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Beyond the Language Classroom: A Study of
Communicative Abilities in Adult Immigrants
(9-29)
Following Intensive Instruction
185
Alison d'Anglejan, Gisèle Painchaud, and Claude Renaud
Pronunciation Revisited
207
(32-49)
Martha C. Pennington and Jack C. Richards
English for Specific Purposes: Content, Language,
227 ( 5 1 - 6 9 )
and Communication in a Pharmacy Course Model
Janet G. Graham and Robert S. Beardsley
Coherence and Academic Writing:
(72-89)
Some Definitions and Suggestions for Teaching
247
Ann M. Johns
The Meaning and Discourse Function of the
(91-110)
Past Tense in English
267
Elizabeth Riddle
Don’t Put Your Leg in Your Mouth: Transfer
in the Acquisition of Idioms in a Second Language
287 (111-128)
Suzanne Irujo
“Information Gap” Tasks: Do They
(129-149)
305
Facilitate Second Language Acquisition?
Catherine Doughty and Teresa Pica
REVIEWS
The Computer Book
327
Mohyeddin Abdulaziz, William Smalzer, and Helen Abdulaziz
Reviewed by Jack Kimball
Review of the State-of-the-Art of Educational Technologies
Implemented in Programs Serving LEP Students Funded by the
331
Department of Education
COMSIS Corporation
Reviewed by Richard E. LeMon
BRIEF REPORTS AND SUMMARIES
Recognition of Sentences by Native and Nonnative
335
Speakers of English: Probing the Role of Imagery
Patricia Dunkel, Shitala Mishra, and Alfred Stover
338
Dominant Administrative Styles of ESL Administrators
Alfred W. Reasor
The Effects of Modifying the Formality Level of
ESL Composition Questions 343
Keiko Hirokawa and John Swales
THE FORUM
Women Students in Our Institutions: A Response to the
U.N. Decade for Women (1976-1985)
347
Linda A. Moody
Comments on Bernard A. Mohan and Winnie Au-Yeung Lo’s
“Academic Writing and Chinese Students: Transfer and
Developmental Factors”
354
A Reader Reacts
Joan Gregg
Response to Gregg On Evidence for Cross-Cultural Rhetoric
Bernard A. Mohan
Information for Contributors 363
Editorial Policy
General Information for Authors
Publications Received 367
Publications Available from the TESOL Central Office 371
TESOL Membership Application 384
TESOL QUARTERLY
TESOL QUARTERLY
In This Issue
■ The articles in this issue of the TESOL Quarterly address a variety of
topics, including the effect of intensive language instruction on the
communicative ability of adult immigrants; specific issues in the teaching
of pronunciation, grammar, and academic writing; the role of first
language transfer in the acquisition of idioms in a second language; the
contribution of particular types of student-directed activities in shaping
classroom discourse; and the potential for a communication course based
on principles of English for specific purposes and content-area ESL
teaching to meet general and specialized English language learning needs.
Together, these articles reflect our fundamental commitment to base
changes in classroom instruction and program design on new perspectives
on the nature and uses of English, on a fuller understanding of second
language development, and on a more precise specification of the
language needs which learners face in studying, working, and living in
English-speaking communities.
In examining the ability of adult immigrants to communicate in an
interview situation as they were completing a 30-week, 900-hour
second language program and then 6 months later, Alison d’Anglejan,
Gisèle Painchaud, and Claude Renaud explore a number of important
issues in adult second language program development and policy.
Although the subjects in this study were learners of French as a second
language, the authors’ findings—including the progress of their
subjects during the intensive language program, the relationship
between the learning which took place in the program and continued
development during the posttraining period, and the effect of such
factors as high unemployment and limited social contact with native
speakers on language skills improvement—have challenging implications for the development of policy guidelines for all adult immigrant
language training in urban North American settings and elsewhere.
L
Arguing that “the view of pronunciation embodied in traditional
approaches to language teaching trivializes its true nature” and that
“recent changes in perspective in TESL/TEFL methodology have
produced uncertainty about [its] role,” Martha Pennington and Jack
Richards review current perspectives on pronunciation to show that it
must be seen “not only as part of the system for expressing referential
meaning, but also as an important part of the interfactional dynamics of
IN THIS ISSUE
181
the communication process,” involving “a complex interaction of
perceptual, articulatory, and interfactional factors.” Conceding that “in
the domain of pronunciation . . . there is not likely to be a one-to-one
relationship between teaching and learning,” the authors provide five
guiding principles for the teaching of pronunciation in the second
language classroom and offer an agenda for research which will help
determine more clearly the potential and limitations of classroom
instruction in this area.
●
Janet Graham and Robert Beardsley describe an experimental course
in communication which they designed for nonnative English-speaking
pharmacy students. The course was designed to combine principles of
content-area ESL and English for specific purposes, with an analytic
syllabus developed from a multidimensional needs analysis. Activities
were planned to “focus on skillful communication and increased
fluency rather than on formal correctness.” While evaluation of the
course, in which a total of 10 advanced students participated, revealed
a number of areas for improvement, the course was viewed overall
both by the students and the authors as quite successful. Graham and
Beardsley suggest that “similar courses could be designed for other
health preprofessionals and professionals,” as well as for specialists in
other occupations, and that the addition of content-area instruction to
an ESP course may be a productive response to the demand for
“relevant and effective” English language instruction.
●
Ann Johns explores the problem of teaching ESL students the concept
of coherence in academic writing. Her review of the literature points
out that this complex concept, which is often discussed in vague terms
with students, is both text based (involving the “ordering and
interlinking of propositions within a text by use of appropriate
information structure”) and reader based (requiring the writer to
consider the expectations and needs of the reader). The author outlines
a three-lesson revision unit incorporating a top-down approach to the
teaching of coherence: Student writers are led from global
considerations, including the reconstruction of the essay prompt and
the development of a discourse theme, to increasingly local, text-based
and reader-based concerns. The result, Johns suggests, is a learning
sequence which may help students produce the kind of coherent
writing which is particularly “realistic for the academic milieu,” but
certainly “appropriate for any writing task.”
●
Elizabeth Riddle argues that a major source of the problem which ESL
students have in learning to use the past tense correctly is an inadequate
understanding of its actual meaning and discourse functions. The
author proposes that “the best denotation of the simple past tense may
be simply ‘true before speech time in the real world or in the speaker’s
belief world’ ” and provides several examples to illustrate “the extent
to which a speaker’s point of view and purpose in performing a speech
act condition the choice between the present and past tenses.” The
article concludes with a description of a number of communicative and
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TESOL QUARTERLY
contextually based exercises which aim at “raising students’ awareness
of the past tense as it is actually used in discourse.”
●
Suzanne Irujo reports the results of a study of the acquisition of English
idioms by native speakers of Spanish. The study sought to determine
the role of transfer in the ability of learners to comprehend and
produce English idioms of three kinds: those for which there is an
identical equivalent (both in form and meaning) in Spanish; those for
which there is a similar, but not identical, Spanish equivalent; and those
from which the Spanish equivalent differs considerably. The study
found evidence of both positive and negative transfer—the latter
affecting in particular the ability of her subjects to produce similar
idioms. In addition, “there were some fairly clear cases of target
language strategies.” On the basis of her findings, the author offers
guidelines for deciding which idioms to teach and suggests activities
appropriate for developing students’ ability to comprehend and
produce English idioms.
●
Catherine Doughty and Teresa Pica report the findings of the most
recent in a series of studies conducted “to determine the effects of task
type and participation pattern on language classroom interaction.”
Noting that “efforts to teach second languages within a communicative
framework have led to certain methodologically motivated changes in
the classroom environment,” the authors compared the extent to which
teacher-fronted, small-group, and dyadic learning arrangements for
the completion of a required information exchange task generated the
kind of modified interaction thought to be crucial to successful second
language acquisition. In conjunction with findings from their earlier
research, the results of this study lead to the conclusion that both group
and pair work “must be carefully planned by the classroom teacher to
include a requirement for a two-way or multi-way exchange of
information.”
Also in this issue:
●
Reviews: Jack Kimball reviews Mohyeddin Abdulaziz, William
Smalzer, and Helen Abdulaziz’s The Computer Book, and Richard
LeMon reviews the COMSIS Corporation’s Review of the State-of-theArt of Educational Technologies Implemented in Programs Serving
LEP Students Funded by the Department of Education.
●
Brief Reports and Summaries: Patricia Dunkel, Shitala Mishra, and
Alfred Stover report the results of a study of the role of imagery in
native and nonnative speakers’ memory for sentences; Alfred Reasor
summarizes the results of his study of dominant administrative styles of
ESL administrators; and Keiko Hirokawa and John Swales describe the
findings of research on the relationship between the formality of task
statements and selected features of ESL writing ability.
●
The Forum: Linda Moody discusses the needs of women students in
ESL institutions in “Women Students in Our Institutions: A Response to
IN THIS ISSUE
183
the U.N. Decade for Women (1976-1985 ),” and Joan Gregg’s reaction
to Bernard Mohan and Winnie Au-Yeung Lo’s “Academic Writing and
Chinese Students: Transfer and Developmental Factors” is followed
by Mohan’s response, “On Evidence for Cross-Cultural Rhetoric.”
Stephen J. Gaies
184
TESOL QUARTERLY
TESOL QUARTERLY, VoL 20, No. 2, June 1986
Beyond the Language Classroom:
A Study of Communicative
Abilities in Adult Immigrants
Following Intensive Instruction
ALISON d'ANGLEJAN and GISELE PAINCHAUD
University of Montreal
CLAUDE RENAUD
Douglas Hospital Research Centre, Montreal
The study reported in this article examined the ability of adult
immigrants to communicate in an interview situation as they were
completing a 30-week, 900-hour second language program and
then 6 months later. Foreign Service Institute (FSI)-type
interviews were carried out with two cohorts of learners of
varying levels of ability. The first cohort was comprised of
immigrants from Southeast Asia; the second included Poles and
Latin Americans. Multivariate statistical comparisons of the FSI
levels at the time of the first and second interviews showed
significant gains for both cohorts. However, the two cohorts
differed on the subtests which contributed to those gains. Progress
by Cohort 1 was mainly attributable to vocabulary gains, while
gains in vocabulary, grammar, and comprehension contributed
significantly to the progress made by Cohort 2. Descriptive
analyses of results for subjects who progressed, regressed, or
remained stable over the 6-month period showed a greater
tendency to progress among lower level subjects than among more
advanced subjects.
The acquisition of a new language is undoubtedly one of the
major hurdles which the adult immigrant must face in adapting to a
new society. A study carried out in Canada by Mastai (1979)
showed that while finding suitable employment ranked as the most
critical task confronting the newcomer, success in doing so was
largely contingent upon second language skills. The ability of the
adult immigrant to adapt to a new environment is thus conditioned
by both employment opportunities and opportunities to learn the
185
language of the workplace. This article explores the communicative
skills of two groups of adult immigrants as they completed a period
of intensive language training and then 6 months later.
In Quebec, the province in which the study was carried out,
immigrants are offered particularly generous conditions in which “to
acquire French—the province’s sole official language and the
principal language in the workplace. Under joint funding
agreements between the province and the federal government of
Canada, special intensive French as a second language courses for
immigrants are offered in Centres d’orientation et de formation des
immigrants (COFIS). Immigrants receive a small stipend while they
attend 900-hour courses (6 hours per day for 30 weeks) designed to
provide the necessary language skills to enable them to enter the
work force.
A wide range of instructional approaches and methods are used
within the COFI classrooms. Although the European structural
approaches are still in widespread use, the most typical classroom
tends to be eclectic, combining highly form-focused instruction
with more functional approaches such as simulated real-life tasks.
For the teaching of structures, teachers rely on commercially
available methods—for example, De Vive Voix (Moget & Neveu,
1975), Dialogue Canada (1974), Le Français International (Calvé,
Germain, LeBlanc, & Rondeau, 1973)—as there is no prescribed
curriculum. More flexibility is shown for the portion of classroom
time incorporating content areas generally considered to be
functional skills. Emphasis is placed almost exclusively on the
spoken language and on the development of language skills per se,
with some attention being given to consumer economics, health,
community resources, employment-seeking skills, and so on.
Since the students entering the COFIS vary greatly in terms of
their age, prior schooling, nationality, and occupation, predictably,
there is considerable variation in their competence in French upon
completion of the COFI program. After 30 weeks of study, some
15% to 20% of the learners—the figures vary considerably according
to the characteristics of the learner group—still experience
considerable difficulty in communicating in French.
An in-depth study of the relationship between learner characteristics and achievement in the COFIS (d’Anglejan, Renaud, Arseneault, & Lortie, 1981) showed that lower levels of schooling and of
nonverbal reasoning ability, greater age, and greater classroom
anxiety levels tended to be associated with learning difficulties.
These difficulties were exacerbated by the fact that few learners
had the degree of social or occupational contact with native
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speakers which would enhance language learning outside the
classroom.
Studies carried out in Europe (e.g., Klein& Dittmar, 1979; Meisel,
1980; Perdue, 1982), in the United States (e.g., Schumann, 1976a,
1976b), and in Africa (e.g., Obanya, 1976), to cite only a few, have
shown the importance of naturalistic language learning through
social interaction, particularly in the case of learners with little
formal education (d’Anglejan et al., 1981). Learners who cannot
draw on advanced literacy skills to further their knowledge of a
new language are greatly dependent on social interaction and the
availability of enlightened classroom instruction.
Our present understanding of the process by which adult
immigrants attain adequate language skills to achieve professional
mobility is still fragmentary. However, it would appear that both
adequate instruction in formal learning situations plus opportunities
for interaction with well-disposed native speakers in social or
workplace environments are necessary to ensure that immigrant
learners will progress beyond a minimal knowledge of the target
language toward more advanced levels necessary for securing
satisfactory employment.
The study described below was designed to explore aspects of
the communicative skills of immigrants upon completion of the 900hour COFI program and to reassess these skills 6 months later. More
specifically, the study had the following aims: (a) to identify the
level of functional competence in spoken French of two cohorts of
immigrant learners upon completion of the 30-week COFI
program; (b) to determine whether, after a 6-month period
following the cessation of instruction, the exit level of French had
remained stable, progressed, or regressed; and (c) to compare the
communicative ability of the two cohorts of learners with respect to
the five performance criteria which constitute the Foreign Service
Institute Oral Interview Check List of Performance Factors (Jones,
1979). Our data thus address practical issues such as the impact of
the intensive French as a second language (FSL) program, as well as
more theoretical issues concerning the stability of selected aspects
of classroom-acquired language proficiency and the potential
contribution of informal learning environments.
METHOD
Data Elicitation: The Foreign Service Institute Interview
Since our aim was to describe the oral proficiency of our subjects
in functional rather than formal terms, we chose as our data-eliciting
technique the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) interview (Jones,
COMMUNICATIVE ABILITIES OF ADULT IMMIGRANTS
187
1979). The use of this oral interview makes it possible to identify a
subject’s level of oral proficiency on a scale ranging from 0 to 5. The
scale actually captures finer distinctions through the use of midpoints, that is, 0, 1, 1+, 2, 2+, 3, and so on. While the scale provides
a global measure of spoken language, the subjective evaluations are
based on five weighted constituents of proficiency: accent,
grammar, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension.1 Studies by
Bachman and Palmer (1981) and by Clark (1978) have shown that
the technique has external and internal validity.
While it can be argued (see Olynyk, d’Anglejan, & Sankoff, 1985)
that the unplanned speech context which characterizes the oral
interview may give rise to the most hesitant type of interlanguage
speech, we felt that the interview situation is quite representative of
the types of demands placed on immigrants when seeking
employment or social services. A study by Hinofotis et al. (1982)
showed that the subjective ratings elicited by an FSI-type interview
did, in fact, reflect underlying development patterns in the use of
English morphology as established by statistical counts.
Interview Content and Procedures
Several ethnic organizations were contacted to establish the
appropriateness of the topics to be discussed in the interviews, since
subjects were from varied cultural backgrounds. It was agreed that
the first interview, to be conducted as subjects entered their final 2
weeks of language training, would focus on the following themes:
demographic information (e.g., age, schooling, occupation in the
country of origin) and sociolinguistic information (e. g., languages
spoken, opportunities for the use of French in the home and in the
community, contact with the media). Subjects would then be
invited to discuss such topics as their arrival in Montreal, housing,
the type of employment they hoped to find, social contacts, and the
preparation of regional dishes. Special attention was to be given to
any other topic which might be introduced spontaneously by the
subject.
The second interview, to be held 6 months after the first, would
serve to describe the characteristics of the main social and
occupational environment in which subjects had spent their time
since leaving the language center. In addition, topics such as leisure
1 A description of the scoring procedure based on Jones (1979) can be found in the Appendix.
Since our analyses are based on this version of the test, we will continue to use the term FSI
interview, although the term Interagency Language Roundtable has since been adopted.
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time, children’s schooling, and the outlook for the future would be
introduced.
Interviews were conducted in the language centers. The second
interview took place after working hours for those who were
unavailable during the day. All subjects received a $10 fee to cover
transportation costs. Interviews were tape-recorded on a Uher 4000
and averaged about 30 minutes in length, although some were
shorter owing to subjects’ limited ability to communicate.
Two university-educated francophone females conducted the
interviews. Considerable pretesting was done to establish appropriate procedures. The tape-recorded, randomly ordered interviews were rated by two experienced FSI teachers who underwent
prior training in the FSI interview technique. Interrater reliability
coefficients (Spearman rho) reached .826 for the first interview and
.825 for the second (p < .001); t tests carried out on the mean scores
for the two evaluators revealed no significant differences.
Subjects
When we began our research, the student population in the COFI
consisted mainly of immigrants from Southeast Asia, including a
large proportion of political refugees. We decided to focus initially
on these Southeast Asian learners (Cohort 1). The second group
(Cohort 2), tested some 18 months later, was comprised mainly of
Polish and Latin American immigrants. All subjects had undergone
at least 26 weeks of language training and were volunteers. The
principal demographic characteristics of the two cohorts are shown
in Table 1 (for a more detailed account of our demographic data,
see Painchaud, d’Anglejan, & Renaud, 1985).
TABLE 1
Demographic Characteristics of Cohorts 1 and 2
COMMUNICATIVE ABILITIES OF ADULT IMMIGRANTS
189
Subjects’ pretraining placement levels reflected assessments made
by COFI personnel on the basis of learners’ level of education,
language background, prior knowledge of French, and so on.
However, we were unable to respect these sampling specifications
for several reasons.
In a number of cases, subjects who had agreed to participate
when the proposed research was explained to them by interpreters
later declined to be interviewed or simply failed to keep
appointments. Moreover, when the second interviews took place,
some of the original cohort could not be traced or were unwilling to
be interviewed.
Thus, in spite of our efforts to explain that the research team was
university based, that the results of the interviews were in no way to
serve as a verification of the subjects’ language competence as
individuals, and that the usual guarantees of anonymity would be
given, the interviews were clearly perceived as threatening by some
individuals. Difficulties such as these are fully predictable and in
our opinion must be viewed as inherent to any research carried out
in similar settings. However, these limitations place obvious
constraints on the inferences which can be drawn from our data.
Of the 113 subjects who participated in the first interview, 82
were able to be traced 6 months later and agreed to the second
interview. Of these, 36 belonged to the first cohort and 46 to the
second. 2 As can be seen in Table 3, rapid learners were overrepresented in Cohort 1, while Cohort 2 included a disproportionate
number of average learners. The low number of slow learners in
both groups can be explained by the fact that in spite of having
undergone 850 to 900 hours of FSL instruction, many lacked the
second language skills necessary to participate in the interview and
may have felt particularly threatened by the research.
A Mann-Whitney test on the results of the first interview revealed
a significant difference between the global mean scores for the two
cohorts (z = 3.23; p < .001). Global evaluations for Cohort 2 were
significantly higher than those for Cohort 1.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The results of the two interviews for the two cohorts are
presented in Table 2. At the time of the first interview, subjects
belonging to Cohort 1 were rated in almost equal proportions to be
at Levels 1 and 2 of the FSI scale. In functional terms, these data
suggest that following 30 weeks of language training, 50% of these
2 Although
all 46 subjects in the second cohort were interviewed twice, FSI interview scores
are available for 45 subjects only; the recording for 1 subject was inaudible.
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subjects—those whose ratings placed them at Level 2—had
acquired the minimal knowledge of French necessary for limited
functions in a workplace setting. The other 50%—those rated Level
l—had a knowledge of French barely adequate to fulfill their
personal needs. According to FSI criteria, this level is not
considered adequate for the workplace.
The pattern of results for Cohort 2 is more diversified than that
for Cohort 1. At the first interview, 20% of the subjects were rated at
Level 1, while the majority (64.4%) were at Level 2. Some 15.6% of
TABLE 2
Distribution of Subjects According to Change in
FM Levels Between Interviews 1 and 2
COMMUNICATIVE ABILITIES OF ADULT IMMIGRANTS
191
the group of learners had reached Level 3—a level considered
adequate to participate “in most formal and informal conversations
on practical, social and professional topics.”
The aim of the second series of interviews and evaluations was to
specify the level of subjects’ functional knowledge of French
following a 6-month interval. Data for Cohort 1, shown in Table 2,
reveal that the vast majority of subjects still ranged across Levels 1
and 2, with 1 subject at Level 3. However, it is interesting to note
that the percentage of subjects at Level 1 or 1+ declined from 50%
to 22.2% whereas the percentage at Level 2 and above increased
from 50% to 77.8%. The global mean (the sum of the weighted ratings
for the five FSI subscales) also increased significantly: Interview 1,
M = 43.00; Interview 2, M = 46.38; t (35) = 3.61; p <.001. A similar
pattern of results was found for Cohort 2 with a significant increase
in global ratings: M = 51.30 to M = 54.97; t (44) = 6.04; p <.001.
Between-group comparisons reveal significantly higher ratings for
Cohort 2 than for Cohort 1 with respect to global ratings (z = 3.51;
p < .001) and FSI levels (z = 3.18; p < .001). To summarize, results
for both cohorts improved significantly over the 6-month period,
with a slightly greater increase noted for Cohort 2 than for Cohort
1. These results are not surprising, given initial differences between
the groups in terms of their demographic characteristics.
We next focused more closely on the nature and direction of the
changes which took place over the 6-month period. We divided our
subjects into three groups: Category A, those whose functional
competence in French increased between the two interviews;
Category B, those who showed no change; and Category C, those
whose competence actually declined.
An examination of the data for Cohort 1 (see Table 3) shows that
42% of the subjects progressed during the 6-month period, whereas
nearly 53% showed no change and 5% actually regressed. Of the 9
subjects classed as potentially slow learners, 5 (55.5%) progressed
during the postinstruction period. Among the 10 learners classified
as average, 3 (30%) registered progress, while 7 of the 17 fast learners
(41.2%) progressed.
Data for Cohort 2 show similar patterns: 40% of subjects
progressed, 58% remained at the same level, and only 1 subject (2%)
regressed. A statistical comparison of the two groups with respect to
Categories A, B, and C showed no significant difference (z = .03; p,
n.s.). As can be seen from the chi-square figures in Table 3, the
initial placement groupings established by COFI personnel were
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TESOL QUARTERLY
not highly predictive of progress made by the two groups during
the period following language training.
In a further analysis we examined the degree of change during the
postinstruction period in relation to subjects’ ratings at the end of
language training. These data, shown in Table 3, suggest that it is
relatively easy for subjects to progress from Level 1+ to Level 2;
however, the fact that subjects attain Level 2 is not an assurance that
their learning has stabilized. Two subjects who had attained Level
2+ by the end of their training were found to have regressed 6
months later. Progress from 2+ to 3 appears difficult to achieve
(only 5 subjects made that transition), and the highest levels of
TABLE 3
Distribution of Subjects According to Initial COFI Placement
Groupings and Degree of Progress During Posttraining Period
stability—neither progress nor regression—are to be found at Levels
2 and 2+. Changes over the 6-month period were mainly confined
to increases or decreases in half levels, for example, 1+ to 2, with
improvement occurring most frequently among students at the
lower ability levels.
Subjects’ Occupational Status
The second interview provided us with data concerning subjects’
employment experience during the 6-month postinstruction period.
Given the potential importance of opportunities to use French in the
workplace in the development of functional language skills, this
information was tabulated and is presented in Table 4. The most
striking finding is that whereas only 6 members of Cohort 1 had
found no employment whatsoever during the 6-month period, the
figure for Cohort 2 was 24, a reflection of the severe economic
recession which prevailed at that later time.
Given the wide range of between-subject and between-group
variability in terms of background characteristics and employment
experience, no systematic attempt was made to draw inferences
TABLE 4
Distribution of Subjects According to Their Employment
Status During the Posttraining Period
Note: Some percentages total to slightly less than 100 due to rounding. Category A =
subjects whose competence in French increased between the two interviews;
Category B = subjects who showed no change; Category C = subjects whose
competence actually declined.
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about the possible effect of workplace experience on subjects’
functional competence at the time of the second interview. The vast
majority of those subjects who did find jobs were employed in
factory or business settings as skilled or unskilled laborers. Many
were reticent to discuss the extent to which they used their mother
tongue during work hours; most reported only rare opportunities to
use French with fellow workers or in social settings. (For a more
extensive set of data covering subjects’ language-related activities
during the posttraining period, see Painchaud et al., 1985.)
Examination of the FSI Subtests
Since the previous analyses indicated that subiects as a whole
performed significantly bitter on the second interview than on the
first, we decided to look at the changes which had occurred in the
five subtests which made up the FSI interview scores: accent,
grammar, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension. There was
every reason to believe that there might be considerable overlapping among the five FSI subtests, and we also wanted to identify
as unambiguously as possible the locus of the variance in
performance between the two evaluations. Therefore, we adopted
an exploratory multivariate statistical approach. Table 5 presents
the results of the multivariate comparisons of the means for the five
tests (Hotelling’s T2 for paired samples).
TABLE 5
Means and Standard Deviations for the FSI Subtest Scores
COMMUNICATIVE ABILITIES OF ADULT IMMIGRANTS
195
For both cohorts, the results showed a significant difference
between the sets of ratings for Interviews 1 and 2 (F= 3.01 and
6.78; p <.03 and <.01, respectively). The discriminant function
coefficients indicate the contribution of each subtest to the
between-test variance. For Cohort 1, the vocabulary subtest
accounted for the greatest amount of variance between the two sets
of interviews, whereas for Cohort 2 the difference was accounted
for by the comprehension, vocabulary, and grammar subtests. The
contribution of the other subtests was in each case marginal.
We next performed a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA 2 x 2) with repeated measures on the variable of interview.
The results (see Table 6) showed a significant between-group effect
for the subtests from the two interviews: F (5,75) = 9.68, p <.001.
The discriminant function coefficients shown in Table 7 indicate
that the subtests of vocabulary, comprehension, and accent
contributed significantly to the between-group variance. In
addition, the MANOVA revealed a significant within-subject main
effect for the variable of interview: F (5,75) = 8.94, p <.001.
Subjects as a whole were rated significantly higher on the Interview
2 subtests than on the Interview 1 subtests. Finally, the Interview x
Cohort interaction was not significant, indicating that the increment
in scores between the first and second evaluations was equivalent
for the two cohorts.
To summarize the results of the multivariate statistical analyses,
subjects as a whole were rated significantly higher for Interview 2
than for Interview 1 with respect to the set of five FSI subtests. The
vocabulary subtest made the greatest contribution to this growth
effect. However, the cohorts performed differently with respect to
this increment. For Cohort 1, comprised of Southeast Asian
learners, improvement was restricted almost exclusively to the area
of vocabulary; Cohort 2 progressed in comprehension, vocabulary,
and grammar. Moreover, Cohort 2 performed significantly better
than Cohort 1 on the vocabulary, comprehension, and accent
subtests. Finally, the groups did not differ significantly in terms of
their overall improvement between the two interviews.
According to Higgs and Clifford (1981), Level 2 of the FSI scale
constitutes for many learners a “terminal” level of performance
beyond which progress is difficult. Once basic communicative
needs have been met, incorrect grammatical forms tend to fossilize,
even in the case of highly motivated, well-educated individuals.
Our data provide some confirmation of this hypothesis: While both
cohorts registered some progress during the posttraining period, for
the Southeast Asian group (Cohort 1), comprised of relatively less
196
TESOL QUARTERLY
TABLE 6
Multivariate Analysis of Variance on the Results
of the FSI Subtests for the Two Interviews
TABLE 7
Discriminant Function Analysis of the FSI Subtest Scores
educated but younger learners, the advance was limited to
vocabulary. Cohort 2’s improvement was attributable to comprehension, grammar, and vocabulary. However, for both groups, the
grammar subtests registered the lowest scores of the five FSI
subtests. Since the grammar scores are subject to a relatively heavy
weighting (the highest of the five subtests), they play an important
role in determining the FSI level.
The fact that our subjects had little opportunity to use their
language skills in the workplace or in social interactions makes it
impossible to assess the potential interaction between this factor
and formal training. As Spada (1985) points out, in the absence of
finely tuned language-contact assessment instruments and detailed
information regarding classroom teaching approaches, it is unlikely
that researchers will be able to unravel fully the complex interaction
COMMUNICATIVE ABILITIES OF ADULT IMMIGRANTS
197
between the intentional learning resulting from classroom language
training and the incidental learning which occurs through contact
with native speakers in occupational or social settings.
Some Observations From Transcribed Conversations
In a detailed qualitative analysis of the transcribed interviews with
two Level 1 subjects, we examined the devices used by subjects to
express temporal distinctions. It should be noted that the
morphology of the French verb system is highly inflected. Level 1
learners frequently omit, fail to mark, or incorrectly mark verbs for
tense and aspect. This is particularly true in extended discourse in
which subjects attempt to describe or explain personal experiences
or events removed in time and space. Subjects rely heavily on
calendrical reference and on adverbs such as avant (“before”),
après (“after”), and maintenant (“now”), often used emphatically in
opposition to each other to place events in time.
This can be seen in the following example, quite typical of Level
1 subjects, in which little support, or “scaffolding” (see Slobin,
1981), is provided by the interviewer, who seems unable to follow
what the learner is trying to say. The interviewer is inquiring about
the availability of Cambodian and Chinese newspapers in Montreal,
but the subject shifts the conversation to an entirely new topic
involving complex temporal relationships:
I: Est-ce qu’il y a des journaux . . . ?
S:
I:
S:
Examples such as this are frequent in our transcriptions. They
show that while temporal distinctions in some narratives can be
successfully established through the use of place names, calendrical references, or adverbs, the interlocutor must bring shared
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TESOL QUARTERLY
knowledge to the task of understanding. When meaning can be
inferred, as in the following example, the interlocutor is able to prop
up the narrative by providing ongoing confirmation of meaning in
the form of vocabulary, paraphrase, or other speech markers.
In our transcriptions, however, many narratives take place with
little scaffolding provided by the interlocutor, an indication that
when the conversation is taking place, the meaning is not
transparent at the phrase-by-phrase level, even if it can be inferred
later from transcripts. The fact that our well-disposed interviewers
had difficulty following such narratives is an indication of the
difficulties our immigrant subjects might expect to encounter in less
benign workplace or social settings.
CONCLUSIONS AND COMMENTS
The results of this study suggest a number of issues which are
discussed in relation to second language program development and
policy. The points to be raised concern levels of proficiency, the
contribution of formal instruction to postinstructional learning, and
policy guidelines.
It is both disappointing yet challenging to discover that after 900
hours of formal instruction, the vast majority of subjects have
attained proficiency levels which can best be described as minimal.
They are not equipped with the language skills necessary to enter
into competition with native speakers in the job market—other than
in low-status jobs requiring little language. The advent of
computerized technology may make such jobs more scarce, and
those available may increasingly call for the ability to handle
computerized, printed information. In any event, there is evidence
that the inability to find appropriate employment on account of
inadequate language skills can be a source of considerable
dissatisfaction among immigrant workers such as those in our study.
The results of our study also give rise to some more positive
findings: Whatever learning did take place through extensive
instruction served as a foundation for continued development
COMMUNICATIVE ABILITIES OF ADULT IMMIGRANTS
199
during the posttraining period. It is significant that the lower level
subjects—those who appeared to derive the least benefit from
formal instruction—were subsequently able to make progress
through exposure in the course of routine social interactions. This
suggests that it might be appropriate to view intensive formal
instruction, such as that offered to our subjects, as a useful
preparation for later learning in naturalistic settings.
Our data show that as a result of the high levels of unemployment
which prevailed at the time the study was conducted, few subjects
were able to improve their language skills in the workplace;
furthermore, they had limited social contact with native speakers.
These facts have implications for the development of policy
guidelines for language training in urban North American settings.
In a recent policy statement, the TESL Canada Association (1982)
points out that language training programs for immigrants should
be viewed within a framework of continuing education, closely
linked with social and occupational development objectives. As a
follow-up to preemployment language programs, such as that
described in this article, we advocate the continuation of language
training in the workplace and the sharing of responsibility for this
training by the private sector.
The recent scarcity of employment opportunities leads us to
suggest the development of even more broadly based structures for
the enhancement of language learning by immigrants. These might
include vocational training centers, social services, and even a
permanent network of native-speaker voluntary associations
working in cooperation with language training institutions. The role
of these units would be to ensure that immigrants who are outside
the job market and who do not have adequate social contacts with
native speakers might be provided with other structured opportunities to gain the exposure to English so necessary to sustain their
language development.
At the same time, a long-term goal should be the encouragement
of literacy skills and sensitivity to the role which literacy plays in our
society. While the development of an appreciation and understanding of literacy may not have an immediate impact on the
employment prospects of the marginally literate immigrant, it may
have important, more diffuse implications for second language
learning and the acquisition of literacy by children in such families.
200
TESOL QUARTERLY
THE AUTHORS
Alison d’Anglejan is Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of
Montreal. She holds M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in psychology from McGill
University. Her published work includes articles on cognitive and social aspects of
language acquisition, language attitudes, and bilingualism.
Gisè1e Painchaud is Associate Professor of Education at the University of Montreal,
where she teaches in the Andragogy Department. She is conducting research and
has published in several areas, including adult second language acquisition, teacher
training, and self-directed learning.
Claude Renaud obtained his M.A. in psychology from the University of Quebec at
Montreal. He has published several papers on psychological aspects of second
language learning among immigrants to Quebec. He is now a Research Associate
at the Douglas Hospital Research Centre in Montreal.
REFERENCES
d'Anglejan, A., Renaud, C., Arseneault, R. H., & Lortie, A.M. (1981).
Difficultés d’apprentissage de la langue seconde chez l’immigrant adulte
en situation scolaire [Second language learning difficulties in adult
immigrants in a school situation]. Quebec: Centre international de
recherche sur le bilinguisme, University of Laval Press.
Bachman, L. F., & Palmer, A.S. (1981). The construct validation of the FSI
Oral Interview. Language Learning, 31, 67-86.
Calvé, P., Germain, C., LeBlanc, R., Rondeau, F. (1973). Le Français
international (2nd ed. ). Montreal: Centre Educatif et Culturel Inc.
Clark, J.L.D. (Ed.). (1978). Direct testing of speaking proficiency: Theory
and application. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service.
Dialogue Canada 1, Unités 1-15, Unités 16-30, Unités 31-45. (1974).
Ottawa: Commission de la Fonction publique du Canada.
Higgs, T. V., & Clifford, R. (1981). The push toward communication. In
T.V. Higgs (Ed.), Curriculum, competence, and the foreign language
teacher (pp. 57-79). Skokie, IL: National Textbook.
Hinofotis, F., Schumann, J., McGroarty, M., Erickson, M., Hudson, T.,
Kimbell, L., & Scott, M.L. (1982, May). Relating FOPT (FSI) scores to
grammatical analysis of the learner’s speech. Paper presented at the 16th
Annual TESOL Convention, Honolulu.
Jones, R.L. (1979). The oral interview of the Foreign Service Institute. In
B. Spolsky (Ed.), Advances in language testing (pp. 104-115). Arlington,
VA: Center for Applied Linguistics.
Klein, W., & Dittmar, N. (1979). Developing grammars: The acquisition of
German syntax by foreign workers. Berlin: Springer.
Mastai, J. (1979). Immigrant adult education: Tasks of adaptation. In
Proceedings of the twentieth annual Adult Education Research
Conference (pp. 94-99). Ann Arbor, MI: Adult Education Research
Conference.
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201
Meisel, J.M. (1980). Linguistic simplification. In S. Felix (Ed.), Second
language development: Trends and issues ( p p . 205-231). Tübingen:
Gunter Narr Verlag.
Moget, M.T., & Neveu, P. (1975). De vive voix. Paris: Didier.
Obanya, P. (1976). Second language learning out of school. ITL Review of
Applied Linguistics, 31, 15-26.
Olynyk, M., d'Anglejan, A., & Sankoff, D. (1985). A qualitative and
quantitative analysis of speech markers in the native second language
speech of bilingual. Manuscript submitted for publication.
Painchaud, G., d'Anglejan, A., & Renaud, C. (1985). Apprentissage du
français par des immigrants adultes au Québec [The learning of French
by adult immigrants to Quebec]. Quebec: Centre international de
recherche sur le bilinguisme.
Perdue, C. (1982). Second language acquisition by adult immigrants: A
field manual. Strasbourg: European Science Foundation.
Schumann, J.H. (1976a). Second language acquisition: The pidginization
hypothesis. Language Learning, 26, 391-408.
Schumann, J.H. (1976b). Social distance as a factor in SLA. Language
Learning, 26, 135-143.
Slobin, D.I. (1981). Reference to the not-here and not-now. P a p e r
presented at the Max Planck Institut, Nijmegen.
Spada, N. (1985). Some effects of the interaction between type of contact
and instruction on the L2 proficiencv of adult learner. Unpublished
manuscript, University of Michigan.
TESL Canada. (1982). The provision of ESL training to adults. Six
principles toward a national policy. TESL Canada Newsletter, 2, 2-12.
APPENDIX
Check List of Performance Factors
Foreign Service Institute
1. ACCENT
foreign
native
accurate
2. GRAMMAR
3. VOCABULARY
4. FLUENCY
5. COMPREHENSION
202
uneven
even
complete
TESOL QUARTERLY
Instructions for Use of Check List to Determine S-Ratings
1
2
3
4
5
6
(A)
Procedure: Place in Column (A) the credits to be given for each scale on
the Check List. For example: a check mark in position 3 on the “Accent”
scale is given a credit of 2. Add the credits to find the total score. The final
S-Rating is to be equated with the total by the following table.
If the total scores by different examiners yield different S-Ratings, an
average of the total scores should be used to determine the final ratings.
Accent
1. Pronunciation frequently unintelligible.
2. Frequent gross errors and a very heavy accent make understanding
difficult, require frequent repetition.
3. “Foreign accent” requires concentrated listening and mispronunciations lead to occasional misunderstanding and apparent errors in
grammar or vocabulary.
4. Marked “foreign accent” and occasional mispronunciations which do
not interfere with understanding.
5. No conspicuous mispronunciations, but would not be taken for a
native speaker.
6. Native pronunciation, with no trace of “foreign accent.”
COMMUNICATIVE ABILITIES OF ADULT IMMIGRANTS
203
Grammar
1. Grammar almost entirely inaccurate except in stock phrases.
2. Constant errors showing control of very few major patterns and
frequently preventing communication.
3. Frequent errors showing some major patterns uncontrolled and
causing occasional irritation and misunderstanding.
4. Occasional errors showing imperfect control of some patterns but no
weakness that causes misunderstanding.
5. Few errors, with no patterns of failure.
6. No more than two errors during the interview.
Vocabulary
1. Vocabulary inadequate for even the simplest conversation.
2. Vocabulary limited to basic personal and survival areas (time, food,
transportation, family, etc.).
3. Choice of words sometimes inaccurate: limitations of vocabulary
prevent discussion of some common professional and social topics.
4. Professional vocabulary adequate to discuss special interests; general
vocabulary permits discussion of any non-technical subject with some
circumlocutions.
5. Professional vocabulary broad and precise; general vocabulary
adequate to cope with complex practical problems and varied social
situations.
6. Vocabulary apparently as adequate and extensive as that of an
educated native speaker.
Fluency
Speech is so halting and fragmentary that conversation is virtually
impossible.
Speech is very slow and uneven except for short or routine sentences.
Speech is frequently hesitant and jerky; sentences may be left
uncompleted.
Speech is occasionally hesitant, with some unevenness caused by
rephrasing and groping for words.
Speech is effortless and smooth, but perceptibly non-native in speed
and evenness.
Speech on all professional and general topics as effortless and smooth
as a native speaker’s.
TESOL QUARTERLY
Comprehension
1. Understands too little for the simplest type of conversation.
2. Understands only slow, very simple speech on common social and
touristic topics; requires constant repetition and rephrasing.
3. Understands careful, somewhat simplified speech directed to him,
with considerable repetition and rephrasing.
4. Understands quite well normal educated speech directed to him, but
requires occasional repetition or rephrasing.
5. Understands everything in normal educated conversation except for
very colloquial or low-frequency items, or exceptionally rapid or
slurred speech.
6. Understands everything in both formal and colloquial speech, to be
expected of an educated native speaker.
COMMUNICATIVE ABILITIES OF ADULT IMMIGRANTS
205
TESOL QUARTERLY, Vol. 20, No. 2, June 1986
Pronunciation Revisited
MARTHA C. PENNINGTON and JACK C. RICHARDS
University of Hawaii at Manoa
In this reexamination of the status of pronunciation in language
teaching, the traditional phonemic-based view of pronunciation is
contrasted with a broader, discourse-based view comprising
segmental, voice-setting, and prosodic features. A description of
the nature and interaction of these three aspects of pronunciation
serves to raise issues which are then reviewed in a survey of
research on the acquisition of pronunciation. Central issues are the
influence of the first language, the acquisition processes operative
in L2 phonology, psychosocial and individual factors, and the role
of instruction. A broader focus on pronunciation in the context of
discourse is suggested as the emphasis of both second language
acquisition research and second language teaching. From this
perspective the effects of voice setting, stress and intonation, as
well as coarticulatory phenomena, assume greater importance for
teaching. Pronunciation should be taught as part of the means for
creating both referential and interfactional meaning, and not
merely as an aspect of the oral production of words and sentences.
While pronunciation has in the past occupied a central position in
theories of oral language proficiency, the view of pronunciation
embodied in traditional approaches to language teaching trivializes
its true nature. In older methods such as audiolingualism,
pronunciation has been largely identified with accurate production
of isolated sounds or words, and this view is reflected in more
contemporary methods such as the Silent Way. The Contrastive
Analysis Hypothesis (Lado, 1957) regards pronunciation as central
to second language proficiency, but it likewise largely restricts the
domain of pronunciation to the segmental level.
The goals of language teaching have changed under the impact of
communicative views of language and interactive theories of
language learning. Pronunciation, traditionally viewed as a
component of linguistic rather than communicative competence or
as an aspect of accuracy rather than of conversational fluency, has
come to be regarded as of limited importance in a communicatively
oriented curriculum. Comprehension-based approaches to teaching
207
such as the Total Physical Response and the Natural Approach deemphasize the need for accurate production in the early stages of
second language learning. In addition, the value of instruction in
pronunciation has been called into question by the limited success
reported for the direct teaching of this aspect of proficiency.
Recent changes in perspective in TESL/TEFL methodology
have produced uncertainty about the role of pronunciation. In view
of this uncertainty, there is a need to assess and clarify the current
status of the teaching of pronunciation. This article addresses that
need, first by presenting an overview of the nature of pronunciation
and its role in spoken language interaction and then by considering
issues in the learning of pronunciation and drawing implications for
language teaching.
THE COMPONENTS OF PRONUNCIATION
A number of dimensions of speech are included within the
description of pronunciation, or phonology. For most language
teachers, pronunciation is largely identified with the articulation of
individual sounds and, to a lesser extent, with the stress and
intonation patterns of the target language. This reflects the
traditional view that pronunciation is primarily associated with the
expression of referential meaning and that individual sounds, or
phonological segments, are the building blocks for higher level
meanings.
From the perspective of contemporary research in discourse
analysis (Brazil, Coulthard, & Johns, 1980), however, pronunciation
is seen not only as part of the system for expressing referential
meaning, but also as an important part of the interfactional dynamics
of the communication process. According to this view, it is artificial
to divorce pronunciation from communication and from other
aspects of language use, for sounds are a fundamental part of the
process by which we communicate and comprehend lexical,
grammatical, and sociolinguistic meaning. Pronunciation involves a
complex interaction of perceptual, articulatory, and interfactional
factors. In this article, that complex of factors is described in terms
of three types of features: segmental features, voice-setting features,
and prosodic features.
Segmental Features
Segmental features are minimal units of sound defined in
phonetic terms. Traditionally, the fundamental components of
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TESOL QUARTERLY
pronunciation are phonemes, and acquisition of the target language
phonological system is viewed as mastery of the phonemic
distinctions embodied in its phonological inventory and of the
phonetic variants of phonemes which occur in particular
environments within syllables and words.
Linguistic theory has shifted toward viewing sound segments in
terms of distinctive features (the underlying minimal components
comprising speech segments). There has been a parallel shift in
speech perception toward dynamic “top-down” approaches to
language processing (those which work from global to local
meaning) —rather than the static “bottom-up” model of perception
(those which work from local to global meaning) seen in earlier
models of speech processing (Dirven & Oakeshott-Taylor, 1984).
Nevertheless, language teaching has continued to adhere to the
traditional emphasis on phonemes as the principal units of
pronunciation. While phonemic and other types of features (e.g.,
aspiration) that function at the level of individual segments provide
a valuable basis for detailed analysis of languages, this kind of
micro-perspective on phonology needs to be complemented by a
macro-focus on voice-setting and prosodic features.
Voice-Setting Features
Whereas segmental features refer to specific phonetic characteristics of individual sound segments, voice-setting features refer to
general articulatory characteristics of stretches of speech. The
tendency of speakers of a particular language to adopt certain
habitual positions of articulation in connected speech, resulting in a
characteristic voice quality, can be described in terms of voicesetting features. Such features comprise what are sometimes
referred to as voice quality, voice quality settings (Esling & Wong,
1983), phonetic settings (Laver, 1980), or certain paralinguistic
features (Brown, 1977). Laver (1980) gives an example of such a
setting as
a quasi-permanent tendency to keep the lips in a rounded position
throughout speech. Another would be a habitual tendency to keep the
body of the tongue slightly retracted into the pharynx while speaking.
Another would be the persistent choice of a characteristically
“whispery” mode of phonation. Settings give a background, auditory
“colouring” running through sequences of shorter-term segmental
articulations. (p. 2)
Voice quality setting is the phenomenon which accounts for our
impressions of, for example, certain male Japanese and Arabic
PRONUNCIATION REVISITED
209
speakers as speaking their language (or English) with a hoarse- or
husky-sounding voice, or of female speakers from some cultures as
speaking with a high-pitched, “pinched” quality to their voices. This
phenomenon has also led some nonnative speakers of English to
observe that Americans appear to overuse their lips when speaking.
In learning to speak a language, mastery of a characteristic array of
voice-setting features appears to contribute substantially to a nativelike accent and possibly to overall intelligibility as well.
Prosodic Features and Related Coarticulatory Phenomena
The third dimension of pronunciation is stress and intonation, the
so-called prosodic, or suprasegmental, domain, together with the
related coarticulatory phenomena of the blending and overlapping
of sounds in fluent speech. Prosodic features involve the relative
levels of stress and pitch within syllables, words, phrases, and
longer stretches of speech. Coarticulation causes elisions, contractions, and assimilations of neighboring sounds in the stream of
speech under the influence of stress and intonation (Ladefoged,
1982, pp. 52-56, 98).
Stress refers to the degree of effort involved in the production of
individual syllables or combinations of syllables making up a word
or longer utterance. For longer utterances a combination of strong
and weak syllables comprises a rhythmic pattern. English, like any
language, is spoken with a distinct rhythmic pattern.
The ability to produce English with an English-like pattern of
stress and rhythm involves stress timing (the placement of stress
only on selected syllables), which in turn requires speakers to take
shortcuts in how they pronounce words. Natural-sounding
pronunciation in conversational English is achieved through blends
and omissions of sounds to accommodate its stress-timed rhythmic
pattern (Clark & Clark, 1977). Brown (1977) documents the
patterns of blends and omissions in conversational speech which
can result in change of consonant or vowel quality, loss of consonant
or vowel, or even loss of entire syllables. Examples of these
phenomena are given below.
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TESOL QUARTERLY
Stress and intonation interact with other phonological features
and with choices made about the meaning or information conveyed
in an utterance. According to Brown and Yule (1983a), stress and
intonation mark the “elements which the speaker [does or] does not
require the hearer to pay attention to” (p. 164). Syllables or words
which are articulated precisely are those high in information
content, while those which are weakened, shortened, or dropped
are predictable and can be guessed from context (Dirven &
Oakeshott-Taylor, 1984).
In every language, characteristic intonation contours carry both
referential and affective meaning (Ladefoged, 1982). In their
referential function, intonation contours provide an interpretation
for a sentence by indicating which part of the information is viewed
as new versus known, salient versus less salient, or topic versus
comment. Intonation and stress are highly context-dependent, so
that the patterns of stress and pitch that characterize isolated words
or phrases are typically modified when these words or phrases
occur in the context of longer utterances. For example, pitch level
tends to be reduced in later parts of a discourse as predictability of
information increases.
Thus, intonation is an essential component of the “prosodic
continuity” that makes connected stretches of speech—as opposed
to individually spoken words or syllables—coherent and interpretable by the listener. “To interfere with stress, timing, fundamental
frequency [and other aspects of prosodic continuity in discourse]
usually has more drastic consequences for comprehension than
removing the cues of a particular [phonological] segment” (Dirven
& Oakeshott-Taylor, 1984, p. 333).
Certain intonational features distinguish statements from
questions or indicate interest, doubt, certainty, and other aspects of
the speaker’s attitude toward the topic or the person spoken to.
Brazil et al. (1980) emphasize that intonation cannot be adequately
described except in relation to the interaction between speaker, and
hearer:
We see the description of intonation as one aspect of the description of
interaction and argue that intonation choices carry information about the
structure of the interaction, the relationship between and the discourse
function of individual utterances, the interfactional “given-ness” and
“newness” of information and the state of convergence and divergence
of the participants. (p. 11)
The point of view expressed by Brazil et al. can be extended to
PRONUNCIATION REVISITED
211
other features of pronunciation as well. Phonological features at
each of the levels described above carry a variety of interfactional
meanings. For example, a vowel or consonant may be pronounced
in a novel or unusual way to achieve a certain effect on the hearer,
as for example when an American lisps an s or pronounces the u in
tune, due, and soon in the British fashion as [yu]. Similarly, voicesetting features such as lip stretching, creaky voice, or low pitch,
when used in an interaction by an American female, may indicate
her actual or attempted dominance or may serve to mark her higher
social status relative to the person spoken to.
The view of pronunciation described above emphasizes that
pronunciation in a second language involves far more than the
correct articulation of individual sounds. Pronunciation is not
simply a surface performance phenomenon but is rather a dynamic
component of conversational fluency. When contrasts such as those
between accuracy and fluency are made, it is misleading to depict
pronunciation as belonging to the domain of the former rather than
the latter. The acquisition of the phonology of the second or foreign
language involves learning how to produce a wide range of
complex and subtle distinctions which relate sound to meaning at
several different levels. Articulatory, interfactional, and cognitive
processes are all equally involved.
THE LEARNING OF PRONUNCIATION
The preceding description of the constituents of pronunciation
provides a basis for considering how these constituents interact and
shape the processes of phonological development in a second or
foreign language. While phonology has not occupied as central a
position as syntax in second language acquisition research, some
important characteristics of the phonological learning process have
been isolated. These include the extent to which the second
language phonological system is influenced by the phonological
system of the first language, the role of universal acquisition
processes in the development of L2 phonology, psychosocial and
individual factors, and the context of language learning and use.
The Influence of the First Language
Language transfer has always been recognized as basic to any
theory of second language phonological development (Lado, 1957).
The notion of interlanguage acknowledges the role of language
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TESOL QUARTERLY
transfer (Selinker, 1972), and current views of the nature of
interlanguage consider the learner’s phonological representations as
constituting a system intermediate between the native language and
the target language (Flege 1980, 1981).
Other researchers argue that the phenomenon of transfer extends
beyond the level of individual phonemes to include syllable
structure (Hecht & Mulford, 1982; Johansson, 1973; Macken &
Ferguson, 1981; Tarone, 1980) as well as prosodic and voice-setting
features (Esling & Wong, 1983). Faerch, Haastrup, and Phillipson
(1984) report the transfer of the following mother tongue intonation
patterns in the speech of Danish learners of English:
1. A tendency to pitch the unstressed syllables higher than the preceding
stressed ones (the normal pattern in Copenhagen Danish), creating a
weaving or lilting impression.
2. Instead of full [intonational] glides (falls, rises, fall-rises), flattening
them out (as is the case in Danish) and consequently making them less
clearly marked. (p. 125)
Gumperz (1982), in his studies of cross-cultural interactions,
demonstrates that transfer of voice-setting and prosodic features of
the first language can lead to serious intercultural misunderstanding
in the target culture.
Acquisition Processes in L2 Phonology
Second language acquisition (SLA) research has confirmed that
many other processes interact with language transfer in shaping the
L2 (second language) phonological system. Some of these
acquisition processes are similar to those found in first language
phonological development and may be interpreted as a reactivation
of first language development strategies. For example, children
acquire voiceless consonants before voiced consonants (Macken &
Ferguson, 1981), and the same order of acquisition has been
observed in second language phonological development, even
when the learner’s native language possesses voiced final
consonants (Hecht & Mulford, 1982). Mulford and Hecht (1980)
stress the interrelation of transfer and universal developmental
processes in determining the particular range of persistent sound
substitutions that occur in the acquisition of second language
phonology.
The course of acquisition, both in terms of rate and order, has
been a focus of SLA studies, though most of these studies have
PRONUNCIATION REVISITED
213
addressed L2 syntactic rather than phonological development. In
first language learning, however, there has been a considerable
amount of research on the rate and order of L1 phonological
development (Macken & Ferguson, 1981), and L2 phonology needs
to be examined from a similar perspective.
Another phenomenon cited as a developmental process in first
and second language acquisition is simplification (e.g., of syllable
structure, as in Tarone, 1978, 1980; however, see Hodne, 1985, and
Sato, 1984). Large-scale simplification of the target language by
nonnative speakers has been seen as a kind of pidginization
(Ferguson, 1971; Schumann, 1978). For second language learning
the pidginization model predicts that a learner’s interlanguage
forms will either fossilize at some distance from the target or go
through a process of de-creolization to approximate the target
phonology over time (Andersen, 1983; Schumann, 1975, 1978).
The development of L2 phonology can be viewed as a dynamic
process involving cognitive, psychomotor, linguistic, and interactive factors. Markedness theory has been invoked to account for the
fact that certain phonological features are more difficult for second
language learners to acquire than other features (Eckman, 1977). It
has also been suggested that part of the problem of pronunciation is
psychomotor.
The development of phonological representations, or schemata,
for the target language (i.e., second language phonological
competence), through opportunities to hear and to speak the
language, appears to be a long-term cognitive process which may
not develop at the same rate as the corresponding motor skills
required for articulation (i. e., second language phonological
performance). As a consequence, perception and production may
not develop in parallel (Leather, 1983; Neufeld, 1977; Neufeld &
Schneiderman, 1980; Sheldon& Strange, 1982).
Other features of second language acquisition are similar to
processes found in the context of language change and variation. As
in the case of first language phonological change, in second
language learning a new item or rule is not acquired categorically:
Learners do not immediately begin to use a new phonological rule
or feature in all its contexts or in all its appropriate phonetic
variants. Rather, learners acquire variants of target language
features and gradually refine the range of contexts in which the
variants are used. At the same time, they add new features to their
repertoire, which at an earlier time they may have avoided
altogether (Celce-Murcia, 1977).
L. J. Dickerson (1975) shows that Japanese learners of English, in
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TESOL QUARTERLY
acquiring the phoneme /z/, produce a higher percentage of target
variants for the phonemes in initial than in medial or final positions.
As learning proceeds, they gradually produce more target variants
in medial and final positions.
W. B. Dickerson (1976), drawing on sociolinguistic variation
theory (e.g., Cedergren & Sankoff, 1974; Labov, 1972), describes
the process of acquiring new environments for target language rules
as a wave mechanism in which rules are learned in specific contexts
and then spread throughout the learner’s interlanguage. Through
this wave mechanism, phonological features learned in the context
of specific lexical items, phrases, or grammatical constructions may
be applied by analogy to additional items, phrases, and constructions.
Lacking from the SLA studies, however, has been a thorough
examination of interfactional effects in connected spoken discourse,
including the universal and language-specific mechanisms for
highlighting and de-emphasizing information, and how these affect
the acquisition and spread of new phonological features in
interlanguage development.
Psychosocial and Individual Factors
Pronunciation is a central component of face-to-face interaction
and is consequently part of the process by which speakers present
an image of themselves to others. The concepts of face-work
(Goffman, 1972) and language ego (Guiora, Beit-Hallahmi,
Brannon, Dull, & Scovel, 1972) may help to explain the fact that
phonological features are among the most salient linguistic
dimensions used by speakers to create a sense of personal identity.
Certain first language phonological features may be consciously
retained as markers of ethnic or group identity (Giles, Bourhis, &
Taylor, 1977), and so
caution should be exercised in regarding [phonological] intrusions
simply as instances of interlingual interferences, particularly in the cases
of second and third generations of immigrants, as they may often be
adopted by them deliberately as ethnic speech markers to establish a
distinctive linguistic identity. (Giles, 1979, p. 260)
Some learners, wishing to integrate actively into the target culture
and to be identified with its speakers, may be motivated to try to
attain a native accent in the foreign language. Others, in contrast,
may not have a strong integrative motivation toward the target
culture and so may consciously or unconsciously seek to maintain a
distinctive accent.
PRONUNCIATION REVISITED
215
The fact that pronunciation is intimately associated with a
person’s identity may also explain why considerable individual
variation is found in rates and ultimate levels of achievement in
phonology (Leather, 1983; Macken & Ferguson, 1981). Personality
variables such as introversion, extroversion, or sociability have been
suggested to explain differences among individuals in phonological
attainment (Busch, 1982). Individual language aptitude (e.g., the
ability to mimic sounds) has also been cited as a contributing factor.
Leather (1983) reports findings which support the view “that it is
individual perceptual ability which remains in principle the limiting
factor in developing second-language pronunciation” (p. 206).
The age factor remains an unresolved issue in language
acquisition research. Some studies have shown a biological
advantage for younger learners (Scovel, 1969; Seliger, Krashen, &
Ladefoged, 1975), while others have shown no such advantage
(Olson & Samuels, 1973; Snow & Hoefnagel-Höhle, 1977). Lowenthal and Bull (1984) suggest that these contradictory findings
reflect varying psychosocial conditions of the testing situations
under which data were gathered in the studies. Research findings
“suggest not a critical period of language development but, rather,
that the way in which language is processed can change throughout
the course of development” (Menyuk, 1978, p. 154). There is
evidence that retention of the native accent by adult second
language learners may be the result of the use of a speechprocessing strategy—based, perhaps, on motor speech perception
(Liberman, Cooper, Shankweiler, & Studdert-Kennedy, 1967)–
established in childhood (Menyuk, 1978; Menyuk & Anderson,
1969). However, adults do not necessarily lose the linguistic
capabilities which were present at earlier stages of development
(Leather, 1983), and “dormant” capabilities could possibly be
elicited in adults through “germane experience” (Menyuk, 1978, pp.
156-157).
The Context of Learning and Use
The context and conditions for learning and using the language
may also affect levels of attainment in phonology. The degree and
type of exposure to the second language in classroom and
naturalistic settings may in part determine eventual outcomes in
phonology.
Traditionally, explicit instruction in phonology (e.g., via minimal
pair drills) was thought to influence the student’s ability to articulate
new sounds and to improve the learner’s capacity for self216
TESOL QUARTERLY
monitoring (Acton, 1984; Morely, 1979). Currently, acquisition- or
communication-based methodologies do not assign a central role to
direct instruction in pronunciation, nor do many bilingual education
models, which set the goal as intelligibility rather than native-like
phonology. It is assumed in these models that target-like
pronunciation will eventually result from interaction with native
speakers in naturalistic settings and cannot be achieved through
formal instruction.
A number of research studies have investigated the effects of
instruction on the learning of pronunciation, but the results are
inconclusive. While Suter (1976) and Madden (1983) find no
positive effect for formal training on achievement in pronunciation,
two studies report positive effects for phonetic training of adults.
Murakawa (1981) shows that a 12-week program of phonetic
training can produce significant changes in the articulation of
individual phonemes by adult learners of English. Similar results are
reported by Pennington (1984) after six instructional sessions
incorporating training in both articulation and listening discrimination. Positive effects on production or perception are also reported
for training in prosodic features by Gilbert (1980), Neufeld and
Schneiderman (1980), de Bot (1983), and de Bot and Mailfert
(1982). Differences in results in the reported studies appear to be
due to the great variation in their experimental design, particularly
in the type of training which was provided.
Phonological performance in the target language is affected by
the communicative demands of the situation or task in which the
learner is engaged. Some aspects of L2 phonological learning can be
viewed from the perspective of information processing, which
describes the learning of any complex task or form of behavior as
the integration of a number of subskills. Initially, the use of these
subskills requires conscious attention, but as learning proceeds, they
become routinized and are performed without conscious attention,
through what is referred to as automatic processing (McLaughlin,
Rossman, & McLeod, 1983).
Under certain circumstances—for example, in a public presentation—performance conditions may inhibit access to automatic
processing. In such cases the learner may have to resort to the
domain of conscious processing and so plan and monitor speech
more closely. Thus, a learner’s phonological performance may
differ in the controlled and automatic modes of processing. In
particular, performance may suffer when it must be consciously
maintained under stressful conditions.
PRONUNCIATION REVISITED
217
IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING
The model of pronunciation as a context-dependent and dynamic
interaction of segmental, voice-setting, and prosodic features has a
number of implications for language teaching. This view leads to
the articulation of goals different from those set forth for traditional
approaches to the teaching of pronunciation.
Accuracy at the segmental level is no longer the fundamental aim
of teaching, since it is now known that accurate production of
segmental features does not in itself characterize native-like
pronunciation, nor is it the primary basis for intelligible speech:
In view of the fact that segmental information in the acoustic signal may
well be of limited scope and reliability, it is of the greatest importance
that the learner’s attention is directed to non-segmental information.
(Dirven & Oakeshott-Taylor, 1984, p. 333)
As the emphasis moves away from a narrow focus on segments to a
broader focus on stretches of speech, the effects of voice setting,
stress and intonation, as well as coarticulatory phenomena such as
shortenings, weakening, and assimilations, assume greater
importance for teaching.
This top-down perspective on pronunciation highlights the
overarching role of context in determining phonological choices at
all three levels—segmental, voice-setting, and prosodic features.
Teaching isolated forms of sounds and words fails to address the
fact that in communication, many aspects of pronunciation are
determined by the positioning of elements within long stretches of
speech, according to the information structure and the interfactional
context of the discourse as determined by speaker and hearer.
The research we have reviewed on the learning of pronunciation
also supports a different focus in teaching. Intervention by the
teacher may not be able to alter the learner’s path of development
in mastering second language phonology. Learning is a gradual
process involving successive approximations to the target language
system over time and a progression from controlled to automatic
processing.
In addition, the learner’s performance and competence may not
develop in synchrony; that is, lower level motor skills may develop
at a different rate from their higher level corresponding mental
representations. Immediate results from pronunciation training may
not be achieved if the learner has not reached an appropriate stage
in phonological development and so lacks the developmental
218
TESOL QUARTERLY
prerequisites for what is being taught. Such training may, however,
assist in the development of new articulatory habits and contribute
to the reorganization of higher level systems, or schemata, eventually resulting in a change in performance. For the same reason,
immediate improvements in pronunciation resulting from direct
training may take time to become a part of spontaneous language
use. In the domain of pronunciation, then, there is not likely to be a
one-to-one relationship between teaching and learning.
These conclusions support the following general recommendations regarding pronunciation and its place in second language
teaching:
1. The teaching of pronunciation must focus on longer term goals;
short-term objectives must be developed with reference to longterm goals.
2. The goal of any explicit training in pronunciation should be to
bring learners gradually from controlled, cognitively based
performance to automatic, skill-based performance.
3. Teaching should aim toward gradually reducing the amount of
native language influence on segmental, voice-setting, and
prosodic features but should not necessarily seek to eradicate
totally the influence of the native language on the speaker’s
pronunciation in the second language.
4. Pronunciation ought to be taught as an integral part of oral
language use, as part of the means for creating both referential
and interfactional meaning, not merely as an aspect of the oral
production of words and sentences.
5. Pronunciation forms a natural link to other aspects of language
use, such as listening, vocabulary, and grammar; ways of
highlighting this interdependence in teaching need to be explored.
DIRECTIONS FOR RESEARCH AND TEACHING
Clearly, there is a need for basic research into the nature,
learning, and teaching of pronunciation in a second or foreign
language. From the time of audiolingualism, a direct relation
between listening and pronunciation has been tacitly assumed,
though the small amount of research on this basic issue is
inconclusive (Leather, 1983). Whether there is a natural developmental sequence for the acquisition of second language phonology,
as has been posited for the development of grammar, remains to be
explored.
PRONUNCIATION REVISITED
219
Information of this kind would be relevant in determining the
content and sequence of instruction in the spoken language.
Detailed information on the nature and functions of voice quality
setting and on the use of phonological features in interaction is also
required as a basis for planning materials and instructional
strategies.
As is true for other areas of second language acquisition and
teaching, research in sociolinguistics and spoken discourse
analysis—of English and of other languages—is yielding important
results for phonology and the teaching of pronunciation. This line of
research, in helping to clarify the nature of human communication
and the linguistic means for achieving specific effects in interaction,
is providing a basis on which to develop materials and techniques
representing authentic phonological productions in real
communication.
In addition, work in sociolinguistics and social psychology on the
psychosocial processes involved in acquiring new phonological
systems should also be consulted. We can design more realistic and
effective approaches to teaching spoken language if we understand
the variety of social and psychological factors which play a role in
the acquisition of a new phonological system.
Finally, instrumental analysis (including computer-aided
analysis) of phonetic data from English and other languages is
providing more specific and detailed phonetic descriptions, thus
making it possible to represent and compare with increasing
precision the phonological features of languages. This type of data,
in combination with the interfactional data provided through
discourse analysis, provides essential baseline information needed
to make decisions about the content and nature of instruction in
second language pronunciation.
While a variety of suggestions have been made concerning the
teaching of pronunciation (Acton, 1984; Brown & Yule, 1983b;
Haycraft, 1971; MacCarthy, 1979; Parish, 1977; Stevick, 1978), too
little is known about specific instructional practices to assess their
overall contribution to L2 phonological development. There is some
evidence (as reviewed above) that training can produce positive
effects on pronunciation in a classroom setting in a relatively short
period of time. However, it is not clear whether such effects persist
over time and carry over to other situations.
Controlled studies of what might be achieved through pronunciation training in the context of information structure and interaction
(e.g., as advocated in Brown & Yule, 1983b, and Gilbert, 1984) or in
the context of real-life psychological and social concerns (e.g., as
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advocated in Acton, 1984) have not yet been undertaken. Such
studies would help us to determine whether these intuitively
appealing teaching programs are actually effective in improving the
pronunciation of second language learners, especially in adulthood.
In order to progress in the teaching of pronunciation, we must
have data which fully support claims made for the effectiveness of
specific instructional programs or procedures. In particular, the
kinds of information needed are (a) clear specifications of the
precise aspects of pronunciation being taught, (b) precise
descriptions of the instructional procedures used, and (c) valid
measures of the effects, positive or negative, of the procedures
used. Stricter attention to the question of research design is
necessary before the results of particular instructional programs and
teaching procedures can be evaluated. With more complete
information of this kind, it will be easier to determine not only the
relative value of teaching pronunciation as opposed to other aspects
of language proficiency but also the amount of attention which
should be paid to pronunciation within the context of a whole
language teaching program.
THE AUTHORS
Martha C. Pennington, Assistant Professor in ESL, is conducting research in second
language phonological acquisition and teaches courses in phonology, ESL
methods, and program administration.
Jack C. Richards, Professor of ESL, teaches courses in language curriculum
development, methodology, and materials design at the University of Hawaii,
where he also teaches in an ESL program. His research interests include listening
comprehension and conversational analysis. His most recent books are Approaches
and Methods in Language Teaching (with Ted Rodgers), published in 1986 by
Cambridge University Press, and the Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics
(with J. Platt and H. Weber), published in 1985.
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225
TESOL QUARTERLY, Vol. 20, No. 2, June 1986
English for Specific Purposes: Content,
Language, and Communication
in a Pharmacy Course Model
JANET G. GRAHAM
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
ROBERT S. BEARDSLEY
University of Maryland, Baltimore
After presenting an overview of content-area ESL and English for
specific purposes (ESP), this article describes an experimental
course in communication offered to nonnative English-speaking
pharmacy students at the University of Maryland and reports the
results of an evaluation of the course. A combination of contentarea ESL and ESP, the course, which met weekly for one
semester, was team-taught by a pharmacist specializing in
communication for pharmacists and an ESL specialist. Speech
functions deemed necessary for effective oral communication by
pharmacists in their professional settings were used as an
organizing principle for the syllabus, which also provided for
instruction in relevant linguistic structures, for instruction in
communication principles and techniques, and for much active
student participation. Although better evaluation measures are
needed, student evaluations and comparison of the results on preand posttests of the Speaking Proficiency English Assessment Kit
(Educational Testing Service, 1982a) suggest that the course was
effective.
The experimental communication course for pharmacy students
described in this article grew out of the concern of a number of
administrators and faculty members at the University of Maryland
School of Pharmacy that some of their nonnative English-speaking
graduates were professionally handicapped by a lack of communicative ability in English. While standards for admission to the
School of Pharmacy and the required level of English, as measured
by standardized objective tests and course grades, are high, it had
been observed that a number of graduates had difficulty finding
227
good positions due to their insufficient speaking proficiency. An
ESL specialist at a sister campus of the university was contacted,
and a course, Communication for Nonnative English-Speaking
Pharmacy Students, was conceived.
This course was envisioned as a combination of a content-area
ESL course and an English-for-specific-purposes (ESP) course.
Before the course itself is described, a brief overview of these two
types of instruction is presented.
Content-area ESL uses content (e.g., mathematics, art, science) to
provide the context for language instruction (Mohan, 1986). Ideally
two instructional objectives—content-area knowledge or skill and
increased language skill—are accomplished in one class (Chamot,
1983). Content-area ESL is called by various names, including
subject-related ESL (Allen & Howard, 1981), ESL through subject
matter teaching (Krashen, 1982), and content-based ESL (Chamot,
1984). Particularly at the elementary and secondary levels, this
approach combining ESL and content instruction has been the
subject of considerable attention in recent years (Allen & Howard,
1981; Cantieni & Tremblay, 1979; Chamot, 1983, 1984; Early, Thew,
& Wakefield, 1985; Mohan, 1986; Rodriguez, 1981; Tucker &
d’Anglejan, 1975).
Teaching content-area ESL does not mean submersing ESL
students in classes with native English speakers. Rather, special
classes are provided for ESL learners which take into account their
level of English proficiency and their communication needs
(Mohan, 1986). The classes are taught by teachers who make
“linguistic and cultural adjustments in order to help their students
understand” (Krashen, 1982, p. 167). For successful language
learning in content-area classes, it is necessary that students
comprehend the material and the teacher’s messages (either through
prior knowledge or strong contextual clues) and that teachers can
understand the students’ messages well enough to provide feedback
(Mohan, 1986).
Language learning (or acquisition, following the Krashen model)
in content-area ESL courses is stimulated by the rich context the
subject matter provides, by the inherent interest and relevance of
the content, and by the fact that the learners focus on messages and
not on language form (Krashen, 1982; Mohan, 1986). In this
approach “language ceases to be taught in isolation” (Mohan, 1986,
p. 18). While much remains to be learned about teaching contentarea ESL, the research into its practicability and effectiveness is
encouraging (Chamot, 1983).
English for specific purposes (also known as English for special
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TESOL QUARTERLY
purposes) is that area of English language teaching which focuses
on preparing learners “for chosen communicative environments”
(Mohan, 1986, p. 15). It differs from general English in that it is
based on a close analysis of the learner’s communicative needs for
a specific occupation or activity, as well as a detailed analysis of the
language of that occupation or activity (Strevens, 1980). Unlike in
general English courses, in an ESP course, English is taught “for a
clearly utilitarian purpose of which there is no doubt” (Mackay,
quoted in Robinson, 1980, p. 6), and it is taught “not as an end in
itself but as an essential means to a clearly definable goal” (Mackay,
1978, p. 28). In other words, the language in an ESP course is not the
subject matter but is being learned as part of the process of
acquiring some quite different body of knowledge or set of skills
(Robinson, 1980).
The element that gives ESP its “identity as a distinctive area of
language teaching activity is learner’s purpose,” a purpose that is
“not restricted to linguistic competence alone but that does involve
the mastery of language skills in which language forms an integral
part” (Phillips, 1981, p. 92). While often addressing the communicative needs of professionals such as physicians or engineers, ESP
also addresses the needs of nonprofessional workers (Crandall,
1984) and of special groups such as students (English for academic
purposes).
The following definition of an ESP course encompasses the
elements widely considered essential to ESP, plus indicating some
of the possible variations:
An ESP course is purposeful and is aimed at the successful performance
of occupational or educational roles. It is based on a rigorous analysis of
students’ needs and should be “tailor-made.” Any ESP course may differ
from another in its selection of skills, topics, situations and functions and
also language. It is likely to be of limited duration. Students are more
often adults but not necessarily so, and may be at any level of
competence in the language: beginner, post-beginner, intermediate, etc.
Students may take part in their ESP course before embarking on their
occupational or educational role, or they may combine their study of
English with performance of their role, or they may already be
competent in their occupation or discipline but may desire to perform
their role in English as well as in their first language. (Robinson, 1980,
pp. 13-14)
Content-area ESL and ESP share several of the same guiding
principles: for example, the importance of context; the importance
of attending primarily to meaning, not language form; and
consideration for the needs of the learner (Mohan, 1986). They
A PHARMACY COURSE MODEL OF ESP
229
employ many of the same methods based on communication and
meaning. However, in some ways the two types of instruction are
quite different, the most important differences stemming from their
respective objectives.
Content-area ESL aims to teach content and to improve overall
English proficiency, in addition to teaching particular language
skills required for understanding the content. Language learning is
achieved primarily through careful presentation of understandable
material (Chamot, 1984; Krashen, 1982). Even when the content
material is carefully organized to support language learning, as
recommended by Mohan (1986), the organization considers both
content and language. ESP, on the other hand, has the narrower
objective of preparing learners to function in very specific
environments. Thus, ESP courses are structured principally to
promote efficient and effective acquisition of particular language
and communicative skills.1
The experimental pharmacy course described in this article
combined various features of content-area ESL and ESP. Like
content-area ESL courses, the experimental course taught English
partly as a by-product of teaching some other content area, in this
case communication principles and techniques for pharmacists.
Offered as a three-credit elective for nonnative speakers, the
experimental course was to be taken after completion of the
communication course required of all pharmacy students, native
and nonnative English speakers alike. It offered further instruction
in communication principles and techniques, as well as skill
development in spoken English.
As an ESP course, the experimental communication course had as
its overriding objective more effective oral communication by the
learners in situations likely to be encountered by pharmacists in
their professional lives. Procedures for analyzing the students’ needs
and for designing the syllabus were influenced by the ESP literature
as well as by recent writing on functional/notional syllabuses and
communicative competence.
DESIGNING THE SYLLABUS
Because the needs of the learners are paramount in an ESP
course, one must analyze what the learners need to be able to do
before attempting to design the syllabus (Mackay, 1978; Munby,
1978; Richterich & Chancerel, 1980; Robinson, 1980; Schmidt,
1 See
Krashen (1982, pp. 169-170) for a discussion of the difference between ESL through
subject-matter teaching and ESP.
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TESOL QUARTERLY
1981). A needs analysis considers the needs expressed by the
learners themselves, by the teaching establishment, by the userinstitution, or by all three (Richterich & Chancerel, 1980). To
determine what skills would be needed for effective oral,
communication by pharmacists with their patients and with other
professionals, we relied on (a) the knowledge of the instructor of
the required communication course, a practicing pharmacist who
was to be one of the instructors of the course for ESL students, and
(b) information gleaned from materials (videotapes and books)
developed by pharmaceutical companies for the improvement of
the communication of pharmacists. We also considered the
extensive and valuable research done by Candlin, Bruton, Leather,
and Woods (1981) on the communication of physicians in
consultation with their patients. In addition, prospective students
were interviewed before the syllabus design began, and, as is
recommended by many writers on ESP (Robinson, 1980), a
questionnaire was administered to the students on the first day of
class.
In the design of the course, we chose an analytic approach, as
described by Yalden (1983), as opposed to a synthetic approach.
That is, our starting point was not a set of linguistic items to be
learned but rather linguistic and extralinguistic behaviors needed to
achieve the goal of communicative competence. We wanted our
syllabus to be based on meaning rather than on formal structure and
to emphasize language as an interpersonal behavior rather than as a
personal one. In analytic approaches, learners rely on their ability to
analyze, since there is no attempt to carefully control the language
in the classroom. Rather,
components of language are not seen as building blocks which have to
be progressively accumulated. Much greater variety of linguistic
structure is permitted from the beginning and the learner’s task is to
approximate his own linguistic behavior more and more closely to the
global language. (Wilkins, 1976, p. 2)
In designing the syllabus, we attempted to take into account three
components of language recognized by Wilkins (1976): the semantic
component (what to communicate), the functional component
(why we communicate), and the formal component (how w e
communicate). The following components of a communicative
syllabus (Yalden, 1983) were considered: (a) the purposes for which
the learners are studying the language, (b) the setting in which they
will be using it, (c) the role the learners will assume, as well as the
roles of their interlocutors, (d) the communicative events or
situations in which they will participate, (e) the language functions
A PHARMACY COURSE MODEL OF ESP
231
involved in these events, (f) the notions involved, (g) the discourse
and rhetorical skills involved, (h) the varieties and levels of
language the learners will need, (i) the grammatical content needed,
and (j) the lexical content needed.
Like others (Krashen, 1981; Yalden, 1983), we believe the most
effective learning takes place if the emphasis in the class is on
communicative competence rather than formal accuracy. Particularly with advanced learners, the emphasis should be, in Brumfit’s
(1982) words, on “fluency work” rather than on “accuracy work”
(p. 76). Therefore, we planned classroom activities that would focus
on skillful communication and increased fluency rather than on
formal correctness. However, we realize, as Brumfit does, that
communicative competence is aided by greater control over
grammatical form and a larger repertoire of lexical items from
which to choose. For this reason we decided to include some review
of relevant structures and to teach idioms which might be used in
the pharmacy or hospital.
THE STUDENTS
The class consisted of 10 students, 9 from the School of Pharmacy
and 1 from the School of Nursing. The latter was allowed to
participate because no other suitable English classes were available.
The pharmacy students had been identified by faculty as likely to
benefit from an ESL course. All were individually informed about
the course, and all elected to take it. The nursing student was
referred by an administrator at the School of Nursing. All students
were of Asian descent, and most had been in the United States for
several years.
Before the course began, the students were administered the
Educational Testing Service’s (1982a) Speaking Proficiency English
Assessment Kit (SPEAK) tests, the institutional version of the
Educational Testing Service’s (1982b) Test of Spoken English. The
SPEAK test audiocassettes were sent to the Educational Testing
Service for professional rating, and most of the students scored on
the high end of the scale on overall comprehensibility (M = 228; see
Table 1) in the range described by the Educational Testing Service
(1982b) as “generally comprehensible with some errors in
pronunciation, grammar, choice of vocabulary items, or with
pauses or occasional rephrasing” (p. 11). Four of the students tested
achieved overall comprehensibility scores of over 250, in the range
described by the Educational Testing Service (1982b) as
“completely comprehensible in normal speech, with occasional
232
TESOL QUARTERLY
grammatical or pronunciation errors in very colloquial phrases”
(p. 12).
Before sending the test cassettes to the Educational Testing
Service for rating, the ESL specialist listened to them to evaluate the
need of each prospective student for the class and also to see where
improvement was needed. Only 1 student was considered too
advanced for the class. (However, this student chose to participate
anyway and, as it turned out, showed significant improvement.) As
a whole, the greatest need seemed to be for increased fluency, a
need which was corroborated by the official Educational Testing
Service ratings.
The prospective students were also given the listening section of
Harris and Palmer’s (1970) Comprehensive English Language Test
(CELT). The mean score of the pharmacy students was 94.5%,
indicating a very high level of listening proficiency. (The nursing
student, who had been in the country a very short time, scored
much lower than all the pharmacy students.)
On the first day of class, the students were asked to fill out a
questionnaire asking them what they thought they needed most to
work on. As a group, the students, corroborating the results of the
SPEAK test, felt they most needed to increase their fluency. The
area that was ranked as the second greatest area of need was
writing, and the third was vocabulary. (To satisfy the desire of
many of the students for writing instruction, two required writing
assignments were given on pharmacy-related topics, as well as a
number of optional writing assignments.)
DESCRIPTION OF THE COURSE
The course was structured around a number of speech functions
considered necessary for effective oral communication by
pharmacists in their professional settings (see Appendix A). In
selecting the speech functions, we relied heavily on the work done
by Candlin et al. (1981) on the language of physicians in clinical
practice.
During the course, each function was first illustrated, either by
using professionally videotaped dialogues prepared by pharmaceutical companies or by live demonstration by the instructors.
Following the illustration, practice in recognizing the function was
given. Next, lists of expressions for performing the function were
discussed, and additional expressions were elicited from the
students’ existing knowledge (see Appendix B for an example of a
list of expressions for a function). At the same time, extralinguistic
A PHARMACY COURSE MODEL OF ESP
233
behaviors suitable for performing the function were considered.
When necessary, analysis and practice of the grammatical forms
were provided. The appropriateness of various behaviors, both
linguistic and extralinguistic, was always considered. Finally, roleplaying activities incorporating the function under study were
performed, followed by analysis of the role-playing (see Appendix
C for role-play situations for practicing the directing function).
Role-playing was fundamental to the course because our
pharmacy students, like other ESP students (Robinson, 1980), were
studying primarily in order to perform roles. The role plays were
designed to familiarize the students with the kinds of situations they
might face as practicing professionals. In addition, role-playing was
employed because it is believed to be an effective technique for
developing communicative competence (Krashen & Terrell, 1983;
Mockridge-Fong, 1979; Rivers & Temperley, 1978). By creating
dramatic situations in the classroom, teachers can, in Newmark’s
words, “expand the classroom indefinitely and provide imaginatively natural contexts for the language being used” (cited in
Mockridge-Fong, 1979, p. 96).
We found that role-playing also contributed in ways mentioned
by Donahue and Parsons (1982): It served as a vehicle for learning
the appropriateness of certain linguistic and extralinguistic
behaviors in various situations; it provided “sensitizing situations”
for developing an understanding of American culture and of roles
within American culture; and it gave the students an opportunity to
compare their reactions to the problems and solutions presented in
the role plays to those of their classmates. In addition, the role plays
elicited from the pharmacist-instructor much information about
pharmacy and pharmacy practice which was of considerable value
to the students.
While role-playing continued throughout the course (see
Appendix D for some additional role-playing situations), procedures were changed in response to student suggestions. In the
beginning, students were given situations to role-play in front of the
rest of the class, and then their performance was reviewed, as
tactfully as possible. About midway through the course, students
complained that watching other students was not useful; from then
on, the instructors would role-play before the students did and then
solicit criticisms from the class. This achieved two results: (a) A
generally positive model was presented, and (b) because the
instructors criticized their own performance and solicited criticisms
from the students, the latter realized that the aim of the activity was
not perfection but practice and an increase in awareness.
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TESOL QUARTERLY
Toward the end of the course, role plays were videotaped and
then played back and reviewed. Students seemed to feel that a
better result could be achieved by videotaping in private and
reviewing in public. Although several students complained that they
were too self-conscious to do well at role-playing in front of the
class (and at the beginning there was a considerable amount of
clowning), in their final evaluations they rated role-playing quite
highly (see Table 2).
In hopes of increasing the students’ repertoires of appropriate
expressions, which in turn would lead to increased fluency,
structured work on idioms was included in the course. The work on
idioms was also intended to improve their comprehension of
colloquial speech, a need expressed by a number of students in the
class. Only idioms which the instructors thought might be used in
professional settings were studied, and students were asked to
incorporate the idioms in dialogues which they themselves wrote
(see Appendix E). Colloquial terms for parts of the body (e.g., belly
for abdomen) and for bodily functions were also introduced. It was
emphasized that vocabulary development was a continuing process
and that the students themselves were responsible for making
efforts to increase their own vocabularies both during the course
and after.
Work on pronunciation, particularly the suprasegmental
elements, was incorporated into the course. Most of the instruction
on pronunciation took place in the language laboratory using the
texts Clear Speech (Gilbert, 1984) and Stress and Intonation
(English Language Services, 1967). Because it is crucial that
pharmacists make their important points understood, both the
laboratory work and the pronunciation work in class emphasized
ways English speakers signify the relative importance of ideas they
are expressing. (Instruction in other ways of focusing attention and
indicating significance was also an important part of the class. )
The language laboratory was also used for listening comprehension activities. While students listened to articles about communication taken from pharmaceutical journals, they followed the written
text, filled in missing words, and took dictation read from the
articles (see Appendix F). Discussions of the content of the articles
sometimes followed. Not only did these listening exercises give
practice in listening comprehension and information about
communication problems and solutions in pharmaceutical practice,
they also focused attention on grammatical structures (particularly
articles) that led to brief but, as it turned out, valued grammar
lessons. The language laboratory was also used for practicing the
A PHARMACY COURSE MODEL OF ESP
235
names of the 200 most common drugs, using a tape prepared by the
pharmacist-instructor at the request of the students.
Instruction on principles and techniques of effective communication was woven into virtually all the class work that was done:
listening comprehension exercises, discussions of the appropriateness of various linguistic and extralinguistic behaviors, pronunciation work, and especially the critiques of the role-playing.
EVALUATION AND DISCUSSION
At the completion of the course, a second version of the SPEAK
tests was administered. The results of a paired t test showed
statistically significant improvement in all categories (see Table 1).
The positive results of these tests should not be overrated, since
there was no control group with which to compare the gains made.
In addition, these 20-minute proficiency tests were not designed to
measure the specific kinds of communicative competence that were
the overriding objective of the course. Nevertheless, the results are
gratifying, especially because of the advanced proficiency level of
the students. It was also gratifying to see that the mean fluency
TABLE 1
SPEAK Scores
236
TESOL QUARTERLY
score rose the most (14.2%) of all the scores, since increasing fluency
was one of our primary objectives.
The students were also asked to evaluate the course at its
completion (see Table 2). On a scale of 1 to 6 (6 being the highest),
the mean rating for the course overall was 4.8. The students least
liked the work done in the language laboratory. They most liked the
model role plays done by the pharmacist-instructor (M = 5.3), and
in second place, surprisingly, came instruction on articles (M = 5.1).
Student role-playing exercises received a mean rating of 4.9. A
number of comments written in response to the question, “What
was the best thing about the class?” applauded the “informal
atmosphere,” presumably because it led to a great deal of student
participation.
TABLE 2
Evaluation by Students
On the basis of both student evaluations and instructor
observations, several changes will be made in the course. First,
better language laboratory activities will be developed, and
laboratory assignments will be based on individual needs. For some
very advanced students, reading and writing activities can
occasionally be substituted for oral-aural activities. However, in
spite of the feeling on the part of a number of the students that the
laboratory work was too easy, the instructors felt that the increase in
the pronunciation and overall comprehensibility scores on the
SPEAK tests was very likely attributable, in large part, to the
laboratory work. Therefore, laboratory sessions on pronunciation
will continue to be included.
A PHARMACY COURSE MODEL OF ESP
237
In the future, more modeling of successful communicative acts
will be provided. This can done by live modeling on the part of the
instructors, by videotapes produced by the instructors, and by
professionally prepared videotapes. Also, when student role plays
are to be videotaped so that students can see themselves, the role
plays will be either taped out of class or viewed out of class, in order
not to waste class time.
The greatest need for improvement is in the area of evaluation. In
addition to tests measuring proficiency, such as the SPEAK and
CELT, tests are needed that will determine the learners’ ability to
perform the kinds of communicative tasks being taught (Robinson,
1980; van Ek, 1973; Yalden, 1983). Ideally, the tests would involve
oral interaction, although such tests can be difficult to devise
properly and to assess, as Carroll (1980) points out.
APPLICABILITY
This course was designed specifically for pharmacists in training,
but very similar courses could be designed for other health
preprofessionals and professionals. We believe that communication
courses designed for more than one health profession, though not
ideal, could be useful if courses targeted for specific professions
were not possible. The nursing student who participated in the
course described here seemed to benefit as much as the pharmacy
students.
Because this course was team-taught, it was relatively expensive.
Could a similar course be taught by an ESL instructor alone? While
it is ideal to have as one of the instructors a practicing health
professional experienced in teaching communication, such
professionals are rare. It is probably not absolutely necessary
provided that such a professional work closely with the ESL
specialist in designing the course and in preparing materials and
assignments, that the health professional act as a consultant during
the course, and that the health professional participate in at least
some of the classes.
In addition, the ESL specialist would need to become acquainted
with the literature on communication in the health professions. The
more the ESL specialist becomes conversant in communication
principles and techniques, and the greater the availability of
professionally prepared materials relating to communication in the
health fields, the less the ESL specialist needs to rely on a health
professional. However, it must be emphasized that when one is
working with preprofessionals, the participation of a health
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TESOL QUARTERLY
professional is extremely valuable. Preprofessionals often are not
sure of the correct professional information or advice to be given
to
—
patients in, for example, the role plays.
The course described in this article taught communication
principles and extralinguistic communication skills as well as ESL,
an approach we feel has much to recommend it. However, given
the continuing concern about the communicative competence of
foreign-born health professionals, even courses more narrowly
focused on the linguistic aspects of communication in English are
needed. In attempting to convince health professionals and
administrators of the value of such courses, ESL professionals must
first convince them that these courses are specifically designed to
meet the communicative needs of health professionals in their
professional settings.
Such traditional, linguistically oriented ESP courses appear to
meet the needs of particular groups more effectively than general
English courses. The addition of content-area instruction to an ESP
course, however, may prove to be more effective yet. Content-area
information and skill development enhance the learning of
specialized communication, we believe, by enriching the context in
which the language is learned, by stimulating interest in the course,
and by increasing the course’s perceived relevance. Content and
language instruction can mutually reinforce one another, producing
a sum greater than its parts.
In addition to meeting the needs of health professionals, courses
which combine attributes of content-area ESL and ESP could serve
well, we believe, to provide training for specialists in other
occupations. The demand for varieties of ESP, as opposed to
general English courses, appears to be growing both in the United
States (Crandall, 1984; Huckin & Olsen, 1984) and throughout the
rest of the world (Strevens, 1980); thus, imaginative responses to the
demand for relevant and effective English language instruction are
called for.
THE AUTHORS
Janet G. Graham is Language Coordinator at the Learning Resources Center of the
University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where she teaches ESL and administers
ESL programs. She is a Ph.D. candidate in English education at the University of
Maryland and recently served as president of the Baltimore-area TESOL.
A PHARMACY COURSE MODEL OF ESP
239
Robert S. Beardsley, Associate Professor at the School of Pharmacy, University of
Maryland at Baltimore, received his Ph.D. in pharmacy administration from the
University of Minnesota. He is co-editor of the journal Patient Counseling in
Community Pharmacy and of the textbook Communication in Pharmacy Practice.
His current research efforts include patient education/communication skills of
pharmacists.
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APPENDIX A
Working Taxonomy of Speech Functions
for Pharmacists
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
Greeting
Asking for information—closed-ended questions
Asking for information—open-ended questions
Reflecting
Paraphrasing
Reassuring
Acknowledging receipt of information
Encouraging further communication
Requesting feedback
Directing
Making sure
Extending (to test a deduction)
Socializing
Taking leave
APPENDIX B
Expressions for the Directing Function
Take these three times a day, with meals.
The first thing you have to do is . . .
After you’ve done that you . . .
The next thing you do is . . .
Be sure to . . .
Make sure to . . .
Don’t forget to . . .
Be careful not to . . .
Make sure you remember . . .
The most important thing is to . . .
It’s really important to . . .
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It’s extremely important that you . . .
I would like you to . . .
I feel it’s important to . . .
Some people find that . . .
Research has found that . . .
In my experience, I’ve found that. . .
APPENDIX C
Role Plays for the Directing Function
Tell a patient how to do the following:
1. Administer an eye drop, ear drop, nose drop, enema, rectal suppository,
or nitroglycerin patch
2. Take blood pressure or pulse
3. Put in a contact lens
4. Adjust crutches, canes, or walkers
5. Care for ostomies
6. Take temperature of pediatric patient
7. Measure for support stocking, braces, or supports
APPENDIX D
Additional Role Plays
The following role-playing situations focus on asking reluctant people
open-ended questions. Players receive their instructions on separate slips
of paper and do not know what others are told.
Situation 1
Patient: Two days ago you accidentally dumped 10 of your digoxin tablets
down the sink, and now you need to get a refill for some more. If the
pharmacist asks you what happened, don’t tell him or her, since you are
really embarrassed about the accident.
Pharmacist: A patient returns for a refill of digoxin. After checking the
patient profile, you notice that the person is coming back 10 days early.
Try to determine why the medication is needed so soon. Is the patient
taking it correctly?
Situation 2
Patient: You come back for a refill for your diuretic medication. You have
not been taking it correctly, missing some days, since you don’t think it
does any good. You are embarrassed to tell the pharmacist the real reason,
and you become defensive when asked about it.
A PHARMACY COURSE MODEL OF ESP
243
‘
Pharmacist: A patient returns for a refill for a diuretic medication. After
checking the patient profile, you notice that the patient should have
refilled the prescription 10 days ago. Ask the individual what happened.
Situation 3
Staff pharmacist: You have been arriving late to work (15 minutes) for the
past week, since you need to take your son to nursery school. Your wife/
husband usually drops him off, but he/she is severely ill and you don’t
want anyone to know about it—it is a private, family matter, plus you stay
late each day to make up the time.
Hospital pharmacy director: You notice that this staff pharmacist has been
coming late every day (15 minutes) for the past week, and you want to
know why. You won’t tolerate tardiness.
APPENDIX E
Example of a Student-Written Dialogue Incorporating Idioms
The idioms which were being studied are underlined. Ph = Pharmacist;
Pt = patient.
Ph: I’m just about to call your doctor for your medication. It will only take
a second.
Pt: I appreciate you doing this for me. I’m so absent-minded. I keep
forgetting to have a checkup and then I run out of my pills.
Ph: What about your medication for high blood pressure? Are you taking
it regularly?
Pt: Well, I try to remember to take it everyday, but with all these
different medicines I need to take, sometimes it’s very confusing.
Ph: I understand, Mrs. Jones. Would it be easier if I made you a drug
schedule so you can check off the one you took?
That’s really a good idea. I will definitely take advantage of it.
APPENDIX F
I.istening Exercise
Directions: Listen to the following article and fill in the missing words.
Paragraph 5 is missing entirely: Listen to the tape and take dictation from
it. When you have finished listening and taking dictation, check your work
against the correct version of the article, and prepare yourself to discuss it.
Patient Compliance Improves When Practitioners Emote*
A review of the social scientific literature on physician-patient
communication, published in the Journal of the American Medical
* From American Pharmacy (1985), NS 25 (2), p. 18.
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A PHARMACY COURSE MODEL OF ESP
245
TESOL QUARTERLY, Vol. 20, No. 2, June 1986
Coherence and Academic Writing:
Some Definitions and
Suggestions for Teaching
ANN M. JOHNS
San Diego State University
Coherence in written text is a complex concept, involving a
multitude of reader- and text-based features. Perhaps because of
this, we writing instructors and the textbooks we use often discuss
coherence in a vague or incomplete manner. This article reviews
current coherence literature, defines coherence in broad terms,
then presents a three-lesson revision unit based on modern
coherence principles. In this unit, ESL students “deconstruct” the
assignment prompt and prepare their own first drafts of an essay
response. Then they examine a fellow student’s first draft from the
“top down,” evaluating the thesis in relationship to the prompt and
to the assertions within the essay and analyzing the information
structure intended to guide readers through the text. Conclusions
are drawn about the success of this group revision technique and
the necessity for providing sequential exercises to improve
coherence.
A recent survey of college instructors teaching lower-division
general education classes (Johns, 1985), conducted to determine the
tasks which they assign and concerns which they have about ESL
student writing, found that the task types were predictable: Most
required the integration of information from sources (e. g., lecture,
assigned readings, or library sources) into written assignments. In
terms of concerns, a number of those responding commented that
students’ academic writing is often “incoherent,” a feature which
appears to cover a large number of perceived weaknesses.
Although all of us may believe we have a sense of what the term
incoherent means, we often find ourselves discussing incoherence—
and coherence—in vague terms with students. Sometimes we do not
get past comments such as those cited in Jacobs (1982):
A piece of writing is coherent when it elicits the response: “I follow you.
247
I see what you mean.” It is incoherent when it elicits the response: “I see
what you’re saying here, but what has it got to do with the topic at hand
or with what you just told me above?” (p. 1)
These remarks, though true to the recent discussion of coherence as
a phenomenon involving the interaction of reader with text (Carrell,
1982; Rumelhart, 1977) and as primarily a function of topic
development (Grabe, 1984), are not of much help to our students,
who need more specific definitions and sequential, task-dependent
exercises to produce prose judged to be coherent by experienced
graders.
To refine my understanding of coherence and methods for
teaching coherent writing, I reviewed the literature on coherence
and prepared a series of questions to guide group editing. These
questions have proved much more useful to my students and me
than my previous general comments and fragmented activities. The
purpose of this article is to share what I have discovered—how
coherence is variously defined in the recent literature and how I
assist my ESL students in revising their papers to improve
coherence.
TWO DEFINITIONS OF COHERENCE:
AS TEXT BASED AND READER BASED
Text-Based Coherence
Coherence is defined by some as a feature internal to text. In
traditional handbooks (see, e.g., Hodges & Whitten, 1972), this
feature is divided into two constructs: cohesion (i.e., the linking of
sentences) and unity (i.e., sticking to the point). Often, these
constructs are introduced separately, as if, in fact, they could be
separated in written text (see, e.g., Bander, 1978; Martin, 1974).
The appearance of Halliday and Hasan’s Cohesion in English
(1976) has had a major impact on the understanding and teaching of
coherence features. These linguists speak of coherent text as having
two characteristics somewhat different from those in the traditional
definition: cohesion (i.e., ties between sentences) and register (i.e.,
coherence with a context):
A text is a passage of discourse which is coherent in these two regards:
it is coherent with respect to the situation, and therefore consistent in
register; and it is coherent with respect to itself, and therefore cohesive.
(p. 23)
Though Halliday is concerned with register appropriateness in
other writings (see, e.g., Halliday, 1978), Cohesion in English
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focuses almost exclusively on cohesion as a text feature. This work
has created more controversy and interest (see, e.g., Carrell, 1982;
Markels, 1983) and spurred more ESL writing research (see, e.g.,
Connor, 1984; Johns, 1980a; Scarcella, 1985; Witte & Faigley, 1981)
than have Halliday’s register features. The category types which
appear in Cohesion in English (reference, substitution, ellipsis,
conjunction, and lexical cohesion) have become common subjects
for discussion in well-respected ESL teacher reference textbooks
(e.g., Hughey, Wormuth, Hartfiel, & Jacobs, 1983, p. 129; Raimes,
1983, pp. 53-55).
However, some of the points made in Cohesion in English have
been misinterpreted or misused in the classroom. The literature on
cohesion has warned against clustering cohesive items in semantic
groups, such as teaching all additives (and, in addition, furthermore,
etc. ) together (see, e.g., Johns, 1980b; Kantor, 1985); yet some
textbooks continue to list these related items in groups, disregarding
register or semantic variation.
Cohesive items have also been taught prescriptively, in isolated
exercises, without consideration for constructed texts. Witte and
Faigley (1981) warn teachers against using these practices:
Coherence conditions—conditions governed by the writer’s purpose, the
audience’s knowledge and expectations, and the information to be
conveyed—militate against prescriptive approaches to the teaching of
writing. Indeed, [our] exploration of what cohesion analysis can and
cannot measure in student writing points to the necessity of placing
writing exercises in the context of complete written text. (p. 20)
Whereas Halliday and Hasan speak of coherent text as being
cohesive (i.e., having appropriate ties among sentences), other
modern text analysts have concentrated upon the “sticking to the
point” feature of coherence. More important, they have discussed
the relationship of the points, or propositions, to each other.
Selection of cohesive items and other features of the information
structure are subsumed in their analyses; for them, meaning,
realized in propositional relationships, drives the text.
Some of the most interesting work on sticking to the point comes
from the Prague School (e.g., Lautamatti, 1986), whose members
have investigated how sentence topics combine to lead the reader
through text and to an understanding of the discourse theme or
topic. Witte (1983) and Connor and Farmer (1985) have applied the
topic depth and maintenance models of the Prague School to the
writing of native-speaker and ESL students. They have found,
among other things, that passing essays have fewer topics and more
T-units per topic than do failing essays, thereby demonstrating that
COHERENCE AND ACADEMIC WRITING
249
topic support is one of the most important features of coherent
essays.
Grabe (1985), in a useful review of text linguistics literature
including the work of the Prague School, speaks of coherence as
generally defined by text analysts as “a theoretical construct in text
structure [referring] to the underlying relations that hold between
assertions (or propositions) and how they contribute to the overall
discourse theme” (p. 110). Grabe cites various well-known textanalytical models, which share three interacting features essential to
coherence: (a) a discourse theme (or thesis); (b) a set of relevant
assertions relating logically among themselves by means of
subordination, coordination, and superordination (see, e.g., Nold &
Davis, 1980); and, (c) an information structure imposed on the text
to guide the reader in understanding the theme or intent of the
writer. (This last includes cohesion and a number of other features;
see Vande Kopple, 1985.)
Reader-Based Coherence
So far, coherence has been defined principally as a feature of text,
either in terms of the linking of sentences (cohesion) or as the
relationships among propositions in the text (sticking to the point).
However, others claim, on the basis of schema-theoretical models,
that a text cannot be considered separately from the reader and that
coherence requires successful interaction between the reader and
the discourse to be processed (Carrell, 1982; Rumelhart, 1977).
According to this view, the degree to which a reader grasps the
intended meaning and underlying structure from text (and
therefore finds it coherent) depends, to a large extent, upon
whether the reader-selected schemata (or expectations) are
consistent with the text (see, e.g., P. Johnson, 1982; Miller & Kintsch,
1980). These expectations are founded in the reader’s prior
knowledge, both of the content to be introduced and the form it
takes (Carrell, 1983). As the reader processes the text, these
expectations are modified to establish consistency with text
structure or content, for reading is a process of continuous
interpretation.
Rumelhart (1977) and others have noted that text processing takes
place on a number of levels, from the bottom up (the processing of
letters, words, and phrases), as well as from the top down (from the
reader’s prior knowledge and expectations). However this is done,
the important point is that reading is considered an interactive and
interpretive process. Therefore, the writer must continuously keep
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the intended audience in mind (see Johns, in press). Armbruster and
Anderson (1984) speak of discourse which meets reader expectations and provides guidance through the text as “reader
considerate.”
.
This review of current literature provides a number or principles
to guide instructors in teaching the concept of coherence:
1. Coherence is text based and consists of the ordering and
interlinking of propositions within a text by use of appropriate
information structure (including cohesion).
2. At the same time, coherence is reader based; the audience and
the assignment must be consistently considered as the discourse
is produced and revised.
3. Instructors have an obligation to teach coherence comprehensively, that is, to take into account these two approaches (text
based and reader based), at a minimum.
TEACHING COHERENCE
Many students at every level are unfamiliar with the conventions
of English writing which, if well integrated, result in coherent prose.
Numerous ESL textbooks present sentence-level grammar in a
discourse context (see, e.g., J. A. Johnson, 1983; Sheehan, 1986) and
teach students to write generalizations (topic sentence and theses)
and to provide supporting examples and details (see, e.g.,
Huizenga, Snellings, & Francis, 1982; Rice & Burns, 1986).
However, none that I am aware of examines or teaches the
multitude of coherence features discussed in recent literature.
Therefore, published textbooks, though they may supplement and
augment the following suggestions, do not provide sufficient
introduction to the depth and variety of coherence features
necessary for proficient writing.
Many of these recent textbooks also make use of the process
approach, which is based on a theory of writing development that
has revolutionized teaching in the past 10 years (see, e.g., Sommers,
1980; Spack, 1984; Zamel, 1983). However, we may be doing our
students a disservice by strictly adhering to all tenets of this
approach, for it must be examined in light of the tasks which
students are required to perform. The classical process approach
requires two conditions for student writing: (a) time to plan (Spack,
1984), draft, and revise (Sommers, 1980) and (b) student-generated
meaning and form.
COHERENCE AND ACADEMIC WRITING
251
Horowitz (1985) points out that time for revision is not available
for students writing essay responses in timed academic (i.e., other
than English) examinations. For students writing an essay for an
English class, some time may be available, as it is when students
prepare out-of-class assignments for their academic courses.
However, the second condition for the process approach, that of
student-generated meaning and form, is contradictory to the
authentic requirements of most academic classrooms. Horowitz
(1985), Swales (1982), and Johns (1985) have all found that an
academic assignment (or prompt) will generally designate the
content, form, aims, and strategies required for response to the
prompt.
To prepare our students for authentic tasks, then, we must
generate representative prompts requiring expository writing. And,
when teaching and evaluating the writing which results from these
assignments, we must insist upon student adherence to the
requirements of the prompts in order to insure reader-based
coherence.
THE REVISION UNIT
My advanced students have studied grammar and have some
familiarity with the essay model (see Martin, 1974), with topic
sentence and thesis development. Yet they seem to be unable to
transfer these essay-writing conventions to their own prose,
especially in response to a prompt, and most continue to revise their
work at the sentence level only.
Because of these problems, I begin teaching coherence to
students by moving from the top down, that is, from more global to
more local considerations. Research shows that good revisers who
develop coherent text begin at the top, rather than at the bottom,
that they correct spelling, grammar, and mechanics last (see Kroll,
1983; Sommers, 1980). In successive task-dependent activities, the
class is asked to consider coherence systematically in terms of
prompt requirements, thesis development, the relationships among
assertions and to the thesis, and the adequacy of the information
structure. Only in the final stages do students edit for sentence-level
errors.
The unit consists of a minimum of three lessons, each of which
has multiple goals, drawn from both task- and reader-based
coherence literature. Understanding the prompt and developing a
discourse theme (or thesis) in response to it are the goals of the first
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lesson, which draws principally from reader-based considerations.
This lesson results in the production of first drafts of an essay.
Goals of the second lesson, which is principally text based, are to
analyze a thesis statement and the relationships between
propositions in an essay. The first draft of one student’s essay is
examined during this lesson. After the second lesson, all students
revise their essays, using the same techniques that they applied to
the sample student essay.
The third lesson again focuses on the work of a single student, this
time on the student’s second draft. This lesson concentrates on
reader-based considerations in the information structure. After the
lesson, the students again take their own papers home and revise
them, asking the questions posed in the class. Finally, they edit for
sentence-level errors before handing the papers in to me.
Before the in-class instruction began for the class discussed here,
students were asked to read a short essay by Mead and Metraux
(1984) entitled “The Gift of Autonomy.” We discussed main ideas
and vocabulary together, with students making marginal notes, until
I was satisfied that they understood the reading and could respond
to the content of the essay. They were then given the following
prompt, requiring the integration of information from the Mead
and Metraux essay into their writing:
According to Mead and Metraux, parents show their hopes for their
children through gift-giving. Using examples from this article and from
your own life, discuss how parents show their hopes through the gifts
they give.
Lesson 1: Deconstructing the Prompt and Preparing a Thesis
Most writing for academic classes is in response to a specific
assignment or prompt (Horowitz, 1985; Johns, 1985). One of the
most important—and perhaps the most difficult—tasks for the
academic writer is to understand what the prompt writer wants. For
this reason, my class began by “deconstructing” the prompt
(Carlson, 1985) in order to analyze better the directions and
limitations of their assigned task.
Academic prompts often have a number of instructions and key
task-related terms, such as list and describe (Swales, 1982), and they
often indicate the form, content, and strategies of the assignment
(Horowitz, 1986). Therefore, it is wise to give students a number of
prompt types so that they can develop strategies for successfully
deconstructing a variety of task instructions (Flower, 1985).
Because they had had little experience with deconstructing
COHERENCE AND ACADEMIC WRITING
253
prompts, I assisted the students in answering the following
questions:
1. What is the function of the first sentence in the moment? What is
the prompt writer asking you to do, if anything?
The students decided that the first sentence was just a statement
of the thesis of the Mead and Metraux essay, creating a context for
the instructions which were to follow.
2. What does the second sentence tell you about your writing task?
What does it tell you about the required aims or strategies for
writing?
The students decided that the writer of the prompt told them to
discuss, using examples from their own lives and from the reading.
They decided that discuss was a general word which did not tell
them much about structuring their argument. However, they had
specific instructions about aims and strategies: They were to
support their argument by using examples from this article and their
own lives.
3. What does the prompt tell you about the focus of the content?
The students decided that hopes was the central term and that it
must appear or be implied in their thesis sentences and be the
central topic of the essays they were to produce.
Once the prompt had been deconstructed and students
understood the directions of the writer of the prompt regarding
aims, strategies, and content, we went on to develop the discourse
theme, generally called the thesis in writing textbooks. In the prose
of experienced writers, the thesis can be either explicit or implicit
(see Lautamatti, 1986; Witte, 1983). However, requiring an explicit
thesis is useful for inexperienced writers because it provides
guidance as they organize and redraft their essays.
To make the theses their own, not just a repetition of the thesis
from the article, the students were asked to do some divergent
thinking through the use of invention strategies (Daubney-Davis,
1982; Spack, 1984), such as clustering and listing, all based upon the
central idea of parents showing hopes through gift giving. One
possibility for approaching thesis building was to think of the gifts
which parents might give (both mentioned in the article and
occurring in their own lives), then decide what hopes these gifts
represent. Another, of course, was to think of a possible thesis, then
come up with examples appropriate to it. Still another was to think
about the hopes of parents, then to discover gifts which express
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TESOL QUARTERLY
these hopes. Though I provided examples of theses and made
suggestions for how students might go about planning their own,
thesis development became an individual, divergent-thinking
activity, for students solve problems of thesis formation in a number
of different ways (Flower, 1985; Williams, 1985).
When the students had developed some tentative theses, by
whatever method, they were asked to test the theses against the
requirements of the prompt, then prepare essays based upon these
theses for the next class.
Lesson 2: Examining a Thesis and the Relationships
Among Assertions in an Essay
On the second day, one student essay was examined by the entire
class, acting as readers and text analysts. The essay examined, by a
student whom I will call “Yoko,” was chosen because it was
considered typical of the essays which had been written for our
classes, in terms of response to prompts and topic development.
The students were assigned to permanent groups of four which
assembled each time an essay was examined in this manner. These
groups were organized according to diverse linguistic backgrounds
and proficiency levels, so that each group would, by necessity,
speak English and would have at least one highly proficient
member to lead discussions. The sample essay (see Appendix A)
and the questions for analysis, given below, were distributed and
discussed by the groups.
1. Is the thesis in the paper appropriate for the prompt provided?
The students had decided that the central proposition of the
prompt was how parents showed their hopes through gift giving.
Therefore, the thesis was considered appropriate, since Yoko
planned to show that “the gifts are different from each other.” (The
students assumed that these differences are based on hopes.)
2. What does the thesis pre-reveal to the reader? Does it reveal the
writer’s argument and the organization which the argument will
follow?
Perhaps because this prompt does not require a particular
organizational framework, Yoko did not indicate how her essay
would be organized. She did pre-reveal content and argument,
however, when she said that “the gifts are different from each
other.” Thus, the students decided that the thesis was present,
complete, and adequate to the prompt and that it revealed the
COHERENCE AND ACADEMIC WRITING
255
content of the student paper but not the form in which the content
would be organized.
Once they had considered Yoko’s thesis, the students turned to
the development of topics within her essay. Coherence, the students
were reminded, depends not only on the introduction of a clear
thesis, but on topic hierarchies and relationships, all of which relate
back to the thesis itself (see, e.g., Lautamatti, 1986; Witte, 1983).
This discussion led to the next question:
3. What are the relationships among the assertions?
In their groups, students were asked to determine the gist of
Yoko’s paper and the relationship among assertions, by writing a
single sentence summary of each paragraph in the essay. Here is an
example of a summary from one group of students:
Thesis: And according to its hope the gifts are different from each other.
Para 2: Different gifts for different people have different meanings.
(implied)
Para 3: The most difficult thing is what kind of thing or how to give
rather than what to give. (stated)
Para 4: An example of hopes for giving is my father’s book buying.
(implied)
The students were then asked questions which explored the topic
relationships and the relationship breakdowns in the text: Which
paragraphs were most difficult to summarize? Why? Did you have
difficulty understanding the relationships among topics in the
paragraphs? How could the author make these paragraphs easier to
summarize, for example, by showing the relationship with the thesis
or by providing topic sentences?
The students made a number of comments about the summarizing process which demonstrated their sensitivity to the relationships
among the topics within the paragraphs and to the thesis. They
mentioned, for example, that in Paragraph 2 the author might
demonstrate a closer relationship with the thesis if she were to
provide a topic sentence which repeated the key word different and
showed explicitly how these gifts were examples of different hopes.
They suggested that this paragraph begin with a topic sentence such
as, “Different gifts may mean different things.”
They had more trouble with Paragraph 3 because they could not
understand how the “difficult thing” had anything to do with
“differences among gifts,” which was the key phrase in the thesis.
They suggested that this paragraph, too, should be devoted to
differences among gifts. They asked the writer to show how the
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TESOL QUARTERLY
examples in this paragraph were somehow distinct from those
found in Paragraph 2.
Further problems arose when they considered Paragraph 4. The
example in this paragraph, unlike those which had been taken
directly from the Mead and Metraux essay, was personal. But was it
an example of differences? Some students suggested that a possible
topic sentence for both Paragraphs 3 and 4 might be, “Even when
the same kind of gift is given, it may have various meanings.” They
also suggested the addition of a conclusion to restate the thesis and
comment upon the points made in the internal paragraphs. After
discussing topic relationships and topic breakdowns, the students
turned to a reader-based consideration.
4. How do you think the ideas presented in Yoko’s essay would
affect the reader, a native-speaker teacher?
Noting that a number of details from Mead and Metraux were
included in Yoko’s paper, the students concluded that the ESL
teacher, who already was familiar with the assigned essay, would be
much more interested in details from Yoko’s own life. They
suggested lengthening the personal experience section or
integrating it with information from Mead and Metraux. Each
paragraph should be longer, they pointed out, with more details
about each example. These comments are consistent with Witte’s
(1983) findings that passing essays have fewer topics and more topic
support.
After these two lessons were completed, all members of the class
took their first drafts home and revised them, using as a guide the
questions which had been posed for Yoko’s essay in class.
Lesson 3: Examining the Information Structure
In Lesson 3, Yoko’s paper was again employed for class
discussion, this time in second draft form (see Appendix B). In this
lesson, students were to discuss the information structure, consisting
of cohesion and other features which lead the reader through the
text (i.e., meta-discourse).
Most information structure is reader based; however, some
features, such as the cohesive ties discussed in Halliday and Hasan
(1976), are considered to be text based. To develop an understanding of these text-based features, students were asked to take a look
at the cohesive ties in Yoko’s essay. They were asked the following
questions:
COHERENCE AND ACADEMIC WRITING
257
1. Did the author link sentences through use of vocabulary? Are
there related words which appear throughout the paragraph?
How are these words related (by synonymy, as superordinates/
subordinates, etc.)? Is the linking of vocabulary successful, or are
there words which do not fit?
2. What reference items are used? Does the writer use this, the, or
it to provide a tie with earlier sentences? Are the reference items
appropriately used? Do they lead you through the text?
3. What types of conjunctions are there?
A group of students was assigned to each set of questions. One
group was assigned to go through Yoko’s essay to find related
words, to suggest other words which might be used as synonyms,
and to see that word relationships were carried through the text. A
second group of students went through the paper to identify the ties
between the pronouns of reference and the words to which they
referred. They were warned that indefinite reference is a problem
for many students (see Johns, 1980b). The third group of students
went through the paper to find and evaluate connectives
introducing independent and dependent clauses.
Once students had examined and commented on cohesive items,
they turned to features which are reader based, that is, the metadiscourse items discussing information in the text. Vande Kopple
(1985), who has an excellent taxonomy of meta-discourse items,
quotes Williams’s definition of meta-discourse as “writing about
writing, whatever does not refer to the subject matter being
addressed” (p. 84). The Vande Kopple taxonomy includes narrators
(e.g., according to Mead and Metraux), validity markers (e.g.,
may), topicalizers (e.g., for example), and reminders about what is
discussed earlier and later in the text,
After being given a list of meta-discourse items and examples, the
students were asked to evaluate the essay for these features. They
were given the following questions:
4a. What meta-discourse items appear in this essay? Are they
effectively used?
The students found topicalizers (“as for hopes”), validity markers
(“might” and “can”), and an allocation marker (“for example”). Most
decided that the meta-discourse items were effectively but
sparingly used.
b. What other items might be necessary, considering the prompt
and the information in the essay?
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The students decided that the major problem with this draft of
the essay was that there was little indication of which examples or
quotations came directly from the Mead and Metraux essay and
which were Yoko’s own examples. They recommended narrators
(e.g., “according to Mead and Metraux”) when examples from the
essay appeared.
After the students had completed exercises covering this unit, in
which reader-based and text-based questions were asked about the
prompt, the thesis, the relationships among the topics, and the
information structure, they revised their own papers in the same
manner, edited them, and turned them in for a grade.
CONCLUSION
At first, students have some difficulty with this unit, since they
have had little experience with reconstructing prompts and
evaluating their own writing. Therefore, I carefully take them
through the entire process, explaining the questions and suggesting
answers. As the semester progresses, the students are exposed to
additional student essays and become more adept at the groupediting process. Clearly, this is not a unit which can be done once
and forgotten; it must be repeated with a variety of prompts and a
number of student essays. It then becomes the organizational
structure for a writing course with the goal of improving coherence
in essays.
If consistently employed, this approach using revision to improve
coherence is successful for several reasons.
1. The approach considers coherence to be both reader based and
text based. Traditionally, coherence (generally cohesion) was
thought to be text based; revisions were based upon incongruities
and errors in the written text (Hodges & Whitten, 1972).
Recently, the emphasis has been placed on reader-based
coherence (Carrell, 1982). Yet an approach to teaching need not
be one or the other; it should, in fact, include both reader- and
text-based considerations.
2. The exercises integrate a number of important features of
coherence. For example, whereas many writing textbooks still
consider cohesion, as defined by Halliday and Hasan (1976), as
central to text-based coherence, meta-discourse is introduced
here as also necessary for leading the reader through the text.
3. One of the emphases in the process approach to writing has been
COHERENCE AND ACADEMIC WRITING
259
on asking students to be concerned with meaning before
imposing form upon their written work. Zamel (1984) notes:
As students continue to develop their ideas in writing, considerations of
organization and logical development come into play. The question,
then, is not of choosing to attend to organization or not, but of when and
how to do so. (p. 154)
In the approach to academic writing discussed in this article,
form, content, aims, and strategies are often integral to the
prompt. Therefore, students must be able to reconstruct the
prompt before planning their writing. This restricts their
creativity, of course, but results in a product which is more
acceptable to the grader who wrote the prompt and is therefore
more realistic for the academic milieu. In fact, since we usually
write for an audience, this approach may be appropriate for any
writing task.
4. This unit provides sequenced questions and activities which go
from the top down. The students must answer the first set of
questions before they can go on to the next lesson. They cannot
be poor revisers (i.e., edit on the sentence level only) if they
answer the questions and revise their essays as suggested.
5. And last but not least, when using this approach, the teacher does
not see the students’ papers until they have redrafted them and
edited them at least twice. Rather than relying on teacher
correction, the students devote more time to monitoring their
own work and to providing an audience for their peers. The
teacher sees a more finished product, which cuts down
considerably on grading time.
Defining and teaching coherence are difficult tasks. However,
my students and I have found that if we break the tasks into
manageable, task-dependent parts, we can achieve more success in
the writing classroom.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author would like to thank Ulla Connor, Bill Grabe, Dan Horowitz, and two
anonymous TESOL Quarterly reviewers for their useful comments on earlier
versions of this article.
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TESOL QUARTERLY
THE AUTHOR
Ann M. Johns is Associate Professor of Academic Skills and Linguistics at San
Diego State University. She is the co-editor of the ESP Journal and has published
in CATESOL Occasional Papers, Language Learning, The Journal of Basic
Writing, and elsewhere.
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APPENDIX A
The First Draft of “Yoko”
(Lesson 2)
Every gifts from parents to their children carries with it love, hope and
expectation for children. As for the hopes, there are various kinds of hopes:
to be autonomous, to become like studying, to grow up favorably, to be an
COHERENCE AND ACADEMIC WRITING
263
honest child and so on. And according to its hopes the gifts are different
from each other.
For example, to give a girl a diary with key might mean that the parents
hope her to grow her sense of identity and independence. And giving a
boy a desk may mean that they hope him to foster his sense of personal
privacy. To give money to go to college is to give opportunity to be come
educated.
More difficult thing as to gift-giving is this: what kind of thing or how to
give rather than what to give. As for to give a doll to a girl, there are
many kinds of dolls and according to how extend of autonomy parents
expect to the child the choice will be different. And as for to giving money,
there are also some choices. For example, only to give money saying
nothing or to give it with telling him to buy a thing, etc.
When I was a child, my father used to take me to a used book store. He
recommended me several books and bought me some books I chose. I
learned by doing so pleasure of reading and to use everything with care
not only books. And I believe he wanted me to learn such things. I think it’s
a good idea to go and choose something with children. It shows that you
love them and worry about them. It is easy way to show children hopes of
the parents.
APPENDIX B
The Second Draft of “Yoko”
(Lesson 3)
Every gifts from parents to their children carries with it love, hope and
expectation for children. As for hopes, there are various kinds: to be
autonomous, to become like studying, to grow up favorably, to be an
honest child and so on. And according to its hope the gifts are different
from each other.
Different gifts may mean different things in terms of the parents’ wishes.
For example, to give a girl a diary with a key might mean that the parents
hope she will grow in a sense of identity and independence. And giving a
boy a desk may mean that they hope him to foster his sense of personal
privacy. To give money to go to college is to give opportunity to become
educated. I was given money to go to college; my parents hope that I will
become very smart and wise and be able to think for myself.
The same kind of gift may have various meanings for the parents and the
children. There are many kinds of dolls you can give, for example.
Choosing a doll for a little girl, do I buy her a perishable costume doll for
which she will make dresses out of the materials I also give her? The
costume doll can perhaps be dressed and undressed, but that is all. A
sturdy doll with a ready-made wardrobe places choice in the child’s own
hands. She herself can dress and undress it, bathe it safely and decide
whether the little girl will wear pink or blue, plaid or plain. Giving money
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can also have many meanings. Parents can give money and say “this is
yours,” or they can give money for specific things to buy or to be saved.
My father gave me books for many reasons. When I was a child, my
father used to take me to a used book store. He recommended me several
books and bought me some books I chose. I learned by doing so pleasure
of reading, use of reading for study and how to take care of books. He
hoped that I would love books, take care of them and use them for my
study.
So parents show hopes for their children by giving them different kinds
of gifts or the same types of gifts but with different meanings. When I
become a parent, I will probably do the same thing, because I will have
many hopes for my children, just like my parents.
COHERENCE AND ACADEMIC WRITING
265
TESOL QUARTERLY, Vol. 20, No. 2, June 1986
The Meaning and Discourse Function
of the Past Tense in English
ELIZABETH RIDDLE
Ball State University
The past tense is often used inconsistently, even by very advanced
ESL learners. In this article, it is suggested that a major cause of
the problem is a failure by teachers and students to recognize the
extent to which a speaker’s point of view and purpose in
performing a speech act condition the choice between the present
and past tenses in actual discourse, Following an analysis of the
meaning and discourse function of the past tense, suggestions are
offered for teaching and practicing this tense in context.
Even very advanced students often use the past tense inconsistently, despite the fact that this tense appears to have a simple and
readily explainable meaning. This is true not only of speakers of
languages without past tenses per se, such as Chinese or Indonesian,
but also of Korean and Japanese speakers, for example, whose
languages do have past tenses. A key source of the difficulty may be
that the past tense is generally taught as having a completive sense,
while a more general meaning and discourse conditions on its use go
unrecognized. 1
Specifically, it is argued here that the past tense simply means
“true before speech time” and that completion is not part of its
denotative meaning, although it is an implication often associated
with the past tense in many contexts. Thus, the past tense can be
used to describe situations which may still exist, objectively
1 Although
this article discusses only the simple past and present tenses, the generalizations
apply to the corresponding progressive “tenses” as well. For this reason, I use the labels
past and present rather than simple past, etc. Technically, however, the progressive tenses
are actually combinations of a simple tense plus a progressive aspect form.
The counterfactual use of the past tense, as inIf I were you, is not discussed in this article.
Although some linguists have proposed unitary accounts of the past tense which include
this use, I feel that these treatments are too abstract to be suitable for pedagogical purposes
and that this use is best covered separately. Also excluded from the discussion is the
alternation between the past and the historical present. See Wolfson (1979) and Schiffrin
(1981) for analyses of the latter.
267
speaking, at the time of speech if the purpose of the speaker2 is to
present the information in terms of its past psychological relevance.
As shown below, this approach makes it clear that past tenses said
to result from tense-harmony (also called sequence of tenses and
backshifting) copying rules really occur for the same semantic and
pragmatic reasons as do main clause past tenses.
First, common assumptions about the use of the past tense are
briefly identified, followed by a demonstration that the speaker’s
point of view and communicative purpose play a crucial role in the
selection of the past tense in main clauses. It is then argued that the
same factors condition the choice of tense in indirect speech clauses
as well and that therefore tense harmony per se does not exist. Next,
it is suggested that the past tense should be analyzed as meaning
“true in the past” and that the notion of completion is a contextually
based implication. The final sections of the article show how this
analysis explains the occurrence of a particular type of error in past
tense use by advanced ESL learners. Teaching suggestions are also
offered.
COMMON ASSUMPTIONS
The completive sense of the past tense, as illustrated in Example
1, is the one most commonly recognized by teachers and most
consistently used by advanced students.3
la. I had a VW, but I sold it.
b. That was my pudding she ate.
In Example la, the speaker no longer owns the car, and the act of
selling is over. In Example lb, the eating has been brought to
completion, and the pudding no longer exists. These are examples
of what may be thought of as the prototypical use of the past tense.
ESL teachers and textbooks, however, generally overlook the fact
that the past tense lacks a sense of completion in other contexts.
2. [Leaving a movie theater] That was a great movie.
Although the movie continues to be great, it is described in the past.
A second common but mistaken assumption about the past tense
is that completed acts are described only in that tense. This
convenience, the terms speaker and speaking are used to cover writer and writing as
well. Speech time also refers to time of writing.
3 Examples without a source specified were constructed by the author. Those labeled
spontaneous speech were naturally occurring utterances recorded by the author. The
remaining examples were taken from books and television as indicated. Italics in all
examples have been added by the author for emphasis.
2 For
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TESOL QUARTERLY
assumption is particularly reinforced when the past and present
perfect tenses are compared and contrasted. As Example 3 shows,
however, a verb may occur in the present tense, even though the
actual action denoted by the verb in its general sense took place in
the past.
3. Werner (1948) writes about “primitive” languages in the following
terms. (Johnson-Laird & Wason, 1977, p. 439)
Finally, it is generally thought that the present tense in an indirect
speech clause embedded below a past tense main verb is converted
to the past tense. The operative rule is that the tense of the main
verb is copied. This particular use of the past tense is thus
considered not to reflect the true meaning of the tense. An example
of this so-called tense harmony or sequence of tenses is given below.
4a. Jane said, “I am tired.”
b. Jane said she was tired.
Was in Example 4b is in the same tense as the reporting verb said,
which indicates that the act of saying and the state of fatigue were
simultaneous.
THE PAST TENSE IN DIRECT DISCOURSE
In addition to the objective temporal relationship between the
time of a situation (this is intended to include events and states of
affairs) and speech time, the speaker’s point of view and purpose in
communicating play a crucial role in the choice between the past
and present tenses.4 A situation whose time frame extends from the
past to the present may be described in the past rather than the
present or present perfect tenses if the purpose is to present
information or ask a question from a past point of view.
The specific reasons why a speaker would have a past point of
view fall into two major categories.
1. Past association: The fact or nature of a person’s association with
a particular situation in the past is more relevant to the purpose
4 Reichenbach
(1947) points out the importance of point of view in the determination of
tenses. He defines tenses in terms of the relations between the point of event (E), point of
reference (R), and point of speech (S). For example, in English, all three points are
simultaneous for the present tense, while R and E are simultaneous with each other and
precede S for the simple past. This system is not used here, however, because it wrongly
implies that all simple past tense verbs describe completed events (i. e., not in existence at
speech time).
Lakoff (1970) was perhaps the first to draw attention to the role of speaker viewpoint in the
use of the noncompletive past. See Riddle (1978) for a theoretical discussion of her analysis.
THE PAST TENSE IN ENGLISH
269
in speaking than the objective current existence of that situation.
(The person in question may be the speaker or another person
being described.) In this case, the past tense functions as an
indicator of subjective attitude.5
2. Background information: Although the information to be
presented is about a situation subjectively viewable as existing in
either the present or the past (as above), this is considered to be
background to other information whose present existence is to be
emphasized. 6 Here the past tense functions as a discourseorganizing device which backgrounds information.
Past Association
This category comes into play when a personal past experience of
a situation is presented as the motivation for a past action, as in
Example 5.
5. [The speaker, gesturing with an old potholder in her hand at a flea
market, is explaining why she just bought it.] It didn’t have any stains
on it. (spontaneous speech)
Even though the potholder described here has no stains on it at the
moment of speech, the speaker uses the past tense to show that its
lack of stains was the motivation for its purchase, an act which has
already taken place.
Another aspect of past experience contributing to a past point of
view is the time a piece of knowledge was acquired. In Example 6,
a diver employed by the police to locate a submerged car describes
the body he finds in terms of the moment of discovery.
6. Diver: [Just sticking his head out of the water] There’s a car down
here all right. Brand new convertible.
Tragg: Anybody in it?
Diver: Fellow who was driving. He looked like a minister. (TV
dialogue, Perry Mason)
It is important to note here that the man’s appearance as a minister
was referred to for the purpose of identification, not as a comment
on his personal attributes. For this reason, the fact that he is dead is
not the critical factor in the choice of the past tense in this particular
exchange. The present tense is also possible in Example 6 but would
5 Ard (1984) independently proposes some similar conditions on the use of the past tense in
scientific writing but does not relate them to the use of the past tense in general or to the
distinction between foregrounding and backgrounding.
6 This use of the past tense is mentioned by Aristar and Dry (1982) and Wallace (1982),
among others.
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TESOL QUARTERLY
indicate a different point of view; the connection between the man’s
appearance and the moment of discovery would not be emphasized. One might think of the use of the present tense here as less
egocentric than the use of the past.
Likewise, the past tense may be used in questions to focus on the
addressee’s experience of visiting a place rather than to request an
objective description of the person or thing in question.
7. How was Poland?
The present tense is appropriate in such a question about the
addressee’s experience only in a letter or phone call while he or she
is still in the place referred to.
The same emphasis on past experience can be seen in Example 8,
in which the speaker wants to describe an interesting sight
experienced before the moment of speech.
8. [Said a few moments after a man passing in a car has driven out of
sight] He did have an earring in his ear. (spontaneous speech)
The present tense, on the other hand, would emphasize the present
characteristics of the man himself. Since the man is not in view at
the time of the speech act and since the speaker has no current
relationship with the man, the past tense is used.
Use of the present tense in such contexts tends to imply the
existence of a current relationship between the speaker (or hearer)
and the person described.
9. Anne: Jane just bought a Volvo.
John: Maureen has one.
Anne: John, you’ve got to quit talking about Maureen as if you were
still going together. You broke up three months ago.
The use of the present tense in this example wrongly implies a
continuing relationship with Maureen on the part of the speaker.
The speaker uses the present tense, however, because he is still
emotionally attached to his former girlfriend and is reluctant to
break the psychological tie.
Another type of context in which information objectively known
to be true in the present may be expressed in the past tense is when
the speaker’s purpose is to attribute a belief to a deceased person
rather than to present the belief as the speaker’s independent
assertion. (The asterisk in the example below indicates that revolves
is not acceptable here.)
revolved
10. According to Copernicus, the earth {*revolves} around the sun,
and nothing could persuade him otherwise.
THE PAST TENSE IN ENGLISH
271
If a name can refer either to a dead person or to an existing work
by that person, in conversation the past tense more strongly suggests
the person and the present tense, that person’s work.
When the sentence or the context unambiguously refers to a dead
person, however, only the past tense is possible.
12. Einstein thought that . . .
Background Information
When it is logically possible to use either the past or the present
tense, according to the conditions discussed above, the past may be
used as a backgrounding device and the present as a foregrounding
device. For example, when a claim from an existing work is cited as
background information to a study, perhaps to offer a historical
perspective, the past tense is preferred.
13. Bartlett (1932), the earliest of the theorists discussed here and the
first psychologist to use the term “schema,” in effect said it all: “. . .
the past operates as an organized mass . . .“ (Tannen, 1979, p. 139)
When an existing work is discussed in terms of the current validity
of its claims and their bearing on the main point to be developed,
the present is usually chosen, thereby foregrounding the
information.
14. Bartlett contends that an individual “has an overmastering tendency
simply to get a general impression of the whole.” (Tannen, 1979,
p. 139)
Example 15 illustrates the difference between backgrounded and
foregrounded information within a single paragraph.
15. In November 1859, Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species, one of
the greatest and most controversial works in the literature of science,
was published in London. The central idea in this book is the
principle of natural selection, In the sixth edition, which appeared in
1872 and which Darwin regarded as the definitive one . . . Darwin
wrote: “This principle of preservation or the survival of the fittest, I
have called Natural Selection.” (Eigen & Winkler, 1981, pp. 53-54)
In this passage, was is in the past because it refers to a completed
event and because the sentence provides background information.
The verb in the next sentence, however, is in the present because
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Darwin’s book still exists and because the principle of natural
selection is the main topic in this section of Eigen and Winkler’s
book. The first condition must be fulfilled in order for the present
tense to be a possible choice. Given this choice, the present may
then be chosen for the purpose of foregrounding. Appeared in the
third sentence also refers to a completed event, and regarded is in
the past tense because it refers to the personal view of a deceased
individual. Wrote occurs in the past because it represents
information which was true before speech time and which is
background matter with respect to the main topic in the section of
the book from which Example 15 is taken. That is, the quote from
Darwin and the fact that it was written in a certain edition at a
certain time constitute historical information and provide support
for Eigen and Winkler’s more primary point expressed in the
present tense in the second sentence. For the past tense to be
selected as a backgrounding device, the noncompletive predicate
must represent information that was true before speech time.
Descriptions of experiments or empirical studies which focus on
their completion in the past, as in Example 16, also tend to
constitute background information, and the past tense is therefore
preferred in such contexts.
16. An experiment was carried out to determine whether . . .
But when reference is made to something that continues to exist in
the present and has immediate current relevance, such as to the
results of an experiment or to data being reported, then the
information tends to belong to the foreground, and the present
tense is usually preferred.
17. The results of this experiment show that . . .
Finally, the present tense is usually used in an abstract of a paper
because it represents foregrounded information as an independent
summary of the paper as it exists in its entirety in the present.
18. This paper demonstrates that sound changes do not always affect
the most frequent words first. (Phillips, 1984, p. 320)
When reference is made in a later section to something said in an
earlier part of a paper, on the other hand, the past tense is usually
preferred, as in Example 19.
19. As pointed out earlier, literary and ethnographic methods in folklore
research complement each other. (Ben-Amos, 1981, p. xxxvi)
The past tense is preferred in later references because the writer is
describing the paper in terms of the process of writing and of
THE PAST TENSE IN ENGLISH
273
making the claims rather than in terms of an entity existing
independently and in the present for the reader. (Summaries and
conclusions are often in the present perfect for reasons which go
beyond the scope of this paper.)
When the point of an entire section or a whole work is to present
historical information, however, then within that context the past
occurs in its completive use or only as a marker of past point of view
rather than as a backgrounding device.
Up to this point, the discussion has been restricted to the use of
the past tense with main clause verbs. Let us now turn to instances
of the past tense traditionally thought to be cases of tense harmony.
THE PAST TENSE IN INDIRECT DISCOURSE
Tense Harmony
The conversion from direct to indirect speech is often associated
with a change in the tense of the reported speech verb. For
example, the past tense of a main clause reporting verb is believed
to trigger a change in the indirect speech clause: A tense reflecting
real time reference changes to a tense maintaining the relevant
temporal relationship with respect to the reporting verb (see
Example 4b).
Many ESL teachers and textbook writers believe that the change
from present to past is automatic and exceptionless. Others, such as
Aronson (1984) and Azar (1985), recognize that the present tense
can be used in indirect speech clauses embedded below past tense
main verbs but mistakenly attribute this to informal style. Frank
(1972) goes further in recognizing that “the present tense may be
retained in a that clause object expressing a generalization (He said
the train always arrives late.)” (p. 62).
In their ESL grammar for teachers, Celce-Murcia and LarsenFreeman (1983) present a more complete description. In addition to
noting the point about general truths, they say that immediate
repetitions and descriptions still true or considered still true by the
speaker occur in the present tense. Citing Chang (1981), they also
remark that the present tense may be retained in indirect speech
clauses containing a present or future adverbial, such as in
“Jeremiah said he hopes to begin his new exercise program by early
next week” (p. 462).
The best generalization, however, is that the present tense occurs
in a reported speech clause embedded under a past tense verb if the
situation described there is of current relevance to the speaker. The
past tense in such subordinate clauses is motivated by the same
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TESOL QUARTERLY
types of factors contributing to a past point of view as in the main
clause examples discussed above.7
Current Relevance Versus Past Association
Many types of situations involve current relevance. For instance,
the present tense in Example 20 implies speaker belief in the truth
of the information in the subordinate clause.
20. Columbus recognized that the earth is round.
In Example 21, the present tense serves to emphasize the current
firmness of the speaker’s plans.
21. “I am sorry,” she said, “but I told Mr. Martin yesterday that we are
not thinking of selling.” (Wentworth, 1965, p. 23)
In Example 22, the present tense implies that the situation described
in the subordinate clause is unresolved.
22. The paper claimed today that the mayor is involved in that big tax
fraud cover-up they’ve been investigating.
The past tense, on the other hand, indicates a past point of view.
As the next set of examples shows, the noncompletive past tense in
indirect speech clauses occurs under the same conditions as those
determining this use of the past tense in direct speech. (The same
type of analysis can also apply to the alternation between other
pairs of tenses in indirect speech clauses.)
Consider Example 23, in which the noncompletive past in the
indirect speech clause reflects a past point of view on the part of the
speaker, motivated by the same factors shown to be relevant for
direct speech.
23. [Spoken about 15 minutes after it was discovered that there was no
garlic] I couldn’t make garlic butter because we didn’t have any
garlic. (spontaneous speech)
The lack of garlic is given as a reason for a past act and is therefore
described in the past, even though there is still no garlic at the
moment of speech.
In Example 24, although the speaker still thinks that Miss Marple
has something to say, had is in the past tense because this conclusion
was drawn on the basis of an observation of her demeanor before
the moment of speech.
7 See Costa (1972), McGilvray (1974a, 1974b), and especially Riddle (1978) for detailed
theoretical discussions of the alternation between the present and past tenses in such
contexts.
THE PAST TENSE IN ENGLISH
275
24. “Have you got something you want to tell me, Miss Marple?”
“Now why should you think that?”
“You looked as though you had,” said Davy. (Christie, 1968, p. 135)
Another common context for framing a description in terms of
the speaker’s past perceptions is when prior ignorance about a
currently existing situation is indicated.
25. B. I’m jolly lucky if I do Elstead in four hours.
......
c. I thought it was four hours regularly. (spontaneous speech
recorded in Svartvik & Quirk, 1980, p. 293)
The present tense rarely occurs in such contexts, not because of a
need for tense harmony per se, but because its discourse function
would conflict with the speaker’s communicative purpose. One of
the functions of the present tense in an indirect speech clause is to
indicate speaker belief in the truth of the information presented in
that clause. The purpose of Speaker c, however, is to emphasize
past lack of awareness of certain information.
In Example 26, an unchanged geographical location is described
in the past because the speaker’s presence in the past in a place
where he believed justice always prevailed was the motivation for
his behavior at that time.
26. [An innocent boy accused of murder is being questioned in a TV
interview about why he had said something honest but selfincriminating to the police.] I thought that this was the United States
and that nothing could happen to me. (spontaneous speech, 60
Minutes)
The fact that the speaker’s only contact with a certain car was a
brief glimpse is the motivation for the use of was in Example 27.
27. A: Did Jack say what the make of the hit-and-run car was?
B: Yeah. He said it was a Ford Mustang.
In Example 28, Jane’s ex-husband is described in the past because
she and/or the speaker has no current relationship with him.
Whether or not the man in still a gambler is left unspecified.
28. Jane said that her ex-husband was a pathological gambler and that’s
why she divorced him.
If the speaker wishes to describe some aspect of a current
relationship, however, the present tense is more appropriate, as
shown in Example 29.
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TESOL QUARTERLY
29. Jane said that her ex-husband is a pathological gambler and she
really worries when he has the kids.
When a subordinate verb presents background information with
respect to a present tense main verb, it occurs in the noncompletive
past tense. The same information could be described in the present
tense in another context. Compare Examples 30a and 30b.
30a. Chomsky (1965) ascribes a filtering function to transformations.
b. In his history of transformational grammar in America, Newmeyer
writes that Chomsky (1965) ascribed a filtering function to
transformations.
Conversely, a subordinate verb occurring below a noncompletive
past tense main verb can be in the present tense if it expresses
information believed currently valid and essential to the main point
(thus belonging to the foreground) and if the main verb expresses
background information.
31. I would like now to illustrate furthur the need for filters by
discussing briefly a number of cases from English grammar. . . .
It was observed many years ago by Fillmore (1965) that indirect
object NP based on for-prepositional phrases in general behave
differently under passivization than indirect object NP based on toprepositional phrases. (Postal, 1972, p. 141)
Thus, the same reasons for the use of the noncompletive past in
direct speech clauses, where there is no model for tense copying,
account for its use in indirect speech clauses. This conclusion means
that there is no need for a rule of tense harmony. The past or present
tense is chosen in indirect speech on the basis of its general meaning
and discourse function.
THE MEANING OF THE PAST TENSE
Since the past tense commonly occurs in both the completive and
noncompletive senses, the best denotation of the simple past tense
may be simply “true before speech time in the real world or in the
speaker’s belief world,” with the completive sense being
determined by context and the meaning of the verb. Thus verbs
denoting actions, such as read or swim, for example, usually carry a
completive sense because of the nature of the activity, but verbs
denoting states, such as be or have, will quite often be associated
with a noncompletive sense. The final arbiter is the context,
however.
THE PAST TENSE IN ENGLISH
277
The fact that the past and present tenses may be joined by and
supports this analysis. If the past tense included in its literal
denotation “no longer true,” then the conjunction of the past tense
and the present tense, which denotes “true at speech time,” would
result in a contradictory sentence. Instead, the inclusion of the
present tense in the second conjunct merely cancels the potential
implication that something is no longer the case or that a person no
longer exists.8 As Example 32 shows, a sentence with conjoined past
and present tenses referring to the same proposition is not
contradictory.
32. Wife:
Husband:
Do you think he could actually have fallen in love with
Diana? They’ve only known each other 2 days.
Why not? I flipped for you in just 24 hours. Of course
you were the most beautiful girl in the world—and
still are. (TV dialogue, Love Boat)
Although the completive sense is prototypical of the past tense
and commonly occurs with many verbs, it does not occur in all
contexts, and that sense may be canceled. When describing a
situation which could exist at speech time, the speaker may use the
past tense to focus on his or her experience or perception of that
situation in the past, and there is no completive connotation.
Conversely, one may choose to describe past acts or opinions in the
present tense if they constitute information to be foregrounded as
currently relevant.
IMPLICATIONS FOR ESL/EFL
A major source of the problem advanced students have in using
the past tense consistently may be that they do not adequately
understand its actual meaning and discourse functions as outlined in
this article. Consider the dialogue in Example 33.
33. Susan:
Mei-Li:
Susan:
Mei-Li:
Did you do anything interesting during the break?
Yeah, I went to the Grand Canyon with some of my
friends. We drove and camped out on the way.
It sounds like fun.
It is.
In this dialogue, Mei-Li uses the past tense for completed actions
but mistakenly switches to the present tense after the native speaker
Susan uses the present. The problem is one of point of view. Susan
8 For a theoretical discussion of the nature of contextual implications and the cancelability
criterion, see Grice (1975) and Sadock (1978).
278
TESOL QUARTERLY
uses the present as a reflection of her evaluation of the trip at the
moment she speaks. Mei-Li, however, should have continued to use
the past tense to reflect the fact that her experience took place in the
past. She incorrectly switches to a present point of view and uses a
tense with a habitual sense in that context rather than continuing to
describe the trip in terms of her own experience.
The paragraph in Example 34 was written by a fairly advanced
ESL student from Vietnam.9
34. While I was in the gym, I saw someone looks very much like
somebody I know from my hometown. I was afraided to come and
ask her if she is from my hometown or not. Anyway, I guessed she
felt the same way, because not too long she came and asked about
myself. Then I found that she is from my hometown. I could not be
sure because she changed a little. However, we talked for awhile,
then she had to leave.
In this paragraph, whenever a verb denotes an act, state, or
situation completed in the past, the past tense (indicated by italics),
is correctly used (although the past perfect would be more standard
for changed). However, when states which can be considered to
exist in the present as well as in the past are described, the verbs
(indicated by italics and underlining) incorrectly appear in the
present tense.
Adoption of the wrong point of view is also the source of the error
in Example 35, taken from a very advanced Indonesian student’s
paper.
35. [Opening line of an article review] The writer was of the opinion
that the first thought of many language educators . . .
The student mistakenly describes the writer’s opinion in terms of
the time that it was expressed in writing, that is, the past. He failed
to realize that an opinion held in the past may still be described in
the present if expressed in an existing work with current relevance
for the reader and if the information belongs to the foreground.
The analysis presented in this article is not intended to account for
all instances of past tense errors in interlanguage. For example,
Godfrey (1980) proposes other discourse factors which can affect
tense use, including distraction from maintenance of past tense
continuity by extralinguistic details at episode boundaries as well as
the intrusion of forms not related to the main topic continuity. In
another discourse-based study, Kumpf (1984) examined the
interlanguage of an individual speaker who had not had formal
instruction in English. She concluded that tenses in general and the
9I
am grateful to Jan Edwards for supplying me with this writing sample.
THE PAST TENSE IN ENGLISH
279
past tense in particular were generally omitted in references to
completed actions in the foreground but were virtually always used
for states and inconsistently used for noncompleted actions in the
background.
My conclusions appear to be inconsistent with hers in that I have
found that the past tense is used in some interlanguage for
completed actions but not for states and actions with both present
and past time reference. However, Kumpf does not claim that other
speakers have the same interlanguage system as that of her subject.
More important, our analyses agree in finding the aspectual contrast
between completed and noncompleted actions relevant to the
analysis of interlanguage, both analyses providing some support for
the claim that tense as a category is universally secondary to aspect.
In addition, both analyses point to a relationship between
backgrounding and tense selection, although in different ways and
in different language systems.
Finally, I agree with Wolfram (1985) that surface-level constraints
such as the form of the past tense marking, phonological
environment, and verb frequency play the primary role in
determining the incidence of past tense use by many ESL learners.
TEACHING SUGGESTIONS
Various teaching activities can be used for both discovery and
practice purposes. Most important, the past and present tenses must
be discussed in context, using excerpts from novels, stories,
newspaper articles, academic prose, transcribed natural conversation, television dialogue, and so on. Brief notices about recent
research in magazines such as Psychology Today are good sources
of examples of academic prose which can easily be presented to
students in their entirety and which are of common interest. The
newspaper, especially the school paper, is also an excellent source
of examples, one which helps students to see that the distinctions
being taught are part of everyday usage and are not grammatical
oddities. Also, the subject matter is often of personal interest to
them.
Rather than presenting ready-made explanations to the students,
one approach the instructor can take is to provide them with
examples first and then ask them to formulate their own hypotheses.
This encourages active analysis by the students of real language
input and prepares them for a more complete explanation by the
teacher.
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TESOL QUARTERLY
The instructor can also offer explanations in terms of individual
students’ experiences. For example, an instructor might say:
36. “Mohammed, remember how when you first came to the U.S. you
didn’t want to eat hamburgers? In telling us about that experience,
you could say, ‘When I first came to the U.S. I didn’t know that
hamburgers were made from beef, not ham.’ “
Exercises can be prepared from excerpts collected by the
instructor, with the present and past tense verbs from the original
given only in the bare infinitive form. The students then change to
the appropriate tense, based on the preceding and following
discourse. Example 37 is drawn from the opening paragraph of an
Agatha Christie novel (1934).
37. Mr. Satterthwaite sat on the terrace of Crow’s Nest and watched his
host, Sir Charles Cartwright, climbing up the path from the sea.
Crow’s Nest
(be) a modern bungalow of the better
type. It
(have) no half-timbering, no gables, no
(be) a
excrescences dear to many a builder’s heart. It
plain, white, solid building, deceptive as to size, since it
(look). It
(be) a good deal bigger than it
(owe) its name to its position, high up, overlooking the
harbor of Loomouth. Indeed, from one corner of the terrace,
(be) a sheer
protected by a strong balustrade, there
(be) a
drop to the sea below. By road, Crow’s Nest
(run) inland and then
mile from the town. The road
(zigzag) high up above the sea. (p. 5)
In this exercise, all blanks require the past tense. Although there is
no tense contrast, it is a useful exercise in that students generally
expect the present tense in such contexts. In addition, the exercise
stresses the relationship between tense choice and maintenance of
point of view. Other exercises can be devised in which the past and
present tenses contrast. When students do not choose the tense of
the original, it should be made clear whether their choice is
impossible, and on what grounds, or whether it is a possible
alternative description but changes the point of view or adds or
subtracts connotations.
Students themselves can also be asked to collect examples in
context from speech or writing and to explain why the past or
present tense was used in each case, perhaps coding their answers to
generalizations presented by the instructor on a handout. This helps
to build monitoring and analytical skills which enable learning
beyond the classroom walls. Students can even be asked to prepare
exercises based on these examples for each other. This helps them to
THE PAST TENSE IN ENGLISH
281
solidify their understanding of the tenses and can heighten their
interest.
Mini-dialogues with blanks for the relevant tenses can be
composed by the instructor, with space provided for the students to
give brief reasons for their choice of tense. Examples 38 and 39,
which require the student to use a form of be in each blank, are
typical of such exercises.
in
38. a. Mary: Did you see Passage to India when it
town?
it any good?
b. Bob: No,
c. Mary: Yes, it
fantastic. It’s too bad you didn’t get
to see it.
39. Anne to Kathy: You really should go to see Passage to India before
it leaves town. It
a great movie.
For oral or written practice of the noncompletive past, students
can be asked to describe situations which would naturally call for
this sense. For instance, they might describe a former teacher
presumed still to be living but not encountered since the fifth grade,
reactions to the scenery at a particular place visited 5 years ago,
feelings during a moment of danger and how the surroundings
looked at that moment, a former home not seen in some time, and
so on. Examples 40 (by an Arabic speaker) and 41 (by an Indonesian
speaker) are descriptions written by my students.
40. When I was a child, my father and my mother decided to visit my
uncle in Egypt. . . . We started our trip in the morning. . . . We
reached my uncle’s house in the evening on the same day. . . .
On the next day my cousin and I went to the pyramids. They were
very nice. By the way, I had never seen the pyramids before that
day.
41 When I was a child. I lived in a small village, in the area of South of
Sumatra; it was called Campang Tiga. In this village I went to
elementary school when I was seven years old. . . . While I studied
at this school, I had a teacher who was called Mr. Mohammed. He
looked horrible and was very dogmatic in his opinions. He had a
loud voice.
The noncompletive and completive pasts can also be illustrated
and/or practiced in the context of a role play in which, for example,
one student takes the part of a police officer questioning another
representing a mugging victim. The latter describes the events and
the mugger’s appearance from a past point of view. A third student
then issues a police bulletin, describing the clothing and other
temporary characteristics of the suspect in the past tense and
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TESOL QUARTERLY
permanent characteristics such as height in the present. The
students can perform this spontaneously or prepare the dialogue
beforehand. In the former case, the instructor can give the students
feedback on their use of the tenses via hand signals. A sample role
play, with minor variations in parentheses, is given in Example 42.
42. Mugger: Give me your purse (wallet).
Victim: [Hands over purse. After mugger leaves, runs to phone
and calls police.]
Police: Muncie Police Station. Can I help you?
Victim: Yes, I just got mugged. He (She) took my purse.
Police: OK, Ma’am (Sir). Where and when did this take place?
Victim: A few minutes ago, on the comer of Vine and 8th.
Police: Did you see what the mugger looked like?
Victim: Yes. He (She) was tall, had brown hair, and was wearing
jeans and a red shirt. He (She) had a gun.
Police: OK, Ma’am (Sir), we’ll get right on it.
.......
Police Dispatcher: [Making announcement to police cars via radio]
The suspect is male (female), tall, has brown
hair, and was last seen wearing jeans and a red
shirt and carrying a gun.
Obviously the situation (and its language) are not realistic in all
details, but it dramatically illustrates the use of the past tense in
addition to offering an opportunity for practice once the generalizations have been presented.
This situation may be contrasted with another scenario in which
the victim can still see the mugger down the block but must
describe the mugger to someone who is helping him or her so that
the suspect can be picked out from other people on the street. In
this case, the victim’s initial description of the mugger will be in the
present tense.
Another possible role-play situation consists of two people riding
in a bus or car and commenting on what they see, as in Example 43.
43. A: Did you see that house we just passed?
B: No. What about it?
A: It had a green and orange roof.
It is also helpful to devise as many real situations in the classroom
as possible to illustrate and practice the noncompletive past. For
example, the instructor can arrange for someone unknown to the
THE PAST TENSE IN ENGLISH
283
students to come into the class to give him or her a message. After
that person leaves, the instructor elicits from the class details about
the person’s appearance, clothing, and so on in the noncompletive
past by saying, “Did you notice that woman who was just in here?
Describe her to me.” The instructor can ask questions such as “What
was she wearing?” “What color was her hair?” and so on, if
necessary. The contrasting use of the present tense can be illustrated
and/or practiced by having someone the students know come into
the class and by later asking them, for example, “What is Mary
wearing today?”
The instructor can also start a conversation with students about
their studies, native customs, or past experiences and at various
points animatedly exclaim, for example, “I didn’t know you and
Keiko were in the same chemistry lab!” or “I didn’t realize that the
Vietnamese ate curries!”
Communicative and contextually based exercises such as these
are of great help in raising students’ awareness of the past tense as
it is actually used in discourse and may contribute to greater
consistency in their use of the past tense.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This article, the writing of which was partially supported by funds from the Office
of the Provost, Ball State University, is partly based on my 1978 Ph.D. dissertation,
Sequence of Tenses in English, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Earlier
versions were read at the INTESOL Conference, Bloomington, November 1984,
and at the TESOL Convention, New York, April 1985. I am grateful to the
reviewers and to Christopher Ely, Herbert Stahlke, and especially Paul Neubauer
for their helpful comments and discussion.
THE AUTHOR
Elizabeth Riddle is an Assistant Professor of English at Ball State University,
Muncie, Indiana, where she teaches linguistics, ESL, and TESL methods. She has
also taught in Poland as a Fulbright lecturer. Her primary areas of research are
pragmatic and functional grammar.
284
TESOL QUARTERLY
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TESOL QUARTERLY, Vol. 20, No. 2, June 1986
Don’t Put Your Leg in Your Mouth:
Transfer in the Acquisition of Idioms
in a Second Language
SUZANNE IRUJO
Brown University and Boston University
The study reported in this article investigated whether second
language learners use knowledge of their first language to
comprehend and produce idioms in the second language. Subjects
were 12 Venezuelan advanced learners of English. Comprehension of 45 English idioms—15 identical in form and meaning to
their Spanish equivalents, 15 similar to their Spanish equivalents,
and 15 different from the corresponding Spanish idioms—was
tested with a multiple-choice test and a definition test. Production
of the same 45 idioms was tested with a discourse-completion test
and a translation test. Results showed identical idioms were the
easiest to comprehend and produce. Similar idioms were
comprehended almost as well but showed interference from
Spanish. Different idioms were the most difficult to comprehend
and produce but showed less interference than similar idioms.
Subjects used both inter- and intralingual strategies to produce
idioms they did not know. Within each type, the idioms that were
comprehended and produced most correctly were those which
were frequently used and transparent and which had simple
vocabulary and structure.
Second language learners encounter such difficulty using English
idioms that they often prefer to avoid them altogether. This
difficulty may result from confusing part of an idiom they have
heard but not mastered in English, as in the case of to go out on a
stick instead of to go out on a limb. It may also be the result of
transferring part of an idiom in their first language to an English
idiom, as in the case of to spread the voice instead of to spread the
news (from the Spanish correr la voz, “to run the voice”). When the
first and second language have identical idioms, the use of transfer
can result in a correct idiom, such as to take the bull by the horns
(the Spanish idiom agarrar al toro por los cuernos is identical in
form and meaning).
The investigation reported in this article was undertaken to
287
determine whether learners would use knowledge of their first
language to help them understand and produce idioms in a second
language. Specifically, the study examined whether first language
idioms that are very similar to their equivalents in the second
language would cause more interference than idioms that are
different. The study was also intended to provide information
about the strategies learners use when they have to produce idioms
they do not know and the characteristics of those idioms which are
the easiest to learn.
An idiom is a conventionalized expression whose meaning cannot
be determined from the meaning of its parts. For example, the
idiomatic meaning of I was pulling your leg cannot be derived from
the meanings of pull and leg. Idioms differ from other figurative
expressions, such as similes and metaphors, in that they have
conventionalized meanings. Native speakers of English know
immediately that I was pulling your leg means “I was teasing you,”
whereas they have to deduce their own meaning from a metaphor
such as I was greasing your mind. The distinction between idiom
and metaphor is not always precise because many idioms are
“dead” or “frozen” metaphors— figurative expressions which have
acquired conventionalized meanings. For instance, He’s nothing but
skin and bones could be understood as an idiom through knowledge
of its conventionalized meaning, “He’s very thin. ” If that
conventionalized meaning were unknown, however, it could be
interpreted metaphorically with the same meaning.
Idioms can also be distinguished from other kinds of conventionalized language. Certain fixed, literal expressions are commonly
used in particular situations but are not idiomatic. For example, just
between you and me indicates confidentiality, I beg your pardon is
a formulaic apology, and see you later is a common farewell. These
expressions are not idioms because their meanings can be
determined from the meanings of the words which comprise them.
Yorio (1980) calls such expressions routine formulas and provides a
comprehensive classification of their properties. Idiom and routine
formula are not mutually exclusive categories, however; some
routine formulas, such as take five or let’s call it a day, are also
idiomatic.
TRANSFER AND CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS
The concept of transfer is based on the idea that previous learning
affects subsequent learning. In language learning, this means that
the forms and patterns of the native language are imposed on the
second language (Gass, 1979). When these are identical in the two
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TESOL QUARTERLY
languages and the learner uses the first language in producing the
second, positive transfer occurs. The result is a correct second
language form or pattern. When they are different, using those of
the native language to produce the equivalent form or pattern in the
second language causes negative transfer. The errors that result are
called interference errors.
During the 1950s and early 1960s, interlingual transfer was
assumed to be the most important factor in learning another
language (Politzer, 1965). However, the paradigm shift that
occurred in linguistics and psychology in the 1960s created a change
of focus. The emergence of generative grammar and cognitive
psychology created the new discipline of psycholinguistics.
Language acquisition was no longer seen as a process of forming
correct habits through repetition and reinforcement, but as the
result of an innate language acquisition device which operates
through a process of hypothesis testing (Chomsky, 1959). Because
transfer had been associated with the habit formation theory of
language acquisition, the shift to generative grammar brought with
it much less emphasis on interference and more emphasis on
developmental processes, learning strategies, and the structure of
the target language as sources of error (Richards, 1974). Second
language acquisition came to be seen as a “creative construction”
process rather than the transfer of habits from the first language to
the second (Dulay & Burt, 1975).
In spite of the claims that interference is not really a very
important factor in second language acquisition, investigators have
continued to find evidence showing substantial influence of the first
language on the second (James, 1980; Sheen, 1980; Steinbach, 1981).
Recent investigations have focused on the question of what is
transferred, what the domains of language transfer are, and whether
transfer can be predicted (Gass & Selinker, 1983).
Transfer and contrastive analysis are linked in the literature
because a comparison of two languages can help to show how an
item from one language can be transferred to the other. The strong
version of the contrastive analysis hypothesis has claimed to be able
to predict areas of difficulty by comparing the native language of
the learner with the target language (Lado, 1957). Similar patterns
would be easy to learn because they could be successfully
transferred from the first language. Different patterns would cause
interference and therefore be difficult to learn. Stockwell, Bowen,
and Martin’s (1965) hierarchy of difficulty proposed that the more
different two items were, the more difficult they would be.
TRANSFER AND THE ACQUISITION OF IDIOMS
289
Contrastive analysis has been criticized on theoretical grounds
(Sajavaara, 1976; Whitman, 1970) and on the basis of empirical
investigation (Brière, 1968; Buteau, 1970; Tran-Thi-Chau, 1975).
Attempts have been made to modify the contrastive analysis
hypothesis to make it more viable. Wardhaugh (1970) has proposed
a weak version that explains errors after the fact rather than
predicting them before they are made. Based on the results of
empirical research, Oller and Ziahosseiny (1970) have suggested a
moderate version, which proposes that more difficulty occurs when
the differences between languages are slight.
Very little work has been done on the role of transfer in the acquisition of idioms. Two studies done in The Netherlands tested
whether structures such as idioms, proverbs, and slang, which were
called language-specific, are considered by learners to be nontransferable. Both Jordens (1977) and Kellerman (1977) asked second language learners to judge the grammaticality of correct and incorrect
sentences containing idioms. Some of the idioms had first language
equivalents; some did not. In both studies, learners tended to judge
those idioms which had first language equivalents as ungrammatical,
indicating a reluctance to transfer language-specific items.
These studies, however, dealt only with grammaticality judgments, not with the actual comprehension and production of idioms;
nor did they differentiate idioms according to their degree of
similarity to first language equivalents. The study reported in this
article was designed to assess the differential effects of transfer on
the comprehension and production of idioms.
THE STUDY
Hypotheses
The following hypotheses were formulated:
1. Identical idioms would show evidence of positive transfer; they
would be easiest to comprehend and to produce correctly.
2. Similar idioms would show evidence of negative transfer; while
comprehension might be almost as high as for identical idioms,
production of these idioms would reflect interference from the
first language.
3. For different idioms, there would be no evidence of either
positive or negative transfer; subjects would comprehend and
produce fewer different idioms than idioms of the other two
types.
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TESOL QUARTERLY
Subjects
A total of 12 advanced learners of English from Venezuela served
as subjects. Subjects of the same nationality were chosen to ensure
that they all used the same variety of Spanish and would be familiar
with the Spanish equivalents of the idioms chosen for the study.
From a list of all Venezuelan students at a major university,
potential subjects were initially contacted on a random basis.
However, the final group was self-selected in the sense that they
were interested enough in the study to be willing to give 2 hours of
their time in return for a small reimbursement.
All subjects were regularly enrolled undergraduate students at the
university. All had scored at least 500 on the TOEFL; the mean
TOEFL score was 570. Average length of residence in the United
States was 2.75 years, and average age was 21.8 years.
Materials and Procedures
The idioms chosen for the study were selected on the basis of two
versions of a questionnaire, one in English and one in Spanish. The
questionnaire consisted of three parts, each containing 50 idioms of
one type (identical, similar, or different). Twenty-three Spanish
speakers and 30 English speakers completed the questionnaire in
their native language. They were asked to define each of the idioms
and rate, on a scale of 1 to 5, the frequency of use of each. Based on
these results, 15 idioms of each type (see Appendix) were chosen; all
had been defined unambiguously by all of the respondents, had
equivalent figurative meanings in both languages, and had received
a median of at least 3 on the frequency-of-use scale.
Tests were written to assess recognition, comprehension, recall,
and production of these idioms. The recognition test was a multiplechoice test, with the choices including the correct paraphrase of the
idiom, a sentence related to the correct paraphrase, a sentence
related to the literal interpretation, and an unrelated sentence. An
item from the multiple-choice test is presented below:
I’m fed up with him.
a. I’ve been seeing him too much.
b. I’m very tired of him.
c. I’m full from eating too much.
d. I’m crazy about him.
The comprehension test asked the subjects to write a definition of
the idiom in either English or Spanish. The recall test was a discoursecompletion task consisting of a paragraph containing the idiom
TRANSFER AND THE ACQUISITION OF IDIOMS
291
with one word missing; subjects had to supply the missing word. The
following item is an example:
Tim’s parents were tired of hearing loud rock music all the time. “Turn
that music down,” his mother yelled. “I’m
up with your
loud music!”
The production test was a translation task, although the subjects
were not told that they were to translate the idiom. Each item
consisted of a paragraph in Spanish containing the idiom and an
English translation of the paragraph with the idiom omitted. Subjects
were asked to supply the English idiom which they would use in that
situation. Examples of all three types of idioms were given in the
instructions, so subjects would realize that a literal translation was not
always possible. A sample test item is given below:
Los dos hermanos siempre se peleaban. Por fin su madre no podía más,
The two brothers were always fighting. Finally their mother couldn’t
take any more, and she shouted, “Enough!
with these fights!”
Subjects were tested individually or in small groups; all subjects
took the tests in the following order: discourse-completion,
translation, definition, multiple-choice.
Scoring and Analysis
The items on the two comprehension tests were scored as correct
or incorrect, and the items on the production tests were scored as
correct, incorrect, or incorrect with interference. It was often
difficult to determine when interference had occurred. In this study,
interference was defined as the incorrect use of a translation of a
content word from a Spanish idiom. However, in many cases,
especially with similar idioms, an incorrect word in the English idiom
could be either a translation from the Spanish idiom or an
overgeneralization or overextension of a word in the English idiom.
For example, does put your leg in your mouth result from
interference from the similar equivalent Spanish idiom meter la pata
(“to put in the leg”), or is it an overextension of the English word
foot? In unclear cases, the error was not considered to be
interference. To check the reliability of the scoring, four graduate
students were asked to score one of the translation tests which
contained a large number of errors; interrater reliability among the
researcher and the four independent raters was .87.
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TESOL QUARTERLY
One-way analyses of variance with repeated measures were
performed to test for differences among the three types of idioms
on total number of idioms correct. Where there were significant
differences, Tukey’s Honestly Significant Difference test was used
to ascertain which type of idiom had significantly higher or lower
scores than the others.
Analysis of variance could not be used to test for differences in
interference scores because the mean scores for identical idioms
were zero. Therefore, paired, two-tailed t tests were used to test for
differences between similar and different idioms on number of
interference errors. In addition, responses given on the translation
test were analyzed to determine what strategies the subjects were
using to produce unknown idioms. The idioms that were
comprehended and produced most correctly were also examined to
see if they had any characteristics in common.
RESULTS
Analyses of Variance
One-way analyses of variance with repeated measures indicated
clearly that subjects were performing differently with the three
types of idioms (see Table 1). Planned multiple comparisons were
done to show exactly where the differences were (see Table 2). On
each of the two tests of comprehension, subjects did equally well
TABLE 1
Means, Standard Deviations, and F Scores for Idiom Tests
Task
Idiom type
Multiplechoice
Definition
TRANSFER AND THE ACQUISITION OF IDIOMS
Translation
Discoursecompletion
293
with identical and similar idioms but had significantly more
difficulty with different idioms. On the translation test, similar and
different idioms were equally difficult; on the discourse-completion
test, performance differed for all three types of idioms.
It appears that when the task was to recognize the meaning of an
idiom, subjects were able to generalize from the meaning in their first
TABLE 2
Differences Among Means of Types of Idioms
(Tukey's Honestly Significant Difference)
language to the meaning in the second language if the form was
identical or similar; slight differences in form did not affect this
process. When the task was to produce the entire idiom, slight
differences in form made similar idioms just as difficult to produce
as different idioms; whether the differences were great or very
small did not matter. When the task was to supply part of an
incomplete idiom, the more different an idiom was, the more
difficult it was.
Only the two tests of productive ability were scored for
interference. There were no interference errors on identical idioms,
but paired t tests showed that there were differences between
similar and different idioms (see Table 3). However, transfer was
more in evidence with similar idioms than with different ones,
probably because subjects recognized the similarity and assumed
that they could transfer.
The hypotheses of the study were supported. Subjects comprehended identical idioms as well as similar idioms, and both were
comprehended better than different idioms. They correctly
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TESOL QUARTERLY
produced more identical idioms than similar or different idioms
(Hypothesis 1). Similar idioms were comprehended as well as
identical idioms, but production of similar idioms showed
interference from the first language (Hypothesis 2). Fewer different
idioms were comprehended and produced correctly (although the
difference between similar and different idioms was not significant
TABLE 3
Means, Standard Deviations, and t Scores for Interference Errors
on the translation test), and there was little evidence of interference
for different idioms (Hypothesis 3).
Strategies
While the results of this study show that subjects did use their
native language to comprehend and produce idioms in the second
language, they also used target language-related strategies. It is
impossible to make any definitive statement about the relative
influence of first and second language strategies, however, because
of the difficulty of assigning responses to a specific category. For
example, is I am filled up a confusion of filled and fed (I am fed up
was the expected English idiom), or is it the result of interference
from the different but equivalent Spanish idiom estoy hasta la
coronilla (“I am up to the crown of my head,” with being “up to the
crown of your head” meaning that you are filled up) ?1
anonymous TESOL Quarterly reviewer has pointed out that there are at least two other
possible explanations for this error: the phonological similarity of filled and fed, or
semantic “reanalysis” of I am filld up from I am full. Either of these explanations would
be considered a target language strategy.
1 An
TRANSFER AND THE ACQUISITION OF IDIOMS
295
There were some fairly clear cases of target language strategies,
however, such as the substitution of words with similar meanings in
kill two birds with one rock, swallow it hook, cord, and sinker, and
hit the nail on the tip, or the collocation of antonyms in come low or
high water. In other cases, the confusion came from a different
English idiom: put something fast on her, where to pull a fast one is
confused with to put something over on her; kicked the towel, where
to throw in the towel is confused with to kick the bucket.
Other target language-related strategies included providing an
incomplete idiom (cost an arm for cost an arm and a leg); using an
English idiom different from the expected one, either an acceptable
equivalent (I’ve had it for I’m fed up) or an unacceptable
nonequivalent (play all my cards does not mean the same as put my
cards on the table); using a figurative expression which is not a known
idiom (a nail in the backyard for a needle in a haystack); or using a
routine formula which is not idiomatic ( what’s wrong with her? for
what’s bugging/eating her?).
An interesting first language strategy was used by several subjects
who thought of another Spanish idiom equivalent to the one given
and translated that one. For example, it was by the clouds (a direct
translation of estaba por las nubes, which means that something cost
a lot) was given for costó un ojo de la cara (“it cost an eye of the
face”), when the expected equivalent was it cost an arm and a leg.
Use of the first language in producing idioms in English varied by
individual; some showed virtually no interference for any type of
idiom, while others had high rates of interference for both similar and
different idioms. These differences may be related to whether the
subjects kept their two language systems separate or not. Levenston
(1979) discusses the possibility that some learners may consciously
try to keep their two languages separate and thus reject second
language forms which are too close to those of the first language.
It would be interesting to investigate whether the use of first and
second language strategies in producing idioms varies according to
the proficiency level of the student. Previous research has shown that
this is true for syntax (Taylor, 1975), for lexical simplification
strategies (Jarujumpol, 1984), and for lexical compensatory
strategies (Poulisse, Bongaerts, & Kellerman, 1984). In all cases, the
less proficient learners used more first language strategies, while the
more proficient learners used more second language strategies.
Paribakht’s (1985) study of communication strategies found two
strategies related to idioms that were used exclusively by one group
or the other. In a concept-identification task, only the less proficient
learners used idiomatic transfer (reference to some semantic or
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TESOL QUARTERLY
syntactic feature of a first language idiom), while only the more
proficient group made use of target language idioms and proverbs
to refer to a specific context where the target item was used.
In the study reported here, there was no correlation between
proficiency (as measured by TOEFL score) and the amount of
interference evident in each subject’s production of idioms.
However, the language proficiency of the subjects was relatively
homogeneous (TOEFL scores ranged from 520 to 620), and the study
had not been designed to examine differences among them. Further
research comparing intermediate and advanced learners would be of
interest to see if advanced learners use more second language
strategies.
Best Known Idioms
The 45 idioms used in this study were rank ordered according to
the number and percentage of total correct responses. Within each
type, the best known idioms (point of view, lend a hand, sleep on it)
were frequently used, useful in a university setting, short and
relatively simple, and fairly transparent in their meaning. The least
known idioms (look for a needle in a haystack; swallow it hook, line,
and sinker; take the cake) were less frequently used, more colloquial,
and often contained difficult vocabulary.
An additional factor, semantic similarity, may help account for
why some idioms are easier than others. Degree of similarity is
probably not a question of discrete categories, and perceived
similarity may vary from one learner to another. The fact that two
of the different idioms may have semantic rather than formal
similarities to their Spanish counterparts could account for their
being the easiest idioms in this group. To sleep on it is part of the same
semantic domain as consultarlo con la almohada (“to consult it with
the pillow”), and to pull his leg can be associated with tomarle el pelo
(“to take to him the hair”). In both cases the literal meanings involve
doing something to some part of the body.
DISCUSSION
On the two comprehension tests, it appears that subjects were able
to generalize from the meaning of the idiom in Spanish to its meaning
in English, even when the form was slightly different. On the two
production tests, they were able to produce correctly many more
identical idioms than idioms of the other two types. Both of these
results indicate that positive transfer was being used. Negative
transfer (interference) was also evident on the two production tests,
TRANSFER AND THE ACQUISITION OF IDIOMS
297
more so for similar idioms than for totally different idioms. When
differences are slight, the tendency may be to generalize and ignore
those differences. When differences are so great that two forms
have nothing in common, there would be no reason to try to use one
form to produce the other, so little transfer would occur.
The results of this study support the notion that advanced learners
of a second language whose first language is related to the second
can use their knowledge of idioms in their first language to
comprehend and produce idioms in the second. This result differs
from those of Jordens (1977) and Kellerman (1977), who found that
learners considered idioms to be nontransferable, but the tasks
subjects were asked to do are not comparable across the three
studies. There is also support for the notion that structures which are
very similar in the first and second languages will produce more
interference than structures which are different. This supports the
moderate contrastive analysis hypothesis of Oller and Ziahosseiny
(1970).
This study has theoretical implications for the investigation of
transfer in the acquisition of a second language. The results suggest
that similarities between languages encourage interference and that
idioms are not always considered nontransferable. It must be
remembered, however, that the results apply only to the specific
subjects and tasks of this study. Further research is needed with
subjects from other language and cultural backgrounds. In addition,
it is possible that subjects would avoid using idioms if they had a
choice of using an English idiom or not.
Finally, the findings of this study can be applied to the
teaching of idioms in ESL and foreign language classes. If
students are using their knowledge of idioms in their first
language to comprehend and produce second language idioms,
teachers should take advantage of this. In bilingual and foreign
language settings, overt comparisons can show students which
idioms can be transferred from their first language and which are
likely to cause interference. In ESL settings, where students come
from various language backgrounds and the teacher does not
know all of the students’ native languages, students can be
encouraged to make such comparisons themselves.
The data on best and least known idioms also provide a basis
for deciding which idioms to teach. Infrequent, highly colloquial
idioms with difficult vocabulary should be avoided. Students will
obviously have difficulty producing them correctly; in addition, these
colorful idioms, even when correctly produced, often sound
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TESOL QUARTERLY
strange and unnatural when spoken by nonnative speakers of
English.
Activities for teaching comprehension of idioms should provide
students with skills in guessing meaning from context and in dealing
with figurative speech. For example, shown a paragraph from which
an idiom has been deleted, students can supply a word or phrase
which fits the context. When an appropriate word or phrase has been
supplied, students are shown how they have actually guessed the
meaning of the deleted idiom. They can then be guided to discover
whether there is an equivalent idiom in their first language and, if so,
whether the two idioms are identical, similar, or different.
Activities which compare literal and figurative meanings of idioms
help students to realize the absurdity of the literal meanings and
provide a link from the literal words to the nonliteral meaning.
Examples of activities of this type include matching pictures showing
literal and idiomatic meanings of an idiom, drawing or acting out
literal meanings, playing idiom charades, and making up stories or
dialogues in which the literal use of an idiom creates a misunderstanding or a humorous situation. Activities of this type would be
particularly useful with idioms which have no first language
equivalent or a totally different one. When idioms have identical or
similar first language equivalents, the native language already
provides the link between the literal words and the nonliteral
meaning.
Activities which encourage production of idioms can be based on
lists of idioms collected by the students or supplied by the teacher.
These lists should include idioms which are similar in the first and
second languages and are therefore likely to cause interference.
Students can tell add-on stories containing idioms; retell a story they
heard that contained idioms; write and present short plays, puppet
shows, stories, or dialogues with idioms in them; and role-play
situations that lend themselves to production of idioms. All of these
activities will be easier if the idioms used are thematically related,
and having students decide which idioms are related will help them
learn their meanings. (See Irujo, in press, for complete descriptions
of these activities, as well as criteria for deciding which idioms to
teach.)
The issue of teaching for recognition versus teaching for
production is particularly important in the teaching of idioms, since
interference will be most obvious in production. It has been
suggested that at beginning and intermediate levels, idioms be taught
for recognition only (Yorio, 1980). However, the use of idioms
is so common in English that it can be difficult to speak or
TRANSFER AND THE ACQUISITION OF IDIOMS
299
write without them (Seidl & McMordie, 1978). Even beginning
students can successfully learn to produce some idioms if they are
carefully chosen on the basis of frequency, need, transparency, and
syntactic and semantic simplicity. Students should be taught how to
utilize positive transfer and avoid interference, and they must be
given enough opportunity to practice using idioms in contextualized
situations. By doing this, we can help students overcome their
“idiomphobia” and learn to produce English idioms correctly, both
in and outside of class.
❑
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This article is based on a portion of the author’s doctoral dissertation (Irujo, 1984b)
and on a paper (Irujo, 1984a) presented at the Ninth Annual Boston University
Conference on Language Development. Thanks are due to Bruce Fraser for
guidance and comments and to an anonymous TESOL Quarterly reviewer for
helpful suggestions.
THE AUTHOR
Suzanne Irujo is Director of Project BELT (Bilingual Education Leadership
Training) at Brown University and Coordinator of Student Teaching for Bilingual
Education, TESOL, and Modern Foreign Languages at Boston University. Her
research interests include transfer in second language acquisition and strategies of
lexical acquisition.
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Wardhaugh, R. (1970). The contrastive analysis hypothesis. TESOL
Quarterly, 4, 123-130.
Whitman, R.L. (1970), Contrastive analysis: Problems and procedures.
Language Learning, 20, 191-197.
Yorio, C.A. (1980). Conventionalized language forms and the development
of communicative competence. TESOL Quarterly, 14, 433-442.
APPENDIX
List of Idioms
Identical Idioms
point of view
punto de vista (point of view)
to have on the tip of my tongue
tener en la punta de la lengua (to have on the tip/point of the tongue)
to look for a needle in a haystack
buscar una aguja en un pajar (to look for a needle in a hayloft)
to play with fire
jugar con fuego (to play with fire)
to break the ice
romper el hielo (to break the ice)
to have your hands tied
tener las manes atadas (to have the hands tied)
to stick your nose into everything
meter las narices en todo (to stick the noses in everything)
to be all ears
ser todo oídos (to be all ears)
a vicious circle
un círculo vicioso (a circle vicious)
to run a risk
correr riesgo (to run risk)
to be in charge
estar a cargo (to be at charge)
the black sheep of the family
la oveja negra de la familia (the sheep black of the family)
to put your cards on the table
poner las cartas sobre la mesa (to put the cards on the table)
to open his eyes
abrirle los ojos (to open to him the eyes)
to wash my hands of it
lavarme las manos de ello (to wash myself the hands of it)
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Similar Idioms
to kill two birds with one stone
matar dos pájaros de un tiro (to kill two birds from one shot)
to catch him red-handed
cogerle con las manos en la masa (to catch him with the hands in the
dough)
can’t make heads or tails of it
no tiene ni pies ni cabeza (it doesn’t have feet or head)
to lend a hand
echar una mano (to give a hand)
to cost an arm and a leg
costar un ojo de la cara (to cost an eye of the face)
to put your foot in your mouth
meter la pata (to put in your leg)
to burn the midnight oil
quemarse las pestañas (to burn oneself the eyelashes)
to have a screw loose
faltarle un tornillo (to be missing to him a screw)
to swallow it hook, line, and sinker
tragar el anzuelo (to swallow the hook)
to take a load off his mind
quitarle un peso de encima (to take to him a weight from on top)
to hit the nail on the head
dar en el clavo (to give/hit in the nail)
come hell or high water
contra viento y marea (against wind and tide)
to hold your tongue
morderse la lengua (to bite oneself the tongue)
to have your back to the wall
encontrarse entre la espada y la pared (to find oneself between the sword
and the wall)
the coast is clear
no hay moros en la costa (there are no Moors on the coast)
Different Idioms
to pull his leg
tomarle el pelo (to take to him the hair)
to keep someone posted
tener a alguien al corriente (to have someone at the current)
to have a free hand
tener carta blanca (to have a letter white)
to kick the bucket
estirar la pata (to stretch the leg)
to take the rap
pagar el pato (to pay the duck)
what’s eating him?
¿qué mosca le ha picado? (what fly to him has bitten?)
TRANSFER AND THE ACQUISITION OF IDIOMS
303
to make a killing
hacer su agosto (to make his August)
to sleep on it
consultarlo con la almohada (to consult it with the pillow)
to go along with the crowd
dejarse llevar por la corriente (to let oneself to carry by the current)
to put two and two together
atar cabos (to tie ends)
to stick to your guns
no dar el brazo a torcer (not to give the arm to bend)
to put something over on
dar gato por liebre (to give cat for hare)
to be fed up with
estar hasta la coronilla de (to be up to the crown of the head from)
to throw a fit
poner el grito en el cielo (to put the shout in the heaven)
to take the cake
ser el colmo (to be the summit)
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TESOL QUARTERLY
TESOL QUARTERLY, Vol. 20, No. 2, June 1986
“Information Gap” Tasks:
Do They Facilitate
Second Language Acquisition?
CATHERINE DOUGHTY and TERESA PICA
University of Pennsylvania
This article reports the findings of the latest of a series of studies
conducted to determine the effects of task type and participation
pattern on language classroom interaction. The results of this study
are compared to those of an earlier investigation (Pica & Doughty,
1985a) in regard to optional and required information exchange
tasks across teacher-directed, small-group, and dyad interactional
patterns. The evidence suggests that a task with a requirement for
information exchange is crucial to the generation of conversational
modification of classroom interaction. This finding is significant in
light of current theory, which argues that conversational
modification occurring during interaction is instrumental in
second language acquisition. Furthermore, the finding that group
and dyad interaction patterns produced more modification than
did the teacher-fronted situation suggests that participation
pattern as well as task type have an effect on the conversational
modification of interaction.
Efforts to teach second languages within a communicative
framework have led to certain methodologically motivated
organizational changes in the classroom environment. To aim at
specific needs of students as well as to captivate their interest,
current ESL classrooms often feature a diverse assortment of
instructional materials, learning activities, and student-teacher or
student-student interactional patterns. In addition to using lessons in
which they fully control classroom interaction, many teachers have
regularly begun to employ small-group and pair work as a means of
increasing their students’ target language practice time. Classroom
assignments now feature not only activities involving the introduction and practice of usage rules, but also tasks which encourage
305
the use of the target language in problem-solving and decisionmaking situations.
In sum, the kinds of activities students are engaged in and the
interlocutors with whom they interact have changed with recent
years. In light of these organizational changes in the ESL classroom,
a series of empirical studies was conducted to examine the possible
effects on classroom second language acquisition of learning tasks
and interactional patterns currently in use (Pica & Doughty, 1985a,
1985b, 1985c).
PREVIOUS RESEARCH: THE EFFECT OF
PARTICIPATION PATTERN
An initial study (Pica & Doughty, 1985a) compared conversational interaction in teacher-to-student and student-to-student
interactional patterns during decision-making exercises of the kind
well known in ESL materials. Of particular interest was the
identification of differences in (a) grammaticality of input, (b) the
amount of speech produced, and (c) the amount of modified
interaction which occurred during these conversations. Modified
interaction is defined here as that interaction which is altered in
some way (either linguistically or conversationally) to facilitate
comprehension of the intended message meaning. In the teacherfronted activity, individual classes, together with teachers, who
directed the interaction, had to arrive at a solution to a problem. As
a class, they were given information about five families living in the
21st century, and then they had to choose which one was most
eligible to adopt a child. In the group situation, 4 students working
together had to choose among six potential recipients for a heart
transplant. Thus, both teacher-fronted and group tasks involved
arriving at a decision based on a description of a situation.
Although it had been hypothesized that there would be more
conversational modification (operationalized as confirmation and
comprehension checks and clarification requests, as defined by
Long, 1980, and repetitions) by students in groups than with their
teachers, these predictions were not borne out. In fact, the teacherfronted situation engendered more conversational adjustments than
did the group format. These counterintuitive results could not be
considered to have great significance, however, because very little
conversational modification was observed in either situation.
In view of the importance attached to conversational modification in making input comprehensible and thereby promoting
second language acquisition (Long, 1981), it appeared that neither
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participant-pattern format was especially conducive to the acquisition of a second language in the classroom environment.
However, two potentially confounding factors—one having to do
with the task, the other related to classroom pattern—may have
influenced the results. These two factors, discussed below, led to
the design of a second experiment.
The first concern was with the task employed in the investigation.
Davies (1982) and Long (1980, 1981, 1983a, 1983b) have stressed the
importance of using activities with a built-in, two-way information
gap. Information gap refers to the existence of a lack of information
among participants working on a common problem, but the term
does not define the nature of the gap. Two-way information gap
tasks are here defined (following Long, 1980) as those tasks which
require the exchange of information among all participants, each of
whom possesses some piece of information not known to, but
needed by, all other participants to solve the problem. In this
article, such tasks are referred to as required information exchange
tasks to emphasize the obligatory nature of the gap and to avoid
confusion, as the exchanges that occur are actually multidirectional
rather than two-way. Long (1981) claims that such activities
promote optimal conditions for students to adjust their input to each
other’s levels of comprehension (i.e., modify the interaction) and
thereby facilitate their second language acquisition.
One-way information gap tasks are usually defined as tasks which
do not require an exchange of information; they are referred to here
as optional exchange tasks. In optional exchange tasks, participants
decide whether or not to contribute to the solution of the problem.
Often, as discussed below, confident and proficient speakers carry
the conversation, and weaker students tend to opt out of the task
altogether.
The decision-making activities used in the first study, while
communicative in emphasis, were nevertheless not required
information exchange tasks. Each participant’s contribution to the
decision, primarily in the form of arguments and opinions, may
have been useful in helping other participants arrive at a group
solution but was not necessarily required for making the final
decision. In other words, completion of the task did not oblige
participants to pool information known only to individuals as would
be required by a multi-way information gap task.
As a result, the teacher and a few class members monopolized the
conversational interaction in the teacher-fronted lesson, and the
more fluent students did likewise within their individual groups.
Thus, there were no constraints on all students to participate or to
“INFORMATION GAP” TASKS AND SLA
307
adhere to any one topic. Many students tended to go along with the
majority opinion of both their class and group when it came time to
articulate the final decision; this occurred in spite of the fact that
they had given prior indications of disagreement with their
classmates. In some cases, if the students were not able to reach a
unanimous decision, they would simply shift to a different aspect of
the problem, thereby abandoning the topic at hand altogether.
Typically, in the face of group or class conflict of opinion, the less
linguistically proficient students opted to avoid participation, and
the less skillful debaters tended to capitulate rather than to make
sure that their opinion was taken into account. The more expressive
participants, including the teacher of course, dominated the interaction and supplied most of the input. The input generated by
the proficient students and the teacher apparently was either
beyond the processing capacity of weaker students, and hence
incomprehensible to them, or simply was at their current processing
level, and therefore did not necessitate interfactional modification.
In the second instance, when students did not go beyond their
existing level of understanding, they may have been influenced by
the lack of motivation to reach a truly unanimous decision. Thus, in
both teacher-fronted and group interaction during decision-making
tasks, students may either have failed to have any idea of message
content or may have understood messages so well that they did not
need to ask for or provide adjustments in target language use.
The second possible explanation for the counterintuitive outcome
of the initial study was that group work, for many of the reasons
outlined above, may not have been the optimal format for
activating modified interaction among the students. As happened in
the teacher-fronted situation, the more fluent student(s) among the
4 in each group studied tended to dominate the decision-making
activity, often providing input so far above the comprehension level
of the other students that it was not challenged. At other times, the
language produced by individual group members was easily
understood so that little modification was needed; hence few
adjustments were requested or produced in the group interaction.
We suspected that a combination of factors contributed to the
null findings of this teacher-fronted versus group-work comparison.
Potentially the most important factor was that the tasks employed
did not require an exchange of information and thus resulted in a
small number of confirmation and comprehension checks and
clarification requests, all of which are believed to be vital to second
language acquisition. For that reason, the number of conversational
modifications which occurred in either participation-pattern format
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was extremely low. Second, we had predicted that during interaction with a full class, the teacher would control the interaction in
such a way that little modification would be required. Surprisingly,
however, the students working in small groups also tended to
structure the discourse so as to limit the need for adjustments. Thus,
what we had thought were different participation patterns were
more similar than we realized.
PRESENT RESEARCH: THE EFFECTS OF TASK AND
PARTICIPATION PATTERN
Purpose and Hypotheses
A second study was conducted to examine these two factors. The
major differences between this study and the earlier research are
that (a) tasks were employed which had a requirement f o r
information exchange and (b) in addition to comparing teacherfronted versus group work on these tasks, a third interfactional
pattern—the student dyad—was introduced into the experimental
design.
Our first hypothesis was that activities which required an
information exchange for their completion would generate
substantially more modified interaction than those in which such
exchange was optional. Thus, there would be more comprehension
and confirmation checks, more clarification requests, and more
repetitions in the former than in the latter activity. Furthermore, we
predicted that the number of interlocutors and the presence or
absence of the teacher would influence the amount of modified
interaction in the activity.
We believed that the teacher, more experienced in making sense
out of interlanguage productions, would be less likely to seek
clarification or confirmation of student utterances. The more
proficient students would be more confident that their target
language could be understood and therefore would be less likely to
check the comprehension of their interlocutors. Less linguistically
proficient students might feel reluctant or embarrassed to indicate
their lack of comprehension in front of their teacher or a large
number of classmates. Thus, we anticipated that the presence of the
teacher and the dynamics of a large group of interlocutors should
reduce the amount of modified interaction.
In the group situation, on the other hand, we felt that participants,
sitting in closer, face-to-face view than in the teacher-fronted
situation, might notice confusion on the part of fellow interactants
and would therefore be inclined to check their comprehension. In
“INFORMATION GAP” TASKS AND SLA
309
addition, we believed that the face-threatening nature of the task
would diminish as the number of interactants decreased. Thus,
opportunities for modification would be even more pronounced in
the dyad situation, in which participants interacted only with each
other.
This reasoning led to our second hypothesis: Although interaction
is generated by all required information exchange tasks, more
modified interaction would occur in the dyad situation than in the
group situation, which would in turn provide more opportunity for
modification than the teacher-fronted situation.
Subjects
The subjects in both the earlier and present studies were adult
students and teachers from six intermediate ESL classes (three
classes in each of the two studies). Classes were selected according
to proficiency level: Pilot testing revealed that the task was
challenging, yet not too difficult, for intermediate-level students.
Those students who participated in group and dyadic activities
were chosen at random by the classroom teachers. The students
came from a variety of L1 backgrounds; the teachers were native
speakers of English, all of whom had had several years of teaching
experience.
Data Collection
To insure the validity of comparisons, data were collected for the
present study through the same procedures used in the earlier study.
Since the two sets of data were collected from different sets of
subjects, the classrooms selected to participate in the present study
were carefully matched to those in the earlier study on the variables
of proficiency level, age, size (in both studies, class size ranged
from 11 to 15), and teacher experience. Each activity was
audiotaped, and as in the previous study, the researchers were not
present during taping so that data could be collected as
unobtrusively as possible.
Materials and Procedures
The required information exchange task developed for this study
was carried out in each of three interactional patterns: teacher
fronted, small group, and dyad. For the teacher-directed activity,
each participant, including the teacher, was given a felt-board
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“garden” and a number of various loose felt flowers which were to
be “planted” (see Figure 1). At the beginning of the task, each board
contained a tree, which was glued down in the center and served as
a point of reference, and a display of a small number of flowers
which had already been planted (i.e., glued down). No two boards
contained the same display of already-planted flowers.
The object of the task was to plant the garden according to a
master plot, which was not shown to participants until after they
had completed the task. Individual boards displayed a different
portion of the master plot to each participant, who was to instruct
other participants on which flowers to plant and where to put them.
Together, the participants possessed all the information to complete
the task. (All the felt-board gardens superimposed on each other
would comprise the master plot.) Individually, however, participants possessed only a few pieces of the garden puzzle.
All work had to be carried out by each participant behind the
board, which was held in a semi-vertical position. The students and
teacher were required to keep their own gardens and unplanted
flowers out of sight of the other participants and were not allowed
to hold up the unplanted flowers so that they could be seen by
others. After completing the task, the students and teacher together
compared their own gardens to the master plot.
Each individual was required to contribute because no other
participant possessed the same information regarding the location
of certain flowers on each felt-board garden. Furthermore, all
participants had to understand each other’s information about
flower locations in order to accomplish the task successfully. Thus,
we predicted that more modified interaction would be generated.
For the small-group task, the teacher was asked to choose, at
random, a group of 4 students. This time the task involved
arranging a new set of flowers of different shapes and colors into
another configuration. For the dyad situation, the teacher chose 2
students from the group of 4, again at random, and a third
distinctive arrangement of flowers had to be planted.
Ten-minute samples from each activity were later transcribed
and analyzed to compare several features of interaction generated
by the multi-directional, required exchange tasks in the three
interfactional situations.1 These activities were conducted in the
following order: teacher fronted, small group, dyad.
1 Each sample was coded independently by both researchers. Interrater reliability scores of
.88 for repetitions and .93 or higher for all other features of interactional modification (see
Analyses) were obtained.
“INFORMATION GAP” TASKS AND SLA
311
To insure that differences among the three participation patterns
were not due to a practice-on-task effect, two precautions were
taken. First, the teacher conducted a demonstration lesson with the
class, during which directions for planting the garden were given,
the various materials to be employed in the tasks were introduced
and described, and frequent checks of students’ comprehension
were made. Second, the teacher-fronted lesson, although always
conducted before the group or pair work, was carried out in two
parts. After 15 minutes of activity, the teacher stopped the task and
conducted a question/answer period and class discussion. Then the
task was completed. The 10-minute sample used for research
purposes was taken from the last third of this phase, when the
activity had been taken up again.
In all cases, the activity had been in progress for at least 20
minutes before the 10-minute sample for transcription was selected.
We believed that by that time, students would be familiar with all
the materials and with the procedures involved in exchanging
information about them. Thus, any modification which arose would
be due only to the need to exchange information (equal in all three
tasks) and not to a need to clarify the procedures of the tasks (likely
to be unequal across the tasks, as the first time through would be
more difficult than the third).
Analyses
The features of modified interaction used in the analysis of the
data collected for the present study are the same as those used in the
earlier research. They include clarification requests, confirmation
checks, and comprehension checks. Clarification requests occur
when one interlocutor does not entirely comprehend the meaning
and asks for clarification, as in the following example:
A: She is on welfare.
B: What do you mean by
welfare?
In making confirmation checks, the listener believes he or she has
understood but would like to make sure:
A: Mexican food have a lot
of ulcers.
B: Mexicans have a lot of
ulcers? Because of the
food?
In making comprehension checks, the speaker wants to be certain
that the listener has understood:
A: Do you know what I mean?
“INFORMATION GAP” TASKS AND SLA
313
Several other features of modification are subsumed by the
general label repetition. The categories of repairing, preventive,
and reacting repetitions (Doughty & Pica, 1984) were developed to
distinguish between classroom-related moves and the modification
of interaction which has been claimed to be necessary for second
language acquisition (Long, 1981).
In the analysis of the data for earlier research (Pica & Doughty,
1983), it was observed that many classroom repetitions are used for
such purposes as (a) initiating topics during structuring moves, (b)
insuring adherence to a topic or completion of a task when students’
attention wanders, or (c) offering feedback to students regarding
appropriateness of student responses. These classroom-related
moves, called structuring and feedback repetitions (described more
fully in Pica & Doughty, 1985b), were eliminated from analysis in
the present study.
The only repetitions considered were those which occurred
during actual or perceived communication breakdowns or when
both interlocutors took an active role in establishing or developing
topics. Such repetitions were examined both in the case of repeating
one’s own utterance (self-repetition) and restating another’s
utterance (other-repetition).
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The aims of this discussion are (a) to compare the amount of
modified interaction generated in teacher-fronted and group
interactional patterns when the nature of the task was manipulated,
specifically, optional versus required information exchange tasks;
(b) to compare the amount of modified interaction generated when
the task was held constant and the participation pattern was
manipulated, in this case, teacher-fronted versus small-group versus
dyad participation patterns in required information exchange tasks;
(c) to examine the role of repetition; and (d) to present ancillary
findings on the total amount of interaction produced during a task.
The Effects of Task and Participation Pattern on
the Modification of Interaction
A requirement for information exchange generated more modification of interaction than did a task with no such requirement. A
two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that the main
effect for task was statistically significant, thus confirming the first
hypothesis of this study (see Tables 1 and 2). The ANOVA also
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TESOL QUARTERLY
showed that while the main effect for participation pattern was
nonsignificant, there was a significant interaction of the two
variables of task and participation pattern.
TABLE 1
The Effects of Task Type and Participation Pattern on
Total Interactional Modification
TABLE 2
Two-Way ANOVA: Task Type x Participation Pattern
The Effect of Participation Pattern on
the Modification of Interaction
The results of a one-way ANOVA revealed a statistically
significant main effect for participation pattern (see Tables 3 and
4). Modification of interaction was higher in the group than in the
“INFORMATION GAP” TASKS AND SLA
315
teacher-fronted participation pattern. However, there was virtually
no difference between the group and dyad interaction patterns in
the amount of modification, as can be seen in the very similar
modification scores. Thus, the second hypothesis of this study was
confirmed insofar as group participation pattern resulted in more
modification than did the teacher-fronted pattern; however, our
prediction that the dyad would facilitate even more modification
was not borne out.
In comparing the results of the analyses for both hypotheses, we
observed that when both task and participation pattern are
independent variables (i.e., manipulable by the teacher), task type
has the overwhelming influence on the amount of modification.
However, participation pattern is not unimportant: This is
suggested by the interaction obtained between the two variables
and is confirmed when task is removed as a variable and
participation pattern then produces a significant main effect.
TABLE 3
The Effect of Participation Pattern on
Total Interfactional Modification
TABLE 4
One-Way ANOVA
Regarding the experimental design, although the group and dyad
activities always occurred after the teacher-fronted task, there was
clearly no practice-on-task effect. Practice on task would have
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resulted in fewer modifications as participants became more
familiar with the task and the task-related materials and thus
became less likely to need clarifications on how to complete the
activity. Instead, more interfactional modification occurred during
the group and dyad activities than during class interaction with the
teacher.
One factor which may have helped produce these results is the
interactional experience that comes from repeating a task. As Pica
and Long (in press) have argued, native speakers (NSs) become
more skilled in modifying interaction with nonnative speakers
(NNSs) as they accumulate experience in NS-NNS conversation. It
is possible that NNSs make similar gains through experience in
interacting with other NNSs; however, there is as yet no research
which equates NS gains in experience with NNS gains in
experience. Assuming that experience does affect NNS-NNS
interaction, the NNS students who completed all three tasks would
have been better at modifying interaction on the third task than on
the first. Clearly, NNS gains in linguistic and conversational
modification skills through repeated experience in NNS-NNS
interaction is an area of research which demands fuller investigation.
The Role of Repetition
In further analysis of the data, additional effects of the manipulation of task type and participation patterns were examined (see
Tables 5, 6, and 7). These analyses, though somewhat more
speculative, suggest implications for future research.
As discussed elsewhere (Pica & Doughty, 1985b), repetitions,
while functioning in an important role as modifications of
interaction, are puzzling at best to analyze. Much repetition occurs
without affecting the interaction at all (e. g., the case of a teacher
who repeats an utterance several times, even though students
understood the first time). We found it useful to eliminate
repetitions entirely from the analyses to insure that the results would
be robust (i.e., not influenced by coding or interpretive factors).
Three features form a crucial subset of interfactional modifications: clarification requests, confirmation checks, and comprehension checks. Table 6 presents the results of a two-way ANOVA of
the difference in the amount of these modifications across task and
participation pattern. These results are consistent with those which
included repetition (see Tables 1-4) and thus eliminate any
“INFORMATION GAP” TASKS AND SLA
317
TABLE 5
The Effects of Task Type and Participation Pattern on a
Subset of Interfactional Modification
TABLE 6
Two-Way ANOVA: Task Type x Participation Pattern
apprehension about the definition and role of repetition in
interfactional modification.2
The smaller number of confirmation and comprehension checks
and of clarification requests which occurred during both teacher2 In
work currently under way (Pica, Doughty, & Young, 1985), we have attempted to clarify
the definition of repetition, and by using videotaping techniques, we are now able to
determine when and how repetition affects interaction. Repetition, we have found, may in
fact be the most critical interfactional modification; thus, it is important to continue to
develop sophisticated data-collection instruments which can accurately record this
variable.
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TESOL QUARTERLY
fronted task types suggests that students may have been reluctant to
indicate a lack of understanding in front of their teacher and an
entire class of students. Thus, they may have attempted to behave
as though they understood, even when they did not.
It is therefore possible that both teacher-fronted task types did
not generate enough modification to make classroom input
comprehensible to individual students. In the case of the gardenplanting task, one of the participating teachers noted informally that
in the teacher-fronted format, individual students’ boards did not
often correspond to the instructions given. In striking contrast, the
participants in group and dyad interaction did manage to replicate
the master plot quite closely.3
Total Amount of Interaction
Another area of interest is the total amount of interaction
produced during a task. Total amount of interaction is defined as
the sum of all T-units and fragments (Hunt, 1970). As shown in
Table 7,4 when teacher-fronted and group participation patterns
were compared on both optional and required information
exchange tasks, we found that there was more total interaction
produced in the teacher-fronted pattern than in the group in both
types of task. We also found that for both participation patterns, the
total amount of speech increased when the exchange of information
was required. However, the increase in the group was almost 10
times that in the teacher-fronted situation—45.6% and 4.6%
respectively. Thus, on the participation pattern variable, more total
interaction was generated whenever the teacher was present, and
on the task variable, more interaction was generated during the
compulsory information exchange task. The teacher-fronted
interaction on a required information exchange task generated the
most total interaction, while the group interaction on the optional
exchange task generated the least.
3 Based
on these informal findings, another series of studies is now being conducted to
determine whether modification makes input sufficiently comprehensible for the
successful execution of such tasks. In these studies, students are being videotaped to
determine if their comprehension is sufficient for following directions about the placement
of items on a board game (Pica, Doughty, & Young, 1985, 1986).
4 The data in Table 7 are presented somewhat more informally than those presented thus far
because two of the data samples for the groups working on decision-making tasks
(collected in the earlier study) were 5 instead of 10 minutes in duration. For purposes of
comparison with all other samples, the number of modified and unmodified utterances for
these two samples was doubled, and percentages were calculated on the basis of these
adjusted numbers. Only these two scores were adjusted; the others were used in their
original form. However, since these are extrapolated numbers, no formal statistical
procedures were performed.
“INFORMATION GAP” TASKS AND SLA
319
TABLE 7
Total Interaction (T-Units and Fragments)
In itself, this finding is not particularly astonishing. After all,
teachers do tend to talk a great deal, speak more quickly, and
hesitate less often in comparison with ESL students struggling to
learn a new language. Thus, their fluent native speech would add to
the total amount of interaction. Indeed, during the decision-making
tasks of the first study, this was clearly the case. During these tasks,
teachers produced almost half of the total number of utterances in
reaching a decision with their classes. In other words, teachers
spoke about as much as the total number of students combined.
However, in working with their classes on the garden-planting
task, the teachers did not contribute as extensively to the
interaction. In fact, one of the participating teachers seldom spoke,
except when giving directions and when taking a turn to impart
information about his flowers. In the 10-minute sample which was
analyzed, this teacher contributed only one utterance to the
classroom conversation—a confirmation check. Thus, the students
did more talking on the required information exchange task,
whether working with their teachers or in groups of 4. This is
probably because the required interaction task places all
participants in equal positions, each with the same amount of
information, which must be disseminated to other participants.
This finding stimulated interest in another question: When the
amount of total interaction increased, did the increase occur in the
number of utterances characterized by features of modification
(here, including repetitions) or in the number of utterances not
considered to function to modify interaction? In the teacher-fronted
situation, there was an increase of 14% in the area of unmodified
interaction, as compared with a decrease of 5% in the utterances
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TESOL QUARTERLY
which contained features of modification. In the group situation,
however, there was a substantial increase in the amount of
modification—122%—and a decrease of 13% in the amount of
unmodified interaction (see Table 7).
CONCLUSIONS
Enthusiasm about group work in the classroom must be tempered
by the observation that at times, the teacher’s absence can limit the
amount of modification which takes place when the students
interact. This seems most likely to happen in tasks which do not
compel the students’ full-fledged participation. Thus, decisionmaking or optional exchange tasks of the kind used in our earlier
study do not trigger modifications among students working
independently in groups. This participation pattern facilitates the
modification of interaction only if the task requires an exchange of
information. Unless a required information exchange task is chosen,
students will interact less and will modify their interaction less as
well. While a required information exchange task will compel
students to talk more in either a teacher-fronted or a group situation,
this increase in total production will result in an increase of
modified interaction only when students are working in groups.
Recent research, reviewed in Long and Porter (1985), has
investigated the makeup of small groups. Studies by Porter (1983),
Varonis and Gass (1983), and Gass and Varonis (1985) have shown
that the presence or absence of native speakers and the group
members’ proficiency levels and L1 backgrounds all influence the
amount of modification of interaction in this participation pattern.
The most modification was obtained when (a) all members of
groups/dyads were nonnative speakers, (b) members of groups had
varying proficiency levels, and (c) members of groups had different
Lls. These results are encouraging to teachers, as they reflect the
makeup of small groups in most second language classrooms.
The findings of this recent research, together with the results of
the present study, raise an important question: How much of the
time do individual students actually engage in modification during
a required information exchange? Although the potential for
modification among students is present at all times, certain students
may not interact because their more limited linguistic proficiency
prevents them from processing certain linguistic input. Other
students may understand everything that is said during a required
exchange of information and therefore may not need to engage in
“INFORMATION GAP” TASKS AND SLA
321
modification of the interaction. Such aspects of the interaction must
be investigated further.
Another consideration is the effect of the modification of
interaction on students who are listening but not participating in a
particular exchange. In a typical classroom exchange, these listeners
may simply tune out, especially if the interaction is beyond their
current processing capacity. However, if all participants need to
know each other’s information, students not directly participating in
a modified exchange of information may nevertheless be indirect
participants in the ensuing conversational modifications. This
would be especially true if they are at the same processing capacity
level as at least one of the direct participants. Thus, the indirect
effects of the modification of interaction on listeners are another
vital area of research.
The results of this study have shown that when an exchange of
information is guaranteed, a great deal of modification can be
generated in a nonnative-speaker group situation. Coupled with the
finding from another earlier investigation (Pica & Doughty, 1983)
that individual students produce more input and have more input
directed toward them in group than in teacher-fronted interaction,
it may seem that the exclusive use of group work in the second
language classroom is in order. However, such a recommendation
would be shortsighted.
An important result of the earlier study must be kept in mind:
Whether working in a teacher-fronted situation or engaged in group
interaction, the students produced a large number of ungrammatical utterances. The teacher, therefore, was the major (if not the
only) source of grammatical input in the classrooms. If a primary
goal of classroom language instruction is the development of
communicative competence, a component of which is linguistic
competence (Canale & Swain, 1980), this important finding must
not be ignored. (See Doughty, 1985, for a discussion of the effects
of exclusive peer work in the classroom and Long & Porter, 1985,
for opposing arguments.)
Overall, however, on the basis of our combined research, it
appears that group work—and for that matter, pair work as well—
is eminently capable of providing students with opportunities to
produce the target language and to modify interaction. In keeping
with second language acquisition theory, such modified interaction
is claimed to make input comprehensible to learners and to lead
ultimately to successful classroom second language acquisition (see
Long, 1981, 1983a, and Krashen, 1980, 1982, for reviews of this
literature).
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TESOL QUARTERLY
As demonstrated in the above discussion, however, group
activities do not automatically result in the modification of
interaction among the participants. To be effective, group
interaction must be carefully planned by the classroom teacher to
include a requirement for a two-way or multi-way exchange of
information. Thus, the teacher’s role is critical not only in providing
students with access to grammatical input, but also in setting up the
conditions for successful second language acquisition in the
classroom.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This is a revised version of a paper presented at the 18th Annual TESOL
Convention in Houston, March 1984. The study reported is the second in a series of
three.
We would like to thank six ESL teachers from the English Program for Foreign
Students at the University of Pennsylvania and the Community College of
Philadelphia for devoting valuable classroom time to our data collection. We
would also like to thank Richard Young and two anonymous Quarterly reviewers
for helping us to clarify our statistical approach and for very constructive
comments toward revision of the article.
THE AUTHORS
Catherine Doughty’s research focuses on classroom second language acquisition
and the use of the computer as a research tool. Since 1983, she has been a Research
Specialist in the Language Analysis Project at the University of Pennsylvania,
where she is currently completing a dissertation in applied linguistics.
Teresa Pica has published articles on second language acquisition in Language
Learning and Studies in Second Language Acquisition. Since 1978, she has been
affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania, currently as an Assistant Professor in
the Graduate School of Education and for several years as an Instructor in the
English Program for Foreign Students.
REFERENCES
Canale, M., & Swain, M. (1980). Theoretical bases of communicative
approaches to second language teaching and testing. Applied
Linguistics, 1, 1-47.
Davies, N. (1982). Training fluency: An essential factor in language
acquisition and use. RELC Journal, 13 (1), 1-13.
“INFORMATION GAP” TASKS AND SLA
323
Doughty, C. (1985). Classroom pidginization and creolization. Unpubhshed manuscript.
Doughty, C., & Pica, T. (1984, March). Small group work in the ESL
classroom: Does it facilitate second language acquisition? P a p e r
presented at the 18th Annual TESOL Convention, Houston.
Gass, S., & Varonis, E. (1985). Negotiation of meaning in non-native
speaker—non-native speaker conversation. In S. Gass & C. Madden
(Eds.), Input in second language acquisition (pp. 149-161). Rowley, MA:
Newbury House.
Hunt, K. (1970). Syntactic maturity in school children and adults.
Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 53 (1,
Serial No. 134).
Krashen, S. (1980). The input hypothesis. In J. Alatis (Ed.), Current issues
in bilingual education (pp. 144-158). Washington, DC: Georgetown
University Press.
Krashen, S. (1982). Principles and practice in second language acquisition.
Oxford: Pergamon.
Long, M. (1980). Input, interaction, and second language acquisition.
Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California at Los
Angeles.
Long, M. (1981). Questions in foreigner talk discourse. Language Learning,
31, 135-158.
Long, M. (1983a). Native speaker/non-native speaker conversation in the
second language classroom. In M. Clarke & J. Handscombe (Eds.), On
TESOL ’82 (pp. 207-225). Washington, DC: TESOL.
Long, M. (1983b). Training the second language teacher as classroom
researcher. In J.E. Alatis, H.H. Stern, & P. Strevens (Eds.), Georgetown
University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 1983 (pp. 281297). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Long, M., & Porter, P. (1985). Group work, interlanguage talk, and second
language acquisition. TESOL Quarterly, 19, 207-228.
Pica, T., & Doughty, C. (1983, October). Native and non-native input in
the ESL classroom: An empirical study. Paper presented at the 10th
University of Michigan Conference on Applied Linguistics: Input and
Second Language Acquisition, Ann Arbor.
Pica, T., & Doughty, C. (1985a). Input and interaction in the
communicative language classroom: A comparison of teacher-fronted
and group activities. In S. Gass & C. Madden (Eds.), Input and second
language acquisition (pp. 115-132), Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
Pica, T., & Doughty, C. (1985b). The role of group work in classroom
second language acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 7,
233-248.
Pica, T., & Doughty, C. (1985c, April). ESL classrooms: Sizing up the
situation. Paper presented at the 19th Annual TESOL Convention, New
York.
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TESOL QUARTERLY
Pica, T., Doughty, C., & Young, R. (1985, July). Does the modification of
interaction lead to acquisition? Paper presented at Summer TESOL,
Georgetown University, Washington, DC.
Pica, T., Doughty, C., & Young, R. (1986, March). The impact of
interaction on input comprehension. Paper presented at the 20th Annual
TESOL Convention, Anaheim.
Pica, T., & Long, M. (in press). The classroom and linguistic performance
of experienced vs. ESL teachers. In R. Day (Ed.), Talking to learn.
Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
Porter, P. (1983). Variations in the conversations of adults learners of
English as a function of proficiency level of the participants.
Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Stanford University.
Varonis, E., & Gass, S. (1983, March). “Target language” input from nonnative speakers. Paper presented at the 17th Annual T E S O L
Convention, Toronto.
“INFORMATION GAP” TASKS AND SLA
325
REVIEWS
The TESOL Quarterly welcomes evaluative reviews of publications of relevance
to TESOL professionals. In addition to textbooks and reference materials, these
include computer and video software, testing instruments, and other forms of
nonprint materials.
Edited by VIVIAN ZAMEL
University of Massachusetts/Boston
The Computer Book
Mohyeddin Abdulaziz, William Smalzer, and Helen Abdulaziz.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1985. Pp. xii+ 203.
With the increasing recognition of subject matter as a basis for
real language and so-called natural learning, it would seem
desirable for ESL teachers to try more natural methodologies in
language instruction. And, apart from providing language practice,
it would be ideal if these methodologies were in themselves
attractive to ESL students. For some teachers and learners, though,
the romance of the “natural” and the “attractive” is a daily
possibility, thanks to computers. As detailed in The Computer
Book, computer science and programming can provide a natural,
attractive context for learning English.
Book-length, theoretical discussions of computer-aided instruction (CAI) in ESL are just beginning. As of now, there is but a small
body of literature. Notably, Underwood (1984) has surveyed a few
“communicative” CAI programs and has situated these within the
broader frames of generative grammar and the Monitor Hypothesis. Hope, Taylor, and Pusack (1984) have considered a limited
range of practical issues like lesson design and software evaluation.
Both Underwood and Hope et al. have provided essentially general
introductions, with little or no methodological discussion of
common issues like word processing and computer programming.
For those ESL instructors who are bent on creating their own CAI
programs, Higgins and Johns (1984) and Ahmad, Corbett, Rogers,
and Sussex (1985) have published teachers’ guides. These guides are
also limited, as they are based on projects designed for British-made
computers, with pedagogical emphases placed on developing
games, drills, and so on. Gagne and Briggs (1979) and Allessi and
327
Trollip (1985) have compiled programming manuals that are not
focused on ESL but might prove more helpful to language teachers.
These manuals, which go far beyond a drills-and-games approach
to language learning, discuss methods for setting up language
tutorials, for example, detailing such issues as the frequency,
placement, and function for various modes of posing questions, for
judging learners’ responses, and for providing appropriate
feedback.
With so little discussion of CAI in ESL, there are no comprehensive theories as to how computers can be used in natural approaches
to teaching. In light of this lack of theory, The Computer Book
appears to have instantly advanced the discussion by presenting a
practical beginners’ guide to programming that not only helps
establish a content-specific syllabus for language practice but also
serves the needs of teachers and students who have never touched
a computer.
According to its authors, The Computer Book is designed as an
introduction to programming and data processing for highintermediate ESL students. The book presents the fundamentals of
the BASIC computer language, which students apply in writing
their own programs. More generally, the book centers on the
development of logical processes for solving problems and
supplements this development with exercises in vocabulary,
grammar, and reading comprehension. In emphasizing subject
matter rather than syntax, The Computer Book offers a compelling
context for students to use new lexical items and grammatical forms
or, as the authors express it, to get “a lot of implicit rather than
explicit language practice” (p. ix).
The Computer Book consists of (a) an introductory chapter, (b)
eight “lessons” (each requiring approximately 6 to 8 hours of class
work), and (c) two appendixes containing BASIC commands and a
sample sort program. The first few pages of each lesson provide
previews of specialized vocabulary and content. The main “texts”
of the eight lessons present intricate procedures for planning,
writing, and processing BASIC programs.
The sections that follow the main texts are specifically addressed
to ESL learners. Entitled “Understanding the Text,” “Review,” and
“Challenge,” these sections follow a dual agenda: In terms of
implicit language practice, they recap pertinent material by asking
learners to complete technical outlines, paraphrase concepts, and
define key terms; more explicitly, they test learners’ command of
certain grammatical points.
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TESOL QUARTERLY
The appropriateness of some of these grammar quizzes is
questionable, however, in the larger context of imparting
operational data for programming. Similarly, review of technical
information by means of cloze formats seems artificial, especially
when the parts of speech to be filled in are adverbs, articles, and so
on. Nevertheless, one can imagine ESL classes in which such
exercises might be applicable; conversely, one can skip these
sections if they appear to overemphasize points of grammar that
might be better addressed elsewhere.
The introductory chapter offers general information regarding
CAI and briefly reflects upon social issues that are potentially
relevant to the growing use of computers, issues such as
unemployment and invasion of privacy. Lesson 1 concentrates on
defining descriptive terms for hardware and software. Lesson 2
(which I recommend to all of us who are not programmers) neatly
details “how to think like a computer,” outlining the conventional
symbols for constructing flowcharts, for example. The third and
fourth lessons describe ways of planning and writing a BASIC
program and how to log it in. The last four chapters form an
increasingly complex sequence that explains methods for structured
programming, table and array processing, composing and
maintaining files. (If these terms scare you, you will be relieved by
how clearly The Computer Book explicates each topic, page by
page.)
The unique feature of The Computer Book is that within a
computer science framework, it stimulates thinking processes
which engage learners in experimenting with and acquiring new
language. When attending to the logic of programming concepts,
for instance, learners are encouraged in Review sections to explore
novel vocabulary to which they have already been introduced in
earlier sections. This exercise on paraphrasing is one example:
Rewrite the following sentences in your own words. Be sure to convey
the same information but not use the italicized words or their
derivatives.
1. Division has priority over addition in evaluation.
2. Whenever line 40 is executed, line 50 will be bypassed. (p. 63)
Again, when analyzing the meaning of various notations, students
can quite naturally practice speaking and review points of grammar
as well:
Evaluate the following expressions as a computer would. Practice
reading them aloud, paying attention to prepositions.
REVIEWS
329
Let A=l, B=2, C=3
1. A+(C– B) *2=
2. A**2 + (B * A) – C = (p. 65)
On the other hand, more explicit grammar reviews, such as
exercises in pronoun reference or the use of the passive voice, seem
out of place. Relative to learners’ attention, many of these exercises
compete, as it were, with the overall emphasis on logic and mastery
of technical data.
The Computer Book is a practical extension of the notion that
student-directed, interactive technology can assist language
learning. Moreover, the focus on content-specific language
represents a challenging “next step” for practitioners who are
interested in integrating computers into ESL curricula. Will The
Computer Book convince a large number of ESL instructors to
adopt programming as a natural approach to teaching? Probably
not. But the relatively untechnical material of the first few chapters
seems particularly inviting for those instructors who are open to
learning a little programming and who see the benefits of teaching
programming as one way of thinking logically.
In sum, The Computer Book serves both as an excellent primer
for novice programmers (be they teachers or students) and as an
innovative language textbook for a wide range of ESL learners.
While the authors designed The Computer Book for highintermediate precollege learners, many of its problem-solving
exercises could be adapted for university-level course work or
tutorials. Lastly, since the book concentrates primarily on the
development of logical processes, it is conceivable that students
could do much of their work without ready access to computers.
The Computer Book is thus an ideal vehicle for situations in which
there are not enough computers to accommodate all ESL students
who want to learn programming.
REFERENCES
Ahmad, K., Corbett, G., Rogers, M., & Sussex, R. (1985). Computers,
language learning and language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Allessi, S. M., & Trollip, S. R. (1985). Computer-based instruction,
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Gagne, R. M., & Briggs, L.J. (1979). Principles of instructional design. New
York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Higgins, J., & Johns, T. (1984). Computers in language learning. Reading,
MA: Addison-Wesley.
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TESOL QUARTERLY
Hope, G. R., Taylor, H. F., & Pusack, J.P. (1984). Using computers in
teaching foreign languages. Orlando, FL: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Underwood, J.H. (1984). Linguistics, computers, and the language
teacher. Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
JACK KIMBALL
Harvard University and
University of Massachusetts/Boston
Review of the State-of-the-Art
gies Implemented in Programs
Funded by the Department of
Prepared for U.S. Department
of Educational TechnoloServing LEP Students
Education: Final Report
of Education
COMSIS Corporation. Rosslyn, VA: InterAmerica Research
Associates, Inc. (National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education),
1984. Pp. iv+ 166.
■ This highly informative and readable report presents the findings
of a study of the use of new technologies in bilingual programs
funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Bilingual
Education and Minority Languages Affairs. The funding requests
for 604 projects were examined, and 114 projects that used a new
technology in instructional methodology were identified. Nine of
these projects were then selected for detailed study.
Two basic technologies—video and computer technology—were
represented in the sample, with the majority of the report centering
on computer technology. Both computer and video technologies
were identified as providing significant changes in the delivery of
instruction to limited English proficient (LEP) students. The report
asserts that with proper training of teachers and administrators,
computers have the potential for permitting students to learn at
their own speed in a highly motivating environment. The major
impediments to the effective, use of computers were found to be
lack of instructionally and technologically sound software and the
lack of training for planning computer usage. Another basic
problem identified by the report was that objectives tended to be
too broad to permit effective planning and evaluation.
The report begins with a historical overview of the nine sites
visited, which were selected to obtain a distribution of projects by
funding year, technology, geographical location, grade level, and
native language. In each project, English as a second language was
the principal focus of the application of technology, in large part
REVIEWS
331
due to the lack of software in the students’ native languages.
Participation in computer-aided instruction (CAI) varied among the
sites from supplementary remediation in laboratory environments
to computers in the classroom.
Two types of computers were used by the projects, the most
prevalent of which was the Apple, manufactured by the Apple
Corporation. The other type was Radio Shack’s TRS-80. Both
systems were perceived to be highly reliable. Factors determining
the choice of equipment included familiarity, compatibility with
the mainstream curriculum, and availability of software.
Computer configurations were of two basic types, stand-alone
and networked. The advantages and disadvantages of these two
configurations are discussed, including the fact that stand-alone
workstations require a lower level of computer technology and that
networked stations risk entire breakdown due to the failure of the
master workstation.
At most sites, the computers were placed in a computer lab, with
students having access to them on a pull-out basis. Some projects
elected to place the computers in the classroom. Where teachers
had direct control of the computers, they tended to become more
familiar with their capabilities, and the LEP students used
computers in more creative endeavors, such as writing stories
complete with computer-produced illustrations. Computers in
laboratory situations generally had the effect of reducing the
teacher’s level of involvement or appreciation. Teachers who were
best able to utilize computers were those who recognized that
effective use required a change in their teaching methods.
Apparently, some of the site personnel did not fully understand
the proper handling procedures for magnetic storage media. When
not in use, computer floppy disks were left on desks or tables, and
eating in the computer area was permitted at some of the sites.
The report emphasized that computers appeared to motivate
students. LEP students in the computer-based projects tended to
have better attendance and to show improvement in other class
work. Limited access to computers often produced curious results.
For example, LEP students who were finally mainstreamed into the
general school population often felt as if they were being punished,
since they could no longer use computers. Students seemed to
prefer using computers to more traditional teaching approaches,
although they could not explain exactly why this was so.
All of the projects selected and acquired software in a five-step
process: definition of requirements, software identification,
software screening, staff training, and software evaluation.
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TESOL QUARTERLY
Underfunding for software acquisition was a common problem.
The report repeatedly cited the need for a method of acquiring
information on ESL computer software. A major complaint of
project personnel was the impact of poor-quality software on
student performance. The report lists several quality-related
problems, including the inability of some software to find all
correct responses or to explain why incorrect responses were
wrong. Some 70% to 80% of the software reviewed was considered
unsuitable for the sites’ use, due to the lack of a sound educational
approach, technological deficiency, poor quality of programming,
or inability to retain a student’s attention. In projects where teachers
played a role in screening software, a greater understanding of the
role of computers in education was exhibited.
The report found that there often was a lack of positive
communication between suppliers of software and the teachers
who used their products. For example, one site, having purchased
several computer programs from a software publisher, was asked
by the publisher to provide reviews of their programs. When the
site’s review proved to be highly critical, the publisher was never
heard from again. The products of traditional publishing houses of
educational material which are beginning to enter the educational
software market have also been for the most part disappointing to
the site personnel. Some of the publishers, according to the report,
have apparently adopted a cautious approach to educational
software to minimize the impact on their textbook market, although
there is evidence that this tendency is changing.
Of the nine project sites visited, only two used software which
utilized a language other than English, and only one used software
designed specifically for ESL use. Computer software was
generally geared for drill and practice and for reinforcement of
course material. Though graphics may have been imaginative, for
the most part, course material was presented using traditional
techniques.
Overall, the report argues that students do learn more effectively
with the proper application of technological tools. On the debit
side, however, are the following findings: (a) The application of
technology to bilingual education is extremely limited; (b) planning
for the use of technology is generally insufficient; (c) methods for
evaluating the effectiveness of computer technology are inappropriate; and (d) regardless of the technology used, there is still a need
for high quality teachers.
Appended to the report are a number of useful items, including a
comprehensive 50-page handbook, Debugging CAI: A Handbook
REVIEWS
333
for Planning Computer Assisted Instruction (by J.B. Ippolito and
R.E. Saunders and edited by R.W. Hoar, Jr.), and a list of available
microcomputers. The variety of software used in the projects is
listed and evaluated, and a detailed courseware evaluation form is
provided,
This report should prove valuable to all educators who have an
interest in computer-aided instruction. It addresses major sources of
optimism and concern about CAI which are often discussed without
the benefit of empirical evidence.
RICHARD E. LeMON
Florida State University
334
TESOL QUARTERLY
BRIEF REPORTS AND SUMMARIES
The TESOL Quarterly invites readers to submit short reports and updates on their
work. These summaries may address any areas of interest to Quarterly readers.
Authors’ addresses are printed with these reports to enable interested readers to
contact the authors for more details.
Edited by ANN FATHMAN
College of Notre Dame
Recognition of Sentences by Native and Nonnative
Speakers of English: Probing the Role of Imagery
PATRICIA DUNKEL
The Pennsylvania State University
SHITALA MISHRA and ALFRED STOVER
University of Arizona
The study of imagery and the processes underlying the comprehension
and recognition of verbal information forms the foundation stones
of cognitive psychology. Research has identified the positive effects of
mental imagery on recall (Begg & Paivio, 1969; Paivio, 1971, 1977, 1978;
Paivio & Begg, 1971). Paivio and Begg (1971), for example, presented
abstract and concrete sentences to subjects and found that on a
recognition memory task, changes in the meaning of the concrete, highimagery sentences (e.g., The vicious hound chased a wild animal) were
detected more readily than changes in the meaning of the abstract, lowimagery sentences (e. g., The absolute faith aroused an enduring
interest).
Previously, Begg and Paivio (1969) had found that subjects noticed a
semantic change more easily than a change in sentence structure for
concrete, high-imagery sentences than they did for abstract, lowimagery sentences. Evidence indicating that visual imagery is an
epiphenomenon which accompanies learning but which has nothing
functional to do with it has also been presented (Day & Bellezza, 1983;
Pylyshun, 1973, 1981); however, the study of mental imagery as a
mediator of cognitive tasks continues to be a major concern of cognitive
psychologists.
Although investigation of the role imagery plays in the processing of
information by nonnative speakers has been virtually ignored in
memory research, as Rose (1975) puts it, “the bilingual is the subject par
excellence for investigations of cognitive processes” (p. 150). The study
reported here yields information concerning the role of mental imagery
335
in the recognition of high- and low-imagery sentences and in the
detection of syntactic changes in such sentences by native speakers
(NSs) and nonnative speakers (NNSs) of English.
The subjects in the study were 22 American and 22 Soviet teachers of
English as a second/foreign language. The 40 stimulus sentences,
originally constructed by Smith (1981), each consisted of the syntactic
arrangement of Article/Adjective/Noun/Verb/Article/Adjective/Noun.
Half of the sentences were concrete, and of these, half were affirmative
(e.g., The black horse swam the deep lake), and half were negative
(e.g., The wooden bowl was not overflowing with ripe apples). The
other 20 sentences were abstract, and once again, half were affirmative
(e.g., The large quantity lacked any real quality), and half were
negative (e.g., His greatest virtue was not his irrepressible confidence).
The subjects were instructed to listen over language-lab headphones
to the 40 audiotaped sentences and to try to remember as many of the
sentences as possible. After presentation of all 40 sentences and a 30second rest pause, the subjects were presented with 40 additional
sentences, 20 of which had been presented previously and 20 of which
were “new” sentences in that they had been changed from negative to
affirmative or affirmative to negative, as appropriate, compared with
the first list. For example, The black horse swam the deep lake was
changed to The black home did not swim the deep lake, while His
greatest virtue was not his irrepressible confidence was changed to His
greatest virtue was his irrepressible confidence. Five sentences from
each of the four categories (Concrete, Abstract, Affirmative, Negative)
were thus changed to yield 20 new (i.e., changed) sentences to
accompany the 20 old (i.e., unchanged) sentences initially presented.
Subjects were asked to indicate, by marking yes or no on the response
sheet, whether they thought they had heard each sentence during initial
presentation of the 40 sentences. Altogether, subjects heard 80 sentences
presented.
Data from the NS and NNS subjects were analyzed using a 2 x 2 x 2 x
2 (Language Group x Imagery x Verb Structure x Change in Stimulus
Presentation) repeated measures analysis of variance. Three variables,
imagery (concrete versus abstract sentences), verb structure (affirmative
versus negative sentences), and change in stimulus (changed versus
unchanged sentences) were repeated on each subject in the language
groups (NS versus NNS). The Scheffé method of multiple comparisons
was used for post-hoc analyses.
Examination of the data revealed that NS subjects, in general,
recognized more unchanged sentences than did NNS subjects: F (1,42)
= 53.55, p <.001. A significant main effect was also found for change
in stimulus presentation: F (1,42) = 28.81, p <.001. Unchanged sentences were correctly recognized more often by both NS and NNS
subjects than were changed sentences. There was a significant
interaction between language group and change in stimulus presentation: F (1,42) = 9.12, p <.01. Scheffé test results indicated that NS
336
TESOL QUARTERLY
subjects correctly recognized unchanged sentences more often than
changed sentences, and this was also true for NNS subjects.
A significant interaction between verb structure and change in
stimulus presentation was also found: F (1,42) = 6.04, p <.05. Post-hoc
analyses indicated that affirmative-unchanged sentences were recognized more often than were either affirmative-changed, negativechanged, or negative-unchanged sentences. Negative-unchanged
sentences were found to be the second most frequently recognized
category. This interaction between verb structure and change in
stimulus presentation indicates the existence of a three-step hierarchy in
the ease of recognition of affirmative-negative transformations. The
scale ranges from affirmative-unchanged (easiest to recognize) to
negative-unchanged (more difficult to recognize) to both affirmativeand negative-changed sentences (most difficult to recognize).
Contrary to expectation, the findings indicated that concrete
sentences, either affirmative or negative, were not recognized by either
NS or NNS subjects with significantly greater frequency than were
abstract sentences. Mental imagery did not appear to play a critical role
in the recognition task for the NS and NNS subjects in this study.
This study’s nonsignificant findings concerning the role of mental
imagery in the processing of verbal information suggest examination of
several issues pertinent to imagery research. First, the alteration of
sentences in this study involved only the syntactic change of an
affirmative-negative verb transformation. Making such a single syntactic
change may not be an optimal way to examine the function of imagery
in the processing of verbal information by NS and NNS subjects.
Perhaps other forms of “structure or content manipulations (e.g., changes
in adjective form or in verb tense) or changes in vocabulary items
would yield different results concerning the role of imagery in sentence
recognition.
Second, using lists of disconnected sentences which have undergone a
surface-structure syntactic change may not be an effective method of
determining the function of imagery in verbal learning. Other
instruments may prove more appropriate for investigating the mediating
strategy and effect of visual imagery.
Finally, the generalizability of the findings may be restricted by the
uniqueness of the sample, which consisted of second/foreign language
instructors, who may have been sensitized to the listening and recognition tasks as a result of their language training and professional
backgrounds. L2 teachers often engage students in the structural
manipulation of decontextualized segments of language during drill and
practice sessions. The fact that no main effect was found for the
imagery variable (concrete versus abstract sentences) may therefore be
a function of the uniqueness of the sample in this study rather than a
refutation of the positive effect of imaginal mediators in verbal learning.
The use of “pictures in the minds eye” as causal determinants of verbal
BRIEF REPORTS AND SUMMARIES
337
learning and human memory performance should be further investigated using diverse NS and NNS samples.
REFERENCES
Begg, I., & Paivio, A. (1969). Concreteness and imagery in sentence meaning.
Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 8, 821-827.
Day, J. C., & Bellezza, F.S. (1983). The relation between visual imagery
mediators and recall. Memory and Cognition, 11, 251-257.
Paivio, A. (1971). Imagery and verbal processes. New York: Holt, Rinehart and
Winston.
Paivio, A. (1977). Images, propositions, and knowledge. In J.M. Nicholas (Ed.),
Images, perception, and knowledge: Papers deriving from and related to the
Philosophy of Science Workshop at Ontario, Canada, May 1974 (pp. 47-71).
Boston: D. Reidel Publishing.
Paivio, A. (1978). A dual coding approach to perception and cognition. In H.L.
Pick, Jr., & E. Saltzman (Eds.), Modes of perceiving and processing
information (pp. 39-51). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Paivio, A., & Begg, I. (1971). Imagery and associative overlap in short-term
memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 89, 40-45.
Pylyshun, Z. W. (1973). What the mind’s eye tells the minds brain: A critique of
mental imagery. Psychological Bulletin, 80, 1-24.
Pylyshun, Z.W. (1981). The imagery debate: Analogue media versus tacit
knowledge. Psychological Review, 88, 16-45.
Rose, R.G. (1975). Introspective evaluations of bilingual memory processes.
Journal of General Psychology, 93, 149-150,
Smith, C.D. (1981). Recognition memory for sentences as a function of
concreteness/abstractness and affirmation/negation. British Journal of
Psychology, 72, 125-129.
Authors’ Address: c/o Dunkel, Department of Speech Communication, The Pennsylvania State University, 212 Sparks Building, University Park,
PA 16802
Dominant Administrative Styles of ESL Administrators
ALFRED W. REASOR
United Nations Institute for Training and Research
The main objectives of this study (Reasor, 1981) were to describe the
background and training of ESL administrators and to evaluate their
self-perceived, dominant administrative styles. For practical reasons, the
study was limited to ESL administrators in U.S. colleges and universities. From the membership of TESOL and the National Association for
Foreign Student Affairs, 375 such administrators were identified and
surveyed. Data were collected in the late summer of 1980, and
responses from 103 ESL administrators (27.5% of the identified population) were analyzed.
338
TESOL QUARTERLY
Two instruments were used to collect data, the first of which was the
ESL Administrator Survey, a questionnaire constructed for this study
which contained 14 specific questions and 1 open-ended one. The 14
questions focused on the administrators’ specific educational backgrounds, past teaching experience, past administrative experience,
overseas work experience, present supervisory load and responsibilities,
size of program administered, status in organization, reporting authority
in their organization, tenure status in their organization, L2 testing
experience, and’ self-perception of their orientation to people or tasks in
their administrative roles. The open-ended question asked for the
respondents’ ideas about needed training for ESL administrators. These
situational variables were selected on the basis of previous research in
ESL administration (Escobar & Daugherty, 1975; Gay, 1970; Inman,
1978; Jarvis & Adams, 1979; Norris, 1975; Robinett, 1972 Streiff, 1970;
Wardhaugh, 1972; Wilcox, 1980).
The second instrument, which measured dominant administrative
styles, was selected to reflect a research thrust in educational
administration (Hey & Miskel, 1978). This instrument (see Reddin,
1974), the Educational Administrative Style Diagnosis Test (EASDT),
has been used and validated in previous research on educational
administrators (Arnold, 1977; Bandy, 1976; Landers, 1979; Myers, 1977;
Schields, 1976; Welch, 1976). The EASDT is based on the ThreeDimensional Model (3-D) of leadership style analysis (Reddin, 1970) and
parallels the structure and format of Reddin’s (1974) Management Style
Diagnosis Test, which has been used to assess the leadership styles of
managers in business and industry.
The EASDT asks the respondents to project situational elements from
their own specific educational setting into those general management
concepts referred to in each forced-choice question. There are 56 paired
statements on the EASDT, and each of these 112 statements represents
both a characteristic of one of eight administrative styles in the 3-D
Model and a situational element from educational administration. The
test directions state in part, “In every case pick the one statement that
best describes your behavior if you were faced with the circumstances
described.” Respondents must choose a statement from every pair, or
the test cannot be scored. The following are examples of forced-choice
pairs from the test:
1. A He could do a better job at maintaining good relationships with those
above him.
B He tries to introduce changes very gradually so no one will become
upset.
18. A He tends to avoid or to disagree with students, thinking that students
often know little of the practical side of things,
B He responds to disagreement and conflict by referring to policy and
procedures.
BRIEF REPORTS AND SUMMARIES
339
The construction of the test is quite complex (Reddin, 1970, 1974);
however, no changes were made in the test for this administration
(including the sexist language), since the ESL administrators’ responses
were to be compared with those of previous respondents.
The three dimensions measured by the EASDT are the administrator’s
task orientation (TO), relationships orientation (RO), and effectiveness
(E). From these basic dimensions of leadership analysis, Reddin’s
model, like previous models (Blake & Mouton, 1964; Fiedler, 1967;
Halpin, 1956; Likert, 1967), posits that an administrator’s organizational
behavior can be categorized into one of four basic Dominant Administrative Styles (DAS), each characterized by varying degrees of TO and
RO. These styles are (a) integrated, which consists of behavior that is
both task- and people-oriented; (b) related, which is people-oriented
with emphasis placed on interpersonal relations on the job; (c)
dedicated, which is task-oriented and often called the authoritarian
style; and (d) separated, which is rule- and procedure-oriented and
known as the bureaucratic style.
The data-collection instruments which were returned were carefully
screened and analyzed. All respondents who were not supervising at
least one other .ESL teacher were rejected, as were respondents who
had not completed the EASDT, leaving a total of 103 respondents. DAS
profiles (Reddin, 1974) were determined, and responses from the ESL
Administrator Survey were tabulated.
Descriptive findings from the ESL Administrator Survey included the
following: 61% held a master’s degree and 30% a doctorate; 45% had a
degree in some form of linguistics or TEFL, while fewer than 1% had a
degree outside the humanities. In addition, 71% had 10 years or fewer of
teaching experience, 69% had been ESL administrators for fewer than 5
years, 77% reported directly to one person above them in the academic
administration, 50% supervised 10 or fewer teachers, and 20% supervised
more than 20 teachers. Of the respondents, 73% had worked abroad, 76%
had L2 testing experience, and 55% did not have rank or tenure in their
college or university.
In addition to a DAS profile, each respondent’s EASDT also provided
a score for effectiveness (+) or ineffectiveness (–) for the DAS. In the
3-D Model, the four basic styles are all neutral; effectiveness or
ineffectiveness of each style depends on the situation in which it is used.
Thus, the four basic styles are seen as eight styles—four effective ones
and four ineffective ones. Reddin (1970) describes each of the eight
styles in detail, noting that no style in this model is considered ideal.
Situational variables determine whether one’s basic style will be
effective or ineffective, and using style flexibility to match one’s style
with the situational demands of the job is the crux of Reddin’s theory.
The distribution of the eight styles as they occurred among the
population of ESL administrators is shown in Table 1. Compared with
537 other educational administrators who had taken the EASDT and
who tended to show a more equal distribution among the four basic
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TESOL QUARTERLY
styles, the ESL administrators clustered heavily (69%) around the
separated style. This finding, however, needs to be more thoroughly
examined in future research.
TABLE 1
Dominant Administrative Styles of ESL Administrators (N= 103)
Separated-style administrators are characterized in this model as
cautious, careful, conservative, and orderly. Such administrators usually
prefer paperwork, procedures, and facts to people or tasks. They are
accurate, precise, correct, perfectionist, steady, deliberate, patient, calm,
modest, and discreet. Reddin (1970) theorized that this style may be
engendered by lengthy training programs which individuals in some
professions undergo. He also suggested that certain personality types
tend to have a separated style when they become administrators in
organizations.
Whether this is the most appropriate style for ESL administration
depends upon the clear identification of the situational variables for the
job, which this study only began to explore. Further research is needed
to explore why 62% of the administrators in this study perceived
themselves to be ineffective in their present styles.
Another question raised by this study is whether ESL administrators
have received the most appropriate training for the jobs they are now
doing. As the data suggest, these administrators are predominantly
liberal arts majors with classroom teaching experience; however, the job
demands might require knowledge, skills, and abilities in such areas as
goal setting, decision making, group dynamics, managerial problem
solving, time management, task analysis, human resources development,
needs assessment, and budget planning. These and other management
skills are not generally included in programs leading to linguistics or
TEFL degrees, which 45% of these administrators hold, nor in
humanities degrees, which 99% of them hold. Hypotheses concerning the
relationship between administrative style and variables described on the
BRIEF REPORTS AND SUMMARIES
341
questionnaire were rejected at the .05 level, but further research is
recommended. l
REFERENCES
Arnold, F. (1977). An investigation of administrative style and job satisfaction of
elementary principals. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, The American
University.
Bandy, L.S. (1976). Relationships of perceived administrative styles of
elementary principals and selected situational variables. Unpublished doctoral
dissertation, The American University.
Blake, R. R., & Mouton, J.S. (1964). The managerial grid. Houston: Gulf
Publishing.
Escobar, J. S., & Daugherty, J. (1975). Handbook for the ESL/ABE administrator. Arlington Heights: Bilingual Education Service Center.
Fiedler, F.E. (1967). A theory of leadership effectiveness. New York: McGrawHill.
Gay, B. (1970, June). That’s what ESL programs are made of. NAFSA
Newsletter, pp. 7-10.
Halpin, A. W. (1956). The leader behavior of school superintendents. Columbus:
Ohio State University.
Hoy, W. K., & Miskel, C.G. (1978). Educational administration: Theory, research
and practice. New York: Random House.
Inman, M. (1978). Foreign languages, English as a second/foreign language, and
the U.S. multinational corporation. Arlington, VA: Center for Applied
Linguistics.
Jarvis, G. A., & Adams, S.J. (1979). Evaluating a second language program.
Arlington, VA: Center for Applied Linguistics.
Landers, T.J. (1979, March). Administrator effectiveness: A comprehensive
behavioral model. Paper presented at the annual convention of the Association
for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Detroit.
Likert, R. (1%37). The human organization: Its management and value. New
York: McGraw-Hill.
Myers, J.R. (1977). Predicting public education administrator styles through
administrator values, organization environment factors, self-actualization
levels, and specific demographic information. Unpublished doctoral
dissertation, The American University.
Norris, W.E. (1975). Guidelines for the certification and preparation of teachers
of English to speakers of other languages in the United States. Washington,
DC: TESOL.
Reasor, A. W. (1981). Administrative styles of English-as-a-second-language
administrators. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, The American University.
Reddin, W.J. (1970). Managerial effectiveness. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Reddin, W.J. (1974). Interpretation manual for the management style diagnosis
test. Fredericton, N. B., Canada: Organizational Tests.
Robinett, B.W. (1972). The domains of TESOL. TESOL Quarterly, 6, 193-207.
1I
would especially like to thank (Grace S. Burkhart, Robert FOX, Joel Burdin, Edwin
Burkhart, and James E. Alatis for their advice and support during this project.
342
TESOL QUARTERLY
Schields, R.L. (1976). A study of the validity of the educational administrative
style diagnostic test. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, The American
University.
Streiff, P. (1970). Some criteria for the evaluation of TESOL programs. TESOL
Quarterly, 4, 365-370.
Wardhaugh, R. (1972). TESOL: Our common cause. TESOL Quarterly, 6, 291303.
Welch, D.F. (1976). A comparative study of the administrative styles of public
and independent school principals and headmasters. Unpublished doctoral
dissertation, The American University.
Wilcox, G.K. (1980, March). Suggested guidelines for the selection and/or
preparation of ESOL program administrators. Paper presented at the 14th
Annual TESOL Convention, San Francisco.
Author’s Address: Al Khazzan Street Residential Center, King Khalid Building,
Apartment 1135, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
The Effects of Modifying the Formality Level of
ESL Composition Questions
KEIKO HIROKAWA and JOHN SWALES
The University of Michigan
We know of no investigations of the effect of topic on compositions
written by ESL populations under closed-book, essay-examination
conditions. In L1 contexts, several studies have been concerned with
varying the amount and kind of information in the topic, or stimulus
(e.g., Smith et al., 1985). In the most directly relevant of these studies,
Brossell and Hoetker Ash (1984) investigated the effects of personal
(“you”) as opposed to neutral phrasing and of a question versus an
imperative format. They found no significant results and concluded that
their study “produced no evidence to support the contention that small
changes in the wording of essay examinations of otherwise similar
construction affect writers or the holistic ratings given their essays”
(p. 425).
The study reported here examined the extent to which the short and
general topics used in the Composition section of the Michigan English
Language Assessment Battery (MELAB) (English Language Institute,
1984) generate rhetorically and linguistically unambitious answers that fail
to indicate fully the communicative abilities of candidates. Since this
investigation was part of a series of studies aimed at developing a new test
specifically designed for the evaluation of nonnative-speaking (NNS)
graduate and transfer students, it also examined the extent to which more
ambitious and more academically appropriate writing could be elicited by
simply increasing the level of formality of the topic. An example of simple
and academic topic variants is given below.
BRIEF REPORTS AND SUMMARIES
343
Simple:
Academic:
Would you prefer to be part of a large family or a small
one?
Family size tends to vary according to a number of
factors, such as culture, religion, mortality rate, and level
of economic development. What are the advantages and
disadvantages of small “nuclear” families as opposed to
larger extended family units? State your personal
preference for one of these family types and explain the
reasons behind that preference.
The subjects were 32 NNSs enrolling at the University of Michigan in
Fall 1985. Each subject wrote two compositions under test conditions. In
the first condition, the subjects wrote on academic topics as part of their
English proficiency reevaluation (time limit 45 minutes). Two weeks
later, the same subjects—23 of whom were enrolled in an academic
writing course and 9 of whom had been exempted from ESL writing
classes—took a version of the standard MELAB Composition, responding to simple topics which were different in content area from the
topics in the first condition (time limit 30 minutes).
Following standard MELAB scoring procedures, all compositions
were scored by two experienced raters. Mean MELAB scores were 77.4
for the simple-topic condition and 78.5 for the academic-topic, with
scores ranging from 67 to 93.
The two sets of performances were analyzed through paired t tests,
and statistically significant differences at the .01 level were found for
several variables: Simple-topic compositions (a) were longer than the
academic topic compositions, as measured by both words written per 30
minutes and sentences written per 30 minutes; (b) contained more
subordination (per standardized length); (c) exhibited greater use of the
first-person, singular pronoun; and (d) contained more morphological
errors.
The following variables were found to be significant at the .05 level:
Simple-topic compositions exhibited a lower proportion of Graeco-Latin
vocabulary (per standardized length), as measured by procedures
developed by Corson (1982), and had higher proportions of total errors
and of syntactic errors. Nonsignificant variables included sentence
length and frequency of logical connectors, second-person pronouns,
and the passive voice.
Interviews with 5 of the subjects revealed their strong general
preference for the more academic and elaborate questions because, as
one interviewee put it, “it is easier to understand what they want us to
write.” Interestingly, the academic-topic sessions did not give rise to as
many preliminary queries and requests for clarification as is customary
in standard MELAB test sessions.
A general comparison of performance in the two formality conditions
reveals relatively few and relatively small differences ascribable to the
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TESOL QUARTERLY
experimental variable. Some of these differences are predictable enough,
such as the increased use of first-person pronouns when responding to
simple and general topics and the correlation between increased speed of
writing and increased error rate. On the other hand, the enhanced
utilization of Graeco-Latin lexis in the academic-topic condition is
potentially interesting, and the amount of subordination is not easy to
reconcile with general expectations.
There was evidence of at least two subgroups: one apparently capable
of some variation in its rhetorical and stylistic response to the level of
formality of the stimulus (most strikingly revealed in the contrasting
opening paragraphs) and one apparently unable, unwilling, or unaware of
the need to match a response to the level of formality of the stimulus.
While it is not clear whether this capacity for variation correlates with
writing ability, as measured by MELAB scores, there was certainly no
relationship between students’ self-perception (as manifested in the five
interviews) and their actual writing performance.
The verdict of this study would seem to be the Scottish one of “not
proven,” especially as the research design did not permit equal writing
time in the two conditions. On the other hand, it should be noted that in
both conditions, advice to candidates about assessment criteria remained
the same: “You will be graded on how well you communicate your ideas,
not on your ideas themselves.” The effect of changing this advice in
various ways is currently being investigated, for it would seem easier to
communicate well ideas of lesser cognitive complexity.1
REFERENCES
Brossell, A., & Hoetker Ash, B. (1984). An experiment with the wording of essay
questions. College Composition and Communication, 35, 423-425.
Corson, D.J. (1982). The Graeco-Latin (G-L) instrument: A new measure of
semantic complexity in oral and written English. Language and Speech, 25, 1-10.
English Language Institute, Testing and Certification Division. (1984). Michigan
English language assessment battery. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan.
Smith, W. L., Hull, G. A., Land, R. E., Moore, M. T., Ball, C., Dunham, D. E., Hickey,
L. S., & Ruzich, C. W. (1985). Some effects of varying the structure of a topic
. on
college students’ writing. Written Communication, 2: 73-89.
Authors’ Address: English Language Institute, North University Building 2001,
The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109
1 This study was funded by the Testing and Certification Division of the English Language
Institute.
BRIEF REPORTS AND SUMMARIES
345
THE FORUM
The TESOL Quarterly invites commentary on current trends or practices in the
TESOL profession. It also welcomes responses or rebuttals to any articles or
remarks published here in The Forum or elsewhere in the Quarterly.
Women Students in Our Institutions:
A Response to the U.N. Decade for Women
(1976-1985]
LINDA A. MOODY
Mills College
A recent issue of the Decade For Women Post Date (International
Women’s Tribune Center, 1985b) shows a picture of a woman
carrying a sign on her head which reads, “If it’s not appropriate for
women, it’s not appropriate.” The message carried in these words
from the third international women’s conference held during the
United Nations Decade for Women (1976-1985) rings as true for our
field of endeavor as it did for those attending the workshop on
appropriate technology at the University of Nairobi, where the
stinging words first echoed. If our programs, institutions, and
classes are not appropriate for the women we serve, then they are
not appropriate.
The United Nations World Conference to Review and Appraise
the Decade for Women was held in Nairobi from July 15 to July 25,
1985. Over 157 governments and 2,020 official delegates were
represented at the World Conference, with an additional 14,000
persons attending the concurrent Forum ’85, the nongovernmental
organization counterpart to the official World Conference.
Including press and rural women from different parts of Kenya, the
unofficial estimate of participants in. this international meeting of
women rises to 20,000 persons (International Women’s Tribune
Center, 1985a).
The purpose of the World Conference was to review women’s
gains and losses during the past decade, a decade officially
designated by the United Nations as the Decade for Women, and to
propose new strategies for the years 1985-2000. One of the major
preparatory documents for the conference was Forward Looking
347
Strategies of Implementation for the Advancement of Women and
Concrete Measures to Overcome Obstacles to the Achievement of
the Goals and Objectives of the United Nations Decade for Women
(United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, 1984). This
document urges international, national, regional, and local
governmental bodies as well as agencies, organizations, and
institutions to conduct thorough evaluations of their policies with
regard to the treatment of women.
With the World Conference in mind, it seems appropriate at this
time to review the policies of our ESL institutions and to make those
changes necessary for the field of ESL to meet the United Nations
goal of equality for women in the area of education (United
Nations, 1975). Statistics from the Institute for International
Education indicate that there are more than 98,000 foreign women
students in the United States ( TESOL Newsletter, 1984). Since 1984,
many more immigrant and refugee women have come to
participate in our ESL classes. Yet often we do not think of their
special needs as we design programs, train teachers, and develop
curriculum.
The purpose of this discussion is to help administrators and
teachers become aware of how to be more sensitive to the needs of
women students studying in ESL institutions. To that end, I will
discuss how to conduct an in-depth evaluation of ESL institutions to
measure our sensitivity to the needs of women students. I will also
suggest ways to improve our programs, following guidelines
established by the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (1984)
in their Forward Looking Strategies document, The three elements
of the evaluation include (a) a workshop to increase awareness of
the concerns of women students; (b) a center-wide examination of
staff, student services, and curriculum; and (c) opportunities for
continued professional development.
The task of the workshop, which is intended as a springboard for
discussion in the area of women’s concerns, is to identify special
problems that women students face during culture shock and
during the initial stages of cultural adjustment. A secondary purpose
is to provide an informal setting in which people can begin to think
about the degree to which our ESL programs are appropriate for
women. The workshop can last from several hours to a weekend in
length, depending on available resources and staff. A good way to
begin the discussion is with a review of the definition of culture
shock and the various phases in the process of cultural adjustment.
Men and women alike share many of the same symptoms of stress
that are characteristic of initial culture shock and gradual cultural
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TESOL QUARTERLY
adjustment. Women, however, may face a unique set of problems,
many of which are associated with independence, goal orientation,
and assertiveness.
Attempting to identify the issues which are unique to women can
be interesting and enlightening. Of course, not all women from a
particular cultural background will face the same set of adjustment
problems in the United States. Personality factors as well as
economic, class, and religious factors make each woman’s
adjustment process unique. Nonetheless, certain patterns emerge
both within a particular cultural group and across cultures. For
example, some women may be faced, during orientation week, with
banking and housing arrangements which are baffling to them. In
their native countries, a father, brother, or husband may have
handled all of the student’s financial affairs. Similarly, it is
customary in some cultures for a woman to live in the parents’ home
until she marries. The freedoms of being in the United States may
require a type of independence which is new and stressful for this
type of female student.
A second type of problem may become apparent as the semester
progresses. Some of the women students may seem to lack any clear
goal orientation, either for their academic studies or for a future
career. Whereas men are under pressure to complete their English
programs so that they can become family providers, women may
experience stress due to a lack of a clear focus about their future.
Not raised with the same expectations as men, women must struggle
over their identity as homemakers, students, career women, and
mothers. This lack of focus may be especially felt during the
extreme stages of culture shock, when women students may need
guidance.
Assertiveness may also be more problematic for women than for
men. While both men and women who come to the United States
are often faced with what they perceive as American competitiveness (Shimazu, 1984), the adjustment is often greater for women.
Shimazu notes that Japanese male students, coming from a culture
which values cooperation and intuition, often report difficulty in the
competitive American university setting. Here, students are
expected to speak in a direct manner and to present convincing
arguments to document their opinions. Even more than Japanese
men, however, Japanese women are trained to avoid confrontation.
In U.S. coeducational classrooms, these same women are expected
to participate, to give opinions, and perhaps even to disagree with
a male student or professor. The cognitive dissonance experienced
by some Japanese women is highly stressful.
THE FORUM
349
While some women may have difficulty being as assertive as is
called for in certain situations in the United States, others may be
perceived as being overly assertive. For example, one Venezuelan
woman from our English Center was mistaken for a prostitute at a
local shopping center. She was unnerved by the way in which her
assertiveness, friendliness, and manner of dress were perceived in
this culture. Since she did not want the incident to be repeated, we
talked about appropriate body language and dress for shopping in
the U.S. This woman’s experience, which is offered as an example
of a cultural adjustment issue specific to women, should not, of
course, be overgeneralized to all Venezuelan women.
These are just a few examples of how women may experience
culture shock in a way different from men. Most teachers, foreign
student advisers, and administrators could offer many other
examples of the needs which women bring to an ESL situation.
Sharing this information with colleagues is an excellent way to
increase awareness and to begin to evaluate the extent to which our
programs are appropriate to the needs of women.
The second major phase in the evaluation is a center-wide
examination of the appropriateness of the program for women in
the areas of personnel, student services, and curriculum. Forward
Looking Strategies (United Nations Commission on the Status of
Women, 1984), which provides clear guidelines for an evaluation of
educational programs such as those offered by ESL institutions,
summarizes the nature of the examination to be conducted:
Curricula of public and private schools should be examined, textbooks
and other educational materials reviewed, and educational personnel
retrained to eliminate all discriminatory gender stereotyping in
education. Educational institutions should be encouraged to expand
their curricula to include studies on women’s contributions to all aspects
of development. (p. 24)
The first questions we must ask ourselves, then, are, How
sensitive to women’s concerns is the staff of our institution? To what
extent are we free from “discriminatory gender stereotyping,” and
to what degree is retraining appropriate? If the initial workshop has
accomplished its purpose, most staff should be at least open to
discussing ways to inform themselves further about the needs of
women students and about equality for women in educational
settings. Otherwise, as the Commission’s report suggests, some type
of retraining, perhaps in the form of professional development, may
be appropriate.
Second, we must ask ourselves, Are student services designed
with the needs of women in mind? Are advisers aware of the issues
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of freedom and independence which may affect women’s cultural
adjustment? Are college counselors skilled in assisting women to
focus on educational goals appropriate for their needs? Are
orientation talks geared toward the needs of women? For example,
are women informed that they should walk assertively at night, that
they should not walk with their heads down, and that they should
avoid eye contact with any stranger who might be bothering them?
These are personal safety issues which represent, at a very specific
level, the types of student services which are appropriate for
women entering a new culture.
Perhaps the most crucial aspect of student services concerns
financial aid. Data collected during the Decade for Women have
revealed that women earn approximately 10% of the world’s income
and own 1% of the world’s property.1 Because of this unequal
distribution of resources, more women than men need financial
assistance. Recognizing this inequity, the Commission recommends
that “efforts be made to ensure that available scholarships and other
forms of support from governmental, non-governmental and
private sources are expanded and equitably distributed” (United
Nations Commission on the Status of Women, 1984, p, 24).
To whatever degree possible, we should see that scholarship
money is provided for women as well as men in our ESL
institutions, colleges, and universities. Administrators in particular
may be in a position to advocate the need for scholarship moneys
for women. For example, at the suggestion of the administrative
staff of our English Center, the Board of Trustees agreed to provide
a number of tuition scholarships for women. These scholarships
were granted as part of the celebration of the United Nations
Decade for Women. Grants and donations are an additional means
of providing tuition scholarships to refugee women in our
professional women’s program.
Curriculum is the third area of the center-wide examination, and
here we must ask, Is our curriculum appropriate for women? The
Commission’s report also makes clear suggestions in this area:
Research activities should be promoted to identify discriminatory
practices in education and training and to ensure educational equality.
. . . Governments and private institutions are urged to include in the
curricula of all schools, colleges and universities courses and seminars on
women’s history and roles in society. . . . New teaching methods should
be encouraged . . . to clearly demonstrate the equality of the sexes.
1 Statistics
provided by the International Wages for Housework Campaign and International
Black Women for Wages for Housework, King’s Cross Women’s Center, 71 Tonbridge
Street, London WC1, England.
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Programmed, curricula and standards of education and training should
be the same for females and males. Textbooks and other teaching
materials should be evaluated and where necessary rewritten to ensure
that they reflect positive, dynamic, participatory images of women.
(United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, 1984, p. 16) .
It is not difficult to apply these guidelines to our ESL courses. For
example, are women taught how to write self-recommendations for
college applications? I first learned of this need while reading over
the college applications of several Japanese women who were
writing more negative than positive comments about themselves.
Women students in particular may need help with writing
recommendations appropriate for admission to U.S. schools. The
vocabulary and tone appropriate for self-recommendations can
easily be taught in writing classes, and this is something from which
both male and female students would benefit.
Textbooks and materials also need to be examined. Studies of
ESL textbooks reveal that ESL materials, in general, need to be
revised to eliminate sexism. Hartman and Judd’s (1978) study of
ESL materials found that they reflected sexist attitudes and values.
Porreca’s (1984) study showed similar results—13 of 15 commonly
used ESL textbooks were found to be sexist.
Fortunately, some ESL authors have seen the need to produce
texts which are free of sex bias. Porreca (1984) found that Byrd and
Clemente-Cabetas’s React/interact (1980) and Azar’s Understanding and Using English Grarmmar (1981) are “far superior to other
texts in avoiding sexist usage” (p. 719). It is important that textbook
writers follow the lead of these authors in producing materials
which are free of sex stereotyping, negative images of women, and
sexist language.
There are many other ways in which a curriculum can be geared
toward meeting the needs of women. For example, fertility and
contraception information, including vocabulary items regarding
body parts, is important to both men and women, but especially to
women. This vocabulary, which is essential for a newcomer, can be
discussed in class or offered in an optional workshop. When
discussing important people in various fields in an oral skills class,
instructors should be careful to balance male and female role
models. Architect Julia Morgan can be discussed as well as Frank
Lloyd Wright. Painter Georgia O’Keeffe can be mentioned along
with Gauguin or Cézanne. Our teaching methods, too, must be
examined in light of the Commission’s mandate for equity. When
we invite open discussion in our oral skills classes, is it structured in
a way to encourage women’s participation? Or do we allow men to
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dominate our classes and thereby reduce the opportunities for
education for women? These are just a few ways to make ESL
programs appropriate for women. Many others would no doubt
surface in an individual school’s center-wide examination.
The third and final aspect of an institutional evaluation involves
keeping current on new issues. It is simply not enough to make
changes in 1986 and then wait until the next United Nations
conference in the year 2000 before we make further adjustments to
our programs. ESL teachers, administrators, researchers, and staff
need to find ways to evaluate our programs continually to make
them equally helpful for men and women. Readings from
professional journals, workshops, discussions at staff meetings, and
outside speakers can all be used to help keep the needs of women
students in mind.
As a profession, we need to take the time and spend the money
necessary to balance our ESL programs so that they provide equity
for women. To borrow the message of the placard carried at
Nairobi, if our institutions are not appropriate for both the women
and men that we purport to serve, they simply are not appropriate
at all.
REFERENCES
Azar, B. (1981). Understanding and using English grammar. Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Byrd, D.R.H., & Clemente-Cabetas, I. (1980). React/interact: Situations
for communication. New York: Regents.
Hartman, P. L., & Judd, E.L. (1978). Sexism and TESOL materials.
TESOL Quarterly, 12, 383-393.
International Women’s Tribune Center. (1985a, November). Facts and
figures from the Nairobi meetings. Decade for Women Post Date, p. 2.
International Women’s Tribune Center. (1985b, November). Photograph.
Decade for Women Post Date, p. 1.
Porreca, K. (1984). Sexism in current ESL textbooks. TESOL Quarterly,
18, 705-724.
Shimazu, M. (1984). Japanese students in EFL/ESL classrooms. TESOL
Newsbtter, 18 (2), 19.
TESOL Newsletter staff. (1984). Foreign student influx into U.S. reaches
plateau. TESOL Newsletter, 18 (1), 4-5.
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United Nations. (1975). World plan of action for the implementation of the
objectives of the International Women’s Year (Report of the United
Nations World Conference of the International Women’s Year, Sales No.
E. 76. IV.1). New York: Author.
United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. (1984). Forward
looking strategies of implementation for the advancement of women
and concrete measures to overcome obstacles to the achievement of the
goals and objectives of the United Nations Decade for Women (Report
of the Secretary General, A/Conf. 116/PC/21). Vienna: Author.
Comments on Bernard A. Mohan and
Winnie Au-Yeung Lo's “Academic Writing
and Chinese Students: Transfer and
Developmental Factors”
A Reader Reacts. . .
JOAN GREGG
New York City Technical College, CUNY
No one would dispute the assertion by Bernard A. Mohan and
Winnie Au-Yeung Lo in their recent TESOL Quarterly article (Vol.
19, No. 3, September 1985) that a variety of factors may be
responsible for the rhetorical problems of all nonnative students—
including native speakers of Chinese. I believe, however, that the
authors too readily dismiss traditional conventions of writing in
Chinese as a significant source of interference in the expository
prose of Chinese ESL college students.
Certainly, developmental factors play an important role in the
acquisition of expository writing skill; in addition, different
methods and emphases of English composition instruction
undoubtedly have a significant impact on students’ mastery of
discourse organization in English. But to state rather flatly, as the
authors do, that the ability of Chinese students to organize essays in
English is not related to a preference for “indirectness” in the
language and culture of Chinese appears at once to reflect too
narrow an understanding of the culture-specific style of Chinese
writers in English and to be too broad a characterization of Chinese
literary and linguistic elements.
Without contradicting the findings of Mohan and Lo’s research, I
must nevertheless respectfully submit that they are not the whole
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story and that more integration of Chinese cultural values and
rhetorical patterns exists than they are willing to credit. As I do not
read Chinese and as my experience in China is limited to a year of
teaching literature and advising students writing a research paper in
the People’s Republic of China (P. R.C. ), I hope my remarks will not
appear presumptuous. But my extensive experience with Chinese
students and the Chinese community in New York, plus my wide
reading in the growing field of contrastive rhetoric, does give me
some confidence in my views.
I agree with Mohan and Lo that Kaplan’s attribution of
contemporary Chinese rhetorical style to the influence of the
traditional Eight-Legged Essay is probably mistaken, or at least
exaggerated. We need not turn to any such single source for the
conventions of expository style favored by the contemporary
Chinese academy. Rather, just as we may properly view Western
rhetorical patterns as “expressions of Western culture, applicable
within the context of Western cultural values” (Matalene, 1985,
p. 789), so too may we profitably view Chinese conventions of
written discourse in the context of a very different constellation of
values. This is particularly “true when a critical posture, whether in
regard to literature, history, art, or social behavior, is central to the
expository paper.
The American critical posture reflects a core of American values:
respect for individual autonomy, inventiveness, forthrightness and
action, and regard for the individual personality. The American
education system emphasizes the individual student’s search for
truth through experimentation, experience, and reading stimulated
by personal interest. Americans have a short-range temporal
perspective, and authorities of the past are viewed as guides rather
than models. No theory is seen as incontrovertible, and all theories,
regardless of the high eminence from which they issue, must be
tested in the marketplace of ideas.
The acceptable expository style in American academic prose is
congruent with these values. Prolixity, abstractness, extensive use of
figurative expressions, traditional phraseology, and hortatory
language are avoided. Clarity of thesis statement, originality of
ideas, logical supporting details, neutral academic language, and
abundant use of transitional expressions are the hallmarks of the
expository paragraph and essay in English.
In marked contrast to these values and their resultant expository
style are the dominant social patterns and modes of discourse
organization in Chinese society (Hsu, 1963). The Chinese value
system subordinates the individual’s expressive needs to the welfare
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of the community, whatever the community happens to be. The
traditions of the past are viewed as the basis for contemporary
thought and action (even if the models have changed somewhat),
and the pronouncements of recognized authorities are not lightly
contradicted. The pedagogical system in China is still solidly based
on familiarity with and ability to contextualize, explicate, and
imitate accepted authorities of the past (see Tsao, 1983, p. 109;
Yang, 1983, p. 103). Truth is not an abstract concept inviting analysis
by various individuals following their own bents, but a principle
rooted in the sociopolitical environment and articulated by
approved authorities (Gamberg, 1977).
The concrete, idiographic nature of the Chinese language, the
necessity to memorize thousands of characters to become literate in
Chinese, and the reverence for calligraphy, an art that embraces
writing and composing in one inextricable motion, are three
additional aspects of Chinese society that must be factored into the
Chinese mode of discourse organization (Houghton& Hoey, 1983).
In my understanding and experience, these linguistic and cultural
elements have indeed shaped a culture-specific expository style,
one characterized by what I call, nonpejoratively, imitative,
inculcative, and indirect expressive elements. These include the
following:
1. An approach to a topic which is descriptive and syncretistic
rather than individually innovative and thesis oriented (Scarcella,
1984)
2. Frequent recourse to the pronouncements of authorities, either
by continual quotation, extensive paraphrase, and/or unacknowledged reproduction of key thought units
3. A flatly assertive, judgmental tone
4. Inductive, loosely developed topic and subtopic elements, with
paragraphs lacking clear topic statements and the relationships
between ideas not explicitly signaled (Tsao, 1983, pp. 102-103)
5. Recurrent use of indirect expressive modes such as rhetorical
question, metaphor and simile, formulaic phrasing, analogy, and
illustrative anecdote (Brooks, 1968; Davis, 1968)
It is of utmost importance to recognize these divergencies
between Chinese and American expository styles if we are to train
our Chinese EFL/ESL students adequately for the advanced levels
of expository writing needed for academic and career achievement
in the United States and in the international community which uses
English as its medium of communication. This is particularly true in
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regard to the meticulousness with which Americans document their
sources, as opposed to the Chinese disregard for such documentation. Our notion of plagiarism is by no means a universal one which
can be taken for granted (Gregg & Pacheco, 1981). Instead, it
should be thoroughly explored with Chinese student writers on a
contrastive basis, rather than from a stance of cultural superiority.
Mohan and Lo’s conclusions that discourse organization develops
late even in the first language acquisition process and that the
mastery of this skill can be influenced by appropriate teaching
practices are by no means at odds with my argument. If different
cultural patterns do shape different rhetorical patterns, as I believe
they do, what could be more logical than providing the nonnative
student with explicit instruction in the rhetorical norms of the
second language? Given either instrumental or integrative
motivation, Chinese students are certainly capable of assimilating
new conventions of expository prose, especially if notions of
inferiority or superiority of culture-specific rhetorical patterns are
avoided.
My Chinese students were never persuaded that the American
expository style was “better” than the Chinese. They continued to
perceive our emphasis on original thesis development as leading to
sometimes bizarre personal judgments. They did not share our
disparagement of traditional formulaic language—the essential
furniture of the learned person’s writing to them, the abhorred
cliché to us. They viewed the American near-obsession with clarity
and explicitness as inappropriate for the supposedly educated
readership of academia.
But these students learned to abide by our conventions of
expository prose with varying degrees of success, and many, both in
my P.R.C. and New York classrooms, were in fact able to strike an
interesting balance between the two styles. Obliquely expressive
language was used, but sparingly; major subtropical paragraphs
were models of deductive clarity and coherence, with inverted and
elliptical paragraphs providing variation; rhetorical questions were
not wholly eschewed but were used in moderation; and the
hortatory tone was subdued and reserved for conclusions.
By increasing our own awareness of our students’ culture-specific
writing styles, we lay the groundwork for encouraging them to
experiment with new expository patterns in a meaningful and
ultimately rewarding way.
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REFERENCES
Brooks, B.R. (1968). Geometry of the Shr Pin. In T.-T. Chow (Ed.), WenLin: Studies in the Chinese humanities (pp. 121-151). Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press.
Davis, A.R. (1968). Double ninth festival in Chinese poetry. In T.-T. Chow
(Ed.), Wen-Lin: Studies in the Chinese humanities (pp. 45-65). Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press.
Gamberg, R. (1977). Red and expert: Education in the People’s Republic
of China. New York: Schocken Books.
Gregg, J., & Pacheco, B. (1981, November). Research skills development
for students in college career programs. Paper presented at the College
Learning Skills Across the Curriculum, Grossingers, NY.
Houghton, D., & Hoey, M. (1983). Linguistics and written discourse:
Contrastive rhetorics. In R.B. Kaplan (Ed.), Annual review of applied
lingustics: 1982 (pp. 2-18). Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
Hsu, F.L.K. (1963). Clan, caste and club. Princeton, NJ: Van NostrandReinhold.
Matalene, C. (1985). Contrastive rhetoric: An American writing teacher in
China. College English, 47, 789-808.
Scarcella, R. (1984). How writers orient their readers, in expository essays:
A comparative study of native and non-native English writers. TESOL
Quarterly, 19, 671-688.
Tsao, F. (1983). Linguistics and written discourse in particular languages:
Contrastive studies: English and Chinese (Mandarin). In R.B. Kaplan
(Ed.), Annual review of applied linguistics: 1982 (pp. 99-117). Rowley,
MA: Newbury House.
Yang, Z. (1983). The mirror and the jigsaw: A major difference between
current Chinese and Western critical attitudes. Representations, 4, 101107.
Response to Gregg. . .
On Evidence for Cross-Cultural Rhetoric
BERNARD A. MOHAN
University of British Columbia
I welcome Joan Gregg’s comments on the article written by
Winnie Au-Yeung Lo and me. The topics of cross-cultural rhetoric
and composition in the second language are important ones for
several reasons. By exploring discourse variation across cultures and
across bilingual competencies, we can not only increase our
awareness of student difficulties with composition in the second
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language, but also gain insight into composition processes in general
and reach a deeper understanding of the nature of academic
discourse. Debate on these issues can be most productive, and in
this spirit I will state some of our points of agreement and
disagreement with Gregg’s response.
In brief, Gregg claims that American academic expository prose
is characterized by clear thesis statements, original ideas, logical
supporting details, neutral language, and explicit transitions and
that Chinese academic prose diverges from these features. She
implies that Chinese students writing in English will display these
aspects of Chinese prose. In its general approach, her position is
similar to the views of Kaplan.
These are interesting thoughts, suggesting as they do certain links
between academic prose and value systems, and they outline
promising directions for future research. However plausible
Gregg’s suggestions are, though, we are given no evidence to
support her claims about American prose, Chinese prose, or transfer
effects on Chinese students writing in English. Nor does she
indicate how she would go about collecting evidence for these
claims.
This failure to provide evidence is a remarkable omission, and it
may account for several ways she has misunderstood our position.
For instance, she states that we dismiss traditional Chinese
conventions as a source of interference in second language
composition. This is simply incorrect. We say specifically that
transfer factors should be included in a general model of second
language composition. What we insist on, however, is that claims
about transfer should be based on well-established cross-cultural
differences in rhetoric. They should be based on evidence. But
providing the evidence is not as simple as it might appear. Let us see
why.
A number of second language researchers and composition
teachers I have spoken with reason in something like the following
standard pattern: We know that there are cross-cultural differences
in rhetoric; we know that these differences will cause second
language students to make errors in composition which deviate
from the norms of English; our students make such errors;
therefore, there is negative transfer from the rhetoric of the first
language.
There are two notable empirical problems with this reasoning.
First, cross-cultural differences in rhetoric are not well established
but need to be demonstrated. When Kaplan (1966) first suggested
cross-cultural differences in paragraph patterns in five different
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language groups, he was suitably tentative, saying that “much more
detailed and accurate descriptions are required before any
meaningful system can be elaborated” (p. 15). In a friendly critique
of Kaplan, Hinds (1983) points out that in order to discover foreign
language rhetorical patterns, “it is necessary to examine compositions in the foreign language; compositions written for an audience
which reads that language” (p. 186). Accordingly, Hinds analyzes
texts written in Japanese for Japanese readers.
In our article we compared Kaplan’s claim that the Chinese
paragraph was “indirect” with two kinds of data: evidence from
traditional Chinese writers and statements by specialists in Chinese
composition about exposition in Chinese. Research on contrastive
rhetoric is not identical with research on composition in the second
language. To establish her claims about Chinese rhetoric, Gregg
needs to consider evidence from Chinese texts written for Chinese
readers.
The second problem with this reasoning is that errors in second
language composition are not necessarily transfer errors. Consider
Gregg’s characteristics of American prose. Don’t American student
writers occasionally fail to produce clear thesis statements, original
ideas, logical supporting details, neutral language, and explicit
transitions? When American students make these errors, they are
obviously not the result of transfer from another language. They are
more likely to be developmental errors. So when Chinese students
writing in English make such errors, we cannot automatically
assume that they are due to transfer.
The analysis of composition errors is problematic. In some cases
in syntax we can identify errors sufficiently well as transfer or
developmental to be able to produce strong findings. This is
because we can draw on contrastive studies of syntax and on studies
of syntactic development. In error analysis in expository discourse
we are not yet in such a happy state. The data are typically
ambiguous.
Hence the importance of using other kinds of evidence in
addition. For the group of Chinese students we studied, we were
able to show that a comparison of composition practices in Hong
Kong and British Columbia indicated that their school experience
with English composition was oriented more toward accuracy at
the sentence level than toward the development of appropriate
discourse organization. Our evidence for this developmental factor
was based on teacher and student interviews and surveys, the
analysis of composition texts, and facts about the evaluation of
composition. We also drew on composition process research.
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The weakness of the standard pattern of reasoning about the
transfer of rhetorical norms, then, is that it proves nothing. It does
not prove that contrastive rhetorical differences exist because it
does not examine composition in the first language. And it does not
prove that transfer errors occur because other explanations of error
are available. Assuming what it should try to prove, it argues in a
circle. Because it is circular, it merely confirms old dogma and does
not lead to new knowledge. This may in part explain why so little
progress has been made in this important research area in the 20
years since Kaplan first wrote.
Our article did not aim to replace a transfer model of second
language composition with a developmental model. To assume so
would be completely to misunderstand our general thrust. Our aim
was to point a way to more productive work in this area. We
suggested that a general model of second language composition
should include both developmental and transfer factors, and we
emphasized sources of evidence in addition to the analysis of
student errors.
By broadening our base of theory and research, we can avoid
unproductive circularity. We need studies of expository discourse in
English and other languages to establish cross-cultural differences.
We need studies of the learning and teaching of composition in the
first language to establish developmental patterns. Beyond studies
of student errors in the writing product, we need studies of the
writing process. We need to become more aware of students’
literacy in their native language and to gather information on their
educational experiences with literacy both in the home country and
the host country.
The nature of academic discourse (or the language of teaching
and learning, or of exposition, or of cognitive/academic language
proficiency—the labels point to a common issue) is a question of
enormous importance throughout education. By using more than
one theoretical perspective, more than one language, and more than
one form of data, we have the theoretical and empirical variety that
leads to a deeper understanding of this vital topic.
REFERENCES
Hinds, J. (1983). Contrastive rhetoric: Japanese and English. Text, 3, 183196.
Kaplan, R. (1966). Cultural thought patterns in inter-cultural education.
Language Learning, 16, 1-20.
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