Journal of Linguistics and Language Teaching

Volume 3 (2012) Issue 1 (PDF)

pp. 9-11

Foreword to the Issue

This issue of JLLT - the first one in the journal’s third year - presents five articles and one book review, and covers the range between pure linguistics and language acquisition both in the foreign language classroom and regarding autonomous learning.

The present issue is opened up by an article by Matthias Schoormann (Münster, Germany) and Torsten Schlak (†) (Berlin, Germany) who, in the framework of the cognitive-interactionist approach, describe and analyse oral strategies of correction in second and foreign language teaching. The authors give an overview of various theoretical and empirical studies dealing with feedback-providing strategies and focusing on prompts and recasts. Being clearly aware of the fact that there is no general agreement on whether input-providing strategies or output-eliciting strategies are more favourable in terms of correctional feedback, the authors give some tentative rules which will help teachers to evaluate the potential of different feedback strategies for specific classroom situations. The authors also point to the fact that giving corrective feedback to students represents a highly complex procedure and influences students’ learning in various ways.

Feedback-based interaction in the foreign language classroom is also the focus of the second article by Philipp Chappell (Sydney, Australia), who studies the role of imitation in second language learning from a sociocultural perspective. On the background of the wide acceptance of the influence of imitation on the acquisition of linguistic competence, the author systematises interactive processes in the foreign language classroom, showing to what extent the pedagogic practices he analyses can lead to assist students in their language development.

In the context of her studies published in JLLT 1 (2010) 2 (pp. 241-269) and JLLT 2 (2011) 2 (299-323), Shing-Lung Chen (Kaohsiung, Taiwan) describes a self-developed model for an evaluation system for foreign language conversations. On the basis of this model, conversations, held in a foreign language, can be evaluated  in terms of their communicative functions and the analysis of the missing steps for successful communication. In this way, the system helps learners to reach their respective communicative goal by following the communicative pattern which underlies a given situation. This model represents an important progress in research, given that up until recently, corresponding systems have only been able to function to evaluate students’ performance in grammar and pronunciation.

In a purely linguistic approach, Angela Weißhaar (Mainz / Göttingen / Bremen, Germany) presents an analysis of an Internet video of the French-German TV station ARTE which features African immigrants living in France. In her article, the way these immigrants are presented in the French original and the German voice-over version is examined. It is found that the two versions differ considerably, with the immigrants in question being presented rather unfavourably in the German version.

In a typological comparative study which refers to German, Russian, English, and Spanish, Viktor Hofmann (Berlin, Germany) proposes the classification (concrete) vs. (abstract) which is claimed to be among the most significative ones as far as the classification of verbs is concerned. Numerous examples from grammars of these four language are given to support this claim. The classification proposed can be of help for the teaching and learning of Russian grammar: grouping Russian and German verbs according to this classification can have a positive impact on the teaching and learning process.

In an LSP (Languages for specific purposes) approach, Cornelia Gerhardt and Sybille Neumann (both Saarbrücken, Germany) deal with content and language integrated learning (CLIL) and describe the outcome of a lecture on contract law held in French to German students at a German university of applied sciences. Considering the university context as well as the linguistic policy of the German state Saarland, the authors present their project on the background of relevant CLIL criteria. Positive evaluations by students showed that they would prefer being offered more lectures of the type presented, in which a foreign language - and not only and exclusively English - is used as the medium of instruction.

The present issue is rounded off by two reviews. The first  one is by Thomas Tinnefeld (Saarbrücken, Germany) on the book Multilinguals are …? published by Madalena Cruz-Ferreira in 2010. The second one is by Marta Gómez Moreno (Granada, Spain) on The Use of Psychomotor Activities in Teaching Children English As a Foreign Language published by Elaine Hewitt in 2011. 

Editor and editorial board hope that these contributions to JLLT will be of an inspiring quality and meet with our readers’ approval. The thematic range of the issue is wide enough to gain many colleagues’, teachers’ and students’ interest, but narrow enough so as to keep the consistency of the journal’s approach.

Thomas Tinnefeld

JLLT

Editor