Linguistic Description of English for Language Teaching

Essay Paper
Insuasty Cardenas
Andres Guillermo
March 28, 2016

Language teaching and linguistics as a tool to foster interaction in the classroom

The field of linguistics has contributed a lot when it refers to the use of language
and its different implications in a variety of contexts, because language itself it is not only
utterances expressed by a person but a complex system of elements which take place in a
determined context. According to Radford et al. (2009) the use of language implies the use
of cognitive and social elements which are important to make interaction possible, on one
hand, some cognitive elements are contained in psycholinguistic studies in which language
is produced in the brain and on the other hand pragmatics studies the use of language in a
determined context. Thus, the process of learning and teaching a language is not as easy as
people might think, because talking in a foreign language has a lot of things to be taken into
account.
As mentioned before, when a language is taught in a determined classroom, it is
necessary to know a language in terms of its structure, sounds and its use in order to make
our students understand a language thoroughly, consequently, interaction in a determined
group will help people to make use of a language in an appropriate way. Social interaction

is necessary when learning a language, you need to know about its origins and how useful
that language will be in the city or country you live, some people might need it to study a
masters degree or go abroad. Teachers play an important role in the instruction process,
when a language is taught well; students will be able to use it properly in the future.
Through the time, teachers have used traditional methods when teaching a language
applying grammar rules and fostering interaction among students, but what about the
future? In her book, Carol Chapelle (2003) English language learning and technology:
lectures on applied linguistics in the age of information and communication technology, she
makes reference and cites different authors about the use of linguistics through technology,
the use of labs and networks have moved teachers to consider new ways of fostering
language learning, but of course it is necessary to know about the impact of the media in
the process of interaction, Naz Rasool (1999) as cited in Chapelle (2003) states that in an
evolved and updated world the media plays an important role in the process of promoting
interaction.
Linguistics makes language learning more effective and engaging because teachers
need to know even more about the effective use of English and how the information has to
be addressed to the students. That is why teachers need to know how English is processed
in the brain, how it should be used in context and what vocabulary is necessary to use in a
determined context. In this complex process, Meng (2009) explains that there are many
factors that go beyond the mere idea of just teaching grammar rules but inviting our
students to analyze language rather than memorizing and repeating simple vocabulary just
to use inside the classroom. Teachers need to change that view of teaching language in a

passive way, they need to encourage students to make use of a language in all its
competences and make learning process successful.
For this reason, it might be advisable for teachers to encourage students to take
advantage of the media on terms of language teaching, by means of real context activities
such as posting a critical thinking question on a blog that grasps students attention, posting
videos in which student share their ideas about something or making dialogues on video in
order to evaluate some linguistic features (pronunciation - phonetics, syntax grammar
etc.) Chapelle (2003) states that the use of the media facilitates the use of language through
a variety of webpages which contain a lot of information in different languages, this aspect
make of the internet a multilingual place where people can find and express their ideas in
any language they want.
Since its onset in the 90s, Internet allowed people to have the opportunity to
communicate with people who lived abroad and get information from different websites
that made our lives easier than before. Thus, teachers may use technology to their
advantage, Bolshakov and Gelbukh (2004) explained the importance and usefulness of
applied linguistic systems, these ones are used in different contexts in order to show
students and appropriate use of language. Some of the features shown by Bolshakov and
Gelbukh (2004) are the following: Text preparation: it refers to the main text or speech you
are preparing. This text or speech is classified into: Automatic hyphenation, spell checking
grammar checking, style checking and referencing. Information retrieval in scientific,
technical, and business document databases; Automatic translation from one natural
language to another; Natural language interfaces to databases and other systems;

Extraction of factual data from business or scientific texts; Text generation from pictures
and formal specifications; Natural language understanding; Optical character recognition,
speech recognition, etc.
As it was seen previously, information technology (IT), linguistics and language
teaching can work together in the classrooms, because it provides a lot of useful resources
to be used during the class. Students have the chance to be up-to-date with the new
technological trends and devices which allow them to look for information and then make a
study of any material available for them. When students prepare a speech or write an essay
it might be analyzed by means of different software programs such as Word,
CrossLexica, WordNet, Classifier, TextAnalyst etc. (Bolshakov and Gelbukh, 2004) in
order to check how different linguistic features affect their composition, the students make
the appropriate corrections.
It is known that machines will never replace teachers instruction, thus teachers
assistance should not be missed in this process, in addition; the internet and the media
provide students a fruitful source of information based on real or fictional content which
allow students to analyze a variety of contexts. In addition, keeping students attention in an
EFL classroom like ours implies moving from imposition to attraction. The purpose is to
change the have to attitude towards learning a foreign language. Instead, teachers have to
foster a want to attitude in their students, also build inner motivation, foster interest and
establish long term results that promote independent learners.

It is also necessary to improve the standards of teaching and students preparation to

communicate in English in an appropriate way. To accomplish these aspects, teachers have
to make classes more demanding for students, because they are responsible of encouraging
students to learn a foreign language appropriately. English is supposed to be used in a social
context, in the real world and it is crucial to make use of the new technologies teachers
have around them to give a proper instruction. However, people need to be prepared both
psychologically and socially to adopt the culture of a foreign language, in this topic the
pragmatic, sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic aspects take place to teach students both
outside and inside the classroom the importance of learning a foreign language and the
cultural customs a language brings along.
References
Radford, A. et al. (2009). Linguistics: an introduction second edition. University of Essex.
Cambridge University Press.
Chapelle, C. (2003). English language learning and technology: lectures on applied
linguistics in the age of information and communication technology. Iowa State
University. John Benjamins Publishing Company. Amsterdam / Philadelphia.
Rasool, N. (1999). Chapter 1: The changing world of English language teaching. As cited in
Chapelle, C. (2003) English language learning and technology: lectures on applied
linguistics in the age of information and communication technology. Iowa State
University. John Benjamins Publishing Company. Amsterdam / Philadelphia.
Meng, J. (2009). The Relationship between Linguistics and Language Teaching.
College of foreign languages, Qingdao University of Science and Technology.
Asian Social Science. Vol. 5. No. 12.
Bolshakov, I. and Gelbukh, A. (2004). Computational Linguistics models, resources,
applications. Mxico DF. ISBN: 970-36-0147- 2.