T h e R e l e v a n c e o f C o m m u n i c a t i v e

C o m p e t e n c e T h e o r i e s to F o r e i g n

L a n g u a g e T e a c h i n g

by

Samih Dlekan (BA.)

A thesis submitted to the Office for Academic Affairs in candidacy

for the award of the degree of Master of Arts in the School of

Applied Languages, Dublin City University

*

Sponsored by Scientific Studies and Research Centre (SSRC),

Damascus, Syria

Supervisor Ms M a m i e Holborov September 1990

Declaration

I, Samih Dlekan, being a candidate for the degree of Master of

Arts, declare that I have not been a candidate for another degree

and that none oj. the material used in this thesis has been

submitted for another award I also declare that this thesis is

the work of the author except where otherwise acknowledged

I

Dedication

For my mother, whose eyes are glittering

like two distant stars

 Table of contents

Acknowledgements 1

Abstract 11

Introduction ill

Part I Theoretical Considerations 1

Chapter One Pre-communicative teaching 2

1 1 Traditional grammar and the grammar-translation

method 3

1 2 The direct method 6

1 3 Structural linguistics and the audio-lingual

method 8

1 4 Transformational-generative linguistics 15

14 1 Linguistic competence 17

14 2 Implications for language teaching 19

Chapter Two Communicative competence theories 23

2 1 Communicative competence theory 23

2 2 Communicative competence theory interpretations

and elaborations 26
 2 3 Accuracy versus fluency 35

2 4 Meaning potential 37

2 4 1 Semantics 43

2 4 2 Text 43

2 5 Capacity versus competence 45

2 6 Towards a pedagogical framework of communicative

competence 50

2 7 Summary and conclusion 52

Part XI Pedagogical Applications 55

Chapter Three Communicative competence in language teaching 56

3 1 Introduction 56

3 2 Communicative competence m teaching metho­

dology 57

3 3 The communicative content 58

3 4 Communicative processes 60

3 4 1 Task-based learning 62

3 4 2 Role-play 67

3 4 3 Games and problem-solving activities 68

3 4 4 Information gap exercises 70

3 5 Communicative principles 72

3 6 Communicative competence insyllabus design 75

3 6 1 The structural syllabus 76

 3 6 2 The functional syllabus 79

3 6 3 The task-based syllabus 82

3 6 4 The process syllabus 84

3 6 5 The relational syllabus 87

Chapter Four Roles of teachers and learners 93

4 1 The role of the teacher new dimensions 94

4 2 Teacher talk 98

4 2 1 Characteristics of teacher talk 99

4 2 2 Teacher talk as a source of comprehensible

input 103

4 3 The role of feedback 110

4 31 Feedback as error correction 111

4 32 Feedback and learning outcomes 114

4 3 3 Error correction and mistake correction 117

4 4 Learner strategies 121

4 41 Typology of strategies 122

4 42 Teaching implications 125

Part III Critique of communicative teaching 130

Chapter Five Learning language and learning culture 131

5 1 Definition of culture 131

5 2 Theory of language and culture 132

5 3 Cultural encounters and communication

breakdowns 134
 5 4 Sources of cultural differences 143

5 5 Foreign language learning m a cross-cultural

perspective 148

5 6 Empirical evidence 157

5 7 Conclusion 164

Chapter Six Teaching grammatical and cultural competence 165

6 1 Systematic competence and the dilemma of grammar

teaching 165

6 2 Teaching cultural competence 176

6 2 1 Coursebooks with acultural focus 177

6 2 2 Possible procedures forteaching cultural

competence 180

6 2 3 Materials for teaching cultural

competence 184

Conclusions 191

References 193

Appendix
 Acknowledgements

I wish to express my deep sense of indebtedness to my supervisor,

Ms M a m i e Holborow for the advice and guidance she has generously

offered, without which the completion of this work would not have

been possible

I wish also to thank my loving wife for her encouragement and

her patience with the many days taken up with this study

i
 Abstract

The Relevance of Communicative Competence Theories to

Foreign Language Teaching
by
Samih Dlekan

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the rise of communicative

competence theories and their impact on the practice of foreign
language pedagogy In this thesis we also investigate the
relation of language learning to culture learning, and argue that
if communicative competence is to be taken into account, then the
target culture should be introduced to the foreign language
classroom

This thesis falls into three parts theoretical

considerations, pedagogical applications and critique of
communicative teaching In Part One we first (Chapter One) review
linguistic theory and language teaching m the pre-communicative
era starting from traditional grammar to the emergence of
communicative competence theories Second, m Chapter Two, we
examine the communicative competence theory in its original form
as developed by Hymes, and the motivations behind the
introduction of this theory Wealso consider subsequent
elaborations and interpretations of this theory by linguists and
applied linguists, and discuss some significant terms related to
communicative competence

In Part Two we first (Chapter Three) discuss the influence of

communicative competence theories on language teaching
methodology We examine a variety of communicative tasks and
techniques explaining their significance for communicative
competence development We also consider the influence of
communicative competence theories on the evolution and
implementation of different syllabus types Second, m Chapter
four, we talk about the dramatic changes in the roles of teachers
and learners which came about as a result of the acceptance of
communicative competence as the ultimate goal of language
instruction, and focus on those aspects which we believe should be
prioritized in a classroom which aims to teach communicative
competence

In Part Three, we first (Chapter Five) examine the relationship

between language and culture, and argue that successful
communication between native and non-native speakers requires
non-native speakers to be aware of cultural presuppositions which
underlie language use We thus argue that associating language
learning with culture learning is an important consideration m
communicative competence development Second, in the final
chapter, we explain how cultural competence can be taught m the
classroom and suggest a few procedures, techniques and materials
for promoting cultural competence Moreover, in this chapter we
discuss grammatical competence as an important component of
communicative competence which has been de-emphasized by
over-emphasis on language functions m communicative teaching, and
suggest some criteria for the design and implementation of
communicative grammar tasks
 Introduction

More than any language, English has acquired an unprecedented

international status As a language for international

communication, science and technology, English has become a

significant foreign or second language all over the world, and

English teaching has become an indispensible part of general

educational systems all over the world On both individual and

national levels, competence in English is a key to success To use

Kachru's imagery, "knowing English is like the fabled Aladdin*s

lamp, which permits one to open the linguistic gates to

international business, technology, science, and travel In

short, English provides linguistic power 11 (1986 1)

\

In Third-World countries which are desperate to have access to

modern science and technology, the need for English teaching is

inevitable, and Syria is no exception Over the last three or

four decades the need for teaching English has been growing

steadily in Syria However, although the demand for English

teaching is great, language teaching methodology is still at an

early stage of development English is taught over a long period

in our national educational system Yet learners often fall to

acquire the desired proficiency level, something which can be

attributed to ineffective teaching methodology This incompetence

in English can hamper learners' academic progress and can counter

national aspirations for successful contact with modern science,

technology and business

iii
 Our interest in communicative competence theories and

communicative approaches arises from this fact This thesis is

aimed to be a step among few other steps taken towards the

introduction of an adequate teaching methodology to Syria

Moreover, our emphasis on the cultural aspect of communicative

competence stems from three considerations First we believe that

insufficient attention is paid by language teaching specialists to

making language learning a cultural as much as a new language

experience Second, interest in integrating culture teaching and

language didactic has been growing over the last few years (e g

Byram 1989) Byram writes

Cultural Studies has a rightful place as part of

language teaching, not as an adjunct to language learning,
not just as a means of creating better communication but as
an integral component with appropriate aims and methods
It certainly plays a role in language teaching in the sense
that words in the foreign language refer to meanings in a
particular culture creating a semantic relationship which
the learner needs to comprehend (1989 3-4)

Third, we believe that in Syria, a country which has a totally

different culture from Western culture, knowledge of the target

culture is a significant factor in progress to proficiency

iv
 Part I

Theoretical Considerations
 Chapter One

Pre-communicative teaching

The aim of this chapter is to briefly review the significant

changes in linguistic theory and language teaching methodology

which have taken place in this century The reason for this

concern is to establish the background against which communicative

competence theories and communicative approaches should be seen

Understanding the linguistic environment and previous teaching

practices is crucial for understanding communicative competence

theories

The twentieth century has witnessed a number of radical changes

in the methods of teaching foreign languages These changes have

b een stimulated by changes in linguistic theory on the one hand

and the persistent need for teaching languages on the other As

Johnson argues, language teaching has always been influenced by

linguistic theory because teachers looked to the linguist for

guidance on how to teach languages (1982 10-11) However, language

teaching does not automatically respond to changes in linguistic

theory Because of the immediate need for more teaching of

languages, teachers very often cannot wait for the linguist to

prescribe language pedagogy Moreover, because of the need for

more international communication and cross-cultural understanding

in this century, the demand on effective teaching methodology has

been grater than ever

2
1 1 Traditional grammar and the grammar-translation method

At the beginning of this century traditional grammarians' views on

the nature of language were dominant These grammarians believed

that language consisted of a set of grammatical rules and,

therefore, mastering a language was the mastery of these rules

They also believed that modern languages are 'degenerate' and

’i m p u r e 1, and the perfect form was to be found m the language of

classical writers As a result they neglected speech and focussed

on the written from of language as manifested m the works of

great authors

According to traditional grammarians, as Bell (1981) mentions,

grammar was divided into two categories universal grammar and

particular grammar Universal grammar is the principles which are

common to all languages, while particular grammar is the rules and

principles which are specific to a given language and which are

established m the practice of great writers The models for

universal grammar were Latin and Greek, and any lack of

correspondence between these models and actual practice m modern

languages was considered a violation of rules (p 82)

Roulet (1972) mentions the major characteristics of traditional

grammar m terms of the grammatical content and data presentation

Concerning the content we refer to the following

3
1 Traditional grammar describes the written language of previous

centuries and takes no account of present-day use

2 It generally prioritizes morphology and neglects syntax

3 Traditional grammar sets out rules for forming mam and

dependent clauses but it does not set out rules for joining

clauses in more complex sentences

4 Very often the teaching of lexis and phonology is inadequate

Roulet lists several characteristics concerning the

presentation of grammatical data from which we mention

1 Traditional grammar provides definitions, explanations and

rules which are quite often false, misleading and of little value

For example, the subject is usually defined as the doer of the

action, the object as what is being acted upon, etc

2 Traditional grammar presents the data m a way which follows

the models of Latin and Greek, such as declining nouns in the

nominative, accusative, vocative, dative etc This system is

not appropriate for the description of modern languages

3 Traditional grammar emphasizes the avoidance of errors

4 Traditional grammar presents rules in a way which is not

ordered, and this does not give the teacher any information on how

to progress m the course

5 Traditional grammar adopts an analytic presentation which

allows students to grasp the structure of sentence patterns but

does not help them construct new sentences (pp 5-14)

4
 These ideas about language and language learning were

manifested in language pedagogy m what is known as the

grammar-translation method which dominated language teaching until

the nineteen forties This method is very old and was associated

with the teaching of Latin and Greek Earlier this century, this

method was used to enable students to read and appreciate foreign

literature and translate from and into the target language The

advocates of this method believe that language learning is a

mental exercise even if learners never used the target language

(Larsen-Freeman 1986 and Richards and Rodgers 1986) The major

principles of this method are

1 The goal of language learning is for learners to be able to

read foreign literature and develop intellectual abilities

Evaluation of successful learning is based on the ability to

translate from and into the target language Therefore, literary

language was considered superior to spoken language The ability

to use language for actual communication is not the purpose of

teaching

2 Emphasis is placed on reading and writing and little, if any,

attention is given to speaking and listening

3 Awareness of the similarities and differences between the

native language and the target language, that is contrastive

analysis, is believed to facilitate learning

4 Learners are expected to achieve a high level of accuracy

5
Therefore, grammatical errors are not tolerated

5 Grammar is taught deductively, that is by isolating

grammatical items and providing explicit explanation of them

6 The medium of instruction is the learners' mother tongue

(Larsen-Freeman 1986 9-10, and Richards and Rodgers 1986 3-4)

The major defect of this method, as Rivers (1968) points out,

is that little account is taken of pronunciation, intonation and

communication skills This method exaggerated the need for

knowing rules and exceptions and does not t r a m students m using

language for expressing meaning, even m writing Students are

encouraged to manipulate structures and irregular forms using

language which is often artificial, rare, and old-fashioned The

student has to work hard on memorizing vocabulary, translation

and written exercises His or her role m the class is mainly a

passive one, "he absorbs and then reconstitutes what he has

absorbed to satisfy his teacher " (p 19) We sail see later that

the shortcomings of this method have beem avoided by communicative

teaching as a result of the rise of communcative competence

theories which emphasied the ability to convey meaning rather than

to manipulate structures which made no reference to their social

context

2 3 The direct method

This method emerged as an alternative for the grammar-translation

method, which led to an overemphasis on written forms of language

when the purpose was teaching modern spoken languages As its

6
name indicates this method relates the meaning directly to the

target language without going through the process of translation

Theorists of this method, as Rivers notes, believed that "students

learn to understand a language by listening to a great deal of it

and then they learnto speak it by speaking it m the same way

children learn their first language " (Ibid 18) The

characteristics of this method are

1 Thinking m the target language should be encouraged

2 Exclusive use of the target language as a medium of

instruction

3 More emphasis is placed on oral skills although writing and

reading are not de-emphasized

4 Grammar is taught inductively, that is grammatical rules

should not be isolated and explained but acquired unconsciously by

the learners

5 Some opportunity is given to the students to practice language

in real situations

6 Phonological and grammatical accuracy is emphasized, but

self-correction is encouraged

Although this method enjoyed some popularity m Europe, there

were those who were dissatisfied with it The weakness of this

method, as Finocchiaro and Brumfit (1983) point out, is

that the materials were not based on authentic speech and

7
the teacher did not consider meeting the learners' needs outside

the classroom (pp 5-6) Students were usually presented with

sentences such as

The cat is under the table, but the dog is

behind the door

The colour of John’s shirt is darker than the

colour of Mary's skirt

This method has other defects Rivers argues that its m a m defect

was that it encouraged students to express themselves before they

were ready, and this resulted m students developing "a glib but

inaccurate fluency, clothing native language structures in foreign

vocabulary ” She also argues that it was wrong to believe that the

conditions of first language acquisition can be simulated m the

classroom with adolescent students (ibid 20) But it is worth

mentioning that some of the principles of this method such as

teaching grammar inductively and attention to oral skills, have

been adopted by communicative approaches

1 3 Structural linguistics and the audio-lingual method

Dissatisfaction with the views of traditional grammar brought

about a change m linguistic theory which was realized in the rise

of structural linguistics To avoid the drawbacks of traditional

grammar, structural linguists, as Roulet points out, aimed at (1)

describing the modern language of a community, (2) narrowing down

8
the scope of language study by focussing on language structure,

and assigning a peripheral role to meaning, and (3) carrying out

language description systematically and objectively deriving the

grammar of language from "a corpus of recorded data m a quasi

mechanical way” (1972 21)

It seems that m attempt to avoid the main drawbacks of

traditional grammar, structural linguistics, as Roulet points out,

sought to establish solid grounds for modern language teaching, by

both its content and form Roulet describes the content and the

form of structural linguistics In terms of content Roulet argues

that

1 Structural linguistics describes a living language m a

particular community at a fixed point of time using recorded data

2 It describes the spoken language which the student needs as a

medium of communication

3 It provides phonological analysis of the sound system of

language which could be used as bases for teaching pronunciation

in a systematic way

Concerning the form of structural linguistics Roulet points out

that

9
1 Structural linguistics provides precise definitions which are

based solely on formal criteria Unlike traditional grammarians,

structural linguists believed that it was not necessary to have

access to meaning in order to define parts of speech as this

example illustrates

The slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe

Although this sentence is nonsensical speakers of English can

easily identify nouns, verbs etc from the positions they occupy

in the sentence Therefore, words are considered to belong to the

same class if they regularly occupy the same positions in

sentences

2 Structural linguists criticized the analytical approach of

traditional grammar and were concerned with sentence-building

Their argument wasthat learners need to know the patterns of the

language and which words belong to which pattern "What is put

forward then is a framework of sentences slots" as in this

example

Suzanne* bought a new dress on Saturday

10
which learners can modify and manipulate by making substitutions

and transformations using words that can replace elements in one

slot or another (ibid 21-4)

Furthermore, the structuralist view on language learning

derived from Behaviourist psychology and the ideas of Pavlov and

Skinner Behaviourist psychology believed that learning was a

matter of habit-formation through a stimulus-response -

reinforcement process Therefore, language learning was seen as a

matter of overcoming the old habits of the mother tongue and

building up the new habits of the target language These habits

can be formed by providing continuous drilling However, the

ideas of structural linguistics found their application m what

came to be known as the audio- lingual method

This method emerged m the United States during World War II

and was stimulated by three major factors First, during the

period of war there was an immediate need for people who spoke

foreign languages Therefore, it was first used to teach military

personnel

Second, the Behaviourist school of psychology and the ideas of

Skinner gained popularity as a way of explaining the

teaching/learning process Third, the ideas of structural

linguistics and linguists such as Bloomfield and Fries began to be

11
used m language teaching and gave rise to what has been called

the audio-lingual method (Brumfit and Fmocchiaro 1983 6-7) The

audio-lingual method has the following principal characteristics

1 Language learning is habit-formation Positive reinforcement

helps develop correct habits

2 The teacher presents spoken cues and picture cues which act as

stimuli to which students give verbal and non-verbal responses

3 Students should learn to answer automatically without stopping

to think

4 The teacher controls the students' linguistic behaviour and

prevents them from forming incorrect habits Therefore, no

errors are tolerated

5 The ultimate goal of language teaching is for students to

master a number of finite structural patterns Practice and

repetition is the best way to achieve this goal

6 Contrastive analysis will help the teacher predict the areas

of difficulty and help the students overcome the old habits of

their native language

7 Foreign language learning should follow the natural order of

first language acquisition, that is listening, speaking, reading

and writing

8 Foreign language teaching should aim at developing an

understanding of the foreign culture and people (Larsen-Freeman

1986 41-2)

12
 The strength of this method was that it concerned itself with

modern languages and thus freed students from the artificial,

useless and literary language of previous centuries This method

also associated a language with a culture and aimed at developing

cultural)understanding This association, as we shall see, was not

fully taken into consideration by most communicative teaching,

although communicative competence theory was developed to assign

an important role for sociocultural factors involved m language

acquisition and in the ability to understand and produce speech

acts

However, this method has many defects Although many people

began learning through the audio-lingual method, this method did

not produce fluent learners What the learners were good at was

parroting patterns without communication Audiolingualism created

a sense of fear of making an erroneous utterance The learners are

usually hesitant to utter a sentence unless they are absolutely

sure of its grammatical perfection, which is psychologically

harmful This method is also psychologically harmful in the sense

that the teacher controls the students' behaviour and does not

allow them the chance for self-expression This, of course, is

dull and unmotivating

13
 Roulet points out that structural linguistics made little

progress beyond traditional grammar It exclusively concerned

itself with "the system of inventories of elements (phonemes,

morphemes) and provided little understanding of the process of

sentence formation and interpretation " But as for linguistic

descriptions structural linguistics presented them more

systematically and explicitly than traditional grammar did As

Roulet aptly puts it "If structuralist grammars constituted a

step forward from traditional grammar as far as language form was

concerned, m the areas of language content they marked rather a

step backward " (Original emphasis, ibid 27)

Concerning the application of structuralist ideas m language

teaching, Roulet points out three major defects

1 Emphasis on formal criteria led students and teachers to

manipulate structures without any concern with meaning and use m

actual situations

2 Emphasis on language code resulted m neglecting the problems

and processes of language teaching and learning In other words,

teachers were concerned with the question of "what to teach" to

the neglect of "how to teach it"

14
3 Audiolmgualism was based on an inadequate theory of learning,

1 e the conditioning theory associated with the Behaviourist

school of psychology (Ibid 36)

However, the 1950s witnessed a strong challenge to structural

linguistics and Behaviourist psychology This challenge, as Bell

points out, "reoriented linguistics towards a more mentalistic

philosophy, rational scientific method and, when applied to

language teaching, a cognitive psychology " (p 99) This

challenge came from transformational-generative linguistics

1 4 Trasformational-generative linguistics

The rise of transformational-generative linguistics (TG) came as a

reaction to the assumptions of structural linguistics and the

Behaviourist school of psychology In what follows we present the

key assumptions of TG as mentioned by Bell

1 Language is a system which relates meanings to substance

this view, as Bell points out, is contradictory to the

structuralist view that language is a system of forms The view

of language as meaning relates TG with traditional grammar

2 Language is a mental phenomenon this is also in contrast

with the structuralist view that language is a physical

phenomenon

15
3 Language is innate this innateness of language is "a

genetically imparted ability for language learning"

4 Language is universal this means two things It means that

all normal human children learn a mother tongue, and that all

world languages, at an abstract level, share common

characteristics (Ibid 102)

As we have seen earlier structural linguistics assumed that the

structure of a sentence is visible, and when sentences have the

same visible or observable structure they were grouped m a

pattern Underwood (1984) points out that Chomsky showed that this

was not the whole story Chomsky pointed out that "John is easy

to please" have the same visible structure as "John is eager to

please”, but any speaker knows that these two sentences are

different m the sense that the relation between John and the act

of pleasing m both sentences is quite different Chomsky

accounted for the situation as two similar "surface structures"

but two different "deep structures" As Chomsky explains, and

Underwood mentions, this explains how one sentence can have two

different meanings (p 4)

On the other hand, when two sentences with two different

surface structures have the same meaning, such as "John turned the

radio off" and "John turned off the radio", we can often say that

16
they come from the same deep structure What made them different

at the surface structure level is the application of different

transformational rules (movement, addition, deletion) Such a

view of language accounts for our ability to identify more than

one meaning m the same sentence (ambiguous sentences) and

recognize the same meaning m sentences of differing structural

forms (ibid 5)

14 1 Linguistic competence

In TG Chomsky draws a fundamental distinction between linguistic

competence and linguistic performance By competence Chomsky

means the internalized grammar rules m the mind of the

speaker-listener of his or her language, or the knowledge

underlying the language user's ability to judge grammaticallty of

sentences It is obvious that competence is defined solely in

terms of syntax

By performance, on the other hand, he refers to the mani­

festation of this knowledge in concrete situations But in order

for us to fully understand competence and performance it is

important to understand the nature of the language user and the

speech community in which performance is carried out Chomsky was

not concerned with a real speaker-listener or a real speech

community but, as he wrote

17
 Linguistic theory is primarily concerned with an ideal
speaker-listener, m a completely homogeneous
speech-community, who knows its language perfectly and. is
unaffected by such grammatically irrelevant conditions such
as memory limitation, distractions, shifts of attention
and interest, and errors m applying his knowledge m
actual performance (1965 3)

Chomsky proceeds to argue that only under this idealization can

performance be a direct reflection of competence But m fact, as

he points out, a record of natural speech shows that performance

cannot reflect competence because it shows deviations from rules,

distractions, changes of plan and so on and so forth The task

of the linguist, he claims, as well as the child, is to examine

the data available m performance and discover the underlying

rules that are mastered by the speaker and put to use in his or

her performance Chomsky described his theory as "mentalistic"

because " it is concerned with discovering a mental reality

underlying actual behaviour" (ibid 4)

Furthermore, Mathews (1979) argues that generative grammar is

considered a theory about the form of the speaker's linguistic

competence and that the internalized rules m the mind of the

speaker (his competence) are of a generative grammar (pp 11-12)

Chomsky explained this clearly when he wrote

By a generative grammar I mean simply a system of rules

that in some expllc11 and we11- de fine d way as slgns
structural descriptions to sentences Obviously, every
speaker of a language has mastered and internalized a
generative grammar that expresses his knowledge of his
language (ibid 8)

18
 In fact Chomsky's theory of linguistic competence restricts

itself to the code or the rule system of the language, and

consequently fails to account for the fact that language users

considerably vary their speech according to different situations

and interlocutors This theory does not take into account the

environmental or sociocultural factors which shape the user's

competence Campbell and Wales (1970) argued that if we want to

understand how the child acquires his or her native language,

then studies of how he or she learns the grammatical system are

inadequate, we have to consider the environmental factors

involved in language acquisition

1 4 2 Implications for language teaching

As regards language teaching generative linguistics has had little

influence However, language teachers and applied linguists, as

Bell points out, have drawn out some assumptions which had some

influence on language teaching Bell mentions the following

1 Transformationalists believed that the activities of the body

are different from the activities of the mind Thus learning

requires a philosophical rather than a physiological explanation

2 Sine language is primarily a thinking process, "language

learning can best be explained as a process of ‘problem solving1

19
m which the learner attempts to create ’cognitive maps' for

himself by means of which he makes sense of the data", the data

of the language to which he or she is exposed

3 Language learning is not a matter of habit formation, but

rather a matter of creativity and analysis

4 Attitudes to errors have changed from being considered a

failure to acquire new habits and interference from the mother

tongue to being regarded as hypothesis-testing on the part of the

learner (Ibid 105-6)

As we have pointed out above generative linguistics had little

to offer to language teaching In fact Chomsky himself was

tentative as to the significance of linguistic insights to

language teaching Chomsky wrote

I am frankly rather sceptical about the significance for

the teaching of languages of such insights and
understanding as have been obtained in linguistics and
Psychology Surely the teacher of language would do well to
keep informed of progress and discussion m these fields
and the efforts of linguists and psychologists to approach
the problems of language teaching from a principled point
of view are extremely worthwhile from an intellectual as
well as a social point of view Still it is difficult to
believe that either linguistics or psychology has achieved
a level of theoretical understanding that might enable it
to support a 'technology' of language teaching (Quoted by
Roulet 1972 42)

20
 What Chomsky did was to show the defects in Skinner's model of

learning, but he did not provide an alternative model and never

claimed to have done so His ideas paved the way for substantial

developments in linguistics and applied linguistics "Chomsky",

says Roulet, "has contributed a great deal towards this shift of

accent to an investigation of learning strategies as a first step

towards working out a new teaching methodology and the development

of psycholmguistic research " (1972 530

However, despite the difference between generative linguistics

and structural linguistics, the two theories, as Bell argues,

share a common view of language m that they consider language as

essentially "form and structure m a context-free closed system "

This is the reason why Bell labels both theories as "formalist"

(1981 99)

In the final analysis, whether in linguistic theory or

language teaching, the focus of attention has always been on

language structure It is true that Chomsky criticized structural

linguistics, but in his theory emphasis on structure remained

Competence is no more than rules of grammar underlying language

structures This exclusive interest m language as a formal

system m both language teaching and linguistic theory, and the

limitations of Chomsky's theory brought about a new concern with

language as social behaviour and communication Yalden (1987)

21
argues that three notable contributions have been made to

characterize communication First is the theory of language

functions, second is work on discourse analysis, and third is

the communicative competence theory (p 19) In language teaching,

however, this new concern was manifested in the communicative

approach

22
 C h a p t e r Two

Communicative competence theories

The notion of communicative competence has enjoyed increasing

popularity among linguists and language teaching specialists and

has had a great impact on the practice of foreign language

teaching Since Hymes coined the term, it has been widely

accepted by linguists, who began to explain, investigate and

develop the concept further The purpose of this chapter is to

identify the theoretical premises of Hymes' communicative

competence theory and examine later attempts by other linguists to

develop this theory Discussion of communicative competence

theory, however, necessitates consideration of the linguistic

terms which bear relevance to the term communicative competence

Therefore, examination of the notions of "fluency", "meaning

potential", and "capacity" will be the second aim of this

chapter

2 1 Communicative competence theory

Hymes developed his theory of communicative competence m reaction

to the limitations of the Chomskyan theory of linguistic

competence and its failure to deal with problems of communication

Hymes insisted that linguistic theory should be seen as part of a

more general theory which includes culture and communication

Hymes challenged Chomsky's basic assumptions about language He

23
believed that language use entails knowledge of which linguistic

competence is only a part The aim of linguistics, therefore,

was to specify communicative competence Explaining the need for

a social approach to the study of language Hymes wrote

We have to account for the fact that a normal child

acquires knowledge of sentences, not only as grammatical,
but also as appropriate He or she acquires competence as
to when to speak, when not, and as to what to talk about
with whom, when, where, m what manner This
competence, moreover, is integral with attitudes, values,
and motivation concerning language, its features and uses,
and integral with competence for, and attitudes towards,
the interrelation of language with the other code of
communicative conduct (1972b 277-78)

A key component of communicative competence is the socio­

cultural component or appropnacy m terms of the rules of social

interaction Appropnacy concerns turn-taking (when to speak),

selection of topics (what to talk about), participants (with

whom) and the degree of formality (what manner) Hymes argues

that such work as Labov’s in New York city provides evidence" that

language users vary their speech according to interlocutors even

within a homogeneous speech community This fact, Hymes points

out, shows the need for a social approach to the study of language

(p 276) The essence of this approach is that "there are rules of

use without which rules of grammar would be useless " For example,

in Arab culture, it is inappropriate to mention the prophet's

name without saying "peace be upon him" This is a rule the child

learns m the process of learning the first language This simple

example shows that there are social as well as grammatical rules

underlying language use

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 As Hymes argues, children learn how to vary their speech

according to different situations, and develop an awareness of

speech acts "From a finite experience of speech acts and their

interdependence with sociocultural features, they develop a

general theory of the speaking appropriate to their community "

(P 279)

In the Chomskyan theory judgements are of two kinds

grammaticallty regarding competence and acceptability concerning

performance According to Hymes, however, grammatical competence

is only one of several sectors of communicative competence Hymes

emphasized that if a theory of language use is to be developed and

integrated with theory of communication and culture, then

judgements should be of four kinds

1 Whether (and to what degree) something is formally possible

By formal possibility Hymes means grammaticality But he extends

the term to include what is formally possible within a cultural

system

2 Whether (and to what degree) something is feasible in virtue

of the means of implementation

The question of feasibility concerns psycholmguistic features

such as memory limitation, and is related to Chomsky's term

25
acceptability m performance But here again Hymes relates this

term to cultural behaviour and uses it to mean " features of the

body and features of the material environment"

3 Whether (and to what degree) something is appropriate

The issue here concerns the relation of language to social

situations Appropnacy refers to rules of speaking m relation

to the context m which it is used and evaluated

4 Whether (and to what degree) something is done

Hymes explains that although communicative competence is not

restricted to occurrences, it should not ignore them Language

users have knowledge of the probabilities of utterances

"Something may be possible, feasible, and appropriate, and not

occur" Hymes sums up by saying "the goal of a broad theory of

competence can be said to be to show the ways m which the

systematically possible, the feasible, and the appropriate are

linked to produce and interpret actually occurring cultural

behaviour" (pp 281-86)

2 2 Communicative competence theory interpretations and

elaborations

Canale and Swain (1980) provided a specification of three

interacting components of communicative competence which Canale

(1983) later subdivided into four The view on communicative

26
competence held by Canale and Swam derives from their

understanding of the nature of communication Canale mentions the

following characteristics communication

a) is a form of social interaction, and is therefore normally

acquired and used m social interaction,

b) involves a high degree of unpredictability and creativeness in

from and message,

c) takes place m discourse and sociocultural contexts which

provide constraints on appropriate language and also clues as to

correct interpretation,

d) is carried out under limiting psychological and other

conditions such as memory constrains, fatigue and distraction,

e) always has a purpose (for example, to establish social

relations, to persuade, or to promise),

f) involves authentic, as opposed to coursebook-contrived

language,

g) is judged as successful or not on the basis of actual outcomes

(1983 3-4)

Canale draws a distinction between communicative competence and

"actual communication" He argues that m Canale and S w a m (1980)

communicative competence was understood to be "the underlying

system of knowledge and skill required for communication "

However, by "actual communication" Canale means the manifestation

of this knowledge and skill He emphasizes that m Canale and

27
Swam communicative competence was understood to include both

knowledge (what the speaker knows about language and the

communicative use of language) and skill (the ability to perform

m actual communication) (p 5)

Canale provides a framework of communicative competence which

includes four areas of knowledge and skill

1 Grammatical competence

This refers to all aspects of language system including syntax,

vocabulary, pronunciation, spelling etc He argues that this

competence "will always be an important concern for any second

language programme"

2 Sociolinguistic competence

This competence addresses the appropriacy of utterances with

regard to sociolinguistic contexts Canale points out that

appropriateness concerns both meaning (the choice of certain

language function) and form (the choice of a certain register)

For example, it would be inappropriate for an army officer in a

battlefield to politely ask his soldiers to carry out a certain

military action (not the proper language function) It would also

r
be inappropriate for an adult to say "how do you do" when

introduced to a child (wrong choice of register)

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3 D is c o u r s e co m p ete n ce

This competence refers to "mastery of how to combine grammatical

forms and meanings to achieve a unified spoken or written text m

different genres " By genre Canale means the type of text such as

narratives, scientific reports, business letters etc He argues

that unity of a text is achieved by means of cohesion in form and

coherence m meaning Consider the following example which

illustrates Canale's point

A It's very warm m here

B I've got flu

A I see Ok

In terms of structure these three utterances have no link among

them That is to say, they are not joined by means of any

cohesive devices such as pronouns, conjunctions sentence

connectors, demonstratives etc Nonetheless, they form coherent

discourse The communicative value of A 1s utterance is a request

to open a window ’B' understands this and explains that he cannot

open the window A's second remark shows understanding of the

situation and acceptance of B's excuse

4 Strategic competence

Strategic competence, as Canale explains, is the communication

strategies a language user employs for two main reasons (A) to

29
compensate for communication breakdowns which result from

momentary loss of a word or a grammatical form, or to compensate

for a deficient competence, and (B) to enhance the effectiveness

of communication (e g deliberately slow and soft speech for

rhetorical effects) It seems to me that the first strategies are

more important, especially in the earlier stages of second

language learning, because they are always needed when learners

are involved m actual communication Canale mentions paraphrase

as one of these strategies If a learner does not know the

meaning of the word island, he or she might say "a piece of land

surrounded by water" (pp 7-11)

Furthermore, Roberts (1986) points out that a pedagogically

utilizable analysis of communicative competence was provided by Di

Pietro According to Di Pietro, Roberts argues, communicative

competence can be subdivided into the following sub-competences

1 Formal competence

This is what is generally referred to as linguistic competence

This competence is further divided into grammatical and idiomatic

competence The former refers to the mastery of the systematic

features of language while the later refers to the ability to

understand and use idioms appropriately, or knowledge of the

unsystematic features of language

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2 Sociocultural competence

This refers to knowledge of rules of social interaction m a given

society It is m this area of knowledge that contrasts between

two cultures emerge

3 Psychological competence

Roberts explains that by psychological competence Di Pietro means

"the ability to project one's personality and the ability to use

language to achieve personal goals" However, the way people

express their feelings and ideas, and talk about their likes and

dislikes, I concur with Roberts, is culturally determined m

many ways

4 Performing competence

This competence includes all the devices necessary to start,

maintain and finish a dialogue This ability involves using

openers, maintenance strategies and closures This competence

presents many contrasts between cultures Roberts argues that

comments on the weather are non-starters in countries where

weather hardly changes He also mentions that m some cultures it

is impolite to go straight to the point when discussing serious

matters However, I do not believe that this is a distinct

component of communicative competence, it is rather a part of

sociocultural competence Moreover, performing competence

provides a wider view than that provided by Canale's strategic

31
competence Strategic competence refers only to those strategies

we use to keep a conversation m progress such as paraphrase,

repetition, foreshadowing, use of fillers etc Performing

competence, on the other hand, refers to knowledge of how to

initiate, maintain and terminate conversations without sounding

impolite or inconsiderate

Savignon (1983) draws a classroom model of communicative

competence based on Canale's framework discussed above She

acknowledges four constituents (1) grammatical competence, (2)

sociolmguistic competence, (3) discourse competence, and (4)

strategic competence (p 35) It is worth mentioning here that

Savignon draws a diagram suggesting a possible relationship

between the four components of communicative competence She

argues that "an increase m one component interacts with the other

components to produce a corresponding increase m overall

communicative competence" She makes an interesting point when

she argues that sociolmguistic competence and strategic

competence allow the learner a certain degree of communicative

competence even before he or she acquires any grammatical

competence Strategic competence, as she argues is present at all

levels of proficiency since no one knows all a language even one's

own The interpretation of this argument is that language

learners come to the foreign language classroom with a certain

amount of communicative competence This measure of communicative

32
competence includes "universal rules of social interaction and a

willingness or need to communicate through gestures, facial

expressions, and other available means " (pp 45-6)

In their review of communicative competence theories, Canale

and Swam (1980) subsume these theories under three major

headings (1) theories of basic communication skills, (2)

sociolmguistic theories of communicative competence, and (3)

interactive theories of communicative competence Under the first

heading they refer to Savignon and Van Ek Canale and S w a m argue

that these theories were developed to serve second language

programmes The basis of these theories, as they argue, is an

emphasis on minimum skills required by learners to put their

messages across m a second language They also point out that a

communication skills theory tends to de-emphasize other aspects of

communicative competence such as appropriateness and grammatical

accuracy of utterances (p 9)

Such a view of communicative competence, I believe, is very

restrictive We do not teach language simply to enable learners

to get their messages across Language learners have diverse

needs demanding different levels of proficiency which includes an

ability for sociolmguistic variation of language use and a high

degree of formal accuracy For example, learners who study

English for academic purposes need to be taught more than how to

put their messages across because putting one’s message across can

33
be done without appropnacy or grammaticallty Their abiltiy to

communicate through basic communication skills does not guarantee

that their language competence can meet their academic needs

Canale and S w a m are critical of this view They argue that

"it is not clear that second language learners will develop

grammatical accuracy m the course of their second language

programme if emphasis is not put on this aspect from the start

It may be that certain grammatical inaccuracies will tend to

fossilize” (p 11)

Under the second heading (the sociolmguistic theories) Canale

and Swain refer particularly to Hymes and Halliday These

theories, as they argue, are more theoretical than communication

skills theories and are concerned with the relation of language to

social context We have discussed Hymes1 theory above and we will

turn to Halliday later in this chapter

Finally, under the heading of integrative theories of

communicative competence Canale and Swain particularly refer to

the work of Widdowson on discourse analysis However, they refer

to these theories as integrative because these pay attention to

how utterances are linked to form text and how language functions

at the level of discourse

34
2 3 A ccuracy v e r s u s flu e n c y

Brumfit draws a fundamental distinction between accuracy and

fluency This distinction is essentially a methodological rather

than a theoretical one That is to say, it is a distinction

which has value for language teachers m making decisions about

the content of lessons and the distribution of time between

different types of classroom activities Brumfit insists that

this is a technological distinction which is being made m order

to produce better teaching (1984 52)

Accuracy, as Brumfit defines it, is a concern with language

usage rather than use, which has been strong m the history of

language teaching In order to clarify the term ’accuracy’,

Brumfit emphasizes the following points in relation to fluency

1 The term does not imply that fluent language may not be

accurate

2 The distinction between accuracy and fluency is not one

between what is good and bad m teaching

3 Accuracy can refer to listening and reading as well as

speaking and writing

35
4 Language work which focuses on language is always accuracy

work, while language work which results in using the language like

the mother tongue is always fluency work

5 Monitoring may take place during fluency work if it has the

same function as it has for native speakers However, the value

of this distinction should not lead teachers to prevent students

from showing a concern with both fluency and the formal accuracy

of certain language items (ibid 52-3)

On the other hand, the nature of fluency, Brumfit argues, can

be understood by contrasting it with accuracy However, he

relates the term fluency to the discussion of the concept in

linguistics He argues that Fillmore (1979) discussed fluency with

relevance to production distinguishing four kinds of ability

Fillmore's four kinds of ability, as quoted by Brumfit, are (1)

"the ability to fill time with talk", (2) "the ability to talk m

coherent, reasoned and semantically dense sentences", (3) "the

ability to have appropriate things to say in a wide range of

contexts", and (4) "the ability to be creative and imaginative m

language use" (ibid 53-4)

However, Brumfit argues that apart from the first ability,

these capacities are not pure linguistic capacities For example,

as he points out, the ability to be creative m language use is

36
related to ’’the ability to establish significant relationships

between concepts, visual and aural patterns and systems of

thought ” As we can see here, and as Brumfit explicitly puts it,

"Fillmore’s discussion is extremely helpful because it draws

attention to the interaction between language and knowledge of the

world m the development of fluency” (ibid 54-5) If knowledge

of the world is important for language fluency, then cultural

knowledge is important as part of knowledge of the world

Fluency, Brumfit concludes, should be regarded as natural

language use Such natural language use is what distinguishes

communicative classroom activities from the traditional ones

(ibid 57) Brumfit’s distinction is extremely useful and can be

regarded as a major prameter of a sensible approach In Chapter

six we will argue that an effectiwe communicative approach is one

which takes into consideration the polarity of accuracy and

fluency

2 4 Meaning potential

The development of the meaning potential theory is an attempt by

Halliday to give a perspective on the nature of language and what

we learn when we learn our first language The approach which

Halliday takes is a semantic one, that is to say he interprets

the learning of language as the learning of a semantic system

37
The viewpoint which he takes is a functional one, he relates the

meanings to language functions, to the functions which language

serves m the life of the child (Halliday 1975 8)

According to Halliday language potential is a meaning

potential Learning one's language is learning the uses and

meanings of language, or developing a meaning potential In

other words , language learning is learning how to mean, and

meaning potential is what can be meant This potential is not

what the speaker-hearer knows, it is what he or she can mean

(Halliday 1973 24-5)

Language is social behaviour, and this view of language is an

acknowledged concern of modern linguistics Halliday argues that

a significant fact about human behaviour in the social environment

is that a large part of it is linguistic behaviour From a

sociolmguistic point of view language is a range of alternatives

or a set of options available to the individual m his or her

social existence In this connection Halliday refers to

Malinowski's two types of context context of situation and

context of culture, the understanding of which is important for

the understanding of the notion of meaning potential

Halliday and Hasan (1989) explain that Malinowski's term

context of situation refers to what is happening or " the

immediate sights and sounds surrounding the event " including

38
 \

both the verbal and non-verbal environment of the text The

interpretation of this, as they argue, is that one could not

understand the message if they did not know what was going on or

if they did not have 11 some sort of audio-video record of what

was actually happening at the time " However the meaning of "the

immediate sights and sounds surrounding the event" becomes clear

if we know that it means the same as "some sort of audio-video

record of what was actually happening at the time" (p 6)

On the other hand, Halliday and Hasan explain the meaning of

Malinowski's term "context of culture" as something more than the

immediate environment, it is " the total cultural

background " of the participants and the activities in which

they are engaged They point out that Malinowski saw that it was

necessary to give information about the context of situation and

context of culture if the meaning is to be understood (p 6-7)

This is a point of special significance and should be borne in

mind as we come to discuss the relation of culture teaching to

foreign language teaching m Chapter Five It will be argued

that it is inadequate to teach language out of its cultural

context Moreover, drawing on Malinowski's significant

distinction between context of situation and context of culture,

it will be suggested that foreign language teaching should specify

39
not only the context of situation but also the context of culture

if communicative competence is to be developed Now let us turn

to our major concern with the notion of meaning potential

Halliday argues that the context of culture is the setting for

the total set of options while the context of situation is the

setting for any particular selection of these options

Furthermore, Halliday points out that Malinowski's two types of

context represent the distinction between what can be and what is,

or as he puts it "the potential and the actual" The context of

culture determines the potential or the set of options and

possibilities available, while the choice among these

possibilities is determined by the context of situation

(ibid 48-9)

I understand that what Halliday means here is that the context

of culture offers a wide range of semantic options or meanings

(meaning potential) which the language user can choose from or

express But what determines the user's choice of any particular

option within this total set of options is the demands of the

situation or the context of situation This argument is

comparable to Hyires' notion of what is "formally possible" because

he uses the term to refer not only to what is possible within the

grammar of the language but also to what is possible within a

cultural system

40
 Hymes (1972a) specifies a number of features which describe the

context of situation Knowledge of these features is important

for the understanding of the communicative event The following

are the most important features

1) Addressor (sender, speaker or writer, and the like)

2) Addressee receiver, hearer or reader)

3) Channel (speech, writing, singing, body motion etc )

4) Topic (what is being talked about)

5) Setting (time and place of event)

6) Message-form (genres such as sonnets, sermons, love letters

etc ) (pp 22-23)

Halliday and Hasan (1989) specify three features of the context

of situation These features, as they argue,illustrate the

social context of a text

1 The field of discourse this refers to what is going on and

what activities the participants are engaged in In other words,

field of discourse refers to what a text is about or the

subject-matter as well as the activity and the nature of the

social action taking place

41
2 The tenor of discourse this refers to the participants and

the nature of their relationship

3 The mode of discourse this refers to what functions the

language is serving m the text including the channel (written,

spoken, etc ) (P 12)

If language is regarded as social behaviour, as Halliday

points out, this means that it is a form of 'behaviour potential'

or what the speaker can do But 'can do* or social behaviour

includes other types of behaviour than language behaviour

Therefore, if we want to relate the notion of what 'can do' to

what the speaker 'can say', then we need the notion of 'can mean'

as a link between the two Thus language is a meaning potential

which is the "linguistic realization of the behaviour potential,

’can mean' is 'can do' when translated into language" 'Can mean'

is in turn realized in ’can say' as the language system or

'lexico-grammatical potential1 (1973 51)

It may be helpful at this stage to explain the meaning of the

terms semantics and text as Halliday uses them, because these two

terms are closely connected with the notion of meaning potential

42
2 4 1 S em an tics

Halliday defines semantics as "what the speaker can mean" It is

the linguistic realization of patterns of behaviour or the

behaviour potential The semantic network gives an account of how

social meanings are expressed m language, and at the same time

forms the intermediate step between behaviour patterns and

linguistic forms (ibid 72) Thus language learning is the

learning of a semantic system realized as meaning potential or

sets of options m meaning available to the speaker-hearer

2 4 2 Text

Text is defined by Halliday as any instance of language use,

spoken or written in the course of daily life Halliday calls

this language 'operational' distinguishing it from what he calls

'citational' language (language of grammar books and

dictionaries) For Halliday text is a semantic unit, it is

meaning encoded in lexical, grammatical and phonological units

Moreover, a text is a selection made within a total set of

options This selection or text represents what is said, while

the total set of semantic options represents what might have been

said but was not, or meaning potential This argument strongly

establishes the relation of text to meaning potential, text is

"the actualization of meaning potential (1975 123-4)

43
 A few words need to be said here about the relation of the

concept of meaning potential to Chomsky's notion of linguistic

competence and Hymes' notion of communicative competence For

Chomsky competence is defined m terms of the mind, but meaning

potential, as Halliday emphasizes, is defined m terms of

culture Linguistic competence is what the speaker knows, but

meaning potential is what he or she can do m the sense of can

mean In the Chomskyan theory of competence what the speaker

knows is distinct from what he or she does, and the 'does' calls

for a theory of performance to explain it But for Halliday 'can

do' is related to 'does1 as "potential to actualize potential"

(1973 52 3)

The notions of communicative competence and meaning potential

has been developed within the framework of a social theory of

language Both notions attempt to account for the significant

variation in language useHowever, Halliday points out that

meaning potential is not unlike Hymes' communicative competence

except that Hymes defines competence as what the speaker knows,

while Halliday talks about what the speaker can do (ibid 54)

Halliday argues that we have to pay attention to what is said

and to what might have been saidbut was not, if we view language

from a social standpoint Hence Halliday denies the dichotomy

between knowing and doing He objects to the view of language as

44
having a perfect form (langue, competence) which becomes

imperfect or degenerate when it is manifested in speech (parole,

performance)

2 5 Capacity versus competence

The term capacity has been developed by Widdowson and stands m

contrast to Hymes' well-established concept of communicative

competence Widdowson argues that Hymes objections to Chomsky's

notion of competence was not directed at its nature, they are

directed at the limitations of this theory which did not account

for other than the structural aspect of language

What constitutes communicative competence is the speaker's

ability to judge and assess the extent to which a certain

expression conforms to linguistic and social rules of language

behaviour Widdowson argues that this capability is of an analytic

nature which does not recognize the meaning of an expression "but

the degree of normality it indicates"

Widdowson explains the difference between competence and

capacity as one between an ethnographic and ethnomethodological

approach to the study of linguistic behaviour That is to say,

competence is concerned with analyzing and describing linguistic

behaviour and providing a model of description Or as Widdowson

45
puts it competence "is not a model of member knowledge of language

use, but one which provides the means for analyzing member

behaviour from the outside "

On the other hand, as an ethnomethodological concept, capacity

is "the ability to use knowledge of a language as a source for the

creation of meaning, and is concerned not with assessment but

interpretation 11 In other words, Widdowson points out that

capacity refers to a language user's perspective rather than an

analyst model of language behaviour This is one reason why he

prefers the term capacity The second reason is that competence

seems to imply conformity, whether to the language system or the

social norms Widdowson objects to this assumption that language

is rule-governed behaviour and a system that we apply when we

communicate

Searle (1972) makes a subtle distinction which could be used to

explain this lack of consensus on whether or not language is

rule-governed behaviour He argues that "to perform lllocutionary

acts is to engage m a rule-governed form of behaviour I should

argue that such thing as asking question or making statements are

rule-governed in ways quite similar to those in which getting a

base hit in baseball or moving a knight m chess are rule-governed

forms of acts" (p 137)

4,6
 Searle argues that the denial of some philosophers of the view
\
that meaning is a matter of rules is the result of a failure to

perceive the distinction between different kinds of rules Searle

draws a significant distinction between two types of rules

regulative and constitutive rules The former regulate forms of

behaviour which are prior to an independent of those rules, such

as rules of etiquette which regulate previously existing personal

relationships The latter, however, "do not merely regulate but

create or define new forms of behaviour" The game of football,

Searle argues, can not exist apart from the rules of this game

Searle argues that what most philosohpers have m mind is the

model of regulative rules But he hypothesizes that "semantics of

a language can be regarded as a series of systems of constitutive

rules and that lllocutionary acts are acts performed m accordance

with these sets of rules" (ibid 138-9)

As regards the relation of 'capacity' to 'meaning potential'

Widdowson describes capacity as "a force for the realization of

what Halliday calls the 'meaning potential' of language " It seems

to me that the relation of the term 'capacity' to the notion of

'meaning potential' is stronger than that Halliday explains that

the mother understands everything the child says because she knows

his or her meaning potential (1975 124) And Widdowson argues

that capacity accounts for our ability to understand expressions

47
which break rules The two notions account for the same thing

Furthermore, Widdowson describes capacity as "the ability to

exploit the resources for meaning ", which means the same as

Halliday's definition of meaning potential as what the speaker can

mean (All information and quotations are m Widdowson 1983 23-7)

Finally, it seems appropriate to illustrate communicative

competence theories m a table showing the term used by each

researcher, what aspect of communicative competence he or she

emphasizes and the general theoretical standpoint from which he or

she views the notion of communicative competence However, it is

important to mention that this table should be seen in relation to

the discussion provided above

48
RESEARCHER TERM USED EMPHASIS GENERAL FRAMEWORK

Hymes communicative appropriacy theory of culture &

competence communication

/
Canale and communicative knowledge and

Swain competence skill communication

Di Pietro communicative communication

competence strategies communication

Savignon communicative strategic second language

competence competence programmes

Brumfit fluency natural language second language

use programmes

Halliday meaning language theory of language

potential functions functions

Viddowson capacity production of discourse theory

discourse

Theories of communicative competence

49
2 6 Towards a pedagogical framework of communicative competence

Drawing on analyses provided by Hymes, Canale, Di Pietro and

savignon, and discussed above, I suggest a pedagogical framework

of communicative competence According to this framework

communicative competence is divided into the following three

components

1 systematic competence

This competence refers to mastery of the formal system or the

regular features of language and covers the following areas of

knowledge and skill

a) Syntax competence m syntax covers grammaticality or

well-formedness of utterances

b) Pronunciation or mastery of the sound system

c) Intonation

d) Spelling

2 Cultural competence

This competence refers to the ability to use language in its

cultural and social context, and the awareness (conscious or

unconscious) of the social routines and conventions associated

with language use in authentic communication This competence can

be further broken down into the following areas

50
a) Social competence this refers to the potentiality for using

utterances which are appropriate to a given situation Appropnacy

here derives from the right choice of register, degree of

formality and measure of politeness In other words, it relates

to speech situation and the relationship among participants (for

discussion of speech situation, speech acts and participants see

Hymes 1974)

b) Idiomatic competence this concerns the ability to understand

and reproduce idioms, figurative expressions and proverbs

Appropnacy is very important here since the use of an idiom m

the wrong situation could cause embarrassment Moreover, this

area of knowledge provides a lot of insights into the target

culture

c) Paralinguistic competence this competence covers the area of

paralmguistic features which we use with or instead of words or

utterances to convey messages These include gestures, facial

expressions, body movements, eye contact etc

d) Tactical competence this includes knowledge of communication

strategies related to how to start a dialogue, how to avoid

communication breakdowns and keep a conversation going, and how

to finish it These strategies include what Di Pietro called

openers, maintenance strategies and closures

51
3 D is c o u r s e co m p eten ce

Savignon (1985) argues that Widdowson understands communicative

competence as "an ability to interpret discourse" (Widdowson1s

words) (p 30) Discourse competence is used here m this sense

and m the sense which Canale explains (see above) It is an

ability to interpret and reproduce longer pieces of spoken or

written text, the meaning of which is more than the meaning of its

separate utterances

2 7 Summary and conclusion

To try to discuss every interpretation of the communicative

competence theory is an impossible task What I have tried to do

is to discuss the theory m its original form and to consider some

of the later interpretations and developments of this theory I

have also proposed a pedagogical framework of communicative

competence based on my understanding of the theory, and on models

and frameworks proposed by other researchers My intention was to

provide a framework that could have relevance to foreign language

classrooms and cover the different areas of knowledge and skill

required by learners if they are to use language for

communication

It is important to notice that the views on communicative

competence discussed above do not contradict but complement each

other All these researchers agree that language knowledge

52
includes much more than grammatical knowledge They emphasize the

sociocultural character of language use and insist that

communicative competence is basically an ability to understand and

perform speech acts They also make it clear that communicative

competence is of an interactive nature and that it is more than

the sum of its parts I have also considered the notions of

'fluency', 'meaning potential' and 'capacity because of their

relation to the notion of communicative competence Capacity can

be seen as natural language use and an ability to use language

effectively m a variety of situations

Meaning potential is a set of options, or a range of

alternatives that are at the disposal of the speaker-hearer

These options are semantic options or options in meaning

Language learning is learning how to mean or develop a meaning

potential However, within the framework of a social theory,

meaning potential is a form of behaviour potential, it is the

linguistic realization of behaviour potential Meaning potential

is also realized in the syntactic, lexical and phonological

structure of language

Capacity is a continuous ability for the creation of meaning

It is an ability to create meaning using all resources available

Capacity is concerned with the interpretation rather than the

assessment of expressions Therefore it is of an interpretative

rather than an analytic nature

53
 Finally, from the preceding discussion of communicative

competence theories and related concepts, the following

significant implications for foreign language teaching can be

inferred

1 Since knowledge of a language is not simply grammatical,

language teaching should go beyond grammar teaching

2 Language is use Encouraging learners to perform in actual

situations is the best way to learn

3 Because language is a cultural phenomenon, it is inadequate to

teach language void of culture

4 Language learners should be taught how to vary their speech

according to situations and interlocutors

5 Language teaching must provide conditions under which the

communicative quality of language can be revealed This implies

the teacher devising situations to stimulate learners to converse

and exchange meaning

6 Language teaching coursebooks and materials as well as the

teacher should provide ample information on both the context of

situation and the context of culture of the second language data

7 The ability to perform language functions is important in

foreign language proficiency

8 Language teaching should result in an ability to understand and

produce discourse

9 The classroom should function as a ’micro-culture’ of the

target ’macro-culture1

54
 Part II

Pedagogical Applications

55
 Chapter Three

Communicative competence theories

in language teaching

3 1 Introduction

Language teaching has been characterized recently by a shift of

interest from mastering language structures to mastery of language

use The basis of this change, however, is the awareness that

language is not simply a grammatical system, but rather a social

and cultural phenomenon Widdowson (1979a) argued that when we

communicate we do not only compose correct sentences, but we also

perform different speech acts which are "essentially of a social

nature" (p 118)

Based on the view that language is is a social system Allen and

Widdowson (1979) proposed an approach to language teaching in

which the communicative character of language can be focussed

upon This approach is an attempt to move from a concern with

grammatical forms to a concern with language functions This

approach came to be known as the communicative approach or

communicative language teaching (CLT)

Widdowson (1978) criticized structural language teaching and

drew a significant distinction between usage and use Usage is

the manifestation of grammatical knowledge in correct sentences

56
Use, on the other hand, is the realization of this knowledge as

meaningful communicative behaviour This distinction has become a

basic polarity m language teaching and a criterion which

distinguishes between two different approaches to language

teaching, namely the structural approach, which focuses on

language usage and the communicative approach, which focuses on

language useOne of themost influential theoretical concepts

which brought about this change m teaching methodology was,

beyond any doubt, the concept of communicative competence

My concern m this chapter, however, is firstly to show how

language teaching methodology and syllabus design has been

influenced by theories of communicative competence, and secondly

to consider the procedures and techniques utilized by CLT to

promote the learners’ communicative competence

3 2 Communicative competence theory in teaching methodology

The introduction of the communicative competence theory by Hymes

marked a turning point m linguistics and gained popularity among

applied linguists, who started to investigate the ways in which

this theory might be put to practice Howatt (1987) points out

that Hynes' remark "There are rules of use without which the rules

of grammar would be useless" became the motto of the communicative

movement He argues that Hymes' paper "became one of the basic

readings for communicative language teaching, and arguably, it

gave CLT its name At all events the phrase communicative

competence was universally adopted to describe the aims and

objectives of all communicative language teaching" (p 19)

Johnson and Morrow(1981) also point out that CLT recognizes as

57
its aim the teaching of communicative competence (p 10) This

argument forcefully establishes the relation of communicative

competence to CLT

Communicative language teaching is a term used to refer to a

number of developments m teaching methodology Brumfit and

Johnson (1979) maintain that the areas of study which contributed

directly or indirectly to CLT can be considered under three mam

headings the sociolinguistic, the philosophical and the

linguistic Under the first heading they mention the works of

Hymes, Gumperz and Goffman In philosophy they refer to the works

of Austin (1962) and Searle (1969) In linguistic theory they

refer to European and British linguistics, especially the

influence of Halliday Moreover, Brumfit and Johnson mention the

relevance of work on discourse analysis to CLT (pp 24-5) In this

chapter, however, CLT will be generally conceived as a teaching

process the aim of which is to lead to a communicative ability or

develop communicative competence in non-native speakers

3 3 The communicative content

In terms of content interest in communicative competence brought

about a broader view of the content on which learners will be

working This interest in the language component expanded to

include, m addition to structures, functions and notions The

communicative content expanded m three major directions

1 Conceptual and functional meaning

Any speech act has two levels of meaning its conceptual meaning

and its illocutionary force The conceptual meaning of a speech

58
act refers to its literal meaning, whilst llocutionary force

refers to its function For example, if a person who is late for

a meeting walks in and says "There was a terrible traffic jam”,

we can say that the conceptual meaning of the utterance is a

description of the state of traffic, but the lllocutionary force

or the function is an apology for being late Thus CLT presents

the language content m a way which prioritizes the functions

which speech acts have in authentic language use

2 Sociocultural appropriatenss

Concern with teaching communicative competence meant that learners

need to acquire not only grammatical rules which govern the

construction of sentences but also the sociocultural norms which

determine the use of speech acts Consequently, language content

expanded to include demonstrations of how language is used m

social situations For example, it was not enough to teach

learners how to say "how do you do9" correctly in terms of

grammar, but also to teach them when to say this and to whom

3 Discourse level

Unlike structural language teaching which was concerned with

single sentences as basic units, CLT concerned itself with longer

spans of authentic language which extend beyond the level of

isolated sentences Moreover, concern with discourse entailed

recognition of the significance of strategies which bring

utterances together to make coherent discourse (See D u b m and

O l s h t a i n 1986)

59
3 4 C o m m u n i c a t iv e p r o c e s s e s

In a strictly methodological sense CLT can be seen as a process

whereby the exploitation of a variety of classroom activities is

the means and the development of communicative competence is the

end As regards communicative activities, Littlewood (1981 17-

18) mentioned the following functions

1 They provide whole-task practice, that is they enable the

learners to practice language as a total skill and ability A

good example of this type of activity is the use of debates and

discussions where the learner has the opportunity to practice

language as a system of integrated skills and abilities rather

than as discrete grammatical, phonological or other abilities

2 They improve motivation because they allow the learners to

take part m actual communication with others What Littlewood

means here is that such activities as pair-work, group-work,

role-play and the like allow the learners to engage m

communication and use language they have already learnt In this

case learners will be motivated because they feel that their

learning is relevant to their needs

3 They allow natural learning which takes place when the learner

isengaged in using language to communicate The interpretation

of this is that m the process of communication learners

unconsciously acquire new language because focus is on

communication rather than the conscious learning of certain

language features

60
4 They create an environment which supports learning by

developing relationships among students and between students and

the teacher Language learning would be facilitated if the

classroom functioned as a micro-community Communication

activities such as group-work or role-play help develop confidence

and familiarity among students and create a sense of belonging to

a group, which has a positive psychological effect on students

D u b m and Olshtain (1986) recognize ten different categories of

communicative activities or what they call "workouts11 Apart from

structural activities we list the following categories

1 Warm-ups/Relaxers these are activities which are intended to

motivate by adding an enjoyment element especially when a period

of relief is needed These include songs, games, puzzles etc

2 Information-Centred Tasks these tasks allow natural language

use while students are engaged in "fact-gathermg" activities such

as gathering information outside the classroom, and interviews

3 Theatre Games these games are intended to simulate reality

and yield natural language use Examples are role playing of

different kinds and story telling

4 Mediations/Interventions these are activities in which

learners use language m attempt to bridge information gaps such

as interacting with each other using incomplete information

5 Group Dynamics activities these are activities which provide

opportunities for learners to exchange ideas, feelings and

emotions Such activities include discussions which centre around

topics of personal interest

61
6 Problem-solving Tasks these tasks involve learners in using

language m order to make decisions and solutions, e g , posing a

problem and asking the group to come up with a solution

7 Skill-getting Strategies these are activities which focus on

developing specific skills To develop writing skills , for

instance, learners may be presented with scrambled language and

asked to compose paragraphs (pp 98-9)

3 4 1 Task-based learning

It is reasonable to argue that interest m learning tasks came as

a result of the rise of the communicative approach Over the last

few years, however, learning tasks have been the focus of a great

deal of attention Before we discuss tasks and what their use m

the classroom entails, it seems appropriate to start with

defining the term "task" In a dictionary of applied linguistics

task is defined as

an activity or action which is carried out as the result

of processing or understanding language (le as a
response) For example, drawing a map while listening to a
tape, listening to an interaction and performing a
command, may be referred to as tasks Tasks may or may
not involve the production of language A task usually
requires the teacher to specify what will be regarded as
successful completion of the task The use of a variety of
different kinds of tasks in language teaching is said to
make language teaching more communicative since it
provides a purpose for a classroom activity which goes
beyond the practice of language for its own sake
(Richards, Platt and Weber 1985 289, also quoted in Nunan
1989 6)

As we can see from this definition, tasks are used in order to

provide conditions under which the use of language for the

expression of meaning is made possible Nunan mentions a

definition supplied by Breen A task is

62
 any structured language learning endevour which has a
particular obj ect, appropriate content, a specified
working procedure, and a range of outcomes for those who
undertake the task 'Task1 is therefore assumed to refer to
a range of workplans which have the overall purpose of
facilitating language learning from the simple and brief
exercise type, to the more complex and lengthy activities
such as a group problem-solving or simulations and
decision- making (Quoted m Nunan 1989 6)

As the above two definitions indicate, a large number of activity

types which we have classified and exemplified m the previous

section can be referred to as tasks We should mention here that

it is difficult, as Nunan notes, to provide a definition or

criterion which distinguishes between tasks and other activity

types Making such distinctions "will always be partly intuitive

and judgemental" (p 11)

Nunan points out that the definitions which we have looked at

define tasks m terms of communicative language use in which the

learners' major preoccupation is conveying meaning rather than

attention to language form In his definition of a task, Nunan

also prioritizes the same criterion He considers task as "a

piece of classroom work which involves learners in comprehending,

manipulating, producing or interacting in the target language

while^ their attention is principally focused on meaning rather

than form " Discussing what constitutes a task Nunan recognizes

six components (1) goal, (2) input data, (3) activity, (4)

teacher role, (5) learner role, and (6) setting (Ibid 10-11)

To illustrate how a task may be analysed we consider the task

where students are required to listen to a tape-recorded short

story and then re-tell the story

63
 Goal 1) l i s t e n i n g c o m p re h en sio n

2) Language production

Input data a tape-recorded short story

Activity 1) listening

2) note-taking

3) story telling

Teacher role Monitor

Learner role 1) listener

2) writer

3) narrator

Setting classroom/individual work

Breen (1989) provides an analysis of learning tasks comparable

to Nunan's He identifies five interrelated components (1) task

objective, (2) task content, (3) task procedure, (4) learner

contribution, and (5) task situation and teacher contribution

Breen's conception of a task is that it is a means for learning

the purpose of which is to develop a communicative ability

Therefore, task evaluation is carried out in terms of its

'communicativeness' Breen points out three important criteria

against which tasks can be evaluated "i) the extent to which it

addresses learner definitions of progress, n ) the extent to

which it is developmental towards the demands of the target

language and its use, and in) the extent to which it is open to

diversity and change in learner knowledge and capability "

(P 192)

64
 The first criterion implies that a task should be directly

related to learners' immediate needs as they perceive them The

second criterion implies that a task will be developmental if it

employs the learner's previous knowledge, skills, and abilities

for communication The third criterion acknowledges that

learners’ contribution to the task is unpredictable and therefore

a task should support the diversity of the learning process As

Breen aptly put it "To serve as a means for learning our task

needs to anticipate that different learners will bring different

knowledge and capabilities to it It needs to overtly call upon

and engage the differences m what learners know and can do as the

bases for real change, and it has to positively allow for

different learners to learn different things, m different ways,

at different moments even m the pursuit of some common overall

objective " (Ibid 192)

As the previous argument clearly indicates, the learner

occupies a central position Concerning the selection of task

content Breen emphasizes that appropriate content should be

selected from the learners' point of view He suggests three

alternative ways of making this selection

First, learners may be asked to look for examples m the

language data which they consider familiar or unfamiliar, and

then identify those aspects which they regard as more difficult

Because this selection of data will have aspects which are

problematic for some learners but easy for others, it can be

worked on to reveal both the known and the unknown "The former",

65
as Breen puts it, "can serve as input for later work, whilst the

latter can reveal new directions for work " The second alternative

is to ask students to bring into the classroom language data which

they are interested m Individuals or small groups will identify

what is familiar and work on what is problematic m a way similar

to the previous procedure The third alternative requires that

the teacher presents learners with a selection of language data

and ask them to discover and identify familiar content which will

be utilized as the starting point for working on unfamiliar

content (ibid 198-9)

This approach to the selection of task content is extremely

useful It is sensitive to learner needs and interests It

involves learners m a process of decision-making where they have

to be aware of their needs, learning styles and personal

interests However, we believe that this approach will be more

successful with homogeneous groups of learners where needs and

interests do not contradict But m the case of heterogeneous

groups, this approach could cause problems If teachers insist

that learners select the content of learning tasks from data which

personally interest them, they will be confronted with a wide

selection of topics in which many particular topics do not meet

the demands and interests of many members in the group because the

interests of the group are diverse In this case learners will not

be working on what is interesting for them as a group, but on

what is interesting for a particular individual or individuals in

the group, and then the major pillar of this approach, that is

language which is interesting, will collapse However, the

teacher could solve this problem by asking groups of sudents who

66
have the same interests to choose their task content, and when

this is not possible the teacher could even ask each individual to

undertake a separate task

3 4 2 Role-play-

One characteristic of a communicative classroom is the frequent

and meaningful use of role-play activities They are extremely

V

helpful m the sense that they are intended to bridge the gap

between the classroom and the real world, and to encourage

authentic language use Sturtndge (1981) maintains that these

activities "can reduce the artificiality of the classroom, provide

a reason for talking and allow the learner to talk meaningfully to

other learners" (p 126)

In real life, however, three conditions should be available m

order for communication to take place a reason for

communication, a subject to talk about, and at least two

participants The significance of role-play activities becomes

clear if we understand that they provide these conditions and

produce meaningful communication which is the ultimate goal of all

CLT

Furthermore, an important fact about real life communication is

that the participants m any speech event have the freedom to

choose from a wide range of meanings or, in Halliday’s terms, a

meaning potential Sturtndge argues that role-play activities

"have an element of freedom of choice for the student (ibid 126)

This element comes from the fact that in a role-play language

67
behaviour is uncontrolled and the outcome is always uncertain

The following is an example of a role-play activity from

Sturtridge

You meet your friend B at school You are having

a party on Saturday and you would like B to come

Tell B when to come Say how glad you are that he

he is coming (p 127)

3 4 3 Games and problem-solving activities

"Games and game-like activities have an obvious and important

place m a theory of language learning based on the development of

communicative competence'" (Maley 1981 137)

Maley also makes an interesting point when he argues that it is

true that games are not real m the sense that they are similar to

the kind of activities the learners will be engaged in outside the

classroom, but what is important is that the behaviour associated

with them is real language behaviour The difference between such

activities and role-play , Maley points out, is that m

game-like activities the learner is free to project his own

personality rather than acting as someone else As regards the

function of these activities, Maley argues that they facilitate

natural, unconscious learning (acquisition) rather than

deliberate, conscious learning (ibid 137)

Concerning the distinction between games and problem- solving

activities, Maley argues that it is hard to draw a sharp

distinction Games contain some sort of problem-solving element

68
and problem-solving activities "do not fail to entertain m a

game-like way" The only difference, according to Maley, is

that m games the outcome is a winner while m problem-solving the

result is a solution (ibid 138) Below is an example of a game

and an example of a problem-solving activity

You are a witness

Students are told they will be witnessing an event

which they will subsequently have to remember and

report on m detail A colour slide is then

projected for a very brief lapse of time ( e g 5

seconds) Each student individually writes down

what he remembers Small groups are then formed

to compare notes Finally the slide is shown again

for comment, comparison with reports, and dis­

cussion (Ibid 138)

Split dialogues

A series of two-line dialogues is cut up into

individual utterances e g

1 A What are you doing?

B what's that got to do with you*?

2 A How's he feeling?

B No idea

69
 These are distributed at random, one to each

participant The activity consists of finding the

other half of your dialogue Normally more than

one solution is possible and in the round-up

session interesting new combinations are revealed

(ibid 142)

3 4 4 Information gap exercises

CLT aims at teaching communication And communication implies

conveying meaning and transferring information It is important

therefore to devise situations m which students can exchange

meaning Information gap exercises are one way of achieving this

(Brumfit and Johnson 1979 and Johnson 1982)

Johnson (1982) argues that conveying information involves an

element of doubt It is quite absurd to convey a piece of

information to people who already know it Johnson makes an

interesting point when he argues that "It is the absence of this

element of doubt in much language teaching which makes it

non-communicative (pp 150-51)

It is on the basis that information gaps involve an element of

doubt which characterizes genuine communication that they are

commonly used m communicative teaching Information gaps can be

created in a variety of ways Johnson mentioned that Wright

(1978) achieved it by means of projecting a slide m blurred focus

and then asking students to speculate about what they can see

Byrne (1978), Johnson argues, created information gaps by

70
providing ”incomplete plans and diagrams which students have to

complete by asking for information" Johnson also mentioned Geddes

and sturtridge (1979), who directed students to listen to

different taped materials and then communicate their contents to

other students m the classroom" (ibid 151)

Johnson proceeds to argue that one way of creating an

information gap is by providing some people with information which

the others do not know Another way of doing this, as he argues,

is to allow the students the freedom to choose what to say He

maintains that the notions of choice and doubt m communication

are closely connected since a listener will be m doubt as to what

is to be said only because the speaker can choose from a wide

range of semantic options Therefore, Johnson argues that "if we

create classroom situations in which the students are free to

choose what to say, the essential information gap will have been

created" (ibid 152)Communication, however takes place in the

learners' attempt to bridge the gap by asking for or providing

information

Furthermore, it is true that communication involves exchange of

information, but it should be noticed, as Brown (1981) points

out, that m real life we do not always exchange information m

our daily interaction with people, we quite often talk to people

in order to establish a relationship or just to pass the time She

draws an important distinction between transactional speech, where

giving information is the aim, and interactional speech, where

the maintenance of a relationship rather than exchanging

information is the aim This distinction is significant for

71
language teaching which should place equal emphasis on both

transactional as well as interactional speech Ignorance of the

social rather than the informative nature of interactional

conversations could result m responding to "How are you?" as to a

genuine question, or interpreting the numerous comments on the

weather m English as real weather commentaries

3 5 Communicative principles

It has been argued above that communicative activities are

generally used to create an environment m which natural,

authentic language use and rapid L2 acquisition are facilitated

But m order for these activities to be truly communicative, they

should be based on certain communicative principles Johnson

(1982) discussed five principles underlying communicative

activities

1 The information transfer principle

This principle refers to a focus on the learner's ability to

understand and convey information Johnson provides an example in

which students are asked to read two letters containing

information about two people who want to join a sports club and

then fill in application forms for these people deriving

information from the letters Johnson explains that this exercise

provides reading comprehension practice and that a productive form

could be devised by asking students to read the completed

application forms and then write the original letters

72
2 The information gap principle

Johnson argues that transferring information is not quite the same

as conveying information The former, as he explains, "involves

a transmission of 'medium' (from letter to application form, for

example) while the transmission m the latter is from person to

person " He argues that this principle is useful for teaching the

speaking skill because it "creates a condition of unexpectedness",

that is student 1 does not already know what student 2 will say

This element of unexpectedness, as he maintains, is not crucial

m writing because of the absence of face-to-face interaction

Nevertheless, he insists that there are two good reasons why the

information gap principle could be used for both speaking and

writing First, because it allows genuine communication in the

classroom Second, because assessment of spoken or written work

is done m terms of successful communication (See 3 4 4 for

examples)

3 The jig-saw principle

The jig-saw exercise is created by devising situations whereby

different students are provided with different bits of information

which centre around the same subject Students then communicate

the information content to each other and complete the jig-saw

An example of this type of activity is getting students to listen

to different pieces of a taped dialogue and then talk about what

they heard with each other in order to complete the whole

dialogue Another example is when different students read

different extracts from a newspaper article and then rearrange the

segments in the correct, original order

73
4 The task dependency principle

Activities based on this principle employ the technique of

creating a task which cannot be done unless a previous task has

been successfully carried out For example, a student performs

the task of drawing a picture utilizing his or her partner's

previous task of describing that picture

5 The correction for content principle

This principle is closely connected with the previous one Johnson

argues that students know that their work will not be assessed for

grammatical accuracy by the teacher, but will be evaluated by

their partners for its efficacy m the completion of the task

For example, if the picture or diagram produced by student 2 was

not satisfactory, this should result m revising student 1

description of them Johnson argues that according to this

principle the students' linguistic performance should be evaluated

on terms of its communicative validity However, he makes it

clear that this principle does not deny the importance of teacher

correction for grammatical precision at some other stage (Johnson

1982 164-72)

To the above five principles I would add

6 The suspension of disbelief principle

It is extremely important for the undertaking of any communicative

activity that the learners undergo the suspension of disbelief

process It means that learners forget that what they are doing

(a role-play, for example) is only fiction and engage in the

74
activity as if it were real As many applied linguists have often

observed, the discrepancy between the classroom and the real

world is so great that it can never be completely eradicated

However, the learners suspension of disbelief helps minimize the

disparity between the classroom and real life

Engaging in communicative tasks and activities is like watching

a dramatic performance, one cannot enjoy them unless they forget

that it is all acting However, the more convincing the actors’

roles are, the more enjoyable the performance would be

Likewise, the more authentic the language that students work

with, the easier their suspension of disbelief and engagement m

communication would be

3 6 Communicative competence in syllabus design

Before we consider the impact of the notion of communicative

competence on EFL and ESL syllabus design, it is important to

stress that we will be talking about communicative competence not

only m its original form but also in the wider sense which has

been developed by many researchers (see Chapter II) Hence

communicative competence will be generally conceived as a complex

of skills, abilities and knowledge necessary for engaging m

speech events, understanding and producing discourse, and the

creative negotiation of meaning

Our major concern here is to examine the influence of the

(

communicative competence theories on the different communicative

syllabus types However, it seems appropriate to begin with a

75
review of the structural syllabus, the weaknesses and

shortcomings of which gave rise to the need for a pedagogically

more effective syllabus type

3 6 1 The structural syllabus

The structural syllabus (also known as formal or grammatical) is

the oldest and most familiar syllabus m the history of language

teaching The origins of this syllabus, as Breen (1987a) points

out, can be found m the teaching of the classical languages

The content of the formal syllabus are strongly dependent upon the

linguist's description of language This syllabus primarily

focuses upon the systematic aspects of language and therefore

places more emphasis on grammar, phonology and morphology Thus

it leads learners to an aspect of language competence which is

characterized by grammatical accuracy (p 85)

The basic principle on which the grammatical syllabus sequences

and organizes the language content which is to be presented to

learners is linguistic complexity This principle implies that

units will present less complex structures earlier and then

progress towards more complex structures m subsequent units

Another principle is frequency of occurrence or usefulness of

linguistic structures and lexis This principle implies that

consideration may be taken of those structure and vocabulary items

which are more commonly used and therefore more useful for

learners In this case structures of high frequency will be

introduced first (ibid 86)

76
 Breen argues that there are four major arguments supporting the

structural syllabus The first is the fact that it relies on a

long tradition of linguistic analysis and language teaching, and

is compatible with many teachers' views of language The second

argument is that it presents language m a systematic way which

helps learners see rules and patterns and consequently reduces the

learning burden When the learners master the rules they will be

able to use them generatively in other instances

The third argument for the structural syllabus is that since

language is an analyzable system, it may be easier for learners

to see how the system operates if we provide them with a plan

which incorporates the "analytical categories and schemas" of the

language system The fourth argument, however, is that the

structural syllabus "calls upon the human capacity to be

meaningful, to reflect upon, talk about, and try to work out

just how a language works In other words the formal syllabus

directly addresses our wish to impose order upon the seeming chaos

of an everyday activity such as using language" (ibid 86-7)

Recently, however, winds of change have swept linguistic

theory and language teaching Many people were dissatisfied with

the structural syllabus and offered suggestions for a new syllabus

type which is based on a wider and pedagogically more utilizable

theory of language competence, viz communicative competence

77
 Wilkins (1979) argued that the grammatical syllabus fails to

provide conditions necessary for the acquisition of communicative

competence Instead, he proposed a semantic or notional syllabus

which ensures the communicative value of the language to be

taught Munby (1978) argued that Wilkins' notional approach (later

called communicative) "is much more relevant to the development of

communicative competence of the learner, and therefore less

wasteful, than the commonplace grammatical syllabus The

communicative syllabus has potentially wider applicability 11

(p 25)

Munby formed a model for the specification of communicative

competence and the design of a communicative syllabus In the

formation of this model, he derived insights from a broad theory

of communicative competence which is basically sociocultural in

nature Munby wrote

What is needed is a theoretical framework that stems from a

sociolinguistic view of knowledge and communication, where
the contextual or environmental factors which constrain
competence, or are involved in the development of
communicative competence or m the realization of meaning
potential are predominantly sociocultural (p 21)

Fmocchiaro and Brumfit (1983) argued that the basis of the

functional-notional approach is sensitivity to learners' needs and

the awareness of the fact that the ability to use real appropriate

language for communication should be the goal of foreign language

teaching Yalden (1983) made asignificant contribution to

syllabus designShe argued that the sociological components of

of communicative competence must be taken into account m

developing the content of the syllabus Yalden (1986) argued that

78
"in applied linguistics and in language teaching, an important

concern during the 1970s and 1980s has been the application of the

functional theories to syllabus design" (pp 31-2) Wilkins (1976)

distinguished between the synthetic approach (leading to

linguistic competence) and the analytic approach (leading to

communicative competence) Based on the analytic approach Wilkins

proposed three parameters for the specification of a semantic

(communicative) syllabus

a) the semantic (what to communicate)

b) the functional (why we communicate)

c) the formal (how we communicate) (p 21-2)

The label 'communicative syllabus' will be used here to refer to a

number of developments m syllabus design, namely the

functional-notional, the task-based, the process and the

relational syllabuses

3 6 2 The functional syllabus

The functional-notional syllabus was developed in the mid 1970s as

an alternative to the structural syllabus The basic linguistic

idea which influenced the development of this syllabus was Hymes'

notion of communicative competence which entailed knowledge of

language as both a structural system and a sociocultural system of

conventions and rules developed within speech communities The

functional syllabus arose from the Council of Europe and the works

of Wilkins (1972, 1976) m particular Wilkins explained the

rationale of the notional syllabus as

79
 The advantages of the notional syllabus is that it takes
the communicative facts of language into account from the
beginning without losing sight of grammatical and
situational factors It is potentially superior to the
grammatical syllabus because it will produce a
communicative competence and because its evident concern
with the use of language will sustain the motivation of the
learners (Wilkins 1976 19)

Describing the functional syllabus Breen writes

Derived primarily from developments m linguistic theory,

the functional syllabus captures a redefinition of language
knowledge It focuses upon the learner's knowledge of
Speech Acts or the processes a learner may achieve through
language m particular social activities or events It
therefore gives priority to the different purposes a
language can serve and how these functions are coded (or
textuallzed) through the language (p 88)

The aim of learners working within the functional syllabus is

not only to be accurate but also to be appropriate m their

performance The order m which this syllabus selects and

sequences the content, as Breen points out, is "from general sets

of functions to more specific functions, and from the most common

realizations of certain functions to more varied or ’refined'

realization of these functions In this way, sequencing is from

the general to the particular or, more precisely, cyclic m

nature " He also argues that functional syllabuses designed for

specific purposes, such as occupational or academic purposes, may

also follow the route of sequencing from "most needed" functions

to "less needed" ones, or from the most common functions to less

common ones in the particular language situation (ibid 89) A

good example of this approach is Jones (1977)

Few years later, the claims of the notional syllabus to teach

communicative competence and take account of language use were

seriously challenged Widdowson (1979b) points out several

80
weaknesses He doubts that an inventory of functions takes into

account the facts of communication What the proponents of the

functional syllabus fail to discern is that communication does not

take place through isolated, decontextualized functional or

notional units Communication as Widdowson puts it " takes place

as discourse, whereby meanings are negotiated through

interaction " What the notional syllabus offers is "a collection

of idealized elements" which are isolated from their context

(P 253)

Widdowson points out that Wilkins' (1976) description of

semantic and pragmatic rules is incomplete and inaccurate These

rules reveal nothing about how people apply them when

communication is attempted Therefore, it is difficult to believe

that the notional syllabus can lead to communicative competence

when it does not take into account one of its most important

aspects In the final analysis, instead of presenting lists of

language items labelled sentences, the notional syllabus presents

lists of language items labelled functions and notions

Nonetheless, Widdowson acknowledges that the shift from sentence

to notion was an advance, but it is only the beginning He

insists that "If we are to adopt a communicative approach to

teaching which takes as its primary purpose the development of the

ability to do things with language, then it is discourse which

must be at the centre of our attention " (Ibid 254) This

approach was adopted by other syllabus types, especially the

relational syllabus, as we shall see

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3 6 3 The task-based syllabus

The task-based syllabus, as Breen (1987b) explains, represents a

view of communicative competence as "the undertaking and

achievement of a range of tasks" It focuses on what learners

need if they are to participate m communication They "need to

know how meaning is coded in written and spoken texts in ways m

which the meaning can be shared with other people within the

social group or culture" (p 161) In other words what this

syllabus aims to develop in learners is a meaning potential

Breen proceeds to argue that the task-based syllabus does not

prioritize linguistic knowledge and language functions alone, it

views language as an organic unit m which any instance of use

requires the user to derive or select from a linguistic, social

and semantic repertoire (ibid 161) In other words the

task-based syllabus is three dimensional linguistic,

sociolmguistic and semantic

The task-based syllabus, as Breen explains, plans the content

in terms of two task types, namely communicative tasks and

learning tasks The former focus on the meaningful use of

language in written and spoken communication, whilst the latter

focus on learning the knowledge systems of language, solve any

communication problems and prepare for communication (ibid 161)

The following example will illustrate the difference When the

learners undertake the task of exploring the social routines and

the paralinguistic features associated with closing conversations

m the target language, or when they practice the production of

particular sounds or intonational tones, then we can say they are

performing a learning or metacommunicative (about the language)

task But when they undertake a task in which they are required

or encouraged to converse with each other m the target language

exploiting all knowledge systems, then they are carrying out a

communication task, that is using language to convey messages

The former task, however, encourages and facilitates their

engagement in the latter

The aim of the teaching/learning process within a task-based

syllabus is for learners to develop a sense of accuracy,

appropnacy and meanmgfulness Unlike formal and functional

syllabuses, Breen points out, this syllabus "does not take the

four skills as the important manifestation of the language user's

capabilities, but calls upon those abilities which underlie all

language use and which the four skills reflect m an indirect way"

(ibid 162)

Because of its abandonment of a skill-oriented approach, the

task-based syllabus, I believe, has a potential risk of not

taking into account the fact that some students need to develop

oral skills more than they need to develop reading and writing or

vice versa These needs are important m ESP courses, where a

particular group of learners need to develop a particular skill or

knowledge area more than another group For instance, learners

who need English for research purposes are required to perform

better m reading and writing than speaking and listening

Likewise, learners who need English for travel purposes need to

83
perform better in speaking and listening than in reading and

writing. This is especially true in short term ESP courses,

where students need immediate progress while there is not enough

time to focus upon language as a total skill.

It should be noted here that I am not advocating a skill-

oriented approach. Nor am I suggesting that the task-based

syllabus necessarily de-emphasizes learners’ needs to develop

different abilities. This could happen only if a strong version

were adopted. It is completely true that language is a unified

system of knowledge and that language teaching should address the

inherent abilities which underlie all language use. But we should

not forget that we are required to manifest these abilities in

conversing with people, deducing information, writing books etc,

in each of which we need special training.

3.6.4 The process syllabus

This type of syllabus is quite different from the types so far

considered. The aim of the syllabuses described above was to

select, organize and sequence the subject-matter of the language

to be presented to the learners. The aim of a process syllabus,

however is different. As Breen (1987b) explains, the aim of this

syllabus is not to specify and sequence the language that is to be

taught; it is rather " a framework which enables teachers to do

these things themselves and, therefore, create their own syllabus

in the classroom in an on-going and adoptive way" (p.166). That

is to say a process syllabus is not a previously designed plan in

which teachers and learners are expected to work in order to

proceed from A to B and achieve particular goals. It is a

84
resource of materials and guidelines which teachers and learners

may exploit to stimulate and facilitate their engagement m the

teaching/learning process

Breen argues that the process syllabus provides two things (1)

guidelines which assist the teachers’ and learners'

decision-making m the classroom, and (2) a resource of

communicative activities The guidelines are presented m terms of

questions that should be answered by both teachers and students

before classroom work starts These questions are related to

participation, procedure and subject-matter Questions concerning

participation relate to whether students will work m groups or

pairs and whether the teacher will work with individual learners

or with the whole class Questions concerning procedure refer to

when, how, how long a certain activity will be undertaken

Finally questions concerning subject-matter relate to the focus of

the work and its teaching purposes

On the other hand, the reserve of activities and tasks, as

Breen points out, can be used m the same way as m a task-based

syllabus These tasks, as m a task-based syllabus, could be

either communicative or metacommunicative (learning) Breen says

"In offering a bank of alternative activities and tasks, the

processsyllabus represents an extension of the task-based

syllabus The distinction, however, is that activities and

tasks are not sequenced The activities are categorized in terms

of their own objectives, content, suggested procedure, and

suggested ways of evaluating outcomes (ibid 167)

85
 Breen explains that evaluation is an important element of the

process syllabus The teacher and the students decide on who to

work with whom (participation), agree on how to carry out a

certain task or activity (procedure) and identify the focus and

the purpose of their work Once this has been done evaluation

will be the important stage In this stage the teacher and the

students judge their achievement and identify the difficulties

This evaluation stage leads them to reviewing earlier stages and

searching for the reasons of difficulty In other words they go

back to earlier decisions taken by the group concerning

participation, procedure or subject-matter and fill m any gaps

"Therefore, the initial bank of activities and tasks within a

Process syllabus will be further supplemented by those who exploit

such a syllabus" (ibid 167)

The advantage of a process syllabus is that it allows teachers

and learners the freedom to select and plan their own work

Because of its discontinuous structure the process syllabus leaves

room for other syllabus types and materials to be incorporated

into it depending on the needs and demands of the group

Moreover, with its emphasis on co-operation among learners and

between learners and the teacher on equal basis, the process

syllabus could reduce the learning burden and leave a positive

psychological effect on the learners who feel that responsibility

for difficulties and failures is shared by the group

86
 The process syllabus has a number of drawbacks It is very

demanding on the part of the teacher and the learner It requires

the teacher to be a syllabus and material designer as well as a

teacher It also requires students to be fully aware of their

needs and to select and organize the content of their learning

From this point of view, the process syllabus adds to the learning

burden the burden of having to be engaged m planning and

decision-making Because of its loose form this syllabus may

leave teachers and learners m doubt as to where they are going

However, I would judge this syllabus to be better seen as a

collection of materials which can be used with some other syllabus

type

3 4 5 The relational syllabus

The relational syllabus was developed by Crombie in attempt to

investigate the most effective ways to construct a syllabus which

could lead non-native speakers to a communicative competence

This new approach stems from her belief that neither a structural

nor a functional-notional approach can accomplish this goal Her

criticism of these approaches is based on the view that "what we

have not been offered so far is an approach to syllabus design

which takes adequate account of language as coherent discourse "

(Crombie 1985 l t c f Widdoson 1979)

Crombie argues that if language syllabuses which concentrate on

spoken and written discourse rather than on isolated linguistic or

semantic units are to be designed, then emphasis should be placed

on the concept of discourse value The discourse value of an

87
utterance, as she explains, is its "significance or

communicative function within a discourse as distinct from its

sentence meaning " To illustrate the difference between discourse

value and sentence meaning Crombie provides the following example

1 A Why did he have to go into hospital?

B He broke his leg

2 A What was the result of the car crash?

B He broke his leg

Crombie explains that the sentence meaning of "He broke his leg"

in 1 and 2 is the same, while the discourse value is different

In 1 it has the value of reason, whereas in 2 it has the value of

result (ibid 2-3)

The label 'relational', however, refers to the fact that

linguistic units do not have values m isolation but derive value

from their sentence meaning and relationship to thecontext Thus

discourse value, as she points out, is a relational concept

She distinguishes between unitary discourse values (warning,

invitation, agreement) and binary discourse values

(reason/result, condition/consequence) She argues that binary

discourse values are the starting point for the design of

syllabuses which focus on discourse Crombie further divides

binary values into interactional values and general discoursal

values Interactional values relate to the type of interactional

relationship between the speakers who are involved in a

conversational discourse such as that of a question and answer in

Crombie's example

88
 A Why did he do it?

B He needed the money

On the other hand, general discoursal values, as she explains, are

those values which occur in any type of discourse such as

result/reason (ibid 2-4) Consider the following example

Due to overwhelming audience response (reason), she

decided to sing another song (result)

To explain the basis of the relational approach to syllabus

design Crombie writes

I shall be arguing for an approach to language syllabus

design where the relationship between units of discourse
which establish those active conceptual meanings that I
have referred to as binary values is given centrality for
an approach which focuses on the creation and
understanding of coherent discourse and which therefore
moves beyond the idea of a syllabus as an inventory of
discrete units only (Ibid 8)

What the language learner needs to know, according to this

approach, is how semantic relations (or binary units) are

realized m the target language discourse Crombie argues that

from a teaching point of view focus on semantic relations is

useful because they have cross -linguistic significance She

argues that semantic relations (comparison/contrast, cause-effect)

appear to be present m all languages although they are realized

in different ways She also points out that semantic relations are

realized m different ways in the same language (ibid 33)

89
 The fact that the same semantic relation may be realized m a

variety of ways, as Crombie notes, is extremely important for

the designer m that it provides him or her with " the possibility

of introducing grammatical constructions m a way that is both

systematic and discourse motivated" (ibid 34) The reason/result

relation can be realized in a variety of structures Consider the

following example which illustrates Crombie's point

He was released because the judge found him innocent

Because the judge found him innocent, he was released

The judge found him innocent and therefore he was released

It was because he was found innocent that he was released

His release was the result of his being found innocent

His being found innocent resulted m his release

The reason why he was released is that he was found

innocent

Crombie makes it clear that a relationally-centred syllabus

does not take account of only the relational considerations, that

is the value of utterances in discourse, but also of grammatical,

semantic and mtonational considerations "A discourse-centred

approach to syllabus design which concentrates on binary

relational values will inevitably be an integrated one since it

must, of necessity, involve all aspects of linguistic

communication" (ibid 82)

90
 Crombie proceeds to argue that a relational syllabus is cyclic

m nature because of the reintroduction of the same relation

several times m order to allow for revision and elaboration and

to show stylistic variation Concerning stylistic variation, she

argues that different realizations of the same semantic relation

carry "important stylistic and informational implications" She

explains that a significant aspect of the "communicative dynamics

of the varieties of scientific report, for example, is "the

variety and distribution of relational types together with the

various different ways in which each relational type is realized "

She provides three examples which show stylistic variation and

information distribution through the same relation of concession-

contraexpectation

He's a crook but she trusts him

Although h e ’s a crook, she trusts him

He's a crook She trusts him, nevertheless

The organization of the relational syllabus, as she maintains,

takes into account the needs of particular groups of learners

For example, the organization of a syllabus designed for a group

of learners sharing the same linguistic background could follow a

certain order emerging from contrastive analysis of the two

languages Also syllabuses designed to meet the needs of learners

who want the language for specific purposes may concentrate on

particular relational values and suggest a certain ordering

pattern of these relations

91
 The relational syllabus deserves special attention because of

its interest in many areas of communicative ability Through focus

on discourse the relational syllabus could succeed m giving equal

attention to grammatical, lexical, intonational and other

considerations Because it is discourse based a relational

syllabus, I believe, could provide cultural insights into the

target language and culture Discourse, as we shall argue m

Chapter Six, encodes cultural assumptions the understanding of

which is important for the understanding of discourse Therefore,

the relational syllabus could provide room for more emphasis on

the cultural aspects of language use The relational syllabus

shares with the task-based and the process syllabuses a view of

communicative competence as the ability to understand and produce

discourse and create meaning However, the relational syllabus

differs from the other syllabus types in that it strongly

i-

emphasizes binary discourse values

92
 Chapter Four

Roles of teachers and learners

When we talk about language teaching methods there are at least

three major parameters by means of which we can distinguish

between one method and the other These are the theoretical or

linguistic premises on which they are built, the procedures and

techniques they implement, and following from this the roles they

assign to teachers and learners In chapter II we discussed in

detail the communicative competence theories as the linguistic

background for all communicative teaching In chapter three we

discussed the techniques and procedures implemented by CLT to

teach communicative competence The aim of this chapter is to

explore the influence of communicative approaches on the roles of

teachers and learners In this chapter we discuss the changes in

the teacher's traditional role and the reasons for this change,

and consider the significant aspects of the teacher's role which

contribute to communicative competence development We also touch

on learner strategies and their significance for the learning

process as means for acquiring a communicative ability We have

chosen to discuss both teacher and learner roles at the same time

because of the close relationship between them Changes in

teachers' roles necessitate changes in learner roles and vice

versa

93
4 1 The role of the teacher new dimensions

The rise of communicative approaches has had a dramatic effect on

the roles teachers adopt The role of the teacher in a

communicative classroom is quite different from his or her role m

a traditional classroom It is also more complex and demanding

In the traditional classroom the role of the teacher was

essentially to instruct, that is to convey knowledge of the

language to a group of students whose major concern is to receive

information The most important aspect of the teacher's role as

instructor was to ensure that the students have had ample practice

of the grammatical items of the language, and to prevent the

occurrence of errors

Attention to communicative competence or the ability to produce

speech acts, and the failure of traditional instruction to lead to

proficiency, brought about a major change m the teacher's role

Thus m a communicative classroom instruction is but one aspect of

the multi-functional role of the teacher Even instruction, as we

shall see, is perceived differently Wright (1987) points out

that teachers have two major functions first, they create

conditions under which learning can take place Second, they

convey knowledge to their students m a variety of ways He calls

the first "the management function" and the other "the

instructional function" The management function, as he argues,

entails the following

94
1 Motivating the learners to the task of learning This can be

done m several ways such as praise and encouragement for the

learner's efforts to learn Motivation can also be achieved by

giving students interesting activities and responsibility for

their own learning This emphasis on motivation is due to

recognition by communicative teaching of thesignificance of

motivation to reduce what Krashen calls "affective filter" The

"affective filter" is "a mental block" which prevents learners

from making the best use of the language data they receive and

consequently impedes their learning This happens when the

learner is not motivated (Krashen 1985 3)

2 Controlling the learners' social behaviour and the learning

activity in the class

3 Organizing the group, that is putting the class into small

groups to perform certain tasks, or arranging the group in a

circle that gives a sense of community etc Group organization

gained significance in the communicative classroom because of the

awareness that language is a social activity which takes place

between at least two participants Thus group organization is

important in the sense that it creates one of the conditions of

language use participants willing to communicate

95
The management function is crucial in the sense that it prepares

learners for the instructional function and facilitates learning

The instructional function can be approached, as Wright explains,

m different ways depending on the personality of the teacher, the

materials available, the prescriptions of the school

administrators and many other factors However, the teacher may

explain and give information directly or allow students to

discover information and learn by themselves through their

engagement m a variety of communicative activities

Littlewood (1981) explains the role of the teacher m a more

specific way He argues that "the concept of the teacher as

instructor is inadequate to describe his overall function In a

broad sense, he is a facilitator of learning, and may need to

perform in a variety of specific roles, separately or

simultaneously " He specifies the following roles

a) A general ’overseer’ of learning the teacher should arrange

the activities so that they lead to a communicative ability

b) A classroom manager he is responsible for grouping activities

into lessons He also decides on his role within each activity

96
c) A language instructor he presents new language, directs,

corrects and evaluates the learners' performance

d) An initiator of activities he will not intervene but let

learning take place through the communicative activity For

example, the teacher starts a debate among students and withdraws

allowing the students to carry out the activity by themselves

e) A consultant or advisor he performs this role when an activity

is m progress He can observe students' weaknesses to help him

plan a future activity

f) A communicator the teacher may wish to act as a participant in

communication in order to stimulate or present new language

(P 92)

Furthermore, m the following two sections we concentrate on

the ways in which the teacher influences and contributes to

communicative competence development We should mention here that

when we refer to language learning, language acquisition or

communicative competence development, we mean the same thing

because we adopt the view that language learning is the

acquisition of communicative competence

97
4 2 Teacher talk

Perhaps the most important aspect of the teacher’s role is his or

her language use m the classroom (teacher talk) Teacher talk is

important as a source of input which is necessary for language

aquisition In the majority of cases teacher talk is the only

source of input available to the learner especially when the

target language is not spoken outside the classroom Although

teacher talk is a crucial element not only m communicative

teaching but in any language learning situation, we shall argue

that teacher talk should meet certain criteria if it is to lead to

communicative competence In this section we will discuss the

characteristics of teacher talk and the relationship between

teacher talk and communicative competence development It is

often argued that teacher talk is different from speech addressed

at native speakers in a number of ways which enhance comprehension

and facilitate learning

Hakansson (1986) wrote "In the second language classroom, when

no student possesses full native speaker competence in the target

language, the teacher uses a language of instruction which differs

in certain aspects from that used m classes consisting of native

speakers" (p 83)

98
4 2 1 Characteristics of teacher talk

Chaudron (1988) reviewed research on second language classroom

which showed that teacher talk is characterized by a number of

structural modifications depending on the task that is being done

and the competence of the students The following is a summary of

Chaudron1s review of research findings

1 Modifications of speech rate and phonology speech rate is

slower, voice is louder and more standard pronunciation is used

Also pauses are longer and more frequent

2 Modification of vocabulary the teacher tends to use a basic

set of vocabulary items which include fewer idioms and more proper

nouns than pronouns e g , boy instead of lad, Mr Smith instead of

he

3 Modifications of syntax teachers tend to use shorter

utterances avoiding the use of subordination when their speech is

directed at less competent learners Research also found that

teachers adjust their speech by using less marked structures such

as the use of the simple present tense and the use of more

statements than questions

4 Modifications of discourse the important feature here is the

frequent use of self-repetition

99
 Ellis (1985) argued that teacher talk can be treated as a

register with its own specific properties He mentioned that

studies in teacher talk found (1) adjustments occur m syntax,

phonology and vocabulary, (2) ungrammatical modifications do not

occur except m free discussions, and (3) interactional

adjustments, such as repetition and prompting, occur

Lynch (1988) subsumes teacher talk modifications reported by

research under two major headings modifications of input and

modifications of interaction The first type includes aspects of

lexis, syntax, phonology and idiom avoidance The second type

involves discourse features such as comprehension checks and

pauses Moreover, Lynch carried out an experiment to find evidence

for a third type of modification which he claims not to have been

reported in previous studies He calls this type of adjustment

"modification through information choice" or "selection of

information"

Lynch video-taped 24 EFL teachers telling stories to a native

speaker and three EFL learners, in turn The learners were at

elementary, intermediate and advanced levels respectively The aim

of the study was to find differences in the ways speakers talked

to the four listeners and find evidence for a third type of

modification The result of the study found evidence for the

100
three types of modification mentioned above As for modification

through selection of information, as Lynch reports, the study

found that

1 Speakers provided more detailed descriptions of objects and

characters to listeners of lower proficiency level

2 Speakers made more logical explanations and interpretations of

the characters' apparent behaviour to low-level listeners

3 Speakers made more explanation of the socio-cultural features

of linguistic behaviour, such as the use of gestures, to listeners

of low proficiency

Lynch argues that from the learners' point of view these

findings show that learners are being treated as less intelligent

people To test this hypothesis Lynch arranged an informal

experiment m which a group of EAP students were asked to listen

to two audio-taped versions of the stories already used in the

previous experiment The two versions were told by an EFL teacher

to a native speaker and an elementary-level learner Subjects

were then asked to fill in questionnaires in order to mark their

impression as to who is speaking to whom, the age and

intelligence of the speaker and listener, and the friendliness and

clarity of the speaker's speech

101
 The results of the experiment showed that first, none of the

subjects realized that the speaker m both versions was the same

Second, subjects thought that the speaker was more friendly,

clearer and slower m the version told to the non-native listener

Third, and most important, the majority of subjects believed that

the listener was a child m the case of the non-native narrative

Therefore, Lynch argues that there is "some evidence that the

speaker was felt to be 'talking down1, since her performance

created the impression that she was communicating with a less

mature and intelligent listener than m the first version"

(p 115) Lynch maintains that when teachers modify their speech

there is a risk of appearing "to be making intellectual

adjustments, and not merely adjustments of language and

discourse "

This is an extremely important consideration m teacher talk

modification In a classroom where the learner is the centre of

the teaching/learning process, learners attitudes, perception

and self-evaluation plays a central part if a true communicative

teaching is to be fostered Certainly, talking down to students

will have a negative effect on their attitudes and

self-evaluation, and may, consequently, hamper learning

 However it is important to notice that not all sorts of

modification create this impression The only type of

modification which has this potential risk is the third type which

Lynch reported modification through information selection As we

have seen above this type of modification included providing

detailed description, explaining logical links such as

cause/effect, and filling m cultural gaps The first two of

these, I believe, are intellectual modifications which are not

needed by learners to aid their comprehension and should be

avoided by teachers But filling m cultural gaps is a

modification of special significance and sensitivity In a

classroom which aims to develop communicative competence, teachers

should provide awareness of the cultural assumptions which

underlie language use InChapter Five we explain why this is

important and m Chapter Six we show how this can be done in the

classroom Nevertheless, filling in cultural gaps could become a

kind of intellectual modification when teachers attempt to explain

those features which are not culture-specific but have universal

validity, e g , explaining the meaning of such paralinguistic

features as smiling or waving one’s hand

4 2 2 Teacher talk as a source of comprehensible input

Teacher talk provides a necessary input for the learners'

aquisition of communicative competence Krashen (1985) claims

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that humans acquire languages only by receiving input But he

insists that m order for aquisition to take place, input should

be comprehensible to the receiver

It is a common belief that living m 'the country1 is the best

way to learn the language However, this is only partially true

Krashen (1987) points out that the informal environment is very

helpful because it is a great source of input for the learner who

can understand this input and make use of it But the natural

environment is of no real use to the adult beginner since the

input he or she receives is incomprehensible Therefore, m the

case of the adult beginner the classroom can do much better than

the formal environment up to the intermediate level But for the

advanced learner the classroom is inferior to the natural setting

Krashen says "If we fill our second language classrooms with

input that is optimal for aquisition, it is quite possible that

we can actually do better than the informal environment, at least

up to the intermediate level" (p 58)

Furthermore, it is important to notice that even for the

intermediate and advanced learners the informal setting is not of

great help for all of them We should not forget the fact that

many intermediate and advanced learners live for quite a long time

m the target language community and yet fail to achieve any

remarkable progress The reason for this, however, is that they

do not integrate in the community, they rather live with their

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compatriots and speak their native language Their exposure to

the target language data is limited to the routine daily

interactions m which they exchange no more than few words with a

shopkeeper or a neighbour

Needless to say that this argument is not against the informal

environment No teacher could provide as much input as the

informal environment could But it should be borne m mind that

there are many factors which impede the learners' progress m the

language It istrue that many of these may be due to individual

factors, such as introversion or ideological beliefs, for which

our teaching isnot responsibleNonetheless, our teaching is

certainly responsible for some other significant factors

In this respect, there are two important factors which

contribute to the problem First, language teaching does not

equip learners with enough knowledge of the target culture and the

social rulesof communication Therefore, learners who have

studied language for several years, and who are to continue

learning m the natural setting have few clues to help them solve

cultural difficulties and thus fail to make full use of the

linguistic richness of the natural environment No doubt that

this is the responsibility of the classroom which fails m many

cases to equip the learner with knowledge of the lifestyle of the

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native speakers and the cultural assumptions which underlie all

language use in social activities This is a question which will

be addressed m the next chapter

Second, until recently language teaching has not taken into

consideration the importance of learner strategy training and

self-directed study The result is that learners, being so

dependent on the teacher and are not trained m how to approach

the task of learning, cannot continue to learn properly even m

the natural setting (On learner strategies see 4 4 in this

chapter)

The important implication of this argument is that if

intermediate and advanced learners are to make significant

progress in language learning in the natural environment, then

language teaching should provide them with proper training in

crosscultural communication and in the art of learning

This argument establishes the fact that although the informal

environment is superior to the classroom, yet the classroom has a

great potential The most important feature of this potential is

teacher talk which could be adjusted to different proficiency

levels of learners, who otherwise would be unable to make sense

of the sounds they hear if they are to learn the language in the

106
natural setting The communicative classroom can prepare learners

to continue learning whether in their own community or in the

target language community

However, the classroom has limitations In addition to the fact

that it cannot provide as much input as the outside world the

classroom, as Krashen maintains, cannot provide the same range

of discourse He argued that "the range of discourse that the

student can be exposed to m a second language classroom is quite

limited, no matter how ’natural' we make it There is simply no

way the classroom can match the variety of the outside world,

although we can certainly expand beyond our current limitations "

Moreover, Krashen seems to capture the essential function of the

classroom He said "Its goal is not to substitute for the outside

world, but to bring students to the point where they can begin to

use the outside world for further aquisition, to where they can

begin to understand the language used on the outside (p 59)

Krashen believes that this can be done by means of two things

first, by providing input and second, "by making students

conversationally competent", that is by developing what we called

'tactical competence' (see 2 7)

Krashen insists that m order for input to aid aquisition it

should be characterized by the following features

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1 Input should be comprehensible

Comprehensibility is the most important characteristic But

Krashen explains that comprehensible input is a necessary but not

sufficient condition However, this characteristic renders the

teacher's role more important Krashen points out that "perhaps

the m a m function of the second language teacher is to help make

input comprehensible " (ibid 64)

The teacher can make input comprehensible by several means The

most common way of achieving this is modifying his or her speech

Chaudron mentioned the work of Hatch (1983) and Keltch (1983)

which showed that the teacher's slower speech allows enough time

for learners to comprehend the message He also referred to an

experiment carried out by Long (1985) Long constructed two

versions of a lecture, one of which was syntactically modified He

found that L2 students who heard the modified version were more

successful at answering comprehension questions than their

colleagues who heard the original version Moreover, teachers can

aid their students' comprehension by using visuals such as

pictures and slides

2 Input should be interesting and/or relevant

Krashen (1987) argues that input should focus on the message

rather than the form In this way input could be made interesting

to learners He points out that grammatical exercises and drills

108
fail to interest because they are so repetitive and functionally

irrelevant Krashen notes that this requirement is difficult to

meet But teachers could meet this requirement if they make their

input relate classroom language to the students’ needs m the

outside world (pp 66-8)

3 Input should not be grammatically sequenced

What Krashen implies here is that input should not focus on

grammatical gradation, it should rather focus on the successful

negotiation of meaning In this case new structures will be

automatically introduced Krashen points out that grammatical

sequencing assumes that all students are at the same stage of

development, which is not true He argues that natural input will

be rich enough to contain new language for every learner

4 Input must be in sufficient quantity

Krashen points out that we do not have enough data to make us

certain about the input quantity we need to reach a certain

proficiency level Nevertheless, he states that little input is

not enough (ibid 71) I believe Ellis supports this argument when

he says that "the first structures the learner acquires are those

to which he is exposed most frequently " (p 156) Data from

first language aquisition seem to support this point we all know

that the first words or utterances a child acquires are those

which he or she hears quite often

109
4 3 The role of feedback

The provision of feedback is considered a major role of the

teacher and an important aspect of classroom interaction

Feedback is also an important aspect of authentic communication

and a part of the language user's communicative competence which

learners need to master Central to the notion of feedback is the

notion of error correction, although feedback includes approval

of the learners' language performance as well Feedback is

important from the point of view of both teachers and learners

Chaudron (1985) points out that from the teacher's point of view

feedback is an important means by which he or she informs learners

of the success of their language behaviour From the learners'

point of view it is a source of improvement m their target

language (p 113)

Littlewood (1981) argues that feedback draws learners'

attention to the focus of the lesson For example, he says, if

the teacher insists on correcting linguistic forms, this

indicates that students should pay heed to grammatical accuracy

But if the teacher repeatedly comments on how communication should

be carried out and how successful it is, then this indicates that

students should focus on communication of meaning

110
 Chaudron argues that the study of feedback was closely

connected with behaviourist theory of learning According to this

theory feedback was considered as positive and negative

reinforcement of behaviour which was believed to be the crucial

factor m learning Therefore feedback was used as stimulus which

triggers learner behaviour (response) Traditional language

teaching used positive feedback as praise or repetition of the

correct sentence, and negative feedback as error correction and

detailed grammatical explanation (ibid 133)

4 3 1 Feedback as error correction

Attitude towards learner errors in modern language teaching is

more tolerant and sympathetic than the traditional attitude

Learner errors are currently viewed as part of the internal

processes of learning and an indication that learning is taking

place, rather than mere failures to conform to language system

Chaudron argues that acceptance of learner errors has led teachers

to a paradoxical situation where they have to choose between

interrupting communication for the sake of formal correction, or

leaving errors uncorrected for the sake of communication (p 134)

The solution of this problem raises the following questions which

are often dealt with by researchers

1 Should errors be corrected?

2 When should errors be corrected9

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3 Which errors should be corrected?

4 How should errors be corrected?

5 Who should correct errors?

Concerning the first question there seems to be a general

consensus that errors should be corrected Chaudron referred to a

number of studies which argued m favour of error correction For

example, he mentioned Hendrickson (1978), who argued in favour

of error correction on the basis that errors which are not

corrected can be taken as correct m the process of hypothesis

testing (ibid 135) Hypothesis testing means that during their

developing stages m learning, learners make assumptions as to how

language operates When learners make errors they test whether

their assumptions or hypotheses are true If, however, they do

not receive corrective feedback, thentheir hypotheses or

mistakes will be taken as correct The hypothesis testing

rationale, I believe, is a strong reason for correcting errors

Chaudron also maintained that research has established learners'

preference for all sorts of error correction, a consideration

which is very significant if a positive attitude to learning is to

be fostered

As for the question when to correct errors, Murphy (1986) says

"We find no evidence to show that correction has to be given in

the instant following the error, sothere is no value m

interrupting an activity to correct mistakes when they can be

corrected afterwards ” (p 146) Chaudron (ibid 136) mentions that

Hendrickson restricted error correction to grammar practice

leaving communicative activities free from a major concern with

correction, a point which Murphy (ibid 146) also emphasizes

Regarding the question of which errors should be corrected,

Hendrickson wrote ’’Correcting three types of errors can be quite

useful to second language learners errors that impair

communication, errors that have highly stigmatizing effects on

the listener or reader, and errors that occur frequently in

students' speech and writing " (Cited m Chaudron, ibid 140)

Errors which impair communication include grammar, phonology,

wrong choice of lexical items, or wrong choice of register On the

other hand, what Hendrickson means by errors which have a

"stigmatizing effects" , I believe, are those which violate rules

of social appropnacy and could cause embarrassment to producer

and receiver

Concerning the question of how to correct errors, the teacher

has several options He or she can stop or interrupt the learner

immediately after the error has occurred, wait for a transitional

period m the learner's transaction and then provide correction,

or even prefer to give correction at some other time As has been

argued above there is no reason why errors should be corrected

immediately after they have occurred In fact immediate

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correction could have discouraging effects on the learner who is

repeatedly interrupted and corrected It is advised that teachers

do the correction afterwards, m which case corrective feedback

will be directed not at individual learners but at the group as a

whole

But who should correct errors? The apparent answer to this

question is that the teacher is the one who should correct errors

However, we can argue with Murphy that "correction does not have

to come from the teacher alone, for m communicative activities it

will come just as appropriately (if not more so) from fellow

learners" (ibid 146) Broughton et al (1978) also emphasize that

it is not necessary or advisable that all correction should come

from the teacher, students should be responsible for their own

mistakes and develop an ability for self-correction (p 141) A

possible way of doing this is to tap-record or video-tape

learners* performance and then assign group tasks in which they

are required to evaluate their performance, correct mistakes and

suggest possible ways to improve their performance

4 3 2 Feedback and learning outcomes

Chaudron points out that there is evidence on corrective feedback

resulting in the learners' ability to benefit from it He refers

to a study carried out by Salica (1981), who found that teacher

treatment of errors aided learners in providing correct responses

She found that learners provided correct responses to 46# of

114
teacher’s corrective feedback Chaudron also mentions Wren

(1982) , who reported that her students were able to correct 83J& of

their errors after she provided treatment of these errors, as

opposed to 4ljf rate of self-correction Chaudron reports that

Ramirez and Stronguist (1979) found that the teacher's correction

of grammatical errors resulted m learners' improvement on

comprehension and production tests (ibid 176-8)

Furthermore, it should be stressed that error correction is

not, and should not be, concerned only with accuracy of grammar

and pronunciation, it should be equally concerned with fluency

and the appropriacy of learners' language behaviour m terms of

communication strategies and social rules of language use In a

communicative classroom an important aspect of the teacher's role

is to ensure that correction is provided in terms of both

criteria For example, when a student produces an utterance which

violates a social rule, we can say that he or she needs corrective

feedback as much as, if not more, than he or she needs it when a

grammatical rule has been broken It has often been argued that

native speakers are more tolerant of foreign speakers' language

mistakes than social mistakes No doubt that the omission of the

present simple "s" is not as offending to a native speaker as an

impolite request or an inappropriate gesture or physical contact

Therefore, correction is valid m both grammar practice and

communication activities

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 Feedback is not to be equated with correction If we examine

any piece of natural discourse, we find that feedback is an

essential part of communication and serves several functions

Murphy (1986) argues that in communication speakers use language

to convey messages and listeners frequently indicate how

successful or unsuccessful communication has been They indicate

this by means of feedback People quite often use such utterances

as "I see what you mean", "I know what you are getting at", "I'm

not sure what you mean or "I don't understand" The major purpose

of this type of feedback is to maintain communication

Maintaining communication, however, requires using feedback for

several purposes like clarification requests "I don't understand",

denial of the truth of the message "I don't think that is the

case", asking for relevant information "Don't change the subject"

etc (pp 148-9)

The implication of this argument is that in classrooms where

concern is with language as communication, an important aspect of

the teaching/learning process would be to enable learners to

handle feedback Feedback should not be supplied by the teacher

alone, students should be taught how to employ feedback in

communication Murphy wrote "If learners are to communicate

successfully, then they will need to use feedback If they do

not, then I think the teacher should be guiding them to use

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feedback Otherwise the implication is that communication between

learners in a foreign language is expected to be more successful

than between native speakers who use the language " (Ibid 146)

The teacher can achieve this goal by exploiting what was called

learning tasks and communication tasks m the previous chapter

(see 3 6 3) In a learning task the teacher can give students

examples of feedback language and how it can be used Then the

teacher can get students to practice this language m actual

communication by assigning to them a communication task such as a

discussion or story-telling In this case the teacher can go

around the classroom checking to make sure that feedback is

properly supplied and, when appropriate, make comments (cf

Murphy, ibid 149-50)

4 3 3 Error correction and mistake correction

Johnson (1988) refers to a significant distinction drawn by

Corder (1981) between ’errors' and 'mistakes’ Johnson argues

that what Corder calls an error is the result of a faulty or

inappropriate knowledge, while what Corder calls a mistake is the

result of inability to put knowledge into practice In other words

an error is a competence failure while a mistake is a performance

failure (p 90)

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 What we are interested in here is not the distinction itself

but the implications of this distinction for language teaching

Although Corder argues that "mistakes are of no significance to

the process of language learning" (quoted by Johnson), Johnson

maintains that if we use the word 'mistake' to refer to a failure

caused by limiting Psychological or other conditions which operate

m performance, then mistake correction will be extremely

important m language teaching because a great percentage of

students' inaccuracies are mistakes and not errors (ibid 91)

The basis of Johnson's argument, as he explains, is that when

we want to assess the ability of a person, whether linguistic or

non-linguistic, we have to consider the conditions under which he

or she can perform this ability He provides two examples, one

non-linguistic and the other linguistic He argues that a

footballer may be a good goal scorer in normal circumstances But

the question is "can he, for example, score m the Mexico World

Cup, at an altitude of six thousand feet, against a good side,

knowing that spectators at home will bay for the blood of the

defeated7" And by the same token, it is quite inadequate, when

we come to assess students' language competence, to conclude that

he or she has mastered the present perfect tense simply because he

or she has used it successfully in a gap-filling exercise What

is more important is "can she use the tense correctly over a bad

118
intercontinental telephone line, with all attention focussed on

getting the message across m the shortest possible space of

time7” (ibid 91)

The implications of this argument are extremely important

Teachers should be aware of the fact that not all students'

inaccuracies are the result of inadequate knowledge (errors) but

the result of inability to perform (mistakes) This brings us to

the question of how mistakes can be eradicated Johnson argues

that students will need at least four things if mistakes are to be

eradicated

a) The desire or need to eradicate the mistake Some mistakes do

not get eradicated simply because students know they are not

important like the simple present 's'

b) An internal representation of what the correct form looks like

In simple terms the student needs to know the correct form of the

mistake

c) A realization by the student that the performance he or she has

given is faulty

d) An opportunity to repractise m real conditions (Ibid 91)

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 Concerning mistake correction two points should be emphasized

First, explanation of rules, as Johnson argues, has no value

simply because the learner knows the rule More explanation could

seriously harm performance Explanation can be useful m the case

of errors and not mistakes Second, the best way to eradicate

mistakes is to get students to practice more and more in

conditions which simulate the type of conditions which are likely

to cause mistakes To come back to the example cited earlier,

"Part of learning how to use the present perfect on an

intercontinental phone involves phoning intercontinentally and

using the present perfect " (Ibid 93-5)

This argument draws our attention to the important role which

communicative activities could play in eradicating mistakes In

the real world we hardly behave, linguistically or

non-linguistically, in relaxing conditions, we usually perform our

knowledge and skills when we are exhausted, excited, intimidated,

late for office etc These are conditions far from being ideal and

exert pressure on us Our knowledge and skill cannot be tested

away from these conditions So why do not we engage our students

in activities which simulate these conditions? This is another

reason why communicative activities are a central feature in a

communicatively-orientated classroom This argument, moreover, is

compatible with our view of communicative competence as a complex

120
of knowledge and skills to perform this knowledge in actual

communication This view avoids the complexities associated with

the distinction between competence and performance

4 4 Learner strategies

The communicative approach represented a shift from a

teacher-centred classroom to a student-centred classroom This

shift implied fundamental changes m the roles of both teachers

and students As far as learners are concerned, this shift meant

that learners were given more responsibility for their own

learning and encouraged to adopt a wide range of learning

strategies Since the early seventies, research into learner

strategies has occupied a central position m language teaching

theory But in practice it was until the last few years that

learner strategies have been given a prominent position Research

acknowledges that learners employ a variety of processing

strategies which influence their language learning

Chaudron defines learning strategies as "the cognitive

operations that learners apply while m classrooms or other

learning situations " (Ibid 110) Oxford, Lavme and Crookall

(1989) define learning strategies as "actions, behaviors, steps,

or techniques used by learners to enhance learning " (p 29)

They refer to Rubin (1975), who described good language learners

in terms of the strategies they use Good language learners

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1 are willing and accurate guessers,

2 have a strong, p e r s e r v m g drive to communicate,

3 are often uninhibited and willing to make mistakes m order to

learn or communicate,

4 focus on form by looking for patterns, classifying, and

analysing,

5 take advantage of all practice opportunities,

6 monitor their own speech and the speech of others, and pay

attention to meaning (Ibid 30)

4 4 1 Typology of strategies

Research into learner strategies identified several strategies

which have been classified m slightly different ways by

researchers Oxford, L a v m e and Crookall report an extremely

useful classification of learning strategies developed by Oxford

(1989) Oxford listed six broad strategy categories

1 Metacognitive strategies such as paying attention, searching

for practice opportunities, self-evaluation and self-monitoring

2 Affective strategies such as anxiety reduction and self­

encouragement

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3 Social strategies such as asking questions, cooperating with

others and "becoming culturally aware"

4 Memory strategies such as creating mental linkages and using

images and sounds to store or recall information

5 Cognitive strategies such as reasoning, analysing,

summarizing and taking notes

6 Compensation strategies such as guessing meanings, using

explanations and employing paralmguistic features (ibid 30)

Rubin (1987) recognizes three major learner strategy types

learning strategies, communication strategies and social

strategies He points out that learning strategies are further

divided into cognitive and metacognitive strategies Cognitive

strategies include (1) clarification/verification strategies which

“learners use to clarify or verify their understanding of the new

language” , (2) guessing/inductive m f erencing which utilize

previously acquired knowledge to form hypotheses linguistic forms

and to infer meaning, (3) practice strategies such as repetition,

rehearsal, imitation, application of rules etc , (4) memorization

strategies which learners use to store or recall information such

as finding auditory or visual association, (5) monitoring

strategies such as error correction, decision-making, identifying

123
problems, evaluation etc Rubin points out that monitoring

combines both cognitive (e g correction) and metacogmtive (e g ,

self-management) strategies

On the other hand, metacogmtive strategies are those which

learners use "to oversea, regulate or self-direct language

learning " Rubin refers to Wenden, who identifies a number of

planning strategies For example, learners may recognize their

needs, preferences and learning styles and thus decide on what

aspects of the language they want to prioritize and what

strategies they will use

As regards communication strategies (referred to as

compensation strategies by Oxford), R u b m explains that these are

strategies used by learners when there is a disparity between

their communicative competence and communicative intention, and

which are mainly associated with participating m conversations

Examples include using synonyms, using gestures and mime, or using

paraphrase

Finally, social strategies are those used by learners to find

practice opportunities and exposure to the language Examples

include creating situation to practice with natives t fellow

students or teachers, listening to television and radio, reading

extra books etc (pp 23-7)

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4 4 2 Teaching implications

The value of the preceding argument is that it establishes the

relationship between using learning strategies and developing

communicative competence Communicative competence cannot be

developed only by following certain teaching procedures, we need

to encourage and train learners to operate successful internal

processes or employ appropriate learning strategies There is a

close relationship between using particular strategies and

acquiring certain aspects of communicative competence For

example, using social strategies such as seeking practice

opportunities, meeting natives, and "becoming culturally aware"

art important for acquiring cultural competence Communication or

compensation strategies such as paraphrase, using synonyms or

gestures are significant for developing strategic or what we

referred to as tactical competence in Chapter Two

Moreover, m teaching language skills, e g , reading and

listening, students should be encouraged to infer the meanings of

new words and expressions from the context m which they occur

instead of immediately resorting to the dictionary or asking the

teacher Therefore, attention to strategy training should occupy

a prominent position in the process of teaching communicative

competence

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 In the light of this discussion, the role of the teacher gains

a new dimension Oxford, Lavine and Crookall argue that learners

are not always aware of how important learning strategies are m

facilitating learning, and cannot necessarily develop these

strategies without special training and guidance "For this

reason, it is essential that the teacher develops the learners’

awareness and use of learning strategies by offering training m

which the strategies are made very explicit In this way, the

teacher takes on yet another role, that of strategy trainer M

(Ibid 36) Thus m communicative classrooms learning how to use

strategies is as important as using strategies to learn

Nunan (1989) reviews a list of functions which teachers perform

in the communicative classroom, all of which are related to

training learners to employ a variety of strategies The

following are most important

1 Helping learners to find out which ways of learning or

learning styles are best for them For example, some learners

learn lexical items through direct association, others learn

through translation and some others learn through

contextualization

126
2 Guiding learners on how to make use of what they have already

learnt through note-taking, keeping diaries and grouping

information for easy reference

3 Helping learners recall previous knowledge, for example

through rhymes, context of occurrence, personal experience etc

4 Adopting a tolerant attitude towards errors and understanding

of their nature as hypothesis testing Teachers help learners to

prevent errors from hampering their participation m classroom

tasks They also encourage learners to ask for correction and

help

5 Developing m learners an ability to infer and guess meanings

from context and from their knowledge of the world

6 Encouraging learners to acquire routines, phrases, expressions

and idioms which serve as means for the expression of a variety of

functions

Here again communicative activities and tasks can play a

central role When students undertake the task of creating a

weather report in the target language, they will employ a number

of strategies such as cooperation, planning, looking for

127
language data, self-evaluation etc The teacher could explain

which strategies they should focus on, such as cooperation, and

how to use these strategies

As far as learners are concerned, research on learner

strategies has resulted in a great concern with learner autonomy

Learner autonomy is an important aspect of communicative

approaches and the shift from a teacher-centred. to a

learner-centred classroom Learner autonomy can be accomplished by

focusing on strategy training Rubm (1987) argues that once

trained, learners will find out the best way to approach learning

He also points out that autonomous learners who are capable of

self-directing their study outside the classroom, are those who

use effective strategies Therefore, it is essential that

learners learn how to take control of their learning and employ

effective strategies sothat they can continue learning after

their formal instruction has stopped (p 17) Moreover, this

argument helps illuminate Krashen's point (see 4 2 2) that an

important function of the communicative classroom is to bring the

learner to the point where he or she can make the best use of the

natural environment

Nunan (1989) also points out that "one role receiving

increasing attention is that of the student as independent

learner "He refers to Dickinson, who provides several reasons

for the use of self-instruction and developing learner

128
independence First, self-instruction is important because some

learners cannot attend regular classes Second, self-instruction

enables teachers to cope with individual differences m aptitude,

learning style and learner strategies Third, self-instruction

promotes learner autonomy and allows for continuing learning

Fourth, self-instruction can have a positive effect on motivation

(p 83) Thus investigating learner strategies and learner

autonomy is a primary objective of communicative pedagogy

129
 Part III

Critique of Communicative Teaching

130
 Chapter Five

Learning language and learning culture

We have seen in chapter two that Hymes* theory of communicative

competence was developed with a theory of communication and

culture in mind This theory assigned a significant role to

sociocultural rules of speaking which constitute an intrinsic part

of the language user's competence In this chapter we hypothesize,

and seek evidence to support the hypothesis that learning a

foreign language involves the learning of another culture In

other words, if the ultimate goal of language teaching is to

develop communicative competence, we shall then argue that

teaching the target culture should be an indispensible part of our

teaching In this chapter it is assumed that the teaching of the

target culture facilitates the learning process and subsequently

produces more proficient language learners

5 1 Definition of culture

Culture is probably one of the most difficult concepts to define

Anthropologists and researchers provided several definitions of

culture Sapir (1949) points out that culture is used in three

m a m senses In gereral terms, Sapir points out that "culture is

technically used by the anthropologist and culture-historian to

embody any socially inherited element in the life of man, material

131
and spiritual " (p 78) More simply, Lado (1957) defined culture

as "ways of people" Kluckholn and Kell defined it as "all those

historically created designs for living explicit and implicit,

rational, irrational, and non-rational, which exist at any given

time as potential guides for the behavior of men " (Quoted m Lado

1957 111)

Similar to Lado's definition, Brown (1980) defined culture as

"a way of life" But he elaborated on this definition when he

said "Culture might be defined as the ideas, customs, skills,

arts, and tools which characterize a given group of people in a

given period of time " (p 123)

However, culture will be conceived of in this chapter as a

historically developed synthesis of ideological and philosophical

beliefs, ethical values, and aesthetic standards which interact

with each other to shape and regulate human behaviour m a given

community Culture is thus understood as being a complex of

traditions, religions, arts and sciences which constitute the

framework of the social existence of a particular group of people

5 2 Theory of language and culture

While perhaps not being as dramatic as the strong version of the

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis claims, the relation of language to

culture is nevertheless established Among those who contributed

132
to a theory of language and culture, Boas, Sapir, Whorf,

Malinowski stand out as having contributed significantly to

cultural theory

Sapir, as Henle points out, challenged the conception of

language as simply a "systematic inventory of the various items of

experience" m the life of individuals Sapir made a strong claim

that language is also a "self-contained creative symbolic

organization, which not only refers to experience largely acquired

without its help but actually defines experience for us by reason

of its formal completeness and because of our conscious projection

of its implicit expectations into the field of experience "

(Quoted in Henle 1958 1) Thus Sapir closely associated language

with culture by expressing the view that language does not only

guide social experience but it rather moulds and shapes it

Whorf developed Sapir*s claim arguing that language constitutes

a frame of reference and actually shapes the thought of its users

Whorf claimed that there are significant correlations between

grammatical features and over-all cultural aspects when a language

and a culture have evolved together (ibid 1-2) Moreover,

through his work with the Navaho, Hoijer emphasized the claims of

Whorf as to the relation of aspects of grammar to patterns of

culture (ibid 21) However, it is not the aim of this chapter to

review the work of these anthropologists but to refer to their

contribution to a theory of language and culture

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5 3 Cultural encounters and communication breakdowns

What stems from the above definitions is that two cultures

represent two world views Therefore, encounters between members

from different cultural backgrounds are likely to involve

misunderstandings due to different perception of the same

phenomenon For example, the tragic death of someone could be

understood as heavenly punishment by a person from one culture and

as the result of inevitable natural causes by a person from

another culture Moreover, people from cultures where socially

accepted sexual relations are practiced only m matrimony are

shocked to know that many unmarried couples in Europe have

children

Widdowson (1982) argues that "Communication between members

within the same tightly knit social network will not create the

same tension as communication between strangers, since there will

be an extensive overlap of domain It is where domains are

distinct and at some degree of distance from each other that

difficulties arise " (p 9) Thus many communication breakdowns

between strangers can be attributed to dissimilarities between two

cultures

Robinson (1988) points out that the studies of Gumperz, Jupp

and Roberts (1979) support the idea that differences of speech

conventions contribute to misunderstandings The researchers, he

134
argues, suggest that communication breakdowns between people from

different ethnic groups occur due to three major differences

(1) Different assumptions regarding the situation and the

appropriate behaviour associated with it

(2) Different ways of arranging information or building up an

argument This difference relates to discourse strategies For

example, m Arab culture, it is usually inappropriate to go

straight to the point when discussing serious matters, in other

cultures, like the British, 'beating around the bush* is not

common

(3) The use of a different set of linguistic conventions such as

intonation (p 55)

To the above three, I would add

(4) The use of a different set of paralmguistic features such as

gestures,facial expressions, signals, silence periods etc The

best example here is the commonly used example of a 'nod' in Greek

meaning 'no* instead of 'yes' Another example is that physical

contact is a sign of friendliness m some cultures and

over-familiarity in others

135
 Brumfit (1985) points out that when a child learns to

communicate m his or her mother tongue, he or she at the same

time learns the "culturally appropriate ways of thinking" (p 4)

This means that people from different cultures have different ways

of thinking and , therefore, communication problems can arise

Varonis and Gass (1985) argue that misunderstandings between

native and non-native speakers are so common because they do not

know each other and they do not share the same background They

may have different modes of perception, customs, notions of what

is appropriate etc consequently, m conversations between native

and non-native speakers "there are more clarification requests,

repetitions, expansions and elaborations" (pp 327-8)

In order to illustrate how misunderstanding and inappropriate

language behaviour could occur when communicating in a foreign

language, it is worth looking at two specific speech acts the act

of apologizing and the act of complimenting Olshtain (1983)

argues that apologies are called for when someone's behaviour has

violated a certain social norm The act of apology, he argues,

can be realized in five major semantic formulas

1 An expression of apology such as "I'm sorry" or "I apologize"

Olshtain argues that there are sociocultural rules which govern

the use of one form rather than the other in a specific situation

136
2 An explanation or an account of the situation which caused the

offense like saying "There was a terrible traffic jam", to

apologize for being late

3 An acknowledgement of responsibility such as "It's my fault "

4 An offer of repair such as suggesting to provide payment when

actual damage occurs

5 A promise of forbearance m which the apologizer promises that

the offense will not happen again (p 236)

Olshtam argues that these formulas are available in all

languages but the choice of one formula rather than the other is

language-specific He points out that m language A it might be

culturally appropriate to always choose one semantic formula

(e g , expressing an apology) for a specific situation while m

language B another semantic formula ( e g , giving an explanation)

is quite possible It is likely therefore that a speaker of A

learning B to make violations of the rules of apology When an

English speaker is late for a meeting, he or she would usually

give an expression of apology that could be followed by an

explanation Unlike the English speaker, a Hebrew speaker often

provides an explanation only (ibid 237)

137
 Olshtam also argues that violations of sociocultural rules

concerning the act of apology are likely to occur in three cases

1 The learner might deviate from the accepted norm when choosing

a semantic formula for a specific situation

2 The learner might choose a combination of semantic formats

which is inappropriate for a specific situation

3 The learner might perform the speech act at a level of

intensity inappropriate m relation to the particular offence

(Ibid 237) For example, it might be accepted m language A to

simply say "I’m sorry" for an offence which m language B could

require a higher level of intensity like "I'm terribly sorry"

Moreover, what is considered an offence m one culture is not

necessarily considered so m another Not visiting one's mother

in hospital, for example, is a situation which calls for

intensive apology and explanation m Arab culture In British, or

the Western cultures m general, sending a bunch of flowers or

expressing a simple apology is generally acceptable This

argument shows that misunderstandings are most likely to occur

when two cultures come into contact

The second example which we will examine in order to show how

different cultures differ in the values they assign to speech acts

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is the act of complimenting Holmes and Brown (1987) write that

"Paying appropriate compliments and identifying them accurately is

an aspect of communicative competence which may differ m a

variety of ways from one culture to another " (p 523) They

provided and analysed a number of examples involving people from

different cultural backgrounds Their assumption was that there

is evidence that paying compliments m English is a bothersome

aspect for learners from different cultures They argue that

Wolfson (1986) noted that some learners find it difficult to

understand why Americans pay so many compliments Wolfson

reported that m Indonesian culture compliments are comparatively

rare Holmes and Brown also point out that Malaysian students in

New Zealand commented that they found the frequency of compliments

among New Zealanders very surprising Wolfson points out that in

some cases people from different cultures would not agree on "what

counts as a compliment" (p 525) Consider the following example

which Holmes and Brown provide

Complimenter what a big family you have

Recipient Yes, but it has its advantages, too

They explain that the complimenter is from a culture where big

families are considered an advantage The recipient is a New

Zealander who takes the visitor’s compliment as a critical remark

(ibid 527)

139
 Holmes and Brown explain that the reason for misunderstanding

in the previous example is that the recipient failed to understand

the illocutionary force of the utterance, that is the function

which the utterance is intended to serve Wolfson (1986) mentions

an interesting example A foreign student complimented a British

teacher that she was old and fat (p 119)It is obvious that in

the student's culture a fat person is considered healthy and

good-looking, and old age is associated with wisdom and knowledge

So the illocutionary force of the student's utterance probably was

that the teacher was wise and good-looking

Brumfit (1985) mentions that "I must havea drink"implies, at

least in Britain, an alcoholic drink (p11) But m a

non-alcohol-drinking society this speech act usually means a soft

drink To provide another example, the English leavetaking speech

act "See you" could be interpreted by an Arab addressee to mean

that the speaker really will see the hearer at some other time

But the speech act is not a genuine wish to seethe other person

and could be said by someone who would never seethe hearer again

Thus a potential source of communication failure is

misunderstanding of the illocutionary value of speech acts

Another source of failure or offence, as Holmes and Brown argue,

which can be attributed to inadequate cultural knowledge is the

140
choice of the wrong strategy to convey a speech act in a given

situation (ibid 528) They provide the following example where a

Malaysian student compliments his university female teacher when

she enters the classroom

Complimenter You are wearing a very lovely dress It fits

you

Recipient Oh— thank you

They explain that the student meant "suits you" However, the

teacher reported that she was taken aback and commented that to

receive such a compliment from a male student seemed too familiar

(ibid 526)

Holmes and Brown mention a third source of inappropriate

language behaviour concerning compliments "Knowing whether a

compliment is appropriate at all" In the following example they

provide, a four-year old girl on a bus loudly addresses an old

woman with whom she is not familiar

Complimenter That's a nice hat

Recipient Oh—thank you

They report that the woman was embarrassed and so was the the

girl's mother The girl selected the right strategy but she was

not yet aware of other situational factors such as her

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relationship with the addressee and "the publicity of the

situation" (ibid 528) Another example where a speech act is not

possible can be provided At least in Arab culture, inviting one's

parents to one’s wedding celebration is quite unusual since they

are most often involved m the preparation for the celebration

Inviting them would be treating them like strangers

Furthermore, Holmes and Brown touch on an important aspect of

the ability to pay appropriate compliments the choice of topics

which may be the focus of a compliment Although compliment

topics such as appearance, ability and possession could be

universal, yet who compliments whom on a certain topic is often

culture-specific They report that New Zealand men receive

compliments on their appearance but the vast majority of them

comes from women But although New Zealand and American men

hardly compliment each other, the appearance of American men seems

to be an inappropriate topic of compliment either from men or

women (ibid 533)

The argument and the examples provided above show that

miscommunication is likely to occur among members of different

cultural backgrounds The reason for this, as we have seen, is

that there could be considerable differences in the ways cultures

encode meaning in language and how they perceive reality

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5 4 Sources of cultural differences

In this section we attempt to show the ways m which cultures

differ and the grounds or reasons for the these differences

Bnslm et al (1986) provide apossible framework for

understanding cultural differences Although this framework is

not intended to serve language teaching purposes, it can be

extremely useful for our discussionBris l m et al discuss five

variables which they believe to be the bases of cultural

differences, viz , categorization, differentiation, the

ingroup-outgroup distinction, learning styles and attribution

Categorization is the process whereby people divide, group and

categorize the material and emotional world into easily

recognizable units As Bris l m et al argue, people divide foods

into categories like meats, breads, fruits etc , animals into

domestic and wild, people into children, elderly, men and women

etc Their argument is that people from different cultural

backgrounds categorize their experience in different ways and,

subsequently, misunderstandings could occur due to different

expectations and perceptions of the same social reality

(ibid 306-7)

For example, because social roles of men and women are

categorized differently in different cultures, people from

143
strongly male-dominated societies view the roles of women m less

male-dominated societies as inappropriate because "they behave

like men" This occurs because a particular woman's role in

culture A, e g , 'bus driver", is categorized as a man's role m

culture B

As for the differentiation variable, Bris l m et al define

differentiation as "the seperations people make w i t h m a concept"

(ibid 311) For example, the Arabs distinguish among horses in

terms of breed, age, colour etc , the Eskimos distinguish among

different types of snow, the English distinguish fog from mist

B r i s l m et al argue that when a foreigner does not make the same

distinction as the natives, "misunderstanding and ill feeling can

result " (Ibid 311) For example, a foreigner m the South Sea

Islands will be astonished to be asked to specify what he or she

exactly wants if he or she wants to buy some coconut The reason

for this is that people there» as Brislm et al note, "have no

one word for coconut but numerous words depending on the function

or state of the particular part of the coconut indicated "

(Ibid 276)

Another reason for cultural differences and a potential source

of miscommunication between members of different cultural

backgrounds is the perception of the ingroup-outgroup distinction

By an mgroup they refer to "those people with whom an individual

feels comfortable and secure " On the other hand, an outgroup

144
"refers to people who are excluded as much as possible from one's

everyday experience " (Ibid 314) But who is considered a member

of an ingroup differs among cultures and could cause

misunderstanding Brislin et al supply a pertinent example An

American arrives m Greece and is received by host coworkers

Surprisingly the Greek coworkers started asking the American

personal questions related to salary, family, religion, and

political opinions However, the Greeks treated the American as

a member of the ingroup while the American's perception of the

incident was invasion of privacy from members of the outgroup

The result was that the American formed a negative attitude

towards Greeks and did not make any further contact (ibid 315)

The fourth basis for cultural differences which B n s l m et al

consider is learning styles (ibid 316-8) Learning styles refer

to the ways m which people learn and how they were taught how to

learn Students who are exposed to new learning styles m a

foreign country could be frustrated by the new learning experience

and nurture negative attitudes towards the whole institution For

example, Students who come from countries m which foreign

language teaching is heavily teacher-centred will experience a

different approach in countries where learning is learner-centred

These students sometimes feel disappointed and believe the the

teacher is not doing his or her job very well simply because he or

she is letting them work on their own most of the time

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 The final variable provided by B r i s l m et al is attribution

Attribution is "the conclusions we make after observing behaviour

whether other people (or the observers themselves) are competent,

well-mtentioned, effective, naive and so forth "(Ibid 319)

An example of misunderstanding due to wrong attribution is that

touching a person during a conversation is considered a sexual

advance m some cultures and a sign of friendliness m others

Furthermore, Richards and Sukwiwat (1985) maintain that there

are five major areas of difficulty m learning conversational

competence m a foreign language (1) differences m social

situations, (2) different routines associated with the same

situation, (3) different functions of the same social routine,

(4) using a correct routine m the wrong situation, and (5)

different conditions for the performance of a routine

Concerning the first question Richards and Sukwiwat argue that

such situations as meals, weddings, funerals are common across

cultures But there are situations which are specific to a

particular culture, e g , "at the pub" m Britain or visiting

elders and family members on Chinese New Year m china (p 131)

Other examples are baptism and first communion in Christian

societies, Thanksgiving in theUnited States, or Ramadan in

Islamic societies

146
 As for the second question, they argue that even when the

situations are the same the social routines which accompany them

are different They point out that routines which accompany

speech acts may differ For example, a compliment is acknowledged

with thanks m English but in Thai culture a person may not

respond verbally because "this might not sound suitably humble"

(Ibid 132) Although social situations such as weddings, visits

or meals are universal, the conventions associated with them may

differ across cultures An Arab host or hostess repeatedly uses a

variety of utterances over a meal to make sure that guests are

eating well and feeling comfortable

Regarding the question of different functions m two languages

of the same routine, Richards and Sukwiwat argue that in English

"Thank you" may be used to express gratitude But m Japanese the

equivalent does not sound sincere enough and thus Japanese

speakers usually add "I’m sorry" They also mention that the

English routines "You are welcome, Don't mention it, Not at all,

It doesn't matter, and Never mind" have one routine speech act in

Thai Therefore Thais using English produce such errors as

Boss Thanks a lot That was a great help

Secretary Never mind (Ibid 132-3)

Concerning the use of a correct routine in a wrong situation,

they argue that non-native speakers may overgeneralize and extend

147
the use of a social rule to situations where the rule does not

apply For example, "Nice to meet you" is generally accepted to

say when introduced to someone, but it is not appropriate for an

adult to say "Nice to meet you" when introduced to a child

(ibid 133)

As for the last question, there are conditions under which a

speech act can be performed These conditions, however, vary

across cultures for example, the French and the Japanese use a

routine speech act before eating, but the Japanese formula cannot

be used by the provider of the meal (ibid 133) Conditions for

the successful performance of speech acts can be related to

certain age or sex group In Arab culture at least, it is

inappropriate for a woman to make a marriage proposal to a man, it

is the man who should propose However, this argument and the

examples provided clearly illustrate the fact that if foreign

language learners are to perform successfully then they need to be

familiarized with sociocultural rules of languge discourse, which

m turn entails knowledge of the culture

5 5 Foreign language learning in a cross-cultural perspective

It is often argued that learning a language does not only involve

the learning of its sound system, structural patterns and

semantic rules but also the learning of culturally accepted modes

of thinking and behaviour Kim (1988) argues that to learn a

foreign language "is to learn not only the linguistic code 'per

148
se' but also to gain access to the accumulated records of the host

cultural experience To be proficient in the host language

requires an understanding of not only its phonetic, syntactic,

and semantic rules but also its pragmatic rules11 (emphasis added)

(p 89) This view was also expressed by B n s l m et al (1986)

They write "a language often represents a world view of a people

and as such reflects important concepts and modes of thinking"

(P 277)

As we always emphasize, communicative competence theories were

developed within a sociocultural framework of language and

communication Hymes developed his theory of communicative

competence from an ethnographic perspective with a theory of

communication and culture in mind Halliday's theory of meaning

potential was developed with reference to semiotics and

pragmatics And Widdowson's term 'capacity' expressed an

ethnomethodological approach to the study of language (See Chapter

II)

However, the relation of language to culture can be better

understood if we perceive the relation of social behaviour to

culture Human social behaviour is regulated and evaluated in

terms of the prescriptions of particular cultures concerning what

is appropriate and inappropriate Language behaviour, as

Halliday notes, is mostly social behaviour Therefore, language

behaviour is subject to the same rules which govern social

behaviour Thus learning to communicate successfully or

developing communicative competence involves learning how to

behave m a culturally appropriate manner Halliday expresses the

relation of language behaviour to social behaviour in terms of

"saying" and "doing", saying something is a form of doing

something

Communicative language teaching aims to teach learners how to

communicate effectively m the target language It is important,

therefore, that learners have subtle knowledge of communication

rules Kim defines communication rules as "a coherent system of

expected patterns of behaviour that serves to organize interaction

among individuals " These rules govern all levels of behaviour

whether verbal or non-verbal Communication rules are cultural

rules because "Culture provides the 'rules of the game’ that

enable individuals to make sense of events, activities, actions,

and behaviors " (Ibid 92)

Communication is the most important aspect of individuals'

social being It is through communication that we learn how to

adapt to our environment and undergo and participate in the

process of socialization Kim emphasizes the importance of

communication as a means of socialization He argues that

"through communication we learn to relate to our

environment Through continuous interaction with the various

aspects of the environment, individuals undergo a progression of

150
stages, integrating numerous culturally accepted concepts,

attitudes, and actions into themselves " (Ibid 45) Thus

communication is culture-bound, and if language is primarily

communication and communication is mostly carried out through

language, then language is bound by the same rules which govern

communication and serves the same functions that communication

serves Consequently, learning a foreign language requires a

degree of acculturation, 1 e , becoming adapted to the world

views, modes of thinking, behavioural patterns, customs and

assumptions of the target culture The keys of successful

communication m a foreign language are those which open the doors

of the cultural edifice

Hendon (1980) says "If we teach a foreign language without

introducing at the same time the culture in which that language

operates, we are merely conveying words to which the student

attaches the wrong meaning " (Quoted m Winfield and Barnes -

Felfeli 1982 373) However, this concern with associating a

language with a culture is not a recent concern Politzer (1959)

Wrote

As language teachers we must be interested in the study of

culture (in the social scientist's sense of the word) not
because we want to teach the culture of the other country
but because we have to teach it If we teach language
without teaching at the same time the culture in which it
operates, we are teaching meaningless symbols or symbols to
which the student attaches the wrong meaning (Quoted m
Brooks 1986 123)

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 Moreover, we should mention here that the argument for

associating language learning with culture learning poses two

controversial questions do all learners of other languages need

to undergo the process of acculturation7 And, m the case of

English, which linguistic and cultural norm is the model for

language learning7 Before we attempt to answer these questions,

we should refer to the distinction between a foreign and a second

language A foreign language is a language which is neither the

mother tongue nor the official language or one of the official

languages of a speech community, e g , English m the Middle

East, China, Japan, Europe etc On the other hand, a second

language is not the mother tongue but the official or one of the

official languages of a country, e g , English in India,

Pakistan, Nigeria etc , Irish m Ireland or French in Algeria

Furthermore we will use the term "other languages" to refer to

both foreign and second languages

To touch on the first question, we can say that it is not

reasonable to argue that all learners of other languages need to

learn another culture In a number of his works (e g , 1983,

1986) Kachru shows that non-native varieties of English have been

de-Anglicized" and "de-Americanized" reflecting a new

sociocultural reality Kachru (1986) writes "English is thus a

medium that m its various manifestations, East an West, results

m cultural adaptations In South Asia, it connotes the Indian,

152
Lankan, orPakistani ways of life and pattern of education and

administration The nativized formal characteristics acquire a new

pragmatic context, a new defining context, culturally very remote

from that of Britain or America " (p 92)Therefore, learners of

English in India, Pakistan or Kenya do not require the

acculturation process m order to have command of English, unless

they are aspiring to a native model or seeking integration with

native speakers But how many speakers of nativized varieties have

learnt English m order to interact with native speakers?

Kachru points out that members of the Indian English speech

community use English mainly m the sociocultural context of

India, where interaction is basically among Indians who use

English as lingua franca He explains that only a minimal

fraction of Indian English users have any interaction with native

speakers In a survey which he carried out, Kachru showed that

65 64 percent of the graduate faculty of English in the

universities and colleges which he surveyed had only occasional

interaction with native speakers, and 11 79 percent had no

interaction Only 5 12 claim to have regular interaction with

native speakers (ibid 110) In a context like this, it is absurd

to argue that Indian learners of English need to learn a second

culture or undergo the acculturation process In the Indian

context, and in the context of many other no-native varieties,

153
acculturation denotes a different sense. Acculturation here is

the nativization process, as Kachru points out, which English has

undergone in a new linguistic and sociocultural ecology. It

refers to the language being "localized" and not to the learner

becoming adapted to another culture.

Another aspect of language and culture learning is the question

of learner resistance. During the colonial period, English was

associated with colonialism in the British colonies. Reactions to

the English language and culture were important for preserving a

cultural identity. For this reason, and several others, a

deviation from a native model, as Kachru maintains, was

inevitable. He argues that in some cases "the recognition of a

localized norm is used as a defense mechanism to reduce the

'Colonial' and 'Western1 connotations associated with English." In

Nigeria, Bamgbose points out, and Kachru mentions, that Nigerians

who speak like native speakers are considered snobbish. In Ghana,

an educated Ghannian is supposed to use the nativized educated

variety of English. Kachru also notes that in South Asia there is

a reaction to standards such as RP and GA (Received Pronunciation

and General American English respectively) (ibid:97-8).

This argument apparently contradicts our call for teaching the

target culture with the target language. But this is only a

seeming contradiction. What is important here is the distinction

between a second and a foreign language. In countries where

154
English is used as a second language, learning a second culture,

as we have seen, is out of question for the simple reason that the

model for language learning is not a British, American, Irish or

any other outside model It is a nativized model by and large

But m many parts of the world English is taught as a foreign

language In these contexts , learning a foreign culture is a

prerequisite of learning a foreign language unless we want to

isolate language from its sociocultural ecology Therefore, we

can say that foreign language learning requires a degree of

acculturation for reasons we have explained throughout this

chapter Acculturation,however, does not mean losing one's

cultural identity, it implies open-mindedness towards a different

culture and understanding of the fact that different people think,

behave and do things m ways different from ours and the ways in

which we think, behave and do things are not universally accepted

We now turn to the second question which norm is the model for

language learning? We have to state first that by a norm we refer

to a linguistic as well as a cultural norm simultaneously, that is

to a language variety and its cultural context English is a

multi-cultural language Which is the cultural model that we have

to introduce to students learning English7 Obviously, this

question was partly answered m the preceding discussion Where

English is a second language, the model is not a native model As

155
we have seen m the attitudes of speakers of English as a second

language, and as Kachru notes, "an unrealistic adherence to an

ex-normative standard is clearly not attitudmally desirable "

(Ibid 97)

But which is the model in the case of English as a foreign

language? To provide a simple answer, we can say that what

determines the choice of a cultural model is the choice of a

linguistic model For example, if the aim is to teach standard

British English, then British culture is the model And if the

aim is to teach Irish English, then the model is Irish culture and

so on and so forth But what are the factor which determine the

selection of a particular variety of English? Undoubtedly,

personal factors play a part In Syria for example, teachers who

were trained in the United States tend to teach American English,

and teachers who were educated in Britain would like to teach

British English However, pedagogical considerations play, or

should play, a significant part m the choice of a model When

feasible, the choice should be based on a careful analysis of

learner needs If a group of learners are to move to Ireland, for

example, to further their education, then the Irish language and

culture model should be presented We should mention here that if

the choice of a model is based on learner needs, then a model

could be a non-native model For instance, if students are

156
learning English to interact with Indians using English, then

Indian English and culture should be the model In other words,

specific learner needs should be taken into account and

appropriate cultural models should be presented

In some cases the situation is less clear This occurs when

learner needs analysis does not inform the teacher of which model

to use In the Middle East, for example Syria, the teacher

should m this case choose a native model, a non-native model

being out of question, except m very rare situations, because of

the limited scientific and educational co-operation between Syria

and Third World English-speaking nations In other words, a

non-native model is not needed because interaction mainly occurs

with native speakers In this case the teacher is free to choose

whichever Western model depending on personal considerations But

he or she should pay attention to introducing the language and

culture model with emphasis on those common sociocultural routines

and beliefs which underlie the use of English m all Western

English-speaking countries Moreover, at more advanced levels of

proficiency, the teacher could introduce more than one model

because the ability to understand more than one variety of a

language is an important aspect of communicative competence which

our classrooms claim to teach

5 6 Empirical evidence

In this section we review some studies which showed that language

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learning can be facilitated by learners’ knowledge of underlying

cultural presuppositions Winfield and Barnes- Felfeli (1982)

investigate the effects of familiarity with the cultural context

on ESL reading They argue that recent research supports the

position that writing can be facilitated if the student is

familiar with the cultural context of the subject-matter They

also point out that evidence from cognitive psychology shows that

fluency may be impeded when individuals work at unfamiliar topics

(pp 373-4) However, the position of the writers is contrary to

our position Their view is that "in choosing topics for writing

exercises attention should be placed upon selecting themes drawn

from known contexts or themes that can be directly related to

personal experience " (Ibid 377) This implies that writing topics

should not be drawn from the context of the target culture because

students may not be familiar with them, the thing that impedes

their performance

But what concerns us here is the finding that familiarity with

the cultural context of writing topics was an important determiner

of fluency m writing Thus if we familiarize our students with

the cultural context of their writing topics, then their writing

will be facilitated

Furthermore, there is argument for the assumption that the

greater the difference between two cultures is the more difficult

language learning will be It could be argued that it is easier

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for an English person to learn German than it is for a Turk or an

Arab Likewise, it is easier for a Turk to learn Arabic than it

is for a German or an English person Osterlo (1986) argues that

"Between societies of greatly differing socioeconomic structures,

however, intercultural differences play a significant role when

members of one culture learn the language of the other " He points

out that a German, for example, does not require to learn a new

social strategy if he or she wants to learn how to welcome a

friend in French But for a Senegalese the case is different

because welcoming a friend m the Senegalese social experience

could easily extend over a period of a quarter of an hour's time

(P 77 )

Svanes (1987) makes the same argument He says "It is

reasonable to assume that the more one has m common with the

target language group, the easier it will be to learn the

language " He also argues that "If the TL belongs to the same type

of language as the mother tongue, this will facilitate language

learning And if one is familiar with the culture of the host

country, the easier it will be to communicate, and this again will

promote language learning 11 (p 343)

It is interesting to notice that closeness of languages is most

often associated with closeness of cultures For instance, The

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Arabs and the Turks have similar languages and cultures Also

Western Europeans have similar languages and cultures Thus

learners from either group of languages learning the language of

the other group will be travelling a linguistic and cultural

distance

Svanes (1987) conducted a study involving 167 foreign students

from 27 countries learning Norwegian m Norway The aim of the

study was to find out if differences m language proficiency among

groups of students from different countries can be accounted for

by motivational factors or by cultural difference The students

were divided into four groups based on their familiarity with

Western culture and language Thus the first group included 25

Europeans who all spoke two or more European languages and

belonged to "a common European cultural tradition " The second

group included 35 American students who have English as their

first language and culturally have much m common with the

Europeans

The third group involved 13 African students who come from

countries which were French or British colonies Those students

are exposed to Western culture through their education in their

countries because English or French is the official or second

language This group also included 23 students from the Kiddle

East (Lebanon, Palestine, Turkey and Iran)

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 In group four were Asian students from Bangladesh, Pakistan,

Sri Lanka and Vietnam These students are less exposed to Western

culture than the other groups

The students' motivation for studying Norwegian was assessed by

means of a questionnaire and the study used examination grades to

measure the students' proficiency levels m all language skills

Concerning motivation, as Svanes reports, the study found that

the European and American students were more mtegratively

motivated than the two other groups who were more instrumentally

motivated Concerning proficiency the results of the study showed

that European and American students scored the highest grades,

Middle Eastern/African students scored third highest and Asian

students scored the lowest grades

Svanes argues that there seem to be a positive corrolation

between integrative motivation and grades, and a negative

corrolation between instrumental motivation and grades However,

to check the truth of this, Svanes examined the relation of

grades to the two types of motivation within each group The

result was that "No significant positive corrolations between

grades and the two motivational variables were found " (p 352) On

the contrary, a negative corrolation between grades and

integrative motivation was found in the American group Svanes

showed that only of of the difference m grades can be

accounted for by integrative motivation Integrative and

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instrumental motivation together accounted for 9jt o f the variance

m grades But the two motivational variables and the cultural

distance variable accounted for 23% Thus "difference in grades

between the different groups cannot be explained by motivational

factors So if type of motivation is not an important factor in

proficiency, what is the crucial factor? Obviously, as this

study showed, the cultural variable is the most important Svanes

writes "This may point to the conclusion that although

motivation is an important factor m the acquisition of a second

language, type of motivation is of less importance in groups of

adult university students, who are all well motivated In this

context 'cultural distance' has been found to be the predictor of

second language proficiency " (Ibid 355- 7)

Another support for the assumption that familiarity with the

cultural content facilitates learning and promotes communicative

competence comes from Floyd and Carrell (1987), who investigated

the effects of knowledge of the cultural background of a text on

the learners' reading comprehension Floyd and Carrell also

reported the results of similar studies They mention that

Gatbonton and Tucker (1971) demonstrated that "due to cultural

misunderstandings, EFL students drew incorrect assumptions when

reading unfamiliar texts, however, when provided by pertinent

cultural information their performance increased significantly 11

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 They also mention a study by Johnson (1981) which showed that

"the cultural origin of a text has a greater effect on ESL reading

comprehension than does linguistic complexity " (p 89) As for

Floyd's and Carrell's study we will concern ourselves with the

conclusions only because limited space does not permit a

description of the detailed procedures of the study The basic

findings and conclusions of the study can be listed as follows

1 Background Knowledge relevant to reading comprehension can be

taught in the classroom, and this increases comprehension

2 Knowledge of the cultural background of a text has greater

effect on reading comprehension than syntactic complexity

3 Cultural content is very significant m the reading classroom

and should be explicitly taught

4 The ESL reading teacher should be a teacher of the culturally

relevant content

5 ESL students need to be exposed to activities which could aid

their acquisition of culturally appropriate information outside

the classroom

6 Having appropriate background knowledge of a text is as

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important for scientific texts as for culture-specific texts

(ibid 103-5)

Moreover, although the results of this study were restricted

to reading comprehension, there is no reason why the results

cannot be valid for other language skills

5 7 Conclusion

In this chapter we have investigated the relation of language to

culture as far as language use is concerned We have seen that

language and culture are inseparable because language use reflects

a way of life, a mode of thinking, philosophical and moral

presuppositions etc We have found evidence for the hypothesis

that language learning can be facilitated by familiarity with the

target culture Hence our ultimate conclusion is that foreign

language learning should take place within the context of the

target culture If we aim to create in learners an ability for

language use or promote their communicative competence, then

introducing the culture to the classroom should be a major concern

of communicative language teaching But how can culture be

taught? A few suggestions will be put forward in the final

chapter

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 Chapter Six

Teaching grammatical and cultural competence

The theme of this chapter is twofold first, we shall discuss

the position of grammar m communicative teaching and suggest some

criteria for the design and implementation of grammar tasks

Second, we consider possible ways of teaching cultural

competence We should stress, however, that the question of

grammar should not be seen as irrelevant to a concern with

communicative competence Throughout the chapters our view has

been that communicative competence is a total ability and

knowledge Therefore, all areas of knowledge and skill are

important for the ability to use language for successful

communication Furthermore, in theories of communicative

competence and meaning potential, grammar is recognized as an

important factor According to Hymes, "what is formally possible"

or linguistic competence is a sector of communicative competence

And for Halliday "lexico-grammatical competence" is the

realization of meaning potential (see Chapter two)

6 1 Systematic competence and the dilemma of grammar teaching

The rise of communicative approaches was accompanied by a shift of

attention from grammar to language functions The failure of

grammatically-orientated teaching to lead to a communicative

ability has resulted in a great deal of scepticism about the

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validity of grammar teaching Dickms and Woods (1988) point out

that "the rise of the notional/functional/ communicative

curriculum has sometimes been accompanied by a devaluation of

grammar as one of the organizing principles m commercially

available language-learning materials " (p 623)

This devaluation of grammar was expressed m claims that we

should not devote much time (if any) to the teaching of grammar

and that grammar should not be taught for its own sake beacause

learners' explicit knowledge of grammar will not automatically be

used by them m natural communication (c f Garret 1986 133)

However, the question of grammar recently has been the subject of

much controversy among language teaching practitioners Dealing

with aspects of this controversy is not our aim and is beyond the

scope of this section The limitations of space require us to

narrow down the field of inquiry to specific issues

non-traditional views of grammar, why we need grammar

instruction, and classroom implications

There are several reasons for our interest m grammar here

First, grammatical competence, as we have mentioned earlier, is an

essential component of overall communicative competence Second,

because of over-emphasis on language functions and getting

messages across, as Garret (1986) argues, "students who have

been encouraged not to worry about grammar may develop a kind of

irremediably inaccurate fluency " (p 133) Third, some problems

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faced by many overseas students m tertiary education, as Dickms

and Woods (1988) note, "arose from their need to communicate at a

rather sophisticated level m English when their linguistic

competence was at a very low level " (p 623)

Canale and S w a m (1980) point out that communicative competence

theories grouped under the heading of "basic communication skills"

(see 2 2) emphasized getting one's message across over grammatical

accuracy One reason for this was the assumption that, as in the

case of first language development, second language errors will

disappear at a later stage Canale and S w a m argue that there is

"no strong theoretical reason for emphasizing getting one’s

message across over grammatical accuracy at the early stages of

language learning " (p 14) On the contrary they provide three

good reasons for not doing so First, not all second language

learners' grammatical errors, such as interference errors, are

the same as those made by first language acquirers First language

acquirers' inaccuracies will be eradicated at a later stage of

development, but not all second language learners' errors are

likely to follow the same route If we do not attend to

grammatical acccuracy, we run the risk of allowing many errors to

fossilize (We will touch on the problem of fossilization later

in this chapter)

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 Second, there is no evidence to suggest that adolescent and

adult second language learners are willing to be exclusively

interested m getting their messages across Canale and Swain

refer to Savignon (1972), who found that college students m

classes which emphasize getting meaning across showed a decline m

integrative motivation compared with students from classes where

putting one's message across was not emphasized on the behalf of

their developing a sense of grammatical correctness

Third, they argue that "it is not clear that second language

learners will develop grammatical accuracy m the course of their

second language programme if emphasis is not put on this aspect

from the start It may be that certain grammatical inaccuracies

will tend to 'fossilize' (ibid 11)

There is certainly a pedagogical risk m a communicative

approach which over-emphasizes communicative functions, getting

one's meaning across, or fluency Brumfit (1984) recommends a

communicative approach based on the fundamental polarity of

accuracy and fluency (For the discussion of the terms accuracy

and fluency see 2 3) He argues that concern with fluency should

not prevent teachers from showing a concern with accuracy

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 Furthermore, there is evidence to suggest that lack of

attention to grammatical accuracy is potentially risky Marton

(1988) mentions Omaggio, who described a number of empirical

studies concerning the assessment of proficiency of students of

the CIA Language School Reporting Omaggio’s conclusion Marton

writes

First of all, fossilized lexical and grammatical items

acquired m the beginning stages of language study are
generally not remediable, and that learners using a highly
inaccurate, pidginized version of the target language
usually become 'terminal cases' and achieve a very low
proficiency level, never attaining the linguistic skills
needed to meet minimum job requirements (p 52)

The "push towards communication" characteristic of most

communicative approaches has many critics who are strongly m

favour of communicative approaches Marton referes to Eskey

(1983), who argued that knowledge of a language is not simply the

ability to get things done m the language Eskey writes

Knowing English, for example, ought to mean more than

being good at finding ways to get things done in the
language If I point to my mouth and shout "Whiskey’
Whiskey«" urgently enough, I succeed in the function of
ordering a drink, but this hardly qualifies as a successful
demonstration of what we normally mean by having learnt to
speak English (Quoted in Marton 1988 53)

Moreover, Marton considers the problem of fluent, but

inaccurate language production, which is a likely consequence of

what he calls "the communicative teaching strategy", from a social

perspective the attitude of native speakers towards this kind of

language He reports that some studies related to this problem

were summarized by Omaggio She concluded that lexical and

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grammatical items were found to be most hindering to communication

among all error types, and that native speakers differ m their

acceptance of certain errors Marton argues that social roles of

foreign speakers are an important factor m native speakers

tolerance of errors For example, a tourist is not expected to

acquire the same degree of accuracy as a scholar or a politician

Scholars or diplomats lexical and grammatical erroneousness could

seriously irritate addressees and influence their opinion of them

"It can be concluded that allowing our learners to use a highly

inaccurate version of the target language, full of fossilized

errors, may not only arrest their linguistic development at some

fairly low level of proficiency, but it may also stigmatize them

socially in certain types of encounter with native speakers "

(Ibid 53)

The value of the above argument is to establish the importance

of grammar in communicative teaching and to call for a balanced

approach which attends to both accuracy and fluency, and

consequently, avoid the pedagogical risks associated with

over-emphasis on communication and language functions However it

is important to stress that by grammar we mean communicative

grammar

Dickins and Woods (1988) use the term grammar m a

non-traditional sense According to them grammar does not only

make possible the grouping of words into certain patterns, but

170
also allows us the choice of which combinations to use They

provide the example of choosing between saying "To be, or not to

bethat is the question” and "The question is whether to be or

not to be " They argue that the first structure chosen by Hamlet

is an elegant expression of meaning which may not be suitable to

convey the same meaning or message m some other situation So

grammatical choices are made "with the purpose of enhancing the

message to be conveyed, so that its interpretation by the receiver

will be not only accurate with regard to meaning but also made

with an awareness of the attitude of the speaker " (p 627-8) In

this sense grammar is extended beyond the level of single

utterances to discourse level Thus grammar rules, as they argue,

explain not only the use of forms m semantic terms only, but also

m pragmatic terms (ibid 629) Consider the following example

A We had a good time m Damascus

B It was a good time that we had in Damascus

In the two examples grammatical choice between A and B carries

pragmatic considerations While in A the speaker conveys a rather

neutral attitude, m B the speaker enhances the effectiveness of

the message and expresses a positive attitude towards the time

spent in Damascus and probably a feeling of nostalgia In this

sense grammar is more than accuracy It is a vehicle which

carries attitudinal tones and pragmatic considerations, and allows

the dynamics of stylistic choice

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 Dickins and Woods also argue that grammar is the means by which

we express past, present and future time through the use of

tenses Through grammar we also order information to show the

listener what the theme is or where the focus of information is

They provide the following example

The queen bee lays eggs m the honeycomb during the Summer

During the Summer, the queen bee lays eggs m the honeycomb

The grammatical choice m the first sentence tells what the

queen bee does during the Summer, while the second sentence tells

what happens during the Summer (ibid 631) To summarize what they

mean by grammar, Dickins and Woods write

We can say that grammar is the resource available to

indicate a number of elements crucial to the appropriate
and accurate interpretation of utterances (a) the
relationship between the participants in an interaction,
(b) the topic being discussed, (c) the time of the event,
(d) the mood of the utterance(s), and (e) the attitude
taken by the speaker Furthermore, within grammar, there
is constant interaction that brings all these functions
together to allow a full interpretation of the message
(Ibid 632-3)

It should be mentioned here that this view of grammar is

comparable to the view advanced by Rutherford (1987) andhis

discussion of grammatical consciousness-raising It is also

comparable to the view held by Crombie (1981) in her discussion of

the relational syllabus and how grammar can be incorporated to the

syllabus (see 3 6 5)

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 With regard to the incorporation of grammar to the language

teaching programme, Dickms and Woods put forward several criteria

for the design and implementation of communicative grammar tasks

First of all, they draw a distinction between the content and the

construct of grammar tasks By "content" they refer to the

grammatical content itself or "what is being presented to the

learner" By the construct of grammar tasks, on the other hand,

they refer to the process m which the grammatical content is to

be presented (ibid 633)

From a traditional standpoint grammar and communication, as

they point out, has always been two separate issues rather than

two complementary elements of language use The pedagogical

consequence of this view was that learners were presented with

exercises and encouraged to manipulate structures without any

consideration of how they function in the context m which they

occur Thus grammar is emphasized and communication is neglected

However, in contrast to the traditional view, current practices

emphasize communication and "In many cases, the functions of

grammar m the effective communication of ideas, beliefs,

feelings, and so on are ignored " (Ibid 633) To illustrate this

point they provide the following example from Draskau

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 Arrange m order of politeness (1= most, 10= lest polite)

You could open the window

You can open the window
please open the window
Why is the window closed7
X must ask you to open the window
Open the window
It's very hot m here
Can you open the window?
Could you open the window?
Open the window, please

Suggest other ways of making the request

How do your suggestions fit into the scale above?
Discuss your results with the other group
What do you notice about the word 'please1?

Dickins and Woods explain that this example presents learners

with a variety of ways to convey the act of requesting m varying

degrees of politeness But these requests are "presented as

discrete phrases" and the problem is that learners do not know

"why certain grammatical choices are made m favour of others m

the expression of a given communicative function " (ibid 634)

Dickins and Woods suggest that grammar tasks should illustrate

both content and construct The weakness of the above example is

that it presents the content without any consideration of the

construct, that is the way in which the grammatical content may be

appropriately presented to learners (ibid 635)

A key issue in their view of grammar is that it is not an end

m itself but rather a means for successful communication

Therefore, a communicative grammar task should develop in learners

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"(a) an awareness of grammatical choice and (b) the capacity to

make the appropriate choices according to given contextual

constraints In other words, a communicative grammar-learning

environment should facilitate the comprehension of how grammar

works m the conveying and interpretation of meaning "

(ibid 636) To demonstrate how this can be achieved, they provide

this example

In groups, examine the following text and see where you

think it can be improved by using the passive Give reasons
for the changes you make

If it is true that one can tell an area from its

notice-board, then one can easily find out if one would
like to live there Of course, one has to interpret the
messages carefully, and also consider them as a whole This
is necessary m order to avoid the situation where a minor
piece of exotica takes you in, although it isn't
representative of the notices as a whole Equally one
should not totally ignore the unusual notice, since this
may herald a new trend m the area While it is true that
one swallow doesn't make a Summer, one should remember that
a change has to start somewhere Often this affects older
districts which people have neglected and allowed to run
down Suddenly, because there are often quite cheap areas
to live in, some young people move into them and this
starts the change in the district

CHANGES TO BE MADE REASONS

Dickms and Woods explain that the merit of such a task is

that, unlike grammar exercises in which students are asked to

transform single active sentences into the passive, it presents

students with a whole task where they are invited to think and

account for whatever grammatical choices they make This type of

task provides the learner "with a more adequate linguistic

environment that more overtly integrates linguistic form with

175
communicative intention " Because of this, they insist that

learners should be familiarized with "contexts and situations m

which the application of grammatical rules m use may be

demonstrated" (ibid 636-9)

Finally, what we have tried to do m this section is first, to

give reason for our interest in grammar, second, to present a

communicative view of grammar, and third to consider some criteria

on which communicative grammar tasks can be designed and utilized

m the classroom However, it should be noted that I am not

suggesting a return to grammar-centred approaches But we should

not forget that the failure of traditional methods to lead to

proficiency was not because grammar is has no relevance to

language learners Grammar can be useful and taught for the

benefit of students, but only if we have a clear idea of what

grammar is and the appropriate methods of teaching it

6 2 Teaching cultural competence

Although the need for introducing culture to the foreign language

classroom has been emphasized and justified by many researchers,

and although communicative competence theories were developed m

order to assign a significant role for the cultural factors

involved m language acquisition, this need was not always met m

most communicative teaching Byram (1986) notes that despite the

significance of textbooks m language teaching, "Attention to

cultural studies dimension is often missing " (p 331) He

176
refers to Anderson and Risager (1981), who demand that textbooks

should give "a true experience of the society they claim to

represent " They argue, and Byram mentions, that "textbooks

often give the impression of ideological neutrality_ m both

cultural and linguistic terms_ but m fact any selection of

content or language variety carries ideological overtones "

(Ibid 331)

6 2 1 Coursebooks with a cultural focus

It should be mentioned, however, that a few attempts have been

made to devise textbooks which exemplify an interest in the

cultural dimension of language learning Byram points out that

Hurman's (1977) textbook As Others See Us presents learners with a

series of materials which is intended to increase their cultural

understanding (ibid 333-4) But two of the important and recent

textbooks which have been written with a focus on culture and the

development of cultural competence in mind are The Culture Puzzle

by Levine et al (1987) and Irving's Communicating m Contexts

(1986)

Irving points out that Communicating m Contexts is based on

the view that "good communication skills depend on becoming

familiar with the cultural context to which language naturally

belongs " Irving believes that many communication failures are the

result of inadequate cultural knowledge rather than inadequate

linguistic competence Therefore, this book aims to "bridge the

177
gap between linguistic and cultural competence that often exists

for students who have already spent some time (m some cases,

years) studying the English language by focus on its linguistic

features instead of cultural features"

Irving begins each chapter with a few discussion questions and

a number of reading passages The rest of the chapter consists of

two sections Focus on Communication and Focus on Culture In

the first section the student is asked to paraphrase the passages

and then do some exercises on vocabulary and the use of idioms

These exercises are then followed by a cartoon which illustrates a

cultural point or provides more vocabulary exercises and

discussion questions The other section is intended for students

to practice intercultural communication by interviewing Americans

or non-native speakers of English on the topics of the passages

which introduce the focus of the chapter The chapters of the

book focus on values, social institutions, family relations and

other aspects of of American culture Amomg the topics which the

book covers are learning another language and another culture,

developing cross-cultural awareness and individualism m the

United States (See Appendix for examples)

The Culture Puzzle, fosters a view which integrates language

learning and culture learning Therefore, the book aims to provide

cultural understanding of aspects of American culture which

influence communication strategies and language use in the

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American context As the authors claim, The Culture Puzzle is a

coursebook "which integrates language learning and culture

learning It emphasizes cross-cultural knowledge and skill The

themes and content of the text provide an awareness of

cross-cultural communication " The writers acknowledge that

communication among members of different culture is likely to

create misunderstanding due to differences m the ways people

behave and think The book thus provides students with

opportunities to study examples of cultural differences m

communication As the authors point out the book "helps students

identify ways to avoid misinterpretations m their own interaction

with Americans and with people from other cultures" (p x m )

The book is divided into units, each unit containing several

chapters Each chapter contains eight sections (1) Chapter

Introduction, (2) Cross-Cultural Interactions, (3) Questions and

Discussion, (4) Interaction Summaries, (5) Focus on U S Culture,

(6) Exercise and Skill Practice, (7) Phrases and Expressions and

(8) U S and Cross-Cultural notes (See Appendix for an example)

The interest of the authors m teaching communication skills

and raising cultural awareness is clearly reflected m the

selection of topics addressing people, interacting in a group,

choosing conversation topics, understanding cultural differences

etc

179
 Furthermore, such books can be employed, together with other

materials, to raise learners' cultural awareness and to teach them

how to handle communication strategies m English Although these

two books can be used with all English learners as a part of their

language course, they can be particularly useful for students who

are to move to America for academic, occupational or other

purposes

6 2 2 Possible procedures for teaching cultural competence

It should be mentioned that although coursebooks like those

referred to above are effective means for teaching cultural

competence, teachers should not use them to the exclusion of other

means Cultural competence can be taught by employing a variety

of techniques and using a bank of other materials Brooks(1986)

describes a familiar device used frequently by teachers Teachers

devote some time at the start of a lesson to introduce a topic

which has not been previously introduced In this case teachers

draw attention to similarities and dissimilarities across cultures

among behavioural patterns associated with a particular situation

(p 123) But when teachers are not familiar with the students'

cultural background, they can only focus on the characteristic

routines of the speech event and allow students to identify

similarities and contrasts Brook listed a number of topics that

may be considered m the classroom As examples we quote the

following

180
 t

Greetings, friendly exchange, farewells How do friends

meet, converse friendly, take their leave What are the perennial

topics of small talks? How are strangers introduced?

Patterns of politeness What are the commonest formulas of

politeness and when should they be used?

Festivals What days of the calender year are officially

designated as national festivals? What are the central themes of

these occasions and what is the manner of their celebration?

Games What are the most popular games that are played

outdoors, indoors, by the young, by adults?

Appointments How are appointments for business and pleasure

made? What are the usual meeting places? How important is

punctuality?

Soft drinks and alcohol What type of nonalcoholic beverages

are usually consumed by young people and adults? What is the

attitude toward the use of beer, wine, and spirits? What

alcoholic drinks are in frequent use at home and in public?

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 Careers What careers have strong appeal for the young? How

important is parental example and advice m the choice of a

career (ibid 126-8)

Brook explains that such information can be acquired by

students through teacher's presentation Although this is

possible and useful, a better way of teaching such information,

we believe, is to assign learning tasks to groups of students m

which they are required to find out the appropriate cultural

behaviour related to such topics To aid the implementation of the

task, the teacher may guide students to sources of information

such as particular books m the library, television, friends and

relatives who have been to the target language community, etc The

value of such a procedure is that it gives learners responsibility

for their own learning, and is compatible with the view of a

learner- centred classroom

Another possible procedure for teaching the previously

mentioned and similar topics is to present learners with authentic

pieces of spoken or written discourse which centres around

particular communicative events It should be stressed, however,

that when teachers present students with such pieces of discourse,

it is important that they explain the situation in which they

occur, and the general cultural assumption underlying the

communicative event In more technical terms, teachers should

182
make sure that students have understood the "context of situation"

and the "context of culture" of the communicative event around

which the text centres (On the two types of context see 2 4) For

example, if students are to be given a written text entitled "At a

Dublin Pub", the teacher should specify the "context of situation"

by explaining, for instance, that a group of young men and women

arrange to meet at the pub on a Saturday night, order their drinks

and have a good time The teacher should also specify the

"context of culture" by providing information about the social

role of the pub as a meeting place m Ireland, the importance of a

Saturday night, the attitude of Irish people towards alcohol and

women, and any other relevant information In this case the

perfect interpretation of discourse will be rendered possible

This kind of presentation is extremely useful m the sense that

students will perceive that cultural knowledge is relevant and

aids their comprehension of instances of language use, and that

language use is contextualized, that is placed m its cultural

context However, such a method of presentation, we believe, is

absent from most communicative teaching When presented with a

text, albeit authentic, the student has only the immediate

situational factors (context of situation) at his or her disposal

It is the other side of the equation (context of culture) which is

often missing

183
6 2 3 Materials for teaching cultural competence

In addition to coursebooks teachers have a variety of sources of

cultural information available to them Newspapers are a rich and

continuously up-to-date vehicle for teaching cultural

understanding as well as many other aspects of language use In

this section we shall concentrate on a number of newspaper

features and the purposes for which they may be used in the

classroom

The front page Front pages can be used in the classroom to make

students aware of which topics or visuals would attract readers

and to which age or sex group they appeal (c f Blachford

1986 131)

The horoscope Blachford argues that the horoscope reveals how

much people believe m the supernatural and to what extent they

relate daily events to supernatural prophecies (ibid 131) In

addition to its value as a source of information about particular

patterns of belief, the horoscope can be amusing for students and

may trigger a discussion between believers and disbelievers m the

supernatural, and thus create a reason for communication

Sports pages From sports pages learners find out about the games

played in the target community, the most popular games, and the

attitude of the public towards sport

184
Readers1 letters Letters seeking professional advice on a

variety of problems are a source of information about the sort of

problem people pose, their attitude towards marriage, sexuality,

family relations and so on

Probably the most important facet of the newspaper is that it

offers a wide range of discourse and register Blachford notes

that "Within any newspaper is a variety of styles There is the

very formal editorial, the argument of the news analysis, the

slang or the sarcasm m a letter to the editor, the elliptical

phrasing of some colomnists, the truncated style of the headline,

the dialect of the comic strip " (Ibid 133) Although the same

newspaper presents a variety of styles, teachers could compare and

contrast quality and popular newspapers to show even a wider range

of styles, discourse and register Therefore , newspapers can be

used to sensitize learners to variation m language use and to

develop an ability to vary their speech and writing according to

the demands of the situation, an ability which is at the core of

communicative competence

Furthermore, using newspapers in the classroom allows a number

of activities and tasks to emanate Apart from discussions about

various issues in the newspaper, students can be assigned tasks

which require practicing a number of language skills at the same

time For example, asking groups of students to write news

185
headlines, create sports commentaries, make advertisments etc

In this case, acquiring cultural understanding and practicing

language use are dealt with as one issue, m learning about the

culture learners are simultaneously practising language, and m

their use of the language they are gaming cultural understanding

Blachford emphasizes this point when he writes

In terms of language skills, there is plenty to talk about

or recognize m the different registers of English and the
appropriate use of each Activities which emanate from a
newspaper class can center around a cultural theme, but
give practice in the language The discussion of cultural
differences practices speaking, the discussion itself
involves comprehension, understanding the topic under
discussion involves reading (Ibid 133)

Reading newspapers is an extremely difficult task even for

advanced learners Linguistic complexity is one reason, but the

crucial factor is that newspapers are highly culture-related A

learner has little chance of understanding a newspaper report on

Irish football or cricket if he or she is unfamiliar with these

games no matter how competent m English he or she might be

Therefore, in dealing with newspapers, as Blachford says,

learners need "to be guided and taught" When tackled in the

classroom newspapers can be effective means for teaching language

m a cultural perspective, that is teaching communicative

competence

Fmocchiaro and Brumfit (1983) emphasize the role of cultural

knowledge m the abilitiy to understand and produce speech acts,

and its implications for language teaching and learning They

186
recognize three factors which underlie the use of any speech act,

viz, language functions, language varieties and the "shared

sociocultural allusions11 or “presuppositions" (p 22) It is

important, therefore, that communicators have knowledge of each

other's cultural experiences m order for successful communication

to take place As has been suggested by many researchers (e g

Widdowson 1982) Fmocchiaro and Brumfit also suggest that "Parts

of messages m oral or written communication are misunderstood or

given false values due to the fact that socio-cultural experiences

have not been shared by listener and speaker, or writer and

reader " (Ibid 26)

Fmocchiaro and Brumfit suggest a variety of techniques which

can be adopted to teach aspects of the target culture In what

follows we mention those which we believe are the most important

First, they insist that the language classroom should reflect the

target culture through the use of a number of materials the

display of newspaper extracts showing advertisments, proverbs,

comic strips, pictures etc , the use of books and magazines with

the learner's proficiency level m mind, the use of records of

contemporary music and songs

Second, they recognize the great value of individual and group

projects Among the topics which learners can work on are maps of

all kinds, menus, a class newspaper, a book fair, the study of

some cultural customs etc However, we should stress that projects

187
would be more useful if students work on other subjects than those

proposed by Fmocchiaro and Brumfit Although important, most of

these topics are related to superficial aspects of the target

culture which have little bearing on the learners1 ability to

communicate successfully We believe that more appropriate project

work topics are such as those listed by Brook and mentioned m the

preceding section These include forms of politeness, gestures,

leavetakmg etc

Third, Fmocchiaro and Brumfit suggest that literary

masterpieces (simplified if necessary) should be studied m the

classroom because literature reflects cultural patterns of

behaviour, beliefs, values, customs etc , and provides exposure to

authentic use of registers and dialects It can also provide

excellent topics for classroom discussion

Fourth, they mention the technique whereby members of the

community who have been to the country are invited to come to

class and talk about their experience and observations m the

country and, if possible, illustrate with photographs and other

means Students will write invitation and thanks letters to

visitors in which they practice communication and learn about

invitation forms, compliments and forms of politeness and address

(ibid 130- 2) This technique is both interesting and useful

especially for students who are to move to the target language

community

188
 Furthermore, the introduction of a wide range of discourse to

the classroom is one of the most effective means for teaching

cultural competence because, as Fine points out, "second language

discourse is crucially related to the culture and situation of the

second language " (p 2) By discourse me mean any instance of

authentic, contextualized spoken or written language Discourse is

important for teaching cultural competence m at least two ways

First, it is a rich source of information about attitudes,

beliefs, manners, way of life etc of native speakers Second,

and more importantly, discourse demonstrates a wide range of

strategies which are specific to the language m question

We should mention that learners must be familiarized with the

discourse strategies of the target language because, as we have

seen in the preceding chapter, variation m the use of discourse

strategies across cultures is the cause of numerous communication

breakdowns Fine explores the value of discourse for the second

language classroom even further He argues that through exposure

to discourse learners will develop a meaning potential "As a

second language learner becomes more familiar with the culture and

the discourse patterns of the new language, he or she learns what

the possible meanings are for the culture " (Ibid 4)

189
 However, acquiring a meaning potential in the target language

is not to be seen as separate from acquiring a cultural competence

or communicative competence m general since both derive from the

content of the culture to which they are related (see Chapter

two)

Finally, cultural competence can be promoted m a variety of

ways We have discussed some techniques, procedures and materials

which can be used to accomplish this goal They are by no means

exhaustive The sophisticated, imaginative teacher will always

discover new ways depending on the demands and interests of

students

190
 Conclusions

In this thesis we have explained that the different versions of

the communicative competence theory were developed within a

socio-cultural framework, and the notions of meaning potential,

fluency and capacity are closely associated with communicative

competence and were also developed from the same general

standpoint that the ability to use language successfully is

governed by cultural presuppositions of a particular culture

Therefore, throughout the thesis we have adopted the view that

communicative competence implies the ability to verbally behave in

a culturally appropriate manner We have pointed out that

although communicative competence was accepted as the aim of

foreign language teaching m communicative approaches, little

attention has been paid to the teaching of the target culture in

most communicative teaching Hence our major conclusion is that

raising cultural awareness should be, and can be as we have

explained, an integral part of foreign language education

We have also argued that over-emphasis on language functions

and dissatisfaction with traditional grammar has led to an

underestimation of the role of grammar Our second conclusion is

that grammar need not be traditional grammar, we can talk about

communicative grammar and teach it for the benefit of students In

this case grammar is another important aspect of communicative

competence which communicative teaching should attend to

191
 To turn to our major conclusion, it seems reasonable to argue

that understanding a culture other than one's own is important not

only for the ability to use the language of that culture, but it

is also significant for the creation of a better world In a

world which is confronted with existential problems which need

international cooperation, in a world which is torn apart by

national, racial and cultural bias, it is not absurd to argue

that more cultural understanding is called for

192
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201
 Appendix

In this Appendix we include some extracts from the first

chapter in Communicating in Contexts and the seventh chapter in

The Culture Puzzle Our aim is demonstrate that coursebooks can

serve as effective means for teaching English with a cultural

focus if coursebook writers adopt a view which integrates language

learning and culture learning, and acknowledge the significance of

cultural competence as a major component of overall communicative

competence However because of limited space we could not include

a whole chapter of each book, and thus we have chosen to quote

some extracts which are typical of the books First we include

extracts from Communicating in Contexts followed by our comment on

the structure of the book and the pedagogical function of the

sections Second we incorporate extracts from The Culture Puzzle,

also followed by some notes

1
 R tp r in le d with p er m iss o o at Onx. C>km«k(<

Discussion Questions
1 Where ire these characters from’
2 What visual clues did you depend on to identify their ongin*
3 What country are they in7 How do you know’
4 Describe how these two men differ in their perceptions of what the word "hous­
ing means
5 Why don't they agree on the meaning of the word7
6 Describe what the word "housing" usually brings to mind m your culture
7 This cartoon points out some potential problems in communicating with someone
in a second language and a second culture What are those potential problems’
8 Discuss your own experiences and problems in trying to communicate m a new
language and a new culture

T he Link Between Com m unication and Culture

It has been said that without a culture w e cannot see, but with a culture w e are
forever blind In other words, each of us is bom into a culture thatteaches us
a number of shared meanings and expectations We usually learn our ow n cul-

2
 Learning Another language *nd Another Culture 3

ture s ways of doing, speaking, and thinking so well that it becomes difficult to
think feel speak and act as people m other cultures do
For example a baby bom in India into an orthodox Hindu tradihon will
learn that cows are sacred The child becomes a vegetarian like the rest of his
family and the thought of cows as a source of food never occurs to him even
though his Muslim neighbor eats beef If he were to come to the United States
as an adult and observe the gusto with which some Americans enjoy a good
beefsteak, he might have difficulty understanding and accepting this behavior
He might think that Americans had no respect for religion or that they showed
poor taste However the practice of eating beef in the United States, a predom­
inantly Judeo-Chnstian culture, has httle or nothing to do with religion, nor
from the American point of view does it mean Americans don't know what

3
tastes good It is just that Indians and Amencans have been raised in different
cultures with varying ideas about what to eat and what not to eat, what is saaed
and what is not sacred In the same way, the carnivorous American who visits
India, craving a good steak and noticing a lot of Indians who appear to be skinny,
might find it absurd that these people who from the American s perspective,
look like they need more nourishment and protein, don t break dow n and enjoy
a good, juicy hamburger or steak Both the Indian and the American have a
word for ' cow " m their respective vocabularies, but just as the word hous­
ing' means different things to different people, so does the word "cow" mean
different things to people of different cultures
As the basic building bloJts of communication, words communicate mean­
ing, but as we have seen, the meanings of words are very much influenced by
culture Meaning is in the person, not in the word, and each person is the prod­
uct of a particular culture that passes on shared and appropriate meanings Thus,
if we want to leam to communicate well in a foreign language, we must un­
derstand the culture that gives that language meaning In other words, culture
and communication are inseparably linked you can't have one without the
other Culture gives meaning and provides the context for communication, and .
the ability to communicate allows us to act out our cultural values and to share
our language and our culture
But our own native language and culture are so much a part of us that we
take them for granted When we travel to another country, it's as if we carry,
along with our passports, our own culturally designed lenses through which
we view the new environment Using our own culture as the standard by which
to judge other cultures is called ethnocentnsm, and although unintentional, our
ethnocentnc ways of thinking and acting often get in the way of our under­
standing other languages and cultures The ability and willingness to change
lenses when we look at a different culture is both the cure and the prevention
for such cultural blindness Studying a new language provides the opportunity
to practice changing lenses when we also leam the context of the culture to
which it belongs
When linguists study a new language they often compare it to their own
and consequently they gain a better understanding of not only the new lan
guage, but of their own language as well Students who study a foreign lan­
guage will also leam more about their own native tongue by comparing and
contrasting the two languages You can follow the same comparative method in
learning more about culture—your own as well as others' Remember that each
culture has developed a set of patterns that are nght and appropriate for that
culture If people do things differently in another culture, they are not
w rong"-they are just different1 Always thinking that ' culturally different"
means culturally wrong will only promote intercultural misunderstanding
Learning about American culture along with the American language does
not necessitate your becoming "Americanized" and acting just like an Ameri­
can but it does mean making an effort to understand American people and

4
 Learning Another Language and Another Culture 5

culture In other words it helps you to see like an Amencan without your having
to be like an Amencan

You Can Talk, but What D o You Communicate7

IT’S NOT WHAT YOU SAY,

IT’S HOW YOU SAY IT.
R«yno40*T.«1»ror> Company c re a te &y R Kwo^j

H ow often have you heard som eone say, in an attempt to clanfy, "Yes, that ts
what I said but that s nof what I meant"’ Just because we talk does not mean
that we actually communicate what we intend Communication can be defined
as any behavior that is given meaning, whether the behavior is verbal or non­
verbal, intended or unintended, consciously or unconsciously performed So,
it is impossible not to communicate, even though one does not always com­
municate in words

5
I
DCUS ON COMMUNICATION

immary of Key Ideas

After each summary, paraphrase the idea—that is, restate it in your own words

Example We are all, to some extent, culture-bound

Panphrase Everyone is, to one degree or another, influenced by the culture he or
she was raised in

1 Meaning is in the person, not in the word

f t rephrase

2 We tend to take our own language and culture for granted

Paraphrase

* *Peter Adler, Culture Shock and the Cross-Cultural Learning Experience," in Readmgt m
Intercuttural Communication ed David S Hoopes (Pittsburgh University of Pittsburgh, Re­
gional Council (or International Education 1979), II 13

6
10 Leinung Another language and AnotStr CuJtur*

3 People everywhere tend to be ethnocentnc

Paraphrase

i Much of what we communicate it nonveibal

fonphmt

S Communicating mtercultunfiy cm often lead to misunderstanding due to cultural

differences that people are often not even aware of
ftrvpftrosr

i. AJthough the term cames a negative connotabon, culture shock canbe beneficial
tn the long run, as it leads to cultural awareness and helps us to better understand
ourselves as well as others
Ariphmsr

7 Culture and communication are inseparable

foruphme

Idioms in Context

o*
Now men I want a thorough comtwng of the ir t i
Aaprintad from Tfm Saturday Evening Post 0 1967 by Tht Curtis PuMsNng Company

7
 Learning Another Langwg* and Another Culture 11

Idiom to comb the area * to search the area carefully so as not to miss anything

Example The police searched the area with a fine-tooth comb

M eaning ___________ _____________________ ____________________________________ _

Make up your own sentence that uses the idiom "to comb the area '

Each idiom is repeated below as it was found m the text, it a followed by

a second example of usage m context Based on the examples, make an "edu­
cated guess" as to the meaning of the idiom

1 to take somtthmg for grunted

Text Our own language and culture are so much a part of as that we take them for
granted
Example I am accustomed to getting cash every Fnday from the cash madune at
my bank, I never wonder whether or not there wiD be money m the ma­
chine—/ ptst take ¡t for granted
Meanmg __ __________________________________________ ___ ________
Now write your own examples using the idiom in context
a ________________________________________________________________

b ________________________________________________________________

la to take someone for grmted

Compare "to take somfttaig for granted" and "to take someone for granted." "To
take something for granted" does not necessarily carry a negative connotation, but
to "take someone for granted" does, because it tmpbes that the person taken for
granted is not appreciated.
Example Joan complained that after twenty-five yean of mamage, her husband no
longer brought her flowers on their anniversary and never told her He
kved her; she accused her husband of tahxg her for grmted
Example Henry's boss refused to grve him a raise or to gJve him additional tune
off, even though he had been working very hard Henry felt that his boss
Jus* toot Am for granted, so one day when he knew his boss would need
turn« he called m sack and took the day off
Meanmg ....
Now wnte your own sentences
a ____________ ____________________________________________________

b ________________________________________________________________

8
 4 Do momestan in your country many and divorce more often than other people7

FOCUS ON CULTURE

Practicing Intercultural Communication

Ask an American, yourself, and a person from a third culture the following
questions about the link between language and culture Compare the answer*
from these three different sources and then compare them with the answers oi
others in your group Although you may see some patterns emerge, don't jump

9
 Learning A nother Language and A nother Culture 25

to h a sty conclusions and make ^weeping generalizations about cu ltu u s based

o n th is sm all sam ple Any particular person is not necessarily representative of
h is o r h e r cu ltu re as a whole O nce your group has enough sam ples from any
o n e cu ltu re, you m ight ask a person from that culture if he or she thinks those
a n s w e rs are representative of that culture

Interview Questions
1 W hat makes your native language special or unique’
2 W hat features of your native language make it easier or more difficult for you to
learn another language7
3 C an you think of any individual characteristics you have that help you or hinder
you in another culture’
4 C an you think of any cultural characteristics you have that help or hinder you
in another culture7
5 C an you think of an example of a gesture common in your culture that is not used
m other cultures or means something quite different7
6 W hat do you think Peter Adler meant when he said the greatest shock in culture
shock may not be in the encounter with another culture, but with the confrontation
of one s own culture' 7 Do you agree with him 7 Why7
7 Try to explain what the following words mean to the majority of people in your
culture

house work competition boss

family leisure cooperation fnend

Iross-Cultural Analysis
JAPAN C onsider the following incident betw een an American business­
m a n a n d a Jap an ese visitor to the United States, analyzing each p erson's actions
a n d a ttitu d e s from a cross-cultural perspective Discuss the incident and the
q u e s tio n s th at follow

Mrs Kobayashi, a Japanese woman temporarily staying in the

United States, and Mr Keller, an American businessman, were involved
in a “ fender-bender” at a busy intersection Mr Keller had been
daydream ing about his upcoming vacation and had neglected to turn on
> his blinker before turning left at the intersection Mrs Kobayashi was
very surprised when Mr Keller turned left with no warning and hit her left
front fender, bending it out of shape Fortunately they were both driving
slowly, and neither person was injured But they were both a little
shaken
As they were both getting out of their cars to inspect the damage, a
policem an, who had heard but riot seen the fender-bender, approached
the scene of the accident He overheard the Japanese woman saying to

10
2t learning Another Language and Another Culture

the man who was at fault Oh I m so sorry ’ The police officer gave
Mrs Kobayashi a ticket for a moving traffic violation She paid $30 and
Mr Keller got away without any blame

Dfecusaion Questioni
1 Who w m really to blame for the accident’
2. Why did the policeman give Mrs Kobayashi and not Mr Keller a bcket’
3 Why did Mrs Kobayashi say "I'm sorry" to Mr KeDer’ What did she m ean’
4 The words ' I'm sorry don t always mean the same thing—rt depends on the
context Discuss with your group different meanings "I'm sorry" could have and
explain the situation for each of the different meanings
5 Explain how Mrs Kobayashi and the policeman were both influenced by their cul­
tural values How might this wrongdoing have been avoided’
6 Does this incident bring to rrund any stereotypes about men, women, and police­
men’ Explain
7 Why do vou think Mrs Kobayashi paid the ticket’
S. What do you think Mrs Kobayashi should have done?
What do you think Mr Keller should have done’
What do you think the policeman should have done’
9 Discus how your own cultural values influenced your ideas of "right" and "w rong"
m this situation

Survival Skills in a New Culture

o
©

Reprint ®d «tfr permission of Oajc Cakmakli

11
 These pages are extracts from the chapter entitled "Learning

Another Language and Another Culture" In Communicating in

Contexts The chapter begins with a cartoon and a number of

discussion questions The cartoon serves as a stimulus to trigger

a response among the students in order to answer the questions

which centre around the cartoon The questions help to initiate a

discussion among students, andthus provide the opportunity to

practice the oral skill while their attention is focused on a

cultural point Attention to culture learning is evident from the

very beginning The cartoon contrasts people's perceptions of

"housing" This contrast sensitizes students to the fact that the

same words do not have the same connotations across cultures As

we have argued in Chapter five, people from different cultures

assign different meanings to the same word or speech act

This part of the chapter is then followed by a reading passage

on the relation of language to culture The passage explains that

the way people think and behave is culture-bound, and provides

examples The author urges students to be open-minded towards

other cultures, because learning another culture does not imply

that learners should become "Americanized", for example, but

that they should make an effort to understand how Americans think

and behave As far as language skills are concerned, this

passage is intended to provide practice in the reading skill

12
 Following Che reading passage there are two important sections

in the chapter Focus on Communication and Focus on Culture In

the first section students are presented with a number of key

sentences which occur in the passage They are then asked to

paraphrase the ideas using their own words The aim of this

section is to get students to practice writing skills and to

reinforce the cultural points which the chapter aims to convey

An important feature of this section is "Idioms in Context"

Students are given a number of idioms which can be found in the

text, with examples illustrating their use Students are required

to infer the meaning of the idioms from the context and then show

their understanding by writing examples using the idioms There

are two important points about idioms here First, the ability

to understand and use idioms appropriately is a sign of fluency

In Chapter two we considered "idiomatic competence" as part of

"cultural competence" which is in turn part of communicative

competence (see 2 7) Second, students are encouraged to infer

the meaning of idioms from the context and thus employ a

significant learner strategy The use of learner strategies is

important for communicative competence development (see 4 A)

13
 Moreover, the second section is intended to practice

intercultural communication Students are assigned a group task

in which they are required to ask themselves, an American and a

person from a third culture a number of questions related to

aspects of language and culture This section also includes an

incident which shows a cultural misunderstanding Students are

asked to analyse and discuss the incident The function of this

section is to create conditions for genuine language use where

students interact with native speakers and other people and find

out about differences between cultures

14
 chapter 7

Introduction You probably find yourself in situations where there are conversa­
tions or discussions among three or more people These include class discussions,
meetings at work, and social conversations It is often difficult for non native
speakers of English to participate in group discussions and conversations when the
others are native speakers of English This chapter will apply skills presented in
Chapters 5 and 6 to interaction in group contexts

CULTURE LEARNING QUESTIONS

1 Which do you feel is more difficult, communication between two people

or communication in a group9
2 Which ts more difficult when you are speaking your own language7
Which is more difficult when you are speaking English9 Give examples
from your own experience

CROSS-CULTURAL INTERACTION 7A*

Ineffective Communication

Situation Bill is leading a staff meeting in a company in the U S There are eight
O riginal | people who are all American, except Anna, who ts from Hungary She is a
supervisor in the manufacturing departm ent Today, Bill is talking about two
things at the meeting The first is a new health insurance plan for the em ployees
J The second is vacation schedules The meeting has been going on for twenty
(Revised interaction minutes Bill has just finished explaining the insurance plan
appears on page 91 )
Bill “Okay, so that’s the insurance plan Any questions9**
Anna “Yes, I
Margie (Margie interrupts Anna ) “BUI, where do I sign up for this
insurance9"
Anna (Anna thinks to herself “What did Margie ask9 I couldn’t hear
the question * Anna does not speak )

15
 The Culture Puzzle

Bill See John ui the Personnel office ” (Then Bill looks at A n n a )

Anna ‘Personnel office9’
Bill “You don’t know where the Personnel office is9”
Anna (Anna thinks to herself, “No, that’s not my question I w an t to
know what Margie asked you ” A nna is not sure what to say , so
she says nothing )
Bill ' Margie, after the meeting will you show Anna where the P e rso n ­
nel office is9”
Margie 4Okay "
BiU “Any other questions9”
Anna (A nna thinks to herself, “Yes, I have a question about the in su r­
ance, and I still don’t know what M argie’s question was W hat d id
they mean about the ‘Personnel office’9 How can I in te rru p t9”
Anna looks confused, but says nothing )
Bill (No one asks a question, so he continues speaking quickly )
“Okay, let’s move on then Have you all turned in your vacation
schedules for this year9”
Anna (A nna thinks to herself, “W hat does he mean, ‘turned in ’7 I ’m
not going to ask since everyone else probably understands ”)

QUESTIONS AND DISCUSSION

Comprehension
W rite T (true) or F (false) in the space provided

1 ________Margie needs to see John in the Personnel office to sign up fo r

insurance
2 ________Anna wants to know where the Personnel office is
3 ------------A nna asks Margie to show her where the Personnel office is
4 ------------A nna does not ask the question that she wanted to ask b efo re
Margie interrupted

Analysts Can You Expiam?

1 Bill looks at Anna after he answers M argie’s question Why do you

think he does this9
2 Anna thinks to herself, “No, that’s not my question ” Why doesn’t she
say this, aloud, to Bill9
3 Bill asks Margie to show Anna where the Personnel office is, even
though this was not A nna’s question Why do you think Bill did th»f 9

TALK ABOUT YOUR OWN LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Is the style of communication in the meeting in Cross-Cultural In te ra c ­

tion 7A typical of one that might take place m your language an d
culture9 If it is not what are the differences9
Do you thmk that people who lead meetings in your culture would tak e
the time to speak slowly and explain difficult words to non-native
speakers of your language9 Explain your answer

16
 FOCUS O N U S CULTURE
Cultural Notes, Exercises, and Skill Practice

HOW MUCH DO YOU ALREADY KNOW ABOUT U $ CULTURE?

Wnte T (Hue) or F (false) in the space provided

1 ---------- If two people are speaking and a third would like to speak, be
or she should never interrupt the two speakers
2 _______In a group conversation or discussion, it is rude to talk again
about a topic people already talked about earlier
3 _______Americans will usually give non-native speakers of English
extra thinking time and extra time to translate from their own
language to English
4 Americans generally think that it is good to speak up in meet­
ings rather than be silent
5 ---------- Americans are expected to bring up new ideas and suggestions
in most meetings

SECTION 1 GETTING INTO THE CONVERSATION

Margie “Bill, where do I sign up for this insurance7”
Bill “See John in the Personnel office "
Anna “Excuse me, Bill What was Margie’s question7’

17
»apter 7 I Interacting in a Group

Bill L e t’s move on

A nna Before vou move on I ve got another question 1

Using the skills o f holding your turn and interrupting can be very im portant in a
group in teractio n especially if you are the only non native speaker of English
W hen two o r m ore native speakers are talking together it can be hard to get into
or join, the conversation Som etim es it is necessarv to in terrupt quickly before the
topic of conv ersatio n changes You may have to do this even before you have
decided exactly w hat to say You mav som etim es need to in terru p t and hold your
turn for a few seconds before you speak

Phrases and Expressions for Getting into a Group Conversation -----------------------

W hen you want to get into, or break into, a group conversation, you have to wait
for a pause and then interrupt quickly You could use the interruption phrases
presented earlier

“Excuse me I have something to add here ”

“U hm I have a question about that "
“Could I ask a question7”
“C o u ld I in te rru p t for a quick second7”
“Just a quick interruption ”

You could interrupt, hold your turn, and then say what you want to say

“Urn
“So this is what we need to do n
“D o you m ean, uh 7”
“Uh Td like to know
“Can you tell me 7”
“I can add something here
“Ah you know
“Well you know

18
 The Culture Puzzle

W hen you hold your turn it is as if you are putting up a stop light Y ou are
telling others th at you want to say something and you d o n ’t w ant anyone else to
sp eak until after vou speak

Skill Practice Getting into the Group Conversation

U se the phrases above to interrupt quickly and hold your turn Then ask for
focused rep etitio n or explanation when you don t u n d erstand som ething W hen
you w ant to add som ething get into the conversation

Topics for a Group Discussion

• Y our instructor discusses students* goals and his own goals for the clas*
• Y ou and the other students bst the problem s of speaking a second lan ­
guage and discuss solutions to those problem s
• C o m p are a typical school or work day in your native country with th at of
o th e r students
• Y our choice of topics

19
 •c

C hapter 7 / Interacting in a Group

Cross-Cultural Exercise Getting into the Conversation

With two other people who speak your language, dem onstrate for the class how
you would break into a conversation in your language

• See if the class can identify anv ‘interruption sounds” you use (In E n ­
glish, “ Uh 1 and U h m ” are interruption sounds )
• Translate into English the phrases and expressions that you used to b re ak
into the conversation

CROSS CULTURAL NOTE

An Ethiopian m an w ho worked in a hotel restaurant talked about a frustrating
experience "W hen the kitchen staff have a m eeting, I never ask any questions
or say anything S om etim es I w ant to but by the tim e I decide how to say
what I want to say, it's too late They're already talking about som ething else "

Phrases and Expressions for Going Back to Earlier Topics ------------------------------

If you miss the chance to say w hat you want to say you can often go back to it
later in the conversation R epeat the following after your teacher

“Going back to w hat we w ere talking about earlier

“Could we go back to [state the topic] th at we w ere discussing e arlier0 *
“I had a question ea rlie r about [state the topic] w
“I w anted to add som ething to w hat we w ere saying earlier ”

Skill Practice Going Back to Topics

Choose a topic to discuss with several o th er people If you lose the chance to say
som ething, go back to the topic later in the discussion U se the phrases listed
above Have your teach er listen to vou and tell you if you are using the phrases
correctly

Topics

Experiences in a second culture C ustom s in your country

Learning a second language Y our choice of topics

20
 These extracts form part of Chapter 7 (Interacting in a Group),

which is part of Unit II (Interacting in English) In The Culture

Puzzle This coursebook shows an interest in teaching

cross-cultural communication skills, and this chapter is a good

example of this interest The chapter recognizes that non-native

speakers of English have difficulties in participating in group

discussions when the participants are native speakers of English

The chapter begins with two questions about communication problems

in the students’ mother tongue and in English Students are urged

to think of communication problems and supply examples from their

own experience The answers and examples provided could help the

teacher identify areas of difficulty concerning group interaction

and perhaps devote more classroom time and work to these problems

The value of a procedure as such is that it actively involves

students in the learning process by allowing them the chance to

talk about their needs and difficulties, a procedure which is

emphasized by communicative approaches The questions are

followed by a conversation which demonstrates a non-native

speaker's difficulty in making successful participation in a

conversation

"Focus <"n U S Culture" is an important section which elicits

students' previous knowledge of conversational routines in

American English In this section students are required to answer

true-false question concerning rules of group conversations and

21
 ?

discussions Moreover, an important feature of this chapter is the

section entitled "Getting into the Conversation" In this section

the authors explain to students the importance of using the skill

of holding one's turn and interrupting in group discussions, and

then provide them with some useful phrases and expressions which

could be used to interrupt to take part in a conversation This

is followed by "Skill Practice" where students are asked to

practise these phrases and expressions in suggested group

discussion topics

Finally, although the two textbooks attend to other aspects of

communicative competence such as vocabulary, attention to other

aspects such as pronunciation and intonation is missing But to

do them justice we could say that no single coursebook can equally

attend to all aspects of communicative competence It is the

teacher's job to select other coursebooks and a variety of

materials to ensure that not only cultural competence, but

overall communicative competence is well attended to These two

textbooks are effective means for teaching language from a

cultural perspective But however good they might be, the teacher

will have to look for other sources and rely on a variety of

procedures (see Chapter six) for teaching cultural competence

22