Otilia Martí

This paper critically reviews pragmatic-oriented investigations of English-medium instruction (EMI) courses in tertiary education. Analyses on potential gains in pragmatic competence, classroom interaction, and e-politeness define some of the lines of research identified. Speech acts like requests and opinions (e.g., Taguchi, 2012, 2014) or directives (e.g., Smit, 2010) are still the main foci of interest, along with pragmatic markers (e.g., Ament et al., 2018) or openings and closings (e.g., Codina-Espurz & Salazar-Campillo, 2019).

This study aims to contribute to the research literature on politeness in language teachers’ requestive behaviour. More specifically, it adopts a multilingual approach to explore teachers’ politeness strategies in the English for Young Learners (EYL) classroom, an underresearched instructional setting where regulative discourse tends to predominate. Participants are two pre-school teachers and two intact groups of 4/5-year-old children.

Empirical research on L3 teachers' beliefs has gained momentum in the last decade since teacher cognition is paramount for understanding teaching practices in multilingual settings. Yet, many of these works deal with experienced language practitioners (e.g. [Otwinowska, A. (2017). English teachers' language awareness: Away with the monolingual bias? Language Awareness, 26 (4), 304–324]) and focus on the impact of instruction about multilingual pedagogies (e.g. [Gorter, D., & Arocena, E. (2020). Teachers' beliefs about multilingualism in a course on translanguaging.

Aquest article té dos objectius. D’una banda, provar de resoldre la indefinició pedagògica i terminològica del Tractament Integrat de Llengua i Contingut. De l’altra, avaluar aquest enfocament des d’una perspectiva plurilingüe. Quant al primer objectiu, aclarirem la diferència entre conceptes com TILC i AICLE que, sovint, de manera errònia, es presenten com equivalents.

La importància d’aspectes discursius en l’ensenyament i aprenentatge de segones llengües s’ha fet palesa en les últimes dècades, sobretot a partir de la presència de l’enfocament comunicatiu en l’ensenyament. Com a conseqüència d’aquesta visió, diversos estudis s’han dut a terme tot considerant el desenvolupament i la promoció de la competència comunicativa dels aprenents.

This pilot observational study deals with teacher directives in the English as an Additional Language classroom for very young language learners. Our data comprise transcripts from two 45-minute sessions, which have been processed from a discourse-pragmatic perspective. The aim of the analysis carried out is twofold. First, to examine the linguistic choices in the realization of regulative directives according to level of directness, addition of peripheral modifiers, use of person deixis and co-occurring speech acts in teachers’ feedback, such as praise or criticism.

Teacher training programmes have often ignored the new multilingual paradigm and, consequently, educators may hold some misconceptions about how additional languages are learnt and should be taught in multilingual contexts. A number of recent studies have investigated language teachers’ beliefs regarding multilingual education (Arocena-Egaña, Cenoz & Gorter, 2015; De Angelis, 2011; Griva & Chostelidou, 2012; Haukås, 2016; Mitits, 2018; Otwinowska, 2014). Unlike this extant literature, the current paper focuses not on language teachers, but on a sample of 121 subject teachers-to-be.

Little exposure and few opportunities for practice are two main drawbacks for learners in instructional contexts. These problems are intensified when dealing with face-threatening acts such as refusals, as learners are not fully capable of expressing their meanings and miscommunication is a likely by-product. The present volume aims at exploring factors and production of refusals in different instructional settings by means of ten original papers which address key questions dealing with the speech act of refusals.

In line with van Kampen et al.’s (2018) research about specialist and practitioner perceptions on the goals for CLIL in the Netherlands, the present study addresses Hüttner, Dalton-Puffer and Smit’s (2013) call for investigating teachers’ beliefs about CLIL in European countries like Spain where this teaching approach is highly institutionalized. Unlike the aforementioned studies, though, ours focuses on novice subject teachers in Primary education.

Tradicionalment la didàctica de llengües estrangeres, com ara l’anglès, s’ha basat en una perspectiva monolingüe en què l’ensenyament de la llengua es realitzava sense tenir en compte el bagatge lingüístic dels aprenents, ja que les llengües de cada parlant s’analitzaven com a sistemes lingüístics independents, la interferència dels quals calia evitar. No obstant això, aquesta no és la política lingüística fomentada des del Consell d’Europa que en documents com el Marc Comú Europeu de Referència per a les Llengües advoca per adoptar una perspectiva plurilingüe en l’ensenyament de llengües.