Abstract

Since the foundation of the Khan Academy (2006), a great deal of attention has been generated to the term flipped classrooms (also known as reverse or backwards classrooms), which is a (new) pedagogical movement that reverses the traditional paradigm of class lecture and homework. This approach subordinates teacher-centred lectures to a secondary level of importance and proposes that lectures should be carried outside of class time in the form of screencasts/video recordings that students can watch at home. As a consequence, this newly freed class time can be used for discussion, questions and assisting students with meaningful practice and hands-on activities.This article first defines what a flipped foreign language (FL) classroom is, and what it is not. The discussion then moves to the fundamental tenets of critical pedagogy (following Vygotsky and Freire), namely: (a) the opposition between banking education and problem-posing education, (b) scaffolding and the zone of proximal development (ZPD) and (c) accountability of the student's own learning. It is argued that flipped classrooms and problem-posing models of education are in fact two sides of the same coin. Then, the author addresses some of the most common concerns among FL instructors regarding the flip and proposes possible solutions. Finally, the limitations are discussed.Higher Education for the Future 2(2) 114-125

This article makes the case for using critical pedagogical approaches to the teaching of Spanish as a heritage language (HL). Having different language tracks is not enough: As long as HL learners hold negative linguistic attitudes about their own language variety, they will be unable and unprepared to learn successfully. First, I define who HL learners are and why they need to be in a separate track from traditional language learners. Later, I discuss the basic premises of critical pedagogy in order to recommend that HL instructors take this pedagogical approach to maximize Spanish HL learner potential. Last, I recommend the importance of providing sociolinguistic tools in order to corroborate that standard Spanish is not a replacement for local varieties but simply a register students can use once they appreciate their own language.

Forensic Linguistics (FL) is a relatively new subfield within applied linguistics that studies the different intersections between language and the legal field, which is heavily linguistic by nature. In order to have a fair, legal and effective procedure, anyone involved in a legal process (lawyers, judges, police officers, members of a jury, etc.) benefits from possessing a certain awareness of linguistic principles. With this purpose, the expert testimony of a linguist could contribute to the understanding or recognition of possible interpretations or points of view that might have gone otherwise unnoticed. This article provides the general linguist with an overview of the broad field of FL and highlights the different ways the discipline can contribute to the criminal justice system. It presents a summary of some of the most well-known and discussed legal cases and outlines the intersections between applied linguistics (mainly pragmatics, discourse analysis, and sociolinguistics) and this emerging field in three interrelated areas: (1) language as the medium of communication between law enforcement authorities and suspects/witnesses or as the medium of legal argumentation in the courtroom, (2) language of the law (issues of intelligibility, interpretation and construction of legal language), and (3) crimes of language and linguistic evidence (use, validity, and reliability in the courtroom). Challenges and limitations of the field are also discussed.

No abstract