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How to Teach Speaking . Task File

Speech genres Page '13

Classifr the following speech

one has been done for you).genres according to the criteria in the table. (The first

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rlr*e,,r-,'.. -rriJohn: (choosing a-c3!3.) These are good.

Tom: What aréÍñey?

,¿-\ Diana: (choosing a bridgé'Jqü These look nice'

L¡,,<t r¡gblois: you look wónderful. Mrs Disson: Absolutely wonderful. Doesn't she, Peter?

v J t Disley: Marvellous. 'I .toit, What do you think of your grandsons?

-rathñ TheY've grown uP, haven't theY?

Lois: of course, we knew them when they were that high, didn't we, Tom?

Father: So did we. *4Tom: Yes.

Willy: Big lads now, aren't they, these two?

John: Cake, GrannY'' Mother: No, l've had one.

John: Have two.Father: l'll have one.

Mother: He's had one.

Father: l'll have two.

I C SPoken narrat¡ves 4

H.r. i, an example of a,'uthentic spoken.narrative, taken from The Language.of

Con,(.,e;saüon by Fi Prldtram. Comp¿ie it with the Kedgeree story on page2. What

features do they have in common?-To what extent do you think these rwo narratives

are rePresentative oftheir genre?

ScoftThornburyHowtoTeachspeakingoPearsonEducationLimited2005

€ B Spoken grammar and vocabulary Page-2O-- . .- The followins extract from the play Tea Party,by Harold Pinter, attempts to replicate ,spoken lu.rguig.. How successfirl is it, do.youthink? What feafures of spoken grammar

""¿,ro."bnlu.! does it display, and which ones are missing? *

purpose participation planning

airport announcements transactional non-interactive planned

universitY lecture hY".t<r4 i*'tr i'rt-er^rCi.rt /r"¡ ,n\., nnfÁ-telephoning a friend u{}. 'rc¿'.ol¡-,rgt{

f^tern{.',t', ,f' nln^.-l lr n n.^n¡radio itrlenriew i *"rn*{.r-{ rrft\\ +ur* irdernrtt*r .'r,r,;] ,i iTV weather forecast frnr-^ndi,ro--nl ¡^n -ird-err{4',, tr \,'t,',.-,*"'\ /,,^tiasking street directions ,r\t¡-f rrf,'.,-f ¡r.\ .,xtr-'rrr*i,r rÁr-,irt;r',Á.

speech of thanks n.nir.f,oltt ,.ntr1tr¡d': ,-nr, *,s-rJlr:-

PHOTOCOPIABLE 135

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eregíes between Ll and L2 speaking

Commgnication strategies

What L2 speakers need to know

Availability for use: implications for teaching

The description, offered in the preceding chapters, of how rpok.nñ.n.y i,achieved, has made no distinction between the speaking of a first language(L1) and the speaking of another language (L2).We have discussed the

skills and kinds of knowledge involved in achieving fluency as if these were

absolute qualities that all speakers share. Clearly this is not the case. Evenamong L1 speakers there can be wide variations in the degree of fluencythat individuals demonstrate. These differences are exacerbated when itcomes to speaking in a language different from your own. The inevitabielack of fluency involved is a source of frustration and even embarrassment, as

attested by these quotes from learners of English, in response to the question:

Wbicb aspects of your EnglisU.O: *" most uant t1" im?ro.ve?

' 'My weak points in English is speaking and listening. I suppose I am not so

bad at reading and writing, but especially, my speaking is awful. I want toimprove my speaking ability as once I had.'

' 'l would like to improve my spoken English and my pronunciation. I think I

have terrible Russian accent. Therefore l'm very shy to speak.'

'This is the problem, I have been learning English long, but I can't speak, I

understand the conversation but I can't answer imrnediately as I like.'

'The problem is to speak English with other people face to face. I can't findwords. I always use the same sentences.'

'l know I need to practice my speaking a lot. During all my life, I have been

doing grammar and reading, but nobody has taught me how to speak English.

I think that this skill is always forgotten when someone teaches English.'

'sometimes I use English in my work and this is always a painful moment forme in which my heart is in my boots and I despairing search the words.'

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These quores identifr pT. !.y fa*ors th-at can contribute to a rack ofL2 fluency, and in particular hów a u.L oi"uioil"o; inhibit face_to-face inrera*ion, quite independently "f h;;-;;.íümmatical andrexical knowledge a speaker hui. shortJg. "f,;;p";ilifi fb, pracrice isidentified as an important contributing fa_ctor,,T rp:"{"g-fh'ure. And bypractice is meant, not practice of gra.,im^.-and voiabul"rjr, b.,, practice ofintera*ive speaking itself. The comiined effel,or,"i.r.l?diiln.i., is a rack

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what can be done abour this? The commenr that'this sk'l [i.e. speakingris always forgotten when someone teáthes E;g]iJ';;';r;;.tAxi;üüjteaching methods (apart from the most b""ki"¡j^;;9;ii?i'rpr^rc.,g, butless as a sk-i'in irs own right thvi as a m:ans "fór;;;i;;!o__".. E.,,.nin relatively commun-ication-o¡rented *.thodoüs.I;;. ;;";f

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:;orten'simpry_y"y,oi;;h;;;,';ñ;;i:.T,i?',^t-iiff¿1:t"1.["i:TilIexpressions' If speaking-ar-9.rar is deart with] it i,

"n.r'á."rt with onlyat the leve.r of pronunciation. Frequentl¡ training "rJ;;;;; in the skillof interactive real-time tark, with "[ ít, "".ra?"i^iil;;:: fearures, isrelegated to the chat s¡.age at the beginning "rr¿

.na Jil;;r. It is thislack of genuine speaking opportunitiEs *hi|¡, ".;;;, fb;*"^.,y studenrs,feeling thar, howev.r m.rch -g."-**

u"a *."uui"ry'",n* i.á*, they areinsufficiently preparS! for spáking tn th. *oliJ-ü;ifit i"rrroo*.How then does L2 ,p.ulcng.di"ff.r from fr ,pá"ü"gii;;.rn,, of thestages of menral processing invólved, th.t. ir p-ú'";ü J; ,nui a;rr.r.n..at all' Like L1 speakerq L) speakers also.p-roduce spe.ch through a processof concep ru aüzing, the n form ura ri ng, an d' fi r ^llt

;iiil"i-g, iirrt.g wh ic hrime they are also sel'monitorine. Ái th. ,^*.iirr," ,hil.*f,h";e amendingto their interlocurors, adjusting tTleir message accordingly, andthe m an age rn e n t of convers a tián al ru rns. Tfi . ;kix; ;;:il"#*::f,::';: llare essentially rhe same and shourd, i" th.ory, b; ;;"írf#;ie from thespeaker's first language into the ,..oná.what is significantry different is, of course,-the language itself L2 speakers,knowledge of the L2, including it, uo."b.ilr,, ;;:-;:;*";i'i, ,rr.ly

",exrensive or as estabüshed as tháir knowleag. ,ír rh.ir"üi;; "r. like thestudent who said, 'r can't find words. I always use the same sentences,.on the orher hand,,the problem may be Érr "il'k #*#J;. than theunavailability of that knowledge. It hás not b..o-. ,"rn.r..rl, integratedinto their existing language qrlgw]gdge, "r;rl"r ü.".ffi;üJ,' accessed,that it.is nor yer ea¡iry retrievabre. ThJ process orurr"nging.iffir--r, o,retrieving the word is not yet automatic. They then feellikJthe Jtud.rrt *ho'despairing searchfes for] ihe words'.

^ The process may be complicated. by a tendency to formurate the urterancefirst in the L1 and then 'transrate'it inio the L2,wíthan obvious cost in termsof speed. Furthermore, pressu¡e to be accural.rror, - ryay mean rhat the self-moni¡ort#or[:f'f nT,?j:ftk'#prolonged again with.a negative .ffeci in t&-r of nu.".y. ii.r; extendedmentar deliberations that qpeakers can enter rnto afe welr captured in thisdescription-or his stude:,:

!y H"-;h,;t'M.aü ; ;rilü;ustralianprofessor of economics in Japan:

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3 . Speaking in another language

Talking with them has been a trial of patience as I watch their faces work like

computer screens. Inside, their brains are composing sentences, searching forthe most appropriate word, then running the draft past their mind's eye

for grammatical mistakes. Finally, the sentence is allowed out. I reply. They

look uncertain, sometimes ask fbr a re-run, before their facial screen goes

blank while a new sentence is undér construction. They seem terrified ofmaking a mistake, which is no way to become fluent' Yet their knowledge offormal grammar is far greater-than Australian undergraduates and they have

extensivevocabularies.,

In more scientific terms, ih.r. srudents are having trouble distributing theirattentional capacityrbetween planning and articulation, not to mentionthe added deman{"f¡ coping *ith n...iinput. Also, their anxiety is causing

:xcessive self-mqáitoringr tiey are what-the researcher Stephen K¡ashen

termed monitof overusers.Ofcourse, nqt all L2 speakers agonize to this extent. In fact, some speakers

adopt a completely different strategy, preferring-to use (and possibly overuse)

the ütde language they have at their linguistic'fingertips', so to speak, ratherthan constru"ct ñovel íttrrrr,..., from s"cratch. No1 ail-Japan.t. l.^tnets ate

as portrayed above; Pico Iyer describes another Japanese speaker who has

acllieved communicative fluency using minimal means:

Sachiko-san was as unabashed and unruly in her embrace of English as inOst

of her compatriots were reticent and shy. ... She was happy to plunge ahead

without a second thought for grammaL scattering meanings and ambiguities

as she went. Plurals were made singular; articles were dropped, verbs were

rarely inflected, and word order was exploded - often, in fact, she seemed

to be making Japanese sentences with a few English words thrown in. Often,

moreover, to vex the misunderstandings further, she spoke both languages

at once ... .

Rather than 'computing' each utterance using the relatively- slow, albeit

more accurate, rulé-baséd system, Sachiko-san seems to be drawing on a

store of memorized words ánd chunks. And even when sachiko's memory

fails, all is not lost she simply resorts to Japanese. She knows how to make

the test use of all availabli rLro.rt..t and ñas at her command a vatiety of

' *'ff,'::fi:i3ff,:il;r9:lfiff ',11..1,'á"''::::'i'11'f:1'HHJ::"i1il? ::communicate in a second language is called strategic.comPetence'

Communication Strategic competence is achieved bymeans ofwhat are called communication

strategies ,

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Sorne commonly encountered communication strategies are:

' circümlocution: such as I get a red in m1 bead to mean shy

word coinage: such as 'uegetarianist for rtegetarian

foreignizin[ a word: 't,ih m gtltg,-¡!. Spanish word una carPeta

(meaning Jfil. fot papers) into the English-sounding a carpet

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' approximation: using an alternative, related word, such as using taork tablefor zporkbench

' using an all-purpose word, such as stztff, thing, maAe, do

' language switch: using the L1 word or expression (also called code-switching)

' paralinguistics: using gesture, mime, and so on, to convey the intendedmeanlng

' appealing for help, e.g. by leaving an utterance incomplete, as in:

Speaker 1: The taxi driver get angry he f osé his, erm, how you say?Speaker 2: temper iSpeaker 1: he lose his temper and j_re shout me

Of course, the speaker might deoiáe that the message is simply not achievable,by whatever means, and adopt:'what is called an avoidance strategy, such as

abandoning the message altogether or replacing the original message withone that is less ambitious. r

Another type of strategy, called a discourse strategy, is the wholesaleborrowing by the speaker of segments of other speakers' ufterances, often inthe form ofunanalysed units, as in this instance:

Speaker 1: When did you last see your brother?Speaker 2; Last see your brother six years ago .

A related discourse strateg'y is the repetition of one's own previous utterance:

Speaker 1 : The woman hear a noise ...Speaker 2: What kind of noise?Speaker 1:The woman hear a noise, loud one ...

..-Such strategies are similar to the production strategies used by proficientspeakers (see page 7), in that they help 'buy'valuable processing time andthus maintain the illusion of fluency.

It should be obvious that a repertoire of communication and discoursestrategies can prove very usefirl for learners in that it allows them to achievea degree of communicative effectiveness beyond their immediate ünguisticmeans. However, researchers are in nvo minds about the long-termbenefits of such strategies. While they may provide learners with an initialconversational 'foothold', they may also lead to the premature closing downofthe learner's developing language system (or interlanguage) - a processthat is sometimes called fossilization. Certain learners seem to becomedependent on their strategic competence at the expense of their overalllinguistic competence. Sachiko - in the example quoted above - succeeds atbeing highly communicative, but at what future cost? There appears to be a

trade-off between early fluency and iater interlanguage development.Sachiko's Engüsh was probably a product of the conditions in which

she used it. It had develooed in face-to-face encounters. with litde time forcareful planning or self-rnonit<íring. Nor, perhaps, did she possess the kind of

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learned grammar knowledge necessary in order to fine-tune her uttérances,even if time had been available to do so. She had no choice, therefore, butto depend on words, including the liberal use of ready-made chunks, rarherthan on grammar.

As we saw in Chapter 2, the conditions in which speech occurs exert apowerful influence on its qualiry; in terms of its fluenc¡ its accuracy, andits complexiry. So, depending sn the kinds of conditions their speaking issubject to,learners are likely to adopt different coping strategies. Some, likeSachiko, who are using their L2 in reaJ-life encounters, with litde or nochance for ca¡eful planning or monitoring, may opt for relying on wordsrather than grammar tb get their meaning across. This, however, may haveharmfirl effects on-their long-term interlanguage development. Others, withmore time on tfár hands, will settle for á rnir" anall'tic, grammar-basedapproach, but-they will pay the price in fluency.

Ideally, ofiburse,learners will find a balance between speed and planning,between fast acce\s and slow analysis. And, in the end, the kind ofspeaking theyachieve shoufd be the one that is most suiied to their individual nleds. VÚherlaccuracy is less a prioriry as in Sachiko's case, a non-anal¡ic strategy mayworkbest. On the other hand,where the long-term goals of the lea¡ner involvespeaking with precision, a jump-start into fluency may be counterpre.ductive.

However, a lifetime spent studying grammar is no guarantee that speakingwill come naturall¡ either. As the student (on page 27) complained 'Duringall my life,I have been doing grammar and reading, but nobody has taught mehow to speak English'. K¡owledge that is not'available for use'is knowledgethat is dead on the page.

And this raises two fundamental questions facing teachers of speaking:

' What knowledge is required for speaking?' How can this knowledge be made available for use?

We'Il consider each of these questions in turn.

In the previous chapter, we reviewed and üsted the kinds of knowledge thatproficient speakers draw on when speaking. Let's revisit that list, and evaluatehow the ünguistic aspects of speaker knowledge apply to second languagespeaking. (By definition, extralinguistic knowledge, such as knowledge oftopic,context, and famiüarity with the other speakers need not concern us, sincethis will be either present or absent irrespective of the language spoken.)

Sociocultural knowledge

The value of teaching socioculrural knowledge, i.e. the culturally embeddedrules of social behaviour, is debatable. Many of these so-called rules arebased on flims¡ often hearsay, evidence. And they can tend to reinforcestereoq?es, to the point of caricature. The notion that all British speakers ofEnglish talk mainly about the weather, do not suffer conversational silences,and say sorry a)J. the ti1ne, is about as well-founded as the idea that they alsowear bowler hats and carry furled umbrellas.

Moreover, for many learners nowadays such 'rules'may be irrelevant sincethey will be learning English as an International Language (EIL) rather

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than the English that is used in, sa¡ Birmingham or Baltimore. Whatis more important than learning local sbciocultural customs might be todevelop intercultural competence - that is, the ability to manage cross-cultural encounters irrespective of the culture of the language being used,and taking into account that difference and ambiguiry are inhereni in allcommunication. Simply knowing how to ask Hozt do yu do that here? maybe more usefi¡l than i list of 'dos"and don'rs'.

Genre knowledgeGenre knowledge includes knowing .how different speech evenrs arestructured, and this will be particulaily relevant to learners whose specificpurposes for learning English include mastering spoken genres of a moreformal t¡pe, such as giving br4iness presentations or academic lectures.For more day-to-day commuplcation, such as service encounters or casualconversation, the genres arg;.likely to be either easily transferable from thelea¡ner's L1 or so loosely defined as to be difficult to teach in any formalSense anwvav. í

This does not mean that genres should be ignored or that features oflanguage should be introduced out of their generic context. On the contrary,because genres are recognizable across culhrres, they serve as a usefii way

, of providing learners with new language in a familiar frame. The questionAnything eke? w'ü make more sense when it is embedded in a shoppingdialogue than if it were presented in isolation. What learners probably dó

{rot need, though, is to be taught the generic structure itself Teaching a

learner that you greet shopkeepers on entering a store, and then wait to beasked what you want, may be somewhat condescending. Likewise, teachinglearners that speakers take turns in conversation is tantamount to teachingL2 readers thát boola have pages. What the learners need, more than thigeneric structure of the interaction, are specific ways of realizing particularinteractional moves. In other words, they need speech-act knowledge.

Speech acts

Just as learners need to know how specific discourse moves are realized, theyalso need to know the ways specific speech acts (also called functions) ar!typically encoded. For example, the following ways of offering advice orsuggestions are common:

l'd ... (if I were you)You'd bett'er..,.

You ought to ...Why don't you ... ?

lf you want my advice, you . ,. i

On the bther hand, the following.ways are less common in informal spokenEnglish:

I advise vou to ...My advice to yoúwould be ..,.'What I suggesi ii ...I have a sLJggestion ...

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While.these, all perfectly possible from a grammatical point of vieq neveror rafery occur:

Why do you not ... ?

I have some advice ...My suggestion to you would be ...lf you want my suggestion, ...

This suggests that learners .in.rot necessarily inruit the way that speechacts are customarily realiz€d,'nor the way that they are reahzed in spolien, as

opposed to written, Engüth. There is a good case, therefore, for the explicitteaching of these forms. Apart from an¡hing, they are typica-lly reaJtzedin short, memorabl,e/formulas, and therefore can be learned and stored as

extended lexical items, much in the way that generations of tourists haveused phraseboo.k$ to get by with.

RegisteltI;earners will also need to know how to aCapt these speech-act formulas fordifferent siruations, according to such cont¿xt variables as the status of theperson they are talking to. Exposure to different registers of speech, plusdirected attention to the ways in which spoken language is made more orless formal, should be sufficient, at least for general English purposes, tosensitize learners to this area. Role-plays (see page 96) are probably one ofthe best ways of practising different constellations of register variables, suchas the differences that social status makes.

Discourse

Discourse knowledge, as noted in the last chapter, involves using grammarand vocabulary in order to connect speaking turns and to signal speakerintentions. Discourse knowledge also assumes an understanding of howspeaking turns are managed - knowing that, for example, talk is collaborativelyconstructed through the taking and yielding of turns. However, since this isa universal featu¡e of spoken interaction, it is not something learners need tobe taught. They simply need to know how these turn-management moveszre realized in the secbnd language, through the use, primarily, of discoursemarkers. The list of discourse markers in Chapter 1 (page 9) would serve as

a useful starting point in this area.

Grammar

We noted in the preceding chapters that grammar knowledge for speakingpurposes consists largely of those grammar systems that favour rapid, real-time speech production. Since spontaneous speech is produced in clause-length units rather than sentence-length ones) a sentence grammar will beof limited usefulness for speaking. It is sentence grammar, however, thathas always been the main focus of language teaching. Learners are taughtto manipulate relatively lengthy and complex constructions that are moretypical of written than of spoken language. To take one example: theconditional uould is traditionally first taught as an element of the second

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and third conditional constructions, which consist of an if-clause and azuould-claus-e (zf ! b,ad th.e time,I utould study barder; if Id bad íhe ñme,I uauldhaae studied barder),rarher than being tauáht

"r rn él.rn"r,t of zoould-clatses

on their own (I zaould neaer eat borse meat).But analyses of corpora of spokenEnglish show rhat uould-clauses occur four timeé more often withóut anassociated lf clause than with one.

Likewisé, learners are taught grammar items-without a clear distinctionbeing made_befween spoken and written grammar. of course, there is a greatdeal ofoverlap, but there are certain structures that are much iess frequ;nt inspeech than in writing, such as reported.speech, subordinate clauses, relativeclauses, and the passive. on the óther hand, some features of spoken syntax(such as heads and tails, and ellipsiq - see page 2r),get little or no artentionat all in many mainstream ELI coúrses.

. t:9.. grammar for inforryd speaking would probably need to includethe following items: ;' a command of present and'past simple, and the abiüry to use the latter to

sequence narratives.' famüarity with the use of the continuous and perfect aspect forms of

verbs, both to frame and background information in narratiies, as in I zuascoming out of tbe^supermarket ... it d been raining ... .

' a knowledge of the most frequently occurrin[ modal and semi-modalverbs (i.e. can, tlill, uould, bave to, going to, ,rrá t).. ,h: abüty to formulate quertioni, especially yes/no- but alsotoá-questions.

' some basic conjun ctions (and, so, but) in order to string together sequencesofclausal and non-clausal units.

' one, or rwo all-purpose quoting expressions, of the be said ... and tlten IsaxQ... ryPe.

Vocabulary

we noted in the last chapter that native speakers employ over 2,500 wordsto cover 950/o of their needs. Learners can probably-griby on a lor fewer,

T1yb. half that number, especially for the prrrpos.i o?."rrrrl conversation.obviousl¡ for_more speciaüzed purposes ü.h

^r business negotiations or

academic soeaking, they will neéd more. Short of knowing eiactly whichwords the learners will need, the most useful criterion "for

seleltion ispr*ablyfequen:/. A working knowledge ofthe 1,500 most frequent wordsin English would srand a learner in góod stead. Even the toó 200 mostcommon words will provide the learneiwith a lot of conversarional mileage,since they include:

' all the common question forming words, such as zu/tere, uhy, uhen, hozu,zubose ...?

"11 ,lr. modal auxiliary verbs: zoould, zoill, can, may, might, sbould etc.

all the pronouns, such as it, I, me, 1tou, tbey, us, índ tñe possessive formssuch as mj, your, hers, tbeirthe demonstrative pro-nouns and other common deictic devices (see page22) such as this, tbat, here, tltere, nozu, tben

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' all the common prepositions, such as in, on, near,fro., 4fttri betueen. the full range of spoken discourse markers (see page 9), such as zuell, oh,

so, but, and, right, nota

' common backchannel expressions, such as really, no, zabat, and boztt ... as

in hou atuful! hoqD rDonderful!. common iequencing andiinking words, such as then,frst, so, end, 0r, nexto common ways of adding emphasis, such as really, very, just, sa

' common ways of hedging (i.e. reducing assertiveness), such as actually,

guite, rather, sort (of)' all-purpose words, such ás thing, things, place, tirne, zuay, make and do

Most learners'dictionaries, such as the Longman Dictionary of ContemporaryEngluh (LDOCE),now higtrlight high frequency words and even indicatetheir relative frequéncy in speech and in writing. Here, for example, is theentryfor th. 5é bet \n the LDOCE:

betlp! lberl v past tense and pastpartliple be[, present participte ;-

The formula 51 in the box means lwnr¡p,,.- ' "r'..,.:..1-"".,,.*o4,*,.r ¡1nn .-,^-l^ | | .: ,, . . .' - ¡, "ii,that bet is in the top 1000 words rl-J:'r;lrf i':':: .'"r' ':rr¡:;Ji-i::i::r':'r:::

of spoken English. In fact, betis so i -t . 50 lmrd*

.o.,i-o' i' sioken Engüsh that it i*5tr"iiT?t'i"T"üSHf Y#Jfffi*"'ff:I '' .ment: 'g1al9$l-P"g't-deserves a speclar comment:

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In the following efiract (from data that was used in the preparation of the

coursebookN¿ tural EnglüD, in which a Polish learner is describinga shoppingexperience, the words that do not fall in the top 2000 words band in spoken

English, according to the LDOCE, are underüned. The words that are in the1000-2000 band are in italics. The words in the 1-1000 band are unmarked.

Al lt happened I think two years ago, I went to a shop. lt was Saturday. I

usually do my shopp ing on Saturday. 5o I went to a shop to buy shoes, and

lwenttothat particular shop in which lfound my pair of shoes...B: Expensive?

A: Yeah, quite expensive.B: How much?

. A: About forty to f-fty pounds, something like that. So I went there, it was '

full of people and ltried on the shoes that I liked, so I decided to buy them.So I bought them. I went home after that, but it was almost the end of theday, the shoppíng day, so it wasn't left a long time for the shops to close,

so when I went home and decided to try on the shoes again, I saw that in

the bag were two left shoes. 5o I had, well, it was quite an expensive pairof slroes, so I tried to go back to the shop and exchange them so although '

I knew that they will exchange them, I was a bit worried. But I was late

and the shop was closed already and I had to go on ... next day on Sunday

to get the proper pdir of shoes.

B: Did you manage to get it?A: Yes, finally.

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35

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The learner has told her storyusing onlywords within the-2000 top frequencyrange(apar-tfromfour),andthevastmajorityofthewords -92o/o'of thetotal,words used - are in the top 1000. Thé student (who was in an advancedclass) manages to be .colmufcatlvely effective^using only a ümited range ofwords. (By the way, the fact that saturday and.sundly, igfrrrl and,fftl, arerelatively infrequent may seem counterínruitive, especially giírnth^tih.r.are words that are taught very early in a lang¡rag.^.o..,rrá. ih. f".t is thatthey belong to frequendy occurringiets - i:e. áayiof the week, and numbers- but the frequency of occurrenceJis distributeá across the mámbers withinthe set. This suggests

.that there is a case' for teaching not just frequent wordsbut frequendy occurring sers of words)

. The point, made eylier, that let forms part of commonry used phrases,alerts us to the fact that, as irnfortant as individual words'are, so too arechunks. In the last chapteE w..9 3aw how a mental store of *.*orír.d chunksis essential if.fluency is to-6e achieved. In fact, kngw-ing that bet is veryfreqrlelt is of little use unlegs the learner knows that it forirs the nucleus ofthe following high frequency chunks:

I betl'll betyou betwanna bet?don't bet on ityour best bet (is ...)my bet (is...)a safe bet

The problem is that there are a great many more combinations of words thanthere are individual words. which chunks are likely to be of use to learners?Until more informarion about the frequency of chúnks becomes available, arule of thumb might be to focus on the chunks that are associated with themost common words in the.language. The frequency of these common wordsmay- ol¡¡e a lot to thefact that they form.at least one element of commonlyused chunks. It's a safe be.t, for example, that the word betis moreoften .rs.áin its idiomatic combinations (I be.t, you bet, zuanna bet?) thanit is in its moreliteral sense, asin I bet on a borse in the frfth ,ace.

Moreover, the advantage of learningiih. formul"ic chunks associated withhigh-frequency words is that many oflhese form common syntactic strings,such as be + going + to + verb asÁ it! going to rain. so, by leaínins the chuikthe learner gets the string - and the glamlnar - ,for freé'. o

PhonologyFinall¡ we come to.phonology, an area which is perhaps the least amenabreto conscious control at the moment of articulation. Móst adult learners willb9o"y, to varying degiees, the influence of their first languaqe pronrrnciation'wh9n r.p...#p a second.lango?gg,and this.need not b"e

""ptáut..n so long

as intelligibiliry is not threarened. Intelligibiliry however,'is in the ear of

36

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the beholder. That is to say, what might be intelligible to one listener is notnecessarily intelligible to another.

Native speakers, for example, frequently identify the non-native-like use

of stress, rh¡hm, and intonation as being a greater bar to intelligibiliry anda stronger marker of accent, than the way indiüdual vowel and consonantsounds are pronounced. This is particularly acute when lack of fluencysegments speech into very short runs, as in this example, where a Japanesespeaker is discussing her plan-to show picrures of mode¡n Japan to US schoolchildren. Stressed words are printed in capital letters, and pause lengths areshown in brackets. in secgpds:

... not only WORDS t (.4) | can 5HOW I (.4) the (.4) PICTURES z (.6) HELPED

z (.8) STUDENTS ¿áo un- HELP- (.5) STUDENTS , (.2) UNDERSTAND the (.4)

JAPANESE CULTUfrT T1'

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As Ann Wenñerstrom comments, by speaking in such short bursts, witheach wo¡d giv6n almost equal emphasis,'the ef[ect is to obscure the mainpoint of the discourse because every word seems to be singled out as worthyof comment'.

Of couise, native speaker judgments are irrelevant if speakers are speakingEnglish as an International Language. The researcher JenniferJenkinsexamined the main causes of communication breakdown when non-nativespeakers are talking to each other and, on this basis, identified the followingareas of pronunciation as being crucial for intelligibility:

' certain'core'consonant sounds (but not vowels). the contrast between long and short vowels (as in bit and heat)

' consonant clusters, especially those at the beginning of words, such as 2r\n product

. sentence stress, r.e. the correct placement of stress in an utterance,especially contrastive stress (sáei my COUSIN, not m1 sister)

If this üst seems relatively short, it is nevertheless consistent with the viewwe have taken so far - that fluent spoken English is not simply a functionof a wide-ranging knowledge of grammar, an extensive vocabulary and a

native-like pronunciation. In fact, as this chapter has tried to demonstrate,fluency may be achievable with relatively minimal means.

So far we have attempted to answer the first of the two key questions posedon page 31, i.e. what knowledge is required for speaking? Now we can turnto the second question: how can this knowledge be made available for use?

Essentiall¡ to ensure availability for use, there are three Processes involved.Learners need to be made aware of features of the target knowledge-base,they need to integrate these features into their existing knowledge-base,and they need to develop the capacity to mobilize these features under real-time conditions. Depending on the view of learning that is adopted, these

processes are named, ddscribed, and rated differently. There have been at

least three theories oflanguage learning that are relevant to the teaching of

37

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speaking: behaviourist, cognitivist, and sociocultural theory and we shallbriefly review each in turn.

According to behaviourism,language learning is essentially the formationof good language'habits'through repeated reinforcement. In its popularizedform, audiolingualism, the three stages oflearningwere called presentation,practice, and production (PPP). The three-step PPP process was aimedat developing automatic habits largely through classroom processes ofmodelling, repetition, and controlled practice. PPP was appüed originally tothe teaching of grammar, but, by extensiori it has been used to structu¡e theteaching of language skills as well, including speaking. A rypical teachingsequence might involve listening tq, and imitating, a taped dialogue,followed by repetition of features of the dialogue, and then performance ofthe dialogue in class. ./

A cognitivist account of langtÍage learning rejects the behaviourist view ofthe learners as emptyvessels ggiting to be ñlled, and instead credits them withan information processing {apacity, analogous to computers. According tothis view, the learning of a complex skill, üke speaking, is seen as a movementfrom controlled to automatic processing. Initiall¡ conscious attention (orawareness-r"lting) is appüed to the learning of the individual stages (orrules) of a procedure that, through repeated activation, a¡e chunked into a

single manageable'program'. This is integrated into existing knowledge, a

stage which will involve some restructuring of the user's ünguistic system,and is then readily available for use, with minimal attentional control on thepart of the user. This is the stage known as autonomy.^ In teaching terms, cognitivi"st theory replaced th; PPP model with onethat progresses from awareness-raising, through proceduralization, toautonomy. -In fact, it is only the first stage that is significandy different,in terms of'classroom practice. Awareness-raising impües an explicil focuson the rules of the system, whereas strict audiolingual practice insisted onsimply imitating models without any explicit attention being given to therules that generated them.

The cognitivist model prioritizes mental functions over social ones.Sociocultural theory on the other hand, situates the learning process firmlyin its social context. According to this view, all learning - including thelearning of a first and a second language - is mediated through social andcultural activity. To achieve autonomy in a skill, the learner first needs toexperience other-regulation, that is, the mediation of a 'better other',whether parent, peer, or teacher. This typically takes the form of assistedperformance, whereby the teacher interacts with the learner to provide asupportive framework (or scaffold) within which the learners can extendtheir present competence. Through this shared activity, new knowledgeis jointly constructed until the learners are in a position to appropriate it- i.e. to make it their own - at which stage the scaffolding can be graduallydismantled. Learners are now able to function independently in a state ofself-regulation. A good example of this is the way an older óhild will teacha younger one the rules of a game, by both talking and walking it through,until the younger one has got the hang of it.

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behaviourist theory cognitivist theory sociocultural theory

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productiory,i automaticity, autonomY self-regulation


Learning, according to the sociocultural view, is fundamentally a social

phenomenón, requiring both actiüry and interactivity.In classroom terms, itlakes place in cycÉs of aisisted perfoimance , in which iearning is collaborative,

co-constructed, and scaffolded. For example, learners may set about solving

a problem in small groups, during which the teacher intervenes when

n...rt"ty to provide suggeitions or even to model the targeted behaviour.

AI tÉree iheories háve elements in common, especially when these are

translated into classroom procedures.The following table attempts to display

the relation between diffáient elements of each model:

These surfáce similarities, however, shouldrit be allowed to disguise the

fact that each theory reflects z very different conception of the mind. The

behaviourist mind ié simply a brain, pushed, pulled, and moulded by forces

beyond its control. The c-ognitivist mind is a computerized black b-ox, busily

processing input into o.rtpnt. The sociocultural mind is a netwo-ik, I jointconstruct"of'the discouri. .o*-rrniry through which it is distributed.

Each metaphor for the mind clearly has differen-t implications in terms oflearning,

"nd of language learning in particular. Nevertheless, each theory

incorpolat., " ,t"g."*Ñ.h roughly equates with awareness, whereby the

l.arné, encounters" something ñ.*. R"a each theory attemPts to explain

how this knowledge is integrated, or appropriated, into the learner's

existing sysrems. Ria n""Uy, éach -theory

aicepts that at least some of this

.r.* kño*l.dge becomes ".,ráil"ble

for use: it is automated and the learner is

autonomous'

Conclusions In this chapter we have looked at speaking from the point of view

of the learner, coping with the challenge of speaking in a second (or

other) language. Essentially, the difficulties that the learner-speaker

faces break down into two main areas:. knowledge factors: the learner doesn't yet know aspects of the

language that enable Production'. skills factors: the learner's knowledge ¡s not sufficiently automated

to ensure fluencY.As a result, there maY also be:. affective factors, such as lack of confidence or self-consciousness,

which might inhibit fluencY.Learners compensate for their insufficient knowledge of the language

system by using communication strategies, and they compensate forlack of fluency by using discourse strategies'

Over-reliance on'such strategies, however, could lead to premature

fossilization of the learner's interlanguage. Fossilization may also

39


result from a preference for a lexical mode of processing, as opposedto a more grammatical one.

In terms of the knowledge base that enables speech, learners need:. a core grammar.. a core vocabulary of at least 1000 high-frequency items.

:t',ffi ;'Hfr :*$fJ#li'J#t1,,!"i".1"*,li,,chasrequesting or inviting).

' mastery of those features of pronuntiation that inhibit intelligíbility.Also important is that speakers remember to take into accountcontext factors, including the cultural context and the context of theimmediate situation. ,:t

In order to activate these.&nowledge areas and make themavailable for use in fluent,face-to-face talk, the learning process needs

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* | e d s e _ b a s e, i eawareness.to integrate these features into theír existing knowledge-base, i.e.appropriation.to develop the capacity to mobilíze these features under real-timeconditions and unassisted, i.e. autonomy.

Looking ahead In the chapter that follows we will look at the first of these areas -awareness - and suggest ways that learners' awareness of the featuresof spoken language can be optimized. In the two subsequent chapters,we will consider activities that target appropriation and autonomy.

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