par BethAnne Paulsrud, Associate professor of Dalarna University
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In contexts where English as a foreign language (EFL) is a mandatory subject from the early primary years, English may also be a prevalent language outside the classroom, e.g., in media, advertising, and online gaming. However, many teachers may not be aware of the possibilities of working with the English their students encounter outside of school. For this conference, the focus is on the opportunities that English outside the classroom may provide. First, “extramural English” and “learning languages in the wild” will be introduced, with examples from current research. Following this, two tasks to use in EFL courses will be presented: language diaries (Sundqvist & Sylvén, 2016) and linguistic landscapes (Chern & Dooley, 2014). In the first task, students keep a detailed language diary for 24 hours, noting their activities, the languages used, and the mode (speaking, listening, reading, or writing). In the second task, students take photos of languages in their environment, exploring linguistic landscapes by focusing on the languages other than the majority language that are represented, e.g., English. Each task will be presented using examples from a university course for pre-service teachers of EFL. The session will end with a consideration of the challenges and opportunities of working with extramural English in different contexts.
References
Chern, C., & Dooley, K. (2014). Learning English by walking down the street, ELT Journal, 68 (2), 113–123. https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/cct067
Sundqvist, P., & Sylvén, L.K. (2016). Extramural English Goes to School. In P. Sundqvist & L.K. Sylvén (Eds.), Extramural English in teaching and learning (pp. 153-178). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-46048-6_6
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BethAnne Paulsrud is Associate Professor of English Applied Linguistics at Dalarna University, Sweden. Her work as a teacher educator and researcher is informed by her many years of experience as a qualified preschool and primary school teacher, as well as a mother tongue teacher. Her research focuses on multilingualism in education policy and practice, teacher education, and English and English-medium instruction in Sweden. While she has mainly worked, taught, and conducted research in Sweden, she has also spent time teaching in Hong Kong, Vietnam, and South Africa.