Transcript Slide 1

authentic language and multimedia design
• Why?
• How?
to meet local language needs
through linguistic ‘undercover’ work
Stephen Woulds
Leeds City College / University of Leeds
www.esoluk.co.uk
‘there are rules of use without which the rules of
grammar would be useless’ (Hymes: 1971)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIAdHEw
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Contemporary picture
• Even after the communicative competence
model of Hymes, behavioural methods of
language teaching are still evident where we
see greater emphasis on the mechanics of
language, the meta-language of grammar, and
less on the pragmatic nature of language.
Context: a novice on language
• “I no want to speak posh, posh like you. I want
to speak like in street."
An expert on language
• How closely do you think the activities
you use in the classroom resemble
those of learners who learn a language
‘naturally’ by being immersed in situations
in which they need to use the language
(Lewis, 2005: 7). http://www.babylonia-ti.ch/BABY305/baby305en.htm
Authenticity (relative at best!)
• An authentic text is a stretch of real language,
produced by a real speaker or writer for a real
audience and designed to convey a real message of
some sort (Morrow, 1977: 13).
• Authentic texts ... are those which are designed for
native speakers: they are real texts designed not for
language students (Harmer, 1983: 146) .
• A rule of thumb for authentic ... is any material which
has not been specifically produced for the purposes of
language teaching (Nunan, 1989: 54) .
Four types of authenticity
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Authenticity of the text;
Authenticity of the learners’ interpretations;
Authenticity of the tasks;
Authenticity of the social situation used in the
classroom (Breen, 1985: 61).
• What’s missing?
Authenticity of the language
• Where we see local variation in accent,
dialect, mannerisms, tone, pace, paralinguistic
cues, etc.
Authentic language
- a working definition • Authentic language is unedited, as people use
it spontaneously in their `real lives’, in
situations where they are not monitoring their
language and are not thinking about how
other people might be judging their language
use
• (adapted from Schiffman).
Authenticity (EFL)
• Authenticity is typically a concern in EFL
contexts where authentic language is
sometimes regarded as any spoken or written
document produced in the country of the
target language.
Authenticity (ESOL)
• Authenticity in ESOL is not given as much
concern as it is in EFL more broadly. This is a
mistake. Adult ESOL in England and Wales is
subject to adherence to the Adult ESOL Core
Curriculum (AECC).
• The hegemony of AECC English, to the
exclusion of regional differences, often
produces ‘purified’ English in textbook
language materials and multimedia products.
Connected texts
• “If we try to make our texts embody certain
grammatical categories, the texts cease to be
natural: they become either trivial, tedious
and long-winded, or else they become more
or less monstrosities,” (Sweet, 1899: 192).
• The Practical Study of Language
Most widely used ESOL resource
• In the Skills for Life
language packs we
find some of the most
contrived,
mechanistic,
simplified,
standardised
‘examples’ of the
English language.
Dave’s ESL cafe (web-based)
Tribal (ctad.co.uk)
• “Realistic video scenarios, in authentic settings,
reflect the language of everyday life in the UK.”
Their words not mine!
Asylum applications
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=261
UK Distribution of Asylum Seekers (1)
UK Distribution of
Asylum Seekers (2)
http://www.nao.org.uk/news/0506/0506130.aspx
Anyone here from Leodis?
Yorkshire accent and dialect
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPjJFv1
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Authenticity - a working definition
• Authentic language is unedited, as people use
it spontaneously in their `real lives’, in
situations where they are not monitoring their
language and are not thinking about how
other people might be judging their language
use (adapted from Schiffman).
- meeting local language needs linguistic analysis
• “linguistic ‘undercover’ work is especially
useful and suitable to those foreign language
students who are learning to function in a
target culture, not just acquire a target
language,” (Norton, 2008: 2).
http://arrow.dit.ie/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=aaschlanart
Equipment needed
1 voice recorder
Equipment needed
1 telephone
pick-up coil
(99p £15.00)
1 wife
- meeting local language needs linguistic undercover work (with analysis)
Simone:
Carol:
What time are
2. Note the use of ‘off’ instead of the standard ‘going’.
you off? 2
As soon as they3
3. ‘they’ meaning her children. Can the learners identify
get dressed and ...
this from the context?
Simone:
Because we’re on 4. ‘we’re on about’ meaning ‘we’ve been talking about ‘
about4 going to the
(perhaps with her children or her friends).
chippie5 for some 5. ‘chippie’ meaning the fish & chip shop.
dinner.
Carol:
Alright, yes. that
Sounds like fun!6
Yes. Erm, well
they’re7 just
getting dressed
now. I’m just
gonna get my
clothes on. 8
6. ‘sounds like’; ‘like’ functioning here as an indicative
or prophetic adverb.
7. ‘they’re’ meaning her children.
8. ‘gonna get my clothes on’ meaning ‘going to get
dressed’; presumably, this is an early morning call
and the family are still in their pyjamas. Can the
learners identify this from the context?
Simplification or Easification
(Bhatia, 1983)
• Nearly all ESOL language learning materials in
the UK are manufactured and simplified to
make them accessible … BUT
• “... to hold back potentially confusing language
points both to a distortion of the teacher role
and to a denial of the tight relationship
between language taught in class and
language knowledge required for daily life,”
(Simpson, 2009: 3).
Easification Techniques
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add white space or use a larger piece of paper
add a gloss in the margins
number the lines
separate the paragraphs
add sub-headings
highlight words, sentences, paragraphs
add visuals
use colours to aid memory
change the font size, enlarge the text, etc.
add comments or questions
add somebody else's text to it
translate difficult words
provide pronunciation of unfamiliar words using the IPA
Design principle 1 - interactivity
The loop is complete
from the teacher’s
perspective, but not
complete from the
students perspective.
The same
interaction from
the student
perspective. The
loop is not
complete.
Design principle 1 - interactivity
• Interactivity is a message loop
• Multimedia allows for a reduction in time lag
in response to learner input
• “Interactivity in instruction must occur from
the student’s point of view” (Yacci, 2000,
emphasis added).
Design principle 2 - repetition
• Cognitive learning theory assumes ‘working
memory … is able to deal with information for
no more than a few seconds with almost all
information lost after about 20 seconds unless
it is refreshed by rehearsal,’ (van Merriënboer,
2005: 148).
• Language acquisition typically requires much
repetition and long periods of time. A webbased platform allows for this 24/7.
In conclusion
authenticating tutor; authenticating designer
• We should be looking for ‘the authenticating
teacher’ not ‘the authentic text’ (Shomoossi &
Ketabi, 2007: 154).
• Introducing easification techniques might
enable tutors to introduce more diverse (nonstandard) English(es) applicable to local
contexts.
• Where does this leave the materials
developer; the design professionals?
References
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