Integrating Language Teachers’ Discipline Knowledge in a Language Course
FINAL REMARKS
Specialists’ knowledge of the language
The second hypothesis that was put forward at the beginning of the study was that the academic context of the university will influence the instructors’ practices and discourse towards a more analyst-oriented rather than user-oriented approach.
During the interviews, both instructors refer to an external examination based on skills (FCE, Cambridge First Certificate in English) in order to define the level of proficiency expected at the end of their course. This is paradoxical considering that the program is limited to the study of morpho-syntactic aspects of English and there is no mention of specific skills included in the external examination to which the instructors refer. This discrepancy is acknowledged by Monica.
The notion of a language course as a foundation KAL course for future specialized academic work in linguistics becomes relevant again when we consider that, according to the instructors, the goal of an ES program is not only to use the language competently but also to be able to talk about or explain it and teach it. Furthermore, according to one of the instructors, there is a body of encyclopedic knowledge that an ES graduate must know, even though, as the instructor herself reckons, it is of very little practical use. The two instructors refer to the function of English language development courses in relation to the rest of courses in the ES program and especially in relation to linguistics courses. The introduction of KAL directed to explaining language use, together with a more encyclopedic type of KAL, contribute to defining a distinctive specialist’s knowledge of language for ES graduates.
