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TEACHING
ENGLISH
as a Foreign
Language
A Guide for Professionals
ISBN 83-01-14498-X
INTRODUCTION
Teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) as strategic behaviour. The role
of professional knowledge
8 Contents
9 Contents
10 Contents
11 Contents
INTRODUCTION
T
his book is intended as a textbook for courses in teaching English as a foreign lan-
guage within the framework of our educational system. Focus on English as a for-
eign language may be contrasted with teaching foreign languages in general,
which has an imposingly vast literature. English as a foreign language should be dis-
tinguished from English as a second language since a second language is studied as well
as learned in the community which uses it. Unlike in the case of a foreign language,
learning is not confined to the classroom process, but significantly enhanced by envi-
ronmental input and interaction. English has a status of a world language as well as
a leading foreign language taught in Poland. It is studied for a wide variety of pur-
poses, ranging from communicating with native speakers of British, American, Cana-
dian, Australian, New Zealand English to international communication with native
speakers of other languages, such as Dutch, Spanish, or German.
The book aspires to be representative of the fundamental issues, but cannot be
exhaustive. Its focus is on the background and origin of our teaching strategies and activ-
ities, as well as their function, but not on textbook, curriculum and syllabus design, or
standardized testing, which are vital, but specialized aspects of foreign language teach-
ing and, more often than not, are covered in separate courses. The book looks at the
evolution and refinement of our ideas about foreign language teaching and their
increasing anchoring in our notions of language learning. The focus is on two comple-
mentary facets of language use, comprehension and production, divided into four lan-
guage skills to highlight issues of developing control of the language code. Teaching is
considered to be a form of strategic behaviour which involves diagnosing the teaching
problem and selecting/designing the appropriate solution. Teaching strategies are pre-
sented as basic categories with a potential for adjustment and modification. The teacher
should regard them as options to choose from in real classroom conditions according to
his or her diagnosis of the current didactic situation and the learners' needs.
The book's advantage is that in one volume we cover key topics in teaching Eng-
lish as a foreign language reflecting recent developments in the field, especially the idea
of foreign language learning as verbal communication including its underlying mental
14 Introduction
processes. Each of these topics may be treated as a point of departure for a much more
detailed and extensive study. At the same time it provides a point of departure for much
more specific issues, which result from these fundamental considerations to be devel-
oped in the next volume. The main emphasis is clearly on the teaching aspect of the
whole process, types of activities, criteria of their grading as well as their specific func-
tions. It is not intended as an overview of research exploring language learning, or
Second Language Acquisition Research, or research methods in the field of second lan-
guage acquisition. Nevertheless, every attempt is made to link teaching principles to
our current understanding of language use and learning in verbal communication.
The book is addressed to a qualified teacher of English as a foreign language or
a teacher trainee, such as a BA or an MA student of English at a philology department,
an applied linguistics institute, or a teacher training college. It is taken into account that
the students take many specialized courses in linguistics and literature which constitute
their degree programme. As a result, they develop extensive background knowledge in
the British and American language and culture and are capable of integrating it with
the field of teaching English as a foreign language. For this reason, the textbook aims
to provide teaching principles with rational justifications rather than arbitrary tips or
recipes. My principal goal here is to systematize techniques and strategies of teaching
English and address the question of why and how they can be used in developing var-
ious areas of communicative ability in English. This is the reason why the word 'pro-
fessional' is used in the title. The book is addressed to a (prospective) professional with
considerable background knowledge, determined to understand reasons for his or her
actions while teaching. This professional must be able to identify, diagnose and solve
numerous problems and make various decisions in the classroom. Such a person will
not benefit from too local or arbitrary advice. Teacher education must indeed foster the
understanding of foreign language learning and teaching as well as the abilities to
diagnose classroom situations, make reasonable choices, as well as adjust and evaluate.
Teachers' creativity, a most precious human resource which must not be ignored, can
truly blossom only on such solid professional foundations rather than as a substitute
for them, as some academics and practitioners maintain.
The key question is who can be considered a professional. In general terms, this
is someone educated or trained with a considerable skill and experience in a given
activity, especially the main activity for which one receives pay, as opposed to just
a hobby or pastime. Such a person can demonstrate professionalism in the sense of
high quality and standards of performance. A profession is an occupation or vocation
requiring extended training and advanced study in a specialized field whereas a pro-
fessional is a specialist whose predispositions have been developed by extended edu-
cation and training.
Foreign language teaching witnesses a paradox, however: language learning,
including mother tongue and subsequent languages, can happen naturally, without
any deliberate activity on the part of a 'teacher' provided certain conditions are met:
the learner is fairly young, and there is unrestricted exposure and contact with the lan-
guage. However, the process is hard to replicate or evoke in the educational context
when the learner is slightly older and contact hours are limited. The intricate nature of
foreign language learning justifies the involvement of professionals, which is to say,
people who understand the working of the process to the point that they can deliber-
15 Introduction
ately cultivate it in the educational setting. What should such a professional know apart
from being a fluent speaker of the source and target languages of the learner, as well
as a trained linguist and an expert in culture? What is the difference between a pro-
fessionally trained teacher and a non-professional? Ideally, a professional is someone
who can make sense of foreign language learning in the classroom, in other words, can
understand the process. It is then feasible to adjust teaching procedures to the language
learners, taking into account their age, needs and interests. A professional can guide
and assist the learners in the process of language learning in terms of both content and
strategy and provide them with feedback about their progress. A professional teacher
has a clear orientation in the complex and vast domain of the target language and cul-
ture. In other words, he or she can address and cope with a genuinely complex and
extensive task.
A non-professional, on the other hand, does not benefit from such a map because
he or she has not been educated in this domain. It is fairly easy for him or her to get
lost in the complex problem space and become preoccupied with one set of activities
or techniques as universal, i.e. all-purpose solutions and forget about the others, or
unnecessarily discard some techniques for inadequate reasons. Error correction may be
used to illustrate such a case: a teacher may discard error correction as anachronistic to
be in line with the recommendations of Communicative Language Teaching, whereas it
is not only anachronistic in terms of our understanding of verbal communication, but
against the teacher's professional role expectations to leave errors uncorrected.
This state of orientation is necessary for the professional teacher to do his job well,
if not to say at all. It is also absolutely necessary for him or her to establish his profes-
sional role in the classroom, which, regardless all the other claims, is the role of the
leader. The teacher is a leader in the educational process, if we understand 'the leader'
as someone who has a vision for the future and a way of convincing others to work
toward this goal. What a good and honest leader needs is not only the vision, but rea-
listic and rational understanding of what it takes to accomplish it. In the case of foreign
language teachers, this 'vision' is tantamount to a clear idea of what it takes to learn
a foreign language in the conditions afforded by the educational institutions character-
istic of our culture. The clarity and practicality of the idea is relative to the level of edu-
cation and specialized training. Anyone can act as a foreign language teacher once in
a while, for a while, but sustaining the long-term process of foreign language learning
on a mass scale calls for professionals with solid, i.e. rational foundations in the field.
Professionals have specialized knowledge of the field at their disposal, they are
aware of the tradition in the field so as not to reinvent the wheel and to critically eval-
uate old and new ideas in their context. In other words, they have a mental map of
what it takes to learn and use a foreign language in the educational context, a map
which systematizes various options and strategies. As a result, they can be methodical,
i.e. systematic, about their work. Both the professional and the non-professional teach-
ers may believe in variety, but only the professional can link techniques or tasks to cer-
tain aspects of language learning and use to determine their function in the long run.
Although both let themselves be guided by intuition, the professional can also deal
with a host of rational questions, such as why, how, for what purpose, with what effect,
under what conditions certain teaching procedures can be implemented. Whether
a truly satisfactory state of professionalism can be accomplished or not is another mat-
16 Introduction
ter, but it is certainly worth trying because teaching and learning English as a foreign
language is done on a mass scale.
A professional is a rationalist who knows enough about his domain to demystify
it. If one can answer the 'wh' questions listed above, the magic of language learning is
gone. Is this state welcome? I think it is if we want to be paid for our work in the edu-
cational system. The numerous puzzles which still remain are challenging enough and
undoubtedly there is still plenty of room for employing our creativity.
Three sources of information are relevant to an educated teacher: one is profes-
sional knowledge on teaching English as a foreign language, the second is the real
world in which we live and communicate, and the third is our careful insight and obser-
vation of the foreign language classroom with its learners, treated both as individuals
and a group. On the basis of these three sources of knowledge the teacher may start
diagnosing his problems and making decisions in the foreign language classroom. This
is challenging and demands creative, strategic thinking. The purpose of this textbook is
to outline key elements of background knowledge on teaching English as a foreign lan-
guage to be tapped as one of the three sources of information in our professional activ-
ity. The word 'guide' used in the title indicates that the book introduces some infor-
mation, but cannot be a substitute for 'being there' - in the classroom - where the
teacher can gradually learn about his or her educational institution, the structure of the
courses being taught, the coursebooks to be used, as well as develop the idea about
his or her specific group of individual learners, their personalities and needs. No guide,
let alone one volume, can replace first-hand experience and the teacher's continuous
education. It is clear to me, however, that the degree to which any textbook on meth-
ods and strategies of teaching English as a foreign language can be considered practi-
cal does not depend on its abundance of ready tips and directives, but on the degree
to which it helps to understand the complexity of foreign language learning and teach-
ing, i.e. make sense of it. We badly need a map of the problem, the available options,
criteria for choosing them, and the strategies of adjusting teaching to the learner and
his or her needs.
PART ONE
... other peoples began to learn Latin until that language became the international language of
Western Europe, the language of church and state, and for a long time the sole language of
learning, the only medium of instruction in the schools. And it remained so in some European
countries until modern times.
The first concern with language teaching method in Europe, therefore, had to do with the
teaching of Latin. During the Middle Ages Latin was the language of teaching. Methods were
mostly limited to Latin grammars designed to enable clerics to speak, read and write in their
second language, the language in which nearly all academic learning was done.
18 1. Foreign language teaching in a historical perspective 1.3. Reactions t<
The invention of printing around 1455 helped to reproduce the Greek and
Latin classics to be used as texts for teaching throughout Europe. The language in
which the texts were written was several centuries older than the Latin spoken by
the educated users at the time, but it was considered to be the correct form of
Latin on which the grammars and teaching should be based. Grammar based on
these texts grew more and more complicated and became an end in itself rather
than the means to reading the classics. Although Latin became a dead language
and was gradually replaced by the national languages in Europe, it retained the
central position as model for foreign language grammar.
Although Latin ceased to be the medium of instruction, teaching Latin
grammar was regarded as beneficial mental gymnastics or a mental discipline.
These advantages had their critics, such as Montaigne or Comenius, giving rise to
the direct approaches to language teaching in which grammar rules were consid-
ered unnecessary.
Jan Amos Komensky, or Comenius, (1592-1670) a Czech from Moravia, who wrote
and taught in various places across Europe, was the greatest educationist of the seven-
teenth century. Howatt (1984) considers him to be a genius, probably the only genius in
the history of language teaching. Comenius was interested in general education as well
as in the problems of language teaching. His works include Didactica Magna (1657, 'The
Great Didactic')? Janua Linguarum Reserata Aurea (1631, 'The Golden Gate to Lan-
guages Unlocked'), inspired by Bath's Janua Linguarum ('The Gate to Languages'). The
book was devoted to teaching Latin and contained eight thousand words of common
use illustrated with various sentences, or even texts in Latin of increasing difficulty and
translated into the vernacular. He considered language learning to be a matter of intu-
ition, facilitated by linking words to be learned with their images which are formed
through sensory experience (Titone, 1968). This idea was put to practice in Orbis Sen-
sualium Pictus (1658, 'The World in Pictures'), where he stressed the need for the child
to learn words and link their meaning to objects. His main pedagogical principle was to
address all the material in language teaching to the sense of perception and learning by
direct practice, such as reading, repeating, copying and imitation, rather than the rules
of grammar. Although he stressed the need to order the material systematically and
hierarchically from the familiar to the unknown, he believed in the necessary link
between the curriculum and the inner development of the learner (Titone, 1984).
Howatt (1984:43) points out: 'It is rather ironical that Comenius should be remembered
for writing Latin textbooks when what he really wanted was a system of education in
which the mother tongue would play a central role and foreign languages would be
learned as and when they were needed for practical purposes.'
Sweet, which have become a laughing stock in the literature on foreign language
teaching:
The cat of my aunt is more treacherous than the dog of your uncle.
We speak about your cousin, and your cousin Amelia is loved by her uncle and her aunt.
My sons have bought the mirrors of the duke.
Horses are taller than tigers.
Seidenstrücker's disconnected sentences especially constructed for teaching
grammar were turned into a principle by Karl Plötz (1819-1881), who was an
influential figure in foreign language teaching in Europe long after his death. His
method was divided into two parts: (1) rules and paradigms, and (2) sentences for
translation from and into the target language. Throughout the nineteenth centu-
ry, language teaching in schools followed Plötz's techniques. It was a matter of
using the first language to acquire the second, rote learning of grammar rules, put-
ting grammatical labels on words, and applying the rules by translating sentences.
The Grammar Translation Method dominated foreign language teaching in
the nineteenth century. Because of the activities it proposed and the emphasis on
the written language, the method was appropriate for becoming skilled in gram-
matical analysis and reading. Needless to say, in the meantime the needs and
expectations toward language learning changed rather dramatically and the
method came under attack for its obsolete procedures and materials.
tematic at first, but at the turn of the twentieth century it began to follow a more
definite set of principles: emphasis on the spoken language, the use of phonetic
notation, presenting the meaning through pictures, gestures/dramatization and
objects (realia), inductive learning of grammar, and the use of contemporary texts
about everyday life and high culture of the foreign country.
The Gouin Series. François Gouin, a Frenchman, published his book on the art of
foreign language teaching about 1880, in which he added a new element to foreign
language instruction, namely physical activity. The book was written in French and
translated into many languages to exert great influence in Germany, Great Britain,
and the United States. His ideas resulted from his own frustrations and failures to
learn German from grammar books, dictionaries and rules as well as inspired by
observations of his son's playful activities coupled with the boy's verbal commentary
on what was going on. As a result, Gouin developed his own method of foreign lan-
guage teaching. The pivot of his method was the verb in a sentence. He created teaching
units which were series of connected sentences built around an activity broken down
into minute stages, each expressed in a sentence. In this way, the sentence reflected
a logical sequence of events. Teaching consisted of saying these sentences and per-
forming their meaning. The sentences were to be presented and explained by the
teacher, with the native language used for the purpose, and later practised by the
learners, first in speech then in writing. Characteristically of his method, the learners
were saying the sentences while performing what they meant. What is known as the
Gouin Series became standard procedure in the Direct Method.
His key idea was learning through the senses, play and activity in familiar every-
day situations. As pointed out by Mackey (1965), foreign language learning in this
way would take 900 hours. Spoken language was stressed in that the presentation of
the material, explanation and practice had to be oral first and written later. The
vocabulary component related to the activities amounted to 8,000 words and was
grouped around five topics: home, society, nature, science, occupations (Mackey,
1965). A sample list is quoted after Howatt (1984:163):
The maid chops a log of wood
The maid goes and seeks her hatchet,
the maid takes a log of wood,
the maid draws near to the chopping-block,
the maid kneels down near the chopping block,
the maid places the block of wood upright upon this block.
The maid raises her hatchet,
the maid brings down her hatchet,
the hatchet cleaves the air,
the blade strikes the wood,
the blade buries itself inside the wood,
the blade cleaves the wood,
the two pieces fall to the ground.
The maid picks up these pieces,
the maid chops them again and again to the size desired,
the maid stands up again,
the maid carries back the hatchet to its place.
In this way, the sentences in a cycle can be practised and remembered more easily
because a) the material is logically linked and b) dramatization is linked to the verbal
material. Key processes are association of the learning material, imitation of the sen-
22 1. Foreign language teaching in a historical perspective
tences modelled by the teacher, and, last but not least, memorization. The choice of
activities is connected with the everyday life and interests of the students whereas the
memory processes are enhanced by the meaningful connection between each element
in the activity series. However, Titone (1968) notices that the subdivision of the activi-
ty into minute components was exaggerated and in conflict with the practical needs
of the students. Howatt (1984) points out that the sentences are predominantly third
person statements, the drawback that Gouin tried to eliminate by including some dia-
logues. The material he uses is focused on only one of a number of functions of lan-
guage - commenting on an activity. The advantage of the series is that the steps of the
activity are easy to remember because memory processes are supported by meaningful
links in the material itself. But although they follow a natural plan for the activity,
there are other plans to organize language, as reflected in various language genres, for
example narrative, description, argumentative writing, eye-witness accounts, etc.
Howatt (1984) regards the Gouin series as too limited in the principles and the choice
of the material to be called a method.
On a more general note, it should be pointed out that such advantages of the Gouin
Series as the sensible links in the material, the association with real life activity (an
episode), and the links between language and action comply with the more general
laws of human learning. They are by no means limited to the verb-centred activities
highlighted in the series, but apply to all the language material used in verbal com-
munication: e.g. descriptions, instructions, road directions, cooking recipes, stories,
dramatization of various emotions, etc.
A most violent attack on the Grammar Translation Method came from a German
specialist, Viëtor (1850-1918), in 1882 in a celebrated pamphlet Der Sprachunter-
richt muss umkehren! Ein Beitrag zur Überbürdungsfrage (Language learning must
start afresh! A contribution to the question of stress and overwork in schools.). He
first wrote it under the pseudonym Quosque Tandem, which, as pointed out by
Howatt (1984:189), refers to the opening phrase in Cicero's address to the Senate
on the Catilina conspiracy and means: How much longer is this going to go on?
The pamphlet heralded the Reform Movement and was especially influential in
Germany. Viëtor stressed the need to focus on the spoken language, the use of con-
nected sentences and illustrations (gestures, pictures), to teach speaking first and
reading at a later stage, as well as the need to develop the knowledge of the foreign
country and its culture. Grammar was to be learned inductively. Viëtor was criti-
cal of the fact that students were overburdened with work leading to mental stress
and fatigue. His solution was to eliminate written homework and to introduce
songs and games to the teaching process.
The key principles of the Reform Movement, according to Howatt (1984),
included the primacy of speech and oral activities and the central position of
a connected text used for the inductive teaching of grammar. The emphasis on the
spoken language was reinforced by the role of phonetics and phoneticians such as
Jespersen and Sweet. Phonetics provided foreign language teaching with scienti-
fic foundations which were hard to resist. It was essential that the learners start
1.4. The Natural and the Direct Methods 23
reading when their pronunciation was correct. The orthography was misleading
in developing proper pronunciation and so was its use as the notation for pro-
nunciation. As a result, phonetic transcription was introduced to teaching English
and French. Oral techniques included question-and-answer activities, retelling,
and summarizing to stimulate the learners to use the new material. The medium
of communication in the classroom was the foreign language while the native lan-
guage was reserved solely for providing the meaning of some vocabulary items.
Teachers of the Reform Movement were non-native speakers of the target lan-
guage. Howatt (1984:173) states: 'The Reform Movement consisted of non-native
teachers who accepted the basic sense of the monolingual principle, but did not
see any advantage in an extremist view.'
The principle of the connected text was well accepted. The law of associa-
tion was recognized by the newly emerging science of psychology, whereas the
learning material consisting of absurd, disconnected sentences illustrating points
of grammar was strongly criticized. To be learned, the material had to be inter-
nally connected to allow associations. Translation was discouraged for fear of
undesirable associations between the native and the foreign language preventing
the development of the language to be learned. The text was treated as the mate-
rial for learning rules of grammar inductively, rather than the illustration of the
rules already learned. Many authors suggested learning grammar after the text's
presentation.
The contrast between inductive and deductive learning of grammar rules
should be clear by now. Induction is the reasoning operation in which we draw
conclusions from the particular to the general. In the case of language learning,
this means progressing from sample sentences in which certain forms appear to
a generalization about forms and their context, expressed in the form of a rule
(a statement about the principle governing the occurrence of the form). Deduction
is a reverse process in which we start with the generalization and make inferences
regarding the specific instances of the rule. In the case of learning grammar, this
starts with the presentation of a grammar rule, which is subsequently illustrated
with various sample sentences.
'Direct' comes from the absence of any mediating role of grammar, translation, or
dictionary. Language learning is a natural ability of humans and can be done intu-
itively provided there are opportunities for interaction or conversation, in other
words, to quote Howatt (1984:193): 'someone to talk to, something to talk about,
and a desire to understand and make yourself understood. Interaction is at the
heart of natural language acquisition, or conversation, as Lambert Saveur called
it when he initiated the revival of interest that led eventually to the direct
method.' Locke stated that the most appropriate and efficient way to a language is
by conversation and practice rather than rules of grammar.
As has been mentioned above, the source of inspiration for the Direct and
Natural Methods often came from various informal observations of children play-
ing with their mother tongue and the effortless way in which they were able to
master it without explicit instruction in grammar. The use of such methods was
certainly prevalent in those families, not necessarily only aristocratic, who could
afford to have their children educated at home with a live-in tutor, a native speaker
of the language, most often French, but also English and German. The principle
of the Direct Method was learning the language in situational context, linking
new words to their meaning, e.g. naming objects in the environment, stressing
oral work, introducing writing to consolidate oral work, listening practice (short
lectures about interesting topics), inductive learning of grammar from texts, and
graded reading.
One of the representatives of the Natural Method is Heinrich Pestalozzi
(1746-1827), who lived and worked in Switzerland and is still considered to be an
important figure in the history of education. His 'object lessons' involved learn-
ing foreign language vocabulary items through naming the respective objects as
well as commenting on them and building all kinds of sentences with them. How-
ever, Howatt (1984) points out critically that it is hard to envisage what happens
in the method once the teacher runs out of objects to be used and the learners are
ready for more complex material. He adds that in fact it is hard to envisage the
method beyond the intermediate level. Another representative of this movement
was Gottlieb Henness in Germany, who used Pestalozzis technique to teach stan-
dard German to speakers of other dialects, established his own language school
and added French as a foreign language. He emigrated to the United States and
met Lambert Sauveur (1826-1907), with whom he collaborated to open a school
in Boston. Its programme was quite intensive: a hundred hours of intensive
instruction, two hours a day, five days a week for four and a half months. In 1874,
Sauveur wrote An Introduction to the Teaching of Living Languages without Grammar
or Dictionary. The most important element of the method was the dialogue of the
teacher with the students, naming various classroom objects, stress on oral work
and written material used mainly to consolidate oral work, delayed at least by
a month. He did not use the native language so the learners had to understand the
material on the basis of situational clues. Error correction was not used. Sauveur
realized that there was a difference between earnest questions, through which the
teacher genuinely seeks information, and other questions which are asked merely
1.4. The Natural and the Direct Methods 25
for the sake of language practice. He stressed the role of context, for example, the
need to ask questions so that one would give rise to another because this continu-
ity would guide the learners in the process of understanding.
An important figure in the commercial implementation of the Direct
Method was Maximillian Berlitz (1852-1921), who opened his first language
school in Providence, Rhode Island, making foreign language learning available
through the Direct Method in the United States and Europe. The need for learn-
ing the spoken language was so strong at that time that his schools mushroomed
in Europe and America. He also wrote textbooks and reference grammars for his
method. The teachers he employed were all native speakers of the target language
and under no circumstances was the student's native language allowed to be used
in the classroom. The emphasis was on oral work with everyday phrases and
vocabulary, on intensive practice, ample use of the question-and-answer technique
and delayed introduction of grammatical explanations. The Berlitz Method was
quite systematic and replicable. Berlitz himself was proud that the courses in var-
ious places were coordinated in such a way that a student leaving school in one
city could continue in another.
Critics of the Direct Method stressed that it was insufficiently focused on
grammatical accuracy and systematicity and that it put high demands on the
teachers' language proficiency and energy resources. However, the Direct Method
addressed the practical needs of language learners (Richards and Rodgers, 1986).
Below is a list of its characteristic features:
1. The emphasis in this method was on speaking and listening.
2. Correct pronunciation was of primary importance.
3. The main forms of activity were oral, especially dialogues and question-and
answer exchanges.
4. New material was first introduced orally.
5. Vocabulary was chosen on the basis of its practicality and its meaning was
demonstrated directly, with the use of objects, pictures and gestures.
6. Grammar of the target language was taught inductively in a variety of oral
activities.
In most general terms, the characteristic tenets of the Direct Method
responsible for its name centre on using language rather than talking about it.
More specifically, instead of explanation, these tenets stress interaction and focus
on the learner's active involvement, as well as practice, the primacy of speech over
writing, the role of the natural pace of speaking and the use of connected text.
One of the specialists who recognized the limitations of the Direct Method
was Henry Sweet. He postulated the need for the teaching method to have a sound
and systematic linguistic basis. As a result, he saw a way to combine the Direct
Method, especially its emphasis on language learning from text and conversation
where language was arbitrary with the formal focus on grammar rules of the
Grammar Translation Method where language was logically organized, on condi-
tion that the study of grammar be made more practical and linked to meaningful
material.
26 1. Foreign language teaching in a historical perspective
Henry Sweet (1845-1912) was a distinguished British phonetician and polyglot, the
man who taught phonetics to Europe (Howatt 1984:180), thought to have been por-
trayed by Shaw as Professor Higgins in Pygmalion. His most important work on foreign
language teaching The Practical Study of Languages is not only an outstanding contribu-
tion to the reform in language teaching but to a balanced framework firmly based on
linguistics. This book starts with the statement that all language study must be based
on phonetics, which provides the basis for acquiring accurate pronunciation, and on
a system of notation. Phonetics must be learned as a tool to accurate pronunciation. He
stressed the role of intelligibility of cross-linguistic contrasts between sounds (now
called phonemes). Literary texts were considered of lesser value to the language learn-
er than the colloquial spoken language. Sweet believed in using texts which would be
natural yet simple enough to be comprehensible as opposed to 'monstrosities' aimed
at illustrating points of grammar. The content or the story line would hold the text
together as a connected whole. His criteria for grading text difficulty were based on
their typology as well as subject matter, starting with descriptions, then narratives and
finally dialogues. As far as the learning component is concerned, he followed the prin-
ciples of associationism in psychology and stressed the need of repetition and learning
by heart after the material has been studied thoroughly.
He opposed the Natural Method which attempted to imitate native language learn-
ing by a child because it put the learner in an underprivileged position: the adult
could no longer make use of the abilities of the child yet was not allowed to use the
intellectual faculties s/he had as an adult. Sweet stressed the need to control the num-
ber of vocabulary to be presented (3,000 common words would be sufficient for gen-
eral purposes) he also grouped them thematically. There were five stages in his
approach: 1) the mechanical stage aimed at learning good pronunciation and phonetic
transcription, 2) the grammatical stage, focused on building the knowledge of gram-
mar and basic vocabulary, 3) idiomatic stage, devoted to the lexical material, and finally
4) the literary and 5) archaic stages, devoted to literature and philology.
naturally. The approach stresses the need for the learner to be exposed to authen-
tic material and to really link the forms to their exact meaning. Understanding the
material is the key to language learning.
according to this observation. For example, if we explain to the learner that the
third person singular of the verb in the simple present tense must have either the
-s or -es ending, the learner will understand and learn this principle as an idea
expressed in a sentence, but not as the ability to implement the principle in the act
of speaking. In order to accomplish the latter, the learner must have numerous, if
not endless, opportunities to practise the use of third person singular simple pre-
sent sentences in meaningful contexts. Observing language to notice regularities in
the use of forms as in linguistic description is a cognitive operation not to be mis-
taken for the act of producing an utterance in the same language as a communica-
tive operation. Unfortunately, the two aspects used to be regarded as if they had
been one and the same operation: grammar rules used to be erroneously identified
with the material for producing utterances. It is now recognized that they possess
their distinct specificity and that each of them taps different and specialized
knowledge sources in our mind. Rules are fed by metalinguistic or metalingual
knowledge which comes from reasoning, while speech production - by largely
automatized procedural knowledge which comes from practice. Explicit rule pre-
sentation cannot function as a substitute for communicative language practice, but
it can provide the learner with useful guidance about the forms to make commu-
nicative language practice more effective. It does not matter whether we emphasize
the inductive or deductive strategy for rule presentation, as long as the illustrative
material is meaningful and there are plenty of opportunities for communicative
practice distributed in time. For these reasons, the explicit teaching of grammar
cannot be expected to provide the learner with the key to language. The key to for-
eign language learning is its use in meaningful practice and interaction.
Considering the communicative goals of foreign language teaching, rule
presentation and learning is no longer a leading activity, the core of a teaching
method. Instead, its status is reduced to one of many form-focused techniques of
'teaching grammar' and fostering accuracy with the function to intensify the
benefits of communicative language practice. Additionally, there are two impor-
tant conditions attached to this limited use of explicit rule presentation: 1) the
learner must be cognitively ready to deal with the abstract information about lan-
guage, which is to say, be at least at the developmental stage of formal operations,
around the age of 12-14; and 2) the rule must be relevant to the learner, i.e. refer
to utterances in the discourse of communication.
In fact, one can question whether one can ever 'know the meaning of a word', since further
experience of its use will always add something more to its meaning. This is particularly the
case if we consider the polysemic nature of many lexical items. Translation tends to conceal
polysemy, by encouraging reliance on one-for-one equivalences between languages. The short-
-term advantages of translation have to be weighed against some longer-term problems that
dependence on translation may cause.
learner's native language is a resource which can be tapped under specific didac-
tic circumstances, but, like salt, should be used with moderation. My impression-
istic estimate would be not more than 2 percent of the class time.
1. An eminent Polish linguist, professor Ludwik Zabrocki, stated in his lectures and talks for foreign
language teachers that there are in fact two essential methods of foreign language teaching, the
grammar method and the text method, whereas all the others can be treated as their variations to be
located somewhere between the main two. Do you think that this idea is tenable? Why? Why not?
2. Henry Sweet saw a way to combine a) the Direct Method, especially its emphasis on language learn-
ing from text and conversation, where language was arbitrary, with b) the formal focus on grammar
1.8. The current view on the role of the text 33
rules of the Grammar Translation Method, where language was logically organized, on condition
that the study of grammar be made more practical and linked to meaningful material. Can you
explain this idea? Is it valid nowadays? Why? Why not?
3. Can you justify the role of phonetics in teaching English as a foreign language to Polish students?
4. What is your own view on the role of grammar in teaching English as a foreign language to Polish
students? Which points from section 1.6. do you accept and which not?
5. What is your own point of view on the role of translation in teaching English to Polish learners? Can
you find some specific examples when translation into Polish seems indispensable? Can you find an
example of translating from Polish to English which is necessary in teaching English to Polish learners?
Further reading
Howatt, A. P R., 1984. A History of English Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kelly, L. G., 1969. 25 Centuries of Language Teaching. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House.
Titone, R., 1968. Teaching Foreign Languages. A Historical Sketch. Washington: Georgetown
University Press.
PART TWO
Characteristic features of this period include: a) clear practical goals of foreign lan-
guage learning, language learning for communication; b) communication under-
stood as direct, oral, face-to-face interaction, and not just writing; c) the practical
goals justified by the rapid changes in the communication and transportation sys-
tems, especially fast means of transportation such as the plane and the automobile,
and d) further growth of the mass media, especially radio and television, as well as
film and the press. Robert Lado (1964:3) succinctly summarizes these changes:
We are witnessing in our time the greatest changes in the history of language learning - changes
that reach into every aspect of this time-honoured field of study. Formerly known by a few as
a mark of education, languages are now studied by people from all walks of life. More lan-
guages are studied than ever before, and methods of learning are changing radically. The goals
of the past, usually limited to contact with selected items of literature, have broadened to
include spoken communication with and understanding of native speakers on the widest range
of human interests.
... a set of correlative assumptions dealing with the nature of language and the nature of lan-
guage teaching and learning. An approach is axiomatic. It describes the nature of the subject
matter to be taught. It states a point of view, a philosophy, an article of faith - something which
one believes but cannot necessarily prove. It is often unarguable except in terms of the effec-
tiveness of the methods which grow out of it.
A technique is implementational - that which actually takes place in the classroom. It is a parti-
cular trick, stratagem, or contrivance used to accomplish an immediate objective. Techniques
must be consistent with a method and therefore in harmony with an approach as well.
What the learners experience in the class as well as what the observers notice are
techniques of foreign language teaching.
The above explanations of the three central terms are significant because
they codify the relationship of the field of foreign language teaching, including
English as a foreign language, with the scientific disciplines of linguistics and
psychology: they are the authoritative source disciplines to provide assumptions
on the nature of language and language learning.
The leading behaviourists in the United States are J. B. Watson and B. F. Skinner.
Behaviourism is not a monolithic school, but it can be characterized as the study
of observable behaviour. Behaviourists rejected mentalism, i.e. preoccupation
with inferred mental processes which exist but, they claimed, cannot be studied
scientifically. Watson characterized behaviourist psychology as an objective,
experimental branch of natural science with no interest in consciousness or use
for such techniques as introspection. He thought the feasible goal of psychology
was to predict and control behaviour. Watson took the extreme position that all
behaviour represents learned responses to environmental stimuli and rejected the
notion of innate, inherited sources of individual differences. He was convinced
that in certain controlled environmental circumstances, any infant can be trained
in the way he wanted. The dividing line between animal and human learning was
rather slim. Many experiments were performed on laboratory animals, such as
cats, pigeons, rats, and monkeys, to explore simple forms of learning which would
also be informative about human learning. Following his research on cats, Edward
L. Thorndike, formulated the law of effect, which states that satisfying conse-
quences, or rewards, strengthen the behaviour and make it more likely to recur in
the future whereas unsatisfying consequences weaken or eradicate it.
Behaviour is analysed in terms of the stimulus-response paradigm. Stimulus
is defined as some excitation of a sense organ, while response is a muscular or
glandular reaction (Gleitman, 1981). Behaviourists claimed that where there is no
stimulus, there is no response, the point contested later on by Chomsky. Accord-
ing to Thorndike, learning in laboratory animals did not involve understanding
but a gradual strengthening of the stimulus-response bond, or association (Gleit-
man, 1981).
The best-known form of behaviourism is Skinner's radical behaviourism.
He was interested in the same problems as Thorndike and proposed that the most
important mechanism for moulding human behaviour is the principle of rein-
forcement. His key term, operant (instrumental) conditioning, reflects the view
of learning as making or withholding particular responses because of their conse-
quences (Wortman, Loftus, and Marshall, 1988). Skinner's behaviourism does not
appeal to inferred mental processes or structures such as storage or retrieval or
memories, but, characteristically, is based on the idea that all behaviour in
humans and animals is shaped by the environment, especially by such conse-
quences as the presence or absence of reward. Food may have such an effect on
a hungry rat. As a result, behaviour may be reinforced or extinguished. In the case
of reinforcement, behaviours may be strengthened if they are followed by some
positive events. Personality traits and emotions are also seen as learned and there-
fore controllable (extinguishable) behaviours.
Operant conditioning attempts to analyse the interaction between the organism and its environ-
ment into a three-term sequence or contingency. The product of a successful experimental
38 2. Audiolingualism in teaching English as a foreign language
analysis is the identification of the environmental events (discriminative stimuli) that deter-
mine the occurrence of the behaviour (operant) and of the environmental events (reinforcing
stimuli, or reinforcers) necessary for the acquisition and maintenance of the behaviour. The
behaviour whose emission is required for the occurrence of the reinforcer is called operant to
emphasize that it operates on the subsequent environment to produce certain consequences
(Donahoe, 1987:789, in Corsini ed.).
Structuralism views language as a system and focuses on its synchronic rather than
diachronic dimension. A system is an arrangement, not a sum of its parts, so lan-
guage facts should be investigated in their mutual relationships, not in isolation,
because they are defined by their position in the system. Structural linguistics
developed in Europe, including the Soviet Union, as well as in the United States.
It was the latter school of structuralism which exerted influence on the development
of methods of foreign language teaching. In reaction to the traditional approaches
to grammar, which used vague subjective criteria, structural linguists were in-
terested in solid data and objective methods of analysis. Moreover, they rejected
one universal (classical) grammatical model for linguistic analysis of different lan-
guages and aimed at discovering the specificity of each language system. They
focused on the description of corpora, the recorded utterances of the speakers of
a given language, and investigated them at various levels of structural organization.
The objective criteria and descriptive methods developed by structuralists were
used to distinguish between relevant and redundant elements, distinctive features,
distributions and oppositions or dichotomies in their hierarchical arrangements.
2.3. The Audiolingual Approach, Method and Techniques 39
books are withheld from the students for about 4 to 6 weeks to allow good pro-
nunciation habits to be formed and to prevent any interference from the writ-
ten language (in the case of English, its especially intricate spelling system);
also at the course level, we have what is called the retardation of reading and
writing until solid mastery of the material in speaking is established, which in
fact means deemphasis of reading and writing; the underlying principle is that
once the learner has learned the material orally, it will be available in the writ-
ten skills; however, transfer of practice from the oral to the written skills does
take place unconditionally; finally, there is a characteristic strategy for a read-
ing lesson once reading is introduced: a typical reading lesson is organized to
incorporate as much listening and speaking as possible: the text is treated as
an opportunity to consolidate grammatical material which has been practised
orally; the text is first introduced as oral summary with some explanations by
the teacher and followed by his/her comprehension questions; reading aloud is
an important part of the reading lesson.
• The status of pronunciation; great care is attached to the development of accu-
rate, possibly native-like pronunciation, through exercises with native pronun-
ciation models for imitation and articulatory instructions, as well as practice in
discrimination between the target language phonemes, such as i:/ı in bean/bin in
English, or native and target language phonemes, such as kot in Polish and
caught in English, stressed and unstressed syllables in a word, drills in rhythm
at the level of clauses and sentences focusing on the pronunciation of strong and
week forms, and on intonation patterns.
Language is a set of habits reflects behaviourist preoccupations with the
almost reflex-like aspects of human behaviour as well as the ease with which
native speakers use their language. A habit can be explained as an act which is per-
formed repeatedly and does not require effort or reflection. This is precisely the
aspect of language use by competent speakers which is admired by the audiolin-
gualists and recommended as the route to language learning. In conjunction with
the structural linguistic interest in patterns of speech, this leads to an idea that to
know a language means to have routinized a sufficient (vast but finite) number of
sentence patters. This view produces a potent effect in foreign language teaching:
habits are mastered through overlearning, imitation, chorus repetition, pattern
drill or pattern practice of all sorts, and mimicry and memorization. These
activities are expected to develop fluency in speaking. Hestitation or reflection are
counterproductive and should be avoided. Overlearning refers to practice conti-
nued beyond the point of mastery and implies numerous repetitions. Bloomfield
(1942:12) states that 'language learning is overlearning: anything else is of no use.'
Imitation, which is a synonym of mimicry in this case, is an activity which
requires the learner to replicate or 'echo' the stimulus in exactly the same way in
which it is presented, i.e. without any modifications. Chorus repetition enables
learners to practise some new material within the security of the group; an uncer-
tain advantage of this form of repetition is that while the learners practise simul-
taneously, the teacher has no way of monitoring them individually. The essence of
42 2. Audiolingualism in teaching English as a foreign language
...the modern scientific study of language has within the last twenty years developed special
techniques of descriptive analysis by which a trained linguist can efficiently and accurately
arrive at the fundamentally significant matters of structure and sound system amid the bewil-
dering mass of details which constitute the actual rumble of speech. If an adult is to gain a satis-
factory proficiency in a foreign language most quickly and easily he must have satisfactory
materials upon which to work - i.e. he must have the really important items of the language
selected and arranged in a properly related sequence with special emphasis upon the chief trouble
spots... The techniques of scientific descriptive analysis, on the other hand, can provide a thorough
and consistent check of the language material itself and thus furnish the basis for the selection
of the most efficient materials to guide the efforts of the learner... It is enough here to insist that
only with sound materials based upon an adequate analysis of both the language to be studied
and the native language of the student /or with continued guidance of a trained linguist/ can an
adult make the maximum progress toward the satisfactory mastery of a foreign language.
The term 'method' is less general than the approach and, essentially, it implements
the assumptions of the approach at the level of the process of foreign language teach-
ing. A process involves a series of changes which span the initial and the target
44 2. Audiolingualism in teaching English as a foreign language
behaviour. A method is a conception of how to take the learner from the initial to the
target state. Several features characterize audiolingualism at this level:
1. Criteria for the syllabus. The most important consideration is how the learning
process is understood to advance. The Audiolingual Method is based on the
structural syllabus which reflects the view that the learner's progress is a mat-
ter of mastering the subsequent points in grammar in their linear arrangement.
In contrast to the traditional approaches (for example, the Grammar Transla-
tion Approach), these criteria are improved because they are derived from
structural linguistic description, which is free from the flaws of traditional
grammar. The initial tendency on the part of audiolingualists to camouflage
grammar in inductive teaching and avoid the use of the native language are
later replaced by its more overt treatment, such as grammatical explanations in
the native language. The unit of the material to be taught is carved out and
labelled with the help of structural criteria (the simple present tense, modal
verbs, the passive voice, etc.). Although isolated sentences are still present in
drills and pattern practice, more emphasis is put on the context in which
grammatical forms are used.
2. The view of the learner. The learner is treated as a plastic globe to be moulded
by the teacher, which means that the success of the process of teaching is pri-
marily in the teacher's hands. If he or she is able to orchestrate the activities
properly and conduct them at a brisk pace, the effects in the form of the desired
target behaviour should emerge. The Audiolingual Method is teacher-dominat-
ed, as reflected in classroom activities, it is guided by, and centred on, the
teacher. The learner is expected to be 'active', but this involvement is synony-
mous with mechanical behaviour.
3. The view of learning. As has been pointed out above, learning is viewed as
a mechanical rather than mental process (Chastain, 1976). The best route to flu-
ent language use, i.e. habit formation and association, is the learner's observable
activity: imitation, repetition, drill, chorus work, pronunciation practice, dia-
logue recitation, etc. When the learners are silent during the class, nothing
worthwhile seems to happen in the learning process; practice is the key to lan-
guage learning. Learning is understood as a uniform process which is not in any
serious way influenced by the individual; instead, learning is largely deter-
mined by teaching. However, later developments in the field of foreign lan-
guage teaching undermine this conviction and lead to the question: does
language teaching indeed cause language learning?
4. The treatment of grammar. Grammar is the core of the language learning
process, it underlies the structure of the material to be learned, even though it
is gradually contextualized and practised in communicative activities. As has
been said, lessons in the Audiolingual Method are centred on the selected
points of grammar, which is also reflected in the list of contents of various
audiolingual textbooks. To take the first conditional as an example, it is first
introduced in a pattern practice unit, both written and recorded for listening,
then it is contextualized in a dialogue, and finally consolidated in a text. The
2.3. The Audiolingual Approach, Method and Techniques 45
learners practise various examples in less and less controlled exercises to reach
the stage of communicative activities. At the same time, grammatical informa-
tion is not presented explicitly in the form of rules. As Chastain (1976:110)
clarifies, 'The new linguistic approach recognizes that the first-language learn-
er is not aware of the rules he is applying. Therefore, the second language
should be practised, not studied. The learner should learn by analogy, i.e. by
recognition of identical elements in recurring patterns, not by analysis of gram-
mar per se.' As has been mentioned, however, the treatment of grammar and the
native language evolves during the time of the implementation of this method.
5. The treatment of error. The Audiolingual Method is said to be characterized by
a pathological fear of errors which result from interference and lead to incorrect
habits. Errors can be prevented when the material is presented in small steps to
avoid too much difficulty. The learner is expected to proceed through a series
of practice sessions in carefully controlled steps, so that errors have no chance
to appear. The cost of this strategy of error avoidance is that the activities result-
ing from the rigid criteria of simplicity are rather uninteresting. Valdman
(1971:171) comments: in the audiolingual approach emphasis is placed on
accuracy and well-formedness, with the acceptance of the risk that, in early
stages of instruction, at least, students will manipulate utterances relatively
devoid of content.'
6. Classroom work format. Most of the audiolingual teaching is teacher-fronted:
the learners are seated as an audience and have no eye-contact among them-
selves; they all face the teacher who has the central position in the class. This
arrangement is also referred to as lock-step instruction and it seems natural in
a teacher-dominated method. Activities range from individual to whole group
(chorus) practice. Some memorized dialogues are presented by pairs of students
in front of the rest of the students. Individual question and answer exchanges
between the teacher and the learners are used frequently while working on the
reading passage and checking homework.
A selection:
1. PATTERN DRILL:
Mrs Wilson: I'd like you to do some shopping for me, Susan.
Susan: All right, Mother, I will.
Mrs Wilson: I'd like you to buy some coffee.
Susan: All right, Mother, I will.
3. EXERCISES:
Oral
I. A: What do you want me to do?
B: I want you to help me with my maths.
a) Make questions and answers according to the above model; use the following cues to replace the
expressions in italics :
ring X send a parcel to X
talk to X pack my (you, X's) suitcase
b) Do the same exercise changing 'you' to 'X' in the questions and T, 'me', to (he (she) \ 'him (her)'
in the answers:
Written
I. Write what Mrs Wilson said to different persons named in the exercise.
Example: Mrs Wilson: I'd like you to do some shopping for me, Susan.
1. Mrs Wilson: , John.
2. Mrs Wilson: , Robert.
3. Mrs Wilson: ., Peter.
4. etc
II. Ask questions and answer them as in the example:
Mrs Wilson: You must collect Robert's jacket from the cleaner's, Susan.
What does Mrs Wilson want Susan to do?
She wants her to collect Robert's jacket from the cleaner's.
1. Susan: You must back me up at the meeting of the Editorial Committee, Betty.
2. Paul's mother: You must drop some of your clubs, Paul.
3. Mrs Groom: You must help me with the housework, Betty.
4. etc.
III. Rewrite the following as in the example :
Mrs Wilson: Robert will probably be late for lunch.
Mrs Wilson expects Robert to be late for lunch.
1. Mrs Wilson: Aunt Helen will probably give up her job soon.
2.4. A critical look at the Audiolingual Approach, Method and Techniques 47
its single component but the integration of all of the components in fractions of
seconds. Fluent speakers perform all these operations with ease, but their skill is
the effect of practice and expertise, accomplished by painstaking attempts, filled
with hesitations and effort. The benefits of drill sessions, on the other hand,
materialize as improved pronunciation at best, but they cannot accelerate the
development of the speaking skill. Drill may be recommended as a form of
rhythm and pronunciation practice which helps the learner to consolidate the
articulatory operations involved in producing phonemes at the level of clauses.
This is qualitatively different from using drill to master the grammatical system
of the target language.
As for the second point, regarding the position of drill versus other compo-
nents of a communicative activity, it is not at all clear that the former should be
the first element, i.e. that it should come before communicative language use.
Oiler argues (1973:42):
It was apparently because of the assumption of language as a self-contained system that Nelson
Brooks (1964) and Rand Morton (I960, 1966) argued that manipulative skills should be
acquired through pattern drills which in themselves were not related to communicative activi-
ty. Morton went so far as to insist that the acquisition of manipulative skills had to precede
expressive use. That is to say that syntactic and phonological structures are best acquired by
drill apart from their instrumental use. In an experiment designed to test the relative effective-
ness of presenting structures apart from communicative activity and within active communica-
tion, Oiler and Obrecht (1968) showed that exactly the reverse is true. The mechanical mani-
pulation of structures is best learned in the context of communication [emphasis - M.D.].
With each repetition round there should be some gains, either in fluency or accu-
racy, in the strength of the memory trace, or all of the above. It is nothing else but
a way of preparing for performance by trying things out. To sum up, repetition is
not a way to master syntax but it certainly helps to consolidate the material if used
in non-trivial tasks and to strengthen the memory trace of the material being
learned.
1. Arrange a drill session of about 10-12 sentences to be conducted by one of the students. Read the
sentence to be repeated clearly and give the learners a sign to repeat. If they do not coordinate their
chorus, do the same sentence again. The pace of this activity should be rather brisk. What are your
impressions from participating in it (as a student, and as a teacher)? What have you learned? What
can you remember? What is the plan/sequence of the material that you have practised? What would
have to be changed for you to remember the material better?
2. Would you as a beginner like to be taught a foreign language with the pre-reading period in the
beginning of the course? Why? Why not? What problems can be prevented by the implementation
of such an introduction to the course in a foreign language and which ones cannot?
3. What weaknesses do you see in practising language material which is predominantly of sentence
length, not longer?
4. Do you as a learner of English ever learn materials almost by heart (verbatim)? Now or in the past?
What kind, if at all? If not, why not?
5. Do you agree with the view that the Audiolingual Method is more appropriate for children than
adults? Is it appropriate for children at all?
Further reading
Chastain, K., 1971. The Development of Modern Language Skills. Theory to Practice. Philadelphia: CCD.
Chastain, K., 1976. Developing Second Language Skills: Theory to Practice. USA: Rand McNally
Publishing Company.
Komorowska, H., 1975. Nauczanie gramatyki języka obcego a interferencja. Warszawa: WSiP
Richards, J. C., and T. S. Rodgers, 1986. Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rivers, W. M., 1964. The Psychologist and the Foreign Language Teacher. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Rivers, W. M., 1968. Teaching Foreign Language Skills. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
If I had to reduce all educational psychology to just one principle, I would say this: The most
important single factor influencing learning is what the learner already knows. Ascertain this
and teach him accordingly.
Ausubel (1968) begins his outline of the theory of meaningful learning with
the concept of cognitive structure, which refers to the hierarchical organization
of our mental representations. It consists of knowledge domains organized accord-
ing to their levels of generality and criterial attributes and is used to store new
information in the form of concepts and propositions. The key to success in learn-
ing is the learner's ability to link the new information to the relevant position in
the cognitive structure. Ausubel distinguishes between reception and discovery
learning. During reception learning the information to be learned is presented in
a complete form, whereas discovery learning requires the learner to generate/com-
pute the missing information before he or she can incorporate it in memory. The
next important set of terms is rote and meaningful learning. While learning in
a rote manner, the learner commits the material to memory verbatim, trying to
store it mechanically, without perceiving any logical links or extracting the ideas
independently of their verbal expression. It is another matter that some materials
may be potentially meaningful, but are learned verbatim; others may not even be
potentially meaningful, such as an arbitrary list of disconnected words, for exam-
ple. Meaningful learning, on the other hand, delves beyond the surface to fulfil
three conditions:
1. The meaningful learning set. The learner must be predisposed to learn in
a meaningful way, which is to say, seek the logical links and organization in the
material to be learned; the learner who has no confidence in this type of learn-
ing, or, for reasons of anxiety, prefers to resort to the mechanical verbatim
strategy, may turn a potentially meaningful learning task into a rote one.
2. Potentially meaningful learning material. The learning material must contain
some sensible ideas and it must be organized logically, for example, according
to some criteria, so that the learning task can be related in a substantive
(non-verbatim, non-arbitrary) way to the learner's present knowledge repre-
sented in his or her cognitive structure.
3. The logical meaning must become psychological. The learner must perceive
the logical meaning in the text and incorporate it in a substantive way to his or
her knowledge store so that the objective meaning is converted into psycho-
logical meaning, as subjectively experienced by the learner.
The advantages of meaningful learning are considerable: the material is
stored longer, it is better retrievable and available for use in subsequent learning
tasks. Moreover, each meaningful-learning episode enhances the development of
the learner's cognitive structure and his or her skills in the acquisition of know-
ledge.
Another classical figure in cognitive psychology is Jemore S. Bruner, whose
main works include The Process of Education and Beyond the Information Given.
Together with George Miller, he founded the Center for Cognitive Studies at Har-
3.2. Influences from linguistics 55
trasts. There are several important differences between the traditional Grammar
Translation Method and its modernized cognitive version, however. The modern-
ized version derives grammar material from the up-to-date linguistic description,
TGG; it has communicative aims and makes use of contemporary reading mate-
rials; it aims to develop the four language skills in a balanced way rather than
mainly reading and writing; and rule presentation is used to complement the
functional language practice.
materials, who could incorporate the results of contrastive analysis into the text-
books to emphasize the danger zones with more learning materials. The Cognitive
Code Learning theorists believed that the differences between the native and tar-
get language were helpful in identifying the target language system by explicitly
differentiating it from the mother tongue (e.g. deliberately contrasting in special
activities). Carroll (1966:102) states: 'According to the cognitive-code learning
theory, ... the differences between the native language and the target language
should be carefully explained to the student, so that he may acquire conscious
control of the target language patterns.'
2. The view of the learner. The learner is the centre of learning. Chastain
(1976:134) contrasts this view with the audiolingual conception: 'The mind is
not a passive globe to be moulded by environmental forces, but an active and
determining agent in the acquisition and storage of knowledge.' Cognitive psy-
chologists define learning as a constructive process. The learner's prior know-
ledge as evidenced in his or her cognitive structure is of primary importance.
The teacher must adjust to it and teach accordingly. This is the time when
research on motivation and other individual factors gains momentum. The
celebrated volume on foreign language teaching is given the title Focus on the
Learner to mark the beginning of the trend toward learner-centredness. The key
idea is that teaching must be adjusted to learning. Chastain states (1976:144):
'The teacher's task is to organize the material being presented in such a man-
ner that what is to be learned will be meaningful to the learner.' The effect of
these cognitive ideas is the trend to individualizing foreign language instruc-
tion (Disick, 1975).
4. The place of foreign language skills. The Cognitive Code Learning Theory
breaks up with the audiolingual treatment of skills, i.e. the primacy of speech,
for theoretical and practical reasons. The ontological and phylogenetic argu-
ments, the cognitivists say, do not apply to the situation of literate adult learn-
ers in our culture. Prioritizing speech interferes with classroom activities and
individual preferences of eye-oriented students. Critical opinions are voiced
about the pre-reading period (Finocchiaro, 1975; Marckwardt, 1975; Stevick,
1974). Donaldson (1971) states: 'Language is primary; speech and writing are
of secondary importance since both are outputs of language.' Speech and writ-
ing are on an equal footing. The four language skills in the Cognitive Method
are treated in a balanced and integrated manner. There is no hierarchy or
sequencing of skills in the process of foreign language teaching. If anything,
there is a tendency to emphasize the receptive skills in the beginning of the
learning process to provide the foundations for language competence which is
necessary before the learner is expected to perform.
Knowing a language is inseparable from the requisite mental representa-
tions and cannot be identified merely with one form of its manifestation, for
example speaking. Language use takes place in any of the available modalities:
auditory, visual, tactile. Although each skill taps the knowledge of the language,
it has some specificity of its own and must be cultivated individually.
in the subsequent lessons and the current state of the learner's cognitive struc-
ture. Marton (1978) explains that in the case of the new material, the appropri-
ate element in the cognitive structure had to be built first by introducing more
general and abstract categories to help the learner to subsume the new, more
detailed information meaningfully. A synthesis of a fairly broad grammatical
problem was to provide the learner with some orientation in the material to be
learned in detail, in individual lessons, and in conjunction with practice ses-
sions. Such a strategy of 'mental scaffolding' could be implemented to intro-
duce the system of tenses in English starting with a general presentation of such
concepts as tense and time, the past, present and future, the aspect, the forms
and the functions of the English tenses and some similarities and differences
between Polish and English in this respect. Such an introduction, accompanied
by a chart of the tenses, should not be mistaken with 'having taught' the sub-
ject, but merely having prepared the learners for the task of learning/practising
the tenses meaningfully in the subsequent course of study. However, this strate-
gy can reasonably be addressed only to a fairly sophisticated mature learner who
is capable of processing all the metalingual information contained in the orga-
nizers, which is to say, a learner around 14 or more years of age.
The use of advance organizers has its strengths and weaknesses which
brings us to the following conclusion: their presence increases metalanguage
talk during the foreign language lesson, but they enhance the organization of
the material to be learned, which is equal to its better learning and retention.
The degree to which advance organizers can be effectively implemented seems
to depend on the kind of language course and the learners' needs and interests.
6. The treatment of error. There are no theoretical reasons to maintain the audio-
lingual pathological fear of error which will turn into a habit so it has to be pre-
vented at all cost. Unlike in the Audiolingual Method, error is accepted as part
of the learning process. There is an incorporated risk of making mistakes since
the tasks designed for the learner are non-trivial and challenging, e.g. problem
solving. The occurrence of error may be a signal for some explicit information
about the language, analysis of the error and remedial teaching. Sources of
errors are no longer linked to native language interference but to the develop-
mental processes internal to target language learning, (cf the notion of Inter-
language, see p. 86).
7. Classroom work format is not revolutionized, but more time is devoted to indi-
vidual rather than chorus activities. Question and answer exchanges are quite
common between the students and the teacher. Individual activities, such as
silent reading, call for working on one's own, whereas discussions and debates
bring in elements of group activity.
trating more flexible Polish word order with the less flexible English word
order; grammar exercises with rationalization of choices (the students pro-
vide reasons why a given form is chosen; often used to teach the function of
tenses in English); transformation exercises, such as changing active sen-
tences into passive, the affirmative into the negative, singular into plural,
reported speech into direct speech; problem solving activities; silent reading;
learning new vocabulary with explicit analysis and definitions, both in the
native and target language; oral as well as written compositions (for example
opinion paper, for and against format, narrative, and argumentative writing);
discussions and debates.
danger that the analysis of grammar and talking about the language will take
precedence over language practice and use, leading to less-than-fluent speaking
ability.
Not all the information in language use can and should be analysed. Inten-
tional learning in language is responsible only for a segment of all the knowledge
that is acquired. There is also a considerable proportion of the material to be learned
through incidental learning, that is through use with attention focused on commu-
nicative goals. Just as a pattern drill cannot guarantee learning the required amount
of material for productive language use, the explicit language study of rules cannot
guarantee acquiring the right material for language use. Most of the material is
picked up from the meaningful input incidentally.
Some information, especially language forms - both grammatical and lexi-
cal - in language, is arbitrary so it cannot be learned according to the principles
of meaningful learning; this is to say that rote learning cannot be entirely exclud-
ed from the foreign language classroom.
and the processes of language learning are cognitive by definition. Cognitive psy-
chology and psycholinguistics provide a view of the mental make-up of the lan-
guage learner and the processes which take place during language use and learn-
ing. The interest in the cognitive aspects of human functioning has spilled over to
linguistics (cognitive grammar) and Second Language Acquisition Research (cog-
nitive SLA theory). There is also a cognitive conception of verbal communication
as human information processing developed for foreign language didactics
(Dakowska, 2003).
The Cognitive Method has been modified and extended to incorporate the
concept of verbal communication and the advances of Second Language Acquisi-
tion Research, as well as the accumulated professional knowledge of classroom
foreign language teaching. The explicit teaching of grammar is not viewed as the
route or the key to language, but as a strategy facilitating foreign language prac-
tice and providing intellectual control and orientation in the functioning of lan-
guage as a communicative tool (in presentation as well as practice and feedback).
Teaching about the language is not limited to the syntactical system but expands
to various aspects of verbal communication as a whole.
1. Think of the possibilities of implementing the principles of the Cognitive Method to teaching Eng-
lish grammar to Polish liceum students in the following areas:
a) introducing the present perfect tense (its functions and form) with an advance organizer;
b) explaining the rules for question formation in English, making a graphic illustration, and
providing practice;
c) teaching the forms and functions of the passive voice (one tense would be enough) with the
use of contrastive examples in Polish and English.
2. Using the grid below, compare the Audiolingual and the Cognitive Methods.
View of learning
Place of f. 1. skills
Treatment of grammar
Treatment of error
Techniques
3. What is your view of the strengths and weaknesses of the Cognitive Method?
4.1. Pessimism regarding the search for an ideal method 65
Further reading
Chastain, K., 1971. The Development of Modern Language Skills. Theory to Practice. Philadelphia: CCD.
Chastain, K., 1976. Developing Second Language Skills: Theory to Practice. USA: Rand McNally
Publishing Company.
Komorowska, H., 1975. Nauczanie gramatyki języka obcego a interferencja. Warszawa: WSiP
Marton, W., 1978. Dydaktyka języka obcego w szkole średniej. Podejście kognitywne. Warszawa: PWN.
Rivers, W. M., 1964. The Psychologist and the Foreign Language Teacher. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Rivers, W. M., 1968. Teaching Foreign Language Skills. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Method, there were problems with demonstrating the superiority of one over the
other. Stevick (1974), for example, points out that method A is a logical contra-
diction of method B; if the assumptions of method A are justified, then method
B should not be effective. Yet teachers achieve comparable results with both meth-
ods. Inconclusive evidence derived from empirical research led to skepticism
regarding the feasibility of discovering a universal method of teaching foreign lan-
guages (cf Bańczerowski, 1979; Marton, 1975; Strevens, 1977; Wilkins, 1974). In
general, the search for a teaching method ceased to be regarded as the main goal
for foreign language teaching because the goal turned out to be beyond our reach.
A critical discussion of various specific issues disclosed certain discrepancies
between the assumptions underlying the approaches and methods and their prac-
tical guidelines for teaching. According to some authors, practical recommenda-
tions of the available methods had little to do with the underlying theoretical
principles (Carroll, 1971; Livingstone, 1962). Hanzeli (1967), for instance, saw no
reason to think that the teaching sequence of skills should reflect the linguistic
sequence. He said that the sequence of audiolingual skills is a case of linguists
speaking outside their domain; these reasons can be pragmatic or psychological,
but not linguistic. Saporta (1966) was of the opinion that when converted into an
educational goal, the primacy of speech paid the most superficial lip service to lin-
guistics. Marton (1975, 1976) pointed out that such linguistic terms as generation,
rule, and transformation taken over from the science of linguistics to the field of
teaching became didactic mutations which largely distorted their original techni-
cal meaning. Transformation, a linguistic device to capture the relationship
between syntactical forms, was treated as a new name for fairly old-fashioned exer-
cises in which learners practise sentence conversion from singular into plural, or
affirmative into interrogative sentences, or passive into active, etc. These are just
a few examples to illustrate the growing awareness among the specialists that
although methods are said to be derived from their linguistic and psychological
assumptions, there is no consistent link between them and the resulting teaching
recommendations. This gradually led to the loosening up of the bonds with the
source disciplines, which could be welcomed as a sign of growth, if not to say mat-
uration, of the field of foreign language teaching. The source disciplines were
gradually losing their status of the sole fountain of wisdom.
Skepticism as to the feasibility of designing a universal method of teaching
together with the growing criticism of the existing ones led to relocating the ener-
gies of specialists in the field to new pursuits, such as the eclectic orientation, the
alternative methods, the foreign language learner and language learning rather
than teaching.
Our field has been afflicted, I think, with many false dichotomies, irrelevant oppositions, weak
conceptualizations, and neglect of the really critical issues and variables. When I summarized
(Carroll, 1966) two extreme points of view as being, first, the 'audiolingual habit theory' and,
second, 'the cognitive-code learning theory', I had no real intention of pitting one against the
other. I was only interested in what each theory would imply if pushed to the limit. Indeed, at
the timej meant to jmggest that each theory had a modicum of truth and that some synthesis
needed to be worked out. Instead, the trend has been for points of view to become crystallized
and polarized.
According to Stern (1975:47), 'the alternatives that the methods fanatism has
put before us are, in fact, not genuine choices because to do justice to the complexi-
ties of language, we may well have to grasp both sides of the alternative.' Wilkins
(1976) stated that there is no one method of teaching. Spolsky (1966) voiced his lack
of confidence in methods by saying that the results obtained in teaching might have
been in spite of the method that was used as well as because of it. Strevens (1977)
found the idea of a single best method intuitively unsatisfactory. Bańczerowski
(1975) observed that the typical method which consisted of five slogans derived from
the source disciplines was limited because it emphasized some elements only and
neglected the others. Many specialists saw the promise in, and the need of, combin-
ing the available methods (cf Carroll, 1971; Chastain, 1971; Finocchiaro, 1974,
1975; Pfeiffer, 1979; Stevick, 1974; Wardhaugh, 1975; Zabrocki, 1979). According to
the eclectic orientation, the methods which had been designed as mutually contra-
dictory, could be integrated into a more inclusive approach because each had its own
merits. Moreover, this integrated solution would do justice to the complexities of the
phenomenon of language. The theoretical compromise was worth the benefit of
a more comprehensive system for the process of teaching. An eclectic method was
expected to involve a combination of the audiolingual and cognitive techniques
selected from the point of view of the age of the learner, his or her proficiency level,
the learner's needs and the nature of the material to be taught. The eclectic orienta-
tion demonstrated that what was practically sound in foreign language teaching did
not have to result from a commitment to one school in linguistics or psychology.
Contrastively, it had to embrace more than just a narrow view of language and lan-
guage learning, resulting from a few slogans.
This brief account to follow is based on Caleb Gattegno's book Teaching Foreign
Languages in School. The Silent Way. New York: Educational Solutions 1972.
In his attempt to accelerate learning and create solutions to the existing
problems in teaching any language, he puts the learner in the centre of the process
and silences the teacher. The teacher is expected to say less and less while the
learner - more and more as the course unfolds. He opens his outline of the
method expressing the conviction that foreign language learning is radically dif-
ferent from learning the mother tongue, so a foreign language can be learned at
school by artificial methods and with specially constructed materials. However,
he does not seek inspiration in the existing methods of teaching nor does he think
highly of the usefulness of linguistically based courses or commercially produced
materials.
The subordination of teaching to learning in the case of foreign language is
discussed in the first chapter of his account. He is skeptical about the role of prac-
tice and imitation in foreign language learning and outlines his own view of learn-
ing our first language which stresses the child's experimentation with the indi-
vidual sounds (phonemes) and prosody, as well as the feedback provided by the
environment. Language becomes functional - he says - when it carries meaning
to the hearer. And much of its meaning is carried first through intonation, inten-
sity and other melodic elements beside words. The next stage of learning is when
they manage to acquire vocabulary, i.e. names for various categories in their envi-
ronment. The main point for him is to transfer the responsibility for the use of
language to his students with as little interference from the teacher as possible. He
introduces oral work and the written form of the material being learned with
words in colours to signify their pronunciation, all the time focusing on the
4.3. The alternative methods 69
'melody' of the language. The students are allowed to work at their own pace. The
complete set of materials includes:
• a set of coloured wooden rods,
• a set of wall charts containing vocabulary,
• a pointer,
• Fidel, a phonic code chart,
• tapes or discs,
• drawings and pictures with worksheets,
• transparencies and some more worksheets,
• texts, a book of stories,
• worksheets on language,
• three anthologies,
• films.
The role of the teacher is to help the learners to discover 'the spirit of the lan-
guage', which can be done on the basis of the study of the language melody and
structure, breathing requirements for that language, as well as the literature and
philosophy of the group which uses it. He says (page 22): 'Surrender to the melody
of a language, as to music, will bring to our unconscious all of the spirit of lan-
guage that has been stored in the melody ... Surrender is a technique for learning
languages.' Vocabulary learning is also a route to the spirit of the language and can
be divided into functional, semi-luxury and luxury items. As the learners work on
the language under the teacher's silent guidance, they are encouraged to develop
their inner criteria for correctness, as represented in the native speakers' state-
ments. These criteria can be fostered by the learners' reflection and reasoning
about their speech. However, the route to perfection requires several approxima-
tions before the goal is attained.
The initial lessons focus on the rod and its various colors with the teacher
providing the required words or sentences and instructing the learners non-ver-
bally to produce them. The native language of the learners is used very rarely, if
at all. The learning material is fairly traditional and carefully graded to help the
teacher to retain control over the learning process. Each unit is focused on the
material which treats language as an object of learning rather than a functional
tool. Instructions given by the teacher with the help of the pointer lead to repro-
ducing words or sentences or performing the activities expressed in the impera-
tive sentences, for example 'Take a blue rod and a green rod and give her the blue
one and give him the green one' (Gattegno, 1972:42). Attempts are made to give
the learners the opportunity to associate signs with their meaning, but based on
the criterion of the reason for saying things, verbal communication in the cur-
rent sense of the word does not take place. The stimulus for speaking comes in
the prevalent form of gestures or motions of the pointer toward the classroom
visuals, such as rods or charts. Pronunciation practice is carried out with very
limited modelling provided by the teacher, but once the learners produce the
given phonemes or words, the teacher uses the pointer and gestures to provide
70 4. Developments in foreign language teaching...
feedback and instruct the learners to modify their production to match the tar-
get. Vocabulary material, presented in over ten wall charts, is graded - first
according to the grammatical categories, and later - according to topics. While
working on vocabulary, the teacher uses ad hoc drawings, transparencies, films
and television programmes, texts, worksheets and anthologies. The texts are pre-
pared for classroom purposes and do not aspire to imitate authentic materials.
Their purpose is to extend the learners' vocabulary and 'to analyse it for the lan-
guage it contains or what would be generated from it by analogy, alterations, and
so on.' (page 67). The teacher introduces the words by saying them and writing
them down, a very old-fashioned technique indeed. The activities involved are
predominantly manipulative/metalingual and include classifying words accord-
ing to categories, making sentences with one or more words from a list, making
as many sentences as possible according to the instructions, describing an object
in the picture, etc. One of the activities calls for sentence elaboration: make the
following sentence longer without altering its meaning 'I am cold'. The most
advanced stage in which anthologies are used is aimed at developing literary
awareness in the foreign language as well as the appreciation of style and art.
Translation is not forbidden and may even be used before text appreciation acti-
vities. Gattegno points out that the consolidation of the material takes place
while the learners are asleep.
By way of evaluation, the method seems to be anachronistic, non-profes-
sional, paradoxical and dogmatic. It involves the paradox of preventing the
teacher from speaking to the learners where, in fact, unlike the code of rods and
pointers, the teacher's speech is a marvellous source of input for the learners and
a perfectly natural way to communicate. Moreover, the learners are not supposed
to ask questions. The choice of the focus of the initial lessons, the rod, is quite
arbitrary. 'Spare the rod', one would like to say. Gattegno establishes a very artifi-
cial system for giving instructions to learners to perform manipulative activities
at word and sentence level where the use of the target language could have been
the source of input. The name of the method itself is an oxymoron: language
learning, especially of its communicative social aspect, is noisy rather than silent
and it is counterproductive to prevent the teacher from a completely instinctive
urge to speak to the learners. If followed rigorously, the Silent Way kills the natural
form of interaction between the teacher and the students. It is non-professional
because it looks at language in a very old-fashioned way mainly as an object of rea-
soning rather than a tool of communication. Gattegno introduces a whole system
of non-linguistic associations (colours and phonemes) which are useless outside the
class. It is arbitrary and impractical because the reasons for using the colour rods,
charts and the pointer come from teaching content subjects, not from considering
the specificity of language use and learning. It is dogmatic because it is based on
the inaccurate claim that language develops almost entirely from within.
The question to be posed now is: which element of the Silent Way seems
worthy of being retained in contemporary language teaching which relies on noisy
language input and interaction in the foreign language classroom as well as the use
4.3. The alternative methods 71
James Asher was a professor of psychology at San José State University, San José
California. An outline of the method can be found in J. Asher, 1977. Learning
Another Language Through Actions: The Complete Teacher's Guide Book. Los Gatos,
California: Sky Oaks Productions, Inc.
Asher models his method on the process of language learning by a child. He
thinks that the majority of mother-child interactions take the form of imperatives
given by the mother and performed by the child. Before children can produce
utterances, they demonstrate their comprehension of the command by physical
action. In his view, the replication of this process by adults is a route to successful
second language learning. He states (1982:54): 'The first step in learning another
language is to internalize the code in the same way you assimilated your native
language, which was through commands.' He is convinced that the imperative can
be skillfully used to teach most of the grammatical structure and vocabulary of the
target language. The initial part of the course is focused on practising physical
actions in response to the teacher's commands which are varied to include as
many verbs as possible. Students perform in a group and individually, and after
some time they take over the teacher's part of giving the commands. With each
new lesson the sentences become increasingly intricate to include new vocabulary
items. The teacher may recombine the material to produce what Asher calls 'play-
ful, silly, crazy, bizzare and zany' commands, because having fun during language
learning is a strongly motivating factor. Sample instructions from lesson four are
the following (Asher, 1982:63):
Consuelo, pick up the book from the table and put it on Ramiro's nose.
Ramiro, throw the book to me, hit Consuelo on the arm, and draw a funny picture of Consuelo
on the chalkboard.
Jaime, walk with Juan to the table. Now, put Juan on the table.
72 4. Developments in foreign language teaching...
The pace of the lesson is fairly fast. The students do not say a word. Also
when a written handout with the commands covered so far is distributed, the
learners do not say anything or read aloud. Asher stresses that comprehension
must precede speaking and that a necessary time gap must be observed before the
learners are ready to produce. His method is categorized among the comprehen-
sion approaches to language teaching.
The assumptions underlying Asher's method can be traced back to the work
by Palmer and Palmer English Through Actions, who emphasize the desirable link
in learning between language use and physical activity, especially performing the
teacher's commands by children. Asher is of the opinion that the memory traces
of the material learned through a combination of language and action activates
both the left and the right hemispheres and remain stronger (Richards and
Rodgers, 1986). He expects transfer of skills from listening to speaking, reading,
and writing. Asher does not accept the criticism that in his method the semantic
content is limited to certain kinds of physical activity because this may be elimi-
nated with some ingenuity as in the following instructions (Asher, 1982:64):
Marie, pick up the picture of the ugly man and put it next to the picture of the government
building!
Gregory, find the picture of the beautiful woman with green eyes, long black hair and wearing
a sun hat that has red stripes. When you find the picture, show it to the class and describe the
woman.
It seems that the more advanced the course gets the more typical and traditional
the activities become and the role of the imperative is diminished.
To evaluate TPR - a second language method - from the perspective of the
needs of a foreign language learner is not easy because in the case of the latter the
process of language learning is organized in the classroom in view of the paucity
or complete absence of the environmental input. Even then TPR seems to attach
such an importance only to the imperative, neglecting the whole array of gram-
matical constructions, and to focus on the link only between language and physi-
cal action, which rightly reflects one but by no means all aspects of whole-person
involvement in language use and learning. Children certainly link language learn-
ing with motor activity, but this connection dominates language acquisition mere-
ly in the first, sensorimotor stage, according to the Piagetan terminology. Even
then, however, the link is more complex and multiaspectual than Asher would
have it. Most often children utter words or phrases and perform the activity at the
same time. They also reach a defiance (negation) stage when they make it a rule
not to follow orders. Moreover, Asher's view conveniently overlooks the more
advanced stages of development in which verbal learning plays an increasingly
important and autonomous role. As a result, we see a case of reductionism in
action: the whole communicative potential of language is reduced to the use of the
imperative, whereas the connection between the whole person and language use
and learning - only to the association between understanding imperatives and per-
4.3. The alternative methods 73
ing background music and musical rhythm is coordinated with the presentation
of the material.
There are two key terms in Suggestopedia: desuggestion, i.e. unblocking
the memory of unwanted information, and suggestion, which means filling mem-
ory with desirable information. An important source of the success of Suggesto-
pedia is connected with the teacher, whose self-confidence, acting ability, air of
authority as well as absolute trust in the method must have a strong positive
impact on the learners. The learners accept the teacher's authority as they
progress from the state of infantilization to autonomy. At the same time, the
teacher monitors the learners' progress and tactfully deals with errors.
The method aims at conversational proficiency in a foreign language and the
acquisition of as many as 2,000 lexical items, 60 percent of which are learned pro-
ductively. A typical course is short and intensive with students living in the spe-
cial compound where the course is held: it lasts 24 to 30 days, four classes a day,
six days a week with limited amounts of homework (by permission). On the basis
of a language test, the students are assigned to appropriate groups where they
assume fictitious target language identities. They are required to refrain from
smoking or drinking during the course. Each group consists of twelve students,
six men and six women. To create a pleasant atmosphere, the classrooms are nice-
ly decorated with comfortable reclining chairs arranged in a semi-circle, soft
lights and background music to help the learners unblock during language learn-
ing. There are ten units of the material which must be meaningful and interest-
ing, with a central dialogue in each, a vocabulary list with translation into the
native language and grammatical explanations. The role of translation is to gua-
rantee that the students understand the material. The syllabus is based on structu-
ral criteria and the activities are fairly traditional: grammatical explanations,
translation, vocabulary lists with native language translation, listening to the
teacher's reading, imitation, memorization, role-play, dramatization, dialogue
modification, songs and games, etc.
On day one, the dialogue is first presented in the written form with a paral-
lel translation into the native language which is used for reference and rather
briefly. The teacher reads the dialogue three times, each time in a very special way,
with varying tone, volume and intonation and pauses between reading. The read-
ings are accompanied by background music whereupon the students are asked to
breathe deeply. The timing for breathing is the following (Bancroft, 1983): Bul-
garian translation (2 seconds); foreign language phrase (4 seconds) - now the stu-
dents retain their breath for 4 seconds which is thought to promote concentration;
pause (2 seconds). At this stage the learning process is the most intensive. How-
ever, in contrast to the claims that it is 50 times quicker, the American experi-
ments demonstrated that the results were only 2.5 times faster (Bancroft, 1983).
The teacher modulates his voice together with the music while the learners first
follow the text in the written form after which they close their books and their
eyes and listen. Bancroft (1983:107) states that: 'The succession of baroque slow
movements contributes to the state of relaxation and meditation (the 'alpha state')
4.3. The alternative methods 75
procedures. Curran (1976) builds his approach on the conviction that a non-
threatening counselling relationship between the teacher and the learner is
the perfect context for whole-person learning. He emphasizes that the teacher, or
rather the knower, should have some basic training in counselling. The learner is
treated as a client whose insecurities connected with the process of language learn-
ing and/or with not knowing enough of it should be treated by the counsellor in
a warm, reassuring way. The knower must give up his questioning manner and
generate an unconditionally positive attitude as well as deep understanding of the
learner's state.
An important acronym supplementing these ideas is SARD (Curran, 1976),
which comes from the first letters of the following words: SECURITY, ATTEN-
TION - AGGRESSION, RETENTION - REFLECTION, and DISCRIMINA-
TION. Security stresses that the entire learning experience depends on the
teacher's and learner's state of willing openness, which can be achieved when they
are freed of insecurities. Attention is the element connected with boredom and
guilt which we experience when - as children - we do not comply when told to
pay attention. However, we must accept the fact that our attention fades away so
we must use varied tasks to prevent boredom. Learner-aggression is essential to
constructive learning; like children, adults learn aggressively to assert their
knowledge. Retention and reflection accompany the final stage of absorbing
knowledge which is to become the learner's very own. Discrimination is necessary
in mastering the sounds of the language, as well as the meaning of words and their
grammatical usage.
A group of students/clients of 6-12 are seated in a semi-circle to enable eye
contact. There may be one or more counsellors assigned to the group. The main
form of activity is speaking produced by individual members of the group, but the
method may also be used for teaching composition writing. A traditional syllabus
is not used as the method largely depends on the learners' choice of topic to talk
about at a given time. First, the students think about what to say, and later they
express the idea they have come up with in their native language. The counsellor
listens to the native version and converts it into the target language, phrase by
phrase. These phrases are often recorded on a tape recorder and used as input in
subsequent work. The material may also be written on the board, transcribed and
elaborated further. The students move from fairly simple first attempts to more
and more engaging topics, relying less and less on their counsellor. Richards and
Rodgers (1986) list the following activities typical of counselling learning: trans-
lation of the native language utterance into the target language with the student
repeating the target version, group work devoted to discussions, preparation of
a topic or a summary, recording of the conversations in the target language, tran-
scription of the conversation for the sake of practice and analysis, grammatical
and lexical analysis of the material, sharing reflections and feelings connected
with the classes, listening to the teacher's monologue and free conversation. Ste-
vick (1976) points out that error corrections are made in a matter-of-fact manner,
that is on the whole supportive, whereas the free conversations which take place
78 4. Developments in foreign language teaching...
after the first 30 hours have all the attributes of animated communication between
interested equals.
In a way reminiscent of Lozanov's Suggestopedia, Curran considers the
process of the learner's development in terms of individual human growth, i.e. as
ontogenetic development. In stage 1, the learner is completely dependent on the
knower and tries to develop a new self in the target language. Stage 2 is the time for
the learner to achieve a measure of independence by using some expressions and
phrases. In stage 3, the learner begins to understand the others directly in the target
language and tries to use as little help from the knower as possible. Stage 4 is simi-
lar to adolescence in that the learner is now focused on moving beyond the basics in
the target language. Stage 5 is the time of independence in terms of grammatical
accuracy and style. The learner may now become a counsellor to other learners.
The whole-person approach, according to Curran (1976), is about taking
a person's intellect, volition, and instincts into account and centring the process
of language learning on the deeply caring relationship between the participants in
order to eliminate the sources of anxiety. However, Stevick (1976:93) points out
that there may be an alternative source of anxiety which Curran does not seem to
take into consideration: '...the anxiety that, in terms of one's career needs or life-
time goals, one is wasting one's time with poor method, inappropriate content,
and so on.' Although the whole-person approach to the learner is highly com-
mendable, if not indispensable, it is not, by itself, a sufficient solution to the
teaching problems. The whole-person approach is an essential component of a for-
eign language learning process in addition to, not instead of, the rational proce-
dures required by the unique material being learned, i.e. the foreign language.
A candid evaluation of Counselling Learning from the point of view of this guide
for professionals would be that it is a technique, or an element of a technique, in
fact, rather than a comprehensive method. The really attractive part of its proce-
dures is that, on a regular basis, the learners have an opportunity to decide what
to say and are provided with the linguistic resources to express their own com-
municative intention in the target language. This aspect of Curran's method is not
new and can be recommended to any teacher who wants learners to have some
communicative freedom in practising the target language. However, the strategy
can and should be easily implemented without accepting the method wholesale.
Moreover, the language resources given to the learner to help him or her lexicalize
the communicative intention need not necessarily take the form of native/target
language translation, although, admittedly, this may happen.
In view of the absence of the syllabus and structure of the course, especially
the input for learning, Curran's method can be classified as one of the many lexi-
calization techniques to be used in foreign language speaking activities. The
method's weakness certainly is the fact that the learners are always burdened with
the responsibility to come up with an idea to speak about, considering the fact that
there are well-known alternatives: they may be prepared for a conversation in
a very stimulating way, such as by reading about the subject which is new to them.
The most unacceptable aspect of the method is the implied view of foreign lan-
4.3. The alternative methods 79
1. Do you agree with the idea that an eclectic combination is better for the purposes of teaching English
as a foreign language than the Audiolingual or the Cognitive Methods applied in their pure form?
2. When in terms of the learner's age and level should we introduce phonetic transcription to teaching
English as a foreign language? Is it justified to introduce some other, perhaps simplified, notation
systems in place of phonetic transcription? Why? Why not?
80 4. Developments in foreign language teaching...
3. Many specialists see the origins of TPR in the Gouin Series as well as Palmer's ideas (English
Through Actions). What are their common features? What are the benefits of linking language use to
actions and acting things out as you perform the activity?
4. What do you think about the use of background music in Suggestopedia? Would it disturb you or
help you to concentrate? Would you be irritated by the choice of music if it were different from your
favourite kind?
5. List the most important features of the four alternative methods using the grid below.
Community
The Silent Way TPR Suggestopedia Language
Learning
teaching props
special techniques
other ideas
Further reading
Bowen, D., H. Madsen, and A. Hilferty, 1985. TESOL. Techniques and Procedures. Cambridge,
Mass.: Newbury House.
Oiler, J. W., and P A. Richard-Amato (eds.), 1983. Methods that Work. A Smorgasbord of Ideas for
Language Teachers. Boston: Heinle.
Richards, J. C., and T. S. Rodgers, 1986. Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press.
It is likely that language teaching will continue to be a child of fashion in linguistics and psy-
chology until the time it becomes an autonomous discipline which uses these related sciences
instead of being used by them. To become autonomous, it will, like any other science, have to
weave its own net, so as to fish out from the oceans of human experience and natural pheno-
mena only the elements it needs, ignoring the rest... For the problems of language teaching are
central neither to psychology nor to linguistics. Neither science is equipped to solve the prob-
lems of language teaching.
The authors see the limitations of the notion of language and its implied
focus on form and stress the concept of language use and the centrality of lan-
guage learning instead. This position implies the relevance of psycholinguistics,
which 'emphasizes the human being as a user of language' (Stern, 1973:18). Like
many other authors, Stern stresses 'the intricate relationship between language
and meaning, between language and thought and emotion, between language and
culture' (Stern, 1973:24-25). Oiler (1973a) is of the opinion that a theory of second
language learning with aspirations to adequacy cannot disregard the communica-
tive function of language. This perspective requires researchers to bring together
the linguistic and extralinguistic information involved in language use. In con-
trast to the view of language as a self-contained system, pragmatics is interested in
the study of the relationships between linguistic forms to contexts, in other words,
in what language users do with language signs and how they use language signs to
send and receive messages. Language use is linked to psycholinguistic concerns
regarding the encoding and decoding of messages, i.e. language production and
comprehension, as well as perception and memory. In the same volume, Macna-
mara (1973) suggests that in child language learning, the need to communicate is
the decisive factor. Children first determine the meaning which the speaker is try-
ing to convey and only later work out the relationship between meaning and the
expression they have heard. He states (1973:59): 'the infant uses meaning as a clue
to language, rather than language as a clue to meaning.' Meaning is of paramount
importance; it comes from the child's need to understand and express himself or
herself. As for the tasks of the source disciplines, his view is the following
(1973:64):
'One of the main tasks of linguistics and psycholinguistics is to make a sys-
tematic assault on the language learning device which is so remarkable in man. At
present we know nothing of it in detail. We do, however, know that it is essential-
ly geared to human thought and to its communication. It does not seem to function
at all well unless the learner is vitally engaged in the act of communicating.'
Kennedy (1973) adds that instead of having a rich linguistic environment, the lan-
guage learner 'is fed intravenously'. The first responsibility of specialists is not to
hinder language learning, and the next is to subordinate language teaching to lan-
guage learning. Dykstra and Nunes (1973) argue that the teaching programme must
be structured to match the specific individual characteristics of language learners
and it should be developed and evaluated in the context of purposeful communica-
tion. 'Communication', Dykstra and Nunes (1973:287) point out '... emphasizes
82 4. Developments in foreign language teaching...
purpose and meaning in a social context. It emphasizes the individual in his envi-
ronment. It emphasizes the use of language, not first of all the forms of language,
which are important certainly, but exclusive emphasis on them constitutes an
inadequate educational opportunity.' All the authors stress that language must be
thought of primarily as a tool of interpersonal communication (Spolsky, 1973;
Upshur, 1973; Oiler, 1973b; Tucker and Lambert, 1973; O'Doherty, 1973).
Language learning is regarded as a natural process governed by its own laws.
Richards (1973:107) evaluates the traditional view of language learning as com-
pletely inaccurate: 'Many current teaching practices', he says, 'are based on the
notion that the learner will photographically reproduce anything that is given to
him, and that if he doesn't, it is hardly the business of the teacher or textbook
writer.' The focus is on what the teacher did and what materials were used but not
on the learning strategies that the learners are developing. It may be the case,
however, that learning strategies are fairly independent of the available methods
used for teaching. The learner is not wholly dependent on the teacher for what
he or she learns: the language cannot be taught but must be learned.
• rote learning ability is the ability to store and recall partly arbitrary language
material accurately and assign associations between sounds and meaning, and
retain them.
• inductive language learning ability is the ability to infer regularities from lan-
guage material, identify patterns of relationships involving meaning and gram-
matical form.
The notion of motivation is linked to the study of attitudes and motivation
by Lambert and Gardner in Canada in 1972. Their research was conducted in the
framework of social psychology to explore the relationship between attitudes
towards the target language group and learning outcomes in Montreal, a French-
English bilingual setting. Gardner and Lambert (1972) distinguished two kinds of
motivation: integrative, which is connected with a positive attitude to the target
language group and a desire to become its member, and instrumental, which is
connected with utilitarian goals for language learning, such as obtaining a better-
paid job or possibility of travel. Initially, Lambert and Gardner thought that suc-
cessful language learning is linked to integrative motivation, but it turned out that
the relationship is much more complex. Certainly, motivation is not a causal fac-
tor in language learning. It may be claimed nowadays that the source of motiva-
tion is not as important as the fact that it is activated. Equally important is the
concept of intrinsic motivation, which is the energy activated for the purpose of
conducting a given task and bringing it to its completion. Research on motivation
in foreign language learning nowadays focuses not so much on the learners' atti-
tudes towards speech communities of the target language - with English as
a world language - but on the much more specific concept of attentional policy in
various learning tasks, defined by Keller (1983:389) as 'the choices people make
as to what experiences or goals they approach or avoid, and the degree of effort
they will exert in that respect.' It follows that the notion of motivation refers to
the deployment of the cognitive resources by the learner, the degree of effort
and the extent to which it is sustained in the long run. Current interest in moti-
vation is much more classroom-oriented (Dörnyei, 2001, 2005), whereas the view
of motivation is much more dynamic. The teacher's responsibility is to raise the
level of motivation and maintain it this way as long as possible.
Forisha-Kovach (1983:124) defines intelligence as 'the ability to learn from
experience, the ability to acquire and retain knowledge, and the ability to respond
quickly and successfully to a new situation.' She stresses that to be considered
intelligent, behaviour must be rational and purposeful, as well as meaningful and
valuable. Two factors have been defined in measures of intelligence: the general
ability known as the 'g' factor and specific abilities known as the 's' factor. Results
of intelligence tests are usually presented as Intelligence Quotient (IQ), which
expresses how a person compares to other members of his or her age group. Aver-
age scores are computed for each age group which provide the basis for determin-
ing the mental age. The IQ score is computed by dividing the mental age by the
chronological (actual) age of the person and multiplying by 100. The factors that
affect intelligence are both heredity, which imposes a certain ceiling which we
84 4. Developments in foreign language teaching...
may or may not reach, and environment, especially differential practice. The role
of intelligence in foreign language learning is increasingly recognized nowadays
in view of the perception of language learning and use as strategic behaviour.
We have been reminded recently of Von Humbolt's statement that we cannot really teach lan-
guage, we can only create conditions in which it will develop spontaneously in the mind in its
own way. We shall never improve our ability to create such favourable conditions until we learn
more about the way a learner learns and what his built-in syllabus is. When we do know this
(and the learner's errors will, if systematically studied, tell us something about this) we may
begin to be more critical of our cherished notions. We may be able to allow the learner's innate
strategies to dictate our practice and determine our syllabus; we may learn to adapt ourselves
to his needs rather than impose upon him our preconceptions of how he ought to learn, what
he ought to learn and when he ought to learn it.
To sum up, the most important developments in the field of foreign language
teaching to mark the 'post-methods' era selected for this outline include gradual
emancipation of the field of foreign language teaching from linguistics and psy-
chology with an increasing awareness of its own problems and priorities. The con-
cept of language, which has been central in foreign language teaching so far, gives
way to the concept of language use, i.e. verbal communication with the learn-
er's participation as an individual, to prepare ground for learner-centredness.
The relationship between foreign language teaching and learning is now modi-
fied: teaching behaviour must be subordinated to the learning process and
there is an urgent need to find out as much as possible about both the process and
the learner.
1. Do you think that there are advantages in developing the field of foreign language teaching as an
autonomous discipline? If so, what are they? What are the problems involved? Is it absolutely neces-
sary, in view of the history of its relationship with the source disciplines?
88 4. Developments in foreign language teaching...
2. According to some views, intelligence has a very important role to play in the process of foreign lan-
guage learning, while according to others this role is minimized. Which view is closer to you? Do
you have any observations in this connection?
3. Since extreme individualization is unnecessary, think of the benefits of group language learning as
opposed to one-to-one instruction. What are the benefits of various interaction possibilities in
a group? What do we learn from our peers? What advantages do we have of different individuals in
a group?
4. Do you think that as a way of individualizing instruction students should be given the opportuni-
ties to choose the content of their material? What benefit would you see in this?
5. What does it take to humanize mass instruction? Can you provide some specific examples? What are
the benefits for the outcomes of the language learning process?
6. Summarize the main points regarding Selinker's conception of interlanguage including its defini-
tion and the key processes.
7. Corder was criticized for his distinction between errors and mistakes based on a rather vague crite-
rion, namely the fact that in the case of mistakes the learner can correct himself or herself. Do you
see any problems with this criterion?
8. Explain the idea of the built-in syllabus.
Further reading
addressed. This leads Austin to the conclusion that utterances have more than
meaning, sense, and reference: they have force which is the pivot of his theory.
He distinguishes three kinds of acts connected with speaking: a) locutionary
acts, the acts of saying something referring to things in the world, b) illocu-
tionary acts, which have forces attached to the locutionary acts, such as warn-
ing or promise, and c) perlocutionary acts, which evoke some natural condition
or state in people who are affected by them. When we say: 'I am sorry', we per-
form all of the above acts in that we utter words which have the locutionary
force, we produce a statement which has the illocutionary force of apologizing
to the addressee, and we perform the perlocutionary act of satisfying the
addressee's demands and expectations.
Speech acts are performed according to the conventions accepted by the
given speech community. Therefore, they are relevant from the point of view of
the foreign language learner. Austin's theory of speech acts is in line with the
interests of foreign language specialists who see the need to focus on language
use in the social context. This is stressed by British linguists, most notably by
Firth (1973) in his work from 1930, 1937 reprinted in 1964 Tongues of
Man/Speech, who makes reference to Sweet to point out that language exists only
in the individual; language is part of personality and must be studied in con-
nection with social human nature. This requires looking at language in terms of
social events, i.e. in the context of situation which includes the participants, the
verbal actions of the participants, the non-verbal actions of the participants, the
relevant objects, and the effect of the verbal action. Firth stresses that the mean-
ing of an utterance is a function of the cultural and situational context in which
it occurs. Abercrombie (1973) is among the scholars who stress the role of para-
linguistic systems of verbal communication, which are distinguished on the
basis of two criteria: a) that they communicate, and b) that they are part of
a conversational interaction. This considerable interest in body language and
kinesics in also reflected in the Communicative Approach to foreign language
teaching.
Halliday (1973) outlines the uses, which he rather ambiguously calls 'mod-
els' (see glossary) of language, acquired by a child in his first language. Adults
develop the idea of language as a tool to communicate something, e.g. expressing
messages, ideas, or thoughts which refer to the real world. But for a child this is
neither the only nor the adequate use of language. The child develops many
other, specialized ideas of language in use in addition to the representational
one:
• the instrumental use to get things done;
• the regulatory use to control the behaviour of others;
• the interactional use (for the interaction between the self and others);
• the personal use - to form one's own individuality;
• the heuristic use - to explore and understand the environment;
• the imaginative function to create one's verbal, fictional, literary environ-
ment.
92 5. The Communicative Approach to foreign language teaching
The participants The social roles of the speakers and the addressees or the audience
The purpose The communicative goal which can be further subdivided into smaller
functions
The key Tone, manner or spirit in which the speech act is performed
The content The topic of communication may determine the use of specialized language
The channel The two main channels are auditory (speech) and visual (writing)
The parameters of the communicative situation outlined above are equally impor-
tant to language choices by native as well as non-native speakers, i.e. language
learners. Practising language use in the abstract is impossible; to create sufficient
context for language practice, these parameters must be specified.
In 1980, following Hymes' lead, Canale and Swain published a seminal
paper on the 'Theoretical Bases of Communicative Approaches to Second Lan-
guage Teaching and Testing' in which the central position in communicative lan-
guage teaching is assigned to the notion of communication and communicative
competence. They spell out the following guiding principles of a Communicative
Approach:
1. Communicative competence is minimally composed of grammatical compe-
tence, sociolinguistic competence, strategic competence (or communication
strategies) and any teaching programme must provide for its development.
2. A communicative approach must respond to the learner's communicative
needs, both these fixed and permanent as well as transitional and interim.
3. The language learner must have the opportunity to take part in meaningful
communicative interaction with competent speakers of the target language.
4. Active use must be made of the learner's native language skills which are
shared with the target language skills.
5. The primary objective is to provide the learner with the experience and the
opportunity to practise the target language and culture and only with a limit-
ed knowledge about the language.
The extensive quote below contains their explanation of the notion of communi-
cation relevant to language teaching (1980:29):
In proposing this theoretical framework, we have in mind several general assumptions about
the nature of communication and of a theory of communicative competence. Following Morrow
(1977), we understand communication to be based in sociocultural, interpersonal interaction,
to involve unpredictability and creativity, to take place in a discourse and sociocultural context,
to be purposive behaviour, to be carried out under performance constraints, to involve use of
the authentic (as opposed to text-book contrived) language, and to be judged as successful or
not on the basis of behavioural outcomes. We assume with Candlin (1978) that the relationship
94 5. The Communicative Approach to foreign language teaching
between a proposition (or the literal meaning of an utterance) and its social meanings is vari-
able across different sociocultural and discourse contexts, and that communication involves the
continuous evaluation and negotiation of social meaning on the part of the participants. We also
agree with Palmer (1978) that genuine communication involves 'the reduction of uncertainty'
on behalf of the participants; for example, a speaker asking a (non-rhetorical) question will not
know the answer in advance, but this uncertainty will be reduced when an answer is provided.
Finally, in keeping with the integrative theories ..., communication will be understood to
involve verbal and non-verbal symbols, oral and written modes, and production and compre-
hension skills.
look at how sentences are used to create discourse. The two factors which make
discourse different from a list of sentences are cohesion and coherence (cf rules
of discourse, Canale and Swain, 1980). The term 'cohesion' is explained as follows
(1978:26):
The notion of cohesion,... refers to the way sentences and parts of sentences combine so as to
ensure that there is propositional development. Usually sentences used communicatively in
discourse do not in themselves express independent propositions: they take on value in relation
to other propositions expressed through other sentences. If we can recognize this relationship
and so are able to associate a sentence, or part of a sentence, with an appropriate value, then we
recognize a sequence of sentences or sentence-parts as constituting cohesive discourse. The dif-
ficulty we have in recovering propositional development is a measure of the degree of cohesion
exhibited by a particular discourse.
many clues as we think necessary, which does not mean that we express every-
thing. It is not even feasible. We make use of ellipsis which is the absence of
explicit verbalization of those elements which, we assume, can be inferred from
our shared knowledge, discourse context, or the context of the situation. The use
of language as discourse is a creative task because the listener or the reader must
compute the meaning from the component elements.
Coherence results from our perception of the match between a given
instance of discourse and our knowledge of how discourse is made. We would now
define coherence as the overall unity of ideas expressed in the discourse (van Dijk
and Kintsch, 1983). Savignon (1983:39) aptly explains the difference between
coherence and cohesion:
Text coherence is the relation of all the sentences or utterances in a text to a single and global
proposition [also called sense, comment - M.D.]. The establishment of global meaning or
topic for a whole passage, conversation, book, etc. is an integral part of both expression and
interpretation and makes possible the understanding of the individual sentences or utterances
included in the text. Local connections or structural links between individual sentences provide
what is sometimes referred to as cohesion, a particular kind of coherence. Some examples of the
formal cohesive devices that are used to connect language with itself [language in the meaning
of discourse elements or entities, comment - M.D.] are pronouns, conjunctions, synonyms,
ellipses, comparisons, or parallel structures. The identification by Halliday and Hasan (1976)
of various cohesive devices used in English is well known, and it has begun to have an influ-
ence on text analysis as well as on teaching materials for English as a Second Language (ESL).
a class of communicative events, the members of which share some set of communicative pur-
poses. These purposes are recognized by the expert members of the parent discourse commu-
5.5. The notion of role 97
nity, and thereby constitute the rationale for the genre. This rationale shapes the schematic
structure of the discourse and influences the constraints choice of content and style ... In addi-
tion to purpose, exemplars of a genre exhibit various patterns of similarity in terms of structure,
style, content and intended audience. If all high probability expectations are realized, the
exemplar will be viewed as prototypical by the parent discourse community.
lar position'. A more extended explanation comes from the Concise Encyclopedia of
Psychology (Corsini, ed. 1987:991):
Roles are prescribed ways for people to divide the labour of society and to interact with others.
Social roles maintain the social system, and they prevent it from changing. Interpersonal rela-
tionships do not simply occur in random fashion, but follow certain social conventions, some-
what similar to a script for a play, Since the stability of society is important, people are carefully
trained and their behaviour is shaped by a process of socialization. To deviate drastically from
one's social role (s) is to invite social sanctions, which can interfere with effective living and the
attainment of one's goals. People continue to learn a variety of roles for various social situations.
Thus a given individual in a lifetime acquires the roles of child, teenager, woman or man, wife
or husband, student, worker, and leader, to mention a few. All of these roles enable the indi-
vidual to interact with a variety of persons in many social contexts in appropriate ways.
note): 'The term notional is borrowed from linguistics where grammars based on
semantic criteria are commonly called notional grammars (cf formal grammars where
the criteria used in analysis are formal).' He focuses his attention on the available
criteria for organizing the material of teaching to distinguish two strategies,
synthetic and analytic, to explain them in the following classical quote (Wilkins
1976:2):
A synthetic language strategy is one in which the different parts of language are taught sepa-
rately and step-by-step so that acquisition is a process of gradual accumulation of the parts until
the whole structure of the language has been built up. In planning the syllabus for such teach-
ing the global language has been broken down probably into an inventory of grammatical struc-
tures and into a limited list of lexical items ... At any one time the learner is being exposed to
a deliberately limited sample of language. The language that is mastered in one unit of learn-
ing is added to that which has been mastered in the preceding units. The learner's task is to
re-synthesize the language that has been broken down into a large number of smaller pieces
with the aim of making his learning easier. It is only in the final stages of learning that the global
language is re-established in all its structural diversity.
In analytic approaches there is no attempt at this careful linguistic control of the learning
environment. Components of language are not seen as building blocks which have to be pro-
gressively accumulated. Much greater variety of linguistic structure is permitted from the
beginning and the learner's task is to approximate his own linguistic behaviour more and more
closely to the global language. Significant linguistic forms can be isolated from the structurally
heterogeneous context in which they occur, so that learning can be focused on important
aspects of the language structure. It is this process which is referred to as analytic. In general,
however, structural considerations are secondary when decisions are being taken about the way
in which the language to which the learner will be exposed is to be selected and organized. The
situational, notional and functional syllabuses ... are analytic in this sense, as are approaches
based on operational definitions.
The criterion for this division clearly comes from the fact that, in the case of
the synthetic strategy, the material of teaching is rationed in terms of linguistic
forms and ordered according to some idea of difficulty. In this way it is piecemeal
and additive, unlike the analytic strategy, which operates on meaningful chunks
of material, i.e. authentic rather than predigested. Synthesis as well as analysis
refer to the mental operations performed by the learner during the process of for-
eign language teaching. The synthetic strategy is much more prevalent and older
whereas the analytic one is a fairly recent invention. Wilkins has several reserva-
tions toward the synthetic strategy, first of all, that language learning is not com-
plete before the entire grammatical syllabus has been mastered. More importantly,
however, this strategy is impractical from the learner's point of view because he or
she must reorganize the knowledge of forms to match various functions since
there is no one-to-one correspondence between functions and forms. For example,
the imperative form may be used to perform various functions, such as an invita-
tion ('Come to my house on Saturday. We'll have a lovely lunch.'), a request ('Give
100 6. The Communicative Method and Techniques. Evaluating CLT
me your phone number, I'll call you as soon as I can.'), or an apology ('Forgive
me.'). At the same time, ordering someone to do something, typically associated
with the imperative, can be performed with a variety of forms in addition to the
imperative, such as the affirmative ('I want you to get it for me as soon as possi-
ble.'), a question ('Can you get it for me as soon as you can?'), a negative sentence
('You wouldn't, by any chance, get it for me, would you?).
According to Wilkins, situational syllabuses reflect the fact that language
is always used and understood in its social context. Our language needs are also
determined by the social situations which we encounter. In designing situational
syllabus, it is necessary to predict the situations in which the learner will need the
target language and select the material (grammatical forms, lexical material with
special situational terminology), which the learner must learn to cope with lin-
guistically. The significant features of the situation are (predictably) the partici-
pants, the setting, the topic and purpose of the encounter, the particular language
activity - receptive or productive, etc. We are familiar with the typical situational
units in various foreign language textbooks, recreated for language teaching pur-
poses, such as 'At the post office', 'At the railway station', 'Booking a hotel room',
'Shopping', 'At a restaurant'. The situational syllabus may not prepare the learner
for unexpected events and language needs, but despite this fact it uses a relevant
criterion for the learner-oriented rather than grammar-oriented programme.
In designing a notional syllabus the question asked is not how speakers use
language to express themselves, but what it is that they communicate through lan-
guage. The syllabus is then organized in terms of content rather than form, which
is not to say that the form is disregarded. The difference is that the forms are sub-
ordinated to the semantic needs of the learner. Such a syllabus can cover all sorts
of functions (semantico-grammatical categories, such as time, frequency, quanti-
ty, location), categories of modal meaning (modality, scale of certainty, scale of
commitment, intention) and categories of communicative function (reporting,
predicting, evaluating, persuading, arguing, providing information, agreeing,
expressing personal emotions, such as sympathy, gratitude, flattery, hostility).
The Communicative Approach is a well-known breakthrough in the foreign
language syllabus design: in place of one essential set of criteria derived from lin-
guistic descriptions (schools of linguistics have changed but the conviction has
remained that descriptive linguistics identifies the 'what' of foreign language
teaching), we see a whole myriad of criteria of a different nature: functional,
notional, semantic, negotiational, task-based syllabus which has evolved into
a trend in teaching of its own right, and learner-generated syllabus.
Functional syllabus is based on the categories of communicative function.
Categories of communicative function identify the purposes for which various
forms are used in utterances. Forms refer to the syntactic analysis at the sentence
level. Functions are clearly categories derived from the higher level of commu-
nicative interaction, for example talking about yourself, starting a conversation,
making a date, asking for information, answering techniques, getting further
information, requesting, attracting attention, agreeing and refusing, hesitating,
6.2. Criteria of communication in CLT 101
There is, in a sense, a 'strong' version of communicative approach and a 'weak' version. The
weak version which has become more or less standard practice in the last ten years, stresses the
importance of providing learners with opportunities to use their English for communicative
purposes and, characteristically, attempts to integrate such activities into a wider programme
of language teaching. In order to avoid the charge that communicative activities are merely
side-shows, efforts are made to ensure that they relate to the purposes of the course as specified
in the syllabus, hence the importance of proposals to include semantic as well as purely struc-
tural features in a syllabus design ... The 'strong' version of communicative teaching, on the
other hand, advances the claim that language is acquired through communication, so that it is
not merely a question of activating an existing; but inert knowledge of the language, but of
stimulating the development of the language system itself. If the former could be described as
'learning to use' English, the latter entails 'using English to learn it.'
for example having the invitation accepted, favour granted, complaint heard. In
the classroom, the aim is typically to perform the activity till the end.
These definitions of communication are of paramount importance because
language learning takes place when 'the learner becomes involved in real commu-
nication so that he is a user of the language rather than a detached observer who
analyses and rehearses the language for later use' (Stern, 1981; Johnson, 1982).
3. Communication and culture are closely connected; for this reason classroom
experience should be rich in cultural communicative input; some specialists
call for creating a cultural island in the classroom environment by displaying
various objects, maps, photographs, posters, charts, etc., hence the need for
realia, i.e. real-life objects which come from the target language culture to
104 6. The Communicative Method and Techniques. Evaluating CLT
enrich language learning, and authentic texts as well as illustrations of all kinds
in the language learning process.
5. The unit of the material is based on communicative criteria, such as text (dis-
course which is a unit of verbal communication) and task. Task is a goal-orien-
ted activity whose purpose is to be accomplished through verbal interaction;
the completion of the task implies more than merely grammatical manipula-
tion; although language forms must be processed successfully, they are used to
accomplish a higher order goal related to communicative language use, such as
performing some communicative function or act; a task may take the form of
a problem solving activity, for which some entry data are provided and a solu-
tion is worked out (negotiated) by a group of learners.
7. The most valuable work format is pair and group work. The amount of
teacher-fronted instruction is reduced to allow learner-learner interaction and
to increase the learner speaking time. The learners are no longer involved in the
role of an audience but participants. The groups and pairs formed for the pur-
pose of various activities are not stable.
6.3. Principles of the Communicative Method 105
The four language skills. CLT does not recommend any priorities or sequences in
teaching the four language skills; they are treated as equally important. In order to
do justice to language use in communication, where only one skill is hardly ever sin-
gled out, various language skills must be involved in combination (e.g. listening to
the message to comprehend it, making notes and relaying the information orally to
someone else). However, there is some difference between CLT and the Cognitive
Method regarding the treatment of skills: since CLT is so strongly concerned with
teaching via communication, great care is given to the choice of tasks and situations
to make the given skill practice as authentic as possible, for example writing tasks
are shaped to resemble letters to the editor, letters of application or letters of com-
plaint, a memo to a librarian, or a set of instructions. The task format makes it ne-
cessary to assign some communicative purpose to the activities aimed at developing
the four skills. Reading practice, for example, is - more often than not - limited to
reading for factual information, stressing such kinds of reading as skimming, i.e.
reading for general information, and scanning, i.e. reading for specific information.
The place of grammar. It has been stressed on several occasions that CLT is
formulated in reaction to form-focused and grammar-based approaches in foreign
language teaching. The objections of communicativists were primarily directed at
the meaningless practice of sentences illustrating some point of grammar which
did not make communicative sense and could not be remembered. The underlying
idea was that the object of language learning is studying sentence level syntax. In
contrast, CLT specialists recommend utterances as the material of learning and
participation in communicative events as the route to language learning. As
a result, the role of grammar is drastically limited. It is no longer considered to be
the basis for syllabus design because alternative criteria have been proposed.
Explicit teaching of grammar is not treated as essential since participating in com-
munication rather than grammar is the key to language. Various broader areas of
communicative competence are emphasized as equally, if not more, important,
which initially leads to the deemphasis of grammar in CLT. Although grammatical
competence was recognized by the proponents of the levels of communicative com-
petence, Canale and Swain (1980), the first decade or so of CLT saw a considerable
neglect of the role of linguistic, or grammatical, competence as well as grammar
practice. Later, the attitude to the form and extent of grammar practice evolved,
which was reflected in the communicative textbooks. Gradually, form-focused
activities were reinstated together with charts and graphs highlighting some gram-
matical constructions, explanations and special exercises. These materials also con-
tained language awareness activities, for example erroneous sentences to be cor-
rected by the learner, explanations of grammar in the students' native language,
and grammatical rules and principles collected in a special reference section. Such
changes emerged in answer to the growing need for grammar instruction in the
classroom which would provide the learner with useful orientation in the language
system and help him/her develop morphosyntactic accuracy.
106 6. The Communicative Method and Techniques. Evaluating CLT
The most efficient communicator in a foreign language is not always the person who is best in
manipulating its structures. It is often the person who is most skilled at processing the com-
plete situation involving himself and his hearer, taking account of what knowledge is already
shared between them (e.g. from the situation or the preceding conversation), and selecting
items which communicate his message effectively. Foreign language learners need opportuni-
ties to develop these skills, by being exposed to situations where the emphasis is on using their
available resources for communicating meaning as efficiently and economically as possible.
Since the resources are limited, this may often entail sacrificing grammatical accuracy in favour
of immediate communicative effectiveness.
community. This classification is significant from the point of view of foreign lan-
guage learning because it points to qualitative differences between practising cul-
turally appropriate rituals of behaviour in social encounters, such as: the conversa-
tional etiquette and other conventions, studying the mentality of target language
speakers, i.e. the world of ideas, concepts, symbols, values, metaphors, attitudes,
and norms that the target language group lives by and implies (also infers) in com-
munication, and acquiring knowledge about the most appreciated cultural pro-
ducts of the target language community. Each kind of knowledge requires special
materials and practice. Communicative textbooks implement this preoccupation
with target language culture especially as to the choice of cultural topics for read-
ing passages, so that the learners can learn about important people and places, as
well as monuments and masterpieces, richly illustrated with graphic material.
Communicative textbooks seem to have evolved in this regard and have broadened
the spectrum of cultural information. For one thing, they tend to highlight the
native culture of the language learner, i.e. the source culture, as well as the target
culture, secondly, they no longer focus on Great Britain and the United States, but
include Australia or New Zealand, and finally, they aim at what may be called
a polycultural perspective in that they include information on various other coun-
tries, places, monuments and people in distant regions of the world.
Let us now look more closely at six of these activities: structured dialogue,
jig-saw reading, role-play, simulation, drama and project.
This is a very popular activity in the CLT materials to practise guided speaking
without having to repeat the model verbatim. The learners are given guidance in
the form of an outline of the situation, roles and instructions suggesting essential
ideas, sometimes functions of English, to be developed, for example: a visit to
a doctor. Patient: greet the doctor; doctor: greet the patient, ask about the symp-
toms; patient: explain the symptoms; doctor: ask more specific questions;
patient; answer; doctor: give diagnosis, explain treatment, prescribe medicines;
patient: ask further questions about the medicines; doctor: explain, say goodbye;
patient: thank and say goodbye.
6.4.3. Role-play
to be accomplished in order to put the ideas into their own words. The proportion
between low input - high output may be altered to high input - high output, if we
wish to introduce new lexical material which can be practised during the activity.
Needless to say, role-play itself is an opportunity to practise and consolidate,
through speaking and listening, the knowledge that the learners already have. The
main didactic advantage of this activity is that the interlocutors compose this ver-
bal exchange in real time as opposed to retrieving some ready (memorized) mate-
rial from their long-term memory.
Following the activity in groups and its presentation in front of the class, the
teacher may wrap it up by providing feedback on any of its relevant aspects,
including error correction.
Further reading
6.4.4. Drama
The objectives of using drama are different for each of these disciplines ... In child develop-
ment, creative dramatics encourages the maturation and growth of creative capacity, with par-
ticular reference to verbal skills. Psychodrama helps restore a patient's mental health and trains
individuals for new social roles. Speech therapy employs drama to help patients achieve and
regain normal speech behaviour and patterns.
Further reading
Maley, A., and A. Duff, 1978. Drama Techniques in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Holden, S., 1981. Drama in Language Teaching. Harlow: Longman.
Porter Ladousse, G. P, 1997. Role Play. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rinvoluccri, M., 1984. Gramar Games. Cognitive, affective and drama activities for ESL Students.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
6.4.5. Simulation
Simulation-games originated years ago with the so-called 'Pentagon war games'. Like war
games, simulation games for the classroom are replications of a real environment. Social scien-
tists have adopted simulation-games to the classroom to teach not only content such as political
science and economics, but also the underlying human, social considerations that help shape
decision making.
the same role, the core of the activity, i.e. the negotiation round during which stu-
dents act out their roles to accomplish the goal according to the established stra-
tegy, and the follow-up activities, which may include a news report of the conflict,
an interview, an article for a newspaper, etc. Depending on its complexity and the
students' proficiency level, a simulation activity may take as little time as one class
or as much as two weeks.
The advantage of a simulation activity is that the learners study the ample
input materials to visualize the communicative situation and learn some useful
lexical material, they assume their roles which have communicative goals ascribed
to them and establish their own strategy to accomplish the goal in the conflict. As
they do this, they make use of their knowledge of the world, especially their social
6.4. Typical activities and techniques 113
knowledge, to act out their role as realistically as possible. The teacher may wish
to have each student in the group assigned to a given role take turns at acting out
the simulation activity, which can make the acting out stage a little monotonous.
An alternative would be to stage the simulation simultaneously in the groups and
have only one group perform for the rest of the class, or assign more roles for the
follow-up activities.
Participating in simulation activities may turn out to be a lasting experience
for many students. When asked what activity in their courses in English as a for-
eign language they remembered best, my English language majors answered:
a simulation game about an environmental issue that they participated in. To jus-
tify such an evaluation we may list its real life qualities: rich situational context,
extended meaningful materials (sustained discourse), emotional involvement of
the participants in the conflict situation, mobilizing their language resources to be
able to accomplish the negotiation task, and its open-ended character.
Further reading
Jones, K., 1982. Simulations in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jones, L., 1983. Eight Simulations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Quitman Troyka, L., and J. Nudelmann, 1975. Taking Action. Writing, Reading, Speaking, and Lis-
tening through Simulation Games. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.,: Prentice Hall.
6.4.6. Project
cational institution and the outside world is deliberately eliminated. Project work
sends the learners outside the class, not only to the library or the Internet
resources, but into the street, to various firms, tourist spots and institutions to
practise language use in the natural social environment. Alternatively, students
invite targeted representatives of various outside institutions to visit the classroom
or launch a correspondence exchange with a partner school abroad. The point of
the project in the foreign language context is to facilitate the learners' contacts with
native speakers who could be helpful from the point of view of the topic.
Each project leads to a tangible outcome of the students' work, a product,
such as a school magazine, an article, an interview, a brochure, a tourist informa-
tion booklet, an advertisement, an exhibition, results of an opinion poll, a fact file,
or a bulletin board. Haines (1989) mentions a scrapbook collection of writing and
pictures, figures and statistics, a classroom display, a newspaper, a radio or video
programme. The finished product is a source of immense satisfaction for the
learners and the teacher alike because it gives them a sense of achievement.
Certainly, projects provide an all-round learning experience: they link Eng-
lish to other curriculum subjects as well as to the outside world, and they require
learners to integrate a spectrum of skills, that would be not only linguistic, such
as designing, illustrating, taking pictures, drawing, and handling equipment, for
example cameras, cassette or video recorders (Haines, 1989; Fried Booth, 2002).
They encourage the students to use various communication skills, such as nego-
tiating the form and content of the tasks, planning, gathering and synthesizing
information, observing, interviewing, problem solving, group discussion, and oral
and written reporting (Hedge, 2000).
Regarding the stages of implementing the project, Fried Booth (2002:6) states:
A project moves through three stages: beginning in the classroom, moving out into the world,
and returning to the classroom. At each of these three stages, the teacher will be working with
the students, not directing them but acting as counsellor and consultant - and, in this way,
enabling them to take a project of their own devising out of the classroom into the world.
Further reading
Fried Booth, D., 2000. Project Work. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Haines, S., 1989. Projects. Edinburgh: Nelson.
Henry, J., 1994. Teaching Through Projects. London: Kogan Page Limited.
Hutchinson, T., 1991. Introduction to Project Work. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Philips, D., and S. Burwood, 1999. Projects with Young Learners. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Reibe, R., and N. Vidal, 1993. Project Work. London: Macmillan Heinemann.
tive belief that students cannot transfer normal communication skills from their
mother tongue; they know what to say but have problems with saying it in Eng-
lish. He also makes critical comments about the communicative criteria for sylla-
bus design. There is no real dichotomy between the structural and functional syl-
labus because both criteria are needed; what should be strengthened is the role of
the lexical syllabus with idioms and conventional expressions. He says (1990:89):
T h e real issue is not which syllabus to put first; it is how to integrate eight or so
syllabuses (functional, notional, situational, topic, phonological, lexical, structur-
al, skills) into a sensible teaching programme.' Despite the fact that CLT has enor-
mously improved our teaching strategies, it is too rigid with reference to some
useful language teaching activities, such as teaching grammar, drill-like practice
or translation. He defends some forms of practice which, although remote from
target behaviour, are nevertheless essential in foreign language learning because
they help the learners to acquire the mechanical basis of communicative skills.
'A boy who takes up the violin may dream of one day playing the Beethoven violin
concerto to a packed concert hall. But if he is to realize this aim, he is likely to
spend much of his time in the intervening years working alone doing very
'uncommunicative' things: playing scales, practising studies, improving his bow-
ing technique, gaining a mastery of positional playing, and so on (Swan, 1990:93).'
Drill-like activities are truly necessary in foreign language learning; problems
begin when all learning is reduced to them.
His next point is the information gap principle, which is a sign of progress
in foreign language teaching if used 'intelligently', as he puts it. However, it is
very easy to abuse the principle to create artificial activities of no interest or edu-
cational value to the learner and fairly distant from real communication. My own
(M.D.) example of such an activity would be 'Julia Evans Job Application Forms'
from Jeremy Harmer's The Practice of English Language Teaching, London: Long-
man 1991, pages 99 and 100. The activity consists of two gapped texts, a letter of
application from Julia Evans and her application form. Various items of her per-
sonal data deleted from one part can be found in the other. The task of the pair of
learners, who are given one form each, is to ask each other questions to find out
the information missing in his or her form from the partner to be able to complete
it. My reservation about the communicative value of this activity, which is a per-
fect case of the information gap principle in operation, is that it is unrealistic and
impractical because the learners perform a purely artificial task in purely artificial
roles. The language output of the activity is also modest: it elicits short questions
and laconic answers. In real life, people go through whole job application scenar-
ios starting with job advertisements, preparing documents, writing a letter of
application, receiving an invitation for a job interview, preparing for it strategi-
cally, choosing the right clothes to wear, taking the role of the applicant in the job
interview, and receiving the response. It is hard to decide where in the authentic
job application scenario the activity in question would fit. As input material
preparing the learner for the situation of applying for a job it is irrelevant because
there is no real role assignment in it and the activity is not structured as a real life
6.5. Evaluating CLT 117
process, or its part. It cannot be defended on the grounds that it may develop lan-
guage skills, either. For a comprehension activity, the material is incomplete
(gapped) and therefore unsuitable as input for processing or as a discourse model.
As a production activity it is too easy because it is purely manipulative: the learn-
ers merely reshuffle the items of the information given in various places. There
seems to be a clear discrepancy between the map of real communication and the
spectrum of activities generated by the information gap principle.
I could not agree more with the point about the importance of the natural as
opposed to the artificial information gap which Swan makes (1990:94):
Perhaps no classroom exercises can completely achieve the spontaneity and naturalness of real
exchanges, but there are certainly more realistic and interesting ways of organizing information
gap work than by working with 'imposed' information of this kind. Each individual in a class
possesses a vast private store of knowledge, opinions and experience; and each individual has
an imagination which is capable of creating whole scenarios at a moment's notice ... If student
X can be persuaded to communicate some of these things to student Y - and this is not very
difficult to arrange - then we have a basis for genuinely rich and productive language practice.
In many contemporary language courses, communication of this 'personal' kind seems to be
seriously under-exploited ... Role play and simulation are all very well in their places, but there
are times when the same language practice can take place more interestingly and more directly
if the students are simply asked to talk about themselves.
Swan also argues for a place of not only authentic but also didactically modi-
fied or prepared texts which illustrate selected aspects of language use. These spe-
cially written texts or dialogues are usually looked down upon in CLT for being
unnatural and lacking discourse features of natural texts. In his view, there is
nothing wrong in including specially prepared texts in language teaching mate-
rials since some control of language input is necessary and such texts are highly
efficient in this regard.
To sum up this critical evaluation, it seems clear that Swan has a set of valid
arguments, which point to the existing weaknesses within the Communicative
Approach, but which do not undermine its overall value. In fact, these arguments
help to refine and improve the early version of the approach to make it more suit-
able to the needs of foreign language learners. On the basis of my own critical eva-
luation of CLT (Dakowska, 1996, 2003), I would like to point out further reservations
which can pave the way to a more comprehensive current approach to teaching
English as a foreign language presented in the chapters to come.
1. Communicativists are so preoccupied with opposing meaningless drills and the
structural syllabus that they do not define their notion of communication spe-
cifically enough to make a distinction between communication as an essential
property of the human being which is universal and constitutive, i.e. does not
have to be taught, and verbal communication in L1, L2, L3, where a special code
must be learned for each. What is to be learned in the foreign language classroom
is not communication, but the L2 code as a tool of verbal communication.
118 6. The Communicative Method and Techniques. Evaluating CLT
is reduced by the learner's liberties with the language system, the process of
communication may come to a halt. Who wants to be able to communicate only
with oneself? On the other hand, real communicative effectiveness is hard to
predict in the classroom setting because it depends on various factors, for exam-
ple on the status of the interlocutors and their willingness to cooperate toward
a common goal. We cannot predict the learner's chances of communicative
effectiveness on the basis of classroom simulations for various human reasons,
such as negative attitudes, prejudice, or avoidance which underlie human com-
municative behaviour.
5. As regards error correction, the argument that errors should not be corrected
because they would not disappear anyway is illogical. The question is not
whether or not errors should be corrected, but when and how they should be cor-
rected, and what is the ideal proportion between error correction and other forms
of feedback. Good teaching practices must include error prevention and feedback
on error, although even then errors may persist, i.e. a) take time to disappear;
b) disappear in some areas of the system faster than in others; and c) in the case
of some learners more easily than in others. There is no reason to expect all errors
to disappear by themselves or to consider feedback information, both positive
and negative, as unnecessary to an intelligent learning organism. Accuracy and
precision are a definite value in our culture, especially in communication and
education, and cannot be discarded on the grounds that they are hard to attain,
or that they take time to develop in the foreign language classroom.
6. Learning theory is certainly not a strong point of Communicative Language
Teaching. Indeed, there is no denying that participating in communicative
tasks and using meaningful materials support foreign language learning. A vast
area of knowledge which comes from psycholinguistic research on comprehen-
sion and production as well as acquiring foreign language pronunciation,
grammar and vocabulary has not been fully or systematically exploited. Neither
the strong nor the weak version of CLT seems to do justice to the complexities
of the learning process underlying the development of foreign language skills
and accuracy. Although CLT may be adjusted to various age groups and levels,
it is a fairly universal conception reflecting the underlying static and abstract
notion of communicative competence, indifferent to time or the growing and
developing human subject. In other words, it is not explicitly adjusted (which
is not to say, intuitively adjusted) to the learner's stage of cognitive, social, and
emotional development, or to the learner's foreign language proficiency level.
This weakness may be observed in a random selection of roles in the numerous
role-play activities. One and the same exercise may involve roles for which the
learners are socially and communicatively quite ready and roles for which they
have hardly any experience and coping potential. The use of games is recom-
mended on the grounds that they provide a rewarding and enjoyable learning
experience. In CLT, however, their type and amount is not adjusted to the learn-
er's developmental stage and needs, nor do they reflect the kind of authentic
games and their proportion to other activities used by people of their age group
120 6. The Communicative Method and Techniques. Evaluating CLT
The above reservations do not undermine the overall value of the Communicative
Approach. In fact, when the numerous techniques of CLT are used skillfully, the
limitations of the approach are considerably minimized. At the same time, the three
decades of the Communicative Approach in operation have seen an evolution and
refinement of these ideas. Nowadays, CLT has incorporated most of the criticism
regarding deemphasis of accuracy and grammar, and it has been diversified to suit
6.5. Evaluating CLT 121
different age groups and proficiency levels. When we outline the current scene in
teaching English as a foreign language, however, CLT will not be presented as
the final word in the development of foreign language teaching. What the field
of teaching English as a foreign language needs can be expressed as the following
tendencies:
• a much deeper and broader notion of verbal communication than the one
underlying CLT;
• a much more systematic incorporation of our cognitive processes in verbal com-
munication;
• a very serious treatment of learner-centredness and a whole-person approach;
• a revised notion of foreign language learning and teaching, which results from
the above considerations.
1. What in your view are the reasons for error correction? What are the constraints on error correc-
tion? What criteria should be used?
2. What are the most appropriate activities to be conducted as pair work? Provide examples. What is
your attitude to pair work and group work based on your own experience? Do you like the fact that
in group work you must compromise (adjust) your individual ideas for the sake of the group task.
3. Do you find sufficient guidelines in CLT for teaching pronunciation?
4. What may be the problems connected with using multiple choice questions as the main reading
comprehension check?
5. What is your own view of the strengths and weaknesses of CLT? Use the grid below, if necessary.
9. error correction
Further reading
Johnson, K., 1995. Understanding Communication in Second Language Classrooms. New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Marton, W., 1987. Methods in English Language Teaching. Frameworks and Options. New York:
Prentice Hall.
Richards, J. C., and T. S. Rodgers, 1986. Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rivers, W. M., 1983. Communicating Naturally in a Second Language. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Rossner, R., and R. Bolitho (eds.), 1990. Currents of Change in Language Teaching. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Stawna, M., 1991. Podejście komunikacyjne do nauczania języków obcych. Warszawa: WSiP
Stern, H. H., 1992. Issues and Options in Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Yalden, J., 1983. The Communicative Syllabus: Evolution, Design, and Implementation. Oxford:
Pergamon Press.
The field of foreign language teaching has undergone an evolution from fairly
modest beginnings when its rational underpinnings were just emerging into a pro-
fessional discipline with fairly well-developed scientific foundations. The purpose
of this chapter is to outline the current framework for the field of teaching English
as a foreign language, which is the background of the more specific issues dis-
cussed in the subsequent chapters. The following questions will be addressed:
1. What are the sources of orientation and reference which can replace the arbi-
trary solutions to the problems of the field of foreign language teaching?
2. What changes have taken place as regards the central issues in the field, such as
the view of the learner, the process of language learning and teaching, and the
status of the teaching method?
3. Are we anywhere nearer making sense of language learning, i.e. understanding
the process so that it can be taught in the classroom?
strategic in that the speakers make what - under the circumstances - seem to be
optimal choices. Strategic behaviour is characterized by evaluating one's resources
in view of the goal to choose a plan which seems optimal in the given context. At
the same time, the participants use feedback information about the results of
their communicative decisions. Feedback provides speakers with the knowledge
of the effects of their communicative behaviour and facilitates communicative
goal-oriented adjustments.
Verbal communication is an open system deeply integrated with other infor-
mation systems that we use in interaction. As has been pointed out above, dis-
course is deeply embedded in its various contexts so that its comprehension must
resort to numerous, not only linguistic, knowledge sources. This is but one aspect
of the openness. The next important consideration is that the participants of
a communicative event are involved in it with their entire persons, their bodies
and minds. Speakers process not only linguistic clues, i.e. discourse, but paralin-
guistic and non-linguistic clues about their interlocutors, such as ethnic back-
ground, sex, age, physical appearance, style of dress, body language, facial expres-
sions, voice pitch, as well as all the relevant environmental clues. These clues
enable us to determine the role and the status of our interlocutor, which signifi-
cantly influences the flow of communication. The participants' personal character-
istics, including their intelligence, resourcefulness, imagination and the ability
to visualize, anxiety level, assertiveness, self-esteem, also play an important
part in a communicative act as they influence mutual attitudes and the emotional
relationship between the individuals involved.
Verbal behaviour is intricately linked to non-verbal behaviour, i.e. dis-
course is linked to human activity, which can be illustrated with reference to
social scenarios and scripted communicative behaviour. In such cases verbal and
non-verbal activities are interwoven, although one may also occur without the
other. An example of such interconnectedness is a wedding ceremony and a wed-
ding reception in Polish culture, in which certain verbal and non-verbal rituals
appear in a predictable order and most of them, though not all, require both lan-
guage use and action.
Verbal communication is an abstract term for what in real life is a whole
array of natural varieties. In real life, we encounter verbal communication as
instances, or categories, of communicative situations characteristic of our culture,
which has already been signalled by the notion of discourse genres. These natural
instances or categories may be subdivided on the basis of the number of people
involved and the degree of intimacy between them. We can, therefore, distinguish
interpersonal (informal between individuals), public (formal with an auditorium)
and mass communication (with an auditorium and limited, delayed feedback).
These types cross-sect with the criterion of domains of verbal communication,
such as home, school, the neighbourhood, entertainment, sports, health, food,
shopping, travel, education, religion, fine arts, politics, law, etc. The significance of
these distinctions for the foreign language learner is related to the fact that each
case is a natural category with its topics, terminology, norms, conventions and see-
7.1. The nature of communicative processes 127
narios. Knowing these norms, conventions and scenarios reduces the level of
unpredictability of the situation by providing the speaker with a highly desirable
set of expectations (orientation), which facilitate verbal communication.
This view of verbal communication has several important implications for
teaching foreign languages. For one thing, the whole point of verbal interaction,
the ultimate reason why it happens, is to understand (reconstruct) the intention
of the interlocutor. Meaning and sense are of paramount importance as the essen-
tial objective for people to do it. From the point of view of the sender, the psy-
cholinguistic processes which take place in our mind in this search for meaning
and sense are discourse comprehension processes, which may be specialized for
spoken and written discourse comprehension. From the point of view of the
sender, the psycholinguistic processes involved are discourse production special-
ized for spoken and written discourse. Discourse comprehension and production
involve more than linguistic knowledge. They require the use of language skill,
which is understood as the ability to perform various hierarchically arranged
tasks and subtasks in their temporal integration. Some elementary, lower-level
tasks must, therefore, be performed automatically. Automaticity is achieved through
practice. Meaning is not given in a ready form but actively constructed by the
sender, and reconstructed by the addressee with the help of all the available clues.
Speakers make use of all the information they can get, linguistic and non-linguis-
tic alike to carve out their communicative intention through various selections.
The meaning encoded in the verbal form, i.e. discourse, is elaborated upon and
computed by the addressee on the basis of all, not just linguistic clues. Meaning is
deeply determined by the situational context of the communicative act, especially
the relationship and the attitudes of the people involved. Since verbal communi-
cation is dynamic, goal-oriented and strategic, it must be classified as a form of
human intelligent (problem solving) behaviour. Its essential point is the search
for meaning and sense.
The fairly condensed characteristics of verbal communication refers to what
in our world is a whole spectrum of specific instances and varieties of communi-
cation. This rich map of communication may be systematized for the foreign lan-
guage teaching purposes with the help of such criteria as domains, i.e. areas of
human activity, including professional and cultural domains, characteristic topics
and content, the setting, i.e., where it takes place, the roles of the participants, dis-
course types involved, levels of formality, special terminology and other lexical
material, typical speech acts both in spoken and written language, and categories
of communicative function.
Important didactic categories which emerge from this outline include:
natural varieties of communicative situations, meaning and sense, content,
comprehension and production, language as skill, discourse, types of linguis-
tic and other knowledge used in comprehension and production, the con-
structive nature of comprehension and production, inferencing, ellipsis,
plans, and strategic behaviour (Clark, 1996; Dakowska, 2001, 2003; Littlewood,
1979).
128 7. Focus on verbal communication, learning and reasoning
here is no reason why they are the way they are, so their users must know
their form, meaning, arrangements and pragmatic use to identify and produce
them properly. To master the language code for the purposes of verbal communi-
cation, a foreign language learner must learn the requisite skills for emitting
(articulating) and receiving (recognizing) the signs, the lexical units and their
sequences, the combinatorial rules to construct and recognize their arrangements,
and the ability to assign forms to meanings (lexicalize) for the role of the sender,
and meanings to forms (semanticize) for the role of the addressee (Dakowska,
2001, 2003).
1. What is meant by the bottleneck metaphor of attention? Can you explain it? What does it mean to
the language teacher? What does it mean to the language learner?
2. What implications for foreign language teaching result from the fact that the deeper the processing
of information and the more meaningful, the better it is remembered? What does it make you think
of such techniques of reading as skimming and scanning?
3. Compare the notion of the 'Monitor' in Krashen's theory with that of the monitor in our general
cognitive functioning? Which notion is more general? Which is more convincing to you as ade-
quately reflecting our processes?
4. Feedback is essential in modifying our mental representations on the basis of our knowledge of the
results and especially effectiveness of our goal-oriented behaviour. What does it mean for teachers
as far as error correction is concerned? Can we learn a foreign language in the classroom without
error correction?
5. Can you explain the function of anticipation in language learning? How is it used in designing
various activities, especially the warm-up stage?
6. Provide examples for the properties of verbal communication: its dynamic and strategic character,
communicative adjustments that speakers make, and its planful character.
7. What reasoning processes would you find appropriate to use with children of about 10 years of age?
Which processes would be appropriate for adolescents?
8.1. The learner's contribution to the dynamics of verbal communication.., 135
Further reading
Anderson, B. F., 1975. Cognitive Psychology. The Study of Knowing, Learning and Thinking. New
York: Academic Press.
Anderson, J. R., 1980. Cognitive Psychology and Its Implications. New York: Freeman and Co.
Carroll, D., 1986. Psychology of Language. Monterey, California: Brookes/Cole Pubi.
Clark, H. H., 1996. Using Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dakowska, M., 2001. Psycholingwistyczne podstawy dydaktyki języków obcych. Warszawa: Wydaw-
nictwo Naukowe PWN.
Dakowska, M., 2003. Current Controversies in Foreign Language Didactics. Warszawa: Wydawni-
ctwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego.
Eysenk, M. W., and M. T. Keane, 1995. Cognitive Psychology. Hove: Psychology Press.
Gleitman, H., 1981. Psychology. New York: W.W. Morton
Hargie, O. D. (ed.), 1997. The Handbook of Communication Skills. London: Routledge.
Personality is defined (by Chastain, 1976; Williams and Burden, 1997; Dörnyei,
2005) as an individual's skill in relating to others and evoking a positive reaction
in those individuals with whom he comes into contact; personality transpires in
social interaction as a predisposition to behave in a consistent pattern, as total
adjustment of the individuals to their natural and social environment, and as
unique aspects of behaviour which give people their individuality. Personality
refers to cognitive, affective and social considerations. Cognitive considerations
pertain to the internal processes with which individuals perceive and organize
their life situation into a meaningful whole, while social considerations - to
interrelationships in the social structure in which the individual is operating.
Affective (emotional) considerations refer to the attitudes and feelings as he or
she interacts with others in the natural and social environment, trying to com-
prehend it. The individual's cognitive structure plays a decisive role in the devel-
opment of the social-affective aspects of personality. There is an interaction
between them.
An individual's values are organized into a system, whose pivot is the evaluation
of oneself. An individual must begin by liking himself or herself. Chastain
(1976:187) states:
8.2 Personality factors 139
The individual's self-concept encompasses his entire person. It is a product of all the physical,
cognitive, social, economic, moral, and emotional factors that have gone into his makeup. The
acquired self-concept is a prerequisite for all subsequent endeavors that the individual may
undertake.... Lacking an adequate self-concept, the individual is reluctant to accept himself or
others. He will also shy away from any and all activities that threaten him.
Ideal self is a vision of what a person would like to be, whereas the real self
is the actual self-image. The closer they are the better adjusted the individual. Too
wide a gap between the ideal and actual self-image may cause damage to the per-
son's self-image and self-esteem. We are living out our self-image. Chastain con-
tinues (1976:188):
The child with a positive self-concept accepts himself and is confident of his ability to deal with
others and his environment. The child with a negative self-concept is plagued by feelings of two
inadequacies. First, he is unable to accept himself as a person, seeing himself as being unlov-
able. Second, he is insecure in his relationships with his surrounding circumstances, feeling
a lack of ability to cope with his situation.... A person handicapped with low self-image has dif-
ficulty expressing himself freely, undertaking new and different tasks, and participating in new
and different situations.
potential, they will give up. They participate when the activity is under their own
control. Students should be encouraged to ask questions and become involved in
open-ended activities. This implies assuming communicative freedom to choose
what to say and some influence on the flow of the activity.
ren or does s/he want to dominate them? Can the child follow rules of a game,
work in a group?
• The emotional development. Can the child control his or her emotions, espe-
cially anger and disappointment, and to what extent, or is he or she completely
impulsive?
These questions demonstrate that the connection between the age of the language
learner and the processes of language use and language learning is very strong: age
is an indication where the learner is on the developmental dimension, i.e. where
we can locate him or her on the lifespan axis. Language use and learning have
their own specificity at various points along the lifespan, the most fascinating con-
trasts provided by foreign language learning by children and adults.
1. On the basis of the table below which lists characteristic features of creative students, ego-enhanc-
ing strategies of 'good' teachers, and the rights of an assertive person, can you produce a list of char-
acteristics of a teaching programme which would support creativity, self-esteem, and assertiveness?
Are there any cases where you may advance more than one characteristic feature of a person with
one strategy (such as gentle error correction or giving learners opportunities to choose would be use-
ful in promoting all the three characteristics)?
EGO-ENHANCING
CREATIVITY ASSERTIVENESS
STRATEGIES
• openness to experience • the teacher is sensitive to • the right to make
• internal locus of each student autonomous decisions and
evaluation • s/he promotes student take responsibility for them
• ability to play with ideas confidence and participation • the right to ask and refuse
• willingness to take risks in classroom activities favours and expect others to
• preference for complexity • activities are challenging in do the same
terms of thinking and doing • the right not to feel guilty for
• tolerance for ambiguity
• s/he stresses that mistakes other people's problems
• positive self-image
are not tragedies • the right to acknowledge
• ability to lose oneself in
• s/he avoids unreasonable that you do not understand
a task.
demands something
• s/he stimulates the • the right to make mistakes
student's natural curiosity • the right for privacy and
• s/he provides more awards independence
than punishment. • the right to your own opinion
• the right to be successful
• the right to have your own
judgment of the situation
• the right to say no.
2. What is your opinion about the role of creativity in the foreign language learning process?
3. Which points presented in this section do you disagree with? Enumerate and discuss them.
9.1. Primary conditions for foreign language learning 143
Further reading
Brown, H. D., 2000. Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. New York: Longman.
Chastain, K., 1971. The Development of Modern Language Skills: Theory to Practice. Philadelphia:
CCD.
Dörnyei, Z., 2005. The Psychology of the Language Learner. Individual Differences in Second Lan-
guage Acquisition. Mahwa, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Williams, M., and R. Burden, 1997. Psychology for Language Teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
teaching is neither the necessary nor the sufficient condition for language learning.
If properly adjusted to learning, however, teaching may help.
• They do not intimidate children for their mistakes, but command on the
progress they make and take delight in anything new that the child can do.
• When they introduce error correction, they use conversational strategies, such
as recasts and reformulations, for example: 'so, would you say' ... plus the cor-
rected version of the child's utterance (Jay, 2003).
The above strategies of interaction play an important function: they encour-
age the child to participate as well as facilitate the process of comprehension and
storage. Some of them have also been treated as essential attributes of the second
language classroom discourse (Long, 1983, 1996). Teachers implement some or
most of them intuitively or deliberately because they naturally strengthen the
perceptual salience and meaningfulness of the language input for learning and
interaction.
The primary conditions which are indispensable for activating language
learning processes (not just foreign language learning, but any language learning)
are communicative (meaningful) input for observation and comprehension,
communicative interaction consisting of comprehension and production, and
communicative feedback for the learner to approximate the target language
norm. This constant comparison of the environmental data, one's own mental rep-
resentations, and one's own production and comprehension drive the learning
process toward its goal, approximating native-like mastery of the target language.
back, as well as abstract thought and reasoning operations which can efficiently
organize language data available to the learner.
Code-related strategies are focused on accuracy and precision in learning this
communication tool. They are concerned with the two modalities in which the
code operates: the visual and the auditory modality, which require their own spe-
cial cultivation. They are specialized for comprehension (decoding meaning from
graphemic or phonemic form) and production (encoding meaning into graphemic
or phonemic form), as well as for converting one code into the other (transcoding)
to make it a truly functional and precise tool for verbal communication in a for-
eign language.
Unfortunately, it follows from the above that the teacher no longer pos-
sesses the key to the gate of language. The teacher is no longer the intermediary
between the learner and the language. The learner can reconstruct the foreign lan-
guage system by observing and understanding meaningful communication in the
environment and by participating in verbal communication as a sender and an
addressee. The key is in the learner's hand, but, as one would expect in the edu-
cational process, the teacher may be very helpful as a guide and leader who not
only keeps the lock in good working condition but also provides a word of guid-
ance and encouragement as to how to turn the key.
The process of foreign language learning and teaching is determined by the state
of the learner's cognitive system at a given developmental stage, the nature of ver-
bal communication, including the specificity of the code of verbal communica-
tion, i.e. language. Verbal communication is a natural human phenomenon which
develops in time and space and operates on human resources, such as mental ener-
gy, effort, attention, and produces quantitative changes, i.e. more information is
acquired, and qualitative changes, i.e. it is better organized, proceduralized, con-
solidated for use, and more and more exactly represented in the learner's mind.
Because of the role of observation in language learning, one of the most
essential processes is mapping the environmentally available utterances, i.e.
input, discourse, or primary data, onto the learner's mental representation. Map-
ping is the process of storing the input information, utterances, in their situa-
tional context, their form, meaning, function, and structure as exactly as possible.
Mapping requires comprehension to be decoded and decomposed but it is not just
a comprehension process which is aimed at extracting meaning from the verbal
form. The only problem is that when we comprehend communicative discourse
we remember meaning better than the form of the utterances; we may even forget
the form completely (Jay, 2003). If the form of the utterances is not emphasized or
enhanced deliberately for the sake of foreign language learners to leave a lasting,
and possibly exact, memory trace, they will not have the requisite raw material to
use in production. Mapping feeds the learner's episodic memory which may be
148 9. Conditions for foreign language learning. Input, interaction..
further categorized and represented in a more abstract form by the learner. Map-
ping requires some cultivation strategies in receptive activities to make sure that
the input form is stored, and not just meaning.
The next important, but underestimated process is imitation, an act of copy-
ing more experienced members of the speech community (Allport, 1985), copying
not so much the meaningless syntactic forms, recommended by the Audiolingual
Approach, but units of meaningful behaviour. This has nothing to do with regard-
ing imitation as a behaviourist-style mechanism of language learning, but rather
as an important route to socialization among human beings, involving the need to
identify oneself with a desirable role model (Włodarski and Matczak, 1992). Wyr-
wicka (2001) sees imitation as an ability and an instinct observed a few hours after
birth and occurring spontaneously throughout our lifetime. Imitation may be
immediate or deferred (with delay), the latter of which requires the retention of
the whole mental structure of the activity. Mapping from observation as well as
imitation require the learner to structure the incoming information before stor-
age, therefore they should not be dismissed as purely passive. Needless to say, the
role of context is very important in both processes because it imposes structure on
the information to be stored. All in all, imitation is seen as an expression of the
natural human propensity to master new kinds of behaviour, e.g. social roles, by
mirroring the behaviour of others, and may be justified as a tool of expanding our
communicative repertoire.
Modelling is a more complex, advanced form of imitation, which occurs spon-
taneously in child socialization and learning. The point here is no longer in the
faithful copying of input data, but retaining their important structural characteris-
tics with some modifications. Activities involving modelling allow the learner to
take up a fairly ambitious task and perform it till the end, but contribute only some
of the required operations having the rest of them provided in the model. The teach-
ing process does not have to rely only on spontaneous modelling, as in the natural
processes of language acquisition, but must target and implant certain models espe-
cially useful to the learners. To make sense to the learner of a foreign language, the
units for modelling must be related to situationally-embedded discourse.
Practice is absolutely indispensable in foreign language learning. Practice is
not confined to rote learning of meaningless material. It may mean any form of
language activity which prepares learners for real language tasks, but in itself is
far from an authentic task. Practising is performing a given activity for the sake
of consolidating its elements. Unlike in modelling, the stimulus for productive
practice may come in the form of instructions what to do and possibly some ele-
ments to be used in the task. Practice may also occur as a self-assigned task. Pro-
ductive practice in the educational context may come in guided, controlled, or
otherwise contrived forms, with the purpose of rehearsing verbal communication
at an acceptable level of difficulty. Practice is both a natural and typical form of
human behaviour.
Important, but insufficiently appreciated, processes which feed foreign lan-
guage learning are comprehension and production in the psycholinguistic mean-
9.3. Secondary conditions for foreign language learning... 149
reserves providing multiple clues for communicative processing: they have exten-
sive cultural knowledge, they know a variety of discourse types, extensive termi-
nology for various domains, prefabricated patterns, constructions, idioms, they
have factual knowledge, including current events, group history, etc. To compen-
sate for the learner's reduced redundancy, foreign language teaching resorts to
such strategies as, for example, providing specific input for the task, which may
refer to form as well as content of what is to come. To help the learner comprehend
utterances, in teaching we must include semanticizing strategies which help to
match meanings to forms when they are not familiar, as well as include feedback
on comprehension. From the point of view of the producer, teaching must
include lexicalization strategies which help the learner to put his meanings into
words under reduced redundancy conditions. In conversational interaction, lexi-
calization and semantization occur as a variety of interactive comprehension
checks and meaning clarification strategies. Additionally, foreign language
learners must deal with reduced automaticity/fluency (skill) deficits as far as dis-
course processing is concerned, the remedy for which is task repetition, slowing
down the pace of the task, breaking it into smaller components first, rehearsal
to consolidate elements of the task, and practising its delivery (this means prac-
tising a meaningful, learner-generated task), as well as editing strategies.
To sum up, the first responsibility of the teacher is to create primary condi-
tions for foreign language learning, i.e. provide input, interaction opportunities,
and feedback. The next step is to facilitate and catalyze the process of foreign lan-
guage learning in the educational setting. These strategies refer to various aspects of
verbal communication, as pointed out above. Below are some examples of strategies
related to the components of our cognitive (HIP) system and reasoning processes to
operate on verbal communication material, especially its code, language.
Perception of communicative material may be facilitated by its enhanced
structure or clarity of presentation (loudness), i.e. salience. Limitations of atten-
tion may be compensated by the teacher's guidance through the task and specific
instructions, as well as by breaking a complex task into subtasks, as well as repe-
tition of some tasks and unrestricted time on other tasks. Memory processes may
be facilitated by activating relevant schemata and paying attention to the organi-
zation of the material to be learned as well as rehearsal, building associations and
elaboration strategies (Eysenk and Keane, 1995). Anticipation may be tapped as
deliberate activation of the task-relevant knowledge (Oiler, 1972), whereas plan-
ning deficits may be compensated by presenting relevant models of discourse
plans, while time given to plan can make up for insufficient automaticity in
production (Crookes, 1988). Monitoring may be encouraged by breaking a written
task into two subtasks, drafting and editing, which - in a speaking task - would
have the equivalent of rehearsal and performance; retrospection may be evoked
by a summary after a reading comprehension task, the better to store the infor-
mation and develop longer discourse plans in memory; the effect of feedback may
be emphasized by various noticing and feedback incorporation strategies (Wen-
den and Rubin, eds., 1987).
9.6. Focus on form and accuracy 153
the level of syntax, must be taken out of the attentional periphery otherwise it
will not be acquired precisely. This refers both to recognition in comprehension
and use in production. The place of syntactic forms in production is such that
they are inserted subconsciously, with the help of what for fluent speakers are
automatic processes; likewise in comprehension, they are also recognized, i.e.
matched with meaning, at the level of subconscious processing. Syntax is
processed fast and with marginal attention. To learn forms well and precisely, we
must have these forms brought to the centre of attention and focused upon, so
that they can be identified, consolidated and mastered automatically in compre-
hension and production. It is also indispensable in reconstructing the language
code to be able to match the written code with the spoken code, for example by
way of transcoding, i.e. converting spoken discourse into written discourse and
vice versa.
Teaching grammar in the above sense is quite acceptable and useful if it ful-
fils the following conditions: a) the illustrative material is meaningful, because
meaning justifies the use of form; b) sufficiently contextualized, for example in
a situation, because in this way it can be remembered; and c) practised in dis-
course not sentence units, because discourse coherence and cohesion organize
forms into an organic whole. To master forms, the learner must, above all, practise
them in the role of the sender and the addressee, practise converting form to
meaning, or meaning to form, rather than convert or transform one form into
another most of the time. Grammar learning tasks, or form-focused tasks, must
not only enrich our declarative/analytical, but procedural knowledge as well.
Since forms must be learned exactly as well as proceduralized, it is essential not to
overlook precision and accuracy strategies in the stage of feedback, which are
a very important aspect of learning the code of verbal communication.
• communication outside the firm with the public, e.g. press conferences, and
with other business partners, e.g. contracts, agreements;
• the roles, e.g. managerial, secretarial; HRM, PRR;
• topics, such as sales, marketing, human resources, finance strategies, account-
ing, public relations, production;
• types of documents, e.g. memorandum, report, annual report, minutes, news-
letter, brochure, advertisement, business plan, proposal, CV, evaluation form,
magazine article, manual, instructions, invoice, letter of intent, contract,
• various types of written correspondence, such as e-mail, fax messages, letters,
notices;
• speech acts to be practised: e.g. presentation, negotiating contracts, advertising;
• professional knowledge to be acquired, technical terms and phrases;
• social encounters, polite conversation skills, etc.
Further reading
Early childhood 3 till 6 years Nursery school and the kindergarten, play
From the point of view of foreign language learning and teaching, the most impor-
tant stages in one's entire lifespan embrace early and middle childhood and ado-
lescence. Early childhood is the time when English as a foreign language is intro-
duced in such institutions as the kindergarten on an optional selective basis. Various
problems of teaching English to children are certainly challenging. The first three
158 10. The development of the language learner in childhood...
years of primary school are the time of teaching English within the system of inte-
grated education where English is incorporated into the curriculum at the headmas-
ter's discretion and at parents' expense. In grade four of primary school a course in
a foreign language becomes an obligatory subject. English is a leading foreign lan-
guage at our schools chosen, on the average, by half of the learners (Ministerstwo
Edukacji Narodowej, O nauczaniu języków obcych, 2000). A course in a foreign lan-
guage which begins in the fourth grade is continued in the gimnazjum, which takes
three years, until pupils are 16. At that point, young learners take up their education
in the secondary school (liceum) which they graduate from after three years of study,
at the age of 19. English courses are offered in their basic and extended form, which
is taken into account in the scope of the matriculation exam. In our educational sys-
tem, learning English as a foreign language is continued at university, where it is pro-
filed either for general or specific purposes, depending on the course of studies.
Additionally, English courses are offered by private language schools, which cater to
a variety of needs and levels including in-service courses for adults, organized and
financed by the companies as well as individual learners. There is plenty to choose
from in terms of courses preparing for various specialized tests and certificates.
First, I list the developmental landmarks of the stages relevant from the
point of view of foreign language learning and teaching, and next I outline the
characteristic guidelines for teaching strategies.
of their own activity. Their will, purpose, commitment and intelligence have
a very important role to play. Lifespan development involves changes which are
quantitative, i.e. they refer to the amount of knowledge, as well as qualitative, i.e.
they refer to the levels of organization of knowledge. The amount of knowledge
paves the way for its restructuring and increasing integration.
to find the missing element. Papalia and Olds (1990: 202) define intelligence as: 'an
interaction between inherited ability and environmental experience which results
in a person's ability to acquire, retain, and use knowledge; to understand both con-
crete and abstract concepts; to understand the relationship between objects, events
and ideas and to apply this understanding; and to use all this in solving the prob-
lems of everyday life. It is the ability to adapt behaviour in pursuit of a goal.' Intel-
ligence is not fixed; native intelligence is the quality people are born with, but it can
be nurtured by a supportive environment and stimulating experiences.
The language code - a complex system Learning phonemes and words, symbolization, deve-
of signs, awareness of this system lopment of syntax and lexicon, growth of accuracy in
articulation, grammar, and mean utterance length,
metalinguistic knowledge and awareness
Table 10.2. A list of components of verbal communication emerging in childhood and adolescence
According to Papalia and Olds (1990), during this time children grow to become
goal-oriented beings who can organize their behaviour toward people and objects,
generalize it to a variety of situations and integrate old and new behaviour. They
10.2. The first stage - infancy and toddlerhood 161
acquire the concept of object permanence which means that people and objects
exist whether they are seen or not. They acquire the concept of causality, which is
the recognition that some events are the necessary and sufficient conditions for
other events to occur. Children develop representational abilities, i.e. the abilities
to map objects into memory with the use of symbols, such as words, as well as the
ability to act out and imagine things. They also begin to coordinate information
from the senses while their behaviour becomes increasingly purposeful. Moreover,
children are able to anticipate events and show curiosity. They often engage in
imitation, especially deferred imitation of adult activities, like their father's shav-
ing. Deferred imitation is an ability to encode and store the mental image of
a given activity and replicate it after a lapse of time. During this stage, at the age
of 2, children begin to use symbols such as words and numbers.
A prime example of the relationship between physical, cognitive and emo-
tional development is play. The kind of play in which children engage is deter-
mined by what they can do at the given stage. Play is babies' work. First it is phys-
ical, later it becomes more closely connected with intellectual coordination.
10.2.2. Communication
Matczak (1992) rightly points out that the fundamental prerequisite of all the
communicative abilities in children is their discrimination between the self and
the environment, and their realization of their interactive relationship with other
people who receive and respond to children's actions. This is the basis of commu-
nicative readiness, which is first implemented as non-verbal behaviour, and later
evolves into verbal communication. At about the age of 18 children start develop-
ing mental representations of meaning, which are linked to objects and words
which stand for them, the essence of which is the symbolic process. This may be
treated as the real beginning of language in that the emitted vocalizations are
made up of phonemes, they are intentional and they have meaning. Mental repre-
sentations enable the child to prepare practical activities by mental consideration
and planning (Matczak, 1992). Emerging intentional behaviour is the beginning
of human intelligence. A child is a thinking individual who is capable of planning
his or her actions as well as a social individual who is able to interact with others.
Pre-linguistic communication
This form of communication takes place as the use of vocalizations without words
or grammar. Its first form, crying, is 'an innate form of communication that in
newborns and infants expresses a need for attention or a strong emotion; the basic
infant's cries include the rhythmic cry of need, the angry cry, the cry of pain, and
the cry of frustration' (Papalia and Olds, 1990:248). Babies whose cries bring relief
gain confidence fast, so they cry less and less. Smiling is another form of non-lin-
guistic communication which is innate and begins as a reflex only involving the
lower facial muscles, but soon becomes social and engages the muscles around the
eyes. Smiling begins to express pleasure and trust, as well as the recognition of the
caregiver, especially his or her face. Laughter also appears and becomes quite com-
mon at that time; it is used to relieve tension at times. A 'conversation' as early as
at the age of 8 months may take the form of imitative exchanges between the
mother and child in which both parties take great delight in producing the same
vocalizations which form symmetrical conversation-like turn-taking patterns. In
the second half of the first year, children accidentally imitate phonemes, but later
they imitate them deliberately.
Pre-linguistic communication makes use of body language, i.e. gestures as
well as facial expressions, which show a wide range of emotions and needs which
children cannot express verbally. Children learn how to get their parent's attention,
which functions as an important factor in their development. According to Jay
(2003), infants begin to use gestures when they are 8 months old. Whether or not
they are intentional may be determined on the basis of the following properties:
effort to get the adult's attention, persistence, i.e. repetition of the gesture until
there is a desired action from the adult, and using alternative strategies, such as
crying. This intentional use of gestures is an instance of the child's goal-oriented
behaviour. When the gestures which children make up are not interpreted by their
parents, they drop them. Around 10 months of age children develop protoimpera-
tives, the ability to use gestures to obtain objects, as well as protodeclaratives, the
ability to draw the adult's attention to an object. Joint attention which results from
this effort forms the basis of communication. Researchers have found that the more
effort put into joint attention, the faster the development of language (Jay, 2003).
Children are able to use some gestures and movement in the symbolic function, for
example to represent a horse or a dog. Papalia and Olds (1990) point out that these
gestures are quite significant indicators of their cognitive development: they show
that children understand that objects have names and that symbols can be used to
refer to the things and happenings in everyday life even before speech.
10.3. Early childhood (3-6 years) 163
Linguistic communication
Holophrases are children's utterances which consist of one word that conveys
a thought used by children between 12 to 18 months, the most common of which
are names of things. Holophrases perform various functions, such as naming
things, events, or attributes, making requests, replying, etc. Children learn the
words which are important to them. 'All-gone' in English is used frequently to
denote disappearance or absence of something. The first sentences are composed
of two words: they are based on pivot grammar: open class words and pivot class
words. The average length of children's utterances grows steadily. In the begin-
ning, the articles, modal verbs or suffixes, such as plural markers, are missing,
producing the effect of telegraphic speech. Telegraphic speech can be character-
ized as consisting of three morphemes per utterance, expressing a thought but
not containing complex grammar. Later, children start using overgeneralization
which points to their use of rules in language learning, for example 'goed'. They
also simplify: 'no drink' which may have several communicative functions. How-
ever, they understand grammatical relations even though they cannot express
them yet.
Motherese is child-directed speech which has various features of adjust-
ment already mentioned, such as slower pace, clear, slightly exaggerated pronun-
ciation, simple and short constructions, here-and-now reference, numerous repe-
titions, etc. Children learn such social skills as getting the attention of adults,
using adults as resources, and showing affection and hostility, planning activities
and carrying them out. As they learn to understand language, they become actors,
reactors and interactors; they learn to make their own choices and decisions, and
to follow their own interests. Their expression of will is the use of negation, which
shows their drive toward autonomy, i.e. self-determination, and away from control
by others. The children's sense of self develops dynamically, which slowly brings
about such correlates as: a) self-awareness, i.e. the ability to recognize one's own
actions, emotions, states and abilities; b) social referencing, i.e. seeking out
another person's understanding of an ambiguous situation, and c) self-regulation,
i.e. control of behaviour to conform to social expectations.
muscle development allows them to control writing utensils and handle some
sedentary activities and a more structured day at school better. Children also show
a considerable gain in eye-hand muscle control and coordination as well as hand
preference. This is the time of artistic development; preferred activities include
drawing. According to Papalia and Olds (1990), children's self-taught drawings
can be arranged into developmental stages reflecting the maturation of the brain:
scribbles (by the age of 2, based on lines), shapes (about 3 years of age, basic shapes
and geometrical figures), designs (at the age of 3, shapes are combined into more
complex configurations), and pictures (between 4 and 5, more representational).
Their cognitive development falls into Piaget's pre-operational stage (2-7
years). At that time, children use logic and symbols but are not capable of abstract
thought. Symbolic function is understood as the ability to have one thing repre-
sent another, or, better still, to use mental representations to which children have
ascribed meanings. Symbolic function is observed in language, symbolic play, in
which one thing stands for something else, in deferred imitation and in chil-
dren's drawings in which shapes are made to stand for something rather than
merely be the marks left by a pen or pencil. They grasp the meaning of some enti-
ties and their functions, which makes the world more predictable and orderly. At
that time, most children are characterized by egocentrism, which is the inability
to consider another person's point of view, or see things from another
person's perspective. It is unthinkable to children that other people do not think
the same way they do. But in some familiar situations, children seem to be able to
show empathy, i.e. the ability to put oneself into another person's position and feel
the way s/he would. Intellectually, what characterizes them is centring, focusing on
only one aspect of the situation, as opposed to the later achievement of decentring,
i.e. thinking of several aspects of the situation at the same time. Instead, they can
move from one aspect of the situation onto the next. Children's thinking at the stage
of concrete operations involves no abstract reasoning, but they can also group items
and classify them into single-category and two-category groupings.
The development of memory in this period is still in progress in that recog-
nition, i.e. correctly identifying a stimulus as something known, is better than
recall, i.e. the ability to reproduce material from memory, but it improves around
the ages 2-5. Memory in early childhood is not yet deliberate in the sense that
children are not able to commit facts to memory; instead, they remember the
events which have made an impression on them. The elementary form of organi-
zation of the material in memory is the narrative, which is the effect of chrono-
logical coding and which feeds the autobiographical (episodic) memory. This
basic form of discourse organization is universal in different cultures and appears
as songs, stories, epics, and myths. An important aspect of education in this pe-
riod is story time, the time to read or tell stories to children. This stimulates their
imagination as well as language development.
Social interactions play an important role in remembering: when adults talk
to children about various events, their coding of the events in memory is better than
in the case of events which have not been verbally labelled. Personality also influ-
10.3. Early childhood (3-6 years) 165
ences the intellectual development of a child. Papalia and Olds (1990) state that the
child who is curious, alert, and assertive will learn the most from the environment.
A child who is creative and has initiative, i.e. is ready to expend energy and sus-
tained effort in pursuit of goals, is bound to interact with others more. Sociable and
assertive children seek adult attention more than other children. A child who is pas-
sive and withdrawn will naturally learn less because s/he avoids contacts.
The best way for parents, as well as teachers, to foster their children's deve-
lopment is to be warm, loving, accepting and encouraging so they can explore and
express themselves, for example by asking open-ended questions. Children
respond by being creative and interested in various new situations. It is significant
that television, which becomes important at the time, may stifle the child-
ren's development by preventing them from taking up activities which require
sustained effort and creative imagination.
In early childhood children start using the grammar and style of their native lan-
guage more adequately. This is also the time for asking endless questions. It is
interesting for language researchers that children overgeneralize linguistic rules:
at the age of three, a child said 'Mummy held the milk' but at four she might say
'Mummy holded the milk'. A characteristic phenomenon at that age, accounting
for 20 to 60 percent of what children say, is private speech, i.e. saying things aloud
to oneself, with no intention to communicate this to somebody else, i.e. to be
understood (Papalia and Olds, 1990). This form of communicating with oneself is
a link between language and thought, thinking aloud in which the formulated
ideas become more understandable to the child (Matczak, 1992). Very often the
child practises this form of behaviour even when alone, as monologues addressed
to himself or herself. This egocentric communication performs such functions as
naming, commenting, describing, playing with words, repetitions, emotional
release, narrating one's actions, and many others. Such activities help the child to
understand the world around him or her better. Vygotsky (1962) regarded inner
speech as an important aspect of communicating with oneself, helpful in integrat-
ing language with thought and action. After some time, as children begin to think
silently, inner speech fades away. At that time, children communicate primarily
via social speech, which is intended to be understood by someone other than the
speaker. In social speech children take the other person's perspective and needs
into account and use language to establish and maintain social contacts.
At the age of four, grammar and pronunciation improve and the child is able
to clarify communicative misunderstandings and show growing control over the
elements of conversation. There is also a leap in vocabulary development. Chil-
dren can attract and hold their interlocutor's attention and they start to adjust to
the interlocutor in their conversations. A four-year-old may speak 'motherese' to
a two-year-old. Children still learn how to tailor their speech to specific situations.
166 10. The development of the language learner in childhood...
It is important at that time to give the child opportunities to practise and show
interest and support for all the early attempts at participating in adult conversa-
tions, such as wait time, and plenty of stimulating questions.
Papalia and Olds (1990) state that play is characteristic of all mammals and it is
the main business or work of the young. Through play, children grow, gain expe-
rience and develop the ability to coordinate various aspects of their activity as well
as mastery of their bodies. Naturally, children imitate various adult roles and learn
to cope with complex emotions. They learn new skills, for example, how to ride
their bicycle. As they play they pretend to be various things and they actively use
their inventiveness and imagination. Play discloses both the social (interactive)
and the cognitive (intellectual) aspects of human development: first, children
begin by playing alone, then side by side, also observing other children, after
which they engage in associative play when the presence of other children is mere-
ly recognized, and, finally, they participate by interacting and cooperating with
other children. This is the time when children are ready and eager to compete
(middle childhood).
Not all of the non-social play is necessarily more elementary and immature
in comparison to the interactive play; it is in fact considered to be important for
the development of complex cognitive operations. Psychologists maintain that
children need some time alone to concentrate on more complex intellectual tasks
and problems. The key element is the structure and content of the activity, not the
fact that the child is playing alone. Play also engages the child's vivid imagination.
Many activities, around 3-4 are within the 'pretend' category, which in fact con-
sists of elements of visualizations, fantasy, drama, and imagination. The chil-
dren's abilities to pretend rests on their use of symbols. Through play they devel-
op various skills and become more creative. By the end of the pre-school years,
children are mentally ready to engage in a more complex form of play, i.e. games,
which are goal-oriented and have rules.
In the process of personality development, the first stage is identification, in
which a child acquires characteristic features of another person in the group, or an
adult, to resemble that person. The next stage is negation of this identity in the
form of opposition, defiance, or rejection, and the third - self-determination.
In the stage of concrete operations children can think logically about the here-
and-now, but not about abstractions. They develop the ability to apply logical
10.4. Middle childhood 167
principles to concrete situations and to solve problems; they can classify objects,
arrange them according to some feature, deal with numbers, understand concepts
of time and space, distinguish between fantasy and reality, and understand the
principle of conservation (that the amount of liquid does not change as a result of
placing it in a different container). Middle childhood is the time of developing
moral judgment.
The progress from egocentric to moral thinking takes several stages:
• age 4-6 - The child is egocentric and judges from his point of view considering
it to be the only possible one.
• age 6-8 - Children realize that other people may interpret the situation differ-
ently, they realize the importance of intention or motive of a given action.
• age 8-10 - Children develop the awareness that other people realize that they
have a different point of view.
• age 10-12 - Children can imagine a third person's perspective taking several
points of view into account.
• adolescence and later - Complex ideas of various aspects of the situation are
possible. Some dilemmas and rival values are taken into consideration simulta-
neously.
Middle childhood is characterized by an increase in the ability for inten-
tional cognitive operations, i.e. learning, which positively influences attentional
control, task completion, memory processes, as well as speaking. Practical activi-
ties and cognitive operations begin to diverge and specialize.
ing regular, everyday activities, such as thematic play, drawing, conversations with
adults, and bed-time monologues, which are functional equivalents of strategic
behaviour: they help to consolidate information in memory although their overall
aim is different from committing an item to memory. Memory strategies, which
are intentional (deliberate) activities aimed at remembering, include: naming,
rehearsal, categorization, elaboration, and using external memory. Naming
(Jagodzińska, 2003) is an elementary memory strategy which involves putting ver-
bal labels on various stimuli and repeating names. As has already been mentioned,
rehearsal is repetition of an item to keep it in working memory and improve its
memory trace; most children engage in rehearsal spontaneously from first grade
on. Categorization is the process of organizing (chunking, clustering) the material
into related groups, which reduces the amount of information to be learned.
Adults engage in categorization automatically while children start doing this
around the age of ten or eleven. Elaboration is the strategy of adding more infor-
mation to the item to be learned in order to strengthen the associations between
the new and the old, e.g. constructing a story, using some illustrative situation or
an explanation, employing imagery, etc. Papalia and Olds (1990) stress that chil-
dren at that age remember information better when someone else has made the
elaboration for them. This is just one example of the role of adults in helping chil-
dren to expand their knowledge. External aids include writing things down, mak-
ing lists, or placing an item where it stands out and cannot be missed. As children
use these strategies, they process the information to be committed to memory:
repeat and explain it, compare with previous knowledge, and reorder it in various
ways. Strategies are understood as intentional activities taken up with memory
goals in mind. While using them the child demonstrates the ability of intentional
learning in an early form as well as the knowledge of the activity to be chosen for
this purpose.
The development of memory in middle childhood is characterized by the
increase in the pace and effectiveness of information processing, which enable the
child to use more complex processes, such as building extensive associations and
organizing information hierarchically. These processes demand greater cogni-
tive resources in terms of working memory capacity and knowledge structures.
The quality of the information coding also increases as a result of the ability of the
child to consider a greater number of features. Memory development is stimulated
by the development of speech which strengthens the semantic coding of informa-
tion. The development of speech allows the use of more extensive verbal memory
strategies, such as summarizing events, making stories, sharing memories with
other people. The narrative form of information coding becomes fairly important
at the time (Jagodzińska, 2003).
Metamemory is the awareness of our own memory processes which deve-
lops during middle childhood. At the beginning of this period, children begin to
understand the nature of learning, remembering and forgetting, as well as their
own abilities in this area. The development of metamemory is a function of the
growth of general (world) knowledge represented in the child's mind, which in
10.4. Middle childhood 169
turn enables the child to learn new information by relating it to what s/he already
knows, which is to say, learn it more effectively.
Middle childhood is the time when children experience cognitive curiosity and
the need of novelty, and this is also the appropriate time to teach thinking skills,
especially critical thinking involving evaluation of various statements and prob-
lem solving, as well as fostering creativity, for example, by asking open-ended
questions: what, why, how. Reading to children stimulates the development of
their verbal skills, thinking, and imagination. It is beneficial to encourage child-
ren to perform various reasoning operations, for example, to compare, find links
between items of information, and further categorize their growing knowledge of
the world, as well as to find the most important point in a given information set.
Children will learn from being shown how to approach a given problem: 1) they
must first realize what they know and 2) what they need to know, then 3) what has
to be done; that 4) they must design a plan to solve it, and finally 5) to implement
and evaluate the results. It is also very important to use guided imagery, i.e. an act
of constructing mental pictures of events or experience. 'Sensory images help to
store information in long-term memory, and the more senses are involved the bet-
ter' (Papalia and Olds, 1990:436). The terms 'mental images', 'mental pictures'
and 'visualization' are considered to be essentially synonymous for our purposes
here. Visualization helps children to go beyond the information given and be
creative. Imagery can serve three important functions which are, by no means,
constrained to childhood:
• it inspires inventiveness and creativity;
• it aids comprehension processes in which we naturally build mental models of
the discourse situation; and
• it is used as a mnemonic technique.
Creative projects may include, for example, writing a poem, drawing a pic-
ture, writing a story, first version, polishing and revising it. Papalia and Olds (1990)
recommend such useful activities as teaching practical tasks, e.g. reading a map, pro-
moting techniques to control the use of time: setting goals, making plans, checking
the results, encouraging children to write because putting thoughts on paper helps
to organize them better (keeping a journal, writing letters).
Sisk (1987) states that the goal of the educational system is self-realization, and
failure to help a gifted child to reach his or her potential is a social tragedy. Gifted-
ness is not a single measure, but a complex of factors, an interaction of hereditary
and environmental factors, especially educational opportunities and a stimulating
environment.
'Giftedness is one or more of the following: superior general intellect, supe-
riority in a single domain (like mathematics or science), artistic talent, like paint-
ing, singing or acting, leadership ability, or creative thinking, the ability to look
at problems in a new way' (Papalia and Olds, 1987:447). According to Sternberg
(1996), gifted children process information very efficiently, especially in novel
tasks which require insight. Insight skills include three essential processes: 1)
distinguishing relevant from irrelevant information, 2) integrating isolated pieces
of information into a unified whole, 3) relating newly acquired information with
the previous knowledge. According to Gardner's theory of multiple intelli-
gences (1985), people can be gifted in one or more of the following seven rela-
tively independent areas: musical, bodily-kinesthetic (moving precisely as in
dance), interpersonal intelligence (understanding others), intrapersonal intelli-
gence (understanding yourself), verbal intelligence (reading comprehension,
writing), logical-mathematical intelligence (using numbers and solving prob-
lems), spatial intelligence (finding one's way in the environment). Intellectually
gifted children are fairly mature in their moral reasoning. Sisk (1987) lists the fol-
lowing characteristics of the gifted: they vary among themselves in many ways;
they may be among the youngest in the group; they are popular with other child-
ren; they are influenced by the socioeconomic and educational status of the
father, as well as the force of character. There is a considerable condensation of
high IQ scores among them, the advantage which is continued into adulthood.
Problems with the education of the gifted children include unsupportive teach-
ers, emphasis on grades, and a lack of challenge.
172 10. The development of the language learner in childhood...
and the release of aggression and tension. Peer group becomes increasingly impor-
tant, but children still look to parents for support, affirmation and affection. This
is the time of forming intimate friendships and bonds with peers, i.e. members of
the same age group. A peer group helps children to form opinions about them-
selves on the basis of how others see them. A peer group and its system of values
help children to free themselves from the influence of their parents to form inde-
pendent judgments. A group may also influence individuals to the point of acting
against their better judgment, seen in various instances of peer pressure and con-
formity.
Training in social skills includes carrying a conversation, sharing informa-
tion about oneself, showing interest in others by asking questions, giving help,
suggestions, invitations, and advice. These social graces can be developed and
when they are, they positively influence our social position and popularity, as well
as the intensity of interaction with others. However, when we address children as
group members we should not take their comprehension processes for granted; we
should monitor their accuracy by asking questions and other strategies, such as
individual checks.
10.5. Adolescence
According to Forisha-Kovach (1983), adolescence means 'growing into maturity'.
Puberty is the time of reaching sexual maturity, whereas pubescence is the process
of reaching it. Adolescence is the peak of intellectual functions which require flex-
ibility and coordination, but measures of intelligence which require learning and
organization of material show a continued development throughout life. Young
individuals grow increasingly independent of parents while a peer group and its
norms of behaviour gain importance. A peer group is the context in which ado-
lescents try to establish their identity. Identity can be understood as the inter-
nalization of values, having one's own standards and making one's own choices.
Adolescent peer groups are composed of cliques of several members with more
intimate ties, and crowds, i.e. larger groups based on social activity. In early ado-
lescence these groups are composed of members of the same sex, later by members
of both sexes. Adolescents are susceptible to peer pressure at that time, although
parental influence is continued.
Forisha-Kovach (1983) lists the following developmental tasks for adolescence:
• accepting one's physical appearance;
• achieving more mature relationships with peers of both sexes;
• achieving a masculine or feminine social role;
• achieving emotional independence from parents and other adults;
• preparing for a professional career;
• preparing for marriage and family life;
• learning socially responsible behaviour;
• acquiring a set of values and ethical system - developing an ideology.
174 10. The development of the language learner in childhood...
many nuances of an issue and argue. They also have a tendency toward self-con-
sciousness, self-centredness, the conviction that they are special and are not sub-
ject to natural laws that govern the rest of the world. Teenagers tend to think that
they are magically protected from harm. When they develop a more mature way
of thinking, they gain better contact with their own identities, as well as the abi-
lity to form adult relationships, and find a place in society. Adolescence is the time
when young people consider alternatives for themselves; at that stage in life their
opportunities are vast and they have wide choices at their disposal. From all the
available possibilities, adolescents must choose one which will suit their current
life and future expectations. The connecting thread between one's current activi-
ties and future expectations is commitment, which lends stability and energy
investment to our endeavours. The central experience for teenagers is the high
school leading to a choice of career. Forisha-Kovach (1983:185) persistently stress-
es the role of culture in the process of coming of age:
The set of assumptions an adolescent makes forms the basis for what we call the orientation to
the world. The orientation of an individual encompasses the values, attitudes, and beliefs that
an individual has about what is important. The values people hold and the beliefs which guide
their behaviour will help them make the choices they confront in their life. These values do not
simply emerge in adolescence; rather, they are the products of both an individual's personal
history and his or her cultural experience. Values, attitudes, and beliefs - what they are and how
they are acquired - form the basis in moral development.
A value may be defined as putting more weight on some and not other quali-
ties or goals, or states of existence, seeing them as preferable to their alternatives.
A person's value system may be treated as an acquired system of rules or princi-
ples for making choices and resolving conflicts. Values may refer to our way of
conduct or goals to accomplish.
Adolescence is often referred to as the time of storm and stress which is part of
forging the sense of the self. Identity is determined in relationships, in the reflec-
tions of ourselves in others, peers, parents, members of the opposite sex. Auto-
nomy is being governed by one's own rules. To be autonomous, young people
struggle to find out who they are and what goals they have in life, on the basis of
which they can relate to and interact with others. They gradually prepare to
assume adult roles. Self-identification emerges because the individual has select-
ed his or her own system of values, rather than accepting them from their parents.
The effort to make sense of oneself and the world is a healthy process which gene-
rates personal development. Identity is defined as an internal, self-constructed,
dynamic organization of drives, abilities, beliefs, and individual history. Tn creat-
ing an identity, one brings together one's personal history and one's cultural his-
176 10. The development of the language learner in childhood...
tory within a given setting. In achieving an identity one finds oneself in society.'
(Forischa-Kovach 1983:30). She adds that the most important context of growing
up is culture which 'provides the setting in which individuals grow up and live
out their lives. Furthermore, they provide values and expectations against which
individuals come to know themselves.' (page 45). Sexual identity in differences
between males and females that arise from socialization (social attitudes and prac-
tices) first as peer groups and friendships and gradually as heterosexual groups
and couples. Friendships tend to be closer and more intense in adolescence than
in other periods.
and often repeated so that the material can be recycled for the sake of better learn-
ing. This is not yet a good time to engage children in highly structured tasks,
a form of goal-oriented activity, but certainly activities with a purpose, such as
making various objects which can be displayed for parents to see and which will
bring the teacher's praise, are highly motivating.
Middle childhood is the school period. It is the time of developmental
accomplishments making school education possible, such as the increasing atten-
tion span, emergence of intentional learning and memory prestrategies, with
motor energy giving way to cognitive energy, which enables the child to concen-
trate and participate in a planned, goal-oriented undertaking, i.e. task, for a cer-
tain amount of time. In middle childhood, verbal learning begins to play an
increasingly important role, although direct learning through experience (obser-
vation and participation) is still helpful and relevant. Longer attention span and
intentional learning are also integrated with the ability of the child to follow
instructions and take feedback information from the teacher. The development of
memory makes it possible to organize the information better and in a more last-
ing way. The child is highly receptive to foreign language input and is now able
to learn vaster amounts of the material in a more lasting way with fewer repeti-
tions than in early childhood. Discourse genres which are suitable for children in
this age group are no longer connected with very young children's literature, but
rather with popular authentic materials on general culture which can develop
knowledge of the world at a level acceptable to the child. Their developing sense
of humour and metalinguistic awareness makes it possible to include a wide spec-
trum of discourse genres, including literature. Topics of interest embrace sports,
celebrities, computers and their uses, geography, pop culture, especially pop
music, hobbies, travel, science fiction literature and fantasy, movies, etc. This is
the time when creativity still remains fairly vivid while critical thinking emerges
as a fairly important aspect of classroom activities. Children may benefit from
guided imagery and writing tasks which help them to organize their ideas. Their
growing social competence makes it possible to practise various conversation
skills and functions of language. The level of metalinguistic awareness enables the
teacher to introduce some grammatical terminology and form-focused activities,
which do not yet make use of grammar rules, but highlight forms and accuracy
principles.
Peak cognitive development at adolescence makes it possible for the
teacher to introduce a wide spectrum of materials and activities, without con-
stantly keeping in mind the developmental constraints which were so significant
in the previous periods. A wide scope of interests, potent memory strategies, the
ability to organize information hierarchically and think in highly abstract terms,
with tendencies to generalize and theorize, curiosity about the language as a tool
and hunger for metalinguistic information to help the learner order this complex
domain all sound like properties of a perfect learner. Non-trivial teaching content,
for example regarding social issues and explicit grammar instruction are helpful,
if not to say absolutely necessary in most cases of language learners. However, this
178 10. The development of the language learner in childhood...
is also the time when peer group, ego development and sexual identity become
very important, certainly more important than the teacher and the grades for
most, except the most academically-oriented learners. Considering the fact that
learners have reached cognitive maturity, but do not yet have to devote most of
their working hours to full-time jobs, the effects of teaching and learning may be
more than satisfactory.
1. What are the main achievements in communicative abilities in early childhood, and in middle
childhood?
2. What justification do we have for using motor activities in teaching a foreign language to children
of pre-school age? What are the main differences between TPR and the above outline as far as re-
commendations for motor activities for children are concerned?
3. What justification do we have for using music, songs and chants? Arts and crafts? Discuss.
4. What justification do we have for using games in teaching children of pre-school age?
5. Can adolescent learners be taught grammar explicitly? Why?
6. Can young children be taught grammar explicitly? Why? Why not? If not, what activities can be
used to promote accuracy?
Further reading
Biehler, R. F., and J. Snowman, 1982. Psychology Applied to Teaching. Boston: Houghton Miffin
Company
Jagodzińska, M., 2003. Rozwój pamięci w dzieciństwie. Gdańsk: Gdańskie Wydawnictwo Psycho-
logiczne.
Jay, T. B., 2003. The Psychology of Language. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Newbury House.
Papalia, D. E., and S. W. Olds, 1990. A Child's World. Infancy Through Adolescence. New York:
McGraw-Hill, Inc.
11. Spoken and written discourse
11.1. Comprehension and production as an integral part
of verbal communication
Perceiving the four language skills as an integral part of verbal communication
organizes and systematizes our presentation of their development and cultivation.
In this framework, we see the use of skills as a form of goal-oriented behaviour and
truly appreciate the role of situational context and meaning in their implementa-
tion because conveying meaning and sense through communicative intention is
the ultimate reason why people communicate. The use of skills is regarded as situ-
ationally-embedded and episodic, which means that the situational parameters
(who speaks to whom, where, when, about what and for what purpose), the type of
situation (discourse genre, topic domain, relevant knowledge sources, especially
schemata) will have an important role to play in practising the skills. In the develop-
ment of each skill, the learners will have to recognize the need to be actively
involved in verbal communication, actively processing all the relevant clues, verbal
as much as para- and non-verbal, skipping what is not to be verbalized (ellipsis) as
well as drawing inferences, adjusting to the sender, negotiating status, processing
feedback information, and monitoring comprehension and production. Conse-
quently, foreign language skills development proceeds in terms of fairly specific,
local, experiences, involving our episodic memory and engagement in various
forms of meaningful (communicative) language interaction.
The most suitable concept to name such a unit of activity which shares cri-
terial attributes with episodes of verbal communication is the task. It is a unit of
human cognitive purposeful activity, in which we use all the sources of informa-
tion for dynamic decision-making to process the input material to accomplish
180 11. Spoken and written discourse
Spoken texts contain features such as ... irregular pauses, false starts, hesitations. Self-revisions,
and backtrackings. These features do have correlates in drafts of written texts (e.g. irregular and
illegible scrawls, lines crossed out, arrows inserted), but most early written drafts are not made
available to the readers. Listeners, however, have access to the composer's (that is, the speaker's)
on-line planning and editing processes and must somehow make sense of the appearance of
planning and editing signals in the discourse.
It is not true that most written language is rather formal and organized,
whereas the spoken one is informal and spontaneous. Such an evaluation (cf Ur
1991, for example) can be done more fairly in the context of specific situations of
language use. We can certainly find very formal cases of spoken language with
11.1. Comprehension and production as an integral part of verbal... 181
very careful pronunciation and lexical selection, such as for instance the Sejm
committee hearings on Rywingate, broadcast on our TV. At the same time,
instances of very informal and casual written communication, such as e-mail cor-
respondence between close friends or other personal notes, are quite abundant.
Nevertheless, there are essential differences between speech and writing related to
temporal constraints, intensity of interaction, and the role of prosodic elements
which pose special challenges to the foreign language learner.
The graphemic form of discourse consists of discrete elements (graphemes,
words, clauses, sentences, paragraphs, etc.) with clear visual representation and
boundaries, whereas in speaking we must cope with co-articulation, overlap of dif-
ferent speakers, unfinished sentences, changes of sentence plans in the middle,
abbreviated forms, and other reductions. Speech boundaries can be detected at the
level of phrases, clauses, and turns. Listening comprehension takes place under
temporal fluency constraints in the sense that the listener is pressed for time:
either he or she can manage to process the material within his or her attention
span, i.e. the limits of his or her working memory, or it will fade away. In reading
comprehension, on the other hand, we are, to a large extent, able to control the
pace of the task and review the material of processing, if necessary, moving our
eyes back and forth, or even up and down the page (this refers to Polish learners
of English and the left to right linearity of our graphemic system). The listener
may sometimes, but not always, influence the pace of the task by negotiating it
with the speaker, or ask clarification questions, where appropriate. We must realize,
however, that in our culture not all the communicative face-to-face encounters
allow such negotiations to a degree which would satisfy a foreign language learn-
er. Nor is this possible in taking auditory input from mass communication, such
as the media, unless we record the material in one form or another. When we can
see the speaker, we process a considerable amount of visual clues, both verbal,
para-verbal, and non-verbal, such as body language, facial expressions, appearance,
environmental clues, in addition to prosodie features which organize discourse
into structure and assign importance to its elements. In the case of writing, the
burden of assigning the structural description and hierarchical organization of
elements rests with the reader.
From the foreign language learners' point of view, this short life of the audi-
tory stimulus is the most tricky part of listening comprehension. Since time con-
straint is so significant, the role of procedural representations underlying the auto-
maticity necessary in discourse processing is also prominent. Foreign language
learners have not yet developed the basis for automaticity in language use.
This means that in the initial and intermediate stages of the learning process, they
perform language processing operations more slowly, in a more controlled manner,
than skilled language users. Listening activities in their case present a real chal-
lenge and may be a source of considerable stress. However, without active partici-
pation in listening comprehension practice, they will not be able to develop the
necessary automaticity and its underlying procedural representations to reach
a comfortable or almost native-speaker level. It is not by accident that recordings
182 11. Spoken and written discourse
of passages and conversations on cassette are so frequently used in the foreign lan-
guage classroom because they overcome the main drawback of authentic face-to-face
oral communication: their input is relatively more permanent and can be repeated.
There is no way to circumvent auditory practice in developing listening
comprehension ability. The auditory input is an essential source of data for our
echoic memory which stores information on pronunciation, including rhythm,
stress and intonation, and auditory models of linking words into clauses. This
aspect is of primary importance in the case of English as a foreign language in
which the phonemic form is in no faithful relationship with the graphemic form.
The two forms require deliberate effort to learn each and match both with each
other. Especially the stressed and unstressed syllable unit of the English lan-
guage, the foot, requires the Polish learner to restructure the native language atti-
tude to pronunciation. To give a simple example, the pronunciation of the Polish
word komfort consists of two accented syllables, whereas the pronunciation of the
English word comfort consist of one accented and one reduced syllable /'kΛmfət/.
This restructuring takes time and effort, yet is communicatively highly adaptive
and therefore absolutely indispensable.
It seems reasonable for the E F L learner at the beginner and early interme-
diate level, on some occasions, to be exposed to both the graphemic and the
phonemic forms of the same discourse because they complement and mutually
define each other. The written code with its permanence and precision of repre-
sentation of the message (punctuation, word boundaries, what in the auditory
code would be strong and weak forms, including suffixes, prefixes, is represented
as explicit, unreduced form) is an important source of information to the language
learner, who must reconstruct the system precisely. In the written message, the
morphosyntactic forms are simply more salient than the same morphosyntactic
forms would have been in the spoken version of the same message. The auditory
message, on the other hand, is an integrated, prosodically structured form which
the learner must acquire to be understood in spoken communication. Since the
learner's aim is to reconstruct the language system, his or her contact and match-
ing both forms of discourse will enhance the precision of this system's mental rep-
resentation in the learner's mind. It would seem justified, therefore, to use such
elements in skills development as the written transcript to 'put the dot over the i'
in a listening comprehension task, or to read a written passage aloud to specify its
correct pronunciation for the language learner. Such a traditional activity as dic-
tation could also be defended on the grounds that it offers a valuable opportunity
for the teacher to get access to the learner's phonemic discrimination ability as he
or she transcodes speech into writing. Transcoding activities, which require the
learner to convert the spoken discourse into the written form, or vice versa, draw
his or her attention to the language forms in the context of discourse, a highly
educational foreign language learning experience with focus on the language code,
and a source of feedback information about language learning for the teacher.
Needless to say, they are options to be used when and if they are needed (for an
example of a problem, see 13.6.).
11.3. Authentic and didactic texts. Authentic and didactic tasks 183
Focus on the language code in developing the four skills demands the follow-
ing cultivation strategies:
• Developing listening comprehension puts a demand on the teacher to help the
learner reach the stage of precision in discerning the forms in the spoken mes-
sage first and foremost by means of transcoding.
• Developing reading comprehension requires the teacher to help the learner
reach the stage of integration of the forms on the written page, for example as
listening or reading aloud, also a form of transcoding.
• Developing speaking means, on the part of the teacher, helping the learner to
reach the stage of precision in expressing himself or herself by means of pro-
cessing and incorporation of feedback on accuracy, including error correction,
on the part of the learner.
• Developing the writing skill requires the teacher to help the learner reach the
level of morphosyntactic precision by means of organization and editing
processes which integrate these forms in line with discourse coherence and
cohesion principles.
edgeable and prepared ahead of the relevant experience outside the educational
context without having to deal with the real-life consequences of error. This prop-
erty does not make education is any sense unreal, or contrasted with the 'real'
world. At this point, I am not even trying to address the difficult issue of educat-
ing the young generation for a future that we cannot predict because it only makes
the matters more complex.
With these reservations in mind, a foreign language classroom is a part of
the real world as much as anything else. Effectiveness of the educational process
comes from strengthening the links between the outside world and the classroom,
with real learners in a real institution, and, where possible, opening rather than
maintaining their rigid borders. This can be done in a variety of ways, but first
and foremost by making the activities in the foreign language classroom practical
and relevant to verbal communication in general, i.e. in the outside world.
What implications does it have for the notion of authentic tasks in the edu-
cational context? As has been pointed out by the proponents of CLT, there are
instances of real/authentic communication in the classroom: they refer to teacher-
learner exchanges about everyday organizational matters, the 'housekeeping' busi-
ness of the course and school activities. But these exchanges are marginal in terms
of the time they take. The real question is what properties should the mainstream
didactic tasks have in the foreign language classroom to be practical and relevant
to the foreign language learner? Certainly they must present verbal communica-
tion in its wide array of varieties and important structural properties which have
been outlined in section 7.1., at the same time adjusted to the learner's language
level. The ultimately 'authentic tasks', although absolutely necessary, model the
target behaviour which in the case of language learners is the final product of
learning. On their way to this target they must also be engaged in intermediate
tasks properly adjusted to their current stage of development, that is, to their cur-
rent proficiency and knowledge level. If these adjustments are based on relevant
language learning and communicative criteria, for example, on the stages of skill
development, or derived from natural conversational adjustments made by speakers
of the target language, they naturally enhance the language learner's coping
potential in the task at hand. Both types of tasks, intermediate (adjusted to the
learner's le;vel) and authentic (modelling target-like communication) are neces-
sary throughout the learning process: they are adjusted on the basis of relevant
addressee-related criteria. In sum, while it is inevitable that all classroom tasks
are didactic by definition, the real point is: are these didactic tasks that we engage
the learners in relevant and conducive to the language learning process. Like food,
an 'authentic' task which is not addressed to the given learner may be equally
irrelevant to him or her at a certain stage as a finely-tuned didactic task - relevant
for a reason. It is our job to single out such language learning criteria.
Below is a task in which you are asked to analyse a text, a didactic text
because it is in a book of practice tests, in order to determine the extent to which
it also fulfils the criteria for an authentic text, i.e. generated solely for commu-
nicative purposes.
186 11. Spoken and written discourse
Source: Roy Kingsbury, Felicity O'Dell, Guy Wellman, 1991. Longman Practice Exams for CAE. Lon-
don: Longman, page 7.
5. What kind of references to cultural knowledge do we find in the text? Do these references prevent
you from understanding the text, or can you guess their meaning from the context?
6. Do you find any individual features in these letters, any stylistic devices, such as metaphor or irony?
7. What strategies for arguing their point do the writers use? Are they effective?
8. What reference to popular culture do you see in the title? What function does it have?
9. What information do we find in the drawing? What strategy to present his or her point does the
author of the drawing use? What purpose does it serve as an orientation device before reading?
10. Can you relate to the content of the text and use your personal experience to bring to bear on the
reading process? Are you capable of evaluating critically the ideas expressed or referred to in the
text? Can you form an attitude or opinion in this connection?
11. Do you think this text is authentic (taken from an English language magazine?) or not? Why? Is it
relevant as language learning material at the upper-intermediate or advanced stage? Why?
12. Do you enjoy reading such texts in magazines yourself? Why? Why not?
requisite knowledge, the associative stage during which connections are built
between the necessary steps or operations, and the autonomous stage, when the
automaticity is developed for the whole operation. Such an operation is relatively
independent of our attentional resources. Each stage has a specificity of its own.
But it also means that in order to acquire a language skill, the learner must be
involved in practising commensurate operations, i.e. operations of a comparable
degree of complexity. The question arises how this relationship can be estimated.
Probably by referring to skill hierarchy, and the types and number of decisions
that the speaker makes in communicative situations. We may ponder about the
typical communicative exercise: how many of the essential communicative deci-
sions are made by the learner and which decisions in a given task have already
been made for him?
1. Does the learner make the decision as to what to say?
2. Does he choose the perspective and style (tone) of his utterance?
3. Does he select the plan of the utterance and sentence constructions?
4. Does he decide on the lexical material to insert into his utterance (syntagmatic)
plan?
5. Does he or she integrate these operations within the time constraints of com-
municative fluency?
6. Does he himself monitor his utterance and edit for accuracy?
7. Does he himself evaluate its communicative effectiveness?
If all these decisions are made by the learner himself under the communicative
time pressure, we can safely assume that indeed language skill is involved and
practised. Even if only a proportion of these decisions are in the learner's hands,
the task is probably controlled or intermediate, but conducive to skill learning. If,
however, it is much more elementary, such as sentence repetition, form manipu-
lation, or filling in the gap in a sentence, not even a continuous text, it may be
completely irrelevant to acquiring language skill because of qualitative differences
in the practice involved. Naturally, this does not mean that it is useless for other
purposes.
It is significant in discussing stages of learning a given skill to consider dif-
ferences between experts and novices. Novices are characterized by the fact that
their utterances are laconic, much shorter than those of the experts, they are much
less fluent than the experts in that they take more time to produce or comprehend
an utterance, they do not demonstrate the same level of certainty as the experts as
far as their accuracy is concerned, and finally, they make many more errors.
Experts speak much more correctly, following target-language norms, as well as
fluently; they develop their utterances more fully than the novices, so they are
longer, more complete, whereas their certainty as to their accuracy is stronger
(Levelt, 1978, 1989). These differences demonstrate that skill acquisition has sev-
eral dimensions. The first dimension is: acquiring the variety of language forms,
including the lexical and syntactic material, to enable the learner to express the
ideas adequately to their meaning and context; the second one is the linear (syn-
tagmatic) dimension of this material, such as discourse plans and schemata,
11.4. Stages in learning a skill in a foreign language 189
which enable the learner to build fully developed discourse; the third dimension
is the growing awareness of these forms which enables the learner to control their
use in agreement with the rules of the system and monitor his or her accuracy, and
the fourth one is the ability to integrate all the operations in time which enables
the learner to perform the task fluently. These observations lead to the following
interdependencies which may be helpful in adjusting the level of task difficulty to
the learners' current level:
the length of the task the shorter the task the easier and less tiring it should be (the
problem of sustained discourse)
the language material needed the more input for the task is provided for the learner, the easi-
for task completion er the task (e.g. the use of external sources or 'pre-teaching the
material for the task')
the pace of the task the less time pressure (the opportunity to do the task at the
learner's pace, time given to plan), the easier the task
the integration of choices in the more opportunities to break the task into subtasks and then
time integrate, the easier the task (e.g. rehearsal stage before perform-
ing the task, separate editing stage)
4. Can we use this idea as a practical criterion in teaching English as a foreign language?
5. Choose an activity from an English textbook and try to modify its difficulty according to the criteria
of skill?
Further reading
Littlewood, D., 1984. Foreign and Second Language Learning: Language Acquisition Research and
its Implication for the Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Skehan, P, 1998. A Cognitive Approach to Language Learning. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
McDonough, S., 1995. Strategy and Skill in a Foreign Language. London: Edward Arnold.
Rost, M., 1990. Listening in Language Learning. London: Longman.
sources in the reader's memory, especially concepts and schemata relevant to the
task at hand. Bottom-up processes are initiated and dominated by the textual
information on the printed page; the text form, also referred to as the stimulus
structure, is said to define the intention extracted from the passage. The top-down
ones operate on various knowledge sources in the reader's mind to narrow down
the reader's expectations towards the text to be comprehended. While developing
the reading skill in a foreign language, we cannot afford to ignore either of these
two closely related, indispensable poles of the learner's processing of written
materials. What we can do is to stimulate their interaction and make use of their
specific advantages. For example, bottom-up processes are usually stressed during
intensive reading activities, which treat the text first and foremost as language
learning material, whereas top-down processes may be stressed to activate the
learner's coping potential before a difficult reading task in an attempt to demon-
strate to the learner that many clues can be used to narrow down the scope of his
or her search for meaning.
Defining the context (communicative Studying the text more than once, exact seman-
situation) tization (feedback from the teacher)
Recalling relevant information about it Using external sources of information by the learner
Perceiving elements of the text in structu- Special (cultural and language) input for the task
ral relations, main ideas, supporting ideas, provided by the teacher
literal vs. figurative meaning
Building a mental model of the text, the Elaboration of concepts, domain terms and other
use of imagery lexical material, elaboration or condensation of con-
tent
Relating and responding to the text from Analysis of discourse genre, especially its structure,
the point of view of the addressee, perso- summarizing, retelling, parallel writing, précis
nalizing the content, its critical evalua- writing, etc. to retain the information.
tion.
and the communicative environment of the text. At this stage the comprehender
is trying to reconstruct the communicative intention of the writer, which is not
available in a ready form. Interpretations of different learners may vary, con-
tributing to an interesting information gap in the classroom.
The third level of comprehension, which is relevant in foreign language
teaching, is evaluation of the communicative intention from the point of view of
our own values, convictions and ideas about the topic. At this stage we act in the
capacity of the addressee, not just the decoder of the text. The addressee is in
a reciprocal relationship to the writer, responding to the intention and switching
to the role of the sender/writer herself. Evaluation seems to be the most subjective
of the three stages, but this is no reason for concern, provided the previous stages
have been completed satisfactorily. This subjectivity reflects the fundamental
nature of human communication.
The above enumeration is not intended to suggest that we proceed through
these stages in a rigid order, or that developing reading comprehension must
always involve explicit and exhaustive work at each stage. It merely outlines the
scope of the comprehension problem. After all, the extent to which we decide to
emphasize or highlight the given level depends on the learners, their reading
experience, previous activities and the text itself. In the light of this information
and the analysis of the text, we simply make strategic selections of relevant
aspects of comprehension to focus upon. Nor is it implied that the teacher is
always supposed to present the information to the learner. A much more prefer-
able strategy would take the form of interaction between the teacher and the
learners, in which the learners are actively involved in monitoring their compre-
hension processes, asking questions, identifying unknown items and searching for
or inferring their meaning.
• The learners are asked to identify the items in the text whose meaning they do not
know.
• The teacher provides the meaning of the items identified by the students, asks
their peers to provide the meaning, encourages lexical inferencing (informed
guessing) of selected items and later provides positive feedback for the given
item, encourages the use of the dictionary as well as provides positive feedback
for the information found by the learners there.
• The teacher asks questions to make sure that what he or she predicts as prob-
lematic segments of the text are semanticized accurately by the learners .
• The teacher asks students to translate selected segments (such as a clause) into
Polish, or provides translation herself, to make sure semantization is accurate.
This helps to eliminate incorrect semantization of so-called 'false friends' and
justifies a highly controlled use of the native language (1 percent of the total
class time would be my rough estimate).
12.4. The levels of reading comprehension 195
Source: R. Kinsbury, F. O'Dell and G. Wellman, 1995. CAE Advantage. London: Longman, pages 6-7.
Semanticizing
Looking at the text Food fraud down under in Example 12.1., select the elements in the text which
require special treatment in the light of the idea of interactive semantization between the teacher and
the learners. Try to find one suitable example for each point mentioned.
The learners are asked to identify the items in the text whose meaning they do not know. They may
have chosen the following words: fraud, down under, cohesive, cliché, tucked, meticulous, vaunted,
precipitate, minute. How would you decide to explain them? Which of these items are suitable for
being explained by the teacher? What would you say to explain them (provide the exact wording of
the explanation)? Which can be guessed by the learners from the context? Which should be checked
in the dictionary? Do you see any text segment/phrase which should be translated into Polish? Would
the sentence 'The cat was out of the bag' be suitable for this purpose or not? Why? Why not?
Interpretation
Looking at the text Food fraud down under in Example 12.1., find clues to the communicative inten-
tion. What is the main idea of the text (Is it contained in any of the sentences?) and which are the
supporting ideas? He describes a series of images with a purpose. What is this purpose? How do the
parts of the text contribute to the presentation of the writer's point? What is the role of the title of the
text? Do you find any metaphors or comparisons (similes) in the passage? What is their function?
196 12. Receptive skills: reading comprehension
Evaluation
Looking at the text in example 12.1 try to assume the position of the addressee of Ustinov's message and
respond to it in the light of your own ideas about it, as well as your knowledge of the topic and personal
experience. Are you convinced by his idea and his illustrations? Do you agree with his point? Can you find
some examples from your experience to argue for or against this idea? Is this a positive phenomenon or not?
Asking questions
Having analysed the text from the point of view of the three levels of comprehension, formulate ques-
tions which you could ask your students if you wanted to target and stimulate each comprehension level
in an increasing order of complexity, from semanticizing to evaluation.
1. Semanticizing - questions which guide the learner toward literal comprehension at the level of phrases
and sentences.
2. Interpretation questions - reconstructing the writer's intention by linking the ideas expressed in the text
into a coherent whole. Global understanding and the integration of ideas are necessary at this point.
3. Evaluation questions - responding to and evaluating the writer's intention from the point of view of
the addressee, especially his or her convictions, background knowledge and values. A critical evalu-
ation should be sought.
with his impressions from a trip. The addressee is a native speaker of English who
will immediately recognize the genre and reconstruct the cross-cultural references
in the article. The text has its individual, personal style not devoid of humour and
is composed of vivid images to provide light reading for relaxation. To reconstruct
the communicative intention, the reader must regard these images and episodes
as a line of examples which serve to illustrate the point that the world has shrunk,
which is to say that we see recurrent cultural elements everywhere, regardless of
our location. This idea can easily be linked to the learner's experience as a traveller
and observer of his or her own changing environment as well as evaluated and
elaborated from this point of view.
The language learning potential of the text (i.e. the language material to be
retained in the learner's memory) is inseparable from the communicative poten-
tial, the only difference being that the stress in the activities and tasks connected
with the language learning potential would be on cognitive elaboration and reten-
tion (storing) of the language material and the factual information which it con-
tains. Strategies tapping the language learning potential of the text would have to
stimulate the commitment of the material to permanent memory. In order to
appreciate the language learning potential, the teacher must analyse the text from
the point of view of the following considerations:
• What is the factual and cultural information to be learned from this text?
• In connection with the topic domain, what kind of terms, vocabulary items,
lexical phrases and expressions can be learned from the text? Which topic
vocabulary should be elaborated upon?
• What is the text structure: the component parts that make up its introduction,
development and conclusion? How are they ordered and integrated? What are
the main points and supporting details?
• What are the linguistic exponents of the text's organization?
• Can they be identified and extracted as containers for similar ideas to be used
productively by the learner in a parallel writing task?
• What natural activities can be used to retain this material in memory and prac-
tise it in production?
Following such an analysis, the teacher realizes the nature of the reading
material at hand and can make the appropriate teaching decisions regarding the
selections and focus of his or her classroom activities, naturally integrated with the
text to benefit the language development of the student. For example, it is impor-
tant to identify the natural plan of the text to decide where to break the text into
parts, if necessary, and to group vocabulary items of interest to the learners into
categories pertaining to city landscape and architecture, restaurants and cuisine,
people's appearance and characteristics, etc. Another language learning aspect of
the text would be the role of the various geographical names and their location as
well as the cross-linguistic references used to create a humorous effect. The learn-
er's attention may be drawn to the writing technique which consists of using irony
and exaggeration as well as vivid details in sketching fairly effective images in
order to make the point that exotic, distant places are losing their local colour.
198 12. Receptive skills: reading comprehension
Source: Jon Naunton, 1990. Think First Certificate. London: Longman, pages 154-155.
The two aspects of the above analysis are intimately connected in that the
deeper the level of comprehension of the material, the more accurate and lasting
its storage. The better the storage of the given communicative episode, the more
useful it is for being transferred for use in other communicative episodes. The
benefits of analysing the text from these two largely overlapping points of view are
12.5. The teacher's analysis of the text for its communicative.. 199
1. What kind of communicative situation 1. What is the factual and cultural information
does it come from? Who is the writer, the to be learned from this text?
addressee? What is the purpose?
2. What is the topic, theme, content area? 2. In connection with the topic domain, what
kind of terms, vocabulary items, lexical
phrases and expressions can be found in
the text?
3. What genre is it? How is it organized, plan- 3. What are the component parts that make up
ned? What is the main point and the sup- its introduction, development and conclu-
porting ideas? sion? How are they ordered and integrated?
4. What rhetorical devices are used? Are there 4. What are the linguistic exponents of the text's
any images, metaphors, humour, etc.? organization?
5. What is the writer trying to say? What is 5. Is the text logically organized? Are the argu-
his communicative intention? ments convincing? Is the analysis of the
material convincing? What is the effect of
our critical reading of the material?
6. Can the students relate to this communicative 6. What natural activities can be used to retain
situation and the message? Can they bring this material in memory and practise in
their personal experience to bear on this production? Can this text structure be used
reading material? What would be their eva- by the learner in a parallel writing task?
luation of this intention?
7. What would be the students' natural res- 7. Which lexical items should be elaborated
ponse to the message in the text (agree/dis- upon as belonging to the domain termino-
agree, evaluate, write an answer, present logy?
their own view)? What productive tasks
would be natural to follow reading?
Table 12.2. Questions referring to the communicative and language learning potential of the text
200 12. Receptive skills: reading comprehension
tation from this knowledge in various communicative encounters. From the point
of view of language learning, focus on the text form and plan is essential in stor-
age and subsequent retrieval of ample, and sometimes complex, information in
our memory. Knowledge of these plans increases the predictability of subsequent
reading tasks in various communicative situations. In this way it performs an
important facilitating function in the process of language learning.
This task is to be performed by the teacher prior to designing a reading activity. Working on your own,
ask the two sets of questions regarding the communicative and language learning potential with refe-
rence to The Melting Pot provided in Table 12.2.
List your answers to compare them with ideas from other students in your class.
What tasks can be suggested to personalize the text content? Do you have any
other suggestions in connection with analysing the communicative and language
learning potential of the text that have not been mentioned?
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: These answers may vary, but the students should not overlook the
fact that the topic area of the text is migration, and more specifically emigration from Europe to the
United States between 1815 and 1914. The topic is treated at the level of popular sociology and cul-
ture, appropriate for a foreign language texbook. The main point that the author addresses are the
reasons why people left their homelands (the push factors) on the one hand and the reasons why
they wanted to settle down in the US (the pull factors). The push and the pull factors organize the
whole text so that the plan of the text may be expressed as noun phrases naming these factors (land
hunger, poverty, physical hunger, e.g. potato famine, avoiding conscription, religious persecution,
versus promise of land, the demand for settlers and workers in the West, prospects of factory jobs,
religious freedom). It would also be meaningful to establish the link between the text and its title.
nicative intention of the author, one of the natural strategies to eliminate excessive
difficulty in reading tasks is to supply the student with the relevant knowledge
which he or she may not yet have, but which will prove useful in the reading com-
prehension task, i.e. provide input for the task. As a result, the learner may be
able to complete the task and gain the indispensable reading experience without
becoming demotivated or frustrated.
6. Ask students to find additional information about the potato famine in Ireland, the collapse of the
economy in Italy in the 1860s, the Pilgrim Fathers, persecutions of Russian Jews, the Old World, the
New World, the Promised Land in its metaphorical meaning.
The learner's subjective perception of the task's difficulty may result from not
knowing the type of discourse to be processed. The learners may be provided with
this information by the teacher, or guided in their own analysis of the text from
the point of view of its organisation and characteristic terms. As a result of such
a brief session, learners can narrow down their expectations with reference to the
text. The plan of the text identified in this way will function as an orientation
device, a form of guidance in processing the ideas expressed throughout the read-
ing passage. It is beneficial for the student to perceive and become aware of the
discourse plan because this knowledge may be transferred to other receptive and
productive tasks. Once the genre is familiar, reading comprehension of similar
texts will be facilitated.
understand in their Shakespearian context. The word 'momentous' in the third line
of the second paragraph of The Melting Pot is not a simple or frequent adjective, but
is almost self-explanatory in the context in which it is used.
From the point of view of our memory processes, teaching some items before
the students read the text is justified in the case of vocabulary systems, for exam-
ple terms which belong to a given semantic field or topic domain, in other words,
which are part of the terminology of the text. In the case of Food fraud down under,
these would be all the culture-related items used to exemplify the main idea that
the world has shrunk; in the case of The Melting Pot, lexis grouping the political,
social, religious reasons for emigration. Such networks or categories should even
be extended and elaborated with additional items provided by the teacher or stu-
dents during class work to easily find their way to our memory store because of
their semantic connections.
Providing meaning for unknown vocabulary in context may take the form of
interactive work between the teacher and the students during the stage of seman-
tization, discussed above. At this point the learner is familiar with the context and
can fit new meanings into the model of the situation that he or she is visually
reconstructing in the mind. On the other hand, 'pre-teaching' vocabulary is arti-
ficial and puts the initial emphasis on the cognitive rather than the communica-
tive nature of the reading task. To make the learner curious about the reading
material, it is more appropriate to initially emphasize the communicative and/or
informative nature of the task, and most important of all, the content of the pas-
sage and deal with the learning (cognitive) aspect thereafter.
Strategies used to clarify meanings of unknown words in the text may also
be systematized according to the kind of information they make use of, such as
L1, L2, metalingual (definitions) and visual (non-lingual) information:
• lingual strategies: expressing meaning in the target language, here English,
providing examples, illustrative situations, synonyms, antonyms, hyponyms,
paraphrasing;
• interlingual strategies: providing native language equivalents, in this case, the
Polish translation of the English item in focus;
• metalingual strategies: providing a definition of a given item in the target lan-
guage; definitions, especially at the elementary stage of learning may be given
in the native language of the learner, as well. Definitions are said to be cogni-
tively difficult to understand and formulate; they may be saved for the more
advanced stage;
• non-lingual strategies: gesture, picture, mime, pointing at objects or their draw-
ings, etc.
The choice of strategy depends on the nature of the lexical item. Some of
them, e.g. terms for abstract concepts, must be translated into the learner's native
language for reasons of precision. However, during the reading process, we must
keep in mind the need to engage the learner as actively as possible in monitoring
his or her comprehension, identifying unknown items, actively looking for their
12.8. Types of reading and their function in learning English... 205
Focus on vocabulary
1. Lexical inferencing. Which vocabulary items in Food fraud down under would you select as suitable
for practising lexical inferencing? List them and think about each: what clues would the learners have
to use in inferring the meaning of these items: word structure, immediate context, knowledge of L1,
L2, other foreign languages, factual knowledge of the topic, the more global discourse context, espe-
cially the mental model of the situation in the discourse, their own experience?
2. Providing meaning by a definition. Considering the nature of the reading passage The Melting Pot,
which terms would you find suitable for the metalingual strategy of defining? The strategy of defining
is based on picking a more general concept to which the item belongs and selecting the distinctive
property which would single it out from the rest in this category. This technique should naturally
match the character of the word.
ical stress; appropriate contrast between syllables is part of the 'correct pronunci-
ation' of a word. Beyond these conventions stress can be used to fill communica-
tive functions.' These are precisely the reasons why the way in which the learner
reads a given text aloud provides the teacher with useful information about the
learner's comprehension processes at the level of recognition, segmentation,
structuring and semantization. The teacher may provide feedback and help the
learner with pronunciation and prosody to make it congruent with the structure
and meaning of the text. This form of activity is not conducive to deep compre-
hension because the learner's resources are directed to transforming the material
from the written to the spoken code, here called transcoding. As a result, the
learner's attention is focused on the language forms.
Extensive reading is different from intensive reading with regard to the
pace of the activity and the size of the material. While intensive reading is con-
nected with a more in-depth study and analysis of a relatively limited amount of
text as well as the use of external resources to supplement the learner's knowledge
déficits, extensive reading is fairly fast and based on the comprehension strategies
available to the learner at the moment. The learner does not use external sources
of information during this rather fluent process, but derives considerable orienta-
tion from the vast contexts within by the passage. Extensive reading has the
advantage of the quantity of input at the expense of the processing precision.
Intensive reading, on the other hand, can lead to precision, but at the expense of
the slower pace of the task. Both kinds of reading should be used in foreign lan-
guage teaching because they complement each other: one kind provides positive
transfer to the other.
Size of the material: shorter passage, often a seg- Size of the material: book, story, essay, novel,
ment of a larger whole, selected by the author often self-selected by the student on the basis
of the programme. of interest and variety.
Pace of the task: rather slow with repetitions, Pace of the task: fairly fast pace of reading, typi-
intensive interaction between the teacher and cal of communicative fluency. Learner knowl-
the student, e.g. input for the task, feedback, edge deficits are compensated by the ample
comprehension checks, analysis, consulting context, and the task is mostly performed as an
external sources of information, etc. individual activity, a form of self-teaching.
Benefits: helps the learner to practise reading Benefits: significant source of cultural and fac-
strategies, learn vocabulary and discourse tual knowledge and incidental vocabulary
types, deliberately commit information to acquisition, performs important motivational
memory. function, enhances communicative autonomy.
Extensive reading should be cultivated in the sense of: encouraged, guided, pro-
vided for, stimulated, rewarded, by the foreign language teacher for the following
reasons:
• it has an important educational value; being well-read, both in the native and
foreign language, is a trademark of an educated person;
• extensive reading is an invaluable source of cultural and language input; it
enhances the learner's confidence and communicative autonomy;
• it is a natural communicative process in its pure form: it is motivated by con-
tent curiosity, it is not disturbed by the teacher's interference, it is done for
pleasure and relaxation. As a result, it is ultimately rewarding for the learner.
Skimming is used to get a general idea of the nature of the text (Brown, 1994).
For this purpose the reader makes use of important structural clues in the text, such
as its appearance, the title, list of contents, abstracts, subtitles, topic sentences, illus-
trations, conclusions, where applicable. Skimming is helpful in our decision-
making processes, for example when we try to make up our mind which recent arti-
cle on learner autonomy to copy for our research, which Mediterranean cookery book
to buy, or which article to read carefully in the newly purchased Time Magazine. In
the classroom setting, skimming is valued for the general orientation that the learn-
er derives from this initial contact and is usually followed by a more careful study of
the material. While reading the text more thoroughly, the learner can perceive and
process parts of the text in their functional relationships to the whole.
Scanning 'involves searching rapidly through a text to find a specific point
of information, for example, the relevant times on a timetable, items in a directo-
ry, or key points in an academic text.' (Hedge, 2000: 195). Effective scanning is an
important sub-ability in reading comprehension; it presupposes that we know
where to look for the relevant information and thus strengthens our study skills.
On a more general note, it should be emphasized that skimming and scan-
ning are by no means the leading reading processes, as many communicative text-
books would lead us to believe. If they are used regularly as the main intensive
reading tasks, they will become the main reading comprehension abilities deve-
loped by the learners. In everyday communication, however, they play a much
more marginal role and should not overshadow deep comprehension, critical
reading, and language learning from the written input.
Source: Sue O'Connell, 2004. Focus on Advanced English CAE. London: Longman, page 41.
12.9. Options in designing reading tasks. Pre-reading, reading... 209
ing, conduct the reading session according to the current ideology that it is
a guessing game, and follow it with various related, mostly productive activities
which encourage the learner to use the knowledge acquired through reading.
(A similar, though not exactly the same point is made by Hedge, 2000).
Breaking a reading lesson into these three stages seems to be quite appro-
priate in view of the nature of reading and the language learners' special needs.
The pre-reading stage performs the function of an introduction to the reading
task with some anticipation or input strategies aimed at facilitating the reading
comprehension process under reduced redundancy conditions, i.e. in view of the
language learner's knowledge and skill deficits. The reading stage provides an
opportunity to process the form and content of the passage to accomplish the
three levels of discourse comprehension and retain the vital information. The
third, follow-up stage is the time to consolidate the information from discourse
and respond to the intention, i.e. communicatively interact with the author in
the role of a sender. This encourages the learner to practise productive skills
closely related to the receptive input from the text, most typically remaining men-
tally within the same communicative situation as the discourse that has been read.
1. Analyse the text Time-eaters and what you can do about them in example
12.3. and decide on the communicative and learning potential by answering the
questions related to the teacher's analysis of the text, part 12.4. and table 12.3.
As we recall, the most important points to consider before designing reading
tasks are the communicative situation, text type, especially its plan, relationship
of the content to the learner's knowledge of the world and experience, and
topic-related vocabulary.
2. The purpose of the analysis is to bring the text back to life as a communicative
event which involves the interaction between the writer and the addressee. The
resulting activities should naturally result from the nature of the text and the
communicative situation which it evokes and enhance both the communicative
and the learning potential inherent in the text.
3. As has been said, while designing the reading task, the teacher streamlines the
whole activity into three stages:
a) the pre-reading stage;
b) the reading stage;
c) the follow-up activities.
The purpose of the pre-reading stage is to mentally prepare the learner for the
reading task to facilitate the experience. Following the earlier considerations on the
nature of the reading process and the sources of the learner's difficulties, pre-
reading is the stage to arouse curiosity for the content of the passage, as much as to
enhance the learner's coping potential for the task at hand by tapping various rele-
vant sources of information: the text and its presentation, the context, if applicable,
and the learner's knowledge. At this point, I must disagree with the idea that the
learner should be made to predict or guess as much of the text content as possible.
210 12. Receptive skills: reading comprehension
Design a reading lesson for text 3. Time-eaters and what you can do about them. Try to incorporate
your own ideas in addition to the suggestions provided as well as to vary the activities in your lesson, so
that if you choose classroom conversation for the pre-reading stage, your follow-up activity is not a yet
another classroom speaking task.
Design a reading lesson for text 2. The Melting Pot. Try to focus on the vocabulary and personalization
of content and inviting the learner's opinions and sharing experience. Follow the principle of variety of
skills involved as well as work formats, individual, pair, and group work.
Design a reading lesson for text 1. Food fraud down under. What are the criteria of a good, well-
integrated introductory activity? Can you select such an activity for this text? Make sure it is not an activ-
ity in its own right, competing with the reading itself or taking the learner's attention in a different direc-
tion, away from the reading task.
In the long run, reading tasks based on these principles and developed in
line with the creative propensities of the teacher should enable the learner to do
the following:
• read with deep comprehension, critically, and with insight;
• process the text with a view to its structure and organization, especially its cohe-
rence and cohesion;
212 13. Receptive skills: listening comprehension
• recognize larger rhetorical parts, figurative language, and other stylistic devices;
• bring all the relevant knowledge sources to the task at hand;
• distinguish between fact and opinion, main point and example, irony and sarcasm;
• make use of all the clues, verbal and non-verbal alike, to become oriented with
the nature and meaning of the text;
• infer the meaning of some unfamiliar words from the context, but use a dic-
tionary where necessary for feedback information;
• infer the information which is not expressed explicitly;
• read interactively, i.e. evaluate the writer's intention and respond to it;
• monitor his or her own comprehension process and check for accuracy in com-
prehension.
Further reading
Day, R., and J. Bumford, 1998. Extensive Reading in Second Language Classroom. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Hedge, T., 2000. Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nation, P, 1997. The language learning benefits of extensive reading. Language Teacher 21,13-16.
Nunan, D., 1993. Introducing Discourse Analysis. London: Penguin.
Nuttall, C., 1996. Reading Skills in a Foreign Language. New Edition. London: Heinemann.
Renandya, W. A., and G. M. Jacobs, 2002. Extensive reading: why aren't we all doing it? In: J. C.
Richards and W. A. Renandya (eds.), Methodology in Language Teaching. An Anthology of
Current Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 295-302.
Ur, P, 1991. A Course in Language Teaching. Practice and Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press.
Wallace, C., 1992. Reading. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
tual clues, but the role of the learner is confined to being a member of an audi-
ence, a listener or a viewer, rather than a directly involved participant in inter-
personal communication. The message is most probably neither targeted at the
learner as an individual, nor adjusted to his or her needs and abilities. The learn-
er comprehends this input, but does not at the time interact with the sender to
construct output. He or she is merely an observer, rather than a sender and an
addressee. But even in this limited role the learner benefits from the opportunity
to process monologue and dialogue discourse (interaction) models and learn cul-
tural and language information, especially from the opportunity to pick up plen-
tiful lexical material in its auditory form. This form of input affords extensive
listening, whose advantages resemble those of extensive reading. Although the
learner in not personally involved as a participant in communicative interaction,
the benefits in terms of traces recorded in echoic memory cannot be underesti-
mated. But this form of input alone is not sufficient in foreign language learning.
This is why - for the purposes of foreign language learning - it is advisable to
stimulate the learner to interact with the sender at least mentally, if not in person,
by formulating an opinion, or criticism, or any other response in line with the
third level of comprehension (see 12.4.).
As has been pointed out, the first type of input which presents instances of
verbal communication but is not addressed at the learner personally is treated as
an interaction model and can be replicated with various modifications, or even ver-
batim. Foreign language learners vastly expand their classroom experience by tak-
ing over native or fluent speakers' communicative behaviour as models to be recre-
ated, i.e. acted out in the classroom. This is no different from parallel writing tasks,
which imitate communicatively important structural features of written discourse
models. The recordings (conversations, situational dialogues, service encounters,
exchanges illustrating the use of various functions of English, etc.) which can be
found in large quantities in our EFL textbooks may safely be used as input for
communication, i.e. input for comprehension, as well as a model of communicative
interaction to be recreated with a varying degree of fidelity. Although these record-
ings are far from ideal material, they perform a useful function in this way.
learner's participation and involvement, auditory input provides vast experience for
language learning, consisting, among other things, of procedural representations
required in the skillful execution of language tasks as well as pragmatic knowledge.
It is not surprising that teachers who demonstrate good communication abilities are
recognized as outstanding in our field (cf Chastain, 1971; Moskovitz, 1976; Stern,
1992). Such form of auditory input is processed for the purposes of comprehension
and interaction, i.e. conversation. The essential condition for language learning
from such an input is fulfiled as participating in interaction.
Table 13. 1. Difference between spontaneous informal talk and recordings for English language learners
(source: Hedge 2000: 240)
216 13. Receptive skills: listening comprehension
- M.D.].' For the Polish learner of English, the task is to learn the stress-timed
system taking the syllable-timed system as a highly automatized point of depar-
ture. This requires practice and effort to restructure (unlearn and relearn) the
existing knowledge both at the level of discrimination in listening comprehension
and at the level of articulation (emission) in speaking.
Cashier (laughs): I thought you were asking about Chuck. I heard: 'Is Chuck OK' and I don't know
any Chuck. Yes, check's OK.
Customer (also laughs and writes a check for the amount shown on the register).
This short exchange shows a minor misunderstanding which has pragmatic
and acoustic sources. The question asked by the customer was not articulated dis-
tinctly enough, because she thought it almost obvious that a new customer could
only ask about payment forms such as credit, debit card, or check. The cashier,
however, had a different set of expectations. Since it was a local, fairly small, gro-
cery store in a rather small town, where most customers were on a friendly basis
with the staff, it was even expected that they engage in small talk while shopping.
The depth of comprehension in spoken discourse is no different from deep
processing for meaning in written discourse (cf three levels of reading compre-
hension). As Hedge (2000:235) points out:
Face-to-face encounters involve evaluation and negotiation. If, for example, a friend is describing
a complex and distressing financial situation with some degree of emotion, the listener will
need the intelligence to follow the information, the prior knowledge to understand the financial
implications, the empathy to appreciate the emotion, the cultural knowledge to be aware of the
limits on appropriate questions and suggestions, personal knowledge to assess whether the
friend is overreacting and over-emotional, and the judgment to know whether the speaker's
purpose is to elicit only sympathy or a personal loan as well. In this sense, there is not a total
match between the speaker's intended message and the listener's perception of meaning. The
listener will be interpreting according to all of the factors just listed.
tions from the very beginning of their English course, their perceived level of dif-
ficulty of listening comprehension tasks at different stages of the learning process
would have been tolerable. Listening tasks would not be treated as a reason for
concern, as they in fact are (Ur, 1991). Listening comprehension tasks are per-
ceived as a source of considerable anxiety among Polish learners of English, sec-
ond only to speaking activities (Żebrowska, 2005). The roots of the problem are to
be found in the scarce and irregular practice of listening tasks in the foreign lan-
guage classroom with the resulting underdeveloped auditory (echoic) memory
representations for spoken discourse in English. Without experience and vast
auditory (echoic) memory representations there is no basis in the form of proce-
dural and declarative representations for the activation and development of the
listening comprehension skill. For this reason, it is mandatory that the learners
face the challenge of processing spoken discourse from the beginning of the
course. Practice and experience in sufficient quantities will lead to improving lis-
tening comprehension and the development of the listening skill. Why, then, do
so many teachers fall into the trap of focusing on the written language neglecting
listening input and practice? The answer to this question has little to do with the
transient nature of the auditory message because with recorded materials we have
given the spoken message a relative degree of permanence and possibility of re-
petition. The answer relates to the uncomfortable clash between the following
factors: a) temporal constraints imposed on the listener to process the auditory
stimulus within a certain fluency span, and b) the foreign language learner's insuf-
ficiently developed automaticity to do the task so quickly. Since the learner is con-
strained by his learning stage to perform processing tasks slower than the skilled
speaker/listener is, it is natural that he or she feels more comfortable with the writ-
ten code, which is much more malleable to the slower pace of processing. The only
remedy is more practice in the form of intensive listening. Faster action will be
possible with further temporal integration of the component sub-tasks and the
development of the requisite procedural representations.
When they are talking about their listening comprehension problems, Polish
learners of English complain about the fact that listening activities are too long for
them, which also means, stressful and tiring, and that not only is it hard for them
to discern what the speakers are saying, but to keep pace with them for some time.
Listening material is too fast and one round of listening is not enough for them.
In their opinion, a remedy for these difficulties would be to have plenty of inten-
sive listening comprehension tasks as well as having the opportunity to choose
materials and control the running of the tape to suit their individual needs. As we
recall, intensive listening practice is based on the same principles of grading task
difficulty in skill development as those used in intensive reading comprehension
tasks:
• the length of the task is a factor: the shorter the task, the easier it is for the
learner to complete it;
• the pace of the task is a factor: the faster the task, the more difficult it is for the
learner; suspending the fluency requirement makes the task easier;
220 13. Receptive skills: listening comprehension
• the amount of input is a factor: the more material is presented to the learner for
the sake of the task, the easier it should be to complete it because comprehen-
sion difficulty is a function of the balance between the given and the new;
• task complexity is a factor: if the task is first broken down into sub-tasks, it is
easier for the learner to perform the whole of it.
To sum up, for many Polish learners of English as a foreign language the
solution to listening comprehension deficits include: a) adjusting the listening
tasks to the learners' proficiency level because in this way they will be more likely
to accept them than to opt out, and b) maintaining a consistent listening practice
regimen, because only thanks to processing the listening input will the learners
internalize the requisite vast auditory memory representations. If the adjustments
lead to tasks which are too simplified or too elementary for the taste of some com-
municative purists, they may be defended on the grounds that a) they are merely
stepping stones to the target-like, i.e. fluent, listening skill (fluency develops
through integration of sub-skills), and b) they are an inevitable intermediate stage
to target-like extensive listening.
cial case of the above type of interaction; a related activity is to make a drawing
in response to instructions, e.g. drawing routes, shapes or pictures (cf dictation
drawing p. 223).
• Ticking off items in the list. The learners must comprehend the listening pas-
sage with specific clues in order to tick off respective items in their materials.
• True/false judgment. The learners are asked to demonstrate their comprehen-
sion by judging the sentences provided as either true or false according to the
content of the passage for listening.
• Cloze. The learners listen to a passage and fill in the blank spaces in the writ-
ten version of the same text provided for them. It is up to the teacher to decide
how much of the original text should be left out and whether only words or
whole sentences can be eliminated.
• Answering comprehension questions. Comprehension questions may be
given orally or in the written form, which makes it easier for the learner to fol-
low the task. Their essential character and levels of cognitive difficulty are no
different than questions for reading comprehension.
Interesting activities may be built around authentic materials, such as stories,
anecdotes, songs, feature films, or theatre plays recorded on the video. Ur (1991)
points out that these materials are suitable for designing activities with no overt
response, for example listening to stories (story time is especially enjoyable to
children) or anecdotes; the learners will usually enjoy such an activity if the mate-
rial is suitable and their body language will disclose their degree of understanding.
The same can be done with songs and films. It seems however, that possibilities
are much more numerous.
1. Stories may be treated as material for listening, followed by some comprehension
work and material in the story may be used for acting it out, a story continua-
tion task, retelling from another perspective, summarizing, and many others.
2. Songs are in vogue nowadays as material for language teaching, which makes
material for developing listening comprehension. Songs may be used in a lis-
tening activity, for singing along, as cultural input, and for interpretation and
discussion. A typical activity which accompanies a song in communicative text-
books nowadays is a gapped text of the song the learners are asked to listen to.
Although this task is almost mandatory with a song-based activity, the value of
such a comprehension check is questionable. If the purpose of the activity is to
comprehend the song, the learners are in fact distracted in it by having to focus
on the task of reconstructing the missing lines. Songs often have interesting
poetic lyrics worth concentrating upon, so more meaning-oriented comprehen-
sion work would be advisable. Moreover, the use of tapescript in its complete
rather than gapped form, may be helpful in reconstructing the exact form of the
text, which is necessary comprehension before discussing the sense of the song
(see 13.7. on the function of tapescript in developing listening comprehension).
Songs, especially the traditional ones, connected with special holidays or other
social occasions, are presented as cultural input as well as listening compre-
hension material. In these cases, additional cultural commentary is needed as
222 13. Receptive skills: listening comprehension
well as learning to sing the song, if possible. Needless to say, songs and chants
are 'staple food' in teaching children. It is widely recognized that language
material, especially vocabulary, presented with its melody - in the form of
a song - is much more memorable than other forms of vocabulary presentation
(cf Wach, 2003).
3. Feature films and other recorded programmes, if adjusted to learners' profi-
ciency level, may provide valuable material for listening comprehension, dis-
cussion, evaluation. Situational clues and body language are useful clues which
compensate the learner's listening comprehension deficits. Where available,
tapescript may also be used as feedback and for clarification purposes. Watch-
ing such programmes is motivating to students because they can participate in
target language media culture. Whenever the use of video is involved, many
authors recommend such activities as silent viewing to predict what the speak-
ers are saying, but they seem to me to be a waste of time and in conflict with
deep processing for meaning that can be activated on the basis of the linguistic
and paralinguistic material on the recording.
Repetition of the recorded material after the model from the tape is espe-
cially useful in the initial stage of learning English as a foreign language, or as
remedial activity for learners with problems in articulation because it helps the
learners to master pronunciation at the level of clauses and sentences. If the mate-
rial is meaningful, it may even be remembered. The point of the repetition is to
get the rhythm and stress pattern right and to integrate clauses by using linking
devices. This activity is also beneficial from the point of view of developing our
working memory span for productive tasks. Although the activity seems quite
undemanding, students tend to have problems keeping pace with the rhythm and
speed of this activity.
on the basis of his or her processing of the auditory clues and transcode, i.e. con-
vert the representation of the phonemic into the graphemic code. The written ver-
sion of the text reflects quite precisely the way in which s/he processes the audi-
tory input.
Original text
Restaurant manager:
Well, what can we do? I can't have half a dozen extra waiters standing around every day on the off
chance we'll have a sudden rush, can I? These franchises are very tightly financed, we have to keep
our costs right down or we can't operate. People complain enough already at the prices we have to
charge, and if that means queues when there's been some sort of hold-up, there's not much we can
do about it. I mean, contingency plans would mean staff on standby and as I say, we're not making
the sort of profits that'd let us do that, are we now?
The learner's mistakes provide insight into his or her processing because they
reflect:
• the way s/he segments the stimulus material into clauses,
• represents grammatical relationships within clauses,
• reconstructs individual content words,
• reconstructs the unaccented grammar morphemes attached to words,
• and the way s/he discriminates and codes the phonemic-graphemic correspon-
dences.
This is the reason why feedback on such tasks is highly educational and absolute-
ly necessary, especially at the initial stages of foreign language learning. Although
at a later stage of language learning dictation may have a rather marginal role to
play, one cannot deny that it is a useful elementary and intermediate form-focused
activity to be used with those learners who have auditory discrimination prob-
lems, or with learners who have not practised auditory discrimination tasks suffi-
ciently for their general language level. This activity supports communicative
abilities, without being a communicative activity itself. It provides the teacher
with precise feedback on the learner's auditory discrimination processes.
Dictation drawing. This activity makes use of the material which contains
some spatial information, for example a description of a room or a route in a map.
224 13. Receptive skills: listening comprehension
The text is read out to the students twice and the learners try to understand the
text content and visualize it. On this basis they draw the plan of the room or the
route on the map. This material activates the learners' auditory comprehension,
visualization ability, and the ability to convert the mental model into a drawing.
The activity is quite well-known in the field of foreign language teaching from the
Communicative Approach. Hedge (2000:248) presents a variation on this theme
based on White (1998), namely an activity called: describe rooms from stories, in
which students are asked to make a drawing on the basis of a description from
a literary work as well as discuss various ideas connected with the characters in
the story considerably contextualizing the information that they work on. The
task may be followed by a segment from a feature film made on the basis of the
story or novel presented to the students so that they can compare their vision with
that of the film director's.
Peter Whitehead: Let's start with sulphur dioxide which causes acid rain. I thought the government was
doing something about that.
Frances Kelly: Well, they are but slowly. Sulphur dioxide emissions from power stations are still going
on and the resulting acid rain is killing off fishes and plant life in lakes and destroying the forests. And
we in Britain are among the worst culprits when it comes to this kind of pollution.
Peter Whitehead: What are the other pollutants?
Frances Kelly: Carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. Carbon monoxide, which is mostly produced by
motor vehicles can, even in small doses, cause sickness and a slowing of the reflexes and there is strong
evidence that it has an effect on the growth of children.
Peter Whitehead: And carbon dioxide?
Frances Kelly: Well, in a way this is the least dangerous of the pollutants we've mentioned but in the
long term it may be the most damaging.
Peter Whitehead: Why?
Frances Kelly: There is clear evidence that the build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the main
cause of the Greenhouse effect. This will have dreadful results like the melting of the polar ice caps and
subsequent flooding in the lower-lying areas.
Peter Whitehead: So what you're saying is that the increased amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmos-
phere is making it warmer.
Frances Kelly: Yes, that's right and the results will be catastrophic.
Peter Whitehead: And what should we be doing about this?
Frances Kelly: Frankly, the government has got to impose far stricter controls on the emissions and bring
in tough legislation to deal with the problem.
Peter Whitehead: Frances Kelly, thank you very much.
Frances Kelly: Thank you.
Peter Whitehead: After the news we hope to be talking to the Minister for the Environment, Patrick Hilliard...
Source: The text of the recorded listening is taken from Jon Naunton, 1990. Think First Certificate. Lon-
don: Longman, unit 7, The Natural World, page 77.
At first sight, we notice that the text presents three pollutants, their sources
and negative effects on us and our environment. It is a suitable example of listen-
ing material for a comprehension activity in which learners show their under-
standing of the main ideas by filling a grid (Rost, 1990). The information used in
the table must reflect the structure of the comprehension material.
Table 13.2. Filling a grid after listening to the interview with Frances Kelly
intonation, uses the voice pitch and accompanies speaking with body language,
facial expressions, and other non-verbal and para-verbal clues enables a competent
listener to decode the message without a deep analysis of the morphosyntactic
forms. The most important semantic information may be extracted on the basis of
the accented content words in context. Syntactic information does not have a sig-
nificant role unless there are alternative interpretations of meaning. Native or
very fluent speakers can afford not to be preoccupied with reduced and unaccent-
ed forms in the spoken discourse because, if necessary, they can easily reconstruct
(reinstate) these forms on the basis of their auditory mental representations any-
way. For foreign language learners, however, the forms are not readily available
from their mental representation. The learners find it frustrating to process a lis-
tening passage because the speakers' clues are reduced and therefore insufficient
for them to reconstruct the forms on the basis of the incoming information. When
they infer the meaning and still feel that they are not sure about the precise syn-
tactic forms used by the speakers, they may be shown the tapescript as a kind of
feedback on form at the end of the listening task, after they have made the effort
to understand the meaning on the basis of the available information and the
teacher's input. Matching the graphic representation of the listening passage with
the recording helps learners to improve the precision of its mental representation.
The use of tapescript in this function must have a positive influence on the quali-
ty, i.e. precision and certainty, of the reconstructed system. To conclude, a tape-
script may occasionally be used as a feedback device at the end of a listening task
when the learner is still developing his or her auditory comprehension and/or
when the text is rather difficult, but this does not make it an obligatory or regular
feature of listening tasks.
It seems that the above situation, in which foreign language learners receive
the tapescript of the text they have been listening to, is in a way comparable to
a dictation task.
well a general art course and got interested in photography, then decided to do graphics and photog-
raphy and er went to university, did three years and changed my mind yet again, specialized in typog-
raphy and that was it, that was my training.
Interviewer: What do you like about being a designer?
Sally: Creating, I think. Um I don't think that there are any parts of my job that I don't like. I like the
challenge, the -, of taking something that most people wouldn't want to look at and making it some-
thing that's attractive, into something that's attractive. Um the creation side. Problem-solving.
Interviewer: Could you give us an example of a problem-solving situation?
Sally: Being given several pages of manuscripts and being - and a brief, for instance, the market, um,
and having to produce something that would be suitable for the market. Um maybe making lots of bits
fit one page. Making the decisions to which bits shouldn't be on there.
Interviewer: What don't you like about being a designer. There must be something.
Sally: When I have to open artwork - i.e. when I receive artwork in the post and it is an illustration I've
paid several hundred pounds for and I open the package and when I first take the wrapping off and see
if it's any good or if I've actually wasted all the money ... It's quite nerve-racking.
Interviewer: Being a designer must be quite tense at times because you're having to meet tight dead-
lines perhaps. Are there any situations you'd like to tell us about?
Sally: Er yes, I'd say I was quite tense at the moment because I'm going on holiday next week so I've
actually got three week's work to do in no time at all, you know, not allowed for in any schedule and
er the book I ' m working on at the moment is such a high priority title that there is no excuse whatso-
ever for any work not getting done on time. So I'm actually coming in at half past eight and leaving the
building when the alarm goes at eight and in between times running from job to job and that's quite
stressful, not being able to take any lunch-break and chasing up other people and waiting for them to
give me work which is overdue and then being expected to actually make that time up as well as work-
ing in advance of when I should be working.
Interviewer: Being a designer sounds like quite a highly pressurized job. How do you keep smiling?
Sally: I love it. I love it, as I said originally, just creating and making things, and I think I work quite well
under pressure anyhow, so although I find it traumatic at the time, when the book actually arrives on
my desk and it's a good product and I think that it's it looks good and interesting and it's going to be
successful, it's going to make money, it's going to sell, I get a buzz out of it.
Source: Roy Kinsbury, Felicity O'Dell, and Guy Wellman, 1991. Longman Practice Exams for the CAE.
London: Longman, exam two, section C, pages 29-30.
Having analysed the material, which seems suitable for upper intermediate
or advanced learners, from these two overlapping perspectives, the teacher notices
that the interview contains some interesting, but non-technical information about
the job of a book designer, its positive and negative aspects, and that the learners
may relate to this account through their own or their parents' professional expe-
rience, or their professional plans, as well through such concepts as stress or cre-
ativity or what makes a book attractive to buy, etc. They may have many ideas
about this or other professions to talk about to personalize the content and elabo-
rate on the ideas from the text. The plan of the interview is fairly transparent as
the interviewer asks questions referring to the job responsibilities, Sally's personal
route to choosing this profession, as well its good and bad sides.
On the basis of this analysis, it is possible to outline the following options
for the three essential stages of the listening task:
1. The warm-up or introductory stage. The purpose of the introductory stage in
listening comprehension is to stimulate the learner's curiosity in the subject
13.8. Options in designing a listening comprehension task 229
2. What is the topic, theme, content area? What 2. In connection with the topic domain, what
is the main point that the interviewee makes? kind of terms, vocabulary items, lexical phrases
and expressions can be found in the text? Which
of them are informal, characteristic of speech?
3. What genre is it? How is it organized, planned? 3. What are the component parts that make up the
What is the order of ideas based on the ques- interview?
tions?
4. What can one learn from this interview about 4. Which aspects of the job are characteristic of
the topic? being a designer, which are true of any job?
5. Can the students relate to this communica- 5. What natural activities can be used to retain
tive situation and the message? Can they bring this material in memory and practice in pro-
their personal experience to bear on this listen- duction? Can this text structure be used by
ing material? the learner in a parallel speaking task ?
6. What would be the students' natural response 6. Which lexical items could be elaborated upon
to the message in the text (agree/disagree, as belonging to the topic vocabulary? Which
evaluate, respond, present their own view)? concepts are worthy of a general discussion?
What productive tasks would be natural to fol-
low reading?
Table 13.3. Analysis of the material to identify its communicative and language learning potential
• dividing the material for listening into segments to give learners the possibili-
ty of intermissions to talk about some language points such as the vocabu-
lary/expressions, to elicit explanations from the teacher, etc. The teacher has
a clear idea where such naturally dividing lines may be found in the discourse.
• choosing the most appropriate form of comprehension check from among the
available possibilities (questions, multiple choice, true/false, a grid, a retelling
or summarizing activity, note-taking, etc.)
• focusing on the discourse plan to identify the main ideas and the supporting
examples and details;
• other options?
3. The follow-up stage serves the purpose of providing the learner with opportu-
nities to internalize and personalize, or even visualize the content of the mate-
rial for listening a little further, elaborate on any aspect of the material and
respond to it as a sender or replicate the material as a communicative model for
production. The options include:
• responding to the ideas in the interview from the learner's personal perspective
to answer the questions regarding the job: What do you think of...?, Do you
like...?, Would you like...?, What kind of person is Sally, do you think? How do
you imagine her appearance? What kind of clothes does she wear? Do you think
you work well under pressure? What makes a book attractive to you? What
makes you buy a book? Why do you think the creativity involved in the job is
so important and motivating?
• elaborating on the lexical material in the passage from the point of view of the
following criteria: the content domain (terminology connected with book
designing, expanding knowledge in this content domain), the importance of the
concept in the text (here: the concept of creativity and stress; what do they
mean to you, what is their role in one's profession? etc.); elaborating on the
topic of what makes a book attractive, a short oral composition with an exam-
ple prepared by each student (suitable as homework);
• responding to the material as a sender: what is your response to this interview,
what is your opinion of the ideas expressed, what questions would you ask
Sally?
• as for using the material as a model for production, options include: imitating
the interview with Sally in a slightly abbreviated form to practise communicative
behaviour under 'sheltered conditions'; parallel interview on a topic related to
one's job but more personalized, including the students' choices of content, but
with informal phrases from the listening material;
• any other options?
Keeping in mind the criteria for the analysis of the text from the point of
view of its communicative and language learning potential, it seems clear that the
choice of the specific strategy for each of the three stages cannot be arbitrary. It
must result from the character of the material at hand. With an interview such as
the above some options seem to be quite natural while others are impractical. The
only thing that remains for the teacher to do is to coordinate his or her choices at
14.1. Speaking as an act of verbal communication 231
each stage within the whole task, so as to avoid monotony and maximize variety
within a) the available options for each stage and b) within the important didac-
tic categories to keep in mind (discourse genres, planning, content and culture
learning, lexis, accuracy, skill learning, fluency, working memory work, etc.).
Having considered all of the above, how would you plan the listening task
based on: An interview with Sally, a book designer?
Further reading
Anderson, A., and T. Lynch, 1988. Listening. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Brown, J., 1990. Listening to Spoken English. London: Longman.
Rost, M., 1990. Listening in Language Learning. London: Longman.
Rost, M., 1991. Listening in Action. Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall International.
Rost, M., 1994. Introducing Listening. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Underwood, M., 1989. Teaching Listening. London: Longman.
Ur, P, 1984. Teaching Listening Comprehension. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
White, G., 1998. Listening. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
and debates, drama and games, projects, and many other information gap
activities. Admittedly, the abundance and variety of tasks for the development of
the speaking skill in CLT is a very rich pool of resources for the practising teacher
to choose from also nowadays. However, it would be a mistake to consider the
contribution of Communicative Language Teaching as the final word in matters of
developing foreign language skills, especially speaking, because of the narrow view
of communication underlying CLT. In fact, the weaknesses of CLT in this regard
amounts to its: a) insufficient recognition of the complexity of speaking as a psy-
cholinguistic operation, as well as b) its emphasis on the information gap criterion
for communicative practice which sometimes leads to artificial or quite impractical
speaking tasks (see 6.4 on CLT and its critical evaluation). In addition to the above,
c) the problem of morphosyntactic accuracy in CLT makes the whole conception of
how to develop the EFL speaking skill rather incomplete. These issues, i.e. psy-
cholinguistic complexity of speaking, realism of didactic tasks and the problem of
building accuracy into the speaking skill, will be addressed in this chapter.
relevant situations in some depth than to cover many only superficially because
the learner must have sufficient material to reconstruct the typological features
of these instances.
2. Participants are involved in the act of communication with their entire persona-
lities, they process verbal as well as non-verbal information from the environ-
ment, they activate all their relevant background knowledge sources represented
in their minds, and they adjust their message to the addressee, based on the
image of the addressee that they have formed. Communicative encounters have
their content and relationship components, and sometimes one aspect may
dominate the whole encounter. The speakers' knowledge and experience enable
them to make instantaneous communicative decisions required by the commu-
nicative act. All of the above direct our attention to the need of vast experience
and extensive background knowledge in speaking to provide mental options to
choose from.
3. The quintessential (constitutive) feature of verbal communication is the occur-
rence of communicative intention in the speaker's mind. Forging communica-
tive intention may, on one occasion, be a highly constructive and demanding
act or an automatic and casual act on another. Communicative intention is the
meaning and sense that the speaker wants to encode and convey to the
addressee to enable him or her to reconstruct it, in other words, to be under-
stood. The speaker's production must contain a sufficient amount of sufficient-
ly accurate clues for the addressee to understand, interpret, and evaluate it. The
speaker is involved in integrating hierarchically arranged choices from inten-
tion, through planning, lexical insertion, integration, monitoring to articula-
tion. These choices must be coordinated and executed in fractions of seconds to
keep pace with the communicative fluency demands of the task. The role of
morphosyntactic accuracy is very important: it helps the speaker to be under-
stood, which is to say, it functions as an adjustment, listener-friendly strategy of
helping the addressee to reconstruct the meaning. Whether it is sufficient by
itself is another matter. Problems with reconstructing the meaning may be
deeper than the morphosyntactic level.
To sum up, the difficulty of the speaking skill results from:
• the need to perform numerous hierarchical operations, especially at the level of
communicative intention; first and foremost, deciding what to say;
• the need to integrate these operations in fractions of seconds to keep pace
with the demands of communicative fluency;
• the need to do this primarily in the working memory and relying primarily on
our internal (mental) auditory representations.
The links between speaking and the remaining skills are very strong. The audito-
ry code imposes the same temporal constraints in speaking as it does in listening
comprehension. Moreover, listening comprehension may be used as a way of pro-
viding the learner with input for the productive task (i.e. as a source of receptive
knowledge), and considerably facilitate speaking at the same time. Reading may
function as a source of extensive input for speaking. Writing, the other productive
234 14. Productive skills: speaking
skill, on the other hand, is helpful during speaking practice as external memory
i.e. a way of recording information for the spoken task, a kind of mnemonics.
ticipate in the joint project of conversing, which is the effect of socialization in all
communities, and doing this in a given ethnic language with the use of appropri-
ate language forms. When we teach English as a foreign language, we do not teach
learners how to take turns, as Ur would see it, but we teach learners how to use
English language exponents for turn-taking and its conversational etiquette.
Clark (1996) calls conversation a joint project, a collaborative effort which
requires the coordinated activity of two or more people in the same way as a dance
does. How can a foreign language learner acquire the art of weaving the thread of
conversational discourse in English? By learning its structure and components,
such as how to open and close a conversation, how to take turns, how to comple-
ment the adjacency pairs. Jay (2003:290) comments: 'The unfolding structure of
a conversation depends on the participants' goals, shared background knowledge
and what new information needs to be added to that shared information to achieve
the goals.' Participants in conversations have their own personal identities and
feelings as well as personal roles. They also have their professional roles and iden-
tities. An important concept in the structure of conversation is common ground,
which refers to mutual shared beliefs as well as knowledge that we can assume
is available to other members of the group. This concept resembles the notion
of information culture proposed by Hammerly (Hammerly, 1982; see 6.3.1.).
Common ground is a dynamic construct which emerges in social encounters
depending on the circumstances and situations. It is a set of cultural elements,
such as: stereotypes, prejudices, attitudes, values, norms, metaphors, taboos, and
presuppositions, which play a very important role in constructing a conversation.
However, this knowledge cannot be acquired in any other way than by group
membership.
In a conversation, new elements are added to the participants' common
ground. Participants in a conversation must be able to open it according to the sit-
uation and the level of formality, conduct it, regulate its flow, monitor their own
comprehension, engage in various speech acts and functions, and close it accord-
ing to the politeness etiquette. Adjacency pairs (Schegloff and Sacks, 1973) are
two symmetrical and matching elements, which are intended to constitute an ex-
change between two speakers: e.g. greeting - greeting, compliment - a word of
acknowledgement, invitation - acceptance, question - answer, etc. Clark (1996)
calls them minimal joint projects. Adjacency pairs, speech acts and functions of
English, such as requesting, asking for information, agreeing, refusing, asking for
permission, giving reasons, making suggestions, etc. are building blocks of a con-
versation. In addition to these, speakers use various discourse genres, such as sto-
ries and other narrative accounts, jokes, anecdotes, personal information, impres-
sions, convictions, opinions, recommendations, etc. as construction material to
develop in this social enterprise.
An important aspect of the structure of conversation is turn-taking. Usually
in a conversation, one person talks and others listen, waiting for their turn (too
idealistic?). Participants usually follow three simple implicit turn-taking rules
(Jay, 2003):
14.4. Abilities involved in participating in a conversation 237
Anxiety is a serious problem not only from the point of view of the learn-
er's negative feelings connected with speaking in a foreign language, but first of
all, from the point of view of the internal working of the language learning
process, especially the unproductive use of our cognitive energy on worry, instead
of the task (see 5.3.3.). In most cases, anxiety produces avoidance behaviour,
either in the form of physical absence in the class, truancy, or in the form of atten-
tional withdrawal from participating in the communicative activities in the class-
room. Teachers are familiar with such symptoms of the learners' avoidance as
silence, no eye contact with the teacher, choosing seats away from him or her.
Anxiety may also surface as nervousness, excessive laughter, or even muscle ten-
sion leading to headaches. One problem leads to others, such as insufficient par-
ticipation in speaking tasks, which quite naturally leads to limited practice and
facility in various aspects of the speaking skill. As a result, the learners make
hardly any progress to help them gain greater confidence in speaking based on
growing competence.
The teacher's job is to deal with the learner's anxiety to the point at which
the learner can approach the language speaking tasks rather than avoid them.
This is a very complex goal, but one of the most important and difficult ones in
the entire learning process. It is complex because the success of the undertaking
does not depend on one, but on a constellation of factors. It is difficult because the
right balance of these factors can be easily upset and the teacher, just because he
or she recognizes the weight of anxiety, may easily fall into the trap of insuffi-
ciently challenging his foreign language students.
This constellation of factors begins with clear instructions before the task,
which learners, including the anxious majority, can understand while the teacher
makes sure this is the case. The learners may find it easier to accept a task if they
make a choice of the topic or otherwise participate in defining its overall charac-
ter. Moreover, the teacher should avoid stereotyping students as good or bad, but
evaluate them on the individual case-by-case basis and continue to have high
expectations about each of them. Having high expectations does not mean 'unre-
alistic' expectations. It is quite the opposite. Clear criteria, withholding formal
grades while practising speaking and the gentle treatment of errors are essential.
Speaking activities should be frequent and informal, including personal ques-
tions about everyday matters. To relieve tension, the teacher may use a very old
and effective strategy of smiling and using wit and humour, which are known to
be foolproof in stressful situations. Learners should not be allowed to laugh at
their peers when they make mistakes in speaking the foreign language. Learners
admit to preferring pair work and imitative work as a form of preparation before
speaking as well as reading aloud and plenty of receptive input and being given
advance warning, to be able to prepare at home, even in the written form. It is
also important to have patience and give learners some wait time to put their
ideas together before answering the teacher's question. Most learners will start
cooperating in the speaking tasks only after they have become familiar with and
accustomed to this feature of the EFL lesson. It also seems important to show gen-
240 14. Productive skills: speaking
uine interest in what the learners are saying, i.e. focus on the content and mean-
ing of the speaking activity and avoid unnecessary metatalk about its form and
purpose, which unnecessarily emphasizes the superficiality of the classroom
exchange.
many other students, it may be starting from scratch, i.e. learning those psycho-
logical and social feats to make up for their limited experience, as well as foreign
language material to add to this budding communicative structure. The develop-
ment of accuracy goes from laconic to fully developed sentences in discourse, from
lack of accuracy to accuracy built into the skill, from lack of certainty to certain-
ty as to these forms, and from lack of fluency to fluency in production. Some
learners who must develop both articulacy in general and in their foreign lan-
guage happen to suffer from foreign language speaking anxiety; unfortunately,
they are the most likely candidates, because they have a reason to be concerned
about their speaking ability. For the teacher who has a difficult task at hand the
following are some suggestions.
To make sure that all the learners will have something to 'take out' from
such a lesson, the teacher may ask the learners to write a short note containing the
ideas which he or she has/has not expressed in class, or which occurred to him or
her as the others were speaking. When the learners submit their written home-
work (a paragraph, half a page), which should not be hard to write after their expo-
sure to classroom input, the teacher may provide each student with highly indi-
vidualized written feedback without the other students witnessing it. It is clearly
time-consuming to read and mark/correct all the written samples from the stu-
dents, but a most valuable learning experience for the learners. Being asked to
write down what they choose and have practised in speaking helps the students to
organize and consolidate the language material in discourse form. Additionally,
the learners receive individualized feedback from the teacher. The problem with
the teacher's time needed to do this should be solved depending on the teacher's
resources, that is, in answer to the question: how many papers from all of my stu-
dents can I take home and read each semester? The rest may be corrected on the
chance basis or in the classroom, by glancing at selected written pieces at each les-
son. All of the written work may be submitted as a portfolio during or at the end
of the course. Even five such short written works in a semester would make a dif-
ference to the development of the individual learner's articulacy in general, and
the speaking ability in English as a foreign language in particular. In this way,
learners gain experience in how to take turns, how to develop a topic, and how to
build sustained discourse. Topics and ideas for chatting with students may be cate-
gorized as follows (partly based on Stern, 1992:191):
Personal Name, address, home town, neighbourhood, house you live in, attractions
information in your home town, places to visit, your favourite area, others.
Daily life Routines, events of the year, activities, personal calendar, shopping, house-
work, health, food, organizing daily chores, TV programmes, important
cultural event, etc.
Family Parents, grandparents, siblings, marital status, plans for the future, family
history, biographical reminiscences, pets, visits from relatives, problems
with relatives.
School Information about school, aspirations for the future, opinion about the
school, problems at school, friends, peers, favourite activities, clubs, sports.
Personal Fine arts, music, literature, sports and games, hobbies, leisure activities,
interests fitness, travel, tourism, sightseeing, others.
Beliefs and Opinions, values, convictions, political ideas, interests and activities, social
opinions issues, others.
The next obligation of the EFL teacher is to have regular and well-designed
speaking tasks in addition to chatting with the students in their real identities.
These tasks may require various identities and roles, both assumed and real. The
main criterion of well-designed tasks is that they are specific enough for the
14.6. Cultivating articulacy in EFL 243
learner to avoid uncertainty as to what to do in the task and what to say in the
communicative situation outlined in the task. The first problem can be eliminat-
ed by clear instructions with some quiet time given for their comprehension and
comprehension cheks from the teachers (Hedge, 2000), illustrated with an exam-
ple or even translated into Polish, if absolutely necessary. The other problem can
be eliminated by providing enough contextual information to the learner to help
him or her visualize the role and goal to be accomplished, with possibilities to
define the missing links on the basis of the learner's knowledge, if necessary.
Many tasks cause anxiety because they are vague, ill-defined, non-descript, or
hard to visualize. We could defend them on the grounds that they stimulate cre-
ative thinking, and such an argument is well-taken. However, it is even easier to
develop creativity in clear and well-designed tasks. Asking some basic questions
regarding the communicative situation may be helpful: Is the learner acting in his
own or some assumed identity? Is the situation sufficiently clear? If not, how can
it be made more specific? Sometimes a model or an initial stimulus given by the
teacher may be helpful. The teacher might say: 'If I were given such a task,
I would start by focusing on the magazine I like reading and choose a specific sec-
tion ...', or: 'How would you start a conversation with a stranger on a train?' In
most tasks in which learners participate in assumed identities (assumed roles),
learners must visualize the situations which provide context for their oral dis-
course. If they can anchor their mental processes in the situational model, mental
energy will be channelled to speech production rather than worry. It also helps if the
teacher not only reviews the clarity of the instructions, but also estimates the out-
put of such a task, i.e. the amount of discourse that would be generated. The level
of specificity would always increase with more contextual information and input for
the task generated for the occasion, because more ideas (propositions) would be
available to the learner to choose from.
The third obligation of the EFL teacher, when it comes to speaking is to
grade the difficulty of the speaking tasks on the basis of their psycholinguistic
components: the content (communicative intention, what to say), the plan (lineari-
zation level) of the utterance, and the verbalization (execution and monitoring)
stage of production. This can be done by focusing on the component parts of
speaking in isolation. Such an approach to grading would specifically facilitate the
aspect of speaking connected with the integration of several operations in time.
Without the necessary automaticity, the learner would find it hard to perform
these sub-skills in temporal integration.
• A facilitating strategy might include gathering information about the topic or
role to facilitate the choice of communicative intention and planning.
• Time given to plan takes the pressure off the speaking task allowing the learn-
er to recall information relevant to the utterance and to organize it in a linear
manner appropriate for the discourse format (Foster, 1996).
• Rehearsal is the segment of the speaking task when the learner is able to put
his or her utterance together and deliver it in a 'rough copy', before presenting it
in an improved version the second time. Benefits of rehearsal include some oppor-
244 14. Productive skills: speaking
tunity to try out integrating the operations necessary for the completion of the
task, leading to an increase in fluency, and incorporating feedback. In typical
classroom conditions, this stage of the task usually takes place as pair work. An
additional benefit of rehearsal is that the next round of the task is always a repe-
tition, which benefits both fluency and accuracy (Bygate, 1996, 2001). If we have
doubts about error correction during speaking and in front of the class, rehearsal
is an ideal time to build accuracy into the task, and subsequently into the speak-
ing skill.
• Written preparation is also a form of facilitating a speaking task: the content
and plan is available in the written form, and the learner's available attention is
directed to the appropriate rendition of the material. If there is an audience to
address, the delivery itself may be hard enough. As we can see, the function of
writing in this case is reduced to mnemonics, external memory rather than a skill
in its own right.
ers will find it easier to participate if they have practised this form of communi-
cation on many occasions and if they have some rehearsed material in their work-
ing memory (a joke, an anecdote, a story, an opinion, a film review, a recommen-
dation, a personal question, a biographical episode, a recipe, a piece of news to
share, a piece of gossip, etc.). Practising social conversation may be linked to other
activities and other skills to secure even participation, preparation, and feedback
incorporation.
Telephone conversation as well as electronically mediated chat should be
practised for its routine expressions and typical scenario of the exchange and adja-
cency pairs between the parties. Since visual information is not available or rather
limited (e.g. icons), the speakers must manage to convey their ideas as precisely as
they can. They differ depending on the fact whether the participants know each
other or whether they are strangers. Telephone conversations may be devoted to
various forms of practice, such as for example service transactions, giving instruc-
tions, explaining how to do something, describing an object, etc.
An interview involves two roles, one of which, the interviewee, is more
demanding in terms of factual information and the use of sustained discourse. An
interview requires some serious preparation on both sides in the form of research
and the choice of interesting questions, based on an opinion poll among the peers,
as well as analysing some native speaker interviews to evaluate the questions, the
information elicited, interest in the interviewee and listening ability. Often, inter-
views are integral segments of more complex activities, such as simulations or
projects. Students may stage interviews involving assumed identities, preferably
of their choice, or real people invited as guests.
Discussion is a form of verbal interaction between two or more people with
the purpose of looking at a certain issue from different points of view or aspects. On
many occasions, the teacher's or textbook writer's instruction 'Discuss X or Y' sim-
ply means - talk about it or analyse it. However, to have a successful discussion in
a foreign language classroom, we must include the following considerations:
• the topic must be potentially substantive and controversial to warrant looking
at it from different angles;
• the learners must have some influence on the choice of the topic; in this way they
exercise their right to communicative autonomy; when they do, they are more
likely to be involved in the preparation for and participation in the activity;
• the learners must be interested in the topic sufficiently to see the many aspects
of the issue involved, and they must be knowledgeable enough to discuss it, i.e.
have the factual information to use in their arguments; this state may be accom-
plished by long- or short-term preparation: studying sources (the Internet,
media, library) or processing teacher or peer input;
• they must have some idea of the events to come and their turn-taking schedule to
orient them in the activity; practice first in groups or pairs is certainly helpful.
Discussion may be staged in open-class or panel form, with a more formal role
assignment. It seems to be a naturally promising activity for adolescent learn-
ers at the intermediate level and above.
246 14. Productive skills: speaking
Debate is more formal than discussion in that the issues to be discussed are
usually debated from two opposing points of view, with points of view ascribed
to members of each debating team, but also with points being developed in
answer to the opponents as they emerge during the activity. Arguments must be
thoughtful and well-prepared to be convincing and logical. At the end of the
activity, the issue may be put to the vote (Ur, 1991) so that members of the debat-
ing teams can decide what they think regardless of their assigned debating task.
(A side remark that I feel tempted to make at this point is that membership in
a debating club is a popular form of perfecting American students' articulacy in
their native language).
To conclude, the most characteristic features of the current approach to the
enormous endeavour of developing the speaking skill include the following
aspects: long-term investment in speaking, stressing the communicative situ-
ation as context of the speaking task, curbing anxiety and keeping the com-
municative channel in good working condition, and learning component parts
of a more complex whole. Long-term investment in the speaking skill is quite
natural first of all because it takes time to develop any skill, especially such a com-
plex language skill as speaking. It takes time to do the required working memory
practice, to learn sustained discourse strategies and communicative content. To
make sense to the learner, practising the speaking skill must be contextualized in
a communicative situation, with a clear role, discourse genre, plan and purpose.
Information processed in this way will be practical and therefore remembered.
Curbing anxiety is hard, but not impossible, if we establish a certain code of con-
duct in the class, especially during speaking, which stresses that the foreign lan-
guage classroom is a place to learn, rather than to show off. The best remedy for
anxiety is regular, moderately difficult practice and observation, as well as fair
and objective evaluation on the part of the teacher communicated to the learner
individually rather than on the class forum, with a tendency to encouragement
rather than negativity.
The condition of the communicative channel in the foreign language class-
room is as vital to the foreign language learning process as the condition of our
blood vessels to our oxygen supply. The first obligation of the teacher is to go out
of his or her way to make sure that the learners understand what is going on dur-
ing the lesson. This is the minimum requirement of communication. Alienation
(not paying attention, opting out, avoidance) comes from not caring what is going
on and not trying to understand. This kills communication in its initial stages to
seriously prevent the learner from subsequent participation and learning. Second-
ly, assumed identities and fancy roles are all very nice and the reasons why teach-
ers use them in class are quite convincing. However, we must also understand that
they are not the sole vehicle for the development of the speaking skill. Our most
important focus and resource in the classroom are real learners in their real iden-
tities. For the purposes of verbal communication, this resource is vital because all
communicative relationships, including teacher/learner relationships, thrive on
mutual attention. To tap this cognitive energy, we must relate to each other first
14.7. Selected activities for the development of the speaking skill 247
and foremost as real people, as individuals. This is the springboard for further
communicative exploits, especially in speaking, which requires the learner to send
out, i.e. emit messages, not just receive them. Assumed identities may be helpful
in supporting the growth of the learners' communicative repertoire or to hide
their own identity, if necessary. Often, what we call 'roles' are simply tasks with
functions to be performed. It may be useful, once in a while, to ask oneself the
question: why am I asking the student to take this role rather than act things out
in his or her own identity?
Further reading
nately for them, the Polish and the English alphabetical systems are typological-
ly similar.
In a communicative situation, the difficulty in writing results from the
number of simultaneous decisions that a writer must make on the level of content
and form, especially planning, organizing, and expressing ideas in a sufficiently
explicit way to make them comprehensible to the reader essentially on the basis
of graphemic clues. Illustrations, for example pictures, drawings, photographs,
charts, tables, graphs of various kinds, used in written communication, have
a much more modest function in conveying the meaning of the written text in
comparison with the rich semanticization available to the listener from non-ver-
bal and prosodie clues in speaking. Nevertheless, speaking and writing share
important similarities characteristic of language production: both involve hierar-
chical decisions in content, planning and lexical insertion with syntactic adjust-
ments i.e. based on subordinated sub-skills which must be integrated to produce
linear discourse.
Flower and Hayes (1980) accurately describe the dynamics of composing as
juggling constraints. Although the act of writing, on most occasions, is not influ-
enced by such time limitations as speaking, the fact that the message must be well-
organized and explicit for the reader to understand makes it sufficiently compli-
cated as a skill in its own right. The essence of writing (Eysenk and Keane, 1995)
concerns selections at the level of content, based on the knowledge of the topic
which we recall or generate for the task, the level of planning the discourse while
verbalizing our ideas with the use of lexical elements and constructions, editing
i.e. improving as we go along, and writing the revised version in the sense of put-
ting it down with incorporated improvements. Hardly ever do these operations
occur in isolation, especially if we use electronic word processing. Most writers
(Hedge, 2000; Zamel, 1982) perform these operations recursively, over and over
again, rereading and revising simultaneously, while introducing considerable
changes, generating new or eliminating old ideas from the text. They strategi-
cally concentrate on the parts of the task which demand attention at the moment.
These characteristics indicate the essentially dynamic, constructive and strategic
nature of our communicative processes in general, writing included.
It clearly follows from the above that writing in the sense of written com-
munication, especially in its mature forms, consists of the thought component,
composing element, and coding this information into language form. The thought
component is implemented through content: propositions and ideas, facts and
evidence supported by reasoning e.g. arguments and other forms of logical sub-
stantiation; composing is implemented as planning, organization, and mutual
adjustments within discourse to make up a balanced whole with satisfactory rela-
tionships between parts, and accents and contrasts as desired by the author to
achieve his or her communicative goal, and coding into language form is con-
nected with activating the requisite verbal material from memory and integrating
it by means of syntactic devices to express the designated meaning according to
the author's intention and in the form of coherent and cohesive discourse.
250 15. Productive skills: writing
As stressed by Flower and Hayes (1980), the writer must juggle several men-
tal operations: recalling relevant information, planning, inferring, visualizing the
addressee, introducing new ideas, adding supporting details as they read, modify-
ing their plan to incorporate new evidence, testing their view of the addressee
against the discourse they have written, modifying their perspective of the infor-
mation presented to suit the image of the addressee, summarizing, emphasizing,
perfecting rhetorical devices, etc. To coordinate this complex task, writers usually
produce multiple drafts, and, unlike foreign language learners, they do not regard
the first draft as the finished product, but as the material to start working on. Mul-
tiple drafting and redrafting are the norm rather than the exception with native
speakers and other proficient writers in English.
Keeping in mind the recursive, dynamic, and strategic nature of the act of
on-line writing, we may still distinguish, for analytical purposes, the following
most important construction stages in writing a piece of discourse (Eysenk and
Keane, 1995), which are not to be automatically taken as a teaching sequence
(Hedge, 2000; Ur, 1991):
• identifying communicative intention in the context of the situation;
• planning the arrangement of the ideas and the rhetorical strategies;
• inserting the lexical material, both single elements and phrases coordinating
these elements to fit the whole (syntactic adjustments, coherence and cohe-
sion);
• executing the task in the sense of rough drafting;
• editing, i.e. incorporating feedback information by inserting it into the earlier
draft.
The last stage, the stage of incorporating the feedback information, is the result
either of processing feedback from some external readers or from the writers' own
reading as they assume the role of addressees of their own writing (Levelt, 1989).
The clarity of discourse is enhanced by a clearly formulated goal, clear structure,
coherence and cohesion, conventional discourse devices which are used to orga-
nize it and signalled to the reader, as well as subtitles and typographical devices to
accentuate text hierarchy and plan (Nunan, 1991).
mulated much more exact and better coordinated plans than the less knowledge-
able ones, not only demonstrating greater awareness of the available options of
developing their piece, but also greater awareness of the addressee. The more
skilled authors maintain that the best route to improving their writing is perfect-
ing their planning strategy. This is, indeed, the stage which absorbs more of their
attention in comparison to writing itself, and certainly more than the planning
stage in the case of the less skilled writers. When it comes to editing discourse,
experts go deeply into its global structure sometimes modifying it to put the
addressee into perspective, whereas the less skilled writers perform editing opera-
tions fairly fast and they consider smaller units. This result may be interpreted as
the effect of the author not yet having sufficiently automatized lower-level
processes. They absorb the writer's attention preventing him or her from moving
up, to the higher-level structures. It is significant from the point of view of foreign
language teaching that while editing, experts were able to trace and correct 74 per-
cent of their own errors, improving the overall comprehensibility of the text,
whereas the less skilled writers - only 42 percent of errors. This result is mean-
ingful because in debating the question of editing and error correction in foreign
language writing, we must not forget that there is a proficiency barrier to success-
ful error correction of the learners' own writing. Successful editing is not only the
question of the learner's good will, but language ability leading us to the conclu-
sion that the less proficient the learner, the more important the teacher's role at
that stage of improving the written work.
Hedge (2000:328) lists the following features that good writers demonstrate,
which nicely wraps up our outline so far:
1. They have something to say as well as a sense of purpose.
2. They have a sense of the audience.
3. They control the development of their ideas, giving them a sense of direc-
tion.
4. They can organize their content clearly and in a logical manner.
5. They can use language conventions, such as grammar and spelling, to develop
sentence structure.
6. They link ideas and demonstrate a range of vocabulary.
2. The stages of process writing reflect the act of writing, which in the case of the
written language can be spread over time to facilitate coping with a complex
undertaking. The stages reflect the growth of a task.
Regarding the learning process, in their influential book from 1978, Rivers
and Temperley (1978:265) provided a list of stages in learning how to write in
a foreign language, which accurately outlined the scope of the problem from the
perspective of the 1970s:
• writing down (learning the conventions of the code),
• writing the language (learning the potential of the code),
• production (practising the construction of fluent expressive sentences and para-
graphs),
• expressive writing (using the code for purposive communication).
The list reflects the progression in learning how to write from the mechanics of
handwriting to sentences, to paragraphs and to communication. Although these
stages must have been completed for the writer to achieve a certain level of profi-
ciency, nowadays, especially in CLT and in more recent conceptions, they are no
longer considered to be such clear-cut distinct entities or episodes in the learning
process as they used to be in the past decades. A much more dynamic and inte-
grative view of these stages is dominant in which communicative context would
be used for the learner to perform even an elementary task, and various ways of
facilitating writing would not prevent the learner from constructing a meaningful
message quite early in the learning process. The categories which are taken into
account in grading writing activities include:
• the cognitive difficulty of the task; other things being equal, immediate
experience and everyday content would be easier to write about than abstract
content which activates formal thought processes; the narrative, i.e. events
coded chronologically is considered to be the elementary form of organization
which would present the least cognitive difficulty to the learner (Littlewood,
1979);
• the length of the task; other things being equal, the longer the task the more
complex it would be; this concerns the hierarchy of ideas and planning
strategies involved; in a way similar to the receptive tasks, we may always
seek the facilitation effect by segmenting a bigger task into smaller compo-
nents;
• the resources needed for the task; the information pool needed to do the task
can be available to the learner internally as his or her own knowledge represen-
tations, externally as available resources to be consulted for the task, time per-
mitting, and the immediate input presented as context of the task;
• the time available to the learner; the task will always be more difficult when
there is a time limit, which means that the learner must work at a certain des-
ignated pace and may not be able to consult the external resources. In fact, to be
communicatively fit and to survive in our culture, we must be able to perform
written tasks within certain reasonable time limits; written tasks cannot take
forever.
254 15. Productive skills: writing
Letter writing
After seeing an advert for a local restaurant, you and your friend Tony went there last Friday but
it was an expensive and disappointing evening. You've described the experience in a letter to a
friend.
Read the restaurant advertisement, restaurant bill and the extract from the letter and then, u s i n g
the information carefully, write the letter described in the instructions on page 34.
15.5. Sample activities of learning how to write in EFL 255
Dear Pat,
You asked how Tony's birthday celebration went. Well, after a lot of discussion and
consulting various restaurant guides, we saw an advert for a place called the
Golden Fork which looked interesting and had had good reviews. All I can say is
it's not a good idea to believe everything you read!
When we arrived we were the only ones there - hardly a good sign! The place was
absolutely freezing - maybe they didn't think it was worth wasting money on
heating for just the two of us - but anyway we had to keep our coats on through-
out. The menu looked quite promising, actually, but they were completely out of
lobster which was our first choice. The waiter was pretty scruffy and off-hand and
we got the distinct impression he was more interested in getting back to the
kitchen where it was warmer! In the end, I had a steak which was as tough as old
boots, with peas which were obviously tinned. Tony had some vegetarian dish
which they'd obviously heated up in the microwave but not for long enough
because it was lukewarm.
The bill was the last straw! It was enormous - they'd charged extra for bread
(which we didn't eat), and included a service charge of 20%, would you believe it?
In the end we just paid the bill and went, we were too miserable to make a fuss.
Thinking about it later, though, and looking at what it says in their advert, we've
decided to write and complain in the strongest terms. If they don't give us our
money back, we're going to write to each and every one of those restaurant guides
and put them in the picture!
You must lay out the letter in the appropriate way but it is not necessary to include addresses.
Source: Sue O'Connell, 1992. Advanced English CAE. Walton on Thames, Surrey: Nelson, pages 33-34.
This particular material comes from a book of practice tests for CAE and consists
of parts, each of which is to highlight some aspect of the communicative situation
essential for writing a letter of complaint. The first set consists of a) an advertis-
ing leaflet which tries to attract customers with the restaurant's specialties and b)
a bill from the same restaurant. The next material is an excerpt from a personal
letter, describing a very disappointing and expensive evening at the Golden Fork
Restaurant. The task is to assume the perspective of this customer and write a let-
ter of complaint to the manager.
The task is interesting because the plentiful input is not provided in a ready
form. The learner must first select the relevant data from the information pro-
vided to subsequently integrate it and supplement the missing elements from his
or her own knowledge store. A considerable part of this task relies on compre-
hension processes and a deep understanding of the instructions to realize what the
learner already knows. The task format requires the learner not to lose sight of the
goal to be accomplished and adjust the writing procedures accordingly, rather
than process globally all of the information given. The advertisement and the bill
are relevant as sources of information only to the extent to which they can be use-
ful in the letter of complaint, which must emphasize the mismatch between what
the leaflet promises and what the restaurant delivers, as described in the personal
letter. The personal letter, on the other hand, is a rich source of data, but not
everything in it is relevant to the rather formal and condensed letter of complaint
to be written. Selection criteria for the relevant information result from the con-
ventional entities for the letter of complaint: reason for writing, date and place of
the event, failures in categories with the necessary details, action demanded and
a threat of reaction, if not satisfied. Some of my students, who were asked to do
this task, included the fact that it was their wedding anniversary, which was irrele-
vant to the main point altogether.
Having established the relevant pool of facts and failures to deliver what was
promised, the learners were supposed to activate the conventional plan for a letter
of complaint providing the information in a reader (manager) friendly way and
rephrasing it in a slightly more formal style. The relative ease or difficulty of the
task depends on whether or not the learners know the conventional plan for a let-
ter of complaint and whether or not the transformation of the informal into more
formal style is accessible to them on the basis of what they know. All in all, the
students who did the task for me evaluated it as interesting and practical, even if
they were never to write such a letter in the future, because it was practical, which
means, it invited them to enter a communicative situation and to act within its
constraints and parameters.
A film 'Ghost' is about young couple. She is an artist and he is a bancer. They lived
together and wanted to marriage. They had a friend who worked in the same bank as
Sam. This 'friend' made a dirty money. Sam detect something and changed the num-
ber and a code of account. So in the same time the 'friend' found a gangster who killed
Sam. Sam was dead but his ghost was still around. He saw and heard everyone, but
nobody saw and heard him. Demi was in despair. She looked for human who could
help her. At this time Sam found his murderer. He knew that Demi was in danger. He
wanted to tell her this, but how? He found a medium. She could hear him. They
together came to Demi, but she didn't believe. Sam couldn't tought anything. He
learned on the train station with another ghost how to toughing things. After again
with the medium he went to Demi. He penetrated trought the wall and told medium
that Demi was in short blauz, dark trousers, and she has earrings which received she
from Sam a year next year. Medium repeated this. Demi still didn't believe. In this
moment Sam told medium to put a coin (Demi didn't see his hand and him) and
gived the coin Demi. In his moment Demi believed. They spoke with Sam for a long
time but in one moment came this pseudo friend and he wanted to kill medium and
Demi. They ran away on the roof. Friend ran on the roof too, but there Sam killed
him. When he died his ghost was around. But in one moment devils got him to hell.
Sam found Demi and medium and spoke with them gone to heaven.
the attractiveness of the task, but the point of the task very often is to check
whether the learner has read the assignment.
Description. Descriptive tasks may range from fairly straightforward to quite cre-
ative. The most important point is the organization of a description to orient the
reader, for example conduct the description from the centre to the background,
from the left to the right, from the bottom to the top, or in a clockwise direction,
etc. Descriptions may be realistic, for example, picturing the view you can see
through the window now, including the construction crane in front of you, or
imaginary or fantastic, refer to people and places, works of art such as paintings or
monuments, and depending on the caliber of the writer, they may also be fasci-
nating to read. A form of description quite popular in CLT includes describing
processes; such a form of chronology naturally organizes discourse into a coherent
whole and demands coordinated tense and vocabulary use. Natural plans always
provide useful memory support in language tasks because they are available in the
learner's mind without being coded in an ethnic language.
Creative writing, such as poems, stories, plays. These tasks may seem too diffi-
cult to some learners and cause stress, but if elected by those learners who feel they
can give them a try, they may be highly rewarding and motivating. The point of
such tasks is not only to stimulate creativity in language use, but also enhance the
process of visualization and imagination, i.e. thinking in pictures, with or without
the use of background music. Limited language resources need not prevent learn-
ers from constructing imaginative or funny stories or poems filled with emotions
with fresh and exciting metaphors. As we recall, creativity reduces stress and may
be promoted in the classroom with any age group, not only just children, who are
naturally creative. Long-term investment in creative tasks comes from teaching
culture, especially literature, and using various literary forms, such as poems, as
material for discussion and interpretation.
there is no need or obligation to introduce process writing when the learners are
not proficient enough to handle such a challenge, or when their needs do not jus-
tify such activities. Ur (1990) points out what in her view is a disadvantage of
process writing, namely that it is time-consuming, which is a misunderstanding.
If a task can be done faster, there is no need to launch the whole elaborate proce-
dure of process writing. If, however, the task is worth doing with the learners, but
its complexity warrants the process approach, there is in fact no other way out but
to invest the necessary time. Most typical contexts for the process approach to
writing would be academic and professional settings.
The key stages of process writing reflect the act of producing an extended com-
plex piece of discourse, and they are not vastly different from the components of
speaking. The only difference is that speaking is usually done under temporary con-
straints. Keeping in mind the fact that writers produce discourse, strategically and
recursively, we have nevertheless distinguished the following components (see 14.2.):
• deciding on the content of the piece of writing;
• planning the piece of writing;
• producing a rough draft;
• editing and redrafting while incorporating feedback and modifications.
Once we have a relatively complex topic which cannot be developed overnight, we
plan to spend time in and out of class to focus on each stage and provide the learn-
er with feedback and opportunities to discuss the outcomes with their peers.
Decisions in the realm of content of process writing may be enhanced by class-
room conversation, brainstorming, peer input, graphic visualization of the problem,
using resources and conducting opinion polls, generating creative ideas, interview-
ing people/consulting experts, using illustrative materials from books or films.
Planning may be conducted as a classroom writing task with one collective
plan being written on the board, or as planning options which learners may note
down to use for inspiration or as their actual material. The teacher may provide
guidance and feedback at this stage once the learner does have a clear view how to
organize his or her piece. At this point, emphasis may be placed on the fact that
the piece of writing must be clear to the reader.
The stage of drafting and editing is discussed in various sources from the
point of view of the question whether or not the teacher should correct errors and
whether peer editing is a useful strategy. This is precisely the stage when error
correction and other forms of revision should be done and incorporated to
improve the quality of the final copy.
• Errors in foreign language production are quite natural because of the unpre-
dictability of verbal communication; when we see some imperfections in stu-
dents' writing, the problem is not that the students are wrong; the students are
not yet 100 percent right. So the task of the teacher is to add - not to correct -
but to add the necessary input to help the learner come closer, i.e. approximate
the target language norm in this particular task. Writing accurately can only be
learned while receiving error corrections on written tasks. There is no other
way to learn productive accuracy. It is a natural and normal part of language
learning. At the same time, expecting the teacher to perform error correction
tactfully and effectively should not be considered as asking too much of a pro-
fessional.
• A productive task is the ideal context in which accuracy in syntactic forms can
be polished; expecting that all errors will disappear as a result of such correc-
tions is unrealistic; acquiring morphosyntactic accuracy is a painstaking
process, yet the only natural unit of the material for this process to operate is
the task rather than sentence-based grammar exercise (see section 15.).
The written work of our students is time-consuming to read and correct,
a problem that must be solved strategically, and it does not involve direct, face-to-face
communication. Nevertheless, it is a very useful multipurpose form of language
practice for the learner, who is encouraged to perform the task individually, using
all the communicative freedom he needs. S/he then receives individualized feed-
back on this task. This form of teacher-learner interaction is a significant way of
intensifying interaction and the learner's participation.
1. What are the similarities and differences between speaking and writing? What are they in the area
of rehearsal and editing?
2. How do the differences in speaking and writing influence the choice of error correction strategies?
3. Do you see any value in such intermediate activities as so-called paragraph writing? If so, what are they?
4. Think of a topic of a written task (about five paragraphs or less, if you wish) which would involve
learners in writing about their native culture. What would its topic be? How would you present it?
What instructions would you give? How would you get the learners started?
5. What would in your view be a suitable topic for a task in process writing for a group of upper-inter-
mediate or advanced students? What resources would you need? What stages would you have and
how much time for each of them would you consider suitable?
6. What is your opinion about peer input and peer correction?
7. Do you agree or disagree with the points regarding error correction at the end of the chapter? What
other considerations have not been mentioned? What is your personal opinion in this regard?
8. How can the teacher tell the difference between the learner who just does not try hard enough or
does not take enough time to write an acceptable written piece and the learner who has done his or
her best, and yet made some errors?
262 15. Productive skills: writing
Further reading
and representation. Our interactions are species and language specific: they have
a recognizable structure and partly predictable flow. Our interactions involve us as
whole human beings, together with our emotions and personalities as well as intel-
lect. Language learning, including foreign language learning, runs on human
resources: time and intellectual (cognitive) energy on both the side of the learner
as well as the teacher. We need time because language, the tool of communicative
interactions, is a vast and extremely complex problem space while we are limited
by our attentional capacity at a given time. We need intellectual or cognitive ener-
gy because language learning is cognitive work. Its form depends on what is avail-
able at a given stage of our lifespan development i.e. the form is different for
children, who rely on play supplemented by motor activity, than for the adults,
who are able to engage in focused, sustained study.
Teaching English as a foreign language at the dawn of the 21st century is in
a fascinating state because, after turmoil and agitation, it has finally hit the ground,
which is to say, it has finally, after who-knows-how-many-centuries, conceptually
targeted real people in the real world: it now deals with learners communicating
in the target language not with grammars floating around in search of their speak-
ers. From the point of view of the practice of teaching, this ideological difference
is a fundamental transformation. As has been pointed out on numerous occasions
in this outline, a teaching approach which is aimed at imparting the grammar of
the target language, English for that matter, creates many hurdles for the learner:
sentence-length practice materials, artificial texts for reading, scattered underdevel-
oped content, focus on accuracy at the stages of presentation, practice and contex-
tualization rather than in comprehension and production with specific code-related
feedback procedures, cluttering of the communicative channel in the foreign lan-
guage classroom with activities to which the learners cannot personally relate, so
they become alienated, excessive use of indigestible, or certainly unmemorable,
metatalk and strong borders between the classroom and the 'real' world.
Good language learners will learn the foreign language no matter what, despite
the teacher or the inadequate method, but this is not the point. A child will learn
a foreign language if we start early enough and give him or her plenty of time, but
this is not the point, either. The point is to recreate the primary and secondary con-
ditions for foreign language learning in the classroom, i.e. to create sheltered envi-
ronment for a language learning hothouse. What are the advantages, including
economic advantages, of growing plants and vegetables in a hothouse? That we
are not constrained by the outside climate and can harvest the benefits, including
economic gains, of our own expertise. If we know enough about human learning
and communicative interactions, we should be able to recreate the conditions for
foreign language learning in the school environment. But, admittedly, our ideas on
how to go about doing it have changed dramatically over the last decades.
What are the implications of this situation for the professionals in the field of
teaching? The first one is what we have known forever: that the process of foreign
language teaching is a resource-demanding undertaking. Since the learning oper-
ations result from the involvement and participation of the learner and the teacher,
Conclusions 265
use. The role of the teacher as a leader implies that the learners process the ne-
cessary information themselves under his or her supportive guidance. If the
teacher declines to provide this expert guidance, including objective evaluation of
the learner's progress and corrective feedback, he or she will make the whole task
more difficult to the learner. In many circumstances the learner is viewed as a client
and the teacher as a service provider. This role arrangement, though deceptively
attractive, has its hidden trap: in the market economy to which this role assignment
clearly alludes, such factors as quality criteria and competition are also at play, so
professionals are more likely to survive anyway.
Having justified the role of background knowledge as the foundations for the
professional activity of an EFL teacher, anyone will admit that the problem space
is vast and one set of answers evokes a host of further issues, so one volume can-
not do justice to the job of introducing a professional to its meanders.
To be continued...
Brainstorming. Oyster (2000) explains the concept of brainstorming as a techni-
cal term used in stimulating creativity in group processes, for example before
group projects in companies. The purpose of the first stage in brainstorming is to
generate as many creative ideas as possible without concern for their evaluation.
Critical judgment is actively suspended because it is the number and variety of
ideas that matter. The next stage is a more critical selection or even synthesis of
these creative ideas to provide a suitable solution to the problem at hand. In for-
eign language didactics, however, the term 'brainstorming' seems to be used much
more freely to refer to any classroom conversation during which learners recall
and share relevant information, especially before reading a text, i.e. as part of
a warm-up activity.
choice of key-note speakers. As they are trying to formulate the letter, they nego-
tiate the ideas to be included, for example: 'should we suggest our own candi-
dates?' This case is far apart from clarification of meaning, when one party has
a hard time comprehending the message of the other and received additional
clues. Needless to say, clear understanding of meaning does have an important
role to play in foreign language learning because it plays a very important role in
verbal communication.
whereby the reader uses information in the text as cues to the structure of the
events, images, and inferences drawn from the text. One of the major issues in dis-
course comprehension concerns the need for a situational representation, in addi-
tion to a representation of the text itself. During the discourse comprehension
process, readers actively construct a mental model of what they are processing
(Johnson-Laird, 1983; van Dijk and Kintsch, 1983). The comprehension of the
text depends not only on a mental representation of the text but also on a mental
representation of the situation described by the text... The mental model becomes
a rich global representation based on reasoning that goes beyond the mere pars-
ing and comprehension of sentences. A mental model is under continuous con-
struction and revision as incoming information and inferences about the text are
processed.'
Critical reading. According to Hedge (2000:199): 'Those who advocate the devel-
opment of critical reading skills as part of reading curriculum argue that the abili-
ty to read critically depends on an awareness of how elements of language can be
manipulated by writers, and that language learners need to build this awareness.
Critical reading pedagogy requires close scrutiny of the language in order to see
what the writer means by the text. There is a particular concern in the case of
younger learners, that such 'language awareness' should be an important educa-
tional goal, and as legitimate to second language as to first language education.'
ate and broader context to get clues as to what could reasonably be used to fill the
existing gap in meaning, refer to general or technical knowledge to fill the exist-
ing gap, visualize the situation and draw conclusions from this discourse model as
to the feasible solution, use some content or cultural schemata to fill the existing
gap. The meaning which is inferred should be checked for accuracy.
Model is a term which has two meanings in foreign language teaching, both refer-
ring to the relationship of correspondence between two elements, the represen-
tation and the entity being represented. The first meaning of the term 'model'
refers to the fact that our understanding of some phenomenon may be represent-
ed in a given form. In this sense we may speak of models of comprehension, dis-
course processing, top-down and bottom-up models, etc. A model represents our
understanding of the phenomenon in a concise way and in this way performs an
important heuristic function. The other meaning also refers to a correspondence
between two entities in that one entity is a form of replication (imitation) of the
other from the point of view of essential structural attributes. Much of language
learning involves modelling, if not imitating, target language communicative
events and behaviours. The main task for the language learner is to be able to
retain essential structural attributes of these events and behaviors and adjust them
to the situation at hand. These communicative situational models may be present
in the classroom as immediate stimulus material before a given activity or men-
tally present in the minds of the participants as cognitive representations of rele-
vant structures of behaviour. Such is the nature of target language learning that
we develop models of communicative behaviour which we try to approximate.
is given a new text (i.e. the written test) and is asked to integrate a representation
of the first text (i.e. the lecture text) with this text. This contribution of this new
text is often overlooked when m/c tests are used as measures of 'listening compre-
hension'. (The term 'comprehension' is used here to refer to a restricted concept
of understanding: identifying propositions in a text.) ... Individual items on
m/c tests may be considered as selected probes of text representation rather than
indications of the listener's understanding of the overall text. However, correct
responses on probe test items do not necessarily indicate text understanding,
either. Because of chance factors on m/c tests, all subjects, even those who did not
hear the lecture text (e.g. who were not present at the lecture), will obtain some
correct answers. 'Test wiseness' (i.e. the comprehension of the 'test as a text') will
contribute further to some subjects obtaining correct answers.' For the above rea-
sons it seems dangerous to use multiple-choice questions systematically, as a lead-
ing form of comprehension check, which a majority of textbook writers would like
teachers to do.
Problem solving is a reasoning operation for which there is a missing link in the
initial information set. Matczak (1992) mentions three stages of problem solving:
1) defining the problem, i.e. diagnosing the missing element in its context; 2)
defining the information needed to solve the problem and sorting out the avail-
able information relevant to its solution; 3) generating the missing information as
well as evaluating the utility of the solution. The more mature the learner, the
more solutions he or she is able to come up with.
Scripts are also mental structures which guide our information processing, but
they are more specific than schemata; they provide the details of a sequence of
events that unfold chronologically in a particular setting under particular cir-
cumstances, for example a restaurant script.
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accuracy, 19, 25, 29, 42, 45, 51, 52, 78, 105, 106, Audiolingual Method, 39, 43, 44, 45, 47, 53, 58,
118, 119, 120, 131,147, 149, 151,153,154, 160, 61,65,213, 248
170, 173, 177, 183, 184, 188, 189,212,231,232, audiolingualism, 36, 44, 47, 49, 51, 231
233, 241, 244, 260, 264, 270 auditory input, 181, 182, 213, 215, 220, 222, 223
addressee/sender, 91, 93, 97, 124, 125, 127, 130, authentic task, 148, 183-187, 225
132, 133,135, 136,138, 141, 144, 145, 147, 149, authentic text, discourse, materials, 27, 70, 93,
150, 151,154,155, 179, 180, 185, 190, 192, 193, 103, 104, 115, 117, 176, 177, 183-187, 221
194,196,197, 199,209,210,214,217,228,230, autobiographical memory, 164
232, 233, 234, 240, 250, 251, 252, 255 automatic/controlled processes, 124,128,136,153,
addressing teaching to the learner, 86, 189 154
adjacency pairs, 236, 244, 245 autonomous view of foreign language teaching,
adjustments, communicative, 126, 137, 149 80,81
adolescence, 78, 157, 158, 160, 167, 173-176, 177
advance organizers, 60, 61
alienation of the learner, 151, 246 Berlitz Method, 25, 30
alternative methods, 35, 65, 66, 67-79 bilingual lists of vocabulary, 19
analogy, 38, 45, 70, 133 bottom-up/top-down processing, 129, 155, 191,
analysis/synthesis, 18, 19, 20, 38, 39, 43, 45, 59, 192, 270
61, 62, 63, 77, 90, 92, 94, 96, 99-100,133, 153, brainstorming, 201, 210, 259, 267
167, 193, 194, 196, 197,198, 199,202,206,209,
224, 227, 228, 230, 267
anticipation, 128, 129, 130, 146, 152, 209, 220 categorization, 168
antimentalism, 39 chatting with students, 241, 242, 244, 268
anxiety, 54, 75, 76, 78, 79, 110, 126, 136, 140, 210, childhood, 157, 160, 163-173, 176, 177
219, 229, 238-239, 241, 243, 246 chorus repetition, 41
approach/avoidance behaviour, 136, 239 chronological/feature coding, 130, 164
articulacy, 240, 241, 242, 246 cloze, 221
attention, 60,63,77,92,97,99, 100, 124, 125, 128, cognition, 53, 124, 131, 132, 160
130, 133, 136,141,146, 147, 152, 153,160, 162, Cognitive Approach 57-59
163, 165, 167, 176, 177, 180, 181, 182,206,211, Cognitive Method, 52, 53, 57-64, 65, 105, 248
220, 224, 225, 226, 233, 244, 246, 247, 250 cognitive structure, 54, 49, 60, 138, 159
attentional periphery, 154, 260 Cognitive Code Learning theory, 53, 56, 59, 60, 65
Audiolingual Approach 38, 39, 40, 45, 47, 60, 62, coherence, 32, 94, 95, 96, 151, 154, 183, 184, 211,
148 250, 252, 268, 272
284 Index
cohesion, 32, 51,94-95, 96-97, 120, 154, 183, 184, culture, 15,22,26,27,30,39,43,55,58,60,76,98,
211,250, 252, 268, 272 102, 103 104, 106-107, 119, 125, 126, 130, 138,
commitment to the task, 82, 172 146, 155,158, 160,164, 175, 176, 177,181, 184,
communication, interpersonal, 82, 126, 137, 212, 200, 212, 222, 231, 263
214
communicative assertiveness, 137, 140-141,
communicative intention, 78, 102, 104, 120, 124, debate, 53, 61, 62, 96, 107, 232, 237, 246, 248
125, 127, 137, 138, 144, 149,179, 187, 190, 194, deduction, deductive, 19, 23, 42, 56, 57, 61, 62,
197, 199, 201, 233, 234, 235, 243, 250, 267 133,134
Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), 15, defensive learners, 260
89, 90, 92, 93, 94, 97, 101, 103, 105, 106, 108, definition, 31, 39, 59, 62, 64, 99, 103, 204, 205,
109,115-122, 185,231,232,244,248 251,253, 211
258 describing, 70, 102, 145, 165, 176, 25, 258
Communicative Method, 89, 100, 101-107, 231 dictation, 28, 107, 182, 222, 223, 224, 227
communicative syllabus, 98 dictation drawing, 107, 221, 223-224
communicative techniques, 100 dictogloss, 224
Community Language Learning, 76-79 Direct Method, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 32
comparison, 43, 47, 58, 61, 96, 131, 133, 146, discourse type/genre, 96-97, 126, 127, 152, 155,
244 177, 191, 193, 199,202,206,210,212,213,231,
competence communicative, grammatical, soci- 234, 236, 244, 246, 252
olinguistic, strategic, discourse 51, 55, 60, 86, discourse, spoken, written, 107, 127, 149, 154,
87, 89, 90, 92-93, 94, 98, 102, 105, 109, 119, 179, 179-183
139, 172, 174, 177, 239, 240 discussion, 77, 114, 207, 211, 221, 222, 231, 245,
Comprehension Approach, 26, 30, 72 246, 258, 259
comprehension, 13, 20, 26, 30, 41, 60, 63, 71, 72, domain terminology, 193, 199
73, 76, 81, 94, 117, 119, 120, 124, 126, 127, double articulation, 132
129, 130, 131, 137, 138, 144, 145, 146, 147, drama, 28, 108, 110, 166
148-149, 150, 152, 154, 170, 173, 179, 181, drill, 27,28,44,45,46,47,49-50, 51,63, 100, 116,
182, 183, 184, 190, 193, 194, 196, 198, 206, 117, 187,213
209, 210, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218,
219, 220, 221, 222, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228,
230, 233, 234, 235, 236, 243, 256, 264, 267, eclecticism, eclectic orientation, 65, 66-67
268, 269, 271, 272 editing, 114, 130, 152, 180,183, 189,249,250,251,
conditioning, 37 257, 259, 260
content, 15,26,45,51,56, 58,59,63,70,72,78,84 educational gap, 118
85, 93, 97, 100, 103, 104, 108, 111, 113, 114, effectiveness, communicative effectiveness, 106,
118, 120,124,125,127, 129,132, 136, 139, 144, 118, 119, 188
145, 149, 151, 152, 155, 166, 176,177,192,193, ego-enhancing strategies, 139, 142
196, 199,204,207,209,210,221,225,227,228, elaboration, 70, 75, 129, 145, 152, 168, 197, 201,
229,230,232,233,234,240,241,243,244,246, 234
249, 251, 252, 253, 259, 264, 268, 269, 270 ellipsis, 95, 96, 127, 179, 215, 269
contrast, 23, 26, 28, 31, 39, 57, 118, 132, 133, 144, emitting behaviour, 160
205 empiricist view of language, 56
conversation, 20, 24, 27, 40, 77, 78, 94, 96, 100, error, 15, 43, 45, 61, 74, 87, 92, 106, 118, 119, 185,
104, 120, 149, 150, 156, 160, 162, 165, 166,168, 189, 239, 251,260
173,175, 182,201,210,211,213,214,215,222, error correction, 15, 24, 30, 31, 77, 106, 110, 118,
229,232,235,236,237,240,241,243,244,245, 119, 146, 183, 244, 251, 257, 259, 260-261
267, 268, 269, 271 ESP, 143, 155-156
creative involvement, 114 evaluation, 47, 68, 70, 84, 94, 138, 140, 156, 169,
creativity, 14, 16, 50, 57, 73, 85, 93, 135, 137, 155, 193,194, 195, 196, 199,210,217,218,222,238,
160, 169, 172, 174, 177, 228, 230, 243, 258, 246, 257, 263, 266, 267
267 expectancy for successive elements, 210
cultivation strategies, 143, 148, 155, 156, 183, 266 external memory, 48, 168, 234, 244, 248
Index 285
factual information, 102, 105, 192, 197, 201, 205, information gap, 101, 102, 103, 108, 109, 115, 116,
234, 235, 245, 252 117, 118, 232
feedback, 31, 38, 47, 53, 64, 68, 70, 84, 85, 101, inner speech, 160, 165
102, 110, 114, 118, 119,120, 124,126, 128, 129, input, 13, 26, 31, 32, 40, 63, 70, 72, 77, 78, 79, 87,
130,131,141,143, 146,149,150,152, 153, 160, 103, 107, 109,110, 111, 112,116,117,118,120,
177, 179, 182, 183,187,190, 193, 194,205,206, 130, 131,143,144, 145,146, 147, 148, 150, 151,
212,214,218,222,223,224,225,227,242,244, 152, 153, 155, 176,181, 182, 184, 189,201,206,
248, 250, 257, 259, 260, 261, 264, 265 207, 209,213,214,215-217, 219, 220, 221,222,
focus on form, 81, 144, 151, 184, 260 229,233,234,235,239,242,243,245,252,253,
follow-up, 111, 112, 113, 207, 209, 211, 221, 230 255, 256, 259, 260, 265
foreign language aptitude, 82 Input Hypothesis, 32
functions of English, 108, 214, 231 insight, 16, 129, 131, 171, 189, 223
integration, 50, 127, 153, 159, 183, 189, 196, 219,
220, 233, 235, 243
games, 74, 111, 119, 120, 141, 155, 166, 171, 176, intentional learning 63, 136, 141, 153, 168, 177
220, 232, 242, 244 interaction, 13, 24, 25, 28, 29, 35, 37, 53, 70, 71,
generalization, 23, 133 85, 91, 92, 93, 94, 100, 102, 103, 104, 106, 120,
Gestalt psychology, 53 124, 125, 126, 127, 131,132, 135, 136, 137, 138,
gifted children, 171 143,144, 145, 146,149, 150,151, 152,153,155,
grammar, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 160, 164, 170,171,173, 174, 176,179,181, 190,
28, 29, 31, 32, 38, 39,42, 44, 45, 49, 55, 56, 57, 191,192, 194, 196,206,209,213,214,215,217,
58, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 92, 94, 99, 102, 103, 105, 220,221,222,231,237,245,259,261,263,264,
106, 116, 118, 119,120, 133, 150, 151, 153,154, 265, 269
160, 162, 163,164, 177, 183,184,213,223,251, interlanguage, 61, 86
261, 264, 272 interpretation, 30, 95, 96, 102, 106, 120, 129, 193,
Grammar Translation Method, 18, 19, 20, 22, 25, 194, 195, 196, 203,210,217,221, 225, 238,258
28, 29, 47, 56, 57, 183
grammaticalism, 19
graphemic/phonemic code, 180, 223, 260 jig-saw reading, 102, 103, 107, 108, 109
graphemic/phonemic representation, 82, 118, 149,
223
group work, 77, 103, 104, 109, 115, 120, 202, 211 knowledge, factual, background, 14, 16, 106, 152,
guided imagery, 169, 177 184, 191, 196, 200, 201, 206, 233, 235, 236,
GUME project, 62 266
knowledge, procedural, declarative, 129,145,154,
190
holophrases, 163
humour, 170-171, 239
language and culture, 14, 15, 26, 43, 81, 84, 93
language code, 13, 104, 124, 132, 133, 134, 146,
ideal method, 65-66 153, 154, 160, 170, 182, 183, 193
identity, 55, 132, 137, 141,151, 158, 160, 166,173, language games, 107
175, 176, 178, 243, 247 language learning, 13, 14,15,16, 17,20,21,22,23,
idiosyncratic dialect, 86 24, 25, 26, 27, 28 29, 30, 32, 35, 36, 38, 41, 43,
imitation, 18, 21, 38, 41, 42, 44, 49, 50-51, 68, 74, 44,47, 48, 50, 51, 53, 55, 56, 59, 61, 63, 64, 65,
75, 148, 150, 160, 161, 164, 176, 213, 222, 270 66, 67, 68, 70, 71, 72, 74, 76, 77, 78, 79, 81, 82,
immediate constituent analysis, 39 83, 84, 85, 87, 89, 99, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107,
individualizing foreign language instruction, 59, 115, 116, 119, 120, 121, 123, 124,128, 131, 135,
65, 84 136, 141, 142, 143,144,145,146,147, 148,150,
induction, inductive, 19,21,22,23, 24, 25, 29,42, 151, 152, 154, 155, 157, 158, 163, 182, 183, 184,
44, 62, 83, 133, 134 185, 186, 192, 197,200,205,207,213,214,215,
inferring, inferencing, 19, 42, 55, 96, 125, 133, 223,225,234,238,239,246,252,260,261,264,
134, 137, 194, 205, 250, 268, 269-270 265, 268, 270
286 Index
language use, 13, 14, 17, 41, 42, 44, 47, 49, 50, 56, narrative, 22, 26, 62, 164, 168, 176, 202, 236, 244,
57, 58, 60, 63, 64, 70, 72, 73, 81, 85, 87, 89, 90, 248, 253, 256
91,93,94,97, 104, 105, 107, 114, 126, 128, 131, Natural Method, 20, 24, 26, 28, 32
142, 143, 180, 181, 187, 202, 241, 258, 272 networks of propositions 234, 270
Latin, 17, 18, 42 non-professional teacher, 15, 16, 265
law of effect, 37 non-verbal communication, non-verbal behav-
lecturette, 201 iour, 38, 126
lifespan development, 159 normative grammar, 42
literacy, 19, 106, 240, 248 note-taking, 48, 107, 225, 230, 235
long-term investment in speaking, 234-235
low-input/high-input task, 109, 110
observational learning, 150, 213
oral/written composition, 62, 77, 108, 230, 241,
mainstream methods, 35, 67, 68 244, 252
map of communication, 127 ordering, 133
meaning, 18, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31, 39, 47, overlearning, 41, 49
54, 60,63, 66, 68, 69, 70, 77, 81, 82, 83, 89, 90,
91, 94, 96, 100, 102, 103, 104, 106, 115, 120,
127,129, 132,133,135, 136, 138, 141, 144, 147, pair work, 103, 104, 109, 120, 202, 211, 239, 244
148, 149, 150, 152,154, 160, 161, 164,170, 179, pattern drill, 41, 42, 44, 45, 50, 62, 63
180, 188, 190, 191,192, 193, 194,203,204,205, perception, 18, 53, 59, 81, 84, 98, 124, 128, 144,
206,212,217,219,221,222,227,233,234,235, 146, 152, 167, 170, 184,218
240, 248, 249, 267, 268, 269, 270, 272 personality, 37, 91, 138, 164, 166, 172-173,
memorization, 22, 41, 42, 74, 75 174-175,213, 238
memory, 22, 27, 31, 51, 52, 54, 63, 72, 73, 74, 81, personalization of content, 60, 211
82, 92, 110, 115, 124, 128, 129, 130, 134, 136, planning, 114, 124, 128, 129, 130, 139, 146, 152,
141, 144, 146, 147, 150, 152, 158, 161, 164, 161, 163, 180, 199,231,233,241,244,250,251,
167-169, 176, 177, 179, 180, 182, 191, 197, 259
200, 203, 204, 205, 206, 213, 214, 216, 219, play, 21, 136, 155, 157, 158, 161, 164, 166, 168,
225, 229, 249, 252, 258, 271 172, 176, 264
mental lexicon, 129, 203 portfolio, 242
metacommunicative knowledge, 170 post-methods era, 80, 87
metalinguistic knowledge, 150, 159, 160, 170 potential of the text, communicative, language
metamemory, 168-169 learning, 56,72,119,131,140,174,185,192,196,
metatalk, 240, 264 197, 199,200,209,210,211,229,230,234,253
method, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 27, poverty of content, 151
35, 36, 38, 39, 40, 42, 43, 44, 45, 47, 49, 55, 62, practice, 18, 21, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 38, 40,
65, 66, 67, 68, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 77, 78, 79, 84, 41, 42, 44,45, 47, 49, 50, 51, 53, 57, 58, 60, 61,
86, 89, 94, 154, 155, 212, 213, 231, 264 62, 63, 63, 69, 71, 84, 87, 93, 98, 102, 105, 105,
middle childhood, 157, 158, 166, 167, 169, 172, 115, 116, 117, 127, 136, 145,148,150, 151, 153,
177-178 182, 187, 188,216,217,219,220,233,234,239,
mimicry, 41 244, 245, 246, 248, 256, 261, 264
modality, modalities 48, 60, 73, 100, 128, 147, précis writing, 193, 211, 252,
232 precision, 118, 119, 120, 131, 147, 149, 150, 151,
modelling, 69,148, 150, 215, 222, 235, 270 153, 154, 182, 183, 193, 204, 206, 227
monitoring, 41, 114, 124, 129, 130-131, 146, 152, preclosing statements, 237
179, 194, 204, 233 pre-linguistic communication, 162
motherese, 163, 165 pre-operational stage, 159
motivation, integrative, instrumental, task, intrin- pre-reading period, 40, 48, 60, 164, 209, 211
sic, 59, 82, 83, 125, 136 pre-strategies, 167,177
private speech, 160, 165
problem solving, 58,61,62,84, 104, 114, 120, 127,
naming, 24, 145, 163, 165, 168, 176 133, 141, 159, 169, 208, 248, 269, 271
Index 287
process writing, 248, 252, 253, 258-259, 260 semanticizing, 31, 152, 193, 194, 195, 196
production, 13, 27, 29, 30, 63, 70, 73, 81, 86, 94, semanticizing device, 31
117,119, 124,127,129, 130, 137, 138, 144, 145, sensorimotor stage, 72, 159
146, 147, 148-149, 150, 152, 153, 154, 156, silent reading, 26, 61, 62, 108, 205
179, 180, 184,197,199,215,229,230,233,234, Silent Way, 68-71
243, 249, 260, 264 Simulation, 107, 108, 111-113, 117, 119, 231, 245
professional role of the teacher, 15, 141, 151, 260, situational context, context of situation, 24, 32,
265 91, 92, 96, 113, 118, 125, 127, 145, 147, 149,
professional teacher, 14, 15, 16, 79, 263, 265, 266 150, 179, 191, 252
project, project work, 107, 108,113-115,201,220, situational reference, 32
232, 236, 245, 260, 267 skill, 13, 14, 23, 27, 28, 40, 41, 48, 49, 50, 51, 54,
Prussian Method, 19 55, 57, 59, 60, 62, 66, 72, 79, 84, 93, 94, 104,
105, 106, 107, 110, 111, 115,116,117,119,127,
153, 179, 182, 182, 183, 184, 187
random list of words, 203 skill learning, 187-189, 231
rationalist view of language, 56 skills, receptive/productive, 60, 190-262
reading aloud, 41, 60, 183, 205-206, 239 skimming/scanning, 105, 107, 120, 149, 207
reading comprehension, 120, 152, 171, 183, social conversation, 244, 245
190-191, 192, 193-196, 194, 200-203, 201, source disciplines, 36, 48, 53-66, 67, 68, 80, 81,
202,203,205,206,207,209,210,217,219,221, 89,154
234, 235, 252, 268, 269 Speech Act Theory, 90
Reading Method, 26 stage of concrete operations, 159, 164, 166
reading, intensive, extensive, 192, 206-207, 214, stage of formal operations, 29, 159, 174
219,234 strategic behaviour, 13, 84, 125, 127, 168
realia, 21, 103 strategy, 13, 15,16,28,29 31,41,42,45,47,49,51,
reasoning, 23, 29, 53, 60, 69, 70, 82, 123, 124, 125, 53, 54, 61, 62, 64, 65, 75, 78, 79, 80, 84, 86, 87,
130,133,134, 146,147, 149,150,151, 152, 154, 93, 94, 99, 111, 112, 115, 116, 118, 120, 141,
159, 160, 164, 169, 170, 171, 249,252,269, 271 145, 146-147, 149, 151, 152, 153, 156, 158, 162,
reception/discovery learning, 54 167, 168, 176, 177, 187, 194, 197, 199,200,201,
reduced certainty/uncertainty, 94, 97, 102 204,205,206,209,210,218,225,230,233,235,
Reform Movement, 22, 23 237,238,239,240,241,243,244,246,248,250,
rehearsal, 51, 129, 152, 153, 168, 189, 243, 244 251,252, 253, 259
reinforcement, 37, 38 stress, 22, 114, 130, 140, 170, 181, 228, 230, 244,
repetition, 26, 27, 41, 44, 49, 51-52, 95, 129, 152, 258
153, 162, 163, 168, 177, 187, 188, 206, 218, structure of conversation, 235, 236
219, 222 suggestopedia, 73-76, 78
retrospection, 124, 128, 129, 130, 146, 152 Summary, 13, 41, 48, 77, 108, 152, 224-225, 235,
role, ascribed, achieved, 97-98 252, 257
role-play, 74, 103, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 117, syllabus, analytical, synthetic, notional, function-
119, 141,231,244 al, 13, 44, 59, 74, 77, 78, 87, 89, 98-101, 105,
rote learning, 20, 42, 63, 83, 148 115, 116, 117, 151,231
rule, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 28, 29, 32, 42, 45, 55, 57, symbolic function, 162, 164
58, 60, 72, 86, 92, 94, 95, 105, 111, 133, 142, syntagmatic plan, 187,188
163, 165, 166, 160, 177, 189, 236, 238, 271
202,203,204,205,209,211,212,216,217,218, value, 19, 23 26, 30, 51, 60, 63, 79, 84, 85, 95, 103,
219,220,221,222,223,225,227,228,229,231, 106, 107,116, 117,118, 119, 120,132, 137, 139,
232,233,234,235,238,239,241,242,243,244, 167,170,171, 173, 174,175, 176,194, 196,207,
246,247,248,249,250,252,253,256,257,258, 221, 236, 242
259, 260, 261, 263, 266, 269, 270 verbal communication, 14, 15, 22, 63, 64, 69, 74,
teaching method, 17, 19, 25, 39, 40,47,48,65,66, 85,87,91,98, 104, 117, 121, 123, 124, 125,126,
84, 120, 154, 155, 231 127,128, 129, 130,131,132,133, 134,135,136,
technique, 14, 15, 16, 20, 23,24, 25, 31, 36, 37, 39, 138, 140, 141,143, 143, 145,146, 147, 148,149,
43, 45-46, 47, 56, 58, 61, 62, 69 70, 73, 78, 85, 150, 151, 152, 154, 155,160,161, 179,180, 185,
89, 100, 102, 107-115, 116, 120, 169, 201, 202, 190,210,213,214,215,217,232,233,234,246,
205,211,212, 225, 248 252, 269, 263, 268, 269
text,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,28,29,30,32, verbal learning, 72, 177, 184
39, 41, 42, 44, 54, 58, 69, 70, 74, 75, 95, 97, verbatim, 19, 42, 54, 108, 144, 176, 214, 222, 224,
103,104, 107, 108, 115, 116, 117, 120, 150, 180, 235
183,184, 189, 191, 192, 193, 196,197, 198, 199,
200,201,202,203,204,205,206,207,209,210,
211,212,216,221,223,224,227,228,229,230, wait time, 71, 166, 239
234,235,249,250,260,264,267,268,269,271, warm-up, 108, 228, 267, 268
272 work format, 45, 61, 89, 103, 104, 120, 155, 211
toddlerhood, 157, 158, 160, 161 working memory, 30, 49, 51, 128, 167, 168, 181,
Total Physical Response, 71-73, 220 216, 222, 231, 232, 233, 245, 246
transformation exercises, 56, 62 writing, letter writing, journal writing, narrative
Transformational Generative Theory, 55 writing, creative writing, 22,24,25,28,40,41,
Transformational Generative Grammar (TGG), 42, 47, 48, 57, 62, 72, 77, 79, 93, 105, 108, 116,
55, 56, 57 149, 169, 171,177, 180, 181, 182, 183, 189, 193,
translation, 19, 20, 23, 24, 27, 28, 29-32, 44, 47, 197, 199,202,211,212,214,224,225,231,233,
57, 70, 74, 77, 78, 116, 193, 194, 204 234, 235, 238, 240, 244, 248-262
Pages in italics refer to further reading.
Dörnyei, Z., 75, 82, 83, 88, 138, 143,247 Hymes, D., 92, 93, 94
Doughty, C., 153
Dudley-Evans, T., 156
Duff, A., 110,111 Jacobs, G. M., 212
Dykstra, G., 81 Jagodzińska, M., 168,178
Jakobovits, L. A., 49
Jay, T. B., 95, 146, 147, 162, 170, 7 78, 236, 237,
Ellis, R., 86, 153 268, 269, 271
Ervin, S., 50 Jespersen, 22
Eysenk, M. W., 128, 131, 134,135, 152, 249, 250 John, M. J. St., 756
Johnson, K., 90, 101, 102, 103,122
Johnson-Laird, P N., 269
Field, J., 203 Jones, D., 27
Finocchiaro, M., 60, 67, 90 Jones, K., 113
Firth, J. R., 90 Jones, L., 113
Flower, L. S., 249, 250
Forisha-Kovach, B., 83, 173, 174, 175, 176
Foster, P, 243 Kaplan, R. B., 262
Fried Booth, D., 114,115 Keane, M. T., 128, 131, 134, 735, 152, 249, 250
Fries, C. C., 39, 43 Keller, J. M., 83
Kelly, L. G., 18, 28,33
Kennedy, G. D., 62, 81
Gardner, H., 171 Kielar-Turska, M., 163
Gardner, R. C., 83 Kingsbury, R., 186, 195, 227
Gattegno, C., 68, 69, 70 Kintsch, W., 96, 269
Gleitman, H., 37, 129, 131, 134,135 Klippel, F., 247
Glodowski, W., 124 Komorowska, H., 52, 58, 62, 65
Goffman, E., 271 Krashen, S. D., 32, 131, 144,262
Gouin, F., 21, 22, 27 Kroll, B., 262
Grabe, W., 262
Grundy, P, 262
Lado, R., 35, 39, 43, 106
Lambert, W. E., 82, 83
Haines, S., 114,775 Larsen-Freeman, D., 86, 88
Halli day, M. A. K., 91, 95, 96 Lawrence, M., 248
Hammerly, H., 106, 236 Leki, I., 262
Hanzeli, V. E., 66 Levelt, W. J. M., 188, 250
Hargie, O., 135, 156 Littlewood, W., 90, 106, 127, 137,190, 253
Harmer, J., 116 Livingston, C., 110
Hart, A. W., 262 Livingstone, L., 66
Hasan R., 95, 96 Locke, J., 24
Hashemi, L., 223 Loftus, E., 37
Hayes, J. R., 249, 250 Long, D. H., 86,88, 146, 267
Hedge, T., 114, 207, 209, 212, 213, 215, 218, 224, Lozanov, G., 73, 75, 78
241, 243, 249, 250, 251, 258, 260, 262, 269 Lynch, T., 231
Henness, G., 20, 24 Lyons, J., 272
Henry, J., 115
Hilferty, A., 80
Holden, S., 111 Maclntyre, P D., 136
Horwitz, E. K., 75, 238 Mackey, W. F., 17, 18, 21, 26, 80
Horwitz, M., 238 Macnamara, J., 81
Howatt, A. P R., 18, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 33, 101 Madsen, H., 80
Hutchinson, T., 115, 156 Maley, A., 110,111
Name index 291