Defining issues in Ed Ling

[Dan Douglas]

Regarding the re-examination of basic concepts defining educational
linguistics, one such would be Cummins' BICS/CALP distinction (which is
related to what Bernard and others have already mentioned as the "gap
between school languages and home languages", I think)  We need a clearer
understanding of precisely what we mean by "school language" and "home
language", and this would underlie our need for up-to-date assessment
instruments, particularly in bi/multilingual contexts.

Cheers,
Dan

At 09:55 PM 12/14/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>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.]
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>Leslie
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Professor, TESL/Applied Linguistics Program
Co-editor, Language Testing
English Department
Iowa State University
Ames, IA 50011, USA
Phone: (515) 294-9365
Fax: (515) 294-6814
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