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An international journal for teachers of English to speakers of other languagesin association with C ArticlesWritten corrective feedback types A guide to MethodologiaRaising sociocultura

An international journal for teachers of English to speakers of other languages

in association with

C

ArticlesWritten corrective feedback types

A guide to MethodologiaRaising sociocultural awarenessLearner-created lexical databasesThe case for spoken grammar production

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A response to Michael SwanThe Extended Writing ProjectKey concepts in ELT

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ELT Journal Volume 63 Number 2 April 2009

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A typology of written corrective feedback types

Rod Ellis

As a basis for a systematic approach to investigating the effects of written correctivefeedback, this article presents a typology of the different types available to teachersand researchers The typology distinguishes two sets of options relating to (1)strategies for providing feedback ( for example, direct, indirect, or metalinguisticfeedback) and (2) the students’ response to the feedback ( for example, revisionrequired, attention to correction only required) Each option is illustrated andrelevant 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 Hyland2006) makes clear, despite all the research there are still no clear answers tothe 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 inL2 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 systematicallyinvestigate different types of written CF and control for external variablesthat are likely to impact on how effective the CF is One way forward, then,might be for researchers and teachers to systematically identify the variousoptions available for correcting students’ writing as a basis for bothdesigning future studies and for pedagogical decision making

In this article I would like to make a start on this agenda by examining thevarious options (both familiar and less familiar) for correcting students’written work I will focus on just one kind of correction—the correction oflinguistic errors—and consider studies that have examined the differentoptions by way of illustrating how they have been investigated and thelimitations in the research to date I will argue that identifying the options in

a systematic way is essential for both determining whether written CF iseffective and, if it is, what kind of CF is most effective

A typology of options

for correcting

linguistic errors

Table 1 presents a typology of teacher options for correcting 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

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) theteacher’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, anyaccount of CF must consider both aspects

A Strategies for

providing CF

with the correct form

(1986)

exists but does not provide thecorrection

a Indicating + locating

the error

This takes the form of underliningand use of cursors to showomissions in the student’s text

Various studies have employed indirectcorrection of this kind (e.g Ferris andRoberts 2001; Chandler 2003)

in the margin that an error or errorshave taken place in a line of text

Fewer studies have employed this

metalinguistic clue as to the nature

of the error

(e.g ww ¼ wrong word; art ¼ article)

Various studies have examined theeffects of using error codes(e.g Lalande 1982; Ferris and Roberts2001; Chandler 2003)

b Brief grammatical

descriptions

Teacher numbers errors in text andwrites a grammatical descriptionfor each numbered error at thebottom of the text

Sheen (2007) compared the effects

of direct CF and direct CF +metalinguistic CF

4 The focus of the

Most studies have investigatedunfocused CF (e.g Chandler 2003;Ferris 2006) Sheen (2007), drawing on

investigated focused CF

provides a hyperlink to a concordancefile that provides examples of correctusage

Milton (2006)

reworking of the students’ entiretext to make the language seem asnative-like as possible while keepingthe content of the original intact

Sachs and Polio (2007) compared theeffects of direct correction andreformulation on students’ revisions oftheir text

Strategies for

providing CF

Five basic strategies for providing written CF can be identified, with

a number of options associated with some of them

In the case of direct CF the teacher provides the student with the correctform As Ferris (op cit.) notes, this can take a number of differentforms—crossing out an unnecessary word, phrase, or morpheme, inserting

a missing word or morpheme, and writing the correct form above or near tothe erroneous form Example 1 illustrates direct correction

on the part of the learner and thus, although it might help them toproduce the correct form when they revise their writing, it may notcontribute to long-term learning However, a recent study by Sheen (2007)suggests that direct CF can be effective in promoting acquisition of specificgrammatical features

B Students’ response

to feedback

For feedback to work for eitherredrafting or language learning,learners need to attend to thecorrections Various alternativesexist for achieving this

effect of requiring students to edit theirerrors (e.g Ferris and Roberts 2001;Chandler 2003) Sheen (2007) askedstudents to study corrections

b Students just given

back corrected text

No study has systematically investigateddifferent approaches to revision

Types of teacher

written CF

2 Indirect CFIndirect CF involves indicating that the student has made an error withoutactually correcting it This can be done by underlining the errors or usingcursors 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 Ineffect, this involves deciding whether or not to show the precise location ofthe 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.

to correct their errors but others (for example, Ferris and Roberts’ ownstudy) found no difference between direct and indirect CF No study to datehas compared the effects of these two indirect types of CF on whether theyhave any effect on accuracy in new pieces of writing

In accordance with the general line of argument by Ferris and Roberts, itmight be claimed that indirect feedback where the exact location of errors isnot shown might be more effective than indirect feedback where thelocation of the errors is shown (as illustrated in Example 2) as studentswould have to engage in deeper processing Robb et al (op cit.) investigatedfour types of feedback including direct feedback and indirect feedbackwhere the number of errors was given in each line of text They reported nosignificant difference Lee (1997), however, specifically compared the twotypes of indirect correction and found that learners were better able tocorrect errors that were indicated and located than errors that were justindicated by a check in the margin However, Lee did not consider long-termgains

Metalinguistic CF involves providing learners with some form of explicitcomment about the nature of the errors they have made The explicitcomment can take two forms By far the most common is the use of errorcodes These consist of abbreviated labels for different kinds of errors Thelabels 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 Inthe former, the student has to work out the correction needed from the clueprovided while in the latter the student needs to first locate the error andthen work out the correction Examples of both are provided below A majorissue in error codes is how delicate the categories should be For example,

should there be a single category for ‘articles’ (as in the examples below) orshould there be separate categories for ‘definite’ and ‘indefinite articles’?Most of the error codes used in research and language pedagogy employrelatively broad categories.

A number of studies have compared using error codes with other types ofwritten CF Lalande (op cit.) reported that a group of learners of L2 Germanthat received correction using error codes improved in accuracy insubsequent writing whereas a group receiving direct correction made moreerrors However, the difference between the two groups was not statisticallysignificant Robb et al (op cit.) included an error codes treatment in theirstudy but found it no more effective than any of the other three types of CFthey investigated (i.e direct feedback and two kinds of indirect feedback).Ferris (op cit.) reported that error codes helped students to improve theiraccuracy over time in only two of the four categories of error she

investigated Longitudinal comparisons between the number of errors instudents’ first and fourth compositions showed improvement in total errorsand verb errors but not in noun errors, article errors, lexical errors, orsentence errors Ferris and Roberts (op cit.) found that error codes did assistthe 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 helpwriters to achieve greater accuracy over time and it would also seem that theyare no more effective than other types of CF in assisting self-editing

art art WW art.

A dog stole bone from butcher He escaped with having bone When the dog was prep art art.

going through bridge over the river he found dog in the river.

EX AMPLE3

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 AMPLE4

The second type of metalinguistic CF consists of providing students withmetalinguistic explanations of their errors An example is provided below.This is far less common, perhaps because it is much more time consumingthan using error codes and also because it calls for the teacher to possesssufficient metalinguistic knowledge to be able to write clear and accurateexplanations for a variety of errors Sheen (op cit.) compared direct andmetalinguistic CF, finding that both were effective in increasing accuracy inthe students’ use of articles in subsequent writing completed immediatelyafter the CF treatment Interestingly, the metalinguistic CF also provedmore effective than the direct CF in the long term (i.e in a new piece ofwriting completed two weeks after the treatment)

(1) (2) (3)

A dog stole bone from butcher He escaped with having bone When the dog was

going through bridge over the river he found dog in the river.

(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 AMPLE5

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 correctjust article errors The distinction between unfocused and focused CFapplies to all of the previously discussed options

Processing corrections is likely to be more difficult in unfocused CF as thelearner is required to attend to a variety of errors and thus is unlikely to beable to reflect much on each error In this respect, focused CF may provemore effective as the learner is able to examine multiple corrections of

a single error and thus obtain the rich evidence they need to bothunderstand why what they wrote was erroneous and to acquire the correctform If learning is dependent on attention to form, then it is reasonable toassume that the more intensive the attention, the more likely the correction

is to lead to learning Focused metalinguistic CF may be especially helpful inthis respect as it promotes not just attention but also understanding of thenature 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 toacquire specific features as focused CF in the short term, it may provesuperior 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 itaddressed errors in the use of articles for first and second mention) and, asalready noted, that proved effective in promoting more accurate languageuse of this feature However, to date, there have been no studies comparingthe relative effects of focused and unfocused CF This is clearly a distinction

in need of further study

Extensive corpora of written English (either carefully constructed or simplyavailable via search engines such as Google) can be exploited to providestudents with assistance in their writing This assistance can be accessed bymeans of software programs while students write or it can be utilized as

a form of feedback I am concerned only with the latter here Electronicresources provide learners with the means where they can appropriate theusage of more experienced writers.

Milton (2006) describes an approach based on a software program calledMark My Words This provides teachers with an electronic store of

approximately 100 recurrent lexico-grammatical and style errors that hefound occurred frequently in the writing of Chinese students The store alsoprovides a brief comment on each error and with links to resources showingthe 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 thenreturned to the student who then consults the electronic resources tocompare his/her usage with that illustrated in the samples of languagemade available This assists the student to self-correct The same programalso generates an error log for each piece of writing, thus drawing students’attention to recurrent linguistic problems Milton does not report a study ofthe effectiveness of this method of correcting student errors but providesanecdotal evidence that it can work He describes receiving a ten-pagedocument from a student, identifying 100 errors using Mark My Words, andthen asking the student to consult the electronic resources and revise thetext himself Milton reported that the student’s revisions were successful.There are some obvious advantages to this option One is that it removes theneed 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 thatthe key to effective error correction is identifying the learner’s textualintention While the approach advocated by Milton still lays the onus on theteacher to identify errors, it allows the learners to locate the corrections thatare most appropriate for their own textual intentions and so encouragesstudent independence

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 theirerrors but places the responsibility for the final decision about whether andhow to correct on the students themselves

A standard procedure in error analysis is reconstruction That is, in order toidentify 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 forreformulation as a technique for providing feedback to learners grew out ofthis procedure It involves a native-speaker rewriting the student’s text insuch a way as ‘to preserve as many of the writer’s ideas as possible, whileexpressing 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 thenative-speaker’s reconstructions to accept In essence, then, reformulationinvolves two options ‘direct correction’ + ‘revision’ but it differs from howthese options are typically executed in that the whole of the student’s text isreformulated thus laying the burden on the learner to identify the specificchanges that have been made

Sachs and Polio (2007) report an interesting study that comparedreformulation with direct error correction The main difference betweenthese two options was ‘a matter of presentation and task demands and wasnot related to the kinds of errors that were corrected’ The difference inpresentation 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 AMPLE6 (from Sachs and Polio 2007: 78)The students were shown their reformulated/corrected stories andasked to study them for 20 minutes and take notes if they wanted Then, oneday later, they were given a clean sheet of paper and asked to revise theirstories but without access to either the reformulated/corrected texts or thenotes they had taken Both the groups that received reformulation andcorrections outperformed the control group However, the correctionsgroup produced more accurate revisions than the reformulation group AsSachs and Polio point out, reformulation is a technique that is not restricted

to assisting students with their surface level linguistic errors; it is alsodesigned to draw attention to higher order stylistic and organizationalerrors Thus, their study should not be used to dismiss the use ofreformulation as a technique for teaching written composition

Nevertheless, it would seem from this study that it does not constitutethe most effective way of assisting students to eliminate linguistic errorswhen they revise

on whether students are able to make use of the feedback they receive whenthey revise

One approach has been to describe and classify the types of revisionsthat students make Ferris (op cit.) for example, identified a number of

taxonomy is reproduced in Table 2 Overall, Ferris found that 80.4per cent of the errors subject to CF were eliminated in the redraftedcompositions by correcting the error, by deleting the text containingthe error, or by making a correct substitution 9.9 per cent of theerrors were incorrectly revised while in a further 9.9 per cent no changewas made

Label Description

correction

suggested by the teacher’s marking

suggested by teacher’s marking

caused by student error

Averted erroneousteacher marking

Student corrected error despite incomplete orerroneous teacher marking

Student revision analysis

categories (from Ferris

2006)

This study (along with a number of others) suggests that CF is effective inhelping students to eliminate errors in redrafts of their writing However,from the perspective of L2 learning, such research is of limited interest, asTruscott (1996) pointed out, as showing that CF helps students to correcttheir errors in second drafts tells us nothing about whether they are able touse 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 revisetheir writing following one of the other types of feedback It then becomespossible to investigate whether providing the opportunity to revise assistslearning Chandler (op cit.) compared indirect CF plus the opportunity torevise with indirect CF where there was no opportunity to revise Chandlerreported that accuracy improved from the first to the fifth piece of writingsignificantly 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 inaccuracy 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 whetherrevising errors leads to acquisition of the correct forms

There is also the issue of what students actually do with the correctionswhen 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 Chandlerstudy, the no-revision group was simply handed back their correctedwriting It is possible, however, that if they had been asked to carefullyexamine the corrections, they would have shown similar improvements inaccuracy to the group that revised following the CF Clearly, corrections canonly work if writers notice and process them Fazio’s (2001) study ofprimary-level children is a reminder that some learners often fail to attend to

linguistic corrections In this longitudinal study, the pupils became lessaccurate in a number of grammatical areas over time!

The question of whether to require students to simply attend to thecorrections or to revise based on them raises an interesting theoretical issue

Is it the additional ‘input’ that the corrections afford or the ‘output’ thatoccurs when students revise that is important for learning? Guenette (op.cit.) argued that students ‘have to notice the feedback and be given ampleopportunities to apply the corrections’ (p 52) But students may succeed innoticing 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 typologysuch as the one outlined in this article provides a classification of one of thekey variables in written CF studies—the type of CF It makes it possible forresearchers to conduct research that systematically examines the effect ofdistinct types and combinations of CF Of course the type of CF is only one ofseveral variables influencing the effectiveness of written CF Other variablesidentified by Guenette (op cit.) are the nature of the population beingstudied (in particular the nature of their L2 proficiency), the nature of thewriting activities that the students undertake, the kinds of errors that arecorrected, and whether or not there is any incentive for the students to writeaccurately

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 fromexamining to what extent the categories in the typology accurately reflectactual practice They can also serve to refine the categories

Like Guenette, I want to emphasize that there is no ‘corrective feedbackrecipe’ Given the complexity of CF, it is unlikely that even better designedstudies will provide clear-cut answers to the kinds of questions raised in theIntroduction to this article The search for the ‘best’ way to do written CFmay in fact be fundamentally mistaken if it is accepted that CF needs to takeaccount 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 thetype of feedback offered to learners to suit their stage of developmentalthough how this can be achieved practically remains unclear in the case ofwritten CF where there is often limited opportunity to negotiate the feedbackwith individual learners

The typology might also be of assistance to teachers Teacher handbookssuch 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 correctionpolicy by raising a number of key issues What is important, however, is forteachers to have a clear and explicit account of the options available to them,

an understanding of the rationale for each option, and some knowledge ofthe research findings (uncertain as these are) The typology provides

teachers with a basis for examining the options and for systematicallyexperimenting with them in their own teaching.

Revised version received December 2007

Notes

Thus, I have not included in my typology options

involving peer feedback This should not be

construed as suggesting that teacher feedback is to

be preferred to peer feedback

indicating an error (how I have chosen to define

indirect CF) and providing students with

metalinguistic information about their errors

Lumping ‘indicating errors’ and ‘error codes’ into

a single category, as some researchers have done,

is misleading and unhelpful

References

error feedback for improvement in the accuracy and

fluency of L2 student writing’ Journal of Second

Language Writing 12: 267–96

providing advanced feedback in writing’ Guidelines

11/2: 1–9

commentaries on the journal writing accuracy of

minority- and majority-language students’ Journal of

Second Language Writing 10: 235–49

writers? New evidence on short- and long-term

effects of written error correction’ in K Hyland and

F Hyland (eds.) Feedback in Second Language

Writing: Contexts and Issues Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press

L2 writing classes: How explicit does it need to be?’

Journal of Second Language Writing 10: 161–84

correct? Research design issues in studies of

feedback on writing’ Journal of Second Language

Writing 16: 40–53

second language students’ writing’ Language

Teaching 39: 83–101

experiment’ Modern Language Journal 66: 140–9

correction in writing’ System 25: 465–77

Helping learners become independent writers’ in

K Hyland and F Hyland (eds.) Feedback in SecondLanguage Writing: Contexts and Issues Cambridge:Cambridge University Press

types of written feedback on an L2 writing task’.Studies in Second Language Acquisition 29: 67–100

41: 255–83

correction in L2 writing classes’ Language Learning46: 327–69

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

The author

Language Studies and Linguistics, University ofAuckland, where he teaches postgraduate courses onsecond language acquisition and task-basedteaching He is also Visiting Professor at ShanghaiInternational Studies University His books include

prize 1986) and The Study of Second LanguageAcquisition (Duke of Edinburgh prize 1995) Hisrecent books include Task-Based Learning andTeaching (2003) and (with Gary Barkhuizen)Analyzing Learner Language (2005) He has alsopublished several English language textbooks,including Impact Grammar (Pearson: Longman) He

is the editor of the journal Language TeachingResearch

Email: r.ellis@auckland.ac.nz

A guide to Methodologia: past, present, and future

Alan Waters

practitioners are familiar only with the parts of the island where they grew up, eventhough 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 betterunderstanding of the factors behind the development of the teaching traditionsassociated with one’s own region Such knowledge can also contribute to greaterawareness of how these techniques might be integrated with different traditionsfrom other parts of the island This article therefore provides a brief introduction tosome 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 alsohints 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 theE LTarchipelago, surrounded by the Sea of

T E S O L It is inhabited chiefly by large numbers of teachers and learners of

each of these waves of settlers is familiar with its own part of the island, veryfew of them have visited the rest of it, and so they are often somewhatconfused about its overall geography The turbulent nature of its recenthistory has also left many feeling rather disoriented This brief illustratedguide 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 furtherinformation are therefore advised to consult the relevant volume in a travelbook series such as Lonely Planet, or browse the Methodologia TourismBoard 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 steadysuccession of innovations across the landscape To the north-west, frequentmonsoons full of theory-bearing rain clouds feed the source of the RiverAkademika, which runs through the country from north to south, fertilizingthe leafy groves of the Lernasentrd Country Park and providing an

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

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 byneighbouring 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

Methodologia island

settlements The latter all have strong associations with their respectiveregions, as will be described in later parts of this guide As alreadymentioned, there is also a centrally located country park, named after theteaching idea that has dominated Methodologia in recent times, and morewill likewise be said about this feature in what follows Finally, the island isparticularly notable for the widespread presence, throughout its length andbreadth, of a variety of educational institutions, since teaching is, of course,the staple of the Methodologian economy The many classrooms whichthese institutions house are an ideal environment for the development andmanufacture of the wide variety of teaching techniques for which the nation

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 themonuments to methods such as grammar translation, audiolingualism,and so on It was the creation of these impressive structures that originallyled to the rise of Methodsville—indeed, for many years, to all intents andpurposes Methodsville and Methodologia were seen to be one and the same.The largest and most important part of the present-day city is occupied bythe Kommunikatavia sector Its sprawling environs along the banks of theRiver Akademika encompass a wide range of different architectural styles,reflecting the varying traditions of the many citizens who have beenattracted 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 thetwo), where a ‘learning to communicate’ orientation prevails, and, secondly,Strong, where a ‘communicating to learn’ view dominates (for a moredetailed guide to these and all the other main features of Methodsville, seeRichards 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 theenclave of Kommunikatavia is truly in keeping with the traditions of a cityhistorically 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 questionwhether it is still the rightful capital, or even if it ever was One response tothis 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 journeythrough some of the less-explored hinterlands of Methodologia, in order togain 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

former, who hail from Britain, North America, and Australasia, practise thecustoms of private-sector language-teaching institutions, such as plentifulpeer work On the other hand, those living in the latter are stronglyinfluenced by the traditions of tertiary, secondary, and primary state-sectorlanguage-teaching institutions, and tend to favour, for example, whole-classteaching Although the population of Tesepia is far larger than that of itssister town, Banaia regards itself as the regional capital, because of itsprestigious academic connections However, despite extensive marketingefforts, 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 inTesepia

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 e´migre´s from thegrammar translation district of Methodsville They see the purpose ofeducation as preparation for life, and feel that teaching should thereforeconcentrate on general intellectual development, such as knowledge of therules of grammar, of cultural information, and so on The

second—Rekonstruktiona—was established by migrants from the Weaksector of Kommunikatavia They see education as being primarily to do withnation building, and therefore emphasize the importance for teaching ofclear goals and practical relevance, based on thorough needs analyses Thethird major centre is Progressiva, populated mainly by those who have closefamily connections with residents of the Strong sub-district of

Kommunikatavia They view education as mainly to do with developing thepotential of the individual, and thus set great store by the use of processsyllabuses, learning strategies, and the like

However, although the three cities can be distinguished in these ways, inpractice modern communications and increased travel opportunities havemeant that many Methodologians, including the citizens of each of thesecentres, have adopted methods of teaching which are based on the amalgam

of the three traditions That said, there is nevertheless a tendency for theinfluential community of academics among the island’s population to beseen much more frequently in the restaurants and nightclubs of Progressivaand 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 themajority of Methodologia’s academic community Although located in

a remote corner of the island, this enclave nevertheless exerts considerableinfluence on the territory as a whole, since, as mentioned earlier, the RiverAkademika, which irrigates the whole of its central area, originates here.The inhabitants of this province make their living by the study of secondlanguage acquisition It is best known nowadays because of the founding, inthe 1990s, of Fofia (an abbreviation of Focus-on-formia), supplanting theearlier 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 intime’ rather than a pre-planned manner (as assumed by Fofsians) hasspread widely throughout the parts of Methodologia where the RiverAkademika flows with greatest force, lending support, in particular, to thegrowth 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 syllabusesand published teaching materials with the new approach, the displacedFofsians have taken to the hills, where they have continued to practise theold Fofsia ways in the privacy of their remote and secluded classrooms, andmuch of the rest of Methodologia likewise appears to remain relativelyunaffected by the revolutionary changes at Fofia.

5 The Lernasentrd

Country Park

Our tour of Methodologia now takes us away from its hinterlands and to thecentrally located Lernasentrd Country Park (for a more detailed guide to thisfeature, see for example Nunan 1999) Here, making extensive use of theabundant supplies of natural materials which flourish on the shores of theRiver Akademika as it winds its way through the scenic landscape, highlytrained teachers-as-facilitators encourage learners to take up the manyopportunities for learning offered by the Park’s rich, authenticsurroundings However, on closer inspection, as reported in, for example,O’Neill (1991), it is not unusual to find learners somewhat puzzled andfrustrated by the refusal of their facilitators to actually teach them Equally,some of the facilitators have themselves reportedly been disappointed tofind that their learners, given the chance to negotiate their curricula, havechosen to focus on subject matter of questionable educational value, whileshowing little interest in more important aspects of learning (Hutchinson2002) For these reasons, the Park remains unfrequented by mostMethodologians, despite attempts by the inhabitants of Ivoria Towers—whohave responsibility for the Park’s overall care and management—topopularize 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 withthe climate created by the post-method condition, and trusting to researchfrom Ivoria Towers on how problem-solving communication tasks canprovide 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 twometropolises Unlike Methodsville, Tee-Be-El is purpose built, using all thelatest construction methods, with many imposing buildings designed byleading task-based learning specialists from around the globe At the sametime, however, we should note that some of the natives of the new city havebeen 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 youngchildren (see for example Carless 2002) Above all, there are those whoargue (for example Swan 2005) that the construction of the city makes it far

from self-sufficient for language learning purposes, due to the lack offacilities for learners to get sufficient exercise involving language structuresand the like To make it function better, thus, plans for extensive

modifications to the original design have been proposed, with somepointing 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 forexample 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 secludedregion of Autonomia The inhabitants of Methodologia have alwaysregarded this province as representing something of an ideal, since it is seen

as the home of the self-sufficient, independent learner whose fashioning isthe ultimate goal of the many and varied teaching techniques for which theisland is so well-known However, so far-off and little visited is this part ofMethodologia that many teachers are not sure whether the learners it isclaimed to be home to even actually exist, especially as their own often showsuch few signs of autonomous behaviour themselves They also find thatpromoting learner independence is frequently hampered by the presence ofmany classroom management ‘monkeys’ (Waters 1998), that is, illegitimateburdens of responsibility These doubts are compounded by the reportsfrom the few that have visited it of the somewhat deserted feel of the regionalcapital, Celph-Axessia, a seaside resort full of independent learningopportunities—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 importantcultural transformation, and that the replacement by its population of

a ‘proactive’ concept of autonomy (in which both the goals and processes oflearning are determined solely by the learner) with a ‘reactive’ one (in whichthe goals of learning are determined by, for example, the teacher, but thelearning process remains autonomous) makes it much easier for otherMethodologians to see how the products of Autonomia can be used inclassrooms 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 besent 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 ofall encounter successful and enjoyable learning experiences in classroomsthroughout 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 ofthe island’s population feels somewhat disenchanted with a number of itspresent-day features Some of them have therefore decided to remedy thissituation by drawing up a plan for replacing the existing capital with a newmetropolis, to be named ‘Integrationia’ To guide its development, thefollowing 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 thansimply pulling them down, the plan allows for such features to be preservedand 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 ofaccommodation and other amenities in the future capital Thus, rather thanshaping these aspects in the image of the living conditions and predilectionsprevailing in Ivoria Towers, as has been the tendency in many recentMethodologian redevelopment projects, it is believed that they shouldinstead be designed in the first instance on the basis of a careful study andappreciation 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 shouldalso be incorporated into the design Thus, following the example of theLernasentrd Country Park and the rehabilitation of the learner autonomyideal, it is argued that there should be plentiful scope within the newmetropolis for green spaces which provide the leisure opportunities neededfor creativity, fun, enjoyment, and the independent lifestyle that appeals tomany 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 uniformstructures and decontextualized lexical items, frequent ‘communicationcentres’ should also be constructed Citizens will be able to meet regularly inthese locations to discuss solutions to problems, at the same time beingprovided with feedback on how to improve their knowledge of thesurrounding network of structures and vocabulary

In short, by following such guidelines, the designers hope that the newmetropolis will be characterized by trading on equal terms with all the mainregions of Methodologia, and as a consequence, the best of what each has tooffer 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 Ittherefore offers a wealth of interesting teaching ideas Choosing wiselyamong them, however, can be somewhat daunting It is hoped that this briefguide, by attempting to provide an enhanced understanding of the island’spast, present, and possible future development, will help to make thisselection process better informed and therefore sounder

Final revised version received March 2008

References

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Foreign Language Learning Oxford: Oxford

University Press

Teaching Oxford: Oxford University Press

communicative approach: the special needs of state

methodology and educational philosophy’ Paper

presented at the 22nd Annual ThailandT E S O L

Convention Bangkok, Thailand

condition: (E)merging strategies for second/foreign

autonomy in East Asian contexts’ Applied Linguistics

20/1: 71–94

language teaching methodology’ in K de Bot,

R Ginsberg, and C Kramsch (eds.) Foreign

Language Research in Cross-Cultural Perspective

Amsterdam, The Netherlands: John Benjamins

Learning Boston, MA: Heinle and Heinle

learner-centredness: or the importance of doing ordinary

and Methods in Language Teaching New York:

Cambridge University Press

‘Autonomy and motivation: which comes first?’

Language Teaching Research 6/3: 245–66

of task-based instruction’ Applied Linguistics 26/3:376–401

learning’ in D Willis and J Willis (eds.) Challengeand Change in Language Teaching Oxford: MacmillanHeinemann

The author

Linguistics and English Language, Lancaster

Leone, Kuwait, and the UK and trained teachers inThailand, the UK, Hong Kong, and several otherparts of the world He has published a number of

research interests are language-teachingmethodology, teacher learning, and curriculuminnovation

Email: a.waters@lancaster.ac.uk

Raising sociocultural awareness through contextual analysis: some tools for teachers

Troy McConachy

Despite long-standing recognition of the importance of sociocultural context inmeaning making, criticisms have been levelled at communicative languageteaching (CLT) for failing to effectively address this at the level of classroom

a fundamentally reductionist view of communication This paper uses examples

of dialogues from the New Interchange series to briefly illustrate what can beconsidered a typical shortcoming of many modern commercial English languagetextbooks: the neglect of the place of sociocultural context in dialogues anddialogue-related activities This paper shows two ways in which this neglect ismanifested and then suggests some concrete ways that teachers can use the

SPEA KINGmodel developed by Hymes (1972) to increase their awareness ofelements 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 theChomskyan notion of linguistic competence Since this time, muchtheorizing has taken place about the social nature of language, such as theways in which different social groups use language to manage and structuretheir daily lives (Duranti 1997) A number of researchers have outlinedfurther models of communicative competence that have gone on to becomewidely recognized by language teachers The highly influential modelprovided by Canale and Swain (1980), as well as the more recent modelprovided by Bachman (1990), share one point; recognition of the fact thatbeing competent in a language, whether first or subsequent, means a lotmore than simply knowing how to form syntactically accurate sentences.Despite such recognition, it has been suggested that modern teachingmethods, even those labelled as ‘communicative’, are still failing toadequately address the sociocultural aspects of language and thecomplexities of language in use (Corbett 2003)

Context inC 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 andcommunicative context in which it was uttered (Goodwin and Duranti

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

1992) With the advent of CLT, this realization can be said to haveaffected 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

communication (Corbett op cit.; Kraus 2003) It is reductionist in the sense

information gap, and communicative competence the ‘capacity to fitappropriate 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 functionsare presented without due attention to the sociocultural dimensions oflanguage in use Learners need to be aware that the particular languageforms that speakers choose to ‘get things done’ reflect not only theiridentities but also a broad range of sociocultural variables, such as theirrelationship to the interlocutor, and wider social structures Unless learnersare specifically made aware of aspects pertaining to the social nature oflanguage use, there is the danger that a learner will apply his or her nativeinteractional norms, which may be inappropriate (Liddicoat 2005).Context in

commercial English

language textbooks

A transactional orientation to language is clearly evident when examiningthe way that language functions are presented in dialogues in manycommercial language textbooks In this section, I will illustrate what I see astwo major shortcomings For this purpose, I will provide samples ofdialogues from the New Interchange series by Richards, Hull, and Proctor(1998a,b) Although many textbooks contain similar problems, this serieswas 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! Whatcan I do?

James Actually, I’ve tried that But the people you meet are alwaysdifferent from what you expect

wife that way

James That’s not a bad idea

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 theNew Interchange series, there are dialogues (labelled ‘conversations’) like theone above in each chapter in which a wide range of characters are discussingvarious things Despite the obvious potential for harnessing these variousidentities to focus on the cultural aspects of language use, the dialogues do

not come with an introduction containing explicit information as to theidentities of the speakers, their relationship to each other, or their location.

In the above dialogue, the pedagogical goal is clearly to show howsuggestions can be made: however, the absence of explicit contextualinformation makes it seem as though the logic of suggestions and thediscourse that goes along with it will be plain and transparent for learnerseverywhere

The second major shortcoming of this dialogue is that on top of the lack ofexplicit contextual information, there is also a lack of learning activitiesbased on the dialogue that could encourage learners to analyse the languageused in terms of sociocultural context In New Interchange, some dialoguesare followed by a number of questions that learners can answer by listening

to a continuation of the conversation from the dialogue Unfortunately, thefocus of these questions also reveals a reductionist orientation to the act ofcomprehension Sample 2 below shows another dialogue with questions.Sample 2:

Chris So, what did you do this weekend Kate?

Chris That sounds nice Where did you go?

about you? Did you do anything special?

Chris Not really? I just worked on my car all day

Chris But then what would I do every weekend?

Listen to Kate talk about her activities on Sunday

(Taken from New Interchange (1998a), Student’s Book 1: 40)The questions listed above are the type which require students tocomprehend information as part of a listening exercise based on thedialogue in order to answer them This is one skill which is certainlyimportant for language learners; however, again, the problem is that the act

of comprehending of meaning in context is reduced to that of ‘findinginformation’ The above questions ignore the interpersonal dimension ofconversation and, in this particular conversation, the role that this type ofdiscourse (chatting about weekends) plays in social life Over-exposinglearners to comprehension questions, where comprehension is understood

as the skill of finding information, will discourage learners from lookingdeeper at the relationship between the speakers and other social contextualfactors as influencing language use In consideration of this fact, and tomake up for the inadequacies of textbooks, it can be argued that it isnecessary for teachers to devise ways to ensure that learners come to seecommunication as something that emerges from and is affected by the

relationships between people rather than simply the filling of aninformation 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 targetlanguage: aside from the typical aspects of language such as grammar andlexis, it is not clear what should be taught (Barraja-Rohan 2000) What isneeded is for language teachers to increase their own awareness of the ways

in which context affects the choice of language forms and unfoldinginteraction in a language sample such as a dialogue Based on thisheightened awareness, teachers will be in a better position to designcomprehension questions that focus not only on the skill of locatinginformation but also on the skill of analysing language use in reflection ofsociocultural 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 range of questions for learners that encourage consideration of the role ofcontext in meaning making

with a rationale statement to explain why these aspects of context areimportant for language teachers and learners to think about In Table 2

I also list questions for each component that could be used to assistteachers to become aware of the socioculturally significant dimensions ofcommunication in a textbook dialogue or sample of natural language.Developing

questions for

learners

framework to identify relevant sociocultural factors in a dialogue togenerating a range of analytical questions to raise the socioculturalawareness of learners

In a given dialogue, there are likely to be many interactional features thatlearners will benefit from examining, and an important first step is to

may notice an example of polite language, which you could look at from theperspective of the ‘participants’ or ‘ends’ In other words, the use of politelanguage 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 itcan be challenging to attempt to simplify difficult concepts into questionsthat can be understood by language learners and it will certainly take

practice before a teacher improves his or her ability As far as the wording ofquestions is concerned, there are many possibilities that will depend on thetypes of learners and the relevant pedagogical goal Below I will outline fourdifferent question types that, on the basis of experience, I consider to beparticularly useful and easy to apply.

I use this term as these questions begin with some language from thedialogue, based on which learners speculate on possible meanings andinteractional functions in context For example, based on the use of thediscourse marker ‘I see’ in a dialogue, the following questions could beformulated:

the potential interactional or social function of an utterance in thedialogue The use of metalanguage encourages learners to look for formsthat might be used to accomplish particular functions These questionsare useful for helping learners see language use in terms of interactionaland social functions first, and then focus on forms second This can beparticularly useful when the teacher wants to prescribe an interpretation

of an utterance, or draw learners’ attention to an obvious interactionalnorm An example of a function-based question based on ‘I see’ might be

3 Comparative questionsComparative questions encourage learners to compare an aspect ofinteraction or sociocultural relationship noticed in the dialogue/s they areusing 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 tohelp learners come to see the hidden interactional norms of their ownlanguage, and to be able to objectively contrast these vis-a`-vis the targetlanguage (Liddicoat op cit.) For example, in the case of a dialogue whichcontains the speech act of apologizing, the following questions could beasked:

General speculative questions are ‘Why do you think ?’ questions

which are versatile in that they can be formed in regards to any type ofquestion when the teacher would like to emphasize that the learners’ job

is to give their own interpretations, rather than search for a correctanswer

Examples:

Application In this section I will provide concrete examples of questions that I have

when using one of the sample dialogues from New Interchange quotedearlier There is a certain amount of overlap among the questions; these aresimply examples to demonstrate the different ways that questions could beformulated

DialogueJames This has got to stop! Another Friday night without a date! Whatcan I do?

James Actually, I’ve tried that But the people you meet are alwaysdifferent from what you expect

wife that way

James That’s not a bad idea

bookstore

James Yeah If I don’t find a date, at least I might find a good book!

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’?

What sort of conversation is this?

Do people in your culture have this type of conversation often?

Tips for using the

questions

While I have listed quite a large number of questions for the previousdialogue, it is unlikely that this many could actually be asked in one class.The process of looking at language use from a sociocultural perspective issomething which many learners may not be familiar with As a result, somelearners are likely to go through initial difficulties as they adjust to thevarious processes of analysing, reflecting, and comparing This is one thing

which needs to be taken into consideration when allocating time forlearning tasks.

Reacting to learners’

interpretations

It is necessary to recognize that we cannot always expect knowledge aboutsociocultural aspects of language use to be as explicable or quantifiable asgrammar and lexis As the focus of these questions is interpretive, there isnecessarily a multiplicity of possible answers While some questions may bedesigned to lead learners to a particular interpretation of language, othersare simply speculative In this case, the aim is not to elicit some kind ofpredetermined ‘correct’ answer but rather to develop meta-awarenessconcerning the fact that sociocultural context is important in language use

In this case, the processes that learners go through, and the skills that aredeveloped when involved in analysing language use, can also be consideredimportant

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, somedialogues are more natural than others The process of constructingdialogues based on what research tells us about how people communicateneeds to be ongoing However, it does not seem logical to wait until perfectdialogues are achieved before we finally turn our learners’ heads towardscontext It is important to work creatively with the educational resources wehave now to achieve a high quality of learning In any case, dialogues, oreven samples of authentic data, should not be viewed as ‘perfect’ samples oflanguage use, due to the fact that any communication is inherentlyambiguous 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 nothingmore than something that might be said in a particular situation It is notnecessary to have perfect samples of communication as the imperfectnature of communication can now become a topic of speculation anddiscussion

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 nolonger limited to simply teaching the ‘cleaner’ aspects of syntax and lexicon

As long as teachers and students only see dialogues in terms of how theyillustrate grammar usage, there is a waste of learning potential The

S P E A K I N Gframework is a useful device for making salient the myriadsociocultural factors that influence language use in order to generatesociocultural meta-awareness, as well as to highlight specific interactionalnorms It is hoped that this kind of meta-awareness will put learners in

a better position to anticipate and perceive potential differences in cultural communication and an increased flexibility to deal with them.Final revised version received September 2007

Language Testing Oxford: Oxford University Press

sociocultural norms with conversation analysis’ in

A J Liddicoat and C Crozet (eds.) Teaching

Languages, Teaching Cultures Melbourne, Australia:

Language Australia

towards an integrated model’ in D Buttjes and

M Byram (eds.) Mediating Languages and Cultures

Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters

communicative approaches to second language

teaching and testing’ Applied Linguistics 1/1: 1–47

Language Teaching Clevedon, UK: Multilingual

Matters

Cambridge University Press

context: an introduction’ in A Duranti and

C Goodwin (eds.) Rethinking Context: Language as

an Interactive Phenomenon Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press

J B Pride and J Holmes (eds.) Sociolinguistics

Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books

Ethnographic Approach Philadelphia: University of

Pennsylvania Press

meaningful use: towards a framework of foreign

language teaching with an emphasis on culture,epistemology and ethical pedagogy’ UnpublishedDoctoral dissertation, University of Canberra

intercultural communication’ in D Cunninghamand A Hatoss (eds.) An International Perspective onLanguage Policies, Practices and Proficiencies

Interchange: English for International Communication(Student’s Book 1) Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press

Interchange: English for International Communication(Student’s Book 3) Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press

Communication Oxford: Blackwell

the Language Classroom: A Conversation AnalysisPerspective Oxford: Blackwell Publishing

The author

from the University of New England, Australia He iscurrently conducting his doctoral research onintercultural language teaching through theResearch Centre for Languages and Cultures at theUniversity of South Australia He also lectures onEnglish and intercultural communication at RikkyoUniversity, Tokyo

Email: mcconachyt@hotmail.com

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 lexicalform, function, and meaning ( for example, Willis 1990; Johns 1994) The Webprovides ready-made material and tools for both learner-centred reading andvocabulary tasks This study reports on the results of a project in which Japanese

specific contexts and collocative properties of lexis Using an online database,students created a communal dictionary composed of lexis and example sentencesculled from web sources, along with examples of their own devising The languagedatabase was then used to facilitate peer teaching of lexis Work producedindicates that learners paid attention to lexical form, function, and meaning whencomposing

Introduction One of the roles language instructors traditionally play in assisting

vocabulary learning is that of arbiter Teachers and textbook writerscommonly 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, ornecessity for a specialized field Instructors also generally have control overthe material that students read Certainly, there is sound pedagogicalreasoning behind such dependence on the teacher Learners often lackinformation on factors such as frequency, while instructors usually haveaccess to a wide range of levels and types of texts, such that they are able tofine-tune their selections to their students’ needs, interests, and abilities.Yet language learners do benefit from having access to authentictexts—such as newspaper or magazine articles and fiction at native-speakerlevel—that provide the opportunity to encounter lexis in a natural, ratherthan artificial context Use of such material allows learners to gain anunderstanding of how lexis functions in real-world environments (Willis1993; Johns 1994) As Willis notes:

The use of authentic text makes it likely that not only structure andnecessary 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

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

frequency of culture-specific references Learners may quickly loseconfidence when presented with such texts If, however, learners areallowed to actually choose for themselves texts that are of personal orprofessional relevance, they may be more willing to engage with authenticmaterial Student choice is one way to maximize intrinsic motivation(Skehan 1991) in which both ‘learners’ particular interests and the extent towhich they feel personally involved in learning activities’ are key (Ellis 1994:76) Furthermore, when learners themselves select words to learn that are ofinterest to them—in particular words that will help them understand a textthat they are personally interested in—motivation for vocabulary learningmay be enhanced Involvement in both text and vocabulary selection canthus effectively ‘arouse and harness the learner’s curiosity’ (Willis 1993: 92)towards the ultimate aim of increasing his or her understanding andcommand of L2 lexis.

Computers and internet access were available for all students in theclassroom As part of the course, students were involved in a variety ofinternet-based tasks requiring the reading of web text These includedparticipation in English language web discussion forums of their ownchoosing, summarizing information found on web pages in oralpresentations, finding information for both student-created and instructor-created quizzes, and discussion of favourite websites with others in theclass

of frustration and the rapid meeting and forgetting of new lexis, it seemeddesirable to make the presence of many new words into an opportunityrather than an annoyance In response, an ongoing Class Dictionary projectwas begun, with the students in control of the lexis to be included andresponsible for correctly pinpointing definitions, finding collocations, andwriting example sentences

It should be acknowledged at the outset that not a few voices in the literaturehave argued against a reductive, word-hunting approach to L2 readingmethodology (for example, Johns and Davies 1983; Johns 1997; Feathers2004) They rightfully point out that the primary purpose of text is toprovide information or imaginative experience, not lexis Balanced againstthis, however, is the real need and oft-expressed desire of most students to

increase their vocabulary Taking into account both sides of this issue, Ithought it best to have my students engage with web pages first ininformation-gathering tasks before they began to use the Web to seek newlexical knowledge as well Gleaning lexis was presented as an endeavourundertaken only to serve the primary purpose of web text, the gathering ofknowledge.

The presence of the Web as an integral part of the course offered a way forstudents to deepen their understanding of lexical items by seeking otherexamples, much as professional linguists do in using corpora to pinpointnuances of native speaker usage, such as topical association and collocation.Robb (2003), in a study of variation in collocation among different webdomains, notes some drawbacks to the use of the Web as a corpus—forexample, the inability to search for categories of words or to obtain reliablefrequency counts He posits against these, however, the Web’s size,accessibility, and the presence of much language that often conforms tonorms of spoken usage (such as that found in forums and blogs) as aspectsthat recommend it to second language study

Process The project comprises six interrelated tasks:

examples of lexical items

learner-created example sentences

correct, and give feedback on database submissions

new lexis to use

Each of these will be described, with special attention paid both to thescaffolding steps used to acclimate students to choosing definitions and tothe use of the Web to broaden the range of example sentences available.Scaffolding and

dictionary

orientation

facility with using them is often rather limited To assist the students inbecoming familiar with the process of using learner dictionaries, somesample lexical items and web page text were chosen in advance Links tothese pages were provided in an online worksheet (Appendix 1) These webpages were chosen for their potential general interest to the students in theclass, and short sections assigned that the students could read quickly.Words were chosen from the text on those pages that the students were notlikely to have encountered before Figure 1 shows the text of a selection fromWikipedia’s Spiderman 3 page, which formed the basis of the worksheet

figure 1

Text from Wikipedia

(Spiderman 3)

A given lexical entry in a dictionary is likely to present learners with thechallenge of choosing from a list of several different, nuanced definitions.Thus, a controlled-entry approach was used for selecting the words thestudents would be given to tackle The first two items, ‘bask in’ and ‘seek’,have single definitions; the second item, ‘convict’, features noun and verbforms with a single definition each; and the third, ‘bond’, has noun and verbforms with several definitions for each In this way, the students

progressively tackle increasing levels of definitional ambiguity in order to

The text selection was read aloud while the students read on theircomputers, then the students read it again on their own Students’ attentionwas 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 representedand to arrive at a guess of its meaning Students were allowed to use theirfirst 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

such as the initial separation of items by part of speech, keyword listing ofsome definitions, pronunciation, and example sentences The instructorwent through the definitions with the students, asking them to considerwhich one made the most sense in the given context For items withmultiple parts of speech and/or definitions, the challenge for the studentswas naturally somewhat greater Hints and information regarding context,affixes, morphology, or collocation were given when necessary Of these, thelatter may be the most important in engendering in learners an ecologicalview of lexis: words do not exist in a vacuum, but tend to live next to or nearcertain 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 associativenature of items was taken advantage of to inform keyword choice whencarrying out searches For example, the word ‘installment’ was found on anearlier version of Wikipedia’s Spiderman 3 page Students noticed the use ofthe preposition ‘of ’ following the word in both the web page sentence andthe 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 onthe original web page example and a third person pronoun in the dictionaryexample The search keywords ‘suspected’ and ‘him’ netted many instances.(Using the simple past form of verbs may tend to give more useable websearch 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 whichdefinition 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 differentiationbetween 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,

provides invaluable opportunities for students to become aware of how suchlexis 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 aboutBlacks, many of which endure to this day

It was not immediately apparent to most students what the meaning orfunction 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 nounphrase, yet this could only partially satisfy the class’ understanding A websearch 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 ofwhich walk that thin line between beautiful and terrifying

The class was asked to try to determine which countable noun was beingreferenced in each case After engaging with such examples, students wereable 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 usefulresults for students For phrases and collocative items, more useablesamples were found by using quotes and by including all particles,determiners, etc For verbs, using the past tense form in the search termstended to yield better results (possibly due to the relative contextual claritypresent in news stories or personal recountings, both of which often usepast tense) The following search results (Figures 2–6) demonstrate thevarying degree of contextual support obtained using various search termcombinations, in this case for the phrase ‘face a challenge’