Beyond The Abstracts: Rethinking Language Teaching

Description

In this episode of Beyond the Abstracts I speak with Professor David Little. David Little is a Fellow Emeritus of Trinity College Dublin and was director of the College’s Centre for Language and Communication Studies from 1979 to 2005. His principal research interests are the theory and practice of learner autonomy in language education, the management of linguistic diversity in schools and classrooms, and the use of the CEFR to support the design of L2 curricula, learning programmes and assessment. David has published more than 70 articles and book chapters and authored/co-authored/edited several books on language learner autonomy. Starting in 1998, he played a leading role in the development and implementation of the ELP(European Language Portfolio) at national and European levels. From 2000 to 2008 he was non-stipendiary director of Integrate Ireland Language and Training, a not-for-profit campus company that was funded by the Irish government to provide intensive English language courses for adult refugees and to support the teaching and learning of English as an Additional Language in Irish schools.

And now, here is my conversation with David Little:

https://youtu.be/j7S5F7XaKVQ

In this wide-ranging conversation we cover David’s own experiences learning French and German with the grammar-translation method, and his early encounters with self-access learning in the 1970’s. We then turn to our main focus - his 2022 paper Language learner autonomy: Rethinking language teaching. David reveals what it was like to attend Leni Dam’s seminar in 1985, and the roles of the dialogic classroom community, endless written and spoken production in the target language, learner control of learning and resource creation, reflection and self-expression, and evaluation in promoting language learner autonomy. David strongly affirms the importance of enacting this wholistic pedagogical choice in language classrooms. We also discuss relations to the principles of competence and relatedness in Self-Determination Theory. Lastly, we turn to David’s work in Ireland, with refugee, deaf, and EAL learners, and also Council of Europe projects on the ELP and plurilingualism. He explains how these long-term endeavours have deepened and confirmed his understanding of language learner autonomy, also describing desirable changes at the systemic level including to teacher education. Finally, David offers encouragement and advice to budding educational researchers – to engage in longitudinal projects that provide value to people above all else.

 

Learn More:

 

• Little, D. (2022). Language learner autonomy: Rethinking language teaching. Language Teaching, 55(1), 64–73. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261444820000488
• Little, D., Dam, L., & Legenhausen, L. (2017). Language Learner Autonomy: Theory, Practice and Research. Multilingual Matters. https://doi.org/doi:10.21832/9781783098606
• Little, D., & Kirwan, D. (2019). Engaging with linguistic diversity: A study of educational inclusion in an Irish primary school. Bloomsbury Publishing. https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/engaging-with-linguistic-diversity-9781350072046/
• The European Language Portfolio (ELP). http://www.coe.int/portfolio
• The Romani–Plurilingual Policy Experimentation. https://www.coe.int/en/web/language-policy/romani