| Learning
new languages
Quality teaching of languages can contribute to the cognitive, intellectual,
and social development of students.
Learning languages in a school setting involves developing learners'
capabilities for both using language and learning language. Learners
need to learn how to learn, and how to learn a language. Even more
important is the notion that they develop higher order thinking skills
and that they perceive the important relationship between thought,
language, and knowledge.
A. Scarino (1999) as quoted in Learning Languages,
page 30
The
nature of language learning
Students are both learners and users of language. They need
frequent opportunities to apply their learning in contexts that
are real, meaningful, and culturally specific.
|
A
new guide to support learning languages
Earlier this year, the Ministry published Learning Languages:
A Guide for New Zealand Schools (item 26733). This guide helps
schools to develop quality programmes for teaching and learning languages
other than the language of instruction. It encourages school principals
and trustees to develop a vision for learning languages and provides
schools and teachers with information to support the introduction,
effectiveness, and enhancement of language programmes.
Learning Languages will help schools to develop effective
language programmes that take account of the needs of individual learners
and that benefit the local community and New Zealand as a nation.
Learning Languages is supported by information updates
and illustrative materials on TKI at www.tki.org.nz/r/intlanguages/
In the report Learning Smarter, Roger Peddie argues the
economics of learning international languages, but the advantages
he speaks of also attach to learning other new languages:
Many... advantages come from the "world view" acquired by the successful
international languages learner. Others come from opportunities to
use the international languages used at school directly in interactions
with other speakers of the languages. Still other advantages derive
from the learner's ability to use both the communication strategies
and the understanding and the empathy gained in learning any one international
language in dealing with speakers of other languages in both social
and employment-related situations whether in New Zealand or overseas.
Learing Smarter, 1998, P. 49
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