Reconceptualizing language teaching: an in-service teacher education course in uzbekistan

Stress on 
Family vs. 
Friend
Family stress is high – 
throughout the content 
and pictures. Parent’s 
corner is very interesting 
– I believe the parent is 
expected to be involved in 
the teaching and learning 
for the child. Responsibility 
of learning is on the family.
In this book, there are no section 
titles that are about family. (Per-
haps this vocabulary is taught 
earlier and not at the third book.) 
The focus of the family is limited 
and expressed in stories of Amer-
ica (p. 48) and traveling (p. 74). 
Responsibility of the learner is on 
the learner.
While modern Western culture associates time with money, causing the 
social institutions such as paying people hourly, weekly; Uzbek culture nev-
er experienced such a quantified form of understanding time. Uzbek time is 
expressed via such metaphorical utterances as: “
Вақт тоғни емирар, сув 
тошни кемирар”, “Вақтинг кетди – бахтинг кетди”, “Вақтдан ютдинг 
– бахтдан ютдинг”, “Вақт – қози”. All these figurative utterances char-
acterize time as being a non-quantifiable category. As such, Uzbek time is 
associated with someone’s happiness that could be lost once he or she 
loses his or her time; or with philosophical power that could destroy even 
mountains for the duration of long time. Thus, there is no paying salaries 
hourly or/and weekly in Uzbekistan. These different metaphorical associa-

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53
CHAPTER ONE: COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE
tions cause differences in social institutions (e.g. paying salary) via language 
we use.
SUMMARY
Sociolinguistic competence needs to be taught in foreign language 
teaching classes as it enhances students’ communicative competence, 
their ability to understand culturally-affect meanings, the meanings that 
are not tied to rules and dictionaries (form and semantics), but meanings 
that serve a certain function in a social setting. 
HOMEWORK TASK FOUR
Please refer to the lesson you chose for Homework Task One. In a one-
page report or less, please do the following: First, explain briefly how you 
understand sociolinguistic competence (i.e., what does sociolinguistic 
competence mean to you); Second, explain how the lesson you chose for 
Homework Task One can be organized so that sociolinguistic competence 
is the focus.
REFERENCES
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2. Bowen, M., & Hoking, L. (2009). English World. Pupil’s Book 3. London: 
Macmillan.
3. Celce-Murcia, M., & Olshtain, E. (2000). Discourse and context in lan-
guage teaching: A guide for language teachers
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bridge University Press.
4. Coupland, N., & Jaworski A. (2009). The New Sociolinguistics Reader. 
England: Palgrave Macmillan. 
5. Duff, P. A. (2010). “Language Socialization.” In: N.H. Hornberger and 
S.L. McKay (Eds.), pp. 427-452, Sociolinguistics and Language Educa-
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6. Hymes, D. (1967). Models of the interaction of language and social 
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berger and S.L. McKay (Eds.), pp. 40-61, Sociolinguistics and Lan-
guage Education
. U.K.: Multilingual Matter.

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RECONCEPTUALIZING LANGUAGE TEACHING
8. Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago: Uni-
versity of Chicago Press.
9. Lakoff, G. (2004). Don’t Think of an Elephant. White River Junction, VT: 
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12. Searle, J. (1969). Speech acts: An essay in the philosophy of language. 
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13. Street, B. & Leung, C. (2010). “Sociolinguistics, Language Teaching 
and New Literacy Studies.” In: N.H. Hornberger and S.L. McKay (Eds.), 
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14. Wardhaugh, R. (2006). An introduction to sociolinguistics. Blackwell 
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15. Xan, S., Jurayev, L., & Inogamova, K. (2015). Kids’ English. Pupil’s Book 
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. Tashkent: Uzbekistan.

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CHAPTER ONE: COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE