CASA CORPULUI DIDACTIC SUCEAVA

Words & Thoughts

English teachers magazine

Editura George Tofan

Suceava, 2013

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. TEACHING ENGLISH
Mihai ANTON, The Importance of Teaching English through Drama

Claudia-Alexandra BOERESCU, Bring your Classroom to LifeEnglish through Games

Monica Elena BUCULEI, Issues of Main Concern in Contemporary Teaching

16

Adina Laura CLUGREANU, Correcting Spoken Errors

21

Alina DOBROGHII, Communicative English Teaching

28

II. LANGUAGE STUDIES

Brndua Luminia CMPAN, Brief Presentation of my Research Paper
for Gradul I, Peculiarities of Teaching English to Polish Students

34

Natalia COSOVANU, Introducing and Practising Grammar Items

in Task-Based Language Teaching

39

Daniela Elena ROTARU, The Importance of Vocabulary

in English Language Teaching

44

Ana-Cristina ERBAN, Context and Function in Translation

52

III. CULTURAL STUDIES AND EXPERIENCES

tefania BOCA, London, a Place of Being

58

Alina CRETU & Monica LEPCALIUC, Go for Comenius!

65

Anca DSCLIUC, Ecocriticism

70

Tinela NASTASI, The Image of the American West in Willa Cahters

Novels and Short Stories

73

TEACHING ENGLISH

Mihai ANTON
The Importance of Teaching English through Drama

Claudia Alexandra BOERESCU

Bring your Classroom to Life - English through Games

Monica Elena BUCULEI

Issues of Main Concern in Contemporary Teaching

Adina Laura CLUGREANU

Correcting Spoken Errors

Alina DOBROGHII
Communicative English Teaching

The Importance of Teaching English through Drama

Prof. Mihai ANTON
coala Gimnazial ,,Samson Bodnrescu, Glneti

MOTTO
All the Class Is a Stage
Arguments
Tell me, and I'll forget. Show me, and I may not remember. Involve me, and I'll
understand - chinese proverb, author unknown
Even if one is unaware of it, human relationships are structured in a theatrical way. The
use of space, body language, choice of words and voice modulation, the confrontation of
ideas and passions, everything that we demonstrate on the stage, we live in our lives. We
are theatre! - Augusto Boal - World Theatre Day - International message (27th March
2009)
Moments of direct experience, transcending mere knowledge, enriching the imagination,
possibly touching the heart and soul as well as the mind. This, in over-simplified terms,
is the precise function of drama - Brian Way
The most significant kind of learning which is attributable to experience in drama is the
growth in the students understanding about human behaviour, themselves and the world
they live in from: http://www.stleonards-fife.org/senior_school/subjects/drama
There are different ways in which drama can be defined. And to mention only one of
them, Susan Holden takes drama to mean any kind of activity where learners are asked
either to portray themselves or to portray someone else in an imaginary situation. In
other words, drama is concerned with the world of "let's pretend"; it asks the learner to
project himself imaginatively into another situation, outside the classroom, or into the
skin and persona of another person.
Why using drama in the classroom?
There are many reasons in favour of using drama activities and techniques in the
language classroom. First of all it is entertaining and fun, and can provide motivation to
learn. It can provide varied opportunities for different uses of language and because it
engages feelings it can provide rich experience of language for the participants.
Points supporting the use of drama in education:
1-It integrates language skills in a natural way. Careful listening is a key feature.
Spontaneous verbal expression is integral to most of the activities; and many of them
require reading and writing, both as part of the input and the output.

2-It integrates verbal and non verbal aspects of communication, thus bringing
together both mind and body, and restoring the balance between physical and intellectual
aspects of learning.
3-It draws upon both cognitive and affective domains, thus restoring the
importance of feeling as well as thinking.
4-By fully contextualizing the language, it brings the classroom interaction to life
through an intensive focus on meaning.
5-The emphasis on whole-person learning and multi-sensory inputs helps learners
to capitalize on their strength and to extend their range. In doing so, it offers unequalled
opportunities for catering to learner differences.
6-It fosters self-awareness (and awareness of others), self-esteem and confidence;
and through this, motivation is developed.
7-Motivation is likewise fostered and sustained through the variety and sense of
expectancy generated by the activities.
8-There is a transfer of responsibility for learning from teacher to learners which
is where it belongs.
9-It encourages an open, exploratory style of learning where creativity and the
imagination are given scope to develop. This, in turn, promotes risk-taking, which is an
essential elements in effective language learning.
10-It has a positive effect on classroom dynamics and atmosphere, thus
facilitating the formation of a bonded group, which learns together.
11-It is an enjoyable experience.
12-It is low-resource. For most of the time, all you need is a 'roomful of human
beings'.
Drama is inevitably learner-centered because it can only operate through active
cooperation. It is therefore a social activity and thus embodies much of the theory that
has emphasized the social and communal, as opposed to the purely individual, aspects of
learning. The use of drama techniques and activities in the classroom provides exciting
opportunities for foreign language learners to use the language in concrete "situations".
Besides, some research studies suggest that drama activities can promote interesting
ways of motivating language learners and teachers. With drama we can play, move, act
and learn at the same time. Also the use of drama activities has clear advantages for
language learning regarding motivation, the use of language in context, teaching and
learning cross curricular content, etc. Drama activities can provide students with an
opportunity to use language to express various emotions, to solve problems, to make
decisions, to socialize. Drama activities are also useful in the development of oral
communication skills, and reading and writing as well. Drama activities help students to
communicate in the foreign language including those with limited vocabulary.

Students Communication
Using drama to teach English results in real communication, involving ideas, emotions,
feelings, appropriateness and adaptability. Teaching English may not fulfill its goals.
Even after years of English teaching, the students do not gain the confidence of using the
language in and outside the class. The conventional English class hardly gives the
students an opportunity to use language in this manner and develop fluency in it, and this
is because students lack the adequate exposure to spoken English outside the class as
well as the lack of exposure to native speakers who can communicate with the students
on authentic matters. So an alternative to this is teaching English through drama because
it gives a context for listening and meaningful language production, leading the students
or forcing them to use their own language resources, and thus, enhancing their linguistic
abilities. Using drama in teaching English also provides situations for reading and
writing. By using drama techniques to teach English, the monotony of a conventional
English class can be broken and the syllabus can be transformed into one which prepares
students to face their immediate world better as competent users of the English language
because they get an opportunity to use the language in operation.
Drama improves oral communication, as a form of communication methodology, drama
provides the opportunity for the students to use language meaningfully and appropriately.
Drama puts back some of the forgotten emotional content into language. Appropriacy
and meaning are more important than form or structure of the language. Drama can help
to restore the totality of the situation by reversing the learning process, beginning with
meaning and moving towards language form. This makes language learning more
meaningful and attempts to prepare the students for real-life situations. Language
learning must appeal to the creative intuitive aspect of personality as well as the
conscious and rational part. Drama activities can be used to provide opportunities for the
students to be involved actively. The activities involve the student's whole personality
and not only his mental process. Effective learning can be achieved when the student
involves himself in the tasks and is motivated to use the target language.
How can drama or dramatic activities be used in ELT?
In using drama in the classroom, the teacher becomes a facilitator rather than an authority
or the source of knowledge. Therefore, the teacher who too often imposes his authority or
who conceives of drama as a kind of inductive method for arriving at preordained correct
answer, will certainly vitiate the developmental values of drama and possibly its
educational value as well.
Classroom drama is most useful in exploring topics when there are no single , correct
answer or interpretation, and when divergence is more interesting than conformity and
truth is interpretable. As Douglas Barnes puts it Education should strive not for the
acceptance of one voice, but for an active exploration of many voices.
Drama is an appealing teaching strategy which promotes cooperation, collaboration, selfcontrol, goal-oriented learning as well as emotional intelligence skills. Drama bridges the
gap between course-book dialogues and natural usage, and can also help to bridge a
similar gap between the classroom and real life situations by providing insights into how
to handle tricky situations. Drama strengthens the bond between thought and expression
in language, provides practice of supra-segmental and para-language, and offers good

listening practice. If drama is considered as a teaching method in the sense of being part
of the eclectic approach to language teaching, then it can become a main aid in the
acquisition of communicative competence. Drama activities facilitate the type of
language behaviour that should lead to fluency, and if it is accepted that the learners want
to learn a language in order to make themselves understood in the target language, then
drama does indeed further this end.
One of the greatest advantages to be gained from the use of drama is that students
become more confident in their use of English by experiencing the language in operation.
Drama in the English language classroom is ultimately indispensable because it gives
learners the chance to use their own personalities. It draws upon students' natural abilities
to imitate and express themselves, and if well-handled should arouse interest and
imagination. Drama encourages adaptability, fluency, and communicative competence. It
puts language into context, and by giving learners experience of success in real-life
situations it should arm them with confidence for tackling the world outside the
classroom.

REFERENCES
1.URL: http://forum.famouswhy.com/index.php?showtopic=1150
2.URL: http://www.blatner.com/adam/pdntbk/rlplayedu.htm
3.URL: http://www.hltmag.co.uk/aug09/sart07.htm
4.URL: http://business.highbeam.com/6137/article-1G1-204682056/using-drama-andmovement-enhance-english-language-learners
5.URL: http://www.teachingenglishgames.com/Articles/eslplays.htm
6.URL: http://www.melta.org.my/ET/1990/main8.html
7.URL: http://www.edb.gov.hk/index.aspx?nodeID=2752&langno=1

Bring your Classroom to Life - English through Games

Prof. Claudia Alexandra BOERESCU
Colegiul Tehnic de Industrie Alimentar, Suceava

While the traditional grammar-based method still proves highly effective for so many
teachers, as it is easy to implement, to evaluate and gives them a better control of the way
they organize their time and activities, we have to admit that it has become a challenge
nowadays to make our students study grammar rules, sentence structures, vocabulary
items. The general feedback that teachers who employ traditional methods get is that of
boredom and lack of interest, while the only thing that keeps students motivated is the
grades they obtain, if that. This is probably because most students have been exposed to
the same methods for many years. The way they see it is actually the way we should
review our performance from time to time the lessons are predictable and have a sort of
rigidity that does not appeal to their motivation: the teacher presents the rules, then gives
them a set of exercises to work on and after that, they are evaluated and given a grade.
However, the major drawback that this mechanical pattern comes with is not the
monotony of the routine but the output that students produce. It is a well-known fact that
learners sometimes find it difficult to overcome their shyness and teachers seem to be
comfortable with doing all the talking while their students take notes, listen and give oneword or one-sentence responses. This might not be the way to go when the real target to
hit, eventually, is to use English in real-life situations.
It is true that teacher-centered activities have the tendency to create passive students who
are not given an active role in the classroom. Maintaining their interest is crucial for
English lessons, which should be as interactive as possible to help learners communicate.
Nowadays, foreign languages teachers have the huge advantage of having access to many
resources and tools, interactive materials and ideas that are meant to make their work
easier. Nevertheless, it does take time to do research and adapt these resources to the
profile of each class of learners, which might make the task more difficult, but as long as
you are organized and take your job seriously, you will find that the joy of having
interested learners who are eager to start using English is far more rewarding than the
monosyllabic answers you have been hearing for so long. It is my personal belief that
creativity is the strongest tool at our disposal. Making use of our creativity in the
classroom is doubly beneficial. On the one hand, it keeps our imagination active and it
makes it easier to adapt the activities to the classes we teach, and on the other hand it
helps us bridge the gap between us and our students. The personalized creative activities
will appeal to them and they will appreciate our work more. For example, I frequently
use games in order to make my classes more interesting and create a positive
environment for learning. Even students whose interest is very low, find this to be an
effective way of learning new things and use English during the class. I often adapt some
of the games that are already available to the needs of the students I teach. It is now a
widely accepted theory that the use of games has a valid presence as one of a range of
teaching approaches.
By employing a variety of visual aids and active learning devices and techniques,
students will be able to learn and repeat new language in a motivating way, as it gives

them a chance to both find out new things and have fun. It is my experience that games
are highly effective tools for any age, as long as they are adapted and well used. By
adding humor and fun to your lesson, the level of tension that is specific to a learning
environment fades away. At the same time, the level of competitiveness that every game
involves increases students motivation, without them even being aware of it. But even
more importantly, they facilitate language acquisition by internalizing the grammar
structures or the vocabulary unconsciously. Therefore, games provide the perfect
opportunity for students to use the language more than you do during the English class,
which should be the aim of every activity. At the same time, teachers and students will
not have to deal with the frustration of a boring lesson.
Nowadays, there are a lot of books with activities and games that are fun, entertaining
and easy to use. Nevertheless, it is important to adapt and feel free to modify them
according to the learning capacity of each class of students. As I teach high school and it
is important to cover most aspects of the curriculum, I have found out that a useful way
of doing certain activities (rephrasing, multiple matching, gap filling etc.) is to turn them
into something challenging by introducing competition and adopting hands-on activities
instead of the traditional ones, which involve copying from the board. Here are some
examples of games and activities that have proved very effective for my students.
Spot the Enemies Game
This is a type of error correction exercise, which can be adapted to different levels,
ranging from elementary to advanced learners. The advantage of this game is that the
level of competitiveness involved allows students to work faster and pay greater attention
to the context. All you need to prepare is a text or a list of sentences which contain
mistakes. Some of them may be correct. These mistakes may refer to a new grammar
structure that has just been taught or to new vocabulary used in the wrong context. They
can work in pairs. You need to prepare a list of worksheets for each pair. After they have
spotted a mistake, they put a cross over it and correct it. If that is correct, then they have
eliminated an enemy and get one point. However, if they put a cross on a correct
structure, they eliminate a friend and lose five points. It is also very useful to check
spelling.
To provide an example, I have chosen a text with some misspellings:
It was a sunny monday morning. Mrs. Jones was ready to start class. As she was
happyly heading towards the classroom, she saw two boys fighting in the halway.
She frowned and interrupted them:
What are you doing here? What are you two argueing about?
Oh, its nothing, really!, one of them sayd.
I demand you tell me what happened or you will both go to the principles
office!
No, Mrs. Jones, I will tell you what happened. As Jake and I were coming to
school, we saw a twenty-dollar bill on the floor. I was the first one to pik it up but
then Jake told me that he saw it first. Then we decided to play a game. Each of us
shoud tell a lie. Whoever tells a biger lie, gets the bill.
Mrs. Jones looked at them angrilly.

10

I must tell you I am very disapointed with you. My oppinion is that you should
both be ashamed of yourselfs. When I was youre age I didnt know what a lie
was.
Then the boys looked at each other and decided to give the twenty-dollar bill to
the teacher.
Noughts and crosses
Even if not original, this game comes with the big advantage that it can be adapted to
many types of structures taught.
Prepositions:
Group the students in two groups. They are not allowed to talk to each other. On separate
pieces of paper write nouns that go with various prepositions. I played this game with my
lower-intermediate students after teaching at, in, on. On small slips of paper I wrote
various words : HOME, A CAR, A BUS, LONDON, MY POCKET, THE FLOOR,
UNIVERSITY, A SHIP, A HORSE, THE WAY, RECEPTION, OXFORD STREET, THE
NEWSPAPER, WEEKEND, CHIRTMAS, NEW YEARS EVE, AN HOUR, A MONTH, A
MONDAY EVENING, NIGHT etc.
Then I drew the board with the prepositions to be used:
IN
AT
ON

ON
ON
IN

AT
IN
AT

Each player draws a card with a structure. For example, the first player from the first
group, draws HOME. He/she has to make a correct sentence using the right preposition
and HOME. For example: I decided to stay at home yesterday. The sentence is correct, so
I allow him/her to put a X or a O in one of the boxes that contains AT. Then I pass to the
other group. However, if the sentence is not correct or the player is unable to make a
sentence, I dont allow Him/her to replace the preposition. The game finishes when all
the cards have been used. The winning team gets 3 points for each game they win.
This game works with irregular verbs as well:
read make
teach do
bring find

get
buy
catch

With determiners, sentences and providing context is useful, but you can also allow them
to make sentences of their own or ask questions with the words found on the slips of
paper:
much
little
a few

a lot of
many
some

neither
both
all

11

Who are you?

Arrange students in two large groups. Each group writes down the name of a famous
person. For variation, the teacher can bring photos of some famous people and distribute
them to the group. When the group has decided on the personality they represent, the
other group has the right to ask four questions. After that, they have to make a guess. If
you want to make it harder, you can tell them to ask questions that can be answered by
yes/no, to check interrogative structures. The team gets a point for each correct guess.
You can play the same game when dealing with certain aspects of vocabulary. For
example, if you choose furniture, the participants can choose various pieces of furniture
to be guessed by the opposing team.
Keywords
This game is the reversed version of the previous one. Students are arranged into groups.
Every student gets a keyword. They are not allowed to talk to each other. He/she has to
explain the word to the members of his/her group in front of the class. For example:
I am a boy. I wear round glasses. I go to a brilliant school. My best friend is a
red-haired boy. Both my parents were powerful wizards but they died. I am handy with
my magic wand. (Harry Potter)
The members of his/her team have to guess who he is talking about. If they do so, they
get a point. You can also check thematic vocabulary. They need to provide the definition
of a word or explain what it does.
Disappearing sentence
This game can be used even with large classes. First, you divide the class into teams of 5
or 6. Then you write a long sentence on the board. Afterwards, you allow a member of
the first team to come and erase words. A group is not allowed to erase more than three
words per turn. The sentence must still be correct. If the sentence remains correct, the
teacher awards the team one point. If it is not correct, they lose all their points. Here is an
example of a sentence:
Mike was playing on the computer late one cold winter evening when he heard a
loud bang from somewhere outside: he got up from his chair and went to look out
of his living room window and saw a beautiful display of fireworks in the clear
night sky.
This game checks word order, sentence structure, ellipsis.
The reversed variant would be starting from a word and making a sentence that is as long
as possible
The Best Story
This is a writing activity that was turned into a game and is highly effective when dealing
with students that have a good command of English. However, it can be adapted for other

12

students as well. Divide the class into groups of three-four. Ask them to take a sheet of
paper or give them one. I used colored sheets of paper each group had a different color.
Draw a table on the board:
THREE
PEOPLE IN
THE CLASS
1.
2.
3.

THREE PLACES

THREE
ADJECTIVES

1.
2.
3.

1.
2.
3.

THREE
FAMOUS
PEOPLE
1.
2.
3.

A TIME IN THE
PAST

After doing this, you need to ask the students to decide on the words and to be filled in
the table and write them on the board. Then tell the students that each group has to write
a story in which they have to include all the words from the table. Allow them 15
minutes to write their stories. Then ask the first group to give their story to the second
group. The second group gives their story to the third group, the third to the fourth etc.
The last group gives their story to the first group, so that each group has a different story.
Allow them to read the stories silently. Each group has to give points to the story they
read (1-5 points). After they have finished reading, they pass the story on to the next
group and receive another story from another group. The groups are not allowed to award
points to their own story. After each group have read all the stories, the teacher collects
them and counts the points. The winning team is the one whose story has the most points.
Some Problems and Solutions
Some problems that may be encountered when dealing with games refer to the different
levels of participation. Some students have the tendency to be passive, so you need to
make sure you include everyone in an activity and encourage them to actively take part in
the game. It is also useful to change group members from time to time to make sure there
is some variety.
Another issue that might be encountered is the noise. Some students love to scream and
shout in their desperate attempt to encourage the members of their team. However, while
every teacher is proud to see that the students are involved in the activity, this may prove
to be quite disturbing for the teacher next door who is trying to teach something. Thus, it
is useful to have a set of rules that they mustnt break. Some of these rules may refer to
keeping quiet and being polite.
Even if some of the games I listed above require no preparation of materials beforehand,
some of them are time-consuming and can be expensive if the teacher is not wellorganized. A good way to cut down on costs and save time is to save the material used
and keep it in a file that is easy to carry around. You can also ask students to make their
own resources bring pictures, texts etc.
Even if games are very efficient for learning, you should make sure you combine them
with other useful activities as well. Games and contests are great as fillers, warm-up
activities, practice exercises and students love them. Nevertheless, you must know when
students are up for playing a game. If they are tired or lose interest, make sure you

13

change direction and do something that is more suitable for them, instead of wasting time
with something they do not want to do.
At the same time, while it is easy to spend a whole hour playing a game (it is the teacher
who has a passive role here), you should avoid this because your students might believe
you are unprepared for the actual lesson. Therefore, you might try to allocate no more
that 30 minutes for a game.
Choosing your Game
Are games effective? Some teachers might argue that they are not. Their arguments refer
to the fact that they are time-consuming and students do not feel that they need to make
an effort to actually study something. This is sometimes true if the game chosen is
unsuitable from various points of view.
Firstly, for games to be effective teaching or learning tools, they need to fit. They should
not be a waste of time, but an essential part of the learners development. You need to
make sure you have chosen a game that is appropriate in terms of age, English level,
lesson aims and students interest. A related aspect is that of relevance. The game is most
useful if related to topics or structures that have recently been studied. However, they can
also be used to replace some routine activities, or to revise something.
Secondly, you need to constantly monitor the students and see if they participate, if they
play fair and respect the rules. This gives you a chance to be there for them if they need
you, but also enables you to note their response, find out how interested they are in the
game and if they would like to play it again.
Even if some games are unpredictable, being organized is your job so you need to set the
rules regarding the time allocated for each activity. Timing is sometimes essential and the
way you handle it will be reflected in your students achievements at the end of the class.
Another important aspect to take into consideration is space. If the room is too small,
some of the activities cannot be performed, especially if they involve a lot of movement
or working in large groups.
Concluding Remarks
There are a lot of points to consider when playing a game with your students. However,
it is the feedback that you get during and after the activity that dictates how successful
you were. From my personal experience, I would say that there are many parameters that
decide how good a game is for a particular class, but I believe the most important thing is
to never give up trying to make students interested in learning. The truth is that they love
to be asked to do something that looks like an out-of-class activity, given the fact that
most of the time they feel like they are objects of learning instead of subjects. Games
have a positive impact on their participation, on their ability to deliver a speech in
English, to cooperate and bond with others, to apply what they have learned, and it
greatly contributes to creating a relaxed atmosphere in the classroom.

14

REFERENCES
1.Cervantes Emerita (2009). Livening Up College English Classes with Games, English
Teaching FORUM, Vol.47, No.3, USA, Washington DC: English Teaching Forum.
2.Gerngross Guther, Puchta Herbert, Thornburry Scott, (2006). Teahing Grammar
Creatively, London: Helbling.
3.Hadfield Jill (2003). Intermediate Grammar Games, Longman.
4.Wyldek Kathy (2007). Grammar and Vocabulary Games for Children, USA, from:
Lulu.com.

15

Issues of Main Concern in Contemporary Teaching

Prof. Monica Elena BUCULEI
Colegiul Militar Liceal tefan cel Mare, Cmpulung Moldovenesc

Don't limit a child to your own learning, for he was born in another time.
Though uttered a very long time ago, Tagores words gather new meanings in our
modern times, in which time seems to have got another rhythm and things change faster
than one could have possibly imagined 50 years ago. Under the circumstances, you may
rightfully wonder where school stands in this hubbub of the contemporary world. What
should our teaching focus on, so as to be really efficient and helpful in our students
lives?
A possible answer would be to focus on cultural education, with a view to opening our
students the cultural borders towards the world.
Cultural education is shaped in two sequential environments: family and school. The first
knowledge comes from the family, and is related to traditions, language, blood
connection and religion. First such information comes from the parents, regardless of
whether one belongs to a majority, or to a minority established in a state. In the case of
ethnicity, the preservation of language and religion is accomplished inside the family.
The subjective perception of cultural education has led to many conflicts such as racism
or apartheid. Therefore, at the middle of the last century some laws and application
methodologies were developed in order to protect the minorities cultural rights. The
wider framework is regulated by the UN Chart (1949), which states the protection of
human rights regardless of race, gender, sexual preferences and religion
Another significant educational framework is school. School plays a tremendous part in
managing cultural diversity, because at school pupils can increase both self-awareness
and cross-cultural awareness. When teaching, we should always think about how much
of the input we provide will help the student in out-of-class interactions.
Cultural diversity could be a source of problems, in particular when a particular social
context needs people to think or act in a similar way. Diversity increases the level of
complexity and confusion and makes agreement difficult to reach. On the other hand,
cultural diversity becomes an advantage when the organization expands its solutions and
its sense of identity, and begins to take different approaches to problem solving.
Diversity in this case creates valuable new skulls and behaviors. Culture is an essential
part of conflict and conflict resolution.
Cultures are like underground rivers that run through our lives and
relationships, giving us messages that shape our perceptions, attributions,
judgements and ideas of self and other.(LeBaron 2003: 47)
Though cultures are powerful, most of the times they are unconscious. Cultures are more
than language, dress and food customs. Cultural groups may share race, ethnicity or

16

nationality, but they also arise from cleavages of generation, socioeconomic class, sexual
orientation, ability and disability, political and religious affiliation. There are two things
we should take into accound when speaking about cultures. The first one is the fact that
they are always changing and the second is that they relate to the symbolic dimention of
life. The symbolic dimention refers to the fact that we are constantly making meanings
and enacting our identities. The cultural messages we exchange with the members of our
group give us information about who we are in the world and in relation to the others,
shaping our inentity. These cultural messages are like a code between us and the other
members of our group. The outsiders might as well not understand a thing.
Though largely below the surface, cultures are a dynamic set of criteria that orient our
thinking, behaviour as well as our expectations towards the others. Living in a culture,
we develop principles about what is right or wrong and most of the times what seems
common to one group may seem strange or wrong to another.
When trying to manage cultural conflicts, there are a few aspects one should take into
consideration:
1.Culture is multi-layered. Thus, what one sees on the surface may mask differences
below the surface. Therefore, we should avoid cultural generalizations because it is only
by building relationships and sharing experiences that we come to know the others.
2.Culture is constantly changing, which causes unpredictable variations even within the
same group sometimes. That is why, when describing cultural stereotypes, we should
consider criteria such as time, context and individual differences.
3.Culture is elastic. There are instances in which even if we know the cultural norms of a
given group, we can not predict the behavior of a member of that group, who may not
conform to norms for individual or contextual reasons. So, taxonomies such as: The
Greeks think that....... should have limited use and could lead to error if they are not
backed up by personal experience.
4.Culture is largely below the surface. There are symbolyc meanings far beyond our
awareness and it is difficult sometimes to access them.That is why people should use
different ways of learning about the others, including metaphors, stories and rituals.
5.Cultural influences and identities become important depending on context. When an
aspect of cultural identity is threatened or misunderstood, it may become relatively more
important than other cultural identities and this fixed, narrow identity may become the
focus of stereotyping, negative projection, and conflict. This is a very common situation
in intractable conflicts. Therefore, it is useful for people in conflict to have interactive
experiences that help them see each other as broadly as possible, fostering the recognition
of shared identities as well as those that are different.
Since culture is so closely related to our identities, to who we think we are and to the
ways we perceive the world around us, it is always a factor in conflict. Sometimes culture

17

plays a central role in a conflict, other times it just influences it subtly. For example, the
conflicts between teenagers and their parents are shaped by generational culture and the
conflicts between spouses or partners are influenced by gender culture. To conclude with,
we could say that culture is inextricable from conflict.
When differences surface in families, organizations, or communities, culture is
always present, shaping perceptions, attitudes, behaviors and outcomes. (Hall,
1976: 110)
In order to avoid as much as possible conflict, or to manage a multy-layered cultural
conflict one should try to develop his or her cultural fluency.
Cultural fluency means familiarity with cultures: their nature, how they work, how they
influence us in different circumstances. It also means awareness of some dimensions of
culture, including:
1.Communication
2.Ways of naming
3. Approaches to meaning making
4. Roles and identities
As stated before, communication refers to different starting points about how to relate
to and with others (Hall, 1976: 112). There are many variations on these starting points.
Some of them relate to the division between high and low-context communications,
according to a classification devised by Edward Hall.
In the highcontext communication, most of a message is conveyed by the surrounding
context rather than by words, the physical setting, the way things are said and the shared
understanding of things are far more important. These messages rely more on nonverbal
clues and signals and the context is trusted to communicate in the absence of verbal
expressions or in addition to them. This type of communication is less direct than lowcontext communication, which may increase the possibilities of miscommunication,
much of the intended message being unstated.
Low-context communication emphasizes directness rather than relying on the context to
communicate. From this starting point, verbal communication is specific and literal. It is
very little about implied or indirect signals and may help prevent misunderstandings. On
the other hand, low-context communication can also escalate conflict because it is more
confrontational than high-context communication.
As people communicate, they move along a continuum between high and low context.
This depends on many aspects, such as: the kind of relationship, the context and the
purpose of communication. For example, the same person may choose high-context
communication with somebody he or she feels close to, but low-context communication
with strangers.
These two types of communication refer not only to individual communication strategies,
but also to cultural groups.

18

While interacting with people coming from a different culture, one must be careful with
the type of communication, because, for instance, when low-communication is the norm,
directness is likely to be expected in return. When high-context communication is used,
there might be a problem, when the interlocutor misunderstands nonverbal elements and
behavior.
When we do not understand that people have different starting points, conflicts might
also escalate.
Approaches to meaning making vary across cultures. In his book, Building Cross
Cultural Competence, Charles Hampden Turner remarked that people have a range of
starting points for making sense of their lives(Turner, 2011).
Among the most important ones, Hampden mentioned the following contrasting pairs of
concepts:
- universalist starting points, favoring rules, laws and generalizations versus particularist
starting points, favoring exceptions, relations and contextual evaluation.
- specificity (preferring explicit definitions, breaking down wholes into component parts
and measurable results) versus diffuseness (focusing on patterns, the big picture and
process over outcome).
- inner direction (sees virtue in individuals who strive to realize their conscious purpose)
versus outer direction (when virtue is outside each of us).
Vladimir Zegarac and Martha C. Pennington (Pragmatic Transfer in Intercultural
Communication in Spencer-Oatey, 2008144) speak about the importance of pragmatic
transfer in Intercultural Communication.
The term of transfer generally refers to the influences the mother tongue has on the
acquisition of new knowledge. Generally, people approach a new situation taking into
account a previously established set of rules. Mental sets are determined by culturespecific knowledge and misunderstandings may occur when people coming from
different cultures are not aware of the differences in their mental sets.
The previously mentioned authors give an example to support this idea:
For example, in some cultures an offer of coffee after a meal is generally
recognized as a polite way to indicate to the guests that they ought to leave soon
if they do not wish to otstay their welcome. In other cultures, an offer of coffee on
a similar occasion is just an act of the hosts kindness (or even an invitation to the
guests to stay a little longer than they had intended) (Oatey, 2008: 159).
This example points to the reason of studying pragmatic transfer the transfer of
pragmatic knowledge in situations of intercultural communication.
Researchers have long debated on issues such as: What is pragmatic knowledge? How is
it applied? What is its relationship with linguistic knowledge?
Answers to these questions can be obtained by analyzing the pragmatic transfer. Good
explanations of pragmatic transfer have both practical and theoretical implications. The
practical implications come from the fact that they can help us understand, solve and

19

anticipate problems in communication across cultures. Practice has proved that the
number of situations in which the interlocutor understands the meaning of a statement but
cant understand the hidden message beyond what is obvious is not limited. The main
goal of pragmatics is to explain how speakers use language (as well as non-verbal ways
of expression) to convey messages which go beyond the meanings of the words used.
Although there doesn't exist a generally accepted model of pragmatic competence, some
guiding lines are sure. First of all, communication involves information processing.
Secondly, it involves analyzing the message, taking into account the non-verbal signals,
such as gestures, intonation in a given context. Thirdly, the relation between types of
signals and context may be generalized, more or less.
During the English classes, there are some aspects the teacher must not ignore. The
learners must know how to convey a message both economically and relevantly. This
observation underlies the most important communicative principle, the principle of
communicative efficiency or the communicative principle of relevance. (Zegarac &
Pennington, op.cit.). According to this priciple, the speaker should produce a clear
message, making it as easy as possible for the addressee to figure out the intended
meaning.

REFERENCES
1.Hall, Edward (1976). Beyond Culture, New York: Doubleday.
2.Hampden Turner, Charles (2011). Building Cross Cultural Competence, Yale
University Press.
3.LeBaron, Michelle (2003). Bridging Cultural Conflicts: New Approaches for a
Changing World, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
4.Spencer-Oatey, Helen (1998). Culturally speaking: Managing Rapport through Talk
across Cultures, London.

20

Correcting Spoken Errors

Prof. Adina Laura CLUGREANU
coala Gimnazial ,,Acad. H. Mihescu Udeti

Improving Fluency and Accuracy

In contrast to writing, students have very little processing time when it comes to
speaking, so it is hardly surprising that the following may occur (Rolf, D.:
http://british.hit.bg):

students dont experiment with the new language presented by the teacher;
at lower levels, students output is mostly lexical;
in more accuracy-focused activities, students test the patience of the listener in the
time they take to say something;
the speech of some very fluent students is full of errors and therefore may have a
negative effect on the listener.

However, the teacher can help students improve their accuracy and fluency.
A student is said to speak English fluently when s/he expresses her/himself without any
effort, although her/his language is not very correct from a grammatical point of view. To
learn a foreign language is not just to learn its grammatical rules and structures, but to
know how to communicate in that language and the best way to do this is actually to
communicate. Sometimes, we may hear a student conversing easily in English on the
playground with other students. But fluency on the playground doesnt necessarily mean
proficiency in the classroom. Although social conversational skills are important, they
are not sufficient for classroom-based academic learning. Academic language can still be
challenging and adversely affect the students academic performances even though s/he
is fluent in everyday conversations.
As teachers, when we want to develop our students fluency, the most important
condition is not to interrupt them while they are speaking. When we are interested in
what they are saying and not in how they are saying it, we have to leave correction aside.
Direct correction of errors can hinder the students efforts and discourage further
attempts to express ideas with the language skills they have available. Rather than correct
errors directly, a teacher can continue the dialogue by restating what the student has said
to model the correct form. Furthermore, students need to feel that they are being listened
to, that they have something to say.
In conclusion, the teacher should always have some moments in her/his lessons when
s/he encourages the students to communicate without the fear of making mistakes. These
can be done by giving guided preparation time for a task during which students receive
specific guidance in choosing appropriate language as well as rehearsal time.
If fluency seems to have nothing to do with correction, accuracy goes hand in hand with
it. We say that a student speaks accurate English when s/he speaks it very correctly.
Accuracy is also important in communication, because the success of communication
21

depends on a certain level of correctness. But this doesnt mean that, when the teacher is
trying to develop her/his students accuracy, s/he should correct every mistake. What s/he
should focus on are the new linguistic forms that we have just presented, lest s/he should
make her/his students feel very confused. Also, in this case, correction has to be a
positive one, not a criticism or a punishment.
Researchers have discovered that the first stage of improving accuracy is awarenessraising, that is raising students awareness of the gaps in their English. A very effective
technique for doing this is called dictogloss. After an introduction to the subject and
some pre-teaching of essential lexis, students are read a text twice. The first time they
listen to get the meaning of the text. The second time they have to note down the key
words. Then in groups, they work together to produce a version of the text. The emphasis
is on successfully communicating the main points using their English. If they can
reproduce the original text, that is great, but not essential. The teacher and groups then
correct their texts and compare them with the original. The aim is to make students aware
of the gaps in their inter-language.
Grammar Correction
Spoken accuracy is more important for learners when they are practising carefully
something that has just been presented to them, such as a new verb tense or a way of
comparing things.
When doing an exercise, the teacher can wait a few seconds after a pupil has said the
sentence in order to see if the others have something to add. If the students do solve an
exercise correctly, the teacher may congratulate them or not, but the important thing is to
make them feel that the teacher cares about their progress. What if students make
mistakes? How do teachers correct them?
There are three different techniques of correction and a teacher should choose the method
according to the kind of error, the ability and personality of the student and the general
atmosphere of the class.
a) Self-correction
This consists in pointing out the mistake to the student and letting her/him correct it, of
course, as long as this can be done easily and without holding up the class. It is useful in
the case of slips. This has a beneficial effect on the student because s/he will remember
that s/he her/himself has put something right in her/his head. Harmer suggests several
ways of showing incorrectness (Harmer J.: 69).
1. Repeating: We ask the student to repeat what s/he said by using the word
again with a questioning intonation which will surely indicate that the response was
unsatisfactory. On the other hand, the student may just think that the teacher hasnt heard
the answer, in which case the teacher has to make use of her/his gestures and expression.
2. Echoing: Another way, probably one of the most efficient, is to repeat what the
student has said using an interrogatory intonation which will definitely make clear the
teachers disapproval. Sometimes, the teacher can repeat the complete sentence, stressing
the part that is incorrect, for example:
*I GOES to sleep every night at seven oclock?
Another possibility is to echo the response only up to the mistake, like:
*I GOES?

22

3. Denial: A bit more discouraging technique is to simply tell the student that the
response is not correct and to ask her/him to repeat it.
4. Questioning: A similar way is to say Is that correct?, addressing your
question to the entire classroom, thus making them attentive, but still letting the first
student to respond. This method may make the student who made the mistake feel
somewhat exposed.
5. Expression: Many teachers indicate that a response was incorrect by their
expression or gesture. This is very economical, but can be dangerous if the student thinks
that the expression is a form of mockery.
In the example in the picture (Doff, A., 1988: 191), the error is word order: you
and are should be the other way round. The teacher is circling two fingers to show the
other way round.

b) Peer-correction
If the student cannot correct her/himself, the teacher can ask someone else to help
her/him. This is very useful in the case of errors, when the teacher is certain that the class
knows the right form. What the teacher must never forget when using this method is to
ask the student who made the mistake to repeat the correct form.
Julian Edge speaks about the advantages and the problems of peer-correction.
The advantages are:
both learners, the one who makes the mistake and the one who corrects it,
are involved in listening to and thinking about the language;
the teacher discovers if her/his students have the ability to spot a mistake
and to correct it;
this is a method which encourages student cooperation and makes them
less dependent on the teacher;
if students succeed in cooperating without hurting each others feelings,
then they will be able to help each other when they work in pairs or
groups, when the teacher cannot hear what is said;
this is a good method to raise the self-esteem of the student who gives the
correct answer, by putting her/him in the place of the teacher;
However, this technique may lead to a few problems:
whenever the teacher asks for the whole class to correct, it might be that the same
two or three students always want to answer.
In this case, the teacher has to try to involve the entire class by naming other pupils or by
giving more help with the correction her/himself. It is not good to put some students in
the place of the teacher, because this method calls for cooperation.
if the students are not used to peer-correction, it may be difficult to impose this
change upon their habits.

23

They may make fun of the ones who make mistakes. The mistakers may feel that they are
being criticized by people who are at the same level as they are or that the teacher is not
doing her/his job properly. In this kind of atmosphere, peer-correction may be even
damaging.
c) Teacher correction
If neither the student who made the mistake nor any other student can correct, then the
teacher has to give more help. This doesnt mean that s/he has to give the correct form
straight away, because s/he has to keep the pupils involved in the correction in order to
think more about the language.
A method is to use the counting of fingers whenever something is missing, whether a
sound, or a syllable in a word or a word in a sentence. It is best for the teacher to count
from right to left, because this looks like left to right for the students facing the teacher.
For example, if a student says
*The automobile was invent in 18
the teacher can help her/him correct her/himself by doing as shown in the
picture below (Edge J., 1989: 27):

Another way is to use the repetition discussed under self-correction.

If anything does not work, then the teacher must give the correct answer and then ask
first the whole class to repeat it, then the student who made the mistake. If a teacher has
come to use this method to correct mistakes, this must be a sign for her/him that s/he has
to go back and insist on that point that hasnt been quite understood.
Correcting the Saying
Next to correcting the accuracy of oral work, teachers should also pay attention to their
students way of saying. As in any other language, stress, intonation and pronunciation
are very important. An expressionless voice is not very correct (Edge J., 1989: 30).
I think that the aim of the teacher shouldnt be to try to make her/his students achieve a
perfect imitation of the English accents. This is almost impossible and is not always
desirable. Many people even if often subconsciously feel they wish to maintain a
slight mother-tongue accent as an assertion of personal or ethnic identity (Ur P., 1997:
52).

24

The teacher has only to get the learner to pronounce accurately enough to be easily and
comfortably understood by other speakers.
Saying errors usually occur because a particular sound may not exist in the mother
tongue and so the speaker tends to substitute it with the nearest equivalent s/he knows
(like the English // which is replaced with /d/ or /z/).
In conclusion, the errors of saying that a teacher should correct are those which may
easily lead to misunderstanding or which make the speech uncomfortable to listen to.
Errors which simply make the speech slightly foreign-sounding do not need correcting.
a) Stress
When a student says a sentence very correctly from the grammar point of view, but s/he
sounds lifeless, the teacher must ask her/him to repeat the sentence in a more natural
way. S/He can help the student by showing where the stressed syllables are by tapping on
the desk, or clapping or by beating the air with one hand.
Student: The tallest animal in the world is the giraffe.
Teacher: The TALLest animal in the WORLD is the giRAffe.
The student might feel embarrassed to do this at first and a good idea would be to ask the
whole class to say the sentence.
b) Intonation
Intonation is also very important. As mentioned in the section Mistakes of Meaning,
politeness is more important than accuracy when talking to a stranger and it has a lot to
do with intonation. Different intonations must be known to the students from their
mother tongue, such as interrogation, request, desire, command, etc. When the teacher
feels the need for a more meaningful saying, s/he can give the students a lively model
her/himself or s/he can use the blackboard and write on it a part of the sentence,
underlying the word with loudest stress and marking with a line whether the voice goes
up or down from there.

We can help students improve their stress and intonation if we give them something to
see as well as something to hear (Edge J.:31). Julian Edge identifies a problem: if the
student is reading the sentence from a book, how can s/he watch the teachers hand or the
blackboard? He is the one who also found the solution: Students should not read out
each sentence from the page. Tell them to read the sentence silently, then look up and say
it (Edge J., 1989: 31). This is also a good way to check if the students understand the
sense of what they are saying and they are not just reading word after word.
c) Pronunciation
Usually, the teacher corrects students pronunciation by saying her/himself the correct
form and then asking them to repeat. S/He can also use gestures when s/he knows that
students can spot their mistake and correct it.
An example given by Edge concerns a student who pronounces the b in climbed, thus
making two syllables where there should be only one.
Student: *Mount Everest was first clime/bed in 1953.

25

Teacher: Yes, but Mount Everest was first ?

Student: *Clime/bed.
The gesture that the teacher can do after helping the student find out the problem is to
hold up two fingers and then squeeze them together, like in the pictures (Edge, J., 1989:
32) below.

Teacher: Mount Everest was first

Student: Climbed.
Teacher: Right. Mount?
Student: Mount Everest was first climbed in 1953.
Teacher: Good.
Edge considers that the matter of the pronunciation of b is better to be settled another
time, because there might be too much information for the student to retain.
An enjoying activity for practising new material and for working on stress and intonation
is the dialogue. The most important thing to remember when correcting a dialogue
between students is to never interrupt and to wait until they are finished. Then the teacher
can ask learners to repeat the sentence that s/he considers to be incorrect. Of course, in
this case peer-correction or teacher correction can be used. Example:
Student1: Good morning. I need a ballpoint pen.
Student2: Yes, sir. What color?
Student1: *A blue ONE, please.
Student2: Here you are. Thats just a dollar. Thank you.
Student1: Thank you. Bye.
Teacher: Fine. What did you say when he asked you about the color?
Student1: *A blue ONE, please.
Teacher: Yes, I dont think that sound quite right. Anybody?
Student3: Maybe we should say: A BLUE one, please.
Teacher: Yes, I think so. You can have a BLUE one, A RED one, or a BLACK
one. You are choosing the COLOR, so you stress the COLOR. So, what color would you
like?
Student1: A BLACK one, please.
Teacher: Good. (Edge, J., 1989: 34)
Every time the teacher stresses a word here: BLUE, RED, BLACK, COLOR, s/he taps
her/his fingers on the desk, or quietly claps her/his hands together or nods her/his head.
S/He could do this for the sentence that is causing the problem.

26

Teacher: Fine. What did you say when he asked you about the color?
(Teacher holds up four fingers and taps them one by one as Student1 speaks.)
Student1:* A blue ONE, please.
Teacher: (Taps the four fingers again, but tapping harder and for longer on
the second finger. S/He does this twice.)
Student1: A BLUE one, please.
In the case of intonation, the teacher can draw lines in the air with a hand, or draw lines
on the board to show the voice moving up and down in parts of the dialogue where the
students make mistakes:

REFERENCES
1.Doff, Adrian (1988). Teach English. A Training Course for Teachers, Cambridge
University Press.
2.Edge, Julian (1989). Mistakes and Correction, Longman.
3.Harmer, Jeremy (1983). The Practice of English Language Teaching, Longman.
4.Rolf, Donald, Error Correction from http://british.hit.bg
5.Ur, Penny (1997). A Course in Language Teaching. Practice and Theory, Cambridge
University Press.

27

Communicative English Teaching

Prof. Alina DOBROGHII
Liceul cu Program Sportiv, Suceava
A good teacher has to take into account the learners, the ones he / she is going to share
information with. Therefore, every teacher must adjust the teaching methods to the
methods the pupil uses to learn. Each of us uses different ways to study and we must be
aware that each can relate to the proper method of teaching. Taking this into account
teachers must also be aware that the learners are human beings too with their needs and
limitations.
We, as teachers, have sometimes experienced bad days when our pupils were
disheartened or even bored, but we can still make them enjoy the lesson. How? The
answer is simple: active, interesting, pupil-centred methods used wisely and effectively
during an English class. Therefore, in this paper, I pay special attention to learner-centred
activities and tips which could be used during English classes.
The pupil-centred activities are designed to encourage students to express themselves
using English. They can also help pupils understand the inseparable link between
language and real life and provide a means through which the socio-cultural contexts of
language can be better understood. When using communicative methods, the learners
independence is encouraged and the teachers role is to provide compelling tasks that try
to respond to the students individual needs, to stimulate, provoke and lead discussions.
Why do people learn foreign languages?
Why do people want to study foreign languages? Why do they want to study English?
There are different reasons for language study. It may be for pleasure, it may be for a
better job, etc. Jeremy Harmer, in The Practice of English Language Teaching has
presented some other possible answers to the above question:
School curriculum An important number of students study foreign languages
because it is on the school curriculum; the fact that they like it or not is not
important;
Advancement - Some people want to study English because they think it offers a
chance for advancement in their professional lives;
Target language community a target language community is one where the
inhabitants speak the language which the student is learning (Harmer, 1991: 1)
English for specific purposes this term has been applied to situations where
students have some specific reasons to want to learn the language;
Culture Some students study a foreign language because they are attracted to
the culture of one of the target language communities. They learn the language
because they want to know more about the people who speak that language, the
places where that particular language is spoken and the writing it has produced.
(Idem: 2)

28

Some people study a foreign language just for fun, other people do it because they want
to be tourists in a country where that language is spoken. Some people do it just because
all their friends are learning the language.
We teachers want to find out what our students motivation to learn English is and why
some students are successful at language learning and others are not. If we knew the
answer to these questions the job of teaching would be easy. Good teachers shall never
give up trying to find this answer.
There are some factors which seem to have a strong effect on students success or failure.
In the same book, Jeremy Harmer presents some of these factors. Motivation is one of
them (extrinsic motivation, which is concerned with factors outside the classroom, and
intrinsic motivation, which is concerned with what happens in the classroom).
The physical conditions, the method, the teacher and success can affect the intrinsic
motivation.
a.The atmosphere in which a language is learnt is very important classrooms badly lit
or overcrowded can be de-motivating (Harmer, 1991: 5).
b.The method which is used may have some effect on students motivation. If a lesson is
boring the students will probably become de-motivated, and if they have confidence in
the method they will find it motivating (Idem: 5). This is the most difficult area. The
students confidence in the method is in the teachers hands, and the teacher is the most
important factor which may affect their intrinsic motivation.
c.As a subject discipline, English is set apart from other subject disciplines because
teachers have a closer personal relationship with pupils, there is more freedom to develop
individual teaching styles and it is uniquely concerned with the individual child and
fostering independent learners. It is a window of the soul actually.
Students may develop their confidence in presenting ideas and arguments. It is easier for
them to become more independent than in other subjects because there is not so much
factual content, you can let them interpret and explore things in their own way.
There is a degree of flexibility in how we teach. It is really about getting pupils develop
what they think about texts, each individual will look at a text based on their own
experience and background.
a. Success or the lack of success plays a vital part in the students motivation.
Both complete failure and complete success may be de-motivating. It is the
teachers job to set goals and tasks at which most of his / her students can be
successful, or tasks which he / she could realistically expect the students to be
able to achieve. The students success or failure is in their own hands, but the
teacher can influence the course of events in the students favour (Idem: 7).
The Communicative Language Teaching theoretical approaches
The Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is generally regarded as an approach to
language teaching. It reflects a certain model or research paradigm, or a theory (CelceMurcia, 2001). It is based on the theory that the primary function of language use is
communication. Its primary goal is for learners to develop communicative competence
(Hymes, 1974). In other words, its goal is to make use of real-life situations that
necessitate communication.

29

The origins of CLT can be found in the British language teaching tradition dating from
the last 1960s. Until then Situational Language Teaching represented the major British
approach to teaching English as a foreign language. The Audioligualism was rejected in
the United States of America in the mid-1960s and British applied linguists began to call
into question the theoretical assumptions underlying Situational Language Teaching. In
Syntactic Structures, Noam Chomsky demonstrated that the standard structural theories
of languages were unable to be accounted for the fundamental characteristic of language
the creativity and uniqueness of individual sentences. British applied linguists saw the
need to focus in language teaching on communicative proficiency rather than on mere
mastery of structures. Within the increasing interdependence of European countries came
the need for greater efforts to teach adults the major languages of the European Common
Market and the Council of Europe (Guo, Sun, 2005, np).
Although the movement began as a largely British innovation, focusing on alternative
conceptions of a syllabus, since the mid 1970s the purpose of communicative language
teaching has expanded.
CLT is changing the face of foreign language teaching because CLT makes use of reallife situations that necessitate communication. The teacher sets up a situation that
students are likely to encounter in real life. Unlike the Audiolingual method of language
teaching, which relies on repetition and drills, the communicative approach can leave
students in suspense as to the outcome of a class exercise, which will vary according to
their reactions and responses. The real-life simulations change from day to day. Students'
motivation to learn comes from their desire to communicate in meaningful ways about
meaningful topics (from: www.monografias.com).
In The Natural Approach: Language Acquisition in the Classroom, Stephan D. Krashen
suggests that learners acquire language through using it for communication.
The teachers job is to help his / her students develop communicative skills by
experimenting with the second language in class and beyond. In the classroom, the
communicative language teacher creates activities which simulate communication in
real-world situations. The teachers activities emphasise learning to communicate
through interaction in the target language, and generally use a mix of the four language
skills listening, speaking, reading and writing. These activities enable the learners to
internalise and activate their second or foreign language (McKenzie-Brown, 2006, np).
The communicative language teacher uses authentic materials and exercises in the
classroom, since this enables his / her students to more easily take their language learning
into the real world. The teacher provides opportunities for learners not only to activate
the second language, but also to better understand the learning process. In a welldesigned lesson, the teacher wants to improve the students communicative competence
(Idem, np).
In Communicative Tasks and the Language Classroom, David Nunan lists five basic
characteristics of communicative language teaching:
1. An emphasis on learning to communicate through interaction in the target
language.
2. The introduction of authentic texts into the learning situation.

30

3. The provision of opportunities for learners to focus, not only on the language
but also on the learning process itself.
4. An enhancement of the learner's own personal experiences as important
contributing elements to classroom learning.
5. An attempt to link classroom language learning with language activation
outside the classroom (Nunan, 1991: 279).
Teaching students how to use the language is considered to be at least as important as
learning the language itself. In Principles of Language Learning and Teaching, H. D.
Brown aptly describes the march towards CLT: Beyond grammatical discourse
elements in communication, we are probing the nature of social, cultural, and pragmatic
features of language. We are exploring pedagogical means for 'real-life' communication
in the classroom. We are trying to get our learners to develop linguistic fluency, not just
the accuracy that has so consumed our historical journey. We are equipping our students
with tools for generating unrehearsed language performance 'out there' when they leave
the womb of our classrooms. We are concerned with how to facilitate lifelong language
learning among our students, not just with the immediate classroom task. We are looking
at learners as partners in a cooperative venture. And our classroom practices seek to
draw on whatever intrinsically sparks learners to reach their fullest potential (Brown,
1988: 77).
The learners should become communicatively competent able to use the language which
is appropriate for a given social context: to manage the process of negotiating meaning
with interlocutors. The teacher sets up communicative situations and facilitates students
learning by managing classroom activities. Activities are communicative; they represent
an information gap that needs to be filled. The speakers have a choice of what to say and
how to say. Authentic materials are used. Students usually work in small groups. The
teacher initiates interactions between students and participates sometimes. Students
interact a great deal with each other in many configurations. The emphasis is on
developing motivation. Individuality is encouraged as well as co-operation with peers
which both contribute to sense of emotional security with the target language. The
language is for communication. The linguistic competence must be coupled with an
ability to convey intended meaning appropriately in different social contexts. Culture is
the everyday lifestyle of native speakers of the target language. Non-verbal behaviour is
important. Functions are emphasised over forms, with simple forms learned for each
function at first, then more complex forms. Students work at discourse level. They work
on speaking, listening, reading and writing from the beginning. Students native language
usually plays no role. Informal evaluation takes place when teacher advises or
communicates: formal evaluation is by means of an integrative test with a real
communicative function. Errors of form are considered natural.
The most efficient communicator in a foreign language is not always the person who is
the best at manipulating its structures. It is often the person who is most skilled at
processing the complete situation involving himself and his hearer. Foreign language
learners need opportunities to develop these skills, being exposed to situations where the
emphasis is on using their available resources for communicative meanings as efficiently
and economically as possible. The learner needs to acquire both a set of linguistic items
and a set of strategies for using them in concrete situations (Littlewood, 1981: 4).

31

Littlewood presents four broad domains of skill which make a persons communicative
competence:
The learner must attain a high degree of linguistic competence. He must
develop skill so that he could manipulate the linguistic system to the
point where he can use it spontaneously and flexibly in order to express
his intended message (Idem: 6).
The learner must distinguish between the forms which she / he masters as
part of linguistic competence and the communicative functions that they
perform.
The learner must develop skills and strategies for using language to
communicate meanings as efficiently as possible in concrete situations.
The learner must know the social meaning of language forms (1981: 6-7).
Communicative language teaching does not deal with grammar directly. Students receive
grammar practice indirectly and they learn how to use every day language. The textbooks
which are used today leave room for the teachers to decide how much grammar they shall
provide.
Communicative language teaching focuses on communication while not neglecting
grammar, and at the same time it makes it possible to hide the actual fact of teaching
grammar for those discouraged by it and it also makes space for introduction of new
grammar structures, using as much instruction and explanation as the teacher decides
fitting. Additionally, since new grammar material is presented along with exercises and
context that require its use, it makes it easier to convince all the grammar-sceptical
learners that this knowledge is necessary for successful communication.

REFERENCES
1.URL:
http://www.monografias.com/trabajos18/the-communicative-approach/thecommunicative-approach.shtml
2.Brown, H. D. (2001). Principles of Language Learning and Teaching, Longman.
3.Celce-Murcia, Marianne, Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language, Heinle
& Heinle Publishers.
4.Chomsky, Noam (1963). Syntactic Structures, Mouton.
5.Guo, Suqing and Sun, Min, (2005). Communicative Language Teaching & Language
Teachers' Roles, International Journal of Educational Engineering, vol. 2 nr. 1, February.
6.Harmer, Jeremy (1991). The Practice of English Language Teaching, Longman.
7.Hymes, Dell (1974). Pidginization and Creolization of Languages, Cambridge
University Press.
8.Krashen, Stephen D. (1983). The Natural Approach: Language Acquisition in the
Classroom, London, Prentice Hall Europe.
9.Littlewood, Michael (1981). Communicative Language Teaching, Cambridge
University Press.
10.Nunan, David (1991). Communicative Tasks and the Language Classroom, TESOL
QUARTERLY Vol. 25, No. 2, Summer.

32

LANGUAGE STUDIES

Brndua Luminia CMPAN

Brief Presentation of my Research Paper for Gradul I,
Peculiarities of Teaching English to Polish Students

Natalia COSOVANU
Introducing and Practising Grammar Items
in Task-Based Language Teaching

Daniela Elena ROTARU

The Importance of Vocabulary
in English Language Teaching

Ana Cristina ERBAN

Context and Function in Translation

33

Brief Presentation of my Research Paper for Gradul I

Peculiarities of Teaching English to Polish Students
Prof. Brndua Luminia CMPAN
Colegiul Alexandru cel Bun, Gura Humorului
2010 was the year when I was awarded what is called Gradul I. I had had a difficult
exam for Gradul II in Iasi, in 1998, so I decided to delay the next stage in my
development till, I can say now, very late. It is not what I would do now, were I to decide
again when to apply for Gradul I.
When I had to choose the title for my paper, my decision was made only after talking to
prof. dr. Ileana Oana Macari, the coordinator of my paper, from the University Alexandru
Ioan Cuza, in Iasi. I had nothing in my mind at the time, I was confused, I was scared by
the work and time I was going to dedicate to my research paper. She inspired me by
suggesting to write about a virgin topic, a new experience and a new outlook on teaching.
This is how I finally came to the conclusion that Peculiarities of Teaching English to
Polish Students would be the right title for my research paper.
Why this title and this topic? What was new at that time? Everything was new. In
Alexandru cel Bun, the first class with partial curricula in Polish had just been been
implemented. It had been felt as a necessity imposed by the great number of Polish
children studying their native language in kindergarten and secondary school in the area.
The Gura Humorului area and the surroundings (Soloneu Nou, Poiana Micului, Cacica)
represent locations of many Polish families. Studying Polish in high school is an
opportunity for students to be admitted in universities in Poland. The students in this type
of classes are supported by the Polish authorities and are invited to specific activities
dedicated to the minorities in Romania. They also spend some time in Poland, either for
the practical classes (starting with the 10th grade), or for international contests and
festivals.
The start was extremely difficult, because I knew but only then did I become aware that
Polish and English have nothing in common. Still, I finally decided, together with my
coordinator, upon a structure of my research paper that could offer information not only
about the two languages but first of all about the way I work with the Polish students in
Alexandru cel Bun, Gura Humorului and what was more, information about what I
personally had discovered about that community, in terms of people, traditions, language,
characteristics, life in general. This is what I enjoyed most, I discovered extremely
sensitive people but, on the other hand, I was pleased to meet very ambitious,
hardworking and self-confident students in the class where I was teaching.
The paper supposed major efforts of research, analysis, synthesis. It also represented an
opportunity to turn to account not only my teaching experience but also my experience
with students. It represented a major challenge for my own teaching, pedagogic and
methodical abilities that I had been trying to improve since the moment I started working
in this school, 1992.

34

Generally speaking, it is a hard task for Polish students to acquire English as a second
language as long as there are many differences between the two languages. On the other
hand, language learning is a process of discovery. Learners develop the ability to use the
language for specific communication purposes. The teacher models language use and
facilitates students' development of language skills. Language learning does not consist
in memorizing rules and facts in order to understand and work with that language, it
means getting involved and developing communication abilities. Thus, I have noticed
that, whenever I was able to motivate my students properly, such difficulties mattered
less. They have gradually developed a liking for the study of English and proved to be
willing to make efforts lest I should be disappointed.
There are areas of contrast between English and Polish which cause a lot of difficulties
both in learning and teaching English as a second language. The teacher must be
confident, dynamic, sociable, creative, and resourceful. He must be aware of the
differences between the two languages and between students, too, and provide a learning
environment that is rich and varied enough to stimulate learners. Teachers must use
different strategies in order not only to motivate students but also to help them in the
process of learning.
The differences between English and Polish are so clear that some of them still find
English a very difficult language to learn. Even now, when I am teaching other Polish
students (10th grade), there are only some of them willing to work hard and who have
already passed over these differences and learnt to pronounce, to read and to speak
English.
For me as a teacher, any class with partial curricula in Polish has been a real challenge
from the beginning. My students speak Polish at home, in class, in their spare time,
during breaks. They do not use English anywhere else than in the English class. They
have a very busy life, I can say. They have more classes than the other students in high
school and this is why they get home very late. Once there, they have much physical
work to do, so their spare time is limited. They join their parents in the forest or in the
field and late in the evening they are so tired that they do not even turn on television.
Where could they learn English from? From songs, from some news on TV, from
movies. I always recommended my students to listen to English songs, to watch British
or American movies because that is the only way they hear English used by native
speakers. This can be a problem if they do not have time to do it because the acquisition
of a language is more effective when it is used - or at least heard - more frequently.
I divided the paper in two parts, Part I: Theoretical Considerations, and Part II: A
Contrastive Vs. A Non Contrastive Approach To Teaching English To Polish Students,
each including 4 and 3 chapters respectively.
I began my research paper with A Historical and Social Perspective on the Polish
Community in Suceava County, a chapter in which I dealt with Polish People and Places
in Bucovina, The Union of the Polish in Romania, The Project `Children of Bucovina`, a
chapter in which I used both the information I had gathered from different recent
publications, of which I would like to mention Mister Daniel Hrenciuc`s book Un destin
pentru istorie: Polonezii n Bucovina 1774-2008, published in 2008 (which was a real
support for me and a very complete fresco of the Polish community in the area and not
only), and the information I had gathered from my students.

35

Then I thought of offering some details about The Implementation of the First Class with
Partial Curricula in Polish in the Alexandru cel Bun High school in Gura Humorului,
a chapter dedicated to my 18 Polish students at the time, most students in Polish
universities now. I referred to them as a group and I presented some activities they were
involved in.
11K The class with partial curricula in Polish

The 3rd chapter of Part I was dedicated to Theories on First and Second Language
Acquisition and the 4th chapter of Part I to A Brief Contrastive Outline of the Peculiarities
of the English and Polish Languages. This was the point in which I discovered the Polish
language, I wrote about first language acquisition, about second language acquisition, I
made a comparison between the two languages regarding grammar, lexicology,
correspondences.
Part II was entirely filled with elements of contrast between the two languages, English
and Polish, and explored the way I managed to make my students learn English. I wrote
about the difficulties I confronted with and I insisted on the solutions I personally
decided to use in those circumstances. I offered clear examples of the way I was teaching
my Polish students grammar at the time: verb tenses, the adjective, types of adjectives,
degrees of comparison, the noun and the modal verbs. In the last chapter, Some Teaching
Implications of Lexical Contrastive and Non Contrastive Analysis, I thought of
describing personal experiences while teaching different topics, vocabulary, and I
decided to describe some strategies I use. The most predominant ones are some of the
following:
1.I usually use non-verbal cues, because facial expressions, hand gestures, and other
non-verbal cues are a great way to overcome the language barrier.
2.I use plenty of visual aids. Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words, and this is
particularly true when teaching English as a second language. Visual aids can be used to
teach everything, from vocabulary to prepositions. In addition to instructional

36

advantages, visuals keep lessons interesting for the learners. If possible, I access a
projector, a video - player or a DVD - player for effective presentations.
3.My students work in pairs or in groups. If I am constantly talking, my learners of
English as a second language will never get a chance to practice. Group work gives
students an opportunity to practice the language. Groups work the best with 2 to 5
people; with any more people, not everyone gets a chance to participate.
4.I repeat and rephrase all the time. Teachers of English as a second language need to
repeat everything at least three times. They should also vary the wording of their
remarks. A student may know one set of vocabulary but not another even when the
topic of discussion is the same. Even if the student understands a concept upon first
explanation, he/she will still benefit from the repetition and variation of language. It will
expose him/her to new words and phrases.
5.I should not over-correct. I know that our first instinct as teachers of English as a
second language is to correct student language errors. Over-correction, however, can
make students reluctant to use the language. If students get afraid of being corrected
every time they speak, students will simply stop speaking and therefore learning the
language. Of course, there are appropriate times to correct language mistakes. If a
concept for example the past tense - has been discussed at length in class, it is
appropriate to correct students when they form the past tense improperly.
6.I always create a safe atmosphere. Learning English as a second language is not an
easy thing emotionally. Students will feel self-conscious about their lack of English
ability and will thus be reluctant to use the language. The job of the teacher of English as
a second language is to create a safe and supportive environment, one in which the
student will be comfortable experimenting with the language. I can say that my Polish
students are eager to meet me again.
The implementation of this type of class in the Alexandru cel Bun High school was a
difficult process, it meant a lot of procedures but the advantages are very clear. The
students in our high school have the possibility to learn about another country, about
another culture and they were very interested in discovering a new language in their
school. The Polish students come from different villages in the area but here they make a
distinct group, characterized by hard work, special abilities and distinct features. Every
symposium and festival they attended was an opportunity to prove their national identity,
to show their specific dances, music and way of acting. Teaching English to Polish
students is a really challenging and difficult task.

37

The end of emotions,

together with two of my best students I invited to the presentation

The very special team, they supported and encouraged me

all the time

This is why I decided to dedicate my paper to this class. I have to say that any teacher can
live such a special experience but without the proper information and without a
permanent interest to adapt to students` expectations, a teacher could never have the
satisfactions I had.

38

Introducing and Practising Grammar Items

in Task-Based Language Teaching
Prof. Natalia COSOVANU
coala Gimnazial Bogdan Vod, Rdui
Task-based language teaching represents a body of principles and procedures for making
communicative language teaching work in the classroom.
(David Nunan)

Under the wider concept of Communicative Language teaching, there came into being,
around the 1990s, a series of more specific forms of expressing the communicative
principles: text-based and competency-based instruction, project-based, content-based
and task-based teaching. They tend to reflect the different responses to the broadly
formulated issues of the Communicative Approach and promote new ways of
understanding all the aspects of the curriculum. Their common point of departure is the
fact that they reject the traditional approaches in which language was viewed as an
inventory of sounds, words and grammar. The organizing principle for all these methods
is a non-linguistic unit of analysis.
Content-based instruction

draws on subject matter from other subjects

on the school curriculum such as
mathematics, history or geography

Project-based pedagogy

is organized around large-scale projects

such as 'organizing a school excursion',
'applying for a job', or 'buying a house'.
(These can be thought of as 'super' tasks.)

Task-based language teaching

is organized around the 101 things we do

with language in everyday life such as
buying a coffee, asking a friend to pick up
some dry cleaning for us, writing a resume,
booking an airline flight, arranging to see a
movie with a friend.
(Nunan, 2012: np)

Task-based teaching is said to be a pedagogical application of Communicative Language

Teaching to be used in the classroom. There are several ways of dealing with this type of
instruction: as a sole framework for course planning and delivery (In 1987, Prabhu had
created a task- based curriculum which replaced the grammar-based one and it was used
in a public school.), as one component for a course or simply as a technique to be used
among others (Richards, 2006: 35).
A significant impact on the research and practice of task- based teaching is the theory of
the language acquisition developed by S. Krashen, in 1981. He argued that learning and
acquisition are two entirely different processes, and acquisition occurs through
comprehensible input, the ability to understand messages in the target language. In
teaching, this means that when students memorize rules, they function out of the
39

conscious side of the brain; on the other hand, when they communicate, they function out
of the subconscious side of the brain. Thus, there was no need for grammar of any kind
to be taught. In 1985, however, M. Swain claimed that, in the process of language
acquisition, learners also needed opportunities to use the language themselves, thus
proposing the theory of the comprehensible output. Since then, a great deal of research
has been conducted into the issue of whether to incorporate grammar into teaching or not
and recent developments clearly show that a focus on form is beneficial for language
acquisition (Nunan, 2012).
Task based teaching is based on real- world or target tasks, which are the hundred and
one things we do with language in everyday life, from writing a poem to reconfirming an
airline reservation (ibid.). These, must, however be turned into pedagogical tasks in
order to be used in the classroom.

(ibid.)
Tasks are different from linguistic exercises, as they do not have a linguistic outcome.
Probably the most important for language teaching are the communicative activities,
defined in task-based instruction as sharing some characteristics of the language
exercises and some of the pedagogical tasks. While providing manipulative practice of a
set of language items, they still have an element of meaningful communication. An
example of communicative activity involving practising Continuous Present Perfect is
the Recently changed jobs game below.
The people below have recently changed their jobs and so their routines have changed.
Explain one thing they did before and something different they have been doing recently
(e.g. He used to wear a uniform but recently hes been wearing ripped jeans and a dirty
T shirt) and see if your partner can guess who you are talking about.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7

Until recently/ used to

Policeman
Carpenter
Office worker
Mechanic
800 metre runner
Artist
Babysitter

Recently
Beachcomber
Supermarket shop assistant
Mature student
Car designer
Marathon runner
House painter
Nurse

40

8
9
10

Dishwasher
BA student
Businessman

Chef
PhD student
House husband
(adapted from www.tefl.net )

In this example, students are intensively practising both Continuous Present Perfect and
the used to structure, but there is also a meaningful dimension, as they do not know
what their partner is going to answer.
For developing entire lessons or units of work following the task-based instruction
principles, D. Nunan (2012) proposes a six step procedure:
Step 1: Schema building. Develop schema-building exercises that introduce the
topic, set the context for the task, and introduce some key vocabulary and
expressions.

Step 2: Controlled practice. Provide students with controlled practice in using

the target language vocabulary, structures, and functions.

Step 3: Authentic listening practice. Involve learners in intensive listening

practice by native speakers performing the target task(s).

Step 4: Focus on linguistic elements. Get students to focus on pronunciation and

grammar features.

Step 5: Provide freer practice. Engage students in freer practice, where they
move towards creative language use.

Step 6: Introduce the pedagogical task. Complete the pedagogical task.

A lesson focusing on using Continuous Past Tense for past activities in progress and
robbery vocabulary viewed from this perspective would be developed as follows:
Step 1: Schema Building
Example: Read some true accounts of
people being mugged on the online
Initial vocabulary and context for the task is edition of BBC News Magazine.
provided.
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine18853966). Identify key words and match
peoples name with what they describe.
Step 2: Controlled Practice
Learners are given controlled practice in the Example: Listen to a model conversation

41

vocabulary, structures and functions.

between a police officer and a victim of

mugging. Practice the conversation,
changing the underlined words..

Step 3: Authentic Listening Practice

Example: Listen to Nickys account of the
Learners are given authentic listening things happening the night he was
practice.
mugged
(www.busyteacher.com).
Rearrange the events on the worksheet.
Step 4: Focus on Linguistic Elements
Learners are focusing
Continuous structure .

on

the

Isolate the sentences expressing actions in

Past progress in the past and practise them in
the
affirmative,
interrogative
and
negative.

Step 5: Provide Freer Practice

Freer practice is provided.

Example: Do a pair work information

gap activity. Student A plays the part of a
victim of robbery. Student B plays the
part of an emergency line operator. Write
down some notes including details of
robbery.

Step 6: Introduce the Pedagogical Task

The pedagogical task is introduced.

Example: Complete a group work

discussion and decision making task. Talk
about an event you witnessed involving
an accident or police intervention. Decide
on the best ways to avoid similar
situations.

Although the lesson is clearly focusing on past activities in progress and therefore on the
Progressive Past Tense, in task-based teaching, the focus on form does not occur from
the beginning of the instructional sequence. In the warm up section, learners encounter
the Continuous Past Tense in the reading excerpts. They can see it and they can use it,
but they do this inductively, as it was presented in a communicative context that makes
its meaning clear. Next, they hear a native speaker using the structure normally, in a
conversation. Explicit focus on the Continuous Past Tense only appears after the
students were largely exposed to this structure and have even used it without knowing
its rules. Finally, after linguistic practice, they get to use what they learned
communicatively. D. Nunans algorithm for designing lessons around grammar items is
the following:
1.
2.
3.
4.

Warm up
Listen in
Grammar focus
Get it together

42

The rationale here is that if learners initially encounter the form in a communicative
context and then hear native speakers using it naturally, the link between grammatical
form and communicative function will be clear to the learners (ibid.).
Types of tasks to be introduced in a lesson following this framework, or simply to be
used separately for practising progressive tenses communicatively are: information gap
activities, reasoning gap activities, opinion gap activities, jigsaws, problem solving,
decision making, opinion exchange tasks etc.
Task-based instruction is today one of the most popular methods used in language
teaching all over the world. One of its main advantages is the fact that it focuses on the
immediate use of the target language in situations very similar to real life. Also, the
successful completion of a task is measured in actions being performed, not language
items being listed, so it is very close to the way in which students will actually use the
language outside the classroom.

REFERENCES
1.Nunan, David (2012). An Introduction to Task-based Teaching, from:
http://eltadvantage.ed2go.com/eltadvantage/online_course/3e2/detail/An_Introduction_to
_Task_based_Teaching.html (visited on 2012/07/22).
2.Richards, J. C. (2006). Communicative Language Teaching Today, New York, USA:
Cambridge University Press.
3.URL: http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheets/headway/hway-pre-u13/pres-perf-contchanges/ (visited on 2012/09/05).
4.URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18853966 (visited on 2012/09/09)
5.URL: www.busyteacher.com (visited on 2012/09/05).

43

The Importance of Vocabulary in English Language Teaching

Prof. Daniela Elena ROTARU
Colegiul Naional de Informatic Spiru Haret, Suceava

What is a word?
A word is a microcosm of human consciousness (Vygotski)
A word is a sound or a combination of sounds, or its representation in writing or printing,
that symbolizes and communicates a meaning and may consist of a single morpheme or
of a combination of morphemes.
All languages have words. A language first emerges first as words, both historically, and
in terms of the way each of us learned our first language. The coining of new words
never stops, nor does the acquisition of words. Even in our first language we are
continually learning new words. Learners of a second language may be confronted by
words that are totally unfamiliar, or are being used in ways that for them are completely
new. A more difficult part is when they have to produce language. Finding the right word
can be sometimes very difficult. And when words get confused with each other, the
results can be disastrous.
Words may share the same base or root but take different endings. This is a feature of
the grammar of all languages: the use of add-ons, called affixes, to make a verb past
(played) or a noun plural (books). A word that results from the addition of an affix to a
root, and which has a different meaning from the root is called a derivative. (e.g. play,
play+ er, re+ play, play+ ful). A word family comprises the base word plus its inflexions
and its most common derivates.
Compounding is other way new words are formed from old ones. This process consists
of combining two or more independent words. Some examples of compound words
could be: second hand, dishwasher, hairdryer, record player, and classroom. Sometimes
we have seen that groups of more than one word such as do up, look for, can function as
a meaningful unit. These are known as multi-word units.
Collocation is another process when two words occur together with more than chance
frequency, such that, when we see one, we can make a fairly safe bet that the other is in
the neighborhood. Collocation is not as frozen a relationship as that of compounds or
multi-word units, and two collocate may be separated by other words. For example, we
have the sentence: She set the junior record in 1995.
Words that share the same form but have unrelated meanings are called homonyms.
English is rich in homonyms: well, bat, fair, etc. Another potential source of confusion
are the words that sound the same but are spelt differently: meat and meet, tail and tale,
aloud and allowed. Another potential source of confusion for learners is the fact that
many words in English have different meanings. Words that have multiple but related
meanings are called polysemes. Fair is an example of a polysemous word.

44

This isnt fair on anyone, but it does happen.

We have a fair size garden and we may as well make use of it.
She was only a fair cook.
The sun rays can be harmful on fair skin.
It will be fair and warm.
Although appear to be five different sentences, fair has meanings from reasonable to
quite large, average, pale, dry and pleasant and some of these meanings are related.
Synonyms are words that share a similar meaning. Synonyms are similar but seldom the
same. Even between words that are interchangeable, such as taxi and cab, or aubergine
or egg plant, one will be preferred over the other in certain context or by particular
speakers.
Antonyms are words with opposite meanings. Like synonyms, the relation between such
opposite is not always black and white. Take for example: old woman - young woman,
and old record player and a new one.
Taking everything into account we can say that a word is a more complex phenomenon
than at fist it might appear. Words have different functions, some carrying mainly
grammatical meaning, while others bear a greater informational load. We can also say
that the same word has a variety of forms. Words can be added to, or combined to form
new words, many word co-occur with other words. Sometimes words may look or sound
the same but have quite different meanings. Different words may share similar meanings
or may have opposite meanings. Other times, words can have the same or similar
meanings but be used in different situations or for different effects.
How important is vocabulary?
Unlike the controversial role of grammar in foreign language learning, the role of
vocabulary seems to have received more consistent understanding. However, uncertainty
still remains regarding what constitutes a vocabulary item, which vocabulary items
should be taught and learned, and how vocabulary can be taught and learned most
effectively.
People have different understanding of what a vocabulary item is, how an item can be
learned and consolidated, which items should be learned, and to what extent the items
should be learned and practiced. It is very important for the students themselves to
develop vocabulary awareness and vocabulary building strategies.
For the students, perhaps it is less difficult to learn vocabulary items for the first time
than to consolidate and remember them. It is too often that we hear students complain
that they keep learning and forgetting. Some people say vocabulary cannot be taught, it
has only be learned by the students. This is perhaps partially true. When students study
vocabulary individually, very often it is rote learning whose effectiveness is seldom
guaranteed, particularly when they do not fully understand the meaning of the
vocabulary. When students study vocabulary together, say in groups, through various
activities and under the teachers supervision, vocabulary learning becomes more fun and
effective. Learning is also more effective when students understand the meaning of the
new vocabulary.

45

Nowadays it is widely accepted that vocabulary teaching should be part of the syllabus,
and taught in a well-planned and regular basis. Some authors, led by Lewis (1993) argue
that vocabulary should be at the centre of language teaching, because language consists
of grammaticalised lexis, not lexicalised grammar.
Why Vocabulary Instruction Needs to Be Long-Term and Comprehensive?
Of the many benefits of having large vocabulary is the fact that vocabulary size makes
students comprehend easier what they read. One of the main goals of vocabulary
instructions is to help students to improve their comprehension. Knowing a word is one
thing, but how is that knowledge acquired? There are many simple and relatively
undemanding methods in which teachers can teach words in order to improve students
performance. The relationship between vocabulary knowledge and reading
comprehension is complex.
Effective vocabulary instruction is a long-term proposition. Attention to vocabulary
growth has to start early and improve all the time. Although the exact nature of effective
instruction changes across grade levels, the focus on and commitment to vocabulary
instruction is a sustaining component of schooling. Effective instruction must also be
multifaceted, encompassing: teaching individual words, extensive exposure to rich
language, both oral and written, and building generative word knowledge.
Teaching individual words
Teaching individual words is what commonly comes to mind when we talk about
vocabulary instructions. Intensive or rich vocabulary instruction requires giving students
both definitional and contextual information and providing them with opportunities to
process information deeply by applying it in ways that require creativity and connections
with existing knowledge. But to promote the large-scale, long-term vocabulary growth
that is necessary for academic success, we need to do more than teach individual words.
This brings us to the other two components of effective vocabulary instructions,
extensive exposure to rich language and building generative word knowledge.
Exposure to Rich Language
Wide reading is the primary engine that drives vocabulary growth for older and more
able readers. For younger and less able readers, experiences with rich oral language are
critical for vocabulary growth. Therefore, if they are to have any chance of acquiring
sufficient vocabulary knowledge to get meaning from the text, their teachers must make
effective use of classroom activities such as reading aloud, storytelling, pretend play,
classroom conversations in order to promote oral vocabulary growth.
This need for exposure to rich language is essential for older, less able readers, students
who have limited vocabularies. It is essential to increase the students ability and
motivation to read and teachers must find ways to use oral language as a means of
increasing their vocabularies. Effective use of discussion is maybe the most important
way but reading aloud to older students has also to be taken in consideration.
Many researchers consider that learning through repetition can also help students to
improve their vocabulary growth. The new words have to be used in other contexts or

46

conversations. Exposure to rich language is essential for promoting vocabulary growth,

but the benefits of such exposure accumulate slowly.
Generative Word Knowledge
Generative word knowledge is vocabulary knowledge that can transfer to the learning of
new words. There are word-learning strategies, such as the use of context and word parts
that can be thought to students to make them better word learners. An effective approach
to vocabulary instructions should address all these three components: teaching individual
words, exposure to rich language, and generative word knowledge.
Links between vocabulary and reading comprehension
Vocabulary is very important for students because the more word they know the better
readers they are. The connection between vocabulary size and the ability to comprehend
a text is an essential one.
Unlike in conversation where we have clues that aid us in constructing the meaning
(intonation, gestures, facial expressions, the ability to ask a question when necessary), in
reading we are dependent on the text itself. When the comprehension breaks down, we
must be able to reflect on the language of the text if we want to make sense of it. Most of
the time students are not able to understand a passage because they do not know the
meaning of the words. This leads us again to importance of vocabulary and the need to
know a large amount of words. Students who know more words tend as well to know
more about each of the words they know.
The relationship between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension is a
reciprocal one it goes in both directions. Having a big vocabulary contributes to the fact
of being a better reader. But being a good reader also contributes to having a bigger
vocabulary. This happens because better readers do a lot more reading, having the
opportunity of learning new words. The amount of reading a person does play an
important role in the reciprocal relationship between vocabulary knowledge and reading
comprehension. (see Fig. 1)
Vocabulary
Volume of
reading
Reading
comprehension

Fig. 1. A reciprocal model of vocabulary and reading comprehension

The rich tend to get richer. Students with larger vocabularies understand text better and
so they read more. As they read more, they learn additional words, which make their
vocabularies even larger. On the other part, the poor tend to get poorer. Students with

47

smaller vocabularies do not understand text as well, and as a consequence are likely to
read less. The less they read, the less their vocabulary growth. They do not read enough
to improve their vocabularies, which could, in turn, help them comprehend more. During
the time, this perpetuating cycle can lead to the gap between less successful and more
successful students. Students who read less end up not only with small vocabularies but
also with less knowledge on all the topics compared with the students that read in their
spare time. Moreover, they fall behind in fluency because they have less practice in
reading. In this way, the graphic shown in Fig. 1, the circle containing the word
vocabulary should also contain all the other kinds of knowledge that can be gained by
reading. So, students who are not exposed to text acquire less decoding skills, less
fluency and less of the various kinds of knowledge one gains thorough reading. If these
kind of students are taught all the difficult words in a text this will not help them to have
the same level as the other students who have a larger vocabulary but this will help them
to improve their vocabulary.
How are words remembered?
The students need not only to learn the words but to remember them. In fact, learning is
remembering. Unlike the learning of grammar which is essentially to rule-based system,
vocabulary knowledge is largely a question of accumulating individual items. That is
why we have to ask ourselves it is essentially a question of memory.
Researchers into the workings of memory distinguish between the following systems: the
short-term store, working memory and the long-term memory.
The short-term store is the brains capacity to hold a limited number of items of
information for periods of time up to a few seconds. It is the kind of memory that is
involved in holding in your head a telephone number for as long as it takes to be able to
dial it. But successful vocabulary learning clearly involves more than simply holding
words in your mind for a few seconds. For words to be integrated into long-term memory
they need to be subjected to different kind of operations.
Focussing on words long enough to perform operations on them is the function of
working memory. Many cognitive tasks such as reasoning, learning and understanding
depend on working memory. The information is first placed, studied and moved about
before being filed away for later retrieval. The information that is being manipulated can
come from the external source via the senses, or it can be downloaded from the longterm memory, or both.
Long-term memory can be thought as a king of filing system. Unlike working memory,
which has a limited capacity and no permanent content, long-term memory has an
enormous capacity, and its contents are durable over time. Sometimes it happens that
students forget the vocabulary until the next lesson. This suggests that long-term memory
is not always as long-term as we want it to be. The greatest challenge is to transform
material from the quickly forgotten to the never forgotten. This is possible when a
number of principles are taken in consideration:
Repetition students can memorize vocabulary through repeated rehearsal
while it is still in working memory. However, simple repeating an item seems to have
little long-tem effect unless some attempt is made to organise the material at the same

48

time. It has been shown that, when reading, words stand a good chance of being
remembered if they have been met at least seven times over spaced intervals.
Retrieval - is another kind of repetition that is crucial, also called retrieval
practice effect. This means that that the act of retrieving a word from memory makes it
more likely that the learner will be able to recall it later. An example could be activity
when students are asked to use a new word in written sentences.
Spacing - memory work should be distributed across a period of time than to
mass it together in a single block. This process is called the principle of distributed
practice. When teaching students a new set of words it is best to present the first two or
three items, and then go back and test these, then present some more, then test again, and
so on. Over a sequence of lessons the new vocabulary should be reviewed in the next
lesson.
Pacing - each student has a different learning style and the teacher should give
them the opportunity to pace their own rehearsal activities. The teacher has to give
students enough time to do the memory work. In this way, students organize and review
their vocabulary silently and individually.
Use- words have to be used in and interesting way in order to be added to longterm memory. This process is known as use it or lose it.
Cognitive depth a word is better remembered if the learner makes more
decisions about it. A superficial judgement would be to associate a word with another
one. A deeper level decision might be to decide on its part of speech (noun, adjective,
adverb, etc.).
Personal organising the judgements that learners make about a word are
most effective if they are personalised. In a study, it has been shown that students who
had read a sentence aloud containing new words better recall than students who had
simply silently rehearsed the words. But the best situation was when students made up
their own sentences containing the words and read them aloud.
Imaging tests have shown that the best situation was when students were
asked to read a task silently visualising a mental picture to go with a new word. Others
tests have shown that easily visualised words are more memorable than words that dont
immediately evoke a picture. This means that words are better remembered if they are
associated with some mental image.
Mnemonics these are tricks to help retrieve items or rules that are stored in
memory and that are not yet automatically retrievable. Even native speaker rely on
mnemonics for some spelling rules: e.g. i before e except after c. The best kinds of
mnemonics are often visual.
Motivation simply wanting to learn words is not a guarantee that words will
be remembered. A strong motivation will make a student to spend more time on rehearsal
and practice.
Attention a very high degree of attention can help students to improve their
vocabulary. Words that trigger a strong emotional response, for example, are more easily
recalled.
Affective depth- related to the situation above, affective (emotional)
information is stored along with cognitive (intellectual) data, and may play a similar role
on how words are stored and recalled.
Opportunities to acquire new word meanings
In everyday conversation we speak of vocabulary in the singular; we speak of a persons
vocabulary. This is actually an oversimplification. The American Heritage Dictionary

49

defines vocabulary as the sum of words used by, understood by, or at the command of a
particular person or group. However, it seems important to point out that in almost all
cases there are some differences in the number of words that an individual understands
and uses. Even the terms uses and understands need clarification. For example, the
major way in which we use vocabulary is when we speak and write; the term
expressive vocabulary is used to refer to both since these are the vocabularies we use to
express ourselves. We understand vocabulary when we listen to speech and when we
read; the term receptive vocabulary is used to refer to listening and reading vocabularies.
Finally, to round out the terminology, meaning or oral vocabulary refers to the
combination of listening and speaking vocabularies, and literate vocabulary refers to the
combination of our reading and writing vocabularies. Are our listening, speaking, reading
and writing vocabularies all the same? Are they equally large? Fig. 2 shows the
relationship of the eight different terms.
Meaning/ oral
vocabulary

Receptive
Vocabulary

Listening

Speaking

Reading

Writing

Expressive
Vocabulary

Literate/ Written
Vocabulary
Fig. 2
Students encounter new words all the time. They may or may not know the meaning of
all the word they encounter. Yet in order to understand the text, students are forced to
learn the meaning of the new words and incorporate them in their vocabulary. This
process of vocabulary acquisition occurs via two primary mechanisms: exposure to oral
language and to written language. The comparison between written and oral language has
notable implications for vocabulary development. Compared to written language, speech
contains far fewer rare and unique words. Students are far more likely to encounter a
word outside their current vocabulary while reading than while watching television or
being involved in interesting conversations with older students. Conversations rely
heavily on the use of common words. On the other hand, in writing there is far more time
to search ones vocabulary for the most appropriate, precise, and communicative words.
Another obvious difference between oral and written language is the amount of
contextual information available to the communicants. It is well known that speech is a
more contextualized form of communication than writing. Speech often relies on a
variety of nonverbal and contextual clues. On the other side, written communication must
use explicit references in order to ensure comprehension. The result is the use of more
common words in oral language than in written language.
Researches have shown that a substantial amount of vocabulary occurs as a result of
incidental encounters with language. Waiting for children to encounter the word in

50

natural reading is far less efficient than teaching the words through direct and systematic
vocabulary instructions. Moreover, students should be encouraged to treat an unknown
word as an opportunity for problem solving. Students should be taught word relationships
and families in an attempt to increase their ability to do independent word analysis and
derive the meaning of unfamiliar words in text. A significant amount of word learning
occurs incidentally through encounters with words in written text.
The role of vocabulary is a complex one. Words represent complex and multiple
meanings. These meanings of words need to be understood in the context of other words
in the sentences and the paragraphs of texts. Not only are students expected to understand
words in texts, but also texts can be expected to introduce them to many new words.
Without vocabulary, we would not be able to form and understand sentences. If we don't
know what the words we read mean, we can't understand what the material says. If we
don't know what the terms mean, we can't understand the math or science explanations.
Vocabulary, much more than grammar, is the key to ones understanding and to
communicating successfully with other people. For this reason it is very important for a
person to build up a large store of words. Research studies have shown the strong links
between having an extensive vocabulary and achieving school success vocabulary is a
vital aspect in language, because it appears in every skill of language: listening, speaking,
reading and writing.

REFERENCES
1.Schmitt, Norbert (2000). Vocabulary in Language Teaching, Cambridge University
Press.
2. Thornbury, Scott (2002). How to Teach Vocabulary, Longman.

51

Context and Function in Translation

Prof. Ana Cristina ERBAN
Colegiul Naional Mihai Eminescu, Suceava

The aim of this article is to illustrate and review what we consider to be an essential
episode in Translation Studies, marking an evolution from norm-governed linguistic
theories towards function-governed communicative theories of translation.
Traditional theories in translation studies regarded translation as a linguistic activity
performed on texts. The significant factors controlling translation were, thus, abstract
structures of equivalence, defined lexically, syntactically and semantically, without any
regard to extra-linguistic factors. The latter were not taken into consideration as
controlling, to a large extent, the communicative instances which constitute the material
of translation. The only real issue was accuracy, and accuracy was defined both
narrowly, in terms of linguistic equivalence, and universally, with no attention to the
differing needs and demands and expectations of real people in real-world situation. This
period of stagnation in translation studies is considered to be coming from an
understanding of text merely as a self-contained and self-generating entity, instead of a
decision-making procedure and an instance of communication between language users
(Hatim and Mason, 1990: 3). In our own view, translation, at this point, was approached
as a product-to-product comparison between the source-text (ST) and the target-text
(TT), overlooking the communicative process.
From the perspective of more recent theories in Translation Studies, what is needed is a
systematic study of problems and solutions, by a close comparison of ST and TT
procedures: Which techniques produce which effects? What are the regularities of the
translation process in particular genres, cultures and historical periods, that is, in
particular contexts of communication? These are the questions to be considered by the
science of translating.
To this view, Eugene Nidas reformulation of the notion of translation in terms of types
of equivalence appropriate to particular circumstances can be considered a
fundamental step. A founding father of the domain, The American researcher states that
the relative adequacy of different translations of the same text can only be determined in
terms of the extent to which each translation successfully fulfills the purpose for which it
was intended (Nida, apud Nord, 1997: 13). By distinguishing between formal
correspondence (as the closest possible match of form and content between ST and TT)
and dynamic equivalence (as a principle of equivalence of effect on reader of TT),
Nida shifts attention away from the sterile debate on free versus literal translation
towards the effects of different translation strategies, and through them, introduces an
awareness of the complex communicative dimension of the process. The sets of priorities
established in The Theory and Practice of Translation (1969) include:
dynamic equivalence over formal correspondence;
contextual consistency (relating to semantic appropriateness) over verbal
consistency (word for word concordance);
oral over written forms of the language;

52

audience adapted forms of language over traditionally prestigious forms.

Such an approach is sensitive to several communicative aspects of language: forms of
actual performance (use of the language); distinction between purely
designative/denotative and associative / connotative meaning (emotional response to the
message); and last but not least, socio-cultural elements of context (which play the
dominant part in specifying meaning and relate to the historical settings in which the text
was produced - time, place, source, addressee and circumstances and its culture, as well
as to the target language, audience and culture). Thus, Nidas equivalence of response
is a pragmatic and sociolinguistic notion in translation: this response is not only in terms
of comprehension of the information, it is also expressive and imperative, so as to serve
the principle purposes of communication (Nida and Taber, 1969: 14). A new act of
communication is created (across geographical, historical and cultural boundaries) out of
a previously existing one.
Peter Newmark, in A Textbook of Translation (1998), also defines translation
procedures on the basis of contextual dimensions. The latter are classified as: linguistic,
referential, cultural and individual. According to these, Newmark describes several types
of translation, each representing a possible strategy in certain circumstances (depending
on the text type, aim of translation or the receptor audience):
- literal translation is when lexical words are translated simply, out of context;
- a faithful translation attempts to reproduce the precise contextual meaning of the
original within the constraints of the TL grammatical structures. It transfers cultural
words and attempts to be faithful to the intentions and text-realizations of the ST writer;
- semantic translation renders as closely as the semantic and syntactic structures of
the second language allow, the exact contextual meaning of the original; it differs from
faithful translation in that it is more flexible, creative, taking into account the aesthetic
value of the TT too and allows for the translators intuitive empathy with the original
(Newmark, 1998: 31).
- on the other hand, free translation, which reproduces the matter without the
manner, and idiomatic translation, which distorts nuances of meaning through a form
which does not characterize the original, are considered extreme models;
- lastly, communicative translation represents, next to semantic translation, the ideal
model, attempting to render the same contextual meaning in such a way that both content
and language are readily acceptable and comprehensible to the readership (Newmark,
1998: 31).
To our understanding, the preference for the last two models of the hierarchy relates, just
as with Nida, to sociolinguistic and pragmatic dimensions: if the former is personal and
individual and tends to over-translate in order to reproduce pragmatic impact, the latter is
social, tends to under-translate while concentrating on the message and being simple and
natural. (Newmark, 1998: 40).
The translation models we have exposed build up an image of the translator as a
negotiator of meaning between producers and receivers of text, assigning to him the
central role in a process of cross-cultural communication and cease to regard equivalence
in static, purely linguistic terms.
Such perspectives can be directly related to principles of text linguistics. If we accept that
meaning is something that is negotiated between producers and receivers of texts, it

53

follows that the translator, as a special kind of text user, intervenes in this process of
negotiation, to relay it across linguistic and cultural boundaries. In doing so, the
translator tries to retrieve the intended meaning and effects of the ST producer and aims
at facilitating retrieval of these intentions by the reader of the target text, in conformity
with TL norms (Hatim and Mason, 1990: 33)
The various domains of pragmatics, discourse linguistics and sociolinguistics are all
areas of study which are germane to this process, bringing insights into the nature of
intended meaning and effect, the relation of meaning to the communicative environment
or situation of communication and ultimately into the notion of functional meaning. The
models I have presented mean to illustrate an early, much needed recognition of the role
of contextual factors in translation. The following part of this paper focuses on explicit
theories of the notion, which account for even more complex, socio-cultural aware
models of translation.
A theory of communicative context in translation and a good illustration of how
sociolinguistic theories nourished translation studies was produced by M.A.K. Halliday
and the London School in the 1960's and the 1970's. Halliday approaches the notions of
text and context as expressions of a fundamental relationship of mutual determination
between language and society. Meanings (which are created by the social system and
in a sense constitute the social system) are "exchanged by the members of a culture in
the form of a text. The text, in its turn, is defined as an instance of the process and the
product of social meaning in a particular context of situation, which is the total
environment in which a text unfolds (Halliday and Hasan, 1989: 10).
The British scholar draws on anthropological grounds (descriptions given by
Malinowski, Firth and Dell Hymes) and offers his own complex analysis of the two
notions. Thus, the context of situation appears encapsulated in the text (...) through a
semantic relationship between the social environment, on the one hand, and the
functional organization by language on the other (Halliday and Hasan, 1989: 11). In
order to build his framework of concepts defining social context, Halliday first gives a
description of the latter dimension: the functional organization of language. He offers a
systemic functional theory which attempts to explain linguistic structure and linguistic
phenomena by reference to the notion that language plays a certain part in our lives,
meaning that it is required to serve certain universal types of demand. Synthesizing
Malinowski's, Buhler's and Desmond Morris functions of the language, Halliday's
classification includes:
-

"ideational meanings" (language as reflection of reality, representational);

"interpersonal meanings" (language as action, expressive and imperative);

"textual meaning"(language as texture in relation to the environment).

On the basis of these functions, a further description of three features of the "context of
situation" is given:
the field of discourse refers to what is happening, to the nature of the social action
that is taking place; to what it is that the participants are engaged in, in which language

54

figures as some essential component. The field is expressed through the

experiential/ideational function;
the tenor of discourse refers to who is taking part, to the nature of the participants,
their statuses and roles and the relationship among them (referring to both the types of
speech roles that they take on in the dialogue and the whole cluster of socially significant
relationships in which they are involved); it corresponds to interpersonal meaning;
the mode of discourse refers to the role that language is playing, to what it is that the
participants expect language to do for them in a particular situation: the symbolic
organization of the text, the status that it has, its function in the context, including the
channel (spoken or written text) and the rhetorical mode (didactic, argumentative, etc.).
We are to understand that by assigning a text these features, one may construct a model
of the social context of a text. That is what participants in a culture do throughout their
interactions, thus being able to make predictions about the meanings exchanged
(inferences from the situation to the text and from the text to the situation) and
communicate.
It is in this perspective that, for Halliday, the process of producing and understanding text
in some context of situation is perhaps the most distinctive form of activity in the life of a
social man. These concepts can be discussed with particular reference to the notion of
register, a concept relating to variation in language that goes with variation in the context
of situation. In a more complex approach, problems of register equivalence concern
terminology appropriateness (of field, tenor and mode) and the limits of their
translatability and consequent strategies.
At this point, my purpose is to show that identifying these three features means
reconstructing the situational context of a received message. This is done through an
analysis of what has taken place (field), who has participated (tenor), and what medium
has been selected for relaying the message (mode). An illustration can be given though
the description of two different instances of text:
1. In consideration of the ten thousand five hundred pounds the receipt whereof hereby
acknowledged, I, Herbert Timms, as beneficial owner hereby transfer to: Matthew
Seaton, the land comprised in the title above mentioned.
Situational description:
- field: legislation; verbal regulation of social interaction through sanctions of the
legal system; exchange of property;
- -tenor: member/ individual addressing collective/ society, using prescribed formula to
this purpose; public text;
-

mode: written form (to be included in documentary records); formulaic text.

2. Mr. Collins, you must marry. A clergyman like you must marry - choose properly,
choose a gentlewoman for my sake; and for your own, let her be an active, useful sort of
person () This is my advice (Austen, 1994: 82).

55

-field: daily, social conversation in literary discourse- mimetic dialogue; marriage issues;
-tenor: individual addressing another individual, implicitly the author addressing readers,
in double-enunciation, specific to literary dialogue; personal and public;
-mode: written form with oral traits; seemingly spontaneous but composed (through the
literary modes of expression, part of specific writing technique).
Our purpose was to show that situational description can be a fundamental dimension in
social communicative transactions; implicitly, it is to be regarded as a major factor in
translation, a communicative process taking place in a social context, in its turn.
Looking from this perspective, the description of the notion of context based on functions
of the language provides an important starting point in treating the issue of the social
functions and functioning of translation. While accounting, at least partially, for the social
multi-functionality of texts (objects of translation), the concept of situational context
also brings an insight into the multi-functional nature of the translating activity or
process. It shows that the social conditions in which translations are produced vary
considerably: between the work of literary, media, scientific or technical translators,
between interpreting (consequent or simultaneous) and translation as re-writing.
The recognition of function in translation has brought about specific methodologies of
descriptive approaches in Translation Studies, which have turned good old equivalence
into a more dynamic principle, covering both adequacy and acceptability. At the core of
such complex paradigms, which make the object of future studies, stands the simple
observation that the translation of an administrative memorandum is regulated by
different norms from those regulating literary translation.
The recognition of these differences must serve to incorporate diversity of function
within an overall model of the translation process, that is, impose a functional approach
to translation. As Basil Hatim an Ian Mason (1990:7) conclude: it is only by recognizing
a typology of function that a theory of translation will do justice to both Bible and
bilingual cereal packet.

REFERENCES
1.Austen, Jane (1994). Pride and Prejudice, London: Penguin Books.
2.Halliday, M.A.K.& Hasan, Ruqaiya (1989). Language, Context and Text: Aspects of
Language in a Social-Semiotic Perspective, Oxford: OUP.
3.Hatim, Basil & Mason, Ian (1990). Discourse and the Translator, London and New
York: Longman.
4.Newmark, Peter (1998). A Textbook of Translation, London: Prentice Hall
International.
5.Nida, Eugene, Taber, Charles (1974). The Theory and Practice of Translation, New
York: The United Bible Society.
6.Nord, Christiane (1997). Translating as a Purposeful Activity, Manchester: St. Jerome
Publishers.

56

CULTURAL STUDIES AND EXPERIENCES

tefania BOCA
London, a Place of Being

Alina CREU & Monica LEPCALIUC

Go for Comenius!

Anca DSCLIUC
Ecocriticism

Tinela NASTASI
The Image of the American West
in Willa Cahters Novels and Short Stories

57

London, a place of being

Moments of being in Virginia Woolfs fiction
Prof. tefania BOCA
Colegiul Alexandru cel Bun, Gura Humorului
Virginia Woolf is one of the most important modernist writers in literature. Her
contribution to the modernist literature could not be entirely evaluated. Among critics,
she is considered one of the most influential writers of modern fiction, a woman who
experimented with the English language and literary conventions and left both changed
forever. Her writing techniques gave course to new representations and structures of the
novel encapsulating a great point of references to many writers. She wrote novels that
contained plays and poems, stories that read like essays and biographies that read like
fiction. Woolf recorded the details of her life, including her desires, thrills, dreams,
annoyances, hatreds, and fears in journals and personal correspondence and transformed
them in the essence of her writings. London is not only a birthplace for Woolf but the
centre of all those details, and the present paper wishes to illustrate the city as it appears
in her writings, as setting, image, symbol and appropriate scenery for the literary
techniques of an authentic voice as a woman writer.
In A sketch of the past, the beginning of her memoirs, Virginia Woolf mentions for the
first time moments of being (Urquhart) as consisting in strong personal feelings or
experiences, contrasting them with moments of non-being:
Often when I have been writing one of my so-called novels I have been baffled by
this same problem; that is, how to describe what I call in my private shorthand
non-being. Every day includes much more non-being than being. Yesterday for
example, Tuesday the 18th of April, was [as] it happened a good day; above the
average in being. It was fine; I enjoyed writing these first pages; my head was
relieved of the pressure of writing about Roger; I walked over Mount Misery and
along the river; and save that the tide was out, the country, which I notice very
closely always, was coloured and shared as I like there were the willows, I
remember, all plummy and soft green and purple against the blue. I also read
Chaucer with pleasure; and began a book the memoirs of Madame de la Fayette
which interested me. These separate moments of being were however embedded
in many more moments of non-being. I have already forgotten what Leonard and
I talked about at lunch; and at tea; although it was a good day the goodness was
embedded in a kind of nondescript cotton wool. This is always so. A great part of
every day is not lived consciously. One walks, eats, sees things, deals with what
has to be done; the broken vacuum cleaner; ordering dinner; writing orders to
Mabel; washing; cooking dinner; bookbinding. When it is a bad day the
proportion of non-being is much larger. I had a slight temperature last week;
almost the whole day was non-being. The real novelist can somehow convey both
sorts of being. (Woolf quoted in Urquhart).
If she does not seem to remember what she discussed with her husband over tea, calling
this a non-being moment, the writer is absolutely aware of another sequence of a day, the

58

walk over Mount Misery. What Woolf defines as moments of being is strongly
interrelated with close description. The details are so precise and vivid, that, if an artist
wanted to paint the scene, he/she would easily do it. Everything is there: the elements
(the mount, the river and the willows), the colours (soft green, purple and blue). Once
this complex picture grasped, it is easier to penetrate Woolfs world to for a better
understanding of how landscape influenced her writing. Thus, for Woolf a moment of
being is a moment when an individual is fully conscious of his experience, a moment
when he is not only aware of himself but catches a glimpse of his connection to a larger
pattern hidden behind the opaque surface of daily life. Unlike moments of non-being,
when the individual lives and acts without awareness, performing acts as if asleep, the
moment of being opens up a hidden reality (Urquhart).
In Woolfs fiction, these moments of being are often moments of intense power and
beauty and, unlike Joyces epiphanies these moments do not lead to decisive revelations
for her characters. Instead, they provide moments of energy and awareness that allow the
character who experiences them to see life more clearly and more fully.
London, absolutely absorbing Moments of being in Mrs. Dalloway
Mrs. Dalloway presents the two characters who are the most receptive to moments of
being: Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Warren. Clarissa experiences her moments of
being while in the middle of what appear to be trivial acts, indicating that it is not the
action, but her awareness that sets a moment of being apart from her other experiences.
For example, as Clarissa watches taxi cabs pass by she finds them "absolutely
absorbing". Throughout the day, she is particularly aware of the threads of connection
between herself and her surroundings and therefore she grows receptive to moments of
being. When the protagonist walks into Miss Pyms flower shop, she closes her eyes and
smells the flowers. She opens her eyes, and in a single remarkable sentence, she thinks:
How fresh like frilled linen clean from a laundry laid in wicker trays the roses
looked; and dark and prim the red carnations, holding their heads up; and all the
sweet peas spreading in their bowls, tinged violet, snow white, pale--as if it were
the evening and girls in muslin frocks came out to pick sweet peas and roses after
the superb summers day, with its almost blue-black sky, its delphiniums, its
carnations its arum lilies was over; and it was the moment between six and seven
when every flower--roses, carnations, irises, lilac--glows; white, violet, red, deep
orange; every flower seems to burn by itself, softly, purely in the misty beds.
(Woolf, 1925)
The intensity captured in this single line is breathtaking. One image leads to another in an
unstoppable unique experience and once again the description has a pictorial quality.
Septimus Warren Smith experiences a similar intense moment of being which is
characterized as a vision. As he sits on a park bench and looks at the trees he feels:
Happily Rezia put her hand with a tremendous weight upon his knee so that he
was weighted down, transfixed, or the excitement of the elm trees rising and
falling, rising and falling with all their leaves alight and the colour thinning and
thickening from blue to the green of a hollow wave, like plumes on horses' heads,

59

feathers on ladies', so proudly they rose and fell, so superbly would have sent him
mad. (Woolf, 1925)
This vision or moment of being makes him aware of a strong connection with everything
surrounding: They beckoned; leaves were alive; trees were alive. And the leaves being
connected by millions of fibres with his own body, there on the seat, fanned it up and
down; when the branch stretched he, too, made the statement. The sparrows fluttering,
rising, and falling in jagged fountains were part of the pattern (Woolf, 1925).
The fact that he suffers from shell-shock and he is constantly delusional, does not stop
him from experiencing moments of perfect awareness. In fact, they seem to make him
more receptive to things or events that most people fail to see. And this awareness does
not appear particularly crazy or delusional when compared to Clarissa's own fascination
with the physical world around her.
For other characters, like Peter Walsh, for instance, a moment of being has the power of
encoding the reality. Ironically, for him, Septimuss suicide is in fact associated with
one of the triumphs of civilization. Peter reinterprets the meaning of the ambulance
rushing past him, bearing Septimuss body to the hospital:
One of the triumphs of civilisation, Peter Walsh thought. It is one of the triumphs
of civilisation, as the light high bell of the ambulance sounded. Swiftly, cleanly
the ambulance sped to the hospital, having picked up instantly, humanely, some
poor devil; some one hit on the head, struck down by disease, knocked over
perhaps a minute or so ago at one of these crossings, as might happen to oneself.
That was civilisation. It struck him coming back from the East--the efficiency, the
organisation, the communal spirit of London. (Woolf, 1925)
In the course of the narration these "moments of being" are often suddenly interrupted
either by something happening in the "outside world", which attracts the attention of the
character focused on, or by some unexpected thoughts. One of these breaks can be
noticed on the very first page of the novel. Clarissa Dalloway is feasting on memories of
the past, thinks about the `fresh and `calm [...] air, which she compares to `[...] the flap
of a wave; the kiss of a wave, and immediately after this she remembers `[...] solemn,
feeling as she did [...] that something awful was about to happen. Another moment is
when she goes to her room after hearing about Septimuss suicide and looks out through
the window.
She parted the curtains; she looked. Oh, but how surprising!--in the room
opposite the old lady stared straight at her! She was going to bed. And the sky. It
will be a solemn sky, she had thought, it will be a dusky sky, turning away its
cheek in beauty. But there it was--ashen pale, raced over quickly by tapering vast
clouds. It was new to her. The wind must have risen. She was going to bed, in the
room opposite. It was fascinating to watch her, moving about, that old lady,
crossing the room, coming to the window. Could she see her? It was fascinating,
with people still laughing and shouting in the drawing-room, to watch that old
woman, quite quietly, going to bed. She pulled the blind now. (Woolf, 1925)
In this paragraph appear two elements that interrupt Clarissas moment of being: the
lady across the street and the clock. The flow of ideas is not linear at all and Clarissas

60

thoughts seem those of a confused woman. Should she care for the lady or for the sky? It
is fascinating indeed to watch the old lady but her coming in the room does not have this
purpose. The time is for the sky to raise her above the reality that killed Septimus. She
wanted a moment of peace, a moment of being while she could think about the beauty of
life and the guilty happiness of being alive. She does not pity that young man, she is
happy he committed suicide but she feels guilty because she must assemble, go back to
them, those from that polarized society that had caused his death.
Every time a moment of being leads to a state of revelation, a disturbing element like
the clock striking brings back the reality.
The clock began striking. The young man had killed himself; but she did not pity
him; with the clock striking the hour, one, two, three, she did not pity him, with
all this going on. There! the old lady had put out her light! the whole house was
dark now with this going on, she repeated, and the words came to her, Fear no
more the heat of the sun. She must go back to them. But what an extraordinary
night! She felt somehow very like him--the young man who had killed himself.
She felt glad that he had done it; thrown it away. The clock was striking. The
leaden circles dissolved in the air. He made her feel the beauty; made her feel the
fun. But she must go back. She must assemble. She must find Sally and Peter.
And she came in from the little room. (Woolf, 1925)
Moments of being are very much related and interconnected with space, be it a room or
London itself. The fact that Clarissa feels the need to open the windows before
experiencing such an exquisite revelation is a strong proof of how London influences her.
First of all, London reinsures her lost equilibrium at the party. Too many memories, too
many people from the past and too many people responsible for Septimuss death in that
room. There she has to be the perfect wife and hostess, here is herself; here in the little
room, in front of her window, London lets her be.
On the other hand, Sally Seton (an old friend from the nineties with whom Clarissa fell
in love) does not have the role of interrupting a moment of being but creating one.
Clarissas thoughts travel to Sally through metaphors of movement, most often exotic
ones. She is described as an extraordinary beauty of the kind she admired, dark, largeeyed, with that quality which she always envied; a sort of abandonment, as if she could
do anything (Woolf, 1925). When Mrs. Dalloway sees her at the party, the moment of
being she experiences is closely related to one of self-awareness and the source of this
extraordinary feeling, described in overtly sexual terms, is pleasure in certain moments
with women (Littleton, 1995: 48).
She did undoubtedly then feel what men felt. Only for a moment; but it was
enough. It was a sudden revelation, a tinge like a blush which one tried to check
and then, as it spread, one yielded to its expansion, and rushed to the farthest
verge and there quivered and felt the world come closer, swollen with some
astonishing significance, some pressure of rapture, which split its thin skin and
gushed and poured with an extraordinary alleviation over the cracks and sores!
Then, for that moment, she had seen an illumination; a match burning in a crocus;
an inner meaning almost expressed. (Woolf, 1925)
Moments of being occur in the minds of the characters who experience life at the

61

moment and are a sudden awareness of union with the miraculous fact of being itself, a
melting away of conscious thought, a reverie (Littleton, 1995: 38). Even though Clarissa
is only half-aware of these moments, the important consideration about Being is not
what or how but rather that it is. She does not appreciate London for what it is
(sometimes noisy and irritating) but simply because it is; her appreciation depends only
on experiences of being.
Street haunting for moments of being
Another excellent example of a moment of being is offered also in the essay written in
1927, Street haunting: A London adventure, where the simple action of buying a pencil
is regarded as an opportunity for indulging in the greatest pleasure of town life in winter
rambling the streets of London (Woolf, 1927). The essay dictates that, for such a walk,
the hour should be the evening and the season winter, for in winter the champagne
brightness of the air and the sociability of the streets are grateful (ibid.). Outside, the
writer feels free not only to ramble, but to be herself. Even if the reason for going out is
to buy a pencil One must, one always must, do something or other; it is not allowed
one simply to enjoy oneself the author easily leads us into another action: to go in
search of a person and to see the whole breadth of the river Thames wide, mournful,
peaceful () through the eyes of somebody who is leaning over the Embankment on a
summer evening, without a care in the world (ibid.). The opposition between close and
open space is present in the essay; only after one closes the door But when the door
shuts on us does one become open to a greater receptiveness and its enormous eye
has the power to reveal things that inside are sinking into oblivion:
How beautiful a London street is then, with its islands of light, and its long groves
of darkness, and on one side of it perhaps some treesprinkled, grassgrown
space where night is folding herself to sleep naturally and, as one passes the iron
railing, one hears those little cracklings and stirrings of leaf and twig which seem
to suppose the silence of fields all round them, an owl hooting, and far away the
rattle of a train in the valley. (Woolf, 1927)
If in the episode described in A sketch of the past as a definition for moments of
being we have only visual elements, in this one Virginia Woolfs power of accurately
describing determines us not only to imagine a picture but also hear the stirring and
hooting sounds.
Throughout the essay the author allots to the eye a wide range of attributes and powers: it
rests only on beauty like a butterfly it seeks color and basks in warmth, it is sportive
and generous, it creates, it adorns and it enhances. But the thing it cannot do (one is
speaking of the average unprofessional eye) is to compose these trophies in such a way as
to bring out the more obscure angles and relationships (Woolf, 1927). Therefore, the
eye, or the central oyster of perceptiveness as Woolf calls it, seems to be unable to
move beyond surfaces like simple squares or avenues but the person haunting the streets
has the power to manipulate and master it. And it does so in such a way that the
landscape starts revealing symbolic episodes of city life: a dwarf trying on shoes; the
sudden encounter with a hungry, poverty-stricken man and woman; the fantasies
spawned by the goods displayed in Oxford Street; the innumerable tales contained on the
shelves of a secondhand bookshop; an overheard conversation; the sight of two lovers on
a Thames bridge; a quarrel in a stationer's shop in the Strand (Squier, 1985: 46).

62

In Street haunting the anonymous vastness of the modern city is deplored and pausing
in a second hand bookshop becomes for the narrator a moment of regret that the number
of books in the world is infinite, and one is forced to glimpse and nod and move on after
a moment of talk, a flash of understanding, as, in the street outside, one catches a word in
passing and from a chance phrase fabricates a lifetime (Woolf, 1927).
Similar to the walk from Street haunting is another one presented in Oxford Street
Tide, the second essay from the series of six entitled The London Scene, where the
primary perspective is that of an appreciative observer (Squier, 1983: 493). The stroller
in this essay transforms the moment of being in a description more than a revelation, like
in Street haunting or Mrs. Dalloway. The observer is impressed with the variety of
finished goods, and even more impressed by the attitudes towards life they exemplify
(ibid.). The appreciative observer not only captures the street as a manifestation of the
urban spirit, but he/she values its tide of stimulating shock and change as a glittering
show of economic modernity (Sarker, 2001: 9). Moreover, Oxford Street represents a
synesthetic delight: the mind becomes a glutinous slab that takes impressions and
Oxford Street rolls upon it a perpetual ribbon of changing sights, sounds and
movements (Woolf, 1975: 17). The palaces, represented as fanciful structures, seem to
establish a new type of pleasure; it is not offering the illusion of permanence as the
nobles wanted but a new creative innovative spirit of the street vendors, the new
democratic crowds: The charm of modern London is thatit is built to pass. Its
glassiness, its transparency, its surging waves of coloured plaster give us a different
pleasure and achieve a different end from that which was desired and attempted by the
old builders and their patrons, the nobility of England (ibid. pp 19-20).
Moments of being represent not only an innovative technique in modern fiction and in
Woolfs work, but a way of describing and presenting London city as a place full of
moments of intense power and beauty which transform those experiencing them. They
have a great importance in analyzing the city, because such moments of being helped
Woolf in decoding feelings into words and through her words we understand and see the
London of her period better.
Virginia Woolf loved London, as only one who knows it intimately can be said to love a
city. She hated it too, at times; which is only another proof that she knew it thoroughly.
Her knowledge of it came from her tireless tramping of its streets at all hours, riding on
the tops of buses or threading the mazes of the underground railway, talking and listening
to people in shops and restaurants, to blind beggars or street singers. Every writer is
influenced, at a point in life, by her or his surroundings at a lower or higher extent. But
Woolf did not respond to her city as a common writer and observer. For her, London was
not only a birthplace or a place where she lived most of her life. She recorded the details
of her life, analyzed and reinterpreted them in moments of being or perfect settings for
her novels. In Mrs. Dalloway she did not only celebrate London but portrayed and
criticized a society segregated by class and gender. Undoubtedly, Clarissa Dalloways
greatest quality and strong resemblance to its creator, Virginia Woolf, is maybe her
continued loyalty for London. They both remain faithful to the city and they trust its
power to adjust to changes in such a way that it does not harm but protect its inhabitants.
It perpetually offers moments of joy and when they seem to reach the end another one
sprouts up from pseudo-monotony. In Street haunting: A London Adventure the simple
action of buying a pencil is regarded as an opportunity for indulging in the greatest
pleasure of town life in winter rambling the streets of London and outside, the writer

63

felt free not only to ramble, but to be herself. In one of her most powerful and accurate
representations of London, the series of six essays The London Scene, she portrayed
gender and class relations in the modern city, sometimes as opposed to the Victorian city.
All her life, Virginia Woolf enthused about everything surrounding her; she paid a tribute
to nature and rural landscapes, most of the times as opposed to London, and by doing that
she perpetually illustrated her fight against the darker parts of existence. She praised
moments of being in nature and put London on a pedestal among other places she had
visited or lived in. Above all, London did not embody just home but the perfect setting in
her works and, for her, the perfect scenery, while creating, offering every time new
experiences, ready to be transformed into words of perfection.

REFERENCES
1.Bloom, Harold (ed.) (1990). Major Literary Characters: Clarissa Dalloway, New
York: Chelsea House Publishers.
2.Froula, Christine (2005). Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Avant-Garde: War,
Civilization, Modernity, Columbia University Press, New York.
3.Lamont, Elizabteh Clea (2001). Moving Tropes: New Modernist Travels with Virginia
Woolf, Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, American University in Cairo from:
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5002434194 (visited on 2010/03/12).
4.Pippett, Aileen (1955). The Moth and the Star: A Biography of Virginia Woolf, Boston:
Little, Brown and Company.
5.Sim, Lorraine (2005) No ordinary Day: The Hours, Virginia Woolf and Everyday
Life,
in
Hecate,
Vol.
1,
Issue
1,
Hecate
Press
from
:
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5037579349 (visited on 2010/03/12).
6.Squier, Susan Merrill (1985) Virginia Woolf and London. The Sexual Politics of the
City, The University of North Carolina Press.
7.Squier, Susan Merrill (1990) Carnival and funeral, in Bloom (171-182).
8.The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2008, Bloomsbury group from:
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-Bloomsbury.html (visited on 2010/04/16).
9.Todd, Pamela (1999) Bloomsbury at Home, New York: Harry N. Abrams.
10.Urquhart, Nicole L., Moments of Being in Virginia Woolf's Fiction, from:
http://writing.colostate.edu/gallery/matrix/urquhart.htm (visited on 2010/04/17).
11.Woolf, Virginia (1925). Mrs. Dalloway, A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook,
from: http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200991h.html (visited on 2010/04/17).
12.Woolf, Virginia (1927). Street Haunting: A London Adventure, Woolf Essays, A
Project
Gutenberg
of
Australia
eBook,
from:
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200771.txt (visited on 2010/04/18).
13.Zemgulys, Andrea P. (2000). Night and Day Is Dead: Virginia Woolf in London
Literary and Historic, in Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 46, Issue 1, Hofstra
University.

64

Go for Comenius!
Prof. Alina CREU
Colegiul Tehnic Petru Muat, Suceava
Prof. Monica LEPCALIUC
Colegiul Tehnic de Industrie Alimentar, Suceava
Key words: Comenius, course, Exeter, communication, Queen.
Do you feel like renewing your teaching methods and materials? Are you fed up with the
traditional approach of teaching? Do you want to catch a glimpse of the British culture
and civilization for real? Well, you are just a click away from all of these.
For us, it was just a matter of trying our luck on the ANPCDEFP official site, we just
followed the instructions provided and we eventually discovered our names on the
winners list. We were about to forget to tell you that the course was on Developing
Oral Fluency in English Language Classroom (Secondary) which took place in Exeter,
Devon under the guidance of two wonderful and energetic teachers from the International
Project Centre (IPC). And if you think that during our stay there we were the slaves of
the ever tiresome routine home school, you cant be more wrong. It was quite the
opposite as our schedule was filled with activities such as: trips to the Dartmoor National
Park, Tintagel (the legendary birth place of king Arthur), Thomas Hardys county,
research sessions both on the field and within the host family and, of course, the after
course meetings that necessarily took place in a pub. Having met fellow teachers from
Turkey, Spain, France, Italy and Latvia helped us discover that we do not only share an
interest in teaching English and in the British culture and civilization, but also that we are
all part of the big European family.
The course was designed for teachers of English that want to enliven their classes with
communicative activities focusing on the British history and culture, on developing
spoken language, as well as on role plays on social problem solving. Another way of
communicating was via the language of music and dancing to which everybody
contributed with their traditional way of celebrating life.
Our favourite task, though, was to bring forth a glimpse of the Devon family and
surroundings which gave us the occasion to get a closer look into their universe. It was
wise to choose to stay with a host family since we chatted a lot about British bits and
pieces, from Lady Diana to fish and chips and from ghost stories to charity events. We
were amazed to find out how involved the British are in all kinds of activities that are
meant to raise money for the unfortunate. Over the years, our host family have supported
a number of different charity cases such as Commando Challenge. Though it seems a
childlike game, it takes quite a lot of time (15 months) to organise the event that only
lasts for 2 days per year. Next to the 10,000 charity organisations in the UK, this is by far
the biggest fund raiser event in the country as they manage to raise up to 300,000 pounds.
The entire experience we have had can be put in simple words with a clear message: a
teacher can never say Ive learned enough. As teachers of English, we cant stop
developing ourselves, establishing connections and making the most of our second

65

language. You should also bear in mind that if you step on British land, you might as
well bump into the most well known figure as we fortunately did: the Queen.

We would like to share one of our favourite activity that can be turned into a fearful
competition between groups of students during an English class.

66

United Kingdom & Ireland: FACT or FICTION?

All but 12 of these statements are TRUE!
1. 90 per cent of the population of the UK have television in their homes.
2. Daily Newspapers sell 422 copies per 1000 people in the UK, the highest rate in
the world.
3. The world's first ever postage stamp was issued in Britain on 1st
May 1840.
4. It is illegal to place a postage stamp bearing the British monarch
upside-down on an envelope.
5. Nothing officially happened in Britain between 3 and 14
September 1752.
6. The most popular drink in Britain is tea.
7. There are more sheep than humans in England.
8. Two nicknames for British police, bobbies and peelers, come from the founder of
the Metropolitan Police, Sir Robert Peel.
9. A town in North Wales is named
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.
10. Ben Nevis in Scotland is the highest mountain at 1,343 metres.
11. Exeter Cathedral is the largest Anglican Cathedral in
Britain.
12. The highest lake is Loch Morar in the Highlands of
Scotland.
13. Glasgow is built on an extinct volcano.
14. Edinburgh was the first city in the world to have its own
fire brigade.
15. Titanic was built in Liverpool.
16. It is traditional for visitors to eat strawberries and cream whilst they watch the
tennis at Wimbledon.
17. Christmas carols were banned in England between 1647 and 1660.
18. In 1879 Blackpool was the first place in the world to have electric street lighting.
19. There are over 1000 pubs in the city of Dublin.
20. It rains about 250 out of 365 days a year in Ireland.
21. London Underground is the oldest underground system in the
world.
22. London is home to over 200 museums.
23. Buckingham Palace has over six hundred rooms.
24. Harrods in Britain installed the first lift in 1878.
25. London has about 50000 surveillance cameras around the
city.
26. The World Toe Wrestling Championships take place at the Bentley Bridge Inn in
Derbyshire every July.
27. In Ottery St Mary Devon on 5th November, people race through the streets
carrying flaming wooden barrels of burning tar on their backs.
28. The most expensive shoes were sold at Harrods in London for $1 million.
29. Prince Charles and Prince William never travel on the
same aeroplane just in case there is a crash.
30. A mud wrestling contest officially takes place on
Cathedral Green in Exeter on the 3rd Saturday in July.

67

United Kingdom & Ireland: FACT or FICTION?

Auction
Aim

To bring out some facts in the British and Irish culture and civilization
which students might otherwise not have studied.

Language

A variety of statements on British and Irish history, geography, everyday

life.

Preparation Ask students what they would do with $ 1,000,000 if they won it in a
competition. Tell them that they are going to have the opportunity to win
up to $ 1,000,000 by taking part in an auction quiz, and all the questions
are on the British and Irish culture and civilization.
Procedure

1. Divide students into teams of four or five students. Each team should
choose a name for themselves. Write the names of the teams on the board
and draw a column under each name. Ask the teams to designate one
leader that is to write the answers on the board when the thinking time is
up.
2. The teacher can choose the amount of questions to be answered, but no
less than 15. Each statement is worth a certain minimum amount of
money, which is set by the teacher. The teams can bet more on certain
statements if they are certain on the answer. For each correct answer they
win money and the amount they can win gradually increases. Yet, if they
have wrong answers, the amount of money placed on those questions is
lost.
3. Hand out the copies to the teams and allow them 5-10 minutes to look
over the statements. You can either read aloud each statement and give the
teams 20 seconds to choose the right answer and write it down, or you
can allow them a longer amount of time, say 15-20 minutes, to decide
upon the answers and place higher bets.
4. Ask the representative from each team to come up to the board with
their answers. Then check the answers with the whole class. The team
representatives fill in the columns on the board with the amounts of
money won for each correct answer.
5. The winners are the team with the most money.

Idea

The teacher can make a cheque for the winners and write the name of the
winning team, as well as the amount of money won in the auction.
United Kingdom & Ireland: FACT or FICTION? Answers
All but 12 of these statements are TRUE!

1. 90 per cent of the population of the UK have television in their homes. X 96

68

2. Daily Newspapers sell 422 copies per 1000 people in the UK, the highest rate in
the world. X 322 copies per 1000 people in the UK, the eighth highest rate in
the world
3. The world's first ever postage stamp was issued in Britain on 1st May 1840.
4. It is illegal to place a postage stamp bearing the British monarch upside-down on
an envelope.
5. Nothing officially happened in Britain between 3 and 14 September 1752. True
as Britain changed from the old Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar.
6. The most popular drink in Britain is tea.
7. There are more sheep than humans in England. X But there are more chickens.
8. Two nicknames for British police, bobbies and peelers, come from the founder of
the 'Met' Police, Sir Robert Peel.
9. A
town
in
North
Wales
is
named
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.
10. Ben Nevis in Scotland is the highest mountain at 1,343 metres.
11. Exeter Cathedral is the largest Anglican Cathedral in Britain. X Liverpool
12. The highest lake is Loch Morar in the Highlands of Scotland.
13. Glasgow is built on an extinct volcano. X But Edinburgh is.
14. Edinburgh was the first city in the world to have its own fire brigade.
15. Titanic was built in Liverpool. X Belfast
16. It is traditional for visitors to eat strawberries and cream whilst they watch the
tennis at Wimbledon.
17. Christmas carols were banned in England between 1647 and 1660.
18. In 1879 Blackpool was the first place in the world to have electric street lighting.
19. There are over 1000 pubs in the city of Dublin. X Over 600
20. It rains about 250 out of 365 days a year in Ireland. X About 300
21. London Underground is the oldest underground system in the world.
22. London is home to over 200 museums.
23. Buckingham Palace has over six hundred rooms.
24. Harrods in Britain installed the first lift in 1878. X The first escalator
25. London has about 50000 surveillance cameras around the city. X 500000
26. The World Toe Wrestling Championships take place at the Bentley Bridge Inn in
Derbyshire every July.
27. In Ottery St Mary Devon on 5th November, people race through the streets
carrying flaming wooden barrels of burning tar on their backs.
28. The most expensive shoes were sold at Harrods in London for $1 million. X 1.6
million
29. Prince Charles and Prince William never travel on the same aeroplane just in case
there is a crash.
30. A mud wrestling contest officially takes place on Cathedral Green in Exeter on
the 3rd Saturday in July. X Completely untrue

69

Narrating Nature
Prof. Anca Dscliuc
Colegiul de Art Ciprian Porumbescu, Suceava
I had not been introduced to the field of ecocriticism before beginning my degree in
literature. My initial encounter was one of excitement and curiosity - this was a fresh new
way of looking at literature and I felt inspired and ready to make this my primary field of
study. Yet, along with the excitement, there came some frustration. As I delved into early
ecocritical texts and conversations, I felt limited and contained. Ecowritings have always
captured my interest and fueled my scholarly undertakings, yet they were largely absent
from the ecocritical scope. I worried that if I truly wanted to pursue ecocriticism, I would
have to become a Thoreau scholar. I could do that only by demonstrating that his
writings could in fact be read ecocritically. And by reading his works, the field of
ecocriticism itself is forced to self-reflect and engage in more richly nuanced
understandings of literature and nature. Because this realisation was so instrumental in
my scholarly pursuits, I wanted to write a thesis that reviews the evolution of
ecocriticism and its connection with environmental justice. Thus, the first chapter of my
thesis will explore ecocriticisms beginnings and its initial rejection of postmodern theory
and will provide readers with the opportunity to examine how human interactions with
the environment reflect cultural, political, and spiritual values in America.
Ever since its formal inception in the 1990s, the field of ecocriticism has experienced
dramatic growth and significant changes. The term ecocriticism was coined in 1978 by
William Rueckert in his essay Literature and Ecology: An Experiment in Ecocriticism.
Interest in the study of nature writing and with reading literature with a focus on green
issues grew through the 1980s, and by the early 1990s ecocriticism had emerged as a
recognisable discipline within literature departments of American universities. Such a
young field has attracted scholarly attention, praise and criticism as the words
environmental crisis are heard more often in more places and the twenty-first century
looks to be a time of excitement and challenge for ecocriticism. Although the early 1990s
are seen as the formation of the field, the idea of ecocriticism had already been explored
by scholars in various articles. But it was the publication of Lawrence Buells The
Environmental Imagination in 1995 and Cheryll Glotfeltys and Harold Fromms
collection, The Ecocriticism Reader, in 1996 that solidified ecocriticism and gave
scholars a foundation. A community was created around one major focus: literature and
the environment. Frustrated with literary theorys lack of engagement with environmental
issues, scholars like Glen A. Love and Lawrence Buell called on colleagues to take
nature seriously, advocating a return to realism as a way to engage with the natural world
through literature. Other ecocritics agreed and responded by privileging realism, personal
narrative and nonfiction over other genres, believing that realistic depictions of nature
and experience would ultimately reconnect people with the environment.
Since it is a new area of study, scholars are still engaged in defining the scope and aims
of the subject. Cheryll Glotfelty, one of the pioneers in the field, has defined ecocriticism
as the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment, and
Laurence Buell says that this study must be conducted in a spirit of commitment to
environmentalist praxis. This study, it is argued, cannot be performed without a keen

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understanding of the environmental crises of modern times and thus must inform
personal and political actions; it is, in a sense, a form of activism. Many critics also
emphasise the interdisciplinary nature of the enquiry, which is informed by ecological
science, politics, ethics, women's studies, Native American studies and history, among
other academic fields.
While ecocritics study literature written throughout history and analyse its relationship to
the environment, most scholarship has focused on American and British literature from
the 19th and 20th centuries. The 19th century especially saw a number of developments
in literature that ecocritics view as significant. American and British Romantic writers
took a particular interest in nature as a subject; Victorian realists wrote about
industrialisation, which was changing the natural landscape; explorers and natural
historians began to write about newly encountered places and wildlife; pioneers and other
travellers wrote of their experiences with an emphasis on setting. Probably the most
defining work of nature writing and the ecologically oriented work that has been the
subject of most literary analysis is Henry David Thoreau's Walden (1854). This classic of
American literature is a poetic narrative describing the two months the author lived in a
small cabin in the woods near Walden Pond, in Massachusetts. In his work, Thoreau
observes all around him with a keen eye and a philosophical spirit, describing the
ordinary but remarkable creatures and happenings he encounters in the natural world and
discussing the meaning of living in harmony with nature and one's soul. Numerous critics
have argued that the American tradition of nature writing stems from Thoreau's
masterpiece. Another landmark American nonfiction work about nature was Ralph
Waldo Emerson's Nature (1836). This essay is the writer's statement on the principles of
the philosophy of Transcendentalism, which he describes as a hypothesis to account for
nature by other principles than those of carpentry and chemistry. In this work, Emerson
talks about the mystical unity of nature and urges his readers to enjoy a relationship with
the environment.
Whereas ecocriticism had its official beginnings as a discipline in the 1990s, important
critical essays that fall into the ecocritical mold appeared as early as the 1800s, many of
them responding to works by writers such as Thoreau and Emerson. Two important
books of criticism from the midtwentieth century include Henry Nash Smith's Virgin
Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth (1950) and Leo Marx's The Machine in
the Garden (1964). The latter work examines the tension between the pastoral and
progressive ideals that characterised early 19thcentury American culture and is
considered a classic text in American studies. Such pioneering works show that
ecologically oriented criticism is not a new phenomenon but, like the literature it
analyses, is a response to the urgent issues of the day.
Both as a way of reading texts and as a theoretical approach to culture more generally,
ecoliterature is thought-provoking; it is a plea for simplicity, it is thickly allusive to the
illusion of progress and it challenges inherited ideas and practices in the reading of
literature and culture. As critics have pointed out, one of the reasons that ecocriticism
continues to grow as a discipline is the continued global environmental crisis.
Ecocriticism aims to show how the work of writers concerned about the environment can
play some part in solving real and pressing ecological concerns. At the dawn of the new
millennium, the whole globe is facing urgent issues like global warming, resource
shortage, rainforest destruction and species extinction, all indicating the end of nature.
Myriads of physical as well as mental problems are emerging due to the environmental

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crisis. If we wish to pass on a safe and healthy world to children, then protection of
environment will be the issue of immediate concern. It is a common perception that the
relationship between man and nature is twofold. Hence, there is an utmost need that our
children must be made aware regarding the present state, protection and preservation of
the environment.
In a nutshell, this paper is an attempt to emphasise how ecowritings can enhance
environmental literacy, how ecoliterature can motivate people to get engaged with the
environment and develop their knowledge of environmental concepts. Teachers can
encourage their students to go through the books about environmental literacy and tell
them about the messages which these books have for the humanity. Therefore,
ecoliterature can be an effective tool for teaching about the environment and promoting
environmental consciousness. Moreover, it aims at fostering responsiveness and
encouraging people to actively participate in environmental protection activities.

REFERENCES
1.Buell, Lawrence (1995). The Environmental Imagination, The Belknap Press of
Harvard University Press.
2.Glotfelty, Cheryll & Fromm, Harold (1996). The Ecocriticism Reader, University of
Georgia Press.
3.Schneider, Richard J. Thoreau's Sense of Place: Essays in American Environmental
Writing (American Land & Life), Foreword by Lawrence Buell.

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The Image of the American West

in Willa Cathers Novels and Short Stories
Prof. Tinela Corina NASTASI
Colegiul Naional Mihai Eminescu, Suceava
Teaching English has always been a challenge and something different from what the
other subjects suppose in matter of textbooks and presence of auxiliary materials. This
fact is due to English being present everywhere on the internet, on TV, mobile phones
and other gadgets. Due to its accessibility and obvious widespread use it is not difficult to
make students aware of its necessity. Still the acquisition of this foreign language cannot
be some random activity played by the ear, without any rigorousness or discipline.
English in what it defines at its core is more than a tool to access information and news
items. It is the means by which one finds out about at least two countries, two worlds,
two civilizations: the USA and the UK not to mention the other English speaking
countries.
Hereby the objective of my paper for obtaining the First Degree (gradul 1) is to offer an
insight into the American civilization and literature through a literary representative that
is the writer Willa Cather and then transfer some of her ideas into teaching English
classes. When one mentions the USA there are a multitude of concepts that cross his/ her
mind: the American dream, The New World, the Land of Possibilities, the Forerunner of
the Democratic Political System, the Freedom of Speech, The New Man, the Salad Bowl,
the Melting Pot and The American Frontier. All these notions should be part of a
students knowledge background and the only way that one can acquire them is at school
during the English classes. Therefore the paper The Image of the American West in
Willa Cathers Novels and Short Stories deals with one of these realities as I consider it
of the utmost importance in defining the American spirit characterized by overcoming the
limit or the boundaries, just like the first settlers.
The first chapter puts emphasis on Willa Cathers life and literary creations and
highlights those novels (O Pioneers!, The Song of the Lark, My Antonia, One of Ours)
and short stories (the collections: The Troll Garden, Youth and the Bright Medusa,
Obscure Destinies) which can be considered pages of a history book of the American
civilization.
Uprooted from a well-ordered life in Virginia when she was nine, Willa Cather came of
age in the West during the last years of the American frontier. She developed a love for
the beauty of the open grassland and an abiding interest in the Old World customs of her
neighbors, the dreamers and builders who inhabit her fiction.Willa Cather writes about
immigrants, the building blocks of the brave new world cast adrift in magnificently
described landscapes; thwarted artists and lost souls yearning for freedom from a pitiless
existence or sometimes just their own nature.
The American Frontier - the second chapter is a theoretical presentation of this principle
seen as the immigrants continuous struggle with natures hardships and the latters
power to adapt and continue despite all the obstacles encountered in their way. All these

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characteristics can be found in Willa Cathers works as her literary creations are nothing
but the embodiment of the American West.
However, the third chapter has a different perspective. It tries to emphasize the
importance of the four skills in teaching English (writing, reading, speaking and
listening) by taking Willa Cathers works as a source of inspiration for activities in the
classroom.
Literature, unfortunately, has always been overused in foreign language classes as a
reflection of real language and starting point for grammar drills, vocabulary practice and
topics for discussion. Little by little, though, this source turned into an artificial chunk of
language. English textbooks presented authors and literary periods that students had
difficulty in grasping as their centre of interests has changed. The times have evolved or
on the contrary, who knows, and so have the English speaking materials present in
schools. Still literature, in my opinion is a rich goldmine for teaching. The paper The
Image of the American West in Willa Cathers Novels and Short Stories brings back
the forgotten advantages of using literature in the English classes.
To conclude the paper The Image of the American West in Willa Cathers Novels and
Short Stories can be considered a methodological suggestion for English teachers in
order to show them how their classes can turn into something creative, fulfilling and
original. It pinpoints the importance of using literature through active methods in the
classroom where the learners independence is encouraged and the teachers role is to
stimulate, supervise and lead discussions as Willa Cathers novels and especially short
stories can offer manifold options for writing, reading, speaking and listening tasks for
intermediate, upper-intermediate, advanced and proficient students.

REFERENCES
1.Arnold Marilyn (1984). Willa Cather's Short Fiction, Athens: Ohio University Press.
2.Bennett Mildred (1957). Early Stories of Willa Cather, New York: Dodd, Mead.
3.Baym Nina, (General Editor). (2003). The Norton Anthology of American Literature,
Sixth Edition, American Literature between the Wars 1914-1945, volume D, W.W.Norton
& Company, Inc.
4.Billington, Ray Allen & Ridge Martin (2001). Westward Expansion, A History of the
American Frontier, Martin Ridge.
5.Cather, Willa. Letter to Zo Akins. 13 September 1932. Huntington Library, San
Marino CA.
6.Cather, Willa (2008). My Antonia, Oxford University Press.
7.Cather Wiila (1995). Obscure Destinies, Oxford University Press.
8.Cather Willa (2008). O Pioneers!, Oxford University Press.
9.Clark, Thomas D. (1975). The Great American Frontier. A story of Western
Pioneering, Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc.
10.Conrad E. Ostwalt Jr. (1990). After Eden- The Secularization of American Space in
the Fiction of Willa Cather and Theodore Dreiser, Associated University Presses, Inc.

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