RESEARCH FOCUS 25 ‘Type oflerter ae ““Functioniiwsration =f Lamguage form TEmuiryfor goods | If your prices are competitive we muy place considerable orders with | Conditional ou clause equestforinsarance) Ifyou can afer compeiive rats, we wil consider Turer polices — | Condiionall quomtion svth you on our other interests clause Order Tihs order is satsucorly executed we sal place Turner business Conditional with you clause Tigi for goods | As we usually place vary large ders we would expecta quantity Causel anse discount Requestfor insurance As we willbe mung regular shipments we wondered ifyou could | Causal dase quoution arrange open cover for $ 60,000 against al iss AAs shown in the above table certain language features could be profitably studied together for several types of letters, either belonging to the same genre or to different genres. This could raise the awareness of both teachers and leamers to the features different letter types have in common and make the learning process more efficient and challenging References 1. Ashley, A. 1991, 4 Handbook of Commercial Correspondence. Oxtort: Oxford University Press. 2. Eckersley, C.E, and W. Kaufmann 1970, Fnglish and American Business Letiers. London: Longman, 3. Hollinger, A. 2001, Conéributions to a Genre Analysts of Business Letters, Bucharest: Cavalliot. An Eclectic Approach to Teaching English Modal Verbs Sabina STANILA “"Politehnica" University, Bucharest Introduction Protagonists of (grammatical) form’ and advocates of (communicative) ‘function’ have long been debating (on what seems to be the basic issue when teaching grammar: do we teach our students how to analyse the language or do we teach them to use the language effectively? Due to the previous teaching experience, at the time modem languages were first introduced into the school curriculum in the 19th century, they were taught in the same way as the classical languages: through the grammar-translation method. The main concem of this method was with written texts, ‘Teachers were concerned with making their learners adhere strictly to the rules of English grammar in the production of written sentences. Intercultural oral contacts were so Tare that the thought that learners might wish to use the foreign language in written or spoken communication never seemed to cross their minds. The emphasis was on the written forms of the language for the simple reason that the main objective of learning a foreign language was getting access to another culture in its written aspect. The demand for teaching/learning the spoken forms of the foreign language emerged when the number of personal contacts between members of the trading profession and private citizens in Europe increased through improved rail and ship, and then air transport facilities, particularly in the second half of the 20th century. This led to important methodological changes in the teaching/learning of foreign languages, which consisted in an ever-increasing emphasis on communication, in both oral and written form. In the current paper, T intend to show how an eclectic approach, ie. using techniques belonging to PROSPER Issue no. 14, May 200226 RESEARCH Focus different methods (the grammar-translation, the audio-lingual and the communicative approaches) would be beneficial to teaching and acquiring the English modal verbs. The Traditional Methods From one level of proficiency to another, lessons on modal verbs taught in accordance with the principles of the Grammar-Translation and the Andio-Lingual methods look monotonous and boring, solely relying either on some text that is read aloud by students and then ‘dissectect linguistically by the teacher, or on mechanical drills and decontextualized tinslation. On first reading some texts that were written by Romanian authors of textbooks in the 1970s, one can hardly escape the feeling of awkwardness, in the sense of artificiality. In one of them (Stefanescu-Dragdnesti, et al. 1972: 139) we find a kind of Platonic «ialogue on modal verbs and their meanings, which has no less than four parts and six pages. Why antficiality? Because itis hardly plausible that two friends or colleagues should chat about modal verbs and their grammatical features, Of course, the authors meant well hy introducing such texts and they perhaps ‘wanted to provide some context for modal verbs, some starting point for their study. But they failed to do 0, equating the context (a real-life situation) with an artificial situation, and the starting point with the siudy itself The outcome is an extremely long,and boring text that can hardly capture the interest of even the most analytically-mninded students. Another important drawback of this traditional way of reaching/leamning is that it does not imply the student-stucent interaction and communication, which is vital for modal verbs, for we shall Further see that itis through modal verbs that the vast majority of language functions are accomplished. On the other hand, the two approaches have certain aspects, which could prove very useful when applied in a flexible way. Thus, by focusing on accuracy through mechanical drills, the audio-lingual method (usually associated with the structural description of language as a set of grammatical patterns) facilitates the internalization of the structure, which modal verbs usually need due to their idiosyncrasy and irregularity. Translation, 100, is one of the techniques which, used in a reasonable way, can be tumed to good account, as it helps focus on the meaning and gives learners the opportunity to see how the same English structure may take various Romanian forms and the other way round, ‘The Communicative Approach ‘Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) lays emphasis on the use of language for commnunication and hence on language function, because, say the theorists of this approach, when we communicate, we wse the language to accomplish some function, such as arguing, persuading, or promising Blundell et a. (1982) list 140 language functions. Out of them only 27, such as saying you are pleased / relieved / excited / bored etc, greeting, saying goodbye, responding to thanks/to general good wishes, accepting an offer/an apology, etc. are not realized by means of modal verbs. A conclusion would seem 10 he that in English modal verbs are essential to communication, to performing the communicative functions of the language. Moreover, in each functional section the various expressions are grouped into formal and informal, Modal verbs have been noticed to occur more frequently under the formal heading, their use being one of nuancing, of softening a request, of dissitmulating purposes, etc CLT offers the following advantages: 1. introduces all skills in an integrated way and some may argue that it gives more prominence to oral communication, 2. It lays emphasis on communication (hence on fluency) through its three features: ‘© Information gap —a person knows something that the other person doesn’t ‘© Choice—of the speaker as to what he/she will say and how © Feedback ~ the speaker can evaluate whether or not his/her purpose has been achieved basedl upon the information he/she receives from the listener.RESEARCH FOCUS 7 Role-plays, which are mostly helpful in practising the deontic meanings of modal verbs (and therefore shaping a certain kind of hehaviour) usually evince all these features 1. It makes use of authentic materials, which allows students to distinguish between various types of texts (for instance political, legal or advertising) in which modal verbs occur. 2 The lessons are more entertaining, captivating, as they imply students’ interest and involvement in what they are doing, 3. Ihuses realsife situations where students are required to weigh advantages and disadvantages, solve a problem or make a decision, eg, Advamtages/Disadvantages of running a fast-food restaurant You have to work all day. You can earn a lot of money. (pre-intermediate) In spite of al its advantages, CLT has a number of drawbacks that cannot be overlooked: 1. It emphasises fluency over accuracy, which is why, students can often speak easily but fail to write correctly. 2. Ttemphasises functions over structures, although both are important. 3. Communicative activities produce a lot of noise, and inexperienced teachers may lose control over the class and ruin the lesson, which might discredit the approach altogether. 4. As for the real-life situations, within the limited context of the classroom, a lot of their ‘naturalness’ is suppressed. ‘A Common Core Useful for an Eclectic Approach ‘The purpose of comparing these methodological approaches is to see how they complete each other and how we could make good use of techniques belonging to all of them. The complementarity of the three aMATAS GREK STAMP SHON ANAT TAM ANTS, ‘Grammar Translation approach ‘Audio-inigaal approach ‘Communicative approach Reading and translating (literary texts) | Structure Development of all Writing (essays) Accuracy (to be attained | _ communicative skills Accuracy (to be attained through through mechanical Function knowledge of grammar rules) | _ drills) Fluency Teacher control ‘Teacher control Student autonomy | The way the teachers would resort to the various techniques proposed by the three views in teaching the ‘modal verbs largely depends upon a number of factors such as: the students’ level of proficiency, their age, whether or not there is a textbook at hand, etc. Their being complementary hints at one possible and reasonable hypothesis; an eclectic approach, ie. using activities that are considered to be suitable, irrespective of the fact that they belong to one or another methodological approach, The Grammar-Translation, as well as the Aucio-Lingual Methods are often viewed as outdated. However, many textbook writers have reconsidered their techniques and adapted them to communicative purposes As far as modal verbs are concerned, the fillin-the-blanks exercise has become common practice during lessons, Mechanical drills, oo, are a necessary condition for controlled practice. But they should constitute only the first stage, being afterwards supplemented with and replaced by meaningful activities and production exercises, This is particularly true for ESP, where, as Hutchinson and Waters point out, authors are looking for “more interesting ways of handling pattern practice” and uying “to provide a ‘meaningful context for the drills” (1990: 41). Translation is another technique that can be used especially when dealing with advanced students, Set in a relevant and/or enjoyable context, it will increase the learners’ motivation (see Headway, Upper-intermediate). PROSPER dssuc no, 14, May 200223 RESEARCH FOCUS To overcome the typical problem that students cannot transfer what they leam in class to the outside ‘world and to expose students to natural language in a variety of situations, teachers need to resort to zuthentic materials and tasks. To avoid undesirable, demotivating effects, teachers should adapt the level cof the task to suit the students level, Some authors recommend that materials should be abridged in some ‘way or another. Others advise teachers to grade the tasks, especially in classes with mixed levels of Language games are enjoyable and if they are properly designed they can give students valuable communicative practice. The only obvious disadvantage is that some games can be very noisy and there is the risk of losing control, which I have already mentioned. Role-plays are very important for the social context and roles they set up; they can be more controlled (the teacher provides the students with role cards, including useful language) ot less so (students are given ‘identities and a situation, and they add details to their roles and decide what they will say). ‘Modal verbs being among the structures that lend themselves to an eclectic approach, important for every teacher to strike a balance between the different methods. In other words s/he should pick and choose those techniques, be they traditional or communicative, that are the best or seem more appropriate for hisher purposes and that should correspond to the factors mentioned above. Rather than fully embrace only one approach, the teacher could profitably try to borrow from the different approaches only the advantages they offer, this being in accordance with their complementatity, Bibliography - Blundell, J., Higgens, J., and N, Middlemiss 1982. Function in English, Oxford: OUP Hutchinson, T. and A. Waters 1990. English for Specific Purposes ~ A learning-centred approach, ‘Cambridge: CUP . Soars, L. & J. and J. Devoy 1998. New Headway, Upper-Intermediate, Oxford: OUP Stefinescu-Draginesti, V., Nicolescu, A. and V. Hanea 1972. Limba engleed ~ Curs Practic, Bucharest: Editura $tiinyifica Designing an Intensive Business Letter Writing Course for Graduate Students Maria ENACHE, Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest 1. Introduction ‘The aim of this article is to present a Letter Writing course which I designed for a group of graduate students in Business English. The group included both people who were already working in different companies, and some very recent graduates with no work experience. The students who were already ‘employed. proved to be more familiar with business correspondence formats than those who had just gaduated. On the other hand, both categories were familiar with e-mail and the Internet, due to free ‘access to their university/company computer network, ‘The main goal of the Business English Letter Writing course was that of developing relevant skills in the learners, integrating language and professional sills, to help them become better communicators in their fature/current work environment in the business world. As the course was meant to integrate the four