WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT
HOW TO HELP LEARNERS TO PRODUCE EXTENDED TRANSACTIONAL TURNS OF SPEECH
Introduction
Since the introduction of communicative approaches, the ability to communicate effectively in English has become one of the main goals in ELT. The Council of Europe (1998), in response to the need for international co-operation and professional mobility among European countries, has recently published a document, Modern languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment. A Common European Framework of reference, in which the acquisition of communicative and pragmatic competence in a second language is emphasised. Both contributed strongly to the development of ‘the communicative classroom’, increasing the emphasis on teaching the spoken language.
Although students recognize the importance of developing communicative skills in the target language, they often have a passive attitude towards speaking in the classroom. Students generally have fewer problems in taking short turns, since they are required to give minimal responses to partecipate in a conversation with the teacher or classmates based on simple exchanges. They tend to be reluctant, however, to ‘expose’ themselves in the classroom, making it very difficult to get them to speak at any length. My concern derives from the problem of how to actually get learners speaking in a meaningful way in the classroom.
Moreover, in the Italian school-leaving examination, students’competence in the foreign language is assessed by means of an oral interview. During the interview, students are expected to report on and discuss topics related specifically to the syllabus. They are therefore required to produce an extended piece of spoken English. Thus, the particular need to develop students’ competence in using spoken language for informative purposes is of crucial importance.
The aim of my analysis is to examine briefly the components of communicative competence and to explore the nature and the different functions of spoken language, with particular reference to the development of the skills involved in producing long turns of transactional speech.
What are the components of communicative competence?
One of the principles of Communicative Language Teaching, and of the approach adopted in the Common European Framework[1], is the concept of communicative competence. The term, introduced by Hymes (1972), implies “the knowledge of language rules, and of how these rules are used to understand and produce appropriate language in a variety of sociocultural settings”[2]. Hedge (2000) points out that this concept demostrated a shift of emphasis among linguists away from a narrow focus on language as a formal system. Hymes was concerned with the social and cultural knowledge which a speaker needs in order to understand and use linguistic forms. Hedge also says that “His view, therefore, encompassed not only knowledge but also the ability to put that knowledge into use in communication.”[3]
The key components of communicative competence, identified by a number of researchers, are as follows: lingustic competence, pragmatic competence, discourse competence, strategic competence, and fluency.
Linguistic competence is concerned with knowledge of the language itself, its form and meaning. It involves a knowledge of spelling, pronunciation, vocabulary, word formation, grammatical structure, sentence structure, and linguistic semantics. Hedge observes that teachers have to take into consideration the fact that linguistic competence is an integral part of communicative competence. As Fearch et al (1984) point out, “…it is impossible to concieve of a person being communicatively competent without being linguistically competent” [4].
Pragmatic competence means knowing how to use language in order to achieve certain communicative goals or intentions. For example the statement ‘It’s so hot today’ can have a number of different functions. It might be a statement about the physical atmosphere, a request to open the window, or an attempt to elicit the offer of a cold drink (Hedge, 2000: 48). Thus, one element of pragmatic competence is knowing how to perform a particular function or express an intention clearly. However, in order to achieve successful communication, the spoken or written message must also be appropriate to the social context in which it is produced. This is the role of sociolingustic competence, which is concerned with the social knowledge necessary to select the language forms that are appropriate in different settings, and with people in different roles and with different status. This competence enables a speaker to be ‘contextually appropriate’ or in Hymes’s words (1972), to know ‘when to speak, when not, what to talk about with whom, when, where and in what manner’. (Hedge, 2000: 50)
Discourse competence is concerned with the abilities needed to create coherent written texts or conversation and understand them. More specifically, discourse competence in conversational use of the language involves the abilities, inter alia, to perform turns in discourse, to mantain the conversation, and to develop the topic.
Strategic competence was defined by Canale and Swain (1980) as ‘how to cope in an authentic communicative situation and how to keep the communicative channel open’ (Hedge, 2000: 52). Hedge points out that strategic competence consists of using communication strategies. These strategies are used by learners to compensate for their limited linguistic competence in expressing what they want to say.
The term fluency relates to language production, and it is normally associated with speech. It is the ability to link units of speech together with facility and without inappropriate slowness, or undue hesitation.
The nature of spoken language
In order to help students develop their ability in speaking English competently, we need to investigate the nature of spoken language, its functions, its uses and the conditions that contribute to the production of meaningful spoken language.
Spoken and written language
Brown and Yule (1983) make an important distinction between spoken and written language. They point out that for most of its history, language teaching has been concerned with the teaching of written language. This language is characterised by well-formed sentences, which are integrated into highly structured paragraphs. Spoken language, on the other hand, consists of short, often fragmentary utterances, in a range of pronunciations. There is often a great deal of repetition and overlap between one speaker and another, and speakers frequently use non-specific references (‘thing’, ‘it’, ‘this’ etc.). (Nunan, 1989: 26) Brown and Yule observe that: “The combination of loosely organised syntax, the number of general non-specific words and phrases, the use of interactive expressions like well, oh, uhuh, all contribute to the general impression that information is packed very much less densely in spoken language of this sort than it is, say, in expository prose…”[5]
They also suggest that students should be encouraged to talk from a very early stage since, from a linguistic point of view, spoken language is relatively less demanding than written language. However, they state that: “The problems in the spoken language are going to be much more concerned with on-line production, and with the question of how to find meaningful opportunities for individual students to practise using a rather minimal knowledge of the foreign language in a flexible and inventive manner, than with linguistic complexity.”[6] Furthermore, according to the acquisitionist view, learners should not be put under undue pressure to produce spoken language at the earliest possible stage, since they may well require a ‘silent period’ in which to absorb and process linguistic input.
Transactional function and interactional function
Brown and Yule also consider the distinction between two basic language functions. These are the transactional function, which is primarly concerned with the transfer of information, and the interactional function, in which the primary purpose of speech is the maintenance of social relationships.
The same distinction has also been pointed out by McCarthy (1991), who says: “Transactional talk is for getting business done in the world, i.e. in order to produce some change in the situation that pertains. It could be to tell somebody something they need to know, to effect the purchase of something, to get someone to do something, or many other world-changing things. Interactional talk, on the other hand, has as its primary functions the lubrication of the social wheels, establishing roles and relationships with another person prior to transactional talk, confirming and consolidating relationships, expressing solidarity, and so on. (…..) The words mainly and primarily are used to underline the fact that talk is rarely all one thing or the other, and, in a sense, it is almost impossible to conceive of talk between two people that does not, in some small way, ‘change the world’, even if that only means getting to know someone a little better.”[7]
Brown and Yule also note that when spoken language is used for a primarily transactional function, the purpose of the speaker in speaking is primarily to communicate his message rather than to be nice to the listener. They observe: “We could say that primarily interactional language is primarily listener-oriented, whereas primarily transactional language is primarily message-oriented.”[8]
Long turns and short turns
Another distinction identified by Brown and Yule is the one between ‘short turns’ and ‘long turns’. They define them as follows: “A short turn consists of only one or two utterances, a long turn consists of a string of utterances which may last as long as an hour’s lecture…what is required of a speaker in a long turn is considerably more demanding than what is required of a speaker in a short turn. As soon as a speaker ‘takes the floor’ for a long turn, tells an anecdote, tells a joke, explains how something works, justifies a position, describes an individual, and so on, he takes responsibility for creating a structured sequence of utterances which must help the listener to create a coherent mental representation of what he is trying to say. What the speaker says must be coherently structured.”[9]
Practice has shown that is is often very difficult to find meaningful ways for learners to use the spoken language, and in particular to progress beyond minimal responses. Brown and Yule point out that limiting spoken language to short chunks inside the classroom means limiting learners’ ability to communicate outside. This is because only the introduction of activities requiring extended pieces of spoken language “will give the student experience in being in charge in the speech situation and responsible for effective communication taking place”[10] The problem from a didactic point of view is that taking long turns is a very particular skill, which varies even among native speakers, since it requires considerable cognitive ability. Brown and Yule observe that “[t]he ability to produce long transactional turns, in which clear information is transferred is, we claim, not an ability which is automatically acquired by all native speakers of a language. It is an ability which appears to need adequate practice and feedback…It seems reasonable to suggest that the explicit teaching of the production of the spoken form of the foreign language should be particularly concerned with the teaching of extended transactional turns.”[11].
Foreign language learners not only have to face the cognitive difficulties involved in organising the ideas expressed in extended chunks of spoken language, but they also have to overcome deficiencies in their linguistic ability that prevent them from speaking fluently. An approach to help learners to become more fluent might be to teach them ‘gambits’. Keller and Warner in their book Conversation Gambits (1988) define a gambit as: “a word or phrase which helps us to express what we are trying to say. For example, we use gambits to introduce a topic of conversation; to link what we have to say to what someone has just said; to agree or disagree; to respond to what we have heard.”[12]
Possible examples of everyday situations which might require longer turns from the speakers are such things as narrating personal experiences, participating in job interviews, arguing points of view, describing processes or locations and so on. Brown and Yule conclude: “The general point which needs to be made, however, is that it is important that the teacher should realise that simply training the student to produce short turns will not automatically yield a student who can perform satisfactorily in long turns…. It must surely be clear that students who are only capable of producing short turns are going to experience a lot of frustration when they try to speak the foreign language. They may have achieved basic interactional skills and they may have the language forms available to permit them to request information, services etc., but they are very far indeed from the expressed aim of many courses which is to permit the students to ‘express themselves’ in the foreign language.”[13]
Ideational function and interpersonal function
A similar approach to the problem is given by Thomas and Hawes (1994), who suggest that not enough attention is given to the factors that inhibit or encourage the production of spoken language. Among the major functions of language identified by Halliday (1985), Thomas and Hawes focus on the distinction between the ideational function and the interpersonal function. The interpersonal function is reflected in the kind of relaxed verbal interaction aimed at establishing and mantaining social relations. The ideational function is concerned with the use of language to express content and communicate information. Thomas and Hawes point out that the language appropriate to each of these two functions will be different, since they are two distinct kinds of speaking skills. They suggest that the assumption that students’competence can be developed by any kind of speaking activity is mistaken. They point out that the difficulty learners have in developing the ability to use language for informative purposes lies in the fact that this use of English requires them to produce long spoken exchanges, which are more complex to plan and produce than the short turns typical in conversation. They assume that “[t]he spoken-English skills that most urgently need to be taught seem to be those that relate to selecting appropriate information on a subject, and then ordering and expressing it in a clearly comprehensible way.”[14]
Communicative stress
Brown and Yule also identify the factors that can potentially contribute to encouraging students to take long turns. They state that “It seems reasonable to suggest that there are conditions under which a speaker feels more comfortable in producing what he has to say, and conditions under which he feels less comfortable. We assume that the student is more likely to produce the best he is capable of in a foreign language under conditions where he is under least ‘communicative stress’”[15]. Among the conditions they identify for reducing communicative stress, they list:
· if the listener is a peer or junior