Language awareness as a basis for language learning

Experiences from a university course

Abstract

This paper reports on the outcomes of a course designed for university students with the aim to enhance awareness of the sociolinguistic situation of the multilingual world. Based on the book Setsuei no susume [Setsuei: Towards Reducing the Use of English] (2016), the course explores the positive and negative sides of the global spread of English. In the beginning, students were astonished, even shocked, at the unusual idea of reducing the use of English. At the end of the semester, however, many students reported that they had overcome the view that overestimates the usefulness of English and underestimates the importance of other languages, including Japanese. The study suggests that such a realistic approach to language awareness could provide a sound basis for language learning.