Journal of Universal Language
Sejong University Language Research Institue
Article

Learning Linguistics by Doing: The Secret Virtues of a Language Constructed in the Classroom

Federico Gobbo1,
1University of L’Aquila
Corresponding Author : Federico Gobbo, Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Informazione, Ingegneria e Matematica (DISIM) University of L’Aquila, via Vetoio, IT-67100 L’Aquila, Italy. Phone: 0039-3455135665; Email: federico.gobbo@gmail.com

Copyright ⓒ 2016, Sejong University Language Research Institue. This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Received: Jul 24, 2013; Revised: Aug 21, 2013; Accepted: Sep 04, 2013

Published Online: Jan 01, 2017

Abstract

The teaching of second languages in school classrooms is often conducted through the use of ‘direct’ and ‘immersion’ methods, while grammar is reserved for the first language. However, pupils spontaneously raise important questions for general and theoretical linguistics which could be better addressed through an interlinguistic comparison of first and second language grammars in the pupils’ repertoires. This paper explains the method used in a pilot experiment in fieldwork. The experiment was conducted in the fourth class of a Montessori primary school, where pupils constructed from scratch a posteriori language to be used for secret communication among themselves―but not to be used with the rest of the school. During the process of the construction of this language, all aspects were discussed in the class: phonetics and writing systems, morphology and syntax, semantics and pragmatics. The main educational result was the increase in pupils’ metalinguistic awareness, as well as the confidence that they gained in their own language proficiency.

Keywords: language learning; constructed language; interlinguistics

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