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The Impact on Teachers of Language Variation as a Course Component RESULTS Language Variation versus Language Planning

المؤلف:  Corony Edwards & Charles Owen

المصدر:  Applied Linguistics and Language Teacher Education

الجزء والصفحة:  P51-C3

2026-08-12

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The Impact on Teachers of Language Variation as a Course Component

RESULTS  

Language Variation versus Language Planning

The final part of the questionnaire focused on the sub-components of sociolinguistics, half of which could be classified as ‘language variation’ topics and half as ‘language planning’.

On being asked which of the two main areas – language variation or language planning respondents had found most useful, the group was relatively evenly divided (see fig. 4 in Views of Language Variation and Language Planning Topics).

The reasons the language variation supporters gave for their choice fall into four main groups: (1) Application or relevance to teaching, for example ‘Knowledge of language variation can influence decisions I make in the classroom-syllabus, answers I give to student questions’; (2) Personal interest, e.g. ‘Language variation is interesting for both teaching and learning’; (3) Knowledge improvement, e.g. ‘Provided insights into the English language that I had never thought about directly - but after they were highlighted- it opened my eyes (!!) about other areas/topics of languages’ and (4) Deficit views of language planning, e.g. ‘Language planning is too broad a topic to handle in a practical situation’. It is curious that relevance to work is mentioned by as many as fifteen people as being a positive aspect of either language variation or language planning when previously this feature had arisen as being problematic in sociolinguistics.