Name : Sulis Viana

NIM : E1D019198
Class : 5TP-3
CRITICAL RIVIEW
Critical review: Michael McCarthy’s book, ‘Discourse Analysis for Language Teachers’.
Cambridge Language Teaching Library (Extract from chapter 5: Spoken Language).
This article aims to describe the types of spoken language for English Language teaching.
Spoken language’ types considered to be varied and complex particularly to the country which
its first language is not English. To implement the spoken language type in the subject, such
speaking class, it is crucial to comprehend these types of spoken language. Some types of spoken
language which mostly used when handling speaking class or discussion are; adjacency pairs,
exchange, turn-taking, transaction & topics, interactional and transactional talk, stories,
anecdotes, jokes, other spoken dis-course types, speech & grammar. It is found that adjacency,
turn-taking, and exchange were the most implemented types during the presenting speaking in
the class. It is resolved that the vary the types applied in the class, the more the knowledge and
classroom’s situation would be delighted.
In the article Spoken Language, Michael McCarthy Michael frankly explains the shortcomings
that exist in each branch of the content of the material presented, such as on the exchange, the
writer said that “when teacher apply the method, many teachers also tend to do a lot of the
talking in classrooms with an emphasis on whole-class teaching in National strategies. These
language interactions will be repeated often in many class-room but they do not in themselves
help bilingual children to develop the linguistic repertoires they need to learn curriculum
subjects. Bilingual pupils need opportunities to engage in genuine dialogue with other pupils and
teachers if they are to develop their understanding of how language is used for different purpose
and how these differ in different areas of the curriculum”.
In his article, Michael emphasized that each sub-topic presented has its own advantages and
disadvantages. In addition to discussing exchange, Michael also explained the lack of turn-
taking material, even Michael emphasized that the turn-taking method should not need to be
taught because it will experience overlaps in its application. But specific linguistics realizations
can be presented and practiced and significant culture differences can at least be pointed out to
the learner. supported by several sources who say that If a learner is not able to take turns
during interactions, they may interrupt the other person who is speaking or may not actively
listen. the learner who struggles with turn-taking in social situations may also experience
trouble building friendships in class.
The author explains that the purpose of the article is to explain key concepts in the field of
discourse analysis and to show how they can be used to analyze recorded spoken narratives from
native English speakers. The use of spoken texts such as spoken narration is more significant
and interesting for students to understand how spoken modes function in real contexts.
However, Michael had difficulty in collecting spoken texts because according to him, it was
rather difficult to get an appropriate narration.
In this article, the author has explained the explanation well, because the discussion has been
divided into smaller sub-sections, making it easier for readers to understand the contents of the
article. However, in the introduction/beginning of the article, the writing is not so good, because
the author does not provide a detailed explanation to the readers about what will be discussed in
the article. Because if the reader reads the introduction to the material to be discussed, then the
reader will get an overview of the writing.
This article has described the types of spoken language for English Language teaching, the
writing in this article has been good, although some points still need improvement, namely the
content in the material presented. Even so, the shortcomings in writing this article are not so
clear because the author has covered these shortcomings with a neat presentation of the material,
and the weaknesses of some materials were immediately responded to by the author by providing
several solutions to minimize these shortcomings. And we can see at the end of the material,
Michael provides some additional references for readers so that readers can easily find more
detailed information about the material from some of the references that have been provided.