Integrating Language Teachers’ Discipline Knowledge in a Language Course
METHODOLOGY
With the three types of competence in mind (user, analyst and teacher) we decided to carry out an ethnographic study concentrating on one of the compulsory first-year language development modules in a Spanish university. The participants in this study were two instructors (whom we will refer as Lisa and Monica, respectively), who taught two groups of the module “English Language 2”, a language development course addressed to ES students. One of the researchers attended classes regularly during a fifteen-week term—every week or every two weeks—with either group, observing, taking notes and recording them. The data for the study reported in this article include transcripts of one class session for each of the two groups and a semi-structured interview with each instructor.
Using an analytical framework which combines ethnography and discourse analysis, our research is intended to explore from a qualitative point of view the cognitive and interactional processes that are reflected in the classroom data and, more specifically, the presence and function of the different types of competence in the discursive practices of instructors inside and outside the classroom. For the purpose of this study, our analysis centers on two classes (one per group) and an interview with each group’s instructor.
Specifically, we seek to answer the following questions:
_ To what extent are the three different types of competence present in language development courses in an ES program in which a majority of graduates is likely to work in EFL teaching?
_ What is the relationship between the three different types of competence?
_ How is each type of competence approached in the course?
