TEMA 4.

VALORACIÓN DEL CONOCIMIENTO DE LAS LENGUAS

EXTRANJERAS COMO INSTRUMENTO DE COMUNICACIÓN ENTRE LAS
PERSONAS Y LOS PUEBLOS. INTERÉS POR LA DIVERSIDAD LINGÜÍSTICA
A TRAVÉS DEL CONOCIMIENTO DE UNA NUEVA LENGUA Y SU CULTURA.

1. INTRODUCTION

The Organic Law of Education (LOE) 2/2006 passed on May the 3rd, modified in
LOMCE 8/2013 passed on December the 9th, repealed by LOMLOE 3/2020 passed on
December the 29th, gives priority to the development of the oral skills, which is
essential to communicate in a foreign language nowadays.

The development of language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) is a must
in the curriculum of Primary Education of Madrid (89/2014 passed on 24th of July),
established in the Royal Decree 126/2014, for the area of foreign language in Primary
Education. The purpose for the teachers in primary education is to provide different
techniques for our students to feel self confident to participate in their own learning.

We do not have to forget the fifth and sixth skills which were introduced by the
European Commission: Oral interaction (by Daniela Nóbrega) and thinking (by Eduard
Bono).

It is known that communicative competence might be acquired through different

approaches or methods. For this reason we train our students to get basic cultural socio-
linguistic knowledge of the foreign language in an effective way.

In this particular unit we will see that we should make a clear distinction between
“language” as an abstract notion, that is, the ability of human beings to communicate
with each other through a system of oral and written signs, and “language” as each one
of the systems or codes used around the world.

2. LANGUAGE IN THE WORLD

Linguistic diversity in our world is quite wide. Around 7000 languages are spoken in
the world, so is difficult to give an accurate number.

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 A) LANGUAGE FAMILIES.

Languages are grouped into families. A language family is formed by all those
languages which are historically related and have a common origin (For example Indo-
European languages).

When several languages of the same family show a higher degree of similarity, they
form a branch within the family. The branches of the Indo-European are: Latin or
Romance languages, Germanic languages, Celtic, etc.

B) THE MOST SPOKEN LANGUAGE.

Chinese is the language with more native speakers (1000 millions), followed by English
(400) and Spanish which is the third (300). Other languages spoken by millions of
people are Russian, French, Japanese, Bengali, etc.

3. THE IMPORTANCE OF A LANGUAGE AS A MEANS OF

COMMUNICATION.

People understand and explain reality through the language or languages they have
acquired. We need to keep in mind that no language is superior or inferior. We know
that if people share it, this allows the understanding and cooperation among cultures and
open up new horizons.

Thus, language is established according 3 main factors:

A) NUMBER OF USERS

Chinese would be the most important language in the world, however most Europeans
and Americans would first learn other languages rather than Chinese.

B) GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION.

Some languages are spoken in one single country, thus, their relevance and influence
are not widespread. On the contrary, we know that languages such as English and
Spanish are spoken in many distant regions around the world.

C) SOCIAL AND CULTURAL STATUS.

The importance of a language is also defined by philosophical, scientific, technological,

artistic expression etc. Nowadays literature and cinema are really popular and useful

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resources to learn a language, due especially to the powerful influence of the United
States of America in the world, as we have seen in unit 5. As we can see, a language
becomes important because its users.

4. ENGLISH: AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE

A) VARIETIES OF ENGLISH.
 Main English varieties.

As we saw in unit 5, English is the official language in many countries (UK, USA,
Ireland...) and co-official in other many countries (Asian, European Nations...). This
spread of English is explained due to the influence of the English empire and the
creation of the Common Wealth.

It is also considered as lingua franca because it has been used historically in politics and
economy.

The 2 main varieties are the British and the American standard. American English
has two main branches: U.S. English and Canadian English, both of them with its
varieties of the language. And British has some minor varieties such as Australian, New
Zealander or Irish, Scottish accents...

 Formal differences.

British and American English are more similar than different, but still some differences
can be found.

About grammar there are quite trivial differences in some expressions, as for example:

- American English: in the hospital, we’ll be ready Tuesday.

- British English: in hospital, we’ll be ready on Tuesday.

In pronunciation there are also few differences. For example: British is less nasal and
American is more nasal, the stress in syllables can be different... among other
differences.

Considering spelling we have a more complex system in British variety than in

American. As we can see in words like honour (British) and honor (American).

At the lexical level there are many possible variations, and there are also differences in
the use of some everyday words, for example: shop- store, biscuit-cookie etc.

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 5. TEACHING AND LEARNING FOREIGN LANGUAGES

At this point we would like to mention that foreign language teaching has to be
understood not only as a linguistic system but also as a social system. We have the
power to develop positive attitudes towards interculturalism in daily teaching situations
but also if it is possible going further and promoting linguistic exchanges such as
Erasmus or Etwinning. We cannot forget that apart from achieving a language system
and skills development, a positive attitude, showing interest and respect, is vital to learn
a language.

In addition, along the learning process motivation is essential to keep evolving. This can
be intrinsic (personal satisfaction) and extrinsic (Songs, stories, games...). The latter
should be extremely high especially with young children.

The amount and variety of good-quality materials is enormous, and a careful selection
of appropriate items is probably the most important aspect to keep our students
motivated. We look for a learner-centred approach to develop their full potential.

On the other hand, it is known that traditionally classes have been taught by non native
speakers with good training, but nowadays in some centres we also have the opportunity
to learn from native speakers.

English it is used as international communication medium. That is why to ensure that

communication is efficient, laws such us LOMLOE or RD 126/ 2014, specify that we
have to develop vocabulary, functional grammar, language registers, skills development
and sociocultural aspects in our teaching process.

6. CONCLUSION

Finally we would like to stress that communicative competence in a foreign language

is the aim we always have to reach. There is a wide range of methods for our students to
achieve communicative competence and their autonomy.

We as teachers have to develop authentic assessment activities which motivate the

students to prove that their level of the new language is making progress. For this
reason and along these 25 units we have seen that language teaching can use several
techniques and activities to reach a main aim: creating a balance between the different
skills.

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One of the latest resources integrated in the class is the ICT which helps to practice
what they have learnt in an efficient way but also is very useful to attend diversity and
to improve personal confidence for a fluent interaction of the target language.

We cannot forget that as teachers we need to adapt to our students’ necessities.

According to this fact we select which methodologies and techniques suit better to their
level.

Through this unit we have seen that English has never been a “closed” language,
because it borrowed some aspects from other languages, as words and structures, fact
that we can see on the so-called anglicismos in Spanish. But over the years, English has
become the first language for the cultural importance and its number of users, places
and contexts of use.

7. BIBLIOGRAPHY
 LAW
- LOE 2/2006 passed on May the 3rd
- LOMLOE 3/2020 passed on December the 29th
- Royal Decree 126/2014, for the area of foreign language in Primary Education.
- Decree 89/2014 passed on 24th of July which establishes the Primary Education
curriculum in the region of Madrid.
 AUTHORS

Savignon, S.: “Communicative Competence” Theory and Classroom Practice. New

York: Mcgraw Hill, 1997.

Hymes, D.: “On Communicative Competence” in sociolinguistics Penguin, London

1972.

Alburquerque, R.: “En el aula de inglés”. Longman. London 1990.

Halliday, M.A.K.: “Spoken and written language”. Deakin University Press, 1976.