1.1 Why do we need Applied Linguistics?

- Language is at the heart of human life. Most human activities are dependent on language in one
way or another.
- These activities are intrinsic to human life and we perform them without engaging in linguistic
analysis.
- Language as a natural phenomenon beyond conscious control.
- Are there any decisions to be made about language? Give examples.
- Consider the following language-related problems and make decisions about them:
1. What language skills should children attain beyond basic literacy? (And what is basic
literacy anyways? Reading and writing, or something else?)
2. Should children speaking a dialect be encouraged to maintain it or steered towards the
standard form of language? (And, if so, how is that standard form decided and by whom?)
3. In communities with more than one language which ones should be used in schools? (And
does every child have a right to be educated in the language they use at home?)
4. Should everyone learn foreign languages and, if so, which one or ones? (And what is the
best way to learn and teach them?)
- Applied Linguistics is concerned with the relation of knowledge about language to decision
making in the real world.
- We can say that Applied Linguistics sets out to investigate problems in the world in which
language is implicated.
- Applied Linguistics demands to understand the facts of language use, to organise and formalise
what we know, and to subject our knowledge to rational consideration and critical analysis.
- By doing so we will be able to set out the options for action and the reasoning behind them, to
debate the alternatives openly and in an informed and rational manner.

Class activity
Think of a real-world situation or problem related to linguistics. How would you use Applied
Linguistics to solve it? Be specific, but not technical. Once you decided

1.2 Areas of study in Applied Linguistics

- As a term, Applied Linguistics is broad and unspecific.
- The range of influence of Applied Linguistics is as large as the amount of language-related
activities carried out by human beings.

- In order to come anywhere close to a solution, language-related problems need to be classified

into different areas, and so does Applied Linguistics as a field.
- Broadly speaking, Applied Linguistics can be subdivided into three fields of operation: a)
language and education; b) language, work, and law; and c) language, information, and effect.
1. Language and education:
A. First-language education
B. Additional-language education
- Second-language education (one of your parents knows another language)
- Foreign-language education (the one you learn at school)
C. Clinical linguistics (trauma or illnesses may affect someone’s ability to speak)
D. Language testing (certificates)
2. Language, work, and law:
A. Workplace communication
B. Language planning
C. Forensic linguistics.
3. Language, information and effect
A. Literary stylistics
B. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)
C. Translation (written) and interpretation (oral)
D. Information design and typography (brand’s logos)
E. Lexicography (dictionaries)

Class activity
What areas of Applied Linguistics would best fit the following needs or problems?
A) A network of criminals who have invented their own language to communicate among
themselves
Forensic linguistics and lexicography.

B) You have been hired to translate a very obscure author’s novels.

Translation and literary stylistics

C) Cambridge needs to design specific tests for hearing-impaired individuals who wish to obtain a
language certificate.

 Language testing and clinical linguistics.

D) You need to design posters and promotional material for an upcoming political campaign.
Information design and typography and CDA.

2. Applied Linguistics to the Teaching/Learning of English as a Foreign Language

2.1 Basic tenets and their development (I)
"Either the mode of expression of intelligence is a cultural function or the lower working class are
genetically deficient in a factor which enables the exploitation of complex verbal relationships. The
latter possibility seems improbable especially when one considers that the normal linguistic
environment of the working class is one of relative deprivation. It is thought that the mode of
expression of intelligence, in particular the general factor (g), may well be a matter of learning: in
particular the early learning of speech forms, which create and reinforce in the user different
dimensions of significance. The different vocabulary scores obtained by the two social groups may
simply be one index, among many, which discriminates between two dominant modes of utilizing
speech. One mode, associated with the middle class, points to the possibilities within a complex
conceptual hierarchy for the organization of experience; the other, associated with the lower
working class, progressively limits the type of stimuli to which the child learns to respond."
Bernstein.

- The constant tension between language as viewed by ‘the expert’ and language as everyone’s
lived experience.
- The code: “a set of organising principles (grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation and accents)
behind the language employed by members of a social group” (Littlejohn 2002).
- Standards, dialects, and “deficits” according to Basil Bernstein: dialects are seen as a restricted
code as opposed to the move elaborated code of the standard.
- Linguistics: descriptive or prescriptive?
- Linguists normally favour description over prescription when it comes to the standard/dialect
duality. How can they justify their views?
• Language is created by the speakers. In fact, if it has evolved so much during the years it is
precisely because speakers have changed the way they speak. If language was prescriptive, it
would probably never change or evolve.

 • If a single standard was absolute and unassailable then regional standards would never gain
independence.
• Dialects have their own consistent rule governed grammar, every bit as complex and
expressive as those of standard forms.
• The standard form of a language is often very similar to the usage of the most economically
and politically powerful class or region.
• The grammar of written language differs considerably from that of speech, even among
speakers whose variety is close to the standard.
- Alternatively, do you find any potential faults in the descriptive statement method?
• To talk about a language at all, there must be some pre-existing notion of what does and does
not count as an example.
• In deciding what does count as an example of the language, linguists often base their decisions
upon native speaker use or judgement.
• Despite descriptive statements insistence on the equality of all varieties, it is nevertheless the
standard which is most often used in their analyses.
• Paradoxically, to advocate description and outlaw prescription is itself prescriptive.

Class activity (No Such Thing as Correct English)

Watch the following video on YouTube and answer the following questions
- Does the speaker think that using, or failing to use, a regional variety of English might have real
social consequences?
The speaker believes that unfortunately, it might have social consequences, as some variants are
more respected than others
- If your answer to the first question is “yes”, would he agree with Bernstein’s views then?

- Explain the grammatical feature known as “habitual be”.

It is the use of an uninflected be in Afro-American English to indicate that the subject does
something repeatedly.
- Look up information on the Rachel Jeantel case and how her use of language affected the jury’s
decision.
Rachel Jeantel was a witness for the prosecution in the trial for the murder of Trayvon Martin.
However, due to her use of Afro-American English, her testimony was dismissed as
incomprehensible.

2.1 Basic tenets and their development

- Parallel to the Teaching of English as a Foreign Language (TEFL), the growth of English raises
important questions as well as concerns.
- Indian linguist Braj Kachru’s (1932-2016) theory of the Three Concentric Circles (1998):
• The inner circle: countries where English is the mother tongue of the majority of the
population: i.e. members of the Commonwealth.
• The outer circle: countries where non-native varieties of English are spoken as a result of
colonialism.
• The expanding circle: the rest of the countries where
English is increasingly spoken on a daily basis as a result of
globalisation.
- The Applied Linguistics discipline of Teaching English as a
Foreign Language (TEFL) is part of the branch of Second-
Language Acquisition (SLA).
- TEFL is not a recently developed discipline. Its origins can be
traced as far back as the close of the nineteenth century.
- Over time, different teaching methods have been deployed by teachers of TEFL. These methods
have at times been questioned and improved upon with little consensus reached:
• Grammar-translation language teaching
• The direct method
• ‘Natural’ language learning
• The communicative approach.

Basic tenets and their development: the audio-lingual method

- Parallel to the development and fall of the direct method, the audio-lingual method was
developed and popularised in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

- The audio-lingual method, also called Army Method, arose as a response to American
intervention in World War II and the need for soldiers to learn European languages fast.

- The audio-lingual method resembles the direct method in its emphasis on listening and speaking
skills. However, it gives preference to grammar over lexicon.

- The method was executed in drills which contained exercises based on repetition, inflection,
replacement and restatement through isolated dialogues.

- Grammar-translation (late eighteenth-early nineteenth centuries) -> direct/natural method

(mid-to-late nineteenth century) -> audio-lingual method (mid-twentieth century).

- "If by grammar we mean any of these things-the memorizing of paradigms, or the logical
analysis of sentences, or the learning of the rules of philosophical or universal grammar, then we
can easily agree that we must approach a new language by a more "natural' method".

- "An adult can be helped considerably in building up the necessary habits if the basic matters of
this required knowledge are definitely stated for his guidance.”

- “Unless the experienced linguist does formulate or describe them (the generalizations about
grammar and phonology) for the learner, the learner must attempt to grasp them for himself or
approach the language as if it were a multitude of disparate items to be memorized.”

- “Generalizations concerning structure, or grammar, are a regular feature of the 'oral approach'
although they are always intimately related to the oral practice of the language.”

- “Here I would press the necessity of a sound technique for 'contextual orientation’. The so-called
‘knowledge of the life of the people’ must not be just an adjunct or a practical language course -
something alien and apart from its main purposes, and therefore casual and haphazard. A
thorough mastery of a language for practical communication with real understanding demands a
systematic observation and recording of the features of the precise situations in which the varied
sentences are used”.

Class Activity

Watch the following video and answer the questions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pz0TPDUz3FU

a) Why do you think it is called the “audio-lingual method”? What about its alternative
name, the “Army Method”?

It is called the audio-lingual method because it deals with listening and repeating what the main
speaker said. It is called the Army Method since there is a leader who says what is needed to be
repeated, and many “soldiers” that must repeat what they have just heard, just like military drills.

 b) Do you see any advantages in its use over the direct or the grammar-translation
methods? Any disadvantages?

The grammar-translation method is more technical than the audio-lingual method, which could be
an advantage but also a disadvantage. The audio-lingual method may help non-native speakers to
improve their speaking and pronunciation skills, meanwhile grammar is also learned.

2.1 Basic tenets and their development (VIII): Grammar-translation method (I)
- The Grammar-translation teaching method aims at the teaching of English through direct
translation of L1 into L2 or vice versa.
- Its origins go back to the teaching of Latin and Greek, which was carried out through direct
translation from literary sources.
- This model was then applied to the teaching and learning of modern languages, often with
examples taken from exemplary literary sources such as Shakespeare for English, Dante for
Italian, among others.
- Henry Sweet: “A bag into which grammar and vocabulary are crammed without regard to
meaning”.
- On the Grammar-translation method:
Textbooks consisted of statements of abstract grammar rules, lists of vocabulary, and sentences for
translation. Speaking the foreign language was not the goal, and oral practice was limited to students
reading aloud the sentences they had translated. These sentences were constructed to illustrate the
grammatical system of the language and consequently bore no relation to the language of real
communication. Students labored over translating sentences [.…] (Richards & Rodgers, 2001: 4).

- The Grammar-translation method, then, reinforced reading and writing skills and dismissed
speaking, listening and communicativeness.
- Examples of possible sentences (Richards and Rodgers):
A. The philosopher pulled the lower jaw of the hen.
B. My sons have bought the mirrors of the Duke.
C. The cat of my aunt is more treacherous than the dog of your uncle.

- Class activity

Which of the following activities could be attributed to the Grammar-translation method? Do you
think these activities would be effective? Taking these activities into account, do you think that the
Grammar-translation method is no longer used or useful?

A. Asking your students to roleplay everyday linguistic exchanges

No, as this method doesn’t focus on oral-listening skills. It depends on whether the exchange is
written beforehand and the students just have to memorise it or if they are just given a particular
context or situation and then they improvise the exchange.

B. Asking your students to select a number of quotes and fragments from their favourite literary
texts and translate them into their mother tongue.
Yes. It wouldn’t be useful, because students could use a translator for it and plus being able to
translate isn’t a compulsory skill to learn another language.

C. Asking your students to choose suffixes from a list and coming up with 5 examples of each
suffix and comparing them to their equivalents in their mother tongue.
Yes. We think the first part of the activity (coming up with words using the same suffix) could be
helpful for the students, as they can see clearly the meaning of each suffix, but translating the words
wouldn’t be that useful.

D. Explaining the objectives of the class and giving instructions in the target language exclusively.
No, as this method focuses on reading and writing. It would be useful for the students.

E. Positively assessing the composition of sentences that make sense syntactically but not
semantically.
Yes. Not useful.

2.1 Basic tenets and their development: the direct method

- At the turn of the 20th century, language-learning populations were changing dramatically.
- There were many - mostly political - reasons for this change: the end of colonisation, individual
conflicts across the world and the World wars, systematic emigration to the city as a result of the
Second Industrial Revolution, among others.

 - A classroom in the US at the beginning of the 20th century could contain students from a wide
range of countries and cultures, many of them unable to communicate with their peers or the
teacher in English.
- The direct method emerged as a response to these new realities: language-learning should be
“naturalised”, the L1 dispensed with, and oral skills prioritised.
- Even though the direct method became popular in the early 20th century, it was actually
proposed during the late 19th century by Lambert Sauveur and Maximilian Berlitz.
- The Report of the Committee of Twelve (1899): the direct method as “a principle, rather than a
plan; and its products depend, to a greater extent than those of any other school, on the
personality of the instructor” (1397).
- Sauveur’s Causeries avec mes élèves (1874) and Berlitz’s livres pour les adultes.
- Features of their methods to teach modern languages without the help of the L1, to use
illustrations and deduce grammar from examples, and to promote conversation on familiar
subjects.
Class activity
The following video shows the direct method in application. Answer the following questions:
https://youtu.be/XiQvG-fvzLM

A) What do you think are the main advantages of the direct method? What about the
disadvantages?
Advantages:
- very visual and intuitive for the kids.
- Students don’t use their mother tongue to learn the new language, which can sometimes lead to
confusion.
- Clear communication between teacher and student
Disadvantages:
- It can’t be applied to everyone and to every concept.
B) Do you think it is viable at all stages in language-learning? If so, how?.
No, it is specially useful with children and with people with lower levels of English, but with adults
or with people with a high level it is not that helpful.
C) How does it compare, in your view, to the grammar-translation method?

 They are complete opposites: whereas one focuses on writing and reading and uses the student’s
mother tongue to learn the language, the other focuses on listening and speaking and doesn’t use the
mother tongue.

2.1 Basic tenets and their development (XI): the communicative approach (I)
- Background:
• Noam Chomsky
• Michael Halliday (systemic functional linguistics: language has functions which vary from
situation to situation)
• Dell Hymes
- So far, all of the ELT teaching methods proposed were for the most part focused on form rather
than meaning. When the emphasis was shifted to meaning, this was isolated and
decontextualised.
- Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) or the Communicative Approach (CA) emerged as a
response to the new shifts in linguistic paradigms and theories:
• From an emphasis on form to an emphasis on communication
• From attention to the language system as an end in itself to the successful use of that system in
context.
• Language-learning success is no longer about mastery of grammar and vocabulary: it is about
the ability to do things with language.
- The new method required performing needs analyses to adapt the curriculum to a variety of
communicative situations.
- CLT brought about drastic changes in the ELT classroom and syllabus design:
A. Macro level: development of ESP (English for Specific Purposes)
B. Micro level: development of TBI (Task-Based Instruction)

Class activity
Watch the following video showing the communicative approach in practice. Answer the following
questions:
a) What steps does the teacher take in order to teach the contents of the class? Are these activities
more or less interactive than those practiced through previous methods?

b) How does this relate to the previously mentioned TBA (Task-Based Approach)?

c) The word "functions" is mentioned in the video. Are there any other linguistic functions? Who
was the first proponent of linguistic functions?

2.1 Basic tenets and their development (XII): communicative competence vs linguistic
competence
- As previously explained, Hymes’s communicative competence was put forward in opposition to
Chomsky’s linguistic competence
- For Chomsky, we are born with considerable pre-programmed knowledge of how language
works (Universal Grammar), and require only minimal exposure to activate our connection to the
particular language around us.
- As observed by Hymes, a person who had only linguistic competence would be unable to
communicative; they would become social “monsters” producing grammatical sentences
unconnected to the situation in which they occur.
- Hymes described four types of linguistic knowledge needed for successful communication:
possibility, feasibility, appropriateness, and attestedness.

2.2 Contrastive analysis

- The development of historical linguistics during the late 18th century led to the creation of a sub-
branch devoted to linguistic comparison: comparative (historical) linguistics.
- At the beginning, comparative linguistics was concerned with the establishment of language
families and the reconstruction of “proto-languages” from a structural perspective:
• Linguistic genealogies
• Synchronic (studying languages in a given period, i.e. English during the 17th century) vs
diachronic linguistics (studying languages in evolution)
- As SLT and SLA grew into fully-fledged disciplines, the tenets of comparative linguistics began
to be used pedagogically through contrastive analysis.
- Contrastive analysis is, therefore, the comparative study of two or more languages (L1 and L2
normally) in order to identify their formal similarities and differences.

“The struggle to apply so the problems of foreign language learning the new views of language
arising out of 'structural' analyses has served to shift the focus of first attention from methods and
techniques of teaching to the basis upon which to build these materials. The fundamental feature of
the 'new approach," therefore, is not a matter of greater allotment of time, nor of smaller classes, nor
even of greater emphasis on oral practice - desirable as these may be. Before any of the questions of
how so teach a foreign language must come the much more important preliminary work of finding
the special problems arising out of any effort to develop a new set of language habits. A child in
learning his native language has learned not only to attend to (receptively and productively) the
particular contrasts that function as signals in that language; he has learned to ignore all those
features that do not so function. He has developed a special set of ‘blind spots’ that prevent him
from responding so features that do not constitute the contrastive signals of his native language.
Learning a second language, therefore, constitutes a very different task from learning the first
language. The basic problems arise not out of any essential difficulty in the features of the new
language themselves but primarily our of the special ‘set’ created by first language habits" (Charles
C. Fries's foreword to the 1971 edition).

2.2 Contrastive analysis

- Contrastive analysis is seen by many as an application of structural linguistics to language
teaching. It is based on the following assumptions:
• The main difficulties in learning a new language are caused by interference/transfer from the
first language (Mi padre es médico/My father is a doctor, the article in English interferes)
• Contrastive analysis can predict said difficulties
• Teaching materials can make use of contrastive analysis to reduce the effects of intereference.

 - Contrastive analysis was more successful in phonology tan in other areas of language, and
declined in the 1970s as interference was replaced by other explanations of learning difficulties
(Error Analysis or the notion of inter language).
- Contrastive analysis has been applied to other areas of language recently such as discourse
analysis.

Class activity
A) Read chapters 1 and 3 from Lado’s Linguistics Across Cultures: Applied Linguistics. How
would you describe contrastive analysis in general? Give some examples of Lado’s analytical
procedures from the different sections of the book.
B) Lado often speaks of “habits” in language learning. How does this relate to behaviourism in
language learning? Which teaching ethos does it relate to in your opinion?
C) How does contrastive analysis compare to previous methods? Do you think it is useful in day-
to-day teaching?
D) How would you put contrastive analysis into practice? Give some examples comparing English
and your mother tongue.

2.3 Error Analysis

- Richards and Smith: an error is “the use of a linguistic item (e.g. a word, a grammatical item, a
speech act, etc.) in a way in which a fluent or native speaker of the language regards as showing
faulty or incomplete learning” (201).
- For Richards and Rogers, errors in CLT “are seen as evidence of learning rather than signs of
faulty learning” and we have to “be tolerant of learners’ errors as they indicate that the learner is
building up his or her communicative competence” (2014:95).
• How do you think errors were treated in prior language teaching methods such as the
grammar-translation method, the natural approach, ad the audio-lingual method?
- As a response to what he perceived was only “curiosity attention” being paid to students’ errors,
Stephen Pit Corder developed error analysis as the discipline that studies and analyses errors
made by second language learners.
- Error analysis has three main purposes: a) to identify strategies which learners use in language
learning, b) to identify the causes of learners errors; and c) to obtain information on common
difficulties in language learning as an aid to teaching or preparing teaching materials.

 "When one studies the standard works on the teaching of modern languages it comes as a surprise to
find how cursorily the authors deal with the question of learners'* errors and their correction. It
almost seems as if they are dismissed as a matter of no particular importance, as possible annoying,
distracting, but inevitable by-products of the process of learning a language about which the teacher
should make as little fuss as possible. It is of course true that the application of linguistic and
psychological theory to the study of language learning added a new dimension to the discussion of
errors; people now believed they had a principled means for accounting for these errors, namely that
they were the result of interference in the learning of a second language from the habits of the first
language. The major contribution of the linguist to language teaching was seen as an intensive
contrastive study of the systems of the second language and the mother-tongue of the learner; out of
this would come an intensive contrastive study of the systems of the second language and the
mother-tongue of the learner». Teachers have not always been very impressed by this contribution
from the linguist for the reason that their practical experience has usually already shown them
where these difficulties lie and they have not felt that the contribution of the linguist has provided
them with any significantly new information" (162).

Classi cation of errors (Bussmann 1996)

Pro ciency

Linguistic features

Competence/performance

Cause

Norm/system

Types (Richard and Schmidt 2002)

Interlingual (interference)

Extralingual

- Overgeneralisations

- Developmental

- Induced

- Avoidance

- Overproduction
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 Steps (Ellis 1994)

1. Simple collecting

2. Identi cation of errors

3. Description of errors

4. Explanation of errors

5. Assessment of errors

Contrastive analysis Error analysis

A) Errors are made as a result of interference of the A) Errors re ect universal learning strategies not
L1 on the L2 necessarily associated with the L1

B) Language learning strategies used by learners B) Problematic structures in the L1 need to be

need to be identi ed in order to control errors identi ed to control errors

C) Errors are purely formal; i.e. a result of failing to C) Errors are formal and also communicative, and
acquire the necessary morphological, grammatical, are di erent according to the developmental stage
or phonetic/phonological competence the student is on

- Errors as seen by 1960s language learning theorists:

"Foreign language learning is basically a process of mechanical habit formation. Good habits are
formed by giving correct responses rather than by making mistakes. By memorising dialogues and
performing pattern drills, the chances of producing mistakes are minimised. Language is verbal
behavior. -hat is, the automatic production and comprehension of utterances - and can be learned by
inducing the students lo do likewise” (Rivers 1964:19)

- Mistakes vs errors: "We must therefore make a distinction between those errors which are the
product of such chance circumstances and those which reveal his underlying knowledge of the
language to date, or, as we may call it his transitional competence. The errors of performance will
caracteristically be unsystematic and the errors of competence, systematic _ It will be useful
therefore hereafter to refer to errors of performance as mistakes, reserving the term error to refer
to the systematic errors of the learner from which we are able to reconstruct his knowledge of the
language to date, i.e. his transitional competence" (167).

• Mistakes are situational, errors are foundational.

• How can we tell the difference between a mistake and an error?
• How does Chomsky's competence/performance duality relate to errors and mistakes?
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2.4 Being “communicative” in the EFL classroom

- As previously established, the communicative approach has proven to be the most popular
methodology in the EFL community.
- The communicative approach poses that knowing the grammar and vocabulary of a language,
although essential, is one thing. Being able to put them to use involves other types of language
and ability as well.
- However, the communicative approach on its own is not sufficient to ensure attaining
communicative competence.
• Critics have found that the communicative approach has promoted a monolithic model of
Anglophone-centric culture that displaces individual/postcolonial cultures. Example:
“Roleplay a fish and chips and takeaway order where the customer misplaces his money and
the owner of the stall refuses to give him the food.”
- The communicative approach needs to find support in auxiliary methodologies to ensure the
attainment of communicative competence. Some examples are the Task-Based Approach
(TBA), Content Integrated Language Teaching (CLIL), or Total Physical Response (TPR).

2.4 Being “communicative” in the EFL classroom (II): Task-Based Approach (I)
- The notion of “task” as related to the field of language teaching became popular in the 1980s.
Early definitions of “task” in this sense include:
• “A piece of work undertaken for oneself or for others, freely or for some reward_In other
words, by “task” is meant the hundred and one things people do in everyday life, at work, at
play and in between” (Long 1985:89).
• “An activity or action which is carried out as the result of processing or understanding
language (i.e. as a response) _ Tasks may or may not involve the production of language. A
task usually requires the teacher to specify what will be regarded as successful completion of
the task (Richards 1986:219).
• “Any structured language learning endeavour which has a particular objective, appropriate
content, a specified working procedure, and a range of outcomes for those who undertake the
task” (Breen 1987:23).
- Modern definitions by Elis and Nunan:
• “A work plan that requires learners to process language pragmatically in order to achieve an
outcome that can be evaluated in terms of whether the correct or appropriate propositional

 content has been conveyed_A task is intended to result in language use that bears a
resemblance, direct or indirect, to the way language is used in the real world” (Elis 2003: 16)
• “A piece of classroom work that involves learners in comprehending, manipulating, producing
or interacting in the target language while their attention is focused on mobilising their
grammatical knowledge in order to express meaning, and in which the intention is to convey
meaning rather than to manipulate form” (Nunan 2005: 4).
2.4 Being “communicative” in the EFL classroom (II): Task-Based Approach (II)
The TBA method often follows three clearly marked steps in its classroom application:
- Pre-task: the teacher introduces the student to the task by giving out clear instructions and
objectives. When background information is required, this is provided during the pre-task step.
- Task: the students complete the task an their own. During this stage, the teacher acts as an
external observer and offers minimal assistance.
- Post-task: the students present a report on their task. The teacher gives feedback and engages the
student in debate. If needed, important linguistic features are emphasised at this stage.

2.4 Being “communicative” in the EFL classroom (IV): Content and Language Integrated
Learning (I)
- The popularity of bilingual education has increased in the past few decades owing to socio-
economic, cultural, and political changes.
- As a result, (language) teaching methodologies have felt the need to adapt to new language
speaking realities that are in constant flux.
- This prompted the emergence of “Content and Language Integrated Learning”, or CLIL, as a
teaching method.
- CLIL was created by David Marsh and defined as “a dual-focused educational approach in
which an additional language is used for the learning and teaching of content and language with
the objective of promoting both content and language mastery to pre-defined levels” (Marsh
2010).

2.4 Being “communicative” in the EFL classroom (IV): Content and Language Integrated
Learning (II)
- “CLIL classrooms are not typical language classrooms in the sense that language is neither the
designated subject nor the content of the interaction, but the medium through which other content
is transported” (Dalton-Puffer 2007: 3).

 - CLIL is not the same as teaching content through the medium of English or any other second or
foreign language; rather, language is the lens through which content is taught.
- Advocates of CLIL claim that a) CLIL contributes to an improvement of L1 and L2
development; b) is more globalisation-friendly than other traditional teaching methods; c)
improves language, communicative, and interactual competencies (Lorenzo, Trujillo, and Vez
2011).
- Watch the video on your right. What do you think about CLIL in application? Do you think it is
a suitable method? Do you think it is sustainable both in terms of resources and teacher training?
https://youtu.be/dFuCrxRobh0
I think it is a method that allows students to both improve their L2 skills and to learn new content
about fields which are not related to language learning at all. As for its sustainability, it heavily
depends on which activities are practiced, but all in all I believe CLIL allows for many types of
low-budget activities which are equally helpful as those which are more expensive. However, it is
not sustainable in the long run.

This lesson plan can be considered

CLIL, as students are learning new
content through the L2 (the concept of
habitat, where animals live…). Students
are also expected to communicate and
interact with each other using the L2 at
the same time as they are learning and
using the new content. Grammar is not
mentioned once throughout the plan;
utilitarianism is the key. The lesson also
reinforces the learning of culture.

Class activity
Watch the following video and answer the questions below:
https://youtu.be/-Czdg8-6mJA

A) What does Marsh define as poor instruction through the medium of English? What does
he mean by “a school within school”?
He finds that many schools in Asia approach CLIL as only importing English books, ideas, and
teachers, which resulted in the students being unable to communicate in English at all. By “a school
within school” he means that there is a L1 school and an L2 school within the same school which
are not connected in any way (some courses are taught in the L1 and others in the L2, and these
courses were not connected at all).
B) What prompted Marsh to work on CLIL at the beginning?
The fact teachers and school were implementing CLIL very poorly.
C) What is “good CLIL” for Marsh? What about “bad CLIL”? What particular examples
does Marsh give for successfully applied CLIL? Why does he think these succeeded?
He considers good CLIL the method applied in a school he visited in Spain, the Netherlands, and
Austria. As for bad CLIL, he says that the problem can be found in the teaching of the L1: if the L1
is taught poorly, the L2 will be too. About the success of the good CLIL examples, he states that
they succeeded because they received specific funding for the application of CLIL

2.4 Being “communicative” in the EFL classroom (VII): Total Physical Response (I)
- The comprehension approach vs the communicative approach.
- Total Physical Response (TPR) was invented James J. Asher as an alternative to more
traditional teaching methods highly reliant on the writing and reading skills.
- Asher: “The strategy of the total physical response is to have the students listen to a command in
a foreign language and immediately obey with a physical action” (1969: 4).
- TPR gives greater emphasis to comprehension than many other teaching methods. Both this
and the emphasis on teaching language through physical activity are supposed to lead to more
effective learning.

2.4 Being “communicative” in the EFL classroom (VII): Total Physical Response (II)
“In our school programs, we do not have a generous amount of time. Given one hour a day for
foreign language training, it may be unrealistic to expect fluency in listening, speaking, reading, and

writing Perhaps the usual school situation has had minimal effectiveness because the foreign
language program has been over-ambitious.

Even an objective of listening and speaking may be an unrealistic expectation with the limited time
available, Therefore, the first stage of training should be concerned with only one of the four
language skills: the one which has the maximum positive transfer to the other three skills. There is
evidence that the skill of listening comprehension has high positive transfer especially to speaking a
foreign language. And, listening skill seems to have a large positive transfer to reading and writing
depending upon the fit between phonology and orthography of a specific language. For instance,
there should be a large positive transfer for Spanish, but a much smaller transfer if the language is
Russian” (4).

2.4 Being “communicative” in the EFL classroom (VII): Total Physical Response (III)
- Asher’s hypothesis was “that the brain and the nervous system are biologically programmed to
acquire language, either the first or the second in a particular sequence and in a particular mode.
The sequence is listening before speaking and the mode is to synchronise language with the
individual body” (1996: 2-4).
- In TPR, lessons are:
• Organised around grammar, and in particular around the verb.
• Focused primarily on meaning rather than structure.
• Based around drills and limited lexicon, which grows exponentially.
• Geared towards developing oral fluency through listening.
• Grammar is not explicitly taught, but is learned by deduction
• Reliant on realia (real physical support) such as pictures or day-to-day items.

Class activity
Look at the following video on the Total Physical Response method in operation. Answer the
following questions:
A) How does TPR compare to previously discussed language teaching methods? Is it more or
less communicative?
It is somewhere in between. It isn’t the most communicative, but it isn’t the least one either. It is
more communicative than the grammar-translation method, but less communicative than the audio-
lingual method.

 B) Do you think TPR is suitable for all language levels? Justify your answer.
I don’t think it is suitable for all language levels. It is certainly useful when learning basic concepts
or actions; nevertheless, other concepts which may be more abstract or figurative cannot be learned
through this teaching method.
C) What advantages and disadvantages do you find in the use of TPR from a pedagogical
perspective?
Advantages:
- Useful with children
- Useful for learning and retain simple concepts and actions
Disadvantages:
- Fails to be useful when learning more complex or abstract concepts
- May not be useful when working with adult students
D) Is TPR beneficial in an attention to diversity context?
It depends on the student and on the disability. In some cases yes, in others not.

2.5 Corpus linguistics (I)

- Corpus linguistics is an approach to investigating language structure and use through the
analysis of large databases of real language examples stored on computer.
- It covers:
• The meanings of words across registers.
• The distribution and function of grammatical forms and categories
• The investigation of lexico-grammatical associations
• And the study of discourse characteristics, register variation, and issues in language
acquisition
- Corpus (pl. “corpora”): “a collection of naturally occurring samples of language which have
been collected and collated for easy access by researchers and material developers who want to
know how words and other linguistic items are usually used” (Richards and Schmidt 2010: 137).

2.5 Corpus linguistics (II)

“The term ‘standard' in the full title of the Corpus is not intended as a qualitative description of the
texts included. Rather, It ls an expression of the hope chat the Corpus, being a carefully selected and
fully described body of natural-language texts, may serve as a standard for comparison for a variety
of studies and analyses of present-day English. It was felt that there was a distinct need for such a

 standard body of data, and thus feeling has been justified by the interest that has been evinced since
copies of the Corpus have been made availlable. Most previous studies in those fields of linguistics
where the analysis of a body of utterances was essential…have relied on samples selected from a
single genre of writing or a single author of have used samples for no better reason than that the
data was readily avallable. The present Corpus, selected by a method that males it reasonably
representative of current printed American English and prepared with care, supplies a more reliable
body of data. Because of its subdivision into distinct samples of approximately equal size, easily
isolable individually or in homogeneous sets, it is possible for any individual genre of writing
represented or any desired combination of genres to be retrieved and analysed separately" (Kuiera
and Francis 1967: xvii).

2.5 Corpus linguistics (III)

- While corpus linguistics has been practised across the ages, it was not until the publication of the
Brown Corpus (over 1 million words) that corpus linguistics became a systematised discipline.
- Corpora derive their entries from written or spoken texts, or both.
- They can:
• Range from containing a few million words to hundreds of billions
• General or specific in context
• Contain samples of one variety or many dialects
• Be ongoing or no longer updated.
- There are many different corpora just for the English language, some of them gathered in groups
or clusters of corpora: the International Corpus of English (ICE), the British National Corpus,
the American National Corpus, and the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA).

Class activity
Choose one of the four corpora discussed today (the International Corpus of English (ICE), the
British National Corpus, the American National Corpus, and the Corpus of Contemporary American
English) and look for information on it, including number of lexical items collected, features of the
corpus, and time period, dialect and genres covered. It is monolingual.

The number of lexical items collected are 100 million words, from 1980 to the early 1990 (from the
later 20th century). The genres that are covered are the spoken language, fiction, magazine,

regional and national newspapers words and academic ones These demonstrate exactly how a word
or phrase is used in context by real language speakers across a variety of registers. Syntax. Consider
the following three examples.

[like] for (p*] to [v*] (I'd really like for you to stay). There are 5 tokens in the BNC, but 352 tokens
in COCA. With the BNC there aren't enough examples to see if this is a feature of informal or
formal English, but the data from COCA show that it is clearly a feature of spoken English. The
data also shows that it is increasing slowly over time, when compared as a ratio to the construction
[like -- him to V].

Many others, however, are words that are simply much more common in COCA, Non: website
(COCA/BNC), blog (COCA/BNC), globalization/globalisation(COCA/BNC), SUV, RPG, Taliban

Class activity #2
Access the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), Create and account and then do
some research on the word crisis. Provide information on the frequency of the word at all levels:
total frequency, frequency in context in all different sections, and frequency by period. Provide
additional examples of KWIC and words it collocates with/clusters. In which sections does the
word crisis occur more often? How about time periods? Give particular details about the sections.
Then do the same with a word you choose.

Total frequency: 67256

Frequency in blogs: 8791
Frequency in webs: 9197
Frequency in TV and movies: 2405
Frequency in spoken dialogue: 13046
Frequency in fiction: 1686
Frequency in magazines: 8926
Frequency in news: 11294
Frequency in academy: 11921
Frequency from 1990-94: 10554
Frequency from 1995-99: 6799
Frequency from 2000-04: 7022

 Frequency from 2005-09: 7613

Frequency from 2010-14: 9293
Frequency from 2015-19: 7997

Examples of KWIC: financial, economic, global, nuclear…

Words it collocates with:

Noun debt, gulf, energy, missile, identity, response, budget, management

Verb face, cause, deal, solve, resolve, address, respond, handle
ADJ nancial, economic, global, current, political, humanitarian, international, cuban
ADV eg, peacefully, squarely, head-on, diplomatically, alarmingly, thirdly

Clusters

3. Recent Developments in Applied Linguistics and Future Perspectives.

3.1 Translation technology (I)
- Translation is the communication of what is said in a source text through an equivalent in the target
language.
• Translating vs interpreting
- In the classical period there was a distinction between metaphrase (formal equivalence) and paraphrase
(functional equivalence).
• Equivalence (lat. aequivalentem, “equal in power/value”): formal or functional.
- Translation has been a part of civilisation since ancient times:
• Epic of Gilgamesh (c. 2000 BC): from Sumerian to Southwest Asian languages.
• Alfred the Great commissioned translations of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History into Old English in the 9th
century.
• King Alfonso X the Wise: Schola Traductorum in Toledo (13th century).

3.1 Translation technology (II)

- Automatised Russian-English translation (and vice versa) as a response to Cold War tensions from the
1950s onwards.
fi

 - Early MT (Machine Translation) programs: bilingual dictionaries with source language to target
language equivalents.
- The “semantic barrier”: literal vs figurative meaning.
- 1980s: development of multilingual communities and Japanese software monopoly.
- 1990s: MT and corpus linguistics.
- Present day: MT software and online applications.

3.1 Translation technology (III)

- Machine Translation (MT): the use of a translation program to translate text without human input in the
translation process.
• They employ AI (artificial intelligence) to translate sequences of text into different languages.
• Different types: Statistical Machine Translation (SMT): Rule-Based Machine Translation (RBMT):
Hybrid Machine Translation (HMT), and Neural Machine Translation (NMT).
• Examples: Google Translate, Deepl, Reverso.
- Computer-Assisted Translation (CAT): translation with the aid of a computer program, usually a
database containing examples of previously translated sentences, phrases and other stretches of speech.
• CAT relies heavily on Translation Memories (TM):
• These cam be either interactive or automatic.
• Examples: SDL Trados Studio, Matecat, Memoq.

Class Activity #1

Translate the following fragment from Edgar A. Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" “During the whole
of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the
heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country, and at length
found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher." If
possible, do not use the assistance of any software.

Durante la totalidad de un día aburrido, oscuro y silencioso de otoño, cuando las nubes se cernían
opresivamente bajas en los cielos, yo paseaba a caballo solo, a través de un tramo especialmente deprimente
del campo, y finalmente, al mismo tiempo que las sombras de la noche se trazaban, pude ver la melancólica
Casa Usher.

Now translate the fragment using the three most popular MT tools (Google Translate, Reverso, DeepL)
and answer the following questions:
Reverso:
Durante todo un día aburrido, oscuro y silencioso en el otoño del año, cuando las nubes colgaban
opresivamente bajo en los cielos, yo había estado pasando sola, a caballo, a través de un tramo singularmente
lúgubre del país, y por fin me encontré, mientras las sombras de la noche se dibujaban, a la vista de la
melancólica Casa de Usher.

 Google Translate:
Durante todo un día aburrido, oscuro y silencioso en el otoño del año, cuando las nubes colgaban
opresivamente bajo en los cielos, yo había estado pasando sola, a caballo, a través de un tramo singularmente
lúgubre del país, y por fin me encontré, mientras las sombras de la noche se dibujaban, a la vista de la
melancólica Casa de Usher.

Deepl:
Durante todo un día aburrido, oscuro y silencioso del otoño del año, cuando las nubes colgaban
opresivamente bajas en los cielos, había estado pasando solo, a caballo, a través de una extensión de terreno
singularmente lúgubre, y al final me encontré, cuando las sombras de la tarde se acercaban, a la vista de la
melancólica Casa de Usher.

a) Are there differences in the translations?

Yes, although they are minor. Google Translate and Reverso seem to be more literal, while Deepl produces a
more free but overall better translation.
b) Are there any fragments that offer a non-literal translation? Why do you think that is the case?

3.2 Clinical linguistics (I)

- Clinical linguistics: “The application of linguistic theories, methods and descriptive findings to the
analysis of medical conditions or settings involving a disorder for (or pathology) of language” (Crystal
80).
- Clinical linguistics work in association with speech therapists or audiologists in helping assess, diagnose
and cure disorders in the are of language production and comprehension, whether spoken or written.
- The settings in which clinical linguistics operate are either clinical or educational: e.g. a six-year-old
child receives help from a teacher and then goes to a speech clinic in order to receive help from a speech
therapist.
- Clinical linguistics has moved from focusing on easily noticeable symptoms (such as pronunciation,
word order and omission, and grammatical elements) to less noticeable, underlying causes. One example
is Broca’s aphasia/Non-fluent aphasia, which is a language disorder that happens after a stroke that causes
effortful speech. Intelligence remains intact, but people with this disorder have trouble finding the words.
Another example is Fluent aphasia, which makes the patient have poor language comprehension. Speech
is effortless; however, meaning is impaired. We can also find Childhood Apraxia, which affects children
and makes it difficult for them to pronounce very simple sounds.

3.2 Clinical linguistics (III)

- Clinical linguists struggle to identify disorders of language comprehension by comparison to those
related to language production.
• It is easier to perceive that a child has made an error in pronunciation than to make sure that they have
actually understood the message you are trying to convey.
• Contextual speech-related problems have traditionally been attributed to psychological or behavioural
reasons (Asperger’s syndrome or autism).

 - History of language pathology

• 19th century: neurologists diagnose and treat aphasic (and other disorder) individuals and describe their
utterances.
• Early 20th century: utterances were systematically transcribed by phonetically trained speech and
language professionals.
• Mid-20th century: development of tests of language acquisition to determine the degree of severity of
the disorder.
• 1970s: emergence of sophisticated accounts of most disorders alongside potential treatment/therapy
routes.

3.2 Clinical linguistics (IV)

“To apply linguistics in the domain of speech and hearing pathology requires that the linguist, first and
foremost, be aware of what counts as clinical criteria. When linguists are not aware of clinical criteria, they
run the risk of their observations, no matter how well-Intentioned, being inapplicable, for a variety of
reasons. We must therefore begin with an explicit statement of what clinicians feel to be reeded, in order do
obtain progress in their work. Such points as the following hare been routinely cited in clinical discussions,
and I am happy to use them as a perspective within which to work the cardinal importance of patient
remediation as the end of the exercise; the need to integrate the range of intermediate clinical skills
(screening, assessment, diagnosis) in relation so chis end; the concern to integrate the methods and findings
of the various remedial professions. Above all, I note the concern to develop an explicitly principled therapy,
which can provide a basis for explaining both the successes and the failures in working with patients, and
thus a more conscious professionalism. Clinical confidence comes when one is in a position to verify the
efficacy of one's therapeutic strategies. Clinical insight comes when one's training enables one to see
systemicness in a mass of data, and to make predictions about the patient’s progress in response to teaching
strategies. It is in relation so these two aims — clinical insight and confidence — that the application of
linguistics can make its main contribution”.

3.2 Clinical linguistics (V)

 Class activity #1
Find examples in which clinical linguistics has successfully contributed to the development of treatments or
therapy of language-related disorders. This is an example: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/972147.
Explain how clinical linguistics was put into practice and what the treatment consisted of.

The object of this study was a 3-year-old boy named Arjuna El Sharif Uwaish. The method used was diary
and observation. The research design used was longitudinal studies. This study was conducted for 12 months
and is sustainable. Techniques of data collection was done through techniques refer, record, and record. This
technique includes activities viewing the daily activities of children while recording sounds resembling
words and then transcribe the recording in the form of writing. As for the conclusion of data, there are 22
phonetic sounds from the phonological aspects, there are 85 morphemes (both whole and partial morphemes)
from the morphological aspect, and from the syntactic aspect, Arjuna only able to produce 11 sentences
either major or minor. Based on the data analysis, it was concluded that Arjuna case including children who
suffer from language disorder of subcortical motor affasia language disorder. The imperfect child produces
speech in the form of a word even though he understands what the other person is talking about, the speaker's
command, the other's request, and the like. The cause of speech delay is caused due to environmental factors
so it needs to be followed up through medical assistance, such as specialist child-grown doctor, psychologist,
and therapist.

https://www.atlantis-press.com/article/55907994.pdf

3.3 Speech recognition (I)

- Speech recognition (also known as Automatic Speech Recognition or Computer Speech Recognition)
which is focused on developing systems that recognise and translate spoken language into computer
text.
- Speech recognition is an interdisciplinary discipline that incorporates research in computer science,
computational linguistics and computer engineering.
- Speech recognition can be used in dictation, system control/navigation, commercial and industrial
applications, and voice dialing, among others.
- Speech recognition was first introduced as a possibility in the early 1950’s and 1960s with “Audrey” and
IBM’s “Shoebox” and has been developed ever since until the present stage.
- There are different processes involved in speech recognition: digitisation, signal processing, phonetics,
phonology, lexicology and syntax.
3.3 Speech Recognition (III)
- How do computers do it?

3.3 Speech recognition (IV)

- There are two types of speech recognition:
A. Speaker dependant software: it learns the unique characteristics of a single person’s voice by
“training” the software.
B. Speaker independent software: it is generally designed to recognise human voice but for not any
particular human’s
- Which one do you think is more generally used with systematic user interaction systems (i.e. smartphones,
computers and virtual assistants)?
It depends on the software.
- Which one do you think will contain a larger lexicon?
It depends as well. Speaker independent tends to be more sophisticated in that regard, though.
- Which one do you think is less accurate?
Speaker independent. If a system learns to recognise your voice, patterns and tones, it will be more accurate.
- How are neural networks important for the improvement of speech recognition?

- The process for speech recognition is as follows: speaker recognition — speech recognition (background
noise filtering) — parsing and arbitration — systematised response

3.3 Speech recognition (V)

Class activity #l:
Read the following article and answer the questions below:
https:/www.Amescience.com/future/ai-for-speech-recornition-is-nearing-a-watershed-moment/
a) What are the main problems that speech recognition needs to overcome for accurate transcriptions?
That it also has to recognise accent, pitch and tone, and not only sound.
b) What does the author mean by saying that 92% of accuracy is fairly comparable to human rates?
The author is conveying in the text that the accuracy of speech recognition softwares are nearly to human
capacities but are not able to recognise words such as homophones.
c) What are the two main shortcomings of voice recognition?
The main problem is that it is only best useable in English, as it is the language with greater demand and one
of the languages with more available data, making it easier to train the models in English than in any other
languages. Thus, speech recognition is less developed in other languages. The other problem is security.
Hackers can confuse speech recognition systems and get them to perform unwanted actions, or access your
private messages and documents by peaking to what your device is saying.

Class activity #2:

a) Using your laptop or smartphone speech recognition system, input the following sentences:
- The philosopher pulled the lower jaw of the hen
The philosopher pull the lower jaw of the hen
- My sons have bought the mirrors of the Duke

- The cat of my aunt is more treacherous than the do of your uncle.

- Thou art the grave where burled love doth live