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Making connections through texts in language teaching

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2008

Richard Kern
Richard Kern*
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley, [email protected]
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Abstract

Language is not just a tool for communication. It is also a resource for creative thought, a framework for understanding the world, a key to new knowledge and human history, and a source of pleasure and inspiration. The Connections Standard is about linking language and literature study to other disciplines (for example, art, music, film, history, among others) and about getting students to experience unique viewpoints available only through a particular language and its cultures. This presentation will argue for the importance of analyzing texts (written, oral, visual, audio-visual) in language teaching. The goal is to give students the chance to position themselves in relation to distinct viewpoints and distinct cultures and to make connections between language and other symbolic ways of making meaning, connections between language and other disciplines, and connections between language and culture. These connections are not easy to make, but they are essential if we are to prepare our students for the broadest range of language use and allow them to achieve their full communicative potential.

Type
Plenary Speeches
Information
Language Teaching , Volume 41 , Issue 3 , July 2008 , pp. 367 - 387
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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