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ELT Journal Volume 63/2 April 2009

Contents
ELT Journal Volume 63 Number 2 April 2009
Articles
Rod Ellis A typology of written corrective feedback types 97
Alan Waters A guide to Methodologia: past, present, and future 108
Troy McConachy Raising sociocultural awareness through contextual analysis:
some tools for teachers 116
Gregory L. Friedman Learner-created lexical databases using web-based source material 126
Simon Mumford An analysis of spoken grammar: the case for production 137
Éva Illés What makes a coursebook series stand the test of time? 145
Lakhana Prapaisit de Implementing education reform: EFL teachers’ perspectives 154
Segovia and Debra M.
Hardison
Readers respond
Luke Prodromou Swan’s way (a response to Michael Swan) 163
Yun Zhang Discussing the Extended Writing Project 167
Key concepts in ELT
Christian Abello- Age and the critical period hypothesis 170
Contesse
Reviews
Jeremy Harmer Doing Task-Based Teaching by D. Willis and J. Willis and Tasks in Second
Language Learning by V. Samuda and M. Bygate 173
Alan Waters Trainer Development by T. Wright and R. Bolitho 176
Jörgen Tholin Learner and Teacher Autonomy: Concepts, Realities, and Responses
by T. Lamb and H. Reinders (eds.) 179
Javanshir Shibliyev and Language Testing and Assessment: An Advanced Resource Book
_
Ilkay Gilanlıoğlu by G. Fulcher and F. Davidson 181
Luke Prodromou Teacher Cognition and Language Education by S. Borg 183
Rod Bolitho Reflective Language Teaching: From Research to Practice
by T.S.C. Farrell 186
Ivor Timmis Conversation in Context: A Corpus-Driven Approach by C. Ruehlemann 188
Websites for the language teacher
Diana Eastment The moving image 191
IATEFL 194
Please visit ELT Journal’s website at

http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org
A typology of written corrective
feedback types
Rod Ellis
As a basis for a systematic approach to investigating the effects of written corrective

feedback, this article presents a typology of the different types available to teachers
and researchers. The typology distinguishes two sets of options relating to (1)
strategies for providing feedback ( for example, direct, indirect, or metalinguistic
feedback) and (2) the students’ response to the feedback ( for example, revision
required, attention to correction only required). Each option is illustrated and
relevant research examined.
Introduction How teachers correct second language (L2) students’ writing is a topic that
has attracted enormous interest from researchers and teachers alike. However,
as a recent review of feedback on L2 students’ writing (Hyland and Hyland
2006) makes clear, despite all the research there are still no clear answers to
the questions researchers have addressed. Hyland and Hyland observed:
while feedback is a central aspect of L2 writing programs across the world,
the research literature has not been equivocally positive about its role in
L2 development, and teachers often have a sense they are not making use
of its full potential. (p. 83)
Guenette (2007) pointed out that one of the reasons for the uncertainty lies
in the failure to design corrective feedback (CF) studies that systematically
investigate different types of written CF and control for external variables
that are likely to impact on how effective the CF is. One way forward, then,
might be for researchers and teachers to systematically identify the various
options available for correcting students’ writing as a basis for both
designing future studies and for pedagogical decision making.
In this article I would like to make a start on this agenda by examining the
various options (both familiar and less familiar) for correcting students’
written work. I will focus on just one kind of correction—the correction of
linguistic errors—and consider studies that have examined the different
options by way of illustrating how they have been investigated and the
limitations in the research to date. I will argue that identifying the options in
a systematic way is essential for both determining whether written CF is
effective and, if it is, what kind of CF is most effective.
A typology of options Table 1 presents a typology of teacher options for correcting linguistic errors
for correcting in students’ written work.1 These options have been identified by inspecting
linguistic errors both teacher handbooks (for example, Ur 1996) and published empirical
E LT Journal Volume 63/2 April 2009; doi:10.1093/elt/ccn023 97
Advance Access publication May 20, 2008
studies of written feedback (for example, Robb, Ross, and Shortreed 1986;
Chandler 2003; Ferris 2006).
A basic distinction needs to be made between the options involved in (1) the
teacher’s provision of CF and (2) the students’ response to this feedback.
Clearly, CF can only have an impact if students attend to it. Thus, any
account of CF must consider both aspects.
Type of CF Description Studies

A Strategies for
providing CF
1 Direct CF The teacher provides the student e.g. Lalande (1982) and Robb et al.
with the correct form. (1986).
2 Indirect CF The teacher indicates that an error
exists but does not provide the
correction.
a Indicating + locating This takes the form of underlining Various studies have employed indirect
the error and use of cursors to show correction of this kind (e.g. Ferris and
omissions in the student’s text. Roberts 2001; Chandler 2003).
b Indication only This takes the form of an indication Fewer studies have employed this
in the margin that an error or errors method (e.g. Robb et al. 1986).
have taken place in a line of text.
3 Metalinguistic CF The teacher provides some kind of
metalinguistic clue as to the nature
of the error.
a Use of error code Teacher writes codes in the margin Various studies have examined the
(e.g. ww ¼ wrong word; art ¼ article). effects of using error codes
(e.g. Lalande 1982; Ferris and Roberts
2001; Chandler 2003).
b Brief grammatical Teacher numbers errors in text and Sheen (2007) compared the effects
descriptions writes a grammatical description of direct CF and direct CF +
for each numbered error at the metalinguistic CF.
bottom of the text.
4 The focus of the This concerns whether the teacher Most studies have investigated
feedback attempts to correct all (or most) unfocused CF (e.g. Chandler 2003;
of the students’ errors or selects Ferris 2006). Sheen (2007), drawing on
one or two specific types of errors to traditions in S L A studies of CF,
correct. This distinction can be investigated focused CF.
applied to each of the above options.
a Unfocused CF Unfocused CF is extensive.
b Focused CF Focused CF is intensive.
5 Electronic feedback The teacher indicates an error and Milton (2006).
provides a hyperlink to a concordance
file that provides examples of correct
usage.
6 Reformulation This consists of a native speaker’s Sachs and Polio (2007) compared the
reworking of the students’ entire effects of direct correction and
text to make the language seem as reformulation on students’ revisions of
native-like as possible while keeping their text.
the content of the original intact.
98 Rod Ellis
B Students’ response For feedback to work for either
to feedback redrafting or language learning,
learners need to attend to the
corrections. Various alternatives
exist for achieving this.
1 Revision required A number of studies have examined the
effect of requiring students to edit their
errors (e.g. Ferris and Roberts 2001;
Chandler 2003). Sheen (2007) asked
students to study corrections.
2 No revisions required
a Students asked to study A number of studies have examined
corrections what students do when just given back
their text with revisions (e.g. Sachs and
Polio 2007).
b Students just given No study has systematically investigated
back corrected text different approaches to revision.
table 1
Types of teacher
written CF
Strategies for Five basic strategies for providing written CF can be identified, with
providing CF a number of options associated with some of them.
1 Direct CF
In the case of direct CF the teacher provides the student with the correct
form. As Ferris (op. cit.) notes, this can take a number of different
forms—crossing out an unnecessary word, phrase, or morpheme, inserting
a missing word or morpheme, and writing the correct form above or near to
the erroneous form. Example 1 illustrates direct correction.
a a the
A dog stole bone from butcher. He escaped with having bone. When the dog was
over a a saw a
going through bridge over the river he found dog in the river.
EX AMPLE 1
Direct CF has the advantage that it provides learners with explicit
guidance about how to correct their errors. This is clearly desirable if
learners do not know what the correct form is (i.e. are not capable of
self-correcting the error). Ferris and Roberts (2001) suggest direct CF is
probably better than indirect CF with student writers of low levels of
proficiency. However, a disadvantage is that it requires minimal processing
on the part of the learner and thus, although it might help them to
produce the correct form when they revise their writing, it may not
contribute to long-term learning. However, a recent study by Sheen (2007)
suggests that direct CF can be effective in promoting acquisition of specific
grammatical features.
A typology of corrective feedback types 99

2 Indirect CF
Indirect CF involves indicating that the student has made an error without
actually correcting it. This can be done by underlining the errors or using
cursors to show omissions in the student’s text (as in the example below) or
by placing a cross in the margin next to the line containing the error. In
effect, this involves deciding whether or not to show the precise location of
the error.
A dog stole X bone from X butcher. He escaped with XhavingX X bone. When the
dog was going XthroughX X bridge over XtheX river he found X dog in the river.
X ¼ missing word
X __X ¼ wrong word
EX AMPLE 2
As already noted, indirect feedback is often preferred to direct feedback on
the grounds that it caters to ‘guided learning and problem solving’ (Lalande
1982) and encourages students to reflect about linguistic forms. For these
reasons, it is considered more likely to lead to long-term learning (Ferris and
Roberts op. cit.). The results of studies that have investigated this claim,
however, are very mixed. Some studies (for example, Lalande op. cit.)
suggest that indirect feedback is indeed more effective in enabling students
to correct their errors but others (for example, Ferris and Roberts’ own
study) found no difference between direct and indirect CF. No study to date
has compared the effects of these two indirect types of CF on whether they
have any effect on accuracy in new pieces of writing.
In accordance with the general line of argument by Ferris and Roberts, it
might be claimed that indirect feedback where the exact location of errors is
not shown might be more effective than indirect feedback where the
location of the errors is shown (as illustrated in Example 2) as students
would have to engage in deeper processing. Robb et al. (op. cit.) investigated
four types of feedback including direct feedback and indirect feedback
where the number of errors was given in each line of text. They reported no
significant difference. Lee (1997), however, specifically compared the two
types of indirect correction and found that learners were better able to
correct errors that were indicated and located than errors that were just
indicated by a check in the margin. However, Lee did not consider long-term
gains.
3 Metalinguistic CF2
Metalinguistic CF involves providing learners with some form of explicit
comment about the nature of the errors they have made. The explicit
comment can take two forms. By far the most common is the use of error
codes. These consist of abbreviated labels for different kinds of errors. The
labels can be placed over the location of the error in the text or in the margin.
In the latter case, the exact location of the error may or may not be shown. In
the former, the student has to work out the correction needed from the clue
provided while in the latter the student needs to first locate the error and
then work out the correction. Examples of both are provided below. A major
issue in error codes is how delicate the categories should be. For example,
100 Rod Ellis

should there be a single category for ‘articles’ (as in the examples below) or
should there be separate categories for ‘definite’ and ‘indefinite articles’?
Most of the error codes used in research and language pedagogy employ
relatively broad categories.
A number of studies have compared using error codes with other types of
written CF. Lalande (op. cit.) reported that a group of learners of L2 German
that received correction using error codes improved in accuracy in
subsequent writing whereas a group receiving direct correction made more
errors. However, the difference between the two groups was not statistically
significant. Robb et al. (op. cit.) included an error codes treatment in their
study but found it no more effective than any of the other three types of CF
they investigated (i.e. direct feedback and two kinds of indirect feedback).
Ferris (op. cit.) reported that error codes helped students to improve their
accuracy over time in only two of the four categories of error she
investigated. Longitudinal comparisons between the number of errors in
students’ first and fourth compositions showed improvement in total errors
and verb errors but not in noun errors, article errors, lexical errors, or
sentence errors. Ferris and Roberts (op. cit.) found that error codes did assist
the students to self-edit their writing but no more so than indirect feedback.
Overall, then, there is very limited evidence to show that error codes help
writers to achieve greater accuracy over time and it would also seem that they
are no more effective than other types of CF in assisting self-editing.
art. art. WW art.

prep. art. art.

EX AMPLE 3
Art. x 3; WW A dog stole bone from butcher. He escaped with having bone.
Prep.; art. When the dog was going through bridge over the river he
Art. found dog in the river.
EX AMPLE 4
The second type of metalinguistic CF consists of providing students with
metalinguistic explanations of their errors. An example is provided below.
This is far less common, perhaps because it is much more time consuming
than using error codes and also because it calls for the teacher to possess
sufficient metalinguistic knowledge to be able to write clear and accurate
explanations for a variety of errors. Sheen (op. cit.) compared direct and
metalinguistic CF, finding that both were effective in increasing accuracy in
the students’ use of articles in subsequent writing completed immediately
after the CF treatment. Interestingly, the metalinguistic CF also proved
more effective than the direct CF in the long term (i.e. in a new piece of
writing completed two weeks after the treatment).

(1) (2) (3)
(4) (5) (6)
(1), (2), (5), and (6)—you need ‘a’ before the noun when a person or thing is mentioned
for the first time.
(3)—you need ‘the’ before the noun when the person or thing has been mentioned
previously.
(4)—you need ‘over’ when you go across the surface of something; you use ‘through’
when you go inside something (e.g. ‘go through the forest’).
EX AMPLE 5
4 Focused versus unfocused CF
Teachers can elect to correct all of the students’ errors, in which case the CF
is unfocused. Alternatively they can select specific error types for correction.
For example, in the above examples the teacher could have chosen to correct
just article errors. The distinction between unfocused and focused CF
applies to all of the previously discussed options.
Processing corrections is likely to be more difficult in unfocused CF as the
learner is required to attend to a variety of errors and thus is unlikely to be
able to reflect much on each error. In this respect, focused CF may prove
more effective as the learner is able to examine multiple corrections of
a single error and thus obtain the rich evidence they need to both
understand why what they wrote was erroneous and to acquire the correct
form. If learning is dependent on attention to form, then it is reasonable to
assume that the more intensive the attention, the more likely the correction
is to lead to learning. Focused metalinguistic CFmay be especially helpful in
this respect as it promotes not just attention but also understanding of the
nature of the error. However, unfocused CF has the advantage of addressing
a range of errors, so while it might not be as effective in assisting learners to
acquire specific features as focused CF in the short term, it may prove
superior in the long run.
The bulk of the CF studies completed to date have investigated unfocused
CF. In Sheen’s study (op. cit), the CF was of the focused kind (i.e. it
addressed errors in the use of articles for first and second mention) and, as
already noted, that proved effective in promoting more accurate language
use of this feature. However, to date, there have been no studies comparing
the relative effects of focused and unfocused CF. This is clearly a distinction
in need of further study.
5 Electronic feedback
Extensive corpora of written English (either carefully constructed or simply
available via search engines such as Google) can be exploited to provide
students with assistance in their writing. This assistance can be accessed by
means of software programs while students write or it can be utilized as
102 Rod Ellis

a form of feedback. I am concerned only with the latter here. Electronic
resources provide learners with the means where they can appropriate the
usage of more experienced writers.
Milton (2006) describes an approach based on a software program called
Mark My Words. This provides teachers with an electronic store of
approximately 100 recurrent lexico-grammatical and style errors that he
found occurred frequently in the writing of Chinese students. The store also
provides a brief comment on each error and with links to resources showing
the correct form. The program enables the teacher to use the electronic store
to insert brief metalinguistic comments into a student’s text. The text is then
returned to the student who then consults the electronic resources to
compare his/her usage with that illustrated in the samples of language
made available. This assists the student to self-correct. The same program
also generates an error log for each piece of writing, thus drawing students’
attention to recurrent linguistic problems. Milton does not report a study of
the effectiveness of this method of correcting student errors but provides
anecdotal evidence that it can work. He describes receiving a ten-page
document from a student, identifying 100 errors using Mark My Words, and
then asking the student to consult the electronic resources and revise the
text himself. Milton reported that the student’s revisions were successful.
There are some obvious advantages to this option. One is that it removes the
need for the teacher to be the arbiter of what constitutes a correct form.
Teachers’ intuitions about grammatical correctness are often fallible;
arguably, a usage-based approach is more reliable. It can also be argued that
the key to effective error correction is identifying the learner’s textual
intention. While the approach advocated by Milton still lays the onus on the
teacher to identify errors, it allows the learners to locate the corrections that
are most appropriate for their own textual intentions and so encourages
student independence.
6 Reformulation
The final option we will consider is similar to the use of concordances in that
it aims to provide learners with a resource that they can use to correct their
errors but places the responsibility for the final decision about whether and
how to correct on the students themselves.
A standard procedure in error analysis is reconstruction. That is, in order to
identify an error, the analyst (and the teacher) needs to construct a native-
speaker version of that part of the text containing an error. The idea for
reformulation as a technique for providing feedback to learners grew out of
this procedure. It involves a native-speaker rewriting the student’s text in
such a way as ‘to preserve as many of the writer’s ideas as possible, while
expressing them in his/her own words so as to make the piece sound native-
like’ (Cohen 1989: 4). The writer then revises by deciding which of the
native-speaker’s reconstructions to accept. In essence, then, reformulation
involves two options ‘direct correction’ + ‘revision’ but it differs from how
these options are typically executed in that the whole of the student’s text is
reformulated thus laying the burden on the learner to identify the specific
changes that have been made.

Sachs and Polio (2007) report an interesting study that compared
reformulation with direct error correction. The main difference between
these two options was ‘a matter of presentation and task demands and was
not related to the kinds of errors that were corrected’. The difference in
presentation is illustrated in the example below.
Original version: As he was jogging, his tammy was shaked.
Reformulation: As he was jogging, his tummy was shaking.

tummy shaking
Error correction: As he was jogging his tammy was shaked.
EX AMPLE 6 (from Sachs and Polio 2007: 78)

The students were shown their reformulated/corrected stories and
asked to study them for 20 minutes and take notes if they wanted. Then, one
day later, they were given a clean sheet of paper and asked to revise their
stories but without access to either the reformulated/corrected texts or the
notes they had taken. Both the groups that received reformulation and
corrections outperformed the control group. However, the corrections
group produced more accurate revisions than the reformulation group. As
Sachs and Polio point out, reformulation is a technique that is not restricted
to assisting students with their surface level linguistic errors; it is also
designed to draw attention to higher order stylistic and organizational
errors. Thus, their study should not be used to dismiss the use of
reformulation as a technique for teaching written composition.
Nevertheless, it would seem from this study that it does not constitute
the most effective way of assisting students to eliminate linguistic errors
when they revise.
The student’s An essential feature of CF is how the student responds to the corrections
response to the provided. The various options are also shown in Table 1.
feedback
The student’s response frequently takes the form of revision of the initial
draft—an important stage in process writing. Much of the research that has
investigated written CF (for example, Ferris and Roberts op. cit.) has centred
on whether students are able to make use of the feedback they receive when
they revise.
One approach has been to describe and classify the types of revisions
that students make. Ferris (op. cit.) for example, identified a number of
revision categories in the redrafts of 146 ES L students’ essays. Her
taxonomy is reproduced in Table 2. Overall, Ferris found that 80.4
per cent of the errors subject to CF were eliminated in the redrafted
compositions by correcting the error, by deleting the text containing
the error, or by making a correct substitution. 9.9 per cent of the
errors were incorrectly revised while in a further 9.9 per cent no change
was made.
104 Rod Ellis

Label Description
Error corrected Error corrected per teacher’s marking.
Incorrect change Change was made but incorrect.
No change No response to the correction was apparent.
Deleted text Student deleted marked text rather than attempting
correction.
Substitution, correct Student invented a correction that was not
suggested by the teacher’s marking.
Substitution, incorrect Student incorrectly made a change that was not
suggested by teacher’s marking.
Teacher-induced error Incomplete or misleading teacher marking
table 2 caused by student error.
Student revision analysis
Averted erroneous Student corrected error despite incomplete or
categories (from Ferris
teacher marking erroneous teacher marking.
2006)
This study (along with a number of others) suggests that CF is effective in
helping students to eliminate errors in redrafts of their writing. However,
from the perspective of L2 learning, such research is of limited interest, as
Truscott (1996) pointed out, as showing that CF helps students to correct
their errors in second drafts tells us nothing about whether they are able to
use them in new pieces of writing.
Revision can also be viewed as part of written CF (i.e. as another option).
That is to say, students may or may not be given the opportunity to revise
their writing following one of the other types of feedback. It then becomes
possible to investigate whether providing the opportunity to revise assists
learning. Chandler (op. cit.) compared indirect CF plus the opportunity to
revise with indirect CF where there was no opportunity to revise. Chandler
reported that accuracy improved from the first to the fifth piece of writing
significantly more in the group that was required to correct their errors than
in the group that just received indication of their errors. Also, this increase in
accuracy was not accompanied by any decrease in fluency. Chandler noted
that ‘what seems to be a crucial factor . . . is having the students do
something with the error correction besides simply receiving it’ (p. 293).
However, this study had no control group and thus did not address whether
revising errors leads to acquisition of the correct forms.
There is also the issue of what students actually do with the corrections
when they are not required to carry out any revisions. Students may simply
be given back their corrected texts (and then simply ignore the corrections)
or they may be required to pay close attention to them. In the Chandler
study, the no-revision group was simply handed back their corrected
writing. It is possible, however, that if they had been asked to carefully
examine the corrections, they would have shown similar improvements in
accuracy to the group that revised following the CF. Clearly, corrections can
only work if writers notice and process them. Fazio’s (2001) study of
primary-level children is a reminder that some learners often fail to attend to

linguistic corrections. In this longitudinal study, the pupils became less
accurate in a number of grammatical areas over time!
The question of whether to require students to simply attend to the
corrections or to revise based on them raises an interesting theoretical issue.
Is it the additional ‘input’ that the corrections afford or the ‘output’ that
occurs when students revise that is important for learning? Guenette (op.
cit.) argued that students ‘have to notice the feedback and be given ample
opportunities to apply the corrections’ (p. 52). But students may succeed in
noticing corrections even if they are not required to revise their writing.
Here again there is no research that has addressed this issue.
Using the typology There is an obvious need for carefully designed studies to further investigate
the effects of written CF in general and of different types of CF. A typology
such as the one outlined in this article provides a classification of one of the
key variables in written CF studies—the type of CF. It makes it possible for
researchers to conduct research that systematically examines the effect of
distinct types and combinations of CF. Of course the type of CF is only one of
several variables influencing the effectiveness of written CF. Other variables
identified by Guenette (op. cit.) are the nature of the population being
studied (in particular the nature of their L2 proficiency), the nature of the
writing activities that the students undertake, the kinds of errors that are
corrected, and whether or not there is any incentive for the students to write
accurately.
The typology is not only valuable for the design of experimental studies.
It can also assist descriptive research. Such research examines such issues
as how teachers carry out CF and how students respond to corrections.
While descriptive studies are typically data-driven, they can benefit from
examining to what extent the categories in the typology accurately reflect
actual practice. They can also serve to refine the categories.
Like Guenette, I want to emphasize that there is no ‘corrective feedback
recipe’. Given the complexity of CF, it is unlikely that even better designed
studies will provide clear-cut answers to the kinds of questions raised in the
Introduction to this article. The search for the ‘best’ way to do written CF
may in fact be fundamentally mistaken if it is accepted that CF needs to take
account of the specific institutional, classroom, and task contexts. As
Hyland and Hyland (op. cit.) commented ‘it may be . . . that what is effective
feedback for one student in one setting is less so in another’ (p. 88). Indeed,
a sociocultural perspective on CF would emphasize the need to adjust the
type of feedback offered to learners to suit their stage of development
although how this can be achieved practically remains unclear in the case of
written CF where there is often limited opportunity to negotiate the feedback
with individual learners.
The typology might also be of assistance to teachers. Teacher handbooks
such as Ur’s (op. cit.) wisely do not attempt to prescribe how teachers should
do written CF. Instead, they invite teachers to develop their own correction
policy by raising a number of key issues. What is important, however, is for
teachers to have a clear and explicit account of the options available to them,
an understanding of the rationale for each option, and some knowledge of
the research findings (uncertain as these are). The typology provides
106 Rod Ellis

teachers with a basis for examining the options and for systematically
experimenting with them in their own teaching.
Revised version received December 2007
Notes Lee, I. 1997. ‘ES L learners’ performance in error

1 I have chosen to focus on the teacher’s role in CF. correction in writing’. System 25: 465–77.
Thus, I have not included in my typology options Milton, J. 2006. ‘Resource-rich Web-based feedback:
involving peer feedback. This should not be Helping learners become independent writers’ in
construed as suggesting that teacher feedback is to K. Hyland and F. Hyland (eds.). Feedback in Second
be preferred to peer feedback. Language Writing: Contexts and Issues. Cambridge:
2 There is an obvious difference between simply Cambridge University Press.
indicating an error (how I have chosen to define Robb, T., S. Ross, and I. Shortreed. 1986. ‘Salience of
indirect CF) and providing students with feedback on error and its effect on E F L writing
metalinguistic information about their errors. quality’. T E S O L Quarterly 20: 83–93.
Lumping ‘indicating errors’ and ‘error codes’ into Sachs, R. and C. Polio. 2007. ‘Learners’ use of two
a single category, as some researchers have done, types of written feedback on an L2 writing task’.
is misleading and unhelpful. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 29: 67–100.
Sheen, Y. 2007. ‘The effect of focused written
References corrective feedback and language aptitude on ES L
Chandler, J. 2003. ‘The efficacy of various kinds of learners’ acquisition of articles’. T E S O L Quarterly
error feedback for improvement in the accuracy and 41: 255–83.
fluency of L2 student writing’. Journal of Second Truscott, J. 1996. ‘The case against grammar
Language Writing 12: 267–96. correction in L2 writing classes’. Language Learning
Cohen, A. 1989. ‘Reformulation: A technique for 46: 327–69.
providing advanced feedback in writing’. Guidelines Ur, P. 1996. A Course in Language Teaching.
11/2: 1–9. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fazio, L. 2001. ‘The effect of corrections and
commentaries on the journal writing accuracy of The author
minority- and majority-language students’. Journal of Rod Ellis is Professor in the Department of Applied
Second Language Writing 10: 235–49. Language Studies and Linguistics, University of
Ferris, D. 2006. ‘Does error feedback help student Auckland, where he teaches postgraduate courses on
writers? New evidence on short- and long-term second language acquisition and task-based
effects of written error correction’ in K. Hyland and teaching. He is also Visiting Professor at Shanghai
F. Hyland (eds.). Feedback in Second Language International Studies University. His books include
Writing: Contexts and Issues. Cambridge: Cambridge Understanding Second Language Acquisition (B A A L
University Press. prize 1986) and The Study of Second Language
Ferris, D. R. and B. Roberts. 2001. ‘Error feedback in Acquisition (Duke of Edinburgh prize 1995). His
L2 writing classes: How explicit does it need to be?’. recent books include Task-Based Learning and
Journal of Second Language Writing 10: 161–84. Teaching (2003) and (with Gary Barkhuizen)
Guenette, D. 2007. ‘Is feedback pedagogically Analyzing Learner Language (2005). He has also
correct? Research design issues in studies of published several English language textbooks,
feedback on writing’. Journal of Second Language including Impact Grammar (Pearson: Longman). He
Writing 16: 40–53. is the editor of the journal Language Teaching
Hyland, K. and F. Hyland. 2006. ‘Feedback on Research.
second language students’ writing’. Language Email: r.ellis@auckland.ac.nz
Teaching 39: 83–101.
Lalande, J. F. 1982. ‘Reducing composition errors: An
experiment’. Modern Language Journal 66: 140–9.

A guide to Methodologia: past,
present, and future
Alan Waters
The island of Methodologia lies at the heart of the E LT world. It is here that
classroom teaching skills are devised, tested, and popularized. However, many E LT
practitioners are familiar only with the parts of the island where they grew up, even
though there is much to be gained from an appreciation of the culture and history
of Methodologia as a whole. In this way, for example, it is possible to reach a better
understanding of the factors behind the development of the teaching traditions
associated with one’s own region. Such knowledge can also contribute to greater
awareness of how these techniques might be integrated with different traditions
from other parts of the island. This article therefore provides a brief introduction to
some of the chief characteristics of present-day Methodologia, by first of all saying
a little about its overall features and then each of its main cities and regions. It also
hints at possible future developments.
‘To see a World in a Grain of Sand . . .’ Blake: Auguries of Innocence
‘Be not afeared. The isle is full of noises . . .’ Shakespeare: The Tempest
Introduction Methodologia is an island in the E LT archipelago, surrounded by the Sea of

TESOL. It is inhabited chiefly by large numbers of teachers and learners of
EFL, who have migrated to it from all over the world. However, although
each of these waves of settlers is familiar with its own part of the island, very
few of them have visited the rest of it, and so they are often somewhat
confused about its overall geography. The turbulent nature of its recent
history has also left many feeling rather disoriented. This brief illustrated
guide to the island has been provided in order to try to solve these problems.
It should be noted, however, that not all of the features of Methodologia can
be covered in the amount of space available. Readers seeking further
information are therefore advised to consult the relevant volume in a travel
book series such as Lonely Planet, or browse the Methodologia Tourism
Board website at www.visitmethodologia.com.
Overall features First, a few overall features of the island’s climate, geography, and so on. As
can be seen in Figure 1 below, a cold north-easterly airstream blows a steady
succession of innovations across the landscape. To the north-west, frequent
monsoons full of theory-bearing rain clouds feed the source of the River
Akademika, which runs through the country from north to south, fertilizing
the leafy groves of the Lernasentrd Country Park and providing an
108 E LT Journal Volume 63/2 April 2009; doi:10.1093/elt/ccn037

Advance Access publication July 3, 2008
figure 1
Methodologia island
important artery for the cities of Tee-Be-El and Methodsville, before

eventually emptying its waters into the Gulf of E I L–EL F (English as an
International Language–English as a Lingua Franca). This ample supply
of moisture is also responsible for another of the chief features of the island,
its dense terminological jungle, pictured to the south-west though, it should
be noted, prevalent everywhere. The climate is also strongly affected by
neighbouring islands such as Kurrikula and Korsbukia, and, in particular,
the shoreline is subject to powerful waves of backwash from Examinia.
In terms of human habitation, there are two principal cities: Methodsville,
the ancient capital, and the more recently established metropolis of Tee-
Be-El. In addition, the island has several regions, each with one or more
A guide to Methodologia 109

settlements. The latter all have strong associations with their respective
regions, as will be described in later parts of this guide. As already
mentioned, there is also a centrally located country park, named after the
teaching idea that has dominated Methodologia in recent times, and more
will likewise be said about this feature in what follows. Finally, the island is
particularly notable for the widespread presence, throughout its length and
breadth, of a variety of educational institutions, since teaching is, of course,
the staple of the Methodologian economy. The many classrooms which
these institutions house are an ideal environment for the development and
manufacture of the wide variety of teaching techniques for which the nation
is justly famous.
Main cities and Having described some of its overall features, our tour of the island now
regions continues by saying a little about the principal attractions of each of its main
cities and regions, thereby also showing how they have contributed to the
unique way of life that characterizes present-day Methodologia. (The
numbers refer to the map in Figure 1.)
1 Methodsville Our journey begins, appropriately, in the historical capital, Methodsville.

Among the major sites of interest in the older parts of this city are the
monuments to methods such as grammar translation, audiolingualism,
and so on. It was the creation of these impressive structures that originally
led to the rise of Methodsville—indeed, for many years, to all intents and
purposes Methodsville and Methodologia were seen to be one and the same.
The largest and most important part of the present-day city is occupied by
the Kommunikatavia sector. Its sprawling environs along the banks of the
River Akademika encompass a wide range of different architectural styles,
reflecting the varying traditions of the many citizens who have been
attracted to this part of the city from all over the world. However, within it,
two main districts can be identified, firstly, Weak (by far the larger of the
two), where a ‘learning to communicate’ orientation prevails, and, secondly,
Strong, where a ‘communicating to learn’ view dominates (for a more
detailed guide to these and all the other main features of Methodsville, see
Richards and Rodgers 2001).
Because of its varied composition, the inhabitants of Kommunikatavia tend
to see their part of the city as having the structure of an approach, rather than
a method. As a result, there have been conflicting views about whether the
enclave of Kommunikatavia is truly in keeping with the traditions of a city
historically built from methods. Methodsville has therefore been diagnosed
as suffering from the ‘Post-Method Condition’ (Kumaravadivelu 1994),
a kind of identity crisis. This has caused some Methodologians to question
whether it is still the rightful capital, or even if it ever was. One response to
this malaise has been the establishment of the neighbouring city of Tee-Be-
El, which will be visited later. First of all, however, it is important to journey
through some of the less-explored hinterlands of Methodologia, in order to
gain a better understanding of the true diversity of its customs and people.
2 Institutionia The western region of Institutionia is therefore our next destination. This
part of the island was originally explored in Holliday (1994). As he reports,
there are two main settlements, Banaia and Tesepia. The inhabitants of the
110 Alan Waters

former, who hail from Britain, North America, and Australasia, practise the
customs of private-sector language-teaching institutions, such as plentiful
peer work. On the other hand, those living in the latter are strongly
influenced by the traditions of tertiary, secondary, and primary state-sector
language-teaching institutions, and tend to favour, for example, whole-class
teaching. Although the population of Tesepia is far larger than that of its
sister town, Banaia regards itself as the regional capital, because of its
prestigious academic connections. However, despite extensive marketing
efforts, the citizens of Tesepia have generally remained stubbornly resistant
to ‘Bana-ware’, and mostly prefer to use other, more familiar techniques,
which they feel are better suited to the cultural conditions prevailing in
Tesepia.
3 Ideologia We journey next to the north-western province of Ideologia, which, as

chronicled in Clark (1987), consists of three major centres of population,
each of them renowned for its particular philosophy of education. The first
of these—Klassika Humanista—was founded by émigrés from the
grammar translation district of Methodsville. They see the purpose of
education as preparation for life, and feel that teaching should therefore
concentrate on general intellectual development, such as knowledge of the
rules of grammar, of cultural information, and so on. The
second—Rekonstruktiona—was established by migrants from the Weak
sector of Kommunikatavia. They see education as being primarily to do with
nation building, and therefore emphasize the importance for teaching of
clear goals and practical relevance, based on thorough needs analyses. The
third major centre is Progressiva, populated mainly by those who have close
family connections with residents of the Strong sub-district of
Kommunikatavia. They view education as mainly to do with developing the
potential of the individual, and thus set great store by the use of process
syllabuses, learning strategies, and the like.
However, although the three cities can be distinguished in these ways, in
practice modern communications and increased travel opportunities have
meant that many Methodologians, including the citizens of each of these
centres, have adopted methods of teaching which are based on the amalgam
of the three traditions. That said, there is nevertheless a tendency for the
influential community of academics among the island’s population to be
seen much more frequently in the restaurants and nightclubs of Progressiva
and Rekonstruktiona than Klassika Humanista, in contrast to the majority
of teachers, who generally prefer the sights and sounds of the latter.
4 Slaia This observation leads us conveniently to our next destination, the north-
eastern province of Slaia, where the settlement of Ivoria Towers houses the
majority of Methodologia’s academic community. Although located in
a remote corner of the island, this enclave nevertheless exerts considerable
influence on the territory as a whole, since, as mentioned earlier, the River
Akademika, which irrigates the whole of its central area, originates here.
The inhabitants of this province make their living by the study of second
language acquisition. It is best known nowadays because of the founding, in
the 1990s, of Fofia (an abbreviation of Focus-on-formia), supplanting the
earlier settlement of Fofsia (Focus-on-formsia) (see for example Long 1991).

As a result, the Fofians’ belief that grammar can best be learnt in a ‘just in
time’ rather than a pre-planned manner (as assumed by Fofsians) has
spread widely throughout the parts of Methodologia where the River
Akademika flows with greatest force, lending support, in particular, to the
growth of the Lernasentrd Country Park and the city of Tee-Be-El. However,
rumour has it that, unable to reconcile their widespread use of set syllabuses
and published teaching materials with the new approach, the displaced
Fofsians have taken to the hills, where they have continued to practise the
old Fofsia ways in the privacy of their remote and secluded classrooms, and
much of the rest of Methodologia likewise appears to remain relatively
unaffected by the revolutionary changes at Fofia.
5 The Lernasentrd Our tour of Methodologia now takes us away from its hinterlands and to the
Country Park centrally located Lernasentrd Country Park (for a more detailed guide to this
feature, see for example Nunan 1999). Here, making extensive use of the
abundant supplies of natural materials which flourish on the shores of the
River Akademika as it winds its way through the scenic landscape, highly
trained teachers-as-facilitators encourage learners to take up the many
opportunities for learning offered by the Park’s rich, authentic
surroundings. However, on closer inspection, as reported in, for example,
O’Neill (1991), it is not unusual to find learners somewhat puzzled and
frustrated by the refusal of their facilitators to actually teach them. Equally,
some of the facilitators have themselves reportedly been disappointed to
find that their learners, given the chance to negotiate their curricula, have
chosen to focus on subject matter of questionable educational value, while
showing little interest in more important aspects of learning (Hutchinson
2002). For these reasons, the Park remains unfrequented by most
Methodologians, despite attempts by the inhabitants of Ivoria Towers—who
have responsibility for the Park’s overall care and management—to
popularize it.
6 Tee-Be-El Just downstream from the Park lies another of Methodologia’s principal
features, the futuristic city of Tee-Be-El. As mentioned earlier, this gleaming,
forward-looking metropolis was founded by refugees from Methodsville,
mostly from the Strong district of Kommunikatavia, who, dissatisfied with
the climate created by the post-method condition, and trusting to research
from Ivoria Towers on how problem-solving communication tasks can
provide necessary and sufficient conditions for language learning, decided
to build a city of their own (see for example Willis 1996).
On the surface at least, there is little resemblance between the two
metropolises. Unlike Methodsville, Tee-Be-El is purpose built, using all the
latest construction methods, with many imposing buildings designed by
leading task-based learning specialists from around the globe. At the same
time, however, we should note that some of the natives of the new city have
been experiencing problems in adapting to their new surroundings. Thus,
there are those who complain that the high-rise tower blocks that make
up much of Tee-Be-El, while attractive to look at, are not very practical to live
in on an everyday basis, especially for those with large families of young
children (see for example Carless 2002). Above all, there are those who
argue (for example Swan 2005) that the construction of the city makes it far
112 Alan Waters

from self-sufficient for language learning purposes, due to the lack of
facilities for learners to get sufficient exercise involving language structures
and the like. To make it function better, thus, plans for extensive
modifications to the original design have been proposed, with some
pointing out that, in such a form, it would be more appropriate for the city to
be renamed Tee-Ess-El, standing for task-supported learning (see for
example Ellis 2003: 28–30).
7 Autonomia Finally, as far as this necessarily brief and selective tour goes, we journey to
the south-eastern corner of the island, to the somewhat remote and secluded
region of Autonomia. The inhabitants of Methodologia have always
regarded this province as representing something of an ideal, since it is seen
as the home of the self-sufficient, independent learner whose fashioning is
the ultimate goal of the many and varied teaching techniques for which the
island is so well-known. However, so far-off and little visited is this part of
Methodologia that many teachers are not sure whether the learners it is
claimed to be home to even actually exist, especially as their own often show
such few signs of autonomous behaviour themselves. They also find that
promoting learner independence is frequently hampered by the presence of
many classroom management ‘monkeys’ (Waters 1998), that is, illegitimate
burdens of responsibility. These doubts are compounded by the reports
from the few that have visited it of the somewhat deserted feel of the regional
capital, Celph-Axessia, a seaside resort full of independent learning
opportunities—something of a sad decline from its glory days in the 1980s,
when it was one of the destinations of choice.
However, some have argued (for example Littlewood 1999) that Autonomia,
far from becoming a backwater, has been quietly undergoing an important
cultural transformation, and that the replacement by its population of
a ‘proactive’ concept of autonomy (in which both the goals and processes of
learning are determined solely by the learner) with a ‘reactive’ one (in which
the goals of learning are determined by, for example, the teacher, but the
learning process remains autonomous) makes it much easier for other
Methodologians to see how the products of Autonomia can be used in
classrooms in their own parts of the island. Spratt, Humphreys, and Chan
(2002) have also usefully shown that learners do not need to first of all be
sent to the Autonomia region to try to make them independent, but, rather,
are much more likely to become interested in travelling there if they first of
all encounter successful and enjoyable learning experiences in classrooms
throughout the other main parts of the island.
Future plans Lastly, having said something about the history and current state of
Methodologia, what about its future? As we have seen, a sizeable section of
the island’s population feels somewhat disenchanted with a number of its
present-day features. Some of them have therefore decided to remedy this
situation by drawing up a plan for replacing the existing capital with a new
metropolis, to be named ‘Integrationia’. To guide its development, the
following design principles have been formulated.
Conservation First of all, despite wishing to make a new start, it is felt important to
acknowledge that many Methodologians have a strong attachment to

a number of the principal attractions of Methodsville. Therefore, rather than
simply pulling them down, the plan allows for such features to be preserved
and incorporated into the fabric of the new city.
Fitness for purpose Secondly, the designers likewise feel it is essential for the accustomed way of
life of the majority of Methodologians to be reflected in the provision of
accommodation and other amenities in the future capital. Thus, rather than
shaping these aspects in the image of the living conditions and predilections
prevailing in Ivoria Towers, as has been the tendency in many recent
Methodologian redevelopment projects, it is believed that they should
instead be designed in the first instance on the basis of a careful study and
appreciation of the preferred styles of architecture, domestic arrangements,
customs, habits, and so on of the average citizen of Methodologia.
Forward-looking Thirdly, at the same time, it is felt that some of the benefits that can accrue
from the modern developments in various parts of Methodologia should
also be incorporated into the design. Thus, following the example of the
Lernasentrd Country Park and the rehabilitation of the learner autonomy
ideal, it is argued that there should be plentiful scope within the new
metropolis for green spaces which provide the leisure opportunities needed
for creativity, fun, enjoyment, and the independent lifestyle that appeals to
many of the younger generation of Methodologians in particular. Similarly,
it is envisaged that by borrowing ideas from Tee-Be-El and Fofia, rather than
a monotonous street plan consisting only of block after block of uniform
structures and decontextualized lexical items, frequent ‘communication
centres’ should also be constructed. Citizens will be able to meet regularly in
these locations to discuss solutions to problems, at the same time being
provided with feedback on how to improve their knowledge of the
surrounding network of structures and vocabulary.
In short, by following such guidelines, the designers hope that the new
metropolis will be characterized by trading on equal terms with all the main
regions of Methodologia, and as a consequence, the best of what each has to
offer can be used to fashion a teaching ideal.
Envoi As should by now be clear, Methodologia has a rich cultural heritage and, as
a result of increased modernization, is at an exciting historical crossroads. It
therefore offers a wealth of interesting teaching ideas. Choosing wisely
among them, however, can be somewhat daunting. It is hoped that this brief
guide, by attempting to provide an enhanced understanding of the island’s
past, present, and possible future development, will help to make this
selection process better informed and therefore sounder.
Final revised version received March 2008
References Ellis, R. 2003. Task-Based Language Learning and

Carless, D. 2002. ‘Implementing task-based Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
learning with young learners’. E LT Journal 56/4: Holliday, A. 1994. ‘The house of T E S EP and the
389–96. communicative approach: the special needs of state
Clark, J. L. 1987. Curriculum Renewal in School English language education’. E LT Journal 48/1: 3–11.
Foreign Language Learning. Oxford: Oxford Hutchinson, T. 2002. ‘Systems within systems:
University Press. methodology and educational philosophy’. Paper
114 Alan Waters

presented at the 22nd Annual Thailand T E S O L Swan, M. 2005. ‘Legislation by hypothesis: the case
Convention Bangkok, Thailand. of task-based instruction’. Applied Linguistics 26/3:
Kumaravadivelu, B. 1994. ‘The postmethod 376–401.
condition: (E)merging strategies for second/foreign Waters, A. 1998. ‘Managing monkeys in the E LT
language teaching’. T ES O L Quarterly 28/1: 27–48. classroom’. E LT Journal 52/1: 11–18.
Littlewood, W. 1999. ‘Defining and developing Willis, J. 1996. ‘A flexible framework for task-based
autonomy in East Asian contexts’. Applied Linguistics learning’ in D. Willis and J. Willis (eds.). Challenge
20/1: 71–94. and Change in Language Teaching. Oxford: Macmillan
Long, M. 1991. ‘Focus on form: a design feature in Heinemann.
language teaching methodology’ in K. de Bot,
R. Ginsberg, and C. Kramsch (eds.). Foreign The author
Language Research in Cross-Cultural Perspective. Alan Waters is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of
Amsterdam, The Netherlands: John Benjamins. Linguistics and English Language, Lancaster
Nunan, D. 1999. Second Language Teaching and University, England. He has taught E F L in Sierra
Learning. Boston, MA: Heinle and Heinle. Leone, Kuwait, and the UK and trained teachers in
O’Neill, R. 1991. ‘The plausible myth of learner- Thailand, the UK, Hong Kong, and several other
centredness: or the importance of doing ordinary parts of the world. He has published a number of
things well’. ELT Journal 45/4: 293–304. books and articles on a range of E LT topics. His main
Richards, J. C. and T. S. Rodgers. 2001. Approaches research interests are language-teaching
and Methods in Language Teaching. New York: methodology, teacher learning, and curriculum
Cambridge University Press. innovation.
Spratt, M., G. Humphreys, and V. Chan. 2002. Email: a.waters@lancaster.ac.uk
‘Autonomy and motivation: which comes first?’.
Language Teaching Research 6/3: 245–66.

Raising sociocultural awareness
through contextual analysis: some
tools for teachers
Troy McConachy
Despite long-standing recognition of the importance of sociocultural context in

meaning making, criticisms have been levelled at communicative language
teaching (CLT) for failing to effectively address this at the level of classroom
practice. In fact, it has been argued that the way CLT presents content reveals
a fundamentally reductionist view of communication. This paper uses examples
of dialogues from the New Interchange series to briefly illustrate what can be
considered a typical shortcoming of many modern commercial English language
textbooks: the neglect of the place of sociocultural context in dialogues and
dialogue-related activities. This paper shows two ways in which this neglect is
manifested and then suggests some concrete ways that teachers can use the
SPEA KING model developed by Hymes (1972) to increase their awareness of
elements of sociocultural context and also develop analytical questions for learners.
Introduction Over 35 years have passed since Hymes (1972) coined the term
‘communicative competence’ in recognition of the inadequacy of the
Chomskyan notion of linguistic competence. Since this time, much
theorizing has taken place about the social nature of language, such as the
ways in which different social groups use language to manage and structure
their daily lives (Duranti 1997). A number of researchers have outlined
further models of communicative competence that have gone on to become
widely recognized by language teachers. The highly influential model
provided by Canale and Swain (1980), as well as the more recent model
provided by Bachman (1990), share one point; recognition of the fact that
being competent in a language, whether first or subsequent, means a lot
more than simply knowing how to form syntactically accurate sentences.
Despite such recognition, it has been suggested that modern teaching
methods, even those labelled as ‘communicative’, are still failing to
adequately address the sociocultural aspects of language and the
complexities of language in use (Corbett 2003).
Context in C LT The importance of context in linguistic communication has been

recognized for decades and it is now a truism that no linguistic utterance can
be definitively understood without referring to the social and
communicative context in which it was uttered (Goodwin and Duranti

1992). With the advent of CLT, this realization can be said to have
affected pedagogy to the extent that presenting input in a manner that is
‘authentic’, or based on ‘real-world situations’ became a priority. However,
it has been argued that the emphasis on ‘real-world situations’ and ‘doing
things with language’ in CLT has led to a reductionist view of
communication (Corbett op. cit.; Kraus 2003). It is reductionist in the sense
that in CLT communication is often seen as a process of bridging an
information gap, and communicative competence the ‘capacity to fit
appropriate language to specific transactions’ (Byram 1990: 18). To be sure,
the ability to ‘do’ things with language is important and deserves
pedagogical attention. It is a problem, however, when language functions
are presented without due attention to the sociocultural dimensions of
language in use. Learners need to be aware that the particular language
forms that speakers choose to ‘get things done’ reflect not only their
identities but also a broad range of sociocultural variables, such as their
relationship to the interlocutor, and wider social structures. Unless learners
are specifically made aware of aspects pertaining to the social nature of
language use, there is the danger that a learner will apply his or her native
interactional norms, which may be inappropriate (Liddicoat 2005).
Context in A transactional orientation to language is clearly evident when examining

commercial English the way that language functions are presented in dialogues in many
language textbooks commercial language textbooks. In this section, I will illustrate what I see as
two major shortcomings. For this purpose, I will provide samples of
dialogues from the New Interchange series by Richards, Hull, and Proctor
(1998a,b). Although many textbooks contain similar problems, this series
was chosen simply due to its prevalence in the context where I work.
Sample 1:
James This has got to stop! Another Friday night without a date! What
can I do?
Mike What about looking through the personal ads in the newspaper?
James Actually, I’ve tried that. But the people you meet are always
different from what you expect.
Mike Well, why don’t you join a dating service? A friend of mine met his
wife that way.
James That’s not a bad idea.
Mike Also, it might be a good idea to check out singles’ night at the
bookstore.
James Yeah. If I don’t find a date, at least I might find a good book!
(Taken from New Interchange (1998b), Student’s Book 3: 57)
The first major shortcoming identifiable in this dialogue is the distinct lack
of explicit contextual information given to introduce the dialogue. In the
New Interchange series, there are dialogues (labelled ‘conversations’) like the
one above in each chapter in which a wide range of characters are discussing
various things. Despite the obvious potential for harnessing these various
identities to focus on the cultural aspects of language use, the dialogues do
Raising sociocultural awareness through contextual analysis 117

not come with an introduction containing explicit information as to the
identities of the speakers, their relationship to each other, or their location.
In the above dialogue, the pedagogical goal is clearly to show how
suggestions can be made: however, the absence of explicit contextual
information makes it seem as though the logic of suggestions and the
discourse that goes along with it will be plain and transparent for learners
everywhere.
The second major shortcoming of this dialogue is that on top of the lack of
explicit contextual information, there is also a lack of learning activities
based on the dialogue that could encourage learners to analyse the language
used in terms of sociocultural context. In New Interchange, some dialogues
are followed by a number of questions that learners can answer by listening
to a continuation of the conversation from the dialogue. Unfortunately, the
focus of these questions also reveals a reductionist orientation to the act of
comprehension. Sample 2 below shows another dialogue with questions.
Sample 2:
Chris So, what did you do this weekend Kate?
Kate Oh, Diane and I went for a drive in the country on Saturday.
Chris That sounds nice. Where did you go?
Kate We drove to the lake and had a picnic. We had a great time! How
about you? Did you do anything special?
Chris Not really? I just worked on my car all day.
Kate That old thing! Why don’t you just buy a new one?
Chris But then what would I do every weekend?
Listen to Kate talk about her activities on Sunday.
1 What did she do?
2 Where did she go?
(Taken from New Interchange (1998a), Student’s Book 1: 40)
The questions listed above are the type which require students to
comprehend information as part of a listening exercise based on the
dialogue in order to answer them. This is one skill which is certainly
important for language learners; however, again, the problem is that the act
of comprehending of meaning in context is reduced to that of ‘finding
information’. The above questions ignore the interpersonal dimension of
conversation and, in this particular conversation, the role that this type of
discourse (chatting about weekends) plays in social life. Over-exposing
learners to comprehension questions, where comprehension is understood
as the skill of finding information, will discourage learners from looking
deeper at the relationship between the speakers and other social contextual
factors as influencing language use. In consideration of this fact, and to
make up for the inadequacies of textbooks, it can be argued that it is
necessary for teachers to devise ways to ensure that learners come to see
communication as something that emerges from and is affected by the
118 Troy McConachy

relationships between people rather than simply the filling of an
information gap.
Turning the tide Teaching contextual aspects of language use is something that can present
difficulty for many language teachers, particularly those without
a heightened awareness of the communicative parameters of the target
language: aside from the typical aspects of language such as grammar and
lexis, it is not clear what should be taught (Barraja-Rohan 2000). What is
needed is for language teachers to increase their own awareness of the ways
in which context affects the choice of language forms and unfolding
interaction in a language sample such as a dialogue. Based on this
heightened awareness, teachers will be in a better position to design
comprehension questions that focus not only on the skill of locating
information but also on the skill of analysing language use in reflection of
sociocultural context. In order for teachers to be able to teach the importance
of sociocultural context, it may be helpful to have a model that can be used as
a reference point. I would like to suggest one in the next section.
A framework for ‘SPEAKING’ is a mnemonic which was developed by Hymes (1974) to

teacher reference represent his framework for the analysis of language in context. Each letter
of SPEAKING stands for an aspect of context which is thought to influence
the construction and interpretation of meaning. Due to its mnemonic
nature and relatively transparent components, I believe it can be useful to
language teachers in two main ways. Firstly, it provides a framework for
increasing teachers’ awareness of sociocultural factors of language use.
Secondly, the components can be used as a framework for generating
a range of questions for learners that encourage consideration of the role of
context in meaning making.
In Table 1 below I lay out the components of the SPEAKING framework
with a rationale statement to explain why these aspects of context are
important for language teachers and learners to think about. In Table 2
I also list questions for each component that could be used to assist
teachers to become aware of the socioculturally significant dimensions of
communication in a textbook dialogue or sample of natural language.
Developing In the next section, I show teachers can move from using the S P EA K I N G
questions for framework to identify relevant sociocultural factors in a dialogue to
learners generating a range of analytical questions to raise the sociocultural
awareness of learners.
In a given dialogue, there are likely to be many interactional features that
learners will benefit from examining, and an important first step is to
identify them according to the S P E A K I N G framework. For example, you
may notice an example of polite language, which you could look at from the
perspective of the ‘participants’ or ‘ends’. In other words, the use of polite
language may be a reflection of the relationship between the participants, or
it could be related to the ‘ends’: as in the case of high imposition requests.
Once the teacher has developed a perspective on a given utterance, they will
be better prepared to formulate questions to help their learners. Obviously it
can be challenging to attempt to simplify difficult concepts into questions
that can be understood by language learners and it will certainly take

table 1
Components of the
SPEAK ING framework
practice before a teacher improves his or her ability. As far as the wording of
questions is concerned, there are many possibilities that will depend on the
types of learners and the relevant pedagogical goal. Below I will outline four
different question types that, on the basis of experience, I consider to be
particularly useful and easy to apply.
1 Language-based questions
I use this term as these questions begin with some language from the
dialogue, based on which learners speculate on possible meanings and
interactional functions in context. For example, based on the use of the
discourse marker ‘I see’ in a dialogue, the following questions could be
formulated:
n What does ‘I see’ mean?
Or
n Why does person X say ‘I see’?
2 Function-based questions
I call these function-based questions as rather than quoting language
from the dialogue, these questions use metalanguage which describes
120 Troy McConachy

table 2
Questions to help
teacher analysis
the potential interactional or social function of an utterance in the

dialogue. The use of metalanguage encourages learners to look for forms
that might be used to accomplish particular functions. These questions
are useful for helping learners see language use in terms of interactional
and social functions first, and then focus on forms second. This can be
particularly useful when the teacher wants to prescribe an interpretation
of an utterance, or draw learners’ attention to an obvious interactional
norm. An example of a function-based question based on ‘I see’ might be
as follows:
n In the dialogue, where does speaker X show ‘understanding’?
Or
n Where does speaker X show ‘interest’?

3 Comparative questions
Comparative questions encourage learners to compare an aspect of
interaction or sociocultural relationship noticed in the dialogue/s they are
using with that of their native culture. The process of reflecting on aspects
of interaction in one’s native culture is argued to be an effective way to
help learners come to see the hidden interactional norms of their own
language, and to be able to objectively contrast these vis-à-vis the target
language (Liddicoat op. cit.). For example, in the case of a dialogue which
contains the speech act of apologizing, the following questions could be
asked:
n In your culture do people apologize like this?
n Does everyone apologize like this?
n What other ways are there to apologize in your culture?
n How do you feel about the style of apologies in this dialogue?
4 General speculative questions
General speculative questions are ‘Why do you think . . .?’ questions
which are versatile in that they can be formed in regards to any type of
question when the teacher would like to emphasize that the learners’ job
is to give their own interpretations, rather than search for a correct
answer.
Examples:
n How old do you think the speakers are?
n Why do you think the man refused the invitation?
Application In this section I will provide concrete examples of questions that I have
developed based on my understanding of SPEAKING that could be applied
when using one of the sample dialogues from New Interchange quoted
earlier. There is a certain amount of overlap among the questions; these are
simply examples to demonstrate the different ways that questions could be
formulated.
Dialogue
James This has got to stop! Another Friday night without a date! What
can I do?
Mike What about looking through the personal ads in the newspaper?
James Actually, I’ve tried that. But the people you meet are always
different from what you expect.
Mike Well, why don’t you join a dating service? A friend of mine met his
wife that way.
James That’s not a bad idea.
Mike Also, it might be a good idea to check out singles’ night at the
bookstore.
James Yeah. If I don’t find a date, at least I might find a good book!
122 Troy McConachy

Setting:
Where do you think James and Mike are having this conversation? Why?
Where do you think wouldn’t be a good place to have this conversation?
Why?
In James’ culture, do you think many people go on dates on Fridays?
Why?
When do people usually go on dates in your culture?
Participants:
Do you think Mike and James are good friends? Why?
How old do you think they are? Why?
Do you think Mike is married or has a partner? Why?
Ends:
Why do you think James started this conversation?
Do you think Mike wants to help him? Why?
Act sequence:
How many different ‘suggestions’ did Mike make? What is their order?
How did James feel about each ‘suggestion’? Why do you think this?
Why did James say ‘actually’?
In the conversation, where does Mike show ‘agreement’?
Key:
How does James feel at the start of the conversation? Why do you think
this?
Instrumentalities:
Is the language in this conversation casual or polite? Show an example.
Norms of interaction:
How does Mike accept or reject the suggestions? Why do you think he
chose these forms?
Genre:
What sort of conversation is this?
Do people in your culture have this type of conversation often?
Tips for using the While I have listed quite a large number of questions for the previous
questions dialogue, it is unlikely that this many could actually be asked in one class.
The process of looking at language use from a sociocultural perspective is
something which many learners may not be familiar with. As a result, some
learners are likely to go through initial difficulties as they adjust to the
various processes of analysing, reflecting, and comparing. This is one thing

which needs to be taken into consideration when allocating time for
learning tasks.
Reacting to learners’ It is necessary to recognize that we cannot always expect knowledge about
interpretations sociocultural aspects of language use to be as explicable or quantifiable as
grammar and lexis. As the focus of these questions is interpretive, there is
necessarily a multiplicity of possible answers. While some questions may be
designed to lead learners to a particular interpretation of language, others
are simply speculative. In this case, the aim is not to elicit some kind of
predetermined ‘correct’ answer but rather to develop meta-awareness
concerning the fact that sociocultural context is important in language use.
In this case, the processes that learners go through, and the skills that are
developed when involved in analysing language use, can also be considered
important.
Possible criticisms It is possible that some will object to using dialogues at all to raise
sociocultural awareness due to the fact that dialogues do not always mirror
‘the way language is really used’ (Seedhouse 2004). Undoubtedly, some
dialogues are more natural than others. The process of constructing
dialogues based on what research tells us about how people communicate
needs to be ongoing. However, it does not seem logical to wait until perfect
dialogues are achieved before we finally turn our learners’ heads towards
context. It is important to work creatively with the educational resources we
have now to achieve a high quality of learning. In any case, dialogues, or
even samples of authentic data, should not be viewed as ‘perfect’ samples of
language use, due to the fact that any communication is inherently
ambiguous and variable (Scollon and Wong-Scollon 1995). Consequently,
learners should not simply approach language as a thing to be remembered,
but as a thing to be examined. Any language use in a dialogue is nothing
more than something that might be said in a particular situation. It is not
necessary to have perfect samples of communication as the imperfect
nature of communication can now become a topic of speculation and
discussion.
Conclusion In this paper I have argued that teachers may need to increase their own
awareness of the general importance of sociocultural context as
a determinant of language use. This is important so that teachers are no
longer limited to simply teaching the ‘cleaner’ aspects of syntax and lexicon.
As long as teachers and students only see dialogues in terms of how they
illustrate grammar usage, there is a waste of learning potential. The
SPEAKING framework is a useful device for making salient the myriad
sociocultural factors that influence language use in order to generate
sociocultural meta-awareness, as well as to highlight specific interactional
norms. It is hoped that this kind of meta-awareness will put learners in
a better position to anticipate and perceive potential differences in cross-
cultural communication and an increased flexibility to deal with them.
Final revised version received September 2007
124 Troy McConachy

References language teaching with an emphasis on culture,
Bachman, L. 1990. Fundamental Considerations in epistemology and ethical pedagogy’. Unpublished
Language Testing. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Doctoral dissertation, University of Canberra.
Barraja-Rohan, A. 2000. ‘Teaching conversation and Liddicoat, A. J. 2005. ‘Teaching languages for
sociocultural norms with conversation analysis’ in intercultural communication’ in D. Cunningham
A. J. Liddicoat and C. Crozet (eds.). Teaching and A. Hatoss (eds.). An International Perspective on
Languages, Teaching Cultures. Melbourne, Australia: Language Policies, Practices and Proficiencies.
Language Australia. Belgrave, Australia: F I PLV.
Byram, M. 1990. ‘Teaching culture and language: Richards, J., J. Hull, and S. Proctor. 1998a. New
towards an integrated model’ in D. Buttjes and Interchange: English for International Communication
M. Byram (eds.). Mediating Languages and Cultures. (Student’s Book 1). Cambridge: Cambridge
Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. University Press.
Canale, M. and M. Swain. 1980. ‘Theoretical bases of Richards, J., J. Hull, and S. Proctor. 1998b. New
communicative approaches to second language Interchange: English for International Communication
teaching and testing’. Applied Linguistics 1/1: 1–47. (Student’s Book 3). Cambridge: Cambridge
Corbett, J. 2003. An Intercultural Approach to English University Press.
Language Teaching. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Scollon, R. and S. Wong-Scollon. 1995. Intercultural
Matters. Communication. Oxford: Blackwell.
Duranti, A. 1997. Linguistic Anthropology. Cambridge: Seedhouse, P. 2004. The Interactional Architecture of
Cambridge University Press. the Language Classroom: A Conversation Analysis
Goodwin, C. and A. Duranti. 1992. ‘Rethinking Perspective. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
context: an introduction’ in A. Duranti and
C. Goodwin (eds.). Rethinking Context: Language as The author
an Interactive Phenomenon. Cambridge: Cambridge Troy McConachy holds an MA (Applied Linguistics)
University Press. from the University of New England, Australia. He is
Hymes, D. 1972. ‘On communicative competence’ in currently conducting his doctoral research on
J. B. Pride and J. Holmes (eds.). Sociolinguistics. intercultural language teaching through the
Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books. Research Centre for Languages and Cultures at the
Hymes, D. 1974. Foundations in Sociolinguistics: An University of South Australia. He also lectures on
Ethnographic Approach. Philadelphia: University of English and intercultural communication at Rikkyo
Pennsylvania Press. University, Tokyo.
Kraus, H. 2003. ‘Creating histories and spaces of Email: mcconachyt@hotmail.com
meaningful use: towards a framework of foreign

Learner-created lexical databases
using web-based source material
Gregory L. Friedman
The use of authentic text has been argued to increase learner awareness of lexical
form, function, and meaning ( for example, Willis 1990; Johns 1994). The Web
provides ready-made material and tools for both learner-centred reading and
vocabulary tasks. This study reports on the results of a project in which Japanese
university E F L students made use of the Web as a living corpus to investigate the
specific contexts and collocative properties of lexis. Using an online database,
students created a communal dictionary composed of lexis and example sentences
culled from web sources, along with examples of their own devising. The language
database was then used to facilitate peer teaching of lexis. Work produced
indicates that learners paid attention to lexical form, function, and meaning when
composing.
Introduction One of the roles language instructors traditionally play in assisting

vocabulary learning is that of arbiter. Teachers and textbook writers
commonly preselect lexis they have reason to believe is appropriate for
a target group in terms of level, frequency of use in native texts or speech, or
necessity for a specialized field. Instructors also generally have control over
the material that students read. Certainly, there is sound pedagogical
reasoning behind such dependence on the teacher. Learners often lack
information on factors such as frequency, while instructors usually have
access to a wide range of levels and types of texts, such that they are able to
fine-tune their selections to their students’ needs, interests, and abilities.
Yet language learners do benefit from having access to authentic
texts—such as newspaper or magazine articles and fiction at native-speaker
level—that provide the opportunity to encounter lexis in a natural, rather
than artificial context. Use of such material allows learners to gain an
understanding of how lexis functions in real-world environments (Willis
1993; Johns 1994). As Willis notes:
The use of authentic text makes it likely that not only structure and
necessary choice but also the typical behaviour of words and phrases will
be captured and . . . highlighted for the learner.
(ibid.: 92)
One problem, of course, with using such texts is their inherent difficulty,
marked as they are by syntactic and lexical complexity, as well as a high

frequency of culture-specific references. Learners may quickly lose
confidence when presented with such texts. If, however, learners are
allowed to actually choose for themselves texts that are of personal or
professional relevance, they may be more willing to engage with authentic
material. Student choice is one way to maximize intrinsic motivation
(Skehan 1991) in which both ‘learners’ particular interests and the extent to
which they feel personally involved in learning activities’ are key (Ellis 1994:
76). Furthermore, when learners themselves select words to learn that are of
interest to them—in particular words that will help them understand a text
that they are personally interested in—motivation for vocabulary learning
may be enhanced. Involvement in both text and vocabulary selection can
thus effectively ‘arouse and harness the learner’s curiosity’ (Willis 1993: 92)
towards the ultimate aim of increasing his or her understanding and
command of L2 lexis.
The project The project reported on in this paper was carried out in a class comprising
Setting and second and third year university students whose English proficiency level
participants ranged from intermediate to high intermediate according to the placement
criteria of the institution. The course, Internet English, is required for some
majors. Though some students came with prior interest in and facility with
using the Web, many were relative web novices.
Computers and internet access were available for all students in the
classroom. As part of the course, students were involved in a variety of
internet-based tasks requiring the reading of web text. These included
participation in English language web discussion forums of their own
choosing, summarizing information found on web pages in oral
presentations, finding information for both student-created and instructor-
created quizzes, and discussion of favourite websites with others in the
class.
Engaging with Students in the class often encountered passages that they found
challenging content challenging due to the presence of unfamiliar lexis. Reading strategies such
as the use of contextual clues to supply meaning or simply reading for gist
were not always sufficient; students expressed a desire to better understand
what they read. Some students tried using electronic English–Japanese
dictionaries to help them through challenging passages. While perhaps
effective to some degree, this tactic did not allow for any opportunity to
acquire new vocabulary. Rather than simply take for granted a certain level
of frustration and the rapid meeting and forgetting of new lexis, it seemed
desirable to make the presence of many new words into an opportunity
rather than an annoyance. In response, an ongoing Class Dictionary project
was begun, with the students in control of the lexis to be included and
responsible for correctly pinpointing definitions, finding collocations, and
writing example sentences.
It should be acknowledged at the outset that not a few voices in the literature
have argued against a reductive, word-hunting approach to L2 reading
methodology (for example, Johns and Davies 1983; Johns 1997; Feathers
2004). They rightfully point out that the primary purpose of text is to
provide information or imaginative experience, not lexis. Balanced against
this, however, is the real need and oft-expressed desire of most students to
Learner-created lexical databases 127

increase their vocabulary. Taking into account both sides of this issue, I
thought it best to have my students engage with web pages first in
information-gathering tasks before they began to use the Web to seek new
lexical knowledge as well. Gleaning lexis was presented as an endeavour
undertaken only to serve the primary purpose of web text, the gathering of
knowledge.
The presence of the Web as an integral part of the course offered a way for
students to deepen their understanding of lexical items by seeking other
examples, much as professional linguists do in using corpora to pinpoint
nuances of native speaker usage, such as topical association and collocation.
Robb (2003), in a study of variation in collocation among different web
domains, notes some drawbacks to the use of the Web as a corpus—for
example, the inability to search for categories of words or to obtain reliable
frequency counts. He posits against these, however, the Web’s size,
accessibility, and the presence of much language that often conforms to
norms of spoken usage (such as that found in forums and blogs) as aspects
that recommend it to second language study.
Process The project comprises six interrelated tasks:

1 Use of web page texts as sources for lexis.
2 Use of an online learner dictionary to select proper definitions.
3 Exploiting the Web as a searchable corpus to find multiple, in-context
examples of lexical items.
4 Population of a lexical database featuring learner-chosen lexis and
learner-created example sentences.
5 Email communication between students and teacher in order to check,
correct, and give feedback on database submissions.
6 An extension story-writing task, to give learners the opportunity to put
new lexis to use.
Each of these will be described, with special attention paid both to the
scaffolding steps used to acclimate students to choosing definitions and to
the use of the Web to broaden the range of example sentences available.
Scaffolding and Though many Japanese E F L students own learner dictionaries, their actual
dictionary facility with using them is often rather limited. To assist the students in
orientation becoming familiar with the process of using learner dictionaries, some
sample lexical items and web page text were chosen in advance. Links to
these pages were provided in an online worksheet (Appendix 1). These web
pages were chosen for their potential general interest to the students in the
class, and short sections assigned that the students could read quickly.
Words were chosen from the text on those pages that the students were not
likely to have encountered before. Figure 1 shows the text of a selection from
Wikipedia’s Spiderman 3 page, which formed the basis of the worksheet.
figure 1
Text from Wikipedia
(Spiderman 3)
128 Gregory L. Friedman

A given lexical entry in a dictionary is likely to present learners with the
challenge of choosing from a list of several different, nuanced definitions.
Thus, a controlled-entry approach was used for selecting the words the
students would be given to tackle. The first two items, ‘bask in’ and ‘seek’,
have single definitions; the second item, ‘convict’, features noun and verb
forms with a single definition each; and the third, ‘bond’, has noun and verb
forms with several definitions for each. In this way, the students
progressively tackle increasing levels of definitional ambiguity in order to
prepare them for the challenges they will be likely to encounter later.1
The text selection was read aloud while the students read on their
computers, then the students read it again on their own. Students’ attention
was drawn to the first item, ‘bask in’. The class was asked to work in pairs,
using contextual clues to decide what part of speech the item represented
and to arrive at a guess of its meaning. Students were allowed to use their
first language when guessing definitions, with about half choosing to do so.
For the first few items in the text selection, the instructor coached the class in
using the online dictionary.2 Key features of the dictionary were pointed out,
such as the initial separation of items by part of speech, keyword listing of
some definitions, pronunciation, and example sentences. The instructor
went through the definitions with the students, asking them to consider
which one made the most sense in the given context. For items with
multiple parts of speech and/or definitions, the challenge for the students
was naturally somewhat greater. Hints and information regarding context,
affixes, morphology, or collocation were given when necessary. Of these, the
latter may be the most important in engendering in learners an ecological
view of lexis: words do not exist in a vacuum, but tend to live next to or near
certain other items or types of items.
Web as corpus To deepen this ecological appreciation of lexis, Google search was used in
order to gather multiple in-context examples. The collocative and associative
nature of items was taken advantage of to inform keyword choice when
carrying out searches. For example, the word ‘installment’ was found on an
earlier version of Wikipedia’s Spiderman 3 page. Students noticed the use of
the preposition ‘of ’ following the word in both the web page sentence and
the example sentence in the online dictionary. A Google search using
‘installment of’ netted ‘fourth installment of the Indiana Jones Adventures’
and ‘you’re reading the 100th installment of Geek to Live’, among others.
The verb ‘suspect’ was noted to be followed by [+ human] items: a name on
the original web page example and a third person pronoun in the dictionary
example. The search keywords ‘suspected’ and ‘him’ netted many instances.
(Using the simple past form of verbs may tend to give more useable web
search results; this point will be discussed further below.)
Topical associations are also valuable for keyword searches. The noun ‘cast’
was noticed by many students on movie-themed sites. After clarifying which
definition was being used, students searched using ‘movie’ and ‘cast’,
finding ‘a list of the Harry Potter cast’. Students also noted the word ‘crew’
often used with ‘cast’, leading to an understanding of the differentiation
between these two movie set occupations. A subsequent search using ‘arm’
and ‘cast’ yielded examples for one of the other definitions of the noun.

Beyond content words, functional lexis is of particular value for learners,
particularly those enrolled in E AP courses. In this case, as well, the Web
provides invaluable opportunities for students to become aware of how such
lexis is used. In a Wikipedia article on the book Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the phrase
‘many of which’ was found:
The book also helped create a number of common stereotypes about
Blacks, many of which endure to this day.
It was not immediately apparent to most students what the meaning or
function of this phrase was. A review was given regarding the use of ‘which’
as a relative pronoun referring to the head noun of the preceding noun
phrase, yet this could only partially satisfy the class’ understanding. A web
search provided several examples to clarify how the phrase is used:
India Blocks Several Web Sites, Many of Which Are Blog Homes.
Scene for scene, Paprika is overflowing with dazzling images, many of
which walk that thin line between beautiful and terrifying.
The class was asked to try to determine which countable noun was being
referenced in each case. After engaging with such examples, students were
able to create their own example sentences using the phrase.
The noodle shop has so many comic books, many of which are boring.
My teacher teaches lessons, many of which I forget soon.
Careful choice of search terms was found to be key in providing useful
results for students. For phrases and collocative items, more useable
samples were found by using quotes and by including all particles,
determiners, etc. For verbs, using the past tense form in the search terms
tended to yield better results (possibly due to the relative contextual clarity
present in news stories or personal recountings, both of which often use
past tense). The following search results (Figures 2–6) demonstrate the
varying degree of contextual support obtained using various search term
combinations, in this case for the phrase ‘face a challenge’.
figure 2
Search term: face
challenge
figure 3
Search term: ‘face
challenge’
figure 4
Search term: ‘face
a challenge’

figure 5
Search term: ‘faced
a challenge’
figure 6
Search term (Google
News): ‘faced a challenge’
The results in Figure 2 show the typical ambiguity found when quotes are
not used and the article left out. The next two searches, using quotes
(Figure 3) and then the insertion of the indefinite article (Figure 4) netted
slightly better results, though still with enough contextual ambiguity to
potentially confuse learners. This evidently stems largely from the common
use of the present tense in headlines, which by themselves offer little
context. With the addition of past tense morphology (Figures 5 and 6),
the results show clearer contexts within which the phrase can be
understood.
Populating the Once the meaning and collocative properties of a few words had been
database established, and further online examples found, the next step for the
students was to create their own example sentences. This personalization
step is at the heart of the database project. From the point of view of an
instructor, it represents a measure of the students’ grasp of form, function,
and meaning. For learners, it is a key step towards internalization of new
lexis. The first time it was carried out, the students were given the task of
writing an example for the same item: ‘bask in’. After comparing and
critiquing one another’s example sentences in small groups, each group
chose a sentence to share with the class. Finally, the class selected two
sentences:
He regretted that he bask in his small success.
He basked in his glory of the past.
These sentences were used to help populate the first entries in the database,
giving the class an opportunity to learn how to enter the necessary
information. For this first time, selected students read out each part
required for the database: word, definition, web page sentence(s), and
example sentence. Another student entered each part as read, while the
class viewed the process on their centre monitors (Figure 7). Note that the
student’s original sentence was not edited to match probable NS norms, i.e.
‘He basked in the glory of his past’. Unless highly ungrammatical or
demonstrating a lack of understanding of the lexical item, student sentences
were left unedited.

figure 7
Database entry
After the first stage, in which the class worked together on a single piece of
web text and a set of preselected items, the students had free rein to choose
words when and where they wished, with only a general goal of at least one
database entry per week. Since the class were working on various web-based
tasks on an ongoing basis (for example, reading pages to find information
for peer-made quizzes, reading and participating in forums and blogs,
preparing presentations based on web research), they had many
opportunities to engage in lexical sleuthing in the context of personal-
interest, meaning-focused inquiry. Figure 8, extracted from the database,
shows samples of student-selected lexis and the example sentences they
created.
Email Early on, a few entries in the database indicated that students sometimes
communication had trouble selecting the appropriate definition for their chosen item (or
perhaps simply did not invest enough effort in choosing among the
multiple definitions) or were unable to write a sentence that clearly captured
the basic sense of the item. To remedy this, the class were instructed to send
their entries by email so that the instructor could give feedback (Figure 9).
After having two entries approved, a student was given approval to work
independently.
Extension task In the final weeks of the course, the students were given a story-writing task
to encourage them to make further use of the lexis that they had gathered as
a group. To maximize the peer teaching opportunity inherent in the class
dictionary, they were asked to utilize two of their own database entries while
using three contributed by others. Before submitting their stories, students
had to check the sentences they wrote using other students’ items with the
original contributors, who either gave approval or advice.
To help the students get their stories underway, a set of links to story-starter
idea web pages was posted on the class homepage. Once the students
embarked upon a story idea that caught their fancy, they seemed to have
little trouble finding ways to use new lexis within them. Fiction writing
allowed imagination to come into play as they built their stories around
words or phrases that gave them inspiration (Appendix 2).
Finally, the students uploaded their story documents to our class homepage,
where they could be read by all. Some students opted to post them on their
personal homepages. After reading their classmates’ stories, they sent

figure 8
Sample database entries

figure 9
Email communication
emails with comments to the authors or directly posted comments on their

personal homepages.
Conclusion Rather than teachers presenting students with texts and vocabulary lists as
a fait accompli, learners can be empowered to choose source material that is
of personal interest to them and to choose words and phrases that they find
interesting or which help them understand what they want to know. The
abundance and inexhaustible variety of web text let learners act as lexical
sleuths and budding corpus builders, while online tools let them compile
their findings for ready reference and peer teaching.
Though the method outlined above involved six different online tasks, it is
not necessary that the project be carried out in exactly this way. Instructors
might choose to use any one or all of these tasks, depending on the type of
class, the extent to which computer resources may be available, and the
instructor’s own philosophy of reading and vocabulary learning. For
example, it is not necessary that the lexical material come from the Web
itself; the items might come from other assigned reading material. Learners
could also be presented with a specified set of lexis to find on the Web, for
example, items from the academic word list. Furthermore, the tasks need
not be done during class time. If no computer resources are available in the
classroom, students can carry them out on their own and share their
findings with one another in class.

This study presented student work produced through tasks that featured
specific attributes, such as learner autonomy in choosing lexis to be learnt,
collective learning through a database, and creative expression. The study
does not show whether these aspects can result in long-term retention either
of the vocabulary studied or of the study skills used during the tasks (for
example, searching for multiple in-context examples in order to understand
vocabulary). However, the work demonstrates that students were often able
to understand and correctly apply the form, function, and meaning of the
lexical items they chose.
Final revised version received November 2007
Notes Pedagogical Grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge

1 Since the creation of this lesson, changes in the University Press.
online dictionary have resulted in several Robb, T. 2003. ‘Google as a quick ‘n dirty corpus tool’.
definitions being added to the entries for both T E S L - E J 7/2. Available at http://tesl-ej.org/ej26/
‘bask’ and ‘seek’. int.html.
2 This study made use of the online version of the Skehan, P. 1991. ‘Individual differences in second
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. CD language learning’. Studies in Second Language
versions of this dictionary also contain a pop-up Acquisition 3/2: 275–98.
dictionary window that will appear when any word Willis, J. D. 1990. The Lexical Syllabus. London:
on web page text is clicked. This was used by some Collins Cobuild.
students. Willis, J. D. 1993. ‘Grammar and lexis: some
pedagogical implications’ in J. Sinclair, G. Fox, and
M. Hoey (eds.). Techniques of Description. London:
References Routledge.
Ellis, R. 1994. The Study of Second Language
Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Feathers, K. 2004. Infotext: Reading and Learning The author
(Second Edition). Toronto: Pippin Publishing, Ltd. Gregory Friedman currently teaches in the Global
Johns, A. 1997. Text, Role and Context: Developing Japanese Studies programme at Meiji University in
Academic Literacies. Cambridge: Cambridge Tokyo. He holds a Master’s degree in Applied
University Press. Linguistics from San Diego State University. His
Johns, T. and F. Davies. 1983. ‘Text as a vehicle for research interests include task effects on fluency,
information: the classroom use of written texts in complexity, and accuracy of learner output, in
teaching reading in a foreign language’. Reading in particular the effect of scenario drama interaction on
a Foreign Language 1/1: 1–19. output modification.
Johns, T. F. 1994. ‘From printout to handout: Email: gregapan@gmail.com
grammar and vocabulary teaching in the context of
data-driven learning’ in T. Odlin (ed.). Perspectives on
Appendix 1 Read the second paragraph of the Wikipedia article about the movie
Worksheet (excerpt) Spiderman 3.
n Notice the word basking.
1 What kind of word do you think it is?
(For example, noun, verb, adjective . . .) _________________
2 What preposition comes after basking? _____
3 What do you think basking in his success means?
__________________________________________________________

4 Now look up the phrase in the online dictionary, or use your pop-up.
What is the definition?
__________________________________________________________
5 Now, write your own sentence using this phrase.
__________________________________________________________
n Notice the word seeks.
1 What kind of word do you think it is?
(For example, noun, verb, adjective, preposition . . .)
_________________
2 What do you think seeks means?
__________________________________________________________
3 Now look up the word in the online dictionary, or use your pop-up.
What is the definition?
__________________________________________________________
4 What is the past tense form of this verb? _________________
Web search!
1 Open a new browser window. Go to Google. First, search with just seek.
What kind of examples do you see? What are these websites about?
What do many people seek on the Web? They seek ___________.
2 What is another thing people might seek on the Web?
Think of some ideas with your partner. Write three ideas here:
_______________ _______________ _______________
Now, search using your ideas. In the search window, put seek [your idea].
Write a sentence that you find:
__________________________________________________________
Appendix 2 (vocabulary items in bold)

Story samples
1 I heard a scary noise in the closet when I was in bed.
The noise came out frequently. I was thinking I should leave my room or
open the closet, and I opted to open it. I was really scared, because when I
saw my face reflected in the transparent window, it looked like a ghost! I
shouted because of the surprise.
Then I thought that I saw something turned up on the floor. So I brandished
my bat. Then it hit my room lamp, and I saw the scattered piece of broken
lamp on the floor.
I couldn’t move like a fishbowl idol and shaked with fear. I decided to leave
this room after a short time. I was completely forget about broken glass, so I
injured my foot.
2 One day of in the life of George Bush
Yesterday, I slept for a long time and I had a very long dream. I was a famous
person. I turned into, say, George Bush. I did the inaugural address. I write
signature for warring thereafter. I declared that fighting terrorist, but I was
skeptical about my idea. I said to myself that is the war really for peace? My
acting was reminiscent of the Vietnam War. The war involved many peoples.
I was ashamed of own act, when I woke. It was a really creepy dream.

An analysis of spoken grammar:
the case for production
Simon Mumford
Corpus-based grammars, notably Cambridge Grammar of English, give explicit

information on the forms and use of native-speaker grammar, including
spoken grammar. Native-speaker norms as a necessary goal in language
teaching are contested by supporters of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF);
however, this article argues for the inclusion of selected forms for teaching for
production based on an analysis of the usefulness of individual forms. The
forms are analysed in two sections, relating to fluency and appropriacy, since,
while every student can benefit from improved fluency, native-speaker
appropriacy may not be a need for all. The conclusion is that such an analysis
strengthens the arguments for teaching many of these forms for production,
while acknowledging the case for fluency features is stronger than more
context-dependent appropriacy forms. It briefly looks at some possibilities for
teaching the forms.
Introduction Advances in technology have brought a more detailed analysis of native-

speaker language, which has been used as the basis of teaching material,
and we have already seen the publication of course books and dictionaries
informed by corpora. Attention has now been focused on the (native
speaker) Spoken Grammar of English (hereafter SGE). This can be defined
as those aspects of English which are almost always associated with the
spoken language or its written representation, as recorded in new corpus-
based grammars, notably Cambridge Grammar of English (Carter and
McCarthy 2006) (hereafter C GE) and Longman Grammar of Spoken and
Written English (Biber et al. 2000). This article examines selected SGE forms
in C GE and related writings by Carter (1998, 2007) in order to analyse their
role in native-speaker speech, and to attempt to establish what the potential
benefits to learners of using such forms may be.
The analysis and conclusions drawn are set against the significant debate in
English Language Teaching (E LT) over whether to use native-speaker norms
regarding grammar, or to use some other standard. In order to give some
background to the debate, I briefly look at three approaches to native-
speaker spoken forms as a model for learners. The first is that of supporters
of World Englishes/English as a Lingua Franca (EL F), which denies any
need for specifically native-speaker norms. Another position advocates
a passive knowledge of these forms for students. Finally, an argument for

teaching native-speaker forms for productive use based on student need and
interest is set out.
The last position, as expressed by Kuo (2006), will be appropriate, this
article will argue, for at least some forms of S GE, because C G E has now
isolated and described the forms, and enabled us to understand their role in
speech and, therefore, the advantages for learners. We can now pass this
information on to learners and help them use the forms, potentially
benefiting them in two main ways: firstly, in making their language more
fluent and, secondly, more appropriate. This distinction is used as the
criterion both for the analysis and for the basis of selection of forms for
teaching. The rationale for this approach is that while it can be argued that
native-speaker appropriacy is more applicable to students dealing with
native speakers, fluency can be considered a more general need, desirable in
any situation.
Three approaches to The basis of the ELF argument is the fact that many students will never
the native-speaker come into contact with native speakers. Supporters of this view, for example
model Rajagopalan (2004: 114), argue that in an age when native speakers are no
The World Englishes/ longer the largest group of English speakers, using their norms in ELT gives
E L F approach them unwarranted status and precedence, and thus should be avoided.
These writers argue for an English based on ‘intelligibility’, where the
learners’ aim is to speak in a way that can be understood, rather than
precisely follow native-speaker norms, with the result that minor
grammatical inaccuracies and some variation in pronunciation are accepted
as long as mutual intelligibility is maintained.
The passive Other writers have suggested that a native-speaker model would in fact be
knowledge approach useful to learners. One approach that has been suggested includes raising
students’ awareness through listening to recordings of native speakers, and
using scripts and exercises to help them notice features of SGE. Such
a model has been put forward by Timmis (2005: 118), whose research leads
him to conclude that ‘a significant number of learners and teachers’ want to
sound like native speakers as far as possible, including the use of ‘informal
grammar’, and he notes that many others will at least want to understand
native-speaker spoken language conventions. Despite this, however, he
stops short of recommending teaching for production, pointing to lack of
rules for use, stating that ‘it is at least questionable whether we want learners
to produce these forms at any stage’ (ibid.: 120).
The production However, another view proposes that there is a need to go beyond this
approach passive knowledge approach, and teach native-speaker norms for
production. Kuo’s (2006) research reveals that many of her students see
native speakers as a desirable model and that, in an increasingly competitive
world, merely being ‘intelligible’, being able to make themselves
understood is, in itself, insufficient. Where learners are in contact and in
competition with native speakers, lack of practice in native-speaker spoken
norms will lead to a distinct disadvantage, for example, in showing the
appropriate level of formality and politeness. Thus, for many students,
especially those in, or planning to travel to, English-speaking countries or
those who work with or meet native speakers, learning SGE will bring
138 Simon Mumford

benefits. Furthermore, Kuo (2007) points out that these forms will help
learners communicate in a range of situations where native speakers may or
may not be present.
Analysis of the The potential benefits that the students of Kuo and Timmis and many
features of S GE others feel they would gain from native-speaker grammar seem not to have
been precisely defined or comprehensively analysed so far. The purpose of
this article is to understand the role of SGE and how these forms could help
learners. The following analysis of C G E reveals how British speakers use
certain forms to communicate both fluently and appropriately, and as these
two areas, fluency and appropriacy, seem to be the main purposes of SGE,
they are used as criteria for the analysis, which looks at selected features that
have a clear relation to learner language and implications for teaching/
learning and testing.
Analysis of SGE The forms most likely to be useful to students consist of the following:
fluency features phrasal chains; simple sentence structure; non-canonical use of some
singular and countable/uncountable forms; ellipsis of subjects and
auxiliaries; use of declaratives as questions; flexible word order, including
headers and tails and fronting of objects; use of lexical chunks, fillers, and
placeholders.
n Carter and McCarthy (2006: 168) note that in real-time speech
‘utterances are linked . . . as if in a chain’ rather than built into sentences.
Thus, unless students can learn to speak in phrasal chains, they will be
under a double disadvantage, as they will not only have fewer language
resources than more fluent speakers but will also be setting themselves
the more difficult goal of speaking in sentences. Practice in speaking in
phrases rather than sentences could help students produce a greater
volume of language, and language which sounds more fluent.
n Carter and McCarthy (ibid.: 170) note that native speakers tend to use
coordinating conjunctions (‘and’ and ‘but’) and simple subordinating
conjunctions (‘so’ and ‘because’) in real-time communication, and this
is the kind of language that students should aim at when producing
unplanned speech in situations like oral exams. The combination of
simple conjunctions and phrasal chains in native-speaker speech
suggests that the traditional complex (written) sentence is not natural
in spoken language and therefore not a suitable standard to judge
students’ speech by.
n Native speakers sometimes use ‘ungrammatical’ structures, they are
more likely to say, for example, ‘There’s your pills’ than ‘There are your
pills’ in informal situations when indicating location (ibid.: 95). ‘Less
children’ (instead of ‘fewer’) is another such form produced by native
speakers (ibid.: 103). By eliminating the need to choose between different
singular and plural, and countable and uncountable forms, the cognitive
load is lightened and fluency made easier. If we as teachers insist that
students conform to ‘written grammar’ norms while speaking, we may
again be making their task more difficult.
n Some elliptical forms used by native speakers resemble learners
‘incorrect’ forms. If a learner produces ‘You like ice-cream?’ or ‘Like
ice-cream?’, he or she may be corrected, and prompted to say ‘Would/Do
An analysis of spoken grammar 139

you like ice-cream?’ However, native speakers frequently omit pronouns
and auxiliaries in informal interrogatives (ibid.: 182). Students may, in
fact, know the full forms, but, like native speakers, under pressure of real-
time conversation, take short cuts, which do not interfere with meaning
since it is clear from the context.
n Declaratives are used for questions by native speakers (ibid.: 533), which,
again, could lead to the phrase ‘You like ice-cream?’ being used as
a question. As mentioned before, learners often use this as a question
form. If teachers fail to consider and allow for this, students will again be
operating under the same double disadvantage of fewer language
resources, yet a harder task in constructing sentences that are
‘grammatically correct’ according to the written language.
n Word order is more flexible in spoken language, since speech is
constructed in real time and follows the order of ideas emerging from
a speaker, which may override grammar rules (ibid.: 172). Learners’
‘incorrect’ word order may, of course, show L1 interference or wrong
learning, but it could equally reflect this S GE feature, and thus, again,
language teachers may demand standards of spoken language that native
speakers frequently fail to achieve. Students may feel less anxious about
word order in speech if they understand the cause of these natural
inconsistencies.
n The use of headers and tails (ibid.: 194), and fronting (ibid.: 779), can also
alter the word order of traditional written grammar, again showing that
spoken language is much more flexible than written forms are. Using
headers may come naturally to some students, because it is often simpler
to mention the topic first and then add a comment, as in the following
example: ‘That old lady, I really like her’. The fronting of objects in
sentences is likely to appeal to students where objects precede other
sentence elements in their native language. Students may be reassured to
know these spoken forms are not necessarily wrong.
n Language is repetitive and fluency is increased by the ability to use chunks
such as ‘I see’, ‘I think’, ‘you know’, ‘kind of ’ (ibid.: 828). Drilling may be
a solution which would help to make these terms familiar and natural
(Carter 2007: 44). Ironically, such mechanical exercises may contribute to
fluency, if, as a result, students can use the chunks effectively and
automatically.
n Pausing and repeating are common, especially at the beginning of
utterances (Carter and McCarthy 2006: 172). Fillers and repetition are
natural features of language and could be encouraged, especially as an
alternative to silence. Students could be shown that the function of a filled
pause (‘err’ and ‘um’) is to draw attention to the thought that the speaker is
giving to choosing the right words (ibid.: 173). This device is extremely
common in the corpus; the fillers ‘um’ and ‘err’ represent the sixteenth
and seventeenth most common word forms, respectively, in native-
speaker speech (ibid.: 12). Like other word forms, these will need
practice in order for them to become automatic.
n Native speakers use words such as ‘thingy’ and ‘thingamajig’ to refer
to items that they cannot think of words for (ibid.: 149). This type of
vagueness has been labelled ‘forced vagueness’, since is it used out of
necessity rather than having a communicative purpose (Trappes-Lomax
2007: 122). Carter and McCarthy (2006: 147–9) note that these
140 Simon Mumford

placeholders are usually to describe items that are actually present.
However, learners could be trained to make use of this feature to
substitute for unknown words, whether the referents are present or not.
This seems preferable to the alternative, which is to define the unnamed
item, for example: ‘a thing for opening a bottle with’. Such complex
grammatical structures are difficult to produce in real time and are likely
to reduce fluency.
Analysis of SGE Selected appropriacy forms, more likely to be of benefit to students dealing
appropriacy features directly with native speakers, consist of Vague Language, two-step
questions, contracted forms of the verb ‘will’, native-speaker chunks such as
‘you know’, and a specific use of ellipsis.
n One objection to S G E is that it is associated with excessive informality, but
this is not always the case. Vague Language, for example, is the mark of
a skilled user, not an overly relaxed or informal one, according to Carter
and McCarthy (op.cit.: 202), and they point out that this language is not
linked so much to formality as shared knowledge and group
membership. Another function of Vague Language is making the
message less direct and, therefore, its absence may result in language that
sounds more domineering than the speaker intends. (Carter and
McCarthy: op.cit.).
n Two-step questions emphasize indirectness (ibid.: 201), and therefore,
presumably, politeness, and are thus important for learners in or going to
target language countries. This is likely to be especially true of requests,
where the directness can be reduced with a pre-question. As an example,
C G E cites ‘Are you going to the match tonight?’ as a pre-question to
‘Do you mind if I tag along?’
n Carter and McCarthy (ibid.: 632) note that ‘will’ and the contraction ‘‘ll’
may now be recognized as two separate forms, and the implication is that
learners who use the full form when the contraction would normally be
used risk sounding more authoritarian than they may mean to be. The
Cambridge International Corpus shows that the contracted form is much
more common, and can now be regarded as the unmarked spoken form.
These distinct forms may now need to be taught as separate items,
assuming students are in contact with native speakers.
n Carter (2007: 43, 44) points out that certain chunks, for example, ‘sort of’,
‘you know’ mark native speakers, and those who wish for native-like
proficiency should learn these. He notes that those who think they do not
need them or are unable to use them may not be able to represent
themselves in the way they would like when interacting with native
speakers.
n Carter (1998: 49) has previously revealed that, rather than being impolite
or casual, ellipsis is actually more appropriate than full forms in certain
situations, giving the example of service encounters where time is limited
and full forms would cause unnecessary delay, and thus, irritation among
those waiting in queues behind.
The case for teaching Even though there would seem to be clear benefits to students in
SGE for production understanding and applying native-speaker fluency forms, there still
The case for teaching remains the objection that by using native speakers as a model, students are
fluency features being forced to adopt a position that compromises their integrity, since their

learning is based on a model that is not relevant to them, whereas the EL F
model, it is claimed, suits their needs.
Supporters of ELF allow, and even seem to encourage ‘. . . bypassing
redundancy . . . with a view to maintaining intelligibility’ (Alptekin 2007:
267). ‘Bypassing redundancy’ could be said to reflect what native speakers
themselves do all the time while speaking, in regard to omitting auxiliaries,
and using non-standard grammatical forms in noun–verb concord, for
example. Spoken language, whether of the native speaker or language
learner will inevitably involve deviation from ‘written grammar’; however,
the form this deviation takes may be important, since the need to
communicate involves not only intelligibility but also efficiency and
economy, i.e. fluency. Much native-speaker SGE exists for just this reason, to
transmit the message as quickly and efficiently as possible.
When faced with this need to deviate from written grammar, students may
benefit from a model for guidance. Supporters of EL F seem not to have
produced a specific model, and Maley (2006: 5) questions, even if they had,
whether students would accept a ‘reduced version’ of English. Kuo (2006)
notes that native-speaker forms will be the preferred starting point of many
students, since they represent a fuller and more complete view of the
language than any learner language corpus. This is especially true now C GE
has made these forms easily accessible and shows exactly what role they
play.
Learners already benefit from skills training in many areas of English,
training which aims to give them strategies similar to those used by native
speakers, since these are agreed to be the most efficient. There seems to be
no good reason why the attitude to training students for efficiency in
speaking should be any different to other skills, now we know what these
strategies are. One example is ellipsis, which in the case of written language,
as is well known, has definite rules that learners need to know if they are to
write fluently. As can now be seen, ellipsis in speaking also has clearly
defined rules. Students learning these could become better speakers, just as
they become better writers by learning written grammar rules, and thus the
relevancy to all learners can be demonstrated.
The case for teaching Fluency aspects of SGE may prove more generally acceptable to learners
appropriacy features than those of appropriacy since they appeal more to learners’ needs for
flexibility when dealing with the spoken language. Appropriacy features like
Vague Language are likely to be more controversial, since they represent
forms associated with one particular group of native speakers, and thus, it is
claimed, learners who use them will be adopting a false identity.
This argument is again addressed by Kuo (2007: 270), who points out that
for students wishing to take part in real international communication, the
benefits of learning such language include the ‘capacity to adapt to any given
context’, in other words, to be able to use native-speaker forms when and
where appropriate, and she asserts the students’ right to learn the forms and
choose whether to use them or not. In regard to ‘Vague Language’, Cutting
(2007: 240) also proposes raising students’ awareness, and then allowing
them to ‘opt-in’ or ‘opt-out’.
142 Simon Mumford

Even with appropriacy, there is a case for looking at features on an individual
basis when deciding whether to teach them or not. Evison et al. (2007: 154)
note that some Vague Category Markers relate to the ‘shared knowledge of
all mature, aware human beings’, while others are ‘more locally constrained
and culture-bound’. Thus, the principle of general as opposed to context-
dependent usefulness to learners can be applied within the category of
appropriacy features itself as well as being a major general distinguishing
factor between fluency and appropriacy forms.
Teaching S GE forms for production, needless to say, should be done
sensitively, especially regarding appropriacy features, and should, as far as
possible, take into account learners’ needs and where possible, be negotiated
with the students.
Some teaching It is beyond the scope of this article to put forward a specific programme or
suggestions methodology for teaching S GE. In very general terms, however,
a programme as suggested by Timmis (2005: 199), including noticing tasks
(see also Willis and Willis 2007: 142) could be combined with activities
aimed at helping students produce the language noticed. Current activities,
such as role play, speaking and listening activities, and games can be
adapted to SGE teaching (for some practical ideas, see Mumford 2007).
Such a programme could either be used in a short stand-alone course for
those who were interested in rapidly acquiring the forms, or integrated into
a wider English course. The long-term development of such material will
most likely result from methodologists’ interpretations of researchers’
further findings.
Conclusion Cambridge Grammar of English is a significant contribution to our

knowledge of English because of size of the corpus used and its detailed
analysis. We can now see that S GE consists of a range of different structural
and lexical items with a variety of functions. As it is purely descriptive, it
is not the purpose of C G E to give an indication of whether, which features
of, or how this new information should be taught. However, it gives new
impetus to the productive teaching of SGE by collating and codifying it,
reducing the force of the objection raised by Timmis (op.cit.: 120) that it is
not easy to draw up rules of use for these items.
CGE tells us much about native-speaker spoken grammar, both appropriacy
and fluency. It is the latter which is most likely to benefit students who need
to speak fluently in English. Without knowledge of and ability to use
features such as ellipsis, phrasal chaining, placeholders, headers and tails,
and fronting, native speakers would find communication a great deal
harder. This is the difficulty learners face if denied knowledge of, or
prohibited from, using such forms.
Appropriacy forms are likely to be more context-dependent and therefore
more controversial. However, it may be more profitable to examine all S GE
forms on an individual basis and assess their usefulness to learners, taking
into account their needs, when deciding what to teach for production, rather
than seeing native-speaker norms as a single unified body. When it comes
to classifying SGE forms, the fluency/appropriacy distinction and the

concepts of the general and the culturally specific would seem to be
useful.
Final revised version received January 2008
References Maley, A. 2006. ‘Questions of English’. English

Alptekin, C. 2007. ‘Teaching E L F as a language in its Teaching Professional 46: 4–6.
own right: communication or prescriptivism’. E LT Mumford, S. 2007. ‘The grammar of spoken
Journal 61/3: 267–8. English’. Modern English Teacher 16/4: 27–30.
Biber, D., S. Johansson, G. Leech, S. Conrad, and Rajagopalan, K. 2004. ‘The concept of World English
E. Finegan. 2000. Longman Grammar of Spoken and and its implications for E LT ’. E LT Journal 58/2:
Written English. Harlow, UK: Pearson Education Ltd. 111–7.
Carter, R. 1998. ‘Orders of reality: C AN CODE, Timmis, I. 2005. ‘Towards a framework for teaching
communication, and culture’. E LT Journal 52/1: spoken grammar’. E LT Journal 59/2: 117–25.
43–5. Trappes-Lomax, H. 2007. ‘Vague Language as
Carter, R. 2007. ‘What is advanced level vocabulary? a means of self-protective avoidance: tension
The case of chunks and clusters’ in P. Davidson, management in conference talks’ in J. Cutting (ed.).
C. Coombe, D. Lloyd, and D. Palfreyman (eds.). Vague Language Explored. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave
Teaching and Learning Vocabulary in Another Macmillan.
Language. Dubai: T ES O L Arabia. Willis, D. and J. Willis. 2007. Doing Task-based
Carter, R. and M. McCarthy. 2006. Cambridge Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Grammar of English. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. The author
Cutting, J. (ed.). 2007. Vague Language Explored. Simon Mumford has taught for 20 years in Izmir,
Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Turkey, and in the UK. He currently teaches
Evison, J., M. McCarthy, and A. O’Keeffe. 2007. academic reading and writing, and works in the
‘Looking out for love and all the rest of it: Vague Academic Writing Centre at the Izmir University of
Category Markers as shared social space’ in J. Cutting Economics. His professional interests include
(ed.). Vague Language Explored. Basingstoke, UK: classroom activity design and he edits the Practical
Palgrave Macmillan. Teaching Ideas column in IATEF L Voices. He
Kuo, I. V. 2006. ‘Addressing the issue of teaching organizes a voluntary workshop programme for the
English as a Lingua Franca’. ELT Journal 60/3: British Council in Izmir. He holds the Aston
213–21. University MSc. T ES O L.
Kuo, I. V. 2007. ‘A response to Cem Alptekin’. E LT Email: simon.mumford@ieu.edu.tr
Journal 61/3: 269–71.
144 Simon Mumford

What makes a coursebook series
stand the test of time?
Éva Illés
Intriguingly, at a time when the E LT market is inundated with state-of-the-art

coursebooks teaching modern-day English, a 30-year-old series enjoys continuing
popularity in some secondary schools in Hungary. Why would teachers, several
of whom are school-based teacher–mentors in the vanguard of the profession,
purposefully choose materials which were published not years but decades ago?
This paper attempts to find the reasons for their decision and argues for the
importance of pedagogically appropriate texts. It confirms the view that it is not
necessary for a piece to be written by native speakers for native speakers in order to
be authentic in the classroom context. The study also suggests that texts which
display qualities that works of literature possess can not only successfully engage
and motivate learners but stand the test of time as well.
Introduction At the instigation of some grammar schools in Hungary, the regional

branch of Oxford University Press requested the publisher to reprint the
first two books of the Access to English1 series. Of the 2004 print run, 2200 of
the 3000 copies of the first book and all of the 3000 copies of the second
book were sold by April 2007 (personal communication). Given the
plethora of more recent publications, the question arises as to what
considerations have led Hungarian E LT professionals to opt for these
age-old books which revolve around the life and adventures of a fictitious
character, Arthur Newton, a shy, penniless, young librarian who (in the
second book) goes back to college and wins the heart and hand of Mary,
a pretty fellow librarian. Furthermore, what is the appeal of a series where
grammar practice is predominantly drills and reading comprehension tasks
consist of questions only? How is it possible that, in this day and age,
learners are happy to use books without photos and are willing to read texts
which give them little information about the ‘real world’ outside their
classroom? The continued popularity of Access to English inevitably
challenges some of our most widely held views of what constitutes effective
teaching materials.
The role of text What teachers seem to value most about Access to English is the amount and
quality of its texts. As some teachers put it: ‘Students like the series because
the story is funny and the texts are humorous’ or ‘The story enables you to
step into Arthur’s shoes, which gives you the opportunity to discuss issues
that concern people in their everyday life’ (personal communication).

In Access to English, text plays a central role: each unit begins with a narrative
and a related dialogue which provide the thematic context for the exercises
and drills that follow. In fact, the books offer a commodity which is scarce in
ELT these days: an excellent storyline made up of a string of well-written,
engaging texts.
In so doing, the series follows a tradition which had its heyday during the
1970s. Kernel Lessons Intermediate published by Longman in 1971, for
instance, included very short stories with pictures and an action film-like
thriller, ‘The Man Who Escaped’, for extensive reading. The story of the
manageress of a Bristol shoe shop and a Canadian engineer served as the
thread that kept the units in Building Strategies together. Another book
published in Hungary in 1976 (Angol nyelvkönyv I.) was based on a gangster
spoof which, like a play within a play, was being watched by a family on
television.
The stories in these publications provided not only a good read but also
offered suitable and stimulating contexts for the learning of grammar,
vocabulary, and various functions. The present continuous in Episode 2
of Kernel Lessons, for example, serves as a means to describe a scene:
The radio is on in an expensive pub in Soho, in the centre of London. Most
of the people there are not very interested in the news programme, but
one man is. His name is Eric Masters. He is about 45 and is wearing very
expensive clothes. He is looking very afraid of something. There is
another man standing next to him at the bar. Masters is asking him
a question. (p. 11)
Since this passage is part of an exciting chase, on approaching the text
learners (and the teacher) probably focus on the overall meaning of the
paragraph rather than the grammatical structure first. The reader would like
to know who Eric Masters and the other person are, why Masters is looking
afraid, why he is interested in the news and, most importantly, what all this
has to do with the main character, an escaped prisoner. In fact, the passage,
like acts of communication outside the classroom, leaves a lot unsaid and
forces the learner to engage with the text not only linguistically but
cognitively and affectively as well. Given the prevailing context of the thriller,
readers are made to believe that the primary objective of the paragraph is not
to provide examples of the present continuous but to unravel the mystery, to
ask questions, and resolve the uncertainties.
In other words, the text demonstrates not only the semantic meaning (i.e.
the meaning encoded in the form) of the grammatical structure but also
provides a communicative context for natural pragmatic use of the
language. As in all instances of overt or covert interaction where ‘the
semantic source is put to appropriate contextual use’ (Widdowson 2003:
117), learners reading the prisoner’s story also exploit their knowledge of the
language to activate a familiar frame of reference (crime, ‘goodies’ and
‘baddies’, somebody punished for something they have not done, etc.) and
a type of discourse (i.e. story) they have known since they were children. As
with all stories, the language in these textbooks is complementary and
serves as a means to engage the learners’ own reality.
146 Éva Illés

In contrast, in many coursebooks the text does not go beyond ‘a display of
encodings’ (Widdowson 2003: 120). The stories mostly function as
demonstrations of particular grammatical structures and not much is left to
the imagination. The written passages often fail to arouse expectations or
trigger off engagement with the text. The following example provides an
illustration of how the pragmatic potential of a story remains unfulfilled:
1 Read the story of John and Moira in A and complete their actual
conversation in B.
THE MARRIAGE PROPOSAL
A John greeted Moira and asked how she was. She told him she was fine.
He said it was great to see her. He added that they hadn’t seen each other
since Paris. She said that she had loved Paris and asked if they could go
back next spring. John said there was something he had to ask her. He told
her that he loved her and asked if she would marry him and come to Paris
on honeymoon. She said that she would and that she loved him too.
(The N E W edition New Headway Intermediate: 94)
If the tasks that follow focused on the unspoken mysteries of the text, for
example, what happened in Paris, where and how John and Moira meet this
time, etc., rather than on grammatical exercises (identifying passages in
direct/indirect speech and completing the dialogue in indirect speech),
students would get involved as genuine readers, and could exploit
language in a way they normally do outside the classroom.
As the following extract from a telephone conversation demonstrates, the
romance of Rod and Barbara in Building Strategies is not as undisturbed
as that of many characters in E F L materials (Tomlinson, Dat, Masuhara,
and Rubdy 2001).
Barbara Rod? It’s me, Barbara. Am I ringing at a bad time again?
Rod No, no. That’s all right. Is it something important?
Barbara No, not really. It’s just . . . well, some American friends of mine
are here for a few days and they wanted to go for a meal this
evening. I thought maybe you’d like to come too.
Rod Well, that does sound fun, but . . . er . . . I’m afraid, I’ve got a bad
headache, to tell you the truth, and . . . (p. 57)
Apart from discussing why Rod has declined the invitation, the exchange
naturally leads to the practice of invitations and telephone conversations.
Stories offer ample opportunities for the contextualization of vocabulary as
well. Students learn about the various parts of cars together with Arthur in
Access to English when he has his first driving lesson:
Mr Taylor Now then. Did you ever learn about the controls?
Arthur Yes, I did but I think I’ve forgotten them now.
Mr Taylor Well, anyway, this is the steering wheel, as you know, and
these pedals are—the clutch on the left here, and that’s for
your left foot; the middle one’s the foot-brake and the one’s on
the right’s the accelerator.
(Starting Out: 103)
What makes a coursebook series stand the test of time? 147

By providing a context in which these words and structures would naturally
occur, the dialogue obtains a ‘pragmatic point’ (Widdowson 2003: 120). As
a result, the text will engage the learners’ knowledge of the world (of cars) as
well as demonstrate the appropriate pragmatic use of the new vocabulary as
opposed to the sheer display of semantic meaning in, for example,
a picture–vocabulary matching activity.
Authenticity Even though well-written coursebook stories such as ‘The Man Who
Escaped’ or Access to English engage the learners’ interest and are conducive
to learning, the question remains whether their language presents
authentic stimuli to the students.
If authenticity refers to ‘actually attested language produced by native
speakers for a normal communicative purpose’ (Widdowson 1983: 30), then
the answer is clearly negative since the texts present a fictional world rather
than the sociocultural reality of Britain. If, however, the term is used to refer
to ‘the communicative activity of the language user, to the engagement of
interpretative procedures for making sense, even if these procedures are
operating on and with textual data which are not authentic in the first sense’
(Widdowson 1983: 30), the language of these stories, without doubt,
qualifies as authentic. So even though the texts are not authentic in the most
commonly used sense of the word, the kind of language use they give rise to
is in that learners authenticate the language for themselves by employing
procedures for meaning making and displaying responses which are
characteristic of normal communicative behaviour.
In the case of well-written stories learners genuinely appropriate the texts:
they engage with them on their own terms and often on their own initiative.
As a result, good scripted texts can successfully achieve a natural end, i.e. the
pragmatic engagement of learners by using what Widdowson (1983: 31) calls
the ‘contrived means’ of inauthentic language. In so doing, they challenge
one of the basic tenets in ELT nowadays, i.e. that ‘topics which are real and
immediate must command more interest and response from learners then
[sic] imaginary, made-up content’ (Cunningsworth 1995: 86).
Pedagogic texts and Of the four above-mentioned 1970s coursebooks, only Access to English has
literature remained widely used. One of the reasons for this may be that this series is
based exclusively on one story (unlike Building Strategies and Kernel Lessons),
and is much better written than the Hungarian publication in which short
and simple sentences prevail even at stages where such simplification is
unnatural and therefore unnecessary.
Since the 1970s, there have been several attempts to revive the storyline, for
example, Snapshot, Hotline, Zoom in on Britain and Hungary, etc. However,
most of them differ from Access to English in that the stories they contain
either provide supplementary materials (for example, to summarize and/or
recycle) or focus on the development of one particular skill. More recent
coursebooks also reflect a trend where the visual stimulus takes precedence
over the text. As a result, the stories are often presented as comics and the
text is reduced to utterances in speech bubbles.
It seems that the main factor which makes Access to English stand out and
stand the test of time is the fact that its narratives and dialogues bear a close
148 Éva Illés

resemblance to literary texts. Even though Arthur is an English bloke in
1970s Britain, his story poses neither spatial nor temporal constraints on
interpretation: no previous knowledge of the era or the place is necessary in
order to be able to relate to Arthur’s ‘light-hearted adventures’. Access to
English represents fiction, a make-believe world with its own reality,
a timeless existence without topicality. Given this attribute, the texts
surprisingly often fit the description of a work of art which ‘stands before us
as ‘‘reality’’, . . . we must accept it as it is; we can only approve or reject its
reality subjectively. Though we cannot interfere with it (. . .), it can affect us
because it is evocative, its reality is sensuous, . . .’ (Királyfalvi 1975: 77).
Culture There is no hidden or explicit cultural agenda in Arthur’s story. The authors
do not intend to tell students who are not ‘fortunate’ enough to live in the
British Isles about the particular way of life there, nor do they require
learners to make comparisons between Britain and their countries. Instead,
they focus, as the blurb of the first book of the series also claims, on an
individual, on the antics of ‘an amiable if somewhat incompetent junior
librarian’. In Access to English, British culture is embedded in the story and
comprises an integral part of Arthur’s self-contained reality which will,
given its idiosyncratic nature, be at least partially alien to all its readers. It
seems that long before the debates on teaching culture, the writers of Access
to English had successfully adopted the kind of ‘psychological or small-scale
interactive models’ which have been advocated by Guest (2002: 157) or
Holliday (2005).
Such an approach to culture puts non-native users on the same footing as
native speakers. Not understanding the mysteries of the Football League, for
example, can be put down to a lack of personal interest rather than a gap in
the knowledge of British culture. Much to the credit of the authors, as in real-
life situations, the meanings of culture-specific phrases in the books can be
worked out from the context or with the help of the illustrations.
Speciality As a result of the exclusion of the culture-specific level, the texts in Access to
English connect to the universal and individual spheres of interpretation.
This trait is considered central to art, and is called ‘speciality’ in aesthetics.
The notion refers to a category which falls between individuality and
universality, and mediates between them. Speciality thus comprises an area
which is a qualitatively new combination of both individuality and
universality; ‘it contains both, but it is neither’ (Királyfalvi 1975: 74).
When the category of speciality is present, texts can have multiple and often
highly idiosyncratic interpretations. Widdowson argues for this attribute of
literature in similar terms:
What is distinctive about literary texts, (. . .), is that they provoke diversity
by their very generic design in that they do not directly refer to social and
institutionalized versions of reality but represent an alternative order that
can only be individually apprehended. They focus, (. . .), not on social
contours but on personal meanings.
(Widdowson 2004: 135)

As a consequence, the target audience can remain undefined and may
include anybody who happens to come across a text. This may be the reason
why Access to English is popular with learners of all ages.
Speciality and discarding with the sociocultural layer allow for a less
restricted interpretation of the texts in Access to English. Like works of art,
Arthur’s story is multifaceted and allows for a myriad of readings. It is what
the students make of it: a love story, an account of Arthur’s adventures, his
transformation from being a hapless loser to a confident young man.
Characters In E LT coursebooks, the characters, fictitious, or real, are often two-
dimensional and static personae who leave little for individual
interpretation or imagination. The following example is a case in point:
Todd Bridges is only seventeen years old but he is already a successful
tennis player. He comes from Chicago, USA, but he travels all over the
world playing tennis. Last year he played tennis championships in
Melbourne, Dubai and Paris.
(New Headway Pre-Intermediate: 46)
Todd Bridges may be uninteresting but he is still more credible than the
following English teacher from Hungary who does not seem to have
grasped the basics of the language she teaches:
Hi, I’m Rita from Debrecen. When I was in Britain, I was surprised how
conscious people seemed to be of their rights. I heard the word A L R I G H T
over and over again and wondered if it had anything to do with rights.
Why don’t we play around with this phrase a little bit?
(Zoom in on Britain and Hungary: 47)
The obvious role of both characters is to introduce language tasks:
a listening comprehension in Todd’s and a lexical analysis in Rita’s case.
This objective is unmistakably transparent, and Todd and Rita remain
papier mâché figures who provide the facxade which is supposed to render an
ordinary classroom activity more ‘real life’. In fact, characters in the
powerful narrative of ‘The Man Who Escaped’ do not fare much better
either: like other action heroes, they remain semi-formed and empty.
In contrast, Arthur is a protagonist with individual features and a life story.
He has a network of friends and relatives who also possess idiosyncratic
traits and personal histories. As the story unfolds, Arthur struggles, and his
personality changes and develops. In the process, he turns into a full-blown
character to whom the learners can easily relate. His transformation from
anti-hero into hero also presents an archetype who must be familiar to the
users of the series from literature and films. Since Arthur is fictitious, there
is no topicality attached to his character. He is timeless and needs no
updating, unlike famous living people who feature in coursebooks.
Many teachers using Access to English have found that students often feel
very strongly about the main character. Some think that Arthur is a modern-
day ‘loser’, while others are more sympathetic to this hapless young man.
An adult learner has noted that what Arthur and learners in the alien world
of a foreign language have in common is clumsiness. Like Arthur, learners
may find themselves in novel and/or surprising situations where it is
150 Éva Illés

difficult to know how to respond appropriately. Arthur’s mishaps thus can
help learners to prepare for unexpected eventualities in the future (personal
communication).
In their different ways, learners can relate to the shy librarian and are
seldom indifferent. In fact, they sometimes become so interested that they
continue reading, treating the chapters in the books as if they were chapters
in a novel. The only drawback of such enthusiasm is that it makes it
impossible for the teacher to set the task of prediction.
Literary devices Apart from the ever-present authorial voice, the Access to English episodes
often employ effective devices and techniques borrowed from literature. For
instance, the passages in the chapters often end in suspense. When Arthur’s
father, who is a doctor, is called to the scene of an accident and Arthur goes
with him, they find the wreck of a car with the driver inside it.
Arthur All right. . . . Good Lord! I know that car.
Policeman What?
Arthur I know that car and I know the driver.
Policeman Well, he isn’t anybody from the village. Who is he, then?
(Starting Out: 69)
Although Arthur recognizes the driver instantly, we only find out who the
person is in the following chapter. In a similar vein, when Arthur takes part
in a television quiz, his landlady’s television breaks down before Arthur
appears on the screen:
Mrs Harrison Oh, no! The telly’s gone wrong again. Oh what a pity! Now
we shan’t know what he’s won until he comes home.
(Getting On: 77)
For the learners this means that they have to do the exercises before they
learn whether Arthur’s won in the next chapter unless they take a peep,
which they often do.
Sudden twists also make the stories captivating and enjoyable. A picnic on
the river ends in the boat breaking free, leaving Arthur and the rest of the
party stranded on an island. Or, one night, on his way home Arthur loses his
house key and climbs up on a ladder to his bedroom window when it turns
out, with a little help from the police, that he was trying to get into the wrong
house.
The authors have also employed a literary technique called ‘Chekhov’s Gun’,
a device which ensures that nothing and nobody makes an appearance ‘on
stage’ without a purpose. If, for example, there is a loaded rifle on the wall in
the first act, it must go off later. In Access to English, the situation is less
dramatic but equally effective. In one of the early chapters of Starting Out,
Arthur’s landlady gives our miserable hero a cup of coffee which is placed on
the arm of the chair where Arthur is sitting daydreaming. The passage is
followed by a dialogue comprising Arthur’s dream (on the beach with Mary
and accidentally saving the life of a little girl), and finishes with Arthur
knocking over the cup and spilling all the coffee (p. 34). Interestingly, this

last action is not captured in words but in a drawing which thus becomes an
integral part of the story. This stands in strong contrast with the common
practice of many coursebooks where the glossy photos usually serve as
a selling point rather than a cohesive device.
One of the best features of Arthur’s story is humour, which is often exploited
where it is most needed. When in Getting On Arthur and Mary decide to get
married and are about to tell Mary’s parents about it, this is what happens
before the scene could get too soppy:
Mrs Stephens Is that you Mary? Oh how nice! You’ve Arthur with you.
Hello, Arthur.
Mary Dad, Mother, we’ve got something to . . .
Mr Stephens Look, love, could it wait for a bit? This match is nearly
over. I’ve been looking forward to it all week.
Mrs Stephens Oh, George, really! You and your football. I don’t know
what you see in it. Anyway, Arthur’s here.
Mr Stephens Oh hello, Arthur. Sit down. Oh you idiot! Not you, Arthur,
ha-ha. Noble, I mean. He gave it away.
Arthur Oh, it’s the European Cup Winners’ Cup, isn’t it? The
semi-final. What’s the score? Are we winning? (p. 132)
Practical advantages Although the Access to English texts form a coherent story, Arthur’s
adventures give rise to text types other than dialogue or narrative. There are
maps, signs, a family tree, extracts from diaries, newspaper articles, and
a grade card among many other genres.
Unlike coursebooks where reading passages are usually designed with the
sole aim of developing reading skills, the texts in Access to English can be used
for a variety of purposes, including discussion, storytelling, role play, or the
explicit teaching of productive vocabulary. The chapters seem to have the
amount of new lexis that can be realistically taught and tested in a primary or
secondary school class. This feature of the series proves particularly handy
in countries where continuous assessment entails regular oral testing. In
such contexts, teachers can easily set aside five minutes of each lesson to ask
one to two learners to summarize or act out an episode, and give marks for
their performance.
Arthur’s story also lends itself to different writing activities, ranging from
controlled to free tasks. For instance, dialogues can be transformed into
narratives and vice versa. The pictures can be described and the narratives/
dialogues can be summarized. Learners can also be asked to keep personal
diaries on behalf of various characters, or report on what happens in the
town where Arthur lives by writing articles for the ‘Middleford Chronicle’.
Conclusion Access to English seems to have ingredients ELT coursebooks often lack:
interesting and motivating topic content, the use of fiction, appropriately
sized, coherent, and engaging (reading) texts which stimulate the
imagination of learners (Tomlinson op. cit.). The unprecedented success of
Access to English suggests that there is demand for such well-written pieces,
and that texts bearing a close resemblance to works of art may be highly
152 Éva Illés

beneficial, if not essential, for stimulating and pedagogically effective
materials. It then appears that authors who know how to tell a good story (for
example, J. K. Rowling, who, in fact, taught English in Portugal at one stage
of her life (http://www.jkrowling.com)) and E LT experts who could add the
necessary pedagogic components would make up the ‘dream team’ of
coursebook writers.
Final revised version received November 2007
Note Widdowson, H. G. 1983. Learning Purpose and

1 Details of coursebooks mentioned in the article Language Use. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
can be found in the Appendix. Widdowson, H. G. 2003. Defining Issues in English
Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Widdowson, H. G. 2004. Text, Context, Pretext.
References Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Cunningsworth, A. 1995. Choosing your Coursebook.
Oxford: Macmillan Heinemann E LT. The author
Guest, M. 2002. ‘A critical ‘‘checkbook’’ for culture Éva Illés teaches in the Department of English
teaching and learning’. E LT Journal 56/2: 154–61. Applied Linguistics at Eötvös Loránd University,
Holliday, A. 2005. The Struggle to Teach English as an Budapest. She holds a PhD in E SO L from the
International Language. Oxford: Oxford University Institute of Education, University of London. She
Press. has a wide range of experience including teaching
Királyfalvi, B. 1975. The Aesthetics of György Lukács. E SO L in Britain, E F L in Hungary, as well as teacher
Princeton/London: Princeton University Press. training and materials development.
Tomlinson, B., B. Dat, Masuhara, H. and R. Rubdy. Email: evailles@hotmail.com
2001. ‘E F L courses for adults’. E LT Journal 55/1:
80–101.
Appendix Coursebooks mentioned in the article:

Access to English Starting Out. 1974. Coles, M. and B. Lord. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Access to English Getting On. 1975. Coles, M. and B. Lord. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Angol Nyelvkönyv I. 1976. Czobor, Zs. and Gy. Horlai. Budapest:
Tankönyvkiadó.
Building Strategies. 1979. Abbs, B. and I. Freebairn. Harlow: Longman.
Hotline Elementary. Student’s Book. 1991. Hutchinson, T. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Kernel Lessons Intermediate. 1971. O’Neill, R., R. Kingsbury, and T. Yeadon.
London: Longman.
New Headway Pre-Intermediate. Student’s Book. 2000. Soars, L. and J. Soars.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Snapshot Elementary. Student’s Book. 1998. Abbs, B., I. Freebairn, and
C. Barker. Harlow Longman.
The N E W edition New Headway Intermediate. Student’s Book. 2003. Soars, L.
and J. Soars. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Zoom in on Britain and Hungary. 2001. Andrews, M. et al. Oxford: Swan
Communication Ltd.

Implementing education reform:
EFL teachers’ perspectives
Lakhana Prapaisit de Segovia and
Debra M. Hardison
The National Education Act of 1999 in Thailand mandated a transition from

teacher- to learner-centred instruction for all subjects including English. This shift
was associated with the development of communicative ability in English to meet
the needs of globalization. The current study investigated the policy behind and
implementation of the reform in English teaching following Johnson’s (1989)
decision-making framework for a coherent curriculum. Several observations of
English classes (grades 5–6) revealed no evidence of communicative language use.
Stimulated recall and interviews with teachers revealed confusion about the
reform’s principles and their application. Teachers were concerned about their
English proficiency, insufficient training, and inadequate resources and
professional support. Of the four interviewed supervisors, one felt that the reform’s
principles were not suitable for teaching English. Findings point to areas of the
curriculum in which coherence can be lost during reform.
Curriculum reform Broadly defined, the term ‘curriculum’ in education includes ‘all the
relevant decision-making processes of all the participants’ (Johnson
1989: 1). If the decisions made at various stages are consistent and
compatible, the curriculum is said to be coherent. There are three major sets
of constraints on decision making: policy, pragmatic considerations, and
participants and their interaction. The level of policy consists of (a) decisions
involving curriculum planning (for example, policy statements), (b)
learning objectives and the means to accomplish them, (c) programme
implementation, including teacher training and materials/resources
development, and (d) classroom implementation, specifically the actions
of the teachers and learners. Pragmatic considerations include time and
resources. The task of the participants is to reconcile policy and pragmatics.
Using this framework, the current study investigated the coherence of the
English language curriculum in Thailand following a recent reform, which
was embedded within the context of a larger national education reform. We
explored how the reform was understood by several teachers of English and
supervisors, what means had been provided to achieve the objective, and
whether the reform was evident in classroom teaching practices. Examining
the outcomes is particularly timely because of recent recommendations
from a 2006 conference in Thailand, calling for the development of a new

national language policy and further change in the professional preparation
of teachers and curricula (British Council 2006).
In Thailand, education reform began with policy changes in 1996 as part of
Educational Development Plan 8 launched by the Ministry of Education
(MOE). These were captured later in the National Education Act of 1999.
The reform mandated a shift from a teacher-centred mode of instruction to
a learner-centred one involving all subjects including English. This
movement was fuelled, at least in part, by the need to cope with the dynamic
process of globalization in which English plays a crucial role. For English
classes, this meant emphasizing the development of communicative
language skills.
Communicative The relationship between a learner-centred approach in instruction and

language teaching communicative language teaching (CLT) is an important one. In a detailed
and a learner-centred analysis of the CLT movement, Jacobs and Farrell (2001) noted that the shift
approach in instruction toward CLT encompassed the move from teacher-centred to
learner-centred instruction. This can be seen in the greater attention paid to
the following:
1 the role of learners in the learning process;
2 the social nature of learning as seen in the use of pair and group work
promoting interaction and cooperative learning;
3 the recognition of individual differences among learners;
4 an emphasis on meaning versus rote learning;
5 the presentation of language forms in context;
6 the role of teachers as facilitators of learning through active engagement
of learners in the process.
A learner-centred environment is designed to provide learners with more
autonomy, with the goal of enhancing the learning process through
interaction to develop communicative competence. Therefore,
communicatively oriented pedagogic tasks involving authentic materials
are the mainstay of classroom activity.
Nunan (1989) characterizes the underlying philosophy of a learner-centred
curriculum as one in which the goals, materials, and implementation are
driven by the subjective needs of the learners and their perceptions of the
learning process. Although a true learner-centred philosophy advocates
the development of a variety of curricula to meet these subjective needs, for
the practical purposes of curriculum development in reality, learner needs
are more objectively generalized. The ability to communicate effectively in
the target language is the need which has been ascribed to learners in
Thailand as part of policy. However, learners in some settings where English
is a foreign language do not consider communicative competence in
English to be a viable goal. They place greater value on the more familiar
teacher-fronted learning environment with activities focused on grammar
and memorization (cf. McDonough 2004).
English teaching In the Thai reform, policy changes required 80 hours of English per year
after the reform for students in grades 1–4, and 200 hours for grades 5–6. Consequently,
there was an urgent need to provide training for in-service teachers in
a learner-centred approach. Some studies in the 1990s involving public
Implementing education reform 155

school teachers in Thailand reported that they felt inadequately prepared to
teach a foreign language. They noted insufficient information regarding
(a) research on language teaching and learning, (b) transferring theory into
practice, (c) designing communicative curricula, (d) identifying students’
needs, (e) diagnosing learning problems, (f) using techniques such as role
play and language games, and (g) constructing communicative tests.
Teachers also reported avoiding the use of English in their classes because of
their own low proficiency, language anxiety, and learners’ focus on studying
English grammar for exam purposes (Unyakiat 1991).
The curriculum change also specified that teachers were to provide
authentic materials and communicative activities (for example, games) and
focus on the following skills according to grade level: listening and speaking
at the preparatory level (grades 1–2); listening, speaking, reading, writing,
and spelling at the literacy level (grades 3–4); and communication in the
four skills at the beginner fundamental level (grades 5–6). By grades 5 and 6,
students were expected to have learnt enough basic vocabulary and
grammar in English to communicate meaningfully on a daily-life topic.
MOE, which was the primary agent responsible for curriculum planning,
disseminated information to supervisors and teachers through three
sources: televised lectures, a one-day conference, and a document. The
lectures, given in Thai by several scholars, focused on the theory behind the
reform. They defined a learner-centred approach as a teaching method that
allows learners to go through a process of participatory learning. Teachers
were considered facilitators who no longer provided correct answers to
learners because that would constitute a teacher-centred approach. The one-
day conference was organized by provincial supervisors, one of whom was
interviewed for this study. At the conference, a teacher trainer demonstrated
participatory learning to groups of teachers; however, none of the
demonstrations dealt with English. The document, Teaching Methods of
a Learner-centred Approach, produced by the Curriculum and Instruction
Development Department, emphasized learning activities should be in line
with learners’ aptitudes and interests. Learners should participate in all
stages of learning. Three pages were devoted to the concept of a learner-
centred approach; the remainder contained a description of various
teaching methods. There were no examples for specific subjects. Only one
out of ten schools visited during this study had a copy of this document.
The study The objectives of the present study were to investigate the reform at the
Objectives levels of policy and practice. The first author’s Thai–English bilingual status
and experience as an English teacher and teacher trainer at a university in
Thailand afforded the opportunity for numerous classroom observations
and discussions with teachers and supervisors at different levels of the
education system where decisions are made and implemented. At the grass
roots level of change in the classroom, we focused on English teachers of
grades 5 and 6 because of the expectations for communicative ability at this
level. Data collection also included post-observation stimulated recall
sessions (Gass and Mackey 2000) with the teachers and a concluding
interview with each one to allow them to express their understanding of the
reform and concerns about professional development and instructional
support.
156 Lakhana Prapaisit de Segovia and Debra M. Hardison

The teaching To gain a broader perspective on how teachers were informed about and
supervisors prepared for this reform, interviews were conducted in Thai with four
supervisors responsible for the training of English teachers in the public
schools. These interviews, which were recorded, focused on how the
supervisors conceptualized the reform and the changing role of the
classroom teacher. The first interview was with the supervisor of English at
the Office of National Primary Education. He saw the teachers’ redefined
roles under the reform as facilitators who encourage learners to seek
knowledge on their own and as developers of activities to meet learners’
individual needs. He emphasized, ‘teachers do not need to take the role of
the knower providing the new knowledge of English to learners’, and
believed that the one-day conference and lectures were sufficient for
teachers to adopt a learner-centred approach to the teaching of English.
Of the remaining three individuals, one was a supervisor of English at the
provincial level and the other two at the district level. The provincial
supervisor offered a similar definition of a learner-centred approach,
focusing on individual learner differences, and the teachers’ role as the
designer of materials and activities to meet each learner’s potential. The
district-level supervisors defined the approach similarly and emphasized
learner differences. In a learner-centred approach, learners ideally would
search for knowledge from a variety of resources (literally translated as
‘learning centres’) suggested in the conference, including interviews with
different people, language labs, museums, and libraries. Learners would
learn by themselves based on their interests. However, one of the district
supervisors believed that this approach was not suitable for learning English
because developing the ability to use the language communicatively
required more guidance from the teacher.
Teachers and their Teachers of grades 5 and 6 who met the following four criteria were invited
classes to participate in the study: (a) class size of about 30 students to be
representative of public schools, (b) location in a metropolitan area that
provided access to information on the reform, (c) knowledge of the reform,
and (d) record of participation in some CLT training within the previous
three years. Preliminary classroom observations and interviews were
conducted with ten English teachers of grades 5 and 6 from different
schools in two major metropolitan areas. According to the district
supervisor, teachers at this level were trained in CLT, and were the best
English teachers in each school, having completed an English major or
minor in college.
From these teachers, three met all the criteria. Teachers A and B taught
grade 6 and Teacher C taught grade 5. Teacher A had 32 students, Teacher B
had 35, and Teacher C had 30. All were from different public schools, held
bachelor’s degrees with some emphasis on teaching English, and had been
teaching for 21–31 years. Observing these teachers’ classes provided insights
into the challenges teachers with years of experience face in adjusting to
a new approach. Teachers vary in their willingness and ability to manage
such a dramatic change (Hayes 1995; Curtis and Cheng 2001). Each of the
teachers had participated in additional training sessions with different
organizations such as universities, language centres, and private sessions
conducted by one of the supervisors. At the time of this study, few teaching

positions were available in the public schools, which were chosen because
they enrolled the majority of the children. Recent college graduates
sometimes found employment in private schools; those with higher
language proficiency found more lucrative positions in other fields. Among
the younger teachers we spoke to, some indicated that they taught other
subjects during English class because of their low English proficiency.
Classroom Several elements associated with CLT were initially selected as foci for the
observations classroom observations: (a) patterns of activity (for example, pair work,
group work), (b) use of communicative tasks, and (c) quantity and functions
of English use. Three classes taught by each of the three teachers were
observed. This process started six to seven weeks before the end of the
semester when teachers and students were well acquainted. The teachers
were not told of the focus of the study. The classes were audio-recorded for
later reference; the teachers were not comfortable with video recording.
A small microphone was attached to the teacher’s collar, and a small tape
recorder to the waist. Two other small recorders were placed among the
students. The observer also took field notes.
Although some evidence of C LT was anticipated, over the total of nine
observations, there was no teacher–learner or learner–learner
communicative interaction in English. Using the transcriptions, the
analysis was refocused quantitatively on the relative proportion of English
and Thai usage by each teacher, and the speech act functions English served.
Following Polio and Duff (1994), utterances were considered instances of
target language use if Thai did not constitute more than one word within an
English phrase or one phrase within a sentence. Repetitions and the few
minutes of pronunciation drills were excluded. Learners’ use of English was
analysed in terms of the types of activities in each class in which English was
involved in some way and the proportion of class time they represented.
Across three observations of Teacher A’s class (total of 103 minutes), she
produced 702 phrases and sentences, of which 7.5 per cent (53) were in
English. Further analysis of the English utterances by function revealed that
61 per cent of these involved giving simple commands such as ‘repeat after
me’, ‘sit down’, ‘open your book’, and ‘listen’; 23 per cent were questions
(primarily ‘do you understand?’); and 16 per cent were English sentences
followed by translations or grammar explanations in Thai. Individual
learners’ utterances in English were limited to 10.5 per cent (11 minutes)
of the three observed classes and were repetitions of sentences after the
teacher. Choral responses in English, also involving repetitions, comprised
21 per cent (22 minutes) of the total class time. These were usually repeating
words read from a vocabulary list.
Teacher B produced 789 phrases and sentences in a total of 94 minutes, of
which 25.5 per cent (201) were in English. Of these, 41 per cent involved
giving simple commands and 22 per cent were questions as described
above. Reading English sentences—some followed by grammar
explanations or translations in Thai—represented 37 per cent of her English
phrases. However, this use of English was an anomaly. Following the first
observation, Teacher B told the observer that she had not prepared sufficient
activities in English because she was not sure the observer would come. For

the second visit, more English was used; however, the students had difficulty
understanding. The teacher often repeated a phrase several times, and then
provided the Thai translation for comprehension. These repetitions were
not counted in the analysis. There was one attempt at what Teacher B later
referred to as group work. Students sat together and were told to listen to
a taped weather forecast in English, and write what they heard on maps.
However, there were no clear instructions as to what details to listen for,
and the content required pre-listening instruction, which had not been
provided. The teacher was disappointed that the students could not do the
task. In the third observation, the amount of English was reduced. During
the three classes, individual learner’s use of English represented 6 per cent
(5.5 minutes) and occurred during the second observation. Choral repetition
of English constituted 16 per cent of the time (15 minutes) and singing
(repeating after the teacher) about 9 per cent. Most of these choral responses
also occurred during the second observation.
Across the three observed classes for Teacher C (total of 76 minutes), she
produced 552 phrases and sentences, of which 14 per cent (77) were in
English. Of these, 68 per cent involved giving commands such as those
noted earlier, 16 per cent English–Thai translations, 15 per cent asking
questions, and a one-minute total physical response (TP R) activity.
Individual learner responses in English all involved repetitions and
represented 46 per cent (35 minutes) of the total time. Choral repetitions
were 4 per cent (3 minutes) of the time and singing was 18 per cent (14
minutes), the latter involving reading and then singing with the teacher
each line of the song written on the board.
Stimulated recall After each classroom visit, the observer conducted a stimulated recall
with the teachers session in Thai with the teacher using the audio recording as a reminder
of the content of the class. These sessions allowed the teachers to comment
on any aspect of their classes.
Teacher A commented that the students’ reading and writing of English
represented a learner-centred approach. She stressed that most of her
students were interested in grammar rules because these would be covered
on school entrance examinations. The recording revealed that this teacher
corrected all pronunciation errors when students repeated words after her.
Although she was concerned that correction might discourage them, she
felt strongly that mistakes had to be corrected or they would be repeated. She
stated that she used more Thai than English in class because her students’
comprehension was low.
Teacher B indicated she used little English in class because of her low
proficiency, lack of confidence, and the students’ limited listening
comprehension skills. As she listened to the recordings of the classes, she
emphasized that students’ repetition of words and phrases after her was
important because it gave them a chance to listen and speak and helped
them to memorize. She was uncertain as to how to make English more
comprehensible for them.
Teacher C commented several times that her English proficiency was low,
and she was concerned that the students would imitate her errors. She
explained that TPR was used because physical activity helped learners

remember language patterns. She was very disappointed in their lack of
comprehension of task instructions, and was concerned that they would be
discouraged from speaking English.
Interviews with the Following all recall sessions, interviews were conducted with each teacher in
teachers Thai, recorded, transcribed, and translated into English. They included
questions on their understanding of the reform, its implications for English
teaching, and any obstacles they encountered during the transition to
a learner-centred approach.
When asked how she was told to teach in a learner-centred approach,
Teacher A responded as follows:
Teachers were told to stimulate learners’ curiosity in the way that teachers
are counselors who advise their learning process, guide learners to
learning resources, suggest interesting topics. Learners take most
responsibility in seeking knowledge. But our society is not familiar with
this learning culture. It is possible to motivate learners to learn such as
telling them about the usefulness of English, but it is impossible to tell
learners to seek knowledge for themselves in English. The approach can
be used in teaching English through interaction —group work where
learners participate in language activities. I first knew about it during my
college years.
However, Teacher A felt several problems inhibited her from teaching
English communicatively, including insufficient time and financial
resources to prepare materials, few teaching manuals, and only one or two
days of training. Some students also lacked interest in English because it
was not used outside the classroom. She noted that some could not read or
write sufficiently in Thai, and this ‘deficiency of mother tongue affects the
learning of English as well’.
Teacher B described a learner-centred approach as follows:
Learner-centred means teaching what learners want to learn. They told us
that learners do and act on their own and teachers are facilitators. If we let
learners do and act from the beginning of the class, it is the end of the
story because they do not know what to do. In the new curriculum,
teachers are supposed to speak English to make the students familiar
with it. If I speak only English, they don’t understand so I speak an
English sentence followed by a translation.
She emphasized the difficulty in having to provide a foundation in English
for her students in grade 6 because they had not received it earlier.
Additional problems included the lack of English materials, functioning lab
equipment, general teaching supplies, and support from the school
principal. ‘In the school meeting, teachers are not supposed to speak’.
Teacher C described the approach in the following way:
In a learner-centred approach, learners are encouraged to seek knowledge
from learning resources, and to put knowledge into practice on their own.
There is no more memorization. But we need to give learners
a foundation of knowledge first. Teachers need urgent help. We want to
change, but we don’t know what to do. There is no model, no help. The

MOE needs to realize this problem. It needs to give better knowledge of
how to reform the learning and teaching to teachers before asking them
to change. They told us to do so many things that we don’t think we can
work to meet the standards set.
Teacher C wanted to improve her English pronunciation, and reiterated the
problem of students who do not think learning English is useful. Academic
performance in English was not taken into consideration in passing to the
next level.
Conclusions The results of this study revealed areas of loss in curriculum coherence.
Some of the same issues surrounding English teaching in Thailand have
arisen in other Asian contexts (Nunan 2003). These issues include (a) the
economic benefits of globalization as the apparent driving force behind
English teaching, (b) concern for teachers’ English proficiency and
methodological training, and (c) the disconnect between curriculum policy
and classroom practice in terms of teaching principles, referred to as the gap
between ‘rhetoric and reality’ (Nunan op. cit.: 604). In Johnson’s (op. cit.)
framework, this gap is a loss of coherence. ‘Policy statements tend to be
utopian’ (Johnson ibid.: 3); therefore, it is not too surprising that the shift
from a teacher-centred to a learner-centred approach did not evolve
smoothly. It required an understanding of the language learning process in
order to establish attainable goals and compatible methodology. This must
be done in view of constraints on achievement including the lack of contact
with the target language outside the classroom. Programme
implementation involved additional obstacles, including the lack of
sufficient teacher training, resources, mentoring support, and the cost of
further education for in-service teachers. Although the teachers played
a major role in the reform, they were an untapped resource in the decision-
making process (cf. Fullan 1993). The learners’ lack of interest in learning
English and perception of its lack of value were not conducive to building
a coherent curriculum based on a learner-centred philosophy. Other
problems such as teacher confidence and a radical timetable for change (a
pragmatic constraint) contributed to failure.
A look toward the Although the energy behind that reform movement declined, reform itself
future remains a challenge. In 2006, the British Council organized a two-day
conference in Bangkok entitled Future Perfect–English Language Policy for
Global Transition. The Council’s report of the conference mapped out
a vision for the future of language learning and teaching in Thailand. Key
recommendations included the development of a new national language
policy, and an agenda of issues to explore, including teacher training,
curriculum, role of technology, and assessment. To these, we add
recommendations for participation by all levels of the system in the
establishment of policy. Education stakeholders need to be consulted.
Pre-service training for teachers should include English proficiency
improvement, coursework on materials development and assessment, and
importantly, observations of C LT classes. Continuous feedback from the
classroom to policy makers and ongoing professional development support
are also beneficial. For the latter, cascade training could be considered. This
is a form of on-site development involving the sharing of ideas among

colleagues in the same area where perhaps only one teacher is able to attend
a workshop or obtain information. Changing learners’ perceptions about
the lack of usefulness of English is yet another challenge, and related to the
focus of school entrance examinations. The extent to which changes will
ensue from the Council’s recommendations is uncertain, but should be of
interest to curriculum participants in a variety of learning environments
seeking to undertake reform.
Final revised version received December 2007
References Nunan, D. 2003. ‘The impact of English as a global

British Council. 2006. Future Perfect–English language on educational policies and practices in the
Language Policy for Global Transition Conference Asia-Pacific region’. T E S O L Quarterly 37/4:
Report. http://my.britishcouncil.or.th/upload/ 589–613.
future-perfect/statement-of-conference- Polio, C. G. and P. A. Duff. 1994. ‘Teachers’ language
outcomes.pdf (accessed 18 December 2007). use in university foreign language classroom:
Curtis, A. and L. Cheng. 2001. ‘Teachers’ self- a qualitative analysis of English and target language
evaluation of knowledge, skills and personality alternation’. The Modern Language Journal 78/3:
characteristics needed to manage change’. Asia- 313–26.
Pacific Journal of Teacher Education 29/2: 139–52. Unyakiat, P. 1991. ‘A study of Thai secondary school
Fullan, M. 1993. Change Forces: Probing the Depth of E F L teachers’ perceptions of their preparation to
Educational Reform. London: Falmer Press. teach English’. Unpublished PhD thesis, The Ohio
Gass, S. and A. Mackey. 2000. Stimulated Recall State University.
Methodology in Second Language Research. Mahwah,
NJ: Erlbaum. The authors
Hayes, D. 1995. ‘In-service teacher development: Lakhana Prapaisit de Segovia was affiliated with
some basic principles’. E LT Journal 49/3: 252–61. Prince of Songkla University, Thailand, before
Jacobs, G. M. and T. S. C. Farrell. 2001. ‘Paradigm becoming Director of the Language Centre at
shift: understanding and implementing change in Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Lima, Peru.
second language education’. T ES L - EJ 5/1: 1–16. She is involved with teacher education and
Johnson, R. K. 1989. ‘A decision-making framework development of curricula and materials.
for the coherent language curriculum’ in
R. K. Johnson (ed.). The Second Language Curriculum. Debra Hardison teaches courses in second language
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. acquisition, research methods, and language
McDonough, K. 2004. ‘Learner-learner interaction teaching at Michigan State University. She has
during pair and small group activities in a Thai EF L published in the area of spoken language processing
context’. System 32/2: 207–24. and production and technology in oral skills
Nunan, D. 1989. ‘Hidden agendas: the role of the development.
learner in programme implementation’ in Email: hardiso2@msu.edu
R. K. Johnson (ed.). The Second Language Curriculum.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

readers respond
Swan’s way
Luke Prodromou
Michael Swan’s review of my book English as a Lingua Franca: A Corpus-based

Analysis (E LT Journal 63/1: 78–81) is an interesting statement of what Swan
thinks of both ELF and corpus analysis and is a welcome challenge to some
of the views I hold: healthy debate can only benefit the teaching profession.
It was in this spirit that I wrote my book, which is based on research
conducted with 42 L2-users from many countries around the world. My
work was tentative and exploratory and tried to synthesize conflicting views
on ELF. At the end of the book, I wrote: ‘I hope . . . the end product is
a creative synthesis of differing positions on a range of questions such as the
role of corpora, idiomaticity in EL F and sound teaching practice’
(Prodromou 2008: 257). Above all, in my closing remarks, I repeat a point I
make throughout the book against hasty overgeneralizations about EL F:
‘it is too early to draw firm conclusions about the performance features of
successful users of English as an international language from such a small
corpus of language’ (ibid.: 258).
I find if it difficult, therefore, to recognize my book in Swan’s review, in
which I am assigned views and convictions I do not hold. Indeed, at certain
points, Swan seriously, and I believe inadvertently, distorts the arguments
of the book.
In this response, I would like to correct the points in Swan’s article where
he gives an inaccurate impression of the actual contents of the book, and
also take him up on some of the wider issues he raises concerning EL F and
the use of corpus techniques in the book.
1 Throughout my book I refer to the ‘L2-user’ rather than the ‘non-native
speaker’. This is a fundamental aspect of the book. Swan ignores my use
of the term ‘L2-user’ and throughout his text foists on me his own
preferred term, the deficit-laden ‘non-native speaker’, for example:
‘Prodromou argues that previous studies have tested NNSs’ knowledge
about idiomaticity ...’.
As I say in the introduction to the book: ‘I do not subscribe to the deficit view
of L2-use that the terms ‘‘native’’ and ‘‘non-native’’ are often associated with.
My preferred terms are ‘‘L1-user’’ and ‘‘L2-user’’’ (Prodromou op.cit.: xiv).
Swan is, of course, entitled to his own point of view and is free to continue to
use the anglo-centric ‘non-native speaker’, but the reader of the review
should not be given the impression that I share that view.
E LT Journal Volume 63/2 April 2009; doi:10.1093/elt/ccp003 163

The difference between the two terms is that my term sees people as agents
who make use of the language in their own terms, whereas the negative
prefix in ‘non-native speaker’ reinforces the view that non-L1-users are failed
‘native-speakers’ whose English is riddled with errors; the term ‘non-native
speaker’ when used without quotation marks casts L2-users in the role of
perpetual learners who are forever deviating from ‘native-speaker’ norms.
Thus, Swan asserts that ‘learner English is not a new subject of study’, but
my book is expressly not about learners, it is about ‘proficient’ users. Swan’s
choice of terms confirms the anglo-centric view he expresses elsewhere in
his review that NNSs’ English ‘is directly or indirectly derived from one of
the several NS models’.
2 Swan tells his readers that the non-canonical phrases found in my
corpus and listed in my book are given as examples of grammatically
accurate and creative uses of English by L2-users. This is not the case.
I do not present these phrases either as correct (by the norms of Standard
English) or as creative uses of language. They are given in the book as
examples of ‘errors’ in collocation (what I call ‘non-canonical variations’ to
avoid a deficit view of the L2-user as constantly in error when compared to L1-
users). The point I make is that on a grammatical level, proficient L2-users
make virtually no ‘errors’ in the traditional anglo-centric sense of ‘native-
speaker norms’ but do deviate a great deal from these ‘norms’ on the level of
phraseology. These phrases (‘back in my head’ instead of ‘at the back of my
mind’, etc.) are not presented as examples of creativity and I say so before
and after the table in question: ‘there, are, however, 40 non-canonical
versions of idiomatic phraseology . . . ’ (ibid.: 221) and ‘why is creative
idiomaticity such a rare occurrence in L2 and why are colourful idioms and
other multi-word units error-prone?’ (ibid.: 222).
The whole point of my argument is that proficient L2-users make few
‘errors’ (in Swan’s sense, not mine) in the realm of grammar but do make
‘errors’ in the realm of phraseology.
3 Swan tells his readers that I look only at two formulae in my book: ‘sort
of’ and ‘you see’. Not so.
The whole point of my thesis is that these two-word formulae are extended
idiomatic units that form clusters with their collocates: thus, in the book,
I analyse or refer to the following lexical items: ‘thing’, ‘stuff’, ‘like’, ‘you
know’, ‘just’ (pp. 130–8), ‘yeah’, ‘but’, ‘well’, ‘because’ (pp. 180–7).
I point out throughout the book that much of the meaning of phrases such
as ‘sort of’ and ‘you see’ lies in their collocates and the pragmatic intentions
they express, not in their discrete dictionary meanings. This is why the book
looks at more than just these two formulaic items.
I also devote the longest chapter in the book to colourful idioms of the
‘raining cats and dogs’ variety and report on my survey of the prepositional
verb ‘bump into’ (conducted with 400 teachers).
4 Swan suggests that the title English as a Lingua Franca: A Corpus-based
Analysis does not accurately represent the contents of the book.
164 Luke Prodromou

All I can say is that every one of the 12 chapters tackles aspects of EL F
(idiomaticity, conversation, fluency, culture, corpora, quantitative data,
qualitative analysis, and pedagogic implications) as readers will discover
after even a cursory glance at the book.
5 Swan does not seem to understand the sense in which I use the term
‘sociocultural’. He clearly assumes it is a synonym of ‘cultural’ and, as
a result, distorts my argument.
The term refers to the work of Vygotsky, Bakhtin, Lantolf, and others and
centres around the view that language is emergent and takes the shape it
does as a result of the pressure of interaction in particular contexts. In
practice, this means that lexical items (and grammar) cannot be understood
in terms of their isolated dictionary entries (or as entries in grammar
reference books) but as clusters of items, with ever-changing meanings,
depending on the previous uses to which the items have been put, the way
they combine with other items and on the previous knowledge and present
intentions of the interlocutors. This is a far cry from Swan’s assumption that
‘sociocultural’ refers to ‘the culture of a specific speech community’ and the
breathtakingly simplistic assertion that some formulaic language is
‘culturally neutral’ (p. 79). The distortion of my position flows from this
misconception of a fundamental theoretical concept which I explain at some
length in Chapter 6 of the book.
6 Swan bemoans the ‘lack of quantitative treatment’ of the data in my
corpus but Chapter 8 is all quantitative data and the qualitative analysis
in subsequent chapters always begins from such data.
Unlike much of the work on language that appears in the E LT press, I have
taken the trouble to collect 200,000 words of spoken English in
25 countries which I subject to frequency counts and comparative
percentage differences in L1- and L2-user conversation. Figures—and the
tendencies they suggest—are always my starting point for analysis. I do not
merely give my opinion, based on ‘native-speaker’ intuition, as this is
notoriously unreliable. Yet, this is precisely what Swan claims he can do
when, with enviable self-confidence, he says he could gain the same insights
as my corpus analysis through his intuition of collocation (‘it is just what
naturally happens’). Swan’s own explanation of why learners and L2-users
have difficulty with collocations is that ‘there are so many of them’. This
is a somewhat vacuous statement as there are many individual lexical
items in the English language, too, but they are clearly easier to learn than
idiomatic and formulaic collocations.
But I am, at all events, not referring to collocation alone but to semantic
prosody, which is not the same thing and gets no mention in Swan’s review.
Similarly, Swan suggests he could obtain the same insights into the writings
of EL F scholars that I glean through quantitative analysis without drawing
on corpus techniques at all. I doubt this, but he fails to mention that the
reason I applied corpus techniques to the writings of EL F scholars in the first
place was simply to put my analysis on ‘an empirical footing’, and thus avoid
the accusation frequently made by such scholars that their work is
persistently misrepresented (see Jenkins 2007).
Readers Respond: Swan’s way 165

An indication of why Swan’s review is really Swan’s view of EL F and not
a balanced reflection of my book is the fact that the whole of the last section
of his review (20 per cent of the whole text) is his personal peroration on EL F
and pedagogy that makes no reference to the arguments of my book at all.
This ‘conclusion’ to his review seems to be a response (in absentia) to the
work of other ELF scholars, who see EL F as a variety of English, which I do
not. Nothing in Swan’s last page is a response to issues raised in my book,
which is a critique of the mainstream concept of EL F and in that respect is in
agreement with much of what Swan says in his conclusion.
Reference English Speaking Union award and nominated for

Jenkins, J. 2007. English as a Lingua Franca: Attitude a British Council Elton Award for Innovation in
and Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. English Language Teaching for 2007. He is also co-
Prodromou, L. 2008. English as a Lingua Franca: A author of Attitude (for adults) and Smash (for young
Corpus-based Analysis. London: Continuum. learners—both Macmillan). He has an MA in
Shakespeare Studies (Birmingham University),
The author a Diploma in TESL (Leeds University), and a PhD
Luke Prodromou is a freelance teacher, teacher from the University of Nottingham. His book,
trainer, and materials writer based in Greece. He has English as a Lingua Franca: A Corpus-based Analysis,
worked for the British Council and a variety of private was published in 2008 by Continuum. He is
institutions in Greece, Spain, and the UK. He has currently teaching young learners.
written Dealing with Difficulties (Delta, with L. Email: lukep@otenet.gr
Clandfield), winner of the Ben Warren Prize, an
166 Luke Prodromou

readers respond
Discussing the Extended Writing

Project
Yun Zhang
In E LT Journal 62/1, Walker and Pérez Rı́u (2008) discuss the Extended
Writing Project (E W P) devised by them to resolve the incoherence between
a process approach to teaching and assessment through a timed essay. The
EWP, as an evaluation mechanism, allows tutors to assess the process as
well as the product of students’ writing. For the EW P, students are required
to write an extended text in four consecutive sections, each of which is read
and assessed by their tutor. Therefore, through the EWP, students get the
chance to draft, revise, and correct a text worth 20 per cent of their course
mark (ibid.: 20). Altogether, six stages are involved in the project.
The E W P is very similar to what I have been doing with my students. Unlike
their students who are following a 3-year diploma course in tourism, my
students are learning English as their major. So the topics they are writing
about are not restricted to any specific field. However, from the experience
I have gained in my teaching, I would like to suggest some ways in which
the EW P might be improved.
At Stage 1 of the E W P, students are asked to propose a topic, subject to their
tutor’s approval (ibid.: 21). My opinion is that we should either ask students
to propose their own topic or let them choose a topic from a list we provide.
Very often, students are at a loss when they are asked to propose a topic by
themselves. Providing a topic list can save time and reduce their anxiety.
At Stage 2, students are required to prepare a preliminary outline for their
article (ibid.: 21). I think this stage can be optional. An outline may not be
helpful if students are asked to write an article like a lyric prose to express
their sentiments towards someone, say, a hero. In this case, an outline may
prevent students from freely expressing their inner feelings.
I strongly agree with Walker and Pérez Rı́u that students should prepare
a preliminary outline for their article if Stage 2 is necessarily involved. But,
unfortunately, they did not mention how they dealt with students’ outlines.
In my experience, this stage should include a set of sub-stages. The first
thing to do after an outline is drafted is to give it a ‘cold treatment’. At this
stage, students should put away their outline for a few days so that their
ideas ‘cool off’. New ideas often pop up in their minds when students re-read
their outline after the cooling-off period; they can then rewrite their outline
to make it more reasonable and logical. If time permits, they can also discuss

Advance Access publication December 11, 2008
it with their peers before they hand in their draft. After reading the drafts,
tutors should provide students with their suggestions for improvement.
Only after following all these steps can an outline be considered to be the
final one. This process should not be omitted because only a good outline
can ensure that the writing process will progress smoothly.
At Stage 3, students are asked to hand in the first draft of the first section of
their article for correction. The description of this stage by Walker and Pérez
Rı́u tells us that in their practice of the E W P, students hand in their draft for
tutor correction immediately after they have completed one section of their
article. In my own teaching, cold treatment is also involved at this stage.
Students are usually asked to put their first draft away for some time before
they read it again. Very often, students can notice the errors they made in
their first draft after the cooling-off period. Then, they are asked to rewrite
their first draft and give the second draft to their peers for proofreading. The
peer students are asked to note down their suggestions for further revision,
and they will gain some points if they do a good job. Only after that can
students hand in their draft. This means that what I, the tutor, read is the
third draft. By the way, proofreading articles written by others can also help
students improve their language ability and writing skills because noticing
the errors made by others can help students avoid them in their own writing.
At Stage 4 of the E W P, students, with the help of the feedback from their
tutor, redraft the first section of their article, with the focus on the correction
of language errors and the improvement of coherence, cohesion, relevance
of ideas, and so on. After that, they can go on to draft the second section that
will be done in the same way as the first (ibid.: 21). Clearly, one of the
differences between my teaching and that of Walker and Pérez Rı́u is that
what my students rewrite at this stage is not the first but, actually, the third
draft of the first section. Another difference is that I will ask both the writers
and their peers to compare the final version with the second and third drafts
of each section so that they can notice the differences and learn something
from this writing process.
At Stage 5, students are required to write the final two sections of their
article. But this time, Walker and Pérez Rı́u offer less explicit feedback with
respect to language errors (ibid.: 21). I agree that this will increase students’
independence in the revision of their article. But one thing we should do is to
tell students that they will lose some points if the errors in the drafts of the
first two sections recur.
The last stage of the EW P is quite simple and without problems. Students
simply hand in for grading the final version of the whole article, the
bibliography, the drafts, and the comments and suggestions made in the
tutorial (ibid.: 22).
My practice is different from that of Walker and Pérez Rı́u in relation to the
way in which they asked students to treat their errors. It is good for them to
ask students to record their errors, the error type, and the corrected version
on an error sheet. But it seems that they treated all the errors equally. To me,
the errors that students can correct themselves are not as serious as the
errors that students cannot recognize without external help. In my teaching,
the errors that students made in the second and third drafts are given much
168 Yun Zhang

more attention, and I think it is these errors that should end up on the error
sheet.
Another thing to keep in mind is that although we can help students polish
their article section by section, sometimes we should let students finish
writing an article in one sitting, for example, a lyric prose, as the longer the
writing process lasts, the more likely the inspiration will fade. Such a piece
of writing completed in one session could well fit within the framework of
a ‘process’ approach because the writing process has not yet stopped when
the first draft of the whole article is finished. We can still follow the above
steps, and the only difference is that the ideas for the second section are
already there to be enhanced before the first section is considered to be in its
final form.
Final revised version received October 2008
Reference The author

Walker, R. and C. Pérez Rı́u. 2008. ‘Coherence in the Yun Zhang is a lecturer in English at the School of
assessment of writing skills’. ELT Journal 62/1: Foreign Languages at Tianjin University of
18–28. Commerce, Tianjin, People’s Republic of China.
Email: zhangyun@tjcu.edu.cn
Readers Respond: Discussing the EWP 169

key concepts in elt
Age and the critical period hypothesis

Christian Abello-Contesse
In the field of second language acquisition (SLA), how specific aspects of

learning a non-native language (L2) may be affected by when the process
begins is referred to as the ‘age factor’. Because of the way age intersects
with a range of social, affective, educational, and experiential variables,
clarifying its relationship with learning rate and/or success is a major
challenge.
There is a popular belief that children as L2 learners are ‘superior’ to
adults (Scovel 2000), that is, the younger the learner, the quicker the
learning process and the better the outcomes. Nevertheless, a closer
examination of the ways in which age combines with other variables reveals
a more complex picture, with both favourable and unfavourable age-related
differences being associated with early- and late-starting L2 learners
(Johnstone 2002).
The ‘critical period hypothesis’ (C PH) is a particularly relevant case in point.
This is the claim that there is, indeed, an optimal period for language
acquisition, ending at puberty. However, in its original formulation
(Lenneberg 1967), evidence for its existence was based on the relearning of
impaired L1 skills, rather than the learning of a second language under
normal circumstances.
Furthermore, although the age factor is an uncontroversial research
variable extending from birth to death (Cook 1995), and the C PH is
a narrowly focused proposal subject to recurrent debate, ironically, it is the
latter that tends to dominate SLA discussions (Garcı́a Lecumberri and
Gallardo 2003), resulting in a number of competing conceptualizations.
Thus, in the current literature on the subject (Bialystok 1997; Richards and
Schmidt 2002; Abello-Contesse et al. 2006), references can be found to
(i) multiple critical periods (each based on a specific language component,
such as age six for L2 phonology), (ii) the non-existence of one or more
critical periods for L2 versus L1 acquisition, (iii) a ‘sensitive’ yet not ‘critical’
period, and (iv) a gradual and continual decline from childhood to
adulthood.
It therefore needs to be recognized that there is a marked contrast between
the CPH as an issue of continuing dispute in SL A, on the one hand, and, on
the other, the popular view that it is an invariable ‘law’, equally applicable to
any L2 acquisition context or situation. In fact, research indicates that age
effects of all kinds depend largely on the actual opportunities for learning
which are available within overall contexts of L2 acquisition and particular
Advance Access publication December 18, 2008
learning situations, notably the extent to which initial exposure is
substantial and sustained (Lightbown 2000).
Thus, most classroom-based studies have shown not only a lack of direct
correlation between an earlier start and more successful/rapid L2
development but also a strong tendency for older children and teenagers to
be more efficient learners. For example, in research conducted in the
context of conventional school programmes, Cenoz (2003) and Muñoz
(2006) have shown that learners whose exposure to the L2 began at age
11 consistently displayed higher levels of proficiency than those for whom it
began at 4 or 8. Furthermore, comparable limitations have been reported for
young learners in school settings involving innovative, immersion-type
programmes, where exposure to the target language is significantly
increased through subject-matter teaching in the L2 (Genesee 1992; Abello-
Contesse 2006). In sum, as Harley and Wang (1997) have argued, more
mature learners are usually capable of making faster initial progress in
acquiring the grammatical and lexical components of an L2 due to their
higher level of cognitive development and greater analytical abilities.
In terms of language pedagogy, it can therefore be concluded that (i) there is
no single ‘magic’ age for L2 learning, (ii) both older and younger learners are
able to achieve advanced levels of proficiency in an L2, and (iii) the general
and specific characteristics of the learning environment are also likely to be
variables of equal or greater importance.
References J. Arzamendi (eds.). Bilingüismo y Adquisición de

Abello-Contesse, C. 2006. ‘Does interaction help or Segundas Lenguas. Bilbao, Spain: Servicio Editorial de
hinder oral L2 development in early English la Universidad del Paı́s Vasco.
immersion?’ in C. Abello-Contesse et al. (eds.). Harley, B. and W. Wang. 1997. ‘The critical period
Abello-Contesse, C., R. Chacón Beltrán, M. D. López- hypothesis: where are we now?’ in A. M. B. de Groot
Jiménez, and M. M. Torreblanca-López (eds.). 2006. and J. F. Kroll (eds.). Tutorials in Bilingualism.
Age in L2 Acquisition and Teaching. Bern, Switzerland: Psycholinguistic Perspectives. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence
Peter Lang. Erlbaum Associates.
Bialystok, E. 1997. ‘The structure of age: in search of Johnstone, R. 2002. ‘Addressing ‘‘the age factor’’:
barriers to second language acquisition’. Second some implications for language policy’. Council of
Language Research 13/2: 116–37. Europe, Strasbourg: Available at: http://www.coe.
Cenoz, J. 2003. ‘The influence of age on the int/t/dg4/linguistic/source/JohnstoneEN.pdf
acquisition of English: general proficiency, attitudes Lenneberg, E. H. 1967. Biological Foundations of
and code-mixing’ in M. P. Garcı́a Mayo and Language. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
M. L. Garcı́a Lecumberri (eds.). Lightbown, P. 2000. ‘Classroom SLA research and
Cook, V. 1995. ‘Multicompetence and effects of age’ second language teaching’. Applied Linguistics 21/4:
in D. Singleton and Z. Lengyel (eds.). The Age Factor 431–62.
in Second Language Acquisition. Clevedon, UK: Muñoz, C. 2006. ‘The B AF project: research on the
Multilingual Matters Ltd. effects of age on foreign language acquisition’ in
Garcı́a Lecumberri, M. L. and F. Gallardo. 2003. C. Abello-Contesse et al. (eds.).
‘English FL sounds in school learners of different Richards, J. C. and R. Schmidt. 2002. Longman
ages’ in M. P. Garcı́a Mayo and M. L. Garcı́a Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied
Lecumberri (eds.). Linguistics. London: Longman.
Garcı́a Mayo,M. P. and M. L. Garcı́a Lecumberri (eds.). Scovel, T. 2000. ‘ ‘‘The younger, the better’’ myth and
2003. Age and Acquisition of English as a Foreign bilingual education’ in R. D. González and I. Melis
Language. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters Ltd. (eds.). Language Ideologies. Critical Perspectives on the
Genesee, F. 1992. ‘Pedagogical implications of Official English Movement. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence
second language immersion’ in F. Etxeberria and Erlbaum Associates.
Age and the critical period hypothesis 171

The author and bilingual education. He has published
Dr Christian Abello-Contesse is an Associate numerous journal articles and book chapters
Professor at the University of Seville, Spain, on L2 learning and teaching and has taught at
where he teaches undergraduate courses in several universities in Chile, Spain, and the
ELT methodology and psycholinguistics and United States.
graduate seminars in S L A, bilingualism, Email: christian.abello@ono.com
172 Christian Abello-Contesse

Reviews
Doing Task-Based Teaching and, as such, aim to offer teachers insights and
D. Willis and J. Willis procedures to help them become fully fledged TB L
practitioners.
Oxford University Press 2007, 294 pp., £18
The great strength of Doing Task-Based Teaching is the
isbn 978 0 19 442210 9 inclusion of many examples of tasks and task
Tasks in Second Language Learning sequences from a large group of teachers around
V. Samuda and M. Bygate the world. For example, in Canada, Sandee Thompson
tweaks a ‘directions’ task with her lower intermediate
Palgrave Macmillan 2007, 312 pp., £19.99 students; at Yale University, Alicia van Altena gets her
isbn 814 0391 1872 students on a ‘Spanish in the media’ course to design
a radio programme based on two views of Fidel’s
Cuba and, in Japan, Jason Moser runs an activity
What are we to make of task-based learning and task- sequence talking about animals and pets and relishes
based teaching (T BL /TBT )? Its advocates promote the advantages of task repetition.
its efficacy with fervour, but not everyone shares their
enthusiasm for, as Samuda and Bygate point out, Doing Task-Based Teaching is divided into ten chapters
‘Tasks have been an element in second language which address themes such as the basis of task-based
teaching and research for over 30 years, and yet their approaches, task-based sequences in the classroom,
use continues to invite controversy’ (p. 1). Perhaps listing, sorting, classifying, matching, problem
this has something to do with the fact that despite solving, projects, and storytelling. There are
some of the dramatic claims for the superiority of TB L chapters on language focus and form focus, on the
over more traditional form-focused teaching, there is task-based classroom and the real world, on
little classroom-based research evidence to prove or adapting and refining tasks, designing a task-based
disprove such claims. Will the two books under syllabus, and on how to integrate T BT with
review help to resolve the controversy in any way and, coursebooks and other frequently asked questions.
speaking personally, will they help this reviewer to Along the way, in a chapter called ‘Tasks based on
arrive at a more informed evaluation of T BL’ s written and spoken texts’, there is a fabulous array
efficacy? of reading activities, including prediction and
language-based tasks, sometimes focused on
Before trying to answer these two questions, it is meaning and sometimes focused on form. Although
worth describing what these two books contain and the chapter is less generous in its attention to spoken
what, if anything should command a reader’s text, the detailed descriptions of reading sequences
attention. are exemplary, and I would urge you to look at them.
The first thing to say about the books under review is I feel similarly positive about the listing, sorting,
that they are very different animals. Whereas Willis classifying (and many other) activities on offer here. I
and Willis devote slightly less than two-and-a-half would want any teacher to have access to knowledge
pages to the topic of ‘second language acquisition about them. Helpfully, the authors offer mind maps
research and TBT ’, Samuda and Bygate devote more showing the different options (activities) available for
than two thirds of their book to opinion and research the treatment of a topic. There is an excellent
into tasks, and only some 35 pages to the way in which discussion of task parameters (i.e. things you have to
tasks have been (and are being) implemented in decide when designing a task) and a convincing (but
a pedagogic context. Willis and Willis, on the other short) defence of tasks in mixed ability groups. In
hand—and as the title of their book suggests—focus other words, this book is packed with good activities
on tasks and task-based teaching in the classroom and useful advice.
E LT Journal Volume 63/2 April 2009 173

The great strength of Tasks in Second Language ‘teachers who want to get a better understanding of
Learning is that not only are modern tasks set in their how task-based teaching works in practice’ (p. xiii)
historical context but also that Samuda and Bygate and which is devoted to the superiority of such
take us on an extended tour of research undertaken practices, a lack of willingness to pin down exactly
so far, before pointing us to possible research in the what is on offer is less than totally persuasive. As
future. Along the way, they take time out to look at far as I can see a task in the world of Willis and Willis is
some applications of TBL in pedagogic contexts. a kind of more or less communicative activity with
Thus, in the seven chapters that make up ‘Part 1: more or less of a focus on language. I have
Background’, we learn about the work of Dewey (the absolutely no objection to communicative activities
great-grandfather of holistic and experiential of course (how could I?), but if I cannot be sure
learning) and Kirkpatrick on projects (in the second whether or not they are tasks—the central building
decade of the twentieth century). Bruner discusses blocks, after all, of this whole way of looking at
learning transfer in the 1960s, and in the 1970s, teaching and learning—it makes it quite difficult to
Freinet writes about purposeful learning while Freire evaluate what is going on.
suggests a four-phase process of participatory
Samuda and Bygate, however, do not duck the
curriculum development. When, in Chapter 4,
definition issue in the same way. After considerable
Samuda and Bygate discuss tasks in second
discussion of how people have tried to define tasks,
language pedagogy, they reference the work of Swales
they come up with their own reasoned version which
and Van Lier in the 1990s and Leun in 2001. In
is ‘A task is a holistic activity which engages language
Chapter 5, they call on Candlin, Long, Prabhu, Skehan,
use in order to achieve some non-linguistic outcome
Ellis, Bereiter, and Scardamalia to help them define
while meeting a linguistic challenge, with the overall
a pedagogic task (an issue we will return to later). In
aim of promoting language learning through process
Chapter 8, the authors look in detail at eight pieces of
or product or both’ (p. 69). This sounds better,
research into pedagogic tasks, and in Chapter 9, they
though you may still feel, as I do, that it leaves the
discuss how task-based learning has been used and
whole issue of exactly where attention to language
incorporated into second language teaching and
form fits in somewhat open.
learning by looking especially (but not only) at the
widely quoted Bangalore project, Long and Crookes’ A marked feature of Willis and Willis is to suggest that
‘no language seeding’ proposals, and at Jane Willis’ task-based teaching, if I understand this correctly, is
1996 A Framework for Task-Based Learning. Tasks in any kind of teaching which involves tasks. This allows
Second Language Learning ends with a wonderfully them to categorize lessons and programmes which
useful list of suggestions for future research and a list have some kind of task-based activity in a longer
of resources for anyone interested in pursuing tasks procedure as ‘task based’. For example, they describe
further. Throughout the book, the authors are keen to how one of their teacher informants ‘coordinated the
pin down research issues and problems and to introduction of TBL into his program’ (p. 182). This
suggest ways out of them because one of their aims is sounds great, especially the contention that when
to explore why tasks are controversial and ‘to teachers are all doing the same thing they have a lot
consider what people do to make tasks educative or they can share and talk about. It sounds like a terrific
uneducative, why this can happen, and what the piece of work. But (and I think this is really important
alternatives might be’ (p. 1). in a discussion of TB L ) ‘lesson planning meant
figuring out how to use the task and then build
And so back to my original question, which is
a sequence around it’ (p. 182). What worries me here
essentially about whether T BL works and why I, or any
is an elision between what Samuda and Bygate
other teacher, should be involved in it. In my opinion,
characterize as task-based learning and teaching as
an awful lot hangs on what a task actually is. Willis
opposed to task-supported learning and teaching. If
and Willis are less than helpful here. True they offer
T BL is, in reality, task-supported learning, we can say
‘criteria’ for tasks, but ‘these criteria will not provide
that any lesson that has a task in it (even if it has, for
us with a watertight definition of what constitutes
example, a healthy chunk of P P P preceding it) is task
a task . . . ’(p. 13). Instead they quote, admiringly,
based. But this is, of course, an entirely different
Skehan’s suggestion that ‘some of the time it may be
proposition from the work of, say, Long and Crookes
difficult to decide whether an activity merits the label
(quoted in Tasks in Second Language Learning) who,
‘‘task’’ since the two underlying characteristics,
after conducting a needs analysis, designed tasks in
avoidance of specific structures and engagement
a syllabus where elements of linguistic form were not
with worthwhile meaning, are matters of degree,
specified, where tasks were not seeded with language
rather than being categorical’. As I read this, I found
for students to notice, and where attention to
myself thinking that in a book which is written for
174 Reviews
language form was opportunistic rather than part of problematic whichever way you come to it, I would
task design. have thought!
Of course, this fault-line runs through all discussions And so my reaction to reading these two books is
of task-based teaching. Whereas the work of people a hugely reinforced ambivalence about T BL and
like Nunan (2004) seems to suggest that it is okay to a great excitement about the directions in which
teach language first and then use it to perform a task future research might help me to understand it.
later, other versions suggest the opposite: task first, Samuda and Bygate have laid the ground out here
language later. That is what I thought Jane Willis was with admirable clarity and engagement and provoked
advocating in her framework book (Willis 1996). Now a host of (good) questions about what happens when
I am not so sure. people engage in experiential tasks. Willis and Willis,
on the other hand, have made it less easy for me to
In Doing Task-Based Teaching, the authors are keen to
sign up as a fully fledged disciple of task-based
stress that ‘form should be subordinated to meaning
learning and teaching, even though they have offered
and, for this reason, should come after, rather than
me a range of interesting and enjoyable activities.
before a task’ (p. 18). They base this on a passionately
Despite reading these two titles then, I still find myself
argued section in which they say that if students learn
in sympathy with Littlewood’s (2004) suggestion that
a form and then try and use it meaningfully they will
‘the main common denominator of communicative
fail because ‘it is very difficult to concentrate on what
and task-based approaches in their various forms is
we are going to say and at the same time on how we
that, even when they use form-focused procedures,
are going to say it’ (p. 17). After all, they point out, it
they are always oriented towards communication’
takes language a long time to develop and the first
(pp. 325–6). Er, well yes! And anyway, there is one big
treatment will not lead to mastery (nor will correction
elephant clomping around in this particular room,
by the way, which inexplicably gets less than a page in
namely whether an approach to language learning
this book because it is not ‘nearly as effective as we
which depends on tasks is appropriate for all kinds of
would like to think’ [p. 122]). This development
learners. Bygate and Samuda discuss learner
process is presumably why so much practice and
difference in the strategies they adopt for performing
review—and activities such as role-play, projects,
tasks, and that is an area well worth researching, but
etc.—are built into modern lesson sequences. And
neither they nor Willis and Willis are able to address
these are exactly the kind of activities which are so
the issue of whether T BL always wins out over more
abundantly provided in their book. But remember
traditional form-focused teaching, and whether it
that they insist that form focus comes after, not
does this for all students, even those who need the
before a task. How then, do we categorize a stage
comfort of analysis or who want to depend on their
where ‘there is likely to be a focus on language,
‘considerable intellects’ (Pinker 1994: 29). Perhaps,
especially on lexis—words and phrases—at the
then, Ur (2006) is right when she suggests that in,
beginning when the teacher is priming or setting up
say, a state school with only three or four lessons
the task sequence’ (p. 113)? Indeed, many of the
a week, communicative tasks (sic) are a ‘necessary
activities on show here have language study at all sorts
added (my italics) component of a structured,
of different stages (both pre-, inter-, and post-task in
language-based syllabus and methodology’ (p. 3). For
my judgement), and while this seems completely
I do know, after all, that language teaching which
unexceptionable, it does not appear to justify the claim
does not give students a chance to use language in
that something essentially different is going on.
meaning-focused activities is not the kind of
Of course, this quandary is not new. In their summary language teaching I want to be involved in, and in that
of the Bangalore project, Samuda and Bygate focus I am confident that all four authors would agree with
on the intense discussion it generated about whether me. But in the meantime, my ambivalence remains
the teacher-led pre-task stage was a form of covert because, as Samuda and Bygate point out, ‘. . . until
teaching or not—and further whether the success of classroom-based studies become a mainstream for
the project was more the result of teacher and research in this field, the pedagogical use of learning
student enthusiasm rather than for any real tasks will never be properly researched . . .’ (p. 191) or,
pedagogic reason. Furthermore, why is it necessarily we might add, properly evaluated.
better for language to be met in a meaning-focused
task rather than overtly in pre-task form-focused References
activities? If language takes time to develop, Littlewood, W. 2004. ‘The task-based approach:
perhaps, it will take that time however it is first some questions and suggestions’. E LT Journal 58/4:
encountered. Moreover trying to get the form and 319–26.
the meaning right at the same time is just as
Reviews 175
Nunan, D. 2004. Task-Based Learning and
Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Pinker, S. 1994. The Language Instinct: The New
Science of Language and Mind. London: Penguin.
Ur, P. 2006. ‘A different ball game: contrasting
contexts and methodologies’. Unpublished article
based on a talk given at the IAT EF L Conference in
Harrogate, April 2006.
Willis, J. 1996. A Framework for Task-Based Learning.
Harlow: Pearson Education Ltd.
The reviewer
Jeremy Harmer teaches on the MA/T ES O L at the
New School, New York, and is the author (and
co-author) of various books on methodology and
classroom materials. These include The Practice of
English Language Teaching, How to Teach English, and
How to Teach Writing (Pearson Education Ltd) and
Just Right (Marshall Cavendish E LT ). He is the general
editor of the How To series.
Email: jeremy.harmer@btinternet.com
doi:10.1093/elt/ccp007
176 Reviews
and to unpick some of the issues underlying the
experience. It is offered in the belief that the sharing
of practice is a key element in professional learning’
(p. 2). Thus, in Chapter 1 (‘Inside a training course’),
we are taken directly into the inner workings of one of
the authors’ training programmes, as it unfolded at
the training room level. Some of the features which
distinguish the rest of the book are also present here.
Thus, there is a very ‘up-front’ focus on describing
and explaining the training procedures involved, so
that readers wishing to know what the training
approach means in practical terms are provided with
plenty of the necessary detail. Also, starting in this
way, with discussion of underlying theory being
postponed until the following chapter, mirrors the
bottom-up order of events used in the training
methodology being advocated—one of experiential
activity first, theory later—and this is therefore a book
which actually practises what it preaches!
Chapter 2 (‘A framework for training’) provides the
theoretical rationale for the training approach
exemplified in the first chapter and throughout the
rest of the book. Partly by means of a very expressive
extended metaphor, in which life experiences are
likened to a lake—‘an organic body of thoughts . . . in
circulation, the water constantly in motion, although
the depths remain fairly static’ (p. 23)—it is argued
Trainer Development that training programmes should desirably consist of
T. Wright and R. Bolitho sequences of activities involving an experience-
reviewing-making sense-planning for action learning
http://www.lulu.com 2007, 254 pp., £15.95
cycle (p. 33), an extension of the experiential learning
isbn 978 1 84753 232 9 model described in Kolb (1984).
However, although the authors have clearly been able
How can teacher training best be conducted? Trainer to apply this framework in their own training
Development attempts to provide one set of answers situation, there is no discussion of to what extent it
to this important question. However, in doing so, it can also work equally well in other situations, where
also raises a number of additional questions, as will the main training variables—such as whether it is
be seen. ‘residential’, the amount of time available, the ratio of
The book is intended to provide an entrée into the trainers to participants, the knowledge and expertise
thinking and practice the authors have developed as of the trainers, the degree of heterogeneity of the
a result of their many years of designing and participants, their sociocultural learning style
running a wide variety of project-related and preferences, their levels of experience (pre- versus in-
postgraduate degree teacher and trainer training service) and of language knowledge, and so on—are
courses at the University College of St Mark and St different. There is, thus, the possibility of it being
John (popularly known as ‘Marjons’), in southwest seen, paradoxically, as something of a theory-driven,
England. These programmes, it should be noted, top-down, one-size-fits-all model. This problem is
have typically involved individuals and groups compounded by the way that both Chapters 1 and 11,
coming to Marjons from their normal places of work which provide the most extensive descriptions of the
in other parts of the world, in order to undergo authors’ approach, focus on only Marjons-based
a full-time, primarily ‘course-based’ form of in-service trainer training illustrations.
training. The next seven chapters examine, in turn, the design
As the authors explain, the book is ‘an attempt to put and implementation of each of the main kinds of
three-dimensional, lived experience down in words, training activities which exemplify the training
approach being proposed. Once again in keeping
176 Reviews
with the main orientation of the training philosophy, participants to training content which attempts to
each of these chapters consists of, first, a series of extend their existing knowledge. One example uses
sample activities, and then, second, an ‘issues and a particularly inventive procedure for video
processes’ section, in which underlying principles observation of teaching, involving the participants in
and other matters are discussed. All of them also roleplaying the teacher, a supervisor, and an ‘outsider’
include two other very welcome features, namely (1) (p. 87). In this and similar ways, thus, the activities
the use of quotations from course participants’ here involve a strongly inductive, ‘deep end’
feedback to illustrate their responses to the various approach, which, though, with characteristic honesty,
activities and (2) an open and honest discussion of the authors admit does not suit all participants (p.
some of the difficulties the authors have encountered 89). Their response to this problem appears to be to
in putting their training approach into practice. adopt a rational–empirical strategy, i.e. to attempt to
ensure that the underlying rationale for the training
Chapter 3 (‘Working with groups in training’) is based
methodology is properly understood (p. 90).
on the belief that ‘[f]or the duration of the course
Nevertheless, it seems possible that, here also,
a learning community, a social group with a life of its
a more ‘normative re-educative’ approach, whereby,
own, is formed; the quality of the eventual outcome of
in the first instance, participants’ preconceptions are
the course will to a considerable extent be forged in
engaged with on their own terms, might be helpful.
the interactions between the members of the learning
group’ (p. 34). In the authors’ approach, thus, initial Chapter 6 (‘The awareness-raising process and its
priority is given to this aspect of the training and consequences’) is based on the belief that
illustrated accordingly via a series of sample ‘team- ‘[i]ncreased awareness is probably the first step on the
building’ activities. However, in many training way to change in professional behaviour’ (p. 95).
situations, it might be the case that there is However, while the authors acknowledge there is
insufficient time for such exercises, over and above a risk that trainees who are not accustomed to
those focusing on training ‘input’. Also, it may in any wearing their hearts on their sleeves in the way the
case be possible for the necessary group dynamic to activities frequently demand may feel discomfited,
be just as readily established by appropriate handling the causes of this problem are largely attributed to
of the latter, for example, through the use of misperceptions on the part of the participants, and, at
interactive tasks, thereby not only saving time but the end of the chapter, the matter is ultimately left
creating a more integrated approach, as well as unresolved: ‘We do not claim to have answers in this
possibly matching some participants’ initial delicate area—it is perhaps one of the greatest
expectations more closely (more of which below). challenges we face in our own development to cope
with uncertainty, difficulty and challenges and more
Chapter 4 (‘Working with participants’ experience’) is
when participants are affected by awareness raising’
based on the notion that ‘the previous experience
(p. 109). Such frankness is, of course, highly
which participants bring into a course is of central
commendable, but the implication would seem to be
significance to the ensuing learning process’ (p. 64).
that, in this respect too, some aspects of the training
To their credit, in discussing some of the ‘issues and
approach might be rethought along lines of the kind
processes’ involved in this area of training, the
indicated earlier.
authors acknowledge that ‘[p]articipants often
express misgivings about ‘‘dredging up the past’’ or Chapter 7 (‘Talk in training courses’) explores the
taking part in self-awareness activities’ (p. 81), but kinds of talk that training can involve, and their effects
they argue that, in overall terms, the approach is on learning processes and outcomes. The overall
nevertheless justified. However, rather than making view taken, in keeping with the slant of earlier
participants’ existing knowledge a central and chapters, is that ‘advocatory’ forms of talk, such as
separate focus of the early stages of the course, here lecturing, that are seen to be representative of
also there might be a case for ‘folding’ this element a ‘traditional’, ‘transmission’ approach to training
into the ongoing ‘main business’ instead. In this way, should be eschewed as far as possible and, instead,
participants’ prior conceptions about how they may priority given to more ‘exploratory’ forms of talk, such
prefer to learn might be met at least halfway, thus, as ‘active listening’ and so on (p. 116–8). In fact,
perhaps, lessening initial resistance, and thereby however, the two kinds of talk might also be viewed as
also, quite possibly, better facilitating group complementary, since it is possible for good
dynamics and participants’ willingness to bring prior advocatory talk to provide the guidance (in terms of
experiences to bear. information about concepts and also how they are
examined) that is also crucial for satisfactory
Chapter 5 (‘New and shared experiences in training’)
exploratory talk.
focuses on activities for introducing course
Reviews 177
Chapter 8 (‘Creating meaning: new learning’) is Chapter 11 (‘Inside a training course 2’), as already
concerned with introducing course participants to indicated, is something of a companion piece to
readings in the professional literature. The activities Chapter 1 and contains a similar wealth of practical
here are intended to ensure that trainees approach detail and related discussion about the unfolding of
this task in such a way that they, rather than the a component in one of the trainer training
readings, have the ‘upper hand’, a strategy programmes the authors have been involved in. On
encapsulated in the maxim ‘DO and T H IN K the other hand, there is no coverage here or anywhere
F I R S T —RE AD LATE R ’ (p. 152). Nevertheless, there else in the book of the superordinate issues and
is the danger here, perhaps, of adopting an over- procedures involved in the selection, sequencing,
protective attitude towards trainees’ exposure to and integration of such components in order to form
‘outside’ ideas, thereby only reconfirming—rather an overall training programme design, in the manner
than truly extending—their existing understandings. provided by, for example, Wallace (1991: chap. 9).
Perhaps this is more than can be asked of a book
Chapter 9 (‘Planning for action’) addresses the
that already provides so much, but, given the
important issue of preparing trainees for post-course
authors’ extensive experience of programme design,
re-entry into the world of work. However, while the
such a section would have been a very valuable
illustrative activities seem perfectly reasonable as far
addition.
as they go, the way in which this aspect of training can
be meaningfully undertaken within the implied Chapter 12 (‘Developing as a trainer’) considers some
context, i.e. with respect to a training programme only of the main areas of knowledge and skill needed by
loosely connected with the educational settings the trainers, illustrated, warts and all, via the professional
participants will be going on to, does not seem to be dilemmas the authors have and continue to
acknowledged and problematized in the way that it frequently encounter. The essence of developing as
might. a trainer is seen to lie in ‘who we are, rather than what
we do’ (p. 234). While this is undoubtedly true, such
Chapter 10 (‘Feedback, assessment and evaluation in
a conclusion does appear to rather downplay the role
training’) concerns itself with some of the ways
of programmes of the kind the book is concerned
participants can be enabled to provide evidence of
with, in building on and extending participants’
their learning and to provide feedback to trainers
innate potential to be effective trainers.
about the quality of their learning experiences. In
discussing the former, a distinction is made between Finally, although the book concludes with a number
‘professional’ versus ‘academic’ assignments, and of useful suggestions for further reading, these might
the view expressed that the former are more have also included (inter alia) Wallace (1991),
‘productive and relevant for trainees’ (p. 174). Freeman and Richards (1996), Hayes (1997), and
However, professional documents, such as Richards (1998). Also, there are no indices, and it is
curriculum proposals or teacher training programme often difficult to know exactly which items in some of
outlines, all too often lack some of the qualities of the Appendices are being referred to. In addition,
good academic writing, such as a well-developed, there are a number of editing errors throughout the
balanced set of arguments, informed by relevant main text (for example, not all the letters in Figure 6.1
research and theorizing, properly illustrated in terms on p. 96 correspond properly with those in the text on
of relevant practical examples, and there is therefore the previous page, the ‘‘‘tree’’ of language teaching
the risk of creating a false dichotomy here. which appears below’ on p. 154 is missing, etc.).
With respect to the latter aspect (participant All in all, thus, this book provides a very thorough and
feedback), various alternatives to the standard fare engaging introduction to the practicalities of,
are discussed, such as the potential value of post- rationale for, and difficulties involved in the
rather than end-of-course summative feedback (p. ‘humanistic’, activity-based, participant-centred,
177), and the possibility of group-led evaluation (p. process-oriented training method it is concerned
178), in which participants devise the evaluation with. On the other hand, as some of the reservations
criteria and provide the trainers with a summary. expressed in earlier parts of this review imply, it is
While commendable in being, on the face of it, more a moot point whether such an approach will
participant-centred, such techniques are not without necessarily also be appropriate in cases where the
their attendant practical disadvantages as well, and training context variables are configured differently
while some of these are discussed, others might have than at Marjons. Indeed, as indicated above, the
been mentioned as well. authors themselves have been welcomingly frank in
admitting that, even in their own situation, its
implementation has often been problematic. In short,
178 Reviews
despite the generic nature of its title, this is really
a book about a particular training approach, and its
chief value therefore resides in the very detailed,
down-to-earth guidance it provides for trainers
with like-minded views working in similar
situations. Much can be learnt by others as well, but
it will be important for them to take to heart the
authors’ commendable advice to ‘engage with it
critically’ (p. 2).
References
Freeman, D. and J. C. Richards. (eds.). 1996. Teacher
Learning in Language Teaching. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Hayes, D. A. (ed.). 1997. In-Service Teacher
Development: International Perspectives. Hemel
Hempstead, UK: Prentice Hall.
Kolb, D. A. 1984. Experiential Learning: Experience as
the Source of Learning and Development. Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Richards, J. C. 1998. Beyond Training: Perspectives on
Language Teacher Education. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Wallace, M. J. 1991. Training Foreign Language
Teachers: A Reflective Approach. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
The reviewer
Alan Waters is a Senior Lecturer in the Department
of Linguistics and English Language at Lancaster
University, UK. He has taught E FL in Sierra Leone,
Kuwait, and the UK and trained teachers in Thailand,
the UK, Hong Kong, and several other parts of the
world. He has published a number of books and
articles on a range of E LT topics. His main research
interests are in language teaching methodology,
teacher learning, and curriculum innovation.
Email: a.waters@lancaster.ac.uk
Reviews 179
books, anthologies, and monographs in applied
linguistics. The ambition of the series is to show and
cover the diversity within the field. An exciting and
commendable initiative! For my part, it is particularly
interesting that the first volume in the series is an
anthology which deals with and problematizes the
concepts of learner autonomy and teacher autonomy.
The articles in the book have, furthermore, developed
in an innovative way. They are based on papers that
were presented at the AIL A World Congress in
Singapore 2002. Short versions of the articles were
then published on the Web where members of
a mailing list were invited to comment upon them.
The comments and the discussion that took place
were accessible to the authors when they wrote their
final versions. The articles were then compiled by the
editors, Terry Lamb and Hayo Reinders, into Learner
and Teacher Autonomy: Concepts, Realities, and
Responses. They have chosen to include the concept of
teacher autonomy as there has been no previous
discussion of what happens to the teacher and the
teacher’s role when and if language learning becomes
increasingly autonomous. The focus here is both on
teachers’ freedom to redirect their teaching towards
self-directed learning and on how their own
experiences as autonomous language learners can
give character to the teaching that they themselves
carry out.
To review an anthology is a special task; the ‘typical’
reader of an anthology will, naturally, not read the
book from cover to cover as I have done. You browse
and blend, read that which gets your attention, and
leave other things. In spite of this, I find that the book
works excellently when read at one sitting. There is
a rhythm in the book with one article, in most cases,
naturally leading on to the next. Also, in a volume of
research articles it is not always easy to see common
traits. One often needs help to evaluate things, draw
conclusions, and see the way ahead. In this volume,
one of the editors, Terry Lamb, provides both
a prefatory and introductory text and
a comprehensive and forward-oriented epilogue.
These texts give the volume an extraordinary
Learner and Teacher Autonomy: Concepts, Realities, structure and work as a framework for reading.
and Responses All articles contain parts that are interesting and
T. Lamb and H. Reinders (eds.) worth considering. In her chapter, Turid Trebbi carries
AILA Applied Linguistics Series 1,
out a survey of the concept of freedom. I particularly
John Benjamins Publishing Company 2008,
recognize the image she depicts of Norway, where
286 pp., e 99.00 US$ 134.00
certain language teachers are of the opinion that not
all pupils can and should study languages. How does
isbn 978 90 272 0517 9 such a teacher arouse enthusiasm in his or her
pupils? Ernesto Macaro presents a theoretical model
AIL A , the International Association of Applied for autonomous language learning and William La
Linguistics, has initiated a publication series with Ganza also provides a theoretical framework through
Reviews 179
what he calls the dynamic interrelational space. The be conducted, are both critical of the training that is
volume contains many articles with the point of offered. One of them wants to see much more
departure in teacher training; Richard Smith and steering and teacher-controlled education, the other
Sultan Erdogan give definitions of the special is more anarchical and fundamentally uninterested in
position of student teachers (right between ‘teacher’ organized learning or in personally participating in
and ‘student’) and discuss and exemplify what the training group in order to, for example, help fellow
implications this should have on teacher training. students. Yet, both agree that it is the teacher who ‘is
Sara Cotterall and David Crabbe give insights into the one who knows the best ways to learn’ (p. 158) and
how learners reflect on different errors and error types that the students’ possibilities for making decisions
in their own language learning. Penny Hacker and about learning should be restricted to applications
Gary Barkhuizen use diary entries from teachers outside the classroom. Basing her studies on these
active in their profession to get insights into how students, Nicolaides reconstructs the concept of
teachers formulate theories about language learning. learner autonomy.
In their article, Hayo Reinders and Marilyn Lewis test
Many articles, thus, take as their point of departure
a model for assessing learner’s material from how
teacher training and future language teachers.
well it works for self-directed learning. Vieira,
Jonathan Shaw’s article is a welcome interruption. He
Barbosa, Paiva, and Fernandes speak of the need for
describes language learning at the Asian Institute of
learner autonomy and teacher autonomy to develop
Technology, where the students for the most part are
in interplay, using the concept of tandem.
technicians and engineers studying at Master’s level.
I will select five articles that I personally found For them, language is a tool and they do not at all have
particularly rewarding. Phil Benson begins the the same motivation to develop pedagogically or
volume with an article that gives an excellent outline devote much time to things that will not pay off with
of the different attempts that have been made to results. Shaw shows how a mode of working which
define the concept of autonomy. He does this through sets out from each learner’s individual needs and
adopting different perspectives on the concepts, the which will not let itself be controlled by external
teachers’ and the learners’ perspectives, which organization, for example, a schedule, may be both
naturally may be completely different. Benson argues meaningful and effective. He argues that the
for the notions of ‘autonomy in life’ and ‘personal development of learner autonomy has to take into
autonomy’ (p. 16) but says, at the same time, that the account the context of the learning situation and that
concepts need to be positioned and put into a key factor is always cooperation and dialogue
perspective. His starting point is, among other between the teachers working together.
things, his own experience as a learner of Cantonese
Barbara Sinclair reports from the course
which he uses to claim that the teacher’s perspective
development of a Master’s programme in learner
often has to do with ‘tak[ing] control of the
autonomy for overseas students of English at the
institutional and classroom learning arrangements
University of Nottingham. The programme is
within the curricula’, while the learner ‘primarily is
developed by means of a continuous dialogue
concerned with learning in a much broader sense in
between teachers and students, through formal and
the life beyond the classroom’ (p. 15).
informal evaluations. Sinclair means that the
Hélène Martinez’ starting point is two student concepts of learner and teacher autonomy here
teachers and their subjective and personal theories interact and are integrated. Both the course lecturers
about the concept of learner autonomy. In a very and the participants (and hopefully their pupils) take
interesting and inspiring way, and through part in different forms of self-directed learning at the
comparing the students’ ideas against more same time, as this is also self-directed professional
conventional definitions of the concept and development and, thus, teacher autonomy. Sinclair
established theories, she succeeds in finding ways also provides a really well written and perceptive
which may be productive in further developing the background to the concept pair learner–teacher
concept. She integrates this into a discussion around autonomy.
the practical changes that need to materialize in
The theme of the anthology is the relationship
teacher training, as well as what future research is
between learner autonomy and teacher autonomy.
required.
After having read it, I note that the overall impression
In her article, Christine Siqueira Nicolaides also of the articles is that they elucidate and penetrate
provides a comprehensive analysis, principally of two some parts of the issues concerned but leave others
student teachers who, despite having diametrically out. A great number of the articles are about
different opinions as to how teacher training should university education, above all teacher training.
180 Reviews
I would like to see a greater variety as most language
learning does not take place in universities but in
compulsory school and upper secondary school
classrooms. How will students who do their teacher
training shortly before becoming practising teachers
act in the classroom situation? How does the learner
autonomy–teacher autonomy relation turn out when
working with young learners? A matter that is not
touched upon is whether the autonomous learner or
autonomous teacher becomes more efficient in their
learning. Several of the writers of these articles touch
on the problem that it might be difficult to convince
students to work with learner autonomy. The most
effective way to get students and teachers to make
changes in their practice is, probably, a convincing
argument showing that the autonomous learner is
also more successful in his or her learning and/or that
there are positive effects from developing a new
attitude to language learning. I am convinced that
these positive effects both exist and are possible to
quantify, but another type of research on learner–
teacher autonomy must develop parallel to the one
outlined in this volume: qualitative research where
only a small number of learners are studied through,
for example, interviews, observations, or diary
entries. It is important research, offering some
valuable and meaningful knowledge about language
learners, but I believe that this must be supplemented
by more quantitative research where larger groups of
learners and teachers who have worked with learner–
teacher autonomy are compared to learners and
teachers who have worked more traditionally, both in
the form of attitude surveys and knowledge
assessments.
My overall opinion is, however, that Learner and
Teacher Autonomy: Concepts, Realities, and Responses
is sound, rewarding, and interesting. While reading it,
I learnt new things, I was given reason to reflect on
certain matters, and in some cases my own opinions
were confirmed. The book is recommended to all
those interested in research and development work
in the area of learner–teacher autonomy.
The reviewer
Jörgen Tholin is Vice Rector and Senior Lecturer in
Applied Linguistics at the University of Borås in
Sweden. He teaches on the Teacher Training
Programme and on in-service training courses. For
20 years, he has worked on the development of self-
directed learning in English teaching in compulsory
education and he has reported on his experiences in
books, articles, and at conferences.
Email: Jorgen.Tholin@hb.se
Reviews 181
Language Testing and Assessment: An Advanced
Resource Book
G. Fulcher and F. Davidson
Routledge 2007, xx + 403 pp., £19.99
isbn 978 0 415 33947 6
Testing and assessment have been challenging areas

which have sparked a great deal of controversy. This
might be one of the reasons why so many books have
been written in these areas. Emphasis has been
placed on various aspects of testing and assessment:
classroom evaluation (Gronlund 1976), the principles
and procedures of test construction (Valette 1977),
theory and practice of testing and statistical concepts
(Henning 1987), the stages of test construction, test
techniques, and the principles of testing (Hughes
1989), guidance on test writing, administering, and
scoring at a practical level (Heaton 1990),
communicative language testing (Weir 1990),
practical approaches in using authentic assessment
(O’Malley and Pierce 1996), and fundamental
principles of assessment (Brown 2004).
Even this brief look at the literature may imply that
there is no need for another book on testing and
assessment as the market is already saturated.
But the book under consideration disproves this
assumption as it differs in many ways from those
mentioned above.
The book has a unique structural pattern. Moreover,
Fulcher and Davidson address issues regarding
testing and assessment through a new approach
labelled ‘effect driven’. It is essentially driven by the
impact it might have on people and institutions
involved. As the focus is on the outcome and on the
view that ‘test design and development is about
doing, creating and researching’ (p. xx), it adopts
a pragmatic view of testing. The new approach is also
claimed to weave together testing practice, theory,
ethics, and philosophy.
As a comprehensive resource book, it addresses
a wide audience including undergraduates and
postgraduates on language, applied linguistics, and
communication studies programmes as well as
teachers and researchers in professional
development and distance learning programmes.
The book is composed of three main sections, each
containing ten units. Section A, ‘Introduction’,
presents the major concepts and key terms of testing.
Section B, ‘Expansion’, contains extracts from articles
and books related to testing and assessment. Section
C, ‘Exploration’, is intended to provide further
practice with previously raised issues and offer ideas
Reviews 181
for projects. The authors also provide a glossary of process by writing a set of items or tasks that are
key terms at the end of the book. As an additional intuitively felt to be relevant to the test takers’ (p. 62).
resource to the book, there is a website http://
Among the issues that Section A considers are the
www.routledge.com/textbooks/9780415339476
study of washback and test administration within the
which the reader may visit for further activities,
E CD delivery models. The authors believe that the
practice, additional reading, and ideas for projects.
former is concerned with the political use of tests to
Section A addresses the following issues: (a) validity, implement changes in classrooms that are seen as
(b) classroom assessment, (c) constructs and improvements by governments. Concerning the
models, (d) test specifications and designs, (e) latter, the writers object to placing test administration
writing items and tasks, (f) prototypes, prototyping, ‘under the catch-all term of ‘‘test practicality’’, but not
and field tests, (g) scoring language tests and treated in any detail, even if its centrality to questions
assessments, (h) administration and training, (i) of validity has been recognized’ (p. 137). The authors
fairness, ethics, and standards, and (j) arguments also address the issue of ethics and fairness and link
and evidence in test validation and use. them to the concept of professionalism.
Unlike other titles in this area, this book begins with Section A of the book opens and closes with the same
the concept of validity as central in testing and topic: validity. But in Unit A10, the topic is considered
assessment, taking a historical approach, and tracing from a slightly different angle: arguments and
the changes in the concept of validity. It is approached evidence in test validation and use. The writers treat
from a philosophical perspective, specifically validation as an ongoing process that continues
a positivist one. Regarding the role of validity theory in throughout the life of a test.
a philosophical plain, the writers find the relationship
Section B provides extracts from various articles and
between theory and evidence sometimes unclear as
books with the aim of giving further insights into the
theory is always evolving, and new evidence is
concepts introduced in the previous section. Among
continually collected. This might be one of the
the chosen extracts are the ‘seminal’ papers by
reasons why statistics, widely used in testing and
Cronbach and Meehl (1955) on construct validity, and
evaluation, ‘is not always clear in a larger picture of
Kane (1992) on test validation, pioneer studies by
developing theories of language acquisition and
Alderson and Wall (1993) on the concept of washback
testing’ (p.11).
and Hamp-Lyons (1991) on rating scales, and finally
According to the authors, validity has become one of an ‘extremely influential’ paper by Canale and Swain
the central enterprises in psychological, educational, (1980) on testing and teaching of languages.
and language testing and considers the social and
Section C—‘Exploration’—seems to be the most
political factors in designing tests and using test
challenging one since it aims to help readers to apply
scores (p. 22).
the accumulated knowledge on testing and
One of the issues considered in Section A concerns assessment in realizing various student-centred
constructs and models. Special emphasis is placed activities in the form of both individual and group
on certain models developed by Canale and Swain project work. In fact, topics presented in this section
(1980), Bachman (1990), and Celce-Murcia, Dörnyei, provide the reader with the opportunity to synthesize
and Thurrell (1995). The writers treat these constantly the ideas discussed in the previous two sections.
evolving models as sources of potential constructs
We believe that the book, which combines theory with
for specific testing purposes.
practice, will no doubt be of interest to the language
The authors also present the general concept of test teaching and testing community since it has certain
specifications and place special emphasis on such outstanding features.
subtopics as planning in test authoring, guiding
One of the major strengths of the book is the way
language versus sampling, congruence, reverse
knowledge is introduced. It displays a uniform
engineering, and archetypes, etc. Moreover, the
pattern throughout. First, a concept is presented
authors consider the process of item and task writing
and defined. Then, it is further contextualized in
as part of the iterative process of writing test
extracts for deeper insights. Finally, the reader has
specifications, draw on the paradigm of evidence-
a chance to critically evaluate it as part of a project.
centred design (ECD ), and look at a particular
This procedure is supplemented by tasks provided
methodology in test design. According to the
in all three sections, which will enable readers to
authors, ‘one of the most common mistakes made in
stop and check what has been acquired. These
language testing is for the test writer to begin the
tasks can also lead to discussions and topics for
182 Reviews
research projects. Besides, all three sections are Language Writing in Academic Context. Norwood, NJ:
interwoven through cross-referencing which helps Ablex.
the reader to perceive the book as a whole. This Heaton, J. B. 1990. Writing English Language Tests
carefully tailored journey from one section into (new edition). London: Longman.
another with built-in amenities makes the book Henning, G. 1987. A Guide to Language Testing:
a pedagogically solid one. Development, Evaluation, Research. Boston: Heinle
Another strength of the book is that it uses literary and Heinle Publishers.
characters and draws analogies from various fields of Hughes, A. 1989. Testing for Language Teachers.
science and everyday life, making the language of the Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
book vivid and explanations meaningful. Kane, M. T. 1992. ‘An argument-based approach to
Furthermore, the book deals with topics like test validity’. Psychological Bulletin 112/3: 527–35.
administration for disabled people, professionalism, O’Malley, J. M. and L. V. Pierce. 1996. Authentic
and democracy in language testing. Assessment for English Language Learners: Practical
Approaches for Teachers. New York: Longman.
Though they are insignificant, the book does have
some flaws. For instance, there are typos like the word Valette, R. M. 1977. Modern Language Testing (2nd
‘tropical’ instead of ‘topical’ (p. 46). Also, the writers edn.). New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.
have missed the publication year of some books (see Weir, C. J. 1990. Communicative Language Testing.
pp. 25, 149). Perhaps, a noteworthy point of criticism Hemel Hempstead, UK: Prentice Hall.
is that the book could be rather challenging for
undergraduate students due to their lack of teaching The reviewers
experience and background knowledge of certain Javanshir Shibliyev is an Assistant Professor of the
concepts. However, these by no means decrease the E LT Department, Eastern Mediterranean University,
value of the book. North Cyprus. He has taught both language support
and subject matter courses at various universities in
All in all, Language Testing and Assessment: An
Azerbaijan and North Cyprus. His research interests
Advanced Resource Book makes a great contribution
to the field of testing and assessment and are testing and assessment, materials development,
therefore would be an invaluable resource for a wide sociolinguistics, and language policy.
audience including students, language teachers and/ Email: javanshir.shibliyev@emu.edu.tr
or test designers, administrators, as well as
researchers. _
Ilkay Gilanlıoğlu is Vice-Chair of the E LT Department,
Eastern Mediterranean University, North Cyprus.
References He has taught EFL /ESP courses at the Middle East
Alderson, J. C. and D. Wall. 1993. ‘Does washback Technical University, Turkey. He did his PhD in
exist?’ Applied Linguistics 14/2: 115–29. Applied Linguistics at the Institute of Education,
Bachman, L. F. 1990. Fundamental Considerations in University of London. His academic interests include
Language Testing. Oxford: Oxford University Press. materials development, testing and assessment,
Brown, H. D. 2004. Language Assessment: Principles language acquisition, psycholinguistics, and
and Classroom Practices. New York: Longman. sociolinguistics.
Canale, M. and M. Swain. 1980. ‘Theoretical basis of Email: ilkay.gilanlioglu@emu.edu.tr
communicative approaches to second language doi:10.1093/elt/ccp010
teaching and testing’. Applied Linguistics 1/1: 1–47.
Celce-Murcia, M., Z. Dörnyei, and S. Thurrell. 1995.
‘Communicative competence: a pedagogically
motivated model with content specifications’. Issues
in Applied Linguistics 6/2: 5–35.
Cronbach, L. J. and P. E. Meehl. 1955. ‘Construct
validity in psychological tests’. Psychological Bulletin
52: 281–302.
Gronlund, N. E. 1976. Measurement and Evaluation
in Teaching (3rd edn.). New York: Macmillan
Publishing.
Hamp-Lyons, L. 1991. ‘Scoring procedures for E S L
contexts’ in L. Hamp-Lyons (ed.). Assessing Second
Reviews 183
Teacher Cognition and Language Education
S. Borg
Continuum 2008, 320 pp., £24.99
isbn 978 1 8470 6333 5
While second language acquisition (S L A ) has been

thoroughly researched, much less research has
been conducted into what second language teaching
(SLT) involves. There is no ‘S LT ’ to match SL A .
Simon Borg’s book on teacher cognition is an
important contribution to our knowledge of what
Reviews 183
goes on inside teachers’ heads. It is, however, a book The book concludes with a very useful summary of
that also reminds us of how what goes on inside the main insights uncovered in the main body of the
teachers’ heads is inextricably tied to what goes on book and the description of a framework for the future
outside their heads, in the social and educational study of teacher cognition. The book has a wide scope
context in which teaching takes place. It is and, apart from the specific insights into foreign
a fascinating, if somewhat demanding, read. language teaching it reports on, it helps put ELT into
a broader context of teacher education across the
Teacher Cognition and Language Education brings
curriculum. I will now go on to give a summary of the
together research into teacher cognition from ELT
contents of the book, chapter-by-chapter, and round
and beyond. The book, a substantial volume of over
off with an example of what I personally found most
300 pages, will be an invaluable handbook for
useful in the book.
researchers in the field, teacher educators, and
curriculum designers. Although not specifically Chapter 1 puts the study of language teacher
targeted at classroom teachers, it is a mine of cognition in its historical context by describing the
information for those seeking to enhance their origins of teacher cognition research in general
knowledge of classroom practice. education. The research brings out the two-way
interaction between teacher thinking and practice but
The term ‘teacher cognition’ refers to what teachers
also the importance of context in shaping what
know and think and how this affects their behaviour,
teachers think, feel, and do. For example, Borg
especially insofar as it relates to what happens in the
describes research which foregrounds the
classroom. Much of what we think we ‘know’ about
importance to teacher effectiveness of the knowledge
language teaching is based on anecdotal evidence or
we have of our students (such as their classroom
the work of inspirational educators. In ELT, if not in
behaviour, ability, and background) in combination
general education, very little empirical work has been
with the teacher’s practical pedagogic knowledge
done on how teachers think and behave. The work of
(pp.11–13). The evidence suggests that teachers
Schön (1983), Richards and Lockhart (1994), and
transform the knowledge they acquire in pre-service
Wallace (1991) has encouraged a more reflective
education programmes through a combination of
approach to teacher education. A small but important
information processing, practical knowledge, and
body of empirical work has also now accumulated on
interaction with pedagogical content. Teacher
teacher cognition, though scattered as this work is in
cognition is, thus, described as an often tacit,
academic journals it is difficult for non-specialists to
personally held practical system of mental
get access to it. Indeed, Borg’s book is not the easiest
constructions, resulting from a complex, interactive
of texts, but it has abundant insights for the
process involving subjective and objective factors. It is
classroom practitioner; in this review, I will focus on
a dynamic, interactive process, which is defined and
this practical aspect of the book.
refined on the basis of educational and professional
In Teacher Cognition and Language Education, Simon experiences throughout teachers’ lives (p. 35).
Borg does three things: first, he provides an
Chapter 2 focuses on research conducted in the
exhaustive summary of the research into teacher
context of pre-service teacher education. It examines
cognition, with a particular focus on language
the impact of pre-service education programmes on
education; second, he analyses the significance of this
teachers’ thoughts and beliefs but also on what
research to language teaching; and third, he describes
teachers actually do in the classroom. The
and evaluates the various research methods which
contradiction between what, on the one hand,
have been applied to studies of teacher cognition.
teachers say they do in class or what they believe about
Thus, in Part 1 of the book, Borg reviews, in teaching, and on the other hand, what they actually do
impressive detail, the research into the cognition of is a commonplace amongst teacher trainers. Borg
pre-service, novice, and experienced teachers, with describes research which reveals the importance of
separate chapters on the teaching of grammar, pre-service teachers’ own previous learning
reading, and writing. Some of this work refers to the experiences on their cognition (p. 52). An analysis
teaching of English as a second or foreign language of pre-service teachers’ diaries reveals intriguing
but much of it is drawn from teaching and teacher insights, such as the central place of classroom
education in general. management factors in teachers’ hierarchy of
priorities, but also the enduring importance in their
In Part 2, Borg describes—again in great detail—a
thinking of teaching grammar effectively (p. 56). The
variety of research methods which have been applied
motif of the two-way interaction between cognitive
in the investigation of teacher cognition.
184 Reviews
systems and experience, between beliefs and negatively on student motivation’ (p. 115). In
practice, reappears in this chapter. response to this danger of demotivation, some
teachers may engage in grammar teaching ‘not
Chapter 3 is particularly rich in insights. In this
because they think it enhances language acquisition
chapter, Borg looks at teacher cognition research with
but because they feel it is something their students
reference to in-service teachers. The chapter focuses
expect’ (p. 124). The way context shapes teacher
on how teachers’ beliefs and knowledge shape their
attitudes and actions is clearly complex and full of
classroom practice and how in turn these beliefs are
contradictions. Another example of the constraining
shaped by contextual constraints. The beliefs of
power of the classroom environment on teacher
teachers regarding mainstream approaches, such as
cognition is the way the teaching of writing skills has
the communicative approach, are explored through
been influenced by an apparently unrelated issue
teacher narratives; these narratives highlight the
such as discipline and classroom management
degree to which teacher cognition is socially
(p. 151). A process approach to writing, for example,
situated—it is influenced by the emotions aroused
is desirable in theory but often makes prohibitive
when teachers reflect on the relationship between
demands on the teacher in terms of classroom
what they believe in principle and what is feasible in
control and the ability to motivate learners. This
practice. ‘Almost all teachers reported using
insight has profound implications for the feasibility of
communicative activities such as role-play games,
many forward-looking and learner-centred
survey, group-work, simulations; unfortunately, these
methodologies which are not often fully explored in
things were rarely observed’ (p. 97: quoted from Sato
teacher training courses or optimistic teachers’
and Kleinsasser 1999: 509–10). Teacher narratives
handbooks!
also bring out the influence of teachers’ early
experiences on what they believe and how they Chapters 6–9 change gear as Borg looks at research
behave in the classroom. The outcome of all methodologies rather than the outcome of the
these factors is the contradiction identified earlier research, though in these chapters the reader will find
between what teachers say they do and what they a large number of insights into the rationale and
actually do. effectiveness of classroom practice. Borg examines
the following research methods: self-report
Chapters 4 and 5 review the literature on two subjects
instruments (questionnaires, scenario rating,
in the curriculum which have received particular
tests), verbal commentaries (interviews, think-
attention in teacher cognition research: the teaching
aloud protocols), observation, and reflective
of grammar and the teaching of literacy skills (reading
writing (journals, autobiographical accounts,
and writing). Interestingly, as Borg points out,
retrospective accounts, and concept mapping).
research into teachers’ beliefs regarding grammar
He points out what these methods have achieved,
teaching emanates mostly from EFL /ESL contexts
what they have neglected, and what they still
while research into teacher cognition and reading has
have to offer the ongoing exploration of teacher
been conducted in the context of mother tongue
cognition.
teaching.
In his final chapter, Borg revisits the salient issues
In the chapter on the teaching of grammar, we
which his book has described: the nature of language
discover that research suggests that ‘non-native
teacher cognition, the relationship between
teachers’ do significantly better on explicit grammar
language teachers’ cognition and classroom
awareness than their ‘native-speaker counterparts’
practices, the impact of context on language
(p. 112). Another fascinating piece of data is the
teachers’ cognitions and practices, and the nature
incongruence between students’ beliefs and
of expertise in teaching.
teachers’ beliefs regarding the need to correct errors:
while 94 per cent of learners believe teachers should Borg ends the book with a consideration of the
correct their errors in class, only 48 per cent of divergence between S L A studies and teacher
teachers agreed with them that errors should be cognition. He argues for the need to bring these two
corrected. A similar discrepancy in the views of lines of inquiry closer together so that S L A and ‘S LT ’
learners and teachers is reported in the case of the can inform each other. S L A needs to show a greater
‘formal teaching of grammar’, with the students once awareness of the complexities of what teachers do
again more strongly in favour of traditional grammar and the impact of teacher cognition on learning
teaching than their more communicatively oriented outcomes: ‘rather than calling for either S L A
teachers. ‘These mismatches between teacher and researchers or teacher cognition researchers to
student views about the role of formal instruction and change their perspectives on researching language
error correction’, speculates Borg, ‘may impinge education . . . it is perhaps more realistic and
Reviews 185
ultimately more productive to combine the expertise References
of both parties’ (p. 288). Richards, J. C. and C. Lockhart. 1994. Reflective
One of the most intriguing of the themes developed Teaching in Second Language Classrooms. Cambridge:
in the book is the nature of expertise in language Cambridge University Press.
teaching. I would like to end my review by drawing on Sato, K. and R. C. Kleinsasser. 1999. ‘Communicative
the useful topic index provided at the back of the book language teaching (C LT ): practical understandings’.
in order to trace the insights into teacher expertise Modern Language Journal 83/4: 494–517.
running throughout the book. Schön, D. 1983. The Reflective Practitioner: How
What does Borg’s meticulous account of the research Professionals Think in Action. New York:
tell us about the nature of effective teaching? Expert Basic Books.
teachers: Wallace, M. 1991. Training Foreign Language Teachers:
A Reflective Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge
n possess knowledge derived from the classroom University Press.
n are familiar with typical student behaviours
n use their knowledge to make predictions about
The reviewer
what might happen in the classroom
Luke Prodromou is a freelance teacher, teacher
n have more fully developed schemata of teaching on
which to base their practical classroom decisions: trainer, and materials writer based in Greece. He has
‘they know a lot about their students even before worked for the British Council and a variety of private
they meet them’ (p. 40) institutions in Greece, Spain, and the UK. He has
n pay more attention to language issues than novice written Dealing with Difficulties (Delta, with L.
teachers (who worry more about classroom Clandfield), winner of the Ben Warren Prize, an
management) English-Speaking Union award, and nominated for
n learn to automatize the routines associated with a British Council Elton Award for Innovation in
managing the class; this skill leaves them free to English Language Teaching for 2007. He is also co-
focus on content author of Attitude (for adults) and Smash (for young
n improvise more than novice teachers—they make learners—both Macmillan). He has an MA in
greater use of interactive decision-making as Shakespeare Studies (Birmingham University),
a source of their ‘improvisational performance’ a Diploma in T ES L (Leeds University), and a PhD
(p. 102) from the University of Nottingham. His book, English
n build on students’ difficulties as a Lingua Franca: A Corpus-based Analysis, was
n notice errors and classify them published in 2008 by Continuum. He is currently
n maintain active student involvement teaching young learners.
n have a clear language learning focus Email: lukep@otenet.gr
n integrate skills doi:10.1093/elt/ccp011
n are able to articulate their pedagogic principles and
make conscious decisions
n internalize theory and link theory to practice.
It emerges from this summary of the research that
expertise in language teaching is a complex, dynamic
process, involving constant engagement,
exploration, and experimentation. It is an integration
of formal and experiential knowledge which enables
the expert practitioner to envisage the learning
potential of students in context; an expert teacher is
both technically skilled and emotionally intelligent.
Expertise is certainly not synonymous with
experience.
These insights into expertise in language teaching
are what this reviewer found most useful in Simon
Borg’s book. But the book as a whole will offer
much more to different readers; it is a rich source of
what we know, empirically, about what teachers
think and do.
186 Reviews
Reflective Language Teaching: From Research to
Practice
T. S. C. Farrell
Continuum 2007, 202 pp., £19.99
isbn 978 0 8264 9658 4
This is one of the most recent additions to the

literature on reflective practice. The author is based in
Canada, but also draws on his experience as a teacher
and trainer in other contexts. The subtitle of the book
raised an immediate question for me: Why would
a book about teaching and for teachers use research
as a point of departure? The first (and rather
convoluted) sentence in the author’s preface gives us
a clue:
186 Reviews
Reflective Language Teaching is a book unique in a teacher or a trainee group is starting from as a basis
existence because it presents up-to-date research for assessing progress and developing conceptual
on reflective language teaching and also presents thinking in a training course. Almost all the other
case studies, most of which have been conducted chapters have useful insights, and there is much for
by this author in collaboration with other language an experienced and critical reader to glean from the
teachers, that illustrate topics covered in each book, but the insights do tend to come piecemeal,
chapter. (p. vi) and there is a lack of overall coherence about the
This is quite a claim but it does provide a yardstick author’s view of his topic, which means that it cannot
against which to assess the book’s value to potential really be regarded as the kind of authoritative
overview of the field which he seems to be claiming in
readers. It also hints at the approach taken to chapter
design, which is based on a template leading from an his preface.
introduction to research findings, followed by one or This last point is best illustrated by reference to
more case studies, a section entitled ‘From research Chapter 1 in which he sets out his understanding of
to practice’, questions to reflect on, a conclusion reflective practice and the different stages and
followed, rather oddly, by a so-called ‘Chapter processes involved in reflection. He draws heavily
scenario’ and finally another set of questions. While and at some length on Schön’s (1983) distinction
the template lends structure to the book, it also between ‘reflection-in-action’ and ‘reflection-on-
becomes repetitive and predictable and does not action’, adding to this the forward looking dimension
always make for a smooth read. of ‘reflection-for-action’ (Killon and Todnew 1991).
There are 14 chapters in all, starting from a general These three categories, which are so valuable as a way
of conceptualizing reflection, are then blithely
overview of reflective language teaching, and
covering a variety of angles on reflection ranging from ignored for the whole of the rest of the book, leaving
well-established reflective tools such as teachers’ me regretting the opportunities missed to support
the reader’s understanding by showing how they work
narratives and journals to collaborative relationships
such as critical friendships and teacher development in practice through the case studies and chapter
groups, all the way through to a concluding chapter scenarios. I also found it disappointing that Farrell
makes no reference to the recursive and cyclical
on professional development. Interestingly, and
unusually for an author based in North America, nature of reflection as a process and that he makes no
Farrell draws on both American and British sources in use of the various versions of experiential learning
his references to literature in the field. This has the cycles (for example, Kolb 1984) that would have
helped the reader to locate the stages involved in
welcome effect of broadening the perspectives he
offers his readers. Yet, as I made my way through the reflection both visually and conceptually.
chapters, I began to see the book as something of There are other concerns, too. In Chapter 2 on ‘Self-
a curate’s egg: good in parts. Reflection’, the author (bravely or rashly?) uses
himself as the subject in his case study, but the result
Let me start with the good. Farrell covers a lot of
useful ground in the book and a number of the case comes perilously close to self-indulgence with his
studies are very convincing. In Chapter 7, for example, repeated insistence on describing himself as
a ‘teacher-scholar’. Some of the case studies, for
the case studies on ‘Classroom Communication’
include carefully transcribed passages of classroom example, those in Chapters 4, 5, and 10, on ‘Teachers’
discourse which go a long way towards illustrating his Narratives’, ‘Teachers’ Language Proficiency’, and
points about the prevalent pattern of classroom ‘Teacher Development Groups’, respectively, are
really insufficiently contextualized for the reader to
questioning (teacher initiates–learner responds–
teacher evaluates response) and ways in which make proper sense of them. In Chapter 4, Farrell
teachers can become aware of and review their own laudably aims for authenticity by sticking to the
teacher’s own account, but this leaves too many gaps
classroom communication patterns. The case study
in Chapter 9 acknowledges, usefully for the reader for the reader to fill in, and the case studies in
after the plethora of guilt-inducing literature (for Chapters 5 and 10 are simply too skimpy to serve the
author’s purpose. This heightens the impression that
example, Bailey 1990, Jarvis 1992) on diaries and
journals, that not every teacher is positively disposed the decision to go for a repetitive chapter structure
towards writing as a means of reflection. The chapters became something of a straitjacket to the writer
rather than a support to the reader. The ‘Reflection’
on ‘Critical Friendships’ and ‘Concept Mapping’ both
have value, the former for its coverage of peer sections represent a positive attempt to interact with
coaching and team teaching as triggers to reflection the reader through questions, but I would have liked
and the latter for its reference to understanding where fewer, better questions in some cases, and I really felt
Reviews 187
that each chapter could have ended with the Schön, D. 1983. The Reflective Practitioner. How
‘Conclusion’ (Is that not what conclusions are meant Professionals Think in Action. New York: Basic Books.
to do?) rather than meandering on through a ‘Chapter Wallace, M. 1991. Training Foreign Language Teachers:
Scenario’ and yet another set of questions to reflect A Reflective Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge
on, neither of which seem to add a great deal to the University Press.
reader’s understanding.
The final chapter also turned out to be something of The reviewer
an anticlimax, with, for my taste, a rather over- Rod Bolitho is currently Academic Director at
structured view of the place of reflection in the Norwich Institute for Language Education and has
process of professional development. This would been training English language teachers and trainers
have been a golden opportunity to pull everything for over 25 years. He has been consultant to many
together and to locate reflection in the context of overseas projects, most recently in Austria, Croatia,
lifelong learning, with both individual and group- Romania, and Uzbekistan. He is co-author (with Tony
centred dimensions, to see reflection as a way of Wright) of Trainer Development and (with Brian
being professional rather than a compartmentalized Tomlinson) of Discover English. He also edits Folio, the
activity to be fitted into available time slots in a busy journal of the Materials Development Association.
schedule. I agree with Farrell’s point that not everyone Email: rodbol44@yahoo.co.uk
is a born reflector and that reflection for some is doi:10.1093/elt/ccp012
a learnt behaviour, but for me it is also a habit which,
once acquired, becomes integral to a teacher’s
professional persona. Wallace’s (1991) work pointed
the way to stimulating reflective practice on pre-
service teacher education courses, a dimension
which Farrell devotes little attention to, even in his
chapter on Classroom Observation, and for me, this
also represents a missed opportunity to add overall
coherence to the book.
Finally, a note on language and on editing and
proofing. In the early chapters, there are several
examples of awkward written expression, faulty
punctuation, and spelling mistakes. The author’s
tone also slips occasionally into ‘shoulding’ and
‘musting’ at the reader, which verges on the
patronizing and is a turn-off for any professional. Is
not all this part of the service that publishers are
supposed to provide to authors in return for their
lion’s share of income from a book? A stronger
editorial hand would have helped Farrell to avoid
these traps and consequently to make a better
impression on the reader.
References
Bailey, K. 1990. ‘The use of diary studies in teacher
education programs’ in J. C. Richards and D. Nunan
(eds.). Second Language Teacher Education.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jarvis, J. 1992. ‘Using diaries for teacher reflection on
in-service courses’. E LT Journal 46/2: 133–43.
Killon, J. and G. Todnew. 1991. ‘A process of personal
theory building’. Educational Leadership 48/6: 14–6.
Kolb, D. A. 1984. Experiential Learning. Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
188 Reviews
Conversation in Context: A Corpus-Driven Approach
C. Ruehlemann
Continuum 2007, 246 pp., £74.18
isbn 0826497136
Christoph Ruehlemann’s book navigates a clear and

engaging course through what McCarthy colourfully
describes in the preface (p .ix) as ‘the murky waters of
‘‘performance’’ data, where grammar, lexis,
phonology and paralinguistics collide . . .’. The
voyage is never less than interesting and often
fascinating. Two main aims are set out for the book
in the Introduction:
1 To contribute to E FL teaching by narrowing the
gap between ‘school’ English and ‘authentic
conversation’.
2 To test what the author calls ‘the adaptedness
hypothesis’: ‘. . . the hypothesis that a situation-
based description of conversation can show
how conversational language is adapted to
certain needs arising from specific types of
constraints on speakers in conversational
situation’ (p. 2).
While the author returns to the first aim with some
zeal in the conclusion, it is clearly the second aim
which drives the book and dictates its structure. In the
Introduction, the author sets out a convincing case
for a register-sensitive approach to language
description and stresses the central importance of
conversation as a register both in language use and
188 Reviews
language analysis. It might seem that the importance ‘You know’ and the frequent repetition of ‘I’ in
of conversation does not need to be stressed to E FL utterance-initial position. In other words, in line with
practitioners, but there is some truth in my view in the adaptedness hypothesis, the frequency can be
Hugh Dellar’s (personal communication) parody of related to shared context and also to discourse
EFL coursebooks which take learners directly from management needs and real-time processing needs.
transactional dialogues to earnest debates about The analysis of laughter in conversation in this
capital punishment without experiencing social chapter reinforces the motif of the multifunctionality
conversation in between. The second chapter deals of features of conversation and produces some of the
concisely with the research methodology and the intriguing descriptive insights which are an attractive
details of the spoken component of the British feature of the book: ‘The typical ‘‘laugher’’ in British
National Corpus (BNC ) on which the research is conversation . . . seems to be a young, female, white-
based. collar worker’ (p. 86).
Chapter 3 lays the foundation for ‘the adaptedness In Chapter 5, Ruehlemann turns to co-construction
hypothesis’. The author describes in detail the five phenomena. Among the examples he gives are co-
conditions under which conversation takes place: constructed tags and co-constructed utterances.
I have seen co-constructed tags described elsewhere
n shared context
as reply questions, so an example might be useful:
n co-construction
n discourse management A: I’ve just read a brilliant review by Ivor Timmis.
n real-time processing
B: Have you?
n relation management.
Co-constructed utterances meanwhile involve the
Here I would express one of my few quibbles with the
expansion or completion of one speaker’s utterance
book: the author refers consistently to these
by another as in:
conditions as ‘constraints’, but as his own examples
later show, shared context and co-construction offer A: I’ve just read a brilliant piece by Ivor Timmis.
opportunities to speakers as well as constraints.
B: Which is a rarity.
Ruehlemann’s key argument, however, is that it is in
the light of these conditions (or constraints) that Here again, Ruehlemann is concerned to stress the
conversational grammar is best understood from multifunctional aspect of such devices, arguing that
a functional point of view. Ruehlemann makes two co-constructed tags ‘play a dual role as turn-yielders,
important points at this stage which are consistently responding to the co-constructive need to encourage
and clearly reinforced in the remainder of the book: speaker change, and as backchannels, encouraging
the main speaker to carry on’ (p. 93). Co-constructed
1 The five conditions are interdependent so it is
utterances have the dual function of strengthening
likely that a particular feature of conversational
discourse coherence and establishing ‘bonds of
grammar will be explicable in relation to more
communion’.
than one of the conditions.
2 Relation management needs are the dominant Discourse management phenomena are the focus of
goal of conversation. Chapter 6. Reported speech (or ‘discourse
presentation’ in Ruehlemann’s terms) in
The five subsequent chapters deal with each of the conversation is one of the features to come under the
conditions above in turn, highlighting selected microscope here. Ruehlemann’s first observation is
features of conversational grammar which seem that discourse presentation in conversation is
particularly well adapted to that particular condition. normally carried out in direct mode. In terms of the
Chapter 4, then, deals with shared context adaptedness hypothesis, discourse presentation is
phenomena. Ruehlemann points to deictic forms then related to real-time processing needs—it
(references to person, time, or place which are obviates the need for the grammatical changes
relative to the situation in which the utterance takes required by indirect mode—and to relational needs: it
place) as an example of shared context phenomena allows for a vivid reconstruction of the scene. It is no
and notes the high frequency of the deictic personal surprise to find ‘like’, so ubiquitous both as
pronouns ‘I’ and ‘You’ in conversation. This in itself is a discourse marker and a quotative, come under
unsurprising. What is of more interest is analysis in this chapter. The analysis of ‘like’ is a good
Ruehlemann’s argument that among the reasons for example of the non-judgemental approach which
the frequency of ‘I’ and ‘You’ in conversation are their characterizes the book. Ruehlemann is at pains to
frequency in discourse markers such as ‘I mean’ and explain why certain forms are common in
Reviews 189
conversation, in this case noting the ‘remarkable were singing along to popular music’. Two narrative
versatility . . . for the lemma like as a whole’ (p. 150) devices are closely analysed in this chapter: the use of
and arguing that this versatility applies to ‘be + like’ historic present and introductory ‘this’ in oral
too (for example, ‘I was like, ‘‘Oh my God!’’’). narratives as in, for example, ‘This man walks into
a pub . . .’. The use of introductory ‘this’ for a referent
Chapter 7 brings real-time processing phenomena
not previously mentioned in the conversation is
into focus. Ruehlemann highlights initially the dual
particularly interesting in terms of ‘the adaptedness
role of silent and filled pauses: they help us to cope
hypothesis’. Not only does it draw the listener into the
with real-time pressures but can also be ‘deployed in
story but it also signals the key players in the ensuing
the service of turn and information management’
narrative. The chapter also includes an interesting
(p. 161). He then goes on to argue that there are two
analysis of third person ‘don’t’ as in ‘he don’t like it’.
basic strategies for ‘reducing processing cost’:
Here again, the non-judgemental approach permits
phonological reduction and grammatical reduction.
an objective analysis and the author concludes that
The frequent use of ‘there is’ + plural noun phrase is
the form is particularly common with volitional verbs
one example cited of this kind of reductionism, but
‘like’ and ‘want’.
Ruehlemann really goes to town on the case of ‘I says’
to report speech. This analysis is particularly In the conclusion, Ruehlemann argues that the
interesting as the non-judgemental approach of the balance of probabilities is strongly in favour of his
author leads to interesting and objective descriptive adaptedness hypothesis and expresses the hope that
insights of a form which is non-standard and socially the descriptive approach he has adopted can help free
marked. Ruehlemann notes (p. 172) that ‘. . . I says is the E FL world from the misconception that speech is
used as a reporting clause in presentations of an inferior form of writing and an inferior form to
extended exchanges involving frequent switches writing. The conclusion is reasonable and the hope is
between the presenter’s and a displaced speaker’s well founded. What is beyond doubt is that the book
utterances. Upon closer inspection of contexts, it will be of value to anyone with an interest in spoken
becomes clear that many of these extended language. Ruehlemann synthesizes a huge amount of
exchanges tend to reveal a point–counterpoint descriptive work on spoken language in a coherent,
nature, that is, utterances are typically short and accessible, and often engaging manner; he also gives
speaker standpoints often diverge’. The use of ‘I says’ valuable guidance to areas which have potential for
allows the speaker, then, to maintain the vividness of further research. Personally, this book reinvigorated
the present form when reporting the conversation my long-standing interest in the teaching and
without the need to change the vowel sound or the description of spoken language.
verb ending when switching between third person
and first person. While the analysis is most
interesting, it leaves unasked and unanswered the The reviewer
question of why, if the form is so well adapted to the Ivor Timmis is Reader in ELT at Leeds Metropolitan
conditions of speech, it is not common to most University where he teaches on the MA in E LT and
speakers. Materials Development course and supervises PhD
students. His main research interests are in the
Relation management phenomena, which are the relevance of corpus findings for ELT, with a particular
focus of Chapter 8, provide more of the quirky interest in the teaching and description of spoken
insights which leaven the text. In a discussion of language.
familiarizers and endearments in the B NC (p. 186),
Email: i.timmis@leedsmet.ac.uk
we learn that ‘almost half of all occurrences of baby
were not said in conversation but sung as the speakers
190 Reviews
websites for the language teacher
The moving image

Diana Eastment
Cinema The Internet is packed with resources for the cinema and films. Most
teachers will be familiar with the Internet Movie Database (I M D B), which
has been the first point of call for almost 20 years, and in terms of depth and
breadth of coverage remains unbeatable. Though ideal for the movie buff,
it can be over-complex to use with students, however, especially as you have
to register to get the full range of information IMDB offers. For classroom
use, a better choice might be AllMovie.com. It is more limited in scope but is
much easier to use.
As far as film reviews are concerned, the two most prominent sites are
Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic. Both are ‘aggregators’, sites which collect
reviews from a variety of sources, rate films, and provide a user-friendly
interface. Rotten Tomatoes is the more comprehensive and includes reviews
from outside the U S A; Metacritic is punchier but more provincial and is
limited to films which have come out in the last 20 years or so.
For an excellent overview of the film resources available, take a look at
Ambrose Heron’s Most Useful Movie Websites. He lists over 100 key sites,
in categories such as news, general information, reviews, blogs, podcasts,
etc. But what about the films and videos themselves? Where does one go to
find original material?
Source material One of the Internet’s most important resources is the Internet Archive. The
Archive hosts thousands of audio recordings and has a collection of over
a million books, articles, and other texts; but of particular interest is the
Moving Image Archive. This is a seriously large collection: 1,200 cartoons
and animations, over 3,000 full-length movies, plus ‘ephemeral films’, open
source movies, and non-English language material. What makes this such
an important resource for teachers, other than its sheer size, is the fact that
the material is not just available for viewing over the Web, but can be
downloaded.
At the opposite end of the spectrum is the Bafta ‘60 Seconds of Fame’ site.
This archives the entries of a recent competition to produce a film exactly 60
seconds long. There are a few hundred films; but it is worth having a look
at the overall winner and the regional winners. They have the same sort
of appeal as the ‘mini saga’: the tightly defined format produces some work
of real depth and imagination.
E LT Journal Volume 63/2 April 2009; doi:10.1093/elt/ccp015 191

The best-known resource for videos is of course YouTube. With its millions
of clips, it eclipses in terms of quantity anything else on the Web. The
problem is, though, that the quality sometimes leaves a lot to be desired.
There is certainly good language learning material on YouTube, but tracking
it down can be a chore. This is where sites such as Expert Village or VideoJug
come into their own. Both aim to provide short, factual videos, mostly of the
‘how to’ variety. Expert Village (which boasts over 130,000 videos)
features mainly Americans, many of whom are non-professional presenters
and have a tendency to babble. VideoJug has a less amateur feel to it and
usefully includes the scripts for almost all the material. You cannot read
the text as you watch the video, but at least it is there to refer to. VideoJug
has expanded greatly in the past two years. Unfortunately, some of its new
categories (Love and Sex is a good example) will not be suitable in all
situations, and it is unlikely that you would wish to give your students
unfettered access.
A good deal of effort has gone into setting up Yappr. It has been designed as
a social networking site: students around the world chat to each other, find
interesting video material on YouTube, and submit it to the folks at Yappr,
who then provide subtitles and support materials for ‘the community’.
There are hundreds of videos, sorted according to language difficulty. The
only real problem for me is that the subtitles are in fact ‘side titles’, in a large
box to the right of the video window. Perhaps, it is simply something that
you get used to.
Less satisfactory is Lingual.Net. The site has the tagline ‘Learn English
through Movies’, but has no full-length films. Instead, there are trailers,
mini documentaries, advertisements, etc., with most of the material limited
to only a few minutes. Moreover, the material tends to be rather dull when
compared with what is available on Yappr. Lingual.Net promotes its ‘tri-view
method’, but this is no more than watching without subtitles, watching with
subtitles, and then watching and answering a few comprehension
questions.
Also worth a mention are the UK government’s Public Information Films.
They cover the period from 1945 to 2006 and deal with such topics as
smoking, pedestrian crossings, why we should pay income tax, and how to
vote at a General Election. They provide a fascinating social insight and are
short enough to make good teaching material. All of them come with
a transcript, plus background notes, and a timeline. And most are very
entertaining.
Exploiting online There is a useful article by Delina Moobin on exploiting online video at the
video British Council’s Teaching English site. The article points out some pros and
cons and lists some mainstream sources for video material, including the
BBC and C NN. But the most useful practical resource is Russell Stannard’s
Teacher Training Videos. Russell has a large section of his own videos
covering how to use some popular software packages; but scroll down the
page and you will find a section on E LT teacher training ideas with links to
‘A great dictation site’ or ‘An unusual vocabulary site’ and similar material.
Key reading for anyone interested in using internet-based video.
192 Diana Eastment

The I M DB http://us.imdb.com
Allmovie.com http://www.allmovie.com
Rotten Tomatoes http://www.rottentomatoes.com
Metacritic http://www.metacritic.com
The Most Useful Movie Websites 2.0 http://www.filmdetail.com/
archives/2008/05/12/the-most-
useful-movie-websites-20/
The Internet Archive: http://www.archive.org/
Moving Image Archive details/movies
Bafta 60 Seconds of Fame http://www1.orange.co.uk/
60secondsoffame/home/
YouTube http://www.youtube.com
Expert Village http://www.expertvillage.com
VideoJug http://www.videojug.com
Yappr http://en.yappr.com
Lingual.Net http://www.lingual.net
The National Archives: Public http://www.nationalarchives.
Information Films gov.uk/films
Teaching English: online video for ELT http://www.teachingenglish.org.
uk/think/articles/online-video-elt
Teacher Training Videos http://www.teachertrainingvideos.
com
Diana Eastment is author of The Internet and E LT (Summertown Publishing) and

co-author (with Scott Windeatt and David Hardisty) of The Internet (Oxford
University Press). She is currently freelancing in Cambridge.
Email: deastment@gmail.com
Moving image 193

New appointments Conference Selections
At the International Conference in Cardiff, IATEFL, For those members who are unable to attend the
Hebert Puchta took over from Marion Williams as International Conference, the Conference Selections
President of IATEFL. Many of you will know Herbert provide an invaluable record of many of the papers,
from his tireless travelling round the world, and IATEFL talks, and workshops. But there is one aspect which
is extremely fortunate that he has agreed to share some deserves a round of applause: the speed at which the
of his busy schedule with us. As the Incoming papers are collected, edited, designed, and published.
Vice-President over the last year, he has already learnt By the end of June after the conference, the presenters
how the Association works, and now he takes over for submit the 750-word reports of their talks, the editor
two years as President. We look forward to benefiting and editorial team then take over, and by early in the
from his extensive professional insights and great following year, all members receive their copy. This
personal skills. would be impressive even in a mainstream publisher,
but especially so for an association whose core activity
At the same time, Marion Williams stepped down as
is not publishing.
President and becomes Outgoing Vice-President.
Although she still has one more year to provide The last three Conference Selections have been edited
invaluable guidance to the Association, being by Briony Beaven. Her conscientious work is not only
President can sometimes be a rather ‘thankless task’, visible in the content of the publications but also in
so this is a good opportunity to correct that impression their contribution to the profile of professionalism
and to thank her profusely for her commitment to which IATEFL wishes to project.
IATEFL.
As the appointment of the editor of Conference
Selections lasts for four years and four issues, the
IATEFL Special Interest Groups Cardiff 2009 Conference Selections, which members
IATEFL’s Special Interest Groups (SIGs) play an will receive early in 2010, will be Briony’s last. While it is
important part in the overall activities, organizing not yet appropriate to say goodbye and thank you to
events around the world as well as producing Briony, it is a good opportunity to draw attention to
newsletters with state-of-the-art articles in their various a very successful example of the benefits which IATEFL
specialist fields. can offer its members.
The SIGS include: Business English, English for
Specific Purposes, English for Speakers of Other Associates 2009
Languages, Global Issues, Learner Autonomy, No space to talk about the Associates’ activities, but as
Learning Technologies, Literature, Media and Cultural of January 2009, there are 78 Associates of IATEFL
Studies, Pronunciation, Research, Teacher around the world, a fact which emphasizes IATEFL’s
Development, Teacher Training and Education, international mission.
Testing, Evaluation, and Assessment, and Young
Learners Simon Greenall
As part of your membership subscription, you are IATEFL, Darwin College, University of Kent,
enrolled in a SIG of your choice, but others can be Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NY, UK.
added at a modest extra cost. If you would like to add Tel: + 44 (0)1227 824430.
another SIG to your membership before your renewal Fax: + 44 (0)1227 824431.
date, please contact the head office (see below for Email: generalenquiries@iatefl.org
details). Website: www.iatefl.org
194 E LT Journal Volume 63/2 April 2009; doi:10.1093/elt/ccp016 194


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As a basis for a systematic approach to investigating the effects of written corrective

Type of CF Description Studies

A typology of corrective feedback types 99

100 Rod Ellis

art. art. WW art.

prep. art. art.

Art. found dog in the river.

A typology of corrective feedback types 101

(4) (5) (6)

102 Rod Ellis

A typology of corrective feedback types 103

Reformulation: As he was jogging, his tummy was shaking.

EX AMPLE 6 (from Sachs and Polio 2007: 78)

104 Rod Ellis

A typology of corrective feedback types 105

106 Rod Ellis

Notes Lee, I. 1997. ‘ES L learners’ performance in error

A typology of corrective feedback types 107

Introduction Methodologia is an island in the E LT archipelago, surrounded by the Sea of

108 E LT Journal Volume 63/2 April 2009; doi:10.1093/elt/ccn037

important artery for the cities of Tee-Be-El and Methodsville, before

A guide to Methodologia 109

1 Methodsville Our journey begins, appropriately, in the historical capital, Methodsville.

110 Alan Waters

3 Ideologia We journey next to the north-western province of Ideologia, which, as

A guide to Methodologia 111

112 Alan Waters

A guide to Methodologia 113

References Ellis, R. 2003. Task-Based Language Learning and

114 Alan Waters

A guide to Methodologia 115

Despite long-standing recognition of the importance of sociocultural context in

Context in C LT The importance of context in linguistic communication has been

116 E LT Journal Volume 63/2 April 2009; doi:10.1093/elt/ccn018

Context in A transactional orientation to language is clearly evident when examining

Raising sociocultural awareness through contextual analysis 117

118 Troy McConachy

A framework for ‘SPEAKING’ is a mnemonic which was developed by Hymes (1974) to

Raising sociocultural awareness through contextual analysis 119

120 Troy McConachy

the potential interactional or social function of an utterance in the

Raising sociocultural awareness through contextual analysis 121

122 Troy McConachy

Raising sociocultural awareness through contextual analysis 123

124 Troy McConachy

Raising sociocultural awareness through contextual analysis 125

Introduction One of the roles language instructors traditionally play in assisting

126 E LT Journal Volume 63/2 April 2009; doi:10.1093/elt/ccn022

Learner-created lexical databases 127

Process The project comprises six interrelated tasks:

128 Gregory L. Friedman

Learner-created lexical databases 129

130 Gregory L. Friedman

Learner-created lexical databases 131