Metalinguistic Education in the 21st Century

• Kaisu Rättyä
  My aim in this presentation is to present a model of teacher’s knowledge in grammar teaching (GraT). The model combines different perspectives of knowledge which teachers need in teaching situations, which concern metalinguistic awareness and activities. The theoretical orientation is drawn from subject matter didactics (Fachdidaktik) and pedagogical content knowledge. I apply Pamela Grossman’s (1990) model of teacher’s pedagogical content knowledge, which is developed from Lee Shulman’s (1987) concept pedagogical content knowledge. I look at Grossman’s model with ideas of meaningful learning and effective learning (Novak, 2010) in which the requirements for meaningful learning are following: relevant prior knowledge, meaningful material and learners' willingness to learn meaningfully.
  
  The main parts of GraT-knowledge are a) teacher’s knowledge of student’s knowledge and beliefs of grammatical structures and metalanguage, b) teacher's curricular knowledge and critical reading of learning materials and c) teacher’s knowledge of teaching and evaluation methods and learning theories behind them. These knowledge areas are connected with content knowledge of languages and metalanguage as well as didactic knowledge on learning and students. These parts are described in my presentation with examples.
  
  References
  Grossman, P. (1990). The making of a teacher. Teacher knowledge and teacher education. New York: Teachers College Press.
  Novak, J. D. (2010). Learning, creating, and using knowledge: concept maps as facilitative tools in schools and corporations (2nd edition). New York: Routledge.
  Shulman, L. (1987). Knowledge and teaching: Foundations of the new reform. Harvard Educational Review 57(1), 1–22.
• Ana Luísa Costa
  The aim of this study on early argumentative writing is to contribute with some empirical evidence to the characterization of linguistic knowledge (and linguistic awareness) mobilized during the writing process. Further, the development of argumentative writing in the first years of formal education will be brought into discussion.
  Although some literature on writing development conceives argumentative writing as a late skill, some research supports the importance of promoting argumentative writing since the beginning of writing composition (Brassart, 1990; Leal &Morais, 2006) in order to improve «linguistic literacy» (Berman, 2004).
  
  In the beginning of orthographic writing, it is possible to distinguish a stage focused on graphic and orthographic skills and a second stage of expansion in the compositional dimension of writing, in which the ability to structure language in textual units emerges. The empirical study includes 49 texts written by 37 children from the 2nd grade and 24 texts written by 24 children from the 4th grade. Linguistic and textual features required to argumentative writing were analyzed (for instance, in the macrostructure, the presence of an explicit point of view, the number of arguments and the adequacy of the conclusion; and in the microstructure, grammar cohesion strategies, complex sentences, as well as orthographic and punctuation uses).
  
  Curricular documents and Portuguese syllabi over the past 30 years have neglected argumentative writing in the 1st cycle of Basic Education. The results of this study seem to point towards a different curricular path, where writing skills may constitute a challenge for linguistic development.
  
  References
  Berman, R. (2004). Between emergence and mastery. The long development route of language acquisition. In R. Berman (ed.). Language development across childhood and adolescence.Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 9-34.
  Brassart, D. (1990). Le développement des capacités discursives chez l’enfant de 8 à 12 ans. Revue Française de Pédagogie, n.º 90, pp. 31-41.
  Leal, T. & Morais, A. (2006). A argumentação em textos escritos: a criança e a escola. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica.
• Xavier Fontich
  Studies have described pupils’ grammar concepts as an unstructured conglomerate of procedural and declarative knowledge, with scarce operationality in the writing process. They suggest ways to better articulate grammar instruction, under the assumption that it will make concepts retrievable within the context of writing; for this to happen, interaction plays a major role (cf. Fontich & García-Folgado in evaluation).
  
  Here, teachers’ beliefs are approached as the fundamental puzzle to disentangle how to support teachers into developing interaction-based interventions, underpinned by academic-practitioner collaboration (Lantolf & Poehner 2014). A questionnaire designed to explore teachers’ beliefs allows, through a conglomerate analysis, for grouping teachers (n=94) in different tendencies, further explored with semi-structured interviews (n=6). Teachers share in different degrees a tendency to see grammar instruction as stuck within the explicit/implicit grammar dichotomy, which can be overcome through classroom interaction. This idea becomes more robust throughout a cycle of seminars, in which instructional sequences are designed. Nonetheless, analysis of the dialogues within the classroom show the obstacles teachers encounter (e.g., unanticipated pupils’ difficulties when reflecting upon certain structures used in their writings).
  
  Results suggest that making teachers’ beliefs explicit allow for re-examining the role of interaction and for locating it as the backbone of the grammar-writing interplay. Also, beyond a research methodology, interaction stands as a teacher education procedure. Last, accessing interaction within the classroom appears as the crux of the matter to better understand the difficulties in learning and to discuss and introduce changes in the instructional sequences, meant to be put anew under scrutiny.
  
  References
  Fontich, X. and García-Folgado, M.J. In evaluation. Grammar instruction in the Hispanic area with a special focus in Spain: A contribution towards a “state-of-the-art”. L1-Educational Studies in Language and Literature.
  Lantolf, J.P. and Poehner, M.E. 2014. Sociocultural theory and the pedagogical imperative in L2 education: Vygotskian Praxis and the Research/Practice Divide. London: Routledge.