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ACTIVE SKILLS FOR
COMMUNICATION
Caroline Bond
ACTIVE SKILLS FOR
COMMUNICATION
ACTIVE SKILLS FOR
COMMUNICATION
Caroline Bond
Active Skills for Communication
by Caroline Bond
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Contents
Chapter 1 Content-Based Language Instruction 1
Chapter 2 IELTS Impact on Study 22
Chapter 3 Applied Linguistics 43
Chapter 4 Sentence Combining on the Writing 54
Chapter 5 Grammar as Resource for Learning 72
Chapter 6 Grammatical Change 91
Chapter 7 Grammar: Teaching and Learning 112
Chapter 8 Grammatical Forms and Constructions 131
Chapter 9 Listening English Pronunciation 148
Chapter 10 Silence and Word 164
Chapter 11 Reflective Listening 170
Chapter 12 Speech, Language and Listening 191
Chapter 13 Speaking and Listening 203
Chapter 14 Reading and the English Language 259
Chapter 1
Content-Based Language Instruction
CONTENT BASED
Content based instruction (CBI) is a teaching method that
emphasizes learning about something rather than learning about
language. Although CBI is not new, there has been an increased
interest in it over the last ten years, particularly in the USA and
Canada where it has proven very effective in ESL immersion
programmes. This interest has now spread to EFL classrooms around
the world where teachers are discovering that their students like
CBI and are excited to learn English this way.
In a continuing effort to meet the academic needs of the growing
number of ESL students in institutions of higher education, many
ESL programmes have reexamined their traditional goals of mainly
providing students with “general English proficiency and the ability
to interact effectively in social situations”. Adamson argued that,
“If students are to develop appropriate academic skills before they
leave the ESL programme, it seems reasonable that these skills should
be taught in connection with real academic material in a setting with
native English speakers”. One approach to addressing these and
other academic needs of ESL students is by means of content-based
instruction (CBI).
CBI can be defined as the “concurrent teaching of academic
subject matter and second language skills”. There are three basic
models of CBI being used in ESL in higher education: theme based,
sheltered, and adjunct, along with several variations. At the heart
of each of the three models is the study of a subject matter core, the
use of authentic language, texts, and assignments, with adaptations
of materials and teaching approaches and strategies to meet the needs
of ESL students.
2 Active Skills for Communication
Integrating language instruction with subject-matter instruction

is not new nor is it unique to ESL. However, the current focus on
CBI in ESL has evolved over the last two decades as a result of: (a)
developments in second language acquisition theory that have
demonstrated the importance of both comprehensible input and a
learning environment that reduces the student’s level of stress, as
well as the existence of two types of language proficiency, one
needed for communication in everyday, informal settings and the
other needed for success in an academic setting, and which takes
considerably longer to acquire (perhaps 5-7 years); and (b) various
studies that have documented that even upon successful completion
of their ESL coursework, college students do not feel adequately
prepared for subsequent mainstream, academic coursework. In the
discussion that follows, the three major types of CBI used in ESL
instruction are described briefly followed by some variations on these
three models.
TYPES
Sheltered Model
Sheltered and adjunct CBI usually occurs at universities in
English L1 contexts. The goal of teachers using sheltered and adjunct
CBI is to enable their ESL students to study the same content material
as regular English L1 students. Sheltered CBI is called “sheltered”
because learners are given special assistance to help them understand
regular classes. Two teachers can work together to give instruction
in a specific subject. One of the teachers is a content specialist and
the other an ESL specialist.
They may teach the class together or the class time may be
divided between the two of them. For example, the content specialist
will give a short lecture and then the English teacher will check that
the students have understood the important words by reviewing
them later. This kind of team teaching requires teachers to work
closely together to plan and evaluate classes. It has been used
successfully at the bilingual University of Ottawa, where classes are
taught in English and French.
Adjunct Model
Adjunct classes are usually taught by ESL teachers. The aim of
these classes is to prepare students for “mainstream” classes where
Active Skills for Communication 3
they will join English L1 learners. Adjunct classes may resemble EPA
or ESP classes where emphasis is placed on acquiring specific target
vocabulary; they may also feature study skills sessions to familiarize
the students with listening, note taking and skimming and scanning
texts. Some adjunct classes are taught during the summer months
before regular college classes begin, while others run concurrently
with regular lessons.
Theme Based Model
Theme based CBI is usually found in EFL contexts. Theme based
CBI can be taught by an EFL teacher or team taught with a content
specialist. The teacher(s) can create a course of study designed to
unlock and build on their own students’ interests and the content
can be chosen from an enormous number of diverse topics.
Theme Based CBI Differ from Sheltered and Adjunct Models
Theme based CBI is taught to students with TEFL scores usually
in the range 350 to 500. These scores are lower than the TEFL 500
score which is often the minimum requirement for students who
want to study at universities in English L1 contexts. Because of the
lower proficiency level of these students, a standard “mainstream”
course, such as “Introduction to Economics” will have to be
redesigned if it is to be used in a theme based EFL class. For example,
complicated concepts can be made easier to understand by using
posters and charts.
Materials for Theme based CBI
There are textbooks that can be used for theme based CBI classes
which usually contain a variety of readings followed by vocabulary
and comprehension exercises. These can then be supplemented with
additional information from the Internet, newspapers and other
sources.
However, another approach is to use specially constructed source
books which contain collections of authentic materials or simplified
versions.
These can be about a particular theme such as drug use or care
of the elderly, or about more general topics. It’s possible to create
some really interesting classroom materials as long as the need for
comprehensibility is not forgotten.
The Flesch-Kincaid test is one method of measuring the

readability of writing. Difficulty is assessed by analyzing sentence
length and the number of syllables per word. Put simply, short
sentences containing words with few syllables are considered to be
the easiest to read. The Flesch-Kincaid test can also be used to assess
the difficulty of texts for EFL students. For students with scores
below TOEFL 500, Flesh - Cinched scores in the range 5.0- 8.0 are
appropriate.
However, far more detailed research needs to be done in the
area of assessing student responses to the readability of adapted
materials. For example, the Flesch-Kincaid test assumes that passive
constructions are more difficult for students to understand than
active ones; however my own preliminary investigations have shown
that removing passive verbs and replacing them with active ones
does not necessarily make the students feel that the text is any easier
to read.
Theme Based CBI Be Assessed
A theme based CBI course should have both content and
language goals. Student progress can then be assessed when classes
are underway. Continuous assessment is effective. Daily quizzes can
be used to check that content information is getting through to the
students and that they are remembering important vocabulary.
Longer tests may also be given at mid-term and at the end of the
term.
Journals are also a useful diagnostic tool. Students can be given
time at the end of each class to write a summary of the content of
the lesson or to answer a specific question given by the teacher.
Another useful exercise is to allow the students to write freely on
any topic; teachers can then read their work and assess their progress
indirectly.
Direct oral feedback during the classes can be useful as long as
we are mindful of the proficiency level of the students; it’s all too
easy to forget how difficult it is to speak a foreign language in front
of classmates.
THEME-BASED ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE
Theme-based approaches to language learning have been used
for a long time in foreign language education) and are increasingly
popular in ESL programmes. Theme-based ESL instruction is

principally concerned with developing second language competency
while focusing instruction on a theme or series of topics such as the
family, the environment, society, and so on.
Theme-based courses are popular because they “can be used
effectively with students at any English proficiency level if the
students are homogeneous enough in interests or motivation to
permit thematic exploration”. The courses engender discussion,
develop critical-thinking and study skills, and lend themselves to
reading and writing development through the study of texts,
newspaper and magazine articles, and other written materials.
Theme-based ESL courses are generally not credit bearing.
Sheltered Content Instruction
Another form of CBI is sheltered content instruction. In this
model, second language learners are grouped in a content class such
as biology or history, and native speakers of the language are not
permitted to register for that section. The course is taught by a
language instructor who is responsible for teaching both the subject
matter and language skills.
However, the focus is on mastery of the subject matter. Sheltered
classes are designed to meet the needs of intermediate to high
intermediate ESL students and at the college level are generally
credits bearing. Classes can be “sheltered” in any number of ways
including extending a content course from one to two semesters,
providing extra time for instruction, attaching a tutor to the course,
and carefully selecting a linguistically appropriate text.
The advantages of the sheltered model are that ESL students
can be provided with linguistically appropriate instruction, do not
have to compete in the same classroom with native English speakers,
and will not be intimidated by the latter.
Adjunct Language Instruction
The adjunct model as used for ESL instruction involves the
pairing of two courses. One is a credit-bearing content-area class
(such as science or literature) in which both native English speakers
and ESL students can enroll. The course is taught by a subject-area
teacher. Paired with this content-area course is a sheltered language
class. It is taught by an ESL professional, and the ESL students who

are taking the content-area course must enroll in it.
Depending on the institution, they may or may not receive
academic credit for this sheltered course. The content and
assignments in both courses are closely coordinated and meant to
complement each other. As a result, the adjunct model requires a
willing interaction and coordination between instructors in different
disciplines and across academic units.
The adjunct model focuses on both content mastery and language
learning, with the language instructor of the paired, sheltered course
reinforcing language skills as well as sometimes helping the students
to master the subject matter. The model is generally used with
learners with high to advanced English proficiency skills.
Linking courses in this manner “integrates the language
curriculum with the academic language demands on students in their
other university courses”. However, compared to the thematic and
sheltered models of CBI, the adjunct model “may be administratively
more difficult to arrange” because it requires cooperation between
instructors in distinct disciplines and may present more scheduling
difficulties.
Variations on Content-Based Instruction
Variations on the three major types of CBI have been
implemented to meet the academic needs of specific groups of
students. For example, in the “bridge model,” a course is designed
to prepare ESL students for a particular subject or content-area
course: “A bridge course commonly uses readings and introduces
vocabulary and themes that will subsequently be covered in detail
in the subject area course for which it lays the groundwork”. Thus,
a bridge course combines both the sheltered and thematic CBI
models.
Along similar lines, Kasper offered a variation of the adjunct
model that involves the linking of an ESL reading course with a
specific academic discipline (e.g., psychology). The ESL instructor
uses readings from psychology in the ESL reading class. As a result,
the students’ reading skills are developed through study of the
content area. This variation on the adjunct model is effective when
the ESL instructor has the requisite background in the subject-matter

area.
New Approaches
The quest to find better approaches to the teaching of ESL
continues. New approaches are often tried and found to be
successful; others are tried and abandoned because they do not
advance language learning. In the material that follows, we describe
two of the newer approaches to ESL instruction.
Fluency First
The fluency first approach to language learning is based on the
work of Mayher, Lester, and Pradl, who suggested that teachers
should focus language learning on the sequential order of fluency,
clarity, and correctness. The fluency first approach is based on the
idea that students need massive exposure to English to acquire
sufficient proficiency to succeed in their college classes.
Reading extensively, writing large amounts of text, and getting
abundant feedback lead to student writing that is fluent, clear,
correct, and effective in communicating. MacGowan-Gilhooly and
Rorschach adapted this three-stage model to the ESL Programme at
the City College of New York (CCNY), and according to MacGowan-
Gilhooly.
It has worked at CCNY and elsewhere, in credit and non-credit
courses, linked and un-linked. And there is potential for it to work
in EFL [English as a Foreign Language] classes as well, especially
because it is a “fun” way to learn English, pleasure being the grand
motivator.
Computer Technologies
Computers are making a major impact on the teaching of ESL
in colleges and universities in the United States. Many ESL
programmes have their own computer facilities or access to them
on their campuses. Instructors are using the many capabilities of this
technology in their classrooms as a tool for language teaching, using
word processing programmes for teaching writing, the Internet to
access information and to conduct research, computer-assisted
language learning (CALL) programmes for individualized or group
work, CD-ROM capability to help students practice speaking and
pronunciation, and authoring programmes that allow instructors to
design their own materials.
By means of the Internet students and ESL instructors can

exchange electronic mail (e-mail), obtain access to distant libraries
and other databases, subscribe to lists, discussion groups, electronic
journals, and other electronic sources of information, transfer files,
and participate in distance learning.
Numerous publications about the applications of the computer
to ESL instruction are available. In addition, two other present further
information on this topic. Warschauer and Meskill describe in
considerable detail the uses of technology for second language
teaching and learning, Smoke and Rosenthal list and describe various
Web sites, electronic discussion groups, journals, and so forth, that
are related to ESL instruction.
These “new” approaches to ESL instruction demonstrate that the
field of ESL continues to evolve as we strive to find more successful
ways to motivate our students and to help them learn English.
Misunderstandings about English as a Second Language
Although the teaching of ESL has seen growth and has become
better known in the United States, there are marked areas of
misunderstanding about what ESL means and what it entails. For
the purposes of clarification, we address three of these issues next:
• One area of misunderstanding about nonnative speakers of
English is the role of their first language in the acquisition
of the English. As Cochran’s classification scheme previously
illustrated, nonnative speakers of English who are studying
ESL not only have varying degrees of literacy skills in their
first language but also a range of abilities and skills in
English. Research indicates that the higher the academic
literacy skills are in the first language, the easier it is to
transfer such skills into learning a second language. Though
most of this research is focused on young children, the
research done on adults suggests similar outcomes.
However, the transfer of literacy skills from one language
to another by adults is a complex process involving
intervening variables such as educational experiences and
cultural literacy practices in the native language, as well as
economic and time constraints, and social factors. In
addition, depending on the student’s native language, there
may be similarities in grammatical rules and structures that
can be easily transferred to the target language, in this case
English. Just the fact that a student literate in one language
knows that there are rules governing languages may make

it easier to learn a second language.
• There are a number of areas of misunderstandings when
comparing ESL and foreign language (FL) learning and
teaching. For example, there are contrasts in the pedagogical
approaches used to teach ESL and FL in higher education
as well as differences in the context in which they are taught.
Exposure to FL is generally limited to a classroom, which
affects the quantity of exposure and/or contact time in the
language. Most likely, students who study a FL for the first
time do not have “fossilized” errors — incorrect linguistic
features that have become a permanent feature of a second
language learner’s production, for example, “Mary study
everyday” (incorrect use of third-person singular). However,
the ESL learner is immersed in the target language, in and
out of the classroom, and depending on previous exposure
to the target language may have developed nonstandard
usage and acquired errors that must be unlearned. Thus,
the factor of environment or context contributes to the
differences in the goals established by ESL and FL
programmes.
With FL instruction, often the goal is to prepare the student
for “academically oriented communication”. What this
means is that oral communication is limited to the
situational context, grammar is taught in a structured
manner, the native language is used as its baseline (i.e.,
vocabulary and structures in the foreign language are
compared to those in the students’ native language), and
the reading of classical literature in the target language may
be an ultimate goal. In ESL, the first goal is having the
learner achieve communicative competence and then to
develop academic proficiency in English that will enable
the student to successfully perform college level works in
the target language.
Finally, in comparing FL and ESL instruction the role of
motivation needs to be considered. Motivation plays a major
part in language learning for adults and may be affected
by learner attitudes, experiences, and cognitive abilities.
Generally speaking, college students study foreign
languages in order to satisfy an academic requirement or
to achieve some personal goal. Motivation can vary widely
from enthusiasm for learning another language to
dissatisfaction for being required to take a language they
believe they will never use. In ESL, however, students may
be motivated by the desire to integrate into the new society
(if they are immigrants or recent arrivals), to pursue a career,

or to achieve some personal goals. As a result, students in
many cases have more reasons or stronger motivation for
persisting in their ESL studies.
• A third and particularly troubling misunderstanding about
the teaching of ESL is related to its perceived status when
compared to foreign language instruction. Administrators,
teachers, students, and the public generally regard the
learning of a foreign language and its associated culture
(and/or literature) as the learning of a “prestige” language.
In contrast, the study of ESL is often compared to remedial
instruction in English that is provided to students who do
not have the academic credentials to be in college.
However, remedial language teaching is instruction
designed to increase the level of achievement of a native
language learner in his or her first language so that it meets
expected norms. Generally, when speaking of remediation
in college, the reference is to basic skills remediation
(reading, writing, and math) in English for high school
graduates who have been exposed to and have been taught
in English all their lives. Students in remedial classes “often
must review work that should have been done in high
school”. The pedagogical approach in remediation is to
build on, refine, and correct those things not learned
properly in elementary, middle, or high school.
In contrast, ESL instruction is given in the students’ second
language, English, and it does not build on, refine, and/or correct
inadequate acquisition or learning of the students’ first or native
language. Rather, English is a language that, in most cases, ESL
students have not been exposed to previously or taught in when
growing up. Thus, one cannot remediate what is not there, and ESL
instruction is not a form of remedial education.
English today has become the international lingua franca used
in commerce, science and technology, diplomacy,
telecommunications, and popular culture and entertainment.
Worldwide, people recognize the importance of knowledge of
English. Thus, many people choose to come to the United States to
study the language and to continue their education in their chosen
fields. Others come as immigrants or refugees seeking a better life
for themselves and their families.
As a result, the number of second language learners in the United
States, in grade school through graduate school, has increased
significantly, especially throughout the last 35 years. Hence, the

professionals in ESL in higher education have assisted countless
students from all over the world to achieve their personal and
professional goals through the study of English.
During this period of time, the field of ESL in higher education
has expanded and matured. There has been growth in the variety of
programmes offered, with the missions of the programmes being
tailored to the particular populations they serve. Moreover, there
has been development and growth in the pedagogical approaches
used in ESL programmes.
Now, there is a plethora of print and nonprint materials with
which to teach. And finally, the use of technology in the field,
particularly the computer, has caused another wave of renewal.
There is every hope that ESL will continue to develop as a valued
discipline in higher education in this ever-shrinking world.
Case studies
The four programmes outlined in the following sections give
some idea of the breadth and scope of the teaching of ESL in colleges
and universities in the United States.
Case Study #1: Kean University: An English as a Second
Language Programme Housed Within an English Department
Kean University (Union, NJ) is a state university offering both
bachelor’s and master’s degrees. It enrolls over 9,500 undergraduate
and more than 1,800 graduate students. Kean students are often the
first in their family to attend a college/university, and many hold
part- and full-time jobs while enrolled in school. The student body
at Kean is both culturally and linguistically diverse. Its ESL
Programme is housed in the English Department.
The ESL Programme began in the late 1960s when a member of
the faculty in the English Department, Professor Nancy Brilliant,
observed that students whose first language was not English were
having considerable difficulty in the required freshman composition
course. She suggested to the chair of the English Department that
these students be placed in a separate section where they would
receive the extra help that they apparently needed.
At first, Professor Brilliant informally sought students from
colleagues in the department. However, over time it became evident
that a multilevel English as a Second Language programme was

needed for nonnative speakers of English. Demand for ESL
instruction continued to grow, especially in the 1970s, when Kean
initiated its dual language programme for native Spanish speakers
(the “Spanish Speaking Programme,” which is described by
Rosenthal), and the Exceptional Educational Opportunity (EEO)
Programme began accepting students whose first language was not
English. Gradually, the ESL Programme became institutionalized,
receiving the support of the administration, and over time, the ESL
course offerings at Kean have evolved into the programme that is
described herein.
Kean’s ESL Programme is designed “to help students whose first
language is not English to achieve a degree of competency in English
that will enable them to successfully complete a baccalaureate
programme at the University.” Enrollment in the ESL Programme
is open to those students who have been admitted to Kean. In other
words, the programme does not accept nonmatriculated students.
Approximately 500 students — representing 56 different
countries and speaking a total of 41 different languages — participate
in the programme each fall and spring semester. The majority of the
students, about 72%, are Hispanic. (A smaller ESL programme is
conducted during the summer, mainly for students in the EEO
programme.) Most of the ESL students are immigrants or the sons
and daughters of immigrants. However, the ESL programme also
serves a small number of international students on F-1 visas.
After students are admitted to Kean, they are given the ESL
Placement Test, which consists of a writing sample, a reading test,
and an oral interview. Based on the test results, as well as additional
information provided by the students on a form that they fill out,
they are placed in one of four ESL levels.
On each level there is a six-credit core course. The core courses
on Levels 1 and 2 are comprehensive skill courses and carry
institutional credit but no credit toward graduation. These are
beginning and low intermediate courses, respectively. The core
course on Level 3 is a pass-fail high intermediate prefreshman
composition writing course that carries six credits toward graduation.
Finally, there is the Level 4 course which is a six-credit graded

freshman composition equivalent.
Students must earn a grade of “C” or better to successfully
complete ENG 1400. ENG 1400 also provides a “bridge” to Landmarks
of World Literature (ENG 2203), a required general education course
for all Kean students. Thus, besides advanced expository writing,
ENG 1400 introduces students to background information and
vocabulary that they may encounter in Landmarks. Moreover, the
students also are exposed to techniques of text and character analysis,
and they practice writing about literature.
In addition to the four core courses, there are satellite courses
offered on each level. However, credits earned in these courses do
not count toward graduation:
• On Levels 1 and 2, the courses are in listening and
pronunciation: ESL 0102, Pronunciation I; ESL 0103,
Listening Skills I; ESL 0202, Pronunciation II; ESL 0203,
Listening Skills II.
• On Level 3, the satellite courses are in vocabulary
development and conversation: ESL 0302, Vocabulary
Development I; ESL 0303, English Conversation.
• On Level 4, the satellite course is in vocabulary
development: ESL 0402, Vocabulary Development II.
For the more advanced ESL students, Kean’s ESL coursework is
becoming increasingly content based. For example, on Level 4 there
is another graded course, ENG 1403, Investigative Skills, which carries
three academic credits. This is a sheltered course taught by an ESL
instructor and is equivalent to GE 2020, Inquiry and Research, a
required general education core course that all Kean undergraduates
must take.
The ESL Programme also has paired a selected section of ENG
1400 with GE 1200, Intellectual and Cultural Traditions of Western
Civilization, and another general education course required for all
Kean undergraduates. Finally, as of this writing another pairing has
been discussed, that of the third level ESL core course with a
mathematics course.
A student can earn a total of 15 credits toward graduation in
Kean’s ESL Programme. Furthermore, in addition to the courses
previously described, there are two noncredit writing workshops,
one between Levels 2 and 3 and one between Levels 3 and 4 (ESL
0304, English as a Second Language Writing Workshop II) for those

students who need extra writing practice.
The ESL Programme at Kean University is located in the English
Department in the School of Liberal Arts and is headed by a director
who reports to the chair of the English Department. It has its own
staff, assistant director, academic counselor, secretary, graduate
assistant, and its own budget.
Full-time faculty members hired to teach in the ESL Programme
(of whom there are presently four) are tenured in the English
Department and must have a doctorate in Applied Linguistics, ESL,
or a related area. Adjuncts who teach ESL (approximately 25 each
semester) must have a master’s degree in TESL or a related field. At
Kean, it is not a requirement that ESL instructors be native English
speakers.
University of California, San Diego: English Language Programme
The University of California, San Diego (UCSD), is part of the
nine-campus University of California system, one of the largest
university systems in the world. The English Language Programme
(ELP) at UCSD began in 1980 and has been expanding in size and
scope since that time. It has the same organizational structure as all
ELPs in the University of California system: It is part of Extension,
more formally known at UCSD as Extended Studies and Public
Programmes.
UCSD’s ELP focuses on providing intensive English language
instruction in all skill areas — reading, writing, listening, and
speaking — for international students. Most of the students are
studying in the United States on student visas and eventually will
return to their home countries.
At present, they represent 46 different countries and speak 27
languages. Students admitted to the ELP do not have a direct
admission track to the undergraduate or graduate programmes at
the University of California. However, UCSD content courses are
available to qualified ELP students and carry transferable university
credit.
The ELP operates on a schedule of four 10-week quarters per
year with an enrollment of approximately 300 to 370 students per
quarter. Intensive instruction is provided at 11 levels, from beginner

to near-native English proficiency. There is a minimum of 20 hours
of instruction per week, divided into 10 hours of a comprehensive
core class plus 10 additional hours of elective classes.
The appropriate core class for each student is determined by
placement tests, which include an in-house oral interview and writing
sample plus the Comprehensive English Language Test (CELT)
grammar and listening tests.
The core classes meet for 2 hours each day and cover all central
language skills. The elective list includes Business English, Film,
American Culture, American Music, Idioms and Slang, and many
more. In these 10-week electives, students continue studying English,
but the focus is on the particular topic or theme of the course. Other
possible choices for the elective slots are preparation for the Test of
English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and the Test of English for
International Communication (TOEIC).
Finally, there are also elective courses in Conversation, Grammar
Development, Everyday English, and Listening, that is, more general
courses that continue to work on language development. In addition
to the 10-week programmes, there are also 4-week programmes
specializing in Business English, Medical English, Academic English,
and Conversation.
These are intensive English courses, again focusing on the content
in a particular area. Moreover, 10-week programmes in Travel and
Tourism and Engineering Management have been added (which are
content-area courses that earn continuing education credit); 3-month
certificate programmes in Marketing, Business Management, and the
U.S. Legal System are also offered. The ELP at UCSD also provides
contract short-term programmes for various overseas colleges,
universities, and corporations from time to time.
UCSD’s ELP is an intensive English programme and a member
of AAIEP. The programme is headed by a director and has its own
budget. Included in the programme are an academic coordinator,
17 full-time instructors, 25-35 part-time instructors, and 6 full-time
and 2-5 part-time office staff.
Instructors are required to hold an M.A. in TESL or in a closely
related area and also must have very extensive and diverse
experience. There is no tenure; contracts are renewable annually.

Instructors do not have to be native speakers of English but must
have native speaker proficiency in all language skills.
New York University: The American Language Institute
Another type of ESL programme in higher education is an
institute that is part of an academic institution. An example is the
American Language Institute (ALI), School of Continuing and
Professional Studies at New York University (NYU). Located in New
York City, NYU is the largest private university in the United States.
The ALI is a member of AAIEP and UCIEP.
The ALI was started in 1945 by Mendor T. Brunetti who had
founded the foreign language programme of NYU’s General
Education Division in 1930. Today, the Institute provides a
comprehensive programme of English language instruction,
evaluation, and advisement, including an orientation to the many
cultures of the United States. The Institute is designed to serve NYU
students for whom English is not their first language and addresses
two distinctly defined audiences:
• International students who have matriculated (or will soon
matriculate) into the University’s (or other metro-area
colleges’) undergraduate or graduate programmes and
whose primary English concerns are academic,
• Other metro-area international students of continuing
education whose primary English language purposes are
driven by career and professional concerns.
Presently, the ALI serves 1,200 students from 75 countries; 54%
are Asian, 25% Central and South American and Caribbean, 17%
European, 3% Middle Eastern, and 1% African. Nearly half of the
Institute’s students are NYU degree and diploma candidates. They
register for ALI courses — both credit and noncredit — through one
of the 13 schools and colleges of NYU, such as the College of Arts
and Science, the School of Education, and the Robert F. Wagner
Graduate School of Public Service.
Two hundred more ALI students are holders of student visas
who are in the United States solely for the intensive study of English.
The remaining ALI students — business people, diplomats, tourists,
and so on — come from metropolitan New York’s ever-growing
international community.
All ALI students take the ALI English Diagnostic Test including
sections on grammar, listening comprehension, composition, and
conversation. The test is the property of the ALI. The test results are
expressed in terms of (a) Ranks on a 100-point scale that correspond
to ALI course offerings and (b) six English proficiency levels
reflecting a student’s ability to meet the English language demands
of coursework at an American college or university.
On each of the six levels, there is a description of proficiency in
terms of writing, reading and vocabulary, listening comprehension,
and speaking. The Chart of English Proficiency Levels was developed
by and is the property of the ALI.
The Institute offers a 20-hour-per-week Intensive Programme in
American English and Orientation (to American culture) for students
who wish to learn English in the shortest possible time. If the
student’s English proficiency is rated as limited (Levels 1, 2, 3) on
the ALI proficiency chart, intensive (22 hr/wk) or comprehensive (9
hr/wk day; 6 hr/wk evening) English courses that are not credit
bearing are recommended.
If the proficiency rating indicates that the student is ready for
part-time academic study (Levels 4 or 5), University Preparatory
Courses are recommended along with additional regular course
offerings in the university to complete the schedule. University
Preparatory Courses are part of the University Preparatory
Workshop (UPW) Programme, which includes two college
workshops in English and two workshops in oral communication
and comprehension.
Each of the two college workshops in English carries four
academic credits for graduation if registered for through the College
of Arts and Science, the undergraduate liberal arts school of NYU.
These courses help advanced students to master skills essential in
meeting the demands of university work in the United States.
In addition, there is a noncredit programme of advanced
expository writing for students whose English language proficiency
ranks at Level 6 and who still wish to continue working on their
English language skills. Students at Level 6 are considered ready to
enroll in regular full-time undergraduate coursework.
The ALI also offers a programme of courses in business English

for international professionals for Proficiency Levels 4, 5, and 6 or
Ranks 70-80-90. The students within these courses tend to be
nonnative speakers of English who are being promoted within their
companies but find that they do not have the written and oral skills
to make formal and informal presentations in their professional areas.
Moreover, the upper ranks of the 20-hour-per-week intensive
ALI programme include a series of workshops based on content or
themes. These include: theater workshop, a course in reading and
talking about fiction, American language and culture through
movies, a course titled “The New York Times,” and a course
international short stories. Qualified comprehensive programme
students may also attend these workshops if they wish. However,
the workshops are required for Intensive Programme students.
The ALI is administered by a director and assistant director. The
programme has its own budget, which is proposed and administered
by the director. The ALI staff includes an academic coordinator, four
programme coordinators, a foreign student advisor, and international
activities assistant.
Qualifications for full-time faculty are doctorate preferred,
extensive experience in the field of ESL both in the United States
and abroad, publications, and substantial professional development
and activity. Full-time faculty hired in recent years receives Master
Teacher status, that is, a 3-year renewable contract. Adjunct faculty
must have a master’s degree in TESOL or a related field or be in the
final stages of completing the degree.
Many full-time and adjunct faculty have had overseas experience
and have knowledge of one or more foreign languages. Instructors
need not be native speakers of English, but they must demonstrate
native like proficiency, which includes having the rhythms and
intonation of a native speaker.
ESL in a Community College: Miami-Dade Community College
The final case study in this chapter involves Miami-Dade
Community College, the largest community college in the United
States. Miami-Dade enrolls almost 130,000 students and has six
campuses located in and around Miami, Florida. ESL is taught on
all six campuses.
For example, on the North Campus (located in northwest Miami

and which includes two satellites, Hialeah Centre and the
Entrepreneurial Education Centre), the ESL programme began in
1969 as a four-level credit programme enrolling approximately 100
students, most of whom were Cuban refugees. In the 1970s, the
programme was expanded to six levels.
Since then, the programme has grown to serve some 5,000
students per year, mostly Hispanic, a strong minority of Haitians,
and a smattering of other language groups representing more than
30 nationalities. Unlike many other colleges and universities, ESL
has departmental status on all six Miami-Dade campuses.
All students wishing to enroll in Associate’s degree programmes
at community colleges in the state of Florida take the Computerized
Placement Test (CPT) published by the Educational Testing Service
and the College Board. For students at Miami-Dade Community
College whose mastery of English is insufficient to take the CPT,
the Michigan English Placement Test (EPT) is given instead. Limited
English proficient students are then placed in one of the six levels of
ESL based on their EPT scores, a writing sample, and oral interview.
“ESL” is the course prefix given to the two lower levels for true
beginners with no or very little proficiency in English. At these levels,
students are learning English survival skills, basic language
competencies that allow them to meet primary needs such as
shopping for food, doing business at the post office, and so forth.
Next, there are four levels of “ENS” (English for Non-Native
Speakers) at the intermediate and advanced levels. The ENS courses
are more academically oriented than the ESL courses, focusing on
English for Academic Purposes (EAP).
The ENS curriculum is designed for students who have indicated
an intention to pursue higher education in the United States.
(Although institutional credit is earned for ENS courses, these credits
cannot be applied toward the Associate’s degree.) At each of the
four ENS levels, there are courses in writing, reading, grammar,
listening, and speaking. As students progress to Level 5, there are
some options.
Those students who demonstrate oral fluency may be exempt

from the listening/speaking component and may instead take a
mathematics, study skills, or computer course.
In some cases instructors offer courses following a learning
community model. For example, in Level 6, students might be given
permission to enroll in a regular section of Humanities, Social
Environment, or Introductory Psychology along with their native
English-speaking “American” peers.
Supporting the content course is an ENS writing class that
focuses on the development of essays related to the content theme,
and an ENS reading course that utilizes the textbook of the content-
area course as a means to develop reading, study skills, and
vocabulary.
The non-native English-speaking students take the ENS writing
and reading courses as a cohort. The learning communities are a
relatively new initiative. Nonetheless, preliminary research findings
indicate that many of the ENS students are actually having greater
success in the content classes than their native English-speaking
“American” peers.
Many of the ESL/ENS courses have companion laboratory
sections where, with the help of their laboratory instructors and ESL
tutors, the students work with specialized ESL software and audio-
visual materials to improve pronunciation, listening comprehension,
vocabulary, grammar, and general writing and reading abilities.
Upon completing the last ENS level, students take the state-
required CPT. Depending on scores earned, some students place into
Freshman Composition; others who score below the cut-off must
take additional writing or reading courses in the College Preparatory
Department (on some campuses called Basic Communication).
The chairs of the ESL departments on the six Miami-Dade
Community College campuses report to an associate dean of the
Division of Arts and Letters who reports to a campus academic dean.
To teach ENS courses, full- and part-time faculty must have practical
experience with teaching English as a Second Language and a
master’s degree in TESOL, linguistics, or a related field.
If an individual has a master’s degree, but not in TESOL, he or

she must have completed at least 18 graduate credits in TESOL-
required coursework. To teach ESL prefix courses (the beginning
levels of English as a Second Language) instructors must have a
bachelor’s degree in ESL or in a related area plus relevant teaching
experience.
Full-time faculty have tenure and faculty rank. Faculty does not
have to be native speakers of English in order to teach ESL/ENS
courses but must have native like proficiency.
Chapter 2
IELTS Impact on Study
IELTS
This describes the development of data collection instruments
for an impact study of the International English Language Testing
System (IELTS). The IELTS is owned jointly by University of
Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (UCLES), the British
Council, and the International Development Programme (IDP)
Education, Australia. The test is currently taken by around 200,000
candidates a year at 224 centers in 105 countries, most candidates
seeking admission to higher education in the UK, Australia, New
Zealand, Canada, and the United States.
The IELTS is a task-based testing system which assesses the
language skills candidates need to study or train in the medium of
English. It has four modules—listening, reading, writing, and
speaking—all calling for candidates to process authentic text and
discourse.
Following the most recent revision of IELTS in 1995, planning
began for a study of ways in which the effects and the effectiveness
of IELTS could be further evaluated. This project was coordinated
by Nick Saville and Michael Milanovic at UCLES, working in
conjunction with Charles Alderson at Lancaster University, who was
commissioned to help design and develop instrumentation. Roger
Hawkey, co-author of this with Nick Saville, was invited to help
with the validation and implementation of the IELTS Impact Study
from 2000 on.
Washback and Impact

Beyond the learners and teachers affected by the washback of
an examination like IELTS is a range of other stakeholders on whom
the examination has impact, although they do not take the exam or
teach for it. These stakeholders, for example, parents, employers,
form the language testing constituency within which UCLES, as an
international examination board, is located. The IELTS Impact Study
(IIS) is designed to help UCLES continue to understand the roles,
responsibilities, and attitudes of the stakeholders in this constituency.
An examination board must be prepared to review and revise
what it does in the light of findings on how its stakeholders use and
feel about its exams, and it is test validation that is at the root of the
UCLES IELTS Impact Study.
Messick insisted on the inclusion of the outside influences of a
test in his “unified validity framework,” in which “One facet is the
source of justification of the testing, being based on appraisal of either
evidence or consequence. The other facet is the function or outcome
of the testing, being either interpretation or use”. If this is so, test
washback, limited in scope to effects on teaching and learning, cannot
really be substantiated without full consideration of the social
consequences of test use, considered as impact in the earlier
definitions.
Thus, the IELTS Study is about impact in its broadest sense; the
subproject examining the test’s effect on textbooks, which is the focus
of this chapter, is mainly about washback. It is right, of course, that
an impact study of an international proficiency test such as IELTS
should concern itself with social consequences of test use. There is
no doubt that tests are used increasingly to provide evidence of and
targets for change. The implementation of new national curricula
with regular national achievement tests, for example in the United
Kingdom and New Zealand, provide examples of this at central
government level.
Hence, perhaps, the growing concern for ethical language testing.
In tune with increasing individual and societal expectations of good
value and accountability, testers are expected to adhere to codes of
professionally and socially responsible practice. These codes should
provide tighter guarantees of test development rigor and probity,
as manifested by properly defined targets, appropriate and reliable
evaluation criteria, comprehensive, transparent, and fair test
interpretation and reporting systems, continuous validation
processes, and a keener regard for the rights of candidates and other
stakeholders.
In other words, ethical language testing is feasible and test impact
and washback studies can play an important role in ensuring this.
Such studies can also help tests meet some of the even stronger
demands of the critical language testing view. This tends to see tests
as instruments of power and control, as, intentionally or not, biased,
undemocratic, and unfair means of selecting or policy changing, their
main impact being the imposition of constraints, the restriction of
curricula, and the possible encouragement of boring, mechanical
teaching approaches.
For Shohamy, for example, tests are “powerful because they lead
to momentous decisions affecting individuals and programmes….
They are conducted by authoritative and unquestioning judges or
are backed by the language of science and numbers”. Learning from
the impact/washback debate, the UCLES IELTS Study attempts to
take sensitive account of a wide range of the factors involved.
The study thus distinguishes between the effect of tests on
language materials and on classroom activity; it also seeks
information on and the views of: students preparing for IELTS,
students who have taken IELTS, teachers preparing students for
IELTS, IELTS administrators, admissions officers in receiving
institutions, subject teachers, and teachers preparing students for
academic study.
The IELTS Impact Study
The IELTS impact study can be seen as an example of the
continuous, formative test consultation and validation programme
pursued by UCLES. In the 4 years leading to the 1996 revision of
the First Certificate in English exam, for example, a user survey
through questionnaires and structured group interviews, covered
25,000 students, 5,000 teachers and 1,200 oral examiners in the UK
and around the world.
One hundred and twenty receiving institutions in the UK were
also canvassed for their perspective on the exam. As part of the recent
revision of the UCLES Certificate of Proficiency in English (CPE)
exam, the revised draft test materials were trialed with nearly 3,000
candidates in 14 countries. In addition, consultative seminars and
invitational meetings involved 650 participants in 11 countries

throughout Europe and Latin America.
Feedback from all stages of the process was reviewed constantly
and informed subsequent stages of the revision programme. The
recommendations of the CPE revision programme took effect in 2002
with the introduction of the revised examination. In 1995, when
IELTS was introduced in its latest revised form, procedures were
already being developed to monitor the impact of the test as part of
the next review and revision cycle. The study was envisaged as
comprising three phases: Phase One for the identification of areas to
be targeted and development of data collection instrumentation;
Phase Two for the validation and rationalization of these instruments,
and Phase Three for the collection and analysis of impact data.
The initial development work for the Study was completed by
researchers at Lancaster University, under the guidance of Charles
Alderson. During Phase Two, consultants commissioned by UCLES
included Antony Kunnan and James Purpura. UCLES also arranged
data sharing with related studies, including the research by Belinda
Hayes and John Read, and the study by Tony Green at the University
of Surrey, England, of the impact of IELTS-oriented and pre-sessional
English language preparation programmes. The Lancaster team
originally defined the following four subprojects for the IELTS
Impact Study:
1. The content and nature of classroom activity in IELTS-
related classes
2. The content and nature of IELTS teaching materials
(including textbooks)
3. The views and attitudes of user groups toward IELTS
4. The IELTS test-taking population and the use of test results.
Project One, on the context and nature of classroom activity in
IELTS classes, initially involved four draft instruments and associated
procedures: an observation schedule for classroom activity; a
procedure for producing summaries of classroom activity; a
questionnaire for teachers after teaching an observed lesson; and a
questionnaire for students who had just taken part in an observed
lesson.
Early versions of these instruments were submitted for small-
scale trial with staff and students at Lancaster University. More
extensive feedback from individuals with a research interest in
classroom observation was also analyzed, leading to the production
of a final classroom observation and feedback instrument for use in

2002. Project Three, on the attitudes of user groups to IELTS,
originally involved seven questionnaires, developed to explore the
views and attitudes of a wide population of IELTS users, namely:
1. Students preparing for IELTS
2. Teachers preparing students for IELTS
3. Teachers preparing students for academic study (post-
IELTS)
4. IELTS administrators
5. Admissions officers in receiving institutions
6. students who have taken IELTS
7. academic subject teachers
Using proposals from a workshop led by Antony Kunnan in
Spring 1999, pilot data and additional feedback from researchers,
including Tony Green, working on related projects, Roger Hawkey
revised and rationalized the user-group questionnaires.
One of the revised instruments is a modular student
characteristic and test attitudes questionnaire combining
questionnaires 1 and 6 with the test-takers characteristics instrument
from Project Four . A second is a teacher questionnaire (combining
2 and 3 above), the third a rationalized questionnaire for receiving
institutions (covering 4, 5, and 7 above).
The IELTS Test-Taking Population
To supplement information collected routinely on IELTS
candidates, an indepth instrument was developed to elicit
information on learner attitudes, motivation, and cognitive/meta-
cognitive characteristics. In Phase Two of Project Four, this
questionnaire was administered to a range of IELTS candidates and
submitted to Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) for further
validation. Using additional insights from Kunnan, Green’s related
instrumentation for IELTS-takers and EAP presessional course
participants, Roger Hawkey incorporated key elements of the
language learner questionnaire into the modular student
characteristic and test attitudes questionnaire referred to earlier.
In Phase Three of the Impact Study, revised questionnaires were
used on a sample of IELTS stakeholders world-wide (results
compiled in 2002). The process of validation and rationalization in
Phase Two has led to the coverage of the 12 original questionnaires
by four modular instruments.
The Content and Nature of IELTS-Related Teaching Materials

A data collection instrument for the analysis of teaching materials
used in programmes preparing students to take the IELTS is clearly
germane to the focus of this volume on the influence of testing on
teaching and learning.
This section, then, describes the initial design of the draft pilot
questionnaire, its validation through a first piloting, the analysis of
data and first revision, and further validation through an interactive
“mini-piloting” and second revision.
Initial Design of the Teaching Materials Evaluation Questionnaire
In Phase One of the Impact Study, the development of an
instrument for the analysis of textbook materials (IATM) was part
of the UCLES commission to Alderson and his team at Lancaster
University. The initial pilot version of the IATM was developed by
Bonkowski (1996), whose pilot instrument was a structured
questionnaire in eight parts, four on the target textbook as a whole,
four, respectively, on its listening, reading, writing, and speaking
components.
The IATM development phase entailed a number of iterative
cycles, including a literature review, section and item design in
continuous cross reference with the IELTS specifications,
consultations between UCLES staff and researchers at Lancaster,
drafting, trial, and revision (with, typically, six iterations at the
drafting stage).
A major validated source for the various classifications and lists
included in the pilot textbook analysis instrument was the ALTE
development and descriptive checklists for tasks and examinations
(1995).
The IATM was intended to cover both the contents and the
methodology of a textbook and related teaching materials, eliciting
information from teachers using the book through open-ended
comment, yes/no, multiple choice, and four-point scale items. The
items in the first version of the instrument were grouped under the
following headings:
General information: Baseline data on the textbook.
Specific features of the textbook: Items on organization, media,
support materials, assessment; open general-comment section.
General description of contents: Items on topics, timings, texts, tasks,

language system coverage, micro-skills development, test-taking
strategies.
Listening: Sections headed: Input-texts; Speakers; Tasks; items on
listening text length, authenticity, settings, topics, interaction,
interrelationships, accent, turns, syntax, micro-skills and functions,
test techniques and conditions; open comment section on listening
activity content and methodology.
Reading: Sections headed: Input-texts; Speakers; Tasks; items on
reading text length, source, authenticity, topics, micro-skills and
functions, test techniques and conditions; open comment section on
reading activity content and methodology.
Writing: Sections headed: Input; Task; Scoring Criteria; items on
text length, topic, source, exercise task type and length, language
system coverage, micro-skills, test techniques and conditions; open
comment section on writing activity content and methodology.
Speaking: Subsections: Input; Task; Scoring Criteria; items on
interaction, topics, prompt types, exercise tasks, register, exercise
conditions, scoring criteria plus, open comment section on speaking
activity content and methodology.
Evaluation of textbook as a whole and summative evaluation: Items
on level, time pressure, task difficulty, test relationship to IELTS;
open comment section on textbook: test relationship.
Analysis of Data and First Revision
In a paper commissioned by UCLES at the start of Phase Two of
the Impact Study, Alderson and Banerjee noted that lack of validation
is a feature of questionnaires in most fields. They also make a
distinction between piloting—which is often carried out—and true
validation as they understand it—which is rarely carried out. Many
of Alderson and Banerjee’s recommendations on the validation of
instruments were followed, wholly or in part, in the development
of the IATM, in particular, the use of both quantitative and
qualitative validating methods. Bonkowski’s draft IATM was
analyzed through the following pilot and trial data:
• Author instructions for use of the IATM
• Nine full trial IATM textbook rater analyses by trained and practicing
teachers:
a. four raters using the instrument to evaluate a current IELTS-
oriented textbook;
b. two raters using the IATM to evaluate a preparation textbook

for another international proficiency test
c. two raters evaluating a general textbook for upper-intermediate
students;
d. one rater evaluating a further IELTS-preparation textbook
• Two IATM forms edited critically on format by ELT specialists
• Four IATM data summaries by Yue Wu Wang, whose 1997 MA
dissertation, supervised by Alderson, was a study of IELTS washback
on textbooks
• A taped discussion between two raters who had used the IATM to
evaluate textbooks (transcribed in Wang, 1997)
• A recorded interview (with written summary) of two authors
discussing an IELTS-related textbook.
One IELTS preparation textbook was IATM-evaluated by four
different raters. This proved useful for rater consistency analyses,
an important part of instrument validation. Four textbooks were
covered by one or more ratings, two of the books designed explicitly
for IELTS students, one related to another proficiency exam (TOEFL),
and one, a general text for upper intermediate students of English,
not intended specifically for international test preparation. This
provided comparative data for the construct validation of the
instrument in terms of convergent and divergent validity.
The discussion between raters of IATM results and their
interpretations as an appendix to her dissertation) is a further
validation exercise as recommended by Alderson and Banerjee (1996)
to “provide insights into whether problems were caused by the
instrument and raters’ interpretations of wording or the raters’
interpretation of the textbook”. The recommendation that textbook
writers should be contacted was also accepted. A 1998 paper by
Saville “Predicting Impact on Language Learning and the
Classroom” also informed the refinement of the IATM in phases two
and three.
Perhaps the most revealing of the analyses of completed IATM
forms were the returns of the four raters who used the IATM to
evaluate one IELTS-oriented textbook. From these returns, five kinds
of improvement to the IATM were made, through the exclusion,
modification, merging, moving, and supplementing of items. The
responses of the raters were consolidated on to a comparative
analysis form containing all the draft IATM items.
The analyses suggested shortening the first version of IATM,
for example, by the sampling of textbook units rather than covering
all units, by rationalizing and merging checklists and classifications,

and by strengthening the teaching/learning methodology coverage
to include indirect as well as direct test impact on materials.
By common consent of all evaluating the IATM or using it to
rate textbooks, the pilot instrument had been very long. Several of
the users reduced their completion time by resorting to informal
sampling procedures, for example, covering only a selection of the
textbook units rather than all of them. Given that the purpose of the
instrument is to evaluate relationships between textbook materials
and tests in terms of construct, content, level, and methodology, it
would seem unlikely that every text, activity, exercise, or test in every
unit of a book needs to be analyzed. Rater comment, items left
uncompleted by raters, and the wide disparities of views across raters
on elements in the same textbook unit, all suggested some category
and item redundancy.
One Phase Two rater was “not convinced that an adequate
description had been given, ” a dissatisfaction that appeared most
strongly with some of the descriptive or explanatory checklists used
in the IATM. Raters were not clear, for example, whether the term
task used as a major subcategory in the items on listening, reading,
writing, and speaking, referred to communicative assignments or
questions to be answered. Raters anyway felt that the category “task”
overlapped the various micro-skills also specified by the instrument.
The explanation in the draft IATM instructions suggests perhaps
too broad a conceptualization: “(Task) includes both the functional
intent of the exercise or activity, the kind of instructions that are
used, and the type of item or question that the students must answer
or perform.” The pilot IATM returns indicated that some of the
references to “tasks” should be deleted because they overlapped with
test exercises.
The development of linguistic classifications and taxonomies is,
of course, an extremely delicate and complex undertaking. In the
case of the draft IATM, significant rationalizations (and deletions)
were indicated in the various lists and inventories. The aim after all
is to evaluate textbook materials, a primary need thus to clarify and
simplify to help ensure reliable and valid data, not to produce
rigorous and elaborate socio- or psycholinguistic descriptions of
textbooks. Rationalized and merged versions were thus developed
for the IATM lists of: social or academic situations, reading

microskills, speaker relationships, and communicative functions..
Some imbalance of coverage across the draft IATM sections
covering the four skill sections was noted (i.e., listening: 130 items;
reading: 91 items; writing: 69 items; speaking: 55 items). Given that
dividing the instrument into these four main sections inevitably
entailed significant item repetition it was felt that the separate
listening, reading, writing, and speaking sections might eventually
be merged, partially at least.
The analysis of items and of raters’ comments also revealed
somewhat limited coverage of a textbook’s methodological
approaches to the development of target language skills. Here was
another case for review in the next validation step.
Rater comments were often insightful on test washback leading
to test practice, as opposed to test washback leading to particular
learning approaches. One rater distinguished between systematic
skills development and the mere “replication of target behaviour. ”
Another noted an “obvious cross-over” of the skills developed in
one of the books and the “so-called academic skills, ” meaning that
students using the book concerned could respond well, perhaps
“better than those using an IELTS prep book. ” Such revealing
comments suggested that the revised IATM should seek more
systematic information on textbook methods and approaches.
Because rater responses to the open-comment and summative
evaluation sections in the IATM were interesting as elaborations of
and checks on the more quantitative questionnaire data, it was
agreed that space for evaluative comment would be retained in the
revised version of the instrument.
The explicit reference to IELTS in the draft pilot IATM was
questioned by some raters. Yue (1997) suggested that because some
textbooks clearly focus on practicing skills and subskills that are
demanded by IELTS, provide accurate information about the test,
and increase students’ test-taking knowledge, IELTS is producing
positive washback on preparation materials. But the preferred logic
would presumably be that the IATM revealed both direct
relationships between textbook and test system (e.g., same formats,
task types, dimensions, etc. ) and indirect ones (e.g., opportunities
to en hance performance of English-speaking culture-relevant micro-

skills, functions, activities, in relevant settings, media modes, etc. ).
Both directly and indirectly test-relevant activities are likely to
help users both prepare for a test and enhance their learning and
future language performance, if the test has been developed to meet
their real communication needs. As would be expected, certain
technical limitations emerged from the first piloting of the IATM.
The extensive use of informal 1-4 rating scales was generally
unsuccessful, producing improbably low agreements across raters
even over relatively uncontroversial items. Several useful suggestions
were also made by the raters themselves on the layout of the
questionnaire, some of which were incorporated in the revised
version. At the end of Phase Two, a rationalized and shortened IATM
was produced, based on detailed analyses of all ratings. The format
was as follows:
1. Baseline Information (14 items for pre-completion)
2. General Description of Textbook and Support Materials: (12 items
including final open-ended comment item, on textbook type,
organization, components, skills, strategies, communicative
activities, support materials, testing)
3. Listening: (18 items including final open-ended comment
item, on teaching — testing relationship; components; text
lengths, levels, media, dialects, types, situations, topics,
relationships; skills; question techniques; tasks; tests)
4. Reading: (15 items including final open-ended comment item,
on teaching — testing relationship; components; text levels,
types, situations, topics; relationships; skills, question
techniques, tasks, tests)
5. Writing: (15 items including final open-ended comment item,
on teaching — testing relationship, components, text levels,
contexts, types, media, situations, topics; relationships;
functions and skills; question techniques; tasks; tests)
6. Speaking: (17 items including final open-ended comment
item, on teaching — testing relationship; components; text
levels, contexts, modes, types, situations, topics,
relationships, dialects, media; functions and skills; question
techniques; tasks; tests)
The revised IATM was 14 pages long, much shorter than the
initial version, but still time-consuming to complete. The research
team agreed, therefore, that the possible further shortening of the
instrument should be a priority, though without losing data crucial
to the impact study. It was agreed that space for evaluative

comments should be retained in the revised version of the
instrument.
Second Revision
In tune with the iterative approach taken from the outset of the
Study, it had always been planned to re-pilot the revised IATM.
Given that feedback on the original version of the instrument had
been largely in written form, and that the piloting had raised some
fairly complex questions it was agreed that the second piloting
should be in the form of a focus-group discussion.
The research team thus arranged for the revised IATM to be
completed for two textbooks, one IELTS-oriented, one not specifically
so, by two experienced, practicing EFL professionals. They would
then meet the Impact Study coordinator for intensive discussion of
their experience with the instrument, which he had re-designed.
This exercise proved very informative. The two raters had
received the redesigned IATM with notes for users, re-stating its aims
and characteristics. On arrival for the focus-group meeting with their
completed questionnaires, they were given a background-and-remit
note reiterating the purpose of the project, summarizing feedback
from the previous phase and focusing the outcome of the exercise
of the day, namely, “to discuss points that arise in order to provide
further feedback (i.e., corrections, deletions, additions, mergings,
reformatting, rewordings etc. ) for a re-modification of the IATM.
Especially welcome will be ideas on how to shorten the instrument
without losing information useful for the impact assessment Project.”
Suggested alterations to the instrument in the light of the written
and oral feedback of the meeting were discussed on the spot. The
most significant resultant reduction in the size of the instruments
was the merging of the separate sections for the four skills, though
still specifying items for them separately where there were intrinsic
differences between the skills, and still requiring raters to comment
separately on a book’s overall treatment of each of the skills. The
rationalized IATM format was thus a two section questionnaire in
place of the six-section first revised version.
Although the revised pilot, 14-page IATM had already attempted
to rationalize and merge checklists such as social or academic
situations, text types, micro-skills, speaker relationships,

communicative functions, the rater-discussants considered there was
room for further reductions. One of the discussants made the telling
point that specifications of language micro skills, however rigorous
and comprehensive, were in practice very subjective and overlapping
(cf. “retrieving factual information, ” “identifying main points, ”
“identifying overall meaning, ” etc. ).
Similarly, even the reduced number of categorizations in the first
revised questionnaire (text types, situations, topics, communicative
relationships, micro-skills and question types) were felt to overlap
and to invite redundant information. The result of this feedback was
a further rationalized re-categorization into skills; question task-
setting techniques; communicative opportunities, and text types and
topics.
Given the usefulness of the open-ended comment sections in the
first revised questionnaire, all topics in the second revised version
were covered by open-ended as well as multichoice items. While
the checklists in the 14-page instrument had been derived from a
range of reference sources rather than the one main ALTE source
used in the draft pilot version, the coverage had not been checked
against typical language teaching textbooks.
As part of the second piloting and revision process, therefore,
appropriate textbooks were analyzed to derive a checklist, to try to
avoid major omissions in the revised instrument, including:
pronunciation, grammatical structure, notions/functions, vocabulary,
micro-skills, task types, topics, text types. This rough guide was used
as a final check for omissions in the third version of the IATM, and
actually led to the explicit mention of more language components
than in the previous, much longer pilot instruments.
The very interactive and immediate nature of the focus group
session suggested that some of the uncertainties likely in completing
questionnaires at a distance could be avoided by including, within
the instrument itself, a running metacommentary on the purpose of
the exercise and its component parts. The comments thus inserted
in the revised questionnaire were intended to encourage, explain
and, where certain items are optional, redirect. It was also hoped
that they render the instrument more user-friendly than its first two
versions. For example:
• Questions Four, Five and Six ask whether the book teaches
and/or tests particular enabling or micro-skills, using a variety
of techniques and activities?
• Try checking Four, Five and Six before you comment, as
skills, question/tasking and activities clearly overlap.
The intensive feedback session of the second IATM piloting also
offered clarification of the question of direct reference to IELTS in
the instrument. At least three categories of materials are used to
prepare students for an international test such as IELTS. At one end
of the continuum are books which are essentially practice tests (i.e.,
including specimen test materials only). Then there are course books,
specifically dedicated to a particular examination. At the other end
of the continuum are course books not directly linked to a test but
whose content and level make them appropriate for use in test
preparation programmes.
The revised IATM, which may be completed by teachers using
all three types of materials, should reveal significant differences
across these three categories and also, possibly, more subtle
differences between materials within the categories. This could
provide evidence for the convergent/divergent validation of the
IELTS.
Emerging from the focus group discussion processes, the format
of the revised IATM is as follows:
1. Teacher Background: items on the IATM user and experience of IELTS
and similar tests
2. Notes for Users: guidelines on purpose, focus, baseline data and
evaluative data sections
3. Baseline Information on the Textbook: objective features of the
materials, to be pre-completed by UCLES
4. Evaluative data to be provided by raters: 18 items including open-
ended overall evaluation at the end, on:
• Category of teaching/testing book
• Organizational units
• Breakdown of language components
• Enabling (or micro-) skills
• Question/tasking techniques
• Communicative opportunities
• Text types
• Text topics
• Authenticity
• Open-ended comment: listening, reading, writing, speaking
• Open-ended comment on the book as a whole
• Open-ended comment on the relationship between the book

and test(s)
The revised instrument is seven pages long in its fullsize format,
half the length of the second pilot instrument, but still eliciting
comprehensive information on and evaluation of textbook and
support materials. The IATM is to be used to collect textbook and
related washback information from a sample of teachers selected
from IELTS-oriented teaching programmes identified by a pre-survey
administered mid-2001.
Early Washback and Impact Evidence
Work so far on an instrument for the analysis and evaluation of
IELTS relevant textbooks has been intended primarily to develop
and validate the instrument rather than to collect or analyze data.
Nevertheless, information and views have already been recorded
by the pilot raters which underline the importance of washback and
impact studies, and which may be useful for others constructing and
validating instrumentation for their own studies.
The two types of textbooks analyzed in IATM piloting so far
have been test practice books and language teaching course books.
Raters tend to evaluate the test-related books in terms of how directly
they reflect the con tent, level, and format of the test for which they
are preparing learners, and to lament any absence of “language
course” teaching material and activities.
For example, a rater commenting on the listening practice in an
IELTS preparation textbook wrote: “Exercises only as per IELTS
(demotivating?)”; a second rater of the same book wrote: “Each task
closely related to topic of unit; learners have some input from the
reading parts; clear sample answers; better to introduce grammar
help before students attempt the tests? Precious little skill building.
” Both comments suggest that the book should do something more
than it sets out to do, but the second rater also implies positive
washback from IELTS. Negative washback from a test, not in this
case IELTS, is evidenced in this comment from a third rater: “The
textbook is an inevitable product of a test that requires unrealistic
target behaviour.”
The IELTS Impact Study must remain aware that a test may exert
positive washback although textbook materials dedicated to it may
still be unsuccessful. Shohamy (1999) discussed the point, wondering

“whether a ‘poor’ test could conceivably have a ‘good’ effect if it
made the learners and teachers do ‘good’ things by increasing
learning”. What re-emerges here is the complex nature of washback
and the number of factors intervening between test and impact.
On the complicated matter of language skills and tasks, there is
some tentative evidence from the pilot data that the account taken
by tests such as the IELTS of the communicative enabling or micro-
skills needed in future academic or professional life, has beneficial
washback potential. A rater commented that one of the IELTS
textbooks provides “basic coverage of all components of IELTS” and
is “good on types of task to be expected, strategies for difficulties,
and timing,” and that the book’s “exam preps (are) OK, especially
speed reading and time limits.” Another rater felt that the same book
“covers a broad range of topics and micro-skills.”
A further comment suggesting positive washback was that a non-
test-related book used in the piloting “would be effective if
supplemented with some IELTS type listening.” But the complex
testing: teaching/learning relationship re-emerges, when a rater refers
to the non-IELTS book’s “obvious cross-over of the textbook skills
and so-called academic skills; so students using this could respond
well if acquainted with IELTS writing; maybe better than those using
an IELTS prep book. ”
There were also early indications that authenticity of texts, oral
and written, is seen as a beneficial effect of the IELTS. One rater
noted “realistic simulations of IELTS, texts fairly authentic”; a second:
“readings all authentic texts, useful examples on tape, and in skills
focus sections. ” But there is evidence again that raters want more
learning and practice opportunities with the authentic discourse. One
rater felt that “if (there is) some attention to reading speed, the
(course book) is better than an exam prep textbook; challenging
authentic texts, treats affective responses to reading. ”
It is encouraging for the future of the UCLES IELTS Impact Study
that even the early pilot data from the IATM suggest that insights
will be forthcoming that are subtle, revealing, and helpful to an
understanding of test — textbook washback and the ultimate
improvement of both.
Theories of Language Testing

Test content is linked to theories of language learning and testing,
and at present such theories relate to communicative principles.
Canale and Swain included sociolinguistic and strategic competence
in their description of the domains of language knowledge, and
Bachman (1990) added psychophysiological mechanisms. Bachman
and Palmer (1996) elaborated on this model further to include both
affective and metacognitive factors. This model of communicative
language ability is used as the theoretical basis for tests such as the
International English Language Testing System (IELTS) test, and also
provides the theoretical basis for many current research projects.
The overall purpose of a test inevitably affects its contents. Tests
where much is at stake for the examinee are generally based on a
set of specifications which set out the main features of the test, and
describe the test’s aims, as well as describing its potential
candidature, its content and the theory of language teaching on
which it is based. The specifications vary according to whether they
are designed to be read by students, teachers, item writers, or
administrators, but in all cases these specifications state the test’s
overall purpose (whether it is to assess the students’ linguistic
APTITUDE, progress, achievement or proficiency, or whether it is
to be used for placement or diagnostic purposes).
The specifications also list other reasons for taking the test, such
as the demonstration of an ability to communicate in a foreign
language (for example, the International Baccalaureate language
examinations) or to speak a language for a specific purpose. Such
Language for Specific Purposes (LSP) tests contain language and
tasks similar to those the students will encounter in their future
career.
Test Types
Test types, too, are affected by the test’s purpose, and any
detailed set of test specifications will describe the methods of
assessment to be used. Since it is now accepted that students differ
in the types of task in which they excel, test batteries generally
include a range of test types, so that a test is not biased according to
test method effect. Similarly, test constructors attempt to prevent
their tests being biased against students according to factors such as
GENDER, first language or background knowledge.
One type of test which is widely used at present is the C-TEST,

which is easy to construct and is supposed to assess a wide range of
skills. However, it may have many of the same weaknesses as the
cloze test.
Rating Scales
With the increasing use of subjectively marked writing and
speaking tests, rating scales have been devised to help raters assess
students’ performances. Examples of these are used in the Oral
Proficiency Instrument, and in the speaking and writing components
of the English as a Foreign Language examinations of the University
of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (UCLES). Such scales
may be ‘holistic’, where the assessor judges the student’s
performance as a whole, or ‘analytic’, where the performance is
marked according to a range of separate criteria such as content,
organisation, GRAMMAR and VOCABULARY.
The validity of such marking scales may be questionable-few
attempts have so far been made to design analytic scales using
samples of actual performance-but the accessibility of computer
programmes such as FACETS have made it possible to assess how
such scales work in practice. In addition, it is possible, using
generalisability studies to investigate the reliability of the marking.
How such scales work needs to be investigated because, in spite of
training, raters do not always mark consistently and sometimes give
marks that are not in line with those of other markers.
Methods of Test Validation
Other advances in statistical analysis have enabled test
researchers to use complex methods such as multiple regression,
analysis of variance, factor analysis and structural equation
modelling to assess the construct validity of their tests. Not all of
Messick’s (1989) theories about validity are universally accepted, but
his views have had a profound effect on language testing. His 1989
article is long and complex, but many authors have explained his
views more simply.
Technological Advances
So far, the expected impact of personal computers on language
assessment has not materialised. Computer testing has tended to
fossilize existing objective testing methods, because multiple choice

items and gap filling tasks are straightforward to answer on the
computer, and are easy to mark mechanically. However, the
comparative ease with which videos and listening extracts can now
be downloaded from the Internet, the increasing ability of the
computer to recognise sounds and letters, and advances in the uses
of language corpora for teaching and testing, are all steadily
increasing the scope of computer-administered tests.
One project which has the potential to produce interesting tests
which are easy to deliver and mark is DIALANG, a project supported
by Lingua in Europe. This project aims to produce diagnostic tests
in fourteen different European languages. Students will be tested
on their grammatical knowledge and on their READING, WRITING,
LISTENING and SPEAKING skills, and the tests will be computer
adaptive, i.e. they will adapt to each student’s level of linguistic
proficiency.
After taking their chosen test, students will receive instant
diagnostic information about the strengths and weaknesses of their
performance. The fact that DIALANG will be able to adjust to the
student’s level is possible because of advances in test analysis. Unlike
classical item analysis, which can only report the difficulty of an item
for a particular group of test takers, Item Response Theory also takes
account of the ability of the students, so that it is theoretically possible
to report the difficulty of any test item regardless of the students on
whom the item has been trialled. Items can therefore be banked
according to their level of difficulty, and can be used as required in
computer adaptive tests.
In addition, the increasing sophistication and ease of use of
computer programmes such as NUDIST, the Ethnograph and ATLAS
have made it more possible to analyse large amounts of qualitative
data, and many researchers now use qualitative methods such as
in-depth interviews and verbal introspections and retrospections to
investigate the validity of a test or a test method.
Alternative Assessment
‘Alternative assessment’ refers to informal assessment
procedures, such as writing-portfolios, learner diaries or interviews
with teachers, which are often used within the classroom. Such
assessment procedures may be more time-consuming and difficult

for the teacher to administer than ‘paper-and-pencil’ tests, but they
have many advantages. They produce information that is easy for
administrators, teachers and students to understand; the tests tend
to be integrated, and they can reflect the more holistic Teacher
methods used in the classroom.
One problem with methods of alternative assessment, however,
lies with the reliability of such assessments. Their marking schemes
may not have been validated, and raters have often not been trained
to give consistent marks. As Hamayan says, such alternative methods
of assessment will not be considered to be part of the mainstream of
language assessment until they can be shown to be both valid and
reliable. It is difficult to draw a line between ‘testing’ and ‘alternative
assessment’, and many test batteries include examples of each.
However, it is perhaps fair to say that while ‘tests’ are often
‘norm referenced’, with the student’s score being compared to that
of other students, ‘alternative assessment’ is generally ‘criterion
referenced’, with the student’s performance being compared not to
that of other students but to a set of performance OBJECTIVES or
criteria. Similarly, it is often the case that teachers use ‘tests’ for
‘summative assessment’ at the end of a course or the school year,
and ‘alternative assessment’ for ‘formative assessment’ that is carried
out by teachers during the learning process, with the intention of
using the information to decide what needs to be taught or reviewed
in the next stages of a course.
Impact and Washback
In the last ten years there has been an upsurge of interest in the
impact of tests on education, and the effect of tests on teaching. In
their 1993 article, Alderson and Wall bemoan the lack of research
into whether tests do actually affect teaching and, if they do, what
form such ‘washback’ might take. Since then there have been many
empirical studies into washback.
Ethics and Accountability
There is also increasing concern with issues relating to ethics
and accountability in assessment. This concern relates partly to
questions of fairness and equity, and partly to the uses that might
be made of test results.
Many testing organisations adhere to the AERA standards and

ILTA (International Language Testing Association) has prepared its
own Code of Ethics for language testers and is preparing its own
Code of Practice. Other testing organisations, too, such as the
Association of Language Testers in Europe (ALTE) and Educational
Testing Service (ETS) in Princeton, New Jersey, have their own codes
of practice.
Current Trends
It seems likely that the competing requirements of test validity
and financial practicality will maintain the distinction between tests
which can be administered reliably to large numbers of students,
and more holistic tests which can potentially reveal all aspects of
the candidates’ language proficiency While testers are likely to
experiment with complex and time-consuming methods of testing
language, the expense of such methods will prevent many large
testing organisations from adopting them.
It is impossible to cover all aspects of language assessment in
this entry, but the Dictionary of language testing by Davies et al. (1999)
and the Multilingual glossary of language testing terms have concise
explanations of most of the concepts related to the field. In addition,
the International Language Testing Association (ILTA) has produced
twelve five-minute videos on the most frequently discussed aspects
of language testing. These videos introduce the novice language
tester to test specifications, item-writing, pre-testing, statistics, testing
for specific purposes, validity, reliability, test impact and ethics, and
the assessment of the skills of reading, writing, listening and
speaking.
Chapter 3
Applied Linguistics
AN EMERGING DISCIPLINE
A realistic history of the field of applied linguistics would place

its origins at around the year 1948 with the publication of the first
issue of the journal Language Learning: A Journal of Applied Linguistics.
While there are certainly other possible starting points, particularly
from a British perspective, this time still accords roughly with any
discussion of the beginning of applied linguistics.
Over the years, the term applied linguistics has been defined and
interpreted in a number of different ways, and I continue that
exploration in this overview. In the 1950s, the term was commonly
meant to reflect the insights of structural and functional linguists
that could be applied directly to second language teaching, and also,
in some cases, to first language (L1) literacy and language arts issues
as well.
In the 1960s, the term continued to be associated with the
application of linguistics-to-language teaching and related practical
language issues. At the same time, applied linguists became involved
in matters of language assessment, language policies, and a new field
of second language acquisition (SLA), focusing on learning, rather
than on teaching.
So, by the late 1960s, one saw both a reinforcement of the
centrality of second language teaching as applied linguistics, and
also an expansion into other realms of language use. In this respect,
applied linguistics began to emerge as a genuine problem-solving
enterprise. In the 1970s, the broadening of the field of applied
linguistics continued, accompanied by a more overt specification of
its role as a discipline that addresses real-world language-based

problems.
While the focus on language teaching remains central to the
discipline, it takes into its domain the growing subfields of language
assessment, SLA, literacy, multilingualism, language-minority rights,
language planning and policy, and teacher training. The notion that
applied linguistics is driven first by real world problems rather than
theoretical explorations, has had four major consequences:
• The recognition of locally situated contexts for inquiry and
exploration, and thus the importance of needs analyses and
variable solutions in differing local contexts.
• The need to see language as functional and discourse based,
thus the reemergence of systemic and descriptive linguistics
as resources for problem solving, particularly in North
American contexts.
• The recognition that no one discipline can provide all the
tools and resources needed to address real-world problems.
• The need to recognize and apply a wide array of research
tools and methodologies to address locally situated
language problems.
These trends took hold and evolved in the 1980s as major points
of departure from an earlier, no longer appropriate, “linguistics
applied” perspective. The central issue remained the need to address
language issues and problems as they occur in the real world. Of
course, since language is central to all communication, and since
many language issues in the real world are particularly complex and
longstanding, the emerging field has not simply been reactive, but
rather, has been, and still is, fluid and dynamic in its evolution.
Thus, definitions of applied linguistics in the 1980s emphasized
both the range of issues addressed and the types of disciplinary
resources used in order to work on language problems. In the 1980s,
applied linguistics truly extended in a systematic way beyond
language teaching and language learning issues to encompass
language assessment, language policy and planning, language use
in professional settings, translation, lexicography, multilingualism,
language and technology, and corpus linguistics (which has
continuously held a far greater attraction for applied linguistics than
for theoretical linguists). These extensions are well documented in
the first ten years of the journal Applied Linguistics and in the Annual
Review of Applied Linguistics (ARAL).
By the close of the 1980s, a common trend was to view applied

linguistics as incorporating many subfields (as indicated earlier) and
as drawing on many supporting disciplines in addition to linguistics
(e.g., psychology, education, anthropology, sociology, political
science, policy studies and public administration, and English studies,
including composition, rhetoric, and literary studies).
Combined with these two foundations (subfields and supporting
disciplines) was the view of applied linguistics as problem driven
and real-world based rather than theory driven and disconnected
from real language use. Applied linguistics evolved further in the
1990s, breaking away from the common framing mechanisms of the
1980s. These changes are taken up in later sections. A parallel co-
evolution of linguistics itself also needs to be commented upon to
understand why and how linguistics remains a core notion for
applied linguistics.
THE 1970S, 1980S, And 1990s
Beginning in the 1960s, generative linguistics in the United States
came to dominate formal linguistic theorizing for the next forty years.
So pervasive was its influence that few other competing theories of
language knowledge or language analysis were able to resist its
dominance. Many applied linguists, particularly in the United States,
were led to believe that generative linguistics was the only real
foundation for understanding language form, expression, and
acquisition. Chomskian linguistics—first transformational, then
Government and Binding, then Minimalism—was seen as the leading
direction for understanding the fundamental nature of language
knowledge (or, perhaps, syntactic knowledge).
Despite schisms and alternatives within this framework, the basic
tenets have remained thoroughly generative (rule-based systems that,
in principle, derive all of the grammatical sentences of a language).
While there are obvious problems with generative linguistics—(1)
the suspect status of data and evidence, (2) the assumption of
competence apart from performance, (3) the notion of the idealized
speaker, (4) the default genetic (non)explanation for language
acquisition, and (5) the minimal interface with real-world uses (and
abuses) of language—generative linguistics remains a powerful
influence over linguists and nonlinguists alike.
It has also had an undeniable impact on applied linguists of all

persuasions, as Widdows on (2000a) points out, some aspects of
which are clearly positive. However, as most trained applied linguists
are well aware, a number of competing orientations and approaches
have survived the onslaught and now are gaining ground among
applied linguists, for the very practical reasons that they are more
useful for solving language-based problems.
Among these competing frameworks for linguistic analysis,
growing recognition is being given to systemic linguistics, descriptive
and corpus linguistics, and functional linguistics. All three have
demonstrated that they can be effective approaches for the analysis
of language data collected in a range of language-use contexts. They
provide socially relevant and accessible reference points for
interpretation of language data that can be connected to language-
based issues in other disciplines.
They also relocate the basic unit of analysis from the clause unit
to the discourse or textual unit, reflecting again a closer link to
language use in the real world. Anthropological linguistics and
sociolinguistics have similarly adopted more functional and
descriptive approaches to language and analyze discourse-level data
that reflect the settings in which the data were collected.
To a lesser extent, pragmatics and psycholinguistics have moved
toward more descriptive data and away from theory-internal
research assumptions, this being particularly true for the subfield of
cross-cultural pragmatics (which may be more appropriately
interpreted as a subfield within applied linguistics, rather than as
formal linguistics). This shift in linguistic research subfields indicates
a growing recognition that relevant language data and use occurs
in real-world contexts and must be analyzed in ways that recognize
these situations.
For applied linguistics research, the shift to discourse analysis,
descriptive data analysis, and interpretation of language data in their
social/cultural settings all indicate a shift in valuing observable
language data over theoretical assumptions about what should count
as data. One of the most useful perspectives to have arisen out of
this evolution of a more relevant linguistics has been the
development of register analysis and genre analysis as they apply

to a wide range of language use situations.
Both of these approaches, along with more refined techniques
for discourse analysis, are now hallmarks of much applied linguistics
research. In fact, many applied linguists have come to see the real-
world, problem-based, socially responsive research carried out in
applied linguistics as the genuine role for linguistics, with formal
linguistics taking a supporting role. As Van Lier (1997) notes:
I think that it is the applied linguist, who works with language
in the real world, who is most likely to have a realistic picture of
what language is, and not the theoretical linguist who sifts through
several layers of idealization. Furthermore, it may well be the applied
linguist who will most advance humankind’s understanding of
language, provided that he or she is aware that no one has a
monopoly on the definitions and conduct of science, theory, language
research, and truth.
Some second language educators have gone even further in
suggesting that language teachers actually do not need any real
training in linguistics and language awareness.
Trends and Perspectives in the 1990s
In this section, I only note various developments that emerged
in the 1990s and that will continue to define applied linguistics
through this decade. The present provides the details to much of
the brief sign-posting that this section provides. For much the same
reason, I refrain from a long catalog of appropriate references on
the assumption that these ideas will be well-referenced elsewhere.
Under the umbrella of applied linguistics, research in language
teaching, language learning, and teacher education is now placing
considerable emphasis on notions of language awareness, attention
and learning, “focus on forms” for language learning, learning from
dialogic interactions, patterns of teacher-student interaction, task-
based learning, content-based learning, and teacher as researcher
through action research.
Research in language learning has shifted in recent years toward
a focus on information processing, the emergence of language ability
from extended meaningful exposures and relevant practice, and
awareness of how language is used and the functions that it serves.

Instructional research and curricular issues have centered on task-
based learning, content-based learning, dialogic inquiry, and a return
to learning centered on specific language skills.
Language teacher development has also moved in new
directions. Widdowson has argued forcefully that certain
communicative orientations, with a pervasive emphasis on natural
language input and authenticity, may be misinterpreting the real
purpose of the language classroom context and ignoring effective
frameworks for language teaching. He has also persuasively argued
that applied linguists must support teachers through their mediation
with all aspects of Hymes’s notion of communicative competence,
balancing language understanding so that it combines
grammaticality, appropriateness, feasibility, and examples from the
attested.
A further emphasis for language teacher education has been the
move to engaging teachers in the practice of action research. The
trend to train teachers as reflective practitioners, inquiring into the
effectiveness of teaching and learning in local classroom settings,
will increase in the new decade.
A second major emphasis that has taken hold in discussions
among applied linguists themselves is the role for critical studies;
this term covers critical awareness, critical discourse analysis, critical
pedagogy, student rights, critical assessment practices, and ethics in
language assessment. At the same time, there are a number of
criticisms of this general approach and its impact on more
mainstream applied linguistics that highlight weaknesses in much
of the critical studies theorizing. At present, critical studies is also
an emphasis that has not demonstrated strong applications in
support of those who are experiencing “language problems” of
various types. The coming decade will continue this debate.
A third emphasis is on language uses in academic, disciplinary,
and professional settings. This research examines the ways in which
language is used by participants and in texts in various academic,
professional, and occupational settings. It also emphasizes how
language can act as a gate keeping mechanism or create unfair
obstacles to those who are not aware of appropriate discourse rules
and expectations. In academic settings, the key issue is understanding

how genres and register expectations form the basis for successfully
negotiating academic work. Analyses of language uses in various
professional settings are described in Atkinson, Gibbons, Hyden and
Mishler, and Swales. More specific to English for Special Purposes
(ESP), Swales and Dudley-Evans and St John) provide strong
overviews.
A fourth emphasis centers on descriptive (usually discourse)
analyses of language in real settings and the possible applications
of analyses in corpus linguistics, register variation, and genre
variation. A breakthrough application of corpus linguistics is the
recent Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English: It is based
entirely on attested occurrences of language use in a very large
English corpus.
The key, though, is not the corpus data themselves but the
innovative analyses and displays that define the uniqueness of the
grammar. Other important applications of corpus linguistics include
the teacher-friendly introduction to discourse analysis by McCarthy
and Carter (1994) and their more recent description and resource
materials for the study of spoken English.
A fifth emphasis in applied linguistics research addresses
multilingualism and bilingual interactions in school, community, and
work and professional settings, or in policy issues at regional and
national levels. Since the majority of people in the world are bilingual
to some extent, and this bilingualism is associated with the need to
negotiate life situations with other cultures and language groups,
this area of research is fundamental to applied linguistics concerns.
Multilingualism covers issues in bilingual education, migrations of
groups of people to new language settings, equity and fairness in
social services, and language policies related to multiple language
use (or the restriction thereof). Key issues are addressed in Baker
and Jones, Grabe et al., and Rampton.
A sixth emphasis focuses on the changing discussion in language
testing and assessment. In the past ten years, the field of language
assessment has taken on a number of important issues and topics
that have ramifications for applied linguistics more generally.
Validity is now powerfully reinterpreted and, in its new
interpretation, has strong implications for all areas of applied

linguistics research and data collection.
Similarly, emphases on technology applications, ethics in
assessment, innovative research methodologies, the roles of
standardized testing and alternative assessment, standards for
professionalism, and critical language testing are all reshaping
language assessment and, by extension, applied linguistics.
A seventh and final emphasis addresses the role of applied
linguistics as a mediating discipline and applied linguists as
mediators. Over the past decade, discussions about the role of
applied linguists, as a bridge between research and practice, have
been raised by Widdowson and a number of other scholars. At issue
is not only the work of applied linguists but also the status of applied
linguistics as an academic enterprise.
In some of these debates, there are still discussions of the applied
linguist as an “MA generalist” or “language teacher.” It should be
clear from this review that applied linguists in the modern world
require training and expertise far beyond such outmoded
designations.
The Problem-Based Nature Of Applied Linguistics
In the many discussions of trends, and disciplines, and subfields,
and theorizing, the idea is sometimes lost that the focus of applied
linguistics is on trying to resolve language-based problems that
people encounter in the real world, whether they be learners,
teachers, supervisors, academics, lawyers, service providers, those
who need social services, test takers, policy developers, dictionary
makers, translators, or a whole range of business clients.
A list of major language-based problems that applied linguistics
typically addresses across a wide range of settings follows. The list
is necessarily partial, but it should indicate what it is that applied
linguists try to do, if not how they go about their work. Applied
linguists address subsets of the following problems:
• Language learning problems (emergence, awareness, rules,
use, context, automaticity, attitudes, expertise)
• Language teaching problems (resources, training, practice,
interaction, understanding, use, contexts, inequalities,
motivations, outcomes)
• Literacy problems (linguistic and learning issues)
• Language contact problems (language and culture)

• Language inequality problems (ethnicity, class, region,
gender, and age)
• Language policy and planning problems (status planning
and corpus planning; ecology of language)
• Language assessment problems (validity, reliability,
usability, responsibility)
• Language use problems (dialects, registers, discourse
communities, gatekeeping situations, limited access to
services)
• Language and technology problems (learning, assessment,
access, and use)
• Translation and interpretation problems (on-line, off-line,
technology assisted)
• Language pathology problems (aphasias, dyslexias, physical
disabilities)
These categories could be expanded further, and ideas in each
category could be elaborated into full articles in and of themselves.
The key point, however, is to recognize that it is the language-based
problems in the world that drive applied linguistics. These problems
also lead applied linguists to use knowledge from other fields, apart
from linguistics, and thereby impose the interdisciplinarity that is a
defining aspect of the discipline.
Defining Applied Linguistics
I have defined applied linguistics as a practice-driven discipline
that addresses language-based problems in real-world contexts.
However, this general definition does not come to terms with many
of the claims that applied linguistics is not a discipline. Critics note
that applied linguistics is too broad and too fragmented, that it
demands expert knowledge in too many fields, and that it does not
have a set of unifying research paradigms. However, it is possible
to interpret applied linguistics as a discipline much in the way that
many other disciplines are defined.
It has a core and a periphery, and the periphery blurs into other
disciplines that may or may not want to be allied. This picture may
not be very different from those of several other relatively new
disciplines in academic institutions. The following points reflect
commonalities that most applied linguists would agree on:
1. Applied linguistics has many of the markings of an
academic discipline: professional journals, professional
associations, international recognition for the field, funding
resources for research projects, a large number of individuals
who see themselves as applied linguists, trained

professionals who are hired in academic institutions as
applied linguists, students who want to become applied
linguists, and a recognized means for training these students
to become applied linguists.
2. Applied linguistics recognizes that linguistics must be
included as a core knowledge base in the work of applied
linguistics, although the purpose of most applied linguists’
work is not simply to “apply” linguistics to achieve a
solution.
3. Applied linguistics is grounded in real-world, language-
driven problems and issues (primarily by linkages to
practical issues involving language use, language evaluation,
language contact and multilingualism, language policies,
and language learning and teaching). There is also, however,
the recognition that these practically driven problems have
extraordinary range, and this range tends to dilute any sense
of common purpose or common professional identification
among practitioners.
4. Applied linguistics typically incorporates other disciplinary
knowledge beyond linguistics in its efforts to address
language-based problems. Applied linguists commonly
draw upon and are often well trained in psychology,
education, anthropology, political science, sociology,
measurement, computer programming, literature, and/or
economics.
5. Applied linguistics is, of necessity, an interdisciplinary field,
since few practical language issues can be addressed
through the knowledge resources of any single discipline,
including linguistics.
6. Applied linguistics commonly includes a core set of issues
and practices that is readily identified as work carried out
by many applied linguists (e.g., language teaching, language
teacher preparation, and language curriculum
development).
7. Applied linguistics generally incorporates or includes
several further identifiable sub-fields of study: second
language acquisition, forensic linguistics, language testing,
corpus linguistics, lexicography and dictionary making,
language translation, and second language writing research.
Some members of these fields do not see themselves as
applied linguistics, though their work clearly addresses
practical language issues.
8. Applied linguistics often defines itself broadly in order to
include additional fields of language-related studies (e.g.,
language pathology, natural language processing, first
language literacy research, and first language composition
studies). The large majority of members of these fields do

not see themselves as applied linguistics, but the broad
definition gives license for applied linguists to work with
and borrow from these disciplines for their own goals.
These eight points indicate the emerging disciplinary nature of
applied linguistics. There are certainly difficulties for the field and
problems with defining the core versus the periphery. There are also
problems in deciding how one becomes an applied linguist and what
training (and what duration of training) might be most appropriate.
But these problems are no more intractable than those faced by many
disciplines, even relatively established ones (e.g., education,
psychology).
The coming decade of research and inquiry in applied linguistics
will continue the lines of investigation noted in the second and third
sections of this chapter. Applied linguists will need to know more
about corpus linguistics, computer applications for research
purposes, and new ways to examine language data. Testing and
assessment issues will not be limited to testing applications but will
have a much greater influence on other areas of applied linguistics
research: Issues such as validity, fairness in testing, and ethics will
extend to other areas of applied linguistics.
These issues will also lead to continued discussions on the most
appropriate research methods in different settings. Applied
linguistics will also direct more attention to issues of motivation,
attitude, and affect as they potentially influence many language-
based problems. Similarly, learning theories will become a more
central concern in language learning and teaching. There has been
relatively little attention explicitly given to learning theories as they
are debated in educational and cognitive psychology.
All of these issues also ensure that applied linguistics will remain
interdisciplinary. The resolution of language-based problems in the
real world is complex and difficult. It is only appropriate that applied
linguists seek partnerships and collaborative research if these
problems are to be addressed in effective ways.
Chapter 4
Sentence Combining
on the Writing
THE EFFECTS
In reviewing the state of research on writing less than a decade
ago, Sherwin was able to cite only three studies concerned with
transformational sentence combining (henceforth SC), concluding
cautiously that the approach was “a promising way to help students
toward greater skill in writing.” Research since then has
strengthened—and perhaps begun to make good—that promise. A
number of recent experiments involving primarily elementary and
secondary school children have produced impressive evidence that
SC practice, whether oral or written, indeed enhances students’
syntactic maturity.
The results of these studies not only verify the normative data
that Hunt and O’Donnell et al. have established for syntactic maturity
at various grade levels in English, but also strongly support Hunt’s
insight that by stimulating elaboration and expansion within
sentences, SC exercises can actually accelerate the students’ syntactic
growth and thus enable them to write on developmentally higher
levels of syntactic fluency.
Nevertheless, in spite of its repeatedly confirmed effectiveness
in building certain types of syntactic skills, SC was bound to remain
largely irrelevant to the ultimate concerns of the composition class
as long as it failed to produce corresponding gains in overall writing
quality. It was therefore a crucial step forward when O’Hare was
able to demonstrate for the first time, even if on a limited scale, that
growth in syntactic maturity correlates significantly with subjectively
judged gains in writing effectiveness. O’Hare’s findings were later
confirmed for the same grade level by Combs and Pedersen.
Because of its far-reaching implications for the teaching of

composition in general, the evidence that has emerged from all these
studies invites further extensive corroboration. The substantial
experimental study on which the present paper is based fits into
and expands this context of inquiry. It was intended to test the
effectiveness of SC further as an approach to the teaching of writing,
especially by seeking answers to a number of curricular and
pedagogical questions left open by previous investigations.
Above all, we were interested in how well SC worked on the
college level, specifically in the freshman English class, which has
so far been entirely bypassed by significant SC research. The
normative figures that Hunt reported in his two pioneering
monographs show a syntactic abyss separating twelfth graders from
skilled adult writers, a gap about as wide as that dividing twelfth
graders from fourth graders.
Since Hunt’s data suggest that normal syntactic development
continues beyond high school into adulthood, we hypothesized that
even for college freshmen intensive SC practice should effectively
stimulate and accelerate growth. In the process, as a side benefit,
we would obtain normative data for this age group not currently
available in the published literature.
More important from our point of view, if increased syntactic
fluency has proved to correlate with a significant improvement of
writing quality in, say, seventh grade, we intended to test whether
such a correlation could also be demonstrated for college freshmen.
These, in essence, amounted to the two major hypotheses of the
experiment.
Perhaps our most substantial departure from past experimental
procedures involved the status of SC itself within the total
composition course. In previous experiments, and apparently in some
nonexperimental writing programs that incorporate SC, such practice
has been treated as an adjunct or supplement to more conventional
components of the course syllabus and as such used only for limited
portions of the writing class.
But no one seems to know for sure how much SC per day or
per week is sufficient or optimally effective, and indeed every recent
experiment appears to have followed a different arbitrary formula.
In the present study, SC was the course. The experimental group
consisted of genuine SC classes where students approached all

questions of writing—rhetorical as well as syntactic and stylistic—
exclusively through exercises calling for the judicious manipulation
and synthesis of sentences.
We emphasize “rhetorical” because most of these exercises
invited the students to consider the contextual demands of the total
discourse. (We found, in fact, that you can effectively and pleasantly
put across just about any aspect of writing by discussing SC
options—thesis, organization, coherence, emphasis, tone, rhythm,
problems of grammar and punctuation as they arise, even diction.)
A typical SC exercise would ask the student to combine into an
effective whole—generally a paragraph or a short essay—a series of
basic kernel sentences taken from William Strong Sentence Combining
or supplied by the researchers. Such “open” exercises, in which no
specific instructions for the combining were given other than that
the final product ought to be “effective,” alternated with semi-open,
patterned types, which lent themselves to the use of certain free
modifiers such as absolutes, appositives, and participial phrases.
The emphasis throughout the course was on the students’ active
involvement in the writing process, on the one hand by producing
from day to day the “best” possible version that they could come
up with for particular combining sets, and on the other by
participating in an intensive discussion and revision in class of their
own and their peers’ responses to the same task, learning in the
process to weigh the syntactic, stylistic, and rhetorical consequences
of given options. “Signaled” exercises calling for specific grammatical
transformations, though widely used in previous experiments and
common in SC texts, were altogether avoided in this course, and—
in contrast to Christensen’s Rhetoric Program, for example —the use
of grammatical terminology was minimized; one of our implicit goals
was, in fact, to test the well motivated claim that SC can be effective
without requiring students to be trained in formal grammar.
Furthermore, unlike the control classes, which followed the
traditional local syllabus and used The Harbrace Reader and
McCrimmon Writing with a Purpose, the experimental sections did
not engage in the reading and rhetorical analysis of essays by
accomplished writers. It is a prevalent but as yet untested traditional
asumption that the analytic-interpretive skills students may develop
through the reading and discussion of model essays somehow

directly and significantly transfer into active expressive skills, that
is, into control of formal linguistic devices required by the writing
process.
Even if such transfer did occur, we argued, it was likely to be
significantly less productive and of less direct practical benefit to
the students of composition than controlled experience in syntactic
and rhetorical decision-making in their own writing. But would not
the experimental group, then, doing no reading at all as part of the
course, fall behind in reading comprehension, as one might charge—
even though it might register gains in some parameters of writing,
possibly at the expense of that decline?
In fact, we made a much stronger claim: that, as Stotsky and
others have speculated, intensive practice in putting sentences
together would actually enhance the student’s ability to take them
apart and thus to interpret passages. Accordingly, we hypothesized
that SC practice would have a positive effect on reading
comprehension. In short, since the respective syllabi followed by the
experimental and control groups were unambiguously different, we
expected that the results of this study, if significant, would suggest
a clear choice between the two approaches to composition.
In other than the dependent variables just outlined, the two
groups were entirely comparable, with all major independent
variables carefully controlled. The total experimental population
consisted of 290 freshmen controlled at Miami University in the fall
of 1976, randomly assigned by computer to twelve sections of the
required freshman writing course; these were evenly divided into
“experimentals” and “controls.”
Neither in SAT/ACT scores nor in the reading and writing
pretests did the two groups show any statistically significant
difference. The instructional staff for the project was selected with
special care. Rather than adopting O’Hare’s procedure, for example,
who had the same two teachers (including himself) teach both the
experimental and control classes, we chose for each group volunteer
instructors who were committed to and enthusiastic about their
respective approaches, and would have been more than gratified to
see their own approach proven best.
To see whether the relative experience and maturity of the

teacher made any difference—whether, in fact, instructors with little
or no teaching experience could cope with SC in the classroom—we
had half of the experimental classes taught by faculty members and
the other half by graduate assistants. These were meticulously
matched on the control side, with the cooperation of the department
chair and the director of freshman English, in terms of rank, years
of teaching experience, and degrees of demonstrated teaching
effectiveness.
Furthermore, both groups wrote the same number of
compositions during the term (both in and out of class), including a
two-hour pretest and a two-hour posttest, each taken under identical
conditions for all classes. Each test yielded approximately 600 to 700
words, generally considered adequate for syntactic analysis. Two
similar topics were used for the tests, with one-half of each group
writing on one topic on the pretest and the reverse topic on the
posttest, each subject thus producing an essay on both topics.
Since the mode of discourse elicited by a question could affect
the syntactic characteristics of the resulting paper, each topic was
carefully constructed to prompt an expositiory paper—the type of
writing most emphasized in both the experimental and control
sections of this program, and in freshman English classes in general.
Both topics, however, lent themselves to narative and descriptive
detail, which tend to make writing more concrete and more
substantial.
The assessment of the experimental treatment involved both
quantitive and qualitative procedures. The former consisted of a
detailed analysis of preand posttests for words per clause, words
per T-unit, and clauses per T-unit, according to by now well-known
procedures, by a team of graduate students fully trained for the
purpose.
On the other hand, the procedures for the subjective rating of
writing quality used in this experiment substantially exceed the scope
of those employed in previous SC research, and—we believe-surpass
them in validity, accuracy, and reliability.
These qualities are to a large extent a function of having available
a sufficient number of qualified raters to evaluate a sufficient number
of writing samples a sufficient number of times in a sufficient numer
of different ways—although one would be hard pressed to define

sufficiency itself other than by assuming that better raters and more
ratings will produce more accurate results.
In research of this sort three modes of rating have been common:
1. The holistic or impressionistic method (used by Mellon, for
example);
2. The forced-choice technique (adopted by O’Hare and by Combs);
and
3. The analytic approach (employed by Pedersen), each of which in
and by itself has certain limitations.
But all used together, applied to the same corpus of writing, as
in this experiment, could be expected to yield optimally accurate
and reliable results. The ratings were performed by a team of twenty-
eight judges—some local, some from neighbouring universities, all
with advanced degrees in English, and with an average of thirteen
years of experience in teaching composition.
The team stayed on the Miami campus for an entire week,
working full time in a single large room each day, with appropriately
spaced breaks to counter fatigue. Pre- and posttests from the control
and experimental sections, all written on the same type of theme
tablet, had been Xeroxed (on the same machine), assigned random
numbers and secret codes, and then ordered by random number, so
that it was impossible for a rater to discover the identity of a paper.
The critieria for the holisitc and analytic ratings were explained
in a detailed rubric given to each rater, and reviewed periodically
during the tightly supervised rating sessions; they included six
categories—ideas, supporting details, organization and coherence,
voice, sentence structure, and diction and usage. Each paper was
read four times holistically and four times analytically, each time by
a different rater, and assigned scores on a scale of 1 through 6.
In the forced-choice rating, ten different judges, were to choose
the “better” paper within each of 134 pairs, where each pair consisted
of one experimental and one control posttest from students with
identical or near-identical holistic scores on the pretest.
The results of this experiment strongly confirm the claims
advanced for SC in recent years: SC clearly helps accelerate syntactic
growth even among young adults, and it is significantly more
effective than the conventional essay analysis approach in increasing

the overall writing skills of college freshmen.
Among quantitative measures of syntactic maturity, in the
subordination ratio (clauses per T-unit), posttest differences between
the two groups remained not significant, as they were on the pretest.
But in mean clause length (words per clause), which Hunt claims is
the syntactic factor that best differentiates adolescents from
professional writers, the experimental group gained.89, nearly one
whole word (up from 8.75 to 9.64), whereas the control group
dropped.13 (down from 8.80 to 8.67).
This difference is statistically significant at and beyond the.001
level of confidence. Note that in fifteen weeks the treatment group
increased its clause size by almost half of the growth experienced,
according to Hunt, in the previous eight years of normal
development. The same group showed a nearly as impressive.74
word gain in T-unit size (words per T-unit), up from 15.31 to 16.05,
in contrast to the.05 word drop (from 15.00 to 14.95) by the control
group.
The posttest difference between the groups, 1.1 word, is again
significant at better than.001. The growth, then, is precisely in the
direction that Hunt leads us to expect—a relatively stable
subordination ratio (the index in which at about this age a young
writer’s development has just about reached the ceiling set by the
language), and a vastly exploding clause size, which also jacks up
T-unit size, as students learn to add details and hence substance to
their sentences.
But, undoubtedly, the major thrust of this study is in the evidence
it has yielded for a significant correlation of these syntactic maturity
gains with improved writing in free compositions, no matter how
writing quality is measured. In the holistic rating, which best reflects
the overall quality of a paper, the experimental group registered a
posttest gain of.53 on a scale of 6 (up from 3.20 to 3.73), in contrast
to the gain of.21 by the control group (up from 3.16 to 3.37); again
this posttest difference is significant at.001.
The experimental gain of.53 is perhaps comparable to a veteran
baseball player boosting his batting average 53 percentage points in
half a season—no trivial accomplishment. The forced-choice rating
gave similar results: experimental papers were picked as better at a
ratio of almost 2 to 1 (79 to 42, with 13 ties), again statistically a
staggering difference.
With the superiority of the experimental group clearly

established, it was instructive to see which components of writing
were responsible for the qualitative gains. The posttest scores showed
no significant difference in only one factor: organization/coherence.
It is noteworthy that even in this one category SC practice did not
have a negative effect, nor did the control group register significant
gains.
On the other hand, the experimental papers came out on top in
posttest scores in the rest of the analytic categories: diction and usage
(at.05), ideas (at.01), sentence structure (at.01), supporting details
(at.001), and the category of voice (at.001), which we had defined as
the individuality of a paper—the qualities that make it different,
unique, memorable, and to that extent interesting.
It appears, then, that these five of the six analytic qualities were
responsible for the favourable overall judgments that gave
experimental papers the significant edge in holistic and forced-choice
ratings.
It is interesting that not only did those qualities stressed in the
SC class—sentence structure, supporting materials, and voice—
appreciably raise the general effectiveness of writing; sentence
combiners significantly outgained control students even in the one
quality most cultivated in the conventional class—ideas.
Recall Christensen’s claim that “solving the problem of how to
say helps solve the problem of what to say.” O’Hare came to the same
conclusion—that perhaps indeed “knowing how does help to create
what.” Incidentally, the class-by-class breakdown of the results shows
that while, as expected, classes taught by those with more teaching
experience generally scored higher on both sides, relative lack of
experience did not prevent an instructor from using SC procedures
with success. In fact, the effectiveness of the method generally
overrode the lack of experience.
On the holistic rating, for example, one experimental graduate
assistant registered higher gains than any instructor on the control
side, and all graduate assistants in the experimental group gained
more than any but two instructors of the control group (one of them
a graduate assistant). Or in the forced-choice rating, all experimental
instructors had a higher percentage of winning papers than any but
one control instructor. Thus, in general, not only did the two sets of
experimental instructors consistently outscore their control

counterparts, but in many rated categories experimental graduate
assistants, though with little teaching experience, outgained
experienced faculty in the control group.
While the results of this experiment convincingly demonstrate
and emphatically support previous claims for the beneficial effects
of SC practice on writing skills, it is somewhat difficult to try to
isolate those ingredients of the experimental treatment that really
did the job and to link them directly to these results. We can—and
do—say to our colleagues: “Here is good evidence that SC works in
the freshman English class. Why not try it yourself?”
But it is not at all clear why SC should work. For example, among
others voicing reservations about the SC method, Marzano has
questioned O’Hare’s claim for a significant correlation between
syntactic maturity growth and writing quality gains on the ground
that a correlation does not necessarily prove causation. Our study
unequivocally supports O’Hare’s findings, but again it can establish
only a reasonably high probability for the cause, not invincible proof.
Indeed, no one seems to be absolutely sure why students who
practice intensive SC generally become more skillful and effective
writers. Does SC tap some deep cognitive skills, enhancing their
growth? Or are the benefits primarily psychological perhaps
increased control over the available linguistic choices simply makes
writers feel more confident, giving them the incentive and the
courage to use their growing repertoire of options in novel and
interesting ways?
Perhaps the increased control over form does encourage
invention and help generate ideas; the strong showing of our
sentence combiners in the latter category seems to support this
assumption. In attempting to interpret the impressive cumulative
results of recent SC research, bear in mind that since its “modern”
inception—indeed revival—a little over a decade ago, SC has
noticeably eased away from its initial linguistic orientation.
When in 1965 Hunt first suggested the use of “sentence-
combining transformations” (thus, in quotation marks) to help build
structural depth and complexity into student writing, he explicitly
linked them to “recursive” processes “operating on the strings
underlying ‘kernel sentences.’” But more recently, as SC has gained

ground in educational research and its underlying principles have
become attractive to nonlinguists, it has shed much of its linguistic
jargon and formalism in favour of emphasis on the general principles
themselves and on their most effective classroom annlications.
Viewed in this light, SC may be a refinement of exercises “long
in use in grammar textbooks” and referred to by Sherwin as “plain,”
as opposd to “transformational,” sentence combining. If, as it
appears, this distinction corresponds to the one between “open” and
“signalled” SC exercises, i.e., those without and those with explicit
transformational instructions, then our experimental classes may
indeed have utilized a rather traditional “device for structuring the
process of composing a sentence.”
Of course, they went far beyond that, using the device for
structuring the total process of composing. The point is that, while
allowing for and encouraging almost unlimited creativity in syntactic
form, SC is basically a device—perhaps one of several devices—
providing controlled experience with writing. As such, it may be as
old as it is significant.
Indeed, upon learning about our work, colleagues occasionally
exclaim: “But I’ve been doing that for years—without knowing what
it was called!” At the same time, we have found that the idea of SC
as a way of teaching writing frightens some people in the
profession—the term seems almost stigmatized, still suggesting to
some dull and mechanical transformational exercises calling for a
fancy linguistic terminology or for odd signalling symbols, to others
something too empty to be suitable as the methodological principle
of a composition course.
The favourable results of the Miami project flatly refute these
fears. Perhaps what scares some people is that SC seems so simple,
say, in comparison to a secure, bulky handbook on rhetoric—which,
of course, in a way, it is. In some sense it takes you “back to the
basics”—and yet, as Strong points out, it takes you far beyond them.
Day in and day out, we observed how SC leads students to discover
and use in novel and creative ways the complex linguistic knowledge
that most are unaware of holding in their heads. And they seem to
enjoy this discovery. At the end of the course we asked all
experimental students to tell us about their experience in and attitude
toward SC.
Did they like it as an approach to writing? Did they feel that

such practice for a semester helped them become better writers? On
a scale ranging for a low of 1 to a high of 7, the responses averaged
about 5 points. Would they recommend such a course to a friend?
Exactly two-thirds of them responded favourably. Perhaps one
respondent’s terse complimentary comment about the SC class best
summed up the feelings of many: “For a frosh comp course,” he
said, “it ain’t bad.”
STRATEGIES
This section will provide suggestions as well as a description of
the combining technique. Generally, a pair of sentences will be
provided which include a transformational rule. The rule may consist
of a word, phrase, or punctuation mark which can be inserted into
the sentence. Teachers of the elementary grades may find this
technique helpful for several reasons. First of all, this technique can
be used to illustrate the manipulation of sentences to achieve greater
expression of thoughts and experiences.
Secondly, the teacher can prepare the student for complex
sentence structures in their textbooks and outside readings. Third,
teachers can relate the use of the rules of grammar to students’ actual
writing without the drawbacks of the text.
Teachers have the option of employing this technique during a
reading, English, or Language Arts class. It is recommended,
however, that teachers set aside time preceding or directly following
the exercises for oral and silent reading. The readings could be
teacher-developed or taken from the reading material appropriate
for the student’s reading level. Students with learning disabilities
may benefit from choral reading of the exercises, but may find the
written exercises difficult. Evaluation of student mastery can be
measured by correctness of daily worksheets or weekly texts which
require the combining process.
An elaborate form of evaluation may include a composition
wherein the student uses the technique to include complex sentence
structures. It is suggested that the composition be descriptive or
expository. The teacher should look for examples of sentence
combining, and more specifically the use of subordinate clauses. The
number of combined sentences may indicate mastery of this
technique.
Ideally, teachers should develop a compositional program which

would include many writing assignments and a check list of writing
skills to be mastered during the course of the school year. The
sentence-combining technique could be only one aspect of the
compositional course. Students, therefore, should be able to
incorporate this technique as a supplement to already established
writing objectives. Such a technique would provide a syntactically
mature writing sample.
Of course, students write more proficiently with time and
practice and sentence-combining enhances that growth process; yet
it is unreasonable to expect the type of expansion associated with
older and more able students. Research has shown that as students
mature, their writing form becomes more complex.
Sentence-combining can have an immediate effect on student
writing performance when coupled with a thoughtful reading
program which provides contexts for the use of the language and
illustrates the use of complex structures by accomplished writers.
The following is a list of rules which can be used to teach students
the mechanics of sentence-combining. All of the different types of
exercises should be worked out orally first and then transferred to
paper after students become confident with the technique.
Initially, teachers should teach the constituent parts of a sentence
(i.e., doer, action, receiver of action, or subject and verb phrases).
zsimple sentences by matching the subjects and predicates. For
example: NP = Noun Phrase + VP = Verb Phrase.
John + hit the ball = John hit the ball. Once students are able to
see the constituents that make up sentences, they are able to move
on to the next step.
(Note: Teachers may use the parts of the unit which aid in the
development of specific writing skill objectives.) Students should be
given practice in combining subjects (NPs) and predicates (VPs).
For example: 1) John lived in that house. 2) Mary lived in that
house. 3) John and Mary lived in that house; or 1) Mary fixed the
engine. 2) Mary changed the oil. 3) Mary fixed the engine and
changed the oil.
The rule in these sentences may be either one of the connecting
words found to be most appropriate. A more advanced example
would be: 1) John is tired; 2) John cleaned the garage; 3) John is
tired, but he cleaned the garage. The referent pronoun he, and
conjunction but are employed.
One of the easiest ways to combine sentences is to put them
together with a joining word between. The joining word establishes
a relationship between the two constituents of the entire structure.
The relationships usually are: 1) cause-effect, 2) time, and 3)
comparison or contrast.
Here is an example: He was pleased because his work was
completed.
He was pleased when his work was completed.
He was pleased, but somehow disappointed.
Note that a comma is used before the conjunction which can be
stressed as a rule applicable to the completion of each item in the
exercise. In addition, the semicolon is a punctuation mark which can
be used to establish a relationship and connect two base sentences,
yet reveal no particular relationship.
For example: He was pleased; his work was completed.
Other connecting words are before, although, after, just when,
as soon as, if, and since. The mechanism for including any of the
various mentioned here is quite simple. The rule will be seen as a
mere instruction to insert that word/words at the end of the first
sentence, or beginning of the result or second sentence.
For example: The men went back to work.
The lunch break was over. (When)
The men went back to work when the lunch break was over.
Or students can be taught to put the connecting word before
the base sentence, then add the result to the end of the first sentence.
For example: When the men went back to work, the lunch break
was over.
Note the comma which was inserted after the base sentence.
Teachers may find it helpful to the student to include as part of
the rule, the punctuation mark in addition to the connecting word
(when,).
Another example using if as a joining word is as follows:
1. I am crying. (If) (,)
2. Something is wrong.
3. There is a problem. (;)
If I am crying, something is wrong; there is a problem.
Note the semicolon is used before the final phrase and that a
comma is inserted after ‘crying.’ The comma could just as easily be
inserted as a rule after the second sentence.
Just when
1. He makes his foul shots.
They are important. (Just when)
2 He makes his foul shots just when they are important. Once
i. You are aware of all literary devices employed by writers.
(Once) (,)
ii. Reading poetry is more appreciable.
Once you are aware of all literary devices employed by writers,
reading poetry is more appreciable.
When / Long before
1. Rain clouds appeared. (When) (,)
We ran into the house.
It was time to end the cookout. (Long before)
2. When rain clouds appeared, we ran into the house long
before it was time to end the cookout.
The rules -ing and with
The -ing technique involves changing a word to its -ing form
and inserting that word at the beginning of the base sentence.
For example: Terry kicked the door off the hinges. (ing)(,)
Terry was able to go in and put out the fire.
Kicking the door off the hinges, Terry was able to go in and put
out the fire.
Note that ‘kicked’ was changed to ‘kicking’ and it began the base
sentence. Also, the word ‘Terry’ was left out in the second sentence.
Teachers may find it helpful to the student if some notation (i.e.,
circle, underscore, italics) were used to point out the word/words to
be omitted in the combining process. Another means to accomplish
this result would be to underscore the part of the base sentence which
will be transformed.
For example: Terry kicked the door off of the hinges.
The line indicates that ‘Terry’ is not to be used in the combining
process. Another example of the -ing can read as follows:
1. The chunky football player pounced on the loose ball. (ing) (,)
2. The chunky football player jumped to his feet, and was
quickly tackled.
3. Pouncing on the loose ball, the chunky football player

jumped to his feet, and was quickly tackled.
Note that a comma is used before the conjunction and. This is
standard practice and should be covered at the outset, otherwise it
will be necessary to insert the rule.
The with rule does two things in these sentences dependent upon
the sentence it follows. Look at these examples:.
1. She was an intelligent student.
2. She received good grades. (With)
3. She was an intelligent student with good grades.
Note that the words ‘she’ and ‘received’ are omitted. Again
notation may be included to advise the student to omit those
particular words. Here is another example of how with can be used:
1. His feet were implanted in the mud. (With)
2. He found it was impossible to catch the frog.
3. With his feet implanted in the mud, he found it was
impossible to catch the frog.
Here, with is at the beginning of the sentence and the form of be
(were) is omitted because it is not needed.
Day One: Objective Students should be able to combine a noun
and verb phrase to create a sentence.
Materials: blackboard, chalk, eraser, composition paper, pens
Procedure: The teacher provides the student with noun phrases
and verb phrases. The student is taught to combine both phrases to
create a complete sentence. This activity should be a group exercise.
The teacher must specify a rule is to be used to join the phrases
together. A means to convey this idea would be to give them a basic
math problem where they add two numbers to form a greater
number. The rule is dictated by the size which indicates the
operation. Similarly the + can be used as a rule to have students
add the two phrases.
Rationale: The students should draw an analogy between the
precision of math and the precision required in the combining
operation. This exercise should facilitate the development of basic
understandings essential for later use of this technique.
Reinforcement: A homework assignment can be a means of
reinforcing this basic operation. Also, it may be helpful to make signs
which forces students to distinguish the who or what’s from the what
happened’s. Another student can be the rule and another the output
or complete sentence. This activity should stress the concept of

adding to form synthesis.
Day Two: Objective Student should be able to join compound
subjects.
Materials: blackboard, chalk, eraser, paper and pens
Procedure: Students should be given a list of words that can be
combined to make new words. The teacher should point out the fact
that these words can stand alone and still be considered as words.
Once students recognize these new words as compound words, the
teacher constructs sentences which have the same verb phrases but
different subjects. Students should also be aware of the ways of
joining together subjects. (and) This joining word serves as the rule.
Example: John hit the ball. (and)
Mary hit the ball. (+ rule)
Result: John and Mary hit the ball.
Rationale: This operation should serve as a means of exposing
students to the possibility of sentence manipulation. Students should
be able to recognize verb phrases which describe the same actions
yet contain different subjects.
Reinforcement: Homework consisting of similar examples or/and
worksheets which contain these type of combining operations.
Students can role play a sentence where different students commit
the same action to enable students to see that a more concise
description of the action would include a joining word and one
sentence.
Day Three: Objective Students should be able to write sentences
containing compound predicates.
Materials: blackboard, chalk, eraser, paper and pens
Procedure: Students should be given examples of sentences which
consist of the same subjects yet different verb phrases. Their task is
to combine the sentences and retain the subject.
Example:
1. The fox jumped over the fence. (and)
2. The fox raided the chicken coop. (+)
3. The fox jumped over the fence and raided the chicken coop.
Rationale: Hopefully students will see that once the verb phrase
is the part of the sentence to be combined, they will be able to spot
sentences to be combined in their writing which may contain exact
subjects but different predicates. Also, this operation should
familiarize them with the use of the rule and the combining
technique.
Reinforcement: Homework, or in class worksheet which contains
this type of operation. The activity described in the previous lesson
could serve to illustrate that one sentence and a joining word could
be a concise way of expressing a thought.
Day Four: Objective Students should be able to combine two
sentences.
Materials: blackboard, chalk, eraser, pen, paper, oak tag and
magic markers
Procedure: The teacher makes posters of oak tag which contain
sentences to be combined. Also the teachers makes three separate
posters which contain the conjunctions and, but and or. The teacher
provides the class with two signs which contain the sentences to be
combined along with access to the three conjunction posters. Students
should be able to combine the sentences using the appropriate
conjunction.
At this point the teacher may want to introduce or insert the
comma as a punctuation mark which should precede the conjunction
in the sentence to be combined. Examples of this operation can be
demonstrated on the board and similar exercises can be worked out
as a group activity.
Ex. Red Marker: John likes chocolate. (conjunction)
He eats it all the time. (+)
Conjunctions Blue marker, including punctuation mark
Result: John likes chocolate, and he eats it all the time.
Rationale: Students should receive a gradual bit of information
each day. They should become aware of the lengths of words which
can be combined as well as the words which can be employed to
complete the process as well as specific structural clues.
Reinforcement: Activity described above is helpful and worksheet
and homework assignment which involve the operation.
Day Five: Objective—The student should be able to combine noun
phrases and verb phrases as well as sentences, given the rules.
Materials: chalk, erasers, blackboard, paper and pens
Procedure: This lesson will consist of having students combine
noun and verb phrases as well as sentences. The teacher may allow
students to construct sentences or/and phrases to be combined. The

class can be divided and each group will send a representative to
the board. The teacher writes two phrases and the rule. The team
which completes the task first is awarded a point. The same
procedure can be used with sentences.
Rationale: This is an evaluative lesson as well as a means of
reinforcement. The teacher should be able to observe the effectiveness
of instruction or spot weaknesses in students’ grasp of combining
operation.
Reinforcement: Teacher should help students who have particular
difficulties. It may be necessary to have a student who understands
the technique tutor a student who needs assistance.
Chapter 5
Grammar as Resource for Learning
RECOGNIZING GENRES
To effectively help all children develop competence with the
registers and genres that are powerful for learning in school, teachers
need to recognize, build on, and expand the language resources
students bring to school to help them develop new ways of using
language to think about the world. Both language and thinking
develop through meaningful participation in tasks that promote new
ways of thinking and using language. This means that the cognitive
development that accompanies particular academic tasks depends
on the way those tasks are embedded in their social contexts and
the purposes to which the new skills are put.
Language is the central tool for cognitive development in school.
Teaching should be seen as what Christie calls a “deliberate” act of
instruction to achieve a set of goals. Fundamental to teaching is the
notion of scaffolding—what Martin calls “guidance through
interaction in the context of shared experience”. Scaffolding requires
a visible pedagogy that provides teachers with expertise and makes
the criteria for success explicit to students.
For scaffolding to be effective in promoting language
development, teachers need to be aware of what they are scaffolding
and what they are aiming to achieve. From a linguistic perspective,
recognizing that particular texts are valued in particular social
contexts, such as schools, suggests that schools need to provide
opportunities for students to develop an understanding of what those
valued texts achieve and how the social meanings they make are
construed in grammatical and lexical choices.
Too often, however, students experience an invisible pedagogy,
where teachers manage classroom tasks and interaction without
being clear about the content to be learned and the criteria for
success. Invisible pedagogies do not push students to move beyond
what they already know.
For example, Christie describes a language arts curriculum where
students are expected to read literature and adopt a position that is
their “own” in response to it, without any explicit analysis of the
texts they are reading that would reveal the many and varied
embedded cultural meanings.
Such an implicit pedagogy puts at risk all but those students
whose socialization has prepared them to relate to the embedded
meanings, those students who have opportunities outside of school
to engage in the kind of discussion and critique that prepares them
for such tasks in school. Explicit pedagogies foreground the patterns
and relationships in the language and practices being taught. It is
not enough just to have “standards” that students need to meet.
Teachers need to be informed about the linguistic challenges of
those standards and have tools for unraveling the linguistic
complexities that they represent. Without explicit instruction and
clear criteria for success, when students fail, the failure is easily
placed on factors such as ability, family background, or motivation.
Students may lack experience with school tasks on several levels.
They may not understand the goals and purposes of the tasks,
or they may not understand what the school values in its expectations
for language use. Even when they understand the goals and
purposes, they may not understand how such goals and purposes
are relevant to their lives. Knowledge develops in particular contexts
related to particular purposes, and the specific context and purpose
shape the knowledge, and linguistic resources to construe that
knowledge, that students develop. For that reason it is especially
important that instruction in language be contextualized through
authentic and purposeful activities.
Australian researchers have promoted a genre-based pedagogy
that takes an explicit approach to literacy instruction with a goal of
providing equal opportunities for all students to read and write the
genres that allow them to participate successfully in school, in science
and technology, and in other institutions of society.
Cope and Kalantzis characterize this approach as “being explicit
about the way language works to make meaning … engaging
students in the role of apprentice with the teacher in the role of expert
on language system and function … [with] emphasis on content, on
structure and on sequence in the steps that a learner goes through
to become literate in a formal educational setting”.
The functional grammar described in this book and in other work
on systemic functional linguistics grounds the genre approach in
linguistic elements that realize the genres, so that they are not taught
as formulaic text types but as social processes that are realized in
certain language choices.
Students need knowledge about the social purposes and the
linguistic features that realize those purposes in different genres.
Because each discipline has evolved a way of using language that
interprets the world in its own terms, students need to learn the
language of the different school disciplines if they are to be effective
in doing school-based tasks.
This means they have to engage in producing a range of genres
from the early years. Children can be introduced to factual writing
from the beginning of school if effective contexts are developed.
Factual genres have their roots in language whose function is to
explore the world, so the capacity to read and write such genres
needs to be developed in contexts where students are developing
knowledge about unfamiliar concepts. Ability to write factually or
analytically will not develop in the same contexts in which personal
writing develops. This means that students need social experiences
that engage them meaningfully in activities for which reading and
writing a range of factual and analytical genres is called for.
Teachers also need to learn to recognize when factual genres
are appropriate, as students are sometimes encouraged even to write
about scientific topics from a personal perspective. Christie, for
example, reports on how a teacher in a science class asks students
in early primary grades to write a “story” about the hatching eggs
that have been the students’ project. The instruction to “tell a story”
misleads the children into a narrative genre which is inappropriate
for making meaning in this context.
When writing book reports, too, students often write in a
narrative rather than analytical genre. Much of students’ early
writing experience, then, fails to prepare them for the genres that
will be expected of them later. If students are to develop the range

of genres expected in school tasks, the challenges in the development
of the language resources needed to accomplish those genres must
be addressed in the school context.
Each genre represents a different cultural use of language and
each has its own roots in different cultural experiences. In order for
students to learn to use and manipulate each genre for their own
purposes, they need to share in the cultural experiences that genre
helps construct.
Truly understanding and accepting that students need to share
in those cultural experiences has major implications for how
language can be taught and learned. Students need to be able to
participate in the social purposes of the texts and tasks of schooling
so that they understand the goals of the tasks they are asked to do
and the texts they are asked to create.
Analyzing Language
In order to effectively scaffold the development of different
genres, teachers need a clear understanding of the goals of the
assignments they give and a means of helping students learn how
to write texts that meet those goals. The context of any particular
school task is not the same for every student. Schleppegrell
demonstrates, for example, that when asked to write descriptions in
science class, some students write incipient reports, drawing on
grammatical resources that present themselves as knowledgeable
experts who are authoritatively providing information for a non-
present audience, while others write texts that construe more
personal contexts as they comment on what they see or what they
like.
Anderson also found register differences in the way deaf and
hearing college students responded when asked to write about how
they felt about writing. All hearing students responded in a similar
way, beginning their texts with themselves (I) as theme/subject,
foregrounding themselves as writers. They all used it/writing in the
clause rheme. The responses of the deaf students were much more
varied in their grammatical choices.
Only about half chose I as the theme/subject of the first sentence,

and many of them expanded their initial clauses hypotactically and
paratactically, foregrounding related or unrelated topics. These
differences demonstrate the power of register and the need to
address attention to grammatical and lexical features, especially with
students who may not have experience with academic registers.
The point is not that every student must make the same
grammatical choices, but when students’ choices do not enable them
to accomplish assigned tasks in ways that foreground the meanings
in focus, they can benefit from attention to other options available
to them. Students’ grammatical choices construe different
conceptualizations of the tasks they are assigned as they create
different types of texts; texts which are not all valued in the same
way.
For teachers, understanding the genres they are assigning and
the register features that construct those genres can enable them to
see writing tasks as processes through which students can express
their individuality at the same time their knowledge and opinions
are also presented in ways that are valued at school and in society.
Recent second language research also suggests that a focus on
form can be important for students’ language development. Informed
by a theory of language that is discourse and meaning-based, a focus
on language can be brought to learning even as new content is
introduced. Students can learn how the close interaction between
grammar and discourse organization enables them to create effective
texts and develop the diverse voices they need to produce texts for
different contexts and situations.
By making the lexical and grammatical expectations for academic
assignments explicit, teachers can help students make more effective
choices in approaching different writing tasks. With an
understanding of the genre and register features of academic tasks,
teachers can focus on grammar as a resource for the construction of
texts and help students use new resources of the grammar.
Information about grammar can be incorporated into writing
instruction so that as students follow a process of drafting, revising,
and editing, they can be made aware of the features that are
especially important for construing meanings in that writing task.
Such focus on form shows students how their grammatical

choices contribute to the effectiveness of their texts and helps them
gain control of their writing and more confidence in their choices.
Rothery, for example, shows how functional grammar can be used
to teach students to write scientific explanations. As students read
procedural texts that laid out the experiment they were involved in,
they identified imperative verbs and sequencing markers and
analyzed how referents were tracked.
Rothery points out that when the students first wrote reports
on the experiments, the texts they produced were procedures, not
explanations. It was only when they focused on the linguistic features
of explanation that they began to write about how the process
worked rather than how to do the process; learning to structure text
in a new way. Rothery notes that it is not easy for teachers to facilitate
such learning.
“Teachers do not have technical knowledge about the language
system, the relationship between text and context, or of child
language studies which document the adult’s guiding, scaffolding
role in adult/child linguistic interactions, a role which is crucial to
children learning language and learning through language”.
Without such knowledge, as suggested before, teachers may
locate the literacy problem in the students’ cognitive abilities rather
than in the pedagogy. Lessons can also help students understand
how linguistic choices make texts the kinds of texts they are. School
textbooks are often constructed in ways that do not make the
meanings explicit, and students need to be able to work with dense
and difficult language in order to understand such texts.
Explicit analysis of the linguistic structure of texts can help
students understand how language construes particular contexts and
ways of thinking. The grammatical and lexical elements that are
functional for creating texts in school contexts can become an explicit
focus of teaching and students can engage in deconstruction of the
texts they read to help them understand how the authors have
constructed the text to incorporate ideational, interpersonal, and
textual meanings through their lexical and grammatical choices.
A functional analysis of language can also inform educators as
they prepare texts for students to read. For example, Unsworth
demonstrates that it is possible to identify and specify the features
that make a middle-school science textbook explanation about sound

waves effective. He shows how the types of clauses selected, use of
grammatical metaphor and conjunctive relations, and choice of theme
in the presentation of information contribute to clear and effective
text.
He demonstrates how an ineffective text distorts an explanation
of sound waves and creates ambiguity because it does not draw on
the constellation of grammatical features that enables an explanation
at increasing levels of abstraction. Knowledge about the role of
grammatical resources can help educators create texts that better
achieve the purposes of schooling. A functional analysis of
grammatical resources also provides a framework for analyzing
students’ command of language and identifying the areas in which
they need further development.
Explicitness about the textual expectations for academic writing
is the only means of providing access and achieving fairness in
assessment. Unfortunately, this is seldom done. As Rothery and
Stenglin note about English as a subject area, “the goals … are left
implicit, or even misrepresented, and … students are given virtually
no tools for achieving them, [so] it is not surprising that success in
English is achieved mainly by students from the middle class who
bring with them a rich cultural capital of literacy, field experiences
and mainstream ethical positions which they constantly draw on in
the classroom”. Tools for linguistic analysis are “precisely the
resource which enables learners to develop the means of reflecting
on language”.
This capacity for reflection is an important aspect of developing
critical thinking and higher level knowledge. Learning the registers
that construe school-based social practices gives students tools for
adapting those registers to their own social, cultural, and political
interests. The values and hierarchies related to academic genres and
registers are not obvious or evident without explicit instruction.
By implementing an active pedagogy that teaches about the
language of schooling, educators can overcome the labels that
separate students into different categories and social groups and
enable a focus on the common agenda of helping students gain
control over the texts that have the power to shape the future that
they share.
Grammar and Writing Development

Students typically draw on the resources of the language they
already know, the language of informal interaction, as they learn
new ways of organizing and presenting language through writing.
The academic register features described emerge gradually in
children’s writing, with the information-packed clause structure
characteristic of academic registers only developing fully as children
move into adolescence. Children’s early writing appears very much
like their oral language, as they first construct chained clauses, using
and and other generalized conjunctions of informal spoken discourse,
before they learn to use the grammar and organizational structure
typical of academic written texts.
Research on children’s writing development from a grammatical
perspective has focused on the movement from this chained,
coordinated clause structure to the more condensed clausal structure
typical of more mature writing. In this process, children first use
only coordination, but then begin to incorporate dependent clauses,
vary their sentence structure, and expand their vocabulary.
Hunt’s experiments in sentence-combining show these strategies
developing as children’s writing matures. Hunt contrasts the writing
of fourth-grade students and adults in terms of how they use
conjunctions to combine six simple sentences into more complex
structures. Representative examples of how the six sentences were
combined by writers at different ages are shown in (1):
1. 4th grader: Aluminum is a metal and it is abundant. It has
many uses and it comes from bauxite. Bauxite is an ore and
looks like clay.
Adult: Aluminum, an abundant metal with many uses,
comes from bauxite, a clay-like ore.
The fourth grader uses and to connect each pair of the six
sentences into a coordinated structure. The adult, on the other hand,
combines all six sentences into one that has no conjunctions at all.
Hunt concludes that “successively older students can consolidate
a successively larger number of simple sentences into a single T-
unit”. They do this by reducing sentences to phrases or single words,
using strategies of condensation which, are typical of academic
registers.
The first clause combining strategy Hunt describes in children’s

writing is coordination of T-units and predicates, starting at about
fourth grade. He observes that fourth graders rarely transform
predicate adjectives into prenominal adjectives, but as they gain
experience, writers increasingly do this (e.g., metal is abundant
becomes abundant metal), until, at about eighth grade, writers in his
study use more prenominal than predicate adjectives.
Young writers coordinate predicates, but coordination with
ellipsis of subjects is rare at fourth grade, and increases with
experience (e.g., it has many uses and it comes from bauxite becomes It
has many uses and comes from bauxite). Eighth graders also use relative
clauses (e.g., There was a man and he was a singer becomes The man
who was a singer, …) and begin using appositives (e.g., The girl next
door, Staci …) and nonfinite participles (e.g., Carved from a pumpkin,
the jack o’lantern … or Coming through the window, the burglar …).
Although he does not use the notion of grammatical metaphor,
Hunt reports that it is only older writers who are able to readily
make syntactic category shifts such as transforming predicates into
modifiers (e.g., The horse galloped becomes The galloping horse) or
transforming clauses into prepositional phrases (e.g., an ore that has
many uses becomes an ore with many uses).
Children’s narrative and argumentative writing also shows
significant decreases in causal and temporal conjunctions as they
mature. Crowhurst finds that twelfth graders are more likely than
sixth graders to use the kinds of conjunctive signals that signpost
the development of an argument (first of all, next, for one thing, all in
all, finally) and are more likely to use adversative conjunctions
(however, but, whereas). Nelson finds that older students use fewer
conjunctions because they express ideas more efficiently using verbs.
As students adopt the registers of schooled writing, they also learn
to present their opinions and attitudes in ways that are more
authoritative, as the grammatical features of the academic registers
enable a more reasoned style of argument.
As Crowhurst describes it, “whereas much of the best writing
at age 11 reflects the conventions of speech—as indeed, does weaker
writing by 15-yearolds—able 15-year-olds have learned a good deal
more both about written argument and about the text-forming
devices of language. They have a variety of linguistic means at their
disposal for conveying urgency and emphasis and have less need
for the passionate personal statements and rhetorical questions of
younger children”.
A distinguishing feature of weak writing is the presence of
hedges, redundancies, restarts, vagueness, or ellipses that are
acceptable in conversation. Developing written academic registers
means learning to make different lexical and grammatical choices
than those that come naturally in interactional registers. All of this
research indicates that academic writing development involves
movement away from the paratactic, clause-chaining syntax of
speech, and toward the reduced clauses and high propositional
content of the academic registers.
Writers learn to pack more information into each clause as their
writing develops. As successful children learn to write, they
gradually become competent in adopting the structural and semantic
properties of academic registers, coming to understand how
language is structured differently when it is used in school-based
tasks. They learn to compact clauses, expand their vocabulary, and
present logical relationships in new ways, making the register choices
that present them as effective academic writers.
This enables them to meet the discourse demands of the later
years of education, which require the adoption of more academic
ways of writing. Perfetti and McCutchen suggest that older children
need to develop “productive control of lexical and grammatical
devices”. They point out that “it is not until writers reach a certain
level of maturity that they even attempt to express many ideas…
within a single sentence.
It is that complexity, and the sophisticated syntax that it requires,
that proves so problematic for many older writers”. They describe
students who attempt to respond to the discourse demands of written
language, but are unable to, because they are not able to draw on
the grammatical features that express what they intend.
As students are asked to accomplish more difficult and complex
tasks, they have to draw on new grammatical and lexical resources.
When lexical and grammatical development does not keep pace with
school expectations, students are unable to meet the reading and
writing demands of disciplinary learning. Many of the students who
have difficulty developing their writing to meet these academic
register challenges speak English as a second language or second
dialect. Students whose community language is a nonstandard

variety of English have been shown to draw heavily on oral language
features in their writing, as have second language writers.
It is difficult to generalize about second language students, since
they come from a variety of backgrounds, have begun learning
English at different ages, and have different experiences of literacy
in their mother tongues. The structure of their first languages and
differences in their experiences also contribute to the variability of
second language writing.
However, a review of 72 research reports comparing the
composing processes and written text features of ESL and non-ESL
writers finds that, in general, adult second language writing is
simpler and less effective than first language writing. “L2 writers’
texts were less fluent (fewer words), less accurate (more errors), and
less effective (lower holistic scores)”.
Second language writers’ sentences included more but shorter
T-units, fewer but longer clauses, more coordination, less
subordination, less noun modification, and less passivization. Second
language writers also evidenced distinct patterns in the use of
cohesive devices, especially more conjunctive and fewer lexical ties,
and less lexical control, variety, and sophistication overall. These are
the same features that are typical of the less developed first language
writer.
Similar conclusions are reported in Hinkel, who compares 68
linguistic features of texts by university level second language writers
with those of native speakers in first year composition courses. She
describes oral features in second language writing, including more
use of conjunctions, especially causal conjunctions, exemplification
markers, and demonstrative pronouns for establishing text cohesion,
with few lexical ties.
She links this functionally to her finding that second language
writers provide personal stories rather than evidence for arguments
in their essays, and concludes that these students “have a shortfall
of syntactic and lexical tools to enable them to produce competent
written academic text”. For those students with academic language
experience in their first languages, it can be very frustrating to be
unable to express themselves in English with the complex syntax
and lexis that they can draw on in their first language.
An even greater challenge faces the many immigrant children

in today’s schools who have not had the opportunity to develop
academic registers in their first languages. Even when they have
achieved a good level of fluency in spoken English, they may have
difficulty with academic language tasks. Similar challenges face
speakers of nonstandard dialects of English, in learning the ways
that academic registers construe meanings.
Of course these different types of learners also differ in the
challenges they face. Recently arrived second language learners have
to learn a whole new grammar and lexicon, while immigrant
students and speakers of nonstandard dialects may already control
the spoken registers. The length of time that students may need to
gain control of the surface grammar may also vary based on many
factors, including first language, literacy background, and social
experience, but on the whole, similar issues in writing development
face second language learners, second dialect speakers, and other
students without sufficient experience with academic contexts for
language use.
For all students for whom the notion of an academic register is
not already familiar, learning to write is a great challenge, and a
major aspect of that challenge is linguistic. Although the studies just
reviewed do not take a functional linguistics perspective on the
features they analyze, their findings support a functional
interpretation.
Using the tools of systemic functional linguistics, Christie, for
example, points out that use of adverbs emerges late in students’
writing, and suggests that this is because adverbs of manner and
modal adverbs such as nearly and constantly are involved in the
expression of judgments that develops as students mature. Christie
describes the new aspects of literacy that are learned as students
move into the more complex demands of secondary school,
identifying the grammatical features needed for more advanced
writing.
She demonstrates how the use of embedded clauses and other
means of expanding nominal groups is important for advanced
literacy development because the kinds of texts that students are
asked to write call for expanded nominal elements as themes that
help to structure texts. The features of academic registers also enable
students to construct the abstractions and generalizations needed

for analytical writing.
Christie points out that the features she analyzes, including
control of grammatical metaphor, “create the capacity in the
successful writer, to handle the building of generalisation,
abstraction, argument, reflection upon experience”. But Christie notes
that these features are slow to develop, and that “development of
control of many aspects of written language is a feature of late
childhood and adolescence”.
Christie’s research provides functional explanations for the
findings of the other research reviewed here. Both structural and
functional analyses suggest that to write in advanced literacy
contexts, students need to draw on a constellation of grammatical
and lexical features, including clause-combining strategies that rely
less on conjunctions and finite clauses and more on embedded
clauses and nominal and verbal expression of logical relationships.
The functional analysis demonstrates how these developmental
changes enable students to mean new things, construing the new
kinds of knowledge that come out of the disciplinary demands of
later schooling.
In order to understand these disciplinary demands, it is
important to recognize the different types of texts that teachers
typically ask students to read and write. The new knowledge and
new ways of meaning that students are developing are realized in
the particular genres of schooling.
Grammatical and lexical features can effectively be a focus of
attention only in the contexts of the texts in which they occur. Each
subject has its own favoured text types. The next sections review
the genres of schooling in general terms, and then focus on how
academic registers are typically realized in one valued genre, the
expository essay.
Genres of Schooling
Genre is a term used to refer to particular text or discourse types.
This section presents an overview of some genres of schooling in
order to provide a framework for discussion of the key register
features of academic texts. The description of the genres themselves
should be seen as merely suggestive of the text types, as these are
social constructs that are enacted in a diversity of ways. While the
naming and description of a genre is in that sense arbitrary, as each

genre may have infinite manifestations and is always changing and
evolving, it is still useful to think about the properties of the
prototypical texts that are associated with schooling contexts.
Language always construes both the commonality and the
individuality of our social experiences, so the actual realizations of
any genre are highly varied. At the same time, looking at texts from
the perspective of the different genres they represent helps us
understand the variability and development that is expected of
students as they gain control of academic registers.
Genres come into being to serve specific social purposes, so
ability to realize the genres that are characteristic of particular social
contexts allows participation in and mutual understanding of those
contexts. Because school is a culture with its own expectations for
particular ways of using language, students need to learn about the
genres of schooling and the purposes for which they are useful.
They need to have experiences that engage them in activities for
which different genres are expected if they are to gain a realistic
understanding of their value and purposes. In addition to such
experiences, however, students often need to focus explicitly on how
those genres are typically constructed with the lexical and
grammatical resources of the language if they are going to be
successful in participating in such construction. Defining the features
of particular genres is problematic, as any one instance realizes the
genre in ways that are not comprehensive or definitive of the genre
as a more abstract notion.
Genres respond to the cultural contexts in which they achieve
their purposes, so their realizations vary and evolve as they are
created in new ways in different contexts. But to understand the
challenges of schooling, it is important to recognize that there are
text types that students are expected to write, and that those text
types are constructed with lexical and grammatical resources that
are functional for making it the kind of text it is.
Analyzing some genres that have been identified as relevant to
schooling reveals the lexical and grammatical challenges. Creating
an instance of a genre means using language to move through a
series of stages that are particular to that genre. The narrative genre,
for example, has been characterized as including the stages Abstract,
Orientation, Complication, Evaluation, Resolution, and Coda as

optional or obligatory elements.
Expository texts present a thesis and support it with arguments.
The language used to realize these different kinds of texts can be
analyzed to reveal what the linguistic challenges are in reading and
writing the different genres of schooling.
Three categories proposed by Martin; Personal, Factual, and
Analytical, to summarize the purposes and grammatical features of
seven prototypical school-based genres: Recount, Narrative, Procedure,
Report, Account, Explanation, and Exposition. The three categories refer
to the general purposes of the genres: those that report on or create
personal experience, those that present factual information, and those
that analyze and argue.
The social purpose of each genre and indicates some of the
grammatical features that research studies have found to be
functional in realizing the genre. Different register features are
functional for the realization of different genres. Each of the three
categories of genres has its own sequence of development, and within
each of the categories, there is an increasing demand for more
academic register features as students move, for example, from
writing recounts to writing narratives, or from writing procedures
to writing reports, or from writing accounts to writing explanations
and expositions.
The increased grammatical demands emerge from the more
complex stages that the more advanced text types include. Christie
proposes a developmental path in students’ ability to write in these
different ways. She suggests that in the early primary grades,
students typically write recounts, an early step toward the
development of narrative.
Recounts are re-creations of personal experience that are
characterized by their use of personal pronouns and material
processes to talk about activities and the participants in the activities;
frequent use of conjunctions, especially additive and temporal
conjunctions, to link clauses; and use of the past tense. (2) is an
example of a rudimentary recount, written by a first-grade nonnative
speaker of English:
2. One day I played with my friends outside to played soccer.
When we done to play soccer we cleaned up the house
together. The house was beautiful. When we finish we go
outside again to play soccer. I liked the fun day.
This text uses personal pronouns (I, we), material processes

realized in past tense verbs (played, cleaned), and when, a temporal
conjunction, to build the sequence of events in the text. Two
evaluative clauses (the house was beautiful, I liked the fun day) point
toward the assessment and evaluation that will develop in this writer
as he gains skill in writing more complex narrative texts. Christie
notes that as students develop, they begin writing texts that not only
recount an experience, but also draw implications from the
experience.
This requires a grammatical advance in order to make the link
from the recount to the implication (using expressions such as and
that shows, etc.), and a shift from past to present tense for the
presentation of meanings that are timeless, not part of the recount
of events. These developments prepare students to write full
narratives, texts that include problematic events and their outcome,
with a complicating action that results in an overall point to the story.
Here a variety of verb tenses helps students move between
various time and perspective changes, with a pattern of participant
role changes and a variety of conjunctive relations and evaluative
lexis. Christie demonstrates the grammatical developments that occur
as students move from simple recounts into the more complex
narratives that draw on elaboration of circumstances, adverbs of
manner, and use of grammatical metaphor to build experiential
information in incongruent ways as writers incorporate complication
and evaluation phases into their stories.
Procedure is a factual genre which is often written in the early
years of schooling. It typically directs the actions of others through
a set of steps. Giving directions, for example, creates a procedural
text, often using declarative mood with present tense verbs to talk
about generalized actions (e.g., you go to the top of the stairs and turn
right …). Procedures may also use imperative verbs to direct the
actions of others.
In middle and secondary school, students write reports where
they need to classify and describe. Here present tense is functional
as writers make generic, rather than specific references. Text (3) is a
description of a picture written by a middle school student that
shows some features of the report genre:
3. The egret is very large and slendar. It fishes for food so his
eyes in the picture look determined. The egret lives in the
rain forest because it looks like that in the background of
the picture. The egrets live on the Long Island coasts’s. They
use there long stiff beaks and legs to hunt there prey.
The writer of (3) begins her text with a nominal group that
introduces what she is describing in a way that is generic (the egret)
at the same time it refers to the specific picture she is describing.
The clause themes maintain the focus on the generic egret,
constructing the text as a report on egrets in general, with
information about this bird presented in the clause rhemes.
But the student also refers to the picture she is describing (e.g.,
in the picture and it looks like that in the background of the picture), so
the text has features both of a report with a more distanced stance
and a description more situated in relationship to the picture. It is
common to see features of different genres and registers in the same
text as students struggle to move into more academic ways of
writing.
As students move into analytical writing, they write accounts,
explanations, and expositions. Accounts are structured temporally, like
recounts and narratives, but they also incorporate causal reasoning,
as writers tell not only what happened, but why. A further step is
explanation, where a phenomenon is presented and explained (How
our government is structured, for example) without temporal
sequencing.
Instead, some kind of logical structure has to be developed in
an effective explanation (There are three branches of government).
Explanations draw on relational processes, technical language, and
varied conjunctive relations. Expansion of nominal groups and more
frequent use of circumstantial information goes along with these
developments, making the control of a variety of types of clause
themes important. In addition, a more authoritative voice emerges
as the writer adopts consistent use of the third person.
Moving beyond explanations, students write expository texts in
which they argue for a position or weigh different views. The writer
expands nominal groups and creates abstractions in order to name
points to be developed and argued. A greater facility with clause
organization strategies helps the writer reason with grammatical
metaphor, a key resource for expressing causal relationships and

attitudes in more condensed and objective ways.
Modality helps to construe possibility and necessity, and logical
and attitudinal connectors (however, nevertheless) are often used as
themes to scaffold the argument. The next section of this chapter
takes up these points in greater detail to describe how all these
features together contribute to effective exposition. The genres within
each category share some features. The personal genres, for example,
share the characteristic that they are temporally organized and report
on specific events.
This means that less organizational expertise is needed for
personal writing such as recount or narrative, because the events
themselves create a structure for the unfolding text. The factual and
analytical genres also include types that are organized temporally;
in the case of factual genres, the procedure, and in the case of analytical
genres, the account. But as students move on in schooling, they need
to organize texts logically, rather than temporally, in order to present
information or make claims and support them with judgments and
evaluation.
The genres of schooling become increasingly demanding in terms
of the grammatical expectations that underlie them. In order to move
from time-ordered, narrative modes of presentation, students need
to be able to make changes in both the clause-level choices and
discourse organization of their writing.
Creating a text that presents and supports a thesis requires use
of nominalization, internal linking, and other more advanced
grammatical strategies.
Of course there are different ways of naming and describing
these text types; terms like argument, discussion, and summary are
also used as names of schoolbased genres. These genres are not
presented here as templates, but as general descriptions of culturally
expected ways of writing that are recognizable in the context of
schooling. Some of these genres also appear as stages in other genres.
In expository writing, for example, recounts of personal
experience or reports of general information may form stages of the
developing exposition. As students proceed through the levels of
schooling, the kinds of genres they are expected to produce become
more complicated, with exposition a target genre that is typically

expected of the competent secondary school graduate.
Because expository writing is such a key genre for success in
schooling at advanced levels, the following section explores the
expectations for expository writing in more detail and presents some
issues that face inexperienced students in accomplishing this genre.
Chapter 6
Grammatical Change
THE CATEGORY ‘GRAMMAR’

Writing-system, phonology and even lexicology are fairly well
defined categories of linguistic analysis. Grammar, however, is a
more nebulous category, and this has left its mark in the confusion
which sometimes marks its definition in the literature; for some
scholars, grammar refers to the whole range of linguistic activity,
with the exception of lexicography, for others, it has a narrower
meaning. In this book, the term is used comparatively narrowly, to
refer to syntax and morphology. Syntax is concerned with the way in
which words combine to form clauses and sentences; morphology-
referred to briefly at the beginning is concerned with word-form.
In other words, grammar is to do with such matters as element-
order and inflectional variation. There is a fuzzy area between
grammar and lexicology, and some areas traditionally considered
the realm of grammar have been discussed (e.g. some aspects of
word-formation, the development of gender-systems with reference
to pronoun-forms).
This fuzziness should not be seen as too problematic; it is worth
remembering that our categories of analysis are attempts to order
complex things in as economical a way as possible, and it is therefore
not surprising that these complex things do not always fit our
necessarily clumsy attempts to force them into neat categories.
Indeed, it is arguable that one of the characteristic faults of linguistics,
especially as practised over the last thirty years or so, has been to
try to force the complexities of linguistic behaviour into strictly
formal categories which are unable to comprehend the diversity of
natural languages.
The reason for the fuzziness of the division between grammar

and lexis is that both are carriers of meaning, and it must be expected
therefore that meaning is carried differently in different states of
language. Such differences are clearly shown in diachronic study.
For instance, the Present-Day English clause I had loved, consisting
of subject-pronoun, verbal auxiliary and main verb, was expressed
in Old English by the clause ic lufoder (literally ‘I loved formerly’),
to be analysed as consisting of subject-pronoun, main verb and
adverb. Both I had loved and ic lufoder are attempts to express the
‘same meaning’, but one uses an auxiliary verb (traditionally seen
as a category to do with grammar) and the other uses an adverb
(traditionally seen as to do with lexis).
This interface is seen most characteristically in the process known
as grammaticalisation (sometimes grammaticisation). In essence
grammaticalisation is to do with the shift of an item from lexical to
grammatical categories; its reverse, lexicalisation, was touched upon
on page 134 above.
Once more, the history of the auxiliary verbs supplies a good
example of the process, with the history of the form ‘will’. The history
of ‘will’ and its related verb ‘shall’ is of some interest for the study
of the role of prescriptivity in the history of English. In Old English,
wille etc. had a volitional sense ‘want to’, whereas sceal etc. meant
‘must’. ‘Shall’ retains an obligatory sense in Early Modern English:
thus the force of Thou shalt not in the Authorised Version of the Ten
Commandments; and it retains this meaning in some, especially
formal, varieties of Present-Day English (cf. You SHALL go to the ball,
Cinderella!).
However, the form is generally dying out in present-day
varieties, either altogether (as in Present-Day Scots or in US usage)
or retained only marginally through prescriptive or formalised use.
In the eighteenth century, ‘shall’ was reinterpreted by the
prescriptivists as the future auxiliary appropriate for government
by first-person pronouns, and it is still taught as such. Augustan
grammarians such as Bishop Lowth put forward the interesting
pragmatic argument that ‘shall’ is appropriate for first- but not
second- or third-person use because to state obligation for the latter
can be-to use a twentieth-century expression-a ‘face-threatening’ act.
By the early twentieth century, these pragmatic arguments for usage

seem to have been generally forgotten.
In an Old English clause, therefore, such as Ic wille þone hlford
ofsl–an ‘I want to kill the lord’, wille is a lexical verb which implies
volition as well as futurity. In Present-Day English, the reflex of the
one-time lexical verb wille is an auxiliary signalling future tense,
grammatically bound within the verb-phrase, and the semantic
component volition is no longer salient. In other words, the verb has
become grammaticalised. Thus I will kill the lord does not necessarily
signal volition, and another Present-Day English verb, want, has to
take its place if volition is to be signalled strongly.
The key fact, of course, is that the Old English word wille ‘want’
necessarily has within its variational space the connotation of
futurity, since ‘to want’ is to desire something not yet in one’s
possession; it is this connotation which has become the conceptual
or focal meaning of the word. The word which has replaced ‘will’,
‘want’, had itself undergone a change of meaning, from ‘lack’ to
‘desire’; this change has presumably itself been motivated in turn
by the shift of the focal meaning of ‘want’. The older meaning of
‘want’ survives only in a few fossil expressions, such as found wanting,
and (of course) in biblical language, where Early Modern English
usage has been retained.
GRAMMATICAL VARIATION
It was observed how contact, systemic regulation and variation
interact to produce phonological and lexicological change. In this
chapter, the focus shifts to events which are traditionally assigned
to the category of grammatical change; the aim of this chapter is to
show how outcomes which are traditionally assigned to the category
‘grammatical change’ are the result of dynamically interacting intra-
and extralinguistic processes.
At the level of phonology, it was observed that allophonic
variation was the key to phonological change. Something similar can
be distinguished at the level of grammar. One source of allophonic
variation is, to do with levels of emphasis: thus variants arise through
emphatic or relaxed usage. In grammar, the equivalent sources of
variation are similarly to do with formality or emphasis; thus, for
instance, Classical Latin distinguished between ego amo ‘I love’ and

ad Romam ire ‘to go to Rome’ (emphatic) and amo, Romam ire (relaxed).
Over time, with the obscuration of unstressed syllables in the
Romance languages, inflectional distinctions in the relaxed register
became unclear, and the emphatic alternative, where the pronoun
ego and the preposition ad were available to express the relationship
between words, was preferred in all environments. Thus in Present-
Day French the sole equivalent to Romam ire and ad Romam ire is
aller à Paris.
Other sources of grammatical variation are the result of
analogical and phonological pressures. The forces of analogy put
pressure on inherited or borrowed forms which are perceived as
irregular, for example strong as opposed to weak verbs. It is for this
reason that, in Present-Day English, only the weak-verb paradigm
is still productive, and many verbs which were historically strong
have joined the weak set; for example, a recently coined verb such
as jive has been assigned to the weak paradigm (past tense jived as
opposed to jove), and the originally strong verb help (Old English
helpan ‘help’, past participle holpen) is now weak (cf. the Present-
Day English past participle helped).
Phonological pressures in English have been to do with the
reduction of stress on, and concomitant loss of distinctiveness of,
inflectional endings; this development, as we shall see, has resulted
in systemic pressure for grammatical change.
The interface between grammar and lexicon also introduces
variation, in the development of periphrastic formations. A good
example of this sort of thing is the appearance of the do-periphrasis
at the end of the Middle English period, as an alternative mode of
expression to signal causation or past tense.
Finally, as with phonological and lexicological change, there is
an additional source of variation: contact with other languages. It is
no coincidence that, in the history of English, inflectional innovation
has been earliest advanced in the area of the country where English
came into closest contact with varieties of Scandinavian. There is
evidence that Scandinavian and English were, throughout the Anglo-
Saxon period, to some extent mutually comprehensible; many lexical
items occur in both Old English and Old Norse, since both are
Germanic languages, and the pre-Viking connections between Old
Anglian and Old Norse have already been touched upon in various
places.
Norse certainly supplied English with a number of inflectional
features which have since become standard, for instance the -s ending
on third-person present-tense verbs. There are also syntactic loans,
some of which, such as the phrasal-verb constructions, have entered
the standard language, whereas others-such as the tendency to
ellipsis of the definite article, represented by the much-parodied
Northern usage t’mill ‘the mill’, which probably derives from
interaction between native and Norse prosodic and grammatical
patterns-have had a more restricted currency.
As we have come to expect from discussions, these innovative
pressures do not act in isolation; they act in combination across the
whole linguistic system, the dynamic interaction between them
producing change. The importance of interaction in the history of
grammar is underlined when innovations are compared in terms of
success or failure, that is, how long they continue to be a living part
of the language.
In the remainder, we shall first examine innovative failure and
then innovative success. The chapter will then conclude with a
history of the do-construction, an interesting innovation which at first
‘succeeded’ and then ‘failed’, the ‘success’ and ‘failure’ both being
the result of interaction with other parts of the linguistic system.
Incipient Systems of Nominal Inflection
In Old English the relationships between and within noun-
phrases were expressed by the use of formal case and grammatical
gender respectively. That this system was breaking down in the Late
Old English period is well attested. A good example of the kind of
problem which was beginning to arise appears in the Old English
poem The Wanderer, which survives in the Exeter Book, a manuscript
copied, probably at Exeter, where it still remains in the Cathedral
Library, in the second half of the tenth century. In the standard
edition of this poem, line 102 reads hrîð hrçosende hrûsan bindeð ‘a
falling snowstorm binds the ground’.
However, in the manuscript the line actually reads hrið hreosende
hruse bindeð. Old English hrkse ‘ground’ is a weak feminine noun,
and it is a reasonable editorial intervention to replace the ‘mistaken’
nominative form by the more ‘correct’ -an; such emendations are

constantly (and quite legitimately, given the intended readership)
made by editors of Old English texts. But the printed text misleads
if it suggests to the linguist that The Wanderer was copied in a more
normalised Old English than actually existed.
As Dunning and Bliss point out, such ‘mistakes’ may not be
mistakes at all, but rather examples of the obscuration of inflectional
distinctions in Late Old English, that is, the loss of distinctive case-
markers. That this levelling had been under way for some time in the
development of the Germanic languages is illustrated by the history
of the weak-noun declension. In Old English, the weak masculine and
feminine declensions were. The Germanic ancestor of the -an ending
which is so marked a feature of both these paradigms was much more
confined in extent, however. The equivalent, and more archaic, Gothic
paradigms, which demonstrate a much greater variety of endings,
might be compared here. It will be observed that, in comparison with
Gothic, the merging of case-distinctions (‘syncretism’) has been much
more thorough in Old English.
The syncretism which marks Old English is, incidentally, shared
by other contemporary Germanic languages, for instance Old Saxon
has tunga (nom. sg.), tungun (acc., gen., dat. sg.), tungun (nom., acc.
pl.), tunguno (gen. pl.), tungun (dat. pl.), with syncretism even of the
dative plural. In both cases it is possible to speak of an obvious
linguistic tendency towards the merging of case-endings.
During the transition from Old to Middle English, the original
Old English noun-system underwent further analogical shifts. Old
English had strong, weak and minor noun declensions, and by
Present-Day English the strong system has become, almost
everywhere, generalised; forms which in Old English were weak (e.g.
çagan ‘eyes’, naman ‘names’) or The Old English strong masculine
declension irregular (e.g. b–c ‘books’, suna ‘sons’) have conformed
analogically to the strong paradigm. Only a few common relicts
remain in Present Day English, for example oxen, children, feet, mice.
The Old English strong masculine declension was as indicated.
Singular Plural
Nominative cyning ‘king’ cyningas
Accusative cyning cyningas
Genitive cyninges cyninga
Dative cyninge cyningum
Even in Old English there are indications of the reorganisation

of this system. In the manuscript of the poem Beowulf, dating from
the end of the tenth century, forms such as the tribal names Heaþo-
Rmes (where the sense demands an accusative plural with -as,) and
Heaðo-Scilfingas (where the sense demands a genitive singular with
-es, line 63) may be early examples of later developments, and the
process may have been encouraged by a developing tendency
towards syncretism (i.e. disappearance of formal distinctiveness)
between dative and accusative which has been detected, for instance,
in the process of revision of Ælfric’s Homilies, composed around the
year 1000. This process culminates during the Middle English period.
Thus, for the Old English paradigm given, the usual Middle English
pattern consists of kyng for nominative/accusative/dative singular,
and kynges for the genitive singular and nominative/accusative/
genitive/dative plural, from which pattern derives the common
Present-Day English noun-paradigm.
There is, however, evidence that an alternative generalised
system was being developed in the post-Old English period. In the
‘AB-language’ of Ancrene Wisse and related texts, it is possible to
detect a paradigmatic pattern which differs from that described
above. This variety of post-Old English was conservative, and
attempted to maintain a distinction between weak and strong
declensions, although there were some reassignments and a decay
of irregular forms (thus AB-language has bokes ‘books’ for Old
English b–c).
The borrowing into English of French nouns, which in their
native form were marked for plurality by -es, may ultimately have
helped favour the choice of the Old English strong paradigm as the
model for future developments. But, in AB-language, French
loanwords were assigned to both paradigms, for example patriarchen
(beside patriarches), barren, trussen, beside ententes, beastes, leattres. It
appears that a semantic principle was at work:
There was…a tendency to associate the plural -es with nouns
denoting persons or classes of persons irrespective of the form of
the nom. singular, and the plural -en, -n with nouns (denoting
inanimate things) ending in a vowel in the nom. singular, irrespective
of the [Old English] plural or gender.
This principle was even extended to words of Old English origin;

thus a form such as wrecche ‘wretch’ (derived from the Old English
weak masculine noun wrecca) is assigned to the strong declension in
AB-language, whereas, for example, bruche ‘fragment’ (cf. the Old
English strong masculine noun bryce) is assigned to the weak
declension in AB-language. An incipient restructuring of the system
of declension, different from that which has survived in Present-Day
English, seems to have been under way in this variety.
Incipient Restructuring of Case-systems
A similar incipient restructuring can be seen in the development
of the Old English markers of grammatical case in the Late Old
English and post-Old English periods. In Old English, grammatical
case, as has been stated above, provided a useful syntagmatic
tracking device, marking the functions of noun-phrases, and relating
determiners and adjectives to nouns at a time when element-order
was more fluid than in Present-Day English.
However, although the system has survived in Modern German,
it largely died out in English during the Early Middle English period
and, with the exception of the genitive in ‘s’ and the singular/plural
distinction, is no longer a feature of Present-Day English. The
breakdown of the Old English system is well illustrated in the
language of the Peterborough Chronicle Continuations, a text which
has been referred to on a number of occasions already. One especially
controversial area of the language of the First Continuation has to
do with the reflexes of the Old English determiners sç, sço, þœt etc.
(often referred to for convenience, if somewhat inaccurately, as the
definite article), and also with the system of adjectival agreement.
In this portion of the Peterborough Chronicle, the Old English
distinctions of grammatical gender have almost completely
disappeared. However, there is evidence in the First Continuation
that an attempt has been made to retain and reorganise the
interphrasal tracking device, that is, the case-system. In the Anglian
texts from the Late Old English period, there is evidence of an
incipient restructuring of tracking-devices which, in Samuels’s careful
words, ‘would have provided a remodelled paradigm for pre-
modifiers’.
The pattern is illustrated with the Late West Saxon equivalents

for the sake of comparison; the masculine accusative singular ending
-ne appears in originally feminine and neuter contexts, the masculine/
neuter genitive singular -s appears modifying historically feminine
nouns, while the feminine dative singular -re is used to modify
masculines and neuters. Such patterns appear in the First
Continuation of the Peterborough Chronicle, for instance on þone
mynstre ‘in the minster’, to þœre mynstre ‘to the minster’, where
mynster is an historically neuter noun.
The system has obvious advantages, not least because the
selection of forms can be accounted for as being based on phonetic
distinctiveness. A comparison of the incipient Early Middle English
system with that of Late West Saxon suggests that selection of forms
was based upon the singular/plural distinction; thus þre has been
dropped as the feminine singular genitive because of overlap in form
with the similar genitive plural þâra, whereas þm has disappeared
in the masculine and neuter dative singular because of overlap with
the dative plural form.
Feminine þâ was dropped in the accusative because of overlap
with the plural form; the selection of þone rather than þœt seems
most probably to be because þœt was beginning to perform a number
of other useful functions, notably as a relative marker. The system
can be paralleled in the adjectives. Thus in the Northumbrian Durham
Ritual of the early eleventh century we find masculine adjective
endings applied to an originally feminine noun, for instance ðerh allne
woruld, and this pattern is found as late as the thirteenth-century
Caligula manuscript of Laamon’s Brut, where ‘predictable variation
within the same paradigm’ is to be found in hœfden muchelne care
‘had much sorrow’ (object) beside mid muchelere care ‘with much
sorrow’ (prepositional).
That this system was beginning to break down even in the First
Continuation of the Peterborough Chronicle is, however, indicated by
Clark, who lists a number of ‘false’ (i.e. unhistorical) case-forms
which deviate from the incipient paradigm, for example:
þurh se Scotte kyng ‘by the action of the king of Scots’, Annal
1126 (with nom. se for the expected acc. sg.);
þone eorles sunu ‘the earl’s son’, Annal 1127 (for gen. sg.; cf. Late
West Saxon þœs eorles sunu, although it has been suggested that a
different agreement pattern might have emerged);
þone abbotrice ‘the abbacy’, Annal 1127 (in subject position, and
thus for nom. sg.; however, the expression þone abbotrice happens to
be extremely common in object function in the annal for 1127, and
its use here in subject position may be a simple slip).
As Clark points out, ‘Statistically, false case-forms may be few;
but their occurrence is none the less significant’. By the time of the
Final Continuation, the determiner was invariably þe, whatever the
historical case required, and Clark has suggested that the scribe of
the First Continuation was attempting to maintain a system which
was not part of his living language:
If in his [i.e. the scribe of the First Continuation’s] speech stressed
[þe] [sic], unstressed [þ] [sic], corresponded to West Saxon se, then
he might have substituted se for his own form…the orthography of
the First Continuation suggests that the scribe, aware that by the
standards of the Schriftsprache [i.e. the Late West Saxon standardised
written language] his own usage was both provincial and new-
fangled, was trying to palliate his own provincialism and modernity.
In other words, the scribe of the First Continuation occasionally
hypercorrected; his usage may be taken to represent a compromise
between the (now extinct) incipient restructured system, the system
that became widespread and appears in Present-Day English, and
the West Saxon system found in the standardised written language.
The Impersonal Construction
Old English had a number of impersonal verbs, that is, verbs
without an expressed subject but with an accompanying pronoun
in the accusative or dative case, for instance m– þinceð ‘it seems to
me’, archaic methinks. The origin of such constructions has been much
debated, and remains uncertain. Analysis shows that many fall, into
a fairly restricted range of semantic fields, and this might suggest
one way in which they may have originated; a number of them, for
instance, seem to be to do with physical and mental affections.
By not including as impersonal those verbs governed by formal
‘it’, such as Old English hit sniwð ‘it is snowing’. These usages seem
to me to follow a different and distinct path in the history of English,
witnessed by the fact that, unlike the impersonal verbs without any
expressed subject, the construction is still used in Present-Day
English, and has even taken over from what I would regard as ‘true’
impersonal constructions; cf. the Present-Day English translation
offered for me þinceð in the previous paragraph.)
The interest of the impersonal construction lies in the process
whereby it first became common but was subsequently replaced. The
impersonal construction has been discussed by D. Lightfoot; during
the course of the Middle English and Early Modern English periods
he detects a shift from impersonal to personal constructions, deriving
from the ‘rigidification’ of Subject-Predicator word-order. The
process seems to be one of analogy, whereby forms in the expected
subject position ultimately conform to that position.
Following O. Jespersen, Lightfoot exemplifies the change as
follows: þœm cyninge l+codon peran ’! The king liceden pears ’‡The king
liked pears > He liked pears. As Lightfoot points out, ‘If a language
learner was confronted with the sentence “the king liked pears”,
there would be a tendency to analyse it as [Subject-Verb-Object];
this would conform to the canonical patterns of the language’. The
example, however, is perhaps not a good one, because the Old
English verb l+cian means ‘pleased’, not ‘liked’, and the plural used
here, l+codon, is not therefore a true impersonal verb, but rather a
verb governed by a perfectly regular nominative subject, peran.
Perhaps a better example would be þ m cyninge l+code wel þœt þk him
p bMc geaf ‘It pleased the king well that you gave him the book’-
although, again, it could be argued that the subject of this sentence
is simply the subordinated clause þœt þk…geaf.
Thus far, the process of change follows an analogous pattern
we might expect. However, there is a problem with this
straightforward description, which is that the number of impersonal
verbs actually increased during the Middle English period. Millward
suggests that this increase is to do with language-contact, notably
with French. If this is the case, then we are reminded that contact
can interfere with patterns; that the change was not sustained,
however, suggests that the contact-induced development did not
cohere with other features of the language.
It is an interesting fact that even in the Middle English period a
‘dummy’ subject it became frequent (e.g. hit þe likede ‘it pleased you’)
beside more prototypically impersonal constructions such as me

thristed ‘I was thirsty’. By Early Modern English times, the form
without it had largely disappeared; only methinks and methought
appear commonly in, for instance, the works of Shakespeare, and,
as Millward points out, Shakespeare never uses himthought, usthinks,
youthinks etc. It seems that, by Shakespeare’s time, methinks was
simply a fossil expression rather than a reflection of a still-productive
usage.
Non-teleological Directionality
There are at least two points worth making about the failure of
the incipient innovations discussed:
1. They are evidence that linguistic innovation is non-
teleological. If there were some ultimate goal for linguistic
development, then such innovations as these would not
have taken place. The appearance of these incipient systems
shows that innovation can occur which may ultimately lead
nowhere-rather like biological mutations which are not
reproduced.
2. On the other hand, they are not evidence that linguistic
change is non-directional; the distinction is an important
one which has not always been understood clearly. These
incipient restructurings did not succeed because there were
other innovations-the fixing of element-order, for instance,
or the generalisation of one system of nominal inflection-
which were, it would appear, more in tune with the overall
‘drift’ of the language, that is, the ultimately successful
system will be that which coheres best with developments
of other neighbouring systems. Such ‘success’ in innovation
will be pursued next.
‘May’ and ‘Might’

It is argued here that innovations can succeed when they cohere
with other developments. The success of an innovatory pattern can
be seen on a grand scale in the development of the auxiliary verb-
system in the Middle English and Early Modern English periods,
where lexis and grammar interacted in interesting and complex ways
and-even more importantly-in the shift from synthesis to analysis.
(In what follows, the forms ‘may’, ‘might’ etc. are used, for ease of
reference, in preference to Old English mœg, mihte etc. and their
various Middle English reflexes.)
Proto-Indo-European seems to have had no fewer than five

formally expressed moods: indicative (for statements or questions
of fact), subjunctive (expressing will), optative (wishes), imperative
(commands) and injunctive (unreality). Germanic languages retained
the indicative and parts of the imperative, but the subjunctive,
injunctive and optative were merged to form a new category, known
(in English) as the subjunctive mood, whose semantic range may be
summed up as to do with hypothesis, potentiality and possibility.
In Old English, the subjunctive was formally distinct from the
indicative: thus h+e bundon ‘they bound’: h+e bunden ‘they might have
bound’. However, in Late Old English, the obscuration of unstressed
syllables meant that this formal distinction was no longer made
consistently, and -an, -on, -en are all used where the meaning of a
passage would seem to require a subjunctive mood. In Present-Day
English, only a few fossil formal subjunctives remain, such as God
save the king, If I were you etc.); the usual pattern is to express
subjunctivity through the use of the auxiliary verbs may and might.
It seems fairly clear that the shift from Old to Present-Day
English usage relates to the obscuration of unstressed syllables; since
inflectional endings were no longer effective in signalling
subjunctivity, other means had to be found for the purpose. It so
happened that other Old English verb, magan, overlapped
semantically with the subjunctive mood. The usual translation
offered for Old English magan is ‘can’, ‘could’.
Present-Day English can includes a semantic component
indicating possibility, potentiality, hypothesis etc., and this plainly
overlaps with the range of meanings covered by the formal
subjunctive. When the formal subjunctive became indistinguishable
from the indicative, it is therefore not surprising that another verb,
whose variational space overlapped with it, should have taken over
its functions.
Subsequent to the grammaticalisation of magan, the semantic slot
it had previously occupied was taken over by another verb which
itself overlapped with it: cunnan ‘to be able’, ‘to know how to’. The
shift in meaning of these verbs can therefore be seen as a ‘chain-
reaction’, the result of an initial inflectional merger. The whole
process, which might be termed the Modal Shift, is expressed in
diagrammatic form. The potentiality for the Shift was only activated,
and thus became a grammatical change, when the merger of

inflectional endings had taken place.
The changes in the use of such verbs, in both ‘modal’ and
‘premodal’ usage, has been the subject of a study by D. Lightfoot
which, although couched in generative terms, is in its essentials
highly traditional and along the lines suggested here. Lightfoot
shows that the development of ‘may’ and ‘might’ to their Present-
Day English use was completed quite suddenly in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries; such ‘sudden’ completions of linguistic changes
are fully explicable within the ‘snowball’ model which has been
developed here.
This shift must have been encouraged, moreover, by a formal
factor; magan was no prototypical verb, being a member of the so-
called ‘preterite-present’ verb-set. This difference suggests that, like
other irregular verbs, magan was already on its way to becoming
what it has ultimately become, viz. a grammatical auxiliary rather
than a lexical verb; this, perhaps, is to be expected, given that magan
at least in part overlapped semantically with a grammatical rather
than another lexical item.
Hints of this shift in usage appear even in Late Old English; B.
Mitchell notes ‘the use of magan in the Northumbrian Gospels as an
auxiliary in the translation of the Latin subjunctive, e.g. Matt 12.14,
huu hine mœhtes to lose gedoa, Latin quomodo eum perderent’. It may be
significant that this usage is recorded earliest in the North of England,
where inflectional innovation is most advanced.
From Synthesis to Analysis
It has been indicated already that ‘failure’ in grammatical change,
like ‘success’, is to do with the way in which an innovation correlates
with the larger contextual drift of the language. The major
grammatical contextual drift during the history of English has been
the steady shift from synthetic towards analytic structures, that is,
from a language which marked relationships between words by
special endings to one which used a comparatively fixed word-order
and separable morphemes such as prepositions.
It is time to see how and why this major development took place,
and how it relates to the triggering of the specific phenomena
described above. Three related grammatical changes are relevant

here:
1. The obscuration and loss of inflectional endings;
2. Developments in the use of prepositions;
3. Changes in element order.
Through an examination of the interaction of these three
processes, it is possible to trace the shift in English from synthesis to
analysis. Of course, the terms ‘synthesis’ and ‘analysis’ are relative,
and are really the poles of a cline; Old English was much less
‘synthetic’ than are (for example) Present-Day Finnish or Present-
Day Zulu, and Present-Day English is much less ‘analytic’ than, for
example, the varieties of Present-Day Chinese. Nevertheless, there
has been definite movement along this cline between Old and
Present-Day English, and the three sets of changes here illustrate
the processes involved.
1. The first of these phenomena, the obscuration and loss of
inflectional endings, has already been touched upon at
several points in earlier discussion. It has been observed
that obscuration of inflections is a characteristic of a number
of the Germanic languages. This development probably
originates in the shift to fixed stress which took place during
the Proto-Germanic period, that is, soon after the birth of
Christ. Before this shift took place, stress was mobile; after
it, stress was fixed, usually on the initial syllable of a word.
(The Germanic stress-shift is hard to date, probably because
it was a gradual and sporadic process; it seems to have
varied in its effects on the various Germanic dialects.)
The origins of this stress-shift are still a matter for scholarly
debate; a recent plausible suggestion, which has caused some
considerable excitement amongst historical linguists, is that it is a
contact-phenomenon, the result of interaction between the Northern
Indo-European languages (such as Celtic and Germanic) and what
is known as Old European.
Old European was a non-Indo-European language which had
existed in the northern half of Europe since the last Ice Age 10,000
years or so ago. It was swept aside by the usage of the advancing
Indo-European peoples, leaving traces only in a few place-names
(notably of rivers) and in a few isolated pockets, represented in the
twentieth century by Basque. Old European seems to have had initial
stress, and the implication is that Germanic developed a new stress-

pattern through what is known as ‘substratum influence’.
However it arose, the shift of stress away from inflectional
endings made them vulnerable to what might be termed ‘phonetic
attrition’. It is therefore no surprise that inflectional syncretism
results, as has been seen already in a comparison of the Old English
and Old Saxon noun-paradigms with the older Gothic practice. And,
at later stages in the history of English, the loss of inflections must
have been encouraged through interaction with Norse, whose
inflectional system was distinct.
2. Most prepositions in Present-Day English derive ultimately
from adverbs, and something of this origin is seen in the
element-order of Old English. Thus H– cwœp p m mannum
tM and He cwœþ tM þ m mannum may both be translated
into Present-Day English as ‘He spoke to the men’, but it is
possible in Old English to parse tM as either an adverb or
a preposition. The adverb tM, in Old English an ‘extra’,
‘adjunct’ element in the clause with a lexical function, has
become in Present-Day English an essential grammatical
word tied to a particular kind of phrase. The process is one
of grammaticalisation, as defined on page 142 above. (For
the derivation of prepositions from adverbs, see, for example
ODEE sv. ‘to’; the old adverbial use survives in fossil
idiomatic expressions such as to and fro.)
By the time of recorded Old English, it is possible to establish a
group of prepositions (which we will, arbitrarily, take to include the
so-called postposition, as in him tM ‘to him’); but it is still true to
state that prepositions were not as essential to the meaning of the
text as they are in Present-Day English. Important work by A. Dancev
has shown three things:
i. ‘The more clear-cut a given pattern [in its formal
distinctiveness], the higher the probability for the occurrence
of prepositionless instances.’ Thus, for instance, prepositions
are less frequent with the dative plural -um than with the
dative singular -e.
ii. There is a relation between the meaning of the noun and
the presence or absence of a preposition. Words referring
to parts of the body, such as cn–ow, –age, tMð, and tunge,
supply the bulk of prepositionless constructions.
iii. There are ‘recurrent collocations [i.e. formulae]’, consisting
of ‘consciously archaic’ and stereotypical constructions
found in poetry and in the rhythmical prose writings of

Archbishop Wulfstan, himself a poet.
There would seem therefore to be definite evidence, from the
Old English written record, that prepositions retained the potential
of being excluded in favour of more synthetic constructions. The
point of pressure is indicated by Dancev’s point (i), which suggests
that a functional cause lay behind the selection of the prepositional
rather than the prepositionless construction, while his points (ii) and
(iii) indicate that prepositionless constructions were somewhat old-
fashioned by the end of the Old English period.
Dancev’s first point has a wider significance, since it suggests
that the obscuration of inflections was the principal reason for the
selection of prepositions; when the inflection remained distinct, then
the preposition was less common. The older view, a strongly
functionalist one, was that prepositional phrases had become
formalised so that inflectional endings became redundant, and
therefore disappeared.
However, C. Clark points out that, in the language of the
Peterborough Chronicle Continuations, Contrary to the view that it
was the previous existence of analytic machinery which brought
about loss of inflexion, inflexional loss here seems to be more
advanced than the procedures needed to replace it. Noun-inflexions
[in the Continuations] are virtually reduced to the Modern-English
level, whereas the analytic procedures destined to supply their place-
fixed word-order, prepositional constructions-are only partially
developed.
The quotation from Clark’s study leads us to the remaining
grammatical development of relevance to the argument at this stage:
the institution of a fixed word-order.
Although Old English word-order is certainly more flexible than
that of Present-Day English, this is not to say that regular patterns
had not emerged. The main element-order patterns in Old English
may be roughly summarised as follows (where S=subject,
P=predicator):
SP appears typically in main clauses (i.e., ‘verb-second’; as in
Present-Day English, the predicator immediately follows the subject
of the clause): for example Sum swîþe gel red munuc côm sûþan ofer
s’A certain learned monk came from the south over (the) sea.’
S…P appears typically in subordinate clauses (i.e., ‘verb-final’;

as in Present-Day German, the predicator appears at the end of the
clause): for example þe hit r geseah ‘who had seen it’ (lit. ‘who it
formerly saw’).
PS appears typically in questions, and after initial adverbials,
especially Þâ ‘then’ (i.e. ‘verb-initial’; as in Present-Day German, the
predicator precedes the subject): for example Þâ wearð se
cyningÔswold swîðe œlmesgeorn ‘ then King Oswald became very
charitable’.
These patterns, however, are not strictly adhered to; rather, they
are the unmarked patterns, deviation from which is a sign of stylistic
salience (‘foregrounding’). Thus a skilled writer of prose such as
Ælfric was able to adopt unusual word-orders for the purposes of
literary effect, for example:
Sço ylce rôd siððan…þ r stôd ‘That same cross stood there
afterwards’ (lit. ‘That same cross afterwards…there stood’) (main
clause).
The traditional view is that Old English is at an intermediate
stage where the S…P element-order, characteristic of all clause-types
in more archaic Indo-European languages (cf. e.g. Latin), is being
steadily replaced by SP element-order:
This verb final unmarked order was inherited from proto-Indo-
European. A second order, also inherited from proto-Indo-European-
verb initial-was a marked order in these early Germanic dialects,
used in commands, conjoined clauses, and dramatic sentences. These
two orders were evidently supplemented by a third order-verb
second-which came on as a strong innovation.
The older S…P ordering as ‘unmarked’ and available in main
clauses appears in the Gothic Bible and in the oldest Germanic runic
inscriptions, for instance the famous fourth-century Gallehus horn
inscription, transcribed and transliterated. However, by the seventh
century runic inscriptions cease to maintain this element-order; a
good example from this date is the Early Old Northumbrian runic
inscription on the Ruthwell Cross, traditionally interpreted as part
of an early version of The Dream of the Rood: ‘krist waes on rodi’
‘Christ was on the cross’. It would appear that the shift from S…P
to SP was well under way by this time.
Although Old English word-order, therefore, was still very
flexible in comparison with Present-Day English, the key requirement
for flexibility, the maintenance of an inflectional system to indicate

the relationships between words, was, itself under pressure. As Clark
puts it:
Sentence structure might a priori be expected to become less
flexible: for, with subject-noun, object-noun, and indirect-object-noun
(and on occasion adverbial noun as well) formally indistinguishable,
they may have to take up, as they do in Modern English, set positions
with relation to the verb.
Of the three available unmarked Old English word-orders, SP
was unable to resolve this ambiguity when deviated from for stylistic
effect. SP expressed a clear relationship between subject and verb,
and it is undoubtedly for this reason that this structure was the one
which succeeded. PS remained longer, but it had always been
restricted to a particular set of environments and was not available
as a general structural model.
The process, then, seems to have been a therapeutic one.
Linguistic ambiguities appeared, and ‘second-order’ elements, such
as emphatic prepositions and a fixed word-order based upon SP
structure, took over. The final triggering was, presumably, the
increased obscuration of inflectional distinctiveness which marks the
shift from Old to Middle English and which was encouraged by the
Scandinavian invasions.
That ambiguities did exist is demonstrated once more by the
Peterborough Chronicle. In the Final Continuation a number of
ambiguities occur, where the old subordinate clause SP ordering is
retained, as a result of lack of clear inflectional marking, for example:
For œuric rice man his castles makede, ðat ani god hefden (?’for every
powerful man, who had any property, made castles for himself’).
As Clark puts it, ‘the evidence suggests that loss of the dative
case, for instance, takes place rather in spite of a lack of substitute
procedures than because its functions had already been usurped by
them’.
Looking back over the three sets of changes described above,
one important point might be made: each system produces variation,
but the choice of one variable or another as ultimately ‘successful’
depends on the relationship between systems. To repeat a theme of
this book: tout se tient, everything is connected to everything else.
The relationship between Old English and post-Old English

developments in case and gender, prepositional usage and element-
order is one of interactive reinforcement. Over time, a major set of
changes in the grammatical structure of English has been brought
about; but these changes are the result of a series of minor
developments which have constantly interacted over a great number
of linguistic states.
These minor developments are the result of variation, deriving
both from within the language and as the result of contact with other
languages. Case- and gender-endings become slightly obscured as a
result of changes in stress-patterns; adverbs become grammaticalised
as prepositions in ‘marked’ conditions and begin to be more
commonly used to avoid ambiguities arising from the obscuration
of vowels in unstressed syllables; marked word-order patterns are
extended to resolve ambiguities; in turn these developments
encourage the further loss of inflectional endings whereby case and
gender are marked. These individual changes have interacted to
produce a major shift in the expression of relationships between
words.
With hindsight, it is possible to see why some innovations failed,
such as the incipient restructuring of the noun-system to reflect the
animate-inanimate distinction in AB-language, the incipient
restructuring of the system of modifiers to express case without
gender or the growth of the impersonal construction. These
innovations were unsuccessful because they did not cohere with the
other tendencies in the language towards inflectional obscuration.
These innovations were highly sophisticated, but had no future
possibilities of development given the ‘ecology’ of the system. This
argument could be pursued further, because the ‘success’ of the
synthetic-analytic shift had implications for other parts of the
linguistic system, notably prosody.
A ‘typical’ Old English phrase is trochaic, consisting of a stressed
lexical element and a less stressed inflection, whereas a ‘typical’
Present-Day English phrase is iambic, consisting of a less stressed
modifying element (such as a determiner, a preposition or an
auxiliary verb) and a stressed lexical element (such as a main verb

or a noun).
It is not surprising, therefore, that Old English poetry is based
upon a trochaic metre with initial alliteration whereas later metres
are ambic, with final rhyme. The interest of this example, of course,
is that linguistic changes in one part of the system can have
innumerable implications elsewhere in the system: tout se tient.
Chapter 7
Grammar: Teaching and Learning
GRAMMAR STRUCTURES
Perhaps this myth is a holdover from structural linguistics, in
which forms in a language were described without appeal to
meaning. As forms, grammatical structures were characterized by
their morphology and syntax alone. Judging from a survey of
pedagogical materials, I think it is clear that this assumption persists
today. Textbooks introduce learners to grammatical structures by
delineating their formal properties. It is not uncommon today, for
example, to find materials introducing ESL/EFL students to the
passive voice in English by demonstrating how a passive sentence
is derived from its active counterpart. The transformationalists’
regard for the autonomy of syntax is manifest in this purely form-
based description.
Similarly, the follow-up to such an introduction is often a series
of exercises in which students are instructed to transform active
sentences into passive ones. To my mind, such an introduction to
the passive voice is very misleading. Passive and active sentences
sometimes have different meanings and always serve very different
purposes. Moreover, the long-term challenge in acquiring the passive
voice in English is not learning how to form it, but rather learning
when to use it, that is, learning which discourse contexts favour the
passive voice and which do not. The reason I say that SLA research
can refute Myth 1 is that quite early on in the evolution of the SLA
field it was pointed out that the acquisition of the form of a
grammatical structure was incomplete without the concomitant
acquisition of its function. Wagner-Gough was the first, I believe, to
make this point in print.
Her subject, Homer, a five-year old Farsi speaker, used the -ing
morpheme very early in his acquisition of English, as did the other
subjects being reported on in the morpheme acquisition studies at

the time. What Wagner-Gough noticed in Homer’s performance,
however, was that he used -ing not only for its target function but
also to signal an imperative function.
Other researchers that expanded on this theme were Andersen,
who demonstrated the folly of talking about the acquisition of the
English article as though it were one structure, thus obscuring its
many semantic uses; Bahns and Wode, whose German-speaking
subject used didn’t for some time as a past-tense marker before he
used it as a negator; and Huebner ( 1980), whose Hmongspeaking
adult subject used a general Wh-question marker (waduyu) for all
Whquestion words (e.g., Waduyu kam from? for Where are you from?
and Waduyu kam? for Why did you come?) It is obvious, then, that one
cannot talk about the acquisition of a form unless its function is also
considered. Indeed, it is often said these days that the language
acquisition process is all about learning to map form on function or
form and meaning.
I think it is worth pointing out that when we elect to use two
terms in tandem as a shorthand — form and function, or form and
meaning — we should never lose sight of the fact that there are really
three dimensions with which we need to be concerned: form,
meaning, and function (use). To return to the passive for our
example, we can clearly see that there are three dimensions that must
be mastered before any learner can be said to have acquired it. Its
form requires a ‘be’ verb (the final auxiliary verb), a past participle,
a transitive main verb, and when present, the ‘by’ preposition before
the agent.
We also should acknowledge its meaning as conferring focus
on the theme or receiver of the action, rather than the agent, as
happens in canonical word order, and the fact that passive sentences
may convey a meaning different from that of the active voice with
the same agent and theme. Finally its use: When or why is it used
instead of the active voice? The answers are numerous: when the
theme is the topic, when the agent is unknown or redundant or when
one wishes to conceal it, etc. Thus, with some impetus from SLA
research and a little reflection, we have come to realize that
grammatical structures are more than forms; therefore, their
acquisition must entail more than learning how to form the

structures.
It must also include learning what they mean and when and
why to use them as well. This awareness is extremely important from
a pedagogical standpoint, of course, because as language teachers
will attest, the learning challenge for students is not accuracy alone
but meaningful and appropriate use as well. As such, grammar
teaching does not mean merely teaching forms and it is certainly
not limited to teaching explicit form-based rules.
ARBITRARY RULES
I am afraid arguing against the first half of this myth will take
me too far from my foregrounded objectives in this chapter, i.e.
discussing the process of teaching and learning grammar. Suffice it
to say that much of the apparent arbitrariness of grammar rules is
dispelled when we look at language from a discourse perspective,
that is, viewing language from this perspective helps us to see why
the rules are the way they are.
For the second half of this myth, I summarize what the SLA
theory of interlanguage — which has been so fundamental to our
understanding of the language acquisition process for the past two
decades or so — has to say about the arbitrariness of the process.
Far from being arbitrary, learner interlanguages are thought to
exhibit a fair degree of systematicity and order. Systematicity does
not mean that learners use structures in a targetlike manner from
their first exposure. What it does mean is that like natural languages,
interlanguages; (ILs) appear to be rule governed. There is variability
in learner performance, to be sure, but it is typically systematic, that
is, learners use certain forms erroneously by target-speaker standards
but consistently as a response to certain extralinguistic factors such
as task demands; topic, setting, and interlocutors, attention to form,
and planning time available.
There does seem to be some random or free variation, such as
when a learner produces no go and don’t go within moments of
each other under seemingly identical conditions. In fact, there is a
fair degree of synchronic variability. Structures do cooccur with
temporally and developmentally earlier constructions, and yet
change over time follows established paths.
Many explanations for these developmental paths have been put

forth, running the gamut from psychological explanations such as
the shedding of speechprocessing strategy constraints, and the
invoking of Slobin-like operating principles, to environmental ones
having to do with factors in the input such as frequency of
occurrence, perceptual saliency, or factors arising out of interaction
with speakers of the target language, and to linguistic ones having
to do with markedness directionality and Universal Grammar (UG)
principles and parameter resetting. Continuing with our story of
interlanguage I will address Myth 3.
Learned One at a Time
IL theory posits that progress is not linear. Language acquisition
is not a matter of steadily accumulating structural entities.
Backsliding is common, giving rise to so-called U-shaped behaviour.
Development is gradual, but occasionally there is a fundamental
overhaul or restructuring of the underlying grammar. A good
example of this type of restructuring is reported in the work of
Meisel, Clahsen, and Pienemann.
They reported that learners of German in their study would
sometimes omit items that the learners had previously appeared to
master. The omissions involved certain forms over which learners
had to move other forms. McLaughlin speculated that this apparent
backsliding resulted from a temporary restructuring of the system
that involved an omission of certain elements to allow for the
development of other elements. Thus, the acquisition of structures
is interdependent and not a matter of simple aggregation.
Grammar Learning and Transform Teaching
As was just seen, SLA theory has been helpful in challenging
the first three myths about the learning of grammar. Before moving
on, I would like to underscore the significance of the contribution of
SLA theory to the understanding of the learning of grammar.
Although the description of SLA that I have just given may seem
commonplace by now, remember that in the historical context in
which it arose, SLA was a radical departure. Before SLA researchers
began looking at learning and the learner in the early 1970s, both
had been virtually ignored, at least in modern times.
So even if this description of the SLA process does not withstand

the test of time, SLA theory has already performed a great service
for second language pedagogy by helping us to see learners as
rightful partners in any pedagogical enterprise. This view of language
acquisition has influenced language pedagogy in encouraging
learner-centreed teaching. Learner centreedness, combined with the
shift to a focus on communicative competence, has helped to
transform the language teaching field dramatically in the past twenty
years.
Instead of an explicit focus on language itself, there has been an
emphasis on learners’ expressing their own meanings through
language. This in turn has led to a greater tolerance for errors in
learners’ performance and the creation of opportunities for learners
to use the language in more authentic and spontaneous ways.
A Megamyth and the Reflex Fallacy
Another application of an SLA theory to pedagogy has been the
claim that learners can develop greater communicative abilities
through instruction that more closely resembles the characteristics
of a “natural,” that is, untutored, environment. It has been argued
by Krashen and others that given suitable exposure to the target
language, SLA can proceed in much the same manner as child
language acquisition, where a learner’s performance gradually
approximates and then matches the environmental input.
This is a radical reconceptualizing of second language pedagogy,
to be sure. But although we appreciate that SLA theory forces us to
reexamine long-standing assumptions about second language
pedagogy, it would be prudent to interject a note of caution. It seems
to me that the biggest myth of all, a megamyth if you will, is the
assumption that what works in natural language acquisition should
automatically become the pedagogy of the classroom. It may turn
out to be effective, but this should not be assumed a priori.
Whether or not there are fundamental differences between
tutored and untutored acquisition processes (currently a contentious
issue), why should it be assumed that features of natural acquisition
are superior to those that occur in instructional settings? In a recent
study, for example, Buczowska and Weist, whose subjects were
Polish adults learning English in Poland, reported that “in the
domain of temporal location, tutored L2 learners do not follow the
course of acquisition that is prototypical for learners or untutored

L2 learners, and deviations from the untutored L2 pattern [in L2
teaching] can facilitate rather than impede the acquisition process.”
Indeed, I would strenuously object to the assumption that because
certain conditions exist in naturalistic acquisition, our objective as
teachers should be to emulate them to the best of our abilities. I have
called this “the reflex fallacy.”
“The fallacy lies in the assumption that teaching is an involuntary
reflex of natural acquisition such that what is present and natural in
untutored acquisition should be present in abundance in classroom
instruction, and what is absent in natural acquisition should be
prohibited in the classroom”. The goal of SLA theory is to identify
what is minimally necessary for SLA to occur. What is minimally
necessary for SLA to take place outside the classroom does not
automatically constitute the most effective means of learning in the
classroom.
One would hope that effective teaching would accelerate the
natural process. “The basis of schooling is the assumption that nature
can be improved on by artifice”. Yet sometimes SLA researchers have
taken the unwarranted step of proscribing or prescribing pedagogical
practices on the basis of their findings from untutored acquisition.
As a teacher, I do not ask myself what is minimally necessary
for my students to learn but rather what I can give my students that
will maximize their learning. It is important that SL teachers know
about SLA theory so they can complement natural processes, but
their job is to stimulate learning rather than to emulate acquisition.
I believe that there are a few myths that have arisen from the reflex
fallacy. It is to these that I will turn next.
Grammar is Acquired Naturally
Taken at face value, the first half of Myth 7 is demonstrably true.
Some untutored L2 learners are successful acquirers of second
language grammars, and SLA theory does need to account for their
success. Nevertheless, this item deserves the myth designation
because not all untutored learners successfully acquire L2 grammars.
Moreover, even if all learners were successful in acquiring L2
grammars without grammar instruction, the second half of Myth 7
is not an inevitable consequence. It does not necessarily follow that
grammar should not be taught.
As I have argued previously, pedagogy cannot be wholly

informed by reductionist explanations of natural acquisition. In light
of the discussion just completed, a better question would be, what
value is there, if any, in teaching grammar or of focusing on form,
as it has come to be called? Are learners who receive grammar
instruction better off than those whose attention is not drawn in any
way to the formal features of the code? My interpretation of the
research conducted so far yields an affirmative answer to this
question.
Research providing evidence that meaning-focused instruction
alone does not necessarily lead to grammatical accuracy comes from
the much-studied Canadian French immersion programs. “These
programs are referred to by Krashen as ‘communicative programs
par excellence’ since the focus is almost exclusively on meaning
through subject-matter instruction rather than on the form of the
language itself’. Much good has come from these programs. Young
classroom learners who receive this content-based instruction
develop productive repertoires in French.
It has been demonstrated, however, that although children learn
to speak French fluently, their accuracy in French syntax and
morphology is still far below what one might expect of learners who
have spent several years immersed in the second language. “Less
salient morphosyntactic features of the target system, incongruent
with thel1and/or not crucial for comprehension or for getting
meaning across may fail to become intake”, possibly because of the
self-reinforcing nature of peer interlanguage.
“Indeed, some observers have concluded that French immersion
is the best demonstration of the inadequacy of CLT, since students
become “dyshinctional bilinguals who can convey messages but do
so very ungrammatically”. In fact, it is considered enough of a
problem in Canada that “the improvement of immersion children’s
oral and written grammar has been identified as a major priority by
immersion educators...”. It is not my intent to detract from the
success of immersion education.
Indeed I have already asserted that much good has been
achieved through it. It seems reasonable, however, to seek ways to
address its inadequacy while preserving the good that has come from
it. My position is that the acknowledged weakness of immersion

education can be overcome by selective form-focused instruction.
Research has already been initiated by Harley, Day and Shapson
and Lyster in French immersion programs which shows that form-
focused instruction makes a positive impact on the IL development
of students who have had several years of communicative language
use.
In the Day and Shapson study, for example, the experimental
group of Grade 7 early French immersion students performed
significantly higher on accuracy in the use of conditionals than a
control group who had played no linguistic games with conditionals
and had not received any metatinguistic instruction, as had the
experimental group.
Other studies that have corroborated the value of form-focused
instruction, or “input enhancement” activities, to use Sharwood
Smith’s term, are Gass, Pienemann, Zobl, Eckman, Bell, and Nelson,
Tomasello and Herron. Although admittedly some of these
endorsements are weakened because they could not demonstrate a
longterm effect for instruction, it does not necessarily follow that
focus on form does not affect the learners’ internalized language
systems, as Schwartz & Gubala-Ryzak concluded. As Harley
observed, alternative interpretations of the forgetting are possible.
Moreover, Krashen did accept the Lightbown and Spada study
as demonstrating an effect for form-focused instruction. In a post
hoc description of some specific classroom events and outcomes,
Lightbown and Spada used a modified version of the COLT
(Communicative Orientation to Language Teaching) instrument to
collect observational data on four classes of French-speaking
students. The macrolevel analyses indicated that all four classes were
primarily communicative in their approach and that classroom
interaction focused on meaning most of the time.
However, the four teachers differed from each other in terms of
the total amount of time they gave to form-focused activities. In class
1, where the most form-focused instruction was provided, the
learners were most accurate in their use of the progressive -ing, were
more likely to use the presentational forms preferred by native
speakers (there is rather than you have), and were at a more advanced
stage with their use of possessive determiners.
Students in class 4 had the lowest accuracy on all the features

examined in the analysis of spontaneous language samples. The
teacher in this class was the only one who virtually never focused
— however briefly — on grammar. It should be noted, however,
that students in class 4 showed no disadvantage in their overall
performance.
Why is form-focused instruction effective in dealing with
morphosyntax? Perhaps it is because focusing student attention
facilitates intake. Certainly this is what Schmidt reported for his own
acquisition of Portuguese in Brazil. Schmidt was convinced that he
usually noticed forms in the out-of-class input only after they were
taught — and only then did he begin to acquire them.
According to Schmidt, “Noticing is the necessary and sufficient
condition for converting input to intake”. Indeed in terms of
information-processing theory, it is necessary for learners to attend
to the forms they are learning. So giving increased salience to forms,
especially perceptually nonsalient forms, is one possible explanation
for form-focused instruction being helpful. Other reasons might be
that with form focus, learning transfer from marked to unmarked
forms is facilitated (more on this later), and provision of negative
evidence might help to destabilize an incorrect rule. With respect to
negative evidence, I turn to the next myth.
Error Correction is Unnecessary
There is currently a debate in the field over whether negative
evidence (e.g., a teacher’s correction of a learner’s utterance) is
needed. Krashen has argued that the only data necessary for
acquisition are the actually occurring linguistic forms provided by
native speakers in communicative situations. The universal grammar
(UG) model for SLA adopts this same theoretical premise.
Learners are thought to be equipped with a set of principles that
constrain their hypotheses such that the only data necessary for
acquisition are actually occurring linguistic forms. Mere exposure
to these “positive” data are thought to trigger the appropriate setting
of a parameter in the case of L1, or to reset the L1 parameter in the
case of L2. This position has arisen out of the need for UG theorists
to explain “how it is that learners can avoid being trapped in an
overgeneralization from which escape without provision of
disconfirming evidence would theoretically not be possible”, part

of the so-called logical problem.
However, some UG theorists have come to believe that negative
evidence may play a more significant role in L2 acquisition than was
first hypothesized. White, in her discussion of Krashen’s input
hypothesis, argued that comprehensible input in and of itself does
not eliminate overgeneralizations. A native speaker of French who
treats English like French will produce utterances such as those in
(1) if the speaker relies on positive evidence alone:
a. John drank his coffee slowly.
b. Slowly, John drank his coffee.
c. John slowly drank his coffee.
d. John drank slowly his coffee.
There is nothing in positive evidence from English to inform the
learner that the last example is ungrammatical. Hence, White asks,
how can learners learn of the nonoccurrence of a particular possibility
if they have no access to negative evidence? It is worth noting that
White believes that UG is in operation but that negative evidence
may be a requisite in L2 acquisition although it is not in Ll.
Others have interpreted the need for negative evidence as a sign
that L2 learning is fundamentally different froml1acquisition and
have concluded that second language learners do not rely on UG
(because learners no longer have access to it) at all. Still others do
not accept the need for negative evidence in SLA, holding firmly to
the notion that L1 and L2 acquisition processes are the same and
can be explained through the theory of UG, which requires positive
evidence alone.
So certainly there is a controversy. It might be helpful to recall,
however, that SLA theorists are concerned with specifying what is
minimally necessary for acquisition to proceed. Second language
educators are concerned with maximizing effectiveness. For this
reason alone, second language pedagogy should derive comfort from
the studies of Tomasello and Herron, Trahey and White, and most
recently, Carroll and Swain, which offer support for the value of
negative evidence or feedback in SLA.
The Carroll and Swain study is worth summarizing, because their
study included several different types of feedback mechanisms.
Subjects were divided into five groups according to which type of
feedback they received when they made an error in dative alternation

in English. Group A subjects were given metalinguistic information
when they made an error; Group B subjects were simply told that
their response was wrong; Group C subjects were corrected when
they erred and were given a model of the desired response; Group
D subjects, when they made an error, were asked if they were sure
about their response.
The fifth group was the control group, which received no
feedback at all. What the researchers found was that all four of their
experimental groups, which received some sort of feedback when
they erred, outperformed the control group, which received only
positive evidence of acceptable dative alternation syntax. The authors
tentatively concluded that their study “lends empirical support to
Schachter’s claim that indirect as well as direct forms of feedback
can help adult second language learners learn abstract linguistic
generalizations”.
Before becoming too complacent about this issue, however, we
should note two often-cited observations in SLA: the first has to do
with the fact that learners do not receive adequate feedback because
only a small percentage of their errors are corrected, and even these
are not always dealt with consistently. The second concerns the
question of why learners’ errors often seem resistant to revision even
in the presence of correction.
Is it the case, as Schwartz suggests, that even when negative
data are abundant, learners do not necessarily incorporate them into
their IL system in order to make changes? Certainly this is
counterintuitive and would call into question traditional pedagogical
practice. Nevertheless, whether negative data can initiate change in
a learner’s underlying grammar is an important question and one
likely to motivate much future research.
All Aspects of Grammatical Structures are Learned in the Same Way
I am aware of no SLA theory that claims explicitly that there is
a single mechanism that accounts for the acquisition of all aspects
of grammatical structures; however, some models, such as UG
theory, seem to imply that this is the case. Calling Number 9 a myth
is my way of warning second language educators to avoid presuming
that there is a simple solution to an issue as complex as the nature
of the grammar acquisition process.
Any claim to the effect that all acquisition is the product of habit
formation or of rule formation, or today, of setting/resetting
parameters or the strengthening of connections in complex neural
networks, is an obvious oversimplification of a complex process. The
problem is not that our view of acquisition changes or differs. My
concern is with the expectation that all of SLA will be explicable by
a single process. With language as complicated as it is, why should
we expect that a single process will account for all of it?
Some researchers are more circumspect. They acknowledge the
complexity by pointing to a modular view of language and warn
that we should refrain from generalizing across modules. Schwartz
stated: “The lexicon is learned in a distinct manner from syntax.
Indeed, lexical items must be learned. Aspects of syntax are not
learned in this sense; they grow.”
Whether one agrees with this characterization of syntax and
lexicon acquisition or not, certainly the underlying assumption of
disparate learning processes is sensible. In fact, I have carried this
line of reasoning further by arguing that even within a module (here
syntax), different aspects are learned through different means. I
cannot go into this claim in any detail here, but consider the analysis
of the passive voice. I submit that learning how to form the passive
voice is different from learning what it means and when and why
to use it.
As such, I have suggested that we need to teach diverse aspects
of grammar structures differently. Meaningful drills contribute to
syntactic fluency; they are unlikely to enhance learners’
understanding of the semantics or pragmatics governing the choice
of particular structures.
Sl Pedagogy’s Contribution to SLA Theory
We now come to reciprocity. I think SL teachers can contribute
to SLA theory by constantly reminding theorists of the need to
broaden their perspectives. Although it is perfectly acceptable for a
theorist to concentrate on one aspect of a problem at a time, a
comprehensive theory of second language acquisition must account
for a number of phenomena with which language teachers have been
acquainted for some time but which current theories have ignored.
Teachers are known to draw on a number of theories to create a

blend in practice. I do not believe that their eclecticism stems from
capriciousness. I think it can be attributed to the fact that teachers
confront the complexity of language, learning, and language learners
every day of their working lives. This experience reinforces in
teachers the conviction that no unitary view of the three will account
for what teachers must grapple with on a daily basis.
There are a number of things that teachers know that no current
theory of SLA explains.
1. A theory should provide an account of learner differences,
including differences in rate of acquisition and ultimate
attainment. Although the literature is vast now and grows
bigger every day, not much has been noted about success
or failure with regard to particular language modules, save
for the age differences cited for phonology. But all teachers
know that every learner with whom they work is unique.
For this reason, as Tomlin suggested, SLA is a problem of
individuals. “A proper account of SLA must be an account
of how individuals learn second languages.... Thus,
statements of the knowledge represented in an IL grammar,
of the cognitive processes activated during second language
learning, or of the social contexts favouring or inhibiting
SLA must be statements that hold true for individuals”.
2. The theory should account for the fact that successful
learning takes place for some learners regardless of the
method employed. As much as we are reluctant to admit
it, it is not true that the grammar-translation method or
ALM failed to produce communicatively competent
individuals. Certainly some students were successful. Why
they succeeded when they did needs to be explained in any
comprehensive theory of SLA.
3. The theory should account for learning of grammar that
does not manifest itself in performance. Every teacher knows
that learning is taking place even when it is not visible. But
SLA research has traditionally relied on rather arbitrary
thresholds in performance data (including grammaticality
judgments) for evidence of learning. This is a limitation that
must be overcome.
4. The theory must account for the fact that SLA is not merely
a linguistic problem. Although it is true that researchers
have been exploring learnability constraints, it is not enough
to investigate the relationship between knowledge
representations for language and their role in constraining
acquisition. One must also identify and describe the

cognitive mechanisms that account for changes of state in
the individual’s interlanguage grammar. By the same token,
it must be acknowledged that cognitive psychological
descriptions of second language learning also provide only
a partial account of SLA and need to be linked with
linguistic theories in order to explain such linguistic
phenomena as markedness and linguistic universals.
Furthermore, Wolfe Quintero noted that UG theory must
also account for how learners acquire morphological and
lexical features of the target language that are language
specific and are not instantiations of principles of UG.
Currently, morphological and lexical exceptions are
considered part of a marked, peripheral grammar, the
learning of which is left unexplained within UG theory.
Pointing out that theorists have been selective in their foci is not
a criticism, provided that claims that emanate from partial theories
are duly modest. Lest we grow too satisfied with our theories,
language teachers will be happy to remind us that SLA is a
multidimensional phenomenon; by doing so, they will keep us
humble. I now turn to the collaborative nature of theory and practice.
Theory and Practice
It is not my intention to call for teachers and researchers to
collaborate on research projects because this has already been
advocated by others. Instead I propose to treat questions of concern
to teachers as items for SLA research agendas. Theorists might have
more impact on practice if they dealt with issues that teachers wrestle
with all the time. To a certain extent they already do, but more such
research is needed. Let me nominate five issues:
Learner Readiness
Teachers do not need SLA researchers to tell them that learners
only learn when they are ready. What teacher has not had the
experience of teaching some aspect of grammar on Friday, feeling
reasonably satisfied that the students learned it, and then finding
out on Monday that all of the effort was in vain? More important, is
there a way to detect when learners are ready to learn? Pienemann’s
experiment, in which he showed that Italian schoolchildren made
progress in learning subject-verb inversion in German only when
they were at the stage to benefit from the instruction they were
offered is tantalizing to language teachers searching for the most

efficient way to use their limited time with their students.
Will Pienemann’s “teachability hypothesis” hold up under
further scrutiny if it is tested against more subjects than the few in
his first two studies? And if so, will it help teachers to determine
when to provide focused instruction to coincide with the learner’s
next stage along a developmental continuum? This would truly be
a contribution.
Focus Selectivity
Teachers know they cannot teach it all. There is too little time
for one thing. Are there aspects of structures that if focused upon
would yield greater learning efficiency than others? Gass’ experiment
teaching relative clause formation is pertinent here. Gass
demonstrated that if learners are taught to relativize marked
structures (in her case to relativize objects of the preposition in
English), they will not only learn to do this but will generalize their
learning to being able to relativize unmarked structures as well.
Replicating and extending the Gass experiment, Eckman, Bell,
and Nelson showed that generalization of learning is indeed possible
from structures that are typologically more marked to those
structures that are typologically less marked. The exciting implication
of this for L2 pedagogy is, of course, that a strategy of IL intervention
could be formulated in which it would not be necessary to teach all
structures.
Attractive for the same reason is the idea of clustering in UG. It
is predicted by the theory that if the input contains evidence of one
aspect of a cluster of properties associated with some parameter,
that evidence should be sufficient to trigger all other aspects of the
parameter. “Not only is there no one-to-one correspondence between
input and acquisition of a construction, but, once the value is set,
the acquirer ends up with knowledge that indicates that certain other
strings in the language are either possible or impossible as well”.
In other words, learners will team more than they are taught.
Wouldn’t this be a welcome development in L2 pedagogy if
corroborated? Another attractive prediction is that instruction is not
necessary ifl1and L2 parameters coincide, or where they differ, if
the data needed to reset them are available to learners in the input.
Thus, only “where L1 and L2 parameter settings differ and the

necessary data to trigger resetting are not present, consciousness
raising or instruction would be necessary”. If such predictions are
borne out, SLA theory might eventually help teachers to focus
student attention selectively and thus become more efficient with
the time they have.
Defossilizing Errors
Of course, it is an empirical question in SLA theory whether a
case can be made for errors fossilizing, let alone defossilizing. But
certainly teachers can vouch for the fact that some errors in learners’
production persist well beyond what one would expect, in spite of
the attention the errors receive. What causes these errors to endure?
There have been a’number of suggestions involving the convergence
ofl1differences and L2 inherent complexity, markedness, and so forth.
White suggested that the failure of the Subset Principle, which
forces learners to entertain the most conservative hypothesis,
contributes to the fossilization that characterizes L2 acquisition. This
suggestion is based upon the observation that learners’ interlanguage
performances are replete with overgeneralizations and
ungrammaticality; like the others, however, White’s claim has not
been universally endorsed.
Harley proposed that teacher-guided crosslingual comparisons
could help defossilize some L2 errors for immersion students,
especially where partial similarities have encouraged an assumption
of complete identity betweenl1and L2 items. She cited Lyster’s
classroom experiment designed to teach the notion of social register
in French to Grade 8 immersion students. According to Harley, “This
study provides evidence that [with] analytic [form focused] teaching
that includes a crosslingual element, it is possible to undo fossilized
errors — in this case the typical use of tu in all second person contexts
by early immersion students, which Swain and Lapkin found still
persisting at the high school level”.
Although form-focused instruction at a point of interlingual
contrast is not exactly a revolutionary pedagogical practice, it would
be worthwhile to look further at fossilized errors and see what can
be done about them.
Role of Practice
This may be a curious addition to my list. After all, practicing
grammar forms is a very well established pedagogical procedure. I
myself have recently coined the term grammating, asserting that
grammar should be seen as a skill like reading and writing rather
than an area of knowledge. Moreover, for cognitive psychologists
such as McLaughlin, practice plays a vital role in SLA. According to
McLaughlin, “a complex cognitive skill, such as acquiring a second
language, involves a process whereby controlled, attention-
demanding operations become automatic through practice”.
More recently, however, the role of practice has been brought
into question. Ellis presented arguments in support of a
comprehension based approach to grammar teaching. Pointing to
the learnability problem (here that the acquisition of specific
grammatical features is constrained developmentally), Ellis
postulated that structural syllabi serve better to facilitate intake than
to teach learners to produce grammatical items correctly. He stated
explicitly that “the new rationale for [a structural syllabus] rests on
the claim that grammar teaching should be directed at consciousness-
raising rather than practice”.
Ellis’ preference for consciousness-raising over practice drew
support from a study by VanPatten and Cadierno. They reasoned:
“Given the rather important role that comprehensible input plays
in SLA, the value of grammar instruction as output practice is
questionable, if the intent of the instruction is to alter the nature of
the developing system... It would seem reasonable to suggest that
rather than manipulate learner output to effect change in the
developing system, instruction might seek to change the way that
input is perceived and processed by the learner”.
In their study, VanPatten and Cadiemo compared an
experimental group that received an explanation of a grammar point
and had experience processing input data with a control group that
received the explanation followed by output practice. Pretest/posttest
measures revealed significant gains in both comprehension and
production of sentences for the experimental group; for those that
received traditional instruction, significant gains were made in
production only.
VanPatten and Sanz corroborated the findings of VanPatten and

Cadierno by demonstrating that the positive effects for processing
input versus no instruction hold for sentence-level tasks. In addition,
they report a significant positive effect for input processing as
compared with no instruction on a discourse-level task in the written
mode, but not in the oral mode.
Use of Metalanguage
Teachers often ask if metalanguage is helpful to students and, if
so, to what degree it should be used. As Sharwood Smith noted, “It
is still an open question as to how much conscious awareness of the
formal properties of language, and hence instruction based on
inducing this awareness, actually helps the development of
spontaneous language use”.
It is interesting that in the Carroll and Swain study cited earlier,
Group A, the group receiving explicit metalinguistic feedback,
outperformed the other groups. Simply telling subjects that they were
wrong, providing indirect feedback, and even providing the right
forms did not help as much as the explicit metalinguistic information.
Such a finding, if it is replicated and if it holds for long-term
retention, is clearly important to second language pedagogy. This
leads me to my conclusion and final caveat.
A Final Caveat
SLA theory has contributed much to our understanding of the
learning/acquisition process. As I pointed out earlier, learners and
learning were not receiving much attention when SLA was launched.
Second language pedagogy has been well served by second language
acquisition theory for this reason alone. And yet, although our
understanding of the learning process has been enhanced, it does
not necessarily follow that the products of theory are prescriptions
and proscriptions for classroom practice.
One reason is the reflex fallacy; another is that just as there is
more to learning than meets the eye (or ear), there is more to teaching
as well. Teachers are not mere conveyor belts delivering to their
students practices/behaviours implied by SLA theory — and teaching
is not simply the exercise of classroom activity. The nature of
classroom interaction is complex and contingent.
Teachers have good reason to say “it depends” when asked
whether they would consider adopting a particular practice.
Similarly, there are likely to be very few categorical answers
forthcoming from SLA research. However, these will not be the

measure of the contribution of SLA theory to pedagogy anyway. I
have already suggested a way that pedagogy can benefit theory.
Theory can benefit pedagogy in two ways: First, teachers with
enhanced understanding of SLA can become more efficient and
effective in the classroom by making moment-to moment decisions
that are in harmony with the students’ learning. If SLA theory can
help expand teachers’ awareness of learning beyond the teacher’s
own experience, can comfort teachers whose students experience
backsliding or are not ready to learn, can help teachers to cultivate
a positive attitude toward students’ errors but can encourage them
not to give up on fossilized errors, then it will do a great deal.
Teaching does not cause learning, but those who have expanded
awareness of it and fascination with it are likely to be better managers
of it. Second, SLA theory will be invaluable if it can help a teacher’s
sense of plausibility to stay alive. If a teacher does not have an active
intellectual engagement with teaching and learning, teaching
becomes more and more routine and stale.
Having one’s sense of plausibility challenged by research
findings and theoretical hypotheses (even the ones I have called
myths here) is one way of keeping it vital. Rather than having a
circumscribed role, expanding awareness, enhancing attitudes, and
challenging teachers’ senses of plausibility are major contributions
of SLA theory to pedagogy.
Chapter 8
Grammatical Forms and Constructions
NON-VERBAL
The grammatical forms and constructions appearing in the
diversified literary texts of the 16th and earlier 17th centuries are
themselves extremely diversified. Hence it is almost impossible to
give a simple and unified description of them. The task would be
relatively simple, to be sure, if we were to choose only those literary
works composed specifically for an intellectual audience, for their
authors were men trained in the forms and usages of classical
grammar, and the English they wrote was shaped, almost
unconsciously we may assume, towards patterns of correctness like
those set down for the Latin language.
As they knew it from classical texts, that language had a very
consistent and logical code of relations. Under its influence, questions
of English inflection, grammatical agreement and sentence structure
were handled more or less consistently by the more learned writers
over a long period extending from the age of Humanism to the
Commonwealth. The standards of correctness assumed by John
Milton in his English prose writing will not be found to be very
different from those assumed by Thomas More in his, although
certain usages had of course been modified in the interval, and
certain constructions of the 16th century had become archaic or had
been completely dropped by the latter 17th.
Later the drives towards consistency increase while the structure
became markedly simpler. When the survey of grammatical usages
is extended to embrace all sorts of writing, from tragedies to
comedies, from sermons to popular satire and novelle, the situation
becomes more complicated. Pamphleteers set themselves the task
of gathering and using the locutions of the less educated speakers
of English, including derelict members of the underworld.
Writers of comedies strove to reproduce the colloquial language

of popular, non-courtly elements in their audiences. On these
informal levels of discourse there was a fairly wide range of choice
in accidence and syntactic usage. A single author like Shakespeare
or Ben Jonson will reveal variations in practice according to the type
and level of the discourse. Therefore any description of usages in
these matters ought properly to be accompanied by many
qualifications.
In a short account we can only indicate in a general way the
range of forms and constructions appearing in the typical literary
compositions of the age. Some of the constructions would be
inadmissible today, but although these are conspicuous, they are by
no means in the majority.
The simplest manner of presentation will be to call attention to
those usages which differ from the modern.
Nouns show an inflectional scheme which is almost without
exception identical with today’s. An interesting variation appears in
the treatment of abstract nouns, which in ModE normally have no
plural, except by way of personification. Today an abstraction is
regarded as indivisible; the plural of information is not informations
but pieces of information. In Shakespeare’s time, however, the plural
was regularly used in a distributive sense: We’ll make our leisures
to attend on yours; your better wisdoms; break not your sleeps for
that.
The genitive singular of nouns had developed regularly from
the ME ending -(e)s. For masculine nouns however a periphrastic
form appeared, at least in print, with an enclitic pronoun his
functioning instead of -(e)s, for instance: Mars his armour for: the
armour of Mars, or Mars’s armour. The origin of this construction is
in doubt.
Although grammatical gender had disappeared, pronoun
references sometimes indicate that a few regularly neuter nouns were
endowed with a new masculine or feminine gender through a kind
of personification, perhaps under the influence of Latin categories.
Hamlet says to Horatio:
Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice,
And could of men distinguish, her election
Hath seal’d thee for herself.
In The Tempest Gonzalo says to his companions: You would lift

the moon out of her sphere, if she would continue in it... without
changing. Here the Latin nouns anima and luna may have affected
the pronoun references. The same is true of feminine references for
the names of countries, as when Deloney writes: Englands valor [sic]
was more than her wealth.
The pronoun forms were still not completely settled. Among
those of the personal inflection, hit still appeared in the 16th century
for the neuter gender, with genitive his and dative him. For the second
person, the general form you/ye in both singular and plural seems to
have gained acceptance more rapidly in upper class groups
(aristocracy and wealthy middle class) than elsewhere.
The less formal writing of the time reveals the existence of
unstressed forms for various pronouns: ‘a [Ù] is written for he by
Shakespeare; ‘em appears for them ‘t for it in contractions like ‘tis,
and so on. Dialect passages in the comedies testify to a survival of
the old Southern form ich for I. It was familiar in contractions like
cham for I am and chill for I will.
The construction of pronoun forms in the sentences of formal
prose was relatively strict, following the patterns familiar in modern
prescriptive grammars. But in the more elastic usage of the drama,
many deviations may be found, as the following examples from
Shakespeare will indicate:
‘Tis better thee without than he within
Praise him that got thee, she that gave thee suck
...between my good man and he
But she, I can hook to me
you have seen Cassio and she together
Some of these deviations from strict usage arise when the
pronoun is separated from the grammatical form (verb or
preposition) controlling it. Such a separation permits the speaker to
forget or modify the structure upon which he first embarked. Thus
the example from Othello is understandable because the uninflected
noun Cassio intervenes between the verb and the inflected pronoun
object. If the order were reversed, Othello would hardly say: seen
she and Cassio, even in the most informal conversation; nor would
a phrase like: between he and my good man be likely even in a broad

comedy like The Merry Wives.
Ellipsis and shifts in construction account for colloquialisms in
construction like the one from the Winter’s Tale, which is the
equivalent of: As far as she is concerned, or: She is the sort who... In
addition, it has been pointed out by Jespersen that factors of euphony
may have dictated the choice of the oblique for the nominative case,
or the reverse: the line cited from Macbeth gains force by its echo of
identical vowel sounds in thee: he.
Finally, the oblique case is still preferred to the nominative in
certain absolute and fragmentary constructions where the pronoun
is not joined to the verb, as in Cleopatra’s question: Is she as tall as
me?, or in contemporary exclamations like: What? Me dance?
A curious example of deviation from modern habits of speech
appears in the employment of what we may call a generic singular
pronoun of indefinite reference. A plural noun may be followed by
a singular pronoun referring to it, when the former designates a
group of people. In such cases the singular pronoun stands for a
generic representative of the group. The usage is not unknown in
ME:
For if there come to an abey to pore men or thre And aske of
hem helpe par seinte charité, Unnethe wole any don his ernde other
’ong or old, But late him coure ther al day in hunger and in cold.
Here the plural noun men is referred to later as his in the third line
and him in the fourth. We find the same sort of substitution of a
generic singular for an expected plural in popular literature dealing
with types of persons in the nether world: tricksters, vagabonds and
the like.
Descriptions of these types frequently begin with a plural noun
and then shift to a singular pronoun in reference. An early example
is to be found in Copland Hye Way to the Spitall-House:
They that dooth to other folkes good dede,
And hath themselfe of other folke more nede,
And quencheth the fyre of another place,
And leueth his owne, that is in wors cace,
Whan it is brent, and woteth not where to lye:
To the spyttell than must he nedes hye.
Here the shift from plural to singular may have been aided by
the ambiguity of the verb form in -eth, which in the South might
have been either singular or plural. But the same sort of shift is to
be found elsewhere, quite frequently. Robert Greene, in the Second
Part of Conny-Catching, speaks thus of thieves who use a long-
handled hook in robbing: they let it out and hook or curb whatsoever
is loose and within reach, and then he conueies it to the warp.
John Awdeley, describing the practices of sturdy vagabonds in
the 16th century, habitually slips over from a plural noun to a generic
singular pronoun: These kynde of deceyuing Vacabondes haue other
practises... and when he hath agreed of the price, he sayeth. Similarly
Thomas Harman writes: to one man that goeth abroad, there are at
the least two women, which neuer make it straunge when they be
called, although she neuer knew him before.
Sometimes on the other hand the shift is from singular to plural,
as also exemplified in Harman: some yong Marchant man... whose
friendes hath geuen them a stock of money... Finally, among the
looser constructions of personal pronouns we find two pleonasms
already sanctioned by tradition.
These are: an anticipatory pronoun doubling for a following
noun in the same construction, or a reprise construction. A shift of
case construction may occur with either of these pronoun-noun pairs,
especially in informal writing. Shakespeare has: my lord, she and that
friar, I saw them at the prison; and: He that retires, I’ll take him for a
Volsce. Both of these show incongruity in case construction.
The repeated pleonastic pronoun was used colloquially to gain
emphasis as in Ben Jonson’s: I scorn it I, so I do, or: another, he cries
souldier. Reprise constructions in formal discourse employed the
appositional pronoun to recall a noun separated from its verb by a
long series of interrupting modifiers.
Thus Shakespeare’s Ulysses speaks of Achilles as the proud lord,
and then in the fifth line following returns to him by means of an
appositional he with repeated auxiliary:
Shall the proud lord
That bastes his arrogance with his own seam,
And never suffers matter of the world
Enter his thoughts, save such as do resolve
And ruminate himself, shall he be worshipp’d
Of that we hold an idol more than he?

The anticipatory it in apposition with a noun clause or an
infinitive was of course sanctioned in the most formal English: Is it
not monstrous that this player here... Could force his soul....
The interrogative and relative pronoun forms were also, like the
personal ones, handled with considerable freedom in stage dialogues.
Of the former, it may be said that the oblique case could be either
who or whom, almost indifferently, as in Hamlet’s elliptical question:
Between who?, and Orlando’s complete one: Who ambles time
withal?.
As with the personal pronouns, a crossing of constructions, often
due to a parenthetical remark, may lead to a confusion of cases, for
instance in the lines: The mariners... who, with a charm join’d to their
suffer’d labour, I have left asleep. Jonson was somewhat stricter than
Shakespeare in his treatment of who / whom as disjunctive
interrogative pronoun appearing in head position apart from the
verb.
But he too permits who in head position when the governing
word is a distant preposition: Who would you speak with?; I see
who he laughed at. An uninflected relative pronoun, giving no overt
clue to its construction, may lead to a shift in agreement, as in
Shakespeare’s lines: ’tis your graces /That from my mutest conscience
to my tongue /Charms this report out.
Not only who and which but also other relative pronouns were
still loosely expressed with duplication of forms, as in the 15th
century. Thus we find not only the which but the which that, for
persons as well as things, and in the genitive case, that his as well as
whose: A wight that... his every step hath left the stamp. Relative
pronouns were frequently omitted as in ME and ModE, thus
producing asyndetic contact clauses.
Reflexive, indefinite and emphatic pronouns were not as yet fixed
in the schemes familiar today, but the differences were not striking.
Among the forms then accepted which have since disappeared from
the language were: an uninflected plural of other (e.g., those other
came); the simple forms who, what for whoever, whatever; reflexive
forms lacking the suffix -self (e. g., he clothed him hastily).
Though these deviations from modern usage give a special
flavour to Tudor and early Stuart English, they do not signify any
very important difference in structure. Adjectives and adverbs were

in many cases less consistently distinguished than today. That is to
say, the suffix -ly was less generally used as a sign of adverbial
function. Adverbs originally distinguished from cognate adjectives
by the suffix -e had long since been made identical with them.
Shakespeare and his contemporaries quite freely used Romance
as well as Germanic adverbs lacking the typical suffix, in phrases
like: wondrous strange, seeming virtuous queen, noble spoken, and
so on. The use of more and most in degrees of comparison was still
(as previously) not yet fixed according to precise rules.
Periphrastic comparison may appear instead of a suffix with
monosyllables (most vile, most brave), and polysyllables may employ
the suffixes -er and -est. The choice between periphrasis and
suffixation in verse was no doubt sometimes conditioned by rhythms.
The same factor (or else rhetorical emphasis) may have
determined the choice of double comparatives and superlatives,
which were still current: This was the most unkindest cut of all.
Regularising of the usages was to occur in the latter 17th and the
18th centuries. The double negative still appears sporadically in the
latter 16th century and lingers into the 17th: No king can govern,
nor no god please.
Verbal Forms and Constructions
The verb forms and their sentence functions reveal some of the
most striking deviations from our present standard usage. In
discussing them it is particularly difficult to maintain the traditional
separation of morphology or accidence from syntax. Concerning the
principal parts of verbs and the general division of conjugations into
strong and weak, it may be said briefly that the transfer of verbs
from the former conjugation to the latter continued steadily.
It has been estimated that about 30 verbs were lost to the strong
conjugation in the 16th and 17th centuries. Among the surviving
strong verbs, there was a perceptible tendency to level preterite and
past participle forms into one, as in Shakespeare’s: are broke and:
have spoke; have chose. The -en ending of strong past participles was
lost in some instances, but not universally. We find forms like: is
forgot, is writ, but also: (be)gotten.
The -ed ending of weak verbs was still frequently syllabic, as

versification shows, in formal if not informal speech. The same
ending was sometimes omitted from the past participle of weak verbs
derived from Latin ones with the suffix -ate (itself originally a sign
of the past participle). The omission reflected a knowledge of Latin
morphology.
In the third person singular of verbs in the present tense, the
fluctuation between -es and -eth no longer has any dialectal
significance. In the third person plural, however, the situation is more
complicated. Here we find a zero ending in most cases, but also
occasionally -es and -eth also. When one of the two latter appears,
the reason may be: (1) that the form chosen was acceptable in general
colloquial speech; (2) that it represented a restricted dialect (-es for
the North and -eth for the South); or (3) that it simply resulted from
a syntactic confusion on the part of the individual writer.
Shakespeare has: My old bones aches in a prose passage, and in
verse the line: On chaliced flowers that lies, where the choice of an -es
form may have been dictated in part by the needs of rime. Robert
Greene, in the preface to his first tract on the sharp practices of the
underworld, writes: my ripe daies cals; and later: the three knaues
comes. Here the -es forms in the plural may be regarded as evidence
of Northern dialect influence still affecting Southern English.
On the other hand, when Greene and others have expressions
like: how doth all our good friends, this verbal form may likewise
be regarded as a survival of a Southern plural ending. At the same
time Greene also writes: how fare all our friends, which is the more
usual form (both examples in his pamphlet on Cosenage). We deduce
that the Southern verbal inflection had a limited currency in London
speech of the time.
In some cases the choice of forms may well have been due to a
dislocation of the sentence, and the question becomes one of syntax.
In a complex sentence probably not clearly thought through, Greene
writes: the villanous vipers,...being outcasts from God, vipers of the
world, and an excremental reuersion of sin, doth consent. Here the
form doth may simply be a shift to the singular resulting from the
intervention of modifiers and appositional expressions between
subject and predicate.
Similarly, ambiguous relative pronouns may cause a shift in

agreement, as in Copland’s line: These be they that dayly walkes and
jettes, or: For all estates that thyder was comyng. But in the following
lines from the Hye Waye, Copland’s shift of person from second to
third has no such justification, nor need we assume that the form
biddeth was actually a generally acceptable alternate for the normal
biddest:
“Copland,” quod he, “art thou a-thyrst, And byddeth me a-
fore the to drynke?”
In some instances, particularly in the latter 16th century,
unexpected or unusual forms are to be regarded as individual
writers’ slips and idiosyncrasies, rather than as testimony to a
widespread habit of speech. Thus we may interpret the reading in
Julius Caesar: The posture of your blows is yet unknown. The
unorthodox agreement is natural in rapid dialogue, but would hardly
occur in a learned text.
The system of verbal auxiliaries was also diversified and still
unsettled as compared with today’s. Within the period being
discussed there was a marked expansion in the auxiliary use of the
verb to do. It began to assume four main functions:
a. To emphasise the message conveyed by the main or
“notional” verb (to use Jespersen’s term), as in Othello’s
lines: Perdition catch my soul But I do love thee!, and
Orlando’s: I do desire we may be better strangers. This
appears to have been the first semantic area of expansion.
b. To delay the notional verb to a later position in the sentence,
especially in negative statements. Shakespeare has: I do not
like her name, but also: I like not that, with the notional verb
directly after the subject.
c. To formulate questions. The forms of do thus permit
inversion in word order and yet keep the subject in its
normal position preceding the notional verb. Here too
Shakespeare’s usage in the prose dialogues of his comedies,
probably typical of good colloquial speech of the time, may
be seen to fluctuate. Rosalind’s rapid interrogation of her
cousin Celia includes such questions as: What said he? How
looked he? Wherein went he? But also: Did he ask for me?
Doth he know that I am in this forest?. When no interrogative
word introduces a question, and when both subject and
object are nouns, the function of do becomes important in
avoiding ambiguity between nominative and accusative
constructions. For instance, the question: Loves the king the

queen? is ambiguous, whereas Does the king love the queen?
is not. With questions involving pronouns the problem of
ambiguity doer not arises, but these too have been attracted
into the do-pattern in ModE.
d. To substitute for a notional verb previously introduced. This
function was already familiar in Chaucer. An example from
Shakespeare is the line spoken by Octavius to Brutus: Not
that we love words better, as you do.
The choice of a construction with do or without it was of course
sometimes dictated by the needs of verse rhythm. Even in prose —
especially oratorical prose, but apparently elsewhere as well — the
do-constructions may have been favoured at times to obtain a desired
cadence of speech.
Other auxiliaries were extending or specialising their scope along
with do. The verb to be began to be used to express an aspect of
continuous action for the notional verb. The result was in the end
the creation of an entire verbal inflection called the continuous or
progressive conjugation in modern grammars. Shakespeare offers
fairly numerous examples of this conjugational system: the same
pulpit whereto I am going; we are still handling our ewes; our thane
is coming,. While this function of to be was just beginning to expand,
another one was contracting: namely the function of an auxiliary
forming the perfect tenses with intransitive verbs of motion,
analogous to the use of to have with transitive ones. Shakespeare
still uses to be frequently in such locutions: Is Banquo gone?; I would
the friends we miss were safe arrived.
While the auxiliary have was steadily taking over the perfective
function everywhere in popular speech during the 17th and 18th
century, formal religious prose remained strikingly conservative in
this respect. The reason is that the Authorised Version of the Bible
consistently preferred the more archaic treatment of intransitive
verbs in the perfect tenses, and these in turn affected sermons and
other types of solemn discourse. The auxiliaries shall and will were
moving into the rather complex patterns of modern usage, but the
formulation of rules and the strict observance of them belong to the
latter 17th century.
Meanings of futurity and desire overlap in will, would; of futurity
and obligation in shall, should; and there were other nuances of
meaning as well. Probability and doubt are expressed in clauses like:

this should be the place; though hell itself should gape. Habitual action
is expressed by will, would: foul deeds will rise; and there are still
other functions discharged by this pair of auxiliaries.
The remaining auxiliaries like may, can, ought, which are widely
employed in ModE, had a somewhat more restricted currency in
the 16th and 17th centuries. This was because the subjunctive mood
still functioned then to indicate a number of relations which the
auxiliaries have since taken over.
The subjunctive appeared in dependent clauses associated with
verbs suggesting contingency, desire, command, concession, etc.
Reported speech put into the subjunctive may suggest doubt; notice
the contrast implied in Othello’s statement: I think my wife be honest
and I think she is not. Other illustrations are:
Note if your lady strain
’tis fit that Cassio have his place
’Tis a shrewd doubt, though it be but a dream
I’ll cross; it, though it blast me
See whe’r Brutus be alive or dead
When if-clauses expressed a possibility, either indicative or
subjunctive might appear:
If thou art privy to thy country’s; fate
If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not
If music be the food of love, play on
if none appear
Conditions contrary to fact are regularly in the subjunctive: if
my heart were in your hand; if a man were porter of hell-gate.
Parts of speech were often unconventionally handled in
Elizabethan English. A shifting back and forth from verbal use to
nominal, from nominal to adjectival, and so on, reflects a stylistic
freedom eschewed during the later classical period. Similar to it was
the freedom manifested in word formation, whether by the creation
of compounds, as in Shakespeare’s heaven-kissing hill, or by the
unconventional attaching of prefixes and suffixes, as in such words
as unpeople for depopulate, and enskied for exalted.
The shifting of grammatical categories was facilitated, of course,
by the loss of inflections in late ME. Rarely by now did any overt
sign indicate the part of speech to which any word normally

belonged. Shakespeare exemplifies more often than most the ready
transfer of parts of speech; and what he was doing boldly, others
also did with greater caution.
He uses a noun as a verb in expressions like: how might she
tongue me, and: he pageants us; also an adjective as’ a verb: the grief
violenteth, or a noun as an adjective: my salad days / When I was
green in judgment. Moreover, normally intransitive verbs may
appear as transitive: [this] dances my rapt heart, and: he meant to
quail...the orb. At the same time, Shakespeare was aware that such
linguistic practices could easily become ridiculous. He burlesques
them in the broken speech of Hugh Evans, a Welsh character in The
Merry Wives of Windsor, whose imperfect diction is also made
comically pretentious: I will description the matter to you; can you
affection the ‘oman?
The Beginnings of English Lexicography
The free treatment of parts of speech is but one symptom of an
exploratory attitude to language and its techniques characteristic of
the later Renaissance in England. The archaising school of poetry,
represented by Edmund Spenser, stimulated curiosity about older
words, and the influx of new terms from other languages called
attention to the variety of the contemporary vocabulary. It is not
surprising therefore that the systematic study of that vocabulary had
its beginnings in the same period. Linguistic studies in the Middle
Ages had not been aided by complete lexical registers for the tongues
concerned, not even for Latin.
Only rare and difficult words were usually explained, or
synonyms for them were given in the vernacular, in marginal or
interlinear notes of individual manuscripts. Such jottings, called
glosses, were sometimes listed separately as a kind of appendix to a
difficult text. Complete interlinear translations also existed. These
aids did not always follow the alphabetic order, however, and each
was usually attached to a particular text. The first step towards more
systematic presentation was the setting up of word-lists for students’
aid, independent of specific texts.
Such an aid for schoolboys was the Promptorium Parvulorum,
a non-alphabetical English-Latin word-list written about 1440 and
published by Caxton’s successor Pynson in 1499. Caxton himself had
previously published some French-English vocabularies and
conversations to aid merchants and other travellers abroad. Wynkyn

de Worde and Sir Thomas Elyot also did Latin-English lists. In the
mid-16th century these works were superseded by others more
closely resembling modern alphabetical dictionaries, but in all of
them the purpose served was the mastery of some foreign language,
not a better understanding of the native.
Such books included John Vernon trilingual Dictionarium in
Latin, English and French; John Withal Short Dictionarie for Yonge
Beginners in English and Latin, and Richard Huloet Abecedarium
also in English and Latin. This last work contained about 26,000
English words in alphabetical order, followed by the Latin
equivalents.
Huloet appears to have used a French work by Stephanus,
Dictionaire François-latin, besides earlier lists of synonyms and
explanations, both Latin-Latin and Latin-English. He included
illustrative phrases as well as definitions. The Abecedarium was
revised by John Higgins in 1572 and published as Huloet Dictionarie.
At the same time, vocabularies for students of Italian and Spanish
appeared: Florio Firste Fruites and Stepney Spanish Schoolemaster.
The pioneer dictionary of English terms explained in English was
Robert Cawdrey Table Alphabeticall ( 1604). This made no pretensions to
completeness, however. It was limited to rare, difficult words and
ones borrowed from foreign languages. Cawdrey, interestingly
enough, did not have school-boys in mind as the public expected to
benefit primarily from the information he offered.
Rather, he was addressing the newly educated women of the
Renaissance, now eager for further knowledge. The alphabetical list
was offered, he said, “with the interpretation thereof by plaine
English words, gathered for the benefit & helpe of Ladies,
Gentlewomen, or any other unskilfull persons.” Cawdrey’s debt to
earlier bilingual dictionaries is apparent. John Bullokar, who is to be
distinguished from the Bullokar mentioned, contributed An English
Expositor which like Cawdrey’s had the restricted aim of “teaching
the interpretation of the hardest words used in our language.” The
same limitation appears in the work of Henry Cockeram.
His English Dictionarie divided its list of strange and difficult
terms into several parts, each alphabetically arranged; the “vulgar”
words were for instance separated from the more “refined and
elegant” ones. The public he aimed at was apparently broader than
Cawdrey’s. Among the social groups mentioned are “as well Ladies
and Gentlewomen, Schollers, Clarkes, Merchants, as also Strangers
of any Nation” who might wish to perfect themselves “in reading,
writing and speaking.”
The usefulness of Cockeram Dictionarie to such groups of people
was increased by the inclusion of names from classical mythology,
which played so large a part in the literary allusions of the time.
Later writers in the 17th century built on the first pioneer works,
while expanding them through the addition of new areas of
terminology. Thomas Blount, the author of a Glossographia was a
lawyer, and while he made use of various Latin and English
dictionaries that had preceded his, he also expanded his material by
drawing on a French legal glossary, Rastelle Termes de la Ley.
He gave etymologies, and also acknowledged his debt to his
predecessors in many if not all instances. Two years later, John
Milton’s nephew Edward Phillips produced his New World of Words,
with 11,000 entries. It was indebted to many predecessors, including
learned Latin works of the 16th century which indexed geographical,
historical, mythological and other terms. Phillips did not always
acknowledge his debts nor use them intelligently.
Blount expressed his indignation at the mechanical lifting
practised by Phillips, in a diatribe entitled A World of Errors.
Nevertheless, Phillips New World went through a number of later
editions. It was used as a foundation for the English Dictionary of
Elisha Coles, a schoolmaster, who abbreviated what Phillips had
given but also expanded it by including words in dialect and cant.
A Latin work by StephenSkinner
Skinner, Etymologicon Linguae Anglicanae, stressed the origins of
English words from various languages, including not only French
and Latin but also Anglo-Saxon and what he called “Teutonic.” That
is to say, Skinner gave analogous forms in Dutch and other Germanic
languages. His work was used in turn by an anonymous writer in
Gazophylacium Anglicanum.
Thus considerable foundation work was done in the 17th century,
leading up to the lexicographers who were the immediate sources
and models for Dr. Samuel Johnson in the 18th.In a less systematic
way, meantime, certain writers were beginning to investigate the
special jargons of the underworld created by mass unemployment
in England. The dispossessed folk who had become sturdy beggars

roaming the countryside, or thieves and tricksters inhabiting the
nether parts of cities, had developed vocabularies of their own.
Their purpose was in part to evade understanding by the
authorities of the law. Writers describing the life of the underworld
introduced some of these special terms into their own work,
sometimes in a haphazard way, sometimes in the form of short lists
with explanations. Copland Hye Waye to the Spiral-House offered no
glossary, though it included such curious words as:
Bewpere, 1. 497: accomplice, good companion. See NED s. v. beau
père
Cove, 11. 1046 f.: man, person; from the Gypsy. See Partridge.
Feng, 1. 1049: to steal; an alternate form of fang in ME.
Frydge, 1. 394: to move restlessly about, to fidget, according to
the NED, which suggests onomatopoetic origin. But the sense
indicates: to beg, from OE frycgean?
Mychers, 1. 141: “Those be mychers that lyue in trewandyse”
(truancy).Cf. micher in 1 Henry IV, II, iv, and miching in Haml., III,
ii. The NED relates micher, a secret or petty thief, to the verb miche
derived from OFr muchier, mucier, meaning to hide, to skulk, to lurk.
Rogers, 11. 392 and 410: begging rogues who pretend to be poor
scholars. Partridge, citing Copland as authority, relates this to the
word rogue; but cf. also the name Roger.
Sapyent, 1. 432: a quack who pretends to be a physician; from
Latin sapiens.
Tomblyng cast, 1. 372, i. e., tumbling cast; to make a t. c.: a metaphor
for the act of being hanged.
It will be seen that these expressions come from many different
sources. Some of them died out of currency, others like cove have
persisted until the present. Here and there in his conny-catching
pamphlets Robert Greene introduced short lists of underworld terms.
They were grouped together according to the practices dealt with,
not in the order of the alphabet. Here are a few examples, slightly
revised (for Greene gives his definitions first, his terms last:
Bong, boung: a purse. The term bung-nipper for cutpurse persisted
into the 18th century (Partridge).
Cuttle-boung: a knife used in cutting the strings of a purse.
Foin: pickpocket. Partridge cites Greene as sole authority for this.
Rutter: “he that maketh the fray,” i. e., provokes a planned

quarrel.
Shels: “the monie.” Special use of the ordinary word shell?
Partridge does not give this noun, but only the verb derived from
the noun, in the sense of: to strip, to hand out, etc.
Smoaking: “spying of him” (i. e., the victim). Partridge gives only
later meanings of the 17th and 18th centuries: to ridicule or affront.
The meaning of detection may not be connected with Standard
English to smoke from OE smoca, but with a derivative of OE smcian,
to flatter or seduce.
Verser: “he that plaieth the game; he that bringeth him [the
victim] in.”
A short list of names for various types of neglectful apprentices
was appended by Awdeley to his Fraternitye of Vacabondes, but the
elegance of the terms, often derived from Latin, makes them suspect
as representatives of genuine underworld cant:
Cory fauell is he, that wyl lye in his bed, and cory [i e., curry] the
bed bordes on which he lyeth in steade of his horse. — Cf. curry
favel in the NED. The expression comes ultimately from the French
Roman de Fauvel.
Greene Winchard is he, that when his hose is broken and hange[s]
out at his shoes, he will put them into his shooes againe with a stick,
but he wyll not amend them.
Nunquam, is he that when his Maister sendeth him on his errand
he wil not haue done it in halfe an hour or lesse.
Harman also appended to his Caueat an alphabetical list of
various types of rogues (but without definitions), and a non-
alphabetical list of general terms in the “leud, lousey language of
these lewtering Luskes and lasy Lorrels,” with synonyms by way of
explanation. Some typical examples are:
Autem: a church; origin unknown. Partridge implausibly
suggests: from anthem.
Bene: good; benshyp: very good.
Bowse: to drink. Cf. ModE booze, bouse, from Middle Dutch busen,
bousen.
Cante: to speak. Probably an alternant form of chant, in Northern
French dialect, ultimately from Latin cantare.
Dup the gyger: to open the door. Partridge surmises that dup is
derived from do open (not do up); gyger, the same as jigger, has no
certain origin.
Gan: a mouth; probably from Welsh geneu, ganau, says Partridge.
But cf. also Icelandic gana, to gape.
Gentry cofes ken: a noble or gentleman’s house.
Harmans: the stocks. Cf. harman, presumably derived from hard
man.
Lightmans: the day. Cf. darkmans, the night.
Mort, morte: girl or woman; origin unknown (NED). Qualifying
terms are used: e. g., autem morte, married woman, analogous to
autem cove, married man. (In this combination, Partridge suggests
that autem is derived from altham, a doubtful word meaning wife.
But the derivation from autem meaning church seems to be easier
and just as plausible.)
Rome: in various compounds, with the sense of fine or superior.
E. g.: Rome bouse: wine; Rome morte: the Queen; Rome ville: London.
As may be seen, the etymologies of most of these words are fairly
clear. They show very varied origins for the jargon of London’s
derelicts in the late 16th century.
Writers like William Harrison in his Description of England, the
author of the anonymous Groundeworke of Conny-Catching, and
Thomas Dekker in his Belman of London, plagiarised Harman’s
terminology, together with his information. Their zeal in doing so
testifies to an eager if not yet scientific interest in the language of
the underworld of London.
Chapter 9
Listening English Pronunciation
PRONUNCIATION
In some ways it makes sense to believe that phonological
processing in reading is linked to the reader’s ability to pronounce
words accurately, but Wallace quite rightly argued against the idea:
“Phonics,” as the method is popularly called, involves the ability
to match up letters (or “graphemes”) to some kind of sound
representation. It tends to be assumed that phonic skill is displayed
by the ability to read aloud with a “good”—that is native-like,
standard English—pronunciation.
Wallace is more properly referring to phonemic or graphemic
awareness, the ability to match letters and sounds. (Phonics is a
teaching methodology.) However, she is correct in disconnecting
reading and pronunciation, and here’s why: The fact is that
phonological processing in reading is more heavily dependent on
accurate perception and recognition of sounds in listening, than it is
on the production of sounds in speech. Therefore, accurate
pronunciation of the sounds of English is largely irrelevant to
reading. This chapter explores the issue further.
Studies show that infants can discriminate (perceive the
difference) between different sounds from birth and that the innate
ability to discriminate is applied to the sounds of the language that
surrounds them. As infants begin to comprehend and later to
produce their own language, they lose their ability to discriminate
between sounds that are irrelevant to their own language.
For example, infants discriminate between many sounds that are
not used in English but they lose this ability as their knowledge of
English sounds develops and as they gain the ability to understand
the speech that is directed at them and the speech that goes on
around them. They usually master the comprehension of spoken

language before they can produce all of the sounds of English
accurately.
Slowly they begin to be able to produce the sounds with
accuracy, although many children’s production of difficult sounds
like /r/, /y/, and /1/ can be delayed until the age of 6 or 7. Speakers
of other languages also lose the ability to discriminate between
sounds that do not occur in their native language, but if the ESL
and EFL instruction that they receive has a strong oral and aural
focus, they, too, will master the discrimination of English sounds,
although completely accurate production of English sounds can be
challenging and may, in fact, never occur.
Accurate pronunciation seems to be highly correlated with the
age of acquisition; the earlier in life English is acquired, the more
accurate the pronunciation of the speaker. Luckily for our students,
accurate silent reading is more dependent on accurate discrimination
of sounds rather than accurate production of sounds. I know of no
evidence that the ability to develop accurate aural discrimination in
an L2 diminishes with age unless hearing becomes impaired.
However, discrimination of English sounds, especially vowels,
can be problematic for ESL and EFL learners because most languages
have fewer vowels than does English. A common vowel system in
the languages of the world has five spoken vowels, roughly those
in Bach, bait, beat, boat, and boot. Another common vowel system
has three vowels, those in Bach, beat, and boot.
Although there is quite a bit of dialect variation even in so-called
Standard English, English is thought to have 12 vowels. There are
also some consonant sounds in English that can cause discrimination
difficulties because they are uncommon: the initial sounds in this,
thin, ship, chip, genre, jet, and the final sound in sing.
For accurate listening comprehension and reading, the learner’s
knowledge base must contain an inventory of English sounds, each
sound in the form of a generalized mental image learned from a
number of different experiences with the sound in different contexts.
Learners need not be able to verbalize or describe the difference
between two sounds, but they need to be able to discriminate two
sounds.
In addition, learners don’t need to be able to pronounce sounds

perfectly. In silent reading of familiar words, only the abstract mental
image of a sound may be used in recoding. It is in oral reading that
pronunciation becomes relevant. Articulation of sounds is also
important in reading and learning new words, as we shall see in
later chapters.
In English, we have hypothesized that for most words, the
squiggles on the page are identified as letters (decoding), and
matched with the abstract mental images of English sounds stored
in memory (recoding), as in B. This creates a visual and aural image
of the word which then undergoes lexical processing to identify the
correct meaning, as in C. The more accurately and quickly this can
happen, the better for the reader.
Phonological processing (recoding) can probably stop right here
in the quickest and most efficient silent reading of familiar words.
However, there are three other possibilities for reading, and each
possibility involves slightly more processing work. In the first type
of reading, readers proceed to summon up a memory of the physical
sounds in the word they are reading. They have the sensation of
hearing the words in their heads.
In the second type of reading, readers proceed even further to
activate the motor commands to the mouth that are associated with
the sound, so that the reader has the sensation of saying the words,
but nothing is audible. This is called subvocalizing. Fast readers
sometimes use these as techniques to slow down their reading so as
to comprehend better, but in general, they are less efficient than pure
and simple activation of the abstract mental image because they
require more processing effort and attention. Subvocalizing may be
important to learn new words, however.
The third alternative way of reading is oral reading, in which
the motor commands to the mouth are actually realized and the read
words are pronounced audibly. This requires quite a bit of processing
work, effort, and attention, especially for careful pronunciation.
Many ESL and EFL students find oral reading difficult and stressful
because they must process the squiggles into letters, match the letters
with abstract mental images of sounds, activate the right motor
commands to the mouth, and put those motor commands into effect
with the most accurate pronunciation.
Is it any wonder that comprehension of orally read material
suffers? Another problem is that the way the word looks is more
likely to affect the pronunciation of the word, which, for English, is
sometimes counterproductive because the pronunciation is distorted.
There are some occasions in which oral reading is useful as a
pedagogical tool, for instance, in learning new vocabulary, but it is
not useful either for testing pronunciation or for testing reading
comprehension. We turn our attention now to an elaboration of the
inventory of English sounds.
Phonetics is the study of the sounds of the flow of speech.
Although it seems like we perceive individual sounds as we hear
them, the flow of speech is actually continuous. The sounds are not
really discrete segments, but we learn to discriminate discrete sounds
in the flow of speech as we acquire a language.
If we hear speech in a foreign language that we do not
understand, at first we cannot segment the speech into words, and
we often cannot even segment the speech into discrete sounds
because we have lost the ability to discriminate between sounds that
are not in our native language. As we acquire knowledge of the L2,
we acquire the ability to segment the flow into separate words and
sounds because our phonological and lexical processing strategies
can draw upon knowledge about sounds and words stored in the
knowledge base. One of the strategies that we use to distinguish
sounds in the flow of speech is to notice certain invariant properties
of each sound.
Thus, every time we hear a [d], although it might be different
from speaker to speaker or from environment to environment, we
can recognize it as /d/. (Linguists use square brackets to “write”
sounds as they are actually produced in speech and slanted lines
around symbols for abstract mental images of sounds, so that we
keep them separate in our thinking and we know that we are not
talking about ordinary written letters.)
When we hear someone with an accent, we can understand their
speech as long as they more or less pronounce the main invariant
properties of the sounds (or at least substitute a sound with some
similar acoustic properties). The speech of each individual is unique.
It’s called a voiceprint. The pitch of a person’s voice depends on the

length of his or her vocal tract. That is why small children have very
high-pitched voices. The resonance in the vocal tract depends on
the shape of it, so that will also vary from individual to individual.
Yet, these individual variations in speech and accent do not stop
us from understanding because the invariant properties of the sound
are maintained no matter who is speaking.
It is possible that the invariant properties that linguists use to
classify English sounds are similar to the unconscious and informal
knowledge that is stored abstractly in the reader’s knowledge
database to be accessible in processing both spoken and written
language.
English Consonants
We describe consonants based on the way the sound is produced
and the place that the sound is made in the mouth. To make most
of the sounds in human language, the airstream has to pass through
the trachea and the glottis, the opening between the vocal folds.
Voiceless sounds are those that pass through the glottis unobstructed
by the vocal folds, so they do not vibrate.
Voiceless sounds are/p/, /t/, and/k/, and others. Voiced sounds
are produced when the airstream causes the vocal folds to vibrate
because they are pulled together and obstruct the airstream. Voiced
sounds are /b/, /d/, and /g/, and others. The voiced and voiceless
distinction accounts for the difference in the first sound of following
word pairs: fat and vat, sit and zit.
If you say these words carefully and focus on the sounds and
how you are producing them, you will note that each pair is identical
except for the vibration or lack of vibration in the first sound. All
sounds are either voiced or voiceless.
If the uvula is closed, the airstream passes through the mouth.
Those sounds are called oral. If the uvula is open and if the airstream
is stopped somewhere in the mouth, the airstream passes through
the nasal cavity and out the nose; those sounds are called nasal. All
sounds are either oral or nasal. Nasal sounds are /m/, /n/, and /r;/.
They are voiced and nasal. Oral sounds are /b/, /p/, t, /k/, /1/, /r/,
and others.
Thus, all sounds can be divided according to their manner of
articulation (how they are made) into voiced or voiceless, oral or
nasal. Consonants have other distinguishing manners of articulation

also.
The place of articulation is across the top, the manner is down
the left side. We’ll talk about manner first. Going from the top to
the bottom of the chart, the manner goes from maximal obstruction
of the air flow to minimal obstruction, or a mere shaping of the vocal
tract. In other words, in making a stop, the air flow is stopped
completely at some point in the mouth. Air pressure is built up and
then released.
In an affricate, the air flow is stopped briefly to build up a little
pressure, but then quickly released with a small force of air that
passes through the mouth which is shaped to produce friction.
Fricatives are produced by bringing two parts of the mouth very close
together, making a small channel for the air to go through. When
the air goes through the small channel, a lot of friction is produced
in the airstream.
Stops have maximal obstruction or stoppage; affricates have
maximal obstruction and then constriction; fricatives have a
continuous airflow that is highly constricted. Recall that nasals are
produced by allowing most of the air to flow through the nasal
cavity, but a little air goes through the mouth, where it is stopped
by the two lips for /m/, by the tongue tip and the alveolar ridge for
/n/, and by the back of the tongue and the velum for/i)/.
Liquids are produced by bringing two parts of the mouth very
close together so that they may even be touching, but the channel
that the air goes through is large and no friction is produced. Instead,
a kind of resonance or musicality is produced by the shape of the
tongue and mouth. Glides are like liquids, but the shape of the mouth
is different.
The continuum of “aperture,” or opening, as I call it, explains
why liquids and glides are similar to vowels. As we shall see, vowels
also are produced more by mouth shape than by stopping or
constricting the air flow. Bilabial refers to sounds produced by the
two lips; labiodental means that the lower lip and the upper teeth are
involved. Interdental sounds are produced with the tongue tip
between the two sets of teeth.
Alveolar sounds are produced with the tip of the tongue on the
alveolar ridge, the bony part just behind the upper teeth. Palatal
sounds are produced at or near the hard palate with the blade of
the tongue and velar sounds are produced at or near the velum with
the back of the tongue.
Glottal sounds are produced in the pharyngeal or laryngeal areas.
Besides the glottal fricative, there is also a glottal stop, written with
the symbol? (a question mark without the dot at the bottom). It is a
sound which has no correspondence with any letter in the alphabet;
it is the sound at the beginning of each syllable in the word uh-uh.
If you say this word, you will sense a closing, a build up of air
pressure, and an opening in the glottis before the vowel sound.
Although the glottal stop is not a contrasting meaningful sound in
most dialects of English, I include it on the chart for completeness.
English Vowels
English vowels form the nucleus or musical centre to the syllable.
The principal vowels of English are distinguished from each other
by the shape of the vocal tract when they are produced. The main
articulator is the tongue, which is capable of very precise, rapid, and
small movements. These movements take only a tiny fraction of a
second, but they are enough for us to tell the difference between
vowel sounds based on tongue height and tongue position.
The high front vowels are produced with the tongue relatively
high and forward in the mouth, as opposed to the low back vowels
in which the tongue is relatively low and back. Thus, the vowels are
not distinguished in absolute terms but in relative terms. They are
defined with respect to their relative position when compared with
each other.
We use the terms tense and lax to get at a very subtle difference
in vowels, but it is not useful to spend much time trying to
understand these two terms or their definitions. One difference
between the tense and lax vowels is a very slight repositioning of
the jaw as you make the tense sound and then the lax. In addition,
the front tense vowels in English are made longer in duration
through the addition of a palatal glide, making them effectively
diphthongs.
So, /i/ is really pronounced [iy] and /e/ is really [ey]. (Remember,
the slashes are placed around mental images of sounds and square
brackets are placed around actual pronunciations.) If you have ever
tried to learn to pronounce Spanish vowels, you know the difficulty

English speakers have in removing the glides to pronounce the
shorter and purer Spanish vowels. In fact, a major part of the English
“accent” in speaking Spanish and other languages comes from
transferring these diphthongized vowels to the other language.
The term rounding refers to the position of the lips when the
vowel sound is produced. If the lips are somewhat pursed, the vowel
is round. Make the sound of/o/; notice the position of the lips, /o/ is
a round vowel, as opposed to /a/, which is not. All the back vowels
in English are round. When English speakers try to pronounce
French, we may have difficulty with front round vowels in French,
because we associate roundness with backness.
The tense back round vowels in English /u/ and /o/ are
pronounced with a “round” bilabial glide [uw] and [ow]. The round
glide, like the palatal glide, causes trouble for the English speaker
who is trying to learn any language, like Spanish, that has pure tense,
simple vowels. In my classes, I usually contrast the way an English
speaker pronounces the word “taco,” and the way that a native
Spanish speaker says it.
When a vowel is produced right before a nasal consonant, say
in the word band, the vowel is actually nasalized in pronunciation,
although we don’t notice it very much in English. The former occurs
in positions where there is stress on the vowel, as in words of one
syllable like putt; the latter occurs in positions where there is little
or no stress on the vowel, as the second vowel sound in the word
telephone. In fact, many vowels that are nonstressed in English are
“reduced” to /”/, so it is a common sound in English.
There is a lot of dialect variation in the vowel system in English
as it is spoken across the globe and even within one country. For
instance, many American English speakers don’t make a distinction
between the vowels in pin and pen. Many don’t have the sound /o/
as in the words bought or coffee. Instead, speakers of this dialect
have /a/. (Another factor in dialect variation is the pronunciation of
the /r/.)
It is helpful for ESL teachers to train students to hear the
distinctions in the primary local dialect, but they also need to be
able to understand other speakers of English. Students can be
instructed that the word bought can be pronounced /bot/ or /bat/,
and similarly for other variations.
One problem I’ve had as an ESL and EFL teacher is that my

students learn to understand me, but they don’t understand the
English on the radio or in the streets. Tapes, videos, guest speakers,
and team teachers can alleviate that problem. EFL programmes
should employ native and nonnative teachers, as well as
supplemental resources from a variety of origins, so that students
have the chance to acquire the flexible recognition strategies based
on the invariant properties of sounds.
Phones, Phonemes, and Allophones
We have been using the word “sound” somewhat loosely to keep
our discussion simple, but the word is inadequate for a more accurate
and detailed understanding of the unconscious knowledge stored
in our memory database. First, we need to be more precise than we
have been about the relation between language, the abstract mental
system of linguistic knowledge, and the concrete representations
which are expressions of it in its different modalities: reading,
writing, speaking, and listening.
Language is a complex, abstract, rule-governed, knowledge
system which humans have in their minds. It consists of unconscious
and informal knowledge of the words, syntax, and meanings, among
other things.
Language is mental, but it has several “real world”
representations: a phonetic system for oral production and listening
comprehension, and a writing system for writing and reading. Our
concern right now is to describe the relation between these two
systems of representation in a way that is helpful for reading
teachers.
Logographic writing represents the meanings of language and
syllabic writing represents the syllables of a language. Alphabetic
writing represents units of language, too, but what exactly are these
units of sound?
Any discussion of the phonetic system of a language requires
an understanding of three important concepts, which are among the
most complex within the field of linguistics: phone, phoneme, and
allophone. A phone is a sound as is it pronounced in speech. In
pronouncing the word fat, for example, we pronounce three phones.
Phones are the real articulations, or vocal noises, that we represent

with phonetic symbols inside square brackets, [fast].
We write phones in square brackets to show that we are talking
about sounds as they are actually pronounced, to distinguish them
from both mental images of sounds (phonemes) and written letters.
In contrast, a phoneme is an abstract symbol, something which is
not actually pronounced, but which has a mental reality only.
A phoneme is a meaningful symbol in a language, but it is
meaningful in a special sense. It is not that the phoneme itself has a
meaning like a word does, but rather that the phoneme makes a
meaningful difference in comparing two words. Phonemes are the
symbols written inside of slanted lines or slashes, /fast/.
Thus, each phone as it comes out of a mouth is an instance of a
mental abstraction, the phoneme. Each [t] that I say is unique,
different from any other [t] that I might say on other occasions.
However, each [t] is an instance of the same mental abstraction, /t/.
It is clear that the number of phones is infinite, but the number of
phonemes in a language must be finite. The number of phonemes in
English is actually quite small.
Phonemes are mental abstractions; they are never pronounced
because when we try to produce them, we are forced to produce
phones! Sometimes when we pronounce the phones in the context
of a word, the surrounding sounds form a context which can produce
a change in a phone.
Sometimes phones vary freely from instance to instance (they
are in/rw variation), but they are still associated with one phoneme.
Sometimes phones are not in free variation; instead a certain phone
must occur in one context and another phone must occur in another
context. They are in complementary distribution. Phones which are
related to each other by being different context dependent or free
varieties of the same phoneme are called allophones of a phoneme.
One such phone is called an allophone of a phoneme. An example
will make these concepts more concrete.
One English phoneme is /t/. We know that it is a phoneme of
English because we can find a lot of minimal pairs which show it to
be a meaningful contrasting sound. A minimal pair is a set of two
different words which are identical except for two phones. If such
minimal pairs exist, then it is good evidence that the contrasting

phones belong to different phonemes.
When we look closely at the phoneme /t/, we find that the
situation is more complicated. For one thing, compare the [t] as
pronounced in the word tick and the [t] as pronounced in the word
stick. In the first case, [t] is aspirated, or pronounced with a puff of
air, so a more accurate phonetic symbol would be [th], where the
represents the aspiration of the puff of air. In the second case, the
puff of air is missing. This is an example of complementary
distribution.
We also see that in the word write, the [t] may or may not be
aspirated, but it doesn’t seem to make any difference in meaning to
the listener because these sounds are in free variation. The word
still means the same thing; the words are not minimal pairs, so the
sounds do not contrast with each other. In the word writer, the [t]
seems to sound more like a flap [D] for most Americans, but not for
most British English speakers. In fact, we can find no minimal pairs
in English which contrast the aspirated version, the unaspirated
version, or the flapped version of/t/. Therefore, we know that we
are dealing with allophonic variation and not different phonemes.
You already have seen the connection between allophones and
“accent.” American English has these allophones for /t/, but other
dialects of English and other languages have different allophones.
Few other languages have the aspirated stop or the flap [D] for /t/,
for instance. Because we transfer our knowledge of our native
allophones to other languages when we are speaking them, we have
an accent.
It is crucial for the reading teacher to understand that individual
phones or allophones are not represented by the English writing
system; instead, the unit of language that is represented by our
spelling is the phoneme. That is why English spelling is called
phonemic and not phonetic. Some linguistically unsophisticated
educators argue that a phonetic system would be better, but that is
untrue.
First, a phonetic system would require at least three different
symbols to represent the allophones of/t/, so the number of symbols
needed to write English would increase substantially.
Second, English speakers know the allophonic variation in their

dialect and it is mostly predictable, so it is redundant to represent it
in writing.
For example, earlier we discussed how vowels can be
pronounced with nasalization if they occur in proximity to a nasal
consonant. We don’t need to represent that nasalization in writing
because that allophonic variation doesn’t carry any meaning to us.
It is an accident, as it were, of the way that our vocal tract works.
We sometimes open the uvula early or close it late in making a nasal
consonant sound, so the nasalization leaks onto nearby vowels. This
accidental “leaking” is called co-articulation.
Third, we don’t want to represent allophonic variation in writing
because it differs greatly from English dialect to English dialect.
English consonant phonemes are quite constant, but allophones may
be different in different dialects. All dialects have the phoneme/t/,
but not all dialects have all of the same allophones.
Around Hartford, CT, for example (and elsewhere), some
speakers have the phone [?] as an additional allophone of/t/. When
some speakers say the word Britain, they say [bri? an]. A writing
system that tried to represent phones would be hopelessly confusing
and complex; it is more efficient to represent our mental system of
abstract phonemes, which is more consistent.
It is true, however, that allophonic variation may cause children
and non-native speakers some difficulty in learning to read and write,
because they might have incorrect expectations. For instance, there
is an aspirated [th] in the word truck, which sounds a great deal like
another phoneme, /tj/.
It sounds to many children that the word truck is really
something like chruck. So they would expect it to be written with a
ch and not a t. Someone who advocated a strict phonetic spelling
would agree with the child.
For teachers, however, it is helpful to understand that spelling
errors (or “creative spelling”) often follow the phonetic and
allophonic values of the sounds, so when a student writes chruck
they are using sound-to-letter correspondences, but they are not
following our conventionalized spelling system. Similarly, the ESL
and EFL student may use creative spelling that reflects the allophones
they hear instead of the phonemes of English.
Suprasegmental Features of English

Besides the inventories of consonants and vowels, each language
has different ways to encode other information in the flow of speech.
Some languages use systems of tone to differentiate words that
otherwise have the same consonants and vowels.
English does not have phonemic tones, but it does have two
supra segmentals: stress and intonation. Stress is a combination of
loudness, duration, and effort in pronunciation. The more highly
stressed a syllable or word is, the louder and longer it is and the
more effort it takes to pronounce it. Stress differences are relative;
they are defined with respect to each other and not in some absolute
way. There are two types of stress, word-level stress and phrasal
stress.
The syllables of words have different amounts of stress. Usually
there is one syllable which has primary stress and another may have
a secondary amount of stress. In photograph, pho- has primary
stress, -to- is unstressed, and graph has secondary stress.
Phrasal stress also occurs in spoken English in addition to word
stress. Each main word in a phrase receives more stress than the
less important words in the phrase. That means that the stressed
word is longer in duration, louder in intensity, and pronounced with
more effort than the other words in the phrase. In the following
sentence, the phrasal stress is marked with boldface printing:
In the morning, I have a cup of coffee and read the paper.
Phrasal stress is involved in the timing of phrases. Each phrase
takes more or less the same amount of time to pronounce, but the
stressed word takes up more of the time than the unstressed words.
This means that the unstressed words are shorter and mushed
together. This contrasts sharply with a language like Spanish, which
is syllable-timed.
In Spanish, each syllable receives approximately the same
amount of time. It is for this reason that Spanish sounds more
staccato than English does. It is possible that English speakers cue
into the phrasal stress to help them determine the phrasal structure
of the sentences that they hear because word order and structure
are important for understanding English.
Sentences in English also have intonation, which is a cue to
meaning. Typically, declarative sentences and Wh-questions have a
falling intonation and yes and no questions have a rising intonation.

Phrasal stress, timing, and intonation can be used for emphasis and
contrast in English, also.
Prosody (phrasal stress and intonation) is available to listeners
but not to readers. In reading, intonation patterns are represented
imperfectly by punctuation: periods reflect falling intonation,
commas reflect pauses, and question marks may mark rising
intonation in the absence of other syntactic cues, as in the last
example sentence. Other languages, of course, have other
characteristic intonation patterns.
Phonemes and Processing Strategies in Reading
Processing strategies in listening comprehension draw on the
knowledge of English phonemes and processing strategies that match
incoming phones to the phonemes and understand speech. This
occurs automatically, effortlessly, and unconsciously most of the time
for native speakers, but we can grasp how it works because
sometimes we need to process difficult speech more consciously.
If you are listening to someone with a heavy unfamiliar accent,
you may need to decide what word you have heard if you are not
sure. I have a friend from Atlanta, GA, and at first her words “blind”
and “blond” sounded the same. On several occasions, I had to decide
if she was talking about someone who couldn’t see or someone who
had blond hair. I used the sound cue, but I also had to use other
areas of my knowledge base, like context and world knowledge. It
made for some interesting misunderstandings.
ESL and EFL learners need to acquire the knowledge base of
English phonemes so that their aural discrimination of sounds can
proceed effortlessly, quickly, and unconsciously. Note that they need
to distinguish the phones in hearing based on the mental image of
the sound (phoneme), but they don’t need to produce phones with
complete accuracy.
The idea that pronunciation is important in reading stems from
a common misunderstanding of the concept of the phoneme, that it
is a real sound and not the mental representation of a sound.
Still, more research is needed in this area. Bernhardt is correct
in pointing out that “… the extent to which readers’ own accents
interfere with, facilitate, or have no impact on their reading process

remains uninvestigated”. The suggestion made here is that readers’
own accents will not affect their silent reading, but it will be affected
by their aural discrimination of sounds.
Only their oral reading will be affected by their ability to
pronounce what they read. Findings by Baddeley et al. support the
idea that phonological accuracy in pronunciation is not crucial for
learning new words.
For quick and efficient silent reading, the ESL and EFL learner
should acquire an accurate mental image of the phonemes of English.
As previously noted, the image should be based on experiences with
different speakers and different situations, but other discrimination
activities can also help. Many of these activities are based on minimal
pairs like ship and chip, or chip and cheap.
The knowledge that words are made up of discrete sounds, along
with the strategies that allow discrimination and segmentation of
the sounds, is called phonemic awareness, which has become a
“buzzword” in English reading research and classroom practice for
native readers. Phonemic awareness is an important precursor for
alphabetic reading, but paradoxically people often acquire it as a
result of learning to read an alphabet.
One part of phonemic awareness is the segmentation of a spoken
word into component sounds. It was noted that the ability to segment
words into component sounds is not very intuitive and that its initial
discovery was crucial to the invention of the alphabet. English L1
children often learn segmentation through preschool word play,
rhyming games, nursery rhymes, and books like those of Dr. Seuss.
These prereading activities prepare them to learn the alphabetic
principle. For ESL and EFL learners, there is evidence that Hebrew
speakers have difficulty segmenting the beginning consonant of an
English word from the rest of the word because of their consonantal
writing system.
Arabic readers may have similar difficulties, as well as Chinese
readers, who also may not have good segmentation skills because
of their sinographic script. ESL and EFL learners can also learn to
segment words into component sounds by playing oral rhyming
games and learning rhymes and songs. They can pick out words
that sound similar to each other.
In addition, English L2 learners can practice manipulating the

sounds of words by taking off sounds at the beginnings, in the
middle, or at the ends of words. This is an oral task, even a kind of
a game; not a reading task. For instance, students can learn to answer
“ick” to the following question: “What happens if I take the /t/ off
of the beginning of the word ‘tick’?” They can answer, “his” to the
question, “What happens if I take the /1/ out of the middle of the
word ‘hills’?” And they can answer “sing” to the question, “What is
left if I take the /s/ off of the end of sings’?” All of these activities
can improve segmentation skills and phonemic awareness.
Which of our students benefit from instruction in phonemic
awareness activities? MariCarmen and Despina are already
sophisticated readers of an alphabetic writing system, so we can
presume that they have acquired phonemic awareness. If they have
accurate mental images of English phonemes, their phonemic
awareness will probably transfer to their new language.
They may need some instruction and practice to acquire accurate
mental images of English vowels. Mohammed, the Arabic reader,
may need phonemic awareness activities like segmentation to expand
his knowledge of English vowel and consonant segments. Ho,
coming as he does from a writing system based on sinograms, may
benefit from phonemic awareness and segmentation activities in
English to improve his bottom-up reading skills. In addition, Chinese
is a tonal language, so Ho may benefit from instruction in phrasal
stress, timing, and intonation.
The discussion in this chapter leads to the conclusion that
strategies for accurate listening comprehension are more relevant to
reading than accurate pronunciation. Pronunciation, in fact, only
comes into play in oral reading. Here are more specific ideas for
teaching auditory perception and discrimination.
Chapter 10
Silence and Word
UNDERSTANDING SILENCE
The horizon as silence situates and surrounds the centre. This is
the meaning of horizon as first outlined in the approximations of
the auditory dimension. In this respect the horizon at its extremity
first shows itself (indirectly and at the extreme fringe) as limit which
trails off into the nothingness of absence. As extreme limit the horizon
constantly withdraws and hides itself, yet it is that which situates
the entirety of presence itself. Horizon as limit and horizon as the
Open is thus the extreme degree of possible description.
There is, however a third significance for horizonal phenomena
which is closer but more hidden, which must be drawn upon for its
role in further locating word as centre. This is the horizon as the
unsaid, the latently present; horizon in the midst of presence as the
hidden depth of presence. To return to modeled approximations
which elicit this sense of the horizon, a return to perception may be
made. Things show themselves as “faces” but never as mere “faces.”
They are situated and hide within themselves as latently significant
another side.
This is a significance which I implicitly recognize and expect: I
am not surprised when the block is turned around and it shows a
different “face.” The thing presents itself as having a back, as having
a depth. This may be spoken of as a local or latently present horizonal
feature of the thing.
It is the hidden side of presence which is enigmatically “in”
presence. Again the approximation has been primarily a visual one,
so the next step is to locate the same feature auditorily and, in the
present context, in terms of word. The voiced word, however, also
shows itself as having a hidden depth, a latently meant aspect.
This is concealed within but detectable in listening to language.

In everything said there is the latent horizon of the unsaid which
situates the said. Yet, as in all horizontal phenomena, the horizon is
that which withdraws. It is easily overlooked or forgotten. Easy or
naïve listening attends only to the centre, but in doing so the latent
meaning of the horizon remains taken for granted and its latent
meaning situates the saying by its unsaying.
The variations which begin to elicit the significance of the unsaid
cover a series of horizontal phenomena. The broadest horizontal
feature regarding the unsaid as latent significance is the feature of
the unspoken context which surrounds speech. The context belongs
to a degree of silence. Here the variations which most pointedly mark
the horizontal role may begin in situations of opaque contexts.
If I begin to speak to the other in terms of halyards, sheets, gybing,
or bending on a line, the listener who has not yet heard the “language”
of sailing may return a blank, puzzled stare. I have said something
to him, but he has not heard in my saying all that is to be heard.
Similarly, in the midst of the tribe of philosophers, the instant
recognition by the initiated of the wordless “words” of symbolic logic
may appear to be perfectly transparent, but to the uninitiated they
would be perfectly opaque.
In each case there is a border of the unsaid which, until entered,
hides the saying itself. In these cases the language also hides in
implicitness but is silently heard or not heard in the saying. The
silence of the context, however, is not a blank nor total silence, it is
the near silence of what can be said. In this the example is similar to
the visual example of the latent “face” of the thing.
I can turn the thing around and view its other “faces” and see
only a relative degree of hiddenness at any one time. There is always
some “face” or other which is hidden—the ratio is an invariant
structure—but I can get any “face” I wish. The same is the case with
the low horizontal degree of a near context. This degree of the unsaid
may be obtained and heard.
But it is also important to note how such a degree of the unsaid
may be heard. Its silence is one which implies that in some sense
what was not said explicitly has already been said. While not all can
be said in a saying (there remains a ratio to the unsaid which is the
transcendence of the context) what was not said has been said in a
community with a history.
Existentially implied in the context is some kind of tribe, or
community with a history. Learning to hear the unsaid gains entry
into this community and history to some degree. The learned is the
initiate who has already heard and thus has entered into the
community and the history.
There are technical “tribal languages” whose sayings hover near
ordinary speech, but in which there are highly determined meanings
which are heard only by the initiate and not by the ordinary listener.
The unsaid can be missed in unlearned listening.
I wander through the mazes of the university seeking those
technical “languages” which deal with auditory experience. I chance
upon a lecture in acoustical physics. I listen. The lecturer speaks in
English, and the words he utters seem familiar. He speaks of
acoustical reflection, of plane reflectional, of parabolic reflection, of
elliptical reflection. Yet although the words are ordinary, their
significance does not appear as immediately obvious to the stranger.
Lurking at their fringes lie the yet unknown regions of the
unsaid, the silence of the presup-positions, and the framework of
definition which gathers the saying. There is a certain strangeness
to the words. But once the massive un-said is heard, and one returns
to the saying, its obscurity vanishes, and there is a clear, light, and
present meaning to the terms. To know a sentence entails knowing
a language. This also implicates the community which speaks the
“language” To enter the language is to enter a form of life.
The learner must undergo a catechism of definitions and relations
in the technical “language.” He gradually learns to speak like a
member of the “tribe,” and in the process the significance of the word
becomes intuitive, for he has learned to hear the echoing and
reverberating horizonal significance of the unsaid.
The communities and histories which carry variations of the
unsaid are multiple and complex. There are “languages” which are
also distant to ordinary speech. I enter a church where there is a
prayer service. I listen, and the ritual is seemingly in English, but its
tone is archaic. I hear spoken Thee and Thou and perhaps even a
reference to “thynges that go bumpe in the nyghte.” I am mystified,
and the significance which lurks in the ancient words escapes me.
But if I become an initiate the unsaid is gradually unfolded. I

begin to hear a reverber-ation from ancient times and from the silence
of the past there begins to spring a certain life. Adam, Abraham,
and Amos begin to live in pregnant significance. I listen again to the
ritual and begin to discern the regioning horizon as no longer opaque
but as the echo of the past into the present.
For the ritual tongue ties humankind to that which has gone
before him? Even, indeed, if the ritual has transformed itself into
the “timeless” distance of that which occurred in ille tempore as in
the ahistorical forms of religions. The days of the gods are to be
repeated and remembered, and the ritual spans this distance in its
dramaturgy.
In both cases, that of a technical language linked to a scientific
community and history and that of a ritual language linked to a
religious community and history, there is displayed a ratio of the
said to the unsaid. And for both there is a moment in which
forgetting this ratio becomes possible. Word does not stand alone
but stands in a ratio to the unsaid, the immanent horizon which
proximally situates the saying. But the initiated listener can so take
what has been said for granted that the clarity and obviousness of
what is now said tempts him to forget that this clarity and
obviousness has been attained by longer listening. And in his
temptation the “truth” of his tribal language is thought to be
“timeless.” The surface hides a depth.
Not all depths are, however, ratios to the traditions of tribal
languages as such. Within the complexities of speech lie also
polyphonous significances which are possibilities of the ratio of the
said to the unsaid. I am a lover courting my beloved, but we are
still partly strangers. What I say on the surface is ambiguous; it is
an invitation to share a more intimate liaison, but it is masked in
such a way that should she refuse me I may retain my composure.
Or I am a politician, and the surface of my words conceals more
than it reveals. But the careful listener who knows this language of
purposeful ambiguity detects in the slight change in wording the
sign of a change in position. Here one listens “beneath” the words,
his intention is to hear “below” the surface, and there, guarded but
understandable, is the language of the unsaid.
The varieties and complexity of the ratio of the said to the unsaid
are indefinitely large in number, and a comprehensive hermeneutics
of language would have to address these varieties. For my purpose
here, however, it is sufficient to note the nearness of significant silence
as a proximal horizonal feature.
The listener hears more than surface in listening to word. The
clarity or opacity which he discerns in the saying remains in part
dependent upon the learning to listen which probes beneath surfaces,
which hears the interior of speech.
But the ratio of the said to the unsaid extends further than the
near proximity of the context and of the depth of the saying. Horizon
was first noted as extreme, as limit, and as the Open beyond the
present fringe of presence itself. But the further reaches of horizonal
significance are not without relation to the proximal horizon. There
are occurrences when in word there may be heard an intimation of
a wider limit. Such is poetic word. Poetic word elicits a new context.
It brings to saying what has not yet been said.
There is here a sense of violence to word in that the poetic saying
disrupts the clarity of the sedimented unsaid. Poetic word, however,
is not merely the novel word. The new word, the creative or poetic
word, is not necessarily a word which appears for the first time in
the vocabulary of humankind.
Perhaps it rarely is. It is rather a word or saying which opens
experience precisely toward the mystery of the silent horizon as the
Open. That which says the horizon is that word which spans the
horizon, thus it may be new and old simultaneously. The “linguistic
analysis” practiced by Heidegger is often an example of spanning
horizons.
The methodology which simultaneously “inquires backward”
into the very roots of Western thought, into Heraclitus and
Parmenides, and which also opens and creates meanings in ancient
words which were not at all clear there to begin with is a poetizing
thought at the horizon.
The sample of Dasein in such analysis is sufficient to suggest the
possibility of a wider saying. In its ordinary context, Dasein is what
is thought of as an ordinary existent or thing. But in Heidegger’s
thought Dasein becomes Da-sein the “being-here” which I am.
“Being” as an active experiencing and “here” as the finite position

which I occupy are my Da-sein in a way more significant than the
mere “being-there” of an inert object. By opening the word to a wider
and deeper context, the word becomes “poetic” in the sense of a
bringing into-being of a meaning; but at the same time it is a bringing-
into being of a meaning which I almost “knew all the time.”
Philosophical poetizing is such an opening of language-as-word.
It is making silence speak. The silence is the horizon, and the word
opens toward the horizon. Such is the wider opening which allows
significance to be gathered more profoundly. Is all of this too much
to find in the reverberation of the voice? The question of the horizon
of silence was posed, as was the question of music, to locate the
centrality of word in voice.
Ordinary speech, although it potentially contains the richness
of the unsaid, in its very ordinariness allows what is hidden to “float”
lazily in the midst of its words. Yet even in gossip there lurks the
ratio of the said to the unsaid. The possibilities of silence are vast.
However, it is in extraordinary voice, the dramaturgical voice,
that sounded significance can be amplified. United in a single saying
are the “Cartesian” realms of sound and meaning.
Chapter 11
Reflective Listening
LANGUAGE AND SIGHT

In this chapter, you will meet Steve Lugo and his class of fourth
graders. You will observe the students listening to, talking about,
and writing in response to two nonfiction trade books. As you read
about these young people and their teacher, again consider the
objectives the teacher has in mind, the strategies he uses to achieve
his objectives, and the assumptions he holds about teaching listening
and reading to young people.
Mr. Lugo began his lesson: Today, boys and girls, I am going to
read from a book called Tomfoolery: Trickery and Foolery with
Words. It is by a highly respected author of informational books,
Alvin Schwartz. Look at the cover. Look at the title as I have written
it on the board. Let’s do what we always do before listening to a
selection — use the cover and the title to get clues as to what the
selection is about. What do you think the word tomfoolery means?”
Using the context clue Schwartz built into the title, the students
proposed that tomfoolery has to do with word tricks, with ways of
fooling around with words. Without prompting, one student checked
the dictionary and read the definition given there, “Foolish or silly
behaviour, a silly act, matter, or thing.” The class, however, decided
that the topic of the book is narrower than that implied by the
dictionary definition. They could tell from the clue Schwartz supplied
in the second half of the title. One student went to the board to
darken the colon between the two parts of the title. The class talked
about the meaning of this mark of punctuation — that it is a mark
that sets up an equation in the sentence. In this case, tomfoolery is
equivalent to trickery and foolery with words. One student mapped
the relationship on the board:
tomfoolery = trickery and foolery with words

The students concluded that this is a book about playing jokes
with words.
Then Mr. Lugo asked, “Can anyone give an example of trickery
and foolery with words?” Because no one could think of an example,
the teacher said, “Well, listen to this. It may prompt your memory.”
Then he shared the following folk rhyme:
As I was going to St. Ives,
I met a man with seven wives.
Each wife had seven sacks;
Each sack had seven cats;
Each cat had seven kits:
Kits, cats, sacks, and wives,
How many were going to St. Ives?
As soon as he had finished, students called out, “Read it again,
Mr. Lugo”; and so he did, admonishing the fourth-graders to think
carefully. Students listened, thought, and wrote their answers on
slips of paper. Then they argued.
Some argued that there were 28 going to St. Ives — seven wives,
seven sacks, seven cats, and seven kits. Some argued that there were
21 — you couldn’t count the sacks because they were not people or
animals. Some argued that the man had to be included in the count.
Some argued that the answer was one, because no man, kits,
cats, sacks, or wives were going; only the speaker was going. Some
argued that the answer was none since the question (Kits, cats, sacks,
and wives/How many were going to St. Ives?) asked only about the
kits, cats, sacks, and wives.
The teacher asked, “Why may this piece of folklore be called
tomfoolery?” Students proposed that it is a trick with words; it
probably was written to trick the listener.
One student then said, “I know another example.” This
youngster shared a favourite knock-knock joke. Other students
quickly got the point; and since they all knew some knock-knocks,
they also shared them. One student then recited, “How much wood
would a woodchuck chuck?” and asked if that is an example of
tomfoolery. The others decided that it was.
Surveying and Predicting
With that as an introduction, the teacher said, “OK. Let’s begin.
I am going to read aloud the first paragraph from the jacket flap. As
I read, listen to see if our prediction about the content of the book is
on target.” The teacher then read aloud:
Here is a book full of tricks to amuse, confuse, and bamboozle
your family and friends. These are not tricks which involve hiding
someone’s lunch or nailing his sneakers to the floor, these are word
tricks which depend on verbal hocus-pocus.
Students decided that they were partly right about the focus of
the book: This book is about tricks with words; however, it does not
just explain tomfoolery with words but contains lots of examples.
Mr. Lugo then read aloud the next paragraph from the jacket
flap and asked students to listen for kinds of word tricks. The
paragraph describes tricks that make people feel silly when they give
the right answer, riddles with ridiculous answers, tall talk, endless
tales, and tales with tricky endings. As students recalled these five
kinds of tricks, a scribe recorded them on the chalkboard.
Then the teacher asked, “If you were going to give examples of
these kinds of word tricks, what would be a good way of organizing
them? Would you just lump them all together?” The students rapidly
agreed that they would probably have a section for each kind of
trick. Mr. Lugo responded, “Let’s see how Schwartz did it.”
With that, the teacher showed the table of contents. Students
predicted that the first chapter (“If Frozen Water Is Iced Water, What
Is Frozen Ink?”) contains tricks that make people feel silly when they
give the right answer. They predicted that the second chapter (“What
Is Black and Red All Over?”) contains riddles with crazy answers.
The teacher said, “Sometimes before reading an informational
book like this one, it pays to do a quick survey to see if you are on
the right track. Let’s just turn to the introduction to each chapter
and see if our predictions are accurate.” Aloud, Mr. Lugo read the
very short introduction to each chapter. The students had accurately
predicted the content of each.
Then the teacher said, “Now let me read the short introductory
chapter to you. As you listen, keep in mind important main idea
making questions: What is this author trying to tell us? What is the
big idea the author wants to get across to the readers? Introductory
sections often supply us with this kind of information.” Aloud, Mr.
Lugo read the section.
Having listened, the students noted that the introduction to the
book contains some of the same information about kinds of word
tricks found on the jacket flaps. It also contains some details about
how folklore is passed from person to person. They decided that
the main idea of the book is that there are many kinds of word tricks.
The teacher recorded the students’ anticipated main idea in a
horizontal block he had drawn on the board.
Then he turned and asked, “What did we decide was the point
of this chapter?” Students remembered that the chapter deals with
word foolery in which there is a trap that makes someone look silly.
Mr. Lugo recorded that statement in a vertical block attached to the
anticipated main idea. Students then recalled the main point of the
other four chapters. A scribe recorded a main idea statement for each
chapter on the board in a vertical box attached to the anticipated
main idea.
Mr. Lugo summed up what the class had been doing. He said,
“You know, it often pays to survey a book in the way we have done
before reading. The survey gives you a framework for thinking about
what is in the book. It helps you plan and organize your reading.”
Listening with a Purpose
“Now,” Mr. Lugo asked, “about what kind of word trick do you
want me to read first? With this kind of book, you do not have to
read from the beginning. You can skip around in it.” Students wanted
to start with the riddles, and so Mr. Lugo began by sharing some of
them. Students attempted answers before Mr. Lugo read them from
the book. In the same way, Mr. Lugo read samples of the other kinds
of word plays. Wherever possible, he encouraged students to join
in on the answers or on repeating lines.
The students enjoyed hearing examples of tomfoolery. When
they had listened to several examples of each kind, Mr. Lugo said,
“Do you remember what we proposed as the main point the author
was trying to communicate? Do you think that there is more to it
than that?”
The students talked about the tricks they had heard. Together
they decided that, while the author wanted them to know that there
were five kinds of word trickery, he also wanted them to know that
it is fun to fool with words. Students recorded this as the main idea
in the graphic organizer they had been developing.
Mr. Lugo then shifted gears; he said, “Let’s use our graphic
organizer to draft a paragraph summarizing the main points of
Schwartz’s book. Give me the main idea of the book. Then give me
the supporting details. You can read them right off our main-idea
organizer.” As the students dictated sentences, the teacher recorded
them on the board. Then the students consolidated and revised until
they had a final paragraph:
There are five major kinds of word trickery. One kind involves
questions that make people feel silly when they give the right
answers. A second kind is the riddle. There are also word plays called
tall talk, endless tales, and tales with tricky endings. It is fun to listen
to word tricks.
The teacher asked the students how their summary paragraph
resembled their graphic organizer. Students saw that the organizer
and the paragraph had a similar structure and that this structure
paralleled Alvin Schwartz’s in Tomfoolery.
Mr. Lugo told his students that there are many more examples
of word tricks in Schwartz’s book. He placed the book in the reading
centre and suggested that students read other sections of it on their
own and select an example or two to share with the class.
He told his fourth-graders to stare at the visual. Students quickly
got the point; they explained that, as they stared, the “opening” in
the circles shifted from right to left and back again. Mr. Lugo asked,
“Does anyone know what we call this kind of trick?” Some students
were able to name the trick as an optical illusion.
The teacher asked, “What is the meaning of the word optical?
What is the meaning of the word illusion?” The students suggested
definitions. One boy checked a dictionary to see if they were right,
and cooperatively the class mapped an equation defining the term
optical illusion.
Optical illusion = something you see that is not exactly what is
there
Then the students proposed other examples of optical illusions
they already knew. One described a mirage, and at the teacher’s
prompting wrote the word mirage on the chalkboard.
With that as a brief introduction, Mr. Lugo announced, “Today
I am going to share parts of another book. In some ways the material
in it is similar to that in Tomfoolery: Trickery and Foolery with
Words. In other ways the material is different. The book is called

The Optical Illusion Book. It is by Seymour Simon, who, like Alvin
Schwartz, has written many informational books. Before I actually
read the book, what should I do?”
Students recalled what they had done with the Schwartz book
and suggested looking at the jacket flap and the introduction to see
if those parts could give them some understanding of the author’s
main idea. The teacher read aloud information from the jacket flaps.
Based on it, the students proposed what they had begun to call
their anticipated main idea — that there are many ways the eye can
be tricked into seeing things that are not really there. They also
suggested the author’s purpose — to explain some of these tricks.
After that, Mr. Lugo read the introduction — “Seeing is
Believing.” As he read it aloud, he asked the students to follow along
on a copy that he displayed with the overhead projector from a
transparency he had made from the text. He explained, “As I read, I
am going to tell you the thoughts that go through my head. When I
listen or read, I keep my mind active; and I want to show you the
ways I do this.”
Simultaneously reading and thinking aloud, the teacher did such
things as answering the questions raised in the text, telling himself
about the figures, telling himself a definition, commenting on the
ideas, paraphrasing the text, and asking questions. He also said aloud
to himself, “This book is going to be like Alvin Schwartz’s because
both are about tricks. This book is different, however, because it deals
with visual tricks, not word tricks.”
When the teacher had finished reading aloud and demonstrating
how he uses mind talk to make meaning while reading, he asked
the students to recall the kinds of things he had done so that he
could write them on the board as a chart. To help the students, Mr.
Lugo repeated some of his thoughts.
At the end of the introduction to the book, Seymour Simon
suggests that readers try to reproduce the drawing of one optical
illusion. Mr. Lugo displayed a particularly tricky optical illusion with
an overhead projector and gave his students time to draw. Most
students had some difficulty drawing and visualizing. As a result,

they decided that some optical illusions are very sophisticated.
Mr. Lugo said, “How You See.” He told his class, “Based on
this picture of the eye and the title, what is this chapter about?”
Students agreed that the chapter tells how the eye functions. The
teacher said, “I want to learn about optical illusions. I do not think
that I want to think now about the way the eye works. Therefore, I
am going to skip the first chapter and go to the second, ‘Why You
See Optical Illusions.’ Don’t think you have to read every part of a
book like this. It is perfectly OK to skip parts.”
The teacher then projected so that the students could follow
along as he read aloud. He read paragraph by paragraph, stopping
periodically for students to record their thoughts on a chart. Mr.
Lugo had the students tell what they thought as they listened to the
chapter. He also had the students sum up the main idea of the
chapter.
He had them explain in their own words why people see optical
illusions. Doing this, the teacher explained how important it is in
listening and reading to stop from time to time to tell ourselves the
important ideas.
On the next afternoon, Mr. Lugo again picked up The Optical
Illusion Book. He read the titles of the remaining chapters aloud to
the class and displayed some of the illustrations. He asked the
students to predict from the titles and some of the figures what each
chapter is about.
Then he announced, “I will not have time to read all the chapters
aloud to you. Based on your predictions, let us decide what chapter
to hear today.” Because the students remembered the circular optical
illusion that their teacher had displayed earlier, most of the students
wanted to hear the chapter called “Changeable Figures” that contains
that illustration. Before reading the chapter, Mr. Lugo asked his
fourth-graders what they wanted to learn from that chapter.
Students responded by raising two questions they hoped to
answer: What exactly is a changeable figure? How does a changeable
figure work? And so Mr. Lugo propped himself against his desk,
told the students to keep their two questions in mind, and began to
read aloud.
This time the students did not follow along with the text. They
had to find the answers to their questions by reflecting while
listening. Having listened, students paused for a moment to try to
write an answer to their first question (What is a changeable figure?)
in their learning logs.
Mr. Lugo suggested that they start by writing a sentence with a
definition and then continue by composing a sentence or two that
describe an example. He suggested that in introducing the example
they begin their sentence with the phrase, for example. On the board
he mapped the relationship among the ideas to be drafted.
As the students wrote, Mr. Lugo circulated, giving help to
students who had trouble beginning. Volunteers then read their
paragraphs. Since the chapter in The Optical Illusion Book on
changeable figures presents a number of examples, students’
paragraphs were different.
Listeners discussed the different ways in which the students
defined changeable figure and the examples they had chosen to clarify
their definitions. After several of the young authors had shared their
paragraphs, students reviewed the structure of the paragraphs they
had written: definition followed by sentences describing an example.
The teacher asked students if they remembered the second
question they had raised before listening. Students remembered the
“why” question and proposed answers based on the text. Mr. Lugo
reminded the students that when an answer to a question is rather
complicated, as in this case, it pays to tell oneself the answer by
making mind talk. To make students aware of the listening and
reading comprehension strategies that they had been using (in other
words, to build metacognitive awareness), the teacher next had the
students think about what they had just done.
He helped them to recall that they had started by surveying the
book to decide what part to read. Having listened, they first had
written a summary paragraph that answered one question and then
had told themselves the answer to the second. Mr. Lugo suggested
that this was a workable approach for reading nonfiction.
Working Cooperatively
The next afternoon, Mr. Lugo divided his class into four six-
person learning teams. He did this because he had only four copies
of the Simon book, and he wanted each team to work cooperatively

to apply the comprehension strategy that they had learned the
previous day. Members of a team selected one chapter, surveyed
that chapter, and wrote at least two questions in their learning logs
to answer through reading. Then they took turns reading their
assigned chapter aloud to their team. In each case, two students were
to view the text and were to read aloud in unison.
As the students read, the other team members were to listen to
find answers. They could stop at any time in the reading to discuss
the questions and suggest answers. After reading their chapter, the
students re-grouped into co-authoring teams and wrote a paragraph
using the definition-example structure. The teacher suggested that
students on a team might want to make a drawing to clarify their
paragraphs.
The following day, Mr. Lugo scheduled a sharing time. Co
authoring teams orally shared their paragraphs. After each team had
read its paragraph, listeners paraphrased the definitions included
in it and identified the example or examples the co-authors had used.
Mr. Lugo reminded students that when reading nonfiction, it often
pays to do just what they had been doing — take time to write a
paragraph summarizing important ideas.
The Teacher’s Objectives and Strategies
What were Mr. Lugo’s objectives in planning and teaching this
focus unit with the books Tomfoolery and The Optical Illusion Book?
What did he hope the students would learn?
Mr. Lugo’s primary objective was that the fourth-graders enjoy
listening to, reading, and thinking about informational content. He
hoped that the students would learn to love nonfiction and ask him
to share more of these kinds of books that they could read on their
own.
In addition, Mr. Lugo hoped his students would learn to handle
nonfiction when they heard and read it. More specifically, he wanted
them to learn to use information from the cover, the jacket flaps,
and the introduction as a framework for activating their related
knowledge before listening or reading, for predicting before listening
or reading, and for making decisions about what to listen to or read
in a book.
He wanted them to learn to raise questions that would guide

their listening and reading, to answer those questions, and to
compose a summary paragraph that addressed one or more of the
questions they had raised. In short, Mr. Lugo was helping his
students to acquire basic comprehension strategies.
Mr. Lugo hoped his students would understand that nonfiction
has a structure, or an organization, and would be able to use their
understanding of structure to comprehend more fully. He wanted
them to realize that many pieces of nonfiction have an introduction
that gives an overview, that nonfiction books are organized into
chapters in a logical way, and that paragraphs have a structure.
In this case, the teacher hoped that students would come away
with an understanding of one paragraph design — definition
followed by example — and be able to compose as well as
comprehend paragraphs with that structure. Mr. Lugo also stressed
the importance of making mind talk while listening and reading.
He hoped his students would be able to use mind talk to answer
questions proposed by an author in a text, to explain any visuals in
the text, to paraphrase important definitions and ideas, to raise
questions, to make comparisons, and to summarize.
Last, but not least, Mr. Lugo wanted his students to refine their
ability to listen and speak during informal interaction. He wanted
them to learn to listen to one another as they worked together in
learning teams; he wanted them to learn to listen respectfully to
reports given by their classmates and to be able to identify key
information contained in the reports.
How did Steve Lugo achieve his objectives? He used a variety
of strategies, including a read aloud, a nonfiction-based conversation,
a think aloud, prediction while listening, mapping, and response
writing, specifically summarizing and paraphrasing. Let us consider
each of these, focusing especially on the way the strategies provide
opportunity for students to reflect as they listen.
A Nonfiction Read Aloud
James Squire writes: “The skills required to read science must
be acquired through reading science. The skills required in writing
science can be learned only by writing science. Basic reading and
writing instruction can provide children with rudimentary
vocabulary and certain basic skills of literacy, but application to
higher levels of processing requires specialized uses.”
As Squire further explains, children need to be taught to apply

their comprehension skills “to a variety of subject matters.” This is
important because “skills have unique and particular relevance to
every discipline.”
Although Squire is addressing reading and writing instruction,
the same case can be made for listening. Students need opportunity
to listen to all manner of content material with attention to the ways
in which different kinds of nonfiction are organized and developed.
This attention pays dividends in terms of growth in reading as well
as in listening comprehension. What are good kinds of nonfictional
materials for sharing orally with students at the elementary and
junior high school levels? Mr. Lugo’s focus unit provides an answer.
For reading aloud nonfiction with young students, the teacher
should select content that is not overly technical and that has a
natural appeal to students of that age. With older students, the
teacher also can explore controversial questions in which students
have a difference of opinion.
Good sources of nonfiction for read alouds are weekly
newspapers published for students, editorials from local newspapers,
and newspaper stories. Teachers have successfully shared articles
about President Bush’s dislike for broccoli, the declining population
of foxes, the training of elephants, and censorship of children’s books.
Teachers also can organize a read aloud based on a segment from
a trade book or from a reference such as an encyclopedia, an atlas,
or an almanac. The appropriate time to use this material is within a
unit in the natural sciences, in the social sciences, or in health.
Students listen to find answers to questions they have raised as part
of their study.
Based on what they already know and on what they want to
know, students decide what parts of the selections the teacher should
read aloud and what parts to skip. In so doing, they learn the skill
of selective reading, skipping around in a text to get information
and skipping over text judged to be unrelated to one’s reading
purpose.
Teachers and students can use textbooks in a similar way. Rather
than always reading chapters in their science or social studies texts,
at times students listen with a well-conceived purpose as their teacher
reads a chapter or parts of one. This approach adds variety to
content-area instruction; it also gives the teacher an opportunity to

teach comprehension strategies by modeling for students how to
make meaning with nonfiction.
Questioning/Answering Patterns
Questioning is a major weapon in a teacher’s instructional
arsenal. It is a particularly effective strategy to encourage reflective
thinking as part of a nonfiction-based read aloud and conversation.
This is true at every level of instruction.
Here are some ways to vary questioning so that students learn
riot only to get information from nonfiction but also to raise questions
to guide their own listening and reading of informational content:
1. Surveying for Questions Before Listening. Before reading a
piece of nonfiction aloud to a group of students, the teacher
helps them to survey the piece by drawing their attention
to the title, the subheads, the introductory segments, and
the illustrations. Having surveyed these key structural
elements, students propose questions, which a scribe records
on the chalkboard while the students write them in their
learning logs. As they listen, students jot down answers to
the questions. At the end of the selection, students read their
answers aloud and talk about their findings.
When first using this strategy, the teacher may find it
necessary to model the process of writing answers to
questions after listening. The teacher reads a segment that
answers a question raised during the preliminary survey
and then stops. Students and the teacher cooperate in
devising an answer to the question, and a scribe records
the answer on the chalkboard while the students record it
in their learning logs. The next time the teacher reads a
segment that provides an answer and then stops at the end
to give students time to write down their response. Students
and teacher discuss possible responses before moving on.
2. Raising Questions for the Teacher. Another approach is for
the teacher to read aloud a segment of text, stopping
periodically for students to write down questions that were
answered in that segment. After reading, the teacher closes
the book and sits back to be questioned by the students.
The students simply read the questions they have recorded
in their learning logs, and the teacher tries to answer them.
When the teacher cannot answer, the questioner gives the
answer; and the teacher orally re-reads the sentences that
verify the answer.
3. Answering Teacher-Posed Questions. Often when students

first try their hand at raising questions, they tend to be
simple factual questions; rarely do they ask questions of
the teacher that require in-depth thinking. At this point, the
teacher raises some more thoughtful questions for students
to answer and asks them to compare these kinds of question
with those the children have raised. The teacher encourages:
“Try modeling the questions you ask after mine. Try to
stump me by asking questions that do not have answers
found directly in the text.”
4. Raising Questions for Other Students. Students also may
raise questions for their peers. This kind of interaction can
be organized as a game, with students grouped into teams
that take turns asking questions based on a segment of text
they have heard. A correct answer — and the teacher serves
as the judge of correctness — wins a point for the answering
team. Organized in this way, the activity encourages
students to devise difficult questions that require in-depth
thinking.
Another activity is to divide students into data collectors and
interrogators. As students listen to a segment of text, data collectors
record as many important points as they can.
At the same time, interrogators devise questions about that
segment of text. After the teacher has read the segment, interrogators
ask their questions in an attempt to stump the data collectors. For
the next segment of text, data collectors and interrogators change
roles. To make this approach work, the teacher will have to model
for students not only how to raise questions that go beyond the text
but also how to take notes while listening.
An advantage of these activities is that the instruction mirrors
for students an effective comprehension strategy. Raising and
answering questions as one listens or reads is a good way to monitor
one’s own comprehension.
A Think Aloud
A second major weapon in a teacher’s instructional arsenal that
is particularly useful in encouraging reflection is the “think aloud.”
As pointed out in Chapter 1, think alouds are a way to demonstrate
how a listener or reader makes meaning with text. In using the
strategy, the teacher reads a segment of text aloud to a group of
children and interjects the thoughts that come to mind in reference
to that text.
In his lesson on optical illusions, Mr. Lugo made use of the think
aloud strategy. Because students did not have their own copies of
the book to which to refer as they listened, Mr. Lugo projected the
page on the screen. He did this to distinguish what words were actual
text and what words were his thoughts in response.
Mr. Lugo also relied on an approach suggested by Beth Davey.
After his think aloud, the teacher had his students review the kinds
of thoughts he had made; and together they devised a chart that
listed kinds of thoughts to make while listening or reading. In this
fourth grade class, the chart listed:
1. Answering questions in the text,
2. Telling about a figure,
3. repeating a definition,
4. Stating the ideas in one’s own words,
5. Commenting on the ideas,
6. Asking questions, and
7. Comparing and contrasting.
Other items that can appear on charts include:
1. Forming pictures in the mind (visualizing),
2. Linking what is being heard or read to what is already
known,
3. Predicting,
4. Evaluating and judging, and
5. Clarifying and correcting errors in comprehension made
earlier.
Once students have heard their teacher share a piece in a think
aloud, they can try the technique themselves. One way is for students
to work in two-person teams. One student reads a segment to the
listener and interjects think aloud mind talk.
Using a chart like the one described above, the other student
listens and identifies the kinds of thoughts the reader is making.
The reader and listener then shift roles with another short selection.
As a follow-up, students can read a text to themselves and carry on
their own think aloud. Later they use the chart to identify the kinds
of thoughts they made.
Prediction
One kind of thinking that is particularly important in making
meaning with nonfiction, and which a teacher should model at some
point, is predicting or anticipating. Many educators advocate that
students be taught to make predictions before and while reading.

The predictions provide a framework for interpreting incoming data.
Russell Stauffer emphasizes the importance of predictions in
comprehending a text. He advocates that listeners and readers of
nonfiction be taught to speculate on the topic and content of a
selection. When reading fiction, students should be taught to
anticipate what a story is about, what will happen in it, and how
the story ends. An ideal place to teach prediction is during a read
aloud.
Patricia and James Cunningham (1987) propose that students
construct a grid, called a “feature matrix,” as a means of speculating
before interacting with text. Before reading, students speculate on
the characteristics of things they will encounter in a selection. Next
to each characteristic, readers record their prediction. The result is a
table of predictions. As students read, they refer to their table and
correct their predictions as they go along.
These grids are useful for predicting before listening as well as
before reading, and they also are useful for generalizing after
listening and reading. Hennings (1991) proposes that before reading
a selection, students should be encouraged to use a variety of clues
to predict, or target, the major point the author is trying to make.
Students can find clues to the main idea in the title, the subheads,
the illustrations, the introductory paragraphs, and the concluding
paragraphs.
Having targeted a point before reading or listening, students then
track the point. Tracking a point means keeping the anticipated main
idea in mind, using that idea to judge the significance of details, and
modifying the anticipated idea as new information comes to light.
As students think about the point, they relate it to what they already
know and to the personal significance it has for them.
Emphasis in this strategy, called “essential reading,” is on making
the main idea clear. The teaching/learning vignette at the beginning
of this chapter provides an example of how a teacher can model
essential reading during a read aloud. Before students listened to
parts of Alvin Schwartz’s book on word foolery, Mr. Lugo had them
survey the chapters and predict the main point of the book and of
the individual chapters.
He had them plot their predictions on paper; then he shared
parts of the book with the class, asking the students to keep their
anticipated main ideas in mind. Finally, having talked about the

selection with them, he had the students check their predictions and
come up with a summary sentence about what the author was
driving at. His emphasis was on targeting the main idea before
reading, tracking it while reading, and thinking about it after reading.
Mapping
To comprehend nonfiction, listeners and readers must be able
not only to use prediction to guide thinking but also to perceive the
logical relationship among ideas. For example, a writer very often
starts with a sentence stating a general point or a definition. Then
the writer supports the general point or definition with an example
that clarifies the overarching point of that segment of text.
Encountering this type of content, listeners and readers may
visualize the relationship among the ideas and recognize what the
author is doing. A strategy for clarifying relationships among ideas
is the logic map. By having students map logical relationships in
this way, the teacher is preparing them to take notes on ideas they
receive orally.
Since much instruction in high school and college is through
lectures, upper-grade teachers must help students develop note-
taking skills. A more generalized form of mapping is similar to the
common outline, where the student writes the main idea at the top
and lists supporting details underneath. Students begin by drawing
blocks around the main idea and each supporting detail.
This is best used with deductively organized material, where
the author starts with a main point and then lists examples. A
variation can be used to clarify the structure of inductively organized
content in which an author starts by presenting a series of details.
Students can compare paragraphs organized deductively to those
organized inductively, talk about relationships, and draw a diagram
that makes those relationships explicit. In doing this, students begin
to see that just as stories and poems have a design or structure, so
does informational writing. They begin to see that they can use this
structure to help them make meaning as they listen and read.
In some cases, the author does not explicitly state a main idea
but simply lists a series of related details. Listeners or readers must
make the leap from details to generalization. The teacher can help
students to make that leap by stopping and asking, “What do these

facts mean? What do they tell us? What is this author getting at by
presenting all these details?” Students can add their inferred main
idea to their logic map.
After students have mastered making logic maps, they can take
the next step and simply record main ideas with supporting details
without drawing blocks around them. Teachers may take this
opportunity to clarify the steps of formal outlining using Roman
and Arabic numerals and lower- and upper-case letters by
superimposing numerals and letters on the logic maps the students
have been creating.
However, teachers must make students aware that there are
many ways to take notes on material being heard or read. A formal
outline is only one way, which may or may not serve a student’s
purpose in a particular instance. Logic maps focus on relationships
between main and subordinate ideas. Of course, there are other kinds
of relationships among ideas.
Again, visualizing through mapping can help students to see
how ideas fit together. Here are some examples of other kinds of
relationships with ways to help students visualize the logic inherent
in them.
1. Definitions. Write these as an equation with an equal sign
between a term and its definition.
2. Cause-and-effect relationships. Use arrows to connect
causes, or reasons, to their effects, or outcomes.
3. Chronological sequences. Use time lines to show the
sequence.
4. Hierarchies and categories. Use concentric circles to clarify
hierarchical relationships and web-like visuals to highlight
categories.
5. Comparisons and contrasts. Use a chart-like arrangement
with parallel columns to indicate differences. Do the same
for similarities.
6. Concluding, generalizing, or judging. Use a graphic
organizer that shows the flow of specific pieces of data into
the conclusion or generalization. Use similar graphics to
highlight the relationship between supporting evidence and
an opinion.
Paraphrasing
Research indicates that one of the best ways to learn material
heard or read is to write a summary of it or paraphrase it. As Devine
explains, “The process of writing about what they have read [or
heard] is one of the most effective means students have of
discovering their texts-in-their-heads.” In writing a summary, a
person concisely restates the main idea of a communication and key
supporting evidence. In paraphrasing a text, students tell in their
own words what a writer is driving at.
Teacher-guided group writing following a read aloud is an
instructional approach for teaching students how to write a summary
or to paraphrase a message. To teach summary writing, the teacher
shares a piece of nonfiction and then asks, “What is the main point
this author is trying to communicate?”
Several students suggest what they believe is the main idea.
Drawing on the ideas suggested, students and the teacher compose
one sentence that becomes the topic sentence in a summary
paragraph drafted by the class. The teacher follows with this
question, “What are the important pieces of supporting evidence that
the author offers?”
Again, students suggest possibilities, which may be recorded on
the chalkboard. Selecting from the brainstormed list of possible
points, students and the teacher compose sentences to add to their
written summary. A slightly different approach to summary writing
is the one demonstrated in the lesson that opens this chapter.
In this case, the teacher and students first made a graphic
organizer that highlighted major and subordinate ideas. This
organizer, or map, became the students’ outline for composing their
summary paragraph. Because a summary should be concise, students
and their teacher often must go back to edit and revise what they
have composed together.
In this context, the teacher can encourage students to look for:
• Entire sentences that are redundant and that can be deleted;
• Individual words that can be deleted;
• Sentences that can be combined.
Once a teacher has modeled summary writing after listening,
students can work in learning teams to write summaries based on
content they have heard. In this case, a teacher may find it useful to
ask students to write the final drafts of their summaries on chart

paper or on acetate for display with an overhead projector.
If several learning teams share their products, the students can
compare the summaries. They may be able to identify different ways
in which they can make their summaries more concise. Also, students
can work independently after reading to write their own summaries.
This gives students the opportunity to apply a skill — summary
writing — in a different way. A similar instructional sequence can
be used to teach paraphrasing:
• Students listen as the teacher shares an article.
• Students and the teacher work together to paraphrase the article. They
record their version as a chart.
• The class cooperatively revises and edits the paragraph, particularly
asking, “Have we told in our own words what the author is getting
at?”
• Students listen as the teacher shares a related article.
• Students work in learning teams to paraphrase the second article.
• Students read a similar kind of article.
• Students paraphrase the article, first by telling a peer what they think
the author is getting at and then by individually writing what they
think on paper.
Assumptions about Learning to Listen, Reflect, and Read
Mr. Lugo’s lesson sequence provides clues as to what this teacher
holds important in teaching students to listen, to reflect, and to read.
Rather clearly, this teacher — like Ms. O’Dell and Mr. Wexler —
believes in teaching language skills through meaningful interaction
with an authentic text.
He believes that as students listen to and reflect on nonfiction,
they develop as skillful users of both oral and written language. In
short, students become better listeners, better readers, better
comprehenders of ideas by listening to and talking about nonfiction.
If an observer were to ask Mr. Lugo what is the best way to
teach students to comprehend and appreciate expository writing,
he would probably generalize as follows:
There is no one best way to teach students to comprehend and
appreciate expository writing. Students should be given
opportunities to interact with texts in a variety of ways.
Teachers should read nonfiction aloud just as they read aloud

stories and poems. A read aloud followed by discussion provides
many contexts for thinking about nonfiction.
Teachers should model how they do mind talk in response to a
text heard or read. One way to do this is for teachers to read aloud
and talk out the thoughts that come to mind. In the same way,
teachers should encourage students to engage in mind talk in
response to a selection.
Raising questions prior to listening to or reading expository text
and then listening or reading to construct answers increases
comprehension. Teachers should not ask all the questions. They
should demonstrate for students the variety of questions readers and
listeners can raise in response to a text; they should organize
instruction so that students begin to raise their own questions about
a text.
Prediction is tremendously important in reading expository text.
Students should be taught how to survey a text to predict what it is
about, how it is organized, and what the main idea is. They should
use their pre-reading speculations to guide their reading. Again,
teachers should model ways of predicting and encourage students
to predict as they read and as they listen.
One way to reflect on expository texts is to map the relationships
among ideas. Teachers should read aloud content that is organized
deductively (a general statement followed by supporting details) and
organized inductively (supporting details followed by a general
statement), requiring readers to infer the main idea.
They should share definitions, statements of cause and effect,
chronological sequences, statements that indicate hierarchical and
categorical relations, statements of comparison and contrast, and
judgments. Working with a variety of texts, teachers should
demonstrate step-by-step how to clarify these relationships through
mapping.
Writing about ideas helps comprehension. Teachers should
model how to paraphrase and how to write a summary after listening
or reading. An effective way to handle this is teacher-guided group
writing and editing. Having participated in a teacher-guided writing
activity, students should apply what they have learned by writing
in learning teams and on their own after listening to or reading a

piece of nonfiction.
Through listening to and talking about text, students acquire
strategies for comprehending text. This means that students not only
become better listeners but also become better readers, since
reflection is what both listening and reading are all about. Although
there are some elements of listening and reading that are distinctive
to each, there is a large area of overlap relating to basic aspects of
thinking.
Chapter 12
Speech, Language and Listening
HOW THEY DEVELOP

When you said “Good morning” today, and someone answered
in kind, the exchange didn’t strike you as particularly complicated.
In fact, you were using your highly developed powers of speech,
language, and listening —all part of your hard-won ability to
communicate. As a parent, it is important to remember that
communication is not always as easy for your child as it is now for
you as an adult.
After reading this chapter, you’ll have a deeper appreciation of
just how complex a child’s path to effective communication really
is. Children start on the road to successful communication as soon
as they are born.
However, they progress at different rates. Some advance
seemingly overnight from speaking single words to forming
complete sentences that make sense. Other children take a slow,
steady course with small steps, gradually adding words and building
up to sentences. Often, both types of travellers reach their
destination—learning to communicate equally well—in their own
time, without any special attention. Members of a third group,
however, need a little extra help along the way.
How is your child’s communication journey going? Is he or she
traveling more or less in step with one of the first two groups; that
is (the dreaded question), is he or she “progressing normally”?
When discussing childhood development, the word normal
projects a powerful aura of good and right, perhaps because abnormal
is not a label we want attached to our children. Please understand,
however, that normal, as used by educators and therapists, is a
nonthreatening statistical term, better defined as typical or average.
Developmental standards for what the professionals call normal

have been established after years of observation and study of
children who are considered to be free of such handicapping
conditions as deafness or cerebral palsy. Indeed, within the
parameters of normal, you will find a wide range of standards. How
can two children who exhibit different language abilities both be
considered normal?
Because, even within each age group, each child has an
individual developmental timetable. For example, Roberto may
acquire the language behaviours of the 2-to-3 age group just before
his second birthday, whereas Mark may be just beginning to display
those behaviours as he approaches his third birthday. Both of these
boys fall into the normal category.
Just because two children of the same age have markedly
different communication patterns does not mean that one of them
has a problem, particularly in the younger age groups. Later in this
chapter, I’ll explain how children learn to communicate. Then I detail
the important communication milestones for the many age
groupings, ranging from birth to adolescence. First, however, we
need to share a common vocabulary. Just as we “pros” have our
own sense of normal, so, too, do we have our own definition of
communication.
Actually, our communication is much like the everyday variety.
It is best understood through the three central skill components:
speech, language, and listening. Knowing what’s involved in these
three areas is the first step in understanding what difficulties your
child may be having and thus is the beginning of being able to help.
WHAT IS SPEECH?
Speech refers to the sounds that come out of our mouth and take
shape in the form of words. You realize just how complex the speech
process really is when you study it or if you lose the ability to
produce speech effortlessly. Many things must happen in order for
us to speak:
• The brain must create an idea it wants to communicate to someone
else.
• The brain must then send that idea to the mouth.
• The brain must tell the mouth which words to say and which sounds
make up those words. Intonation patterns and accented syllables must
be incorporated.
• The brain must also send the proper signals to the muscles that
produce speech: those that control the tongue, the lips, and the jaw.
• These muscles must have the strength and coordination to carry out
the brain’s commands.
• The lungs must have sufficient air and the muscles in the chest must
be strong enough to force the vocal cords to vibrate. The air must be
going out, not in, for functional speech to occur.
The vocal cords must be in good working condition for speech
to sound clear and be loud enough to be heard.
The words produced must be monitored by our hearing sense.
This helps us review what is said and hear new words to imitate in
other situations. If words are not heard clearly, speech will be equally
“mumbly” when reproduced.
Another person must be willing to communicate with us and
listen to what we say. If no one is listening and reacting to our speech,
there is no point in speaking.
For most children, these processes happen naturally, if proper
stimulation occurs, without conscious thought. For some children,
this sequence breaks down. Once the source of the breakdown is
identified, these steps can be facilitated in a direct and conscious
manner.
What is Language?
Language refers to the content of what is spoken, written, read,
or understood. Language can also be gestural, as when we use body
language or sign language. It is categorized into two areas: receptive
and expressive. The ability to comprehend someone else’s speech
or gestures is called receptive language. The ability to create a spoken
message that others will understand is called expressive language.
In order for children to understand and use spoken language in
a meaningful way, these things must happen:
• Their ears must hear well enough for the child to distinguish one
word from another.
• Someone must show, or model, what words mean and how sentences
are put together.
• The ears must hear intonation patterns, accents, and sentence patterns.
• The brain must have enough intellectual capability to process what
those words and sentences mean.
• The brain must be able to store all this information so it can be

retrieved later.
• The brain must have a way to re-create words and sentences heard
previously when it wants to communicate an idea to someone else.
• Children must have the physical ability to speak in order for the
words to be heard and understood when used.
• Children must have a psychological or social need and interest to
use these words and communicate with others.
• Another interested person must reinforce attempts at communication.
Children with receptive language problems can be described as
having listening disorders as well, since listening is the most common
way we receive language information. It is our brain’s input. A child
with a receptive language problem may find activities such as
listening to classroom lectures, comprehending stories heard or read,
following conversations, or remembering oral directions confusing
and frustrating at times. If a child’s receptive language is not
developed, the entire language learning process stalls before it even
begins.
Parents tend to be more concerned if their child isn’t talking the
way they expect, but speech language pathologists also want to find
out if the child is hearing clearly and understanding language. If
not, meaningful speech (expressive language) is not going to develop.
That is why “speech” therapy often focuses on strengthening
receptive language skills, even if the concern is that the child isn’t
talking properly.
Speech is the physical process of forming the words; expressive
language is what that speech creates—the output, or the product.
Even if we have the capability to produce understandable speech
sounds, we cannot communicate if what we say is meaningless or
confusing to others. We must use words that others can comprehend
and put them together in sentences that have order and flow.
These words and sentences can be spoken, written, or gestured.
Children with expressive language problems may use words
incorrectly (e.g., “He failed down”); they may have difficulty
organizing and sequencing their thoughts, as well as learning the
names of things; and they may dislike engaging in lengthy
conversations.
It is also not uncommon for children with expressive language

problems to have difficulty pronouncing words. Many children with
language problems have difficulty with both receptive and expressive
language. They may also possess weak listening skills, since strong
listening abilities are needed to receive and develop language.
What is Listening?
Listening is an active process of hearing and comprehending what
is said. As with speech, several steps must occur for us to listen:
• Sound waves must carry the spoken words to our ears.
• The sound must travel through the outer ear canals without
obstruction.
• The sound must then pass through the eardrum and middle ear
without being distorted by fluid from colds, infection, or allergies.
• It then travels through the inner ear, which must be functioning
properly as well.
• This sound travels via the auditory nerve to the brain.
• The brain tries to compare what it hears to previously stored sounds
and words to make sense of the message.
Good listening is as critical a part of the communication process
as clear speaking and choosing the right words, because
communication is a two-way process. One person sends a message,
and, ideally, someone else will receive it the way it was intended.
Who likes to talk to someone who doesn’t pay attention to what is
said? Who enjoys repeating things over and over without the desired
response? Who wants to be misunderstood ? No one, of course.
A child with a listening disorder will certainly test your patience,
but she is probably even more frustrated than you are. Your child’s
frustration may translate into behaviours that can be misunderstood
as ignoring you, not paying attention, or stupidity.
A child with listening problems will have difficulty coping in a
classroom situation, because so much of the information teachers
give to students must be heard. With the right help, however, a child
can learn to cope and to improve listening skills.
If the brain can’t stay focused on the task of listening long enough
to translate the information, the message will be lost. This is what
happens with an auditory memory problem. With an attention deficit
problem, the brain works on too many projects at once and can’t
stay with a message long enough to finish comprehending it. If the
brain has difficulty storing old information, it will not know how to
integrate the new information or make sense of it. An auditory

comprehension or auditory processing problem may result. These
are examples of just a few listening disorders.
How Do Children Learn to Communicate?
You may think communication begins with a child’s first words,
but a great deal of preparation must take place before that first word
is uttered.
Communication Begins with You
Babies need someone to interact with them and encourage them
in a loving way. Placing a baby in front of a television exposes a
child to some language, but it’s a passive process. A baby needs to
be actively engaged with people in order for the communication
experience to be meaningful. I can’t overstate the importance of a
parent’s interest and interaction with a child, from infancy on, in
developing a child’s communication skills.
The receptors in a child’s brain need to be stimulated, particularly
during the early learning years. These receptors are stimulated when
the child is touched, spoken to, and shown pictures, objects, places,
and people. Without proper nurturing, a child may experience
learning delays, or speech, language, or listening disorders.
In many cases, a parent’s stimulation can make the difference
between a child with below-average or above-average
communication abilities. Information must have a way of getting
into the brain. If no one helps to put information in, the brain will
not be adept at processing it once information is received in school.
Unfortunately, many children do experience communication
problems, regardless of the amount or quality of early stimulation.
The Communication-Learning Process
Babies practice using their brains to produce the sounds that
come out of their mouths. For infants, the sound comes out as crying.
As infants’ lungs and mouths develop strength and control, they
can make the cries sound the way they want. They learn to intensify
their cries when they are really upset and to temper them when they
are just uncomfortable or hungry.
At about 3 to 6 months of age, babies experiment with their
mouths and find they can make some babbling sounds, which often
get a lot of attention from the people around them. If they get
noticed, they will do it more. They have even more fun when people
repeat the sounds back to them. Babies listen to the words people
say and try to figure out what they mean.
Other developmental milestones such as eating solids,
developing certain play behaviours, and maintaining good physical
health may play a role in the communication-learning process as
well. You should familiarize yourself with these other developmental
milestones. There are entire books written, for example, by Dr. Spock
and T. Berry Brazelton that detail them for you.
Sometimes a problem in one of these areas can affect a child’s
rate of speech and language development. For example, if a child
who has had frequent ear infections coupled with a delay in speaking
is brought to me, I might suspect some residual fluid lingering in
the middle ear. This problem needs to be medically resolved in order
for meaningful speech to occur. I would urge the parents to take
their child to an audiologist and an ear, nose, and throat doctor.
If eating and walking were difficult for the child in addition to
pronouncing words, a motor problem (difficulty moving muscles
normally) might be the underlying culprit. In this case, I would refer
the family to a physical or occupational therapist, or even a
neurologist. Your daughter or son must always be seen in terms of
the “whole child.”
By focusing exclusively on individual parts of the child, we
cannot know if all the other parts are doing exactly what they should.
That is why team evaluations are such a good idea, particularly for
infants and preschool children.
SPEECH, LANGUAGE, AND LISTENING MILESTONES
Your child will probably begin to exhibit the following
behaviours at the ages shown in the following lists. Use these as a
general guide. As stated before, every child is unique. If your child
exhibits most of the behaviours for his age, there is no need for
concern.
Birth to 3 Months
• Reacts to sudden noises by crying or jerking body
• Reacts to familiar objects, such as a bottle, or familiar people, such
as parents
• Differentiates the cry of pain from the cry of hunger
• Coos, begins to form prolonged vowels with changes in intonation
(“Ahhhh-AH-ahhh!”)
• Watches objects intently
3 to 6 Months
• Begins to babble, using syllables with a consonant and vowel (“baaba
-BA-ba-ba!”) and uses intonation changes
• Laughs and shows pleasure when happy
• Turns the head to see where sound is coming from
• Reacts when his or her name is heard
• Uses a louder voice for crying and babbling than before
• Shows delight when bottle or breast is presented
6 to 9 Months
Begins to comprehend simple words such as no and looks at
family members when they are named
• Babbles with a singsong pattern at times
• Controls babbling to two syllables, which sometimes sounds like
words such as Mama, although meaning is, typically, not understood
by the baby yet
• Understands facial expressions and reacts to them
• Attempts gestures to correspond to pat-a-cake and bye-bye
• Shakes head to show no
• Uses more and more sounds when babbling, such as syllables with
da, ba, ka, pa, ma, and wa
9 to 12 Months
• Has fun imitating simple sounds and babbling
• Begins to say “Mama” or “Dada” or another word, sometimes
• Begins to understand that words represent objects
• Jabbers loudly
• Responds to music
• Gives or seeks a toy or common object when requested
• Imitates common animal sounds
• Gestures and whines to request something
• Looks directly at the source of sound immediately
• Will watch and imitate what you do
12 to 18 Months
• Understands 50 to 75 words
• Uses 3 to 20 “real” words, even if not produced completely clearly
• Will point to the right place or answer (“Bed”) when asked questions
(“Where’s your pillow?”)
• Points to known objects when named
• Points to a few simple body parts, such as eyes and nose
• Babbles and uses nonsense words while pointing
• Follows simple one-step commands
• Uses words like more, all-gone, mine, and down

• Imitates words
• Pronounces some understandable words
• Typical utterances at this age: “Mama!” “No!” “Daddy, doppit!” (stop
it) “Appuh” (apple) “Gimme da!” (give me that) “Baw” (ball) “Too-
duh” (toothbrush)
18 Months to 2 Years
• Comprehends about three hundred words
• Uses about 50 recognizable words, mostly nouns
• Speaks often with mostly “real” words now, but still babbles and
uses jargon some of the time
• Wants to hear the same stories over and over
• Uses rising intonation pattern to show a question
• Shakes head to answer yes/no questions (“Do you want more milk?”)
• Follows two related commands (“Go upstairs and get your bottle.”)
• Begins to use some verbs (go) and adjectives (big)
• Joins two related words to make one word (geddown for get down or
stoppit for stop it)
• Starts to ask, “What’s ‘at?” (What’s that?)
• Speech is often very difficult to understand
• Tells you his or her name when asked
• Joins in nursery rhymes and songs, but often mumbles or gets just a
word or two
• Speaks with many pauses between words
• Typical utterances at this age: “Dawddie bad!” (Doggie bad!)
“Go’way!” (Go away!) “No, Mommy.” “See … horsey … Daddy!”
“Danwit … goo’ … Mommy.” (Sandwich good, Mommy.) “Nigh’-
nigh’ now?” (Night-night now?) “Go dore?” (Go store?)
2 to 3 Years
• Understands about 900 words
• Uses about 500 words
• Speech is understandable 50 to 70 percent of the time
• Engages in eye contact during conversations with occasional
prompting
• Makes frustrations known more with words and less with temper
tantrums and crying
• Wants to show you things and get your attention constantly, using
words (“Look, Daddy in dat little car!”)
• Identifies a boy and a girl
• Answers simple questions beginning with who, where, and what (“Who
drives a fire truck?”)
• Understands and uses prepositions such as in, on, and so forth
• Begins to ask yes/no questions (“It raining?”)
• Talks to self while playing
• Begins to use function words such as is (“Ball is red.”)

• Begins to use past tense verbs (walked, kicked)
• “Stutters” when excited sometimes, by repeating whole words (“I-
can-I can-I can play now?”)
• Pronounces these sounds consistently in words: m, n, p, f, b, d, h, y, m
• Typical utterances at this age: “Daddy’s tar so big!” (Daddy’s car so
big.) “Mommy put dat downdairs?” (Mommy put that downstairs?)
“Oh no! My-my-my jeth iddirty!” (Oh no! My dress is dirty.) “You
wanna’nana, An’ Pat?” (You want a banana, Aunt Pat?) “I doe
wannit!” (I don’t want it.) “Mattchew’s yeg beedin’!” (Matthew’s leg
bleeding.) “Duh wabbit eated duh cawit!” (The rabbit eated the
carrot.)
3 to 4 Years
• Begins to use is at beginning of questions
• Understands about 1,200 words
• Uses about 800 words
• Uses eye contact more consistently during conversations
• Asks many questions, usually what or who questions
• Understands time concepts such as morning, lunchtime, tonight
• Understands positional words such as in front, behind, up, and down
• Starts to use s on verbs to show present tense (he runs)
• Uses contractions won’t and can’t
• Uses and
• Uses plurals consistently (books, toys)
• Uses are, or contracted form, with plural nouns (“Kids’re playing
outside.”)
• Initiates conversations, making comments or observations
• Asks many questions, sometimes the same one several times in a
few minutes
• Follows a simple plot in a children’s storybook
• Sits down and does one activity for 10 to 15 minutes
• “Stutters” less frequently
• Pronounces the beginning, middle, and ending sounds in words,
except for consonant blends (e.g., bl, fr, cr)
• Speech is understandable about 70 to 80 percent of the time
• Uses k and g sounds correctly, but s may still be somewhat “lispy”
sounding; r and l may be distorted; v, sh, ch, j, and th still may not
be used consistently
• Typical utterances at this age:
• “The bider ith cwawlin’up duh twee!” (The spider is crawling up
the tree!)
• “Dad, the tiddy-tat breaked the diss.” (Dad, the kitty-cat breaked
the dish.)
• “Is Mom-Mom comin’ today?”

• “Where’s the hop-sital?” (Where’s the hospital?)
• “Yesterday my dog Wainbow ate six bixkits.” (Yesterday my dog
Rainbow ate six biscuits.)
4 to 5 Years
• Comprehends 2,500 to 2,800 words
• Uses 1,500 to 2,000 words
• Speech is understandable about 80 to 90 percent of the time
• Describes pictures with complete sentences
• Makes up stories
• Uses all pronouns correctly: he, she, I, you, them
• Describes what you do with common objects
• Speaks in complex sentences that often run together
• Uses past, present, and future tenses of verbs (sit, sitting, sits, sat, will
sit)
• Uses irregular verbs (drank, ate) and irregular nouns (men, children)
somewhat inconsistently
• Follows three-step commands
• Explains events that took place in the past with accurate detail
• Knows common opposites such as big/little, heavy/light
• Plays dramatically and chats a lot
• Repeats a sentence with 10 to 12 syllables
• Listens and attends to stories, conversation, and movies
• May mispronounce s, r, th, 1, v, sh, ch, j, and blends
• Typical utterances at this age: “Daddy, I wanna go to Joey’s house
after lunch ‘cause he’s got this great new truck I wanna play wif
(with).” “Is this your pocketbook? Could I thee what you have inside
it?” “Do you have any gum in there?” “I found all these wed (red)
marbles on José’s floor, Mommy. Can I have them? I want to play
with them for a little while.” “Look at all those gwirrels (squirrels)
runnin’ across the road!” “Johnnie cutted the paper all up.”
5 to 7 Years: The Refinement Years

• Refines pronunciation, sentence structure, word use, attention span
for listening, and memory for directions
• Retells stories; explains experiences more, in a cohesive, sequential
manner and with greater elaboration
• Participates in group discussions and takes turns in conversation;
comments are more relative to topic being discussed
• Begins to learn language relationships: opposites (big/little, sad/happy),
synonyms (big/large, sad/unhappy), associations (bread/butter, pencil/
eraser), and classification (shirt/pants/socks belong in the category of
clothing)
• Typical utterances at this age: “Last week Daddy took me and

Levonne to the Bronx Zoo.” “You shoulda seen the monkeys and
elephants!” “On the way home, we stopped at the hospital to see
Mrs. Stro … strogin … hausen … something like that—she’s Daddy’s
friend from work.” “She has ‘amonia and she’s really sick, so she
has to stay in the hospital for another week.”
When children begin school, language is translated into written
symbols through spelling and comprehended through reading.
Written words are developed into sentences and stories. Children
whose oral language is deficient (beyond the typical errors a child
of this age displays) are at risk for reading, writing, and spelling
problems. However, teachers are trained to teach children in a way
that best suits their individual needs. So, although communication
problems may present a challenge, they certainly can be managed
with a little bit of teamwork, creativity, and patience!
7 Years to Adolescence
• Possesses a functional and abstract language system
• Shows age-appropriate skills in reading, writing, speaking, and
listening
• Shows less vagueness and groping for words
• Joins sentences to form coherent, descriptive thoughts and
stories;listeners are not left confused
• Masters word relationships (synonyms, antonyms, association,
classification, etc.)
• Pronounces multisyllabic words correctly once practiced a few times
• Comprehends information heard and read when adequately taught
and explained
• Understands and uses more idioms (pain in the neck, out of your mind)
• Understands plots with increasing depth and complexity when read
or watched in a movie or television show
• Typical utterances at this age: “I really don’t understand how they
put this model together, Mom.” “Do you think anyone will notice if
I wear my old shirt to the basketball game?”
Essentially, a child’s language at this age mirrors an adult’s, but
with more simplicity.
These, then, are the milestones, the points of progress children
should reach in their own style, at their own pace. The next details
the warning signs that signal your child may be having more than
normal trouble in developing communication skills. Read on to find
out how to recognize these signals and what to do to help your child
deal with special problems.
Chapter 13
Speaking and Listening
INTRODUCTION TO SPEAKING AND LISTENING

Studying talk in the classroom can be difficult. Because those of
us who can talk and hear easily spend so much time speaking and
listening, it’s a little tricky to identify the many strands of talk - the
purposes and functions that we use it for; the different audiences
for talk; the effects of contexts on the way we speak and listen.
Because talk is necessarily a thing of the moment, it’s difficult to
capture; and when we do capture talk on tape, sometimes the very
act of taping alters the context and so affects the talk itself. Then
there remains the issue of how to judge progress in talk.
What should teachers be doing to help children get better at talk?
What does this imply? Some of the hottest educational issues are
related to that question!
Before going much further, however, it would be useful to look
a little more closely at the terminology used about talk: oracy, talk,
speaking and listening, spoken language. Oracy is a relatively new
term, brought to teachers’ attention by the late Andrew Wilkinson.
It is intended to convey something of parallel breadth to the word
‘literacy’ - to signal the fundamental importance of all facets of
spoken discourse, particularly in relation to education.
Talk, used in an educational context, is usually taken to mean
the everyday uses of spoken language; using this term signals,
perhaps, some of the less formal elements and includes listening as
a matter of implicit understanding, since listening has to be there to
make talk work.
Speaking and listening used in this chapter will generally refer to
the more formalised way of regarding spoken language as
represented in the National Curriculum. There is a difference in
formality implied when making a distinction between talking and

speaking, the second including some of the more public and perhaps
performative aspects of spoken language.
Finally, spoken language, or just language, denotes the full potential
range of oral forms and functions. Since speech is the basis for
literacy, then it is clear that the word ‘language’ has very wide
application. It refers to the potential which every individual has to
draw on a wide, diverse and flexible repertoire of all kinds of text.
It returns, also, to the essentially social and cultural nature of
discourse - whether spoken or written - and at the same time is a
reminder of the ways in which language is bound up with individual
identity. For example, the important relationship between language
and how we feel about ourselves and others is keenly emphasised
when standard English and Received Pronunciation are discussed.
STANDARD ENGLISH AND RECEIVED PRONUNCIATION
Whereas in the past it may have been possible to link ‘BBC
English’ with Received Pronunciation, this is no longer possible and
it is difficult to pin down just what Received Pronunciation might
be. Perhaps it might be as well to consider Received Pronunciation
a will-o’-the-wisp and turn to the much more loaded matter of
standard forms of English. Most books without dialogue - and
newspapers - in the United Kingdom are written in standard English.
It can be recognised as distinct from dialect writing by particular
words or phrases or by uses of spelling which reflect the phonics of
different, often regional, ways of speaking. Even where there is no
marked dialect, informal speech can be written down and
distinguished from more standard forms and this is usually referred
to as using different registers. When it comes to spoken forms, the
distinction is not so easily demarcated.
Most adult speakers switch or slide from a more to less formal
register according to context. A typical situation is answering the
telephone in our ‘best’ voice, then relaxing into our more everyday
way of speaking when we realise it is a friend who is calling.
The critical point as far as classroom teaching is concerned is
that while the National Curriculum requires attention to standard
English it is important not to undervalue children’s own language
or undermine children’s feelings about themselves as individuals or
members of particular speech communities. Received Pronunciation

is a version of spoken English which is not associated with any region
of the United Kingdom. It is, however, often associated with
particular classes of people - the upper classes of society.
Language as social and cultural practice
This chapter will look at some of the implications of the social
and cultural nature of language in considering:
• What does developing talk involve?
• What is the teacher’s role in planning for and teaching speaking and
listening?
• How can progress in oracy be assessed?
In considering the range and scope of talk in the classroom, it is
necessary not just to examine how to help children ‘get better at
speaking and listening’ but to look at the role which spoken language
plays in developing knowledge and ideas.
Since most children come to school able to talk fluently, in
contrast to their experience with reading and writing, it is important
to look at the early development of talk and to ponder just what
‘teaching speaking and listening’ might mean if children are already
fluent when we meet them first in an educational setting. They don’t
(usually) have to be taught how to speak, so what do they need to
be taught? Gordon Wells puts it like this:
The importance of discourse - or conversation, as it is more
commonly called - has long been recognised with respect to the pre-
school years.... However, it is only in recent years that explicit
acknowledgement has been given to the important role that spoken
discourse continues to play, throughout the years of schooling and
beyond in mediating the culturally valued knowledge and skills that
learners encounter and are expected to master.
Just what are the ‘culturally valued skills’ he mentions? Where
does talk fit in? And what does this mean for classroom uses of talk?
This chapter will offer ways of looking at all these questions.
Personal Aspects of Language
One thing is certain when reflecting on our own speech: it is
perhaps the most revealing and deeply personal aspect of our
language use. Also, our early experience in the language
communities of our homes will have had a profound and lasting

effect on us. The section on the Language Family Tree made that
clear.
It’s not just a matter of the accent we use or the dialect words or
expressions, or even the different languages we can speak. The
impact of our own language is felt in the way that speech is entangled
with a sense of value and being valued and how values about talk
link with our cultural origins. Above all, some of the most deeply
remembered experiences about personal and cultural aspects of oracy
are related to school attitudes to talk. A comment from a 14-year-
old captures some of the importance of the unique quality of our
own talk:
I think accents add individuality to speech, it makes what you
say unusual. I don’t think that accents are just a label to say where
you come from, they are special. The world would be a boring place
if everyone spoke alike
Many teachers would agree, but there are the requirements of
the National Curriculum to deal with, as well as social opinion -
and prejudice:In school when us kids are talking to each other
teachers correct us with words we say, such as when we say ‘Duz
tha wanna come wi us’, they say ‘Do you want to come with us’
then they tell us to talk properly. I think people have a cheek to tell
us to talk properly when people in other towns and cities speak too
fast or too slow and with funny accents.
Examining Beliefs About Talk
These two older pupils give some thoughtful comments about
their own beliefs about spoken language and the values and attitudes
which surround everyday speech. But what do younger pupils think
about talk - and the ways they talk? Children often have rich and
diverse language experience in their homes and communities, but
how can teachers build on them if they don’t know what these might
be?
Kath Scott, coordinator of the North Tyneside Oracy Project, and
her teacher colleagues interviewed children aged from 4 to 13 in
many different schools, using varied techniques - one-to-one and
small group discussion and written questionnaires:
• Where did you learn to talk?
• How did you learn to talk?

• Who taught you to talk?
• Do you think you are a good talker?
• Who do you know who is a good talker?
• What talking do you do in school?
• Who do you talk to in school?
• What do you talk about?
• Does your teacher like you to talk?
• When shouldn’t you talk?
• What do you like talking about best?
The North Tyneside teachers found that, while the young
children thought they were good talkers, the response became more
varied amongst older children. Even those who answered positively
often indicated that being a good talker depended on how much or
how loudly or clearly they spoke.
Many teachers involved in the National Oracy Project
throughout England and Wales noticed that children tend to become
more self-critical as they get older - often in a negative way.
Other responses suggested that talk is something you do outside
the classroom or at home; in school it was reported to happen when
doing ‘easy work’, playing in the role play or home corner or when
children ‘were stuck’ and needed help with their work.
Two classes of children in a school in Cambridge were asked
their views on talk. In the Year 2 class, most of the children thought
they were good talkers:
Yes, I like talking a lot
Yes, because I know some words that other people don’t
know
Yes, I know a lot of words
When they were asked Does your teacher like you to talk? they
mostly felt that she did:
Sometimes she likes me to talk and answer questions
Yes. Sometimes when I’m with a partner
Not when she’s talking, but yes
When we’re working in groups
Yes, because it helps me to learn
The Year 5/6 class were also mostly confident that they were
good talkers:
because I’m not shy
because I do talk to my friends and family a lot
because at home and in the playground I talk all the time
once I have started I can’t stop

because I usually have lots to talk about
Although there were occasionally less confident replies:
No, because nobody ever listens
No, because I’m shy
Their answers to the question about the teacher’s attitude to
talking showed a good understanding of occasions for talk:
When we’re asking or answering a question
No because it can distract people from what they are doing
Yes, because she asks me things
There is often a risk of children getting contradictory messages
about school attitudes to talk. Good talkers are seen as fluent talkers
who can explain things clearly but while talking loudly, clearly and
fluently in public seems to be valued, when talk is conversational,
personal and informal, it can be seen as less valued and valid. Yet
these are the qualities which lead to successful talking-for-learning
in the classroom.
Pupils’ responses to questions about talk can provide useful
information about classroom talk from their point of view. It might
be worth finding out about what pupils in your class think about
the uses of talk - and your attitude to it. Their views could help in
planning for extending or developing talk in your own classroom.
Figs 4.2 and 4.3 give an example of one way to begin investigating
talk - by writing about it in response to questions.
Finding a Theory About Talk
There is no doubt that a wealth of talk is happening in classrooms
throughout the country; what is important is to be able to identify
just what the different talk experiences and opportunities might be
contributing to children developing as speakers and listeners, and,
indeed, as learners. Once talk has become a part of the established
teaching and learning programme of the classroom it is then possible
to set up methods of assessing speaking and listening.
That means getting a picture of just what talk in the classroom
involves and what is happening when children talk - a complex
business which involves considering just what is involved in the talk
curriculum. Any plans for developing children’s talk will need to
take into account this complexity, which starts, perhaps, by
acknowledging that spoken texts, like written texts, combine four

interdependent aspects:
The social aspect: the ways in which talk forms, confirms or
changes personal relationships
The communicative aspect: the ways in which talk helps in shaping
and sharing experiences, emotions, ideas
The cultural aspect: the ways in which talk reflects home and
community experience and the kinds of oral texts available from an
early age
The cognitive aspect: the ways in which talk helps concept
formation and the construction of knowledge.
All of these contribute to the development of children as speakers
and listeners.
Then there are the areas of: who children talk to (the audiences),
what they talk about (the purposes) and where the talk takes place
(the context), which have an effect on the talk itself, how it is shaped,
the level of explicitness needed, and the tone or register chosen.
Addressing a large gathering in an assembly hall, talking to a
family gathering at home or working with friends on a technology
activity in the classroom will require different ways of speaking and
will combine the above aspects of talk in varying degrees.
Children themselves are aware of these differences from a very
early age and can switch their talk accordingly. In aiming to help
children develop as speakers and listeners, it is the school’s job to
provide even wider and more varied opportunities for talk.
This means considering a further element which influences talk
- the content. What is talked about will also influence how talk is
structured and carried out. So, audiences, purposes, contexts and
content will all have a place in the picture of what talk involves and
how children can be helped to make progress in speaking and
listening. Fig. 4.4 suggests some possible situations.
Talk Behaviour
To add further complexity, however, since talk (as part of
language as a whole) is necessarily social and cultural in its origins,
any classroom agenda for speaking and listening needs to take talk
behaviours into account, too. Performance and confidence will be
influenced by a wide range of factors including gender, personality,
interests, culture and assurance in whatever language is used; these

can affect turn-taking in conversation, fluency of explanation or the
level of contribution a speaker makes.
Pupils’ and teachers’ perceptions and expectations of particular
contexts or activities also play their part; teachers can sometimes be
surprised, or even shocked, by children’s responses to questions like
‘Do you think you are a good talker?’ or ‘Do I like you to talk in the
classroom?’
Previous knowledge or experience of activities, and how they
are organised, can also influence the successful development of talk;
when a new strategy - like using talk partners - is introduced, for
example, previously fluent speakers can be temporarily silenced
while they learn to negotiate new ways of collaborating.
When new practices become part of regular classroom
experience, previously reticent contributors can find their voices. It
is evident from everyday experience, too, that response and support
from others is crucial in locking or unlocking our tongues.
The behaviours associated with speaking and listening are
critically important in describing what progress looks like. Making
progress in talk isn’t just a matter of practising different kinds of
purposes for talk, or having experience of a greater number of
audiences, or even having experience of all the types of talk text
listed in the National Curriculum.
It includes more socially and culturally influenced qualities like
growing flexibility and the ability to choose how to speak - or not -
in any specific circumstances; the increasing confidence to initiate
discussion or to support opinion by reference to wider experience.
All of these elements linked to talk behaviours begin in the home
and add to the range of what should be included in a full and
challenging talk curriculum.
Children’s Early Language
If you have children of your own, or young relatives or friends,
you will have noticed the engaging and fascinating way young
children take on the language of their community. Even very young
babies learn how to have conversations, ‘turn-taking’ with adults in
gurgles and early undifferentiated speech. Gordon Wells refers to
‘compelling evidence that children actively construct their own

hypotheses’ about the way language is patterned and used.
But children are not just active makers of meaning in terms of
acquiring the vocabulary and syntax of their language community.
In taking on the forms of language, children also take in the meanings
carried by the language - the social and community principles about
how life should be lived.
It only takes a moment’s thought about the sayings we remember
from childhood at home - sing at your meals, trouble at your heels or if
you keep knocking, the right door will open - to see how from very early
years children learn more than just how to talk in the speech
community of home.
These sayings are sometimes embedded in home anecdote or
story which ends with a moral: and she never did that again or and
that’s what happens if you... All of these spoken texts form the models
for the kinds of texts children can use for themselves later on; they
carry with them very strong flavours of the ways life is lived in home
and community.
Simon provides a lively example of what children might know
about language and what they can do with language before they
ever come to school. Many of the texts he draws on are from popular
culture - from films, pop songs, nursery rhymes, even pantomime
verbal games, perhaps repeated by his parents - and from what he
has heard from family and friends.
Wisps of many oral texts interweave as he plays them over to
himself before he goes to sleep. But of course, children may learn
from more formal settings - from church, mosque, synagogue,
temples, meeting house; from theatre or cinema; from speeches at
family gatherings. But how are these related to school ways of using
language?
Language at Home and School
Children learn to make their meanings clear through everyday
conversations with members of their family or community; talk is
just an everyday act. In the classroom, however, language is not only
the means by which the daily business is carried out; it is an object
of study in itself. But children’s experience of using language cannot
easily be put into separate compartments labelled ‘home’ and

‘school’.
Although there may be significant differences between the ways
talk is used in either place, children may not find it easy to see what
those differences are - or what they signify. Since language is so
central to a child’s whole experience of learning - both at home and
at school - it is important to find ways of identifying just what
children can do with language when they come to school, and what
they understand about language, so that teachers can build on that
experience.
The patterns of thought which are available to children as they
hear adults talking, reasoning, predicting, confirming and
questioning are necessarily socially and culturally developed and
influenced by the child’s early environment.
People express ideas in different ways depending on whom they
are talking to and where. These different ways of using language
act as models for children themselves to use as they grow up. Maggie
Maclure points out that not only do children absorb the ways of
using language they hear in their communities, but that adults
actively induct children into the language patterns and expectations
of their communities by ‘the four S’s’.
Shaping: treating children’s utterances as meaningful and
responding to them with more conventional language and phrasing.
Sharing: emotions, ideas, experiences and opinions through
conversation. Supporting: providing children with enough response
and input to sustain conversation without doing the talking for them.
Stretching: in a range of everyday and unremarkable ways, adults
extend children’s communications, by asking genuine questions, for
example, or asking children to give their opinions about what they
see, want to eat, or liked on television. These ideas imply that if
teachers are to help children learn as efficiently as possible, attention
to language is crucial.
However, the child’s home experiences of language are equally
important because they are the bridge between home and school
learning. Children work all the time to get to grips with language
so that they can negotiate fully with others in their social
surroundings.
Their active manipulation of language becomes very clear when

they invent ways of using words, as Simon does with ‘piggy nick’.
Similarly, when children say things like I wented, goned or buyed they
are showing very clearly that they can make informed guesses - or
hypotheses - about how to make words do what they want.
When a child, using binoculars for the first time, says I just
binoculared the car she is showing an implicit knowledge of the way
language works. As children tussle with language, using it in daily
conversation with people who are engaged in genuine conversation
with them, they uncover rules - like the ‘ed’ ending of past tense
regular verbs. As they practice in a speech community whose adults
inevitably use the four S’s, they begin to construct a much more
complex inner set of rules, which means that they can generate an
infinite number of sentences which follow the grammatical pattern
of the language of their community.
Deficit Views of Language
For some years the differences between home and school uses
of language were expressed by educational writers in terms of
‘problems’. There were commonly held beliefs that the language used
in some children’s homes (particularly in working-class homes) was
deficient or restricted. Barbara Tizard, Martin Hughes and Gordon
Wells, amongst others, set up extensive experiments with children
aged between three and a half and four and a half where they
recorded and then analysed their language at home and in the
nursery, including paying attention to the language of the adults
who interacted with them.
Their results began a move towards a much more informed way
of thinking about home language - not seeing it as deficient but
equally as complex and challenging as a child might meet anywhere.
Indeed, these researchers found those children’s home experiences
of extended conversations or stories were rarely replicated in the
classroom.
Although Joyce is struggling to express a sensation felt in the
past, she is, nevertheless, not a child with ‘poor language’ as her
teachers assumed. She uses complex sentence structure and
vocabulary, for example otherwise, an interesting vocabulary choice
for a 4-year-old.
Also, it is equally clear that her home environment is not deficient

in respect of language. On the contrary, the conversation is genuine,
where each participant is interested in what the other has to say.
Furthermore, it is a balanced conversation where Joyce feels
confident to initiate discussion, ponder and ask questions.
Talk in the Classroom
When these ideas are related to the classroom there are important
implications not just for the ways in which teachers might be able
to support and stretch children’s own language use, but for adults’
own use of language when working with children. Her research
indicated no deficit in the language practices of the homes, but very
complex ways of using different texts both oral and written.
This became particularly apparent when teachers were asking
the children questions about the stories they were reading in the
classroom. These questions often asked children to identify particular
features of picture and written texts - to ‘label’ features such as
colour, shape and size. For the children from the black working-
class community where stories were oral, interactive and full of
inventive hyperbole, this was an unfamiliar way to deal with
narrative.
In their particular community people asked questions not about
individual items but about whole events, how an object might be
used, or to consider causes and effects; they didn’t just ask children
to label things. Often the answers in this community would involve
telling a story or finding a comparative example - using metaphor
and analogy, in fact. The ability of these children to be able to link
two situations was not being fully tapped in school.
Their experience was not like that of the children from the
middle-class white community where a trip to the shops often
involved incessant ‘labelling’. It is easy to imagine such a trip - the
adult keeping up a running conversation which might go something
like: Can you see the shop? It says ‘Mason’s’. That’s where mummy buys
the bread.
The children who had not experienced such home conversations
were also not used to dealing with questions which were disguised
commands, for example Why don’t you take that book? The answer
any of us might give to that question could be Because I don’t like the
look of it.
However, it would be easy to see that children’s inability to

respond to such types of questions could look like slowness, refusal
or lack of respect for the adult concerned. These examples shift the
emphasis on classroom development of children’s speaking and
listening a little.
They show very clearly that whilst teaching is often seen as adult
talking and children listening there are very good reasons - linked
with the development of thought - for teachers to listen rather more
to children. Then the four S’s - shaping, sharing, supporting and
stretching - will be founded on an informed basis and will be more
likely to extend, rather than deny or restrict, children’s language
and learning.
Talking and Learning
It is now widely accepted - and made explicit in the National
Curriculum - that talk helps children to learn. The Use of Language
section in all documents specifies that pupils ‘should be taught to
express themselves clearly in both speech and writing’ (National
Curriculum documents). In geography, for example, reference is
made to children using information and their own observations ‘to
ask and respond to questions about places’. It is an unquestioned
assumption that talk will feed into learning in all areas of the
curriculum.
It is so usual that it might seem strange to emphasise the point
here. However, the relationship between talking and thinking is a
complex matter. It isn’t just that talk is a good way for children to
show what they have learned. There’s more to it than that. Although
the business of teachers asking questions and children answering
them is part of traditional practice in classrooms, this isn’t the only
way - or by any means the best way - to use talk to help learning.
The role of talk in learning deserves more careful analysis.
The psychologist Vygotsky, writing in the 1930s, emphasised the
centrality of language to learning. He explains that thought and
language are interdependent in the formation of concepts. To
Vygotsky, language is not just the clothing for thought but a tool
for thinking and developing thought further.
The problem-solving function of language is the aspect which is
most significant for understanding the role of language in learning.
Language plays a part in helping children to learn from their very
early days, but it is important, according to Vygotsky, to draw a

distinction between school learning and home learning; home
learning is more spontaneous and unplanned and school learning is
more planned and analysed. In drawing this distinction, he
emphasises the importance of authentic contexts for language
learning and, importantly, he stresses the value of collaboration with
other children.
Such collaborations and genuine conversations are necessary not
only for learning to use language more flexibly and effectively, but
also for using language to push learning further. The implication
for any teacher, then, is to make sure that purposeful talk is planned
for in the course of work throughout the curriculum.
Since talk is a social phenomenon, the social space of the
classroom needs to be organised to use the existing language habits
and experience of the children to extend learning. Children have
heard adults talking through ideas, attempting to solve problems -
even deciding what food to buy.
All of these speculative, hypothesising, predictive ways of talking
offer models which most children use very readily; listening to
children at play can show that very clearly. One of the most
impressive aspects of children’s talk overheard when they are
playing is the speed with which they can get into role, shift registers,
and take on the phrasing and vocabulary of a range of speakers.
Language Diversity
This is at one and the same time one of the most valuable
resources teachers can draw on - from their own experience as well
as that of the children - and one of the hottest areas of debate about
oracy. Language diversity does not only suggest the existence of
different languages within a classroom or community, it also includes
variation between dialects, accents, registers and types of text, both
written and spoken.
Language diversity is also deeply involved with social and
cultural judgements about what is valuable or worthy. Many adults
carry scars from other people’s comments about their spoken
language.
Judgements are often made about intelligence, social status,

trustworthiness and potential for future employment on the basis
of how people speak - not the content of what they say, but their
accent, pronunciation, choice of vocabulary and tone of voice. Such
attitudes can have an impact on later learning. If children are to be
given a chance confidently to expand their language repertoires to
the full, they need first of all to know that the language which they
speak every day is a valid form of expression.
They are then in a more secure position to be able to compare
the different ways of talking (and writing) they come across and to
build on these models for a full and flexible range of language from
which they can choose how and when to use particular forms.
Unfortunately, though, the social values attached to particular ways
of speaking can intervene, as Anne’s comments show:
I hated —— junior school; I was picked on by the pupils because
I pronounced my words properly, using ‘h’s’, ‘t’s’ and ‘ings’. It was
not only the pupils who picked on me at school, though, but also
some of the teachers. They called me ‘Lady Jane’ and ‘Miss ——’ I
don’t want to disclose the second name.
What is ‘Bad Grammar’?
One of the difficulties about any discussion of ‘correctness’ in
personal uses of language is that there is a great deal of confusion
about ‘poor speech’, ‘bad grammar’ and ‘proper pronunciation’.
What might ‘poor speech’ be? and what is ‘good speech’? It is very
plain that attitudes to accents and dialects are permeated by social
and cultural judgements about the comparative status of speakers
as suggested by their home language use.
Since teaching standard forms of English is now explicitly part
of every element of the National Curriculum for English it is worth
clearing up some of the misconceptions here. Many of the ways of
speaking which are described as ‘bad grammar’ are, in fact, dialect
forms of speech. The National Curriculum document for English
distinguishes between standard forms and ‘other forms of English’
and makes it clear that ‘spoken standard English is not the same as
Received Pronunciation and can be expressed in a variety of accents’.
However, it does not offer much more detail about the
relationship between the grammar of English and standard forms.
It is also important to recognise that people can speak or write in
standard forms of a language and with Received Pronunciation but

present their ideas ungrammatically, mixing singular nouns with
plural verbs, or the reverse, for example - a very common feature of
politicians’ radio contributions!
The fact of the matter is that teachers and schools have always
taught standard English. Indeed, children very often write in
standard forms of English even when they may speak a non-standard
dialect. This is true of many adult speakers, too, and suggests that
the proper emphasis for teaching standard English should be placed
more on writing than on speech, where it can become a focus for
fruitful discussion about shifts in register, formality and grammatical
patterns.
Nevertheless, teachers do need to reassure themselves that
children can use standard forms when speaking. This is where drama
and role play can be useful - and reassuring. Asking children to take
on the role of a weather forecaster or news reader will show
immediately that they can switch into standard forms when they
wish to - and that they know something about when such standard
forms are used.
If a quick experiment like this reveals a number of children who
cannot switch in this way, then there needs to be some more
extensive drama work in order to give them opportunities for
practice. Using drama in this way avoids the suggestion that a child’s
own language - and so, by implication, the child herself or himself -
is socially deficient.
Bilingual Learners
When it comes to working in classrooms with children who have
access to more than one language, teachers can sometimes feel at a
loss, as Helen Savva points out: ‘Bilingualism is a sensitive issue; it
arouses strong emotions in teachers. They can feel defensive,
threatened, guilty, they can feel they are doing their best in difficult
circumstances with very little guidance or support’. However, she
makes some striking points about bilingualism:
Operating in more than one language is normal. It is not in itself
a problem and it certainly does not constitute a learning difficulty.
Yet those of us who live in England live in a country in which
monolingualism is still regarded as the norm. This is both a cause

and an effect of official attitudes towards bilingualism and bilingual
children.
Most of the world’s population is bilingual or multilingual, yet
there seems often to be very little knowledge about bilingualism in
English classrooms. One of the dangers is to define children as
bilingual first and as individuals second:
One of the key lessons to be learnt about bilingual children is
that they are not a homogeneous group. There is a tendency to
discuss them and their needs as if they were identical. Linguistically,
socially, culturally, politically, the lives of bilingual children are
complex and their experiences diverse.
Just as diverse as any monolingual population of children!
The Advantages of Bilingualism
One of the important facts which has emerged recently, however,
is that bilingual children are often in a position of advantage in
learning if they are encouraged to use their home language and the
language of school when they want to.
If a child is learning two languages simultaneously, or even
learning a second language during the early years, the cognitive
patterning is similar; the repeated experience of matching an already
known word or expression to one in another language sets up a
mental framework for other kinds of matching - the kind of
analogical thinking which helps the development of mathematics,
for example. It can also lead to the ability to reflect more analytically
on language as Dejay, a 6-year-old talking with his teacher, explains:
Dejay: If you’re lonely you talk in your mind and talk to yourself.
Mrs. K: Tell me about that - you talk in your mind?
Dejay: You talk in your mind and talk back.
Mrs. K: Mm... Mm...
Dejay: And when you’re lonely and stuff you talk back. When
you’re in bed you can think and think back - when you’ve got teddies
you can pretend to speak to them. But, really, you speak in your
mind and talk.
Mrs. K: What kinds of things do you think about when you’re
doing that?
Dejay: I think about...
Mrs. K: Talk about...
Dejay: I talk about counting backwards and counting forwards.

Later in the conversation, the teacher returns to the topic:
Mrs. K:Tell me something - you know when you talk in your
head do you talk in English or Gujerati?
Dejay:Gujerati and English. Different sorts.
Mrs. K:Sometimes in Gujerati, sometimes in English.
Dejay: Yes.
Mrs. K: That’s good, being able to talk in two languages in your
head.
Dejay: I speak in English then I feed back in Gujerati.
Mrs. K: I wish I could do that.
A comment that many teachers would echo and a telling example
of the relationship between language and thought.
Helen Savva’s arguments and Dejay’s remarkable insights
emphasise the most central and significant point about language
diversity - that everyone, teachers and the children who enter their
classrooms, has unique language experience. It is important to be
able to recognise and identify children’s language repertoire but
equally important to manage linguistic diversity in practical terms
every day in the classroom. The following sections on planning and
teaching talk take up issues of managing classrooms for diversity in
talk.
New Insights About Speaking and Listening
Talk is essential to the development of thought and the progress
of learning. Conversation which is purposeful and focused, which
allows for hypothesis, prediction and questioning, is one of the most
powerful means of helping children to think and to consolidate what
they have come to know by other means.
Many adults will testify to the ways in which talking something
through helps to make clear just what the key issues are, and
explaining to someone else is one of the best ways to discover
whether you really know something yourself. In the classroom, then,
talking and listening have become more central to the process of
organising for learning.
Even though the status of talk in the classroom has been raised,
there are still some reservations about children’s capacity to listen
attentively. This is quite a teaser for any teacher since it soon becomes
obvious that, unless children are suffering temporary or permanent

hearing loss, they can listen perfectly well to matters which concern
them deeply.
Even a whisper can catch some children’s attention if it is about
when they might be going out to play or having a treat of some
kind. The challenge, then, is not so much to develop children’s
listening skills as to develop their awareness of how to pay attention
(and hold their attention on what is being said) when it is important.
Children have to be taught such strategies since in their out-of-
school lives most listening is to what they have elected to pay
attention to. There has also been a set of theories linked to home
language, particularly in relation to working-class homes. In the past
it was felt that some (mostly working-class) homes were deficient
because they operated a ‘restricted’ use of language as opposed to
the ‘elaborated’ language of middle-class homes. Further substantial
research suggests that this view is inaccurate and misleading.
The problem seems to have been in the speech practices of the
schools where working-class children (and other children, come to
that) were being taught. Often, the teachers’ ways of talking,
particularly of questioning, and some of the language practices used
in the early stages of learning, were unfamiliar to the children and
needed explaining if their progress was not to be impeded.
Parents of bilingual or multilingual children were often told that
their children should not speak their home language at home because
it would interfere with their learning of English. This has been
disproved - indeed, the reverse has been seen to be the case. These
terms were first developed by the sociologist Basil Bernstein, writing
in the 1960s: restricted language was taken to be incomplete
sentences, brief, functional utterances; elaborated language was seen
as nearer to written forms of language with complex sentence
structures.
Emphasis on speaking and listening in the classroom has led to
a recognition that spoken utterances can be regarded as texts which
have purposes very like those of written texts. The similarities are
not so much in sentence structure - there are usually marked
differences in the construction of spoken and written sentences - but
in their functions.
A telephone call to a member of the family is like a personal
letter; the head teacher’s report at a meeting of parents may be like
a newspaper report. For every spoken text there is likely to be a

written parallel and referring to spoken utterances as texts makes it
easier to consider just how to manage teaching speaking and listening
in the classroom. New insights into the teaching and learning of
speaking and listening suggest that if teachers are to support and
extend children’s talk development they need to attend to several
areas at once.
Any theory which seeks to inform practice must be able to:
• Articulate ideas about early language use and how children’s own
knowledge of spoken texts can best be built on
• Offer a useful analysis of how talk is best supported in the classroom
• Take into account the behavioural, social and cultural factors which
influence speaking and listening
• Develop conscious and planned activities to support the development
of speaking and listening across a whole school.
Speaking and Listening in the Classroom

Over the recent years of attention to oracy it has become clear
that helping children to extend the range of their spoken language
use means careful planning and skilful intervention from teachers.
Sometimes, of course, that intervention is best expressed by not
interfering with children’s talk, by listening and responding as part
of genuine dialogue. In order to identify the kinds of intervention
which will be most helpful, it is necessary to form a picture of what
the possibilities might be for a teacher’s role in helping children to
make progress in talk.
Individual Development of Concepts and Strategies
1. As children interact with adults, they observe, listen and
work out their own systems and rules for talk. Children
hypothesise about the organisation of language and try out
rules and expressions as they get to grips with the grammar
of the language they are learning.
2. Children learn more than the grammar and vocabulary of
language as they grow up in the language environment of
the home. From a very early age they learn behaviours such
as turn-taking and conversational strategies; they also pick
up patterns of longer stretches of spoken text - stories, jokes,
moral anecdotes, rhymes, advertising jingles, etc.
3. The development of language is deeply enmeshed with the
development of thought. As children learn to use their home
language they are also learning to use language as a tool
for further thought.
4. Even very young children can switch from one way of

speaking to another, shifting codes according to the
circumstances, audience and purpose of the spoken text.
5. It is now clear that children can learn even more about
language if they are invited to think about it and to talk
about what spoken language can do for them and other
learners.
Behavioural, Social and Cultural Factors

6. Speaking and listening are not only complex cognitive
processes, but complex social practices. The way we speak
reflects the culture of the community in which we learned
to use language and can evoke responses which are
themselves more to do with social and cultural expectations
and values than to do with speech itself.
7. The language of the home is the essential bedrock of later
language learning; home language practices can develop
ways of perceiving the world, ways of using language and
ways of learning which will have important implications
for the value given to home language in school. Previously
held deficit views of home language have now been
superseded by more detailed research.
8. Bilingual children have advantages when taking on other
concepts because of the experience they have of consciously
matching words in the second or third language they are
learning with existing words and ideas in their home
language.
The teacher’s role in promoting speaking and listening
9. A teaching emphasis on correctness at the expense of fluency
can seriously underestimate and undervalue the implicit
knowledge about language that children bring to school.
10. If teachers are fully to use the languages resources which
children bring with them to school, it is necessary to listen
to what children have to say and to avoid teacher
questioning which is intended only to elicit a pre-existing
answer.
Planning for Talk

Most primary teachers are now adept at planning for a range of
outcomes in reading and writing as required by the National
Curriculum. However, although the three components of English
carry equal weighting there seems to be less confidence in planning,
teaching and assessing speaking and listening.
Although it is clear that a great deal of purposeful talk is

happening in classrooms, it is still not as evident in teachers’ written
plans as activities to promote reading and writing. There are many
reasons why this might be so. The social value of children’s talk has
only recently come to be appreciated. Children are inclined to regard
talk as an alternative to ‘work’.
Teachers and other adults listening to children in classrooms
often view exploratory talk as being off-task talk, giving greater
weight to the more performative aspects of speaking and listening.
Although it is important to acknowledge that talk is a
complicated business, there is no need to organise separate activities
to provide for the extension of talk experience. It isn’t always
necessary, for example, to prove that children have learned
something by having written evidence; talk can reveal learning just
as convincingly.
Incorporating talk activities into work plans means considering
from the outset what kinds of talk to expect from pupils as they
work together.
For example, during a science task, pupils will use different
words and phrases from the kinds of talk they might use when
describing their thoughts on the images of a poem. Different talk
texts require specific ways of talking. A considered approach to
planning for speaking and listening will not only attune the ear to
noticing these variations in talk but will ensure that planning can
incorporate a range of talk outcomes.
The Range of Speakers and Listeners
Planning will need to take account of such factors as personality,
interests, gender, cultural experience, fluency in the dominant
language of the classroom. This means moving away from seeing
talk as a matter of performance alone, towards an awareness of
variations within contexts. Silences might be important productive
times or signals of confusion.
Or in one type of grouping an individual might appear assured,
insightful, able to converse considerately, while in another - even
on the same day - he or she might show reticence, lack of confidence,
confusion or unhelpful domination. An important question, as for
writing and reading, is What kinds of speakers and listeners do we have
in our classrooms?
They might be those who:
• Are assured, fluent and know when to contribute
• Are usually unwilling to contribute to discussion even in small groups

or pairs
• Help other children by explaining things to them
• Catch on to ideas quickly
• Find processing heard information difficult
• ‘Can’t find the words’
• Are selective listeners!
• Can sustain active listening for extended periods of time
• Find learning generally difficult and do not orally communicate their
ideas with assurance
• Are naturally reflective
• Only comment when they want to
• Have intermittent hearing difficulties
• Can speak more than one language
• Use a local/regional dialect
• Are very voluble without seeming to have any control over their
talk
• Can summarise group talk concisely
• Find narrating easier than fact-giving
• Are used to interacting on equal terms in conversation as adults
• Have speech impairments
• Frequently elect to be silent when upset
• Are accomplished storytellers
• Have physical or medical conditions which make speech difficult
(cerebral palsy, for example)
• Do not seem to know about changes in register according to audience
• Are persuasive and convincing - or charming!
It is certainly a challenge to provide for the range and the
following sections suggest ways of providing for the diversity of
speakers and listeners in the classroom.
What Children Know About Talk
If you have already asked the children some of the questions
you may already have gained some important information about
what they know about spoken language.
Analysing children’s knowledge about language may involve
looking at a range of aspects:
• Children learning language
• Children learning about language
• Children learning through language
• Children learning to talk about language
• Children showing through language what they have learned.
Certainly, teachers can often be surprised when they have
listened attentively to children’s language use:
Watching children working in small groups on practical activities

and talk tasks has made me rethink my ideas about who is able and
who isn’t.
One little girl just made two mounds of sand, but what I heard
was a wonderful story about a ship, a princess and a parrot.
A group of boys sorted out their science problem in Gujerati.
I overheard the children playing out a theme we had done
months earlier.
I never realised they bothered so much about world issues.
Careful attention to children’s conversations can reveal what they
have learned in any area of the curriculum. Judith Allen, a teacher
in Lowestoft, tape recorded a group of Year 2 children as they went
for a walk around the school grounds.
They had already talked about the effects of sun and the need
for soil and water to help plants grow:
Lizzie: Plants are growing where there is soil and damp places
and on the garden. Plants can get water and it’s safe. They wouldn’t
grow in concrete.
Andrew: Plants can’t grow on paths because it’s too hard.
Kayleigh: Whitton Wood there’s loads of soil. The sun can always
get to it ‘cos it’s in an open field.
Laura: Soil needs water so it soaks in.
Gracie: No-one will tread on the flower beds at the side.
Daniel: A good place for the daffodils because it’s sunny.
Aaron: The daisies are coming up. Why are the daisies closed
up?
Daniel: It’s cold.
Teacher: When will they open?
Daniel:When it’s sunny.
Gracie: Flowers only come open in the summer because it’s warm.
Mathew: Rain makes everything grow - and sun.
Kayleigh: Flowers need water and food. Plants can grow up
fences.
Laura: There’s a dead sunflower. There are seeds still in there.
There are places for seeds.
Mathew: If you put them in the ground you can have new plants.
Laura: Plants need space to grow.
Judith Allen notes that Matthew, Aaron and Daniel have
difficulty with writing, yet it is very clear that they are perfectly
capable of discussing the concepts of plant growth in an informed

way and that they have a good level of knowledge about plants. All
the children listen to each other and respond as the discussion
progresses.
Opportunities for learning through language - and expressing
what has been learned - can be introduced into planning for areas
of the curriculum other than English. In specifically timetabled
English lessons, however, there are chances to study language itself
- to find out what children know and can do with language.
There are many language awareness projects which can reveal
what children know about their own and other people’s languages.
This can often be carried out in a class, for example, by examining
language family trees, but needs to be done with sensitivity, since
some children may not feel comfortable revealing their own cultural
linguistic roots in public.
Planning for Storytelling
Sally Elding explains how a class of Year 5 pupils were helped
to create oral stories for themselves. It required the pupils to work
in a variety of groupings and drew on a range of aspects of speaking
and listening.
I began with a demonstration of ‘twinning’, using the services
of a willing Learning Support Assistant. We sat facing each other
with the class in a circle around us. I had already explained that
between us we were going to try to create a story or at least part of
a story one word at a time with the story bouncing like a tennis ball
between us. I began and my partner responded.
• One • dark
• and • windy
• November • morning
• Clarence • awoke
• to • the
• sound • of
• something • snuffling
• and • sniffling
• outside • the...
It was a predictable tale of a solitary creature who befriends
another. Although unfinished by us, it sparked a whole range of
ideas from the children about how it could end. Furthermore, as we
at times during the telling struggled to find the next word, a range
of suggestions were always being offered from the listeners which,

on reflection, would have taken the story off into many different
directions.
Next, two volunteers demonstrated as we listened to the story
of a large and terrifying dragon who was beaten into submission by
a clever princess. It was clear that the pair were drawing on their
knowledge of stories, of how characters behaved and how the events
rounded to a satisfying climax.
The rest of the class were eager to have a go for themselves by
now. With a partner they were to create a story in the same way
with no talk or planning beforehand. I allowed about ten minutes
and then helped the children to reflect on both the stories and the
twinning experience, with some questions:
• Did you create a whole or a part of a story?
• Were you satisfied with the story?
• Was it okay? good? excellent?
• How could it have been better?
• Did one of you seem to have more control over the story line than
the other?
• Did some words seem to fit naturally after particular words? Which?
• Thinking about it now, how would you change the story in order to
improve it?
• What genre of story would you say you had just told between you?
Summarise your story in as few words as possible.
The children commented that, while one of them might know
how he or she wanted the story to proceed, their partner was not
always of a similar mind and said something unexpected, which
meant a readjustment of ideas.
Few of them said that they would change their created texts
substantially. Although nobody felt that a partner had controlled
the story, some developed strategies for passing decisions about
moving the action forward across to their partners, so avoiding some
responsibility; the use of adjectives was an effective way of handing
over the storyline to a partner!
After this period of reflection, one person in each pair was then
asked to stand and move clockwise to team up with a new partner.
The whole process was repeated in these new pairs. It was noticeable
this time that little to no time was wasted negotiating who was going
to go first. The fun of discovering what sort of story it was going to
be, how the characters were going to react and who was going to
speak the ‘best’ words, guided the task along. Now that the children
knew what was expected of them the stories were longer, funnier,
more daring, and it was clear that the pupils were using structures
and knowledge from known stories to help them through.
Here are just a few snatched excerpts from some of the emerging
stories:
Once long ago there lived a really bad king who terrified
everyone in the land. One day one of his soldiers...
Once there was an animal and this animal was a cheetah and
the cheetah was very hungry because all the other animals in the
forest hid when he came along...
... The next day Mr Smith went out of his back door and unlocked
his lorry. He put the key in the ignition and turned it, but nothing
happened and then he saw a long furry thing sticking out of the
bonnet...
... The people decided that the giant had to be killed so they had
a meeting...
Again, once a story had been created, pupils were asked to use
the questions help them to reflect and summarise. Pairs joined
together to make groups of four and between them each pair re-
told their story to the new audience. This oral redraft was a good
first opportunity for pupils to really feel and behave like storytellers
(this class had previously had experience of being storytellers to a
younger age group) rather than story creators.
Hands and eyes were used more in the telling now as well as
tone of voice.
The stories became more ‘polished’. Finally, the class were asked
to nominate stories for the whole class to listen to and to say why
everyone should hear a particular story.
The School and Classroom as
Hospitable Environments for Talk
All the people who enter the school or classroom are potential
resources for learning. They act as models and examples and, in
terms of language diversity, making contact with families can begin
to bring in some useful information about what language resources
are available just beyond the doors of the classroom.
However, the classroom itself is the most critical resource base

and environment for development of language. The organisation of
furniture, the layout of the classroom and the groupings used
contribute to making a classroom environment hospitable to
diversity.
Equally important, and strongly tied up with the physical
environment, will be the environment within the teacher’s head
about what will promote successful talk - signalled by the
expectations, approaches and opportunities offered. The following
checklist offers a way of reviewing the classroom as a supportive
environment for speaking and listening:
• What do I value about the children’s talk?
• What are the key features in my classroom which support speaking
and listening?
• How do I provide experience for a range of: groupings and audiences
for talk different purposes for speaking and listeningdifferent types
of talk levels of formality/register levels of fluency and assurance?
• How do I cater for the diverse speakers and listeners in my class?
The answers to some of these questions might lead to some
reorganisation or reappraisal. It is often easiest to start any
development in practice by concentrating on the physical
environment. Many classrooms have reading corners and even
writing areas, but what about talk corners?
How might rearranging the layout of the classroom encourage
more productive talk? It is easier to organise for talk if the furniture
is arranged in a way that can accommodate to different groupings.
However, this isn’t always possible so it is probably even more
important to establish procedures where the pupils know the ground
rules about moving to an appropriate setting for a talk activity. This
might need explicit discussion, as careful as discussions about
behaviour and consideration in group talk.
It might be difficult to ensure a quiet area for tape recording so
arrangements have to be made for taping to take place during quiet
times or in other places in the school. There should be an area agreed
by all staff as a suitable place to send pairs or groups of children
who want to tape an extended spoken text (and reserved as far as
possible).
Headphones are usually sufficient to ensure reasonable quiet for
listening.
One The Talk Corner might have:

• A noticeboard where the teacher (or any of the children) regularly
posts up interesting things for the children to discuss
• A discussion box where the children put in written suggestions of
things they want to discuss (it is important to emphasise anonymity
here since some discussion topics might include requests for help in
dealing with people who are picking on me, for example)
• Cassette recorders and blank tapes
• Tape players and story or song tapes (these can be put together by
the pupils themselves or the parents and can include stories in
community languages)
• Headphones
• A quotation board and a supply of empty speech bubbles for things
we have said, things people say to us
• Telephones - with message pad and telephone book with the numbers
of familiar story-book or nursery rhyme characters to ring up
• Games
• Pictures with questions like What happened next?
• Stories in pictures, with gaps in the narrative for What happened in
the middle? or What happened at the end?
• Intriguing newspaper pictures/stories.
Role Play Areas

Post Office: Asking questions, explaining, conversations in the
queue, reading letters aloud, talking on the telephone, etc.
Café: Ordering food, taking orders, reading items from the menu
in other languages, conversations at the table, etc.
Doctor’s or Vet’s: (waiting room or clinic) conversations relevant
to babies, animals, medical matters, reading aloud labels, health
advice posters (some in community languages), advertisements for
proprietary products, explaining symptoms to the doctor or vet, etc.
Home corner: all kinds of made up conversations, extended
stories, soap opera-type dialogue, telephone conversations, baby and
parent talk, etc.
Shops, supermarkets, travel agents, airport, railway station, toy
emporium, computer stores - all of them offer infinite opportunities
for role play talk.
Teaching Speaking and Listening
One of the most difficult decisions teachers have to take is the
perennial one about when it is useful to intervene and when it is
better to stand back. In the words of the school hymn:When to speak
and when be silent. When to do and when forbear. When it comes

to teaching speaking and listening such decisions are even more
critical.
The extract showing Joyce with her teacher is a sharp example,
but any teacher who has transcribed a tape where he or she is talking
with a group of children may well has winced at the urge to
intervene too much in children’s discussions. It is no wonder, of
course; there is the curriculum (ever more loaded) to get through; a
colleague sees group discussion as a lapse in discipline; we need to
get on!
The recognised fact that talk helps children to learn can
sometimes lose its force when time is pressing and SATs are looming.
There are also organisational and assessment issues to be taken into
account.
Many of these concerns can be dealt with by thoughtful planning
and clear delineation of just what is going to be learned. Ensuring
that they are going to be learned (as far as possible) is the next hurdle.
This is where careful management of learning - the content and the
groupings - comes in. from ‘Lord, dismiss us with thy blessing’ - a
hymn often sung at the end of term in English schools As far as
English is concerned, the content can be very wide indeed.
And just what is a group? It’s rather like asking How long is a
piece of string? Even more challenging is the question What is effective
group work? in other words, What will really get the learning done?
These questions might have myriad answers, depending on the
context, the task, the individual teacher and so on.
The whole subject of group work is complex and diffuse, but
certainly bears scrutiny if organising for learning is to be as effective
as possible. Just putting learners into groups doesn’t guarantee
learning happening; there has to be rather more focus than simply
rearranging the furniture!
Also, roles within groups can be different or can vary during
the process of a group’s work; the person who is an information
giver in one grouping, or at one stage in a group’s work, may be
the scribe or a silent appreciator in another group or at another stage
of the group’s work.
• What kinds of groupings do you use?
• How much do you vary them?
Gender and Talk

While it can be easy to slip into routines about who works with
whom, there are distinct advantages to varying groupings. One of
these is related to gender. The Ofsted report Boys and English noted
that ‘There were no obvious differences in the performance of boys
and girls in spoken English, although girls were sometimes more
reticent and took less part in class discussion. In low-attaining groups
in particular, boys dominated oral work. ’
There are obvious dangers in assuming that boys are noisy and
dominant and that girls are put into the shade. Not only can every
teacher find opposite examples, but it is unhelpful anyway to
stereotype behaviours too readily. Nevertheless, evidence does
suggest that it is worth paying attention to gender, particularly in
the oracy part of the curriculum.
There are two (at least) reasons for this in terms of teaching
speaking and listening. The first is that although the National
Curriculum focuses on the range and key skills within English, it is
clear that behaviours, attitudes and social practices about literacy
and oracy have an important impact on children’s future learning
potential.
If talk behaviour is unequally weighted towards any group, then
it needs to be carefully monitored and adjusted where necessary so
as not to impede learning. Second, although Ofsted found equal
performance between boys and girls in English, they do not comment
on the impact which dominant talk habits might have on the learning
opportunities in other subjects.
However, just noticing such practices and habits won’t make
them go away - and teachers themselves have found that even if
they are aware of different demands on them by boys and girls they
are not always able to balance them. A key feature for every
classroom is first of all to notice what is actually happening.
It is worth observing and listening to the pupils before thinking
about how you might want to alter things to ensure more or less
equal access to talk for all of them. This might mean talking with
colleagues and beginning to forge a policy about talk and gender; it
could mean some alteration in your own practices to avoid
stereotyping. It might be useful to discuss rules about using
equipment in the classroom - toys, a constructional materials or the
computer - or to discuss with the children their views about the

books on offer.
Other organisational strategies might be to look at the groupings
you use and make some adjustments. The following strategies for
inclusion apply equally well for any individual or group who are
‘silenced’ in the regular run of classroom activities.
Organising Groups for Talk
Single-sex grouping: This can be useful, particularly in areas where
boys might traditionally be seen to dominate, such as technology or
science. However, it is worth deliberately mixing groups at times
for these activities; this might be done at a second stage of the work
when the boys and girls have had a chance to develop some expertise
or knowledge which can be shared.
This strategy is also useful for a group of children who share
the same community language; they can work together first to
establish their knowledge, then change groups to share that
knowledge with others.
Organising roles within groups: Identifying a group chairperson,
a scribe, a listener/ reporter can be a very effective way of sharing
roles. Equally, giving specially assigned roles ensures that all have
a chance to contribute. This might also be a chance to subvert
traditional stereotyping by deliberately assigning specific roles to
particular individuals.
Listening triangles: In groups of three, children take on the roles
of speaker, questioner and note-maker. This can be done with almost
any activity but may need to be demonstrated first. The speaker
explains to the others about the topic decided on; the questioner
finds two areas which might need clarification or prompting for
further detail; the note-maker reports back briefly at the end. (It is
sometimes useful to give time limits, and to practise keeping to
them.) The next time round, the roles change and so on.
Group observers: One member of the group, using prompt
questions devised beforehand, acts as the observer to reflect back to
the group the way it has been working. The observer watches, listens
and notes as the group works. This information is then fed back to
the group to be discussed.
Pair building: One of the most automatic groupings in the
classroom is the idea of working with a partner. It is always useful
to build on children’s established ways of collaborative working, but

pairs can also be the basis for more extended mixing and varying
groups.
They might join up in fours or sixes according to the kinds of
science experiments they have been doing - to compare or contrast
findings; they might have been working on the same maths
investigation or have read similar books or poems. The content of
the mixed paired discussions can be managed by the teacher, of
course, deliberately to get children working together for particular
reasons.
Jigsawing: This will need careful explanation, tight timing and
management of resources. Home groups of about six pupils research
a topic over a specified period of time. The teacher decides on six
(or other appropriate number) areas within the topic which can be
researched with supporting materials. Each child is assigned a
particular area within the topic with the aim that he or she is to
become the expert in that area.
During the work of the Home groups, time is allocated for each
of the experts to share their findings with the whole group. Children
then re-form into Expert groups made up of all those from the Home
groups who had the same topic. After the Expert groups have met,
they return to their Home groups to recount the additional
information they have picked up and to plan any final display or
presentation for the whole class.
Envoying: This can ease the teacher’s load of always having to
be the expert and consultant. One member of the group may be sent
to the library, to another group, teacher or individual to find out or
check a particular fact, detail or procedure. It is wise to limit the
number of envoys to be sent on research jobs at any one time! An
envoy can also be sent to explain a group’s findings to another group.
There are, of course, many other ways in which groups can be
organised effectively. The key point is to consider the range and
extent of variation you want to provide over a specified period of
time. Once children get into the way of working with flexible
groupings, of course, the management can be much more relaxed.
The teacher’s role
When groups are working more independently in the classroom,
then the teacher is freed to be able to manage teaching and learning
in a more focused way. This is particularly true when it comes to

observation. When groups are engaged actively in their own work,
it is possible to target one group to observe for a few minutes.
This can give valuable information to feed forward into future
planning and can be the time when routine observations for termly
assessments of talk can take place. Another good opportunity for
observation and recording which can feed forward to assessment is
in work around the computer.
Information and communications technology needs to be
introduced into all aspects of work in the classroom. It is an ideal
way of promoting and developing explanatory, predictive and
hypothesising talk as well as encouraging negotiation and
collaborative practices.
Also, of course, it allows for individuals to find pleasure in their
own expertise. Computers provide very good opportunities for
children to work independently of the teacher and, although you
may need to manage the timetabling of use (and to monitor boy/girl
use), once routines have been established it can be a site for fruitful
observation of collaborative talk.
Word processing can give a chance for pupils to draft, revise,
edit and proofread writing together. Databases involve a great deal
of discussion about what should be entered and how it can best be
entered. CD-ROMs offer opportunities for explanations, questions
and the display of a pupil’s knowledge which the teacher may not
have known about. The discussions might not even have to take
place around the computer; work for databases can be discussed in
groups before entering the information on the machine, as in the
following example.
This group of Year 4/5 pupils have just read together The Iron
Man by Ted Hughes. As part of their normal classroom routine they
have been asked to review the book by completing a datafile sheet
at the computer.
After filling in details of title, author, publisher and illustrator,
the datafile asks them to respond to various aspects of the text such
as the narrative voice, the characters, the setting, when the story
takes place plus any themes and messages suggested in the text.
Here, the group of eight - two boys and six girls - are trying to decide
what the genre of the book is. A list of suggestions is on the screen
in front of them.
In this lively discussion, everyone joins in, sometimes all talking

at the same time:
Laura:... and the genre is...
Stacey: Genre... What’s the genre? Adventure?
Chloe: Fantasy.
Gillian: Horror.
Philip: I’m just taking time to think which is the best ‘cause we’re
arguing.
Gillian: Yes.
Tom: Right, what do you think?
Philip: I think probably... probably adventure or fantasy.
Chloe & Vicky: Adventure or fantasy... fantasy.
Stacey & Others: I think it should be science fiction ‘cause there
isn’t such a thing as an iron man.
Tom: Anything else?
Gillian: Adventure.
Laura & Vicky: Horror and fantasy.
Gillian: Fantasy.
Tom: I think it’s fantasy ‘cause it’s not real.
Vicky: Definitely adventure though.
Tom: It is a bit of horror because...
Vicky: It’s adventure, though.
Philip: Probably is... No I think it’s fantasy ‘cause it’s not real
there’s never been a monster of iron.
Stacey: Hey you guys we’re arguing again.
Philip: Fantasy probably.
Laura & Tom: Horror as well because of the Space Bat Angel.
Vicky: Definitely adventure though.
Laura: Mystery... mystery, why did it come down?
Philip: WHY did it come down?
Catherine: Yes, mystery.
Laura: Yeah, ‘cause why did it come down, we don’t know that.
Philip: Yeah we did ‘cause we read the book yes’ cause he heard
all the wars and things.
This discussion shows that taping discussion can be a very
informative experience - for pupils and teacher alike. While it may
not always be necessary to transcribe fragments, a transcript can
reveal aspects of pupils’ talk which might otherwise go unnoticed.
Silences can speak; for example, in this extract, why does Catherine
only speak once? Is this representative of her classroom talk pattern?
Some children, like Vicky, can emerge as tenacious. Philip gives
clear evidence of using talk to hypothesise; Gillian can be seen as a
summariser while Stacey shows understanding of the dynamics of
group work. There is much more, too, which might be drawn from
this brief transcript - and even more from a class where the teacher
knows the children well.
Reflecting on language
The group in the example above were asked to listen to the tape
and evaluate their own work. Their reflections show an
understanding of the purpose of group discussion for learning, how
experience helps improve talk and how thoughtful evaluation can
improve personal talk practices:
I think we worked well because everybody got to share their
ideas.
I think our group worked well because we weren’t nervous and
we’ve worked on the tape recorder before.
This time I wasn’t very bossy like I usually am.
Not only is it possible, through transcribing what children say,
to see that particular pupils show specific strengths, but transcripts
also allow for more general observations. Although the group say
they are arguing, they aren’t coming to blows; in fact, they are
arguing in the more ‘academic’ sense of the word. They are using
each other as sounding boards, speculating through talk, justifying
opinions and giving reasons for holding particular views.
They also show that they know what genre means; the teacher
will not need to go over that again. They are confident with each
other, make thoughtful responses to the text and their discussion
overall demonstrates that they have understood the book and that
reading it has given them pleasure. Taped evidence can give the
teacher proof of the effectiveness of learning activities.
Talking about a tape of a group’s work can be an effective way
of introducing some of the language awareness aspects of the
curriculum; such discussions often make explicit a great deal of the
children’s knowledge about language. Including the pupils where
possible also offers a chance to explain just what is going on as a
teacher lurks near the role play area, notebook in hand! Most
particularly, asking pupils to reflect on their talk can lead right back
to the important aspect of talk helping learning.
Talking about Talk
The following offers a list of ways in which children can be
encouraged to look very closely at language and to talk about it.
Talk diaries: Children can keep notebooks of talk where they write
down anything that they find interesting or important. This could
be about the ways in which they or anyone in the class has used
talk. If the teacher also keeps a talk diary, then this acts as a valuable
model of what might be recorded. Children might be guided to
research and write about family sayings or unusual words or to
collect playground songs or sayings.
Making tapes and transcribing: Children can make their own tapes
giving examples of different ways of talking or gathering opinions,
rhymes, stories or anecdotes. These might include taping family
members and are a good way to involve parents and carers in the
work which goes on in school. Some valuable libraries of taped
stories have been built up this way.
While listening to tapes of different types of talk draws attention
to the larger structures of talk texts, transcribing can be an effective
way of focusing on the smaller elements of the language - at sentence
and word level.
Children working together transcribing a fragment of paired or
group discussion can get involved in very detailed discussions about
language - particularly about how best to represent words in
standard or non-standard spellings and how to punctuate to capture
the sense of the texts.
Discussing attitudes to talk: An ambitious way of doing this can
be to have a tape exchange with a school in another geographical
area, specifically aimed at discussing regional differences in speech.
A more easily set up approach might be to develop a series of
questions about talk and variety, such as Can you speak more than
one language? Do you know any words in a different language? An
alternative approach might be to collect - and then discuss -
anecdotes which parents tell about pupils’ early sayings.
Talking about the media: Television, video and radio provide an

immediate and rich resource for research into language variety, types
of talk, registers, opinion versus fact - almost the whole speaking
and listening curriculum.
Children can be invited to express their own opinions about
programmes and also analyse some of the different ways people
speak according to the purpose of the talk text, the content or the
intended audience. This can lead into a whole range of drama and
role play activities based on programmes which are familiar.
Switching or combining programmes can also stretch children’s
talk repertoires and inventiveness - what about presenting the news
as the favourite soap opera? or making a documentary in the genre
of a pop music programme - a rap, perhaps?
Word focus: This can be organised to fit in with any area of the
curriculum. Children might collect and display words which are
relevant to a particular subject area; words with the same prefixes
or suffixes, or words which are opposites; people’s names and their
origins - the list is extensive. A few pre-produced word bubbles can
make an instant display which can then become a feature for
discussion and future ‘word searching’ activities.
Links between speaking and writing: Word activities can often lead
on to explicit discussion of the distinctions and similarities between
written and spoken forms of text. Pupils might make lists of types
of written texts and their spoken equivalents as well as being asked
to notice in the books they read the differences between narrative
and dialogue.
This provides a chance to introduce specific vocabulary about
language grammatical terms, descriptive terms like onomatopoeia
and assonance, for example, which are often fascinating to young
learners. Most importantly, it helps children develop a vocabulary
through which to talk about language.
Talk and Performance
Children’s comments on talk indicated that they felt that being
able to speak clearly, loudly and fluently is valued in school. The
other side of this coin is that children who are not assured in public
settings can feel diminished. This is a perennial problem which
teachers have to try to solve in classroom work. Whilst quite properly

wanting to encourage fluency in speech, there is the equal
responsibility to maintain the self-esteem of learners.
Traditional forms of performative speech do not always allow
teachers to balance the two requirements: a play performance or
individual readings in public can emphasise the assurance of some
children in contrast to others’ shyness. In order to find ways of
supporting the less and more eloquent alike, teachers have turned
to group work which ends in some kind of public presentation.
Drama (not plays), role play and poetry offer rich possibilities here.
With younger children (although this can work equally well with
older pupils) active storytelling offers a group activity which can be
organised to include everyone. This builds on the natural role play
which young children slip into very easily in the classroom.
Active storytelling involves the whole class (or a group if
appropriate) and begins with the teacher making it clear to the
children that they are going to make a story. This is important so
that the children are in control of the action and don’t become
alarmed at any point in the narrative as they become more immersed
in it.
Depending on the space available, the children will be able to
move about and enact the story, visiting places which are introduced
as the narrative unfolds.
The teacher’s role is central, taking on a role within the narrative
and stimulating the action by questions. The first one to ask is Where
is our story going to take place? The progression of the story will
depend on a variety of decisions made by the group. It might proceed
by the teacher asking Who are we going to meet? What will they say to
us? As the story progresses, different children can be asked to take
on different roles as characters. Since the teacher is guiding by asking
questions, the narrative can go anywhere.
Often active stories become journeys with a variety of
adventures, near-escapes and mishaps. The children can visit caves
and hilltops, or even fly on magic carpets. The land can become
rocky, slippery or made of jelly. Through careful intervention
(though not interference as this tends to block the children’s
engagement in the narrative) the teacher can make sure to include

all the children to the extent of their readiness to be involved and
there are immense opportunities for language development.
The teacher’s role allows the skilful involvement of even the least
assured children, who can be prompted by thoughtful questions to
take an active part. Many poems lend themselves to simple
performance. Pairs or groups of children can work on existing poems
or can make up their own, modelled on some of their favourites.
Children take naturally to parody and composing a mock version
of a poem cannot only offer the chance of public presentation from
the assured position of the author, but can stretch the children’s
knowledge of language, challenging them to find humorous
alternatives for existing versions.
They might be started off by reminders of the well-known
parody of ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star’ or of what they do to
Christmas carols or in playground versions of known songs and
rhymes. As long as the warnings about keeping within the bounds
of decency are maintained, the presentation of different versions can
be very enjoyable and certainly valuable for language development
- both in terms of performance and in content.
With already published poems children can take parts to enact
dialogue, take a section of the poem in pairs and learn or prepare it
for group presentation (this works well with cumulative rhymes such
as ‘I know an old lady who swallowed a fly’), ask and answer
questions, for example in the nursery rhyme ‘Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat’,
provide background sounds for atmospheric poems, or mime actions
while others speak the poem.
The rhythms of poetry give children a supportive framework
for remembering the words and encourage more adventurous
intonation and expression. It is always a good idea to allow rehearsal
time and have a few runs through before expecting a polished
performance, although work on a poem need not always lead to
this.
More serious presentations can be made of narrative poetry, and
extracts from Shakespeare are ideal for introducing children to more
public presentations of poetic language in the securely rehearsed
context of a group or pair performance.
Observing, Recording and Reporting Progress in Talk

There are perhaps more everyday opportunities for observation
and assessment than might at first be obvious - during PE, science
activities, school visits, paired reading activities. Teachers
automatically make informal assessments in a range of social and
learning situations and jotting down ‘significant moments’ can help
to build a fuller picture of an individual’s progress with speaking
and listening.
Assessment enters at all stages of the planning-teaching-
evaluating cycle. Throughout the process of teaching and learning,
observing, assessing, recording and reporting can offer a range of
benefits. Observation and assessment of talk can:
• Reveal what pupils are thinking about and how they are thinking
• Give information about learning across subject areas
• Provide insights into what pupils understand - or misunderstand -
about the task, concept or information under discussion
• Offer a more complete and representative picture of a child’s
attainment than assessments based only in reading or writing
• Be an equaliser, showing surprising quality and sensitivity of thinking
from children who may otherwise be considered to be failing
• Help teachers become more aware of their own use of language and
the positive and negative effects of intervention
• Give status in the eyes of children, colleagues and parents to a
traditionally undervalued form of communication
• Enable the keeping of careful records to identify progress and inform
future planning
• Provide evidence for reporting to parents; for summary reports and
for assigning National Curriculum levels of Attainment.
Compiling Records
The aim of any recording system is to build up a gradual picture
of a child’s repertoire and, because talk is ephemeral and the way in
which people speak or listen varies, observations have to be like
snapshots, building a picture of any developing speaker/listener over
a period of time.
A starting point would be to make a few initial observations,
deciding on who to watch or listen to - this may be one child or a
group of children; deciding how long the observation will last - five
minutes or for a sustained period - and deciding when to carry out
observations - at the beginning, middle or end of a lesson or
throughout the process of an activity.
Children should be made aware that someone will be listening

to them and taking notes about their speaking and listening. In the
main, there will be three aspects of observing and recording:
• Informal jotted observations
• Brief transcripts of tape-recorded talk
• More formal record sheets.
All of these might be kept in the pupil’s portfolio or record of
achievement. Organising for observations over a set period of time
needs to capture the individual using a variety of talk texts in
different contexts. Individual observers will have their own preferred
methods - notebooks, file cards, post-it notes, clip boards.
The frequency of observations will also depend on the
arrangements and possibilities of the particular classroom. After
making observation notes, the teacher will filter these and decide
on significant moments which will count as evidence of a particular
aspect of the talk repertoire to be noted on the Record of Evidence.
Notes need to include details of the grouping, what is seen and
heard - either the gist of what was said in continuous prose or the
actual words spoken, together with a date and a short description
of the task.
A notebook entry of pupils working on paired story-making
might record interesting use of vocabulary, memory of a told story,
enjoyment of the task, and it might also reveal that in one kind of
pairing a pupil shows greater assurance than in another. Any one
of those might be considered sufficiently significant to be captured
as a snapshot of development on the more formal record sheet. Even
a very short transcript can provide evidence which might otherwise
go unnoticed.
Assessing Talk
Assessments of children’s talk can serve two (at least) purposes:
• Assessing experience and assurance of talk in different contexts
• Assessing what has been learned in any curriculum area through talk
in different contexts.
This means that it is possible to make assessments of both kinds
during any curriculum activity. But the distinction between the two
is important. A child who feels confident with her or his knowledge
in a particular area is more likely to be fluent, at ease, capable of
communicating information, making explanations or being
persuasive, than a child who has no particular expertise in that area.
On the other hand, a child might know a great deal yet not wish
to voice that knowledge publicly, or show the ability to use particular
talk strategies on any given occasion. It is important to record what
children can do - not what they can’t - and they will only show their
experience and assurance if they are provided with learning contexts
which allow for this.
This raises the important issue of the role of the teacher when
making assessments of speaking and listening: children will only be
able to provide evidence of learning what the teacher makes it
possible for them to learn and demonstrate that they know.
Of course, children bring significant knowledge into the
classroom with them - knowledge of facts; knowledge of how to
use talk for particular purposes; knowledge drawn from the
experience of belonging to particular families and cultural groups.
They also bring their individual preferences and characteristics into
the classroom and that might include preferring to wait before
voicing opinions, or vocalising throughout every activity. The
teacher’s role is to provide opportunities for a range of experiences
for all the speakers and listeners in the class.
Timetabling Observations
Records and assessments need to be useful and informative,
otherwise they simply take up valuable teacher time and space!
When observing and recording progress, an important principle is
to be honest and realistic about what can be achieved.
The endpoint of observing and recording is to be able to make
fair assessments at the end of the year or Key Stage. Making a termly
timetable of observations helps. Organising for observing one group
of children - say five or six - during any one week or fortnight works
well.
After the first term, specific areas may become a focus for future
records of progress. In the third term, observations lead to
summative assessments which carry through to the following year
and are also useful for discussion with parents.
Whether the observation time for each group of children is a
week or a fortnight, it will be necessary to look at plans for teaching
in order to ensure some coverage of contexts and learning
opportunities, for example groupings, types of task, familiarity with
the task, previous experience and language preference where
relevant.
Observations will also cover Range and Key Skills and some
elements of language awareness (Standard English and Language
Study in the National Curriculum). In addition to these will be notes
on fluency and assurance, including the choices made by speakers
in different contexts and taking into account diversity - gender,
language difficulties or disorders, cultural factors influencing ways
of speaking and listening.
An important element of being realistic about what can be
achieved is to focus on particular aspects, not to imagine that it will
be possible to cover a wide variety of these. Trying to do too much
will not give helpful information.
For example, a storytelling observation might focus specifically
on fluency, narrative organisation and the vocabulary of story whilst
a tape of a discussion might be analysed in terms of the kinds of
contributions a particular child makes - asking questions, changing
views according to what others have said. The key to managing
observations lies in being selective.
Children Who Experience Difficulty with
Speaking and Listening
Many of the problems which present themselves as part of
speaking and listening may not be properly to do with the
development of a child’s talk repertoire. Difficulties linked to oracy
might well be related to behaviour or emotional causes. Nevertheless,
since the individual control and extension of oracy affects learning
throughout the curriculum, the behaviours accompanying talk - for
example, uncontrolled volubility - may well become causes for
concern and it is important to act on them for the sake of the
individual and the group.
Dealing with problems associated with talk raises some tricky
issues, however.
As outlined earlier, the way we speak is closely bound up with
our personal and cultural identity, so that when a teacher wants to
tackle a cause for concern in the area of speaking and listening, it
needs very sensitive handling. While maintaining cultural and
personal courtesy, some aspects of a child’s talk repertoire may need
attention.
A common cause for concern is the child who does not seem to
contribute much orally in any circumstances. This is difficult, since
any teacher would want to respect the pupil’s right to her or his
own personality and if the child is naturally reflective and diffident,
then this needs to be valued.
However, a decision may need to be taken about the point at
which this reserve is likely to affect the child’s learning. This is where
close observation and consultations with parents come into their
own. A child may seem not to be relating socially to the other
children yet reveal on systematic observation some solid and
companionable collaborations with others. Or, a child may seem very
quiet at school yet boisterous at home.
Identification
A very good reason for careful identification is the effect that
hearing loss, whether it is intermittent or permanent, can have on
behaviour. It is estimated that up to 20 per cent of children may
suffer from middle ear problems in their primary years; these are
most frequently conductive hearing loss because of fluid in the
middle ear which prevents the ear-drum and ossicles vibrating in
response to sound waves.
One manifestation of conductive hearing loss is often called ‘glue
ear’. These problems are different from sensori-neural hearing loss,
which is permanent and usually rather more severe in its impairment.
A child who has sensori-neural hearing loss may also, of course, be
subject to additional conductive deafness through infection.
Although school medical services and general practitioners might
be able to detect some individual cases of hearing loss, the
intermittent nature of conductive deafness often means that there
are children whose hearing loss may go undetected until there are
some other - often learning - difficulties. One important identification
procedure is to make some initial observations to check a child’s
hearing.
A child suffering from hearing loss may show some of the
following:
• Ability to hear noticeably worse during and after a cold
• Becoming easily tired
• Not responding when called from behind
• Showing untypical aggression or irritability

• Speaking very softly, sometimes with nasal sound
• Tendency to shout and be noisy without being aware of it
• Indistinct speech, perhaps missing final consonants in speech
• Apparently day-dreaming, or not concentrating particularly at
listening times
• Unsure about instructions
• Seeking individual help much more frequently than others/than usual
• Acting on some requests or instructions and not others.
At the stage of identification of a potential problem with hearing
or speech behaviours, both health records and conversations with
parents may reveal important information. An initial consultation
with parents might also help in setting up an observation schedule
at home and at school.
When a child sees parents or carers and teachers working
together, particularly if the child is involved at some stage in the
discussions, it is likely to give greater confidence and security - or
warning! - that the problem is being seriously tackled.
Observing Children Who Experience Difficulties
The schedule of observation may need to be over several weeks
and will certainly need to take place during a range of classroom
and school activities. Frances Lockwood, herself a teacher who has
hearing impairment, stresses the effects of hearing loss in school:
‘Isolation in a learning environment is the quickest way to demotivate
a child, giving opportunity for a valid excuse to find distraction’.
She points out that good organisation for learning will
necessarily support children who experience permanent, intermittent
or temporary hearing loss. She stresses, however, that the whole
school environment can be difficult for a child experiencing hearing
impairment:
The classroom is only one area of the school in which the child
is expected to learn. The library (how difficult to understand
whispered instructions on how to find the coveted book; how
distressing to whisper back without hearing the sound of your own
voice!), playing field (the wind and a hearing aid are sworn enemies
with painful effects!), and hall (I don’t think I have ever understood
what assemblies are for!) are all taxing on the hearing impaired
child’s listening skills.
Classroom noises might seem innocent enough, but placing a

tape recorder by a hearing aid wearer will demonstrate on playback
just what is being amplified.
Diagnosis
Step 1: Focused observation
Observations need to be carried out in a variety of settings,
during classroom learning, physical and creative activities and at
playtimes. The observation record sheet in Fig. 4.12 summarises the
range of talk texts, contexts and behaviours which need to be
observed over a period of time. The kind of evidence used for
diagnosis is also relevant, since talk is fleeting. This sheet would be
completed during a period of focused observation and used to
complete a full screening record.
The rigour of this type of observation schedule matches the
diagnostic rigour of a miscue for reading or writing. It is sensible to
have more than one person observing the child over this period of
time, since talk behaviour is often a reflection of the person with
whom we are talking. Although the observer may not directly
interact with a child during an observation period, there may be
personal dynamics which influence the child’s behaviour.
A systematic observation schedule might be organised like this:
• Identify two or three colleagues - class teacher, SENCO, lunchtime
supervisor/ teaching assistant - who will carry out observations.
• Involve the parents at this stage if it seems useful to them, the child
and to you.
• Agree on the contexts in which you will observe the child - avoid
duplication if you can.
• Decide on the time scale for covering a range of situations, groupings
and areas of the school.
• Discuss the kinds of evidence each of you will be able to provide -
try to arrange for some taped material as well as notes.
• Agree on a time for review of evidence so far (a fortnight, perhaps).
Once you have collected this initial evidence, meet again to
discuss what the picture seems to be. At this stage you may want to
carry out some rather more focused observations to confirm ideas
for which you don’t yet have enough evidence. If you think you
have enough evidence the next stage is to decide what action will
be taken and what targets set. This will involve a meeting with the
child herself or himself and the parents. At this stage you would
complete most of the screening Record of Evidence and fix a time
for further review.
Step 2: Taking action
Careful observation will lead to greater information and so help
in the process of deciding what action to take. If the problem seems
to be medical or physical, then there may be some practical
rearrangements which can be made quite quickly while further
professional help is being sought. The best advice for general
classroom practice is to make sure that children with hearing loss
are facing the teacher, within two metres of their usual vocal range,
and that the teacher uses natural rhythms of speech and volume.
Sometimes, ‘peer adoption’ can be helpful so long as it is not
bossy or intrusive; a helpful (hearing) friend can interpret or explain
for those children who find gaining access to instructions difficult;
this may not be those with hearing loss, of course, but children who
experience other difficulties.
Often, the everyday provision in the classroom for a variety of
learning styles can be the most effective way of ensuring access to
the talk curriculum for all pupils. Tape recording opportunities,
private and shared; talk around the computer; mixed- and single-
sex groupings; visual approaches to activities; tasks which allow for
different paces; chances for uninterrupted conversations with an
adult; role play and spontaneous play - all of these can effectively
support a range of learning needs related to speaking and listening.
Sometimes, however, focused observation identifies difficulties
which the school alone, or even the school with parental support,
cannot provide for. There are children, for example, who have
disorders which impair their learning. There may be children who
have cognitive disorders which prevent processing of spoken texts.
Children who seem not to respond to the usual efforts of the class
teacher and parents after careful and sensitive observation may well
need referring for experienced professional diagnosis.
This needs to be done as soon as possible - another reason why
rigorous and systematic observations are necessary. Whilst there may
be reluctance to label children, if an individual child seems to need
specialised help, then the stages of referral need to be activated
quickly. Review after an appropriate period of time should lead to

decisions about when or whether to call in other support agencies.
Describing Progress in Speaking and Listening
Since talk is the everyday currency of the classroom, it is
sometimes difficult to describe progress accurately. Changes can be
almost imperceptible in the daily conversations and classroom
exchanges. Talk is closely bound up with personal qualities: some
people are more garrulous - or reflective - than others.
It is rather too easy to judge the individual child rather than
judging the child’s ability to use speaking and listening effectively
and sometimes our perceptions of a child’s behaviour can stand in
the way of accurate assessment.
Also, talk can only be assessed when it is heard. This can skew
judgements in favour of the apparently confident child who speaks
(and listens) readily. To combat these difficulties teachers need to
establish their own confident judgements about describing progress.
This involves developing a vocabulary through which to describe
children’s competence in tackling the range of talk texts, contexts
and activities which build towards fluency and assurance as a
speaker and listener.
The Scale of Progression
The scale is the result of discussions with teachers who wanted
to establish record keeping systems which supplement National
Curriculum level descriptors. Most particularly, they wanted
statements which describe the child’s progress rather than a set of
statements about what should have been taught. The Scale of
Progression reflects what teachers might expect to see as children
develop experience and assurance in talk.
It is best seen as a basis for discussion with colleagues and, since
the descriptors may not always reflect particular school
circumstances, is intended to be open to adaptation. The sections
have been paralleled with National Curriculum levels as a guide,
but not as a programme of learning.
They are not fixed categories and there is likely to be some
overlap, with any individual pupil showing competence in areas in
two sections. For example, in October, Kelly demonstrated all the
features of section C and some of D. By June of the following year
her teacher recorded her as firmly fulfilling all of section D. In

National Curriculum terms she had certainly progressed from Level
3 to Level 4 and was well on the way to Level 5. Using the scales
and keeping records had given her teacher a sense of where to focus
to help Kelly improve.
Making progress towards fluent, assured and independent oracy
begins at home. Children will enter their first nursery or school
environment with greater awareness, and usually greater experience,
of the spoken word than they usually bring about writing or reading.
The descriptions in section A of the Scale of Progression include
some which most children will have achieved before they come to
school. Since there are, however, a few children whose spoken
language has not developed as fast as others’, or who might have
language disorders, the descriptive statements in A are intended to
help describe progress from very inexperienced beginnings.
The National Curriculum Exemplification of Standards in
Speaking and Listening at Key Stages 1 and 2 gives broad lines of
progression in the NC level descriptions as: confidence in adapting
talk, using standard English when appropriate; listening with
understanding; participation in discussion. The statements in the
Scale of Progression are loosely grouped according to these areas,
but include other aspects of talk experience as well. The descriptions
within each section are not hierarchically arranged.
Generally, these statements are meant to be neither all-inclusive
nor exclusive, but to indicate the experience of teachers as they have
paid close attention to their pupils’ speaking and listening. The use
of the scale is intended to be a matter of adaptation and variation.
Becoming an Experienced Speaker and
Listener - Scale of Progression
Approximation to NC Levels
A Beginner speaker/listener:
• Indicates a range of simple needs using a range of methods of
communication
• Anticipates a known pattern in a familiar or repetitive story
• Communicates enjoyment of familiar stories read aloud to a group/
individual
• Uses simple rhythms (e.g. clapping the syllables of own name)
• Shows understanding of the difference between role play and real
life
• Understands an instruction to carry a message and returns with an

answer (written, verbal or signed; a single word is appropriate)
• Answers simple questions about themselves
• Listens to teacher instructions in a one-to-one situation when asked
to do so
• Joins in familiar action songs/rhymes in a group situation.
Moving towards Level 1
B A speaker/listener who is gaining experience:
• Tells a story from given pictures and picture books in a simple
sequence
• Plays in role for lengthy periods
• Talks about parts of books read and enjoyed
• Conveys a simple or familiar message or a written message which
requires remembering a straightforward verbal answer
• Remembers, tells and answers questions about an area of personal
knowledge or experience
• Listens to teacher instructions when asked to
• Asks for things or gets friends to ask
• Uses rhythmic/rhymed patterns to help read aloud
• Joins in a whole class group story led by the teacher
• Talks with others spontaneously (during play, for example) but might
not genuinely converse
• Begins to ask other people questions.
Level 1 to Level 2
C A more assured speaker/listener, growing in experience:
• Tells a story from own pictures or recounts an event with a beginning,
middle and end
• Structures situations in role play activities
• Joins in a whole class/group story without adult prompting
• Conveys a verbal message and brings a verbal reply independently
• Listens to instructions without being reminded
• Remembers, and tells in sequence, an event of personal significance
• Shows a sense of audience - waiting for quiet, speaking to be heard
• Talks with enthusiasm/conviction about books read, commenting
beyond the literal
• Creates a rhythm and notices rhyme when reading aloud
• Explains own work to another (adult)
• Asks own questions in response to other people’s ideas
• Gives reasons for opinions in discussion
• Listens and responds in conversation with a friend
• Discusses familiar issues (e.g. classroom rules) with a known
group.
Level 2 to Level 3
D A more experienced speaker/listener:
• Explains an extended storyboard sequence
• Asks and responds to questions with some assurance
• Makes up questionnaires or questions
• Gives attention to rhyme and rhythm in discussion and performance
• Explains personal preferences for reading material
• Retells events selecting significant points with detail for a group/class
audience
• Uses different forms of talk for different people (e.g. teacher, friend,
doctor, visitor) and different situations (inc. use of standard English)
• Uses different and specific language and registers and/or vocabulary
relating to interests or activities
• With support or collaboration, presents and explains work/ideas to a
large audience (e.g. assembly)
• Copes (verbally) with peers who present awkward behaviour in
discussion groups
• Listens to and is tolerant of others’ points of view
• Has an established concept of turn-taking (even if not always doing
it)
• Organises group activities and delegates tasks.
to Level 5
E An experienced speaker/listener:
• Explains ideas/tells stories in clear sequence
• Ealks about own work and partner’s or collaborative work, using
specific vocabulary and giving adequate explanation and reasons
• Re-tells someone else’s ideas accurately
• Uses role play to create different characters, genres, situations and
talk about how and why (inc. use of standard English)
• Gives opinions about experiences, things known or learned about
• Discusses books (films, TV, video, poetry) giving reasons for choice,
enjoyment or dissatisfaction
• Talks about dialect, languages, rhythm and rhyme
• Gives a sustained talk to the class/group
• Acts as enabler as well as contributor in group discussion
• Debates and discusses ideas found in research materials
• Makes appropriate and relevant (brief) comments in large group/
whole class discussion
• Shows empathy with others’ points of view
• Indicates awareness of others’ conversational needs.
Level 6 to Level 7
F A very experienced speaker/listener:
• Makes sustained (or brief, as appropriate) contributions to large

group/whole class discussions
• Confidently (or apparently so) initiates questions and makes
contributions or offers opinions in a range of contexts
• Describes, presents and evaluates a piece of work or activity to a
group
• Takes on character, creates atmosphere, sustains suspense in drama/
role play
• Varies tone and formality according to context and subject (inc. use
of standard English)
• Discusses literature, music, ideas with balance and conviction
• Listens actively and attentively, responding perceptively to ideas
• Understands complex ideas presented orally (e.g. when read aloud
or in a lecture) and shows this understanding in the responses made
• Initiates and leads discussion, extending and elaborating on others’
ideas when necessary
• Engages in discussion as a contributor and listens autonomously
without reminders about turn-taking
• Empathises and sees the points of view of others and articulates them
in a range of settings (familiar/unfamiliar, pairs/groups/whole class;
with peers/adults; known/unknown).
The Progress of Bilingual or Multilingual Learners

One important point to be made here, of course, is that any of
the descriptive statements can apply to a child’s home or preferred
language. This is critically important in the early years, or for children
who enter school later with little or no experience of English.
Whilst the National Curriculum suggests that teachers should
begin to assume spoken standard English at around Level 4 of the
National Curriculum, it is still possible for speakers of languages
other than English to be assessed as speakers and listeners in their
preferred language by another speaker of that language.
This is particularly relevant when one bears in mind that
assessing talk is often bound up with assessing what pupils show
they know about other subjects through talk. Language support
teachers, parents, community leaders and siblings can play an
important part here. The descriptors allow anyone (including the
pupils at times) to consider how the statements describe what an
individual can do in speaking and listening.
Evaluating Talk and Using Talk to Evaluate
Much of the process of education consists of being able to
distance oneself in some way from what one knows by being able
to reflect on one’s knowledge.
Jerome Bruner succinctly points to the value of reflection as a

means of realising - ‘making real’ and ‘understanding’ - what we
know. Talk, of course, is an invaluable way of doing this; talking
things over with a friend can so often result in clarifying a problem,
not necessarily because the friend has offered solutions but that the
very act of externalising our thoughts and feelings helps us to make
decisions and come to realise what we already think.
This use of talk for reflecting on and acknowledging new
understanding becomes even more powerful when the subject matter
of the learning is language itself. Talking about talk can open up
new areas of possibility for future learning. Pupils’ knowledge of
language is deepened and extended by discussion and analysis of
their own use of language.
One of the greatest strengths of increased attention to children’s
talk is the opportunity for greater awareness of the ways in which
language is structured. One way of saving time when observing and
assessing is to involve the pupils themselves. Apart from the
pragmatic matter of sharing the load, it is useful to the children to
contribute to observations, records and assessments.
Such opportunities give them a chance to stand back and look
at their own learning whilst discussions with the teacher about the
observations help pupils to develop a vocabulary with which they
can comment on their own talk and their own learning. The use of a
few pointers before an activity, for example: When you listen to each
other, think about the organisation of what your partner is saying - is the
opening clear, does the ending sum up ideas? cannot only help the
children respond helpfully and clearly to each other, but gives them
some pointers about how talk texts are put together.
Guide questions about Talking Together and Learning Together
not only consolidate learning for the pupils but reveal to the teacher
where any gaps need to be filled or where everyone can be assured
that a particular aspect of teaching and learning has been successful.
Taking it Further - Parents and Talk
Because talk is taken for granted as part of everyday life, its role
in learning can sometimes be misunderstood. When children are
asked What did you do at school today? it is not unusual for them to
reply Oh we just talked, suggesting that talk is not work. This can be
one area where parents might need reassurance, particularly if their
own experience of school is of silent (or supposedly silent)

classrooms.
Meetings and curriculum discussions in school can allay some
fears and explain school practices but not all parents can manage to
get into school and some find the idea of curriculum discussions
daunting, fearing perhaps that they might have to speak. In meetings
with parents in the early years, they can be asked to recall some of
their children’s sayings or the songs, rhymes and stories the children
like to repeat.
This information is very valuable for Baseline assessments. As
children grow older, however, the fact that talk is taken for granted
may mean that the only contact with parents over a child’s
development in speaking and listening happens when there are
difficulties. It is rare for schools to hold meetings at Key Stage 2 to
talk about talk; the most common public meetings relating to oracy
are performances of school plays, celebrations and concerts.
Throughout this chapter it has been emphasised that the way
we talk is very much bound up with the way we feel about ourselves;
other people’s negative attitudes can be very damaging. It is
important to encourage parents to feel confident about their
children’s development in speaking and listening and to explain the
value and importance of talk and language study. This is particularly
critical if families speak languages other than English.
Parents need to be reassured about school attitudes to
community languages as well as all parents being made to feel
valued for their own - and their children’s - ways of speaking. Whilst
conveying the value given to home uses of language, however, the
school has also to signal that standard forms of English are covered
in the curriculum.
One of the most effective and low-key ways of doing this is by
asking for help from home.
• Parents and families might be asked to help children answer language
study questionnaires about their own family language histories and
to contribute dialect or regional words and sayings.
• All families have favourite reminiscences about children’s amusing
sayings. Children might be asked to gather some of these, whilst
having the right to veto any that they don’t want disclosed!
• Parents, brothers, sisters, grandparents, aunts, uncles might be asked
to make tapes of story books to be put in the reading area or if they
are storytellers themselves, to make tapes of told stories. This can be

particularly valuable if the family speaks another language or has a
distinctive dialect.
• Nursery rhyme collecting often draws on a range of buried
knowledge. Children studying traditional rhymes might be asked to
gather as many titles as they can by asking for their parents’ help.
• Some parents might be involved in public speaking of different kinds
- at places of worship or in their jobs. They might be asked to come
in and tell the children how they prepare for public occasions.
• Children’s surveys of the range of talk contexts they encounter during
a day can explicitly involve parents, too. The class might draw up a
chart of the purposes, audiences and contexts for talk which they
meet in a day at home (over the weekend, perhaps) and in a day at
school. Taking home a survey questionnaire can signal to parents
the variety of talk opportunities they offer to the children.
• Many parents work outside the home. They might be asked to
contribute to a similar survey of the kinds of talk experienced in the
workplace.
• Television and video are often a focus for family gatherings. If
children are asked to list the number of different accents or dialects
they hear during an evening’s television viewing or to focus on the
language of a few television advertisements, families are bound to
be drawn in and encouraged to see the value of language diversity.
• Similarly, a close study of weather forecasters’ or news presenters’
language contrasted with the dialogue of a soap opera can be a clear
signal about the importance of being able to switch between standard
and non-standard forms. Or a close study of apparently standard
forms might reveal greater diversity than might be imagined.
Chapter 14
Reading and the English Language
INTERRELATIONSHIP
Reading is one segment of the group of interrelated skills called
the language arts in elementary schools and sometimes in junior high
schools but commonly called English in senior high schools. The
National Council of Teachers of English, through its Curriculum
Commission has defined the areas thus: “... the four facets of
language communication [are] speaking, listening, reading, and
writing”. These divisions are for analysis only; actually the areas
are integrated and merged. “Mastery of the arts of communication
occurs in situations in which several or all of the phases of language
are present”. Curriculums and classroom methods recognize this
unity in function of the language arts.
“Activities in which children make normal use of all of the
elements of the language arts in attacking problems related to their
daily life together are increasingly common in American schools”.
And again, “It should be pointed out... that very rarely does one of
the language arts function independently of the others”.
A child grows and matures both physically and mentally.
Modern education is aware of the close relationship between these
parallel growths and, in theory and practice, makes use of this
knowledge of the child. In discussing the growth of the child in
language power, the National Council of Teachers of English states
two principles: “The first is the principle that development of
language power is an integral part of the total pattern of the child’s
growth.... The second principle is the need for developing language
power in the social situation in which it is used....
Often, perhaps normally, when language is used skilfully, it is
in a human situation in which the responses tend to be spontaneous
rather than studied, and some emotion is present.” Growth in

language, therefore, is very closely related to the child’s total growth
both as an individual and as a member of society.
“In the schools of a democracy the programme in the language
arts must... help the individual student to grow into the fullness of
his personal stature and to play a responsible part in the group life.”
From a survey of the reports of research and experience, two
major premises may be drawn: first, that growth in the language
arts is intimately related to physical, mental, emotional, and social
growth of the individual student. Patterns of instruction in the
language arts will be the more effective as all phases of growth are
understood and used, not only as norms of advancement in groups
of children but also with a full appreciation of the individual
differences in significant aspects of the growth of a particular child
at any point in age.
Advancement of children in the language arts will rest not only
upon the skill of the teacher in selecting appropriate techniques but
also upon the teacher’s recognition of the growth of individual
children physically, mentally, emotionally, and socially.
Familiarity with the norms and ranges of these individual
growths will enable the teacher to help each child attain a more
uniform growth than might otherwise occur and to relate the
elements of instruction of the language arts to the growth pattern of
each individual child.
The second major premise is that just as a child varies from other
children in his relative advancement in physical, mental, emotional,
and social factors, so does he also vary in his advancement in the
four segments of growth in the language arts: listening, reading,
speaking, and writing.
Everyone is familiar with a bright, quick, intelligent child who
is seriously retarded in reading and who does not appear to depend
upon careful eye-and-ear word association to get context; and his
opposite, the slow, plodding child of moderate attainments who by
concentration upon the task of the moment succeeds beyond
ordinary expectation.
The listening skills and habits of the first child may be his chief
resource and may compensate for a time for his poor reading. The
second child will read competently but may be almost inarticulate

in speaking situations. These natural and characteristic circumstances
point to the importance of the interdependence of the segments of
the language arts and the obligation to advance the student in each
segment so far as is possible.
Because of the importance of reading in the programme of
primary education, and because of the highly organized plans of
instruction, aided by sufficient teaching materials designed for
reading as a skill in itself, there is a tendency in some current
curriculum organizations to isolate reading from the other segments
of the language arts in the early grades.
Authorities are not fully in agreement concerning the degree to
which reading may be isolated, but some assert strongly the values
of its integration with listening, speaking, and writing. On the other
hand, some language-arts skills, such as spelling, are frequently
taught in separate periods, though they are related to and practiced
in the other language arts.
This chapter will emphasize reading as one closely related
segment of a group of skills called the language arts and will attempt
to demonstrate the contributions of listening, speaking, and writing
to the advancement of skill in reading and to the more uniform
growth of the child in the language arts. To begin, a glance at the
most recent research in the language arts bearing on the problem of
reading instruction will be useful. There are defenders of the practice
of teaching reading as a part of a whole context of experience.
By this procedure the child is led to participate in an experience
of high interest to him; he talks about it and shares views with others;
he listens to the expressions of others about the subject; with help
he writes a personal statement about the experience, and he then
reads what he has written and what his fellow pupils have written.
In this type of teaching, the integration of the language arts
provides both motivation and technique. So completely interwoven
are the skills of listening, speaking, writing, and reading that the
child is unaware of any division among them; they are to him parts
of a whole experience. The claims made for this method are
challenged by those who favour individualized reading.
THE TEACHING OF READING
Toward the latter half of the nineteenth century, the intensive
study of languages founded a science of linguistics, with particular
emphasis in the western world upon the study of those languages

proved to have had a common origin and which were designated
as the Indo-European family of languages.
The study of characteristics of a group of languages deriving
from a common source, together with an understanding of the
reasons for the differences among them, established some fresh
viewpoints about language in general, and English in particular,
which are gradually making their way into common knowledge and
are influencing the pedagogy of language.
Basic concepts evolved by linguists from research into the nature
and functions of the English language, so far as they affect the
teaching of English, have been summarized by the Curriculum
Commission of the National Council of Teachers of English as
follows:
1. Language changes constantly.
2. Change is normal.
3. Spoken language is the “language”; the source of
observation and research.
4. Correctness rests upon usage.
5. All usage is relative.
The effect of these hypotheses or principles is to direct the
attention of teachers and students toward the observation of
language in use. Whereas formerly problems of correctness and
usage were largely settled by reference to “authorities,” they are now
answered by investigation into the ways of English as it is currently
used.
Literature, past and present, drawn from a wide range of subjects
offers evidence of language in action. At a later point in this chapter
it will be shown how knowledge of language contributes to effective
reading. The intent of this section is to show how scholarship in
linguistics can contribute to the advancement of all the language arts
and particularly the art of reading.
English Usage
Between 1925 and 1935 linguistic scholars studied actual usage
in relation to the rules of right and wrong found in textbooks. Fries
exhibited the discrepancy between rule and practice; Leonard
analyzed the factors of eighteenth-century theory and practice which
established so many doubtful rules, and Pooley demonstrated the
carrying down of these rules and prescriptive regulations from the
eighteenth century into the textbooks currently in use in elementary,

secondary, and college classes.
The outcome of this research was to modify greatly the restrictive
rules of English usage and to provide a relative rather than positive
viewpoint toward it. Most of these changes in attitude bear more
directly upon speaking and writing than upon reading, but one
outcome of the research has value for reading instruction. This is
the concept of levels of language use.
In brief, this is the principle that language use varies as a result
of the social settings within which the use occurs, and that all
judgments of language use must, in each linguistic act, take into
account the purpose of the speaker, the nature of the situation, and
the needs of the listener.
Language is thus seen to be something not external to, or
additional to, situations in life experience but inextricably interwoven
into the experience as a part of the total behaviour of individuals in
the given situations. A communication is governed not only by the
meaning of the words used but also the intention or purpose of the
communicator, plus the emotional drive which gives a tone to the
communication.
A reader so trained can interpret communication with an insight
far more penetrating than one untrained. The concept of levels also
supports the validity of the inclusion of dialect and substandard
language in reading materials. Parents often ask, “Why, if you are
teaching my child to use good English, do you assign stories by Mark
Twain, Ring Lardner, Ernest Hemingway, and others, in which the
languages used by the characters is atrociously bad?”
If there were but one kind of language, to be used always in
every situation, and all other language were intolerable, then this
criticism might have weight. But language use varies widely; even
what is “correct” lies within a broad band of tolerance; and that
which is not “correct” is, after all, language commonly in use. If the
concept of levels is valid, we should learn to teach students how to
be sensitive to language, gauging its fitness and tone against patterns
of human behaviour rather than against arbitrary rules.
The full significance of the concept is not yet generally
understood by teachers, so that a large number of students are
directed to control their language by arbitrary, and sometimes
invalid, rules; thus, they lack the insight into the varieties of language,
as found in reading, which a relative concept of correctness could

give them. Linguistic science points to language as behaviour
understandable only in the totality of the situations in which it occurs.
Phonetics
When linguistic scholars turned their attention to the sounds of
languages, and particularly of those languages within a common
family of languages, they derived two principles of great importance
to the teaching of English. The first is that the sounds of a language
are subject to change, and the varieties of sound pattern of the same
word in related languages are the result of parallel but different
sound changes.
For example, different as they may appear and sound, the
following are all descendants of a common word-ancestor: Greek
odons, Latin dentis, French dent, German zahn, English tooth. Every
sound variation can be accounted for in demonstrable evolution. This
concept has important contributions to make to the varieties of sound
in words to be found in geographical and cultural dialect areas of
modern English and, hence, in the treatment of varieties of
pronunciation of common words in reading.
For example, the common word farm as pronounced in New
England, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Utah presents a wide variety of
vowel sounds, all of which are “correct.” On the other hand, there
are variant pronunciations of theater and just which, for valid reasons,
are not “correct.” The teacher of reading, to be sound and
constructive in dealing with pronunciation, needs training in the
phonetics of English.
The second basic concept of phonetics is that the spelling of a
language is an extremely poor guide to its pronunciation and that
in some languages, like English, it bears small relationship to the
actual sounds of the language. How are words like live, read, and
lead pronounced? There is no way of knowing until they appear in
context; the written form alone gives no indication.
To describe accurately the sounds of English, and to make certain
the varieties of sound represented by the same spellings, a phonetic
alphabet is needed in which each symbol has one and only one
sound. If such an alphabet can embrace all the sounds made in a
large group of related languages, so much the better. Early in this
century an International Phonetic Alphabet was adopted and, with

some modifications, is in use today by scholars the world over.
The study of phonetics has obvious relationships to the teaching
of reading and, by the same token, to the development of the pupil’s
readiness in word recognition. Because there are thousands of words
in the speaking and comprehending vocabulary of a beginning pupil,
he already has a resource that may be tapped by learning to convert
visual symbols into sounds.
One of the principal learning procedures at the early stage is
the association of printed letters, singly and in combination, with
the typical sounds they represent and the synthesis of these sounds
into patterns which the child can recognize as the words he already
knows.
Some words he will learn as wholes, without the need for
analysis; but, increasingly as he meets new words, the power to deal
with them analytically in terms of sound related to symbols is a
valuable asset. In the early years of organized reading, various
systems of phonics arose out of the teaching of the alphabet and the
sounds of letters.
In fact, they satisfied the need for a symbol-sound relationship,
and some enjoyed many decades of use. Being based, however, upon
relatively unscientific relationships of speech sounds to letter
symbols, they have been giving way to newer systems arising from
the research in the phonetics of English.
In recent years, two major complaints have been hurled at
teachers of reading:
a. They have abandoned the teaching of phonies to the detriment of
the children’s progress in reading and writing skills.
b. They no longer teach any sounds of English, leaving the child helpless
to sound out new words as he encounters them.
There is some truth in both of these assertions, but it is not
significant truth. Phonics of the old-fashioned type has given way
to new phonetic systems which teach sounds but not “phonics”; of
the second claim, it may be said that for some years past the emphasis
upon rapid silent reading did tend to subordinate the teaching of
sounds, and, no doubt, some enthusiastic practitioners abandoned
the teaching of sounds entirely.
But no basic system of reading instruction ever eliminated the

teaching of the sounds of words. The situation today may be summed
up thus:
Not a reputable system of teaching reading exists today that does
not give extensive attention to phonetic training throughout the
entire primary and middle grades. The same thing can be said of
the modern spelling programmes in which phonetic training is a part
of the programme from the second grade on through the eighth.
The writer who accuses the school of doing nothing about phonetics
is simply saying things that are not true.
Experimentation in phonetic training as a part of beginning and
continuing reading will, in the future, have increasing influence upon
systems of reading instruction, particularly when reading specialists
receive training in modern phonetics. One recent book addressed to
teachers and administrators bases its system of reading instruction
upon phonetics, and a story of success with the use of phonetics for
advancing slow readers appeared in a popular magazine.
Structural Linguistics
Early in the present century linguists complained of the
inadequacy of traditional grammar to describe the structure of
English, and various modifications and changes were suggested. The
pioneer in a new structural grammar is Professor Charles C. Fries,
closely followed in time but with a somewhat different approach by
Harold Whitehall.
Both of these scholars attempt a completely objective analysis
of English in symbols which are freed from the connotations attached
to ordinary grammatical terms. To many readers, the terminology
they adopt seems unnecessarily formidable, and the analytic
representation of sentences by symbols is almost beyond
comprehension. But terms and analytic symbols are only momentary
difficulties.
By their use it is possible to make a simple, clear, and
unmistakable analysis of a particular English utterance; to study the
utterance objectively as a phenomenon of human behaviour; and to
combine many such analyses into patterns of structure which tell,
in terms devoid of older connotations, exactly how the English
language operates.
Such studies will in time completely revolutionize the teaching

of grammar. At first glance, these systems involving a highly
analytical approach to language study would seem to bear little
relationship to the teaching of English in schools and, more
particularly, to the teaching of reading. Their influence at present is
only slightly felt.
But it seems inevitable that the application of structural
linguistics to the language-arts curriculum will, in time, bring about
significant changes in attitude and method, some of which will affect
reading. The chain of development may follow this pattern: The
analytic methods of structural linguistics will eventually create a new
systematic description of English; in other words, a new grammar.
This new grammar will necessitate a re-examination of the
purposes of language study by children, together with a revised
timetable for the teaching of its elements. One of the major features
of structural linguistics is its attention to the spoken language with
special symbols to represent pitch, stress, and juncture in English
speech.
It is quite possible that young children will be taught the patterns
of sounds, word-forms, and word-order, which make up simple
utterance almost as early as they learn to read such utterances. That
is, they will identify by ear and eye patterns of utterance, which
they will prac tice and use in speaking and writing. By means of
this integration of parts of language training, children can, in effect,
create their own grammar, when they recognize, from listening and
reading, the structural parts of an utterance and the sound signals
that accompany it.
Such a linguistic integration is greatly to be desired. Children
can and, in time, will develop this sort of structural sense. With it
the artificialities of traditional grammar will fade out, and the
patterns of English utterances as observed, used, and created by
children and youth will become the grammar of the future.
Listening and Reading
Listening is a vital part of modern life, and discrimination in
listening and effective uses of listening grow more important daily.
Every parent and every teacher is aware that children and youth
give great amounts of time to TV-viewing, radio-listening, and the
playing of phonograph records. These occupy a considerable fraction

of the listening time of all students and are dealt with at various
points in this yearbook.
Here the task is to analyze listening as a part of the classroom
instruction in the language arts with attention to its contribution to
the teaching of reading. The young child learns his language by ear.
What he brings to school by kindergarten age is a vocabulary of
several thousands of words and a knowledge of the structure of
English sufficient to indicate fairly accurately distinctions by number,
time, and person and, with less accuracy, distinctions of case.
The school picks up at this point to refine the distinctions and to
give the child an acceptable pattern of good usage. In this task not
enough attention has been given to listening. Teachers tend to use
blackboard exercises, workbooks, and mimeographed materials,
relying upon reading and silent seat work to teach usage,
overlooking the fact that faulty usage is learned by ear and can be
best corrected by ear.
So far as is possible in the classroom from the kindergarten up,
the child should hear nothing but acceptable patterns of speech and
should hear himself using them.
Were it not for the supply of words the child has learned by
ear, the teaching of reading would be almost impossible. But with a
supply of words, his learning consists, in part, of associating visual
symbols with sounds and relating these sounds to his known stock
of words. By ear he will also be learning new words, whose visual
symbols he will learn in time. Current systems of reading, by
increased attention to phonetic principles, can advance and
strengthen these skills.
The child’s first experience with books and their contents, his
first enjoyment and appreciation of literature in the form of stories
and poems, is by his ear. At home, if he is fortunate, but at least in
the public library, the kindergarten, and the first-grade room, he
meets the characters of fact and fancy which books can bring him,
and he responds to the rhythms, sounds, and images of verse with
a developing sense of their value to him.
These experiences are extremely important to reading instruction.
If the child is to learn to read, he needs motivation to carry him
through the difficult tasks of association involved. The best
motivation is the realization of what books can give him, once he

has learned to use them. His reading materials should be so designed
as to give him these satisfactions as quickly as possible.
Thus, like the carrot before the donkey’s nose, he has dangling
before him (by listening to stories and poems) the urge to read that
he may enjoy these pleasures by his own skills. Consequently, the
school programme of experience with literature should include much
listening to good reading by the teacher. Nor is this motivation valid
only in the early years; junior and senior high school students grow
in literary discernment by listening and are induced to read more
and better books by hearing portions of them read aloud.
The oral book report, properly conducted, is a valuable listening
exercise conducive to better reading. Unfortunately, oral book reports
are often allowed to become dull, may be too long, and many times
lapse into a communication from child to teacher rather than to his
fellow students. The marks of a good oral book report are:
a. Brevity-three to five minutes at most;
b Selectivity — choosing a scene, an incident, a character of
particular interest to the listeners;
c. Personal involvement-enthusiasm in the presentation and
expression of the worth of the book to the reporter.
The teacher, too, from time to time should review books orally,
presenting attractive features and points of interest to arouse the
desire to read the books. These activities, adjusted to appropriate
levels, are valid from the first grade to the college class.
Listening is a principal source of learning throughout life, and,
with growing maturity, a higher sophistication in listening is
required. The child gains facts, information, and attitudes by
listening. The young adult must not only listen to receive information
but he must also learn to associate what he hears with what he knows
and to form critical evaluations of it.
Hence, in senior high school and college, listening critically and
creatively shares with reading the first place in learning skills; in
fact, the integration of listening with reading is the path to successful
learning in higher education. Language-arts activities leading to the
development of listening skills, therefore, play an important part in
the motivation of reading and in its effective utilization.
Speaking and Reading
Inasmuch as the activities of speaking and listening are mutually
interrelated (one speaks because one other or many others listen),
much of what was presented in the previous section applies equally

to speaking. Some activities, however, focus attention upon the
specific character of speaking, and, to the degree that these activities
may be made to serve the advancement of reading, they deserve
separate treatment.
Reading readiness depends to a considerable degree upon
acquaintance with the fundamentals of what is to be read. Every
adult recalls the experience of laying a book or article aside because
of lack of interest or significance in the content, only to return to it
later with avidity because of a conversation, a lecture, a radio talk,
or a TV viewing. It is accepted practice in beginning reading to talk
about what is to be read, to draw inferences from pictures, and to
discuss personal experiences which might bear upon the material
about to be read.
Somehow, the value of this interrelation between speaking and
reading is lost sight of in the upper grades and high school. As
children grow older, they are increasingly assigned reading to be
undertaken without discussional preview. The significance of
preparatory discussion cannot be overstressed; both study reading
and recreational reading profit from it, for the outcomes of the
reading experience are greatly enriched by preliminary talk.
In some instances it may be necessary for the teacher to supply
the background, but, in the majority of cases, a leading point or
anecdote will initiate a lively discussion so directed as to lay the
foundation for the reading to follow. High-school and college
teachers of literature would profit from a wider use of this technique.
The incitements to growth in literary appreciation through
listening, mentioned in the previous section, point to the importance
of good speaking or of reading aloud. Teachers in the upper grades
and high school tend to feel that the emphasis upon speed in silent
reading in the early grades results in neglect of the art of reading
aloud; they complain but do little about it. Actually, the art of reading
aloud is a separate art and is not incidental to silent reading.
It requires instruction and practice and is quite properly a task
of the teacher of pupils beyond the years of beginning reading. It is
true that large classes and limited time make difficult extensive
practice for every student, but some practice for all and more
frequent performances by the talented will contribute to interest,
motivation, understanding, enjoyment, and appreciation of the
materials of reading and will achieve a result in the growth of the

students much broader than merely skill in reading aloud.
A specialized aspect of speaking and hearing literature is what
is called “choral reading” or “choral speaking.” In this activity groups
of students or an entire class prepare to read aloud, or memorize to
recite, a poem or selection of prose for dramatic effect. Rhythms,
tone qualities, solo voices, small groups, antiphony, and other oral
aspects and devices are employed to derive the maximum of
intellectual and emotional experience from the selection.
Children and youth who participate in this oral use of literature
gain familiarity with worthwhile selections, improve in speech skills,
interpret literature with deeper insight, recognize the emotional
values as well as the meaning of literary selections, and are thus
prepared through an enjoyable activity for a better and more
understanding readiness of approach to the next literary experience.
Writing and Reading
The relationship between writing and reading for the school child
is extremely close, so that a clear recognition of the complementary
nature of these skills contributes to the advancement of both. So far
as possible, artificial barriers between the two types of activities
should be removed, allowing the child to advance and mature in
the conviction that what is written is meant to be read and what is
read becomes the substance or the point of departure for writing.
The support of this conviction rests with the teacher; by his
attitudes, methods, and activities he provides the setting for the child
to turn spontaneously from reading to writing and to expect what
he has written to be read.
Upon entering kindergarten, the child finds words to read: the
names of objects in the room, his own name on shelf or locker, the
names of other children. He may learn to write his own name and,
perhaps, the name of a friend. In the first grade he adds some of the
words of his reader to his small but growing writing vocabulary. It
is at this point that method can advance or retard his progress.
If at this point he is not trusted to write for himself from his
own ideas and, instead, is set to the task of copying what the teacher
has written, the basic association between reading and writing is
broken and he becomes a copier, not a composer.
It is highly important to the child’s development in writing that

he proceed on his own from writing his name to the writing of the
names of other persons or things; that from his first basic sentences
in the textbook he combine the words into his own sentences of a
few words, and that every advance in vocabulary from reading be
followed naturally and immediately by original writing which
utilizes the new words.
At this beginning stage, also, children should deepen
appreciation of the communicative aspect of writing by exchanging
papers to read and by writing questions to which written answers
are expected. The proper attitude toward communicating in writing
can be set at this stage with a result that the child may be expected
to turn to writing as a natural outlet for ideas.
Although society does not demand much writing of children,
wise teachers and wise parents still create settings for naturally
motivated writing. In school, notes of thanks for programmes, gifts,
and parties can be prompted; invitations to events in the classroom
or other school activities provide writing interest. At home, children
can be prompted to acknowledge gifts and respond to invitations in
writing.
While the use of the telephone is another important
communicative art, it should not become a substitute for written
communication. With advancing maturity and responsibility, the
social uses of writing should be a prominent part of the curriculum
and, by means of parental support, practiced at home.
A particular problem of writing which is closely associated with
reading is that of accurate spelling. Words that are learned in reading
become words to be used in writing. Attention to the form and
sounds of words as they are learned in reading assists in the accurate
spelling of these words when used in writing. The Denver course of
study summarizes the fundamental skills as
a. The skill to master words that will be used over and over
again;
b. The skill to master additional words needed frequently; and
c. The skill required to find the correct spelling of words used
occasionally.
An important aspect of spelling is the relationship between letter
symbol combinations and the sounds of spoken words. In 1953
Hanna and Moore presented a study of spelling which stressed the

learning of definite groups of words and syllables which they claimed
fall into phonic categories.
The implication was that many clear, definable, and usable
phonic categories of regular spelling could be distinguished and
taught. The pupil “should develop a sense of the probable letter or
letters to be used to represent the speech sounds occurring in words
belonging to the group patterns.”
This position was answered by Horn in a thoroughgoing analysis
in phonetic terms of the sounds of English. He objects to the term
“regular spelling” as not tenable after the facts revealed by his
analysis. He concludes, “It seems important that children should
learn the ways, not the way, in which each sound is spelled.” In all,
he finds little justification for the claim that pupils can arrive
deductively at the spelling of most of the words they can pronounce.
The close relationship between reading and writing can be
utilized to establish sound habits of punctuation. The beginning
reader should be taught to observe and respond to the basic marks
of punctuation as he reads, stopping for periods, raising his terminal
pitch for questions, and giving stress to exclamations. As his skill in
reading progresses, he should be led to modify further his
interpretation of the printed word by the signals given as commas,
colons, semicolons, and marks of quotation.
Paralleling this growth in the interpretation of punctuation
signals is the pupil’s use of them in his writing. The writing
assignments, starting with simple statements, questions, and
exclamations properly terminated, should progress evenly into those
calling for the comma (as in direct address or series), the semicolon,
the colon, and all types of quotation, direct, indirect, and quote within
quote.
In the upper grades and junior high school, where students do
a good deal of silent reading, insufficient attention is given to noting
the significance of marks of punctuation as they aid in the
interpretation of reading, and as they make clear the writer’s
intentions in composition. Time can be profitably spent in
establishing and maintaining this relationship of signal to meaning
by integrated practice in reading and writing.
Literature and Reading

Reading is an activity which employs a number of skills, the
development of which promotes growth in reading. The goal of
literature and reading is, therefore, the advancement and perfection
of reading skills to the point of providing the child, youth, or adult
with a command of such skills equal to his needs, and preferably
somewhat in advance of his needs, at any stage of his education
and life.
Reading is the means, but the education and maturation of each
individual is the end. Growth through reading is the utilization of
reading as a means to attain the end of knowledge, understanding,
appreciation, and satisfaction from books. Francis Bacon summed
the matter up in the oft-quoted phrase, “Reading make a full man.”
The term “literature” is difficult to define but easy to understand.
We may call literature the oral and written heritage of a culture.
The more simple the culture, the more oral its literature. Conversely,
the more mature the culture, the more written its literature. Ours is
a very complex culture, with its roots in Greece, Rome, Palestine,
and Western Europe. It has matured and flourished in North
America, Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.
Its resources are vast, and its spread enormous. The fruits of
this culture come to us in the form of books, legend, and folklore.
Indeed, even legend and folklore are today transmitted more by print
than by oral tradition, so that we may say that our culture today is
recorded in books. The education of an individual, from infancy to
adulthood and on to the end of his days, is the acquisition of parts
of this culture by all possible means.
Some he will acquire by oral teaching and example; some by
oral and visual experiences, as in lectures, radio and television
offerings, and motion pictures. But, if he is to acquire any
considerable part of our culture and to attain knowledge and wisdom
leading to mature judgment, his reliance will be upon books. Growth
through reading is, therefore, the advancement of each individual in
the command of our culture through books. Literature as an
indispensable part of the language-arts curriculum for children and
youth is described in these terms by the Curriculum Commission of
the National Council of Teachers of English.
Responses to the printed page may be a kind of ignition, which

may bring about an evolution-sometimes even a revolution-in an
individual. The change which comes through needed information,
through factual, concrete, or abstract words, through sustenance for
body and soul, through pleasure that enriches life, may result in
growth toward maturity, growth leading to further growth. It is such
growth-emotional, intellectual, and spiritual-from the explicit and
the implicit-that is the end of the teaching of literature.
The young child’s earliest experience with literature is by ear. If
he is fortunate, he will hear stories and poems read aloud in the
home, or at least on radio and television and in movies. Even if the
Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson have been replaced
by Walt Disney, some of the great stories of our culture will reach
the children through these mass media.
The enjoyment they find in these experiences is the prime
motivation for them to seek further pleasure by their own efforts in
books as early as they are able to use them. The school and
community must do everything in their power to supply the right
books at the right point in the child’s advancement in reading and
in such quantity as to keep him challenged to read. According to
Artley, the growth of the child through reading is attained as he
satisfies basic human needs.
These needs are: the sense of security in physical, emotional, and
spiritual surroundings; the quality of belongingness, the need to be
accepted in a group; the need to be loved and to love; the need to
achieve, to be successful; the need to know, to satisfy curiosity; the
need to play; and the need to respond to beauty. These unconscious
urges lead children to seek out the books which satisfy, in part, their
needs so that they employ their skill in reading to grow through
experience in reading.
These urges may be satisfied by keeping a reading environment
about the child. This means providing books and magazines adjusted
to the child’s abilities and interests and displaying a sympathetic
approval of the use of these books. In school it means the creation
of a happy attitude toward the skills of reading, a changing supply
of stimulating reading materials, an atmosphere of approval toward
independent reading, and an opportunity for the exchange of
experiences gained in reading.
As the child advances in the ability to read, he needs guidance

in discovering the richness of the culture which is his if he will seek
it. He requires help to find the myths and legends which we have
retained in our own heritage or borrowed from others; he must be
gently directed to the poems which express the responses to nature
and to human experience which in him are inarticulate; he must be
led to the great stories which make up our literary treasure; and he
requires assistance to discover the storehouses of information which
will answer his questions and broaden his contacts with the world
in which he lives.
Growth through reading is a process of constant discovery in
which trained and sympathetic leadership by parents, teachers, and
librarians is an indispensable element. As the student proceeds from
the elementary school to the junior high school he should be assisted
in making a gradual and subtle change in his reading attitudes.
Through the sixth grade his basic in-school reading has been
carefully controlled for vocabulary, sentence structure, and
complexity of concept. His free reading has been carried on almost
entirely in books for children. He moves from these relatively
sheltered experiences to acquaintance with literature written for
adults and types of literary content beyond his previous experiences.
This is a danger point in the reading progress which has not
always been fully recognized. It is easy at this point to expect too
great a transition too rapidly; the student, faced with reading
difficulties, unfamiliar literary forms, and an excess of mature
concepts, may become discouraged or he may develop interests that
compete with reading. His former good reading habits falter and
slacken because of the difficulties he encounters.
Without specific and understanding aid at this time, he may
easily become discouraged and unmotivated. The importance cannot
be overemphasized, therefore, of so conducting the reading and
literary experiences of the junior high school years that the student
will be advanced within the range of his abilities and be taught
slowly and carefully how to find satisfaction in more mature
materials.
In large schools, skilful planning on the part of teachers and
librarians can serve to arouse interests, can keep a constant supply
of appropriate reading materials at the student’s side, and can assist
each student in overcoming the difficulties which might otherwise

discourage continued reading.
In the junior high school and through the senior high school,
growth in reading must support growth through reading by moving
from fundamental reading skills to those connected with the
intelligent enjoyment of specific literary types. The end result of
experience with books, let it be repeated, is to acquire as much as
possible of the store of experience which we call our culture.
Some of this store is knowledge, and we read to know; some of
it is judgments, and we read to become wise; some of it is feeling,
and we read to know our own emotions and those of others; some
of it is aesthetic, and we read to appreciate and enjoy beauty. In
these purposes, the act of reading is only one of many associated
skills which contribute to our cultural growth.
Reading, then, with listening, speaking, and writing brings about
human advancement in the knowledge and use of our culture. It is
the constant integration and merging of these language-arts skills
which produce what we can rightfully call education in the arts of
communication.

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ACTIVE SKILLS FOR

© 2020 Tritech Digital Media

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-7996-7395-8

Integrating language instruction with subject-matter instruction

The Flesch-Kincaid test is one method of measuring the

popular in ESL programmes. Theme-based ESL instruction is

class. It is taught by an ESL professional, and the ESL students who

the ESL instructor has the requisite background in the subject-matter

By means of the Internet students and ESL instructors can

knows that there are rules governing languages may make

(if they are immigrants or recent arrivals), to pursue a career,

significantly, especially throughout the last 35 years. Hence, the

that a multilevel English as a Second Language programme was

Finally, there is the Level 4 course which is a six-credit graded

0304, English as a Second Language Writing Workshop II) for those

quarter. Intensive instruction is provided at 11 levels, from beginner

experience. There is no tenure; contracts are renewable annually.

The ALI also offers a programme of courses in business English

For example, on the North Campus (located in northwest Miami

Those students who demonstrate oral fluency may be exempt

If an individual has a master’s degree, but not in TESOL, he or

Washback and Impact

invitational meetings involved 650 participants in 11 countries

of a final classroom observation and feedback instrument for use in

The Content and Nature of IELTS-Related Teaching Materials

General description of contents: Items on topics, timings, texts, tasks,

b. two raters using the IATM to evaluate a preparation textbook

all units, by rationalizing and merging checklists and classifications,

for the IATM lists of: social or academic situations, reading

to en hance performance of English-speaking culture-relevant micro-

to the impact study. It was agreed that space for evaluative

situations, text types, micro-skills, speaker relationships,

• Open-ended comment on the relationship between the book

still be unsuccessful. Shohamy (1999) discussed the point, wondering

Theories of Language Testing

One type of test which is widely used at present is the C-TEST,

fossilize existing objective testing methods, because multiple choice

assessment procedures may be more time-consuming and difficult

Many testing organisations adhere to the AERA standards and

A realistic history of the field of applied linguistics would place

its role as a discipline that addresses real-world language-based

By the close of the 1980s, a common trend was to view applied

It has also had an undeniable impact on applied linguists of all

development of register analysis and genre analysis as they apply

awareness of how language is used and the functions that it serves.

and expectations. In academic settings, the key issue is understanding

interpretation, has strong implications for all areas of applied

• Language contact problems (language and culture)

who see themselves as applied linguists, trained

studies). The large majority of members of these fields do

Because of its far-reaching implications for the teaching of

consisted of genuine SC classes where students approached all

through the reading and discussion of model essays somehow

To see whether the relative experience and maturity of the

of different ways—although one would be hard pressed to define

effective than the conventional essay analysis approach in increasing

With the superiority of the experimental group clearly

experimental instructors consistently outscore their control

underlying ‘kernel sentences.’” But more recently, as SC has gained

Did they like it as an approach to writing? Did they feel that

Ideally, teachers should develop a compositional program which

3. Pouncing on the loose ball, the chunky football player

or complete sentence. This activity should stress the concept of