Page 20 - ELG1601 Aug-Sep Issue 439

Page 8 ELresearch August / September 2016

Framework (Ref) 2014 was The academic angle informed corpora of professional

he Research Excellence

Ta government exercise that contexts to feed back into work-
places where English is used as
assessed the quality of research a lingua franca and where L2
conducted at British universities. Claudia Civinini surveys some of the world-class uni departments English users interact with lingua
The data was picked up by Times franca users.
Higher Education (THE) maga- to discover the top priorities for research in applied linguistics The comment from Professor
zine and transformed into a ranking Monika Schmid, University of
instrument that could potentially Essex, focused especially on the
aid students from all over the world each department and sent them British situation – and had the
choosing a university in Britain. a brief survey to complete. We whole newsroom nodding sympa-
In April 2015 we printed wanted to know what they were thetically: there is a need to further
our own version of the THE working on and what their views investigate the additional ben-
rankings, focusing on those about the future of applied lin- efit of learning other languages in
departments that could interest guistics research are, both in order to encourage more students
teachers looking for a higher terms of areas of research that to study modern languages at
academic qualification in the will acquire more importance school and university.
fields of English language, lin- in the next five years and issues What project would you pre-
guistics and education. In the that still need further investiga- sent to bid for a £1m research
Ref, academics in the field of tion. We also asked them what grant?
applied linguistics generally project they would present to bid Coming up with a plan for such
submit their research under one for a £1 million grant for high- an important proposition can be
of these three categories. impact research. Eight academics daunting, but our researchers
We selected all departments replied, giving us a glimpse of seemed to have very clear ideas.
that scored two and above on the factors that are shaping our Dr Wright would focus on a
their GPA – grade point aver- understanding of second lan- project on multilingualism. ‘Mul-
age, meaning their research has guage learning – and hopefully tilingual speakers are the most
national, international or global inspiring teachers and prospec- Courtesy British Council common in the world but cogni-
impact. We then checked the staff tive students to contribute to this tive and social factors remain
teaching in ELT-related masters thriving field of research. poorly understood in achiev-
to see in which category they had Their responses don’t necessar- ing social and academic success
submitted their research. ily reflect those of their colleagues MOVING FORWARD The impact of the refugee crisis on language teaching was an issue that for younger learners,’ she said,
Scrolling down lists of names on or of the department they belong two of the applied linguistics academics we talked to wanted to address. Shown above are Syrian ‘especially given the attitude to
the minimalist Ref website proved to. Some of them also wished to refugees attending informal courses at Relief International’s centre in Turkey. The Gazette foreign language learning in the
essential to assign universities and remain anonymous. attended a recent British Council conference in London on language learning for Syrian refugees. UK.’ She also added that other
departments to their correct cat- What are the most- Attendees noted that, just as many developments in medical practice emerged in time of war, so languages, such as Chinese and
egory. As journalists, however, researched topics currently? the refugee crisis has caused online education to develop more quickly. Arabic, need to be studied for
we were missing the personal According to the eight aca- bilingual and biliteracy (literacy
touch, which is why we decided to demics that responded, the of responses. Some academics a medium of instruction (EMI). sity of Bristol mentioned the need in two languages) effects. Young
get in contact with some of those most-researched topic is second also indicated further areas of What will be the most to investigate technology – both learners were also the focus for
researchers and run a survey. language acquisition, followed by research, including corpus lin- important research areas in its strengths and limitations – as Professor Schmid, who would
This time we decided to con- vocabulary acquisition. Bilingual- guistics and discourse analysis, five years’ time? a tool to enhance L2 learning. A investigate the benefits and poten-
tact those academics whose ism, EAP, cognitive neuroscience, language learning anxiety, cross- Language testing and assess- researcher from the University tial disadvantages of an early start
research was judged to be inter- language teaching in early years cultural communication and ment and bilingualism were the of Birmingham commented that in language teaching. Dr Révész
nationally significant in the Ref and language testing and assess- sociocultural theory. None of the favourites, followed by second neurolinguistic approaches are par- would conduct a series of longitu-
2014. We chose one contact for ment provided the same number respondents mentioned English as language acquisition. Vocabu- ticularly promising. dinal studies to investigate second
lary acquisition, language The answers that we ascribed language acquisition through tech-
teaching in early years, EAP and to the second category brought nology-enhanced techniques. A
cognitive neuroscience received up relevant and current issues researcher from the University
an equal number of responses. about the role of language learn- of Bristol would pursue a more
Again, EMI wasn’t mentioned. ing and teaching in wider society. socially oriented project, inves-
Among other topics of A researcher from the University tigating the connection between
research mentioned by the aca- of Swansea said that the single language, communication, migra-
demics, technology makes an most pressing issue for the field tion and social integration.
appearance – computer assisted is to investigate how language Finally, Professor Green
language learning (Call) and teaching can impact social crises would tackle the topic of EMI,
technology in language teaching (migration, refugees and poverty) with research to develop a better
and assessment. and help refugees in their profes- understanding of the academic
What is the single most sional development effectively literacy required to study suc-
pressing issue that still needs to and quickly. She indicated she cessfully at English-medium
be investigated in applied lin- would also present this project to universities. ‘Students can strug-
guistics for language learning? bid for the hypothetical £1m grant gle to access courses for a variety
Being researchers, most aca- for high-impact research. of linguistic and cultural rea-
demics didn’t just stop at one. A researcher at the Univer- sons,’ he commented. ‘We need
We can broadly divide the issues sity of Cardiff concentrated to build a fuller understanding of
that came up into two catego- on the impact of English as a these issues and how they may
ries: those concerning how to lingua franca in international affect student learning to offer
improve language teaching and workplaces – and he would better support and widen access
learning, and those looking at also present this project for the to the opportunities afforded by
the impact of language teaching grant. He highlighted the need university studies and the Eng-
and learning on society. for a series of ethnographically lish language.’ n
Contributing to the first group,
Professor Tony Green from the Ranking university departments
University of Bedfordshire com-
mented that the field needs to The following universities offering masters in applied
better understand the cognitive linguistics and related subjects were ranked as having
processes that underlie perfor- world class research. Different departments submit
mance in the four language skills their applied linguistics research under three separate
(speaking, listening, writing, headings. They are listed below under the appropriate
reading) and how these impact heading with their grade point averages.
on teaching, learning and assess- Education:
ment processes. University of Oxford (3.57), King’s College London
Dr Andrea Révész from UCL (3.42), University of Exeter (3.28), University of Bir-
Institute of Education focused on mingham (3.26), University of Bristol (3.26), UCL
the interactions between leaner Institute of Education (3.21), University of Edinburgh
abilities and methods of instruc- (3.21), Queen’s University Belfast (3.20), University of
tion, and how these need to be York (3.20), University of Manchester (3.11), University
investigated to identify combi- of Warwick (3.04), University of Reading (3.04)
nations that allow L2 learners to
benefit most from instruction. Linguistics:
This was echoed by Dr Clare Queen Mary, University of London (3.58), University of
Wright, University of Reading, Edinburgh (3.29), University of Southampton (3.23), Uni-
who pointed out a need to identify versity of Cambridge (3.20), University of Essex (3.20),
how to maximise learning with Bangor University (3.13), Newcastle University (3.04)
less teaching contact time, adding English language:
that teachers should be offered Swansea University (3.36), University of Sussex (3.28),
more training in linguistics and University of Nottingham (3.27), Cardiff University (3.27),
second language acquisition in University of Aberdeen (3.24), University of Bedfordshire
order to ‘move beyond the trope (3.23), University of Sheffield (3.20), University of Bir-
that practice makes perfect and mingham (3.19), University of Liverpool (3.18), Lancaster
motivation is the answer’. University (3.14), University of Westminster (3.11)
A researcher from the Univer-

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