Homage to W. R. Lee: Essays in English as a Foreign or Second Language [Reprint 2019 ed.] 9783110870541, 9783110133936

Table of contents :
Preface
Table of Contents
Editors' Introduction
Tributes
For William R. Lee: A Giant in His Field / A Man for All Seasons
A Leeward Look
IATEFL and FATEFL, the Trunk and the Branch
Teaching and teacher training
The Proper Study of ELT
Providing Opportunities for Learning: Teacher Training Experience
The Importance of Understanding
Curriculum Design for Teacher Training
In-Service Teacher Training and Teaching Through Activities A Progress Report from Germany
The Theologian and the Tightrope Walker
On Teaching, Training and Learning: Some Reflections and Suggestions
Research and the Language Teacher: What's the Use?
Second Language Teaching and One-only Solutions
Language Study and Language Learning
Learning and the learner
Learning a Foreign Language: the 'Cognitive' Approach
Learning to Spell in an Anglophone Setting
Parental Support for Young Learners of English - An Underestimated Contributor to Success
Let Them Read! - Later. Problems of Introducing Reading and Writing to Young Learners of English as a Foreign Language
Observations on the Learning Styles of Adult Students
Teaching Foreign Languages in French Primary Schools: A New Challenge
Embarrassment in the Classroom
The Notion of Habit and the Contemporary Language learning/Teaching Paradigm
Testing or Owls, Pebbles and Fans
Cognitive Style and Individualization in the EFL Class
Language and linguistics
Practical Problems, Practical Solutions
Teaching in Key: A Tonal Proposition
Attitudes of Southern African Linguists towards Languages and Language Policies
Translation and Functional Sentence Perspective (a Case Study of John 1.1-2)
A Note on the Vocing of Initial /f-/ in English in the 15th Century: Onomastic Evidence
The Problem of the *Unable Lexicographer
The Re-anglicisation of English
Concepts, Contexts and Meaning: Learning to Learn Vocabulary
A Study of the Intelligibility of Nigerian English
Where Have All the Phoneticians Gone?
Why do French-speakers have difficulty with coming and going?
Language education and culture
Peace Education in the Foreign-Language Classroom: Chances - Challenges - Problems
Cultural Contexts
Curriculum Vitae and Select List of Publications
List of Contributors

Citation preview

Homage to W.R. Lee

Homage to W.R. Lee Essays in English as a Foreign or Second Language

Edited by Arthur van Essen Edward I. Burkart

FORIS PUBLICATIONS Berlin • New York 1992

Foris Publications Berlin • New York (formerly Foris Publications, Dordrecht) is a Division of Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin.

© Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines of the ANSI to ensure permanence and durability.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Homage to W.R. Lee. : essays in English as a foreign or second language / edited by Arthur van Essen, Edward I. Burkart. p. cm. 'William R. Lee: curriculum vitae and select list of publications' - p. v. ISBN 3-11-013393-8 (alk. paper): 1. English language - Study and teaching - Foreign speakers. I. Essen, A.J. van. II. Burkart, Edward I. III. Lee, William Rowland. PE1128.A2H584 1992 91-45236 428'.007-dc20 CIP Die Deutsche Bibliothek Cataloging in Publication Data Homage to W.R. Lee : essays in English as a foreign or second language / ed. by Arthur van Essen ; Edward I. Burkart. - Berlin ; New York: Foris Publ., 1992 ISBN 3-11-013393-8 NE: Essen, Arthur van [Hrsg.]; Lee, William, R.: Festschrift © Copyright 1992 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., D-1000 Berlin 30 All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Printing: ICG Printing, Dordrecht. Printed in The Netherlands.

Preface

This Festschrift was conceived in a pub in Brighton (England) just after Bill Lee had revealed his age, up till then one of the best kept secrets of the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language, of which he had been the founder. Once the idea was born the editors made a division of labour, and the thirty-odd papers here assembled are the result of much negotiation between the editors and the authors as to subject, length of the article, and deadlines. As was to be expected, authors made use of different style sheets, reference and quotation systems. They have been standardized by us. Wherever a bibliographical reference was lacking or incomplete, it has been traced and supplied by us so far as it was possible for us to do so. Most of the papers show a concern for the teaching and learning of English as a foreign or second language. This book should therefore be of interest to applied linguists as well as to teachers of English and students taking courses in the English language, education, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, or pragmatics. The editors owe a special debt of gratitude to Ruurd van der Weij, Department of Linguistics, University of Groningen, who did the whole of the electronic typesetting of this book on his own. He also designed its front cover. It is no exaggeration to say that but for him this book would not have come into existence. Special thanks are also due to our secretaries, Aukje van der Zee and Belinda Orsel, who typed and re-typed so many typescripts that they must know at least some of them by heart!

Groningen!Minneola April 1991

(Florida)

The Editors

Table of Contents

Editors' Introduction

1

Tributes For William R. Lee: A Giant in His Field / A Man for All Seasons

7

Mary Finocchiaro

A Leeward Look

9

Vaughan James

lATEFL and FATEFL, the Trunk and the Branch

11

Ray Janssens

Teaching and teacher training The Proper Study of ELT Gerry Abbott

21

Providing Opportunities for Learning: Teacher Training Experience

29

Antonieta A. Celani

The Importance of Understanding

39

Reginald A. Close

Curriculum Design for Teacher Training

45

David Cross

In-service Teacher Training and Teaching Through Activities. A Progress Report from Germany

53

Christoph Edelhoff

The Theologian and the Tightrope Walker

67

Alan Maley

On Teaching, Training and Learning: Some Reflections and Suggestions

79

Judy Winn-Bell Olsen

Research and the Language Teacher: What's the Use?

85

Alun L.W. Rees

Second Language Teaching and One-only Solutions

93

Makhan L. Tickoo

Language Study and Language Learning

103

Henry G. Widdowson

Learning and the learner Learning a Foreign Language: the 'Cognitive' Approach

113

Olga Akhmanova and Tamara Nazarova

Learning to Spell in an Anglophone Setting Virginia F. Allen

117

viii Table of Contents Parental Support for Young Learners of English - An Underestimated Contributor to Success

123

Opal Dunn

Let Them Read! - Later. Problems of Introducing Reading and Writing to Young Learners of English as a Foreign Language

131

Leonora Frdhlich-Ward

Observations on the Learning Styles of Adult Students

139

Manfred Gerbert

Teaching Foreign Languages in French Primary Schools: A New Challange

145

Denis Girard

Embarrassment in the Classroom

153

Ron Mackay

The Notion of Habit and the Contemporary Language Learning/ Teaching Paradigm

165

Waldemar Marton

Testing or Owls, Pebbles and Fans

175

Mario Rinvolucri

Cognitive Style and Individualization in the EFL Class

185

Arthur van Essen, Peter van der Tuin, and Mik van Es

Language and linguistics Practical Problems, Practical Solutions

197

Louis G. Alexander

Teaching in Key: A Tonal Proposition

203

Winifred Crombie and Martin Parker

Attitudes of Southern African Linguists

213

René Dirven

Translation and Functional Sentence Perspective (A Case Study of John 1 . 1 - 2 )

221

Jan Firbas

A Note on the Voicing of Initial /f-/ in English in the 15th Century: Onomastic Evidence

233

Jacek Fisiak

The Problem of the *Unable Lexicographer

239

Leslie A. Hill

The Re-anglicisation of English

243

William F. Mackey

Concepts, Contexts and Meaning: Learning to Learn Vocabulary

247

Wilga M. Rivers

A Study of the Intelligibility of Nigerian English

255

Brian Tiffen

Where Have All the Phoneticians Gone?

261

John L.M. Trim

Why do French-speakers have difficulty with coming and going? Sidney F.Whitaker

273

Homage to WJi. Lee

ix

Language education and culture Peace Education in the Foreign-Language Classroom: Chances - Challenges - Problems

285

Reinhold Freudenstein

Cultural Contexts

293

Bruce Pattison

William. R. Lee: Curriculum Vitae and Select List of Publications

297

List of Contributors

306

Editors' Introduction This commemorative volume has been compiled to mark the occasion of W.R. Lee's eightieth birthday and is a tribute both to the man himself and to his work as one of the leading experts in the field of English as a foreign or second language. The aim of the volume is twofold. First, by assembling a number of greetings and tributes by friends and colleagues, it records the breadth of Dr. Lee's vision, the depth of his work, the unconventionality of his personality, his internationalism, and his tremendous capacity for work. Second, by bringing together a set of original articles by distinguished authors it makes an important contribution to four of the fields where Lee's own work has been most influential. In soliciting the articles and in compiling the Festschrift from the various contributions that make it up, we have sought to make it reflect the areas of Dr. Lee's professional activities: teaching and teacher training, learning and the learner, language and linguistics (including phonetics), and the cultural side of language education. All the authors knew the purpose of the volume, and indeed were specially invited to contribute, either because they knew Bill Lee personally or because the principal author of a paper expressed a wish to work with a particular co-author. The book thus falls into five sections. Thefirstcontains the Tributes, beginning with a description of Bill Lee's personality by Mary Finocchiaro. Record-ing Lee's numerous activities, as the progenitor of an international professional association, as a tireless traveller, lecturer, writer of textbooks, organiser of conferences, as a teacher with a keen sense of humour and considerable histrionic talents, she puts him among the greats, close to H.E. Palmer, A.S. Hornby, and C.C. Fries. This is followed by Vaughan James's short tribute to Bill Lee not so much as an influence but as a presence, somebody in the profession who has always been there, a prophet whose parish is the world and whose followers are legion. This section concludes with an appraisal of Bill Lee by Ray Janssens: "to me Bill Lee is first and foremost the man who made his fellow English language teachers aware of the importance of getting associated". The articles on professional subjects are grouped according to what we took to be their main topic, audience, or aim. Some articles, however, taking as they do a broad approach to their subject, might with equal reason have been included in a different section. This is true of the articles by Akhmanova, Alexander, Olsen, Rees, Widdowson, and others. In the section on Teaching and teacher training, Geny Abbott draws attention to what he calls 'anglocentrism' as a 'noticeable and perhaps pernicious aspect of ELT today', and in so doing points to the need for the flow of ELT information to be reversed: from the periphery to the centre.

2 Homage to WJR.. Lee This is followed by Antonieta A. Celani's report on experiences of autonomous learning in teacher training courses in Brazil. Reginald A. Close's article focuses on the function of a foreign language as a medium of international understanding, while the next article, by David Cross, describes a curriculum design for teacher education in the form of a graded framework. Christoph Edelhoff in his article discusses in-service teacher training in Germany. In the paper that follows, Alan Maley looks at the profession in terms of a series of binary distinctions, such as 'process' and 'product', 'learning' and 'teaching', etc.. Judy Winn-Bell Olsen in her article explores a number of similarities between the language learner and the language teacher as each grows in proficiency and insight. Alun Rees addresses himself to the question of the relevance of educational research to classroom practice, while Makhan L. Tickoo in his contribution analyses the tendency in current English Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics towards 'one-only solutions'. Henry G. Widdowson, whose paper concludes this section, questions the validity of what, for a long time now, has been received wisdom, namely that teaching about the language is to be strongly rejected. Instead, he suggests the very opposite, at the same time bringing contrastive analysis out of exile. The section on Learning and the learner opens with a theoretical paper by Olga Akhmanova and Tamara Nazarova which describes foreign-language learning in terms of 'practical' or 'cognitive semiotics'. Virginia F. Allen makes some observations on the subject of English spelling, noting especially how (some) native speakers acquired their mastery of English orthography. The following two papers are concerned with young learners of English as a foreign language. The first, by Opal Dunn, points to parental support as an underestimated contributor to success in foreign/second language learning. The second, by Leonora Fröhlich-Ward, deals with some of the problems inherent in the introduction of the written language (reading and writing). Manfred Gerbert contributes an article in which he offers a number of observations on the learning styles of adult students of English for specific purposes. The following article, by Denis Girard, describes problems surrounding the introduction of foreign languages into French primary schools, while Ron Mackay's paper examines the role of certain patterns of classroom interaction in the academic failure of ESL students. Waldemar Marton, in a thoroughgoing article, subjects the notions of habit and habit-formation and their place in the contemporary language learning/teaching paradigm to a critical scrutiny. Mario Rinvolucri reviews the problems and practices of testing, while in concluding this section, Arthur van Essen and his colleagues report the results of their research into learner characteristics and achievement in English as a foreign language. The fourth section, on Language and linguistics, opens with a contribution by Louis G. Alexander who addresses himself to the issue of grammar in ELT, and in so doing ranges widely across the question of what is to be taught, for what reasons

Editors'

Introduction

3

and by what means. This is followed by a paper by Crombie and Parker on intonation in English. The authors make a number of suggestions about the primary function of tone and 'key' (i.e. relative pitch height) in Southern British English. René Dirven's paper describes the attitudes of Southern African linguists towards languages and language policies in South Africa. Jan Firbas offers an analysis of part of the gospel according to John on the basis of the Praguian theory of functional sentence perspective. Jacek Fisiak's article describes the voicing of initial /{-/ in English in the 15th century on the basis of onomastic evidence. Leslie A. Hill, in his paper on the problem of the *unable lexicographer, calls for the compilation of a special kind of collocational dictionary to deal with cases where false analogy can easily produce unacceptable English. In the following papers, William F. Mackey describes recent developments in English word-formation and looks at what they may entail for the typology of English, while Wilga M. Rivers looks at the ways in which the vocabulary of a foreign language can be acquired. Brian Tiffen's paper is a study of the intelligibility of Nigerian English. John L.M. Trim discusses the changes in the status of RP, both in Britain and internationally, which demand a fundamental re-assessment of the aims and methods of pronunciation teaching. Finally, Sidney F. Whitaker in his article tries to trace the causes of the difficulties French speakers have with English coming and going. The two papers in the last section are concerned with Language education and culture. Other papers, for example that by H.G. Widdowson, might have been included here too. The paper by Reinhold Freudenstein reports on the results of a seminar for student teachers on peace education in the foreignlanguage classroom. In the final contribution to this volume, Bruce Pattison argues that in learning a new language cultural knowledge emerges from experience of the foreign language in action. Professor Pattison describes a number of contexts in which such experience may be gained. The book fittingly concludes with W.R. Lee's curriculum vitae and a select list of his published writings. The preparation of this volume involved the participation of many people: their names are given in the list of contributors at the end of the book. The production of this volume was beset with a great many difficulties, which had better not be recounted here. In view of Dr. Lee's international stature it is, however, entirely appropriate that the book is published outside the U.K.. The editors would like to express the hope that W.R. Lee, along with many other workers in the field of English Language Teaching, will enjoy the contents of this book and that it will promote further the ideals of internationalism, professionalism and scholarship that he himself cherishes so dearly. Arthur van Essen Department of Linguistics University of Groningen The Netherlands

Edward Burkart Minneola Florida USA.

Tributes

For William R. Lee: A Giant in His Field / A Man for All Seasons Mary Finocchiaro

How can I start this very brief paper with so much to say about professor William R. Lee? At eighty, he has spanned a lifetime of travels, lectures, bookwriting and conferences. He has attended and given several hundred major lectures. As president of IATEFL for over twenty years, he worked tirelessly to bring prestige to the Fédération internationale des professeurs de langues vivantes (FIPLV), an organization which flourishes even today. My ill health for this past year and a half has made it difficult for me to write what I feel about this brilliant, indefatigable, incredible man. In my thoughts, I always put him among the greats - close to Palmer, Hornby and Louis Alexander in Great Britain and Fries in the United States. His lifetime of commitment in IATEFL, the FIPLV and TESOL International is known to many. As head of IATEFL, he prepared annual conferences to which he invited other conference speakers. He spent nights and weeks travelling and he never gave a trite speech. He revised remarks and gaffes that he knew should be changed. His spoken language was incredibly cultured, a joy to his listeners at all times. I have known Bill Lee for over twenty years. I saw him leading classes in Greece, Great Britain and in Italy. He was a wonder to watch and to listen to. He was tireless at all times jumping from London to Czechoslovakia. I remember when he walked into a large classroom in Athens with noisy youngsters who hung on his every word, who sang with him or recited with him. He jumped over seats at the age of sixty with never a pause. I remember when twenty years ago he invited a speaker to London from Jamaica, who with class, dignity and aplomb, helped the large audience understand the cultural differences between whites and blacks. What a bombshell Bill launched when he finished his story (of a soccer game) by jumping in the air, literally, with the gestures he used to dramatize the differences between soccer in London and a version played in Jamaica. He said as he finished: "and you're expecting those people to understand English culture?" (I remember that he had talked of the umpire as a "voodoo" figure.) I remember when he came to Italy to give lectures and when he spoke in the USA. He and I shared one memory which we would not soon forget. I had started my introductory lecture while people were entering the auditorium. I mentioned

8 Mary Finocchiaro briefly that one of the young lecturers had spoken of my talk. One of them said: "I don't understand a word you say." I answered by saying: "Oh, what's the problem?" "Wella," she said, "we speaka de British, you speaka the American!" The audience broke into laughter. I decided not to make an issue of it. But Bill Lee, sitting in the audience, introduced his lecture by saying "I must apologize, I speaka de British." I wish for Dr. William R. Lee many years of health and glory. He deserves every one of the tributes found in this book.

A Leeward Look Vaughan James

Reminiscing the other day with a central European English teacher of some stature, I asked when she had first encountered the work - or the person - of Bill Lee. She thought for a while and then said that she could not recall any particular, dramatic moment. "The point about Bill Lee," she said, "is that he has always been there." This, indeed, provides the clue to any definition of the role of Bill Lee in EFL (or do I mean the other way round?): he is not just an influence, but a presence. Not, I hasten to add, that he has been or is without influence. On the contrary, whole generations of EFL teachers have been brought up - whether they realise it or not - on bases laid down, in whole or in part, by Bill Lee. In addition to his unrivalled enabling role as founding father of IATEFL, he has invested both the teaching and the examining of English with a sort of pragmatic balance which not all of his contemporaries or successors have been able to match. Pragmatism does not necessarily imply lack of principle, but it certainly does imply the absence of aggressive dogmatism or of the assumption of extreme positions. In IATEFL - though he might not like this phrase - Bill Lee institutionalised common sense, with all the consequences, both good and less good, that such a process seems inevitably to involve. A prophet, we are told, does not always receive his due share of honour in his own country. If such a thought ever seriously crossed Bill Lee's mind (which I doubt), it cannot have lasted more than a fleeting instant. For the world is his parish, and his followers are legion. At a time of incipient insularity, he is a genuinely international figure. For the past two decades or so we have lived through an age of pedagogical pyrotechnics, when soaring pundits have scudded across the firmament, trailing odd sparks of wisdom before disappearing beyond the clouds, sometimes with a bang, sometimes with a startling silence, and occasionally - alas! - with a legacy of damage in their wake. It has never been Bill Lee's chosen role to shoot them down. Rather has he preferred to stand with both feet planted firmly on the ground, head turning to watch as he counted them in and counted them back out again, before returning once more to the nitty-gritty of the real task in hand, practical teaching.

10 Vaughan James With never even a hint of pomposity, Bill Lee is a genuine scholar of the Daniel Jones-Gimson school of phoneticians. His standards in his own field of expertise are clear and immutable even to the point of the pernickety, though this last is quickly countered by a waggish and sometimes slightly naughty sense of humour. (He has been heard to claim a close kinship with approximately one million Chinese who share his surname. I like to think of them busily learning English to commune with their illustrious ancestor!) After his many years in the field, Bill Lee might easily be forgiven for sitting back now and relaxing, but such is not his nature. In fact, in much of his current thinking he is still ahead of the field. Perhaps because of his background in phonetics, reinforced by years of observing teachers and learners of English all over the world, he has developed an awareness of the vital importance of intonation in communication between users of English, and of the dangers that stem from ignorance of the social loading of much of the random language that learners acquire in the normless, anything-goes atmosphere of some contemporary teaching. His pioneering attempts to evolve solutions in communicable form have not yet met with the success they deserve, but as others develop them further, the ubiquitous presence of Bill Lee will continue to be sensed. And now, indeed, another major venture as Editor of the English Speaking Union journal English - a World Language - the first issue of which certainly augurs well. Is there no end to Bill Lee's energy and endeavours? Let us hope not!

IATEFL and FATEFL, the Trunk and the Branch Ray Janssens

To me Bill Lee is first and foremost the man who made his fellow English language teachers aware of the importance of getting associated. In this article I want to focus on the relationship between our respective TEFL associations, 'his', the strong trunk, the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language, and 'mine', the Flemish shoot that was grafted onto it and developed into a healthy Branch. My first meeting with Bill dates back to IATEFL's second annual conference, held from 27 to 30 December 1968 at the London Overseas Centre of the British Council and attended by about 230 teachers of English as a foreign language TEFLers in the jargon - from all over the world. The conference theme then was 'The Relationship between Ends and Means in the Teaching of English as a Foreign Language'. As far as I can remember I joined IATEFL (named ATEFL at that time) in the course of 1968. My first Newsletter (no 3!) is the February 1968 one, so I knew that Bill and his committee had founded the Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language in the spring of the previous year (1967) and that a first conference had already been held, also in London like the second one but at a different location, on 28 and 29 December 1967 under the theme 'Desire to Learn'. I was in my late twenties at that time and had gained a little more than five years of practical experience as a teacher of English as a foreign language (alongside with Dutch and German) in various Flemish secondary schools. I liked the job and the language but increasingly felt the need of breaking through the barriers of both classroom and language confinement. The news of Bill's newly founded professional club came to me like a godsend. Curious and desirous to learn, I decided to join it, go to its next London conference (it could not be too expensive, I thought, as I lived near Antwerp) and find out for myself how far it would help me broaden and deepen my views. Once inside the British Council Centre in Portland Place I soon sighted a man apparently in his late forties or early fifties, greyish hair, bushy eyebrows,

12 Ray Jarnsens dark horn-rimmed glasses and fast moving eyes, who was constantly surrounded by a cosmopolitan crowd of professionally-looking people, most of them speaking English but also other languages which sounded quite foreign to my ears. An attribute he constantly carried under his arm and pressed against his side was a bundle of papers, which, to me anyhow, made him even more conspicuous and easily recognisable as the organiser and central pivot around whom everybody and everything revolved. He was almost incessantly talking to or being talked to and in the rare moments he was not, he always seemed to be on the lookout for someone. Without much help from other participants I made out for myself that he must be Bill, or rather Dr W. R. Lee. He was. I did not speak to him on that occasion. I hardly found an opportunity to do so, and besides I simply did not dare, greenhorn that I was. But I enjoyed my first conference to the full despite the frugal accommodation, the institutional cuisine and the wintry conditions. I discovered that apart from a colleague from Ghent I was the only Flemish Belgian among the participants. This was an extra incentive to overcome my shyness, seek contact with other colleagues and hear about their work in conditions sometimes unbelievably different from my own. I also made a point of attending as many lectures as possible and let myself be instructed or entertained or even annoyed by the speakers. I did not have the nerve to take part in the post-lecture discussion ritual but admired the courage and the eloquence of those who did. I went home with a feeling of being enriched and encouraged. Above all, I realised that these feelings resulted from having spent two days in the company of colleagues of different backgrounds and levels of experience and expertise who had come together in a fascinating city at the call of an elder expert in our common field. Back home from my first international teacher conference I tackled the new scholastic year with recharged teaching batteries. Shortly afterwards I joined the newly-founded Flemish Association of Teachers (Vereniging Vlaamse Leerkrachten; VVL), a pluralistic and professional body open to teachers of all disciplines but predominantly popular with teachers of humanistic sciences and modem languages. Before long two EFL colleagues and myself received a kind request from the chairman (Lode Ureel) to seriously consider the possibility of setting up some sort of grouping of teachers of English in Flanders. With my early ATEFL experiences still lively on my mind and supported by two Anglophile colleagues, the three of us got together and made up our minds to try and risk it, i.e. found the first professional association open to all teachers of English in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, without excluding those from elsewhere who showed an interest in joining and sharing. To pay tribute to our umbrella association and to leave no doubt about its parentage we called the newcomer Vereniging Vlaamse Leerkrachten Engels (VVLE) and provided it with an English name as well: Flemish Association of

IATEFL and FATEFL, the Trunk and the Branch

13

Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (FATEFL). It was 'officially' launched on Wednesday 26 May 1971 on the occasion of a meeting held at the' Atheneum' (state secondary school) of Mortsel near Antwerp in the presence of no fewer than 35 witnessing colleagues, most of them from the Greater Antwerp area. When I consider the English version of the name of our association and also reread the main objectives discussed and laid down on 26 May 1971,1 can see clearly that IATEFL served as an inspiring and motivating force. The VVLE/ FATEFL pioneers, too, wanted to promote the teaching and learning of English as a foreign language and to focus attention on the language-learning process as a many-sided educational problem. Furthermore, they wanted to stimulate the exchange of teaching information, promote post-graduate training, encourage international contacts and be watchful of the professional interests of the EFL teacher. Right from the early beginning there was a pronounced demand for what came later to be known as teacher development, i.e. improving the skills, knowledge and attitudes of the teacher who thinks s/he can still improve professionally. So, we, the founding triumvirate, complied with our colleagues' wishes and embarked on organising a number of afternoon events to meet them. At first we tried to find and encourage colleagues from our own ranks to lead workshops or seminars alongside with the three of us. An inquiry made it quite clear that audiences could only be expected to turn up for practical advice, well-tried recipe-like pieces of methodology presented in a participatory format rather than one-way communication about theoretical linguistics. It worked. Colleagues of the first hour returned and brought other colleagues along. Within two years after our foundation we invited our first British Council guest speaker. The late Kenneth Whitty gave a talk on British education with special reference to the comprehensive school (in our own country we were going through a period of major educational reform in those days). At another IATEFL Conference in London, probably that of 1974, a colleague and I 'discovered' the English Teaching Theatre, a fresh educational drama group developed within International House London. Both of us were so enthused by their funny language sketches that we decided to invite them over for their first tour of Flanders. A rather overconfident decision, we realised once it came to funding the whole enterprise. But we pulled it off. I shall not easily forget the ETT's first evening 'concert' (as they then called a performance) in Antwerp on 16 October 1974. It drew such an unexpectedly large audience that Ken Wilson, the ETT leader, kindly proposed to put on a second show to make everybody happy. It was the first of a series of ten successful ETT schooltours organised by FATEFL and also the beginning of our tradition of educational drama performed by groups like Word & Action, The Leeds Laughing Stock Theatre Company, Passe-Partout as well as by solo artists like the late Roger Trafford, Anna Barry, Sandra Butterworth (all British), to name only these few.

14

RayJanssens

Quality educational drama has become one of our favourite activities for various reasons. Groups or solo performers can be booked throughout our (small) country and are therefore an excellent means to spread our activities. An enjoyable performance of a high professional and artistic standard is a welcome break from daily classroom routine and helps to expose learners to a maximum of live English. To the creative teacher or class it can boost all sorts of follow-up work. Of late we have therefore increased our offer in this line by co-sponsoring professional drama for schools at local cultural centres or theatres. Teacher education and development rather than in-service training are fields in which a professional organisation can be of service to its members and realise its potential. As to speakers and workshop leaders, we of FATEFL have always tried to recruit a balanced mix of experts from both inside and outside the association, English-speaking or not. In line with our basic objectives we have constantly tried to put special emphasis on contact with live English. In the mid-seventies FATEFL gradually established friendly links with both The British Council and The American Library (later renamed The American Cultural Center) in Brussels. In August 1973 our association became the Flemish Branch of IATEFL with around 35 members. From then on it became much easier to widen and increase our international contacts. Our own activity, our links with established professional bodies and our Branch status within IATEFL helped to build up our reputation so that we became accepted as partners by teacher training departments of universities and colleges of education and other institutions active in the field of education, including publishing houses. From the earliest days we had run a modest Newsletter mainly to inform our members of our activities and of other events taking place in our field. Publishers, first Flemish later increasingly foreign, began to send us their ELT publications for inspection or review. This developed into two Newsletter features: a list of Publications Received and Book Reviews. The initial trickle of books grew constantly and bulged out into a continuous stream reaching a peak flow during my review editorship of the IATEFL Newsletter (October 1987 to December 1988). It is true that apart from the Newsletters of English language teaching associations there remain sufficient other outlets for reviews but ours still carries a Reviews section and it is pleasant and encouraging to see how a small but active team of reviewers take charge of it. Thanks to our links with other European ELT Associations it has become possible to negotiate the reproduction of interesting articles from their Newsletters. As a result we were able to revamp content and style of our own quarterly and to offer our readers greater variety and more value for their money. In the autumn of 1988 our collection of books and materials had outgrown the premises kindly provided by our umbrella association, the Flemish Associ-

IATEFL

and FATEFL, the Trunk and the Branch

15

ation of Teachers. We were happy to find the Teacher Training Department of Antwerp University (UIA) willing to take the collection over on a long-term loan basis. All our precious possessions are now stored in a fully automated university library to whose kilometre-long shelves FATEFL members have access for a small annual fee. Like IATEFL, FATEFL caters principally for teachers at all levels. But unlike IATEFL, FATEFL operates at grassroots level and can, therefore, more directly cater for students/pupils as well. Up till now we have co-sponsored (with our umbrella teacher association) a number of broadsheet pamphlets specially written for students. The first was a TIMES article on Belgium and Belgians adapted for classroom use by two colleagues. The most successful (over 15,000 copies sold thus far) was a specially commissioned brochure on the USA. This diptych-like classtext consists basically of two longer essays, one in Dutch by a journalist and an authority on the USA, and one in American English by my first exchange student. Comprehension and discussion questions, additional feature texts and topics for talks are also included. Our most recent venture in this line, 'Cities of Flanders', was offered as a complimentary copy to all participants of the Westende conference of IATEFL/FATEFL in 1987. It is gratifying to see that many of our seminars/workshops are attended by sizeable groups of trainee teachers and their trainers. A party of fifteen trainees attended IATEFL's Warwick conference (1989) and took part in the enjoyable National Evening, an initiative of the late Ray Tongue, at that time still Treasurer of IATEFL. A FATEFL service specially aimed at school classes is the provision of British or American-born guest speakers. Some time before 1987 FATEFL's proposal to join forces with IATEFL for the organisation of the annual conference was accepted by chair and committee. The 21st International Conference was held from 12 to 14 April at the Zon en Zee Holiday Centre in Middelkerke-Westende on the Belgian coast. It was our biggest large-scale event till now. 820 participants from over 30 countries took part in about 235 sessions, in every respect a record number for a conference held outside the UK. Many will remember it as the 'beads conference' as the traditional meal tickets were replaced here by colourful beads. A FATEFL organising team of ten assisted by many volunteers along with Brenda Thomas and Monique Fisher of the IATEFL central office prepared and ran the conference. It was not favoured by nice weather and outside the otherwise attractive centre looked more like a building site. But despite unavoidable organisational imperfections, the conference itself was a success and our share of its profit put us on Easy Street. For the first time in our brief history a Minister of Education turned up to give an opening address and thus got a chance to convince himself of the size and truly international dimension of the whole event. New in the history of IATEFL conferences was the publication of a collection of 36 con-

16 Ray Jarnsens ference papers by the Linguistic Agency of Duisburg University (Germany) in 1988, an initiative of Professor R. Dirven, one of our members. Of all our objectives formulated at the founding meeting of IATEFL the one about "being watchful of the professional interests of the EFL teacher (in Belgium)" has proved the most ambitious and also the most frustrating. We could have known this in advance! The intention behind the words was to try and have a say in the political debates about our profession in general and the teaching of English in particular. Although we have never wanted to interfere with existing teacher unions we considered it our duty to voice any criticisms or fears we had so that education authorities and politicians could hear us. So, when in the early seventies and within the framework of a major educational renewal, the choice between English and French as the second school language was introduced, we campaigned vigorously but with limited means in favour of English. With very little success, I am sorry to say. September 1989 was the start of another statewide introduction of a new, more uniformed type of curriculum into all secondary schools. But as the new curriculum allowed them to fill in a small proportion of the first year timetable with their own needs or preferences, the state schools decided to include EFL as a compulsory subject in the first year curriculum. The Catholic schools, however, did not, and made it compulsory only from the second year! You may think this must be an example of Belgian educational logic, and you are right! Again FATEFL reacted collectively against this pointless difference and pleaded strongly for the inclusion of English (the world's lingua franca, according to the experts) in the first year curriculum of both school types, and preferably for three periods a week. Alas, with no result. The fact that we are a small (350 members) organisation open to all and therefore not linked up with any of the established educational authorities is a serious handicap in political (and other) matters. I admit that organising a wide variety of events for the benefit of fellow teachers and their pupils/students has proved much more gratifying than trying to influence political decision makers. Among our most successful achievements I reckon our one-week teacher training courses in conjunction with leading British EFL language schools. And yet, interest began to wane after the sixth course. Again our independent and pluralistic status proved to be counter-productive. Most colleagues who joined such a course had to pay it out of their own pockets simply because most principals did not acknowledge FATEFL as an established organisational body. As a result of this waning of interest in the mid-eighties we decided to give the short teacher-training course a rest and to change over to study tours of Britain on a (cheap) bed and breakfast basis. With this formula (basically a combination of cross-cultural understanding and language input) we aimed

IATEFL and FATEFL, the Trunk and the Branch

17

principally at interested colleagues and their families. It proved a good gamble and as we do not limit registrations to practising teachers we were able to build up a core party of reliable and interested travellers. Participants appreciate their stay with well-chosen families (selected by a travel agent specialised in this field), receive an extensive travel brochure compiled by ourselves and are exposed during each trip to as much live English as possible. Next year we hope to take our sixth party across on a jubilee trip! In 1988 the Danish Centre for European Education approached our umbrella organisation, the Flemish Teachers' Association (VVL) with an invitation to cooperate in a Danish-Flemish jobswop project. Five teachers, two of whom were also members of FATEFL, spent a fortnight in various places in Denmark teaching the classes of Danish counterparts who were simultaneously taking over from them in Flanders. Danes and Flemings alike reported that they found this a very enriching experience. Both national groups have remained in friendly contact ever since and I would very much like to see this jobswop project develop further with European LINGUA support. Although both voluntary organisations, structurally and managerially IATEFL is a giant and FATEFL a dwarf. Surprising though it may be, FATEFL has so far had never more than two non-elected officers, i.e. a chairman and a secretary. Unlike IATEFL, FATEFL has no permanent secretariat, no Rules, no AGM, no elected steering committee, no Special Interest Groups, no Branches or Affiliates. Of course, we do have a (non-elected) steering committee of ten who among themselves share the responsibility for the objectives and take charge of the different tasks to be carried out: running the association on a day-to-day basis, membership administration, funding, editing the quarterly Newsletter, educational drama, resource centre, public relations, study tours, etc.. It has proved possible to run it for nearly twenty years with about fifteen colleagues actively involved in the management. Yet, as time passes by, succession and rejuvenation will become unavoidable. In the present climate of poor job prospects for young teachers, general apathy and inertia, it will not be an easy job, I am afraid. In the early nineteen eighties IATEFL changed their approach to electing officers and committee members to increase member participation and to encourage internationalisation. Organising elections means yet another serious investment in voluntary time and endeavour but they are worth the effort if a teacher association wants to remain active, progressive and outward-looking. My six years as an elected member on the IATEFL committee has strengthened this conviction. And if we want FATEFL, our own association, to continue as an active, service-oriented professional organisation, I think we shall have to follow this example. Most EFL teachers of the world do not belong to an international association like IATEFL or a national one like FATEFL. Leaving apart all those who simply

18 RayJanssens have no choice, I suppose that apathy and individualism are two major reasons for not joining. This, our time is the time of collective egoism. It is sometimes frustrating to see how small the turnout is for an EFL event which, from the organiser's point of view, was to be interesting and useful. Yet, unity is strength and together we know and can do more than by ourselves alone. Actually, I can only speak as one who from an early stage in his career felt the need of contact, exchange, cooperation and team work and who has devoted innumerable hours to running a teachers association. The sum total of what I have learned and experienced during all those years in two English language teaching associations (ELTAs) I cannot calculate or measure. It is simply enormous and it has helped me considerably to develop from an insecure into a more confident and experienced teacher. Whether a teacher association is highly structured or not, it just cannot exist without a driving force: someone who is prepared to devote a great deal of time and energy to it and who can convince others to join in and share. Bill Lee is such a hard, inspiring worker and it is as such that I shall always remember him. As to the TEFL future, it looks hopeful. European TEFL contacts will probably become easier and more frequent now that both the Iron Curtain and the Wall have come down. NELLE (Networking English Language Learning in Europe) was launched in Osnabriick in 1989 and at the time of writing is preparing its second conference. It will attract, I hope, many East European colleagues who have so far been unable to meet colleagues from the West at conferences. As to Bill Lee, I feel sure he is happy with this evolution towards increased professional contacts and mutual understanding and respect. By setting up an ELTA or joining it, colleagues pay tribute, many of them unaware, to the man who set the shining example and who therefore deserves their and our gratitude.

Teaching and teacher training

The Proper Study of ELT Gerry Abbott

Thanks to the rapidly-growing power and range of the electronic media, many people in Europe and the United States have become knowledgeable and concerned about distant problems and global issues - about famines in Ethiopia, popular uprisings that failed in Burma and China but succeeded in the Eastern Bloc, and environmental phenomena lethal to thousands of blameless species and potentially catastrophic to Homo sapiens. This paper is a plea, not that ELT syllabuses and materials should include such topics (this has already been done here and there) but that academic and executive authorities in ELT should cultivate a similarly global awareness within their professional sphere. It has been the experience of spending well over half of the past decade in distant places (Borneo, Pakistan, Cameroon and Burma) that has prompted the writing of this paper. Becoming increasingly disturbed by the inappropriateness of many of the current ELT orthodoxies in these settings, I began to consider possible causes of the mismatch. One general feature of ELT movements in the last two decades has been a reluctance to come to terms with the realities of schooling. Admittedly, the complex responsibilities of education to (and for) such social evils as unemployment, underdevelopment and elitism have constituted a massive problem. Coombs (1968) long ago identified a 'world educational crisis', and the 'education dilemma' (Simmons ed. 1980) is still with us. It seems to me that instead of facing the problems of schooling squarely in an attempt to contribute towards a solution, ELT has been focusing on the far less problematic concerns of post-school instruction. The seminal work of Wilkins (1973), for instance, was the outcome of a commission to establish 'a model for the definition of adult language needs' (my emphasis) - the needs of people working across national borders. The resultant 'Treshold Level' specification (Van Ek 1975) was merely copied when a specification for schools was needed (Van Ek 1976), the covert assumption being that schoolchildren's needs were the same as workers' needs. Indeed the ESP boom itself, with its craze for detailing these so-called 'needs' may well have been a corporate expression of relief: here was an opportunity to set aside the awkward fact that most schoolchildren have no clearly predictable needs at all and may even regard their EFL lessons as TENOR, the Teaching of English for No Obvious Reason (Abbott 1981). Basic problems concerning

22 Gerry Abbott educational purpose and motivation have been left unaddressed as a consequence, but will have to be dealt with sooner or later. Meanwhile there is a far more tangible problem to tackle, if we are to correct the mismatch. Teaching is an art of the possible - one does what one can in the circumstances; and normal circumstances have been too little taken into account. It is thirty years since West's Teaching English in Difficult Circumstances was published, and nothing comparable has appeared in that time. Nolasco and Arthur (1988) deal with one aspect of 'difficulty' - the large class - but regard a class of 45 as large, when in fact in Africa and Asia classes of 60-odd are usual, pre-university classes in Pakistan are often 100 strong, and some of my colleagues in Burma had classes of double that size. I am not suggesting that these huge classes are of 'normal' size (though locally they are treated as such) but on the other hand classes of less than two dozen are in my own view abnormally small. In any case, what may matter more than numbers is overcrowdedness, lack of access to individual students. If the proper study of teaching is normal teaching, why is it that so little of the advice purveyed to the world's teachers of English is drawn from careful observation of lessons taught in normal circumstances, and so much of it derives from pre-school, out-of-school and post-school language acquisition and use? More or less indignant schoolteachers in many countries have raised this question with me in one form or another. Their collected reproaches in summary read like this: "We teachers are constantly caught between the pressures of professional advice and the rigid structure of our national system of schooling. The system imposes large classes, but the pedagogical experts say: "Individualize!" For the kids in my classes, English isn't the natural medium for communication, but the sociolinguists say: "Communicate!" And our school-leaving exams demand correct English, but the psycholinguists seem to see nothing wrong in 'interlanguage' which, as far as I can see, means 'wrong English'... On in-service courses, I've heard the lecturers quoting sociolinguists who've studied who says what to whom and why and how and when, in all sorts of settings except in classes like mine. I've listened to them explaining the woric of psycholinguists who've studied how infants acquire their first language, how young children acquire two languages in bilingual settings, how brain-damaged adults use and respond to language - everything, it seems, except how all the lively teenagers crammed into my classroom leam or don't learn the English I'm trying to teach them."

As a composite tirade, this may sound unreasonable and prejudiced, but it contains several grains of truth, and to object that this truth applies to the teaching of all school subjects is not to discount the problem, of course, but merely to widen it. It is true that much of the influential research and development has drawn on life outside the schoolroom. It must be added that with one or two exceptions - eg the work of Prabhu (1987), who experimented with a 'procedural' syllabus - it has almost all been conducted in North America or Britain; which brings me to my main point.

The Proper Study of ELT

23

The growth of what I call, for want of a better word, 'anglocentrism' is a noticeable and perhaps pernicious aspect of ELT today. Rather than attempt to define the term, I prefer to allow its meaning to become clear in what follows. The 'communicative' movement may now have had its day but, looking back, it seems to me that it evolved in settings in which most if not all of the following conditions obtained: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

The setting was European or North American. The learners were fairly well motivated. The classes were small - not often larger than two dozen. The learners were of post-school or end-of-school age. The classroom was spacious, weatherproof, fairly soundproof and provided with light movable furniture and an electricity supply. (6) The teacher had access to a duplicator - even a photocopier, often - and to a range of teacher's books and audiovisual materials. (7) The teacher had adequate and secure storage facilities. (8) The teacher was reasonably well-paid and well-trained. (9) Neither teacher nor class felt in any way limited to one textbook. (10) There was an atmosphere in which innovation was encouraged, or at least not discouraged.

The list could perhaps be extended but these ten factors are sufficient to indicate the kind of teaching context I have in mind, a typically 'anglocentric' one. The more a teaching syllabus, a piece of teaching material or a teaching method assumes that these conditions obtain, the more anglocentric I judge it to be. From the global viewpoint that I am advocating, this set of circumstances can be seen as highly privileged; in fact the opposites of those ten items could well form the basis of a checklist for any ELT administrator, teacher-trainer, syllabusmaker, textbook-writer or academic wishing to cater for the vast majority of teachers and learners of English rather than for the privileged minority. I say 'the basis of a checklist' because I would also want to include other constraints, especially cultural ones. Because it is the European/North American sphere of ELT that is dominant, 'communicativeness' itself being an anglocentric product, some ELT practitioners have felt themselves involved in a kind of creeping cultural imperialism in which inappropriate changes are made without due thought. It was in an attempt to keep up with the anglocentric Joneses, for example, that the Malaysian government hastily introduced the notorious English 122 Communicative Syllabus - immediately dubbed by the schoolteachers 'the Shocking Pink Syllabus' because its cover was pink and its contents a shock to the entire teaching force. Innovations such as this one need to be presented to teachers gradually and with a sympathetic understanding of

24 Gerry Abbott the context (see eg Abbott 1987). In this case, the students had a shock, too: in the first administration of the examination, about 97% failed English! At this moment, millions of children are (rightly or wrongly) studying English in vast rural areas of the globe, where English is seldom heard and few teachers can speak it well. Yet in the capital cities, Ministries of Education have felt obliged to establish spoken communication as the main syllabus requirement, despite the fact that more powerful arguments can be adduced for reading as a basis. With reference to Bengal, such a case was made more than seventy years ago (West, 1926) but forgotten in the post-war climate of audiolinguallism and never seriously reconsidered. As with syllabuses, so with books. Of several hundred textbooks presented by The British Council to Mandalay University, many reflected only the affluent world of southern England, a frenetic world of over-loud discos, overstocked supermarkets, overfed pets and overcrowded motorways - material totally unsuitable for my undernourished students. The methods advocated in books for teachers were largely anglocentric, too. My colleagues read that language errors were developmental and would disappear in time without the need for correction. What is true of child language in (say) a bilingual programme in California was certainly not true of our learners' English in Upper Burma. One or two such books, eg Revell (1979) advocated 'warming-up exercises' and body-language activities that would have been excruciatingly embarrassing if there had been enough classroom space to carry them out. (Incidentally I have come across British and American teachers who, while claiming to be 'learnercentred' in approach, nevertheless complained that their Japanese students and colleagues refused to participate in such activities.) I shall not dwell on the fact that teachers' books with 'communicative' or 'communication' in the title list many activities that depend on the provision of handouts or cards which most schools cannot afford, and on a freedom of movement which most classrooms do not allow; nor shall I embark upon the problems of assessing 'communicative' language proficiency in schools, which would take too long to elaborate here. There is, however, another matter which the proper study of ELT should take into account in any serious attempt to span the gap between Bournemouth and Borneo, or Berkely and Burma, a sort of communication gap consisting of three chasms that have to be crossed by anyone attempting to improve the teaching of English. The first is an individual barrier, and is simply the result of a more or less deliberate distancing of oneself as a teacher from a given innovation. In-service teacher-trainers everywhere are familiar with this tendency to dismiss novel approaches; but the less privileged the teacher's circumstances, the greater the

The Proper Study of ELT

25

tendency on the whole to reject anglocentric ideas, I would suggest. The second obstacle is an appearance/reality rift, a socio-political feature more pronounced in Third World countries than elsewhere: it is the maintenance of an official version alongside an actual state of affairs. In Burma great efforts are made to hide all unpalatable educational facts from outsiders; and some of the vast differences between the actual and the official in African primary schools are dramatically and touchingly described by Hawes (1979). The third yawning gap is temporal: it is the lapse of time between the heyday of an anglocentric approach and its appearance in a distant classroom. This time-lag can be lengthy. On arriving in Vietnam in 1978 I found that the prevailing ELT ideas and practices were those current in Thailand when I had begun to teach there twenty years earlier, and in the Burma of 1988 it was wise to set one's ELT watch back thirty years before tentatively introducing some more recent developments. I believe that these three facts of life - disinclination, disinformation and disconnection - are interrelated and that they constitute an understandably negative reaction to anglocentric ELT proposals seen on distant territories as exotic, as impracticable, as inappropriate to local circumstances. Between the small technologically enhanced centre and the vast underpriviledged periphery, this methodology gap is probably widening. If what I have said so far is in the main true, what can be done? It is one thing to describe, as I have done above, the ELT situation as I see it: answering my own question is quite another matter. Clearly we must begin by acknowledging the global facts. Just as we are often reminded that most of our fellow human beings are illiterate, poor, hungry, without a supply of clean water and so on, so we must remind ourselves first that the vast majority of those learning English are children in the state schools of less developed countries. As I suggest elsewhere (Abbott, forthcoming), a crude model can be made by starting with

Imagined as fitted together on a triangular base, these will form a solid model, an 'ELT tetrahedron', which might serve as a starting-point. It could be thought of metaphorically as a mountainous iceberg, only the very pinnacle of which is

26 Gerry Abbott acknowledged. A proper study of the three facets would no doubt include complex philosophical and political issues, eg: 1: education versus training 2: egalitarianism versus elitism 3: exploitation versus development Few of us in the anglocentre of ELT are qualified to pursue such issues very far, but at least the implications of our tetrahedron may help us to maintain a sense of proportion by constandy bearing in mind the impoverished working conditions of nine-tenths of our profession. We may further remind ourselves that the current of ELT information flows almost entirely from the centre to the periphery, and that anything that could be done to equalise the flow would be welcome. Perhaps such bodies as The British Council and the Center for Applied Linguistics could ask some experts to come from the periphery to address us, for a change; and perhaps IATEFL, TESOL and other professional associations could earmark one plenary session for such a purpose every year. (If it were discovered that no suitable candidates could be found, we would have to ask ourselves why. Because no such candidates existed? Surely not. Because we were looking for the wrong sort of person? Very probably.) Perhaps, too, The British Council and other national agencies could be persuaded to set up more English-teaching posts in schools, rather than in Ministries of Education and universities, in order to ensure that the anglocentre will have a small supply of experts who know from experience what can and cannot be usefully done in normal circumstances. Perhaps. But I have no slick answers to my own questions, and prefer to end by reporting two little anecdotes which have very recently contributed to my unease about anglocentrism. Last summer, on our Masters degree course for experienced teachers of EFL/ESL, I gave a small group a practical assignment which required them to imagine that they were secondary school teachers armed with blackboard, set textbook and nothing else. My view was that these European teachers might soon find themselves involved in the inservice training of schoolteachers, perhaps in an underprivileged setting, so they might as well consider the constraints of such a setting now. Their attitude was that this assignment had nothing to do with their 'needs' since their own teaching environment bore no resemblance to the one specified. Their angry reaction was startling and since they were paying customers, I was reluctantly persuaded to modify the assignment. In retrospect, I wonder: Was I just being old-fashioned? Were they being anglocentric? Or what? The second anecdote is very brief. On returning to Manchester from distant lands, I developed with a colleague the outline of a new 25-hour elective module

The Proper Study of ELT

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for our Masters programme; its aim is to raise and to tackle the problems of teaching in the underprivileged situations that most of our profession operate in. Most of our students hail from Third World countries; yet to date not one student - overseas or British - has signed up for that module. I think anglocentrism is contagious.

REFERENCES Abbott, G. 1981. "Encouraging communication in English: a paradox". English Language Teaching Journal 35/3. 228-230. Abbott, G. 1987. "Introducing communicative activities gently to reluctant teachers". English Teaching Forum 25/3.48-49. Abbott, G. 1989. "The teaching of English in normal circumstances". SPELT (= Society of Pakistan English Language Teachers) Newsletter 5/1.24-25. Coombs, P. 1968. The World Educational Crisis. New York: O.U.P. Hawes, H. 1979. Curriculum and Reality in African Primary Schools. London: Longman. Nolasco, R. and Lois Arthur. 1988. Large Classes. London: Macmillan. Prabhu, N.S. 1987. Second Language Pedagogy. Oxford: O.U.P. Revell, J. 1979. Teaching Techniques for Communicative English. London: Macmillan. Simmons, J. (ed.). 1980. The Education Dilemma: Policy Issues for Developing Countries in the 1980s. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Van Ek, J. A. 1975. The Threshold Level. Strasbourg: Council of Europe. Van Ek, J.A. 1976. The Threshold Level for Modern Language Learning in Schools. London: Longman. West, M. 1926. Bilingualism (with special reference to Bengal). Calcutta: Bureau of Education, India. West, M. 1960. Teaching English in Difficult Circumstances. London: Longmans, Green & Co. Wilkins, D.A. 1973. "An Investigation into the Linguistic and Situational Content of the Common Core in a Unit/Credit System". Systems Development in Adult Language Learning. Strasbourg: Council of Europe.

Providing Opportunities for Learning: Teacher Training Experience 12 Antonieta A. Celani

The development of the approach to teacher training to be described in this paper derived from several factors. The first was a general feeling of dissatisfaction with what was being achieved in pre-service training courses as part of a B.A. in English in Brazil. The second factor was my involvement in an in-service training programme for ESP which relied heavily on "conscientiza9ao" 3 , reflection and self-analysis resulting from direct experience and discussion. The third factor was my interest in self-directed and autonomous learning as understood by Holec (1985; 1988) and the belief that some aspects of that concept might be applicable to a pre-service training course in which the kind of learning involved is learning to become a teacher of English. The purpose of this paper is to report on an experience in teacher training based on two assumptions: a) the educational component of a pre-service training course should take precedence over the training component; b) the educational goal can best be achieved in a context which allows for the acquisition of independence for trainees to organise their own learning.

1. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

The theoretical framework within which the experience is set is partly that of autonomous learning and partly that of "conscientiza?ao" as a necessary condition for any kind of learning. Within the context of an autonomous learning framework, learning will be interpreted as a conscious, voluntary process which will lead on to autonomy, i.e., the acquisition of the capacity to learn; it will also lead on to independence to organise one's own learning (Holec 1985; 1988). Thus providing in the title of this paper should be interpreted as meaning making available not giving or supplying. The principles propounded by the autonomous learning approach seem to best fit an educative view of teacher training as opposed to a technocratic view for a number of reasons. Among these reasons, particularly important are

30 Antonieta A. Celani responsibility for learning being put upon the learner, and the role of self-evaluation. These two features of an autonomous learning approach would seem to be instrumental in making understanding of the teaching/learning process an integral part of the training. Both these aspects, furthermore, have a crucial role to play in "conscientiza9ao", which in its turn has a crucial role to play in teacher education. It might be useful here to look at the definition of that term offered by Scott (1986:2), although he was dealing with a different context: "ensuring students understand, with their hearts as well as with their heads, why they are learning and practising the skills being taught, how they individually do so, and to what extent proposed strategies are effective and what the reading process involves."

If we substitute techniques, materials, procedures for strategies and teaching/learning process for reading process, the definition will suit a teacher training situation admirably. The key words in the definition - hearts, heads, why, how, to what extent and what - would all be relevant in an autonomous learning approach in which reflection and self-evaluation play essential roles. Autonomous learning will necessarily imply no mere absorption of information - "going through the head"; on the contrary, it will imply involvement of self in actual doing and experiencing as part of the learning - "going through the heart". If the trainees themselves are to be made responsible for their decisions regarding their practice as part of the training, it will necessarily follow that the why and how will have to be made explicit by them and not by the course tutor; most probably there will be as many why's and how's as there are trainees. To what extent refers necessarily to self-evaluation and that is strictly related to effectiveness. Consequently, trainees, within the context of autonomy, will have to be responsible for introducing into their own work those changes suggested by the results of self-evaluation. Last and foremost, what the teaching/learning process involves. This is perhaps the heart of the matter, as everything else derives from it. It seems reasonable to suggest then that an autonomous learning approach, relying strongly on reflection leading on to self-evaluation as a means of providing feedback, might be more effective than other approaches which rely more on imparting knowledge and providing models.

2. THE EXPERIENCE

Given institutional constraints, what I set out to do was to plan a training course which would include some of the characteristics of an autonomous learning approach which might be conducive to independent decision-making in practice

Providing Opportunities for Learning: Teacher Training Experience

31

teaching, deriving from an awareness of what is involved in the L2 learning process. 2.1. The teaching!learning situation The learners were Brazilian university students doing a B.A. in English with an Education component, which would enable them to teach English in secondary schools throughout the country. The teacher training course in the curriculum consists of 120 contact hours with the tutor, spread out over two semesters of 15 weeks each. Tutor and trainees meet regularly once a week for a 4 hour session. The training course also includes practice teaching which consists of observation of classes in different types of schools and of actual teaching. Each trainee is assigned a class to teach for two semesters; the course tutor is also supervisor of practice teaching. 22. Procedures adopted 1. Finding out what "received ideas" the trainees bring with them. A short questionnaire was presented for the trainees to fill in on the first meeting with the tutor. The two questions relevant to our point here were: What are your expectations regarding this course? What contribution do you think you can make to the course? In regard to the first question, what might be inferred from the answers regarding the ideas that trainees brought with them could be summarised as follows: There is one best method (and I want to learn it). There are certain good and certain bad techniques (and I want to learn them). Techniques are all important. Inexperienced teachers have to rely on commercially produced materials. One might infer that the predominant idea was that of receiving something, be it knowledge or techniques, from the tutor responsible for the course. The large number of blank answers to the second question might be interpreted as revealing a feeling of perplexity on being asked what contribution they could make. Most probably the trainees did not see themselves as producers, but only as consumers or adopters of methods, techniques, postures to be provided by the tutor, who had responsibility for imparting knowledge to them. 2. Looking for a way to change the trainees' "received ideas". By analysing the trainees' expectations it was possible to see that they might be met by a traditional syllabus following a skills learning approach. This would

32

ArttonietaA.Celani

include theories, terminologies, methods and techniques with a strong emphasis on the latter. It would offer examples of the How to teach X type and would inevitably end up by being normative and prescriptive. The prescriptions would normally be tried out more or less satisfactorily in the practice teaching. In trying to find some other direction for the course, which might make use of the trainees' creative capacity, the question asked was: How can trainees become agents for their own development? It was felt that moving from a skills learning syllabus model to a conscious awareness raising model might be more productive, given the type of training which was aimed at, i.e. educating future teachers who would also be producers, classroom researchers and adaptors. Awareness raising was contemplated particularly in relation to: a) understanding the L2 learning process; b) classroom management; c) objectives for English language learning in Brazil; d) the role of foreign language learning in individual development. This awareness raising was to be developed through reflection on direct experience in the classroom and through feedback deriving from peers and from self-evaluation. The model which suggests a heuristic approach to learning as opposed to the prescriptive approach inherent in a skills learning model. 3. Implementing the model. As there was a mismatch between what the trainees expected from the course - learning of skills - and what the tutor intended to offer - opportunities for acquiring attitudes to learning - it was felt that negotiation was imperative. So, the implementation of the model started with an initial period of negotiation and discussion of the rationale with the trainees, so as to ensure that the why referred to in section 1 was clear to and accepted by them. Once it was felt that the group was fairly sympathetic to the idea and was willing to accept the proposal, work started. The amount of lecturing on methods, approaches, theories was greatly reduced; moreover, lectures were introduced only fairly late in the course, after the experiential component, i.e., actual work in the classroom, would have established some firm grounding. The amount of observed practice teaching was also reduced, so as to give trainees plenty of opportunities for experimenting unhindered by the threatening presence of the tutor. The decrease in direct supervision was compensated for by general discussions of problems deriving from classes observed or taught. For a good part of the first semester the weekly meetings consisted of discussions of topics brought in by the trainees themselves. Sometimes the topic proposed for discussion might be related to a specific point in which a particular

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trainee required help; for instance, the suitability of a particular type of exercise or text or presentation procedure for a specific group or objective. The discussions were generally conducted on a problem solving basis, although the topics were not necessarily problems. A particularly successful experience watched or met with in the classroom might be the object of analysis in order to see what made it particularly successful. Different kinds of group dynamics were used depending on the nature of the topic under discussion. Although it was mostly the trainees' responsibility to provide the topics for discussion, the tutor would always have her own stock of topics at hand in case there might be a lull among the trainees or if as the result of class observation a particular point was felt to be in need of discussion. The weekly sessions, although apparently unplanned and erratic, in fact little by little lent themselves to the completion of a wider picture, like pieces in a puzzle. This picture was the complex wide topic of teaching/learning English as a foreign language in Brazil. It was the tutor's responsibility to ensure that the picture be completed and that the players knew why they were placing a certain piece at a certain place. This might sometimes demand several trials, but the results deriving from discussions would eventually be related to a theory and practice for L2 teaching/learning. From time to time, as suggested by the route the discussions were following, lectures would bring together the different resulting threads. In this way, the discussion sessions served as a basis for the building up of a syllabus. There was also an element of constant evaluation by the tutor, done informally, individually or collectively, at the end of a weekly meeting or after a particular activity in a meeting; after a class observed, at the end of the first semester, at the beginning of the second semester - after a month away from practice teaching - and more formally at the end of the second semester. The type of questions proposed in the more formal evaluations would always involve self-analysis and reflection. The aim of this continuous evaluation was for the tutor to have more systematic feedback on how the course was going, so as to make it possible for alterations to be made as suggested by the results of the evaluations. A few times alterations or additions were introduced in terms of topics for discussion or group dynamics; towards the end of the course a few workshops were organised around some practical topics such as types of exercises for this or that purpose or different kinds of teaching aids. Another component of the training course was the classroom-based research projects. The trainees were requested to conduct a small piece of classroombased research, individually or in pairs, using their practice teaching classes as subjects. The main objective of having this component in the course was strictly connected with the very basis of the course organisation, i.e., that reflection on experience deriving from action in the classroom leads on to a better understanding of the L2 teaching/learning process, which is the ultimate aim of a

34 Antonieta A. Celani teacher training course. Another objective would be to demystify research by involving trainees directly in it, giving them the opportunity to realise that teaching is inseparably connected with classroom-based research (Holmes, 1986). Experience involving direct action in the classroom under the trainees' own responsibility was at the very base of the course organisation. For this responsibility to be effective the tutor's presence as an observer of the work of the trainees in the classroom was as unobtrusive as possible; this meant allowing the trainees privacy at the beginning of their practice but being available if they required support. This also meant occasional visits, so as to check to what extent what was being brought into the weekly sessions for discussion reflected what was going on in the classroom.

2.3. Trainees' reactions As expected, at the beginning the trainees felt somewhat lost because of the apparent lack of direction in the course. There were no lectures, no course book, no directive; no recipes as to what to do in practice teaching, which started two weeks after the first meeting with the tutor. Some reports produced soon after the beginning of practice teaching were:4 B: "I am worried about the 'how' to give my classes (how to use the book, what kind of extra activities I could bring to my students, etc.); I do not know if this feeling of insecurity is normal at the beginning but I am a little 'afraid'. I'd like to have some instructions about 'managing' the class." C: "I think it would be interesting to stop with so many opinions for at least 2 weeks and get on more with practical guidelines given by the tutor. A few rules and ideas would be very well accepted by the whole class." On the fifth week of the course the state of perplexity seemed to be giving way to feelings of more security if not to clarity. C: "I still don't know exactly what I have gained; I feel I have learned something but I am not able to have it systematised." A: "I think that today you gave us some hints. I'm not sure right now if I'm really getting something because I think I have to teach and try to apply things you say in my classroom." Feeling the need to experiment seems to be a very positive attitude. Some trainees, however, still felt unhappy, for apparently different reasons.

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G: "I feel in a mess ... there's no planning". E: "It seems to me, that teaching is not something that will possibly bring pleasure some time, but only problems. It is a little distressing." Would it be the case that too much emphasis was being put on unsuccessful experiences or that at that particular moment some systématisation was needed? Comments such as those provided useful information for the tutor to reestablish a balance in the weekly sessions. The important role played by peers also became apparent in this first evaluation, in terms of psychological support. B : "I thought that all those terrible things (bad experiences in a classroom) would happen only to me." C: "I had never before met other teachers of English with whom I could talk about teaching without feeling shy or embarassed and it's very important to . . . . >» me. Little by little, half way through the course, an awareness of the aims of the course and its underlying rationale seemed to become apparent: C: "What I like most in these meetings is the opportunity of discussing our problems, the ones that arise from our PRACTICE (and which have made me so anxious)..." E: "... you've been asking 'key questions' and through them we can think about our daily teaching problems from a wider perspective." Two excerpts might be sufficient to illustrate the general feeling of the group at the end of the course: D: "Now I think I'm feeling much more confident. I think I'm more aware of the things I should do in order to try to give good classes. By good classes I mean those when I can perceive that my students are really motivated and they really seem to enjoy them. I feel more confident also in relation to my own ability in preparing teaching materials. I was too tied to the book, but now I think I can teach using extra materials together with the book." A: "I may say that I've become a more 'critical' teacher. Now I stop and ask myself questions such as: 'What did I do that went wrong?' or even ... 'What did I do that made my class a success?' I try to

36

AntonietaA.Celani look back and find out things about myself and about my students... Teaching is a challenge and that's what makes me a better teacher day after day."

The examples above refer to the trainees' self-evaluation at different moments of the course. They are the result of self-analysis and introspection as to what changes were taking place in their development as teachers. They seem to express feelings which are the result of changes brought about by maturity resulting from an awareness of the nature of their work as teachers; sometimes peers contributed to these changes, sometimes the tutor apparently had had a role to play in bringing about those changes. In regard to the evaluation of the course as a whole, the trainees' perception seems to match what the tutor had set herself as the objective for the course. Here are some examples: "The tutor's role was not normative, perhaps to the frustation of many (me included?) who expected a straightforward answer and heard: 'What do you think? I expected to learn application and I learned reflection.'" "I see as the objective of the course ... giving us ideas to be reflected upon, compared and put into practice, in order to see if they work or not; making us able to analyse why and to try to look for possible changes. This can be done through classroom-based research."

3. EVALUATION OF THE EXPERIENCE

Given the organisation of the course, which the trainees had agreed with, there was a need for them to take decisions independently in regard to making choices, planning activities, deciding upon how to handle students, preparing extra materials without a directive provided by the tutor. The responsibility for teaching the class assigned to them was theirs. The psycho-social problems were dealt with and minimised by the support offered by the tutor and by peers. Very soon the trainees were exchanging information and discussing experiences in the use of materials or techniques or special devices to teach this or that. A dynamic view of teaching in which nothing is seen as final, definitive, was becoming apparent. This can be interpreted as having resulted from the acceptance of self-evaluation as an integral part of both learning and teaching. Direct experience with responsibility supported by discussions with peers and tutor ensured that the trainees understood the nature of the work that they were involved in first of all with their hearts. Lectures, specially assigned readings, discussions made them understand with their heads, very often after experiencing had taken place. Reflection and self-evaluation ensured that they

Providing

Opportunities for Learning: Teacher Training Experience

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understood why and how they were taking certain decisions or were managing a particular teaching operation in a particular way. The experience has shown that given adequate support it is possible for trainees to go through an initial period of anxiety caused by an apparent lack of direction and to emerge safely tempered by independent decision taking and by reflecting upon those decisions. In this educative view of teacher training the trainees are seen as human beings with a potential for constructing their own learning, as agents of their own development. The tutor's role is to provide, to make available opportunities for that to happen.

NOTES 1. 2.

3. 4.

I thank my colleagues Rosinda C.G. Ramos and Heloisa Collins for their helpful comments on the first draft of this paper. This paper is an expanded version of an interim report on the initial phase of the experience, presented at a round-table on Providing Opportunities for Learning at the vm Encontro Nacional de Professores Universitdrios de Lingua Inglesa (ENPULI), Brasilia, July 1988. 'Conscientiza^ao' is the term used by Paulo Freire (1972) in connection with his work in literacy. It has been used since then in a variety of contexts linked to the idea of awareness raising. No alterations have been made to language or style in these quotations from the trainees' reports.

REFERENCES Freire, Paulo. 1972. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Holec, H. 1985. "On autonomy: some elementary concepts". In: P. Riley (ed.) Discourse and Learning. London: Longman. 173-190. Holec, H. 1988. L'autonomisation de Vapprenant: incidences sur les riprisentations de I' apprentissage. Mimeo. Holmes, John L. 1986. "The teacher as researcher". Working Papers 17. S3o Paulo: Centra de Pesquisas, Recursos e Informa^ao em Leitura (CEPRIL), Catholic University of Sao Paulo. Scott, Michael R. 1986. "Conscientiza?ao". Working Papers 18. S3o Paulo: CEPRIL, Catholic University of Sao Paulo.

The Importance of Understanding Reginald A. Close

Dr. Lee, at the age of eighty, has reached a venerable milestone in a career of outstanding service to English language teaching. Having already passed that stage in life myself, I trust I may be allowed to offer this tribute to him and to do so in the form not of one more academic study on the mysteries of our profession but of an essay into the philosophy of it. In his book The World of Dew, the poet D.J. Enright, who taught English with wit and understanding in Egypt, Japan, Berlin, Thailand and Singapore, describes language as "that greates of all means without an end". From long personal acquaintance with him, I would say that his witticism is the reaction of a creative writer and teacher of literature who prefers the living tree of language to its dead and broken-off branches or to an artificial language built up from grammar books by pedagogues. The phrase I have quoted is of course hyperbole, to be taken not too seriously, yet seriously enough. Language has plenty of ends, one of which, as we have been told so often in recent times, is communication between human beings, and that is a very worthy aim, so long as something helpful and valuable is being communicated. Learning a language for its own sake is a worthy object; while enabling other people to leam a foreign tongue effectively so that they can put it to good advantage when and as they need to has an end that not even a professor of literature should deny. Nevertheless, Enright's paradox merits consideration. It serves ro remind us that although research work of immense importance has been done on the English language in the present century, a great many books have been written and conference papers composed on the subject that will not survive into the next. Enright's phrase is an epigram, its tail reminding us that as in every walk of life it is a good idea for teachers of English to know where they are going. In a slighdy modified version (published in 1960 in English Language Teaching} of which Dr. Lee was an inspiring Editor) of a paper read at the Conventus Romanus Conference held in Rome the year before, Professor Paul Christophersen wrote: "The Middle Ages in Europe possessed something of which we today are greatly in need - an international language". He was of course referring to Latin and goes on to say, "The language that offers the best prospect of becoming the international medium of our age is English". By now the last part of that quotation has become a commonplace. However, in a century that has seen two world wars and has been for a long time under the threat of a

40 Reginald A. Close third, more terrible one, what many of us feel the need of is not merely a lingua franca but also a medium of international understanding, not so much in the realm of inter-governmental politics as at the level of ordinary human intercourse. Certainly I have felt that need for over three quarters of a century: the outbreak of the first world war in August 1914 made a lasting impression on me at the age of five. It left me with a sense, at first vague but growing clearer and firmer with the years, of the importance of that kind of understanding. That is probably what Otto Jespersen meant when he said, at some early point in his life, that teachers of language can do more to promote the peace of the world than all the conferences at The Hague. One of the most notable features of the meetings of the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language, which owes so much to DR. Lee, its founder and first Chairman, is the harmony that has developed among its multi-national membership, a spirit which its members could not have failed to pass on to their classes. The Importance of Understanding is the title of a book by the Chinese philosopher Lin Yutang: that too appeared in I960. 2 The book is actually an anthology of the author's own translations of Chinese poetry and prose. The relevance of its tide to its contents is made clear in the preface, particularly in this sentence: "Reading of the best kind always gives that understanding of life and of oneself'. Lin Yutang sees the reading of good books as a preparation for the understanding of human nature, human experience and humanity at large, and as a way to that understanding throughout life. Lin Yutang's was a highly cultured civilisation of literati. It was more concerned with the reading of the classics than we are likely to be in the present materialistic age in the West. Yet I wonder whether the content of the material through which many of us have been teaching the English language could not be enriched by a wider and deeper interest in human experience, by a higher cultural content. When I began teaching English as a foreign language in Hongkong nearly sixty years ago, I was expected to do so through Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. The cultural content was lofty enough but the linguistic range well out of my students' reach. Since then our profession seems to have swung - very often, but not always - to the opposite extreme; linguistic material, carefully graded by rigorous research, is now reasonably manageable by teacher and learner, but equal care seems to have been given to the exclusion of anything of literary value. Perhaps this is because classroom teaching requires that we present learners with the norm, whereas creative writing tends to require deviation from the norm. The poet Robert Frost is said to have written on the blackboard:3 The cat is in the room. I will put the cat out

The Importance of Understanding

41

Those examples of the norm might well have occurred in any structurallygraded syllabus. But the poet crossed them out and substituted: There's that cat got in. Out you get, you cat

Our problem is how to reconcile the necessity of presenting specimens of a new language in an orderly way with the need, which may be just as important, to make it evocative and memorable. Memory plays a vital role in language learning, as we all know; and language is much more likely to be remembered if it is alive and rhythmical and contains images that touch some feeling we might have had or can imagine ourselves experiencing. So Robert Frost could have told us, "There is no problem", and might have gone on to recite his own poem Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, of which I will quote only the last stanza: The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promised to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.

The language could hardly be simpler. But it touches human nature deeply. What child has never felt the instinct to shelter under cover, or, older perhaps, to explore a shady wood? What traveller along a country road, stopping, relaxed from the motion of the journey, has not enjoyed breathing the quiet air? What man or woman has not thought how wonderful it would be if only I could stay here and rest, but conscience reminds me that the day's work is far from done? Understanding those lines is not merely comprehension of the surface meaning, or ability to translate the words into another mother-tongue: more deeply it is appreciating their relation, and the relevance of their context, to experiences such as those I have just suggested. Moreover, it can become sympathy with other people affected by such experience. Having sympathy of that kind is to be understanding; and to be understanding in that way is an essential qualification for a language teacher, because otherwise he may never really find the learner's wave-length. The idea that the learner of a foreign language cannot appreciate any literature in it until he has first mastered the language in its normal market-place state is a fallacy. The rhythms and images of poetry can appeal to children who may not know the meaning of the bare words used. I have often heard how in an English language classroom words can produce that sudden stillness that tells me that the full attention of everyone has been held. That happened once in a class at the Institute of English Studies in Athens. I was dealing with the question, so familiar to teachers of English, of the forms

42 Reginald A. Close taken by the verb-phrase in conditional sentences, and had produced a crushingly dull example like "If it had rained yesterday, I would have taken my umbrella." The head of one of my students, Dimitrios Capetanakis, bowed in utter boredom. I changed the subject and somehow found myself quoting a couplet from the closing scenes of Hamlet: Absent thee from felicity awhile And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain.

The head rose as if Capetanakis had seen a great light. He had read nothing in English but The Scarlet Pimpernel, an adventure story about rescuing aristocrats in danger during the French Revolution. In a year or two, he won a scholarship to study at Oxford, and according to Edith Sitwell composed some of the best poetry written in English during the second world war. An exceptional case, no doubt. But is it not possible that on a diet of plain everyday English some of our students are starved for something that can stir their imagination and arouse their interest in the language we are trying to teach? On another occasion, I was asked by a South American university to start an English department for it, at a time when textbooks were not easily available. In fact, I could find only two that were at all suitable. One was a popular course in practical everyday contemporary English for students hoping to improve their proficiency in the language in London; the other was The Essays of Joseph Addison, an essayist of the eighteenth century. From the title, the former seemed the more appropriate; but its language was undistinguished and contained too much superficial colloquialism, of which there is no end. Its content was too insular and too remote for students in the southern hemisphere, who would not be concerned with the ways of London landladies or the pecularities of English eating habits. On the other hand, Addison's essays, despite being over two hundred years old, provided excellent models for the study of modern English sentence construction. As a contemporary of Alexander Pope, who held that "The proper study of mankind is man", Addison wrote on matters of universal human interest. Where there is common concern, mutual understanding comes more easily. "What holds English together as one language, despite local variations, is ultimately the literary tradition", wrote Christophersen in the article I quoted earlier. He saw English less as a foreign language, more and more as a second one, as Latin was at the time of the foundation of the Charles University Prague (where, if I remember, Dr. Lee and I first met over forty years ago). He saw no reason why people who use English as a second language should not do so in their own original writing and as a mode of expression for their own culture, as happened with Latin and happens today int he field of science. A language is perhaps more likely to function as a medium of international understanding if

The Importance of Understanding

43

it is common property than if its cultural associations were regarded as foreign. May I therefore as a founder member of the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language suggest that the time has come to drop the last four words from our title? If international understanding grows out of the teaching of a foreign or second language, as Jesperson foresaw, the seed is sown in the personal relationship between teacher and taught, particularly in the attitude of the former to the latter. Lin Yutang translates Han Fei (died 234 B.C.) as saying: "The difficulty in speaking to a person is not that of knowing what to say, nor that of method of argument to make one's meaning clear. The difficulty lies in knowing the mind of the person spoken to and fitting one's proper approach to it"

The late Yves Chalon, Director of the Language Teaching Research Centre at the University of Nancy, made the same point in this way: "A teacher is not one who imparts his knowledge, but one who senses what the pupil in front of him knows and needs to know".

NOTES 1.

The Importance of Understanding by Lin Yutang (copyright 1960) was published by Heinemann, London, in 1961.

2.

Paul Christophersen's article entitled International English appeared in English Language Teaching, XIV/2, April-June 1960.

3.

References to Robert Frost were taken from a broadcast talk by Professor Jack Isaacs, Queen Mary College, London, published in The Listener and reproduced by permission in The English We Use, R.A. Close, Longman 1961.

Curriculum Design for Teacher Training David Cross

A curriculum design for teacher training and education is described in this paper, in the form of a graded framework. The aim is to encourage the planning of teacher education. All too frequently, professional development for teachers is a haphazard business. Future employers (ministry) have little or no influence on the nature of pre-service education and training courses (PRESET) in colleges of education. Planned follow-up to initial training after qualification is uncommon. In-service education and training opportunities (INSET) depend on the availability, whims, interests and expertise of trainers. Inexperienced teachers are often offered the same INSET programme as more experienced colleagues. A lack of information concerning the nature and content of training programmes hampers teacher observation and counselling. The curriculum in question was devised at the Centre for Developing English Language Teaching, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt, in consultation with the Ministry of Education.1 However, the structure of the CDELT cuniculum is valid for almost any context, as is much of the content, which moves from the most elementary teaching skills and techniques to an autonomous mode of professional development. The building blocks of the curriculum are training units, or 'modules', giving flexibility as well as choice in the composition of separate syllabi. To the concepts of syllabus and curriculum, I add that of 'master curriculum'. This tripartite design, with modular units, gives trainers a considerable degree of freedom in designing courses. But, at the same time it provides coherence, systématisation, and some standardisation.2 First I should explain some terms. The 'master curriculum' is the label I apply to a sort of a centralised ideal. It represents the totality of training and educational possibilities that can or should be available nationally for teachers in a specified sector. In its entirety it suggests the target profile of the 'perfect teacher', as agreed by all advisers and trainers. It remains open. Anyone can ask for or add new training units at any time. Information about any new unit, together with materials if possible, should immediately become available to everyone. It is not a prescribed curriculum. Rather, it is a resource, a 'starter pack' for local curriculum design. The 'local curriculum' is what teachers and trainers select from the master curriculum, taking into account time available, constraints and the needs of subgroups within the sector for whom the master curriculum was designed. A

46 David Cross local curriculum for teachers in middle schools should not be the same as one for high school teachers. One for teachers in a remote region will not be the same as one for city teachers. A local curriculum offers structured training and education for a period of several years. The 'syllabus' is a limited but coherent programme with defined objectives and obvious 'surrender value' in terms of what participants will achieve. Successive syllabi should build on earlier ones. A syllabus can be viewed as a 'way stage' for teachers who are working through the local curriculum. It is covered in a comparatively short period of time, perhaps one year part-time or several days in an intensive mode. Ideally, participants would get a certificate of participation indicating the content of the programme. Certificates act as a record and profile of a teacher's professional development, as well as enhancing motivation. 'Modules' are the basic units of training. Each is self-contained, having a defined objective which is worthwhile (unit-credit system). A module can normally be covered in one training session.3 The principle of short-term gratification is important in countries where teacher attendance at INSET courses may be irregular. Although they can be used independently, modules are linkable to those which have gone before or will follow. They can be arranged, within limits, into different sequences to suit the syllabus needs of different groups. Despite different training curricula, based on analyses of needs, teachers from different backgrounds might well share occasional modules, even an entire syllabus, as they progress through their own curriculum. For example, language degree entrants with no postgraduate teaching qualification need a first year INSET syllabus similar to the PRESET one experienced by education graduates in training college. In their second year of teaching and training, these language graduates could find themselves alongside new education graduates who are beginning what for them is a first year INSET syllabus.

COMPILING THE MASTER CURRICULUM

I recommend that trainer-trainer readers try a similar workshop approach to the one explained now. It is a fascinating and most educational activity; especially if college trainers, ministry trainers and senior teachers are side by side.4 The entire exercise takes several two-hour sessions, not taking into account time spent discussing the nature of training materials. The aim is to get people who are responsible for teacher education conducting a training needs analysis, from which structured programmes can be developed. Step One. The first phase is a brainstorming one, in which participants decide the skills and knowledge areas that ought to be covered over several years of

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training and teacher education. This is best done in small groups, but with permission to 'cheat' so that they can profit from each others' deliberations. A collection of teacher handbooks is a useful resource. If time is short, participants can be given a ready-made curriculum, perhaps the CDELT one, with an invitation to add and delete items. However, it is better that they themselves identify and analyse the skills and sub-skills of teaching. Step Two. When most have finished their lists, everything is compiled on the blackboard. The CDELT curriculum could be produced at this time for comparison. If the group is composed of trainers from different countries, some training modules will be suggested (e.g. using a slide projector) which are inappropriate for colleagues in more difficult circumstances. This does not matter in the least, as a chance to remove unwanted training units will occur later. The vast majority of training needs are common to all countries, though. Teachers all over the world need to be shown how to present vocabulary, practise a grammar structure, set up pair work, make visual aids, introduce a language game, exploit a text, and so on.5 If participants prefer, curriculum items can be assigned to agreed categories at the same time, e.g.: Pedagogic Techniques Classroom Activities Management Skills Language Improvement Knowledge Areas Theory Materials Development

(conducting transformation drills, using flash cards), (using songs, developing listening skills), (involving everyone, establishing pair work), (teaching the present tenses, teaching modals), (lesson planning, testing), (behaviourism, acquisition), (making work sheets, visual aids).

What is on the blackboard by the end of this phase is the content of the master curriculum, provided the participants are from the same country and sector. If not, they quickly compile their own master curriculum by copying the units they want to include and rejecting inappropriate ones. A fundamental classroom activity in one society may never be used in another (simulation, for example). It is from this master curriculum that their trainer colleagues back home will construct local curricula. However, the participants' task is not complete. Step Three. The skills and techniques of the master curriculum are roughly sorted into levels by value. Is this an essential skill for the novice teacher (presenting vocabulary)? If so, it will be in the first level of the national curriculum. Is this a skill that is less essential for new teachers (teaching pronunciation)? If so, it can go into a subsequent level. Again, participants from different societies will have different values as far as skills are concerned. The level assigned to a module will give users a rough idea of its place in any local curriculum.

48 David Cross At the same time, participants decide whether certain training units should be made 'common core'. This means that colleges and regional centres will be obliged to include them in their syllabi. Core modules will give any needed national standardisation, as every teacher will be trained in those essential skills. Such modules should be as few as possible. The majority are left as 'optional', giving trainers a flexible resource from which to construct local curricula.6 Despite compulsory elements, there is no stifling of trainer initiative. Local trainers can always add modules of their own. However, any new modules are automatically added to the master curriculum, as optional ones. In this way, colleagues elsewhere can choose to add them to their own local curriculum if they wish. Always open, the master curriculum grows as innovation comes into the educational system. Step Four. The last task is for trainer participants to experience the *7 task of designing a local curriculum for a specific subgroup of teachers. This is something that many of them will have to teach their own colleagues to do. They need to work alone (unless a pair happens to be from the same centre) but be able to discuss their work. It is best if the elements of the master curriculum are written onto separate slips of paper. In this way optional modules can be put to one side if they are not included in this particular local curriculum. Is this a necessary module for this subgroup (testing) or one that can be discarded (teaching extended writing)? It should not take long to do this. It will leave them with the modules of a local curriculum which may be about a half to two-thirds the size of their own original master curriculum. Working with the items chosen for the local curriculum, the trainers then design syllabi, breaking down the content chosen for this local curriculum into way stages which cover a determined period of training. The units are graded into two, three, or more coherent sets. Each set represents one training syllabus for the specified group; PRESET, INSET 1, INSET 2, and so on. Common core modules will normally be in the early syllabi, given their priority rating. THE CDELT MASTER CURRICULUM

This totals 52 modules. Four are self-study guides for teachers who complete a local curriculum but wish to continue their professional development. Then there are 20 compulsory pedagogic modules and 16 optional ones. The high number of compulsory modules reflects the lack of PRESET opportunities for the target group. Finally there are what we called LIFT modules (language improvement for teachers). These, too, are optional and are 12 in number. LIFT modules cover the basic grammar needed by teachers in teaching the course books but have a pedagogic emphasis. The structure of the CDELT master

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curriculum is seen now. The contents are on a separate page.9 LEVEL

MODULES

One 8 Common Core Two 4 Common Core Three 4 Common Core Four 4 Common Core Five 4 Self Access (Total: 48 trainer dependent modules

4 LIFT

4 LIFT 4 LIFT

6 Optional Pedagogic 6 Optional Pedagogic 4 Optional Pedagogic

and 4 self-access ones)

Local INSET curricula for middle-school teachers in Egypt are built from this master curriculum by rejection and rearranging. At the very least a local curriculum could comprise just the 20 obligatory modules, perhaps covered in two one-year syllabi, done part-time. The other modules can be used if and when the trainer wishes. Most centres would cover between 6 and 10 units in each one-year syllabus in a three or four-year curriculum. This keeps a centre busy. They may have as many as four different groups, as successive waves of entrants enter at the bottom of the curriculum each year. The guidelines to trainers who are designing a series of syllabi are these: 1. Novice entrants must be taken through the eight Level One common-core modules before taking any optional modules. Where possible this is to be done at the end of summer vacations before they go into schools, so the modules act as a PRESET syllabus. 2. Remaining core modules must be included in the local curriculum, but they need not take precedence and can be put into any later syllabi. 3. Trainers should respect the levels within each module type. They should not, for example, do a Level Three optional module before a related Level Two one. Notes in the materials draw attention to any interdependence. There is insufficient space here to show examples of the range of very different local curricula which can be contrived. No two centres need have identical curricula or syllabi. Yet, they will all share the common core and respect an 'incline of value', as a consequence of the level indicators in the master curriculum. The training of non-specialist teachers, nationally, has a measure of standardisation. Classroom counselling can take into account the teacher's record of training, helping advisers identify local curriculum weaknesses and needs.

50 David Cross NOTES 1. This master curriculum was developed as an Overseas Development Aid project, 1981-4, under the leadership of Dr. Roger Bowers (British Council) and Dr. A. M. Daoud, Director of CDELT. My partner in the writing and production of the 52 training modules, was Adrian Doff. The project was for the training of non-specialist teachers of English in Egyptian middle schools. Obviously, a master curriculum for another, perhaps less homogeneous, target group, would have been somewhat different 2.

In designing this curriculum framework, I was inspired by the one used for French in my London school. After a one-year common-core syllabus, students chose 8 of a set of 12 modular units in the second syllabus. These were partly taught and partly studied autonomously. When they had built up 8 unit/credits, students were awarded a 'Level One Interpreter's Certificate*. They then began work on chosen modules from the second level, and so on through five levels. Each student, in a group of over 50, worked at his or her own pace. Some covered a level in a few months, while others took over a year.

3.

Ideally, the master curriculum for any country would, at the very least, be accompanied by trainer notes giving information and workshop ideas. A mere list of pedagogic skills and knowledge areas is not much help. The CDELT materials are in the form of self-contained packages (modules). Every regional centre in Egypt was sent all 52 packages. Each module provides 4 hours of training, in two sessions of two hours (normally covered in a half day). The package includes trainer notes, guidelines for demonstrations or workshops, OHP transparencies, worksheets, hand-outs, audio cassettes, etc. Adrian Doff has since revised a number of these modules for the international market Published by CUP, the tide is Teach English. The workshop is even more exciting when participants arefromdifferent countries as well as different sectors. The 4-stage approach described in this paper is the one used with multinational groups of trainers at the Ohio University Summer TEFL Institute in 1989 (Ohio Program of Intensive English and Department of Linguistics, Athens, Ohio 45701 USA).

4.

5.

6.

Even where trainers are from the same country, there will be differences of opinion on the content of the curriculum. Some may be working with junior university staff, others with ESP teachers, lower school teachers, and so on. Nevertheless, they should be able to agree about essential skills and knowledge areas that all language teachers should have. The notion of a compulsory core in teacher education may be repugnant to some. Personally, I see it as necessary and am astonished that 'methodologists' are allowed carte blanche in teacher education, with no accountability. Many thousands of teachers world-wide follow PRESET and INSET courses which are impractical or laigely irrelevant to classroom needs. Teachers need proper basic preparation. The central authorities (let alone parents!) have the right to know that every classroom teacher who has completed a level-one syllabus of training is able to do A, B and C. They have a right to be certain that after two years of in-service training, and despite being dependent on different training centres with different curricula, teachers all over the country can at least do D and E. The bulk of the "survival skills" core modules would, one hopes, be included in PRESET programmes. However, some have to be included in later syllabi because of a need for prior classroom experience.

7.

It should be remembered that a master curriculum is for teachers in one sector (school, college, university). Advisers who are responsible for the local training of a subgroup of these teachers will not necessarily want, or be able, to use all the modules of the master curriculum. So, at this stage of the workshop, participants should be compiling targeted local curricula from their own, somewhat different, master curricula.

8.

The self-access modules are in the form of several pages of study notes, with book references. After studying alone in regional book centres, teachers debrief with a trainer. He or she is armed with a debriefing document giving the information needed to elicit the essentials from thereader.To cover one of these modules properly might involve a teacher in reading anything up to ten books (or parts of books), so each module guides autonomous studies for as much as a year. The process of debriefing also plays a valuable trainer development role.

Curriculum Design for Teacher 9.

Training

Contents of The CDELT Master

Curriculum

LEVEL ONE COMMON CORE

Presenting Vocabulary Using the Blackboard Presenting Structures Using Dialogues

Conducting Efficient Drills Asking Questions Practising Structures Planning a Lesson

OPTIONAL LIFT

The Present Tenses Sounds and Spellings

Talking about the Future People, Places and Things

LEVEL TWO COMMON CORE

Meaningful Practice Making & Using Visuals

Exploiting a text: Listening Exploiting a text: Reading

OPTIONAL LIFT

Pronunciation: Consonants Pronunciation: Diphthongs

Pronunciation: Simple Vowels The Past Tenses

OPTIONAL PEDAGOGIC

Homework Teaching Handwriting Writing Activities

Classroom Games Introducing Reading Reviewing Techniques

LEVEL THREE COMMON CORE

Eliciting Pair work

Teaching Grammar Points Correcting Errors OPTIONAL LIFT

Modal Verbs Conditionals

The Present Perfect Tenses Stress, Rhythm & Intonation OPTIONAL PEDAGOGIC

Songs and Rhymes Communicative Activities Classroom Displays

Listening Activities Involving the Whole Class Teaching Pronunciation

LEVEL FOUR COMMON CORE

Self Evaluation Study Skills

Using English in Class Planning a Week's Lessons OPTIONAL PEDAGOGIC

Role Play Classroom Testing

Making and Using Work Cards Functions of Language

LEVEL FIVE SELF ACCESS

Speaking and Listening Classroom Practices

Written English Principles and Practices

In-Service Teacher Training and Teaching Through Activities A Progress Report from Germany1 Christoph Edelhoff

1. CHANGES THROUGH IN-SERVICE TEACHER EDUCATION AND TRAINING FOR SCHOOLS IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR

Observations and reports have in many cases shown that in foreign language learning too, everyday school life is governed by rituals, the most important of which are orchestrated by the textbook, the class register and tests. Foreign language teaching, like the teaching in other subjects, takes place in splendid isolation, following well-worn paths. Quotas are filled, elements of grammar are dealt with and ticked off, vocabulary is learnt. However, the ability actually to use the language is only acquired by relatively few of the learners, and then usually during a stay abroad, for example during a pupil exchange. Language learning in the school is all conscious, intellectual learning using the head rather than all the senses and abilities. There is a lot of writing and less and less speaking. The language is rarely actually used to do and achieve anything. The teacher asks questions and the pupils answer. Marks are given and years more or less successfully completed. There is need for a change that will renew foreign language learning and the whole system of what is to be taught and learnt. The theory behind this change and the necessary concepts are already there. The theoretical concept of communicative competence has assumed a concrete form involving the ability of intercultural understanding, learner autonomy, activity orientation and practical learning (Muller 1983, Schratz 1984, Bredella/Legutke 1985, Legutke 1988, Edelhoff/Liebau 1988). This innovation requires particular qualities and changes in teachers who have long since obtained their formal qualifications. For this reason it is in-service education and training (INSET) which is expected to produce the desired changes. In the ideal case, INSET is a highly individual, personal matter. The individual teacher educates and trains him/herself further by reflecting upon what he/she is doing professionally. His/her work is accompanied by self-evaluation, by reading, by use of the media, by professional conversations with colleagues, by active participation in cultural life and by travel - in short, by professional activity. As a result of his/her

54 Christoph Edelhoff professional work, needs become clear, e.g. the need to acquire further knowledge, to exchange views and ideas with others, to show others one's professional work and to develop this work with others. To this end, the teacher can use the available official in-service training facilities and services, be this at a local, a regional, a national or an international level. For example, he/she can attend seminars and congresses conducted by various institutions: state in-service training institutions, universities, teacher associations, academies and international organi- zations. He/she can maintain contact with the country or countries of the target language(s) and organize class letter exchanges, pupil exchanges and study trips and, in general, involve him/herself in a restructuring of school life in a way which will reflect a 'new quality in the school'. There are teachers who see their profession in this way and who can bring their own in-service education needs and wishes into line with the general need for in-service education and training - but they seem to be few and far between. The qualities that make a good teacher, so it seems, are a complex of attitudes, knowledge and practical abilities or skills which cannot be defined in the narrow terms of the subject matter, the foreign language, but only as a constant process of growth. In an earlier article I have already described the main points of 'teacher qualifications for intercultural foreign language teaching': (i) Attitudes 1. Teachers who are meant to educate learners towards international and intercultural learning must be international and intercultural learners themselves. 2. Teachers should be prepared to consider how others see them and be curious about themselves and others. 3. Teachers should be prepared to experiment and negotiate in order to achieve understanding on both sides. 4. Teachers should be prepared to share meanings, experience and affects with both people from other countries and their own students in the classroom. 5. Teachers should be prepared to take an active part in the search for the modern language contribution to international understanding and peacemaking at home and abroad. 6. Teachers should aim to adopt the role and function of a social and intercultural interpreter, not an ambassador. (ii) Knowledge 1. Teachers should have and seek knowledge about the socio-cultural environment and background of the target language community (-ies) or country (-ies). 2. Teachers should have and seek knowledge about their own country and community and how others see them.

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3. Teachers' knowledge should be active knowledge ready to apply and interpret and to make accessible to the learning situations and styles of their students. 4. Teachers should know how language works in communication and how it is used successfully for understanding. They should know about the shortcomings of language and foreign language users and how misunderstandings can be avoided. (iii) Skills 1. Teachers should have and develop further appropriate communication skills in the foreign language suitable for negotiation both in the classroom and in international communication situations at home and abroad. 2. Teachers should have and develop further text skills, i.e. the ability to deal with authentic data in all media (print, audio, audio-visual) and in face-toface interaction. 3. Teachers should have and develop further the necessary skills to connect the student experience with ideas, things and objects outside their direct reach and to create learning environments which lend themselves to experiential learning, negotiation and experiment (Edelhoff in: Baumgratz/ Stephan 1987:76ff.).

2. INNOVATORY CHANGES, THEORY AND PRACTICE

In the question of whether INSET can contribute to the bringing about of change, the relationship between theory and practice, between externally-based theoretical demands and the actual school situation, is of paramount importance. Every foreign language teacher uses theories and has his/her own theories. Admittedly, these are very often working theories (everyday popular theories) which are a mixture of more or less dogmatic principles which come from the period of study at the university, often in incomplete, fragmentary and fossilized form. For example, there is a belief that: "There are a certain number of 'if' clause types; or that English has not got a future tense"; or that "The '-ing' form must always be introduced before the simple present"; or, at the intercultural level, "The English are more polite than ..."; "The English language is more suitable for understatement...". They are the clich&i remains of broader and more systematized explanations which contain elements of truth but which are meaningless and even dangerous, pedagogically and interculturally, when taken out of context, and common sense rules of thumb, supported by 'experience', as the teacher calls it, although it is certainly not reflected experience in John Dewey's sense. In reality these are routines, which fall back on precisely those

56 Christoph Edelhoff rules of thumb on which they are based and thus bite their own tails. They bypass the process of the formation of hypotheses and proceed directly to practice in a form that restricts and limits theory. E.g.: "With this type of pupil, you just can't go into theoretical problems..."; "Secondary modern pupils simply cannot learn foreign languages as effectively...", etc. Commonplace theories of this type, which allow the teacher to retire into a position of dissatisfaction and uncertainty, a situation which is frequently the result of 'innovation' and the introduction of new theories, are often confirmed by 'officials' and by official pronouncements, e.g. in official curricular guidelines, textbooks, methodological theories, grammar books, from school administrations, in lectures by local or national specialists during brief in-service training sessions. Innovative theories very often do not get past the initial stage of quick, aimless acceptance, either because they do not cover the problem deeply and comprehensively enough or because they lend themselves to superficial interpretation. For example, in the case of the functional/notional approach of the last few years, many textbook authors and curricular planners simply gave 'communicative' names to old, formal grammatical categories. In this way, the latest theory quickly becomes a popular theory which changes nothing: "In my profession I've seen a lot of new approaches come and go. That's why I stick to what I know and what I can confirm from my own experience". All this is not without social implications, since 'theory' and 'research' have a higher status. People speak of the 'heights' of theory and the 'depths' of practice. As a result, it is only to be expected that many teachers regard a theory as per se proven and requiring no further substantiation or else, as a result of a misunderstood concept of emancipation and professional pride, they reject theory altogether. The teacher becomes a 'practitioner', a term with which he/she wishes to say that school and teaching cannot be loaded down with an unnecessary ballast of pale theory. In view of this situation one must say that new theories, for example in this context communicative, activity-based didactics, which are by their very nature incomplete and still in a state of development, i.e. still being tested practically and adapted, are at a disadvantage. It cannot be the task of in-service teacher education and training simply to pass on the results of the 'latest research' and the 'newest theories' to the teachers as a form of transmission of knowledge or adminstration of education. The task is rather to attract the teacher and to supply him/her with the skills and abilities which are necessary if he/she is to participate actively in the process of change. In concrete terms this means that the teacher should be enabled to apply and test theories him/herself instead of simply training to be able to use ready-made recipes to try and solve problems. In contrast to English, which uses the term 'teacher training', the German language speaks of 'Lehrerbildung' (= teacher education, formation), a term which involves the ideas of readiness and ability

In-Service Teacher Training and Teaching Through Activities

57

to contribute constructively to the solving of problems, i.e. to seek and use hitherto unfamiliar patterns of thought and action. According to Widdowson, who uses the broader term 'teacher education', teacher education "provides for situations which cannot be accommodated into preconceived patterns of response but which require a reformulation of ideas and the modification of established formulae". (Widdowson 1987)

Seen in this way, in-service teacher education and training is in every respect a critical process.

3. ACTIVITY ORIENTATION, EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING AND TASKS IN IN-SERVICE TEACHER EDUCATION AND TRAINING

In the last few years, many approaches to practical innovation in the communicative teacher training of the various states have been moving in this direction. In such cases, the important thing is to pick the teachers up at the stage where they are and to make tasks which contain the desired objective and subjective training elements, on the principle of developing insights, changing attitudes and gaining abilities and skills through personal experience. The experimental practice of interdisciplinary and modern language teacher training is already well documented with numerous examples (Müser et al. 1982, Kieper et al. 1986, Ermert 1987, Edelhoff 1985, 1988) which show how a fossilized in-service training pattern of lectures and discussions can be replaced with exploratory tasks and group processes. As examples, I would like to mention here the working forms and practical training which are now established practice in the Reinhardswaldschule.2 - the English language sherry party with clearly defined communicative-social rules, which often takes place at the beginning of a course to help reduce the fear of having to use the foreign language (cf. Thomas et al., no date 4); - snowballing, i.e. discussion of a clearly defined problem in groups of increasing size, beginning at a concrete point and working towards the negotiation of a compromise at a more abstract level (cf. Edelhoff 1982:86); - mental maps, which lead to a pooling of knowledge and opinion through a regulated process of brainstorming (cf. Candlin 1986:23f.); - the rally through the resources which, with the aid of differentiated tasks on task cards, enables participants to gain an overview of a complex set of texts (books, articles, etc.), audiovisual material and didactic literature in individual, pair and group work, and to pass on their findings to a plenary meeting (cf. Thomas, 1984:4f.);

58 Christoph Edelhoff - understanding foreign language newspaper articles, a group exercise involving the decoding of texts in unfamiliar languages, whereby participants gain insights into and knowledge of intercultural understanding and the bases of comprehension (cf. Edelhoff 1985:13f.); - textbook puzzle in which small groups divide a textbook unit into sections (i.e. literally cut it up), add elements and put it together again in the form of a collage; - the writing workshop in which foreign language texts are composed in small groups - prose or concrete poetry; - the games and activities workshop, in which language games and activities, from circle games and card games right through to guided simulations, are tried out to see how they work and how effective they are, and then adapted for use in the classroom (cf. Edelhoff 1984b); - the drama and story-telling workshop which, under the qualified guidance of native-speaker authors and actors, offers experience, insights and methodological competence (cf. Edelhoff 1987b, Edelhoff/Liebau (eds) 1988, Wicke 1988); - scenarios and self-made simulations which make situations in everyday professional life accessible in a compressed form and possible to analyze, e.g. a conference in which the decision is made about the choice of a new textbook; - intercultural area studies explorations in the country of the target language ('Area Studies in Direct Experience'), which offer a wide range of activities of various kinds: language communication, area studies, text curriculum and analytic-pragmatic (Edelhoff 1984a, Roberts 1988). All these working forms have in common that their aim is holistic learning for the teacher. Personal experience leads to processes of acquisition or alteration of attitudes and the broadening of knowledge in the context of academic or practical activities, with concrete patterns which can be applied in professional work.

4. EFFECTIVENESS AND TEACHER FEEDBACK

The evaluation of INSET processes is only just beginning and is, to a great degree, restricted to gathering comments and opinions at the end of courses, whereby the aim, all too often, is simply a superficial political-financial-administrative justification or straight feedback to the course director. It would be much more useful to look at the way in which the various INSET courses and course types complement each other and what their long-term effects on the personal and professional biographies of the teachers are, without always reducing this to observable changes in pupil behaviour.

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Interviews, diaries and participant observation, activities in which the teach-ers are actively and formatively involved seem to be more likely, in the long run, to offer deeper insights and hints as to the INSET didactic and organizational circumstances and needs. The following are excerpts from evaluation reports on the Reinhardswaldschule England courses over the last eight years, involving 250 Hessian teachers, which enable us to gain insights into the long-term effects of activity-oriented in-service education and training. Most of the interviews were conducted a number of years after the actual course in England, and concentrate on intercultural connections with England and things English, on insights and experience during the actual exploration in England, and on the effects upon teaching in the various classes and school types. Added to this there are usually comments on desired forms of INSET and about colleagues. Interview 1 Ro. is a teacher who loves her job and does not make a distinction between her "personal" and her "professional" life. She has a husband who supports her wholeheartedly, and they have spent their holidays in Great Britain regularly, 24 times so far. She has organised school exchanges with Ireland in the last 16 years on a personal level, i.e. using personal friends and relatives to establish and maintain the links. She has always been involved and on the lookout for opportunities to find out what is behind the scenes. She has lots of contacts in Great Britain, but what she really wants is English friends in the sense she has got them at home. This is why she regards the HILF Outing INSET course as the event in her professional and personal life that helped her to open doors and establish relations beyond the superficialfriendlyguestrelation.She liked the Outing course especially because she "could realise herself fully" and was given a framework and support to take self-initiative, contact people and learn about their environments. As a teacher of English and social studies she was particularly interested in firms and factories and was able to visit there. She brought back authentic materials from this field and has used them both in the English and the social science classes. But she was also impressed by the open-mindedness and hospitality of a local vicar, parish and parishioners' families with whom she spent some of her project time. "As a private person visiting England this type of thing does not occur to you", she explains adding a personal word of thanks to the organisation and course leaders who enabled her to experience this. She firmly believes that INSET courses should be organised in the way they are done by HILF in England and at home, i.e. not as "teaching" courses but as open frameworks of teacher personality-oriented events with a team of native speakers giving impulses guiding and tutoring but not dominating. She is, however, also aware of the dangers which are inevitably linked with exposing teachers to an unlimited range of freedom of choice and activity when they are not always prepared for it.

60 Christoph Edelhoff She has experienced the INSET Outing as a "charging of batteries" and giving her new impulses for her daily work, and she thinks she has been able to transfer the renewed enthusiasm directly into her classrooms. She is sorry that her colleagues, at least a majority of them, cannot see this and regard a course abroad as "a holiday" while she thinks it is a unique and hard-working learning opportunity and, indeed, a privilege. Ro. has been an "insetter" in her second subject (social studies) and has worked for HILF at local/regional level. But she remains sceptical as regards reaching the colleagues who do not care and are not to be involved. She would welcome the INSET institution (the HILF Department of Modern Languages) to establish a regular guidance service which she could approach and use whenever she has any Landeskunde and language questions. Interview 2 H. came into English teaching because she could not contemplate a life of marking German essays. In 1973 she went to Coventry as a catering assistant and in 1976 she became a qualified English teacher. She was not exposed to any intensive INSET until 1988 when she went on the Bath Outing. However, both C. Edelhoff and H.E. Piepho had both carried out, in her words, "stimulating" INSET workshops at her school. The most important element of the Bath Outing was the opportunity to speak to native speakers in an uninhibited way. This was the biggest personal spin-off of the course, enjoyable, exciting, and challenging, a great personal boost. According to H., the passive skills of reading and listening can be kept alive at home by watching films and reading, but speaking to native speakers in a native speaker environment is never possible at home. She clearly took full advantage of the opportunity to do so. She feels that her pupils have benefited in several ways. They were very interested in what H. had done on the course and asked her lots of questions about it. Her explanation is that they felt that it was appropriate and admirable that their teacher was bothering to do something for her own knowledge of English and English culture. She is not sure of the long-term spin-offs for herself except that she has now definitely got the taste for more courses. In her own words, she has "tasted blood" and wants more. In the short term she can point to the development of town games for use on her Wandertage excursions. An important aspect of her thinking is the realisation that INSET can be transferred to other subjects. She, for example, is not guaranteed to be given English teaching in the foreseeable future. She may be given any subject at any level but INSET would provide a way of coping with the problem. From an intercultural point of view, what struck her about England was the openness and friendliness of the older generation. In other respects she feels that she is still learning and developing her picture of England.

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Interview 3 H.-D. started following INSET courses two years ago with the Bath Outing. Since then he has followed two courses on American studies - and now this follow-up course. This involvement represents a conscious decision to 're-professionalise' himself, in view of his age and perceived distancing from the impetus of youthful, initial contacts with the culture. "When you are younger you are much closer to what you are experiencing". Now he feels ready for more formal 'training' - and now decreasing family commitments make this possible. H.-D. has a long history of personal contact with Britain and America and sees cross-cultural implications for teaching in terms of people: "Cross-cultural means people". But these awarenesses need to be constantly renewed because things change (and people change). Developing intercultural attitudes among pupils is often difficult, but the ones who are successful here seem to be the ones whose foreign language skills are higher. What comes out of the outings depends upon the expectations you approach them with. For H.-D. it was essentially a language-learning and experience-focussed time. "It's not so much what you carry home. But in fact I now know a little bit about something (the Kennet and Avon canal) that I wouldn't normally have come across". The impact of this on his teaching has been to make it "a little livelier". H.-D. recognises that many of his colleagues are not involved in INSET - perhaps because the need to participate in English frightens them. Interview 4 H.B. has been attending INSET courses every year for the past 15-18 years. It is a chance to recharge batteries "because teaching is all about giving. So we need the chance to be re-energised". She feels that she always gets something tangible out of courses as well. "Something always comes out for Monday morning" - often as a result of discussion with fellow-colleagues. H.B. has been visiting the United Kingdom since 1959 - she has worked, taught and "touristed" there. She still goes every year and is involved in taking classes from her school one year in two. The Norwich Outing was felt to be something very different from a purely personal visit. It offered opportunities for contact of a different sort from the purely 'tourist' kind - and the experience of working with a group of colleagues was very interesting and valuable. She felt her school gained a lot: "It enriches your life and this comes across to the pupils" - the fact that you have "experience" on which to base your teaching is obvious. The most important attribute for a teacher is open-mindedness, and she feels it is part of her job to encourage this among pupils. Intercultural insights and experiences are an important means of doing this; so H.B. allows herself ten minutes in every lesson specifically to focus on this area. She gets the class to look at specific British/American TV

62 Christoph Edelhoff programmes and to look out for something specific, e.g. the way the children are dressed; the way the houses look; the way a kitchen is arranged. These are then discussed and her maxim is: "This isn't strange, it's different - and why is it like that?" The direct experience of doing things in English is also brought into the classroom (e.g. cooking an 'English breakfast').The attitude of colleagues who are not interested in INSET seems to be that staying in your routine avoids problems. How is this compatible with being a teacher? Interview 5 N.K. started going to INSET courses in 1976 "to get other points of view and new materials". He sees them performing a vital role in bringing people together out of school so that they can learn from each other. The Norwich Outing was a crucial event; he learned not to be shy, how to listen, how to do things. As a result he took a group from school in 1985 on an "outing" to Windsor (making up their own programme, doing a town game, staying with families, 60 pupils). They produced a booklet: 'The Windsor Outing' and the whole event had an enormous effect on the pupils' English and on their attitude to the country and language. The major problem for N. in his everyday English teaching is the need to work in parallel with other teachers whose interest in intercultural learning is minimal. But he finds the ideas applicable in other areas of his work - especially Geography teaching. He is planning a "project week" on "Cooking British". His interest in INSET on a personal level is to use it to remain in touch with Britain - to retain contact with the culture. Interview 6 B. has a long history of personal contact with Britain but the Bath Outing was a quite different order of experience. It was not 'tourist' - it was a chance to be in contact with people to find out what they think. Spin-offs for the school have been in terms of contact (attempts to set up a partnership with an English school), materials (material brought back from Bath actually used in school) and experience. "I have tried to confront the pupils with the experience I had - to help them to experience something of the same". He has used the town game on a Y.H. holiday with his pupils in Germany, and has done projects. In pedagogic terms the main spin-off has been a confidence to move away from textbooks and their stereotypes. Using authentic materials allows a focus on "the uniqueness of the British and, by contrast, the Germans. The British are what they are". This avoids making judgements: "The culture is as it presents itself'.

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Interview 7 R. is 36 and teaches at a small school in the country. Before she trained as an English and P.E. teacher at the university she attended sixth form college and had nothing much to do with things English. Her first contacts with Great Britain were through travelling (hitchhiking), then working in a nature preserve summer camp, then as an au-pair, and later through a semester at Birmingham University. Since then she has tried to be in touch at least every other year. The HILF Bath Outing found her well prepared as regards positive attitudes and knowledge about the country. Yet it has meant a great deal to her and has given her a new impetus and motivation for her own personal and professional growth. She thinks that this is especially so because she met English teachers (of German) and made contacts with their schools and classes linking her own class through class correspondence, parcels and interactive messages and preparing for school exchanges. Professionally and personally, however, she thinks it has meant so much to her because after some ten years of teaching in her local school she had felt a little tired and worn out and, through the experiential course in England, has gained new energy and a general positive outlook again which is not limited to ELT. Why was this so? Obviously because she met other colleagues from Germany and teachers from England, who were similar and yet different. Perhaps also because the workshop method of structured self-experience and project research offered a new form of work which was hard (and not a holiday!) and yet in her own interest. She thought that she should bring back something concrete for her kids in class and went into the area of British school life which is so different from the German. She collected a lot of printed materials, did audio tape interviews and a video which she helped to be pooled into a larger dossier at the HILF residential centre to be available to other teachers in Hesse. INSET for her is not restricted to the highlights of a residential course abroad but also means attending Reinhardswaldschule courses, regional HILF events, weekend seminars and participating in special activities like the school's tour of the Norfolk Company of Storytellers and the INSET course at Reinhardswaldschule workshop connected with it. This was one of the recent events which also affected her colleagues and the school at large. Generally speaking, however, the school is not particularly interested and involved in INSET even though the services are there both at central/residential and regional/local level. Many colleagues, she thinks, are not coming because they lack self-confidence and are afraid their English is not good enough. A good number of them have never been to England before. She suggests that INSET should try and meet them in their own school and awaken an interest in further activities. If it is true that at present one third of the teachers are genuinely interested and involved through INSET, there might be another third that are potentially prepared to develop.

64 Christoph Edelhoff 5. REQUIREMENTS FOR INSET FOR INTERCULTURAL LEARNING

It seems obvious that achievements of this kind require long-term planning and resources. National and international networks must be built and maintained, and, what is most important, professional in-service education and training must be offered to "insetters", i.e. the teams of teacher educators from schools, colleges and other institutions. On the international level a number of organisational requirements can be singled out: 1. International and Intercultural learning requires international meeting and learning situations. Exchanges and courses abroad should be available for every language teacher. 2. Teacher time and funds must be granted by the school authorities if international INSET work is to reach the classroom level. 3. INSET actvities abroad should be geared to the needs of classroom teachers and link the learning activities of the teachers with their teaching activities. 4. Experimentation on bi- and multinational courses should be increased and evaluated. Educational exchanges should be extended to the level of INSET activities. 5. International INSET activity results (reports, dossiers) should be made available in Europe. 6. Teacher trainers and 'teamsters' should be offered opportunities to visit other centres and observe on other courses. 7. Co-operation between state authorities, agencies and cultural institutes should be intensified. 8. Different types of activities should be documented and made availabale as models or examples through the media. (Edelhoff in: Baumgratz/Stephan 1987:77)

NOTES 1.

This is the shortened and edited English version of an article by the author in Bach/Timm (eds) 1989:229-244. Colin Oakley of Gießen University prepared the original translation.

2.

Reinhardswaldschule near Kassel is the main residential centre of the Hesse State Institute for Teacher Education and Training (HILF) and the home of the Department of Modern Languages which is directed by the author.

In-Service Teacher Training and Teaching Through

Activities

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REFERENCES Bach, G., J.P. Timm (eds). 1989. Englischunterricht. Grundlagen und Methoden einer handlungsorientierten Unterrichtspraxis. Tübingen: Francke UTB. Baumgratz, G., R. Stephan (eds). 1987. Fremdsprachenlernen als Beitrag zur internationalen Verständigung. Inhaltliche und organisatorische Perspektiven der Lehrerfortbildung in Europa. München: Iudicium. Bredeila, L., M. Legutke (eds). 1985. Schüleraktivierende Methoden im Fremdsprachenunterricht Englisch. Bochum: Kamp. Candlin, C.N. 1986: "Mapping INSET worlds". In: Ch. Edelhoff (ed.). 1988c. The communicative teaching cf English. In-service methodology and evaluation. Course for practising in-service teacher trainers at school level. Reinhardswaldschule 1986. Report for the Council for Cultural Cooperation. Strasbourg: Council of Europe. 23-31. Edelhoff, Ch. 1982. "Innere Schulreform durch Lehrerfortbildung. Arbeitsgruppenbericht". In: E. Müser, H-J. Reincke, W. Braun, (ed.). 1982. Lehrerfortbildung zwischen Reagieren und Innovieren. Zum Lernen von Lehrern und Schülern. Dokumentation der 4. überregionalen Fachtagung zur Lehrerfortbildung 1982. Schwäbisch-Hall: Staatl. Akademie für Lehrerfortbildung Comburg. Bremerhaven: Deutscher Verein zur Förderung der Lehrerfortbildung und Lehrerweiterbildung (DVLFB). 82-89. Edelhoff, Ch. 1984a. "Landeskunde zum Anfassen. The Lancaster Outing. Lehrerfortbildung zum Erfahrungen machen". In: M. Schratz (ed.). 1984. Englischunterricht im Gespräch. Probleme und Praxishilfen. Bochum: Kamp. 154-170. Edelhoff, Ch. 1984b. "Simulationen in der Lehrerfortbildung". In: K. Jones, Ch. Edelhoff, M. Meinhold, C. Oakley. 1984. Simulationen im Fremdsprachenunterricht. Handbuch. München: Hueber. 136-151. Edelhoff, Ch. (ed.) 1985. The Communicative Teaching of English. Course for practising in-service teacher trainers (INSET methodology) at school level. Reinhardswaldschule 1984. Report for the Council for Cultural Cooperation. Strasbourg: Council of Europe. Edelhoff, Ch. 1987a. "Lehrerfortbildung und intelkulturelles Lehren und Lernen im Fremdsprachenunterricht". In: G. Baumgratz and R. Stephan (ed.) 1987. Fremdsprachenlernen als Beitrag zur internationalen Verständigung. Inhaltliche und organisatorische Perspektiven der Lehrerfortbildung in Europa. München: Iudicium. 110-148. Edelhoff, Ch. 1987b. "Schüler und Lehrer erleben englisches Theater: Szenisches Spiel als Gegenstand der entwickelnden Lehrerfortbildung". In: K. Ermert (ed.). 1987. "Gute Schule" - Was ist das? Aufgaben und Möglichkeiten der Lehrerfortbildung. Dokumentation der 6. überregionalen Fachtagung zur Lehrerfortbildung 1986. Loccum: Ev. Akademie. Bremerhaven: Deutscher Verein zur Förderung der Lehrerfortbildung und Lehrerweiterbildung (DVLFB). 241-249. Edelhoff, Ch. (ed.). 1988. The Communicative Teaching ofEnglish. In-service methodology and evaluation. Course for practising in-service teacher trainers at school level. Reinhardswaldschule 1986. Report for the Council for Cultural Cooperation. Strasbourg: Council of Europe. Edelhoff, Ch., E. Liebau (eds). 1988. Über die Grenze. Praktisches Lernen im Fremdsprachenunterricht. Weinheim: Beltz. Ermert, K. (ed.). 1987. "Gute Schule" - Was ist das? Aufgaben und Möglichkeiten der Lehrerfortbildung. Dokumentation der 6. überregionalen Fachtagung zur Lehrerfortbildung 1986. Loccum: Ev. Akademie. Bremerhaven: Deutscher Verein zur Förderung der Lehrerfortbildung und Lehrerweiterbildung (DVLFB).

66 Christoph

Edelhoff

Jones, K., Edelhoff, Ch., Meinhold, M., Oakley, C. 1984. Simulationen im Fremdsprachenunterricht. Handbuch. München: Hueber. Kieper, G., B. Priebe (eds). 1986. Lern- und Arbeitsformen in Lehrerfortbildung und Schule angesichts der gegenwärtigen Situation von Lehrern und Schülern. Dokumentation der 5. überregionalen Fachtagung zur Lehrerfortbildung 1984. Soest; Landesinstitut für Schule und Weiterbildung. Deutscher Verein zur Förderung der Lehrerfortbildung und Lehrerweiterbildung (DVLFB). Legutke, M. 1988. Lebendiger Englischunterricht. Kommunikative Aufgaben und Projekte für schüleraktiven Fremdsprachenunterricht. Bochum: Kamp. Müller, B.-D. 1983. "Probleme des Fremdverstehens. 'Interkulturelle Kommunikation' in der Konzeption von DaF-Unterricht". In: J. Gerighausen,P.C. Seel (eds). 1983.Interkulturelle Kommunikation und Fremdverstehen. Dokumentation eines Werkstattgesprächs. München: Goethe-Institut. 262-347. Müser, E., H-J. Reincke and W. Braun, (eds.). 1982. Lehrerfortbildung zwischen Reagieren und Innovieren. Zum Lernen von Lehrern und Schülern. Dokumentation der 4. überregionalen Fachtagung zur Lehrefortbildung 1982. Schwäbisch-Hall: Staad. Akademie für Lehrerfortbildung Comburg. Bremerhaven: Deutscher Verein zur Förderung der Lehrerfortbildung und Lehrerweiterbildung (DVLFB). Roberts, J. 1988. Cross-Cultural INSETfor Language Teachers. Academic Reports. Cambridge: The Bell Educational Trust. Schratz, M. (ed.). 1984. Englischunterricht im Gespräch. Probleme und Praxishilfen. Bochum: Kamp. Thomas, G.W., J. Ferentzi-Sheppard (eds). Foreign Language Teaching in Adult Education. A Teacher Training Manual. Frankfurt: International Certificate Conference, Pädagogische Arbeitsstelle des deutschen Volkshochschulverbandes. Thomas, H. 1984. "Opening the course and the resources rally". In: Ch. Edelhoff (ed.). 1985. The Communicative Teaching ofEnglish. Coursefor practising in-service teacher trainers (INSET methodology) at school level. Reinhardswaldschule 1984. Report for the Council for Cultural Cooperation. Strasbourg: Council of Europe. 4-12. Wicke, R. 1988. Storytelling im Englischunterricht. Mit einem Anhang von methodischen Vorschlägen von Jim Wingate und einer Dokumentation der Tournée der 'Company of Storytellers' in Hessen 1987. Fuldatal: Hessisches Institut für Lehrerfortbildung. Widdowson, H.G. 1987: A Rationale for Language Teacher Education. Council for Cultural Cooperation. Working document CC-GP12(87)14. Strasbourg: Council of Europe.

The Theologian and the Tightrope Walker Alan Maley

OF EXACTITUDE IN SCIENCE ... In that Empire, the craft of Cartography attained such Perfection that the Map of a Single province covered the space of an entire City, and the Map of the Empire itself an entire Province. In the course of Time, these Extensive maps were found somehow wanting, and so the College of Cartographers evolved a Map of the Empire that was of the same Scale as the Empire and that coincided with it point for point Less attentive to the Study of Cartography, succeeding Generations came to judge a map of such Magnitude cumbersome, and, not without Irreverence, they abandoned it to the Rigours of sun and Rain... (Borges)

The fable is a salutary reminder of the inadequacy of descriptions in general, and of the fact that the more comprehensive the description, the less useful it is likely to be. The terminology we use is only a series of constructs which determine the way we view reality. They are not themselves that reality. So, we need to guard against the danger of becoming enmeshed in the web of our own terminology, of taking words for the reality they attempt to describe. "The map is not the territory".

ANGELS AND DEMONS

With this admonition in mind, let us examine this list of binary features. I

responsive flexible provisional continuing open to criticism initiative freedom 'letting go'

prescriptive immutable codified one-off closed to critical appraisal control authority 'holding on'

68 Alan Maley

individualistic diversified personal growth quality partial but attainable aims a heuristic unpredictable pragmatic innovation II

in

-

teaching transmission learning product content surface impersonal accuracy form constructed related to system tension making difficult intolerance linear passive knowledge disjunction

learning interaction acquisition process skills/attitudes depth personal fluency function authentic related to life relaxation making accessible tolerance recursive/branching active competence congruence risk effortful exploration of doubt

conformist uniform mass-coverage quantity 100% but unattainable aims an algorithm predictable programmatic tradition

-

security routine confirmation of certainty

At first sight this appears to make a Manichaean split between two radically different views of thinking about and acting upon our profession. I will gloss them briefly. I

I. Responsive!Prescriptive

etc.

Do we think of the syllabus, the textbook, the examination requirements, as being the only consideration? And, if so, do we treat them as unchangeable? Would we dare to leave out something, to put something in, to change the order, to deviate - in response to our students' needs? Do we stick to the holy books, or draw upon other profane sources? If we do disagree with

The Theologian and the Tightrope Walker

69

the syllabus, textbook or approach, are we prepared to work towards its replacement? Further, do we regard our work as 'done' when the book is 'done'? Is there a life after the course? 2. Open/Closed to criticism How far do we regard the system in which we operate as open to critical examination? And how far do we view ourselves as proper subjects for criticism from students, parents or colleagues? How much control should a teacher exercise? And does control rule out initiative (his own as well as the students!)? Does authority necessarily stifle freedom of action? Can the individuality of teachers, and of students, be given rein without causing the breakdown of discipline or the onset of chaos? Or must teachers and students be made to conform in the interests of the group, or society? Is 'letting go' ultimately more rewarding than 'holding on'? (And if so, in what sense?) Or does it just make us all feel better? Is there a way of providing for freedom and initiative within a framework of authority and control? 3. Quality!Quantity By quantity I refer to the urge to cover the syllabus, get through the textbook, learn all the important vocabulary, master all the basic structures. Is this yearning for completeness as valuable as seeking to promote 'quality': doing well rather than doing all, and laying the basis for subsequent generative growth? (He teaches ill, who teaches all?). How realistic is it to aim for 100% coverage anyway? Is it instead possible to think of giving choices to teachers/students which reflect their needs or interests? Mass-coverage implies uniformity. Personal growth implies diversified activities. Are these compatible? And is there a way of reconciling the need to tell learners with the need for them to find it out for themselves? 4. A(n) heuristic/An algorithm? A(n) heuristic describes a procedure in which things are worked out 'ad hoc' as we go along. An algorithm prescribes certain steps which, if followed, are guaranteed to procure a certain result. Much of what we do in classrooms appears on the surface to be algorithmic. If you follow the syllabus, the course, the textbook, the approved procedures, the lesson plan etc., you will succeed in learning (or teaching) X. Yet we all know that the teaching/learning process is in reality much closer to an heuristic: a series of unpredictable situations which need constant and instant repair work. Can the immediate and unpredictable needs of individual learners be accommodated within a larger, more loosely structured algorithm?

70

AlanMaley 5. Innovation/Tradition Nothing is new. Everything is new. Yet there are those who persistently seek innovation, and those who equally persistently take refuge in tradition. Innovation is perhaps more accurately described as what is perceived to be new (even if it is often no more than new combinations or interpretations of traditional ideas or practices). Tradition becomes a burden when we forget why we are doing things. Change becomes a hindrance when we apply it for its novelty value alone (language labs in the 1960's, CALL in the 1980's?). We should consider the probability that traditional practices survived because they had survival value. What is or was this value? Can we perceive it afresh? (I shall suggest how this might be done towards the end of this paper).

II

1. Learning/Teaching The learner-centred, teacher-centred debate continues unabated. Which side of the divide do we find ourselves on? Does teaching produce learning? Does more teaching produce more learning? If so, how does the process work? Is it simply a matter of teaching harder? The evidence suggests that it is not. Students do not always learn what we teach, and sometimes learn what we have not taught at all. It is self-evident that teachers cannot learn for their students. How then can they best help them: by intervening more or less? 2. Interaction/Transmission Are learners empty pots into which the teacher pours his barrel of knowledge? Or do they learn from interacting with materials, their fellow-students and the teacher? Does the teacher need to stuff his students' heads with facts - or does he simply light a fuse which explodes much later? 3. Acquisition!Learning Acquisition is by definition unconscious, Learning conscious. Classrooms tend to concentrate on Learning because that is what they were set up to do. On the assumption that Acquisition is at least as valuable, how can it be induced? 4. Process!Product What should the relationship be between the 'how' and the 'what'? Is it, for example, more important for the student to come to an understanding of the process of reading, or to learn/comprehend a given text with a given content? Is formative learning through participation in an activity more important than the summative learning evaluated by answering questions? Are they mutually exclusive?

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5. Depth!Surface (related to Personal!Impersonal) We can distinguish between the perfunctory, shallow learning which characterises approaches attempting to cover everything, and the in-depth integration of learning with the 'whole person' of the learner. In the former case the superficial coverage is generally rejected, like a skin-graft. In the latter the new learning beds down among the existing pattern and forms new and enduring links. 6. Fluency!Accuracy (and Function/Form) The terms are now very familiar ones. By Fluency, I mean rapid, unselfconscious, real-time processing of language, with attention focussed on message (or function) not form. With Accuracy-focussed work, language form takes priority. Proponents of the communicative approach ask what the purpose of Accuracy is if it does not lead to Fluency. Others argue that Fluency can only be arrived at on the basis of previous Accuracy work. Others again (Brumfxt in particular) have proposed that Fluency can lead back to Accuracy, thus reversing the traditional pattern. 7. Authentic/Constructed (andRelated to life/Related to system) The argument still rages between those who favour making the classroom a simulacrum of life 'out there', and those who object that this is neither possible, nor desirable; that the classroom offers its own, internally regulated, form of authenticity. We can posit different types of authenticity: of language/text, of task, of student response, of social situation. But this does not solve the problem of what is really real! Is a simulated meeting which matches the terminal objectives of a course more 'real' than listening to an 'authentic' recording of such an event? Is literature authentic? (I would argue strongly that it is - both with regard to the text and the response.). 8. Recursive (branching)!Linear Is learning best thought of as linear (or mechanical), where one thing is mastered at a time in a step by step fashion, in the manner of a Lego model? Or is an organic, branching system a better model? In such a model there would be chunks acquired in a rather 'ad hoc' fashion, with connections between these islands growing patchily and to some extent arbitrarily. Or does the human learning process operate through a combination of systematicity and random association? 9. Relaxation/Tension (Tolerance/Intolerance) Many classrooms are tense places owing to intolerance of various kinds (of error, of deviation from procedures, of behavioural norms etc.) It is claimed that tension inhibits learning, whereas relaxation promotes it. It is

72

AlanMaley certainly true that many students are blocked by unproductive tension. But is there such a thing as creative tension? Or destructive relaxation? 10. Making Accessible/Making Difficult Some teachers, some textbooks, some course packages, can make the target language seem like an unscaleable mountain. Others can make it seem like a gentle climb through pleasant scenery. We can choose to emphasise the differences between languages, or the similarities. By telling students that they will find things difficult, we simply ensure a self-fulfilling prophesy. 11. Congruence/Disjunction Are the materials congruent with the syllabus? Is the textbook congruent with the exam? Is the classroom methodology congruent with the stated objectives? Do the components of the course fit together, integrate, or are they presented separately with little or no connection; chunks of phonetics, grammar, vocabulary, dictation etc. without interrelationship? And is what is done during the course congruent with what is done afterwards?

in

Risk/Security (Doubt/Certainty etc.) Looking at the list as a whole it appears that the left-hand column describes a more perilous path than the right-hand column. (Though only if the philosophy they embody is applied with conviction and not simply as the unthinking application of a fashionable fad.) These then are, on the face of it, two opposing and radically different world-views. One can be characterised as the exploration of doubt in the knowledge that absolute truth will always elude us. The other presents us with a world in which we act as if things were well-ordered and predictable, and which carries high face-validity as a result.

SOME PROBLEMS

The temptation then is to simplify and to view these binary distinctions in black and white terms: Fluency good/Accuracy bad, Initiative good/Control bad, Quality good/Quantity bad and so on. I would like to suggest that we may be in danger of falling into the trap I spoke of at the outset. Our terminology becomes a cage. Perhaps there are more subtle and liberating ways of using a list like this one. While we cannot deny that these distinctions exist, and that the terms we have used to describe them do, in however tenuous a fashion, correspond to a kind of reality, we should also allow that there may be more to it than meets the eye. Consider the following:

The Theologian and the Tightrope Walker 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

73

In most if not all cases one item in a pair in some way implies the other. Black is partially defined by its non-whiteness. If everything were black we should have no way or need of describing it. In the same sort of way we define 'authority' with respect to 'freedom', or 'provisional' by reference to 'permanence'. The seeds of one term are implanted in the other, ready to flower. And all manner of productive contradictions may be possible: a white blackbird. Mao Ze Dong's concept of permanent revolution, and so on. Everything is relative. What one person regards as authority, another may view as freedom. Innovation for one may be outdated traditionalism for another. So where does Accuracy end and Fluency begin? This relativity factor may simply be a matter of individual interpretation. Quite often however it is related to cultural factors. What, in one culture, may be perceived as positive (e.g. personal involvement), may in another be regarded as inappropriate, or even improper. What is safe for one society may be risky for another. What works for one may well not work for another. We should also allow for the factor of belief or faith (conviction and commitment). Teachers or learners or systems committed to a particular approach or action philosophy have a way of making it work (e.g. China, where, in terms of modern methodology little positive could be said of it. But where, in terms of results, it was successful.). The more 'traditional' features from the right-hand column may well have a value if re-examined. They are present in most existing systems and have been present for a very long time. This suggests that they have at least survival value. Could it be that they have survived because they are in some ways well-suited to the constraints of institutionalised teaching/learning? We should also note that words do not always denote the same for different people. What I mean by 'Fluency' or 'Communicative' is unlikely to correspond in all respects to what you mean. I have, for example, witnessed classes which, according to the teacher, were using a communicative approach, where no uncontrolled interaction ever took place and where the main technique employed was controlled dialogues/pattern drills in pairs. So we must beware of the habit of sticking a new label on an old product. There is another sense in which words fail to capture reality. I am thinking of approaches which on the surface consist of highly learner-centred, innovative interactional activities but which, on closer inspection reveal a hidden agenda which runs profoundly counter to all these things. (For example, some interpretations of the Silent Way). Finally, we have to face the fact that these paired terms direct us towards a polarised viewpoint, whereas in actual practice we rarely find the 100%, pure, extreme form of any of them. A given approach, system, textbook,

74 Alan Maley teacher may tend towards one or other end of the scale. They will rarely exhibit the feature in its totalitarian form. The reason is obvious: we need to temper our ideal with reality. We may wish to encourage individuality but we have a group to teach. We may wish to promote learning but the system requires us to teach. We may wish to be flexible but the examination looms on the horizon with its inexorable demands. It is also worth noting that there will be inconsistencies of application. Not always will terms in the left-hand column go together to form a coherent and integrated system. As humans we appear to be able to live with inconsistency. So we can expect to find such apparently odd partners as innovation which is closed to critical appraisal! or depth transmission teaching.

USING THE FRAMEWORK

How then can we put this rough and ready set of terms to use rather than be imprisoned by it? I have found it a useful generator both for myself and for trainee teachers, since it directs me towards issues central to our profession. It will not produce cut and dried answers to our problems but it can help us think about them. 1. Let us first focus on the list itself and what we can do with it. Here is a sample of possible activities: a. Extend the list. What other pairs of terms could be included? (e.g. holistic/atomistic). b. Explore the range of associations for each pair of terms in terms of personal memories/beliefs. This is essentially a reinterpretation of the list in personal terms, (e.g. "I remember we had a very enthusiastic teacher of French who taught us how to play 'tombola' in French. I suppose that was Fluency - it certainly made us very quickly familiar with the numbers."). c. Trainees could also be asked to place themselves on a rank-scale of 5, from 1 (most inclined to the left hand term) to 5 (most inclined to the right hand term). This could then be used as input to discussion. 2. Reverse the columns. Students find as many positive things as possible to say about the Right-hand column. And as many negative things about the Left-hand column. They would then need to justify their viewpoints to each other. 3. Accentuate or diminish the terms. Is it possible to envisage 100% Accuracy for instance? What would it be like? Describe what it would mean in terms of materials, the teachers' acts, the role of students etc. Have you ever encountered anything which fits this description?

The Theologian and the Tightrope Walker 4.

75

Recombine by pairing items from the Left-hand column with those from the Right-hand column. Then interpret what such new combinations might mean. For example: depth/tradition, creative/control, risk/accuracy, fluency/control This begins to stimulate thinking on more open lines. How could we make Accuracy work involve risk-taking? How could we exercise control creatively or be creative in a framework of control? How could we combine the notion of depth with traditional approaches (say with grammar teaching)? What would controlled fluency be like? I cannot pretend that all the possible combinations are equally productive but some certainly are. It is this kind of stretching and squeezing the terms which can encourage us to walk off the map which the list provides, and to apply the same devices to thinking about action at the level of materials and methodology (i.e. the principled actions which teachers perform). I would like to look briefly at four such stretching devices; accentuation/diminution, reversal, recombination and reinterpretation. a. Accentuation/Diminution: We can take almost any technique or activity and scale it up to 100%. For example, a cloze text. Supposing we removed all the words? How would this work? (The computer language game works on precisely this principle). Supposing we applied the diminution principle to texts. What might we get? The minimal reading passages created by Leon Szkutnik are one example. (At the opposite extreme are the enorm-ously long dialogues in Suggestopoedia). Supposing we decide that students will not speak at all? Or that the teacher will not speak at all? What kind of learning situation will this create? b. Reversal: We might think of reversing roles, so that the students do the teaching, compile their own textbook, decide their own programme, design and mark their own tests. This would certainly make for a rather different kind of classroom! Or students might set homework for the teacher! Suppose we reversed the order things are normally done in? Suppose we decided to teach writing first rather than last? Or to give out questions before reading a text? Or to ask students to look for regularities in texts before explaining the grammar? Or to give out the text of a dictation before we dictated it? Or to present a poem or text line by line or sentence by sentence starting with the last line and working back towards the beginning? Or to set the exam at the beginning of the course not at the end? Or to start at the end of the book and work towards the beginning? Not all the ideas which would emerge would be useful but many would (or already have been).

76

AlanMaley c.

Recombination: We could recombine items at the level of technique/activity. For instance, translation and role play (e.g. Airport). Or Simulation games with Accuracy work (e.g. Front Page). Or dictation with poetry. Or Listening comprehension with reading aloud. Or spelling with telephone conversations. We could also apply recombination at the level of texts - recombining words in a sentence, lines in a poem, phrases in an article. The results are often quite outstanding. (.Literature 1989). d. Reinterpretation: By reinterpretation, I mean taking a familiar area of activity and looking at it afresh. Objectively nothing is 'new' but almost anything can be perceived as new when looked at with fresh eyes. A good example of this is Dictation (1988) which has been opened up anew by Davis and Rinvolucri. In one exercise they begin reading the dictation at a natural speed. Students ask the teacher to stop whenever they want him to. In another, a longish passage is read without breaks. Students only note down words to do with one semantic area (e.g. music). Likewise with Vocabulary (1986) which Morgan and Rinvolucri have prised apart a fraction in their resource book on the subject, but which awaits further work. Here is an example of just one of their ideas: Students are given a list of words taken from a passage they will later read. They are asked to place these words on a graph according to how they associate them with the axes of the graph (e.g. Freedom/Adventure or Psychiatry/Education). We are, it seems to me, just beginning to look afresh at such areas as Rote-Learning, Translation (1989), Reading Aloud and Literature, to name only some of those begging for attention.

CONCLUSION

At this point I should perhaps contextualise my title. At the outset, while compiling the list, I thought how it exemplified the divided mind which characterises most of us. One part of us yearns for the comfort of certainty, another rises to the thrill of risk. We all contain in varying proportions the dogmatism of the theologian and the dare-devilry of the tightrope walker. We all grasp at belief and experience the reality of doubt. But, as I hope has become clear, I became much more interested in the fusion than in the fission of these qualities. And I have tried to suggest how the theologian may leave his cloister and walk the high wire. And how the tightrope walker may sometimes touch the sublime.

The Theologian and the Tightrope

Walker

REFERENCES Borges, Jorge Luis. 1975. A Universal History of Infamy. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Davis, P. and M. Rinvolucri. 1988. Dictation. Cambridge: C.U.P. Duff, A. 1989. Translation. Oxford: O.UP. Duff, A. and A. Maley. 1989. Literature. Oxford: O.U-P. Morgan, J. and M. Rinvolucri. 1986. Vocabulary. Oxford: O.U.P.

On Teaching, Training and Learning: Some Reflections and Suggestions Judy Winn-Bell Olsen

In the last few decades, we have focused attention on the learner and the language. We have explored ways of discovering, describing, and meaningfully addressing the complexities of both. Increasingly, we take into account how we believe language is acquired in what we plan and what we practice in the language classroom. In recent years, much energy has been spent examining stages of development of language learners and how language might best be managed at each stage to foster maximum growth. Many make strong claims that language will be acquired more rapidly if student interaction is encouraged through engaging activities and a supportive environment to promote active, meaningful language use. Only very recently has much attention been paid to another important element in the educational process - the teacher. Like the student, the teacher is a complex being, ideally also in a state of growth, and certainly equally in need of appropriate intellectual stimulation and emotional support. Presumably, most of us are educators because of a love of learning and teaching. Yet until quite recently, many of us have neglected to put into practice what is known about effective teaching and learning when we train teachers in pre-service and in-service settings. In my dual roles as language teacher and in-service teacher-trainer, I am struck by certain parallels between language learners in development and their teachers in development. In other work1 I have suggested that, like thenstudents, teachers go through fairly predictable stages of development (like their students, not all at the same rate, and some, like their students, getting stuck or 'fossilized' in certain stages.) In the next few pages, I will explore other similarities between the language learner and the language teacher as each grows in proficiency and insight.

A. GROWTH REQUIRES RISK; RISK NEEDS SUPPORT

Like students developing new language skills, teachers in development (and hopefully, we never stop developing) need opportunities to 'risk with safety and

80 Judy Winn-Bell Olsen support'- to experiment without fear of immediate judgement when venturing beyond the tried-and-true techniques of their repertoires. Few would question the importance of encouragement and nonjudgemental support for learners who go beyond the bounds of familiar patterns in creating novel statements in the new language. But how many of us provide the same support to trainees or those we supervise when they take methodological risks? Even more, how many of us extend that support to colleagues...or allow ourselves major risks beyond safely-mastered repertoires? Change is often a frightening proposition, even change that is firmly believed to be for the better. Behavioral change in professional practices can be particularly difficult and threatening.

B. APPROPRIATE DISCUSSION ENCOURAGES RISK; PROVIDES SUPPORT

Just as students' ability and interest in the target language can be developed through appropriately structured classroom interaction, so can teachers' professional development be enhanced and accelerated by appropriately structured professional discussion with colleagues in the training room and elsewhere. By appropriately structured discussion, I mean that 1. there is a common understanding that 'risking for growth' is a positive thing, and that mistakes can be safely disclosed and discussed, not hidden. 2. there is validation of each person as a unique and valued individual, no matter what perspectives they bring to the discussion. Teaching is an isolating, even lonely endeavor. Often the only people to witness what a teacher does are students and an occasional evaluator. Schools have been likened to egg cartons, each teacher in a separate cell, cushioned from the others.2 Breaking down the barriers, physical and psychological, is part of building a collegial structure which fosters the attitude of 'risk and share'. The foundation of this structure is mutual trust - which is built by successive interactions based on shared values (# 1 above) and mutual validation (# 2 above).

C. 'TTT' IS TRUE FOR ALL KINDS OF DEVELOPMENT

Perhaps we are hardest on ourselves when it comes to time: how fast can we effect change? We don't expect our learners to master the language overnight, yet we expect ourselves to master new techniques in one or two workshop sessions, often with no directed practice. In such workshops, what we are expected to learn may be a complex behavior based on beliefs that are differentfromones we have previously held. Successive

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trials with the new techniques are necessary before anything approaching the desired model will appear. The more unlike one's accustomed practices the new behavior is, the more practice sessions are required (Joyce and Showers state that at least 20 practice sessions are necessary before a new teaching routine is well integrated into one's repertoire).^ This is true not only for novice teachers, but for the experienced as well. In fact—as many of us can attest— it is often more difficult for seasoned teachers to modify their teaching practices than for novices to develop theirs from the beginning. Planned change —change in a particular direction that is promoted by an external agent—change that will last— seldom happens quickly. As trainer/developers and as professionals in development, we need to remember the motto cited frequently by Kohonen: "T.T.T.": 'Things Take Time'. 4

MAKING IT HAPPEN

So: how can we recognize and respect these parallels between language learners and teachers as learners? What are some appropriate ways in teacher training to validate personal values, respect individual differences, provide opportunities to risk with support, and recognize the need for time to assimilate? And —as important in training as in the language classroom— how can we maximize participation by all members of the group, rather than a few? Here are a few suggestions: 1. In the training room use participatory structures to encourage topic-focused interaction: a. Break down barriers by encouraging short, task-focused work in pairs and small groups example: When presenting major points in lecture, precede or follow them with this quick activity: ask a question related to your major point, give trainees a minute to think to themselves, and two or three minutes to share their thoughts with a partner. The discussion helps to underscore the importance of your point while giving participants a chance to verbally interact with the idea and each other. This technique, aptly called 'think-pair-share' in the American literature on cooperative learning, is as useful in the training room as it is in the classroom —which is true of many cooperative learning techniques.5 b. Review major points at the end of a days' training (or to begin a subsequent day) with a Line-up Review: Participants form two lines, facing each other, so that each has a discussion partner in the opposite row. Each person has just received a copy of your list of 6-7 key questions reviewing material you have covered. At your signal, participants discuss the first question on the list, get information from each other (and neighbors, if necessary, and

82 Judy Winn-Bell Olsen write an answer they agree on. At a second signal several minutes later, one line "moves down one" so that each person has a new discussion partner for question two. The person at the head of the moving line, no longer having a partner, will go around to join the end of the line and face a new partner. (If there is an extra person in one lineup, make one trio, or create a timekeeper-signal giver position as part of the rotating line.) Continue in the same way, changing partners until all questions have been discussed, at which time participants resume their seats. Follow the activity with a quick review of the major points (let participants tell you) and responses from the participants on what benefits they find in reviewing the information in that manner. 2. Honor personal values and individual characteristics: Moskowitz,6 Christison and Bassano7 and others have stressed the importance of personal involvement in the language classroom: activities that address one's identity and personal values are recommended to stimulate interest and a sense of belonging to the group. In the training room as well as the classroom: a. promote trust by validating individuals and their values: in pairs, have teachers tell each other why they became teachers or what they like best about teaching. This semi-private expression of individual values, seldom if ever articulated, can be an unexpectedly profound experience, and a good builder of rapport and mutual trust. b. Validate individual identities and stimulate interest in learning styles by administering learning style inventories such as the one designed by Kolb.® Discuss the scoring system and have trainees score themselves. Then have trainees compare their own learning style measurements to the rest of the group by arranging themselves along continua or in quadrants marked on the training room floor, representing different measurements in the learning style inventories.9 There are no "right" or "wrong" answers in such inventories, only degrees of particular characteristics.) 3. Build a safety net of support for risk-taking by encouraging pairs and teams to collaborate in planning lessons using techniques presented in training, to discuss afterwards the implementation of these lessons, and - where possible - to observe each other actually implementing these lessons, using criteria that have been mutually agreed upon. 4. Address the issue of "TIT": a. Include information on time factors in transfer-of-training studies, including the "you'll get worse before you get better" phenomenon.10 Knowing that this "dip" in the learning curve is a common phenomenon can help trainees to persist through uncertain and challenging times as they grapple with new techniques and procedures.

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b. Respect the need for time to assimilate new information and procedures by spacing intensive training sessions several weeks apart, allowing trainees time to reflect, experiment and discuss among themselves before reconvening for more from you. 5. Include administrators and other decision-makers and policy-makers in your training. Support for change must come from all levels of the institution, and support is more likely to come from administrators who understand what you are doing and why.11 Currently, some of the most exciting developmental models in American staff development come from school improvement programs which include all or most of the above suggestions. Particularly powerful is the Peer Coaching12 model, which includes, as part of its training, methods of careful observation and giving constructive, supportive collegial feedback (see # 3 above). Generally, programs incorporating peer coaching are one to three years long, with intervals of 3 weeks to 2 months between sessions to allow trainees to try out new techniques, discuss them with colleagues, observe and be observed by their partners.13 I began by suggesting that many of us - perhaps most of us? - have not always practiced what we preached in teacher education. I also suggested that the situation is changing, and that we are beginning to pay more attention to the what, how and why of effective means of educating - or training - or developing - language educators, be they novices, or professionals with careers on the rise, or seasoned veterans. It is very exciting to read the current issues of the newsletters of the Teacher Education and Teacher Development Interest Groups of IATEFL, and the Pilgrims' Teacher Trainer and to see what trainers and teacher educators in the UK are doing, thinking, and sharing with each other. Perhaps the suggestions I have outlined here - and the reflections which inspired them - will add a little to the common pool.

NOTES 1.

Olsen, Judy Winn-Bell. 1988. 'Focus on the Teacher'. Keynote presentation at International TESOL Convention, Chicago.

2.

Joyce, Bruce. 1985. Lecture notes. Seminar in School Leadership and Staff Development, Eugene Oregon.

3.

ibid

4.

Viijo Kohonen. 1989. Presentation at Bay Area CATESOL

5.

Lyman, Frank. 1981. The responsive classroom discussion. In: A.S. Anderson (ed.) Mainstreaming Digest. College Park, MD: University of Maryland College of Education.

6.

Moskowitz, Gertrude. 1978. Caring and Sharing in the Foreign Language Class: A Sourcebook on Humanistic Techniques. Rowley, Mass: Newbury House.

84 Judy Winn-Bell 7. 8.

Olsen

Christison, Mary Ann and Shairon Bassano. 1987. Look Who's Talking! Activities for Group Interaction. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Alemany Press-Prentice Hall Regents. Baker, Richard, Nancy Dixon, and David A. Kolb. 1985. Personal Learning Guide. Boston: McBer and Company; Kolb, David A. 1984. Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source ofLearning and Development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall; Smith, Donna and David Kolb. 1985. User Guide for the Learning-Style Inventory. Boston: McBer and Company.

9.

As suggested by the Instructional Skills Workshop Training Materials (1990), Santa Rosa Junior College, Santa Rosa, California. 10. Calderon, Margarita and Ann Lippincott 1987. MTTI Training of Trainers Manual. Santa Barbara, California. 11. Joyce, Bruce, Richard Hersh and Michael McKibbon. 1983. The Structure of School Improvement. New York: Longman. 85. 12. The American connotation of 'coaching' in this context is rather different from the British. Its origins are in sports, where 'Even champions have coaches'. 13. ASCD. 1989. Opening Doors: An Introduction to Peer Coaching. Handbook and Videotape. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development 85.

Research and the Language Teacher: What's the Use? Alun L.W. Rees

BACKGROUND

There has been a modest burgeoning of classroom-based research in the field of language-teaching in recent years. Presumably, the activity is of some personal/professional use to those who engage in it, but what about the denizens of the classroom who are mined if not exploited for data, and the profession they represent? There is, of course, no logical reason why research findings should be the concern of those who have served as the population from which to extract them, or that they should inevitably lead to practical classroom applications. The classroom setting was unashamedly used for an exploratory analysis of discourse by Sinclair and Coulthard (1975), with no inflated claims for direct relevance to classroom practice. But human affairs do not proceed only by logic, and in the real world teachers quite naturally expect that an investigative activity which impinges on their domain and may subsequently encourage pronouncements upon it, should in return offer something of substance to illuminate and inform their work. The ultimate aim of all research in education should surely be to reach teachers and improve performance. After all, it has oft been stated that nothing is so practical as a good theory. Yet, as Seliger and Long (1983: v) admit, language teachers: express impatience, bordering on hostility, with researchers and their work. What has gone wrong?

THE PROBLEM

Research in education in general has suffered a bad press. The root of the problem seems to extend beyond the narrow confines of language teaching to the suspicions generated by the tenuous and long-debated relationship between practice and theory, and the assumption that:

86 Alun L.W. Rees "... the teaching process is more rational, more under control, more 'abstract', more 'objective' than it ever really can be... " (Holbrook 1967:10).

The situation has been exacerbated because much research is abstract by its very nature, and may be reported in daunting jargon, which in turn can lead to resentment by toilers at the chalkface who might consider themselves threatened by the prospect of their familiar and personally-tailored procedures being challenged by those who presume to sell them novel conceptual gadgetry. All too often, the disciples of researchers demonstrate far more intransigency and manic optimism than their masters. McNamara (1980:1) complains that some researchers: "... take comparatively straightforward examples of classroom behaviour and imbue them with a theoretical complexity which can only have the effect of creating a smokescreen which gets in the way of our efforts to understand classroom processes."

And Brumfit (1984:2) points out that: "Research is often descriptive, either looking at the teacher from outside (a position inappropriate for teachers attempting to improve their own performance), or looking at learners, or language, or classrooms with non-interventionist intentions."

Teacher trainers enjoying prolonged contact with trainees will confirm that the road to behaviour change is fraught with obstacles; how reasonable, then, is it to suppose that mere exposure to the findings of classroom research will radically influence everyday teaching? Many research results cannot be simply translated directly into classroom practice because schools do not operate haphazardly, but conform to established norms and operate within budgets. Evidence that modest doses of alcohol improve learning (for example, see Guiora, et al. 1972), would hardly persuade headmasters to administer a regular rum ration to schoolchildren. Furthermore, learners arrive with certain expectations of teaching and their teachers, and woe betide the tyro who smiles before Christmas or introduces too many radical changes, too soon. The reality of the classroom is the ultimate antidote to proselytising zeal. Research results, especially when quoted out of full context, can appear jargonized, banal, trivial or even ludicrous to teachers not predisposed towards academic concerns. Here is an example: "Judging from the Bowers & Soar (1961:137) study, it appears that experienced teachers who score high in the MMPI scales of psychopathic deviate, psychasthenia, and schizophrenia are less likely to change their teaching behaviour." (Flanders 1970:352).

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Although a great deal of research has been conducted in education this century, only a comparatively small proportion of it has in fact been carried on in the classroom, and less still in the foreign language classroom. Hence, there is simply not enough research currently completed on language teaching/learning for teachers to be radically influenced by the findings. Furthermore, research has so far failed to provide clear-cut answers to major questions, even where it has examined them. The Scherer and Wertheimer experiment (1964) and the Pennsylvania Project (Smith 1970), for example, offered inconclusive evidence in the comparison of grammar/translation and audio-lingual methods of language teaching. Despite voluminous research in general education, incontrovertible proof has yet to be provided to define the characteristics of the good teacher. As Madsen (1975:366) points out: "There is no consensus and very little hard data available on the scope of competencies required by the well-trained ESL teacher."

Even when firm conclusions are provided in education, these are often contradicted by other pieces of research. Samples of such seemingly contradictory results may be found, for example, by scanning the survey of results compilled by Dunkin & Biddle (1974). Here is a sample: "The sex of pupils is unrelated to the teacher's use of criticism." (Davis & Slobodan 1967) "Boys receive more critism from teachers than girls." (Brophy et al. 1973)

Other samples are quoted by Wragg (1976:281-90). The truth of the matter is that very few teachers actually do read research papers or even come across diluted versions of them. J. & S. McDonough (1990), applying a questionnaire to 34 teachers, mainly of adults, 14 of them from the same institution, received 21 positive responses to the item: Have you ever consciously made use of 'academic applied linguistic research'? Yet on the authors' own admission, this sample of motivated teachers attending the 1988 IATEFL conference in Edinburgh was somewhat biassed (to say the least), and only general headings were provided by respondents, rather than specific examples of applied research. My own random questioning of in-service school teachers in recent years would suggest a markedly lower figure. The reason for this is not far to seek. Teachers are likely to come into direct contact with research by participating in or conducting it themselves, or by reading original sources, from descriptions in journals, at conferences, seminars, full-time courses, or possibly second-hand from colleagues. All these options are bedevilled by such factors as being equipped with the necessary training to carry out research, accessibility of research reports, and problems of funding.

88 Alun L.W. Rees Funding and manpower are clearly of significance where expenditure in both areas may produce meagre results. As Flanders - a doyen among classroom researchers - reveals in relation to his own investigations: "Research activities take time and cost money, in this case, almost 20 years and nearly one-half million dollars. In retrospect, the product seems modest in terms of the investment." (Flanders 1970:viii)

However, a major factor is TIME. In the real world, particulary at school level, teachers tend to labour under considerable stress and for a relatively poor financial reward in relation to other white-collar professions. Survival skills have to be developed in this demoralizing situation to cope with everyday administrative as well as teaching duties. This is particularly noticeable at present in UK schools suffering the upheavals accompanying the implementation of the National Curriculum, in a pressurised world, reflective reading or thinking, followed by positive application are unlikely. Patronizing suggestions that teachers might cope by better personal management of their time, are to be treated with the scorn they deserve. If teachers come in contact with classroom research at all, a summary report in a book or magazine will be the most usual source. Such sources inevitably, if not deliberately, conceal the complexity, uncertainties and rough edges of research. When reported through the mass media, the study may even be bowdlerised, with complex research issues being reduced to crudities for popular consumption and in the process blown out of all proportion, or even misrepresented. Neville Bennett's research, popularised in his book Teaching Styles and Pupil Progress (1976), received widespread coverage in the media, for it complemented a general reaction to 10 years of progressive education in the UK. The fact that his findings were oversimplified and that some 5 years later he reanalysed the data and remodified the analysis, does little to increase confidence in such research. But despite the initial popular furore, all the evidence shows that most teachers were not in the least affected by Bennett's findings - even if they had heard of him at all. Teachers tend to get on with the job in hand, and who can blame them? A further drawback lies in the nature of research in the social sciences. The classroom can be documented in ways ranging from comprehensive ethnographic analysis modelled on techniques in anthropology, to the statistical quantification of teacher/learner verbal and non-verbal behaviours. But pitfalls await the unwary on all sides. The surprising complexity of classrooms floods the prospective reseacher with data, hindering the task of unravelling what is meaningful, and distinguishing the wood from the trees (Stern 1983:1). Classrooms are multidimensional in that they operate on many levels at once, presenting a host of overlapping variables which are difficult to control for

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experimental purposes or to define in terms that are mutually exclusive. Hence unequivocal results are not readily forthcoming. Doing the work of a teacher is not always the same as teaching. According to Jackson (1968), teachers may be engaged in some 1,000 activities in the course of a day, and Youngman (1979) specifies 100 different tasks in the same period. At school level the teacher plays at least a dual role as subject teacher and educator charged with socialising the little brutes. To cope with this complexity the researcher is obliged to focus on selected areas, which can lead to accusations of a blinkered vision tending to focus on the quantification of discrete items rather than on their crucial interrelationship in the classroom setting. Findings of such narrow research interests may lack generalisability. Conversely, more descriptive and less atomistic research may lead to what teachers regards as woolly and self-indulgent findings of no practical use. The problem of subjectivity inevitably crops up in classroom research. In choosing what to observe, and subsequently during actual observation, the human factor cannot be eliminated, even if steps are taken to diminish it. Long et al. (1976:152) are gracious enough to come clean on this issue: "As for objectivity, like all systems for analysing classroom interaction, our categories arc subjective, and classification of language into them intuitive."

Furthermore, the eminently observable and quantifiable classroom phenomena such as the number and kind of learner questions asked, tend to require a low degree of observer inference in coding them, whereas more qualitative and perhaps crucial aspects such as emotional climate or degree of learner attention do not lend themselves so readily to such treatment - the observer cannot look into the learners' heads to check if learning is taking place, and is forced to judge through external manifestations of it. The examination of classroom discourse is particularly arduous and timeconsuming, as it requires some 20 hours to produce a straightforward transcript of a 1-hour lesson where verbal activity is predominant, which limits the possibility of wide sampling. Even basic concepts such as topic are exceedingly difficult to define explicitly for research purposes (e.g. see Gardner 1984:11213). As language may work on several levels at once, a straightforward statement such as: it's cold in here may stimultaneously serve the illocutionary function of indirectly requesting someone to close an open window or door, or to turn on the heating. Personal interpretation of meaning hence intervenes as a complicating factor. In classroom research it is in fact very difficult to formulate ground-rules defining mutually exclusive categories which can be applied without question by other researchers. Little wonder, then, that Bowers (1980:17) confirms that: very little research is available which reproduces the natural text of language lessons.

90 Alun L.W. Rees In an age claiming to respect human rights, spying on classrooms through a two-way mirror, or electronic eavesdropping by means of hidden bugs or cameras is justly frowned upon. Hence, the question arises of the disruptive effect of the alien observer upon normal classroom behaviour. Personal experience would suggest that the influence of the discreet observer on classroom events is absolutely minimal, but this objection remains a handy wand with which to dismiss the validity of the results of classroom research conducted in this way. One of the intractable problems of classroom research lies in the area of reliability and validity. Reliability of schemes used for classroom observation can be tested by using different observers to collect/analyse the same data. However, agreement in coding particular classroom phenomena does not in itself validate their role in learning. Furthermore, low-funding for educational research rarely permits validated replication of major studies, and classroom teachers themselves cannot be expected to possess the training or time to carry out protracted research relevant to their own situations. Hence any research findings have to be taken on trust until they are refined, augmented - or contradicted. The validity of parameters chosen for classroom research remains a bone of contention. As Good, Biddle & Brophy (1975:8) have long since pointed out: "... research has not yet linked teacher behavior with student achievement in a direct associative way. Thus it is impossible to say that teaching behaviors x, y and z are associated with distinct areas of student achievement."

Hence arbitrary categories chosen for research offer soft targets for critics. Furthermore, any interesting correlations obtained by investigating them do not in themselves establish cause and effect. For example, it may be discovered that teachers give better learners more time to respond to questions than slower learners, but does this prove that it is the discriminating practice itself which has made them better learners than their classmates?

REFLECTION

It is clear, then, that classroom research would seem to exert little impact on teachers except perhaps indirectly by influencing the authors of reference and textbooks who enjoy the time to consult and incorporate current findings into their products. As a result, researchers might "... regard teachers as recalcitrant, unwilling to cooperate, and unappreciative of efforts to improve their work." (Van Lier 1988:34)

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Teachers can indeed be as conservative and suspicious as anyone else. Perhaps the problem lies in expectations of research that are too high, in the desire for clear-cut answers, and in disappointment when research models do not replicate the original. A first step in a rehabilitation of the activity would be the realization that answers can but lead to further questions taken up by oneself or others (vide Flanders 1970:402). In this sense the quest is never-ending in that, rather than leading us to know more and more about less and less, it serves to enlarge the area of our ignorance, perhaps illuminating our starting point for the first time by helping to document what is known, to highlight what is not known, and to dispel misinformation. Widdowson (1984:86) recommends that: "There must always be change... if we do not accept the need for change, for renewal, and reform, we deny dynamism to our profession."

The difference between a rut and a grave is the depth. However, the direction in which to change is not clear, seeing that it has not yet been established what exactly contributes to effective teaching and learning. And in any case, research findings represent but one avenue to change. In this uncertain climate, the most prudent course of action might be to pursue Fanselow's (1987) recommendation to try out alternatives to our normal classroom procedures, and to adopt those which succeed. A further step would be to consider why they succeed. The findings of research might offer useful pointers in this direction, as well as helping us to determine what exactly our routine classroom procedures are. Therefore more, not fewer, investigations of the classroom would be required. It is surely better to look in classrooms, with all the attendant pitfalls, than not to do so at all. In this scenario, the teacher would not be cowed by prescriptive dictates, but remain the ultimate authority for what goes on in the classroom. And this is how things should be.

REFERENCES Bennett, N. 1976. Teaching Styles and Pupil Progress. Open Books. Bowers, R. 1980. Verbal Behaviour in the Language Classroom. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis. University of Reading. Brumfit, C. 1984. Communicative Methodology in Language Teaching. Cambridge: C.U.P. Dunkin and Biddle. 1974. The Study of Teaching. Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Fanselow, J.F. 1987. Breaking Rules: Generating and Exploring Alternatives in Language Teaching. London: Longman. Flanders, N. 1970. Analysing Teaching Behaviour. Addison-Wesley. Gardner, R. 1984. "Discourse analysis: implications for language teaching". Language Teaching. Cambridge: C.U.P. Good, Biddle and Brophy. 1975. Teachers Make a Difference. Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

92 Alun L.W. Rees Guiora, A., B. Beit-Hallahmi, R. Brannon, C. Dull and T. Scovel. 1972. "The effects of experimentally induced changes in ego state on pronunciation ability in a second language: an exploratory study". Comprehensive Psychiatry 13.421-428. Holbrook, D. 1967. The Exploring Word. Cambridge: C.U.P. Jackson, B.W. 1968. Life in Classrooms. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Long, M. et al. 1976. "Doing things with words". In: G. Fanselow and Crymes (eds.) ON TESOL. McDonough, J. and S. McDonough. 1990. "What's the use of research?" English Language Teaching Journal, 44/2. Oxford: O.U.R McNamara, D. 1980. "The outsider's arrogance". British Educational Research Journal, 6/2. 121. Madsen, H. 1975. "Achieving certification through a modified competency-based TESL teacher education program". TESOL Quarterly, 19/4. Seliger, H.W. and M.H. Long (eds.). 1983. Classroom oriented research in second language acquisition. Rowley, Massachusetts: Newbury House. Scherer G. and M. Wertheimer. 1964. Psycholinguistic Experiment in Foreign Language Teaching. New York: McGraw-Hill. Sinclair, J. McH. and R.M. Coulthard. 1975. Towards an Analysis of Discourse. Oxford: O.U.R Smith, P. 1970. Comparison of the Cognitive and Audiolingual Approaches to Foreign Language Instruction - The Pennsylvania Project. Philadelphia: The Center for Curriculum Development, Inc. Stern, H. 1983. Fundamental Concepts of Language Teaching. Oxford: O.U.P. Van Lier, L. 1988. The Classroom and the Language Learner. London: Longman. Widdowson, H. 1984. "The incentive value of theory in teacher education". English Language Teaching Journal, 38/2. Wragg, E. 1976."Review of Bennett, 1976". British Journal of Teacher Education, 2/3. Youngman, M.B. 1979. Analysing Social and Educational Research. London: McGraw-Hill.

Second Language Teaching and One-only Solutions Makhan L. Tickoo

INTRODUCTION

A concern that Dr. Lee shares with several contemporaries in English language teaching (ELT) and applied linguistics (AL) is that this field has for long suffered from a neglect of its past. A main reason for this neglect is that ELT history lacks a definitive record. A second reason was explained by another ELT pioneer in his paper 'Swings of the Pendulum' (West 1958). In his view ELT scholars fail to build upon established fact. Often in their excitement with the novelty of yet another emerging 'paradigm' (Kuhn 1970), they catch themselves dispensing with the baby alongside the bathwater. Fashions thus change fast, making it difficult to uphold proven principle or established practice. Part of an answer to this long-standing concern has come in the last few years with the publication of scholarly works (eg Howatt 1984) which build awareness of the profession's past. More needs to be done however to facilitate informed action. My point in this article is that neglect of established institutions continues and is becoming more pronounced. Such neglect differs however in the factors which motivate it. The neglect comes now not so much from not knowing as from a new type of necessity. Necessity has, all through history, not only mothered great invention but fathered desperate distortion. In one of its forms it appears to be exceptionally fertile in AL today. In what follows I shall explore an aspect of this phenomenon in the belief that doing so can contribute to an understanding of parts of the ground on which TES(F)L stands today. I have organised the main discussion into two complementary sections, each of which deals with one major area of current interest in L2 pedagogy: Section A reviews the operation of the necessity in syllabus design; Section B then attempts a similar review of the language classroom. But first a brief preliminary word about the necessity I referred to: Revolutionary change is no longer a rare phenomenon in some aspects of human development. For several reasons however change is much slower in human disciplines. This being the case the scholar in such disciplines, especially when he works in market oriented, highly competitive centres of learning, is often compelled to strive for differentness. In its extreme form this necessity-

94 Makhan L. Tickoo propelled differentness gets realized through promoting one-only products. Working towards such necessity driven 'one-only solutions' is a noteworthy development in current AL and ELT.

SECTION A: 'ONE-ONLY SOLUTIONS' AND L2 SYLLABUSES

Up until the 1970s a syllabus was a document comprising a few basic essentials. Corder stated these thus: "A finished syllabus is the overall plan for the learning process. It, too, must specify what components, or learning items, must be available, or learned by a certain time, what is the most efficient sequence in which they are learned; what items can be learned 'simultaneously'; what items are available from stock..." (Corder 1973:296). Every syllabus selected what had to be taught/learned; it then provided 'the most efficient sequence' for the teaching/ learning of the items thus selected. Dissatisfaction with syllabuses had begun however long before Corder defined the object; the "learning item" needed re-examining; so did the "most efficient sequence". Both suffered from ad hocism and arbitrariness; both showed evidence of failure to take into account aspects of language and of successful learning. By the mid-seventies several alternatives emerged. The better known of these (eg Wilkins 1976) not only allowed for meaning as well as form but made it possible to prioritize aspects/elements of the content. In thus becoming 'semantic' or 'communicative', syllabuses became responsive to varying purposes and preferences. But dissatisfaction persisted and doubts arose about how 'communicative' they had become (Widdowson 1984), about their viability in theory or in practice (Paulston 1981; Brumfit 1981) or about the substance of the changes made (Candlin 1984). At this stage something entirely unexpected began to appear. Realization that selection and sequencing, rather than just being guarantors of security and continuity, are constraints to teacher- and learner-initiative, led to moves to reduce their impact. All this happened in successive stages. First came a well-argued plea for practitioners to be "far less concerned with the prior selection and organisation of data and much more concerned with the ways learners may act upon and interact with such data" (Breen et al 1979: 3). Then came a wholesale questioning of pre-selection and -sequencing (Prabhu 1983/84) since both were restrictive and, in actual use, redundant (Breen 1984). The ultimate (ie the 'one-only solution') was not long in coming. It was the proposition that the best way to make a syllabus serve its users was to have none of it and in its place to work towards a 'syllabus' that would follow upon the acts of teaching, one that would be not so much tactical blueprint as tactical

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record, "a retrospective record rather than a prospective plan." (Candlin 1984:35). Now before we try to grasp the nature and implications of this "away with its head" one-only solution for L2 syllabuses, we ought, in fairness to its proponents, to go a little deeper into the factors that made it necessary. I said earlier that applied linguists had, for varying reasons, reacted differently to the alternatives of the 1970s. One group in particular had argued that "the view of language implied by some list of 'functions' and 'notions' was as limiting to the learner as one based on grammatical structure" (Candlin 1984:38); it merely changed labels. They therefore visualized a syllabus to overcome the weaknesses of every content-based and product-oriented document. A good syllabus, it was argued, would emerge as accounts based on "the tension between classroom action and curriculum guidelines, recorded in syllabuses" (ibid.:36); it would take syllabus specification "out of teachers' control" (ibid.:35), allowing the real syllabus to "emerge as joint constructs of teachers and learners, recording the how, what and the why" (ibid.:35). As a result it would become "a dynamic and negotiated concept rather than one which is static and imposed" (ibid.:33). Most importantly, such a syllabus would provide for, in fact encourage, meaningful negotiation and constructive dialogue. Now there can be little doubt about the theoretical profundity or purity of the ideas on which the 'reform' was being proposed. Some of them that draw sharp, if exaggerated, contrasts between schools that require learners to bank received knowledge and those that enable them to discover their own, have been culled from reformist thinking in education. Nor need there be much doubt about the theoretical prowess of the change visualized or its hoped for impact on pedagogy. However, what is at issue here is not the philosophy of education brought to bear on syllabus issues but something much more earthy, viz. the place and roles of a document that enhances learning by strengthening the teacher's hands. This being so, the questions to address are "What would happen if a retrospective syllabus were allowed to become a reality?" and "How helpful is it to demand that syllabus content and its sequencing be taken 'out of teachers' control'"? Part of the answer can be thought of in terms of an analogy. In what it is and does, a syllabus is comparable to the rules of the road. Both come from authority and serve as guides to action; both serve the administrator as well as the user. Both are known to please and displease, help and hinder, depending on who uses them, when and where. Both vary from country to country and must change with new understandings, user preferences and ups and downs in a system's resources. Finally and importandy, what would happen if there were no syllabuses (=they became retrospective), can be visualized best by thinking of a city where users had no rules to guide them for a whole day. The truth is that

96 Makhan L. Tickoo syllabuses, like rules of the road, are products of evolving collective wisdom. To deny the busy teacher access to them if only to liberate him, may, in most cases, act as a desperate remedy based on misplaced zeal. Part of the answer lies in finding out how the proponents of retrospective 'syllabuses' have worked to make them possible. Two points need attention. One, the idea, presented by Candlin at the 1983 TESOL Convention, is seven years old. Two, it was an answer to a defined need, viz. "to examine the role of syllabuses in normal state education" (Brumfit 1984:1). Attempts have since been made to involve adult learners in aspects of course design (Nunan 1988) and there is much to gain from their successes or failures. However, none of these welcome initiatives caters for "normal state education". ES(F)L systems in Asia and elsewhere have also introduced 'communicative' syllabuses. None of them is retrospective however and none supports the belief that syllabus design is best left to classroom negotiation. The proponents of retrospective syllabuses have also recently produced at least one state-level syllabus (Candlin and Nunan 1987) but it too is avowedly prospective and, in relative terms, far fuller in its specification of content (See Tickoo 1990). Retrospective syllabuses, somewhat like Illich's 'deschooling society' (Illich 1971), may have a place in educational Utopias but they are doing a lot of harm in state - level ELT systems. I shall briefly state how: Such a 'one-only solution' impacts on the profession in two obvious ways: it leads to unwarranted defeatism among applied linguists who mediate between theory and practice (Dr Lee's 'middlemen'), and it creates debilitating uncertainty among syllabus makers who seek support in current theory. An example of the first is the following concluding statement from someone who has been involved in syllabus design for many years: "Many language teachers perhaps feel that applied linguists and other 'gurus' of the profession are letting them down by failing to produce teachable syllabuses that learners can learn from. My own view is that this is the fault not of applied linguists, not even of 'gurus' - but of the nature of language and the nature of learners. 'True', generally valid language-teaching syllabuses do not exist, and perhaps we should stop trying to invent them" (Morrow 1987:38). In this view the current understanding of language and learning has reached such an advanced stage that it is impossible to make it serve the teacher. The truth however is that it is this 'one-only solution' which builds such beliefs. Usable syllabuses continue to be produced and some at least reflect the gains made in incorporating recent insights. The second type of impact is seen in the lack of certainty in ES(F)L systems about what makes a fully viable alternative. In Allen's words: "The resulting conflict between what is theoretically respectable and what is usable in practice has resulted in a crisis of confidence which is threatening to undermine the L2 teaching profession in many parts of the world" (Allen 1987:55).

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A final point: 'one-only solutions' encourage a mistrust of the teacher her/himself. In chasing the ultimate the scholar seems to forget that in syllabus design it is unnecessary to strive for marginalizing teachers because in most cases in ELT systems, they have very little to do in its making. The plea for taking the syllabus out of teachers' control may in fact go against the very idea of allowing classroom negotiation a share in its making. But such unfortunately is the desperation that one-only solutions nourish that very often they target friends and foes alike. The marginalizing of teachers, established institutions and practices, appears to be becoming all too fashionable in such solutions.

SECTION B: LANGUAGE CLASSROOMS AND ONE-ONLY SOLUTIONS

Three statements can sum up my view of L2 classroom observation (CO). That it is just about 25 years old is the first; it began when Barnes and others justified the need to "grope towards our invisible knowledge and bring it into sight" (Barnes 1975:12). The second modifies the first somewhat: it is that listening to the voice of the classroom was what distinguished the best ELT work of the first half of this century (eg West 1960; Tickoo 1988). Thirdly, having begun as a reaction to overly great concentration on a search for the best method, the present phase of CO is distinguished by the researcher's ability to record, transcribe and analyse large parts of what actually takes place as a basis for articulating usable pedagogic principles. All this is apparent in the growing involvement and mounting investment in CO (Chaudron 1988; Allwright 1988) and, more important, in 'scientific optimism' in the possible returns from such research. But something else has emerged as well and it appears to once again suggest the start of a movement towards 'one-only solutions'. The explanation follows: As part of their research, scholars have, with good warrant, highlighted the need to prioritize. Having, for example, rightly argued that language lessons are learning opportunities, it is postulated "that interaction is the process whereby everything (italics mine) that happens in the classroom gets to happen the way it does." (Allwright 1984:169). The apparent purpose here is to focus on interaction as the main factor in an L2 lesson. An obvious question to ask however is: 'How helpful is it to say that interaction is the sine qua non of whatever happens in the classroom'? Allwright himself provides one answer: the statement is descriptively true, and represents the normal state of affairs in language classrooms (Allwright 1988). But if we rephrase the question and ask: 'Is something lost in focussing on interaction as the sole constituent of learning', the answer would be that it may not be altogether true in a good many situations. Interaction cannot, for example, be all there is to learning in classrooms where the individual learner engages texts

98 Makhan L. Tickoo to discover personal meanings. Nor may it be the only source of learning in cultures or climates where learners prefer learning with oneself to learning in groups (Melton 1990). It may in truth represent either some classrooms or an exaggerated view of some desirable/preferred forms of classroom organisation. But Allwright and others have since gone a lot further. Not only are they convinced about the centrality of interaction, for which they find sizeable support, but they have begun to believe that teaching contributes but little to whatever gets learnt. As he says it in one of his more recent writings: "increasingly we are having, as researchers and as teachers, to face up to the possibility that whatever does in fact determine linguistic development in classroom language learners is largely independent of the deliberate teaching acts that are so carefully planned and conscientiously implemented in the classroom" (Allwright 1987:210). Such a statement apparendy professes a universal truth based on a systematic but as yet only partial observation of what happens in some classrooms. L2 classrooms in different parts of the world are known to work under differing systems of organisation, behaviour and role allocation (Young 1987; Bickley 1989). Not all of them give support to such views on teaching. Nor is that all. A more recent finding of CO appears to suggest that the L2 classroom may in fact not at all be what, perhaps by mistake, it has for generations been made into, viz. a place where teachers come to teach. Part of such received wisdom finds expression in the following words: "We have, I believe, been working on the largely unspoken assumption that what teachers and learners do in lessons is primarily motivated by participants viewing the lesson as a pedagogic event, and very secondarily by any desire to have a social encounter. I am now suggesting that perhaps what is normally happening is the converse. I am suggesting that much of what teachers and learners do may be largely motivated by social considerations and only secondarily by pedagogic ones." (Allwright 1989 :266; emphasis mine). The view that an L2 lesson is a social rather than a pedagogic event must be viewed with seriousness not because it challenges the very basis of classroom language teaching but because it is a product of empirical research. A possible way of making sense of it would perhaps be to know what L2 teachers think of what they do when they teach. In an insightful paper Michael Halliday has an answer (Halliday 1970). In analysing the sentence "The Teacher Taught the Student English" Halliday separates five different acts a teacher may perform in doing so - imparting the language to the student, instructing him/her, causing him/her to learn, causing him/her to know it or causing him/her to come to be able to speak the language. And having shown how each act (which, among them, do not exhaust the range) serves part of the purpose in teaching, he concludes thus: "Language teaching is an extraordinarily complex process, and

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learning a language is not by any means the same task to all people: in a class of thirty students, there are probably thirty different ways or styles of learning" (ibid.:7-8). Now it may be true that part of what happens in an L2 classroom is motivated by social considerations more than pedagogic ones and that therefore there is truth in asserting that it is in part a social event. But is there enough evidence to suggest that all language lessons are socially constructed events or that it is rare to find "pedagOgically satisfactory resolutions to troubles" that arise in them? Above all, is there evidence to suggest that learners' linguistic development has very litde to do with what teachers teach even in those classrooms where the only sources of learning may be the single textbook made use of for an hour a day by a teacher? If there isn't, is there reason to believe that current speculations about classrooms, even where they come from observed facts and carry the weight of received wisdom, may once again be moving towards the 'one-only solutions' which, as we saw above, can do much harm? As we enter the 1990s, CO appears to be going into an even more exciting phase with the possible adoption of more sensitive instruments and more holistic methods of enquiry (Van Lier 1988) inside an ethnographic approach. It may also have much to gain from what Ellis calls an 'educational' perspective (Ellis 1988) and Allwright rightly seeks, viz. treating the classroom as a whole culture. One can only hope however that the either-ors that came to dominate the necessity driven paradigms in L2 syllabuses will not also prevail in this pivotal area of language pedagogy.

CONCLUSION

I have made use of two major areas in AL and ELT to explore one particular phenomenon, viz. the tendency towards 'one-only solutions' which are not only not fully warranted by facts but capable of doing much harm. A part of the harm gets done in professing a global solution in areas where answers to problems must come from the local soil. A greater damage gets done when the proponents see the need to marginalise institutions or practices that have proved themselves over generations. In L2 syllabus design the radicalism appears to have gone out of hand in seeking to altogether deny the object that it seeks to reform. In CO recent speculations appear to require a marginalising of the teacher as well as teaching. Other examples exist, eg (a) Stephen Krashen's monitor model (Krashen 1985) which reduces the learner's efforts at learning to mere nothings or (b) the much older Critical Period Hypothesis (Lenneberg 1967) which, in its orthodox form (ie when it became a 'one-only solution') denied the older learners the advantages that age and maturity give them.

100 Makhan L. Tickoo At the beginning of this article I said that one-only solutions are a product of the compulsions under which scholars now work. I shall conclude by adding a word on a possible motivation for devising such solutions in AL. I shall do so by attempting a brief statement in comparison. One main difference between the passionate pioneers who wrote on L2 issues in pre-World War II days and the professional gurus who do so now, is this: for the best of the pioneers the judge and the jury was the teacher in front of the classroom whereas for today's gurus it is the scholar in the backrooms of research. The two judgments differ. The former values what works in classrooms; the latter what excites as an innovation. The one at times suspects, even rejects, the new if it upsets established ways of doing things; the other sees little value in what looks familiar and seems to add to rather than supplant existing wisdom. Practical solutions matter to the former, one-only solutions and claims of revolutionary change preferably with global application earn respect among the latter. On comparing the two scenarios a simplistic solution suggests itself: in addressing issues which interest scholars and practitioners alike, the writer must be obliged to state who his audience is rather than attempting, as he now does, to ride two horses when only one belongs to him. Doing so might reduce the false equation that now holds AL and TESL together, but would that detract much from either? Some five years ago the late Prof. Strevens may have had something similar in mind when, having observed that much of the research derived from a theoretical paradigm showed a disregard for the institution of teaching, he saw the need to view research and practice separately (Strevens 1985). Would there be anything wrong if the practitioner were allowed access to the whole truth ie, not just what is new but also how it has been arrived at (ie under what compulsions), where and for whom? One good it certainly would do, viz. it would not raise hopes which are unlikely to be satisfied.

REFERENCES Allen, J.RB. 1987. "Variable Focus Curriculum Design: Some Considerations for the Eighties". In: M.L. Tickoo (ed.). Language Syllabuses: State of the Art Anthology Series 18. Singapore: RELC. Allwright, RJL. 1984. "The Importance of Interaction in Classroom Language Learning". Applied Linguistics 5/2,156-171. Allwright, R.L. 1987. "Concluding Comments". In: Ellis, R. (ed.). Second Language Acquisition in Context. London: Prentice Hall International (UK). Allwright, R.L. 1988. Observation in the Language Classroom. London: Longman. Allwright, R.L. 1989. "The Social Motivation of Language Classroom Behaviour". In: V. Bickley (ed.). Language Teaching and Learning Styles Within and Across Cultures. Hongkong: Institute of Language in Education. Barnes, D. 1975. From Communication to Curriculum. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Bickley, V. (ed.). 1989. Language Teaching and Learning Styles. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

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Breen, M.P. et al. 1979. "Communicative Materials Design: Some Basic Principles". RELC Journal 10/2. Breen, MP. 1984. "Process Syllabuses for the Language Classroom". In: CJ. Brumfit (ed.). "General English Syllabus Design". ELTDocuments 118. Oxford: Pergamon Press. 47-60. Brumfit, C.J. 1981. "Notional Syllabuses Revisited: a Response". Applied Linguistics 2,90-92. Brumfit, C J . (ed.). 1984. "General English Syllabus Design". ELT Documents 118. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Candlin, C.N. 1984. "Syllabus Design as a Critical Process". In: C J . Brumfit (ed.). "General English Syllabus Design". ELT Documents 118. Oxford: Pergamon Press. 29-46. Candlin, C.N. and D. Nunan. 1987. Revised Syllabus Specifications for the Omani School Language Curriculum. Muscat Ministry of Education and Youth. Chaudron, C. 1988. Second Language Classrooms: Research on Teaching and Learning. Cambridge: C.U.P. Corder, S.P. 1973. Introducing Applied Linguistics. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Ellis, R. 1988. "Investigating Language Teaching: the Case for an Educational Approach". System 16/1. Halliday, M. A.K. 1970. The Teacher Taught the Student English: An Essay in Applied Linguistics. London: University College (Mimeographed). Howatt, A.P.R. 1984. A History of English Language Teaching. Oxford: O.U.P. Dlich, I.D. 1971 .Deschooling Society. Harmondsworth: Penguin Krashen, S.D. 1985. The Input Hypothesis. London: Longman. Kuhn, T.S. 1970. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd Edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lenneberg, E. 1967. Biological Foundations of Language. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Melton, C.D. 1990. "Bridging the Cultural Gap: A Study of Chinese Students' Learning Style Preferences". RELC Journal 21/1. Morrow, K. 1987. "Language Teaching Syllabuses: Fact or Fiction?" In: M.L. Tickoo (ed.). Language Syllabuses: State of the Art Anthology Series 18. Singapore: RELC. Nunan, D. 1988. The Learner Centred Curriculum. Cambridge: C.U.P. Paulston, C.B. 1981. "Notional Syllabuses Revisited: Some Comments". Applied Linguistics 2,93-95. Prabhu, N.S. 1983/84. "Procedural Syllabuses". In: J.A.S. Read (ed.) Trends in Language Syllabus Design Anthology Series 13. Singapore: RELC. Strevens, P.D. 1985. Language Learning and Language Teaching: Towards an Integrated Theory. Forum Lecture. Washington: LSA-TESOL Institute. Tickoo, M.L. 1986. "Scholars' Syllabuses: User Friendly or Utopian?" Rajasthan University Studies in English. Special Number on English Language Teaching. Jaipur India. Tickoo, M.L. 1988. "Michael West in India: A Centenary Salute". ELT Journal 42/4,294-300. Tickoo, M.L. 1990. (forthcoming) From Inventories to Designs: ES(F)L Syllabuses in Perspective. Paper presented at the International Conference on Language and Learning: Theory into Practice. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, July 1989. Van Lier, L. 1988. The Classroom and the Language Learner. London: Longman. Widdowson, H.G. 1984. "Educational and Pedagogic Factors in Syllabus Design" In: C J. Brumfit (ed.). General English Syllabus Design, ELT documents 118. Oxford: Pergamon Press. West, M.P. 1958. Swings of the Pendulum in Shiksha. Special ELT Number. Allahabad, India. West, M.P. 1960. Teaching English in Difficult Circumstances. London: Longmans Green. Wilkins, D. 1976. Notional Syllabuses. Oxford: O.U.P. Young, R. 1987. "The Cultural Context of TESOL - A Review of Research into Chinese Classrooms". RELC Journal 18/2.

Language Study and Language Learning Henry G. Widdowson

Some forty-five years ago, in 1946, there occurred an event, a minor one in comparison with the other momentous happenings of the time, marked only in the small print of history but having, nevertheless, its own significance. A little periodical appeared entitled English Language Teaching, edited by A.S. Hornby, published by the British Council. It is appropriate to refer to it in this volume because in later years, of course, it was edited, with skill and dedication, by Bill Lee himself. But there is another reason for recalling it to the present. Modest though it was in its beginnings, it raised in its very first number two issues which still have a direct bearing on the concerns of our profession forty-five years on. The first has to do with the grand strategy of purpose, with the rationale for learning languages in general. The second issue is the more immediate and practical matter of what needs to be taught in order for this rationale to be effectively realized. The relationship between these issues, between the rationale and its realization, is, I believe, problematic, and this seems a suitable occasion for indicating what I think the problems are. The rationale for foreign language learning is given in the first editorial of ELT, an appropriate place for the ceremonial raising of the standard. It is emphatically cultural. The learning of languages is to serve the cause of civilization by providing open access to other cultures, thereby breaking down the barriers erected by national prejudice and allowing free passage to liberating ideas. This, we should remember, was 1946. Liberation was a recent experience. The dreadful consequences in Europe of national self-assertion were everywhere apparent in its ruins. Otto Jespersen, in a passage quoted in the first pages of this periodical, refers to nationalism as 'the ghastly malady of our time'. It is easy to understand such an attitude. The learning of languages was seen as a remedy for this ailment of ethnocentrism. It was associated with a mission: the promotion of cultural reciprocity and a sense of community between nations. This noble and inspiring vision is one which is still regularly invoked in the ritual pronouncements of fine sentiments. But how closely does it correspond with reality? After forty odd years of earnest endeavour in the teaching of foreign languages in Europe, how much has actually been achieved in the way of genuine cross-cultural understanding and multicultural concord? There is to be sure considerable co-operation but co-operation can be activated by political

104 Henry G. Widdowson and economic expediency, and ultimately inspired by self-interest. The existence of multi-national companies carries no necessary implication of multi-nationalism. It presupposes no sense of affinity or cultural empathy. So how far are the high-minded statements about international friendship and understanding between peoples actually reflected in the attitude of actual individual people living in these different countries? The evidence is not very encouraging. I see little sign, for example, that the learning of French and German in British schools has engendered much understanding of, or sympathy, with the cultures of these countries. Generally speaking the result has been indifference, even hostility, and the re-affirmation of the very partisan attitudes which the cultural purpose of language learning is supposedly designed to change. Foreign language teaching in Britain has in this respect at least, very largely been a sad tale of massive educational failure. Perhaps elsewhere things are different, and the learning of foreign languages really does have the desired effect of developing a sense of cultural affinity and communal accord. Perhaps the children in the schools of France, for example, Germany, Italy, Spain now do have an understanding, founded on language learning, which draws them together into a closer sense of community. I do not know. But I suspect that here too the reality of what is actually achieved in classrooms is very differentfromthe visionary dream that informs the cultural rationale proclaimed in 1946 and recognised, it would seem, as self evident ever since. Is then this broadly educational and cultural purpose an illusion without hope of realization? Or is it that the pedagogic approach to achieving it is at fault? We come to the second issue I mentioned. In this first volume of English Language Teaching, much space is devoted to the advocacy of a practical approach to the teaching of language. There are, the editor tells us, three main aspects to language learning: 'getting to know the language', 'coming to use the language' and 'acquiring the feel of the language'. The pedagogy proposed is directed at the first two of these aspects: that is to say it is devised to develop practical proficiency, the instrumental and utilitarian use of the language. Ideas about how these knowing and using aspects of language might be conceived and taught have changed a good deal over the past four decades. Recent developments have laid particular emphasis on the using aspect as the means as well as the ends of learning and they have rejected a previous insistence on the primary importance of knowing the system or code of the language as a prerequisite for use. And now it is communicative activity which is assumed to be primary as the determining condition for language acquisition. But in spite of these differences of view on matters of methodology, with regard to eventual purposes the focus of attention now in the nineteen nineties as then in the nineteen forties is on practical proficiency, knowing and using language as an instrument for effective communication.

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What then of that aspect which has to do with 'acquiring the feel' of language? This Hornby associates with 'literature and all similar higher branches of study'. It is not entirely clear what these 'higher branches of study' might be, but the term study is, I think, significant. The implication is that 'feel' is acquired through a heightened awareness of the expressive possibilities which are inherent in the very nature of language itself. Feel, in this interpretation, is the recognition of linguistic forms as formulations of particular ways of conceiving of reality. It is, in other words, a sense of a language as a cultural artefact. This aspect of language seems fairly obviously to be relevant to the cultural purpose of learning. And yet pedagogy has not, generally speaking, seen it as central to its concerns. The emphasis has been on the learning of languages for practical communicative use and little attention has been paid to the study of languages to develop an awareness of how they themselves reflect the cultural attitudes, ideas, preoccupations of the people who speak them. The assumption here, I think, is that such awareness can come later and that communicative proficiency will provide the means for its achievement. The structure oriented pedagogy of the recent past was based on the belief that teaching the knowing aspect of language by focusing on form would provide the necessary and sufficient conditions for learners subsequently to deal with the using aspect on their own accord. The communication oriented pedagogy that has superseded it seems to place similar trust in indirect causation. It would appear to be based on the belief that it is cultural awareness that can be left to occur by itself as a corollary of communicative use, or will be acquired after the event by the instrumental deployment of proficiency. There is, it seems to me, as little compelling evidence for the second belief as for the first. Cultural awareness does not seem to develop as a necessary consequence of communicative proficiency any more than communicative proficiency seems to develop as a necessary consequency of knowing the formal properties of language. Even if the objectives of communicative language teaching were to be effectively achieved and learners were to leave their courses equipped with proficiency, it does not follow at all that this would be put to the service of cross-cultural understanding. There are plenty of examples of people learning to be proficient in a language for the better exercise of suppressive power and for the denial of the cultural values of its speakers. Once a language is learnt as a means of communication it also becomes a means of control and it can be dedicated to all kinds of causes, discreditable and otherwise. Language as an instrument for communication can, like all instruments, be used for mischief. There appears to be, then, a lack of congruence between the general, and lofty, proclamations of cultural purpose delivered, so to speak, from on high, and the rather more down-to-earth pedagogic proposals directed at developing proficiency. The cultural purpose presupposes an integrative orientation, the

106 Henry G. Widdowson proficiency objective presupposes an instrumental one. We should note, furthermore, that there is a limit to the number of languages that we can expect students to be proficient in: a pedagogically determined threshold level, of a kind other than that with which we have become familiar, needs to be taken into account. And if it is only practicable to develop proficiency in one language, or even two, how is the purpose of cross-cultural understanding to be achieved with those people whose language is not included on the curriculum? We might claim that students in a particular country might acquire an affinity with, say, Germans, because they have learned that language; but they would, by the same token, have no more understanding of, say, the French than they would of Martians. One surely needs some broader perspective of the subject which will allow for an understanding of the nature and function of language in general, as a context for a more specific focusing on practical proficiency in particular languages. So the definition of communicative proficiency as the objective for language learning cannot of itself account for the achievement of the cross-cultural awareness and understanding which the learning of languages is supposed to promote. What then can? Can any approach to language pedagogy realistically hope to provide the means for such promotion? For if not, then perhaps we should dispel these visionary dreams, clear our minds of cant, as Dr Johnson advised us to do, and acknowledge that we are in the business of providing a set of handy tools and instructions for their practical use and have no pretensions to be doing anything of any greater educational significance. This utilitarian goal for language learning is itself difficult enough to achieve, even when only one language is concerned, let alone two or more, as many a teacher will testify. And here we encounter another disparity: this time between the proposals for a communicative pedagogy and the reality of its implementation in the conditions of actual classrooms. The development of communicative proficiency, particularly, as is commonly the case, when this is taken to mean the ability to speak a foreign language, makes demands on teachers and learners which in some circumstances, it is quite impossible for them to meet. And, as in other areas of social life, ideals which are unattainable have the reverse effect of their intention and incite disillusionment and subversion. These disparities between what is proclaimed, what is proposed, and what is practically feasible should, I think, be acknowledged, but should not lead us to abandon either cultural purpose or communicative objective out of hand. Rather it should encourage us into a critical appraisal of cun-ent ideas and practices with a view to reconciling these different aims within a realistic pedagogy. What I want to do in the rest of this paper is to make one or two modest suggestions to that end. First, let me suggest that acquaintance with other people's language can indeed lead to an understanding of the ideas, attitudes, values and so on which

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inform their culture. And this is true of varieties within the same language as well as languages which are identified as distinct. But the culture does not have to be thought of as a separate phenomenon from the language, information that the language can be used instrumentally to convey. It can be conceived of, more satisfactorily, as something which is directly expressed in the language itself. To quote an anthropological formulation of this point: "Culture does not consist of things, people, behaviour or emotions. It is the forms of things that people have in mind, their models for perceiving, relating, otherwise interpreting them." (Goodenough 1984)

These "forms of things that people have in mind" are, of course, linguistically encoded abstractions; these models are made out of categories within language. Now obviously there are aspects of the way of life of people as realized through overt behaviour which can be observed and described as things in dissociation from the particular forms and models which encode them in the language itself. One can study the way of life of Spanish or British or French people, in the present or in the past, without including their languages as part of the data of cultural artefacts, using the languages as instruments but not objects of enquiry. One can, for example, study the history of Spain without regard to the history of the Spanish language. But culture defined as the forms of things, as models of interpretation, is deeply embedded in the very design of the language itself, language conceived not simply as an instrumental conveyance for information but as an essential expression of cultural identity. In this view, language and culture are in a sort of symbiotic relationship, each informing the other in a process of mutual accommodation. Cultural understanding, in this perspective, can be seen as a function of the study of language, whereby it is known as having conceptual significance beyond its immediate communicative usefulness. A pedagogy of language study along these lines would be concerned with comparisons; and it would in effect bring contrastive analysis out of exile and establish it as a methodological principle. Contrastive analysis was, as previously practised, an activity to be carried out by teachers and course designers to facilitate the instrumental learning of language (see James 1991). What I am suggesting is that it might be an activity designed for learners' use to promote the cultural study of language. Thus, for example, a class might be given a task involving the consideration of certain lexical fields in their own and in the foreign language relating to areas of their interest, noting the way these fields reflect patterns of behaviour and thought, how borrowed terms are adjusted to different cultural needs and so on. Or the class might be guided into an enquiry into how basic concepts of time and space, state and process and causality are differently encoded in syntax; or into how different social relations are realized in different languages by terms of reference and address, and how these are used

108 Henry G.Widdowson to express values of power and solidarity. Again, problems might be set to draw attention to similarities and differences between metaphorical expressions in different languages, for, as has been pointed out: "The most fundamental values in a culture will be coherent with the metaphorical structure of the most fundamental concepts in the culture." (Lakoff and Johnson 1980:22)

Of course such a programme of contrastive language study would have to be designed to engage the interest and allow for the initiative of learners, and would in general have to be informed by the principles of effective pedagogy which apply to the teaching of any subject. But we might note that, of its very nature, such a programme would allow for learner involvement in that it makes direct appeal to the learners' own experience of language. Furthermore, the contrastive study explicitly formulates that experience and at the same time establishes relevance across languages and cultures, thereby accounting for the cultural purpose of learning within the methodology itself. These suggestions that a foreign language as a subject on the curriculum might be defined to account directly for "feel" as well as use, conceived as study for awareness as well as learning for proficiency, will perhaps seem very retrograde to some, a reversion to primitive thinking. For it has been received wisdom for a long time, and certainly since 1946, that teaching about the language is to be strenuously resisted. And here I am in 1990 suggesting just the opposite. There are, I think, two points to be made on this matter. First, there is, it seems to me, an independent educational case for the definition of a language subject as a contrastive field of study, a case, as I have sought to indicate, which rests on its capability, given an appropriate methodology, for discharging the cultural purpose of the subject. Given an appropriate methodology: this is, of course, a crucial condition, and one which is perhaps more likely to be met now than in the past, now that we can draw on a wider range of perspectives on pedagogy and the description of language. An objection to particular practices in the teaching about language does not necessarily apply to the concept of teaching about language in principle. The second point has to do with the possible negative effects teaching about language might have on language learning for proficiency. There is a widely held belief that acquiring language for use happens when there is an urge towards communicative outcomes and when attention is thereby deflected from linguistic form. In this view, any conscious study of language interferes with learning as a natural communicative process. The vigour with which this idea has been promoted is rather more impressive than the evidence for its validity (for further discussion, see Widdowson 1990). The supposition seems to be that linguistic forms can only have significance for the learner when they function as tokens of instrumental meaning, that their intrinsic conceptual meaning is somehow insignificant. But the dissociation of an awareness of form from

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communication seems no more reasonable than its dissociation from culture. It may well be the case that the kind of on-line processing required in spoken conversation makes it difficult to deliberate on form but it does not follow that this condition on language use in natural circumstances should also be a condition of language learning. Indeed a concentration on form in learning may, as the structuralist argument claimed, make it so habitual as to ensure its unconscious access in use. And anyway, communication in the written mode does not impose these constraints on the user but rather encourages the achievement of meaning by conscious analysis of form. Altogether, then, there seems to be no very convincing reason for supposing that a focus on the language itself necessarily inhibits learning or use. On the contrary, linguistic forms, as both formulations of cultural concepts and potential projections of communicative function can be seen as units of learning for the development of both cultural awareness and of proficiency. Thus knowing can be seen as the basis for both feel and use. My argument would be, then, that all these three aspects of language which Homby identifies in the first volume of English Language Teaching need to be considered in the design of language programmes. There will, of course, be differences in emphasis. There will be situations in which the practical mastery of the language (whatever that might mean) will be at a premium, and in this case it will be the relationship between knowing and use which will need to be at the centre of concern, and learning for proficiency will take precedence over language study. The most obvious situations of this sort are those in which the language is required for specific utilitarian purposes (eg. ESP) and where there may be little room on a timetable designed to be cost-effective in terms of immediate utility for any supplementary provision for language awareness. But not all situations are like this. Some, including, I venture to suggest, many in European secondary schools, would probably be better served by a programme which emphasised the relationship between knowing andfeel, the study of the intrinsic cultural content of language. In Britain, for example, where it is notoriously difficult to coax learners into recognising the practical usefulness of learning another language, it might well be better policy to invest rather in awareness on the not unreasonable assumption that the knowledge of language which results, while serving a primary cultural purpose, will also provide a basis for the subsequent extension into use if and when occasion requires. This at all events would be preferable to a mistaken, if well-meaning, insistence on an exclusive concern for proficiency, and for spoken proficiency in particular, which, for all kinds of reason, the learners will not actually acquire. I am aware that these suggestions will seem like heresy to many. The idea that foreign language is on the curriculum to be learned for proficiency, that it is essentially a behavioural not a cognitive subject, is so deeply embedded in

110 Henry G. Widdowson pedagogic consciousness that it seems simply perverse to question it. But how far is such an idea realised in practice in terms of learner success? How many learners actually achieve communicative proficiency, particularly in the spoken language which is given prominence in their classes? And how many, with whatever practical ability they have managed to acquire, gain thereby the sense of cultural plurality, the broader international vision, the general educational benefits which, it is proclaimed, result from the learning of foreign languages? Some, no doubt; perhaps even a lot in some countries, and with some foreign languages. But do we not also see classrooms full of bored and disaffected pupils, alienated from the foreign language by the very attempts to induce proficiency in it? Of course, there is a good deal of boredom and alienation in other subject classrooms as well. But to use a foreign language, and especially to speak it, involves performance in a particularly vulnerable role, one which requires conformity to patterns of behaviour which are often negatively evaluated by the peer-group with which the pupil identifies. Effective performance in a foreign language may gain the approval of the teacher but excite the derision of other members of the class. Much has been achieved in the teaching of foreign languages in Europe since A S Hornby's little periodical made its first appearance in 1946, particularly in the development of a pedagogy for proficiency. Nothing I have said in this paper should be taken as in any way undervaluing this achievement. But we should acknowledge, I think, that such pedagogy does not necessarily account for all aspects of language learning in all circumstances. There is a case, both in terms of cultural purpose and in terms of practical feasibility, for a closer attention to the formal features of language itself than this pedagogy readily allows for. There is, in short, a place in our scheme of things, for the study as well as for the learning of languages. This will not of itself guarantee any greater sense of intercultural comity, but it can provide the necessary understanding upon which it is based. The vision of 1946 should still have the power, as we move into the last decade of the century, to inform our educational thinking.

REFERENCES Goodenough, W. H.. 1964. "Cultural Anthropology and Linguistics" In: D. Hymes (ed.). Language in Culture and Society. New York: Harper and Row. James, C. 1991. "Contrastive Analysis". In: W. Bright (ed.). The Oxford International Encyclopedia of Linguistics. New York: O.U.R Lakoff, G. and B. Johnson. 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Widdowson, H. G. 1990. Aspects of Language Teaching. Oxford: O.UP.

Learning and the learner

Learning a Foreign Language: the 'Cognitive' Approach Olga Akhmanova and Tamara Nazarova

Prof. W.R. Lee has always concerned himself with mutual understanding among different nationalities. Whenever it is a question of English-language teaching or organizing international exchange of views and approaches, first and foremost with him it is the idea of getting as many people as possible to communicate and understand each other. Teaching foreign languages to him is not a purely professional concern, merely a job to do; it is unfailingly fraught with much greater humanistic significance. That is why he has explored (and goes on exploring) so painstakingly the different kinds of English by way of choosing the one (or ones) that will help people to communicate more readily and with greater mutual satisfaction: the kind of English that is easy to understand and is best suited to a variety of situations. Now that walls are crumbling and barbed -wire fences are no longer set up to divide the peoples of the world from each other, we must join forces to break through the language barriers which are still much too numerous and persistent. In an age of electronic computers (and other sophisticated technical aids) one cannot help wondering how far the cognitive ('semiotic'?) approach to language teaching and language acquisition could be regarded as an asset. Language being the most important means of human communication we, as linguists and teachers, cannot begin by discussing linguistic semiotics 'metatheoretically', as part of the 'science of science', as a metamethod. These aspects of semiotics, however important they may be, lead us nowhere. What we are after is 'practical semiotics' or, to use a more up-to-date term, 'cognitive' semiotics. For decades 'theoretical linguistics' had adopted the formal or structural ('structuralist') approach. In spite of the obvious fact that linguistics is an empirical science, people went so far as to altogether exclude the reality of written and oral speech from their studies. Contrariwise, at the English Department of Moscow State University we have always assumed that natural human languages 'exist' (are 'cognoscible') only in and through speech and have no other form of existence. The task of the linguist is to 'cognosce' various linguistic phenomena in terms of their function in discourse. 'Language' is not an 'emic' idealized abstraction,

114 Olga Akhmanova and Tomara Nazarova but a fully cognoscible synthesis of underlying mental processes and the complexities of linguistic semasiology. To return to semiotics. From what has been said above the following questions should come first: What has semiotics to do with linguistics, if anything? In what way may semiotics turn out to be useful in our studies of natural languages? To be able to arrive at a tolerably well-grounded answer to these questions we must consider the relationship between linguistics and semiotics step-by-step. To begin with: where does the concept of sign become essential in the quest for the 'cognitive' approach to natural human languages (with special reference to linguistic tuition)? For the semiotic approach to be adopted the following categories have to be realized in the material under investigation: 'disembodiment' ('not being bound up in a particular sound-caul'), 'arbitrariness' and 'singularity'.1 Otherwise stated, the content plane of the sign, the signifié, must not be encumbered with individual reference to a particular extralinguistic object. It must be arbitrary in the sense that its physical expression is not required to be symbolic: it is meant to be used arbitrarily, by agreement. It is bound to possess the very important property o f ' singularity': it must be something that is easily distinguishable from all other facts of the same kind. The most 'disembodied' of all language units are phonemes - sounds the difference between which is not conditioned by position alone. Being the unilateral units of the diacritical level, phonemes function as signs signalling 'otherness', the connection between expression and content taking the pure and absolute form of semiological relevance.2 Next come punctuation marks. They are 'disembodied' in the sense that there is no historically or extralinguistically determined connection between what they signal and what they actually are. Punctuation marks can be used arbitrarily in writing. This is a system of very convenient, compact signs which find conventional expression both in writing and oral speech. Punctuation marks are singular in the sense that they are semiotically kept apart: the things they signal have to be clearly distinguished and differentiated. A full stop denotes end of a sentence; a colon introduces an explanation; a semi-colon links separate ideas within a sentence. The methods of linguistic semiotics are very helpful in the study of syntactic and lexical syntagmatics. The difference between the two kinds of syntagmatics is signalled by different prosodies; prosodic means functioning as signs: the use of this or that prosody shows clearly which is which. The semiotics of the two syntagmatics is best manifested in technical literature: the choice of this or that prosodic pattern in the oral form of language goes hand in hand with the use of the hyphen in the written form of speech, thus, for example, in attributive groups signalling 'unity' as against 'disunity', 'conjunction' as against 'disjunction'.

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Further research in the field of syntagmatics vs semiotics has shown that a word-combination when used as a lexicographic definition is no longer a linguistic unit in the ordinary sense of the word, but a semiotic unit. A logical definition is supposed to be the sign of the scientific object, the object and its scientific definition always being in one-to-one correspondence. The property of belonging to the field of semiotics is discoverable in units smaller than word-combinations, i.e. words. In this respect it is important to distinguish between syncategorematic and categorematic words. Syncategorematic words in contrast with the categorematic ones are of a much more abstract character. This is best illustrated when one studies English articles. To anive at the semiotic function of articles one has to begin by completely 'disembodying' and abstracting them. The three English articles - 'a', 'the', 'zero' - are used to indicate, single out or classify an object with respect to the participants of the speech event. The English articles are a set of special signs by means of which we can shift and organize the deictic orientation of speech. As people communicate the deictic orientation of their speech is continuously shifted and re-organized in different ways. It has recently been shown that a very interesting instance of linguistic semiotics had been neglected because 'phonesthemes' had not been included in this aspect of linguistic research. For a long time there was a strong tendency to regard phonesthemes as bilateral units comparable to lexical morphemes.3 Phonesthemes were mainly approached structurally and taxonomically. The systemic-structural approach resulted in different classifications and inventories of phonesthemes (fl- - 'movement' as in flee, fly, fling, flip; gl- - 'light' as in a glance, glare, gleam, glimmer, si-, sm-, sn- - 'pejorative connotations' as in slip, slop, smoke, smirk, smirch, sniff, snivel, snap). As time went on and more research was conducted several new directions were elaborated: 1) the semasiology of phonesthemes as part of paronymous attraction and 2) phonesthemes within the domain of sound symbolism and the higher reaches of linguopoetic creativity. Like on all other levels the general principle of keeping the /active and fictive registers apart is here of the greatest importance. Linguosemiotic methods are not confined to the separate elements of the language (phonemes, phonesthemes, words, word-combinations or whatever). They can be applied to texts as well. Here the semiotics of interlinguistically based texts comes in. 4 Otherwise stated, this is the question of the choice of the kind of English for this or that sign situation. The moment someone deliberately chooses a variety of English for a special kind of human communication, he (or she) ceases to be functioning on the natural linguistic (historical-philological) level, but enters a new branch of activity which becomes the object of a different

116 Olga Akhmanova and Tamara Nazarova science - semiotics. This process is connected with the use of 'rational communicative systems', the rationality of scientific communication, its optimal character. Language for specific purposes (LSP) has much to do with a semiotically repetitive, 'disembodied', arbitrarily chosen text, 'singular' (or 'unique') in the sense that it is there to be 'transcribed, imitated, emulated' as closely as possible. LSP as far as we are concerned is primarily 'the English We Use', or English as 'the tool of our trade'. We have repeatedly insisted that it must be philologically based, an 'a posteriori' language and not an 'a priori' one. We begin by making sure that we take out those modes of expression which are affected or flowery or excessively idiomatic, pertaining to the higher echelons of literary style or obsolescent. We concentrate our attention on what we call 'ultimate syntagmatic sequences' with special reference to those which are marked out by higher frequency of occurrence. In this way a kind or style of English for students of philology has gradually evolved spreading to include the teaching of ESP (English for Specific Purposes) at other departments of the University. Devotion to the concept of 'ultimate syntagmatic units' (recurrent expressions for general scientific concepts and relations) appears to be holding the promise of one day extending the use of electronic computer techniques to include the different kinds of ESP. We could then hope to apply new and so far unrealized methodologies to textological analysis at large.

NOTES 1.

For more information on the subject see: Akhmanova, O. and R.F. Idzelis. 1979. Linguistics and Semiotics. Moscow: Moscow University Press.

2.

See: Akhmanova, O. 1971. Phonology, Morphonology, Morphology. The Hague/Paris: Mouton.

3.

See Firth, J.R. 1957. "The Use and Distribution of Certain English Sounds". Papers in Linguistics 1934-1951. London: O.U.P.. 34-46; Bolinger, D.L. 1950. "Rime, Assonance, and Morpheme Analysis". Word 6/2. Householder, F.W. 1946. "On the Problem of Sound and Meaning. An English Phonestheme". Word 2/1.

4.

Akhmanova, O. and R.F. Idzelis. 1978. What is the English we use? Moscow: Moscow University Press; Nazarova, T. and V. Vasilyev. 1978. The Methodology of the Learneroriented English Language Teaching. Moscow: Moscow University Press.

Learning to Spell in an Anglophone Setting Virginia F. Allen

There was a time when ESL/EFL students regularly outshone LI speakers in one of the English language skills. Whatever their limitations in speech and listening-comprehension, they usually could spell. The reason was obvious. Surveying a roomful of adult students in an Anglophone country, one could assume that most had been introduced to English visually, in some other land, where English-speaking teachers were few, and careful spelling was demanded. The result was far-from-native pronunciation, but better-than native spelling. Naturally, in those days, texts and courses for ESL/EFL teachers had little to say about the teaching of spelling. When the students' speech was already laden with spelling-pronunciations, the less attention paid to letters the better. Since that time, throughout the English-speaking world, language programs have undergone changes in clientele. Many adult newcomers today have emigrated without having passed through a traditional eye-oriented study of English, some indeed without having gone to school at all. Some arrive with no literacy but with a smattering of oral English acquired from overseas military personnel. Some have lived for months or more in Anglophone communities, attending classes where the approach is oral and "communicative" - and permissive, so far as amenities of writing are concerned. For these and other reasons, many today have a perilously slight acquaintance with conventions of English that govern the spelling of their oral vocabulary conventions, for instance, that call for writing soap instead of 'sope' and furniture instead of 'furnature'. More than earlier generations, today's L2 students have problems like those that native speakers face when it comes to spelling the words they can say and understand. It may be useful, then, to share some observations on the subject of spelling, noting especially how (some) native speakers learn to spell. No need to explain that parenthetical some. A recent issue of Newsweek cites a 'chorus of complaints about the ongoing decline of American youth, as judged by their awful spelling'. And spelling is a problem for older and wiser heads as well. One recent year the University of Wisconsin handed nearly 4,000 diplomas to graduates in May, but it took six months for anyone to notice that the name of the state was

118 Virginia F. Allen misspelled. (In the fine print below the Chancellor's signature, the -sin of Wisconsin appeared as -son.) Across the Atlantic, according to an AP dispatch, Prince Charles has been heard to fume: "All the letters sent from my office I have to correct myself." Presumably spelling errors figure among the irritating flaws. Yet obviously some LI speakers do know how to spell. They never hesitate between effect and affect, never put principle where principal belongs. They always remember the second m in accommodation and the second r in occurred. They never forget which vowel goes after the p of repetition or before the nt of relevant. After all, misspelled words are more the exception than the rule in the current spate of print (brochures, reports, articles, solicitations, ads...). There must be legions of expert spellers out there, catching mistakes in copy that is designed for public view. How did such LI speakers learn to spell? During the mid-1980s, that question loomed large at the Spring Institute, a teaching-and-consulting group in the state of Colorado. That was when large numbers of adult native speakers began to appear in literacy programs throughout the region. Virtually none of those LI adults could spell. In fact, a surprising number of newcomers to literacy programs were actually adequate readers; what they really wanted was to improve their spelling. Three of many English-speaking literacy students come particularly to mind. There was the employee of a dry-cleaning shop, tired of being ridiculed by co-workers for her bizarre spelling of common words on order slips. There was the secretary about to lose a good job; her spelling was too precarious for editing ill-spelled contributions to the company's newsletter. There was the successful horticulturist, unable to lead seminars on landscape gardening because "I'd have to write on the blackboard, and they'd see right away that I can't spell." Adults like these need help with spelling, and they need to get it fast. They are not consoled by being told that spelling is a genetically based neuromuscular activity unrelated to IQ. True as it may be that spelling prowess depends largely on genes, the Spring Institute could not say: "Sorry. We can't do anything for you. You were just not born to spell." The search for more helpful alternatives sent members of the Institute off in several directions. One path led to a review of methods used by spelling teachers in an earlier day — as early, in fact, as the first half of the nineteenth century, when books known as "Sunday School spellers" instructed Americans before public education had reached all the states. And best-sellers from Victorian days were disinterred, including the McGuffey spellers and Webster's Elementary Spelling Book (known also as the "Blue-Backed Speller"), the most popular school book ever sold (100 million copies before 1900). Another path led to contemporary research reports, like those of the thirtytwo scholars represented in Uta Frith's Cognitive Processes of Spelling, along with doctoral dissertations tucked away in university libraries.

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Out of such explorations came a list of techniques and activities that might play a part in effective teaching of spelling. The hope was to distill from the list a significant few that could be built into programs for adults. Working from the resulting checklist, members of the Spring Institute then queried one hundred English-speaking adults who prided themselves on their spelling. Could they recall childhood experiences that might help account for their skill? To what extent, and in which ways, had they been rewarded in childhood for perceiving and remembering how words are spelled? Had a significant number played word games like Scrabble? Attended schools where spelling rules had to be learned? Where spelling bees were common? Where 'correctness' was stressed at least as much as 'creativity'? When asked about word games, more than two-thirds of the hundred expert spellers remembered childhood experiences with crossword puzzles, where of course all the right letters must be included, in proper order, if the puzzle is to be solved. The superior spellers also mentioned Scrabble, Anagrams and Hangman; over eighty per cent had played such games at an early age at home. In the school context, significant numbers recalled having to learn spelling rules, having tests at regular intervals, and learning to divide words into syllables. Furthermore, almost ninety per cent said their teachers had put high value on 'correctness' whenever the pupils wrote. What all those early experiences had in common was making conventional spelling seem Important, and providing incentives for precise perception of the letters in any given word. Could the poor spellers appealing for help from literacy programs be given comparable experiences? Presumably they had missed out on such activities in their younger days. On the other hand, what if childhood experiences had been virtually the same for poor and excellent spellers? This thought prompted a search for an equal number of poor spellers in the general population (outside of literacy programs) who were willing to discuss their early lives. Most of us know someone who is plagued by spelling problems despite being able to read. In fact, many voracious readers claim they "never learned to spell." Nevertheless, when the Spring Institute issued a call for adults to discuss memories of learning to spell, only a few self-described Poor Spellers responded. Here are the responses of the eighteen who have been willing to testify, along with the responses of one hundred adults who gave their own spelling high marks.

120 Virginia F. Allen CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES RELATED TO SPELLING

(Recalled by educated Americans) Excellent Spellers

Poor Spellers

81%

64% 67%

27% 27% 22%

54%

11%

85% 93%

27% 55%

95% 88% 74% 77%

50% 50% 20% 5%

At home I played word games that encouraged visual perception and memory. I did crossword puzzles. I learned to read music. My parent(s) helped me prepare for spelling tests. At school I took part in spelling bees. Spelling rules were taught. Spelling tests were given at regular intervals. The teachers stressed 'correctness'. We divided words into syllables. The teachers often praised my spelling.

In view of the theory that genes determine spelling ability, it was not surprising to learn that ninety per cent of the Excellent Spellers had one or more parent who spelled exceptionally well. Less predictably, more than half of the Poor Spellers also reported that their parents spelled very well. A middle-aged Poor Speller contributed a footnote to considerations of genetic influences. Her grown daughter, currently being trained for elementaryschool teaching, had to take a spelling test before being assigned to practice teaching. She failed the test, spent six weeks in a special class that directed attention to spelling, was tested again and missed just a single word. In addition to supporting the hope that spelling can be improved in adulthood, the Spring Institute's conversations with LI speakers drew attention to certain specific activities that should be recommended to adult literacy programs, since superior spellers have found them helpful. (Other activities that were appreciatively mentioned were less applicable to adult programs: being helped by parents, studying Latin, and learning to read music.) Several mentioned the value of mnemonic aids related to the vowel letters in unaccented syllables, like the second i in sophisticated, the e in client, the o in democrat. The mnemonic aids included sentences like "There's a mouse in my limousine" and "Take bran for remembrance."; and also the practice of tracing derivations through dictionary entries (important from importare, for instance, and prominent from prominens). Since crossword puzzles, word games and spelling bees also help to sharpen visual perception, they are recommended for adults learning to spell, but with

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caveats and adaptations. To avoid deepening the Poor Speller's discouragement, short and easy puzzles should be selected; and the student and tutor should work together, the tutor reading the clues aloud and supplying hints when needed, the student penciling agreed-upon letters into the squares. Competitive activities like Scrabble and spelling bees need teamwork too. Tutor and student together compete against another tutor-and-student team. In a classroom context, a group composed of poor, average and superior spellers competes against other multi-level groups. Most to be noted: no player drops out of the game on misspelling a word; in fact, the team earns half a point if that player can subsequently spell the word after consultation with members of his team. In sum, the remembered experiences of superior spellers suggest a recipe with these ingredients: — systematic attention to major spelling rules — much practice in dissecting polysyllabic words —regular use of dictionaries for syllable division and derivations —close scrutiny of syllables unaccented in speech — frequent use of mnemonic devices —cooperative game-playing and puzzle-solving In its own way, each of those can strengthen the kind of visual perception and memory required for skill in spelling. But one more aspect of the successful spellers' past should be mentioned again. Nearly nine out of ten recalled their teachers' emphasis on "correctness" (often at the expense of "creativity"). Spelling was taken seriously. Their teachers made it seem worthwhile to notice and remember letters.

REFERENCES Allen, Virginia F. 1989. The Sounds ofAmerican English. Denver, Colorado: Spring Institute. Ammon, R.I., Jr. 1970. "The Practical Way to Teach Spelling", Education Digest 35.53-4. "Can't Spell? Your Not Dumm". 1988. Newsweek, June 6. Frith, Uta, (ed.). 1983. Cognitive Processes in Spelling. San Diego, California: Academic Press. Hodges, Richard E. 1982. Improving Spelling and Vocabulary in Secondary School. Urbana, Illinois: National Council of Teachers of English. Hom, Ernest 1954. Teaching Spelling: What Research Says to the Teacher. Washington, D.C.: American Educational Research Association of the National Education Association. Nietz, John S. 1961. Old Textbooks. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press. Rudiger, E.R. 1958. "Poor Spelling, So What?" Industrial Arts and Vocational Education. 47:229-30, Summer. Valmont, WJ. 1973. "Spelling Consciousness: A Long-Neglected Area", Education Digest 38. 58-9.

122 Virginia F. Allen Webster, Noah. 1974, reproduction of 1873 edition. Elementary Spelling Book, Arlington, Virginia: R. W. Beatty. Zyve, Claire. 1913. An Experimental Study of Spelling Methods. New York: Columbia University Teachers College Contribution to Education No. 466.

Parental Support for Young Learners of English An Underestimated Contributor to Success Opal Dunn

INTRODUCTON

The term bilingual is used to describe "all children whose first language is not English and who are at some stage along the English language learning continuum." (Houlton and Willey 1983:5) In this paper, which discusses young learners, and especially young beginners, I shall use the term 'bilingual' rather than 'Language 2 \ as 'Language 2' may be associated in the reader's mind with ESL/EFL. These categories I feel are irrelevant to the young child's initial learning stages where learning takes place through experiences in which Geography, History, Science, Social Sciences, Art and Handwork, Music and Physical Education are naturally linked, and especially in the child's mind, and not divided into curriculum categories. It should also be noted that ESL/EFL categories based on language use within the community may no longer be relevant as the use of English within some children's communities is changing. This is due, in part, to the increasing availablity of child and adult Language 1 English TV programmes (Athens - Summer 1989, 13 TV Channels of which 5 were Language 1 English Channels). In these programmes children are exposed to total immersion-type learning experiences which result in children becoming passive bilinguals, that is capable of understanding but not communicating in English. CHILDREN'S BILINGUAL LEARNING STRATEGIES

Although the debate continues as to how children learn or, to use a Montessori term, 'absorb' another language, it is evident that the young child needs to be both emotionally secure and well motivated to make use of opportunities to learn English. It can be said: Learning = emotional security + motivation + input Input occurs at the end of the equation for, without the first two, it is difficult for the child to make full use of the input - in spite of all the teacher's skills. Emotional Security is placed at the beginning, as until a young child feels

124 Opal Dunn emotionally secure in what he is doing, he is not motivated and learning does not take place. Young children want to do what they think is 'right'. Ideas on what a young child thinks is 'right' come mostly from the attitudes of the home.

THE INFLUENCE ON LEARNING

Young children's annual school life is short; hours spent at school are few compared with waking hours spent at home or in places where the influence of home and parents is dominant. Thus the young child is gready influenced by attitudes, feelings, understandings and values of the home. Where the attitude is positive to learning a new language, a child reflects these attitudes within the classroom. Remarks, often casually uttered by parents, like 'I was never any good at English', or 'I didn't like English', may stick and even come to the surface in times of difficulty to form attitudes in the child, which are difficult to eradicate. In the French Lycee in Tokyo in the second half of the 1970s, Japanese teachers of Japanese language had difficulty in teaching even oral Japanese to many French children aged 8 or 9 years. These children openly reflected their parents' view that it was a waste of time to learn Japanese as they would only be in Tokyo for a two-year assignment and, since Japanese was a difficult language, it would be impossible to achieve much within the 24 months. Eventually these parents went as far as to ask the Director of the Lycee to excuse their children from Japanese lessons for these reasons. This left only motivated children in the class, which enabled the teachers to achieve good results quickly. If in the mid-1970s the school had arranged for parents to be given more information on children's bilingual language learning strategies, these parents would have realised that their children would soon acquire sufficient oral competence to make use of the Japanese language in the environment; this would in turn motivate them and lead on to a self-motivated desire to crack the code of reading, which, if presented in a logical structured programme can be done relatively quickly to reach a standard adequate for basic communication. As in most foreign-language learning, creative writing, which involves more than copying, need not be introduced until a much later stage as opportunities to write creatively for a purpose are relatively rare in initial learning. By the end of the 1970s the Director had realised that many children's negative attitudes stemmed from those of their parents, and consequendy arranged meetings with the senior Japanese language teacher. However, as he was a specialist in secondary-school methods, he was not sufficiendy well informed about children's bilingual learning strategies to give these parents confidence that learning would be successful and not detrimental to Language 1 achievements.

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MOTIVATION

Initial English study may be fascinating for young children - rather like a new gimmick. However, once the novelty has worn thin, children easily lose interest. Long-term motivation and interest is most easily sustained where the child, and what is most dominant in the child's life, the home, works in concert with the teacher. A home that is critical of the teacher or the methods used by the teacher, undermines the confidence that the child has in the teacher, and subsequently results in de-motivation. The successes brought home by the child - pieces of work, ability to say rhymes, sing songs - give pleasure to the parents and extended family which naturally result in praise. Young children look for praise from those who love them; most normal children want to please their parents and want to do the 'right' thing. Pleasure in success, motivates and stimulates children to face new challenges with courage.

HOME SUPPORT SCHEMES IN THE UK IN 1970/80

British education traditionally regarded teaching as a professional activity to be left to the trained practitioner to carry out at school. Employing a private tutor or teaching your own child was not appreciated by the school. However, by the 1980s evidence from research (Hewison and lizard [1980], Pugh [1981]) showed that parental attitudes and expectations have a significant effect on children's educational progress. This led to experimentation on methods involving parents. Most work was initially in the field of Literacy, concentrating on helping to improve children's reading skills, and later in Mathematical development. The main elements of reading Home Support Schemes which were considered to be basic to any Home Support Schemes are as follows: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7)

regular home-school liaison. regular short parent or extended family/child sessions at home. regular monitoring by parent/extended family. involvement limited to short, targeted objectives. home tasks to be consolidation and not involve teaching. relationships between staff/parents and extended family to be relaxed. activity to be enjoyable and not to be regarded merely as a task that has to be completed.

126 Opal Dunn SOME FINDINGS FROM HOME SUPPORT PROJECTS

Results from Home Support Schemes in reading in Language 1 show that where the teacher worked in concert with the home, that is the mother/father or extended family, the child's reading skills improved and the child was better motivated and achieved more.1 In some cases family attitudes also changed; family relationships became closer and reactions became more positive towards school and learning. Results from the Kirklees Paired Reading Project (1985) shows that even where the immigrant mother did not understand English, Paired Reading of books in English by mother and child achieved similar results. More recent experiments with Paired Maths at Kirklees (1989) indicate the same sort of results in spite of the fact that the content material consists of mathematical activities to be shared. Research indicates that although the content is important, more important are the facts that: 1) the parent gives undivided attention to the child for a longer period than the average teacher can give any one child in the classroom. 2) the activity provides the child with special opportunities for a physical, caring and loving relationship with a parent or member of the family. This one to one caring relationship provides ideal conditions for early learning. It can be compared to the relationship found in a mother lovingly talking with her baby or between a Montessori teacher and child, where the teacher gives her undivided attention to a child whilst he uses a piece of didactic apparatus. However, it is not only the child who gains from the experience. The activity provides parents with opportunities to understand their child better and to develop an acuter sensitivity to their child's interests and daily needs. As a result of the experience the child is better motivated, gains more confidence and develops a positive attitude to the content material, for example, story and reference books, maths, etc. The child also increases his ability to concentrate, extending his concentration span as the project develops. The results from these Language 1 projects should be relevant to bilingual education for the following reasons: - the child's learning needs and methods of learning are the same. - bilingual education is related to all-round development. - bilingual education for young children is often holistic, representing a microcosm of the Language 1 home and classroom language-learning experiences. - attainments do not necessarily depend on the parent knowing the foreign language.

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Teachers of private fee-paying language schools for children are well aware of the necessity of keeping parents 'happy' with their children's results, as future enrolment depends on this. However, their reasons may be purely commercial and they may not appreciate the value for learning that comes from a partnership between parents and the teacher. Many state school teachers, pressed to complete the annual study programme within the fixed hours, often reject any extension involving parents in the belief that it may be a waste of precious learning time. However, good teachers of young children have realised the valuable extension to learning that can be brought about by the cooperation of parents. "We operate at a much higher level if something is put into a meaningful context for us - if it makes 'human sense'" (Donaldson 1978). For young children their family is the meaningful context in which everything makes sense and in which learning at a higher level as well as development takes place. Some teachers refer to cooperation as an educational triangle - the family, the school and the child. However, since each family is different, with their own individual needs, I prefer to think of cooperation in terms of a partnership with the parents of each family. Although the general plan of cooperation may be the same for the class, in order to make each family feel personal care and interest, the cooperation has to be further personalised to develop into a type of partnership with each family. Parents are not interested in children in general; they are interested in their child. They are emotionally involved with their child. One of the concerns uppermost in their minds is their child's relationship with the teacher - does the teacher 'like' their child? Confidence about caring, which is the foundation on which teaching a young child depends, can only be built up in a partnership. However, a successful partnership is complementary and reciprocal. Within the partnership the roles of the teacher, as the professional, and the parents need to be clearly defined. Teachers cannot work effectively without knowing what goes on in the home and what are the special needs of the child. Parents are their child's first educators. They have first-hand knowledge of their child's educational background including their Language 1 learning abilities. They live with their child and know him/her more intimately than teachers, whose contact is naturally more limited in variety and time. Where the teacher and the parents work in partnership cooperating to share knowledge and observations of the child, they are in a position to do more to extend the child's development, learning, and interests. With the increasing number of young children now being exposed to lessons in English throughout the world, it is timely to think of formalising methods of home support and partnerships with parents. To help the development of a

128 Opal Dunn partnership, parents need to be provided with information to dispel fears and reduce misunderstandings. Parents tend to think of learning in terms of output. A 'what did you learn in English today?' syndrome is quite common amongst parents. Although teachers can satisfy this demand by teaching children songs and rhymes which they can perform to their family, this is only a temporary solution. Teachers need to take parents beyond appreciating immediate products to understanding the process. This means understanding how children develop bilingual skills. There is much mis-information about bilingualism circulating amongst parents. This undermines parents, and subsequently children's confidence and influences attitudes in starting bilingual learning. Frequently these unfavourable attitudes take the form of self-fulfilling prophecies. If results of research and common practice are not explained, parents may be critical and discouraging. This is often the case where they find their child is not being taught in the same way they were. Play/activity methods do not for many parents equate with 'real' learning. Criticism of the school, teacher and methods often upsets teacher/child relationships, erodes a child's confidence and generally demotivates. Once a child senses parental dissatisfaction, it is hard, or even impossible, for the teacher to recapture the child's enthusiasm. Where children are normal and emotionally secure, there is no real evidence to suggest that children's academic or psychological development suffers from learning a second or even third language. From my experience in counselling Japanese families coming to reside in the UK whose children attend English medium schools or the Japanese Government school and become bilingual, problems that arise at school after the first three months, can be traced to emotional insecurity, lack of confidence in their new bilingual circumstances and the poor quality of support from the family, especially the mother. Research and everyday experience show where the child has a positive attitude to learning foreign languages, the child eventually results in having: - greater language awareness - a good ability in third language learning. Children find learning the second foreign language more difficult than learning the third foreign language. Japanese children starting French as a new language at the same time as their British peers at British Prep Schools are frequently top of the class in French. They achieve better results in both written and oral production than their British peers. For the Japanese it is their third language, for the British their second. - an ability to think more creatively. From the onset of bilingualism, a bilingual child has to accept that there are two ways of communicating the same idea to get the same result. As the child increases his bilingual skills, realisation of

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this fact is more evident and the child becomes better capable of using this approach to problem solving. This approach is often not appreciated during school life as many secondary teachers are looking for the 'one right' answer, this is especially the case where examinations are of the multiple-choice type. However, these creative qualities are becoming more appreciated at University and employment level. Japanese companies, including Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Bank of Tokyo etc., have now realised the creativity and negotiating capabilities of bilingual or trilingual Japanese adults who, as young children have been educated overseas. The famous Japanese Universities including Tokyo, Kyoto and Keio Universities have now introduced special entrance examinations for bilingual or trilingual Japanese children returning from education overseas which aim to assess their bilingual abilities. Parents need to know much more about how children learn language successfully. They need to understand that in order to learn, children will need to take part in experiences and activities in the same way as they participated in activities through which they learned their first language. Language learning may also be going on from Language 1 television programmes in many countries. The stories that children see on TV Language 1 programmes act as surrogate experiences for the child. Where parents watch the programmes together with their children the quality of learning is likely to be better. This watching together experience can be likened to a Home Support activity, many of the results being similar. Parents often expect children to come home from the English lesson speaking a lot of English. Teachers need to explain that the first stage of learning may be silent, like the first two years of childhood when a child is absorbing his first language. During this stage a child is listening and taking in English; communication takes place by using the eyes and the rest of the body, but not by speaking. During this stage the child may be able to recite rhymes and sing songs, but not use language to communicate in dialogue. The importance of oral work is often not understood and parents may expect children to use a text book and write from the first lessons. The value of oral work in building up a bank of language for later reading needs to be explained. Reading should be introduced when the children ask to read; to keep children who can read fluendy in their first language on only oral work and so not satisfying their desire to read, can demotivate. Parents need to understand that copying may come later than reading; children do not want to copy unless there is a meaningful purpose. Creative writing is best left until children can use language well. The value of 'errors' as a tool for learning should be explained. If this is related to Language 1 learning, parents recognise the process and are capable of using

130 Opal Dunn the same parentese techniques, including repeating or recasting language, which they used in developing their child's first language. Correct information forms the basis for home support on which the teacher can develop a partnership in classroom activities with each family. Teachers are facilitators providing the right input for the needs of the child, but without reciprocal cooperation between parents and teachers, the child's full potential cannot be attained. Parental support and cooperation is central to all child education. Its value and contribution to success is even more important in bilingual education where the young child may be stepping into an unknown and, probably to him, an insecure environment.

NOTES 1.

See Hannon and Jackson (1987) and Schofield (1979).

REFERENCES Donaldson, M. 1978. Children's Minds. London: Fontana. Hannon, P. and A. Jackson. 1987. The Bellfield Reading Project. Final Report. Bellfield/London: Bellfield County Council in association with the National Children's Bureau. Hewison, J. and J. Tizard. 1980. "Parental Involvement and Reading Attainment". British Journal ofEducational Psychology 50,209-215. Houlton, D. and R. Willey. 1983. Supporting Children's Bilingualism. London: Longman. Kirklees Paired Reading Project. Final Report. 1985. Huddersfield: Kirklees Psychological Service. Kirklees MATHS Project. 1989. Huddersfield: Kirklees Psychological Service. Kirklees Paired Learning. The Paired Learning Project. 1989. Huddersfield: Kirklees Psychological Service. Pugh, G. 1981. Parents as Partners. London: National Children's Bureau. Schofield, W. 1979. Haringey Reading Project Final Report. London: Thomas Coram Research for the Dept. of Education and Science.

Let Them Read! - Later. Problems of Introducing Reading and Writing to Young Learners of English as a Foreign Language Leonora Fröhlich-Ward

1. BACKGROUND

Teaching English as a Foreign Language to young learners has now become much less exotic than it was even 10 years ago. All over the globe thousands of children under the age of ten are being given the chance of learning a foreign language under the aegis of their regular educational system or of private initiatives and commercial language schools. The methods used in teaching these younger pupils have been discussed on a broad front over many years. In the European context the IATEFL and Bill Lee, at that time Chairman of the Association, were leaders in the fight for different teaching methods for the very young. Apart from advocating different methods himself, Bill Lee actively encouraged teachers of young learners to express themselves at IATEFL Conferences. Since the 1970s there was a forum for them at these conferences where they were able to gain experience by sharing ideas and discussing relevant problems with other teachers working in the same field. The first IATEFL special interest group was in fact the "Young Learners" group, founded in 1985 at Brighton, with Bill Lee among its founder members. Whereas the question of how to teach EFL to young learners - i.e. the methodology of teaching through play - has generally been accepted as the most effective and successful way of teaching, yet the problem of when and how to teach reading and writing to young learners is still a subject of controversial discussion and has not, as far as I am aware, yet reached consensus. The great names of language research have frequently mentioned this problem, without offering more than general recommendations about it. One reason for this lack of decision is certainly the fact that EFL teaching to younger learners has only recently begun to take on remarkable dimensions, as mentioned above, and failures with the methods used up to now have forced more people to make decisions in this field.

132 Leonora Fróhlich-Ward Experienced teachers of foreign languages to young learners know that they would be ill-advised to teach reading and writing before the pupils know the pattern of the language, and one normally waits to teach these skills until after pupils have mastered their mother tongue.1 Were this not the case, most children would merely learn to reproduce the language graphically, which is not the teacher's intention. The general attitude displayed in most discussions about early FL teaching tends towards advising no teaching of reading and writing until a good oral control of the FL has been attained. Many of the reasons for this feeling expressed by experts in the field have not been supported by extensive research - due to the difficulties of organising such research - but these opinions are well founded on the experience of those stating them. Perhaps pinpointing the salient problems may serve future researchers as a guide to what we really would like to know about teaching reading and writing to young learners of EFL.

2. INTERFERENCE/AND SPOKEN LANGUAGE

The most obvious manifestation of language is the spoken word. Using the FL is more difficult than understanding it, but speaking it is infinitely easier than reading and writing it, particularly where young learners are concerned. 2 The inimitable ability of young learners to assimilate a FL orally, to copy sounds and intonation seemingly effortlessly, and their relative lack of experience in dealing with the written medium means that when learning a FL they will react quite differently to adult learners. The minds of the very young are full of pictures and fantasy whereas the adult mind uses rational concepts of abstract thought. Since a written language does not consist of instinctive signs but is made up of purely conventional ones there are no logical relationships between written words and their meaning, let alone their spelling and pronunciation.3 Moreover the spelling of modern English, which actually represents the way English was written hundreds of years ago, bears little resemblance to the highly sophisticated and continuallychanging way it is spoken.4 When examining the written production of mother-tongue speakers of English in the USA and in Great Britain it would seem that even they have problems in associating the graphic signs with the sounds of the language. If LI speakers of English find it difficult to establish the connection between the spoken word and the written system of their own language how can learners of English as a foreign language even dream of mastering this skill? Since neither meaning nor intonation are shown in writing the young learner will be forced to base his attempts of reading and writing EFL on the knowledge gained from learning these skills in his mother-tongue. The influence of such

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habits on writing EFL is very strong even with adult learners who are more conscious of the problems involved. How much more dangerous to risk evoking such false transference with young learners who will unconsciously transfer their immature knowledge of writing, spelling and pronunciation rules in LI to the unknown rules of L2. When considering writing systems one would imagine that if the LI of an EFL learner is in the same writing system as English, e.g. Roman script, as for Spanish, French, German etc., the learner would have less difficulty in learning to write in EFL. In fact, the danger of false transference for EFL learners whose LI uses the same writing system is greater than for those learners whose LI uses a different writing system i.e. Arabic, Chinese, although these learners have other difficulties involving the mechanics of writing.5

3. SUPPORTIVE VALUE OF THE WRITTEN WORD

Many adults believe that when learning a new language the written word can be a great help towards remembering items learnt. For many adults the written word, sometimes called the dress of thought, can be a great learning support since they are used to manipulating this medium. In the literature mentioned there is practically no indication that this is the case in EFL for young children. Perhaps this is because young children are not yet very skilled in writing LI since the written word is apparently still like a piece of clothing which they are not used to wearing.** Compared to an adult the young child has little difficulty in mastering the sound system of any FL. It is akin to his interest in telling stories and expressing his fantasy. The use of the written word can be of little help in increasing his success in understanding and accurately reproducing the sounds of the FL. When speaking about English as a FL the irregularity of its written patterns is an added hurdle to a young learner whereas the adult learner, with his mature understanding of writing and writing systems - phonetics etc. - may well improve his command of pronunciation through the medium of the written word. We know that young children can indeed learn to read and write as early as from age three, given certain environmental and educational processes, but that in this case writing is merely taught as a motor skill. Writing, however, should be relevant to life and meaningful. Children should not just be drilled in the production of letters.7 The conclusion to be drawn from such comments is that even though the benefits of the written system may be helpful to older learners, who are more proficient in writing than most children tend to be, the use of the written

134 Leonora Frohlich-Ward language is not necessarily a support to young children learning English as a foreign language.

4. INTELLIGENCE

The fact that throughout the world a great number of people who speak more than one language are unable to write their own LI let alone their L2 is seldom mentioned in the literature as far as I am aware; maybe this is because everybody takes it for granted. Yet the use of the spoken language, either LI or L2, can in many cases be equally skilled whether used by an illiterate workman, a school boy or a graduate. If required to express themselves in writing, however, these persons will naturally have gready differing levels of success. Since people differ not only in their opportunities for formal education but also in their abilities of learning to read and write, those with a higher level of intelligence tend to have greater ability in learning these skills. It follows, therefore, that such individuals will have greater ability in learning to read or write in a FL. In a primary school class of young learners, aged 8 or 9, there will be children of different abilities. One reason for teaching them a FL is to broaden their horizons and increase their chances of integration in modern society - a fact which is of particular importance in the developing European context of today (1990). My experience with many classes of this age-group was that as long as EFL teaching remained oral/aural all the children managed to attain a good level of understanding and oral communication. When given the chance to read and write EFL if they wished, the more gifted children at once took to it happily whereas the weaker children avoided it and showed little interest when the others started reading or copying English words and phrases. There was at once a dividing line between those who were probably going to advance towards more academic education and those who were going to learn a craftsman's trade. By observing how young learners react to the confrontation with the written word experienced teachers of EFL to younger learners will have noticed that most 8 or 9 year-olds will have a good chance of learning to understand and speak the foreign language as long as the FL teaching is based on teaching the oral/aural skills. The experience about the weaker children switching off when they find they must grapple with graphemes is fairly frequent.9 Young school children have realised that most subjects they are taught have to be assessed by their teachers, and that for this assessment written tests are made. Therefore, every subject in which they have to produce written work is going to be marked, i.e. assessed. As long as there is no written work they can enjoy the subject; once they have

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to write, it becomes a subject like every other one and changes from being like play to being work. An almost universal experience of teachers of EFL to young children is that they are thrilled at learning EFL - as long as it remains in an oral fashion and the threat of having to succeed by getting marks for their work has not yet appeared. Children of all abilities develop creative skills in the new language and feel that they have a chance to succeed in this new medium. As long as children can learn a FL through the medium of stories, pictures, rhymes, quizzes, songs, role-play and other games they are not aware that they are indeed abstracting in the new medium and creating new structures while acquiring new language items. They are only aware of having fun and are motivated by their enjoyment and experience of success. The priceless gift of enjoyment in learning seems to be endangered as soon as reading and writing are introduced, unless it is introduced in such a way as not to frighten off the less intellectually minded children.

5. IF READING AND WRITING, WHEN AND HOW?

As far as the teacher is concerned the big problem is how to keep the learners interested without the support of written activities. The danger is that FL learning becomes boring without reading. Hundreds of successful FL teachers all over the world have leamt to extend the non-reading period without letting children get bored; but it requires fantasy and creative effort to succeed in this aim. It is accepted practice today that the approach to teaching EFL to young learners is always oral and that the emphasis on reading and writing comes at a later date. How much later is still a point of discussion and the time space in these discussions varies between two months and two years, or using a different way of measuring, one hundred hours.10 The younger the beginners, the less disagreement about delaying the introduction of reading and writing. Learners aged 5 or 6 are not expected to learn reading or writing until they have some familiarity with written LI. When older learners aged 8 or 9 start learning EFL they are frequendy exposed to the written word fairly soon after their first contact with the new language since some teachers feel insecure without the support of writing and consider the written word to be a support to memory. Certain aspects of English make the use of the written system problematic for young learners, i.e. lack of coordination between written and spoken word, unpredictability of relations between sounds and their meaning, no guidance about intonation in the written word etc. Learning to read and write EFL too early will inevitably lead to a mechanical learning of words rather than to a transfer of meaning and language through words.11

136 Leonora Frohlich-Ward The skill which has to be developed is firstly the listening skill, followed almost immediately by that of reproduction practising pronunciation and intonation. All experts agree that young learners of EFL are the unequalled stars among all EFL learners with regard to these listening skills. One danger of introducing the written word too early in this skill-training period is that the young learners will cease to concentrate on these listening skills - since experience in their own language will have shown them how important it is to read what is on the page - and will try to read what is written using the decoding devices learnt in LI, thus quickly losing any advantages their oral ability will have given them. A widely accepted method of teaching young children to learn EFL in a systematic way is through play, - something which seems to be a contradiction in terms for someone who has never experienced that it is possible. This makes use of their listening, visual, reproductive, and creative abilities, as well as their spontaneity, without introducing the written word. The experts in the field i.e. those who actually teach and have been teaching young learners for many years, can offer countless well-tried ways and means for FL teaching to young children. Some games activities which include systematic training and oral practice in the FL include: -

12

simple rhyme and clap-hands-type games for learners from the age of five, card, Lotto, Bingo, Memory games for vocabulary exercise for all ages,13 listening-comprehension activities with picture texts and picture-dictations, the use of flannelgraph pictures/figures to tell stories, story-telling and acting within the classroom.14

In Australia interesting results have been achieved in the field of early FL teaching. In its multi-cultural and multi-lingual society the majority of children have the opportunity of learning a foreign language from age 7 or 8 and many start even earlier.15 The findings of Australian teachers about how to introduce the written FL coincide largely with the experience of many teachers in Europe. Written language is introduced apparently incidentally. In practice this means that a word or phrase is written on the blackboard, or placed on the flannel board, when it is actually needed by the young learners. It is invariably an utterance with which they are familiar and is introduced in writing without much comment on the part of the teacher. Certain useful/necessary words or phrases will have been introduced by using them in the classroom, e.g., Weekdays-Months-names of lessons on the timetable-Weather Chart-names of teams: Green Team-The Rabbits, The Hedgehogs, etc. so that writing them seems a further logical step in the learning process. All words which can be shown in pictures will of course be supported by visuals i.e. the word 'hedgehog' by the picture of a hedgehog. Possibly the team

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will first only be named by the picture, later by the written word added to it. In all cases the visual sign should support the word for a long time to ensure that even the less able children can use the picture as a crutch and sign for the word. In order to obviate the boredom which lack of reading material is supposed to generate, picture stories which the children can 'read' are used by most teachers. Well-loved nursery rhymes, which will be known in LI, can be read/told by the teacher and then illustrated by the class in their art lesson. A 'reading' book is thus developed to which everyone has contributed a part. Telling and acting the story then becomes a favourite activity. At a later stage the class can devise a new story of its own and illustrate it in a similar way. Cross-curricular activities of this kind can be generated by several classes working together with teachers of various subjects so that a library of EFL books can be built up.

6. CONCLUSION

The question of when to introduce reading and writing to young learners of EFL is a complex problem. There is no easy answer valid for all groups of learners. Variables such as native or non-native speaking teacher, number and length of lessons per week, number of children in class, age of beginners, environment and social status of the FL, whether FL teaching is an integral part of the curriculum, like sport and music, or only a voluntary course, support or opposition from parents and from teachers of other subjects within the school, will positively or negatively affect the success of the EFL teaching as a whole and reading and writing in particular. All EFL teaching to young learners should initially be oral/aural and the introduction of reading and writing should be held back until the teacher feels that the children's command of the spoken language permits the introduction of the new medium without loss of enjoyment or any feeling of insecurity in their FL spoken activity.

NOTES 1.

Lado, R. 1967. Moderne Sprachunterricht. München: Hueber. 179.

2.

Mackey, W.F. 1969. In: H.H. Stem (ed.) Languages and the Young School Child. London: O.U.P. 69 - 80.

3.

Quirk, R. 1962. The Use of English. London:Longmans. 42.

4.

Gimson, A.C. 1962. In: R. Quirk. The Use of English. London: Longmans. 260ff.

5.

Lado, R. 1967. Moderne Sprachunterricht. München: Hueber. 182.

138 Leonora Fröhlich-Ward 6. 7. 8.

Quirk, R. 1962. The Use of English. London: Longmans. 35. Vygotzky, L.S. 1978. Mind in Society. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard U.P. 116 119. See Quiric, R. 1962. The Use of English. London: Longmans. 35.

9.

See Dunn, O., L. Fröhlich-Ward, C. Millerchip and S. Rixon. 1986. In: S. Holden (ed.) The Younger Learner. Papers of the 1985 British Council Bologna Conference. London: Modern English Publications. 10. See Mackey, W.F. 1969. In: H.H. Stern (ed.). Languages and the Young School Child. London: O.UP. 73,75. 11. Vygotzky, L.S. 1968. Mind in Society. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard U.P. 115. 12. See Dunn, 0.1983. Beginning English with Young Children. London:Macmillan. 13. 14.

See Fröhlich-Ward, L. 1979. In: R. Freudenstein (ed.). Teaching Foreign Languages to the Very Young. Oxford: Pergamon. 61ff. See Garvie, E. 1990. Story as Vehicle. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

15.

See Clyne, M. 1986. An Early Start. Melbourne: River Seine Publications. 20ff.

Observations on the Learning Styles of Adult Students Manfred Gerbert

I met Dr. W.R. Lee at the IATEFL conference held in Budapest in spring 1974 where he was one of the organisers. When I listened to his comments in the discussion I felt that he was an ideal teacher trainer because of his very sensitive approach to students. This conference took place several years before the basic concepts of the communicative methodology were worked out It occurred to me that I had made the acquaintance of one of those rare people in the field of foreign language teaching who had achieved an almost perfect balance and harmony between theory and practice, linguistics and pedagogy, language and the learner. When I talked to him at the Budapest conference I did not yet know of his educational background, his work as an author, editor, organiser and teacher trainer in Britain and other countries of Europe; his person alone impressed me very much. Bill Lee's emphasis has always been on speech and the use of English as a means of communication with speakers of other languages in an international context. Today, as the barriers dividing the countries of Eastern and Central Europe from the West European countries are gradually being removed, it should be emphasized that Bill Lee as chairman of IATEFL and later when talking of Europe always had English language teaching in the whole of Europe in mind, not only in the community of the twelve. His life-long work as a teacher trainer has led him to deal with and tackle a wide range of language learning strategies for different types of learners. I appreciate his efforts to improve the work with early beginners. But since I have been mainly concerned with secondary school pupils and university students as well as learners already well advanced in their professional career I would rather refer to the outstanding contribution Bill Lee has made especially in this area of language learning. It is with pleasure that I quote here the comments made by a group of students in my classes after working with the Study Dictionary of Social English (Lee 1983). They said the book had made them intensely aware of stylistic levels for polite usage and for efficient factual communication, especially of the wide scope of expressions available in English for dealing with everyday situations.

140 Manfred Gerbert Systematic observation of the learning strategies used by students, followed by informed discussions and some form of self-assessment on the part of the students and the teacher, can greatly improve the results of classroom teaching. I would now like to discuss various learning styles of adult students beyond the beginners' stage and suggest ways in which the teacher can adapt his teaching to the individual styles. The assumption is made that each learner tries to develop the learning styles he considers useful for efficient language learning. He will in most cases use those learning modes which he has found convenient, appropriate and successful in other learning situations in which he has been involved, e.g. such content subjects as physics, history or anatomy in his school or university syllabus as well as comparable tasks and assignments in his daily work. The learner will not see any difference here. For him the above-mentioned content subjects and foreign languages present nearly identical problems which have to be solved. It struck me that engineers and businessmen sometimes view the development of fluency in a foreign language for the purpose of product presentation and business negotiations as one step within the network of activities from product design to the production and sales functions. The average student views the learning of a foreign language as an activity involving at least three separate areas: (1) learning a certain number of basic word forms; (2) mastering a number of rules for the building of sentences and texts; (3) learning a large number of words to be able to name things and processes which represent the vocabulary equivalents of one's native language. This lexical inventory grows as the subject becomes more specific, so that in the opinion of the students English for Specific Purposes (ESP) is associated with learning specific registers of technical vocabulary. Whether we accept this simplified view or reject it depends on our theoretical background. However, we have to admit that the view is widely held and its consequences should therefore be taken into consideration. What, in the opinion of the learner, are the most effective means and strategies for solving the problems arising from these areas of language items? In order to revise and improve the unconscious use of items of the pupil's mother tongue, teachers in schools used - and perhaps still do so today - tables of noun and verb endings, lists of prepositions governing the dative or accusative cases, lists of the modal auxiliaries, of prefixes and suffixes, etc. The adult learner sometimes wants to apply this technique of compiling lists and surveys of items to the field of foreign language learning, and this is exactly the point where part of the trouble starts. An idea, which is of course basic to theoretical linguistics, is that the elements of a language form a sytem, because they are interdependent. This idea can be

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dangerous if it is not applied with sufficient care in the presentation of new grammatical and lexical material. A learner who has to adapt and organize incoming information and integrate this information into his developing knowledge of the mechanism of a foreign language should not be confronted with three new elements of the same grammatical category at the same time, e.g. the English modals 'should', 'could' and 'would', if there is not enough time to practise and apply them separately in different situations. The students will find it hard to keep their specific functions and meanings apart. From the point of view of learning, the interfering elements should at first be kept completely separate and only later be united for illustrating their interdependence. Linguists have led the language teachers quite a dance and the latter should therefore beware of making indiscriminate use of linguistic findings. The remedial work which then would have to be done by later teachers will consume more time than would be needed for the thorough and methodically appropriate introduction of such language material. In connection with the use of the modal verbs I noticed with German-speaking learners a rather frequent occurrence of 'ought to', the reason for which I was at first unable to explain. Later it occurred to me that its use may be the result of the students' uncertainty about the correct use of 'would', 'should' and 'could'. This was confirmed by the students themselves. The 'odd man out' or, to be more precise, the word that appeared to them phonetically different from the similar-sounding other three was the surprise winner and superseded the others in their memory for the simple reason that in the presentation phase it had been associated with one single meaning. What can be scientifically justified from a linguistic point of view may be just the opposite from the learners' angle. With 'ought to' the students felt they were on safe ground whereas the other three modals were nebulous entities to them, because they had been presented with specific meanings and without sufficient clarification by means of situational examples of everyday language use. Being exposed to meaningful utterances in appropriate situations is an essential requirement for foreign language learning. A rational and at the same time economical way of solving some of the very basic problems and difficulties is to present the grammatical elements one by one, not in the systematic order of a descriptive grammar. What is scientific in descriptive linguistics may not necessarily be scientific in a methodology of teaching. There should be plenty of review work before going on to the next item. Although the main concern of my teaching and of this paper is with adult students I cannot turn a blind eye to the fact that the seeds of success or failure are usually planted during primary and secondary education. Thus it is recommendable to employ a larger number of excellent language teachers to lay the

142 Manfred Gerbert foundations in the early stages of foreign language learning instead of concentrating them in institutional ESP courses for adults. It has already been mentioned how important it can be for the learner to be on safe ground and to be sure that his learning strategies will most probably lead to success. We should not make the learner change his or her individual style of learning unless we are sure that what he or she is doing is wrong. But how should we know, since we have no objective criteria or yardstick for evaluation? We do not even know exactly how other factors influence the learning process, e.g. emotions, health, occupation or climate. There may be in a group of students one who is, through his occupation, accustomed to working with a card index. If so, then let him carry on provided that it gives him confidence and that he likes this method. It will have positive results even if the group prefers not to follow his example. He will want to write every new lexical item, collocation or utterance on little cards which he can handle and arrange in various ways suitable to his style of learning: either alphabetically or systematically according to meaning, situational context or degree of retention. I remember a student who devised a colour code for the elements he considered difficult to memorize. I learned from his collection of mini-texts and know the areas to which I have to devote more time and effort and also the areas where teaching could be less intensive and time could be saved. The teaching and learning of grammar is generally considered decisive for the learners' success. The multifunctional aspect of language is difficult to grasp and to convey. There remain only a limited number of possibilities how to cope with this fact: The most promising way seems to be to set out from a one-to-one correspondence of form, function and meaning, indicating that there may be secondary meanings according to context. There is a need for real communication to take place before language learning can start and develop. The teacher must be fully responsible to decide about the pace suitable for the students. He or she should not feel obliged to follow a prescribed schedule. Unfortunately there are still many teachers whose greatest practical concern is 'to cover the material'. My students' desire for visible landmarks in the progress of learning not only in the lexical field but also in grammar is a clear indication of their intention to measure and evaluate their own progress objectively and to look ahead. Paul Thomas (1973:129), in an article on 'Learner-directed learning' holds a similar view when he writes: "We felt that we should be attemping to find ways in which the learners themselves indicate the direction in which they want to go, to define the content and the way in which they want to work."

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Let the students design or write their own grammar of English if they feel it helps. It should be based on the principle of deduction from authentic language. Some students indeed found this do-it-yourself grammar extremely helpful. They used the idea of a map of a city to represent the system of English tenses, modal verbs or prepositions. Students believed that this visualization helped them to decide which structure to use for expressing duration up to the present, past events, future activities, and all-inclusive time. Among the most fascinating phenomena for teachers to observe in their students are those concerned with memory and associations. Adult students with a flair for experimental work are excellent observers and often can report objectively on their individual learning styles. Words usually classified as hard and difficult to retain are easily memorized if presented in connection with situations involving humour, fun or emotions, jokes, gestures or special intonation patterns. A good teacher sometimes has to be an actor, a resourceful inventor of stories and situations, but first of all an intelligent person able to ask stimulating questions, totally relaxed, interested in a great variety of topics, a good companion, with optimism, goodwill and co-operative feeling. There is a great variety of possible learning styles among adult students. There is, e.g., the visual type who must see the language items written, there is the aural comprehension type with sharp sound discrimination capabilities, there is the card-index specialist whose classmates always refer to him with the question; "Have we already had this construction in our previous units?" If we adopt the vague distinction between acquisition as a process which takes place naturally, and learning, which is a conscious process, it follows that learning is directed towards the more elusive and difficult cases of the linguistic material to be internalized, such as interference problems, cases like 'would' and 'should', the syntax of the sentence and text. A s a teacher of English working with students of engineering and science I have viewed ESP always as a sort of makeshift arrangement to achieve the best possible results within a limited period of time, not as a panacea. ESP in students' language courses is a result of the constraints of the full timetable of university students and their desire to concentrate on those language activities or skills most relevant for their course of studies - skills preparing them for reading technical literature, writing reports and listening to lectures. Reading, as has been shown by several needs analyses made recently, ranks highest as an objective need, but what the students would really like to do is to develop their skills in listening and speaking. There is indeed a conflict between the need and the desire. A s soon as the students have graduated and can afford to spend more time, they usually try to improve their listening and speaking skills.

144 Manfred Gerbert Teachers are therefore well advised to provide their students with a thorough grounding in the system of the language, its grammatical and lexical core as well as the functional use which native speakers usually make of these limited means. Teachers should encourage their students to maintain and develop their individual styles of learning if these styles help to give the learner confidence, optimism and the feeling of progress. Linguistics is only one basic discipline for language teaching and perhaps not even the most relevant for teaching. What we need is more insight into the psychological processes connected with communicative activity.

REFERENCES Lee, W.R. 1983. A Study Dictionary of Social English. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Thomas, P. 1978. "Learner-Directed Learning". Views on Language and Language Learning 5/3.127-138.

Teaching Foreign Languages in French Primary Schools: A New Challenge Denis Girard

It now looks as though the general surge in favour of primary school language learning which was observed in the fifties, not only in France but in many European countries as well as in the USA. (with the Foreign Languages in the Elementary Schools movement) were appearing again, at least in Europe, at the beginning of the nineties. What is taking place in France is probably worth analysing as it is not an isolated phenomenon and it could shed light on the whole problem of primary school language teaching. In March 1989, a circular letter to 'Recteurs' and 'Inspecteurs d'Académie' from the French Minister of Education, published in 'Bulletin Officiel de l'Education Nationale' announced in a style which was still very characteristic of an old centralized system of education, in spite of worthy efforts towards decentralization: "I have decided to launch, on a national scale, a controlled experimentation of the teaching of a foreign language in primary schools. That experimentation which will start at the beginning of the school year 1989-1990 will take place in a number of school sectors selected by the rectors, according to the following principles."

Asa member of the national committee of inspectors and language teachers who prepared proposals for that circular letter, I was in a position to insist on some basic caveats in the light of my 1974 report L'enseignement précoce des langues vitantes (Girard 1974). The most important obstacle to a successful early beginning of language learning was the lack of continuity into secondary education. It was strongly emphasized in my report, as it was in Clare Burstall's final report on the primary school experiment with the learning of French in Britain (Burstall 1974). Two aspects of the new experimentation aim at avoiding such an obstacle. Foreign language learning will be limited to the last two years at primary school (ages 9 to 11): it lasted three years in Britain and could start at any age in France, from 3 or 4 in kindergartens and from 6 to 10 in primary schools. Now the longer the period of language teaching the more difficult it is to ensure complete continuity during the pre-secondary stage and into secondary school. The second aspect bears on the selection of experimental schools for the teaching of a foreign language. The 6 March 1989 circular letter stipulates:

146 Denis Girard "The territorial unit for an experimental sector is, as a minimum, a lower secondary school sector ('secteur de collège') in order to ensure the necessary continuity between primary school language teaching and the first year at secondary school."

An even more important aspect of a primary school language learning operation, as with any teaching-learning policy, is the definition of objectives. In the French experiment these are clearly stated, to avoid any fundamental misunderstanding, as the one often observed in the past. "The early start of foreign language teaching cannot possible aim at producing bilingual children at an early age": that is a first negative way of defining aims. Many parents in the past have been deceived into believing that, by starting earlier, whatever the method used, through the mere magic of that earlier start, their children would automatically become bilingual, in the strong sense of showing equal mastery of the foreign language and the mother tongue. It was and it can still be an erroneous way of interpreting the findings of neurologists who, like W. Penfield, in the fifties, stated that the human brain became progressively stiff as regards acquiring language and that the learning of a foreign language should therefore always start before the age of 9 in order to be successful (Penfield & Roberts 1959). It did not follow that a perfect result (that is, in most people's minds, bilingualism) would then be reached in all cases, whatever the kind of children and... the kind of teaching! Positively, in the normal conditions of language teaching at primary school, the only reasonable aim one can have is, as stated in the circular, "to make the children ready,froma psychological, cultural and linguistic point of view, to learn a foreign language. That preparatory teaching is meant to facilitate the language learning that will take place when the children reach the secondary school."

The main elements in that preparatory stage are indicated as: - developing their listening and speaking skills; - creating an awareness of significant differences between the mother tongue and another language; - learning to use meaningful chunks of the foreign language and simple everyday vocabulary; - creating a positive attitude towards the foreign language as another way of communicating with other people; - opening the children's minds to some realities of another culture and thus bringing them to understand it and like it. Another sine qua non condition is that the language teaching be carefully integrated into the primary school activities and specific methodology with a prominent part played by various games and songs:

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"The teaching of a foreign language to children in their two final years at primary school must be closely connected with all the contents of primary school education and needs to contribute to their general development."

Such were the aims indicated in the March 1989 circular. A few months later, another text gave some guidelines about the content to be taught for the different languages concerned, that is essentially, although the range was theoretically wider, the three foreign languages most taught in secondary schools, English, German and Spanish. This general syllabus ('Programme indicatif') for the two years is very short and gives total freedom of choice to the teachers and the schools according to the pupil's tastes, interests and motivations. How did the national experimentation start in September 1989, at the beginning of the new school year? Official statistics were issued during the winter term, with the following figures for the whole of France: - 635 experimental sectors all over the country (an average of 6 or 7 primary schools around the lower secondary school that will receive the children after two years); - 4,288 primary schools (10% of French primary schools); - 6,689 classes in these schools where one or two foreign languages are being taught to 9 to 11 year old children; - 144,256 children concerned. Statistically, it is also particularly important to consider which languages are being taught at this level and who teaches them: Languages taught: - English in 90% of the schools - German in 58% of the schools - Spanish in 9% of the schools - Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Dutch, Polish, Arabic, in that order, representing altogether 1,5%. This is one of the challenges in a country where English keeps developing in spite of a recognized need and wish to maintain and develop the teaching of a variety of European languages, in keeping with the expected greater mobility of people and goods in the new Europe. Yet, obviously, in a given experimental sector, one can for the sake of continuity only teach, at primary school level, the languages taught at secondary school.

148 Denis Girard WHO TEACHES A FOREIGN LANGUAGE AT PRIMARY SCHOOL LEVEL?

The pre-service and in-service training of teachers capable of and willing to teach foreign languages in primary schools is certainly another big challenge, if not the biggest. It certainly exists in many other countries and France could certainly solve that problem, given time and money. In the present situation, the language background of French primary school teachers is not so bad considering that they all have studied a first foreign language at secondary school for seven years, a second one for five years and a proportion of them may have opted for going on studying one of these languages during the two years at university. Who teaches which language? English Primary school teachers 21.95% Sec. language teachers 60.80% Native speakers (non civil servants) 17.75%

German 25.50% 62.90% 11.60%

Spanish 38.00% 58.50% 3.50%

In a general way, one notices that secondary school language teachers provide nearly 2/3 of the experiment's teaching staff and primary teachers less than 1/4 (except for Spanish). Such a situation is not satisfactory for all sorts of reasons. The teachers who are specially trained to teach young children and have as a rule chosen to do so are in a better position, whatever the subject, provided they have a good command of the language. Native teachers can be or become efficient language teachers if they are trained to teach their mother tongue and to teach children: the mere fact of having a good mastery of one's mother tongue is not a sufficient asset. As for language teachers in secondary schools, they are used to older pupils with different attitudes and motivations and to classroom activities which cannot be transferred unaltered to the primary school situation. The French Ministry was well aware of that problem and provided some financial means for the training of teaching staff. But the steps taken in that direction were not sufficient for lack of time, because of very short courses coping with part of the staff only. There were reports of local difficulties of some city councils who found their financial burden too heavy when they had to meet the cost of new material for the schools and to pay the salaries of a good many 'outsiders' with a teaching load to make up for an insufficient number of 'linguists' available in the primary or secondary schools. One can now understand why I called that courageous venture "a new challenge"! It is a new one in the field of primary language teaching, although experiences of

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several kinds have been going on for 36 years, because for the first time a Minister of Education has committed himself and opened the way for a language policy instead of being satisfied with the 'laisser-faire' attitude of his predecessors. It is a new one because of the size of the experimentation and the will several times expressed of extending it further, possibly to complete generalization if the results of its assessment are felt to be reasonably encouraging. It is a new challenge adding up to the challenges our system of education is already being faced with: the necessary modernization of syllabuses at all levels, the urgent need of a greater number of teachers to cope with demographic growth, the general wish of most families to see their children stay within the education system until they get a good qualification, the political decision supported by all parties to bring 80% of the French population to Baccalauréat level, that is two years beyond the present school-leaving age, the corresponding necessity of building a great number of new schools and universities. I will not forget last but not least the fantastic challenge of the new Europe of beyond 1st January 1993 with the implementation of the Single European Act, when the key word will be 'mobility' and the efficient use of one and preferably two foreign languages for international communication an absolute necessity for many Europeans. In that respect, the challenge of language learning and teaching at primary school can be viewed in a new light, as one of the ways (certainly not the only one) of meeting the challenge of a multilingual, multicultural Europe with lighter and lighter frontiers and no iron curtains! The encouraging thing then is the feeling that whatever kind of effort a country is prepared to make in order to improve the learning and teaching of foreign languages need not be isolated but can benefit strongly from similar or different experiences in other European countries, in a spirit of international cooperation. That kind of cooperation in the field of languages is now obvious in the 12 member states of the European Community where the ambitious program LINGUA was launched on 1 st January 1990. But I would like to take the example of the Council of Europe where 29 states now cooperate in the new language project, as 21 of them did in the previous ones, some of them having started as early as in 1962. Primary school language teaching is one of the four 'priority sectors' identified by the Cultural Cooperation committee of the Council, for the new Modern Languages Project (1990-1995). About half of the 29 member states have expressed special interest in that sector for which international workshops have already been planned. The first of these will be organized and hosted by Scotland in 1991, with the participation of teachers and school administrators from all the countries just referred to. A period of two years will then be devoted to research and development in these countries, on the basis of

150 Denis Girard research guidelines agreed upon in the Scottish workshop. The results will be examined at a second workshop on the same topic organized by France in 1993. Other actions will take place elsewhere. Among the questions which must be clarified is the choice to be made, especially when primary foreign languages are to be extended to all the schools in the country, between two possible ways of producing better language learning by offering language study in primary schools. One is the one discribed in this article: teaching one given foreign language. It is the more usual of the two and is certainly quite suitable in the case of countries like Sweden where the choice has been made of one foreign language (namely English) as a kind of second national language that all children start learning at the age of 9. The other way which is still very experimental consists in making children aware of language in general through the discovery of differences (and similarities) between the way the mother tongue works, as compared to one or two other languages (phonologically, grammatically, semantically and, of course, communicatively). The name of the British linguist Eric Hawkins must be given here as he was one of the first to advocate what he calls 'awareness of language' (Hawkins 1985). There are a number of experiments in Britain as well as in France (carried out by Institut National de la Recherche Pédagogique). One can find several advantages in that other means of paving the way for more efficient language learning at secondary school: - it can be a good device for 'learning to learn a language' (which is, by the way, one of the 'priority themes' of the Council of Europe language project mentioned above); - it can be more easily taught by primary school teachers as it does not require the same degree of competence in one foreign language (though primary teachers have to be trained for it); - the examples taken from several other languages, including the mother tongues of migrant children in the class, may lead to a wider diversification in the choice of languages that will then be learnt at secondary school; - the comparison with the mother tongue is bound to bring about a better understanding of that language and help the many children whose difficulties with French are a frequent cause of failure; - if, as is often the case, 'language awareness' is accompanied with tasks aiming at 'culture awareness' (through songs, rhymes, proverbs, pictures, ...), the children will develop a feeling of sympathy and of positive attitude towards the foreign countries involved and hence towards the languages; - activities of 'language awareness' do not require the same substantial timetable as the teaching of a language. As always, one can also point out some drawbacks:

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- most of the activities of a linguistic and metalinguistic nature taking place in the mother tongue, there will be less time devoted to communicating in a foreign language; - the same cause may also result in children taking the habit of a language class based on exchanges in the mother tongue; - the teacher may show a tendency to rely exclusively on a cognitive approach, instead of keeping a good balance with the other necessity of learning by doing. As one can imagine, these are just a few examples of the many issues that will probably be debated, in the light of various experimentations, in the workshops and seminars to come. By launching a wide-scale operation of primary school language teaching the French Minister of Education, M. Lionel Jospin, has certainly added a new challenge to education in France. In the expectation of the first results of its continuous assessment, those who like me, in France and in many countries, believe in an early start of language learning (providing it is done in favourable conditions) can only wish the operation will reach its basic aim of improving language learning in the present and future European context. We have at least three good assets: the political will to make the operation succeed, the general positive attitude of parents, administrators, local authorities and teachers at large; and the promise of very valuable international cooperation that will extend far beyond the 12 countries of the European Community. In an article in the British newspaper, Independent, of 5 October 1989, "English pour les enfants", Mary Follain concluded that "Early learning in languages is working in France",

and even wished the same thing were done for English children. Her last encouraging paragraph might offer a rather optimistic conclusion to this article where I pointed out all the work that lies ahead: "Instead of resting on their laurels as well they might, the French are forging ahead. It would be a pity to miss the opportunity of giving English children a head start in primary school, too." *

NOTES *.

At the beginning of her article, Mary Follain mentions a recent visit to Britain of M. Jospin who proposed to his colleague Mr. John MacGregor a scheme of extended exchange visits between British and French primary school teachers.

152 Denis Girard REFERENCES Burstall, C. 1974. Primary French in the Balance. N.F.E.R. Publishing Company Ltd. Girard, D. 1974. L'enseignement précoce des langues vivantes. Paris. Rapport au Ministre de l'Education. Hawkins, E. 1985. Awareness of Language: An Introduction. Cambridge: C.UP. Penfield, W. and L. Roberts. 1959. Speech and Brain Mechanisms. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Embarrassment in the Classroom Ron Mackay

An examination of the role that certain patterns of classroom interaction may play in the academic failure of ESL students receiving schooling in English.

INTRODUCTION

My response to the editors' invitation to contribute to this Festschrift is a discussion of a school-based ESP investigation, with certain novel characteristics and very practical implications. I chose ESP because it has for long been an interest of Bill Lee's; I chose a classroom issue because the art of the practical has for many decades been the hallmark of his work; I chose an issue displaying novel features because Bill Lee throughout his career has pushed beyond the mainstream into the new and the creative.

THE PROBLEM IN CONTEXT

In the late 70s, I was invited to assess the English curriculum of the Kativik school board responsible for the 14 schools around the Hudson and Ungava Bay coasts of Arctic Quebec. The students of these 14 schools ranged in age from six to seventeen and were virtually all mother tongue Inuktitut speakers. Inuktitut is used as the language of instruction for the first two years and then English is used for the final ten years of their 12 years of school education. The occasion of the assessment was a growing concern on the part of the board that most students were neither developing a high level of proficiency in English nor exhibiting much success in the academic subjects they were studying. Only a very small percentage of students was remaining at school long enough to graduate.

COMMUNITY AND TEACHER EXPLANATIONS FOR FAILURE

Visits to about ten of these northern communities and discussions with school principals, school board commissioners, village education committees, parents,

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and teachers, provided me with the information that there were four principal explanations being put forward for the then current state of affairs. The explanations have been summarized as : 1. Unsupportive home environment. Many parents and most grandparents of present-day students were born into a semi-migratory way of life, had little formal schooling or none at all, and did not appreciate the importance of education. 2. Irregular school attendance. Some students were kept away from school to accompany their parents on lengthy hunting expeditions or to baby-sit younger siblings or to help parents with tasks at home. 3. Lack of student motivation. Some students saw little opportunity for employment in their setdements whether or not they graduated from high school. 4. Home-school language switch. The only opportunity students had to learn and practise English was in school with the teacher. At home, in the community and even at school with their peers, they used Inuktitut.

AN APPLIED LINGUIST'S PERSPECTIVE ON THE PROBLEM

My preliminary investigations, however, had permitted me to become familiar with the professional qualifications of the teachers employed by the school board and two interesting (and surprising) facts had emerged. Most teachers employed by the board at that time had no formal training in either ESL or ESP despite the fact that they had been hired to teach students whose mother tongue was other than English. This information was particularly interesting in the light of the absence of any explanation for the failure of Inuit students in terms of deficiencies in the professional preparation of teachers, deficiencies which might be expected to show up in the way in which instruction was carried out in the classroom. During observations of many lessons in these Inuit schools — both English language and subject matter lessons — I had recorded that the teachers did the lion's share of the talking in class and that, in many cases, copying from the blackboard was one of the most common activities students were required to engage in. As an applied linguist and ESP teacher, and evaluator, my interests along with my training lie in resolving educational problems that are amenable to languagerelated solutions. While I was aware that there might be some explanatory power for the limited academic success of Inuit students in the reasons offered above, I was struck by the fact that these explanations tend to move the bulk of the responsibility for failure from the teacher and the school to the student and the community. This uni-directional apportioning of responsibility conveniently

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absolves those responsible for the design and delivery of education from taking remedial action to counter student failure and to promote success. Moreover, it seemed logical to me as a second language teacher that the quality and quantity of the kinds of classroom activities set by teachers must have some effect on student performance. Hence I undertook a more detailed study involving only one school with 13 teachers (three of whom were Inuit) and 278 students (all but six or seven of whom were Inuit). The school was in the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education of the Northwest Territories, and another 1000 kilometers to the north of the Ungava Peninsula, in the Canadian Arctic, but exhibited similar problems to those described earlier.

THE QUESTIONS GUIDING THE STUDY

The study began (purposely) with no predetermined plan, no a priori hypotheses to be tested, no clearly identified variables to be measured, no pre-selected method or data collection technique, and no clear anticipation as to outcomes. It was loosely guided at the start by two questions: Firstly:

What are the English language demands (i.e. activities, tasks, exercise types) made on Inuktitut-speaking students in an English medium school ? And secondly: How do Inuktitut-speaking students perform in response to these classroom demands and activities ? Using the information obtained by asking these two questions, the general intention of the study was to try to better understand the manifest lack of academic success of Inuktitut-speaking students in school in terms of what was actually occurring inside the classroom during both English-language and content lessons.

PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION — RESEARCHER AS TEACHER

As a first step towards getting the project underway in the school which had been chosen for the study, I became a replacement teacher during part of my sabbatical leave from university teaching. There were 10 years of study (Kindergarten to Grade 9) offered in the school. During the first three years (kindergarten to grade 2), when most children would be between the ages of six and nine, their mother tongue, Inuktitut, was used as the medium of education and English was taught as a second language. For the following seven years of study (grades 3 to 9) English was the language of instruction and Inuktitut was

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taught as a subject. Over a period of a month, I taught all subjects to the seven English-medium grades and also observed a large number of classes at each grade level. This allowed me to become fairly familiar with most of the students and teachers in the school, their work routines and their level of performance in class. It also provided me with a substantial role to play in the life of the school and the community. I was no longer merely an intrusive researcher, but a teacher in the eyes of the students and their families and a useful colleague in the eyes of the teachers for whom a reliable replacement in the case of sickness or other reason for absence was quite valuable.

AN EMERGING FOCUS

By the end of the month, I had decided to focus attention upon two grade levels—grade 6, which was the final grade of primary school, and grade 7, which was the first grade of junior high school. Several factors led to the decision to focus upon grades 6 and 7. First, students in grade 6 had one home-room teacher who taught them every subject; this was true of all primary school grades from kindergarten through 6. However, in grade 7 (and subsequent grades of high school) there was a different 'specialist' teacher for every subject — science, math, social studies, physical education, and English. Secondly, whereas the primary school teachers on the whole expressed satisfaction with their students' intellectual and language development, secondary school teachers tended to be dissatisfied with the level at which their students could function in the classroom. Thirdly, while the secondary school teachers could (and often did) blame the junior-high English teacher and the primary school teachers for their students' inadequate English, primary school teachers had to take responsibilty themselves for ensuring that their students had an adequate level of English language skills to carry out the classroom activities and the tasks that they wanted to assign. It was clear that the two years from grade 6 to grade 7 and the transition from primary to secondary school represented an important watershed in the careers of the Inuit students and also in the perceived responsibilities and expectations of the teachers. Hence a close investigation of what kinds of activities the teachers engaged the students in during these two grades was a likely source of insights.

A CLOSE LOOK AT GRADE 6 AND GRADE 7 CLASSROOMS

The next step undertaken was to follow both the grade 6 and the grade 7 class from the beginning to the end of the school day for an entire week. Every lesson was recorded on tape and was supplemented by written notes that I made

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continuously while sitting in the back of the class. Thus when I came to transcribe the lessons (usually at the end of each day) I could recreate them virtually completely, at least for my purposes, from the combined written and taped records. I also had access to teachers' lesson plans, student workbooks and any texts or materials used in class. In addition, I sometimes gave the teachers the transcriptions of their lessons and ask for clarification of particular problems or discuss and test out my interpretations of what appeared to me to be going on, with the teachers themselves. One of the ways in which I used these data was to construct, for each lesson, sequential, descriptive inventories of the kinds of classroom activities (i.e. the tasks and exercises) which the teachers set their students. Such lists represented the classroom demands being made upon the students in any given lesson. Using these descriptive lists, the activities set in either a single lesson or a sequence of lessons could be tracked and examined.

LESSON ANALYSIS : GRADE 6

The transcripts of lessons showed that the grade 6 teacher made use of a wide range of classroom tasks and activities. These activities often had a sequential pattern to them. The teacher typically would provide the class with information either by talking or having them read and supplement the information with pictures, films or real objects. During this 'input' phase of the lesson, students would be asked comprehension-type questions which required them to provide short, often one-word, answers making use of the new terms and new concepts just presented. After this period which amounted to providing new information and rehearsing the new language associated with it, the teacher would move on to activities which required greater cognitive involvement from the students and asked them to rely less on the contextual clues available from teacher re-phrasing, illustrations, or other physical presentations. These more complex activities might involve writing a composition based on something that had been read and discussed in class or reasoning out the solution to a problem requiring the selection and integration of several pieces of information. Alternatively, the teacher might begin by requiring students to focus on unfamiliar language introduced by a new social science topic and then continue by setting activities which made use of that language in order to hold a discussion. Activities were of many different kinds and involved the skills of listening and speaking as well as reading and writing. Sequences of activities like these might occur over several lesson periods spanning several days. The examination of an individual lesson, or even one entire school day, would not have exposed this sequential patterning in the grade 6 class.

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LESSON ANALYSIS : GRADE 7

Especially at the beginning of the school year, the grade 7 subject matter teachers tended to start out with, or move very rapidly to, tasks which required an understanding of the subject matter covered in class and an almost native-like mastery of the use of English. If most students demonstrated hesitation at beginning this type of demanding task, the teacher would swiftly reduce the activity to a much simpler one. For example, after having several different students read two paragraphs sentence by sentence from the social studies textbook, the teacher might immediately ask students to write an answer in their notebooks to a question which required them to assess the information, use appropriate pieces of it to reason out a response and to express that reasoning in writing. When virtually no student had demonstrated much headway with the task after five minutes, the teacher would regain the attention of the class, provide them with an oral rendering of the reasoning required by the question, write the answer on the board, and tell the students to copy it into their notebooks. Indeed after a relatively short time in the school, junior high school 'specialist' subject matter teachers tended to set their students only simple activities such as asking factual questions requiring one-word answers and completing worksheets of the 'fill in the blank' variety. They tended not to employ more cognitively demanding activities or tasks addressing language development Moreover, there was a tendency for teachers to make each lesson self-contained, beginning and ending within the sixty-minute period allotted. This was confirmed by the grade 7 teachers themselves. One of them expressed this tendency thus: "I started off at what I thought was the right level for junior high but it was no good. Just silence and looks. So I backtracked. I'd had too high expectations for them. They weren't quite ready to handle it. But they're good at factual stuff — throwing back straight facts. So I give them fill-in-the-blanks."

PROGRESS BACKWARDS

Of crucial importance here is the observation that as the students 'progressed' from primary school to secondary school the language demands were being reduced. We would expect the contrary to occur. As schooling progresses we would expect that the activities demanded of students would become more and not less cognitively and linguistically demanding. Indeed, a most coherent and persuasive account of language proficiency (Cummins 1983) was developed, in part, to account for the increasingly complex demands made by schooling upon non-native speakers of English and their ability to respond successfully to these demands.

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LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY AND ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT

Cummins' conceptualization of the language proficiency of speakers of ESL in an English medium context (Fig. l)is presented as the extent to which students are able to cope successfully with the cognitive and linguistic demands made on them by the social and educational environment in which they are obliged to function. Cummins conceptualized this construct within a framework made up of the intersection of two continua, one relating to the "range of contextual support available for expressing or receiving meaning" and the other relating to the "amount of information that must be processed simultaneously or in close succession by the student in order to carry out the activity".

cognitively undemanding

A

C

contextembedded

contextreduced B

D

cognitively demanding Fig. 1. Conceptualization of "Language Proficiency" from Cummins (1983)

An individual student's proficiency can be expressed as a point located within this framework and represents what the student is able to do successfully at a particular point in time. As the student's language proficiency increases, so the point representing it moves towards quadrants B, C and D. By the same token, a classroom task, exercise or activity of any kind can be located within this framework. Its location would be determined by the relative cognitive and linguistic complexity demanded for successful completion of the task in question.

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COMPARING SEQUENCES OF TASKS SET BY GRADE 6 AND GRADE 7 TEACHERS

I found it informative to map sequences of tasks demanded by the grade 6 teacher (Fig. 2) and compare the results with the map of sequences of tasks demanded by the grade 7 subject matter teachers (Fig. 3). A typical sequence of tasks set by the grade 6 teacher might be: - listen to the teacher talk briefly about gravity with the aid of realia; - answer oral comprehension check-type questions focusing on new words and concepts; - listen to teacher read, and follow textbook by eye; - answer and generate questions orally about the relative gravity of planets with the aid of realia; - write answers to questions about planets in personal notebooks. A typical sequence of tasks set by the grade 7 teacher, particularly early in the school year might be: - discuss aspects of the Second World War based on a previous lesson; - listen to the teacher make the logic explicit, based on identified passages in the textbook. Books open; - copy from the board a sequence of related statements written by the teacher, reflecting the main points of the reasoning presented in the previous step.

cognitively undemanding

< D

cognitively demanding Fig. 3. Schematized sequence of task-types (Grade 7 subject matter teachers)

The schema of the activities demanded of the grade 6 teacher portrays a developmental view of language learning and language use. On the contrary, the schema of the activities demanded by the grade 7 subject matter teachers shows them to be substituting simpler tasks for the more complex ones that they originally intended the students to engage in. This latter schema is not developmental in the sense that it does not seek to instruct, it merely seeks to find the point at which the students can function with the minimum of embarrassment being caused to all concerned. This process of substitution, or " task reduction" (Mackay 1986), is undertaken consciously in response to evidence that the original task cannot be performed by the students to the satisfaction of the teacher. The act of substitution is only in the direction of simplification and is motivated solely by the teacher's desire to reduce embarrassment.

EMBARRASSMENT

The term 'embarrassment' means something which "makes things difficult" or "hinders" (Webster's Encyclopedic Dictionary, Canadian Edition, 1988). I use the term to refer to the complication experienced by the teacher (and by the more proficient students) when the smooth unfolding of the lesson is hindered or obstructed by an inability on the part of one or more students to perform the task assigned to the satisfaction of the teacher. The occasion of the embarrassment can take one of many forms, for example:

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1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

total silence on the part of the student in response to a question or request; an undue delay on the part of the student to respond to the teacher, an incomprehensible response by a student; an inarticulate response by a student; a delay in producing constructed written responses; incomprehensible written work; incomplete written work in the time allotted; written work which is insufficient to deal with the topic or to answer the question adequately. The list is by no means exhaustive.

TASK REDUCTION AS A SOLUTION TO EMBARRASSMENT

In order to resolve the embarrassment the teacher can simply remove the obstacle. The teacher can ask the students to perform a simpler task - one that falls within their linguistic ability to perform with relative ease. The primary purpose of task-reduction is to simplify the language demands made upon the students. This usually implies minimizing or even eliminating altogether tasks which call for constructed responses. That is, students are seldom required to employ the productive language skills of writing and speaking, and especially not at length. The net effect of employing the task-reduction strategy is that students are required to perform only those tasks that they can already perform and seldom required to engage in progressively more difficult tasks which are necessary to exhibit appropriate grade-level performance. The subject matter teacher, in an effort to permit all students to participate at a minimum level, settles into a classroom pattern where teacher-centred activities predominate and students are assigned a passive and dependent role. A pattern of this type, Cummins argues "inhibits the intrinsic motivation and active involvement in learning that are essential for the development of higher-order cognitive and academic skills." (Cummins 1984:223)

In effect, the subject matter teachers, (for a variety of reasons, e.g. a lack of awareness of, and training in, viable alternative strategies for coping with the limited academic and linguistic proficiency of their students; a lack of sensitivity to the students' predicament in the curricular materials recommended by the Ministry of Education; the pressure exerted on teachers by the need to complete a given amount of work in the academic year) have found a 'temporary' solution which rapidly becomes a permanent solution. By employing task-reduction, they unwittingly and unintentionally trap students into a learning environment which may permanently deprive them of the opportunity for developing the

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proficiency and skills they need to enjoy academic success. In so doing, the subject matter teachers perpetuate their own dissatisfaction with the performance of their students whom they know are performing below grade level. The frustration experienced as a result of constandy offering classes below grade level, unaware that there is a way out, may be a significant contributing factor to high teacher-turnover rates in schools serving Inuit and other Native peoples (Indian and Metis) of Canada as well as schools with high immigrant populations.

CONCLUSIONS

These results reported here simply provide us with additional evidence for what applied linguists working in the areas of ESP, including EAP, have for long known — the teaching of language and content cannot be completely separated. It has become generally accepted that English teachers must infuse their classes with appropriate subject matter and the practice of appropriate language skills. It is less generally accepted, despite the Language, Teaching and Learning Series (Torbe 1981) which includes volumes on the language of geography, science, histoiy and mathematics, that science, mathematics etc. teachers be given training in how to pay a necessary amount of attention to the language of their subject matters and also to the academic skills that their students require, in order to demonstrate a growing understanding of those subject matters.

REFERENCES Cummins, J. 1983. "Language Proficiency and Academic Achievement". In: J.W. Oiler Jr. (ed.). Issues in Language Testing Research. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House. Cummins, J. 1984. Bilingualism and Special Education: Issues in Assessment and Pedagogy. Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters. Mackay, R. 1986. The Role of English in Education in an Eastern Arctic School. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis. Quebec: L'Université de Montréal. Torbe, M. (ed.). 1981. Language Teaching and Learning Series. London: Ward Lock Educational.

The Notion of Habit and the Contemporary Language learning/Teaching Paradigm Waldemar Marion

As recently as 20 years ago the notions of habit and habit formation still dominated discussions and theoretical considerations of language learning and teaching. Within the past ten years, however, they have been hardly used at all and it seems that they have absolutely no place in the contemporary language learning/teaching paradigm. In fact, we might say that 'habit' has become a taboo word in language learning/teaching theory. This rather sudden change has been brought about by a number of developments in several disciplines providing important data and theoretical constructs for the field of language teaching methodology. First of all, in psychology of learning the behaviouristic paradigm has turned out to be inadequate to account for higher and more complicated types of learning and has been replaced by a variety of theoretical models conveniently subsumed under the label of cognitive psychology. In linguistics, Chomsky's transformational theory denied the truth of the Bloomfieldian assumption that language is a set of habits and stressed instead creative aspects of language and language use. In studies of first language acquisition the behaviouristic notions of habit formation and shaping of behaviour have not been able to explain some newly discovered facts. For example, they could not account for the fact that at a certain stage in their linguistic development young children abandon well-rehearsed and often reinforced forms which they have picked up from their caretakers, such as 'went', in favour of the 'erroneous' forms such as 'goed', in an obvious attempt to construct a rule. Neither could the behaviouristic paradagm account for the so-called logical problem of language acquisition, i.e. the fact that children produce linguistic forms and items which they could have never heard in their environment. All these discoveries and new theoretical developments have consequently introduced a completely new paradigm of language learning, in which this activity is primarily perceived as a process of hypothesis formation and testing. This is very much in keeping with the prevailing trends in philosophy of education and educational psychology, especially as represented by such great

166 Waldemar Martori and influential thinkers as J.S. Bruner (1956,1965), J. Piaget (1948,1952), L.S. Wygotski (1971). According to their views, man's mind is not seen as a sponge absorbing everything from the outside but as a hypothesis-forming machine, forever searching to make sense of the environment from the signals received by the senses. Consequently, a new language teaching paradigm has also appeared, and this new paradigm is characterized by the centripetal rather than the centrifugal approach, to use Hammerly's (1985:25-26) terms. That is, the primary concern of the teacher seems no longer to be to teach the language systems to the learner so that, subsequently, the learner might apply this knowledge to his/her attemps at communicating via this language (the centrifugal approach). Instead, the teacher should strive to get the learner involved in meaningful communication and negotiation of meaning right from the very beginning in the conviction that out of these communicative experiences the learner will be able to reconstruct the language system for himself (the centripetal approach). The latter conviction constitutes the foundation of communicative language teaching, which, in many varieties and versions, has dominated the language teaching scene for over a decade now. Encouraging learners to early communication in the target language has resulted in setting fluency over accuracy (certainly in practice if not always in theory), has introduced a liberal and condoning attitude towards learners' errors and has, consequently, either drastically reduced or even completely eliminated the traditional teacher's favourite activity - error correction. Yet, in spite of the fact that such terms as 'habit' and 'habit formation' have disappeared from contemporary discussions of language learning and teaching, certain facts indicate that the phenomenon itself has not disappeared and that, whether we want it or not, we will have to face it sooner or later. One of these facts has to do with fossilizations, the term introduced by Selinker (1972) in his well known and often quoted article on interlanguage. As is generally known, fossilizations are persistent errors characteristic of second language learners which seem to be immune to correction and, for all practical intents and purposes, are impossible to get rid of. The interesting question is why this is so and why no amount of hypothesis formation and testing can eliminate these errors from the learner's language. The only logical answer is that we are dealing here with some sort of automatic behaviour, or, in other words, with deeply ingrained habits. There are also observations and even statistically controlled data related to the fact that pushing second language learners to early communication and putting a premium on fluency rather than accuracy may easily lead to a highly pidginized version of the learner's language which does not necessarily disappear of itself but creates an early ceiling effect in the learner's linguistic development. I am referring here to such studies and critical opinions as those by Omaggio (1983), Hammerly (1985:33-37), Eskey (1983), Abbott (1981), and Marton (1988:49-51). Likewise, Bartnicki (1990) in his study

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comparing classroom techniques employed for teaching English in England, Nigeria and Poland found that indeed in England, where communicative teaching prevailed, learners most often exhibited a fairly high level of fluency accompanied by markedly poor accuracy. Certainly, one might argue that teaching someone to speak a pidgin is still better than turning out a learner who is mute in a real communication situation and can only translate texts into or from the target language and analyze complicated grammatical constructions. I do not agree, however, with this kind of reasoning. First of all, it stands to reason and has also been confirmed by sociologists and sociolinguists that pidginized and incorrect language can stigmatize its user in certain types of social situations and encounters with native speakers and can create a negative image of his/her abilities and qualifications (see an interesting study by Triandis et al. 1966). Besides, in my opinion, the ability to speak fluendy but without accuracy (not to mention such attributes as elegance and precision) can hardly become a worthwile educational goal. Let us leave this kind of impoverished achievement to "street learners" who have no other opportunity but to pick up their language in order to survive in the new environment; in the educational setting we should and can do better and have both good fluency and a fairly high level of accuracy. Stipulating both fluency and accuracy as the necessary conditions for real achievement in language study we remain very much within the European tradition of effective language teaching as expressed in the ideas and works of such great language educators as Henry Sweet, Otto Jespersen and Harold E. Palmer. I am aware of the fact that these names and what they stand for are considered by many contemporary theorists to belong to the history of language teaching and to have little, if any, relevance to our present-day discussions and controversies but I do not agree with this point of view. The pedagogical recommendations of the above mentioned scholars are based not only on their personal views but also on the accumulated common experience of ages of language teaching and I believe it is wise to put more trust in this experience and tradition than in the results of two or three contemporary language teaching experiments. It is very unfortunate that the often-mentioned pendulum-syndrome still seems to plague the theory and practice of language teaching and that the best traditions and experiences of the past are totally disregarded; the 'communicative revolution' is no exception here. I am convinced that especially Harold E. Palmer's views on language teaching, expressed in his book "The Principles of Language Study" (Palmer 1964), have lost little of their validity and should be seriously considered in our present-day discussions of language teaching and learning. After all, Palmer was not an armchair methodologist and had not only a deep and penetrating mind but also years of successful experience both as a language teacher and learner. It is relevant to our discussion that, being an advocate of "our spontaneous capacities for acquiring speech", he relentless-

168 Waldemar Marion ly stressed and repeated that habit-forming and memorization should constitute the backbone of language teaching and learning, particulary in the elementary stage, and that without plenty of habit-forming activities we can never achieve accuracy (Palmer 1964). It is also noteworthy that good language learner studies (e.g. Naiman et al. 1978) and, recently, studies of individual learning strategies, conveniently summarized by Skehan (1989:73-99), clearly show that all language learners, particularly in the initial stages of language study, quite spontaneously attach great importance to 'practice' or 'practicing strategies', which consist of such activities as repeating and rehearsing language items, memorizing them verbatim, constructing sentences in the target language silendy in the mind and also saying them aloud in one's spare moments etc. (see also Oxford 1990). The purpose of these solitary activities, most often practiced in isolation, has nothing to do with communicating one's ideas to someone or negotiating meanings but rather with making newly learnt language items readily retrievable, i.e. automatic. In essence, then, this is nothing else but 'old-fashioned' habit formation, achieved, for instance, in the audiolingual method by such techniques as choral and individual repetition after the teacher, mim-mem procedures and mechanical drills. It should be also taken into consideration that studies of naturalistic second language acquisition show us that this process is not just the effortless and pleasant unconscious learning of the intricacies of the target language's phonological, grammatical and semantic systems through highly rewarding and interesting communication, as some contemporary language educators seem to believe. It is rather a strenuous and grinding affair, in which the learner initially invests a lot of effort in mimicking and memorizing very many large, unanalysed chunks, only gradually analysing them and learning to use them flexibly in new contexts (Hakuta 1974; Wong-Fillmore 1979). Also, careful study of first language acquisition reports makes us aware of the fact that a crucial role is played in this process by constant repetition of ever the same language items by the child's caretakers. It is not, as the behaviourists assumed, that the repetition of adult utterances by the child is so crucial, but, rather, the constant presentation of the same elements in the input the child receives (Brown and Hanlon 1970; Hatch 1983:54,57). The child operates linguistically in the here-and-now context, with the same situations and the same language items recurring over and over again. This constant repetition does not lead directly to the formation of readily available mental representations of language items in the child's mind, especially on the abstract levels of phonology and syntax, since all this linguistic material has to be, so to speak, 'personally' processed by the child through hypothesis formation and testing. The child does not absorb the language system in a ready-made form, he/she discovers or reconstructs it. Yet it seems that in the area of lexis, especially after

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the basics of the syntactic and phonological systems have been acquired, rapid development is possible as a result of a large amount of imitation, repetition and memorization. These activities make language items readily retrievable or, in other words, automatic; if we want to use the traditional terminology, it seems that it is here that the notions of habit and habit formation still make sense. How can we account, then, in our new language learning/teaching paradigm for all these facts, which seem to indicate the presence and importance in the process of language learning of what is essentially nothing else but what was referred to in the old paradigm as habit formation? First of all, we have a very well known explanation of the formation of fossilizations in the theoretical model suggested by Vigil and Oiler (1976). In this model the appearance of fossilizations is strictly connected with the notions of affective and cognitive feedback received by the learner from his/her interlocutor in a communication situation. An erroneous or ungrammatical item in the speech of a learner becomes fossilized when it gains first positive affective feedback ('I like it') and then positive cognitive feedback ('I understand'). Thus, as we see, this model assigns a very important role to the consequences of the learner's behaviour, which formed the foundation of the behaviouristic concept of reinforcement in the Skinnerian S-R-R schema. The question arises, then, whether Vigil and Oiler's explanation of the formation of fossilizations is essentially different from the behaviouristic explanation of habit formation by the S-R-R model. In order to answer this question we have to reflect on the fact that Vigil and Oiler's schema says nothing about why children acquiring their native tongue do not fossilize and, as a rule, do not fail to reach the standards of accuracy and correctness observed in their linguistic environment. Neither does this schema explain why many second language learners or even whole immigrant groups succeed in reaching a native-like level in their target language without accumulating any, or almost any, fossilizations in the process. Yet it seems that this phenomenon is not too difficult to explain if we go beyond the somewhat narrowly defined concept of feedback or reinforcement and take into consideration descriptions and conceptualizations provided by some contemporary scholars; I have presented an explanation in two of my recent publications (Marton 1988,1989). In my opinion, it is not only the type of feedback that the learner receives directly from his/her interlocutor that decides about whether a given item will or will not become fossilized. There is yet another important factor at play here, which can be defined as an internal criterion of excellence in language performance adopted by a given individual. In psychological terms, this criterion is nothing else but the individual's level of aspiration and it is strictly connected with the strength and type of his/her motivation. Motivation, in turn, is closely

170 Waldemar Martori related to the general language function or purpose which inspires the individual's efforts to learn the language. It can be safely assumed that for first language acquirers the communicative function of language is not the only one that matters. They learn their LI not only to communicate with their caretakers and peers but also in order to become fully fledged members of a particular social group by possessing and sharing a given common language. Thus they are inspired by the so-called integrative or social or identity-marking function of language. Accordingly, their level of aspiration is very high and their demand for excellence is not satisfied by a single confirmation of their utterances by an interlocutor, they continue their processes of hypothesis testing until they are assured that what they have acquired fully conforms to the linguistic norms and standards of their speech community. The same is true of second language acquirers in naturalistic settings who have a strong desire for integration with the L2 community or who live in permeable, open, and mobile immigrant communities (see Schumann 1978). Having presented the extended version of the Vigil and Oiler model we can return now to the question of whether this model really offers essentially different insights from those provided by behaviouristic theory or whether the difference between the two explanations is only terminological. At first sight one might say that indeed the latter is the case since if we replaced the term 'positive feedback' with 'reinforcement', and 'negative feedback' with 'negative reinforcement' or 'lack of reinforcement' we would have basically the same explanation of the mechanism responsible for the formation of fossilizations (=habits) as that provided by the behaviouristic S-R-R schema. And, in a sense, this is true; as well as being true that we could provide behaviouristic descriptions for many current issues dealt with by cognitive theory; for instance, problem solving could be dealt with and described in terms of stimulus and response generalization and S-S learning. Yet, on closer inspection, one can detect some differences which are subtle enough but not without consequence. First of all, habit formation in language learning, especially as seen by the audio-linguists, was a procedure which was totally controlled (or, at least, was assumed to be such) by an external agent or manipulator who provided reinforcement and established the criterion to be reached by learners. In the cognitive interpretation provided by the extended Vigil and Oiler model the external agent is not so crucial, instead such 'mentalistic' concepts as the function of language which determines the learner's goal and his/her motivation and level of aspiration play a decisive role. Again, even these internal factors could be accommodated in some way by behaviouristic or rather neo-behaviouristic theory but this possibility begs an important question belonging to the area of philosophy of science. The question is whether it is justifiable and useful to stretch and water down a theory in order to make it accommodate new facts which seem to undermine it or whether it is

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better to develop a new theory. I would opt for the latter solution, as did Chomsky in his famous review of Skinner's "Verbal Behavior", in which he accused Skinner of stretching, in order to account for the complexity of verbal behaviour, the basic behaviouristic concepts (such as stimulus control or reinforcement) to the point where they lost their original clarity and rigour (Chomsky 1959). Thus it seems to me that cognitive interpretations like the one provided by the extended Vigil and Oiler model can more naturally and more convincingly account for various complex individual and social factors involved in the process of language acquisition than the behaviouristic schemas. Accordingly, it is more promising, I believe, to consider the role of activities and processes traditionally termed 'habitual' in a new perspective, more in tune with the contemporary paradigms in psychology, linguistics and language acquisition research. An important aspect of this new perspective is provided by the notion of two types of knowledge underlying language use in receptive and productive activities, hypothesized by some contemporary second language acquisition researchers (Sharwood Smith 1981; Bialystok 1982; Kohn 1982; Bialystok and Sharwood Smith 1985; Marton 1988). One of these types refers to the internalized knowledge of the language in the form of mental representations of language items, the relationship holding among them, and the abstract principles and rules governing their use. Accordingly, this type of knowledge, referring to 'knowing that', is called representational. The other type includes the procedures necessary for accessing this representational knowledge and for integrating the retrieved elements in mental plans controlling our receptive and productive uses of the language. Accordingly, this kind of knowledge, referring to 'knowing how' and largely corresponding to the concept of skill, is called procedural (these are the terms I use, other scholars use somewhat different pairs of terms). The important point is that this procedural component cannot be identified with the notion of performance; instead, both representational and procedural knowledge should be seen as underlying concrete uses of the language and as equally likely to be affected by such accidental psychological states of the speaker as emotional stress, fatique etc. It is obvious, then, that procedural processes taking place in real time and, as such, subject to strict time limitations must be to a large extent automatic, or, to use the traditional term, habitual. It is not very important in what measure they are conscious or subconscious since it is impossible, really, to establish to what degree a speaker's or listener's consciousness is involved in a given speech activity; when we say that these processes are automatic we mean, first of all, that they are performed smoothly and at the proper speed. Of course, automatical control of procedural activities is not given ready-made to the learner, it requires time and effort. Levelt (1978:57-8) describes the process of skill acquisition in language use as the progressive automatization of low-level plans or units of language operations. In the beginning stages their execution requires much

172 Waldemar Morton mental effort, yet repeated performance of these deliberate operations leads to their automatization so that they become available to the learner as ready-made plans stored in the long-term memory. This allows the learner to spend less and less time and effort on low-level plans and thus to free his limited processing capacity for higher-level operations. It is nothing else but practice which converts these initially deliberate and highly controlled language operations to automatic ones. The crucial thing is, however, that there are absolutely no grounds to assume that this practice has to take place only in communication situations, as some contemporary language educators would like us to believe. It is quite obvious that a learner also very effectively develops and automatizes his/her procedural knowledge when he/she for instance, memorizes a list of lexical items (on condition that this involves not only multiple repetitions but also a recall of the list) or when he/she silently constructs a TL text in his/her mind (perhaps in preperation for a predicted communication situation), or when he/she renarrates aloud to himself/herself a text he/she has just read or listened to on tape. Of course, for achieving full procedural knowledge the learner must participate in real or simulated communication situations with an interlocutor but he/she can successfully gain various important elements of this knowledge through intensive practice in isolation. Thus we have replaced the notion of habit with the notion of automatism or automatic activity and the notion of habit formation with that of gradual automatization of originally highly controlled activities, yet all these terms and concepts represent basically the same essence, so that if anyone still prefers to use the term 'habit' I see nothing wrong in it, on condition that one remembers that this latter term has absorbed many strictly behaviouristic connotations and it is important that we use it in a broader and more flexible sense than the behaviourists did it originally. What pedagogical conclusions could be drawn from this discussion? First of all, we have to remember that although natural language use is to a large extent innovative (in the sense that we understand and produce very many novel utterances), yet, owing to the highly conventionalized nature of language and language communication, we are not and cannot be creative all the time. It is well-known that formulaic speech, i.e. the use of ready-made formulas and clich)s, accounts for a large part of our utterances in everyday communication situations. Besides, being creative in language production most often means making new combinations out of ready-made, prefabricated chunks such as phrases, patterns, collocations etc. Thus learning a language involves a tremendous effort of memory and a great deal of memorizing. To make items held in the long-term memory easily retrievable requires a great deal of persistent practice, which is nothing other than automatization or habit formation.

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Accordingly, any approach to or method of language teaching which does not take into consideration the deliberate and intensive practice in the automatization of language material and which does not incorporate it into its procedures must fail in the area of accuracy. Thus w e may conclude that the notions of habit and habit formation are not at all dead but, under a more modern guise, have an important role to play in the contemporary language learning/teaching paradigm.

REFERENCES Abbott, G. and P. Wingard (eds.) 1981. The teaching of English as an international language: a practical guide. Glasgow and London: Collins. Bartnicki, S. 1990. Techniques of teaching English as a second or foreign language: a comparative study in England, Poland and Nigeria. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Institute of English, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland. Bialystok, E. 1982. "On the relationship between knowing and using forms". Applied Linguistics 3,3. 181-206. Bialystok, E. and M. Sharwood Smith. 198S. "Interlanguage is not a state of mind: an evaluation of the construct for second language acquisition". Applied Linguistics 6,2.101-17. Brown, R. and C. Hanlon. 1970. "Derivational complexity and order of acquisition in child speech". In J. Hayes (ed.). Cognition and the development of language. New York: John Wiley. Bruner, J.S., J J. Goodnow and G.A. Austin. 1956. A study of thinking. New York: John Wiley. Bruner, J.S. 1965. "The growth of mind". American Psychologist 20.1007-17. Chomsky, N. 1959. "A review of B.F. Skinner's 'Verbal Behavior'". Language 35,1. 26-58. Eskey, D.E. 1983. "Meanwhile, back in the real world ...: accuracy and fluency in second language teaching". TESOL Quarterly 17,2. 315-23. Hakuta, K. 1974. "Prefabricated patterns and the emergence of structure in second language acquisition". Language Learning 24.287-97. Hammerly, H. 1985. An integrated theory of language teaching and its practical consequences. Blaine, WA: Second Language Publications. Hatch, E.M. 1983. Psycholinguistics: a second language perspective. Rowley, MA: Newbury House. Kohn, K. 1982. "Beyond output: the analysis of interlanguage development". Studies in Second Language Acquistion 4.137-52. Levelt, W.J.M. 1978. "Skill theory and language teaching". Studies in Second Language Acquisition 1,1. 53-70. Marton, W. 1988. Methods in English language teaching: frameworks and options. New York-London: Prentice Hall. Marton, W. 1989. "Functions of language and second language acquisition". In L.E. Breivik, A. Hille and S. Johansson (eds). Essays on English language in honour of Bertil Sundby. Oslo: Novus Forlag.

174 Waldemar Marion Naiman, N., M. Fröhlich, H.H. Stem and A. Todesco. 1978. The good language learner. Toronto, Ontario: Institute for Studies in Education. Omaggio, A.C. 1983. "Methodology in transition: the new focus on proficiency". Modern Language Journal 67. 330-40. Oxford, R.L. 1990. Language learning strategies: what every teacher should know. New York: Newbury House. Piaget, J. 1948. La naissance de 1'intelligence chez I'enfant. Neuchtel-Paris: Delachaux et Niestld. Piaget, J. 1952. La Psychologie de 1'intelligence. Paris: Colin. Palmer, H.E. 1964. The principles of language-study. London: O.U.P. Schumann, J.H. 1978. The pidginization process: a model for second language acquisition. Rowley, MA: Newbury House. Selinker, L. 1972. "Interlanguage". International Review of Applied Linguistics 10. 209-31. Sharwood Smith, M. 1981. "The competence/performance distinction in the theory of second language acquisition and the pedagogical grammar hypothesis". Paper delivered at the 16th International Conference on Contrastive Linguistics, Blazejewko, Poland, December. Skehan, P. 1989. Individual differences in second-language learning. London: Edward Arnold. Triandis, H.C., W.D. Loh and L. Levin. 1966. "Race, status, quality of spoken English, and opinions about civil rights as determinants of interpersonal attitudes". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 3.468-472. Vigil, N.A. and J.W. Oiler. 1976. "Rule fossilization: a tentative model". Language Learning 26. 281-95. Wong-Fillmore, L. 1979. "Individual differences in second language acquisition". In: CJ. Fillmore, W-S.Y. Wang and D. Kempler (eds). Individual differences in language ability and language behavior. New York: Academic Press. Wygotski, L.S. 1971. Wybrane prace psychologiczne. (transl. EJ. Flesznerowie). Warszawa: Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe.

Testing or Owls, Pebbles and Fans Mario Rinvolucri

Self-testing seems to be a major part of all thinking activity, and is directly connected to the human ability to set up hypotheses and then check them out. Take what I am doing now, writing sentences for you to read. Parallel to putting my thoughts into words via my fingers on the keyboard, I keep on reviewing what I have just written, what the next sentence is going to contain, the inter-relationship between these pieces in my own mind and my guess at how you might perceive them. Bereiter and Scardamalia (1981) offer the following list of possible writer self-evaluative thoughts: - the reader may not understand this - the reader may be offended by this - the reader does not need to know this - this sounds all right - this says exactly what I mean - I am satisfied with this - this is inappropriate - the register is wrong - this thought doesn't link with the previous sentence - this doesn't give enough detail - the confusion is in my head, not in the mise-en-page - this is too direct/indirect... I am certainly experiencing most of these self-evaluations in writing this article. Evaluative feedback to self would appear to be an inevitable part of most things we do. Driving a car is another clear example. In the UK advanced driving test the candidate verbalises her self-evaluation as she drives. She explains what she is going to do and has done and why, as well as what she might have done differently. This is simply a making conscious of a normally semi-conscious or unconscious process. Continuous hypothesis formation and hypothesis checking fills the waking life of a person between one and three learning his mother tongue. A person at 22 months says 'ticker' as his version of the word 'sticker'. A few months later he starts sometimes and then firmly and always producing 'sticker'. For this to happen we have to hypothesise that there is a feedback process continuously at

176 Mario Rinvolucri work, as the child moves from one version of a word to another and then to another. An approach to second language learning that closely bases itself on hypothesis formation and checking is Silent Way. In a Silent Way beginners' lesson I will pass the litde wooden cuisenaire rods round the group so that people can feel them, drop them, listen to them and smell and taste them if they so wish. In reaction sessions after such a beginner's lesson someone in the group will say: "I'm not sure what the word 'rod' really means " maybe it means 'piece of coloured chalk'". All through a typical Silent Way lesson the students are making language-plus-reality hypotheses. Take a Silent Way teacher of Greek introducing numbers. She writes 4 on the board. She mimes a request for the word in Greek. Silence. Student A, after some thought, produces a hesistant TETRA. First hypothesis. The teacher gives feedback silently showing that TE is the correct initial syllable and that RA is the correct final syllable, that the middel T needs replacing by a new syllable. The teacher may well mime this by establishing TE on her ring finger and RA on her index finger. She then mimes a request for the middle syllable by pointing to her middle finger. The students may guess their way to SE or the teacher may decide to loudly and clearly give it. (The teacher works 'backwards' from her point of view so that it is seen as forwards from the students' side). What Gattegno, founder and populariser of the Silent Way, is proposing is a socialisation of the natural, internal feedback mechanisms that each language learner possesses and uses. The teacher speeds up the learner's hypothesis formation and checking process by narrowing the speculative range and offering helpful clues. In the example given above the teacher picks the good bits out of the hypothesis TETRA and so organises them that reaching TESERA is a relatively easy task. The teacher in a way 'cheats' by making student speculation reach the correct conclusion much faster and more smoothly than it could unaided. The whole of Silent Way practice is built around the model exemplified with the 'teaching' of TESERA. Since the teacher is invading a process that is normally hiding within the student and is socialising it, it is vital that the teacher should behave as nonjudgementally as possible, should intrude as little of her own separate personality as possible into the operation. Neutrality is an unattainable ideal. But the reason for its desirability is clear. Hypothesis formation within the mind of the learner is a technical, cognitive process, not a value-laden one. Within Gattegno's socialised model, teacher feedback should remain as far as possible on the same 'cool' level - neither hot nor cold, so as not to emotionally disturb the thinking learner. All the above goes to show that testing is a vital and normal part of thinking, be it in areas like writing, driving a car, or learning a second language. The testing, that is, that one does of one's own processes.

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The problems start when the teacher tests learners to 'objectively' assess what they have learnt, when learners start to compare themselves with those around, rather than with themselves a minute ago, and when the state starts to set examinations that are designed to make some students, often a majority, fail. State examinations are a major teaching problem: Fanselow in Breaking Rules (1987) suggests that in the 1980's many North Yorkshire schools spend one day per week for the entire school year going over test items. In Nigeria and Somalia, during the last few months before the examination all class time is devoted to test practice. He notes wryly: "When we remember that the idea of a test is to sample what people have been doing, it seems that the emphasis on preparation for tests defeats the entire purpose of sampling". From a humanistic standpoint what can we say about the political institution of the state exam, the gate-keeping device that ensures everywhere in the world that though many are called few are chosen? The first thing is to note the gross unfairness of the system. Major exams have a different psychological effect on different individuals. In my own case exams often filled me with a feeling of adrenalin pumping, joy at performance, a feeling of challenge and exhilarating risk. The effect they had on my brother was totally destructive " his writing hand trembled so much at his 16+ State exams that he could hardly hold a pen. He passed only one subject and this 'failure' governed the path he has taken through life. I have no reason for doubting that his intelligence was greater than mine, this being the judgement of a person who taught us both. The British State's academic decision about Bernard and me at 16 was grossly inaccurate because it put him in a situation he couldn't bear and offered me an ideal ring to show off in. I jumped through the hoops with more glee than awareness or dignity. Scanning books written on EFL testing one finds litde written about the psychological reality of the examination room. Most specialists in testing seem to be much more worried about making sure they test the right things in the cognitively right way than wondering about the personal reality of the examinees. And yet this reality determines whether the exam is an accurate measure or not It takes a plunge into journals of psychotherapy to find educators willing to think realistically about candidates' feelings about exams. Workers like Beck (1972) have produced desensitization videos to help people with exam phobia. The candidate views a series of anxiety provoking scenes, graded according to the intensity of anxiety the scene is likely to arouse. When each scene is combined with a relaxation exercise the person no longer feels the same degree of anxiety as before. Beck offers nine scenes to exam phobics. Here is a selection of them: 2. A person tossing and turning the night before the examination is to be taken.

178 Mario Rinvolucri 5. A typical classroom with students talking nervously before class. The instructor enters, carrying the examinations. 8. Close-up of time slipping by as the anxious student writes frantically on official paper. My brother could certainly have done with some of Beck's work, but one is led to wonder why the State should set up a system so unfair as to drive the people subjected to it to needing therapy. Desensitization techniques are mostly used with people who have phobias, like fear of flying, claustrophobia, terror of spiders, etc. To see that exams are grossly unfair in not taking into account the situation of the candidate on the day, one only has to think of 500,000 sixteen year-olds taking a State exam. 250,000 of these will be girls. 50,000 of them will be having their period on the day of the exam. A sizeable percentage of the 50,000 will sit the exam in considerable physical discomfort. And people go on about 'objective testing'. It's absurd. One of my proficiency students last term told the class, when we were discussing the exam, that all you had to do was provide the examiner with what s/he wanted/expected. She explained that she had learned this early on in her career at a German gymnasium. One of the oddest things about exams, as Fanselow (1987) points out, is that the examiner nearly always initiates while the candidate is perpetually playing on the away ground. The point is amusingly illustrated by Alexander Calandra, professor of physics at Washington University, S t. Louis, in a New Yorker article:

"Calandra is called in as a referee by a colleague who wants to give a student zero for his answer to this physics question: "Show how it is possible to determine the height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer." The student suggests lowering the barometer from the top of the building to the street on a rope and then measuring the length of the rope. Calandra has the candidate re-answer the question; he gives him six minutes. The student suggests this as another of many correct answers: "Take the barometer to the top of the building and lean over the edge of the roof. Drop the barometer, timing its fall with a stopwatch. Then, using the formula S = V2 ar2, calculate the height of the building".

The student was granted nearly full credit for this second answer. He offered three or four more, none of them the conventional answer the examiner was after. This guy was not in the mood to give the examiner what he wanted. He was determined to play the game on his own highly intelligent home ground. With external State exams all you can do perhaps is palliate the harm they do your students. What about tests you do have control over? Here it is worth looking at

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some of the solutions radical thinkers have proposed and the rest of this article focuses on ways of making evaluation less unfair and fraught with fear. One sensible objection to most testing is that it isolates the individual from her peers. In most situations where you have a problem to solve you turn to a peer for help. The doctor asks for a second opinion. If I can't move a piano I get someone to help. In some EFL classrooms today students are encouraged to help each other on a day-to-day basis, but woe betide them if they continue this co-operative behaviour on the day of the test. It's called 'cheating'. How then can the individualised test be socialised? One suggestion comes from the co-operative learning movement in California as reported by David W. Johnson in Circles of Learning (1984). In preparation for the test students are organised to revise in threes. In each three there is a strong student, an average one, and a weak one. Each person takes the test individually, without help form his/her partners. Each person receives the 'average' mark for his/her threesome, so if the strong one scored 90%, and average one 60%, and the weak one 40%, each person in that team would get 63.33%. The clear intention of this form of testing is to make sure that it is in the interests of the strong to really help the weak during revision. It is in their egoistical interest. In some parts of Northern Europe teacher reaction to this proposal has been very fierce, with people angry about bright children being penalised and the offence to individualism. Not a Thatcherite vision of testing. A solution to testing suggested by my Pilgrims colleague, Jean-Paul Creton, is to have children make up their own tests. He divides his class into five sub-groups. Each is responsible for preparing a fifth of the total test. They prepare the questions and decide on the scoring system. Jean-Paul helps each group correct their section of the test. The next day the whole class sits the test. The setters then score their sections, and the work is done. Jean-Paul is rid of a major chore and the kids have really revised their work by the act of preparing the test. Even the weakest people do reasonable well on the section of the test their group set! A solution to testing which gives power to the children and at the same time reduces the teacher's work load is a methodological jewel. The co-operative learning movement testing system and Jean-Paul's are both rather radical solutions to the problem of testing. A 'gentler' one comes in Veronica Smith and Christine Klein Bradley's book on teaching translation: In other Words - Arbeitsbuch Übersetzung (Hueber 1987). The authors suggest that university-students, before sitting a translation exam, should present their teacher with a passage in one language and three different translations into the other language, ranging from fairly literal to much freer. They ask the teacher to mark each translation. The authors provide the students with this "teachertesting" passage and the three translations! The idea is to invite the teacher to lay her cards on the table and to show students how she expects a translation to

180 Mario Rinvolucri be done. Students may sometimes already have a pretty clear idea of their teacher's fads and prejudices but the point of the Smith and Klein Bradley proposal is to force the examiner to make her criteria publicly known in an area like translation, judgements of which are inevitable highly subjective. It's a way of making the judge/teacher read out the law under which she is either condemning or acquitting the candidate/criminal. John Fanselow (1987) suggests substituting observation for testing: "During the five to twenty minutes needed to develop one multiple choice item - without pre-testing it - five to twenty student communications can be written on note cards. If the communications are made during a break by students to each other (EFL students in an English speaking environment), or are made as the students are engaged in the actual solution of a real problem, such as putting together of a jigsaw puzzle, or in a conversation of their own, the communcations are likely to be more similar to those they ordinarily make than responses to questions in tests. They may be less inhibited as well, and so a more valid picture of capability may result."

Fanselow is rightly worried about the idea of prejudicing people's language performance simply by putting them in the 'test' frame of mind and body. It's a bit like asking crack marksmen to prepare for competition by having a swim in heavily chlorinated water. He writes: "In observing oral interview tests, I have noticed that nine times out of ten the people being tested keep their hands at their sides or held together in their laps. The body is usually held very erect, much as it is during a classroom recitation."

The most radical proposal I know for coping with the problem of grading students is to ask them to do it themselves. In Freedom to Learn for the 80's (1983) Rogers describes the pioneering work of Dr. Herbert Levitan, a lecturer in neurophysiology. His course for graduate college students had a reputation of being a good one but very demanding. The thing that worried him was a student drop-out rate over the semester of 30-40%. After six years of traditional teaching during which he took all the responsibility for syllabus, method and testing, he decided to negotiate content with his students and ask them how they wanted to work. In the area of laboratory experimentation, for example, he asked them whether they felt they would learn more from experiments which: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

were failsafe - guaranteed successful had a 75% probability of success had a moderate probability of success had a low probability of success were impossible, that is to say where no success was probable the first, second, or third time, but after a dozen experiments the success rate would reach 50-60%.

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Most students picked the third category, though many felt that the fifth category was the closest to the conditions in real research. Category I is the usual lecturer choice. A major student worry through the course was how the evaluation of their work would be done: "the students repeatedly asked how I was going to evaluate them, a question that reflected their past experience in courses in which their ultimate objective was to please the instructor."

Levitan decided that the marks he awarded for the course should be based entirely on student self-evaluation. Each student had to submit the following: - a portfolio of all written material he had produced during the semester, - a diary of reflections on his work over the semester, - the grade he awarded himself and a justification. "I reminded them that I reserved the right, and indeed felt the obligation, to give them feedback on the grade they assigned themselves. I made clear, however, that I would respect their final decision on the grade they wished to have submitted to the University."

Here are two student self-evaluations: "Evaluating myself is difficult, but I will try and be objective. I feel I've come a long way since the start of the course. Instead of just learning facts I learned how to ask questions and approach a problem ... But more importantly I learned how to discover more on my own. I believe my effort in the course is worth a B." "Based on the amount of time I spent in class compared to the amount of time I could have spent and the number of concepts I could have learned I give myself the grade of C for the course. I do not think a higher grade is justified simply because I did not make a formal attempt at synthesis of a topic of interest (term paper). Also a lower grade would not reflect the amount of time I placed in the course and my satisfaction with what I have learned."

Levitan reports that the distribution of self-evaluation grades for the course was: 33% A, 45% B, 20% C and 2% D. The major success of the course was that the drop-out rate was reduced from 30-40% to zero. To have got students, long accustomed to being marked from on high, to take self-evaluation seriously is no mean achievement. In the early 70's a group of EFL teachers in the University of Valdivia in Chile read Rogers and decided to try self-evaluation with their students. We used a mixed system:

182 Mario Rinvolucri -

test self-evaluation group evaluation of each student teacher evaluation of each student

I seem to remember self-evaluation was worth about 10% of the final mark. With us the student evaluations did not work honestly. Our students were too used to having marks used against them in a ghastly cat-and-mouse game. I suppose many of them thought these 'gringos' had simply gone grazy: who ever heard of students awarding themselves their grades? Our failure was also to do with introducing self- and group evaluation as fringe items. We did not trust what we were introducing sufficiently ourselves. Why should the students? While Levitan revolutionised his whole power relationship with his students we offered ours a tiny area of power at the end of the course. They found it derisory and they made it derisory. The reason for reporting this failure is two-fold: (i) normal honesty (ii) to make the point that a Rogerian transformation of the evaluation system in education presupposes a major change in the educator, in the students and in their power relationship to her. I certainly was no way near ready for the kind of revolution in personal relations between students and teacher that Rogers proposed back in 1972-3. Maybe I am beginning to be ready for it in 1989. Slow learning. The last words goes to the voices from the alternative, peasant hilltop school of Barbiana, Letter to a Teacher, 1961. "Owls, pebbles and fans " no, not for their good. You gave an A in French to a boy who, in France, would not know how to ask where the toilet was. He could only have asked for owls, pebbles and fans, either in the singular or the plural. All in all, he knew perhaps two hundred words picked carefully for being exceptions, not for being commonly used."

The result was that he hated French the way some people hate maths. Examinations should be abolished. If you do give them at least be fair. Difficulties should be chosen in proportion to their appearance in life. If you choose them too frequently, it means you have a trap-complex. As if you were at war with the kids. What makes you do it?

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REFERENCES Beck, T.K. 1972. "Videotaped scenes for desensitization of test anxiety" Journal of Behaviour Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry 3.195-97. Bereiter, Carl and M. Scardamalia. 1981. "From conversation to composition: the role of instruction in a development process". In: R. Glaser (ed.). Advances in Instructional Psychology 2. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 1-64. Fanselow, John F. 1987. Breaking Rules: Generating and Exploring Alternatives in Language Teaching. London: Longman. Johnson, David W. et al. Circles of Learning. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Rogers, Carl. 1983. Freedom to Learn for the 80's. Columbus (Ohio): Charles E. Merrill. Smith, Veronica and C. Klein Bradley. 1987. In other Words " Arbeitsbuch Übersetzung. München: Huebner. The School of Barbiana. 1961. Letter to a Teacher. Haimondsworth: Penguin.

Cognitive Style and Individualization in the EFL Class.1 Arthur van Essen, Peter van der Tuin, and Mik van Es

0. INTRODUCTION

This paper reports research into the relationships between certain learner characteristics, notably 'aspects of cognitive style', also called 'learning styles', and achievement in English as a foreign language (EFL). First of all the notion 'aspect of cognitive style' will be discussed. Next, four such aspects will be distinguished and described. Their possible influence on the acquisition of grammatical and communicative skills in EFL will be explored. Subsequently a brief look will be taken at the grammatical and fluency tests used in our investigation. After that the research design used to test the hypothetical relationships will be described. Finally our main findings will be presented and discussed with a view to establishing an empirical basis for individualized or differentiated instruction.

1. ASPECTS OF COGNITIVE STYLE AND FOREIGN-LANGUAGE LEARNING

For some years past individual differences between learners have been regarded as important variables in foreign-language (f-1) education. To optimize learner achievement such differences would have to be taken into account. The result would be individualized instruction or grouping (cf. Advies ... 1989). In the literature all kinds of personality characteristics are said to influence or possibly influence performance in a foreign language (see, for example, Stern 1983:360-87; Van Els et al. 1984:103-25). One group of such characteristics are the so-called aspects of cognitive style. These may be defined as the stable and persistent tendencies of a person to absorb and process information in one way rather than another (cf. Span 1973:21), or as the more or less stable preferences of a person to function cognitively in one way rather than another. That is to say people have preferred ways of thinking and recalling and of doing and perceiving things. The designation 'cognitive style' pertains to the sum of these individual preferences.

186 Arthur van Essen, Peter van der Tuin, and Mik van Es 2. OUR RESEARCH HYPOTHESES: RELEVANT ASPECTS OF COGNITIVE STYLE AND HOW TO MEASURE THEM

In choosing for our investigation aspects of cognitive style which we suspected would be more relevant to f-1 education than others we allowed ourselves to be guided by a conception of the f-1 teaching-learning process that has found almost universal acceptance. As will appear in our discussion of the first aspect of cognitive style that we looked into, this process, in its various stages, makes different cognitive demands on the learner. In the process of learning and teaching a foreign language which aims at the acquisition of communicative competence, three broad stages may be distinguished, irrespective of how the language is taught in detail (Fig.l).

Stage 1

acquisition of 'knowledge'

Stage 2

practice

language learnin g (acquisition)

Stage 3

application in (simulated) real-life situations

language use

Fig. 1 The teaching-learning process in broad stages

During the first stage the learner has to acquire 'knowledge' of the foreign-language structures. This process may take the form of learning grammar rules intentionally, as happens in the grammar-translation method, or occur as 'drilling', as is the case in the audio-lingual method. This is followed by a stage during which the learner has to practise what s/he has learnt in order to achieve habit-formation and the facilitation of transfer to different settings of what has been learnt. What takes place during both these stages is language learning: the focus of attention is on mastering the forms of the foreign language. These two stages are concluded by a third, in which attention is not so much directed to the forms of the language as to its content. During this third stage the learner applies what s/he has learnt and practised to a variety of real-life

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situations, and it may consequently be regarded as the purpose of all f-1 education. With a view to improving the teaching of EFL we decided to investigate three aspects of cognitive style which might possibly play a part in any of these stages and which might therefore be regarded as particularly relevant to the learning and use of EFL. Together these aspects provide a usable, if limited, operationalization of the elusive notion of 'language aptitude'. With respect to our model of the teaching-learning process as depicted in Fig. 1, the following observations may be made at this point. Krashen's 'natural approach' (Krashen, 1982) does not wholly agree with this model. The 'silent period' of this method is a special form of our first stage, just as learning grammar rules and pattern practice are. But following on this 'silent period' is the use of the rules "acquired" during this period; in terms of our model: its third stage. The second stage of our model does not occur in Krashen's approach. We believe, however, that our hypotheses are equally relevant to Krashen's method, as our 'aspects of cognitive style' embody universal learning principles which influence the acquisition of language. They can thus be seen as structures of the Language Acquisition Device (LAD) on which, according to Krashen, language acquisition depends. 2.1. Field [Independence A dimension of cognitive style that has received a great deal of attention over the past decades is that known as field dependence (FD) or field independence (FI). As it is also the one that has attracted the greatest attention from f-1 researchers, we have incorporated it into our research (Hansen & Stansfield 1981,1982:265; Naimanetal. 1978). The terms FD/FI signal tendencies in a person to adopt a more or a less analytic, a more or a less structuring approach to a problem (Span 1973). While FD is often said to foster greater skill in interpersonal relations and social behaviour in general (Hansen & Stansfield 1982:263-4), FI is believed to promote greater cognitive structuring ability on various perceptual and intellectual tasks. The FD/FI dimension, which is usually measured by the Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT) developed by Witkin and others (1971), would seem to bear on f-1 learning in two ways. First, it is likely to favour the acquisition of f-1 structures, no matter how these are taught (cf. Brown 1980:86). This constitutes our first hypothesis. On the other hand, FI/FD may adversely affect a person's communicative capacity as it is attended by a low degree of social sensitivity (cf. Witkin & Goodenough 1977). This is our second hypothesis. Though a high degree of FI may be beneficial to the learner during the first stage of the teaching-learning process it may hamper her/his development of communicative capacity during the third stage.

188 Arthur van Essen, Peter van der Tuin, and Mik van Es 2.2. Habit-Formation A facet of cognitive style which bears on stage 2 of the process is the learner's inclination towards habit-formation, that is, the automatic and unconscious application of what one has learnt. It may be supposed that the stronger the learner's tendency to form habits the better and morefluenthis oral proficiency will eventually become. This is our third hypothesis. A person's tendency towards habit-formation is measured by the Stroop Colour Word Test (SCWT) (Van Dam 1972). 2.3. Creativity In the third stage of the teaching-learning process the learner's attention is focused on the content of the foreign language. An aspect of cognitive style that may be relevant at this stage, but very likely also at the other stages, is that of 'divergent thinking' or 'creativity'. In a person's communicative competence we may distinguish several components: (1) a cognitive-lingual one, depending on whether or not the learner can acquire and use his/her knowledge of the foreign language with relative ease or difficulty; (2) a socio-psychological one, the workings of which may be influenced by such factors as the student's FD/FI, his/her introversion or extraversión, his/her shyness or confidence, courage, composure, presence of mind, etc. (cf. Hymes 1972). But communicative competence also has (3) a non-lingual cognitive component. For example, a learner who has no difficulty in mastering the forms of the foreign language, may be hampered by a low IQ in grasping the content of what is being said. Besides intelligence, creativity may be a factor in communicative competence as it may influence both the progress and the course of a conversation. In order to assess this aspect of the learner's cognitive style we have chosen two tests from a study by Nijsse (1983), who in turn derived them from Guilford & Hoepfner (1971). Both these tests measure the degree to which the learner is able to produce different and original ideas, one of the tests asking him/her to envisage the consequences of some dramatic event or action, the other gauging his/her sense of humour by asking him/her to provide as many captions as possible to a cartoon. The latter test, moreover, appears to correlate with social sensitivity (Nijsse 1983). Our fourth hypothesis therefore is that the more creative a student is, the greater his oral proficiency will be. 2.4. Sensitivity to Interference The SCWT is also said to assess a person's so-called sensitivity to interference (i.e. the degree of his/her immunity from unwanted signals while carrying out a task; Van Dam 1972); we decided to incorporate in our investigation this aspect of cognitive style as well. If the immunity is strong enough, this aspect of cognitive style may prevent the native language from constantly breaking in on the learning or acquisition of the foreign language. As such, sensitivity to

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interference may be considered a crucial variable in EFL. It plays a part in all stages of the teaching-learning process, as it may negatively affect the learner's acquisition of knowledge as well as his/her oral proficiency. These are our fifth and sixth hypotheses. Figure 2 sums up all the aspects of cognitive style discussed so far, as well as their postulated relationships with language achievements. Language Aspects^\^ Tests of Cognitive Style (& their T e s t s ) \ .

Field [Independence (GEFT)

Grammatical Knowledge

Oral Proficiency

+ (Hypothesis 1)

- (Hypothesis 2)

Habit-Formation (SCWT)

+ (Hypothesis 3)

Creativity ('Consequences'& 'Humour')

+ (Hypothesis 4)

Negative Sensitivity to Interference (SCWT)

+ (Hypothesis 5)

+ (Hypothesis 6)

Fig. 2 Postulated relationships between aspects of cognitive style and linguistic skills

3. THE LANGUAGE TESTS

To put our hypotheses to the test, we developed two batteries of language tests, one measuring the learner's grammatical competence in English, the other his oral proficiency. 3.1. The Grammar Test The test which measures grammatical competence consists of two parallel series of ten subtests each, requiring the learner to manipulate aspects of English syntactic, morphosyntactic, and morphological structure. The subtests embody those aspects of English grammar that may be regarded as characteristic of the typological structure of the language and representative of notorious problem areas for Dutch learners of English. The grammar rules selected for the subtests

190 Arthur van Essen, Peter van der Tuin, and Mik van Es were extracted from eight of the most frequently used English coursebooks in the Netherlands. The tests have been described more fully in Van der Tuin et al. (1985). 3.2. The Oral Proficiency Test If making a satisfactory grammar test is by no means an easy job, that of constructing a test of oral proficiency that meets the criteria of reliability and validity is notoriously difficult (cf. Baetens Beardsmore 1974). The test that is still generally considered the best means of judging oral proficiency is the interview test (cf. Baetens Beardsmore 1974 and Palmer & Groot 1981:5), even if it does not in all respects satisfy one's intuitions about communicative competence and even though it represents only one type of communicative situation with only a limited number of illocutionary acts. In view of the problems of standardizing the linguistic content and scoring the interview test, we chose two tests that do not have these drawbacks - or at least not to the same extent - and that have been shown to highly correlate (R= 0.85) with the interview test. They were originally developed for Dutch secondary schools to test fluency in French (Nienhuis 1977), but were adapted by us to measure fluency in English. As the tests as well as their adaptation have been described in detail in Van der Tuin et al. (1985), the following remarks may here suffice. The first test consists of two series of questions about two composite pictures that are presented to the learner. The pictures are used to control and more or less standardize the learners' answers. The second test consists of a series of questions with some key-words to indicate the global direction that the learner's answer should take. The key-words have the same function that the pictures fulfil in the first test. Both tests were administered in a language laboratory.

4. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

To test our hypotheses we took 50 Dutch secondary-school learners of English whose ages ranged from 15 to 17, with an equal division of boys and girls and comparable school achievements in English for both groups. In addition to aspects of cognitive style a number of other variables may be relevant to achievement in a foreign language. One of these is the intelligence of the learner. In our subjects IQ was measured by two verbal subtests (one containing a word-list, the other word-matrices) and two spatial subtests (one a kind of jigsaw, the other discovering a figure) of the Groningen Intelligence Test (GIT). Another relevant variable is the learner's psycho-social make-up. This was charted by means of the Dutch Personality Questionnaire (NPV), which measures the following personality characteristics: (1) 'inadequacy' or 'neuroticism', (2) social inadequacy, social fear or neurotic shyness, (3) rigidity, (4) animosity, distrust and a feeling of being wronged, (5) complacency or selfish-

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ness, (6) dominance and (7) self-esteem (Luteijn et al. 1979). Besides, we also assessed the learners' attitude to English, using the Language Attitude Test (TAS) for the purpose (Bogaards 1982). This test measures both the learners' pleasure in learning a foreign language and the use they ascribe to it, in other words their intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. Lastly, the socio-economic background of the learners and the intellectual climate in which they grew up was also taken into account. These factors were assessed by dint of a biographical questionnaire focusing on the father's job and training and on the mother's schooling (Van Westerlaak et al. 1975). The tests discussed were administered to our subjects in an unaltered (SCWT and NPV) or slightly adapted form (GIT and TAS).

5. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

A. Contrary to the expectations underlying our phased model of the teachinglearning process (Fig. 1), no significant correlation was found between grammatical knowledge and oral communicative capacity. The fact that "knowing one's grammar" has no demonstrable effect on the practical handling of the grammatical constructions concerned, in other words that there is no correlation between knowledge about the language and language use, is a fairly universal finding (see Van Parreren 1975:129). To remedy this situation the distance between cognitive activity and actual language use would have to be reduced by paying more attention to that stage in our model of the teaching-learning process that is specially intended for bridging this gap, viz. the second, 'practice' stage. B. As for attitudinal and motivational factors we found that neither intrinsic nor extrinsic motivation coiTelate significantly with grammatical and communicative competence. This may be explained by the fact that in response to questionnaires people may say things that do not correspond with actual behaviour (Duijker et al. 1981:463). C. Contrary to what might have been expected, personality traits such as self-confidence, distrust, and neuroticism appear to have no effect on communicative competence. This is confirmed by the findings of Tucker et al. (1976). These researchers investigated among other things the relationships between on the one hand personality factors such as 'punctuality','emotional stability' and 'assertiveness' (comparable to our 'rigidity', 'neuroticism' and 'dominance', respectively) and on the other hand the speaking and listening skills (we looked at oral proficiency only). Tucker et al. (1976) did not find any significant correlations either.

192 Arthur van Essen, Peter van der Tuin, and Mik van Es D. However, the following correlations with the language tests appeared to be significant and practically relevant (R> .40): (1) A Pearson correlation2 of .41 (p= .003) was found between the personality trait 'dominance' and the total score on the grammar test. (2) A Pearson correlation of .41 (p= .004) was found between one of the two verbal intelligence subtests, the 'wordlist' (a test assessing one's knowledge of Dutch synonyms) and one of our oral proficiency tests, viz. the one containing the pictures. Even though the other oral proficiency test did correlate significantly with the same verbal intelligence test, it did not do so in a practically meaningful way (R= .29, p= .05). What may, on the face of it, seem remarkable is that as the learner's knowledge of his/her native language vocabulary is more extensive his/her fluency in the foreign language is also greater. But if we take a closer look at the lexical items making up the GIT subtest 'word-list', we are struck by their similarity with certain words in other European languages, including English: cursief French cursif 'italics', minimaal 'minimal', abrupt 'abrupt', fameus 'famous', fragiel 'fragile', frugaal 'frugal', etc.. It looks as though knowledge of these particular Dutch words is an index of the mastery of the English lexicon. As mastery of the lexicon is generally held to be one of the pillars of communicative competence in the language concerned, the high correlation between knowledge of the Dutch words mentioned and the oral proficiency measured in English need not amaze us. However, this assumption requires further investigation. The positive relationship between grammatical achievement and the learner characteristic 'dominance' (which, among other things, implies self-confidence) may be accounted for by the fact that 'dominant' learners, because of their natural flair and self-confidence, do this inherently difficult test somewhat more easily. E. No significant correlations were found with regard to our research hypotheses: neither field-[in]dependence, nor habit-formation, nor indeed sensitivity to interference and creativity appeared to play any part whatsoever in the acquisition of grammatical knowledge and oral proficiency. The conclusion is therefore thrust upon us that on the basis of these aspects of cognitive style individualization or grouping cannot be justified.

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NOTES 1. 2.

The research reported here was carried out over a number of years by a team consisting of one linguist and two psychologists of the Applied Linguistics Section, Department of Linguistics, University of Groningen, The Netherlands. For "Pearson correlation" see, for example, Hatch and Farhady (1982:196ff.).

REFERENCES 1989. Advies over de voorlopige eindtermen voor de basisvorming in het voortgezet onderwijs: moderne vreemde talen. The Hague: Department of Education. Baetens Beardsmore, H. 1974. "Testing Oral Fluency". IRAL XII/4.317-25. Bogaards, R 1982. Moderne vreemde talen op school. Harlingen: S.V.O. Brown, H.D. 1980. Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. Englewood Cliffs (New Jersey): Prentice-Hall. Duijker, H.C.J., A.C. Dudink and P.A. Vroon. 1981. Leerboek der Psychologie. Groningen: Wolters-Noordhoff. Guilford, JP. and R. Hoepfner. 1971. The Analysis of Intelligence. New York: McGraw-Hill. Hansen, J. andC. Stansfield. 1981. "The Relationship of Field-Dependent-Independent Cognitive Styles to Foreign-Language Achievement". Language Learning 31/2. 349-73 Hansen, J. and C. Stansfield. 1982. "Student-Teacher Cognitive Styles and Foreign Language Achievement: APreliminary Study". The Modern Language Journal 66/3.263-73. Hatch, E. and H. Farhady. 1982. Research Design and Statisticsfor Applied Linguistics. Rowley (Mass.): Newbury House. Hymes, D. 1972. "On Communicative Competence". In: J.B. Pride and J. Holmes (eds). Sociolinguistics. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Krashen, S.D. 1982. Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Luteijn, F., J. Starren and H. van Dijk. 1979. Nederlandse Persoonlijkheidsvragenlijst. Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger. Naiman, N., M. Fröhlich, H. Stem and A. Todesco. 1978. The Good Language Learner. Toronto: The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Nienhuis, LJ.A. 1977. Het toetsen van spreekvaardigheid. 's-Gravenhage: Staatsuitgeverij. Nijsse, M. 1983. Intelligentie en creativiteit bij elf- tot dertienjarige kinderen. Groningen: PhD thesis. Palmer, A.S. and P. Groot. 1981. "An Introduction". In: A.S. Palmer, PJ.M. Groot and G.A. Trosper (eds). The Construct Validation of Tests of Communicative Competence. Washington: TESOL. Span, P. 1973. De structureringstendentie als cognitieve-stijlaspect. Utrecht: PhD thesis. Stern, H.H. 1983. Fundamental Concepts of Language Teaching. Oxford: O.U.P.. Tucker, G.R., E. Hamayan and F.H. Genesee. 1976. "Affective, Cognitive and Social Factors in Second-Language Acquisition". Canadian Modern Language Review 32. 214-26. Van Dam, G. 1972. Typen van interferentie en interferentiegevoeligheid. Utrecht: PhD thesis. Van Els, Th„ Th. Bongaerts, G. Extra, Ch. van Os and A.-M. Janssen-van Dieten. 1984. Applied Linguistics and the Learning and Teaching of Foreign Languages. London: Edward Arnold.

194 Arthur van Essen, Peter van der Tuin, and Mik van Es Van Parreren, C.F. 1975. "Grammatical Knowledge and Grammatical Skill". In: AJ. Van Essen, and J.P. Menting (eds). The Context of Foreign-Language Learning. Assen: Van Gorcum. Van der Tuin, P., A J. van Essen andE. Volkerts. 1985. "Over het meten van grammatikale kennis van het Engels en het verband tussen de testprestaties van leerlingen en de aard van grammatikale regels en subsystemen". Toegepaste Taalwetenschap in Artikelen 23.90-103. Van Westerlaak, J.M., J.A. Kropman and J.W.M. Collaris. 1975. Beroepenklapper. Nijmegen: Instituut voor Toegepaste Sociologie. Witkin, H., P. Oltmans, E. Raskin and S. Karp. 1971. A Manualfor the Embedded Figures Test. Palo Alto (Calif.): Consulting Psychologists Press. Witkin, H. and D. Goodenough. 1977. "Field-dependence and Interpersonal Behavior". Psychological Bulletin 84. 661-89.

Language and linguistics

Practical Problems, Practical Solutions Louis G. Alexander

If there is one thing that characterizes Bill Lee's work, it is the provision of practical solutions to practical problems. The best tribute must therefore be a practical one. In the field of language teaching and learning, few topics pose as many problems at theoretical and practical levels as grammar. Its role in the classroom is constantly under scrutiny and that is why, in this paper, I want to attempt to answer three questions: - Why teach grammar? - How should we teach it? - What do we teach?

TROUBLE-SHOOTING

However, let me begin with that most common of all teaching/learning practices: trouble-shooting. This generally affects four well-defined areas: 1. Pronunciation and intonation In terms of comprehension, it is always our aim to train students to understand as many different varieties of English as possible. In terms of production, we must accept that we can never create native speakers. Our students will always betray their origins, speaking Spanglish, Danglish, Gringlish, Gerlish and Japlish with varying degrees of proficiency. The main performance criterion here is: can they be understood by other native and non-native speakers? We are prepared to accept non-standard pronunciation and intonation, providing they do not actively interfere with communication. 2. Language functions Here we are concerned with appropriate language in so far as it affects social behaviour. Student B holds the door open for Student A. Student A says 'Thank you' and Student B replies 'Please'. And you, as teacher, say something like, 'We wouldn't normally say anything in English. But if you wanted to say something in response to thanks for a real favour, you might say 'It's all right' or 'Don't mention it'.

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3. Grammar Most teacher-commentary is concerned with grammar. A student says, 'I haven't seen you since six months' and this immediately invites comment on the uses of since (+ point of time) and/or (+ period of time). Mother-tongue interference is the most likely source of grammatical error, and therefore the area that invites most comment. 4. Lexis A lot of trouble-shooting is also concerned with lexis. False friends are a rich source of error, e.g. win/beat; win/gain/earn; woman/wife; machine/engine. Some are language-specific (e.g. flesh/meat, confused by speakers of Germanic languages). Others are part of English itself (e.g. rob/steal; raise/rise; beside/besides). Still others have been borrowed from English and undergone a change of meaning (e.g. the use of smoking to mean 'dinner jacket'). It is a sad, but inescapable fact that most students of English are remedial cases. How they got that way is another story. All we know is that by the time they come into our hands, they are linguistically ailing and in need of remedy. They come to us with their language already formed and we spend most of our time unmaking modes of communication which have become habitual and, indeed, fossilized. That's why our energies are directed at trouble-shooting, particularly where grammar is concerned. We know only too well that communication most frequently breaks down when incorrect syntax and usage make language incomprehensible.

WHY TEACH GRAMMAR?

We teach grammar because we can't avoid teaching it. It is an integral part of the language-learning process. Trouble-shooting, as we have just seen, is a constant factor in the classroom. Even the least conscientious teacher is unlikely to ignore the mistakes students make in their effort to communicate. We teach grammar because the constraints of the classroom make natural acquisition almost impossible. We have to learn as well as acquire (in the Krashen sense) when there are only so many hours per week available; when classrooms are overcrowded and there is hardly any individual attention; when there is little or no opportunity to use the language we are learning; when our teachers' command of English is often far from perfect. What do you do if your teacher is barely fluent, which is the case for very many learners round the world? Motivation may be high among self-improving adults, bent on increasing their pay and status, but it is desperately low among schoolchildren (that is,

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the majority of learners) who learn a language only because it is on the curriculum. We teach grammar because it is part of the syllabus. There is a widely-held, but erroneous view that, with the advent of communication-based syllabuses, we ditched the teaching of grammar. The Threshold Level (Van Ek 1975) is often cited as evidence of this, but in fact this famous syllabus comes with a substantial grammatical appendix. Teaching students to communicate means teaching them to do things through language and, I would add, mastering the grammatical structures necessary to achieve that end. Teaching 'English by formula' (the phrase-book method) has been totally discredited. It's no good being able to say 'I take milk in my coffee', if you can't, by the same token, say 'and my friend takes milk, too'. The moment you do this you are operating the grammatical system. A recent analysis of the most widely-used communication-based courses reveals that they follow the same structural progressions that were used by earlier generations of course-writers. They begin with be, go on to have, then introduce the present tenses before the perfect and past, and so on. The only difference is that they introduce a few 'communicative' modal forms early to enable students to make simple offers, requests and suggestions. We teach grammar because it is part of awareness-raising. Some learning is unconscious and some is conscious. Grammar is part of conscious learning. The argument that native speakers don't consciously think of grammar when they speak and write (they just communicate!) is simply not true. The more demanding a communicative situation, the more heightened our awareness becomes. Children are made aware of acceptable and unacceptable varieties of language from a very early age and their first grammar teachers are their parents, who use a variety of techniques to heighten their children's awareness. If we had a deprived childhood, so that such maternal and paternal instruction was not available, we may provide it for ourselves in later life. Just think of the number of people you know who are bilingual in their mother tongue. They slip easily into the local patois when they are back home with the locals, but slip out of it just as easily when they know they are being socially rated by their use of language. How do they do it? - Through heightened awareness! If this applies to us as native speakers, think how much more it applies when we become learners of a foreign language. We constantly want to know why and how a foreign language works and the answers are to be found in its grammar. This last point is fundamental: we teach grammar because our students expect it. They instinctively know what they need and if we don't supply it, they will seek it out for themselves. It is amazing, round the world, how many teachers have had to dilute dearly-held doctrines about communication to provide straight grammar practice in response to massive student demand. Students don't like to be told that it doesn't matter if they make mistakes. For them it matters very much, because they don't like to make fools of themselves. They

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want to know what the correct forms and uses are, even if they know they will never get beyond a particular skills-level. The ultimate source of accuracy is grammar.

HOW DO WE TEACH GRAMMAR?

Let us begin with what we do not do. We do not teach grammar for its own sake (the grammar-translation method). In communicative language teaching, grammar can only have a supportive role. In the past, it was the be-all and end-all of language learning. If students also learnt to communicate as a result, that was just a lucky by-product of relentless study of the grammatical syllabus. In the present, it is just the reverse. Communication is the be-all and end-all of language teaching and learning, and grammar is the by-product of this endeavour. It is taught to facilitate communication and not as the object of teaching. Above all, grammar is meaning. As Pit Corder (1981:78) observes, grammatical focus helps the student to learn what he learns, but it is not necessarily what he learns. We do not devote whole lessons to grammar study. Grammar has a supportive role in all our teaching. Whole lessons devoted to grammar come dangerously near to talking about language rather than using it. Even in its supportive role, it is not treated with the same level of intensity at all times. How we teach it depends on the kind of activity we're engaged in at a particular moment. If, for example, we are conducting a conversation class, our main concentration is on fluency. Our tolerance of grammatical error is very high: we want our students to communicate to the level of their ability and we will be reluctant to interrupt them in order to point out 'errors'. We are building up confidence, so fault-finding has a low priority. If, on the other hand, we are conducting a drill (say, practice in adding s to the third person present, so that our students will learn to say he goes instead of *he go*), we will demand 100% accuracy. There is only one (and there only ever was one) method for teaching grammar and that is through explanation. That explanation might be direct, or induced, but explanation is the only method available. As is observed in the Kingman Report (Report 1988): "It is for the teacher to decide how much [grammatical] knowledge is made explicit to a pupil or a class at a given moment and how it might be done." The essence of grammar teaching is appropriate explanation. If a young child says "*You buyed this mummy*", mother has a variety of choices available to her. She may gently correct, "Not *buyed*, dear, bought"-, she may induce the child to use bought, and so on. What she doesn't do is give the child a lecture on the verb system of English and the use of strong and weak forms. Many

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teachers are under the mistaken impression that grammatical explanations have to be 'technical'. All they have to be is appropriate. One non-technical explanation for the use of the past tense in English (compared with the present perfect) is that we 'say when': "He arrived here this morning" (as opposed to "He's arrived!"). At a higher level of grammatical awareness, we may refer to adverbial time references, if this is an appropriate thing to do.

WHAT DO WE TEACH?

It's a fact that a lot of language use by native speakers is subjective and difficult to account for. There are no absolute rules in a language. When accounting for something (that is, when formulating a rule) we are bound to be less than 100% accurate because we can't explain all the finer shades of meaning. There is a central rule with a certain amount of blurring at the edges. What we are not allowed to do in response to a student's question is to say "That's how we say it". We have to account for language. That's partly what we're there for. So what do we teach, where grammar is concerned? The simplest answer to this question is we teach what we know. And that's where the problems start, because what we know is often just not accurate enough. Our strategy must be to look at language from the students' point of view. This means beginning with our students' assumptions and working back to English. For example, our students may assume that a noun like information has a plural in English. They will be puzzled by the fact that the modal verb could refers to the past in a sentence like "I could run very fast when I was a boy", but refers to the future in a sentence like "I could see you tomorrow, if you're free". Why should this be so? We have to be able to answer such questions and this is something we can only do for ourselves. It is up to us to equip ourselves properly with the most accurate and up-to-date information about grammar that is available. A true understanding of grammar comes only from constant clarification and re-clarification of the way structures work and how they are used. Once we have understood how something works, we immediately know how to explain it. Why do we have to put so much effort into learning grammar ourselves? Because an understanding of grammar gives us confidence. If we have confidence in ourselves, we will communicate confidence to our students. Confidence is the basis of all successful teaching and learning and indeed of any human activity.

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REFERENCES Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Teaching of English Language. 1988. London: HMSO. Corder, S.R, 1981. Error Analysis and Interlanguage. Oxford: O.U.R Van Ek, J.A., 1975. The Threshold Level; with an appendix by L.G. Alexander. Strasbourg: Council of Europe.

Teaching in Key: A Tonal Proposition Winifred Crombie and Martin Parker

SUMMARY

It is suggested here that intonation in English may serve a simple primary function relating to prepositional polarity (tone) and inter-propositional connectivity (key). Other apparent functions are implicatures deriving, in part, from this primary function and, as such, are contextually variable. If this is the case, it ought to be possible to develop, in relation to the primary function, an approach to the teaching of intonation which meets Dr. Lee's criteria for adequacy in the design of language programmes: the material "should suffice both as a firm foundation and as a means of communication in itself' (Lee 1977: 246).

INTRODUCTION

In a paper published in 1956, Dr. Lee raises a number of significant problems relating to the functioning of intonation in English. He begins by noting the variety of different approaches that has been adopted and goes on to provide a wealth of examples in support of his contention that, as far as 'subjective' meanings are concerned, whereas "a full context would doubtless make it easier to decide... the difficulty [of determining the exact shade of meaning involved] is always there with the implicative role" and it is clear that "intonation somewhat ineffectively distinguishes sentence types" (1956: 356 & 367). These observations raise a number of theoretical, methodological and descriptive issues which suggest the need for detailed informant-centred experimentation, and Dr. Lee makes a number of suggestions about the types of experiment required. Our own attempts to demonstrate experimentally that one could provide a consistent and coherent account of intonation in terms of syntax, speech acts and/or speaker-attitude failed and we became increasingly convinced that we were asking the wrong questions. We took heart, however, from Dr. Lee's observation that "negative results are also of some value" (Lee 1956:367). One hope was to look for a simpler solution rather than a more elaborate one. Perhaps the function of intonation in English and the factors relevant to its description for pedagogic purposes were less complex than had been supposed. Perhaps

204 Winifred Crombie and Martin Parker intonation in English performed a relatively straightforward function. The problem with such a hypothesis is, of course, that it seems intuitively obvious that "it [intonation] has more than one kind of work to do" (Lee 1956: 345). The solution may be that intonation in English has one primary kind of work to do but that there are, in the realm of implicature, a variety of significant consequences of that work. There are a range of approaches to intonation but these approaches cannot, in general, be seen as quite distinct since analysts have often argued that intonation performs a range of different functions. Even so, different analysts have tended to prioritize functions differently and it is, therefore, possible to categorize approaches in terms of these differences. When this is done, it emerges that the approaches which have had some effect on language teaching may broadly be characterized as the syntactic approach, the affective or attitudinal approach and the discoursal approach} Each of these has something in common in that each is concerned with dividing the flow of speech into tone groups or tone units (tonality), locating the syllables on which the major movements of pitch occur (tonicity), and identifying the direction of pitch movements (tone). Among these three approaches, however, there are major differences in terms of the primary functions attributed to intonation in English and these differences inevitably cause problems as far as the teaching of English intonation is concerned. Each model is intuitively satisfactory in at least some respects. The reason for this may be that all three are based not on primary functions of intonation, but on secondary or tertiary consequences of primary functions. That is, it may be that each approaches the problem at too low a level of generality. However, because the phenomena identified in each are, to some extent, controlled by more abstract functions, each will inevitably capture something that appears accurate in at least some respects. What, then, is the primary function of intonation in English? We shall suggest a possible answer to this beginning with an examination of the functions of the tones.2 In the examples that follow, many of which relate directly to examples discussed by Dr. Lee, the direction of pitch movement is indicated in brackets before the underlined word containing the tonic syllable. Tone unit boundaries are marked with a double slash (//).

THE FUNCTION OF THE TONES

The first point to note is that tone is generally described as a major movement in pitch, a fall ( \ ) , for example, or a fall-rise (V). It is, therefore, inconsistent with this definition to argue for a 'level tone'. It may be that what is sometimes referred to as 'level tone' is, in fact, an avoidance of intonation. Pitch is kept level when speakers wish to remain 'functionally neutral', that is, when they

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wish to avoid imposing any particular interpretation on a segment of discourse. It may be for this reason that 'level tone' is often seen in terms of a continuation move and, in view of this, it is not surprising that news broadcasts are so often characterized by long stretches in which pitch remains level. There are four main types of pitch movement: falling tone ( \ ) , rising tone ( / ) , falling-rising tone (V), and rising-falling tone (A). 3 Falling tone ( \ ) occurs, we believe, where a propositional polarity (i.e. positive or negative) or propositional attitude or degree (e.g. possibly, probably, somewhat) is simply asserted. It follows that falling tone will often occur with clauses in the declarative mood or with clauses that can be defined as having the illocutionary function of statements. However, problems arise when grammatical mood or illocutionary force are treated as having a direct or primary association with falling tone. After all, statements may, for example, be contradictory or concessive, declaratives may, for example, function as questions or as orders. It is important, therefore, that we should not confuse the intonational function itself with possible syntactic or illocutionary accompaniments of that function. If we do so, we will have difficulty in accounting, for example, for the fact that so-called 'wh- questions' often, but not always, have falling tone, whereas so-called 'yes/no questions' often, but not always, have rising tone. How, then, can we account in simple terms for these observations? We can do so by noting that falling tone (\) asserts a propositional polarity or propositional attitude, whereas rising tone ( / ) questions or raises doubts about a propositional polarity or propositional attitude. In general - but not inevitably - a wh-construction which functions as a question (e.g. Why is/isn't he happy?) presupposes a polarity (e.g. He is/isn't happy) and requests/requires some piece of information, whereas an inversion construction which functions as a question (e.g. Is/isn't he happy?) generally does not presuppose a polarity, but requests/requires a propositional polarity (no/yes: negative/positive) or prepositional attitude (e.g. possibly/probably). And so the intonation pattern characteristically associated with each is different. Of course, it is important that context should always be taken into account. We all know that there is no necessary correlation between form and function. A wh-construction may not function as a question, but as, for example, a contradictory statement which presupposes polarity as, indeed, may an inversion construction. Either may function as an order. And so we cannot correlate either form or illocutionary force directly with the presence or absence of polarity or the assertion of a propositional attitude and, because we cannot do so, we cannot correlate either of them directly with intonational function. Thus, a falling tone on an inversion construction (e.g. Are you ( \ ) leaving) may sound more command-like in some situations precisely because it involves a polarity presupposition (i.e. that you are leaving or that you are not leaving) which renders a 'yes/no' response redundant. The real requirement is more

206 Winifred Crombie and Martin Parker likely to be for an expanded answer in which a reason is supplied. Equally, a rising tone on an inversion construction may on occasion be interpreted as more polite or sympathetic precisely because it does not involve a polarity presupposition and, therefore, leaves the addressee more choice of acceptable response (positive or negative with or without a reason). Similarly, a rising tone on a wh-construction may sometimes appear less threatening because it does not carry the presupposition that the addressee will have no objection to supplying the required information. In the case of, for example, 'What's your name' or 'Why are you waiting' with rising tone, the presupposed questions might be expressed as: 'Do you mind telling me your name' and 'Do you mind telling me why you are waiting'. Thus, where an addressee responds with a specification or a reason (e.g. 'Jane Blackwell' or 'Because he hasn't finished with the last candidate yet'), s/he has implicitly ansered the presupposed question in the negative (i.e. No I don't mind). Why, then, is there a tendency for both echo questions (see [lb] below) and repeated questions (see [2c] below) to involve, whatever their formal realization, a rising tone? Presumably the reason is that the question has become one which involves polarity. In both cases, the question, if a rising tone occurs, involves a request for repetition or confirmation (i.e. Would you mind confirming/repeating). The beginning of the rise in (2c) shifts forward to the first prominent syllable presumably because the focus has moved from the proposition as a whole to location specifically: (1) (2)

a b a b c

When are you going ( \ ) away When am I going ( / ) away Where's ( \ ) dad Gone to the pictures ( / ) Where's he gone

In cases in which rising tone ( / ) occurs, there is direct, indirect, or apparent questioning of polarity. A slight rise may occur in situations where the questioning is apparent rather than real, such as situations in which the nature of the response is a foregone conclusion. This accounts for its common occurrence with 'wh-intenogatives' which request repetition but where the questioner is fairly certain that s/he has understood what was said before (see [3] below). It may also occur with imperative constructions involving requests where the outcome is in no doubt (see [4] below), and with tags whose function is to reduce any undesirable effects of the use of an imperative construction (see [5] below): (3) (4) (5)

A: He arrived at five B: ( / ) When A: Come to ( / )daddy (i.e. Would you like to come to Daddy) Come and sit down // ( / ) won't you.

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In discussing exclamations, Dr. Lee notes that although there is a strong tendency for there to be a fall on the tonic syllable, it is also possible to encounter examples in which there is either a rising tone (often associated with enthusiasm) or a falling-rising tone. The occurrence of the falling-rising tone is, we believe, likely in contexts such as that found in example (6) below where there is an implied proposition with opposite polarity. However, the occurrence of a rising tone is less easy to account for. The most likely explanation is that it involves, by implicature, a request for a response involving agreement/confirmation as in (7) below. (6)

A: B: (7) A: B:

I might get a bit wet You'll be (V) drenched It's ( / ) ridiculous Yes, I agree.

We have claimed, then, that tone cannot be directly correlated with construction-type or affective meaning. Such associations are the results of implicatures of the primary function of the tones. Even so, it remains the case that the avoidance of tone movement (i.e. what is sometimes referred to as 'level tone') may sometimes be associated with lack of interest or with boredom, with detachment, with aloofness or even with anger. Such attitudinal factors may account for the speaker's decision to avoid intonation; they do not, in our opinion, account for the function which the avoidance itself has, that function being simply to provide a non-interpretative rendering. Similarly, a steep fall or a steep rise may occur where a speaker is angry, surprised, horrified or excited; a shallow fall or rise where s/he is uninvolved or hesitant. Any number of different emotions may be present. However, as far as intonation itself is concerned, all we need to know is that the steepening or narrowing of a speaker's characteristic range simply indicates the addition of some attitudinal factor. It might be said to add the feature [+ attitude]. What that attitude actually is is something which we cannot determine from intonation and, therefore, something which is beyond the scope of intonational analyses. The fact that this is so greatly simplifies our teaching task.4 If, then, a falling tone indicates the assertion of a prepositional polarity or attitude and a rising tone simply questions or raises doubts about a prepositional polarity or attitude, what functions do the falling-rising (V) and rising-falling ( A ) tones perform? A falling-rising tone ( V ) simply assigns an opposite polarity to an associated (explicit or implicit) proposition. It is for this reason that it is sometimes associated with concession or reservation, with uncertainty or suspicion: (8)

A: What did you think about the production B: I liked the ( V ) sets

208 Winifred Crombie and Martin Parker (9)

A: B: (10) A: B:

What did you think about the production I didn't like the ( V ) sets What did you think about the production It was very ( V ) accurate.

Examples (8) and (10), each of which is positive, carry an implicature that there is something else to which the negative (e.g. don't like) applies. In each case, this could actually be realized (e.g. I liked the sets, but I didn't like the acting/ It was very accurate, but it wasn't very inspired). Example (9), which is negative, carries a positive implicature (e.g. but I did like the acting). Where the contrastive proposition is actually supplied, a fall-rise may not in fact occur for the simple reason that it would, in that context, carry redundant information. Where we compare (11) and (12) below with (13) and (14) a further problem emerges: (11) (12) (13) (14)

He won't He won't He won't He won't

go ( V ) anywhere go ( V ) everywhere go ( \ ) anywhere go ( \ ) everywhere.

In (11), the fall-rise assigns opposite polarity to a related proposition (i.e. Probably, he will go somewhere); example (12) also carries the same implicature: there are places that he will go. However, in (13) and (14), the emphasis is on his not going. There is, however, a difference carried by the lexis. In (14), it is inevitable that we derive the implicature that there are places he will go (an implicature also derivable in (11) and (12) from the intonation). Thus, (13) is the only example that is absent of the implicature that there are places that he will go. Where there is a subordinate clause of reason (e.g. He didn't go to the shops because we needed milk), a falling-rising tone in the subordinate construction involves the implicature that there is a polarity contrast involving reason (i.e. 'not because of X, but because of Y'). This, in turn, involves the additional implicature that he did go to the shops. A similar effect (i.e. that he did go to the shops) is achieved where there is one major tone movement only - a fall - on the final item. Here, the fall asserts the negative polarity of the entire construction: he didn't do X because of Y. This being the case, we derive by implicature (as in the previous example) that he must have done X because of Z. Equally, the occurrence of one major tone movement only - a rise - on the final item has a different effect. Here the polarity of the entire construction is questioned: it is not the case that he didn't do X because of Y. Hence, once again, we derive, by implicature that it is the case that he did do X because of Z. However, a fall on both 'shops' and 'milk' involves an assertion of the polarity of both propositions

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('He didn't go to the shops' and 'because we needed milk'). The usual interpretation must be that the reason why he didn't go to the shops was because we needed milk (and he had to get it from the farm, for example). However, where the context indicates that he did in fact go to the shops, the effect is to neutralize the normal function of the falling tone on the main clause. The effect of this is to limit the scope of the negation to the subordinate construction. The only possible interpretation here is that he went to the shops for some reason other than that we needed milk. Some linguists discuss what they refer to as 'combined tones'. Such an approach avoids the necessity of postulating two separate tone units. Nevertheless, it is important to recognize that analysis of examples of this type indicates that each tone movement retains its basic function. For example, although what Halliday refers to as Tone 13, that is, a fall followed by a rise, does not function in the same way as a fall-rise (i.e. a fall blending into a rise), it does retain the full functions of both fall and rise. The fall element asserts a polarity or prepositional attitude, whilst the rise element simultaneously requests confirmation (i.e. 'yes' or 'no') of the validity of the polarity of a related, implicit proposition. For example, where a child has just done something upsetting, a fall followed by a rise on 'Why did you do it' asserts that the action took place and may request confirmation of the assumption that there is no valid reason for the action. It is for this reason that this combination is sometimes treated as a request for a reason (explanation, opinion, evaluation) where the nature of that reason - or its absence - is assumed in advance. Where falling-rising tone ( V ) occurs, there is an assignment of opposite polarity to a related (explicit or implicit) proposition as has already been demonstrated. It is this that accounts for the fact that the falling-rising tone may occur in the environment of concession or correction (see [15] - [18] below). Where the related proposition is explicit, as in (19) below, it is often deductively linked. In addition, there are cases when the polarity opposition does not involve the fall-rise proposition itself, but exists between a preceding proposition and a following implicit contrast, the fall-rise proposition and any others linked to it providing a basis for a conclusion which is derived by implicature (see [20] below): (15) A: B: (16) A: B: (17) A: B: (18) A: B:

Did you enjoy the wedding I liked the ( V ) service (but not, for example, the meal) It's a horrible colour ( V ) / like it (but I'm aware that others do/may not) I'd really like it right away You can have it by ( V ) dinner time (but not now) You've got a son, haven't you (V) Two (i.e. not one)

210 Winifred Crombie and Martin Parker (19) A: B: (20) A: B:

Why didn't she come to the party John went ( V ) out// so she ( \ ) couldn't I think our Kate's terribly upset, dad She ate her ( V ) tea// before she stalked ( \ ) out (e.g. so she can't be terribly upset or she wouldn't have eaten first).

In certain cases, of course, particularly where the contrast between the propositions is fully realized lexically, intonation signalling is effectively redundant and the concessive proposition may not be characterized by a fall-rise. The rising-falling tone ( A ) functions where there is assertion or acceptance of a particular proposition in the environment of some element of counterexpectation. For this reason, this tone has been variously associated with surprise, excitement, exasperation or irony. The counterexpectation involved may, particularly where the acceptance of a particular proposition is involved, relate to the speaker him or herself as in example (21) below: (21) A: Becky has six boyfriends B: ( A ) S i x In example (22) below, speaker B provides a context which gives the reason why the original proposition is treated as involving counterexpectation: (22) A: I don't like her B: You haven't even ( A ) seen her There are also cases involving fall-rise where the speaker anticipates counterexpectation as the hearer's reaction to what s/he has to say (see (23) below in which the occurrence of interrogative mood need not signal the presence of a genuine question): (23) A: You could surely find a partner somewhere B: But ( A ) where (e.g. I doubt whether it is possible whatever you think)

THE FUNCTION OF KEY

There are no further prominent syllables following the tonic (i.e. the prominent syllable that carries the major pitch movement, or tone) of a tone unit.5 However, some tone units have one or more than one prominent syllable preceding the tonic syllable and, where they do, the first of these in each tone unit is referred to as the 'onset syllable'. It has been claimed that, in addition to tone, tone units may be marked by another significant and meaningful choice:

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the choice of key (Brazil, Coulthard and Johns 1980; Brazil 1985). 'Key' is defined here as the relative pitch height (high, mid, low) of an onset syllable vis-à-vis the pitch height of the onset syllable of the previous tone unit. Thus, if the onset syllable of a second tone unit is on approximately the same pitch level as that of the onset syllable of the previous tone unit, the second tone unit is said, irrespective of the actual pitch height, to have mid key, if the onset syllable is relatively higher in pitch, the tone unit is said to have high key, if the onset syllable is relatively lower in pitch, the tone unit is said to have low key. What is important about this is that, in terms of the account provided by Brazil and his colleagues, key choice is meaningful in that the key of the second of two tone units signals the type of relationship between the tone units as follows: - High key signals a contrastive relationship between the content of the two tone units; - low key signals an equative (interpreted here as including comparative or causative) relationships between the content of the two tone units; - mid key signals an additive relationship between the content of the two tone units. There are indications that key may have a significant signalling and disambiguating function in terms of the relationship between its functions as outlined above and the presence of particular types of semantico-pragmatic relations between the content of the tone groups. As one of us has discussed this elsewhere (see Crombie 1985), we shall provide here only one example of the implications of this. The functioning of key may provide an explanation for some of Dr. Lee's observations concerning exclamations. He notes, for example, that the first stressed syllable may be pitched low, a possibility in examples such as 'What a story!' or 'How annoying!'. However, as he also notes, 'statement-exclamations' (such as, for example, 'It's absolutely ridiculous') may have a high first stressed syllable. The reason for this may be that such statement-exclamations will often have a contrastive contextual relationship with preceding utterances. On the other hand, initial low pitch may signal a causative relationship with preceding utterances (i.e. it may signal that the response arises as a direct result of what has preceded).

CONCLUSION

We have made a number of suggestions here about the primary functions of tone and key in British English. We should, however, stress that these remarks refer to southern British English only: there may be systematic differences in the

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Winifred Crombie and Martin

Parker

intonation systems of other dialects. Indeed, the situation may be more complex than we now suppose. For these reasons, we shall end this paper as Dr. Lee (1956) ended the paper to which we have made reference throughout: "The above remarks are... tentative and provisional only. It is perhaps too early in any event forfinalstatements on intonation to be made. This is doubtless true of linguistics as a whole. The collector's phase is far from being over, and some would say it has scarcely begun."

NOTES 1.

Broadly, the syntactic approach may be said to be characterized by the work of M.A.K. Halliday (1967 and 1970); the affective or attitudinal approach, by that of J. D. O'Connor and G. F. Arnold (1961, second edition 1973); the discoursal approach, by that of D. Brazil (D. Brazil, M. Coulthard and C. Johns. 1980; D. Brazil. 1985).

2. 3.

The research reported on here is based on studies of Southern British English. In this account, fall includes Halliday's Tone 1, O'Connor and Arnold's Low Drop and High Drop; rise includes Halliday's Tones 2 and 3, O'Connor and Arnold's Take-off, Low Bounce and High Bounce; fall-rise includes Halliday's Tones 4 and 2 and O'Connor and Arnold's Switchback; rise-fall includes Halliday's Tone 5 and O'Connor and Arnold's Longjump and Jackknife. Dr. Lee observes that, for example, the fact that the extent of rises and falls may make a speaker appear more implicated in an utterance is part of the implicative function of intonation (Lee 1956: 355).

4.

5.

For a discussion of prominence and tone unit segmentation, see Crombie 1987.

REFERENCES Brazil, D„ M. Coulthard and C. Johns. 1980. Discourse Intonation and Language Teaching. Harlow, U.K.: Longman. Brazil, D. 1985. The Communicative Value of Intonation in English. Birmingham, U.K.: Bleak House Books and English Language Research. Crombie, W. 1985. Process andRelation in Discourse and Language Learning. Oxford: O.U.P. Crombie, W. 1987. Free Verse and Prose Style: An Operational Definition and Description. London: Croom Helm. Halliday, M. A. K. 1970. A Course in Spoken English: Intonation. Oxford: O.U.R Lee, W. R. 1956. "English Intonation: A New Approach". Lingua, 5. 345-371. Lee, W. R. 1977. "What Type of Syllabus for the teaching of English as a Foreign or Second Language?" International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, XV/3. 246-249. O'Connor,J. D. and G. F. Arnold. 1961 (second edition 1913). Intonation of Colloquial English. London: Longman.

Attitudes of Southern African Linguists towards Languages and Language Policies René Dirven

INTRODUCTION

The present report is the result of a small-scale investigation and is meant as a contribution to a wider research project "Languages in Contact and Conflict in (Southern) Africa".1 It is based on a questionnaire presented in 1989 to participants of the Pretoria congress of the LSSA (Linguistic Society of Southern Africa; 79 respondents), to the Durban congress of SAALA (Southern Africa Applied Linguistics Association; 63 respondents), and some staff and students of the Academy of Namibia (19 respondents). The total number of answers, viz. 161 is, of course, not fully representative of the linguistic world as a whole, but the questionnaire may still reveal interesting tendencies in the attitudes and opinions of Southern Africa linguists. Although the three groups are comparable in that they are all, by profession, preoccupied with linguistics of applied linguistics, there are also important differences. The Pretoria group mainly consists of general or Afrikaans linguists and contains very few Blacks; about 75% of this group have Afrikaans as their mother tongue, ll%English, 11% other languages, and 2.5% are bilingual. The Durban group mainly consists of applied linguists or specialists in language pedagogy, who are more strongly oriented towards English, and it contains far more Black scholars; about 79% of this group have English as their mother tongue, 1.5% Afrikaans, 16% other languages (mainly African2), and 3% are bilinguals. The difference between the two groups is thus very marked, both in their academic and linguistic orientation and provenance. Finally, the Namibia group is not only very small, but also very heterogeneous: 8 are staff, 11 are students. The results will mainly be used for the sake of comparison. With an eye on the Namibian situation some of the questions were adapted to the reality in Namibia. Since this survey wants to give general orientations, no analysis will be made - as a rule - of the results obtained for the subgroups. Now we can go into each of the topics/questions/statements in turn; some of these will be quoted in an adapted form.

214 René Dirven 1. KNOWLEDGE OF AN "AFRICAN" LANGUAGE

The first question aims to investigate how many linguists say they "know" an African language. Such a question is of necessity extremely vague and some respondents hesitated very strongly to answer it with "yes" or "no" and preferred to answer "no", even if in the subsequent questions they claimed to have some command of one of the language skills. However this attitude is not the rule, but the exception: most respondents are much more inclined to say they know an African language, but are then hesitant to state that they command any of the language skills (reading, understanding (spoken language) and speaking). Indeed, the yes-answers to the first question are much higher (especially striking for Namibia) than for the separate skills. The results (in percentages) are as follows:

a. b.

know read understand speak

Total 49.0 24.8 40.3 27.3

Pretoria 39.2 22.7 21.5 13.9

Durban 58.7 26.9 52.3 42.8

Namibia 57.8 26.3 31.5 31.5

These figures reveal two important tendencies: 1) The number of Southern African linguists who claim to have some knowledge of an African language is not high (49%). One must set this result against the background of a multilingual country with a majority of about 25 million speakers of African languages and a minority of about 5 million Whites. Obviously, the Whites show a typical "colonial" mentality, whereby it is rather exceptional that the White (wo)man learns the indigenous language(s). If even in the world of "professional" language users, half of the people have not learnt an indigenous language, this is symptomatic of the "dominant" group as a whole. 2) The group of "Applied Linguists" (= Durban) shows far better results than the group of "General and Afrikaans Linguists" (= Pretoria). This difference may have various explanations: the group of "Applied Linguists" contains many more Black linguists, who influence the picture; and the "Applied Linguists" are by and large engaged upon teaching English to Blacks and therefore are more compelled to know (about) the learners' first language. This would also explain the fact that they claim to understand (52.3%) and speak (42.8%) the African languages much better than they can read them (26.9%).

215

Attitudes of Southern African Linguists 2. THE INDEPENDENT AND ABSOLUTE VALUE OF EACH LANGUAGE

One of the most tenacious layman's stereotypes about languages is that there are highly developed languages and less developed or underdeveloped languages (traditionally even called 'primitive languages'). It was interesting to see to what extent this stereotype also prevails among linguists. The statement was: 'Each language has an independent and absolute value:

a. b. c.

This holds fully With some reservations Total positive responses

Total 60.2 25.4 85.0

Pretoria 54.4 32.0 86.4

Durban 76.6 15.0 91.6

Namibia 42.1 31.5 73.6

Whereas the total figures (85%) are certainly very positive, there are some interesting differences to be noted: (i) although the large majority of the General and Afrikaans Linguists share this general linguistics insight, too (86.4%), they make more reservations (32%) than the Applied Linguists (15%), so that the latter are more outspoken in their full agreement; and (ii) the Namibia group scores relatively lower (only 42.1% full agreement); this may be explained by the fact that 11 out of 19 respondents from Namibia are still students so that one may conclude that linguistic training has a major role to play in doing away with this layman's stereotype.

3. LANGUAGE PLANNING: APTNESS TO FUNCTION AS OFFICIAL LANGUAGE

For this question, a distinction is made between the status of 'national' official language and that of 'regional' official language;3 the former recognizes the language for all official purposes all over the country, the latter only for official purposes in a given area of the country. The question was limited to 5 languages (out of the 10 currently recognized with some official function, e.g. for instruction in schools). For Namibia different languages were chosen, of course. a) National official languages can be:

Zulu Xhosa Sotho Afrikaans English

Total 37.8 18.6 29.1 57.1 86.9

Pretoria 40.5 12.6 25.3 75.9 91.1

Durban 43.5 32.2 40.3 35.4 83.8

Namibia 10.5 (Ndonga) — (Nama) 10.5 (German) 52.6 84.2

216 Rend Dirven b) Regional official languages can be:

Zulu Xhosa Sotho Afrikaans English

Total 53.4 63.9 56.5 30.4 13.6

Pretoria 59.4 75.9 72.1 18.9 10.1

Durban 46.0 50.0 50.0 46.0 16.1

Namibia 52.6 (Ndonga) 63.1 (Nama) 15.7 (German) 26.3 21.0

Although the two questions were asked independently and although it was theoretically possible to state that a given language could be seen as having both national and regional official status, almost all respondents consistently opted for either a national or regional status for a given language. The overall tendency in the evaluation of the future status of languages in South Africa confirms - in all the three groups, but remarkably even stronger with that of General and Afrikaans Linguists, viz. 91.1% - the future role of English as a national official language. This is not new; the only new element is that support for this is stronger in Afrikaans circles (91.1%) than in the Durban and the Namibia group (83.8% and 84.2%). However, the most remarkable feature of the result is that the majoritity of all groups (also the Durban group of Applied Linguists) do not tend to attribute national official status to the indigenous languages (Zulu scores highest, but only with 37.8%, Xhosa lowest with 18.6% and Sotho in-between with 29.1%). But these languages score relatively well as regional official languages, Xhosa being the 'most' regional one with 63.9% or almost two-thirds. A third important feature is the cleavage over Afrikaans: for the General and Afrikaans Linguists, it is to have the status of a national official language, whereas for the Applied Linguists, Afrikaans is to have the status of a regional official language just like Zulu, Xhosa or Sotho. The majority of the Namibia group also thinks in favour of Afrikaans as a national official language, but since the student informants (11 out of 19) take Afrikaans as their main subject this result is somewhat less relevant. The global feature of the evaluation of the future status of languages in Southern Africa thus is the following: - general unanimity on the status of English as a national official language, even most outspoken with Afrikaners; - general cleavage over the status of Afrikaans: national official language for the Afrikaans Linguists, regional official status for English-oriented Applied Linguists; - general agreement on the regional official status of the indigenous languages.

Attitudes of Southern African Linguists

111

The negative attitude towards the status of Afrikaans as a national official language has historic grounds. In the eyes of the Blacks and the English-speaking Whites, Afrikaans has become very strongly associated with the historically prevailing politics of apartheid. Reactions and uprisings against apartheid policies were, at least in the Soweto revolt of 1976, also reactions against, and even a rejection of Afrikaans as the imposed medium of instruction in Black schools. The negative image of Afrikaans or 'the language of the oppressor' lives on in the negative evaluation of its possible 'national official' status by the Durban group.

4. THE STATUS OF ENGLISH AS "WORKING LANGUAGE" AND OF ENGLISH AND AFRIKAANS AS "LINKING LANGUAGES"

On the one hand, the question on these topics could be seen as isolated from the former question on the 'official status' of the various larger languages in Southern Africa, but on the other hand, given the context of the order of questions, it could also be seen as a correction or confirmation of the answers to the former question. Respondents have clearly opted for the latter option. Total a.

English is working language only

b.

English and Afrikaans are both "relative" lingua francas

Pretoria

Durban

Namibia

75.7

58.7

96.0

78.3

80.1

88.4

66.6

94.7

Although the general tendency seems to be one of strong support for each of the statements, the group figures reveal greater discrepancies again: the Pretoria and Namibia groups cannot so wholeheartedly agree with the status of English as a working language (58.7 % and 78.3 %) as the Durban group (96%); on the other hand, the Durban group cannot overwhelmingly agree with the evaluation of both English and Afrikaans as "lingua francas" or linking languages (66.6%), whereas 30% (the figure is not contained in the table) only sees this role for English. Taken together, the two questions (3 and 4) thus reveal a certain reservedness in the Durban group towards the status of Afrikaans as an official language and even as a "lingua franca", whereas the Pretoria group is very outspoken in claiming both roles for Afrikaans. The least that one can conclude is that both groups will still have to do a lot of work if they want to reach a consensus on such important matters as working out common proposals for a future language policy. Such an idea is not mere wishful thinking, however. That is, one can also

218 Rent Dirven see the figures obtained from this small-scale investigation in a positive light: two-thirds (66.6%) of the English-oriented Durban group see Afrikaans as a linking language and about one-third (35.4 %) sees no problem in attributing it "national official status". Thus, although there is a strong reservedness towards Afrikaans, there is also enough room left for a more positive change towards a policy of acceptance of Afrikaans in future Southern Africa.

5. EVALUATION OF VARIETIES

The fifth statement to be agreed or disagreed with was: "All varieties of languages are to be taken seriously, e.g. for English: the English of English speakers in Southern Africa (ESSA), the English of Africans (EAS), and a local koine, 'Pretoria-Sotho'" (see Schuring, 1985). Although this was a purely linguistic statement, the reactions are remarkably different for the Pretoria and Namibia groups in comparison with the Durban group:

ESSA EAS

Pret.-Sotho

Total 89.4 62.9 44.0

Pretoria 88.6 49.3 34.1

Durban 92.0 89.0 68.8

Namibia 84.2 31.5 26.3

Obviously, the Pretoria and Namibia group are far less tolerant of non-standard varieties than the Durban group, which even scores a bit higher for ESSA and double as high for EAS and Pretoria-Sotho.

6. LANGUAGE POLICY IN EDUCATION

The statement to be reacted to claims a primordial role for the learner's first language in education: "Emphasis (is to be laid) on (the learner's) first language at all levels of education; two other national languages (are to be learnt), taught by native speakers, trained in linguistics". Three levels of education were given: primary, secondary, and higher education. Here are the results: Total a.

Emphasis on LI only in primary ed. also in secondary ed. also in higher ed.

Pretoria

Durban

21.1

20.2

28.5 42.8

26.5 48.8

25.3 28.5 33.0

Namibia 20.5 36.8 52.6

219

Attitudes of Southern African Linguists b.

c. d.

one or two other languages -one -two taught by native speaker knowing linguistics

Total

Pretoria

Durban

Namibia

18.7 66.5 77.6 75.1

15.1 68.3 79.7 75.9

25.3 58.7 79.3 77.7

21.0 63.0 63.1 63.1

The overall picture emerging here is one of great consensus. This shows that there is no reason to be despondent concerning a possible overall consensus on a model of language policy in general and language policy in education in particular. Since there is such a large amount of concordance in this field of educational policy it is not impossible to grow towards consensus in other fields of an overall language policy, too. Indeed, given the historical mistrust of SA government policies promoting the African languages, which was seen as an instrument of a 'divide-and-rule' policy, it is very remarkable that the linguistic world has agreed to put so much emphasis on the teaching of the learner's first language, which entails a renewed attention for the teaching of (and in) the African languages, too. It is even more remarkable that the percentages rise in all groups according to the level of education. This in turn entails that all the groups of linguists see higher education possible and desirable in the native, hence also indigenous languages. Also the second claim, which is a corollary of the first - more attention for a second and third language, since the first language is already so strongly represented - has an overall two thirds majority for 'two languages'. Strong convergence is also seen in the evaluation of the role of native speakers teaching these (foreign) languages and of the role of a linguistic training of these teachers. Just as for the evaluation of the independent value of all languages, the Namibia group half consisting of students diverges somewhat from the general picture about the role of native speakers and linguistic training: only 63.1 % are in favour. This less outspoken result again points to the importance of so-called side-effects or educational implications of any linguistic curriculum. What is to be learnt or acquired is not only and perhaps not even in the first place knowledge of facts and skills, but a whole set of attitudes and thought patterns which may free people from prejudices and stereotypes and which may arm them against naive assumptions, e.g. that lack of specialization in a professional field can still suffice to do a professional job in a professional way. Also the next three statements of the questionnaire, which for reasons of space are not discussed here, provoked wide agreement so that the idea of a consensus in the world of General, Afrikaans and Applied Linguists can further be corroborated by frequent contact and intensive discussion amongst these groups.

220 René Dirven CONCLUSION

The main picture emerging from this small-scale investigation is that there is far more that unites the two groups of linguists than that divides them. The main historic stumbling-block is the past, present and future position of Afrikaans. Since Afrikaans has been such a strong dividing factor in the past, it is understandable that aversion against it lives on in the attitudes of all those who suffered under a regime which strongly associated apartheid with Afrikaans. The question is, however, whether these attitudes are a solid basis for setting up a future language policy for a new South Africa. Here regular contact between the two groups of linguists may be an important contribution to reaching a consensus. Finally, it must be repeated that the present investigation is but a pilot study and that a large-scale survey of many more linguists could be afirstjoint venture for the two linguistic associations. The errors and built-in limitations of the present survey could also be avoided and a much more refined sociolinguistic picture of attitudes towards languages and language policies, including academic orientations, could be aimed at. In such a large-scale investigation also the sociolinguistic parameters of age, sex, language or cultural background, region etc. could be given more systematic attention.

NOTES 1.

2.

3.

The research project is, in fact, called LICCA (Languages in Contact and Conflict in Africa); the research efforts will be first concentrated on Southern Africa, and in a later phase, on other Anglophone countries of Africa, and possibly even on other countries. The project is being carried out by various African and European universities. In retrospect the questionnaire contains an important mistake in that people could only choose between Afrikaans, English, other languages, or bilingual. From this error in the design of the questionnaire it follows that one can no longer identify who is a native speaker of an African language. There is even an important difference for those that had to choose 'other language' in the two main groups: the Pretoria group may contain, in addition to about 5 Blacks, people with different European mother tongues e.g. Italian, Russian etc.; the Durban group contained at least 10 to 15 non-White participants (personal estimate, R.D.), but exact figures can no longer be arrived at. By 'national language' is usually understood a language that is spoken in most parts of a country; here it is taken in the sense that its use can be claimed in parliament, the law-court, administration and even education all over the country.

REFERENCES Schuring, Geeraard K. 1985. Kosmopolitiese omgangstale. Die aard, oorsprong enfunksies van Pretoria-Sotho en ander koine-tale. Pretoria: Raad Vir Geesteswetenskaplike Navorsing.

Translation and Functional Sentence Perspective (a Case Study of John 1.1-2) Jan Firbas

In the days when Dr. W.R. Lee acted as editor-in-chief of English Language Teaching (ELT), I was asked by him to contribute to ELT an article that would acquaint the reader with the theory of functional sentence perspective (FSP). Not having sent him such a contribution, I should like to make amends for it here. But assuming that the readers of his Homage Volume would rather be interested in the application of the FSP theory, I propose to offer an FSP analysis of the opening passage of the Gospel according to John as presented in a number of different versions. The passage has been suggested to me by Vaclav Havel's essay 'A Word on the Word' written by him for the festive session of the 1989 Frankfurt Book Fair, when he was not yet President of Czechoslovakia, but a dissident, who was not allowed to leave his country. Knowing that Dr. Lee is a great friend of Czechoslovakia, I trust he will appreciate the motive of my choice of the passage and accept my contribution as a thank-you for his sympathy with and support for the cause of his Czech and Slovak colleagues. Dealing with FSP in Old Church Slavonic (OChSl) texts, Radoslav Veterka raises the question of the interpretation of the first three sentences of the OChSl translation of the Gospel according to John (Vefcerka 1980:85). Like the Vulgate (and its recent revision, the OChSl translation follows the Greek original word for word, faithfully retaining its word order. (For the bibliographical references to the sources of the citations, see 'References to the NT versions' at the end of the paper.) "En arkhei en ho logos, kai ho logos en pros ton theon, kai theos en ho logos. In principio erat verbum, et verbum erat apud Deum, et Deus erat verbum."

The Old English translation, the earlier and the later Wycliffite translation, the Great Bible, the Bishop's Bible and the Rheims New Testament proceed in the same way; cf., e.g., On fruman waes word and f>eat word waes myd gode. And god waes J>ast word. - OE translation.

222 Jan Firbas In the bigynning was the word, and the word was at God, and God was the word. - Later Wycliffite version In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was with God, and God was the WORD. - Rheims

The interpretation of the FSP of the first two sentences in the versions referred to is quite straightforward. Applying my approach elaborated in my writings on FSP and recently summed up in Firbas 1986a and 1987,1 interpret the FSP of the two sentences as follows. Not conveying any information retrievable from the immediately relevant context, the first sentence is entirely context-independent (c.-ind.). It implements the Presentation Scale of dynamic semantic functions: Setting (Set) Presentation (Pr) - Phenomenon to be presented (Ph). The Set, Pr and Ph functions are performed by In the beginning, the notional component of was and the word, respectively. (The ModE elements stand here also for their non-ModE counterparts). The Set-element is foundation-laying, i.e. it provides the foundation (theme = Th) upon which the core of the message (non-theme = non-Th) is built up. It is the temporal and modal exponents of the verb (TMEs) was that start building up the core (non-Th) upon the foundation (Th). In doing so they act as a boundary and simultaneously as a link between the Th and the non-Th. They serve as transition proper (TrPr). The development of the communication is consummated by the word which serves as rheme proper (RhPr). Introducing the word into the communication in order to present it, the notional component of was serves as a transition (Tr). Consummating the development of the communication within the sentence, the word contributes most to this development. It carries the highest degree of communicative dynamism (CD) and is the element towards which the sentence is perspectived. As for the degrees of CD of the other elements, In the beginning carries the lowest degree of CD, because it starts the development of the communication. Providing a foundation upon which the TMEs and the notional component of was continue to develop the communication, it is exceeded by them in CD. In terms of the interplay of the three FSP factors operating in the written language (linear modifiaction, the contextual factor and the semantic factor; see Firbas 1986a and 1987), we find that the linear modification can fully assert itself, being worked counter neither by the contextual factor nor the semantic factor. (In fact, in the absence of c.-d. information, i.e. such as is retrievable from the immediately relevant context, the contextual factor leaves the sentence unaffected). The actual linear arrangement coincides with the interpretative arrangement, i.e. the interpreter's arrangement sequencing the elements in accordance with a gradual rise in CD. (The two arrangements may, but need not, coincide).

Translation and Functional Sentence Perspective

223

In the beginning was the word. In the beginning (Set, Th) was (TrPr; Pr, Tr) the word (Ph, RhPr). The second sentence implements three items of the Quality Scale of dynamic semantic functions: Setting (Set) - Bearer of quality (B) - Ascription of Quality (AofQ) - Quality (Q) - Specification (Sp) - Further Specification (FSp). The second sentence is not perspectived to the subject, but away from it. The development of the communication is consummated by the information conveyed by with God. The second sentence is affected by the contextual factor. The subject the word conveys retrievable information. It is therefore c.-d. and thematic. (A c.-d. element is foundation-laying, i.e. thematic, irrespective of its sentence position and its semantic character.) It is also thematic on account of the B-function it performs. (Context dependence tends to neutralize the dynamic sentence function, reducing the status of a c.-d. element to that of a Set unless the present c.-ind. elements still provide sufficient clues to the original dynamic semantic function. This is the case of the word.) Pieces of retrievable and therefore thematic information are also the temporal and modal indications conveyed by the TMEs. (This information has already been offered by the first sentence.) The establishment through the TMEs of the link between the Th and the non-Th, however, represents irretrievable, i.e. c.-ind., information. Together with this feature of the TMEs, the rest of the sentence is c.-ind.. Apart from the conjunction and, which is regarded as TrPr oriented (cf. Svoboda 1989: 116-8), the actual linear arrangement of the sentence elements and their interpretative arrangement again coincide: the word was with God the word (d, B, Th) was (d, Th; TrPr; Q, Tr) with God (Sp, RhPr) (The abbreviation'd' stands for 'c.-d.' here). In terms of the interplay of factors, linear modification is worked counter to neither by the contextual factors nor the semantic factor within this section of the sentence. An interesting problem is posed by the third sentence. As its communicative purpose is to establish the identity of two notions, 'the Word' and 'God', it must be perspectived from the notion to be identified towards the notion identifying, i.e. the one intimating the result of the identification. The result, consummating the identification, is a piece of irretrievable and hence c.-ind. information. It follows that each of the two elements, the word and God, conveys retrievable information, but the one intimating the result conveys additional irretrievable information and is in consequence heterogeneous in regard to context depend-

224 Jan Firbas ence/independence. Nevertheless, 'the result of the identification', consummating the development of the communication and therefore acting as the most dynamic piece of information, induces the element intimating it to behave in the same way as if it were entirely c.-ind. I have not yet answered the question which of the two notions, 'God' or 'the Word', intimates the consummating notion and therefore serves as RhPr. Ve£ erka comes to the conclusion that it is 'the Word' (Vefcerka 1980:82). This would mean that, as in the first two sentences, even in the third linear modi- fiation is not prevented from placing RhPr in end position. God was the word God (d, B, Th) was (d, Th; TrPr, AofQ, Tr) the word (Q, RhPr) This interpretation cannot certainly be ruled out. But the following discussion points to another possible solution. Tyndale (1535) and the Authorised Version (1611) give the third sentence a different word order. The Revised Version (1881), the two editions of the Revised Standard Version (1946, 1971) and the Revised Authorised Version (1979) follow suit. In the beginnynge was the worde, and the worde was with God: and the worde was god. - Tyndale In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. - AV, RV, RSV, RAV The third sentence of these versions is unequivocally perspectived to God. the Word (d, B, Th) was (d, Th; TrPr; AofQ, Tr) God (Q, RhPr) This is because the operation of linear modification is strengthened by an important contextual clue, which is offered by the FSP structure of the paragraph. Recalling that all the thematic elements and all the rhematic elements of a paragraph constitute its thematic and its rhematic layers (cf., e.g., Firbas 1961:93-5), respectively, let us note that in the versions so far discussed the notion of 'the Word' first appears in the rhematic layer. Owing to the operation of the contextual factor it is then transposed to the thematic layer. (On account of this transposition it performs a thematic function referred to by Svoboda as 'diathematic'; cf. Svoboda 1983). In Tyndale's and in the AV, RV, RSV and RAV versions, it is kept within the thematic layer even by the third and the fourth sentences (acting in them as theme proper; cf. Svoboda ib.). This is how these versions translate the fourth sentence.

Translation and Functional Sentence Perspective

225

The same was in the beginnynge with god. - Tyndale The same was in the beginning with God. - AV, RV He (d, Th) was (d, Th; TrPr; Q, Tr) in the beginning (Sp, Rh) with God (FSp, RhPr). - RSV, RAV In this way, 'the Word' becomes well established within the thematic layer and starts performing the hyperthematic function, being a thematic notion shared by more than two - under the circumstances three - sentences of the passage. It in fact conveys the notion that the passage is about. In this manner, it substantiates the 'from Word away' perspective of the third and the fourth sentences in the passage. Examining the functions of the elements of the above adduced sentences, we find that apart from The same/He and the TMEs on account of their temporal and modal indications, even the elements in the beginning and with God convey retrievable, i.e. c.-d., information. Such information, however, cannot account for the rhematicity of these two elements. They are rhematic on account of the summarizing effect they are induced to bear (Firbas 1985: 37). Summarization is the additional irretrievable information consummating the communication. On account of it the two elements behave as if they were entirely c.-ind.. The same summarizing effect is produced by the fourth sentences of the previously discussed group of translations (which make their third sentences follow the word order of the Greek or Latin version), cf., e.g., outos en en arkhe pros ton theon. - Greek version Hoc erat in principium apud Deum. - Vulgate J>aet waes on fruman myd gode. - OE translation This was in the begynnyng at God. - Later Wycliffite version This was in the beginning with God. - Rheims Returning to the third sentences of the previously discussed versions, we find that the inteipretation assigning the notion of 'the Word' rhematic character weakens the hyperthematicity of this notion within the thematic layer. But the interpreter can indeed take into account the possible hyperthematicity of the notion and regard the word as entirely c.-d. and therefore as thematic, and God as the conveyer of the result of identification and therefore as RhPr. The sentence then does not show the Th - Rh, but the Rh - Th, sequence, linear modification being worked counter to by the contextual factor. Such a sequence plays a special role in the Greek, Latin, and Old English (and possibly also Middle English) systems of word order. As Henri Weil has demonstrated, a Greek or Latin sequence in which the goal of the communication (Rh) precedes the starting point (Th) creates a 'pathetic' (marked) effect (Weil 1844:49). The same applies to Old English (Firbas 1957).

226 Jan Firbas It must be taken into consideration also by inquirers into Old Church Slavonic (cf. Vefierka 1980:83). The marked word order of the third sentence permits to underline the result of the identification on the one hand, and to co-establish the hyperthematicity of 'the Word', on the other. According to this interpretation, the interpretative arrangement reflected by the third sentence would hold good for both groups of versions under discussion. the word (Th) and (TrPro) was (Th; TrPr; Tr) God (RhPr) Conveying an attitude of the writer, word order markedness has a communicative value. It therefore adds CD to the sentence, raising especially the degree of CD carried by RhPr. The preceding discussion has shown that whereas in the second group of versions the interplay of factors permits only one interpretation of the FSP of the third sentence, in the first group it permits two interpretations, displaying what has been termed the phenomenon of potentiality (Firbas, e.g., 1986a:57). Potentiality can be removed by intonation, which in the spoken language joins the interplay of FSP factors, through placing the intonation centre on one of the two elements involved. The interpretations permitted by potentiality need not be of equal value. As I see it, the interpretation taking the structure of the thematic layer into account is the one capturing the communicative purpose of the passage: to offer a characterization of the nature of the Word. It is certainly not without interest to record here that quoting Schlatter (1930:3), Rienecker (1966:195) considers theos of the third sentence to function in the predicate. Referring to Schlatter (1930:3), he also points out (ib.) that "die Absichtder Satze ist, und das Wort in seiner Gottheit zu zeigen". This is certainly not at variance with my interpretation offered from the point of view of FSP. If we accept the interpretation perspectiving the third sentence to God as preferable, or indeed as the correct one, we find that the versions of both groups treat the notion of 'the Word' in the same way. They induce it to serve as RhPr in the first sentence of the passage, as diatheme (DTh) in the second and as theme proper (ThPr) in the third and the fourth. It is not without interest to adduce Theodor Beza's Latin translation in this connection. In principio erat Sermo ille (RhPr), et Sermo ille (DTh) erat apud Deum, eratque ille Sermo (ThPr) Deus. Hie Sermo (ThPr) erat in principio apud Deum. Linear modification underlines the thematicity of ille Sermo in the third sentence. This practically excludes the operation of potentiality. The absence of word order

Translation and Functional Sentence Perspective

227

markedness, however, is responsible for the absence of extra emphasis on the rhematic notion of 'divinity' in the third sentence. As for the development of the communication within the rhematic layer of the passage, the interpretation adopted characterizes it in the following way. The first sentence is perspectived towards the Word. In this way the Word is brought onto the scene. The second sentence is perspectived towards its abiding with God, and the third towards its divine nature, in other words towards its identification with God. The fourth is perspectived towards a recapitulatory double piece of information: the Word's already co-existing in the beginning with God. Let me now have a look at some other modern English versions. The following is that offered by Goodspeed. "In the beginning the Word existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was divine. It was he that was with God in the beginning."

Goodspeed's translation differs from those so far discussed in two points. It thematizes 'the Word' right from the beginning, but rhematizes it in the fourth, recapitulatory sentence, putting the recapitulation in a different perspective. The first sentence is perspectived to the notional component of existed, which does not perform the Pr-function, but the Q-function. (This interpretation will be discussed in greater detail below.) The fourth sentence is perspectived to he, which - through the cleft sentence construction, an efficient means operating counter to linear modification (Firbas 1967) - becomes the conveyer of the additional irretrievable summarizing effect. But as 'the Word' remains the central notion even of the following passage, the rhematization of he simultaneously makes the recapitulatory sentence conspicuously open this new passage. In Goodspeed's translation, the fourth sentence in fact opens a new paragraph. As for the third sentence, it expresses the nature of the Word with the adjective divine, which serves as RhPr. Like Goodspeed's version, The New English Bible (NEB) and The Revised English Bible (REB) thematize the Word in the first sentence, perspectiving it to the notional component of was, which performs the Q-function. This requires some comment, which applies also to the first sentence of Goodspeed's translation. "When all things began, the Word already was. The Word dwelt with God, and what God was, the Word was. The Word, then was with God at the beginning,... -NEB "In the beginning the Word already was. The Word was in God's presence, and what God was, the Word was. He was with God at the beginning,..." - REB

228 Jan Firbas It has been demostrated that, if making up a sentence together with a.-ind. subject and a c.-d. or c.-ind. adverbial serving as a setting, a verb expressing existence performs the Pr-function (Firbas, e.g., 1986a: 48). This is not the case here, evidently because the Word is felt to be 'presented' as c.-d., 'presented' carrying a special shade of meaning here, that of being 'put before the addressee for acceptance as c.-d'. (If among 'the initiated', the addressee readily accepts this 'presentation'. But strictly speaking, the Word is c.-ind., for the information it conveys is irretrievable from the immediately relevant preceding context. If genuinely c.-d., the Word could not be rhematic in the first sentences of the versions of the two groups discussed above.) According to this interpretation, the Word is introduced into the thematic layer sooner than in the versions of the two groups discussed above and is induced to carry the lowest degree of CD within the first sentence. The Word (d, B, Th) in the beginning (Set, Th) already (TrPro) was (TrPr, Q, RhPr). It is worth noticing that the definite article with word and the final position of was/existed co-signal the thematicity of the subject. But they can do so only if 'the Word' is felt to be 'presented' as c.-d.. Of particular interest is, of course, the third, i.e. the 'identification' sentence. Which of the two elements, God or the Word, both conveying retrievable information, comes to carry the additional irretrievable information of the result of the identification? It is important to note that, in regard to the ModE word order system, the third sentence is marked because the subject complement precedes the subject and the verb. The marked position of the subject complement intensifies its degrees of CD, in particular that of God. As both God and the Word convey retrievable information, the additional irretrievable information - the notion of the result of the identification - is signalled by the raised degree of CD carried by God. In this way the NEB and the REB perspective the third sentence to God and induce it to convey the message that 'the Word was divine'. Not operating independently of the non-prosodic FSP factors (Firbas 1985: 45), intonation should reflect the FSP of the third sentence by placing the intonation centre on God. (There is no reason for re-evaluating prosodic re-perspectiving of the sentence here; cf. Firbas 1985: 25). The automatic placement of the IC on the last stressed element of the sentence, which is occasionally applied by the inattentive reader, may blur the perspective but cannot obliterate it. Such an inappropriate placement of the IC on the Word is due to the overestimation of the role of linear modification in the sentence under discussion. The little word then in the fourth sentence of the NEB version should not pass unnoticed. It has no verbal counterpart in the Greek text. But as has been shown,

Translation and Functional Sentence Perspective

229

the fourth sentence produces a summarizing (recapitulatory) effect. Then aptly underlines it If the 'presentation' interpretation of the first sentence is adopted, the NEB and the REB keep 'the Word' within the thematic layer throughout the passage under discussion. One more comment is called for by the fourth sentence of each of these two versions. Bringing about the summarizing effect, both with God and at the beginning perform the dynamic semantic function of specification (Sp; cf. Firbas 1986a:49). It is the Sp-element coming last that carries the highest degree of CD and expresses the information towards which the sentence is perspectived (Firbas 1986b:872). In this respect the NEB and the REB differ from the Greek version. Whereas the two English versions perspective the sentence towards at the beginning, the Greek version perspectives it towards pros ton theon. By assigning the role of RhPr proper to at the beginning, the English versions underline the idea that the Word had already been there when the process of creation began. On the other hand, by assigning the role of RhPr to pros ton theon, the Greek version underlines the divinity of the Word. Let me now call attention to J.B. Phillip's version. "At the beginning God expressed himself. That personal expression, that word, was with God, and was God, and he existed with God from the beginning."

Like the Greek version, Phillips's perspectives the first sentence towards the notion of 'the Word': conveying this notion, expressed serves as RhPr. (Note Phillips's attempt to give the reader a better understanding of the notion.) Unlike the Greek version, Phillips's introduces God into the first sentence and assigns it a thematic function. In the compound sentence that follows, it makes the two re-expressions of God serve as Rhs Pr. It does so, because it induces them to convey additional irretrievable information - that of specifying location and that of the result of identification. Like the NEB and the REB, Knox's translation "At the beginning of time the Word already was; and God had the Word abiding with him, and the Word was God. He abode, at the beginning of time, with God."

keeps the notion of 'the Word' in the thematic layer throughout the passage. The second sentence is perspectived to the c.-ind. localization, conveyed by abiding. This time, the localization is conveyed by an entirely c.-ind. element. The summarizing sentence encloses at the beginning of time with commas, which produces a parenthetic effect, preventing the adverbial from performing the Sp-function and relegating it to the background: the sentence is unequivocally perspectived to with God. The divinity of the Word is thereby effectively underlined.

230 Jan Firbas Considerations of space prevent me from subjecting to analysis other modern English translations, and comparing them with translations produced in other modern languages. But even the few texts here analysed testify to the usefulness of examing a linguistic element not only in regard to its semantic content and its syntactic implementation, but also in regard to its place in the development of the communication, in other words its CD. Such procedure brings us closer to a better understanding of how at the moment of production and/or perception a sentence functions in a definite perspective, fulfilling a definite communicative purpose.

REFERENCES Cooper, Ch. and S. Greenbaum. Eds. 1986. Studying writing: Linguistic approaches. Beverly Hills: Sage. Firbas, J. 1957. "Some thoughts on the function of word order in Old English and Modern English". Studia Minora Facultatis Philosophicae Universitatis Brunensis A 5. Bmo: Masaryk University. 72-98. Firbas, J. 1961. "On the communicative value of the Modern English finite verb". Brno Studies in English 3. Brno: Masaryk University. 79-104. Firbas, J. 1967. "It was yesterday that..." Studia Minora Facultatis Philosophicae Universitatis Brunensis A15. Bmo: Masaryk University. 141-6. Firbas, J. 1985. "Thoughts on functional sentence perspective, intonation and emotiveness". Brno Studies in English 16. Bmo: Masaryk University. 11-48. Firbas, J. 1986a. "On the dynamics of written communication". In: Cooper and Greenbaum. 1986.40-71. Firbas, J. 1986b. "A case study in the dynamics of written communication". In: Kastovsky and Szwedek. 1986. 859-76. Firbas, J. 1987. "On two starting points of communication". In: Steel and Threadgold. 1987. 23-46. Kastovsky, D. and A. Szwedek. Eds. 1986. Linguistics across historical and geographical boundaries, 2. Berlin. Rienecker, F. 1966. Sprachlicher Schlüssel zum Griechischen Neuen Testament. 12th ed. Gießen and Basel: Brunnen-Verlag. Schlatter, A. 1930. Der Evangelist Johannes. Stuttgart [Quoted after Rienecker 1966. xxix]. Steel, R. and T. Threadgold. Eds. 1987. Language topics, 1. Amsterdam: Benjamins. S voboda, A. 1983. "Thematic elements". Brno Studies in English 15. Brno: Masaryk University. 49-85. Svoboda, A. 1989. Kapitoly zfunkinisyntaxe [Chapters in functional syntax]. Prague: Stâtni pedagogické nakladatelstvi. Veöerka, R. 1980. "Problematika zkoumâni aktuâlniho vetného ôlenèni v staroslovënStine" [On the study of functional sentence perspective in Old Church Slavonic]. Studia Minora Facultatis Philosophicae Universitatis Brunensis A 28. Bmo: Masaryk University. 79-90. Weil, H. 1844. De l'ordre des mots dans les langues anciennes comparées aux langues modernes. Paris: Joubert.

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REFERENCES TO THE NT VERSIONS AV (Authorized Version, cited from NT Octapla; see below), Beza (Novum Testamentum Latine, tr. by Th. Beza, Berlin, The British and Foreign Bible Society, 1868), Bishop's Bible {The Newe Testament in the Bishop's Bible, London, 1602; cited from NT Octapla), Goodspeed (The Complete Bible-, OT tr. by J.M. Powis Smith and NT tr. by E.J. Goodspeed; Chicago 1964), Great Bible (The Newe Testament in the Great Bible, 2nd. ed., 1540; cited from NT Octapla), Greek New Testament (Novum Testamentum Graece, Stuttgart, Privileg. Württ. Bibelanstalt, 1950), Knox (The Holy Bible, tr. by R. Knox, London, Burns & Oats, and Macmillan, 1966), NEB (The New English Bible, Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press, 1970), NT Octapla (The New Testament Octapla, Edinburgh, Nelson, year of publ. not given), Old English NT translation (The West-Saxon Gospels, ed. by M. Grünberg, Amsterdam, Scheltema and Holkema, 1987), Phillips (The New Testament in Modern English, tr. by J.B. Phillips, London, Bles, 1960), RAV (The Holy Bible - Revised Authorised Version, London, Bagster, 1982), REB (Revised English Bible, Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press, 1989), RSV Revised Standard Version, cited from NT Octapla), Rheims New Testament (The New Testament, Rheims 1582; cited from NT Octapla), RV (Revised Version, cited from NT Octapla), Vulgate (Novum Testamentum Graece et Latine, Rome, Pontificium Institutum Biblicum, 1933; Nova Vulgata Bibliorum Sacrorum Editio, Rome, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1986), Tyndale (The Newe Testament, Amsterdam, 1535; cited from NT Octapla), Wycliffite translations (The Holy Bible... made from the Latin by John Wycliffe and his followers, ed. by J. Forshall and F. Madden, vol. iv„ Oxford University Press, 1850).

A Note on the Vocing of Initial /f-/ in English in the 15th Century: Onomastic Evidence Jacek Fisiak

In an earlier paper (Fisiak 1984) I discussed inter alia the distribution of /v-/ resulting from the voicing of /f-/ in the lexical material of a non-onomastic kind in the 15th century. The northern boundary of occurrence of the voiced fricative /v-/ was established as running from southern Essex in the east to southern Shropshire in the west (see Map 1; the isogloss was kindly provided by A. Mcintosh in 1982). The voiced forms have been recorded in the southern counties as well as in London, Middlesex, southern Essex, southern Hertfordshire, Oxfordshire, western Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and southern Shropshire (cf. also Mcintosh et al. 1986). (

234

JacekFisiak

In place-names (and a few surnames) voiced forms occur in the 15 th century likewise in the South1 and in the following West2 and East Midland counties (see Map 2):

ESSEX: Vanners 1485-1509 (FANNER'S FM in Great Totham, EPNS XII,3 311, le Var(eh)ey 1367-1411 (FAIRY FM in Wethersfield, EPNS xn, 467), Varheie 1399-1413 (FAIRY HALL in Felsted, EPNS XII, 422), Northvanbregge 1480 (NTH. FAMBRIDGE, EPNS XII, 215), Vannesgappe 1414 (FANNS in Takeley, EPNS XII, 535), Vaux 1462, Vauce(s) 1483, 1484 (FOWE'S FM in Belchamp Otton, EPNS XII, 410), Vange 1412, 1480 (VANGE, EPNS XII, 174-5), Vyffede 1441 (FYFIELD, EPNS xn, 56-7), Videlowes 1493 (PHILLOW'S FM in Little Baddow, EPNS XII, 235) Glamvyles 1423, 1485 (GLANDFIELDS FM in Felsted, EPNS XII, 423), Grenevill 1412 (GREENFIELDS FM in Stambourne, EPNS XII, 457). MIDDLESEX: Vynehelay (FINCHLEY, EPNS XVIII, 92), Vinesbury 1406 (FlNSBURY, EPNS XVHI, 93). HERTFORDSHIRE: Bamvylewod 1487, cf. Bamveldewod 1385 (BAMVILLE in Wheathampstead, EPNS XV, 56), Chepelvilerowe 1437, cf. Cheperfeld 1437

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(CHIPPERFIELD in Kings Langley, EPNS XV, 45), la Vanne 1463 (FAN MEAD in Ashwell, EPNS XV, 292), Cheppervyle strete 1411 4 (ELSTREE, EPNS XV, 74). BUCKINGHAMSHIRE: Veny Stratford 1493 (FENNY STRATFORD, EPNS n, 26), B l o s m e v i l l e 4 1424 (NEWTON BLOSSOMVILLE, EPNS II, 11).

OXFORDSHIRE: Fanelaure 1428 [< OE fog, flor] (FAWLER, EPNS XXIV, 421), Voxlewesforlonge (field name) 1450 (in GREAT TEW, EPNS XXIV, 290). WARWICKSHIRE: Sutton in Colvyle 1503 (SUTTON COLDFEELD, EPNS XIN, 49). STAFFORDSHIRE: le Valowe fild (f.n.) 1501 (in BRADLEY, EPNS XL, 140). WORCESTERSHIRE: Pyndeven 5 1491, 1493 (PINVIN, EPNS IV, 223, Holvestre 1471 (HOLDFAST HALL EPNS IV, 141), Varemon 6 1401 (ON Farmann, SWo

Sundby 1963, 201), Vaderscroft 1430 (ME fader, NWo, Sundby 1963, 202), Veldwelle 1415 (cf. ME feld, NWo, Sundby 1963,202), Wavote 1486-7 (cf. ME foot, NWo, Sundby 1963, 202). Comparing Map 1 and Map 2 it is easy to notice that in the East Midlands and Staffordshire voicing appears further to the north in names than in lexical items and is firmly established in the whole of Essex, Hertfordshire and northern Buckinghamshire. No 15th century evidence has been found for Shropshire and Herefordshire. However, earlier (Fisiak forthcoming a, b, Kristensson 1986, 1987: 205-7) as well as later occuirences of < v> in names in the 16th century allow us to consider this situation as an accidental gap in the 15th century onomastic evidence and to include the two counties in the voicing domain. Cf. the following examples: ESSEX. Venokes 1542 (PHOENIX in Fairstead, EPNS XII, 286), alias vochers croft 1508 (J. FOUCHER in South Weald, EPNS XII, 135), Bulvevanne 7 1334 and

Bulvand7 1547 (BULPHAN ['bulvsn], EPNS XII, 144). 7 7 HERTFORDSHIRE. Bereueuue 1370, Barven 1556 (BARVIN PARK in Northaw, EPNS XV, 114). WARWICKSHIRE. Venny 1317 and Veny 1594, 1601 (PENNY COMPTON, EPNS Xm, 269), Vernehill 1550 (FERNHILL FM, EPNS XIII, 264).

Oxfordshire, Verne Hille 1551-2 (FERNHILL FM, EPNS XXIV, 427), Veron Hill, Vyrynhille 1551-2 (FERNHILL COPSE in Upton and Signet, EPNS XXIV, 331). HEREFORDSHIRE. Valde 1545 (THE VAULD, Bannister 1916, 196), Venn(e) 1545,1567 (VENN, Bannister 1916, 197). The lexical material also unambiguously demonstrates that Shropshire and Herefordshire belong to the voicing area. In conclusion it will be worthwhile to look at the distribution of /v-/< /f-/ in earlier centuries and compare it with the 15th century. Unfortunately there is no "lexical" survey of the 14th century or earlier which could compare as regards its realiability with Mcintosh et al (1986). If Oakden's (1930) pioneering work is accepted as it stands then the only conclusion than can be drawn is that the

236 Jacek Fisiak voicing isogloss moved in the northerly direction from the 14 th century to the 15 th century (Fisiak 1984). Comparing the available onomastic evidence from earlier periods with the material presented in this paper one can easily observe that the distribution of /v-/ in the 15 th century is almost exactly coterminous with the 13 t h century (see Map 3 from Fisiak forthcoming a).®*

NOTES 1. Since my interest in this paper concentrates on the northern border of the occurrence of /v-/. I wil not discuss numerous examples from the South and Gloucestershire. 2. For the reason stipulated in Note 1 the occurrence of /v-/ has not been mapped for Gloucestershire 3. EPNS 12 = English Place-Name Society survey vol. 12 (ESSEX). 4. -vyle = field 5. -ven = fen 6. Sundby (1963) does not give a precise location of this and the next three names only indicating whether they come from SWo(rcestershire) or NWo. 7. -vanne, -vand = fen 8. The 14th century distribution of the voicing of /f-/ in names is also coterminous with the 15th century (cf. Kristensson 1986,1987, Fisiak forthcoming b).

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REFERENCES Bannister, A.T. 1916. The place-names of Herefordshire. Cambridge: printed for the author by C.UP. Fisiak, J. 1984. "The voicing of initial fricatives in Middle English". SAP 17.3-16. Fisiak, J. Forthcoming a. "The voicing of initial fricatives in Early Middle English". Fisiak, J. Forthcoming b. "The voicing of initial fricatives in the 14th c.: onomastic evidence". Gelling, M. 1953-54. The place-names of Oxfordshire (EPNS v. XXm-XXIV). Cambridge: C.UP. Gover, J.E.B. et al. 1936. The place-names cf Warwickshire. (EPNS v. xm). Cambridge: C.U.P. Gover, J.E.B. et al. 1938. The place-names of Hertfordshire. Cambridge: C.U.P. Gover, J.E.B. et al. 1942. The place-names of Middlesex. Cambridge: C.UP. Kristensson, G. 1986. "On voicing of initial fricatives in Middle English". SAP 19. 3-10. Kristensson, G. 1987. A survey of Middle English dialects 1290-1350: the West Midland counties. Lund: University Press. Mcintosh, A., M. Samuels and M. Benstein. 1986. A linguistic atlas of late Mediaeval English. 4 vols. Aberdeen: University Press. Mawer, A. et al. 1927 [1969]. The place-names of Worcestershire (EPNS v. IV). Cambridge: C.UP. Mawer, A. and F.M. Stenton. 1925. The place-names of Buckinghamshire (EPNS v. n). Cambridge: C.UP. Oakden, JP. 1930 [1968], Alliterative poetry in Middle English. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books. Oakden, J.P. 1984. The place-names of Staffordshire (EPNS v. LV). Cambridge: C.UP. Reaney, P.G. 1935. The place-names of Essex. Cambridge: C.UP. Sundby, B. 1963. Studies in the Middle English dialect material of Worcestershire records. Bergen - Oslo: Norwegian Universities Press.

The Problem of the *Unable Lexicographer Leslie A. Hill

If you are competent at writing dictionaries, you are a competent lexicographer. If you are incompetent at writing dictionaries, you are an incompetent lexicographer. Also, if you are able to write dictionaries, you are an able lexicographer; but - and here comes the problem - if you are unable to write dictionaries, you are not an *unable lexicographer. Students of English as a foreign language do not need to know such things if they only want to understand what they are hearing or reading; but they do need to know them if they want to speak and write correct English. Modern EFL dictionaries help considerably over such matters, e.g. by labelling 'unable' as (pred only), but there is a need for a special kind of collocational dictionary to supplement their efforts by concentrating particularly on cases where false analogy can easily produce bad English, particularly in the case of the brighter students, who are the most likely to experiment with collocations they have not heard before. Such a dictionary could cover a wide range of topics, and not only collocations. It could deal with only one variety of English, e.g. that used by educated people in the British Isles, or with more than one, comparing, for example, the above with General American English. In the latter case it would point out that, if I, as an Englishman, go to see my uncle in Leeds, I am 'visiting' him. An American would use the same form, but would have the additional possibility of 'visiting with' his uncle, meaning that he is chatting with him. If I, an Englishman, 'knock a lady up', all I do is to knock at her door to wake her, usually so that she is not late for work; whereas if an American 'knocks a lady up', he makes her pregnant. Here are some tentative suggestions, based only on British English: 1. Unexpected pronunciations; e.g. the change from /s/ in the singular of 'house' to /z/ in the plural 'houses'; change in the vowel sound between 'read' (present tense) and 'read' (past tense). 2. Unexpected affixes; e.g. 'unloose' meaning the same as 'loose' (verb), whereas 'untie' is the opposite of 'tie'; a 'gentle/hard hit' and 'hit it gently', but not 'hit it *hardly'; 'a slow/fast run' and 'He ran slowly', but not 'He ran *fastly'; 'He read it loudly/aloud' and 'He read it very loudly', but not

240 Leslie A. Hill

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

'He read it *very aloud'; you can 'roll the grass carefully', but you can't 'roll it *flatly': you have to 'roll it flat'. We can say 'John's working as he usually does - slowly' and 'His brother works as slowly' but not 'John's working as *usually' (instead of which we have to say 'John's working as usual'). And there is the example with 'able' and 'unable' in the first paragraph of this paper. Confusions withplurals\ e.g. We say 'She's seventeen years old', but 'She's a seventeen-year-old girl', without a n ' s ' on 'year'; and we can talk about 'the peoples of Asia', but not about 'some *peoples waiting for a bus'. Dangerous lexical items; e.g. 'intercourse', which, although it can be used to mean 'socialising' or 'social chat', nowadays has a strongly sexual flavour; and 'gay', which has recently taken on the meaning of 'homosexual', although 'gaiety' has not (yet?) taken on this colouring. Restricted lexical items; e.g. we can say 'a heavy fall/cold', but not 'a *heavy illness'; we say 'she is fast/sound asleep' and 'Sound sleep is a blessing', but not '*Fast sleep is a blessing'; and whereas 'the last word in fashion' does not mean that there will never be any more, 'the last news about him' implies that there will be no more, since he is dead or blotted out of society (if we want to imply that there may be more news about him in the future, we use 'the latest news' instead of 'the last news'). You can 'do your homework and make a mistake in it', but not '*make your homework and *do a mistake in it'. Non-existent opposites; e.g. we can say 'Some of us have been hard hit by the drop in prices', but we cannot say, 'Lucidly / have been *soft hit by them'; and we can 'believe something', 'believe in something', 'disbelieve something', but not 'disbelieve *in something'. Prepositional limitations. We have had an example of this at the end of 6, above. Here are some more: We can say, 'She met her friend' and 'She met with disaster', but not 'She met *with her friend' (but we can say 'She met up with her friend'), nor 'She *met disaster'; 'His beard reached his waist', 'His beard reached to his waist' and 'He reached London', but not 'He reached *to London'; We say 'go by bus/car/ship/plane etc.', but not '*go by horse'; we say 'I am fond of chocolates', 'I have a fondness of/for chocolates', but not 'I am fond *for chocolates'. You can 'get off a bus/ boat/truck/bicycle etc.' but you cannot 'get off a car', unless you were on its roof. You can say, 'I was there in the morning', 'I was there on the morning of June 1st', and 'I went there the next morning', but not 'I was there *on the morning', nor 'I was there *in the morning of June 1st', nor 'I went there *in the next morning'. An interesting example is 'go to school/university': the first has been correct for a long time, but until recently 'go to university' (instead of 'go to the university') was not

8. Limitations on abbreviations. We can say, 'He'll be there, won't he?' 'No, he won't', but not 'Yes, he'll'.

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9. Uses of articles. We can 'play tennis', but we can't 'play *violin.' 10. Word order. We can say 'We met a concerned father, whose child had been hurt in the crash', but not 'Please direct your enquiries to the ""concerned clerk', but 'to the clerk concerned'. 'I tried to read myself such a book' (i.e. 'I tried to read it to myself instead of getting someone else to read it to me') does not mean the same as 'I tried to read such a book myself' (or 'I myself tried to read such a book'). 11. General syntactical limitations. We can say 'If you will wait here, I'll tell him you've arrived', but we do not say 'If I *will see him, I'll tell him you've arrived.' We can also say 'I had rather go home than stay,' but not 'You had better go home *than stay'. We can say 'He will be angry, because/for he doesn't like people being late', and we can say 'Because he doesn't like people being late, he will be angry', but not '*For he doesn't like people being late, he will be angry'. We can also say, 'If she had seen him, she would have given him your message', 'Had she seen him she would have given him your message' and 'If she has seen him, she will have given him your message' and 'If she has seen him, she will have given him your message', but not '*Has she seen him, she will have given him your message'. We can say, 'Look/See what's going on outside!' and 'He came out to see what was going on outside', but not 'He came out to *look what was going on outside'. These few examples illustrate the kind of problems faced by the bright student of English as a foreign language. Academic lexicographers can no doubt produce learned explanations of most of these problems, reducing them to a few rules; but unfortunately these brilliant principles are too often beyond the comprehension of even the native speaking teacher, let alone the linguistically unsophisticated foreign student. The answer is probably a collocational dictionary, giving the items to avoid in alphabetical order, with simple explanations and examples, and plenty of crossreferencing.

The Re-anglicisation of English William F. Mackey

What has happened to the English language since last we met? This question must surely be in the minds of many who have returned recently to Englishspeaking countries after a long absence abroad. After having left the University of London, where, I well remember, we first met, I accepted (rather rashly) an invitation to do the article on slang for the new (1958) edition of the ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA. A search of the scattered and elusive contemporary literature on Australian, Canadian, British and American slang, coupled with recent experience with these four language varieties, enabled me to put together an acceptable piece, along with the requested sample glossaries. Some ten years later, I was asked to update my article and by then I had acquired sufficient wisdom to refuse. But it was not easy to find a replacement. After button-holing 'experts' at meetings of various linguistic associations, I found that in refusing such an assignment I was in good company. For most of my colleagues admitted to me that they themselves were unable to 'dig the lingo of their teen-aged kids'. How then could I possibly presume to write authoritatively on the slang of Canada, the United States, Great Britain and Australia, the most prolific producer of that commodity. Looking back at my out-dated article, I spotted some words of a decade earlier that had already turned rancid. No relation to the clipped hip talk of the me-generation. Then my eyes fell on a quote which I had picked up at the time from one of those letter-to-the editor competitions in the OBSERVER. It ran like this: "The perennial purpose of slang Is to show that you're one of the gang. When it dates, It grates."

I knew then I was no longer with it. Moreover, I noticed words which no longer looked like slang to me. In the intervening time, they had become part of the main stream. They had as we say 'entered the language'. This, I admitted, was to be expected. The histories of

244 William F.Mackey languages provide abundant examples. After a few generations some useful slang words like, for example, the 18th century slang words mob, cab and fad do become respectable. With this generation, however, there was a difference. The time taken for a word to get from the periphery to the centre seemed to be shrinking at an ever accelerating rate. Was this a function of the phenomenal revolution in the speed of intercommunication through the mass media, heralding an age of instant notoriety? If change produces change, rapid change accelerates it, and revolution engenders revolution. This revolution in instant and long-distance communication did coincide with another revolution. By the early sixties, the adult generation in many of the English-speaking countries, especially in America, had lost control of centre state. And the new gang on stage were barely out of their teens. For the first time in history, youngsters in the West disposed of enough discretionary income to dominate the market place - imposing new styles in dress, in music and in language. Indifferent to the recent and distant past, this generation lived in the present and for the present (I want it all and I want it now). Since the present belonged to them, it was theirs to name. They had to baptize their new notions and feelings, not with the classical morphemes with which they were anyway both unfamiliar and uncomfortable, but with the simple words at their disposal: up and in, and down and out. They said they were up beat, up tight and freaked out in their down time. This democratization of neology, this word-making for the masses, had a profound effect on the colour of contemporary English. Since this is the same generation which ushered in the age of computers it is not surprising that the new words it made up to talk about parts and functions were drawn from the same source of simple English words in which it could communicate. Not Latin or Greek derivatives, but words like input, output, tape-drive, disk-drive, floppy disks, hard disks, de-bugging, dumping and the like, words typical of this young, dynamic and innovative generation. If the intergenerational time factor in neology has indeed shrunk, so has the inter-national space factor. A half a world away, other English words were being coined by populations equally unfamiliar with the Western classics, but at home with simple English vocabulary, including the basic, everyday words. Some of their new terms remained for local consumption only, like English trade slogans in Japan. Others however travelled in a matter of months around the world, and some, like the Japanese walkman became instant household words in English speaking countries. It is true that classical suffixes continued to be used in science and pseudoscience, words with mini-, maxi-, micro-, bio-, -graph, and -scope. And in the double talk and bafflegab of bureaucrats, politicians and propagandists, one continues to spot learned sounding smokescreen terms that may appear im-

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pressive but mean little. Many of these are made up of words which in the past had occupied places of honour in the language. Today so much is known about the history and development of the English language that it is possible to trace great changes over longer periods of time, ranging from the time even before the Saxon colonization of Britain to the current expansion of English in the four quarters of the globe. We have also data to help us contemplate the reaction between the external history and the internal development of Anglo-Saxon from the first foreign contacts - Viking, Norman and Latin - to those of today. The amazing transformation of Anglo-Saxon through admixtures of French and Latin and Greek elements is well documented, not only in structure and vocabulary but also in the ways English words have been formed from Romance and Classical morphemes. Such formations flourished when the literate population, the work-makers, had been schooled in Latin, Greek and French from the late Middle Ages and the Classical Renaissance. The revival of learning made it necessary to borrow ideas from the Greek and Roman classics by continually adapting their words to modern English. So much so, that the habit thus formed continued unbroken. The mass of new words formed on these borrowed classical models put the old English stock gradually in a minority position. Since mid-century however the trend seems to be in the other direction. With the decline and disappearance of classical and Romance studies in schools throughout the English-speaking world, coupled with the rising importance of the spoken word in intercommunication (television, telephone, radio), there is a noticeable increase in autonomous word-formation with English morphemes - formations of the type most prevalent in Old English, in which the new word is formed by a juxtaposition of simple native words. In Anglo-Saxon, for example, the word for light (leoht) plus the word for oil or fat (feet) gave the word for lamp (leohtfeet); and the word for day (dceg) plus red (red) produces the word for dawn (dcegred). New ideas from abroad were similarly treated: an evangelist became a godspeller, a good {god) news (spelt) teller. The idea of altar was expressed by combining the words for idol (wig) and table (beod) to give wigbeod Such juxtaposition of simple words has seemingly become more and more usual in contemporary English word formation. It is as if one wanted new words to be immediately understood by a mass audience unfamiliar with classical suffixes. Words like demotion have been downgraded, hallucination has been spaced-out and overdrive has overtaken re-acceleration. In this society of consumers, where it became normal to buy new things you didn't need with money you didn't have to impress people you didn't like, where you always had to have more in order to show that you were better, the aim of life was sought in continued acts of replacement creating a sense of value through recurrent dislocation.

246 William F.Mackey If we examine the flood of new words produced by this affluent society, we note that the purveyers of new notions, new ideas, new feelings, new ways of looking at the world, in short, of a new culture or sub-culture, use terms made up of the simplest elements of the language; the most basic Anglo-Saxon elements. Not only have such new words come into the language at an ever increasing rate, but their meanings have evolved more rapidly than in the past. In the space of little more than a decade, for example, the noun see-through has meant an evening dress, then a very dry Martini cocktail, and then an empty office building. These nouns were formed from simple verbs and prepositions, on the model of set-up and teach-in to give words like love-in, a run-in with the boss, a run-up to the new tax policy, a drop-out who attends cook-outs on week-ends, a company wind-down in a buy-out which leads to a write-down in inventory and eventually to a good bottom line. Other nouns are formed with the same simple ingredients but in reverse order - prepositions coming first. In addition to the ubiquitous computer generated inputs and outputs we talk about the downside of living in the fast track, and overkill in arms production, and the recurrent up-tick in the cost of living index. This fast-moving world found a need for fast-moving verbs. One did not want to be out-paced nor down-graded, even though one could get the media to down-play the fact that, after all the hyped-up publicity, one really intend to down-scale a much vaunted project. The new values also come in the form of adjectives and adverbs made up of the same simple English components. If you have an up-scale product you can require up-front money. And you can feel up-beat if, by getting a rich partner to come on-side you can change a no-win deal into a win-win situation. It is as a win situation indeed that my late mentor, I. A. Richards, of Basic English fame would have viewed this word making procedure. And to my favourite Anglicist, Otto Jespersen, it would surely have appeared as a confirmation of his notion of progress in linguistic change. If the present trend continues long enough, English might begin to look more like a Germanic language, liberated however from the burden of cumbersome inflections, and in so doing feed freely once again from its Anglo-Saxon roots.

Concepts, Contexts and Meaning: Learning to Learn Vocabulary Wilga M. Rivers

I shall begin with a story, pirated from Joyce Valdes of Houston (with permission). One day, a little old lady in tennis shoes from Texas was visiting New York City for the first time. She had heard of the rough, tough, and tumble life in the Big Apple and of some of the bitter seeds in the core, so she was naturally a little nervous, being on her own and not knowing her way about. In the course of the day, she entered an elevator and was immediately followed by a very big man with a Great Dane, who was somewhat crowding the space. As the doors of the elevator closed, the big man said authoritatively: "Sit!" at which she sat (as did the dog, of course). Next morning, the litde old lady found her hotel bill had been paid by Reggie Jackson, the ball player, who had found the incident so hilarious that it had made his day! Where was the miscomprehension in this incident? The words were clear, the concept (Sit!) was understood, the action performed was appropriate to the comprehensible input. In fact it would have been perfect in a Total Physical Response class. The function for which the structure was used was clear - giving an order in expectation of its being obeyed (with appropriate intonation and tone of voice for an order), yet the meaning created by the hearer was not that intended by the speaker and completely inappropriate in the situation. So we must look at the context. To Reggie Jackson the context was clear: "Great Danes take up too much space in elevators and so do I; therefore my dog must take a position that does not crowd others." Surely this context was clear to our little old lady too? It was the psychological context, the inner, self-generated context that was the most powerful. Strange things happen in New York. When faced with strange situations, perceived as physically threatening, the weak obey. You give them your purse; You walk the other way; you turn the other cheek. It was this psychological context that was the real context in this situation. Meaning then is personal. The speaker has a meaning to convey - personal, individual and covert (often deliberatly concealed in euphemisms or prevarications; at other times, partially and tentatively revealed through the selection of words. Meaning comprehended is a creation of the receiver: again personal, individual, and covert. So communication is not simple. How often do we hear such expressions as: "He never understands what I tell him!" "She seems

248 WilgaM. Rivers deliberately to misinterpret everything we say!" "They do the strangest things! Don't they understand plain English!" We may speak, then, of the chameleon-like quality of words, which change and blend to create new meanings. In this article I will use the term 'words' to cover not only individual words, but also phrases and short sentences that serve many purposes ('set expressions' we sometimes call them. Words in this sense are building blocks that combine to form the structures of meaningful messages. Concepts find realizations in the words of a language (in this extended sense), and concepts, combining to form complex meanings, as it were, direct the behaviour of words, as worker bees control the drones at their tasks, or, to use another metaphor, concepts enter into the skins of words and push, shove, and pull them into combinations to meet their purposes in the expression of meaning. It is similar concepts to those intended, aroused in the minds of listeners, that work to extract meaning from the combinations and permutations that we hear. Even then we can never be sure that this similar meaning is a perfect match. This makes communication of meaning sound at least possible, but then context steps in. Context is the broadest term of all. It can be linguistic, physical, perceptual (including the individual perception of the physical or the linguistic); it can be social or psychological. The psychological context goes beyond perception into the roles of expectations, emotions, attention focus related to personal intentions, wants, needs, and fears, or, in the opposite direction, the part played by distraction or ego involvement, which often results in the extraction of the message the listener wanted to hear. Concepts can find expression in words, but without context these concepts are trapped in sealed units or black boxes. Vocabulary is the key to the expression of meaning. Words apart from situations are mere formulas, and language becomes a kind of algebra, of a kind that is the delight of the abstract linguist. For the general run of humanity, language is fleshed out with meaningful words: rich words, trite words, clichés, metaphorical expressions or idioms. Language teachers have long known this fact and have tried in many ways to help students to learn vocabulary, This process has never been easy, because vocabulary cannot be taught. It can only be learned by individuals, who absorb it into their cognitive systems - their semantic networks - because it seems to have some use, or because it has a certain beauty or a whimsicality that appeals to the learner. How have great teachers tried to help students learn the words they need? Perhaps we can learn something from their experiences. Comenius, in the 17th century, expected a Threshold Level student (he used the term janua linguarum (the door of languages) to take in 8,000 words, which they learned through the interest of the subject matter. Labeled pictures showed details of bread-making, cabinet-making, farming and the like, and the words were learned in the context of informative content.1

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Pestalozzi, in the 19th century, along with Berlitz, used concrete objects - either actual objects, like a stone or a seed, or labeled pictures that showed relations among objects in an appropriate context.2 Again, interesting things were being learned through language, rather than the focus being on the language itself. As Berlitz put it: "Expressions of the foreign language are taught by direct association with perception",3 which is an inner process. Learners handled, examined, learned about, talked about concrete objects and their uses and purposes. Words were learned in context, not just as labels. Gouin, at the end of the 19th century, used physical response as an accompaniment to language learning. He developed his action chains from watching his young nephew, who practised language by repeating over to himself what he was doing in an intricate series of actions as he played. Gouin's students heard the teacher describing in detail actions he was performing, then reproduced these actions, trying to reconstruct the verbal elements that went with them.4 Again, there was context, vividly perceived, because it was experienced. With the grammar-translation approach, words were isolated out from context in long vocabulary lists with native-language equivalents. They were seen briefly in context, packed cheek by jowl in a short reading passage, but the learning of them proceeded in cold, sterilized isolation, and they were also tested in this way. The mini-contexts of the reading passages vanished, as the real work of memorization began. Unfortunately, as often as not, the words were never again encountered outside of tests, so the learning of any flexible meaning structure for them became impossible. Later, frequency count lists, while trying to circumscribe the amount of vocabulary a learner should attempt, or be expected to acquire, also encouraged isolated learning of new items of vocabulary, especially where teachers and examiners felt students must know every word on the frequency list. This was a practice that was never the intention of the compilers of the lists but was often the only sure route to examination success. Some materials writers tried to draw the first five hundred, thousand or fifteen hundred words into lists around fields or centers of interest, to provide some semblance of context. Thus the student learned cabbage, blackberry, bread and sausage in the same homework assignment, instead of address, statue, servant, curtain, heap, evening, pleasant, break, grass and bourgeois (as a ten-word sequential learning of the VanderBeke list of 1927 might (and did) encourage).5 With the audiolingual approach came a deemphasis on the number of words to be learned and a reemphasis on context, both linguistic and sociocultural. The linguistic context was supplied by the structures being practised in drills, into which new words could be inserted. The sociocultural context was emphasized in dialogues designed to introduce the learner to the ways of thinking and acting of the people and the words and phrases they commonly exchanged in specific circumstances. However, because of the paucity of vocabulary in this approach,

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many students found themselves 'at a loss for words' in expressing themselves and often could not 'understand a word' of what native speakers were saying, once they went beyond the exchanges in the memorized dialogues. (In fact students often complained that native speakers just did not know the other half of the dialogue!). The functional-notional approach also limited vocabulary (for instance, the lexicon at the Threshold Level was set at 1,000 words for production and 500 more for recognition only). Its proponents, however, insisted on knowing when to use these words appropriately, along with the structures necessary to express certain functions: proposing, disposing, refusing, negotiating and so on. Here, once again, we go beyond concept and word to appropriate context. At present vocabulary is back in favour, in Suggestopaedia,6 in the Natural Approach,7 in the communicative approach, and so on. The big question is: What do we know about how it is learned, how it is stored so as to be available for use; how it is recalled and how it is retrieved? Hymes has pointed out that language users are not abstract isolated individuals, almost unmotivated cognitive mechanisms, as some linguists, teachers and materials writers seem to see them, but they are persons "in a social world who need to be able to communicate."8 To be able to communicate in a social world, the student, quite obviously, must learn to communicate in a social world, not in a sterile test tube. Words, as we have stated, express concepts. What, then, is a concept? For Saussure "initialy the concept is nothing," it is "only a value, determined by its relations with other similar values and ... without [relations among values] the signification would not exist."9 What is the meaning, for instance, of 'warm' or 'cool' ? For a language that has only 'hot' or 'cold' in its vocabulary, these are difficult concepts to pin down. Even for us, what is hot in one situation may be cold in another. We may find the room hot at a temperature at which we would consider the tea or coffee cold. In the Saussurean sense, 'warm' and 'cool' can have a signification only in relation to' hot' and 'cold'. Without a culturally acceptedrelationshipamong these terms, they have no meaning. The meaning derives from these relationships, so there is no need for further discussion of 'tepid', 'warmish' or 'coolish'. Cognitive psychologists share this linguistic viewpoint. In the structure of memory, say Collins and Quillian, 'a concept' is "a set of relationships among other concepts, not a primitive absolute.... Everything is defined in terms of everything else."10 Darkness is absence of light; without the existence of light, there would be no concept of 'darkness'. What is 'twilight', for instance? 'Between light and the absence of light', 'between the swallow and the bat', as some languages say. Since concepts have no primitive term, no one absolute meaning, we ask ourselves when is a cup a cup and not a mug, a beaker or a tumbler? When is a stone a stone and not a piece of grit, a pebble, a rock or a boulder. Without the concepts of 'pebble' and 'rock' we would not be able to

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define 'stone'. It is through words that concepts find expression in language use. Concepts are elusive and elastic, while words are definite and delimited, so the fit is difficult. If this is a problem in our own language, how much more is it compounded by the concepts behind the words of another language! Concepts straddle words; words straddle concepts and develop new meanings as they enter into different combinations and relationships. Words play with concepts, as in idiom and metaphor. It is by using cups and beakers and mugs, by emptying our shoes of small pebbles, throwing stones, tripping over rocks and climbing over boulders that we learn these concepts and understand their meanings in combination. Here we may look for a moment at Halliday's concept of 'meaning potential'. According to Halliday, there are "sets of options, or alternatives in meaning [that is, choices] available to the speaker-hearer" in the context of a situation that is culturally determined.11 The emphasis is on the options available. Halliday emphasizes the dependence of the meaning of each word for the individual upon practical experience and of the structure of each utterance upon the momentary situation in which it is spoken. For Halliday context refers to the inner as well as the outer context, the outer being the observable features of the situation, while the inner context, linguistic and emotional, is strongly influenced by the attitudes and values that the speaker-hearer has derived from the cultural environment. In a new language, then, we need practice in making these choices in the expression of meaning, if we are to develop an extensive vocabulary. We need to acquire words for concepts through practical experience in situations in which we feel involved. In this sense each student's vocabulary is an individual achievement and a personal possession, which can neither be used by another nor taken away from its possessor. It can be lost temporarily only to be retrieved inexplicably through very personal associations, as with material that disappears from the computer screen only to turn up again at the most unexpected moment. Or it can become irretrievabe in some more permanent fashion in ways we cannot explain. What are the psychological mechanisms that account for the extraordinary ability we possess to expand our means of expression daily, hourly, minute by minute? According to cognitive psychologists, we possess a semantic memory in the form of complex networks in which conceptual nodes (not verbal nodes) are linked by inferential relations which draw on redundancies within concepts. Thus there are innumerable directions in which these networks can take off. (Perhaps 'gatepost' does not link in your mind with 'pouring rain' and 'money in the pocket', but it does for me, because one very dark night in pouring rain I forgot that my drive gate was closed, ran into a gatepost and collected accident insurance.) Note that the nodes in semantic networks are conceptual, not language-specific. When I was learning Spanish in Chile in 1985,1 found myself one day producing

252 WilgaM. Rivers for a straightforward concept of opposition the conglomeration 'mais aber sed pero'. I had reached the conceptual node for 'but' and retrieved several associated words in different languages (French, German, and Latin) before reaching the sought-after Spanish word pero Words of a new language then become linked with interconnections of the conceeptual network and proceed to draw on the redundancies within concepts and on the inferential relations already established - in other words, our knowledge of the world, which is expanded and enriched by the cultural notions of the new language. Thus words and expressions become absorbed into the organizational structure and become usable. Forms of the new language must be linked up, however, with their own culture-specific inferences, which must be created through experiences with the language and with the culture. We must come to know their limitations, expansions and cross-associations in relation to apparently similar meanings of words and expressions we use in our first language. For this we need to experience the new expressions in a culturally and linguistically rich context. Language learning must be through purposeful use in culturally probable ways. According to Jenkins, "The mind remembers what the mind does." 13 Vocabulary acquisition, like all aspects of language acquisition, is a dynamic process within a constantly active mind.

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

1. Vocabulary cannot be taught. It can be presented, explained, included in all kinds of activities, and experienced in all manner of associations, but it is learned, absorbed, and finally possessed by the individual. 2. Because there must be motivation to learn new ways of expressing meanings which are important to the individual, we must arouse interest in words, and a certain excitement in possessing them and being able to use them in appropriate situations. 3. The learning of vocabulary is not necessarily by memorization, although some good language learners do memorize vocabulary. The choice must be left to the individual. Whether memorized directly or learned through constant use, vocabulary must remain in and be continually experienced in context, in living, meaningful associations that interest the learner. 4. We can give our students ideas on how to learn vocabulary, but their final selection will be personal. (a) We can teach them shortcuts to help them retain (and later retrieve) vocabulary. Mnemonics, which have been developed down the ages, are ways of tapping conceptual networks and inserting new words and expressions, with their many inferences into these networks. Since we know well that idiosyncratic ways of organizing and chunking material

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for storage in memory lead to more efficient recall, individual ways of remembering material can only be useful. 14 Under this heading come color associations; associations with native-language words, with scenes, objects, perfumes, personal memories in any modality, with other second language words, with rhyming sequences or with cognates in a third or fourth language. (b) Concepts are associated in memory according to such relations as superordinate/subordinate (animal, cat); similarity/difference (knife, dagger, stone, feather); part (house, room); attribute, which often evokes a syntagma (green grass); agent and function (oil, cooking; barber, cut); proximity (cafeteria, kitchen); consequence (cold, sneeze); precedence (unemployment, recession); and parent (baby, mother). Since the mind works in this way, games and competitions that evoke such relationships are very useful and should be introduced frequently in order to recirculate vocabulary through the mind in different contexts.15 (c) Helpful in establishing concept relationships that lead to successful inferencing are processes of: - Compounding: creating new words from old (bottle-opener, sit-in), and even creating words that do not as yet exist but which could be words of the language (like glass-shatterer). This represents a process that is going on every day in English (e.g. child-proof; fail-safe). Students can help themselves out of many difficulties by knowing what 'sounds right' and could be a word of the language. - Topping and tailing: cutting off prefixes and suffixes and finding the nucleus of a word, so that each unfamiliar word encountered does not become an impenetrable new experience (as in our own decipherment of dis/establish/ment/arian/ism). - Penetrating disguises: In all languages today there is a growing international vocabulary to refer to many modern processes, activities, and interests. These words (jazz, jet, taxi, pipeline) are known to the language learners in their native language but may not be recognized immediately in English. They need to know the common ways of transforming them into native language words, by inserting vowels between the consonants, for instance, or by purely phonological transformations. (d) Free associations, practice with collocations of related words and concepts, chaining words in syntagmas for fun, cloze exercises, word puzzles, word games,^diagrammatic demonstrations of coverage and range of meaning of closely related concepts, all help to establish and confirm relations among items of the new language. The activated processes of recall and retrieval provide further opportunities for the rehearsal and frequent association that are essential if material is to remain available in longterm memory for immediate use as required. Constant use, which is

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WilgaM.Rivers dependent on interest and focused attention, will ensure the maintenance of the item in a readily reactivated semantic network.

Although single words and expressions are cited in the preceding discussion, the types of activities developed should involve using the words in the context of meaningful utterances in a communicative exchange, thus establishing and strengthening many influential links and forming associations with many conceptual nodes. Potential meanings are provided by a new language, but these are realized by motivated individuals. Never mind a f e w spoonerisms and solecisms - they make such good stories at the next conference, and w e all make them. Let us encourage our students to love words, to collect them avidly, and to try to use them immediately in some meaningful way. We, as language teachers, are avid collectors of words. Let us communicate this enthusiasm to our students.

NOTES 1. 2.

J. A. Comenius. 1658. Orbis Sensualium Pictus. 286. J. F. Pestalozzi, quoted from L. F. Anderson. 1931. Pestalozzi. New York: McGraw-Hill.

3.

M. D. Berlitz. 1907. Berlitz Method of Teaching Modern Languages. Illustrated Edition for Children, English Part. New York: M. D. Berlitz. 5. F. Gouin. 1892. The Art of Teaching and Studying Languages. Transl. H. Swan and V. Betis. London: George Philip and Son/New York: Scribner's. 76-77.

4. 5. 6.

G. E. Vander Beke. 1929. French Word Book. New York: Macmillan. G. Lozanov, 1978. Suggestology and Outlines of Suggestopedy. New York: Gordon and Breach.

7.

T. Terrell, "A Natural Approach to Second Language Acquisition and Learning". Modern Language Journal 61. 325-37. D. H. Hymes. 1979. "On Communicative Competence". In: C. J. Brumfit and K. Johnson (eds). The Communicative Approach to Language Teaching. Oxford: O.U.P. 8.

8. 9.

F. de Saussure. 1959. Course in General Linguistics. C. Bally and A. Sechehaye (eds). Transl. W. Baskin. New York: Philosophical Library. 117. 10. Collins, A.N. and M. R. Quillian. 1972. "How to Make a Language User". In: E. Tulving and W. Donaldson (eds). Organization of Memory. New York: Academic Press. 313-14. 11. 12.

Halliday, M.A.K. 1973. Explorations in the Functions of Language. London: Edward Arnold. 72. Rivers, W.M. 1981. "Learning a Sixth Language: An Adult Learner's Daily Diary." Appendix B of Teaching Foreign-Language Skills, 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

13. Jenkins, J.A. 1973. "Language and Memory". In: G.A. Miller (ed.). Communication, Language, and Meaning: Psychological Perspectives. New York: Basic Books. 170. 14. See Luria, A. 1968. The Mind of a Mnemonist: A Little Book about a Vast Memory. New York: Basic Books. 15. For examples, see W.R. Lee, 1974. Language Teaching Games and Contests. Oxford: O.U.P.

A Study of the Intelligibility of Nigerian English Brian Tiffen

This research, entitled The Intelligibility of Nigerian English, was begun in Nigeria in 1968 and submitted as a doctoral thesis of the University of London in 1974. This summary outlines the main findings of the study. The subjects used for the investigation were 24 first year Nigerian university students, 12 speaking Yoruba as their mother tongue and 12 mother tongue speakers of Hausa. Each Nigerian speaker made recordings consisting of a text of impromptu connected speech, a reading passage, a test on phonemic discrimination and tests on stress and intonation. The recordings were later played back to 240 British listeners, each of the 24 Nigerian speakers being rated by 10 British listeners. It is not possible here to go into details of the tests, but the findings that are given are based largely on the intelligibility of the connected speech passages to British listeners, corroborated where appropriate by the results of the other tests. The causes of intelligibility failure were categorised into four major groupings, which are shown here, together with the areas of phonetic error subsumed under each heading: 1.

Rhythmic/stress:

2.

Segmental:

3.

Phonotactic:

4.

Lexical/syntactic:

incorrect rhythm (including rhythmic compression), incorrect word stress, incorrect elision of syllables and incorrect phrasing. mispronunciation of vowels, diphthongs and consonants. incorrect elision of phonemes, mispronunciation of consonant clusters, metathesis and incorrect assimilation. incorrect, unusual or unfamiliar lexis, and incorrect or unusual syntax.

An analysis of the listener failures in connected speech showed that the major cause of intelligibility failure in Nigerian English is due to rhythmic/stress errors (38.2% of all errors), closely followed by segmental errors (33.0%). The various phonotactic errors were next in order of importance (20.0%), while lexical/syntactic errors (8.8%) were of relatively minor importance.

256 Brian Tiffen A scoring system was devised for the tests of connected speech. Scores revealed a wide range in the average intelligibility of educated Nigerian speakers' English. Scores varied from 92.7% to 29.9%, with an average score of 64.4%. The averages for Yoruba and Hausa speakers were 57.1% and 71.7% respectively.

SUMMARY OF PHONETIC ERRORS LEADING TO INTELLIGIBILITY FAILURE

(a) Rhythmic!stress errors Two main types of deviation from the normal rhythmic pattern of English were noted. First, particularly with Yoruba speakers, a number of instances of intelligibility failure were caused by the speaker stressing too many syllables in the utterance, resulting in a staccato-like rhythm confusing to listeners. In these cases both content and form words appeared to be stressed indiscriminately. Among the latter, instances of stress on personal pronouns, prepositions and determiners were noted. A typical example is shown in two speakers' utterances: 1

1 'am hot 'given too 'much 'work to 'do 'The 'choice of'their 'son The second deviation, more common with Hausa speakers, occurred when words that would normally be stressed in English were left unstressed, resulting in utterances that contained too few stressed syllables. As a result, important content words, signalling meaning, were not inteipreted correctly or were completely misunderstood by listeners. Examples were noted of nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs left unstressed and also of auxiliary verbs being stressed at the expense of the full verb accompanying it, e.g.: having a very 'nice time We are t>eing trained Incorrect word stress, where the Nigerian speakers' accentual pattern within the word differed from the normal English pattern, also accounted for a considerable number of intelligibility failures. Two main types of error were noted. Firstly, there was a tendency, in words normally bearing the stress on the first syllable, for the Nigerian speakers to shift the stress away from the first syllable onto succeeding syllables, e.g.: in 'to

move 'ment

inter Val

ca'tegory

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257

Secondly, many speakers used two primary stresses on words which normally have only one stress, or one primary and a secondary stress, e.g.: 'welcome

'physi'cal

o'ver'bearing

Incorrect elision of whole syllables was comparatively rare. The elisions noted occurred mainly on unstressed syllables in post-nuclear position, containing /a/or /1 /, or at word boundaries, e.g.: tightening f'taitin] government [t)AV8nt] social aspect [soij aspekt] Incorrect phrasing, which is, of course, closely connected with incorrect rhythm, usually occurred when the speaker was hesitating or thinking about his choice of words, resulting in an inteiruption of the rhythm of the sentence, together with incorrect intonation grouping, e.g.: most of/ what you/ do... where/ everything was/ virtually made... (b) Segmental errors Contrary to expectations a number of vowels commonly held to be major problems for Nigerian speakers, in particular /¡:, i / and/u:,U/did not appear to be problems as far as intelligibility in connected speech is concerned. Certainly the Nigerian speakers consistently failed to make the contrasts between these pairs of vowels, but this did not lead to intelligibility failure mainly because the context provided the necessary clues. The major areas of difficulty lay principally in the central and open back vowels. A summary of the principal RP vowels that led to intelligibility failure (in descending order of importance) is: Yoruba speakers / 3: / 114 failures /A/ 85 /o:/ 60 /»/ 16 /a:/ 15 / i: / 14

Hausa speakers 13:/ 49 failures /a: I 38 /ae/ 33 /VI 33 /A/ 25 /O:/ 18

It will be seen that the correct pronunciation of /3:/ constitutes the major vowel phoneme problem for both Yoruba and Hausa speakers, and that both groups of speakers share problems with /A /, /a:/, /o:/and / ae/. However, although there were less intelligibility failures involving vowels with Hausa speakers than there

258 Brian Tiffen were with Yoruba speakers, the distribution of the failures is different. With Yoruba speakers three major vowel problems are indicated: / 3: / > [3] or [o], /A / > [0], /O:/ > [0]. With Hausa speakers no one vowel error is as serious as any of the major Yoruba problems, but the difficulties are more evenly spread out over / 3: / > [a] and the other five vowel errors. It is also of interest to note that although schwa / a / is rarely used and is almost invariably given a full spelling pronunciation by Nigerian speakers, this does not lead to intelligibility failure with British listeners. It is therefore doubtful whether the amount of time and effort spent on teaching weak forms is justifiable. Of the diphthongs, /ei / is the only one that presents a real barrier to intelligibility, for both Yoruba and Hausa speakers. In nearly all cases it is pronounced as [e]. The number of intelligibility failures due to mispronunciation of consonants was considerably less than the number due to vowel errors. The main consonant phonemes that cause difficulty are: Initial / 9 / > [t] (Yoruba) / 0 / > [S] (Hausa)

Medial / z / > [s] (Yoruba) / i / > [p] (Hausa)

Final Syllabic / I / > [u] (Yoruba) /Q/ > [n] (Yoruba) / d / > [t] (Yoruba) / d 3 / > [ t j ] (Yoruba)

An actual count of all consonant intelligibility failures revealed that Yoruba speakers make more errors with consonants in initial and final positions, whereas Hausa speakers tend to make more errors with consonants in medial position.

(c) Phonotactic errors Incorrect elision of phonemes was a serious cause of intelligibility failure, particularly in the case of Yoruba speakers. Elision of phonemes in final position within the word or at word boundaries constituted the greatest difficulty. In particular, nasals in final position in the word led to many failures, the nasal frequently being replaced by a final nasalised vowel or diphthong, e.g. seen [ 'si ], time [tai ], dining [ Wain J ]. With both groups of speakers one of the commonest difficulties lay in the realisation of / nt / in the negative form of auxiliary verbs, e.g. wouldn't refuse [ 'wunan ], didn't like [ 'dint ] or [ 'din ]. Mispronunciation of consonants clusters, especially in final position, also led to many intelligibility failures. A large proportion of these involved the pronunciation of plural nouns or third person singular verbs, i.e. the combination CC + / S / or / z / . In most cases the consonant or consonants preceding the final sibilant were omitted. Thus, notes > [ 'nos ], needs > [ 'nis ], rules > [ 'ru:z ], etc.

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Metathesis, leading to intelligibility failure, was an uncommon occurrence. Incorrect assimilation led to a few cases of failure. Assimilations were, with one exception, all regressive. Alveolar fricatives and stops were particularly susceptible to incorrect assimilation before Idl word boundaries, e.g. realise the (value) [rea'laiddi], approach the (girl) [e'proucJcJi]. (d) Lexical and syntactic errors These were not a serious problem, as might be expected given the level of education of the speakers. However, intelligibility failures did occur through incorrect choice of verb or incorrect idiom, e.g. I met the contrary Some strokes of the bell or through unusual lexis, e.g. it doesn't sound well to me I passed out (= left school) in 1964. or through unfamiliar lexis, especially with terminology or idioms commonly used in Nigeria, e.g. senior brothers tight (= close) friends Syntactic errors also led to some instances of intelligibility failure, usually because of incorrect verb forms, e.g. I had strong aspiration for going she only need to present or through unusual syntax, e.g. we are three in a room a goal to be registered by an opponent. This is the first time that these findings have been published. It is hoped that they will be of interest to textbook writers, teachers, teacher-trainers and others.

Where Have All the Phoneticians Gone? John L.M. Trim

It seems at first a strange paradox that whilst the communicative approach now dominant in language teaching places more emphasis than ever on face-to-face communication, the high degree of expertise in phonetics which was once the hallmark of British ELT appears to be fast disappearing. The pre-eminent position of phonetics among the linguistic sciences in the first half of this century seems to be readily understandable historically. Classical phonetics, as a set of techniques for the observation and notation of the articulated movements of the organs of speech in the production of speech sounds, and of the acoustic effects themselves, developed around the middle of the nineteenth century largely in response to practical concerns such as the teaching of the deaf, phoniatrics, the teaching of singing and elocution as well as dialectology. In particular, it appears to have been the interaction among musicians, medical men and philologists in Leipzig (the same man might be a speaker of German, with a knowlegde of French and English, with some Italian, educated in Latin and Greek, a practising doctor and a competent amateur musician) which produced the neogrammarian revolution of the 1870s. The paradigm change was profound, involving the rejection of classical values, attitudes, aims, objectives, methods and skills in favour of those which have characterised modem movements ever since. In the ensuing clash, still not finally resolved in certain countries in upper secondary and university education, it was phonetics, which gave every appearance of a developing body of firm knowledge, established public procedures, agreement among investigators and replicability of experimentation, that lent credibility to the claim of the modernists to represent a scientific approach to language. The great reform in language teaching of the 1880s, now firmly associated with Viëtor's call for reform, was the logical response of language teachers trained in neogrammarian methods and involved with its ideology to the challanges of the classroom. It was, of course, the action of the French teachers of English which led to the founding of the International Phonetics Association (IPA) and its journal le maître phonétique (mf). Throughout its existence, mf continued to be published in phonetic transcription and to contain parti dez ele. v, transcriptions of passages designed for use with pupils in language teaching classes.

262 John L.M. Trim Throughout the inter-war period, English phonetics was dominated by Daniel Jones and his colleagues at University College London. A pupil of Paul Passy, the founder of the IPA, Jones came accidentally to phonetics from a mathematical and musical background. Unlike Sweet, for whom the practical study of languages remained a preliminary training for historical investigations of language, Jones had no philological or linguistic background. Though he did some work on the historical reconstruction of earlier pronunciations of English, this was a marginal interest. He was ambivalent in his attitude to scholarship based on research into the literature of the subject, considering that it was likely to prejudice and distort direct observation. His contribution and that of his school lay in close attention to phonetic detail and principles of classification and notation. This was, however, always seen as in the service of practical ends, above all in language teaching. The rather austere, rigorous and exacting, but highly effective, method of phonetic training described in the first chapter of An Outline of English Phonetics (Jones 1962) was applied in courses leading to the College's Certificates of Proficiency in the Phonetics of French and of English, both as a foreign language and as mother tongue. All were highly respected and very influential. Jones' pupils in many parts of the world introduced a phonetic training into English language teaching in universities and in schools, making it a recognised aspect of teacher training. David Powell (Powell 1990) has recently drawn attention to a set of six principles drawn up by the IPA "at some early stage" for the teaching of foreign languages. He translates from the Spanish in which it was available to him, the second of these principles: "the first care of the teacher must be that the sounds of the foreign language become perfectly familiar to the student. To this end he/she should make use of a phonetic transcription which should be employed to the exclusion of traditional orthography in the first part of the course."

After outlining what appear to have been abortive attempts to implement the principles in Argentina, first in ministerial guidelines in 1913 and a 1924 textbook, he describes the decadent form in which he encountered it in the 1940s and its subsequent abandonment even by enthusiasts, concluding: "I am a firm believer in the usefulness of phonetic transcription in the teaching of languages under certain circumstances, but secondary schools (where a limited time is allotted to the teaching of foreign languages, and where, above all, the students are initially younger adolescents with little or no motivation), would seem to be little suited to this approach. The cases reported are, clearly, examples of misplaced zeal, which can only be justified or explained with reference to the period when they were first proposed."

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The principle was more widely adopted. When I entered a grammar school in suburban Essex in 1935, the first term was conducted orally, with phonetic script alone used, and sparingly. Joining late owing to illness, I resolved to have nothing to do with pseudo-writing and to await 'proper' spelling. By the end of term I, like others, was avid for literacy. However, the point had been made. We had a reasonable clear image of the sound structure of French, which appeared coherent and straightforward, though of course different from English. The problem, as we already knew it in English, was how to spell. Later, of course, we encountered many words first in their written form. In most cases, there was no great problem: the orthoepic conventions of French are not simply arbitrary. In other cases, we had to guess which of a number of possible spoken forms in fact corresponded to the written form. In my case, I do not remember any cases among my fellow pupilks of lasting confusion between phonetic and orthographic spelling, of grossly anglicised pronunciation or of serious interference from English spelling conventions. The attitudes, skills and techniques involved were not, to the best of my recollection, made explicit, but communcated through actio or deduced from experience. I am not aware that other kinds of learning suffered as a result. For these reasons, though it is indeed possible to relate the principle quoted by Powell to the circumstances of the foundation of the IPA, my personal experience as a pupil does not lead me to dismiss it so easily. However, professional opinion, no doubt based on wider experience, rapidly turned against the phonetic method in the teaching of French in England. In fact, the young teacher who had used it with us left shortly after. Meeting him at an inter-school sports meeting in 1938,1 told him of my reactions at the time and my growing realisation of the value of that introduction. He smiled and said: "Oh, that's all over now. We don't do it like that any more". It would be interesting to know what changes, perhaps in the Inspectorate, the Institute of Education or in MLA, may have contributed to that change. In the EFL field, Jones' influence was powerful and long lasting. The Outline and the English Pronouncing Dictionary (EPD) established norms unchallenged throughout most of the century. A high proportion of the most influential scholars in many parts of the world had received the training and passed it on, as far as possible, to their own pupils. British EFL, then in its infancy, was also strongly influenced. Jones' department was certainly one of the first - perhaps the only - academic institution of that period to establish a post and to recognise research in the field. Harold Palmer's Lectureship in the Grammar of Spoken English, his publication of the same name, together with his methodological writings and work on intonation, exercised a powerful influence on the British Council officers and others involved in the post-war expansion of EFL, providing

264 John L.M. Trim a counter-pole to the Post-Bloomfieldian Structuralism emanating from America. In that period, professionalism and high expertise in phonetics, covering sounds, stress and intonation were regarded internationally as the great strength of British EFL. That could hardly be maintained today. What is the reason for the change? One factor is, no doubt, that we live in an innovatory age when little value is attached to the maintenance of received knowledge and traditional skills. In a sense, Jones' system was too good, appearing to leave to a subsequent generation only the refinement of detail and the transmission of a craft - the role, indeed of epigones. Meanwhile, the replacement in mainstream linguistics of taxonomic phonemics by a more abstract approach to phonology, connected to phonetic reality in a far less direct way, and the turning away in applied linguistics from contrastive linguistics and interference theory discredited the theoretical basis of the system. In many universities, phonetic exercises continued, but often in an aetoliated form, indeed replacing one writing system with another, accompanying routinised drilling. This seemed itself to be less and less necessary. The ready availability of cheap sound recording and replay facilities caused many language teachers and administrators to fall victim to the often meretricious claims of manufacturers that simple imitation and self-monitoring could replace phonetic training, thus saving time, effort and the need for skills in the teacher. Of course, if properly analysed, imitation and self-monitoring are much more complex operations than at first appears, so that exaggerated expectations of the language laboratory soon yielded to an equally exaggerated disenchantment. Yet this disillusion did not result in a return to phonetic training, though all the factors so far discussed can be seen, on examination, to be less damaging than they seem. Classical Jonesian phonetic training is not simply a matter of behaviouristic conditioning. Strong habituation to mother tongue articulations and speech sound perception is countered not by a counter-conditioning process, but rather by sensory re-education, awareness-raising and consciousness of goals. The long-term value of these cognitive resourses is of greater significance than drilling. Again, the inadequacy of taxonomic phonemics as a phonological model does not invalidate its usefulness as a metalanguage for learner awareness-raising, an important part of which is still consciousness of the differences in the sound-structures of LI and L2, with their articulatory and acoustic correlates (in which, of course, distinctive features play an essential role). Of greater importance than technical or theoretical factors is undoubtedly the change in fundamental attitudes to language norms, which is in turn part of more far-reaching socio-economic changes in the English-speaking countries and their relation to the rest of the world. The English phoneticians who codified RP were most reluctant to accept their role as establishing norms. Writing the Preface to his Primer of Spoken English

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in 1890, Henry Sweet, while defining its aim as being "to give a faithful picture of educated spoken English as distinguished from vulgar and provincial English on the one hand, and literary English on the other hand", explicitly disclaims any intention of setting up a standard of spoken English (Sweet 1900). In the first edition of The Pronunciation of English, Daniel Jones states that the work is primarily designed for the use of teachers in connecting cockneyisms or other undesirable pronunciations in their scholars, and to enable lecturers, barristers, clergy, etc. to avoid "the dialectal peculiarities, indistinctness and artificialities which are unfortunately so common in the pronunciation of public speakers" (Jones 1911:vii). He has no hesitation in adopting the "careful conversational style" of "the general usage of educated people in the South of England" as a standard pronunciation and calling it so. In later editions of this work of the Outline of English Phonetics and of the English Pronouncing Dictionary, however, his approach is much more guarded. The term 'standard' is dropped, although "one can see from several points of view that a standard speech would have its uses" (Jones 1958:3), in favour of the more opaque, but actually more objectionable 'received' (RP). As Gimson points out in his careful, historical account, the term suggests "that it is the result of a social judgement" (Gimson 1962:83). Jones defines it as "based on my own (Southern) speech ... that generally used by those who have been educated at 'preparatory' boarding schools and the 'Public Schools'. This pronunciation is fairly uniform in these schools and is independent of their locality" (Jones 1962:12). The socio-dialectology of accent in England can therefore take the form of a cone as attributed by Ida Ward to Daniel Jones, in which the base represents the wide variety of local pronunciations in their broadest form and the apex RP. The population in any one area can be placed along a continuum from a point on the base to the apex. There is a strong statistical correlation between the position of individuals along this continuum and their social status. In Henry Sweet's day, benevolently caricatured by Shaw in Pygmalion and more sharply in his celebrated remark that "each time an Englishman opens his mouth he makes some other Englishman despise him", the social judgements were virtually unchallenged, hence the easy disclaimers of intentions to establish a standard. All British phoneticians from Bell to Gimson were describing a remarkably uniform (though not static) body of behaviour. No 'standard' was prescribed, because it was self-evident. Social mobility presented no challenge to the model so long as it was accompanied by movement along the accent continuum and resulted only in a displacement of the statistical distribution of populations within the cone, with a trend away from the base towards the apex. In the period from 1920 - 1960, the advent of widely available state grammar school education and the advent of broadcasting in the Reith ara seemed actually to reinforce the structure. RP remained a sign of education.

266 John L.M. Trim I well recall, in the middle fifties, a student at Westfield College from Rochdale telling me of her tutor's instructions to overcome her (in fact, warm and attractive) Pennine accent, with the words: "Now that you are supposed to be educated, you should at least try to sound it." In 1962, Gimson noted the erosion of the dialectal base, especially in respect of stigmatised urban speech: "those who wish, for any reason, to modify their speech have models of RP always readily available to their ears while, at the same time, the social inhibitions concerning movement between classes, which were formerly so strongly operative, no longer, in the face of standardisation of society as a whole, exact the same pressure."

There is a glimpse here of the Fabian ideal at the heart of the post-war political consensus: a largely classless society in which the former lower classes have a comfortable standard of living and enjoy the good things of life: they read good books, listen to good music, go to the theatre, are tolerant, socially responsible and all speak RP! Gimson was, however, a more sensitive observer. He noted that communications media "rendered other forms of pronunciation less remote and strange" and acknowledged that "all RP types are liable to be considered affected by those who use unmodified regional speech". Gimson was less inhibited than Sweet and Jones in speaking of a standard, referring to RP as "this implicidy accepted social standard of pronunciation": "it is clear that a standard pronunciation does exist, although it has never been explicitly imposed by any official body."

Towards the end of his life, Jones went much further: "It can no longer be said that any standard exists, nor do I think it desirable to attempt to establish one. It is useful that descriptions of existing pronunciation should be recorded, but I no longer feel disposed to recommend any particular forms of pronunciation for use by English people or to condemn others. It must in my view be left to English-speaking people to decide whether they should speak in the manner that comes naturally, or whether they should alter their speech in any way. Anyone desiring to modify his pronunciation will find in this book suggestions as to how changes may be affected, but I feel that the responsibility for putting any such suggestions into effect should rest with him." (Jones 1956:v)

In fact, socio-economic and political changes since the early sixties have led to a complex, even confusing, situation. On the one hand, the rapid development of mass media and other means of communication have greatly increased the standardisation of society. We all shop in the same supermarkets and watch the same television programmes, and thus have much more of our receptive experience of language in common than ever before.

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On the other hand, social and cultural diversity persists. Popular music, the tabloid press, mass entertainment and sport have produced populist counterpoles to traditional middle-class cultural values, which are not now being fed as they were by contemporary artistic production. Market-driven media, in which mass advertising plays an increasing role, tend to reinforce the disparity between different market sectors: popular mass culture, youth culture, up-market prestige culture. Political policies, following the collapse of the 'Butskellite' consensus have emphasised socio-economic differentials, yet at the same time undermined or even swept away conservative structures. In reaction to the centralising forces which dominate the real determinants, cultural provincialism is strong. Amid the flux of diverse, even incoherent and often artificial experience, identity presents problems. Currently, the popular long-running radio and TV serials, presenting the population with models for its various life-roles, one is set in rural England, others respectively in working-class districts of London and Northern England, another in suburban Australia, another in wealthy Texan society. Whilst it remains true that British broadcasting companies, like the BBC, have their national announcers speak RP, this is not true of regional announcers, let alone weather forecasters or sports commentators, comperes of chat shows or quiz programmes, as well as performers and actors of all kinds. Where is the individual to find his or her role model? The message conveyed is: we live in a diverse, but articulated, society. Where do you fit into it? In this context, RP is seen for what it is: "a social accent associated with the upper end of the social class continuum" (Wells 1990), "a handicap if used in inappropriate situations, since it may be taken as a mark of affectation or a desire to emphasize social superiority" (Gimson 1962:84). At the same time, orthodox linguistic theory has been almost entirely relativistic. No one language (or dialect, sociolect or idiolect) can be regarded as inherently superior to any other. This principle, central to the assertation of the modem (post neo-grammarian) paradigm against the classical paradigm may in fact be questionable if seriously investigated. It has, however, been assimilated into orthodox educational modernism. In the absence of any serious attempt to evaluate carefully the advantages and disadvantages of a standard pronunciation (the angle from which the question was approached in a culturally polycentric Germany), the adoption of RP by, say, a university student with some acquaintance with linguistics could only be seen as replacing one accent by another of no greater value, as an attempt (not likely to be fully successful) to deny one's provenance and to pretend to a membership of a higher social class than the rest of one's family. Needless to say, this was, and in many cases still is, likely to invite resentment and/or ridicule without securing any significant advantage. With the wider availability of role models, indeed, some young people, especially young women, from traditional RP backgrounds seem to be deliberately

268 John L.M. Trim distancing themselves from RP, at any rate from its phonetic values, conservative or advanced, with their negative connotations. Asa result, the body of behaviour which may be characterised as RP is losing its coherence and clear image. At the same time, the rapidly developing role of English as a means of international communication among non-native speakers, as well as its established position as a national second language in some otherwise linguistically fragmented Commonwealth countries raises the question of the status of nonnative varieties. For reasons which are not altogether clear, sociolinguists have been slow to extend this total relativism in respect of native varieties of English, to non-native varieties, which have been accorded no status whatever. Démocratisation has remained a purely domestic matter! If a Londoner says [if aid e v vriA a n I aid av toirc^e], this is his dialect, which is to be respected. If what appears to be the same structure is used by a German speaker [if aevud hef no:n I aewd hef to.lt ju.H ], it is a gross interference error, to be corrected and eradicated. The dilemma becomes particularly acute in the case of established exogenic communities. How can one say that local communities of British citizens of West Indian origin speak a language full of pronunciation errors? After all they have simply moved from one part of the English speaking world to another, bringing their native language, with the continuum of post-Creole varieties with them. Can one distinguish their situation from that of their dialect-speaking neighbours without falling into discriminatory racism? How then are we to view the speech of their other neighbours of South Asian origin? Is their speech to be stigmatised because they have transferred from a country in which English has remained a second language? Is Indian English to be corrected in schools as containing errors, whilst that of West Indians, or of local dialect speakers is respected and tolerated? If both Indian and West Indian forms of English are to be accepted as extensions to the Jonesian cone, as dialects which, like some others of longer standing, result from substrate influences, further paradoxes arise. If a young girl in Bangladesh is learning English at school, are those influences to be regarded as sources of error, to be combatted and penalised, whereas if she actually comes to live in England, joining, say, other members of the extended family in West London, the same features are no longer errors but acceptable dialect variants? And what of other settled communities - say Hong Kong Chinese, who have a strong sense of ethnic identity, but tend to disperse in family groups rather than congregate in territoral units?

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What then of other permanent residents of diverse origin, who preserve varying degrees of interference from their original mother tongues? It would indeed be ironic if we were only to regard systematic mother tongue interference as producing errors so long as the learners are abroad, but acceptable once they become resident in the country. Can the Jonesian cone be simply extended to include non-native accents? The idea is attractive. The base would then be the "broadest" dialectal form, in the sense of the strongest mother tongue interference. The apex would be exact conformity to RP. Individual speakers would fall along the continuum between, not exacdy as a function of their social status, but in terms of their phonetic ability, extent of contact with spoken English, professional involvement, etc. As with British regional speech, many speakers might have no motivation to occupy a position closer to RP than is necessary to effective communication. Powell is undoubtedly expressing a general view in implying that it would be difficult to justify the use of educational resources (especially teaching time) beyond that point. As a basis for British EFL that is possible, but perhaps now impractical. As to pronunciation, one particular native accent of English is to be taken as a model for learning and teaching. If the model is to be British English, then it has always been taken as self-evident that that means RP. Indeed, reference books and textbooks have all been produced on that assumption and continue to be. But who is to teach it? In the days when RP was unchallenged as a de facto standard in Britain, it could be expected that teachers of English, especially to foreigners would be recruited from those who either spoke it from childhood or had acquired it as part of their professional equipment. Now, EFL teachers are very likely to be recruited from those whose families were not RP speaking and who have seen the acquisition of RP not as professional conformity to a functional standard, but as a highly questionable social gesture. The strength of RP, phonetically, that it was an actual body of practice capable of analysis in any required depth, as opposed to a more abstract system setting out constraints upon diversity in the interests of communication, thus becomes in some ways self-defeating. How can non-RP native English speakers teach an accent that is not their own? How, if they were to do so, would they justify that accent as mandatory upon foreign learners, but not upon themselves? How would they deal with the socio-cultural issues involved? Yet how could they justify (or even implement) the effective teaching of their own non-RP accent? The only answer seems to be to brush the issue aside as of no importance, or to concentrate ad hoc on particular features which RP and the teacher's own accent have in common as opposed to that of the learners. Either solution leads away from systematic teaching and awareness raising which have been at the heart of effective phonetic teaching. In turn, the reluctance of substantial numbers of

270 John L.M. Trim teachers to engage in the systematic teaching of pronunciation, and of training institutions to impose RP on non-RP students and hence to include phonetic methodology in training programmes, is a strong disincentive to authors and publishing houses in the production of materials and to examining bodies in devising tests and evaluating their results. The consequence is a substantial de-professionalisation of TEFL in this respect. It is to be feared, but will not be unexpected, that Trinity College will be under pressure to reduce its commitment in that respect. The conical solution is, in any case, unacceptable on an international level. Native English is polycentric. From the point of view of non-native learners, a range of native models offer themselves, each providing its own cone. How are they to be reconciled? What appears to be called for is a serious investigation of the intercomprehensibility of the various forms of spoken English, native and non-native. Since it is clear that English will be used internationally to an ever greater extent among non-natives, comprehensibility to native listeners is not a proper criterion. Indeed, one crucial paradox is that learners with a very limited command of the language are at once those most dependent on clear speech from the partner and most likely to be subject to heavy mother tongue interference in their own speech. The implication seems to be that, in the interests of communicaton, a basic phonetic proficiency (listening and speaking) may rank higher as an early learning objective than is generally thought. To provide appropriate performance targets and criteria for different classes of learner with a view to their communicative needs is, in the area of pronunciation as in any other, the basic step in the planning of language learning and teaching. To summarise, changes in the status of RP both in Britain and internationally, the growth of English as an international language and changes in attitudes to error occasioned by the change in language learning criteria from formal correctness to communicative effectiveness, all demand a thoroughgoing re-assessment of the aims and methods of pronunciation teaching. This seems a feasible objective of cooperation among phoneticians, teachers, authors, publishers, examiners, administrators, user interests and, of course, the learners themselves. It is surely only through a fundamental reassessment of aims and objectives that the technical resources of phonetic training can again be fully mobilised in the learners' interests.

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REFERENCES Gimson, A.C. 1962. An introduction to the pronunciation of English. London: Arnold. Jones, DJ. 1909. The pronunciation of English. Cambridge: C.U.P. Jones, DJ. 1956. The pronunciation of English. 4th. edn. Cambridge: C.U.R Jones, D J . 1956. English pronouncing dictionary. 11th edn. London: Dent Jones, D J . 1960. An outline of English phonetics. 9th edn. Cambridge: Heffer. Merkel, CJL. 1866. Physiologie der menschlichen Sprache. Leipzig: Wigand Palmer, H. 1924. A grammar of spoken English. Cambridge: Heffer. Powell, D. 1990. "Applying an IPA principle". Journal of Phonetics. 20/1 Sweet, H. 1900. A primer of spoken English. 3rd. edn. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Trim, J.L.M. 1961. "English standard pronunciation". English Language Teaching 16/1.28-37. Reprinted in: W.R. Lee (ed.). 1967. ELT selections 2. Oxford: O.U.P. Trim, J.L.M. 1976. "Die Junggrammatiker nach 100 Jahre". Akten des V. Internationalen Germanisten-Kongress. Cambridge, 1975. Trim, J.L.M. 1987. "Daniel Jones' 'classical' model of pronunciation training: an applied linguistic revaluation". In: Ross Steele and Terry Threadgold (eds). Language Topics: Essays in honour of Michael Halliday. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 69-78. Trim, J.L.M. 1989. "Linguistic norms and the concept of error". In: R. Freudenstein (ed.). Error in foreign languages: analysis and treatment. Publication of the Fédération Internationale des Professeurs de Langues Vivantes (FIPLV) and the Foundation for European Language and Educational Centres (Eurocentres). Vol. 1. Marburg: Informations Zentrum für Fremdsprachforschung (IFS) der Philipps-Universität Viötor, W. 1882. Der Sprachunterricht muss umkehren! Heilbronn: Henninger. Victor, W. 1902. Die Methodik des neusprachlichen Unterrichts. Leipzig. Viötor, W. 1915. Elemente der Phonetik. 6th. edn. Leipzig. Wells, J. 1990. Longman pronunciation dictionary. Harlow: Longman.

Why do French-speakers have difficulty with coming and goingT Sidney F. Whitaker

Come and go would seem to be such obvious polar opposites that it must be surprising when speakers of a language which has a similar opposition between aller and venir should frequently select the wrong verb. (It may be worth pointing out that come corresponds to venir, and go to aller, though when used in combination the order is the reverse of the English. Why not going and coming in English? Why aller et venir rather than venir et aller in French? Whether logic or euphony is invoked, explanations are probably inconclusive, perhaps as with red, white and blue compared to bleu, blanc, rouge. English speakers say to and fro (= from), and even make verbs with the -ing inflection out of them: to-ing and fro-ing. Consistently, in French, coming and going, translates as va-et-vient, a sequence established also for electric switches - called just that - which allow operation at alternative points in a circuit.) Thus we have a letter from France to a prospective guest in Britain: "I am very happy that you will *go to France on holidays ..." And an account of an evening out concludes: "I *came back home at one o'clock of the morning." (While the "came" is obviously acceptable, it is abnormal, in such a narrative context, as against "got [back] home". Especially when the writer is not at home, writing, there is no call for him to "place" himself there. The notion of 'association/dissociation' is discussed below.) These are two examples, at intermediate level, of a 'confusion' which persists to advanced levels. It should be interesting to consider some explanations. First, we should question whether an opposition is quite as 'polar' as is easily assumed. To ask for 'the opposite of...', as is often done in vocabulary exercises and tests, and even in certain intelligence tests, is to betray pre-suppositions which are not necessarily universal. It is easy to imagine situations in which the opposite of either come or go is not the other of the two, but stay. "Are you going to... with me, or... with her?"

274 Sidney F.Whitaker Here, the blanks could be filled with any permutation or combination of come, go and stay, apart from other verbs if there were a free choice. Everything depends on the context, and on the envisaged movements, directions and associations. (Even if the combination "go with me, or come with her" seems improbable, it is only a matter of devising a scenario in which the direction of movement, the associations, and the range of meanings of come and go, are suitably defined. E.g. "I'm off to the exhibition, and you are proposing to come with your new colleague later. You and I are supposed to go to the reception together afterwards, but if you come to the exhibition with her, I refuse to go to the reception with you. It's your choice. Are you going to ...&c?") Is it possible, and reasonable, to try and establish a basic or essential meaning for come as opposed to go? We can attempt to explore the intuitions of native speakers, at the same time as we look at examples of use which are judged to be basic. (Later, trying to explore the intuitions of French speakers, with regard to their interlanguage, will prove much more hazardous, unless we confine ourselves to lexicologists or others whom we judge to have a shrewder insight into their own language use than naive informants can usually offer.) Our first examples might well involve an imperative. An imperative is clearly addressed to a 'second person', in the case of come inviting movement towards the speaker. (Authentic examples: "Come in!", "Come to the cookhouse-door, boys!", "Come up and see me sometime"). This would seem to be the obvious distinctive feature of come. Yet we soon see that the movement can equally be in the opposite direction: "Will you come to my place, or shall I come to yours?" One might specify that the coming addressee moves towards the speaker, or the speaker moves towards the addressee. Use of the telephone, where those who are dialoguing are separated in space, calls for a "simple" but additional act of imagination in visualizing the movement of an unseen partner. In fact, the movement can be by a 'third person' in a direction not towards the speaker: "Oh! Is George coming to your place too?" Third persons, coming, can move towards the speaker, or towards the addressee, but also to another focal point, at which neither the speaker nor the addressee are to be found, at least physically. (E.g. "They came to a bend in the road", or, more epically, "They Came to a City"). A typical dictionary will not attempt an exhaustive account of movement by different persons in different directions,. It is not surprising that the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (LDCE) should give as its first sense of come: "To move or travel... 1. to leave a place (so as to reach another)". Clearly, what we might call subjective overtones, in addition to objective movement,

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are involved. To my addressee I might say: "Go to the Town Hall", or "Come to the Town Hall [with me]". The direction of movement will be the same in each case, but in the first case the movement, in addition to being towards the Town Hall, will also be away from the speaker - unless the telephone is being used. The advent (or coming) of the telephone has greatly increased, one imagines, the opportunities for using come in this way. In the case of "Come to the Town Hall - I'll be back there shortly", movement is not exactly towards the speaker, but the addressee will still end his movement in the company of the speaker. We could re-define come, in such a case, as involving movement either towards or in the company of the speaker. The writer can even write: "Come to the Town Hall" without being in the Town Hall at the time, and it will be clear that the addressee is being invited to join the writer on a specified occasion. So it is not precisely the direction of movement that is in play, but the eventual conjunction of (1) the originator of the message, and (2) the addressee, at the same pace. I am inclined to call come the associative deictic verb. If it were only a matter of either coming or going, it might not be too hard to resolve the factor of association or dissociation, even before we look at French equivalents. If I say: "I'm going to Stives", you might agree to come with me; initially, I would be going, and you might decide to come, then we'd both be going. Since the initiative was mine, I would say to you: "Are you coming to St. Ives?" You would accept, and say: "Right, I'll come". Until you had set off, you would assure me that you were coming, and tell others that you were going, and I would announce that you were coming. Once under way, you would tell yourself that you were going, but announce to anyone in St. Ives, or heading there, that you were coming. However, very soon the movement would be described more specifically as getting away, getting off to a good start, getting on our way, getting on. I might urge you:"Come on! Let's gol" (The French would say: "Allez, viens!", = "Go on, cornel"). As we approached, we'd be getting nearer and eventually getting there or arriving. Very soon we might have to think about getting away again, or leaving, and getting back, or getting home. That is the case, whether or not we had got on or off a train or bus, or got in and got out of a car. For each of these stages and operations of entering vehicles, there is a more specific term than go or come, (e.g. board, alight) though some observers might urge you to go on, or come on or to go back or come back, according to their positions and dispositions. (Another interlingual contrast: the French will urge you on with: "Allez! "= "go on", while the English cheer: "Come on, United!"). Translation is not going (sic!) to be easy. In fact, the appropriate term may not come easily to mind. It is noteworthy that, of twenty-four sentences given as the first examples in LDCE of come used in something like its basic sense, only four were translated by French informants using venir (and only three in a similar experiment into Spanish). Among those not translated with venir are:

276 Sidney F. Whitaker What time are you coming back? (revenir) The little girl came running to her mother for sympathy, (courir vers) They've come hundreds of miles to be here tonight, (parcourir) Computer technology has come a long way since the 1970's. (faire des progrès) I've been waiting for hours and he still hasn't come, (arriver) Christmas is coming soon, (arriver) We now come to the main business of the meeting, (arriver) The news came as great shock to him. (être un choc) The bill could hardly have come at a worse time, (arriver) The water came up to my neck, (arriver) Her hair comes down to her waist, (tomber) The address should come above the date, (mettre audessus) Your family should always come before your job. (passer avant) She came first in the exam, (être la première) The general came to power in a military coup, (prendre le pouvoir) The new law comes into effect next month, (entrer en application) The government is coming under pressure to change, (la pression s'exerce) The car skidded off the road and came to rest in a field, (s'arrêter) The buttons on my coat came undone, (se défaire) And this is before we come to, or reach, the 'Fixed Phrases': come to that, come to think of it, come clean, come a cropper, come unstuck, or the Phrasal Verbs, which occupy another three columns. The impossibility of a literal translation suggests that Longman's lexicographers have assembled a good range of meanings for come. The range is perhaps no less wide for go, which instead of 'towardsness' or association has 'awayness' or dissociation as its overtone. Here again we find a more specific verb of motion used for the translation of the sentences given as examples. First, where a synonym is depart: When does the train go? ( French: partir) He went early, (partir) I left my pen on the desk and now it's gone, (disparaître) He went away and left me. (abandonner) Then, with a range of meanings: The car's going too fast, (courir) Your suggestion will go before the committee, (mettre) I don't know where all my money goes to. (filer)

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She's going grey. (devenir) The milk went sour. (tourner) This school... has gone independent, (devenir) The company has gone bankrupt, (faire) He went white with anger, (pâlir) Her complaints went unnoticed, (passer) When the crops fail, the people go hungry, (avoir faim) My voice has gone because of my cold, (perdre) This clock doesn't go. (marcher) Ducks go "quack", (faire) He went like this with his hands, (faire) Again, there are more than four columns of other meanings, fixed phrases, and phrasal verbs, very few of which could be rendered with the use of aller. None of this is very surprising, and a bilingual dictionary, if it is really helpful, will assemble all such cases where a literal translation of one verb by its 'counterpart' is abnormal or impossible, and provide a suitable translation. I have counted some sixty out of sixty-four entries, before compounds and phrasal verbs are reached, in which venir does not appear in the translation. While a word-frequency count might establish how often, within a chosen corpus, a verb other than venir is used in what may seem to an English-speaker to be the same semantic field as venir, my present thesis is that the aller/venir polarity is much less definite in French, because there are many areas in which another aspect of the motion is marked. Instead of 'towardsness' versus laway-from-ness', other notions are given prominence: departure v. arrival, outward journey v. return, upward v. downward, outward v. inward, reducing v. increasing distance... Such notions conceal the going or coming aspect. A good example of a French verb with a different coverage, which can include coming or going, is rentrer. Let us take the third person: e.g., Mon collègue est rentré tard ; Mon fils est rentré tard. If home is understood, as it usually is, in the context of this late return, (to use a generic, non-specifically directional term), then these may be translated as: "My colleague went home late"; "My son came home late". It could be said that, in these examples, the English coming or going notion is overlaid by the 'home-reaching' notion, as in "They got home late". Home is a notoriously polyvalent deictic, usually in intensive relationship with the subject, unless the relationship is specified by a personal determiner: "He went to their home". (E.g. "They all went home" could be said of 10,000 students going to

278 Sidney F.Whitaker their different homes, or of the members of a family going to their possibly one home.) In English, too, the coming/going parameter can be masked in favour of the double journey: "Your mother's been to London today", versus "The gasman's been". The multi-purpose verb get, with the appropriate preposition or particle, may also conceal the come/go deictic nexus. "I got to the office early", (in which the end-point, arrival at the office, is the relevant feature), may be understood as a coming movement, if uttered in or near the office, such that it could be expanded: "As I was coming, I made up my mind to get this finished." Said in a pub later in the day, "I got to the office early", evokes a going movement, of which the end-point, anival, is again the key focus. It could be expanded: "As I was going to the office, I made up my mind..." In each case, respectively, the speaker would naturally say: "I have come early, to get this finished"and "I went in early, to get the thing finished". The point at issue here is that the same verb phrase, I got to the office early, is consistent only with come in one instance, and with go in the other. There is a covert distinction. Perhaps error arises, with the French speaker who has no all-purpose equivalent verb like 'get', through translation of a micro-text, a word-by-word procedure which greater skill and practice should eradicate. The coming (associative) or going (dissociative) aspect will often be marked overtly in English, where it is not in French. The response to a knock on the door will be marked: "Come in!", whereas in French it will be: "Entrez!" If outside the door, two people would decide to go in. In French it would again be entrer, solely a matter of 'entering' rather than 'going'. Similarly, in a lift (or elevator), a passenger being joined might indicate that his purpose was going up or going down, whereas the French person would use a different verb in each case, monter or descendre. For these specific aspects of motion: inward v. outward, upward v. downward, etc., English will frequently use what we may lump together, for present purposes, as phrasal verbs:

Why do French-speakers have difficulty with 'coming' and 'going' ? INWARD MOVEMENT OUTWARD UPWARD DOWNWARD REDUCING DISTANCE INCREASING DISTANCE ARRIVAL RETURN

279

go in entrer/rentrer come in go out sortir come out go up monter come up go down descendre come down go near (s')approcher come near go further away (s')éloigner come (here) get (there) come back go back

arriver rentrer/retourner/revenir

(While revenir might seem to be marked as come back, I have the evidence of several informants, some sophisticated, to confirm that revenir is often used in a going situation, just as rentrer is often used in a first-time entry situation). In using these verbs, then, the French speaker is not making a distinction between the English come/go alternatives; there is nothing on the surface to guide his choice when he turns to English. In a small-scale experiment, I found that the sentence "H faut que je rentré" was rendered by the more competent translators as: "I must go home". The less competent (as judged by general performance) offered: "I must (to) go back". Similarly, with an UPWARD example: "Je vous attend au premier étage. Montez/" was translated: "I am at the first floor. Let go up!" A "NO ENTRY" sign was explained as indicating that "You cannot come in". Leech has a simple account and helpful illustrations in An A-Z of English Grammar and Usage (Edward Arnold 1989). Come = "to me, with me, or to where I'm imagining myself to be". Go = "away from me or from where I'm imagining myself to be".

The difficulty lies in knowing where the speaker "imagines himself to be". An even more elusive factor than covert marking for associative ('come') and dissociative ('go') is the mental displacement, or de-centring, that is involved in attributing association to third persons. While an English-speaking male child will soon learn that "Mummy's coming!" (in French motherese: "Maman arrive!") promises movement towards him, (egocentric association), it will be some time before the child develops the notion that someone else may come to see Mummy. The child has to reject the primitive egocentric associative notion,

280 Sidney F.Whitaker and learn the possibility of other-directed association. The doctor may come, not only to see me, and Mummy, but he may come to see third parties, even unknown third parties. From one point of view, the doctor is simply going, but one can add an empathetic dimension, and see the doctor as coming towards the third party. Whether one adds that empathetic dimension, or not, is a matter of convention, maturity, and disposition. The convention is presumably learnt fairly easily, through imaginative experience (especially stories), when the listener, and later the reader, possibly like the author, participates actively, identifying to some extent with the chief characters. The listener hears the direct speech as though directed towards himself. "And the wicked giant said: 'I'm coming to gobble you all up!"' That, I seem to remember, is more frightening than : "I'm going to eat you all up". The enterprising child can soon transfer the device in play with another, and generalize to more mundane matters. However speculative that reconstruction may be, it seems clear that an optional displacement of egocentric association is involved when referring to third parties as coming to a certain situation. "They were disappointed. The postman didn't come". With regard to such as the postman, the notion of coming is so ingrained that only a detached narrative would justify a cold alternative statement: "The postman did not call at their house". By way of unusual de-centring, the author of a natural history article writes: "As I came out into the garden, there seemed to be a rustling of wind in the trees, but there was no movement of base twigs. Looking up, I saw ..." (My emphasis)

Egocentrically, an individual will see his own movement as going: "I am going to my friend's house". It is only if convention, maturity and disposition favour the mental displacement that he will include the Mend's perspective in his consciousness when speaking to her, and say: "I am coming this afternoon". All English-speaking friends would expect that displacement to be marked linguistically. When summoned, a Spanish speaker would say: "Voy!", normally equivalent to "I am going", even though Spanish too has a regular ir/ venir (go/come) contrast. A Frenchman, summoned, will say: "J'arrive!" (Optimistic anticipation of the action itself is a common human weakness). The associative marking with 'come' does not need to be sustained throughout a particular narrative: "As I was coming to your house last night, I discovered a short cut and went along Bishop's Lane. I noticed a tablet on the wall, and (of course) went up to it, to read what it said..."

At what point the narrator reintroduces the associative 'come' will depend on his subjective proximity to the second person, who is the eventual goal of the

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narrator's movement. French-speakers do not appear to mark the associative marking as much. In any case, it will be concealed by the required inward, upward and other parameters previously listed. In large part, it is the fact that particles such as in, out, up, down, and back can be tagged on to the associative/dissociative come and go which makes the latter marking more prominent in English. The French will more often choose a different lexical verb. When they sing: "Allons, enfants de la patrie ..." it is hardly surprising that they are not too sure about going and coming.

NOTE •Previous studies:

1. Charles J.Fillmore, in Foundations of Language, 2, 3 (1966), pp. 219-27, explored the 'Deictic categories in the semantics of come', and elaborated three "supposition rules". He commented that these rules are characteristic of English and "the suppositional semantics of COME differs from that of translations of COME in many other langauges". 2. G.A. Pittman, in ELT 24 (1969-1970), pp. 147ff, studied the Bring=Come nexus, offering many examples of 'transformation' from bring to come and vice-versa. E.g. "The cry brought them running" "They came running". He did not, however, elucidate the selection of come tot reflect the direction of movement 3. Norman Coe, in ELT 27 (1972-1973), pp. 13742, on the strength of difficulties he had seen experienced by Scandinavian learners with bring and come, take and go, proposed contextualized practice to help students grasp the implied distinctions. He makes a reference to the 'extended' use of these verbs, for example, when the choice is determined "not by the physical position" of the speaker but "by where he is in his thoughts". It is surely necessary to take heed of ¿ a t elusive dimension.

Language education and culture

Peace Education in the Foreign-Language Classroom: Chances - Challenges - Problems Reinhold Freudenstein

In January 1987 a group of dedicated foreign-language educators from 14 European countries came together in Kiev (USSR) in order to discuss content and methods of teaching foreign languages and literatures for peace and understanding. The meeting was initiated and organized by Unesco, and it ended with a declaration which became known by the term LINGUAPAX. The declaration was addressed to teachers of foreign languages, to national and international associations in the language teaching field, and to ministries of education. It contained recommendations for the integration of peace education into foreignlanguage instruction from the curriculum level down to everyday classroom activities. The philosophy of the LINGUAPAX programme is to make "strenuous efforts to increase the effectiveness of teaching foreign languages with a view to enhancing mutual understanding, respect, peaceful coexistence and cooperation among nations".1 Ever since LINGUAPAX was introduced to the profession - a second and a third conference took place in Spain in 1989 and in Western Germany in March 1990 - I thought of ways to introduce the idea of peace education into the university training programmes for foreign-language teachers. My motivation was based on two ideas. The first line of thought was connected with the fact that peace education had always been implicitly connected with foreign-language teaching. A study of relevant documents - a syllabus, for example, or statements on foreign-language teaching objectives - confirms this view. One can often read that foreign-language teaching should promote friendly relations between the people of various countries. Language lessons are supposed to encourage a better understanding of other cultures. Learning a foreign language is regarded as a contribution towards the development of tolerance as the basis for mutual recognition - the list could easily be extended. Oddly enough, however, I had never come across the term 'peace' as being explicitly included in lists of general objectives, and I thought it should have been. Secondly, I felt that foreign-language teachers do have a particular responsibility for peace education because they are mediators between language barriers; they know best about dividing differences between cultures and they should therefore also know how to bridge cultural gaps in a peaceful way.

286 Reinhold Freudenstein With these objectives in mind, during the summer term of 1990,1 offered a seminar at my university for future foreign-language teachers entitled "Peace as a Learning Goal in Foreign-Language Instruction". The seminar was listed in the university catalogue, introduced to first-term students during a special meeting, and also promoted through a brochure containing annotated notes on forthcoming teaching events. In addition, an interdisciplinary working group at the university focusing on peace issues in society published a separate booklet in which all lectures and seminars were listed which - in the widest sense of the word - could be included in peace education. So the seminar was better prepared than other lectures, and I therefore expected a large number of students to enrol. When the term started, only six students - five female and one male - showed interest in the topic of the seminar. On the other hand, other university courses were accepted as usual; a seminar on teaching without textbooks was well attended, and one on drills and exercises in communicative language teaching attracted a considerable number of participants. Is "peace" an unpopular item in the curriculum of future teachers? This paper is a report on the activities in my seminar on peace education in the foreign-language classroom. My students and I decided not to cancel the course in spite of the small number of participants. We wanted to find out whether there was a lack of awareness of the problem, and if so, why. We also wanted to look at existing teaching materials in order to find out their potential for peace education, and we wanted to develop interesting and motivating exercises for classroom use ourselves. At least, that was our intention.

RESULTS OF A SURVEY

One of our first activities was to find out how pupils in schools experience foreign-language teaching, and what university students remember about their language learning at school. In particular we wanted to learn whether pupils and students saw a close connection between foreign-language teaching and peace education. The survey was conducted on the basis of questionnaires; it was not representative, but it supplied quite interesting results. 83 pupils at a high school in Bonn at secondary level - in their third, fourth and fifth year of learning English - said that the main medium of instruction was the textbook. 27 said that they 'always' talk about the texts and stories in their textbooks and not only use them as examples for new lexical items or grammar instruction. However, 55 confessed that this would only happen 'sometimes'. Only 50 per cent of the students felt that foreign-language instruction helped them to better understand the people in the country whose language they were learning. 95 per cent would like to visit these countries in order to meet foreigners because personal contacts

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- as 69 of 83 pupils - said are the best way to promote international understanding. At university level 76 students - 34 male and 42 female - were asked whether they knew what LlNGUAPAX meant. Seven answered "yes" but only on the basis of their knowledge of Latin; not one referred to the Unesco programme. Only eleven students remembered having dealt with the topic of peace in their language classes, and this only at an advanced level. 60 students felt it would contribute to international understanding if foreign-language instruction was carried out by native speakers. Two thirds of the students reported that there were countries within the European community to which they felt specially attracted. But there was no indication that this connection might have anything to do with foreign-language teaching at school. 27 students voted for France, but French is (as a rule) only the second foreign language taught in German high schools. Only 20 listed Great Britain as their favourite country although English is the language most widely taught in German schools. 15 students named Italy and six the Netherlands - countries whose languages are not ordinarily taught at all at school level. The answers in the questionnaires revealed two important insights in connection with our topic. Firstly, if peace education is to be integrated into foreign-language instruction, it should find its way first of all into foreign language textbooks because they are the main medium of instruction. But something else must be added; since more than half of the pupils only "sometimes" talk about the content of their textbook materials, teachers must be particularly trained how to use textbook items as a basis for classroom discussion. Secondly, there seems to be no automatic mechanism between foreign languages learned at school and peaceful attitudes towards people who speak these languages. This actually goes without saying because in the past we have experienced many cases in which people spoke a foreign language perfectly well but at the same time felt no special attraction - sometimes even a totally negative attitude - towards the country whose language they had mastered. It seems to be very important that the foreign-language teacher provides as many opportunities as possible for a personal exchange of ideas and contacts with people in the foreign country. Only then - according to the views of the pupils and students involved in our survey - can peaceful relations gradually be built up and maintained permanently.

A LOOK AT THE TEXTBOOKS

A systematic analysis of some English textbooks widely used in German schools showed that 'peace' as an explicit learning goal is not covered at all. No chapter, no lesson, no specific text, no exercise in English textbooks, workbooks or on

288 Reinhold Freudenstein cassettes deals with the question of how to avoid war or with the challenge of how to achieve peace. Moreover, there seems to be no awareness of the need to include peace-related materials in existing textbooks. Academic investigations have shown that most textbooks - even those in mother-tongue education - fail to present a true picture of the world in which we live. At first, in the middle of the seventies, those studies concentrated on the role of women in foreign-language textbooks.2 Many books and articles were devoted to that theme, and over the years a more realistic view of female concerns has found its way into teaching and learning materials. Then other deficiencies were discovered; it was e.g. proposed to include the problem of drugs, the need to fight poverty, the situation of minorities in foreign-language textbooks so that these can be studied and discussed by language learners. All this has contributed considerably towards the improvement of text-book content. But regrettably no one has pleaded for the inclusion of topics involving peace education so far. Textbook authors should therefore be encouraged to think about ways in which the idea of peace with as many facets as possible can be offered to the language learner. Ideally, those peace-related materials should involve the learners in meaningful, pupil-oriented and creative activities.

EXISTING MATERIALS: TWO APPROACHES

When we looked for sources other than foreign-language textbooks we discovered two types of teaching aids which were directly linked to peace education. The first type was a reader entitled 'Dem Frieden entgegen'^ (to be translated into something like 'Striving for Peace' or 'On the Road to Peace'), published by the International Association of Teachers of German in the summer of 1989. It contains 100 short, mostly literary texts from the Middle Ages to modem times which, in one way or another, focus the attention of the reader on questions of war and peace. But a closer look very quickly reveals the shortcomings of this book. It is true that at the time of publication a symbolic value could be attributed to it because in the situation of a divided country it was published simultaneously by a publisher in West Germany and one in East Germany. That very fact contained without doubt a spirit of cooperation and peace. Only three months later, however, peace movements in the German Democratic Republic and in other parts of Eastern Europe shed new light on previous efforts to reconcile opposing forms of society. It became clear that texts had been included for political purposes only, e.g. a text by Erich Honnecker, the communist leader of Eastern Germany who three months after publication date was forced to leave the political scene. But there are also deficiencies with regard to the pedagogical value of the reader. The texts are simply printed one

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after the other without any teaching notes, and so the teachers are left to themselves to try and find out how to present the texts to their students. Thus the book lDem Frieden entgegen' was produced in an unprofessional way and cannot serve as an example for similar ventures in the future. Moreover, it seems to be highly questionable that literary readers in the field of peace education can serve a motivating and meaningful purpose. Good instruction relies on a great variety of teaching forms and learning techniques; the reading and interpretation of texts alone cannot provide the required variety. The second type of materials is a much better approach to peace education in the foreign-language class. In 1989, the German Unesco Commission published a handbook entitled 'International Understanding through Foreign Language Teaching'.4 It offers a great number of topics and activities which might assist teachers in their attempt to develop international understanding, cooperation and peace in foreign-language instruction and in extra-curricular projects. The authors of this handbook live in six countries: in Norway, the Soviet Union, Finland, Israel, the United States of America and in Germany. They provide stimulating examples which show how the objective of international understanding can be closely linked to foreign-language teaching strategies. This is true not only for the advanced language level, but also for intermediate pupils and for beginners. The forms of the exercises provided by this handbook are also very different; they cover comics, games, non-fictional literature, fact sheets, pictures, literary texts, maps, songs, riddles, and many more. Another collection of the same type was published by a German in-service training centre for foreign-language teachers.5 It serves as a sourcebook; teachers can select materials which they find suitable for their classes, and they can use them in addition to or instead of regular materials like the textbook. Fortunately, this type of teaching aid seems to be becoming more and more popular. Leading foreign-language journals in Germany are beginning to publish in increasing numbers papers on peace education in the language classroom, and these articles demonstrate in a convincing way that it is relatively easy to include the peace dimension into the instructional process.6

PEACE EDUCATION IS A FORM OF THINKING

When you look at the exercises which are recommended for peace education in the foreign-language classroom you will soon discover that they are not unique at all, neither in form nor in content. Most of them are already present in existing materials; one can find them even in traditional textbooks. The new element is the context in which they appear. For example, specific aspects of 'life and institutions' in another country - the German term 'Landeskunde' is a much better phrase for what is meant - are an integral part of any existing language

290 Reinhold Freudenstein programme. Once you put them in the context of peace education, a new dimension is added to them. What can we do to learn more about the Scots, a demonstration in Leeds, the actions of Greenpeace in Australia? Are there possibilities for a letter exchange? Why not try to arrange a personal meeting? In all activities of this kind the peace dimension is supposed to open the door of the classroom and to connect the outside world with the teaching process. There is almost no topic which could not be used in the service of peace. Family conversations could be role-played in order to show how controversial issues can be solved in a peaceful way. A discussion on environmental conservation could be performed in form of a debate in which opposing parties try to find peaceful solutions to their problems. Dictionary work could be concentrated on semantic groups related to peace issues. "A relatively simple exercise would be to ask the students to paraphrase slogans, statements or proverbs, themselves adding or integrating the peace dimension. Thus, 'Two heads are better than one' could become 'Two peaceful minds are stronger than . „7 one.

Teachers must be made aware of the fact that constantly looking for implications of peace education is much better than only occasionally concentrating on specific materials which have been particularly selected for this purpose. Peace education reflects a state of mind; it is something to be permanently pursued. It is in the teacher's mind that language instruction and peace education ought to be regarded as one and the same concern before meaningful activities can be conducted in the everyday teaching situation. Teachers should be convinced that communicative competence has to be combined with peaceful thinking. If you exclude peace from thinking, you are left with a hampered competence. This is the message which has to be got across.

TASKS FOR THE FUTURE

Specific activities are necessary if peace education is to become a regular feature of foreign-language teaching. Most important is a reorientation of initial and in-service teacher training. Next to all the other qualifications they need for their profession, teachers must learn what the introduction of a systematic peace education means for the language-teaching process. They must be willing to dedicate time, effort and professional skill to their activities if they wish to contribute through their teaching towards a peaceful world of tomorrow. In this regard, a lot of persuasion still has to be done. Pope John Paul II is supposed to have said: "To reach peace, teach peace". Teachers should learn how to teach peace in such a way that it is not the topic of special text interpretations only

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but the context for the whole teaching process. This includes individual human teacher behaviour as well. The second area to be developed is the field of teaching materials. Up to now teachers have had to modify and add to existing materials if they want to include the peace dimension into their classroom activities. Future textbooks should more than existing ones and not only accidentally, but willingly - offer materials which can be readily used for peace purposes. Materials should be developed which could help the students not only to master the linguistic skills, but which also show them how to think and to act in the foreign language they learn. Some of the new 'alternative methods' have gone some way in the right direction. By opening 'the other half of the brain', by adding motion and emotion to language learning, and by combining this with peace-evoking activities we can teach our students not only to speak about peace, but also to act peace out. Benjamin Franklin once said: "Teach me and I forget. Show me and I remember. Involve me and I learn". The element of involvement is the place where peace education in the foreign language classroom should begin.

NOTES 1.

"Foreign Language and Literatures for Peace and International Understanding". 1987. FIPLV World News 44/1.

2.

Freudenstein, R. (ed.). 1978. The role of women in foreign-language textbooks. Brussels: AIMAV, Didier.

3.

Internationaler Deutschlehrerverband (ed.). 1989. Dem Frieden entgegen. Ein Lesebuch. München, Leipzig: Langenscheidt, Enzyklopädie.

4.

Classen-Bauer, I. (ed.). 1989. International Understanding through Foreign Language Teaching. Bonn: German Commission for Unesco.

5.

Thürmann, E. and A. Weber. 1989."Friedenserziehung und Fremdsprachenunterricht". In: Landesinstitut für Schule und Weiterbildung (ed.). Schularbeiten. Heft 2. Soest

6.

cf. for example Reisser, H. 1990. "Friedenserziehung durch Fremdsprachenunterricht". In: Der fremdsprachliche Unterricht 2.30ff.

7.

Gomes de Matos, F. 1990. "Integrating Peace into the Classroom". FIPLV World News 53/2.

Cultural Contexts Bruce Pattison

I congratulate my old friend Bill Lee on passing a milestone I passed a little ahead of him. I wish to subscribe to the tribute being paid to him. But, unlike him, I have not kept up with developments in language teaching, and all I can contribute as a token of esteem for him is a few brief thoughts on English today. As a language is a means of interaction among members of a community, it seems obvious that the more one knows about the people who habitually use it the better one will understand the language. Teachers have always assumed that in teaching a new language they were introducing a new culture. The traditional way of demonstrating active use of the new language was to present scenes from everyday life in a community where the language was the usual means of communication. Most of my generation learnt French by following the daily round of a French family and German from the activities of a German family. Each scene was designed to illustrate some grammatical point, and so the format came to be associated with structural syllabuses and to be discredited with them. It was criticised for presenting middle-class families not representative of the variety of households. But the scenes were only fictitious, to be taken like scenes in a novel, and social realism has never been demanded of popular fiction. The average family presented was rather like that suggested by television advertisements. The scenes had the advantage of continuity, the figures in them becoming recognisable characters. The situations which have replaced them in teaching materials may be more like those students may encounter, but they have less human interest, their participants being only dimly-imagined steoreotypes. The domestic setting for the older scenes was suitable for Europeans learning European languages. It could not be transferred to other continents where conceptions of the ordinary family were different. When English was taught in Asia or Africa scenes moved out into the marketplace. But English was the language of instruction in the school and was learned with the whole curriculum. There were many Europeans in the environment and their customs and assumptions were well known. It was not difficult for students to find situations in which they could imagine themselves speaking English. During the past quarter of a century Europeans have withdrawn from territories they once controlled and the people there have become more interested in their own traditions, though still using English as a lingua franca among

294 Bruce Pattison many indigenous languages. Meanwhile English has become the chief medium of international communication and the first foreign language learned in most countries. In areas which have had no connection with English-speaking countries it is difficult for students to identify with situations in those countries, and there are doubts as to their ability to appreciate the attitudes, assumptions and values implied in any speech or writing coming from a culture very different from their own. Publishers and teachers from English-speaking countries have tried to prepare students for grappling with the exotic language by telling them about the culture to which it belongs. They have provided masses of information about systems of government, educational systems, tourist attractions, customs and habits. The information seldom turns out to be useful, and it is too superficial to leave any impression of the essence of a culture, which lies in shared values and beliefs and social relationships. It is very difficult to generalise about these. The English-speaking countries are very different from each other, and each is very complex, turning out on close examination to be a complicated network of sub-cultures, some of them expressed even in speech peculiarities: only the written language is standard. Social scientists do not attempt to describe complex cultures, and language teachers are ill-advised to rush in where they fear to tread. It is notable, however, that when an anthropologist studies a relatively simple culture he starts by learning its language. That enables him to penetrate beneath the outward and visible activities of a community to the values, beliefs and social relationships governing behaviour. He is then able not only to ask questions but to understand the significance of transactions. The language itself is a product of their history. In it are formulated their mythology and traditions, and their social relations are revealed by the ways in which they talk to each other. Growing competence with the language deepens understanding of the culture. This can happen to anyone learning a language. The culture it represents emerges from experience of the language in action. In an environment in which it is not current most of the experience will come from reading. A wide variety is desirable and some comparison of texts helpful. The circumstances in which each text was written will have to be established: an immediate context is necessary, though painting in the whole scene is not. Some factual information essential to understanding and not deducible from the text will have to be supplied. But the chief attention should be directed to the writer's assumptions, the readership he expects and his relationship to it. These should be traced from stylistic features. What is most important is that the texts should be about matters which interest the students. The content will generally not refer to their part of the world but should raise issues to which they can react.

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There are plenty of universal human concerns with which the experience and attitudes of people in other cultures can be enlightening: health, education, agriculture, pollution, the sciences, sport, etc. A sense that what they are reading is relevant to them will be an incentive to persevere with the language. Insofar as it affects their points of view they will be unconsciously absorbing the approaches of its culture to their problems. A more difficult problem is to find culturally situated opportunities for speech and writing by the students. Fiction and dialogues have been mentioned as suitable for prompting speech, but the question is where to locate them. It is unrealistic to expect students to impersonate characters in a foreign environment and equally so to enact ordinary transactions in a foreign language. Any possible encounters with habitual speakers of the language may be rehearsed, but there may be very few in which they could imagine themselves participating. Correspondence with people in other countries is good practice, if it can be arranged. It is worth noting that English is increasingly used as a means of communication between people whose first languages are not English. Any communication of this kind with people in other communities should be sought. It may result in learning each other's mistakes, but at least it keeps alive a feeling that English is a useful instrument to have available. This feeling actually seems to be fairly widespread and to be growing. Whenever an upheaval of any sort occurs in any part of the world, even the remotest from any English-speaking community, among the crowds gathered together a few people carrying banners with slogans in English appear on our television screens and somebody always seems to come forward to speak English, perhaps haltingly, into a microphone. They welcome the chance to tell the rest of the world what is happening to them, and they think it is through English that they will get the greatest publicity. As the chief international language English is increasingly operating in an inter-cultural context.

WILLIAM R. LEE, OBE, HonFTCL, MA, PhD: Curriculum Vitae and Select List of Publications 16 Alexandra Gardens, Hounslow, Middlesex, England.

CURRICULUM VITAE (SUMMARY)

1. Degrees, diplomas, honours MA in Linguistics, University of London (after study with Prof. J.R. Firth and staff at SOAS)- 1954 PhD, Caroline University, Prague -1950 Certificates in English Phonetics and French Phonetics, University College, London (with Daniel Jones, D.B. Fry, H. Coustenoble, Lilian Armstrong, and other staff) - 1934/35 Postgraduate Teacher's Diploma, University of London, King's College -1934 Medal of Honour, Poznan University, Poland - 1986 Officer of the British Empire (OBE) -1979 Honorary Fellow, Trinity College London - 1972 2. Main experience (in summary) 1935-40: Teaching various subjects, incl. English, Arithmetic, Geography, History, Physical Education, Singing, and French in several types of primary or secondary school. 1940-46: Army service (Intelligence Corps). 1946-51: Lecturer, Department of English, Caroline University, Prague. Teaching of English also at Turkish and (exiled) Greek and (exiled) Spanish embassies and at the School of Languages, Prague. 1952-57/ Lecturer in the Teaching of English as a Foreign Language, Division 1959-62: of Language Teaching, University of London Institute of Education. 1958-59: Language Teaching Adviser, The British Council, London. - Since 1963 W.R. Lee has been working independently as a consultant, writer, teacher trainer, examiner, and lecturer in English as a foreign or second language. He has spent a large part of his time planning, directing, and taking part in numerous training courses, mainly outside Britain, for primary, secondary, and post-secondary teachers of English, e.g. in Czechoslovakia (c. 27 courses), Cypres (five courses), Iceland (five courses), Bulgaria (five courses), Greece (three courses), Yugoslavia (three courses), Hungary (two courses), the

298 Homage to WA. Lee Netherlands, Colombia (two courses) Sri Lanka, and Jordan, chiefly for the British Council - until 1987. - Advisory or lecture tours (from 1960 onwards) until the early eighties for the British Council to India and Pakistan, Somalia, Iraq and Iran, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia (primary schools), Mexico and Peru, Venezuela and Colombia, the Federal Republic of Germany (primary schools), Cyprus, Iceland, Lebanon, Egypt and Turkey, Brazil and Argentina, Yugoslavia, and Hungary; for the American University of Cairo in Egypt; for UNESCO to Kuwait; and to universities in Poland, Kuwait, Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands, and the Federal Republic of Germany. - Papers on applied linguistics and language teaching etc. at numerous conferences (e.g. IATEFL, TESOL, FIPLV, ATESI, ACTFL) in many countries (e.g. Czechoslovakia, Federal Republic of Germany, France, Greece, Holland, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, Tunisia, UK, USA, Yugoslavia). 3. Main examining experience - At the Caroline University, Prague, 1946-50 (Chiefly the External English examination). - Member of the examining board for the Diploma in TEFL of the University of London Institute of Education, 1954-62. External examiner, 1967-69. Also PhD examining. - Oral examining (in ESOL) for Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate, 1957-83. - Examiner for the TEFL Diploma and the Certificate in TESOL of Trinity College London. Oral examining in the UK, Cyprus, Brazil, Italy, Greece and Spain. 1965-date. - Practical teaching examiner for the University of Cambridge and Royal Society of Arts Diploma in the Teaching of English as a Foreign Language to Adults, 1966-89. - External examiner (MA, MEd, MPhil, and PhD theses) for the University of Wales, Cardiff, since 1983. - External examiner for MA (University of Manchester, Dept. of Higher Education), 1989, and for PhD (Council for National Academic Awards and Hatfield Polytechnic), 1990. - Examiner in TEFL/TESL for the College of Preceptors; from about 1982 to date. 4. Other positions held (summary) - Editor, English Language Teaching Journal, 1961-81. - Editor, World Language English, 1982-84. - Editor, English - A World Language (Journal of the English-Speaking Union of the Commonwealth), 1990 to date.

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Member of the: - English-Teaching Advisory Committee of the British Council, 1964-77. - Board of Governors, Haverstock (Comprehensive) School, London, 1960-73. - Joint Committee of the Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate and the British Council, 1967-69. - National Council for Modern Languages, 1974-84. - ARELS Schools inspectorate, 1974-81. - Executive Committee of the Fédération Internationale des Professeurs de Langues Vivantes (FIPLV), 1968-84. - Schools Inspection Panel of the British Council, approx. 1963-73 and 1981-89. - Language Panel of the Professional and Linguistic Attainments Panel (PLAB) of the General Medical Council, 1976-89 (when panel dissolved). - English Language Committee of the English-Speaking Union, 1980-date. Consultant to: - Association of Recognised English Language Schools (ARELS), 1974-81. - Trinity College London (on examinations in (T)ESOL), 1965-date. - The big Icelandic-English Dictionary (University of Iceland) - especially on educational vocabulary. - Founder (1967) and Chairman (1967-84) of the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (IATEFL). Conferences organiser and editor of IATEFL Newsletter (1967-84). Now Founder-Chairman.

5. Select list of publications A. Books include: English Intonation: a New Approach. North-Holland Publishing Co., 1958. Teach Yourself Czech (with Z. Lee). E.U.P., 1959. An English Intonation Reader. Macmillan, 1960. Spelling Irregularity and Reading Progress. National Foundation for Educational Research, 1974. Time for a Song (with M. Dodderidge). Longman, 1963. Simple Audio-Visual Aids to Foreign-Language Teaching (with Helen Coppen). O.U.P., 1968. Language Teaching Games and Contests. O.U.P., 1979; revised 2nd edition, 1986. The Dolphin English Course. O.U.P., 1970-73. First Songs in English and More Songs in English . O.U.P., 1970-73. It Depends How You Say It (with B. Haycraft). Pergamon/Prentice Hall, 1984. A Study Dictionary of Social English. Pergamon/Prentice Hall, 1984. (Edited) Ivan Poldauf: English Word-Stress. Pergamon, 1984.

300 Homage to WM. Lee In preparation: (With C.V. James) The Cassell Elementary Technical Dictionary B. Translations: (With Z. Lee) Additional sections of T.G. Massaryk's The Spirit of Russia, added at Masaryk's request by Prof. Jan Slavik (Allen and Unwin, 1955). C. Articles and papers include: 1951-6 Various articles on intonation in Maître Phonétique, English Studies, and Lingua, Amsterdam. 1957 "The Linguistic Context of Language Teaching". English Language Teaching Xl/3. (Reprinted in Teaching English as a Second Language, ed. H.B. Allen, New York, 1965, 1972; also in Teaching English as a Second Language, ed. Allen and Campbell, Tate McGraw-Hill, New Delhi; and in Second Language Learning, ed. B. Robinett and J. Schachter, University of Michigan Press, 1983). 1958 "Language Learning and Audio-Visual Aids". The Bulletin of the British Institute of Recorded Sound. 1959 "Linguistics and the 'Practical' Teacher". English Language Teaching, xni/4. 1960 "Mass Media and the Pupil-Teacher Relationship". The Year Book of Education Evans. "The Synchroreader". The Year Book of Education. Evans. "Gaps in the System". Times Educational Supplement. 1963 "Modern Language Teaching and the Teaching of Classical Languages". Didaskolos. London. 1963-4 "Grading". English Language Teaching XVII/3 and 4, XVIII/2. 1964 "Linguistics and Phonetics in the Training of Teachers of English". In Honour of Daniel Jones. Longman, London. "Teaching English". VOC Journal of Education. India. 1965 "Taking Notice of the Pupils". English Language Teaching XX/1. "Preliminary Notes on Also and Too". Philologica Pragensia. Prague.

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1968 "Training and Study Centres in Britain for Teachers of English as a Foreign Language". In: G. Perren (ed.). Teachers of English as a Second Language: their Training and Preparation. C.U.P. "Thoughts on Contrastive Linguistics in the Context of Language Teaching". Monograph Series on Language and Linguistics - 19th Annual Round Table. Georgetown University, Washington. 1969 "A Point about In and Into" in the Homage to J. Vachek volume, Czechoslovakia. "Some Points about Aims and Means in the Foreign-Language Course". English Language Teaching XXIII/2. "Speaking Together". English Language Teaching XXIV/1. "Collective Speaking". English Teaching. Brazil. Review of Halliday 'sIntonation and Grammar inBritish English. Lingua, 24/1. Review of QuidNovil (Cambridge School Classics Project). Didaskolos 3. 1970 "Noticing Word Boundaries". In: Proceedings of the 8th Congress of Phonetic Sciences. Prague, 1967. 1971 "Is Language-Teaching Applied Linguistics?" Lenguaje y Ciencias. Peru. "Teaching Foreign Languages to Young Children: Why? What? How?". Cizi Jazyky ve Skole. Prague. (In Czech). "New Trends in Foreign-Language Teaching". Scuola e Lingue Moderne. Italy. "Ten Years of the Teaching of English as a Foreign Language", in English Language Teaching XXVI/1. "Types of Interference and Contrasting - the Kinds of Research Needed". In: G. Nickel (ed.) Papers from the International Symposium on Applied Constrastive Linguistics. Stuttgart. 1972 "Does the 'What' Dertermine the 'How'?". English Language Teaching XXVI/3. "How Can Contrastive Linguistic Studies Help Foreign-Language Teaching?". In: Papers of the Yugoslav Serbocroatian-English Contrastive Project. Zagreb. "External and Internal Motivation in the Foreign-Language Lesson". In: R. Freudenstein (ed.). Focus '80, Cornelsen and O.U.P., 1972. (Shortened version). (Full version as given at the FIPLV Congress, Saarbrücken, April 1972, published in Modern Nyelvoktatas, Budapest 1973.) "Ueberlegungen zur Kontrastiven Linguistik in Bereich des Sprachunterrichts". In: G. Nickel (ed.). Reader zur Kontrastiven Linguistik. Translation into German of a paper given at the Washington Round Table in 1968.)

302 Homage to WJt. Lee 1973

"Jezicni Laboratroiji i Ucenje Stranog Jezika". Strani Jezici, XSX/3, 1 9 7 3 . (Translation into Croatian of a paper given at the University of Zagreb, April 1973.)

"Language, Experience, and the Language Learner". English Language Teaching XXVII/3.

Review of H. Hartvigson's On the Intonation and Position of the So-Cailed Sentence Modifiers in Present-day English, in Phonetica, Basel, 1973. 1974

"Getting down to Grass Roots in Teacher Training". ELT Journal XXIX/1. "Reaching a Worth-While Standard in English as a Foreign Language". Times Educational Supplement. 20 October 1974. "Language Games for Adults". Zielsprache Englisch 1 9 7 4 / 4 , Marburg. "Meaning, Repetition, and Enjoyment". In: R. Crymes et al. (ed.) On TESOL Review of L.A. Hill's "Language Games for Adult Learners". Times Educational Supplement. "Should Language-Learning be Made Easy?" Creativity. Sâo Paulo. "The Contribution of Contrastive Linguistics to the Preparation of LanguageTeaching Materials". In: G. Nickel (ed.). Proceedings of the Third Congress of the Association on Internationale de Linguistique Appliquée, Vol. 1 - Applied Contrastive Linguistics. Julius Groos, Heidelberg. 1975

"Motivation and the Learners' Ages". In: Festschrift fur Norman Denison. University of Graz. "Some Aspects of Motivation in Foreign-Language Learning". In: A.J. van Essen and J.P. Menting (eds). The Context of Foreign-Language Learning. Van Gorcum, Netherlands. Review of Wilkins's Second-Language Learning and Teaching. ELT Journal XXX/1. 1976

"Language Laboratories and Foreign-Language Teaching". ELT Journal XXX/3. "Encouraging and Discouraging Mistakes". The Interlanguage Studies Bulletin 2/3, Utrecht. 1977

"What Type of Syllabus for the Teaching of English as a Foreign or Second Language?", AILA Congress, Stuttgart, 1 9 7 5 . Published in IRAL XV/3. "For and Against an Early Start" - FlPLV/ACTFL Congress. Washington DC, 1975. Published in Foreign Language Annals 10/3, New York. "Communicating in English: the Value of Certain Language Games" FlPLV/ACTFL Congress, Washington DC, 1975. Published in Englisch, Berlin.

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"Types of Success in Foreign-Language Teaching: English as a Lingua Franca". Ninth IATEFL Conference, Oxford. Shortened version published in ARELS Journal, London. 1978 "Meaningfulness as a Factor in the Successful Imitation of Spoken Sentences" - Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Leeds. 1975. Published in the Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 1978. "Realistic and Differing Aims in the Teaching and Learning of English as a Foreign or Second Language". In: P. Strevens (ed.) In Honour ofA.S. Hornby, O.U.P. Interview with N. Perini on problems of language teaching - published in Scuola e Lingue Moderne 5/6, Modena. 1979 "Pre-syllabuses and Syllabuses in the Light of the Learner's Opportunities, Aims and Needs". FIPLV Conference, Luzern, 1977. Published in Glottodidactica xn, Poznan. Short articles on language-games, Praxis 79/1, 2/79, and other issues. 1980 "Syllabus Construction for Foreign Language Teaching: Reconciling the Approaches". TESOL Convention, Boston, 1979. ELT Documents 108, British Council, 1980. "A Point about the Rise-Endings and Fall-Endings of Yes-No Questions". In: Linda R. Waugh and C.H. van Schooneveld (eds.) The Melody of Language: Intonation and Prosody, University Park Press, Maryland. 1981 "Mating Foreign-Language Teaching Syllabuses". Praxis 81/4. "Providing and Avoiding Various Types of Communication Activity in the Foreign-Language Classroom". AILA Congress, Lund, Sweden, 1981. Studia Poznaniensia, Poznan. 1982 "The Defenestration of 'Authenticity'". IATEFL Conference, 1981. World Language English 2/1. 1983 "English as a World Language: Implications for Teaching". TESOL Convention, Toronto. Perspectives VII/3, Rome. 1985 "Types of Communication in the Foreign- and Second-Language Classroom (with special reference to EFL/ESL)". AILA Congress, Brussels, 1984 Journal of Applied Linguistics, 1985/1, Greece.

304 Homage to WJt. Lee "Concerning the Correction and Non-Correction of Learners' Errors". In: Festschrift for Jacek Fisiak, Mouton, The Hague. 1986 "The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Reader". IATEFL conference, Brighton, 1985. Praxis 1986/2. "Experiencing Failure and Success in Foreign-Language Learning (and also Teaching)". TESOL/ATESI Convention, Rome, 1985. Perspectives, Rome. 1987 "Some thoughts on the make-up of language teaching syllabuses". RELC Journal, Singapore. 1989 "Dealing with errors: what is the classroom teacher to do?". Praxis. 1991 "Teacher training for international co-operation - a lifelong commitment". 2nd NELLE Conference, Maastricht, 1990. FATEFL Newsletter, Belgium. D. Other projects Project leader, current FIPLV project on "The training of modern-language teachers, with special reference to teaching practice". Met at Maastricht, 1988. E. Main broadcasts Talk on spelling and reading, BBC 'English by Radio', 1965. Six talks on 'Balance and Variety in English Teaching', BBC 'Listen and Teach' series, 1960. Four talks on 'Language-Teaching Games', BBC 'Listen and Teach'series, 1964. Four talks on 'Teaching Young Children', BBC 'Listen and Teach' series, 1973. 'Fun in the Classroom' - series of three-minute programmes for BBC 'English by Radio and TV', 1979. Interview on IATEFL, 'English by Radio and TV', 1985. 6. Membership of professional organizations IATEFL, TESOL (USA), NELLE (Networking English Language Learning in Europe), member of steering committee, International Phonetic Association, British Association of Applied Linguistics, Linguistics Association of Great Britain. 7. Main professional interests Training and education of modern-language teachers. Teaching foreign languages to young children. Phonetics/phonology (especially intonation).

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Contrastive studies. Assessment of oral communicative ability. Lexicography, and new words and phrases. Motivation for language learning. Syllabus construction (especially procedural syllabuses). Classroom language-learning activities. Communicative language teaching. English as an international language. Assessment of communication ability in foreign and second languages.

8. Other interests Music and the arts. Conservation of the environment and preservation of species. Wildlife. Bird-watching.

List of Contributors Abbott, Gerry. Senior Lecturer. School of Education, University of Manchester, UK. Akhmanova, Olga. Ph.D. Professor Emeritus. Department of English, University of Moscow. USS. Alexander, Louis G. Garden House, Weydown Road, Haslemere, Surrey, UK. Allen, Virginia. F. Ph.D. Professor Emeritus. Department of Secondary Education,Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Burkart, Edwardl. Ph.D. Professor Emeritus. The American University, Washington D.C. USA. Celani, Antonieta Alba. Professor. Catholic University of Säo Paulo, Brazil. Close, Reginald A. Honorary Research Fellow.University College, London, UK. Crombie, Winifred. Ph.D. English Department, Sheffield City Polytechnic, Sheffield, UK. Cross, David. Ph.D. FRGS.ELT Consultant. British Council, Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Dirven, René, Ph.D. Professor. Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaften, Anglistik /Amerikanistik, Universität-Gesamthochschule, Duisburg, Germany. Dunn, Opal. London, UK. Edelhoff, Christoph. Studiendirektor. Vorsitzender des Deutschen Vereins zur Förderung der Lehrerfortbildung und Lehrerweiterbildung, Grebenstein, Germany. Finocchiaro, Mary. Ph.D. Professor Emeritus of Education, Hunter College of the City University of New York, New York, USA. Firbas, Jan. Ph.D. Professor. University of Brno, Czechoslovakia. Fisiak, Jacek. OBE. Ph.D. Professor. School of English, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan,Poland. Freudenstein, Reinhold. Ph.D. Professor. Foreign Language Research Information Center IFS der Philipps-Universität, Marburg/Lahn, Germany. Fröhlich-Ward, Leonora. München, Germany. Gerbert, Manfred. Ph.D. Professor. Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany. Girard, Denis. Inspecteur Général. Ministère de l'Éducation Nationale, Paris, France. Hill, Leslie A. Ph.D. Chairman Hill Publications Ltd. Jersey, Channel Islands. UK. Formerly Professor, Department of English, University of Indonesia. James, Vaughan. Freelance writer and editor. Kirtlington,Oxfordshire, UK. Janssens, Ray. Chairman Vereniging Vlaamse Leerkrachten Engels, Aartselaar, Belgium. Mackay, Ron. Ph.D. TESL Centre, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Mackey, William F. FRS(C). ClRB Research Professor. International Center For Research on Bilingualism, Laval University, Quebec, Canada. Maley, Alan. Director. The Bell Educattional Trust, Cambridge, UK. Marton, Waldemar. Ph.D. Professor. School of English, Adam Mickiewicz University. Poznan,Poland. Nazarova, Tamara. Ph.D. Moscow, USS.

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Olsen, Judy Winn-Bell. Flex Calendar Coordinator, San Francisco Community College District, San Francisco, USA. Parker, Martin. Ph.D. Pattison, Bruce. Emeritus Professor of Education, University of London Institute of Education, London, UK. Rees, Alun L.W. Ph.D. TESOL Unit. West Sussex Institute of Higher Education, Bognor Regis, UK. Rinvolucri, Mario. Senior Lecturer. Pilgrims English Language Courses,Canterbury, UK. Rivers, Wilga M. Ph.D. Professor Emeritus. Department of Romance Languages and Literature, Harvard University, USA. Tickoo, Makhan L. Ph.D. Language Specialist. Regional Language Centre, Singapore. Tiffen, Brian. Ph.D. ELT Consultant. Formerly ELD, British Council, London, UK. Trim, John L.M. Honorary D. Litt. Fil. Cambridge, UK. Van Essen, Arthur. Ph.D. Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics, State University of Groningen, The Netherlands. Whitaker, Sidney F. Formerly Director, training course for Teachers of EFL/ESL at the University College of North Wales, Bangor. Currently teacher of EFL, Normandy, France. Widdowson, Henry G. Professor. Department of English for Speakers of Other Languages, Institute of Education, University of London, UK.

Mary E. McGroarty Christian J. Faltis (Editors)

m Languages in School and m Society m

Policy and Pedagogy

m m

1991. X, 570 pages. Cloth. ISBN 311 012576 5 (Contributions to the Sociology of Language 58)

m m m

m m m

m m

T h e six sections in this collection of 30 articles demonstrate the scope of current work in applied linguistics and suggest some of its applications to broader social and educational issues. Part I deals with theoretical and methodological advances in sociolinguistics, while Part II focusses on second language pedagogy. Recent trends in classroom language research are discussed in Part III, with Part IV concentrating on bilingual education for minority students. Part V addresses the assessment of second language proficiency. In Part VI, the connections between home and school contexts for language learning are examined. T h e volume illustrates the comprehensive nature of applied linguistics in its approach to understanding basic questions about how and why social context affects language learning and use.

m m

m

mouton de gruyter Berlin - New York

Ofelia Garcia • Ricardo Otheguy (Editors)

m English across Cultures m Cultures across English A Reader in Cross-cultural m Communication m 1989. 15.5 x 23 cm. XXII, 492 pages. With 7 illustrations. Cloth. ISBN 3110118114 m (Contributions to the Sociology of Language 53) This collection of articles sets out to examine verm bal and written exchanges in English when they occur in the context of conflicting community m norms. Complex sociolinguistic situations arise when the use of English by non-native speakers m leads to a false sense of mutual intelligibility. The papers, prepared by scholars from all over m the world, are grouped into four sections according to the type of sociolinguistic situation that m creates the communicative interference, and contain work from the areas of pragmatics, sociom logy of language, dialectology and sociolinguistic variation, and social psychology. Both micro-stum dies of intercultural communication and studies of the macro processes that affect intercultural m communication are included. m m m mouton de gruyter Berlin • New York