Teaching and learning interaction in an African multilingual setting. Learning texts and speech genres in and out of school
Teaching and learning interactions in an African multilingual setting. Learning texts and speech genres in and out of school.
In my research on children’s learning in Cameroon I have used a community of practice (CoP) perspective (Wenger 1998) along with cognitive linguistics (CL). CL strongly anchors meaning to individual experience in actual language use situations while the CoP perspective provides better understanding of interactional settings. My data come from videotaped interactional data recorded during participant observations of village life and ca. 100 hours of classroom observations.
In my presentation, the Bakhtinian concept of speech genres (Bakhtin 1986 [1979]) is used to describe linguistic structures that are closely tied to interaction. Speech genres are generalized schemas from repeated usage events in recurring situations, thus becoming conventionalized linguistic units (Langacker 2001). Mastery of the relevant speech genres of different interactional contexts are important skills to learn for children.
My presentation focus on the informal village learning environments. Playing social games is here a way of practising language skills and speech genres. Traditional tales provide the children with other learning material through focusing e.g. on foolish vs. smart behaviours. Both kinds of village learning environment connect children with a cultural frame of reference (Klapproth 2004), giving deeper resonance to everyday talk. However, such informal learning is invisible in Cameroonian schools, where French is the language of instruction.
In the multilingual encounters of Cameroonian children, we see the development of speech genres through participation in communities of practice in and out of school, important tools in all multicultural teaching and learning interactions.
References
Bakhtin, M. (1986 [1979]). Speech genres and other late essays. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Klapproth, D. M. (2004). Narrative as Social Practice. Anglo-Western and Australian Aboriginal oral traditions. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Langacker, R. W. (2001). Discourse in Cognitive Grammar. Cognitive Linguistics, 12 (2), 143-188.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice. Learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge University Press.
In my research on children’s learning in Cameroon I have used a community of practice (CoP) perspective (Wenger 1998) along with cognitive linguistics (CL). CL strongly anchors meaning to individual experience in actual language use situations while the CoP perspective provides better understanding of interactional settings. My data come from videotaped interactional data recorded during participant observations of village life and ca. 100 hours of classroom observations.
In my presentation, the Bakhtinian concept of speech genres (Bakhtin 1986 [1979]) is used to describe linguistic structures that are closely tied to interaction. Speech genres are generalized schemas from repeated usage events in recurring situations, thus becoming conventionalized linguistic units (Langacker 2001). Mastery of the relevant speech genres of different interactional contexts are important skills to learn for children.
My presentation focus on the informal village learning environments. Playing social games is here a way of practising language skills and speech genres. Traditional tales provide the children with other learning material through focusing e.g. on foolish vs. smart behaviours. Both kinds of village learning environment connect children with a cultural frame of reference (Klapproth 2004), giving deeper resonance to everyday talk. However, such informal learning is invisible in Cameroonian schools, where French is the language of instruction.
In the multilingual encounters of Cameroonian children, we see the development of speech genres through participation in communities of practice in and out of school, important tools in all multicultural teaching and learning interactions.
References
Bakhtin, M. (1986 [1979]). Speech genres and other late essays. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Klapproth, D. M. (2004). Narrative as Social Practice. Anglo-Western and Australian Aboriginal oral traditions. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Langacker, R. W. (2001). Discourse in Cognitive Grammar. Cognitive Linguistics, 12 (2), 143-188.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice. Learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge University Press.
Publisert i Mobility, Language, Literacy, 2011
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