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Article published In:
Policy and practice in early language learning
Edited by Janet Enever and Patricia Driscoll
[AILA Review 32] 2019
► pp. 91–111
THE LEARNER

Using young learners’ language environments for EFL learning

Ways of working with linguistic landscapes

| University of Potsdam
| La Trobe University
In this article we explore how primary school learners of English in Germany engage with examples of English that they were asked to locate in their local environments (their linguistic landscapes, LLs). In association with each located image, the learners completed a standardised worksheet in German that asked for brief written comments about its location, the reason why they had selected the image and why they thought that English had been used. Their written reflections demonstrate that these children are remarkably sophisticated in their analyses of linguistic, social and cultural aspects of what they found. They show that with nuanced pedagogies primary school children can benefit greatly from leaving the classroom to find language examples in the worlds around them.
Keywords: linguistic landscape, primary school, language awareness, EFL learning
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • The linguistic landscape: Identifying opportunities for (language) learning
  • Young learners engaging with the linguistic landscape: A study
    • Data collection and analysis
    • Results
    • English in the environment: What examples were selected and where
    • English in the environment: Why examples were selected
    • Why was English used?
      • L2 knowledge and language awareness
      • Insights into social, cultural and economic values associated with English
      • Student feedback
  • Conclusion and outlook
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 7 April 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/aila.00022.roo
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