Professional Documents
Culture Documents
8
in its socialGontext
Teaching
EnglishLanguage
s o c i o l i n g u i s tei ct h, n o g r a p h iacn, d
_ - r l l i s hL a n g u a gTee a c h i ni gn i t s s o c i a lc o n t e x t o f f e r s
, , , a l - p s y c h o l o g i cpaelr s p e c t i v e o sn T E S 0 L t e a c h i n ga n d l e a r n i n ga n d i n t r o d u c etsh e
o n s e c o n dl a n g u a gaec q u i s i t i o nI t. p r e s e n tEs n g l i s hl a n g u a gtee a c h i n g
. . = . a n tl i t e r a t u r e
. . a r i e t yo f s p e c i fc i n s t i t u t i o n agl e
, ographa i cn dc u l t u r acl o n t e x t s '
- p i e c e -s h a v eb e e n
. : . : i c l e s- w h i c hi n c l u d eb o t hc l a s s i ca n d s p e c i a l lcyo m m i s s i o n e d
teaching'
- _ .. . , y c h o s e n a n o e d i t e dt o p r e s e ntth e m a i np r i n c i p l eosf E n g l i s hl a n g u a g e
- r e c o g n i steh e i n d i v i d u a l i toyf
: , 3 c u so n t h e r o l e sp l a y e db y t e a c h e r a snd learners,
g u i d a n c ef o r s t u d e n t s '
j . a g e l e a r n e r ss, u p p o r t e a c h e r si n t h e p r o v i s i o no f a c t i v e
interaction betweenlearners
=-.- r1g, and examinebothpositiveand negativepatternsof
:-,rteacherS.
- -ls of
R e a d eor f f e r sp e o p l eu n f a m i l i awr i t h r e s e a r cihn t h i sf i e l da n o v e r a lul n d e r s t a n d i n g
. = . ui s s u eisn c o n t e m p o r a E r yn g l i s hl a n g u a gtee a c h i nw g h i l ea l l o w i n tgh em o r ee x p e r i e n c e d
presented'
.=aderthe o p p o r t u n i ttyo r e l a t eh i so r h e re x p e r i e n c teost h et h e o r i e s
L i n g u i s t i casn d D i r e c t o ro f t h e
C h r i s t o p h eNr . C a n d l i ni s C h a i r P r o f e s s oor f A p p l i e d
Researca ht the city
c e n t r e f o r E n g l i s hL a n g u a g eE d u c a t i o na n d c o m m u n i c a t i o n
L a n g u a gaen dc o m m u n i c a t i o a nnsd
U n i v e r s i toyf H o n gl ( o n g .N e i lM e r c e ri s P r o f e s s oorf
a t t h e 0 p e nU n i v e r s i t yU' l ( '
D i r e c t oor f t h e C e n t r ef o r L a n g u a gaen dC o m m u n i c a t i o n s
volumes
Companion
T h ec o m p a n i ovno l u m e isn t h i ss e r i e sa r e :
by AnneBurnsand CarolineCoffin
AnalysingEnglishin a GtobalContextedited
editedby DavidR. Hall and Ann Hewings
Innovationin EnglishLanguageTeaching
T h e s et h r e e r e a d e r sa r e p a r t o f a s c h e m eo f s t u d yj o i n t l y d e v e l o p ebdy M a c q u a r i e
U n i v e r s i t yS, y d n e yA, u s t r a l i aa, n d t h e 0 p e n U n i v e r s i t yU, n i t e dl ( i n g d o mA ' t the Qpen
the threereadersare part of a single course, Teaching English to Speakers of
University,
Worldilde whichforms part of the OpenUniversity MA in Education
1ther Languages
( A p p l i e dL i n g u i s t i c sa)n d A d v a n c e d D i p l o m ai n T e a c h i n gE n g l i s ht o s p e a k e r o s f Other
L a n g u a g eA s .t M a c q u a r i e a
U n i v e r s i t yt h, e t h r e er e a d e r s r e e a c ha t t a c h e t
d o s i n g l es t u d y
u n i t s ,w h i c hf o r m p a r t o f t h e P o s t g r a d u a D t ei p l o m aa n d M a s t e ro f A p p l i e d g u i s t i c s
L i n
p r 0 gr a m m e s .
postgraduate
T h e0 p e nU n i v e r s i tM y A i n E d u c a t i oins n o we s t a b l i s h ea dst h em o s tp o p u l a r
d e g r e ef o r U l ( e d u c a t i o p n r o f e s s i o n awl si,t h o v e r3 , 5 0 0 s t u d e n t sr e g i s t e r i nega c hy e a r '
From 2001 it will alsobe availablw e o r l d w i d eT. h e M A i n E d u c a t i o ins d e s i g n e d
p a r t i c u l a r lfyo r t h o s ew i t h e x p e r i e n cien t e a c h i n ge, d u c a t i o n a ld m i n i s t r a t i oonr a l l i e d
. h eM A i s a m o d u l adr e g r e a
f i e l d sT e n ds t u d e n tasr ef r e et o s e l e c tf ,r o m a r a n g eo f o p t i o n s ,
in
t h e p r o g r a m m teh a t b e s tf i t s i n w i t h t h e i r i n t e r e s tasn d p r o f e s s i o ngaol a l s .T h e M A
s t u d y a t t h e i r o w n p a c ea n d in
E d u c a t i opnr o g r a m m pe r o v i d egs r e a tf l e x i b i l i t yS. t u d e n t s
s t u d ym a t e r i a l sa, n d a r e s u p p o r t e d y
t h e i r o w n t i m e . T h e y r e c e i v es p e c i a l l py r e p a r e d b
( A p p l i e dL i n g u i s t i c s )
a p e r s o n at lu t o r . ( S u c c e s s f cuol m p l e t i o on f t h e M A i n E d u c a t i o n
e n t i l e ss t u d e n ttso a p p l yf o r e n t r yt o t h e O p e nU n i v e r s i t y D o c t o r a t ien E d u c a t i o (nE d D )
programme.)
'This
volume links the teaching of English to the development of autonomous
individuals rvho prize debate, negotiation and interaction, and rvho will ultimatelv be
able to build giobal communications of like-minded English speakersaround the
rvorld. Readersu'ill find in this collection of excellent papeis some of the classicmile-
stonesinthefieldofELT.'ClaireKramsch,Universitl,oJCalfornta,Berkeley,Cal{ornia
Teaching
EnglishLanguage
Worldwide
A selection of readers' comments on the series:
'This
three-part series olfers a map to ELT research and practice . . . it represents the best
that ELT, as an Anglo-Saxon institution, has developed over the last thirtl. vears lbr the
teaching of English around the rl-orld . . . Readers will find in this series the Who's Who
guide to this dvnamic and expanding communitv.' Clairc Kramsch,[JniversityoJ CattJornia,
Berkeley,CaltJornia
'Experienced
English language instructors seeking to deepen their knor.r,.ledgeand abilitres
lvill find this series forms a coherent basis to develop their understanding of iurrent trends,
sociocultural diversitv, and topical interests in teaching English as a second or foreign
language around the u.orld. All three volumes pror.ide ample flexibilitv for discussion,
interPretation, and adaptation in local settings.' Aljster Cumming,Ontario lrrtirut,
for S:udiesin
Educati on, Un i versitv oJTor onto
'This
series provides a collection of essential readings r,r'hich r,r'ili not only provide the
TEFL/TESOL student and teacher rvith access to the most up,to-date thinking and
approaches to the subject but u'ill gir.e anv person interested in the subject an overvi,ew of
I the phenomenon of the use and usage of English in the modern '"vorid. Perhaps more
I importantly, this series r'r'ill be crucial to those students w.ho do not have available to thern
articles that provide both a w'ide spectrum of information and the necessary analytical tools
rl
to investigate the language further.' Joseph A. Fole1, SoutheastAsia lLinisten of Education
Organisation,RegionolLanguageCentre,Singapore
'The
strong representation of the seminal Angio-Australian development of the European
functional tradition in the'studv oflanguage and language education makes this a refreshinglv
bracing series, r.vhich should be u'idelr. used in teacher education for English langua=g.
teaching.'Euan Rejd,lnsttrute IJn)versitt'
oJ Educatton, oJ London
'ln
a principled and accessibiemanner, these three volumes bring together major."vritings on
essential topics in the studv of English language teaching. Ther.provide broad coverage of
current thinking and debate on major issues, providing an invaluable resource foi the
contemporarv postgraduate student.' Gu1 Cook,(Jniverst*,oJ Reading
F i r s tp u b l i s h e2d0 0 1
by Routledge
1 1 N e wF e t t e rL a n e ,L o n d o nE C 4 P4 E E
S i m u l t a n e o up
s luyb l i s h ei d
n t h e US A a n dC a n a d a
by Routledge
2 9 W e s t3 5 t h S t r e e tN , e wY o r k ,N Y 1 0 0 0 1
L o d g eW
T y p e s eitn P e r p e t u a n d B e l l G o t h l cb y l ( e y s t r o l <Jea, c a r a n d a , olverhampton
P r i n t e da n d b o u n di n G r e a tB r i t a i nb y T J I n t e r n a t i o n aLlt d , P a d s t o wC, o r n w a l l
A l l r i g h t sr e s e r v e dN. o p a r t o f t h i s b o o km a y b e r e p r i n t e d o r r e p r o d u c eodr
u t i l i z e dl n a n yf o r m o r b y a n ye l e c t r o n i m c , e c h a n l c oa rl o t h e rm e a n s /
n o w k n o w no r h e r e a f t eirn v e n t e di n , c l u d i n gp h o t o c o p y i nagn d r e c o r d i n g ,
o r i n a n y i n f o r m a t i o sn t o r a g eo r r e t r i e v asl y s t e mw/ i t h o u tp e r m i s s i o n
i n w r i t i n gf r o mt h e p u b l i s h e r s .
I SBN 0 - 4 1 5 - 2 4 t 2 r - 9 ( h b k )
IS B N 0-415-24122-7 $bk)
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Listof illustrations X
Acknowledgements xii
PART ONE
I o w i s l a n g u a g el e a r n i n g e x p l a i n e d ?
Rod Ellis
SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION: RESEARCH AND
LANGUAGE PEDAGOGY 44
Peter Sl<ehan
COMPREHENSION AND PRODUCTION STRATEGIES IN
LANGUAGE LEARNING 7q
Celia Roberts
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION OR LANGUAGE SOC]ALISATiON
IN AND THROUGH DlSCOURSE? TOWARDS A REDEFINITION
OF THE DOMAIN OF SLA lOB
Michael P. Breen
THE SOCIAL CONTEXT FOR LANGUAGE TEARNING:
A NEGLECTED SITUATION? r22
P A R TT W O
S t r a t e g i e sa n d g o a l si n t h e c l a s s r o o mc o n t e x t
Paul l(night
THE DEVELOP[,iENT OF EFL METHODOLOGY t47
Jack C. Richards
BEYOND METHODS 167
Michael H. Long
10 FOCUS ON FORf\4:A DESIGN FEATURE IN LANGUAGE
T E A C H I N G I \ 1E T H O D O L O G Y 180
David Nunan
11 TEACHING GRAMMAR IN CONTEXT 191
200
. - : , : 'A . S u r e s h C a n a g a r a j a h
13 CRITICAL ETHNOGRAPHY OF A SRI LANI<AN CLASSROOM:
A I VB
I IGUITIES IN STUDENT OPPOSITION TO
REPRODUCTION THROUGH ESOL 208
J. l(eith Chick
T4 SAFE-TALI(: COLLUSION IN APARTHEID EDUCATION 227
I
PART THREE
A n a l y s i n gt e a c h i n g a n d l e a r n i n g
Mercer
Tq,Neil 243
, I15 /LANGUAGE FOR TEACHING A LANGUAGE
"\/
Pauline Gibbons
16 LEARNING A NEW REGISTER IN A SECOND LANGUAGE 258
CONTENTS IX
Assia Slimani
EVALUATION OF CLASSROOM INTERACTION 287
Michael P. Breen
T9 NAV]GATING THE DISCOURSE: ON WHAT IS LEARNE
IN THE LANGUAGE CLASSROOI!1 306
Joan Swann
20 RECORDING AND TRANSCRIBING TALI< IN EDUCATIONAL
-1 SETTINGS tzJ
.l /
IUC 345
Illustrations
Figures
-ables
The editors and publishers r,r'ould like to thank the follou'ing for permission to use
copyright material:
'The
Michael P. Breen and Cambridge Unir,ersitt' Press for social context of language
Language
in Second
learning: a neglected situation' in Studres Acquisition,7, 1985.
Michael P. Bte.n a.rd SEAMEO Regional Language Centre for'Navigating the discourse:
on what is learned in the language classroom' in Proceedings of the 1997 RELC
Seminar.
Anne Burns for'Genre-based approachesto r'r'riting and beginning adult ESL learners',
reprinted from Prospecr Vol. 5, No. 3, Mav 1990 rvith permission from the National
Centre for English LanguageTeachingand Research(NCELTR), Australia. (Macquarie
Universitv). Includes material in Fig. 2 adapted from Learning Stylesin Adult Migrant
EducationbyWilling K., also rvith permission from the National Centre for Engiish
LanguageTeachingand Research(N CELTR), Australia (Macquarie Universitv).
'Evaiuation
Cumbridge University Pressfor Assia Slimani of classroominteraction' in J.C.
Alderson and A. Beretta (eds) EvaluatingSecond Language Education,1992.
A. Suresh Cangarajaand TESOL for'Critical ethnographv of a Sri Lankan classroom:
ambiguities in student opposition to reproduction through ESOL' in TESOL@Lartetly,
Y o l . 2 1. N o . 4 , ( T E S O L 1 9 9 3 ) .
'Safe-talk:
Press for collusion in apartheid
J. Keith Chick and Cambridge Universitv
e d u c a t i o n ' i n H . c o l e m a n ( e d . ) S o c t e tay n d t h eL a n g u a gcel a s s r o o m , 7 9 9 6 .
Rod Ellis for'second ianguage acquisition research and languagepedagogy' in Sl,4 Research
and LanguageTeachingbv Rod Ellis ( Rod Ellis 1997). Reproduced by permission of
Oxford Universitv Press.
Patsv M. Lightborvn and Nina Spadafor'Factors affecting second language learning' in How
1anguogi,are Learned(Second Edition) bv Patsv M. Lightbou'n and Nina Spada(Patsv M.
Lightbown and Nina Spada 1999.) Reproduced bv permission of Oxford University
Press.
'Doing-English-lessons in the reproduction or
Angel M.Y. Lin and TESOL for
transformation of social rvorlds?'in fESOI @Larterly,Yol.33, No. 3, (TESOL 1999).
Michael Long and John Benjamin's Publishing Co. for'Focus on form: a design feature in
languageteaching methodolog ,-' in FotetgnLanguageResearch Perspective.
in a Cross-cultural
Ediiedbv K. de Bot, R.B. Ginsberg and C. Krausch. John Benjamin's Publishing Co.,
1991.
ACI(NOWLEDGEMENTS Xiii
Rosamond Mitchell and Florence Mvles for'Second languagelearning: kev concepts and
Language
issues'in Second LearningTheories,7999.
David Nunan andELTJournal for'Teachinggrammar in context' in ELTJournal,Vol. 5 2, N o.
2, 1998. Reproduced bv permission of ELTJournal and Oxford University Press.
'Bevond
jack Richards and Cambridge Universitv Press for methods' in The Language
T
I . u) Ln' t, th
L ri yn n V n r r i v 199Q.
\\-hile the publishers and editors ha.,-emade everv effort to contact authors and copyright
i-roldersof works reprinted tn EngltshLanguageTbaching in its SocialContext,this has not
lreen possible in everv case.Thev u-ould lr.elcome correspondence from individuals or
.ompanies thev havebeen unable to trace.
\\'e n'ould like to thank the authors u'ho contributed their chapters, as rvell as colleagues
s'ithin and outsideThe Open Universitv and Macquarie Universitv rvho gave advice on the
lontents. Special thanks are due to the follorving people for their assistance in the
production of this book.
Critical readers
External assessor
Developmental testers
Ilona Czirakl'(ltalv)
Eladyr Maria Norberto da Silva (Brazil)
Chitrita Mukerjee (Australia)
Dorien Gonzales(UK)
Patricia Williams (Denmark).
XiV ACI(NOWLEDGEMENTS
INTRODUCTION
process evoke and create shared knou'ledge and use it for making sensetogether, in a sense
constructing the overarching context for successfullanguageiearning.
No col[ction of papers about E.rglishLanguageTeachingcan hope to be comprehensive.
The rvorld ofELT in its diversitv,oflearners, teachers,ofschools and institutions, cultures,
countries,contents,and pedagogiescannotbe capturedevenin a seriesof three books'What
and fill
a structured coilection oi r.t.".tJa papers like this can do is to map out the territory,
in enough of the topographical f""i..i", so that the beginning reader can obtain an overall
rich
i-pr.rri"io., of it, .urt{tiphr,, r,vhilethe experienced reader can bring her or his own
of ttauelii.r! und-rn"p-.nuking to fill in the details of those territories of which
"*p..i..r." is
thev have special .*'u...r"., and knorvledge. We need to be cautious, how'ever' No map
.r".,trul. Th. first maps lvere products of the cartographers of Europe, so their world was a
in their ou.n Sino-centric lval', those devisedbv the Chinese were just
Euro-centric o.r",
"rd,
as biased. Readershave been alerted, therefore, to a natural tendencv tow-ardsa particular
on
projection. Our ELT map in this book of{'ersa social and socio-cultural perspective
and it would
iu.rgrrug"learning. At the same time, maps have to be true to their territories,
U" JU.,i.a to igno"rea psvchological perspective on languagelearning, one which highlighted
the cognitiv{ro."rr., of the individual learner, engagingwith the intricacies of a new
served
comminicatile code. Maps are not onlv to be follolved, horvever.Thev have ahvays
asincentives for further -o.. relined map-making. In the sameway, teachers do not just
".td
follow a set ofpresented instructions, thev activelv create and chart their own Progress
through the teriitories of learning in their orvn ciassrooms'Accordinglv, it isimportant that
,,rch Jfo.rrr"d collection asthis gii-esa major placeto classroom-basedresearch,in particular,
researchw-hichexamines the processesof teaching-and-learning,using that evidence which
is most to hand in classrooms,namelv the productive talk of teachersand learners.
What a collection of papers needsto have,is an argument, one'i""'hichcarries the reader
ju-st
towards engagementu,ith particular issuesand questions,offering through its structure
that amount Jf guidunce r-r"."..rtt'. Ultimatelv, though, r,vhether we have gauged the right
degree of that giidu.r.. required, or simplv led readers bv the nose, only vou can say'What
orrJh"u. dorr. a guiding itructure is to take three main perspectives on English language
",
teaching: an explanatio.t of ,orr-r.hvpothesesabout language learning and its Processes;an
interprJtatio.r ofl"...r"rr' and teachers' strategiesand goalsin the classroom context, their
learners'
prr.ptr.. and their beliefs; and, finallr', a description and analvsis.ofteachers' and
t"huuiotr., and practices, rvho thev are, rvhat thev do, what thev think about language
learning and rvhat their attitudes are'
The argument begins rvith a focus on the explanationoJ languagelearning with a paper by
Rosamind Mitch;ll and Florence Mvles. The authors outline a model of second language
learning and identifv its kev factors.Three kev questions underpin all these factors:What is
the natirre of language?What is the nature of the language learning process?What are
the characterlsticsof the second ianguagelearner? In addressingthese questions the paper
identifies the complementaritv of natureand nurture in languageiearning, and relates what
research has to say about language learning rvith u.hat r,veknolv about learning more
teaching
generallv.At the sametime, the paper highlights one of the abidlng questions about
Ind leaining, the tension betrveen svstematjcitf and creativityin learners' performance.
Languagelearning is clearl,vnot just about processes.It involveslearners. So, askingquestions
riho theselearners are and rvhat learner characteristics and factors affect language
"boit
:NTRODUCTION 3
of the variably positive and negative effects of learners' social and personal commitment to
Ianguagelearning; of the need to take into account the multiple identities of learners, affected
as they are by issuesofgender, class,race and po!\€r; and, especially,ofthe need to engage .,il1
in micro-exploration of the interactions of learners rvitl learners and learners with teachers, ili1
or other target languagespeakers.
iltm
In his paper, Leo van Lier drau.s on exactlv this shift of perspective towards the social
contextualisation and construction ofsecond languagelearning. He also takesup in practice
di'
many of the issuesraised earlier in the Ellis paper, particuiarlv his account of interpretative
n
research.What he adds,however, in his account of the possiblett.pes of interaction and types
,tr
of discourse to be found in the second languageclassroom, is the importance of the effect
nm
ofpower and control on rvhat kinds oftalk are encouraged, discouragedor even forbidden.
rD
Such issuesare also central to Celia Roberts' paper w'ith its critical evaluation of more
traditional and cognitive approaches rvhich see second language learning as essentially a
matter of personal endeavour and accomplishment. Her focus on learner identities and the
effects of learning contexts on languagelearning r'r'ithin an overall sociolinguistic and social
constructionist model, links learning to living in an original way, and, in so doing, addresses
some of the questions w.eidentified earlier as important to the argument of this collection
of papers.It is important to note, though, that this shift of emphasisis not one u,hich abandons
the necessaryinclusion of the personal and cognitive development of the learner's language
learning capacity.Thepoint is to forge a connection betrveen both paradigms.This is in large
measure achievedin Michael Breen's paper on the social context of languagelearning. In his
anthropological metaphor ofthe classroom as coralgarden,teacher-researchersare directed
at the importance of the multiple discoursesof the classroom, where w.hatis said and how
it is expressed among the participants of this cuitural rvorld takes on a key significancefor
the explanation of the processesof languagelearning, and in particular for our understanding
of the essentialdifferences among languagelearners. His defining characteristicsof the
classroom as a specialsocio-cultural r.vorld,together r,vithhis emphasison the analysisof the
discoursesof teaching and learning, offer the teacher-researchera means by which he or she
can stand outside the realitl', much like a cartographer, and chart more dispassionatelythis
now newly-imagined and newlv-perspectivized setting.
As active participants in teaching and learnin$, teachers and learners do not simply
Possessand display inherent or sociallv acquired characteristicsin some vacuum; like the
inhabitants of Malinow'ki's coralgarden(adopted and adapted bv Breen), they draw on them
to Pursue their orn-nstrategic goals.Thus, in order to advance the argument of this active
participation, all the papers in this second major section of the book target the realization
of t}ese strategic goals in classroom action, and the unique role played bv teachers in the
facilitation and structuring of that action. The way in rvhich teachers carry out this charac-
teristic work hastraditionalh' been captured bv the metaphors of methodan'dmethodology.We
refer to them as metaphors, in that thev stand for particular, ideologically invested systemsof
belief, about language,about learning, and about teaching.Like all metaphors they are to be
approached r,varily and treated rvith caution. Lakoff and Johnson's critical account of the
'metaphors
rve live by'gives a senseof their porverful inf'luence.We make no apology for
being critical in this book of such languagelearning and languageteaching metaphors. In our
experience, and tlat of the authors of some of the papers in this section, methodoloqies
are frequentlv theorized rvithout a close grounding in teaching experience, and mau be
INTRODUCTION
.:rsensitiveto particular local and cultural conditions. Methods, on the other hand, mav shift
.,ildlv from one theoretical position about languageand learning to another.Whether they
.:e form-focused,function-focused,or learning-focused,methodologiesand methods often
i-rve to concealthe rich varietv of classroomlanguagelearning and teachingr'r.orkbv offering
.:n-rplelabelsfor what are ahvavscomplex and contingentProcesses.
It is important, therefore, to stand back and take a conceptual and historical perspective
:: n'e lvant to understand horv such methods and methodologies came to be popular and
.,,r u'idel)'adopted. Such a perspective is provided bv Paul Knight's paper, surveving
:cvelopmentsin ELT methodologv and illustrating some of their characteristicfeatures-
From this paper \rrecome to seethat despite their individualizing labels, manv methods and
nethodologies sharefeaturesin common, that thev are rarelv except in some extreme cases
rursued in some'pure' form, and that, in the end, thev remain profoundlv unexplanatorv
,i some of the ket-factors affecting languagelearning, both cognitive and social, that we have
lentified earlier. It is from this starting point that Jack Richards' paper begins. Questioning
:he dominance of methods and methodologies,Richards'perspectiveis that we should be
.rss concerned n-ith stipulating u-hat methods to follo*' and much more concerned with
,liscoveringwhat effective teachersactuallv do. Resistingthe deproJesstonalizlng effect of some
.lar.ishadherenceto methods frees us and teachersmore generallv to examine what the
cractices of reflective and effective languageteaching might be.What these practices are is
a matter of teachers'strategic choices in relation to some particular content, and taken
together with teachers' beliefs and theories about teaching and learning, these constitute a
rationale for teaching.
The three papers that follow', bv Michael Long, David Nunan, andAnne Burns illustrate
rhesepracticesin different contexts and rvith different subject-matter,and involve distinctive
{enres and modes of communication. Implicitlr' (or explicitlv in the caseof Michael Long)
rhev all resist the concept of method, and focus instead on hor,v teachers' varied and
.:ontingent procedures and productsof languagelearning
are the means bv u.hich the processes
are made to interact. Long's paper has as its central tenet the important distinction to be
drawn betrveen a focus onJorm (i.e. the development of arvarenessbv the learner of the
sr-stematicnature of language) and a focus onJorms (that is, the teaching of isolated and
unconnected sentence structures). What is important for the reader of Long's paper is his
reliance for his argument on experimentallv obtained evidence about learner behaviour.To
return, if onll' briefly, to our map-making metaphor, Long displavsthe indispensablevalue
of grounding conclusions about the shape of the second languagelearning territory in
carefully observed and recorded data from learner performance.
The issue of form and forms naturallv evokes a central area of content in language
teaching and learning, the approach that teacherstake to the teaching of grammar, itself the
topic of David Nunan's paper.With grammar asits focus, lvhat is notable in Nunan's argument
is how the lvav w-edefine grammar is contingent on ho'iv lve go about teaching it to learners.
Many might not easilv associatethe formal character of grammar u'ith an interactive and
participatory, task-basedapproach to pedagogv,so strong has been the focus in ELT on the
didactic instruction of grammatical forms.Yet this paper makes such a connection, and in so
doing redefinesgrammar lessassome asocialand technicist form than asa functional resource
for making meaning, a meansbv rvhich speakersand uriters can get things done. How writers
get things done is the topic of Anne Burns'paPel; focusing in particular, though, on how
teachers can assistlearners to get things done in *'riting. Drawing on work in systemic
functional grammar and the concept of genre, she reports on a national project conducted
by the National Centre for English LanguageTeachingand Research(NCELfR) at Macquarie
University, Svdnev,involving teachers in studving hor,va genre-basedapproach to w'riting
INTRODUCTION
The importance of the anallsis of the interactions among learners and betlveen learners
and teachers to an understanding of the processesof ianguagelearning has been a central
part of the argument of this book. Exploring these relationships hasbeen both the province
ofresearchers as w'ell as ofteachers, and severalpapers in this collection have argued for
a closer link between them, given the tendencv for both'cultures' to be separate.Part of
this distancing hasbeen due to the dif{icultv of making the results of researchnecessarilyand
directlv applicable to changesin classroom practice, or to the design and delivery of inno-
vative teaching and learning materials. Nonetheless,there are studiesof classroombehaviour
w.hich can help teachers conceptualize those factors lvhich influence life in classrooms,
directed at exploring the dual nature ofclassroom lessons,aspedagogic and associal events.
The paper by Michael Breen, cited above, emphasizesthis social and interactional nature of
lanquaqe
DOO
Iearninq.
Influential in this context is the u'ork of the Russian sociocultural psvchologist Lev
Vygotsk,v.Central toVvgotskv's theories about learning is the piace accorded to languageas
INTRODUCTION
: onl\- a medium for exchanging and constructing information but also as a tool for
' ..rking. Languageis seenbvVvgotskv both as a cultural and a cognitivetool, heiping us to
:.:nize our thoughts but also used for reasoning, planning and revierving. Of greatest
...:ihcance for the argument and the map of this book, then, isVygotskv'sinsistencethat
,::ninq is interactive and social. Such a position resonatesu.ell lr'ith the earlier papers in
-. .. eollection, notablv those br.r,an Lier and Breen, especiallvr'vith their highlighting of the
::.rortance of studving teacher and learner discourses.Neil Mercer's paper provides an
r.rmple of an in-depth studv of these discoursesof classroomlife, as the data from u.dich
:'.::.rences mav be dralvn about the processesof languagelearning.Mercer's socio-cultural
.: nroach to the analvsisof classroom behaviour sits u'ell r'r-ithearlier papers in Part II of this
: ,,,k, and pavesthe u'av for a detailed discursive and linguistic analvsisof such classroom
:.:traction provided bv Pauline Gibbons' exhaustive example in her paper. She draws on
-:llidavan systemicfunctional grammaticalanalvsisto provide her description,incidentally
, -:;qesting a link betr,veenthe u'ork of Michael Hailidav and that of LevVygotskv, one which
...^t oth"". contemporarv researchersof classroominteraction have also mad". Gibbons'
- rper is also noter,vorthvfor her careful anaivsisof the immediate contexts of that meaning
:.-.lotiation u'hich w-ehave earlier identified as central to languagelearning.
It may be useful to recall here our comment at the outset of this Introduction that the
. rpers in this collection are all in different \\'avsintimateiv concerned w'ith the definition of
.::itext,in its various interpretations.The relationshipbetween languageand context is neither
rlrect nor unitarv. We can see in the papers bv Gibbons and Mercer two possible
.rterpretationsof this relationship.On the one hand, context is a featureof texts, somethinq
.nduring that belongs to the text-as-entitv that linguists seek to describe. In this sense,
:crhaps that found more in Pauline Gibbons' paper, context mav be the texts that learners
:inclteachersproduce, or the ph-vsicalsettings rvithin r,vhichtheir texts are produced. On the
,,therhand, perhapsmore along the lines suggestedbv Mercer, context is dvnamic, a product
,f people's thinking, more the configuration of information that people use for making sense
,ilanguage in particular situations.In this sense,conrextis more of a mental rather than a
ohvsicai phenomenon, something dvnamic and momentarv, but dependent for its creation
jn the classroom on the careful constructing bv the teacher of a continuity and a community
, l s h a r e du n d e r s t a n d i n gu i t h l e a r n e r s .
Such aVvgotskian vierv of context placesa premium on the exploration of the emotional
and affective engagement of learners in the acts and processesof learning. Such an
engagementis not explicable, hor,vever,onlv from an analvsisin terms of the activities of the
classroom.As in earlier papersin this collection, rvider socialfactors play a role. In her paper,
.\ngel Lin's experienceasa teacher-researcher into secondlanguagelearning in Hong Kong
is linked to the work of the French sociologist Bourdieu in an attempt to explain the nature
of these factors. Are classroomsreplicative of learners' social worlds or do thev have the
power to challenge and transform them? In reading horv Lin addressesthis question there is
a clear resonancervith the papers bv Canagarajahand Chick in the secondpart ofthis book.
One kev exampie of a site for such a transformation is that of the cultural perspectives and
ideologies present in tvpical textbooks and the degree to rvhich classroompracticesmaintain
a conformist, or can exercise a challenging stancein relation to them.
The papersbv Mercer, Gibbonsand Lin all presentanalvsesof the interactiveprocesses
ofteaching and learning. Although rather different, the research described in each ofthem
encourages the vieu' that the qualitv of the interaction betlveen teachers and learners in
the languageclassroom, and betlveen learners if thev rvork together, is a strong determining
factor on rn'hat,and horv much, is learned and understood bv learners.The issue of hou'
classroominteraction can be related to assessmentof the outcomes of student learning is the
B INTRODUCTION
What are the general principles that n'e mav derive at the end of this particular journey? From
the arguments in the papers here, rve u'ould like to identifv the follon'ing:
learning
How is language
explained?
i cte r 1
Rosamond
MitchellandFlorence
Myles
lntroduction
H I S C H A P T E R P R O V I D E S A N O V E R V I E W o f k e v c o n c e o t sa n d i s s u e s
i n o u r d i s c u s s i o no
s f i n d i r i d u a l p e r s p e c t i r e so n s e c o n dl u n g r u g . l e a r n i n g W
. e olfer
:-.:roductorvdefinitions of a range of kev terms, and trv to equip the reader u'ith the
:r'--ansto compare the goals and claims of particular theories '"vith one another. \\re also
-.mmarize key issues,and indicate w'herethev rvill be explored in more detail later.
The main themes to be dealt lvith in follouing sections are:
'second
First, however, \\.'emust offer a preliminarv definition of our most basic concept,
languagelearning'. We de6ne this broadlv to include the learning of any language to any
1evel,provided onlv that the learning of the'second' languagetakesplace sometime later than
the acquisition of the first language. (Simultaneous infant bilingualism is a specialist topic,
u'ith its ow-n literature. See for example relevant sections in Hamers and Blanc 1989;
R o m a i n e1 9 9 5 . )
'second
For us, therefore, ianguages'are anv languagesother than the learner's'native
'mother
language'or tongue'. Thev encompassboth languagesof r,vidercommunication
encountered within the local region or communit)' (..g. at the u.orkplace, or in the media),
and truly foreign languages,rvhichhave no immediatelv local usesor speakers.Thevmay
indeed be the second languagethe learner is rvorking rvith, in a literal sense,or they may be
their third, fourth, fifth language . . . We believe it is sensibleto include'foreign' languages
'second'
under our more general term of languages,becauselve believe that the underlving
learning processesare essentiallvthe same for more local and for more remote target
languages,despite differing learning purposes and circumstances.
We are also interested in all kinds of learning, rvhether formal, planned and systematic
(as in classroom-basedlearning), or informal and unstructured (as r'vhena nelv language
12 ROSAMONDMITCHELL AND FLORENCE NIYLES
proposed here, and unless speciallv indicated rve rvill be using both terms
broad .,r'-av
interchangeablv.
1 Improved knorvledge in this particular domain is interesting in itself, and can also
contribute to more general understanding about the nature of language,of human learning,
and of intercultural communication, and thus about the human mind itself, as well as how
all these are interrelated and affect each other.
2 The know.ledge will be useful. If w-ebecome better at explaining the learning process,
and are better able to account for both successand failure in L2 learning, there will be a pay-
off for millions of teachers, and tens of millions of students and other learners, r,vho are
struggling r,viththe task.
'model
To make these ideas more concrete, an example of a particuiar theorl' or
ofsecondlanguage1earningisshorvninFiguret.1,takenr..sp@
'general
represents a model of second language learning', as the propose-TffifiE3
it (Spolskv 1989, p. 14).The model encapsulates this researcher'stheoreticalviews on the
overall relationship betr,veencontextual factors, individual learner differences, learning
opportunities, and learning outcomes. It is thus an ambitious model, in the breadth of
phenomena it is trving to explain. The rectangular boxes shou' the factors (or variables)
lvhich the researcherbelieves are most significant for learning, i .e. r""-herevariation can lead
to differencesin successor failure.The arrolvs connecting the various boxes shor,l'directions
ofinfluence.The contents ofthe r.ariousboxes are defined at great length, as consistingof
c l u s t e r so f i n t e r a c t i n g ' C o n d i t i o n s ' ( 7 4 i n a l l : 1 9 8 9 , p p . 1 6 - 2 5 ) , I v h i c h m a k e l a n g u a g e
Attitudes
(ofvariouskinds)
Learningopportunities(formalor informal)
betweenlearner
the interplay
andsituationdetermining
Linguisticand non-linguistic
outcomesfor the learner
I clear and explicit statements of the ground the theorv is supposed to cover, and the
claims which it is making;
2 systematic procedures for confirming/disconfirming the theorl', through data
gatheringand interpretationI
3 not onlv descriptions of L2 phenomena, but attempts to explain whv thev are so, and
to propose mechanismsfor change;
+ last but not least, engagementrvith other theories in the field, and serious attempts to
'common
account for at least some of the phenomena rvhich are ground' in ongoing
public discussion (Long 1990a). The remaining sections of this chapter offer a
preliminarv overvierv of numbers of these.
Levelsof language
Linguists have traditionally vielved language as a complex communication svstem, which
must be analysedon a number of levels: phonology,,/ntax, morphology,semanticsand 1exis,
pragmatics, discourse.The,v havediffered about the degree of separateness/integrationof these
levels;e.g.while Chomskv argued at one time that'grammar is autonomous and independent
of meaning' (1951,p.17),another tradition initiated by the British linguist Firth claimsthat
'there
is no boundary between lexis and grammar: lexis and grammar are interdependent'
(Stubbs 1996, p. 36). In examining different perspectiveson secondlanguagelearning, we
will first of all be looking at the levels of languageu.hich thev attempt to take into account,
and the relative degree of prioritv they attribute to the different levels. (Does language
Iearning start n ith words, or w-ithdiscourse?)Wewill alsoexamine the degree of integration/
separationthat the-vassume,acrossthe various levels.We will {ind that the control of syntax
is commonly seen as somehow'central' to languagelearning, and that most general SLL
theories try to account for development in this area. Other levels of languagereceive much
more variable attention, and some areasare commonly treated in a semi-autonomous way,
as specialist fields; this is often true for Sll-oriented studies of pragmatics and of lexical
development (seee.g. Kasper 1995 on pragmatics;Meara1996a, 1995b on vocabulary).
Competenceand perJormance
Throughout the trventieth century, linguists have also disagreed in other lvays over their
main focus of interest and of studr'.Should this be the collection and anah'sisof actual attested
samplesof languagein use, for example bv recording and analvsingpeople's speech?Or
SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING: CONCEPTSAND ISSUES 15
Modularity
A further issueof controversy for students of the human brain hasbeen the extent to which
the brain should be view'ed as modularor unitary.That is, should \\'e seethe brain as a single,
flexible organism, lr'ith one general set of procedures for learning and storing different kinds
S E C O N D L A N G U A G E L E A R N I N G : C O N C E P T SA N D I S S U E S } 7
1 that the-vcontinue to operate during second languagelearning, and make kev aspects
of second languagelearning possible, in the same rvav that thev make {irst language
l e a r n i n gp o s s i b l e ;
2 that after the acquisition of the first language in earlv childhood, these mechanisms
ceaseto be operable,and secondlanguagesmust be learned bv other means;
3 that the mechanisms themselves are no longer operable, but that the first language
provides a model of a natural language and how' it rvorks, rvhich can be
'copied'
in 11*
4
some way when learning a second ianguage;
that distinctive learning mechanisms for languageremain available,but onlv in part,
and must be supplemented bv other means.
if.
The first position rvaspopularized in the second languagelearning Iield bv Stephen Krashen
in the 1970s,in a basicform.While Krashen'stheoreticalviervshavebeen criticized, this has
by no means led to the disappearanceof modular proposalsto account for SLL. Instead, this
particular perspective has been rer-italized bv the continuing development of Chomsky's
Universal Grammar proposals (Cook and Neu.son 1996).
On the other hand, thinking about those general learning mechanisms which may
be operating at least for adult learners ofsecond languageshas also developed further, since
e.g. the original proposalsof Mclaughlin (1987, pp. 133-53). Most obviously,the work of
the cognitive psychologistJ. R. Anderson on human learning, from an information processing
perspective, has been applied to various aspectsof second language learning b,v different
researchers(Johnson1995; O'Mallev and Chamot 1990;Toweliand Hawkins 19945.
I V I I T C H E L LA N D F L O R E N C E M Y L E S
1B ROSAIVIOND
When the utterances produced bv L2 learners are examined and compared with target
languagenorms, thev are often condemned as full of errors or mistakes.Traditionally,
languageteachershave often vier,vedthese errors as the result of carelessness or lack of
concentration on the part of learners. If onlv learners w.ould trv harder, surelv their
productions could accuratelvreflect theTL rules u'hich thel-had been taught! In tlre mid-
twentieth centur\, under the influence of behaviourist learning theorl', were often
'bad ".io.,
vierved as the result of habits', rvhich could be eradicated if onl-vlearners did enough
rote learning and pattern drilling using target languagemodels.
One of the big lessonsu.hich has been learned from the researchof recent decadesis
that though learners' L2 utterancesmav be deviant bv comparison w.ith target language
norms , they are bv no meanslacking in svstem . Errors and mis akesare patterned, and though
some e. this is bv no meanstrue of
all of the l- of them. Instead, there is a good deaTiT-ev-idencethat
lefrners r'vork their r'vavthrough a number of developmental stages,from very primitive and
deviantversionsof the L2, to progressivelvmore elaborateand target-likeversions.Just like
fullv prolicient users of a language,their ianguageproductions can be described by a set of
underlving rules; these interim rules have their orvn integrity and are notjust inadequatelv
applied versionsof theTL rules.
A clear example, rvhich has been studied for a range of target languages,has to do with
the formation of negative sentences.It has commonit been found that learners start off br
tacking a negative particle of some kind on to the end of an utterance (no you are playing
here); next, thev learn to insert a basic negative particle into the verb phrase (Mariana
not comingtoday); and finalir', thet' learn to manipulate modifications to auxiliaries and
other details of negation morphologr., in line with the full TL rules for negation (l can't plar
that one)(examplesfrom Ellis 1994, p. 100) .This kind of datahascommonly been interpreted
to show'that, at leastas far as kev parts of the L2 grammar are concerned, learners'devel-
opment follorvs a common route,even if the rate at which learners actually travel along this
common route mav be verv different.
TLis systematicitv in the ianguageproduced bv L2 learners is of course paralleled in the
early stagesthrough which first languageiearners also passin a highlv regular manner.Towell
and Hawkins identifv it as one of the key features rvhich L2 learning theories are required
t o e x p l a i n( 1 9 9 4 , p . 5 ) .
H o r t ' e v e r ,l e a r n e r l a n g u a g e( o r i n t e r l a n g u a g e
a ,s i t i s c o m m o n l v c a l l e d l i s n o t o n l r '
I
chafEacterized bv sr stematicit\'.Learner Ianguagesystemsare presumabll'- indeed, hopefullr'
- un-Sfa5leand rn course-dfdrangd; certainl-v,thev are characterized also by'high degrees of
variability(Torvelland Hau-kins 1994,p.5). Most obviousll',Iearners'utterances seem to var\
'errors'
from moment to moment, in the types of rvhich are made, and learners,."* li"bl.
to su,'itchbetu'een a range of correct and incorrect forms over lengthy periods of time. .\
well-knon'n example offered bv Ellis invoivesa child learner of Englishas L2 who seemed
to produce the utteranc es no look mv'card, don't lookmy cardinterchangeablvover an extended
period (1985). M-vleset al. (.1998)have produced similar data from a classroomlearner's
French as L2 , who l-ariablv produced forms such as non animal,je n'ai pas de animal rvithin
the same 20 minutes or so (to savthat he did not have a pet; the correctTL form should be
1en'ai pasd' animal). Here, in contrast to the underlving svstematicity earlier claimed for the
development of rules of negation, we see performance varying quite substantialll from
moment to moment.
Like svste-miIii-it1', r,ariabilitv is alsofound in child languagedevelopment. However, the
variability found among L2 learners is undoubtedh' more 'extreme' than that found lbr
SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING:cONCEPTS AND ISSUEs 19
Young children learning their first language embark on the enterprise in rvidelv varving
situations around the lvorld, sometimes in conditions of extreme poverty and deprivation,
n'hether physical or social.Yet vrith remarkable uniformit.,', at the end of fir,e v.ur. or ro,
thev have achieveda very substantialmeasure of success.Teachersand studentsknow to
their cost that this is bv no means the caselvith second languages,embarked on after these
critical earlv vears. Feir';if anr',aclult learners ever come toll".ra indistinguishably with the
20 ROSAMONDMITCHELL AND FLORENCE [/IYLES
In an earlier section rve considered the distinction betn-een language competence and
perJormance, which manv linguists have found useful. Here, lve look more closely at the
concePtof performance, and in particular, look at the possiblerelationshipbetr,veenusing
{i.e. performing in) an L2, and learning (i.e. developing one's competence in) that same
language.
We should note first of all, of course,that 'performing' in a languagenot onlv involves
speakingit. Making senseof the languagedata that lve hear around us is an equallv essential
aspectof performance. Indeed, it is basiccommon ground among all theorists of language
learning, of lvhater.erdescription, that it is necessar,\'tointerpret and to processincoming
ianguagedata in some form, for normal languageder,elopment to take place.There is thus
.i consensusthat languageinpur of some kind is essentialfor normal languagelearning. In fact,
during the late 1970s and earlr' 1980s, the vier,r'r,vasargued bv Stephen Krashen and others
rhat input (at the right level of difficultr'; rvasall that u.asnecessaryfor L2 acquisition to take
p l a c e ( K r a s h e n 1 9 8 2 , 1 9 S 5 ) . T h i sp o s i t i o n h a s b e e n r - i e u ' e db r l - o r " r e c e n t t h e o r i s t s a s
rnadequate,but a modified and refined version hasbeen der.eloped.
Krashen u'as unusual in not seeingany central role for languageproduction in his theorv
, ir )second
E L U r r u rlanguage acquisition.
drrtudtc d L q u r s r L r u t t . lMost other
vlusL u u l e r theoretical
L r l c o r c L l c a l vieu'points
\ t e \ \ ' P o l n t s support
s u p p o r t in
l n ssome
o m e form
lolm
:he common-senser-iervthat speakinga languageis helpful for iearning it, though they offer
, u-ide varietv of explanations as to x'hv this should be the case.For example, behaviourist
rarning theorv sarv lar (oral) practice ashelpful in forming correct language'habits'.
ls vlew nas ar ln recen
ifl-bEhaviouri st thinki n r'.
owever, various contemporarv theorists still lav stress on the 'practice' function of
rnguageproduction, especiallvin building up fluencv and control of an emergent L2 system.
lor example,information processingtheorists commonlv argue that languagecompetence
'.,nsistsof both a knowledgecomponent ('knou'ing that') and a sfri11 component ('knowing
..'rr\'').While they mav accept a r.arietv of possibie sources for the first component,
:.-searchersin this perspectiveagree in seeinga vital role forL2 use/L2 performance in
:,'velopingthe secondskill component.
An even more stronglv contrasting vieu'to Krashen'sis the so-called comprehensible output
.i pothesis,arguedfor bv Merrill Srvainand colleagues(e.g.Su'ain 1985; Srvainand Lapkin
c95). Sw-ainpoints out that much incoming L2 input is comprehensible,w.ithout anv need
,r a full grammatical analvsis.If u'e don't need to pav attention to the grammar, in order to
.:rderstandthe message,w'hv should u'e be compelled to learn it? On the other hand, r,vhen
'.e try to savsomething in our chosen second language,\\-eare forced to
make grammatical
:roicesand hvpotheses,in order to put our utterances together. The act of speakingforces
.) to try our ideas about horv the target grammar actuallv ."r.orks,and of course gives us the
rance of getting some feedback from interlocutors lr-ho mar-fail to understand our efforts.
So fai in this section, n-e have seen that theorists .u.r hold different vieu.s on the
.'ntribution both of language input and language output to language learning. However,
.nother w'av of distinguishing among current theories of L2 learning from a'performance'
!.rsPectivehas to do u'ith their view'of L2 tnteraction- u'hen the speaking and listening
i n'hich the learner is engagedare vieu'ed asan integral and mutuallv influential r.vhole,e.g.
' everyday conversation. T*-o major perspectives on interaction are apparent, one
. r'cholinguistig,jngjgcrolinguistic.
Fro _-+--=4t
oint of vieu.',L2 interaction is mainlv interesting because of
r. I
, - o p p o r r u n i t i e si t o I T F F S T S i n di di ru a l L 2 l e a r n e r st o f i n e - t u n er h e Ianguageinput ther are
22 ROSAMONDMITCHELL AND FLORENCE IVlYLES
receiving.This ensuresthat the input is rvell adapted to their orvn internal needs (i . e. to the
present state of development of their L2 knorvledge).What this means is that learners
need the chanceto talk rvith native speakersin a fairlv open-ended way, to ask questions,and
to clarifv meanings rvhen thev do not immediatelv understand. Under these conditions, it
is believed that the utterances that result rvill be at the right level of difficult-v to promote
learning;in Krashen'sterms, thev r'r'illprovide true'comprehensibleinput'. Conversational I
"pi,od"-sfi'-ol@6,n,go,,o,ionoJmeaninghu""b"",,intensiveI1.studiedb,vmany
,:,fthe Krashen-influencedresearchers.
Interaction is also interesting to iinguistic theorists, becauseofrecent controversiesover
rvhc-therthe provision of negativeevtdence is necessarvor helpful for L2 development _4'
'neqati\-e
evidence' is meant some kind of input rvhich iets the learner know that a particular
t o t a r g e tl a n g u a g en o r m s . l n L l l n l e r a c t l o nt n l s m l g n l t a K e
: . . r n ll s n o ra c c e p t a D laec c o r c l l n g
a more informal rePhrasing of
: learner's L2 utterance, offered bv a native-speakingconversationalpartner.
Whv is there a controversv about negative evidence in L2 Iearning?The problem is that
:,,rrection often seemsineffective and not onlv becauseL2 learners are laz,v.I!:eglg!-lthgt
^.arners often cannot benefit from correction, but continue to make the shme mistakes
:lrl\\'ever mucn lee is otlered. For some current rsts,any na
one' irrelevant.
.:i---:-^-./----,-.-f\----
rl-inuetosee1.aluF-lncoIrecI1onsanone@it]s}Ffia;ilyatcepted
::--lrthesew'ill be useful +
onlv u-henthev relate to'hot spots' currentlv being restructured in
: : r ql e a r n e r ' se m e r g i n gL 2 s v s t e m .
iervs haveone thing in common, holvever; they view
--n.learner asoperatiQand der.elopinga relativelv autonomous L2 system,angjgs intelgction
r. a \vay of feeding that s,ystemlvith more or less fine-tuned input data. whether positive_or
. Sociolinouistic view's teractton are verv dl
)rocess i]-r-iewed as essentiallvsocial: both the identitv- . of
: the learner
. are collaboiativelvt6nstmcted a trucTedin thc courseof interaction.
S6metheoriiiiiTGE7Foad vieu'of the secondlanguagelearningprocessasanjpllgnti:gshp
into a range of new' d,t.."t." pt..,l."t ; others are more concerned with
analvsingthe det1ililinteraction betvr.eenmore expert and lessexpgrt speakels,to determine
I
how the learner is scffilded into using {and presumabh learning)neu L2 forms.
Who is the second language learner, and horv are thev introduced to us, in current SLL
research?'second language'research generallv deals ll'ith learners lvho embark on the
learning ofan additional language,at least some vears after they havestarted to acquire their
first language.Thislearning may take place formallv and svstematicallJ',
in a classroomsetting;
or it may take place through informal social contact, through work, through migration, or
other social forces r,vhichbring speakersof different languagesinto contact, and make
c o m m u n i c a t i o na n e c e s s i t r ' .
So, second languagelearners mav be children, or thev mav be adults; thev may be
learning the target languageformally in school or college, or'picking it up' in the play-
ground or the w'orkplace.Thev may be learning a highlv localized language,which will help
them to become insiders in a local speechcommunitv; or the target languagemay be a
languageof wider communication relevant to their region, u'hich gives accessto economic
development and public life.
S E C O N D L A N G U A G E L E A R N I N G : C O N C E P T SA N D I S S U E S 2 3
Indeed, in the late trventieth centurv, the target languageis highl-vlikelv to be English;
.r recent estimate suggeststhat r.vhilearound 300 million people speak English as their first
ianguage,another 700 million or so are using it as a second language,or learning to do so
Crystal 1987,p.358). Certainlv it is true that much researchon secondlanguagelearning,
rvhether rvith children or adults, is concerned r'vith the learning of English, or w-ith a verv
.mall number of other languages,mostlv Europeanones (French, German, Spanish).There
are manv multilingual communities todav (e.g. tow'nshipsaround manv fast-growing cities)
n-here L2 learning involves a much wider range of ianguages.Holvever, these have been
comparativelv little studied.
It is possible to distinguish three main points of vierv, or sets of priorities, among SLL
researchersas far as the learner is concerned. Linguists a15ljsysbolinguists have typically
beenconcernedprimariIl.lvithanalr'singandmo@,"uiilubl"
to the individual learner,for processing,le e. As
tir as languagelea.r-ring h"
developmental route along rvhich learners travel. Researchersfor w'hom this is the prime
qoal are less concerned rvith the speed or rate of development, or indeed with the degree
of ultimate L2 success.Thusthev tend to minimize or disregard social and contextual
differencesamong learners; their aim is to
t o a l l n o r m a l h u m a nb e i n g s .
As we shall see, hou'ever, there is some controversv among researchers in this
psvcholinguistictradition on the question of age.Do child und udrfL2 learners learn in
essentiallysimilar rvavs?Or, is there a criricalare w-hichdivides l'ounger and older learners.
u *o-.nt *hen earlv lear.ring.rG.tilirr*iFop}rr.and are replacedoi at leastsuoolemented
bv other compensatorv wavs of learning?The balance of evidence has been interpreted br
ch a cut-off point, and many other researchers
'vounger -
agree with some version of a r-ieu' that better in the long run' (Singleton 1995,
p. 3). However, explanationsof whv this should be are still provisional.
Real-life observation quicklv tells us, how-ever,that er,enif L2 learners can be sho',vnto be
following a common ievelopmental route, thev differ greatlv in the degree of ultimate
successwhich the-v achieve. Sociai psvchologists have argued consistentlv that these
differences in learning outcomes must be due to individual diferencesbetween learners, and
many proposalshavebeen made concerning the characteristicslvhich supposedlvcausethese
differences.
In a recent two-part revie*' (199), 1993), Gardner and MaclntFe divide what they see
asthemostimportanilearnertraitsintotwogrou@cr;l,e(emotional).
-
Herewefollort.theiraccount,andsummu..i,.'",.
most significant influence on L2 learning success.For fuller treatment of this social
psychological perspective on learner difference, lve would refer the reader to sources such
a s G a r d n e r ( 1 9 8 5 ) , S k e h a n( 1 9 8 9 ) , a n d E l l i s ( 1 9 9 + , p p . + 6 7 - 5 6 0 ) .
24 ROSAMONDMITCHELL AND FLORENCE MYLES
CognitiveJactors
lntelligence:Not verv surprisinglv perhaps, there is clear evidence that L2 students lvho are
.bfi;;;G" o., fo.*ul *".r,i.., of i.ttelligence and/or general academicattainment tend
to do well in L2 learning, at leastin formal classroomsettings.
' r , .aButude:
Language L
Is there realh' such a thing asa'gift' for languagelearning, distinct from
'Y
general intelligence, as folk rvisdom often holds?The most famous formal test of language
iptitude was designedin the 1950s,bv Carroll and Sapon(1959, in Gardner and Maclnt,vre
l-992,p.214). This'Modern LanguageAptitudeTest' assesses a number of subskillsbelieved
to be predictive of L2 learning success: (a) phonetic coding abilitv, (b) grammatical sensitivitr,
(c) memorv abilities,and (d) inductive languagelearning abilitv. general,iearners' scores
In
'correiate
on this and other similar tests do indeed r,vith . . . achievement in a second
language'(Gardner and Maclntvre 1992, p. 215), and in a range of contexts measuresof
aptitude have been show'nto be one of the strongest availabiepredictors of success(Harler
and Hart 1997).
Do more successfullanguagelearners set about the task in
Languagelearning strcteflies:
,orn" ditii.tna;fr-Dffiev t-"" .p".iul repertoireof wavsof
har,cat their disposal
learning, or strat"gtei?[f this ulere true, could these even be taught to other, hitherto less
successfullearners? Much research has been done to describe and categorize the strategies
used by learners at different levels, and to link strategv use to iearning outcomes; it is clear
that more proficient learners do indeed emplov strategiesthat are different from those used
bv the lessproficient (Oxford and Crookall 1989, quoted in Gardner and Maclntvre 1992,
p.217).Whether the strategiescausethe learning, or the learning itself enablesdifferent
strategiesto be used, has not been fullv clarified, horvever.
Afectivefactors
The tw.o perspectives on the learner rvhich rve have highlighted so far have concentrated
first, on universal characteristics,and second, on individual characteristics.But it is also
possibleto vier'vthe L2 learner as essentiallva socialbeing, and such an interest rvill lead to
concern u'ith learners' relationship u-ith the social context, and the structuring of the
learning opportunities r,r,hichit makes available.The learning process itself mav be vieu'ed
as essentiallvsocial, and inextricablr- entangiedin L2 use and L2 interaction. Trvo major
differences appear, u'hich distinguish this vie'nr-of the learner from the last (for the social
psychological vier,vof the learner rvhich rve have just dipped into is also clearly concerned
'socio-cultural
with the individual learners' relationship r,r.iththe milieu' in rvhich learning
is taking place).
First, interest in the learner as a social being leads to concern r,vith a range of sociaily
constructed elements in the learner's identitv, and their relationship *'ith learning so c1asr,
ethnicitlt,andgenderrnaketheir appearanceaspotentiallv significantfor L2 learning research.
Second,the relationshipbetu'eenthe individual learner and the socialcontext of learning is
view.edas dynamlc,reflexive and constantlv changing.The'individual differences' tradition
sau'that relationship as being governed br a bundle oflearner traits or characteristics(such
as aptitude, anxiety, etc.), ll.hich rvere relativelv fixed and slou'to change.More sociallv
oriented researchersview motivation, learner anxietr, etc. asbeing constan-tlvreconstructed
through ongoing L2 experience and L2 interaction.
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acquisition.
A c a d e m i cP r e s s4, 1 3 5 8 .
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SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING; CONCEPTSAND ISSUES 27
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Meara,P. (1996a.1 classicalresearchin L2 acquisition',inAnderman, G.N{. and Rogers,
M.A. (eds), Words,words,words:the translatorand the languagelearner. Clevedon:
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Williams, J. (eds), ?erJormance and competence in second language acquisition. Cambridge:
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Mrvles,F., Hooper,J. and Mitchell, R. (1998)'Rote or rule? Exploring the role of formulaic
l a n g u a g e i n c l a s s r o o m f o r e i g n l a n g u al eg ae r n i n g ' , L a n g u a g e L e a r n i n g14180, - 1 3 5 .
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Sinclair,J. ( 1991) Corpus, concordance, collocation. Oxford: Oxford UniversitvPress.
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Skehan,R ( 19S9) lndividualdfferences inJoreignlanguagelearning.London: Edw'ardArnold.
'The
Sorace,A. (.1996) useof acceptabilitvjudgementsin secondlanguageacquisitionresearch,
in Ritchie,W and Bhatia,T. (eds), HandbookoJ second San Diego:
languageacquisition.
AcademicPress,375-409.
Spada,N. (t997)'Form-focussed instruction and secondlanguageacquisition:a review of
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Spolsky,B. (1989) CondittonsJorsecond learning.Oxford: Oxford UniversitvPress.
language
Stubbs,M. (1996) Tbxtandcorpusanal1sis. Oxford: Blacku'ell.
Swain, M. (1985)'Communicative competence: some roles of comprehensibleinput and
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der.eiopment'in
in secondlanguageacquisition. NIA:
Rorvlev, Newburt'House, 235-53.
Swain, M. and Lapkin, S. (1995)'Problems in output and the cognitive processesthev
generate:a steptorvardssecondlanguagelearning', ,lppliedLinguistics16,371-91.
R. and Harvkins, R. (1994) Approaches
Tor,ve1l, languageacqujsition.Clevedon: N'lulti-
to second
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Tou,ell,R., Hu*.ki.tr, R. and Bazergui,N. (1995)'The der.elopmentof fluencv in advanced
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'Forks
Van Lier, L. (199+) and hope, pursuing understandingin different rvdys', Applted
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Lingutstics
'The
Weinert, R. (1995) role of formulaic languagein secondlanguageacquisition:a revier'r'',
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'Converging 'acquisition-learning'distinction', Applied
ZobI, H. (1995) evidence for the
L i n g u i s t i c1s6 , 3 5 - 5 6 .
Chapter 2
andNinaSpada
PatsyM. Lightbown
Activity
'good
Characterjstics oJ the language \earner'
It seems that some people har,e a much easier time of learning than others. Rate of
development variesr,videlvamong first languagelearners. Some children can string together
five-, six-, and seven-rvordsentencesat an agervhen other children are just beginning to label
items in their immediate environment. Nevertheless, all normal children eventually master
their first language.
In second languagelearning, it has been observed countlesstimes that, in the same
classroom setting, some students progress rapidlv through the initial stagesof learning a
new languageu-hile others struggle along making verv slou. progress. Some learners never
achieve native-likecommand of a second language.Are there personal ch?Iacteristics that
make one learner more successfulthan another, and if so, u-hat are they?
The follou.ing is a iist of some of the characteristics commoniy thought to contribute
to successfullanguagelearning. In your experience - as a second languagelearner and as a
FACTORSAFFECTING SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING 29
1= Verv important
I = Quite important
3= Important
{ = Not verv important
5= Not at all important
\ good languagelearner:
I
r'\
a is a willing and accurate guesser 1 2 i3 + 5
/
b tries to get a messageacrosseven if
specihc languageknor,vledgeis lacking I2 3 + 5
o
b
attends to whether his or her performance
meets the standardshe or she has learned l) + 5
j has an above-averageIQ + q
listedabovecanbe classihed
All of the characteristics i",l@;[I 1;iqsigg!ll3ji9f ,€' v
aptitude,personalitr'. andlearne-r3.*flSgr. Houerer,manr o[the charac(
intelligence.
Gristts .ur-o,-U. ..siFA;;Gi.el. to ile categor\'.For example,the characteristic'i)-
willing to makemistakes'canbe consiieredu p.r.oiulitv and/or a motivationalfactorif the
Iearneris w'iliingto makemistakesin order to get the messaqe across.
3 0 P A T S Y M . L I G H T B O W NA N D N I N A S P A D A
Perhapsthe best rvav to begin our discussionis to describe \gwlqse-4qctt ql th" influence of
learner characteristicson secondlanguagelearninghasbeen carried out.When researchers
are interested in findlng out u-hether an individual factor suchas motlvation affects second
languagelearning, thev usuallv seiect a group of learners and give thgm a questionnaire to
,rr"".rri" qh"_typg-4!-d--dggrg.e of their motivatt-qn.The learners utJth".t given iieit to m-eaiure
,,,,.thef
._, - second language pro{iciencr-.Thetest and the questionnaireare both scored and the
tesearcher
' ' " - - ' - . ' - ' nerforms
r-'^ a correlationon the two measures,to see lr'hether learners w'ith high
scores on the f-fi.i.rr." teif are also more likelv to have high scores on the motivation
questionnaire. If this is the case,the researcher concludes that high levels of motivation are
correlated rvith successin languagelearning. A similar procedure can be used to assessthe
relationship betr,veenintelligence and secondlanguageacquisitionthrough the use of IQ tests.
Although this procedure seems straightforu.ard, there are several dilliculties with it.
\\ -=*-.-The first pr6blem is that it is no-tpossiblelo directlr, observe and-ineasurequaTitiessuChis
motir,,ation, extroversion, or even intelligence.Th"re u." lgtt I.b.]! for an en[ire range oT
-b"luo.iorr^-lnd-iharaiGrlstici.
Further*o.", becausech.Ft..Gilis such as these are not
independent, it r,vill come asno surprise that different researchers have often used the same
,
labels to,-describedifferent sets of behavioural traits.
For example, in motir?tion questionnaires,learners are often asked whether thev
willingly seek out opportunities to use their second languagewith native speakersand if so,
how often thev do this. The assumption behind such a question is that learners who report
that they often seek out opportunities to interact rvith speakers of the second language
are highiy motivated to learn. Although this assumption seemsreasonable,it is problematic
' '
becauseif a learner respondsbv saving ves to this question, lve mav assumethat the learner
has more opportunities for languagepractice in informal contexts. Becauseit is usuallv
impossible to separatethese trvo factors (i.e. r,villingnessto interact and opportunities to
lnteracr,),some researchershavebeen criticized for concluding that it is the motivation rather
than the opportunitv lvhich makes the greater contribution to success.
Another factor u.hich makesit difficult to reach conclusionsabout relationshipsbetween
individual learner characteristicsand second languageiearning is -ho-r1 langyageproficiencv
t
ttdt[*-O andiug4!_q{ed.Toillustrate this point ]e1,r, ."f.r once aguinto'motivation'-. ln the
r,vitha higher level of
fr".o"d languagelearning literature, some studies report that learners
learners than those lvith lolver motivation, while
/imotivation are more successfullanguage
j,othe. studiesreport that highlv motivated learners do not perform anr,better on a proficiencv
litest than learnersrvith much lessmotivation to learn the secondlanguage.One explanation
\ '". rvhich hasbeen offered for these conflicting findings is that tLe iqq€Uegqproficiency't_ests used
. i. di&rent studiesdo not measurethe sameklnd of k"rou-ledge.Thati., ;.t itriot-il lu.tgn"g"
vrhen the proficiency
flearning setfings, highly motivated learners mar'be-iiiofe successful
1/, / t"rtr measureoral communication skills. In other studies, hou-et'er, highly motivated learners
d/ qf
[ -." not be more successful because the tests.are primarilr. 5gg4!qrg! -r4etalinguistic
vknowledge.
Results such as these implv that motivation to learn a second languagemay be
mor€T€Ete4to pAI !,rqUL4_{ .qspegt! o f I anguaqe p r o fi ci en cv than to o ther s.
Finally, there is the problem of interpreting the correlation of tw'o factors as being
\
due 1-o_a qaqfa_l_relationshipbetweenthem.That is, the fact that two thig. tqld to occur
t"gSthg4o_es not necessarilvmean that one causedthe other.While it ma,vbe that that one
" factor influengest-he.1h% ii;;;ro b. tir" casethat both ar6influenced by something else
entirelv. Researchon motivation is perhaps the best context in w'hich to illustrate this.
Learners lvho are successfulmav indeed be hiqhlv motivated. But can vl'econclude that they
FACTORSAFFECTING SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING 3'-
- ---:.-\
_>
''
IntelliB,ence.
Aptitude
'is
Tliete evidence in the research literature that,some indir.iduals har.'ean exceptional
'aptitude'
for languageiearning.Lorraine Obler ( 1989) reports that a man, w-homshe calls
Cj, has suc-ha specializedabilitv. CJ is a native speakerof English rvho grerv up in an English
home. His first true experience u.ith a second languagecame at the age of 15 when he began
learning French in school. CJ also studied German, Spanish,and Latin w'hilein high school.
At age 20, he made a brief visit to Germanv. CJ reported that just hearing German spoken
for a short time rvasenough for him to'recover' the German he had learned in school. Later,
CJ worked in Morocco u.-herehe reported learning Moroccan Arabic through both formal
instruction and informal immersion. He also spent some time in Spain and Itall', where he
-
.r-, r--i -
apparentlv'picked up'loth Spanishand Italian in a'matter of w'eeks'.A remarkable talent
indeej-l a
factor hasbeen
ol_ggrl4ggrickllis the distinguishing feature of aptitude.The'aptitude'
inveitigated most indnsive]i bv reseaich-eis'interested in developing tests rn'hichcan be used
to predict whether individuals rvill be efficient learners of a foreign languagein a classroom
setting.The most widelv used aptitude tests are the Modern LanguageAptitudeTest (ML4T)
and the Pimsleur LanguageAptitude Battery 1er-ae).Boih tesislrelasedonih" rriew that
aptitude is composed of different t-vpesof abilities:
', "bersonality
fh"r. hu, been a great deal of research on the role, of attitudes and motivation in second
language learning.lhe overall findings r!'1:1he, pos,itire attjlude-san{ mqtra-t-iqLarc,rela[ed-
to succeqs_insecond languagelearning?Glrdner 1985.;'.. Unfortunatelv, the research cannot
indicate precisely hor motivation is relaied to learningiAs indicated above,we do not know- .f-
ol successful]gitlil-gj!.,
whether it is the motivation ihat produces succ_essful_learning _ _r,
enhancesmotivation o;itRahtsolli=ar"c",ffited br other factors. As not6dE)'P.i&31;8"""2
or'
(i9q, tIe questffiEl-are iearnersmore highl)'motivatedbecausethey are successful, /n,
/t
arethev successful becausethev arehighlvmotivated? l
/r
-Motiaafiirninsecondlanguage rvhichcanbe defined {
lEaintng-isa-compiexp.henomenon -\
rl
/ ) ).r
in terms of t.r",.o factors: learners' communicative needsand their attitudestowards the second
- - : a : : b : - - ; - : -communit\.lfm.d
^Ianquase -.:- -,
l.nguuq.;;;d.
^
*ng-" of* ,to.iul
.' , - r o, :- ' ," --i'i-
situiuonso. io-frlEl profe5ionalambitions.fier .il-LpSfSSit.,h"
e secondla and oti roficiency in it. Likewise, if
il -, r'
E tr
Kir S;oi.n tfi'tf-ttdre tvpes of motivation are related to successin second language learning.
On the other hand, lve should keep in mind that an individual's identity is closely linked
with the wav he or she speaks.lt follou's that u'hen spsaking a n9Ll4g998r glgrydgPtiqg ):
s9rye-9llh-9jde$rlyrnarkers olnother cukg:1g.":p. Depending on the learner's attitudes,
liarning a second language."tr-b. i source of_eniiZFment or a sourceof resentment. If the
speaker-s onli-rearo-n-for-l.utning the second language it internal
"lt.Irql3t_essure, a"
m o ti vati on 4qay-b-em-iuim-al-aqd.g e;e r al attitu d es t onla. di 1 u. ffi -.1'Tii ;-g"tfi . .
"
34 PATSY M. LIGHTBOWN AND NINA SPADA
One factor rvhich often affects motivatio,n is th-esocial d):IlaEriq gr,pp,!:ef re-lationship
f pe_tryee-46e-lafrgUug"s.That is, members of a minoritv group learning the language of a
and motivation from those o[ majority group
if majorit_vgroup ma-vhave different attitudes
ii*e.nb.ts learning a minoritv language.Even though it is impossibleto predict the exact
'reffect
of such societal factors on second languagelearning, the fact that ianguagesexist in
social contexts cannot be overlooked lvhen u'e seekto understand the variablesw'hich affect
successin learning. Children as r'vell as adults are sensitive to social dvnamics and power
relationships.
-
. l 4 o t i v a t i o nt n t i" ,toru*.tirirroo
Learner preferences
tearnershard clbar preferences for hou- thev go about learning new material. The term
Iearning,sl/ei .!a1begn used to describe an indjvidual's natural, habituai, andpreferred way
of absorbing, p{ocessing, and retaining nerv information and skills (Reid 1995). We have ail
heardpeople savthat thev cannotlearn somethi_ng until thev haveseenit. Suchlearners
',ould lall into tlle group culledfi"*l-f*tn.rr)dth.r. p"opl". u'ho ma1'b"cull"dfiilJ- u'"
Learner beliefs
Second language learners are not alu-al'sconscious of their individual learning str-les,
about I
opinio_ns
bujry_rually"l_L!e{L"l!rp"lll.ylllllol_d.rls.us].!r.1lg0:._q!ry_ag_b_qlieq."d
how tAeir instruction s,houlille delivered.Thesebeliefs are usuallvbat:d_ql pfgfifsqs learning I
--- _- -.;- _
assuinid-o_nG€It or u.rong) that a particul_11,,rp. of instruction is the
,4a-- . t_1T-
df@iqFEsenffthe )!
bEst u'av for them to Iearn.This is inoiher area u-here little rvork has been done. How'ever,
the auuiiableresearih inilicates that learner beliefs can be strong mediating factors in their
experience in the classroom.For example, in a survev of international students learning
e sl in a highlv communicative program at an English-speakinguniversit,v,Carlos Yorio
- ":1 - -
1t9Se; found high ler-elsof dissatisfactionamong the students.The tvpe of communicative
instruction th-evTeieiveJfocused on meaning and spontaneouscommunication
"*tlusileh'
in group-lr.ork interaction. In their responsesto a questlonnaire,the majoritv of students
expressedconcernsabout ser.eralaspectsof their instruction, most notabiiJhe ableqcggf
attention tg lan_g_uagelorm,-co1r_qS11f9{C9d!q._L,Ql_!94gtret cs11_t1ed inqtrq.ction. Althougn
fhis studv did not directlv examine learners' progress in relation to their opinions about the
instruction thev received, severalof them u-ere convinced that their progress u.asnegativel,v
affected bv an instructional approach rvhich r'r'asnot consistent w'ith their beliefs about the
best w-aysfor them to learn.
Learners' preferencesfor learning, u'hether due to their learning st1'leor to their beliefs
about how-languagesare learned, rvill influence the kinds ofstrategies thev choose in order
36 PATSY M. LIGHTBOWN AND NINA SPADA
the-:
to learn neu, material.Teachers can use this information to help Iearners expand
strategies and thus develop greater flexibilitv in their \\'av L:
repertoire of learning
approaching languagelcarning'
z'-==---R--
a cqui s ition-",.
,.-'A g e of
We nou'turn to a learner characteristic of a different type: age.This characteristic is easier
to define and measure than personalitr',aptitude, or motivation. Nevertheless,the rela-
tionship betw.eena learner's age and his or her potential for successin second language
acquisition is the subject of much liveh' debate.
It hasbeen u'idelv observed that children from rry11gg1_1!11_llleseventuallv speakthe
languageof their .r"* .o--trnit) ;th nati'"-lik" flE...:,-ir.,i ilrii. p4...,t, .arely achieve
such high levels of masten' of the spoken language.To be sure, there are caseswhere adult
second languagelearners have distinguished themselvesbv their exceptional performance.
For example, one often seesreference to Joseph Conrad, a native speakerof Polish who
became a major writer in the English language.Many'adult secondlanguagelearners become
capable of communicating ver-v successfullyin the language but, for most, differences of
accent, word choice, or grammatical features distinguish them from native speakers and
from secondlanguagespeakerswho beganlearning the languagewhile they were very young.
r1 One explanation for this difference is thalas in first langu4ggagqui-sltion, $ery,19 a_g11ical
'l tlat there is
pe.iod for secondlanguageacquisition.TheiCriticalPeriod Hrpothesis gtLggests
' r,m*-fmui"*iaeGiopti-"ni *'h.n thebraii-islre@oGdfo-sileeE<inlunguug" learning.
O.:{:tlggt changes in the brain,it is argued_,a{ee!Jh-e-qtqre of language*4-cq-r11s-i1ion.
ilhi-.ho...r., aftertheendof the..iti"ul p.ilod -uy
n."oiding 6-this,01"frlu.rg,rug.l-"*"-r.,g
not be based on the innate biological structures believed to contribute to first language
acquisition or second languageacquisition in earlv childhood. Rather, older-learners depend
orr'-o." general learning"abiities- the ,u..r. o.r., thev might use to l"u.r, oth"r-kin-dsofilllls
orhTo.-"tlon.Itli arguetl-thatthese general learning abilities are not as successfulfor
languagelearning u, th. iroa" spec1fic,in*teapa.iti"s-v'ii"har-" *uir.-Fl. tq th" y"r4;qhfa
Ir-ii most olten Jlalmed that the"crig!fuj.tqdejdbj9ls9ub9lg_e!, -LLt rgmg
researcherssuggestit could be even earlier.
=.-6liou.r;tisafn.uTt
lo .o-p... JhiTdt".r and adults as second languagelearners. In
addition to the possibie biological differences suggestedbv the Critical Period Hypothesis,
the conditions for languagelearning are often verv different.Younger learners in informal
languagelearning environments usuallv havemore time to devote to learning language.They
-enviioRments
often have more opportunities to hear and use the language-in where they do
not experiense strong=ple!r,rt"=lo_:p:"k fluentll' an{ frgm
-4-qqq,ratg\' fhe very beginning.
FurthFimor.,1h"";l-mpgftc! effo.ti often praisedor, ut l.url, u...1rt.d. On the
"r.
other hand, oldei learner-s-?-re,often-in s-itqqtig$-,ryhich demand-mu-Chm6re complex
languageand theGipression of much mo-r9ggUr-p-!!,c=4-tgd ideas.Adults are often embarrassed
Uy ttr.lr lack of the and thet' may d;velo-p r"ir. oT l.tadEQuacy after
,mast.Ll "f llguag_e " ts
expericnces oTfrustration in trfin-g to sal' exactly rvhaffiey mean.
The Critical Period Hvpothesishasbeen challengedin recent rvearsfrom severaldifferent
points of vierv. Some studies of the second languagedevelopment of older and younger
learners w.ho are learning in similar circumstanceshaveshown that, at leastin the early stages
of secondlanguagedevelopment, older learners are more ef{icient than vounger learners.
In educationalresearch,it has been ."poit.d ihat leaineis riEoT-.gu" Iearning a second
languageat the primarv school level did not fare better in the long run than those who began
in early adolescence.Furthermore, there are countless anecdotesabout older learners
FACTORSAFFECTING SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING 37
CriticalPeriodHypothesis:
,llorethanjustaccent?
Mark Patkorvskistudied the effect of age on the acquisition of features of a second language
other than accent. He hvpothesized that, e1eq1i_4g_c.ggt 11qr.qignored, oniv those w'ho had
begun learning their second languagebefore the age of 15 could ever achieve full, native-
liki masten oithut linguage.Pitloii striexamin"d t-fi..pok"n Englilh of"5?l-rig"hlt educated
immigranTsio the UniGd Stut.r.Thev had started to learn fnglish at variouiages, but all
had lived in the United Statesfor more than fir'e vears.The spoken English of 15 native-born
American English speakersfrom a similarlv high level of education served asa sort of baseline
of rvhat the secondlanguagelearners might be tn'ing to attain asthe target language.Inclusion
of the-native speakersalso provided evidence concerning the validity of the research
Droceoures.
A lengthv intervierv rvith each ofthe subjectsin the studv rvas tape recorded. Because
Patkou'ski r.vantedto remove the possibilitv that the results w'ould be affected by accent,
he did not ask the ratJis to judge the tape-recorded intervie*'s themseh,es.I.rsteud,he
transcribed five-minute sampies from the interviervs. These samples (from rvhich anv
identifving or rer.ealing information about immigration historv had been removed) were
rated by trained native-speakerjudges. The judges rvere asked to place each speaker on a
rating scalefrom 0, representing no knorvledge ofthe language,to 5, representing a level of
English expected from an educated native speaker.
'Will
The main question in Patkon'skiA-reqearchrvas: there be a difference between
l944nersu"ho began to iearn English h_Sl. tt
t!gi{ How-ever, in the light of some of the issuesdiscussed above,he also compared learners
on the basisof other characteristicsand experiencesrvhich some people have suggested
might be as good as age in predicting or explaining a learner's eventual successin mastering
a second language. For example, he looked at the relationship betr,veeneventual mastery
and the total amount of time ajppakqr had_bgq.UL!tr_.-_United Statesas rvell as the amount o
of formal ESL instruction each speakerhad had. 6
The findings r,verequite dramatic.Thirtr'-tuoggo{J3lubjects who had begun learning
Englishbefore the age of 15 scored at the 4* or the 5 level.The homogeneitv of t}e pre- u,/ Ar-^t
I
pubertv iearners seemedto suggestthat, for this grorrp, trr-&.rr in learning a secondlanguage
was almost inevitable (see Figure 2. 1). On the other hand, there *'as much more variety in
the levels achieved bv the post-pubertv group. The m{o{11 o{ t!e- pOt-tpg_b-grtylearners
centred around the 3 f level, but there rvasa rvide distribution oflevels achieved.Thisvariety
made the performance of thir group look il"."-f,f." tfr" -rl Jp.rf..-u.,.. range one *otli
expect if one u.ere measuring successin learning almost anv kind of skill or knou'ledge.
38 PATSY M. LIGHTBOWN AND NINA SPADA
20
Q .^ ,,u
6't
9) ,ll|ll
'l$ll
|I|lili
iilb
r[n
th
*
\
Q .^
d't
q)
2+33+
learners
Post-puberty
Experience and research have shou'n that natir-e-likemasterv of the spoken languageis
difficult to attain bv older learners. Surprisinglr, even the abilitv to distinguish between
FACTORSAFFECTING SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING 39
l n t u i t i o n so f g r a m m a t i c a l i t l
length
Ihe sentencerepetition task required learners to repeat 37 sentencesofincreasing
and grammatical comPlexitv'
English to
\o, ,"nrrn1- translation,i"u..t.., u'ere given 60 sentencesto translate from
into the correct
Dutch. A point lvasgir.enfor eachgrammaticai structure rvhich lr-asrendered
Dutch equivalent.
ejudgemenncsfr,learners \vere to judge lvhich of trvo sentenceswas better.
In the sentenc
The same content \\'as exPressedin both sentences,but one sentence l\''asgrammatically
correct r,r'hilethe other containederrors.
ln the peabodyPicturelbcabulary 7Zsr,learners sarvfour pictures and heard one isolated
'"vord spoken bv the tester'
r,vord.Their task rvas to indicate r'vhichpicture matched the
For the storycomprehension task,learnersheard a storv in Dutch and r'verethen askedto
retell the story in Englishor Dutch (accordingto their preference).
Finallv,rh'estorytJlltnrrasftrequired learners to tell a ston'in Dutch, using a set of pictures
content
thev were given. Rate oi d.liu"- of speech mattered more than the expression of
or formal accurac\'.
The learners rvere divided into severalage groups, but for our discussionwe will divide
adults
them into just three groups: children (aged31o 1O), adolescents( 12 to 15 vears),_and
( 1B to 60 vears).The chilire.r and adoleicents ail attended Dutch schools. Some of the adults
spoke English
,uo.k.d ln Dutch lvork environments, but most of their Dutch colleagues
had
well. Other adults were Parents u'ho did not u'ork outside their homes and thus
somewhat less contact rvith Dutch than most of the other subjects.
The learners lvere tested three times, at four- to five-month intervals' They u'ere first
starting
tested within six months of their arrival in Holland and rvithin six weeks of their
school or work in a Dutch-lanquaqe environment.
Activity
Which group do vou think did best on the {irst test (that is, u'ho learned fastest)?Whichgroup
do -uo,,ihi.rk rvasbest bv the end of the vear?Do vou think some grouPs would do better on
."ri"i., tasksthan others?For example, rvho do vou think would do best on the pronunciation
tasks,and lvho lvould do best on the tasksrequiring more metalinguistic awareness?Compare
vour predictions u,ith the results for the different tasksu'hich are presented inTable 2. 1 . An
iX'
indi.u,". that the group was the best on the test at the beginning of the vear (an indication
of the rate of learning), r'Y'indicates the group that did best at the end of the year (an
".,d
indication of eventual attainment) '
In the Snorvand Hoefnagel-Hohle studr',the adolescents',verebv far the most successful
learners.They \\'ere aheadoflvervone on all but one of the tests (pronunciation) on the {irst
test session.That is, rvithin the Iirst ferv months the adolescentshad already made the most
the
progress in learning Dutch. As the table indicates, it rvasthe adults who were better than
and adoleicents on pronunciation in the first test session.Surprisingly, it was also
"niid.".r
the adults, not the children , ll'hose scoresn'ere secondbest on the other tests at the first test
session.In other rvords, adolescentsand adults learned faster than children in the first fern'
months of exposure to Dutch.
Bv the of the vear, the children u'ere catchinS rPl o. had surpassed,the adults on
"r,d of
,..ro".ulmeasures.Nerertheless,it rvas the adolescentsw-horetained the highest levels
performance overall.
FACTORSAFFECTING SECONDLANGUAGE LEARNING 47
Pronunciation Y
Auditory discrimination XY
Morphologv XY
Sentence repetition XY
Sentence translation XY
Sentence judgement XY
Peabody picture vocabularv test XY
Storv comprehension Y X
Storvtelling T X
Snow'andHoef
no critical Deriod for lan
l-Hohle concl heir results orovide evidence that there is
can De lnterDreted ln some i)
other rvavsas well:
1 Some of the tasks (for example, sentencejudgement or translation) u'ere too hard for
young learners. Even in their native language,these tasks u-ould have been unfamiliar and
difficult. In fact, young Dutch native speakersto u.hom the second languagelearners rvere
compared also had trouble rvith these tasks.
Even people r,vhoknou'nothing about the critical period researchare certain that, in school
'vounger
programs for second or foreign languageteaching, is better'. Horvever, both
experience and researchshorv that older learners can attain high, ifnot'native', levels of
proficiency in their secondlanguage.Furthermore, it is essentialto think carefully'about the
goals of an instructional program and the context in r'vhich it occurs before we jump to
conclusions about the necessitv- or even the desirabilitv - ofthe earliest possible start.
The role of the critical period in second languageacquisition is still much debated.
For ever-v researcher vrho holds that there are maturational constraints on language
acquisition, there is another rvho considers that the 1ge factor cannot be sepal?ted from
factors such as motivation, social identitr', and the conditions for learning, T!*e:y argug -
that oldei lear'riers mav r'r,'ellipeak u'ith an accenl'be..r.tr" th"t' want to continue being
identified u'ith their first language cultural group, and adu!!qlel9!I€S!qgeTs 11tLe_sylme
quantity and qualitt' of languageinput that children receir.-ein_plavsettings.
\/
--:J-=>
42 PATSY M. LIGHTB0WN AND \i',.1 SDADA
/'"
Manv people conclude on the basis oisrudi-s such as those br'Pl4o*tki or Neu'port
and Johnsonthat it is better to begin secondlan;uag.-in.truction a/earlv as possible.Yetit
--:-:-- :-:.\: : ::^tst studies.Thet'deal u'ith the highest
is ven'important tc,L.earlr' nr:. 1
. , - - . . : : - = - . ' . . , a r . r h i c h 4 s e c o n { l a n g u a g e s p e a k e ri s
p o s s i b l el e r e l o i s . . , - , n c, . t : ^ _ . - : . 1. <
i n d i s t i n g u i s h a b ll.r . ' n r . . . . =-.: b..: .-:-. ':r.r .rnlti, e-likemaiten' of the second
",,.
language - ' _ "a- :g,--,alt",r al, ... "r,: ,r:-.3:.-
' * " s " _ * sis' "not ':.:r:;l. "- in-il'fcan
-''fr'h"n the oF;ectiveof =econd lanluagrT-.arnin;i. nati\e-likemastervof the target
language,it is usualll desirableior th. lcarncr Io L,ccumpletelv surroundedbv the language
asearly aspossible.Hos'ever.earh rntensi\ r c\posurc to the secondlanguagemay entail the
Iossor incomplete development oi the child's nrst lanquaqe.
When the goal is basic communicative abilitv tor all studentsin a school setting, and
w-henit is assumedthatlhe child's nati\e languaqcu'lll remain the primarv language,it
may be more efficient to begin second or,ioretgnlanguageteaching later. When learners
receive only a few hours of instruction per l'eek, learners u'ho start later (for example, at
age 10, 1 1 , or 12) often catch up w'ith those u'ho began earlier.We have often seen second
or foreign languageprograms which begin u'ith ver\-\'oung iearners but offer onlv minimal
contact r,vith the language. Even rvhen students do make progress in these early-start
programs, thev sometimeslind themselvesplacedin secondarvschool classeswith students
rvho have had no previous instruction. After vears ofclasses, learners feel frustrated by the
lack of progress, and their motivation to continue mav be diminished. School programs
should be basedon realistic estimatesof how long it takesto learn a secondlanguage.One or
f; t*o hours a rveek will not produce verv advancedsecoqd languageqpeakers,no maiter how
I I L_.
Summary )
The learner's ageis one of the characteristicswhich determine the w-ayin which an individual
approachessecond language learning. But the opportunities for learninS (both inside and
outside the classroom), the motivation to learn, and individual differences in aptitude for
Ianguagelearning are alsoimportant determining factors in both rate of learning and eventual
successin learning.
In this chapter, rve have looked at the rvavsin which intelligence, aptitude, personality
l, and motivational characteristics,learngr preferences, and age have been found to influence
second ianguage _!93141,tg,%have leained that the stud)- .!l!!itt1"al learner variables is
t, , \,
I+. not eniire\:i^iirf".tofrThis is partlybecause
, not easvandthe$herelri&cc{t:qlearc}rare
, of lhe*Jackof clear definitions and methods for the individuai characteristics.It is also due
't\r,\'
! ,to the fact thafLhggg-learner-gharacteristicsare,no,t-independentof one another: learner -
i So far, researchersknou'very little about the nature of
,-- rariables interact in complex \\-at's-.
/ i.rt"r".Tio.rr.Th,rr, it remains difficult to make precise predictions about how
A . th-ese compG*
a particular individual's characteristics influence his or her successas a languagelearner.
l :y"
i' \ii Nonetheless,in a classroom,a sensitiveteacher,u'ho takeslearners'indiv_idual personalities ,
1-
and learning stvles iirto account, can create a learning environment in *'hich virtually all
learners can be successftilin lbarning a s-econdlanguage.
l
t2_ ,
/\
FACTORSAFFECTING SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING 43
References
'N'lotivation:"Reopeningthe research
Crookes,G. and Schmidt,R. (1991) agenda"', Language
Learning41 / 4: 469-512.
Gardner, R. ( 198 5) SocialPsvchology and Second Learning:The RoleoJAttttudesand
Language
Motivation.London: EdrvardArnold.
Gardner,R.C. and Lambert,\,\.E. (1972) ,4ttitudes in Second-LanBuaBe
and,Motivation Learning.
Rou'ley,Mass.:NervburvHouse.
'The
Genesee,F. (1976) role of intelligencein secondlanguagelearning', Language Learning
26/ 2: 267-80.
'The
G u i o r a , A . , B e i t - H a l l a h a m iB, . , B r a n n o n ,R . , D u l l , C . a n d S c o v e l , T .( 1 9 1 2 ) e f f e c t so f
experimentallvinducedchangesin ego stateson pronunciationabilitv in a secondlanguage:
An exploratory studv' , Comprehenive Psychiatr,t' 13/ 5: 421-8 .
Johnson,J. and Newport, E. (1989)'Critical period effectsin secondlanguagelearning:The
influence of maturational state on the acquisition of Englishasa secondlanguage.'Cognitive
Psychology 21 60 99 .
, . , M a d d e n ,C . , P r e s t o n D
O b l e r ,L . ( 1 9 8 9 ) ' E x c e p t i o n asle c o n dl a n g u a g lee a r n e r s ' i,n G a s s S , .
and Selinker,L. (eds.) lariationin Second Language Acquisition,Vol. II: Psycholinguistic Issues.
Clevedon,UK/Philadeiphia,Pa.:N{ultilingualN{atters,pp. 141-9.
Patkow-ski, M. (1980)'The sensitiveperiod for the acquisitionof svntaxin a secondlanguage',
L a n g u a gLee a r n i n 3 g0 / 2 : 4 4 9 1 2 .
Skehan,P.(1989) lndividualD{ferences in Second Language Learning.London: EdwardArnold.
Reid, J. (ed.) (1995) LearningStviesin the ESL/EFL Classroom.NervYork:Heinie & Heinle.
Snow,C. andHoefnagel-Hohle, M. (1978)'Thecriticalperiodfor languageacquisition:evidence
from secondlanguagelearning',ChildDevelopment 49 / 4: 1 11+-28.
Wesche, M . B . ( 1 9 8 1 ) ' L a n g u a g ea p t i t u d e m e a s u r e i
s n streamingm , a t c h i n gs t u d e n t sw i t h
methods,and diagnosisof learningproblems', in Diller, K. (ed.) lndividualD{fercnces and
(Jniversals in Language Learning Aptitude.Roulev, N{ass. : NewburYHouse.pp. 1 19-39.
Yorio, C. (1986)'Consumerism in secondlanguagelearningand teaching',CanadianModern
Language Review 42 / 3: 668 81 .
Chapter 3
RodEllis
Introduction
Starting from the 1960s, two approachesto addressingthis lacuna have been evident.
The {irst, a continuation of the approach adopted in earlier research, consistsof attempts to
i n v e s t i q a t et h e r e l a t i v ee f f e c t i v e n e sosf d i f f e r e n t u a v s o f t e a c h i n gl a n g u a g ei n t e r m s o f t h e
products of lea.rniqg.Experimental studiesbv SchererandWertheimer (1964) and Smith
(1970), for exarygle_,_lemp4rgdlhe_,1_.gf1q13s.o"tcomes of the grammar-translationand
audioLingual
a u d i o l i n g u a -"doar.
l e t h o d s .ffl"
m T h e r*ft., h o v r e r e r ). r*t.
r e s u l t s .d'ay:"rr e r e i";"".f,*ii".
i n c o n c l u s i r eThe
T. h e studierlfliTE*.,,o
studics/failit\to
'---.=-7 -]---:-- \.
demonstrate the superioritv of one mettr6d over the other
lh-e second appro_achinvolved the empirical stud)' of hou' learner: acquired an_L2.In
f i r s t p l a c e ot h i s t o o k t h e f o r m o f s t u d i e suor f lr Lea ra rr rnt r e rJ s w' JJ . r r s r s\1L .eX .. g UD
.Uu
J \ vs k o v a\1/ 9
v@ \ ) /6
, , 9 ;4
ar tnu d LcOaJ Cs e
l---...'....t'r.
t I
-
s t u d i e so J i n d i v i d u a ll e a r n e r sl e a r n i n ga s e c o n d l a n g u a g n e o t i n t h e c l a s s r o o mb u t t h r o - u s h
g
expii'iii6lo-Tt-ft n-aturalsettings1e.g.Karqm 1968).Thesestudiesi"uglfed&I-! ol!.rgggh
ffir..-ri
f1
evidence that L2 learners, like children acquiring their lirst language(L1), accumulated
F"*l.G-Fin"-t""gil.gethev.@!g!iysyrtrryttcfashion.
o
Thus,{lrereas global method studiessoon fell out of fashion,istudies of L2 learningtook
off;,,6n\u.bJr.'.
Much of this earlv rvork in SLA u'as pedagogicallvmotivated.That is, researchers
pedadoffi-ssues.
c o n d u c t e ds t u d i e so f L 2 l e a. r n i ni . gn i t h t h e e r p| r e_s si n t e n t i o n o f a d d r e s s i n g
_ ..-......_-_-,---!__b__....-:_:>
SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION 45
.;"a".mkethatofa11academl.di'.ip-Ii"ei,xto.1o.ntributetotechnica1,]
k n o w l 1 d g 9 . t h , i s r e f l e c i e di n t h e f a c t t h a t S L . \ i s . b r a n d l u . g e .G e p i e s e r v eo f u n i r e r s i t l -
basedresearchers,rvhoseprimarv allegianceis to the conduct of n-ell-designedstudiesand
theorv development in their lield.This is astrue of t}ose researchersrvho are concerned'r'vith
areasof potential relevance to languagepedagogr'(e.g. igpgLlntglagllgn qn-dt\"_11g._-,'.hf
form-focusgd instructiolr) as it is of researcherslvho see SLA as a means of contributing to
other disciplines such as linguistics or cognitive psvchologv.In contrast, Ianguagepedag,ogy
is concerned with plggqg?i.lqqftlqlge. Textbook u.riters drarv on their experience of the
kinds of activities that rvork in classrooms and, of course, on their familiaritv t'ith other
published materials. Teachersdrau' on their hands-on knou'ledge to perform the myriad of
tasks that comprise teaching.
Given that a gap exists betrveen SLA and languagepedagogv and assumingthat SLA is,
at least, of some potential relevance,the question arisesas to horv the gap can be bridged.
46 ROD ELLIS
V t,
it exists in a declarative form that has been ecrU thesereasonsi ilxamined
u@ t l l l . l
r@sr'"g
l . # , .
q!-anagqof practical knowledge is that it is groceduralized and t}us can be drawn on rapidly
....w
necessarilvrelv primarilv on the practical knou.ledge thev have acquired through teaching
or, perhaps, through their experiences of having been taught. Ho-uvever, it may b_eposs-i-bJe
for other practitioners of languagepedlgog,v(e.g.svllabusdesigners,test constructors,and
mareilalsn riters t to attempt some integrationof tec.hnicaland practicalkrlqgledge, astheir
actir itjes are more amenable_ to ca.relulplanning and de]ibelglsllecrqlsn:n0aking.
The crucial issue is the nature of the relationship betu'een technical and practical
knowledge.To rvhat extent and in r,vhatwavs can the technical knolvledge derived from deep
reflection and research influence actual practice? Holv can technical know-ledgebe utilized
in the creation of the kind of practical knou.ledge u'ith u-hich teachersmust necessarilv
u'ork? Weiss ( 1977) provides a \\.avof addressingthese questions.He describesthree models
ofresearch use.
lnteractjvemodel Here tec-hnr:gllne\\ ledge and practical knon'ledge are inte_r-L+tgd in the
perfor-unce of some proft . The ',vav in which this is achieved is highly
complex. Weiss(1977 : 87-8) comments:
the process is not of linear order from research to decision but a disorderly r"l---l
of i.rt"..orr.rections and back-and-forthnessthat defies neat diagrams.All kinds of
people involved in an issue area pool their talents, beliefs, and understandings in a n r
effort to make senseof a problem.
Not surprisinglv,then, the interactive model is problematic. As Eraut (1994) points out
there_4re.variousfactors that constrain the professional's ability_llqnlqke_u;e_ofthe knorvledge
qgetr$blo"gh. g. Fervresourcesare available
for effectingin interaction. Funding for research, for example, is tvpicallv au'arded to
48 ROD ELLIS
The nature of the relationship betw'een SLA and language pedagogv has attracted the
attention ofa number ofresearchers over the vears.A useful starting point in our exploration
ofhow SLA might inform pedagogv is to take a look at rvhat these SLA researchershavehad
to sav.
The application of SLA can take place in tw-o rather different r,r.ays. As Corder (1977)
has pointed out, the starting point can be the researchitself w.ith the applied linguist cast in
the role ofinnovator or initiator, advancingpedagogicalproposalson the basisofhis/her
knor,r.ledgeof SLA. This corresponds to Weiss'sknon'ledge driven model of research use.
Alternatively, the starting point can be unsolved practical problems in languagepedagogy,
in rvhich case the SLA researcher takes on the role of a consultant n'ho is approached b-v
practitioners for possiblesolutions.This correspondsto Weiss'sdecision-drivenmodel of
research use.We find both tvpes of application discussedin the literature but it is probabl,v
the first that is paramount, reflecting, perhaps,the dominance of the researcher'sperspective
over that ofthe teacher's.
In general, SLA researchers a strong interest in pedagogyhavebeen cautious about
"vith
applying SLA. Earlv articles bvThrone et a|. (1976) and Hatch (1978) emphasizedthe need
to be careful. Hatch lamented that researchers have often been over-ready to make
applicationsto pedagogv,pointing out'. . our field must be knorvn for the incredible leaps
of logic w.e make in applving our researchfindings to classroom teaching'.Tarone et al.
(1976) advanceda number of reasonsu'hv SLA could not serve as an adequatebasisfor
advisingteachers.Among other points, thei' argued that the researchto date was too limited
in scope, that the methodologl'for collecting and anal-vsingdata was unproven and that too
few studies had been replicated.Thev also noted that the practices ofresearch and teaching
were verv different in nature. Whereas researchers adoplg-d-aslow, bit-by-bit app1q4ch,
teachershad immediate needsto ,rt
--
difference in terms of the distinction betu'een technical and practical kno'ivledge.
SEcOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION 49
The concernsvoiced bvTarone et aL.(1976) and Hatch (1978) are verv real ones.They
reflect the understandable reticence of researchersto plunge in before thev are certain of
their results.This uncertaintl'about the quality of the researchbein ced mav havebeen
one of the reasons r.vh"-
some researcherss adding sectionson the applications of their
..r""..fio-tf,Eil-published aiti.lof m.etrorp".t, horr;er;ei,
I amnot sosurethatresearchers
need to be so cauuous.As Corder ( 1980) noted, teacherscannot '"vaituntil researchersare
r - ! . \ . - .
w.hich do not but she sussests amrharttr \\'lth the results 11ea1chrvill help
teacher im ate r.,ptheii..rinFFoili ghtbor,r'n,tIS ies not in identiflinq
.<1
lnnovattve tecnn or ne\\' teacrunqaDDroacnes Dut rat ins expectanc-iElendin
Iending support to particular a ches, su-chas tanguage From
ffitedrelevancetolanguagepedagogy,forasLightbown
( t b t d . : 1 8 2 c) o m m e n t s :
If this is all SLA can do for teachers, one might rvell ask w'hether it is w-orth their rvhi le
)
making the effort to become familiar rvith it.
Not all researchers/theorists have felt the need to plav dor.vnthe contribution that SLA
can make to languagepedagogr'.Sorne have looked for navs of bridging the gap between
researchand classroompractice. One u'ar'|s to construct a theon'of L2 acquisitionthat is
compatible n'ith the ar ailable researth-Efr-n hiiilIio-C tuned]oThej-neeAsoftr-actreiiTh-it-
ls w the ..s"u..hG"lT *tut
should be used to addresspedagogical issudsbut rather the tteorr-ilerirgqd-lrenlTEeresdtrch.
-EvEnTpplied
p;;-.II
LeS4 tt-ltK3qJ! d I l,tl l3llgd t for-!a-.lh odoJogy i n, gener aI'
(Krashen1983:261)andthus " "€
basisfor evaluatingnervpedagogicalideas.@he131g"b that the theptlnquglbsglheo5
o f L l a c s l l l s l t l q n a s o p p o s e d t o a l r n g u r s t r ct h e o r ! o r a t h e o r v o l g e n e r a l l e a r n l n g . l n o e e o ,
'theon''
he claims thatGacher\have grolvn suspiciousqf
and
',
"*
es to solve dTlle
becau he failure of linsuistic
believesthat SLA theory, because
lf:f9q51Fl"-ance Krashen
7
alsoarguesthut(i.e.basedonactuaIL2research,;
rather than on armchair speculation.
5 0 R O D:
- \ l u c h r i l i : : . : - . : ' . . : - r - r . n e d u . o r k h a s b e e n c o n c e r n e du ' i t h t h e a p p l i c a t i o n so f h i s
o*-n forcetuli., pr,-,n-,,,rejiheort ti.e. the Monitor Model and, more recentl,v,the Input
Hr-pothesisr. asin KrashenandTerrell ( 1983). It should be noted, horvever,that contrary to
some cntrcrsn'rsle.e ll.-d at him (seeWiddorvson 1990: 34) Kr{'hgLIg! ng"t5:ougbl t9
preclude teachers erploring pra_gmatic optionsterived from ideT 9]rtrid" httjleoretical
-+-*---
trame\,vo rvork.aSE (rashe}l{g}lg! js{rlis -
theorr. A I s o ., he
t h e o r \ ' . Also, h ee eelplicitlv
n xxD
plllicct iut-vl- rir:.e-r-ceocgonqr znei sztten- sa t ht eaatct e
n earcsh\ \e' l rl lsa@
n ossannoduiln
q tDuriltni o
gnl csl e a sa n o l n t u l u o n s
T:og"i15 €
basedon their owi-practiFalTiperrglgllo dffi" -al""g. As Krashenr l98 l: 261I says
LC
as any to make it so. For a theory-Lo-bfe! rlgximum use to teachers it has to take t}e form 7
offiiis
' y a theorv of action.Thi, i, poinithut ro'lllGiiE;upl"te. rn this chapter. t
--r1-
- o t h e r u a v o t b r i d g i n g t h e g a p "b e t u e e n S L . \ a n d l a n g u a g e p e d a g o g v i s t h r o u g h u h a t
,\ - - f f i*J
','''
i,h, lru'(
loh" J;h;i.; &u*'Jui'"nulog'blt*-e"n 't*
,',
', *
.
9ngin."llrl;;d lgslring.Heargues r*
tnut n..EiiFifi""ring hassuccesslullv
deti"ned
itsou'n .'o
problem spaceasindependent from that of supporting disciplines, such asphvsics,language t <<,Jr.e,'o-t,
teaching has not I'et done r". ge ),*u-1 ,-t .i-J..,
developed through experimentation in the classroom itself. Johnston distinguish{s pure L
- : : - ./
r e s e a r c h( r . e . t h e r e s e a r c hc a r r i e d o u t b v S L A r e s e a r c h e r s d : c ha s h i m s e l f ; u n - d . l u r . . o o -
*Yuf
research.He recognizesthat prr." ..r.ur.h can onlv provide guidelines and suggestiorrr, .' ; -
-'
r'vhichhar,eto be put to the test. For Johnston, then, the gap betr.veenSLA and language F- LzU-<-
'1 e
pedagogvneedsto be fiiled bv conducting experimental studiesin actualclassrooms.He is ; ,.
optimistic that such researchw'ill ensure that'the languageteaching of 10 to 15 vears hence y,o--.*tc"r
rvill be rather different from the hit and miss methods of todav' (ibid. : 3 8). C; b t',J-4f,
There is gio$cai objection 1p Johnston's position. If ${1n_d of classroom research
+ t& .
Johnston has iti-iid-iiiontrolled exp..i-."tution (rvhJe tfrereatiiieiafthe classroijin 6aue )^-r*^rl
tto
o bbe t o ccontrol
m a n i p u l a t e d1o
e manipulated o n t l o l tor u n . t a n t e d -variables
f o r unrvanted t a r i i b l e s that
t h a t mav
m a r intluence
i n f - l u e n c ethe
the e ffiectd-,0* p
ellect
"I ;, ' [*
pL*
a given treatment), there mav not, in fact, be anv difference betrve:1jg11g15!clgggot" "'1
::
,.i"q..h. In this..rp Jcb
"d |t
[r"ur.h on classroog*i.?irunt-To derelop th" t..hiologr of t"u.hinftn-ili"n.rton
-u,FguEr ,"-,-, ;"*
-:-:ll::
consltler3-hece-sa-arvfEaffiattet
,.r---.larir-I:::'_rh\:-t-,-r-|
n a t l S required.
e c e s s a r rvt l s t n e l a t t e t tth;ns r e q u l r e d .lbr assr\:right
lora t D I d . 'l.v l ) a r q u e s 'un
w r l g n t (tina.TgZi an_ _
lJ, ' ",*-*
.. *l.a-'
ng oT-theL2 clasM-mg-trt-Eest proceed . . , lrom its inr estigationa$a culture
. : -........-.-.......-
r--fi
ln lts o\\ n rlqnt . no\\'ever, ed experimentation mav not be the best u'ar --
1 ) __rl ^ r'u r€
reseaich on Classrooms. V ..-l | /- lt" J \/'
'i
The casefor basing pedagogical decisionson L2 classroor4-r"r#.iluS.SiFur-r..a
'
by a number of other researchersand languageeducatorl:larris$983: 238), for example, :'- li'r:
"ig.,".that.ourt""lamentsthe|actthatitL--,
ha*stvpically ods Cou.ses
in Masters prograffiei*TeSOl in the United Statesand Canada.Onlr' l8ozoincluded
reference to classroom-centredresearch (CCR). Long(ibid.: 284) suggeststhat this may
reflect the practical orlentatlon
e Dractlcal orientation oI methods cours
of metnoos courses butt he argues that classroom-centred
cla
'eminentlv 'concerned
research is practical' becauseit is lvith u.hat actualh' qoes on in the
classrooms,ur opposed-toovhatissupposedto go o"@olcou.qelf
r+ff
t h e r e s e a r c h e r a c c e D t st h e r e a l r t l e so l c l a s s r o o m b e h a v l o u r a n d m a k e s n o a t t e m p t t o m a n r p u -
lut. lt foi."r"-.;;hTr4llr.r d research
shouldbe included in methods courses:it hasalreadvproduced some practicalinformation;
teachers can use the research toois that har.ebeen emploved to investigate their own
classrooms;classroom-centredresearchu'ill help teachersbecome sceptical -*i
about relying
'
-^ Ar"
o n s i n g l e i e a c h - i r gm e t h o d s . I n a s u b i e q u e n t p a p e r . - t o n g ( 1 9 9 0 ) a r g u e st h e n e e d f o r a
-"--_-....t---41.. -
/ I Ir lr. | | , l- | . | -l
common Dooy or r<nolr,'ledfue wliich can be transmitted to teachers in rnuch the same way as
u c; t" A;.t"".J6t"gg.rtr itrui
.T'.=_--..r..__--/::-
althougfL2 classroom research is Imited in arumber of respectsit constitutes'agrou-irg
bodyoftangible@"chi.'g'(ibld.:1i51.ro'Long,thisconstitutes
hard evidencen'hich is bettFi tEanThe preludicesand suppositions u.hich he believes
characterizemost pedagogicaldecision-making. Like Johnston,then, Lglg
"lo'Ugeq_slass-
room research as the means bv rvhich researchers can most effectively influence language
pedagogv.
-
There are seriousreasonsfor disputingthe optimism that both Johnston,Long, and
others shareregarding the effect such researchr,villhave on languagepedagogv.As Stenhouse
52 ROD ELLIS
" "*"p"@.Sitttho"s"
tmore formallv else',vhere:
f,h. crucial point is that the proposal (from research) is not to be regarded as an
,' ,rnqrr"li6ed recommendation but rather asa provisional specificationclaiming nornore
than to be u,orth putting to the test ofpractice. Such proposals claim to be intelligent
rather than correct.
field of practice
1 -Tl. iniriative for applving research results of anv kind to anv
\'(
rvhatsoeverghould come from the practitioners themselves.
\_ _-
./'\
Such a statement ignores, holvever, some obvious limitations in this insider approaJ:
Teacherscan onlv ask questions based on their olr'n experience. They cannot ask questi,:,:
aboutissues dictum n ere to be religiouslvadhered: :
thevhare no knou ledgeof. If Bahns's
<1 manvol the derelopmentsin language
i
p[dagog)ouerthelaiinrein*FfrFould plobar .
, . , _ = _ _ _ _ _ _ l n - _
\/notha@ple,teachersrvouldhar.ebeenunlikeIvtoask.Whatistheh..:
Vru
C *uy to organize a svllabus- in terms of structures, notions, or tasks?'becausethey l'ou- -
'tasks'
not haveknolvn what'notions' or (in its technical sense)lvere.These conceptsha'..
been derived from the w.ork of linguistsor applied linguists,but havenot arisenspontaneou:,
through the practice of teaching.Thus, although much can be said in favour of an insic-
approach, there is also a casefor the outsider application ofSLA
SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION 53
reiearchers and teachers can effectivelv collaborate is complex. It is one that has been I
addr
researchershave paid scant attention to this literature.
-Frorn
this inifa-I eTploration of u-hat it means to applv SLA researchit is clear that
there is no easv ans\\:er.For some, the immaturitv of SLA as a field of enquirr- precludes
applications.For others, SLA can onh'hope to shapeteachers'expectationsofu'hat is possible
in the classroom.Others havedeveiopedspecificproposalson the basisof generaltheories
of L2 acquisition. Others have suggestedthat the gap betrveen SLA and teaching can be filled ,
by conducting research in and on L2 classrooms.Finallv, some researchershave argued for
an approach u'here thev act asconsultants addressingissuesraised bv teachers or where thev
t
participate in coilaborativeresearchwith teacher.. Ar ',,r-.haveseen,eachof these approaches
has something in its favour but none of them is entirelv successfulin closing the gap between
SLA researchand languagepedagogv.In the next section rve consider the iiews of a number
ofeducators on how'researchcan be made relevantto teachers.
Educational perspectives
Earlier we noted that the once close connection rvhich SLA researchersinitiallv envisaged
between SLA and languagepedagogvhasnot continued.Tounderstandthe gulf that-frequentlv
divides the theorv a@ onlqqrp-haryl, and the th-eor)'andpr&Iic--f.
n'e need to examine thegurding principies and assumptionsof each.We
teaching on the oth-e-r,
ru-_
need to conslder the culture ol research and the culture ol teacfung.
Let us begin with research. It is customarv to distinguish tr,vo broad traditions in empirical
enquirv - the confirmatorvand the interpretatiue.The co.,ffiilii6il' t*iliiiA li interven'-
..-.! .L
tio'nisL'lt is )' designedexperiments,suchasthe agriculturalexperiments
of R. A. Fischer
--1
(1935) in the United Stjrtes,rvhichlr.eiE
^r
---"----'-
ti6atment produced the best crop rields.Th" _t1gd_$on
@(i.e'subjectsarerandomlvdistributedintoanexperimental
and a control group) and the careful controlofextraLeous variables(i.e. those variablesthat
54 ROD ELLIS
might L I U U r 4 l variable
t o9 . confound the studv of the particular ralr4urL Thg,ialqggstative
ion ) '.Thgi
under investigation
Pdr
tradition is ryflgggg{inWeber's((1961)
1-961 faqious&){initionof sociologv:'Sociology ' ' ' is a
l.ilative ,,.'d"."tun6oT rocialaction.'It is maniGstin
ttrli.. tEtt seekto developan u-iiltlFiS socialrules thEt-
"ffiffintionitt - . 1
p r o b l e m i s t h a t t h e a p p l r e d s c l e n c e v l e \ \ ' o t t e a c n l n g a l l o c a t e sP a r t l c u l a r r o l e s t o r e s e a r c n e r s
and to teachers, lr.hich are nece \alue laoen ln nalure. t(e ers are tn
I
o\l-leoge \\
LJ
rela t\\'een-Tesearc
kind *[iEft;ists and studentsin traditional classroomsand,
"F.{iitJid
aiguaSffi
Bv adheringto what van Lier t 1990t callsthe emic principle (i.e. tr.v to understandh.
s o c i a lc o n t e x t \ v o r k st h r o u g h t h e p e r s p e c t l \ e so t t h e p a r t l c l P a n t sa) n c lt n e n o l l s t l cP r l n c
sornsthi.lg jln lerms of its_n4_!_U4l slllroundings). it mar ma
The truth ofthis is evident in rvhat is perhapsthe best piece ofinterpretative researchin SLA
to date -van Lier's (1988) studv of aspectsof classroomdiscourse(i.e. turn-taking, topic
and activitri and repair rvork). Although van Lier offers a fen' comments on hou' teachers
56 ROD ELLIS
What then can be done about ali this? Clearlv, something is needed to bring the w-orlds
-*_l
of the researcher/theorist and the teacher cioser together. One lr a1 mighl_b9 to lfrdrryays
of familiarizing
.o
teachersu-ith the technicalknou'iedgeobtainedfrom researchand, also,of
I
in theii o*1n-4@t.Weu-ill brieflr'examinebothTl'TEese, C
A., .r.n-f,tion of manv educators, is that both pre-service and in-service teacher
education courses should provide students r'r'ith an understanding of a range of academic
issues considered relevant to their lvork as teachers.Teacher preparation and further
educationprogrammes, therefore, tvpicallv offer courses,designed to familiarize teachers
with these basic elements. In the case o.f progr.+mmes fuLLLlqaching there is a broad
consensusregarding u-hat t}reseelements consistof: r.vhatlanguageisl horv it is used inlpgsgh
w'language
L
\r
and er,aluatedand hor,vlanguge is learnt. '' OnE6
curricula can be developed, taught,
#
qrou rinq this kind of educall4is to d".= an a\\'aren
- l<', u<.
to teach a lanqua er ootions from rvhich teachers must select
with the Darticular contexts in r.vhichthel'lvork 1-?h"cls ' ,
ow'1 1pP'ta^L
need for a foundation in t}ese basic elements has been stronqlv argued by Stern
( 1983). In t}re introduction to his book Fundamental Conceptsin LanguageTeaching, Stern argues
the need for guides to help the student teacher'pick his rvavthrough the massof accumulated
information, opinion, and conflicting advice; to make senseof the vast literature, and to
distinguishbetu'eensolidtruthandephemeralfadsorplainmisinformation'(ibrd.:1-2).He
seessuchguides asnot telling teachersu.hat to think but rather helping them to sharpentheir
own judgements. He w-orks on the common-sense premise that judgements that are
informed, basedon sound theoretical foundations, u.ill produce better results than those that
are not. Stern's ou.n guide is comprehensive,involving sections dealing r,vithhistorical
perspectives,conceptsof language,conceptsof societv,conceptsof languagelearning and
concepts of languageteaching. Other guides have focused on specific areas,including SLA
(e.g. Larsen-Freemanand Long 1991, Lightbou-nand Spada1993, Ellis 199+).
The aim of these guides is to make technical knorvledge availableto teachers in a
digestible form.There is still the question of horv teachers are to integrate this knowledge
i n t o t h e i r o n ' n p r a c t i c e-.\ s H i r s t t 1 9 o 6 : 4 0 t h a sp o i n t e do u t :
To trv to understand the nature and pattern of some practical discourse in terms of
the nature and patterns of some pr,."lr: theoreticai dir.o,l.r. can onlv result in its beins
radicallv misconceived.
Often enough, teachersin training, particularlv pre-service, complain about the lack of
relevance of the foundation courses thev har,etaken to the actuai task of teaching (see for
example Schuvler and Sitterlev 1995).This has led to the suggestionthat teachqra sh_-o"ld
become more than consumers of theories anffreseiich: thev should become researchers
. ----
and theorlsts ln thelr o\\'n rlght.
The caii-I6F teaChEiconducting research in their ou'n classrooms is norv w-ell
establishedin education, largelv as a product of the pioneering r,vork of such educators as
S t e n h o u s e( 1 9 7 5 ) , E l l i o t t a n d E b u t t ( 1 9 8 5 ) a n d K e m m i s a n d M c T a g g e r t ( 1 9 8 1 ) a m o n g
others. More recentlv,educatorsof languageteachers(e.g.Nunan 1990 and Crookes 1993)
havealso argued the need for teachersto researchtheir ow'n ciassrooms.One form of teacher
research that is commonlv advocatedis action research.
Action researgh orlqlnates ln the \\olt(_pl-Kql.]LLsfllj) ln the Unlted Stalel (see
Ad"lffi,,o.k,,-'.]itscontribution).Lew.inwasconcernedwith
centredaroundchanges
decision-making in theu ork plfA H. tilsi"i...""a
in practice it
58 ROD ELLIS
(tE_r::.-utt.d factorl'
r,vhateffect involving rvorkers in the decision-making Process ""
@entin t h e H a rr,rood
ed on workers bv
and that $ hen all the \lorKers parllcll inlFe-decision-makin ion rose markedl
a th" practical benefits of involvin€ actors in
"d
d e c i s i o n - m a I 0 n g . ' . 1 V I o r eimportantlv
ffiMore L c w . t I l 't-d
I O rL.oui.,
1 m P o r t a n I r vfor rLuclr'1Ul]!]1:5,r-
Ler'vin'swork is of interest becauseit reflects th.
-<'----------?"1 -r --,t-*l^^^ t^.,-:-.'-..,^*1,;-^ti-+aractl-^-'".^itrptlertcthe
advantagesor oemocracv in the ,torkpl".*
tw--gllC;i".t-" r.t.ut.h, asit hasbeenappliedsubsequentlyto education:a@J9!93=L
is intlded both to improveclassroom practiceandalsoto serveasa meansfor emancipating
u teachers.lt nasDotnan instrumerrt"lfrr.t.tio '
Caseof the latter, it mav be politicallv charged and, for that reason, potentialll'-risky'
It is customarv to identifv three kinds of ugtio.rI"rgg.h.8.tq there ij"-technicalactiln
outside researchers
u'here outside r.r"ut.h co- d
research,u'here
research,
-..----
l r o m t n e o r v o r p r e v l o u sr e s e a r c nL. r o o K e s1 r e e l ; i h u t u c t e r i z e st h i s k i n d o F a c t i o nr e s e a r c h
'---'1--:--1-: I
5.s refaTl\-.ATydserl'atGlfr-e,
a reEtiie-It
ts a noting that
conservative li.te, ttottttg i! is
that tt ls likelv
Il{9 worKlg9trsneu by
to result in-worklgblished L y scholars
i;, it fgltgf9glr]igliT
ecause
" .tundlrdrli-Elffiott"1
tffi;
-
m""l r.rr..r,*ntl" -.ii.i.,;.,g tih.values
".,d
researcn.
Second-rthereis research undertaken bv teachers in their ow'n classroomswith a view
to im-proving local prl11-."t Carf tndKcmrnis=cfer-tothis kind ol'reiearCh ;t fi.t.i
i.tio" ..r"uih brrt Hopkins ( 1985) prefersthe term teacher research. As Long ( 1983a:-268)
pointsout,theaiTo'|teqch",."1.u'.hisnotto@se-archers,
tut to provid" Jil.*, bv rttri.ti thev can monitor their orvn practice. It involves a cvcle of
-i.tluitiesa.-*O*.,-r;T,grr.eT ).The starting point is
planning (i.e. the identification of some problem that needssolving).This results in action
behaviour r,vill arise). Observation of
ii... thi"u.hing of a lessonin rvhich the problematic
the action protid., material for reflection,',vhich mav then lead to further planning. Each
step or moment in the cl.cle looks back to the previous step and forward to the next step'
The cvcle servesto link the pa,stuith th9 futulg thrgggtdte Dlocessssqf l-e-c-g1ffuc_tion and
co,-,struitio.r- F"r-thEmo.e-iGir gtiryq(i.e. talking about the action) with,actual
practi-eli}. the action in contexf,.Th" tturtl"g point of the cvcle, planning, is generally seen
-ilthelnost
problematic. Ideallv, teachers should form plans for action based on an analysis
of their o'uvnexperience,but in realitv they are likel-vto pick out issuesfrom the educational
or applied linguistlcsliterature (see,for example, McDonough and McDonough's (1990)
studl:of langul.geteachers' r.ien s about research). Carr and Kemmis acknor,t'ledgea role for
a n o u t s i d ef i c i l i t u t o r i n h e l p i n gt e a c h e r sf o r m u l a t e a p p r o p r i a t ep l a n so f a c t i o n .
Reconstructive Constructi\
Innovationist perspective
A number of applied linguists have recentlv turned to u'ork on innovation to help them
f-
*\7 I understand the variable successther,have observed in both large-scalelanguageprojects in
Y , the developing world and the variabieresponseto nel\'ideas among teachersin the developed
c w o r l d . K e n n e d v ( 1 9 8 8 ) , W h i t e ( 1 9 8 8 a n d 1 9 9 3 ) a n d N { a r k e e( 1 9 9 3 ) h a v e a l l d r a w n o n
\-innovation
researchin a varietv of disciplines(e.g. Rogers (1983) in sociologt',Lambright
and Flvnn ( 1980) in urban planning,Cooper ( 1989t in languageplanning and Fullan (198)1
a a d ( 1 9 9 3 ) i n e d u c a t i o n ) .H e n r i c h s e n( 1 9 8 9 . r ,B e r e t t a( 1 9 9 0 ) , S t o l l e r ( 1 9 9 + ) a n d M a r k e e
(199+b) havereported actualstudiesofinnovation in languageteaching.It should be noted,
however,that to date there hasbeen no studv of innovationsstemming from proposalsbased
on SLA.12
SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION 61
What then determines lvhether and to uhat extent teachers cope r,vith these threats?The
answ-erto this questioninvolvesa considerationoffour setsoffactors:
ssource)."g
ortrce)reqardinoclaSSroomDIactice"d,,."iio'
'the 19"u1,
administrative.political.
administrative.nolitical.or iultural
culturalfactors. Kennedvcomments:
factors.Kennedv comments:'thecultural svstemis
cum;fsvitem
l
a.silmed qq be the -ffiooo".lul as it rvill influ-e4*cg._[gtll_pljgggl-]l$ldminlitra6rc
stn4tulgtgqdbq!3vlour'(ibtd.:332).ThisisapointthatWiddowson(1993)alsoemphasizes.
He cites an unpublished paper bv Scollon and Scollon to the effect that'gonversational
-
methods' ma.y q!19 take root in China b"
"
Confucian emphasison benevolence and respect betrveen teacher and.students.
p*a on the p..ro.r"litv and quaiities
of indi.,id-uat t-".tr" Itr{dlrcatgd ur,d uidty
"p*
moblle) may be -o." i^.lirEd1o?
Attribute Definition
'
Initial dissatisJaction The level of dissatisfactronthat teachers experience r""'ithsome aspect
ol their existing teaching.
Acceptabilitl The extent to \\.hich the innovation is seen as compatible with teachers'
existing teaching stvle and ideologv.
Relevance The extent to rvhich the innovation is vierved as matching the needs of
the teachers'students.
Explicitness The extent to rl,hich the rationale for the rnnovation is clear and
convincing.
Triabihty The extent to \\'hich the innovation can be easilr.tried out in stages.
ObservabtlitS, The extent to \r'hich the results of innovation are visible to others.
Originaliq, The extent to u'hich the teachers are required to demonstrate a high
level of originalitv in order to implement the innovation (e.g. bv
preparing specialmaterials).
1 orientation (i.e. the teacher demonstrateshe/she does not really understand the
innovation and is unable to implement it)
2 routine (i.e. the teacher understandsthe rationale of the CTP and is able to implement
it in a relativelv stable fashion), and
3 renewal (i.e. the teacher has adopted a critical perspective on the innovation,
demonstrating awarenessof its strengths and lveaknesses).
Fortv per cent of the teachers rvere rated at Level 1 , 47 per cent of teachers at Let'el 2
and 13 per cent at Level 3. Beretta considered Levels 2 and 3 demonstrated an adequateler,'el
of adoption. However, u.hen he distinguished betrveen regular and non-regular classroom
teachersinvolved in the project, he found that three out offour ofthe regular teachers were
at Level 1 . He concludedthat:
to rea4_st lgggplgb-Je-1s19-f
He points out that the fajJyrs.of the--regular-teachers -of
implementationref]ectstf,-eirlackofowt@obIemsregarding-
64 ROD ELLIS
the innovation's feasibilitv because, for example, the teachers lacked the command
teaching.Therea@iudy for
Eample, we cannot be sule-uhether the regular teachersreallr.failed to adopt the innovation
or w'hether thev simplv lacked the English needed to produce narrative accounts of their
experience- but, nevertheless,it demonstratesthe potential of an innovationistperspective
for evaluatingpedagogicproposalsderived from SLA theor-vand research.
Probablv the most comprehensive studv of innovation in language pedagogy is to be
found in Stoller's (199+) studv of innovation in intensive English languageprogrammes
in the United States.Stoller obtained completed questionnairesfrom 43 such programmes
and also conducted in-depth intervier'vs u-ith fir-e programme administrators. She found
that the most frequentlv cited innovations related to the development of nerv curricula or
f th. r.rtr@s"r"*." p.-;;;a.r rn.* t*fitant tha.rot-6irs
foj successfuLinnoration. Attributes rated as particrrlii\rimporrant-were usefulness
(relevance), feasibilitr', improvement ol'er past placticeq_(r,vhichrvould seem to relate to
+
initial dissatisfaction)and p_racticlltv (which relates to acceptabilitv). Stoller was able to
identifv three major factors in the questionnaire responses.One factor lvas w'hat she termed
a'balanced divergent factor'. The attributes involved here rvere explicitness,complexity,
compatibilitv with past experiences, visibilitr', flexibilitv, and originalitv. In the caseof this
factor, however,the attributes operatedin a zone ofinnovation in the sensethat they facilitated
innovation'w.hen thev \\-erepresent to a moderate degree but not when they were strongly
or weakh.present.The second factor rvasdissatisfactionand the third factor viability. Stoller
a l s o d e m o n s t r a t e st h a t t h e r e a p p e a rt o b e d i l f e r e n t p a t h st o i n n o v a t i o nd e o e n d i n so n t h c
nature of the inno'ation6tG5 tl-r.*r.?.r. .
f"ffRiBt dir..tirfaction and finallv the balanced din'..g..rt factor. The
"6-rtGp".t*,
emphasisthat Stoller placeson viabiiitv in this type of innovation reflects the importance that
Beretta attachesto feasibilitv in the communicational teaching project.
1,_,rw An innor,
evaldating t
ir,e, then, r.vould seem to afford applied iinguists a way of
like.bto succsgdiGili-"oi be possible,
Eourse, to make very precise predictions about rvhich proposalswill be taken up and
f*.
t/ rvhich ones u.ill not, but, arguablr',the verv act of evaluating their potential will help
researchersto make them more practical. One might also add that an innovationist analvsis,
using the kinds of categoriesdiscussedin this section,ma\.provide teacherswith an explicit
and relativelv svstematic u'ay of determining whether specific proposals derived from SLA
are of useto them.The studl of innovations,therefore, offers another possiblervay of bridging
the gap betrveen SLA and languagepedagogr'.
explanatior. Teachers are concerned \\'ith the e-ffective use of language and_r,vithjts
,p-ropagatiqq
'=fuSfi''r
in-ecan distinguish betrveen applied linguistics and linguistics applied so we can
"l'o.InthecaseoftheIatter,anattemPtismadeto
applv SLA researchand theon'to languagepedagogv.Thisis u-hat man,vSLA researchershave
expresseddoubt about doing, adr,isingcaution. In the caseof applied SLA, horvever,an
attempt is made to examine the relevanceof SLA in educationalterms; it requires the SLA
..r.u.th.. to haveknor,vledgeofthe theorv and practice ofboth SLA and langrragepedagogy.
Onlv w.henSLA researchersengagein appiied SLA do thev function as applied linguists.13
A good example of applied SLA is to be found in Brindlev's ( 1990) account of a course
he taught as part of a postgraduate dipioma in adultTESOL. Brindlev dismisseswhat
'we
he seesasthe traditional approach of SLA coursesrvhich he characterizesas give you the
-
theorv vou apply it' (the approach implicit in Stern's 198 3 advocacvof foundation studies)
in favour of a.r upp.ou.h thai pror.idesopportunities for the participants to analysedata.This
encouragesthem to reformulate broad SLA research questions in terms of classroom
implicationsand includesa strong problem-posing/problem-soh'ingelement bv inviting the
participants to addressspecific classroom situations in the light of insights drawn from their
stud-vof SLA and to discussoptions for classroom applications. Brindler'-did include a
knowledge component of the iourse (i.e. he provideJ an introduction tokev topics and
terminologv) but in accordance w-ith his applied SLA stance,he invited the participants to
identifv those SLA topics the-vfound most relevant to their concerns. Interestingll', he found
that psvcholinguisticstudiesof developmentalsequences(generallvconsideredof central
importance bv SLA researchers)came bottom of the list, possiblvbecausethe teachers'
primarv concern rvaslr-ith teaching rather than learning.
ied SLA, then, asa branch of applied linguistics,must necessarilvconcern itself with
relevance.SLAIsc-n
ofa seco cannot be a that thesemode f anl
lndeed, in manv casesthev probablv are not. It is no more correct to assumethat a theorv
oflanguage learning is ofrelevance to teachers than it is to assumethat a theorv oflanguage
is. Relevancemust necessarilvbe determined not from u.ithin SLA but from without bv
demonstrating hou' the findings of SL.\ address the needs and concerns of practitioners.
Hou' then can SLA be made reievant to pedagogv?An answ'erto this question can be
found inWiddorvson's(1990) discussionof the roles of the appliedlinguist (seeFigure 3.2).
Practice
procedures, and methods of testing learners and evaluating curricula - in other words anv
aspectof languagepedagogv.Theseproposals,mav take the form of original ideas,but as I
have alreadv pointed out, it is more likelv that thev rvill identifv options alread_v to be found
u,'ithin pedagogv.Irrespective of their form, these proposals cannot hr". th. status of
prescriptions. Rather thev serve as illuminative ideas.The',' are suggestions'"vhich practi-
tioners, if thev seefit, mav or mal not chooseto experiment rvith.The provisionalnature of
proposalsis determined not bv doubts about the r,aliditvof the theorv/researchupon which
lh.v u." based(even though such doubts mav u'ell exist ) but bv the recognition thaino theorv
and no research can claim to be applicable to the mvriad contexts in r,vhichpractitioners
operate. The applied SLA researcher,hou.ever, has a dutr. to ensure that anl I has
P o t e n t l l l r e r a p P l ' c a t t o na n d , ct. the attributes ol dilterent
examined from the innor,ationist oe ir-e described in the previous section. InJhii-war,,
it mav be possible to identifv u'hich proposals have a good chance of being adopted b1
teachers
3 Researchingthe L2 classroom
As rt'ehaveseen,another rvav of operationalizingconstructs,lvhether thesehavebeen derived
from pure researchor from teachers'personal knorvledge,is to carrv out investigations
ofclass.r-qqrnlegI!.e\sQIo55-9,thisshouldinvo1veresearchonclass@
r ! , : I
in a wav that makes them researchabie.In so doing, holvever, it must not impose issuesor.r
teachersbut rather act asa resourcebv which teacherscan refine questionsderived from their
o\vn experience.AsWiddo\\'son (1993) puts it, theorizing must be client-centred.
SLA can help in another u'ar'.It can provide teachers w'ith information about the kinds
of instruments and procedures thev rvili need to usein order to collect and analysedata. Some
thirty vearsof researchingL2 acquisitionhaveled to the development of a number of research
tools (seeLarsen-Freemanand Long 1991 , Alhvright and Baile-v1991), manl' of which can
be used bv teachersin their ou,n classrooms.
As lve noted earlier, the idea of the teacher as researcher r,vill not always be lvelcomed
bv teachers. For some teachers, at least, horvever, SLA can be made real through the
discoveriesthev make about holv their olvn learners learn a second language.
Notes
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SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION 7T
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Chapter 4
PeterSkehan
Comprehension strategies
The findings become much more understandable if one examines the relevance of native-
speaker comprehensionmodels for the process of second languagelearning. Looking at
comprehensionin more'micro'terms, Clark and Clark 11977)have argued that native-
speaker listeners t1-picallvdrarv upon a range of comprehension strategies when they are
listening.Thev focus on holv svntacticand semanticstrategiesmav be used to recover the
meaning of rvhat is heard in a rather impror-isatorvmanner (ibid.: 57-85). Examples of
s,vntacticstrategiesthat thev discussare:
C O M P R E H E N S I O N A N D P R O D U C T I O NS T R A T E G I E S 7 7
Whenever r'ou find a determiner (a, an, the) or quantifrer(some, all, many, two, six,
etc.) begin a ne\\-noun phrase.
Whenever r,ou find a co-ordinating conjunction (and, or, but, nor) begin a ne\\.
constituent similar to the one tou-juit completed.
Trv to attacheachneu'u.ord to the constituentthat camejust before.
(ibid.:66\
Thev illustrate this last strategv through an advertising campaign run b"' a London
eveningpaper'"vith posters such as'Zoo keeper finds Jaguarqueuing for underground ticket',
and'Butler findsner'vstationbetr,veen Piccadillvand Oxford Street'.Thepaperwanted more
people to realizeholv useful its small adr,ertisementssection u'asand to attract their attention
to posters ther' rvould normallv glance at onlv brieflv u-hile passing.So thev exploited the
'double-take'
that readers \r'ere led into br- using the third of the abovemicro-strategies.
'qrr.rri.rg'
Readers then had to recognize the improbabilit\: of their first interpretatio. of
'nelr'
being attachedto'Jaguar' and station' to'betrveen Piccadiilvand Oxford Street', and
rnoo'I th" link to the first noun in each sentence.
Clark arid Clark (;bid.:72*79'1 also discusssemanticstrategies,such as:
Fillenbaum (1971) illustrates the operation of this strategvbv showing that rvhen people
w e r e a s k e dt o p a r a p h r a s e ' p e r v e r s es' e n t e n c e sl i k e ' J o h n d r e s s e da n d h a d a b a t h ' , t h e v
'not
normalized them, lvith more than half of his subjectseven assertingthere u'as a shred
ofdifference'betrveen the paraphraseand the original.
Clark and Clark are, in effect, arguing that native-speakercomprehensionis probabilistic
in nature, and does not follorv anv sort of deterministic model rvhich *'ould rely on an
exhaustiveparsing of the utterar." .o.r."..red. Instead,listenersuse a variety of meansto
maximize the chancesthat thel u'ill be able to recover the intended meaning of u,hat is being
saidto them.Thev are not, in other u'ords, using some linguistic model to retrieve meaning
comprehensivelv and unambiguouslr'.Instead, thev cope r'r.iththe problem of having to
process languagein real time bv emploving a varietv of strategiesnhich rvill probably
combine to be effectir,'e, even though there is no guarantee that this rvill be the case.
Presumablv if a comprehension difficultv arisesduring ongoing processing,the listener can
shift to a different mode of meaning extraction, asperhaps in the caseof the zoo keeper and
the Jaguar(asrvasintended bv the authorsofthe poster). But this is not done routinelv: the
primarv strategv is to achieveeffectir,enessin ver1,fast languageprocessing.Most listeners,
in their native language,prefer to make a best-guessand keep up, rather than be accusedof
being slorv-u.itted but accurate pedants (although \ve can all bring to mind some members
ofthis species).
'micro'
These issuesdiscussedbv Clark and Clark (1977) can be locatedr'vithina wider
model of comprehension,u'hich hasa more macro perspectir.e.Thefollou.ing table is adapted
f r o m A n d e r s o n a n d L v n c h 1 1 9 8 8 : 1 3 ; , n ' h o s u g g e s t h a t c o m p r e h e n s i o n( a g a i n ,f o r t h e
moment, native-speakercomprehension)is dependenton three main sourcesof knowledge:
knov,ledge
Schematic
background knou'ledge
- factual
- sociocultural
7B PETER SI(EHAN
procedural knorvledge
- how'knou'ledgeis used in discourse
Contextualknowledge
knou'ledge of situation
phvsicalsetting,participants,etc.
knol'ledge of co text
n'hat hasbeen, rvill be said
I e'lqe
-i:,:;:: ;n; kno.w-
:" r^taaiiC
>: il-,lil!i c
::t, ,rnh,_rlogical
I necessarv
2 sufficient
3 eflicient
S w a i n ( 1 9 8 5 ; S u - a i na n d L a p k i n 1 9 8 2 ) , a n i m p o r t a n t c o n t r i b u t o r o f i m m e r s i o n - b a s e d
evidence, was led to consider rvhether other factors besidesinput might take us further in
meeting the three levels of condition proposed bv Long, and account for horv language
development might be driven foru'ard. In particular, she proposed the Comprehensible
Output Hvpothesis, that to learn to speaku-ehaveto actuallv speak! Drau'ing on her specific
suggestions(Srvain 1985), as well as on other sources, several roles for outPut can be
identified that are relevant to languagelearning.The first tw'o of the proposed roles still have
a connection witl input, but rework this relationship in some !vav.The remaining roles for
output are more specificallvtargeted on the productive modalitv itself.
Paradoxically,one needs to start bv drawing attention to the u'av in rvhich one could onlv
get good q,rilt,o input bv using output ispeafng) to give one's interlocutor feedback, so that
the input directed to the listener is more finel-vtuned to the iistener's current comPetence
(Long 1985). In this vierl-,output is important asa signallingdevice to negotiate better input:
input rvould still be the major explanatorv construct, but output rvould be necessaryto
generateit most effectivelv.Simplv listening rvould not ensure that good quality input r,vould
be received, since one u.ould haveto reh'on good luck or the sensitivitv of one's interlocutor,
neither of rvhich is verv dependable.The strongest form of this account concerns the
BO PETER SI(EHAN
'negotiation
for meaning'literature (Pica 1994).This proposesthat engagingin meaning
negotiation, as indexed bv the use of, for example, clarification requests, confirmation
checks,and comprehensionchecks,evidencese16cientsignallingof miscomprehensionand
the clear engagement of a malleable interlanguage system rvhich is more likely', as a result,
to develop productivelv.In such cases,better input should be received,but in addition the
attempt to engage in conversation lvill trigger support at verv important points for
interlanguage development.
- fOr,*raivt17
W"-::g) ,.)"' .J .''lo"n,-7
)
Sw'ain(1985) arguesthat knon'ing that one u'ill need to rpglk makes one more likely to
attend to syntax 'uvhenone is listening. She suggeststhat if l;iteners are aware that it is not
enoughsimplvtoextraCtmeanin gfrominput,butthatth"1,q@o'
-ur.
to thJ].r"urrc ty ,r'hi.h -.u.ri.rg, in ord==-..
to"*" @ri,
"*pr"rr"d
for their ow yntax
'.-a.-=.=-
W
To accept the input hvpothesis is to be dependent on w-hat is said by others. If this is
enlightening, given the learner's current state of interlanguagegrammar, then progress may
result. But one is extremeh'unlikeh.to be so fortunate as to receive relevant information
for specific points of interlanguage development relevant to the areaswhere one is framing
hvpothesesat exactlv the right time. Speaking,in contrast, allou.s the speakerto control the
agendaand to take risks and look for feedback on the points ofuncertainty in a developing
grammar (Swain 1985; 1995). This is unlikelv to make learning more efficient, since
t"h. ,p.uk., can control u'hat is going on and engineer feedback tlhut l, likely to be most
revealrng.
-
W
To be effective in the use of a language,one needs to be able to use the languagew'ith some
e a s ea n d s p e e d . E a r l i e r , i n t h e s e c t i o n o n c o m p r e h e n s i o n ,t h e ' r e a l t i m e ' p r o b l e m w a s
mentioned, according to rvhich it is important to posit mechanismsof comprehension which
havesome chanceof explaining listening in real time.The samebasicallyapplies to speaking,
the onll'lvav in r.vhichiearners can go bevond carefulll constructed utterances and achieve
some level of natural speedand rhythm.To obtain the automaticitl'that this involves requires
frecuent rtunrtv to components of utterances so that they can be
[roduced imoortant
speechruth". thu. th" .p"".h this respect, there is an aspectof
speaking which makes it an example of skilied behaviour, like driving a car, or, probably
more reler,antl-v,like plaving a musical instrument. O."lf by fr"q"."t d"
"r.
of spjechlikel) to he imn.or"d-
.
This applies to all speech,but it is likelv to appll even more forcefuliv to some aspects
than others. It mav affect morphologv vitalh', but hardlv affects rvord order. Hence the
C O M P R E H E N S I O NA N D P R O D U C T I O N S T R A T E G I E S 8 1
The previous arguments for the importance of output have not challenged the view' that
languagelearning is essentiallvthe developmentof a sentence-based interlanguagesvstem.
BUt it has been claimed (Brorvn and Yule 198 3) that much ELT rvork focuses excessivel),on
'short Il
t u r n s ' . a n d t h a t a sa r e s u l tl e a r n e r s 'c a p a c i t i e tso t a k e D a r t i n e x t e n d e dd i s c o u r s ea r e I I
''
%
not stretched. Certainlv, current developmentsin discourseanalvsissuggestthat there is a
Iot to be learned if one is to become an effective communicator. Discourse management
(Bygate 1987), turn-taking skills, and a range of similar capacitiesrvhich underlie the
negotiationof meaning in ongoing discourse(Cook 1989), can onlv be achievedbv actuallv
participating in discourse. If meaning-making is a jointlv collaborative activity, then rn'e
cannot read about these skills, or even acquire them passivelv,but instead have to take part
in discourse and realize hou- our resources are put to vuork to build conr,'ersationsand
negotiatemeaning.Extensivespeakingpracticeis ihere fore unaloidable.
develop a oersonal vo
A learner w'ho is com letelv de ent on u'hat others sav.is unlikelv to be able to deve
a Dersonal manner ot s Such a learner rvill be dependent on the sorts of meanings
5ilhe hasbeen exposedto, and n'ill not b" ubjclp_q_Ig!-atj versauon
Es.TfiFlmpiies a strange,passivevieu-of w'hat languageis used for, and how personal
conoeifr'sare manifested bv it. It seems inevitable that if one $'ants to sav things that are
important, one must have,during languagelearning,the opportunitv to steer con-versations
along routes of interest to the speaker,and to find rvaysof expressing individual meanings.
A role for output here seemsunavoidable.
These six reasons for the importance of output provide yet another argument against the
sufficiencv of a comprehension-basedapproach. Thev detail the inadequacv of simpll'
listening, and sholv that output too is a necessarvcondition for successfullanguagelearning.
But the next question is to consider *'hether output, in turn, is sufficient and ef{icient as a
condition for language.
The six roles for output listed abovemight suggestthat it is.The first such use, obtaining
better input (seep.79), w-ill not be pursued here since it is only a more sensitiveform of
Krashen'svieu's.The iast trvo roles, acquiring discourseskills and developing a personal
voice (seeabove),are more concerned rvith the construct of communicativecompetence.
The centrai roles for output in promoting interlanguage development are forcing syntactic
processing, testing hypotheses,and der-elopingautomaticitl'. The first trvo of these central
roles focus on form u,hile the third is more concerned u.ith performance and fluency.
The contrast implied here betr".eenattention to form and attention to performance,
suggestsa question rvhich is susceptibleto empirical investigation.We need to devise studies
u'hich can establishlvhether actual output favoursform or emphasizesfluency at the expense
of form. Although output mav generallr' be a good thing, the roles it serves in specific
situationsmay not be so beneficial. It then becomesimportant to establish,through research,
the conditions and constraints under rvhich output promotes a focus on form.
82 PETER SI(EHAN
| | a n d l r h o s e . - u l @ w e ] l t h i s i s a c h i e v e. -d . t { e P r o P o S e s ' i n f a c t , t h a t
l l s u c h r n t e r a c t l o n sc a n b e r r r t t u t t n ql o s. and ryul
is The u'ider issue,essentiallv,is that it is one thing for successful
l 'J discourse concerned.
negotiation to take place, but quite another for this to have beneficial consequencesfor
interlanguage development. Far
"
sequencesmav distractthe learnersand overloadthe processingsvstemsthe]'are using,with
t h e r e z u k t h a t e v e n u ' h e n s u c c e s s f usl c a i t o l d e dn e g o t i a t i o n so c c u r u h i c h p r o d u c e m o r e
cO
no time to consolidatethem.
In an,vcase,there is also the possibilitv that such studies may have over-estimated the
empirical importance of negotiation for meaning. Foster ( 1998) demonstratesthat although
one can, indeed, point to differencesbetr,r..een interaction tvpes and participation patterns as
far as negotiation of meaning indices are concerned, global figures disguisethe true state of
affairs. In fact, unusuallv active students, lvhatever the task or participation pattern, engage
in the same amount of negotiation of meaning - nil. .A.sa result, we have to conclude that for
most students this aspectof output does not have a definite impact on interlanguage change
and development.
Strateqic comDete
The situation is not particulariv different u'ith respect to the operation of strategic
competence and communication strategies,the other more qeneral framew'ork which might
C O M P R E H E N S I O N A N D P R O D U C T I O NS T R A T E G I E S 8 3
repertoire
(Anderson 1992).ln anv case,it becomes availableaspart of one's communicative
one are encountered. If all
o.r..,br.qr.nt occasionsrvhen problems similar to the original
indeed have a
these conditions are met, and interlanguage deveiopment occurs, then lve do
case of learning to talk bv talking. In this case solving communicative problems engagesa
language l"ar.ring capacitv directlv, since solving problems is rvhat Puts Pressure on the
c o m m u n i c a t i v es v s t e mt o c h a n g e .
being trained to be obtained. The former is based on a five step scale on w.hich
global
proficiencv can be estimated (supplementedby plus scoresfor eachnumeri."l
"ut"go.1:;.Th.
Iatter gives seParateratings for svntax, r.ocabuiarr',fiuencv, and other skill areas. Ii thi, *uy,
the longitudinal development of the learners can be monitored through an examination of
the profiles generated bv the analvtic markings scheme over ser.eralpoints in time.
Higgs and Clifford ( 1982) report that profiles of students at earlier points of instruction
can be used predictivelv to estimate the likelv later gain of the candidatesin question. Given
the basic five-step scale, candidates lr.hose grammar ratings u,ere abor.eor equal to their
ratings in vocabularvor fluencv tended to continue to progressand reach higher performance
levels as ther,'receivedmore instruction. In other lvords, balancedanalvticratings or higher
grammar predicted continued gain and capacitl' to profit from instruction. In contrast,
students lvhose earlier profiles shor'vedstrong fluencv and vocabularv skills did not manifest
the same degree of sustainedimprovement. Higgs and Clifford (1982) called these learners
'terminal
2's' (from the 6ve-step scale),suggestingthat the earlier profile rvasassociatedrvith
a probable plateaurngin achievementat around Level 2. It seemedasthough the earlier fluency
and vocabularv gains comprised continued development, and mav havebeen associatedwitir
fossilization.These learners corresponded,in some wavs, to Schmidt'sWes, since earlier
communicative effectiveness (and the higher fluencv and vocabularv scores earlier in
instruction might be connectedlvith a communicativeorientation on the part of suchlearners)
represented a short-term advantage proved expensive in the longer run since it was
"vhich
associatedwith an interlanguagesvstem u'hich became less permeable. Once again, the
suggestion is that unless there is direct involvement of the underlving languag" Jurt"- i.,
communication, it need not develop, even though communicative effectivenessdoes chanqe.
deal of the time. Since it is meanings which are primarr', as long as the speaker feels that
communication is proceedingsatisfactorih-, the need for precisesvntax is diminished.This
contrasts verv clearlv lr.ith the vounger languagelearner rn'hohas much less schematic and
contextual knorvledge availablepersonallv, and u'ho is also much less able to imagine rvhat
his or her interlocutor has bv rvav of knou-ledge in each of these areas.As a result, the child
hasmuch lesssconeto take svntacticliberties and short cuts.
We are ,ror" fucirrg quite a changed picture regarding the usefulness(or lack of it) of
conversationfor languagedevelopment.Thereis Iessneed, for the older learner,to produce
complete and lvell-formed utterances, becausemost interactions require collaborative
construction of meaning rather than solipsisticpartv pieces.Further,."r-hen communicative
problems occur, the strategiessecond languagelearners adopt are not likelv to push for'"vard
underlying system change in anv cumulative lvar'.Finallv, there is the issue that, even if
conversationu'ere b\- means of complete, rvell-formed utterances,cnd attempts to cope
with communicative problems u.ere useful, there is stiil the likelihood that attempts to cope
with ongoing processingdemands w'ould not allou-the learner to capitalizeupon such a
temporary breakthrough, establisha memorv trace of it, and use it in the future.
Conclusion
The central theme of this chapter has been that syntax has fragile properties. Normal
communication is pervaded bv the pressures of processing language in real time. We
comprehend and produce languagenot bv exhaustivelv anah'singand computing (although
we can do these things if rve have to, for reasonsof creativitv or precision) but instead br'
drawing shamelesslr'-onprobabilistic strategies r.vhichrvork effeclively enough (given the
support and potential for retrieval of miscommunication that discourse provides) at
considerablespeed of processing.\\'e reiv on time-creating devices, context, prediction
skills, elliptical language,and a range of similar performance factors to reduce the processing
load that rve haveto deal rvith during conversation.And the older rve become (up to a point)
the more adept lve can be at exploiting these resources.
The central point is that languageuse, in itseif, does not lead to the development of an
analvtic knolvledge svstem since meaning distracts attention from form. But clearlv
communication does proceed, so one can infer that speakersdralv upon other non-analytic
knowledge svstemsu'hich, one assumes,havequalities reievant to real-time communication.
Note
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COMPREHENSION AND PRODUCTION STRATEGIES 89
LeovanLier
quick
tion," "cooperative learning," "responsive teaching," and many other
terms likithem testifv to a fundamentuT-E-iftfro-. conclrtgiog, association, and other
laboratorv-basednotions of Iearning to human learning uiiiiilt*.E" theGydal'social
. t w o r l d o f t h e l ea r n e r .
\A}
This shift to the truction) o l e a r n i n gd o e sn o t m a k e
/N.'./]\
\\ .-.-
S- " rl tthe
h e iniestigation o f ' 1learning
i n v e s t i o : t i n n of , processes anv easier. On the contrarv. The security of isolating
/qOb" -tA , ,
)i variablesand defining them operationally,a securitv obtained bv laboratory-like experiment-.
U X-t'r. I
-l
. ,.9) \u"d statisticalinferences,is largelr-lost,asthe researcheris forced to look for determinants
)\ I iot learning in the fluid dv,lu-iL, of real-time learning contexts.
-k -r-^l:.:^-^ll--
r V
Lv Traditionallr- -rve --^ L^,,^ + L ^ , , ^ l ^ + of
have thought ^ f scientific
.^;^-+;C^ -research
^.^^*^l^ .c a
as . matter
'-rr+6r ^ f looking
of l^^Li-^ iinto
nrn n arrcer
causes
Q f\ and effects, and the benefits have been cast in the shapeof generalizationsfrom a sample to
\ a population and ofaccuratepredictionsoffuture occurrences.Thisresearchscenario,while
adequatefor simple phvsicalprocessesand laboratorv-controlledbehaviors,u'ill no longer
lr'ork once w'e venture forth into the real r,vorld of complexitv, in which manv people and
circumstancesact and interact. Here there are no simple causes,and predictability must
yield to contingencl'3::gelgb$Qe aimed at increasing our understanding, both
holisticalh' and in the smallest details, oflthe-social settinf as a cohp-ldada
-._
-t lt
lntreased u n c l e r s t a n d l n g alio\\-s
c r e a s e c lunderstandrnq u s not
a l l o \ \ s us t o generalrze-hrHo-DarnrCIIIAnze;TmrTs;TraoaPI
n o t to
ourskills,ideas,andstra?egiestoth.riousinfluence.
of the contexts in r'r'hichthe investigated processesoccur.
It is of the utmost importance to realize hor,r.different the job of researching languagt
learnins n qD If,o r
l n q becomes once we decide that the social context is central.To continue looking
o
gperatiinallv defined. discreteh'measured,statisticall-v -.niprrlut.dltnd .ausalll pred
-operaftonail\
-. -- r -r -.- -r L: - I . l Preorc
ti\.e $rublgs 1quld be to approach one job w-ith tools that belong to another. It rvould b.
like going to an archaeological site rvith a combine harr,ester oi like shining shoes with a
nail file.
In this essavI examine social interaction in language-learning settings from the poin:
of vieu. that such settings are complex svstemsin rvhich both attention to detail and globa.
C O N S T R A I N T S A N D R E S O U R C E SI N C L A S S R O O MT A L I ( 9 1
understanding are necessar\'.There are manv different kinds of interaction that may occur
in these settings,but I group them into t',vo broad tvpes: teacher learner interaction and
learner-learner interaction. Both hare been-Thffib]Fct ol considerableresearch,and their
-x-
-" ^*-,- I ie arning
learnrnp nas-E)
- - - - _ - a >bq$,gss,sucl-deb
- ate_di-lobk
r",,^^",*-
franscribed examples of learning talk to trv to understand hor,vsocial interaction facilitates
learning.
The first example is an extract from a teacher learner interaction; the second, an
extract from a learner-learner interaction. (ln the transcriptions that follou'; x's in
parenthesesindicate an unintelligible, brief exclamation or r,vord;a left square bracket
indicatesoverlap; colons indicate lengthening of the previous sound;the equalssign indicates
that the turn continues belorv at the next equalssign; and three ellipsis dots indicate a pause
ofabout one second.
,tr;M
r, ! i
I n e g o t r a t r n g m e a n l n g a n d C r r t l c l z e d l o r b e l n g a c l e l e c t l v em o d e l , r l d d l e C \ \ l t n l n a c c u r a c l e s .
On the lvhole, research has been s tive of learner learner interaction more than of
</
t&cTer talk.Tu-t t-FTdffierlearner l o n a r ( e . 9 . ,a s
talk studiedhasusualh'be
i_-(-
_-f -
|
worK: see Lo 5),;ffi the teacher talk has tended to be-?ronologic
(e.g., in the form oflectures or instructions;seeParker an ron 1987). We therefore
cld noTTrou-TflfE-the nature of the talk or the nature ol the rnterlocutor or a comtllnaLlon
of both that makes
-jt
[l r.ql"gr the ruies are often tacit and ambiguous, and their precise interp.etiti6li.
/'/7ionamongparticipantstakespIaceagainst
{'/2 a backdrop of constraintsand resourcesthat are in some r.vavsdifferent, in some ways similar.
to those that characterizeother settings.The classroomthus can be seen to constitute a
{irro
sPeecnexcnanSes) jls-re1cKS, )cnegloll.
o fFurntaling r duties.The-classroom is the priqlar.
ch talk-for-la rning iiearnine qlk)__t!_g.rd --7.!--- and as such the
i, ff
classroom demonstrates tne norms lor r behavior(u-hatis cal@d"fuity".bv Giddens
, (le-a84);...'t.bi@E ieu (19
teachrng.
Gpl. reople in
rn language
language classrooms, engaged in the
engaged rn tne official
olnclal business
Dusrnessot language learni
of language learnlng.
, - i , - r ' i classrooms,
tend to behave and talk in lvays that ratifr,that business, in other rn'ords, they behave and
:-T|_:
taIK approprrately SIee Fairclough t 19921 r an tnctslve drscussron
t e r m ) . E l e m e n t so iffiness, most prominent inside the classroom, may remain
visible also outside the classroom,lvhenever learning talk is carried out in nondesignateri
placesand at nonscheduledtimes (in cafeterias,around picnic tables,and so on), as wher:
two students in the extract of learner learner interaction given above agree to engagein ;
C O N S T R A I N T S A N D R E S O U R C E SI N C L A S S R O O M T A L I < 9 3
conversation at the req uest of a researcher.But time and place mar-make a difference in the
rvar.taIkisconductggi.ancilearningtalkinf,dei8
#
taik outdile lessons.Thispossibilitv needs to be taken into account when learners'and
teachers'interactionsare analvzed.
There are practical consequencesofthis constraints-resourcesvieu'oflanguage learning
* I L
contexts. In an article entitled "NoTalking in Class,"J.H. Lii (1994) depictsthe traditional I r&Sr Ir 5*q-
role ofteacher aso a n o t n a l o I s t u o e n t s a s m o s u \' l l s t e n l ncgt p a s s l v e' l vl n c l a s s . ek raeu^4
hiileed, a student is quoted as savingthat he used6
w-asso bored bv lectures."Theselectures."Th"r. comments .o-*..ts fit the
th knd@
-r-:r--------:-
e n o u g h .I h e l n t e r e s t r n' t\\G
t here is that in the innovative classdescribed (w'hich has tri'enty-
five students),the problem is solvednot bv the teacher'schanginghis wav of speakingand
interacting r,viththe students but bv the placing of a computer betu-eenthe teacher and the
taught. Thanks to the insertion of the computer, students "no$- have the opportunitv to
interact n'ith teachersand receive instant feedback."Askepticalperson might ask,Whv do
interaction and feedback recuire an artificial interface?Whv can't professors interact with
t h e i r s t u d e n t su i t h o u t a c o m p u t e r ?
Pierre Bourdieu and Jean-ClaudePassejon,in their u'ork on cultural reproduction,
_-..-;---:--1.--'|-.--------_--1--__
suggeslthat
sugfest rnar rne
the lnsuruuon
institution equrPSequipsfne the teacher
feacner rvith \\rtn certain
cerfarn distancing
olsrancrngre9nn]gugL_grq
techni nnosr t
efficient technique is "magistEilifdiscourse," \thich condemns th cher to "theatrical
onorogue. rnstitutionai control over the teacher's language use,
___--__i:_____K
r.
according to Bourdieu and Passeron(1977) that "efforts to set up dialogue immediately turn
intofictiLnorfarce,,'ThepossibiIit,.th.t,.
-ii-stitutional
constraintsis intriguing.:
This characterization of teacher- student interaction mav seem overdralvn and
unrepresentative of todav's classrooms,manv of r,r'hichare more d).namic and dem k
Butthereisnodoubtthatinvariouss,'bt]eoiovert\\.aYsth.i@,,-A
the tvpes of talk thut .u a\
teldhGTls free to ignore such constraints in the interests ofpedagogical action. Bourdieu
and Passeronare clearlv skeptical about the possibilitv of that freedom, though perhaps
transformation-minded educators may $-ant to seehorv far thev can go, and to what effect.
The institutional setting, of course, offers resourcesand facilitates their deployment in
,h.,u@materials Er r . - , ,I
palpabletfraush perhaps more lmportant, ot authorrty and po\\'er: the authorlty to set the vlbu,lq uv,
fg."C1_!bsg"=1,. judgerandgrade,test,pass.lailt; the authori!-Jo-spe;k;EaFo\lfr -
to control and evaluatethe speechof others.TffiI
defi
iTTand this pounerhavetraditionallv
e teacherand the uork oTr:-ffitr-ng.but ther are increasinglrr iewed as no longer
appropriatein todav'sIearning environments.John Merroll.reports the storv of a teacher's
1lt
not knor,vinghow' to continue rvith a multimedia project after a specializedinstructor was
laid off. It had not occurred to this teacher that she couid ask the students to teach her;
asking them did not fit her concept of the teacher's role. As Merror.v (1995) suggests,
"teachersu'on't survive, and school rvill become increasinglvirrelevant, if teachersdon't
change their stvle of teaching," a stvle he refers to as "the bank deposit approach".
It is lr'ithin the structure of institutional constraints and resources that the teacher's
interaction w'ith learners must take olace.When teacher talk and teacher learner interaction
are examined, particularlv rvhen ,".o--..rdations for changesare made, these structuring
forces must be kept in mind. If interaction is as important for ianguagelearning as current
theories claim it is, then the kinds of interaction the classroom permits and the changesthe
teacher can realisticallr-make to those kinds of interaction are of qreat importance to
research.
initiation-response-feedback exchange
Theteacher,holdingupanor.erheadtransparen.).,u,@'
alreadv knolvs the ansrver.
The teaiElr wishes to see if the learner has some particular piece of knowledge and
can displav this knorvledge.
The learner responds effectivelv and efficientlv, but also elliptically, using just one
woro.
The teacher evaluatesthe learner's response, approving of it, but then suggeststhat
there might be another, more felicitous, ans\\.er.
This particular form of classroom interaction, the teaching exchange,is considered amonq
/x the most frequentl,v occurring t.vpesof teacheesrudent talk in the classroom (Sinclair and
I 988:\r'ellsffialled an IRF
exchange,sinceit consistsof thesethree parts (or moves):initiation, response,feedback.
In the IRF format, a number of different things can be accomplished. !1!h= rnot,
C5mechanical, rote-lqarning end of IRF, the teacher's questions require the students merel.
to-recite prJviouslv learned items. IRF mav also be used bv the teacher to see if students
r I I -, 11, -1,- -,,-l-^-- -^ -^^ :f'^!--l^---
v a certain u'ord o item. IRF can demand more, challenginq studentsto think.
-i-------+4.
stlons. to clant\.
IRF therefore
continuum belw'een mechanical and demanding, as shou'n in the figure below
\o-itr-h"t the IRF tb-ril@-ns,
iren the .'arGE:6i-FdagoElFit it would be a
* mistaketo dismissit altogetherasbadpractice.Everl casemustbe examinedon its merits.
'^ is
As a rule of thumb,the precisenatureof the IRFbeingemplo)'edin a particularinstance
t.@-sinFthisi.*.h"..:&s_!gg.h.rt]'pialffi IF,h.pttp*t
question or seqqslse o:fuuestions..\[ter the follou"ing question-answerpair
F i g u r e5 . 1 l R F c o n t i n u u m
CONSTRAINTS AND RESOURCES IN CLASSROOM TALI< 95
a varietv of third turns are possible.In each case,a different tvpe of task is revealedto be
in progress: 'd''"tVt*1
Good. Sav the whole sentence:llateris heating the radiators.
t
Teacher:
-,t^..tL WI ,,
(recitation) -'
k^-o-t
This example shorvsthat the IRF structure cannot be regarded asa single t,vpeof pedagogical
activitv.All four IRF t-vpesof teacher-learner interaction given abovecan be used to evaluate
or control or to invite participation. Knou-ing the purpose of a particular IRF exercise-
though this mav not alu'avsbe easr',is crucial in determining its pedagogicalr-alue.But there
++
are some things that all IRF sequenceshavein common, and these common featuresmust
as a pedagogicaltool.
be examined before IRF can be assessed
ansrvers".It is extremelv hard, if qot impossible, in the IRF format, for the stu
stions Fffi self-correct, and so on. Indeed, I found that such student utterances
oteru'helm quences.or in other Iryd:+:lIF
format. Often thev are *'hispered comments to a fellou-learner or questions rvrit n
- - r .
j n a n o t e b o o k . l h e I K F t o r m a t d l s c o u r a q e sl n t e r r u p t t o n ( o r d l s r u p t l o n ) a n d c a n t n e r e l o r e
96 LEO VAN LIER
t4i''."tt'{Gil-enthesebasicfeatur.trecommendationsof
r*{ 1+J.+ I
Lv-LUrrrLruLLr",",_}Sjlljlatrrt\D(j\lcrsdIlQfllnoers
:H+lo"t Flinders
1ee0;
t > > V ; )Shul'
n u v l1ee1),
> > l ) r O f o't l l e l n s t r u c -
Ff-$I";
f'^o!tr61'\fr"
tional con\Ittlg! Hgf":T"$,1t-*:'^':j +1:'t'"'-
l.!)nrp and Gallimore 1988),especiallvif suchrecommendali6i-sare
,=..*- ' 1-#-
discusseflfr\r lhglperspectile of critical pedagogr-(Darder 1991; Shor 1992)?I explore
do** . )Or 'different
though related angles.
and Cole), a teacher develops strategies fo. uGting th. l.o.-ffih. ,r*io* kinds of
affie-whichguidealearnerintoanactivitr.thatinitiallvistoocoffi
-
catlolding
scarrororng (Bruner
(Dru I 983;.
-i-J
-\ The inlT-iation- k exchan , at least rvhen it moves beyond mere
recitation and displav,can be re scaffolding
i".trygro",a w.ayof developing
cognitive structures in -- .:.--
l oe\elopment. o r a u ' a v o l a sslstrng
s s l s t t n qlearners to
-
a platform of shared knor,vledge that rvill facilitate the introduction and integration of
new know.ledge. IRF used in several steps in a iesson or during one activitl. am-ongother
activities(seeWelis|993),..al.onceithasserved
-
its purpose, it vields to other lvals of stiucturing
ucrurlng participation.
PartlclPatlon.
Scaffoldi be oftrue I benefit, must be temporarv. The scaffold must be
t--
allr dismantled as rner shorrs sjpil handling more of tl
task in question.
-t
This over,(BruneFT9S 3 I . and lr.ithout it scaffoldin,,
tt | | i =-- --
\4'OUlClSlmDh' breed ' l e s s n e s sl .t i s u n c l e a r u ' h e t h e r I R F h a s i n i t s
structure the flexibilitv to effect handover. I suspect that, for handover to be possible, IRF
must be a ned at some point to make place lor autonomour l.urn"rffirre. This
switch from IRF to more o scoursestructures mav be a crucia slon
point, and researchshouldTocuson ii cloiJr..
tc '& tto"*e/V o
U..a-SVtd
C O N S T R A I N T S A N D R E S O U R C E SI N C L A S S R O O M T A L I ( 9 7
@r'(DeciandRr'an1992;Deci,!u1G6d,R.II"ti".,u.'dRy""199D
It expressesitself as a here-and-nor,r'interest in col.dircting an activitv for its orvn sake,for
the pleasure,stimulation, o. challengethe acti,i lv
ated to the perceptlon
intil nft6ffi
ing able to chg/le and of being somehow in contrp4 of orre s
actionf.Acti6-nsthat are perceir-edasbei
rat-ibffAtdo extri nsic reu aiseor criticism (see
ieduce N+
Ju.Sutrg
ren'ards( in the form of teachera al or praisein the third turn) a extrinsic onged
u_s e o f t h e l R F f o r m a t m a v h a r e a n_e s a t i v e e f l e c t o n i n t r i n s i c m o t i v a t i o n a n d c a u s e a d e c rrl rtex,a, sne
in levels of attention and involr.ement. IRF exchangesare like discoursal traininq w
In bicycle riding the training rvheels must eventuallv come off, and liker,visein interaction v ^..
' Qi,
I R F m u s t b e , e p l a c e db r f r e e s o c i a li n t e r a c t i o n .
a t i o n ( s e e \ . a n L i e r 1 9 9 6 a ) ,p e C l g o e r c a . L .
A l
actionmustbeorie@ve]sofintrinsicmotivationu,'dffiffid/r\rl
iftreasingseIf-regulationandautonom\..IRFmustA\ \{
,, : :: :i:ii : i ---T--j--- , ,
FffiiFffi" patterns, ones that allou' student initiative and choice to develop.
t o b e r e a l i z e d ,d i s c o u r s em u s t m o \ 1 ef r o m t t t e r n sR ; S e r t T o n n s t 1 9 9 ) t a p t l r c a l l s
WDPK (What do pupilsknorv?)and 1G,.rs'rthat teacherthink;1fr more discursivi
patterns mar irauirr'. lt thus m@stigate hou IRF itself
can.---
be transformed and ho'"vtra\zuitions from IRFto other discourse forms can be
thinks
tn anv
a less
Issuesof negotiation and the joint construction of talk. This relates to shared rights and
'r, duties of icipation, that is,
i interactional ,)'ory,.1
participation, Such svmmetr.)', most clearly visible
'inconr.ersationamonq"quul,,ffiu.hi.*].fbrIesspi.fi.ie'-tspeakErs.
,in conversationamong equ4-s,E-aF
ffBqI as the con€rsatfonEetu.een
as tle conversattonbetu-eent$-otu-o ESL
ESLstudents
studentscuoted abovedemonstrates,
quoted above demonstrates. it is by
bv no
no
-*"r impossible.\,r/1,r,ft ,o.- ,,eq,t{c" uLt c-rft<rtal"l<-
cstl<rta J'+-,<- f4*'?
L:^
,fry b'v Ul^ak a^-+ "eq,'Jc".).)'*"*
-_ -'{--_
-- The phenomena relating to, on the oneland, contiol, power, and equalill'and, on t!e'bt!q,
..f1
' conversationalsvmmetrv and negotiation of meaning are connected:unequal participants
tend to haveasvmmetrical interactions. But a distinction must be made between interactions
that are oriented tou'ard achieving symmetrv and those that are not (lRF, lectures,
iristructions,and other common teacher talk belong to the secondcategorvfl
<ffi;t.tio,.,-tffieces.sariIvinvolveu,'u.,,i-piionofequality
or some sort of abdication of authorit-v.A separationbetween svmmetry and equality is
crucial for the possibilitv of fruitful communication between teachers and learners and,
indeed, betu'een native speakersand nonnative speakers.If true communication were
possibie onlv betlveen equals, then teachers and learners (and even parents and their
children) would be forever condemnedto pseudo-communication.Thisis obviouslynot so.
Having postulated that communication, lvhether betw'eenequals or unequals, requires
an orientation tow-ard interactional symmetrv, I norv show',first, how' such an orientation
mav be visible and, second, what benefits it might have for languagelearning.
In w'hat wavs can utterances be oriented tolvard svmmetrv? Basicallv.the orientation
,I
. vservsrrrt
t
/'
Contingency
€- -'--.r
ance) or through shared knon'ledge or shared affordancesin-fEe environmenti
Speaker 2, an ESL learner, is the same person in both interactions, but in the first her
interlocutor is ofroughlv equal proficiencv and in the second her interlocutor is a nativelike
bilingual speaker.The first extract illustrates svmmetry, and all utterances exhibit a high
degree of contingencv.The second extract is more like an intervierv in which speaker 1
encouragesspeaker 2 to speak. Relations of contingencv are weaker, and symmetry is
reduced. If contingen_c1cofd be visgalized-asbundles of jtrilgs connecting utterances,
then the strings u.ould be thicker a"d moie nurmerousin the first conversation and more
se and sprndly rn tne seconcl.
o @ used to create contingencv: empatlr)'Irar\ers ("l/owl"),
6 repetitions
lr',!
of parts of each other's utterances ("two bedroom- two bedroom"),intonation
p-tterns, gestures, and so on. The devices come from a stock of resources similar to
Gu-m-p#s(Ig9Tf"contextuaiization cues" (indeed, as I suggestedabove, the creation of
contingencies overlaps significanth. r'r.iththe process of contextualization), though any
interactional marker that can be used to make a contingent link can also be used for other
purposes, and this makes tabulating and quantifving contingency impossible.
The dynamics of interaction have been studied in most detaii by Teresa Pica and her
colieaguesiPica 1 987, 1992; Picaand Doughtv 1985; Pica,Young,and Doughty 1987). This
research,which focuseson opportunities for learners to carry out repair strategiesfollowing
communicative problems, has revealed various conditions that favor or disfavor such
interactional modification and hasshou'nt oilitbe;anG c-o'mpreherislon:freeo-rdinp-to Pica
-
(1987),"What
what enables learnersto
enableslearners movebevond
to move DeYond tnerr current rnterlanguage
their current receptive
in-erlafrFguageeceptrve and
re ancl
e*pr essiu6-cip ac-ti e@ stan d unfalq ili ar liqgui stic inpur! o1 when
fequfe?-to
reoulred to proouce
proiluce a comprehensible messagdare
messas(are dpportunities to modify and restructure
i-lt"i. i.rt..uction w'ith their interlocutor until-mutual com sion is reached".
----8,\--r€solvrn[cornmunic-atireproblems
-.-
tJ\ resol\ lng communlcatlve through the use of interactional modifications
(."q,'estsforcla]rificationorconfirmation,.o-p.".h..,sionchecks,ffi
re o??n.kEii*T"put
ehe-nsiSlFln'pfit available
f6r leirniilg. R-esearchhas shown horv learners activelv lr'ork on the language to increase
their knowledge and proficiencr'.
The follo.rving observations, based on these analvsesof repair in inter-language talk,
might help to place repairing in the overall context of interactional languageuse.
First, as Gul'Aston has pointed out, repair '"vork and adjustments of various kinds can
be used to€xpress convergenceof perspectivesamong participants or to "seek closure on
f,-r--<- ' --:;--=---__
a problem" iRudl_uck 1991), not necessarilvto make something comprehensible.George*
ffi11996'l found that more-proficient interlocutors sometimes simplv decide to give up
on certain problematic it o]he.
., .----. l- ..- -: -:----:-::=:::Tl-. r-- -..'-_-fJ
th'a.jlrncreasedcompre ot t.glg."
usits.ht-
----Seco;4,
the preponderance of repair (in the highlv visible form of interactional
modifications) ma,-vbe the result of the tvpe of discourse investigated. In much of the w'ork
of Pica and associates(Pica,Young, and Doughtr' 1987; Pica 1992), the activitv types in
question are communication tasks in rvhich participants (often a native speaker and a
nonnative speaker) need to exchange information. This need leads to interaction that
is usually both asvmmetrical and unequal, an environment in u-hich explicit repair.
rvith imbalances of the kind illustrated br,Yule. tends to be salient. A similar focus on
C O N S T R A I N T S A N D R E S O U R C E S I N C L A S S R O O MT A L I ( 1 0 1
repair can be seenin the analvsisbv Michael Moerman (1988) of interaction among native
speakersofThai. He concludes that"repair is of central importance to the organization
of conversation". Moerman's discussionof repair, horvever, is based on transcripts of
testimonv inThai court cases,rvhere the status of overt repair is probablv different from
that in general conr.ersation.Indeed, ethnomethodologicalanalvsesof repair and related
matters in conversation(Schegloff,Jefferson,and Sacks1977;Heritage 1984; Pomerantz
19 84 ) indi cat=_s-t-19:gp_Iglgrylc e for seif- re p air an
t h a t i s . r e p a i r t h a t f o l l o r ,sr c o m m u n i c a t i o np r o b l e m s .
-Third,
and related to the secondobservation, the interactional activitl of repajringalust
be placed irti!-!9ed-q?g. Repairing, .n utt" g ir,
, -L;"------;-'7-
the face of p-oblems, is one set of actions among manv that manifest orientation toward
mutual (inter-subjecti\.itv) and svmmetrv. ilepairing occurs in responseto the
-.. ---------T-i--
".rgug.-".,a ,, ,
p e r c e p t l o no l t h o s et r o u b l e s .b u t s t n c et r o u D l e ss n o u l cD l ea \ - o l c e cl n t n e n r s t P l a c e r, t m a K e s
senseto focus attention aiso on other mechanisms for achier.ing mutual understanding and
intersubjectivitr'. It makes no sense,from a discourse-analvticalor a pedagogicalperspective,
to assign special status to an activitv that is undertaken onlv lvhen other, more-preferred
activities have been unsuccessful.To use an analog)',ice skaters are iudged more on hovl'
\
Successin interaction - thiiEtFe-aEhielementof mutual
-;: understandinq.
' continqencv, /
+. , , ' ',,,., ii i li---l-il-1 .
and lntersublectl\'ttJ - ts clependat-rtg! tne sKrlllul use oI all rele\.antsoclal ano lrngulslrc--
'r
es and those that
c i"-U" al"ial into ittree c*egories, asfloliou's(see
I
Atlti"ro" DuncanTgT2;Kasper1989;r'anLier and Matsuo1995fbr
""a:H"rltug!19S+;
additionalexamples):
/
fP#;lb Ianning,predictin-gltfy--)
V Opening sequences (By the wav;Do you know w'hat?)
Cataphora -) r \-^.,,.
l.
run
/ i^-^-
! llJaclr
.^
LU
+L;- |
LttrJ/
,z----.=-S_
qE:"-:faking signalsduring one'sown or anotherperson'sturn)
Back channels (Uhuh;Hn)
Gaze (eve contact, Iooking ar,r'ar')
Turnover signals (Let mefnish; ltrhat doyou think?)
Empathy markers (Oh; l|bw;Really?1
up)
summarizing,rephrasing,'"vrapping
\{eaj}l
Repair and correction (Doyou meanx?;Acrualll'tt'sy)
Demonstrations of understanding (Oh;l see)
Gists and upshots (So;In a nutshell;lYhatyou're sayingis)
The relations betrveen interaction and learning are not explained bv this list or, indeed, bv
anv other that might be devised. But at the very least the analvsisshou'sthat the concept ot
v need to be expanded from Piclls-d_9.fin1{gp;W\en a listener signals to.a
-S aker'smessageis not clear,and lis and soeaer vrorkinteracti\e
to ve this impasse" (1992) . Negotiation includes the proactive and concurrent resources
LOz LEO VAN LIER
for utterance design, as w'ell as reactive resources other than repair. Repair is thus only one
among many torms oi negotiation of meaning.
A fourth and final consideration goes to the very foundations oflearning and its relation
to the environment. Almost all the r'vork in applied Iinguisticsthat addressesthe role of
input and interaction (see Ellis (199+) for an overvieu') assumesan input-output model of
communication and learning. This model is basedon a vielr' of languageuse as the transfer
of linguistic matter from one person to another and largelv ignores issuesof reciprocity and
contingency. Being basicallv a transmission model (as rvords like inpur and output indicate),
it does not addresslearning as transformation and languagelearning as grammaticalization
(the development of grammatical complexitv in the organic sense, outlined, e.g., by
Rutherford (1987)). It is likelv that the true role of interaction in learning and the true
u,hatVvg.i@;.-"-rtrq4;;r'.1"p-.nt.unU-Jieveiledon\,
..-senseof
-]fL\@;;..l"pr;".i(r"Lciur*,igl-qlBo;,;-rtu.,dJlir,-ders1990-).
Z'_fi@qpgoath, no-ionrllk..o"tingencl'and,ur.r*.,.y rvili becentral,andovertacts
/)
/,
.llggqlqg
.
- _r=
.
A theoretical conclusion
r i m e e x t e r n a l c o n d i t i o n t o e n s u r ea c c e s sa n d l e a r n e r s 'a c t i r " ee n g a q e m e n t .
Contingentinteractionprovidesan..intrinsitmotivationforlist@
a n d J e f f e r s o n1 9 7 + ) . L e a r n e r s ' n a t u r a l l e a r n i n g p r o c e s s e s , t h r o u g h t h e d e s i r e t o u n d e r s t a n d
and be understood, svnchronize rvith eflicient perception and focusing. Learners will be
vigilant tou-ard linguistic features and rvili *"k. an effort to b. p.ug-"utii;Ily-pi6AFJet
a m b i q u o u sr , r ' h e r ea
ol contingent interaction. To put this idea in the strongest possible (though of course
^bJ hypothetical) terms: the organic, self-regulating process of contingent interaction is a
necessarvand sufficient condition for languagedevelopment to occur. In the absenceof
appropriate research,this is ofcour ulative hvpothesis
t that is onlv one side of the coin. To the exGnt target of languagelearning
C O N S T R A I N T S A N D R E S O U R C E SI N C L A S S R O O M T A L I ( I O 3
is a standardized,oflicial code (a set of cultural habits) to $'hich the learner has to or wants
to conform, linguistic affordancesmarked as appropriate and desirable must be presented
in the environment, and accessto these affordancesmust be facilitated. Here organic
languagedevelopment and external languagedemands (socioculturallv and institutionally
mandated) meet each other halft'av, and Vr
spacewherein internal and external realms (inner resources and outer constraints) of
langif, F-flFe-ffie-diarTd.
,,-ffimEAl-latlon takes place under the guidance of parents, teachers, and other
competent persons, and the different u'al-sthev do this can be captured bv terms such as
Bruner's scalfolding.(Teaching,didactics,instruction,training, drilhng, and so on are of course
also terms that havetraditionallr,beenused for such expert-novice activities.)
If this vierv of the reiations between languagelearning and social interaction has merit,
then the dl,namic connections betu'een more didactic (asvmmetrical, less contingent) and
more conversational(svmmetrical, more contingent) forms of interaction are of central
importance in the languagelearning enterprise.
A practical conclusion
.Y ,)
Learnersneed,inadditiontop""ii''t"'aition,directintera;tto@
it is quality interaction. If rve ask learners, manv rvill sa1.-that
thev *,ant-lecture-s,expla!g!g!!_
and ottr-erloims of explicit teacher guidance. And '"veshould never neglect the univ
po1&-erofstories(Effi
-Th€
answeftd a disproportionate amount of highlv controlling and depersonalized
teachertalk is not
teacher not to minimize teachertalk per
minimize ali teacher per sebut to find lr-ays
u-avsto modify
modifv itir in more-
more-
.*-
corgnge.nt dtr:S]lons. ln addltlon. teacher learner interaction, such as the IRF, that-ii
ej€! ed .forj! affo Id ing Iear ner s' Ia{ uage use GGn-iiii? atlY ) must contarn wlt
**l[
i[ the seeds er (Sruner ontinuallv be on-the
t fbr signs that learners are readv to be more auton uageusers.
classroorn nxlsl regularh' pror,ide learners lvith opportunities to engage in
s l m m e t r i c a l i n t e r a c t i o n s , s i n c es u c h i n t e r a c t i o n si m m e r s e I e a r n e r si n c o n t e x t u a l i z e da n d
Hud' con
rocusrng.I
-
ln stat gc-v,
inEqualit)'in clenc\ aker carn
the main bu
T bachers can also experiment u'ith r.r'avsof counterbalancing the inherent inequali
their talk rvith learners (though in most institutional and c be
for them to preteld differences betlr.eE-nthem and their learners do not exi-it).
In1 docum-entarl'r'ideo, classesin various British schools set up links with classesin
far-flung places like Finland, Greece, and Portugal (Trvitchin 1993).At one point, a fax
came in from a class in Greece; it contained drawings and descriptions of weaving
techniques,with labelsand expressionsin Greek.The teacher and learners were naturalll'
at the same level w'ith respect to this text, and interaction among them became symmetrical
and exploratorv. When a parent rvho knerv Greek *'as found and invited to classto explain
the text, the teacher and his students r,vereall learners.
Takiig guidancefro- tl6ffiI er e*amp he thoushtfulGacher-reseiriEF
looksforwaYstomakeclassroominteractionvariedandffi n the world of
language,we all embodv different voices on different occasions(Bakhtin 1981;Wertsch
1991; Mavbin 19947.It is usefui for learners to find that their teachershave
and that the learners the t
- :E=
such expemmenTatlon
is crucialif thev are to find th"ffi ts t true
purpose of languageeducation.
NOTES
1 I realize I gioss over the problems that are inherent in the concept of rule and that have
been highlighted in much of the u'ork of Wittgenstein, for example, Philosophical
tnvestlBatlons.
2 While the problem of poor teacher-studentcommunication cannot be solvedbv iust anr.
comPuter u-ork, there is certainlv evidencethat innovativeuseof computers can
interaction,for example,througirinteractiver,''ritingprogramsund .ollubo.utive".rhu.r""
project
u'ork (for extensivediscussion,see Crook 1994; van Lier 1996).
3 Wells distinguishesbetrveenthird turns that evaluateor provide follow-up (29-30). See
alsoBarnes(.1916).
4 Svmmetrl' and contingencv are closelv related but not svnonymous. Symmetry is a
C O N S T R A I N T S A N D R E S O U R C E SI N C L A S S R O O MT A L I < 1 0 5
References
GeliaRoberts
Introduction
v E R T H E L A S T T W E N T Y Y E A R S S L A s t u d i e sh a v en o t i g n o r e d i s s u e so f
discourse and the social context. But often the references to social or socio-cultural
context give it onlv a marginal role in the processesof languagedevelopment. Equally, there
is relati'"'eh'Iittle concern r'vith the socialimport of secondlanguagedevelopmenrjilggf4
.
t:t..,' {*gant}es> ol-'o.i"l id.nti
ll\ l
i n t e r c u l t u r a l i n t e r a c t i o n su - h i c h t a k e o l a c e e v e r v d a v ] a l s o i n c l u d e t h e e l f e c t o f t h e s e
,--'i
I inref6ultural errcounters on individuals - u'ho are. themselves. part of these u'ider social
forces.
So, tnls
)o, paper ls
this PaPer is concerneo
concerned wrtn rvith second ta
secondlanguage development and mmediate social
r'
\- I context in r,vhichindividuals succeed.or faii. t truct Iocal meani
Y
d
Processesare
coriiTitutedin iuih-iriteliefiofrsand-EiT66ebrocessesin turn feJdback ntercultura
..............p
d e ih e c o n d i ti o n s ( o r
ffio un te r s and-16-6 r or.'i for discour lon ano
, - - l
ifiterpr-ation.
L-ngfage socialisation rather than language acquisition better describes holv learners
ine to produce and interpret discourse and hou- such learning is supported (or not) bv
the assumptionsof societv at large about multilingualism and second languagelearners.
These issuesare particularlv saiient rvhen researching SLA u,ith minority group workers.
And here, Gumperz's notion of contextuaiisation illuminates the ways in w-hich local
understandings and misunderstandings have an eftect both on the immediate context for
learning and on the u'ider assumptionsand ideoloqies about linguistic minority groups
n'hich also enter into and have an effect on local interactions and conditions for discourse
develooment.
LANGUAGE ACQUISiTION OR LANGUAGE SOCIALISATION? 109
The transformation of manv cities inWestern and Northern Europe from monolingual
to multilingual environments creates crucial sites for the studv of second language
development. Adult minoritv rvorkers lr-ho are struggling to make a nerv life for themselves
represent a particularlv significantgroup lvhen researchersare considering u'hat constitutes
the domain for second languageacquisition studies.For manv of them, contact w'ith the
majoritv group is in institutional settings at rvork or in bureaucratic encounters - and
th.r" b..9 .These
settingsprovide far from ideai conditions for languagelearning and vet they mav be the only
ones nhere the nerv languageis used at all. Charting the interactions and relative Progress
of this group in an indifferent and often hostile lvorld drives the researcherto conceptualise
individuals not simplv as languagelearners but as social beings struggling to manage often
conflicting goals.After all, the researcher mav be interested in their languagedevelop-
ment, but the minoritv u-orkers are concerned r.vithgetting things done. As Bourdieu
asserts:"What s
'rvhole
1977, p. G:1. Looklng at the sociaiperson' arguesfor a more holistic approachto
--_---_______ - - | |
J[ond language de nd
-----T----r--r--
methodologrcall\'.
To date, hou.ever, these issuesof social identitv and, indeed, other social issuesoutside the
immediate context of utterance, have not ligured to anv significant extent in interlanguage
pragmatics.
Finalll', the interaction and pragmatics studies in SLA literature continue the tendency
in SLA more generallv to reifv languageso that French, Enghsh and so on are treated
1}O CELIA ROBERTS
'target
unproblematicallv as homogenised languages'.This essentialisingof a language
assumesthat there is onlv one variety to be learned and that the languageand communicative
style of the broker's vard or the baker'srs similar to that of the standardvarietv.
fh with multiple identities, man.v of them contradictorv. Identity is dvnamic acrosstime and
plaE an-dlangUefuse, social identitv and ethnicitr-are inextricablv linked and understood
,41,0 within larger social processes.For example, Pierce ( 1995) ajgrsses*Ue+ersonal and so-eial
i".
how'these are observablein their interactions and the rvavsin r,r'hichcertain sociai identities
r b a c k g r o u n d e d . l O q c en o t i o n s o f s o c i a l i d e n t i t r a r e ? i T l E d u p , t h e
dominant tradition of SLA as an asocialphenomenon is put into question. I
Language socialisation
,StlDuff,1996).Itincludesboththesocialisationrequired
\,-i6uselanguageinspecihcinteractionalsequencesund@nth'o!gh
-
_language tne rnolrect meansot develoPrngsocro-culturatKno\\'leclge.
-----=--: w here 5LA hasused
modelli-ngand experimentation asthe dominant paradigm to researchhow-linguistic features
are attended to, stored and accessed,Ianguagesocialisationstudieshave used participant
observation. Studies of adult minoritv w'orkers based on naturallv occurring ianguageuse
- provide data that more nearly resembles child languagesocialisationstudies. Su"h d.tu ."n
/ offer insights into the SLS process provided that it is also supplemented by ethnographic
\ data on speech events and local histories and identities ofparticioants.
\- In the follor,r.ingexample (from Bremer et a|.,1996, pp 50-51) Marcello, an Italian
rvorker in Germany, is being intervierved bvl a counsellor in the Job Centre. Marcello was
one of the informants on the European Science Foundation project on natural second
languageacquisition. He had been in Heidelberg for about a year rvhen this interview was
taped, having come to Germanv as a real beqinner. He rvas still seeking work and the
interview with the counsellor u'as both an opportunitv to find out about rvork possibilitres
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION OR LANGUAGE SOCIALISATION? 11;
Data Example 1
9 I : \4'teoersenen
bve
10 M: u'iedersehendanke
b,vethankyou
T short pause
additional comments on \,vavof speaking etc.
tl overlap
(xxx) inaudible or omitted rvord
At one level, this could be construed as a simple caseof pragmatic failure. Marcello
fails to understand the pre-closing signalsof T including'Ja", "gut" and "dann hatten rvir die
t /./
sachefiir heut" and advice for the future. It is onl-vu'ith the non-verbal cues that Marcello T_
realisesthat thel a.e in the mi is interpretive difficultv is not surprising
;ffi;;celia 11982) has argued conversational features such as greetings are acquired
before pre,closings. But this rJqr"n." is also an unusuailv explicit moment of language
socialisation*'hen at line 5 Marcello topicalisesthe act of departure. This is more than just
a matter of picking up on some pre-closing signals,and it is u'orth mentioning here that the
crucial nonuerbal rlgtruir r,vhichare part of the interactive environment are rarelv considered
in linguistic pragmatics.
Ii o.d"i foi Marcello to manage this tvpe of institutional discourse and understand
w.hen,holr;andrvhr'theencounterclosesataparticularPoi''t,@d i<
'gatekeeping'
i n t o t h e n o r m s , r o l e r e l a t i o n s h i p sa n d g o a l s o f e n c o u n t e r s .E t h n o g r a p h i c
;t rd;." f-- minoritv *.orkers' e*perieniE-f-outtTeTling tnterr.ieu's (Bremer et al., 7996;
G u m p e r z , 1 9 8 2 a ,t g 8 U b ; R o b e r t s e t a \ . , 1 9 9 2 1 s u g g e s t st h a t i s s u e so f s p e a k e rr i g h t s a n d
responsibilities,expectationsabout speci6cgoals and the boundaries of rvhat constitutes
IT2 CELIA ROBERTS
the personal mav differ markedlv from that of the majoritv gatekeepers. In this instance.
one of the difficulties for Marcello is the relativelv inconclusive rvav in which the intervieu.
aPPearsto end.Whereascounsellorsseesuch interr.ie\^-s as an opportunity to discusswork
preferences, minoritY r'r'orkersare more likeh' to expect to b. giu.r, ,p".ifi. information
about particular jobs. Once this information has been given, ther expect the intervien- to
be terminated. But in this instance, the counsellor ends the encounrer once some
information has been elicited from the client and some advice given.
Another frequentlv occurring example of differenc" surrounds the issue of the
categorisation of u'ork experience around skiils and responsibilities and often, therefore.
around socialstatus.In the next example (from Bremer et a\.,1996,p.63), Ilhami, aTirrkish
lvorker from Germanv, is interviewed for an apprenticeship in a garage and is asked what
l o b h l s l a t h e rd o e s :
Data Example 2
an apprenticeshiPmodel
!)rts
SIS ."n be seenas an apprenticeship model.The learnerover time participatesin the
life
interactional of the ne\\:communitvandis graduallvinductedinto what aretakento be I
discourset
its pre-existing j5lamo-del.implies a'learninqbv doing'approach in whicfi )l,f_u,,
-)
tor example. the aclult mtn :e-tFarrffTrcTn-her rnteractlons wlth neT*sui€Efvlsor o r I1 '"' ,
5w to evaluate her rvith complaints about qualit) (Cl1'ne, 1995). Thi's--l
earnlng *.hat Rogoff ( 1984) calls ilstration of thinking through
cultural institutions and normative techniquesof problem solving" (p. 5). But socialisation
'belonging',
is more than cognitir.elearning in social contexts. It assumesa Processof of
'neu' runs into difficulties
beins oart of the
ol
communitr'' . And this is u'here the notion of SLS
since it "assumesthat groups ate soctoc..ltutal totali 6
.::::
a n e n d p o r n to t e x p e r t b e l o n g i n g ( R a m P t o n ,1 9 9 5 b ,p . 4 8 7 1 '
Th"rpfrffiJl!-.n"a.t thestor;.It doesnotfullyl
"tsl@ofthe discoursesto rvhich learners are exposed and
take account ofthe relationship betrveen I f-
/
the Iearners themselves. In other rvords it is an overlv functionalist model. It underplays tl
the total role and r.lf id" ourse and the
\ o
constructednatureofinterculturalcontactinpIuralandfragmentedsocieties
So, it is not possible to talk unproblematicallv of socialisationthrough languageas the
means of developing sociocultural knorvledge asif there is a stablebodv of such knou'ledge.
The idea of graduallv being inducted into a communitv's pre-existing discoursessuggestsa
simple, functional model lvhich does not accord rvith our data of naturailr. occurrinq
intercultural encounters. In other u'ords, such events are not simplr. opportunities lbr the
transmission, horvever indirectlv, of the necessarvsocio-cultural knou-ledge, but thel are
sites w-heresocial identities are constructed, r",'herethe interactants are positioned and
position themselves.People speakfrom rvithin a particular discursive formation. In the case
-
of minoritv workers, this inclu e s o l e t h n r c a n d c l a s sD o s l t l o n . t n e \ \ ' l c e r
oursesofracis tence and Dercell
positioningu'hich em
the detail"d u'avs in rvhich interactants position themselvesand are positioned illuminates
some of the problems rvith an orthodox vieu- of languagesocialisation.Different minority
w-orkersinvest in interactions and in the process of languagesocialisationin different lvavs
\(- a.rd are themselves defined relativelv differenth'.
There are numerous examples of this positioning in the srr""a u"g""g" al aa*
lmmigrantsproiect (Bremer er a1., 1996; Perdue, 1993). A contrastivestudv of two ltalian
il-for*ants in Britain rtho are enquiring about buving propertv in an estateagents (Roberts
and Simonot, 1987) shorvshorv thev are positioned differentlr'. One of Santo's strategies
lvhich helps to maintain conversational involvement is to make general, evaluative
comments:
Data Example 3
1 N: then vou might get one for about fiftr- or sixtv * or sa)'fortv eight sixty something
like that
114 CELIA ROBERTS
Data Example 4
Despite the misunderstandingat line 5, I.\. at lines 8 and 11-12, begins to negotiate
his u'av around the companv rule. He does this hr cappinq \{rs B's asserti,onu.ith his ow.n
assertionsabout voung men and prelents this 1r,rn.rbecoming a distancing strategy by
claiming solidaritv through the joke that roun; nrin are similar to ladies.The condrtions
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION OR LANGUAGE SOCIALISATION?
115
@-eflanguageas.sociaIPractice,helpsustoseetl]9jideol9gicaLtninteractions.
-ffi--i,,,-----'-r---
I nere has been a lot oi dtscussionaroun-tftheterm 'practice' in u-hat has been called th-e
N e w L i t e r a c v S t u d i e si n B r i t a i n a n d t h e U S A . ' P r a c t i c e ' o r m o r e u s e f u l l v ' p r a c t i c e s ' a r e
more than action and events.In the caseof literacv practices for example, thev include both
the literacv event and the knou'ledge and assumptions about rvhat this event is and what
gives it meaning. For example, [b4!_qgg$-s as literacv in a subgroup is determined by th
a societr. Literao' pracTicesJE-rc-6T{are
rtthjderuity,"laa
!Il9!ru++)v fra{1err.J
-Jr;_e;_t
'practice'has
The notion of also been used and debated in critical and anthropological
*Le-L4r^r.
J-tLn^''
linguistics asboth action and the ideologies r'vhichsurround it. Eirthgh (1992) makei the
@tTF-atlanguagePracticeSareConStruCtednotonlr.outo@,
outoItnedrscourseSwfuchu'erepro@ucedintheinteractionandin
nt drscourses. r example, \1'l criticai perspective,questionshavebeer.r
raised aboui takenI-or granted notions of r.vhatconstitutes a speakerof a particular languaqe
rvhat is a non-native speaker, r,vhat*cert4n qroups count as 'target language,'and io or.t
However, this problematising rvork, although it has influenced applied linquistics, has had \-
litt|einfluencerr.ithinmainstreamSLA.For"ffiwillbe
positioned,br:thelinguisticideologiesthatcirculate'aSa.no@,,,-/
'poor
speaker'. communic@r' and so on. These feed into frilit-lnt..actlon itself and f".a off "
i, ajq.i.*ll .j.,hg ruid..T*orrrr.,
".orn
Within the British tradition there are two comp-Ei!-sets of discoursesaround ethnicity.
,/
/ The first has been u'idelv reflected in government policv and popular discourse.This tenis
to essentialiseethnic groups, equate land,-Ianguageand ethnicitv and cast minority ethnis
(
\r9gPi-aEj@(SeeGilro1.,1987,foradiscussion).IntheNe-t}re'Iu''ds,
van Dijk and his associates have traced simiiar processesin the discoursesof elite groups
which shor,v
horv ethnic beliefs are strategicallv expressed, acquired and distributed throughout
t}e dominant group, that is as part of managing ethnic affairs and reproducing elite
power and r,vhitegroup dominance. (Van Dijk et al., 1997, p. 165)
An extreme example of this first set of discoursesis from data gathered in multiethnic
British r,vorkplacesduring the Iate 1970s (Roberts et al., 1992).A supervisorwas running
through a routine list of questions in English as part of a simple recruiiment procedure.The
South Asian applicant had ansrveredseveral questions about himself and his previous u.ork
experience rvhen he w-asasked"Do vou speak English?"to rvhich he replied, "What do vou
think I'm talking to you in norv!"The current discoursethat r,vascirculating at the time
1I6 CELIA ROBERTS
a D a r t- o f h a r i n s s e r e r a ls o c i a li d e n t i t
i"atrlffi'idersocialformationsrvhichthemselvesdetermine
s'hat socialisationmeans.
The link betw.eenSLS and these u,ider social processesis r'vellillustrated in Gumperz's
studiesand their recent formulation in Eermans et a\. (1997). As Levinson (1997) in the
samevolume asserts:
Levinson captures here manv of the elements central to a redefinition of second language
- the fine-grained detail of
acquisition as a social ph".rom.rron. The focus on the micro
conversations- is linked to the macro - the lvider social processesw'here social networks,
identities and relationships are structured and restructured. What is significant for_a
redefinition of SLA aspart of this is the fact, as Gumperz asserts,that individuals are'caught
up in these large-scaleforces'. So ever,vencounter n'here there are laqguagedifferences is
h n t h ean
both n oopportunjty
n n o r t t t n i t v f o r l alaqguagq r e i dalso
f f i a s i t e w h e b9!
n g u a q " , sgcialisation s a . lwhere
e n t i tai esit_e. 1d ide+trt}es. a-nd
{or
- ant discourses of language and ethnicitv,
albeit within a con\ allv respectful interpersonal framework. I |ls rn9yj:jy
Levinf6i-talksof ;affiia;ls sincethe kind of interculturalinteractionstlat
routinely occur i!
--6-p-.F.oncern
lvith the linguistic dlmension of social action shows how asPects
of linguisiic signalling and cultural and sociai background knowledge work together to
o.odui. communicati,,,einvolvement (or not) and outcomes at both individual and societal
\ Ievels. , therefore,in liner-i$4e41!cusslon aboveis on@
L4--
all activities bv participants lvhich make reler.ant, maintain, revise, cancel, anv aspect
of context which in turn is responsible for the interpretation of an utterance in its 7
particular locus of occurrence. (Auer, 1992, p. 4)
language.The
secondlanguage.The
a second meaningof
meaning of contextuali.uiion
contextualisation cues cuescan;tfy
can only b6 U3leaigt
t-#11,k^9t nqulsuc
o
minority speakerif there is extended exposure to the communicatit'e practices o the group
or network from r,vhichthe majoritv languagespeaker comes.
social conditions rvithin lvhich there is the potential for communicative and material success
or not and the potential for language socialisationand the readinessfor it - or not. Given
the wider discoursesthat circulate about ethnic minorities, each intercultural interaction
can both produce relativeiv adverseconditions for ianguagelearning and can feed into these
rvider discourseseach time a misunderstandingremains unresolved.
The connection betvreen micro and macro-in redefining the domain of SLA has method-
ological as rvell as theoreqr_cal
imfliqqll-ons. As ser.eralexamples m ffi;Faper E;;-rho*:.n,
"@.il;dinteractionalsocioIingui.ti.upp.ou.h,isessentialin
understandingthe sequentialordering of interactionbut it needsto be complementedbv
Wh"..us CA is concernedotith th"ffi
"thqggfeptri-._*.qodr.
by membersin accomplishing interact/on,a methodlhat will help anall-sts
aboutonlineinferencingis alsoneeded.I
draw g.jg".r.!1,
ltrt
";a;
N,
ttin.esofaparticulargrouPinordertounderstand
conventionalised rvavsof interpretingmeaning.
Ethnografhic methods are also !reLdSd& uqderstand interactants' subjectivity (Bremer
,, oI,1996;G,r*p.rz,19B2b;
Pre;;lt95 irrl". pu.-
ticfe.tion in the liver oJq-pqq!!!a_rsub-groupconEiEGETe anah.sts'""derstanding
of p/
how minority lvorkersare position m'
effect of this on individual motivati al and social investment a ructron
of socialidentities lr'ithin ions of domination that characteiEET?iT
Conclusion
Bv looking at the enr-ironment rvithin r.vhicha particular group of people are expected to
develop communicative competence - minoritv rvorkers in a stratified multilingual society
I2O CELIA ROBERTS
- a number of questionshave been raised about SLA and its relativelv asocialperspectir.
a socialactor in a new language
Languagesocialisationbetter describesthe processofbeing
butjn its orthodox form it does not fulll-account for the connection between micro
racism, indifference
interactionalprocessesand the macro socialissues.Widerdiscoursesof
and
and stratificaiion feed into and off local interactional differences, misunderstandings
created bv these socialforces, at micro and
covert or explicit opposition.The environments
understanding and
macro leuels, produce complex and often hostile conditions for the
production of iir.o,rrr" in a secondlanguage.Bl examining these conditions,it is possible
io begin to redefine the process of second language acquisition as second language
to
socialiation but in so doing, questions are also raised about anv orthodox SLS' Learning
an
belong to a neu..orn-rr.ritu *a1'also mean learning to resist,_orat the least take up
ambig"uousposition i., reiaiio., to the socio-cultural knowledge and discourse-s which
constitute it. As in manv other theoretical and practical areas,the transformation of Western
Europe into a multilingual societv illuminates the process of second languagedevelopment
and redefines its domain as centrallv concerned lvith the social.
Acknowledgements
References
MichaelP. Breen
Introduction
Can we detect particular definitions of the classroom situation within current language
learning research?What metaphors for a classroom are availableto us as researchersat
present? I wish to explore two metaphors for the classroom that emerge from tvr-oreient
and influential research traditions. I ar.nconscious that there may be as manl.metaphors
for the classroom as there are researchersin languagelearning. But I have to be brief and I
am encouraged to generalisehere by the tendencv ofresearchers to seek securitv around
particular domtnant
parttcular seeing.I One prevailing metaphor is the classroom
dominant paradigms or wavs of seeing.' cl
as elperimental laboraqqry, and another, more recently emergent, is the clas#oom as
,.---f#
discourse.Ililfbriefly
discourse. I wlll brieflv explore
exolore both.
^l/ l* a
The classroom
facilitalrcomprehensi
i-rner inclinations the teacher learning behavioirs
so that each learner ma.' *tain a repertoire of effici atesies.The SLA
66m implies teacher as sur ntal
Iearners as subject to behaviouralreinforcement.
Mofthelanguageclassroomleavesuswlthanilmberofunresolved
problems t}at warrant more attention if we seek to understand the relationship between a
language class and language learning. First, the interesting variables of linguistic input
anJthe strategic behaviour of learner s are notspecialto classrooms.Theywere not uncovered
as prevailing features of classroom life at all.2The second and perhaps more significant
problem is that tw-o crucial intervening variables seem to have been bypassedby SLA
."r.u..h. Both of these variables are centrallv related to the processing of input. Both will
determine rvhat a learner might actually intake.-SLA research whic! emplgglggaQgristic
input (provided_llinltruction or exposure) as the ilariable and somellter
'ith-TtTE6-earjreliance on I
over any actire
Ite a 6r plvchological c[ange there is a resultant in its
r---- | ) o o ,suPerficiality
,{4.__j*-
\ attention to learners' internal perceptual processes.The researchtakes f6i-pffihTed-What
--------------.--- rr .. I l t . ,l
tt,'"l@timalforhim.MorefundamentalIy'itdoesnotaddrejssthe
question oI' howa learner selectir-elrperceives parts of linguir,i. tffi.@T.n-a
_worffi lace.Therefore, the interveni@
utisnegiected'Giveniheimportanceattachedto
.o*p."h".rrion by SLA ,"r.u..h it seems paradoxical that the active reinterpretat)dn and
reconstruction of anv input bt' the learner is not accounted for. The search for correlations
between, for example, the frequency of a grammatical form in input and the frequent
occurrence of that form in some later learner performance seems motivated by a rather
narrow view of human learning. The research leads us to a causalconditioning as opposed
to a cognitive and interactive explanation of languagedevelopment. We are left unsure hor
a classroom. However, even with such an ecologically valid point of departure, cuffent
classroom-oriented research leavesus with tr,vo important areas of uncertainty. We have
to question the extent to which the surface text of classroom discourse can adequatelr
,eu.ul th. underlving social psychological forces which generateit (the exoectations,beliefs
andattitudesofthqpa4q!E!p4!).andaIsoreveaIthesociocog"i@
t ifi@.i.tions and learning it provokes). This central issue leads us back into
debateon the poisiblerelationshipsbetweencommunicaai"g.lltt
ih" lorrg-"rtablished
lear.rini, betw'een language and cognition. A number of the correlational studies within
.lurr.oo--oriented research avoid the complexities of this debate by appearing to assume
6|ratcertain phenomena in clasgrolm discourse cause,learnin$Looccur. Anv correlation
n o9 ofr;", I u t"u.h"r',
hetween observable f'eaturesof discourse and testable learning
between
formulation of a rule, for example, and a learner's later use or reformulation of that rule
- d o e sn o t e x p l a i nh . ; . ; ;t:"-i endencl
on the ,rrp"rfi.i"l features of classroom talk can force us to deduce that if other learners in
the classiailed to use the rule correctly or w'ere unable to reformulate it the[ the teacher's
original formulation was inadequate.But what of the internal dimensions)f classroom
corimunication: the learners' lrariableperception, reinterpretation, and accommodation of
whatever may be provided through classroom discourse?In these matters, classroom-
oriented research seemsto share a ps,vchologicalnaivety with SLA research.
The second area of uncertainty is perhaps more fundamental. Most current
classroom-oriented research paradoxically reduces the external dimensions of classroom
communication, the actual social event, to observable features of the talk between teacher
and learners. Sixty years ago, Edr'r'ardSaPir cannot use observable data
alone from s even II \4 m to describe them uatelv.Nor can ue
i@roughour"v.'oiTifweeueiseektoexplainwhatthose
dataactuallymean.EvenDel Hvmei, who was foremostin proposingthe ethnographrv of
speaking*iri.h now underliesmuch also
research,
sociolinguistic insistedthat if we wish
nd"q,-,u,lety to explain any speechevent we .r".d to discover its existential and experiential
,ig.rifi"u.r.. for. thor. taking part.TThese proposalsimply that the-meanings and values oi
.l"ur..oo- discourse reside behind and beneath what is said and unsaid. {-5eseerrcher's
inte f the "text" of classroomdiscoursehas derived throush the participants'
i"@?Eir.tutiontof thuiffir". th" teu n as error
'a l."rn.rZ Is a learner'frequest for information - even if
- l
to as sucn
bvffipieceoftime-wastingore\.enexpressingsomethingelseentirelr?
Is superficial negotiation of meaning or a learner's generation of further input evidence of
the wish to learn more?
To begin to understand language learning experience in a classroom the researcher
must discover what teacher and taught themselvesperceive asinherent within the discourse
of lessons. More importantly, recent classroom research clearly shows the researcher as
someone who investsinto his text of classroom discourse certain patternedness or
c\utt meaningfulness.Classroom communication, like anv text, realizes and carries meaning
potentiJ . Becauseof this, if we wish to discover what the teaching and learning of a language
i.r u is for the people undertaking it, we need to know rvhat orderliness and sense
"lurrroom
they investinthe overt communication of the class.Put simplyrthe discourseof the classroom
does not itseh re'eal *hut th. t"""hur. arrd th.
.or
1--;#
classroom
soclal Dernqs.
or soclal rernaPs the
Delngs.rernaPs tne metapnor
metap
neri can be viewed as thinking social actors
and not reduced to generators of input-ou\p-urifor analyzedas dualities of either conceptual
1verequrre can proudee a basis
baststor
for the synthesrs
svnthesisolof
&e
SLA and classroom-oriented research endeavourswhilst necessarilybeing more com-
prehensive than both. These deductions lead me to propose a third metaphor for the
classroom in the hope that it might further facilitate our understanding of classroom
128 MICHAEL P. BREEN
c
# necessarilYan ant ical endeavour. a
w l t h l n a n u m a n grouP'
withinTTilma-n " : ' , .investigations
R I U l P 'our j : " " - 5 - * " ; - - f f i p o I o g i-c a l .-t-
C@;naa'a;r'n*11 1T ttFtlg$-l*
explore.lu.r-- ils;5;;t it. And, o,
o
humrutY *"
@6 rto,-,ld
vvr )rrvuru
u'
'^r'"' ----i; s
tr*;st in a social situation\th
(@Til i' t"o5-lqperlelt,
ffiustasgardensof ,,* 2s oardens ot
. on *hii might be obser'edasi
M l n6fi. L r 4 J r - outwardlY
a r a n g u a g c class
*"t" s*"ted m"g,t-il-tE;l-iutt bv
rs,
ili - i, q,'u'."a of subiectiue_eld
:"::,'r::1""-:ffi;ilt;;^;;^;;;:J.o-,,,o., purpose
-" -er
t::::il::,,"":"::il;.,,vhich
':::
^,'"r locate
^----
"
and define
anQ
oJteacnlng
thetasks s
teulttlttS 'utauvav'
orraiiriolbackgrounlio "thty
u, if it nevei existed"before, clntinually specify and mould
t1e new language itr"lf "ttd
In essence'the metaPhor of cl11.::l
the activities of teaching and learning'
tftilllure hndworth i!Yg!!gt'rg as
i:::::9:*::
classas
insists that we perceive the language
such.8
...-3%-" situation,.n"t
-n adoptthis definitionof the classroom
,.,n':;;;ii""'ii,.;;;;;;;;;";rs we:T t-:::..,:1.:]:.c::'
: ^i":"1*::1.*,",t-*t'
^- ItA+-- ^f o l".orr:or-
r r "PP'ou:n - - ^t:,11::"
'--^--
- ^ rknowledge
-.,.l^l^^ -
- asiinvolving
.vnlvinq ssocio-
ocio-
u.,J ."air.overing of lu.,g,.ug.. ".
:;r.'_;3;;;;g;.,
^f::':::lf^::l::f:i*:'"::'"'::"f
:'#:-J:"J"T;:1';';;;";;;;;";";;"" L-, l^l:.^:+,;^- o^frilc
activities,;T'ot'1"1'"?::::fl::':::,i:i:i
;:il'.il;:i.,;;;;;;;;"';;';iar
!il:"il#;;."mprehension *r'ir'tit'. J"'T:'*-A;*H
ascentral,
attu utc r*"1""" -
of meantnqlutness
':omDrehension
""'(--'-- within the intersubjective construction
: F i i . . o J l n o t h e r u o r d s ' I n p u t l s
reinterpretatronoI *ttutt"tt .,'"v o" tttott"diiliLEilibk"llother'w1:t:^'**-
"^-.."hensible.
The outside observer has accessto the compromise lvhich results, but we would be naive
to deduce that such a compromise represents what is actuallv intended or perceived as the
social realit,v for anv one Person in the class.
The culture of the classroom represents a tension between the internal world of the
individual and the socialworld of the group,u.eclllsn! juxtaposition of
I'
) l
g r o u p s \ - a l u e sm
, eanrngs.
F-. thu.r the sum of the individual psychological orientations of teacher and learners.
departure for psychological change.A teacher and a learner have to discover rfict definition
of situation r,vhichseemsto maintain the group and its activities - riat definition of situation
which will be relativelv distinct from their personal definitions. This involves all members
of the group in empathising with the roles and views of others and continually checking
such external frames of reference. The individual has to
Learners in a classwill obviouslv varv with regard to tleir relative dependenceupon external
and internal criteria. However, one ofthe prevalent features ofthe culture ofthe classroom
is the establishment of overt and covert criteria againstwhich its members are continually
judged.In I1q-. of the classroom refies the persons who participate
(al I tt
within it in teachers an teachers,
"b6fiiners," "adv " participators,
etc., etc.P[f51IEill
theTanguage class is a hlv normative and evaluative environment wE-iEhengagesteacher
and tqe€b! in conlilgiuudgement of each othe@s members who
are supposed to learn and a member u.ho is supposedto teach. This highly normative
characteristic of classroom life implies for the researcherthat we need to discover the overt
and covert grorrp .rit"ri" (ond -
'a
*h
error corrections are consistentlv based upon objective linguistic criteria or are otherwise
apparently random would lead to a superficial analysisof phenomena which, though opaque,
are deeply significant for a teacher and learners in the particular classroom.
\.
fficifture of the classroom is arymm-dilita*-1
Becauseteaqhers are exBected to knou- lvhat learners are expected not to know, certain
.J[Iu.'dpsychologicalconsequencesinevitablyobtainfor@
class.The culture of the classroom insists upon asymmetrical relationships.The duties and
rightsofteacherandtaughtaredifferent.Mo.uu
beeoua]]vre]uctanttoupsettheasYmmetrvofrolesandidentitie.toffi
n most societies perhaps all, despite some relative variation - an
-
taril@ltp
. Teachers
the
betu'een teacher and taught is a contradiction of what a classroom
arners are ver)-
degree of asymmetry w'hich enables them to maintain a
+l
graoualr\
relativelr'
rl
establishing precise
harmonious *oi.i.rg gro.ri As teachers,\\'e are also familiar r,vitha classwhich erodes rvhat
they perceive as being too democratic or too authoritarian an approach on our part, even
though we ourselvesmay perceive our teaching style asconsistentlysomething else entirely!
Here is a paradox. Learnersgjut a te to a role and identitv ofteacher.
And a teacher has ib ta.n uties in t arnlng grouD. - - I
ffiffitFistory of the tribe marches behind the teacher, and a teacFer throug
unfoldinq culture th" pq$i."lu.
"f "lutttoot
to learners. Indeed, one of the rights andluties of a teacher is to do precisely tlatl However,
ffiffi.i.ul relationships do not only exist betw'een teacher and taught. Sub-groupings
which are asvmmetrical with the dominant classroomculture also emerqe and orosoer. such
a s a n t i - a c a d e m i cp e e r g r o u p i n g s o , . . . , " t " 1 " " . " . . , * h
successful or less successful and ev6fil--o$iwho share a common identity (such- as
froom.Thus,notonlyisthecultureoftheclassroom
individually differentiated yet collective, it is also made up of sub-grorrl. which develop for
themselvesmainly covert, though sometimes overtly expressed,roles and identities which
are potentiallv asymmetrical rvith both the dominant culture and with other sub-groupings
in the class.
Asvmmetry of roles and identities, and of the rights and duties they bear, derives from
and further generatesconceptual and affective dissonances. Asymmetrical relationshipsvery
often entail disagreement in beliefs, in attitudes, and in values held.The collective nature
of the classroom culture and the negotiated compromises which permeate the teaching-
learning process often hide within themselves - sometimes w-ith difficulty and often onlv
I32 MICHAEL P. BREEN
fbr a tirnc - difl'crcnt views of what should be happening in a class and what should not.
Tlris suggcststhat, although the nature of interpersonal and intergroup relationships within
the language classroom may be complex and changing, the researcher needs to uncover
what these are if we wish to describeiwhat happens in the classand further interpret this
as it is experienced by those within the class.As researchersin the past, we have tended to
be teacher-centred in our assumingthat the major asymmetry in role and identity, and the
likely Iocation of dissonancein perceptions and effects, resides between the teacher and
the rest. We have also perhaps underestimated the possible effects - both negative and
positive - of asymmetry and dissonancewithin the classroom upon the language learning
1o
process.
Perhapsone of the best wavs of revealing the establishedculture of the classroom group is
to try to introduce an innovation which the majority neither expects nor defines as
appropriate. Most teachers have had direct experience of the effort to be radical in their
approach with a class(be it through different material, tasks, or procedure, etc.) and have
suffered the experience of at least initial rejection. A genuine cultureis one in which its
membe Iative har actorv milieu. As suchthinss
take time to develop. inp' which the gro rceives as chanse will also take time to
be absorbed or it will be resisted as deviant. (This does not mean that harmony will
necessarilyreign in the classroom, for even apparent anarchy - as long as it is the preferred
ethos of that group - may be quite consistent with a definition of classroom life for some
seemingly unsocialisedcollection of learners!). In essence,a classroom group seeksa
particular social and emotional equilibrium just as soon as it can - even one
- 1'
seem to titheticalto-Iffi newlv
establishedorder. The indivi arner risks ostracisation from the group ifhe does not -
-
overtly at least conform, and the teacher risks rebellion in various forms if he does not
honour the conventions expected bv the collective definition of what a language teacher
should be. Although thls conservative spirit has its origins in the prior educational
experiences of the learners, each new classroom group reinvents "tle rules of the game" in
ways which both reflect and form the classroom-culture assumptions of the particular
participants who are suddenly sharing each others' company. It has to be said, of course,
that a teacher may participate in this conservatism and, indeed, work throughit in order to
help develop group harmonv, security and efficient ways of working. And teachers are
certainly familiar with the dilemma of wishing to innovate whilst being cautious of
disruption. This means that the very presence of a researcher,or even the awarenesswithin
the group that thev are the focus of apparentlv objective evaluation and study will mobilise
change. Our personal experience of having someone visit our home for the first time and
then looking at it with them, as if seeing it through their eyes, can remind us of the effect
of intrusion. In a sense,the classroom changesin the eyes of those within it and, tJrerefore,
wlLLchangein certain rn'avs.Thisis, of course, the truism of observer effect. But there is also
tglbcryg*fgl4.-1n that the classroom we now see will be in a state of dis-equilibrium:
it will not be the same cl;ssroom asvesterdayand w-ewill be investigatinga classroomgroup
which is ner,vly adapting in a number of subtle rvays.This phenomenon can be either bad
news or good news for the researcher. It will render short-term, one-shot investigations
into classroom language learning largely"invalid and unreliable. If, on the othe, haid, *e
approach studies of classroom language learning on a longitudinal basis, then we may be
able to explore the process of re-establishment of social and emotional equilibrium which
THE SOCIAL CONTEXT FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING I33
our initial arrival challenged. In other words, 1r'emav uncover more precisely the "rules
of the game" u'hich represent the self-maintaining culture of that particular working group.
Whilst we may acceptthe truism that all knowledge is sociallv constructed - most especiallv
if we are working wi{ the knowledge of a language and how it is used between people -
we need to consider how classroornsre-construcr knowledge. In a language class, the
classroomgroup togeth" e (the coiten-t oflessons),
but toge-theralso jointlv constructs the lessonsiihE-Fiia
r or not thaieacher plans a lessonin advance,the actual we4<jng gut of
ssocial
ocialddvnamic t h e g r o u p i n s i s t s t h a t l e s s o n se v o l v e . t h r o q g h e x p l i c i l o r - i m o l i c i t
off the
J r n a m i co
/
negotiation. In whatever wavs the lesson mav be perceived bv those who participate in it, Qpp*
f[iToit takeswill be drawn bv the joint contributions of most, if not all, of the members . - -,'n,
of the class.Teachers and learners are well aware that lessons are rarely straightforw ^ra 4//M*
journevs but are punctuated bv hesitant starts, diversions,momentary lossesof momentum, U'
interesting side tracks, and unexpected breakdowns.That it may be better to plan classroom
learning in advance has little to do with this entirely normal and creative evolution of
lessons.tt
Severalimportant implications for the researcher result from the fact that the content
and process of language classesare jointlv constructed. First, any teacher-centred (or
researcher-centred)perspectiveon lessonsis partial. Second,the researcher'sbackground
knowledge of the actual languagebeing worked upon in a classcan be a serious handicap
becauseit potentiallv blinds us to the processof re-invention of tlat languagewhich teacher
and taught engage in together. (This implication warns us againstrelying on external
linguistic criteria alone in assessingthe nature of comprehensible input, for example.)The
problem reminds us of a similar gap betrn-eenthe teacher's definition of the new language
and the different learners'definitions.There are likelv to be as manv versions of the new
Ianguage,and changing versions of it, as there are people in the room.Third, the researcher
has to be continually wary of being dazzled by what seemssalient in classroom life. For
example, even the most passiveor non-contributorv learner in a classcan be a poltergeist
on the proceedings. Silence, encouraged or not, is a characteristic part ofthe culture ofthe
classroom and it has great significance. Silence or w'ithdrawal can change a Iessonjust as
powerfully as their opposites, and not just for the person w'ho w-ithdraws, but also for all
the others who senseit.The fourth implication of the joint construction of the content and
process of a language classis particularlv significant for researcherswho wish to examine
the effects of classroom language learning. The fact that lessons-in-processare communal
endeavoursmeans that any learning outcome,for any member of the class,has been socially
processed.The actual nature of individual achievements has been communally moulded.
The culture of the classroom inevitably mediates between a new languageand a learner in
class.The culture of a particular classwill shape what is made availablefor learning, will
work upon what is made availablein particular ways, will evolve its own criteria for progress
and achievement, and rvill attain specific and various objectives. (lt is worth emphasising
here that linguistic input is only a part of the first of these classroom-basedphenomena.)
What someone learns in a language class will be a dynamic synthesis of individual
and collective experience. Individual definitions of the new language,of what is to be
attended to as rvorth learning, ofhorv to learn, and personal definitions ofprogress will all
T34 MICHAEL P. BREEN
interactwith the particular classroom culture's dehnitions of each of these things. If strictlv
individualised or autonomous languagelearning is desirabie or even possible then the
classroom is necessarih' antlthetica\ torvards it.The \anguage I \earn in a classroom is a
communal product detit ed through a jointlv constructedProcess.
What is overtly done in a classroom and what can be described by an observer are
epiphenomena; thev are reductions of classroom reality. How things are done and why things
nr" do.r. have particular psychological signilicancefor the individual and for the group. The
particular culture of a languageclassw-iil socially act in certain ways, but these actions are
Lxtensions or manifestationsof the psychology of the group, its collective consciousnessand
subconscious.Individual perceptions and definitions w-ill, of course, feed into and evoh'e
-
from those of the group. However, the socio-cognitive world of the class- its culture u'ill
be a world other than the sum of the individual worlds within it.What is signtfcant for learners
(and a teacher) in a classroom is not oniy their individual thinking and behaviour nor, for
instance,a longer-term masterv of a syllabus,but the day-to-dayinterpersonal rationalisation
of what is to be done, why, and how. The immediate significance of the experience oi
classroom language learning resides in how individual priorities (teacher and learner
definitions of what, why, and how) can be given social spacehere and now. It is precisely this
interplay between the individual, the individual as group member, and the grouP which
represents and generates the social and psychological nexuswhich I have proposed as the
culture of the languageclassroom.Most often the flow of classroom life is actually under the
surface.What is observableis the rim of a socio-cognitive coral reef! Classroom life seemsto
require that many learners spend surprising amounts of time doing little, whilst a teacher
spends equally surprising amounts of time trying to do too much. As researchers we can
describe such overt peculiarities, but we also need to explain them.We have to ask whether
or not such phenomena are true, and we must doubt the integrity of the observable. If u-e
do, then we are led towards discoveringwhat is, in fact, immediately significantfor the group
of people we started to observe.The search for the significancewhich a person, learner or
teacher, invests in moments of classroom life (and for the significance granted to these
moments by the classroomculture) is neither trivial nor avoidable,though it may be compler
and subtle. We will never understand classroom language learning unless we explore it-.
Iesson-by-lessonsignificancefor those w'ho undertake it.
I have offered brief descriptions of eight features of the genuine culture of the language
classroom in order to achieve two purposes. First, to illustrate the potential of classroorr,
life itself, its social and psy'chologicalrichness.The particular features I have selected art
offered with no evaluative intent. I would not wish to suggesthere that such features art
"good" or "bad" aspectsof a classroom.Thev are the inevitable characteristics of the socia,
event in which most people learn a foreign language.My second purpose has been to drau
attention to significant social and psvchological variables which we seem to be neglectin;
in our current research in languagelearning. My main argument would be that, if we u'is:
to investigate language learning, these variables must be contained in whatever metaph,::
we have for that special social location from w'hich a great deal of languagelearning actuai.'
derives.l2
THE SOCIAL CONTEXT FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING 135
My practical purpose in exploring the metaphor of the classroom as culture has been
to seekto offer a possible means for relattngsocialand cognitivevarrables which may influence
a
languagelearning; to suggest particularTrame we may come to understand
bles a
ical and social factors. A teacher or a
learner is not ejtherindividual mind or social actor when participating in lessons.Each is at
once cognitive and social, and so are the classroom realities which each perceives. Current
languagelearning researchtends to examine psvchologicalchangein an asocialway or social
events in a non-cognitive w.a,v. Either approach implies distinctivenessof psvchological and
social dimensions of learning and, therebv, risks offering both a partial account and a
simplistic causal explanation of the relations betw'een social phenomena and individual
development. The metaphor of the classroom as culture allows us to perceive the two
dimensions as irrevocably linked and mutuallv engaged.Themetaphor also captures the
classroom group as a socio-cognitive dynamic r'vhichis an extensionof the individual within
it. Becausethe classroom culture is a human enterprise, it provides the researcher with a
living subject, an informant, not unlike a single learner.When investigating an individual's
learning process,we may endeavour to account for the particular permutation of attributes
and activities of that learner u'hich may influence the learning. Similarly, the study of a
Ianguage class as culture can provide us u'ith a holistic and integrated framework which
incorporates the experimental and discoursal attributes of a classroom, but which also
locates these attributes within a richer cluster oftvpical characteristics.
The eight features I have described are selective, and there are further features which
reflect and create the socio-cognitive realities of a language class.A classroom group will
achieveinteraction, collectivism, or significancein its own ways. But all of the features
overlap and interrelate, and a classwill evolve particular permutations of featuresover time.
Just as each feature will varv as the life of the classproceeds, there r,vill also be changesin
the patterning and interaction of all the features.Although I r,r,ouldsuggestthat the classroom
as culture and the features w'hich represent its cultural nature are universalto language
classroomswherever they mav be, a particular classroomwill evolve both individual features
and a synthesisof features in particular ways at particular times. And it is the synt}esis of
features which is the specilic culture of a classroom group. If such proposals are acceptable
and valid, w.hat do they imply for undertaking research w'ith a language class?Also, what
does the metaphor of classroom as culture offer to the languageteacher?I wish to conclude
by briefly outlining some major deductions for researching and teaching.
A researcher's sympathies rvith u'hat I have argued so far may be strained by the seeming
complexity suggestedfor methods of investigation. If our goal is to move closer to the
realities of language learning and to understand the experience of discovering a new-
Ianguagein a classroom group, then such an audacious inquiry demands anthropological
sensitivity.The culture of the language classrvill resist exposure from a single source - a
sampled informant or a special moment perhaps or through a single investigatory lens.
Cautious triangulation has to be married with longitudinal patience!We are required to
enter a cultural world - as if from Mars, perhaps and intrude upon a relatively unique
socio-cognitiveprocess,unavoidablyparticipating within asmanv realities asthere are people
in the room. In essence,we have to criticallv reexamine our own assumptions and familiar
ways of collecting information. We will be obliged to employ what Gar{inkel referred to as
I 3And such methods rvill lead us in the follorving directions :
oJ understand;ng.
methods
I}6-lfrlCTfAEL P. BREEN
If the above objectives are seen to be difficuit or impossible to attain, then our future
investigations into classroom language learning *.ill need to acknowledge more explicitly
those things which we have not accounted for.
#ry
,-,ide :la-.sroombe exploited asa resourcefor the development
{l .lHott can the culturt
o f K g u i s t i c a n d c o n r n r : l : - - r : . - . : N r o \ \ l e d g e a n d a b i l i t i e s ?A l t h o u g h a c l a s s r o o mi s a n
THE SOCIAL CONTEXT FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING T37
apprenticeshipfor later authentic communication and anv use of the new languageprimarily
serves the learning and teaching ofthat language,anv group oflanguage learners has two
significant contributions to make to the development of the new'Ianguage: first, individual
prior definitions and experiences of languageand communication, of learning, and of
working in classrooms:second, the capacitv to be metalinguistic and metacommunicative.,
to talk about, to explore collectivell', and to reconstruct jointly language and its use.The
language classhas the communicative potential for a dialogue about subjective definitions
of language,how languagemav be best learned, and how the classroom context mav be best
used. The positive and explicit use of the interactive, collective, normative, and jointly
constructed nature of lessons can be a meansto uncovering and sharing what individual
learners and the teacher perceive as significant for them in learning a language together.
And what is revealed can, in turn, provide the starting points for later interaction, collective
#
more overtlv. I do not have sDacehere to cletall the practlcalltles ol moDlllsln
of languageand communicating from rvhich anv new know'ledge and experience must flow.
SF6"9, tlhe teaching-learning p.o."r, requires decisionsto be made, and decision-making
h)rs"ffgh communicative potential. The sharing of decision-making in a language classwill
qenerate
- communication u-hich has authentic roots in getting things done here and norv.
'?Ho* can the culture of the classroom help the teacher to facilitate classroom language
l-FgiThe culture oFlhe class h a s t h e potential t o r e r e a l t o t h e t e a c h e r t h e language
leirning processasit is actually experienced. In this lvay,teachiag languageand investigating
languagelearning may be seen to be synonymous.Teachersrahdlearners alreadv undertake
research in classrooms, but their joint investigation tend( to focus upon subject matter -
the new language and its use. An additional focus of investigation could be the language
learning process as it actually unfolds and as it is directly experienced in the class. Manr'
teachers and learners alreadv undertake such action research, but it is sometimes rather
implicit and accorded little space and significance. I am suggesting here that genuine
classroom languagelearning researchmay progress to the extent t}at those people who are
immediately involved in its evervdavrealities also become explicitly engagedin a methodical
reflection upon their own learning and teaching.The pedagogtcmotivation would be that
teacher-learner research has the potential to facilitate a delicate understanding and
refinement of language developmentwithin the classroom itself. If this pedagogic purPose
may be seen as valuable, then the researcher can offer knowledge and skills to a classroom
rather than act onlv as a recipient of its riches.ls
I have briefly argued for the explicit use of shared decision making and for teacher-learner
research in the language classbecauseboth seem to me pedagogically appropriate within
classroomsdevoted to the discoverv and development of a newlanguageandits use. However,
both proposals derive from considering the potential of the culture of the classroom;for
language teaching. Both also derive from the wish to bring research in language learning
u.rJ th. classroom experience of languagelearning closer together. The research approach
suggestedearlier requires participating investigatorsand Iongitudinal involvement (at least),
138 MICHAEL P. BREE..
In this paper, I have tried to argue that our professional contern with one of the individual's
most sociallymotivated functions - learning how to colxiunicate with members of another
social group, another culture - requires ,r, to ,.,odJ.stand how the individual may best
achieloethis. And if the individual undertakes t}re task in a classroom,we need to understand
the socio-cognitive experience made available through the meeting of individual and
classroom group. The classroom may be a relatively inefficient environment for the
methodical mastery of a languagesystem, just asit is limited in providing opportunities for
real world communication in a new language.But the classroomhasits or,vncommunicative
potential and its own authentic metacommunicative purpose. It can be a particular social
context for the intensification ofthe cultural experience of learning.
Notes
1 This tendency has been captured bv Kuhn's (1962) analysis of scientific research.
Researchexemplifying the first r-ierr-I u'ish to explore is representedin the excellent
anthologiesofHatch (1978), Felix ( 1980t,Scarcella and Krashen(1983) and Baily,Long,
and Peck (1984).The second prevalent vieu-is implied by recent studiesof classroom
language learning, fairlv represented in the valuable collections of Larsen-Freeman
(1980), Seliger and Long f 19E3r and Ferch and Kasper (1983). Of course, much
languagelearning researchmakesno reterenceto the classroomand severalresearchers
do .rot assumethe perspectivesdiscussedin this paper. Mv emphasisis upon currentir
influential views of languaqelearning and l-hat these imply for the functions of the
classroom.
THE SOCIAL CONTEXT FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING 139
2 Paradoxically,the featuresof optimal input were initiallv derived from (1) the order of
emergenceof certain linguistic featuresin the production of languagelearners and (2)
the characteristicsof simple codesusedbv people other than learners- e.g., motherese,
foreigner talk, talk to foreigners, etc. Neither phenomenonhasbeen shown to have anv
necessaryrelationship with learning language.(On the relationshipbetween motherese
and learning,for example,seeNewport, Gleitman,and Gleitman 1977; Shantz1982.)
Most work on learning strategieshas tended to be individual casestudies undertaken
outside classroomsor through simulated tasks.These points are not intended critically
but suggestlimitations in relating researchfindingson learning to the languageclassroom.
To try to teach learning strategiesseemsto me an inappropriate interpretation of the
investigations of, inter alia,Naiman,Frcihlich,Stern,andTodesco(1978), Rubin (1981),
and Cohen and Hosenfeld (1981). Apart from the major problem of the researcher
having to inJerstrategies from retrospections (Mann 1982) or from communication
strategies(Ferch and Kasper,1983), we need to maintain clear distinctionsbetween the
act of iearning and the influencesof teaching.Languagelearning researchcurrently lacks
an approachto learning strategiesand stvleswhich accountsfor key intervening variables
- such asthe context in \4,-hich the learner rvorks and how the learner strategicallvreacts
to that context. Examplesof a more comprehensiveanalysiscan be found in Gibson and
Levin (1975), Mann (1983) and Marton, Hounsell,and Entwistle(1984).
Although SLA researchevolvedfrom work in L1 acquisition,it haspersistedin a narrow
focus upon linguistic and mentalistic variableswhilst the last decadeof L1 researchhas
been characterisedbv its concern rvith social, contextual and interactive variablesalso
(Waterson and Snow, 1978; Lock, 1978).The significanttheoretical synthesispror,ided
to SLA researchby Krashen (1981, 1982) has encouragedthis asocialperspective.
However, a paradox thrives at present u'herein it is fashionablein some quarters to
belittle Krashen'sinvaluablecontributions to the SLA paradigm lvhilst manv researchers
unquestioningly assume his hypothesesproven as the starting. point of their os n
investigations.Both positions seem equally unjustifed. ..,"
SeeMueiler's (1979) historical analysisof the "science"of psvehologr'.In this paper,I s'ill
arguefor a socio,cognitive perspectiveon languagelearning.Current influential approaches
to the social psychologv of languagelearning seem to me too narrowlv focused upon
motivational and attitudinal factors (Gardner, 1979) and,although socialpsychology grants
significanceto relationships between the individual and social context, its prevailing
tradition is non-cognitive and somew-hatdeterministic in its evaluationof the effects of
socialexperience.A socio-cognitiveperspectiveallows us to identifv variablesof learning
both within the social situation and within the active cognition of the learner (Forgas,
198 I ). It also encouragesseekingrelationshipsbetween learner cognition and situations
and implies the need to understand,to see through languagelearning in ways cogently
arguedby Ochsner(1979).
Allwright (1983), Gaies (1983) and Long (1983) provide excellent reviews of
c l a s s r o o m - o r i e n t er e
ds e a r c h .
Sapir (1949) and Hvmes (1972) are, of course, emphasisingcollective meanings and
values.Other scholars,notablvGoffman (1959) and Cicourel (1,973),would alsoassert
the significanceof personal intentions and interpretationswithin socialevents.I will argue
that we need to account for both and their interrelationships.
The notion of "genuine culture" derivesfrom Sapir'sdiscussionof "Culture, Genuine and
Spurious"(19+9).ln referring to Malinorvskit (1935) study,I do not wish to imply that
we adopt a narrol!' social anthropologicalapproachto the classroom;rather one which
relatessoctalexperience and psvchologicalchange in the tradition of Margaret Mead,
Ruth Benedict, and Clvde Kluckhohn (see, for example, Beattie's1964 overview of
social anthropolog).Perhaps the studv of the classroomgroup might resemble Oscar
140 MICHAEL P. BREEN
Lewis'sinvestigationsof family life in Mexico ( 1959) but with a particular focus upon the
relationshipsbetween classroomlife and languagedevelopment.
"lnteractivl" is becoming a much-usedterm in languageteaching circles and is, thereby,
expandedto encompassmanv assumptionsand diverse meanings(ashasbeen tle fate of
"fu^nctional," "communicative,""negotiation,"and, when applied to pedagogy,"natural").
Ambiguitv residesin the fact that human interaction can be both interpersonal and intra-
persoial;'both overtly social and covertly mental. Allwright's (1982, 1984a) fruitful
identification ofinteractive rvork as a defining feature ofclassroomsclearly relatesto the
interpersonal. However, interactive w'ork also occurs in the recreativerelating of mind
to external phenomena (Neisser, 1976). But interaction is more comprehensivethan
(1) overt behaviour between people and 121 covert perception and reconstruction
of perceptions and experiences.We also need to regard social interaction as having
pry"hologl"ul roots and outcomes (Rommetveit 1981) and mental interaction as being
rlrtj".t to socialforces (Gauld and Shotter,7977; Harr6, 1978; Shotter, 1978).Thus,
interaction is also (3) a socio-cognitiveprocesswhich continually relates social action
and experienceto the content and capabilitiesof the mind, and vice versa.
10 Ou., tir" past t\r.entv yearsthere h"u" b".., a number of interesting studiesof ciassroom
relationshipsand roles within the school system.Jackson's(1968) seminal investigation
is complemented by Hargreaves(1972) and Woods (1919) - the more recent works
echoing Goffman's (1961) revelationsof the effectsupon the perceptions and activities
of people in situationswhich maintain asymmetricalrelationships.Learner experience.s
uni ;,rJg.-.nts have been studied by Taytor (1952) , Nash ( 1974), Meighan (1977) , anQ
Ha.grea.,res(1977), whilst teacher perspectives are considered by Morrison and
Maclntvre (1959).
11 A well-establishedtradition within the sociology of knowledge arguesthat most of our
learning is socially constructed. Berger and Luckmann's (1965) justification of sueh a
view is basedupon a phenomenologicalapproachto human experience.(Douglas, 1973.
and Luckmann, Tg'/8, offer a range of studieswhilst Filmer, Phillipson, Silverman, and
Walsh, 1972, provide an overview.) Perhapsthe two major influences uPon recent
endeavoursto relate social experience and knowledge have been Schultz (1962-65.
1967) and Husserl (1965, 1967). Investigationsdirectly concerned with the joint
construction of classroomlife are exemplified within Hargreaves(1977) , Nash ( 197 3 I .
Stubbsand Delamont (1976),Woodsand Hammersley(1917), andWoods(1980a,b).
la
IL The eight essentialfeatures u'hich I describe are based on my own experience as a
teachei and the sharedexperiencesof many teachersfrom most countries of the world
r,r,.ithn'hom I have worked. The featuresare also influenced by *y interpretation of a
number of scholars.WillardWaller's (1932) evaluationof the teachingprocessis still the
most comprehensive,*'hilst the studiesof teaching and learning referred to in notes 1Cf
and 1 1 provide strongjustification for seeingthe classroomgroup asa specialculture. (.\
helpful overvierv of classroomresearchw'ithin general education is provided by Cohen
a n dM a n i o n 1 9 8 1 . )
l.J Garfinkel assertsthe need for methods of understandingthe everydaylife of the group
we may be investigatingthrough an ethnomethodological approach. (Douglas, 1971.
Tirrner 19J4, and Douglas, 1973 provide examples of this approach, whilst Hughes.
1980, offers a humanistic interpretation of ethnomethodology.) For a broader critica-
consideration of methods of investigation, seeTaylor (1911).Interesting examples ol
current research in classroom language learning which adopt various methods o:
understandingare found in Dingwall (1982), Wenden (1983), Murphy-O'Du-r'e:
(1983),Allwright (1984b), and Bonamy,cherchalii,Johnson,Kubrusly,schwerdtfeger.
(all 1984):
Soule-Susbielles
t+ In Breen (1982), I examinethe practicalrealitiesofclassroomlanguageand procedure.
THE SOCIAL CONTEXT FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING 141
References
andgoalsin the
Strategies
classroomcontext
- Ft?
Chapter 8
Paull(night
Introduction
---"/
HEN PLANNING THIS CHAPTER I CONSIDERED mvownUK-based
training as an EFL teacher and the fact that it contained virtuallv no explanation of
the practices I u'as trained in. Further training informed me how Communicative Language
Teaching had supersededAudio-Lingualism, but it was not until later that further studies
made me aware that the field of foreign languageteaching hasa long and rich methodological
tradition.
Ways of teaching English have been shaped by developments in manv disciplines
including linguistics, psychology and education. Thev have been informed U;:*pgXg!
research, purelv theoretical developments and the practical hands-on experience of
u"Ein-g these influences is necessary.I hope this chapter can help foster that
"f ! '
In mv experience, ferv modern EFL teachers have looked at the history of their profession
urrdih" methodoiogical practicesof the past.The common perception is that until the advent
of Audio-Lingualism, language teaching methodology consisted simply of the grammar-
translation method, and the reform movement at the end of the nineteenth century was
simply a reaction against this. Holr'ever, as we shall see, methodological debates have
characterisedthe profession for much longer.
Howatt records the use of materials to teach both French and Latin in the middle ages
which were basedon the studv of dialogues(Howatt 1984). He.notes the development of
methods bv teachers like Bellot and Holl'band in the 16thand 17'hcenturies which included
substitution tables, dialogues based on common situations and an emphasis on spoken
pro{iciencv.DescribingWebbe's'anti-grammar'stancein the 17mcentury,Howatt observes
that:
By the 19'h century, grammar-translation was the dominant methodology. lhis was
b""urrr. of the importanle given to the study of Greek and Latin in public schobls'The
study of Lati.r and Greek at tfus time focused on accessingtheir literature, somethingr,vhich
was thought to be best achieved by cops-ciousl),@l rules. and lexical
"the
items of target language.The basic unit of study was the sentence and, as the name of
I.@ translating both into and
@g"rt,
from the target language. si'?n t".ffiqG"'ere not onll'thought 6t.[-i-*-.t"T!,ET1lto
t6GtFil'.n.fii-AG+ffie' (Stern19831.
The 19s centur). i^*, u gr"d.,ul disillusionment with the grammar-translation method.
which led to a number of observations which w-ereto change language teaching. Marcel.
Prendergast and Gouin each drew on children's language learning to inform new theortes
(Richardl and Rogers 1986: 5). Marcel argued for a focus on meaning; Prendergastnoted
the use of contextual factors in furthering comprehension and Gouin argued for the
'using
importance of context and that language learning was facilitated by language to
accomplishevents' (Richardsand Rogers 1985: 5 & 6)'
By the end of the 19s centurv iJeas which previously had only had a limited impact
became more widelv promoted. Central to this was the Reform Movement, an internationai
movement which grew. out of the formation of the International Phonetic Association rn
1885. Its most significant British member w'as Henry Sweet, who argued for a scientihc
1!!-roach to t}e practice of language teaching in his Ifie PracticalStudy oJLanguagesin 1899
The key principles of the Reform Movement were:
the primacv of speech, the centrality of the connected text as the kernel of tht
t"u.ffilifi;iff"ss, andthe absolute in th.
prioritl' of an oral methodolog)'
c l a s s r o o m(.H o u a t t 1 9 8 4 : 1 71 7
-=F
It is important to note that it is not just the ideasof th. &fot*J4ry,.nt which art
significant;its approachalso shapeddevelopmentswhich followed. It was the first trul.
sc]entific approachto languagelearning and can be seen as an important step in th.
developmentof the disciplinesof linguisticsand appliedlinguistics.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF EFL METHODOLOGY I49
The Second World War and its aftermath provided a great spur to language teaching,
especiallyin the USA.The Armv SpecializedTrainingProgram (ASTP) rvasestablishedin
1,942to provide the large number of foreign language speakersrequired bv the militarr.
This programme influenced the development of what became know'n asAudio-Linguaiism
andwasifo.,,,ofattentionamongstappIiedlinguistslongafteritffi
militarv.
'scientific'
saw itself as the first language teaching methodology.
4gdlg-!-l"g"alism 'Oral
when he outlined the Approach', a forerunner of Audio-Lingualism,
€-Sfi66essof teaching as depending not only on classroom methodology, but also:
fundamentallyupon havingsatisfactor)'materials
selectedandarrangedin accordwith
.' y+))
souncl llnqurstlc
ol
Drrnclplesj_(t-rres I
The principles he is referring to here r,verethose of structural linguistics, whose main tenets
were that language is primarilv oral, and that it is a rule-governed system understandable
in terms There p@ously outlined
"@plexit1..
b}'Blooee,,1914an-d1942(Bloomfield1914,1933, t-
1e+2). lo r
The other important strand underlyin dio-Lingualism as that of behaviourist
psychologv.Behaviouristmodelsof learningessentilllillil as a behavioural skill
Tfu1,4l
wherel.ui.,... receivea stimulus(suchasa Ju. i.r u d.illF;.Ffi
urrerance)uno ffi-rlGG, ."
t that this viill lead to t}e errbrs beinp reinforced and'bad
hahits' engendered. Languagehad been view.edin terms of habit-fo.-ationTefbq
e.'G+
Falmer outlinad a theory basedon r.r.hatrvould later havebeen called behaviourist principles
]50 PAUL I(NIGHT
UNIT A ONE
T H E YD O \ s . T H E ' I ' - \ R ED O I N G
OFTEN/NE\-ER,etc.Questions andNegatives
Problem Situations
Where is Mr. Collins?
i. Mr. Collins is a businessman He gets
What does he do?
"The FinancialTimes" every dav and
alwavsfinds it verv interesting' Does he read "The FinancialTimes"?
At the moment, he is in his office' Is he reading it?
His copv of "The FinancialTimes" is Where is his copy of "The Financial
I lmes ,
in his overcoatPocket.
2 IllustrativeSituations
i. John Dallas is a film director.
A.t the Question Prompts:
moment he is in a Plane ovelthe 1. Ask and answer these questions
Atlantic. He is on his waY to about John Dallas:
Hollywood. There is a glassof (a) Who (b) Where
champagne in his hand, a stnile on 2 . U s eD O E S H E D O ?
his face, and a pretty girl opposite him 3. or IS HE DOING? in these
questions:
Question:What DOES HE DO?
The only answer is: HE DIRECTS FILMS (a) fiims (b) a glassof chamPagne
OT:HE IS A FILM DIRECTOR (c) to Hollywood (d) at a pretty girl
F i g u r e8 . 1 S i t u a t i o n al l. r r . ; - i : . . : ( : . h l r . f m a t c r i a l
THE DEVELOPMENT OF EFL METHODOLOGY 15I
(Palmer 1921). However, it is Skinner who is generallv credited as laying down the most
complete theoretical basisfor this assumption in his VerbalBehavior,lvhere he assertedthat:
'empty
The role of the learner inAudio-Li ilism came to be portra)'ed asthat of an vessel'
no more in the drills organisedbv his/her teacher to learn the 1/vA
tareet
-r-t_
languqgg1l5s Figure8.2 for example). This is to some degree unfair; it was certainly
no-tffiat the exponents oi the method had in mind. Fries outlines the role of the student
as an active one:
What'syouriob?,
/->rr
\)
Exercise 1
\a
rY
#
a {
N'$9o
\
t a r q e t l a n g u a g ea n d t h e l e a r n e r s 'f i r s t l a n
ffi
ffi@ffi;eant
66111astlu.urrulrri, of
--=afffiF6eaudio-lingual
that skilled linguistsw.ereneeded
r,vould influence lan
s as'facilitffiT6-'
rib ed these-influence
tolrepare materials
learning either
interference'
basedon a
:'Failure
'(hr/'e'
uage laboratorv was a develoPmen io:linEual method. It was seen
as the ideal Loi* ith n'hich to applv behaviouristprinciples as it lllowed self-monitoring,
reinforcement of correct lgarner responsesand the cotte"tion of e.. e
attention drawn !,g{6"- (M"eller i 959).Althoughthe languagelaboratoryhasbeen
.rts of more communicative approachesto language learning, it is
important to-remember that it marked an important departure from book-based learning,
b"i.,g attempt to applvthe principle that languageis primarily oral.
"r,
From theseroots,Audio-Lingualismdevelopedinto a systemwhich is still usedin mgy
oarts of the world today.Thecont]nuedpubhcJon and successof teffiFE;ffi1-I6;farge
i@inciples,,.,&",theStream]ineseries(HartleyandVine1978),
shJwthatAudio-Lingualism However,Audio-Linguali:* T ..h"1*:
hasnot disappeared.
- "
ts tod4y. bven belore the method aPProacneo
ay, lts t tical basis was shed. Chomsky exposed the inadequacies
of Audio-Lingualism',vhen he showed that la Lgeis not just a learnt habit but something
created by the s r usrng an lnnate la ility (Chomsky1957,1965etc.),therebr
ca rnto o odel and of la learning.
's
Parallel to theoretical attackswas an increasingsenseof the limited practical
value amongst teachers and learners.
Humanistic methodologies
::lgestoPedia
_ - _ > . " of
Even in countries
v ,education
' ' " ' : ' appear""";-''-".
u'here CLT has " " " -adopted
not been . . " r ' - -in" t e sector. m-ost
-.,rrstries to be mor-ing in its direction. Manv of its practitioners,
-. '.\ever, would espouseit on intuitive rather than theoretical grounds. Ithas become an
-nbrella term which covers a u,ide
.r.ichcovers ranpt -f
u'rde range ul classroom practlces.lvlany
classroom practices. A4anI teggher
teacher traiffig
tralnlng T
rr@.5
.l br.i. 'JrilTt
CLT which is original; many of the classroom practices with rvhich it is associatedare
A
und elsewhere(seeFigure 8.3 for example).
j--_ r -L:- ^L _.
_:-,-- ,r^lJ,Az-D
If rve look at the questions asked at the beginning of this chapter, we can answer the
..:.t.aboutthedesiredoutcome,bvsayingthatforcI-rt@
:rner can communicate successfullvin the target languagein real situati,ons,raiFi-I
an approach that aims to (a) make communicative competence the goal of language
teaching and (b) develop procedures for the teaching of the four language skills that
acknowledge the interdependence of language and communication. (Richards and
Rogers 1986 66)
' (lne such element might be described S,"g*-""i."ti"" p_:i": ctivities that
"t
!..ornot" r e a l l o m m u n i c a t i q p r o m o t e l e a r n i n g .A s e c o n d e l e m e n t i s t h e t a s k
\
- \rinciple' Activities in rvhich languageis used for carrying out meaningful tasks
^<-: romote learnlng. A tntrd e s s p i i n c i p l e : L a n g u a g et h a t
ning process. (Richards and Rogers
-
,--/ q86 72)
156 PAUL I(NIGHT
Leaving home
Pre-listening task
'..,':-.:.
I titm home (for a short or a
i .. : :..\'4...
- :-. -:j:-a . :: 1 .11..t ,. t.'x;11flou'?
Jig=ar*'listening
Dlr.li. r.:, t\.', a--'rr.
Engiand, talking
T.2a Group -\ \'c,u srii hear Darrd SnoK', $'ho lives in the north-west of
about hrs oniv daughter.Jackie.
T.2b GroupBYouxillhea.Jaclre,DaTrdSno$''sdaughter,talkingaboutherlifeinLondon'
(continued opposite)
Figure 8. 3 CLT materials u.hich encouragegrouPwork and participation
THE DEVELOPMENT OF EFL METHODOLOGY L57
Comprehension check
r, //
/a^
' l
Th{ t'veak)"'ersion,rvhich has become more or less standard practice in the last
tenLleafs, stressesthe importance of providing learners withopportunities to
use their English for communicative purposes and, characteristically,attempts
to lntegrate such actllltles lnto a \1lcer Programme or languageteacnlng.(t-lowalt
.98+,;
/:',
, hilstthe 'ftrong',version:
I /,
w4.
advanFesthe claim that language is acquired throushc o m m u n i c a t i o n ,s o t h a t
n o t m e r e l v a q u e s t i o no f l c t i v a t i n g t n e x i s t i n but iner
but of stimula the develooment of the aqe s (Howatt 1984
2e7) {*.
A@.@\t'utQ^
i: concludes:
Our third question, concerninllggner and teacher roles, is perhapsthe most oPen.
\\'e can see that in all strands ot Cf- th
other learners and the material. A strong cooperative element is also Present in many
.lurffith"d.fi,tiiio greeto
,, hi. li-..ct their ow-n learning-:r ol"t
assigned-br aleacher. Nunan analysed this question rncreaslng
'learner
^-C-
indepgndenceu-ithin CLT (Nunan 1989).
N
cc
Breen and Candlin identifi three kev roles for the ILT teach€ - facilitator of the
.orylun'.ttto" p-cess, particrpant withi,n the le,arn o"p' un5!g59t.\.-
at" l.u6E 1Bt"en and Candlin 1980).The1,ilso see these roles as including those of organiser
'('
.tl
Ne ls Tlll"l-la..fhe
-
.lffi.o
CLT teacheris often more autonomousthanthe
""di _]i"g4lgggh.r
because
practicesa.e ,rsuallylesspredicqrble,andin his/her role asfacilitatorof commu-
f^l14\ nication tt6t"".h"t oft"nGl-t"r..ts with the learners in ways rvhich mirror interaction outside
the classroom,e.g.byaskingreal questionsabout t}e learner'sbackground,opinions, etc.
'(fr onenewrolefisthatof.needsanal1st',i'e.some-
--------___--=-=
Immersion progralnmes and the Natural Approach
Parallel to the development of CLT in the late 1970s and early 1980s another methodology
was being developed which had at its base a model of language learning partly based on
studies of students in Canadian immersion programmes. This methodology was called the
Natural Approach and its proponents were Steven Krashen andTracyTerrell.
The Canadian immersion programme dates back to the 1950s, but really became
widespread in the 1970s and 1980s. It marked a move away from the formal teaching o1[
French in Canadianschools to the teaching in French of other subjects.It was felt that while
the content would be clear to the students through the context, they would acquire the
target language through exposure. This process has been described as t}e partial
'deschooling' language(Stern 1992 12).
of
Canadian French immersion programmes seem to have had interesting but mixed
results. Surveying the various studies into their effectiveness,Ellis notes that they do not
seem to have had a negativeimpact on the students'proficiency in English, their L1, and
that they have also tended to break dou-n ethnolinguistic stereotypes. He also notes that
they have led to hlgh levels of proficiencv in the target language, French, in the areas of
discourseand strategic competence.Thev havenot, horvever,been as successfulin promoting
grammatical proficiencr and it has been observed that a fossilised non-standard variant of
the target can result (Ellis 199+).
In 1983 KrashenandTerrellpubiishedfr= \'arural.1pproach,whichessentiallycontained
K r a s h e n ' st h e o r e t i c a lp . r . p e c t i r e s . d e r e l o p e di n e a r l i e r p u b l i c a t i o n s( K r a s h e n 1 9 8 1 a n d
19821,andTerr.li . --r:-:..inesior their classroomapplication(KrashenandTerrell 1983).
T H E D E V E L O P M E N T O F E F L I \ l E T H O D O L O G Y1 5 9
.hare a common idea: giving learners tasksto transact,rather than items to learn,
:rovloes an envlronment \\'nlcn DeStPromotesthe natural .languagelearning process
160 PAUL K\IGHT
' - -cnts can buv and use bus tokens for a month, buving a ticket for each bus
.: ne\..
..ie cost of tokens is as follows:
t ' tokens Rs 7.50
tokens Rs 15.00
- , tokens Rs 22.50
.lrl tokens Rs 30.00
\ studenthasto buv at least 30 tokens a month. He/she cannot buy more than 120
:,,,kensa month.
(lne token is equal to one bus ticket: the student has to give a token to the
conductor of the bus, instead of buving a ticket from him.
Tokens should be used only for the purpose of travelling between one's home and
:he school or college where one is studving.
Tokens should be bought each month between the 1st and the 15th. They can be
used only between the 16th of that month and the 15th of the next month.
\o money will be refunded on unused tokens.
Onlv full-time students of i school, college, or university can buy and use bus
tokens.They have to produce a certificate from the head ofthe institution to shou'
that they are full-time students.
Tokens cannot be transferred from one person to another.
If a student misuseshis/her tokens, helshe will not be allowed to buy any more
tokens during that year.
5 Raman goesto seehis uncle in K. K. Nagar everv Sundav.Can he use his tokens to
go to K. K. \agar? Hou'do vou know?
Icsl Balan studies at the Higher Secondary School in Nungambakkam. His home is in
Advar. He has classesonlv in the afternoons, from Monday to Saturday.Thereare direct
buses from Nungambakkam to Adyar and a ticket costs one rupee.
Having used Long's and Crookes' analysisofTBL, we now come to the model that they
propose,knon'n astask-basedlanguageteaching (TBLT).They arguethat this model is soundly
i"
basedon SLA research,on classroom-centredresearchand on principles of syllabusand
course design (Long and Crookes 1992: 41). A distinctive feature of this model is that it
encouragesa'focus on form'.This is not a traditional structural syllabus approach, but an
can be accelerated if learners' attention is drawn to specilic
linguistic featuresof the target language(Long 1991). In developing the model ofTBLT
fuTTE-er,Long has outlined those features which should characterisea'task' and attempted
to provide a solid theoretical framew'ork for an approachbasedon them (Long 1,996, et a\.) .
However, there are still questionsTBLT needs to address.Long and Crookes acknowl-
edge this when they compare it to other TBL approaches(Long and Crookes 1992: 46) . lts
researchbaseis still small and no complete programmes have yet been undertaken to access
it. The question of sequencingtasks is still an issue, as is the question of producing a
taxonomy of tasks. Finally, the degree of reduced learner autonomy could invite criticism.
Long and Crookes' model has also never actually been realised in terms of materials
development or classroom practice, in contrast to Prabhu's model or Breen and Candlin's.
Overall,TBL looks like a verv exciting areaand one which is alreadystrongly influencing
thinking in the field of languageteaching methodologr.. It is not just limited to those models
described here; other models are being proposed and specific questions of task definition
and designare also being examined (Skehan1996,1998;Nunan 1989, etc.).
Text-based teaching
- panguage occurs as whole texts u-hich are embedded in the social contexts in which
I
I fh.y areused.
\ . ,,4eople learn Ianguagethroughu'orkin_;',\r::. .,:. ,Ie rexts. (Feez 1998)
\-/
THE DEVELOPMENT OF EFL METHODOLOGY 163
This approach is perhaps better know'n and more widelv applied in Australia, where
r:uch of the theory w'as developed, than elsew'here.Its development there has primarih'
T .:urred within the provision of English as a second languagefor migrants, as well as more
_:rcrally in languageand literacv programmes. English for Academic Purposes (EAP)
-
:rammes have also been influenced bv its innovations.
scribes language not only in terms of linguistic
. lnfffiiElJtes theseto the socialinteraction [hev are usedto undertakeand the wider
r..'in-* u.E-rrt@
--@llidav1973).
The model of learning upon w'hich this method is basedis informed by researchin first
,*.:uageacquisition.LearningisseenaSaProcesso.
with iearners through an ilti-ceship'processas they
_t:n m gree to w ners are expectecl to
,=:ffi ow'leoqe a has been debated by proponents AJat
: text-based met o g i e s a n d , in general, somE ieclarative knowl i, ,"".r i^ u,frpa
"/
..irable, in other words, learners are e d to become, to some de
Conclusion
:1orv does one conclude an outline of a process which has been underway for centuries -
: amely the search for better ways to teach languages? This searchhas probably never been
rs intense as it is today, with universities, classroom teachers and publishers all active.The
:ealisationthat this is an'on-going'process is perhaps the first step.This might make us
,pproach more criticalll'the claims of researchersand pubiisherswho are trying to promote
:articular solutions. Instead, lvith a senseof historical perspective, we should assesseach
reu,' development ourselves.This assessmentshould draw on the disciplines which inform
-,ur field, .rot only r.co.rd lu.rg.t"
-
- u e l l . O u r t h r e e a u e s t i o n sl r o m t h e i n t r o d u c t i o n t h a t w e h a v e u s e f r t o e x a m i n e t h e
ffioil6Togies presented here can provide a starting point. We should not ignore our own
c\perience either; classroom-centred research has been one of the most important steps
iorward in recent vears. In this way the field of languageteaching methodology will remain
vibrant and exciting.
164 PAUL I(NIGHT
UNIT OFWORK
CASUATCONVERSATION
Goal
To enable learners to participate in a casualconversation in a workplace.
N
co
Learner objectives
al(l
'd
The learners w'ill:
- understand the purpose of casualconversation in Australian workplace culture
N!
know which conversation topics are appropriate in Australian workplaces
- recognise and use the key features of a casual conversation, i.e. greetings and
closures, feedback, clarification, managing topic shifts
- recognise and use conversation chunks such as comments, descriptions or recounts
- take turns appropriately rvithin simple exchangesie question/answer, statement,
t5', agreement, statement/ disagreement
- use languageappropriate to casualconversation including politeness strategies,
informal language,idiom
- build pronunciation and paralinguistic skills and strategies, specifically in the areas
of intonation and gesture
Achievement assessment
The unit will enable students to achievethe following curriculum outcome, eg CSWE
III Competencv 7.
References
research
Foreignlanguage in cross-cuhural K' de Bot, D. Coste, R. Ginsberg and
perspective,
C. K-ramsch(eds).Amsterdam:John Benjamins'
in
- (1996)'The role of the linguistic environment in second languageacquisition',
Language w.c.
Acquisition, B. Ritchie (ed.). T K, Academic Press.
HandbookoJ Second
'Three
Long, M.H. und-c.ook",, G. (1992) ApproachestoTisk-BasedSyllabusDesign'. TES)I'
@ t a r t e r )l y6 : I : 2 7 - ; ;
Lorun*:., G. (i978) Suggestology and Outlinesof Suggestopedy.NewYork: Gordon and Breach'
Ir
c( Mclaughlin, B. ( i 987i Ih eories oJSecond-Language Learning.London: Edward Arnold.
Moskoi-itz, G. (1978) Caring and Sharingin the Language
Foreign Rowley, Mass': Newbury
C1ass.
1(t House.
Nu' 'Psychologyand the Language 87 .
andSociety
Arts'. scfioo1
Mueiler,T. (1959)
Munby, l. ( 1978) Communicative SyllabusDesign.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nunan, D. (1988) TheLearner-Centred Currjculurn.Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press'
- (1989) DestgningTasksJor the Communicative Classroom.Cambridge: Cambridge University
.(t
Press.
'lntensiveTraining for an Orai Approach in
O'Connor, j.C. and Twaddell, W.F. (1950)
LanguageTeaching'.TheModernLanguage Journal VolXLIV 2:2.
Languages.
inTbaching
Palmer,H.E. (1921) TheOralfulethod Cambridge:Heffer.
palmer, H.E. and Palmer, D. (1925) EngltshThrough Toyko: IRET. Repubiishedby
Actions.
Longmans,Green, 1959.
Prabhu, N.S. (1 9877Second Language Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pedagogy.
Richards,J.C. and Rogers,T.S.(1986) Approaches andMethods Cambridge:
in LanguageTbachtng.
CambridgcUniversit;'Press.
'Review
Scovel,T. (1979) of "suggestologyand Outlines of Suggestopedy"'. TESOLQgarterly
13 . 2 5 5 - 2 6 6 .
Skehan, P. (1996) A framework for the implementation of task-basedinstruction. Applied
Lingdstics17 1 : 38-52.
- ( 1998) A Cognitive Approachto LanguageLearning.Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Skinner,B.F. ( 1957) VerbalBehavior.N eu'York: Appleton- Century- Crofts.
Stern, H.H. (1983) Fundamental Conceptsof Language Teaching.Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Stern,H.H. (1992) Issues in LanguageTeaching.
andOptions Oxford: Oxford University Press.
8: 95-109.
White, L. (1987)'AgainstComprehensibleInput' . AppltedLinguistics
Widdowson, H.G. (1978) Teaching Language as Communication. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
l6?
Chapter 9
Jack G. Richards
ETHooo-a6cv I N T E A C H I N G I S T H E A C T I V I T I E S , t a s k s ,a n d
learnffexperiences-used by the teacherr,r'ithinthe teachingand learning process.
is seen to have ions about (a)
r".--l-"d h"guage learning, (b) ,"u.h"t l""t".t t
""d
lnstructlonal materlals. I nese aSSUmptlOnS ano DelleIS pro\-lce tne DaSIS
tmakingthatunderliesthemoment-to-moment
processesof teaching.Methodologl is not thereforesomethinghxed, a set of rigid principles
and procedures that tffi nform to.
il*ploruto.y p.o."t. ,hut b"
Teaiffin!-as an exploratory processis different from the approach to teaching seenin many
teacherpreparation programs or Ianguageteaching programs, where particular instructional
methods, such as the SilentWay,Total PhysicalResponse,or the NaturalApproach, are
presented as models to be imitated and internalized. In this chapter, these two approaches
to teaching will be explored in more depth.The use of methods as the basisfor instructional
processesin a second languageprogram rvill be compared with one that moves beyond
methods and focuses on exploring the nature of effective classroom teaching and learning.
For many centuries the goal of languageteachers has been to find the right method (Kelly
1959).The history of languageteaching in the last hundred years has done much to support
the impression that improvements in languageteaching will result from improvements in
the quality of methods, and that ultimatelv an effective language teaching method will be
d e v e l o p e d .S o m e b r e a k t h r o u g h i n l i n q u i s t i c t h e o r v o r i n s e c o n d l a n g u a g ea c q u i s i t i o n
,.,"u.Jh,itifassufr-ed,r,villeventuallyunIockthesecretsof,".o@
"
ffiteac
such as the SilentWay, Suggestopedia,or the
Natural Approach will bring about dramatic improvements in languagelearning.
Common to all methods is a set of specifications for how teaching should be
accomplished, derived from a particular theory of the nature of language and second
language learning. Differences in the instructional specificationsreflect differences in the
theories underlying the methods. Some methods advocatean earlv emphasison speakingas
158 JACK C. RICHARDS
be delayed
a basisfor establishingbasic languagePatterns. Others recommend that speaking
Some make use of
until the learner hasluitt up a receptive comPetence in the language.
with
memorized dialogues and texts; others require that learners attemPt to communicate
their or,vnlanguage resources. Common to all methods
each other u, ,oo.t aspossible using
is a set of prescriptio.t, o., u'hat teachers and learners should do in the langlag-eclassroom'
prescriptions for the teacher include rn"'hat material should be presented and when it should
be taugit and how.,and prescriptions for learners include what approach they should take
towarJlearning. Specificrol", io, teachers, learners, and instructional materials are hence
established(Ri;ha;ds and Rodgers 1985).The teacher'sjob is to match his or her teaching
style as *.li u, the learners' learning stvles to the method. Special training packagesand
progru*, are availablefor some methods to ensure that teachers do what they are supposed
to do and teach according to the method.
Despite the appeal of methods, their past history is somewhat of an embarrassment.
Studiesof the effectivenessof specific methods havehad a hard time demonstrating that the
(.
method itself, ratler than othei factors, such as t)re teacher's enthusiasm or the novelty of
the new method, was the crucial variable. Likewise, observers of teachers using specific
methods have reported that teachers seldom conform to the methods they are supposedto
be following. Swaffar, Arens, and Morgan (1982), for example, investigated differences
between wf,at thev termed rationalist and empiricist approaches to foreign language
instruction. By a rationalist approach thev refer to process-oriented approachesin which
language is seen us i.rt.ir"lated whole, where Ianguage learning is a function of
".r
.o,iprIh..rrion preceding pr6duction, and where it involves critical thinking and the desire
to communicate. Empiricist approachesfocus on the four discrete language skills.Would
ciassroom practices reflect such differences?"One consistent problem is whether or not
teachers involved in presenting materials created for a particular method are actuallr-
reflecting the underlyiig philoroihi.s of these methods in their classroom practices" (Swaffar
al. l9d2:25). Swaffai er a1.found that many of the distinctions used to contrast methods,
"t
particularly those based on classroom activities, did not exist in actual practice:
but - dynamic,
-- a
- - - is ) '- ' interactional process
| - in- which the teacher's "method" results from the
.
;t""#;f ,.t"r".tton between the teacher, the learners, and the instrucfintal tasks and
i*"-ffut et al' 1982)'AttemPts
to find general*Efr"Er that are suitablefor all teachersand all teachingsituationsreflect
BEYOND METHODS 169
anessentiallynegativeviewofteachers'onewhichimpliesthatsinc@s
cannotb"g,.'","it..d,thecontributionoftffiouIdbeminimizedbv
dr.
+_
methods is hence esienTldlfT:hrsih-chers cannot be trusted to teach well. Left to their own
devices,teachers will invariably make a mess of things. A method, becauseit imposes a
uniform set ofteaching roles, teaching styles, teaching strategies,and teaching techniques
on the teacher, will not be affected bv the variations that are found in individual teaching
skill and teachingstyle in the real *o.ld.
Researcherswho have investigated the nature of teaching, however, have proposed a
different view of teaching (Good 1979; Elliot 1980;Tikunoff 1985).Thev begin with the
assumption that teachers (rather than methods) do make a difference; that teachers work
in ways that are, to an extent, independent of methods; and that the characteristicsof
effective teaching can be determined. Other researchers have turned their attention to
Iearnerr 4!I!_!pugh!l!o determine what characterizes effective learning. This requires a
different approach to teaching, one in wFtFTEilEErs are involved in observing andE
uDon thelr own
Teacher strategies
:* Classroom manaBement
x Structuring
A lesson reflects the concept of structurinq when the teacher's intentions are clear and
instructional activities are sequenced according to a logic that students can perceive.
Classroom observations and studies of lessonprotocols indicate that sometimes neither the
teacher nor the learners understood what the intentions of an activity were, why an activity
occurred when it did, what directions they w'ere supposed to follow, or what the relationship
between one activity and another was. Hence, it may not have been clear what students
needed to focus on to complete a task successful\. Fisher et a1.( 1980; conclude t]lat students
"pay attention more whenth€ teacher .p..rd, ti*. $"
4)
t etimes not done at all,
sometimes it is done only minimally, and sometimes it is overdone" (p. 63).
Iasfrs
Iasfu, or activity structures, refer to activities that teachers assignto attain particular learning
objectives. For any given subject at any given level, a teacher uses a limited repertoire of
tasks that essentially define that teacher's methodology of teaching.These might include
completing worksheets, reading aloud, dictation, quickwriting, and practicing dialogues.
According toTikunoff (1985), classtasks vary according to three types of demands thev
make on learners: rcsponse modedemands(the kind of skills they demand, such asknowledge,
comprehension, application, analysis/synthesis,evaluation); interactionalmodedemands(the
rules governing how classroom tasks are accomplished, such as individually, in a grouP, or
with the help of the teacher); and rasl complexitydemands(how difficult the learner perceives
the task to be).
Teachershave to make decisionsnot only about the appropriate kinds of tasks to assign
to learners, but also about the order oJ rasis (the sequence in which tasks should be
introduced;' t; t pacing
. u
(how much time learners should spend on tasks);products(whether the
product or .Eilt oh-iTalET expected to be the same for all students); Iearning strategies
(what
iwhat learning strategies wili be recommended for particular tasks); and materials
sources and materials to use in completing a task) (Tikunoff 1985).
The concept of tasks has been central to studies of effective teaching.The amount of
time students spend actively engagedon learning tasksis directly related to learning (Good
and Beckerman 1978). For example, Gacher A and Gacher B are both teaching the same
reading lesson. In TeacherA's class,learners are actively engagedin reading tasks for 759 i
of the lesson, the remaining time being occupied with noninstructional activities such a.
BEYOND METHODS 171
taking breaks, lining up, distributing books, homework, and making arrangementsfor future
events. Students inTeacher B's class,holvever, are actively involved in reading for only
55% of the lesson. Not surprisingly, studies of time-on-task have found that the more time
students spend studying content, the better they learn it. In one study (Stallings and
Kaskowitz 197+), the students with the highest levels of achievement in a reading program
were spending about 50%omore time actively engagedin reading activities than the children
with the lowest achievementgains.Good teaching ir h"r." r"id to b" t. .tiu.
teachers also monitor performan6e on
been completed
ufouPlnB
A related dimension of effective teaching is the groupingof learners to carrv out instructional
tasks,and the relation between grouping arrangement and achievement.An effective teacher
understandshow' different kinds of grouping (such as seat work, pair u'ork, discussion,
reading circle, or lecture) can impede or promote learning.Webb (1980) found that the
middle-ability child suffers a loss of achievement, while the low-ability child shows some
gains in achievement in mixed-abilitv groups, compared with what would be expected
if both were in uniform-abilitv groups. Tikunoff ( 1985) cites Good and Marshall's findings
on groupings.
Good and Marshall (1984) found that students in low-ability reading groups in the
early grades received very little challenge,thus perceiving of themselves as unable to
read. In addition, a long-range result of interacting most frequently with onh'other
students of low-ability in such groups was an inability to respond to the demands of
more complex instructional activities. Ironically, Good pointed out that the ven-
strategy,rr.d,o presumably help low'-abilitv youngstem onlth their reading p.obl"-,
- pull-out programs in which teachers worked with small groups of these students
outside the regular classroom- exacerbatedthe problem. Demands in the special
reading groups were verv different from those in the regular classroom and at a much
lower level of complexity, so low-abilit,v students were not learning to respond to
high level demands that would help them participate competently in their regular
c l a s s r o o m st.p . 5 6 r
The research findlngs suggest therefore that effective teaching depends on such factors
as time-on-task, feedback, grouping and task decisions, classroom management, and
structuring. Although the concept of effective teaching evolved from studies of content
's
teaching,Tikunoff ( 1983) major stud,vof effective teaching in bilingual education programs
has examined the extent to which it also applies to other contexts, such as bilingual and
ESL classrooms.
information, and construct ne$, concepts" (p. 4). Furthermore, to be functionally proficient
the classroom, the student must be able to utilize these competences to perform three
functions: (a) to decgde and und-erstandboth task expectati^n. and new information;
T/\AA
Ttajor
tasks, with high accuracy; and (c) to-obtain
1U;-to engage "pp.op.i"t.ly in completing
(p.s). urately
G;>\
ftiiptive',u{,,f 'ku'$)
n-his Significant Bilingual InstFuE
(1983) collected data to lind out how effective teachers in bilingual education progTams
organize instruction, structure teaching activities, and enhance student performance on
taJks.Teacherswere interviewed to determine their instructional philosophies, goals, and
the demandsthey rvould structure into classtasks.Teacherswere clearly able to specify class
task demands and intended outcomes and to indicate what LEP students had to do to be
functionallv proficient. Case studies of teachers were undertaken in w-hich teachers were
observed during instruction, rvith three observers collecting data for the teacher and for
four target LEP students.Teacherswere interview'ed again after instruction.
f €
classes.
More recent s'ork on learner strategieshas attempted to yield more usableresults b'
making use of data obtarned hom a brouder.ung. of .o,rr."r, ..l.h asclassroom observarior:-
"think--aloud"procedures rin s'hich learners record their thoughts and observations as ther
perform different tasks). intervieu-s, self-reports emploviig note-taking and diaries.
questionnaires,as u'ell as conrrolled experimental studiesdesignedto investigatespecih-
cognitive processes(e.g., Heuring 1984).Thesekinds of approaches are yielding information
of greaterpractical value. For example, Cohen (cited in Oxford 1985a) Iists six strategi.:
used by successfullanguagelearners:
sensationto it
Gaing-oltext-processing strategies,such as clarifying the communicative Puri -ie
of the text, distinguishing imPortqllfgrnls_frgrn lrr,/9, skipping around to E€: arL
nd kno*Ie:.--'
srt_ ou"r3]lgglruig1se1;
."udiigE-ET-oudphrasesrather th"g:lrrd &r:ryqd, relying on cj$9xtya\lii-
making onSin$-uirmlries, and looking for;g
text
Writing techniques such as focusing on simplY getting ideas doln'n on paper in=r.aC
of trying for perfectiol]ight away; purposefully using parallel structures and c'i=.
@and writing multiple drafts.
Willing (1,987: 278 9) notes that strategiesare essentially"methods employed by the per.s:m
for processinginput languageinformation in such a way asto gain control of it, thus enab'--'E
the assimilatio.r-of thai information bv the self." Strategies are hence viewed as s'a'*': :f
managing the complex information that the learner is receiving about the target lanqua.-:
W.rd".t (1983) intervieu'ed adult language learners about how they organized d.=o'
languagelearning experiencesand found that they askedthemselveseight kinds of quesri'"--*.
@rcstion Decision
3 \A'hat should I learn and how? Learners decide upon linguistic objecti..,
resources,and use of resources.
BEYOND METHODS 175
O'Malley et al.have investigated the use of strategiesbv ESL learners both in and out of
classrooms(O'Mallel' et al. 1985a,b; O'Mallev and Chamot 1989). ESL studentsand their
teachers were interviewed about the strategieslearners used on specific languagelearning
tasks,and the learners were observed in ESL classrooms.Thev were also asked about their
use of English in communicative situations outside the classroom.A total of twenty-six
different kinds of learning strategieswere identified.
In a follow-up-str*ffd
particular strategiesin order to det€rmine if it would improve their effectivenessaslanguage
learners and their performance on vocabularl',listening, and speakingtasks.Strategieslvere
T
compared across proficiencv levels and r'vith learners of different language backgrounds. v
Students\r'ere given training in the use ofspecific strategiesfor particular languagelearninq
tasks.Resultssupported the notion that learners can be taught to use more effective iearninq
strategies(O'Mallev et a|. 7985a,b1:
Summary
Two approachesto language teaching have been discussedand contrasted. One con-
ceptualizesteaching as application of a teaching method, in which both the teacher and the
BEYOND METHODS 177
attempt is then made to make the teacher's and learner's classroom beha,rioiiEE& the s'a
specificationsof the method.This can b".ont.urt.d *ith ur ch that starts with the
"pp | )) /
ise.,rable processesof classroom f
PrrnclPres rces ln ranguage ied.@o
The study of effective teaching provides information about how effective teachers
organize and delir.er instruction. This relates to classroom management skills, and to
the strategiesteachers r.",o p..t.^, i^r,.r",i u.rd
activities, monitor learning, and provide feedback on it.
The on about the learning strategies
effective learners applv to the process of using and learning G"dliJfoilg"
language.
However, a word of caution is in order, since the goal of this approach is not simply to arrive
at a set of general principles that can be taught to teachersand learners.Lhis of course would
be to come full circle. and "method" lr-ith another.The aooroach
1-
aovoca starts with the assumption that the investigation of effective teaching and
learning-strategiesis a central and ongoing component
^,
of the process
I
of teaching.Thisis the
.".\ - r,
"dby@
externallv derived set incioles to their eachers are seen rather as I
their own classroom practices and those of the learners. Much of the effort to
determine what constitutes effective tGacEing and learning is initiated by the teacher
:@
rirr""gh."g"1"..br. A
teachers can obtain valuable feedback about the effectivenessof their own teaching.At thA--/
teaching and learning in their ou'n classrooms. In the domain of learning strategies, the
teacher alsohas an important role to plav.The teacher is initiallv an observer and investigator
of the learners' learning behaviors and subsequentlvprovides feedback on the kind of
strategiesthat are most successfulfor carrving out specificlearning tasks.Relevant concerns
for the teacher thus focus not on the search for the best method, but rather on the
circumstances and conditions under r,vhich more effective teaching and learning are
accomplished.
References
MichaelH. Long
ainst methods-
different methods (e.g. Scherer andWertheimer 1964; Smith 1970;Von Elek and Oskarsson
1975) have typicall),Tound little or no advantagefor-one.over another, or only local and
usually shortTueTidvantages. One inteSpretationo[ such results is that methods do ncit
ffidonot"
ds te*quirethis, after all), whatever they are
supposed to be doing, especiallv over time. The absenceof a systematic observational
component in most of the comparative methods studies makes either interpretation
FOCUS ON FORM 181
Many develoPments
in foreign languagesyllabusdesign,materialswriting, methodology
and testing during the past 30 years reflect the tension between the
desirability ;f
..interfering',*i.@hiIedifferingconsiderablr'bothinthedetaiIoftheir
red for them' each has claimed that the best way to
---:\\
an obiect of studY'
irrrli" o' outside a classroom' ilr*ot b' treating it as
\lgarn a language,
t bv experiencing it as a medium of communication'
t.#i";;;;;"l.o"'''@hfindings(seee.g.!ula1^and|'urt
1987;Wode1981)'Most
1973;Ellis"ll5+;f"il* tlSt;'f.ash..t u.tdT"rr.ll1983;Prabhu
sequ:nces in interlanguage-llL)'
often cited in this context are the u'ell attestedde,'e1o?menral
clausesand German word order' I nese
such as those for Swedishnegation, English relative
"of relative
,.q,r"rr.., are fixed ,e.i". oo'erlafping stages_,each characterizable by the
have to traverse on the way to mastery
fr"qrr.rr.n of IL structures, rt hich le"rrr.t, apparently
(For the rnori study of this phenomenon, see
of tire target languagesystem. "o*p.ehensive
J o h n s t o n1 9 8 5 . )
has a four-stage sequence (for
Numerous studies show, for instance, that ESL negation
review, see Schumann 19797
..-- \
-'
f-ft"n,
uttercnces
Sample
I
I ' i,*"
| 2 no/not/don't
No is happy/NoYouPaYit
They not working/He don't have job
\
I
| ^ I can't play/ You musgn't
can't play/You do that
musln't do I
\ i lllnffi,,', n Irdidn'i see
didn't see her/She
her/She doesn't li'oe
io""'t live there
there //
I%'--
haspre-verbal negation, but also
At stages1 and 2, notjust Spanishspeakers,whose L1 ^!^l
negated
native systemis post-,rerbal,lnitlally p.oduce pre-verbally
J"p";"Jf;t"";;,;;.r"
although the Japaneseabandon
,r,',"r".r.", in ESL (Gillis andWeber 1976; Stauble 1981),
aPPearsto reflect strong
the strategy sooner (Zobl 1982). Pre-verbal negator placement
both naturalistic and instructed
\ internal p?".r,rt"r, for it is widel,v observed in s"tudlesof
for example, start with pre-verbal
st-R. turklsh speakers receiving formal instruction,
i
I
systems (Hyltenstam
\ negation in S.nredlsh,even thoulh both L1 and L2 have post-verbal
\ 1977).
that the sarylgvelopmeggrl
\ Wn6 minor variations, the evidence to date suggests
instructed and
\, ,""".":;:-";. obr.ru"a in the ILs of children u'd uJilt., of naturalistic,
on
\ffi;ers, of learners from different L1 backgrounds, and of learners performing
sub-stagesand swifter or
different tasks. L1 differences occasionally r.rrrltl.t additional
the basic sequence by skipping stages
slower passagethrough stages,but not in disruption of
in Zobl1982).
(for review, see Ellis"lg85lLarsen-Freemanand Long, press;
aPPears to be unavoidable, and obligatorinesshas
Passagethrough.u.h rtug", in order,
the d"fi.tition of "siage" in SLA (Meisel, Clahsen and Pienemann
been incorpor","iinto
is accurate, also seemsthat
it
1981 ; Johnston 1985). As would be predictedlf this definition
bl-Eilotttttu6d
cleveloomentalsequencesare impervious to instruction ' lt hasrepeatedly
ences do not reflect instructional
;;
a German sL word order structure
,"q,r..r.., (Lightborvn 1983;Ellis 1989), "nd t,,,ition in
shown not to result in learning
b.yond studJnts' current processing abilities has been
(Pienemann 1984).
related findings of common
The results for developmental sequences,together with
orf:t:l:lrt:,Pi
(althoughnot invariant) naturalistic ani it'str"cted morphem"eacculacl
forcqs t
learningis obviouslyat leastPartlv qorerngd.b)'
iungrrqg".
ter s co Frealization i"G" t"a some theorists to conclude that
text
FOCUS ON FORM IB3
Th"P.".@!,teachingandtestiy'gthem\neatatime,was
o.igi'ull ol"qy 6r;astructLahst linguistics.
combined with the advent of a world *u. ull']ffi-#d f.@
speakers,these events led to the growth of ALM and its many progeny. As distinct from a
focus onyform, to which we return below, structural syllabi, ALM, and variants thereof
involve a focus is to saX the content of the syllabus and of lessonsbased on it
-
{Ior;}That
is the linguistic iTE--rru
themselves (structures, gotions. l"*r*Lrt.-j,
oesrgneoro reacn rne Dasrconrlnuous requesting"and so on. notlinq else.
--
etc.); a lesson is
development now completed, not one shows either tutored or naturalistic learners
,@
developingproficiency one linguistic item at a time. On the contrary,3!]:sygll camPlex.
grudrui pathsfor grammaticalsubsystehs,suchasauxiliarl
developmental
l"a "rrilnt..-t"lated cst-
d*rcR.";;aEenemann 1981). Moreover'de ffil;
Jqyyu+..r'v." 'vrr^ru -as
-
r-*-^E-'<,does
---- accuracy
--- of suppliance.
-Altho"gh
rrrvrr/ J L L
/*,,; most syllabi and methods assume the opposite, lggrnel-g.do not mov+o-1n
, learners
/1
"i Clahsenand
dis;FfdhfioEather due to a change the IL (see,%. Meisel,
"lse..fiEei.t a
Pier.-".rr, 1981; Huebner 1983; Lightborvn 1983; Neumann 7977), phenomenon
imes describ,ableas U-shaped behavior (Kellerman 1985). Further, attemPts to teach
ns to be one the learner can process
rs Psy inguisticallv readv to uire. In Pienemann's ( I terminologr.
r o s nguage teachers, employers and learners
least marked
most marked
-+
SLA research findings '-------5- like those brieflv described here would seem to suPPort
f
I two conclusrons.(1) InJruction fqill around a focuson formsis counter-productii'e'
er
I ellnstruction rvhichen
/ .rryj@attainmentthaninstruction$'ith
lrt
L;fh;"#m". programsexist u,hichhavethis feature,alternatingin someprinciPled
waybetweena focuso" t"gt"g:lq1!:119n fo:m' riOne,exampleis task-base €
t andCrookes 1989;Long,inPresst'
F-Ei-;. with a Tocuson form need to be compared in carefullycontrolled studiesw'ith
with no overt
pro[."-, with a focuson forms andwith (e.g.NaturalApproach)Programs
focus on form.
Further research
oi
True experiments are needed which compare rate of learning and ultimate level
attainme^ntalter one of three programs:f ,r, inJor^r.Jocusonform,andllocuson communication
preliminary research in this u..u hur produced mixed results, two studies finding positive
relationships between the amount of class time given to a focus on Jorms and various
Parkinson anri
proficiencv measures (McDonald, Stone andYates 1977, for ESL; Mitchell,
and a third study of ESL (Spada 1986, 1987) finding no
iohnstone 198 1 , for French FL),
such effects. (For detailed revien, see Chaudron 1988.) All three studies were comparisons
ha-'
of intact groups which differed in degreeof focus onJorms,it should be noted. Research
yet to be conducted comparing the unique program tvpes'
Studies of this kind should be true exPeriments, employing a pretest/post-test control
oi
group design, and should also include a process comPonent to monitor implementation
Ih. thre" distinct treatments.They should utilize multiple outcome measures,some focusing
on accuracy,some on communicative ability or fluency, thereby avoiding (supposed)-biasin
favour of o.r. program or another. The post-tests should include immediate and delavec
measures,ri... ulleast one study (Harley 1989) has found a short-term advantage,for
students receiving form-focused instruction disappeared(three months) later. Some of the
measures should lurther reflect knorvn developmental sequencesand patterns of variation
in ILs, appropriate for the developmental stagesof the subjects as revealed on the Pretest-r
A distinciion should be maintained between constructions which are in principle learnabl.
from positive instantiation in the input and constructions which in principle require negatir t
evidence. (For further details and desirable characteristicsofsuch studies, see Long 198+.
forthcoming; Larsen-Freemanand Long 1989.)
S"o'e.u[dditional issuesneed to be addressed,either as separatestudies of the;focusc-
as sub-parts of the basic study outlined above. Many interestin.
,[orm design feature or
requir
questioniemain unanswered,after all. It will be useful to ascertainw'hich structures
FOCUSON FORM 187
focus and/or negative evidence, and w-hich can be left to the care of"natural processes"
(White 1987). Other possibilities include studies motivated by implicational markedness
relationships designed to determine the principles governing maximal generalizabilityof
instruction (see, e.g. Eckman et al. 1988). Similarh',one can envisagestudiesinspired by
current models of UG designedto test the claimed potential of certain structures to trigger
instantaneous(re-)setting of a parameter.An example would be Chomsky's (1981) work
on the pro-drop parameter, and the claimed triggering effects of expletives with ir and there
as dummy subjects (Hvams 1983;Hilles 1985). Finally, further theoretically motivated
r'vork, Iike that of Pienemann ( 1984) and Pienemann and Johnston (1,987),is clearly needed
on the fiminBof instruction. Researchof these and other kinds will establishthe validity and
scope offocus onJormas a design feature in languageteaching methodologv.
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r4[
Chapter 11
DavidNunan
Introduction
ffis,andthenthesentencebricks.Ifthebricksarenotinthecorrec-t.rC&.)
-
wall will collapseunder its own ungrammaticality.
order,tJ-re
' . t
When we observelearners as thev go aboufthe processof learning another language,
we see that, by and large, they do not acquire languagein the step-by-steprbuilding block
fashion suggestedby the linear model. It is simply not the casethat languagelearners acquire
target items perfectly, one at a time. Kellerman (1983), for example, notes the'u-shaped
behavior' of certain linguistic items in learners' interlanguage development. Accuracy does
not increasein a linear fashion. from 20Yoto 40oh to 100%: at times. it actuallv decreases.
It appearsthat, rather than being isolated bti.k., th" .1.-.
"utio"r
with bv. other elements to which thev are closelv related i
T92 DAVID NUNAN
w
{A'l\A,
,
senSe.Thisinterrelationshipaccountsforthefactthata-le*1Inerj_@
T..rgru$ l."qI
ffi*u-p1.,
"ggble,
appearing to increase and decreaseat different times during the
(temporaril) at
-rri.r.'of the simplepresentdeteriorates r
)t2,n.o"iit*-i"ri""r".rr@resentcontffi
'/ asukinJof lgga
,fts process
\a;irU* 'o-ganid
The adoption of an perspective can greatl'
language acquisition and use. Without this perspective, our understanding of other
'grammaticality'
di-enSo.rs of language such as the notion of will be piecemeal and
incomplete, as will any attempt at understanding and interpreting utterances in isolation
from the contexts in which thev occur. The organic metaphor sees second language
Language in context .
In textbooks, grammar is very often presented out of context. Learners are given isolated
sefi-tences,which therjare expEcTdfrtb1-nterilahzethrough exercises involving rePetition,
IntherestofthischapterIshallfocusontheimpIicatio,,,of
teaching.SuchanapproachoffersexcitingoPPortunities[or
at languagein a neu.way - as a vehicle for taking voyagesofpedagogical exploration in the
classroomand beyond.
'traditional'
There are manv different ways of activating organic learning, and manv
typ"r .u^, *it ,
"*...ir.
partilularly ifthey are introduced into the classroomas exploratory and collaborative tasks.,
(For examples,seeWajnryb's(1990)'grammar dictation'tasks,and Woods'(1995) gap and
cloze exercises.)
In my own classroom, I trv to activate an organic approach bv:
. teachinllanguageis-rset of cho
. providing opportunities for iearners to explore grammatical and discoursal
relationships in autlentic data;
a
teaching languagein rvaysthat make form,/function relati
ooo-
rent;
encouragingIEainerst-o6-ecomeacti\e explorers of language:
encouraging learners to explore relationships between grammar and discourse.
As indicated in the preceding section, one of the reasonslvhy it is difficuit to give learners
hard-and.fastqrammaticulJ,'l",isthat,inmanYinstances,;;ffi
,--ff
ffimunicative service, d..istor. *hich fot
"bort
meanings ljglners themselves wish to make. For example, if learners wish to give equal
weight to two pieces of information, thev can present the information in a single sentence,
using co-ordination. If they wish to give one of these pieces of information greater weight,
they can use subordination.
In order to help learners see that alternative grammatical realizations exist in order to
I94 DAVID NUNAN
enable them to make different kinds of meanings, and that ultimately it is up to them to
begin my language courses with'ice-
breaker' tasks such as Example 1. In completing this task, learners come to fashion their
own understanding of the functional distinctions between contrasting forms.They also come
to appreciate the fact that in manv instancesit is only the speakeror writer who can decide
which of the contrasting forms is the appropriate one.
Example I
Compare explanations with another group. What similarities and differences are there in
your expianations?
Non-authentic texts are meant to make language easier to comprehend but an unvarying
diet of such texts can make languagelearning more, not less,difficult for learners. Authentic
languageshows how grammatical forms operate in the'real world', rather than in the mind
of a textbook writer; it allows learners to encounter target languageitems - such as the
comparative adjectivesand adverbsin Example 2 - in interaction with other closely related
grammatical and discoursal elements. Wlq
4t"xt-
TEACHING GRAMMAR IN CONTEXT 195
Example 2
Study the following extracts. One is a piece of genuine conversation,the other is taken from
a languageteaching textbook. Which is which? What differences can you see between the
two extracts?What languagedo vou think the non-authentic conversation is trying to teach?
What grammar would you need in order to take part in the authentic conversation?
By exploiting this principle, teachers can encourage their students to take greater
responsibility for their ovr.rrlearning. (A striking example of this principle, in an ESL setting,
can be found in Heath ( 1 992) .) Students ."., b.i.rg samplesof h"g""g" into class,u.rd *oik
fX All O.,
together to formulate their orvn hvpotheses about language structures and functions. I (Aa-r-i"
'v-vt
sometimes give my students a Polaroid camera, and get them to walk around the campus 'l
-
taking photographs, either of signsand public notices *hi.h th"y believe are ungrammuti.ul,
or of signs which ther: think are interesting, or puzzling, or which contain language they
would like to know more about. The photographs then become the raw material for our
next languagelesson. In fact, the last time I did this, the lesson culminated in the students
writing a letter to the universitv estates office pointing out the errors and suggesting
amendments.
196 DAVID NUNAN
Example 3
Look at the picture. Whose apartment is this? Make guessesabout the person who lives
here. Circle your guessesand then explain them b-vcircling the clues in the picture.
1 . T h ep e r s o ni s aman/awoman
2. The person has a babyi doesn'thavea baby
3. Theperson hasa pet/ doesn'thavea pet
4. Thepersonis athletic/ notathletic
5. Thepersonis a coffeedrinker/ not a coffeedrinker
6. Thepersonis well-educated / notwell-educated
7. The personis a smoker/ nota smoker
8. The personis middleclass/ ooor
9. The personis a musiclover/ nota musiclover
'10.The personis on a diet/ noton a diet
Classrooms nhere the principle of active exploration has been activated w'iil b=
characterized by an inductive approach to learning in which learners are given accessI:
data and provided with structured opportunities to work out rules, principles, ar,:
applicationsfor themselves.The idea here is that information will be more deeply processe:
and stored if learners are given an opportunity to work things out for themselves, rathe:
than simply being given the principle or rule.
Tasksexploiting this principle show learners that grammar and discourse are inextricab,r
interlinked, anithat gram-atical choices (for exaiple, whether to combine two pieces ,-:
'
information using co-ordination or subordination) will be determined by considerations
context and purpose. Such taskshelp learners to explore the functioning of grammar -:
TEACHING GRAMMAR IN CONTEXT I97
Example 4
'packaged'
These can be into a single sentence by using grammatical resources of various
kinds:
The nursing process is a systematic and rational method of planning and providing
nursing care.
TdskI Using the above sentence as the topic sentencein a paragraph, produce a coherent
paragraph incorporating the follow'ing information. (You can rearrange the order in r,r,'hich
t h e i n f o r m a t i o ni s p r e s e n t e d . ;
Task2 Compare your text rvith that written bv another student. Make a note of similarities
and differences. Can you explain the differences? Do different ways of combining
information lead to differences of meaning?
Iasft3 Now revise your text and compare it w'ith the original. [This is supp]ied separately
to the students.]
(Adapted from Nunan 1996)
198 DAVID NUNAN
Conclusion
In this chapter, I have argued that we need to go beyond linear approachesand traditional
form-focused methodological practices in the grammar class,and that while such practices
might be necessar), thev do not go far enough in preparing learners to press their
grammaticai resources into communicative use. I have suggestedthat grammar instruction
will be more effective in classroomswhere:
@ K
. ---contexts 1
it is not assumedthat once learnershavebeend4]lgdjl ticular form
acquiredit, and drilling is iEEEtEIylS-I-fr-rststep towards eventualmastsfy:
.a--:-.:_
ihere are opportunities for recvcling of languageforms, and learners are enqaqedin
have
In making a casefor a more organic approach to grammar teaching, I hope that I have not
given the impression that speciallv written texts and dialogues, drills, and deductive
presentationsby the teacher, have no place in the grammar class.What we need is an
appropriate balance between exercisesthat help learie.s come to grSTGthliu-muilcal
forfrs, or explorrn ms to communrcate e
ln seeking to explore alternative ways of achieving our pedagogical goals, itTfiilpbrtant
not to overstate t}re casefor one viewpoint rather than another, or to discount factors such
as cognitive style, learning strategyp..f".".r..r, prior learning experiences,and the cultural
contexts in which the languageis being taught and learnt. However, while there are some
grammatical structures that may be acquired in a linear way, it seems clear from a rapidly
growing body of research that the majority of structures are acquired in complex, non
linear wavs.
Notes
Acknowledgement
The author and the publisher rvould like to thank Heinle and Heinle for their kind
permission to reproduce copyright material from Badalamenti and Henner-stanchina
( 1e e 3 ) .
T E A C H I N GG R A M M A RI N C O N T E X T 1 9 9
References
AnneBurns
Introduction
OMMUNICATIVE L A N G U A G E T E A C H I N G ( C L T ) H A S p l a y e di t s p a r t
in revo luti oni sin g larra$llvronceiyed-theoi Iearning and most language
v t}lev no lotiser equatethe learnins of a second e with the learning
@tthesametime'CLThasgivenrisetoasometimesconfusingarrar
of methodologies,some of which claim to be'the method'by which secondlanguagesuili
be acquired and all of which call themselves'communicative'.This has often led to a state
of"
intuition.
,--.f, |
IVI-oreand more, researchers and educators have begun to question some of t}r
assumptionsimplicit in communicative approachesto second-languageteaceffilTffi:ffi8-.e
failed to take into acTount a well-lormulated theory of language. Cope (1989) has argued
'authoritative'
tJlat what is needed is an pedagogy for the 1990s which will replace what he
terms the'progressive'curriculum whichhas existed since the mid-1970s. Becauseof is
(-\u-3discoverylearning,ego-centredb"'",P.
\ / to learners the knon'ledqethev need to gain accessto sociall)'powerfu] forms o[ ]anguage
\_-/ ffi
f{V- | . . It has emphasisedinquirv learning, processand naturalism but hasneglected to offer learners
/(AHA.>:,:i^#
/-\ual-- systematic explanations of how languagefunctions in various social contexts.
'
\ In
ln recent
recent vears
vea- mucn attentron nas Deen glven to soclally based theorles
es ot
of language
language
4do
L and in Australia work drawing on svstemic linguistics and notions of genre and register
developedby Michael Halliday (e.g.Halliday 1985; Halliday and Hasan 1985) hasprovided
a model for explaining language in relation to the contextin which it is used, while at
thesametimetakingi',to...ou@.Iffi.E}.Iwouldalsoargut
tlldt5)5LctlllL-tulIL.,..,,,cnlngIl[well1\-lIn
I w.ould argue that these beliefs prevent learners from gaining accessto opportunikie, S€a
to develop their literacv skills in second languageand from understanding and responding t;-r. eT?
to the *iitt.n texts $.hich rvill be of value to them in furthering their learning and in t:
extending their ability to cope w'ith a range of taskscommon in the w.ider community, manv
of which depend on the ability to read and u-rite.
In the schoolscontext the range of genresdeait u'ith in the classroomis fairl-vrestricted,
asthey *'ttt U" *o.. *tt"tt .." O
of the s-6Foolcurriculum. In the adult context the choice is more open-ended, as texts lvi (
, .------'-------1- t -'----T-
be drawn lrom a larger numDer ol s grq;. At present, o
t eachir s-G-iLi ni-rv i t h b es inn i n€-ad u It ESL Iear n er s have [ew lines to direct them to
teacher to structure a unit of w'ork. During the theoretical input sessionsat the beginning
of the project, Jennifer Hammond had proposed a teaching-learning cycle (Callaghan and
Rothery 1988), an adaptation of which (Hammond 1990) is presented in Figure 12. I below,
JOINT
NEGOTIATION
OF TEXT
readexamplesof genre; teacherandlearners
discussandanalysetext construct
text;ongoing
structureandlanguage discussion
of howto do this
DEVELOPING
redraftino
andeditino CONTROL OF learnerwrites
-
to "pr'btith"bt"" THE GENRE ownlext
standard '.
,'conferencinq betweent.
l e a c h e ra n d l e a r n e r
INDEPENDENT
CONSTRUCTION
OF TEXT
This cycle incorporates different classroom activities which move the learners througn
various spoken and written tasks related to the genre being taught. The teacher can begin
the cycle at any point,btt
teacher to work through all stages.For this particular class,the teacher decided to work in
1 Modelling
2 Joint Negotiation ofText
3 IndependentConstruction.
GENRE-BASED APPROACHESTO WRITING 203
The rest of this paper {"rgib.. a lessonwhich focuseson the stagewhere the teacher
p"*:f
gr.€4,+'re.effation o a
Ii*lluri"*t. At the beglnnilfof the lesson, the teacher and learners again discusseda model
job-application letter which had been presented to them the previous day:
11CoLLenAvenue
KeneinqLon
N?W 2033
7th Oecember1989
The Tereonnel}fficer
Elfex LLd
I'iqh SLreeL
North Ry/e
New2113
D e a r) t r o r M a d a m
Ke: ReceVtioniet'sJob
Y o u r eo i n c e r e l y
(Siqnature)
Classroom transcript I
T: AII right, have a look at the letter we wrote together yesterday.In fact I'm going to
read it to you so that we can recall what rve did. At the top right hand corner we put
the . . .?
LL: Address . . . address. . . date.
T: Address . . . OK and date.Then on the left underneath we put . . .?
L: Who...andaddress.
204 ANNE BURNS
'Dear
T: OK . . . to whom and the address.Then Sir or Madam'. Why did we put'Sir or
Madam'?
I
BecauseI don't knolv man or woman.
T: Y o u d o n ' t k n o w i f i t i s a m a n o r a w o m a n . ' R e : R e c e p t i o n i s t ' sj o b ' . W h a t d o e s ' r e '
mean?
L . About...about...
T: 'l am w'riting to applv for the job of the receptionist advertisedinThe Sydney Morning
Herald today.' So the first t\llgaou should sayin the letter iq what the letter is about.
'l'm
w-riting to applv for the job. I have worked as a receptionist for three 1'earsii-a
dentist's consultancyand I am very experienced in answeringthe phone, writing letters
and preparing accounts. So, the seconjljel!!what is that . . . ?
L : Experience. . .
T: RThJTo"s the experience (w-riting on board next to number 2). What was one?
What would you put for one?
LL: (Untntelltgible')
T: What is the first thing in the letter?'l am writing. . .'?
L: Address?
LL: No...no.
'l
T: am writing to appiv . . .'What could we put there?
L: The problem . . .
T: Not a problem .
L: No...information
LL: No...aboutme...
T: The main information in the letter . . . OK? (writes on board next to number 1)
thelearners.The
resultr.r,'as
thefollowinfde@ion oTttrdschernai
1 Address
2 Date
3 Who to and address
+ Dear
5 Re (about)
5 Main Information
7 Experience
8 About me (relevant to job)
9 Ending
10 Reference
11 Contact
12 Yours sincerelv
13 Signature.
The teacher follor,vedthis bv discussingrvith the learners some of the distinctive features
GENRE.BASED APPROACHESTO WRITING 205
6
' - . , , - ^ , - - - - -use of the Present tense, the bt
of the text, such as the predominant
participantandthe useof primarii)'
'being'and'having'clauses.,At ""j!AS""l
the end of thissegmeniof
o!
:r
the-1eS6n] the learners were asked to construct their ow'n letters in response to
Commonwealth Emplovment Service (CES) advertisements,which had also been read and
discussedin a previous lesson.EachgrouP wasgiven a samPleadvertisement(seeTbxtI below)
and askedto choosea scribe lvhotwould record the text asit was produced.The accountwhich
follows described how one group of three learners rvent about constructing their text.
The group was composed of three female learners; Katia, who was Chilean;Zorka, who
wasYugoslav;and Susanna,aCzech.All three w'ere in their 20s and had post-high school
education, two haling been nurses and one a teacher in her owrr countrl'.They had all indicated
that job-seeking \!.asa priority for them and were highly motivated to improve their ianguage
skills so that they could eventuallv find emplovment. Susannawas nominated to scribe t}re
^ text and *'hut .h.
iointlv negotiated
ty \4Tote \{'as ln resPons9 to me lollo)vlng aov'
q.u [o*( &> 4\a-rs l" t\^*. cr,L>e-.
)
Text 3: CESjob advertisement
Mechanic 5 0 5 2 a / 5 3 1k c s
Woolloomooloo Motor repairs
General RepairWork on Jaguars
8a.m.-5p.-. ''
gAward - Negotiabl.
Age:25*
TradesmanMechanic
Exp. On Jaguars
Despite their limited proficiencv in English, the group employed a wide range of
strategiesduring the joint construction activitv. The following extract illustrates how they
collaborated to produce their text:
Classroom transcript 2
Su: I am u'riting to apply for the job . . . (compares with model) in the CES todav . . .
Ka: In the service station . . . in the nel4'sPaPer. . . Spanish. . . new-sPaPer
206 ANNE BURNS
The final version of the letter by this group of learners is reproduced below and is
representative of similar texts completed by other groups in the classduring this activity.
TH€ HAOECE?
te\ytc€ .fTBT/dl./
ADotzss
Deap,,rB/ ua)a// ,
R€: aoroQ ,E1*411 JOt
'1'
t o. -")fi? /" ter /he7ob
.
o, -fuf
?ryo?
-.chant4r1.,6 lhe C.€.f. tc4r.
.t!- ha-ve vork4 a.r elo? taeclauL {o, d
',o
fQrt 4 getn.rmczl tcrrtZ? tja/rba.
f fflffE"arinuis q*'aio,h (teqo,pe.j) a.,a
It can be observed that the learners hut'. dtu*l tPon th. *od.l ptot h..
ro
to structure
structure the
the texlapplggiarQ\'in
text a terms gf Uygl*and oveEU-Pls!]3nIation.ln
addition ^
thev ha , *,i* fi"-$<ltrlg and-lllesgrel!-sl+eneral-.
I O I I O \ \ - e Oby
n t r o ( l u c t l o n , follorved
p u r p O S e C O m t n g a S a n lintroduction, D)- a c c o u n I s g,f
accounts O I plet*i-o-gs
Pre\ lous eexperience,
xPerlence,
rl
""ffiheyhavealsowrittenaiuitabIeconclusionwFctr-reI-ers
--i-:-l-- |
and lncludesa contact numDer'
to the reterence
Although these learners are at the beginning stage in their second-language
developmenl, they havebeen able to produce a fairly effective text approximating the genre,
'letter
of job application'. I believe that this u'as made possiblebecausethe approach taken
Note
I am grateful to the other participants in the NCELTR Literacy Project and in particular-to
their advice and contributions to the writing of this
J".rniHam-ond and Eileen Lustig for
PaPer.
References
ProfciencyTfuough
oJSpeaking
Brindley,G. (1919) TheAssessment Sydney:
the Oral Interviev'.
AMES.
j. ( 1988) Teaching FactualWriting: A GenreBased Approacfi.Report of
-the M. and Rother,v,
Callaghan,
DSP Literacv Project, Metropolitan East Region. Sydney: NSW School Education
Deoartment.
Cope, W (1989) A historicalbackgroundto current curriculumchangesand the shift to gente.
Presentationat the First LERN Conference,SydneJ'.
H a l l i d a y , M . A . K .( 1 9 8 5 )A n l n t r o d u c t i o n t o F u n c t i o n a l G r a mLm
oan rd.o n :E d w a r d A r n o l d .
Halliday, M.A.K. and Hasan, R. (1985) Language, context and text:Aspects oJlanguage in a social
semjoticpercpective. Geelong, Victoria: Deakin University Press'
Hammond, J. (1989)'The NCELTR LiteracyProiect.'Prospect 5, 1: 23-30.
- (1990) Collaboratingin LiteraqrTeachingand Research. Paper presented at 26th Annual
TESOL Convention, SanFrancisco.
Martin, J.R. (1985) FactualwtitinB: Exploringand Challenging SodalReality.Geelong,Victoria:
Deakin Universitv Press.
Martin, J.R. and Rothery, J. (19S0) Writing Project,ReportNo. l,WorkingPapers in LinguisticsNo.
1. Universityof Sydnel':Department of Linguistics.
-(1981) WritingProject,ReportNo.2,WorkingPapersinLinguisticsNo.2.UniversityofSydney:
Department of Linguistics.
Chapter 13
A. SureshCanagarajah
Introduction
Ever since the British colonial polr'er brought the whole island of (then) Ceylon under its
control in 1796 and instituted English education to create a supportive lower administrative
work force, English has functioned as a valued linguistic capital over the local Sinhalaand
Tamil languagesto provide socioeconomic advantagesfor native Lankans.Although since
1956 (8 years after independence), "leftist" governments have professed to raise the status
of Sinhala (and, to a limited extent, Tamil), it is the English-speakingbilinguals who have
dominated the professionsand social hierarchy. On the other hand, the democratization or
popularization of English promised bv "rightist" governments has only amounted to
providing limited mobility into low'er-middle-class rungs for aspirants whose newly acquired
English is marked as a nonprestige "sub-standard Sri Lankan English" (see Kandiah, 1979).
These developments have historicallv disgruntled the monolingual majority to make them
perceive English as a double-edged weapon that frustrates both those who desire it as well
asthose who neglect it (Kandiah, 1984). Similarly,in theTamil society,whereasthe emergent
militant nationalism has unleashed a Tamil-only and even "pure Tamil" movement, such
parallel developments as t}re exodus to the West or the cosmopolitan capital as economic
and political refuges have bolstered English to assurethe dominance of English bilinguals
and to attract monolinguals.
As for English language teaching, the teachers, administrators, and general public in
Sri Lanka agree that English languageteaching is a "colossal failure" (de Souza, 1969, p. 1.81
considering the vast resourcesexpended on tlris enterprise by the state andWestern cultural
agencies.Though all identify the problem as one of student motivation, they differ as to
why students are unmotivated. Hanson-Smith (1984), a U.S. TESOL consultant, and
Goonetilleke (1983), a local professor of English, fault the educational system. In the
university, for instance, thev perceive that the requirements for English are not stringent
enough to motivate studentsto take the subject as seriously as other subjects.Both, however,
are in agreement that English does a u'orld of good for Sri Lankan students:"English is
learned not primarilv to communicate with other Lankans . . but to converse with the
world at large - and not just the world of technologv and machines, but also of dreams.
aspirationsand ideals"(Hanson-Smith,1984, p. 30).BecauseKandiah (1984), on the other
hand, is of the view that the dreams encouragedbv English are illusory (as English learning
does not challengebut in fact perpetuatesinequality) and its ideals are suspectedby students
'
of resulting in cultural deracination, he seesthe problem of motivation differently: "1The
ETHNOGRAPHYOF A SRI LANI(AN CLASSROOM zTL
reasonswhy thev lack this motivation are socioeconomic-political"(p. 132). The present
study developed as an attempt to arbitrate between these divergent approaches to the
problems of motivation w-ith empirical data becausethe papers of the above scholars were
largely impressionistic and simply imputed to students attitudes neither systematically
o b s e r v e dn o r e l i c i t e d .
Method
We must interrogate cultures, ask what are the missing questions they answer,probe
the invisible grid of context, inquire what unsaid propositions are assumed to the
invisible and surprising external forms of cultural life. If we can supply the premises,
dynamics, logical relations of responsesrvhich look quite untheoretical and lived out
"merely" as cultures, we lvill uncover a cultural politics. (p 18)
Practicing such a committed, value-laden ethnography does not mean that we can ignore
Watson-Gegeo's (1988) warning that "true ethnographic work is systematic, detailed and
rigorous, rather than anecdotal or impressionistic" (p. 588). Hence, an intensive participant
observation of the ESOL classI taught 5 hrlweek was carried out for an academic vear
(November 1990 to J ulv 199 1 1.Though it is possible that my dual roles as teacher and
researcher could create certain tensions (as could be expected in any observation by a
participant), mv teaching also created certain advantagesw-hich I would have lacked as a
detached observer. My daily interaction r,r-iththe students in negotiating meanings through
English and participating in the students' successesand failures,'with the attendalnt,r".dio
revise my own teaching strategv,provided a vantagepoint to their perspectives.Moreover,
2I2 A. SURESH CANAGARAJAH
I enjoyed natural accessto the dailv exercisesand notes ofthe students and the record ol
their attendance u,ithout having to foreground my role as researcher. As the teachinE
progressed,I stumbled into other naturalistic data that provided insights into students' o$Tr
point of .i,i"*' of the course, such as the comments students had scribbled during classtime
in the margins of the textbook (which, due to frequent losses,was distributed before each
classand collected at the end).
To add a chronological dimension to the study, I situated the other methods of data
collection at significanf points in the progression of the course. During the first week of
classes,I conducted a free recall procedure, askingthe studentsto jot down their impressions
ofEnglish. I also gavea detailed questionnairecovering their social and linguistic background
to be completed at home. At the end of the course, but before their final examination,
I conducted an oral interview with the students in my office to analyze their responsesto
the course, textbook, and learning English in general. Though I invited the students for a
15-min interview, eventually each interview ranged from 70 to 90 min. Becausesome
students preferred to converse with me in the company of anotJrerclassmate,I permitted
-
them to meet me in pairs. Even then, 7 students, all females, failed to turn uP probablr'
reflecting the taboo on close interpersonal relations between the sexesinThmil society.The
interview, Iike the questionnaire, was inThmil so that students could express themselves
freely. (Such data is presented below, in translation, unless otherwise stated. The original
Thmil is cited only w'hen discursively significant.)
The ouestionnaire and the interl.iew modules were constructed in such manner as to
enable cross-checking of sttrdents' opinions. In the questionnaire, the 6rst part surveyed
students' educational backgrounds and exposure to English.The second part surveyed the
educational and socioeconomic background ofthe parents.The third part provided a set o[
true/false statements to test more obliquely students' attitudes toward the use of English.
The final part contained open-ended questionsthat further sampledtheir attitudes, allowing
comparison of these with their previous statements. Though the final interview u'as
prestructured, I shifted topic freel,v according to the flow of conversation. Questions 1-l
queried the attitude of the students towards English in relation to their other courses:
of the
Questions 4-7 checked their response to the organization and cultural content
textbook; 8 and 9 sampled t}re effects of English learning on their thinking and identitr:
10-1,2 invited a critique of the pedagogv and curriculum; 13-15 explored their use of
English outside the class;and 16-18 solicited their recommendations for the improvement
of the course. Some of the similar questions in the interview then enabled me to comPar€
the motivation and attitudes of the students with their opinions stated in the questionnaire
in the beginning of the course.The other modes of data collection, too, enabled me tc
authenticate the data more effectively through triangulation (see Denzin, 1970). For
instance, the lived culture of the students (as recorded in my field notes and student-.'
comments in the textbook) was at odds with their stated opinions in the interview anc
questionnaire, compelling me to reconstruct more complex hypotheses to explain thei:
attitudes.
The course
The classthat I observed consisted of 22 flrst-vear students in the arts and humanities at th.
University of Jaffna.The ESoL course is mandatorv for all students of the faculty of arr'
A pass is required in ESOL to qualifv for admission to the second year. For eligibili:
to specializein a specific subject from the second vear onwards, students are required :
score at least a B on the ESOL exam in the first sitting. It is from the second year that Engl:'
ETHNOGRAPHYOF A SRI LANI(AN CLASSROOM 2I3
teaching is structured into English for specific purposes (ESP), catering to the different
subject specialties.The first-year course is basedon English for general purposes (EGp;,
providing practice in all four skills.
Because the course is structured around a core text, it is necessarv to discuss the
organization of AmericanKernel Lessons (AKL):Intermediare(O'Neill, Kingbury,Yeadon, and
Cornelius, 1978). We have to remember that such prepackagedmaterial, which comes wit}
a teachers' manual, testing kit, and audiotapesfor listening comprehension, represents "a
direct assault on the traditional role of the teacher as an intellectual whose function is to
conceptualize,designand implement learning experiencessuited to the specificity and needs
of a particular classroom experience" (Aronorvitz and Giroux, 1985, p. 149). Although
teachers in the Universitv of Jaffna realize these problems, the limitations of time, funds,
stationerv.and printing facilities in w-ar-torn Jaffnaeventually drive them to use texts such as
,4KI which have been amply gifted bvWestern agenciessuch asthe Asia Foundation. If existing
books become dated, teachershave to simply'w.aitfor the next consignment of material.
As the title implies, the text is targeted towards intermediate-level students and focuses
on the tenses,using eclectic methods organizedaround a predominantlv situationalapproach
(see Richards and Rodgers, 1986). Each unit contains five parts. PartA introduces the
grammatical item for that unit through a set of "situations," accompaniedby visuals.Part B,
labeled Formation and Manipulation, introduces the grammatical item more overtly and
provides pattern practice. Part C is a serialized detective story that introduces new
vocabulary in addition to providing practice in reading/listening comprehension. Part D
presentsa conversation for role pl"ftg, r,vhereasthe final part containsguided composition.
The last t$'o parts also provide grammar revision exercises.Though grammar is presented
overtly in some sections, in most others, students are encouraged to formulate their ovi'n
hypothesesinductively through active use ofthe languagein specific skills.
It is also necessaryto analyzethe ideologies that structure the text in order to place in
context the attitudes and responsesof tJle students to the course. What stands out in the
note, "To the Student andTeacher,"in the beginning of the text is the concern with providing
adequate"practice" so that students w'ill "progress" in the "fundamentals of English" which
intermediate students "still cannot seem to use correctl)', easily and as automatically as they
w'ould like" (O'Neill et a|.,1978,p. vi).The languageechoesbehaviorismand assumesthat
with sufficient drill, students can be made to display habit-oriented automatic responses.
Furthermore, the fundamentals of English are considered autonomous, value-free
grammatical structures (in the fashion of U.S. structuralism), ignoring the culture and
ideologies that inform the language or the textbook. The students themselves are isolated
from their social context, and there is no consideration of how their own linguistic and
cultural backgrounds can affect or enhance their learning. In its concern with correctness
(which, of course, is based on standard U.S. English rath-erthan on the Englishesstudents
bring with them), the textbook empo\!€rs the teacher asthe sole autlority ii th. .lr.rroorn
to regulate, discipline, and arbitrate the learning process.Such assumptionsamount to what
Giroux (1983) hasidentified as instrumental ideology (p. 209).Though,4KI acknowledges
the need to make learning an "enjoyable experience" and also provides opportunities for
collaborative pair work, these attempts provide only occasional relief from t}e largely
positivistic pedagogy.
In fairness to AKL, we have to note that certain sectionsare influenced by the notion of
communicative competence lr.ith advice to students that "the situations themselves are more
important than isolatedrvords" (O'Neill et a\.,1978, p. v). However, the interactions and
the discourse employed in such situations assumean urbanized, technocratic, Western
culture that is alien to the students. Even such simple speechactivities as conversationsare
2I4 A. SURESH CANAGARAJAH
The class
The classconsisted of 13 female and 9 male nativeTamil students, of whom 3 were Rom":-
Catholics and the rest Hindus.These students had failed the initial placement test in EngL=-
and fared among the worst among the new entrants for that academic year. Thev u'er=
enrolled in a range of subjects related to the humanities and social sciencesbesides*-.
mandatory ESOL. A majorit,v of these students were from rural communities and from tr:,=
poorest economic groups. Except for 4 students whose parents were in clerical or teachir-:
professions(thus earning the relatively decent sum of 1000 rupees, or US$25 a month
the other parents did not have steadyjobs or salaries.In the latter group, some were tenar----
farmers, and others were seasonalcasuallaborers.The families of the students had also ha:
limited education. Only one student's parents had proceeded beyond Grade 10.The Paren-
of 5 others had not completed an elementary school education.
Furthermore, the students came from backgrounds in which English held limittj
currency. Only 8 students said their parents had managedto studv some elementary Engli=:
in school. Of these, 3 reported that their parents might listen to English programs on the
multilingual television or radio. Five reported that their parents could be expected to uttc.
some English words if they encountered foreigners or if need arosein their workplace. None
of them could read or write English. Considering the students themselves,although 18 hal
satfor the Grade 10 Englishlanguagetest, only 10 had managedto scorea simple pass(i.t..
a grade op 4go/oS.Threestudents reported that they had read English newspapers/books '--.r
seen English films - although thev could not remember the titles of any. Fourteen rePorte'l
that they might occasionall-vswitch on some English programs on radio or television.The
same number said they might code-mix English with friends or when thev needed a linr
language.
Precourse determination
When the universitv reopened belatedlv for the academic year, it was after much doubt as
to whether it would continue to function at all because renewed hostilities between d:=
Sinhalagovernment andTamil nationalistshad brought life to a standstill in theTamil regior-
Yet students trickled in from jungles where thev had taken refuge from the fighting - ;
some cases,trekking hundreds of miles b,vfoot. In a country where only a small percenta!.
of all those u'ho annually qualify for tertiary education do get admission,the students valut:
their university degreessufficiently to turn up for classes.As a grim reminder of the violen: .
and tension that u'ould continue to loom behind their studies, government fighter jt-.
screamedoverheadand bombed the vicinity of the university while the students were taki: -
the English placement test during the opening week of classes.
ETHNOGRAPHYOF A SRI LANI(AN CLASSROOM 2I5
Despite these problems or becauseof them, students were highlv motivated for studies
(including English), as is evident in an initial questionnaire I gavethem. Asked whether the,v
."vantedto study English at the universitv, all of the students replied in the affirmative.
How'ever, the intensitv of the feelings that accompanied their motivation is conveyed through
some of the other data in which students enjoyed more scope for free expression. Thiru
rvrote the following personal note at the end ofhis free recall procedure:
Students from remote villages profoundlv regretted not having enjoyed opportunities
to learn English earlier and admitted that it u,as belatedlv that they had realized the need
for the l"ngrrug.. Some of the male students includingThiru caught me alone a couple of
times in the first month (while I u.alked back to mv office after class)to impress upon me
their previous frustrations with the language and their present desire to master it in the
universitv.
The reasons for learning English however seemed predominantly utilitarian. In the
questionnaire,76.l04 stated"educationalneed" as their first preference(including 61 .9o/o
who considered this their sole chc;ice)."Job prospects"was cited by 19.20h,and"social
status"bv + .7oh."To travel abroad"was cited bv none. But the categoriesstudentsthemselves
proffered suggest motives that are more pragmatic or idealistic as they emerge through a
relatively open-ended later question. Students needed English (a) because ESOL is
mandatory in the universitl', 5 .8%o;(b) becausea passis required in the first-year test, 5 .8%;
(c) to pursue postgraduatestudies,5 .8oh; (d) to understandother cultures, 1 1.7o/o;(e) to
interact with a wider group of people, 14.70k;(f) to gather more information, 20.8%; (g)
to know an international language,23.5o/o;(h) "to become a complete person," 11.7o .
Although Motives a-c show a narrowlv pragmatic view of education, Motives d-g are less
so. And the final reason, w.hich is the most idealistic stated, suggeststhat students are not
alwayspurely utilitarian in their perspective. Some, Iike Lathan, insisted, "Through English
a student becomesa mulu manithan[i.e., a complete man]." In fact, when the question was
reframed as"What are the disadvantagesof being aTamil monolingual?" students expressed
a paralyzing senseof powerlessnessin the face of diverse peoples and circumstances.
Such high notions as Lathan's about the functions of English are confirmed in the
students' attitudes tow'ard English as a language.Although students would be expected to
resist English at a time of heightened linguistic nationalism and purism in the community
with political leaders daily condemning English, students' attitudes were, on the contrary,
quite positive. Except for one student (i.e., Supendran- whose remarkably consistent
opposition will be discussedlater), the rest disagreedrvith the statement "studying English
as a second languagewould create damageforThmil languageand culture." Similarly, for the
more personalized variant of this statement, "What are the social/personal disadvantages
that would occur to you by your use of English," all answered "none." Such a favorable
attitude on the part of the students is partly explained bv a phrase that kept recurring in
their responses:Englishasapothumoli (i.e, common language).It was evident that students
were not using this synonymouslv with sarvathesa moli or akila ulaka moli (i.e., international
language) with its usual connotations. When they used pothu moli in addition to the latter
terms, they seemed to use it'lvith the meaning that it was an "unmarked" languagethat
2T6 A. SURESH CANAGARAJAH
transcended the specific cultures and ideologies of different nations. So Gnani stated,
"Although it is the language of a particular nation, it is a common languagefor all people
and nations."
Although the relatively more spontaneousimpressions of the students in the free recall
procedure largeiy con{irm their positive attitudes toward English, they are also tinged with
fears and inhibitions. Hence, though a majority of the students associatedEnglish with
development, progress, learning, civilization, literacy, culture, social respect, and
personality',one can also detect other comments lvhich suggestthat studentsare not unaware
of the sociopsychological damage and politics of the language.Shanthi wrote:
Midcourse resistance
The inhibitions towards English which lay partly suppressedduring the initial period of the
course in the conscious responses of the students, came into relief in their largelr'
unconscious lived culture as the course proceeded. It is evident from the record of dailr
attendance that students faced problems in the course. Although students recorded an
impressive 94oh dail1,turn out for most of the first 2 months, at the end of the second month.
attendancefell to 500%.Studentsbegan to miss classesfor the slightest reason: to write
tutorials for another subject, to prepare for a test, to attend funerals offriends'relatives.
At times intense fighting in the district or the imposition of curfew also affected attendance.
But none of this deterred 90% of the students from attending from the eighth month as the
final examination was approaching, demanding that past test papers be done and revision
undertaken.
The comments, drawings, and paintings students had penned in the textbook are more
subtle evidence of the flagging interest of students. Becausestudents had written these
during class time, this activity suggested that topics other than English grammar had
preoccupied them u'hile teaching was going on. Although students had appeared to be
passivelyobserving or listening to the teacher, as required bv the instrumental pedagogv in
the class,the glossesin the text suggesta very active underlife. Unknown to the teacher.
students were communicating with each other or sometimes with tlemselves through these
glosses.The glossessuggestthe discoursesand themes that seem to have interested thr
students more than those in the textbook. In one sense, these are the discourses which
mediate for the students the situations) grammar, and languagetaught by the textbook. Ir:
another sense,these are students' counterdiscourses that challenge the textual languag..
values, and ideology. Hence, they deserve close examination.
Many of the glossesare inspired by the ongoing nationalist struggle for a separateTam;
state. For this reason, in Unit 1c, the picture of Fletcher (the protagonist in the detectir.
story) ashe is seatedin a prison cell is modified in a couple of textbooks. He hasbeen paintt
zLB A. SURESH CANAGARAJAH
andpromotionand identified
dorvnTamil svnonvmsfor nerv lexical items like adding,ftadition,
the unit was suPPosedto teach:"Hou'
some exampi.. of .ou.rtlnoncount structures rvhich
spend iast lveek?" Indran had
,.ru.ru.-plovees are at the bank? Holv much moneY did vou
items from the supposedlv
t."Ott nt't"r"d out the necessarl grammatical and l'ocabular'"'
interesting conversation'
trend' On the one
What the lived culture of the students suggestsis a dual oppositional
and textbook' On the other
hand, the,v oppose the alien discourses behi"d the language
hand, the,vopposea process-orientedpedagogy and desirea product oriented one' Indran's
-connected,
,rotebook ,.,gg.rt, that both trends could be Seeinglittle possibilitv of relating
for the
r,vhattheV l#n.d to their sociocultural background., students saw'Iittle meaning
the examination and satisfying
course other than the formal, academicone of i'cti.tg through
the English requirements of the institution'
Postcourse contradiction
impressions of the content
Although the final intervierv rvith the students soliciting their ou'n
on their lived culture'
urrd oriu.irution of the course confrrmed some of the observations
which subjects they had
it also contradicted many findings at least at face value. Asked
mentioned their different
enjo-vedmost and rvhictrthev ha"dlvorked hardest in, students
English for the latter' When
,nf;".,, of specializationfor ih" fornr.. but unanimousll' cited
their claim, I rva'
t pol.,t"d orrt th" flagging attendance in English and contradicted
the students in the classhad
confronted r.vitha ,rr.p?iri.,"gpiece of evid"n.".1h. majoritv of
As Indran put it-conclu-
been going for private lnstriction in English outside the universitv.
for tutoring, thus spending additionai
sio.ehi,Foino oth". subject in the univeisitv do'"ve go
our motivation tc
timeand monev on it.The fact that rve do this onlv for English.proves
had done at the beginnin;
master the language."The students continued to affirm, as thev
of the cours", th. .r".d for English and the prioritv thev had given to it'
was potentiallv ar'
The admission that .trrdJ.tt, had sought heip outside the class
what it_was that tht
indictment of the universitv ESOL course-.I then began exploring
thev were not getting in the universit'
students were getting in theii private instruction that
- if they used anv a:
It appeared thit the iutoru ou"r" using Sri I ankan or Indian textbooks
value in these courses I'
ull.'ti,rt it lvas not the cultural ,.I"tu.t." that students seemed to
\\"ere overtly grammx
much as the grammar instruction. In fact, the texts and pedagogv
(using lexical borrow'ing'
oriented and u'ere rarely contextualized.Tharma praisedhis tutor
'cleared' the 'grammar'"'
from English):"He
for gramma:
Othlr questions in the interr,ielv confirm the desire of the students
thev had enjoved and rn'hic-
oriented instruction.When askedrvhich section of the textbook
thev found the gramma--
thev had found useful ( 13 out of the 15 intervierved) replied that
useful although thev had variously enjoyed t:'
tubi", u.d exercises (Sections b and e)
these distinction:
serialized storv, conversation,and listening sections.Some conflated -
said ihat she enjoved the grammlr section "because it is useful for the tes:
Jeyanthi
to learn the rules ':
Statements such as luuu.rJh;. r.u."l""d that the desire of the students ''--
motivation. In fact.
grammar prescriptivelv was related to an examination-oriented
aspects.Lat-:
final 3-hr,,vritten test featured mostlv discrete-item questionson formal
course r:
asked specificallv u'hat the students had initiallv hoped to achier''ethrough.this
said, "l expected::-'"
the extlnt to nfuich the course had fulfilled their expectations, Siva
n e c e s s a r yg r a m : - -
t h e c o u r s e u ' o u l d p r e P a r em e l o r t h e t e s t ' . . t h a t i s . c o r e r t h e
agreed that the co--
comprehensivelv."It rtas.rot surprising, then, lvhen all eventuallv
had failed to satisfvtheir expectations'
ETHNOGRAPHYOF A SRI LANI(AN CLASSROOM 22I
The recommendations of the students for a more effective ESOL course that r,vould
also successfullymotivateTamil studentsn-asquite predictable.Tharmaarguedthat a more
grammar-basedtextbook should replace,1K1.Vilvan expounded, "Grammar should be given
primacv and covered first since this is crucial for other areaslike listening, reading, or
speaking."Most students agreed that grammar has to be taught first before "w.astingtime"
on skills and activities. Other recommendations also confirmed a product-oriented,
examination-basedmotivation:"More notes should be provided . . more homework should
be given to retain grammar . . . allovr.textbooks to be taken home for personal stud,v. . .
teach more slor,vlv. . . " Onlv a couple also added: "Provide more communicative tasks
. . . get more culturallv relevant textbooks."
Moving on to the attitudes of the students to the cultural content of the textbook, here
againsome observationson their lived culture lr-ere contradicted. Studentsdid not perceive
anv threats stemming from the foreign culture. Some students disclosed that they had
actuall-venjoved learning about life in the U.S. In fact, becausestudents failed to understand
the force of mv questions, I often had to reframe the questions to highlight the issue of the
damageU.S. valuesand lifestvle could do to their subjectivitv or culture.When I pointed
to instanceswhere details of people, places,and situationshad confused them, students
agreed that these had created some confusion especiallvat the beginning of the course but
added that these difliculties rvere outrveighed bv the nerv and interesting information that
thev could gather from the textbook. Thev rvent on to state that ,4KI '"vas"interesting,"
although not "useful" - perhaps from the examination point of vier,r-.
Discussingnext their impressidnsof U. S. societ\',thev listed a varietv of both positive
and negative features rvith tvpical academic poise. Although thev observed the individual
freedom, technologicaldevelopment,comfort, and liberai relationshipbetr,veenthe sexes,
thev also stressedthe subtle forms of racism, social inequalitl', "decadence,"and imperialism
(although it u.asnot clear rvhere in the text thev saw'the last feature displaved).Asked hou'
these had influenced their ou'n r.alues and behavior, students displaved a remarkable
detachment tou'ards this clashof cultures. Jevanthisaid, "We don't haveto accept evervthing:
We can take the good and leave out the bad." It has to be observed that the students'relaxed
attitude to',vard U. S. culture (at least in their statements)might result from making culture,
too, a product - something to be learnt for its information value and stored in memory.
Although the retrospective statements of'most students are at tension rvith their lived
culture, it was Supendran r,vhodisplaved a remarkable consistencv.Supendran, r.vhocame
from a remote rural communitv and lvhose nonliterate parents iacked anv formal education,
entered the universitv relativelv late after u'orking as a teacher in his community. He did
not go for private tutoring - partlv due to lack of finances.Rather than being examination
oriented or desiring grammar-basedinstruction, Supendranrvanted Englishto equip him
to serve his own communitv: "to enable me to help mv village folk to draft official letters
to institutions, to read documents rve receive from the state, to understand foreign news
broadcasts, to read labels on fertilizers and farm equipment." Therefore, Supendran was
the onlv student rvho categoricallv stated "llKl has to go." He w.anted a textbook and
pedagogvthat w'asnot just communicative,but aiso basedon local culture: "Rather than
talking about apples, talk about mangoes; rather than talking about apartment houses,talk
about village huts. Are lve all emigrating to America? Nol Some of us rviil continue to live
here." Being the single student rvho consistentlv stated that English posed a cultural threat,
he sought deep social relevance from the teaching and textbook.
Before concluding the storr of our classroomlife, it is necessarvto provide at least
sufficient information to enable a consideration of hou,'mv ow-nsubject positions could have
contributed to the construction of student attitudes and classroom culture.Younq (in mv
222 A. SURESH CANAGARAJAH
At face value, the findings of the studv seem inconclusir.e,if not contradictory. On the ont
hand, studentsseemedto graduallvlose motivation in the course,asit was most objectivel:
displavedin their record of attendance.There is reasonto beiieve that this drop in motivailo:-
*u, ."lut"d to an oppositional response to the threats posed bv the discourse inscribed i:
the language,pedagog,v,and the textbook. At the verv least, students were experiencing .
tension or discomfort in the confrontation bet',veenthe discourse they preferred and th.
discoursesinforming the ESOL course. But, on the other hand, studentsinsistedthat ther
w-orked hardest in Eirglish compared to all the other subjects (which is true becauset]rtl.
had been attending private.lurr", as rvell).Thev maintained, as they did in the beginnir:;
of the course, the importance of English and the high priority given to learning the language
Thev went further to insist that thev enjor-ed learning Western culture and using the U. !
textbook (although thev did not find them useful from the examination point of vieu'1. b-
general, the oppositional attitude w'asmanifested in the largelv unreflected, untheorizt:
lived culture of the studentsemerging from their glossesin the textbooks and my field not.. "
the receptive attitude emergesfrom the more consciousexpressionof their views in ti:.
q u e s t i o n n a i r easn d i n t e r v i e r v s .
As arvay of reconciling this tension, rve have severaloptions:We can suppressone s.:
of data in favor of the other; !\'e can judge the students as confused and contradictin;
themselves;or we can simplv fault the methodologv.Not seeingvalid reasonsto do anr -:
this, I find it challenging to preserve both sets of data and consider how both attitud..
of the students displav a complex response to the learning of English. It appearsthat tie .=
dual attitudes simplv dramatize the conflict students faced in the course between the thre:'-.
of cultural alienation experienced intuitivelv or instinctivelv and the promises o: .
socioeconomicnecessitvacknolvledgedat a more consciouslevel.The studentsexperien;=-
discomfort in the face of the alien discourses,although thev do not theorize about it. B--
this experience has to be juxtaposed rvith their a',varenessof the powerful discoursesu'f' , '
-
glorif-vthe roie of English(such as those of policvmakers Goonetilleke, 1983, and Hans
Smith, 198+), the pressurefrom the educationalsvstem to displavproficiency in Eng-..
ETHNOGRAPHYOF A SRI LANI<AN CLASSROOM 223
the interests thev serve becauseminoritr,' cultures are steeped in traditions of domination
as *'ell as resistance.Without delving too much into horv this favored pedagogv of Tamiis
traditionallv bolstered their caste structure and religious hierarchv, \'ve can proceed to its
contemporarv implications for the students discussedin this study.We must remember that
such a pedagogvencouragesa teacher-controlled,nondialogic,"banking" style oflearning
that is knolr.n to reproduce the dominant values and social relations of an oppressivelv
stratilied societv (seeFreire, 1970; Giroux, 1983).
Furthermore, though a formaiistic approach to the abstract rules of "standard English"
might appear to preserve students from the more obvious cuitural content associatedw'ith
the communicative orientation of the course, it in no lvav savesthem from other forms ot
domination: It disconlirms the Englishesstudentsbring u'ith them; it pre\,entsstudents from
interrogating their or'vnculture and societv through literacl''; it fails to alter the unfavorable
subject positions belonging to monolingual and English-incompetentLankans.Nor does
the formalistic approach enable students to effectivelv internalize the rules of the language
or progress rupia-tyin fluent languageuse. In the in-course assessmentscarried out to
monitor their progress, the majoritv of the students continued to score below the passing
grade.Thev remained u-ith the smattering of "marked" English thev brought with them.
What all this implies is that these students u'ill continue to occupv the marginalized position
accordedto the monoiingual, poorlv educated,rural poor in a socialsystemdominated br
the English-speaking,bilingual, urban middie class(seeKandiah, 1984). Ironically, the desire
for grammar-oriented learning onlv influencesstudents to accept these limitations more
uncritically and give in to sotial reproduction.
Hence, although on one level the grammatical approach w'hich is a culturallr'
mandated, indigeno"usform of learning - eiables studentsto somewhat resist the ideological
thrusts of the foreign languageand textbook, it is doubtful w.hether we can glorify this as a
form of radical "resistance"as Kandiah (1984) implies.This is not to denv that the studr
sympathizes u'ith Kandiah's explanation of lack of motivation in ESOL students as being
a result of the sociopolitical impiications of English in Sri Lanka; the study also refutes
the alternativeexplanationsof Goonetilleke (1983) and Hanson-Smith(1984) that this is
simplv a consequenceof the educationalpolicv rvhich makes studentsgive more time to
rival subjectseven though students are convinced ofthe benefits ofEnglish.Yet Kandiah
fails to grapple u'ith the complexitv of students' opposition '"vhichhasto be qualified by their
belief in the benefits of English, resulting in examination-oriented motivation. This tension
results eventually in their giving in to social and ideological reproduction through English
It becomes important therefbre to unravel the ambiguous strands of students' behavior
with the help of Giroux ( 19 8 3) u'ho rvarns that the concept of resistancemust not be allou'ed
to become a categorv indiscriminatelv hung o\:er everv expressionof "oppositional behavior-
(p. 109). Thus, Giroux distinguishes betrveen resistance, which he sees as displaying
ideological ciaritv and commitment to collective action for social transformation from mert
opposition,which is unclear, ambivalent, and passive.Har.ing analvzedthe effects of classroon"l
behavior in the larger historical and social contexts, we can say that the responsesanc
attitudes of the students do not fall under Giroux's definition of radical resistance.Student.
fail to sustainconsciousness-raising or collective critical action.Theirs is largely a vague.
instinctive oppositional behavior r,vhich,due to its lack of ideological clarity, ironicall'.
accommodates to their reproductive forces. It is perhaps in Supendran we see any signs c:
consciousresistancethat displav potential for the development ofa radical pedagogy for th.
Lankan context.The behar,iorof most other studentsin the classis an ambivalent stater.l-hic:.
contains elements of accommodation as lvell as opposition in response to the conflictir. -
pulls of socioeconomic mobilitr', on the one harrd, and cultural integritv on the other.
ETHNOGRAPHYOF A SRI LANI(AN CLASSROOM 225
Hou,'ever,the prospects for a pedagogv of resistance for such students is not all that
b l e a k .G i r o u x ( 1 9 8 3 ; i s q u i c k t o p o i n t o u t :
The foregoing studl'has been conducted in the same spirit and for the same objectir,'es.
It attempts to disentangle the conflicting strands in the classroom culture of marginalized
students,to expose the accommodative impulses and encouragethe potential for resistance,
in order to fashion a pedagogv that is ideologicallv liberating as rvell as educationally
meaningful for such students.
References
'ldeologv
Althusser,L. (1911) and ideologicalstate apparatuses'
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Aronowitz, S., and Giroux, H. (1985) Education undersiege:Theconservative,
liberaland radical
debateoverschooling.South Ha8ler',N{A: Bergin and Garvev.
'The
Benson,M. J (1989) academiclistening task: A casestudr''. TESOL@rarterly, 23(31,
+214+s.
Bourdieu, P., and Passeron,l-P. (1917) Reproduction in educafion,
socienand culture.London:
Sage.
S., and Gintis, H. (1916) Schoolngin capitalist,Lmerica.
Bovr..les, Nell'York: BasicBooks.
'The
de Souza,D. (1969,April) teachingof Engiish'. TheCe1'lon pp. 18 29.
Observer,
Denzin,\M (1970) Theresearch acr.Chicago:Aldine.
'lndia
Emeneau,M. B. (1955) and linguistics'.JournaloJ the AmericanOrientalSociery,
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People'sEnghshin SouthAfrica'. TESOL@Larterly,23(3), +01 420.
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teaching:A
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(Pt. 3, pp. 113 1-1 144). Colombo,Sri Lanka:Ministr-v of Education and CulturalAffairs.
Stubbs,M. (1976) Language,schools London: Methuen.
andclassrooms.
Watson-Gegeo,K. A. (1988)'Ethnographvin ESL: Defining the essentials'.IESOI Qgarteily,
22(+\,515-592.
Weis, L. (1985) Betweentwo worlds,B\ack studentsin an urban communitycollege.Boston:
Routiedge.
Wickramasuriva,S.(1981)'James de Alu.is and second languageteaching in Sri Lanka'.
4, 11-29.
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,cter I4
J. KeithGhicl<
SAFE-TALI(: C0LLUSI0N IN
APARTHEID EDUCATION
Introduction
- T r H E R E I S w I D E S P R E A D A G R E E M E N T A M O N G S T o b s e r v e ras b o u t r , v h a t
I u-ere the essentiaicharacteristicsof interactionsin schoolsfor black people in South
:,irica under the former apartheid system: highlv centralised, rvith teachers adopting
.-rthoritarian roles and doing most of the talking, w.ith ferv pupil initiations, and u'ith most
: the pupil responsestaking the form of group chorusing.Schlemmer and Bot (1986: 801
::.port a senior African school inspector as stating that black pupils rvere discouraged from
..king questionsor participating activeh'in learning and explain that it rvas regarded as
.:rpolite and even insubordinateto ask questionsor make suggestionsin class.Thembela
'r986:41) refers to classroom
practice being characterisedbt'rote learning and teacher-
--cr-rtred instruction.
Most observers,moreover,agreethat the educationalconsequences of suchinteraction
.rvles w.ereunfortunate. Schlemmer and Bot (1985) andThembela (1985), for example,
:rque that the use of such stvles oppressedcreativit\.,initiative and assertiveness.MacDonald
1988) claims that there are aspectsof metacognition and disembedded thinking crucial to
rdr-ancedlearning and to effectir,efunctioning in a technological societv w-hich these stvles
rf interacting and learning did not promote.
I became verv a\\,are of the possible negative educational consequencesof the
'..erw.helmingpreference for such stvles of interaction in schools for black peopie in South
I r:ica. through mv involvement u,'ith in-service teacher education projects w.hich had, as
. . ,r their primarv objectives, the fostering of communicati"'e approachesto the teaching
-nqlish in Kn'aZulu schools. (Kr,vaZulu rvas a patchu.ork of geographical areas on the
,.:ern seaboardof South Africa r.r'hich,in terms of apartheid policl-, r,vasdesignateda
, rneland'for Zulu people.At the time of the studv reported here, the total population of
,-,r.e speakersof Zulu rvasalmost sevenmillion; thev thus constituted the largest language
- irp in South Africa . Zulu speakerslive in manv parts of South Africa, but at that time
. :rroximateiv6ve million of them lived in Ku-aZulu.)
.\ number of the implementors of the in-serr.ice teacher education projects complained
'-rtthe reluctanceof manv of the teachers,and even some of the students,to adopt the
228 J. KEITH CHICK
-\lost researchreports implv that the researchwhich thev are reporting on proceeded in
lerv orderlv and logical lvavs, and that the researchers,from the outset, lvere more
know-ledgeableand insightful than ther- actuallv rvere. The false starts, the partial
understandings and the dead ends do not feature. In this chapter I r,r'ill be departing from
this tradition, and sharing rvith mv readers the often tortuous paths I follorved in exploring
the significanceof interactional stvles n'idelv emploved in schoolsfor black people in South
\frica.
To begin r,vith, I report on mv micro-ethnographic analvsisof an episode in a lesson in
a KwaZulu classroom.The general goal of micro-ethnographic analvsisis to provide a
description of horv interlocutors set up or constitute contexts that allorv t}em to make sense
,rf one another's messages.Mv specificpurpose llas to trv to establishw'hy teachers and
.tudents in such classrooms found it difficult to transfer to stvles compatible r,vith com-
n.runicativelanguage teaching.The analvsisreveals interactional behaviour consistent
"vith
the putatir.e Zulu-English interactional stl'les identified in the interethnic encounters
referred to above. More significantlv,it reveals that such stvles served valuable social
tunctions for students and teachers alike.This could account for r,.,'hvteachers and students
nere reluctant to abandonsuch stvles,despitethe fact that the academicconsequencesof
.uch oreference \\'ere probabh' unfortunate.
I then explain hoiv mv gior.-ing a\\'arenessof the limitations of micro-ethnographic
researchin general,and explanatio.ps of pervasiveschoolfailure amongstdominated groups
.n terms of culturallr'-specificinteractionalstvlesin particular,prompted me to rr-cranrine
:lv classroominteractional data. Critics havepointed out that micro-ethnographicsturliei
,iten take insufficient account of holv p..o'uiir'. r'alues,ideologies and structures in tht
rlider societ) (macro context) constrain rvhat takes place at a micro lelel..{ccordinqh. I
.ive an account of the historical, structural circumstancesrvhich contributed to making
'--.rimarvschool education for most teachersand studentsin so-calledblack education in
,partheid SouthAfrica such a traumatic experience.Finaliv I offer a reinterpretation of the
,nalvsed data. I suggestthat what is most significantlv displayed in this episode is not
-ulturally-specificZulu interactional stvles,but stvlesconsistentlvith interactional norms
,.tri.t'rt"".tr"rs and studentsinteractionulh'.o.r.titl,ted asa means of avoiding the oppressive
-.nddemeaning effects of apartheid ideologv and structures. Follou.ing McDermott and
Tr lbor (1987) I see the teacher and her studentsas colludingin preserving their dignitv bv
:.rdingthe fact that little or no learning is taking place.While serving the short-term interests
iteachers and students,such strategies,I suggest,contributed to the lvidelv documented
'.rghfailure rate in black education in apartheid SouthAfrica, and made teachersand students
:rsistant to educationalinnovation.The strategiesthus served to reinforce and reproduce
:he inequalities betu'een the r.arious population groups r.vhichcharacterised apartheid
. rciet)..
.\-ith the goal, then, of trving to estabiishrvhv manv teachers and students in KwaZulu
,:hools resistedthe adoption ofegalitarian, decentralisedq'avsofinteracting, I carried out
. nne-grained micro-ethnographic anaivsisof an episode in a video recorded mathematics
,sson, initiallv rvith the help of Marianne Claude (rr'ho had observed the lesson rvhile it
''astaking place) and, later, independentlr'.I selectedthis episodefrom the corpus collected
230 J. I(EITH CHICI(
bv Marianne Claude becauseit contains features that I had observed in many lessonstaught
bv t.u.h.., rvho rvere highlv regarded either bv students or-b1'school authorities in the
(*-uZrl1, educational,yri"-. In other u'ords, I chosepart of a'good'lesson. I did this to
's
ensurethat I u.ould be analvsingconventional'targeted'behaviourin Lakoff sense'I chose
a content subject rather than an Engiish lesson so as to lessenthe chance that the teacher's
style might have been influenced bv Marianne claude's intervention.
I baied the analvsison methods developed bv interactional socio-linguists(see, for
example, Gumperz 1982a1u'ho,rather than impose their ow'n categories,attemPt to access
the inierpretative or inferential processesofthe participants bv repeatedly playing t1revideo
or .orr.rd recordings to the participants and/or informants who share their cultural
backgrounds, and bu eliciting interpretations from them about pro€ressively finer detaiis
of thJ dis.ourse. I make use of transcription conventions rvhich highlight the nature of turn
exchange and which provide information about the supra-segmentalphonology of the
episodel Latch marks 1 l-1 u." used to shou- smooth exchange of turns r'vithout overlap,
while square brackets are used to signifv simultaneous speech ( [ ). Underlining is used to
signify phonological prominence such as stressor marked pitch movement.The'shape' of
ttt. plt.t, movement is indicated above the part of the utterance rvhere this occurs' and so
.t .
( ) s l g n l h e sr l s l n g t o n e .
Relevant contextual information is that the classconsisted of 3 B students of both sexes
rvho lvere native speakersof Zulu, lvhose averageage at the time was fourteen years, and
w.ho u,ere in their seventh vear of schooling (the fourth vear of the Senior Primary phase).
The teacher, w-hom I shall rdfer to as Mrs Gumbi, also a native Zulu speaker,was 32 years
of age and had completed ten vears of schooling and trvo vears of teacher training. Mrs
CnJt i conducted the entire lesson from the front of the ciassroom, making considerabie
use of the board. The students lvere cror,r,dedinto multiple-seat w'ooden desks arranged in
rorvs facing the board. The lesson took place through the medium of English. (ln KwaT,ulu
schools Engtistr served as the medium of instruction across the curriculum after the first
four vears of schooling through the medium of Zulu. )
'elements
n, th. uideo-recJrdi.rg ,'honus,the focus of the lesson u'as which form the
union set'. At the start of the lesson Mrs Gumbi introduced the notion of elements of a
union set u.ith the aid of the board. Elements r,vereu.ritten on the board, and common
elements pointed to. She individuallv nominated one student to answer a question but,
significantlv, onlv after the information to be provided had been written on the board. The
few other student responsestook the form of teacher-initiated group chorusing.
The lessoncontinued:
'. irar is immediatelv striking about this episode (as also the lesson as a rvhole) is the
:ncidenceofteacher volubilitv and student (particuiarlv individual student) taciturnity,
:'.:racteristicsof interactions in the formerlv segregatedschools for black people in South
-.::lca, which, as I noted above,havebeen commented upon bv manv observers.Mrs Gumbi
-. :his extract, as elsew.herein the lesson,does most of the talking. Indeed, of the total 19
.nutes duration of the lesson as a u'hole, five secondsshort of 16 minutes consistsof
::;her talk. Also the students'opportunities to talk (r,vithone or two exceptions) are
: u c e dt o g r o u p c h o r u s i n g .
\blubilitv on the part of the teacher, u'hich Scoilon and Scollon (1983) regard as a
..daritv strategv, and taciturnitv on the part of the students, which they regard as a
:r.rerlc€ strateg;-,is consistent w'ith the culturallr'-specific interactional styles I had found
.lence for in ml'analvsis of interethnic encountersbetrveenZulu-English speakersand
- -LthAfrican(u'hite) Englishspeakers(Chick 1985).Thisfinding might, therefore, be seen
. .ending credence to the notion that the interactional stvles emploved in KrvaZulu
232 J. I(EITH CHICI(
classroomsrvere similar to those used in a u'ide range of domains w'ithin the Zulu-speaking
communltv.
A problem for this interpretation is that teacher volubilitr'' and student taciturnity have
been shown to be characteristic of classroom discoursein manv parts of the lr-orld including
r,vhite,middle classEuropean (see, for example, Sinclair and Coulthard 1975) and USA
classrooms(see,for example, Mehan 1979).lndeed Ellis ( 1987: 87) suggeststhat teacher-
centred instruction, rvhich has been so pervasive in black education in South Africa, is
derived from classroompracticescommon in pre-lvar Europeanschools.An equally,if not
more plausible interpretation, is that teacher volubilitv and student taciturnitv are features
of instltutio.r-.p".ifi. rather than culturalll -specific discourse. According to this
interpretation, the source of teacher volubilitv and student taciturnity is the asvmmetrical
distribution of social po\\:er and knorvledge betu-een teachers ani students evident in
educational institutions throughout the n'orld.
lVhat is not found, horvever, in classroom discourse throughout the world is the
chorusing behaviour evident in this episode, r'vhichis u-hy I chose to focus on it in ml'
analvsis.Closer examination revealed that trvo kinds of cues to chorusing are provided bv
'do
M r s G u m b i . T h e o n e k i n d o f c u e i n v o l v e st h e u s e o f a s e t o f y e s / n o q u e s t i o n s : you
u n d e r s t a n dt h i s ? '( l i n e s4 ' l a n d 4 6 ) ; ' d o y o u g e t t h a t ? ' ( l i n e s 2 - 3 a n d 4 0 ) ; ' O K ' ( l i n e 4 2 ) ;
'isn't i n t h e l e s s o n ) . T h es e c o n dk i n d o f
i t ? ' a n d ' d o v o u s e et h a t ? ' ; ' c a nI g o o n ? ' ( e l s e l v h e r e
c u e i n r . o l v e st h e u s e o f r i s i n g t o n e o n a c c e n t e ds v i l a b l e s( e . g .l i n e s 7 , 1 7 , ) 9 , 3 3 , 3 6 ) . T h i s
cue is also used as a prompt to individual student responsesin a sequence(lines 16, 18 , 20,
22,2+,26 etc.).What this sr:iggests is the operation of a relativelv simple prosodic system
in which a restricted set of prosodic cues is used for a wide range of prosodic functions.
Interestingly, this observation is consistent w-ith mv finding in a studv of interethnic
encounters (see Chick 1985) that Zulu-English speakersrelv iess than do white South
African English speakerson prosodic cues to signal (together with kinesic, paralinguistic,
lexical and syntactic cues) the relationship betw-eendifferent parts ofthe text, the relative
importance of information units, speakertransition points and so on.This ma1'be related
to the fact that the prosodv ofZulu, a tone language,is very different from that of English
The closer examination of the chorusing behaviour in this episode points to a possible
exolanation for the difficultr, rvhich teachers and students in KwaZulu schools have in
transferring from the putatire culturallr'-specificZulu-English stvles (of w'hich the system
of prosodic cuesis apparentlv a distinctive feature) to styles compatible with communicative
Ianguageteaching. I examined, first, the possibilitv that the chorusing elicited by the one
kind of cue (rising tone), in certain cases,servesthe academicfunction of reinforcing certain
key information items and, perhaps,helping the students to become more familiar rvith (to
memorise?)technicalterms (e.g.lines 29-30). Horvever,further analysisrevealedthat it is
often not newinformation that studentsare askedto chorus, but information already available
to the students before the lesson (e.g. in lines 12 and 3l the students are required to supplv
the word SET rather than the name of the set that thev have learnt about in the lesson).
Elsewhere in the lesson the rising tone prompts them merelv to complete words (e.g.
intersecTlON; w.e are looking for the unKNOWN).The fact that the information value of
items chorused is often low- prompted me to investigate the possibiiitv that the primarv
function of the chorusing eiicited bv this kind of cue is social rather than academic.
I also examined the possibilitv that the chorusing elicited by the other kind of cue (the
set of questions) servesthe academic function of enabiing Mrs Gumbi to accessthe level of
her students' understanding so that she can knorv r,vhetheror not to recvcle her explanation
at a lou'er level of abstraction.Holvever, I discoveredthat the chorused responsesare without
exception'ves'.This suggeststhat the questionsare not realir-openquestions,and that their
SAFE-TALI( 233
public situation, and provide them u-ith a senseof purpose and accomplishment. Something
not examined here, but equallv important, is that these stvles also help teachers avoid the
loss of face associatedwith displavs of incompetence. This is becausethev ensure that the
Iessondevelops along predetermined lines, and that the opportunities for students to raise
issuesand problems that teachers mav not be competent to handle are few'. It is for such
reasonsthat I refer to discourseassociatedr,viththese stl'lesas'safe-talk'.
What this analysissuggestsis that the task of making a transition - from the culturally-
preferred interactional styles empioved conventionallv in KlvaZulu classroomsto the styles
associatedlr.ith the more egalitarian relationships required by the communicative language
teaching approach rvaslikelv to be fraught rvith risk for both teachers and students.Thev
'safe-talk'.
all resistedinnovation becausethev had vestedinterestsin the maintenanceof
-^'-r r1981), too, lr-hile not denving that micro-ethnographic studieshave a role in
. :..:r: hon-interaction acts as an immediate causeof a particular child's failure, arques
. - - : -.sential also to studv how'theseclassroomeventsare built up bv forces emanatrng
- : - r d et h e s e- i c . o s e t t i n g s .
.:.nced bv such thinking, I concluded that mv micro-ethnographic analvsisoithe
. : - f r o m t h e m a t h e m a t i c sl e s s o nn e e d e d t o b e i n f o r m e d b r . a m a c r o e t h n o o r a o h i .
-:.: ,,ithe schoolingprovided for black studentsin K.,','aZulu.Thisaccoun,. ul,-i. 1',n..
. - - . : : , 1 b l O g b u ( 1 9 8 1 ) , u ' o u l d b e o n e t h a t s h o r v e d h o u - t h e s c h so\oslt e n r ' ' u . . . l . r . , - l
... organisation,economr',political organisation,belie{'svstemand . alu... chan;. rn.1
,
.:. the section r.vhich follor,r's,I provide information about the macro context of
..r,gtor blacksin SouthAfricaduring the apartheidera, l'hich I identified aspotentiallr
' ::: io the reinterpretation of this episode.Sincethe lessonoccurred in a Senior Primary
. ,iourth to eighth vearsofschooling) I focus on this phaseofthe schoolingsystem.I
.. :lso on the role of Englishas medium of instruction, sinceresearchsuggests(see,for
.-:.:le. \lacDonald 1990) that difficulties associatedu.ith the transfer from mother tongue
-:..lish in the first vear of this phaseconstrainclassroombehaviour in powerful ways.
are responsibie for large numbers of students and rvho usually have to cope w-ith
overcrolvded classrooms,to facilitate more egalitarian, decentralised r,vaysof interacting.
The more long-term discriminatorv effects of segregatededucation were evident, also,
in the differential levels of professional qualification of teachers in schools for the various
populationgroups.According to Du Plessis,Du Pisaniand Plekker ( 1989) whereas,in 1989.
t OO%o of teachers in schools for rvhites u'ere professionalh' qualified in the senseof having
at least matriculation or higher academic qualifications, as rvell as a teachers'certificate or
diploma, only 2Oo/o of teachersin black primarv schoolsand 10% in black secondaryschools
were professionaiiy qualified.
Of particular relevanceto the constraintsof macro factors upon classroomdiscourse
is another factor, namelv, horv apartheid ideoiogv rvas translated into languagemediun:
policv in black education. Hartshorne (1987) reports that, untii the Nationalistscame tc
power, the position of English as sole medium of instruction after the first few' years o:
schoolingwas unchallenged.He rePorts, further, that the Nationalists:
These tlvo studies show hon' features of the macro context, namelv the institutional
ideoiogies and bureaucratic structures, constrain u'hat takesplace at a micro level. They also
,hoot t]r" participants u,orking together to reshape the structure of their discourse and to
socialiseone another into a set of sociolinguistic norms that enable them to meet their
i m m e d i a t en e e d s .A s C o l l i n s ( 1 9 8 7 : 3 1 3 ) e x p l a i n s :
Conclusion
To sum up, in this chapter I have explored the significanceofinteractional styles that lver.
widel-v employed in schools for black people in South Africa. The fine-grained analysisof ar.
episode from a lesson'"vhichexemplifies such stvles revealedthat thev served importani
social functions for teachers,but probably did not promote efficient learning.They ais'-
provided support for the hvpothesisthat teachers and students in KwaZulu classroomsu-ert
often reluctant to adopt more egalitarian, decentralised rvavs of interacting advocated l:,
in-service educationbecausethev had vestedinterestsin'safe-taik'.
A richer contextualisation of the classroom data in terms of the ideology and structurt.
of the wider apartheid societv facilitated a reinterpretation of m,vfindings. According to tli:.
'safe-talk'
reinterpretation. represents styles consistent lvith norms of interaction r,r'hic:.
teachers and students constituted as a means of avoiding the oppressiveand demeanin;
constraints of apartheid educational sYstems.
One implication of this studv is that teaching innovation at the micro level which is n :
accompanied bv appropriate structural changeat the macro level is unlikelv to succeed.F'-:
those like m-vselfu.ho havebeen engagedin the difficult task of educationalinnovation rvitL.
the constraints imposed bv the apartheid societt',it has been exciting to experience t:,'
SAFE-TALI( 239
\ L- ..' .rdgement
ilulTr:-::-. c-S
- '
. . I 9 r Language in education: r'ariation in the teacher-talk register' , in J. E . Alatis
, I Tucker (edsl Languagein Publjc 4fe, 1++-62. \Vashington D.C.: Georgeto$'n
:--:r Press.
'The
: .qSi) interactional accomplishment of discrimination in South Africa.
, , , - : ) n S o c t e t1r4 ( 3 ) : 2 2 9 - 3 2 6 .
: . . : r d C l a u d e , M . ( 1 9 8 5 ) ' T h e V a l l e v T r u s t E n g l i s h L a n g u a g eP r o j e c t : r e s e a r c h i n
- ProceedingsoJ the Fourth \ational ConJerenceoJ the Southern AJrican Applied
: :::
- - .,. .:,-i.{ssocicrion.
Johannesburg: Universitv of theWitr'r'atersrand.
- jSTr'Conversation and*knou.ledgein bureaucratic settings' . DiscourseProcesses 70:
.
. .,).
',i,
t1977)'The relation of interactionalsvnchronv to cognitive and emotional
- - : j:es, in M. Kev (ed.) fhe Relailonship oJ lbrbaland\-onverbal Communicatjon, 50 6j.
-
, ila.que:Mouton.
--... .\., Du PisaniT , . a n d P l e k k e r ,S . 1 1 9 8 9 , E f d u c a t i oann d ' \ { a n p o w eDr e v e l o p m e n r .
: :ntontein: ResearchInstitutefor EducationPlanning.
- . q S 7 ) ' U s i n gt h e E n g l i s hm e d i u m i n A f r i c a n S c h o o l s 'i,n D . Y o u n g( e d . 1B r i d g t n gt h e
,. ..LqeenTheorv and Prdctice in EnglishSecond LanguageTeaching, S2-99. CapeTor.r'n:
'.I ..ken' Miller Longman.
. . :-..F. \1915) 'Gatekeepingand the melting pot: interactionin counsellingencounters'.
a le t i e w4 > ( 1 ) : 4 4 7 0
- . . t ' , a r dE d u c a t i o nR
' G a t e k e e p i n ge n c o u n t e r s A: s o c i a l s e l e c t i o np r o c e s s ' ,i n P . R . S a n d a v( e d . )
.9761
'...:hropologt andthePublicInterest: Fieldrvork andTheor,v,l 1 1-,+5.New'York:AcademicPress.
-,-:2. (1982a) Discourse Strateg)es (Studies in interactional sociolinguistics 1).
l.
r.rmbridge: CambridgeUniversitvPress.
1982b) Languageand SocialIdentitv (Studies in interactional sociolinguistics2).
Cambridge:CambridgeUniversitvPress
' : . : r o r n e ,K . ( 1 9 8 7 ) ' L a n g u a gpeo l i o . i n A f r i c a ne d u c a t i o ni n S o u t h A f r i c a1 9 1 0 - 1 9 8 5 ,u ' i t h
particularreferenceto the issueof medium of instruction', in D.Young (ed.) Language:
Planningand.tr4edium oJEducation. Rondebosch:LanguageEducationUnit and SAALA.
. ,-::re1,J. and Halsev,,\.H. (Eds) (1911) Powerand ldeologvjn Education. Ne'"vYork:oxford
UniversitvPress.
. :-.Jon,A. (1973) 'The role of visiblebehaviourin the organizationof socialinteraction', ir-
Il.Von Cranachand LVine (eds) Socia1 Communication and Movement, ) 74. New'York:
AcademicPress.
'Some
(1979) theoreticaland methodologicalaspectsof the use of film in the studv of
socialinteraction',in G. Ginsberg(ed.1Emergtng Research,
in SoctalPs;'chologtcal
Strategies
6l -91 . NervYork: f ohn Wiler'.
240 J. I(EITH CHICI(
teachingandlearning
Analysing
er3
;3ter l5
NeilMercer
::troduction
:.r'er thev are and u'hatever thev are teaching,teachersin schoolsand other educational
' . -ttions are likelv to face some simiiar
practical tasks.Thel, have to organize activities to I
r c l a s s eosI d i s p a r a t ej n d i r i d u a l s l.e a r n e r su h o m a r r a r r c o n s i d e . ] b l ui n t h e i r a i m s ,
-.-r-s I
and motivations.Thevhaveto control unrulv behauio,r..Thevare exoectedto teach J
i l i c c u r r i c u l r r - , . b o i . ' o f k n o u l e d g . . n d , k i l l , u h i c h r h e i r s t u d e n t sn ' o u l d n o t
-:..alh-encounterin their out-of-school lives.And
thev have to monitor and assessthe
.tional progressthe studentsmake. All these aspectsof t"uchers'responsibilitiesare
. ted in their use of languageas the principal tool of their responsibilities.As examples
".., I'"vould like I'ou no\\-to consider two transcribed sequencesof classroom talk,
. -'nces1 and 2 overleaf.For each in turn, consider:
Can t''ouidentifv anr recurring patterns of interaction in the talk betrveen teacher and
.l r
D U D I l Si
244 NEIL MERCER
in each of the
2 \\'hat \1,ouldvou sa\'\\'erethe main functions of the teacher'squestions
sequences? Do the sequencesdiffer at all in this respect?
\a::_
IRF exchangescan be thought of as the archetvpal form of interaction between a teacher
and a pupil - a basic unit ofclassroom talk as a continuous stretch oflanguage or'text'.
They do not typifv the pattern of talk in all classroomactivities; other kinds of talk involvins
) , , t ) |
- _
Most classroom talk u'hich has been recorded displavsa clear boundarv between
knou ledgeand ignorance . . . Tb be askeda questionb.: ,o-.o." * ho u'unt, to kno*
I
is to be given the initiative in deciding the amount of information to be offered and p
I
t h e m a n n e r o [ t e l l i n g . B u t t o b e a s k e db v s o m e o n er r h o a l r e a d vk n o u ' s .a n d r , r ' a n ttso I
, G---7-'----'--
t<11.12l11|;Su
knS\, is to hatelour ansn'eraccepted, reiectedor otbenviseevaluatedt
-
accordingto the questioner'sbeliefsaboutrvhatis relevantald truq, (1994,p 48) j
t(frequentlv. But
q"":trol-u"!_glrlg
relving heavilv and continuouslv on traditional, formal
ffifo. guidinglea
fo. fr - suchasexperiminling\\ith neu tl pesot languEe
constructtons.
246 NEIL MERCER
wv
:.:i:-
this *'ar',the teachertr h' A
but ratfrer encourugin el' I 4
am not suggestingthat either teacheris usingtheir quesUonlngtechnlquesto better or worse
effect, b"ilmpti ill,ttt.uting th. fr.
pragmatic, educational functions.
Having identified the archetvpal structure of teacher-student talk, I n'ill next describe some
specifi"cw.avsof interacting with students which are commonlr used b)'teachers. I call these
f.tffioGl bec
l.tto u rJolf *itable tools for'pursuinq their professiot'ti
una s of teaching-and-learning'The
techniques are summarised in Table 15 ' 1 below'
'right'
they are seeking - the answers to their questions
ple recorded in an Englishlesson
-'-=:-;-
ln a Zimbabwean primarv school.The teacherhas set up a number of objects on her desk,
'f, 'j'
and also has a set of cards on w.hich various consonants('b', etc.) are rvritten. The
children have to come to the front of the classand match the consonantsto the name of an
object.
The use of cued elicitation as a teaching technique is r'videspread.It can be traced to the
S o c r a t i cd i a l o g u e sc o n s t r u c t e d b v P l a t o ( E d u ' a r d s ,1 9 8 8 ) . B y u s i n g t h i s t c c h n i q u c . ,t h e
tcacher avoids simply giving the chiid the risht ans\\-cr.Sequence3 also illustratis hor,r,
n o n - v c r b a lc o m r n u n i c a t i o n- t h c u s e o f g e s t u r e sa n d o t h e r s i g n s- c a n b e a n i m p o r t a n t
-rl
coml)onent oI classroom taIK.
S: Yes,I have.
T: I havegot many?
S: Tovsat home.
I
l: lov anlmals at nome
./ -l
Thereareulto@,lrrhen o n a c r l p t i c s t a t e m e n tm a d e b r -a p u p i l
a teacherpic,ks-g1
- 4-
a n c le x P a n d sa n d / o r e x p l a l n sl t s s l g n l t l c a n q g _ l s l rest of the class.Wrong answers or
unsuita'68-6fr tri butions mav be explicitlv v a teacher. But lve should also note a
ue that teachers have for ith u rong ans\vers- rr*p.!_jg...-g
248 NEIL MERCER
dhey do'
An important task for a teachel is to help lea{ngrs see how the.vario-gq actiYities
ot --:rt
obvious function; but this is a simplification, for the sake of claritv of exposition,
e l a 0 o n s n l p betrveen
rrelationship r a n z u a g e l o t I l l r l u r l L L r u r r and context. An analvstof classroomdisco';"t
D e t l v e e n l*gfi;T.;.-'F;-tion
u
I| 4 ! r : tt .
''
hu. to r..Jgni-zcthat@.: particufarutterance
'
that, asi., ti'e 6rr, pu.Vs"qu
U.ur"a-Uf
".tiiE1f;;6;..:'.. c:'
a
contextual tactors not avallable to t as intormatton
ence of Interactlon; see n, t 7 . fot furtler discussionof such matt-:
Fo* e, e., desp-iTer-ffiie ats,I have found the identificationofthese techniquesa ust
practical aid to analvsis
LANGUAGE FOR TEACHING A LANGUAGE 249
In the next part of the chapter I u.ill consider some aspectsof teacher-student interaction
in classroomslr'here English is being used as a classroom language,but is not the first
languageof the children. I hope to shorv through these examples some of the qualities these
bilingual settings have in commo_ry;$ghmonolingmlcla-s-sro-oms.lvhile also pointing out
some of the specialinteraitional featuresthe)'ma)'generate.There are tlvo main sorts of
situation u''hich can be included here. The first occurs in countries r,vhereEnglish is not the
usual evervdav languageand the mother tongue of most of the children is not English.The
secondis u,.herepupils rvhosemother tongue is not English enter schoolsin a predominantlv
English speaking countrv. I rvill provide examples from both of these tvpes of situation.
In anv situation u'here English is used as a classroom languagebut is not the main
languageof children's hone or communitr', teachers ma)' have th1 mlultiple task of teaching
(a) the F.glish l'.gu.ge (h) th , u.rd
(c) anv specific subiect content. Jo Arthur (1992) carried out obserr.ationalresearchon
#
teactring and learning in primarv school ciassroomsin Botsrvana.English w.asused as the
medium of education, but it rn-asnot the main languageof the pupils' local community. She
. i , , , - . 1
The Botsu.ananstudents therefore needed to understand that their teacher lvas using these
exchangesnot onlr-to evaluatetheir mathematical understanding, but also to test their
fluencf in spoken English and their abilitv to conform to a'ground rule' that she enforced
'ansr,ver
in her classroom - in full sentences'. Arthur comments that for pupils in this kind
of situation, the demandsof classroom.o*^ui6-tion ur. complicated b..urrr" their teacher
is attempting to
250 NEIL MERCER
Arthur reports that such dual focus is common in Botsrvananclassrooms,as the follow'ing
sequencefrom another lessonsholvs:
. startin
alr'var,s - irJLt\Teacher
....".<rl
D aln'avsstarts from rvhere the student is - fror:
f,iTE6-student.unYutfi, understandaqd5 falqt]t4g.witb- (p. 282)
t}e translation into the child's vernacular of evervthinq that is bein t mav Pre\ t
him/her from ever developing-t of Enslish lan encv that must
o n e o l t h e o b t c c t l \ . e so l a s o u inglil programme(Jacobson,1 9 9 0p,. 6 . )
'Kev
1 statement' of topic in English
Z nmpllfication, clarification or lxplanation in Cantonese
3 Restatementin English
LANGUAGE FOR TEACHING A LANGUAGE 251
They comment that'direct translation \\'as comparativeiv rare; the general effect was of a
spiralling and apparentlv haphazardrecvcling of content, rvhich on closer examination
proved to be more organisedthan it appeared.'(.1987,p 106).The implication here is that
such teachers are pursuing the familiar task of guiding children's understanding of
curriculum content through language,but using special bilingual techniques to do so.
An interesting studv of code-srvitching in bilingual classroomsin Malta w-ascarried out
byAntoinette Camilleri (199+). She shorvedthat code-su-itchingrvas used as a teaching
technique by teachers in a varietv of rvays.Look for example at these t\\.o extracts from the
talk of a teacher in a secondarvschool lessonabout the production and use of wool, and
based on a textbook u-ritten in English. The teacher b"gi.r, bv reading part of the text (l
translationoJtalk in Maheseis given in the right hand column)
Sequence 7:Wool
Extract 1
EnglandAustraliaNerv Zealandand
Argentinaare the bestproducersof lr'ool
dawk|-aktar Ii gfiandhomfarms 1;7 thev have the largest number of farms
rabbun-nagflagghas-suJO.K. England and the largest number of sheep for wool
tghtduli minn licma post England O.K. England where in Englandwe reallv
''
ghandhomScotlandnaghruf n tont mean Scotland thev are verv lvell-known
ghall-wool u 6ersijtcttaghhomO.K. for their rvoollen oroducts
Extract 2
wool issait does not creasebut it has to be
washedwith care issadin rmporranri norv this is important didn't I tell vou that
ma ghidtilkomxtllt lekk tkollt nara xagttrajew if I had a look at a single hair or 6bre
suJawahdaunder the microscope ghandha it has manv scalesw.hich if not washed
qishahaJnascalesta1.ltuta tssa lekk ma nah properlv get entangledand I put a jersey
sluxsewwadawk l-tscalesjitgfiaqqdugo xulxin this size into the r,vashingmachine and it
u indahh6ersidaqshekl gol- u ashing' comes out this size becauseit shrinks and
machine u nohor7udaqshekk gttaxjixxrinklali gets entangled
u jitghaqqadkollu
(Adapted from Camilleri, 1994)
Camilleri notes that the first extract shorvs the teacher using the switch from English to
Maltese to expand a-;ifi the poinf bRg made, rath"er than simplv repeat it in
"{
t r a n s l a t i o n .I n t h e s e c o n d e x t r a c t . s h ( e . r p l a i n i r t h eE n g l i s hs t a t e m e n t i n M a l t e s e ,a g a i n
avoiding IISSI translation. Camilleri comments that the lessontherefore is a particular kind
- of 'two
Iiteracl' event,Tn r'vhich these are parallel discourses the u'ritten one in English,
the spoken one in Maltese' (p 12)
Studies of code-su.itching in classroomshave revealed a variety of patterns of bllingual
use (Martvn-Jones, 1995). For example, Zenteila (1981) observedand recorded eventsin
two bilingual classesin Ne*.York schools, one a first grade class(in rvhich the children were
about six vears old) and the other a sixth grade (in rvhich the averageage would be about
12).The pupils and teachersu'erd all native Spanishspeakers,of Puerto Rican origin, but
the official medium for classroom education rvas English. One of the focusesof her anaiysis
of teacher-pupii interactions u'as IRF sequences.Both Spanishand English were actuall)
252 NEIL MERCER
(Adaptedfrom Zentella,1981)
language
What learners have to und,erstand about classroom
LANGUAGE FOR TEACHING A LANGUAGE 253
in relation to the learning of u-ritten as u'ell as spoken Enslish. and is r'vellillustrated bv the
.. r.-ur.ffi ;;-*r@ ren or non - Eng'sn speaKrng
immigrant families entering secondarv schools in Britain.
'action
Becauseof his close and continuous involvement in classroomeventsas a kind of
researcher'(Elliot, 1991), Moore rvasable to observe, describe and analvseteaching and
learning over severalr,veeksor months in one class.One of his special'casestudies'u'asof
the progress of a S-vlhetibov of 15 u'ho had been in Britain one year since coming from
Bangladesh(rvhere he had been educatedin Bengali). Moore focused on Mashud'sclassr.oom
education in writing English. Mashud had quite a fer'v problems w'ith'surface features' of
English such as handwriting, spelling and grammatical structures, but -!vasan enthusiastic
w'riter. However, Moore and Mashud's teacher (Mrs Montgomery) both noticed that:
his rvork had a particular idiosvncrasl'in that w'henever he w'asset creative writing
- or e\rendiscursiver'vriting - assignments,he produced heavilv formulaic fairy-story-
style moral tales which \!'ere apparentlv - according to information volunteered by
other Sylheti pupils in the class translationsof stories he had learnt in his native
tongue. (Moore, 1995: 362)
It has to be said that neither Mrs Montgomerv or I knerv enough about Bangladeshi
or Sylheti storv-telling traditions to be able to expound rvith anv degree of con{idence
on the causeof Mashud's particular wav of going about things. The kev to our future
pedagogv,horvever [. . .] lu,uin Mrs Montgomerv's very w'ise recognition that "there
could be the most enormous difference betrveen rvhat Mashud has been brought up
to value in narratives and r,vhatlve're telling him he should be valuing". (Moore, 1995:
366) ..{,)
This insight into Mashud'sdifficulties w-ith genresof writing was supported bv a more carefulR\\
analysisof Mashud's texts, which had a linear, additive, chronological structure associated R \. Sj
rvith oral, rather than literate cultural traditions (Ong, 1982).'The outcome lr'1the;lggg\e-r
R+ +
This approach proved successful,as during the remaining period of Moore's research
Mashud shou'ed clear progress in coming to understand and cope w-ith the demands of
writing in the genres of English required in the British schooi svstem. Describing research
w.ith children in a Spanish-Englishbilingual program in Caiifornian schools, Moll and
Dworin (1996) also highlight the important role of a teacher in helping learners make the
best educational use of their bi-cultural language experience in developing their literacl
skills in the secondlanguage.
254 NEIL MERCER
carriedoutbvtheRussianpsvchoT-gistLel.Vl.gotskv1@).
Vygotskv rvorked in Moscorv in the 1920s and 30s, in an institution for children who had
special educational needs, but his ideas on the process ofteaching and learning have much
\ broader educational relevance than the specilic institutional settings in u'hich he put them
Jnto practice. Vvgotskv gave language a special, important role in human cognitive
development, describing human individuals and their societies as being linked by language
into a historical, continuing, dvnamic, interactive, spiral of change. Led bv the example of
Jerome Bruner (1985, 1986), a considerablebodv of researchhasnor,vemerged which uses
socio-culturalperspectiv"i., ihe anahsisof educationalpiocesses.So-e
"'n.o-Vvgotskian',
of the most significant and distinctive implications of adopting a socio-cultural perspective
on classroomeducationare. I believe.as follou-s:
of the roles of Ianguagerve might add the comment: learning how to use language
effectivelv as a cultural tooi is an important educational goal for native speakersas
-
teachinq-and-learninqand also that \\'hich is miant to be learnt and iiuEEr
Etucarion it o diolofftJ@rural proce\ The der elopment of studenii-E6tledge and
understanding is shapedb\-'-ih€iiGfationships rvith teachers and other students, and
b-vthe culture in rvhich those relationships are located. (Newman, Griffin and Cole.
1989; Gee, 1996).The educational.rr.."r, studentsachieveis onlv partly under their
own control, and onlv purl$@ the control of their teachers.This is where the
sociocultural concept 'hich I mentioned briefly earlier,is useful.Thr
thataneffectiveteacherprol'idesth"@twhichenables
IA\,
| | .\
Iearners to make intellectual achievementsthev lvould nev
one \\ a\ the'r'do so is b)' usinq dialoque t.o guide and ;gppgll1hl qe''/.91o-pment o:
\ u.z understanding.
---". '
3 fanguage carries th, hlIpry4.:.!!jlro:!_gy,tLr"ro i,t fut"r.lhe socio-cultura.
perspective suggeststhat if \\'e $'ant to understand the process of learning, we mu:l
studl not only r,r'hata learner does but also the activitiesof parents.teachers]Eder.
v r h o c r e a t e- i n d e e d .c o n s t i t u t e- t h e d ) ' n a m i cc o n t e x t o l t h e i r l e a r n i n ge x p e r i e n i -
, in-bei..;
'guided
irf'olrecf-in a process of participation' in the intellectual life of the.:
communities, lvhich implies the necessan'involvement of others. For similar reasoni
LANGUAGE FOR TEACHING A LANGUAGE 255
'the
I have described the process of teaching-and-learning as guided construction of
knouIedge'ti\1ercer,l995r.Thjsisupio..,,rrhichLc#ftat'
'--------
a s T F E - l a n g u a gr ees e a r c h e Jr a n e tN l a v b i n{ 1 9 9 4 )h a s p u t i t , t h e t a l k o n a n v o c c a s i o n
between a teacher and their regular class of students can be considered part of the
.lo.g.oanguageisatoolforbuiIdingthefutureout
I Conclusion
'Guided,
Brown, A. and PalincsarA.S. (1989) cooperativelearningand individualknou'led,.
acquisition',in L. Resnick(ed.) Knorring,Learningand Instruction. NewYork: Lau.renc.
Erlbaum.
'Vvgotskr:
Bruner,J.S. (1985) a historicaland conceptualperspective',in J.V.Wertsch (ed
Culture, Communicationand Cognition:\tygotskianperspectives. Cambridge: Cambridgt
Universitv Press
Bruner,J.S.(1986) Actual.illinds,Posstbleltrbrlds. London: Harvard UniversitvPress.
Camilleri, A. (199+)'Talking bilinguallv,r'vriting monolinguallv'. Paper presented at tht
SociolinguisticsS1'mposium,LancasterUniversitl', March 1994.
Christie, F. (1990) LiteraclJora Changingllbrld. tr{elbourne:AustralianCouncil for Educationa,
Research.
Edwards,A.D. andWestgate,D. (.199+)Investigating ClassroomTalk (Second Edttion).London:The
Falmer Press.
E d w . a r d sD, . ( 1 9 8 8 ) ' T h eM e n o ' , i n B i l l i g ,N { . , C o n d o r ,S . , E d l , v a r d D
s ,. , G a n e ,M . , M i d d i e t o n .
D. and Radler',A. (eds) IdeologicalDilemmas:a socialpsychologyoJ everydaythtnking.
London: Sage.
Edr,r'ards,D. and Mercer, N. (1987) CommonKnowledge: the development oJ understanding in th;
classroom. London: Methuen/Routledge.
Elliot, J. 0991) 'lctionResearchJor Educattonal Change. Milton Kevnes:Open Universitv Press.
'Vl'gotskv
Gee,J.P.(1996) and current debatesin education:some dilemmasas afterthoughts
to Discourse, Learningand Schooling', in D. Hicks (ed.) Discourse, Learningand Schooling.
Cambridge:CambridgeUniversitv Press.
Heath, S.B. (1983) Wayswith Words:language,ltfe and work in communities and classrooms.
Cambridge: Cambridge Universitt' Press.
'Contextual
Hicks, D. (1996) enquiries:a discourse-oriented study of classroomlearning', in
D. Hicks (ed.) Discourse, Learningand Schooling.Cambridge: Cambridge Universitr
Press.
'Ailocating
Jacobson,R. ( 1990) two languagesas a kev feature of a bilingual methodology', in
R. Jacobson and C. Faltis (eds) LanguageDistribution lssuesin Bihngual Schooling.
Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
'Modes
Johnson,R.K. and Lee, P.L.M. (1987) of instruction:teachingstrategiesand students
responses',in R: Lord and H. Cheng (eds)LanguageEducation in Hong Kong.Hong Kong:
The ChineseUniversitl'Press.
LoCastro, Y. (1997)'Politeness and pragmatic competence in foreign languageeducation'
LanguageTbaching Research,YoI.l, No. 3, 239-268.
Martyn-Jones,M. (1995)'Code-sr,r'itching in the classroom',in L. Milroy and P.Muysken(eds.1
One Speaker,two languages:cro.t.tdisciplnar; perspectives on code-switcfring. Cambridge:
CambridgeUniversitvPress.
'Children's
Mavbin,J 099+) voices:talk, knorvledgeand identity', in Graddol, D, Maybin,J.
and Stierer, B. (eds) Researching Languageand Literacyin SocialContext.Clevedon:
Multilingual Matters.
Mavbin, J., Mercer, N. and Stierer,B. (1992) "'scaffolding"learning in the classroom',in
Norman, K. (ed.) Thtnkinglbices. London: Hodder and Stoughton.
Mehan,H. (1979) LearningLessons: socialorganization in theclassroom. Cambridge,Mass:Harvard
Universitl' Press.
Mercer, N. (1995) The GutdedConstructionof Knowledge:talk amongstteachersand learners.
C l e v e d o nM : u l t i l i n g u a lM a t t e r s .
- (2000) Wordsand Minds:how'we uselanguageto think together.London: Routledge.
Mercer, N., Wegerif, R. and Da*-es, L. (1999)'Children's talk and the development of
reasoningin the classroom'.BririsfiEducational Research Journal,25, 7, 95-1 13.
'Biliterao'development
Moll, L. and Drvorin, I (996) in classrooms:socialdvnamicsand
LANGUAGE FOR TEACHING A LANGUAGE 257
PaulineGibbons
lntroduction
: such
JiE?;
collier (1989) and McKav et al. (1997) have shorvn,children who appear'fluent'in
'
contexts ma,vstill huo'.
[i-'t"aMi"largelvfluentinEngilshinface-to-face,evervda\'communication.
LEARNING A NEW REGISTER 259
Where the teaching of a nelv languageis to be integrated u'ith the teaching of subject
content, then program planning needsto be informed bv a model of Ianguageu-hich relates
Ianguageto meaning, and to the context in u-hich it is used.This studv draws on svstemic
functional grammar (Hallidav, 1985) and related descriptionsof register theorv (Halliday
a n d H a s a n .1 9 8 5 ) .
A major organising principle of the teaching program described w-asthe construct of
mode (which refers to the channel of the text, whether it is spoken or written) and the
notion of a mode continuum (Martin, 1984), becauseit offers a linguistic framework
againstrvhGh-teari@ffiTtffan-be sequencedfrom most si
thus for ESL learners the most easilv understood), to least situationallv-depenGrThe
toll6wtng tOur texts lllustratetlxS mOdecontlnuum. anOSno\\'no\\' certaln llngulSUcleatures
change as languagebecomes increasinglv closer to u'ritten forms.
and accompanying
Text1: (spokenb1 three1O-1ear-oldstudents action)
this...noitdoesn'tgo...itdoesn'tmo\ie ..trvthat....yesitdoes...abit...that
won't . . u,,on'tworkit's notmetal . . . theseare the best . . . goingrealiv fast.
w e t r i e d a p i n . . . a p e n c i l s h a r p e . p e r . s o m e i r o n f i l i n g s a n d a p i e c e opf l a s t i c . . . t h e
magnet didn't attract the pin.
Our experiment w-asto find out u'hat a magnet attracted. We discovered that a magnet
attracts some kinds of metal. It attracted the iron filings, but not the pin.
A magnet . . . is able to pick up, or attract, a piece of steel or iron becauseits magnetic field
flows into the magnet, turning it into a temporar\.magnet. Magnetic attraction occurs only
between ferrous materials.
While the importance of talk in learning has iong been recognised(Barnes 1975; Brunt:
1978; Martin et al . 19761,a more recent focus, largelv influencedby the work ofVygotskr
hasbeen on the social and cultural basisfor learning (Mercer 199+,1995 and Chapter 1:
of thisbook;Mavbin,MercerandStierer1992;Wells1992,1999),.A rygo-g!".ul ot'*
TGn-GEo{learningattl-.:
@lacescfir*.teTffiT'endtheEi6ld-s?fi
'ru
h.g@'.s processithe classroomis vie*ed -as - - - - - - - - - - - -- - 3 - -
"a- rp-lacTaFr.k!:g3"'tg.=
l[ilou'ledgeare iointffiructed, and rn-herelearnersare guided or'apprenticed' into tl-..
., .<-7---
broader unders-and-ngs and linguage of the curriculum and the particular subjectdisciplint
The notion of apprenticeshipinto a culture is particulariv relevant in an ESL school conte\:.
'
iA f r.r'here,in order to participate in societt',slllents must learn to control the dominant qenre.
F\L
l'n.},.(MartinT986-Delpitl988:Kalantzis'Copt'
*\1.$",/
-\7 NobleandPovnting1991t.
of interactionfor secondlangua;t
havealsoshorvnthe significance
SLA researchers
/\r
l e a r n i n g( s e ef o r e x a m p l e ,E l l i s 1 9 8 5 , 1 9 9 1 , 1 9 9 4 ; v a n L i e r 1 9 8 8 , 1 9 9 5 a n d C h a p t e r 5 , - :
\this book; Sw.ain1995;Swain 2000). Of particular importance are the kinds of on-goir;;
*;T:l t: orclarified(Long tt"u",o1-':
. \ .rilp, )modificatio"'1 9 8 6"::"' i'^T,'.""':g ":g:ti:t"q :e8]i
{t\qfi'lr"d;"ghtv ;P i c a1 9 9 4 ) S
. n,ain ( 1 9 8 5 ,1 9 9 5 )a l s oa r g u e fs" ; ; ;
v" 'cornptehensible "lJl.:
ou!pul',w -:
V /
more com e, coherent, and s-vntacticallyimproved discourse. Tl:
output'stretches' the learner, inGI-ilFE is svntactr.:
g!!9-ploclrssing.The classroom implication for thisJsuggest, is not tl:=
e a major teaching focus, but that it is important. .
times, for learners to have opportunities to use stretchesof discoursein contexts u'he
LEARNING A NEW REGISTER 267
there is a'press' on their linguistic resources,and lvhere, for the benefit oftheir listeners,
the,vmg4{ocui not only on r,vhatthev rvish to savbut on how the}' a
()ne clear tea ese varlous st is that the degree to which a
i. oi'r".o.ra languagelearningdependstglg.Ir:;"h"* .lurr.ooofi
. --
,.1
i.. o,Nr r r. t d . T. udi t i onul il I. r]r.oo,.n i nii.u. ri on, . o@L-*lnr*
, anTfi
"
C ,es(Sinclair and Co I l:o\\'aros ano lvtercer dt
) may, in
conditi61r-mlc h SLA fglggdjygge
ive lea ust those interactional f"ut.r.., and interactive
sts are enabling iict or 1Tn-Iiifr
TW
i-itiationTlead to single vrord or sing[FT1EIS6Fesponses,-therF-i
e to be'stret , or lor the uctron oI comDre
F-o-om-program rvhich is supportive of se anguagelearning must
opportunities for more dialogi tterns to occur see van Lier 1
iscussionof these issues)
The data
The classroomcontext
Basedon the science topic of magnetism,;E4hlqq and lgqnrng activities were planned to
tiol b'-.g
- - 6 e r e l o p m e n t i n t e r m s o T l a n g u a g e . - - l f i n g .T:"'"p :h':,trlTTW
T h u s s t u d e n t si n i t i a l l r p a r t i c i p a t e di n s m a l l -
group iearning experiences rvherq,the languageused rvas clearlv situationaliy-embedded
This lvas follow'ed by a teacher-guided reporting session,'"r'here,in interaction lvith t
teacher, each group shared their learning rvith the rvhole class.Talking w'ith the teact
about w.hat had been learned. since this did not involve the use of the concrete materials
led to a mode shift tor,vardsmore wlitten-like language,and provided a bridge into t
,. rr r-----T--
\4'rltlng, u'ruch \\'as the nnal actlvltv ol lne cvcle and llngulstrcall\ tne most demanolng. L
--
Ere€F cl'cle u'as repeated several times during the course of the development of th\
unit of rn'ork.The three stagesare described belorl', together lvith representativetexts from
each stage.Taken as a sequence,thev illustrate horv languagedevelopment can evolve
through jointlv constructed discourse.
StageI
In many primarv schoolsit is usual for students to rotate through a number of activities over
the course of one or tu'o lessons.Holvever, such an organisationalstructure may negate an)'
authentic purpose for reporting back to others, since children are likelv to shareverv similar
experiences.Here, an attempt rvasmade to set up a genuine communicative situation by
having each group of children u'ork at dtferent (though related) science experiments; thus
thel'held different information from other classmembers. In its communicative structure
the classroom organisation rvas based on an important principle in second language task
desisn: the notion of an information'sap'and the need for information exchangelLono
t v 6 9) .
One experiment consistedof a small polvstvrene block into rvhich a number of paddle
pop (ice-lolly) sticks had been inserted to enclosea bar magnet.The studentswere asked
to test the effect of a second magnet. (When the second magnet is placed above the first in
a position in which thev are repelling, repulsion causesthe secondmagnet to be suspended
in mid-air.)The texts belorv ( 1 . 1 and 1.2) occurred as students\\'ere engagedin this activity.
Prior to beginning the activitr', thev rvere told that thev rvould later describe and attempt
t o e x p l a i n r v h a t h a p p e n e d t o t h e r e s t o f t h e c l a s s ( [ .m
. .a] r k s a n o b v i o u s p a u s e ) .
262 PAULINE GIBBONS
Text 1.1
Text 1.2
Stage2
The overall aim of the teacher-guidedreporting was to extend children's linguistic resources
and focus on aspectsof the specific discourse of science.As the
the children'. we'retr;ing to talk like scientists.
It r'vasanticipated that the reporting stagr
-reh.&G'
a
would create context tor students to Ianguage structures w-hich w-ere closer
to r,vritten discourse. Before the reporting began, there had been a short teacher-led
discussionfocusing on the specific Iexis the children rvould need to use, including the lexical
item repel.
In the text belorv (Text 2), Hannah is explaining rvhat she learned.
Text 2
TEACHER
Stage3
After the students had taken part in the reporting session,thev w'rote a response in their
'u,hat
journals to the question have vou iearned?'These 'lr'erelater used as a source of
information in the w'riting of more formal reports about magn"tr.fbgjtl53-of tb.
'u
journals here, holvever, is that thev provide some evidence of in that thev reflect
nqs
o
$ i-red in the process of jointlr=pr glss.s r discourse.The
s o\l'n entr\-, an anotherstrudent u'ho had listened
to Hannah's talk with her teacher.
I found it verv interesting that rvhen vou stuck at least 8 paddle pop sticks in a piece of
polystyrene, and then put a magnet rvith the North and South pole in the oval and put
264 PAULINE GIBBONS
another magnet u'ith the north and south pole on top, the magnet on the bottom u'ill r.':
the magnet on the top and the magnet on the top rvould look like it is floating in the air
The thing made out of polvstvrene rvith paddle pop sticks, one group put one magnet faci:..
north and another magnet on top facing north asrvell and thev repelled each other. It look. -
like the top magnet rvas floating up in the air.
Discussion
Stage 1 texts
session,the teacher introduces the term repelat a time *.hen studentshad alreadl'expressed
this meaning in familiar evervdav language,using terms such as it pushesaway;itfeelsltke a
strongwind.There is some paraliel here to the principle u-ithin bilingual programs u.hich
,,-
suggeststhat leirning should occur hrst in L i
is;
Stage 2 texts
'activity
Driver makes the important point about science education that bv itself is not
e n o u g h .I t i s t h e s e n s e t h a t i s m a d e o f i t t h a t m a t t e r s ' ( D r i v e r , 1 9 8 3 : 4 9 ) . l n S t a g e 2 t e x t s
w.eseethe teacher u-orking rvith the children to'make sense'of the activities in r'r'hichthev
have been engaged,bv helping them reconstruct their experiences and develop shared
understandings rnrougn
undersrandlngs through ranguage. vlsgsl-io and Mercer
language. Weggltf lvrercer suggest
sugSesrthat rnaf rr rs rnrougn
it is through beingDerng
encouragedand enabled'to clearlvdescribee e
wrat tnev
e ercer, 1996: 53).Text 2 ilfi-st.atesone tvpe
ru
in which this process can occur.
The teacher'
with individual students
to proieEl-rvhile giving the lear ne$. ffi eulsTfilaGfn Text 2, the interaction
betu'een teacher and students is different in several small but important respects from the
traditional IRF pattern, but th"r.
"
'ffiTypicaiI1,,theIRFPatternisrealisedlnfJirlvpredictabIewavs,
f."qrr".r,l).ino'o1ui.rgu,"u; on, follorved bJ 3 siie"t uns*'flofien .T/t1*
nd foIIowed bl_{Sglh gfsf Ig}!91 .*, lg,9-, E . * ct rylsg{g{l
br ieT),-a T 9Rf1
....'..t.........'..',.'- . - "I ---; - -\-\_--/:- rr-r-T_ t.
F r u r v e r . I n T e x t 2 . t h e i n t e r a c t i o n s a p p r o x i m a t e m o r e c l o s e f v r v h - a to c c u r s i n L l a d u t t - c h i
:.\
inteiac-tionsoutside of the formal te-cfiifr!'?oitext
te (see for example, Hallida-v 1975;Wells , *
u ' i t h i n r i t i n g s t u d e n t st o r e l a t e* h r ( . 1 g )
thev havelearned, rather than achers -
cuesttonsare olten lramec ln \\aYs \\ n o t a l l 6 w f o r s t u d e n t st o m a k e e x t e n d e d
responses(Dillon, 1990), here, bv contrast,9aleacher sets up a context lr'here it is the
students5lro initiate the specifictopic of the exchange..A.s Eilis 119961shows, n'hen learners
-
i n i t i a t en h a t t h e y u i s h t o t a l k a b o u t , l a n g u a g el e a r n l n g l st a c r l r t a t e d
lscourse on thelr own terms. rather than respondlng to a
b e c a u s et h e y e n t e r t h e
rl,3',
from the teacher. In l^o$.
. - - _ - _ - _ . : - _ ^ ^ . 1 _ l
n o w e r '( B e r r r l 9 8 l 1 . A l t h o u g ho f c o u r s ei t i s t h e t e a c h e lrr - h oi s i n c o n t r o lo f t h e
k_--_
knowledgffiffied r,r.iththe overall thematic der.eiopmentof the unit of worLjte
individual exchangeslocate that controi in the student.The recipro^citvand mutualitv in the
speaker roles leads to Ha
classroom interactign. As is tvpical in these reporting seTsioiiT,-TEffit
r-----::->
bifld_: and u'hile follorving Hannah's lead and accepting as a valid contribution
information.h. gi.o"r,fh" ,.J.h.. ulro .9.urt, it, p*l{r.g
encode student meanins rn
llternative linguisticfor
:t#;i
i s a l s oc l e a rt h a t t e a c h e r - g u i d erde p o r t i n ge n c o u r a g eIse a r n e rl a n g u a g teo b e ' p u s h e d ' .
(As one student commented as she struggled to explain rvhat she had done: I can't say it
Miss!).Hu , becauseshe is allowed a
second attempt, she
secondattempt, rh. hu has an opportuniq'to produce mge;gryIgbgrl$le output. t. Hannah's
Hannah's
s e c o n d a t t e m p t a t h e r e x p l a n a t i o ni s c o n s i d e r a b l l _ 1 " .!r: r t , . 1 1 { d s r n t a c t i c g ! } -n n o r e
complete than her first, and is s time n.ithout the help of the
266 PAULINE GIBBONS
'ZPD '
notion of the is significant here. Vvgotskv suggeststhat learning occurs, with supp,
rner,S.Zoneofproximaldevelopment,(Vygotskv197:
that is, at the'outer edges'of a learner's current abilitie.s.In 1-2, Hannah aPPe.arsto har.
reaqhed her o*.t ro
.
P considerabletime, and can presumablvgo no further alone.The recastingand suppc'rt sh
r e c e i v e st r o m t h e t e a c h e r( 1 . J \ t h e n a p p _ e at os b e P r e c t s e l r y n ,
to assistHannah to continue
As Text 2 illustrates, the reporting context also gives students opportunities to produc.
lonoer stretches of discourse u:hich are more uritten-like than those which occurred in th.
small group lr'ork. Often this required the teachert e', on occasions1o:
- ."vhen
aslong as eight seconds.R.jg3ISb A - sts that teachers ask questions of students
-l/l'll*"'---b----b-------
typicalh' \ -ait one secondor lessfor the studentsto
)KflI they ' - '
tt ll l lll
)
:' I f , it
tin - l /lf
lll
r "'
rya;l+*'*efJa'r+$-
of both studentsand teacherGJRowe, 1986).We car.
J-lLf /f 11" th. arritudesand expectations
t/ l oareformulatin.
^, " responses in a languagethe-vdo not fullv control. Ptlbgpt equallyimportant, studentsu'ert
' . ," V
t-/'it,,abIetocompIetelvhatthevrr'antedtosar'andai-r r -
YI" - ^o
n. ;.r
lntEfaetants aRc learners. lnacrufirorr,-srnce lt ls tne r I-.
FtlF -
1 l-- i s i n t l u e n c i n gt o a l a r g ee l t e n t t h e t e a c h e r ' sc h o i c eo f ng, it would seem likel.
that this u"ordingrvill be i-.. more likely to be noticed - than if it
, n t ' h f r h a do c c u r 6-text which w'asless immediate. (For discussionof the significanceol
-a.10dI-'- r .^^-#
,hl''*,-. ,1--n"4 in secondlanguag€development,seeEllis, 199+).
I Another
Anotnef significant
Sfgnlncant mode
m O L I C shift U U C U I I e l J towards
S I I I L occurred L O w d I u s the
L I l c cend ofl most
llu u r t r P u r u r r 5 sessions.
r r r u ) L reporting rtJrrurl:.
n6Np
n(lV"-?
*;Y
where the teacf,er used children's personal knowledge to show how generalisationsmight
'\J'
be generated. Her questions at this point included, for example: can)/ouseesomethinBtI)
commonwith a]l theseexperiences?what'sthe sameaboutall theseexperiments?
Such questionsrequire ,h. . ,
of what thev did: thev must no\\, recontextualise this in terms of the teacher's quEitionl-
ffih."; is now characteri
field soecificlexis. and the thematisationof children themseives
^---\------\--
ire no lonper the
the north pole oJ the magnetnicks . attracts. . . the secondmagnet. . . the southpole oJ
.L ^ ^^^^- )
LII( )CLULlU tilUHrtCL.
tf you put the southand north toBethetthentheywtll . . . attractbu {you put north and north
or southand south. .. together. . . theywon't stick. . . attract.
Thus the teacher againmediates betu.een children's individual experiences and the broader
knorvledge and discourse into u-hich they are being apprenticed, Iocating these experiences
within a larger framervork of meanings. Stage 2 texts, then, both in the way language is
u s e d , a n d i n t h e k j n d s o f k n o u l e d g e 1 1h ( c h i s c o n s t r u c t e d ,s e r r e t o c r e a t ea
al experiential lvavs ofknorvi i6-c
ihscourse of
and,sociallvconstructed knou-ledge.
Stage3 texts
Many of the journals reflected rvhat had been said in the teacher-guided reporting sessions.
Students included',vording rvhich thev had used in interaction with the teacher, or which
LEARNING A NEW REGISTER 267
Conclusions Usu/Us4'"'^:
'leaqnlng-br
While the researchI fiavedescribedillustratesthe valueo-f doing' (especialll
/,
for second languade
for second learners rvhere
languag'e learners rvhere concrete exoerienceshelp to make language
comprehensible), it also iilustrates the critical role of teacher-learner talk in childrenT
learning and languagedevelopment, andTh?wav that s
\r\ v4c
*---f-F
co-construct a ne\\' ..gjtq]Egbg!-guid.d t.p"ttqin particular appearsto offer a {-/
potential for second languagedevelopment
The researchalso suggeststhat in analvsinghorv interactions are made comprehensible
to ESL studentsin the classroomcontext, rve need to look further than the linguistic features
of the interactions themselves (for example the simpiicitv or otherwise of svntactic
structures),and examine the on-going:ontext in lvhlchihose interactionsa." ritrrut"d. Of
particular significance-i-ithin tFe se -essonswas the scattoldrngo
concepts through the_sma rouo u-ork- lt allo\\ teacher to use new' ll'orcli
$
wavs of meanin u hich u-ere Th-enmore readilv interoretable bv the
sildents. The broader principle is that languagei,r.hichrvould normallv students
-comprehension
--'-----; ' . r.r
is likelv to be understood r""henstudents can bring their experiences and
understandings as a basis for interpretation. The degree to lvhich interactions are
comprehensible for ESL students should therefore be related not onlv to the interactional
featuresthemselves.andtotheimmediatesituationaIcontexti,'ffio
,o r,nuinr@g1nem - rn , r.,rgr,
ffi,F
In t t .Turr.rtud""t, ur"d t r/ / | \
)A
the focuson.nerrlanguage occurred.at laterstages. a seque,nce.rr-hich gllou'edfor sludentsTS
tt6build o n ttheir
- ob u i l d on existing
heir e understandingr
x i s t i n qu rnd
sn d llunguisF.;;a
n d e r s t a n d i n qa a n q u a q ea. n d tto-link-old
o l i n k a . [ ! _ll"arn'ng *ith
e a r n i n gu e u ; \o"'
ne.r;
ith n
l n e l l e c t t o m o | e s u c c e s s l u l lt\o \ t a r d st a r q e l t e x t s . r a t h e r t h a n b e g l n n l n gu ' l t h t h e m .
268 PAULINE GIBBONS
The research I have described also indicates the signilicance for language learning
p r o d u c e dl : '
t h e i n t e r t e x t u a ln a t u r eo f c l a s s r o o ml a n g u a g eh: o u o n e t e x t i s u n d e r s t o o do r
r p l ration
t i n n to
relation t o :another.,
another.
nnther o l intertextual
r a n q e of
* ' i d e range
A u'ide int"rta* re lPs ex
Et--GJ";;".*p1", what a teicher savs and u'hat students are exPected to read; what
students listen to thev are expected to lr-rite; the discourse of the lesson and the
".rd.,uhut
texts studentsare expected to r,r'orkrvith for homeu'ork; and the familiar languageor dialect
the home a.,d th" less familiar languageof the school. A consideration of how these links
m a d e i n t e r t e x t u a l l v a n d r e c o g n i s i n gr v h e r el i n g u . r _ s l i c ' b r i d g easl e' m i s s i n g m i g h t
o [ e rri n insishts f o r tthe
s i g h t s tbr l p t learners,
l a n n i n g @ a I I l e a r n e r s , a n d h eall
h e ppianning;f-nTi..l-ptogttd6r o and help to suggestthe
d of liiguistic ,upport *ort ."l.uu.rt for students iess familiar w'ith the language of the
tlassroom.
A final point concerns the model of ianguagedrarvn on in mv research.A language
modellvhichaddressesthereIationshipbeIweencontextandmeaning,u@
c o n c e r n e d t h e r e f o r e u - i t h m o r e t h a n g r a m m a t i C a l c o m P e t e n c e , p r o \ ' l d e s a _s l g n l l l -
ng
Sctrvrtles.
--FurflrcTclassroom-based
studies are needed into the language learning processes of
school-agedESL learners, if educators are to develop more theoreticallv informed and
.qrrltubl" curricula and pedago$ This task requires
_
interdisciplinar roactrto researchiln multilinqual ciassrooms,one which draws on
,i**l theoretical and methodological lines of enquirv andffi?Eis underPin
view oflearningl
t^tetdrsct+_)
tvt'*<rq
References
DOING-ENGLISH-LESSONS IN THE
REPRODUCTIONOR TRANSFORMATION OF
SOCIAL WORLDS?
I Introduction
H I S A R T I C L E T E L L S A F S T O R Y o f f o u r c l a s s r o o m ss, i t u a t e di n d i f f e r e n t
socioeconomic backgrounds. Drau'ing on the theoretical notions of cultural capital,
habitus, symbolic violence, and creative, discursiveagencvasanalvtic tools, the storv unfolds
r,vitnessingthe classroom dilemmas in *'hich students and teachers found themselves, as
rvell as the creative, discursive strategiesw'hich they used to cope with these dilemmas.The
implicationsoftheirstrategiesarediscussedr'r.ithreferencetot!9qussti9g9I@
'
Engl
social worlds.
-'St"r,.-;s
about the global spread of English and its increasing socioeconomic
importance in the w-orld have almost become cliches. On colorful banners celebrating the
TESOL Annual Convention in Chicago streetsin 1995 r'vasrvritten the eve-catchingmission
slogan,"TeachingEnglishto theWorld". Indeed, Englishseemsto havebecome a precious
commoditv increasinglvdemandedbv the world, andTESOL practitionersand researchers
seem to be striving to meet the demand of the rvorld market *'ith all our professionalism.
InTESOL journals and annual conventions,practitioners and researcherssharetheir findings
about methods, approaches,material designsthat are effective.
However, apart from the technical concern of efficiencv in teaching and learning, it
seemsthat a fai more diverse range of questionsneeds to te addressed*hich includes
questionssuch asw.hether,and if ves, horr-,Englishis implicated in the reproduction of social
inequalities in different conlexts in the rvorld. As regards the global influence of Englishl
pen l doirinant p*ltio.r of English u.rJ th"
socioeconomic, cultural and political embeddednessof Engiish in the world. Access(or lack
of it) to E"€l!b affectsihe socialmobilitv andlife chJ.,cesof manv.hild'ffillltF
ins Enslish as therr tirit or angua
world is a a Ti d e n t i t i e sa n d u n e q u a lr e l a t i o n so f p o w e r
l M a r t v n - J o n e sa n d H e l l e r , 1 9 9 6 1 . I t i s a l s ol i k e l v t h a t m a n v s t u d e n t si n
ambivalent, want-hate relationship rvith Engli e classroom becomes a site for
student3 str tronal Practrces\'\ horvever, often lead students to
272 ANGEL M. Y. LIN
participate
|,-*#
i" thgg_glyl.dsmlourion (e.g. see Canagarajah,Chapter 13 of this book). This
.{ffit.r
lr
is u'ritten foTTESOL practitioners and researchersu-ho want to listen to more ol
the lived stories of English in the r,r'orldand r,r.hoshare a similar concern in exploring wa\ s
o f d o i n g T E S O L t h a t d o n o t p a r t i c i p a t ei n t h e r e p l o d u c t i o n o f s t u d e n td i e.
Some theoretical notions that can serve as analvtical tools for achieving a greater
understanding of sociai phenomena of reproduction are discussedin this section. Given
limited space, rvhat goes beiou. must be treated as a highlv svnoptic characterization and
the interested reader is urged to consuit the referencesthemselvesfor a more detailed
account. - t
,/L (o't''t"*dL
This is a concept from Bourdieu (Bourdieu,1973; Bourdieu and Passeron ,1977; Bourdieu.
1 9 7 7 ; B o u r d i e u . 1 9 9 1 ) r e f e r r i n g t o l a n g u a g eu s e . s k i l l s .a n d o r i e n t a t i o n s / d i s p o s i t i o n s
attitudes,/schemesof perception (also called"habitus") that a child is endowed with by virlue
of socialization in her/his familv and communitv. Bourdieu's argument is that their familial
. omic elite th. .ight kind of cultural capital
for school success(i.e., their habitusbecomestheir cultural capital).A recurrent theme in
Bourdieu's w'or ildren from disadvan w'ith a habitus incompatible
vi'ith that presupposedin school, are not.o*pgtt ints u'ith children
irefrte Eence.Eerenroducti tratification. The notion ot
ts(e.g..Delpit,198E;Luke,l996ltodescribe
the disadvantagedposition of etirnic and linguisti. ti.roriii", and to problematize the notion
that state education in modern societiesis built on meritocracy and equal opportunity.
lCV
i ls+, t es)
fu"-"f t"h"g pJrt.(Bourdt.l.r,
legitimate and appropriate fbr discourse in official settings, and this "English = American"
st.mbolic representationhas numerous consequencesfor schooling and jobs (Collins, 1993)-
For another instance,manv Hong Kong parentsinsist on flghting for a place for their children
in English medium schools (often despite the lact that their children speak and understand
- good schools" svmbolic
little English) because of the "English medium schools
representation that they have steadfastlvaccepted even in a largelv Chinese societv and a
post-1997 era (for some background to the svmbolic domination of English in Hong Kong,
seeLin, 1996,1998; and more on this in section 3 belorv).
.d\ ^
>c t)-
Bourdieu has often been accusedof bejn'e overlv deterministic and a theorist more of
, /----;-----S\ ,./, :.
reproductionthaq{an1lory9tt g.,Jenkins,1992;CanagarajahinChapter 13). Lemke,
holever, points ouitEaTBo[r-Fu is not limited to reproduction; w'hat he does limit is the
effectiveness of single agentin changing *-hole 6elds of taluatiofr-{uy...-.----L"mIE,
pets-o-nul
com ched to English in Hong
Ko+g cannot be changed b)' single agents unless there are systematic changesin the social
."l"a a
oft6?JoE?1ilil; see section 3 belorv).While the above seems true, an area in which
Bourdieu offers ferv analvsesis the creative, discursiveagencv of social actors who find
. s C o l l i n sp o i n t so u t :
l h e m s e l v e sc a u g h ti n d i l e m m a s A
.t
rve need to allor,vfor dilemmas and intractable oppositions; for dlvided consciousness,
not just dominated minds; ... for creatr,f:-_discurlve agencv in conditio.. U?tr,,r
prest.uctured,tobesure,butul'dynamic*^".'.,iio}
(Collins, 1993 134) 0
ln section 4 below, rve shall see some examples, and discussthe consequences,olsg@-_
Tiken from the databaseofthe author's ethnographic and classroomdiscourse study ofeigl.:
classroomsin sevenschooisfrom a rangeof socioeconomicbackgroundsin Hong Kong, t.
follorving four classroom scenariosare meant to give the reader a senseof the diversitr , :
discursivepracticesthat can be found acrosseven simiiarlv constrainedciassrooms(e.g
ClassroomsB, C, and D) To protect the anonl'mitr:of the schoolsand the participants.a--
namesare pseudo-namesand all identifving detailsof the schoolsand teachersare left ou:
In iistening to these verv different stories, holever, -voulvill sensea preoccupation r,",-ith.
current question:To rvhat extent are classroomlellicpan'tslhapgl bv the larger socia-
structures such as sociocultura a c K p r o u n d a n c lt o \ \ ' h a t e x t e n t a r e t h e \ t r c :
to tf-arxform their lot (and habitus)?We shall return to this question in section 5 . For ea.-i
classrooml-3h-ilfTrst describe the background, with information based on questionnairt
survevs and intervier,vsof the students, and then an English reading lesson.All four teache;'.
are Hong Kong Chinese, sharing the same mother-tongue r,vith their students.
A: a scenariooJ compatiblehabitus
Classroom
Background V
and her feelingsnaturallv and comfortabh'in Enslish. She u'as interestedin both Chinese
'and
English literature, and she read for leisure English magazines.Sometimes,she w.ould
bring her old magazinesfrom home to the classlibran. and share them rvith her students.
the reading l"rro.r describedbelorv was run smoothlv and the teacher engagedstudents
in high-level r,e.g.,be)'ond factual) qugslions about the stor) thev had read ill"through rh.
,,
l F s s o nE n g l i s h u ' a s c o n i l s t e n t l r u s e d b r b o t h - T e a c F ear n d s t u d e n t sa n d t h e c l a s s r o o m
//
atmosphere w-asinterestinglv both relaxed and seriously on-task. i f)
The students swiftl-vformed groups and discussed.Theteacher w-alkedto a group and started
to engage students in thinking deeper about the storvTl:i
. r r t f l r . I r . -
ons. e.9.. vvnal oro lvlrs. Harrls see ln 6-rrers?"or. "Besidesthe {lolrers. how
else can she feel fter ing some time with one group
shefioved onto another group and did the same
After about fifteen minutes she addressedthe rvhole cla
questions about the storv. The students readilv gave her answers and she built on their
arFswersto bring out the themes of the storv: friendship, hard w.ork and courage.Then she
talked about the class'supcoming examination and encouragedher studentsto emuiate Mrs.
Harris, to w'orkhard and not to lose heart u'hen faced with difficulties. Most of the time
during the lesson, the students seemed to be attentive to their teacher or on-task.
Classroom
B: a scenariooJ i
Background
This is a form 2 (grade 8) classof fortv-tu'o students, twent\-bovs and tlr,'entv-tu'o girls,
agedbetween thirteen to fourteen.The schoolis locatedin a government-subsidized public
housing estate.The students largelv came from families r,r'holived in the nearbv public
housing estates.Their parents u'ere manual or service r'vorkers and their education level
rangedfrom primarv to secondarvschool.Ther,spokeonlv Cantoneseat home. Most of the
bovs read comics, ne\\rspapers,TVneu's, and pop vouthmagazines.Most of the girls read
TV new's,love stories, ghost stories, netl:spapers,and pop vouth magazinesrlhe).did not
read any English extra-curricular materiais.
s r,vhor,vereobserr.edto be the most resistant
to the teacher in the .l^rr.oo*."Th"rl ,r-".. plavful and testing, as if checking out u'hether I
276 ANGEL M. Y. LIN
could understand their insider jokes. When I asked them questions such as w'hether ther'
liked English or their English l"r.o.,r, thev replied in the affirmative, but in an exaggerated
u.rd loki"g u,ay. I sensedthat thev r,veretrving to give me rvhat thev thought I was after, so
I said again that I w.ould like to hear u'hat thev reallv thought and that I rvould not tell
_ Then thev seemed to be more w'illing to voice
F6'l anythin; theJ said to the schooi authorities.
_--___ -_____:_-_
frli, f"Jli.rgr.fn"1'saidthel found their Englishlessonsboring andthey did not know a lot
of the thingsthe teuchiilllilar the iiacher would onl,vspeakin English.I TkdJh1he)'
did ll th" te !-",:Iplq" qf th*gl th#'d.9llnder stand.Ther
""tt. ".h.Lg.@g'
saidt6etei&eiw.nd i-1)'""pt"* .gr"l"T"glirt\ u.rdlh.u u'ouidstill not understand.
Thel.said thev chatted and plaved in the classroom becausethe lesson rvas too boring but
they u-ere also afra!{ of being askedbv the teacher to ans$'er questions.They said thev felt
("r,vitbcq!,ia9s) standing-p-th-eTe in TEerclassan?TEin!-inable to answer the
""ry?f,r."
-ff
teacner s ouestlons.
Thev irad a verv cvnical r'ie*' about school life and about their future. They said thel'
did not like learning English but thev knerv thev could not 6nd a job without English in tfus
societv.Thev also stated that thet did not consider thel' would be able get into universitr
TeacherBt relationship *ith so-e of t to be stressfulat times. For example.
,6i!tii6rhe had to chidethe bovsangrilv for not pa-vingattentionor chattingwith their
neighbours.The follou'ing reading lesson w-ill give the reader a senseof the atmosphere ir-
her classroom.
B
A readinglessonin Classroorr'f
The teacher started b-v saying thev rvere going to read chapter 30 of the storybook.
.,1'.= Adventures of Tom Sarvyer,in groups of four or five and each grouP would send a
t aJ representative to retell the stor-vin 50 to 60 words to the whole class.Each grouP was to
$O f
lvrite down a summarv on a piece of paper first and the summary should cover the main
points in that chapter. As the teacher u'as savingthese instructions, the classwas noisy and
some students said loudly in Cantonese that thev did not know rvhat to do. The teacher
repeated her instructions and w-alkedaround to help students to form grouPs and to explain
againwhat thev u,ere expected to do. Most of the students were off-task, chatting and joking
in Cantonese.A girl at the back rvasw-riting the lvrics of a popuiar Cantonese love song on
a piece of paper. There seemed to be a lot of non-teacher-approved activities going on in
the classroom and a lot of noise. The teacher seemed exhaustedcirculating around the
classroom trying to get her students to do the task. All through the lesson English was
consistentlv spoken bv the teacher w'hile, in contrast, Cantonese was invariablv spoken by
the students except rvhen thev rvere called upon to do the storv-retelling. When they did
that, thev read mechanicallr.from a seriesof sentencesthey w'rote on a piece of paper while
most other students continued to chat noisilv on their own. After a student had finished
readingfromthepaper,theteacherrvould.")...\,.''
or'_Quite nice, thev have covered some of the points" and then immediatelv called another
gro,rp'r d had to
get all the retellings done rvithin the lesson.This might explain the brev$rof her feedback
to the students.
D O I N G - E N G L I S H - L E S S O NS 2 7 7
T
Background v
This is a form 2 (grade 8) classof thirtv-nine students,nineteen male and twentv female,
aged from thirteen to fourteen. The school is located in a torvn close to an industrial area.
The socioeconomicbackgrounds of the studentsand their sociolinguisticand extracurricular
literacv habits are like those of their counterparts in Classroom B. Their English fluency, as
can be seen from horv and lvhat thev spoke in the classroom, seemed to be rather llmited
for their grade level. There n'ere manv r,vordsin the textbook that thel' did not understand
or did not knolv hou- to Dronounce.
When I informallv interr-ieu'eda group of bovs after class,thev expressedthat they
found English "boring" and "difficult" but thev also said thev knerv it w.asverv important to
learn English well. Thev found schooi u'ork generallv boring but said thev still preferred to
go to school becausethey said thev could at least meet and plav rvith friends at school.Thev
said it lvould be even more boring to stav ail dav at home. "Boring" lvas a word these boys
used frequently to describe their life and school.The reader can get a senseof the atmosphere
in their classroom bv looking at the foilorving readrng lesson.
A readinglessonin ClassroomC
The reading lessoncan be divided'lnto three stages.In the pre-reading stage,the teacher
us - Heaven-QueenFestival,
using
rsing the Initiation-Response-Feedback (lRF) discourseformat (Sinclair and Coulthard
Coulthard,
f lZi; lf
comprehension ques
teacher wrote ten numbered reading
d the classr,vasgiven fifteen minutes to read a*1r
t3n*-
silerit i.rr*'.., from the text to th.l..r questionsbv undffi
the-text.T@The final stageis a.r u.rs*.e. ng stage.
t6ucfiEitlicited answers from the .1".. r.rri.rgthe IRF dircourse format. The teichei often
hadtore-asko'"|ub.toqetresPonsesfromstudents
u"atn ;.
I"lF6tt"-t'-g f.o.r-rth. un.*.r-.h".k;g rt"g"Jt" fi"d the creativitv
"-*tpt;ken
of the studentsbu;sting ;ut in u ,riche that e;
ffi
urilnteresting IRF diTourse. The teacher had been asking lactual reading comprehension
-questions
:ii;
about the Heaven-Queenstory that thev havejust read. She came to question 9
(What happened r,vhenshe ansr.veredher mother?) and first asked the question in English.
No response was forthcoming and so she was no\{' elaborating the question in Cantonese
in pursuit of a responsefrom her students:
LessonExcerpt
(To facilitate reading, Cantoneseutterances have been translated into English; thev are
bolded and placed in pointed brackets.Seeappendix for other notes on transcription.)
tJ rr:lfuy
D: a scenario
Classroom
Background V
This is a form 1 (grade 7) remedial English classof thirtv students' twent)'bovs'.ten girls'
in the nearbr'
aged betrveen t*iue to thirteen. The Jtudents came from families u'ho lived
the students and their
public housing estates. The socioeconomic backgrounds-of
in
iociolinguistic"and extra-curricular literacv habits are like those of their counterparts
ClassroomsB and C.
The classroom at WAS \:CI\ students were attentive to the teacher
and focusedon thei tasksmost of t
and rvereboth eagerand eten-gb]9&--e
n I askedthe students in informal i Iass rvE-ether thg-lik.d Engli sl-.
a n d t h e i r E n g l i s hl e s s o n st,h e r s a i dv e l a n d t t h e ]e s p e c i a l l ) ' . l i k et h
d
said that the\,liked to h..rffiEnglis\eader Iand that shecoul:
clearll tdthem. Thev li . t a . ' s h e e x p l a i n e ds o m e $ r a m m a t i t :
'ngth;clifferenceb.i'"e".,..li1tle''and..|ew,''theteach.
D OI N G . E N G L I S H - L E S S ON S 2 7 9
lped them to remember the difference bv saving"little" has more letters than "few" and
' ir uncountable
rF\'To-fin-ilthis
mnemonic tip very helpful to them.Thev also@r a
ffi.The"saidthaithev.[@,h.,'couldlearnEngIishr,ve1lbecause
r e vc o u l d s e e oing betterand betterin theii ctanons. exerclses and
teacherhad kept a persona ress chart for the students so that thellEew Eoil'
irev w-ere-doingover time, and the teacher would gi
itidents.Thev felt that thev could succeed in their studies and rvould have a good chance
,i lirthering their studies (e.g., entering universitv) in the future.
Cantoneseto exolain roc rections, make the English
-tori texts come alive,explaingrammaticalpoints.and interactrvith studentsmost of
--
rhe time. Sher.r'f,s-the
u'asthe teacher*'ho
rvho *SdiE*
usedthe most C@ers
Cantoneselfronqaheeiqht teachers
rl mV stud\.5ne Delle|ed that slnce tne students \\-ere strll l-orm I students and rt'ere
feGA:SU f.f"sing Englishall the time, using Cantonesecould help them become
rtlorernteresteclrn tne lessonsanclundersta-nd the lessonsbetter. Shealsofound that her
:tudents had made good progress over the academic vear, for instance, as reflected in their
# r .-_---
a n d t h e i r i m p r o v e d s c o r e si n s c h o o l t e s t s a n d
TeacherD lvas the form teacher of this class.She spent most of her recess.lunch. and
rfter-school hours talkins to individual students ms, ror example,
'f o
' -r bo e. - to Drlng s t o s c h o o l , n o i s v i n o t h e r t e a c h e r s ' i e s s o n ss, c o r i n g p o o r l y i n
dictations or tests. I got a senseth;it the good relationships she had u.ith her students (as
could be reflected in their eagerresponsesto her questions,and their co-operative responses
to her directives) might have something to do rvith the amount of individual attention sh,e
this 'vvar''.
she maintained both a c
However, that also seemed to make her school davs fullv packed and busv from earlv
morning till late into the afternoon. She seemed to be an energetic teacher w.ho did not
mind doing extra w'ork and spending extra time u'ith her students. The reader can get a
senseof the atmosphere in her classroom bv looking at the follorving lesson excerpt.
A readinglessonin ClassroomD
The lesson excerpt belou, is taken from the beginning ofthe reading lesson.The teacher
announces that she is going to ask them questions about the part of the English storybook
that thev have read in a previous lesson:
+69 T: <Okay, let me ask vou about the storv, and see if you can still remember itl
Last time we told the ston' to page fortr; that is the last- the lesson before the
last lesson, and then in the last lesson rve told the storv from page forty to
fortv-tu'o ! Nou' Iet me seeif vou can still remember the story . . . Sinbad w-as
sailing in a boat, remember?Thosejervelries,then he had given awav half of
t h ej e r ' r r l r i e s t o . . . a n d h e h a d b o u g h t a b o a t , a n d h e h a d b o u g h t .. . r e c r u i t e d
manv sailors, after that, he also bought four boats, one sailing torvards the East,
one tou'ards the South, one tow'ards theWest, and one tolvards the North.
Sinbadhimself took a boat, sailing back to rvhere? . . . sailing back to rvhere)?
{A girl raisesher hand;T turns to her and savs}Yes,
+78 Girl 1 {standsup and speaks}: <Brazil>l
478.5T: < G o b a c k t o B r a z i l > ? lN o : : : ,
2 B O A N G E L I V I .Y . L I N
4 7 8B
. Some Ss {speakingin their seats}: Baa'Gaak-Daaht!
479T: No, not <Brazil> i (manv students raise their handsnorv andT points to a bor
L'79 \ Bov 1 {standsup and speaks}: <Baghdad>!
(that is), in English '
4 ' 1 9 . 8 T . <Baghdad>, hor'vto spell . . . <Baghdad>?English
<nalhdad>. {Girl t raisesher hand again;T turns to her and gesturesher t
speak)Yes,
481.5 Girl 1 {stands up and speaks}: b - a - g - h . . . - d - a - d { T r v r i t e s i t o n t h .
b l a c k b o a r da s t h e g i r l s p e l l si t )
4 8 3T : Yes! (Horv to read this rvord>?
Some Ss {speakingup in their seats}: <Baghdad>l <Baghdad>l
484T: No, Baghdal, Baghdad,Baghdad(that is. okav, as thev rvere thinking of goin;
back home, alasl on the u-avback, thev ran into a GROUP OF> ' ' '
(monkeYs! monkeysl monkevs!)
+87 Ss {speakingup in their seats}:
.f88T: (That grour
Mo.,ievslYesl {T writes the rvord "monkey" on the blackboard}
of *o.rl.v-*en, that group . . . monkev-men that is, monkey-men that is, the.
took them to an island), w'hat is the na::me of this island?Can you spell th'
rvord? { Another girl raisesher hand } Yes,
+9) Girl 2 {standsup and speaks}: Z-u-g . . .
- f9 2 . 5T : z-u'!, . .
+92.8 Girl 2 {standing up}: (d)
(How to read it;
193T: No, b, b for bori { T rvrites the word "Zugb" on the board }
A verv uglv plice.>
+9+.3 Some Ss {speakingin their seats} : Zugbl
494.5T Z::ugb'.
+9s Ss {repeating in their seats} : ZUGB!!
4 9 5 . 5T : <Alas> I ZugalAu uglv place for the uglv men. (An ugly place for those ugi'.
men to live in.Those monkevs brought them there for what>?
+98 Bov {speaking in his seat}: <(Dump him there)>l { Another boy raisesLu.
hand)
4 9 8 . 3T : Yes,
4 9 8. 5 Bov 2: <(Giant ? ? )>
4 9 8 . 8T : <Rightl Ho',r'to savgiant in Engiish>?
+99 Another bov {speakingin his seat}: <Giant>!
499.5T. <Giant in Engiishis . . . Leuhng-Mahn-Yih>!
500 L { s t a n d su p a n d s p e a k s } : G i a n t .
5 0 0 . 5T : Giantl Verv goodlYesl { T rvrites the w'ord "giant" on board }
ttr..,.".tr.t a:ry+l],h
In theexcerptabove, i"t
lh'
storr about Sinbadsailingin a boat.The teacherthen asksthe studentswhere Slnbadls salun:-
----+---:i---'-:--- -
6 l c k t o l l a s t t h r e e l i n e si n t u r n [ 4 6 9 1 1 .
The teacher gir,esnegatjve feedbacllo a student's answer in turn ItZ8.5] Some othe:
students i-rrildl"t.lu speak out their ansrversfrom their seats(turn [478.8]).The teache:
signalsto a bov to speak.The boy standsup from his seatand gives his answer (turn [479. i;
Bia-Gaak-Daaht).We see that in this rvav, the teacher maintains the practice of having :
r-accepts" ence to a student response.
This time th" rtnd"trEiiilEiis correct (turn [479J]:B-fr:GaIR:Daaht).Theteache:
reDeats it and immediatelvinitiatesanotherquestionin the feedback-cum-initiation slt:
== It seemqto belongto a ditterenttyPeol questr,:
(tfi-1 [479.8| l. TliS!-uestionis interesting.
from the first question she asks (see last line in turn [469]: <B>Sinbad . . . sailing bac.
D OI N G- E N G L I S H - L E S S ON S 2 8 1
to u,here?>). Instead of follou'ing the storvline and asking about r,vhathappens to Sinbad
next, the second question requires the students to give the spelling of the English version
of the name of the place, "Baa-Gaak-Daaht",rvhich has been offered bv a student as a
responseand acknorviedgedand repeatedbv the teacher (turns [479.51,[+79.81).lt seems
to be a question that requires the students to focus on the linguistic aspectsof the storv.
'fhev
have read the English text (pp. +0 +2 of their storvbook), and the Engiish text is no\,v
laid out on their desks before them. The question requires them to shift their focus from
,
t n c c o n t e n t o t t n e s t o r l J o r a u n r l et o c o n c e n t r a t eo n t n e t a n g u a g el n \ \ ' n r c nt t u s c o n t e n l t s
Teacher-lnitiationIL2-L 1]
Student-ResponseIL1]
Teacher-Feedback [ (L 1-)L2]
In contrast,Teacher D usest$'o different IRF formats in the follon'ing cvcle in the reading
lesson:
282 ANGEL M. Y. LIN
/1
tr
Teacher-lnitiation L 1
Student-Response L 1
Teacher-Feedback L 1
ttr@ = L1 or L2)
T"uc},.i't"itiationI Ll /L2 ) (Ll /L2
Student-Response L l / L 2 l
is in L2
Teacher-Feedback L 2 l , o r u s e( 2 )a dl Student-Response
the L2 resPonseelicitt:
(3) Start (2) again to focus on another linguistic asPectof
in (2); or return to (1) to focus on the storr-again'
.to2fot"t lutgtus'
Thls kind of discourse practice allou,s the teacher to interlock " :it\"
focus in the reading l"iro.t. There can bt '
uage-tocus
6*mF, interntinednlth a
6a..h.t never starts an initiation in e alwavs starts i:
W6GGnoted above-[6-at
o i C r.ho always star'-
Ll.This standsin sharp contrasirvith the discoursepractices
in her initiations' It ars to me that always starting in L -
n'ith L2 texts or questions
lFilstudent can fui-
Teacher D ahvavs starts from u'h
G-fr-ihut u'ith. Qn the other hand, br usin the bcus IRF form::
IRF format, shecanalso usht s to *ove f.c,t:-
fficars
to u'ha1 e more famili::
what@xpressions)
with (e'g', L2 to@iottt)
of the students
tural caPital
and lingui'::
the schooi lesson: ther har,e both the right kind of attitudes/interest
themes of the storv in EngL'':
skills/confidence to pu.ii.ipur" in high-ievel liscussions on the
in Classroory!19p1glucg1'": -
rvith one anotherurrdrh" i"..h... Doing-English-iessons --.
.r . | -,--' ^--1...--l ^.'- Aflons an(l ODl(\
r e i n f o r c e st,h e s t u d e n t s ' c u l t u r acl a p i t a li
6 i l i ri . r o f s u c c e e d i n gi n s c ;.tett E.-th teacher and students are nc''
rlemmas cau t f f a n d t h u s t h e a t m o s p h e r eo f r e l a r
incomPatlbrutv oI naDltus,
hu.*o.tt' in her classroom.
D OI N G- E N G L I S H . L E S S ON S 2 8 3
Although 1\'ecan see a glimpse of hope in creative, discursive agencv in transforming our
habitus and life chances,ure cannot neglect the need for the continual interrogation ofpolver
a n d f i e l d s o f v a l u a t i o n i n t h e l a r g e r s o c i e t . " ' ( P e n n v c o o k1,9 9 ' l ; L u k e , 1 9 9 6 ) . F o r i n s t a n c e ,
found I bit of the cultural capitalthat ther,need for
studentsin Classropm-p_m.Qhlh;rr-e
'
sch6oland social through
success their te t
thei aie still in a race the rules of rrfiich arellicfZoi
alreadvwav aheadof them in the race (e .g. , ClassroomA students). T.freserules are, however,
.t tl tt,-. lll#
olten taKen lor grantec anc Percer\eo as legrilmale D\. ail Parues: teacners, stucents.
xe6sffifl-rh-dfrT-(s€€
section 2 above).
interrogation, together r,vith their students, of the role of English in their societ,vand in
their life chances to develop a critical socialtheorv ofpractice (Luke, 1996).As Pennycook
points out,
References
Chapter 18
AssiaSlimani
EVALUATION OF CLASSROOM
INTERACTION
Wertheimer (196+\ and Smith (1970\. u-ho focus-edon outcomes and oaid
FNBhrw
l r t t l e a t t e n t r o nt o p r o c e s s . \ X
-.- t
fV D l O f
-
N t ee\
|
c h a p t e r p r o p o s e st o a n a l r s ea n d e v a l u 6 t ern' hr hf tA ti s J c l a i m e dt o b e l e a r n .e d f r o m
classroorninteraction. The method, u'hich rvill be described later, allor.r'sa detailed studl
of the classroom interactive processesin attempting to un and evaluatethe oualit
interaction u'hi defined as lrhat learners
claim to have learned from a particular lesson. 'rro*t
Importance of the study of classroom interaction
Uptake
'as
Learning a languqqeis defined bv 'some
" ' : ^ ' r ^ proponents
"rt-":'-"" of
" . - communicative
.-"- -_---: curricula learnir-t
:j .
ho[ to ."r.rr r"icate as a member of a socio-culturalgroup' (Breen and Candlin 1980:9 -
F{il-*, it is amplv acknon-ledged-hat learning a linguage is not merely a matter of recal}r:-;
beadsof items but rather of coming to grips u'ith the ideational,interPersonaland texr-'
knowledge rvhich is realised through effectiue con6ffi6i-ln ttte target langua;.
T6. one might argue that attemPri
r t l a n g u a g el e a r n i n g i n v o l v e s . I n t h i s c h a p t e r . i :
. )nell as performan,. '
(9-
fr6-*-."r, since u'e are concerned rl.ith relating learning outcomes to their immec..-.
and potentiallldeterminitffIrrlgn-ent. it appearsrather9jblllo think of r.a.'
.r;i-
aTld."." ,hr."eh ,"r,i
gettifra-aJ-lE-ar;i-rg s traditior
E V A L U A T I O N O F C L A S S R O O MI N T E R A C T I O N 2 8 9
understood. The interactive process lends itseif to the creation of an infinite set of learning
opportunities w-hichare not pre-establishedbv the teacher'splan. In such circumstances,
it appearsto be practicalh'impossibleto undertake the complicatedtask of designinga test
to assessthe effects of interaction asit occurs, especiaiivsince the test hasto be administered
at the end of the lesson. How'ever,the major problem encountered
-'ountered when when attempt!4gtc)
attempting to---1
. . r : : ; :: : :
researchthe of the direct impaCt of rnteracr u b l e c t l-claims
s c l a l m s is
l s tthat ofl finding
hat o hndrng I
'u
i rvay to identifv and collect the learners' performance data or ce identihed, ffid. I
ilptake needsto be relatedto the classroomenr ironment u'hich Lichmight subsequentll'explain
might subsequentlv explain I
emergence.lo do thrs, uptake has to be capture
its-emergerrce.
rts ffi"q--,1
'tlook
ffi.---1-|'._----T--}-
olace.,trut before
t65k-Elf,ie.,but too m[ch
betore too cou[dFlbpen
much could happen 16
to th-e-ln6imantsthat w'ouldobscurethe
, ',.-e-
dlrectrmpactot the ..lFnt on th. l..tn".i claims. 6^-4 -|ga, ...
--TEe ffiest-based evaluationprocedures.SLA
;;;blemlia-ot
elicitation techniques rvould also fail to meet the objectives of getting unmediated learner
data. Elicitation procedures, similar to those used bv Lightbown (1983), provide the
informants with an obligatorv context of use; this enablesthe researcher to evaluate,under
experimental conditions, the informants' accuracy r,r-henusing the features which are being
investigated.Bv their nature, these procedures assumethat one is looking for particular
features w-hich are predicted from the teacher's plan. Horvever, .uvhatis needed is a rvay of
identifvinq r'vhatlearners havego,lrfrcm '+eir experience of being in a particular classsession.
*---9-;----- 'uptake'identilication
The solution eventuallv adopted to the problem of must seem
somewhat naive at first sight: simpil' asking the informants to tell the researcher rvhat thev
believed thev had leu..r.d"in ttr" t"S5o
dl-ThFprocedure outweighed its obvious shortcomings.
The great advantageof this approach is that it offers an oa9.1g11onglu'arof getting at
u.hatlearnersperceivethevhavelearned.Itmakesitpo,,ibl"@
thleimmediate environment lrom lvhich thev emerged in order to see if it is possibleto
estabIisharelationship.Theideaofrequiringlearnerstotellus@
learned n'ould supplv the researcher u'ith manageableamounts of data, directly referable
t g t h e c l a s s r o o md a t a . F o r i n s t a n c e
'list' 'least',
difference between and the investigator could trace th
anscrl nd studv the opportunities rvhere'iist' and'least'arose and scrutinisealso the
clrcumst \ ! r I I L r r r r r r t r r L lEave
I t r l s L a r l u c s ;hch-ffi-gflt r d ! c made L l r u s c ritems
l r l d u c those L c r l l s particularlv outstanding
LrLurdr l\ u L U the
u L S L d r l u r r r E to u r c point oofr / - - \
Pdr PUurr
u i l npting
prompting
Pf
rPrrut learners
l r d l l l r r 5 to ( u claim
( r d i l r r , Lthem
r r r r r r as d ) flearned.
rdr rrqu. ( -- )
,--( iqx
It should be acknowledged at this stage that I am dealing here w'ith the]earn€f/\--/
Ii the ]earn€if \--lcfi.-
'facts'.,:Flon'ever.'n qf
eotions of what
perceptions nhat thev the) believed believed thev the) har.e
have uptaken
uptaken rather rather than
than rvith'facts'.,'Flon'ever,
lvith in e r a r
' / lr6al__
t h e a b s e n c eo l a s a t i s t a c t o r vm e a n so f g e t t i n g a t l e a r n i n gi n s u c h a \ \ ' a ) a s t o r e l a t ei t t o i t s
potentialll' determining environment, a qualitative approach based on the study of uptake
seems to be an interesting phenomenon to guide investigation into a possible relationship
between interaction and learning outcomes.
Prior to moving to the description of the method, it is relevant to provide brief
information about the participants in the studl'.Thev rvere thirteen Algerian male 6rst year
universitv students at l'lnstitut National d'Electricite et d'Eiectronique (INELEC).They
were aged betw'een eighteen and tu'entv. Thev all spokeArabic as theii mother tongue and
French as a second or foreign language.Thev u,'ereon a six-month intensive language
programme (24 hours per rveek) to prepare them to undertake their engineering studies
in English. To benefit from their languagetraining, the students rvere put in small groups
(in this casethirteen) according to the results of a placement test.Their exposure to Englisn
outside their classesr,vaslimited to their classroom rvork and occasionally to listening to
folk music. Their instructor was a trained Aigerian male teacher.
290 ASSIA SLIIVIANI
Method
Uptake
The procedure developedto collect the learners'claims about uptake rvasto distribute a
'Uptake
questionnai.e or Recall Chart' at the end of obr".u"d ldilotr-liiEii
"u".r'
rnlor mants to r.tut., i.r-iEii-i ofFiil..,"@ronun ciation anc
spelling,6nd in asmuchd.,ut!_g in the evenGTh-atTac
jdst preceded {seeAppendix 1 in this chapter for the original lavout of the Uptake Recalj
€heTt.Tfterepproximatelr three hours (before too much had happened to them, but after
enough had happened to counter immediate recenctTfr-dTiimacv e@€56h-le5iiE{ u'as
p r e F n t e d r v i t h h i s o u n u p t a k e r e c a l l c h a r t a c c o m p a n i e dt h i s t i m e w i t h a n ' U p t a k .
Identi{icationProbe'(seeAppendix 2 in this chapter for the Uptake Identification Prober.
This is another questionnaire asking the participants to annotate their uptake recall chart
by clearlv dissociating the items thev believed thev had actuall-vlegl.gdj.lbef_pg4Uglu.
-'-
lessonIIOm
leSSOn from tnOse
thosetne\:ther hacl
naCalreadY Seenlvltn
alreaclvseen \\ltn Otner
other teacners
teachersOr or tne
the Same
sameteacher
teacner Onon prevlOU:
previoui
ocEisionslh tFis u'ar', I gave the data the strongest possible chance of b,q_ing
lelatable tc
||,p+memteractionsinthIlessonb'u,ki.'gffilvestothethingsthe.
llb ,
\l , ',uu'
above ali, it ro'ur.rti-ut"d thut th. d
thought thev had learned fro.m todav's Iesson.
-EIh
instruments, m-eUFFatreRe?iII Charts and the Uptake Identification Probes, r.r-err
presented in French, a languager.vithr,r-hichthe researcherand all the learners were familiar
Learning opportunities
Once uptaken items have been identified, it is necessarvto locate them in the relevant
interactive events of t}le lessonin r,vhichthev occurred. Learners lvere observed two hour=
a w'eek during the first six lveeks of the term. To carrv out the classroom observation
procedure a high qualitv audio-recording of classsessionsrvas crucial to allow the tracing
of uptake in the learning opportunities r'r.hicharose in the lessons.Thelatter needed to have
aqoodnumberofjrrstanceso|interactir.elr.orkrr.hichcouldbecloffiot
tounderstandu'hatmadelearnersclaimuptakeintho.
rfh-erethe teacheru'oulifbFFolding the floor during the entire lessonwould not havesuited
the needs of the studr'. Holvever. a relative lack of interaction seemsto be a characteristic
of lectures rather than language classesn'here a fair amount of interactive rvork generallr
r' *6
( -, t a k e sp l a c e .
|O
-'o(A.Itu'asfeltthattheamountofinteractionocCur
D.nit-- )s ,
Y\U \ the learners'abilitv level and the "uhj'ct studied_.To produce the right conditions for the
J
f
/ : - - : r - - - - - - - - - -'"vas
---^r-r----r-
project, it assumedthat the- - -teaching
--r-:----
ofr -grammar
-,-,-,---- --t- : L -,1:-
to lor,vintermediate or, advanced
r , 1
beginners u'ould offer the most suitable atmosphere.A rveak as opposed to a strong group
, 1;of students might tend to seek more learning opportunities and pav extra attention to u'hat
on in the classroom in order to improve their languagecommand. It is noted that the
// lgo.r
subjectsof this study rvere particularlr.motivated to master the second language.Theywere
expected to take their technical subjects in English at the end of an intensive language
programme rvhich served as the setting for this data collection.
Grammar lessonsu'ere chosenbecausediscretepoints are frequently dealt with in sucn
lessonsand it is relatileiv easvto find out u-hathasbecome of items in the learners' uptak.
list. Moreover, it r,r'as assumedthat it u'assimpler for the learner to pick up discretepoint..
E V A L U A T I O N O F C L A S S R O O MI N T E R A C T I O N 2 9 1
such asone might expect to occur during grammar lessons,remember them, and afterr,vards
list them on the charts r.r'hichr'r'ouldbe distributed at the end of the recording.
To investigate the learnrn ortunities fullv. I exhaustir
text aids. I also took notes of w-hatwent on the
blackboardto help account later for the ciaims of uptaken items.
fr; s e6 pro.1( c/
Interview %
To provide the studv r.vithcorroborative data, it',vas felt necessarv
-
to intervier,r,the subiects )
. ,' :l : /
tr,viceover the six-lveek period: once in the middle and once at the end of the data gathering. /
possiblereasonsr'vhichmade them claim the particular items thev reported on their uptake
charts. The intervie\(. \{'as also believed to allolv learners to express other ideas thev felt
rvere missing from their uptake charts. As the number of learners u,as rather ,-"i1,
"ll
thirteen could be intervie.,ved in about one hour, the same day, after the third lesson
recording.The subjectsw'ereindividuailv askedto answer the researcher'squeries n'hile the
other learners were outside the room, u.aiting for their turn to be intervielved.
The intervieu., conducted in French or in Arabic according to the learners' wishes, was
an adaptive structured intervierv u'here respondents rvere free to gir.e details on the five
issueswhich were follow'ed up u'ith all learners during the intervieu. session.The issues
could be summarisedas follolvs:
The second question, about the reasons for claiming certain items instead of others,
was found to be most problematic to the respondentsas some remained evasivervhile others
rri
produced overgeneralisedstatements as to r,r'hatmade them claim those items.They w'ere
unable to tell the researcher the reasons which made anv oarticular item outstandinq in
;iat
-\r.r
disco-uragddthe researcher from intervielving a second time as this question was the focus
of the interview'.
The respondents produced responsesthat rvere insufficientlv precise to be interpreted
in relation to *'hat might account for their claims. BecauseI u'as observing the same group
for the period of six weeks I could have trained the informants by asking perhaps more
detailed and specific questions about lr'hat most attracted their attention in classroom
discourse. However, as I had never even conducted an intervielv b"fo.gJ.uargfu{to lgl
words in the learners' mouths. Moreover, being miles arvayfiom anv professionalconsultant,
Idiffiprocedureandruntheriskofunderminingthedatagathering'
The intervier,vhad to be given r,r'ithinthe six observational',veeksas the learners'responses
had to relate to these oreciselvobservedevents.
292 ASSIA SLIIVIANI
Method effect
I am avr-areof the fact tlrat the methodological procedure used to collect the data can strod
f-!{h._j!bjects'consciousness of the learning process and might, by the same token,
t
p O l l u t e t h e C l a t a . I t u s \ , \ O U I C In a v e D e e n t n e C a S el I t n e C I a S SO D S e r \ - a t l O n n a c l a s t e c l O V e r a l o n g
-!?ri"Tl-iffi. I u.ashou'ever,onlv thinking of observingtr,r.ohours a week during six weeks
of the informants' timetable, rvhich amounted to trventv-four (24) hours of intensive English
lessonsper rveek. It seemed rather unlikelv that the methodological procedure would have
anv maior effect on the subiects'behaviour.
How.ever,to confirm this supposition, the results of the MichiganTest were used.This
test w.asalready being used, at the beginning of the programme, as a placement test to
determine the learners' abilitv levels.This procedure produced four groups, one of which
rvasthe group under st"d,".T ,i jJbg_lhlgg-ge, for the purpose of the project, considered
as control groups. All four groups r'vere folloui -
6r,-vnpace.Without telling the learners in advance,the same test was again administered to
the experimentai group, as',vell as to the three control groups, after the six observational
periods. The pre- and post-test results u'ere inspected to see whether the study qroups
I
lncreasefor eachgroup
Table1E.I Averagescoresand Percentage
SS T1 T2 SS T1 T2 SS T1 T') SS T1 T2
/o
18088 i 53 70 150 85 73
27583 2 a'7 73 250 72 36 81
37+84 3 )+ 79 348 58 35 63
+ 67 83 + 53 78 ++7 83 3+ 71
ql
56276 5 58 545 82 2',)
l8
66178 6 48 6++ 30 37
7 60 75 7 52 63 l+3 66 29 53
85064 8 52 76 8+2 84 11 )+
95875 9 .1
)l 70 9+1 77
10 58 75 10 l1
fl 58 10 +1 11
11 51 78 1l 50 78 11 +1 58
1l 50 1+ 12 39 72
12 50 -/ t2 39 12
13 38 70
T1 T2 T1 T2 T1 T2 T1 T2
between what the informants report as'uptake' and the interactive process in which the
classpart Hou'ever, I did rvith them, not rvanting t
"@ail
Gache ue emphasisto linguistic items in order for learners to remem
manv as possible.It rn'as ImEThFGuaf ttaching and learning situati
inflilA&fb.r_aFfii; participan-ffi ii5n-ioth-rresearcher'sfocusof interest.
-ln 'uptake
frTatT5'hen fill inEGTTFF-up
tact, lvhen hlling out the lesson,
charts at the end ot the hm-t-ODSeTTaUORaI
it was noticed that some learners tried to peep at their peers' charts to enable them to
report more items than thev actualiv could. At this point it rvas emphasisedto the subjects
that they should look upon the author as an outsider, a researcher rather tltan as a teacher,
and that rvhatever reports and comments thev made u'ould be entirelv confidential.Their
reports olr.. th"ir,
grades.
----A;t
ttas planned to observe the same teacher rvith the same group for tu'o hours a
u.eek for six rveeks,the procedure became routine and mv presencer,vasacceptedrvith ease
294 ASSIA SLIMANI
A thorough studv of the inforinants' Uptake Charts and Uptake Identification Probes shouec
that a total of 126items w-ereclaimed to har,ebeen learned.These items w-ereverbs, nouns.
adjectives,adverbs,connectors, auxiliaries,models and some set phrases.Almost all (11i
Ite-r €FgnFJfitrof what rhe respondents claimed to have seen and learned for the firs:
ti-" i., th*i* observed lessons, s
n s t r u c t i o n .1 1
iinstruction. 122o
out off 1
ut o 2 6 were-glvsrl-sorqesort of promin
126 ' t c,:
being the topic "
{orN-rsffi-n nrhiG-iEEleilaining fourteen items or 11 per cent happened as part o:
classroom lnteractlon \\-ltn no [i upon tEern.The follorvin;
the various means used to focus upon o- ose items claimec
"iZdptr-ill"strate ' l e a s t ' ,' l i s t ' , ' l i k e ' , ' l o o k a f t e r ' , ' l o o k l i k e ' , ' m a t c h ' , ' i n o r d e r t o '
t o h a v eb e e n l e a r n e d :
rynonvmsJollows.l
5 T: OK,in orderto.What doesthat mean?
E V A L U A T I O N O F C L A S S R O O I VI IN T E R A C T I O N 2 9 5
It appears,then, that within the limits of the analysisso far of the uptaken items, instruction
has exercised a rather positive impact on the subjectssince 1 12 out of the 125 items claimed
to have been learned for the first time during those observed lessonshavebecome, however
momentaril), teaching points. How-ever,a close examination of the data suggeststhat the
above statement alone is far from establishinsthe instructor s suDremacvas a learning
facilitator. A further investigation *tua rt
it6ffiFTEai-are claimed as ne\\' acquisitions in relation to those rvhich have apparently been
the subject of similar intentions and treatment but rvhich failed to lead to anv claims on the
part of the subjects.
To evaluatethe proportion of u'hat has been claimed to be learned from rvhat has been
pedagogicallv focused upon in some \\rav during those six instructional sessions,the sum
total of the topicalised items rvas counted independentlv of rvhether thev had been claimed
as ne\\'or otherlvise on the iearners'uptake charts.The results are summarised inTable
18.2 where column 1 indicatesthe total number of items tooicalisedin eachlesson.Column
2 presents the total number of items which are both focused upon and also claimed by at
least one learner to have been learned. Column 3 introduces those which have not led to
any positive assertion on the part of the subjects despite the attention paid to them, and
column 4 dispiavs the total number of items u'hich have been claimed to be partlv or
completelv familiar alreadv and therefore'ineligible' for learning claims in the context of
296 ASSIA SLIMANI
2 J I
1 +0 17 I6 0l
2 55 21 l) 12
3 JI 16 12 03
A
60 31 15 1+
5 31 11 19 0l
6 )1 15 07 09
this stud\'.The data of the last coiumn lvere derived from the answ.ersto questions b, c, and
d on Upiake Identification Probes u-hich rvere distributed to help learners dissociate the
items thev believed thev had learned during the observed lessonsfrom those thev had already
encountered in different circrimstances.Theobserved lessonsin which these items occurred
againcouid not fullv justifv their'uptakinf;@Lrave3 ed in situationswhich
ffitopicalisedcasespror.idinglearningopportunities[or
the class, 92 failed to attract the learners' attention and 52 u.ere claimed to be somewhat
known as they had alread-vencountered them in earlier events unrelated to this study. In
'reached
other rvords, +3.75 per cent focused episodeshave the target', while 35.93 per
cent went compietelv unnoticed and 20.31 per cent lr'ere alreadyto some extent familiar
to the subjects.
The abovefigurespror-ideus u-ith a picture of the'svllabusasreality'as opposed
.svllabusu.pIu,'iTh.r..themidsttlinteractive
j!-:Tk-dffiST-the participants. The on-going interaction leads to the creation of a whole
range of learning opportunities, some of r'vhichare the results of the teacher's plan; others
,'('f
s',,"#
arise as a br.-product of the plan, but some others arise independently of any intentions,
perhapsas a b-v-productof classroominteraction.
No precise comparison can be made u'ith th"'tr'll.b,tt u. pl. u. u
\(o\ syllabuswhich attempts to predict rr-hatis likelr-to be learned from a planned learning
e,"
65idc-t1ves.I w'asgiven the title of the structure to be taught and the series of exercisesin
the textbook to practise the grammatical features to be introduced to the group.
Hence, the detailed stud-vof the classroomdiscoursehas revealed that about 44 per
been pedasosicalh' Even
ough the teacher's objectives *.ere geared torvard the teaching of some particular
structural features,most of the 44 per cent $€re lexical items claimed to be seenand learned
for the first time in those observed e\.ents.Nevertheless it would be misleading to conclude
that the lessonsw-erenot successfulbecauselearners did not claim many' of the structural
objectir,esthe teacher had on his plan. Although it might be suggestedthat the shortage of
grammatical claims is due to the possibilitv that it is much easierto report lexis because
E V A L U A T I O N O F C L A S S R O O MI N T E R A C T I O N 2 9 7
this does not require the use of metalanguage,in fact, a close perusal of the learners' uptake
charts demonstrates that the informants were perfectlv capableof reporting n'hat ,,venton
during the course of the iessonsin terms of grammar. Bv and large, learners succeededin
accounting for the teacher's structural intentions bv reporting the title if not w-riting the
main points of the sessions.Some er.eniliustrated the teacher's focus of instruction bv
providing examples of sentencesto shou. their comprehension or at least familiaritv witl
what naJtaugtrf.firi. suggeststhat the informants did not lack the means of expressing the
structural obj ectives.
It is believed that one of the reasons r.vhvlearners did not report as manv structural
features as lexical ones is that se\-eralof these features u'ere aireadv familiar to the class.Irr
fact, it is not surprising that most of the structural features emphasisedduring instruction
were not reported as nelvlv learned becausemost of them, if not all of them, 'i'r.'ere part of
the svllabus in high school. For instance, onlv one informant claimed to have seen and
learned the passii and active voicesfor the fiist time during the observedevents.In fact,
these affirmations are confirmed bv the 20 per cent of topicalisedepisodesin the lesson
which rvere claimed to be part of the learners' prior knorvledge. One could add that after
a few hours of teaching, second languageinstruction becomes verv much remedial as
structural features are p"resentedu.rd iepi"rented for a review'.
It looks as if the learners' claims are somer'r-hatdifferent from n.hat the teacher has
planned for them. His intentions might havehelped learners to rehearsealreadyencountered
(if not mastered) structural features. How'ever,in the process of carrying out the plan, the
'tLe
interactive work has lent itself to creation of a r,vholerange of perhaps unexpected and
beneficialevents(at least,to some learnersif not to all).The learners'claims (44 per cent
on Table 18.2) remain a combination of the teacher'sobjecti'l'esbut also their bv-product
as lvell asthe bv-product of the classroominteraction. For thesereasons,therefore, attempts
to evaluate the learning outcomes againstthe teacher's plan can be misleading if one does
not take into account the mediating interacti\.e processesrvhich characteriseclassroom
interaction.
In vielr' of the data expressed in the table. therefore. the teacher's influence over the
subjects'learningdid not revealitselfto be asstrong assuggestedearlier sinceapproximatelv
55 per cent of w-hathas been focused upon did not apparentlv bear anv immediate fruit: 20
per cent lvere claimed to be alreadvfamiliar and 35 per cent rvere not, in anv w'av,mentioned
bv the learners.
It should be pointed out that about 77.45 per cent of the topicalisationwas effectedbv
the teacher.This is not particularlv surprising in vierv of the fact that the discourse rvas
unidirectionallv controlied bv the teacher, u-ho did 45 per cent of the talking.What appears
to be strikinglv interesting though is that a further analvsisof the effect of the teacher's
versusthe learners' scarceopportunities (22.54 per cent) for topicalisationshowedthat the
latter offered much higher chancesfor items to be uptaken. Learners benefited much more
from their peers'rare instancesoftopicalisation than from the teacher's.
A close scrutinv of the theme of topicalisation reveals that topics initiated bv learners
attracted more claims from the learners than the ones initiated bv the teacher.The analvsis
shorvsthat out of 46 items initiated bv the iearners, 34 (73.9 per cent) $'ere claimed,
whereas onl,v78 (49 .4 per cent) out of 158 u-ere claimed *'hen topicalisedbl'the instructor.
Thus, the chances for claims are much higher ."vhenitems are triggered by classmates.A
further emphasis on the profitabilitv of the learners' initiation is that it attracts more
reporters than rvhen topics are brought up bv the teacher.
Bv limiting to himself the initiative of topicalisingmost items for instruction, the teacher
does not give the learners much opportunitv to distinguish betrveen items which are
298 ASSIA SLIMANI
important and those lvhich are not.To this particular teacher evervthing lvas relevant. It is
therefore possible that the reason r'r'hv the participants of this studl were not affected
by the teacher's efforts is that in his attempts to focus their attention on everything, no
specificaspectappearedasparticularlv prominent in his discourse.Having little opportunitv
to raise topics for instruction, learners might have made some features outstanding to their
peers if only for the reason that, coming from learners, topicalisation appeared as a
memorabie event rather than the routine procedure of the teacher (see Slimani 1989 for
further details).
Finallv, in this discussionit is u.orth mentioning that the majoritv of the unnoticed or
'lost'
items (36 per cent) are instancesof error treatment provided most often by the
teacher.Their analvsishas allon-ed the identi{rcation of a limited number of features which
differentiate their treatment from that allocated to the topicalised and claimed items ( 1 12,
or 44 per cent). As the illustrations belou' show-,it appearsthat absenceof metalanguagein
the teacher's talk and straight pror.ision, most often bv the teacher, of the correct form of
the item under focus, w-ithout further involvement from the teacher or the learners,
characterisethe strategiesused to deai'uviththese items (see examples 8, 9, 10 below).
Cueing br-the teacher is another common corrective strategy sometimes followed by the
immediate pror,ision of the expected forms bv the speakerhimself, if he sw'iftlv managesto
spot the error (example 1 1), bv his peers (example 12) but lessoften by the instructor.
8 L: . . . and uh sometimesuh onWednesdav.
T: And sometimeson\Arednesdays. Whv onWednesdays?
11 L: Pencilshavebeen sharp
T: Sharo?
L: SnarDened
T: Sharpened,ves.
Nearlv a third of the lost items consists of corrections of tenses and -s morphemes.
Informants can, holvever, be assumedto be alreadv familiar with these features as they have
been the explicit content of instruction in other l.r.orr. or in high school. Despite preloious
exposure to explicit explanation ofthe rules and recurrent repetitions ofthe correct forms
of these features, the subjectsof this studv persisted in misusing them when using the target
language.It is possible that the informants are not ready to learn these structures as part of
their interlanguage svstem and consequentlv their continued treatment remains pointless.
at least, at this stage of their training. It is rvidelv accepted that features such as the use of
articles bv Arab speakersand some of the -s morphemes, for many English as a second
languagespeakers,remain unmastered in oral production tili an extremely advancedstage
of their training even if these features are explicitlv known to the trainees. This situation
makes us question the necessitv or otheru'ise of attempting to keep on correcting features
E V A L U A T I O N O F C L A S S R O O MI N T E R A C T I O N 2 9 9
w.hich have been persistentlv dealt rvith but still remain largelv ignored by some learners
during verbal interaction (see Slimani 1987 for further quantitative and qualitative analysis
of error treatment in this setting).
\r]L^'A'
:'t^/LI
Learnerst idiosvncracies
C",kt
J
37.30% l5
20 -t).d/ 2
27 21.+2 3
Total 14.59ok
7 5.s5 4
5 3.96 5
10 1.93 6
3 2.38 7
3 2.38 8
Total22.20o/o
1 0.79 9
2 1.58 l0
1 0.79 11
T o t a l3 . 1 6 %
The results point to the fact that as manv as 74.59 per cent of the total number of claims
are reported bv no more than three learners at a time, and no felver than 37. 30 per cent of the
total are reported b1'onlv one person at anv one time. A negligible percentage(3. 15 per cent)
of claims is simultaneouslvmade bv nine, ten or elevensubjects.Thesefigures expressthe high
level of individualitv' and'autonomr,' u.-ithu.hich some subjectsmight face instruction.The
3OO ASSIA SLIMANI
frgures are particularlv striking as the teaching stvle was not individualised in anv sense'It
w"asunidirectionallv addresseJ to the class as a u'hole. One, therefore' might expect the
sameitemsorlinguisticfeaturestobeclaimedbvmanvl"u..'".'W
is that individual learners reacted individuall-v despite the centrality ol'the teaching style- .
Further evidence that learners s lvhen underqoirlg-mstructions is a
clearly illustrated in the 1 1 per cent o. fo,rrGEi-uptuken_itemsthat w'ere mentioned earlier
,r.de. th. heading of the importance of topicalisation.While 1 12 linguistic features claimed
to be learned *"*." the focus of instruction, fourteen happened as a part of the classroom
where
discourse lvithout anv specific attention drau.n to them. Despite a teaching situation
the classroom discourse is highly controlled bv the teacher and does not involve anv grouP
w.ork activity, learners hur,. ,ho*rl considerableindividual reaction bv claiming items which
did not ,"."iu" anv kind of attention in terms of topicalisation, as defined earlier.The above
for learners
proportion might have been even higher if the teacher had allow-edmore room
t o e x D r e s st h e m s e l v e s .
Wt lt" some of the 1 1 per cent of t}e claims rvere traced back as part of the discourse
to deal u.ith classroom routlnes, some \'vere not found at ali in the transcripts.To explain
their presenceon the learners' uptake charts, one can only assumet}at what'"vent on during
the lessonspossiblv reinforced some previous learning and brought those particular words
back to the iearners' minds.The r,vord'slippers',for instance,remained a complete myster\
as I did not even recail the teacher having dealt, horvever remotely, with a situation which
might have led to such a claim on the part of the learner. Moreover, the examination of tht
l."i.r..r' charts revealed aiso'the presence of a felr. examples of appropriate generalisation.
For instance,n'hen the lvords'thick','thickness', and'thin' w'ereexplained,one of the most
able learners reported having learned the w-ord'thinness' even though the latter_wasnot
'.rurrou" r,vasalso claimed to have been learned b-v the sam.
uttered in class.The rvord
'thick' 'thin'.
learner in relation to and
It is interesting to notice here this learner's tendencv to generaliseso successfullyfron:
a lesson event that he can believe the generalisation rvas taught. In this respeclr iI has been.
suqqestedthat one of the good Ianguagelearner's attributes is to be able to organisetht
d
or-
Conclusion
The problem of making sense of instruction seems to lie in the difficultt' of findin.
appropriate researchtechniquescapableof evaluatinglearning outcomes in relation to inpu:
f"iflr paper, input is seen as a co-production bl the participants in an instructional setnn;
\\.
und ther.fore renders the task of using traditional testing measuresrather difficult.
attempted to find a rvav of relating the learners'claims to their immediate interactir.
environment.
The technique used proved to be a useful means of shedding light on rvhat is ciaim.:
to be learned from the on-going interactive w.ork rvhich takes place in the classroom. B'
asking }earners to reflect on theii perceptions ofrvhat thev have uptaken, one could see. :'
examlning the interactive lvork, some of the factors lvhich characterise the emergenct -
these particular uptaken features.
M o r t o f t h e l e a r n e r s ' c l a i m s r v e r e t o p i c a l i s e d . I n t h i s s e n s e ,W h i t e ' s ( 1 9 : -
recommendations seem to broadlv match the present teacher'sbehaviour in this particu---
context. She suggeststhat
E V A L U A T I O N O F C L A S S R O O MI N T E R A c T I O N 3 O }
References
'\lbrking
Allwright, R.L. (ed.) (1975a) papers: Ianguageteaching classroom research'.
Department of Languageand Linguistics,Universit\. of Essex,England.
Allw-right,R.L. (1975b)'Problemsin the studv of the teacher'streatmentof learnererror', in
Burt and Dulav: 96-109.
- (1983)'The nature and function ofthe svllabusin ianguageteachingand learning'.
Unpubhshed mimeograph. Department of Linguistics and Modern English Language,
LancasterUniversitv.
- (1984a)'Wh)-don't learnerslearn r,r'hatteachersteach?Theinteractionhvpothesis',in
302 ASSIA SLIMANI
'What
Stern, H.H. (1975) can rve learn from the good languagelearner?'CanadianModern
L a n g u a g e R e v i3e1w: 3 0 4 1 8 ; a i s oi n K . C r o f t ( e d . ) ( 1 9 8 0 )R e a d i n gosn E n g l i s h
a sa s e c o n d
language:for teachers andteacher tainees(2nd edition). Cambridge,Mass.:Winthrop.
White, L. (1987)'Againstcomprehensible input: the input hvpothesisand the der,eiopmentof
secondlanguagecompetence'. AppltedLinguistics 8(2): 95-110.
I
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APPENDIX 2: UPTAKE IDENTIFICATION PROBE
R E A D C A R E F U L L YT H E F O L L O W I N G Q U E S T I O N S , M A R K Y O U R A N S W E R S
'UPTAKE
AS INDICATED ON THE RECALL CHART'.
1. Of all the things vou n-rote on vour'Uptake Recall Chart', lr'hich do you think
r o u l e a r n e dt o d a ri
(u) Did vou learn anything that rvas reallv neu. to vou? If ves, circle it.
(b) Did ,vou learn anr,'thingthat was not reallv completely new, that vou knen'
partlv alreadv?Ifves, underline it.
(.) Was there anvthing that -voudid not learn at all becausevou knew it already?
If ves, mark it u.ith a zigzag line.
2. Of all the things -vou\,vrote, w.hich do vou think the teacher most wanted you to
learn? Mark them rvith aT. .-
qF
|frll
t(tut()
Ir-rtroduction Yl ilw61t**
CE\TRAL CONCERN F N G U A G E teachersis w'hat learners can learn
t r o m l a noqou a p e I in a somervhat startling paper some years ago
,l.dr-rce
d that. regardlessof i I-Teacher taught in a lesson, the learners w'ill inevitablr
-.
lcarn dltlerent thlnqs lrom the sam
fiTreTictable trend u ith referenceE
I
t takes place betrveen
[eachersand learnersand the covert interactionthat takesplacebetu'eent]glear:Ler-ald
therariousSourceSo|ryutdg4qg-g}isan,includingth"-!s@''9"andother
,r-rittilGG;m5i;1;the learners.Suchinteraction,he aig.,"d, mediateibetweenwhat
th.-t.*h.., teii-h ^ "input" and riLt learners actualiv "u " from the lesson. In other
ngrnt particular context of L l 1 (
class ensuresvariation outcomes.
ish to explore this phenomenon further by focusing upon the
se of la s revealed bv current research. I want to suggestthat one oi
ear-nerslearn in the classroomis hor,vto navigatethe opportunitie:
b r c l a s s r o o md i s c o u r s e..{ c e n t r a l a r g u r n e n tw i l l b e t h a t r e l a t i i t -
''Ll
The apparentassumptionin thesedeductionsis that achievement","acquisition"or
,,natural lu.rgrrug"d".,,.lop-".t" can somehou- occur almost regardless of contextual
closely atthe
variables.In"thif chapter,'horu"r-".,I rvant to suggestthat, iiu-e look more
classroom as context, such a focus u'ill reveal that the interaction be
oulded and
, and the differential outcomes from this tntetuctio" t
.^/ .;;
arytffiwema\.deducefromcurrentSLAresearchasoptimaIfor
- r --:ll ^.:ll l:ff^-^-+:^11,. ^^L;^,'^ Tl"-....'ill nnnfinrre to leern rnostlv
languagelearning,Iearnerslr'illstilIdifferentia1lvu.hie""@{
,itq
TryM "?h:"*::::$
ffi-o diu".titr- in the contributions of the learners to
7"**. the process. But variation rvill also have to be explained rvith reference to the particular
"fy' in r,vhich the learning occurred so that input, Process,and outcomes are seen as
"on,"*,
functionsofholvtheiearneisvariouslvd.fi"@Ifweare
of ittittss in languagelearning in the
classroom, ther'tovene-edto take a sociulWn the interaction betrveen
learner and data. In order to lustifi---uch- claim, I $ ill begin bv offering mv interpretation
of the context of learning.
P
recentlv have a number of SLA researchersreturned t(fygotskf complex
-ffi:\€rv
ideas r,vhichinsist on i"^. ial activitr"
pleoiVra^These ttit-' is
"ro.io.tltrrrul" (Lffipel 1994)'Sucha perspective
.',^,40,-
u1l ^6;lo'*;.."ni.dp".rp..tit" a" iT:3-yth'jogtd
a.
sar".lgerli?g
br: Leont'evrvho,likevvgotskr',
undertaking betrveen those in societv lvho havemastered knolvle
ffi'.--ffi;rins such kno*'ledqeor derel ilities. Leont'ev identified
ersocialactivitiesinthew.idirworldsuchaswork,or
familv lif", o. participation in various evervdav situations and institutional settings. For
the
L"o.ri'.t, ,r-h"r, or.. ,"ud text, Iisten to music, or paint a picture, even when not in
" constructed:
presenceof others, we are participating in a process that is sociallv
if rve removed human activitv from the svstem of social relationships and social life,
it w.ould not exist and lvould har.eno structure. With all its varied forms, the human
NAVIGATING THE DISCOURSE 309
individual's activitv is a svstem in the svstem of social relations. It does not exist
u'ithout these relations.The specificform in u'hich it exists is determined bv the forms
and means of material and mental socialinteraction.
(Leont'ev 1981 471
Dimensions of discourse
discourse. More recentiv, the ideas of social theorists such asrf-ouffirt11972 and 1984) and
.B'di?fEIh( 1991 t har-eled to an extension of such '"vork to refer to how human knowledge
\-{.r... I r r .. -t r - - =)-:)-:=--
anoCaPaDrlIueSanoevervdar.socialpracticesed
throuqh discourse.
-Tn-relating
F=-g__-<-
social theorv directh- to earlier and more conventional approachesto
discourse analysisrvith a vielr. to developing a critical approach to analysisiFa-ilretotEh{ 1989
and 1992) has provided a frameu'ork of discourse '"vhichis made up of three related levels
orcomPonents.Forhi-,@ecanbeSeenasbeingsimultaneousIya
piece of text, an instanceoldiscursive practice,and an instag ilresb]-Placl$e. Applying
-
this framew'ork to the lariguageclassroom, th<fe?>'f lessonsis all the availablelanguageor
communicative data, be thev spoken, lvritten, or in other visual media from pictures and
diagrams to facial expressions.The are hou'texts are oroduced and
interpretedand hor,vdifferent tvpesof textf are combined.Clearly,teachersand learners
_-_-:-
produ&, interpret,andcombinetexts.Theteachingmaterials,
in the classroom in whatever
medium, are aiso produced and combined bv people not present in the classroom and
teacher and learners interpret such materials in ',vavsthat serve their immediate purposes.
,, -z--\
Frnal\c6al praciNefers to the org'anisatfqlql-?ndjsdtulioxakircrrmstances that generatg
and delimjt both the specifictext and discursivepractices oflessons. Socialpractices include
not-only those broader cultural and situational factors r,vhichlocate classroomsas having a
particuiari,,n.glvtrivialbutneverthe1essimportJnt
practices r".h li1l=d*' ttrEJfi-rniture is organised in the room or horv long a lesson should
iast. More cruciallv, perhairs, bo,h,"*h.r and learners are actuallipositioned and
constructedasrcachersandas]earnersbi.thesos
urr o work together in
a relativelv harmonious rva1.,r'r'hichI have described elsewhere as expressingthe underlying
culture of the language class (Breen 1985), are also highlv significant social practices that
are Dart of the discourseof lessons.
@iq
t'l
.,'J th;i,@"ri[i"gh *iiof th. .,oiIJ".
provide{ to us by classrroomrresearch.
E^a"A"v Tavdo'$L
The text of language lessons
Apptying this three-dimensional vie'"v of discourse to the findings of SLA research which
has focused particularlv upon classroom languagelearning, r,vefind that the text of language
lessons,like lessonsin other subjects,appearsto have a consistent pattern in which teachers
I Dr initiate, learners respond, and teachers follou, up their responses by-repetition,
l|(t-reformulationorevaluatio,,iSi,'.l(1975)identi_6}a
--,'@ernlvhichappearedtobespecifictolanguagelessonswhere
E-r',r a teacher'sreformulation is often repcated verbatim bv a learner or the lvhole classbecause
\,-' ,4. ,
1/\l(9 t*lxl,l;#"::*a;ffi':;
this book; points out that a good proportion ofth"e teachers' utterances in a languagelesson
NAVIGATING THE DISCOURSE 311
are not directed al-particular individuals but serve as a kind of communal monolosue
-
directed bv the teacher at the lvhole classlr.herein learner contributions are w-ovenbv the
t e a c h e rr n t o l u s o r h c r o u ' n t e x t .
researchonteachertaIkinthelanguageclassfurther
\-+--------l
r
rer ealiThTT]5od proportion of teacher input made availableto learners has verv specific
characteristics.Teachersappear to har-etu'o-thirds more Dracticein the tarset lanquaqethatr I O / S p 6
a l l t h e l e a r n e r sp u t t o g e t h e r .T h e r a l s o m o d i f r t h e i r s p e e c hi n r r a v s s i m i l a r t o t h e
I'olt'rt
cElaracteristrcs olcaretaker spEechto voung children or native speakerspeechto non-native
speakers.Interestinglv, such teacher modification appearsmore emphatic when addressing
4rua+
learners ryhgq,lLl"-"..g. u.t
9 S S ,f V o r r g - p i l m o r e1 9 8 2 ) . I n o t h e r
words, the degree of modification in a teacher'sdirect interaction w'ith an individual learner
mav stqna
J - -
is or her caoabilities.
A crucial feature of the text of lessonsis teacher feedbackon learner utterances.Because
ofthe fast flow'oflessons. teachers are understandablvinconsistentin their reactions to
learner errors u,'ith the result that different learners mav either fail to distinguish a teacher's
correction from other kinds kird. of teacher utterance or assumethat almost all teacher resDonses :s
<--:i-
To-FFat they sav are some form of judgement or correction (Allwright Allwright and Baile, Bailey 1991,
88). UnderliningVan ngVan Lier's observatior
observationsabout
the teacher'sdiscursivecontrol of the text of lessons,researchrevealsthat a remarkably
high proportion of teacher utterances are interrogatives (Johnston 1990, Long and Sato
a verv nt rtion oi these are cl ions in r,vhichlearners
are required to provide i.fo.*utior *'hi.h th" t. dv knou's rather than open Ir,,tSt
0w"^
referenffil[estions
oP.clt. ) .
r'vhich genuinel]' seek information from the learners llong andTaib
,!owl.
Although acknorvledging the centralitv of the teacher in the orchestration of classroom lVu^-
-P--:
discourse@!$)988) suggeststhat the text of languagelessonsconstantlv shifts due
to its being generatedbv four tvpes ofinteraction: teacher instructions, teacher'shighlr
s t r u c t u r e de l i c i t a t i o n so f s t u d e n tr e s , and procedurtTF strlmFd learner activities
-,r-
suchf,l r o u p o r d r a d i c t a s k s .a l l o f u ' h i c h a r F o c c a s i o n a l l o
v u n c t u a t e db v s m a l l t a l k
of learners.
There appear to be features of the text of language lessonsthat ma)' be distincti
compared with other tvpes of lessonl We might describe this as r-textua ature of
languageinput in classroom talk
samDles or lnstances tarqet lan idance' rvhere communication occurs about
[he tarpet
ooo
lanquaqe- a anagement \1'hereln procedural tatk tacllltates the oDtrmal
--
idance.It seems,therefore, that the datamade availableto the
o c c u r r e n c e o I s a m D l e sa
earner in the-classroom is an on-going amalgam of three dominant and inter-weavlng
discursiveoractices: communicati target lan . metacommunrcatron I
2
have to navigate
J
-e a r n e r s
tion from one
U."a .f t"ru t" is verv likelv that differentlearnerswill be more or lessskilledin
"".tn4t
suchnavisation.
'*
We might concludefrom thesegeneralpatternsin the contributionsof teachersto the
interactivetext oflanguagelessonsthat learnersarenot actuallvrequiredto do much overt
3I2 MICHAEL P. BREEN
So far, on the basis of language classroom research, I have suggestedthat the discourse ol
lessonsis significantlv shapedbv the teacher, that learners are positioned in particular lr'als
by this, that the discourse manifests a shifting inter-textualitv, and that learners are obliged
to undertake pragmatic navigation r,vithin this inter-textualitv if thev are to find their r,r-ar
-through it in order to make senseof it. For a fuller picture, holvever, lve need to focus upon
variations in the overtpgllgprltion gllglners in the discourse rvhich may be seen as further
. on t. iSrrt o--f". t t- t
"
om the bodY ol work
on controversiai modifications during group or dvad lvork on tasks, some of which having
been undertaken in classroom settings. Perhapsthis is not surprising when, if we examine
the research on learner participation and, bv implication, their contributions to the text oi
lessonsasdiscursivepractitionerS,*'trythe
dir.oq5g_iSg..sporlilgJgl. lPolitzer et al. 1981). Generally, it seemsthat, through their
control ofthe their use of question S.
ofEuch of the la
ural instructions, and, crucialh,-TE-er-r]eva]uition ucec
ffiritisuttered.teachersconStructIearnersasprimari1r
\,,,
nsive a iirlr passiveparticipantsin th" 4igg"1;t,_ln ollering an
*)"S- ....-ff
e x p i l n _ a t l o fr6 r t h e f a i l u r eo f F r e n c hj m m e r s i o n s t u d e n t st o f u l l r a t t a i nn a t i r e - s p e a k elri k t
--
e
iHon'ever, e v e n rer
l o \ \ ' e v e r , even r e s P o n s l vive discursive
l s c u r s r v e practices appear L ( Jr c d u to
P P e a r to v d r r a L r u r t lin
L o variation r r -learning
rcdtturr:
e o PracLrces a
\
In investigating u-hether greater learner participation had an effect upon learning, Stron;
(1983 and 1984) discoue.ed_thut-a hig ain learners correlatec
with their achievement in tests basedupon the grammar, proffit c,r
classroo,iip. st
inpurSaneffi performed better on an aural comprehension task than did le..
participating learners. In their ciassicstudv of the good languagelearner, Naiman er c.
(1978) found t their hands more and more often re
teacher eliei
S t u d i e s b v L a r s e n - F r e e m a n( 1 9 7 6 a a n d 1 9 7 5 b ) , H a m a v a n a n d T u c k e r ( 1 9 8 t )
Lightbon'n (1 983), and Long (1980), all suggestthat the frequencvofoccurrence ofcertai:
linguistic forms in classroomtext is likelv to correiate w'ith the accurateproduction of thes=
forms bv learners. More signilicanth',studiesbv Lightbor,vn(1980 and 199 1), Snou-an:
Hoefnagel-Hohle (1982), andWhite et al. (1991) not onl-vconfirm this but also sho*'hi1:
retention rates of question forms. Given the regular occurrence of questions in the text ,-:
-
"kincl--f:frlTerances
directedspeiihcallrat indiriduallearnerscorrelatedrvith hi
-----+
A
----\
(Alhvright op.cir.)*lirnani-made+hri erv that lo\\ -DartrcrDatr
recalled as much from lessonsas di rtrcrPatlng
-)_ r
.---:--r
' o
. r r
recalled
,l
more iiems from lessons if they were 4F
lcallsec|or rntroduced
toDrcalrsed rntroouceo rnto
lnto the--text
tne text ol
ot the
tne lesson
lesson D\'
lx' learners
learnersrather
ratner than
tnan those
tnose toprcalf€cl
toDlcallseo
trt g
rom their hi ticipating colleagriE. Allrvright interpreted these findings as suggesti*ng
that-ih? -:r. pl@:g".* in a classrvho appearedto be those more willing to
participate;e.e teklg o" ahebd&;;T discursivervork but without seeminglygaining
f IrOm lt. ln O.n"l.\,'oro .n..
-6-an participation leading to gains in proficiency. Slimani's stqdl i]!e_gg!!_d*qgblin th"
claims of mainstream SLA researchersthat conversationaimodifications lead to greater
c o m o r e h e n s i b i l i t ra" n d . f i . t
,.-,,i-,,,
relation3h-iP-b-FT_$eenthenuffijustmentsoccurringinthetextot
lessonsaround specific linguistic items and tfrdpft.f.")of these items by leur.r..s.
A recent r.pli."tio.r Jf Sh.nuni', ,trdv bvlt6i(on tl996l largelv confirmed these
findings and suggestedthat differences bet'w.eenlearne\ in u'hat thev recalled from lessons
wereduetoan-holerangeoffactorsandthatsomeof\Pre'iousIr'unkno',r'@
(-t 4^,x vA;cahe tou-^
3T4 MICHAEL P. BREEN
which thev not onlv recalled but also retained over a longer period \r'ere never overtly
negotiated about in the text of the lesson. Onir' 270/oof retained vocabulary items had been
topicalisedin the lesson,rvhilst 56%oofretained vocabular)'couldbe traced to the
A olertlv
indi.idual learner'spersonal r,r'orkupon items occurring in the spokenor r,vrittentexts of
rf rf _ l r :
Learners selectivelv r,vork through the discourse of the classroom not onlv as discursive
practitioners r,vithin the immediate lesson but also on the basis of horv they judge which
social practices are appropriate in the particular classroom group.Jbei._se]gctilg
oarticipation and the iudsementson u'hich thev baseit are derived from their definition of
t
f 6 e p a r t i c u l a rt e a c h i n g - l e a r n i n sgi t u a t i o na n d f r o m t h e i r e x p e r i e n c ew i t h o t h e r r e a l m so l '
dlscoursebevondJheclassroom.Learnersthereforenar-igatethe discoursein n.r-oconstantlr
idG\veavlirg \\ryx (or learning purposesand for social purposes.Differential outcomes
"m
fro m l esson s av' r efl ect th--.Eith;iE r n er s *' i l l al ft iffi ar abi li ti es t o b al ance th ese
two priorities and, cruciallv, in their relative allocation of attention to them.
Classroom discourse is, for the learner, a vovage of discovery in the close company ot
others r,vith a teacher who leads the expedition or, at least, carries the map. On the one
hand, learners navigate classroom discourse in order to discover here and notv what count
as vali d i nterbre tation . r,vhat coun ts-TIRn6w uortfr accommodating, and lvhat counts
NAVIGATING THE DISCOURSE 3L5
as appropriate strategic behaviour for learning be it overt or co\,'ert. On the other hand,
tfr t ti. ,o.il[i-.ti.EiEl.r the classroom will
construct knovgledgeand the role identities of, and relationshipsbetw'een teacher and
learnersinvervspecificu.avs.Thevaretherefore
l Uul
psvchological and social cosiifieir selectire rvork therefore reflectstheir undeiiia-fr?ing
--
.r.rl
of, and c6A-ffiutions to, the emerging culture of the particular classroom group and their
own location u-ithin it. In an earlier paper, I suggestedthat this culture is not only
asvmmetricalin terms of u.ho controls the discourse,or normative in terms of the teacher's
j"G--Ttr correctness but .n., f
or appropriao', lth,"..nTi"
"..il.titF.noryl
creating and maintaining a manageabler.vorking harmonv through the particular routines
and prJcedures of the.*fu.. texl of lessons(Breen op.ctt.).From SLA research,*'e kttoo,-f
that different types of classroom-basedactilities and tasks u'ill permit different outcomes I
'
for different learners(Larsen-Freeman1975a,Tirone 1988, Schmidt 1980, BahnsandWode
1 9 8 0 , H l . l t e n s t a m 1 9 8 4 , L i g h t b o u ' n 1 9 9 1 ) . B u t . u v ea l s o k n o r v t h a t d i f f e r e n t t y p e s o f 1
classrooms in terms of their overt routines and procedures or) more broadh', their social I
practices r,vill generate different learning outcomes as rvell (\\bng Filmore 1982, Enrightl
19 8 4 , S p a d a19 8 7 , A l l e n e t a | . 1 9 9 0 ).
Allw.right (1989) hassuggestedthat datafrom classroominteraction often reveal teacher
".'dl"",.,"i,havingto,ol"e"a1ec,,.''@hedilemmaconfrontingboth
teacher and learners is that of maintaining social harmonv or avoiding lvhat he calls "social
problems"rvhilst,at the sametiFipreservingl;E;TE?egards as"pedagogicpossibilities"
construction ot r e
in the text ofJeGis--Filf-also be aiell-ection of their self assessmentand their assessment
of both the teacher's languageand the teacher's likelv reactions to their orvn production. It
*. seems that some learners' perceptions of the establishedsocial relationships in some
classroomsmav actuallv encourage them to underachieve.
The foregoing revie',v of classroom language learning research has illustrated some of the
lvays in which fl.e interaction hetrv... th^ le"ne. and the target lenguagedata iq qitrrated
w-ithin social action. In order to summarise lvhat lve knorv of the discursive practices of
,-Tedne-rffi€Tngriage
classroom,rve can seethat learners are obliged to participate overtly
and covertlv in the discourse oflessons in the follorving lvavs:
learners navigatetlat discourse in different ways. It is inevitable that different learners will
differentiallv achieve in such circumstances. In fact, the variables to rvhich I have referred
in review.ingsecond languageclassroomresearchare an important explanation for such
differentiation.
1
Implications for classroom pedagogy
We misht deduce from the evidence that there is oniv a very tenuous relationshi tween
successful participation bv learners in t]re'discourse of lessons and their actual ress ln
, At ieastit seems lm
4 ) inhibit it.
mav
II a learner a largelr nsive role rvithin the discourse,the resea ,,n/12
318 MICHAEL P. BREEN
output and directlv fo.*",ro'"&"dbgck are significantiy curtaiied (Slimani; Dobinson; Sw'ain
, nds of participation which
SLA research identifies as genuine negotiation for meaning, in rvhat wavs can vary the
"ve
text, discursivepracticesand socialpracticesof the classroomso that genuine negotiation
tb, If there is a joint conspiracvU"-t*-il ,Gfl". *a
learners that predictable and trouble free discourse is preferable to having to work harder
within it, in he
ungedictable and to participate directl)'in resolving both learning and social confusionsl
TFe indir-idual effort to confront and reduce compiexitv in text through discursive
negotiation *'ith and about that text is the catalvst for understanding and, thereby, an
opportunitv for further learning (Long 1996).
All these considerations directh' implv that rve sh
discourse in a language classu'hich is more challeriging to its particjFgll!! :thanit often is.
SuchAlliscourse r,r'illpositively support the kind of risk-taking among learners that can
contribute to deeper and more resilient levels of learning.This means focusing upon the
potential inherent in those discursivepracticesrvhich learners arecurrentl)lobliged to adopt
Given that teachershavethe major responsibilitvin managingthe discourseof lessons,hor.
can \\'e manage it in r'r'avsthat mav maximise such opportunities? Recalling the discursive
practices of learners that I summarised earlier, alternative w.aysof managing the discourse
m a v i n c l u d et h e f o l l o u i n g :
c. Expecting
LAfrrLtrrtY learners
l q d r l t q r ) to'adopt
tv duuPL an
all active
dLrlrL and
alru creative
LlLaLl\L role
lvrL in
l l , constructing
rvlrJ(r u\ rrrrv the text ol
"r----:-
Y lessons
lessonsso that at least two-thirds of
leastt\l'o-thirds ofitit is gen er.
-niliaL'g
4 \,.n , r:-. Building o.,on th.the l.@ilit\:to
learners'alertnessand adaptabilitvto the th" inter-textualitv
i.,t"r]I[Jity Jl!*-o.,
oflessons
(--t-' | \- and familiaritl. u'ith inter-textualitv in the first language by encouraging the
understanding and creation of i.rr,..rtio'., and diverse combinations of written a.rd
1 --, --,.-- i-- -r-^ --^--- l------^-^ t,{,lot'(,r
learners as genuine opportunities for creative use of eme knowledpe and skills
rathert@ ma\ rng waYS.
Enabli rners to make overt and to t h e i r o u n o n - g o i n gl e a r n i n ga g e n d a s
so that these mav be personal]n n and refined and a
collective u'av.
4-
Each of these 'lvaysof rvorking is, of course, related to one another and, therefore,
complementarv. The effort to implement one makes it more possible to implement any ot
NAVIGATING THE DISCOURSE 3L9
the others. Of course, learners in such a context rvill be confronted bv the chaliengeof
having to navigate a discourse that mav be different from the kind of classroom discourse
with r,vhichthev are more at ease.How'ever, if u.e accept the implications of current SLA
research,it is possiblethat a more positive relationshipbetrveensuccessin navigatingsuch
discourseand successin languagelearning u-il1emerge.
References
'Teacher
Larsen-Freeman,D. (1976a.1 speech as input to the ESL learner' . IJniversityoJ
CalrJornia'tl'orking Papers in TESL | 0 . + 5-+9 .
- 'An
(1976b) exploration of the morpheme acquisition order of second language
l e a r n e r s.' L a n g u a gLee a r n i n)g6 . 1 2 ; I l 4
- 'The
(1983) importance of input in second language acquisition', in Pidginizationand
creolizationand languageacquisition,R. Anderson (ed.). Rolr'le), Mass: Newbury House.
'The
Leont'er-, A.N. (1981) problem of activitv in psvcholog.t:, in l',vgotsk1' and the social
oJmind,J.Wertsch (ed.). Cambridge, N{ass.: Harr-ard Universitv Press.
Jormarion
Lightbonn, P. (1980)'The acquisition and use of questions bv French L2 learners of English',
in Secondlanguagedevelopment:trends and issues,S. Felix (ed.).Ttibingen: Gunter Narr.
- 'Exploring
(1983) relationships betr,r-eendevelopmental and instructional sequencesin
L2 acquisition', in Classroomoriented researchjn secondlanguage acquisition,H. Seliger and
M. Long (eds). Ror'vlev Mass: Neu.burv House.
- ( 1985) Can language acquisitionbe aheredb,r'instruction?,Hvltenstam and Pienemann (eds).
- (1991)'What have rve here? Some observations on the effect of instruction on L2
learning', in Foreign/secondlanguage Pedagogv Research,R. Phillipson er 41. (eds)
Clevedon : Muitilinguai Matters.
- 'Getting
(1992) qualitv input in the second,/foreign language ciassroom', in Text and
context:
cross-disciplinaw on languagestudv,C. Kramsch and S. McConnel-Ginet
perspectives
(eds). Lexington N{ass:D.C. Heath and Co.
Lock, A. ( 1980) ThegutdedrcinventionoJlanguage.Neu'York: Academic Press.
Long, M. (1980) Input, intercction and second language acquisition. Unpublished Ph.D'
dissertation. Universitv of California at Los Angeles.
- (1981)'lnput, interaction and second language acquisition'. '\iorire languageandJoreign
language acquisition, H . Winitz (ed) . Annals of the Neu'York Academv of Sciences, 3 79 .
- (1985)'A role for instruction in second language acquisition: task-based language
teaching'. Modelltng and assessingsecondlanguage acquisition, K. Hvltenstam and 11
Pienemann (eds). Clevedon: Mulitlingual Matters.
- '
( 198 9) Task, group, and task-group interactions' . Uni rersity oJ Hawai'i ltrlorkingPapersin
E S r8 . 2 5 1 - 8 6 .
- acquisition',in
(1996)'The role of the linguisticenvironmentin secondlanguage
HandbookoJ second languageacquisition,W.Ritchie andT. Bhatia(eds).Neu'York:Academic
Press.
Long, M. and Sato, C. (1983)'Classroom foreigner talk discourse:forms and functions of
teachers'questions',in Classroom orjentedresearchin secondlanguageacqutsition,H. Seliger
and M. Long (eds).Ror'r'levMass:Nervburt'house.
Macdonnel,D. (1985) Theories Oxford: BasilBlackrvell.
oJdiscourse.
McTear, M. (1975)'structure and categoriesof foreign languageteaching sequences',in
WorkingPapers: LanguageTeachtng CldssroomAesearch, R. Allu.right (ed.). Universitv of
Essex,Department of Languageand Linguistics.
Naiman,N., Frohlich,M., Stern,H. , andTodesco.A. ( 1978) Thegoodlanguage Research
learner.
in EducationSeries7 .Toronto:The Ontario Institutefor Studiesin Education.
Nystrom, N. (1983)'Teacher-student interactionin bilingual classrooms:four approachesto
error feedback', in Classroomorientedresearch
in second languageacquisition>H. Seliger and
M. Long (eds).Rou'levMass:Neu'burv House.
'Adult
Pica,T. (1933) acquisitionof Englishas a secondlanguageunder different conditions of
e x P o s u r e. L a n g u a gLee a r n t n )g1 . + 6 5 - 9 1.
Pica,T., Doughtv, C., andYoung,D. (1985)'Making input comprehensible:do interactional
'7
modificationshelp? InternationalRevtewoJAppliedLinBuistics2 . | 25 .
Pica,T.,Young,R., and Doughtr-,C. (1987)'The impact of interactionon comPrehension'
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322 MICHAEL P. BREEN
JoanSwann
Introduction
r f . l H I S C H A P T E R P R o v I D E S G U I D A N C E F o R t h o s eu ' h o w i s h t o c a r r yo u t
I an investigation into aspectsof spoken language. It is designed mainlv for use in
educational settings, and u'ill probablv be particularlv appropri.t" fo. teacheis and other
educationists engaged on small-sbaleresearch projects. Manv of the techniques and
principles it discusses,however, applv equallv well to investigations of spoken languagein
non-educationalcontexts.
I shall discussfactors to take into account r,vhenmaking audio and video recordings of
spoken language, then look at different r,l-aysof making a rvritten transcript fro- ttese
recordings.The article does not pror,'idedeiailed guidan"ceon analysis,but i shall refer to
other chapters in this volume that serve as examples of different ways of analvsingtalk.
I am assumingthat, asa reader of this chapter, vou rvill alreadt'har.ein mind a clear purpose
for recording and analvsing spoken language- that vou w-ill have identified certain issues
to focus on, perhaps specified, in a formal project, as a set of researchquestions.These
questions w'ill affect the setting in rvhich vou carrv out your research,the people and events
you decide to observe and record, the stance vou adopt tolvards others involved in _vour
research, the particular types of recording vou make and holr. -voutranscribe and u.rilyr"
these.
Since you cannot, and u-ill not rvish to record er.ervthing that is going on you will need to
select people and events to focus on. If vour interest is in aspectsof claisroom talk,
1.oumav
wish to focus on talk between the teacher (vourself or u .olleug.r"; and pupiis, or ietoueen
different pupils, or both.You mav be interested in u.hole-classdiscussionor small-group
talk.You ma1'rvish to compare contributions from a small number of pupils in diflerent
contexts, or to monitor one child closelvin a range of activities.
324 JOAN SWANN
you r,vill also need to think about the representativenessof the tvpes of talk you wish
record
to examine. For instance,holv are vou seiecting the tvpes of activitv that vou wish to
are you
and analvse?Do these cor,er the full range of activities normalh' encountered? Or
contrasting contexts you think are distinctive in some r'vay?
If you'are carrying out a small-scale investigation focusing on talk in one or tw'o
talk vou
conte*is, there are trvJ important points to bear in mind about the samples of
eventuallv come up rvith:
.r'ill need to take t of the effect vour o\\'n presence.and the lvav vou
.: rhe obserr,ations.mav have had on vour data.
tionship 'ou have, or that vou
u ith those r,vhoparticipate in vour research and allou' vou to observe their
. chaviour. I have used the term to refer to this more general
@t@
. .^l the *'av a researcherbehavestow'ards the people and events she or he is
' r d n 1 € r o hF, r a z e r H . a m p t o na n d R i c h a r d s o nt 1 9 9 2 1 d i s t i n g u i sbhe t u ' e e n
, a r \ . e r 'R
- I r e l a t r o n s n r Do.r r e s e a r c n e sr t a n c e :
: :!.searcherstancevou fbel able to adopt rvill affect the overall conduct ofyour
'.r'hat\rou research, the specific methods
1'ou adopt, how you interpret
, :.. rhe iorms i., r,r'hichvou disseminateresearch findings. Points to consider
-
in-r'our ou'n institution the idenu:
mav be hard to do this'nvherevou are obserr-ing
,o ma1.beapparentto other'coileagu,es. one solution is to discu''
;;;;; .;;;,.r". ''
confidentialitrlthev feel is necessaryand h'-
r,vith colleaguesor students hoor'-rr.h
this mar be maintained'
haverecordedaboutthedissemination and'furt:::
. ln what wavsshouldvou consultthose,vou
for a certain purpose' b--'
use oJyourworft? Peoplema,vgi1 permissionto be recorded
rvhatifvourpr,.po*"hu"g-"iEg 1'oumavrvishtodisseminateyour*:1kt:a$'id':
audience,.r,";* fo, o-or*researchin a professionaldevelopm':':
"-rid"o-obtuii"d
s e s s i o nu ' i d l l o c a l t c a c h e r s '
camer'-:
betlveen researchersand'the researched"
For those interested in the relationships
orgalisllions aiso provide researchguidelir'"
et al . (19921 tsa usefLl source. Professional ':
(199+) Recommendation:
_ see for instance the British Association for Rp"phedLinguistics
GoodPractice in AppltedLinguistics'
on making audio and vidt
The sections that follou' provide practical guidance.
:
these recordings' a n d t r a n s c r i b i n gt a l k
recordings, making fieldnotes to supplement
detailed analvsis.
Audio-recotdings
.Anaudio-cassetterecordercanbeintrusive-.ho@d-
to bffiE7ecorded, or recordin-g
case in classrooms rr-her" l,'P;1. "." used
is moreor"@orders areused
;ffiusiveness
and u'here there is not tht
in contexts lvhere talk is not normallr:re.ord.d,
(e ' g' staff or other meetings) '
opportunit\ for recording to become routine
R E C O R D I N GA N D T R A N S C R I B I N G T A L I ( 3 2 7
I n t r u s i v e n e scsa nb e l e s s e n e db v k e e p i n gt h e t e c h n o l o q l s i m o l ea n d u n o b t r u s i re -
a l
for example bv using a small, batterv-operatedcassetterecorder w-ith a built,in
.
a l s o a r o i d s t h e d a n g e ro f ' t r a i l i n g u i r e s . a n d t h e p r o b l e m o f
T5jgph.*.-Ihis
finding appropriate sockets.
It is also better to use a fairlv simple cassetterecorder if pupils are recording
themselves.In this case,go for a machine *-ith a small number of controls, and
check that voung pupils can operate the buttons easilr'.
There is a trade-off betu'een lack of intrusireness/ease of use and cualitv of
recording: more sophisticated machines, used lvith separate microphones,
will produce a better qualitv recording. This is a consideration if l.ou intend to
use the recordings r'r'ith others, for example in a professionai deveiopment
session.
A s i-:---_
n g l ec a s s e t t er e c o r d e r i s n o t s u i t a b l ef o r r e c o r d i n g u - h o l e - c l a sdsi s c u s s i o n ,
r..l".r t or fo.rr o. th . The recorder rvill pick up loud voices, or
voices that are near to it, and probablv lose the rest behind background noise
(scraping chairs and so on). Even lr'hen recording a small group, background
noise is a problem. It is rvorth checking this br. piloting vour recording
arrangements: speakersmav need to be located in a quieter area outside the
classroom.
With audio-recordingsyou lose important nonverbal and contextuai information.
Unless vou are familiar uath the speakers \-ou mav also find it difficult to
distinguish betrveen different voices.Wherever Wherer.'er possible, supplement audio-
r . . . o . i i n g , * i t h f i e l d - n o t e so r a d i a r r p r -
Video-recording s
I n t r u s i v e n e scsa nb e l e s s e n e db r k e e p i n st h e t e c h n o l o q vs i m o l ea n d u n o b t r u s i v e .
-
f o r e x a m p l eb r u s i n ga s m a [ .l b a t t e r r o p e r a t e dc a s s e t t er e c o r d e r n i t h a b u i l t - i n
m i c r o p h o n e . T h i sa l s o a r o i d s t h e d a n g e r o f t r a i l i n g n ' i r e s , a n d t h e p r o b l e m o f
--
finding appropriate sockets.
It is also better to use a fairlv simple cassetterecorder if pupils are recording
themselves.In this case,go for a machine u'ith a small number of controls, and
check that voung pupils can operate the buttons easilv.
There is a trade-off betu-een lack of intrusiveness/easeof use and cualitv of
recording: more sophisticated machines, used rvith separate microphones,
u.ill produce a better qualitr'' recording. This is a consideration if l-ou intend to
use the recordings r,r-ithothers, for example in a professionai development
session.
A siaglg_ge$etterecorder is not suitablefor recording u'hole-classdiscussion,
ru
r"_lesti.ot fo.r, ot th .The recorder u-ill pick up loud voices,or
voices that are near to it, and probablv lose the rest behind background noise
(scraping chairs and so on). Even w-henrecording a small group, background
noise is a problem. It is rvorth checking this br. piloting vour recording
arrangements: speakersmav need to be located in a quieter area outside the
classroom.
With audio-recordingsvou lose important nonverbal and contextuai information.
Unless vou are familiar with the speakers \rou mav also find it difficult to
distinguish betrveen dillerent different voices.Wherer-'er Wherever possible, supplement audio-
. " . o . J i n g , u i t h h e l d - n o t e so r a d i a r . p r .,
Video-recording s
Making field-notes
In order to anal-vsespoken languageat anv level of detail, vou will need to make a written
transcript.tanscription is, horvever,velv time-consuming.Edwards andWestgate(199+
suggestihat hou.', recording mav require 15 hours for transcription. I find that I can
"u.rv
-u1I" . rough transcript more quicklv than this, but a detailed transcript may take far longer.
particularli if a lot of nonverbal or contextual information is included.
In ,-ill-s.al. research,rr2nscripts mav b For instance, you coulc
transcribetti*_SoSlg nutes from a longer interaction.You could use field
notes to iftinn; or you could make a rough transcript o:
an ii-teraction to identifv general of interest, then more detailed transcripts of relevan:
extracts.
R E C O R D I N GA N D T R A N S C R I B I N G T A L I ( 3 2 9
in a school in south-eastEngiand
F)gure20.1 Fieid-notes of an assembl-v
330 JOAN SWANN
language,they only
While transcripts allor,va relativelv detailed examination of spoken
reproduce everv asPect oftalk'Transcribers
provide a partial.".o.d, theY cannot faithfullv
interests' w'hich means
r,vill tend io pav attention to different aspectsdepending upon.their
that a transcriit i, an interpretuiio., of the event it seeksto record' Elinor Ochs, in
"l.e"dv'Transcription 't,".-sttiPtifrilTIT"ttiu'
a norv classicaccount of as theorv' , suggeststh"t
; n"' Q979,f-l+l This point is illustrated
Proc9
tv t6ilu-pl" Iuio.,t, and tran-scriptionconventionsdiscussedbelo*'.
hollow balls in
Nou-, think ven' carefullv.What rvould happen if rve cut one of those
half?What u'ould we frnd inside?
hollor'v balls in
Nou., think verv carefullv u.hat rvouid happen if we cut one of those
half.What would w-eHnd inside?
of the transcript
Use of punctuation representsa trade-off betr,veeniegibility and accessibilitv
It Prob3bl)' besl
is
and *.hat might be a premature and impressionistic anal,vsisof the data.
ffionsareavailab1etoi"di.it.f."t.,."'of,pokenlanguage.Someof
th"r" highlv detailed, allor.vingtranscribers to record intakes of breath, increasedvolume,
".. and Jefferson, 1974;
stress,,vltu"ut"lengthening 1r"", for instance, Sacks,Schegloff
"t.. transcriptions, but there
Ochs, 1979). Such-conueniionsare designed to produce accurate
to the exercise.
is a danger that thev rvill lend a misleading senseof scientific objectivity
to correspond
Rather ihun belng'objectivelv identified' sirch features of speech are likely
to the transcriber's initial interpretations of their data'
for
Bearinq in mind this caveat,Figure 20.2 illustrates a simple set of conventions
R E C O R D I N GA N D T R A N S C R I B I N G T A L I ( 3 3 7
Transcription Notes
1 T: Y o u [ s t u d e n t ' sn a m e ] h a v ev o u g o t
2 manv tov animals at home
3 51: Y e sI h a v e { ( . ) I h a v ea g o t
4 T; {mmh
5 51: manv tov animals at home
6 T: That's good that's right rvhat tov
7 animals hate vou got at home (.)
8 what name for animals (. )
9 lstudent's namel rvhat tov anima]s low voice
l0 h a v er o u g o t a t h o m e r . r I m l i k e a t i g e r
11 Ss: <laughter>
12 T: What -ves
13 52: I h a v e { I h a v eg o t { ( . ) I T nods; lowers S2's
1+ T: { mmh {mmh a 1, ) hand and placeson
15 or mavbe tx'o or { mavbe three desk
16 52: { I h a v eg o t a m a n v
11 tov animals ,y
18 T: mmh I have got { manv tov animals
19 52; { manv tov animals
7h,s
K"y
I - I eacner
S = S t u d e n t( S 1 = S t u d e n t l , e t c )
( ) briefpause
{ I have got
<laughter) transcription of a sound etc that forms part ofthe utterance
the next n ord in his sentence (a, two, or thrce presumablv tov animals).This may be what
leads to the student's error (.amaryrtoy antmals)rvhich is subsequentlvcorrected by the
teacher.
The most commonlv used lavout, rvhich I shall call a'standard' lavout, is set out rather like
a diaiogue in a plar.,ivith speakingturns follor.ring one another in seque.rce.This is the layout
332 JOAN SWANN
Notes
Transcription
addressesgroup
1 G1: What arerve goingto do at home
directly
2 ( ) anl ideas
refers to book which
3 81: Yes (.) I takethis ( ) I take
he holds up
4 thi5 (general laughter) ves ves
5 I take it mmh and I see and I
5 see if there's something I can
u s e( .)
I G 1? : We canuse
9 81: W e c a nu s e
question towards
l0 82: So w.hat (*'ould) rve do (
girls?
l1 read rt at home (l; the
12 questionnaire
13 { (.) readit at home
l+ B] {r )
t.l
15 G2: Mavbe I can get some materials
16 for this
17 Gl: From ( mother)
18 G2: Yes
19 B1?: from rvhere
20 G2 from mv mother ( ) from the
21 travel agencl
K.y
GI G2 BI 82 Notes
K"y
layout). I would be interested in looking further at this group's w.ork to see if Girl 1
maintained this role or if it was also taken on bv other students.
The wav transcription is laid out mav highlight certain features of the talk, for instance:
' The standard layout suggestsa connected sequence, in r.r,.hichone turn follows on
from the preceding one.lYhisdoes seem to happen in the extract transcribed in Figures
20.3 and 20.4 but it is not ahvals the case.In voung children's speech,for instance,
sPeakingturns mav not follou' on directlv from a pr'ecedingturn. I shall also give an
example of more informal talk belou' in rvhich it is harder to distinguish a series of
s e q u e n t i atl u r n s .
' Column transcripts allorv vou to track one speaker'scontributions: vou can look at
the number and tvpes of contribution made bv a speaker(e.g. Girl I 's 'organising'
contributions), or track the topics thel'focus on - or lvhateverelse is ofinterest.
334 JOAN SWANI\
. In a column transcript, it's important to bear in mind lvhich column you allocate to
each speaker.Becauseoffactors such asthe left-right orientation in European scripts'
and associatedconventions of page lavout, we mav give prioritY to information located
on the left hand side. Ochs (1979) points out that, in column transcripts of adult-child
talk, the adult is nearlv ahr-avsallocated the left-hand column, suggestingthey are the
initiator of the conversation.In Figure 20.4 I beganlr'ith Girl 1, probably becauseshe
spoke 6rst, but I also grouped the girls and then the bovs together.This may be useful
iivon1. interest is, sa1 in gender issues,but it's important to consider why vou are
'natural'.
adopting a particular order and not to regard this as, somehor,v,
of transcription in u,hich she used a'stave' lavout (bv analogv r",'ithmusical staves)to
represent tihejoint construction of speakingturns (see,for instance,Coates, 1996). Stave
transcription has not been used frequentlv in educationalcontexts but ma1'be adopted to
illustrate highh.collaborative talk in small groups. Figure 20.5 comes from a study made
bv Julia Dar--res (2000) of English lessonsin three secondarvschoolsin Sheffield,in the norttr
oiL.rglu.d. Davies oo-".purti.rrlariv interested in gender issue,s in ho'lr'girls and bovs
*-orkJd together in singfe-sbxand mixed-sex groups. Figure 20.5 shows a grouP of four
teenage giils reflectingtn their earlier experiences of school. Davies found (like Coates)
joint
that tie g'irls' talk rvasparticularlv collaborative (e.g' it contained overlapping speech,
construclion ofturns and severalindicators of conversationalsupport).
The lavout vou choose for a transcript rvill depend on what you are transcribing and
rvhy. Here I hur,. t.i"d to shou, horv different lavouts highlight certain aspectsof talk and
that
pluj do* n others.Yourvill need to trv out. and probablv adapt, la)'outstill )"oufind one
..rii, .'ou, purposes U. ulttudl' Ituditg you
Transcriptions tend to highlight verbal information, though I have indicated above hou'
.ro.rlr"rbul information can be sholvn in a'notes' column' or bY tyPographical conventions
such as capitai letters for emphasisor loudness. In some chapters of this book authors use
different conventions. Pauline Gibbons andAngel Lin, for instance (Chapters 16 and 17
respectively) include some nonverbal information within brackets in the dialogue. If you
are particularlv interested in nonverbai information vou maY w'ish to adopt transcription
conventions that highlight this in some \vav.As examples, Figure 20.6 shorvshow a storv
teller uses a number of nonr.erbal features in her perfor o f a N i g e r i a ns t o n ( ' A m a n
amongstmen'); and Figure 20.7 shorvsh:- .,*.b ate female or male
s t u d e n t st o r e s p o n dt o h e r q u e s t i o n s
The transcripts of classroom talk I have iliustrated so far come from contexts in which
English is being used as a medium of instruction. In many contexts, however, even where
f"llith is used cl"r.roo* Ianguage,teachersand studentsmav also use another language,
", "
R E C O R D I N GA N D T R A N S C R I B I N G T A L I < 3 3 5
Bel
J". about their important memories ,/
Lou
Rosa
Bel {<laughs>JanAGAINi
r^- I'r,egot thisimportant {memorvof schoois'as-/lgot
Lou
Rosa
Bel
T-^
{this ef'fort trophv at middle school i.; /
Lou {Jan again/ r'eah?/
Rosa
Bel
J". and I / o h a n d t * ' " r " - Z " n d I r v a sd e a d c h u t l e d / l t h o u g h t i t $ e r e g r e a r /
Lou
Rosa
Bel
Ju. an effort trophr'?/ it $ ere great u'eren't it?/
Lou I got one ofthem/ veah/
Rosa
Bel
I:n {it w'ere great/
Lou iar the fourth r earof iunior:
Rosa
K"y
As above with, in addition:
Yeah/ A slashrepresentsthe end of a tone group, or chunk oftalk
\eah? / A question mark indicates the end of a chunk analvsedas a question
AGAIN Capital letters indicate a rvord uttered rvith emphasis
Staves are numbered and separated bv horizontal lines; all the talk rvithin a sta\.e is to be read together,
sequentiallv from left to right.
Nlote:Davies follolvs Coates in representing, u.ithin a stave, onlv those students rvho are speaking. Here I have
included all students throughout the transcription rvhich illustrates, for instance, that one student, Rosa, does
not speak at all in this sequence. Rosa mav have been contributrng in other rvavs e.g. nonverballv - and she
d o e s s p e a kl a t e r i n t h e d i s c u s s i o n .
336 JOAN SWANN
TranscriPt Notes
j spreadinggesture to start storv; downward
I [Once upon a time] a long
I long, long r long I longtime gesturesused for rhvthm;
ago there was a hunter a [r'en'
hunterl
u e l l . k n o r v na n d r e s p e c t e d
*everv dav he u-ould go out Into the *facing A, or orlenting torvards A
even lvhen embodvrng actrons
I bush he w'ould catch rvhatever
meat he needed for the village, he
w'ould carry it on his back he u'ould
bring it into the village he u'ould
throrv it down on the floor the people
xhands out to A; A also invited bv direct
they rvould see him *thev u'ould start
clapping their hands <claPs, gaze, head movement, general
A. claps> bodv orientation.
K.y
Squarebrackets indicate beginning and end
fOnceupon a time]
of large spreadinggesture
ma\ ::
such as the students'first or main language,for certain PurPoses.In this case,it
interesting to see lvhen a teacher or student uses each language'
TherJ are man\" different wavs of rePresenting the alternation between ' bdiffere:-:
ets-e.*
languagevarieties. I" Chupr,1] I fotl"t,"".. I Lin indicates'
C"nto.r.r" andEnglisffiEpGsen,i"EC"".o""t" i" o""tlitionand
.9 researchersha|e rePresentedlanguagesln r
also offering an English translation. Figure 20.8, from researchcarried outbyAntoine::=
r i
Camilleri iribilingu'-uiclassroomsin Malta, shou-sa teacher alternating between English
Maltese, $,here N{-ult.r" is used to amplifv or explain (rather than simply translate) an EngL':
sentenceread from a textbook. In this case,an English translation of the Maltese utteran.::
is given in a separatecoiumn. Figure 20.9, from research carried out by G.D. JayaiaksL*'u
:--.r5
i.riih"., in northern India, shoivs hou, a teacher uses Sanskrit partlv to demonstrate
not onj" 'r
knowledge and also'becausehe believesthat his function is to instruct students
lu.rgrrug.irrt also,more generallr',in life' (Javalakshmi, 1996,p. 145). In this case'an En;.-'n
translation is given in brackets beneath the Sanskrit'
In Figure 20.9, Javalakshmirepresents Sanskrit in Devanagari script. It would:-::
-:
have been-possibleto represent it in transliteration, in Roman script. It is, how'ever'r1
-r:
difficult to decide how-to represent languageyarieties closelv related to English, or difft:-
varietiesof English, that do not havea conventionalorthograph,v'Figure 20.5 represe::-:
R E C O R D I N GA N D T R A N S C R I B I N G T A L I < 3 3 7
Teacher: i1,"" h"* p""drt,r- (.) otl-ti.hn- .rt"blirhedlastweekuas a u-eight 1.; suspended
" ".tr"rr
from a string.:ltgl_
f 1 .r j u s r * a t c h l l
1
Matheu': I gravin'
Teacher; wr'rltii.rn.ir'""i:l
Mather,: G.;;;
Teacher: n o r v r v e m e n t i o n e dg r a v i t vw h e n w e s ' e r e
J Y e s 1 . 1f
\/
Bol: I t )l
reacher: fi;;;;i;;;;;ff;;;;;.;;;;;h()oK:;lJ;g.";;;d*;;h;
::,:1'1,_1
F;11;; d;;; il rvhatcauses
it to goup
"g"i;;;["
;ihJ.
"+z 1:1
- r7----,--:'--:
'
Bor: ] l-orce the Iorce
1LThe
_ . string MissJi
Boy:
{ } overlap
(.) pause
( ) unclear
Nore:The full transcript from u.hich Figure 20.7 is extracted shou's that the teacher's gaze is more
lrequentlv directed towards the bovs at critical points in the interaction, such as when a question is
to be answered.
20.8 Transcriptillustratingalternationbetr,veen
F)gure EngiishandMaltese
Camilleri(1994)citedin Mercer
Source: (.1996):134,andChapter15 of thisvolume
nonstandardgrammar ('it rvere great') but did not attempt to represent the girls'accent.
'eve 'ome1
Some transcribersresort to dialect' (asin wewuz jus'goin' to give an indication of
pronunciation but there is a danger here of representing certain speakers (rvorking class
speakers,children, non-native speakers)as somehow deviant or incompetent.
338 JOAN SWANN
Dr Keval:
ryTIeisT'i
IGood companv produces bad qualities]
(src)
You might have come across this verv saving in Sanskrit
vE)W frvr,l
IGood companvproducesbad qualities]
Nore:In this casethere is an error in Dr Keval's Sanskrit. Javalakshmicomments that he mav have learnt
quotations such as this bl rote.
Mark Sebbaused a mixed svstem in his transcription of the speech of voung Blac.
speakersin London, rvho alternate betrveen Creole (derived from JamaicanCreolel arr
io.rdo. English. Creole utterances u'ere underlined, London English utterances ll'ere n.:,:
U n d e r l i n e J u t t e r a n c e sr v e r e ,t h e n , t o b e ' p r o n o u n c e d a s i f C r e o l e ' ( 1 9 9 3 , p . 1 6 3 ) . S e b t
'e-ve
also used some dialect' features to indicate the pronunciation of specific words ,
'one-off ' 'oh'
sounds;and certain conventions,such as the use of to rePresenta glottal stt':
(the sound used as a variant of /t/ in certain linguistic contexts, and in certain varieties ,
English-sometimesrepresentedasanapostropha e s i n b u ' e r f o r b u t t e r ) .F i g u r e 2 0 ' 1
illu-stratesthis. One point of interest is that the giottal stop, a feature of London English bL.
not (usually)of JamaicanCreole, is here used u-ithin a Creole utterance (invt%oe,line 4t,
Sets of svmbols such as the International Phonetic Alphabet (lPA) are used l'
phoneticiansto give a svstematicrepresentationof the soundsof English and other language'
-Such
alphabets are hard for the non-expert to read and are not usually suitable lr .
transcribing long conversational sequences.Hor,r-everif -vou are interested in learner.
pronunciations of English, and 1'ouare familiar u'ith the IPA or a similar alphabet, vou couL
use phonetic svmbols selectivelv for certain w-ords,or to rePresent certain sounds.
Figure 20.1 1 belou.illustrates the use of phonetic s,vmbolsto represent a young Russia:
studenl's pronunciation of the lr.ord 6ush,r,(this is taken from the same lesson as th;
t r a n s c r i b e di n F i g u r e2 0 . 2 a b o re l .
R E C O R D I N GA N D T R A N S C R I B I N G T A L I ( 3 3 9
Transcription Notes
Traditional 11 2 5 0
Video Led 38 3 0 33
Source, (1993):287
Javalakshmi
Chapter 1B in this volume provides a more formal and detailed example of quantification
Assia Slimani r,vasinterested in the relationship between students' claims about what
linguistic features thev had learnt, and the direct teaching ofsuch features.Table 18.2
tp. 296) illustrates this, show'ing the number of linguistic features that had been explicitlv
dealt u'ith in iessons(identified from audio recordings), and the proportion of these that
...,'ere
recalled br-students, those that were not recalled, and those that w'ere said to hat'e
b c c n l r a r n e do n a p r e r i o u so c c a s i o n .
tbecause'
Focal Group 1 pre-intervention task use of "cos'or
'cos
Elaine: It isn't look that'sa square
'cos
Graham: No look .lvatchthere all dorvn there and ther are all at the side and they are
all up there
'cos
Elaine: Wait u-ait rvait its that one look it's them ts'o and them trvo ( ) and them
two
'Cos
John: look that goesout like that -
'Cos
Elaine: look that goesin
'Cos
John: look that goestoo far out
'cos
Graham: Look that's got 4
Elaine: it's got a little bit iike that it's that one
No . . . not that one not that one because
look it goesin and then it goes out
('cos'or 6because'
Focal Group 1 post-intervention task use of
'cos 'cos
Graham: Number 6 6 stopsin there look if vou
'cos
Elaine: It can't be there look if lou done that
'cos
Elaine: It is look if that goeslike that and then it has another one those tw'o make
'cos
Elaine: He doesn't savrvhat thev are he might be wrong
'cos
Graham: Yeh look
'Cos vl'ould round
Elaine: it go
'cos 'cos
John: It is it goesarvav look that one goeslike that
'cos
Elaine: No it can't be look . . . rvith the squarewith the triangle you take awaythe
triangle so vou're left rvith the squareso if vou do just this and then againtake
that arvavit's going to end up, Iike that isn't it?
'cos
Graham: Actuallv that's got a squareand a circie round it
'cos
John: Yeh it goeslike that and then it takesthat one awavand doesthat
'cos
Elaine: No look
'cos
Elaine: Probablvone in the circle there are onlv trvo circles
'Cos are lines and then thev are going like that it is becausethey are
Graham: if thev
w'onkv isn't it
'cos
Graham: No actuallvit ain't then
Elaine: Yeh it's number 8 because those ones- those two came that those tlr'o make that
John: N o b e c a u s7 e, 2 , 3 7 , 2 ' 3
agreement on the correct ans\r'er.Wegerif and Mercer point out, how'ever,that such
evidencemay not be seenasconvincingbecauseit consistsonlv of one or t$'o brief extracts
from transcripts.
As a way of complementing their initial qualitativeapproach,Wegerifand Mercer used
a computerised concordancing program. This identifies all instancesof a word or expression
used in a particular set of data, and displavsthesein their immediate linguistic context. In
'cos
Figure 20.12 above,for instance,the rvords and because are displal'edin each speaking
turn in rvhich thev occurred in one group's interaction before and after the intervention.
Wegerif and Mercer suggestthat'cos andbecause are used differentlv in the pre- and post
intervention interaction: in the post-intervention interactions t}ey are more frequentlv used
to link reasonsto claims.Wegerif and Mercer carried out similar analysesof other terms
that might be seen as indicatir,e of reasoning (" g tJ and so used to link a reason to an
assertion).
This form of anah'sisprovides quantifiable data (i.e. it is possible to calculate the
frequencv lvith rvhich'cosand because are used in different contexts). It is also possibleto
'cos
see each instance of and because in a limited linguistic context, r'vhichprovides further
information about their use in eachcase(asin Figure 20.12). And it is possible,for anv one
instance, to displav further linguistic context (anv number of preceding and follou.ing
speakingturns) to allow a qualitative exploration ofthe data.
If this form of analvsisinterestsvou, itis possibleto purchaseconcordancingsoftware
(or, rn some cases,to dolr.nload this from the Internet;.i You rvill need, however, to be
prepared to spend time exploringt the softu'are to see holv it can be made to w-ork most
effectively for vour own purposes. For further discussionand examples of corpus-based
analysissee,for instance,Stubbs(1996).
Conclusion
In this chapter I have discussedvarious techniques vou can use to record and transcribe
spoken language.Thereis no'ideal' rvav to do this, and I have tried to indicate the strengths
and weaknessesof different approachesso that you can select the most appropriate method,
or combination of methods, for l-our o\\.n purposes. It is bevond the scope of this chapter
to consider,at anv level ofdetail, u'avsofanalysing spoken language,though I have suggested
some initial considerationsto bear in mind. Other chapters in this volume include examples
of research on spoken language, and illustrations of different forms of analysis:these mav
provide ideas for vour o\lrn research.
Acknowledgement
Note
References
C a z d e nC, . 2 3 3 c o n s t r a i n t s9 2 1 , 1 0 3
Chaudron,C. 31I consultants, researchers as 52-3
child learners40 1 contextual knou-ledge 78
choices,setof 193-4 contextualisation 1 16-1 9
C h o m s k vN , . 1 4 , 1 5 , 1 6 , 1 1, + 5 , 1 5 2 c o n l i n g e n c sq 8 1 0 2 . 1 0 2 : n e g o t i a t i o n .l a n g u a g e
chorusing231, 23)-3 learning and i00 2
Clark, E. 75-7 continuit\' 248
C l a r k ,H . H . 7 5 7 control 98
classroom:ascoral gardensseeclassroomas c o n v e r s a t i o n a n a l v s i s( C A ) 1 1 6 1 7 , 1 1 9
culturemetaphor;asdiscourse125-8; as conversational inference 1 17
experimentailaboratorv 123-5 conYersational interaction 99-1 00
classroomcontext 1; motivation 34; strategies co-operative learning activities 34
and goalsin 4 5 Cope, \\r. 200
classroomasculture metaphor 128 34; learning . - . -r ' " - - - - ' " ' - -) R- R-
cn-nrndrrrtinn
s i t h i n 1 3 7 - 8 :r e s e a r c h i $
n igt h i n l l ) 6 : coral gardens,classroomas 128-34 seealso
rer'leu.ing134-5; teachingu'ithin 136-7 classroomasculture metaphor
classroominteractionseeinteraction C o r d e r ,S . P .4 8 , 4 9
classroommanagementI 70 C o r n e l i u sE,. T . 2 1 3
classroomresearch51-), 51, 125-8 corpuslinguistics15, 340-2
Claude,M. 229-30 correctionof errors 180, 298-9
Clifford, R. 84-5 creativitv i9; creative,discursiveagencv273,
C o a t e sJ, . 3 3 4 278 82,28+
COBUILD team 15 critical actionresearch59
coconstruction9 5-7, 133-1 critical ethnographv21 1
code-srvitching250-2 Critical Period H,vpothesis 36, 37 9
cognition 94-5 C r o o k e sG , . 34,58, 59,50,160-2
'c"n5o"n" i. t' i r r c - f r c t n r q 74 cross-linguisticinfluences20
C o h e nA , .D. 173,17+ Csikszentmihalvi, M. 103
collectiveculture 130 cued elicitations 246-7
C o l l i n sl,. 2 3 7 , 2 3 8 ,2 7 3 , 2 8 4 cultural c pital 272, 21+-5, 282
collusion 6,22140 culturally-specrllcinteraction styles22740 ;
column transcriptlavouts332 -4 barriersto innorationandlearning229 34:
communicationstrategies82 -4; problemsu'ith limitationsof explanationsof schoolfailure
8+7 23+-5
CommunicationalTeachingProject (CTP) culture252-3, 254; classroomasseeclassroom
634,160 asculture metaphor;and studentopposition
communicative competence83, 84, 155 2 1 5 - 1 8 ,2 2 1 2 , 2 2 3 4
communicativelanguageteaching(CLT) 155-8, C u r r a n ,C . 1 5 3
200,2278
communitv languagelearning(CLL) 153 D a v ,R . 1 1 3
compatiblehabitus274-5, 282 decision-drivenmodel of researchuse 47
competence: communicatiYe 83, 84, 155; deference politeness228
participative,interactionaland academic determination21+-15
171-2; andperformance14-15 ; strategic developmental sequences18, I 82
824 dialogue 97,25+
comprehensible input 2 1, 75-6,'79, 159 differencesbetrveenlearners23 5, 299-300,
comprehensibleoutput 21, 19, 260-1 301
comprehension 3, 75 89; placeofin language differentiation 129-30
learning75-5; strategies75-8 direct elicitations246
computer-basedanalvsis340 2 direct method 149
conceptualevaluation55, 66 discourse59; classroomas 125 8; dimensions of
concordancing 3+2,3+3 309 15; grammar and 196-7; language
concurrentresources 101 2 acquisitionor languagesocialisation4,
confidentialitv325-5 108-21; managing318; navigating8,
confirmations247 305-22; positioningin andthrough 113-15:
confirmatorvresearchtradition 53-6 what learnerslearn from the discourseof
Conrad,J. 35 lessons3 16-1 7; seealsointeraction
conservatismI 32 3 discourseskills 8 I
INDEX 347