IS FL DIDACTICS REGARDED AS A SCIENTIFIC FIELD?

Before answer the question we should make a distinction between what a discipline and a science is.   Discipline is the rigorous and systematic knowledge related to a subject, while science is a combination of methods and techniques to acquire and organize the knowledge. The application of those methods and knowledge is addressed to acquire more knowledge. Likewise, science is seen as a set of scientific knowledge that are shown through theories.

Despite of didactics is taken as a new discipline, in the last 40 years there has been a growing awareness of the complexity of language teaching. That is the reason why there is a participation of language science in language teaching. Thus, teaching language borrowed theories from Psychology, linguistic and sociolinguistic fields. 

If we take into account that every science, with certain level of theoretical development, must possess essential models and laws or principles and interaction with other sciences or disciplines, and it is from them that it can deduct most of the individual regularities – weaknesses and strengths -  inside the phenomena it studies, in this case English as a foreign language. During the teaching and learning language process some links with several aspects are produced; as Uljens (1997) points out, understanding the didactic teaching-studying-learning process call for consideration of all relevant issues embedded in the pedagogical process when he divides the essential dimensions of teaching process into five aspects, which are intentionality, context, interaction, content and methods. Furthermore, other important factors could be included as Harjanne (2004a) says: planning, implementing and evaluating the teaching of a foreign language must be reflected on, so that we could understand their pedagogical appropriateness, which again is conductive to the subsequent intentions.

As a result of this, Didactics is a science whose object of study is the teaching and learning language process which is characterized by a system of concepts, categories, laws and principles that are consequently built in and enhance and address their development. In other words, didactic in this case FLD achieves the learning of concepts, procedures, attitudes, habits and skills related to a foreign language; which implies as Alvarez argues, “que el didacta debe disponer de un cuadro teórico de referencia lo más amplio posible, que le permita observar mejor los problemas reales que se dan en las aulas de nuestras escuelas e institutos, y así poder construir el objeto de la didáctica, que no se olvide, pasa primordialmente por la intervención.” (Alvarez T. 1998:185)

 

   

 

 

Las ciencias del lenguaje y su transposicion en el marco de la didactica de la lengua.

3 Towards a Conceptual framework