Venturing into Research

An Attempt at Approaching Sociolinguistics in an English Teacher Education Programme

Abstract

This article presents a didactic experience framed within a linguistics course taught in English at a university-level English teacher education programme. One of the modules in the curriculum includes an approach to sociolinguistics, and it is from this branch of linguistics that students are encouraged to reflect on the language they are studying and will eventually teach. The course aims for students to achieve a higher level of development in both the functional use of the foreign language and competencies related to their professional work through familiarisation with sociolinguistics and initiation into research in this field. To achieve this, students engage in a sociolinguistic exercise with the objectives of mastering some terminological nuances within the discipline, recognising sociolinguistic aspects within the context of their English teacher education programme as a discourse community, collecting data, analysing them using specific methods and techniques, and sharing the results of their work and experiences. This results in instances of presentation and debate in which students analyse linguistic uses and situations they encounter as students and which they will face during their roles as teachers. The purpose of this article is to share the previously described didactic experience, with the intention that it can be used as a reference or replicated, allowing for adaptations and improvements in different contexts.