Defining issues in Ed Ling

[Bernard Spolsky]

For me, I suspect, the "top problem" remains the gap between school
languages and home languages, and the lack of a theoretical model that can
form the basis for practical ways of overcoming the language barrier to
education facing so many pupils.
Bernard Spolsky   spolsb at mail.biu.ac.il

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-edling at ccat.sas.upenn.edu
[mailto:owner-edling at ccat.sas.upenn.edu] On Behalf Of Leslie K Harsch
Sent: Monday, December 15, 2003 4:56 AM
To: edling at ccat.sas.upenn.edu
Subject: Defining issues in Ed Ling


In a recent issue of Working Papers in Ed Linguistics (18,2), the
editors mull over proposed definitions of our field:

>Spolsky's vision of educational linguistics was
>that it would be a field of (applied) linguistics, much like educational
psychology or educational
>sociology are fields of their disciplines proper, that "start[s] with a
specific problem and then looks
>to linguistics and other relevant disciplines for their contribution to its
solution" (1978: 2).
>
>
> Following from a recent discussion about definition, I'm drawing up a
> list of the top "problems" in our field.  When you consider
> educational linguistics overall, what problems, theoretical or
> practical, most need to be tackled right now and why?  Is there a
> pressing need for a basic concept (such as communicative competence)
> to be re-examined?  What connections urgently need to be made?
> The following is one example:  I suspect that educational linguistics
> could benefit from an integrated model of sociolinguistic and
> cognitive approaches to SLA, not only to refine theory but for the
> sake of solving specific teaching questions, such as what ways are
> available to improve the grammatical accuracy of second language
> students' writing?  One such attempt is proposed by Dwight Atkinson
> ["Toward a Sociocognitive Approach to Second Language Acquisition."
> The Modern Language Journal 86 (4): 525-545.]


Leslie






>
>