An international journal for teachers of English to speakers of other languages Volume 66/1 January 2012

ELTB
Reviews
The Bilingual Reform Teaching and Learning Pragmatics The NNEST Lens: Non-native English Speakers in TESOL The Construction of English: Culture, Consumerism and Promotion in the ELT Global Coursebook IATEFL 2010 Harrogate Conference Selections Shakespeare on Toast Provoking Thought: Memory and Thinking in ELT Towards Multilingual Education Service, Satisfaction and Climate: Perspectives on Management in English Language Teaching The Language and Intercultural Communication Reader Developing Courses in English for Specific Purposes

Articles
A.S. Hornby and the Hornby Trust Learning of routine formulae The myth of the natural-born linguist Developing speaking Developing multiliteracies in ELT Learner negotiation of L2 form Culture in ELT Transnational peer review of teaching Improving teacher talk Point and counterpoint ELF Technology for the language teacher Digital literacies Readers respond CLIL and immersion

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Every effort has been made to trace the owners of copyright material in this issue, but we shall be pleased to hear from any copyright holder whom we have been unable to contact. If notified, the publisher will attempt to rectify any errors or omissions at the earliest opportunity.

The Editor Keith Morrow The Reviews Editor Philip Prowse The Editorial Panel Sasan Baleghizadeh Shahid Beheshti University, Islamic Republic of Iran Adriana Boffi Cnepa Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina Alessia Cogo University of Southampton Jeremy Cross Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Eliana Hirano Georgia State University Li-Shih Huang University of Victoria, BC, Canada John Knagg British Council Gordon Lewis USA Rama Mathew Delhi University, Delhi Jane Mok University of Hong Kong Julie Norton University of Leicester Ayako Suzuki Tamagawa University, Tokyo Tan Bee Tin University of Auckland Marion Williams IATEFL Alla Zareva Old Dominion University, Virginia Key Concepts Editor Graham Hall Northumbria University Text Messages Editors Jill and Charles Hadfield Editorial Front Office Jane Magrane Consultant to the Editors Cristina Whitecross Consultant on Research Design Catherine Walter Department of Education, University of Oxford

Oxford University Press 2012

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Aims
ELT Journal is a quarterly publication for all those involved in the eld of teaching English as a second or foreign language. The journal links the everyday concerns of practitioners with insights gained from related academic disciplines such as applied linguistics, education, psychology, and sociology. ELT Journal aims to provide a medium for informed discussion of the principles and practice which determine the ways in which the English language is taught and learnt around the world. It also provides a forum for the exchange of information among members of the profession worldwide.

The Editor of ELT Journal is supported by an Editorial Advisory Panel whose members referee submissions. Their decisions are based upon the relevance, clarity, and value of the articles submitted. The views expressed in ELT Journal are the contributors own, and not necessarily those of the Editor, the Editorial Advisory Panel, or the Publisher.

Contributions
Contributions are welcome from anyone involved in ELT. Contributors should consult the current online Instructions to authors before submitting articles, as this contains important information about the focus and format of articles. Articles not submitted in accordance with the Instructions to authors will not be considered for publication. See our website: http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org If you wish to write a review for ELT Journal, please contact the Reviews Editor. Unsolicited reviews cannot be accepted for publication. Correspondence e d i t o r i a l : The Editor, ELT Journal, Bosham, Olley Road, West Runton NR27 9QN, UK. Email: editor@eltj.org re vi e w s : The Reviews Editor, ELT Journal, po Box 83, Cambridge cb3 9pw, UK. Fax +44 (0) 1223 572390 Email: reviews@eltj.org

ELT Journal Volume 66/1 January 2012

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A. S. Hornby and 50 years of the Hornby Trust

Richard Smith and Roger Bowers

A. S. Hornby can justly be considered the father of UK-based E LT. He was the founder and rst Editor of English Language Teaching (now known as E LT Journal); he established the ground rules for situational language teaching, the dominant E LT methodology in the United Kingdom up until the 1970s; he was the chief originator of the Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary; and, last but not least, he set up the A. S. Hornby Educational Trust, which has just completed its 50th year of charitable activity. In the following article, Richard Smith provides an overview of Hornbys career and important overall legacy to E LT and then Roger Bowers describes the history, nature, and current activities of the Hornby Trust.

A. S. Hornbys life and legacy

Richard Smith
Biography
Albert Sydney Hornby (known to his friends and colleagues as AS H) was born on 10 August 1898, in Chester.1 He was educated at the local grammar school and then studied English at University College London. In 1923, he was recruited to teach English in a college in Kyushu, Japan. Although originally employed to teach literature, he found it equally if not more necessary to focus on the teaching of language. His developing interests in this area brought him into contact with the pioneering Institute for Research in English Teaching (IRET), which had been set up in Tokyo by Harold E. Palmer (18771949). Hornby became an active member, and he was invited by Palmer in 1931 to assist with IRETs developing programme of vocabulary research. In 1934, Hornby moved to Tokyo, and, when Palmer left Japan in 1936, took over the leadership of I R E T research activities and the editorship of its Bulletin. He and his I R E T colleagues also brought to fruition a project initially conceived by Palmer, namely the compilation of a special dictionary for learners of English. Originally published in Tokyo in 1942, this dictionary was republished by Oxford University Press (OUP) in 1948 as A Learners Dictionary of Current English. It was retitled in 1952 The Advanced Learners Dictionary of Current English and is the achievement for which Hornby is perhaps best remembered today.

E LT Journal Volume 66/1 January 2012; doi:10.1093/elt/ccr085

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Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Hornby returned to England (in 1942) and immediately departed again to take up a British Council post as lecturer and teacher trainer in Teheran. When the war ended, he was appointed to the prestigious-sounding new position of Linguistic Adviser at British Council headquarters in London. However, as Hornby himself recalled, this meant chiey desk-work: the reading of reports from British Council centres in many parts of the world, much correspondence, and dealing with les. [ . . . ] I felt that whatever knowledge and abilities I might possess were not being used in the best way, and I became impatient. (Hornby 1966: 3) Practically minded as he was, and with his several years experience of editing the IRET Bulletin in the pre-war years, Hornby quickly came up with the idea of launching a new journal, English Language Teaching, and succeeded in persuading the head of the Education Division at the Council to fund the venture, despite post-war paper shortages. At the same time as he was editing English Language Teaching, Hornby was contributing in a major way to BBC English by Radio programmes. He was also being courted by O U P. Following the successful publication of the Learners Dictionary in 1948, Hornby accepted an invitation from the Press to write materials full time, and in 1950 he resigned both from the Council and from the editorship of English Language Teaching, although he remained on its editorial advisory board. A series of inuential publications then followed: A Guide to Patterns and Usage in English (1954), the popular course Oxford Progressive English for Adult Learners (three volumes, 19541956), and The Teaching of Structural Words and Sentence Patterns (four volumes, 1959 1966). Primarily it was Hornby, through these publications and his early articles for English Language Teaching, who established the situational approach which formed the mainstay of UK-based E F L until the advent of communicative language teaching in the 1970s. During the 1950s, in particular, Hornby engaged in several long lecture tours overseas for the British Council, travelling through the Middle East, Latin America, and South Asia. With the addition of Africa and South East Asia, these were to be the main beneciary regions for aid from the A. S. Hornby Educational Trust, which Hornby set up originally in 1961 as a way to put a considerable proportion of his royalties to good use for the benet of the ELT profession. Since 1969, when the rst grants were made, the Trust has principally been devoted to providing scholarships and grants to selected teachers in developing countries for the purpose of furthering their studies, usually at Masters level, in the United Kingdom. Hornbys primary motivation as the slightly bewildered recipient of, in his view, a somewhat excessive return of worldly goods (Brown 1978: x) was to put some of it back where it came from (ibid.). The last years of Hornbys life were marked by a series of honours, notably the award of a Fellowship at University College London in 1976, an honorary degree at Oxford in 1977, and, in 1978, the publication of an 80th birthday festschrift, In Honour of A. S. Hornby (Strevens 1978), with which he was presented shortly before he died. As Howatt (1984: 317) has recorded, He was greatly loved, kind, modest, and gently humorous, and his inuence on the profession has been profound.
2 Richard Smith and Roger Bowers

Hornbys legacy to
ELT

Even on the basis of the above brief synopsis, three areas in which A. S. Hornbys work had a lasting impact may already be clear: E LT Journal itself, situational language teaching, and his Advanced Learners Dictionary, each of which I shall consider in more detail now. The more specic, indeed, literal legacy represented by the A. S. Hornby Educational Trust (the Hornby Trust) will then be described by Roger Bowers, further below. In October 1946, the rst issue of English Language Teaching was sent out around the world from the British Councils ofces in Hanover Street, London. Since then, the journal has continuously served as a focal point for the profession, to the extent indeed that its title, abbreviated to ELT , came to be adopted as an umbrella term for the whole enterprise of teaching English as a foreign or second language. This abbreviation gained even wider currency after English Language Teaching was renamed English Language Teaching Journal (ELT J) in 1973 and then simply ELT Journal in 1981. It is mainly due to Hornbys close association with the periodical in its earliest years that he deserves to be called the father of E LT in post-war Britain. During the rst four years of its existence, Hornby was himself by far the most prolic contributor to English Language Teaching, writing 18 out of a total of 119 articles. As he later admitted, the rst issue in particular was something in the nature of a one-man band (Hornby 1966: 4). Of course, other contributors did start to come forward, for the most part Hornbys British Council colleagues, with just a few articles being written by academic phoneticians. However, expertise was generally thin on the ground at this time, thus, even as late as 1952, R. T. Butlin, Hornbys successor as Editor of English Language Teaching, lamented the very limited number of experts available to contribute.2 Before World War II, indeed, the teaching of English as a foreign language (E F L) was not much engaged in or thought about as a specic activity within the UK at all. Overall, the foundation of English Language Teaching signalled the start of a new era, both in the way it clearly indicated, for the rst time, ofcial (British Council) acknowledgment of the importance and specicity of E F L and due to the fact that it heralded and facilitated an increase in overall UK-based activity in the eld. At the same time, while the early issues reveal an evident desire to establish a sense of centrea sense in which the British possessed a special expertise in the area of E F Lsuch expertise did not yet, in reality run very deep, with a rather small group of men [sic] based in London being called upon to full multiple roles, Hornby most prominently among them.

English Language Teaching ( Journal)

Situational language teaching

In fact, in the absence of a pre-existing UK power base for ELT or of academic applied linguistics as a source of authority, it was the pre-war overseas experience which Hornby, in particular, brought to bear that set the tone of UK-based E LT for many years to come. More than anyone else, it was Hornby, through early articles in English Language Teaching and books like The Teaching of Structural Words and Sentence Patterns (19591966), who laid the foundations for situational language teaching, the dominant methodology in UK-based E LT (and ELT as exported from the UK) before the rise of communicative language teaching (CLT) in the 1970s. Situational language teaching differed from audiolingual orthodoxy as developed in the
A. S. Hornby and 50 years of the Hornby Trust 3

United States primarily in the stress it placed on setting up meaningful (though not communicative) classroom situations for the presentation and controlled practice of grammar and vocabulary, primarily by means of pictures, objects, and actions. Although it is rarely mentioned in accounts of teaching methods these days, situational language teaching retains its signicance in having informed the rst two stages of P-P-P (PresentationPractice-Production) in weak versions of contemporary CLT, to a much greater extent, indeed, than has generally been recognized. From what sources of experience, though, did Hornby derive his authority to promote what he termed in his early ELT articles the situational approach? His own answer came in the following reminiscence, nearly at the end of his life: I felt that I had had this long experienceactually in the classroom, then Id been round the world and seen conditions in many parts of the world. [ . . . ] So that gave me what I felt was a solid background. Then there was the research that wed done in Tokyo. So I felt I was qualied to put something down on paper. I wouldnt have dared to do that if I hadnt had that experience. (Hornby 1974: 9) Underlying Hornbys condent assertion of certain ideas and principles during the immediate post-war years, then, were almost 20 years of pre-war classroom experience in Japan, combined with the lessons he had derived from active participation (over the same length of time) in the research and development work of IRET in Tokyo. In a wide variety of ways, indeed, Hornbys post-war efforts to help establish a base of EFL expertise in the United Kingdom can be seen to have drawn sustenance from his importation of ideas and practices that had been thoroughly experimented with in pre-war Japan. These experiments were carried out by Japanese as well as foreign teachers like Hornby himself, under the auspices of IRET, an instituteor, more properly speaking, a research- and reform-oriented teachers associationwhich, it is no exaggeration to say, had constituted the only true centre of E F L expertise worldwide during the pre-war period.

The Advanced Learners Dictionary

As Cowie (1998, 1999) has demonstrated, Hornbys pioneering Advanced Learners Dictionary was itself the product of a long period of gestation within IR E T in pre-war Tokyo. Indeed, the 1948 O U P rst edition of the dictionary was photographically reprinted with only a few details changed from the Idiomatic and Syntactic English Dictionary rst issued by IRETs publisher Kaitakusha in 1942. The dictionary was notable for the detailed information it provided on collocations and verb patterns (hence idiomatic and syntactic in the original title), as well as the distinction it made throughout between countable and uncountable nouns. On this basis, the dictionary aimed to be useful for productive (encoding) purposes as much as for reception (decoding), and it enjoyed such success following publication that Hornby was enabled to resign from the British Council in 1950 and devote himself full time to materials and further dictionary production. The dictionary remained fundamentally unchanged from the original 1942 edition until 1963, when a second edition was produced. Although correspondence in the O U P Archive shows that Hornby had hoped, from the outset, that Oxford could appear in the title, this was not to be granted

Richard Smith and Roger Bowers

until 1974, with the third edition Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary of Current English. After Hornbys death in 1978, the pace of revision has steadily increased, with the current (2010) Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary being the eighth edition. This bears witness to the rapidity of recent technological developments but also, more particularly, to the phenomenal success the dictionary has continued to enjoy as O U Ps bestselling book in any domain, after the Bible. The following are the great corner-stones of the Hornby legacyaccording to Cowie (1998: 265)where learners dictionaries in general are concerned: a balanced concern for the needs of the learner as reader and writer; a continuing recognition of the central importance of grammatical words and patterns; an insistence on descriptive rigour as well as usability; and, above all, perhaps, an acknowledgement of the crucial role in language learning and useand thus in the dictionary recordof collocations and idioms.

The A. S. Hornby Educational Trust

Roger Bowers
Overview
Richard Smith has set out three reasons why A. S. Hornby is remembered and respected worldwide. There is a fourth and unique reason why the Hornby name is known in so many countries around the world, and for which the term legacy has a specic as well as a general resonance: the A. S. Hornby Educational Trust which, in November 2011, celebrated its 50th anniversary. Two decades before his death in 1978, A S H explored ways in which the continuing income from his publications and the future use of his intellectual property, including the Advanced Learners Dictionary (ALD), could not only support his family but alsothrough the creation of a charitable trustprovide support to teachers in the expanding profession that he had helped to shape. In 1961, as described more fully by Collier, Neale, and Quirk (1978: 3):
ASH outlined a proposal of outstanding generosity: to set aside half his income for charitable purposespurposes that were strictly relevant to his life-long work and in furtherance of it. He wanted, he said [. . .], to have the money used for education and go back to the countries from which it comes. [ . . . ]

[Earning the money that made such benevolence possible was, he said,] not the result of any unusual ability on my part, I happen to have provided three dictionaries . . . and some other textbooks . . . all during a period of years when the demand for English throughout the world was expanding rapidly. The Hornby Trust was set up on 17 November 1961 with an initial fund of ten pounds. The signatories of the Trust Deed were A S H himself, his O U P Editor and co-author Eric Parnwell, his close associate and a subsequent
A. S. Hornby and 50 years of the Hornby Trust 5

Chairman of the Trust David Neale, and Professor Randolph Quirk of University College London, who became Chairman of the Trust following AS Hs death in 1978 and whonow Professor Lord Quirk of Bloomsburyretains a close interest in the Trusts affairs. The Trust Deed provides for a percentage of the royalties from the sales of the ALD and other applications of its intellectual property to be received by the Trust in perpetuity for: the advancement of the study of English Language and the teaching and learning of English as a Foreign Language in such manner and by such means as the Trustees shall from time to time think t and in particular by providing scholarships and grants to be called the Hornby Scholarships to enable foreign and commonwealth teachers to come to the United Kingdom and there to study the English Language. This remains at the heart of what the Trust does, within a programme of charitable activity that has grown and diversied as its income and reserves have allowed and as the changing nature of the E LT profession around the world has made possible and necessary. Over the 50 years of the Trust, among many creative and supportive relationships, two in particular have continued to be of key and indeed irreplaceable importance: those with O U P and the British Council.
OUP has throughout the 50 years not only met its legal obligation to support the Trust through royalty income: it has sustained a friendship and spirit of cooperation that is exemplied by those individuals who have worked within or been published by the Press and at various times also served as Trustees, including Lord Quirk, David Neale, Peter Collier (each a past Chairman of the Trust), and Professor Gabriele Stein, Tony Cowie, and Moira Pavelin (currently Trustees). The industry, professionalism, and ingenuity of the Press in taking the ALD from edition to edition have served the interests of the Trust well, as also has the diversication into the wide range of formats, secondary versions, and media and technology applications in which all publishers are now engaged.

The British Council, too, has a legally binding relationship with the Trust and one which has been unfailingly friendly and constructive. Much of the Trusts programme of activity benets not only from the Councils unique worldwide network but also from its expertise in English teaching worldwide, its overseas contacts and awareness, and its capacity to provide parallel funding for activities funded by the Trust. Over the years, a number of former British Council specialists have served as Trustees and (myself included) continue to do so. Other long-standing relationships have extended the reach of the Trust: for example those with I AT E F L (as ATEF L, an early beneciary of Trust funding), EU R A LE X (the European Association for Lexicography), V S O (Voluntary Service Overseas), and various E LT associations and academic departments as well as British Council ofces worldwide where a particular local requirement has been identied.

Richard Smith and Roger Bowers

In 2011, the aims of the Trust and our corporate relationships remain intact, as does our determination to remain, as ASH himself always was, excited by new demands, opportunities, and modes of delivery.

A timeline

The remainder of this summary of the Trusts work offers some examples from our 50 years, before we take a brief glance into the future. In 1968, as recorded in the minutes of its annual meeting with the British Council, the Trust agreed its rst programme of donations, supporting 52 teachers from ten different countries to attend ELT summer schools in the United Kingdom in 1969. In 1970, the rst overseas candidate, from Kenya, was accepted for a one year scholarship at Moray House College, Edinburgh. Peter Collier, ASHs Editor at O U P, replaced Eric Parnwell on the Board of Trustees and remains a Trustee in the Trusts 50th year. In 1971, the Trust funded a teaching post for a UK lecturer in Czechoslovakia: such grants were made for a number of years. The Trust also made its rst grant to what is now I AT E F L to support its conference and the publication of its newsletter. By 1975, the Trust was able to support six scholarships for study in the United Kingdom, subsidize the costs of British lecturers abroad, and contribute to the ESL/E F L work of VS O. By the late 1970s, support was being given to a growing number of scholarships, posts abroad including in South Africa, various British Council E LT programmes, and I AT EF L conferences in the United Kingdom and abroad.
AS H died at the age of 80 in 1978. ASHs widow Marian Hornby then

became a Trustee, and prior to her death in 1987 gifted to the Trust her share of A S Hs O U P royalties. In the early 1980s, along with IATEFL and VSO, the English-Speaking Union was among the regular grant recipients. The Trusts records for 1986 include the gift to a project in Brazil of an electric typewriter, along with new generation language laboratories and overhead projectors, the hi-tech of the time! 1987 saw a contribution to the Cultura in Chile following earthquake damage. In 1989, the Trust contributed to the costs of the library at the Krakow Institute of English Philology; Eastern Europe has been a signicant recipient of Hornby support. By the early 1990s, the Trust no longer funded summer schools in the United Kingdom or lecturer posts abroad, preferring to concentrate its resources on scholarships for studies in the UKseven, for example, in 1991, eight in 1992the number each year being guided by the funds available. Then, as now, the costs were shared with the British Council, whose network of overseas and UK ofces proposed and managed the scholarships, reporting annually to the Trust on the Scholars achievement.
A. S. Hornby and 50 years of the Hornby Trust 7

From 1995, the Trust has funded attendance costs at the biennial conference of E U RA L EX. Since 2000, the Trustguided by the funds available from the continuing success, edition by edition, of the ALDhas concentrated its resources on a combination of scholarships, regional schools (British Council managed teacher education events overseas), materials development projects, alumni activities (proposed and conducted by Hornby Scholars), internet-enabled networking among teachers, and support to E LT-related projects managed by VS O directly or within the Comic Relief aid effort. In 20112012, the Trust is supporting: n the MA studies in the United Kingdom of 14 Hornby Scholars from Africa, Central and South East Asia, India/Sri Lanka, and Latin America; n six Hornby schools in Bangladesh, India (three schools), Malaysia, and Mali; n VS O work in Rwanda and Tanzania (Zanzibar); n a major Comic Relief/V S O project for girls education and employment in northern Ghana; and n local projects by returned Scholars in India and (in collaboration with IATEFL) teachers associations in Albania and Cuba.

The Trust now and looking forward

It is a testament to A S Hs philanthropic vision that the original intentions of the Trust remain as valid today as they were half a century ago, although some of the delivery systems have evolved and diversied! The Trustees remain committed to postgraduate education for key individuals as a means of supporting local and national initiatives in developing and transitional countries, and we remain committed therefore to providing scholarships for MA studies in the United Kingdom for carefully selected individuals from locations that vary from year to year. We value the increased contact with past Hornby Scholars that our internetworked world makes possible, and an important benet is the worldwide contextual understandings that Hornby scholarships bring to the cooperating UK university departments. Wider outreach also continues to be offered through teacher workshops overseas, frequently operating on a regional basis. The Trustees benet from the skills and presence worldwide of the British Council, not only through its network of overseas ofces but also from its online presence and resources. We also value and support the long-standing collaboration with other organizations that share or complement our aims, in particular, these days, I AT E F L, VS O, and E U RA L E X. We remain committed to ASHs wish for the Trust to stay lean and mean, although I suspect that is not a phrase that passed his lips (its usage is well captured in the eighth edition of the AL D!). With the benet of the British Council relationship and co-funding from our other partner organizations, the Trust provides more bang for your buck (yes, the eighth edition has this one, too).

Richard Smith and Roger Bowers

The Trust welcomes interest from individuals and organizations but does not respond to individual requests for nancial support. Updates of the work of the Trust are available at http://www.hornby-trust.org.uk and through the British Council at http://www.britishcouncil.org We work within the statutory framework that governs UK charities and trusts, and all our activity reports and organizational returns, including our accounts, are freely available on the Charity Commission website at http:// www.charity-commission.gov.uk Against the backdrop of 50 years of activity which must have exceeded in duration and extent even ASHs expectations, and in these straitened times, we aim to explore opportunities for philanthropic giving from within and also outside the E LT profession, in order to raise funds that will help sustain the work of the Trust. The need for education and training as part of the global agenda is no smaller now than 50 years ago. Indeed, geographically and quantitatively it is far, far greater. There can only be one ASH: a unique teacher, academic, lexicographer, visionary, and humanitarian. But there must be others in our profession who share ASHs aims and can contribute to their continuing realization.
Notes 1 This account incorporates material from Smith (2005, 2007), where fuller indications of sources are provided. 2 Minutes, British Council English Studies Advisory Committee, 22 January 1952, BW 138/1, in Public Records Ofce, Kew. References Brown, J. 1978. Foreword to P. Strevens (ed.). Collier, P., D. Neale, and R. Quirk. 1978. The Hornby Educational Trust: the rst ten years in P. Strevens (ed.). Cowie, A. P. 1998. A.S. Hornby, 18981998: a centenary tribute. International Journal of Lexicography 11/4: 25168. Cowie, A. P. 1999. English Dictionaries for Foreign Learners: A History. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Hornby, A. S. 1966. Looking back. English Language Teaching 21/1: 36. Hornby, A. S. [with C. Ruse]. 1974. Hornby on Hornby. Tokyo: Oxford University Press [cassette tape and interview transcript]. Audio available online at http://www.oxfordjournals.org/eltj/about.html (Oxford University Press ELT Journal website, accessed on 7 November 2011). Howatt, A. P. R. 1984. A History of English Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Smith, R. C. 2005. General introduction in R. C. Smith (ed.). Teaching English as a Foreign Language, 19361961: Foundations of E LT, Volume 1. Abingdon: Routledge. Smith, R. C. 2007. The Origins of E LT Journal. Available at http://www.oxfordjournals.org/eltj/ about.html (Oxford University Press ELT Journal website, accessed on 7 November 2011). Strevens, P. (ed.). 1978. In Honour of A.S. Hornby. Oxford: Oxford University Press. The authors Roger Bowers C M G, OBE is the current Chairman of the A. S. Hornby Educational Trust.

Richard Smith (University of Warwick) is Deputy Chairman of the A. S. Hornby Educational Trust.

A. S. Hornby and 50 years of the Hornby Trust

What learners get for free: learning of routine formulae in ESL and E F L environments
Carsten Roever

Routine formulae are highly frequent, situationally bound chunks that are benecial to L2 learners# pragmatic performance. These formulae are usually more easily acquired in the target language setting but they are to some extent also learnable in foreign language classrooms. This study investigates the effect of different lengths of residence abroad on the recognition of situational routine formulae. A total of 262 ESL and E F L learners completed a test battery which included assessment of receptive knowledge of routines. Learners with even short-term residence of two months had increased knowledge of routines, and further residence led to further improvement in knowledge in this area. Even E F L learners without residence knew some routine formulae but knowledge of routines was independent of general prociency. Learners in the L2 setting get routines for free through exposure to contextualized L2 discourse, but which specic routines are acquired depends on the interactional settings in which learners communicate.

Introduction

Routinized expressions have long been recognized as important tools for L2 learners. As early as 1974, Hakuta suggested that routinized chunks form the foundation of L2 development as they get increasingly analysed and used for generative purposes (Hakuta 1974). Wong-Fillmore (1976) showed how child L2 learners used routine formulae strategically to compensate for lack of general prociency. However, after a damning paper by Krashen and Scarcella (1978), this early interest in routine formulae as a central component of L2 learning waned, but work on formulae persisted in interlanguage pragmatics (Wildner-Bassett 1986; House 1996) and intercultural communication research (Coulmas 1981). In recent years, work on formulaic sequences has enjoyed a renaissance in L2 acquisition research (Wray 2002; Schmitt 2004) with a particular focus on corpusbased research and the use of sequences in academic writing. This paper views the learning of routine formulae from an interlanguage pragmatics perspective and explores in particular how length of residence in the target language community might interact with knowledge of routine formulae and to what extent they can be learnt in the foreign language classroom. A large number of different terms are used to describe chunks of language that tend to occur as one unit: for example, Wray (op.cit.) shows 57 different
E LT Journal Volume 66/1 January 2012; doi:10.1093/elt/ccq090

Background

10

The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved. Advance Access publication April 8, 2011

terminological descriptions. In this paper, I will follow Bardovi-Harlig (2009) in dening routine formulae as those sequences that are used frequently by speakers in certain prescribed social situations (p. 757).1 These situations can be highly specic physical settings or more general social situations. For example, a sequence like Do you have anything to declare?, only really occurs in one type of situational setting as do sequences like Can I get you anything else? and For here or to go? Other routines are more versatile, for example youre welcome as a response to thank you or nice to meet you in an introduction situation can be used in any physical context. Productive and receptive control of routine formulae is highly benecial to L2 learners. First and foremost, it eases communication with other language users. Use of an expression like Do you have the time? is immediately comprehensible to an interlocutor as a request for the current time, whereas Declare the hour and the minute, please is not. Furthermore, knowing how to express meanings quickly and efciently and knowing what other people will say in certain situations reduces processing load, which is an important advantage, particularly to learners at lower levels of prociency for whom routine formulae can constitute islands of reliability (House op.cit.). Finally, target-like use of routine formulae makes it easier for learners to t in (as Wong-Fillmore op.cit. showed) at least to the degree that they choose to do so. While frequency counts of routine formulae are lacking, many of them occur with high regularity in general L2 discourse (How are you?, no worries, thats alright) and others occur predictably in specic situational settings. The more learners are exposed to L2 discourse or these specic usage contexts, the more likely they are to learn routine formulae in the process of being socialized into participantship (Kanagy 1999). Learners may not actually know the meaning of the individual component words of a routine formula, but learn their function and their meaning in context. Because exposure plays such an important role in learning routine formulae, learners in the L2 context nd them easier to learn than learners in the foreign language setting. House (op.cit.) showed that German E F L learners who had spent time in an English-speaking country outperformed their peers in the use of routine formulae in conversational interaction. Roever (1996, 2005) found a similar tendency for situational and functional routine formulae. But as Bardovi-Harlig (op.cit.) showed, formulae are not necessarily unproblematic for ES L learners. She investigated recognition and production of routine formulae by ESL learners and found that recognition was a necessary but not sufcient precondition for production and that learners tended to overuse some expressions while underusing others. Instructional studies have shown that it is in principle possible to teach routine formulae in the classroom. Wildner-Bassett (op.cit.) taught agreement/disagreement formulae to learners in a business English setting, and House (op.cit.) found that her German EFL learners improved in their initiation of requests through explicit and implicit instruction but not in how they responded to requests. Tateyama, Kasper, Mui, Tay, and Thananart (1997) successfully taught learners of Japanese as a foreign
Learning of routine formulae in ESL and EF L environments 11

language apology and gratitude routines, and DuFon (2003) suggests approaches for teaching gift giving in an Indonesian context. However, it is unclear to what extent it is necessary to spend valuable class time on the teaching of routine formulae. If learners can be expected to acquire them quickly and unproblematically in the target language country, it may not be necessary to teach them in a focused manner, or at least the focus could be only those that are difcult to acquire. Previous research has not investigated which formulae are easily acquired through a short stay in the target language country and which require a longer stay in the target language country or are not generally learnt. Answering these questions is important for integrating routine formulae in curricula and for planning study-abroad and homestay programmes so that learners draw maximum benet from them.

The study

This study uses a test of L2 pragmatics to investigate the effect of length of residence in an English-speaking country on learners receptive knowledge of routine formulae in English.
1 What is the difculty of routine formulae for learners with and without

Research questions

residence?
2 Which routine formulae are learnt early and which later? 3 How do different lengths of residence affect test takers overall receptive

knowledge of routines?
4 How does general prociency affect overall knowledge of routines?

Method

Instruments The test instrument was a web-based test battery of E S L pragmalinguistics (Roever 2005), which assessed learners recognition of routine formulae, as well as other aspects of pragmatic ability. The focus of this study is exclusively on routine formulae. Test takers had 12 minutes for the routines section of the test, which contained 12 four-option, multiple-choice items (see Appendix). The section was preceded by an instruction page, and the whole test started out with a biographical questionnaire asking about age, gender, native language, length of residence in English-speaking countries, self-assessment of English prociency, and computer familiarity. Test-taker responses together with answer times were captured and sent to the researcher via email in a text string that could be read into the data analysis software S P SS. Test takers could choose to view their results on the routines section immediately after the test and were sent a detailed score report with explanations of correct answers. Two versions of the test were used, which differed only minimally. The original version was designed based on the pragmatic norms and conventions of American English, and it was later adapted for Australian English. The adaptation process primarily involved changes in word choice (for example replacing roommate with atmate) but three changes in response options affected the routines section. Item 10 had as its correct American English (AmE) response For here or to go? and was changed in

12

Carsten Roever

the Australian English (AusE) version to the more idiomatic For here or to take away? In the AmE version, Item 7 had youre welcome as a correct response to thank you, and while that is also a common formula in AusE, it was changed to no worries to ensure that this extremely frequent AusE formula was represented in the test. Finally, no problem replaced thats okay as a second-pair part for an apology in Item 12 of the AusE version.

Participants

A total of 262 E S L and EFL learners took part in the study. They were located in Germany (128 learners), the United States (64 learners), Australia (66 learners), and Japan (4 learners). The various sampling locations were chosen to ensure a balance of learners with and without exposure as well as a range of lengths of exposure and varied native languages. The German group encompassed high school students from 13 to 19 years of age, spanning the third to the ninth year of secondary school EFL instruction with prociency levels ranging roughly from beginners to upper intermediate (A1 to high B2 in the C E F R), as well as university-level English majors with advanced prociency and non-majors with roughly intermediate prociency. The US group consisted of university students at the upper-intermediate level (threshold of B2 and C1 in the C E F R) undertaking post-admission compulsory courses in an English language institute in addition to their majors, as well as more advanced students who had met their universitys English requirement. The Australian group consisted of roughly intermediate level students around C E F R B2 level undertaking an intensive English language programme with a view towards entering university at its completion. The small Japanese sample is the remainder of a larger group of 24 students taking compulsory English classes at a technical university in Japan. Most students in this group did not provide sufcient data to be included in this study, and the four students included are likely to be at the low-intermediate level. Of course, prociency levels can be assumed to vary within groups, and prociency designations given here are just a rough orientation. The native language of the German group was almost entirely German, with a few other languages (Russian, Polish) appearing occasionally. The Australian and US groups were far more diverse in their L1s, with native languages including (in order of frequency) Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Thai, Indonesian, Spanish, Arabic, and Vietnamese. There were 146 test takers with residence and 116 without, and test takers with residence had a mean age of 24 compared to a mean age of 17 for those without residence. This can be explained by the latter sample comprising primarily high school students in Germany plus a small number of university students in Germany and Japan. The residence sample, on the other hand, consisted entirely of university students in the United States and Australia. Both samples had more female than male participants, and the non-residence sample took the American version of the test exclusively, whereas the residence sample was nearly equally split between the American and Australian versions. The residence samples mean length of stay in English-speaking countries
Learning of routine formulae in ESL and EF L environments 13

was 17 months (median of six months), with stays ranging from a minimum of one week to a maximum of 30 years. To investigate the effect of different lengths of residence, the residence sample was split into seven residence groups of roughly equal size in addition to the non-residence group. Table 1 shows the sizes of the groups.
N No residence Up to 2 months 23 months 37 months 712 months 1224 months 24 months and more Total 116 36 22 24 23 23 18 262 % 44.3 13.7 8.4 9.2 8.8 8.8 6.9 100

table 1 Residence groups

Procedures

Test takers completed the test in computer laboratories at their institutions during class time or in specially arranged sessions. The researcher, or a collaborator, was present during the testing sessions to help with questions and technical problems. Test-taker answers were sent to the researcher electronically. All data were subsequently analysed using SPSS 18 software. Table 2 shows the average section means and standard deviations on the routines section for test takers with and without residence:
Residence Routines section Residence Non residence N* 143 95 Mean 77.1 48.1 SD 15.2 16.7 Effect size (d) 1.82

Results
table 2 Routines scores for the residence and nonresidence group and size of the difference

participant numbers above are lower than the total population shown in Table 1 as only participants who completed at least half the section received a total score. Data from all participants are included in Table 3

It is apparent that the residence group scored much higher on the routines section than the non-residence group. The score difference, expressed as Cohens (1992) d, was very large and signicant at p , .05. A closer look at which formula are recognized at what time shows that learners in the EFL setting are already familiar with some formulae, others are learnt quickly in the ESL setting, but some require more exposure to learn. Table 3 shows the percentage of correct answers for each formula at each level of exposure. Correctness levels at or above 70 per cent are highlighted in light grey and at or above 80 per cent in dark grey.2 For example, Item 1 (Nice to meet you) was known at the 80 per cent level to all groups, including the non-residence group. By contrast, Item 10 (For here or to go?) was not known to the non-residence group at a high level but it was known to the group with up to two months residence at the 70 per

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Carsten Roever

cent level and to groups with longer residence at the 80 per cent level or above.
Residence/ None Up to 23 37 712 1224 Over 24 item 2 months months months months months months 8 1 11 5 9 7 12 10 2 4 3 6 86 82 52 56 64 44 43 27 26 28 53 16 95 97 90 82 79 77 70 70 51 41 51 14 100 96 78 87 100 96 84 88 52 52 48 24 100 92 83 92 92 92 75 96 54 46 54 21 100 91 86 100 86 100 84 92 72 48 59 24 100 85 96 96 100 92 85 96 96 81 58 33 91 100 100 100 100 95 96 96 83 70 90 48

table 3 Percentage of correct answers by length of residence and item

Comparing routine formulae, it is apparent that two greeting routine formulae, Hello (#8) on the phone and Nice to meet you (#1), were known to all groups including the non-residence group. The next two formulae, Say that again, please (#11) on the phone and No thanks, Im full (#5), were learnt within the rst two months of residence and another four, For here or to go? (#10), Youre welcome (#7), No problem/Thats okay (#12), and Can I leave a message? (#9), were learnt incipiently during the same period and were rmly established by the end of three months. Two more formulae, Here you go (#2) and Do you have the time? (#4), were then learnt with much longer stays of around a year, and one more formula, Can I get you anything else? (#3), took over two years to become established. One nal formula, Do you think you could make it? (#6), was not learnt by this sample at the 70 or 80 per cent level. Of course, these are accumulations at the group level and there is variation for individual learners: for each formula, there were learners at each level of residence, even in the non-residence group, who knew them. None of the non-residence learners scored zero on this section, but also none scored 100 per cent, whereas among the learners with residence, the lowest score was 42 per cent and several achieved a perfect score. Residence is not a precondition or a guarantee for knowledge of routine formulae but it is clearly facilitative. This facilitative effect is further supported by considering total scores on the routines section. Figure 1 demonstrates that scores leap upwards even with very little residence, which is followed by a slower increase, stagnation, and another slow climb. It could be argued, however, that knowledge of routines might simply be a function of prociency, which probably also increases as learners spend more time in an English-speaking country. The present study did not contain an independent prociency test, but prociency levels could be ascertained at least for a subpopulation: the German high school students in the non-residence groups differed by year level and therefore by number of
Learning of routine formulae in ESL and EF L environments 15

100 90 80 70 60 50

gure 1 Mean scores by length of residence

40 No residence Up to 2 months 2 to 3 months 3 to 7 months 7 to 12 months 12 to 24 months 24 months and more

years of EFL instruction. If routines scores were indeed a function of prociency, they should increase by year level for the German non-residence population. However, that was not the case. As Figure 2 shows, the routines score only increases slightly over ve years of E F L instruction.3 An analysis of variance, comparing the ve year levels, conrmed that the difference by year level was non-signicant.

Discussion

This study shows that learning of routine formulae is related to length of residence in the target language country but this is certainly not the only place where routine formulae can be learnt. Some knowledge of routine formulae can be acquired in the classroom, so they are learnable outside the target language context but they seem to be more quickly learnt within the target language context: the number of formulae that is known to the vast majority of learners more than doubles by the end of two months and increases again during the third month. In other words, after three months
70 60 50 40 30 20

gure 2 EFL learners by year level and routines score

10 3rd year EFL 4th year EFL 5th year EFL 6th year EFL 8th year EFL

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Carsten Roever

of residence, four times as many routines are known to four fths of the learner population than they would know without residence. What accounts for this steep increase in knowledge? To answer this question, it is important to consider the concept of residence. Residence in the target language country does not just imply being physically present in that country: for learners to receive input and use routine formulae, residence means contact with target-language speakers in a variety of settings and situations. Learners with residence in this study would have been exposed to interactions in restaurant settings, on the phone, in shops, and engaged in general communication with other target-language users. The use of routine formulae is modelled for learners through these interactions, and they have an opportunity to produce formulae themselves and receive feedback on their use of these. The learners task is made easier through the strong association of a formula with the setting in which it is used. This association signicantly facilitates recognition of the meaning of the formula: in a restaurant situation, language users expect certain formulae to occur, and when they do, there is no need to process them like new, never-heard-before input. Rather, listeners simply conrm their expectations, which can be done quickly and efciently. This recognition process does not even require unpacking where learners understand every part of the formula. For routine formulae, all that is required is to recognize (and possibly imitate) a certain combination of words regardless of whether learners know what the individual words mean. This last characteristic of routine formulae also explains why prociency does not have much of an impact on learners knowledge of them. Routine formulae tend to be quite short so even low-prociency learners can memorize and remember them as chunks, and higher prociency does not confer much of an advantage. The implications from these ndings are multifold. Learners going abroad can be expected to get some routines for free, particularly highly frequent, situationally bound ones. This already applies to short-term stays of up to two months, although a stay of three months leads to a more stable knowledge of routines. The exact routines that learners would become familiar with probably depend on their social roles and the types of exposure they receive: 15-year-olds doing a homestay could be expected to learn some different routines than 25-year-olds studying at university, although there would certainly be overlaps. If the goal of a stay abroad is to quickly boost some of the more obvious markers of L2 knowledge, a short sojourn is quite effective. Longer stays do not necessarily add a great deal for routines knowledge, although if learners were to interact in an increasing variety of social spheres and settings (for example going from an initial homestay to part-time work to tertiary study) quite a wide variety of formulae would probably be learnt. In terms of classroom instruction in the foreign language context, it is interesting that learners are able to learn some routine formulae in this setting. It is questionable whether greater curricular integration of these formulae might help them learn more: learners do not have much realworld use for routine formulae in the foreign language setting, and the situational context, which many formulae are so closely tied to, is lacking in
Learning of routine formulae in ESL and EF L environments 17

this environment. However, the use of video, role plays, and simply making them part of assessment would aid in making learners familiar with these helpful and important expressions. Like any research endeavour, this study had some limitations. The routines investigated were not chosen based on a corpus or other systematic sampling but rather on previous research. They are therefore not necessarily representative of the whole range of formulae learners might know. Also, the test provided brief, written situation descriptions whereas replicating real-world contexts by means of video or even virtual reality might have made the learners task easier. In other words, the test may have underdiagnosed learners true knowledge of routines. Still, the routines tested here are undeniably common in interaction, and the difference between the non-residence and residence groups, as well as developmental tendencies within the residence group, leads to the conclusion that exposure greatly aids learning of routine formulae and even a short-term stay conveys an advantage.

Conclusion

This study demonstrates that learners do get parts of the target language for free: situationally bound formulae that occur with high frequency in the communicative settings in which learners interact. These formulae can be learnt independently of prociency because they do not require grammatical analysis, and they become familiar to learners very quickly because they are so highly frequent and useful. The formulae can in principle be learnt in the foreign language classroom as well, but the necessity for learners to use them is much greater in the targetlanguage setting, which leads to accelerated learning. Where study abroad is a possibility as a component of a programme, it provides a quick way of learning these important expressions for a large group of learners. At the same time, there will always be learner variability and even some learners in the foreign language setting may achieve surprisingly high knowledge of formulae. Final revised version received October 2010

Notes 1 Bardovi-Harlig (2009) actually used the term conventional expressions but I prefer routine formulae. 2 No claim is made here that accuracy reects individual acquisition. Rather, the percentage of learners who have learnt a given formula at a given level is indicative of the familiarity of that formula to larger populations of learners. 3 The ninth year group was not included because it represents a stratied population and is not readily comparable to the other groups. References Bardovi-Harlig, K. 2009. Conventional expressions as a pragmalinguistics resource: recognition and
18 Carsten Roever

production of conventional expressions in L2 pragmatics. Language Learning 59/4: 75595. Cohen, J. 1992. A power primer. Psychological Bulletin 112/1: 1559. Coulmas, F. 1981. Introduction: conversational routine in F. Coulmas (ed.). Conversational Routine. The Hague, Netherlands: Mouton de Gruyter. DuFon, M. A. 2003. Gift giving in Indonesian: a model for teaching pragmatic routines in the foreign language classroom of the less commonly nez Flor, E. Uso Juan, taught languages in A Mart ndez Guerra (eds.). Pragmatic and A. Ferna Competence and Foreign Language Teaching. Castello de la Plana, Spain: Publicacions de la Universitat Jaume I.

Hakuta, K. 1974. Prefabricated patterns and the emergence of structure in second language acquisition. Language Learning 24: 28797. House, J. 1996. Developing pragmatic uency in English as a foreign language: routines and metapragmatic awareness. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18/2: 22552. Kanagy, R. 1999. Interactional routines as a mechanism for L2 acquisition and socialization in an immersion context. Journal of Pragmatics 31/11: 146792. Krashen, S. and R. Scarcella. 1978. On routines and patterns in second language acquisition and performance. Language Learning 28/2: 283300. Roever, C. 1996. Linguistische Routinen: Systematische, psycholinguistische und berlegungen. fremdsprachendidaktische U Fremdsprachen und Hochschule 46: 4360. Roever, C. 2005. Testing ES L Pragmatics. Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Peter Lang. Schmitt, N. (ed.). 2004. Formulaic Sequences. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Tateyama, Y., G. Kasper, L. Mui, M. H-Tay, and O. Thananart. 1997. Explicit and implicit teaching of pragmatic routines in L. Bouton (ed.). Pragmatics

and Language Learning. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Wildner-Bassett, M. 1986. Teaching and learning polite noises: improving pragmatic aspects of advanced adult learners interlanguage in G. Kasper (ed.). Learning, Teaching and Communication in the rhus: A rhus Foreign Language Classroom. A University Press. Wong-Fillmore, L. 1976. The second time around: cognitive and social strategies in second language acquisition. Unpublished PhD thesis, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA. Wray, A. 2002. Formulaic Language and the Lexicon. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. The author Carsten Roever is Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics at the University of Melbourne. He was trained as an ES L teacher at the University of Duisburg (Germany) and has taught E SL in Germany and the United States. He holds a PhD in Second Language Acquisition from the University of Hawaii. His research interests are second language learning, interlanguage pragmatics, and language testing. Email: carsten@unimelb.edu.au

Appendix Routines items

1 Jack was just introduced to Jamal by a friend. Theyre shaking hands.

What would Jack probably say? a Nice to meet you. b Good to run into you. c Happy to nd you. d Glad to see you.
2 Carrie has done some shopping at a grocery store. The man at the cash

register has just nished packing her groceries and gives her the bags. What would the man probably say? a Here you go. b There they are. c All yours. d Please.
3 Tom ordered a meal in a restaurant and the waitress just brought it. She

asks him if he wants to order additional items. What would the waitress probably say? a Would you like anything extra? b Is there more for you? c What can I do for you? d Can I get you anything else?

Learning of routine formulae in ESL and EF L environments

19

4 Jane is at the beach and wants to know what time it is. She sees a man with

a watch. What would Jane probably say? a Excuse me, can you say the time? b Excuse me, how late is it? c Excuse me, whats your watch show? d Excuse me, do you have the time?
5 Sam is having dinner at a friends house. His friend offers him more food

but he couldnt possibly eat another bite. What would Sam probably say? a No, thanks, Ive nished it. b No, thanks, Ive eaten. c No, thanks, Im full. d No, thanks, Ive done it.
6 Ted is inviting his friend to a little party hes having at his house tomorrow

night. Ted: Im having a little party tomorrow night at my place. How would Ted probably go on? a How would you like to come in? b Do you think you could make it? c How about youre there? d Why arent you showing up?
7 The person ahead of Kate in line at the cafeteria drops his pen. Kate picks

it up and gives it back to him. He says Thank you. What would Kate probably reply? a Thank you. b Please. c Youre welcome. d Dont bother.
8 The phone rings. Stan picks it up.

What would Stan probably say? a Hi. b Hello. c Its me. d How are you?
9 Claudia calls her college classmate Dennis but his roommate answers the

phone and tells her that Dennis isnt home. Claudia would like the roommate to tell Dennis something. What would Claudia probably say? a Can you write something? b Can I give you information? c Can I leave a message? d Can you take a note?

20

Carsten Roever

10 Tim is ordering food at a restaurant where you can sit down or take the

food home with you. What would the woman behind the counter probably ask Tim? a For home or here? b For going or staying? c For taking it with you? d For here or to go?
11 Candice is talking to her friend Will from a payphone on a noisy city

street. She cant hear something Will said because a large truck passed by. What would Candice probably say? a Repeat yourself, please. b Say that again, please. c Say that another time, please. d Restate what you said, please.
12 In a crowded subway, a woman steps on Jakes foot. She says Im sorry.

What would Jake probably say? a Thats okay. b No bother. c Its nothing. d Dont mention it.

Learning of routine formulae in ESL and EF L environments

21

Dispelling the myth of the natural-born linguist

Sarah Mercer

An individuals mindset about the perceived malleability of ability or intelligence is known to strongly inuence a persons other beliefs, behaviours, and motivation. This article seeks to provide justication for holding a growth mindset in the domain of foreign language learning. It discusses contemporary understandings of ability and intelligence in a range of elds and focuses on deconstructing the belief that language learning ability is based primarily on an immutable, innate talent. Instead the article illustrates how it is best understood as a dynamic potential that individuals can develop to varying degrees depending on a complex range of personal and contextual factors. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of this overview of the literature for research and pedagogy.

Introduction: mindsets

Mindsets, also known as implicit theories in psychology, are the specic set of beliefs individuals have about the malleability of a certain trait or ability (Dweck 2006). For example, intelligence can either be viewed as being something that can grow and develop, a growth mindset, or as something that is predetermined and unchangeable, a xed mindset. Within psychology, Dweck and her colleagues have repeatedly shown how holding a particular mindset about intelligence can have a considerable impact on other learner beliefs, behaviours, and ultimate academic success. Various studies have indicated that a learner with a growth mindset is more likely to be motivated to set challenging goals, attribute their successes and failures to factors within their locus of control, and will be willing to run the risk of failure in the pursuit of growth and learning. A language learning mindset reects the extent to which a person believes that language learning ability is dependent on some immutable, innate talent or is the result of controllable factors such as effort and conscious hard work. Given the widespread belief in the existence and importance of a natural talent or aptitude for language learning, it is possible that a more xed mindset may be especially prevalent in the domain of foreign language learning (cf. Mercer and Ryan 2010). Language learners holding such a mindset are more likely to avoid challenges which risk failure, set themselves lower goals, and are in danger of becoming demotivated possibly to the extent of a state of helplessness in the face of the perceived futility of engaging in any strategic behaviour. Learners with a xed mindset believe that if you do not have the gift for languages, then it is hopeless to try and make any real efforts to improve as your abilities as a linguist cannot be

22

E LT Journal Volume 66/1 January 2012; doi:10.1093/elt/ccr022

The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved. Advance Access publication April 5, 2011

developed to any great extent. The perils of a strong belief in the myth of the natural-born linguist are self-evident. While our understandings of mindsets within the domain of foreign language learning remain extremely limited at present given the absence of empirical studies in this area (cf. Mercer and Ryan op.cit.), insights from extensive work within psychology already indicate the importance of encouraging both learners and teachers to believe in everybodys potential to learn and develop their abilities, in other words to hold a growth mindset. However, the myth of the naturally gifted linguist is stubbornly persistent among many learners and even teachers. Therefore, in this article, I would like to explore developments in an array of elds, in order to challenge the validity of this myth. I hope to show how natural aptitudes and innate talents are currently being assigned a considerably diminished role in a range of achievements and thus provide some justication for supporting a growth mindset. It is hoped that this article will encourage teachers and learners to conceptualize language learning in a way that avoids giving undue emphasis to natural aptitude and is thereby more empowering to learners of all ages, genders, and backgrounds.

Quantifying intelligence and aptitude

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, IQ tests have had a considerable impact on modern thinking about intelligence as a measurable, xed quantity. During the First World War, the popular Stanford-Binet IQ test was adopted by the US military and while it has undergone some revisions over the years, the test has remained popular being used by both companies, educational institutions, and even in respect to immigration policies, often with high personal stakes for those taking it, although its popularity has declined somewhat in recent years. One of the lasting legacies and ongoing side effects of this and other related IQ tests is their implied message that intelligence is an entity that is xed and quantiable. Ironically, the original inventor of the test, Alfred Binet (cited in Shenk 2010: 29), argued against such thinking and criticized those who believed that intelligence cannot be increased and called for people to protest and react against this brutal pessimism. Increasingly, the test has come under criticism for a range of reasons including the potential variation in responses according to gender, class, and culture and also disputes over various statistical, correlational, and other mathematical calculations. However, the most fundamental criticism has been that such intelligence tests tend to only address one general type of intelligence (known as g). A critic of general IQ testing is Robert Sternberg who has written extensively about different types of intelligence and how IQ tests measure only a small part of the range of an individuals intellectual skills. Instead, he has argued in his triarchic theory of intelligence (Sternberg 1985) that different types of intelligences are dynamic, contextually sensitive and adaptive. A fellow critic perhaps better known within second language acquisition (SLA) is Howard Gardner. He has suggested that there are at least eight different types of intelligence potentials that can be developed and nurtured under the right environmental and contextual conditions. In clarifying the nature of his multiple intelligences, he explains that he views an intelligence as a biopsychological potential that can be realised to a greater or lesser extent
Dispelling the myth of the natural-born linguist 23

as a consequence of the experiential, cultural, and motivational factors that affect a person (Gardner 1999: 82). Fundamentally, at the heart of his theory is the belief that human minds differ and cannot sensibly be conceived of in terms of a single intellectual dimension. His work stresses intellectual diversity and individual uniqueness as well as the potential rather than end-product state of intelligences in all humans. In similar developments within the domain of language learning, a persons aptitude for languages has also been quantied and measured using a series of tests. Following the Second World War, Carroll and Sapon (1958) developed The Modern Language Aptitude Test (M LAT), initially to help the US army nd individuals who were likely to succeed at language learning. This test and others based upon it have made a considerable impact on the perceptions of and beliefs about language learning abilities. Once again, the message implicit in the existence of such tests was that some individuals had a certain measurable amount of aptitude for languages and this was xed and unchangeable over time, irrespective of the persons levels of motivation, other personal variables, and any potential contextual affordances or interpersonal factors.1 With the emergence of the communicative approach, the test, which was based on audiolingual methods, has lost ground in terms of relevance and perceived validity by fa r and Kormos 2008). More practitioners and researchers (for example Sa recently, fundamental concerns have been raised about the nature of aptitude tests, the validity of constructs measured, and the degree to which they reect contemporary theoretical understandings of potential abilities (ibid.). Consequently, there has also been a shift to the recognition of a more differentiated view of multiple aptitudes contributing to varied aspects of language learning abilities at different stages in the learning process, as well as more situated understandings considering particular and dynamic contexts, rather than a single, unitary static aptitude. As Ranta (2008: 151) explains, rather than learner aptitude being equated with a test score, it is now understood as a reection of an individuals varied strengths and weaknesses in a range of cognitive abilities, all of which interact with other factors, such as motivation and contextual affordances. Both general intelligence and aptitude testing have experienced a shift towards more contextually sensitive, dynamic modes of understandings, which recognize a broader, more diverse range of multiple intelligences and abilities that can be affected by an individuals experiences within the domain and various other personal and contextual variables. While it seems likely that some form of different aptitudes may exist, the emphasis is now more clearly on their multifaceted nature and potential for development and change across time and place.

Expertise and genius

Another area concerned with the nature of ability focuses on the skills of those who excel and become experts in a particular domain. Within SLA, expert language learners were frequently investigated under the body of work known as the good language learner (GLL) studies. The intention of much of the initial work was to facilitate an understanding of what GLLs do and consider how this knowledge could be used to help less successful language learners. However, this early work came under criticism for failing to adequately recognize the potential for individual learner differences and
Sarah Mercer

24

contextual variation. As a result and in line with other theoretical developments, attention has moved from an interest in the good language learner to good language learners (plural) and the complexity of multiple variables and individual differences, which together contribute to language learning success (see Grifths 2008). It is increasingly accepted that there are likely to be a myriad of pathways to success, each as unique and individual as the person taking the route, affected by a wide and complex range of factors both personal and contextual and driven by a strong sense of motivation. In their conclusions about the state of contemporary understandings of GLLs, Oxford and Lee (2008: 312) conclude that there is no single good language learner model, and instead they highlight individual variation and the more diminished role of aptitude given the potential inuence in developing learner abilities of motivation, strategic behaviours, and facilitating affordances. Within psychology-based studies, much work has examined the notion of expertise in a range of domains. Perhaps one of the leading gures involved in this body of work is K. Anders Ericsson. In a key paper, he and his colleagues convincingly argue that differences in expert performances are attributable primarily to deliberate practice over an extended period of time as opposed to any sense of innate talent (Ericsson, Krampe, and Tesch mer 1993). Deliberate practice is a special form of repetitive practice that Ro breaks down a holistic ability into subcomponent skills, which are then practised repeatedly, almost drill-like. The authors stress that this form of practice is not necessarily an inherently enjoyable activity and as such requires passion, motivation, dedication, and perseverance. To become an expert, they explain that a person must engage in many hours and years of practice, leading to their frequently cited gure of 10,000 hours over ten years, and the individual also needs to be willing to risk failure, while maintaining an ability to reect and learn from their experiences. While expertise may vary across domains in how it is understood and dened, he and his colleagues have shown that there are commonalities in how expertise is developed and these do not reside in innate abilities, although they acknowledge the potential for individual differences in predispositions but rather in how the person approaches the task of enhancing their abilities. In explaining the development of expertise, Ericsson et al. (ibid.) also stress the importance of signicant others such as parents, mentors, and teachers in supporting children in the development of expertise in terms of the beliefs they convey (especially their mindset beliefs), the motivation they transmit, and the opportunities they facilitate for the child to develop their own interest and have time and opportunity to engage in deliberate practice. They show that the individuals context can constrain or support a person in their striving for excellence depending on the opportunities available. The role of context and affordances of culture, family, and signicant others is also highlighted by Gladwell (2008). By considering the life histories of a series of highly successful individuals and groups, he argues that they excelled not only because of who they are and how much effort they expended, but essentially because of their surroundings, particularly in terms of time and place. He argues that success is not just a question of

Dispelling the myth of the natural-born linguist

25

individual merit but also a product of the world in which a person grows up and hence, the affordances they have. Extreme cases of expertise are often referred to as genius, and there have been a number of studies which have attempted to deconstruct the myth surrounding the natural-born genius. Perhaps one of the best known is a book entitled Genius Explained by the psychologist Howe (1999), in which he examines the lives of famous gures such as Charles Darwin, Michael Faraday, and Albert Einstein. Examining their biographies in detail, he shows how their outstanding achievements are the product of a combination of environment, personality, and hard work. He explains that whilst expertise is seen by many as ordinary and something that can be gained following lengthy periods of practice and training, genius is often perceived as being somehow magical, rare, and a form of inborn brilliance. In fact, he argues that expert and genius are achieved along similar paths of doggedness, persistence, capacity for intense concentration, and sheer hard work. He concludes that based on the evidence examined, the innate gifts or talents that are commonly believed to be possessed by a minority of individuals who are thereby imbued with a capacity to excel in particular areas of expertise are probably mythical rather than real (ibid.: 200). The expertise studies and those analysing the lives of individuals exhibiting so-called genius have both contributed to dispelling the myth of the natural genius or innate talent and have provided valuable insights into the complex interplay of factors that can underlie exceptional performance or abilities. Fundamentally, the ndings suggest the potential for everyone to achieve degrees of expertise in a specic domain as well as the relative ordinariness surrounding genius achievements. They show how a range of factors such as personality, contextual affordances, and environmental support contribute to the development of an individuals skills and ultimate successes.

Neuroscience and genetics

Other contributions towards demystifying the idea of the natural genius stem from studies exploring the interaction between genes and environment as well as research investigating the nature of the brain. In the rst area, studies have examined the relative role of genes in dictating a persons abilities and intelligence. Shenk (2010) manages to distil this complex eld into comprehensible terms for the layperson. He argues in favour of the emerging view held by some geneticists and neuroscientists that, rather than attempting to distinguish whether ones abilities or traits stem from nature or nurture, it is more likely that each individual has their own unique developmental path, which is referred to as G E to signify the dynamic interaction between both ones genes (G) and the environment (E). Therefore, as opposed to the traditional dichotomy, he explains that there is a need for science to understand the ways in which both genes and environmental factors interact together in the development of abilities. Indeed, work in the eld of epigenetics suggests that even genes themselves can be changed and altered by outside inuences and environmental factors (ibid.). Shenk thus concludes that, intelligence is not an innate aptitude, hardwired at conception or in the womb, but a collection of developing skills driven by the interaction between genes and environment. No one is born

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Sarah Mercer

with a predetermined amount of intelligence. Intelligence (and IQ scores) can be improved (ibid.: 29). A second relevant area of research examines the brain functioning of exceptional individuals. Darold Treffert, who studies the brains of savants, explains on his website (http://www.daroldtreffert.com/) that his work in this eld also offers insights into the general functioning of the brain and has caused him to reect on what skills may lie dormant within every individual. As Shenk (op.cit.: 75) explains, the physical damage in the brain that can cause savant syndrome is not what creates the ability in the individual but rather it creates the opportunity for the ability to develop. A well-known savant, Daniel Tammet (2009), cogently argues for a balanced view of abilities, which does not view success or genius as merely a product of innate talents. Examining the work of neuroscientists such as Treffert and reecting on his own personal experiences as a savant, he explains that he has come to believe that everyone is born with certain talents, which dedication and hard work help to realise (ibid.: 57). He views talent as being something dynamic that emerges from the complex interaction of genetic and environmental elements. Specically, he explains how adult brains are no longer thought of in static, rigid terms but are now more widely understood as supple, dynamic organs, which can grow and change throughout a persons lifetime; a potential referred to as neuroplasticity. Essentially, these developments in neuroscience and genetics argue against biological determinism and in favour of a development, interactionist view of ability, which suggests that a persons abilities emerge from the interaction between their genetic predisposition and their environment and that this is an ongoing, dynamic process. Such a view opens up the potential for everyone to excel and not be held back by the supposed hard-wiring of their brains or their genetic inheritance.

Implications for research approaches: complexity theory

It becomes apparent even from this brief introductory overview that the factors contributing towards an individuals continually emergent abilities as a language learner are potentially complex, manifold, and intimately interconnected with the persons environment. In view of this, the best theoretical approach to help understand how language learner abilities develop would seem to be offered by complexity theory. Fundamentally, a complex system is dened as one that emerges from the interactions of its components, which can be agents or elements (Larsen-Freeman and Cameron 2008: 200). The theory emphasizes the dynamic and complex nature of any process or system, which can be affected by a multitude of factors in ways that may be difcult to predict. As a theory, it suggests that a learner cannot meaningfully be separated from their context and that in fact, it is more appropriate to view the learner and a complex context as interacting, co-adaptive dynamic systems (ibid.: 205). It recognizes the uniqueness of every individual learner as a complex dynamic system whose abilities are continually evolving as the learner engages and interacts with various contexts and other systems. It is an approach that inherently rejects reductionist, single variable explanations of cause and effect, such as the concept of a single generic innate talent being solely responsible for language learning success. As a theory, it recognizes the potential for
Dispelling the myth of the natural-born linguist 27

continual change and development in learners abilities as they interact in multiple, potentially unique ways with their various language learning and use contexts. Given the discussion in the preceding sections, it would seem to offer a more realistically grounded approach to attempting to explain and understand the complex process of an individual learning a language and it would appear to support a growth mindset, in which ability is perceived as a dynamic potential.

Implications for language learning and teaching

This article does not intend to propose that everybody can become highly procient polyglots; however, the trends and developments in contemporary thinking outlined above do suggest the validity and appropriacy of advocating a growth mindset about language learning abilities. As has been shown, abilities are now conceived of as being much more dynamic, varied, and multidimensional than can be represented by a single unitary form of general overall intelligence or aptitude. A picture emerges in which an individuals ability as a language learner is not conceived of as a xed, quantiable amount given at birth, but rather as a complex, ongoing process of multiple developable skills. Although there is recognition of the potential for individuals to differ in terms of their natural predispositions, the overwhelming trend is to also accept the capacity of every learner to grow and develop their abilities, possibly beyond their expectations, given the right context, environmental support, and a personal willingness to invest time and effort and engage in repeated practice. In order to promote a growth mindset, educators need to develop a positive learning culture, which engenders the beliefs underlying such a mindset. As teachers, we should begin by ensuring that we ourselves truly hold a growth mindset and believe in the capacity of all of our learners to continually develop and further expand their language learning abilities. We have to become aware of our own deeply held beliefs and be conscious of our classroom behaviours such as how we formulate feedback and our use of praise. These should highlight effort and progress and avoid implying that success is the result of a persons natural talent or a so-called gift for languages (cf. Dweck 2006). Care also needs to be taken in selecting materials which may contain implicit messages about language learning abilities and aptitudes. It can also be benecial to hold an explicit discussion about mindset beliefs and their implications for learning behaviours in classrooms among learners and teachers. Indeed, such a discussion is also necessary in the inuential contexts of teacher training, curriculum development, and textbook writing. As teachers, we must be in a position to help our language learners to develop a growth mindset about their own abilities. If they do not believe in their own potential to improve, advance, and develop as linguists, then no matter how engaging, motivating, or pedagogically sound our materials and classroom procedures are, we may fail to reach and motivate all our learners. Our message, conveyed through our own behaviours, materials, and practices, needs to be that a talent for languages is not an immutable, xed, innate entity that only a privileged few possess, but it is rather a complex, ongoing process composed of multiple abilities that every single learner can further develop and extend given a nurturing environment and their own

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inner passion and drive. Our job as educators is to foster a language learning culture that can engender a growth mindset and motivate every single one of our learners to become the best linguist they possibly can. Final revised version received December 2010
Note 1 The use of the term affordance is intended to highlight the interaction between an individual and the perceived resources and characteristics of a context that offer potential opportunities for learning and growth. For a detailed discussion of the concept of affordances, see Chapter 4 of van Lier 2004, The Ecology and Semiotics of Language Learning. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. References Carroll, J. B. and S. Sapon. 1958. The Modern Language Aptitude Test. New York, NY: The Psychological Corporation. Dweck, C. S. 2006. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York, NY: Random House. mer. Ericsson, K. A., R. T. Krampe, and C. Tesch-Ro 1993. The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. Psychological Review 100/3: 363406. Gardner, H. 1999. Intelligence Reframed. New York, NY: Basic Books. Gladwell, M. 2008. Outliers: The Story of Success. London: Penguin. C. Grifths. (ed.). 2008. Lessons from Good Language Learners. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Howe, M. J. A. 1999. Genius Explained. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Larsen-Freeman, D. and L. Cameron. 2008. Research methodology on language development from a complex systems perspective. The Modern Language Journal 92/2: 20013. Mercer, S. and S. Ryan. 2010. A mindset for E F L: learners beliefs about the role of natural talent. ELT Journal 64/4: 43644. Oxford, R. L. and K. R. Lee. 2008. The learners landscape and journey: a summary in C. Grifths (ed.). Ranta, L. 2008. Aptitude and good language learners in C. Grifths (ed.). fa r, A. and J. Kormos. 2008. Revisiting problems Sa with foreign language aptitude. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching 46/2: 11336. Shenk, D. 2010. The Genius in All of Us. London: Icon Books. Sternberg, R. 1985. Beyond IQ: A Triarchic Theory of Human Intelligence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tammet, D. 2009. Embracing the Wide Sky. London: Hodder and Stoughton.

The author Sarah Mercer currently teaches English at the University of Graz where she has worked for over 12 years. Her research interests include various aspects of the psychology surrounding the language learning experience, in particular self-concept, attributions, and implicit theories. Email: sarah.mercer@uni-graz.at

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Small Talk: developing uency, accuracy, and complexity in speaking

James Hunter

A major issue that continues to challenge language teachers is how to ensure that learners develop accuracy and complexity in their speaking, as well as uency. Teachers know that too much corrective feedback (CF) can make learners reluctant to speak, while not enough may allow their errors to become entrenched. Furthermore, there is controversy over the effectiveness of recasts (the most common form of CF) in promoting acquisition. This article explores a methodology, Small Talk, which aims to resolve some of the tensions between the need to encourage truly communicative language use and the need to develop complexity and to bring focus on forms into the syllabus in ways that can be recognized as valid and relevant by both teachers and learners. It presents some preliminary research on the viability of this CFmethodology premised on attention to, and arising from the needs of, the individual learner.

Introduction

A perennial struggle for teachers is how to develop both accuracy and uency in students speaking since one often seems to come at the expense of the other. On top of this, we have the even greater challenge of coaxing our students out of their comfort zones towards greater complexity (Skehan 1998), especially when the language they have appears to be adequate for their communicative purposes. Different theoretical positions have had dramatic and conicting inuences on teaching methodology, so it is not always clear what we should be doing to best serve our students. If they practise pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar, will they use them spontaneously and correctly when necessary? Should we teach grammar explicitly, and if so, which forms should we teach? Should we correct errors, and if so, how, and which ones? The wise teacher employs an eclectic combination of methods depending on the teaching context and the students in the classroom, but it is hard to escape the feeling that eclectic often simply means unsystematic. Many teachers resist the strong form of communicative language teaching (CLT) because it does not have concrete, tangible content and, therefore, does not equate with real teaching. This is hardly surprising since the one area in which language teachers have traditionally had expertise, the structure of the language, is off-limits in the strong form of CLT; all that remains is coaching learners on how to get their message across, which in the nal analysis can be done with very limited linguistic resources,
E LT Journal Volume 66/1 January 2012; doi:10.1093/elt/ccq093

The limitations of contemporary language teaching

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The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved. Advance Access publication March 15, 2011

provided that formal accuracy is not a major concern or a concern at all. Indeed, Gatbonton and Segalowitz (2005: 327) see no provisions in current CLT methodologies to promote language use to a high level of mastery through repetitive practice, noting that focused practice continues to be seen as inimical to the inherently open and unpredictable nature of communicative activities. Thus, while we can fairly assume that a teachercentred classroom in which the main focus is on linguistic form will not lead to uency, we can also be condent that a focus on authentic communication alone will not lead to accuracy and complexity. It could be that the pendulum will return towards pedagogy that prioritizes formal accuracy over communicative uency, but I doubt this for several reasons. First, sociolinguistic research into language varieties has challenged the notion that there is a monolithic, correct formthat of the native speakeragainst which the language of learners can be measured. Second, this challenge has increased pressure on researchers, materials writers, and teachers to check their linguistic intuitions against ndings from corpus linguistics, which continue to shed light on the importance of context at both the linguistic and sociolinguistic level. Finally, languageteaching methodologies have become increasingly humanistic, stressing the importance of the learner in the language acquisition process. The heterogeneity of linguistic competence, learning styles, strategies, and degree of social investment of language learners is precisely the impetus for greater research efforts into pedagogical methodologies that depart from the prescriptive syllabus and encourage our reective and intuitive capacity as teachers. The time is right for a responsive pedagogy premised on careful attention to, and arising from the needs of, the individual learner.

The origins of accuracy and uency

Brumt (1979) was the rst to highlight the distinction between uency, which represents the learners truly internalized grammar, contrasting this with overt and conscious accuracy (115, emphasis in original) and suggested that uency should be regarded as natural language use, whether or not it results in native-speaker-like language comprehension or production (Brumt 1984: 56). When he introduced these terms as key concepts in second language acquisition (SLA) and syllabus design, Brumt was also arguing for an approach to form- and meaning-focused teaching, which, it seems, has largely fallen on deaf ears. For instance, he proposed allowing people to operate as effectively as they [can], and attempting to mould what they [produce] in the desired direction, rather than explicitly teaching and expecting convergent imitation. (ibid.: 50) That is, instead of giving learners language items to imitate and expecting their imitations gradually to conform to the model, teachers could discover what learners actually wanted to say and then teach them how to say it in the target language. None the less, it is still rare to leave learners to their own devices to produce natural language use, partly owing to the fear of exposing students to each others errors, but also because in many classrooms students rarely have extended opportunities to produce language for themselves at all. Rarer still is the learner-driven syllabus that Brumt proposed, one in which teaching is based on language production, and not the other way around.
Developing uency, accuracy, and complexity in speaking 31

The role of corrective feedback in oral uency activities

Corrective feedback (CF) literature to date has, with very few exceptions, examined feedback provided by teachers during teacher-fronted activities, in which the teacher controls the activity itself as well as the type and quantity of language produced. Research into the effects of such feedback has tentatively suggested a positive role for CF in the form of recasts, but has been weakened by methodological issues such as the interpretation of teacher intent and learner perception of recast moves (Mackey, Al-Khalil, Atanassova, Hama, Logan-Terry, and Nakatsukasa 2007) and the controversy over learner uptake as an indicator of either noticing or actual acquisition. Whether or not recasts are the most effective form of CF (see Ammar and Spada (2006) for a contrasting view) the pedagogical goal remains, to return to Brumt, convergent imitation. What would an alternative pedagogy and CF approach look like? Brumt (1979: 115), talks of the teacher modifying the learners self-developed systems as reected in the uent language behaviour claiming that teachers need to look at genuine language use in the classroom, to the extent that it can ever be really genuine (Brumt 1984: 52). But this presupposes two conditions: uentand genuinelanguage behaviour and a way to encourage learners to focus on the formal aspects of their production. Skehan (1996) suggests that these are unlikely to occur simultaneously since students engaged in genuine communicative interaction are likely to be too focused on meaning to pay attention to form. The same must be said of teachers; however, it is extremely difcult to participate in, let alone direct, a genuinely communicative interaction while simultaneously paying attention to and remembering the form of the utterances produced. Therefore a third condition is that teachers be free to listen carefully to both form and content of student utterances, which means being free from the responsibility to direct or even to participate in the interaction. This would permit teachers to become the experts on the language their students actually use and to design effective pedagogies to help them progress; and it would bring much-needed content to C LT and highly relevant content at that. The real teaching that teachers feel is currently missing would be the language that the learners are striving for at that moment, rather than the syllabus imposed by textbooks, which is disconnected from the needs of the learner at best, and completely arbitrary at worst. And nally, since language learning occurs over time and learners self-developed systems are likely to change at different rates, it is essential that the CF methodology be responsive to the needs of the individual learner and that there be some systematic means of collecting, storing, analysing, and recalling the data collected.

The communicative methodology: Small Talk

Small Talk began as an experiment in learner-centred, reective teaching of oral communication over 20 years ago (Harris 1998) and has developed into a comprehensive approach to developing accuracy, uency, and complexity in oral production. In a Small Talk session, students use their communicative ability in conversation without intervention by the teacher, and then receive feedback. Each session has a pre-appointed student leader, who is responsible for choosing the topic, providing questions and relevant vocabulary to further the discussion, putting classmates into small groups, timing the conversation, and leading a check-in session at the end, in
James Hunter

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which each group reports to the whole class on their conversation. The stages and timing of a Small Talk session are usually similar to that shown below.
1 2 The day before the session, the leader announces the topic. At the beginning of the session, the leader writes discussion questions and vocabulary on the board, re-introduces the topic, and claries any confusion; the leader also puts the students into groups of three to four and tells the students to begin. Groups discuss the topic. The leader asks the groups to bring their conversation to a close and prepare for check in; the groups decide what to report to the class and who will do it. The leader invites each group to check in with the class about the highlights of their conversation. The leader thanks the class and reminds them of the next Small Talk date and leader.

(35 minutes)

3 4

(1520 minutes) (5 minutes)

5 6

(510 minutes) (1 minute)

The students are encouraged, in Stages 4 and 5 above, to reect and report on the dynamics of their interaction and their own part in it. This makes explicit the quality of conversational interaction as both a cultural construct (i.e. different cultures do conversation in very different ways) and a quantiable variable (i.e. we can identify the features of appropriate interaction and evaluate our use of them). The teacher, having no role in or responsibility for the conversations, is able to observe the interactions and afterwards to suggest ways in which they can be improved. In a typical 50-minute class, there are usually ten minutes at the end for coaching, when the teacher comments on the interaction and dynamics of the Small Talk session. For instance, I often teach or remind quiet or non-uent students ways to get their point across; I remind dominating talkers to be patient and to invite others to participate; and we practise how to listen actively, to show interlocutors our comprehension (or lack of it) and to interrupt for clarication whenever necessary. Small Talk is thus effective in increasing the students pragmatic competence since it gives them an opportunity to practise, in a relatively low-stress environment, the kinds of speech acts they would need in higher stress interactions outside the classroom. It also puts students in the position, as leaders, to practise a variety of speech acts and discourse management strategies that are usually restricted to the teacher. Small Talk is very popular with students, as the following comments (from end-of-semester class evaluations) illustrate: n n n n its helped me in my speaking a lot. i think it will improve our skills. i really enjoy it because we chose our topic. i recommend it for student.

In addition, at least from teachers untested observations, it is very effective in raising the level of uency of lower-intermediate to advanced students in
Developing uency, accuracy, and complexity in speaking 33

general and particularly of students from cultural backgrounds in which verbal participation is not encouraged. It is not suitable for true beginners, who do not have sufcient language for what Willis (2003: 22) calls improvisation, in which learners are obliged to make the most of the language they have at their command. For them, perhaps more appropriate would be what Willis calls consolidation activities, in which learners think through carefully what they want to say, which would more accurately describe most classroom tasks. However, even in improvisation activities (and perhaps especially then), students understandably want to know what they are not doing successfully, and Small Talk also gives an opportunity for teachers, as observers of their students, to focus on accuracy.

Small Talk worksheets

Since the goal is for teachers not to intrude in the conversation with comments, recasts, or other corrective moves, CF is provided in the following way. It would be impossible to listen to four or ve conversations (or however many groups there are) simultaneously, but teachers can catch a portion of each conversation, listening to each group in turn and writing down inaccurate language use, whether it interferes with the communicative ow or not. They then enter each error (typically 15 to 50 per Small Talk session) with the name of the speaker into a computerized database,1 noting the date of the Small Talk session and the topic (Figure 1).

gure 1

Worksheet entry form from the database

34

James Hunter

gure 2

Excerpt from a Small Talk worksheet

Teachers also occasionally ag an item for all students to correct, regardless of who said it, which allows them to focus on specic language points. This option is especially useful in cases where several students are making similar kinds of errors. The database produces a worksheet of these errors (Figure 2), which is normally made available to the students within 24 hours of the conversation. If certain individuals dominate the conversations, of course, this collection of errors would be biased towards those individuals and some students would rarely be heard by the teacher. Consequently, two mechanisms are in place to counteract this effect. First, as mentioned above, the teacher addresses domination during the coaching sessions and explicitly teaches discourse strategies to reduce it. Second, because the database keeps a running tally of the speakers and their errors, it is possible to form groups consisting of individuals who have not been heard as frequently (and who often tend to be quieter and less dominant) and spend more time (even the whole session, if necessary) listening exclusively to them.

CF options

Giving learners a written transcription of their errors enables them to correct any slips they have made, and it might push them towards a more stable interlanguage form in cases where there is variability, and this alone makes the activity worthwhile. However, beyond that, if learners truly do not know how to say something because they lack the appropriate structure or vocabulary, some form of guidance is necessary to facilitate more accurate production in the future. Two choices present themselves. The rst is to provide the students with some sort of written metalinguistic feedback to enable them to locate and correct the error (Figure 3). This option has intuitive appeal and widespread support in the literature, especially the literature on feedback in writing (Ellis 2009). The second option is to provide the students with the printed worksheet of errors along with reformulated versions, as a competent speaker might say them, in the form of an audio recording. Students then listen to this in order to work out where the differences lie. As in a dictation, students have to listen very carefully to hear some of the less salient grammatical features (in particular, articles and verb inections). Furthermore, this option gives teachers the opportunity to introduce alternative, often more complex, language forms that can express the students intended meanings and has
Developing uency, accuracy, and complexity in speaking 35

gure 3

Worksheet with metalinguistic feedback

the additional advantage of providing a correct model for phonological errors. Pedagogically, both these options satisfy teachers concerns that students actually do something with the CF, and in theoretical terms, the hypothesis is that this level of focus is more likely to lead to acquisition than the uptake of simply repeating a teachers recast. Since this is delayed CF, there is no immediate communicative need for the information, the moment has passed. However, it might better help students to notice the gap (Schmidt and Frota 1986) because there is no simultaneous pressure to communicate. It also constitutes both explicit positive evidence and implicit negative evidence about the language (Long, Inagaki, and Ortega 1998). However the feedback is provided, the students keep a running list of their own errors and errors which the teacher has agged, on which they are tested every three to four weeks. The test requires them to look at these errors and orally correct as many as they can in a given amount of time, usually two or three minutes. As an example, the following sentences were taken from a conversation about Traditional and modern culture from my class of 22 adult intermediate students (L1 Arabic): * We can learn what their food, their cultures. * In the past the womans wear the traditional clothes. * Yeah, actually Im agree with you. When I tested the students on these sentences (and many others) six weeks later, all 22 could uently produce correct forms, typically: n We can learn what their food and their cultures are. n In the past women wore traditional clothes. n Yeah, actually I agree with you. I do not claim that all the students had acquired all or any of the previously incorrect forms, and therefore that they would be able to produce the correct form uently in novel contexts; but the focus on these forms did have the noticeable effect of promoting self-correction, especially of high-frequency chunks such as * . . . Im agree . . ., in subsequent Small Talk sessions without any reduction in their overall willingness to speak. On the contrary,
36 James Hunter

the students welcomed the individualized attention to their spoken production and felt more willing to try to express themselves knowing that I would be listening and providing feedback, as the following comment shows: I want to liste all of my sentences during small talk. I am not used to speak correct sentenses. So I am often surprised at seeing my mistakes. If I can get more sentenses, I can edit my sentenses more.

Questions

I made a small-scale study of the CFpotential of Small Talk with a class of 12 adult intermediate students (mixed L1) in an academic ESL program in the United States. Ten of the weekly Small Talk sessions were videotaped (see the Appendix), and four of these were randomly selected for analysis. The conversations were transcribed and turns with errors were identied. I then asked ve experienced teachers to watch the videos independently, without stopping or rewinding, and make worksheets just as I (the class teacher) had done during the sessions. In doing this, I wanted to address the following questions:
1 Do students get more speaking practice during Small Talk than during

a traditional, teacher-fronted class? Do they make more errors?

2 What percentage of students errors receives CF, and what percentage of

uptake is there?
3 Do some students receive more CF than others, and if so, why?

Results

In answer to the rst question, the results from the four Small Talk transcripts are shown in Table 1.
Topic Favourite place Traditional food $1 Million Generation gap Total Time 31:53 33:32 32:35 26:20 124 Word count 1,756 2,795 2,723 2,696 9,970 Turns 308 326 344 279 1,270 Errors 87 111 95 106 399 % of turns with errors 28 34 28 38 31

table 1 Count of words, turns, and turns with errors in four transcripts

In this study, there were 1,270 student turns in 124 minutes of conversation; by way of comparison, the oft-cited study by Lyster and Ranta (1997: 52 and 62) documented 3,268 student turns in 1,100 minutes. Lyster and Ranta do not include word counts, but in turn count alone the students in Small Talk spoke 3.5 times more than those in Lyster and Rantas study. The percentage of student turns with errors in both studies is almost the same, 31 per cent in this study and 34 per cent in Lyster and Rantas (ibid.: 52), meaning that the speakers left to their own devices not only spoke more but also made slightly fewer errors than those in teacher-controlled activities. To address the second question, the number of erroneous utterances written down by each teacher over four Small Talk sessions was calculated as a percentage of the number of student errors identied in the transcripts (Table 2).

Developing uency, accuracy, and complexity in speaking

37

Teacher table 2 Percentage of errors identied by teachers T1 34% T2 46% T3 36% T4 57% T5 42% T6 24%

Mean

40%

T1 was the class teacher.

The level of error identication by the teachers ranged from 24 per cent to 57 per cent, giving an overall average of 40 per cent. The gure of 34 per cent for T1 is the percentage of all errors from these four sessions that I actually provided to these students as CF. Even the low gure here (T6s 24 per cent) would probably be acceptable: if students knew that even a quarter of their errors would be identied by their teacher, they would certainly not feel that they were wasting time, let alone if they could be condent that around 40 per cent of the errors were being targeted. A comparison can again be made with the study by Lyster and Ranta (1997: 53), in which of the total number of errors produced by students, only 17 per cent of errors eventually lead to repair; in Small Talk, an average of 40 per cent of student errors would eventually lead to uptake and repair since the students have to correct the worksheets. In addressing the third question, the number of errors produced by each student (as identied in the transcripts) was compared to the number for each student on the teacher worksheets. In addition, I calculated the number of errors for each student that I (T1) identied over the entire semester, in other words the amount of CF that the students actually received over 16 weeks, giving a point of comparison for bias (Figure 4). (Three students who were not present for the entire semester, S2, S4, and S11, have been excluded from this analysis.) The correlation between number of errors for each student found in the transcripts and numbers of errors for each student appearing on the worksheets of teachers was high, at .89. It is possible, of course, given the random sampling procedure (the students were grouped by the leader, the video recorded only a ve- to seven-minute portion of each groups conversation), that some students would feature more than others and therefore that the teacher identication of errors would be skewed more towards them than others. It turns out, however, that all teachers identied more errors for students who were more inaccurate overall, regardless of how much they spoke. In other words, the CF provided closely reected the needs of individual students.

Conclusion

We frequently tell our students that it is okay to make mistakes and that they will not make progress unless they talk more. However, we also frequently complain about the number of basic errors that our students make. Willis (2003) reminds us that this is both inevitable and desirable: errors are part of the developmental process, and it is the learners attempts to mean that pave the way for learning (ibid.:110111, emphasis added) and for noticing what they need to learn. While some might argue that allowing students at an intermediate or lower level to improvise in the classroom could lead to linguistic anarchy, I agree with Willis that opportunities for improvisation in
James Hunter

38

gure 4

Identication of errors for each student in transcripts and by teachers

the classroom are essential. Although space does not permit an analysis of the discourse structure of the conversations, the transcripts show, as Willis (1992) notes, that in the absence of the teacher, [students] interaction becomes far richer (ibid.:180). However, without some consistent way of observing and recording these attempts to mean, interpreting them, teaching to them, and assessing subsequent learning, the teaching syllabus remains largely arbitrary and disconnected from the needs of the learner. Small Talk is a consistent methodology for analysing and responding to learner language, and it appears to target learners differentially in response to their self-developed systems. It compares very favourably with the study of Lyster and Ranta (1997) of CF in terms of the quantity of student interaction and CF provided. Finally, my research indicates a connection between this methodology and the development of accuracy, complexity, and uency, and I am currently looking at ways to evaluate the nature and strength of this connection.
Developing uency, accuracy, and complexity in speaking 39

Final revised version received December 2010

Note 1 A self-contained version of the database is available for download at http:// www.gonzaga.edu/tesolresearch References Ammar, A. and N. Spada. 2006. One size ts all? Recasts, prompts, and L2 learning. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 28/4: 54374. Brumt, C. J. 1979. Notional syllabusesa reassessment. System 7/2: 1116. Brumt, C. J. 1984. Communicative Methodology in Language Teaching: The Roles of Accuracy and Fluency. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Ellis, R. 2009. A typology of written corrective feedback types. ELT Journal 63/2: 97107. Gatbonton, E. and N. Segalowitz. 2005. Rethinking communicative language teaching: a focus on access to uency. The Canadian Modern Language Review 61/3: 32553. Harris, R. 1998. Making grammar instruction relevant through student-run conversations. Paper presented at the T E S O L convention, Seattle, Washington. Long, M. H., S. Inagaki, and L. Ortega. 1998. The role of implicit negative feedback in SLA: models and recasts in Japanese and Spanish. The Modern Language Journal 82/3: 35771. Lyster, R. and L. Ranta. 1997. Corrective feedback and learner uptake: negotiation of form in communicative classrooms. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 19: 3766. Mackey, A., M. Al-Khalil, G. Atanassova, M. Hama, A. Logan-Terry, and K. Nakatsukasa. 2007. Teachers intentions and learners perceptions about corrective feedback in the L2 classroom. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching 1/1: 12952. Schmidt, R. and S. Frota. 1986. Developing basic conversational ability in a second language. A case study of an adult learner of Portuguese in R. Day (ed.). Talking to Learn: Conversation in Second Language Acquisition. Rowley, MA: Newbury House. Skehan, P. 1996. A framework for the implementation of task-based instruction. Applied Linguistics 17/1: 2362. Skehan, P. 1998. A Cognitive Approach to Learning Language. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Willis, D. 2003. Rules, Patterns, and Words: Grammar and Lexis in English Language Teaching. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Willis, J. 1992. Inner and outer: spoken discourse in the language classroom in M. Coulthard (ed.). Advances in Spoken Discourse Analysis. London: Routledge. The author James Hunter has been teaching in the E S L and M AT E SL programs at Gonzaga University, in Washington State, for the past ten years and is currently completing his PhD in Applied Linguistics at the University of Birmingham, investigating corrective feedback in language teaching and C AL L. He has taught in Spain, Japan, and most recently in Abu Dhabi. Email: hunter@gonzaga.edu

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James Hunter

Appendix Small Talk sessions, Level 105/6, Spring 2008

Level 105 105 105 105 105 105 105 106 106 106 106 106 106 106 106 106

Date 23 January 2008 28 January 2008 4 February 2008 12 February 2008 18 February 2008 21 February 2008 26 February 2008 25 March 2008 27 March 2008 1 April 2008 8 April 2008 15 April 2008 17 April 2008 22 April 2008 24 April 2008 29 April 2008

Worksheet no. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Topic Sports Childhood Favourite place (31:53) Celebrations Dancing and parties Traditional food (33:32) How to look after your body Cohabitation Crime and punishment Your dream If you had $1 million (32:35) Conict Discussion of novel Whirligig Teamwork Generation gap (26:20) One day left on Earth

Bold items represent videotaped sessions

Developing uency, accuracy, and complexity in speaking

41

Developing multiliteracies in E LT through telecollaboration

Sarah Guth and Francesca Helm

Communicating and collaborating in online contexts can be quite different from face-to-face situations and requires students to acquire multiple literacies in addition to foreign language skills and intercultural communicative competence. This paper looks at how the development of multiliteracies can be included in the EF L classroom through the practice of telecollaboration, that is internet-mediated intercultural exchange. The integration of multiliteracies in the task design of the three stages of a telecollaboration project is illustrated through practical examples from an exchange which used English as a lingua franca.

Introduction

Telecollaboration in language learning contexts is internet-based intercultural exchange between groups of learners of different cultural/ national backgrounds set up in an institutional blended-learning context (see ODowd 2007 for an overview) with the aim of developing both language skills and intercultural communicative competence (ICC) (Byram 1997). The goal for language learners is to become intercultural speakers or mediators who possess the linguistic skills and intercultural awareness necessary to allow them to interact effectively in a foreign language with people from cultures that are different from their own. Traditionally, telecollaboration exchanges are bilingual and based on the concept of nationally dened cultures (for example Furstenberg, Levet, English, and Maillet 2001). However, it is becoming increasingly difcult to make this distinction between two national cultures as even in binational exchanges the students involved may be from a variety of national, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds. A more recent trend is to carry out exchanges using English as a lingua franca (ELF) between non-native speakers of English with a focus on different cultural perspectives on local and global issues. The exchange we describe in this paper is an example of this type of project. Telecollaboration is based on a sociocultural view of language learning, whereby learning takes place in social contexts through interaction and collaboration. It is a blended approach, with the online environment providing the eld for experiential learning and the classroom a place where guided critical reection takes place and where teachers provide ongoing scaffolding for learning. For researchers, a sociocultural approach sees the learner as situated in social, institutional, and cultural settings that

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E LT Journal Volume 66/1 January 2012; doi:10.1093/elt/ccr027

The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved. Advance Access publication May 11, 2011

need to be considered in order to better understand if and how learning takes place. In this paper, we focus on task design for telecollaboration and how this can take into account the online environments and tools used and the online literacies required of learners. Telecollaboration projects have evolved from written and asynchronous communication such as email or discussion forums to multimodal environments that offer both synchronous and asynchronous communication and oral, written, and media-sharing communication among learners (Lamy and Hampel 2007; Guth and Helm 2010). Researchers and practitioners argue that these new modes of online communication, rather than serve as practice for real-life communication or poor substitutes for study abroad, are high-stakes contexts (Thorne 2003) in themselves. These new environments offer affordances and constraints for language learning that are different from face-to-face classroom contexts and thus need to be taken into account in task design (Hampel 2006; Ellis 2010).

Online literacies

Outside of the foreign language learning context, it has been recognized for over a decade now that even though competence in traditional literacy is still a must, it is no longer sufcient. In 1996, the New London Group proposed the idea of multiliteracies, which expanded the traditional language-based view of literacy to take into account the many linguistic and cultural differences in society (New London Group 1996). In 2000, with the growth of the world wide web, the same authors argued that educators need to: [. . .] extend the idea and scope of literacy pedagogy to account for the context of our culturally and linguistically diverse and increasingly globalised societies; to account for the multifarious cultures that interrelate and the plurality of texts that circulate [. . . and to] account for the burgeoning variety of text forms associated with information and multimedia technologies. (New London Group 2000: 9) In their work on new literacies, Lankshear and Knobel (2006) identied three dimensions: the operational, cultural, and critical. The operational dimension refers to the means of literacy or skills such as the ability to search for information, use a particular online tool, share information and resources with others, and multitask. The cultural dimension regards knowledge of literacy practices and appropriate ways of communicating in particular contexts, such as an understanding of netiquette in discussion lists and issues regarding intellectual property rights like copyright and copyleft.1 The cultural dimension also includes propositional knowledge of whatever domain the online community is concerned with, for example knowledge of current affairs in order to be able to participate in a newsrelated discussion list. Finally, the critical component regards an awareness of the power relations involved in the technologies used, for instance whose interests and values they serve or reect and whose interests are marginalized. In language learning contexts, there has been some recognition of the importance of multiple literacies for successful learning, particularly in online contexts (Lamy and Hampel op.cit.), but there has been little
Developing multiliteracies in E LT through telecollaboration 43

investigation of how to include literacies development in task design for telecollaboration. The three dimensions suggested by Lankshear and Knobel (op.cit.) can be adapted to the telecollaboration context to aid practitioners in developing tasks that take into consideration not only language learning and the development of ICC but the development of online literacies as well. Although the three domains are developed simultaneously in telecollaboration (see Guth and Helm op.cit.), the focus of the rest of this paper is on how to foster learner competence in online literacies in telecollaboration.

Task design for telecollaboration

The methodological approach adopted in telecollaboration is task-based language learning (Mueller-Hartmann 2007). ODowd and Ware (2009) have identied three main categories of tasks commonly used in telecollaboration: information exchange, comparison and analysis, and collaboration and product creation. A complete telecollaboration project can be organized around a collection of sequenced and integrated tasks from these categories in order to allow for the gradual development of skills and competences in the operational, cultural, and critical dimensions. In this section, we will provide practical examples of tasks that we have used in an exchange where English was used as a lingua franca between teacher trainees of EFL at a university in Germany and undergraduate students of EFL at a university in Italy (see http://interculturewiki.pbworks.com/w/ page/25061457/PadovaBochum10). The GermanyItaly exchange was organized around weekly discussions in dyads or small groups using Skype2 over a period of six weeks. A wiki3 was used as a platform for the project to organize groupings, set out timetables and tasks, publish individual and group student productions, carry out asynchronous discussion, and post recordings of Skype sessions. Although the specicities of Skype and wiki were taken into account when developing the tasks described below, the considerations made can be generalized and adapted to many different online environments. In this paper, we use the term task to refer to the Skype sessions, which are preceded by preparatory pre-task activities and followed by post-task reective activities (see Figure 1). This notion of task

fi g u r e 1 Weekly task cycle for the GermanItalian telecollaboration project

44 Sarah Guth and Francesca Helm

cycle (Leaver and Willis 2004) is applied to all the tasks in the three stages, examples of which are provided below.

Stage 1: information exchange

The main aim of the rst stage of any telecollaboration exchange is familiarizing students with one another and with the online environments that will serve as the virtual space for the communication. The rst task in the GermanyItaly exchange was a getting-to-know-one-another interview using Skype. In order to prepare for this, students had to create their own personal wiki page where they introduced themselves. They were asked to read their assigned partners introductions and also encouraged to become friends on the social networks they might be members of, for example Facebook, in order to explore each others online identities. On a separate wiki page, students also collectively prepared questions to guide them in the rst interview. This gave them both linguistic preparation for the task as well as questions to fall back on in case of silent moments during their rst Skype session. The interviews were carried out using the audio and text functions of Skype and students were instructed to keep the wiki open in a browser during the interview. Students spent a lot of time during the rst session becoming familiar with the technology. Following the interviews, students shared their initial impressions in the classroom and then reected on their learning in their diaries on the wiki. The extract below comes from the diary of an Italian student who described herself as a technophobe and was very anxious before the rst session. Her entry illustrates that despite her fear and the common belief that technology-mediated communication is articial and impersonal, she had a positive experience. She was further encouraged by comments to her diary from one of her German interlocutors (Hans),4 inviting further communication and praising her English. This is my rst learners diary! This morning, when we were ready to start, I was kind of nervous; this was a brand new experience for me, and I really wanted to make a good impression. I think I did quite a good work, even though sometimes words failed and I ended up stummering something, which did not sound very English. :) By the way, Kirsten and Hans, my German partners, were very nice and ready to help me out when I got stuck while talking. They always understood what I wanted to say, and they often met me half way. [. . .] We tried to follow all the points of the outline, and I think we managed to talk about them in an exhaustive way. [. . .] Even though, our cultural backgrounds are very different, I am pretty sure well can enrich our concepts of the other culture. Comment from Hans: Unfortunately, I dont have any facebook account . . . maybe we can talk via skype a bit more. Feel free to contact me, whenever you want! Really liked our chat and dont feel sorry for your English!! Its very good! take care In addition to the linguistic and intercultural skills needed, learners had to develop online literacies to successfully complete the task. For all the students, this was their rst experience editing a wiki, hence on the
Developing multiliteracies in E LT through telecollaboration 45

operational level, they were required to create and edit a wiki page and comment on wiki pages. On a cultural level, this led to knowledge about the collaborative style of wiki technology and how it differs from traditional print media and web publishing. Finally, on a critical level, it led students to consider the issue of multiple identities and decide how much or which of their identities they wanted to share with their university peers.

Stage 2: comparison and analysis

In order to move beyond mere information exchange, Stage 2 of telecollaboration engages students in a series of comparison and analysis tasks. The input can involve different cultural artefacts, for example parallel texts, class responses to questionnaires, or the same news story in different online resources. One such task in the GermanyItaly exchange involved comparing media coverage of a current news event. At the time, the referendum in Switzerland about the building of minarets became a major global issue. The moment the results of the referendum came out, reactions were almost immediate across the globe through online media and social networks. To prepare for a synchronous discussion on this issue, students were asked to look at media reports in both their national and Englishlanguage newspapers and websites, such as Al Jazeera English, the Guardian, and the New York Times, and reader reactions through the Twitter5 feeds and forums of these sites. They had to summarize their ndings on the wiki and cut and paste examples of comments from the Englishspeaking sources with links to the original source. They were asked to take a critical approach by considering how the story was framed in different media, why this was the case, who the intended audience was, and to consider the role played by image, video and text, and reader comments. This process also allowed them to prepare themselves linguistically for the conversation and have a series of resources ready to be shared with their peers during the Skype session to simultaneously view images, videos, and other online sources. Students also accessed online dictionaries and translation services they had learnt to use in order to assist them in comprehension and in expressing themselves in English. The post-task activity was to reect not only on the contents of the conversation but on how they felt they were or were not able to manage the multitasking required in this particular task. As an Italian student commented, being online may offer opportunities that are not possible in face-to-face conversation. In her learner diary, she wrote: I really like it that we have the opportunity to browse the web during the callsduring the last session for instance we looked for the poster that the Swiss party created for the anti-minaret campaign or for pictures in which the already existing minarets are shown and compared with steeples of Catholic or Protestant churches. So this gave us the possibility to look for more topics of conversation. On an operational level, learners were required to nd a variety of online resources on a specic topic and share them rst on the wiki and then by using the text chat in Skype. The degree of multitasking involved during the conversation was more complex at this stage as learners used both oral and text chat and often switched from the Skype window to browser windows with news articles and online dictionaries to support the discussion. On the

46

Sarah Guth and Francesca Helm

cultural and critical levels, their knowledge of the topic at hand and the role of online news media were initially addressed in the pre-task activities and further developed in discussion and reection tasks. Through the process of searching and sharing resources, learners considered whose interests the various sources serve and how interactive features, such as Twitter feeds, are used and for what purposes. For example, with reference to reader comments to an online article, one German student observed in his learner diary: The debate about the minaret matter in Switzerland is quite interesting because many users seem to use this platform to post their insults and personal stories having nothing to do with the topic. In fact, as it can be observed very often in forum discussions, the number of off-topic comments is increasingly high so that it is very difcult to sort out the real discussion. Students also learnt how audio conferencing can be quite different from face-to-face interactions in that, for example, they lack the paralinguistic cues often used to take the oor making it necessary for speakers to negotiate turn-taking rules. For example, one German student commented: I have no problems to talk to one or more persons at the same time as long as everybody cares about some rules, i.e. to integrate all members of the group into the conversation or erverybody, who started a comment, is allowed to nish his thoughts. Despite these challenges, as an Italian student commented, online audio chat can be very authentic: It was like a normal conversation among friends, where you have to take your time to say something important or useful for the whole group . . . And all via web!

Stage 3: collaboration and product creation

Collaboration on product creation is the most challenging task as in addition to the online literacies required to operate effectively online in a foreign language, learners need the intercultural competence and collaborative skills necessary to engage in team work. In order to help learners develop these competences, task design needs to build in positive interdependence and place emphasis on the process, not just on the nal product. The product may be anything from a co-constructed web page to a collaborative short video project. The nal task in the GermanyItaly exchange was the collaborative development of a digital collage of images that could represent what it means to be a global citizen and an intercultural communicator. There were two pre-task activities. The rst involved a series of readings on global citizenship and intercultural communication followed by questions for reection. The second required students to look for images they wanted to include in the collage and upload them to the wiki. Learning about the risks of copyright infringement on the web was an important precursor to this activity. During the Skype session, students co-constructed the collage by deciding which images to include in it, where to place them, etc. Students had to negotiate roles and deadlines and establish a mode of communication, be it through the wiki or Facebook, in order to collaborate outside of the Skype sessions. In their diaries, students were asked to reect on the collaborative process and how their group managed, or did not manage, to work together.
Developing multiliteracies in E LT through telecollaboration 47

Task Stage 1 Skype interviews

Operational How to use wiki and Skype. How to navigate the web and speak and listen on Skype at the same time.

Cultural Knowledge of wiki literacy practices and privacy issues. Knowledge of the current news event and the rules that govern synchronous online communication. Knowledge of the rules that govern synchronous online communication in groups of 46 speakers.

Critical Online identities? Personal, public, academic? Overlap between these? Interests behind online media sources?Availability and use of interactive/ social features? Face-to-face vs. online interaction? Inuence of design on meaning? Inuence of culture and identity on interpretation of images? Assumptions and ideas behind texts and images?

Stage 2 Current news event in different online media

table 1 Link between the three stages of a telecollaboration: project, tasks, and multiliteracies

Stage 3 Intercultural How to collage search for legally useable online contents and share them with others.

For the group project, we brought together dyads or triads into larger groups so that students had to collaborate with new partners. Not only were there more participants, but they found themselves having to speak with peers they may not have spoken with before. The entries about this session in learner diaries pointed out two signicant points. First of all, engaging with new peers highlighted the fact that students felt as though they had established a real relationship with the peer(s) they had been speaking with during the rst ve sessions. Secondly, they felt much more condent about dealing with the challenges involved in group communication. On the operational level, they felt they had learnt how to manage many different speakers, and on the cultural level, how to respect the rules of communication in Skype when there are more than two to three speakers. One Italian students comment demonstrates these factors. I particularly enjoyed this session even if at the beginning I was a bit worried of speaking with so many people at one time [. . .] I also would love to say that I am proud of the connection and relationship that Ute and I established and I was glad to see that we were the couple who interacted the most. Theres already a lot of condence between us so I think we managed putting other girls at ease too, by asking questions and giving our opinion. Finally, on the critical level, students were encouraged to focus on the language of the images they were using in their intercultural collages. Each student was asked to both explain why they had chosen particular images
48 Sarah Guth and Francesca Helm

and to explore what this might say about their own culture or cultural assumptions. To sum up the contents of this section, <xref ref-type="table" rid="tbl1xref> links the three stages, example tasks, and the online skills (operational), knowledge (cultural), and awareness (critical) that can be developed in a telecollaboration project. links the three stages, example tasks, and the online skills (operational), knowledge (cultural), and awareness (critical) that can be developed in a telecollaboration project.

Observations

One of the benets of using digital technologies is that a permanent record of the interactions can be used for both language learning and research. Students were asked to listen to and analyse the recordings of their conversations at different stages of the exchange to identify strengths and weaknesses as well as points for improvement. Through this process, the learners themselves noticed the progress they had made in communicating online, as reected in this comment by an Italian student: I also listened to our recordings and I thinkas Maria already wrotethat there was a development between Skype [session] 2 and Skype [session] 5, the interaction was more uent and there were less hesitations to start talking . . . I also think that it depends on the topics we were talking about, if you share your thoughts and somebody expresses the thoughts you also have in mind, you can easily pick up the vocabulary the partner already used. [. . .] I could recognize the Italian and the German accent but I cant really say why. Some EF L teachers and learners may have concerns about interaction between non-native speakers and exposure to incorrect forms of language. Most of the learners in this particular exchange felt that the partnership in this exchange was positive, particularly from a culturelearning point of view. The German students had the opportunity to practise their English and as trainee English teachers they were engaged in a process of learning-by-doing as they learnt how they might be able to implement telecollaboration in their future language classrooms. The Italian students felt they had improved their English, particularly their uency, conversation skills, and condence. As seen in the comment above, most students were aware of each others style and different accents when speaking English, but this was seen in a positive light by the majority and as representative of an authentic communicative event, as illustrated in this comment by a German student: Every opportunity for active oral language use should be appreciated. Although the Skype project creates semi-realistic situationsas we know the topics beforehand and have the chance to prepareit has helped me to see where I am currently standing with regard to my uency. The lingua franca situation and the fact that we do not talk face-to-face but via the computer, makes me more self-condent because I do not have to be ashamed of making myself sound ridiculous before a native speaker. The Italians English is awesome, plus nowadays a lingua franca context will be more probable that coming across s.o. who speaks RP.

Developing multiliteracies in E LT through telecollaboration

49

Conclusion

Task design for telecollaboration is undoubtedly a challenge and, as we have tried to lay out in this paper, requires consideration of the specicities of the online context in order to be effective. The competences developed through telecollaboration extend beyond the domain of foreign language skills and encompass other areas necessary for successful participation and collaboration in todays online world. In an attempt to provide indications as to how tasks may be designed, we have provided an example of how the categorizations proposed by ODowd and Ware (op.cit.), combined with attention given to developing online literacies, can serve as guiding principles for developing the three stages of a telecollaboration project. We illustrated how a complete telecollaboration exchange can be designed to facilitate learners progression through the three stages, which gradually place increasingly complex processing demands on learners. With specic regards to developing online literacies, we demonstrated how the three dimensions, operational, cultural, and critical, can be developed in each stage. Although the focus of the tasks in each stage is on meaning, we have explained how pre- and post-task activities can be developed to support learners and provide the necessary scaffolding for them to successfully engage in language, intercultural, and literacy development. The research into task design in telecollaboration is still in its infancy and there are many issues which require further research. Some critical areas are: teacher and learner roles; how to best exploit environments and tools in relation to their affordances based on task and exchange objectives; and the collaboration that must take place between the respective teachers when designing, implementing, and evaluating a telecollaboration project. Final revised version received February 2011

Notes 1 The concept of copyleft plays on the term copyright, i.e. some rights reserved versus all rights reserved. See creativecommons.org. 2 Skype is a free voice over internet protocol (VoIP) service that allows users to audio, video, and text conference with one another. 3 A wiki is a website that allows for the collaborative development of online content. See http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki. 4 All student names have been changed and errors in the texts have been left as they were written by students on the wiki. 5 Twitter is an online microblogging service that enables users to send and read other users tweets, which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters. See http://twitter.com/ References Byram, M. 1997. Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Ellis, R. 2010. Forward in M. Thomas and H. Reinders (eds.). Task-Based Language Learning and Teaching with Technology. London: Continuum. Furstenberg, G., S. Levet, K. English, and K. Maillet. 2001. Giving a virtual voice to the silent language of culture: the CU LT U R A project. Language Learning & Technology 5/1: 55102. Guth, S. and F. Helm. (eds.). 2010. Telecollaboration 2.0: Language, Literacies and Intercultural Learning in the 21st Century. Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang. Hampel, R. 2006. Rethinking task design for the digital age: a framework for language teaching and learning in a synchronous online environment. ReC A L L 18/1: 10521. Lamy, M.-N. and R. Hampel. 2007. Online Communication in Language Teaching and Learning. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Lankshear, C. and M. Knobel. 2006. New Literacies: Everyday Practices and Classroom Learning. (Second edition). Maidenhead: Open University Press.

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Leaver, B. L. and J. Willis. 2004. Task-based Instruction in Foreign Language Education: Practices and Program. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Mueller-Hartmann, A. 2007. Teacher role in telecollaboration: setting up and managing exchanges in R. ODowd (ed.). New London Group. 1996. A pedagogy of multiliteracies: designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review 66/1: 6092. New London Group 2000. A pedagogy of multiliteracies: designing social futures, in B. Cope and M. Kalantzis (eds.). Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures. London: Routledge. ODowd, R. (ed.). 2007. Online Intercultural Exchange. An Introduction for Foreign Language Teachers. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. ODowd, R. and P. Ware. 2009. Critical issues in telecollaborative task design. C A L L Journal 22/2: 17388. Thorne, S. 2003. Artifacts and cultures-of-use in intercultural communication. Language Learning and Technology 7/2: 3867. The authors

Sarah Guth teaches English as a foreign language (EF L) at the University of Padova, Italy. She is currently a PhD candidate at the Ruhr Universitaet, Bochum, Germany. She has published numerous articles and book chapters on language learning and testing, computer-mediated communication, intercultural competence, and culture learning. Her current research focuses on the use of English as a lingua franca in online language learning contexts. She recently co-edited the book Telecollaboration 2.0: Language, Literacies and Intercultural Learning in the 21st Century. Email: sarah.guth@unipd.it

Francesca Helm is a researcher at the Department of International Studies, University of Padova, where she teaches English. Her research is on language learning and literacies, computer-mediated communication, and intercultural competence. She recently co-edited the book Telecollaboration 2.0: Language, Literacies and Intercultural Learning in the 21st Century. Email: francesca.helm@unipd.it

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Learner negotiation of L2 form in transcription exercises

Paul Mennim

Negotiation of language form is thought to engage learning processes by helping learners to notice gaps in their developing L2 and nd target-like ways of lling them. Self-transcription, where learners work together to nd language errors in recordings of their own oral output, is an awareness raising exercise that encourages such negotiation. This paper examines the problem-solving efforts of a class of Japanese students as they worked on a transcription exercise in English. It describes the various resources they made use of while tackling L2 problems and considers some of the cognitive processes underlying their decisions. This smallscale study shows how these learners effectively negotiated form while working independently of the teacher. Recordings of their discussions reveal a depth of cognitive processing thought to be benecial to language development.

Introduction

This paper considers learner negotiation of language form in the context of a self-transcription exercise. In the exercise, described more fully below, a class of Japanese university students made written transcripts of recordings of their own English classroom presentations. They scrutinized these transcripts in groups and discussed any language problems they found there. The exercise therefore allowed a focus on language form through post-task discussion and collaboration. There has been considerable interest in self-transcription in the language classroom over the last few years and encouraging results have been reported of students noticing and reformulating L2 errors (Lynch 2001; Stillwell, Curabba, Alexander, Kidd, Kim, Stone, and Wyle 2010), making short- and long-term language gains (Lynch 2007; Mennim 2007) and editing their output for easier comprehension and greater sophistication of expression (Mennim 2003). All these studies of transcription include a stage where learners attempt to correct their own errors, usually in pairs or in small groups. Lynch (2007) and Stillwell et al. (op.cit.) report favourable responses from student questionnaires about the usefulness of the exercise. Moreover, the latter study and also Lynch (2001) include gures indicating that a clear majority of the corrections produced during the discussion stage were in a target-like direction. This is an interesting nding as it suggests that learners can draw on their own resources to expand their knowledge of the L2.

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The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved. Advance Access publication May 6, 2011

The present paper considers examples of problem solving from recordings of student groups as they made their corrections. I was interested to see how learners, working without direct assistance from the teacher, could manage corrections and try to identify the sources of knowledge they would draw on to do this. Would it be justiable to use classroom time having the students attempt this activity on their own? This included an interest in the quality of their discussion, to see whether they engaged in the kind of discourse thought to benet language development. In other words, to consider evidence of intake, a proposed stage of L2 acquisition (Gass 1997), in which learners test hypotheses about the L2 as a precursor to integrating new forms into their developing interlanguage (see below).

Learners as problem solvers

Swains (1995) Output hypothesis describes the crucial role that dialogue can play in problem solving and L2 development. While speaking, learners are more likely to make use of cognitive functions such as noticing the gap, hypothesis testing, and metatalk. That is to say, they can identify problems, try alternatives, and discuss these specically with peers. Such activity is observable in language-related episodes (L REs), dened as any part of a dialogue in which students talk about the language they are producing, question their language use, or other- or self-correct (Swain 1998: 70). Studies of L RE production have explored the relationship between language development and discussion of L2 form. Ohta (2000) provides an example of a more procient peer helping to guide another learners oral performance. She presents transcripts of two learners of Japanese at an American university practising a fairly complex desiderative construction in the L2 which described actions or favours they wanted done on their behalf. The more procient of the two assisted his partner by correcting her lexical choices and grammatical particle selection until she could produce the construction without his help. In another study of classroom group work, Donato (1994) shows how problem solving is not dependent on one learner having greater overall expertise than another. He presents the collaboration between three American university students who were jointly preparing for a classroom oral activity but could not immediately render the phrase you remembered into French. He shows how the students each contributed a piece of knowledge to their nal formulation: one student supplied the correct auxiliary verb, another the correct reexive pronoun, until, through the accumulation of those individual contributions, they arrived at tu tes souvenu, a target-like solution to their problem.

Negotiation and intake

Swain (2000) shows how an examination of learner negotiation of form can reveal a rich seam of problem-solving strategies. In this extract, two French language immersion students (aged 13- to 14-years old) are attempting to translate new threats into French (de nouvelles menaces). 1 Rachel Cher[chez] nou . . . des nouveaux menaces. (Look up new [as in] new threats.) 2 Sophie Good one! 3 Rachel Yeah, nouveaux, des nouveaux, de nouveaux. Is it des nouveaux or de nouveaux? 4 Sophie Des nouveaux or des nouvelles?
Learner negotiation of L2 form in transcription exercises 53

5 Rachel Nou[veaux], des nou[veaux], de nou[veaux]. 6 Sophie Its menace, un menace, une menace, un menace, menace ay ay ay! [exasperated] 7 Rachel Je vais le pauser. (Im going to put it on pause [i.e. the taperecorder].) [They look up menace in the dictionary.] 8 Sophie Cest des nouvelles! [triumphantly] minin . . . des nouvelles menaces. 9 Rachel Cest fe (Swain 2000: 101) According to Swains analysis, to incorporate the phrase new threats into their dialogue, the students had to negotiate two decisions about the form. First, in Turns 3 and 5, Rachel was concerned with the form of the accompanying partitive (de or des) and tested out her initial hypothesis from Turn 1 that she should use des. She did this in Turn 3, both by repeating alternate forms to herself to see which sounded correct, and then by asking her partner for advice. Meanwhile, in Turns 4 and 6, Sophie addressed the gender of the noun menace. In Turn 6, she drew from her existing knowledge of the L2, repeating the noun to try to hear if it tted best with a masculine or feminine article as gender affects the form of the accompanying adjective (nouveaux versus nouvelles). After Turn 7, they used the dictionary as an alternative source of knowledge which conrmed menace as a feminine noun, which Rachel conrmed using the metalinguistic term in French. In this example, the learners output becomes available for conscious reection as intake, the stage at which learners attend to grammatical rules and the relationships between form and meaning. Here, Rachel and Sophie notice gaps in their L2 knowledge, attempt solutions, and use various resources (previous L2 knowledge, peer advice, dictionary) to conrm them. Swain (2000: 113) calls this type of negotiation knowledge-building dialogue and in a separate study (1998) suggests that encouraging deeper reection about language form, including a greater use of metalanguage, will lead to better learning. Metalinguistic knowledge can act as a hook on which to hang new insights into L2 forms, increasing the likelihood of learning. This, again, argues that negotiation of form can be viewed in terms of quality: that new knowledge arising from deeper cognitive processing may be more likely to be retained in memory and integrated into the learners developing interlanguage. The transcription exercise in my own study gave students the chance to reect on their L2 output in a way that may not have been possible when their primary focus was on conveying meaning, as it was during the classroom presentations. While giving their presentation, any errors may have passed unnoticed, whereas this post-task activity required a group effort to reformulate the transcript with the production of L REs, which could then engage learning processes in the ways suggested by Swain.

The transcription exercise

The exercise was used as part of an oral presentation course for rst year students majoring in Social Policy at a private university in Japan. The course was designated higher level, meaning that the class members had achieved TOEFL scores of over 500. English was one of their minor subjects

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with four obligatory classes per week. The course was process based and had no preset list of grammar structures or vocabulary. Instead, students were required to use L2 sources to prepare a talk, coming into contact with English while researching a subject of their own choice. Students formed groups of two or three according to a shared interest in a topic and gave three presentations on that topic during the course of the academic year (the whole group presenting together). At Stage 1 of the transcription exercise, I asked students to transcribe recordings I had made of one of their earlier presentations. These recordings represented fairly spontaneous output as the students were not allowed to use scripts as they spoke, though I allowed the use of short cue cards. The presentations ranged from 10 to 20 minutes but I advised the students to transcribe just a section of their own output, enough to ll one double-spaced side of A4 paper, as this would be enough to give them some idea of the errors they were making. I asked them to include any errors they noticed while listening to the tape and producing the transcript as the point of the exercise was for the students, during Stage 2, to negotiate with each other to correct in red pen any mistakes they found. I hoped that the students would notice problems in their oral output, employ metatalk during discussions with peers, and nally come up with reformulations. After Stage 2, they passed their corrected version on to me and I added any further corrections they had missed (Stage 3).

The students negotiation of form

The episodes in this section come from recordings of the six groups (from a class of 17 students) as they discussed their transcripts. They have been selected to exemplify the various resources the students made use of while tackling language problems and the quality of negotiation involved in their corrections. As in the above studies, the groups refer to dictionaries, recognize their peers as sources of information, and combine their L2 knowledge to arrive at solutions collaboratively. Like the students in Swains (2000) study, they draw on their existing L2 knowledge to determine what sounds right. Additionally, they speculate as to whether the rules they already know might apply in different contexts. The episodes also reveal a range of cognitive processes involved in the students problem solving. They employ metalinguistic terminology (Episodes 4 and 7), draw on their L1 to conrm message meaning (Episode 7), make cognitive comparisons between problem forms and their existing knowledge of English (Episodes 3 and 7), formulate hypotheses about the behaviour of L2 forms (Episodes 5 and 7), and reapply or reformulate these hypotheses subsequently (Episodes 6 and 7). These will be discussed in turn below. All student names are pseudonyms. The text in block capitals indicates either the original transcript or shows where the students are reading verbatim from it. Underlined text denotes the students own emphasis. Square brackets denote overlapping speech. A plus sign indicates a short pause.

Learner negotiation of L2 form in transcription exercises

55

Episode 1

VISITED S HOPS AND R ES EARCHED THROUGH INTERNET

Nina Do we need the internet? the internet or just internet? Reina the the internet Here, Nina notices a problem in her own transcript and asks her partner to comment. Reina replies, both stressing and repeating the target-like use of the article. In this way, one student appeals to a more procient peer for information and is provided with the correct solution.

Episode 2

1 Kaoru ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND JAPANESE WHO A RE

W A N T I N G TO SE E I C H IR O V I S I T SE AT TL E A N D THREE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED AUD IENCE IN THE S TA DIUM uh?

2 Miki uh stadium there was three thousand and one hundred 3 Kaoru Seattle and three thousand one hundred thousand audience of the stadium stadium 4 Miki Three thousand and one hundred increase 5 Kaoru hmm? No + the audience of the stadium increased 6 Miki Oh + the audience of the stadium increased by three thousand and one hundred per one game Kaoru is reading Mikis transcript in Turn 1, but stops when his comprehension of the sentence breaks down, perhaps because an audience of 3,100 for a major baseball game seems small. In Turn 4, Miki indicates that the gure refers not to the total attendance but to an increase in spectators. This allows Kaoru to change the phrase to the audience of the stadium increased in Turn 5. Miki then contributes the correct preposition by in Turn 6, to introduce the size of the increase. In this Episode, as with the excerpt from Donato (op.cit.), both students have contributed distinct parts of the reformulation.

Episode 3

ONE DAY, HE VISITED TO J APAN AND HE SAID, OH THERE ARE MANY G A R BA GE S IN JAPAN 1 Katsu ONE DAY, HE VISITED TO JAPAN AND HE SAID, OH T H E RE AR E M A N Y GA R B A G ES garbages? 2 Toru IN JAPAN you dont need to say that. Japan because he is

3 4 5 6 7 8

Katsu Ah okay he is in Japan. garbages or garbage? Toru garbage? Katsu I looked into the dictionary [?] garbages Toru you cant say that Katsu yeah you cant say that [garbage Toru [garbage + like informations its like information not informations 9 Katsu yeah yeah 10 Toru garbage.

Although he was initially distracted by another point, Toru picks up on Katsus question about garbage in Turn 4. In Turn 5, Katsu explains how he had looked up the word in the dictionary. This particular recording is of poor quality and his whole statement is inaudible, but it seems likely that his
56 Paul Mennim

comment relates to the countability of garbage as he immediately agrees with Toru who has judged garbages to be unacceptable in Turn 6. Although Toru seems to lack the grammatical terminology to describe this point, he makes use of the analogy with information in order to make the point clear. This Episode also shows Katsus appeal to an external resource (in this case a dictionary) to help solve a language problem, which is conrmed by his partners knowledge.

Episode 4

MUSIC IS __________ PRODUCTS M ADE F ROM INDIVID UAL SOUND SHAT HOWEVER CAN THE DEFINITION OF MUSIC, DIFFERENCE BE TWE E N S OUND A ND M US I C B E SO S IM PLE OR FIRM? 1 Haruka I dont understand this sentences grammar. M U SI C I S + PRODUC T This is verb? noun? M A D E F R O M INDIVIDUAL SOUND that however

2 Sumire The sound? 3 Haruka That however? 4 Sumire Huh? 5 Haruka I dont understand. 6 Sumire M A D E F R O M I N D I V I D U A L S O U N D 7 Ken I dont understand. 11 Sumire I think its However + can the denition of music. Well, thats right. I guess you say something like this but I dont know whats happening here. 13 Sumire And not or + and I think 16 Sumire Ah! I reckon its 17 Haruka sound however that can 18 Sumire whoa whoa whoa I think this that comes to here what Im thinking discriminate music in general that music is something is 21 Haruka should be s-[shat? 22 Sumire [shat? (laughter at typo on transcript page) 23 Ken I dont know 24 Haruka So its up to Mennim 25 Ken Mister This presentation related to the difference in denition between music and sound, and the group is trying to make sense of a gap in the transcript. Ken has drawn a line to represent a section of his own speech that he could not make out on the tape. The missing word was articial which may have been a new piece of vocabulary recalled during the presentation but subsequently forgotten. The section that however represents a false start in Kens performance, obscured here by his verbatim transcription, and however actually marks the start of a new sentence. Such factors make this a tricky passage to unravel but the group does its best and their discussion (edited here) includes 25 individual turns in which the group also made a spelling correction and a conjunction substitution. To ll the blank space, Haruka
Learner negotiation of L2 form in transcription exercises 57

tries to parse the grammar of the line in Turn 1 and employs metalinguistic terminology. Sumire seems to recognize the false start in Turn 11 but she is not condent and her suggestion is not taken up by the rest of the group. Harukas summing up at Turn 24 alludes to the teacher as a resource who might be relied upon for an authoritative resolution. In Turn 25 Ken points out that a title might be added to Harukas use of the teachers surname, a correction of her current speech rather than of the transcript.

Episode 5

The following longer discussion, spanning four episodes, relates to another groups use of the determiner any. Although they seem to resolve their doubts about this form at rst, problems arise as they come across new instances of any in their output. Their negotiation includes a variety of strategies for problem solving. The groups presentation was on the racist ideology of the Ku Klux Klan.
T H E Y H AT ED TH E I D E A B L A C K PE O P L E G A I N I N G A N Y R I GH T L IK E V O T I N G I N E L E C T I O N O R P R A C T I S I N G A N Y R I G H T S.

Lisa Midori Lisa Midori Lisa Midori

gaining any rights? gaining any rights. Any rights? any rights? + any right anybody so is it anybody? yeah anybody. In election or practising any right any right. Hmm

Their deliberation shows the use of analogy to arrive at a resolution. They are wondering whether the noun right should be in the singular or plural. Lisa, drawing on the form anybody as a comparison, hypothesizes that the appearance of any before the noun is associated with singular number, as body is singular in anybody. She therefore suggests any right and Midori concurs. They changed practising any rights to any right on the transcript.

Episode 6

T H EY B E L I E VE D T H AT W H I T E A M E RIC A N S H O U L D ALWAY S BE FIRST BEFORE ANY AL IEN I NFLUENCE OR INTEREST.

Lisa

Alright. Should be always the rst before any alien inuence or interests or interest? Midori rst before any Lisa any interest

This LRE occurred some moments after the one above. Lisa questions the noun number of interest and Midori points out the occurrence of any. This is an interesting episode in terms of problem solving as they seem to be drawing on the hypothesis formed in the previous LRE. Recalling and applying that knowledge to the subsequent appearance of the form, they agree on interest in the singular.

Episode 7

The rst question mark in Turn 19 denotes a short inaudible section of the recording.
THE NE W K L A N D I R E C T E D I T S A C T I V I T Y A G A I N S T N O T J U S T BLACKS BU T A NY OTHE R GR OU P IT C O N S I D E RE D NON-AMERIC AN

1 Yoko any other group [groups

58 Paul Mennim

Midori [groups any other groups Lisa yeah Yoko so Midori wait wait wait other groups Lisa yeah maybe thats right Yoko any other groups Midori Yeah that sounds right any other groups Lisa yeah Midori ah but it has other Lisa oh yeah right Midori anybody anyone any Lisa idea? Do you have any idea? Midori Do- does teachers like, do teachers, other teachers ask you does anybody have ideas? 15 Yoko huh? 16 Lisa I think they say [ideas 17 Midori [do you have any idea do you have any ideas 18 Yoko I have no idea 19 Midori Wait any what does it mean Japanese ? ikanaru is any singular or plural? any we say anybody or anyone and thats similar. Any other any other ideas. In this case it might be special because its other [after any 20 Lisa [yeah 21 Yoko Is it incorrect to use this? 22 Midori No, thats right. 23 Lisa Thats right. 24 Midori any other groups. But were not sure about like others. Oh well, lets go. Here the group runs into a problem. Up until Turn 9, the phrase any other groups seems to t well with their intuitions about what sounds right in English. However, the phrase is not consistent with their previous hypothesis about any as a good predictor of singular forms, which Midori recalls both in Turn 12 and again very specically in Turn 19. The discussion from Turns 13 to 17 shows the students revising that hypothesis as they question whether a plural form might indeed be possible after any and draw on the analogy of a typical classroom question to see if that might suggest singular or plural. Finally, the use of other suggests to Midori an exception that allows the plural form and thus it is any other groups that appears in the corrected transcript. Yokos question at Turn 21 is worth mentioning as she requests a nal conrmation, perhaps recognizing the lead her two partners have taken in thinking through this problem and attributing an expert status to them in this instance. At the very end of the exercise, Lisa made the following comment:

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

Episode 8

Lisa We have to talk about any Midori Ah yeah. Ah thats all. Okay. Here we see that the end of this particular discussion did not draw a line under the students investment in the activity. Lisas proposal is similar to
Learner negotiation of L2 form in transcription exercises 59

Harukas nal turn in Episode 4 as both look towards a resolution in the future and in fact this group approached me later to ask about the grammatical behaviour of any.

Conclusion

The excerpts above show a serious engagement in the exercise and reveal that the students recognized various sources of information on L2 form, both internal and external, to help them complete it. A striking feature of their negotiation is the way in which they were willing to knuckle down and think through the L2 problems they encountered, often in sophisticated ways. The length of some of these L R Es indicates a sustained effort of cognitive processing such as hypothesis testing, generalizations, and use of metalanguage. This is analysis at the level of intake: the students have assimilated linguistic material (Gass op.cit.) through knowledge-building dialogue, giving them new insights into the English language. These learners, and those in the transcription studies mentioned above, responded positively to the exercise and the recordings here suggest why: it let them tackle language problems that were relevant to their own L2 performance and led to effective teamwork and successful problem solving: a satisfying activity in any learning environment. Although it is apparent that the students were not able to resolve every problem, this did not seem to result in frustration, perhaps because they were aware that they could consult the teacher if they reached an impasse, as shown in two of the episodes. Unresolved negotiation itself can be viewed as a preliminary part of the acquisition process; noticing an L2 gap may have a priming effect (Lightbown 1998), which is to say that learners attention to a form during the exercise might act as a catalyst for them to notice it again in subsequent input. The extensive deliberation reported here might be attributable to Japanese high school education, where foreign language study even today is largely analytical and the grammar of English closely compared to that of Japanese. It is ironic that although such an approach to language teaching is sometimes criticized in Japan for its inability to help students communicate in English (Kobayashi 2001), a grounding in grammatical metalanguage may have helped these students negotiate L2 form in the context of this exercise. Further research would be welcome to show whether learners in other settings, or with different levels of prociency, would deliberate about L2 form as extensively. This study supports the view that correcting L2 errors is not the teachers responsibility alone. Oxford (1990) includes self-correction activities in her extensive taxonomy of learner strategies and the exercise here helped introduce the strategy to these students. Within a single lesson, the self- and peer-correction phase allowed more time to be spent on examining each transcript than would have been possible if the teacher had had to participate in each discussion. But the absence of a teacher did not mean an absence of assistance or support. As we saw from these recordings, certain students had expertise to share by addressing problems other students had either not previously noticed or could not x themselves.

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This small-scale study might help recommend self-transcription as an effective way of generating discussion about language and encouraging learners to think about their own language use. It gives recognition to the ways in which learners can tackle language problems through discussion with peers and in so doing add to their knowledge of the L2. Final revised version received January 2011
References Donato, R. 1994. Collective scaffolding in second language learning in J. Lantolf and G. Appel (eds.). Vygotskian Approaches to Second Language Research. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Doughty, C. and J. Williams. (eds.). 1998. Focus on Form in Classroom Second Language Acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gass, S. 1997. Input, Interaction, and the Second Language Learner. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Kobayashi, Y. 2001. The learning of English at academic high schools in Japan: students caught between exams and internationalisation. Language Learning Journal 23: 6772. Lantolf, J. (ed.). 2000. Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lightbown, P. 1998. The importance of timing in focus on form in C. Doughty and J. Williams (eds.). Lynch, T. 2001. Seeing what they meant: transcribing as a route to noticing. E LT Journal 55/2: 12432. Lynch, T. 2007. Learning from the transcripts of an oral communication task. ELT Journal 61/4: 31120. Mennim, P. 2003. Rehearsed oral L2 output and reactive focus on form. ELT Journal 57/2: 1308. Mennim, P. 2007. Long term effects of noticing on oral output. Language Teaching Research 11/3: 26580. Ohta, A. 2000. Rethinking interaction in S L A: developmentally appropriate assistance in the Z P D and the acquisition of L2 grammar in J. Lantolf (ed.). Oxford, R. 1990. Language Learning Strategies. Boston, MA: Heinle and Heinle. Stillwell, C., B. Curabba, K. Alexander, A. Kidd, E. Kim, P. Stone, and C. Wyle. 2010. Students transcribing tasks: noticing uency, accuracy, and complexity. E LT Journal 64/4: 44555. Swain, M. 1995. Three functions of output in second language learning in G. Cook and B. Seidlhofer (eds.). Principle and Practice in Applied Linguistics. Studies in Honour of H.G. Widdowson. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Swain, M. 1998. Focus on form through conscious reection in C. Doughty and J. Williams (eds.). Swain, M. 2000. The output hypothesis and beyond in J. Lantolf (ed.). The author Paul Mennim has taught English in Europe and Japan. His research interests focus on oral output arising from task-based learning. He is an Associate Professor in English within the Law Faculty of Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo. Email: mennim@hotmail.com

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From cultural awareness to intercultural awareness: culture in E LT

Will Baker

Cultural awareness (CA) has emerged over the last few decades as a signicant part of conceptualizing the cultural dimension to language teaching. That is, L2 users need to understand L2 communication as a cultural process and to be aware of their own culturally based communicative behaviour and that of others. However, while CA has provided a vital base of knowledge in relation to the cultural aspects of language use and teaching, it is still rooted in a national conception of culture and language. This is problematic given that English is now used as a global lingua franca. Intercultural awareness (IC A) is presented here as an alternative non-essentialist view of culture and language that better accounts for the uid and dynamic relationship between them. Key components of ICA are discussed along with their relevance to E LT practices and suggestions as to how they can be translated into classroom pedagogy.

Introduction

The cultural dimension to language has always been present in language pedagogy (Risager 2007), even if it is not always explicit. Given the closely intertwined nature of culture and language, it is difcult to teach language without an acknowledgement of the cultural context in which it is used. Indeed, culture has been a component of our understanding of communicative competence from early conceptions with Hymes (1972) emphasis on the importance of sociocultural knowledge. More recently, intercultural communicative competence, underpinned by the notion of critical cultural awareness (CA) (Byram 1997), has extended the role of culture in successfully preparing language learners for intercultural communication. However, with the English language now used as a global lingua franca in a huge range of different cultural contexts, a correlation between the English language and a particular culture and nation is clearly problematic. This paper argues that while CA has been important, it needs re-evaluation in the light of the more uid communicative practices of English used as a global lingua franca. In its place, intercultural awareness (ICA) is proposed as a more relevant concept for these dynamic contexts of English use.

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The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved. Advance Access publication April 28, 2011

Globalization, English as a lingua franca, and E LT

Globalization affects all English language teachers from their choices of what materials to use, to which variety of English is most appropriate. As Block (2004) highlights, the role of English in globalization is multifaceted and neither exclusively benign nor evil. Furthermore, the extensive use of English in such a diverse range of global settings calls into question our understanding of the ownership and forms of the English language. In particular, the growth in the use of English in the expanding circle (Kachru 1990), in which it is neither an L1 nor an ofcial L2 within a country, problematizes native speaker-based conceptions of English use. Crystals (2008) gures suggest that English is now most extensively used in this expanding circle and it thus follows that the majority of E LT classrooms will also be in this circle. English is therefore used most commonly not by native speakers but as a contact language between interlocutors with different languacultures (linguistic and cultural backgrounds). As Kramsch (2009: 190) argues in relation to foreign language teaching, this has fundamental implications: the goals of traditional language teaching have been found wanting in this new era of globalization. Its main tenets (monolingual native speakers, homogeneous national cultures, pure standard national languages, instrumental goals of education, functional criteria of success) have all become problematic in a world that is increasingly multilingual and multicultural. This is even more so for E LT in environments where English functions as a lingua franca with no native speakers. The use of English globally as a contact language has been addressed extensively, and at times controversially, in the eld of EL F (English as a lingua franca) research (see for example, Seidlhofer 2005; Jenkins 2007).1 While the native speaker is generally not considered to be excluded from EL F communication, the norms of such communication are not driven by native speakers. Rather ELF communication is seen as emergent and situated with common features negotiated by the participants. For users of English to communicate effectively, they will need a mastery of more than the features of syntax, lexis, and phonology that are the traditional focus in ELT. Equally important is the ability to make use of linguistic and other communicative resources in the negotiation of meaning, roles, and relationships in the diverse sociocultural settings of intercultural communication through English. To address communication in these kinds of multilingual and multicultural settings, the skills of multilingual communicators are needed. These include the role of accommodation in adapting language to be closer to that of ones interlocutor in order to aid understanding and solidarity. Negotiation and mediation skills are also key, particularly between different culturally based frames of reference, which have the potential to cause misunderstanding or miscommunication. Such skills result in the ability of interlocutors to adjust and align themselves to different communicative systems and cooperate in communication.

Culture, language, and ELT

As already noted, knowledge of the lexis, grammar, and phonology of one particular linguistic code (for example Standard British English) is not
From cultural to intercultural awareness 63

adequate for successful intercultural communication through English. This needs to be supplemented by an understanding of the sociocultural context in which communication takes place and an understanding of the sociocultural norms of one particular native-speaker community, for example the United Kingdom or United States, is clearly not sufcient for global uses of English. A more extensive treatment and understanding of the varied cultural contexts of English use is necessary (see for example Porto 2010; Suzuki 2010). However, we are faced with a difculty. If, as has been suggested above, the global uses of English detach it from the traditional native-speaking countries, how are we to make sense of the cultural contexts of English communication? Is English inevitably linked to these native-speaker contexts even when used in very different settings, as in the strongest forms of linguistic relativity where our world view is determined by linguistic boundaries? Alternatively, is English as a lingua franca a culturally neutral language? Neither of these views is adequate for explaining the relationship between the English language and its sociocultural settings in global lingua franca uses. The diverse forms, meanings, and uses of different Englishes, as documented by World Englishes studies (for example Kachru op.cit.), have demonstrated that English is not restricted to the linguistic or sociocultural norms of the traditional native-speaker countries. Furthermore, language, even used as a lingua franca, can never be culturally neutral. Language used for communication always involves people, places, and purposes, none of which exist in a cultural vacuum. To understand the sociocultural contexts of English as a global lingua franca, we need to approach culture in a non-essentialist and dynamic manner. It should be seen as an emergent, negotiated resource in communication which moves between and across local, national, and global contexts (Baker 2009b). One way of conceiving of this relationship is the inuential notion of a third place in L2 use (see Kramsch op.cit. for a discussion of its inuence and current relevance), in which communication takes place in a sphere that is neither part of a rst language/culture (L1/C1) or a target language/culture (TL/TC). Rather culture is something freer and more uid in the sense of creating something new and different. Importantly though, Kramsch also recognizes the continued inuence and pull of the L1/C1 and TL/TC. This results in a tension between established xed forms of communicative practice and the more situated dynamic communicative practices of an L2. In specic relation to the English language, Pennycook (2007) has described the manner in which both linguistic and cultural forms and practices of English exist in global ows. They move through both local and global environments being inuenced and changed by both. The importance of being able to negotiate these complex and dynamic cultural references in communicating successfully across cultures underscores the need to incorporate this into our understanding of communicative competence and subsequently E LT.

Cultural awareness

An approach to conceptualizing the kinds of knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to undertake successful intercultural communication, which explicitly recognizes the cultural dimension of communicative competence,
Will Baker

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has been C A (see for example Tomalin and Stempleski 1993; Byram 1997). At the most basic level, CA can be dened as a conscious understanding of the role culture plays in language learning and communication (in both rst and foreign languages). The details of C A are conceived of and implemented in teaching practice in a number of different ways. Nevertheless, many of the approaches agree on the importance of a systematic framework for teaching culture and language together, in which the relationship between them is explicitly explored with learners. Conceptions of CA also stress the need for learners to become aware of the culturally based norms, beliefs, and behaviours of their own culture and other cultures. Furthermore, all share a goal of increased understanding of culture and language leading to successful intercultural communication. The most detailed account of CA is that offered by Byram (ibid.). as part of a framework of intercultural communicative competence. The crucial component of this critical CA is an understanding of the relative nature of cultural norms which leads to an ability to evaluate, critically and on the basis of explicit criteria, perspectives, practices and products in ones own and other cultures and countries (ibid.: 101). Moreover, in examining the learners culture and foreign cultures, as well as different perspectives of them, Byram highlights the need to understand the multi-voiced diglossic nature of culture, which contains conicting and contradictory views. Finally, CA, as conceived here, rejects the monolingual native speaker as the ideal model and instead proposes the intercultural speaker and intercultural citizen as an alternative. This alternative acknowledges the importance of identity and afliation in the negotiated communication of intercultural communication, with no one interlocutor providing the norms or ideal model to which the other has to conform. Most importantly, what Byrams and many other accounts of CA share is a notion of C A as knowledge, skills, and attitudes to be developed by the language learner, which can then be utilized in understanding specic cultures and in communicating across diverse cultures. Perhaps the most signicant limitation to CA, as it has just been described, is that it has commonly been conceived in relation to intercultural communication between dened cultural groupings, typically at the national level. This can be seen for example in Byrams association of C A with ones own and other cultures and countries (ibid.: 101, my italics). Thus, CA is most usually related to developing an understanding of and comparisons between a C1 and a C2 or a number of C2s, for example, the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia. This is not an appropriate aim in expanding circle environments. Given the variety and heterogeneity of English use in such settings, a user or learner of English could not be expected to have a knowledge of all the different cultural contexts of communication they may encounter and even less so the languacultures of the participants in this communication. Therefore, while many of the attributes associated with CA may be relevant, they need to be developed in relation to intercultural communication and an understanding of the dynamic way sociocultural contexts are constructed. Knowledge of specic cultures may still have an important role to play in developing an awareness of cultural differences and relativization.
From cultural to intercultural awareness 65

However, knowledge of specic cultures has to be combined with an awareness of cultural inuences in intercultural communication as uid, fragmented, hybrid, and emergent with cultural groupings or boundaries less easily dened and referenced. Thus, what is needed for successful communication through English in expanding circle lingua franca contexts is not just CA but ICA.
IC A
IC A is best conceived as an extension of the earlier conceptions of CA that is

more relevant to needs of intercultural communication in expanding circle and global lingua franca contexts, in which cultural inuences are likely to be varied, dynamic, and emergent. A basic denition of IC A, as envisaged here, is as follows: Intercultural awareness is a conscious understanding of the role culturally based forms, practices, and frames of understanding can have in intercultural communication, and an ability to put these conceptions into practice in a exible and context specic manner in real time communication. To better understand this denition and what it entails, a number of features of IC A can be identied and are listed below (Figure 1). These 12 components attempt to build on the previously discussed features of CA, especially those highlighted by Byram (op.cit.), and extend them to the more uid conceptions of intercultural communication through English in global lingua franca settings.2

Level 1: basic cultural awareness An awareness of: 1 culture as a set of shared behaviours, beliefs, and values; 2 the role culture and context play in any interpretation of meaning; 3 our own culturally induced behaviour, values, and beliefs and the ability to articulate this; 4 others culturally induced behaviour, values, and beliefs and the ability to compare this with our own culturally induced behaviour, values, and beliefs. Level 2: advanced cultural awareness An awareness of: 5 the relative nature of cultural norms; 6 cultural understanding as provisional and open to revision; 7 multiple voices or perspectives within any cultural grouping; 8 individuals as members of many social groupings including cultural ones; 9 common ground between specific cultures as well as an awareness of possibilities for mismatch and misco mmunication between specific cultures. Level 3: intercultural awareness An awareness of: 10 culturally based frames of reference, forms, and communicative practices as being related both to specific cultures and also as emergent and hybrid in intercultural communication; 11 initial interaction in intercultural communication as possibly based on cultural stereotypes or generaliza tions but an ability to move beyond these through: 12 a capacity to negotiate and mediate between different emergent socioculturally grounded communication modes and frames of reference based on the above understanding of culture in intercultural communication.

fi g u r e 1 Twelve components of
ICA

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These 12 elements of ICA delineate the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that a user of English as a global lingua franca needs to be able to successfully communicate in these complex settings. They are presented in an order which builds from a basic understanding of cultural contexts in communication, particularly in relation to the L1 (Level 1: Basic C A, Figure 1), to a more complex understanding of language and culture (Level 2: Advanced CA, Figure 1), and nally to the uid, hybrid, and emergent understanding of cultures and languages in intercultural communication needed for English used in global settings (Level 3: ICA, Figure 1). However, it is recognized that learners of English may not develop these elements in this exact order. For example, it may well be that learners of English who have grown up in multilingual environments may be unconsciously or consciously aware of the later elements of ICA. Furthermore, the elements of ICA are deliberately general in nature since the details will inevitably depend on the particular contexts of English learning and use. As with C A, knowledge of specic cultures and the inuence this may have on communication is still a part of ICA (see Levels 1 and 2, Figure 1), and there is a recognition that participants may initially begin communication by making use of nationally based cultural generalizations (Figure 1, Feature 11). Crucially though, there is also an attempt to go beyond single cultural frames of reference in intercultural communication. The features of Level 3 (Figure 1) proposes that, in parallel to knowledge of specic cultures, an understanding of emergent cultural references and practices is needed and that this needs to be combined with the ability to negotiate and mediate between these dynamic resources in intercultural communication. Such abilities and awareness enable users to cope with the diversity and uidity of intercultural communication in which cultural frames of reference cannot be dened a priori. IC A should thus be of direct relevance to users of English in global contexts, especially in expanding circle and EL F settings, both as an attempt to conceptualize the cultural dimension to communication and also as a set of pedagogic aims. This emphasis on skills and the ability to view cultures as dynamic, diverse, and emergent raises a dilemma though. To develop ICA learners need to have an in-depth understanding of culture, and to achieve this, it is necessary for learners to have cultural knowledge, even if that knowledge is no longer the end product of learning. Choosing the content of that cultural knowledge brings us back to the problems already raised in settings associated with English in global contexts. Yet, if the nal outcome is to develop skills in and an awareness of intercultural communication, then cultural knowledge and content more appropriate to those skills and the components of C A identied earlier can be selected. It is not necessary to focus exclusively on one culture, for example the typical focus on the United States or United Kingdom in English; instead cultural content appropriate to the variety of intercultural interactions a learner may encounter in their environment can be selected, which highlight the different components of ICA. In particular, it is necessary to focus on intercultural encounters themselves and examine the different ways in which culturally inuenced behaviours are manifested in such
From cultural to intercultural awareness 67

communication and the way these are negotiated by the participants in the exchange. None of this denies the importance of knowledge of other cultures or rejects the idea that detailed knowledge of a specic culture is valuable in developing ICA. Rather, it recognizes the limitations of this kind of knowledge and incorporates the need for a more wide ranging understanding of culture for intercultural communication in the expanding range of contexts in which it occurs for global languages such as English. Thus, the knowledge, awareness, and skills associated with IC A will be constantly under revision and change based on each new intercultural encounter and as such are never a fully formed complete entity but always in progress towards a goal that is constantly changing.

Applying I C A in classroom teaching

While, as indicated above, the manner in which ICA can be made relevant to different learning contexts will depend partly on that context, there are a number of broad areas, which can be used to develop ICA within the E LT classroom. These are presented here as a set of suggestions, not all of which will be relevant in all settings. Equally, there may be other opportunities not presented here which can be used to develop ICA in specic settings. These proposals can be divided into six strands as follows. This begins with learners exploring the diversity and complexity of different local and national cultural groupings. This should lead to an awareness of the multi-voiced nature of cultural characterizations. It should also highlight the manner in which cultural groupings can cut across national cultures and the way in which local communities may connect with global communities, whether it is religious or ethnic groups, identifying with other learners and users of English or groups such as music or sports fans. A discussion between the students within any class, even in supposedly monolingual and monocultural settings, often reveals a surprising diversity of linguistic and cultural inuences. These can be used to critically evaluate images and descriptions of cultures in locally produced textbooks and images of other cultures in local and imported E LT textbooks. For instance, learners can explore how well the images of their own culture presented in their textbooks (if there are any) match their own experiences. This can include lm, television, radio, newspapers, novels, and magazines and can be used in a similar manner to the second strand to critically explore the images of local and other cultures. For example, literature has been extensively used for such purposes, although English language literature should clearly extend beyond that produced in the inner circle countries. The internet, email, chat rooms, instant messaging, and tandem learning can be used in a similar manner to the previous two strands to explore cultural representations. Furthermore, these resources can be used to engage in actual instances of intercultural communication, enabling students to develop ICA and reect on its relevance to their experiences.
Will Baker

Exploring local cultures

Exploring languagelearning materials

Exploring the traditional media and arts through English

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These may include asynchronous email exchanges and synchronous chat room-type communication with language students and teachers in other countries.

Cultural informants

Non-local English-speaking teachers and local English teachers with experience of intercultural communication and other cultures can be used to provide information about these experiences and cultures. This can also provide another chance to reect upon the relevance of different elements of IC A in these situations. Teachers can present their experiences of other cultures as content for the classroom through, for example, reading texts or discussion topics. These are valuable both in themselves as offering opportunities to develop and put ICA into practice and for providing materials and experiences to reect on in the classroom that can further aid in the development of ICA. In situations where there are non-local teachers or non-local students (as may be the case in further education settings), opportunities for intercultural communication clearly exist. Even where such opportunities do not exist, students and teachers can bring their own experiences of intercultural communication to the class for discussion and reection, for example considering what was successful or not successful or how they felt about the experience. These strands attempt to utilize all the resources available in the language classroom including the textbook and teacher, as well as those resources that may be available to learners outside the classroom, such as the internet, but can then be reected on in the classroom. The six strands provide opportunities to gain the necessary experience of intercultural communication and investigating local and other cultures. This is balanced with the equally important task of exploring and evaluating those experiences. It is important to recognize that all of these sources will only provide partial accounts of cultures and will inevitably be biased. However, as long as this is made clear and learners and teachers approach the cultural images and information presented in a critical manner, these can provide valuable opportunities for experience of and reection on intercultural communication and contact with other cultures that can aid in the development of ICA.

Face-to-face intercultural communication (often with non-local English teachers)

Conclusion

The use of English as the global lingua franca highlights the need for an understanding of cultural contexts and communicative practices to successfully communicate across diverse cultures. Yet, it also raises the problem of naively associating the English language with a specic culture or nation. Traditional conceptions of communicative competence and CA in ELT have focused on an understanding of particular cultures and countries such as the USA or U K and their associated sociocultural norms. English as a global lingua franca forces us to go beyond notions of teaching a xed language and cultural context as adequate for successful communication. Most signicant when examining culture in E LT are the types of knowledge, skills, and attitudes envisaged in ICA. These relate to understanding culture, language, and communication in general, as well as in relation to particular contexts, and an awareness of the dynamic relationship between
From cultural to intercultural awareness 69

English and its diverse sociocultural settings. An awareness of the multilingual and multicultural settings of English use, therefore, should be a key element of any attempt to teach communication. The E LT classroom is a site in which learners, and ideally teachers, are necessarily engaged in multilingual and multicultural practices and thus provides the ideal environment in which to develop ICA and to prepare users of English to communicate in global settings. Final revised version received December 2010
Notes 1 E LF is also sometimes referred to as English as an international language; although, there is some debate as to whether the two terms are interchangeable (see Jenkins op.cit.). 2 These are based in part on an earlier empirical study of English use in an expanding circle setting (see Baker 2009a for a more detailed explanation of this). References Baker, W. 2009a. Intercultural awareness and intercultural communication through English: an investigation of Thai English language users in higher education. Unpublished doctorate, University of Southampton. Baker, W. 2009b. The cultures of English as a lingua franca. TE S O L Quarterly 43/4: 56792. Block, D. 2004. Globalization and language teaching. E LT Journal 58/1: 757. Byram, M. 1997. Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Crystal, D. 2008. Two thousand million? English Today 24/1: 36. Hymes, D. 1972. On communicative competence in J. Pride and J. Holmes (eds.). Sociolinguistics. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Jenkins, J. 2007. English as a Lingua Franca: Attitude and Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kachru, B. 1990. The Alchemy of English. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Kramsch, C. 2009. The Multilingual Subject. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pennycook, A. 2007. Global Englishes and Transcultural Flows. London: Routledge. Porto, M. 2010. Culturally responsive L2 education: an awareness-raising proposal. E LT Journal 64/1: 4553. Risager, K. 2007. Language and Culture Pedagogy. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Seidlhofer, B. 2005. English as a lingua franca. E LT Journal 59/4: 33941. Suzuki, A. 2010. Introducing diversity of English into E LT: student teachers responses. ELT Journal 65/2: 14553. Tomalin, B. and S. Stempleski. 1993. Cultural Awareness. Oxford: Oxford University Press. The author Will Baker teaches Applied Linguistics and E LT at the University of Southampton, UK. He is also a founding member of the Universitys Centre for Global Englishes. Before this, he was an English language teacher in both the United Kingdom and Thailand. His current research interests include intercultural communication, E L F, culture and language, e-learning, and ELT. He has published and presented internationally on all these areas. The research reported here was made possible by an Economic and Social Research Council doctoral studentship award. Email: w.baker@soton.ac.uk

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Reections on a transnational peer review of teaching

Lynne Carolan and Lijuan Wang

Peer observation of teaching often occurs at a local level or national level, seldom internationally. Victoria University, Australia, and Chinese institutions Henan University and Central University of Finance and Economics have a transnational partnership involving local students studying courses originating in Australia and Chinese students who move countries to continue study. A pilot transnational peer project was carried out matching up English teachers in the English-speaking country with English teachers in the home country. This could be very important in helping students who move from preparatory courses in their home country to higher level courses in an English-speaking one. Peer observation used technologies such as, video recording a class, email, and Skype. Teachers reected on their own and each others practice, methodology, students, and institutions. This paper may provide a model for exploring cross-cultural teaching practices and helping students who move between countries to study.

Introduction

Increasing liaison with international colleagues is important for a number of reasons. Universities in English-speaking countries deliver English and other programmes offshore in a number of countries. Often the students who take up these courses come to the English-speaking universities to continue their study. Offshore courses delivered by universities in Englishspeaking countries follow their own curriculum. These factors mean that teachers in the universities and their international colleagues need to be working closely and sharing knowledge about students, pathways, ideology and methodology, and cultures. This helps to ensure a smooth transition for those students who move from their home countries to English-speaking environments to complete higher level courses. Also, there are many benets for the teachers in reecting on practices internationally and their own practices, linked by a common concern for the students. This project was set up to create more links between Chinese and Australian teachers where there was already an established pathway for students between the institutions. The aim was for individual teachers to share knowledge about their teaching and the students. Volunteer teachers from two institutions in China were matched with volunteer teachers from Melbourne in pairs. Each member of the pair used Skype and email to introduce themselves and to decide which part of a lesson would be most helpful to video for comparison and illustration of teaching methods. Each member of the pair then recorded a lesson on CD and swapped them for
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The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved. Advance Access publication April 15, 2011

comment. Both members of the pair detailed the stages of their lessons and the methodology behind these in emails to each other before the viewing of the CD. Each pair used Skype to hold regular discussions, after the CD was viewed, about the lessons, methodology, or any other matter raised by the experience.

Background

Peer review of teaching raises many issues. It can be seen as a way to improve teaching and learningas a learning activity for teachers and a way to develop collegiality (Bell 2002)and contributes to developing teacher skills (Bell 2001). It can provide fresh orientation on teaching, on student reaction and engagement, on subject delivery and on all sorts of subtle dimensions of teaching that teachers might be otherwise unaware of (Moore, Walsh, and Risquez 2007: 17). It also acknowledges and capitalizes on educative expertise and judgement of teachers in the same eld, provides feedback that afrms good practice as well as suggests areas in teaching where development would be helpful . . . recognizes the inuence of disciplines on teaching and learning practices, strengthens the teaching culture of an institution. (Harris, Farrell, Bell, Devlin, and James 2008: 6)1 It benets each of the peers as it allows the observed to get feedback and the observer to reect and gain insight into his/her own practice (ibid.). Through the peer review conducted between colleagues in China and the English-speaking environment, we would also conclude that we gained valuable insight into how Chinese students were instructed in the home country which could help our institutions to help them when they move from China to continue their education. Universities are now judged by their teaching as well as by the research they produce, so peer review of teaching is important. However, it raises questions about how well-qualied peers are to assess each others teaching, how the process may affect relationships, and the weight given and the repercussions of negative judgements made through this relatively new process. To be useful, peer observation needs to be seen as only one of many types of evidence including student feedback, assessment processes, and student learning outcomes (Gosling 2002). Potential problems were with what is reported, how it is reported and to whom (McMahon, Barrett, and ONeill 2007: 504). As peer observation/review becomes more established, more models and means of recording are becoming available (Fullerton 1999). There are now university handbooks which detail various models and case studies. As one pair of teachers, we selected Goslings peer observation model (Gosling op.cit.) as suitable for a project taken up by interested teachers who wanted to experience different teaching methods. The objective of our pairs peer review was discussion of teaching for our own development. The fact that we are both trained teachers meant we could compare our methodologies aware that there would be signicant differences based on cultural differences in teaching and learning. The review was based solely on our observations of each other and information was only to be shared

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between the partners. We observed the teaching, the students, and learning materials used, with the outcome being in-depth discussion and analysis of teaching methods. This was the recommended non-judgemental, constructive feedback (Gosling ibid.: 5) based on the mutual interest of two English teachers in two different countries in observing how pathway students were being taught. This process prompted us to start thinking about how the student transition could be made easier in terms of teaching methodology. Peer review between subject staff means a more collective approach to teaching responsibilities. Collective peer observation/review could be used by a whole school or department which identies the key issues that need to be addressed (Hammersley-Fletcher and Orsmond 2005). Brawley (2008) suggests that university teachers could collect material about their teaching (including videos, etc.) into e-portfolios which could be shared with neighbouring institutions or across the country to make evaluation a public process. Fullerton (op.cit.) suggests that peer review could be shared widely, across sectors and between institutions. The technology we had available (Skype and email) allowed the feedback meetings to take place very soon after viewing the lesson (recommended by Martin and Double 1998) and we nominated an area of most relevance to our pair (recommended by Harris et al. op.cit.): vocabulary teaching. We worked on noting the strengths of the lesson that we saw as well as looking at differences (recommended by Moore et al. op.cit.). Evaluation of teaching across cultures has previously been used to attempt to establish broad elements of teaching which students universally value (Marsh 1986). Also, the value of video recording lessons from different cultures for analysis of comparative teaching and learning practices was noted by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (I E A) (see Stigler, Gallimore, and Hiebert 2000). These videos were promoted as giving teachers insight into the diversity of teaching practices that have evolved around the world (ibid.: 87). They argue that videoing of lessons gives the participants the opportunity to discover unanticipated ideas and alternative analytic categories (from checklists), concrete referents to words and concepts used to describe instruction, e.g. problem solving (which is not usually culturally dened), and are amenable to analysis from multiple perspectives (ibid.: 90).

Methods

Firstly, we individually taught a class in a Reading module and this was videoed. We concentrated on vocabulary presentation as a recognizably common process. We structured the class in stages (see Appendixes 1 and 2) and then wrote a lesson plan with rationale for each stage. This period of writing up the lesson allowed time for our own personal reection on methodology. We then observed each others class via the D V D and noted the differences and similarities in vocabulary presentation. In the teachercentred, non-English-speaking environment, the teacher introduced each word, modelled pronunciation, explained the word using examples and connections with word class, and then translated the word. The teacher introduced many new words before the reading. In the English-speaking environment, the teacher introduced vocabulary before the reading from
Reections on a transnational peer review of teaching 73

a context situation or example by eliciting from students where possible. The teacher modelled pronunciation but elicited word stress and concept checked the words. Translation was not used and the list of vocabulary was much shorter, other words being left to students to work out from context. We were able to compare and contrast our students reactions to this stage of a lesson and our methodology. This done, as in Goslings model, the video was used to draw out further topics about the whole lesson and beyond, for example activities, responses, staging, methodology, and cultures, through email and Skype where queries could be answered. The following topics were discussed in subsequent Skype sessions and the discussion did become wide-ranging as envisaged by Gosling:
d the wider context of the lesson (what happened just prior and what would

happen next); the stage of learning and characteristics of the learners; d the expectations and attitudes of the learners; d the language problems of ESL students as opposed to an E F L student; d the impact of the expectations of the institutions and other stake holders (for example parents in China) on teachers and students; d pressures of the teaching load; d the effect of the timetable on the learners; and d the life experience of the learners.
d

This helped give a detailed context for the lesson that we viewed. We also talked about how English tted in with students future plans, the role of the universities in encouraging innovation in teaching, how teachers could improve their methodology, and cultural expectations. Effectively we had a cultural exchange of knowledge which ranged from nding meanings of words (English and Chinese) to discovering how Chinese and Australian students would tackle a reading text, what they would look for in a text, and the methods of learning that they were used to. The clearest results of these discussions were to talk about ways the English-speaking university could accommodate the non-English-speaking students by observing the way they were used to learning. Also, how their home country teachers could prepare them for study in the English-speaking environment. The Skype sessions lasted from 40 minutes to over an hour.

Observations of Lauras English lesson in China by Lynne (from D V D)

Lauras class was an English class of 36 full-time students aged between 17- and 19-years-old at a university campus. Students had prepared the reading by studying the vocabulary and completing exercises. Laura focused on introducing, explaining, and looking at the vocabulary within the context of the text. She modelled the pronunciation of the words and then explained each item of vocabulary (more than 20 words) following a number of steps. Explanations were delivered in English and students asked to translate into Chinese or explained in Chinese and students asked to translate into English. Students were reminded of previously learnt synonyms. The structure of the text was examined and students were asked to match up the theme with each paragraph. Individual students read sentences and the teacher corrected pronunciation and word stress. She also dealt with the

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authors point of view and sentence structures which were copied to help student writing.

Findings drawn from Lauras class by Lynne

In terms of vocabulary introduction, we covered the same features of words: pronunciation, word class, register, usage, spelling collocations, and meaning. The signicant difference was that the communicative methodology used in Australia means teachers constantly try to elicit information and ask questions to push students to discover meaning. The students spend a lot of time talking in small groups rather than in silence while the teacher leads. Translation was not an option in the Australian multilingual class. Laura (in China) did not have to use check questions as she translated if the students did not grasp the word meaning. What Lynne gained from Lauras class
1 The younger Chinese students were required to prepare the text before

the class which would be a strategic idea to be tried (where feasible) with the mature-age Australian group. 2 Lauras approach was very systematic, so students would know that the teacher would go back to words learnt previously and remind students of a link, synonyms or antonyms, spelling, etc. Also, they would know that the teacher would translate if in doubt. 3 It was useful to watch a presentation to an E F L class as in an ES L classroom, it is easy to presume knowledge that students may not have despite a high level of (sometimes) supercial uency. 4 It brought home the striking differences in instruction between this English class in China and an English class in Australia and the confronting elements of a communicative approach for Chinese students studying in an English-speaking environment. This would include asking them to work in English in small groups without personal input from the teacher, becoming very active in working towards discovering meaning, not having a quick translation for problem words. They would get less help with individual vocabulary items and be asked to get comfortable with trying to deduce meaning from context.

Observation of Lynnes English lesson in Australia by Laura (from DVD)

There were 13 students in Lynnes class who sat in a circle and could easily be approached by the teacher. It is more like having an informal talk. By contrast, the students in my class have to sit in xed seats (a feature of the majority of universities in China). The teacher delivers the lesson on the platform in front of the classroom which tends to discourage interaction. Lynne started with setting a context, by asking three open questions which students discussed in small groups. After the discussion, the vocabulary was introduced. She asked the students to work with her in working out the meaning following a number of steps. Translation was impossible as the students were multilingual and the lesson was delivered in English. In China, translation can be used and I usually explain the new words by asking them to translate Chinese sentences into English or vice versa. Next, Lynne focused on reading skills of scanning and predicting and asked the students to nd the topic sentence of each paragraph. Comparatively speaking, Lynne was delivering extensive reading and mine was intensive reading.

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Besides reading skills, I probably dealt with more details, including language points, sentence patterns, text structure, paraphrase, and messages conveyed to the readers. By analysing the text structure and focusing on some sentence patterns in the text, I make the students aware of the writing methods of the authors, so they can apply them to their own writing.

Findings drawn from Lynnes class by Laura

1 In the monolingual environment, the students have to communicate in

the target language pushing them to develop their language.

2 The teaching objectives are enlarging the students vocabulary and

improving reading skills.

3 The objectives are clear and fullled: the students gured out the

4 5 6 7

meaning of the new words quickly and correctly and found the topic sentences in paragraphs. The students listen attentively and are required to actively participate in the discussion and keep up with the ow of the lesson. There is a high extent of interaction and the students needs are met in the interactions. Communicative methodology is used. Interactions between students and students and the teacher are very important and provide more chances for the students to speak and communicate with each other. The teacher performs as a facilitator, offering guidance and instruction. The students are encouraged to think critically and develop their creativity; the methodology is student-centred.

Conclusion

As noted by Gosling (op. cit.), this project worked very well because the peer relationship was equal and mutual and the feedback was constructive. The experience was less about judging the teaching model and more about directly observing how students are taught in a different country which led to discussions about teaching and thinking about the perceptions of students transitioning from one teaching method to another. We concluded that strategies to help students transition from one teaching style to another (at the teacher level) may include:
1 Explicit explanation of the differences in teaching styles to students based

on the teachers personal observation.

2 Establishing a transitional period, where the teacher in the English-

speaking country could make the lesson more teacher-centred and slowly incorporate more unstructured group work and more independent individual student work. 3 Writing reective pieces where students compare and contrast teaching and learning styles in the rst country and second country. 4 Allowing students to use translation (dictionaries) at rst then slowly guiding them into understanding by deducing meaning from context. 5 Keeping assessments on skills that are not emphasized in Chinese classrooms (for example informal speaking, unstructured group work, etc.) until very late in the teaching semester in the host country.

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6 Teachers in the rst country could inform students of expected changes in

teaching styles and incorporate some of the activities of the host country into classes in the home country. 7 Mentioning to students that current teachers had had contact with previous teachers in their home country would help students feel that their educational path was connected between countries. Peer review using the technology of Skype, video, and email has a number of advantages. The obvious one is being able to observe colleagues and students in geographically distant places. Skype was an easy and cheap way to make personal contact with another teacher. Making a video of a class and allowing someone else to view it requires a relationship of trust. This was established by teachers being able to choose partners and having a personal email exchange to try to build the relationship a little before viewing each others class. The established focus was discussion about teaching and one fruitful result was considering strategies to help students transition between countries. Using a video meant that teachers could watch the whole lesson for an overall understanding and then go back to review different stages to see how students were reacting. Teachers could refer to different stages of the videos in discussion. Most productively, the process allowed access to colleagues in a different country and culture, so information about students in general as well as specics (pronunciation of words, cultural events) could be swapped. While face-to-face feedback immediately after a teaching session could be confronting, the use of technology helped create a bit of distance between the teachers. Skype sessions allowed for a long discussion on a number of topics beyond the original topic of observing the vocabulary presentation and aim of sharing knowledge. We felt we had both had a fair bit of time to watch and think about the lesson on the video and this would help in making the observations comprehensive and balanced. We were also able to go back to the videos to clarify questions and observations, after exchanging comments. Peer review across borders and cultures is a very informative and worthwhile activity. Most importantly, in a world where students move countries and cultures connected to the same institutions, it is an essential activity to help maximize the students success. Teachers can build bridges across cultures with the help of available technology and peer observation can take place across the world via Skype, email, teleconference, and watching a videoed class. This offers teachers more opportunities to exchange teaching experience, reect on cross-cultural teaching practices, and develop an integrated pedagogy. Final revised version received January 2011
Note 1 Support for the original work was provided by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council Ltd, an initiative of the Australian Government Department of Education, Employment, and Workplace Relations. References Bell, M. 2001. Supported reective practice: a program of peer observation and feedback for academic teaching development. The International Journal for Academic Development 6/1: 2939.

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Bell, M. 2002. Peer Observation of Teaching in Australia (Monograph on the Internet). Wollongong, Australia: LT S N Generic Center. Available at http:// www.pu.uu.se/pu-wiki/mediawiki/images/f/fd/ CF_Australia.pdf (accessed on 20 July 2009). Brawley, S. 2008. Internationalizing peer review in teaching and learning. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning 2/1: 19. Fullerton, H. 1999. Observation of teaching in H. Fry, S. Ketteridge, and S. Marshall (eds.). A Handbook for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. London: Kogan Page. Gosling, D. 2002. Models of peer observation. Available at http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/ resources/detail/resource_database/id200_ Models_of_Peer_Observation_of_Teaching (accessed on 20 July 2009). Hammersley-Fletcher, L. and P. Orsmond. 2005. Reecting on reective practices within peer observation. Studies in Higher Education 30/2: 21324. Harris, K. L., K. Farrell, M. Bell, M. Devlin, and R. James 2008. Peer Review of Teaching in Higher Education Handbook: A Handbook to Support Institutions in Developing an Embedding Effective Policies and Practices. Available at http:// www.cshe.unimelb.edu.au/resources_teach/ feedback (accessed on 22 July 2009). Marsh, H. W. 1986. Applicability paradigm: students evaluations of teaching effectiveness in different countries. Journal of Educational Psychology 78/6: 46573.

Martin, G. and J. Double. 1998. Developing higher education teaching skills through peer observation and collaborative reection. Innovations in Education and Training International 35/2: 1619. McMahon, T., T. Barrett, and G. ONeill. 2007. Using observation of teaching to improve quality: nding your way through the muddle of competing conceptions, confusion of practice and mutually exclusive intentions. Teaching in Higher Education 12/4: 499511. Moore, S., G. Walsh, and A. Risquez. 2007. Teaching at College and University: Effective Strategies and Key Principles. Maidenhead: Open University Press McGraw-Hill Education. Stigler, J. W., R. Gallimore, and J. Hiebert. 2000. Using video surveys to compare classrooms and teaching across cultures: examples and lessons from the T I M S S video studies. Educational Psychologist 35/2: 87100. The authors Lynne Carolan has taught in France, Spain, Egypt, and Italy. She is currently teaching at Victoria University Melbourne Australia. Email: Lynne.Carolan@vu.edu.au

Lijuan Wang teaches English at Henan University, Kaifeng, Henan Province, China. Email: Wlj8076@yahoo.com.cn

Appendix 1 Australian E S L class

The Certicate IV English as a Second Language (Further Study) class consists of 20 students. They come from Vietnam, Sri Lanka, China, Hong Kong, Sudan, Ethiopia, ex-Yugoslavia, and Iran. Many of them have qualications from their rst countries (for example Bachelor of Education). They are studying a one-year English course to enter into a TA F E certicate course, bridging courses into degrees or degree courses. In presenting vocabulary, the following process was followed. A reading text is selected and vocabulary judged to be unknown to the students is taken out and prepared by the teacher. Words which could be reasonably guessed from the sentence or topic context are not included. Vocabulary presentation steps:

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n explanation of the word in the context and in other situations (to show where the word ts outside the text) with pictures, etc. n elicitation of word class and any other forms of the word n elicitation spelling n highlighting collocations n pronunciation word stress and phonemes n usage of the word, i.e. informal/formal, spoken, or written n use of check questions to ensure understanding (testing where it applies and does not apply). The teacher introduces the topic with personal questions to elicit the main points and vocabulary, for example: Topic: New suburbs Questions: Do you live in an old or a new suburb? What are the differences between them? The teacher elicits any known helpful words and records these on to the board. After feedback, the teacher introduces new vocabulary in steps: context situation/model pronunciation/meaning check/ writingcollocation/word class/sample sentence. Students rst read for gist (answering a global question) then for detailed understanding. Lastly, students read and the teacher checks the meaning of the words which were guessed from context.

Appendix 2 Chinese English class

The Certicate IV English as a Second Language (Further Study) class in the Sino-Australian program consists of 36 students, majoring in international business, accounting, or computer. Quite a few of them go to Australia to continue their studies after two years at Henan University if they pass the IE LT S test and can afford it. Those who do not want to go abroadbecause, for example, the family cannot afford the costs or students prefer studying in Chinawill stay at university and nish four years study. All the rst year students are required to have D E T (Diploma Entry Test) in the second semester to get enrolled in Victoria University. The local English teachers take charge of the Reading and Listening courses and the Australian teachers teach Speaking and Writing. The local English Reading teachers use the prescribed textbooks, New Horizon College EnglishReading published by a prominent publisher in China. A large number of universities in China use these textbooks. One book consists of ten units and each unit is composed of three passages. One book is nished each semester. As the vocabulary listed after each passage is fairly large (3650 words, 12 phrases), it is impossible to cover it all in one session. About 15 words judged to be important and frequently used are selected and prepared by the teacher. Other words are left to the students as their own work. The stages are: n explanations of the word in the context and a number of other situations (to show where the word ts outside the text) n word class and any other forms of the word n highlighting collocations n usage of the word by providing sample sentences.

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The teacher introduces the topic of the passage by asking personal questions, introducing background information, or giving a relevant topic for students to discuss and use new words they have learnt, for example: Topic: How do you make a good impression? Topics for discussion: Do you know how to make a good impression? Have you ever looked back on a rst meeting and wished you had handled it differently? You are divided into four groups, each group chooses one of the following topics. n Think about your rst day at Henan University, what did you do to make a good impression at your dormitory, on your classmates, or your teacher? n If you were a teacher, how would you make a good impression on your students? n Very often, at weekends, we like to eat outside the south gate, west gate, or east gate of our university. What is your impression of these restaurants? How would you make your restaurant impressive to your customers if you were the boss? n If you got a new job, how would you create a good impression on your colleagues or on your boss? After 510 minutes discussion, a representative from each group presents what they have discussed. The class move on to the text and the teacher does most of the explaining, including language points, sentence patterns, grammar, and difcult sentences.

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Improving teacher talk through a task-based approach

Jason Moser, Justin Harris, and John Carle

This article reports on a teacher-talk training course for Japanese primary school teachers, who are preparing to teach communicative English for the rst time. The article argues that teacher-talk training is important for communicative classes with young students because most of the input and interaction is by default teacher centred. In our course, through a task-based approach including the use of digital recorders for self-transcribing, teachers were able to practise providing rich comprehensible input as well as scaffolding in English through role-playing classroom tasks. The before and after performances of two teachers doing a listenand-draw task is analysed to demonstrate the importance of training in teacher talk. In concluding the article, we review the participants survey feedback for the course. Our hope is that the article provides a convincing argument for teachertalk training as well as offering a model for similar courses.

Background

The introduction of English in primary schools is now being widely implemented throughout Asia (Butler 2004). In Japan, foreign language learning has been adopted in varying degrees at the primary school level since 2002. Starting from 2011, English oral communication will become a required classroom activity for 10- to 12-years olds in the fth and sixth grades of primary school. The Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports and Technology (MEX T) selected our university English department to design and trial a teacher-training programme for primary school teachers. The programme was advertised through local Boards of Education and during a two and a half year period over 320 teachers enrolled on it. We decided that the main focus of our programme should be on teacher-talk training. There were two reasons for this. Firstly, the recommended government textbooks for the new curriculum, Eigo Note 1 and Eigo Note 2, are communicative. These textbooks are based on a sociocultural approach to language learning (see Vygotsky 1978) where student learning is facilitated through social interaction regulated by the teachers own language use. Language is thus the primary tool for learning in the classroom. The second reason is that as Pinter (2006: 12) rightly notes, a teachers language use is most often the main source of language input for children in the primary school language classroom. For students of primary school age in Japan, pair work tasks usually constitute a very small part of the lesson, if they happen at all.
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For training in teacher talk, we decided to prioritize how teachers, through their own L2 use, could both provide rich input and scaffold their students language performances. Our decision to focus on teacher talk may seem obvious, but according to Walsh (2002), teacher-talk education is more often than not absent from language teacher education programmes. Walsh (ibid.) explains that there is often an unappreciated or missed relationship between teacher talk and learning opportunities. He adds that when teacher talk matches the pedagogical focus of the task, learning opportunities emerge, but when it does not, teacher talk becomes obstructive.

The teacher-talk programme

Our overall programme for training teachers consisted of two 90-minute classes held consecutively, once every two weeks for a total of 15 weeks. The rst class, called Skill-up, was a task-based oral communicative class. The purpose of this class was to help teachers improve their basic communicative skills. The second class, called Classroom English, which is the focus of this paper, was designed to provide teachers with practice in using English for pedagogical purposes during teacher-led communicative task work. Most of the teachers who joined the teacher-talk course had little or no experience teaching English. Even the few teachers who currently taught English had never taken a course solely focused on teacher talk. Classroom English, at a basic level, is just classroom management language. As a pedagogical tool, it involves the teacher providing rich comprehensible input through his/her oral production as well as scaffolding students production and learning. While not specically addressed in this paper, scaffolding as McKay (2006: 17) explains, is an instructional strategy where the teacher provides cognitive and language support to help students complete a task. Rich comprehensible input, which is critical for language acquisition (Krashen 1985) and is the main focus of this paper, involves providing students with language that, besides being meaningful, is understandable enough for students to successfully complete the task. According to Pinter (op.cit.: 45), there are four speaking actions a teacher must often simultaneously carry out in order to make the processing of language comprehensible for students:
1 2 3 4

adjust speed of speech modify language repeat messages use gestures and facial expressions.

We would add to the rst feature all the prosodic features of spoken language (stress, intonation, pronunciation, and clearness of speech). For modifying language, we would suggest that as well as simplifying language, this skill involves rephrasing language. Finally, we would add to the list the managing of visual aids as another required skill for improving input for students.

The classroom English course

The sequencing of teacher-talk tasks progressed from classroom management tasks that focused on starting and ending lessons in English, to tasks with pedagogical purposes, for example, introducing or reviewing vocabulary. For the next set of tasks, teachers practised using their speaking as rich input for students through listen and draw, listen and make, and

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listen and do tasks. Our nal set of tasks required teachers to scaffold students freer speaking monologues. A typical lesson for classroom English followed a task-based learning (TB L) sequence of pre-task, task cycle, and post-task (see Willis 1996). In addition, each teacher was provided with a digital recorder for recording and transcribing his/her performance. Walshs (op.cit.) self-evaluation of teacher talk encourages the use of audio recordings for teachers to help develop awareness of the effect teacher talk has on students learning. Lynchs (2001, 2007) studies have demonstrated that self-transcribing of recorded performances by students followed by correction and reformulation of the transcripts leads to improved subsequent task performances.

The listen-and-draw task Pre-task

Below is the lesson sequence for the listen-and-draw task. With this task, teachers specically practised how to provide rich comprehensible input. Step 1 The focus at this stage was to introduce teachers to a listen-and-draw task and provide them with initial language input for their later task performances. We used a scripted recording from Slattery and Willis (2001) of a teacher conducting the same task type with some young students. Teachers assumed the role of students and drew what the model teacher in the audio recording described. Step 2 Firstly, teachers in pairs brainstormed what language and discourse strategies they heard used in the audio recording. Teachers then individually prepared their own listen-and-draw task. In keeping with the TBL spirit of learning by doing, deliberate spoon-feeding of language was avoided. For a typical listen-and-draw task, the language targets were prepositions, prepositional phrases, and basic nouns, for example, There is a bird next to the tree.

Task cycle

Step 3 Each teachers main role in the task stage was to describe his/her picture clearly enough so as to enable their partner to draw it. Teachers were reminded that they were to role-play a classroom situation. The listen-anddraw task seems quite simple, but for teachers with limited language prociency, the challenge was immense. Below are the performances from two teachers, one who had very little English ability (Teacher 1) and another who had basic ability (Teacher 2). Teacher 1 (T1) rst performance: Draw . . . a lion . . . on the left side . . . and . . . draw a pineapple . . . on the top side . . . and draw two cherries on the right side . . . and draw a car on the down side. T1s recording lasted about a minute, but she managed to use only 31 words. Despite the small word total relative to the length of time, the performance was hard to comprehend as T1 struggled with her pronunciation and intonation. She overgeneralized the formulaic on the . . . side, and thus produced the less than ideal top side and down side. The rst performance
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contained none of the prepositions from the model audio script nor any repeating, rephrasing, and other teacher language that she could have borrowed from the pre-task input. While we do not know how her partner responded to the performance, we did often see the person in the student role struggling to understand the teachers language production during the task work. This lack of comprehensibility from a teacher would probably have a negative impact on the students motivation and learning, not to mention the teachers own condence. Finally, with T1s task, we could imagine students struggling with trying to draw a picture of objects that do not normally go together. The rst recordings provided us with a powerful reinforcement of why this course was important. Teacher 2 (T2) rst performance: T2 did very well in her initial recording despite having never actually taught English before. T2 rst attempt: Are you ready? lets draw a picture . . . there is a house on your right . . . it is a big house . . . and in front of the house there is a dog . . . okay? There are three owers on your left side . . . at the corner . . . okay next there is a buttery . . . ying above the ower . . . nished? the last item is a swing, do you know a swing? swing . . . there is a swing on your left side, at the corner . . . thats all . . . thank you. T2 used a variety of targeted prepositional phrases: on your right, on your left, in front of, above the owers, at the corner. She repeated and rephrased language (There is a house on your right . . . it is a big house) and engaged in interactional language (are you ready?, okay?, do you know a swing?, nished?) to frame and push the task forward. She had clear speech and enlivened her performance by having her buttery y (there is a buttery . . . ying above the ower). This value adding idea was not in our pre-task input. Lastly, T2 provided an overall task sequence for her partner to follow, not to mention pausing in order for her partner to draw (Lets draw, next, the last item, thats all). Her rst recording did lack some of the key features subsequently focused on at the post-task stage, but much of what she did do was excellent for a rst performance.

Post-task

Step 4 Once teachers had nished their task performance, the next step was to listen to their recording and transcribe it. They then compared their performance with the audio script from the model at Step 1. This comparison was supposed to help teachers notice holes and gaps in their performances. As Williams (2005) explains, noticing a gap is when the student notices that his/her performance language is different from the target, while noticing a hole refers to the moment when a student realises that she/he does not have the language to say what she/he wants to say. Step 5 In Step 5, we did a variety of group consciousness-raising (CR) activities using the original audio script. Firstly, we focused on prepositions. Teachers

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were asked to circle all the prepositional phrases that contained the noun tree (near the tree, under the tree, on top of the tree). Secondly, we focused on the prosodic features of the model recording, in particular word stress. This was reinforced through listen and repeat practice. Thirdly, discourse features of the input were highlighted, for example, how the model teacher sequenced instructions into clear stages that were demarcated by pausing and the repeating of key language and phrases. For our last CR activity, we focused teacher attention on where and how often the model teacher praised his students. This was again supported with listen and repeat practice. While praising students is a very important part of teacher talk, it was non-existent in most of the rst performances. Once we completed all the CR activities, teachers reformulated and corrected their transcripts in preparation for a second performance.

Task redo

Step 6 After a few minutes of rehearsal, the teachers did the task again with just their original drawing as reference. Below are the second attempts by T1 and T2. T1: Okay draw . . . are you ready to draw? . . . okay draw a . . . on the left, draw a lion a big lion . . . um a big and cute lion . . . okay . . . and theres a lion on the left side in the picture and th . . . and draw a pineapple at the top . . . in the middle . . . okay . . . at the top in the middle draw a pineapple there is a pineapple . . . yeah fantastic and . . . and next two cherries . . . draw two cherries anywhere anywhere you like . . . somewhere okay . . . yeah yeah thats somewhere, somewhere you like . . . anywhere okay . . . um you could . . . draw a . . . ah? you could you could . . . you could be like by the pineapple. The rst noticeable feature of T1s second performance is the length. T1 managed to include a number of the features focused on during the CR activities that had previously been absent from her performance. She repeated words and phrases and provided extra vocabulary around the main language targets. She even personalized the task for the students by giving them a choice of where to draw the cherries (draw two cherries anywhere anywhere you like . . . somewhere okay). She included praise (fantastic) and interactional language (Are you ready to draw?, Yeah thats somewhere). What cannot be seen in the above orthographic transcript is how dramatically the prosodic features of T1s speech improved. For example, in regards to stress, there was a noticeable difference between the rst and second attempts. In the rst attempt, her delivery was at and monotone. In the second attempt, T1 managed to stress key words (Draw a LION a BIG lion . . . um a big and CUTE lion okay . . . and theres a LION on the L E F T side). The effect was a much more natural and lively performance. Overall, there was a substantial improvement in her second performance, so much so, that we deemed it suitable for the classroom. Compared to the rst teacher, the second teacher had fewer problems and so the question would be what she would try to improve on.
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T2: Are you ready? lets draw a picture . . . rst, there is a big house on your right . . . its a big house . . . are you okay? next in front of the house there is a dog . . . the dog is very cute . . . he enjoys running . . . bow-wow . . . are you okay? next there are three owers on your left side . . . not only one ower there are three owers . . . can you see three owers? You have got a house a dog and three owers . . . are you okay? Firstly, T2 deliberately reduced her target vocabulary by two words. We believe that she did this to focus more on repeating and rephrasing fewer target words. In this sense, she prioritized the quality of the input rather than the quantity of it. In the rst performance, T2 rephrased her vocabulary target (ower) only twice (there are three owers, ying above the ower). In the second performance, she created richer and more comprehensible input by rephrasing ower four times (there are three owers on your left side . . . not only one ower there are three owers, can you see the owers?). The other key vocabulary target (dog) was only said once in the rst performance (in front of the house there is a dog . . . okay?). This contrasts sharply with the richer more animated input she produced the second time (next in front of the house there is a dog . . . the dog is very cute . . . he enjoys running . . . bow-wow). Finally, unlike in her rst performance, T2 provided a useful summary of all that she had described previously. Overall, in her second performance, T2 demonstrated a better awareness of the pedagogical purpose her language production should serve during listen-and-draw task work.

Teacher feedback on classroom English

All teachers who attended the course were required to ll out individual lesson feedback surveys, as well as one nal survey at the end of the programme. This information was required as part of our evaluation by MEXT. From individual lesson feedback, teachers demonstrated to us their awareness of the specic teacher-talk focus for each lesson. At the end of the listen-and-draw task, one teacher wrote in her survey feedback: In my own classes, I thought it was okay to just say things once and that was enough, but I realized that to be a good language teacher, its necessary to repeat and be aware of what Im saying in class. In another lesson that involved practising recasting, a teacher remarked: I particularly remember the key word recasting. Making the children aware of their mistakes by giving them the right words to say rather than explicitly correcting is something I will value and try to use from now. In the nal survey, most of the questions focused on the practicality of the teacher-talk course and the TBL approach, including the use of digital recorders. Many teachers commented that once they got over the embarrassment of hearing themselves, they found digital recorders to be an indispensible part of the learning process. In particular, they highlighted how hearing their performances helped them improve prosodic features of their speaking. One teacher noted:

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I was able to check the speed of my speech and the ow of my English words, which was very helpful. I want to try recording my own classes now. During the rst few classes, the task-based approach caused some confusion among teachers. Many had expected a transmission model of teaching, and had not anticipated how active they would be in their own learning. However, after this initial uncertainty from the teachers, survey feedback clearly indicated that they found TBL to be extremely motivating. Specically, they praised the try rst approach to the lesson sequence, which also involved brainstorming ideas with their partners before receiving help from us. Many teachers noted that the programme instructors had provided a learning environment that encouraged risk taking and making mistakes. Overall, teachers clearly embraced learning by doing and the responsibility of actively having to contribute to the lesson. They also appreciated the collaborative learning: I was very impressed with how the class was designed. The way that we as students were able to discuss together and create our own ideas is a wonderful new way of doing things for me. Another teacher wrote: As opposed to traditional classes it was fun. Trying to do the same task by ourselves was fresh and new for me. I learned a lot from analysing our performances. One of the most rewarding aspects for us was that a number of teachers wrote that they realized that TBL could be applied to other subjects they teach. In relation to the practicality of the course, teacher feedback showed that the overwhelming majority of teachers found the course very relevant to their needs. The message we received was the more practical, the better. Teachers regularly commented that the practical nature of the course improved their condence and willingness to teach English. A few teachers even mentioned in the follow-up classes that they had tried out some of our tasks in their classes.

Summary

When we designed the course, we recognized that what we are teaching should not be divorced from how we teach it. The task-based approach was ideal for demonstrating the potential for dialogical learning between teacher and student. The most basic goal of the programme was to have teachers gain experience conducting communicative tasks in English. We tried to demonstrate to teachers that even with limited prociency they could, through proper planning and preparation, conduct successful communicative lessons. This was not empty rhetoric and was reinforced when teachers compared their own before and after task performances. Their second performances were always better than their rst performances. The second task performances were in most cases good enough to use in class. The task-based approach with the use of digital recorders was ideal for showing teachers how to plan initial tasks and improve on them. One positive side effect of this is that if teachers are hesitant to do tasks real-time in their class, then they can plan and record performances to use in class. The nal goal of the programme was to
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demystify what constitutes communication at the primary school level in Japan. In particular, that it is not conversation and is mostly teacher facilitated. This clearly eased the anxiety of many teachers. Our hope is that this paper provides readers with a strong argument for prioritizing teacher talk in language teacher-training courses and, moreover, that it provides some practical ideas for setting up programmes in contexts where teachers lack experience and condence in using English. Final revised version received December 2010
References Butler, Y. G. 2004. What level of English prociency do elementary school teachers need to attain to teach EF L? Case studies from Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. T ES O L Quarterly 38/2: 24578. Krashen, S. 1985. The Input Hypothesis: Issues and Implications. London: Longman. Lynch, T. 2001. Seeing what they meant: transcribing as a route to noticing. E LT Journal 55/2: 12432. Lynch, T. 2007. Learning from the transcriptions of an oral communication task. E LT Journal 61/4: 31120. McKay, P. 2006. Assessing Young Language Learners. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports and Technology (MEXT). 2009. Eigo Note 1. Tokyo: Kairyudo Publishing. Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports and Technology (MEXT). 2009. Eigo Note 2. Tokyo: Kairyudo Publishing. Pinter, A. 2006. Teaching Young Language Learners. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Slattery, M. and J. Willis. 2001. English for Primary Teachers. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Vygotsky, L. S. 1978. Mind in Society. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Walsh, S. 2002. Construction or obstruction: teacher talk and learner involvement in the E F L classroom. Language Teaching Research 6/1: 323. Walsh, S. 2006. Talking the talk of the T E S O L classroom. E LT Journal 60/2: 13340. Williams, J. 2005. Form-focused instruction in E. Hinkel (ed.). Handbook of Research in Second Language Teaching and Learning. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Willis, J. 1996. A Framework for Task-Based Learning. Harlow: Longman. The authors Jason Moser is a language teacher at Osaka Shoin Womens University and a doctoral candidate at the University of Birmingham, UK. His research interest is language pedagogy. Email: jason.moser@osaka-shoin.ac.jp Justin Harris is a language teacher at Osaka Shoin Womens University. His research interests include task-based language learning, teacher training, and language education in primary schools in Japan. Email: justinharris@nike.eonet.ne.jp John Carle is a language teacher at Osaka Shoin Womens University. His main research interest is young language learners. He operates the childrens Oak Hills Language School in Kashiba, Nara. Email: johncarlejapan@gmail.com

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point and counterpoint

ELF on a mushroom: the overnight

growth in English as a Lingua Franca

Colin Sowden

In an effort to curtail native-speaker dominance of global English, and in recognition of the growing role of the language among non-native speakers from different rst-language backgrounds, some academics have been urging the teaching of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF). Although at rst this proposal seems to offer a plausible alternative to the traditional standard version, it raises both practical and theoretical concerns. Moreover, since neither World English nor nativized local Englishes have yet gained full legitimacy, it is clear that the nativespeaker model still has an important role to play, though one modied by new cultural and pedagogical priorities.

The colonial inheritance

In the aftermath of independence achieved in the years following the Second World War, many former British colonies sought to repudiate their previous subordination by demoting English, the language of their erstwhile masters, from its inherited position of dominance and replacing it with one or more native languages. As a political gesture, this move often had wide appeal, but the ghost of imperialism could not be exorcised overnight (Rahman 2009: 15), and the resulting difculties soon became apparent. In countries where several major languages were spoken, English had provided an effective means of communication between different ethnic and linguistic groups, who did not always take kindly to one native language being given precedence over another. One example here is provided by India, where the Ofcial Languages Act of 1967 declared Hindi to be equal to English for all ofcial purposes. This caused signicant resentment among Tamil speakers in the south of the country, with protests leading to civil unrest and actual violence, forcing the government in New Delhi to suspend the implementation of the law in the state of Tamil Nadu. In the same way, the replacement of English by Malay in the new Malaysian Confederation led in 1965 to the secession of Singapore, where the majority Chinese population feared that the policy would lead to their marginalization within the larger state, where they constituted a minority. Even where new language policies were designed to ensure equal status among native languages, it often proved impossible to accommodate all of these. In Nigeria, for example, while in 1969 Yoruba, Hausa, and Ibo were all declared to be ofcial languages, more than 380 other languages were not granted such status, so disadvantaging all their respective speakers. Apart from practical considerations, the real concern here was that attempting to
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accommodate more local languages (in the provision of education and other services) would tend to limit professional mobility and to undermine that sense of national unity which the new governments were so keen to promote. Indeed, speaking of Zambia, which faced a situation comparable to Nigeria after independence, but which chose to maintain the special status of English for longer, Nichindila (2009: 330) concludes that . . . English has been one of the cardinal unifying factors for Zambian society, although as a consequence literacy in local languages noticeably suffered before the policy was eventually modied. There were other relevant factors too. Few educational materials in the chosen native languages were available, especially at tertiary level, and subsequent attempts to limit schooling in English tended to drive the more afuent and informed into sending their children to private Englishmedium academies or to schools abroad. As Nichindila (ibid.) comments again: . . . very few of the Zambian government ministers send their children to government schools where the policy of teaching in local languages applies now. Most of them send their children to private schools . . . Even when it was relatively straightforward to promote a single native language as a replacement for English, as with Bangla in largely monolingual Bangladesh, the consequences of doing so were often a decline in general English prociency among the educated section of the population, as happened in this country following the implementation of the Bangla Introduction Law of 1983, leading the government to subsequently modify its position, with English being reintroduced as a language of instruction at university and as a parallel language of administration at both local and national levels (Rahman op. cit.: 18).

The development and nature of English as a Lingua Franca

So it has proved difcult for former colonial and other peoples subjected to anglophone hegemony to escape from the linguistic legacy of the past. One response has been to attempt to neutralize English, to sheer it of its cultural baggage, to remove it from the hands of its Anglo-Saxon native speakers, and to emphasize its role as a value-free means of international communication belonging equally to all who speak it as a rst or second language. It is in this context that the notion of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) has developed and been recently fostered. However, there remains some uncertainty over exactly what this term means in practice. It is usually seen to refer to the end result of the gradual abandonment, avoidance, or alteration by non-native speakers of those parts of English that tend to cause signicant misunderstanding in interactions with other non-native speakers or are redundant in that situation, thus producing a reduced version of the language which allows more straightforward interchange to take place. But what is the nature of this abbreviated alternative? Seidlhofer (2004: 222) is adamant that: . . . EL F is a natural language and can thus be expected to undergo the same processes that affect other natural languages, especially in contact situations.

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This would suggest that EL F can be viewed as an identiable, discrete entity, yet this idea is called into question by the pronouncements of other writers in the eld. Jenkins (2007: 41) is clear that it does not refer to a monolithic construct which will merely replace traditional native-speaker norms with new but equally inexible standards. Instead, it would consist of a variety of local versions of English, each inuenced by the local native language. Dewey and Cogo (2007: 11) argue that it should be seen: not as a uniform set of norms or practices but rather a set of linguistic resources which, while sharing common ground, is typically more variable than other language varieties. This apparent contradiction undermines attempts to give a clear status to EL F, a problem reminiscent of the dilemma which exercised philosophers of the Middle Ages in Europe: whether types or categories of things actually exist in their own right (as the Realists asserted) or whether they are merely abstractions deriving from multiple concrete instances of things, which alone have true being (as the Nominalists maintained). Leaving aside this ontological issue, the purpose of the simplication seems clear: to exclude culturally restricted items (what Seidlhofer op. cit.: 220 terms unilateral idiomaticity), particularly Anglo-Saxon ones, so easing the process of communication and curbing the authority of native speakers. Another key reason for encouraging the use of E L F, though, is that it is said to more closely resemble the versions of English actually spoken by various groups of non-native speakers, who are known to outnumber native speakers in their use of English by a large margin and whose communications with each other are said to constitute the majority of global interchanges in the language. So it could be considered both a more achievable and relevant target for the majority of learners. To this end, some core features have been described, pre-eminently on the basis of the VOICE corpus, allowing certain awkward and apparently insignicant elements of traditional Standard English (such as the third person s ending in the present tense of verbs) to be ignored (Seidlhofer op. cit.: 119).

Practical and theoretical problems

Although at rst glance this seems feasible, indeed attractive, there are fundamental problems, both practical and theoretical, with the whole E L F project. While some elements of a lingua franca core have been thus isolated, a complete and denitive description remains elusive. Shim (2009: 113) comments: The fallacy in the lingua franca core perspective is that . . . [i]t is not possible to get to a uniform lingua franca core that is shared by uent bilinguals from different rst-language backgrounds. Kachru (1992: 66) too is clear that what he terms a monomodal approach to non-native English cannot be defended and that attempts to subsume different local variations within a common version are doomed to failure because the functional roles assigned to English and the contexts in which these apply differ from one place to another. Kirkpatrick (2007: 163) makes the same point when discussing the varieties of English used in South East Asia: while they are very similar,

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. . . it would be impossible to describe A S E A N lingua franca as a single systematic system that could be codied and then used as a model for the A S E AN English language classroom. In fact, as he admits, it is the mutual understanding, cooperation and tolerance of variation of the different national groups that allows them to communicate so well, indicating that cultural sympathy and interpersonal skills are just as important in lingua franca exchanges as sharing a broadly common language. In addition to this problem of codication, there is the difculty in any given situation of distinguishing between authentic non-standard alternatives and persistent error. By way of guidance, here Kachru (op. cit.: 62) contrasts mistakes with deviations. While the former . . . cannot be justied with reference to the socio-cultural context of a non-native variety and is not the result of the production processes used in an institutionalized non-native variety, the latter is the result of such a process, which marks the typical variety-specic features; and it is systematic within the variety and not idiosyncratic. Kirkpatrick (op. cit.: 163) suggests that where a process of simplication has taken place as a result of transferring the parameter settings of either universal grammar or a local language, then a legitimate variation of Standard English has occurred; in contrast . . . the addition of inections in contexts where they are not needed is a potential marker of learner English. In both these formulations, though, the distinction remains notional and rather tentative, and therefore decient for practical purposes: without clearer reference points, it is difcult to see how teachers of E L F could be adequately trained or supplied with appropriate classroom resources. Besides this pedagogical difculty, both teachers and students would face an attitudinal one: they would be obliged to embrace and foster a variety of English which up to now they have learnt to treat as inferior and by doing so risk undermining their academic self-image and limiting their professional aspirations. Reports suggest that neither group wishes to make this compromise: Research shows that E F L teachers seem to recognize the usefulness of EL F-based skills mentioned in N S N N S [native-speakernon-nativespeaker] communication, but are prone to taking up an NS-oriented perspective when asked specically about language teaching. (Sifakis 2009: 232) Norrish (2008: 5) agrees: An obstacle . . . to the EL F approach . . . is the opinion expressed by many learners that they wish to learn a NS version of the language . . . [I]n my own experience, this was strongly the case with teacher trainers in Shanghai in 1992 who expressed very strong feelings against any other target than Standard English.

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Of course attitudes may change where the case for E L F becomes persuasive and it is ofcially adopted.

Misconceived ideas of language learning

At a more fundamental level, though, the E L F project needs to take more account of the nature and purpose of second language learning. The majority of those who learn a language other than their rst native tongue (or tongues, if they are effectively multilingual from childhood) tend only to reach a moderate level of competence; they rarely achieve full prociency. Arguably, therefore, it is less crucial that the model presented for teaching can be precisely reproduced, since it will not usually be completely mastered, than that it serves as a clear marker for the classroom and, with more ambitious students, for the wider world beyond. This is the point made by Chien (2007: 5) when speaking of non-native speaker teachers in Taiwan: Although the majority may agree that conveying meaning is more important than perfect conformity with a native-speaker standard, they are generally inclined to keep the native form as a teaching model. Kirkpatrick (op. cit.: 191) concedes the same point when he allows that native-speaker norms serve not for imitation but as a benchmark against which to monitor output. Of course, classroom models must be offered intelligently and exibly: good teachers soon learn to avoid complex idioms when dealing with beginners, to not insist on unimportant grammatical inexions (the third-person singular verb ending again), and to make allowance for local accent and manners of speech. As Norrish (op.cit.: 5) says: . . . teachers will continue to be guided by the wants, wishes and needs of the learners and the social, professional or pedagogic contexts in which they may need to use the language. Mimatsu (2007: 6) makes this point with reference to teachers of English in Japan, arguing that they naturally adapt the received native-speaker models by making use of their knowledge of their learners mother tongue: . . . they communicate in a Japanese version of English that naturally occurs under the inuence of Japanese linguistic and socio-cultural factors. This kind of adjustment, like those between non-native speakers with different rst languages seeking to communicate, has always taken place and will continue to do so; seeking to derive articial norms from these ad hoc procedures is inappropriate. Even if a convincing lingua franca core could be agreed and teachers and students persuaded and enabled to teach and learn it, the outcome might well be less benecial than expected. As there would still be demand for native-speaker models among some sections of the non-native-speaker population, decisions would have to be taken about curriculum choice in schools. It is highly likely that where choice existed, the more afuent, ambitious, and well connected would opt for schools where native-speaker standards prevailed, and the poorer sections of the community would be

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relegated to schools where E L F was the norm. Prodromou (2007: 10) makes this point forcibly:
EL F scholars would constrain L1 and L2 users within the limits of E L F varieties. In this way, E L F will serve to strengthen the power of those who

already have the full range of repertoires available in existing models. The two models would compete for the same space and it is not difcult to see which model will prevail. A similar division of teachers would probably occur too, those attaining near-native competence teaching in the former while those less procient would teach in the latter. Both these processes would have a divisive effect on the society and would end up exacerbating rather than diminishing existing inequalities by limiting the scope of the majority and conrming the privileges of the policymakers.

Alternative futures

While E L F does not seem to offer a plausible future for English language development and teaching, other possible scenarios may do so. One such is the notion of Globish (Shim op.cit.), which draws on the standard usages of English in different parts of the world in order to create a World English owned by and accessible to all; although heavily dependent on the AngloSaxon native-speaker model, this agglomeration would in theory make space for and actually give way to other norms as respective peoples (for example speakers of Indian and Nigerian English) exert increasing inuence on the world stage. This process can already be observed in the way that American English has tended to supplant British English as the leading native-speaker model in certain parts of the globe. It is unlikely, however, that such a World English would signicantly depart from existing Anglo-Saxon norms as long as America remained economically and culturally dominant among the worlds elites. For this reason, a more signicant development is the one alluded to above: the current diversication of English around the world, spawning varieties which have achieved a degree of recognition in their respective geographical spheres. In this case, the local English exists and is accepted alongside both the local native language or languages and the traditional native-speaker model of English, each being used in different contexts and being allotted different roles. This situation is well described by Duruoha (2009: 202ff) with reference to Nigeria. He comments that Nigerian English operates as an indigenous lingua franca . . . (ibid.: 209) and adds that: [a]lthough [some people] see the new Englishes as interference varieties, they are adequate and have become institutionalized and close to nativelike English. (ibid.: 207) Of course the problems faced in establishing the legitimacy of such local varieties, and in institutionalizing their use, are similar to those discussed above regarding EL F. Even when supported by a shared sociocultural context, nativized Englishes have not been convincingly codied and may also elude being so in a way which wins wide acceptance in other than informal situations. In discussing the setting of norms in international prociency tests, Davies, Hamp-Lyons, and Kemp (2003: 575) refer to the opinion of Lukami, a teacher of English in India, who

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. . . argues that many Indian speakers of English produce an interlanguage, which is not systematic, either in grammar or discourse . . . Politically . . . no-one in India accepts the existence of Indian English as an acceptable written variety and there are no models on which to base it. In the opinion of this Indian teacher at least, there is danger in moving away from native-speaker norms, even where recognized local varieties of English are concerned. The reference here to writing brings into focus another point on which the concept of E L F is unhelpful: it only really takes account of the spoken language; when formal writing is involved, it has little to offer. On paper, the need for precision, clarity, and rhetorical coherence, in the absence of scope for interpersonal negotiation and with a potentially heterogeneous audience, forces both writer and reader to give greater weight to recognized rules of grammar and syntax. Moreover, since such writing often takes place within a specic hierarchical and professional context, it must also take account of the appropriate lexis and register, which would be compromised by a less rigorous approach to the use of language, thus signicantly disadvantaging anyone who had command only of E L F.

Conclusion

So, given the various constraints outlined above, it seems probable that the Anglo-Saxon native-speaker model will retain its leading role for some time to come rather than be replaced by its E L F shadow, although it will have to compete increasingly with developing nativized varieties in certain parts of the world. This does not mean, of course, that this model should be the preserve of the native-speaker alone. In fact, non-native-speaker teachers, who should be seen as successful multilingual practitioners rather than second-rate users of English, bring to the classroom vital knowledge of local languages and cultures, which often renders them more effective than those from a monolingual background. As the communicative methodology, which in its heyday helped promote the use of native-speaker expatriates, gives way to an eclectic approach more sympathetic to local pedagogic styles and priorities, so the value of local teachers will be recognized and their status enhanced. It is this shift in perspective and attitude rather than the pursuit of an uncertain substitute for authentic English which will really help empower both learners and teachers because it validates their own cultural experiences without devaluing the content of what they are studying. Final revised version received January 2011

References Chien, S. -C. 2007. E L F: emerging awareness in Taiwan. I AT E F L Voices 199: 5. Davies, A., L. Hamp-Lyons, and C. Kemp. 2003. Whose norms? International prociency tests in English. World Englishes 22/4: 57184. Dewey, M. and A. Cogo. 2007. Adopting an English as a lingua franca perspective in E LT. I AT E F L Voices 199: 11. Duruoha, S. I. 2009. Teaching the other English for communication in Nigeria in M. Krzanowski (ed.).

Jenkins, J. 2007. English as a Lingua Franca: Attitude and Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kachru, B. B. (ed.). 1992. The Other Tongue: English Across Cultures. (Second edition). Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Kirkpatrick, A. 2007. World Englishes: Implications for International Communication and English Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Krzanowski, M. (ed.). 2009. Current Developments in English for Academic and Specic Purposes in

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Developing, Emerging and Least-developed Countries. Reading: Garnet Education. Mimatsu, T. 2007. English for international understanding in Japan. I AT E F L Voices 199: 6. Nichindila, B. 2009. Burying the ghost of English in Zambia in M. Krzanowski (ed.). Norrish, J. 2008. Adopting an English as a lingua franca perspective. I AT E F L Voices 200: 45. Prodromou, L. 2007. E L F models and linguistic capital. I AT E F L Voices 199: 910. Rahman, S. 2009. E LT, E S P and E A P in Bangladesh: an overview of the status and the need for English in M. Krzanowski (ed.). Seidlhofer, B. 2004. Research perspectives on teaching English as a lingua franca. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 24: 20939. Shim, R. J. 2009. Empowering E F L students through teaching World Englishes in B. Beaven

(ed.). I ATE F L 2008 Exeter Conference Selections. Canterbury: IATEFL. Sifakis, N. 2009. Challenges in teaching EL F in the periphery: the Greek context. ELT Journal 63/3: 2307. The author Colin Sowden used to be Course Director of BA Modern History and Politics at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff (UWIC), where previously he had been in charge of the International Foundation Course. Before joining UWIC, he worked as a teacher, translator, and writer in Italy, Britain, and the United Arab Emirates in the elds of general English, E SP, and EA P. His main interests are cross-cultural communication and the politics of empire. Email: casowden@gmail.com

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point and counterpoint

English as a Lingua Franca: concepts, use, and implications

Alessia Cogo

Sowdens article raises a number of questions concerning English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) and criticizes it as a simplied and culturally neutral means of communication. In this response, I address the issues concerning the conceptualization and use of ELF as well as the implications for E LT. I provide up-to-date evidence of ELF research and show the variability, richness, and creativity of ELF communication.

Introduction: dening what we are talking about

For business, studying, trading, socializing, or tourism, English is nowadays a truly international language. And this is a fact Sowden and I agree on. However, this internationalization of English has inevitable consequences not only for the way it is used but also the way it is conceptualized, and implications for the way it is taught. And these are the three areas where we disagree. In addressing some of Sowdens points, I am therefore going to focus on these in the rest of this paper. Before I do that, though, a certain amount of denition of the area we are referring to is needed. In fact, in Sowdens paper, there is a certain confusion of terms, especially English as a Lingua Franca (E L F) and World Englishes (WE). When we talk of EL F, we are not referring to the English of the former British colonies. In those precise geographical areas, English has developed into local nativized varieties, which the WE literature has described as Indian English, Nigerian English, etc. While EL F and WE have some common ground, such as the emphasis on the pluricentricity of English and the idea that language changes and adapts to new environments, WE is a eld of research concerned with the identication and localization of nativized varieties of English in specic geographical locations (see, for example, the entries on the post-colonial countries in Kirkpatrick 2010). Thus, research in this area has the purpose of identifying core linguistic and pragmatic features that are then deemed to be characteristic of a particular variety.
EL F, on the other hand, is used in contexts which, though traditionally

linked with the expanding circle countries (for example in Europe or South America), are not necessarily geographically located but can be virtual and transient in nature, and can also involve speakers from both the mother tongue and post-colonial contexts. EL F encounters, for example, can take place over the internet, on Facebook, as well as in an ofce in Beijing,
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a university lecture in Amsterdam, a market stall in Marrakesh, a bar in o Paulo. E L F, then, is spoken as a contact language Milan, and a hostel in Sa by speakers from varying linguacultural backgrounds, where both the community of speakers and the location can be changing and are often not associated with a specic nation. Therefore, research in this area is not about identifying the core features that make E L F a variety (which it is not), but, as I explain in detail later, it is about describing the practices involved in lingua franca communication. Having claried the terms and their main differences, I now intend to address exclusively the parts in Sowdens paper that refer to EL F. In my response, I rst explore a number of concepts related to this new phenomenon and try to explain some issues raised by the author, then I provide some examples of EL F communication and nish by exploring the implications of this research for teaching.

Conceptualizing E LF

Sowdens underlying assumption in his paper is that E L F research is about codifying a variety of English. This is not the case. Firstly, it is important to note that E L F communication normally occurs in highly variable socio/linguacultural groups or networks, where the people taking part come from numerous linguacultural backgrounds, as opposed to more clearly denable communities. In a globalized world, these groups can be especially transient in nature. However, the fact that communication in EL F transcends conventional regions and borders does not mean that EL F cannot be located geographically or that EL F corresponds to a monolithic international variety. The reality is that E L F communication can both show characteristics that localize it and make it typical of a certain region, but it can also be uid and realized in transnational, or international, networks, and movements. Therefore, what is certain is that E L F is not monolithic or a single variety because cultural and linguistic resources are inevitably transformed as they are locally appropriated. Secondly, the fact that spoken communication in E L F typically takes place in more or less changing communities, or, in other words, that stability is not a criterion for dening these kinds of communities, makes us rethink the notion of community and the very closely linked notion of variety. Put differently, what we need is a rethinking of these two concepts, that is community and variety, and also the relationship between them. Traditionally, a variety is the type of language spoken by a precise speech community and both concepts imply a certain level of stability, where the speech community is identied in a precise geographical area including a homogeneous group of people frequently interacting with each other. The variety spoken by this group is traditionally seen as a xed entity, one which is also used to identify the group itself. The problem here lies in the conceptualization of these as xed and interdependent; that is, a language variety is identied in relation to the precise speech community to which it belongs. The E L F community of speakers, however, is not clearly identiable within the traditional parameters. It is not homogeneous, as it includes people with different linguacultural backgrounds, and is highly variable, as the speakers may change more or less frequently over time and space. EL F researchers have so far used the community of practice (cf. Seidlhofer 2007) as a more viable concept for describing the E L F groups,

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as the traditional terms community and variety do not capture the uidity, variability, and creativity that are inherent in E L F. Another of Sowdens claims is that EL F research is about identifying a core of features used in this kind of talk. However, this is not true. Even earlier work (Jenkins 2000, as referred by Sowden, and others), while exploring language forms, has always emphasized the importance of accommodation, that is, speakers ability to change their speech patterns to make themselves more understandable to their interlocutors. More recently, this emphasis has been still further underlined. And even where description of emerging language forms seemed dominant in earlier research, it was done not in an attempt to establish E L F as a distinct variety, but rather to show the language practices, motivations, and processes underlining these forms. The main purpose of E L F research today is, of course, to reveal some of the forms that emerge in E L F interaction in specic communities, but more importantly to highlight the pragmatic strategies speakers draw on as they collaboratively engage in communication. Therefore, the aim of research in this eld is to describe and make sense of the processes in operation in lingua franca talk and the strategies used by its speakers, not to uncover core features (and note that the term core has never been used in E L F research outside phonology). More precisely, it is the functional properties of the processes that are of most signicance, not the surface-level features themselves. Finally, Sowdens paper suggests that researchers in EL F encourage the use of E L F (page 91) and allow the use of certain features and not others. First of all, E L F is not encouraged. E L F researchers have never seen themselves as having a role in deciding what is/is not allowed in EL F. Then, describing what features and processes are typical of E L F is not an arbitrary decision but the result of empirical research ndings which show what speakers of EL F do. And what speakers do is where I now turn.

Using E LF

A lot of research has gone into exploring naturally occurring real EL F data, with the creation of small- and larger-scale corpus studies, which have shown that E L F communication is by nature especially uid and speakers use of linguistic forms is especially variable (for a selection of studies see Mauranen and Ranta 2009; Archibald, Cogo, and Jenkins 2011). Therefore, the primary concern, as pointed out above, has for some time been not with identifying a set of core linguistic features but with exploring the strategies and processes that make EL F communication possible. Research has found that speakers adapt and blend English innovatively and creatively in order to co-construct meaning and ensure understanding (cf. for example Cogo and Dewey 2012). I now look at three examples of E L F talk taken from a corpus of data, which consist of naturally occurring conversations at the workplace (for more information, see Cogo and Dewey ibid.). The rst example is used here to illustrate the strategies employed to support communication, the second exemplies a moment of negotiation, and the third shows EL F multilingual resources. The rst extract is an example of small talk over a coffee break and the speakers are chatting about the DVD player that S1s husband (Franz) has bought.
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Extract 1: the D V D player (S1: German; S2: French) S1: [ah Franz bought . . . Franz bought a dvd player for us yesterday

@@@(everybody laughing) S2: / S1: S2: S1: S2: / S1: S2: cause its winter yeah its cold no its great . . . and dvd the quality is good as well yeah I must say I always told him no I dont want a dvd player . . . because I dont like to watch movies at home? but then on Friday . . . we didnt want to go out and we really wanted to see a lm . . . and there was [NOTHING on tv so: [ah ah

This extract is interesting as it shows various strategies used in E L F talk to support the smooth development of the conversation, among which are utterance completions (indicated by the arrows), latching (indicated by the equal sign), and backchannelling (indicated by the square brackets). The rst one, utterance completion or continuation, recurs twice in the extract. After S1s introduction of her new purchase, the DVD player, S2 continues her utterance with a turn which is added on to the preceding one, as a continuation of it and providing the reason for buying the DVD, i.e. because it is winter. In fact, S2s utterance has another, more important, function: apart from providing the reason, it has the function of reselecting the previous speaker as the next speaker. In other words, S2 is supporting S1s communication and with the utterance continuation S2 gets the original speaker to carry on with the story and elaborate further on the purchase. This kind of facilitation and support by S2 is in fact continued later when performing another utterance completion. In the second completion, S1 starts by saying that she does not like to watch and S2 continues her utterance with movies at home?, which is clearly accepted by S1 who smoothly moves on with her story. As with the rst example of completion, in this one, the continuation provided an added value, that of expressing surprise at the idea that S1 does not like watching movies at home. The surprised intonation is here indicated by the question mark, suggesting raised tone. It is important to notice that these utterance completions are not meant as word searches. When indicating a word search (that is when a second speaker provides the missing word that the current speaker is looking for), utterance completions are usually introduced by hesitations or repetitions signalling that the current speaker is at a loss for words. In Extract 1, though, there is no hesitation or repetition and both utterance completions are performed as a way of facilitating and supporting the communication, and with a high degree of attentiveness and collaboration on the part of the speakers.
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The other two strategies exemplied in this extract are latchings and backchannels, the former involving the timed taking of the turn by the interlocutor signalling involvement and attention to the talk. The latter, backchannels, provide prompt minimal responses (such as ah ah, mhm, ok, etc.) to the interlocutor, which are aimed at supporting the ongoing conversation without taking over the turn. Latchings and backchannels, together with utterance completions, are obviously collaborative strategies as they involve the concerted and timed work of two speakers, and they have proved to be particularly important in supporting E L F communication. With Extract 1, I have shown some of the strategies that E L F speakers employ to facilitate and support communication with interlocutors of different linguacultural backgrounds. The second example illustrates a moment of negotiation of forms and meaning. Here, three colleagues are talking about good work relations in the ofce (cf. Cogo 2010): Extract 2: the boat (Isabel: Portuguese; Nana: Japanese; Anna: Italian) Isabel: Nana: Isabel: Nana: Isabel: Anna: Isabel: Nana: I mean we dont have problems . . . we all get on yeah yeah I think we are all on the same . . . on in . . . ah: what is it . . . on the same boat? yeah? yeah? . . . how do you say? On the same boat? I dont know yeah . . . on the same boat I think . . . on the bus on the train anyway we understand you yeah . . . we are all foreigners all foreigners (laughing)

This is an example of the kind of rich (rather than simplied) E L F communication most empirical E L F research has demonstrated. If we look at it more closely, we see that the three colleagues are commenting on the good work relations in their ofce and Nana wants to say that all the workmates are in the same boat. In the conversation, Nana shows her uncertainty about the preposition that collocates with the idiomatic expression in the same boat, whether on or in, and requests the help of Isabel (what is it?). Isabel, on the other hand, does not want to assume authority over the preposition that collocates with the idiomatic expression (I dont know). Instead, she starts playing with the meaning by suggesting other means of transport that could substitute the boat concept, such as the bus and the train. After Anna has added that the colleagues understand what Nana is saying, Isabel justies that understanding by saying we are all foreigners. That foreignness is what brings together the colleagues and it is this drawing on being non-native speakers that facilitates lmbauer 2009). their communication and enhances understanding (cf Hu Their being non-native speakers is played up from the very beginning, when Nana searches for the correct preposition and explicitly asks for help with it. Her colleague, Isabel, however, downplays the need for a correct

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preposition and enhances the need for creativity while building on the idiomatic meaning and its metaphoricity (Pitzl 2009). Sowdens claim that EL F is a reduced version of the language (page 9 0) nds little credibility when submitted to the force of empirical data. Playfulness and creativity in spoken interaction show the richness of the language as well as the positive attitudes to being non-native. Even in this short extract, the participants foreignness is played up and explicitly enhanced, rst by Nana, who questions the preposition and requests the help of the Portuguese colleague, and then by Isabel, who refuses to know and to take responsibility for knowing the correct preposition. Then both Anna and Isabel align with the others: Anna by clearly indicating group understanding and Isabel by identifying the group as foreigners and including all of them in it, a choral identity, which is accepted and repeated by Nana in the end. Nana does not seem to be disappointed with Isabels playing with the expression and underestimating the importance of nding the correct preposition, and Isabel seems to enjoy creatively playing with the idiom, which also serves to establish a sense of in-group belonging. This creative use of the language and co-construction of meaning are key elements of E L F communication and evident in the following extract. Here, the speakers are talking about pictures posted on a website and referring to them as cheesy. Extract 3: eur bleue (Jean: French; Karen: German; Anna: Italian) Jean: Karen: Anna: Karen: Jean: Anna: Jean: Karen: Anna: Jean: Karen: Jean: cheesy [YE::AH [YE::AH yeah a bit too much I think (laughing) so . . . blue ower we say, . . . eur bleue why . . . [to say that its cheesy? [euryeah . . . eur bleue means . . . you know when you have these pictures with little angels of a:::h [yeah [yeah eur bleue eur bleue kitsch- [kitschig [kitschig yeah

Jean is introducing the French expression eur bleue to provide an alternative for the English idiomatic expression cheesy. Even though all the speakers involved do understand the meaning of the English term, Jean still introduces the French expression as its meaning covers a different, more extended, aspect of cheesy: something sweet, like the pictures with little angels. Jeans code-switching to French eur bleue is then followed by Karens code-switching to German, with the result of producing an expression that is culturally closer, and very probably more appropriate, to
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her and the other participants. The German word kitschig is immediately understood by Jean, who overlaps and accommodates to Karen by repeating the term and converging to her. The multilingual resources used in this extract are not meant to ll gaps in the speakers knowledge but to expand on meaning and enhance speakers multicultural backgrounds and identities. To return to my response, the point here is that throughout Sowdens paper, there seems to be an implication that E L F has been designed with a precise and planned aim in mind, that is to neutralize English, to sheer it of its cultural baggage, to remove it from the hands of its Anglo-Saxon native speakers (page 9 0). It is almost too obvious to point out that E L F is a natural language, not an attempt at linguistic engineering of the kind that so-called Globish is (see Seidlhofer 2011: 1567 on the failings of Globish including its lack of any empirical support) and is certainly not the result of a sort of plot. More importantly, as these last two extracts show (and many others that could not be reported here for lack of space), E L F is not about simplication, as speakers do not avoid idiomatic language, instead they use expressions they are more familiar with or create idiomatic expressions that are more appropriate and understandable in their contexts (for more on this see Cogo and Dewey op.cit.). Therefore, to claim that E L F is a value-free means of international communication belonging equally to all who speak it as a rst or second language (page 9 0) is almost a contradiction in terms. As shown in my data, and in other work by Jenkins (2007), Cogo (2010), and Baker (2011), EL F is not in any way neutral and this is precisely because it belongs to all who use it, with all the sociocultural values, backgrounds, and understanding that speakers are bringing with them and co-constructing. In this sense, the speakers foreignness, or non-nativeness, cannot be seen as a disadvantage. On the contrary, their different (and often multilingual) backgrounds provide them with invaluable resources and strategies, which they can draw upon to achieve their communicative purposes. Therefore, their different backgrounds should not be seen as obstructing their communication, instead, E L F speakers are more effective precisely because they speak other languages and are multicompetent (Cogo and Jenkins 2010: 273). The second extract also shows that speakers are aware of their multicompetence, or foreignness, as they put it. Their being foreigners is directly linked with a better understanding of E L F communication, and they show positive attitudes towards it. Opinions towards E L F or other different ways of speaking English are already changing, and though still heavily inuenced by identity and ideology (cf. Jenkins 2007; Cogo in press), they seem to be moving towards appreciation of diversity and feelings of ownership of English.

Implications for ELT

It is true that, as Sowden states, an obstacle to the E L F approach is the opinion of learners and teachers (page 92), but some positive changes have already materialized, especially among young people (see Cogo and Jenkins op.cit.). E L F researchers have started encouraging learners, teachers, and ELT practitioners in general, to engage in the debate of what a language is and issues of English ownership (Dewey 2011; Cogo in press), and it is
English as a Lingua Franca 103

hoped that this engagement will continue to ourish. However, to take the step from this to claim that E L F academics have been urging the teaching of English as a Lingua Franca (Sowdens abstract) is a long and completely inaccurate one. EL F is about awareness and choicemaking students aware of different ways of speaking English, of language variability and changeand about offering choice to them, i.e. they can choose to speak like native speakers when and if they want to, but they may want to speak E L F and in certain situations, this may even be more appropriate. As for teaching itself, the argument presented by Sowden seems to be that teachers have previously expressed a preference for native-speaker English, so this must automatically be right. There is no attempt to explain or explore why this may be so (the standard NS ideology dominating in E LT circles and materials, for one) and a lot of research on attitudes to English is generally ignored. There is also an assumption that E LT is all about grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation and that this is the sum of communication. Many researchers (not only E L F ones!) would prefer to approach language teaching from a different perspective, one which would see language teaching as a much wider process involving a whole range of communication skills, knowledge, and attitudes such as communication strategies, pragmatic competence, and language and cultural awareness. It is certainly a pity that the E L F readings Sowden is referring to are rather dated, as, in a relatively new and highly dynamic eld like EL F, things develop fast and a lot of new research ndings have been published since the early 2000s, which show that the eld has moved on, and earlier questions/issues have already been answered or taken on a different shape (cf. Cogo 2008). In order to engage in a fruitful and constructive debate, and avoid repeating the same tired issues that have already been resolved, it is advisable for commentators on EL F to read and refer to more recent publications, some of which I have listed below. Final revised version received October 2011
References Archibald, A., A. Cogo, and J. Jenkins (eds.). 2011. Latest Trends in E L F Research. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Baker, W. 2011. Culture and identity through E L F in Asia: fact or ction? in A. Archibald, A. Cogo, and J. Jenkins (eds.). Cogo, A. 2008. English as a lingua franca: form follows function. English Today 24/3: 5861. Cogo, A. 2010. Strategic use and perceptions of Studies in English as a Lingua Franca. Poznan Contemporary Linguistics 46/3: 295312. Available at http://versita.metapress.com/content/ t4274578759531p2/fulltext.pdf (accessed on 1 November 2011). Cogo, A. (in press). French is French, English is English: standard language ideology in E L F debates in P. Studer and I. Werlen (eds.).
104 Alessia Cogo

Linguistic Diversity in Europe. Current Trends and Discourses. Berlin, Germany: Mouton de Gruyter. Cogo, A. and M. Dewey. 2012. Analysing English as a Lingua Franca: A Corpus-Driven Investigation. London: Continuum. Cogo, A. and J. Jenkins. 2010. English as a Lingua Franca in Europe: a mismatch between policy and practice. European Journal of Language Policy 2/2: 27194. Dewey, M. 2011. Accommodative E L F talk and teacher knowledge in A. Archibald, A. Cogo, and J. Jenkins (eds.). lmbauer, C. 2009. We dont take the right way. Hu We just take the way that we think you will understandthe shifting relationship between correctness and effectiveness in E L F in A. Mauranen and E. Ranta (eds.).

Jenkins, J. 2000. The Phonology of English as an International Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jenkins, J. 2007. English as a Lingua Franca: Attitude and Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kirkpatrick, A. (ed.). 2010. The Routledge Handbook of World Englishes. London: Routledge. Mauranen, A. and E. Ranta (eds.). 2009. English as a Lingua Franca: Studies and Findings. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Pitzl, M.-L. 2009. We should not wake up any dogs: idiom and metaphor in E L F in A. Mauranen and E. Ranta (eds.). Seidlhofer, B. 2007. English as a Lingua Franca and communities of practice in S. Volk-Birke and J. Lippert (eds.). Anglistentag 2006 Halle

Proceedings 30718. Trier, Germany: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier. Seidlhofer, B. 2011. Understanding English as a Lingua Franca. Oxford: Oxford University Press. The author Alessia Cogo is a Lecturer in Applied Linguistics at the University of Southampton (UK), where she teaches in the MA Applied Linguistics programmes and supervises PhD students. Before that, she taught English, Italian, and Applied Linguistics at Kings College London and the University of Surrey (UK). She has written on E L F pragmatics and the interface between E L F and multilingualism. She is co-author with Martin Dewey of Analysing English as a Lingua Franca: A Corpus-driven Investigation (Continuum 2012). Email: a.cogo@soton.ac.uk

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point and counterpoint

A reply to Alessia Cogo

Colin Sowden

Contrary to what Cogo asserts, I do not seek to expose a sort of plot to replace Standard English with ELF in the eld of English language teaching, rather to examine what appears to me an incoherence in the concepts and objectives that E L F proponents formulate and apply. I use the word proponents deliberately since Cogos declared neutrality as a researcher strikes me as disingenuous. She reveals as much later when she avows that the role of teachers and academics is merely to make students aware of the different types of English in use so that they can choose to speak like native speakers when and if they want to or to speak E L F if they prefer. For such a choice to be meaningful in the classroom context, concrete alternatives must be on offer, which means that a clear syllabus must have been proposed, sanctioned, and rendered teachable and that interested parties will have been involved in the consultation process. Of course, languages, concepts of language, and teaching methods change, and the pedagogical response to these developments should always be informed by academic insights while continuing to respond to declared learner and teacher preferences. This is a ne balance to maintain, and there is the implication in what Cogo says, despite her disavowals, that researchers actually do know best and that a preference for native-speaker English cannot be automatically right and must be challenged. This is reminiscent of the comments by Jenkins (2007: 105): . . . ELT seems somewhat bizarrely to be the only educational subject where an important curriculum decision (which kind of English should be taught) is seen as being to some extent the prerogative of students or their parents. Such sentiments indicate that the researcher has passed beyond the duty of raising awareness to actual advocacy. But such issues are secondary to the main question, which concerns the ontological status of E L F. At certain points, Cogo is clear that E L F is a natural language and that it is spoken as a language of contact by speakers from varying lingua-cultural backgrounds. However, we construe the word language, for it to constitute a meaningful denotation, it must also have tangible identity. Conceivably a language may involve strategies and processes, but it must certainly also include grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation, even if uidly described, especially if the resulting model is to be taught.
106
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Yet the need to provide some such working template is consistently avoided in Cogos analysis; instead, the playfulness and creativity in spoken interaction is emphasized in the three examples she provides, and richness of language is dened in terms of these pragmatic manoeuvres. I would argue, on the contrary, that the conversations documented are typical of any intelligent L1 or L2 exchange in which speakers are exploring shared ideas or aiming to bridge communication gaps caused by a lack of ready lexical or syntactic resources. In other words, they do not exemplify a language so much as language use in general. Being rich in language in fact involves having at ones disposal sophisticated mastery of its constituent elements (be these of a native-speaker or nativized variety) not just knowing how to deploy them effectively. These may be the same tired issues that Cogo complains about, but they will not go away.
Reference Jenkins, J. 2007. English as a Lingua Franca: Attitude and Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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technology for the language teacher

Digital literacies
Nicky Hockly

In this series, we explore current technology-related themes and topics. The series aims to discuss and demystify what may be new areas for some readers and to consider their relevance to English language teachers. In future articles, we will be covering topics such as mobile learning, learning technologies in low-resource environments, and personal learning networks. In this second article of the series, we explore the idea of the digital literacies: what they are, why they are important, and how language teachers can start to include them in their English language classes.

What are digital literacies?

New technologies have transformed the way we live and communicate, and most educators are in agreement that new technologies require new skills. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills in the US A, for example, is an organization that advocates the inclusion in education of skills which prepare students for life in the twenty-rst century; these skills include information, media and technology skills, also known as digital literacies. National curricula are increasingly taking digital literacies into account, although not everyone agrees on the terminology to use; thus, we nd that digital competency is part of the national curriculum in Norway, in Australia educators talk of digital media literacy, and in the UK of media literacy. A recent report by researchers at the University of Phoenix Research Institute (Davies, Fidler, and Gorbis 2011: 67) identies a number of key skills for future workers, which include new media literacy and virtual collaboration skills, among others. Of course literacy has always been a primary goal of education, but the constantly evolving digital landscape means that new skills and literacies are required. The umbrella term digital literacies can be applied to these.

What do digital literacies look like?

A number of ways of conceptualizing digital literacies have been put forward. Pegrum (2011; Dudeney, Hockly, and Pegrum 2012) suggests a set of four overlapping skill sets corresponding to four main areas:
1 2 3 4

language information connections (re-)design.

Language-based literacies
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For Pegrum, these include not only traditional print literacy but also the skills to decode online text genres, such as blogs, wikis, or forum
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discussions. He also includes texting literacy: the ability to read and create the abbreviated forms used in text messaging or in taking part in real-time online text chat conversations. Another facet is hypertext literacy: the ability to navigate and read online texts which contain hyperlinks. Others are visual and multimedia literacy, gaming literacy (a macro literacy involving linguistic, multimedia, spatial and kinaesthetic skills (Dudeney et al. op.cit.), and mobile literacy: the skills needed to effectively use mobile or handheld devices. Finally, we have technological literacy and code literacy, which include a basic understanding of coding so as to not be tied to the exclusive use of commercial templates in online tools and gives one the ability to route around restrictions where deemed appropriate.

Information-based literacies

These are fundamental skills that help us navigate the ood of digital information provided by the internet. These include search literacy (the ability to search effectively for information online), tagging literacy (labelling or tagging online materials so they are ndable), information literacy (being able to critically evaluate sources and information), ltering literacy (knowing how to manage information overload), and attention literacy (knowing when to switch off as well as on). These include knowing how to manage your digital identity or online persona (personal literacy) and network literacy, which helps you lter information received from your online networks while you yourself become a node in these networks by passing on relevant information or news (see also Pegrum 2010). Participatory literacy involves being able to create and produce digital content; this in turn includes cultural/intercultural literacy when working with international virtual teams. These consist primarily of remix literacy, a macro literacy which includes the ability to recreate and re-purpose already-made digital content in innovative ways. YouTube parodies based on news or lm clips are examples of this and include knowledge about related issues of copyright and plagiarism. Belshaw (2011) outlines eight key elements that characterize digital literacies:
1 Cultural: the need to understand different online contexts and how to

Connection-based literacies

(Re-)design-based literacies

interact appropriately in them. For example, interaction in an online gaming environment such as World of Warcraft is very different to interaction in a formal online course environment. 2 Cognitive: for Belshaw this is about ways of conceptualizing digitality rather than the practice of using tools. To develop this, we need to expose learners to various ways of conceptualising digital spaces (and interactions within them) (Belshaw ibid.: chapter 9). 3 Constructive: this includes the ability to create remixes (Pegrums remix literacy) and also to take part effectively in online networks (Pegrums network literacy). 4 Communicative: this is understanding how communications media work. It is, basically, the nuts and bolts of how to communicate in digital environments (Belshaw op.cit.: chapter 9).

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5 Condent: Belshaw suggests that we need to be condent users of

technology and have enough technical expertise to be able to use technology for our own ends, rather than to be manipulated by it. Experimentation and an open mindset is a plus in digital contexts and can lead to improved problem-solving skills (OECD 2001: 9, quoted in Belshaw op.cit.). 6 Creative: the ability to nd new ways to do new things with new tools (in short, to be creative with new technologies). 7 Critical: Belshaw suggests that we need to learn to curate and critically understand the resources that we nd, not just supercially skim over oceans of information. 8 Civic: knowing how to use technology to increase civic engagement and social action. Both Pegrum and Belshaw make clear that digital literacies are not a checklist of discrete skills that are simply acquired and then ticked off. Although digital literacies do include procedural skills (such as how to insert an image into a word-processed document), they also include less clearly dened skills, such as communicating effectively in distributed virtual communities. Bawden (2008) suggests that it is more useful to conceive of digital literacies as a state or condition that changes over time. As technology evolves and changes, so new skills and literacies emerge and become increasingly important.

Implications for language teachers

Although some national curricula make provision for the development of digital literacies within mainstream primary and secondary schooling, it is sometimes challenging for teachers to know how to operationalize these literacies in the classroom. This is particularly true for teachers who may not feel condent with technology themselves or have received little or no training in how to use technology in a principled manner with learners. As English language teachers, we can help our learners acquire not only the language skills needed for communication in an increasingly globalized world but also some of the digital skills that they will inevitably also need. It is increasingly difcult for us to separate language from the digital environment in which it is being used. As such, one could argue that by integrating new technologies into our classroom, we can also help learners develop key digital literacies and that it is indeed our duty as language teachers to do so. But the question remains: how? Below are ve activities that focus on a number of Pegrums digital literacies. These activities can be integrated into most, if not all, English language teaching syllabi, even when these are coursebook driven, by tying the activity to the current topic being explored in class. Learners decode sample text messages into standard English. They then decide in which contexts text messaging is acceptable, and in which contexts it is not, from a series of prompts/situations. Discuss the linguistic norms and the appropriate use of texting language, in both English and in the learners L1. In what ways are they similar or different? Even if you do not expect your learners to produce texting language, familiarity with norms in the target language is useful as it becomes an increasingly common genre.

Digital literacies in the English language classroom Txtng (texting literacy)

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Nicky Hockly

Follow the link (hypertext literacy)

Find two online texts of a similar length on the same topic (for example a news item): one text with few or no hyperlinks and one text with many hyperlinks. Ask learners to read each text online and to follow any hyperlinks. Give a one- or two-minute time limit for learners to read each text. Discuss which text was easier to read and why. Hypertext literacy includes not just knowing when to ignore hyperlinks in the text so as not to lose the thread, but also knowing how many hyperlinks to include in ones own text, in the interests of readability and credibility. Ask students to visit a spoof website, such as that dedicated to the Pacic Northwest tree octopus (http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus). Set a comprehension task on the website content without telling students it is a spoof. Ask them to choose one of the ways they could show support for this endangered species. Finally, ask the class if they think this is all true. Analyse what makes this site look believable (layout, links to real sites such as the World Wildlife Fund, links to other research, informational style of language, maps, etc.). Point out the clues (apart from the content!) that show the site is a spoof (U R L, headers and footers, tagline . . .). Pairs can then examine less obvious spoof sites (see http://www.philb.com/fakesites.htm) and real sites, and then report back to the class on which is which and how they know. A key element of information literacy is the ability to evaluate the veracity, reliability, and source of information on websites. Choose a topic/theme that you are currently working on with the class (for example animals). Ask students to search Google images of a given animal and to choose the three images they like the most. In pairs, they compare their images and explain their choices. Ask students to then prepare a short blog entry about the animal/topic, which they will illustrate with one of the images. Ask students to look again at their chosen images online and the copyright license for each. With a Google image search, the percentage of all rights reserved copyright images will usually be high. In Google Advanced search, show learners how they can lter their image search results to include only images that can be reused. Ensure that everyone is familiar with Creative Commons licensing. Tell learners to also search popular image banks such as Flickr (http://www.ickr.com), where there is a higher percentage of creative commons images. Learners make a nal choice of (copyright free) image with which to illustrate their blog post. Show students how to acknowledge the source of creative commons images in their post. Knowledge and appropriate use of copyright is an essential part of participatory literature; if students are creating their own online content, they need to know what images they can legally reuse in their digital contributions and how to acknowledge the source. The activities briey outlined above assume that the teacher herself is digitally literate or at least willing to become so. Teachers may need to take part in staff development or training for this. Futurelab has some excellent resources in the eld of digital literacies, which could be integrated into a staff development plan or used by teachers as part of a self-study plan for professional development (see http://www.futurelab.org.uk/resources/ digital-literacy-professional-development-resource). So, if you are a teacher who feels less condent with technology, do not despair: rather, skill up.
Digital literacies 111

The tree octopus (information literacy)

Copycat (visual/ multimedia literacy)

Teachers and digital literacies

References Belshaw, D. 2011. What is digital literacy? A pragmatic investigation. Ed.D thesis, Durham University. Available at http:// neverendingthesis.com (accessed on 18 July 2011). Bawden, D. 2008. Origins and concepts of digital literacy in C. Lankshear and M. Knobel (eds.). Digital Literacies: Concepts, Policies and Practices. New York, NY: Peter Lang. Davies, A., D. Fidler, and M. Gorbis. 2011. Future Work Skills 2020. Palo Alto, CA: University of Phoenix Research Institute. Available at http:// tinyurl.com/3m6cpc9 (accessed on 18 July 2011). Dudeney, G., N. Hockly, and M. Pegrum. 2012 forthcoming. Digital Literacies. Harlow: Pearson. OECD. 2001. Learning to change: ICT in schools. Paris, France: Centre for Educational Research and Innovation. Partnership for 21st Century Skills. Available at http://www.p21.org (accessed on 18 July 2011). Pegrum, M. 2010. I link, therefore I am: network literacy as a core digital literacy. E-learning and Digital Media 7/4: 34654.

Pegrum, M. 2011. Modied, multiplied and (re-)mixed: social media and digital literacies in M. Thomas (ed.). Digital Education: Opportunities for Social Collaboration. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. The author Nicky Hockly is a Director of Pedagogy of The Consultants-E (www.theconsultants-e.com), an online training and development organization. She has been involved in E F L teaching and teacher training since 1987 and is co-author of How to Teach English with Technology, Learning English as a Foreign Language for Dummies, and most recently of Teaching Online. She maintains a blog about e-learning at www.emoderationskills.com and is a keen user of new technologies. Email: nicky.hockly@theconsultants-e.com

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readers respond

CLIL and immersion: how clear-cut

are they?
Thomas Somers and Jill Surmont

Introduction

It was with high expectations that we read Lasagabaster and Sierras (2010) contribution to this Journal, in which they set out to differentiate between CLIL and immersion. While we agree with the need to resolve the confusion surrounding these two approaches, we were disappointed with the manner in which an intended clear-cut distinction was attempted. Working from the Spanish context, yet claiming universal applicability, Lasagabaster and Sierra (hereafter L&S) found more differences than similarities between CLIL and immersion. It not only pains us to see that a qualitative distinction is reduced to the mere quantication of differences, but after critically examining L&Ss argumentation, we have found it to be neither clear nor universally tenable.

Similarities according to L&S

Without substantiation, Lasagabaster and Sierra (ibid.: 370) list ve principles they claim CLIL and immersion share:
1 The nal objective of immersion programmes is that the students

2 3 4 5

become procient in both the L1 and the L2, without any detriment to the acquisition of academic knowledge. The language the students are taught in must be new to them, so that its learning resembles the L1 acquisition process. Parents of students choose immersion programmes because they believe they are the best L2 learning option. The teaching staff must be bilingual [. . .]. The communicative approach is fundamental to all immersion programmes.

We were much surprised at Similarity 2. It no longer ts the changing demographics in Spain, Canada, or elsewhere (Lyster and Ballinger 2011: 281): Basque-medium schools in the Basque Autonomous Community have both Spanish and Basque NS students; Catalan immersion programmes in Catalonia can have as many as 30 per cent native Catalanspeaking students; even in Quebec, classrooms are increasingly made up of French NS, English NS, and French-English bilingual students; this equally goes for Welsh- and Irish-medium education in Wales and Ireland, respectively. Also, to tip the numerical balance, we can think of a few more similarities: overt support for the students L1, the aim for additive bilingualism, integration of language and content, etc.
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Differences according to L&S Language of instruction

L&S list seven differences, each of which we will consider separately. The authors state: Unlike immersion programmes, which are carried out in languages present in the students context (be it home, society at large, or both home and society), the languages of instruction for CL IL programmes are foreign languages and many of the students only have contact with them in formal instruction contexts. (op.cit.: 370; our italics) Bearing Similarity 2 in mind, this seems contradictory. The claim is also far from representative globally. French immersion students in Canada, for example, have little or no contact with French out of school as in most cases the French immersion programmes are situated in English language environments (Wesche 2002). Counterexamples from CL IL include the use of Frisian in the Netherlands (Maljers, Marsh, and Wolff 2007) or Dutch and French in Belgium (Van de Craen, Ceuleers, Lochtman, Allain, and Mondt 2007). There is indeed no reason why CLIL cannot accommodate a second, heritage, or community language (Coyle, Hood, and Marsh 2010: 1).

Teachers

According to L&S, immersion teachers are mostly NSs, whereas C LI L teachers are usually not (op.cit.: 371). First, this follows from the near-NS prociency goal in immersion. Second, NS teachers of immersion languages are usually widely available, in contrast to NS teachers of a foreign language. (But this merely follows from L&Ss distinction between CLIL and immersion; see Language of instruction above.) Third, while it is true that many immersion programmes suffer from the NS fallacy (Phillipson 1992), the problematization and demystication of the belief in the NS as the ideal teacher has already entered immersion as it has CL IL (Chiasson 2002). L&S claim: [t]he vast majority of immersion programmes are of the early (starting age) immersion type, whereas the CLIL approach shows certain similarities with the late immersion programmes implemented in secondary education in Canada (op.cit.: 371). Regardless of the implication that C LIL shares yet more similarities with immersion, 16 European countries, including Spain, offer CLIL (as dened by L&S; see Language of instruction above) from primary level onwards according to Delhaxhe (2008). The assertion that CL IL programmes endeavour to develop the language skills of students who have had traditional foreign language teaching throughout their primary education (Lasagabaster and Sierra op.cit.: 371) is not only a misrepresentation, it is contradictory with L&Ss second similarity. According to Lasagabaster and Sierra (ibid.: 372), the materials used in immersion programmes are aimed at native speakers, whereas CLIL teachers often use abridged materials. However, obtaining developmentally appropriate materials is a longstanding issue in immersion (Johnson and Swain 1997). Furthermore, the confusion among FL teachers between the use of authentic materials and unadapted NS materials is a result of poor professionalization, rather than characteristic of immersion.
Thomas Somers and Jill Surmont

Starting age

Teaching materials

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Language objective

The goal of immersion programmes is to reach an L2 prociency similar to that of native speakers, whereas CLIL programmes cannot have such a far reaching objective. (Lasagabaster and Sierra op.cit.: 372) True, C LIL strives for functional prociency (Marsh 2002). Yet, late and partial immersion programmes cannot hope to reach NS prociency either.

Immigrant students

L&S observe that [i]mmigrant students are usually enrolled in immersion programmes in all Spanish bilingual autonomous communities, whereas they seldom [. . .] take part in CLIL programmes (Lasagabaster and Sierra op.cit.: 372) because students willing to join C LI L classes are assessed beforehand, and immigrant students rarely meet the required standard. Although we lend full support to L&Ss warning that such practices may put CLIL programmes around the world in danger of becoming elitist (ibid.: 373), this does not constitute any generalizable difference between C LI L and immersion. Nor should it be inferred that immigrants cannot cope in C LI L programmes. The bulk of C LIL programmes in Spain are experimental, whereas immersion programmes have been in force for more than two decades and can rely on a signicant amount of research into both their linguistic and non-linguistic effects. (Lasagabaster and Sierra op.cit.: 373) This is of course true, yet in itself little of a means to discern between C LI L and immersion. L&S further neglect to point out that much immersion research is of great signicance to CLIL. From the mid-1990s onwards, immersion research has increasingly focused on processes such as the integration of content and language. Here are lessons to be learned and adapted (Coyle 2007: 547).

Research

Conclusion

In conclusion, we nd that L&Ss article does little to resolve the confusion as it suffers from internal contradictions and ungeneralizable data. We have shown that most of the proposed differences turned out to be points of resemblance, that they presented a static and monolithic picture, ignoring the myriad variations that exist in CLIL and immersion, and the potential for a convergence (Lyster and Ballinger op.cit.).
Johnson, R. J. and M. Swain. 1997. Immersion Education: International Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lasagabaster, D. and J. M. Sierra. 2010. Immersion and C LI L in English: more differences than similarities. E LT Journal 64/4: 36775. Lyster, R. and S. Ballinger. 2011. Content-based language teaching: convergent concerns across divergent contexts. Language Teaching Research 15/3: 27988. Maljers, A., D. Marsh, and D. Wolff (eds.). 2007. Windows on C L I L. Content and Language Integrated Learning in the European Spotlight. Alkmaar: European Platform for Dutch Education and E C M L.

References Chiasson, P.-E. 2002. The nonnative speaker. Canadian provincial experience. NNEST Newsletter 4/1: 14. Coyle, D. 2007. Content and language integrated learning: towards a connected research agenda for CLIL pedagogies. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 10/5: 54362. Coyle, D., P. Hood, and D. Marsh. 2010. C L I L: Content and Language Integrated Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Delhaxhe, A. (ed.). 2008. Key Data on Teaching Languages at School in Europe. Brussels: Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency/ EU R YDI CE.

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Marsh, D. 2002. C L I L/E M I L EThe European Dimension: Actions, Trends and Foresight Potential. Strasbourg: European Commission. Phillipson, R. 1992. Linguistic Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Van de Craen, P., E. Ceuleers, K. Lochtman, L. Allain, and K. Mondt. 2007. An interdisciplinary research approach to CLIL learning in primary schools in Brussels in C. Dalton-Puffer and U. Smit (eds.). Empirical Perspectives on C L I L Classroom Discourse. Frankfurt am Mein: Peter Lang. Wesche, M. 2002. Early French immersion: how has the original Canadian model stood the test of time? in P. Burmeister, T. Piske, and A. Rohde (eds.). An Integrated View of Language Development: Papers in Honor of Henning Wode. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier.

The authors Thomas Somers is currently a predoctoral researcher at the Centre for Linguistics, Vrije Universiteit Brussel. He taught English for two years at secondary level and was previously involved in a project on language sensitive teaching and language policy. His research interests include multilingual education and language teaching methodology. Email: Thomas.Somers@vub.ac.be

Jill Surmont is a PhD student at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel who is investigating the cognitive effects of Content Language Integrated Learning. She is part of the Comenius project E - C L I L and helped to nalize the data the V U B team had collected for the D Y L A N project. Email: Jill.Surmont@vub.ac.be

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Thomas Somers and Jill Surmont

Reviews

The Bilingual Reform: A Paradigm Shift in Foreign Language Teaching W. Butzkamm and J. A. W. Caldwell Gunter Narr Verlag 2009, 260 pp., V19.90 isbn 978 3 8233 6492 4

Too much mother tongue (MT) in the foreign language (FL) classroom can be a dangerous thing: My last English teacher was really nice but she taught us most of the lesson through German, telling us she wanted us to really understand everything. I think we would have learnt more if she had used German less. We had Spanish only for one year at this stage but lessons were conducted nearly completely in Spanish, while English was taught in German, after seven years of learning this language! Annika (Butzkamm and Caldwell p. 16) No MT in FL teaching can also be dangerous for learners: I really hated the fact that the teacher we had in grades 79 refused to explain English words we didnt know in German. She just wrote the word up on the board, but only a few pupils understood her English explanations. Even when we asked her nicely if she could give us the German equivalent she became angry. But Id better stop talking about her, as it makes me angry. Sonja (ibid.) Most E LT specialists now recognize that the two extreme positions depicted above are untenable. And while no one would question that in an English class English actually needs to be spoken, it is now generally agreed that learners own languages can be used for certain purposes. As, for example, Harmer (2007: 1335) says, a teacher can use the students L1 to talk about the learning process (for example when discussing their needs and expectations), to make comparisons between L1 and L2, and to create a good atmosphere in the classroom. However, according to The Bilingual Reform (p. 18), this kind of monolingualism with small concessions

is not the right solution. A little MT in the classroom can also be a dangerous thing: if it is used in an unregulated way, some teachers may be tempted to conduct most of their classes in it. Instead, the MT should be used systematically with the help of sophisticated and powerful bilingual techniques. It is these techniques that according to the authors (p. 16) are the key to harnessing the linguistic resources of the learners for effective foreign language learning (. . .). The book consists of an introduction, 14 chapters (each containing study questions and tasks), and an epilogue. The publisher claims that [with] this book, change has come to foreign language teaching. It certainly has, and in more ways than one: not only do the authors offer a compelling argument for the MT as the foundation of FL teaching but they also present their case in such a way that it is difcult to put down. The clarity of Butzkamm and Caldwells writing, the ease with which they discuss theory and combine it with practice, and the personal stories told by learners and teachers, all these make for a fascinating reading experience. Following the Introduction, which sketches the central issues and outlines the authors goals, in Chapter 1 the authors begin the presentation of their approach by stressing the fundamental role of FL input and oral interaction in the process of learning. Since the amount of exposure is critical to language acquisition (p. 29), lessons should obviously be conducted in the FL. However, this does not mean the exclusion of the MT from the classroom: on the contrary, consistent use of the MT through the technique of sandwiching (statement in L2, restatement in L1 and again in L2, p. 33) should create an FL atmosphere in the classroom and lead to message-oriented discourse. This is possible because the sandwich technique provides only initial understanding: once the meaning is clear, then only the L2 expression should be used. In Chapter 2, Butzkamm and Caldwell introduce the principle of dual comprehension, which, in their view, is the essential mechanism behind language
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E LT Journal Volume 66/1 January 2012

The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.

acquisition. The principle states that for a learner to break into the speech code, input must be comprehended on two levels: the functional/ communicative level and the formal/structural level. In L1 acquisition, such dual comprehension takes place through an interaction of childrens natural intention-reading and pattern-nding abilities with the way in which parents shape the input the children receive. In the classroom context, where much less time is available, these natural inductive abilities of learners need to be supported to ensure double comprehension. One way of clarifying formmeaning pairings to learners is through the use of the MT. Chapter 3 sets out in detail the authors reasons for adopting the bilingual approach. The exposition is broken down into 11 maxims that present the case for bilingual FL teaching and refute the arguments that have been advanced against it. For Butzkamm and Caldwell, the direct principle is a delusion: as, for example, word recognition experiments show, learners own languages cannot be switched off. This, however, does not mean that they are a necessary evil that simply has to be accepted: they are the greatest asset that beginner learners bring into the learning process. The connection that learners make between new linguistic knowledge and their L1 skills is vital until the FL has established an ever more powerful and complex network for itself (p. 74). Chapter 4 deals with the questions of communicative equivalence and cross-linguistic networks. In brief, Butzkamm and Caldwell argue (p. 90) that whatever can be said, can be translated, i.e. that MT approximations can always be provided for initial understanding. Such MT equivalents, whether exact or approximate, may be seen as temporary items to be complemented by other meanings in later stages of learning. For lexical items to be retained, it is useful, the authors argue, to build cross-linguistic networks in which target language words are linked to MT cognates. Clarity is all; confusion equals frustration (p. 103). Grammar, then, should be made clear, it is argued in Chapter 5. To do so, we can use MTaids like idiomatic translations, structural mirroring, and, in particularly tough cases, additional explanations. Teachers should, however, beware of the danger of overexplaining: (translated) examples are normally easier to understand than lengthy explanation or rules. Too much grammar may be bad, but too little of it is equally harmful: if chunks of structure are left for learners doing three hours per week to analyse on their own, then many of those chunks will fossilize.
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Grammatical constructions that are claried must also be retained and put to use. That is, in accordance with the generative principle, students need to learn how to nd patterns among exemplars and build new forms according to known forms (p. 120). Chapters 6 and 7 tell us how to achieve this by using the bilingual approach, which builds upon Dodsons work in the second half of the previous century (for example Dodson 1967/1972). The way to start is through semicommunicative drills: the teacher gives stimulus sentences in the MT, the students respond in the target language. The exercise is gradually personalized with students ultimately being asked to produce their own examples. When they are presented, the teacher should use them as an opportunity for communicative interludes, i.e. communicative exchanges of information. Further examples of pedagogical tools that Butzkamm and Caldwell extensively argue for are dialogues, drama, and declamation. Butzkamm and Caldwell do not see language as nothing but a skill, but as they explain in Chapter 8, the learning theory behind the procedures in the previous chapters is skill learning theory. This means that there are no quick and easy shortcuts and that it is focused, effortful practice that is crucial (p. 167). As a result of such practice, there are qualitative changes in the way knowledge is represented in the brain, and there is also an increase in the speed of performance. Holistic learning advocated by many proponents of task-based approaches is dismissed by Butzkamm and Caldwell as the naturalistic fallacy. Chapters 9, 10, and 11 all contain further examples of ways in which learners own languages can be used as aids in FL learning. In Chapter 9, the focus is on input and how its comprehension can be maximized with MT support (as, for example, in bilingual readers and subtitled movies). In Chapter 10, the benets of translation activities are discussed: they include focus on preciseness and accuracy, possible integration with communicative activities, and increasing learners awareness of the leeway of interpretation. Finally, Chapter 11 delivers more bilingual practice through, for example, work on vocabulary items and collocations. In Chapter 12, the authors argue that the only natural model which can be adopted in FL teaching is that of the child who is raised bilingually, as in linguistically mixed marriages. Although in such contexts the two linguistic systems develop separately, bilingual children make use of learning strategies that involve both languages. The strategies include asking for equivalent expressions, contrasting such expressions, and using mixed-language utterances.

For Butzkamm and Caldwell, the fact that these natural strategies are so common makes the exclusion of the MT from the FL classroom seem almost perversely wrong (p. 223). Spitting and speaking Breton are forbidden, a railway carriage sign from a not so distant past, illustrates how minority languages were sometimes treated (p. 230). The present situation may not be that bad, but as Butzkamm and Caldwell say in Chapter 13, minority students would still benet from a greater recognition of their home languages. In multilingual classes learners own languages need not be ignored (or, which is worse, outlawed). There are ways of incorporating them into instruction, for example through parallel texts and time-outs for group work in the MT. Research shows that such aids contribute substantially to overall learning success. Why are there so many who behave as if the history of FLT was a succession of failed methods? (. . .) Why be so arrogantly dismissive of ideas and practices such as pattern drills and the P P P paradigm, which have been used by excellent practitioners quite aware of what they were doing? (p. 242) These are just two of many important questions asked in Chapter 14, the nal chapter of the book. In asking these questions, Butzkamm and Caldwell appeal to researchers to heed the lessons of history and to investigate procedures, which over the centuries have worked for many teachers and learners, saying The study of the history of language teaching deserves a central place in teacher education (. . .). (p. 241). FL teachers are often sceptical about new theories and practical solutions proposed by S L A researchers. Teachers practice is often rooted in more traditional ways of doing things (Swan 2007: 295). This is hardly surprising, given that at different times they have been told to ignore the learners mother tongue; to base teaching on contrasts between the mother tongue and the second language; to avoid showing beginners the written word; to establish habits by drilling; to refuse to explain grammar; to explain grammar but avoid drilling; to rely exclusively on comprehensible input; to minimize opportunities for error; to regard errors as constructive; not to ask questions to which the teachers know the answers; to use simplied material; to avoid using simplied material; and so on. (Swan 2005: 397) The Bilingual Reform by Butzkamm and Caldwell, however, is a completely different story. It is not
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legislation by hypothesis. It is a remarkable book, which in a masterly way draws upon S L A research, the accumulated experience of teachers, and countless testimonies of learners. In each of these areas, the authors expertise is impressive. If their proposals are implemented, it will be a true paradigm shift. This book is an absolute must for anyone involved in FL instruction: one may not subscribe to every claim Butzkamm and Caldwell make, but knowing what these claims are is a necessary thing. References Dodson, C. J. 1967/1972. Language Teaching and the Bilingual Method. London: Pitman. Harmer, J. 2007. The Practice of English Language Teaching.(Fourth edition.) Harlow: Longman E LT. Swan, M. 2005. Legislation by hypothesis: the case of task-based instruction. Applied Linguistics 26/3: 376401. Swan, M. 2007. Why is it all such a muddle, and what is the poor teacher to do? in M. Pawlak (ed.). Exploring Focus on Form in Language Teaching. Kalisz : Faculty of Pedagogy and Fine Arts. Poznan The reviewer Pawe1 Schefer is a researcher and lecturer at the School of English, Adam Mickiewicz University. His current research interests include Second Language Acquisition, modern English grammar, and corpus linguistics. He has published in a variety of journals both in Poland and abroad. He also writes language teaching materials for Polish learners of English. Email: spawel@ifa.amu.edu.pl doi:10.1093/elt/ccr084

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Teaching and Learning Pragmatics N. Ishihara and A. D. Cohen Pearson Education 2010, 384 pp., 20.99 isbn 978 1 4082 0457 3

Teaching and Learning Pragmatics approaches language teaching from a sociocultural perspective and thus contributes to a current focus in ELT methodology. The book is divided into three parts. In the rst part, the authors identify the area of pragmatics in which they are especially interested, in the second part, they focus on teaching pragmatics in the language classroom, and in the third part, turn to second-order pedagogical considerations. Approximately 60 per cent of the book is contributed by Ishihara, including virtually all of Part 2, with 20 per cent contributed by Cohen and 20 per cent jointly authored. The styles of the two authors are similar and the book as a whole reads seamlessly. The target readership is pre-/in-service teachers and graduate students (p. 186), and for this reason, each chapter concludes with a series of reader-directed activities, varying in length between one and nine pages and in total amounting to approximately a fth of the book. These activities are mostly designed for teacher-readers working in small groups rather than for the more typical individual reader. In order to enhance readability, in-text citations are given as footnotes, and in the activities, the task sheets and example sheets follow the instruction phase. In both cases, I would have preferred a more integrated approach, but other readers may like these innovations. So much for the content and organization of the book. How then do the authors approach pragmatics and what are their recommendations for teaching it? In Part 1, the authors identify speech acts as the pragmatic focus of the book. They consider various ways of collecting and eliciting data in order to reveal how speech acts are used, with a view to identifying native-speaker norms in relation to which an appropriate pedagogy can be determined. They reject introspection and, with some reservations, follow the well-trodden Discourse Completion Test (D C T ) path established by Blum-Kulka, House, and Kasper (1989) in which language users are asked to indicate what they think they would say in a closely scripted scenario. They also focus principally, although not exclusively, on the two categories, requests and apologies, investigated by Blum-Kulka et al. (1989). Having argued, implicitly at least, for the primacy of native-speaker pragmatic norms in Part 1, in Part 2,
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the authors turn to the teaching of L2 pragmatics or the appropriate use of speech acts in cross-cultural encounters with native speakers of the target language. They take the view that this ability depends on the learners developing metapragmatic awareness of the likely effects of the use of particular formulas in particular contexts. They argue that such declarative knowledge needs to be explicitly taught and is essential in the development of procedural skills, which would not be achieved through a predominantly inductive approach. The chapters in this part of the book discuss the role of noticing and accommodation in S L A (Chapter 6); provide descriptions of two extensive instruction projects designed to raise learners pragmatic awareness (Chapter 7); note the absence of authentic pragmatic routines in coursebooks and provide awareness-raising activities focusing on indirect complaints, requests, conversational closings, implicature, and gendered language (Chapter 8); outline ways in which awareness of conversational sequencing can be raised and show how corpora can provide better evidence than elicited data (Chapter 9); recommend keeping a teacher journal and making and evaluating lesson plans (Chapter 10); and argue for the importance of the discussion of practice in pragmatic routines (Chapter 11). For my money, the best chapters are Chapter 7, which will be found extremely useful by those who accept the intrinsic methodology (of which more later), and Chapter 9, which makes good points about corpora that are likely to be especially useful for the teacher of advanced learners, and ends with a good activity suitable also for the individual reader. Chapter 8, Adapting textbooks for teaching pragmatics, does not actually do what it says on the tin, which is a pity as this is an area in which many teachers would nd advice helpful. In Part 3, Chapter 12 deals with learner strategies, Chapter 13 recommends the use of lms and television series, audio-visual materials together with transcripts and exercises, instructional software that students can access individually, and computer-mediated communication, while Chapters 14 and 15 demonstrate assessment techniques, which the authors argue are crucial to successful instruction. Underlying this book is the (to my mind, controversial) belief that it is possible to establish native-speaker norms, at least with respect to speech acts, and that these (sometimes in my view, stilted) models are best assimilated by learners when approached metalinguistically in the explanatory

tradition of academic style teaching. Implicit in the authors approach is the view that their students are learning someone elses pragmatics, L2 pragmatics as they term it, and that contexts are presumptive and therefore determine the proper use of language. But what of the contrary perspective, that language learner language is also a context, and that native speakers do not expect learners to create the contexts that they create themselves for the very reasons that learners are not members of the same culture? If we take this view, we would be likely to regard learners who do create native-like contexts as unusual, or perhaps even abnormal. With this thought in mind, the instruction sequences in Chapter 7 now look like a reductive functional syllabus approached from a metalinguistic perspective. The authors describe this metalinguistic knowledge of pragmatic norms (p. 24) as metapragmatic (pp. 23/4 and ff.), as is usual in the literature that deals with teaching pragmatics. However, this term has rarely been used elsewhere in the pragmatics literature in this sense since Verschuerens (2000) ground-breaking paper on metapragmatic awareness, which specically distinguishes this descriptive (and all too often, prescriptive) use from the view of metapragmatic phenomena as an indexical dimension of all language use which guides the hearer in the recovery of pragmatic meaning. Thus, the choice of the term discussion rather than the more usual meeting to describe a supervision session involving a lecturer and a student is metapragmatic in the sense that it guides the hearer in recovering a particular interpretation of how the session went, and quite possibly a different interpretation depending on whether used by the supervisor or supervisee, hence the indexical (i.e. context indexing) nature of metapragmatic phenomena. This is not the sense in which Ishihara and Cohen use the term, however: for them, discussion would be a metapragmatic naming term for a particular kind of speech event. This leads me to the further point that pragmatics is principally concerned with inferential meaning and the ways in which metapragmatic phenomena point us towards the inferences a speaker intends us to draw in our search for an optimal meaning for the forms used in spoken and written communication. In fact, in the huge galaxy of contemporary pragmatics, (taxonomies of) speech acts are now a relatively small area of interest. For this reason, the title Teaching and Learning Pragmatics makes a claim that the book does not to my mind deliver. I do not intend to suggest by this that it will not be found useful, particularly for teachers whose learners hope
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to function as non-native members of other cultures, although I suspect that there are increasingly few such learners of English, which for most non-native users today is regarded as a lingua franca. Finally, we come to the issue of the language teaching methodology implicit in this book. In the following ve summary statements, I try to list the salient methodological stance of this book (with the statements in parentheses after each statement intended to put a contrary position): 1 Teaching and Learning Pragmatics accepts the concept of intrinsic cultural difference in which foreign language learners nd themselves at cross-cultural variance with native speakers. (English as a Lingua Franca learners need to establish a common culture, at least for the purpose of linguistic encounters with others, which will therefore be intercultural.) 2 Contexts are presumptive and prescribe appropriate linguistic routines. (Contexts are made relevant or even perhaps created by the way language is used, and are not therefore predetermined.) 3 Appropriate linguistic routines are best characterized as speech acts whose form is revealed through DCTs which enable model utterances to be determined. (The vast majority of utterances are highly context-sensitive and cannot be reduced to a set of formulas. Trying to do this is tantamount to endorsing the contradictory notion of a decontextualized pragmatics.) 4 Model utterances can be presented to learners as targets and discussed metalinguistically. (Such a product-oriented approach overlooks the processes that speakers undertake in nding an optimal form for a meaning and that hearers undertake in nding an optimal meaning for a form.) 5 Explicit metapragmatic awareness and declarative knowledge are crucial to the development of L2 pragmatic competence. (Implicit metapragmatic awareness and procedural skill are at the heart of all normal language use.) My conclusion is that this book uses native-speaker pragmatic norms as a way of determining a socioculturally inspired learn-in-order-to-use
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language teaching methodology. The alternative would be to see pragmatics, and especially inferential and indexical meaning, informing a use-in-order-tolearn methodology. This book therefore sits rmly within what Canagarajah (2005: xxvii) terms a hierarchical approach in which native norms are regarded as the target. It will be welcomed by those who subscribe to this view of pedagogy and are looking for speech act models to put in front of learners. As you can probably tell, Im a subscriber to the leveled approach in which English is regarded as a plural system and in which a speakers identity is revealed in their own distinct pragmatic and metapragmatic choices.

References Blum-Kulka, S., J. House, and G. Kasper (eds.). 1989. Cross-cultural Pragmatics: Requests and Apologies. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Canagarajah, A. S. (ed.). 2005. Reclaiming the Local in Language Policy and Practice. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Verschueren, J. 2000. Notes on the role of metapragmatic awareness in language use. Pragmatics 10/4: 43956. The reviewer Peter Grundy is currently a Visiting Professor at the University of Vienna and an Honorary Fellow in the Language Centre at Durham University. His most recent books are English through Art (Helbling 2010) co-authored with Hania Bociek and Kevin Parker, and The Pragmatics Reader (Routledge 2011) co-edited with Dawn Archer. He is also the author of Doing Pragmatics (third edition, Hodder 2008) and is currently editing a pragmatics handbook. He is a past President of I ATEF L and currently chairs the IAT EF L Wider Membership Advisory Committee. Email: grundypeter@btinternet.com doi:10.1093/elt/ccr070

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The N NE S T Lens: Non-native English Speakers in

T E S OL

A. Mahboob (ed.) Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010, 349 pp., 44.99 isbn 978 1 4438 1910 7

In the Foreword to this edited volume, Jun Liu, a well-known advocate of the NN EST (Non-native English speakers in TESOL) cause, has this to say: Credibility needs to be earned, whether you are a native speaker or nonnative speaker of the language (p. xi). I consider this remark important for two reasons: it acknowledges (1) that NESTs (Native English speakers in TESOL) and N NES Ts are two different species and (2) that birth into either group accords no privileges for its members. The playing eld is level. In theory, yes; in practice, well, not always, as several authors in the volume point out. I love the title, The NNE ST Lens, because it urges me to run for the dictionary. Is/are lens singular or plural? Can you say one len, two lens, three lenses? After all, I am a NN EST whose language instinct (in English) is wont to lead me astray. No need for the dictionary though since Dr Mahboob claims in one of the opening sentences of Chapter 1: The NNE ST lens is a lens of multilingualism, multinationalism, and multiculturalism through which N NES Ts [. . .] take diversity as a starting point, rather than as a result (p. 1). And this is exactly the greatest virtue of the book: while it offers enormous diversity in terms of the topics discussed and the approaches adopted, it remains coherent by examining all facets of being a N NES T through a single lens. The volume is varied and convergent at the same time. The 16 chapters were written by 21 authors, both N E S Ts and NN ESTs. The settings in which the studies were carried out encompass two of the three concentric circles, visualized by Kachru (1992), the inner and expanding circles. While most of the studies draw their data from a US background, the expanding circle is also represented by Japan, Thailand, Turkey, Taiwan, Indonesia, and Brazil. At the same time, several authors originate from the outer circle, including the editor himself. In addition to providing a chapter-by-chapter summary of the papers to follow, in the introductory chapter, the editor makes no bones about his allegiance to the NN EST cause when he criticizes the native-speaker fallacy, the decit discourse, as well as the ideological undercurrents of interlanguage and fossilization theories. He stresses that although the shift from dependency on the native-speaker model is
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not yet complete, today the emphasis is laid on the NNE STs pedagogical skills and credentials rather than on their ability to achieve native-like prociency in the English language. Of the six questions Mary Romney asks in Chapter 2, the second seems to be the most provocative one: Is there a contrast between the perception and the reality of the English language? (p. 18). And her answer is a resounding yes: linguistic proling is paramount. Despite the fact that the majority of English speakers the world over are people of colour, English is still regarded as the language of white native speakers. To quote her oxymoron, people prefer listening with their eyes (p. 26). Albeit Chapter 3 is not directly linked to T ES OL , Noriko Ishihara touches upon a salient issue, that of the pragmatics of non-native speakers English language use. She asserts that they carry their own bilingual identities into any kind of discourse, which is loaded with their complex and sometimes conicting values, beliefs, morals, and worldviews (p. 37). This being the case, non-natives are ill-advised to conform to monocultural native-speaker norms. Nor are they expected to produce such mimicry; in fact, sociopragmatic perfection may lead to bewilderment rather than appreciation on the part of native speakers. Ross Forman in Chapter 4 argues for the judicious use of L1 in the classroom, emphasizing that L2 learners should be regarded as bilingual plus instead of the long-held view that they are monolingual minus. In agreement with Cook (1999), he points out that despite the teachers best efforts to stick to L2 in class, L1 will be invariably present in the learners minds. If so, why not make the best of this resource, instead of excommunicating it from classroom discourse at the urge of monolingual bigots? Based on lesson observation and follow-up teacher interviews at a Thai university, he then puts forward a list of well-established principles in support of L1 use. Also set in Thailand, Chapter 5 runs with the innocentlooking title: Does a good language teacher have to be a native speaker?. After drawing attention to the ambiguities residing in the culturally loaded term of the good teacher, Barbara Mullock presents a study that involves a large sample of undergraduate students. The results show that only a tiny percentage of the respondents express a preference for N E S Ts on the basis of their native competence. Whereas NESTs are endowed with a higher degree of procedural knowledge (that is, they are more procient users of English), runs the authors argument, N NES Ts are stronger in the area of declarative knowledge (that is,
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they are able to provide clearer explanations of grammar or vocabulary). After a paper written by Sibel Tatar and Senem Yildiz (Chapter 6), which highlights the urgent need to improve N NES Ts English language prociency in Turkey, Ekaterina Nemtchinova (Chapter 7) revisits the Whos worth more? question originally formulated by Medgyes (1992). Focusing on the opinion of mentor teachers, she examines the performance of NEST versus NN EST trainees during their classroom practicum. Out of the seven categories set up to measure teaching efcacy, the author nds statistically signicant differences between the two groups in only one dimension, that of cultural awareness: NNE ST trainees prove to be far more capable of handling the cultural complexities of an ESL class in the United States than their native English-speaker peers. In Chapter 8, Caroline Lipovsky and Ahmar Mahboob undertook the daunting task of analysing their student respondents essays in search of their preferences for either N E S Ts or NN ESTs. Two quibbles in this regard. Firstly, some of the essays are so poorly written as to become virtually unintelligible. Secondly, in their zeal to justify the benets of appraisal analysis over thematic analysis, the authors forget to respond to the two research questions that they had raised at the beginning of their paper. Chapter 9 was a pleasure to read for the wealth of ideas and recommendations about how prospective teachers might be able to get rid of their monolingual bias through strategy training. Led by the conviction that NN ESTs frequently fall victim to unequal treatment in the United States and elsewhere, Leslie Barratt warns that unless training programmes include awareness raising, discourse inclusion, equity management, and professional development for their students, their future teachers will be condemned to the status quo or to a changing world they are not prepared for. (p. 198) If the preceding chapter was lauded for its pragmatic approach, the authors of Chapter 10, Ana Wu, John nde Csepelyi, deserve even more credit. Liang, and Tu On the one hand, they advise N NE ST trainees to set attainable linguistic goals for themselves, instead of the mirage of achieving native-like prociency in English. On the other hand, the authors remind training institutions in the United States that the educational traditions awaiting novice teachers upon return to their home country are often in sharp conict with mainstream US pedagogical models. Although the intended users of the strategies
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presented in this paper are N NES Ts, I would strongly recommend it for N ES Ts as well. The next chapter, co-authored by Ekaterina Nemtchinova, Ahmar Mahboob, Zohreh Eslami, and Seran Dogancay-Aktuna, draws attention to the importance of creating opportunities for NNE ST trainees to improve their language skills during training programmes, including the development of their pragmatic and sociolinguistic competence. No less heed should be paid to expanding the prospective teachers metalinguistic repertoire, that is, the language resources to help them manage their classes in English. The authors of Chapter 12, Rebecca L. Oxford and Rashi Jain, present an MA/PhD TE SOL course whose purpose was to persuade the participants to critically review their prejudices concerning the World Englishes and the NEST /NN EST debate. The excerpts quoted from the journal entries and course assignments produced by the trainees give a subtle and, on occasion, emotionally charged picture of their awakening process. The next two chapters offer practical ideas about ways of beneting from the availability of N ES T colleagues in the staff. The impetus for the study conducted by Wen-Hsing Luo (Chapter 13) comes from a major initiative launched by the Taiwanese authorities to import qualied NE STs with the aim of alleviating the shortage of English teachers in primary education. During her research, Luo was sad to realize that, instead of shared responsibility, it largely fell upon NESTs to do the teaching while NN ESTs merely acted as monitors or assistants. To remedy the situation, the author lays down a few basic principles to produce a more expedient and equitable form of collaboration between native and non-native colleagues. In her highly illuminating paper (Chapter 14), Jan Edwards Dormer extends the focus to collaboration beyond the classroom door. Drawing on data collected from Brazil and Indonesia, respectively, the author offers ways in which ongoing interaction between the partners may help improve their teaching and language skills (in the latter case, they take turns teaching each others mother tongue) for mutual benet. Dormer argues that our egg-carton profession (Lortie 1975), in which isolation and zero interaction are the norm, should be turned into knowledge communities (Clandinin and Connelly 1995), in which theory becomes practice through dialogue and reection (p. 296). The book might as well have ended on this happy note, if the editor had not attached two more
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chapters to the volume, both written by specialists in corpus linguistics. In spite of the efforts expended by authors Dilin Liu and Monika Bednarek, respectively, to produce some kind of introduction to the eld, both papers appear to be irrelevant add-ons. An edited volume in which all the chapters are equally fascinating and indispensable is yet to be published. Dr Mahboob might also have been a bit more rigorous in weeding out typographical errors, big and small. The reviewer would have welcomed an index too! Nevertheless, thanks to the editors thorough familiarity with the literature on the NEST /NN EST debate and his choice of eminent researchers, a quality item has been added to the ever-growing collection of books and papers on the topic. References Clandinin, D. J. and M. Connelly. 1995. Teachers Professional Knowledge Landscapes. New York, NY: Teachers College, Columbia University. Cook, V. 1999. Going beyond the native speaker in language teaching. T ES OL Quarterly 33/2: 185209. Kachru, B. B. 1992. World Englishes: approaches, issues, and resources. Language Teaching 25/1: 114. Lortie, D. 1975. Schoolteacher: A Sociological Study. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Medgyes, P. 1992. Native or non-native: whos worth more?. E LT Journal 46/4: 3409. The reviewer ter Medgyes is Professor of Applied Linguistics at Pe nd University of Budapest. Previously, tvo s Lora the Eo he was a schoolteacher, teacher trainer, Vice Rector of his university, Deputy State Secretary at the Hungarian Ministry of Education, and the Ambassador of Hungary in Damascus. Professor Medgyes is the author of numerous articles and books, including The Non-native Teacher (Macmillan 1994, winner of the Duke of Edinburgh Book Competition), Changing Perspectives in Teacher Education (co-edited with A. Malderez, Heinemann 1996), The Language Teacher (Corvina 1997), Laughing Matters (Cambridge University Press 2002), and The Golden Age of Foreign Language Education in Hungary: 19892009 (National Textbook Publishing Company 2011). Email: petermedgyes@yahoo.com doi:101093/elt/ccr083

The Construction of English: Culture, Consumerism and Promotion in the E LT Global Coursebook J. Gray Palgrave Macmillan 2010, 218 pp., 20.00 isbn 978 0 230 22258 8

The place of coursebooks in English language classrooms is a topic that has never been far from the forefront of controversy within ELT (in particular since the Allwright (1981)/ONeill (1982) exchange in this Journal), and it remains a vibrant topic of debate both within magazines and journals and on blogs. The rationale, content, and application of coursebooks are contested vigorously and, in the main, healthily; for example, Harmers (2010) posting about Dogme in E LT attracted 213 comments over the course of a month (many, of course, from the same people), essentially debating the issue of coursebooks. The book under review has as its subject the ELT global coursebookcoursebooks produced by (UK) publishing houses and marketed, sold, and used in various places around the worldand represents another step on what has been an extended ongoing journey for the author (see, for example, Gray 2000, 2002). In the authors words, the global coursebook is an artefact which is predicated on the questionable assumption that one size ts allregardless of the social, geographical and educational context of use (p. 3), and he sets out his stall similarly early: it is to question the viability of such artefacts. His aim is threefold (p. 19): to describe the cultural content of various E LT coursebooks produced over the last 40 or so years; to explain the form this content takes; and to discover what some practising teachers think about it in a world where global international English is increasingly the target of learning. The book opens with an introduction (Chapter 1) which lays out the essential premises of the book and also includes three snapshots illustrating moments in the authors life when the nature of the role of coursebooks in ELT became (yet more) apparent to him: this is a welcome personal touch which may resonate with many readers and indicates the strong personal voice that comes through in many of the later pages (a positive for this reader, who found the anecdote concerning self-editing to ring very true). Gray also explores the area of globalization and suggests that language is far from immune to its inuence and that of neoliberalism. Chapter 2 (Culture and English language teaching) is a closely argued, though occasionally rather dense,
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exposition of the notion of culture based upon which, later in the book, E LT coursebooks will be analysed. Gray espouses (p. 26) a view of culture as a battleeld in which the meanings which are constructed on the pages of the coursebook are not unproblematically transferred to the mind of the reader. (In this, he is somewhat aligned with the views of writers such as Thornbury and Meddings (2001: 12), who refer to coursebook texts in a similar tone: More insidiously, they have subtextsthe dissemination of cultural and educational values that may have little to do with the needs of the learner of English as an International Language.) This is, Gray states, the view of culture which lies at the heart of this study (ibid.) and which he sees as quite different from other, earlier, perspectives on culture within ELT. Gray draws heavily on the work of Kramsch and Byram and is highly and rightly critical of the position of essentialism wherein groups of people, indeed whole nationalities, are seen as being basically the same and reducible to a few generalized characteristics. Chapter 3 is concerned with the description and analysis of coursebooks, and Gray puts forward a descriptive framework within which elements of content (grammar, lexis, phonology, and various texts) are considered from the point of view of a set of representational repertoires: thus, for example, grammar is to be considered from a number of points of view, including whether or not a distinction is made between spoken and written forms and whether there are any representations of L2 varieties. All the repertoires are based within the area of culture discussed in the previous chapter, which the author then wants to look at from a historical perspective in the chapters that follow. Chapters 4 and 5 take the representational repertoires established earlier and use them to look at the intermediate levels of four coursebook series published between 1979 and 2003, namely, n Streamline Connections (Hartley and Viney) n Building Strategies (Abbs and Freebairn) n The New Cambridge English Course 2 (Swan and Walter) n New Headway (Soars and Soars). In particular, the use of photographs and line drawings, and attitudes with regard to the way in which women are depicted, together with variations in these areas over the period in which the coursebooks were published, are explored. Other areas considered are the place of minorities, the range of accents included and the social/professional roles to which they are linked and questions of
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identity; in a telling phrase, Gray makes a statement about one of the coursebooks which could well refer to many others: What is overwhelmingly highlighted [here] is the . . . unbridled individualism of those who are motivated by choice and the quest for sensation and success and the identity of the student as consumer. What is overwhelmingly neglected is the range of other afliations students might be expected to have or to identify with. (p. 107) This clearly has connections to a point made earlier in the book concerning the growth over the last two decades of celebrity celebration within E LT materials, wherein famous people (famous at least in the Western world) such as sportsmen and women, Hollywood names, talent-show winners, and even IT magnates, appear with clunking regularity. This, though, is a tendency which I believe is now beginning to recede: Global English (Clandeld, Pickering, McAvoy, Robb Benne, Jeffries, Campbell, Watkins, Moore, and Coxall 2009), for example, makes its lack of reference to celebrity culture one of its major selling points. Chapter 6 is entitled Production and regulation of content and considers how publishing houses may endeavour to ensure that what gets written is commercially viable in a worldwide context. Gray analyses various publisher-produced guidelines for authors and reports interviews held with editors and publishing managers. For him, the desire to make coursebooks as sellable as possible in as many markets as possible results in the commodication of content, in terms of language as well as content and methodology, whereby publishers put out materials in which [everyone is] assumed to want and need exactly the same thing (p. 138). The author argues here that it is product regulation that results in the promotion of certain identities and lifestyles. It also results in a certain tidiness with respect to language; coursebooks tend to put forward a version of English which does not reect the many variations within both L1 and L2 communities and (a point I would like to have seen taken further) variations between spoken and written genres. Gray goes on in Chapter 7 (Consumption of content) to investigate whether or not teachers subscribe to such views. This chapter reports a series of interviews held with 20 or so teachers of differing ages, nationality, and experience (although all have at least ve years in the classroom), all based at the time in the Barcelona area. The respondents were encouraged to express their views on the extent to which they feel their work does, or should, include
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aspects of culture and also on four pieces of material (two pieces put forward by Gray and two of their own selection). The resulting discussion is interesting: the teachers had a wide range of opinions both on the coursebook material and on their own role as deliverers of material and on the growing awareness of their learners with regard to English as an international language. That said, it is difcult not to feel that the teachers consulted represent a not only very small but also highly selective section of the community of teachers who use coursebooks. I heard the voices of teachers who might well, for example, be prepared to handle untidy English with among other things its ellipsis and wide range of accents, but as editors and authors know, there are very many teachers around the world who would be made very uncomfortable by such things in their teaching material. In this area, at least, I see a tension which is not really explored here: including a far wider range of language that would be valuable and would contribute to the experience of learners, but equally its presence might unnerve teachers and/or lead some teachers and institutions not to adopt the material at all, in which case the objective is not achieved. In the eighth and nal chapter, Future directions, Gray offers his views on how teacher education might be encouraged to include a more strongly cultural perspective; how the growth of English as an International Language ought to impinge on the language offered in coursebook material; and what the future of global coursebooks might be. Quite rightly, in my view, he stresses the need for more research into how learners (rather than teachers) view the materials they use in classrooms, difcult though such research would be. He also acknowledges the important distinction between analysing materials and analysing materials-inaction and the need for further research into the latter. I found this book to be very stimulating, if perhaps somewhat skewed towards a negative view of the global coursebook. Many, if not most, of the criticisms levelled at global coursebooks would be difcult to refute, and as such, the book makes illuminating reading for authors, potential authors, editors, and perhaps teachers on MA courses. The discussions of the place and potential impact of visuals within coursebook materials are of particular interest. However, there were disappointing aspects too. Firstly, while accepting that it is nigh impossible to be completely up to date, I found that the decision to take a historical perspective on the cultural and

presentational content of coursebooks meant that more recent developments (for example the increased emphasis on E LF and accent variety shown in, for example, Clandeld et al.s Global English or English Unlimited of Clementson, Doff, Goldstein, Hendra, Rea, and Tilbury (2010) ) were neglected: for all its unfortunate inuence, the Headway series (the most recent considered) is in my view no longer very representative of the range of coursebook materials for adults. Things are changing, and at least partly due to the existence of studies such as this one and earlier articles by its author, as Clandeld acknowledges on Scott Thornburys blog N is for neoliberalism (Thornbury 2010). Secondly, the author decided to base the study on coursebooks for adults rather than coursebooks for the secondary teenage market, where, for this reviewer at least, any questions about the promotion of consumerism or aspirational content in an educational context would be of much greater concern. And lastly, as mentioned above, there is insufcient evidence from learners about any impact that coursebooks may or may not have on them. Teachers, after all, are the ones with expectations concerning teaching materials and are the ones who spend extended periods of time with them. Learner contact is more transient. Teachers might see coursebook material as an integral part of their professional lives and therefore of great importance. Learners might see coursebook material as something they come into contact with for a couple of hours a week, for a few months, and of more or less interest. One wonders whether extended research into the views of learners, especially teenagers, as to how inuential coursebook material is on their lives and their (developing) view of the world might disappoint both the proponents and the critics of global ELT coursebooks. References Allwright, R. L. 1981. What do we want teaching materials for?. E LT Journal 36/1: 518. Clandeld, L., K. Pickering, J. McAvoy, R. Robb Benne, A. Jeffries, R. Campbell, F. Watkins, J. Moore, and J. Coxall. 2009. Global English. Oxford: Macmillan. Clementson, T., A. Doff, B. Goldstein, L. A. Hendra, D. Rea, and A. Tilbury. 2010. English Unlimited. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gray, J. 2000. The ELT coursebook as cultural artefact: how teachers censor and adapt. E LT Journal 54/3: 27483. Gray, J. 2002. The global coursebook in English language teaching in D. Block and D. Cameron (eds.). Globalization and Language Teaching. London: Routledge.
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Harmer, J. 2010. No dogma for EF L away from a pedagogy of essential bareness. Available at http:// jeremyharmer.wordpress.com/2010/10/10/nodogma-for-e-away-from-a-pedagogy-of-essentialbareness/ (accessed on 20 March 2011). ONeill, R. 1982. Why use textbooks?. ELT Journal 36/2: 10411. Thornbury, S. 2010. N is for neoliberalism. Available at http://scottthornbury.wordpress.com/2010/12/ (accessed on 30 March 2011). Thornbury, S. and L. Meddings. 2001. Coursebooks: the roaring in the chimney. Modern English Teacher 10/3: 1113. The reviewer Jeff Stranks is a freelance teacher trainer and materials writer based in Brazil. He was formerly Senior Tutor in E LT at Bell College Saffron Walden and Director of DO TE (Diploma for Overseas Teachers of English) and DE LTA (Diploma in English Language Teaching to Adults) courses at Cultura Inglesa Rio de Janeiro. He is co-author, principally with Herbert Puchta, of a number of coursebooks, both for teenagers and for adults and both for global and for local markets. Email: jstranks@uol.com.br doi:10.1093/elt/ccr075

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IATE F L 2010 Harrogate Conference Selections

T. Pattison (ed.)
IATE F L 2011, 240 pp., free to members, 12.00 from

https://secure.iate.org/onl/shop.php isbn 978 1901095 33 3

Attending conferences has never been easier: from home, live internet access to key talks and presenter interviews are often available; get involved in those interviews through twitter or online chat, and you are virtually there! Perhaps easier still is the opportunity to read, at leisure, a selection of presentations and plenary sessions. This also enables you to walk in and out of any talk you please, dipping into those you nd immediately appealing or staying in a session you did not expect to be gripped by! Such is my experience with the IAT EFL 2010 Harrogate Conference Selections, based on the 44th conference. Tania Pattisons welcoming editorial introduction puts the volume in context (ve days of presentations, symposiums, Special Interest Group (SIG) programmes, posters, debates, etc.), and is followed by three perspectives on the conference as a whole, which also point out what readers missed: write-ups not included (for example Scott Thornbury, Dave Willis), the pecha kucha night, and Harrogate spas, which no publication can provide! The contributions are grouped into 11 topic areas. Ema Ushiodas plenary paper opens Section 2 on The learner, forefronting the innate role of natural interactions for motivation. Subsequent papers range from the study of a Chinese student in the United Kingdom (Stuart Perrin 2.2) to a more scientic analysis of learner autonomy (Fumiko Murase and David Hall 2.4) and the discussion of hybrid identities for learners in the United Kingdom (Mikio Iguchi 2.3). Feeding directly into the classroom are ready-made activities involving movement (Juliet du Mont 2.7). A nal symposium paper discusses the good language learner and reminds us to identify and understand individual learners, like snowakeseach having a unique shape and structure (Kerstin Dofs and Moira Hobbs 2.6: 34). Tessa Woodwards plenary, under Teacher training, Section 3, described models of professional life cycles. Her engaging style probably reects an enjoyable and informative talk. The subsequent nine papers are by representatives from the United Kingdom, Germany, India, Turkey, and Sri Lanka and include scholarship winner Padmini Bhuyan (Boruah) (3.3), whose paper anticipates later ones on
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global education and critical thinking (Section 6, Reading). While storytelling has its own section, Briony Beavens paper on teacher-training stories is appropriately included here (3.6). The nal three papers in this section describe large-scale teachertraining projects: Suzanne Mordue (3.8) involving teachers in the Black Sea area on Moodle, Seamus Harkin and Wasantha Yapa on teacher journals in Sri Lanka (3.9), and Alan S. MacKenzie in India (3.10) on a framework for monitoring large-scale projects. In Section 4, The global educator, focus is on expatriate teacher communities (Susan Barduhn 4.1), strategies for addressing political issues in class (Danny Whitehead 4.3), and the unusual Bus project in South Korea. The paper summarizing the Hornby Scholars presentation (4.5) draws in a geographically wide spread of teachers. Other papers here address cultural issues in coursebooks (Prem Bahadur Phyak 4.6), as well as the relevance of coursebook selection criteria (Shu-er Huang 4.10), leading to the symposium paper on materials writing (4.11). The fth section, Grammar, vocabulary and spelling, goes for the jugular, with papers demonstrating the importance for teachers of understanding tense versus aspect, as well as epistemic meaning (Peter Grundy 5.1). Accuracy versus uency is brought up-to-date in Martin Parrotts paper (5.3), which challenges T EF L speak within the context of everyday language. Focusing on lexis, subsequent papers look at ways of learning vocabulary (5.4, 5.5) and contrast with two lighter papers on acronyms (Mark Bartram 5.6) and the Spelling gym, for example, in Johanna Stirlings talk (5.8). Sections 6 and 7 relate to skills work: reading, and speaking and writing. Not surprisingly, the rst looks more at the bigger picture of ways of approaching texts. Peter Watkins paper (6.1) is key in this aspect and is followed by papers that discuss ways of getting students to interact with texts and develop critical thinking skills (6.3, 6.4), as well as how to motivate students (Hiroki Uchida 6.5). In-class tasks are also represented, by, for example, the nicely personalized idea Philip Prowse includes, with convincing rationale, for the often frowned-upon reading aloud activity (6.6). By contrast, Section 7 focuses in more specically on subskills: Robert Wilkinsons paper compares gestures used in L1 and L2 presentations (7.3), while Edward de Chazal (7.5) challenges what is understood by cohesiveness in text. For those wishing to broaden their students writing horizons, Kuangyun Tings paper on using blogs for teaching writing (7.9) stages an approach for developing students online public condence.

From skills, we move to more specialist areas of teaching, with papers covering aspects of E S P , Business English (BE), and teaching younger learners. Some of the topics covered could equally well apply to other areas of teaching but are grounded here through research and project work in the presenters specic elds of work. In the E S P /BE section, issues discussed include multiple intelligences in engineering (8.3) and English as a Lingua Franca in Prague (8.4) and Botswana (8.6). On home ground, Barbara Skinner (8.1) describes ways of helping international students integrate into university life in Britain. In terms of encapsulating the current range of issues faced when teaching learners from 5 to 18 years of age, there is discussion of bilingual teaching and plurilingual competencies (9.6 and 9.4, respectively) and a summary of the ELT J /I ATE F L Debate (9.2) this year on the feasibility of CL IL , renamed Content and Languagean ILlusion?. Two further papers I found particularly interesting were the Question-Answer-Relationship (QAR) method for developing reading skills (Sanja Wagner 9.7) and Maureen Rajuans case on raising cultural awareness and positive attitudes across the JewishArab divide (9.9). The lengthier Section 10, Teaching with technology, highlights not only the what but also the how of some current teaching contexts (Nicky Hockly 10.1). Josena C. Santanas paper (10.6) illustrates why two-language Skype communication between students in Guadalajara, Mexico and the United States promoted considerably more engagement than encouraging the Mexicans to use technology for learning vocabulary or developing a podcast, again proving the need for real communication. Such a section would obviously be incomplete without focus on Twitter (Graham Stanley 10.9) and Virtual Learning Environments (Joe Pereira 10.8); other papers lend support for how to set up e-learning environments (Richard Pinner 10.3; Kalyan Chattopadhyay 10.4). In Testing, feedback and evaluation, Dawn Rogier (11.2) highlights teachers lack of skills in assessment and advocates what needs working on to integrate assessment into course delivery. Melanie Shaul (11.3) discusses testing that draws both on classroom work and students cultural backgrounds for more efcient, improved results. Subsequent papers detail assessing speaking and dealing with errors, and Tilly Harrison (11.9) evaluates online peer reviewing. The symposium paper (11.7) on responding to students writing looks at four action research studies, one of particular interest on using audio les, an issue taken up by Jane Nolan and Elizabeth Poynter (11.8).
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Finally, Section 12, Stories for all ages, opens with a symposium paper on using narratives in ELT. As the index illustrates, stories pervade language teaching, but specically here the reader nds both classroom approaches with stories, such as Hitomi Masuharas E EE E : Engage, Express, Enjoy, and be Empowered, as well as ways of incorporating stories into the syllabus, involving learners stories, and indeed using the class itself as a story (Alan Maley, Symposium paper 12.1). Subsequent papers look at using visuals with younger learners (Symposium paper 12.2; Hege Emma Rimmereide 12.3), students collaborating on story projects (Sharon Ahlquist 12.4), and using literature for developing sociocultural competency (Jennifer Schumm Fauster 12.5). A wholly professional publication, the range of topics covered in this volume accurately reects the wide variety of our teaching contexts. Overtly academic papers are balanced by many practical sessions. The Contents pages show at a glance what the reader can expect, and the comprehensive indices of both author and topic further facilitate this. The title of each paper, its introduction, andin most casesa clear conclusion, enable efcient reading. This could be down to the guidelines Tania Pattison provides online (Pattison 2011), especially her R IC H acronym (relevant, interesting, coherent, and a hot topic). Email addresses are given, and some online links. Each paper is referenced, although a bibliography straddling three pages seems excessive (2.1), and could have excluded another paper. The topic index includes most crossreferences, but not all. Could perhaps a tag or label system, common to blogs, be used in future to enhance referencing? With the poster presentations, I was disappointed not knowing in advance what to expect when reading these summaries. Some are, in effect, research papers (5.5, 6.2) and lack much sense of reader interaction. Maybe illustrations of posters would help here. Sent to nearly 4,000 I ATE F L members globally, Harrogate Conference Selections will have a wide audience. For some, seeing their name in print for the rst time is a signicant milestone; others may look for the talks they missed; those further aeld could usefully use one or more sections for in-service teacher development discussions. However, not merely a snapshot of the breadth of issues currently under discussion, Harrogate Conference Selections undoubtedly illustrates the treasures such a conference affords, and as such, is an enormous credit to the industry.
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Reference Pattison, T. 2011. How to Write Successfully for IAT EF L Conference Selections. Available at http:// iate.britishcouncil.org/2011/sessions/2011-04-19/ how-write-successfully-iate-conference-selections (accessed on 11 September 2011). The reviewer Rachel Appleby works at ELT E University in Budapest, Hungary, teaching methodology, language, cultural studies, and communication skills. She is also a freelance Business English teacher/ teacher trainer. She is a C ELTA trainer and writes Business English teaching materials. She is co-author of International Express Upper Intermediate (third edition, in press) and the Business one:one series (advanced, intermediate+, pre-intermediate), all Oxford University Press. She is also co-author of The Business Advanced (Macmillan). Rachel has an MSc in TE FL from Aston University and has also taught English in the UK, Spain, Portugal, and Slovakia for International House and the British Council. Email: rachelappleby@mail.datanet.hu doi:10.1093/elt/ccr080

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Shakespeare on Toast B. Crystal Icon Books 2008, 263 pp., 7.99 isbn 978 184 83 105 44

Shakespeare on Toast sits happily with other popular readings based on the bard, namely, Brysons (2007) Shakespeare and Dromgooles (2007) Will & Me. Whereas Dromgoole playfully recounts the role Shakespeares drama had on his life and understanding of the world, Crystal intends to show his readers how to make Shakespeare their own. He gives them the linguistic tools for decoding the dramatists meaning making methods, constantly asserting that we must see the plays as dramatic speech. They should be watched not read. Thus Crystal helps us to appreciate Shakespearean drama in three main ways: as language in action, as stagecraft, and thirdly as a window into the entertainment industry of London in the reigns of Elizabeth 1 and James 1. His book introduces readers to Shakespeares language and playwriting techniques, from Ben Crystals own perspective as an actor. Crystal outlines the historical background underlying the original composition process of the play scripts. He discusses Shakespeares drama within the context in which he wrote, directed, and acted in his own plays. Written in a colloquial style, this book demysties Shakespeare as an icon of high culture. Shakespeare on Toast can be dipped in and out of in various contexts, from the interval of a play to an open-air tourist bus. Or an English teacher could consult it to nd ways of linking Shakespeare to our contemporary brand of popular culture (see Taylor 1999). There are examples of lexical false friends (pp. 968) and original Shakespearean pronunciation (p. 79): gurative expressions (p. 31) that the bard rst coined and which have now become part of the currency of everyday English. The book is organized into ve separate chapters or acts. Each act has a different number of scenes, for example, Act 1, Scene 7 is entitled A soap opera set. The contents page contains the titles for the ve acts, but it would have been helpful if the titles of scenes had also been listed. There are also fact le boxes within each of the ve acts, but again a labelled list of all gures or diagrams would have been welcome. There is no bibliography and no footnotes. Pages 2545 recommend nine books and two websites, including the online edition of the rst comprehensive collection of all Shakespeares plays, The First Folio (1623). A list of all the printed and media
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sources that Crystal used to compile the book would be useful, especially since his references to movies (Star Trek, Dr Who 2007, Shakespeare in Love) whet our appetite to reconsider these appropriations in the light of how Shakespeares plays are reconceived by contemporary audiences own cultural predilections. In this regard, Crystals examples of intertextual lms, hip hop songs, and soap operas support Hawkes (1992) aphorism: its not what Shakespeare means but what we mean by Shakespeare. The book assumes a young adult readership relatively unfamiliar with Shakespearean dramas universal concepts: love, loss, betrayal, death, regeneration, and the making and breaking of public and personal power. It focuses on Shakespeares dramatic techniques in extracts from three plays: Macbeth, King Lear, and Titus Andronicus. Sample speeches and scenes are used to illustrate principles of iambic pentameter, code-switching, and punctuation changes that have been imposed on the dramatic scripts by editors of modern day editions, for example Penguin. Crystal explains how the syntactic, visual, and auditory elements of Shakespeares language all cohere to create dramatic speech. We need to make inferences about the arrangement of images, sound patterns, and the juxtaposition of owing and broken lines. Since theatre celebrates language as action, Shakespeares original actors were directed by the cues incorporated into his written speech. An actor knows when to look surprised, how to use his hands or his eyes if he decodes the verbal allusions to parts of the body or the metaphors that Shakespeare embedded in the lines. According to Crystal, sudden changes in metre, syntax, and modes of address are the methods Shakespeare used to convey turning points in characters attitudes, relationships, and moods. Crystal provides reasons for Shakespeares use of code-switching within dialogues and scenes; he explores why certain characters switch from addressing each other using the more intimate thou form to using you, as in the case of the Macbeth couples dialogue, immediately after husband and wife have murdered King Duncan together. Furthermore, the author explains how King Lear and Macbeth conate verse and prose. He draws on very well-chosen citations to examine why Shakespeare made characters switch from expressing themselves in prose to verse, in the middle of a dialogue, as in a scene from King Lear where Kent, who is disguised as a vagrant, mocks the intellectual paucity of his interviewer, the Duke of Cornwall (pp. 889) by switching from prose to verse.
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Four out of the approximately 39 plays were completely written in verse. Shakespeares fusion of poetry and prose in King Lear and Macbeth indicates his mature experimentation with traditional dramatic genres and classical playwriting conventions. Interestingly, Crystal comments (p. 81) that people in Shakespeares England were not really differentiated by accents. Being able to think and communicate in verse was the benchmark of intellectual prowess and educational status. In his view, Shakespeare may have used different registers and verse to indicate social distinctions between characters, particularly for ironic effect, when they have tried to conceal this information from other characters by disguising themselves. Revealing key ways in which Shakespeares language works on stage, Crystal reminds us that if we take away the poetry, we are just left with the story (p. 86). We not only lose some of the imaginative magic, we lose ironic possibilities and interpretive freedom. Shakespeare wrote in early modern English; so Crystal afrms that his range of vocabulary is not necessarily a stumbling block for our contemporary comprehension. In fact, he asserts (p. 86) that only about ve per cent of the lexis is obsolete today. Rather, the difcultly lies more in our understanding of the plays as texts of their time and in translating all their allusions to stories, politics, and current topics that Shakespeares rst audiences would have relished (see Bullough 1957; Danson 2000; Egan 2007). His plays were at the centre of a statecontrolled communications or media system. In Shakespeares lifetime (15641616), England was governed by the absolute religious monarchies of Queen Elizabeth I and then the Scottish successor to the crown, James 1 (Gurr 2004). Consequently, Crystal regularly gives us props or some background knowledge to help us understand how some of the bards theatrical productions, particularly Macbeth (1606), were rst presented to King James 1 as larger metaphors of social instability and religious conicts in early seventeenth century England. Thus, the historical information enables Crystals readers to see Shakespeares plays from the point of view of the audiences for whom they were rst written and within the subversive political subtext of the playwrights day. One of the strongest sections of the book is where Crystal deconstructs the metrical system in samples of Shakespeares poetry and plays. We are led to see how Shakespeare exploited the communicative possibilities of iambic pentameter. This metrical system of ve alternating unstressed and stressed sounds in the same line (for example Shall I compare
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thee to a summers day?) complements English as a stress-timed language. The metre is the most authentic form of punctuation that we nd in Shakespearean drama. He further discusses how Shakespeares metrical system functioned as a form of stage instructions for actors such as John Heminges and Henry Condell, who later edited the 1623 posthumous edition of 36 plays. Shakespeares creative exploitation of iambic pentameter is testimony to his mastery of the rhythms of natural English speech. This sound system echoes the cadences of English as a stresstimed language. In sooth, or like a linguistic sleuth, Crystal teaches us how to read the lines with our ears and voices. Moreover, his way of decoding the metre is transferable to all of Shakespeares other plays and poems. Much of the joy of this book is that its author explains key technical details about the language and craftsmanship of Shakespeare in a very transparent and fun way. Similarly, Crystal alludes to the murder scene of King Duncan in Macbeth to show how Shakespeare adapted classical rhetorical techniques, such as stichomythia, where players engage in a sort of verbal ping pong to nish each others lines or thought process in the course of a dialogue. Stichomythia is especially powerful in situations where the tension or conict between two characters, for example Lord and Lady Macbeth, reaches a crescendo. In sum, Shakespeare used metre to control the energy, intonation, and pace of his writing. A metrical diagram (p. 217) is even provided to underscore how the central murder scene in Macbeth would have been delivered by actors in 1606. There is also an interesting exercise (pp. 2039) where Crystal uses extracts from two different editions of Macbeth to show variations in the textual layout and the contrasting interpretive implications of the metre as a result. According to Crystal, Shakespeare wrote at a time when most of his plays were not edited as coherent complete play scripts. In fact, only 18 were printed in Quarto form during his lifetime. Neither had English punctuation evolved as an element of written grammar and as a system for clarifying meaning in written texts. Crystal thus discusses liberties that editors and publishers have taken in inserting punctuation symbols into Shakespeares speeches. To examine this further, he provides an incisive comparative task based on a core speech from Titus Andronicus (5.1.2039) as in the 1623 Folio, with the same speech, printed in a Penguin edition (pp. 1723).
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If we analyse a shorter version of this speech, below, we see how spelling and punctuation modications change the implications of the Goths speech. We note how the contrasting use of commas, capital letters, a question mark, and an exclamation mark in each of these quotations suggest different editors interpretations of Shakespeares dramatic poetry: The 1623 Folio edition (as cited by Crystal p. 173) Peace Tawny slaue, halfe me, and halfe thy Dam, Did not thy Hue bewray whose brat thou art? Had nature lent thee, but thy Mothers looke, Villaine thou mightst haue bene an Emperour. (Titus Andronicus:V. i. 2932) Compare the Penguin edition (as cited in Crystal p. 172) Peace, tawny slave, half me and half thy dam! Did not thy hue bewray whose brat thou art, Had nature lent thee but thy mothers look, Villain, thou mightst have been an emperor. (Titus Andronicus:V. i. 2932) Carefully chosen extracts and interesting exercises such as these encourage critical readings of the characters roles, for example the Goth in this play. Furthermore, for Crystal, they are another way of indicating how changing literacy practices, such as the spread of reading, have affected the development of modern English since the time Titus Andronicus was rst conceived in the late sixteenth century. Despite Crystals disclaimer (p. 1) that his book is not intended to be a scholarly work, there are times when some of its generalizations are hard to swallow. It guesses that there are 39 plays and 154 sonnets written by someone called Shakespeare (p. 16). There is no account of the sources of the plays and no consideration of some of the complex issues of authorship, for example the likelihood that Measure for Measure was co-authored by Thomas Middleton (cf. p. 248). Crystal assumes that all Shakespearean drama is artfully shaped so that the form and function of the lines complement each other. While this is easy to accept in his careful elucidation of Shakespeares metrical choices, it is not necessarily true that the quality of the writing is sustained in complete play scripts. We have only got to think of the high and low points in The Merchant of Venice or how the three different versions of Hamlet (pp. 267) have created some arbitrary and not always aesthetically pleasing

effects. Even though Crystal discusses the way the plays often evolved from Quarto and prompt books, he overlooks the impact of collaborative and process-oriented theatrical writing. The latter has given rise to much of what we have inherited in the 1623 edited collection of Shakespeares plays. No matter how complicated, no matter how ostensibly random, how annoying, boring or just plain bad a scene or line seems to be, there is always a reason for it being there. You have to nd out what it is. (p. 246) Given what Crystal (pp. 223) has said earlier about how the plays evolved into print and posterity, this assertion is hard to digest. To conclude, this book is a very readable overview of Shakespeares writing style and cultural preoccupations. Crystal makes Shakespeares language and theatrical world more intellectually accessible to the popular reader. His book explores how Elizabethan and then Jacobean audiences would have engaged with the rst rudimentary play scripts. But what a book like this cannot really address is whether the meanings of these plays reside in Shakespeares interpretation of other readings. In other words, the book does not cover how Shakespeare reinvented his own extensive reading diet. Nor does it consider his voracious appetite for re-imagining narrative, poetic, and classical sources. None the less, by making analogies between todays forms of popular entertainment and the original social purpose of Shakespeares drama, Crystal suggests how the meanings of Shakespeares works will always reside in their contemporary readerships or audiences. In a light-hearted, pedagogical manner (p. 32), he feeds us with information about the social and commercial inuences underlying the inception and reception of Shakespearean drama. Ultimately, the meanings of the play scripts may lie in the further purpose to which they are put, such as Crystals extraction of core Shakespearean characteristics into an eclectic bardic recipe. Shakespeare on Toast makes consumers hungry for more of the plays and more details about them, though this book doth seek to satisfy. References Bullough, G. (ed.). 1957. Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare. Volume VI I . London: Routledge. Bryson, B. 2007. Shakespeare. London: Harper Press. Danson, L. 2000. Shakespeares Dramatic Genres. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dromgoole, D. 2007. Will & Me. London: Penguin.
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Egan, G. 2007. Shakespeare. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Gurr, A. 2004. Playgoing in Shakespeares London. (Third edition.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hawkes, T. 1992. Meaning by Shakespeare. London: Routledge. Taylor, G. 1999. Afterword: the incredible shrinking bard in C. Desmet and R. Sawyer (eds.). Shakespeare and Appropriation. London: Routledge. The reviewer Stella Smyth has taught literature in universities in Ireland, England, China, Romania, Japan, and Bhutan. Her current research interests include all things of Shakespeare, and ways of integrating interdisciplinary methodologies in the eld of teaching E AP to international students taking courses in the English Language Teaching Unit, University of Leicester. Email: sks6@le.ac.uk doi:10.1093/elt/ccr074

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Provoking Thought: Memory and Thinking in E LT H. Houston BookSurge Publishing 2009, 222 pp., 10.29 isbn 978 1 4392 5119 7

Most people get excited when they get or buy a new book. All English teachers get excited when they buy or get a new resource book. A new resource book means new ideas: sometimes brand new, sometimes ideas once used but forgotten. Most often it means ideas that could not necessarily be exploited as presented in the book, but something that could be developed, adapted, downgraded (made easier), or upgraded (made more challenging) for a particular classroom. The book under review is no exception but at the same time, it is one. This resource book aims at encouraging students, motivating them, developing their academic skills, and creating a student-centred atmosphere in the classroom. On the one hand, it is very student centred, on the other hand very teacher friendly because in the Preparation section of the teachers notes, the most common note is Preparation: none. All the activities in the resource book are integrated skills activities that develop a number of skills (for example reading, listening, and speaking) within one activity. And this is something that teachers do appreciate. The book is all about ideas that require no or limited resources and no special preparation for the activity. In this way, teachers can get ideas from the book to complement the textbook they use daily, ideas that can be used to accelerate learning and make routine classroom activities more enjoyable and more participatory. The book consists of an introduction and ve chapters. In the Introduction, the author revisits the updated version of Blooms taxonomy and stresses the importance of developing thinking skills in all subjects including language lessons. The author reminds teachers that in order to be uent in language, students need more than just words and grammar, they need thoughts to express. He offers teaching tips for using thinking as a resource and for using the activities in the book, together with a list of error correction techniques teachers can choose from. Educational reforms in a number of countries (including Estonia) stress the importance of developing critical and creative thinking. This could be done by using appropriate techniques and activities in the lessons. And it is exactly what the book under review provides. The rst chapter expands on the topic of thinking. It provides 19 different activities as warmers,
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middlers, or lesson enders. In the introduction to the chapter, the author gives a brief overview of thinking styles and the concept of reective teaching. One of the activities that I will denitely start using is a warmer (Thought of the day) that encourages teachers to make use of quotes by famous people on a variety of topics, for example thinking about and discussing the quote with the students. Other activities that looked intriguing (as well as eye-opening) were Hindrances to thinking, which discusses six habits that hinder thinking and Creative and critical thinking, which discusses the essence and differences between them. The last two activities mentioned can be used with advanced adult students as well as in E SP classes. The activities are presented with a step-by-step procedure, suggestions for variations, and the chapter ends with further reading recommendations. The second chapter is dedicated to the topic of memory. The author briey describes the types of memory, outlines ten effects that could accelerate language learning, and provides a list of tips that help to remember vocabulary. The introductory part is good reading right before the new school year to recall and remember the theory that underpins practical activity. There are 22 versatile activities from mnemonic ones to learning to learn ones in this chapter. I am personally very interested in the topic of memory and try to nd ideas and activities that support learning and remembering and I got a number of useful activities that help to enhance learning names, new words, phrases, etc. The activities in this chapter provide students with study skills such as classic memory techniques, sensememoryfantasy technique, invite students to share their learning techniques, and offer solutions to common memory problems. The chapter ends with an interview with Marilee Sprenger (an author of books on memory and learning, see Sprenger 2007) that expands on the topic of memory further. The third chapter is related to the topic of creativity. The introduction outlines the basics of brainstorming and offers a wide range of quick brainstorming, problem-solving brainstorming, and mini-project brainstorming techniques. The author provides a short list of examples in each category and teachers can do some brainstorming in order to extend the list. Most of the activities in this chapter will work in classes where the language level of students is quite advanced, though there are some ideas that could be adapted for lower-level language students. The majority of activities in this chapter help students to come up with solutions for different problems they

face or might encounter in their future life. The last activity, 10 ways to boost your creativity, includes reading on the same topic. The chapter ends with an interview with Starko (2009) who has written Creativity in the Classroom, which as its name implies is a book about fostering creativity in the classroom. The fourth chapter focuses on critical thinking. The author believes that a critical thinking approach can add a new layer to language learning and teaching. The rst ve activities are follow-up activities to the brainstorming activities of the previous chapter. These can make good bridging activities from one lesson to another where the teacher can do a brainstorming activity in the end of one lesson and start the next lesson with a critical thinking activity that uses the material developed in the brainstorming activity. Other activities help the students to learn to distinguish facts and opinions, explore their values and beliefs, become better at stating and supporting their opinions on different topics or recognizing weasel words (misleading words and expressions often used by advertisers). Most of the activities in this chapter are meant for adult learners with quite a good command of the target language. I will denitely use them with my university students as well as in teacher training. The chapter ends with an interview with Ruggiero (2004) who is an expert on critical thinking. The last chapter of the book consists of 16 activities and is divided into three sections: working with topics and texts, generating ideas, and getting feedback. The rst section introduces six ways of graphic organization. In language classrooms, students most often operate with linear texts although graphic organizers can help people learn quicker and organize their ideas better. Visual learners often both organize and store information in the form of pictures, charts, graphs, etc. The section reintroduces the Venn diagram, the K W H L technique, n n n n K what we already know W what we would like to know H how we can learn more L what we learnt

them together. As a result, single words are put into context. The last section of this chapter is dedicated to the ways of getting constructive feedback from the students. The seven activities provided in this section will teach students how to give feedback and will denitely provide the teacher with valuable information that could be used for developing the course. One of the valuable assets of the book is the Further Reading and Recommended Websites sections. The Index at the back of the book divides the activities into 11 categories according to the technique (for example guessing, role play, discussion, etc.), function in the lesson (warmers, getting to know each other), learning style (kinaesthetic, reading), or resource (internet/computer). The book was so inspiring that I decided to share some of its ideas at the Summer Seminar of the Estonian Association of Teachers of English in August 2011. The title of the workshop was You A R E creative! No excuses! More than 100 teachers participated in this workshop. One of the activities we discussed is Thought of the day which encourages teachers to use a quote for sharing opinions and interpretations in the beginning of the lesson. Teachers willingly shared their own favourite quotes and together we compiled a list of quotes to take with us. Another activity that teachers decided to store in their repertoire was Guessing words. The game could be played in teams and you need a dice and index cards with words to play the game. Every number on the dice corresponds to a certain action (1: mime the word, 2: translate the word, 3: make a sentence, 4: draw a picture, 5: make a collocation, 6: give a denition, with 3 and 5 one has to use a word blank instead of the word on the index card) and teams take turns to roll the dice, pick a word from a pile, do what the number suggests, and let the team guess the word. Although the workshop was only an hour and half long and I managed to share only a tenth of the ideas and activities, one participant commented that she got ideas for the whole semester from it. And last but not least, I have been taught not to judge the book by its cover. However, I have to confess that I did so with this one. The title was intriguing and the picture on the cover of an old blackboard with a speech bubble inspiring. The resource book itself is full of inspiring ideas and easy-to-use materials. In this particular case, the cover and the contents complement each other. Provoking Thought is an exceptional resource book
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timelines, and the six-question (who, what, when, where, why, and how) technique that is used in journalism to develop a story. The activities in the second section of this chapter offer three ideas that promote generating ideas. One is Idea Constellation, which starts off as a regular mindmap brainstorming activity, whereas the second step in the procedure is a pair/group work activity where students expand words into phrases. Finally, the students develop sentences and paragraphs from phrases and edit
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because the activities in the book enhance learning, learning how to learn, learning how to teach, and teaching. References Ruggiero, V. R. 2004. Beyond Feelings. New York, NY: McGraw Hill. Starko, A. 2009. Creativity in the Classroom. New York, NY: Routledge. Sprenger, M. 2007. Memory 101 for Educators. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. The reviewer rtner has been a language teacher in Estonia Piret Ka for 27 years and has taught students of all ages. She has also taught E S P in a vocational school. She has been teaching methodology of teaching English and S L A since 1996 at the University of Tartu. At present, she is working at the University of Tartu as a lecturer delivering pre- and in-service training seminars for teachers of English, other foreign languages, and Estonian as an L2. She has published four methodology booklets on developing the four skills, several articles in Open, the journal of the Estonian Association of Teachers of English, and reviews of textbooks and resource materials. Email: piret.kartner@ut.ee doi:10.1093/elt/ccr071

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Towards Multilingual Education: Basque Educational Research from an International Perspective J. Cenoz Multilingual Matters 2009, 288 pp., 79.95 isbn 978 1 8476 9193 4

Any book that consists principally of a highly detailed and specic case study will determine its own level of interest and relevance on how well it meets certain criteria. For its specialist context, does it present a sufciently full and critical picture for other experts and aspiring researchers to feel condence in its authority? For those who study parallel contexts, does it offer sufcient generalizability to contribute to their research programmes, either in terms of content or methodology? For the wider community in dissimilar contexts, does it propose routes to knowledge or practice that could generate new research directions or perspectives? A glance at the 11 chapter headings of this substantial book suggests immediately that it has strong potential as regards the rst two of those criteria. The review will evaluate this premise and also explore the books wider contribution. The Basque Autonomous Community (BAC ) of Spain is a strongly bilingual context with a national language that is unrelated to the others spoken nearby and to its bilingual partner language, Castilian Spanish. In this sense, it is different even from Catalunya where the national language is linguistically closely related to its bilingual partner language. In turn, both these are different from Welsh or Maltese where the bilingual language is English, the recognized major lingua franca of Europe. While perhaps not completely unique in the world, Basque speakers have a clearly established additional need for uency in two other languages, Spanish and English, even before the case for others such as French is made. Therefore, the title of the book is chosen deliberately, as it will present the issues and suggest pathways to manage three languages for all as a minimum entitlement. The very early chapters set out to be international in their scope while the middle and later chapters have more material specic to the context. There is a very clear attempt in the rst 50 pages to make the approach as generalizable as possible. We read a brief account of selected multilingual contexts around the world and a rationale, based on the spread of English and the regrowth of several minority languages, for a policy in favour of multilingualism. Usefully, also in the rst chapter, the theme of CL IL is briey
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introduced, which brings to the surface at an early stage the learning language/using language contrast highlighted by Mohan (1986). The nature of multilingual education is then explored more theoretically in the second chapter where a typology is approached, but through a structure called continua (building on the work of Hornberger 2003, in biliteracy) where different aspects of the school and its provision are each located on a continuum line. The aim of this is to show that multilingual education can and will vary according to context but that this approach is intended to resist hard denitions which obscure rather than enlighten. Models from around the world are compared, involving different combinations of languages that are more or less closely related and in different power hierarchies. At this stage, the discussion is centred on policy rather than pedagogy, although the valuable point is made that as part of one continuum the use of several languages of instruction is contrasted with the teaching of more than one language. Clearly, multilingual education in the current age should be concerned with learning content in more than one language and that case is explored here along with others. The last section of Chapter 2 applies the continua to the Basque context and this bridges into a focus on the case for its own sake alongside a focus on the case as a case for comparison with elsewhere. At this point the discussion explores this through listing a set of variations on the three ofcial models of language of instruction in the B AC . The remainder of the book can be seen as three sections: Chapters 3 and 4 present a focus on learning through Basque and Spanish and are followed by three chapters that address the role of English as a language of instruction, rst descriptively, then as in research outcomes, and nally from the perspectives that in the BAC bilinguals are learning a third language. The last section deals with disparate themes of identities and attitudes, the age factor, and university-level learning before a nal short concluding chapter closes the book. The pattern of these chapters now tends towards a short opening section on the international context of the chapter theme followed by a more detailed exploration of that theme in the B AC . The intention is clearly to allow detailed analysis of the case while setting it into the research context in a more global sense. This is not unsuccessful, although given the number of angles investigated (and therefore the relative brevity of each individual chapter) it has required selectivity in the referencing and especially in the development of the ideas noted. The presentation is extremely clear, however, with much in the form of
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tabular data or explanation together with short paragraphing and clearly structured and headed sections. A very successful chapter using this model is Chapter 7 (The inuence of bilingualism on L3), which is clearly at the heart of the book, both in a physical and thematic sense. It both seeks to give detailed new data on its own context and also to be representative of all communities where an additional language (very often English) is being learnt within an established bilingual context. The initial review brings in brief mention of a wide range of research from designated bilingual programmes and in general education programmes across Europe. It then presents in more detail data from seven studies in the B AC , which looked at different aspects of inuence on L3. The clear data tables and the direct statement of ndings make this a very efcient route to establish what there is to nd out, as well as a checklist of potential parallel studies for other contexts. This chapter, like the others, ends with a concluding summary and a set of key points in a box for maximum clarity. Chapters 8 and 9 wisely centre heavily on research ndings in the BAC ; these topics (Identities and attitudes and the Age factor) are too huge to attempt a brief condensed summary of more international research (although key gures are referenced). Both are slightly inconclusive in the way that all research in these two areas must be. Chapter 10 is an important section. More and more now university courses are delivered in English around the world, with a greater or lesser attention to the pedagogy of such teaching or to the needs of the students. This chapter takes a close look at the structure of Higher Education (HE) teaching in Basque, showing what is possible and what might be some pitfalls. In this way, it is a challenge to the sweep of English into minority language HE communities and as a case offers an exemplar of how this can link back into the multilingual structure in schools. The concluding chapter rightly indicates that there is a dearth of more ethnographic research, looking closely at classrooms in action and that this should be the direction for the future. It disappoints slightly (from a C L I L perspective) that it does not highlight here, as it has hinted earlier, that the important role of learning different subjects in different languages should be a high-prole focus. But the book has already proved itself valuable by this stage in the reading and such a detailed complex theme can certainly not be summarized briey. This is an important contribution to an important subject in education globally. The detail both in terms
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of the data offered and in the related discussions makes it a very comprehensive case study that has clear relevance both in the BAC and in parallel communities. Much can be gained by academics and professionals from the careful and accessible analysis of this context. And it does make its case for wider generalizability; its central message, that we need to become multilingual but not by neglecting any of our languages, is key. It is also clear from the book that how we do this is a crucial ongoing discussion.

References Hornberger, N. H. (ed.). 2003. Continua of Biliteracy: An Ecological Framework for Educational Policy, Research and Practice in Multilingual Settings. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Mohan, B. 1986. Language and Content. Boston, MA: Addison Wesley. The reviewer Philip Hood has worked for 35 years in the eld of language learning and related research. He has specialized in C L I L for over ten years, developed the CLIL courses at the University of Nottingham with Do Coyle, and has had a close relationship with the development of C L I L in Catalunya. He is co-author of Content and Language Integrated Learning (Cambridge University Press 2010) and Modern Languages in the Primary School (Sage 2009). Email: philip.hood@nottingham.ac.uk doi:10.1093/elt/ccr081

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Service, Satisfaction and Climate: Perspectives on Management in English Language Teaching J. Walker Emerald 2010, 271 pp., 67.95 isbn 978 1 84950 996 1

Ask E LT practitioners for the most frequent collocation of the word management and they might answer classroom management. While it is true that organizing students during lessons is probably the biggest concern for teachers, having practised classroom discipline for many years, some may later nd themselves interested in another type of management. If so, they have a model in John Walker who started his career as an English language teacher, then did some managing without qualications, next studied management formally, and now teaches management studies at the Business School of Massey University, New Zealand. Perhaps, this review should start with a disclaimer that I have never managed an ELT C (English language teaching centre), although many of their teachers have been students in courses I have taught. The book is based on data collected from commercial- and university-based institutions in 40% of the total E LT C s identied in New Zealand at the time of the study (p. 117) and the results are presented in measured academic language that makes serious points while avoiding generalizations. The three chapters of Part 1 summarize the literature on service aspects in general and of E LT service in particular. From time to time, Walker acknowledges that teachers are not always happy with management terms such as service providers. Yet in summarizing their roles as published within the profession, he makes the case that E LT writers . . . have used virtually identical terminology to describe some of the key roles of ESL teachers (p. 15). Details follow of communicative, interpersonal, and other skills which are part of professional discussions. Following this rst chapter about E LT as a service, the second chapter looks at student satisfaction with this service. Readers are introduced to the literature on measuring the satisfaction level of students/clients. (Although he uses the term client in the discussions, the author stops short of using it in his headings.) Service climate is dealt with in Chapter 3. A distinction is made here between the words culture and climate which have, wrongly it seems, often been used synonymously. Walker also touches on the interesting point that workplaces have subgroups among their staff and that where one group is outnumbered, there may be signicantly different perceptions of . . . the
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work climate (p. 47). This gure is supported by reference to a New Zealand study in which females made up 87 per cent of one sector of the E LT workforce. The two chapters of Part 2 turn to student perceptions. Chapter 4 reports what they think about the service they receive, including attributes they would like to see in their teachers. The top rankings of professionalism and effectiveness in the classroom were not surprising, but it was interesting to see that correcting students spoken errors was lowest equal. My surprise was based on the impression that students are far more anxious than are their teachers to have this correction. Chapter 5 moves from the classroom to the wider service area including homestays, facilities, and activities. Not surprisingly, experiences varied considerably. The four chapters of Part 3 deal with the perceptions of ELT providers, starting with Chapter 6, which is based on a report rst published in The TE SO LAN Z Journal (see Walker 2000). Six themes emerged in the interviews, one being the environment. It must be encouraging for the management of a school to read the statement that staff enjoy working together (p. 103), but more challenging to hear concerns such as the feeling of compromise mentioned by one respondent who believed that students [who] are fee paying . . . perceive they have the right to dictate what they want (p. 106). Chapter 7 discusses service climate, concluding that there is a generally positive perception (p. 133) of this among faculty and administrative staff. More tellingly, Chapter 8 compares the different perceptions of staff and students about quality in what has been called the task of delightingrather than merely satisfying (p. 143) the students without whom there would be no industry. The results were ambiguous, with ratings ranging from worse to better in the subcategories. As just one example of the detail pursued, the research even investigated whether length of teaching service affected perceptions. It did. Chapter 9, tellingly titled Finding an identity, brings the view of the tertiary manager, based on interviews conducted in ten tertiary institutions of various types. Walker notes that many of these managers actually lack qualications in the management eld. However, ELT C s were not alone in this respect. The same picture emerged in an earlier survey of managers in the top 200 New Zealand companies (p. 161). Finally, in Part 4, Chapters 10, 11, and 12 discuss the studys applications and issues, one chapter each for service operation, research, and managers. Chapter 10s ideas are presented in a mixture of text and gures and include options, two being the chance to
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learn English easily through fun and adventure, and helping students achieve their dream of entry to an English-medium university (p. 184). A range of staff will be needed, the former calling for young friendly teachers (p. 183) and the latter for staff specializing in Academic English, including examination preparation. Chapter 11, Researching ELT management, includes an invitation to help redress the lack of empirical research on this subject. For anyone wanting to replicate this study, Walkers detailed discussion of his methods could provide guidance. Focus groups were used for faculty, administrative staff, and students, with additional questionnaires (provided in the 15 pages of appendices) for students. The latter were translated into the languages of the major ELT C student groups in New Zealand at the time (p. 70). The result is a wealth of statistical and descriptive data on macro and micro issues, all presented in an academic style that reects its research base. By the time readers arrive at the last chapter, Issues and implications for managers, they will probably have ideas of their own about what these might be and can compare their thinking with Walkers eight pages of clearly written summary. Some points that stood out for me were the challenge of the educational/commercial mix and the competitive environment versus the collegiality that must exist between teachers who belong to the same professional organizations. Another complex challenge is choosing and monitoring homestay environments. In publishing a study from one small country, Emerald is suggesting that the book has wider implications. The attractive, thoughtful volume asks and answers pertinent questions, although the lack of an index means that readers need to identify areas of interest via the table of contents alone. What will really count is the use made of this material by the target groups. One E LT C manager has already asked to read the book, based on a discussion about its contents. Perhaps things have changed since the rst interviews in 1998. Do more ELT C managers now hold management qualications? Have management courses been included in E LT training programmes? As well as its interest to the huge E LT industry worldwide, the messages for teachers are extensive and could well nd their way on to the agenda of staff meetings. According to the author, the rst empirical research into E LT management was only in 1981 (p. 157). Interest grew by 1994 Barlow (1994) was asking the question Does E LT management exist?. Nobody reading the present book will doubt the answer to that. Although the material in some chapters has already been published in articles, this volume includes
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information which has not been seen before. That leaves the question of whether research carried out in one country at one time is particular only to that place and time. The extensive international sourcing and referencing of the literature in which his study is set suggests the answer no. Walkers volume is recommended to readers in a wider catchment area. If it also inspires others to replicate the study in their own countries, then the details of the methodology are here as a starting point. References Barlow, R. 1994. Does ELT management exist? ELT Management 14: 15. Walker, J. 2000. Staff perceptions of the service dimension in TE SOL. The T ES OL ANZ Journal 8: 3955. The reviewer Marilyn Lewis is an Honorary Research Fellow at The University of Auckland. Her retirement projects include organizing language teacher education workshops in South East Asia. In New Zealand, she does some writing and book reviewing as well as working from time to time with the volunteer English Language Partners who offer their time to refugees and other immigrants. Email: mn.lewis@auckland.ac.nz doi:10.1093/elt/ccr073

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The Language and Intercultural Communication Reader Z. Hua (ed.) Routledge 2011, 434 pp., 25.99 isbn 978 0 415 54913 4

The Language and Intercultural Communication Reader (hereafter The Reader) is a collection of 22 republished articles aimed at advanced undergraduate and beginning postgraduate courses on intercultural communication, language teaching and learning, pragmatics, and other topics related to linguistics. The editors picks range from classics such as Whorf and Scollon and Scollon, to more recent developments in this expanding eld of research. The Reader offers thus a broad-ranging manual of the interconnected areas of language and intercultural communication to students and teachers alike. The volume is organized into six thematic parts dealing with different facets of intercultural communication; each section is preceded by an introduction, in which the editor provides a concise, yet substantial, background to the area taken into consideration, together with a brief outline of the texts included. In the opening introduction, the editor sets the background for each section and illustrates the rationale for the selection of the material in the volume, aimed at covering different theoretical orientations in the discipline, with a balance between the languages and cultures represented, and the classics and contemporary work (p. 8). Part I, Culture, language and thought, presents some of the most inuential theoretical models in the eld, and opens with the well-known 1956 essay by Whorf on the relationship between language and habitual thinking processes; Nisbett (2003) examines cultural differences in cognition, and Samovar, Porter, and Stefani (1998) review fundamental concepts on cultural patterns, namely Hofstedes value dimensions and Halls high- and low-context cultures. The ve articles in Part II, Cultural approaches to discourse and pragmatics: theoretical considerations, deal with cultural differences and language use, providing an account from a theoretical point of view of the most inuential approaches to discourse analysis and pragmatics in intercultural communication. The rst three chapters elaborate on Brown and Levinsons politeness theory and particularly on the notion of face: Scollon and Scollon (2001) redene these concepts from an
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interpersonal communication angle, proposing an alternative to positive versus negative face: involvement versus independence. Gu (1990) and Ide (2005) further develop this notion, the rst illustrating through the Chinese case of limao how politeness is a culture-specic concept, and the second drawing on the ritualistic aspects of language use in Japanese honorics. In Chapter 7, SpencerOatey (2002) relates the notion of face to rapport management, with a framework based on motivational concerns in interactions and on the notions of quality face and social identity face. In the nal chapter of Part II, Goddard and Wierzbicka (2004) widely exemplify their culturally and linguistically neutral framework in cultural scripts expressing cultural norms, values, and practices. The four essays in Part II I , Communication patterns across cultures: empirical explorations, provide an empirical overview as to culturally specic interactional speech acts and communication patterns across a variety of languages. Blum-Kulka and Olshtain (1984) illustrate the Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Pattern (CC S A RP ) project, which investigated requests and apologies as speech acts in eight languages and has constituted a landmark from a methodological as well as a theoretical point of view. In Chapter 10, Katriel (1986) deals with the Israeli culturally specic dugri ritual talk, discussing forms, functions, and cultural implications via an ethnographic approach; Nazzal (2005) in Chapter 11 with the communicativepragmatic functions of Quranic verses in interactions by Muslims; and Sajavaara and Lehtonen (1997) look into the communicative aims of silenceoften represented as a stereotypical national characteristicin Finnish contexts, arguing for the need for common denominators to evaluate culturally context-specic forms of talk and silence. Part IV, Teaching and learning cultural variations of language use, appears particularly interesting in the three different perspectives of language teaching and learning it presents. This area has aroused particular interest in recent years: as the editor points out in the introductory section, intercultural communication often takes place between speakers who use a language other than their native languages (p. 195). The debate over the inclusion of culture in language teaching has seen differentiated issues at stake, among which are the target-culture/native-speaker controversy, the value of an intercultural approach, and the need to include in teaching practices culturally appropriate pragmatic and discourse strategies. In Chapter 13, Holliday (1999) argues for the inclusion in language learning curricula of small
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rather than large cultures, where the latter refer to ethnic, national, or international perspectives, often linked to the notion of (linguistic) imperialism by the Western world, while the former are closely connected to small social groupings and on interaction between several cultures. Kasper and Rose (2002) in Chapter 14 illustrate the main research ndings in the area of second language pragmatics, looking into developmental patterns, as well as commonalities and differences in speech acts, pragmatics, and discourse across learners of different languages such as, besides English, Japanese and Brazilian. The growing body of research into English as a Lingua Franca (E LF ) is signicantly acknowledged in the volume with the inclusion of Mauranens (2006) article in Chapter 15, where repair and clarication strategies in E LF academic interactions to signal and prevent misunderstanding are investigated, stressing the highly cooperative strategies employed in E LF talk. The inclusion of EL F issues in the section on teaching and learning appears signicant, particularly as a central tenet in E LF is the fact that lingua franca speakers are viewed in their role of language users rather than (permanent) learners. The three essays in Part V, Interculturality reconceptualising cultural differences illustrate some recent developments in the analysis of intercultural encounters, which look at cultural differences by problematizing the issue rather than assuming they are a source of misunderstandings in intercultural encounters: sociocultural identities are not xed but multiple and speakers uctuate between them, constructing and negotiating differences according to the context of interaction. Traditional notions of culture and cultural categories are challenged by Sarangi (1994) in Chapter 16 and Nishizaka (1995) in Chapter 17; the rst argues that a unied static notion of culture should be overcome in intercultural studies adopting a more context-set perspective, and the second questions labellingcategorizing practices since supposed cultural differences can only be seen and investigated in actual interactions rather than as preset categories, a view well supported by the data that involve a Japanese and a non-Japanese informant. Higgins (2007) in Chapter 18 investigates how code-switching and other linguistic strategies can be employed in constructing social identity and in-group/member alignment, by drawing on a corpus of interactions among Tanzanian journalists. Part VI, Intercultural communication in a professional context, includes four studies related to a variety of professional, linguistic, and cultural contexts such as the workplace, television
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commercials, management meetings, and service encounters; the articles cover a diversity of national and international contexts. Clyne, Ball, and Neil (1991) in Chapter 19 investigate non-native English speakers turn-taking strategies at a workplace in Australia, and Bargiela-Chiappini and Harris (1996) in Chapter 21 look at native speakers interruptive strategies in British and Italian business management meetings, showing that they have a supportive function. Schmidt, Shimura, Wang, and Jeong (1995) in Chapter 20 investigate the specicities of pragmatic strategies in advertising discourse in the U S A , Japan, rquez China, and South Korea. Chapter 22, by Ma Reiter and Placencia (2004), deals with the language of service encounters in two Spanish-speaking contexts where, despite a shared L1, language use is marked by sociocultural differences. Each chapter concludes with Notes for students and instructors, which include study questions on the material, as well as activities; the latter can be employed in class or in the development of projects by the students. The Further reading in each section is organized by topic and a more comprehensive resource list is provided at the end of the volume, containing key textbooks, book series, and journals. An annotated section is dedicated to relevant websites, electronic mailing lists, and organizations; the last part relates to general, language learner, and lingua franca corpora and includes basic information for all the previously mentioned corpora. A glossary is provided too. Particularly valuable is the concluding chapter, in which the editor gives a synoptic but clear and complete overview of methodological issues with the illustration of research designs and data collection techniques in language and intercultural communication research, providing exemplications from the articles in The Reader ; this section thus constitutes a very useful set of guidelines for students research projects. The eld of research into language and intercultural communication has signicantly expanded in recent decades, spanning diverse areas and domains of enquiry. The selection in The Language and Intercultural Communication Reader includes major contributions in research on intercultural communication, featuring both theoretical and empirical articles tackling a diversity of key topics. Possible further interesting areas to be covered in a new edition of The Reader could include those of language, (inter)culture, and identity, as well as an expansion of the section related to the increasingly researched eld of language learning and teaching, particularly from a globalized perspective.
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The contributions are taken from a range of sources and cover several contexts and methods, as well as developments in time and latest research issues. Care has also been taken not to narrow the selection to specic (geographical) settings and languages, providing exemplications from different areas. The Reader thus represents a valuable overview of the eld and an essential tool particularly in advanced undergraduate and postgraduate courses, which include perspectives on intercultural communication. The reviewer Paola Vettorel is a Researcher and Assistant Professor in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Faculty of Foreign Languages, University of Verona. She has worked as an EF L teacher and teacher trainer, and at the Language Centre of Verona University teaching Italian L2 and as a Language Consultant. She has presented papers in various international conferences and her main research interests include English as a Lingua Franca, its implications for the language classroom, and Intercultural Communicative Competence. Email: paola.vettorel@univr.it doi:10.1093/elt/ccr076

Developing Courses in English for Specic Purposes H. Basturkmen Palgrave Macmillan 2010, xiv + 157 pp., 18.99 isbn 978 0 230 22798 8

When I rst started teaching English for Specic Purposes (E SP ) about 15 years ago, I was not aware of the best ways to organize my classes. Fortunately, in those days, there were already some good Business English coursebooks whose accompanying teachers manuals helped with a number of things like business culture, terminology, and so on. However, I always missed some additional things such as guidelines to orientate my classes, ideas to collect appropriate materials, hints on how to search for relevant lexis, etc. Developing Courses in English for Specic Purposes is a welcome volume. In this sense, readers will nd both theoretical and practical ideas to orientate their classes. As the author states: It aims to make the topic of E S P course development . . . accessible . . . to . . . teachers and prospective teachers, and to show how ideas about how course development in the literature can be related to practice. (p. x) Teaching E S P often requires a number of duties that go beyond the classroom walls and need to be dened (Chapter 1). ESP courses are usually tailored to t the specic needs of the students. According to Basturkmen, we can classify E S P courses into wide angled and narrow angled (Chapter 4) according to the specic course attendees. The former are courses that can be valuable for a large number of students and are usually held in educational settings like professional schools or universities (for example English for business), while the latter are very specic and are usually delivered in (or associated with) the workplace (such as Writing letters for bank secretaries). But there is also a wide range of possibilities between both extremes. Thus, a cornerstone of E S P teaching is analysing the students needs (Chapter 2). The book is divided into two parts which comprise nine chapters, but the rst part is preceded by a 14-page introductory chapter that could have been another part. The rst part presents three main areas in E S P course design: needs analysis, investigation of specialist discourse, and curriculum planning. The author rst denes what ESP is and what the main areas of current work are (such as English for Academic Purposes and English for Professional Purposes). The author also provides a classication
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of E SP branches. However, unlike other authors like Harding (2007), whose divisions are based on two main types (English for Specic Purposes and English for Occupational Purposes) within each topic (such as Business, Science and Technology and English for Social Science), Basturkmen establishes a three-branch system including EAP , English for Professional Purposes (EPP ), and English for Occupational Purposes (E OP ) and each of the three is subdivided into more general and specic purposes. However, unlike the work of Harding and ndez 2007), the distinction others (Varela Me between EPP and E OP is difcult to outline because the author bases the limits on two examples without providing a clear denition of each type. Basturkmen also establishes the different stages in course design in relation to the work or study experience of learners: pre-experience, during-experience, and post-experience. It is also her idea that these stages can be related to the language and genre demands as well as the context and location. Chapter 2 focuses on needs analysis. In this section, the author presents the way to collect information to develop the course, identifying the type of information to collect as well as the means (mainly questionnaires and interviews). However, the most interesting aspect of this chapter is the analysis of the dynamics of needs analysis as an ongoing process from the pre-course needs analysis to the revision of the course design. According to the author, as the course is run, the analysis also evolves through constant revision providing the teacher with the capacity to adapt or change materials and teaching processes. Chapter 3 refers to the investigation of specialist discourse in communication and researching the works of Hyland (2002, 2006) in connection to the community of practice. Another signicant part of the chapter is devoted to researching ESP discourse through three main approaches: ethnography, genre analysis, and corpus analysis. Additionally, the writer suggests ways in which practitioners can track down and make use of published descriptions and specialist discourse (p. xi). Based on the dichotomy between wide and narrow courses, Chapter 4 discusses the nal organization of courses including aspects such as types of contents (real versus carrier) and materials (authentic versus non-authentic). I really think that prospective readers will agree with the writers perspective that there is not a clear borderline between these two pairs of apparent opposites, especially in reference to materials development and use. The second part presents four different types of courses: English for the police, English for medical
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doctors, Academic illiteracies in visual communication, and English for thesis writing. These courses were developed by experienced teachers or course developers and their description follows the same structure: description of the context, investigation of the students needs, investigation of the specialist discourse, course and materials design and selection, presentation and response to difculties and constraints, a summary, and a nal discussion. According to Basturkmen, the cases differ in the topic but also in regard to the focus of instruction (p. xi). The concluding chapter reviews the main concepts addressed in the book and links them to the four case studies included in the volume. On the whole, the book addresses a number of interesting ideas. Many are certainly not new but the shift in the focus of what E S P course design is provides new food for thought. For instance, the reader may wonder why the author has chosen four narrow-angled courses to exemplify her principles. This could be due to the authors emphasis on planning the courses from the individuals needs. In this sense, Basturkmen describes a pyramidal situation in which needs analysis and the research into the specialist discourse come before the course is designed and the curriculum determined. For instance, the course for doctors is a useful example because what they learnt in their course was daily non-technical language that they use to deal with their patients. In this way, the author makes a statement in favour of approaching and designing ESP courses based on the unique and very specic needs of the students. Thus, the traditional general perspective with the speciality genre and content coming rst is turned into using individuality as the leading gear in course design. It is this perspective that also shapes the search and selection of the curriculum and materials and even the conceptual content (p. 139). Developing Courses in English for Specic Purposes is a valuable volume for course designers and teachers alike. However, it may not be praised alike by all. Teachers who teach large or standardized courses (for example business courses in universities) will

benet from the philosophy and principles, but the examples may not be very relevant because their problems may be different. Besides, teachers in these courses may not be able to detect the individual students needs or even have a close contact to content informants. Readers will also not nd in the book practical teaching tips (however, it is not the nal goal of the book to show how to teach) nor suggestions for specic techniques or materials. The book, on the other hand, is very valid for practitioners in contexts where no materials or lesson plans are available. Besides, the approach to individual needs as the cornerstone of teaching and course design is universal and, at this point, I guess if we followed this principle, our classes would certainly be a little better. ndez who worked and In memory of Raquel Varela Me researched in E SP for Tourism in Spain. References Harding, K. 2007. English for Specic Purposes. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Hyland, K. 2002. Specicity revisited: how far should we go now?. English for Specic Purposes 21/4: 38595. Hyland, K. 2006. English for Academic Purposes: An Advanced Resource Book. London: Routledge. n ndez, R. 2007. Hacia una caracterizacio Varela Me ctica s para nes espec cos (turismo). Dida del ingle (Lengua y Literatura) 19: 32745. The reviewer s Garc a Laborda PhD, EdD, MA, MEd, is an Jesu Associate Professor of Linguistics and English (Madrid, Spain). Philology at the University of Alcala He has published book reviews in many of the most important journals in the eld of ESP , CALL , and teacher education and is currently interested in low-stakes language testing, ESP , and computer language testing. His professional website is https:// portal.uah.es/portal/page/portal/epd2_profesores/ prof153604 . Email: jesus.garcialaborda@uah.es doi:10.1093/elt/ccr072

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