Language Awareness

Language Awareness: A History and Implementations offers teachers of mother tongue and foreign languages a view of the beginnings and the ramifications of the language-teaching movement called Language Awareness. The philosophy held in common among the teachers in this international movement is twofold. One, teachers want students to become critically aware of how language affects humans. Two, lessons in language are based on recent scientific findings in linguistic and pedagogical research. These lessons are drawn not so much from grammar texts as from the culture surrounding students and teacher and from literary works. From this common philosophy come numerous implementations as teachers seek to teach their mother tongues so that the students' understanding of a language gives the students critical powers in reading, writing, speaking, and listening. The understanding is based on conscious awareness, as opposed to intuitive knowledge. Such a conscious awareness of the workings of one language can become a foundation for the students' acquisition and mastery of other languages. National boundaries have for too long contained the curricula of each nation's schools. Now language educators are transcending those boundaries and uniting that which is valid and helpful from curricula around the world.