Agneta M-L Svalberg
Biographic Data
| ID | 6303118 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Agneta M-L Svalberg |
| GIVEN NAMES | Agneta M-L |
| FAMILY NAME | Svalberg |
| SIGNATURE | SVALBERG A M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Leicester |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 28 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 15 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1995 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Decline and resistance of the language awareness movement in the UK
Language Awareness as a Pedagogical Target
This entry discusses what a Language Awareness (LA) approach to language teaching is. As LA is an umbrella concept covering a wide range of conscious language knowledge and sensitivity, describing it in terms of its pedagogical purpose and practices is quite challenging. I have opted to focus on general principles, aims, and objectives. The entry also gives the reader a more concrete idea of what might be taught and how, in different contexts and…
School Teachers’ Perceptions of Similarities and Differences between Teaching English and a Non‐Language Subject
Teaching a language subject in school is often referred to as being different and unique compared to teaching a non‐language subject. However, the few existing studies examining this claim have mainly investigated the viewpoints of teachers who only teach one language, thus failing to achieve a comparison based on teachers’ actual lived experiences of teaching two different subjects. The present study was designed to address this gap by exploring…
Teacher and learner perceptions of adult foreign language learners’ engagement with consciousness-raising tasks in four languages
At some UK universities, non-credit bearing courses for the general public are offered in a wide range of languages, often taught by hourly paid staff. Ensuring similar, high quality learning experiences and learning outcomes across languages can be a challenge. This study inquired into the viability and value of a consciousness-raising approach, i.e. whether teachers would be able and likely to implement it, and whether students would engage wit…
Researching language engagement; current trends and future directions
The paper discusses how learner engagement in language learning settings has been conceived of and investigated in the past decade. Whilst a cognitive focus used to predominate in research on language learners’ engagement, the importance of affective (and social) factors is increasingly recognised. The paper interrogates ‘engagement’ in the literature in order to better understand its role in Language Awareness and language learning. It situates …
Language Awareness research
This paper outlines the context in which Language Awareness (LA) research is currently situated and where it might be going. The starting point is Eric Hawkins's vision (40 years ago) of LA as a bridge between school subjects and, in wider society, between people of different backgrounds and languages. Although considerable progress has been made in language education, this vision remains very relevant in today's society, characterised by large p…
Student teachers’ collaborative construction of grammar awareness
The paper investigates how a student on a master’s-level teacher education course for English language teachers goes about constructing her grammar knowledge. The learner is a novice teacher with English as a foreign language. Learner diary, interview, and group interaction data were analysed thematically, revealing that she made relatively few, usually brief, verbal contributions to the group work but was nonetheless a very active and competent …
Teaching for Language Awareness
Language awareness (LA) is defined by the Association for Language Awareness (ALA) as “explicit knowledge about language, and conscious perception and sensitivity in language learning, language teaching and language use” (retrieved April 19, 2011 from http://www.lexically.net/ala/la_defined.htm) .
Language Awareness in language learning and teaching
Following on from my state-of-the-art article on Language Awareness and language learning (Svalberg 2007), in this paper I will discuss specific research tasks which are centrally concerned with different aspects of language awareness (LA): ‘explicit knowledge about language, and conscious perception and sensitivity in language learning, language teaching and language use’. The overall argument is that research is needed into how LA is constructe…
Language awareness and language learning
This article reviews Language Awareness (LA) as a field of research and practice. It deals with the period from 1990 to the present, asking what LA is, how it has been collectively constructed during this time, what the theoretical underpinnings might be and what it means in practical, methodological terms in the classroom and for society. It is recognized that its multidisciplinary nature and wide scope could lead to fragmentation, but it is arg…
Consciousness-raising Activities in Some Lebanese English Language Classrooms
The article starts from the premise that approaches to the teaching of English can only be assessed in the particular settings where they may be used. Cultures of learning, teachers’ and students’ beliefs and prevailing material conditions will all have a bearing on how a particular approach is received. In the case study reported on here, four teachers implemented a consciousness-raising (CR)approach to grammar instruction with nearly 200 studen…
The Problem of False Language Awareness
The boldness of the Language Awareness undertaking is encapsulated in the word 'awareness', implying knowledge of 'the truth', as evidenced in the collocation 'to be aware of with 'the fact that'. Thus a Language Awareness approach tries to guide learners towards discovery and understanding of truths about language. This paper tries to show that sometimes, on the contrary, learners are lead to acquire a false awareness. That is to say, instructio…
Nativization in Brunei English
It has been argued that a non‐standard variety of English, Brunei English (BNE) is being spoken in Brunei (Cane, 1993). In the following paper it is suggested that BNE is still at an early stage of development and that there is still little awareness among its speakers of some of the differences between it and Standard British English (STE) but that BNE is likely to expand and stabilize. A Grammaticality Judgement test was administered to 106 fir…
Are English and Malay worlds apart? Typological distance and the learning of tense and aspect concepts
The research discussed in this paper, carried out at the University of Brunei Darussalam, investigates tense, modality and aspect in the English of adult Malay speakers. We first contrast tense and aspect (TA) in Malay and English in order to arrive at a specification of what Malayspeakers have to learn about English TA. We then examine the use of TA in two English conversations with Malay‐speaking subjects and compare this with a native speaker …
Meanings into pictures
There is a growing consensus that language learning is facilitated by an awareness of language structure. A vital component of this structure is the relationships between meaning and grammatical encoding. The ability of the teacher to help learners discover these relationships is, however, dependent on a number of factors. One is the availability of descriptions which are both descriptively adequate and easily understandable to teachers and learn…
Language awareness and language learning
This article reviews Language Awareness (LA) as a field of research and practice. It deals with the period from 1990 to the present, asking what LA is, how it has been collectively constructed during this time, what the theoretical underpinnings might be and what it means in practical, methodological terms in the classroom and for society. It is recognized that its multidisciplinary nature and wide scope could lead to fragmentation, but it is arg…
Language Awareness in language learning and teaching
Following on from my state-of-the-art article on Language Awareness and language learning (Svalberg 2007), in this paper I will discuss specific research tasks which are centrally concerned with different aspects of language awareness (LA): ‘explicit knowledge about language, and conscious perception and sensitivity in language learning, language teaching and language use’. The overall argument is that research is needed into how LA is constructe…
Nativization in Brunei English
It has been argued that a non‐standard variety of English, Brunei English (BNE) is being spoken in Brunei (Cane, 1993). In the following paper it is suggested that BNE is still at an early stage of development and that there is still little awareness among its speakers of some of the differences between it and Standard British English (STE) but that BNE is likely to expand and stabilize. A Grammaticality Judgement test was administered to 106 fir…
School Teachers’ Perceptions of Similarities and Differences between Teaching English and a Non‐Language Subject
Teaching a language subject in school is often referred to as being different and unique compared to teaching a non‐language subject. However, the few existing studies examining this claim have mainly investigated the viewpoints of teachers who only teach one language, thus failing to achieve a comparison based on teachers’ actual lived experiences of teaching two different subjects. The present study was designed to address this gap by exploring…
Are English and Malay worlds apart? Typological distance and the learning of tense and aspect concepts
The research discussed in this paper, carried out at the University of Brunei Darussalam, investigates tense, modality and aspect in the English of adult Malay speakers. We first contrast tense and aspect (TA) in Malay and English in order to arrive at a specification of what Malayspeakers have to learn about English TA. We then examine the use of TA in two English conversations with Malay‐speaking subjects and compare this with a native speaker …
Meanings into pictures
There is a growing consensus that language learning is facilitated by an awareness of language structure. A vital component of this structure is the relationships between meaning and grammatical encoding. The ability of the teacher to help learners discover these relationships is, however, dependent on a number of factors. One is the availability of descriptions which are both descriptively adequate and easily understandable to teachers and learn…
Nativization in Brunei English
It has been argued that a non‐standard variety of English, Brunei English (BNE) is being spoken in Brunei (Cane, 1993). In the following paper it is suggested that BNE is still at an early stage of development and that there is still little awareness among its speakers of some of the differences between it and Standard British English (STE) but that BNE is likely to expand and stabilize. A Grammaticality Judgement test was administered to 106 fir…
Are English and Malay worlds apart? Typological distance and the learning of tense and aspect concepts
The research discussed in this paper, carried out at the University of Brunei Darussalam, investigates tense, modality and aspect in the English of adult Malay speakers. We first contrast tense and aspect (TA) in Malay and English in order to arrive at a specification of what Malayspeakers have to learn about English TA. We then examine the use of TA in two English conversations with Malay‐speaking subjects and compare this with a native speaker …
The Problem of False Language Awareness
The boldness of the Language Awareness undertaking is encapsulated in the word 'awareness', implying knowledge of 'the truth', as evidenced in the collocation 'to be aware of with 'the fact that'. Thus a Language Awareness approach tries to guide learners towards discovery and understanding of truths about language. This paper tries to show that sometimes, on the contrary, learners are lead to acquire a false awareness. That is to say, instructio…
Consciousness-raising Activities in Some Lebanese English Language Classrooms
The article starts from the premise that approaches to the teaching of English can only be assessed in the particular settings where they may be used. Cultures of learning, teachers’ and students’ beliefs and prevailing material conditions will all have a bearing on how a particular approach is received. In the case study reported on here, four teachers implemented a consciousness-raising (CR)approach to grammar instruction with nearly 200 studen…
Language awareness and language learning
This article reviews Language Awareness (LA) as a field of research and practice. It deals with the period from 1990 to the present, asking what LA is, how it has been collectively constructed during this time, what the theoretical underpinnings might be and what it means in practical, methodological terms in the classroom and for society. It is recognized that its multidisciplinary nature and wide scope could lead to fragmentation, but it is arg…
Teaching for Language Awareness
Language awareness (LA) is defined by the Association for Language Awareness (ALA) as “explicit knowledge about language, and conscious perception and sensitivity in language learning, language teaching and language use” (retrieved April 19, 2011 from http://www.lexically.net/ala/la_defined.htm) .
Language Awareness in language learning and teaching
Following on from my state-of-the-art article on Language Awareness and language learning (Svalberg 2007), in this paper I will discuss specific research tasks which are centrally concerned with different aspects of language awareness (LA): ‘explicit knowledge about language, and conscious perception and sensitivity in language learning, language teaching and language use’. The overall argument is that research is needed into how LA is constructe…
Student teachers’ collaborative construction of grammar awareness
The paper investigates how a student on a master’s-level teacher education course for English language teachers goes about constructing her grammar knowledge. The learner is a novice teacher with English as a foreign language. Learner diary, interview, and group interaction data were analysed thematically, revealing that she made relatively few, usually brief, verbal contributions to the group work but was nonetheless a very active and competent …
Language Awareness research
This paper outlines the context in which Language Awareness (LA) research is currently situated and where it might be going. The starting point is Eric Hawkins's vision (40 years ago) of LA as a bridge between school subjects and, in wider society, between people of different backgrounds and languages. Although considerable progress has been made in language education, this vision remains very relevant in today's society, characterised by large p…
Researching language engagement; current trends and future directions
The paper discusses how learner engagement in language learning settings has been conceived of and investigated in the past decade. Whilst a cognitive focus used to predominate in research on language learners’ engagement, the importance of affective (and social) factors is increasingly recognised. The paper interrogates ‘engagement’ in the literature in order to better understand its role in Language Awareness and language learning. It situates …
Teacher and learner perceptions of adult foreign language learners’ engagement with consciousness-raising tasks in four languages
At some UK universities, non-credit bearing courses for the general public are offered in a wide range of languages, often taught by hourly paid staff. Ensuring similar, high quality learning experiences and learning outcomes across languages can be a challenge. This study inquired into the viability and value of a consciousness-raising approach, i.e. whether teachers would be able and likely to implement it, and whether students would engage wit…
School Teachers’ Perceptions of Similarities and Differences between Teaching English and a Non‐Language Subject
Teaching a language subject in school is often referred to as being different and unique compared to teaching a non‐language subject. However, the few existing studies examining this claim have mainly investigated the viewpoints of teachers who only teach one language, thus failing to achieve a comparison based on teachers’ actual lived experiences of teaching two different subjects. The present study was designed to address this gap by exploring…
Decline and resistance of the language awareness movement in the UK
Language Awareness as a Pedagogical Target
This entry discusses what a Language Awareness (LA) approach to language teaching is. As LA is an umbrella concept covering a wide range of conscious language knowledge and sensitivity, describing it in terms of its pedagogical purpose and practices is quite challenging. I have opted to focus on general principles, aims, and objectives. The entry also gives the reader a more concrete idea of what might be taught and how, in different contexts and…
Psychology (13 works) · EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning (11 works) · Linguistics (10 works) · Multilingual Education and Policy (10 works) · Mathematics education (9 works) · Computer Science (8 works) · Pedagogy (8 works) · Grammar (7 works) · Language education (7 works) · Second Language Learning and Teaching (7 works)