Argentinian Journal of Applied Linguistics - ISSN 2314-3576

Sobre navíos y naufragios: ¿De dónde deriva la hegemonía del inglés?

2024-03-11T15:25:32+00:00

The following reflective article has been written in response to an article by Montserrat & Mórtola (2023) and revolves around two main ideas: (i) Foreign language educational policies in Argentina are not adrift and the role of English in the education system is not a default setting but the product of specific linguistic policies coordinated by different agents; (ii) Although the learning and teaching of English are not always subservient of British and American power centres, some of the discourses and arguments from which they are justified can become so.

Exploring the development of oral skills and social competences through role-plays in an English language subject in higher education

2023-05-01T19:37:09+00:00

Contemporary English teaching demands the use of methodologies that facilitate students’ participation and protagonism in the teaching-learning process. This paper proposes the use of role-plays framed in a cooperative methodology in order to encourage students’ participation and the acquisition of social competences in an advanced EFL subject at higher education. The objectives of this article are: 1. To promote the development of oral skills and social competences through students’ participation in role- plays and 2. To know students opinions about the implementation of roles-plays in the classroom. The study uses a mixed-methods research design by observing the students’ performances in role-plays and by using a questionnaire at the end of the semester. Findings show that students acquire social competences, increase their interaction and improve their speaking skills by their participation in role- plays. Moreover, the study revealed that students become more aware of social situations.

Introduction

2024-05-14T14:26:12+00:00

Revising the EFL curriculum through the lens of a multidimensional gender perspective

2023-09-03T00:01:37+00:00

Gender inequality, discrimination and violence are major problems everywhere in the world. In Argentina, several laws have been passed to address these issues. In spite of all this legal framework, gender justice is still a pending goal to be achieved. At university level, the interdisciplinary and multidimensional postgraduate workshop “Transforming the course curriculum: Workshop to integrate a gender perspective in the university curriculum”, is an initiative to revise and transform the university curriculum from a gender perspective under three main dimensions: epistemic, political and ethical. In this account, I am sharing an experience of curriculum revision from the previously mentioned multidimensional gender perspective carried out in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) course from Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto, Córdoba, Argentina. I am also presenting some key concepts to understand gender inequality and exclusion and some interesting initiatives on gender inclusion in Argentina.

Academic Literacy in English: A Pedagogical Proposal for the Teaching of Nominalization in an Undergraduate Program

2024-03-09T12:38:15+00:00

The classroom account described in this article proposes a pedagogical sequence for raising undergraduate students’ awareness of nominalization as a powerful resource to enhance their academic reading and writing skills. Academic literacy requires that students familiarize themselves with ways of expressing meanings which are particularly frequent in academic texts, but which are not often present in everyday language. Nominalization is one of the features that poses a challenge for university students both for reading and for writing science-related texts. The sequence activities were organized into stages, which gradually guide students from reading a science-popularization article to notice the presence of nominalized forms, to finally using this linguistic resource in guided writing activities. It is expected that those teaching EFL at the university level will find these activities applicable and relevant to scaffold academic literacy development.

40 years of democracy in Argentina: A decolonial didactic sequence about our last dictatorship in the English class at Social Work College

2024-02-23T12:09:02+00:00

This classroom account delves into a decolonial didactic sequence carried out in 2023 within the subject English II, corresponding to the fourth and final year of Social Work College. The sequence was developed in answer to a call made by the Dirección General de Cultura y Educación (DGCyE) to address the 40^th anniversary of the restoration of democracy in Argentina with the purpose of remembering the victims from the illegal repression of the last coup d'etat and celebrating democratic values through active citizenship. The article also discusses the difficulty educators find when intending to deal with Argentinian matters in English, with regards to identity construction and the selection of materials in the target language.

El uso de Photovoice en el aula de lenguas extranjeras para promover la autorreflexión y el desarrollo de la comunicación oral

2024-03-10T15:48:00+00:00

The present article describes a pedagogical project on the implementation of Photovoice in the Spanish as a foreign language class at an American university. The two main objectives of the project are, on the one hand, to motivate students to investigate concepts related to interculturality, specifically, perspective taking and self-knowledge, through the use of photography as a trigger, and on the other hand, to create a space for the development of oral communication competence in a framework of discussion about authentic topics. This article offers details of the tasks designed as part of the project, as well as a reflection on their relevance to be implemented in the L2 classroom.