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Articles‘Very good’ as a teacher responseThe value of a focused approach to written corrective

feedbackTraversing the lexical cohesion minefieldCritical reflection in a TESL course: mapping

conceptual changeChallenges in teaching ELF in the periphery:

the Greek contextWhy and how textbooks should encourage extensive reading

Point and counterpointProcess-oriented pedagogy

Text messagesA tale of two songs

CommentELT and the challenges of the times

ReviewsTeaching Other Subjects through EnglishCross-Curricular Resources for Young LearnersUncovering CLILDeveloping and Assessing Intercultural Communicative CompetenceTo Get to Know Each Other Leads to Better Mutual UnderstandingTeaching Modern Languages to Young LearnersTeaching Foreign Languages in the Primary SchoolLiterature and Stylistics for Language LearnersOxford Learner’s ThesaurusBuilding a Validity Argument for the Test of English as a

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Contents

ELT Journal Volume 63 Number 3 July 2009

Articles

Jean Wong andHansun Zhang Waring

‘Very good’ as a teacher response 195

John Bitchener andUte Knoch

The value of a focused approach to written corrective feedback 204

Iain McGee Traversing the lexical cohesion minefield 212

Thomas S. C. Farrell Critical reflection in a TESL course: mapping conceptual change 221

Nicos Sifakis Challenges in teaching ELF in the periphery: the Greek context 230

Dale Brown Why and how textbooks should encourage extensive reading 238

Point and counterpoint

William Littlewood Process-oriented pedagogy: facilitation, empowerment, or control? 246

David M. Bell Another breakthrough, another baby thrown out with the bathwater 255

William Littlewood OBE: a coin with two sides or many different coins? 263

Text messages

Andy Kirkpatrick andAndrew Moody

A tale of two songs: Singapore versus Hong Kong 265

Comment

Chris Lima ELT and the challenges of the times 272

Reviews

Steve Darn Teaching Other Subjects through English by S. Deller and C. Price, Cross-Curricular Resources for Young Learners by I. Calabrese and S. Rampone,and Uncovering CLIL by P. Mehisto, M. J. Frigols, and D. Marsh 275

Silvija Andernovics Developing and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence: AGuide for Language Teachers and Teacher Educators by I. Lazar et al.(eds.), and To Get to Know Each Other Leads to Better MutualUnderstanding by M. Bedynska et al. (eds.) 277

Simon Smith The TeMoLaYoLe Book: Teaching Modern Languages to Young Learnersby M. Nikolov et al. (eds.), and Teaching Foreign Languages in the PrimarySchool by C. Kirsch 280

Amos Paran Literature and Stylistics for Language Learners: Theory and Practice byG. Watson and S. Zyngier (eds.) 284

Stephen Coffey Oxford Learner’s Thesaurus: A Dictionary of Synonyms by D. Lea(chief ed.) 288

Jesus Garcıa Laborda Building a Validity Argument for the Test of English as a ForeignLanguage� by C. A. Chapelle et al. (eds.) 291

Darren Elliott Form-focused Instruction and Teacher Education: Studies in Honour ofRod Ellis by S. Fotos and H. Nassaji (eds.) 295

Websites for the language teacher

Diana Eastment IATEFL Cardiff Online 2009 297

Correspondence 300

IATEFL 302

Please visit ELT Journal’s website athttp://eltj.oxfordjournals.org


‘Very good’ as a teacher response

Jean Wong and Hansun Zhang Waring

Much scholarly and pedagogical attention has been devoted to correctivefeedback. In this paper, we turn to positive feedback, and in particular, call fora reconsideration of teachers’ use of explicit positive assessments such as ‘verygood’. Based on examples from an ESL classroom, we show that utterances suchas ‘very good’ may have the potential of inhibiting learning opportunities withinparticular pedagogical contexts. We then broaden our discussion by offeringa range of suggestions for managing the complexities of positive feedback in thelanguage classroom.

Introduction An integral part of language teaching is giving feedback. As Fanselow (1987:267) writes, ‘to teach is to provide feedback’. Over the past three decades, wehave made great strides in understanding the various facets and strategiesof feedback in language teaching. Much of the scholarly inquiry, however,has been devoted to feedback giving when something goes wrong, i.e.negative or ‘corrective’ feedback (Gass and Mackey 2006). In this paper, weask what kind of feedback teachers should give when nothing appears to begoing wrong. What do we say when a student has just produced a correctresponse? To many, the answer may be obvious, uninteresting, orunimportant. We argue otherwise. To that end, we will first introduce somebackground on positive feedback and its related practice of ‘praising’. Wewill then briefly show how the use of ‘very good’ may inhibit learningopportunities in a particular pedagogical context. Finally, we will offer someteaching suggestions on responding to correct student contributions inways that possibly promote learning.

Background In contrast to the large body of literature on corrective feedback, work onpositive feedback is difficult to find. Allwright (1980) categorizes positivefeedback such as ‘fine’ or ‘good’ as part of the ‘quality judgements’ integral tothe guidance we give as teachers in the language classroom. Some empiricalwork on positive feedback has addressed how it is done. Based on datagathered from English language classrooms, Seedhouse (2004: 206–7)claims that positive evaluation is often implied in the absence of feedback inthe initiation–response–feedback sequence (Sinclair and Coulthard 1975).By examining 25 hours of classroom discourse, Hellermann (2003: 88)shows that positive assessments done in teacher repetitions arecharacterized by:

1 rhythmical placement synchronized with student response,2 falling pitch contour,

ELT Journal Volume 63/3 July 2009; doi:10.1093/elt/ccn042 195ªª The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.Advance Access publication August 20, 2008

3 mid-level pitch,4 longer duration than student responses.

Others have considered what positive feedback really accomplishes.According to Mehan (1979: 64), positive evaluation is a ‘terminal act’ thatmarks the final boundary of a sequence (cf. Schegloff 2007). Utterances like‘very good’, for example, can merely signal that it is time to move on to thenext person (Fanselow op. cit.) or the next activity (‘transition ritual’ inBrophy 1981: 18).

One function of utterances such as ‘very good’ is to praise—a way ofreinforcing a student’s giving of a correct response, which, in the context oflanguage teaching, means reinforcing correct comprehension orproduction of a language structure, for example. Notably, the correctness ofa student’s response is not necessarily a key consideration in whethera teacher offers praise. Brophy (op. cit.) maintains that teachers sometimesoffer inappropriate praise, lauding students for incorrect answers as well ascorrect ones. In citing O’Leary and O’Leary, Brophy (ibid.) indicates thatthree features must be present in order for praise to function asreinforcement. First, the praise must be contingenton the actual execution ofthe behaviour that is being reinforced. Second, the praise must be specificabout the behaviour being reinforced. Third, the praise must be sincere andaddressed to the particular context in question.

For example, one problem with the use of ‘very good’ in a second languageteaching context, according to Fanselow (op. cit.), is that if a teacher uses thephrase ‘very good’ in response to a student’s utterance, ‘I extremely happy’,to what does the teacher’s praise refer? Fanselow (ibid.) argues that theprecise target in this case may be ambiguous. It may be that the teacher ispleased that the student is happy, or the teacher may be overjoyed that thestudent has produced a response at all. Alternatively, it is conceivable thatthe teacher is only responding to the portion of the utterance that is correct,despite the fact that the utterance produced by the student is not fullyaccurate (Fanselow ibid.: 281).

Clearly, feedback giving, and in our case, positive feedback giving, is nota straightforward task. More experienced teachers, however, may be betterequipped to manage its complexities. Forgas and Tehani (2005), forexample, report that experienced feedback givers are mindful of the impactof mood on feedback and, accordingly, they give more positive and politefeedback when they are in a sad mood. They remain alert and compensatefor their sad mood in giving proper feedback.

In sum, even a simple item like ‘very good’ has its many faces. A plethora ofissues surround its use. The cases discussed below are used as a point ofdeparture for rethinking how a language instructor should respond tostudents’ correct answers or responses, at least, on some occasions like theones displayed in the ensuing discussion.

Examples of ‘verygood’ from the ESLclassroom

While the role of assessment such as ‘very good’ in marking sequenceclosing has been noted before (Mehan op. cit.; Schegloff op. cit.), we wouldlike to take a step further in suggesting that its use may in fact result in the

196 Jean Wong and Hansun Zhang Waring

unintended effect of shutting down learning opportunities by signalling notonly sequence closing but also ‘case closed’. In particular, we show a fewinstances of classroom data in a form-focused check-homework context,where the focus is on checking learners’ ability to use ‘present perfect’ or‘present perfect progressive’. The brief analysis given below is derived froma more detailed conversation analytic treatment of a much larger amount ofrelevant data (see Waring 2008). The transcripts presented below have beensimplified for readability. The only notation unfamiliar to the reader may bethe two sets of vertically aligned brackets, which indicate simultaneous talkor overlapping non-verbal conduct (indicated in double parentheses) bydifferent participants.

In the first instance, the relevant exercise item is:

Wow, I didn’t know you were married.

How long ___________________?

(Purpura and Pinkley 2000: 73)

In Extract 1a below, Miyuki raises a question regarding this item:

Extract 1a 1 Miyuki I have one [ques]tion,

2 Teacher [Yes.]

3 Miyuki Number three is if without ‘be’ is not good?

4 Teacher How long you’ve been marrie[d?

5 Miyuki [Have you married.

6 have you married.

This sequence spans 75 lines of the transcript and lasts two and a halfminutes. It turns out to be the most complicated error correction sequencein the two-hour class. Briefly, Miyuki has treated ‘marry’ as a verb, in whichcase its correct present perfect form would be ‘have married’, except that thepunctual aspect of ‘marry’ is ill-fitted to the duration query of ‘how long’(that is ‘marry’, like ‘find’ or ‘explode’ and unlike ‘sleep’ or ‘work’ are verbsthat entail no duration). Since the form of ‘married’ may be either a verbor an adjective, Miyuki’s confusion is not surprising. One wonders,however, why Miyuki did not raise her concern much earlier when the‘married’ item was first being dealt with. Here is what happened fourexercise items and 66 lines of transcript earlier:

Extract 1b 1 Teacher Number three. Kevin.

2 Kevin ‘Wow. I didn’t know you were married’.

3 ‘How long have you [been married’. ]

4 Teacher [((encouraging nods))]

5 ((emphatically)) Very good. How long have you been

6 married. ((smiley voice)) Very good. Number four.

7 Mai,


Note that from line 4 onward, the teacher’s ‘very good’ is deliveredimmediately and emphatically, along with the encouraging nods, the smileyvoice, a repetition of the response as well as a second ‘very good’. Aside fromthe fact that her turn components emerge one after another without leavingany space for others to come in, this dramatic combination of verbal andnon-verbal expressions not only accepts Kevin’s response as correct but alsoputs it on a pedestal, so to speak. One might argue that against the backdropof this finale-like, heavily advertised ‘perfect’ answer, any attempt toarticulate understanding problems or explore alternative answers, as inMiyuki’s case, would appear less than expected or desirable.

In the next segment, we see that the ‘case-closed’ quality of ‘good!’ is sostrong that even when the teacher offers more space for learner contributionimmediately thereafter, no uptake emerges. The relevant exercise item isthis:

In fact the team (5) (won) _____________ 98% of the games they (6)(play) ____________ so far.

(Purpura and Pinkley op.cit.: 32)

Extract 2a 1 Teacher Okay? Who’s next? I think Jae? Is that you?

2 Are you next? Alright.

3 Jae ((reads)) ‘In fact, the team has won uh

4 ninety eight percent of the games’.

5 ((pause))

6 Teacher ((th[ree consecutive nods)) ]

7 Jae [they have played so far.]

8 Teacher Good! ((in excited tone)). In fact the team has won

9 ninety eight percent of the games ((in staccato

10 tempo)) they ((pause)) have ((pause))

11 pl[ayed ] [so ]

12 Students [played]

13 Student [so far.]

14 Students far.

15 ((T walks around))

16 Teacher Is everybody okay?

17 ((Ss writing))

18 Yes? Okay ((reads instructions for next exercise))

Note that the teacher’s ‘Good!’-initiated response turn in lines 8–11 hasmany of the finale-like qualities as those seen in the previous case. Thedelivery of the repetition is notable. The staccato delivery of ‘they haveplayed so’ exhibits a fairly typical teacher-like tone in imparting information


that is important, salient, and worthy of remembering. It serves to establishthe singular, irrefutable correctness of Jae’s response, thus implicitlyproposing that the case is now closed.

Despite this finale-like interactional state, in the ensuing space, the teacherdisplays no urgency to move on. The long gap during which she walksaround provides an opportunity for learners to ask questions about the twojust-completed verb forms—‘win’ and ‘play’. The subsequent ‘Is everybodyokay?’ makes available another window of opportunity. Yet, no questions areraised; all seems well. That is, until 418 lines of transcript and ten itemslater:

Extract 2b 1 Marie number five uh ‘the team has very good players’. In

2 fact, the team is winning or

3 Teacher has won.

Clearly, Marie has not fully grasped what the correct answer is or why it iscorrect as opposed to any alternatives, and the earlier ‘very good’ closing didnot seem to present a favourable environment for voicing herunderstanding problems.

There is, of course, always the issue of whether Miyuki or Marie had anyconcerns to voice earlier on in the first place. One might argue, for example,that their questions emerged over time. Since we are not privy to whatwas going on in their heads at the time, what we are proposing is that hadthere been a more ‘inviting’ space for student concerns when each itemwas initially dealt with, there might have been more room for thoseconcerns to be developed and articulated, and that the uses of ‘very good’ inthese particular contexts have not been conducive to creating that space.

In sum, there is some evidence that the use of ‘very good’ delivered ina particular tone and/or package may be inhibiting learning opportunities atleast in a form-focused context. This outcome or by-product may be acutewhen the context is a language learning setting, one in which directspeaking opportunities in class and the frequency of them may contribute toand impact students’ developing mastery of the target language. In whatfollows, we expand the discussion to the use of explicit positive assessmentssuch as ‘very good’ in general and propose some suggestions for teaching.

Suggestions for theteacher

Given our overall discussion above, some teachers might ask, ‘What are thealternatives for providing positive feedback other than using ‘‘very good’’?’In this regard, we propose some ways of getting around a ‘very good’dilemma. Our suggestions for what to do or say as alternative strategies areto be taken as preliminary steps in an understanding of what should go intothe giving of positive feedback, when ‘very good’ appears to be not ‘good’enough. We begin with specific classroom techniques and move on toa more general call for awareness, reflection, and action research.

Use ‘very good’sparingly

Arguably, in some circumstances feedback tokens such as ‘very good’should be used sparingly or even hardly at all especially with higher-levellearners who may need less reinforcement or ‘stroking’ in the first place(Brophy op. cit.). In fact, learners typically assume that an answer given is


correct unless teachers tell students otherwise (Brophy ibid.; Seedhouse op.cit.). Herein might be a small time-saving mechanism, i.e. not offeringpositive feedback after every student response, particularly with moreadvanced learners.

Produce ‘very good’with ‘non-final’intonation

Teachers might say ‘very good’ using a mid-rising intonational contour,which has the effect of functioning as a continuer, soliciting ‘more’ orfurther responses from the students. In other words, utter ‘very good’ withaccompanying appropriate non-verbal cues so that the feedback gives offa ‘non-final’ rather than a ‘finale-like’ tone.

Accept with lessevaluative tokens

The teacher may accept the student’s correct response with less evaluativetokens such as ‘okay’, ‘alright’, and the like. In fact, there is some evidence inWaring (op. cit.) that when ‘okay’ is used instead of ‘very good’, students mayproceed to ask follow-up questions about the just-completed item.

Ask ‘permission’ tomove on

The teacher may wish to give a simple, quick nod of the head up and down,which implies approval of the student’s correct answer in a non-verbalmanner and immediately follows up by saying ‘Okay to move on?’ If theoriginal respondent to the item does not have any problems with moving on,then the teacher turns to the whole class and asks again ‘Okay to move on?’Providing feedback in this manner is akin to ‘opening up closings’ whichgives added interactional opportunity spaces, if needed, for anyone in theclass to put forth ‘unmentioned mentionables’ (Schegloff and Sacks 1973).This technique may be important particularly for those students who arereticent to speak up and may need extra encouragement or interactionalspace in which to do so. In contrast, note that in Extract 2a above, theteacher’s production of ‘good’ in an excited manner and her repetition ofthe correct student’s answer with staccato tones and pauses served toclose off further student questions even though she also asked ‘Is everybodyokay?’

Problematize correctresponses

Teachers might help students become more actively engaged with thelearning by problematizing a correct answer. We do all kinds of things inresponse to an incorrect answer, such as silence, hesitation or delay,questioning certainty (‘Are you sure?’), asking for repetition or clarification(for example, ‘Can you say that again?’). If we use these same strategies fora correct answer, chances are students will try harder to reach anunderstanding of not just what a correct answer is, but why it is correct.

Ask ‘pursuit’questions

Teachers might respond to a student’s correct answer by pursuing withquestions such as: ‘Why do you say that?’ ‘How did you get or arrive at thatanswer?’ ‘Go deeper into why this is a correct response. Can you explain?’‘Explain why this is a correct answer based on what we have just learnt (orbased on the grammatical rules we have just studied)?’ This kind offeedback affords the student an opportunity to support or defend his or heranswer and to display confidence that what he or she has just said is corrector on target.

Elicit peercontribution

Teachers might draw in wider class participation by turning to others inaddition to the one who initially responded and ask: ‘Anyone else?’ ‘What


does someone else have?’ ‘Do you all agree?’ ‘Does anyone have a differentanswer?’ These kinds of feedback questions are not intended to imply thatthe one who answered initially had an incorrect answer, although theteacher may need to do some initial work to change this perception or‘habit’, given that it is a common practice in classrooms that when a teachercalls on more than one student regarding a particular exercise item, it ishighly probable that the one who originally responded was not entirelycorrect. Alternative positive feedback questions such as those suggestedhere may open up the classroom floor for further learning opportunities,allowing students the chance to question, debate, or agree with answers givenby other students.

Use whole class‘feedback signs’

Teachers may invite other students in the class to participate in providingfeedback responses by using signals of various kinds, for example, brightlycoloured, laminated cards that state: ‘yes’, ‘no’, ‘maybe’, or ‘I agree’ versus ‘Idisagree’ that show whether they have the same answer as the one whooriginally responded to the exercise item in question (for form-focusedinstruction). This allows others in the class an opportunity to participate andreflect upon how and if their own answer differs from the one given by theoriginal respondent. And when the teacher notices that there are differingcards held up by the students, indicating a range of varying responses to theitem in question, the teacher may open up the discussion and clarify orcorrect erroneous responses. Ideally, the students initially do not see eachother’s cards or responses so that they are forced to make an independent‘judgement’ on the item first.

Recognize thepotential negativeimpact of ‘very good’

Based on our analyses of the classroom data displayed above, which may betaken as indicators of what does occur in real teacher–student interaction onsome occasions of form-focused instruction, we would caution teachers thatin praising students for giving correct responses by offering positivefeedback tokens like ‘very good’ (‘excellent’, ‘good’, ‘wonderful’, or the like),ironically, this may have a negative impact on the learning situation(potentially), shutting down the sequence, which may lead to closing off offurther student participation, for example, students’ further questionsand comments. Teachers should use feedback tokens such as ‘very good’appropriately, being sensitive to the contexts in which utterances of thiskind may inhibit rather than encourage student learning and participation.

Engage in self-reflection

Just as Forgas and Tehani (op. cit.) have noted that experienced feedbackgivers are mindful of the impact of mood, and how that may affect the kindand frequency of feedback they give, we would suggest that (language)teachers, particularly those who are novices but perhaps more experiencedones as well, engage in some form of self-reflection of their positive feedbackmethods and utterances, for example, paying attention to when they use, donot use, or even overuse feedback tokens like ‘very good’, ‘excellent’, or thelike. Our analyses of the data shown above reveal instances of ‘very good’ aspossibly shutting down learning opportunities in form-focused instruction.Teachers might examine form-focused and other instructional contexts inorder to get a (better) sense of when theyuse positive feedback tokens such as‘very good’ (if at all).


Conduct actionresearch

Teachers might engage in action research and have themselves videotapedteaching a (form-focused) lesson, and subsequently transcribe and analysethe videotape by themselves or with another colleague, focusing on how,where, and when they use feedback tokens like ‘very good’ or whatever elsethey offer to students in terms of positive feedback, praise, orencouragement when students give a correct response (some other forms ofpositive feedback may fall in the domain of non-verbal behavioural cues).Another side of this coin would be to include a ‘coding scheme’ for positivefeedback, noting when, where, and what was provided as positive feedbackon teacher observational forms used by supervisors when conductingrequired teacher observations. On the supervisor’s part, the goal would notmerely be to check off that positive feedback was provided, as if it were sometaken for granted ‘default setting’ but to examine more actively the kind offeedback utterances which a teacher employs, their use and appropriatenessin terms of furthering or possibly stifling students’ participation andlearning opportunities. If this kind of notation of positive feedback isincluded as a dimension in teachers’ observational reports, teachers mostcertainly would (begin to) engage in self-reflection concerning how andwhat they provide as positive feedback. Regular self-reflection and(required) observational reports along parameters such as those proposedmay enhance the quality of teacher performance and better serve theinterests of those whose continued educational growth is at stake, that is thestudents.

What teachers might find as a result of their self-reflection and actionresearch is that ‘very good’ is not something to be avoided at all cost. When‘very good’ is used along with further ‘pursuit’ questions or the elicitation ofpeer contribution as discussed above, its ‘case-closed’ quality may besignificantly mitigated. Moreover, in a less form-focused context where thetask is ‘open’ (Kahn 2008), ‘very good’ may just provide the exact amount ofencouragement students need in continuing their exploration. Finally, ‘verygood’ may be necessary or even essential to encourage the participation andperformance of some children, lower- and intermediate-level learners, thosein special education, or any student in need of more ‘stroking’ or confidence-building measures. The point is, there is a very important affect dimensionthat ‘very good’ affords, and our challenge is to take advantage of the positiveaffect that ‘very good’ brings without suppressing learning opportunities.

Conclusion Some teachers may find that they already use alternative positive feedbacktechniques such as those mentioned above. And indeed, teachers, inobserving and being mindful of their own teaching style, may think of otherways of providing positive feedback, ones that would work for theirparticular classroom contexts, which have to take into consideration timeand other classroom management issues as well. Overall, we are notimplying that categorically there is no room for ‘praise’ or feedback tokenslike ‘very good’, but that in a larger context, positive feedback should bemeaningful and authentic, in tune with what a teacher hopes to accomplishin his or her teaching goal(s). We, as (language) teachers, must examine indetailed ways what feedback tokens such as ‘very good’ possibly do inclassroom interaction from the perspective of promoting and encouragingstudents’ continued learning and growth (or not), and in the data that we


have displayed, this involves the kind of learning activity in which studentsfocus on form. Examining, altering, or varying the ways in which teachersprovide positive feedback to learners is another dimension in scaffoldinginstruction (Vygotsky 1978) and providing guidance or ‘knowledge ofresults’ (Allwright op. cit.: 167).

Revised version received June 2008

Notes

Some of the suggestions for this paper came fromaudience participants at a discussion sessionfacilitated by Waring and Wong (2008) entitled,‘Conversation analysis and giving feedback in thelanguage classroom’, presented at the Teachers ofEnglish to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL)Annual Convention.

ReferencesAllwright, R. 1980. ‘Turns, topics, and tasks: patternsof participation in language learning and teaching’in D. Larsen-Freeman (ed.). Discourse Analysis inSecond Language Research. Rowley, MA: Newbury.Brophy, J. 1981. ‘Teacher praise: a functionalanalysis’. Review of Educational Research51/1: 5–32.Fanselow, J. 1987. Breaking Rules: Generating andExploring Alternatives in Language Teaching. NewYork: Longman.Forgas, J. P. and G. Tehani. 2005. ‘Affectiveinfluences on language use: mood effects onperformance feedback by experts and novices’.Journal of Language and Social Psychology24/3: 269–84.Gass, S. and A. Mackey. 2006. ‘Input, interactionand output: an overview’. AILA Review 19: 3–17.Hellermann, J. 2003. ‘The interactive work ofprosody in the IRF exchange: teacher repetition infeedback moves’. Language in Society 32/1: 79–104.Kahn, G. 2008. ‘The social unfolding of task,discourse, and development in the second languageclassroom’. Unpublished EdD dissertation, TeachersCollege, Columbia University.Mehan, H. 1979. Learning Lessons: SocialOrganization in the Classroom. Cambridge, MA:Harvard University Press.Purpura, J. andD. Pinkley. 2000.OnTargetWorkbook1. White Plains, NY: Pearson Education.Schegloff, E. A. 2007. Sequence Organization.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Schegloff, E. A. and H. Sacks. 1973. ‘Opening upclosings’. Semiotica 8/4: 289–327.Seedhouse, P. 2004. The Interactional Architecture ofthe Language Classroom: A Conversation AnalysisPerspective. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, Inc.Sinclair, J. M. and M. Coulthard. 1975. Towards anAnalysis of Discourse: The EnglishUsed by Teachers andPupils. London: Oxford University Press.Vygotsky, L. S. 1978.Mind inSociety: TheDevelopmentof Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge, MA:Harvard University Press.Waring, H. Z. 2008. ‘Using explicit positiveassessment (EPA) in the language classroom: IRF,feedback, and learning opportunities’. The ModernLanguage Journal 92/4: 577–94.

The authorsJean Wong is an Associate Professor at The Collegeof New Jersey. Her work has appeared in AppliedLinguistics, Research on Language and SocialInteraction, International Review of Applied Linguistics,Issues in Applied Linguistics, and in edited volumes(Gardner and Wagner 2004; Richards andSeedhouse 2005; Bowles and Seedhouse 2007). Herresearch inquiries include how to use conversationanalysis (CA) as a resource for understandinginteraction and advancing issues and concerns inlanguage pedagogy.Email: [email protected]

HansunZhangWaring is a lecturer in Linguistics andEducation at Teachers College, Columbia University,where she teaches Conversation Analysis andSpeaking Practicum, among other courses. Herwork has appeared in Applied Linguistics, Journal ofPragmatics, Research on Language and SocialInteraction, Discourse Studies, Text and Talk, andJournal of Sociolinguistics. She is currently interestedin using CA to examine instructional practices andtheir relevance to learning opportunities.Email: [email protected]


The value of a focused approach towritten corrective feedback

John Bitchener and Ute Knoch

Investigations into the most effective ways to provide ESL learners with writtencorrective feedback have often been overly comprehensive in the range of errorcategories examined. As a result, clear conclusions about the efficacy of suchfeedback have not been possible. On the other hand, oral corrective feedbackstudies have produced clear, positive results from studies that have targetedparticular error categories. This article presents the results of a study that examinedthe effectiveness of targeting only two functional error categories with writtencorrective feedback in order to see if such an approach was also helpful for ESLwriters. The ten-month study was carried out with 52 low-intermediate ESLstudents in Auckland, New Zealand. Assigned to groups that received writtencorrective feedback or no written corrective feedback, the students produced fivepieces of writing (pre-test, immediate post-test, and three delayed post-tests) thatdescribed what was happening in a given picture. Two functional uses of theEnglish article system (referential indefinite ‘a’ and referential definite ‘the’) weretargeted in the feedback. The study found that those who received writtencorrective feedback on the two functions outperformed the control group on allfour post-tests.

Introduction In 1996, Truscott declared that the provision of written corrective feedbackon ESL student writing was ineffective and harmful and that it shouldtherefore be abandoned. He maintained that there was empirical evidence(for exampleSemke 1984;Robb,Ross, andShortreed 1986;Kepner 1991) toshow that the practice was not worth continuing. Ferris (1999), in herresponse, pointed out, among a range of arguments, that the research basehewas drawinguponwas too limited and conflicting in its findings and thatrestraint should be exercised while further investigations were undertaken.Of the studies that have been conducted until fairly recently, most, in termsof their design, execution, and analysis, were flawed to some extent (seeGuenette 2007; Bitchener 2008 for a review of these issues) so this hasmeant thatfirmconclusions about theefficacyofwritten corrective feedbackare not yet available.

Another reason for the failure of earlier work to produce conclusive answersto the question of efficacy is the unfocused approach that was taken withregard to the range of error categories treated. Up to 15 different linguisticerror categories were sometimes included in these studies so it was likely toproduce too much of a cognitive overload for learners to attend to. By

204 ELT Journal Volume 63/3 July 2009; doi:10.1093/elt/ccn043ªª The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.Advance Access publication August 13, 2008

comparison, oral corrective feedback research (for example Doughty andVarela 1998; Lyster 2004), by focusing on a single error category, has beenable to reveal clear, positive effects for the focused approach.

Although positive findings have been reported in three recent writtencorrective feedback studies (Sheen 2007; Bitchener 2008; Bitchener andKnoch 2008) that were conducted over a two-month period, anothershortcoming of the existing research base has been its primary focus on textrevision. Little attention has been given to investigations of the extent towhich written corrective feedback can facilitate accuracy improvement inthe writing of new texts.

In order to address both of these issues, this article presents the findings ofa ten-month longitudinal investigation of the extent to which a targetedfocus on two functional error categories resulted in improved accuracy infour new pieces of writing.

The studyIntroduction

The study investigated the following research question: does accuracy in theuse of two functions of the English article system improve over a ten-monthperiod as a result of written corrective feedback?

Accuracywasmeasuredover a ten-monthperiod bymeans of a pre-test post-test design (a pre-test after one week; an immediate post-test following thecorrective feedback treatment after two weeks; three delayed post-tests aftertwo, six, and ten months).

Participants The study was conducted in the English Language Department ofa university in Auckland, New Zealand. Students from four existing low-intermediate classeswere invited to take part in the study. Fifty-two studentswere available for the ten-month data collection period. Students who werenew to the university were assigned to a proficiency level after takinga standardized grammar test, a writing test, and a one-on-one interview.Studentswho had previously been studying at a lower proficiency level wereplaced in the low-intermediate level on the basis of earlier competency-based assessments. The English Language Department describes itsapproach to the teaching of English as communicative and gives an equalfocus to reading,writing, speaking, and listening.Most of the studentsweremigrants who had settled in New Zealand within 18 months ofcommencing study at the low-intermediate level. Four hours of instructionwere providedfive days aweek. The students (19males and 33 females)werepredominantly from East Asian countries: Korea (15 per cent), Japan (11 percent), and the People’s Republic of China (18 per cent). Other countriesrepresented were Vietnam, Yemen, Russia, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia,Chile, Brazil, Serbia, Turkey, Somalia, Romania, Iran, Sri Lanka, India, andIndonesia. The average age of the students was 31.7 years. The majority(78 per cent) claimed to have had formal instruction though their length ofearlier study varied across a seven-year period. The four classes werearbitrarily assigned to one of three written corrective feedback groups(n¼ 39) or the control group (n¼ 13) that didnot receive corrective feedback.

Target structures Compared with earlier studies on the value of written corrective feedback(see Ferris 2003), where sometimes as many as 15 linguistic forms and

The value of a focused approach 205

structures had been examined, this study investigated the effect of targetingtwo functional uses of the English article system: the referential indefinitearticle ‘a’ for referring to something the first time (first mention) and thereferential definite article ‘the’ for referring to something alreadymentioned (subsequentmention).Other functional uses of the definite andindefinite articles were not targeted in the study.

These structures were targeted because students across English languageproficiency levels experience difficulty in the use of the English articlesystem (Butler 2002; Bitchener, Young, and Cameron 2005). For example,theymay experience difficulty decidingwhether an article is required and, ifit is required, whether it should be the definite or indefinite article. So thatsecond language learners are not stigmatized as a result of incorrect usagewhen communicatingwithnative speakers of English and so that doubts donot arise about which items they may be referring to, it is important thatcorrective feedback be provided on the use of articles when students revealrecurrent difficulties with correct usage. The occasional error may notnecessarily impede the overall coherence and cohesion of a text but frequenterrors may well do so. The extent to which written corrective feedback, asone formof input, can facilitate the acquisitionprocess is investigated in thisstudy. Accuracy in the use of these functions in the pre-test revealed ameanscore of 59.41 per cent, thereby indicating that students at a low-intermediate level have only a partial mastery of the functions.

Treatment Each of the three groups within the wider written corrective feedback groupreceived different combinations of written corrective feedback. These arepresented in Table 1 below.

Written corrective feedback group Group one—received direct error correction,written, and oral meta-linguistic explanationGroup two—received direct error correctionand written meta-linguistic explanationGroup three—received direct errorcorrection

No written corrective feedbackgroup

Group four—received no correctivefeedback

table 1Group treatments

The three types of written corrective feedback referred to in Table 1 involvedthe procedures given in Table 2.

Feedback type Feedback procedures

Direct error correction n Place tick/check above correct uses of two functions.

n Correct incorrect uses with ‘a’ or ‘the’ aboveeach error.

n Insert ‘a’ or ‘the’ where they were omitted butrequired.

Written meta-linguisticexplanation

n Use ‘a’ when referring to something for the first time.

n Use ‘the’ when referring to something that hasalready been mentioned.e.g. A man and a woman were sitting oppositeme. The man was British but I think the womanwas Australian.

206 John Bitchener and Ute Knoch

Oral meta-linguisticexplanation

n The 30-minute mini-lesson.

n Above rules and examples explained.

n Additional examples illustrated on whiteboardand discussed with class.

n Students completed five-minute controlled practiceexercise, filling gaps in each sentence with ‘a’, ‘the’,or neither, and answers were then discussed.

table 2Feedback procedures

Instruments Each of the five pieces of writing required a description of what washappening in agivenpicture (settings at a beach, apicnic, a campsite, a familygathering, a sporting event). Picture descriptions were chosen because therange of people, objects, and activities illustrated had the potential to createobligatory opportunities for the use of both English article functions. Thirtyminutes was given for the writing of each description.

Procedure The procedures of the study were administered according to the timelineprovided in Table 3.

Day one Pre-test (writing task one)After one week Written corrective feedback treatment provided

Immediate post-test (writing task two)After eight weeks Delayed post-test one (writing task three)After six months Delayed post-test two (writing task four)After ten months Delayed post-test three (writing task five)

table 3Timetable for procedures

The sequence of activities for the immediate post-test varied as followsacross the groups:

Group oneThe immediate post-test was completed after the students had been givenfive minutes to consider the error corrections and the written meta-linguistic explanation and had received the 30-minute lesson (oral meta-linguistic explanation).

Group twoThe immediate post-test was completed after the students had been givenfive minutes to consider the error corrections and the written meta-linguistic explanation.

Group threeThe immediate post-test was completed after the students had been givenfive minutes to consider the error corrections.

Group fourThe immediate post-test was completed as soon as the uncorrected pre-testpiece of writing had been returned.

Analysis The analysis of the data involved several steps:

1 Obligatory uses of the targeted features were identified.2 Written corrective feedback or no corrective feedback was provided (asdescribed above).


3 Accuracy was calculated as a percentage of correct usage. For example, inany one script, three correct uses of the targeted features from tenobligatory occasions meant a 30 per cent accuracy rate.

4 Inter-rater reliability calculations with a trained research colleaguerevealed a 95 per cent agreement on the identification of targeted errorsand a 98 per cent agreement on the assignment of errors to the targetedcategories.

5 Descriptive statistics for the pre-test and the four post-tests werecalculated separately for the written corrective feedback groups and theno feedback group.

6 Because no statistically significant differences on the pre-test scores werefound between the groups, a two-way repeated measures analysis ofvariance (ANOVA) was chosen to address the research question.

Results Table 4 below shows the descriptive statistics for the treatment group andthe control group at the five different testing periods.

Group Time 1 Time 2 Time 3 Time 4 Time 5

N M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD

1 CF 39 59.15 17.71 84.05 11.70 79.31 11.49 81.44 12.20 86.21 11.152 Control 13 63.23 17.51 67.08 21.45 56.62 22.29 62.46 18.97 58.92 16.16

table 4Descriptive statistics formean test scores bygroup and testing period

SD ¼ standard deviation CF ¼ corrective feedback

Figure 1 provides a visual representationof themeanpercentages for thefivetestingperiods for eachgroup.Table4 andFigure 1 illustrate thatwhilst bothgroups scored around 60 per cent on the pre-test, only participants in thetreatment group were able to increase their accuracy after the pre-test andkeep that gain in accuracy over the following testing periods.

To determine themost appropriate data analysis technique, an independentt-test was conducted to determine if there were any statistically significantdifferences between the two groups on the pre-test. As this was not the case,t (50)¼ –.721,p¼ .474, a two-way repeatedmeasuresANOVAwas chosen toanalyse the data (Table 5 below).

figure 1

Mean percentageaccuracy for treatmentgroup and control groupover time.

Mean percentages over time

50

55

60

65

70

75

80

85

90

Time 1 Time 2 Time 3 Time 4 Time 5

CF

CF = corrective feedback

Control


Source df F p

Between subjectsGroup 1 1293.29 ,.001

Within subjectsTime 4 13.06 ,.001Time · group 4 15.52 ,.001

table 5Two-way ANOVAanalysis

Table 5 shows that there was an interaction effect between time and group,which illustrates that the two different sets of participants performed indifferent patterns over time. This interaction effect occurred because thecontrol group showed no significant increase over time, whilst thetreatment group did. To identify which testing periods differed statisticallysignificantly for the treatment group, a repeated-measures ANOVA wasconducted with Tukey’s post-hoc pairwise comparisons. These showed thatall post-tests differed statistically significantly from the pre-test (p, .001).Interestingly, even without another treatment, students performedsignificantly better at testing period five (after ten months) than at testingperiod four (after six months), p,.001. Testing periods two and three aswell as three and four showed no differences. The same analysis wasconducted on the test scores of the control group. In this case, none of thetesting periods showed any significant differences.

To investigate if the accuracy of the two groups differed on any of the post-tests, independent samples t-tests were conducted. All these tests weresignificant as can be seen in Table 6 below, indicating that the treatmentgroup consistently outperformed the control group.

Post-test t df p

Time 2—after 2 weeks 3.618 50 .001Time 3—after 2 months 4.783 50 ,.001Time 4—after 6 months 4.196 50 ,.001Time 5—after 10 months 6.796 50 ,.001

table 6Independent samplest-tests for post-tests

Discussion Students who receivedwritten corrective feedback outperformed those whoreceived no feedback in all four post-tests even though all groups developeddifferently over time. This means that the provision of written correctivefeedback on a single occasion had a significant effect, enabling the learnersto use the targeted functions with greater accuracy over the ten-monthperiod. These results corroborate and extend those of three recent studies(Sheen op. cit.; Bitchener op. cit.; Bitchener and Knoch op. cit.) thatexamined the effect of written corrective feedback on new pieces of writingover a two-month period. The enduring effect on accuracy over a ten-monthperiod is clear evidence of the potential for focused written correctivefeedback to help learners acquire features of a second language. Whereasearlier research has focused on a comprehensive range of error categories,the results of this study demonstrate the value of focusing on a single errorcategory. In this respect, they corroborate thefindingsnot only of thewrittencorrective feedback studies referred to above but also of those on oralcorrective feedback (for exampleDoughtyandVarelaop. cit.;Muranoi2000).


Excerpts 1 and 2 below, from the pre-test and immediate post-test texts ofone student, illustrate the accuracy with which the two article functionswere used in the second text after written corrective feedback had beenprovided.

Excerpt 1 (pre-testtext)

At the kiosk, a woman buys two ice-creams. Awoman gives the ice-creamto her child and keeps ice-cream for herself.

Excerpt 2 (immediatepost-test text)

On the other side, there is a bull. The bull is chasing a boy near the gatebut I think the boy will beat the bull.

In Excerpt 1, the students appeared to be unclear about the need to use ‘the’when referring to the same woman in the second sentence and about theneed to use ‘a’ when referring to one of the ice creams for the first time. InExcerpt 2, however, it can be seen that the student has used the articlescorrectly. Tenmonths later, asExcerpt 3 below reveals, the student appears tohave retained a clear understanding of these article uses.

Excerpt 3 (delayedpost-test 3)

Lots of children are playing in the room.Ababy is playingwith blocks andan oldman is sleeping on a sofa. The baby is putting the blocks beside thesofa while the old man is sleeping.

While these excerpts illustrate the accuracy gains that can be made whenwritten corrective feedback is focused, further research is required todetermine the extent to which it is effective with other error categories inother linguistic domains. It is especially important that it be tested withmore complex features to determinewhether ornot its optimal effect iswithsingle rule-based functions such as those examined in this study.

Conclusion Based on the findings of the study, a number of pedagogicalrecommendations can be offered. Teachers should feel confident aboutproviding direct written corrective feedback on their students’ linguisticerrors, providing it is based to the best of their knowledge on theirstudents’ ‘readiness’, both in terms of their proficiency level and theirunderstanding of the merits of focusing their attention on writtenaccuracy. We believe that student motivation is more likely to be gained ifteachers negotiate with their students about which features they will focuson, about how frequent the feedback will be given, about the type offeedback that will be given, and about what the studentswill be expected todo in response to the feedback. The study has also shown that a singlefeedback session can be effective in developing accuracy in the use of tworule-based features but if teachers are able to provide additional feedbackon more occasions, it may be possible to increase the accuracy rate andalso reduce the amount of time that is required to help learners achievea high level of mastery over recurrent errors. Finally, and mostimportantly, we believe that there is clear evidence from the study torecommend that teachers provide selective, focused feedback on one ortwo linguistic error categories at a time rather than feedback on toocomprehensive a range of features. Although it might be argued that thisapproach hinders good language learners from making more rapidprogress in acquiring features that have been problematic if they arerequired to proceed in a lockstep manner with the class as a whole, we


would suggest that once there are signs of accuracy development, teachersrenegotiate an additional feedback focus with such students. In order toconfirm the advantage of this approach over the more comprehensiveapproach, future research is required to compare the two approacheswithin a single research design.

Final revised version received May 2008

ReferencesBitchener, J. 2008. ‘Evidence in support of writtencorrective feedback’. Journal of Second LanguageWriting 17/2: 102–18.Bitchener, J. and U. Knoch. 2008. ‘The value ofwritten corrective feedback for migrant andinternational students’. Language Teaching ResearchJournal 12/3: 409–31.Bitchener, J., S. Young, and D. Cameron. 2005. ‘Theeffect of different types of corrective feedback on ESL

student writing’. Journal of Second Language Writing9: 227–58.Butler, Y. 2002. ‘Second language learners’ theorieson the use of English articles’. Studies in SecondLanguage Acquisition 24/3: 451–80.Doughty, C. and E. Varela. 1998. ‘Communicativefocus on form’ in C. Doughty and J. Williams (eds.).Focus on Form in Classroom Second LanguageAcquisition. New York: Cambridge University Press.Ferris, D. R. 1999. ‘The case for grammar correctionin L2writing classes. A response to Truscott (1996)’.Journal of Second Language Writing 8/1: 1–10.Ferris, D. R. 2003. Response to Student Writing:Implications for Second Language Students. Mahwah,NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Guenette, D. 2007. ‘Is feedback pedagogicallycorrect? Research design issues in studies offeedback on writing’. Journal of Second LanguageWriting 16/1: 40–53.Kepner, C. G. 1991. ‘An experiment in therelationship of types of written feedback to thedevelopment of second-language writing skills’.Modern Language Journal 75/3: 305–13.Lyster, R. 2004. ‘Differential effects of promptsand recasts in form-focused instruction’.Studies in Second Language Acquisition26/3: 399–432.Muranoi, H. 2000. ‘Focus on form throughinteraction enhancement: integrating formalinstruction into a communicative task in

EFL classrooms’. Language Learning50/4: 617–73.Robb, T., S. Ross, and I. Shortreed. 1986. ‘Salience offeedback on error and its effect on EFL writingquality’. TESOL Quarterly 20/1: 83–93.Semke, H. 1984. ‘The effects of the red pen’. ForeignLanguage Annals 17/3: 195–202.Sheen, Y. 2007. ‘The effect of focused writtencorrective feedback and language aptitude on ESL

learners’ acquisition of articles’. TESOL Quarterly41/2: 255–83.

The authorsJohn Bitchener is an Associate Professor in theSchool of Languages and Social Sciences at AUT

University, Auckland, New Zealand. He teaches onthe MA in Applied Language Studies programmeand supervises a wide range ofMasters andDoctoralthesis students. His research interests includewritten and oral corrective feedback and thediscourse patterning of academic genre. He isPresident of the Applied Linguistics Association ofNew Zealand and Co-Editor of New Zealand Studiesin Applied Linguistics.Email: [email protected]

Ute Knoch is a research fellow at the LanguageTesting Research Centre at the University ofMelbourne. She completed her PhD at theUniversity of Auckland focusing on diagnosticwriting assessment.Her research interests are in theareas of language assessment (particularly theassessment of writing, rating scales, rater training,and the assessment of languages for specificpurposes) as well as language pedagogy andlanguage and immigration. She is a recipient ofa SpaanFellowship inSecondandForeignLanguageAssessment from the University of Michigan in2006 and 2008.Email: [email protected]


Traversing the lexical cohesionminefield

Iain McGee

When teachers hear the word ‘cohesion’, they usually think of grammaticalcohesion—an aspect of cohesion reasonably well covered in student books andteacher materials. However, occupying an area that straddles both lexis ‘proper’and cohesion lies ‘lexical cohesion’. In what follows, it is argued that the teachingand learning of certain aspects of lexical cohesion is problematic, and that thisstate of affairs may be behind the current neglect of this subject in EFL materialsand classrooms. The paper begins with a brief overview of Halliday and Hasan’s(1976) classification of lexical cohesion, and then looks, in turn, at four types ofcohesive device. Learners’ uses of these different cohesive ties are discussed, theobstacles to correct usage are noted, and suggestions are made as to how teacherscan help students to develop this aspect of their writing.

Definition andoverview

While the terms ‘cohesion’ and ‘coherence’ tend to crop up together in theliterature, the relationship between the two is a contested one: for example,Carrell (1982: 486) argues that coherence leads to cohesion, whereasHalliday and Hasan (1976: 2) suggest that cohesion brings about coherence.One thing that all writers would agree on, however, is that the use of lexicalcohesive ties does not, necessarily, make a text more coherent, or ‘better’than another. As Connor (1984: 308, 311) points out, a text lacking in lexicalcohesive ties may be better organized, or the points may have better supportthan a text with more lexical ties. Having made this importantqualification—putting lexical cohesion in its place—we can now look inmore detail at the subject.

In Halliday and Hasan’s (1976: 4) influential work Cohesion in English, theauthors explain that cohesion is a semantic concept, referring to meaningrelations in text.1 They divide cohesion into two broad areas: grammaticalcohesion and lexical cohesion. The former includes reference (for examplethree blindmice . . . they), substitution (for exampleMyaxe is too blunt. I mustget a sharper one.), ellipsis (for example Which hat will you wear? This is thebest.), and conjunction (for example use of the words but, yet, so, etc.). Thebulk of Halliday and Hasan’s book concerns itself with discussing thesetypes of cohesive ties, and books aimed at developing academic reading andwriting skills have given considerable attention to reference andconjunction and their roles in helping texts hang together.2 Even thoughlexical cohesion is the more pervasive in creating textual cohesion, it is

212 ELT Journal Volume 63/3 July 2009; doi:10.1093/elt/ccn040ªª The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.Advance Access publication July 29, 2008

neglected in ELT (as noted, for example by Flowerdew 2006: 209).Halliday and Hasan classify lexical cohesion in the following way:

1 Reiterationa same word repetitionb synonym or near synonymc superordinated general word.

2 Collocation

Regarding the first of these two classes—reiteration—Halliday and Hasanprovide the following examples of how reiterative inter-sentential cohesiveties can be made (Figure 1).

Regarding the second means of achieving lexical cohesion (collocation),Halliday and Hasan (op.cit.: 284) define this as ‘cohesion that is achievedthrough the association of lexical items that regularly co-occur’. AsTanskanen (2006: 12) notes, collocation is not always considered to be a typeof lexical cohesion (cf. McCarthy 1991: 65), and it will not be considered asplaying a role in creating lexical cohesion in this paper. However, collocationknowledge will be referred to as a specific type of knowledge whichstudents need to have to enable them to use reiterative lexical cohesivedevices correctly.

In the sections that follow, I look in more detail at the four reiteration devicesnoted above in the context of developing EFL learners’ writing skills.

Repetition While repetition is a standard way of achieving lexical cohesion, particularlyin science texts, the fact remains that there can be a lot of, what Ting (2003:6) calls, ‘redundant repetition’ in students’ writing. From a marking point ofview, it may be that teachers are hesitant to draw attention to redundantrepetition in student writing: repeating a word does not impedeunderstanding, and neither is overuse necessarily misuse. However, theeffect of such repetition on the reader can be quite negative. To illustrate thispoint, I reproduce below a paragraph written by a Saudi intermediate userof English, studying at a Saudi university, answering a question aboutstudent preparation for exams. The text has not been edited.

Text 1In order for a student to have a good, healthy studying is having breaks.Breaks are very benefical thou they are short. A studant ought to havea five minutes break every one hour. He can spend it watching TV, eating,drinking, relax or even taking a bath to stress out. Why having a break?Simply because the maind’s effietioncy goes down after a constentstudy. To sum up, having regular breaks is an important method fora seccesful study.

figure 1

From Halliday andHasan (1976: 279)

Traversing the lexical cohesion minefield 213

The student’s use of break/breaks five times in the above extract certainlydoes give the text a rather tedious and monotonous feel to it, detracting fromthe otherwise well organized, though simply written paragraph. So, why is itthat students ‘overdo’ repetition in their writing?

Firstly, it has been argued that the L1 may play a role in L2 repetition(McCarthy op.cit.: 67, 68). Typical text structure patterns and stylepreferences in the L1 may well transfer to L2 usage, and Mohamed andOmer (2000) have noted the prevalence of repetition as an Arabic cohesivedevice in text.

Secondly, it may be that students do not appreciate the importance of varietyin academic writing. Repetition is particularly common in speech, andShaw and Liu (1998) have noted the tendency of EFL learners to write ina spoken register. Clearly, students need to be made aware about academicwriting norms in English, which eschew, to a large extent, repetition.

An additional reason may be found in the texts that EFL students typicallyread. Edited and simplified texts are not rich in their lexical cohesive ties andCox, Shanahan, and Sulzby (1990: 60) argue that exposure to ‘contrived’texts has a negative effect on the development of a learner’s use of lexicalcohesive ties in writing. Ironically, while texts are simplified to helpstudents, such texts are, implicitly at least, also training the readers in ‘sub-standard’ lexical cohesive device usage.

Fourthly, and finally, it may be that a student only knows of one way ofreferring to a concept. This is a typical explanation for the lack of variety instudent writing (see for example Ting op.cit.: 6); however, it may well be thatthis factor plays a more significant role in elementary students’ writing thanin intermediate/advanced students’, as argued below.

The student who wrote Text 1, above, was given some grammatical feedbackon his text, and he then attended a class in which the writer of this papertalked about and exemplified the importance of the use of synonyms to addlexical variety to academic writing. The students were asked to rewrite theirfirst draft paragraphs, paying particular attention to the avoidance ofrepetition and the use of synonyms. The student’s second draft isreproduced below. Grammar and spelling mistakes are retained.

Text 2In order for a studant to have good and healthy studing is having healthybreaks. Breaks are very benefical even though they are short. A studantought to have a five minutes break at least every one hour. He can spend[it] his leisure timewaching Television, eating, drinking, relaxing or eventaking a bath to destress. Why should you have a time out? Simplybecause the mind’s efficiency goes down after constant study. To sum up,having continuous rests is an important method for secessful study.

Even though the student has the same break ‘cluster’ towards the beginningof the paragraph, it is noteworthy that he attempted to reduce its use. Hemakes three changes in this regard. Firstly, he substitutes ‘it’, present in thefirst draft, and included in square brackets in the above (originally referringto ‘break’) with ‘his leisure time’.3 Further on he substitutes ‘break’ directlyfor ‘time out’ and ‘continuous rests’. It should be stressed that the student

214 Iain McGee

rewrote the second draft within a day or two of producing the first text: thereal problem, therefore, seems to have been one of awareness (the secondpoint noted above).

The next point to consider with regards to repetition is complexrepetition—the use of a derivational form of a word, rather than an exactrepetition—in a text to effect lexical cohesion. Examples in the student textabove would be ‘studant’ (used twice), ‘studying’ used once (incorrectly),and ‘study’ (twice) as a noun. While word tables showing derivational formsare still fairly standard items found in EFL books, they are typically used inexercises to highlight the grammar of the language, rather thanhighlighting how different word forms may be used as cohesive ties in a text.However, tables of this kind can easily be adapted to such usage. It isimportant to include information about the frequent or strong collocates ofdifferent word forms because if this information is not provided, it is quitelikely that student attempts to use certain word forms may produceunidiomatic combinations. The two examples below, from the same class ofintermediate students referred to earlier, illustrate this problem.

Example 1: They need to catch some rest while they are reviewing . . .

Example 2: . . . it also helps if he arranges a schedule so that he could getsome breaks in between studying.

The collocations ‘catch some rest’ and ‘get some breaks’ are both untypical innative speaker usage. According to the Oxford Collocations Dictionary(2002), ‘get’, ‘have’, and ‘take’ are typical collocates of ‘rest’, and ‘have’ and‘take’ typically collocate with ‘break’. Not only, therefore, do students need toknow different word forms to engage in complex repetition, they also needto know the typical collocates of the different word forms, and this is a heavylearning burden.

Synonyms Inkpen and Hirst (2006: 224, 225) note three types of differences betweensynonyms/near synonyms: denotational differences (i.e. where there isa difference in meaning, for example ‘lie’ is deliberate, ‘misrepresent’indirect), attitudinal differences (for example ‘thin’ is neutral, ‘skinny’pejorative), and stylistic differences (for example in formality: ‘cops’ and‘police’). True synonyms are few and far between, and research, particularlyin corpus linguistics, has helped us discover the different distributions of‘apparent’ synonyms in different genres, the semantic prosodies that thesewords have (for example ‘bring about’ tends to be used in positive contexts,‘cause’ when the consequence is negative), and the different collocationpatterns in which synonyms occur. Given such a state of affairs, simplyencouraging students to use synonyms for key words in their writing, ratherthan repeating them, is, in effect, an invitation to commit semantic suicide.We would not usually expect our students to be sensitive to the above notedpoints, and yet such knowledge is required to use synonyms successfully.

The following examples, from the same class of Saudi intermediate levelstudents noted above, are from essays looking at what society can do toreduce road traffic deaths. Before the students embarked on this task, it wasstressed that they should try to use synonyms, rather than repeat key words


in their writing. At that stage in the course, they were not warned about thepotential dangers in trying to use synonyms as cohesive ties.

Example 3: . . . In the last year, my school made that day to introduce us thelaws and to respect the regulations . . ..

Example 4: . . . accidents . . . To decrease the rate of bad events.

Example 5: When you become an adult or have a permission to drive youshould behave as big guy with good thinking.

Example 6: (In talking about people who die in car accidents)

A huge number of souls . . . Many innocent human . . .

Example 3 is a successful use of synonyms: ‘laws’ (of the road) and (traffic)‘regulations’ work well as synonyms within this sentence. Turning to thefourth example, while ‘accidents’ are ‘bad events’ we can recognize that thestudent’s attempt at synonymy is not idiomatic. The fifth example is a goodillustration of stylistic insensitivity. While women cannot drive in SaudiArabia, i.e. adults in the Saudi driving context are all male, ‘big guy’ would bemuch better substituted with ‘grown up’—‘big guy’ is too informal for thistype of writing. With regards to the sixth example, the use of ‘souls’ in thiscontext is untypical in current English language usage. A human is notusually referred to as a soul, except within a religious context (for example‘Have you ever thought about your soul?’). When it is used in other contexts,its typical collocates (for example ‘brave’, ‘hardy’) give the word a ‘tough’aura which is not appropriate for a victim, as in the context of the essay. Inaddition, while we could speak of ‘innocent humans’, the more typicalcollocations of ‘innocent’ are ‘people’ and ‘victims’.

The above commentary is by no means meant to belittle the student efforts:they are trying, as encouraged by their teacher, to use different vocabulary,rather than simply repeating words or using more ‘run of the mill’ frequentvocabulary items. However, the task is not an easy one. It may be thatteachers and teacher materials are partially to blame in at least two areashere: the use of synonym lists for example, may give students the falseimpression that certain words are (always) interchangeable. In addition,simplistic answers to student vocabulary questions can easily suppresssynonym sensitivity appreciation, rather than enhance it.

Superordinates Other than their use in definitions, superordinates (i.e. words which‘contain’ other words, for example ‘vehicle’ is a superordinate of ‘car’) receivevery little attention in the classroom. While many students have heard of theword ‘synonym’, ‘superordinates’ (also called hypernyms) and‘subordinates’ (hyponyms) are not words typically heard in the EFL writingclassroom.

It is usually the case that the more specific word is used first in a sentence ortext, and then superordinates are used later on, as they contain lessinformation. This being so, as Salkie (1995) points out, subordinates andsuperordinates cannot be simply switched round in a text. For example, inthe text below, Example 7, where ‘Brazil’ and ‘country’ have been switchedaround from the original text, Brazil seems to refer to a different country tothat referred to in the opening words.

216 Iain McGee

Example 7: The country, with her two-crop economy, was even moreseverely hit by the Depression than other Latin American states andBrazil was on the verge of complete collapse.

(Salkie 1995: 16)

One useful teacher resource available from the internet is WordNet 2.1(available from http://wordnet.princeton.edu) which is a lexical databasedeveloped at Princeton University. This program provides a wealth ofinformation about words and their typical hyponyms and hypernyms.

To encourage the same class of intermediate students referred to earlier touse superordinates in writing a paragraph about the Titanic disaster, thefollowing figure (Figure 2) was provided. The students were given nofurther help about how to use the words, just encouraged to use them.

Below I provide two examples of the students’ writing. The lexical chainusage is noted below the student text, followed by a short commentary. Thetexts have not been edited.

Example 8: Titanic was one of disastrous stories. It was a nice and mostbeautiful vessel in its century. It travelled to America but when it was in itsvoyage, a dire event was waited the ship. Actually, the ocean liner struck bya mountain of ice and then it sunk.

Chains

Titanic–vessel–ship–ocean linerTravel–voyageEvent–struck

It is interesting to note here how the student uses ‘travel’ before ‘voyage’where ‘travel’, as a verb, is a complex superordinate of ‘voyage’ (noun), i.e.the more general word is used before the more specific. The student followsthe same pattern (i.e. more general word used before the more specific) inhis use of ‘event’ before ‘struck’. As such, these uses, while not wrong, arenot so typical, and it may be that this particular student would have benefitedfrom some more input on typical superordinate usage, and the usualpattern in ordering.

Example 9: In 1912, one of man made disaster, which was the great vessalin that time, called titanic. titanic was a voyage from Southampton inEngland to New York City.the ship had prominent people from American,British and European families .titanic began the travel and it impact withan iceberg. That event was responsible for sinking ocean liner.

figure 2

General and specificvocabulary


http://wordnet.princeton.edu

Chains

(the great) Vessel–titanic–titanic–the ship–titanic–ocean liner(a) Voyage–(the) travel(It) Impact–(that) event

Of particular note here is the omission of ‘the’ before ‘ocean liner’ in the lastsentence, which, if interpreted uncharitably, could be seen as referring toa different ship, i.e. Titanic’s impact with an iceberg led to the sinking ofan(other) ocean liner. Students must be made aware that the omission of thedefinite article (or a determiner) before the superordinate can lead to‘unfortunate’ ambiguity.

Overall, the student attempts to use the hypernyms/hyponyms were quitesuccessful, despite the limited input from the teacher. It would seem thatsuperordinate usage is less of a minefield than synonym usage: the Titanicis always an ocean liner and an ocean liner is always a ship; however, ‘slim’ isnot always ‘thin’ or ‘skinny’ (as noted above in the Synonyms section).

General words The ‘general word’ class of Halliday and Hasan overlaps, to a certain extent,with more recent research on nouns, for example Flowerdew’s (op.cit.)signalling nouns. These nouns (for example ‘achievement’, ‘problem’,‘situation’) can be used in a number of ways and they are a useful way forstudents to refer back to a particular event/state of affairs referred to earlieron (i.e. anaphorically) in their writing. I have exposed more advanced levelstudents to the use of such words in corpus data, and analysed their abilitiesto use these nouns. In one such exercise, the students were asked to usea number of general nouns anaphorically in a third draft of a report, and tohighlight their presence by underlining them to enable me to check on theirusage. The students’ use of the nouns was, by and large, successful.However, one of the nouns in particular (‘situation’) was quite regularlymisused. Two student extracts are provided below.

Example 10: Mass transit is very uncommon in Saudi Arabia; only privateautomobiles cruise the streets, most of which are air-conditioned. All ofthese situations are dependant on burning of fuel which produces morecarbon dioxide lead . . ..

In this example, ‘All of these situations’ refers back to the lack of masstransit, the use of private cars, and the use of air conditioning. This phrase isnot a particularly common one in standard English: it is interesting that thestudent felt that he had to use the plural (‘situations’) to refer to thepreceding information. An additional concern in this text is that ‘situations’does not seem to be the best noun to use: ‘uses’ or ‘means of transport’would seem to be more appropriate.

Example 11: (Referring to reports about the confiscation of certainpassenger items by Saudi Arabia airlines staff)

Because of that, many items were taken away by Saudi Airlines andpeople change their thought and prefer not to go to KSA.Theseunhelpfulsituations happens in a bad time, especially when SCTwanted to increasethe number of foreign tourists.

218 Iain McGee

The collocation ‘situations happens’ is not typical in native speakercorpora—more frequent collocates of ‘situation’ would be ‘arise’ and ‘occur’,and the plural ‘situations’, as already noted, is not very common. As with theprevious example, the choice of the word ‘situation’ seemsinappropriate—‘developments’ would seem to fit better in the text. Finally, itshould be noted that the student has used an inappropriate colligate, i.e.grammatical partner, in the phrase—‘in’ rather than ‘at’. In his study ofa learner corpus, Flowerdew (op.cit.) found colligation errors to be byfar the most common mistake made by learners, in their use ofsignalling nouns. This being so, it is probably worthwhile introducing thesegeneral nouns to students in some typical phrases, for example the noun‘situation’ could be provided in the frame ‘this situation has arisen ata . . . time’.

The next step Having noted the above issues, there follow a number of brief suggestionsfor teachers to consider when thinking about the teaching of lexicalcohesion to their students in their reading and writing classes.

1 Raise awareness of the role of lexical reiterative devices in creatingtextual cohesion. Texts can be analysed for different reiterative devicesand comparisons made between published texts and students’ writing.Salkie’s (op.cit.) workbook contains some exercises specifically aimedat encouraging students to identify reiterative cohesion in texts.Though a useful resource, it should be noted that this is not a bookaimed at EFL learners, and the texts used contain some rather difficultvocabulary.

2 Warn students against adopting a simplistic attitude towards the use ofsynonyms. Altered texts can be given to students asking them to identifyinappropriate uses of near synonyms, and students can also bechallenged to choose from a variety of options which word (from a list of‘synonyms’) is missing from a stretch of discourse. Such exercises willhighlight the point that synonymy is a slippery concept.

3 Give students practice in using hyponyms and hypernyms of key wordsin their writing. Students are sometimes asked by teachers to use certainspecific words in their writing, and it is not too difficult to develop thiskind of exercise to work on this specific skill. Wordnet 2.1, as notedearlier, is a useful resource for teachers to refer to.

4 Be aware of the problem of collocation. As noted above, collocationerrors are pervasive in student attempts to vary their lexis. As much aspossible collocation knowledge must be developed alongside reiterationskill development. Collocation dictionaries or corpus data can be used byteachers to help give students the most typical or strongest collocates ofimportant words.

5 Increase student awareness of redundant repetition in their writing.Highlighting overuse may well provide the required stimulus forstudents to begin thinking about lexical ties in their writing. It isimportant to encourage effort here, otherwise students may well justrevert to ‘default’ repetition in the face of difficulties.


Conclusion The use of lexical cohesive ties has been found to be a significantdifferentiating factor between native speaker and non-native speakerwriting (Connor op.cit.: 307), and while it is tempting to postpone a focus ongood writing style in the classroom to advanced level classes, this is probablynot the best course of action to take. While lexical cohesion is a complex area,and fraught with difficulty, it has been suggested in this paper that there arecertain exercise types and awareness-raising activities that can make thesubject a rewarding one for students and teachers to explore together inclass: there are ways to traverse the minefield of lexical cohesion—indeed,some quite interesting ways.

Final version received April 2008

Notes1 The writer is aware of further work by these

authors in which they refine this taxonomy, forexample Hasan 1984, 1985, and Halliday 1985.However, the basic types of lexical reiteration,while renamed or reclassified, remain.

2 As Connor (1984: 302) points out, substitutionand ellipsis are not as common in writtendiscourse as in conversation.

3 It should be noted here that ‘leisuretime’—typically referring to a long period oftime—is not a particularly appropriate synonymfor ‘break’ (a short period of time) in the text.

ReferencesCarrell, P. L. 1982. ‘Cohesion is not coherence’.TESOL Quarterly 16/4: 479–88.Connor, U. 1984. ‘A study of cohesion and coherencein English as a second language students’ writing’.Papers in Linguistics 17/1–4: 301–16.Cox, B. E., T. Shanahan, and E. Sulzby. 1990. ‘Goodand poor elementary readers’ use of cohesion inwriting’. Reading Research Quarterly 25/1: 47–65.Flowerdew, J. 2006. ‘Use of signalling nouns ina learner corpus’. Lexical Cohesion and CorpusLinguistics (Special issue). International Journal ofCorpus Linguistics 11/3: 227–47.Halliday, M. A. K. 1985. An Introduction to FunctionalGrammar. London: Edward Arnold.Halliday, M. A. K. and R. Hasan. 1976. Cohesion inEnglish. Harlow: Longman.Hasan, R. 1984. ‘Coherence and cohesive harmony’in J. Flood (ed.). Understanding ReadingComprehension. Newark, DE: InternationalReading Association.Hasan, R. 1985. ‘The structure of a text’ inM. A. K. Halliday and R. Hasan (eds.). Language,Context and Aspects of Language in a Social Semiotic

Perspective. Geelong, Victoria: DeakinUniversity Press.Inkpen, D. and G. Hirst. 2006. ‘Building and usinga lexical knowledge base of near-synonymdifferences’.Computational Linguistics 32/2: 223–62.Lea, D. (ed.). 2002. Oxford Collocations Dictionary forStudents of English. Oxford: Oxford University Press.McCarthy, M. 1991. Discourse Analysis for LanguageTeachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Mohamed, A.H. andM.R.Omer. 2000. ‘Texture andculture: cohesion as a marker of rhetoricalorganisation in Arabic and English narrative texts’.RELC Journal 31/2: 45–75.Salkie, R. 1995. Text and Discourse Analysis. Florence,KY: Routledge.Shaw, P. and E. T.-K. Liu. 1998. ‘What develops in thedevelopment of second-language writing?’AppliedLinguistics 19/2: 225–54.Tanskanen, S.-K. 2006. Collaborating TowardsCoherence: Lexical Cohesion in English Discourse.Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins PublishingCompany.Ting, F. 2003. ‘An investigation of cohesive errors inthe writing of PRC tertiary EFL students’. Availableat http://www.stets.org.sg/vol2N2_2003FengTing.PDF. Last accessed 12February 2008.

The authorIainMcGee’s research interests include investigatingdifferences between teachers’ intuitions aboutlanguage and corpus data, and the teaching ofcollocation. He taught in Kuwait and King FahdUniversity of Petroleum and Minerals, Saudi Arabia,before moving on to Taibah University, Madinah,Saudi Arabia.Email: [email protected]

220 Iain McGee

http://www.stets.org.sg/vol2N2_2003FengTing.PDF





Critical reflection in a TESL course:mapping conceptual change

Thomas S. C. Farrell

How can teacher educators gauge what participants have learnt after takinga course in teaching English as a second language (TESL)?Onemethod that canhelp both language teacher educators and their students trace conceptual changesas a result of taking a course is the use of concept maps. This paper examines theconceptual changes of a group of MA participants in Canada as a result of takinga TESL course. Pre-course and post-course concept maps were elicited from theparticipants who were also asked to write short descriptions of changes (and thereasons for these changes) they observed between their pre- and post-coursemaps.Participants were also interviewed about the contents of their individual conceptmap and their perceptions of the course. Results indicate that the course had someimpact on the participants’ prior beliefs and that a concept map may be a usefultool for tracing conceptual change.

Introduction Participants come to teacher education courses with prior experiences,values, and beliefs and with specific expectations about the subject matterthey will learn. These beliefs have been accumulated from a variety ofsources including their past experiences as students in the school systemand may act as filters to what they have been exposed to in the teachereducation programme (Lortie 1975). Hence, differences are likely to existbetweenwhat teacher educatorsmay think is important for the participantsto learn and what they actually learn as a result of taking a course. Bearingthis in mind, it is crucial then for educators to be able to establish a reliablemeans of gauging the effectiveness of their courses. One method availableto language teacher educators interested in tracing participants’ conceptualchanges, or any changes in participants’ preconceptions or initial intuitiveideas as a result of taking a course, is the use of concept mapping. Conceptmaps are diagrams that show relationships and understandings amongconcepts within a specific topic (Novak 1990). This paper outlines a small-scale study of how a language teacher educator used concept mapping totrace the conceptual changes of seven participants (the total number ofstudents who took the course) as a result of taking a course in teachingEnglish as a second language (TESL) in a Canadian University.

Preconceptions ofteaching andlearning

Research has indicated that participants come to any teacher educationprogramme with prior assumptions and beliefs, sometimes calledpreconceptions, and experiences about teaching and learning (Shulman

ELT Journal Volume 63/3 July 2009; doi:10.1093/elt/ccn058 221ªª The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.Advance Access publication November 10, 2008

1987). In language education,many of these preconceptions about teachingand learning are usually influenced by the participants’ previous schoolingin that they spend many hours subconsciously observing their teacherswhile at the same time developing tacitly held images about teaching andlearning (Richards 1998). The result of this type of ‘apprenticeship ofobservation’ (Lortie op.cit.; Borg 2004) and other prior experiences is thatparticipants enter the teacher education programme already possessinga vast array of tacitly held prior beliefs and assumptions about teaching andlearning which can, as Richards (1998: 71) has highlighted, ‘often serve asa lens through which they view’ the content of such programmes. Theproblem is that if participants find that any of the content they are presentedin the language education courses is in conflict with their prior beliefs, thenrather than restructure their beliefs, many may only fine-tune them a little(Richards,Ho, andGiblin 1996). In addition, asBurns (1993)has indicated,all this happened at the subconscious level and as such, teacher educationprogrammes must provide opportunities for their students to be able to‘raise to consciousness thenatureof thepersonalized theorieswhich informtheir practice’ (ibid.: 63–4) so that they can become aware of anyinconsistencies between their prior beliefs and concepts they are presentedwith in these courses.

Methodology Raising awareness of participants’ prior beliefs and gauging the impactof a course on these beliefs are as much a methodological issue asa substantive one. From a methodological perspective, one means thatcan help raise awareness of prior beliefs while at the same time gaugeconceptual change as a result of taking a course is the use of conceptmapping. Concept maps are ‘a visual representation of knowledge’(Antonacci 1991: 174) and show relationships between concepts in a typeof network system and are useful visual indications of what people knowabout a topic.

Participants andcourse

The seven participants were enrolled in a one-year programme, the MA inApplied Linguistics/TESL, at a university in Canada. Each participant wasassigned the capital letter ‘T’ and a randomnumber (from 1 to 7) behind theletter ‘T’ so that identities remain hidden. T1 was a female Canadian withover ten years teaching experience and a certificate in TESL as was T7,a female Canadianwith similar teaching experiences; T2was a female fromKorea with five years teaching experience as was T5, a female from Koreawho also had about five years teaching experience; T3 was a female fromChina and had no full-time teaching experience, but had a certificate inTESLaswasT4, a female fromChina,who alsohada certificate inTESL;T6was a male Canadian with about five years teaching experience anda certificate in TESL. So, not only had they all prior student experiences butalsomany had prior beliefs based on certificate programmes they had takenas well as prior experiences as teachers (five of the seven teachers). Thecourse they were taking emphasized the following curriculum: CurrentIssues in Applied Linguistics and TESL, Issues in Language Learning(Second Language Acquisition), Issues in Language Teaching(Methodology), Issues in Language Curriculum Development, Issues inCritical Pedagogy, and Issues in Professional Development.

222 Thomas S. C. Farrell

Data collection Following the work of Fischer, Bruhn, Grasel, and Mandl (2002) whomaintain that in order to ensure greater ownership of the learning process,students should construct their own concept maps, rather than have a pre-course map prepared by the course instructor, the seven participantswere each asked on the first day of class to construct a concept mapconcerning the topic (‘What does teaching English as a second language(TESL) mean to you?’) placed inside a circle with several nodes, or spokes,emanating straight from that circle like a bicycle wheel. These pre-coursemaps would be used for diagnostic purposes by the instructor to gauge theextent of the participants’ prior knowledge and beliefs. On completion ofthe maps, the participants were asked to share their answers duringa peer group discussion and reflection session. At the start of the followingclass, and in order to clarify what they placed in their concept maps,a class group discussion was conducted where the participants wereencouraged to further explore their prior experiences and beliefs aboutTESL.

On the final day of class, the participants were again asked to constructconcept maps on the same topic and following the same written andexplained directions as on the first day of class. When the participants hadcompleted their post-course maps, they were given their pre-course mapsfor comparison and asked to write comments about any changes theynoticed between the two maps and the reasons for these changes. Eachparticipant was also interviewed in order to discuss and reflect on thechanges that had occurred in these maps and any further perceptions theyhad of the course they had just completed. In addition, I also attempted tocontact each participant two years after they had taken the course to assess ifthey still held the same post-course beliefs about TESL (I was only able tocontact two of the original seven).

Data analysis In order to analyse the data, a keywordmethodwas applied to the database ofcategories that were developed. For example, as a result of taking the course,one typeof category that emergedon the conceptmaps indicated thatmanyofthe participants interpreted course concepts in terms of critical reflection.Keywords from this category included ‘beliefs’, ‘teacher personality’, and ‘self-awareness’ among others. Another interpretation was research and theoryand keywords from this category included ‘theory acquisition’, ‘research’,‘corrective feedback’, and ‘link theory to practice’, among others. Eachparticipant’s map was analysed as follows: each keyword was numbered anda frequency count was noted along with any connections made to otherconcepts. The number of keywords from the seven individual maps wastotalled and a pre-course group concept map was constructed after the firstclass and a post-course group map was constructed after the last class inorder to provide a visual of what the participants as a whole said they believedabout TESL. In order to check for reliability of my coding of categories,I trained two other coders and we had an intercoder reliability of about85 per cent.

FindingsPre-course groupconcept map

The pre-course group map is shown in Figure 1. This illustrates the issues(in order of frequency) as follows: Teaching theory/methods (6), Languagelearning/acquisition (5), Culture (4), Professional development (3),Motivation

Critical reflection in a TESL course 223

(3), and another category which included many diverse items. Teachingtheory/methodswas present in six maps without any further explanation. Inthe class discussion that followed the first class, they said that they thoughttheMAprogrammewould give themmany teachingmethods and that waswhat TESL was for them. The next concept, Language learning/acquisition,was present in five maps and included learners’ differences especially interms of their personality, age, gender, and learning styles into this category.

figure 1

Pre-course groupconcept map. (Numberin parentheses shows thenumber of timesa concept was includedin the individual conceptmaps.)


Culture was the next concept (present in four maps) and included issuessuch as culture difference, ethnicity effect on learning and teaching styles,and culture shock. The group discussion that followed indicated that theparticipants were drawing on not only their prior experiences as students inthe school system but also their own language learning experiences (statedby two of the seven) and from their experiences as students in their initiallanguage TESL teacher certificate courses (stated by five of the sevenparticipants); in fact,many of the results of the initialmapmay be attributedto some of the participants’ experiences in previous certificate courses asmany of the concepts seem to represent the subjectmatter of these courses.Thus, the pre-course group concept map gave the instructor someindication of these participants’ prior beliefs about, and experiences with,TESL.

Post-course groupconcept map

The post-course group concept map is shown in Figure 2. Several newconcepts appeared in thepost-course conceptmaps thatwerenot on thepre-course maps such as Critical reflection/Self-awareness (23), Research andtheory (9), and Curriculum design (8). In addition, it should be noted thatsome concepts appeared in more than one sphere, indicating possibly thatthe participants were attempting to make connections between theconcepts.

Critical reflection was the most popular concept in the post-course groupconceptmap and was subdivided into teachers’ personality, self confidence,self-awareness, self-assessment, knowledge of subject matter, classroomlessons, and evaluation. Next came research and theory, further subdividedinto theory acquisition, applied linguistics—especially how, research theoryand practice are linked—can anything be proven, corrective feedback, andalternative assessment of students. This concept was followed by anothernew concept curriculum design with subdivisions of textbooks, ideology,and materials.

All participants wrote that they had noticed a major new concept of criticalreflection in the post-course maps. In addition, critical reflection enabledthem tonote that the post-coursemaps showed adifferent understanding ofthe concept ‘method’ that allowed for a move away from a focus on lookingfor the correctmethod when constructing the pre-course concept maps.These two findings are important because both concepts were new anddifferent from what the participants had said they ‘believed’ to be true forTESL before they had taken the course.

Regarding critical reflection, T3, a participant from China, said that shenoticed in her post-course map that she had ‘a new bubble called criticalthinking’ which she explained in the post-course interview as follows:

You need your own thinking, not follow others . . . like teaching is theirown voice in their teaching process. Not just follows the administratorsthinking. I think I need to raise my voice; to express my opinion of whatteaching is and how I should teach in my class including the kind ofmaterial to use in my class, not just the textbook.

Later in the same interview she said that she would try to instil this kind ofcritical thinking in her students when she returned to China; she said:


figure 2

Post-course groupconcept map. (Numberin parentheses shows thenumber of timesa concept was includedin the individual conceptmaps.)


‘When I go back to China I would be an English teacher. I will let mystudents have this kind of thinking’. Another participant, T5 from Korea,also said that shewould try to incorporate critical thinking into her teachingbecause she noted that:

Usually the tradition of education in Korea is we just obey. We just followthe rules from the government or from the administrator, or someprincipal in the school. But now I can think, I can decide, this is good, butthis is not, or I need to follow this, but I don’t think this is good. I candetermine if it’s good for my teaching or for my students. This is criticalthinking for me.

However, she said that this process would not be easy for her to follow inKorea especially if ‘I want towork in the schools, so Imust followbasic rulesotherwise I can be isolated from the other teachers’. In addition, T5 alsomentioned that this process of developing critical reflectionwas slow for herbecause of her past experiences and beliefs and that she only realized thatshewas becomingmore critically reflective ‘almost at the end of the course’.Another participant, T2 also from Korea, voiced similar ideas about criticalreflection when she said: ‘In Korea, we cannot say anything to the professorlike bad things, I don’t think so, I cannot say this, but here I can say, I don’tthink so, and I can explain why I don’t think like this’. Similar to T5 above, itwas not until the end of the course that she realized her changed way ofthinking; she continued:

I realized this near the end of the course when I started to think aboutpolitics. I never thought about it, the relationship between politics andeducation. And when I saw, like, class ethics, or I thought just racism.I never thought it’s because it’s politics, but while I am reading thereadings, I can say yeah, everything is related to politics.

T6, amaleCanadianparticipant also realized that hemayhave just acceptedall he was presentedwith before in his TESL certificate programmewithoutquestion; he said:

There were moments, in my teaching profession, until now, where I’vedone something ‘cause that’s the way I’ve done it. And, if someone askedme, I would say ‘well, this is . . . this is, like the way to do it because it’seffective.’ But without really questioning the context that I was in andnot . . . Without really questioning what was going on.

Asked again two years after taking the MA course if he still held the sameideas he had expressed above, he said: ‘Yes’. Before taking the MAprogramme and in particular the course reported on in this paper, T6 saidthat during his TESL certificate programme ‘while teaching ESL tointernational students at the same university (where I got my certificate), Iwas nudged (in some cases harder than in others) towards a certainmethodof teaching. This helped me at first, as I needed some guidance. But, in thelong run, itmayhave hurtmeaswell, for I allowedmyself to beboxed in—toteach a certain way regardless of the teaching context’. Now, two years sincetaking the Foundations course reported on in this paper, where he said he‘was asked to consider with a more critical eye the teaching concepts I wasreading about’, he suggests his own learning ‘continues today in my ownteaching experience’.


T7, a femaleCanadian participant, noted in the post-course interview that asa result of taking the course she has ‘started to thinkmore critically not justabout reading things critically, but about the profession as a whole . . . whodrives it and how’. Before the course she said that she ‘believed everythingwaswonderful and Iwas just teachingEnglish’, but post-course she said shenoted a difference and that ‘wehave to be careful’. Twoyears after taking thiscourse, T7 still maintains that she believes that the course made her ‘morecritically reflective’; she continues: ‘Yes, I feel pretty much the same way.The course helped me to think more critically about everything in myprofession. I thinkmore about the bigger picture and the overall effect thatteaching English has on people’.

Concept mapping Conceptmaps can be used as a type ofmeta-language for learning, not onlyfor communication but also for synthesizing what a course participant islearning and how the participant is thinking about course content (Hyerle2004). Thus, learners can be evaluated about not only what they know butalso how they know what they know by asking them about the informationpresent in their conceptmaps. So too was the case for the study reported onin this paper where the individual and group concept maps gave both theinstructor and the participants a visual (freeze-frame) of what theparticipants were thinking at the beginning and the end of the course—thewhat they know. In addition, the conceptmaps seemtomake it easier for theparticipants to reflect on their beliefs (prior and post) during the interviewsthat followedbecause they could retrieve language from themaps to expressthat knowledge in a more organized manner of how they arrived at thesevisual representations—the how they know what they know. This may bea very important consideration for language educators whose classparticipants include those whose English is a second or foreign languageand thus farmay have struggled to find a voice in graduate TESL courses. Itmay also be possible to use concept mapping to influence the manner ofdiscourse in the class as teacher educators and participants alike begin touse words such as ‘think’, ‘classify’, ‘sequence’, ‘brainstorm’, and ‘reflect’ torepresent cognitive processes. In addition, the use and discussion of pre-course conceptmapsmay encourage language teacher educators to refocuscourse goals and further refine instructional purposes of a course and assuch they can determine what kind of thinking will be involved throughoutthe course.

Mergendoller andSachs (1994: 589)noted that conceptmaps can be ‘usefulfor measuring cognitive change resulting from participation in academiccourses’. The results of this study have indicated that the technique ofconcept mapping has resulted in cognitive change especially in theirattitudes to teaching TESL and the profession (for example T6 and T7) andin their beliefs about language teaching (for example T2, T3, T5). However,I cannot say if this technique was sufficient to induce experiential changewhere the participants took any specific actions beyond themental changesthey noted (Keiny 2008). Other limitations that should be noted include thesmall population of only seven participants whichmakes generalizability ofthe results somewhat problematic. Furthermore, this study is based toa great extent on the participants’ narration of the different issuesconcerning their reflections.However, because four of the participantswere


using English as a second language, this may have limited their means ofnarrative ability in English during the interviews. In addition, the differentcultural backgrounds of the Chinese and Korean participantsmay also haveinfluenced what these cultures consider appropriate to report in such anexercise. A further limitation of this study is recognition of the fact that theresearcher was also the instructor of the class and this too may haveimpacted what all the participants, irrespective of culture or languagebackground, may have considered important to report to the researcher/instructor.

Conclusion While recognizing some limitations of concept mapping, the results of thestudy reported on in this paper suggest that concept maps may be a usefulteaching aid for the instructor to gauge participants’ prior beliefs andexperiences about a topic and to find out if they hold similar beliefs aftertaking the course. Concept mapping also gives course participants a visualrepresentation of their thoughts before and after taking a course, and whendiscussion is included in the reflection process, they can gain a greaterconceptual clarity for themselves as a result of having to explain theirconceptions to a partner, a group, or the class.

Final revised version received July 2008

ReferencesAntonacci, P. A. 1991. ‘Students search for meaningin the text through semantic mapping’. SocialEducation 55: 174–94.Borg, M. 2004. ‘The apprenticeship of observation’.ELT Journal 58/3: 274–6.Burns, A. 1993. ‘Teacher beliefs and their influenceon classroom practice’. Prospect 7: 56–66.Fischer, F., J. Bruhn, C. Grasel, and H. Mandl. 2002.‘Fostering collaborative knowledge constructionwith visualization tools’. Learning and Instruction12: 213–32.Hyerle, D. 2004. ‘Thinking maps asa transformational language for learning’ inD.Hyerle (ed.).Student Successes withThinkingMaps.Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.Keiny, S. 2008. ‘‘‘Conceptual change’’ as bothrevolutionary and evolutionary process’.Teachers andTeaching 14: 61–72.Lortie, D. 1975.Schoolteacher. Chicago, IL: Universityof Chicago Press.Mergendoller, R. and C. Sachs. 1994. ‘Concerningthe relationship between teachers’ theoreticalorientations toward readingand their conceptmaps’.Teaching and Teacher Education 10: 589–99.

Novak, J.D. 1990. ‘Conceptmaps andVeediagrams:two metacognitive tools to facilitate meaningfullearning’. Instructional Science 19: 1–25.Richards, J. C. 1998. Beyond Training. New York:Cambridge University Press.Richards, J. C., B. Ho, and K. Giblin. 1996.‘Learning how to teach in the RSA Cert.’ inD. Freeman and J. C. Richards (eds.). TeacherLearning inLanguageTeaching.NewYork:CambridgeUniversity Press.Shulman, L. 1987. ‘Knowledge and teaching:foundations of the new reform’.Harvard EducationalReview 57: 1–22.

The authorThomas S. C. Farrell is a Professor of AppliedLinguistics at Brock University, Canada. Hisprofessional interests include reflective practiceand language teacher education anddevelopment. He is a series editor for theLanguage Teacher Research series for TESOL, USA.His recent book is Reflective Language Teaching:From Research to Practice (2008 ContinuumPress).Email: [email protected]


Challenges in teaching ELF in theperiphery: the Greek context

Nicos Sifakis

The paper presents a notional account of the challenges facing the introduction ofEnglish as an international lingua franca (ELF) curriculum in the state schools ofthe expanding circle, taking Greece as a case in point. It broadly delineates an ELF

curriculum as one focusing on the skills necessary for carrying out successfulcommunication involving non-native speakers and then highlights a set ofchallenges linked to both teaching context and teachers’ perceptions ofprofessional identity. It focuses on challenges related to three facets of theprofessional identity of academically trained Greek state school EFL teachers,namely, their roles as users, specialists, and, ultimately, custodians of English fortheir learners and wider community. These facets are discussed with reference toa description of the country’s current sociolinguistic and educational profile. Thepaper concludes with an overview of the strengths of an ELF curriculum for Greekstate schools and discusses implications for ELF teacher education.

Introduction In the past few years, research in the domain of English as an internationallingua franca (ELF) has posed important questions about the role andnature of communication between non-native speakers (NNSs) in today’sglobalized world. Topics that have raised heated debates have focused onissues like the nature of ELF as a variety (or network of varieties) in its ownright, the issue of the ownership of English by its NNSs (Rajagopalan 2004),or the prospects of ELF testing (Jenkins 2006a). Other areas that have beenextensively discussed have referred to areas such as the nature of successfulNNS–NNS interactions (Seidlhofer 2004) or the lingua francapronunciation core (Jenkins 2000), among others.

Despite the ongoing debate, however, there has to my knowledge beensurprisingly little discussion on the actual teaching possibilities for ELF.Leading ELFscholars have argued that ‘it would be premature to launch intoa discussion of the teaching of this lingua franca before certain prerequisiteshave been met’ (Seidlhofer 2004: 209) and that these prerequisites shouldinclude a comprehensive account of ELF use and its users. In a similar vein,Jenkins (2006b: 174–5) has linked ELF teaching with predominant policiesrelated to EFL testing.

It is my contention in this paper that an additional concern should be addedto those above, namely, the degree to which teachers are willing and ‘ready’to engage in ELF teaching. Such a concern can have many dimensions

230 ELT Journal Volume 63/3 July 2009; doi:10.1093/elt/ccn057ªª The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.Advance Access publication November 10, 2008

(for example the increasing demand for proficiency examinations incountries of the expanding circle that Jenkins refers to above), but here Iwould like to focus on aspects of teachers’ professional identity that are likelyto prevent them from integrating ELF into their teaching. By ‘professionalidentity’ I mean the wide range of characterizations that teachers, learners,and others use to delineate different aspects of their teaching practice.

My focus, in this paper, is domains where ELF is expected to have thegreatest impact, i.e. countries of the expanding circle (where English is inextensive demand but does not have official status). As a case in point, I takethe example of Greece and reflect on the complications that may be posed bycertain facets of the professional identity of EFL teachers who work in thestate sector.

EFL teachers and theELF challengeELF as acommunication-skills-basedcurriculum

Before I refer to these complications, it is fair to ask what an ELF curriculummight look like. We still lack enough information on which to basea comprehensive proposal, but it should be possible to argue thata preliminary phase of such a curriculum would focus on:

1 making learners aware of what is involved in contextualized instances ofsuccessful NNS–NNS communication and

2 engaging them in similar interactions among themselves.

An ELF curriculum would concentrate on those competences andcommunication skills that any successful (mainly spoken) interactioninvolving NNSs portrays (Sifakis 2004), such as the capability to renderone’s discourse intelligible for their interlocutors through a process ofaccommodation (for example making repairs, paraphrasing, rephrasing, oreven allowing for linguistic errors that might facilitate communication). It isenvisaged that these practices would lead learners to realize the importancethat NNS–NNS communication will have for them in the years to come,appreciate the reasons for learning English (for example as a language forcommunication rather than as one for identification—House 2003), andinstil confidence in their own use of the language.

It is expected that, in the first stages, such a curriculum would be used inaddition to established EFL curricula, wherever this is possible. This meansthat it will be the responsibility of EFL teachers to make attempts atintegrating it with their established practices and see what works and whatdoes not work for their learners.

Teachers’ attitudestowards ELF

It would be interesting to see what demands such a curriculum wouldmake on EFL teachers. Apart from the fact that it would require that theyhave reached a certain amount of autonomy as teachers, it would alsorequire that they have a positive attitude towards the issues that ELF

research highlights.

Research into teachers’ and learners’ attitudes towards ELF issues (Jenkins2007) has shown that people have strong perceptions about what is ‘correct’and ‘appropriate’ in language communication. This is especially true incountries of the expanding circle, where EFL teaching is largely dependenton inner-circle norms (McKay 2003). This means that ELF teaching is notsimply going to be a matter of becoming acquainted with excerpts from the

Challenges in teaching ELF in the periphery 231

various published ELF corpora or reading the ELF literature. It is requiredthat EFL teachers critically approach ELF research and try to see whether itcan find applications in their own teaching context.

‘Objective’ and‘subjective’hindrances inintegrating an ELFcurriculum

What are the characteristics of such a process and what demands would itpose? It is possible to distinguish between two sets of challenges that EFL

teachers face, those that are ‘objective’ and outside the teachers’ own controland those that are ‘subjective’ and within teachers’ conscious control.

One set of ‘objective’ problems stems from the current status of the ELF

field. As already mentioned, more research is necessary in clearlydelineating the ELF domain. Furthermore, it is necessary to consider themany variables of teachers’ ‘contextual situation’ (Stern 1983: 274) thatare conducive to shaping their self-image and sense of professionalobligations and are likely to influence the extent to which they will begenuinely interested in ELF. These constraints spring from the curricularsituations teachers find themselves in, the available courseware, theprevailing institutional and educational cultures, and the establishedsocial-professional status teachers enjoy.

On the other hand, ‘subjective’ hindrances are related to teachers’perceptions about their role and status inside and outside the languageclassroom. How teachers perceive ELF may influence their attitude towardsteaching it. Research shows that EFL teachers seem to recognize theusefulness of the ELF-based skills mentioned in NNS–NNS

communication but are prone to taking up an NS-oriented perspectivewhen asked specifically about language teaching (Sifakis and Sougari2005). Other sources of influence, apart from the contextual factorsmentioned above, can be teachers’ previous experiences in pre- and in-service training or as foreign language learners and their self-image aseducators and subject matter experts. Where teachers live and how theyhave been accustomed to teaching can shape their perspectives about issuesthat are central to ELF concerns, such as language and identity, thedevelopment of appropriate ESOL policies and pedagogies, the role ofaccuracy and efficiency in communication, or established perceptionsabout literacy and testing.

A‘peripheral’ countryprofile—the case ofGreece

Let us see how the above features relate to Greece, a typical expanding-circlecountry, where English has no official status but is considered a keyprerequisite for ‘surviving’ in today’s globalized world.1

Greece’s ‘de facto population’ is around 11.1 million (2005). The residentmigrant population (which includes economic immigrants from theBalkans, Eastern Europe, and Asian countries like Iraq and Afghanistan) isin the region of 10 per cent. A quick look at officially available ethnicgroupings, however, shows that the Greek population is, at least on thesurface, notably homogeneous, with 97 per cent being Greek and 98 percent being nominally members of the Greek Orthodox Church. Theofficial language, Modern Greek, is the L1 of about 99 per cent of thepopulation and is used throughout the territory and taught at all levelsof education.

232 Nicos Sifakis

Education and EFL Education plays an important role in Greece as a means of providing basicknowledge and life skills and, especially, preparing pupils for futureemployment. The adult literacy level (i.e. people of 15+ who can read andwrite) is at 91 per cent, and in 2003, about 74 per cent of the tertiary agepopulation were enrolled in some type of higher education programme.

As Modern Greek is not widely used outside Greece, foreign languagelearning is considered crucial. As expected, English is the primary foreignlanguage. In 2004, 96.9 per cent of state school pupils of all levels learntEnglish (EU25 ¼ 84.9 per cent). Since the late 1980s there has been anincreasing demand for certification of proficiency in English which is todaytaken for granted as an employability requirement. Having a C2-levelproficiency certificate is considered as essential for future employment ashaving basic computer skills. For the state, these certificates have lifelongvalidity and are considered by many as having as much weight asa university degree. Virtually all pupils aim at acquiring certificates fromacclaimed standardized examination boards, for which they preparestrenuously by studying at private institutions or attending one-to-oneclasses. The EFL teachers occupied in these institutions are, at best,academically trained, but the great majority are C2-level certificate holderswho are certified by the Greek Ministry of Education to teach.

Greek state schoolEFL teachers

All state school EFL teachers should have a university degree in Englishstudies. The 2003 state school curriculum follows the cross-curricularapproach. While it focuses on teaching the normative structures andfunctions of the language, it does not require that learners reach near-nativespeaker proficiency. Rather, the emphasis is on intelligibility and effectivecommunication with NSs and NNSs and on highlighting the ‘internationalelements’ of English.

Since the dominant belief is that effective EFL teaching should aim athelping learners to pass examinations and acquire certificates, it is generallyassumed that foreign languages are taught and learnt more effectively atprivate schools. This has led to a situation where state school EFL

teaching (especially in the large cities) has the status of a TENOR2

situation (Abbot 1981) and state school EFL teachers enjoy a relatively lowerstatus in relation to teachers of other, more ‘important’ subjects. Also, asteachers are under pressure to cover the material prescribed byeducational authorities, competent learners can become easilydemotivated and weaker learners find the lessons difficult to follow.

As Greek society is rapidly becoming multicultural, state school classesare increasingly multicultural and multilingual. However, while thisphenomenon has had an enormous impact on the economy of the country,essentially helping to push it forward, it has not been acknowledged aspositive by the majority of Greeks. In many cases, these attitudes are evidentin state schools too (Dimakos and Tasiopoulou 2003). At the same time,Greeks consider themselves a largely monolingual and monoculturalcommunity. As Greek is the dominant language of education, it seems tome that it would be good if state school EFL teachers used ELF as a ‘neutral’and non-threatening medium of self-expression and a means of raisingtheir learners’ intercultural awareness.


Three ‘hats’ of EFLteachers

In view of the above, how ‘ready’ are Greek EFL teachers serving in the statesector to integrate an additional ELF curriculum into their everydaypractices? To try to answer this question, it is important, in my view, that wedraw attention to the social, professional, and pragmatic reality that theseteachers find themselves in. In what follows, I will attempt to further explorethis reality by referring to three hats that these teachers wear, or threedistinct roles that they adopt with regard to the language they teach, theirlearners, and the wider community.

Teachers as languageusers

As mentioned, English does not have an official status in Greece, whichmeans that its knowledge is not necessary in carrying out importanttransactions. However, in everyday life, English does play an increasinglyvisible role in various domains (in shop names, restaurant menus, evenwords and phrases that combine Greek and English, commonly termed‘Greeklish’) and its knowledge is helpful when engaging with moderntechnology (for example computers, mobile phones, electronic games,satellite TV, internet, manuals, etc.). However, engaging with the languagein this way means mainly practising receptive macro and micro skills(reading and some listening), although in certain areas productive skillsmay also be called for (for example in email communication or onlinechats).

What use of the language teachers make outside their classrooms is noteasy to say, but it is certain that EFL classrooms would be a primary domainof English use in the majority of cases. This means that such language usewould reflect the proficiency levels and needs of their learners, lead torepeated simplification patterns (integrating, at times, Greek), and, toa large extent, be management oriented. If the language is not practised inother domains, it runs the danger of becoming fossilized. Still, in themajority of cases, as EFL teachers are NNSs, their communicative use ofEnglish outside the language classroom would have many of the featuresof an ELF variety.

Teachers as languageand teachingspecialists

Since English does not have an official status in Greece, any choice forwould-be EFL teachers to study it further would not be a response to anunderlying pragmatic need, but more a conscious ‘academic’ decision. Inother words, when senior high school students with an interest in Englishbegin a university degree in English, they do so for two reasons: first, out ofan affinity for the language, its history, literature, culture, and (native)speakers and, secondly, as a means of seeking employment as teachers,translators, or perhaps civil servants (as university degree holders) aftergraduation.

Currently, university degrees offered in the two Greek Departments ofEnglish Studies are organized around a wide variety of courses(approximately 40 in either case) that satisfy both of these needs. Studentscan also combine courses from the philosophy-philology-pedagogydepartments. While there are courses on offer that will help them forma comprehensive perception of issues related to interculturalcommunication and European foreign language perspectives, it is onlynatural that pre-service EFL teachers perceive their university training asa vehicle for:

234 Nicos Sifakis

1 acquiring a thorough grounding in the linguistics, culture, and historyof the language and

2 developing an informed awareness of the pedagogical principles andmethods they will need as teachers.

As academic excellence is highly valued in any tertiary institution, it wouldbe interesting to see the extent to which prospective state school EFL

teachers would be open to perceiving the validity of an ELF curriculum fortheir own context. The same would be the case for their learners, who wouldwant to excel in learning the norms of the language.

Furthermore, being a university degree holder in Greece means havingearned a specialist status, similar to that enjoyed by any degree-holdingprofessional. It is expected that specialists carry out their duties ina responsible professional manner, which, in the case of EFL teachers,would mean viewing the teaching of English as similar to that of anyother subject matter and teaching the NS norms. The same situationapplies to most in-service training programmes. Clearly, these are notfavourable circumstances for an ELF curriculum, as the latter might be seenas a means of lowering the academic and professional standards ofteaching and an inability to respond to learners’ and parents’ expectations.

Also, knowing the language is something that university-educated EFL

teachers share with C2-level certificate holders who also teach. In theprivate language schools domain, professionalism and success dependlargely on the number of candidates who pass a particular exam.University-educated EFL teachers are better off in many ways. In timeswhen employability becomes more and more difficult, they can beappointed as tenured state school teachers serving in domains where thepressure to prepare candidates for exams is non-existent. And, mostimportantly, they have had extensive in-depth academic pedagogicaltraining.

Teachers as languagecustodians/guardians

The above parameters can help us understand the intellectual,psychological, and moral qualities of successful Greek state school EFL

teachers, as perceived by themselves and their learners, peers, and broadercommunity. In the eyes of their learners, fellow teachers, and learners’parents, EFL teachers are custodians of the English language and culture.They are therefore responsible for using the few weekly hours to teachthe norms of NS English and expose learners to contextualized examples ofthe target language that are linguistically flawless, if communicativelyefficient. The same would be expected of any (foreign or mother)language teacher.

Conclusion I have tried to draw a notional orientation of the challenges that state schoolteachers of a typical expanding-circle country like Greece face with regard tothe possibility of integrating an ELFcurriculum. These challenges relate notonly to issues concerning the description of ELF use and users but also towidespread attitudes about the use and status of English and theprofessional responsibilities of academically trained teachers. In particular,as far as the Greek state school context is concerned, these challenges havebeen linked to:


n the low professional status of state school EFL teachers (in comparison toteachers of other school subjects which are considered more important);

n the higher academic status of state school EFL teachers as university-trained professionals (as opposed to that of C2-level holders occupied inthe private sector who specialize in preparing learners for certainexaminations);

n the widespread preference for the teaching and learning of a standardinner-circle norm, which is reinforced by (a) the strong testing-orientedcontext and (b) the strong monolingual character of the country’s profile;and

n the fact that English is not used extensively outside the EFL class.

In this context, communication involving NNSs is perceived as a realisticsituation that Greek state school learners will be facing and need to beprepared for, yet the link with established classroom practices still remainsto be explicitly made. This clearly has implications for policy makers,curriculum developers, and educational institutions alike. First, policymakers in Greece should realize that the endorsement of the teaching ofEnglish as a lingua franca and not simply as another foreign language instate schools can, if appropriately implemented, help raise learners’awareness of the increasingly multilingual and multicultural character ofthe country in which they live. Second, curriculum developers can offerextensive opportunities for dialogue among all learners on issues relatedto the expression of identity and the arousal of interest in and concern forother people’s cultures and life histories. And finally, educationalinstitutions are prompted to engage prospective and in-service EFL

teachers in appropriate reflection-based activities that will empower them intheir implementation of such a project. In particular, a Greece-based ELF

teacher education programme should focus on:

n raising pre-service and in-service teachers’ awareness of thecommunication value of ELF-related accommodation skills, with the aimof empowering themselves and their NNS learners as valid interculturalcommunicators, as opposed to maintaining a perspective that views EFL

learners as deficient users of a language that is wholly ‘owned’ by itsnative speakers;

n prompting teachers to see their state school classes for the increasinglyintercultural situations that they are and put forward action researchprogrammes to promote all learners’ cultural identities on the basis ofa shared, non-threatening language, essentially helping to alleviatenegative stereotypical attitudes about immigrants;

n emphasizing the strengths of the communicatively efficient use ofEnglish, as opposed to perceiving the language as subject matter thatneeds to be ‘mastered’;

n enabling state school EFL teachers in opening up to the possibilities ofusing modern technology to make links with NNS learners of othercountries of the European Union (EU) and, as a result, promoteintercultural communication among EU members;

n ultimately, raising state school teachers’ confidence as autonomouspractitioners.

236 Nicos Sifakis

It is important that ELF research draws attention to delineating thosefeatures of an ELF curriculum that characterize the skills and subskillsrequired for successful communication involving NNSs. The Greek stateschool setting would be ideal for integrating a curriculum that wouldrespond to current interest in foreign language learning by focusing onsuccessful communication between NNSs, while drawing attention awayfrom heavy-duty examination preparation. In this way, state school EFL

teaching might responsibly meet the needs of an emerging reality in waysthat private tuition will not. It is very probable that the same is the case withsimilar settings in other countries of the expanding circle.

Final revised version received August 2008

Notes1 All information provided here is based on theEurostat Yearbook 2006–2007 (available fromhttp://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_OFFPUB/KS-CD-06-001/EN/KS-CD-06-001-EN.PDF) and Eurybase—The InformationDatabase on Education Systems in Europe: TheEducation System in Greece, 2005/06. Brussels:European Commission, Directorate-General forEducation and Culture (available from http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/ressources/eurydice/eurybase/pdf/0_integral/EL_EN).

2 ‘Teaching English for no obvious reason’.

ReferencesAbbot, G. 1981. ‘Encouraging communication inEnglish: a paradox’. ELT Journal 35/3: 228–30.Dimakos, I. C. and K. Tasiopoulou. 2003. ‘Attitudestowards immigrants: what do Greek students thinkabout their immigrant classmates?’ InterculturalEducation 14: 307–16.House, J. 2003. ‘English as a lingua franca: a threat tomultilingualism?’. Journal of Sociolinguistics7/4: 556–78.Jenkins, J. 2000. The Phonology of English as anInternational Language.NewModels, NewNorms,NewGoals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Jenkins, J. 2006a. ‘The spread of EIL: a testing timefor testers’. ELT Journal 60/1: 42–50.Jenkins, J. 2006b. ‘Current perspectives on teachingworld Englishes and English as a lingua franca’.TESOL Quarterly 40/1: 157–81.

Jenkins, J. 2007. English as a Lingua Franca: Attitudeand Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.McKay, S. 2003. ‘Teaching English as aninternational language: the Chilean context’. ELTJournal 57/2: 139–48.Rajagopalan, K. 2004. ‘The concept of ‘‘WorldEnglish’’ and its implications for ELT’. ELT Journal58/2: 111–17.Seidlhofer, B. 2004. ‘Research perspectives onteaching English as a lingua franca’.AnnualReviewofApplied Linguistics 24: 209–39.Sifakis, N. C. 2004. ‘Teaching EIL—teachinginternational or intercultural English: what teachersshould know’. System 32/2: 237–50.Sifakis, N. C. and A. M. Sougari. 2005.‘Pronunciation issues and EIL pedagogy in theperiphery: a survey of Greek state school teachers’beliefs’. TESOL Quarterly 39/3: 467–88.Stern, H. H. 1983. Fundamental Concepts of LanguageTeaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

The authorNicos C. Sifakis is a lecturer at the Hellenic OpenUniversity in Greece, where he has taught andwritten study guides for the MEd in TESOL since1998. He holds a BA in computational linguisticsand a PhD in language and linguistics from theUniversity of Essex, UK. His teaching and researchinterests include teacher and adult education,English as an international lingua franca,intercultural communication and pedagogy, Englishfor specific purposes, and distance education.Email: [email protected]


Why and how textbooks shouldencourage extensive reading

Dale Brown

Extensive reading is believed to have considerable benefits for learners both interms of learning gains and motivation and seems to be becoming ever morepopular in the ELTworld. So far, however, there seems to be almost no integrationof extensive reading and textbooks.

This article argues that textbooks should be encouraging extensive reading, sincethis will confer further legitimacy on extensive reading and may ease many of thepractical difficulties that adopters of extensive reading face. The article then showshow textbooks could encourage extensive reading: directly, by including materialinvolving extensive reading; and indirectly, by approaching textbook readingactivities in ways more in tune with extensive reading. A number of proposals foreach of these approaches are discussed.

Introduction Extensive reading has been proclaimed as, ‘the single most effective way toimprove language proficiency’ (Maley 2005: 354). Extensive reading isthought to lead to considerable learning gains in the areas of reading,writing, vocabulary learning, and overall proficiency while also increasingmotivation (Day and Bamford 1998), and judging from the number ofjournal articles, conference presentations, and new series of graded readersavailable, an ever greater number of teachers and institutions seem to beadopting it. As yet, however, extensive reading is almost wholly ignoredby textbooks. The vast majority of textbooks, with only a few exceptions,make no reference whatsoever to extensive reading, meaning that it isup to individual teachers and institutions to convince others of itsmerits, integrate it into the curriculum, and deal with the practicalitiesinvolved.

This paper argues that extensive reading should be incorporated intotextbooks. It begins by reviewing the case for extensive reading, before thenexplaining why textbooks should be encouraging extensive reading. It thenlooks at how textbooks can encourage extensive reading. It suggests thatthey can do this directly, by including material involving extensive reading,and indirectly, by approaching reading activities in the textbooks themselvesin different ways from the current norm. Various proposals for each of theseideas are discussed and positive moves in a small number of currenttextbooks outlined.


The case forextensive reading

A substantial body of research has shown that extensive reading hasconsiderable benefits. Day and Bamford summarize a number ofinvestigations into the effects of extensive reading thus, ‘Students increasedtheir reading ability in the target language, developed positive attitudestoward reading, had increased motivation to read, and made gains in variousaspects of proficiency in the target language, including vocabulary andwriting’ (op. cit.: 33).

Nevertheless, a number of criticisms have been made against extensivereading. One concern is extensive reading’s delayed impact on learners’progress. Davis (1995: 330) has noted that, ‘[The benefits] do not emergeimmediately in terms of straightforward examination results’ and Krashen(1993: 73) admits that, ‘Short-term projects are not as consistentlysuccessful’. However, this is less an argument against extensive reading asmuch as a concern that extensive reading programmes be properlyconducted, and the research noted in Day and Bamford (op. cit.) attests tothe benefits given sufficient time; Krashen suggests at least one school yearis required.

A second concern is the unfamiliar roles that extensive reading entails forboth learners and teachers; Day and Bamford (op. cit.) note that teachers liketo teach. Similarly, introducing extensive reading does involve some veryreal practical problems (further detailed below). Again, however, theseconcerns are not really arguments against extensive reading, but ratherissues to be overcome, and as Davis points out:

Ultimately, whether or not these problems are overcome is a matter ofpriorities. Teachers and education planners first have to becomeconvinced of the enormous boost such a programme can give to theirpupil’s command of the language in order to feel it worthwhilecommitting the resources required. (op. cit.: 331)

A far bigger challenge to extensive reading is the criticism that it isinefficient. Laufer (2003) has noted that studies of extensive reading’simpact on vocabulary have found very small gains in terms of the number ofnew words learnt, and she thus argues that the amount of reading requiredfor substantial vocabulary gains to be made is simply unrealistic,particularly in instructed second language teaching contexts. There is nodoubt that for simply learning the meaning of words, direct intensivemethods are far more efficient than extensive reading. However, the gainsfrom extensive reading even in the area of vocabulary are wider than this,and Laufer herself acknowledges that extensive reading does result invocabulary learning, while also aiding in the consolidation of partially learntitems and in deepening learners’ knowledge of items. Laufer is also carefulto point out that she is not arguing against reading, but against the idea thatreading alone is sufficient.

Reviewing extensive reading, Davis concludes that:

Any ESL, EFL or L1 classroom will be the poorer for the lack of anextensive reading programme of some kind, and will be unable topromote its pupil’s language development as effectively as if sucha programme were present. (op. cit.: 335)

Why and how textbooks should encourage extensive reading 239

This paper agrees and believes that extensive reading has clear benefits forlearners that make overcoming the obstacles that prevent the adoption ofextensive reading worthwhile. This paper does not adhere to Krashen’s (op.cit.) bold claim that reading alone is sufficient for language acquisition,but believes that extensive reading should be one part of the languagelearning curriculum, and aims to suggest how this can be realized throughtextbooks.

Why textbooksshould encourageextensive reading

Textbooks form the core of many teaching programmes and in many casesactually take the place of or become the curriculum. They are also effectiveagents of change since they allow innovation, which is inevitably disruptiveand threatening, to be introduced in a familiar and structured format(Hutchinson and Torres 1994). Textbooks are, thus, an excellent vehiclethrough which to encourage the adoption of extensive reading. At present,extensive reading is often regarded as an addition to the language learningprogramme rather than a central part of it; textbooks can help makeextensive reading an integral part of it.

Extensive reading should also be integrated into textbooks because doing sowould help overcome many of the concerns about extensive reading thatdiscourage more institutions and teachers from adopting it. Variousconcerns have been outlined, which fall into two broad categories: doubtsabout the legitimacy of extensive reading and concerns about thepracticalities of setting up an extensive reading programme.

Doubts aboutlegitimacy

Prowse (2002: 144) sums up this problem when he notes that sometimes:

a class of students reading silently is not perceived as a class learning,let alone being taught, both by the students themselves and the schooladministration.

Textbooks can help overcome this problem by giving credibility andlegitimacy to extensive reading. Textbooks are powerful legitimizing tools,for teachers, for learners, and for institutions. Littlejohn (1998: 190)describes them as ‘the most powerful device’ for the transmission of ideasthrough the ELT profession and Nunan (1991: 210) notes that, for bothlearners and teachers, ‘what gets included in materials largely defines whatmay count as ‘‘legitimate’’ knowledge’. Textbooks, then, play a crucial role indefining the type of content and the type of learning activities that arecredible. Incorporating extensive reading into textbooks will legitimizeextensive reading for all the users of those textbooks as a credible way forlearners to spend their time.

Concerns aboutpracticalities

The main practical concerns regarding extensive reading are to do withcost, lack of time, monitoring students’ reading, managing the library ofbooks, guiding students to choose appropriate books, and gettingstudents engaged in reading (Davis op. cit.; Bell 1998; Day and Bamfordop. cit.). While textbooks may not be able to assist with the problems ofcost or managing the library of books, they can certainly ease some of theother concerns.

240 Dale Brown

Lack of timeThis is probably an issue of legitimacy more than anything else. If teachersand institutions are convinced that extensive reading is a credible activity,priorities are adjusted and time is found for it, and as explained above,textbooks can play a powerful part in conferring this credibility.

Monitoring students’ readingTextbooks can ease this problem considerably with the provision of readinglogs and of activities in which it becomes clear whether students are readingand what they are reading.

Guiding students to choose appropriate booksTextbooks can help by first ensuring that recommendations for books are atan appropriate level. They can also recommend and introduce titles ofinterest in various ways (see more below).

Getting students engaged in reading as an activityTextbooks can readily do this by providing activities allowing students todiscuss their reading in various ways (see more below).

How textbooksshould encourageextensive reading

To this author, extensive reading means reading as much as possible andreading material at a comfortable level for the learner; in practice for themajority of students, this means reading graded readers. Extensive readingmeans that students choose what to read and it means they do most of thereading by themselves outside of class; in class some reading is done andstudents also talk about their reading.

Textbooks then cannot actually provide this type of extensive reading—theresulting books would be large ungainly things—but they can encourage it,both directly and indirectly.

Direct approaches Textbooks can directly encourage extensive reading by explicitlyrecommending to learners that they do it. Many textbooks today includestudy tips and advice, and occasionally extensive reading may be mentioned.Language to Go (Crace and Wileman 2002) has a recommendation fora single-graded reader on the back cover, though within the textbookitself no reference to this could be found. English Firsthand (Helgesen,Brown, and Mandeville 2004) suggests reading what it calls easy Englishbooks or magazines in its ‘It’s up to you!’ sections, and the teacher’smanual makes it clear that this refers to extensive reading. In the vastmajority of books, however, this simple recommendation is curiouslyabsent.

Clearly, this kind of advice alone, with no further backing, is unlikely to havemuch impact. A more powerful way textbooks can encourage extensivereading is to directly provide activities that let students begin reading or thatallow them to discuss their reading. The major ELT textbook publishers allpublish series of graded readers, and there are a variety of ways textbookscould include parts of these readers or otherwise encourage learners tobegin reading them.


1 Textbooks could provide reading logs where students record the dates,book titles, and pages read. This would be a very simple addition toa textbook, though without additional support would probably have littleimpact.

2 Textbooks could provide a book choice flowchart; a series of questions inflowchart form, about for example the preferred genre, the sex and age ofthe lead character, the temporal setting of the book, and more, that lead tobook recommendations.

3 Each unit in the textbook could include a recommendation for a gradedreader related in some way to the topic of the unit. An examination of themajor series of graded readers finds many titles related to typicaltextbook topics such as travel, work, family, music, and movies. It mayeven be possible to recommend two readers for each topic, thus allowinglearners to at least exercise some choice in what they read. Alternatively,there could be one unit topic-related recommendation and one unrelatedrecommendation, giving learners the option of staying with the topic orchoosing something fresh.

4 Similarly, there could be activities involving the language focus of thetextbook’s units, leading to recommendations for graded readers. Forexample, after a unit on describing people, there could be an activity thatinvolved descriptions of the main characters from two or three readers.The activity would conclude with students deciding which character theyare most interested in and being invited to go on and read that character’sstory.

5 Following on from the previous two suggestions, short excerpts from thereaders, perhaps the first chapter, could be included to act as a ‘hook’,getting the students into the story and helping them make their choice.

6 Extracts from graded readers could be interspersed with the unitsthroughout the textbook to give students a taste of extensive reading.This is the approach taken by the Cover to Cover series (Day, Yamanaka,Harsch, and Ono 2007), the only textbook known to this author thatattempts to really integrate extensive reading into its syllabus.

7 Short graded readers could be serialized through the textbook, with onechapter appearing in each unit. While this would not allow learners tochoose the material they read themselves, and would not result inlearners reading enough material for it to be truly called extensivereading, this approach would introduce learners to the concept ofreading easy material in a stress-free environment. Indeed one recentlypublished textbook series takes a similar approach to this. EssentialReading (Miles, Gough, McAvoy, and French 2008) has a complete shortstory at the back of each book to introduce the idea of extensive reading tostudents. While Essential Reading follows this format in all its levels, thisapproach may be especially appropriate for lower level textbooks, thestudents of which often need a lot of convincing that it is possible to readand enjoy reading English books.

8 Activities that allow learners to discuss their reading could be included ineach unit. The literature on extensive reading abounds with suchactivities, and many of these ideas work with any story the learners arereading. Thus, all the students in a class could be reading different booksof their own choosing, yet still be able to complete the same activities anddiscussion. Such activities would provide a regular slot in the class in

242 Dale Brown

which students discuss their reading, and an opportunity for students tofind out about other titles they may be interested in. Most teachers whohave adopted extensive reading use such activities as they ‘can turn theindividual solitary act of reading into a community event’ (Day andBamford op. cit.: 141); including them in the textbook would helporganize them, so that, for example, simpler, less demanding activitiescome earlier in the course and more challenging activities later.

Indirect approaches Textbooks can also encourage extensive reading indirectly, by approachingreading activities in ways that are more in tune with extensive reading. Dayand Bamford (op. cit.) list ten features of extensive reading:

1 students read as much as possible;2 a variety of material on a wide range of topics is available;3 students select what they want to read;4 the purposes of reading are usually related to pleasure, information, and

reading for understanding;5 reading is its own reward;6 reading materials are well within the linguistic competence of the

students;7 reading is individual and silent;8 reading speed is usually faster rather than slower;9 teachers orient students to the goals of the programme;10 the teacher is a role model of a reader for students.

Some of these features are clearly irrelevant to the kind of intensive readingpassages that textbooks include; some would be difficult to incorporate intotextbooks; yet others can be incorporated or at least encouraged.

A variety of material on a wide range of topics is availableTextbooks certainly claim to do this, but while the range of topics in mosttextbooks is reasonable, the variety of material is less so. Too many textbooksfeature magazine-style reading passages exclusively, ignoring newsreporting, prose fiction, poetry, or anything else.

Students select what they want to readIt should be possible for textbooks, at least to some extent, to allow this. Twoor more texts on the theme or topic could be provided and the learners askedto choose which they will read. Students who read the different texts couldthen be grouped together to share and discuss what they read.

The purposes of reading are usually related to pleasure, information, andreading for understandingIt could be argued that presenting students with texts that they are requiredto read makes it inherently impossible for the focus to be on pleasure,information, and understanding, despite the best efforts of textbook writersto find or write interesting material. Yet textbooks could take some stepstowards this with readings that students are not required to analyse or recallin great detail; in other words, readings that students are not tested on insome way, but instead are invited to read and then consider whether they


enjoyed them. Innovations (Dellar and Walkley 2004) takes one step towardsthis in its review units, by inviting students to look back and choose thereadings they enjoyed the most from the preceding units.

Readingmaterials are well within the linguistic competence of the studentsTextbooks at times include challenging readings for a clear purpose, but veryoften there seems to be no discernible reason beyond the fact that that is theway things are, and perhaps a shared belief among teachers, learners, andpresumably textbook writers that reading should be hard. The purpose oftextbook reading activities is usually either to allow the practice of skills, tointroduce vocabulary, to provide information on a topic or theme, ora combination of these. While some of these purposes clearly require somechallenge in the reading passage, an overly challenging text will interferewith others rather than advance them. Textbooks should be more balanced,with some challenging readings and some well within the students’capabilities.

Reading speed is usually faster rather than slowerTextbook readings are usually read slowly, with students laboriously poringover the text, dictionary in hand. This is often due to the overly difficultnature of the text, as mentioned above, and as Bell (2001) points out, the factthat so many reading activities interrupt students’ reading actually makesunderstanding the whole text more difficult. While slow, careful readingmay be desired at times, frequently there seems to be no reason to slowlearners down.

It may be argued that since extensive and intensive reading are differentbeasts, there is no need to make textbook reading activities more in tunewith extensive reading. Intensive reading is valuable and rightly has its placein the classroom, but the gulf that seems to separate intensive and extensivereading at present is large. As Day and Bamford (op. cit.) point out, orientingstudents to the goals of an extensive reading programme is essential andwould be much easier if textbook readings were more balanced and if theactivities they encountered had a different tone.

Conclusion This paper has argued that extensive reading is an essential part of thelanguage curriculum, that textbooks should encourage extensive reading,and that it is possible for them to do so. However, it is worth considering whytextbooks almost exclusively do not do so at present. One reason may be thatpublishers and materials writers fear that incorporating extensive readinginto a textbook could deter some potential users. Related to this, publishersmay also fear the possibility that the incorporation of extensive reading isseen as simply a ploy by the publisher to push sales of its series of gradedreaders. Carter, Hughes, and McCarthy (1998) have pointed out the tensionin materials development between the desire to modify users’ views in thelight of research, and the need, for both commercial and pedagogicalreasons, to conform to users’ expectations, and it is clear that at timespublishers and materials writers push change and at times are pulled alongby it. Yet publishers should take courage from Bell and Gower’s (1998)observation that successful textbooks are usually those that break newground while at the same time having something familiar about them. This

244 Dale Brown

writer believes that textbooks should break new ground by encouragingextensive reading and hopes that the ideas offered above may help; so thatmore teachers and institutions may be persuaded to adopt extensivereading, and ultimately so that more learners benefit from it.

Final revised version received April 2008

ReferencesBell, J. andR.Gower. 1998. ‘Writing course materialsfor the world: a great compromise’ inB. Tomlinson (ed.).Bell, T. 1998. ‘Extensive reading: why? And how?’.The Internet TESL Journal 4/12: http://www.iteslj.org/Articles/Bell-Reading.html.Originally accessed 1 July 2006.Bell, T. 2001. ‘Extensive reading: speed andcomprehension’. The Reading Matrix 1/1: http://www.readingmatrix.com/articles/bell/index.html.Originally accessed 1 July 2006.Carter, R., R. Hughes, and M. McCarthy. 1998.‘Telling tails: grammar, the spoken language andmaterials development’ in B. Tomlinson (ed.).Crace, A. and R. Wileman. 2002. Language to Go.Harlow, UK: Longman.Davis, C. 1995. ‘Extensive reading: an expensiveextravagance?’. ELT Journal 49/4: 329–36.Day, R. and J. Bamford. 1998.Extensive Reading in theSecond Language Classroom. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.Day, R., J. Yamanaka, K. Harsch, and L. Ono. 2007.Cover to Cover. New York: Oxford University Press.Dellar, H. and A. Walkley. 2004. Innovations.London: Thomson.Helgesen, M., S. Brown, and T. Mandeville. 2004.English Firsthand. Hong Kong: Longman.Hutchinson, T. and E. Torres. 1994. ‘The textbook asagent of change’. ELT Journal 48/4: 315–28.Krashen, S. 1993. ‘The case for free voluntaryreading’. Canadian Modern Language Review50/1: 72–82.

Laufer, B. 2003. ‘Vocabulary acquisition in a secondlanguage: do learners really acquire most vocabularyby reading? Some empirical evidence’. CanadianModern Language Review 59/4: 565–85.Littlejohn, A. 1998. ‘The analysis of languageteaching materials: inside the Trojan Horse’ in B.Tomlinson (ed.).Maley, A. 2005. ‘Review of ‘‘Extensive ReadingActivities for the Second Language Classroom’’’. ELTJournal 59/4: 354–5.Miles, S., C. Gough, J. McAvoy, and A. French. 2008.Essential Reading. Oxford: Macmillan.Nunan, D. 1991. Language Teaching Methodology.Harlow, UK: Longman.Prowse, P. 2002. ‘Top ten principles for teachingextensive reading: a response’. Reading in a ForeignLanguage 14/2: 142–5.Tomlinson, B. (ed.). 1998. Materials Development inLanguage Teaching. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.

The authorDale Brown has worked in ELT for ten years both asa teacher and as a full-time materials writer andeditor. He is now a member of the Nanzan EnglishEducation Center at Nanzan University in Nagoya,Japan, where he teaches a variety of courses for non-English majors. His main interests lie in extensivereading, vocabulary teaching, and materialsdevelopment.Email: [email protected]


http://www.iteslj.org/Articles/Bell-Reading.html

http://www.iteslj.org/Articles/Bell-Reading.html

http://www.readingmatrix.com/articles/bell/index.html

http://www.readingmatrix.com/articles/bell/index.html

point and counterpoint

Process-oriented pedagogy:facilitation, empowerment,or control?

William Littlewood

A feature of language teaching in recent decades has been the development ofprocess-oriented approaches. This orientation towards processes encourages us tofacilitate learner choice and individual development. However, it is challenged bythe current educational climate, which prioritizes accountability and assessment.In this situation, a new perspective on process orientation has emerged. Thisperspective focuses not on the processes which occur as part of learning but on theprocesseswhich are the intended outcomes of this learning.Discrete features of thecommunication and learning processes become pre-specified ‘learning outcomes’,which are to be observed and assessed. Outcomes-based education is promoted asa means of empowering learners with the knowledge and skills required for living.However, it is also a powerful instrument for effecting compliancewith centralizedconceptions of education and can minimize the voices of learners and teachers inthe process of education.

Introduction An important feature of foreign language teaching over recent decades hasbeen increasing attention not only to the products that we expect learning toachieve (for example control of selected grammatical structures orcommunicative functions) and the pedagogy that might lead to theseproducts but also to the processes through which learning takes place. AsHedge (2000: 359) expresses it, ‘the question has become not so much onwhat basis to create a list of items to be taught as how to create an optimalenvironment to facilitate the processes through which language is learned’.This has led to increased interest in how learning is influenced by, forexample, affective factors, cognitive styles, and group dynamics. It has alsoled to increased attention to students’ natural learning capacities and how tostimulate these through strategies such as personalization and awarenessraising. At the planning level, it has encouraged teachers to organize theircourses around holistic learning experiences such as projects and tasks, inthe belief that the resulting ‘negotiation of meanings’ is the most effectivefacilitator of individual learning.

Processes in theclassroom

The literature is less explicit than it might be on the precise distinctionbetween terms such as ‘process’, ‘skill’, and ‘state’. It is common, forexample, to find writing or listening referred to as ‘processes’ in one context


and ‘skills’ in another. Similarly, we find that motivation is discussed both asan affective ‘process’ and as an affective ‘state’. The position taken in thispaper is that processes may be mobilized as part of a skill (for example as in‘controlled and automatic processing’) or may cluster together to forma ‘state’ (for example as in a connectionist account, where mental or affectivestates are produced by processes within neural networks) but are present inboth. Thus, when mention is made of what may often be termed a skill orstate, reference is also made by implication to the processeswhich facilitate orproduce them.

Thanks to seminal work by investigators such as Allwright (1996), Breen(1986), and Senior (2006), we have become strongly aware of the richnessof classroom interaction and the complexity of the processes within it. Anyanalytical framework must be an oversimplification of this complexity, buthere I will distinguish four interconnected levels which figure prominentlyin current discussions. Within each level, there are both facilitative andinhibitive processes.

Affective processesFor example, a student’s learning is facilitated by feelings of self-confidenceand self-esteem, but inhibited by anxiety.

Cognitive processesFor example, learning is facilitated by the capacity to make inferences, butinhibited by premature closure (in which a student does not consideralternative answers).

Social processesFor example, learning is facilitated by group cohesion and cooperation butinhibited by social loafing (when individual students do not contribute toa group task).

Communication processesFor example, learning is facilitated by comprehension but inhibited whenone person is over-dominant in turn-taking.

A special category of process consists of the pedagogic processes by which theteacher tries to influence the processes mentioned above. Thus, forexample, she/he may try to influence the affective level positively by creatinga relaxed environment; the cognitive level by asking challenging questions;the social level by using effective grouping techniques; and thecommunication level by creating opportunities for all learners to participate.In these various ways, the teacher aims to stimulate developmental processesleading to development at all four levels, for example, towards more positiveattitudes, better critical thinking skills, enhanced ability to cooperate, andhigher proficiency in the ‘four skills’. However, pedagogic processes mayalso create negative effects (for example excessive criticism may damageself-esteem and motivation), so that they may be either facilitative orinhibitive of learning.

Process-oriented pedagogy: facilitation, empowerment, or control? 247

At this point our perspective goes beyond the classroom and considers theoutcomes of this development, which the student will carry from theclassroom into the future.

Table 1 presents a summary of the types of process mentioned above. Thosein columns 1–3 are processes which occur within the classroom and affectlearning. This is the domain addressed by process-oriented teaching asunderstood in the discussion so far. Those in column 4 are the outcomes oflearning. This is the domain addressed by process-oriented teaching as seenfrom the perspective of outcomes-based education, which is introduced inthe next section.

As mentioned above, the pedagogic processes (column 3) can in reality beinhibitive as well as facilitative. Furthermore, the outcomes (column 4) canbe negative as well as positive (for example a student’s classroomexperiences may engender negative attitudes to learning). However, to avoida confusing proliferation of columns, only the facilitative and positiveprocesses are included in Table 1. These are also, of course, the processestowards which we direct our pedagogical strategies.

1 2 3 4Facilitativeprocesses

Inhibitiveprocesses

Pedagogicprocesses

Processes asoutcomes

Affectiveprocesses

e.g. self-confidence

e.g. excessiveanxiety

e.g. creatinga relaxedenvironment

positiveattiudes, etc.

Cognitiveprocesses

e.g. makinginferences

e.g. prematureclosure

e.g. challengingideas

criticalthinking, etc.

Socialprocesses

e.g. groupcohesion

e.g. socialloafing

e.g. effectivegroupingtechniques

cooperationskills, etc.

Communicationprocesses

e.g.comprehension

e.g. dominancein turn-taking

e.g. creatingspace tocommunicate

the ‘four skills’,etc.

table 1Main types of process inthe foreign languageclassroom

In the next section, I will refer to the processes in columns 1–3 as ‘processesin progress’ and those in column 4 as ‘processes as outcomes’. The terms areclumsy but serve to make a necessary distinction in this paper.

Two perspectives on‘process orientation’in the classroom

Following from the above, when we talk about ‘process-oriented languageteaching’, this may carry two distinct meanings. On the one hand, it mightmean that we pay special attention to the processes-in-progress that go oninside the classroom. This is the perspective taken in the quotation fromHedge above and by the proponents of, for example, process writing, projectwork, or other forms of experiential learning. It is the classroom-methodological perspective taken by most practising teachers. On the otherhand, it might mean that we attend to the processes that are the intendedoutcomesof learning. This is the case for curriculum designers and assessorswhen they express the intended outcomes of learning in terms of processes,skills, and states.

248 William Littlewood

An example of this process-as-outcome perspective is the Singapore EnglishLanguage Syllabus 2001 (Curriculum Planning and Development Division2001). It lists intended outcomes from all levels presented in Table 1 (butmainly of course from the communication level). For example, by the end ofPrimary 2—in the confident can-do terminology featured in many suchdocuments—‘pupils will’:

n enjoy the creative use of language in, for example, similes, poems, andjokes (affective level)

n infer and draw conclusions about characters, sequence of events(cognitive level)

n follow agreed-upon rules for group work (social level)

n speak to convey meaning using intonation (communication level).

Similarly, the English Language Curriculum Guide (Primary 1–6) for HongKong (Curriculum Development Council 2004) expects that by the end ofPrimary 6, students should learn to ‘be confident of their own judgement,performance, and capabilities’ (affective level), ‘question obvious bias,propaganda, omissions, and less obvious fallacies’ (cognitive level), ‘workand negotiate with others to develop ideas and achieve goals’ (social level),and ‘present information, ideas and feelings clearly and coherently’(communication level).

The two perspectives do not exclude each other but there is tension. Theprocess-in-progress perspective provides the underpinnings for liberal,humanistic approaches which emphasize learner choice, individualdevelopment, and autonomy. Its intention is to facilitate growth inpersonally meaningful directions. The process-as-outcome perspectiveprovides the underpinnings for approaches which work with detailed priorspecifications of the directions that learners should follow. This secondperspective is an important move to empower learners by giving them theskills they need in order to participate fully in future life. However, as we willsee later, it can also form a basis for totalitarian control over how students aretaught to act and think as a result of their education.

Three approaches tointegrating processand product in thelanguage classroom

Having distinguished these two orientations towards process-orientedlanguage teaching, I will make a brief historical excursion into changingapproaches to integrating process and product over the past three or fourdecades. These approaches overlap, of course, and an individual teachermay integrate more than one into his or her own pedagogy.

Product-as-outcomeoriented languageteaching

The first approach, which is associated with the so-called ‘product-based’syllabus underlying the audio-lingual, audio-visual, and early functionalapproaches, may be characterized as follows:

n The initial focus is not so much on processes as on the intended productsof learning, conceptualized, for example, as grammatical structures,vocabulary items, or communicative functions.

n The products which are most appropriate for particular learners may bedetermined through needs analysis.

n Classroom learning processes are designed to help learners acquire theseitems, for example, through intensive practice, communication activities,exercises, or writing tasks.


n In general, there is separation of syllabus (what is to be learnt) andmethodology (how it should be learnt).

The main impetus to revise this approach has been the argument that itneglects both the complexity of the processes involved in using languageand the range of processes that can contribute to language learning (see forexample Nunan 1988).

Process-in-progressoriented languageteaching

The second approach attempts to compensate for this perceived neglect andis what most people probably think of when they talk of a ‘process-orientedapproach’. It is the approach summarized in the quotation from Hedge (op.cit.: 359) above and is associated with humanistic language teaching,experiential learning, task-based language teaching, and othercommunicative approaches. It may be characterized as follows:

n There is a shift from emphasizing what we want students to learn to theprocesses by which they learn, leading to a focus on processes such ascreative construction, personal learning strategies, and developmentalprocesses leading to autonomous performance.

n There is a shift from teaching discrete language items towards focusingon the processes that are involved in using language for communicationand the need to develop active skills for negotiating meanings in realcontexts.

n There is a move from a ‘transmission’ approach in which the teacherpasses on predetermined knowledge and skills to an ‘interpretative’approach which facilitates learners’ individualized development.

n This development is recognized as involving not only cognitive aspectsbut the ‘whole person’ of the learner in whom cognitive, social, andaffective aspects are inseparable.

n The need to facilitate the learners’ processes of development leads to anemphasis on creating learning contexts which stimulate motivation andprovide opportunities for personal growth.

For many, this learner- and learning-centred approach represents aneducational ideal. It goes back to the seminal educational ideas of Dewey andBruner, and underpins the constructivist approach to education in which,as Williams and Burden (1997: 51) put it, ‘education becomes concernedwith helping people to make their own meanings’ (emphasis added).

The first approach (product-as-outcome) was challenged predominantly onthe grounds of its conceptions of learning and communication. The secondis challenged mainly from outside the learning context itself. The currenteducational climate puts high priority on assessment, control, andaccountability. But if the focus is on the process of learning and eachindividual can work towards his or her unique personal outcomes andmeanings, how can the effectiveness of learning be assessed in termsrecognized by the various stakeholders? Or looking at it another way, howcan the stakeholders exert their control over the educational process andmake clear not justwhat students will study but ‘how they will be able to actand think as a result of their education’ (Riordan 2005: 56)? This is wherethe third approach, oriented towards process-as-outcome, enters the scene.


Process-as-outcomeoriented teaching

Outcomes-based education has been an educational ‘buzz-word’ in manyplaces for well over a decade and is now promoted by educational plannersin several countries, including the USA, Australia, UK, Hong Kong, andSingapore (see for example Stone 2005, on the policy of funding itsintroduction into all tertiary institutions in Hong Kong). In the field oflanguage teaching, we saw above how it has influenced the Englishlanguage curricula of Singapore and Hong Kong. It is a fusion of the twoapproaches already discussed:

n Like the ‘process-in-progress’ approach, it starts from an initial focus onprocesses. But processes are seen now from the second perspectivediscussed earlier: processes as the outcomes of learning.

n Like the ‘product-as-outcome’ approach, it is outcome oriented. But theseoutcomes are now process outcomes rather than content outcomes.

n Also like the ‘product-as-outcome’ approach, there is an emphasis on theobservable and measurable. Intended learning outcomes are usuallystated with ‘a verb to describe the behaviour which demonstrates thestudent’s learning’ (Carroll 2001: 3).

n On the basis of these predetermined learning outcomes, we design thecurriculum backwards, ‘using the major outcomes as the focus andlinking all planning, teaching and assessment decisions directly to theseoutcomes’ (Acharya 2003: 8–9).

We saw that the process-in-progress approach has a strong interest inclassroom methodology and the conditions that stimulate learning. This isnot the case with the process-as-outcome approach, many of whoseproponents have a lot to say about the outcomes of learning but little aboutthe learning and teaching that lead to these outcomes. For example, theguide to curriculum development by Posner and Rudnitsky (1997) containsseven chapters on outside-classroom procedures involving learningoutcomes (for example how to write them and design units around them)but only one on classroom teaching strategies, in spite of recognizing that‘even the most elegantly organized course, designed for the mostworthwhile learning, can fail if the teaching strategies are inappropriate orinsufficient for the desired learning’ (p. 163). The 2001 Singapore Englishsyllabus contains well over 100 pages which cover the learning outcomes,text-types, and grammar to be included in a course, but less than a page onthe six ‘principles of language learning and teaching’ which ‘form part of theframework and spirit in which this syllabus is to be implemented’(Curriculum Planning and Development Division 2001: 4). It contains noequivalent to the suggestions for classroom activities included in the 1991syllabuses which it superseded.

Where are we now? With respect to process-oriented teaching we stand at a crossroads.The process-in-progress perspective, which has led teachers to exploremethodological innovations in domains such as process writing, projectwork, task-based instruction, and other forms of experiential learning,continues to attract and inspire teachers. In the minds of many plannersand curriculum designers, however, attention has shifted mainly to theprocess-as-outcome perspective, which focuses on the observable results ofclassroom processes. The motivation appears to be four-fold, with varyingemphases in different contexts and by different people. Here I rank the


motives according to the closeness of their relationship to actual classroomlearning:

1 The first motive is to ensure that learning has clear directions. Teachersand course-developers decide what they would like students to learn interms which enable participants to clarify objectives and determine towhat extent these have been achieved.

2 Information about whether or to what extent learning has taken place canbe gathered not only at the end of a course but also during the course.Thus, the second motive is to facilitate formative ‘assessment forlearning’.

3 As Brindley (2001) shows, the wider system can subvert the secondmotive and transform information gathered to support learning intoinformation used for reporting and grading. This is the third motive. Itreaches outside the classroom and may involve purposes of gate keeping(for the student) and accountability (for the teacher and/or institution).

4 The fourth motive is an extension of the third. When the system itself, forexample, via government education bodies, (a) specifies expectedlearning outcomes, (b) measures whether they have been achieved,and (c) makes student progression and institutional funding contingentupon the results, tools are in place for people at the centre to exercise top–down control over the goals and implementation of the educationalprocess.

The first and second of these motivations are directly beneficial to studentlearning. Indeed, they may be integrated with the process-in-progressapproach and make it more purposeful and needs-related. The thirdmotivation introduces the dimension of accountability and no longerfocuses on the conditions for effective learning, but rather, it focuses on howthe results of learning can be demonstrated. This is also the case with thefourth perspective, with the added factor that the learning to bedemonstrated has been predetermined by people in authority, whose ownexpertise and experience in teaching may be superficial.

With the fourth scenario, then, the wheel of curriculum planning comes fullcircle. From the focus on detailed definitions of products of learning thatcharacterizes the product-as-outcome approach, through the focus on waysof facilitating individual processes of learning that characterizes the process-in-progress approach, the focus moves to detailed definitions of processesthemselves as assessable products of learning. The approach is again productoriented but now the defined products of learning are described not in termsof discrete language or functional items but in terms of discrete processes.These definitions prescribe in detail, in words quoted earlier, ‘not just what[students] will study but also how theywill be able to act and think as a result oftheir education’ (Riordan op.cit.: 56, emphasis added).

In the context of a totalitarian system (for example as in George Orwell’snovel 1984 or pre-1989 communist regimes in Europe), the words justquoted would have sinister implications. Even outside a totalitarian system,the more detailed and far-reaching these specifications for acting andthinking become, the stronger is their potential (when underpinned byassessment, rewards, and sanctions) to become a powerful instrument forexerting control and imposing the policies and values of those in authority.


The prescriptions can easily form the basis for what Alexander (2004: 29),in his biting critique of the target-and-performance based NationalCurriculum in the UK, describes as a ‘highly centralized and interventiveeducation system’ in which ‘those who have the greatest power to prescribepedagogy’ may be precisely those who have ‘the poorest understanding of it’.Such a system encourages a ‘culture of compliance’ in which teachers aremerely ‘technicians who implement the educational ideas and proceduresof others’ (p. 11) and attention to outcomes deflects attention from theclassroom pedagogy that should produce them.

Conclusion The question contained in the title of this paper is central to how we conceivethe development of language teaching. The origin of process-orientedlanguage teaching lies firmly in the desire to facilitate. To the extent that theprocesses which we want to facilitate are individual, we cannot—indeedwould not want to—predict their direction and outcomes. There isa significant shift in emphasis and intention when we say that someoutcomes are more desirable than others, so that we should guide learningtowards them with the desire of empowering students for their future life.There is an equally significant shift when these desirable outcomes aredetermined not by those directly involved in the pedagogical processes thatshould lead to them but from outside, often by government appointees. It isat this point that process-oriented teaching becomes an instrument ofcontrol.

At the current stage we are at, then, a key task is to use what means we haveto ensure that the voices of teachers and learners are not drowned in thename of accountability; that control stays in the hands of those who alsohave expertise; and that we draw benefits from process-oriented teachingwhile avoiding its dangers.

Final version received June 2008

NoteThis paper is a revised and reworked version of aplenary paper presented at the CLaSIC 2006Conference held in Singapore in December,2006.

ReferencesAcharya, C. 2003. ‘Outcome-based education (OBE):a new paradigm for learning’. CDT Link (NationalUniversity of Singapore), 7–9 July. Available at:http://www.cdtl.nus.edu.sg/link/nov2003/obe.htm(last accessed 7 June 2008).Alexander, R. 2004. ‘Still no pedagogy? Principle,pragmatism and compliance in primary education’.Cambridge Journal of Education 34/1: 7–33.Allwright, D. 1996. ‘Social and pedagogic pressuresin the language classroom: the role of socialization’in H. Coleman (ed.). Society and the LanguageClassroom. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.

Breen, M. P. 1986. ‘The social context for languagelearning—a neglected situation?’ Studies in SecondLanguage Acquisition 7/2: 135–58.Brindley, G. 2001. ‘Outcome-based assessment inpractice: some examples and emerging insights’.Language Testing 18/4: 393–407.Carroll, J. 2001. ‘Writing learning outcomes: somesuggestions’. Learning and Teaching. Oxford Centrefor Staff and Learning Development, OxfordBrookes University. Available at: http://www.brookes.ac.uk/services/ocsd/2_learntch/writing_learning_outcomes.html (last accessed7 June 2008).Curriculum Development Council. 2004. EnglishLanguage Curriculum Guide (Primary 1–6). HongKong: Education Bureau. Available at: http://www.edb.gov.hk/index.aspx?langno¼1&;nodeID¼2770 (last accessed 7 June 2008).Curriculum Planning and Development Division.2001. English Language Syllabus 2001 for Primary and


http://www.cdtl.nus.edu.sg/link/nov2003/obe.htm

http://www.brookes.ac.uk/services/ocsd/2_learntch/writing_learning_outcomes.html



http://www.edb.gov.hk/index.aspx?langno=1&



Secondary Schools. Singapore: Ministry of Education.Available at: http://www.moe.gov.sg/cpdd/syllabuses.htm (last accessed 7 June 2008).Hedge, T. 2000. Teaching and Learning in theLanguage Classroom. Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress.Nunan, D. 1988. Syllabus Design. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.Posner,G. J.andA.N.Rudnitsky. 1997.CourseDesign:AGuide to CurriculumDevelopment for Teachers (Fifthedition). New York: Longman.Riordan, T. 2005. ‘Education for the 21st century:teaching, learning and assessment’. Change37/1: 52–6.Senior, R. 2006.The Experience of Language Teaching.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Stone, M. V. 2005. Opening remarks at the‘Symposium on Outcome-based Approach toTeaching, Learning and Assessment in HigherEducation: International Perspectives’. Hong Kong

Polytechnic University, December, 2005. Availableat: http://www.ugc.edu.hk/eng/ugc/publication/speech/2005/sp171205.htm (last accessed7 June 2008).Williams, M. and R. L. Burden. 1997. Psychology forLanguage Teachers: A Social Constructivist Approach.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

The authorWilliam Littlewood was involved in languageteaching and teacher education in the UK for manyyears before moving to Hong Kong in 1991 to joina project in ELT curriculum development. He iscurrently a Professor in the Department of English,Hong Kong Institute of Education, Tai Po, HongKong. He has published widely in the areas oflanguage teaching methodology and languagelearning.Email: [email protected]


http://www.moe.gov.sg/cpdd/syllabuses.htm

http://www.moe.gov.sg/cpdd/syllabuses.htm

http://www.ugc.edu.hk/eng/ugc/publication/speech/2005/sp171205.htm

http://www.ugc.edu.hk/eng/ugc/publication/speech/2005/sp171205.htm


Another breakthrough, another babythrown out with the bathwater

David M. Bell

‘Process-oriented pedagogy: facilitation, empowerment, or control?’ claims thatprocess-oriented pedagogy (POP) represents the methodological perspective ofmost practising teachers and that outcomes-based education (OBE) poses a realand present danger to stakeholder autonomy. Whereas POP may characterizemethodological practices in the inner circle primary school context described byLittlewood, it does not fairly characterize practices in most L2 classrooms.Littlewood’s dichotomy of product and process is better understood in terms ofdirect and indirect teaching. Effective pedagogy seeks an appropriate balance ofdirect and indirect teaching in diverse contexts in order to fulfil particular studentgoals. OBE helps identify and make explicit learning goals and empower studentsto attain those goals. Raising fears of control and totalitarianism demonizes OBE.We need to accept both OBE and POP as enriching the repertoires of teachers andtheir ability to respond to the complex and changing needs of their students.

Introduction Many years ago in this Journal, Swan (1985: 87) eloquently captured theillogic of methodological change in L2 teaching: ‘The characteristic sound ofa new breakthrough in language teaching theory is a scream, a splash, anda strangled cry, as once again the baby is thrown out with the bathwater’.Process-oriented pedagogy (POP) sounds very much like a ‘newbreakthrough’ and the critique of outcomes-based education (OBE) soundslike one more baby being thrown out with the bathwater.

Outcomes,competencies, andstandards

Outcomes, or competencies, or standards, as they are also known, haveplayed an important part in language teaching for over 20 years. TESOL, theAmerican teacher organization, has adopted extensive standards for mostaspects of L2 teaching and teacher education.1 As well as the countriesmentioned by Littlewood, OBE is the theoretical framework that underpinsSouth Africa’s attempts to democratize education, deal with desegregationafter apartheid, and ensure universal access to English in a multilingualsociety.

The opportunities and challenges of OBE have been discussed extensivelyand most coherently with regard to language teaching by Auerbach (1986).Using the terminology of competency and competency-based education,Auerbach makes a distinction between ‘competency-based systems, inwhich competencies are the starting and ending point of curriculumdevelopment’ (which is really the focus of Littlewood’s paper), ‘and

ELT Journal Volume 63/3 July 2009; doi:10.1093/elt/ccp027 255ªª The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.

competencies as tools, in which competencies are one tool among many inthe process of enabling students to act for change in their lives’ (ibid.: 425–6).Auerbach concludes:

Rather than promoting the acquisition of prespecified behaviors as thecentral goal, we need to develop a model which begins withproblematized aspects of reality, promotes critical reflection on thatreality, and incorporates competencies as means for taking action. In thismodel, teachers and students determine jointly what skills are needed toshape or influence reality: competencies become tools in service ofa transformative education, rather than a constraining framework forinstruction. (p. 426)

I am sure that Littlewood would agree with such a bottom–up stakeholdergeneration of outcomes. However, the substance of Littlewood’s article dealsmainly with the systemic aspects of OBE rather than outcomes as importantpedagogical tools, while the tone of Littlewood’s article tends to demonizeOBE and trivialize the concept of learning outcomes.

Control versusinfluence

Littlewood quotes Riordan (2005) not once but twice and even addsemphasis: outcomes prescribe ‘not just what [students] will study but alsohow they will be able to act and think as a result of their education’. Littlewoodthen goes on to say that ‘In the context of a totalitarian system (as in GeorgeOrwell’s novel 1984 or pre-1989 communist regimes in Europe) the wordsjust quoted would have sinister implications’. But of course, most Englishlearners and teachers of English as a second or foreign language (and evenProfessor Littlewood in Hong Kong) are not operating in a totalitariansystem. So why the scaremongering? Littlewood goes on to suggest that‘even outside totalitarian systems, the more detailed and far reaching thesespecifications for acting and thinking become, the stronger is their potential. . . to become powerful instruments for exerting control and imposing thepolicies and values of those in authority’. One might expect some examplesof these detailed and far reaching specifications aimed at controlling actingand thinking. What we get is ‘question obvious bias, propaganda,omissions, and less obvious fallacies’. That seems to be the very opposite ofcontrolling thinking. And ‘enjoy the creative use of language in . . . poems’,as long as it is not William Topaz McGonagall, of course.

Given these examples, what is so wrong with trying to influence studentacting and thinking? Let us look at the larger context of the quotes fromRiordan (2005). Riordan begins by arguing that ‘It seems self-evident thatwe should be clear and explicit about how we want our students to be able tothink and what we want them to be able to do as a result of their education’(p. 253). And later ‘. . . students will learn more effectively when we havemade clear at our own institutions and in our own programs not just whatthey will study but also how they will be able to act and think as a result oftheir education’ (p. 256). The question here is not whether we should betrying to affect how students think and act—that seems to be a sine qua nonof what education is about, whether it is based on the views of Socrates,Loyola, Steiner, or Dewey—but about being explicit about how we wish toaffect student thinking and behaviour.

256 David M. Bell

At the same time, control over student acting and thinking can just as well beexerted, if not more so, when outcomes are not explicitly stated. A publicschool education in Britain exerts control over students by the implicitaffiliations it promotes with a particular elite group behaviour and the accessit affords to positions in the ruling elite after graduation. Likewise, a child inan underfunded, tracked, inner city school is implicitly socialized into theways of acting and thinking of the lower socioeconomic strata.

But once outcomes are made explicit, they are open to challenge bystakeholders. Phyllis Schlafly, the American conservative political activist,has argued that OBE is ‘. . . a process for government telling our childrenhow to live, what to say, what to think, what to know, and what not to know’(Schlafly 1993). That sounds very similar to Littlewood’s summoning up ofOrwellian totalitarian nightmare and his quoting of Alexander’s ‘biting’(probably ‘rabid’) critique of National Curriculum standards in the UK. Thereligious right in the USA has long waged battle against William Spady,leading theoretician of OBE and the introduction of OBE into many statesystems. The opposition has come from a perceived weakening of academicstandards and an emphasis on the explicit identification of affectiveoutcomes. Put another way, explicit secular values pose challenges toreligious groups who have hitherto promoted implicit religious (and insome cases, segregationist) values in their local school districts.

Top-down andbottom-up decisionmaking

The battle for control is not therefore as simple as central control bad guy,local control good guy; it is more a dialectic between top-down and bottom-up decision making. The educational reforms of the authoritarian rule ofKemal Ataturk in Turkey included free, secular, and coeducationaleducation at primary, secondary, and tertiary levels and a push for greaterliteracy. John Dewey, who spent two months in Turkey advising the Ataturkgovernment on the implementation of these policies, was a supporter of thereforms (Wolf-Gazo 1996) and was also in agreement with the change fromArabic script to a modified Latin alphabet (Lewis 1984). But Deweyunderstood that such top-down changes could only be achieved throughlocal agreement and without which centrally imposed reform representeda threat (Turan 2000). Dewey argued that:

. . . there is a danger that too much and too highly centralized activity onthe part of the Ministry will stifle local interest and initiative, prevent localcommunities taking the responsibilities which they should take andproduce too uniform a system of education, not flexibly adapted to thevarying needs of different localities, urban, rural, maritime, and todifferent types of rural communities, different environments anddifferent industries . . . There is also danger that any centralized systemwill become bureaucratic, arbitrary and tyrannical in action. . . . (1983: 280)

It is not, therefore, that OBE offers any intrinsic threat to ‘liberalhumanitarian’ education but rather that any educational reform especiallywhen its outcomes are so explicitly stated needs localized agreement. Andso, for example the top-down or ‘technological’ implementation ofcommunicative language teaching (CLT), especially in Asia, has been met inseveral places by localized resistance and calls for a more ‘ecological’ orcontext-sensitive approach to educational reform (Hu 2005).

Another breakthrough, another baby thrown out with the bathwater 257

The diversity of L2 contexts throughout the world and the need for specificmethodology seems to be overlooked by Littlewood. Littlewood’s examplesof OBE and by implication POP are rooted in L2 learning in public primaryeducation in inner circle countries, and precisely Hong Kong. It would bequite wrong to describe liberal education, which Littlewood describes asconsisting of ‘choice, individual development and autonomy’ as prescribingone particular methodology. Yet that is what Littlewood seems to implywhen he criticizes Posner and Rudnitsky’s (1997) guide to curriculumdevelopment for its lack of methodological guidance. Doesn’t OBE’s lack ofmethodological specifications allow teachers and learners a voice indetermining which methods work best to achieve their specific goals in theirparticular localized contexts? Presumably, the methodology appropriate forthe general English needs of primary age school children would be differentfrom the ESP needs of workers in a car rental agency.

Products versusoutcomes

In his discussion of changing approaches to integrating process andproduct, Littlewood further muddies the waters in his conception ofoutcomes. First, one cannot speak of audio-lingual and functionalapproaches in terms of outcomes. A product is not an outcome. Outcomesare explicit descriptions of competencies connected to other competencieswith regard to real-world skills, attainment of which are measured throughauthentic assessment. Products may or may not be explicitly articulated;they mainly exist as unconnected discrete items, are often not connected toreal-world language needs—the five paragraph essay, for example—and areassessed by tests in terms of points or letter grades. Second, Littlewoodargues that ‘to the extent that the processes which we want to facilitate areindividual, we cannot—indeed would not want to—predict their directionand outcomes’. How then does a teacher assess a student’s languagedevelopment and whether POP is actually facilitating that development?How does a teacher in a Hong Kong primary school explain to thestakeholders—students and parents—what the goals of the languageprogramme are and how do they give feedback to stakeholders aboutprogress in the attainment of those goals? Littlewood is rightly concernedabout those without expertise making centralized decisions aboutoutcomes, but we should also be equally concerned about teachers andteacher educators who lack the motivation to make transparent their goals tostudents and parents and so manipulate students through their implicitcurricula. Transparency is vital in the public school system, where it isimperative that parents as stakeholders advocate for their child. And third,what exactly is the degree of integration of the various approachesLittlewood describes in the area of language teaching of which he is mostknowledgeable? It would certainly clarify the discussion if Littlewood canprovide us with some empirical studies of the impact of an outcomescurriculum on classroom teaching in Hong Kong. But that might be toomuch to expect from someone whose biases are all too readily revealed bythe flip put down of the innocuous use of ‘will’ in the conventional writing ofoutcomes as ‘confident can-do terminology’.

Direct versus indirectteaching

It is also a stretch to claim that ‘processes-in-progress . . . is the classroommethodological perspective taken by most practicing teachers’, especially inlight of the resistance to the imposition of Western methodologies such as

258 David M. Bell

CLT discussed earlier. In following on from Hedge’s distinction betweena focus on ‘a list of items to be taught’ and the creation of ‘an optimalenvironment’ that facilitates the processes through which languagelearning takes place, Littlewood uses the terminology of product andprocess. This dichotomy has also been described in terms of weak andstrong CLT (Howatt 1984), teaching language as communication andteaching language for communication (Widdowson 1984), and direct andindirect teaching (Celce-Murcia, Dornyei, and Thurrell 1997). Theterminology of Celce-Murcia et al. is especially useful in understanding theshifting focus in CLT ‘in terms of the emphasis placed on bottom-uplinguistic skills versus top-down communication’ (ibid.: 144). As Celce-Murcia et al. tell the story, CLTgrew out of dissatisfaction with methods thatfocused on grammatical forms and structures and lexical items—product-oriented methods—and a need to more adequately prepare learners fornatural communicative language use. That initially meant that CLT focusedmore on process or incidental language learning exemplified in the ideas ofKrashen and the Natural Approach. However, that process or indirectteaching orientation has swung back to an understanding of the importanceof linguistic competence in the ultimate achievement of communicativecompetence and more direct or ‘product-oriented’ teaching through ‘focuson form’, ‘consciousness raising’, and ‘input enhancement’.

This fluctuating emphasis on direct and indirect teaching is paralleled inwriting methodology in terms of product, process, genre, and post-process.Hyland’s (2003) critique of process writing is relevant here in terms of POP

in general. First, an emphasis on processes in the classroom tends todecontextualize language from the very real purposes language is used forin the real world and the varying conventions that constrain its use. Second,because an inductive, discovery-based approach to instruction does notmake transparent learning outcomes, it tends to favour those students whoare already implicitly familiar with particular target patterns of interactionand disadvantage those students especially from lower socioeconomicbackgrounds and cultural backgrounds markedly different to the targetlanguage who are unable to detect the ‘invisible curriculum’. Third, notionsof personal growth and critical thinking reflect a western ideology ofindividualism, which may conflict with other collectivist ideologies. In thissense, explicit learning outcomes can emancipate both students andteachers. And finally, by stressing individual motivation, personal freedom,self-expression, and learner responsibility process-oriented pedagogy risksdisempowering teachers and rendering them mere process facilitators.

The indirect teaching involved in process facilitation is certainly attractive tonovice native English speaker teachers who are often adept at creatingenvironments for pair and group interaction, but shy away from focusingstudents’ attention on linguistic features such as the rhetorical structure ofa text, sociolinguistic and pragmatic elements of interpersonalcommunication, and of course grammar. Well-written outcomes can helpfocus teachers’ attention on areas of language, which they may lackconfidence in or may be unaware of and so bring about a better balance ofdirect and indirect teaching. Without tools like outcomes, pedagogy maybecome set too easily within each teacher’s comfort zone.


The arbitrary natureof methods

Littlewood tends to characterize POP as systemic rather than as a somewhatarbitrary combination of practices. Littlewood distinguishes fourinterconnected processes in the classroom interaction: affective, cognitive,social, and communication. But what about any number of other processes:maturational, psychomotor, heuristic, and culturization? The suggestion isthat these are natural components of classroom interaction rather thanprocesses which have been focused on through pedagogical choices. Just asGrammar Translation is a term used retrospectively to describe a loose set ofcommon practices developed over many years in many unconnectedsituations (Howatt 1984), process-in-progress language teaching appears todescribe a set of practices which have also developed somewhat randomlyover the years as particular aspects of different language teachingapproaches: Natural Approach, Community Language Learning,Cooperative Language Learning, CLT, Critical Thinking, and Content-basedInstruction have been absorbed pragmatically into our pedagogicalrepertoires. These conventionalized practices are then given anappropriately academic and bafflingly obtuse sounding name such asprocess-in-progress and then touted as a complete system or what hastraditionally been referred to as a method. Of course, the process ofrationalizing our somewhat randomly acquired practices into a completesystem is natural and a process to be encouraged. But we should not losetrack of the often arbitrary way in which our methodological systems evolve.The use of pedagogical tools such as outcomes, action research, and thenotion of direct versus indirect teaching facilitate the process by which weneed to deconstruct our practices to see if they are really working. AsD’Andrea (2008) suggests:

Using an outcomes-based approach to organizing teaching . . . allowsteachers to clarify for themselves the implicit outcomes that are alwayspart of any teaching and learning activity. It allows for a reflectiveinterrogation of all aspects of pedagogical practice and assists in theselection of appropriate teaching/learning and assessment strategies.(p. 40)

The multiplicity ofstudent needs

In 1780, in the midst of the American revolutionary war, John Adams, whowas later to become the second president of the United States, wrote:

I must study politics and war that our sons may have liberty to studymathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics andphilosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation,commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to studypainting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.2

Similarly, an immigrant hotel maid might say: ‘I must study English,management, and information systems so that my daughters can study lawand medicine so that their daughters may study dance and music’. Myriadare the goals that students may seek and myriad should be the ways thatteachers help them reach these goals. Unfortunately, Littlewood offers onlyone way. One wonders how, given their educational goals, John Adams ora hotel maid would respond to a description of learning objectives in termsof ‘personal growth’ and the development of a ‘whole person’. ‘Yes’, they

260 David M. Bell

would respond, ‘That’s what I want for my grandchildren, but first there isa revolution to be won and an Excel spreadsheet to be mastered’.

Dewey recognized this multiplicity of student needs and that in order tofulfil such needs the life of the school could not be separated from the life ofthe community in which it exists.

The great weakness of almost all schools, a weakness not confined in anysense to Turkey, is the separation of school studies from the actual life ofchildren and the conditions and opportunities of the environment. Theschool comes to be isolated and what is done there does not seem to thepupils to have anything to do with the real life around them, but to forma separate and artificial world. (1983: 293)

Conclusion An outcomes approach can play an important role in connecting school andcommunity. It can convey the evolving socioeconomic and cultural needs ofthe larger community through top-down outcomes: literacy and girl’seducation in Ataturk’s Turkey, multiethnic and multiracial cooperation, anduniversally shared linguistic skills in South Africa. And at the same time, thebottom-up identification of outcomes through the collaboration of teachers,students, and parents can enable each of these stakeholders to ‘act forchange in their lives’ in their local communities.

We should neither uncritically accept methodologies such as OBE and POP

nor should we dismiss them out of hand. There should be a willingness toaccept outcomes as one more tool and process-oriented teaching as yetanother tool which together can enrich the repertoires of teachers andtheir ability to respond to the complex and ever-changing needs of theirstudents.

Notes1 http://www.tesol.org/s_tesol/seccss.asp?CID¼

86&DID¼15562 Source: in a letter to Abigail Adams, 1780.

Retrieved from http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/John.Adams.Quote.0CAD

ReferencesAuerbach, E. 1986. ‘Competency-based ESL: onestep forward or two steps back?’. TESOL Quarterly20/3: 411–30.Celce-Murcia, M., Z. Dornyei, and S. Thurrell. 1997.‘Direct approaches in L2 instruction: a turning pointin communicative language teaching’. TESOL

Quarterly 31/1: 141–52.D’Andrea, V. 2008. ‘Organizing teaching andlearning: outcomes based-planning’ in H. Fry,S. Ketteridge, and S. Marshall (eds.). A Handbook forTeaching and Learning in Higher Education:Enhancing Academic Practice (Second edition).London: RoutledgeFalmer Page.

Dewey, J. 1983. ‘Report on Turkey’ in J. A. Boydston(ed.). The Middle Works: Essays on Politics and Society,1923–1924. Vol. 15 Collected Works. Carbondale, IL:Southern Illinois Press.Howatt, A. P. R. 1984. A History of English LanguageTeaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Hu,G. 2005. ‘Contextual influences on instructionalpractices: a Chinese case for an ecological approachto ELT’. TESOL Quarterly 39/4: 635–60.Hyland, K. 2003. ‘Genre-based pedagogies: a socialresponse to process’. Journal of Second LanguageWriting 12/1: 17–29.Lewis, G. L. 1984. ‘Ataturk’s language reforms’ inJ. M. Landau (ed.). Ataturk and the Modernization ofTurkey. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Posner, G. J. and A. N. Rudnitsky. 1997. CourseDesign: A Guide to Curriculum Development forTeachers (Fifth edition). New York: Longman.Riordan, T. 2005. ‘Education for the twenty-firstcentury: teaching, learning and assessment’. Change37/1: 52–6.Schlafly, P. 1993. ‘What’s wrong with outcomesbased education?’. The Phyllis Schlafly Report, 26/10


(May). Retrieved from http://www.eagleforum.org/psr/1993/may93/psrmay93.html. Date accessed13 December 2008.Swan, M. 1985. ‘A critical look at the communicativeapproach’. ELT Journal 39/2: 76–87.Turan, S. 2000. ‘John Dewey’s report of 1924 and hisrecommendations on the Turkish educationalsystem revisited’. History of Education 29/6: 543–55.Widdowson, H. G. 1984. ‘Teaching language as andfor communication’ in H. G. Widdowson (ed.).Explorations in Applied Linguistics 2. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.

Wolf-Gazo, E. 1996. ‘John Dewey in Turkey: aneducational mission’. Journal of American Studies ofTurkey 3: 15–42.

The authorThe author David Bell is an Associate Professor ofLinguistics at Ohio University. He has taught ESOL

in the UK, Italy, Japan, and the USA. His researchinterests are pedagogy, pragmatics, and the interfaceof language and culture.Email: [email protected]

262 David M. Bell

http://www.eagleforum.org/psr/1993/may93/psrmay93.html

http://www.eagleforum.org/psr/1993/may93/psrmay93.html


OBE: a coin with two sides or manydifferent coins?

William Littlewood

Bell is an eloquent advocate of outcomes-based education (OBE). Thebenefits which he discusses correspond mainly to the first two motives forthe ‘process-as-outcome’ approachmentioned in the penultimate section ofmy own article:

1 The approach can help give learning clear directions and serve as a basisfor determining what learning has taken place;

2 We can use this information not only at the end of a course but alsoduring a course, to improve further learning.

All this, as I say, is beneficial to student learning andBell is right in thinkingthat I would agreewith the ‘bottom-up stakeholder generation of outcomes’that he himself describes.

Bell also shares my concern about ‘those without expertise makingcentralized decisions about outcomes’. This concern reflects the third andfourth motives that I mention:

3 Thewider systemmay ‘hijack’ information intended to support learningand use it as a basis for reporting and grading. See the paper by Brindleyreferenced in my original article; and

4 The system itself may specify the outcomes, measure theirachievements, and use the results to determine funding andprogression. See the paper by Alexander (referenced in my originalarticle) which Bell, mysteriously, dismisses as ‘probably rabid’.

It seems that Bell and I agree, then, that OBE can be either a ‘good thing’ ora ‘bad thing’. Sowhere does our disagreement lie? Bell is right that themaindirection ofmy own article is to emphasize howOBE, though it is politicallycorrect now in many parts of the world, has inherent dangers which ourprofession needs to be aware of and guard against. If he perceives this as‘demonizing’ OBE, so be it: I am not averse to demonizing dangers that liewithin OBE, if this helps to avoid them. Bell, I suggest, does the opposite:apart from that his fleeting mention of concern about ‘centralizeddecisions’, he sanctifies OBE, even invoking the blessings of suchauthorities as Dewey and the second President of the USA (but not, alas,invoking concrete evidence to show in what conditions OBE works as heclaims).

ELT Journal Volume 63/3 July 2009; doi:10.1093/elt/ccp032 263ªª The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.

Wemay be simply seeing two sides of the same coin or we may be dealingwith different coins. OBE, as Bell says of process-oriented pedagogy (POP),exists in ‘a somewhat arbitrary combination of practices’. For example,outcomesmay bedefinedat varying levels of specificity, in terms of differentconstructs, by different people (including teachers, programme leaders,schools, government bodies, elected or nominated individuals), at thebeginning of the curriculum planning process (as the theory advocates) orgrafted post hoc on to a curriculumalready inuse (a survival strategy in somecontexts where OBE is imposed top-down). All these variations aresignificant and, aswith POP, we should neither demonize nor sanctify OBE

in all its combinations. We need more evidence on which forms of OBE

really do benefit student learning and which ones hinder it. Perhaps thisexchange will help to generate some.


text messages

A tale of two songs: Singapore versusHong Kong

Andy Kirkpatrick and Andrew Moody

Introduction by Jilland Charles Hadfield(series editors)

The text for this ‘Text messages’ is two YouTube videos from what hasbecome known as ‘The battle of the songs’, based on the relatively light-hearted, but nevertheless keen rivalry between Singapore and Hong Kong.

The two cities share a colonial history similar in some respects, but cruciallydifferent in others. Hong Kong was ceded to the British in three stages:Hong Kong Island in 1842, Kowloon, on the mainland, some 20 years later,and the New Territories, encroaching further into the Chinese mainland, ona 99-year lease expiring in 1997. Singapore has a longer colonial history,beginning in 1819 when Sir Stamford Raffles established a British port andtrading station on the island. Both colonies then followed roughly parallelpaths, becoming important East–West trading centres during thenineteenth and early twentieth centuries, both occupied by the Japanese inWorld War II, both experiencing a huge growth in the manufacturing sectorduring the fifties, and then becoming powerful commercial and financialcentres for Asia. However, their post-colonial histories are somewhatdifferent: Singapore went through a process of democratic reform in the lateforties and fifties, achieving a form of self-government in 1959 andindependence in 1963, via a merger with the Federation of Malaya. Civilunrest led to the establishment of an independent democratic republic in1965. Colonial rule in Hong Kong, in contrast, ended relatively recently. Thereturn of not only the New Territories but also the whole of Hong Kong to thePeople’s Republic of China was agreed in 1984 and took place at the expiry ofthe lease in 1997. Hong Kong, unlike Singapore, is not an independentdemocracy, but a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China.

Both cities have written important chapters in the history of languagecontact between Chinese and English, but the two songs illuminate thedifferences that have arisen between them and claim these as advantages indifferent and competing ways.

Our commentators are Andy Kirkpatrick, Chair Professor and Head of theDepartment of English, Hong Kong Institute of Education, and AndrewMoody, Associate Professor and Coordinator of the MA Programme, fromthe Department of English, University of Macau.

The texts The texts, ‘Singapore is a better place than Hong Kong is’, written andperformed by Eskewme and ‘In Hong Kong our hearts are strong’, written

ELT Journal Volume 63/3 July 2009; doi:10.1093/elt/ccp030 265ªª The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.Advance Access publication May 7, 2009

and performed by Wokstarz, are too long to be reproduced in full here (andthe written texts cannot do justice to the performed songs). However,citations of the most relevant passages will be made throughout the article.The songs can be viewed in full on YouTube (Eskewme 2008; Wokstarz2008).

Language notes Singapore is a better place than Hong Kong is

We got more art and culture, all they got is biz

We so stylo, they just vile-o

We speak Singlish, awmost English-lah

Singapore is a smarter place than Hong Kong is

We keep more of our history than Hong Kong did

We so good tase, they jus’ gone case

We speak Singlish, awmost English-lah

Can or not?

Okay-lah!

Readers of this series will recognize in the above extract from theSingaporean song some of the distinctive linguistic features of SingaporeanEnglish from Anthea Fraser Gupta’s commentary in an earlier TextMessages (Hadfield, Hadfield, and Gupta 2007). Several words are spelt tocapture the sounds of Singapore English, such as awmost (line 4) and tase(line 8). Other examples from later verses include

I doe no, Cantonese izzit? (line 22)

Why you lookat me lidat? (line 28)

ESKEW ME. We very stylo milo one awreddy okay (line 40)

There is also a distinctive Singaporean flavour to the vocabulary, withexamples of the creative adaptation of standard English lexis to giveexpressions such as stylo milo and the term ‘Singlish’ itself. Borrowingsfrom Malay are also evident in later verses:

We so WHAM BAM

They so ayam (lines 26–7)

We pick leaders

Alamak—but not much choice! (lines 36–7)

Where ayam means ‘sour’ and alamak is a mild swear word.

Use of local particles is also characteristic here. The song is peppered withthe informal/colloquial particle lah, as in ‘Singlish, awmost English-lah’ and‘Okay-lah’. Other particles in later verses are the past tense particle la and theexpressive particle wa:

Our shophouses-wa! So pretty (line 14)

266 Andy Kirkpatrick and Andrew Moody

Distinctive grammatical patterns are also evident where the linking verb ‘tobe’ is deleted: ‘we so stylo’, ‘They jus’ gone case’. But, as pointed out byGupta, this is an optional rule and ‘be’ appears here in other contexts,especially in the more formal register, for example in the title and openingline, ‘Singapore is a better place than Hong Kong is’. The frequent use of‘izzit’ as a non-variant tag-question form is also distinctive, although the useof non-variant tag forms is common in many varieties of English.

However, while linguistic features of Singapore English (‘Singlish’ as it iscalled within the song) are used plentifully in the Singapore song, fewfeatures of Hong Kong English are present within the Hong Kong song:

Hong Kong is perched on the water’s edge,

standing in the sunrise

Our home’s a place of eternal change,

like its ever-changing skies

Hong Kong is mountains and valley lakes, mostly green and rural

Outside the cities are forest walks:

step into a new world

In Hong Kong, our hearts are strong

we all sing one song

From Lo Wu to Lan Kwai Fong

here’s where we belong (lines 8–18)

In comparing the Hong Kong song with the Singaporean one, what is mostnoticeable is the lack of any explicitly distinctive linguistic features of HongKong English. The spelling, vocabulary, and grammar all conform to theBritish standard. The only explicit Hong Kong referents are to the placenames Lo Wu, the border town with China, and Lan Kwai Fong, an area ofbars and restaurants on Hong Kong Island.

There has been a long-standing debate about whether Hong Kong Englishrepresents a distinctive variety (Luke and Richards 1982; Bolton 2000,2002). However, the total lack of distinctive features of Hong Kong Englishin this song is somewhat unexpected given the number of scholars who havedescribed features such as local lexis (Benson 2003) and creative writing(Vittachi 2002). One particularly distinctive feature of Hong Kong Englishthat is missing within the Hong Kong song is code switching. The presenceof Cantonese-English code switching in the speech and writing of HongKong speakers when they are communicating with each other is wellattested and is frequently used in popular media like newspapers andadvertisements (Li 2000, 2002). Perhaps surprisingly, therefore, no codeswitching occurs in this song. In fact, apart from place names, there are noChinese words here at all. Indeed, the only Chinese lexis in either of the twosongs occurs in the Singaporean song, kwai-lan (line 53), a Hokkien termused to describe someone who is ‘malicious or an irritant’.

Text messages: A tale of two songs 267

Commentary The Singaporean song is unmistakably Singaporean in its use of language.There is also a feeling of self-confidence in the use of this distinctivelanguage, ‘Singlish’, coupled with humour and wit. A switch between stylesis also noticeable. For example, the following text is not sung, but appears asprinted text in the YouTube video, and is written in a more formal registerthan the rest of the song:

Okay, so the choice at newsstands is a bit limited

But the choice at the hotel buffets is not

Please discard your chewing gum, durians and independent way ofthinking on your way in (lines 42–4)

It also demonstrates an ability to self-satirize, which contrasts amusinglywith the braggadocio of the rest of the song. We suggest that the song itselfand its linguistic features illustrate a linguistic creativity that is bothsophisticated and self-confident.

In contrast, the only example of lexical creativity or bilingual language playin Hong Kong’s reply is the name of the performer, Wokstarz (wok ‘a convexfrying pan used in Chinese cooking’ in place of the more conventional ‘Rockstars’).

One explanation for this lack of code switching and bilingual creativity isthat the songwriters have taken the deliberate choice to use a form ofEnglish that is as close to an international standard as possible, a choice thatmay have been motivated by a desire to present Hong Kong people as morecultured, sophisticated, and serious than the Singaporeans. One mightargue that it demonstrates a linguistic sensitivity in understanding that codeswitching might not be understood in an international domain. However,the informal nature of the domain and topic could also signal a lack of self-confidence in the use of a local variety of Hong Kong English. TheSingaporean song has a certain self-mocking tone that both explicitly pokesfun at Singapore systems and implicitly uses local forms of English to pokefun at Singapore English and its speakers. This tone is completely absent inthe Hong Kong song. Instead, the Hong Kong song asserts that, unlikeSingapore, ‘we are free to laugh over anything’ and that ’our comedians havegags’ (lines 34–5). The freedom to parody and laugh at Hong Kong Englishforms—or any other aspect of Hong Kong life—however, is not expressed inthe song’s text.

However, while there may appear to be no explicitly distinctive linguisticfeatures of Hong Kong English in the song, it does display a distinctiverhetorical style that contrasts dramatically with the Singapore song. Thesong resonates with Chineseness. The first verse of the song, with itsreferences to ‘sunrise’, ‘the water’s edge’, ‘valley lakes’, and ‘forest walks’, isa lyrical equivalent of looking at a typical Chinese landscape or shan-shui(mountain-water) painting. It evokes a Chinese scene. The chorus, with itsemphasis on a united people standing as one, looks as though it may bederived from the Olympic slogan ‘One World, One Dream’, but also calls tomind old Chinese Communist Party political propaganda paintings wherethe workers and peasants stand side by side with heads turned upwardslooking towards the promise of a bright dawn. For example, the line of the


refrain ‘our hearts are strong’ curiously uses plural ‘hearts’ (with thegrammatically correct ‘are’) instead of reading ‘In Hong Kong, our heart isstrong’. What is suggested is that unification derives from individuals allstriving towards the same goal, and this sentiment is very similar to thatexpressed by the Chinese term tong bao ‘from the same womb’, a term usedby Chinese of different political persuasions and nationalities to refer toeach other. The diversity of Hong Kong is also represented in therefrains ‘from Lo Wu to Lan Kwai Fong’. The distance between these twolocations is as much metaphorical as it is geographical. Lo Wurepresents the gateway into the Mainland, while Lan Kwai Fong symbolizesthe centre of Hong Kong’s international community and cosmopolitanlifestyle.

The next verse suggests that Hong Kong and its people have weatheredtougher times than Singapore and are thus made of somewhat sterner stuff:

Once refugees or just wanderers

now our home is Hong Kong

We are survivors so come what may:

history has made us strong (lines 19–22)

Hong Kong is the mature elder brother who will guide Singapore toadulthood from its current rather childish adolescent phase, perhapsexemplified in Hong Kong eyes by its use of ‘Singlish, awmost English-lah’:

Small Singapore is our little bro:

rivalries do blow up

We’ll help him learn all the things we know:

we will help him grow up (lines 23–6)

We should point out, however, that the sung lyric of line 26, ‘we will helphim grow up’, is quite different from the one actually printed, which is‘though he makes us throw up!’ If this printed lyric is treated asa mistaken lyric (as we suspect it is), however, the actual text is ironic. TheHong Kong song descends into cliche and stereotypical Chinese tropes andremoves any trace of local linguistic features from the text. Likewise, theHong Kong song condescends to call Singapore ‘our little bro’ (line 23).However, the stereotypical motifs and rhetorical structure of theHong Kong song can hardly be called ‘mature’ in comparison to theSingapore song.

Another Chinese rhetorical trope evident in the song is balance orparallelism. This is common in many texts, but is particularly valued in theChinese rhetorical tradition (Kirkpatrick 2005) and most frequentlyexemplified in couplets that adorn either side of doorways and mantels inChinese temples and homes. This use of balance and parallelism isexemplified in lines 40–1:

Hong Kong, Hong Kong, it’s east, it’s west, it’s old, it’s young

Though once it was so tragic but now it’s really magic, it’s home, it’s home


Although these examples of rhetorical style borrowed from Chinese are notdistinctive characteristics of Hong Kong English and could be found invarious other Englishes, their presence within this song—especially whenviewed as a response to the Singapore song—is marked as the only featuresthat appear to be borrowed from Hong Kong English norms. The songconcludes with the chorus reiterating Hong Kong’s sense of unity, ‘we allsing one song’.

Conclusion In conclusion, we argue that, while the Hong Kong song displays none ofthe explicitly distinctive linguistic features of a nativized variety of English,preferring instead to use a more formal register and language features thatlargely correspond to exonormative standards, its use of rhetorical tropes andits style imbue it with an intensely Chinese flavour. The rather primseriousness—almost sanctimony—of the Hong Kong song is heightenedby the near constant presence of two schoolgirls in the video clip. Theyare shown engaged in almost stereotypically innocent pastimes such asplaying playground pat-a-cake. This provides a striking contrast withthe somewhat raunchy performance of the Singaporean singer. Similarly,the adherence to Chinese conventions contrasts with the iconoclasticsense of play, creativity, and capacity for self-satire of the Singaporeansong.

While it would be foolish to make too much of this based on two songs, theuse of Chinese rhetorical styles could indicate that Hong Kong is coming tosee itself—and, importantly, presenting itself—more and more asa Chinese city and is thus less likely to be in the process of creating a new andseparate identity through a nativized variety of English in the way thatSingapore has done. Rather, the Hong Kong identity revealed within thisbrief battle of two songs represents a move more towards seeking an identitywithin the Chinese sphere, and this is reflected in the use of Chineserhetorical tropes and style. It would not be surprising to see Hong Kongmoving closer to the Mainland. After all, the British ceded control more thana decade ago and Hong Kong’s future is obviously inexorably tied to China,of which it is now a SAR under the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ model ofgovernance. Perhaps Hong Kong is becoming more comfortable witha Chinese identity, while Singapore is developing a unique Singaporeanidentity?

Final revised version received March 2009

ReferencesBenson, P. 2002. ‘Hong Kong words: variation andcontext’ in K. Bolton (ed.).Bolton, K. 2000. ‘The sociolinguistics of Hong Kongand the space for Hong Kong English’. WorldEnglishes 19/3: 265–86.Bolton, K. (ed.). 2002 Hong Kong English: Autonomyand Creativity. Hong Kong: Hong KongUniversity Press.Eskewme.2008. ‘Singapore vs Hong Kong’.YouTube.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v¼VpjNgIwyrbE(Accessed on 10 July 2008).

Hadfield, J., C. Hadfield, and A. F. Gupta. 2007. ‘Textmessages: travels with auntie’. ELT Journal61/1: 63–8.Kirkpatrick, A. 2005. ‘China’s first systematicaccount of rhetoric: an introduction to ChenKui’s Wen Ze (rules of writing)’. Rhetorica23/2: 103–52.Li, D. C. S.2000. ‘Cantonese-English code-switchingresearch in Hong Kong: a Y2K review’. WorldEnglishes 19/3: 305–22.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpjNgIwyrbE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpjNgIwyrbE

Li, D. C. S. 2002. ‘Cantonese-English code-switchingresearch in Hong Kong: a survey of recent research’in K. Bolton (ed.).Luke, K. K. and J. C. Richards. 1982. ‘English in HongKong: status and functions’. English World-Wide3/1: 47–64.Vittachi, N. 2002. ‘From Yinglish to sado-mastication’ in K. Bolton (ed.).Wokstarz. 2008. ‘Re: Singapore vs Hong Kong’.YouTube. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v¼oxrwro_YcgE. (Accessed on 20 June 2008).

The authorsAndy Kirkpatrick is Chair Professor and Head of theEnglish Department at the Hong Kong Institute ofEducation. Immediately prior to that, he wasProfessor of Language Education at CurtinUniversity in Perth, Australia, where he worked for11 years. In addition to Australia and Hong Kong, hehas taught in the fields of Applied Linguistics andLanguage Teacher Education in Burma, China,Singapore, and the UK. His research interestsinclude contrastive Chinese-English rhetoric andwriting and the development of ‘multilingual’varieties of English. He is currently editing theforthcoming Handbook of World Englishes to bepublished by Routledge in 2010 and working on

a monograph for Hong Kong University PressEnglish as a Lingua Franca in ASEAN: Roles, Featuresand the Multilingual Model of Language Teaching. HisWorld Englishes: Implications for InternationalCommunication and English Language Teaching waspublished by Cambridge University Press in 2007.Email: [email protected]

Andrew Moody is an Associate Professor of Englishin the English Department at the University ofMacau, where he teaches Sociolinguistics at both theundergraduate and graduate levels. He has taught atuniversities in Beijing, China, and Japan beforecoming to Macau and holds a PhD (University ofKansas) in English Language and Literature. Hisresearch interests include the development ofvarieties of World Englishes and the role of Englishin popular culture, especially within Asia. Hisarticles have appeared in American Speech, WorldEnglishes, Asian Englishes and English Today and he iscurrently editing, with Jaimie Shinhee Lee,a collection of essays for Hong Kong University Pressentitled English in Asian Pop Culture. Currently he isinvolved in a long-term research project examiningthe language shift in Macau.


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comment

ELT and the challenges of the times

Chris Lima

Comment is a feature which allows contributors to express a personal, andsometimes controversial, view about amatter of current concern in the professionoutside the format of a reviewed academic article. The views expressed are notnecessarily those of the Editor or the Publisher. Reaction to Comment features isespecially welcome in the form of a letter to the Editor.

Analysing the rise of English as an academic discipline from the marginalposition of a subject fit for women andworkers in the nineteenth century tothe status of the most important subject in Oxford and Cambridge in the1930s, Eagleton (1983: 17–53) traces the role of English inBritish society andhighlights the importance of ideology in its elevation to the status of a fullyfledged subject. English was only able to gain academic recognition whensupported by a clear and manifest body of beliefs that shaped its study asa discipline. Perhaps the plight of English Literature in the previouscenturies is somehow being re-enacted in the life of English LanguageTeaching in our times.

In his article, ‘ELTand ‘‘the spirit of the times’’’, Waters (2007) argues thatthe various trends in ELT that have characterized its discourse and practicein the last few years are the fruit of the ideological discourse of Westernacademics and, as such, fail to find resonance among practitioners andlearners.ForWaters (2007: 358), suchpolitically correct (PC) approaches arefundamentally flawed because they attempt to create a hegemonicAnglophone ELTworld and enforce an ideological and political agendawhich is completely alien to the everyday realities, context, and interests of‘most ordinary ELTpractitioners’.

In his response to the criticism expressed in the article, Holliday (2007) isprepared to recognize some merits in Waters’ argument but warns thata distinction should be drawn between superficial political correctness andthe need to readdress power inequalities in ELTand being aware that social,cultural, religious, and linguisticWesternparadigms are ever present in ourprofessional discourse.

Reading Waters’ and Holliday’s articles, it seems to me that the reason forthe disagreement between them is not political correctness in itself sinceboth are ready to dismiss it. The main bone of contention between them isthe political dimension of English language teaching and in whose handssuch political power should be.Waters is right in warning us against a falsetransfer of political power. Shor and Freire (1987: 35) called educators’

272 ELT Journal Volume 63/3 July 2009; doi:10.1093/elt/ccp035ªª The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.

attention to the fact that liberating methodologies are not just a matter ofmodernizing traditional techniques; conversely, critical pedagogies (CPs)indicate ‘a different relationship to knowledge and society’. In a review ofCPs, Jordao (2004:27) recognizes thedangerof speaking for the ‘Other’ andof imposing one’s own values as universal thus ignoring social andhistorical differences and tending ‘to be very biased and far from the neutraland disinterested world views they proclaim’.

Nonetheless, we should also be aware that much of the criticism faced bynew approaches is also the result of some uneasiness reflecting theunpredictability of the results such approachesmay bring.As in anyprocessof change—from the FrenchRevolution to the TechnologyRevolution—themomentweopendoors for the transfer ofpower, theusepeoplewillmakeofit is no more subject to the handler’s control. Even if Western academicshave come up with theories of learner autonomy, global citizenshipeducation, critical thinking, and other similar approaches to set theirsupposed hidden agendas, the moment teachers and learners start puttingthese approaches into practice in the classroom, they acquire some sort ofcontrol over them.Teachers and learners appropriate, delete, and add tonewtrends in ELT according to their own principles and the values they see asimportant in education (Brumfit 1981: 31). The implications andconsequences of adopting new approaches to ELTwill be shaped by the useteachers and learners make of them in the classrooms.

Whatwe are reading inWaters’ andHolliday’s articles is actually the currentstruggle of English language teaching to find a justification for its existenceand to determine the philosophical bases that justify the teaching of Englishlanguage in a world where the previous reasons for doing somay no longerbe valid. The early nineteenth centurywas a periodwhenBritain underwentunprecedented social and technological change (Leith and Graddol 1996:137) and English helped to shape the nation’s new sense of unity andidentity. Teaching English in the colonies was perfectly justified sincereligious and cultural values had to be taken to the confines of the Empire asan attempt to create andmaintain its unity (Howatt withWiddowson 2004:128). From the 1970s to the beginning of the twenty-first century,we saw theconsolidation of the globalization process, and English became an essentialtool for the modernization of countries which wanted to have access to theglobal economy and society (Graddol 2006: 20). Now that the lure andglitter of the global market are considerably diminished, the teaching ofEnglish language has to find a new direction and a new justification for itsexistence.

Itwouldbenaive to thinkof any sort ofmethodologyor approach, traditionalor progressive, as devoid of political ideological connotations. In the sameway that literary theories—structuralism, post-structuralism, feminism,and post-colonialism, to mention a few—made their way into Englishliterary studies,CPs and thenew trends in language teaching and educationare making their way into ELT. Like any new development, they face forcesof opposition and attract suspicion and criticism from more traditionalquarters, while the advocates of innovation fight to bring their ownperspective into mainstream education. Both positions must be subject tocriticism and critique. New critical approaches to ELT embody the state of

Comment: ELTand the challenges of the times 273

knowledge and understanding of language and politics we have at thisparticular moment in the history of English language teaching. Theyshould not be seen as the ultimate answer in education. ELT educatorsshould be open both to ‘the spirit of the times’ and the voices of warninguntil the day that such approaches become part of educational traditionthemselves and are also challenged by other winds of theoretical andpolitical change.

ReferencesBrumfit, C. J. 1981. ‘Talking shop’. ELT Journal36/1: 29–36.Eagleton, T. 1983. Literary Theory. An Introduction.Oxford: Blackwell.Graddol, D. 2006. English Next. London:British Council.Holliday, A. 2007. ‘Response to ELT and the ‘‘spiritof the times’’’. ELT Journal 61/4: 360–6.Howatt, A. P. R. with H. G. Widdowson 2004. AHistory of English Language Teaching. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.Jordao, C. M. 2004. ‘Thinking critically of criticalthinking: critical pedagogies revisited’. SituationAnalysis: A Forum for Critical Thought & InternationalAffairs 4: 21–30.Leith, D. and D. Graddol. 1996. ‘Modernity andEnglish as a national language’ in D. Graddol,D. Leith, and J. Swann (eds.). English History,Diversity and Change. London: Routledge.

Shor, I. and P. Freire. 1987. A Pedagogy for Liberation.New York: Bergin & Garvey.Waters, A. 2007. ‘ELT and the ‘‘spirit of the times’’’.ELT Journal 61/4: 350–9.

The authorChris Lima is the coordinator of a number of ELTand literatureprojects inpartnershipwith theBritishCouncil and IATEFL. She holds a degree in Englishliterature from Goldsmiths College, University ofLondon, and is currently doing a Masters in TeacherTraining at the University College Plymouth of StMark and St John. She is the former coordinator ofthe CL and ELT Project and winner of the 2007British Council Innovation Award. Chris is anIATEFL Literature, Media, and Cultural Studiescommittee member and a board member of theExtensive Reading Foundation.Email: [email protected]

274 Chris Lima

The TeMoLaYoLe Book: Teaching Modern Languagesto Young Learners

M. Nikolov, J. Mihaljevic Djigunovic,M.Mattheoudakis,G.Lundberg, andT. Flanagan(eds.)

European Centre for Modern Languages, Council ofEurope Publishing 2007, 150 pp. Available free online

at: http://www.ecml.at/mtp2/TEMOLAYOLE/html/Temolayole_E_Results.htm

isbn 978 92 871 6297 7

Teaching Foreign Languages in the Primary School

C. Kirsch

Continuum 2008, 224 pp., £22.99

isbn 978 0 8286949 4

The TeMoLaYoLe Book consists of ten edited papersfrom the Research into Teaching Modern Languagesto Young Learners conference held in Hungary in2007. Eight papers focus on the teaching andlearning of English and one on the teaching andlearning ofGerman and French, respectively. The firstsix focus on pre-service (PRESET) and in-service(INSET) teacher education, while the last fourevaluate evidence from the classroom.

In Chapter 1, Mateja Dagarin and Marija Andrakacompare positive evaluations of Slovene INSET andCroatian PRESET teacher education programmes forprimary school teachers of foreign languages. Theyemphasize the interest in practical classroomapplications amongst both sets of programmeparticipants and argue that the ability of bothprogrammes to reflect these concerns chimes wellwith Council of Europe priorities. The well-structuredand well-substantiated analysis of their programmeshighlights the crucial importance of the teacher in theyoung learner’s world.

Gun Lundberg evaluates a set of action researchprojects in Sweden in Chapter 2, focusing on fivemainareasof teachingand learning: consequencesofearly start, teacher and learner target language use,teaching and learning strategies in the modernforeign language (MFL) classroom, children’smotivation, and assessment and record keeping. Ifeel that this article tried to cover rather a lot of groundwithin the space of its 14 pages. Fascinatingdiscussion of children’s motivation to learn a foreignlanguage, for example (pp. 29–30), seems to merather telescopic. Additionally, I found it hard to getan overall picture of each focus area, as I feel thatLundberg’s main interest was the power andpotential of action research rather than informationabout and analysis of the projects themselves.

In contrast, Małgorzata Szulc-Kurpaska’s thirdchapter opts for depth rather thanbreadthof analysis.Her article evaluates the experiences of eight PolishPRESET teachers who did their teaching placementsat kindergartens instead of primary schools due toa shortage of primary school vacancies. The article

280 Reviews

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looks at how the trainee teachers attracted children’sattention, how they adjusted tasks tomeet children’sneeds, and how they attempted to maximizeexposure to L2. Szulc-Kurpaska explains also how thetrainees’ feedback on working with younger learnersthan they were originally trained for has led tomodifications in the early education methodologycourse offered by her teacher training college.

In Chapter 4, Mariola Bogucka uses a set of openquestions to find out how 12 Polish early educationteachers of English see their role and significance asteachers. Of particular interest for me was her briefanalysis of her interviewees’ consistent use ofnarrative modes of thought when talking aboutteaching and the strong and rather alarming findingthat all except one of these teachers considers theirschool staffroom an ‘impersonal, uncomfortable and‘‘cold’’ place’ (p. 53). Bogucka acknowledges that tosome extent her sample is self-selecting as all 12teachers are highly committed to their job and tousing any means possible to develop professionally.She concludes intriguingly by wondering whetherteachers of other subjects or with different profileswould discuss the same aspects of teaching and usethe same type of narrative discourse when talkingabout teaching.

Marina Mattheoudakis, Katerina Dvorakova, andKatalin Lang evaluate the extent to which 27 studentteachers based in Greece, Hungary, and the CzechRepublicwere able to implement the input, ideas, andactivities from a short teacher education modulefocusing on using stories. The authors conclude thatthe content of the module might need to be tailoreda little more closely to the educational traditions ofthe country in which it is used and that all traineeteachers needed more support with adapting storiesfor their own context. As far as I can work out, theauthors use the term ‘storytelling’ as a synonym for‘use of storybooks’. Although I feel the authors doespecially well in clarifying and comparing outcomesin each country, I think a more explicit definition of‘storytelling’ would provide a clearer foundation forsome of their analysis and discussion.

In the sixth article, Reka Lugossy considers the effectof a set of carefully selected authentic picture bookson the learningof youngHungarian learners and theirteachers. Her evaluation focuses on four schools andsuggests that using the books increased both learnerand teacher motivation and linguistic development,led to increased participation from boys and sociallydisadvantaged children, and resulted in greaterrapport between teacher and learners. An unexpectedripple effect was the interest of teachers not involvedin the case study in using the picture books. This

article succeeds impressively in combiningbackground project information with balancedanalysis of outcomes and recognition of limitationsof the project.

Charis-Olga Papadopoulou looks at the potential fordiscontinuity when foreign languages are taught inboth primary and secondary sectors. She argues thattwo common misconceptions contribute greatly todiscontinuity. One is that early foreign languagelearning’s purpose is simply additional years of studyto the years spent studying in secondary school. Theother is that early foreign language learning is notreally learning at all, but rather playing and having funfor no obvious reason. Papadopoulou goes on toconsider the extent to which the primary andsecondary curricula for German as a second foreignlanguage in Greece provide continuity for childrenlearning the subject. She does this by analysing theextent to which the objectives, themes and content,assessment, and methodology components of thecurriculum are likely to promote continuity. I foundher conclusion thatmore researchneeds tobecarriedout slightly disappointing but justified given theevidence available to her. Her focus on continuitybetween primary and secondary for German inGreece struckme as highly relevant to the teaching ofEnglish as a foreign language in many state schoolcontexts elsewhere.

Gloria Vickov examines the degree to whichchildren’s own cultural identity can be incorporatedinto early foreign language learning materials inCroatia. Thorough analysis shows clearly that thelexical items in the coursebooks make minimalreferences to Croatia and numerous references toAnglo-Saxon culture. The premise of the article is thatCroatian culture is under-represented in coursebooksand that this is out of keeping with the aims andvalues of the national curriculum in Croatia. I wouldhave welcomed discussion of whether it is possiblethat childrenmight nonetheless learn about Croatianculture by comparing it with the examples of foreignculture in their books. I think the article would alsobenefit from inclusion of teachers’ and/or children’sviews on whether Croatian culture is under-represented in their coursebooks. I wondered, too, ifmany of the lexical items referring to Anglo-Saxonculture were realistic or relevant in the modern worldand think this point might have been given moreconsideration.

Zeljka Zanchi looks at when and whether phonemictranscription is introduced in primary schools. Herfindings suggest that it is rarely introduced in theCroatian primary sector and that when transcriptionis introduced, it is not done so systematically. I feel

Reviews 281

that some of the analysis of findings is partial andloads the dice in favour of the idea that pronunciationcan be taught explicitly. Her claim for instance(p. 126) that introducing phonemic transcriptionunsystematically at primary level is ‘clearlyinsufficient to result in any knowledge’ seemsexaggerated tome. The topic is a fascinating one andclearly relevant to young learners, but I feel that itmerits a wider frame of discussion than the oneprovided in this article. I wonder, for example, ifdiscussion of the cognitive load of a transcriptionsystem might be discussed, or the possibility thata mix of explicit and implicit teaching may benefitchildren might be suggested.

In TeMoLaYoLe’s final article, Luisa Pellicer discussescorrespondence and exchange visits between 8- and9-year-old French and Spanish children in thePyrenees. This is the only article in the volume whichputs children’s perspectives centre stage. I found itespecially interesting to see how little children knewabout each other’s lives and how open they were tofinding out. The article explains the logistics and therationale for the exchange visits especially clearly.

TeMoLaYoLe certainly added to my knowledge aboutsome topics and gotme thinkingmore about others Ithought I already knew something about. The bookhas been carefully edited, and for me, the variety offocus works well. Inevitably for a selection ofconference papers, there is a little unevenness attimes in TeMoLaYoLe, and the title is perhaps not theeasiest to remember, but I feel that the bookwill be ofgreat interest to researchers and teachers who workwith other teachers, as almost every article givesa clear evidence-based voice to teachers’ views andbeliefs about their work.

Teaching Foreign Languages in the Primary School ismore of a ‘how to’ book with a theoreticalunderpinningon teachingMFL atprimary level.Mostof its contexts focus on England, but the ideas andcontent in the book seem to me equally relevant toprimary EFL teachers in other countries. Examplesused to support the practical aspect of the book drawon French, German, Spanish, and Italian, while casestudies also include the learning of Japanese asa foreign language.

In Chapter 1, Kirsch provides an overview of issuesaffecting the teaching and learning of foreignlanguages in the primary sector. She explains how theperceived benefits of early start may have less to dowith progress in language learning than withdeveloping positive attitudes towards other cultures.She goes on to analyse the state of foreign languageteaching at primary level inEurope, theUnited States,

Australia, and China. The reason for this choice ofcontinent and countries is not explained, while the‘Points to remember’ listed at the end of the chapterseem in some cases to contain new rather thansummarized information. A good example here isKirsch’s point that in early-start foreign languageprovision, there areproblemswith teacher supply andlack of appropriate assessment procedures (p. 17).This is an impeccable claim, but does not emergefrom the content of the chapter, as far as I can see.

Chapter 2 moves from a global perspective toa school-based one, via discussion of case studies oftwo London schools which provide good access toforeign languages. The text is peppered with a largenumber of acronyms relating to the Englisheducation system, but I feel that this is unavoidableand is unlikely to hinder understanding for someoneunfamiliar with the system in England. The chapterincludes photos showing ways in which the twoschools promote the learning of foreign languagesand also includes children’s views about languagelearning. Fascinating examples for me included: ‘Asksomebody for help . . . Tell them to say something toyou and repeat after them. Ask them to correct you’;and ‘Keep on saying things aloud so you don’t forgetthem’ (p. 31).

Chapter 3 provides an overview of behaviourist,cognitivist, and social constructivist views oflearning. I found information to be clearly presentedand synthesized for themost part, and the critique ofKrashen’s input hypothesis (pp. 42–3) particularlyclear and objective. Chapter 4 looks at how thesetheories are realized in methods and approaches byconsidering grammar translation, audiolingualism,total physical response (TPR), communicativelanguage teaching (CLT), and the natural approach.I felt that a number of claims about each method orapproach merited explanation. For example, Kirschinforms us that TPR teachers tend to spend about120 hours on asking learners to listen to and respondto sentences before speaking (p. 56). In addition, shecites anOffice for Standards in Education (OFSTED)

review of secondary schools in England (p. 59) asawayof pointing out shortcomingsof CLT in termsoflearners’ spoken output. The problemhere is that it isfar from clear from the context she describes whetherthe children in question learnt a foreign languagefrom a CLT approach, or if perceived shortcomingsmight also be attributable to other variables.

Chapter 5, ‘What children say about learning a foreignlanguage’, is based on Kirsch’s PhD thesis. It looks atsix 9-year-olds learning different languages at home,onholiday, and at school.Of particular interest formewere the two learners who replicated their fairly

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formal school environment for learning German athome as a way of practising and consolidating theirlearning. I was also intrigued by children’s views onhow languages should be taught. Both boys and girlsplaced a high premium on intercultural aspects oflanguage learning, social interaction, and of theimportance of a supportive language learningenvironment (p. 78).

Chapters 6–11 signal a change in direction, with themain thrust of the book turning to look at practicalideas for teaching languages. Chapter 6 considershow to introduce children to foreign languages. Itpays attention to the physical environment of theclassroom, teacher’s use of the target language,using rhymes, songs, games, and stories, andmaking cross-curricular links. I found the core of thischapter extremely uneven, as it progressed fromincorporating great detail and clear examples ofsongs, rhymes, and games, to stating rather briefgeneric advice on the benefits of using stories withchildren.

Chapter 7 considers ways of developing children’slistening and speaking skills. I thought the explicitfocus on strategies the teacher can use to teachvocabulary (pp. 109–10) might be particularly helpfulfor pre-service teachers or early years’ specialists newto teaching foreign languages. I was a little worriedthough that Kirsch promotes task-based instruction(TBI) as an ideal way to teach listening and speaking.The first reason for this concern is that TBI appearsrather suddenly for the first time in this chapter.I wonder if analysing it in the earlier chapter onmethods and approaches might have provideda more solid platform for discussing it in relation toteaching, listening, and speaking. The secondconcern relates to Kirsch’s advocacy of it withoutacknowledging that other approaches may also beuseful or that TBI itself may not be withoutproblemswhenusedwith young learners (seeCarless2002).

Chapter 8 focuses on reading skills at word andsentence level and writing skills at word, sentence,and discourse level. I was not sure about the reasonfor this anomaly. The chapter is particularly wellillustrated with examples of children’s work, but aswithChapter 1, I was not sure the chapter conclusionswere sustainable. A conclusion advising that theteacher should ‘help pupils develop realisticexpectations of what they can achieve’ (p. 137) seemsfairly uncontroversial, and the claim that ‘authenticmaterials should be used whenever possible’ (p. 138)certainly arguable, but neither of these points seemsto correlate with the content of the chapter.

Chapter 9 introduces the concept of knowledgeaboutlanguage (KAL), the premise of which is that childrencan improve their own language proficiency if theyhave an understanding of how languages work.Kirsch then goes on to examine what languageknowledge entails, focusing mostly on aspects oflexis and syntax, and giving examples of languagetasks which in her view help children to develop KAL.So far, so good. However, I found the thread ofargument confusing once more, as Kirsch cites tworeports which are equivocal at best about the benefitsof KAL (p. 152), but concludes from these thatchildren who have an understanding of how a foreignlanguage works are nonetheless more likely toproduce meaningful and accurate utterances thanthose who do not. This may well be the case, ofcourse, but I feel she needs to substantiate herargument. She might achieve this perhaps throughdiscussing the relative merits of embedded andexplicit KAL approaches with regard to cognitivecharacteristics of the children shehas inmindand theamount of support and challenge offered to themwithin each respective KAL approach.

Chapter 10 discusses the development of children’sintercultural competence. Her breakdown ofelements in intercultural competence andexplanation of different routes into interculturalcompetence in the classroom are well explained andeffectively illustrated with case studies, suggestedtasks, and examples of children’s work. Chapter 11focuses on language learning strategies. Kirschclarifies what language learning strategies are, whythey are important, and illustrates strategies used bythe case study children discussed in Chapter 5. Shesuggests a cyclical model for helping learners todevelop learning strategies, similar to the plan-do-review framework suggested by Brewster, Ellis, andGirard (2002: 61). The balance of background theoryand practical applications in this chapter seemed tome to work very well.

Chapter 12 deals with assessment and transition tosecondary school. Given that part of her targetaudience is trainee teachers, I found her definition ofassessment extremely loose in comparison to theclear definitions of learning strategies andintercultural competence. Though clear principles ofgood assessment are outlined, links to national andEuropean assessment frameworks are made, andconcepts of formative, summative, and self-assessment are clarified, I felt that more on how toobserve children and keep records of findings wouldbe relevant for her focus age group. I found the shortdiscussion on transition informed and wellstructured. Iwasparticularly struckby the inclusionof

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children’s views on transition (pp. 198–9) and by thepractical ideas for effecting transition.

I found the style and layout of thebookaccessible andreader friendly, and the topics very well chosen, butthe handling of content seemed to me rather patchy.The chapters based most closely on Kirsch’s PhDthesis, ‘What children say about learning foreignlanguages’ and ‘Developing language learningstrategies’, were for me the most authoritative andwell organized. Someof the content of other chaptersseemed to me less consistent or coherent. I also feltthat the age under discussion could be clearer inmost chapters, notably in Chapter 9.

The book uses boxes to signpost and structurecontent and reflection well, but overall, would benefitfrom far more rigorous and attentive editing. Thepictures used to show examples of children’s work orwall displays are an excellent idea, but they aresometimesdarkand slightlyout of focus, especially inChapters 2 and 10. The text contains typos on pages46, 47, and 50,misspelling of names on pages 91 and142, and different dates given for the advent ofmandatory primary foreign language learning inEngland (p. 2 and p. 198). On page 38, Kirsch makesmistakes with the languages focused on in the studyby Dulay and Burt (1974) of language acquisitionorder and on page 53 about timing of the impetus foraudiolingualism. There are some problems withreferences, too. On page 3, for instance, Kirschinforms us that ‘the latest studies have shown thatthere is a growth of the area responsible in the brainfor language development from the age of six topuberty’, while on page 37, she encourages us to readfurther on neurolinguistics, giving outline details ofrecent findings. References are not given in eithercase, however. In addition, the work of Jones andCoffey is frequently cited in the chapter onintercultural competence and looks well worthconsulting. Unfortunately, it does not appear in theBibliography.

Despite these reservations, I was very pleased to haveread Teaching Foreign Languages in the Primary School,as I feel its strengths outweigh its weaknesses. I thinkTeaching Foreign Languages in the Primary School willbe of great interest to pre-service teachers and tothose who are interested in primary MFL thinkingandpractice in England. This feeling broadlymatchesthe publishers’ claim in the blurb on the back cover.

At a time when children are starting to learn a foreignlanguage, often English, at an increasingly young age(see Education, Audiovisual Culture and ExecutiveAgency 2008 for example, http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/Eurydice/

showPresentation?pubid¼095EN), I feel that it isimportant that policy decisions on early start arebased on evidence rather than anecdote or politicalexpediency. TeMoLaYoLe provides a wealth of datafrom the teacher’s perspective, while the greatstrength of Kirsch’s book is that it gives frequentexamples of what children believe and feel aboutlearning a foreign language. For these reasons, I thinkboth books are well worth reading for anyoneinterested in teacher education, teaching younglearners, or both.

ReferencesBrewster, J., G. Ellis, andD. Girard. 2002. The PrimaryEnglish Teacher’s Guide (New Edition). Harlow, UK:Pearson Education Limited.Carless, D. 2002. ‘Implementing task-based learningwith young learners’. ELT Journal 56/4: 389–96.Dulay, H. and M. Burt. 1974. ‘Natural sequences inchild second language acquisition’. LanguageLearning 24: 37–53.Education, Audiovisual Culture and ExecutiveAgency. 2008. Key Data on Teaching Languages atSchool in Europe. Brussels, Belgium: EACEA.Available at http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/Eurydice/showPresentation?pubid¼095EN

The reviewerSimon Smith is a freelance teacher and teachertrainer. He has lived and worked in Sudan, China,Saudi Arabia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, andPoland. He is currently based in Britain and is a tutorand supervisor on the University of York’s MA(by distance) in Teaching English to Young Learners.He also works on training courses for the NorwichInstitute for Language Education and Sue LeatherAssociates. He is especially interested in trainertraining and in working with young learner teacherswho teach in low-tech classrooms.Email: [email protected]:10.1093/elt/ccp041

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http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/Eurydice/showPresentation?pubid=095EN







Literature and Stylistics for Language Learners: Theoryand Practice

G. Watson and S. Zyngier (eds.)

Palgrave Macmillan 2007, 248 pp., £56.00

isbn 1 4039 8799 8

Forget the title of this book: although, of course, itprimarily deals with literature and stylistics, it also

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offers valuable insights into language-focusedpedagogy, into teaching at secondary and highereducation levels, as well as into the teaching ofliterature. It is hard for me to assess its value tostylisticians, but as a teacher this volumecontinuously engaged me in thinking aboutpedagogy. It strengthened my perception of thecrucial importance of the organization of learning bythe teacher, even in these days of learner autonomy,learner-centredness, and the alleged post-methodcondition. In addition, the importance of this volumelies in showcasing theways inwhich, increasingly, theclaims made for literature in language learning arebeginning to be examined empirically.

For some reason or other, stylisticians often seem tobe on the defensive. The first sentence of RonaldCarter’s foreword to this volume confirms this:‘Stylistics has always had a hard time of it’ (p. vii).As Carter points out, it is often seen ‘as neither onething nor the other or, much worse, as all things to allmen and women’ (p. vii). Where L2 learners areconcerned, there definitely has been controversy (seeParan 2008 for a very brief history of this), and I havealso previously suggested (Paran 2000) that it ispossible that only advanced learners may benefitfrom some of the aspects of stylistics. Having saidthat, much may depend on the way the approach isused and modified, and there are examples of how itis possible, with appropriate choice of text anda careful attention to pedagogical issues, to usecertain elements of stylistics with learners atintermediate or lower levels (for example McRae1991/2008; Lazar 1990, 1994). Cue the title of thevolume under review: the three areas—literature,stylistics, and language learners—converge.

The book is divided into five sections. Two papersmake up the first section, ‘Theoretical perspectives’.Chapter 1, ‘Stylistics in second language contexts:a critical perspective’ by Geoff Hall, presents some ofthe general preoccupations of this volume, includingthe value of stylistics for L2 learners and L2 learning.Importantly, Hall provides a detailed discussion ofa number of studies which have shown how literaturecan be used successfully in L2 learning settings (forexample Boyd and Maloof 2000; Kim 2004), as wellas a survey of the variety of analytical tools thatresearchers can use to show the contribution ofliterature and literary discussion to languagelearning. The second chapter, ‘OnTeaching LiteratureItself’, by Peter Stockwell, is an analysis ofOzymandias, providing insights into the poemthrough a description of a teaching session spentreading and discussing it.

The following four sections go on to address thepractice of stylistics and the practice of teachingstylistics. The second section, ‘New approaches’,includes two case studies of teaching stylistics atuniversity level in the United Kingdom (by JoannaGavins and Jane Hodson and by Urszula Clark),a chapter on using film in an English Philology coursein Spain (by Rocio Montoro) and a chapter by JohnMcRae on narrative point of view. The third section,‘Corpus stylistics’, opens with an account by DonaldHardy of using discovery procedures with a corpusof Flannery O’Connor’s fiction. This is followed by‘Literary worlds as collocation’, by Bill Louw, and thesection ends with a chapter by Mick Short, BeatrixBusse, and Patricia Plummer in which they describestudent reactions to the same stylistics course whenrun (with some variations) in Lancaster, in Mainz,and in Munster.

The fourth section, ‘Stylistics, grammar, anddiscourse’, opens with David Gugin’s discussionof Flannery O’Connor’s use of pseudo-clefts; itcontinues with Paul Simpson examining activities forraising awareness of the Hiberno-English EmphaticTag (for example ‘so it is’ or ‘so they are’ tagged at theends of sentences); and it ends with an impassionedchapter by Judit Zerkowitz on using Grice’s maximsto explore the multiple meanings of a short shortstory. The final section, ‘Awareness and cognition’,includes three empirically based chapters fromthree very different contexts. David Hanauerpresents a comparison of two teaching methods todevelop learners’ ability to interpret modernHebrew poetry; Willie van Peer and AikateriniNousi discuss prejudice against Germans inlearners of German as a Foreign Language; andSonia Zyngier, Olivia Fialho, and Patricia Andrea doPrado Rios present research on raising literaryawareness in a Brazilian university.

This brief survey will have given the reader a taste ofsome of this volume’s strong points, which aremainly the expressions of a broad and expandedremit for literature and language. This is evident inmany ways: a broad geographical spread (includingBrazil, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Spain, the UnitedArab Emirates, and the United Kingdom), a fairlybroad genre spread (poetry, novels, films, shortstories, detective fiction), and a broadening of thegeographical origin of writers discussed (includingGermany,Hungary, India, Israel, andNigeria). Finally,wehave languages other thanEnglish—HebrewasL1and German as L2, as well as different Englishes.

Possibly the strongest point of the book is the varietyof approaches and topics covered, with somechapters focusing on a detailed discussion of one

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poem in the space of one lesson (Stockwell), othersfocusing ona description of a teaching tool (Louw) orprocedure (Hardy), and others discussing a wholeprogramme of study (for example Gavins andHodson; Clark; Short, Busse, and Plummer).Many ofthe chapters present pedagogies that are transparentand transferable. Of these, two stand out for me.Gavins and Hodson’s chapter, ‘When studentsbecome the teachers: a practical pedagogy’ presentsa clear pedagogical issue: the connection betweenabstract theoretical discussion and practicalapplication of the theory discussed. The solutionfound—student presentations—is not new; what isnew is that the audience for thepresentationswasnotthe students’ peers but first-year students embarkingon the same programme. The authors, thus, createdthe gap in expertise and knowledge needed to makethis a true learningexperience for bothpresentersandaudience; importantly, bothgroups reported that theyfelt the benefit of the exercise. I particularly enjoyedthis chapter because of the real feel that the authorsgive of their classrooms. Another transferablesolution to the problem of theory–practice linkages isClark’s description, in the chapter ‘Discoursestylistics and detective fiction: a case study’, of theway in which the tools introduced in the first part ofa module are then applied in case study fashion todetective fiction in a four-week series of lectures, eachaccompanied by a workshop.

It is precisely this transferability of pedagogies that isthe focus of the chapter by Short, Busse, andPlummer. The paper deals with a specific course,‘Language and Style’ and its different iterations inthree different locations (and, in one of the locations,three iterations in three different years). It specificallyattempts to gauge student reaction to the web-basedelement of the course. Unfortunately, the coursenever takes on a real feeling, and the detail that isprovided is of little relevance to the reader and muchmore suitable for an internal evaluation report thanfor a publishedpaper. Comparisons of thepercentageof students who said they were ‘interested’ versus thepercentage that were ‘excited’ in Lancaster, Munster,and Mainz may have meaning for the course tutors.But forme, itwouldhavebeenmuchmore interestingto read more about the students in the two latterlocations who ‘saw that stylistics could help themdevelop their analytical skills’ (p. 121) and tohear theirvoices saying that. Student reactions to the web-based element of the course aremuch better handledin Plummer and Busse (2006).

Other chapters focus on text rather than pedagogy.I enjoyed Stockwell’s discussion of Ozymandias,a chapter which achieves its effect through the

narration of a session; to quote John McRae in hiscontribution to this volume, ‘the veracity of thenarration is achieved by the author’ (p. 41)—in thischapter done through telling the story of workshopswhere this analysis has been presented. It is valuable,though I am not sure that I would know how to goabout reproducing the success of the writer. JohnMacRae’s own chapter is also text based; entitled‘‘‘TheShudder of theDyingDay inEveryBladeofGrass’’:Whose words? Voice, veracity and the representationofmemory’, it looks at narrative point of view in threenovels: Dickens’s Great Expectations, Ken Saro-Wiwa’s Sozaboy, and Arundhati Roy’s The God ofSmall Things. As McRae says, this comparison andthe contrasts between the three works ‘illuminatequestions rather than provide answers: question ofimmediacy, narratorial self-awareness, innocenceand experience’ (p. 45).What is being advocated hereis the importance of comparison and contrast asa way of raising issues and questions about texts andabout our readings of these texts.

Themost interesting andprovocative part of thebookis thefinal section, ‘Awareness and cognition’, with itsemphasis on the empirical orientation in stylistics. Allthree papers in this section point the way forward toan engagement with stylistics and literature that goesbeyond theorizing and reflection and attempts tounderstand whether our predictions and intuitionsactually hold when examined more rigorously. InChapter 13, ‘Attention-directed literary education: anempirical investigation’, David Hanauer tests hismodel of literary education through a comparison oftwo types of teaching: an explicit modelling group,where the students were presented with models ofanalysis of the poet being discussed, and an implicitinstruction group, who were asked to read the poet’sworks and compare it to poems by other poets of thesame generation and to discuss their comparisons ingroups. The study found evidence that ‘explicitinstruction of literary patterns enhances students’abilities to use these patterns in independentinterpretations of novel poems’ (p. 179). Chapter 14,‘What reading does to readers: stereotypes,foregrounding and language learning’, by Willie vanPeer and Aikaterini Nousi, looks at the way in whichexposure to literary texts can combat prejudice andstereotyping of Germans by non-Germans. Theresearchers compared a control group (who did notread the texts) with two experimental groups. Oneread two literary excerpts connected with resistanceto theNazi regimeduringWorldWar II and discussedthem ina90-minute session; theother group read theexcerpts, but this was not supported by anydiscussion. Although both experimental groupsshowed a change in attitude towards Germans after

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reading (in 3 of 14measures), there was no differencebetween the two groups. The researchers interpretthis as suggesting that it is the reading of the text,rather than the discussion that follows, that causesattitude change in readers, and suggest that ‘we cansave the time often spent on discussing literary textsin class’ (p. 192). The last chapter in the book, bySonia Zyngier, Olivia Fialho, and Patricia Andrea doPrado Rios, ‘Revisiting literary awareness’, looks atempirical evidence from a literary awarenesssprogramme at a Brazilian university. (It is interestingto note that, like Gavins andHodson, the researchersenlisted the help of more advanced students as partof the teaching programme on the course.) The dataconsisted of written reports which the studentshanded in as part of a portfolio. The researchersdefine three levels of awareness: absence ofawareness, signal of awareness, and presence ofawareness, and show how the students moved froman overall absence of awareness to a state where50 per cent of the texts produced showedeither signalor presence of awareness. Importantly, thegreatest change occurred at the beginning of theprogramme.

Interestingly, the papers in this section, too, raiseissues of pedagogy. Although I am not totallyconvinced by the evidence presented byHanauer andby van Peer and Nousi, these two chapters addressimportant questions regarding the efficacy of groupwork and group discussion, strengthening myconviction that taskdesign and the typeof instructionprovided to students are crucial (see Paran 2008 foran extended discussion of this). Taking thispedagogical perspective to examine other chapters inthe book, this meant that I was wondering whetherMontoro’s taskwas clear enoughorwhether it was anexample of a task that, if students could do it, they didnot need it, but if they could not do it, there did notseem to be much help forthcoming (thoughastructurewasprovided). Thus, I endeduppreferringthe teacher-dominated but structured approachdescribed by Stockwell to the focused but possiblytoo open group task presented by Montoro. And it isalso important to remember that there are differentways of modelling. What the papers by Clark and byGavins andHodsonseemtobedoing ismodellingona very long timescale, combining it with well-scaffolded discussions of the topics introduced.Taking this aspect on board, it would be interesting toresearch and see whether there are types of guidedgroup work which would raise awareness andsensitivity to poetry better than both the type ofmodelling that Hanauer provided and the type ofgroup work that his participants engaged in.

The variety and topic inclusiveness of the volumedoes, however, present problems. I was not sure thatthe chapters fitted neatly into the sections—for me,Short, Busse, and Plummer would have fitted moreinto the ‘New approaches’ section, rather than into‘Corpus stylistics’, and Iwas not sureof the differencebetween this latter section and the one entitled‘Stylistics, grammar, and discourse’ (where twoof thethree papers dealt with corpus approaches). There isalso quite a noticeable variation in the quality of thechapters, and I personally might have omitted one ortwo: but this will happen in any edited book, is hard tocontrol, and is probably not really important. But itwas odd to find one chapter that did not touch uponliterature at all; more importantly, of 15 chapters, onlyseven deal in any way with L2 learners. I cannot bealone in interpreting ‘language learners’ in the title assecond language learners, even if we take the view thatall of us continue to learn our L1 throughout our lives.The distinction must be made: it would be very oddnot to differentiate between university studentstaking a stylistics course in English in Lancaster andstudents inMainzorMunster taking the samecoursein English. In fact, the issue of not being able toautomatically assume that approaches successful inthe L1 classroom will transfer successfully to L2learning is raisedbyHall in theopening chapter (p. 5).Hall also calls for ‘more longitudinal case studies oflearners and classrooms exposed to suchapproaches’ (see Hall 2005 for an extendeddiscussion of the types of research possible in thisarea). These omissions are therefore important.

Possibly the best definition of the aim of this volumeis in Geoff Hall’s opening chapter, the need tounderstand ‘the possibilities for stylisticinterventions in our own classrooms and curricula’(p. 3). Even if I feel that more attention could havebeen paid to L2 learners, the book does fulfil this aim,and as I hope I have shown, it also provides insightsinto pedagogy and teaching in general, and thereinlies much of its value.

ReferencesBoyd, M. and V. M. Maloof. 2000. ‘How teachers canbuild on student-proposed intertextual links tofacilitate student talk in the ESL classroom’ in J. K.Hall and L. S. Verplaetse (eds.). Second and ForeignLanguage Learning through Classroom Interaction.Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Hall, G. 2005. Literature in Language Education.Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.Kim, M. 2004. ‘Literature discussions in adult L2learning’. Language and Education 18/2: 145–66.

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Lazar, G. 1990. ‘Usingnovels in the language-learningclassroom’. ELT Journal 44/3: 204–14.Lazar, G. 1994. ‘Using literature at lower levels’. ELTJournal 48/2: 115–24.McRae, J. 1991/2008. Literature with a Small ‘l’.Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan/Nottingham, UK:CCC Press.Paran, A. 2000. ‘Survey review: recent books on theteaching of literature’. ELT Journal 54/1: 75–88.Paran, A. 2008. ‘The role of literature in instructedforeign language learning and teaching: an evidence-based survey’. Language Teaching 41/4: 465–96.Plummer, P. and B. Busse. 2006. ‘E-learning andLanguage and Style in Mainz and Munster’. Languageand Literature 15/3: 257–76.

The reviewerAmos Paran is a senior lecturer at the Institute ofEducation, University of London, where he is thecourse leader of theMATESOLbyDistance Learning.His main research interests are reading in EFL,literature in language learning, and distanceeducation.Email: [email protected]:10.1093/elt/ccp040

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Building a Validity Argument for the Test of English asa Foreign Language�

C. A. Chapelle, M. K. Enright, and J. M. Jamieson(eds.)

Routledge 2007, 370 pp., £25.99

isbn 13 978 0 8058 5456 5

The Test of English as a Foreign Language�(TOEFL�) is probably one of the most significanttests in many people’s lives around the world. Thetest is intended to provide evidence of a student’s

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ability to communicate and understand oral andwritten language in an academic setting of anEnglish-speaking country. Therefore, it is intended toprovide information to all the different stakeholdersnot only of the candidate’s language proficiency butalso of their expected capacity of language use. TheTOEFL has undergone significant variations in thismillennium. First was the computer-based TOEFL

(CBT) and since 2005 the internet-based TOEFL

(TOEFL iBT). The recent appearance of the TOEFL

iBT has brought about the need to understand howthe test has changed, why it has done so and, moreimportantly, what the steps in this change have been.While a number of papers on different issues relatedto the test can be found in research journals such asLanguage Testing, it seemed necessary to have amorecomprehensive volume to address the changes in thenew test. However, little or no explanation of thechangesundertaken in the test have been given to thedifferent stakeholders other than those presented onthe Educational Testing Service (ETS) website(http://www.ets.org). Since this book’s primaryaudience is ‘applied linguists and measurementspecialists, who [. . .] might provide backing’ (p. 346)or rebuttals to the information presented in thevolume, it is worth mentioning that if any teacher islooking formore specific information theymight visitthe website above, the article by Zareva (2005), orsimply the first and last chapters in the volume byChapelle et al.

This volume is a valuable asset for those who mightbe interested in seeing the implementation processof the new test, its fairness, and, overall, whether theprocess has accounted for all the various aspects thatintervene both in the language assessment processand in the identification of communicativecompetence in an exclusively academic environment.At this point, it should be stressed that the testdesigners did not have in mind assessing thestudents’ competence in other contexts (for instance,in a social context) as the only aim of the test is toprovide evidence of the student’s capability to adaptand work in college. Thus, the relevance and use ofthe final score is limited by and to the use and contextof the test and would not be relevant for otherpurposes such as an assessment for immigration orworking purposes.

This book,which formspart of theRoutledgeESL andApplied Linguistics Professional Series, is composedof a preface, an introduction, nine chapters, threeappendices, and the topic index. A bibliography isincluded at the end of each chapter. All through thebook, the authors point out their experience in theresearch of designing, assessing, and validating the

new TOEFL iBT. This book is unique in its scope andcontents. Very few books have attempted tosummarize and make accessible to internationalaudiences all the research undertaken in a projectsuch as the implementation of the new TOEFL test.However, readers may want to take a look at theStudies in Language Testing—Cambridge UniversityPress/Cambridge ESOL series for other valuableexamples. Although the intended audience is mainlyspecialists, Chapter 1 facilitates the terms andnotionswhich are necessary to understand the rest ofthe book while the final chapter providesa comprehensible summary of the book’s content.

The first chapter, by all three editors, serves as anintroduction presenting the basis of a test thatguarantees that a student will be able tocommunicate in an English-speaking academiccontext. To do so, the authors address topics such aslanguage proficiency, what is measured and why;score interpretation; and interpretation arguments;however, their application of ‘multiple types ofinferences’ is especially interesting. The writerspresent this application as a metaphor of threebridges covering four main stages: observation,observed score, expected score, and target score.This inference is the basis for later extrapolation oftest results in order for the different stakeholders totake action and make decisions. In fact, this processguides all the research that is presented later in thebook. This chapter also states a list of needs for theTOEFL project. The chapter concludes witha description of the interpretative argument for theTOEFL which includes six interpretative arguments:domain description, evaluation, generalization,explanation, extrapolation, and utilization. This isprobably the most illustrative and reader-friendlychapter in the book. It is also more accessible togeneral audiences (including regular teachers andraters who may find the rest of the book either toocomplex or of little interest to their jobs).

The second chapter recounts the evolution of theTOEFL, its initial scope and purposes, what it wassupposed to measure, and how the paper-based testevolved into the CBT and finally into the internet-based test (TOEFL iBT). It also explains how andwhythe Test of Written English (TWE) and the Test ofSpoken English (TSE) were introduced and how theywere used and progressively evolved to be integratedinto the current test. This chapter may be of greatinterest to those who took those tests and may evenhave had problems understanding their constructand delivery. The chapter concludes with an excellentbibliography that summarizes much of the researchundertaken over the years by ETS for the test.

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Chapter 3, ‘Frameworks for a new TOEFL’, explainshow the needs in language testing, communicativecompetence, and university students’ profiles havechanged in the last ten years. In the late nineties, thischange could be observed in the need to redefine thetest’s theoretical construct, to include more complexabilities (integrating all four skills), and take intoaccount the relevant contexts. The last part of thechapter is devoted to explaining what is expectedfroma student who is going to perform in an English-speaking academic setting. It also introduces theconcept of integrated tasks as those which require acombination of different skills to be answered (forexample, listening plus multiple choice plus writing)and briefly addresses the administration conditions.

A more specialized section begins with Chapter 4,‘Prototyping new assessment tasks’, that presentsthe development and design of the pilot tasks for thetest as ‘the first empirical stage of development ofa new TOEFL’ (p. 141). The paper presents evidencethat the computer-based delivery should notrepresent aproblem for theprospective students. Theevaluative meaning and inference of these tasks wasobtained through working with expert testers andraters. In this way, and by analysing the responses inthe pilot studies, the rubrics for the speaking andwriting measures were obtained. This stageconcluded that further research on the variables thatcould affect task difficulty was necessary. This is thefirst of a number of chapters specifically designed forexperts. If the three previous chapters wereaccessible to teachers, from this chapter to the last,a certain degree of specialization is necessary. It alsorequires one to be familiar with testing principles.However, for those in the field, it provides significantsuggestions for approaching design andimplementing language tests. It also suggestsalternative tasks for each skill and ways of integratingdifferent skills into each task. It makes an interestingdistinction between the different expected outcomesaccording to the task’s final goal (whether it is forfinding information, basic comprehension, forinformation, or for integration) and how toimplement computer-based speaking tasks.

By Chapter 5, ‘Prototyping measures of listening,reading, speaking, and writing’, readers will learn ofprocedures to validate tasks through research. Thischapter addresses how the tasks were actuallyvalidated though experimentation and trialling withstudents. This chapter and the following address theimportance of field testing both the tasks and the testitself to define the rating scales, observe the student’sperformance as compared to previous versions of thetest, to see whether the different parts of the test may

be put together creating the test format andconstruct, and observing whether it is appropriate forcollecting the right information about the candidate.It is also at this point where performance comparisonacross cultures, Englishasafirstorother language, ormany other variables, is analysed. Chapter 7,‘Finalizing the test blueprint’, deals with rating andobtaining evidenceof languageproficiency in the test.The chapter begins with a short summary of theprevious step followed in the test design and how togenerate parallel items for the number of testsrequired each year. This part will certainly appeal tothose who need to develop items or test tasks forother high stakes tests. Themiddle part of the chaptercompares the CBT and TOEFL iBT blueprints verysystematically and with clear and meaningfuldiagrams. The chapter also concludes with a briefmention of the computer-based delivery system anda short explanation of how the online rating is carriedout, includingnotonly the test ratingbut alsohow it isdone on the internet. In this section, I missed a briefmention of the e-rater system (Chodorow andBurstein 2004) that is currently used along with thehuman rating. Obviously, it is hard to know if it wasoperational at that time but it could have been a veryvaluable addition to this chapter.

Chapter 8, ‘A final analysis’, deals with thepsychometric properties of the test and the transitionbetween the current versions of the test. The chapterexplains how the measurement properties of the testwere obtained and how the test specifications wererevised and planned for equating and scaling. Theauthors present first the researchquestions related tothe test’s assumptions underlying warrant of thedifferent TOEFL interpretative arguments (as seen inthe first chapters). The second part of the chapterdeals with the final field study of the final TOEFL iBTversion. Throughout this chapter, the authors makeclear the importance of relevant and sound researchin trialling and implementing the test. This chapterbasically confirms and validates the results obtainedduring the research and development period. It alsostresses the importance of scaling and the test’sinternal consistency. Especially important, but notfully explained in the test, is the Generalizabilitytheory (Bennett and Rock 1995).

The last chapter, ‘The TOEFL Validity argument’summarizes all the stages described in all theprevious chapters. As opposed to most otherchapters, it is accessible tomost readers. Perhaps theonly problemwould be that if the reader had not gonethrough all the contents of the book and someaspects related in this chaptermay be not totally clear(for thosewhohavenot read the section thatChapelle

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addresses). However, Chapelle still insists that thischapter is aimed at applied linguists and specialistsin measurement. At the beginning of the chapter, theauthor establishes a difference between the ‘validityargument’ (as the evidence that supports the designof a prospective test) and ‘accumulation-of-evidence’(as the evidence that supports a test that has alreadybeen implemented) (p. 320–1) and goes one stepfurther by ‘presenting the research in terms of its rolein an interpretative argument’ (p. 320). That is to say,relating validation and the meaning of its argumentthrough ‘statements that summarize findings thatsupport inferences’ (p. 321) about the candidateand that can be meaningful to the differentstakeholders. In the following pages, Chapellereviews what has been presented as domaindefinition and inferences (evaluation, generalization,explanation, extrapolation, and utilization). Thechapter concludes with a diagram that brieflysummarizes all of these.

This book establishes a totally new approach tolanguage test design and implementation. The needto set the guidelines and define the circumstances inwhich the test takes place serves as a guide for othertest designers who may find relevant experiences,methodology, and ideas for their own projects.However, many readers will feel overwhelmed not bythe abundant evidence but by the way in which thisvalidationstage isdone. The book reflectsmany yearsof valuable experience, research expertise,collaborative work among different groups such ascomputer engineers and linguists, and, mostimportantly, financial means that cannot be found inother contexts. However, since many examinations(sometimes even high stakes ones) need to betrialled, this volume will be a valuable asset onmost test designers’ night tables. The volume hasmuch to offer in terms of research methodology andideas to validate new tests. The only question that hasnot been addressed is technological design.Designing a computer tool that basically has thefeatures of the new TOEFL does not seem to beextremely difficult and some of the currentcommercial and non-commercial computer-assistedlanguage learning (and testing) platforms would fitthe TOEFL’s tasks. However, research ismeant to bespread and used andmany readerswill certainlymissa chapter devoted to technology. In this sense,Fulcher’s (2003) paper on interface design or thevolume by Chapelle and Douglas (2006) oncomputer language testing do not seem to addmuchthat is new.

In conclusion, this book, although dense and hard tofollow at times, may become a cornerstone in testing

research not because of its novelty but because theauthors, especially in the last chapter, have beenable to open up a path to follow for otherresearchers. For the prospective reader, it wouldprobably not be advisable to read it thoroughly frombeginning to end, but to try to identify the chaptersthat may be of most interest or use according totheir particular needs. Either way, it is important thereader does not miss the first two or the lastchapters. Readers may not expect ready-madesolutions to their particular situations but to show ‘auseful example’ (p. 350) that most likely will bringideas to their minds and ‘identify areas of agreementor disagreement’ (p. 350) in this excellent piece ofresearch.

ReferencesBennett, R. E. and D. A. Rock. 1995. ‘Generalizability,validity, and examinee perceptions of a computer-delivered formulating-hypotheses test’. Journal ofEducational Measurement 32/1: 19–36.Chapelle, C. A. and D. Douglas. 2006. AssessingLanguage through Computer Technology. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.Chodorow, M. and J. Burstein. 2004. ‘Beyond essaylength: evaluating e-raters’ performance on TOEFL

essays’ (TOEFL Research Report No. RR-73, ETS RR-04-04). Available at http://www.ets.org/Media/Research/pdf/RR-04-04.pdf (accessed31 January 2009).Fulcher, G. 2003. ‘Interface design in computer-based language testing’. Language Testing 20/4:384–408.Zareva, A. 2005. ‘What is new in the new TOEFL-iBT2006 test format?’. Electronic Journal of ForeignLanguage Teaching 2/2: 45–57. Available at: http://e-flt.nus.edu.sg/v2n22005/zareva.htm (accessed 31January 2009).

The reviewerJesus Garcıa Laborda is Associate Professor in theDepartmentofApplied Linguistics and full researcherin theCamille groupof theUniversidadPolitecnica deValencia. He is involved in low stakes languagetesting and technology in education and currentlylectures on ESP for Tourism. He has coordinated tworegional research projects about the feasibility of theimplementation of a computer-based universityentrance examination in Spain.Email: [email protected]:10.1093/elt/ccp044

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http://www.ets.org/Media/Research/pdf/RR-04-04.pdf

http://e-flt.nus.edu.sg/v2n22005/zareva.htm

http://e-flt.nus.edu.sg/v2n22005/zareva.htm

Form-focused Instruction and Teacher Education:Studies in Honour of Rod Ellis

S. Fotos and H. Nassaji (eds.)

Oxford University Press 2007, 288 pp., £26.00

isbn 978 0 19 442250 5

If you are not familiar with the nameof Rod Ellis, thenyou probably have the wrong journal in your hands.His work over the last 30 years or so is celebrated inthis festschrift, centring on form-focused instruction(FFI), a key aspect in much of Dr Ellis’ research intosecond language acquisition (SLA).

The book is organized loosely into three sections,with several chapters in each. The first section servesto introduce the reader to some of the pedagogical,linguistic, and cognitive theories surrounding ‘focuson form’. The second section surveys the work ofDr Ellis and others and how it relates to classroompractice, with the third and final section covering thetheme with attention to teacher education.

The editors establish the context in their introductorychapter and lay out their rationale by defining teachereducation as ‘the flexible development of professionalknowledge tobeappliedwhenneeded’ (p. 8).DefiningFFI is, as you might expect, more problematical, buta well organized and swiftly paced taxonomy dida better job of fixing the basic concepts in my mindthan several university SLA classes had. FFI is,fundamentally, any method used to draw theattention of the learners to language forms, a balancebetween traditional study of discrete grammar inisolation, and meaning-led communicativemethodologies.Whether the focus should be implicitor explicit, pre-planned or reactive, is discussed atgreat length in subsequent chapters.

According to the editors, the book is an attempt tohelp practising teachers understand ‘the role thatformal instruction plays in communicative contexts’(p. 1) and to address the gap between SLA researchand teaching with a book provided by ‘SLA expertswho are language teachers or teacher educators’(p. 8), ‘written from the viewpoint of languageteachers’ (p. 4). I hope to assess the achievement ofthese aims in this review.

N. C. Ellis takes the first chapter ‘proper’ after theintroduction and creates an immediate conundrumfor the reviewer. His contribution (Chapter 2, ‘Theweak interface, consciousness, and form-focusedinstruction:mind thedoors’), is a densely packed andprecisely worded examination of FFI, drawing inresearch from various related fields. It is not an easyread, but this is not an easy subject, and with that in

mind, the author has conveyed his message withgreat clarity. The conundrum is this: should one onlyjudge abookby the standards of its own statedgoals?Classroom teachers are certainly capable ofunderstanding academic texts and of making linksbetween those texts and practice. But this is a verychallenging opening section if the target audience is‘the many teachers (that) acknowledge . . . theimportance of SLA research (yet don’t) regularly readsuch research’ (p. 8).

Lantolf explores sociocultural theory in the thirdchapter (‘Conceptual knowledge and instructedsecond language learning: a socioculturalperspective’) and, in particular, considers howexplicitly and accurately grammar concepts need tobe explained.

Skehan (p. 55) alludes to the inevitability of an ‘uneasyrelationship’ between research and pedagogy at thestart of his chapter (Chapter 4, ‘Task research andlanguage teaching: reciprocal relationships’), and it isa key chapter in highlighting this discrepancy.Researchers, he claims, need to limit their focus inorder to state their findings with any degree ofconfidence, whilst pedagogues feel pressure to reactto real-world variables. He demonstrates thisdilemma with a fascinating and practical analysis ofthe differing interpretations of task researchconducted by both ‘pure’ researchers and teacherresearchers.

The second section (‘Focus on form and classroompractices’) moves from the general into the morespecific, and opens with Swain and Lapkin’s well-considered study of a young learner of French(Chapter 5, ‘The distributed nature of secondlanguage learning: Neil’s perspective’). The authorsbase their thinking in distributed cognition theory;the idea that ‘our cognitions and memories may bedistributed across the individual, artefacts andpeople with whom the individual is interacting’(p. 74). It is the kind of framework which has a lot ofcurrency through the likes of Vygotsky these days(also cited in this chapter), perhaps partlyattributable, despite its complexity, to its warm andcommonsensical feel. In this study, the early teenageparticipants took part in amultitask activity involvingvideotaped mini-lessons, narrative writing, writtenreformulation by a native speaker, noticing, andstimulated recall and rewriting followed by reflection.It is an enlightening case study, although I wonderhow any adaptations to the process for practicalpurposes would impact on its effectiveness.

Chapter 6 (‘Recontextualizing focus on form’) seemsquite obscure at first reading, but on careful

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consideration yields gold. Batstone posits thatdiscourse patterns, both verbal and non-verbal,indicate phases in a lesson which predisposestudents to focus on either form or meaning. As‘attention is a limited resource’ (p. 98), the teacherneeds to watch the direction of discourse closely.

Loewen, in Chapter 7 (‘The prior and subsequent useof forms targeted in incidental focus on form’),demonstrates just how difficult it can be to assesseffectiveness through pre- and post-testing whencorrection is unplanned.Nonetheless, the findings ofthis very thorough survey indicate that teachercorrection and recasting has value. According toNassaji (Chapter 8, ‘Reactive focus on form throughnegotiation on learners’ written errors’), this isactually a more controversial conclusion than youmight expect, with some scholars suggesting thatcorrective feedback is damaging, not merelyineffective (Truscott 1996, cited p. 117). This is notNassaji’s conclusion, although hedoes qualify this bypointing out the value of negotiation in achievinglearning. Fotos and Hinkel follow on neatly with thefinal chapter in this section (Chapter 9, ‘Form-focused instruction and output for second languagewriting gains’).

The final six chapters are grouped together as ‘Focuson form and teacher education’. After Richards’rather broad overview of the research/materialsdevelopment paradigm (Chapter 10, ‘Materialsdevelopment and research: towards a form-focusedperspective’), comes Pica’s examination of some ofthe most commonplace and unremarkablecommunicative activities widely used in classroomstoday (Chapter 11, ‘Time, teachers, and tasks in focuson form instruction’). However, when set in thecontext of the earlier chapters and developed sothoughtfully by Pica, ‘spot the difference’ and‘information gap’ tasks become vital and importantagain. I found this chapter in particular achieved thegoals of the book, and demonstrates why teachersshould persevere with the study of challengingresearch-based material (like the earlier chapters ofthis book) to inform their classroom practice.

Whilst retaining academic integrity, these finalchapters certainly have amore practical emphasis. InChapter 12 (‘Using form-focused discoveryapproaches’), Tomlinson promotes learner-centredapproaches over teacher-centred instruction in formsand leads in to a study of teacher attitudes to histechniques. Rea-Dickins tackles assessment in anEAL setting in Chapter 13 (‘Learning or measuring?

Exploring teacher decision-making in planning forclassroom-based language assessment’), andHedgereturns to writing feedback, this time as loop input inteacher training (Chapter 14, ‘Learning through thelooking glass: teacher response to form-focusedfeedback on writing’). In the fifteenth and finalchapter (‘Explicit language knowledge and focus onform: options and obstacles for TESOL teachertrainees’), Elder, Erlam, and Philp present both nativeand non-native teachers with a chastening message;before we decide to focus on form, we had better getourselves a thorough understanding of explicitgrammar rules and metalinguistic terminology.

To clarify what may have appeared as a criticismearlier in this review: although the early chaptersmight be daunting for some in the target audience,the reader will be rewarded for perseverance, as thetheoretical grounding is connected to the classroomlater in the text. It is also a credit to the editors andauthors that the book is cohesive without beingrepetitive. While this sounds like damning with faintpraise, it is no mean feat in a thematically linkedcollection of papers.

The volume as a whole rarely addresses teachereducation directly, but in its broader sense, it iscertainly about teacher development. There are nosimple answers in this book, there are a number ofcontradictions, controversies, and unansweredquestions, but that is not the fault of the researchers,authors, or editors involved. For their continuedcommitment to solving these questions, on the otherhand, we should thank Dr Ellis and his colleagues.

ReferencesTruscott, J. 1996. ‘The case for ‘‘the case againstgrammar correction in L2 writing classes’’:a response to Ferris’. Journal of Second LanguageWriting 8/2: 111–22.

The reviewerDarren Elliott (MA ELT, DELTA) has taught atuniversities in the United Kingdom and Japan andcurrently teaches at Nanzan University in Nagoya,Japan. He is also a freelance teacher trainer. He haspublished and presented on learner autonomy,teacher development, and reflective practice,particularly guided by internet technologies.Email: [email protected],[email protected]:10.1093/elt/ccp045

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Correspondence

From Michael Swan

I am sorry that Luke Prodromou (ELT Journal 63/2)was upset by my review of his bookEnglish as a LinguaFranca: A Corpus-based Analysis (ELT Journal 63/1:78–81). He complains that ‘at certain points, Swanseriously . . . distorts the arguments of the book’. I donot believe this is the case. However, English asa Lingua Franca is a long and diffuse book, and evenafter two careful readings I had some trouble inunderstanding exactly where the argument wasgoing, so I may well have misunderstood the oddpoint. If so, I apologize.

It is not my purpose here to reply to Prodromou’scatalogue of grievances in order to further justify mycriticisms; this would be tedious and unconstructive.Readers who are sufficiently interested and have £75to spare can buy the book and make up their ownminds. I do however need to take issue with the first ofhis objections, as this has some general importance.

Prodromou’s preferred term for people speakinga language which is not their mother tongue is‘L2-user’. In my review I refer to such people as ‘non-native speakers (NNS)’. Prodromou regards thisterminological choice as having wide andunacceptable implications. By using my own term I‘foist’ on him views that he does not share. ‘Non-native speaker’, he says, is ‘deficit-laden’ and ‘anglo-centric’.

The difference between the two terms is that myterm sees people as agents who make use of thelanguage in their own terms whereas the negativeprefix in non-native speaker reinforces the view thatnon-L1 users are failed ‘native-speakers’ whoseEnglish is riddled with errors . . . perpetual learnerswho are forever deviating from ‘native-speaker’norms.

‘Non-native speaker’ is a commonly-used expressionin linguistic research, and it has of course no inherentpejorative connotations—any more than the ‘2’ inProdromou’s ‘L2-users’ implies second-class status.Prodromou is entitled to use whatever language hechooses, but he is not entitled to insist that everyone

else conforms to his preferences, nor to foist (to usehis own loaded expression) on the rest of us hisidiosyncratic interpretations of professionalterminology. Part of his problem, in fact, seems toarise from a simple confusion about the meaning ofan English prefix. Words beginning with ‘non-’ do notnecessarily incorporate negative valuejudgements—take for example ‘non-metallic’, ‘non-proliferation’, ‘non-aggressive’, ‘non-judgemental’,‘non-sexist’, or Prodromou’s own expression ‘non-L1users’. Granted, if someone happens to believe thatnative speakers are superior in some way, then forthem ‘non-native speaker’ will have dismissiveimplications, just as, no doubt, some vegetarianscontrive to put a pejorative spin on ‘non-vegetarian’,or some professional soldiers may sneer at ‘non-military’ attitudes. But that is another matter, and ithas nothing to do with the core meanings of thewords themselves.

I am not sure what to make of Prodromou’s othernon-canonical (as he might put it) interpretation ofa prefix, in ‘anglo-centric’. ‘Anglo’ is commonly used,often disparagingly, for people who are considered tobe ethnically British or North American. To use theterm to express disapproval of someone who wishesto talk about native and non-native speakers ofa language which is the mother tongue, in its manydifferent varieties, of people who live on and betweenfive continents—now that really is anglo-centric.

Prodromou’s principal concern is clearly to defendnon-native speakers of English against prejudicialattitudes arising from the nature of their languageuse. This is wholly admirable, and it is a pity that hisknee-jerk reaction to my terminology leads him to seedisagreement in an area where, as it happens, we holdvery similar views. I have no sympathy with the kind ofvalue-judgement which bothers him, and which isoften nourished by perfectionist attitudes in languageteaching that I believe are seriously counter-productive. When teachers and examination systemsprioritize accuracy at all costs, in a deranged utopianattempt to make foreign learners virtuallyindistinguishable from native speakers, then theselearners are indeed made to feel that they are failures

300 ELT Journal Volume 63/3 July 2009; doi:10.1093/elt/ccp036ªª The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.

whose language is ‘riddled with errors’, ‘foreverdeviating from native-speaker norms’.Communicative revolution or not, there is still far toomuch of this about, and whatever the confusionsexhibited by discussions of ‘ELF’—which are oftenconsiderable—the current interest in lingua francause of English is doing a great deal of good byencouraging a more realistic view. Probably quitea small proportion of those who learn English needa close approximation to native-speaker accuracy; therest may well achieve their communicative aimsperfectly successfully even if they deviate from theless important native-speaker norms, dropping third-person -s, using articles in a non-standard way, or notusing the present perfect for the same range ofmeanings as native speakers would. So, if teachers,educational authorities, examiners, and others canbring themselves to fuss less about these things—upto a point at least—everybody will be better off.

It is important, however, to distinguish statementsabout language users from statements about thelanguage they use. Non-native speakers of a languagemay well be successful communicators, using theirpersonal variety of that language validly for their ownpurposes, and with no need to approximate native-speaker norms any more closely than they do. Thisdoes not, however, mean that linguists should bebarred from studying non-native varieties of Englishand analysing for their own purposes the ways,systematic and other, in which these differ frommother-tongue varieties. Whether such differences

should be called errors, deviations, or non-canonicalvariations depends on a number of factors. But noneof this implies that value judgements are being madeabout the speakers themselves. Even the words‘failed’ and ‘deficit’, to which Prodromou objects (andwhich I did not use), are employed quite non-judgementally in linguistics: for example bygenerative grammarians in relation to parametersetting in second language acquisition.

To see proficient non-native speakers/L2 users as‘agents who make use of the language in their ownterms’ is a perfectly valid stance. But it makes littlesense to extend this to the bizarre view that theirEnglish is therefore an independent variety whichowes nothing to mother-tongue English. ‘Swan’schoice of terms’, says Prodromou, ‘confirms theanglo-centric view he expresses elsewhere in hisreview that NNSs’ English ‘‘is directly or indirectlyderived from one of the several NS models’’’. But ofcourse it is. Where else does non-native speakers’English come from? Hungarian? Cantonese? Anunbroken line of non-native speakers stretching backto the Norman Conquest? As I suggested at the end ofmy review, confusion about terminology can lead usinto a more general failure to achieve a clear view ofthe issues we are discussing. It is sad that Prodromouhas fallen into precisely this trap.

Michael SwanDidcot, UK

Correspondence 301

elt journal july 2009

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