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Journal of Language & Education Volume 8, Issue 1, 2022 Estrada-Chichon, J. L., & Zayas-Martinez, F. (2022). Dual Training in
Language Didactics of Foreign Language/CLIL Pre-Service Primary Education Recived: Oct 21,2020 Teachers in Spain. Journal of Language and Education, 8(1), 69-83. https://doi.
Accepted: Mar 16, 2022 org/10.17323/jle.2022.11520
Published: Mar 31,2022
Dual Training in Language Didactics of Foreign Language/CLIL Pre-Service Primary Education Teachers in Spain
Jose Luis Estrada-Chichon , Francisco Zayas-Martinez
University of Cadiz
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Jose Luis Estrada-Chichon, University of Cadiz, P.° de Carlos III, 28, 11003 Cádiz, Spain. E-mail: [email protected]
Background: Classroom-based research in second language acquisition (SLA) has focused in the last decade on the pedagogical implications concerning the mental representation of language but has not considered the didactic training of pre-service teachers. Empirical analyses have been concerned almost exclusively with the linguistic development of foreign language learners, who do not receive specific training to become language teachers.
Purpose: Due to the lack of literature regarding simultaneous linguistic and didactic training with pre-service foreign language teachers, this exploratory classroom-based research analyses a case of linguistic and didactic dual training for pre-service primary education teachers of German in Spain, both when being trained to work as foreign language teachers, or as CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) teachers. The objective is to assess the effectiveness of the dual training by measuring the degree of the pre-service teachers' (N=4) willingness to communicate (WTC) before and after each practice session (N=14). This is a mixed-methods research where data were collected through (i) a questionnaire answered by the pre-service teachers and (ii) the lecturer's linguistic and didactic excursuses.
Results: The results show a high degree of WTC among the pre-service teachers, mainly as result of the Instructed Foreign Language Acquisition (IFLA)-based teaching practice model implemented, including linguistic training in German and didactic training (e.g., excursuses) in Spanish (L1). Factors like grouping increase the pre-service teachers' WTC, while factors like talking to someone they know little about decrease it. However, personal traits need to be considered when it comes to WTC, even with individuals who share similar language proficiency.
Implication: The innovation of this teacher training methodology lies in the coordinated combination of linguistic (i.e., IFLA-based teaching model) and didactic training. IFLA-based teaching practices are evaluated positively by the pre-service teachers in terms of linguistic and didactic training and WTC. Final recommendations are suggested about teaching methodology.
Keywords: language acquisition, methodology, pre-service teacher, primary education, willingness to communicate (WTC)
Introduction
Bilingual education started to develop in Europe in the second half of the 20th century as an alternative or complementary formula for foreign language teaching-learning (Feddermann et al., 2021). The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) (2001) focused on the need to use languages as the most reliable strategy to ensure language acquisition. Since then, several European national education authorities have been carrying out reforms aimed at setting up bilingual education (Eurydice, 2006), considering different socioeconomic, sociocultural, linguistic, and educational objectives (Van Kampen et al., 2018) for each country.
In this sense, the Spanish education authorities must take on the linguistic and didactic training of inservice teachers (Lorenzo, 2019), even though in the last 15 years these exclusively focus on language updating training courses (Custodio & Garcia Ramos, 2020) without considering any didactic updating. On the other hand, pre-service teachers are trained at universities where bilingual syllabi do not take into consideration foreign language training but only didactic training instead. As it was revealed by prior research as for the Andalusian context (Contero et al., 2018), for pre-service teachers to achieve fully effective teaching skills, language-in-practice training should be embedded in didactic training courses (Zayas & Estrada, 2020).
Research Article
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Bilingual education has developed in Spain in general and in Andalusia in particular over the last two decades, mainly as for primary and secondary education. That is the reason why it is perceived as the most innovative change in the education system since democracy (Huguet et al., 2008). The local education authorities started the bilingual education implementation by means of specific programmes to promote multilingualism and multiculturalism in schools (Dobson et al., 2010). These programmes have systematically included foreign language upgrading courses for in-service teachers, together with specific methodological seminars on Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) (Lasagabaster & Ruiz de Zarobe, 2010). Results reveal a relatively widespread social acceptance of this new methodological trend, as well as recurrent complaints about the quality of bilingual education (Anghel et al., 2016). This controversial issue imposes that language upgrading may not be enough as a major professional skill for CLIL teaching (Lorenzo, 2019).
Within the last five years, the former bilingual schools have started to become plurilingual schools (Romero & Zayas, 2017). However, educational authorities continue to offer only language courses for in-service teachers while they keep on ignoring this 'conceptual change', that is, schools where at least two foreign languages and the students' mother tongue (L1) are used for educational purposes. These interpret plurilingual projects as mere multilingual scenarios -a third language is added as a subject to the curriculum with hardly any impact on the number of teaching hours: English is the almost hegemonic foreign language offered as a second language in mostly all schools, while French and German compete for the little room left for a third language (Romero & Zayas, 2017).
Context of the Study
Spanish universities have started adapting their didactic syllabi to train pre-service foreign language and/or CLIL teachers for primary education (Romero & Zayas, 2017). Some faculties of educational sciences have already incorporated optional courses related to bilingual teaching and/or CLIL (Romero & Zayas, 2017). Some other universities deal with bilingual education and/or CLIL only in post-graduate courses, which are anyway not required for primary school teachers in Spain.
The University of Cadiz, Andalusia, transformed the curriculum of the bachelor's degree in primary education by including two optional courses for the development of foreign language communicative competence in primary education, and two optional courses on CLIL. Moreover, a compulsory course on
Didactics of Foreign Language in Primary Education has also been adapted to be taught on an experimental basis, that is, pre-service teachers experiencing a CLIL approach as learners, choosing from three foreign languages: English, French, or German. Most learners prefer English, where a CEFR intermediate level of proficiency A2-B1 is expected, while a small group does so in French, with an CEFR intermediate level A2. The few pre-service teachers who opt for German know that no starting language level is required, as German is rarely offered as a foreign language option in pre-university education in Andalusia (Lorenzo, 2019).
Pre-service primary education teachers who enrol in Didactics of Foreign Language in Primary Education will be attending a face-to-face initial training in German as a foreign language, together with an online course in foreign language didactics based on their prior face-to-face initial language training experiences. They will be using German and Spanish as L1 in the same course with a two-fold objective: to develop (i) didactic knowledge about foreign language teaching and (ii) foreign language (German) proficiency. This dual objective represents for pre-service teachers a first CLIL experience that might be extended to specific CLIL course afterward (terms 6 and 7 in Years 3 and 4, respectively). This experimental approach is possible by means of a foreign language teaching methodology committed to language acquisition through a supervised but still authentic communicative use of the target language throughout the whole process. This proposal derives from an Instructed Second Language Acquisition (ISLA) research approach (Loewen, 2015). In this specific context, ISLA adopts the name of Instructed Foreign Language Acquisition (IFLA) (Zayas & Estrada, 2020) or enseñanza adquisitiva (acquisitive teaching) (Haidl, 1990), where the target language is the only vehicular language used for communicative purposes in the classroom, apart from occasional and brief excursuses in Spanish about didactic issues taking place outside the classroom.
Thus, do pre-service teachers develop a linguistic intuition (in Chomskyan terms, the development of an intuitive knowledge of the language structure enables acquirers to distinguish grammatical sentences from ungrammatical ones, and understand and produce an infinite number of new sentences) by means of using German as their only communication tool in the classroom? Do they progressively feel more and more confident to use the target language in the classroom for authentic purposes? Do they consider it is a valuable opportunity to review the validity of their previous foreign language learning experiences under conventional teaching communicative approaches? In order to find answers to these questions, the aim of
this exploratory study is to prove how a singular combination of linguistic and didactic dual training strategies may influence the teaching and learning principles of pre-service teachers by measuring their degree of willingness to communicate (WTC), that is, "a learner's readiness to enter into discourse at a particular time with a specific person or persons using a L2" (Maclntyre et al., 1998, p. 547) to contribute to overcoming quality deficiencies in bilingual education.
Regarding the teaching strategies that should therefore be taken into consideration for training pre-service teachers of German, the following objectives are considered:
1. To analyse the impact that an IFLA-based teaching practice model has on pre-service teachers concerning their WTC in relation to three elements (grouping, group member familiarity, and interlocutor's foreign language proficiency) before and after each practice session.
2. To draw attention to the teaching achievements regarding linguistic and didactic training and their relation to the pre-service teachers' perceptions about other factors that increase or decrease their WTC.
Two main research questions are posed:
1. Does an IFLA-based teaching practice model influence pre-service teachers' WTC and their dual training in language didactics as a result?
2. What are the pre-service teachers' perceptions about other factors that increase or decrease their WTC?
Method
Background
The rationale of this exploratory study lies in the analysis of the linguistic and didactic dual training of a group of native Spanish university students (N=4) or pre-service primary education teachers of German as a foreign language in Spain. It is worth noting that the way planned by the educational authorities in Andalusia for the continuous implementation of bilingual education1 currently includes 1535 bilingual educational centers in the territory, where only 1.04%
1 Junta de Andalucía (2005). Plan de Fomento del Plurilingüismo en Andalucía [Plan for the Promotion of Plurilingualism in Andalusia]. Boletín Oficial de la Junta de Andalucía, 65(2004). 9-39, Seville.
aim at German. It explains why almost 200 pre-service teachers who take part in Didactics of Foreign Language in Primary Education, only 2.54% do so in German, compared to 12% who prefer French and over 85% who choose English (these percentages are proportional to the language preferences of the bilingual schools in Andalusia).
This is a mixed-methods study that addresses the quantitative and qualitative research objectives and questions by means of a systematic sampling technique. The reasons for conducting a mixed-methods research (Hernandez-Sampieri et al., 2014) are twofold: first, the lack of literature regarding simultaneous linguistic and didactic training with pre-service foreign language teachers; and second, the fact of 'giving voice' to the pre-service teachers themselves to clarify issues that are difficult to interpret. In quantitative terms, data on pre-service teachers' WTC were collected after all sessions (N=14) using a questionnaire (Pawlak & Mystkowska-Wiertelak, 2015) as for three elements: grouping; group member familiarity; and interlocutor's foreign language competence. Qualitatively, pre-service teachers had the opportunity to identify teaching factors that affected positively or negatively their WTC. As a result, recommendations for initial training of pre-service foreign language teachers are outlined, defining strategies to be followed within the field of linguistics and didactics. All pre-service teachers agreed to take part in the research.
Participants
The research took place in the subject Didactics of Foreign Language in Primary Education (German) of the bachelor's degree in primary education at the Faculty of Education Sciences of the University of Cadiz, Andalusia (Spain). The study population corresponds to 80% (n=4) of the whole group of Spanish pre-service teachers attending the course (N=5) -excluding four Erasmus German students who being native speakers of the target language did not act as informants. The group of informants includes one pre-service teacher with 16 years of language experience (pre-service teacher 1), one pre-service teacher with five years of language experience (pre-service teacher 2), and two absolute beginners (pre-service teachers 3 and 4). They are all female and pre-service primary education teachers of German (term 3, Year 2). The course is divided into 14 theory sessions and 14 practice sessions, all of which are fully taught in German. Data were collected during the practice sessions in 2019-20, although it was the pre-service teachers' voluntary contribution whether they answer the questionnaire or not. Therefore, only four out of
five pre-service teachers' answers were considered for the present study.
Research Tools and Teaching Principles
The research tool used to collect quantitative and qualitative data is a questionnaire on the "dynamic nature of L2 willingness to communicate" (Pawlak & Mystkowska-Wiertelak, 2015). As Pawlak et al. (2016) explain, many of the research reports and studies on WTC refer to scale reports and behavioural categorisations as instruments to analyse factors affecting WTC such as group size, familiarity with interlocutors, and self-confidence (Cao & Philp, 2006). Therefore, this work is based on a quantitative data analysis supported by the pre-service teachers' perceptions on factors and activities that increase and decrease their WTC. The questionnaire is organised into three sections:
• Section 1, together with three questions on personal information about the pre-service teachers' previous training and knowledge of German, includes two quantitative questions developed from a five-point Likert scale with values between 1 (very unwilling) and 5 (very willing) about the pre-service teachers' WTC before and after each practice session:
How willing were you to communicate in German in class today? How willing are you to communicate in German after today's class?
• Section 2 includes three quantitative options on grouping: pairs, groups, and whole class; group member familiarity: someone I know well, someone I know a little, and the lecturer; and interlocutor's language proficiency: same as mine, higher than mine, and lower than mine. For each option, the informants had to choose either 'increase' or 'decrease' according to their WTC:
Grouping: pairs/groups/whole class Group member familiarity: someone I know well/someone I know a little/ lecturer
Interlocutor's language proficiency: same/higher/lower than mine
• Section 3 includes three qualitative questions that allowed the pre-service teachers to comment on the factors that increase or decrease their WTC in each practice lesson; the activities that help them increase or decrease their WTC; and, finally, at which specific moments during the
practice lesson they felt more or less willing to
speak in German:
What factors increased/decreased your willingness to communicate in German?
What activities increased/decreased your willingness to communicate in German?
When did you feel most and less willing to communicate in German today?
As for the factors affecting WTC mentioned by Cao and Philp (2006), potential elements taking place within the broad field of self-confidence were here limited to the degree of foreign language proficiency that informants were explicitly able to assess. Concerning grouping, it has to be considered that the whole number of pre-service teachers (i.e., participants) is nine and not four (i.e., informants), so that group and whole class work do not refer to the same type of grouping.
The process to obtain the data was carried out simultaneously, that is, both types of data were gathered at the same time (the questionnaire was answered immediately by the pre-service teachers once they had attended each practice session between September 25, 2019, and January 17, 2020). Moreover, the research was conducted according to four basic conditions for the treatment of mixed-methods research (Onwuegbuzie & Johnson, 2008):
1. Data types are collected in parallel but separately.
2. The analysis of each data is independent.
3. Result consolidation is displayed once all data is collected and analysed individually.
4. The discussion and conclusion are set up after data collection and analysis.
Considering these four basic conditions, the informants filled-in the online questionnaire provided at the university Moodle platform after each weekly practice session. The quantitative and qualitative data were weekly recorded separately in order to categorise it for a final contrastive analysis at the end of the course. It helped to provide clear information about the informants' perceptions on WTC regarding the three main elements considered.
The main classroom instructions point to the teaching principles of the acquisitive teaching. Its language teaching scope lies within an ISLA-based research model (Loewen, 2015) adapted to foreign languages or
IFLA (Zayas & Estrada, 2020). The main goal of ISLA is "the processing and internalization of input; the restructuring, consolidation, and storage of L2 knowledge, and the production of L2 output" (Loewen & Sato, 21017, p. 2). In other words, the starting point for teaching is the initial exposition of pre-service teachers to German language (input) to gradually understand it (intake) until it becomes possible to start producing (output) (Haidl, 1998):
1. Exclusive use of German and absence of Spanish (L1) that is limited to teacher excursuses.
2. Neither presentation nor explanation of the norms and rules of the German grammar.
3. Exclusive use of oral language. Reading and writing will be part of the individual work of each pre-service teacher outside the classroom (written language is delayed until almost a month after having started oral language exploration).
4. Preference for non-interventionist error correction techniques (Estrada, 2020).
Concerning the excursuses, every single topic raised by the teacher during the 14 practice sessions was systematically registered every day, so these could be related to the informants' contributions to the questionnaire. They revolve around foreign language/ CLIL methodology issues concerning teaching performance for a deeper convincement and understanding of the pre-service teachers. It is worth mentioning that the excursuses in Spanish took place outside the classroom, moving the whole group of pre-service teachers, together with the lecturer, to the outside corridor. He makes a clear physical distinction between the two places, where in one context (classroom), only the use of the target language is allowed, while in the other context (outside corridor), the use of the pre-service teachers' mother tongue is also permitted.
Results
The results focus on the analysis of the pre-service teachers' perceptions about their linguistic and didactic dual training in German. First, the quantitative data reveal their WTC before and after each practice session according to a questionnaire. Second, the qualitative data gather the pre-service teachers' perceptions about classroom work based on the principles of the acquisitive teaching. Furthermore, the teacher's excursuses in Spanish are also displayed. The individual analysis of each data will help to outline some classroom-based teaching strategies about pre-service teacher training.
Linguistic Training and Willingness to Communicate
Concerning the analysis of German linguistic training, the quantitative data about the pre-service teachers' WTC reveal very significant average values before/ after each session (questionnaire section 1), that is, pre-service teacher 1 (seven sessions): 5.00/5.00; pre-service teacher 2 (ten sessions): 3.43/3.29; pre-service teacher 3 (nine sessions) 3: 3.57/4.29; and pre-service teacher 4 (five sessions): 3.71/3.86. Only one case (pre-service teacher 2) shows a lower average aftersession WTC value (3.29) compared to her before-session WTC, mainly for sessions 4 and 1. Moreover, pre-service teacher 4 shows a lower degree (4.00) after session 3 compared to her WTC at the beginning of the same session (5.00). In any case, all values remain above 3.00, with two exceptions concerning the before-session WTC: pre-service teacher 3 in session 8 (2.00) and pre-service teacher 4 in session 7 (2.00). Figure 1 shows the comparison of all values regarding the pre-service teachers' WTC, considering the different number of sessions attended:
Teaching Expertise and Willingness to Communicate
The quantitative data also reveal which aspects of the lecturer's strategies make the pre-service teachers' WTC increase or decrease according to three different areas of analysis (questionnaire section 2): grouping; group member familiarity; and interlocutor's language proficiency. It should be noted that four native German speakers (Erasmus students) were also involved in the classroom dynamics along with the Spanish pre-service teachers participating in this research. Nevertheless, the four speakers of German share with the Spanish pre-service teachers the same didactic training, but in turn, the linguistic training were replaced by alternative goals linked to the lecturer's talk for absolute beginners. In mostly all oral language exercises, the German students work along with the Spanish pre-service teachers, respecting the basic rules of the acquisitive teaching.
In terms of grouping, there are three possibilities: pairs, groups, and whole class, group work being the option that increases the students' WTC the most. An exception is to be found in pre-service teacher 3 (session 5). Regarding group member familiarity, all pre-service teachers believe that interacting with a classmate they know well increases their WTC. On the contrary, pre-service teachers 2 and 3, mainly, and pre-service teacher 1 think that communicating with someone who they know little make their WTC decrease. As far as the lecturer is concerned, only pre-service teacher 3 shows that by interacting directly with him, her WTC decreased, something that also
Figure 1
Pre-service teachers' WTC before/after each session
Pre-service teacher 1 1
Pre-service teacher 2 1
-Before — After
-Before — After
5
9
3
6
3
8
4
6
happened to pre-service teacher 4. Finally, regarding teacher 2 points out that her WTC decreases.
the interlocutor's foreign language proficiency, all Something similar happens with pre-service teacher
pre-service teachers reveal that their WTC increases 3, for whom her WTC also decreased. Table 1 shows
when it is the same as theirs. If it is higher, pre-service the results:
Table 1
Students' WTC
Factor 1: grouping
Pair Group Whole class Pre-service teacher -
WTC Session WTC Session WTC Session
1 Increase all Increase all Increase all
2 Increase all Increase all Increase all
3 Increase all Increase 1-4; 6-9 Increase all
Decrease 5
4 Increase all Increase all Increase 1; 3-7
Decrease 2
Factor 2: group member familiarity
Well known Little known Lecturer
Pre-service teacher -
WTC Session WTC Session WTC Session
1 Increase all Increase all Increase all
2 Increase all Increase 2-6; 8-10 Increase all
Decrease 1; 7-9
Increase
all
Increase
Increase
Decrease 2-9 Decrease 2-3; 6-9
4 Increase all Increase 2-7 Increase 1; 7-7
Decrease 1 Decrease 2
Factor 3: interlocutor's foreign language proficiency
Pre-service teacher Same Higher Lower
WTC Session WTC Session WTC Session
1 Increase all Increase all Increase all
2 Increase all Increase 3, 7 Increase 1-6; 8-10
Decrease 1-2; 4-6; 8-10 Decrease 7
3 Increase all Increase 9 Increase 2-9
Decrease 1-8 Decrease 1
4 Increase all Increase all Increase all
Factors Influencing Willingness to Communicate
In terms of qualitative data, the pre-service teachers reveal the factors that increase and decrease their WTC. In general, there are more positive than negative factors, which, for pre-service 1 and 2 are directly non-existent. Thus, only pre-service 1 specifies that her level of language proficiency is a key factor that increases her WTC, while the rest of the pre-service teachers focus on issues directly related to grouping. For example, the motivation to learn German, which is common to three of the four pre-service teachers, and the classroom relaxed environment because of the lecturer's attitude, stand out. The classroom activities are also highlighted, which, although they are progressive as for content presentation, are mostly based on the pre-service teachers' recently acquired knowledge of German. Moreover, pre-service teacher
3 values positively the lecturer's excursuses in Spanish about didactics, which also makes her WTC increase.
In contrast, pre-service teachers 3 and 4 focus on the factors that decrease their WTC by pointing out at elements related to the difficulties when pronouncing German and mainly to the lack of knowledge of vocabulary and expressions that affect their communication skills. In this sense, it is worth mentioning that pre-service teachers 3 and 4 are supposed to be the closest to a formal learning (i.e., memory-related learning) style. This learner profile understands languages as a classified 'sum of words', which also implies a corresponding translation in her L1. Table 2 includes all factors that increase or decrease the pre-service teachers' WTC according to them:
Table 2
Factors that increase or decrease pre-service teachers' WTC
Pre-service teacher Factors that increase WTC Factors that decrease WTC
1 Language competence Motivation Relaxed environment Teacher's attitude
2 Activities Classroom dynamics Motivation Already-acquired language
3 Motivation Teacher's attitude Excursuses Activities Relaxed environment Difficulties with pronunciation Lack of communication skills
4 Classroom dynamics Already-acquired language Low number of students Activities Lack of language competence Lack of vocabulary
3
1
Lecturer's Excursuses
Finally, the excursuses can be classified into five thematic blocks which bring together the 21 topics dealt with during the 14 practice sessions as displayed in Table 3: classroom dynamics and activities; native speakers; linguistic issues; curriculum; and Erasmus/ University's Language Project conversation classes. Besides pure linguistic and didactic excursuses ("oral language", "for-real-purposes use of language", "variations in the use of German", etc.), other topics about classroom dynamics and activities are presented ("usual classroom dynamics", "use of the Arbeitsblätter [(written worksheets)]", "participation in online forums", etc.) or peripheral but inherent questions to the integral formation of pre-service language teachers ("the importance of Erasmus stays in Germany", the "Erasmus experience", and the "the value of the Language Pan conversation classes"). Table 3 presents all the excursus topics covered up by the lecturer:
The order of the excursuses spoken by the lecturer shows as follows. Session 1: Usual classroom dynamics; Session 2: Native speakers in the classroom; Session 3: Oral language; Session 4: Curriculum; Session 5: The importance of an Erasmus stays in Germany; Session 6: Activity clarifications or instructions; Session 7: Grammar explanations; variations in the use of German; and Pronunciation error treatment; Session 8: The Erasmus experience; Session 9: Use of the Arbeitsblätter; Session 10: Participation in online forums; Session 11:
Table 3
Impressions of the song Laternelied; and Possibilities to set up brief spontaneous speeches; Session 12: Activities as part of progressive chains of knowledge; and Basic rules of classroom behaviour; Session 13: Value of the University's Language Plan conversation classes; and Session 14: Levels of cognitive progression; and For-real-purposes use of language.
Discussion
The innovation of this teacher training methodology lies in the coordinated combination of linguistic (i.e., IFLA-based teaching model) and didactic training: pre-service primary education teachers experience an alternative approach of learning German as a foreign language as an invitation for them to adopt this same approach for their potential foreign language teaching roles. As for linguistic training, the lecturer puts into practice an IFLA- based teaching practice model aimed at the pre-service teachers' first-hand experience concerning the use of German for real communicative purposes according to the acquisitive teaching. This model focuses almost exclusively on the use of oral language, where written language takes place through the Arbeitsblätter that must be completed outside the classroom. Besides, this model also includes work with native German speakers (i.e., four Erasmus students), which guarantees exposure to diverse language uses due to their several origins. Furthermore, the lecturer encourages all pre-service teachers to participate in extra-curricular activities, such as the conversation classes as well as an Erasmus stay in Germany.
Lecturer's excursuses
Thematic block Excursus topic
Classroom dynamics and activities Usual classroom dynamics Activity clarifications or instructions Use of the Arbeitsblätter Impressions of the Laternelied (song) Possibilities to set up brief spontaneous speeches Activities as part of progressive chains of knowledge Basic rules of classroom behaviour Participation in online forums
Native speakers Native speakers in the classroom Variations in the use of German
Linguistic issues Oral language The importance of Erasmus stays in Germany Grammar explanations Pronunciation error treatment Levels of cognitive progression For-real-purposes use of language
Curriculum Primary Education curriculum
Erasmus/ University's Language Project conversation classes The Erasmus experience Value of the University's Language Plan conversation classes
The didactic training is carried out by two different means. First, the excursuses in Spanish as L1 that takes place outside the classroom. It is a matter of distinguishing the moments aimed at the pre-service teachers' language use, where German is the only accepted language of communication, considering moments where they are asked about topics such as classroom dynamics and activities or linguistic issues, for example. These moments occupy little time within the 1:30 hours that each practice session lasts, although the pre-service teachers create a greater awareness of specific teaching-learning elements presented daily to them that would not have been so perceptible if they had not been delivered this way. Thus, the lecturer sacrifices the exclusive use of German over Spanish, to ensure the pre-service teachers' understanding. Similarly, a second option related to the didactics of German consists of online forums in the University's Moodle platform (it is not an optional but mandatory activity, and the quantity and quality of the university students' contributions carry 30% of the final grade). In here, they reflect weekly on topics related to foreign language teaching. This part of the didactic training is also conducted in Spanish.
Linguistic Training
When analysing the impact that teaching how to teach German has in the pre-service teachers' WTC before and after each session, it is worth highlighting that the quantitative and qualitative data represent very positive values regarding learning experiences as also found in MacIntyre (2007). This is exposed by looking into the three pre-service teaching profiles according to their knowledge of German. Thus, the pre-service with the highest knowledge of German always shows a remarkable degree of WTC. She is then supposed to value didactic training as independent of linguistic training but all within a reflective approach (Halbach, 2002), as well as being able to deal with four native speakers of German.
In terms of grouping, pair, group, and whole class work are factors that mainly affect the pre-service teachers' WTC (Cao & Philip, 2006). First, the WTC decreases when it comes to interacting with classmates who know little, the lecturer himself, or even the native speakers of German. This might be directly related to emotional factors as described by Dewaele and Pavelescu (2019) such as shame or even fear, mainly resulting from dealing with a foreign language. However, this also depends on the pre-service teachers' traits (Jonkmann et al., 2012; Zhang et al., 2020), e.g., pre-service teacher 4 initially presents similar characteristics to pre-service teacher
3 concerning her knowledge of German, although her WTC does not de/increase in the same way. Finally, pre-service teachers 2 and 3 reveal a lower WTC if the language proficiency of the classmates with whom they interact is higher (Jafri & Manaf, 2020). This fact discloses that some pre-service teachers see their WTC with other classmates decreased if they consider that speaking a foreign language should become an embarrassing moment for them (Khajavy et al., 2018).
As for the factors that make WTC increase or decrease, the first prevails over the second option according to the pre-service teachers' opinions, especially concerning two main issues: motivation (Yashima, 2002; Dornyei, 2017) and a relaxed classroom environment (Peng & Woodrow, 2010; Khajavy et al.,
2016). This situation might be caused by the lecturer's attitude because of his close contact with the pre-service teachers (Zarrinabadi, 2014). Moreover, WTC has to do with the classroom activities (Saint Léger & Storch, 2009) that involve oral foreign language for real-communication purposes (MacIntyre & Doucette, 2011).
Finally, the factors that decrease the pre-service teachers' WTC are those closely related to their lack of language proficiency (Cao, 2011), as it is the case of pre-service teachers 3 and 4. This prevents them from expressing themselves openly and fluently. Nevertheless, this situation is shared by language beginners for whom uttering is firstly based on imitation and repetition (Ghazi-Saidi & Ansaldo,
2017). Later, pre-service teachers gradually start realising about the target language operating system.
Didactic Training
The lecturer's excursuses represent the only moments of Spanish (L1) use by the pre-service teachers. As explained, these take place outside the classroom to limit the physical contexts of language use. Excursuses allow all participants to discuss with the lecturer about the pedagogic values of a specific didactic technique that has just been put into practice in the classroom, or to understand the reasons why he takes concrete methodological decisions that may require an explanation. Participants take advantage of these brief moments of group reflection to gather ideas (i.e., pros and cons) to be used later in the online forum debates about foreign language didactics that take place along the initial foreign language (German) acquisition process itself. Thus, 21 excursuses were compiled within five thematic blocks, among which those classified as classroom dynamics and activities and language issues stand out. First, regarding grouping, the lecturer relates his excursuses about
usual classroom dynamics to language use proposals for communicative purposes together with action models. Through the excursuses, he proposes an IFLA-based teaching practice model for linguistic training mainly different from the teaching practices that the pre-service teachers experienced first-hand during former pre-university educational stages (Estrada & Zayas, 2020). Regarding grammar rules, it should be highlighted that until session 8, the lecturer does not make any specific excursus on grammar. In this case, it focuses on grammar in language teaching according to the pre-service teachers' experience (the uses of formal/informal foreign language; the purpose of grammatical explanations, which should not constitute prescriptive explanations of the internal system of German but descriptive ones; grammatical explanations constituting an opportunity to infer the functioning of German; and grammar explanations being pedagogically useful).
Concerning classroom activities, the lecturer points out that these are not collected randomly from a resource bank but are part of the progress of specific language uses (session 12). Concerning the Arbeitsblätter (session 9), the lecturer explains that it is an opportunity for the pre-service teachers to reflect on German. Also, the Arbeitsblätter gives room for incorporating varied cognitive styles, besides offering to the pre-service teachers a (physical) reference of learning. In this respect, some of them are conditioned by the phonic/graphic learning model in primary and secondary education. Finally, other excursuses make explicit reference to the four basic classroom rules (session 12) related to the acquisitive teaching (Haidl, 1990):keine Grammatik; nur mündliche Sprache; nur Deutsch; and Motivation. The latter is presented as an essential element in WTC (MacIntyre et al., 2001; MacIntyre et al., 2003).
Second, concerning linguistic issues, the lecturer's first excursus deals with oral language (session 3), emphasizing the value of memory (Juffs & Harrington, 2011) without the support of written language, where the lecturer approaches knowledge consolidation only through verbal communication. It points out the fact that there are easy-to-recognise words as cognates (Beinborn et al., 2014). But in case the words are not recognizable enough, the lecturer asks the pre-service teachers to be patient and stay devoted to the IFLA-based teaching practice model proposed, which will provide them with enough language input throughout alternative ways (Haidl, 1990) to identify the unrecognized forms of German. Regarding pronunciation error treatment (session 7), the lecturer appeals to the fact that non-intervention constitutes a way of error treatment per se (Truscott, 2005).
Therefore, error treatment should include alternatives other than exclusively explicit correction or even corrective feedback (Estrada, 2020).
Third, the lecturer talks about the benefit of Erasmus stays and University's Language Project conversation classes with native speakers (sessions 5, 8, and 11). This point highlights the value of linguistic training in general, and job-finding opportunities. Another excursus involves the presence of native speakers (session 2) in the classroom to recognize the diversity of German uses to address personal neutralization or normalization of the target language. Also, the variations in German (the native speakers come from different territories of Germany), which can require a natural treatment by the pre-service teachers (Iakovos & Areti, 2009). Finally, the lecturer refers to the primary education curriculum (session 3), presenting several topics such as the progressive complexity of the language interactions in German tested in the classroom; the cognitive evolution and learning levels; the intensification of classroom activities that increase each session; the progressive construction of meaning; the fact that communication implies a semantic delimitation within the language uses; the focus on relative variations within the language contexts but always considering the use of the target language for communicative purposes; etc.
In short, the relevance of these excursuses lies in the way they supplement the foreign language acquisition process to serve as evidence-based methodological principles for anyone who could use them as a foreign language teacher him/herself: the value ofa learning context that establishes the natural use of the target language for real communicative purposes; carefully designed classroom dynamics, in which several activities are interspersed, where non-native speakers establish contact with native speakers of German; etc. Assuming that external factors dependent on the lecturer's attitude are also influenced by other factors such as the pre-service teachers' motivation mediated by foreign language enjoyment (Zhang et al., 2020) and a relaxed environment, excursuses about the didactics of foreign language teaching in Spanish outside the classroom help the students to identify methodology issues of great value for their training as pre-service teachers of German. The order of the excursuses is partly pre-programmed, while others are presented according to the classroom dynamics progress.
Conclusion
The relevance of the results reveal that this linguistic
and didactic dual training is well received by the pre-service teachers who, apart from developing some sensitivity towards the diagnostic value of WTC, show a high degree of WTC -regardless of their German proficiency levels-, which increases as for all three types of grouping (pair, group, and whole class), group member familiarity (except if the communication takes place with a classmate the pre-service teachers know little), and interlocutor's foreign language proficiency. Moreover, several factors increase their WTC, many of which are related to classroom dynamics and activities, along with a relaxed classroom atmosphere and the lecturer's attitude. Therefore, it is very satisfying that the pre-service teachers are open to this type of dual training since they obtain a double benefit. First, they develop oral competence in German, working not only with other classmates whose mother tongue is Spanish but also with native speakers of German of similar age. Second, they discuss questions related to language pedagogy. Therefore, it is possible to merge linguistic and didactic training using both languages and making pre-service teachers with different levels of foreign language and native speakers work together. Lecturers should seek a balance between all parties, knowing how to motivate participants and to create a relaxed classroom atmosphere by avoiding penalizing explicitly ungrammatical language uses.
Finally, this study provides answers to the aims and research questions posed before. Related to the first aim, the pre-service teachers' opinions reveal a high impact of the teaching practices on their linguistic and didactic training that makes their WTC increase before and after many of the practice sessions analysed. This gives an answer to the first research question: the teaching practices have a positive influence on most of the pre-service teachers, especially on language training. The excursuses are considered as the pre-service teachers' axis of self-analysis and as a significant part of their training. Concerning the second aim, the pre-service teachers support the classroom dynamics and activities in terms of language. There are also other key factors considered such as motivation, a relaxed atmosphere, and the lecturer's attitude. The excursuses do not stand out so clearly, although some pre-service teachers define them as one factor that increases their WTC. This provides an answer to the second research question: the pre-service teachers show a high degree of commitment to teaching practices. They are consistent in their opinions with one exception: the lack of German proficiency, even though they still feel confident when using it. In addition, the excursuses make them reflect on the teaching practices and increase their WTC.
In terms of practical suggestions for improvement, the results obtained in this exploratory classroom-based research may be adopted as recommendations for pre-service training as follows:
(1) A clear distinction should be made between the use of the foreign language and the first language or mother tongue (L1), preserving the pre-service teachers' foreign language exclusively for linguistic training purposes and the L1 only to raise or clarify didactic questions. This research reveals that the lecturer makes this distinction by also physically separating the contexts of language use, using the classroom for the exclusive use of German.
(2) The progress of the pre-service teachers' language proficiency must take advantage of using oral language rather than written language, leaving the latter for moments of individual work. Time constraints lead to this situation so that only language-acquisition practices are encouraged. In turn, conscious work focused on learning is transferred to the time available for students outside the classroom. Due to limited exposure to the target language, lecturers should encourage students to participate in activities such as conversation classes, for example.
(3) Native speakers (Erasmus students at the local university) should be the ones facilitating the real contact with the target language, who can also develop significant pedagogical skills. This might increase the overall knowledge and WTC of the local students, imitating an ISLA-based teaching practice model of language immersion even though German remains as a foreign language.
(4) Lecturers' excursuses can be pre-programmed, although they should analyse the classroom situations to decide whether to focus on a methodology issue or not. Nonetheless, the excursuses should be brief, leaving the reflection and the analysis for the individual work of the pre-service teachers outside the classroom. Also, lecturers should take advantage of the technological resources that allow the university virtual (e.g., Moodle) platform.
Finally, the limitations of this work focus mainly on the small number of participants analysed, who also have a very diverse knowledge of German. Thus, any claim of causality is to be taken with reserve. A larger number of pre-service teachers within the same language proficiency level group could have given greater scientific soundness to the results of the study. Similarly, it would have been possible to share with them a final session devoted to reviewing all the
excursuses presented during the course to obtain more opinions on the relevance of their linguistic and didactic dual training.
Declaration of Competing Interest
None declared.
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Appendix 1
Section 1
1. Nombre y apellidos
2. Años aprendiendo alemán
3. Evalúa tu nivel de alemán
4. Evalúa tu nivel de competencia oral en alemán
5. ¿Qué tan dispuesto/a estabas a hablar alemán hoy en clase?
6. ¿Cuál es tu sensación sobre tu disposición a hablar en alemán tras la clase de hoy?
Section 2: ¿Qué factores influyeron hoy en tu disposición a hablar alemán? (i)
1. Disposición del grupo: trabajo en parejas
2. Disposición del grupo: trabajo en grupo
3. Disposición del grupo: trabajo con toda la clase
4. Interlocutor: un compañero que conozco muy bien
5. Interlocutor: un compañero que conozco un poco
6. Interlocutor: mi profesor
7. Competencia del interlocutor: igual que la mía
8. Competencia del interlocutor: más alta que la mía
9. Competencia del interlocutor: más baja que la mía
Section 3: ¿Qué factores influyeron hoy en tu disposición a hablar alemán? (ii)
1. Enumera qué factores aumentaron tu disposición a hablar
2. Enumera qué factores disminuyeron tu disposición a hablar
3. ¿Qué actividades aumentaron tu disposición a hablar?
4. ¿Qué actividades disminuyeron tu disposición a hablar?
5. ¿Cuándo te has sentido más dispuesto a hablar hoy?
6. ¿Cuándo te has sentido menos dispuesto a hablar hoy?
