,
certainly within the time it normally takes a child to acquire his or her native
language.

c. Interactionism
Interactionists (e.g. Snow 1979) believe that it is not necessary to
appeal to an innate LAD to explain the facts of language acquisition. They
could instead be accounted for by looking closely at the interaction between
the child and its caregivers, and the support the latter provides. For instance,
even neonates engage in ‘conversations’ with their caretakers, with the latter
making particular accommodations to facilitate language acquisition. The
interactionist explanation has been extended to second language acquisition
(Long 1996; Gass 1997). As native speakers and non-native speakers of the
target language interact, language acquisition takes place, providing that
native speakers accommodate non-native speakers, thereby making the input
easier to comprehend (Krashen 1982).

d. Emergentists
Emergentists have demonstrated that both children learning their native
language (Goldberg 2006; Tomasello 2003) and adult learners learning a
target language (Ellis and Larsen-Freeman 2009) can ‘bootstrap’ their learning
by attending to frequently occurring form-meaning-use constructions in the
language to which they are exposed. Learners build categories around frequent
prototype exemplars, and from the categories extract the semantic and
pragmatic information that allows them to analogize beyond the forms they
have encountered.

5. Definition of Teaching and Teachers

a. Definition of Teaching
1) Teaching As Knowledge Transmission

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 A traditional view of teaching has been characterized as
‘knowledge transmission’. In this teaching-centred view, teachers are
seen to be responsible for transmitting what they know to their students.
These days it is common to be critical of a knowledge transmission view
of teaching for the passive role it ascribes to language learners. Freire
(1970: 72) has referred to knowledge transmission in terms of a banking
metaphor: the teacher makes deposits of information into students who
are to receive, memorize, and repeat them. However, knowledge
transmission remains a common practice in many parts of the world. A
skilled teacher’s organization of knowledge can help students understand
and remember what has been transmitted.

2) Teaching As Constructivism
The American philosopher of education John Dewey (1916) is
generally considered to be the founder of constructivism. Like Freire,
Dewey rejected approaches that construed learners as receptacles of the
teacher’s knowledge. In its place, Dewey believed that learning should
be socially constructed and teaching meaningful, building on what
students already know. This should be accomplished through active
engagement with fellow students, the teacher, the world and by reflecting
on these experiences. For this reason, a constructivist approach could
also be called ‘experiential’. Practices associated with this approach are
procedures in which students are active thorough experimentation,
problem-solving, and dialoguing. Students are also encouraged to reflect
upon these experiences by talking about what they did and what
understanding they came to.

3) Teaching As Socioculturalism
According to Vygotsky, it is through social interaction that
higher order thinking emerges. The ‘place’ where this is most likely to
be facilitated is in the ‘zone of proximal development or ZPD’, ‘the
distance between the actual developmental level [of the learner] as
determined by independent problemsolving and the level of potential
development as determined through problem solving under adult

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 guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers’ (Vygotsky 1978:
86). More capable peers (and teachers) aid or ‘scaffold’ learners in the
ZPD, thus contributing a socially oriented rationale for interactive and
collaborative pair and group work (Lantolf 2000).

b. Defintion of Teacher
Knowledge transmission, constructivism, and socioculturalism – all
confer different roles on language teachers. This is also true of the more
narrowly-focused language teaching methods, positioning teachers across the
spectrum from drill conductor and model (e.g. the Audio-Lingual Method) to
facilitator and counsellor (e.g. Community Language Learning) (Larsen-
Freeman 2000). While some say today’s times call for us to move beyond
methods, adopting postmethod macro-strategies in place of prescribed and
proscribed methodological practices (Kumaravadivelu 1994), the fact is that
most teachers practise an eclectic form of teaching.
Work on teacher cognition has played an increasingly important role in
helping us understand how teachers think and therefore the work of teaching
(see Borg, this volume). For instance, in the language teaching field, Woods
(1996) has demonstrated the importance of understanding the thinking
process that underlies the decisions that teachers make moment by moment
in conducting their lessons.
Another widespread role ascribed to teachers and other professionals,
ever since the publication of Schön’s (1983) influential book, is that of
‘reflective practitioner’, someone who can detach oneself from experience,
examine it, and learn from it (Richards and Lockhart 1994). This resonates
with Allwright’s (2003) ‘exploratory practice’.
Based on the theoories by experts above, we can celarly see that
Teachers are the spectrum of drill conductr and model who should
encouraged to experiment, to take risks, around some particular issue of
interest in their teaching practice. They are then to step back and watch what
happens. This set of procedures helps them to clarify issues around their own
teaching practice and prevents it from going stale.

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C. The Concept of Language and Teaching

a. Language and Learning

When defining various language teaching techniques, the answers to the

questions about language and learning is about the methods and language

assessment. In doing language assessment also become step in deciding what

teachers going to do next. Language assessment also become major force to design

and administration of high-stakes language proficiency test to certify language skill

and general proficiency. In conducting standardized test, teachers indirectly

measure the language proficiency, such as multiple-choice tests, direct measures

like oral proficiency interviews.

The reasons why language assessment is important to facilitate comparisons

among individuals and between different systems of qualifications. Through

language assessment, individuals can self-report or be assessed at certain levels

defined by what they can do in another language. It is also important to recognize

that individuals do not have complete and separate competences of the languages

they have knowledge of (Cook 2002). As a result, the Council of Europe (2001)

has developed the European language portfolio, a document in which learners can

record their individual language and cultural experiences.

b. Language and Teaching

The concept of language and teaching related to the linguistic is how language

teaching materials are informed including spoken utterance and written texts. It is

revealed the pattern of a language. For certain lexical items, the patterns show

collocations or conventionalized sequences. Phrasal units and lexicalized stems,

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 which get conventionalized over time through use, are how we express meaning in

language instead of stringing together individual words.

c. Learners and Language

The learners’ age become major factor in deciding what type of language

being thought. Content is one of the most contexts that is being studied in language

learning for young learners these days. In content and language integrated learning

(CLIL) or content-based language teaching, the language is the vehicle through

which other school subjects are learned. This approach adopted with the needs of

learners who learning their L2. According to some theories, delaying a child's

education in other areas while they pick up the language of teaching could be bad

to their total education.

For adult learners or older students, the approach that is used frequently

different from young learner. Not only because of needs of language in

communication but there are some others purposes, such as specific occupational,

technical, or academic purpose.

d. Context

The role of contexts in language and learning can identify in many aspects.

Many languages learning happens in the classroom, yet not means all. There are

some possibilities that language learning can happen outside of classroom and

supported by technological advancements. However, classes are sometimes very

big in many parts of the world, and much of the work is completed individually in

writing or in person to promote both classroom management and language

acquisition. Choral responses from the entire group. Despite the fact that SLA

research has shown that instruction, in some ways, life outside of the classroom is

comparable. Others have found this not to be true in the case of the type of errors

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 learners commit, for example (Pica 1983). Through language immersion

programmes and study abroad opportunities, students can receive intensive

experiences with language, which compensates for the slow progress and

incomplete acquisition of many who study languages exclusively in the classroom.

The present of political pressure takes main effect toward the contexts of

language learning. For example, bilingual education used to be a common strategy

for assisting students in learning a second language while maintaining their first

language and preventing them from falling behind in other subject areas, but it has

recently come under political fire and has even been outlawed in some states in the

USA. Additionally, while multilingualism is common throughout the world and is

encouraged, growing levels of globalization have resulted in the teaching of

'utilitarian' languages and the predominance of a select few languages, particularly

English, which is used on an international scale for trade, commerce, technology,

and science.

Also playing a contextual role are national language policies. The issue of

language ideology, or the attitudes that individuals have about language, is closely

tied to which languages are encouraged in language policies. For example, Lippi-

Green (1997) draws attention to the tendency toward an abstract, homogeneous

standard language that is taught despite the reality that there is a considerable

degree of variance in actual language use outside of the classroom.

D. Future Trajectory- Questions of Language Education

The complex needs of students in language learning and the development of

language learning itself, these questions are formulated for future trajectory of

language education;

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How support the complex needs of students being taught and expected to learn?

The complicated demands of language education and the complex needs of the

students in language learning, teachers are expected to teach language from diverse

background and across curriculum.

How to redefine second language teaching and its knowledge base/professional

competencies?

Being professional as second language teachers is critical issues for all

educators, as they are as provider toward the language learning itself.

Many of the world's languages are endangered. Teach these languages or let they be

lost forever?

Unrelated issue confronting language educators these days is the fact that

many of the world’s languages are endangered. Whereas language policies in some

countries have brought certain languages, such as Irish Gaelic, back from the brink,

the rate at which other languages are dying out is worrisome. Concerted efforts to

teach these languages must be made, or they will be lost forever.

Is there a need for hegemonic standard English, given that many varieties of world

English exist?

English has already become an international lingua franca and is therefore not

owned by native speakers of English at all. English is not the only language that can

be used when determining which language to teach and whose language it is. All

language teachers struggle with this problem.

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E. Technology

There are three major ways that technology and language learning/education

have interfaced in modern times; 1) Computer-mediated contacts with other languages

or culture. 2) The use of corpora to inform language teaching materials. 3) Internet

delivered language instruction.

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 BAB III CONCLUDING REMARKS
CONCLUDING REMARKS

To conclude this paper, there are some issues in language learning and
language education. Identifying the key concepts of language learning and language
education, there are some highlights of the theory that are formulated into questions,
they are; What is language teaching? who is the language teachers? what is language?
what is culture? what is language learning? and who are the language learners?

A few answers to each, have looked briefly at different definitions of

language, theories of learning, individual learner factors, approaches to language
teaching, and roles of language teachers. In some cases, it has been discussed the
pedagogical implications that have been informed by the answers to the questions.
The truth is that the questions, which have yielded different answers in different
places at different times, have implications for language education, though no
question and answer or combination of questions and answers will produce a
satisfactory solution for all times and places, due to local social, political, and
economic factors, the uniqueness of individual language learners and instructional
contexts, ever-new research findings, and the theoretical commitments educators
make. Although the areas of language learning and language education intersect, there
remain some uneasy fits as well, such as the perennial one between structural and
functional approaches. There is also some ebb and flow among the general populace,
at least in some countries of the world, in the interest accorded modern language
study. With the economic climate that globalization has engendered, often it is the
international languages that do attract students, the result being that languages that are
spoken by fewer speakers are becoming increasingly Language learning and language
education endangered.

Although technology is not likely to resolve every issue, it does promise

increased accessibility to language instruction for those who have the technological
wherewithal, the access, and the computer literacy to take advantage of such
instruction. It also may provide the means to keep some of the less commonly taught
languages vital.

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References

Simpson, James (Ed.). 2011. The Routledge Handbook of Applied Linguistics. New York:
Routledge.
Davies, Alan and Catherine, Elder (Ed.). 2004. The Handbook of Applied Lingistics.
Blackwill Publishing: USA.

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