Native Speaker Fallacy

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Foreign language learning: CLIL, Native Speaker Fallacy and Code-Switching Second language learning has been a big issue for everyone, and it keeps going like that. For some people, it is an industry where a native speaker can get easy money without having studied anything related to teaching. For others, it is a field full of new possibilities of more efficient education. Moreover, some scholars have already given their points about those possibilities. We will deal with pragmatics in education in a broad context. CLIL method consists on the use of a second language as lingua franca, which means that there is not just one language, but two. This second language is used to improve learning and boost motivation in students. Teachers provide …show more content…

Keeping in the field of foreign languages, for many years every native speaker has been seen as the perfect teacher without regarding his curricula. This has been known as the “Native Speaker Fallacy” and it has been effective since the industry of language teaching exists. However, the fallacy has been knocked down and these news are being spread by some scholars like Ferguson, Canagarajah or Kirkpatrick. They state that a specific training is needed, no matter if the teacher is a native speaker or not. Moreover, they ensure that a local teacher is the best option, with a good training, of course. According to them, this teacher would be capable of understand his students because of a cultural agreement. This agreement makes possible a better communication between teacher and student with disregard of the language in use. A native speaker who do not know the local culture cannot understand the cultural agreement, and this is such a powerful reason for these scholars that it gives advantage to the local teacher. Apart from that covenant between students and teacher, there is another skill that is becoming more and more important: …show more content…

It is considered by many people as the future in second language learning. Myers-Scotton and Swann agree with this point of view. They also point out when every language should be used, and it is according to the interlocutors. Keeping in education field, the teacher should know when he has to change to the mother tongue, in case some students cannot follow up a part of the lesson given in a foreign language. Contextualization cues are an important part of code switching. Contextualization cues are mechanisms used by speakers to show the way they mean what they say. The use of contextualization cues along with CS can turn into a complete disaster for understanding: if some of them are contextualized in the second language, learners may not understand them, which can lead to miss information if the teacher cannot explain them properly in their mother tongue. This means that contextualization cues can be used just if the teacher is sure about it or if it is explained before or after using the

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