General Education and Language Teaching Methodology: The Gdansk School of ELT

174 Pages·2015·1.258 MB·

by  Karolina Janczukowicz, Mikolaj Rychlo

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ISBN 978-3-631-64919-0
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Gdan´sk Studies in Language 3 3 Gdan´sk Studies in Language 3
)
s.
d
e
(
o
ł
h
c
Karolina Janczukowicz / Mikołaj Rychło (eds.) y
R Karolina Janczukowicz / Mikołaj Rychło (eds.)
M.
General Education and Language
/
z
Teaching Methodology c General Education
i
w
o
This book presents a selection of papers The Editors k
on teaching English as a foreign language Karolina Janczukowicz is Assistant Profes­ zu and Language Teaching
and the role of language education in hu­ sor at the Institute of English and Amer­ c
n
man development. As thinking skills rely ican Studies at the University of Gdan´sk, a
J
on language, language education should Poland. Her academic interests include K. Methodology
exceed utilitarian and everyday commu­ psycholinguistics and teaching pronunci­
nicative needs and should be the basis ation to secondary school students.
for developing other school subjects. The Mikołaj Rychło is Assistant Professor of ey
gg
book provides practical suggestions for English and Linguistics at the Institute ao
The Gdan´sk School of ELT
language teaching, for the development of English and American Studies at the ul
o
g
of logical thinking and the understanding University of Gdan´sk, Poland. His current nd
of the linguistic relationship between the research interests include historical ao
first and the second languages in a histori­ linguistics, etymology, Polish­English Lh
cal perspective. cognates and philosophy of language d et
education. nM
n ang
oi
ih
atc
ca
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GSLA 03_264919_Janczukowicz_HOF_A5HC PLE edition new.indd 1 12.05.15 12:03
General Education and Language Teaching Methodology
GDAŃSK STUDIES IN LANGUAGE
Edited by Danuta Stanulewicz

VOLUME 3

Advisory Board

Tadeusz Danilewicz (University of Gda sk, Poland)
Laura A. Janda (UiT The Arctic University of Norway)
Roman Kalisz (Wy sza Szkoła J zyków Obcychń, wiecie, Poland)
Ewa Komorowska (University of Szczecin, Poland)
Wojciech Kżubi ski (Unięversity of Gda skŚ, Poland)
Ronald Langacker (University of California, San Diego, USA)
El bieta Ma czak-Wńohlfeld (Jagiellonian Uńniversity, Poland)
Galina Paramei (Liverpool Hope University, UK)
Mażłgorzata Rńocławska-Daniluk (University of Gda sk, Poland)
Olga Sokołowska (University of Gda sk, Poland)
Kazimierz A. Sroka (Polonia University in Cz stochńowa, Poland)
Maria Wysocka (University of Silesńia, Poland)
ę
Karolina Janczukowicz / Mikołaj Rychło (eds.)

General Education and Language
Teaching Methodology

The Gda sk School of ELT

ń
Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche
Nationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the
Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is
available in the internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
General education and language teaching methodology : the Gdansk School
of ELT / Karolina Janczukowicz, Mikolaj Rychlo (eds.).
pages cm. -- (Gdansk studies in language ; volume 3)
Includes index.
ISBN 978-3-631-64919-0 (Print) -- ISBN 978-3-653-03987-0 (E-Book) 1.
English language--Study and teaching--Methodology. I. Janczukowicz, Ka-
rolina, 1973- editor. II. Rychlo, Mikolaj, editor.
PE1065.G44 2015
428.0071--dc23
2015014887

This Publication was financially supported by
the Faculty of Philology of the University of Gda sk

ń
ISSN 2196-016X
ISBN 978-3-631-64919-0 (Print)
E-ISBN 978-3-653-03987-0 (E-Book)
DOI 10.3726/ 978-3-653-03987-0
© Peter Lang GmbH
Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften
Frankfurt am Main 2015
All rights reserved.
Peter Lang Edition is an Imprint of Peter Lang GmbH.
Peter Lang – Frankfurt am Main ∙ Bern ∙ Bruxelles ∙ New York ∙
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Table of contents
Introduction ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������7
Karolina Janczukowicz and Mikołaj Rychło
I� General education ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������9
A direction of general education ������������������������������������������������������������������������������11
Ryszard Wenzel
Two languages in one mind: Towards a definition
of the conscious bilingual ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������25
Marta Smalara-Lewandowska
The philological element in the education of a language teacher:
Understanding the similarity between English and Polish �����������������������������������43
Mikołaj Rychło
II� ELT methodology �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������57
Aim-centered methodology ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������59
Karolina Janczukowicz
On the motivation of adult learners in English language education �������������������77
Olga Aleksandrowska
Expressing knowledge as a personal educational event ����������������������������������������95
Michał Daszkiewicz
III� Didactic implications ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������111
Language education and teaching by the learner’s text creation
Ryszard Wenzel ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������113
Texts of culture in English language education
Olga Aleksandrowska �����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������135
6 Table of contents
Testing as a source of personal educational experience
Michał Daszkiewicz �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������147
Author Index ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������167
Subject Index ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������171
Introduction
Karolina Janczukowicz and Mikołaj Rychło
The ideas presented in this book are an overview of an alternative attitude to-
wards education within the sphere of language, with important implications
for second language education� These views began to take shape in the nineties,
with the publication in 1991 of Ryszard Wenzel’s book about his Text Creation
Method1 and acquired further clarity in 1994 when he published his General
Theory�2 Since then new ideas have developed around that theory, mostly within
the circles of Gdańsk University’s Institute of English and American Studies and
its Institute of Education� The first person to coin the phrase the Gdańsk School
of ELT was Roman Kalisz in the review of the second PhD thesis influenced by
the views of Ryszard Wenzel�
The proposal presented in this book concerns not merely teaching English
(or any other language) as a second language, but a holistic theory on the role
of language in the development of a human being and the place that education
(in its many formal and informal manifestations) should have in order to fully
realize the human potential� One of the main premises of this theory is that since
human mental development and thinking skills rely on language, it is education
within the sphere of language that should be the basis for developing other as-
pects of knowledge or other subjects� Furthermore, developing language entails
developing, in a conscious way, at least two languages – the native and a second
one, which is then referred to as conscious bilingualism�
The need to educate a person within two languages entails an approach to
second language teaching that would transcend utilitarian and everyday com-
municative needs, and fulfil the role of an agent in the mental development of the
learner� That is why the methodology represented by the Gdańsk School of ELT
emphasizes such notions as higher language functions, cognitive appeal, cogni-
tive creative motivation, personalness, and meaningful learning with the use of
etymology in the process of language learning� In contrast to many other current
second language teaching approaches, the methodology described here (called
1 Wenzel, Ryszard (1991)� Jak uczyć języka obcego poprzez samodzielne tworzenie tekstu.
Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Szkolne i Pedagogiczne�
2 Wenzel, Ryszard (1994)� A General Theory of Language Education� Gdańsk:
Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego�
8 Karolina Janczukowicz and Mikołaj Rychło
aim-centered methodology) emphasizes the need for balancing the development
of communicative skills against development at structural, lexical and phonetic
levels� Without contradicting the discoveries and solutions of other theorists, it
attempts to place these solutions within the overall curriculum in such a way
that they would contribute not only to the development of everyday commu-
nication but also to the development within the sphere of logical thinking and
metaphorization�
The last aspect of the approach to teaching advocated by the Gdańsk School of
ELT pertains to the practical implications within the sphere of language educa-
tion, such as how to introduce the grammar or vocabulary of a new language so
as to enable the learner to convey fairly complex messages, what kind of materi-
als to rely on, or how to approach testing�
The nine papers that constitute this volume have been placed within three
sections in accordance with the areas delineated above – that is, the realm of
general education, methodology, and didactic implications� In the first part, the
paper by R� Wenzel presents an overview of the School’s educational theory in
its current state, a development of the ideas originally presented in his General
Theory of Language Education and The Education of a Language Teacher,3 while
the paper by M� Smalara-Lewandowska presents and elaborates on the notion of
conscious bilingualism� The last paper in this section, by M� Rychło, sheds light
on vocabulary seen across languages and through historical changes, in this way
allowing for a deeper understanding of the true conscious bilingual�
The second part starts with a paper by K� Janczukowicz describing the cru-
cial features of aimed-centered methodology; next a three-tiered model of mo-
tivation (with special focus on adults) is presented by O� Aleksandrowska; the
section concludes with M� Daszkiewicz’s views on the aspect of personalness in
teaching, putting forward the notion of the educational event�
The final part starts with R� Wenzel’s proposal of goals to be guided by in
teaching a language, together with practical examples of second language les-
sons� In the second paper of this part of the book O� Aleksandrowska presents
texts of culture as materials beneficial in teaching a second language� In the last
paper, M� Daszkiewicz presents testing as a vital part of the process of teaching�
We are particularly grateful to prof� Roman Kalisz for the inspiration to cre-
ate this book, to prof� Danuta Stanulewicz, for her constant help in revising and
editing and to dr Michał Daszkiewicz for his contribution to its overall structure�
3 Wenzel, Ryszard (2001)� The Education of a Language Teacher� Gdańsk: Wydawnictwo
Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego�