ES enfoque orientado a la acción / CAT enfocament orientat a l'acció / FR approche orientée vers l’action / DE handlungsorientierter Ansatz

The action-oriented approach is the conceptual basis of the proposal by the Council of Europe’s CEFR (2001 and 2008), which “is an action-oriented one in so far as it views users and learners of a language primarily as ‘social agents’, i.e. members of society who have tasks (not exclusively language-related) to accomplish in a given set of circumstances, in a specific environment and within a particular field of action” (CEFR, 2001, p. 9, chapter 2). Regarding the performance of these tasks, the action-oriented approach takes into account the person’s cognitive, emotional, and volitional resources, as well as all the set of specific abilities the person applies as a social agent. An action-oriented approach attaches great importance to formulating the learning goals in terms of competences.

The reflective action-oriented approach is a development of the action-oriented approach intended to foster not only the learner’s ability to communicate in the new additional language, but also their ability to analyze communicative situations and to react accordingly, extracting with agency those linguistic elements that fit them best from the input or the texts dealt with, as well as to manipulate those elements to formulate their own messages. Therefore, in order to be successful in learning, the learner must understand thoroughly the linguistic resources offered by each language to formulate these messages.

According to Esteve and Martín Peris (2013), Negueruela (2013), and Lantolf and Poehner (2014) learning an additional language requires not only using it in communicative acts, but also reflecting consciously on how messages are formulated in that language and, therefore, on the semiotic concepts underlying communicative acts. As a result of this, work in the classroom must be done considering two dimensions, which are closely related: on the one hand, the sociocultural dimension, which involves the use of language in communicative situations; and on the other, the cognitive dimension, ehich involves the mental mechanisms that the learner activates when trying to express something in a language different from their own. Those mechanisms translate into metalinguistic and metadiscursive reflection, which serves to make the learner aware of the criteria and indicators of achievement of the communicative action undertaken.

References

  • Consejo de Europa (2001). Marco común europeo de referencia para el aprendizaje, la enseñanza y la evaluación de lenguas. Madrid: Instituto Cervantes-Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte- Editorial/Anaya. Disponible en http://cvc.cervantes.es/obref/marco/
  • Consejo de Europa (2018). Common European framework of reference for languages: learning, teaching, assessment. Companion volume with new descriptors. Estrasburgo: Council of Europe Publishing. Disponible en https://rm.coe.int/common-european-framework-of-reference-forlanguages-earning-teaching/168074a4e2
  • Esteve, Olga. y Martín Peris, Ernesto (2013). Cuestiones de autonomía en el aula de lenguas extranjeras. Barcelona: ICE-Horsori.
  • Lantolf, James P. & Poehner, Matthew E. (2008). Sociocultural Theory and the Pedagogical Imperative in L2 Education. New York, Routledge.
  • Negueruela, Eduardo (2013). Comunicación y pensamiento verbal en la enseñanza de la gramática: un enfoque conceptual. Miríada Hispánica, 6, 53-70.