La recerca en aprenentatge de llengües i les percepcions sobre les pràctiques didàctiques a l’aula: el cas de l’ensenyament dels passats en català com a llengua addicional

Abstract

This article has a dual purpose. On the one hand, it reviews the complex relationship between research into the teaching and learning of additional languages to adults and classroom practice. The different positions that have existed around the current debate and trends are presented. On the other hand, the relationship between theory and practice is illustrated from a study on the perceptions of teachers of Catalan as an additional language in terms of the influence of research on their perceptions of practices in the classroom. The study is based on the answers to an online questionnaire answered by 76 Catalan teachers for adults in Catalan-speaking territories and abroad. The questionnaire included an open-ended question in which teachers were asked if they thought that research in language teaching had influenced their way of teaching the uses and forms of the past in Catalan.The results of the study showed that half of the teachers said they had been influenced by research in their classroom practices. Teachers related the influence of research more to methodological aspects of language teaching (the communicative approach) and their own experience than to specific research topics. At the end of the article, different ways of consolidating the field of research in the teaching of Catalan as an additional language for adults are proposed.