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University of Southampton 10th July 2007Linking Language and Research in Languages, Linguistics and Area studies

The Presence of Language Research in Undergraduate Education

Matilde Sainz matilde_sainz@huhezi.edu

Pili Sagasta pili_sagasta@huhezi.edu

Julia Barnesjulia_barnes@huhezi.edu

Faculty of Education and Humanities HUHEZIMondragon Unibertsitatea

Eskoriatza, Guipuzcoa,Basque Country – Spain

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• Personal language learning process is taken as the starting point and as multilingual individuals, they learn how to go to the theory to identify in their teaching and learning process.

• We think this can be very helpful for people who will be involved in helping people to improve their process of learning.

• Starting from one’s own personal experience we feel it is easier to organise a curriculum in the school, design it and to be involved in the classroom.

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• Reflection • Everything is based on reflection. • How do they learn to reflect? The strategies are

included in the materials design. They first learn how to reflect by reflecting on their linguistic profile.

• The techniques of reflection itself is dealt with within the subjects. The process is to develop an attitude towards reflection which is then further developed through reflection itself. The process of reflection is systematic.

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• Global and interdisciplinary

• Content learnt in one subject will be taken advantage of elsewhere to carry out a common piece of work. The area in which this interdisciplinary focus is most seen is in the end of course project.

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The role of research• A research focus permeates the whole degree, but is

specifically dealt with formally way in years 1 and 2 in two 6 credit subjects.

• Methodology used to give the two 6 credit subjects in 1º and 2º is direct teaching and though reading about other projects, group readings, lectures,

• Qualitative analysis is the focus in the 1st year• Quantitative (based on reflection) in the 2nd year• This is pre-teaching for the End of Course Project where

a research design is put into practice.

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First Year Research Methods Course • Students receive basic background in the 1st year from

the general to the specific. • Students learn how a research project is designed and

are given the instruments necessary to do this. • Students learn how to use computer programmes for

researcher needs in social science, e.g. SPSS. • The research basics from first year are then put into

practice in some of the subjects, for instance, in multilingualism they have to do a study on attitudes towards languages, and they apply SPSS.

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Second Year Research Methods Course• Students individually or in pairs design a

research project in the second year course. • They learn to write real research projects,

without actually implementing them. • Some take advantage of the subject in the 2nd

year to write their end of course project, but the end- of course project is a separate assignment.

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Process of Research Design • In the first level students learn to:

-Formulate a problem for the facts that s/he wants to research, in other words identify a problem-Delimit what is going to be researched-Contextualise where s/he wants to study these phenomena-Use a systematic point of view, and not arbitrary-Decide what social interest is there-Decide on the strong and weak points of the study

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• In the second level the student is directed to find out the state of the question and analyse what others have done in relation to this.

• Students learn-to interpret the theoretical framework-to step back a distance to get the point of view of a researcher- to be critical in relation to what others say- to synthesise, and also to interrelate what authors say with aspects of the research

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• On a third level s/he is asked to consider their own point of view in relation to the literature Students are asked

• What point of view will you adopt?

• They are taught to distinguish between knowledge and beliefs and invited to read with 1. knowledge and 2. reasoning and 3. logic rather than with intuition.

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Furthermore they have to learn • how to back up all of this knowledge• how to formulate research questions and hypotheses

about what they want to know• how to link these questions to the context• how to link the issues to be addressed Whilst doing this they have to learn to decide :• What do we need to know more about?• How far do we need to go?• Is this of interest to society, the scientific community, the

school?

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• Then they have to work out a rigorous research design.

• The methodology has to satisfy the condition of being reproducible, i.e. that any person who read it would be able to say exactly how the research was carried out and if necessary reproduce it and do the same with another sample in another context, etc.

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• The students’ design must

show scientific rigour

explain the criteria for analysis

present a protocol with the steps

contain the steps of analysis and

indicate how to quantify the data • Lastly students learn how a bibliography has to be

done, how to avoid personal references (I think that etc….).

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Final project• Final project which can be done individually or in pairs.• Must be contextualised in a centre/school• Students analyse the needs of the centre, situation, the context of the school, the area to be improved and why, • Students look at theoretical background, • Students develop the research tools for data collection from those

they have learnt, • e.g. interviews, questionnaires, diaries, the most suited to the study

• they will carry out.

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• Students collect the data, analyse it, explain results, draw conclusions, propose a series of improvements. However students do not always complete full cycle and are not always able to return to school to implement improvements.

• However they send the possible improvements to the school and those at work in school may be able to implement improvements.

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• The training described has its basis in centres and schools allows students

- to reflect on reality - to propose solutions through designing relevant

research projects. • The research work carried out by the students in

different subjects, as well as the second year and end of course projects, guides them towards a better knowledge and situates what is being learned.

• Learning about e.g. bilingualism, sociolinguistics, motivation etc., does not take place in isolation but always within a context.

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REFERENCESCamps, A. (2000), Introducció : objecte, modalitat i ambits de la recerca en

didàctica de la llengua. In A. Camps, I.Rios, and M.Cambra. Recerca i formació en didactica de la lengua . Barcelona: Grau

Taylor, S.J. and Bogdan, R. (1987) Introducción, Ir hacia la gente. In Introducción a los métodos cualitativos de investigación (pp. 15-27) Barcelona: Paidós Básica.

Wittrock, M.C. (ed.) (1986) Handbook of Research on Teaching: a project of the American Educational Research Association. New York: Simon and Schuster