Pre-requisites

None.

Co-requisites

None.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, the student will be able to:

• demonstrate coherent knowledge of the analytical concepts and skills necessary to describe and document the sounds, word structures, word meanings, and patterns of a language to support language and culture acquisition

• reflect critically on their own beliefs, motivations, and attitudes relevant to developing positive relationships and effective communication in ethnolinguistic contexts

• develop and implement an appropriate plan for language and culture learning, that creatively incorporates linguistic research with language and culture acquisition approaches, techniques and tools

• apply understanding of the intersection between language, community and culture to growing participation in ethnolinguistic communities

Unit Description

Positive relationships and effective communication are essential to successful cross-cultural language development work or missional ministry. The purpose of this unit is to give students confidence and skills to establish relationships in a new community through language learning and cultural adaptation. The unit encourages the development of reflective, experiential learning habits to enhance students’ abilities to continue to learn and develop in contexts with limited resources and support. It gives an overview of approaches to language learning with learned strategies practised through tutorial sessions guided by a native language speaker. It explores articulatory phonetics through training in the description, transcription and production of a broad range of sounds commonly encountered in the languages of the world’s ethnolinguistic communities. It exposes students to basic linguistic analysis terms and tools. It promotes the use of relevant anthropological principles and/or frameworks to be able to make valid cultural observations in social settings and modify behaviour in unfamiliar socio-cultural settings. These four aspects combine to assist the learner to live, participate and communicate effectively and appropriately in cross-cultural ministry situations.

The unit is typically delivered as a 4-week intensive timetabled as 4-5 hours per day, Monday to Friday each week. To support its distinct learning outcomes, this unit provides extended face-to-face contact hours that integrate classroom-based learning with interactive, experiential components that model cross-cultural fieldwork. All assessment tasks are completed throughout the intensive. The unit is foundational to the course as a whole.

Topics

1. Stages and goals of language learning relevant to planning, implementing, and managing a personal language learning program (or language school experience), including the importance of self-evaluation, self-direction, and language data collection and management
2. Working with a nurturer (native speaker), including the importance of personal relationships and the integration of language and culture learning
3. Language learning strategies including demonstration and practice of a variety of techniques for the early stages of learning a language
4. Principles and goals of articulatory phonetics including the operation of the vocal apparatus and the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)
5. Perception, description, transcription, production and mimicry of segments, words, utterances and prosody including a broad range of the sounds which occur most frequently across human languages
6. Basic morphological and syntactic analysis including simple sentence, phrase and word structure
7. Typological aspects of word classes including nouns, verbs, pronouns. The notions of person including number and inclusive/exclusive, grammatical gender (noun class), case, tense, aspect, modality/mood
8. An introduction to other areas of linguistics which inform language learning, such as language families, sound and writing systems, semantics, pragmatics and discourse
9. Cultural humility and personal formation for cross-cultural life and work
10. Anthropological methodologies and techniques for cultural investigation, interpretation, and personal adjustment
11. Missiological frameworks for negotiating intercultural communication, value and belief systems, and faith

Assessment and Indicative Load

Assessment types include Portfolio and Take Home Exam. Indicative study load is 160 hours.

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Unit offerings

Face to face: (Demand based)

Please note

The Unit Offerings listed above are a guide only and the timetable for any year is the final authority. The College may vary offerings based on demand, regulatory requirements, continual improvement processes or other conditions.

This unit may be available in different modes of delivery i.e. online and face-to-face as listed above. The unit content will not differ between these modes of delivery. There will possibly be a difference in the schedule and/or the prescribed assessment tasks, however both will cover and assess the same content.