A situated learning practice for language teaching classes: Teaching spoken English with authentic...

Volume 8, Number 9, September 2011 (Serial Number 93)

Sino-US

English Teaching

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Sino-US English Teaching

Volume 8, Number 9, September 2011 (Serial Number 93)

Contents Teaching Theory & Practice

A Situated Learning Practice for Language Teaching Classes: Teaching Spoken English

With Authentic Sketches 549

Hüseyin Efe, Hakan Demiröz, Ahmet Selçuk Akdemir

Fluctuations and Directions in Teaching Second Language Writing 556

Abbas Zare-ee

Training Learning Strategies to Develop Listening Comprehension in Interpretation for

Non-English Majors 565

YU Jun-ling, TAO Yu

The Influence of Communicative Teacher Talk on College Students’ Interlanguage 571

QU Ying

The Role of Non-verbal Behavior of Teachers in Providing Students Corrective Feedback

and Their Consequences 577

Emre Guvendir

Rovai’s Classroom Community Scale and Its Application in Chinese College English Class 592

ZHANG Yan-yang, LIN Xiao, XU Ming

Application of Multimedia Assisted Instruction (MAI) in Junior High Schools English

Classroom Teaching 599

LI Na, WANG Chun-yan

Literary Criticism & Appreciation

Wendy As a Feminine Principle (Quicksilver) of the Alchemical Great Work 604

Violeta Cvetkovska Ocokoljić, Tatjana Cvetkovski, Ana Langović Milićević

Sino-US English Teaching, ISSN 1539-8072 September 2011, Vol. 8, No. 9, 549-555

A Situated Learning Practice for Language Teaching Classes:

Teaching Spoken English With Authentic Sketches

Hüseyin Efe Artvin Çoruh University, Artvin,

Turkey

Hakan Demiröz

Cumhuriyet University, Sivas,

Turkey

Ahmet Selçuk Akdemir

Erzincan University, Erzincan,

Turkey SL (situated learning) is a term first proposed by Lave and Wenger (1991) as a model of learning in a community

of practice. According to Lave and Wenger (1991), learning should not be viewed as simply the transmission of

abstract and decontextualised knowledge from one individual to another, but a social process whereby knowledge

is co-constructed. The exposure to spoken language and cultural elements of foreign language is the best way of

teaching the language itself rather than grammatical patterns and rules of the language. In this study, we aim to

review “situational learning approach” in context with its role and efficiency of teaching spoken language. An

experimental study was conducted on the university students in the preparatory classes at the School of Tourism of

Erzincan University. Twelve male and 11 female students in the control group and 14 male and 10 female students

in the experimental group took part in the research. The language levels of the students were determined by a

language proficiency test which is used as pre-test of the study. Language proficiency test composed of mainly

dialogues including spoken language patterns. After eight weeks of lectures with authentic sketches which were

used as reading materials in experimental group and classical reading materials in control group, the students were

given the same language proficiency test as post-test. When pre- and post-test results were evaluated, significant

difference was found between the pre- and post-test results of the subjects on behalf of the students in the

experimental group. It is concluded that spoken language can be achieved by authentic sketches which are designed

to serve as a situated learning setting.

Keywords: SL (situated learning), spoken language, language teaching, authentic sketches

Introduction

Language teaching takes place in many settings. There are many factors influencing learning. Malamah-Thomas (1987) described setting in terms of three levels in an education system: (1) the country, (2) the school and (3) the classroom.

After determining basic elements of setting, there occurs another question: What is the relationship between “the role of English in the country” and “teaching in English at school”?

Hüseyin Efe, assistant professor, Doctor of Department of English Language Teaching, Artvin Çoruh University. Hakan Demiröz, assistant professor, Doctor of Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Letters, Cumhuriyet

University. Ahmet Selçuk Akdemir, lecturer of Department of Foreign Languages, Erzincan University.

TEACHING SPOKEN ENGLISH WITH AUTHENTIC SKETCHES

550

Whether English is spoken in the community outside the class or alternatively never heard is closely related to main problems of FLT (Foreign Language Teaching). Also the role of English in the school and its place in the curriculum is important (McDonough & Shaw, 1998).

Conditions for FLT

FLT has a complex structure and it involves many conditions likewise all other educational activities. An ideal grouping of these conditions can be as follows: (1) proximity to spoken language, (2) equality of four skills, (3) internal and external interferences of learner, and (4) teaching/learning materials.

An effective teaching is possible only when these conditions have optimal values on teaching atmosphere. The first condition—proximity to spoken language—should be as the first step for a communicative language teaching approach. Because there are many studies proving that learning is achieved by obtaining comprehensible input from original or at least authentic settings (Piske & Scholten, 2009).

Situated Learning

SL (situated learning) is a term first proposed by Lave and Wenger (1991) as a model of learning in a community of practice. According to Lave and Wenger (1991), learning should not be viewed as simply the transmission of abstract and decontextualised knowledge from one individual to another, but a social process whereby knowledge is co-constructed; they suggested that such learning is situated in a specific context and embedded within a particular social and physical environment.

As an instructional strategy, situated cognition has been seen as a means for relating subject matter to the needs and concerns of learners (Shor, 1987).

A SL experience has four major premises guiding the development of classroom activities (Anderson, Reder, & Simon, 1996; Wilson, 1993): (1) Learning is grounded in the actions of everyday situations; (2) Knowledge is acquired situationally and transfers only to similar situations; (3) Learning is the result of a social process encompassing ways of thinking, perceiving, problem solving, and interacting in addition to declarative and procedural knowledge; and (4) Learning is not separated from the world of action but exists in robust, complex and social environments made up of actors, actions and situations.

The key components of SL model are: (1) stories, (2) reflection, (3) cognitive apprenticeship, (4) collaboration, (5) coaching, (6) multiple practice, (7) articulation of learning skills, and (8) technology (McLellan, 1996).

As an overall assessment, SL model can provide a valuable tool for enhancing the design and implementation of teaching/learning experiences.

The efficiency of the SL model should be considered in accordance with the innovative ideas of FLT to be able to provide a good example of its application in the field.

FLT is proved to be most effective and optimal only when it is performed in a setting of real communication and performance. The exposure to spoken language and cultural elements of foreign language is the best way of teaching the language itself rather than grammatical patterns and rules of the language. SL is a useful model for those who are seeking a communication atmosphere to make language teaching more effective by means of communicative purposes as this learning model emphasizes the importance of real settings of knowledge.


551

Communicative Language Teaching

When the subject is “to teach a language to communicate”, then, CLT (Communicative Language Teaching) appears to be as the inevitable and probably most appropriate approach. CLT is based on communicative competence which is described as the knowledge needed to be able to communicate effectively (Thornbury, 2006).

CLT aims broadly to apply the theoretical perspective of CA (Communicative Approach) by making communicative competence as the goal of language teaching and by acknowledging the interdependence of language and communication (Larsen-Freeman, 2008).

In a CLT design, language functions are emphasized rather than forms and grammatical patterns of a language. All four language skills are studied to have a meaningful competence of language. Besides, CLT is generally associated with notional-functional syllabuses (Larsen-Freeman, 2008).

Authentic Materials

The Description of Authentic Materials Authentic materials are those educational materials which can be used to teach authentic and natural

knowledge, competences and abilities. Those materials do not need to be developed or prepared for the purpose of educational. While explaining authentic materials which are used in FLT, Widdowson (1990) emphasized that those materials are designed to reflect the spoken language to learners.

Some Advantages of Authentic Materials (1) Learners have the chance of hearing original dialogues of spoken language. (2) Learners learn about the cultural patterns of target language. (3) Learners learn about the change in the language. (4) Learners learn about the daily news of that society speaking the language. (5) Authentic materials are easy to be prepared and used in educational settings.

Sketches as Authentic Materials Authentic materials are divided into three groups as: (1) written materials, (2) visual materials and (3)

audio-visual materials. Sketches are the examples of written materials. Some simplified play pieces also can be used as good

sources of spoken language. In a sketch dialogue, an authentic language atmosphere can be created and through this context many language patterns can be reflected (see Appendix A).

While using sketches as authentic written material to spoken language, the key points are the same as they are in all other authentic materials: (1) simplification, (2) revision for cultural issues and (3) appropriateness to the context.

Methods and Procedures

Introduction The aim of this study is to review SL in context with its role and efficiency of teaching spoken language. An

experimental study was conducted on the university students in the preparatory classes at the School of Tourism of Erzincan University. Twelve male and 11 female students in the control group and 14 male and 10 female


552

students in the experimental group took part in the research.

Process Before starting the study, both groups were given a language proficiency test including reading

comprehension and vocabulary questions as pre-test and the same tests were given at the end of the study as post-test. The results of both tests were evaluated by means of answers and their percentages in sum (correct—wrong—null).

Basic material of the study is a sketch book which is published online in a web site for the purpose of teaching spoken English to the speakers of other languages.

Sketches were given to experimental group (14 male, 10 female; 24 students in sum) beforehand the courses. During the courses, vocabulary was given to the students so that they were encouraged to use dictionary and find out the meanings of the vocabulary. Students were not obliged to act out the roles as they were freshmen and it would be embarrassing for them to act out in front of their classmates. The sketches were read by them as role-plays and during the activities they were modeled to give the meaning of the context through the intonation.

Control group of the study (12 male, 11 female; 23 students in sum) were given plain texts with different topics including nearly the same vocabulary and contexts. Likewise the experimental group, those students were also encouraged to look up the vocabulary and answer reading comprehension questions.

Analysis and Findings

The Results of Pre-test Before the reading activities that lasted eight weeks, both groups were given a language proficiency test

including vocabulary and reading comprehension questions as well as idioms. The results are as follows (see Table 1).

Table 1 The Table of Pre-test Results Experimental Group (N: 240) Control group (N: 230)

Grammar questions (10 Q) Percentage of correct

answers (%): 40

C: 100 W: 120 N: 20

Percentage of correct answers (%):

38

C: 87 W: 108 N: 35

Vocabulary questions (10 Q) Percentage of correct

answers (%): 20

C: 50 W: 160 N: 30


22

C: 51 W: 119 N: 60

Idioms questions (10 Q) Percentage of correct

answers (%): 5

C: 12 W: 70 N: 158


5

C: 12 W: 92 N: 126

Notes. N: Number of questions in total; C: Correct answers; W: Wrong answers; N: Null answers.

As it can be seen from the table, there was no significant difference by means of proficiency levels of the two groups and they are homogenous.

The Results of Post-test After eight weeks of research conveyed with both experimental group and control group, above-mentioned

proficiency test was given again to determine the difference between the two groups. The results are as follows (see Table 2).


553

Table 2 The Table of Post-test Results Experimental Group (N: 240) Control group (N: 230)

Grammar questions (10 Q) Percentage of correct

answers (%): 38

C: 95 W: 90 N: 55


39

C: 97 W: 114 N: 29

Vocabulary questions (10 Q) Percentage of correct

answers (%): 27

C: 64 W: 130 N: 46


24

C: 57 W: 120 N: 53

Idioms questions (10 Q) Percentage of correct

answers (%): 13

C: 31 W: 81 N: 128


7

C: 17 W: 103 N: 10

Notes. N: Number of questions in total; C: Correct answers; W: Wrong answers; N: Null answers.

Overall Assessment and Students Opinions It is obvious that authentic sketches work as suitable tools of conveying spoken language patterns. During

the study, the students were interviewed for the efficiency and appreciation of the process. After eight weeks of study, the majority of the students in the experimental group expressed their appreciation for the course design

which provided them with many language patterns and they also found those sketches very useful to learn about the cultural elements of target language.

Student A: (Experimental group) “It is interesting that I learn easily while reading and my vocabulary becomes more and more stable. When I try to

remember a word for example ‘flattered’, I manage it by remembering the sketch ‘The ticket inspector’. It helped me try to speak.”

Student B: (Experimental group) “I started to feel that I am learning English and I learnt many new words.” Student C: (Experimental group) “Now I know how to joke in English because I learnt an idiom while reading ‘The passport office’.” Student D: (Control group) “I learn the vocabulary of the text but when I have a new one generally I missed the old passages. I think reading is a

good activity but it is very complex.” Student E: (Control group) “The passages have long sentences so it is boring for me.” (personal communication, October 12, 2010)

Conclusions

FLT is a quite challenging activity especially for those trying to teach the language in a country where the language itself is neither used nor spoken in the community for everyday needs. In a setting where comprehensible input is restricted to teaching/learning activities, it is essential to use authentic materials to develop productive skills.

Authentic materials are among the main elements of a SL practice. They build up an artificial language environment and this leads an effective learning/acquisition of the language.

Language learner/student needs to speak and listen to be able to master his/her productive skills. Spoken language is difficult to be reflected by using plain texts. In this study, the difficult task of teaching spoken language, expressions, idioms and vocabulary which are used vividly in daily speaking settings have been achieved by the use of authentic sketches in a SL atmosphere. As a result, the students could beat their fears of


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learning language and they learnt many idioms, vocabulary and daily practical expressions. When the scores of both groups are compared, it is obvious that this kind of teaching practices may be very

effective with many advantages.

References Anderson, J. R., Reder, L. M., & Simon, H. A. (1996). Situated learning and education. Educational Researcher, 25(4), 5-11. Larsen-Freeman, D. (2008). Techniques and principles in language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press. Malamah-Thomas, A. (1987). Classroom interaction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McDonough, J., & Shaw, C. (1998). Materials and methods in ELT. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. McLellan, H. (1996). Situated learning perspectives. New Jersey: Educational Technology Publications. Piske, T., & Young-Scholten, M. (2009) Input matters in SLA. London: UK Multilingual Matters/Channel and View Publication. Shomossi, N., & Ketabi, S. (2007). A critical look at the concept of authenticity. E-Journal of Foreign Language Teaching, 4(1),

149-155. Retrieved from http://e-flt.nus.edu.sg/v4n12007/shomoossi.pdf Shor, I. (1987). Critical teaching and everyday life. USA: University of Chicago Press. Thornbury, S. (2006). An A-Z of ELT. London: Macmillan Books for Teachers. Widdowson, H. G. (1990). Aspects of language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wilson, A. (1993). The promise of situated cognition. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Retrieved from

http://www.ericdigests.org/1998-3/adult-education.html

Appendix A: A Sample Sketch

A Sample Sketch: The ticket inspector Scene: A compartment on a train Characters: A passenger on a train, a ticket inspector, a steward and a waiter (The passenger is sitting in a compartment on a train. He is reading a newspaper. The steward opens the door.) Steward: Coffee! Passenger: No. thanks. (The passenger closes the door, and continues reading. The waiter opens the door.) Waiter: Seats for dinner! Passenger: No, thanks. (The passenger closes the door again, and continues reading. The ticket inspector opens the door.) Inspector: Tickets! Passenger: No, thanks. Inspector: Pardon? Passenger: I don’t want a ticket, thank you. Inspector: I’m not selling tickets, sir. Passenger: No? Inspector: No, I want to see your ticket. Passenger: Oh, I haven’t got a ticket. Inspector: You haven’t got a ticket? Passenger: No. I never buy a ticket. Inspector: Why not? Passenger: Well, they are very expensive, you know. Inspector: Sir, you’re traveling on a train. When people travel on a train, they always buy a ticket. Passenger: Err… Inspector: And this is a first-class compartment. Passenger: Yes, it is very nice, isn’t it? Inspector: No, sir. I mean: This is a first-class compartment. When people travel in a first-class compartment, they always buy

a first-class ticket.


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(They look at each other for a moment.) Passenger: No, they don’t. Inspector: What? Passenger: A lot of people don’t buy tickets. The Queen doesn’t buy aticket, does she, Eh? Eh? Inspector: No, sir, but she’s a famous person. Passenger: And what about you? Where’s yours? Inspector: Mine? Passenger: Yes, yours. Your ticket. Have you got a ticket? Inspector: Me, sir? Passenger: Yes, you. Inspector: No, I haven’t got a ticket. Passenger: Ooh, are you a famous person? Inspector: (Flattered) Famous? Well, not very (Back to normal) Sir, I am a ticket inspector. I inspect tickets. Are you going

show me your ticket? Passenger: No, I haven’t got a ticket. Inspector sees. (The ticket inspector puts his hand into his pocket.) Passenger: What are you going to do? Inspector: I’m going to write your name in my book. Passenger: Oh. Inspector: What is your name, sir? Passenger: Mickey Mouse, (The inspector begins to write.) Inspector: Mickey. Passenger: Mouse. M-O-U-S-E. (The inspector stops writing.) Inspector: Your name, sir? Passenger: Karl Marx? William Shakespeare? Charles Dickens? Inspector: I see, sir. Well, if you’re not going to tell me your name, please leave the train. Passenger: Pardon? Inspector: Leave the train. Passenger: I can’t. Inspector: You can’t what? Passenger: I can’t leave the train. Inspector: Why not? Passenger: It’s moving. Inspector: Not now, sir. At the next station. Passenger: Oh. Inspector: It’s in the book, sir. When you travel by train, you buy a ticket, and if you don’t buy a ticket, you Passenger-Inspector: leave the train. Inspector: Here we are, sir. We’re coming to a station. Please leave the train now. Passenger: Now? Inspector: Yes, sir. I’m sorry, but Passenger: Oh, that’s OK. Inspector: It’s in the book, and what did you say? Passenger: I said: That’s OK. Inspector: OK? Passenger: Yes, this is my station. Goodbye. (The passenger leaves the train.)


Fluctuations and Directions in Teaching

Second Language Writing

Abbas Zare-ee University of Kashan, Kashan, Iran

The research literature on teaching writing in a L2 (second language) has inspired L2 writing teachers with various

sorts of activities in the last few decades and scholars have highlighted multiple aspects of L2 writing on which L2

writing teachers should focus. This paper presents a chronological sketch of the main approaches and trends in

teaching and researching L2 writing around the world. It summarizes the components of L2 writing addressed in

these approaches and enumerates the dimensions of L2 writing stressed in different approaches including language

structure, text functions, themes and topics, creative expression, composing processes, content, genre, and context

of writing. Referring to the types of knowledge that need to be imparted to L2 writers, the paper exemplifies

teaching activities that can enrich L2 writing classes. The theme that emerges from the discussion is that varied

pedagogical implications of the research literature will not be confusing for L2 writing teachers, if they broaden

their vision of L2 writing to extend a social view to all dimensions of forms, processes, audiences and L2 writers.

Teaching L2 writing is presented as the teaching of social individuals using socially-mediated processes to produce

socially-meaningful texts for socially-aligned audiences.

Keywords: L2 (second language) writing, teaching L2 writing, approaches to L2 writing

Introduction and Background

Research on teaching and learning the writing skill in a L2 (second language) has attracted the attention of many scholars around the world and L2 writing has already grown as an independent field of its own. There are now journals, such as the Journal of Second Language Writing, Assessing Writing, Composition Studies, etc., that publish and promote research specifically in this area. There are also numerous specialized books, websites, university degrees, symposia, and conferences devoted to the field. The field of L2 writing has ties with many fields such as L1 (first language) composition studies, literacy studies, education, applied linguistics, critical thinking, etc.. However, three main theoretical foundations have had the greatest influences on the teaching and exploration of L2 writing: (1) linguistic/rhetorical theories, (2) psychological theories and (3) socio-cultural, pragmatic and critical theories. These theoretical foundations have informed research exploring writer characteristics, writing processes and written texts. Leki, Cumming, and Silva (2006) summarized the main functions of these theoretical standpoints as follows:

Abbas Zare-ee, assisstant professor, English Department, Faculty of Humanities, University of Kashan.

FLUCTUATIONS AND DIRECTIONS 557

Linguistic or rhetorical theories provide tools and terms to describe the texts and language forms that L2 students produce or might need to learn. Theories from psychology provide tools and terms to describe the ways L2 students think or act while composing written texts, suggesting how these might be improved. Socio-cultural, pragmatic or critical theories provide tools and terms that describe the qualities of interaction and the cultural values that shape L2 students’ writing within specific social contexts, seeking explanations for, or reasons to challenge, their actions or societal conditions. (p. 143)

From these parent disciplines have emerged more focused approaches like the strategy-based approach, the content-based approach, the task-based approach, the product-based approach, the process-based approach, the genre-based approach, the multiple intelligences-based approach, the ICT (Information Communication Technology)-based approach, and many other approaches to L2 writing research and instruction. In all these, “the lenses” (to use Raimes’ (1991) word) have focused on the L2 writer, his/her texts, or the shaping forces of socio-cultural contexts and values respectively. This paper offers a summary of the different approaches stemming from these broader frameworks. It also summarizes the dimensions of L2 writing that have been given prominence in these approaches. It concludes with some implications for L2 writing teachers and researchers in attempting to put theories of L2 writing into practice.

Dominant Approaches to L2 Writing Research and Instruction

The following paragraphs sketch a rough chronological development of approaches to L2 writing instruction and research. All approaches, from the oldest more traditional sentence-based ones to the most recent critical and socially informed views, still have their proponents and are subscribed to differently in different parts of the world. It is not, therefore, easy to say exactly when each approach started, how long it continued and how and why it gave way to the next. In her review of 25 years of research into L2 writing covering 1966 to 1991, Raimes (1991) only gave the rough dates when each approach started to be used consistently in the research literature. In her words, “all the approaches are still, in varying degrees, subscribed to in theory and certainly in practice” (p. 408). Even though the chronological order in the development of approaches to L2 writing research and instruction is rough, it can show a general picture of the stages where an approach was dominant and consistently used in research and sometimes in practice. Below, these stages are briefly touched upon. They should not, however, be understood as sequentially ordered and clearly discrete or unrelated.

Focus on Form During the Early Years The earliest predominant approach to L2 writing instruction from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s was the

“controlled or guided composition” approach. During the dominance of the grammar-translation and the consequent audio-lingual method of language teaching, writing was taught to strengthen the knowledge of grammar rules and “took the form of sentence drills, fill-ins, substitutions, transformations, and completions” (Raimes, 1991, p. 408). This procedure later developed into “sentence combining” techniques (O’Hare, 1973) and manipulation of linguistic forms in controlled composition tasks (Kunz, 1972; Paulston & Dykstra, 1973). The second predominant approach to L2 writing instruction from the late 1960s and the early 1970s was the “rhetorical functions” approach. This approach developed when older practices, including controlled composition and sentence combining proved inadequate for training ideal L2 writers. The approach was also greatly inspired by work on the paragraph patterns of different languages in rhetoric and especially by the world-famous work of Kaplan who saw the English paragraph as “dominantly linear in its development” (Kaplan,

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1966, p. 4). In this approach, writing instruction “focused on teaching types of texts such as descriptions, narratives, definitions, exemplification, classification, comparison and contrast, cause and effect, and generalizations” (Paltridge, 2004, p. 1).

Focus on Processes and Genres The later years of the 1970s and the early 1980s saw a third approach, the “process approach”, as the

dominant one in L2 writing instruction. This approach was influenced by emphasis on what writers do when they write and was initially considered in first language writing instruction. “Influenced by L1 writing research on composing processes (Emig, 1971; Zamel, 1976), teachers and researchers reacted against a form-dominated approach by developing an interest in what L2 writers actually do as they write” (Raimes, 1991, p. 409). In this approach, the teaching of L2 writing mainly focused on helping students choose topics, brainstorm, generate ideas, write first and subsequent drafts, revise, and work on teacher/peer feedback. During the 1980s, research publications on L2 writing processes were undertaken to support this new trend in writing instruction (e.g., Cumming, 1989; Jones, 1982, 1985; Raimes, 1985, 1987).

The mid-1980s witnessed reactions against the process approach along the lines that it did not realistically prepare students for the demands of L2 writing in particular settings and led to the development of the fourth and fifth approaches, i.e., “content-based” and “EAP (English for Academic Purposes)-based” approaches. These approaches focused on examining what was expected of students in academic and professional settings and the kinds of genres they needed to have control of succeeding in these settings (Horowitz, 1986). The content-based approaches stressed students’ mastery of various contents like physical, emotional and mental health (Bailey, 2000), psychology (Carson, 2000), and applied linguistics literature (Casanave, 2003). The following quotation from Raimes (1991) shows how the process approach gave way to these new approaches: “Those who perceived the new [process] approach as an obsession inappropriate for academic demands and for the expectations of academic readers shifted their focus from the processes of the writer to content and to the demands of the academy” (p. 410).

Raimes added that by 1986, a process approach was already considered “traditional” (p. 410). The line of research in L2 writing that explored expectations and reactions of faculty members in writing instruction (Johns, 1981; Santos, 1988), supported the English for academic purposes approach or the “EAP approach” to L2 writing and the research that looked at what content was appropriate and analyzed the rhetorical organization of technical writing (Selinker, Todd-Trimble, & Trimble, 1978) supported the content-based approach. Table 1 presents a summary.

As shown in Table 1, since the mid-1980s and the early 1990s, the sixth approach to L2 writing instruction, the “genre-based approach”, has been more dominant which encompasses three relatively overlapping approaches. As its name implies, the genre approach focuses on teaching particular genres and their discourse and contextual features to enable students to succeed in particular settings. The genre framework tries to employ systematic guiding principles in texts to show learners how to produce meaningful passages. There are different approaches within the genre-based framework: (1) the English for Specific Purposes approach or the “ESP” approach, also known as the Swalesean approach; (2) the Australian genre-based approach, or “SFL” (Systemic Functional Linguistics) approach, also called the Sydney School (Martin, 1993); and (3) the North American

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264361612_What_Unskilled_ESL_Students_Do_as_They_Write_A_Classroom_Study_of_Composing?el=1_x_8&enrichId=rgreq-31af4373-941b-4146-b3e6-2cf7eb9c21da&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzI1ODAyODI5MztBUzo5ODUzNTA0NzQzNDI0OEAxNDAwNTAzOTk0NjI4

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272584349_Teaching_Composition_in_the_ESL_Classroom_What_We_Can_Learn_from_Research_in_the_Teaching_of_English?el=1_x_8&enrichId=rgreq-31af4373-941b-4146-b3e6-2cf7eb9c21da&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzI1ODAyODI5MztBUzo5ODUzNTA0NzQzNDI0OEAxNDAwNTAzOTk0NjI4

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260354264_What_Professors_Actually_Require_Academic_Tasks_for_the_ESL_Classroom?el=1_x_8&enrichId=rgreq-31af4373-941b-4146-b3e6-2cf7eb9c21da&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzI1ODAyODI5MztBUzo5ODUzNTA0NzQzNDI0OEAxNDAwNTAzOTk0NjI4

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231958747_Genre_and_Literacy-Modeling_Context_in_Educational_Linguistics?el=1_x_8&enrichId=rgreq-31af4373-941b-4146-b3e6-2cf7eb9c21da&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzI1ODAyODI5MztBUzo5ODUzNTA0NzQzNDI0OEAxNDAwNTAzOTk0NjI4



https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229609243_Writing_Expertise_and_Second-Language_Proficiency?el=1_x_8&enrichId=rgreq-31af4373-941b-4146-b3e6-2cf7eb9c21da&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzI1ODAyODI5MztBUzo5ODUzNTA0NzQzNDI0OEAxNDAwNTAzOTk0NjI4


“New Rhetoric” approach (for example, Hyon, 1996). Based on the ESP approach, genre is a class of structured communicative events employed by specific discourse communities (Swales, 1990). In the New Rhetoric approach, genre is “the motivated, functional relationship between text type and rhetorical situation’’ (Coe, 2002, p. 195), and in this view contexts supersede texts and ideology is central to the approach. Hyland (2002) explained that in the Hallidayan Systemic Functional view of the Australian school of genre studies, “genre is defined as a staged, goal-oriented social process which involves the interaction of participants using language in a conventional, step-wise structure” (p. 17). According to Hyland (2002), in the ESP perspective of scholars, such as Bhatia (1993) and Swales (1990), see genre as comprising a class of communicative events linked by shared purposes in a discourse community and these purposes shape the ways genre is structured. In the New Rhetoric perspective, genres are constructed through typified actions and are studied ethnographically (Berkenkotter & Huckin, 1995).

Table 1 Approaches to Teaching and Researching L2 Writing: A Rough Chronology

No Relative dates Approach Main feature and focus Example prominent researcher

1 The mid-1940s Guided composition Manipulation of linguistic forms, sentence drills Kunz, 1972

2 The 1950 Sentence combining Going beyond the single sentence level, manipulation of linguistic forms O’Hare, 1973

3 Late 1960s Rhetorical functions Work on the paragraph patterns Kaplan, 1966

4 The 1970s Process approach Stages of planning, writing, revising, etc., interest in what L2 writers actually do Zamel, 1976

5 The mid-1980s Content-based and EAP-based approaches

Attend to expectation of the faculty, mastery of various contents like physic Horowitz, 1986

6 The early 1990s The ESP (English for Specific Purposes) genre-based approach Communicative events, moves analyses Swales, 1990

7 Late 1990s Australian school of genre Discourse community expectations Coe, 2002

8 Late 1990s New Rhetoric perspective to genre Ethnographic view of context supersedes text, focus on interaction

Berkenkotter and Huckin, 1995

9 Early 2000s The critical perspective Explores ideology, identity, and their reflection in written texts Silva and Brice, 2004

10 Recent years The academic literacies perspective

Multiple types of literacies, values in learning to write Street, 2004

11 Recent years ICT-based approaches Explore the influences of computers and networks, and differences from the traditional Warschauer, 2007, 2009

A macroscopic view of the trends summarized so far indicates that there was no consideration of the social aspects of L2 writing for a long time in this history of research. From the earliest year of research until the mid-1980s, all emphases were on the cognitive aspects of L2 writing. When social dimensions were added to the views of L2 writing, they considered social factors that were related to the language, the text, the forms, the genres, the discourse conventions, etc.. Few scholars emphasized the social dimension of the L2 writer who was the key player in the scene. It was the language that was social. It was the process of communication that was social. It was the understanding of the text that was socially determined. And, it was the structure of the text that was socially defined. However, the L2 writer was not seen until very recently as socially constructing his/her own text.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222546974_Genre-based_pedagogies_A_social_response?el=1_x_8&enrichId=rgreq-31af4373-941b-4146-b3e6-2cf7eb9c21da&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzI1ODAyODI5MztBUzo5ODUzNTA0NzQzNDI0OEAxNDAwNTAzOTk0NjI4

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222546974_Genre-based_pedagogies_A_social_response?el=1_x_8&enrichId=rgreq-31af4373-941b-4146-b3e6-2cf7eb9c21da&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzI1ODAyODI5MztBUzo5ODUzNTA0NzQzNDI0OEAxNDAwNTAzOTk0NjI4


Focus on Social Issues in Recent Years In the late 1990s and in the current decade the seventh development in the teaching of writing, “the critical

perspective”, has appeared more dominantly in the literature on L2 writing. A critical perspective explores ideology, identity and their reflection in written texts (Paltridge, 2004). In this approach, “classroom tasks aim to unpack ideologies, relationships and identities as a way of helping students make choices in their writing that reflect who they are and who they want to be” (Paltridge, 2004, p. 2). In a special issue of the Journal of Second Language Writing on voice in L2 writing, Hirvela and Belcher (2001) argued that in L2 writing instruction and research the voices and identities already possessed by L2 writers have been largely ignored and require attention. Consequently, in recent years, approaches to L2 writing have tried to go far beyond the prescriptions of all the other approaches mentioned so far. In other words, the adherers of the controlled or guided composition approach, the rhetorical functions approach, the process approach, the content-based approach, the EAP-based approach, and the three famous genre-based approaches to L2 writing can now see a transition to more sophisticated views on teaching and researching L2 writing. In a comprehensive review of research on teaching writing, Silva and Brice (2004) stated:

We see a transition in process, a transition from the view that L2 writing teachers should play the role of passive consumers of imported instructional approaches and methods and their accompanying research programs, e.g., controlled composition, current-traditional rhetoric, process approaches, and English for academic purposes/genre approaches. … This transition resists one-size fits-all, off-the-shelf approaches promulgated and promoted by self-proclaimed pundits who imply that a particular orientation to writing instruction will prove successful at all times, in all places, and for all students. (p. 84)

In recent years, the eighth approach subscribed to in the L2 writing research and instruction along with the critical perspective has been the “academic literacies perspective” that stresses identities and values in learning to write (Lea & Street, 1998, 1999; Starfield, 2004). The basic claim is that there is no standard academic essay that can be taught to fit all areas of study (Johns, 1997; Samraj, 2004). “It is no longer possible to assume that there is one type of literacy in the academy” (Zamel & Spack, 1998, p. ix) for which students can be prepared. In contrast to the study skills models and academic socialization models of writing instruction in academic institutions, Street (2004) called this broad framework the “new orders”: the new work order, the new communicative order and the new epistemological order (p. 9). Learning to write is, no longer, viewed as acquiring a set of atomized skills or as socializing as stressed in previous approaches. In Street’s (2004) words, the academic literacies perspective:

… Views student writing and learning as issues at the level of epistemology and identities rather than skill or socialization. An academic literacies approach views the institutions in which academic practices take place as constituted in and as sites of discourse and power. … From the student point of view, a dominant feature of academic literacy practices is the requirement to switch practices between one setting and another, to deploy a repertoire of linguistic practices appropriate to each setting and to handle the social meanings and identities that each evokes. (p. 15)

Recent years have also been the hectic time of exploring the influences of the “ICTs” on L2 writing research and instruction (e.g., Warschauer, 1996, 2007, 2009). The use of computers and technology in second/foreign language writing instruction is radically changing many old practices. How L2 writer writes in the virtual space and how ICTs can help them write better are the subjects of much current research on L2 writing. The dozens of approaches referred to above are the main trends in research on L2 writing. Each certainly has its own strengths

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/248617050_Discourse_features_of_the_student-produced_academic_research_paper_Variations_across_disciplinary_courses?el=1_x_8&enrichId=rgreq-31af4373-941b-4146-b3e6-2cf7eb9c21da&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzI1ODAyODI5MztBUzo5ODUzNTA0NzQzNDI0OEAxNDAwNTAzOTk0NjI4

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222285227_Coming_back_to_voice_The_multiple_voices_and_identities_of_mature_multilingual_writers?el=1_x_8&enrichId=rgreq-31af4373-941b-4146-b3e6-2cf7eb9c21da&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzI1ODAyODI5MztBUzo5ODUzNTA0NzQzNDI0OEAxNDAwNTAzOTk0NjI4


and weaknesses. A detailed analysis and juxtaposition of these approaches is beyond the scope of this work. Moreover, the purpose here is not to critically review these approaches and to react to them. It is to outline them so that readers can macroscopically see what has been happening in the field of L2 writing.

Central Dimensions Addressed in L2 Writing Research and Instruction

Acquiring the writing skill in a L2 to the standards currently expected of learners in the age of information communication technologies and to the levels expected in academic circles like institutions of higher education is acquiring a multidimensional skill. The first task of every L2 writing teacher is, therefore, to answer the question of what these dimensions of the writing skill are and what possible classroom techniques may help learners develop each of these dimensions of writing. According to Hyland (2003), L2 writers need to develop content knowledge, system knowledge, process knowledge, genre knowledge, and context knowledge to be able to write effectively. A good syllabus for a L2 writing course would, therefore, be one that offers pedagogical opportunities for the development of all of these types of knowledge. No matter how deeply it may be gained, a full knowledge of one particular type acquired throughout a course (i.e., content, system, process, genre, or context knowledge), will not lead to success in L2 writing. To enable students to write effectively, L2 writing teachers have focused on one or more dimensions of writing. They have hardly been able to approach the teaching of L2 writing multidimensionally. As Hyland (2003) explained the dimensions of language structure, text function, themes, topics, creative expression, composing processes, content, genre, and context of writing are the main dimensions of writing that have attracted the attention of L2 writing teachers and researchers.

Techniques for Developing Dimensions of L2 Writing Developed based on the work of Hyland (2003), Raimes (1991) and more recent work on CALL (Computer

Assissted Language Learning), Table 2 summarizes the main dimensions focused on in teaching and researching L2 writing. As Raimes (1991) has mentioned the form, the writer, the content, and the reader of L2 writers’ written works have been the focal points of teachers’ and researchers’ work on L2 writing in the history of the development of approaches to L2 writing. Table 2 also enumerates some example classroom techniques that L2 writing teachers have employed to train learners in each dimension. L2 writing teachers can add example techniques from their own repertoires to see if they are focusing on different dimensions of writing in a balanced way.

Table 2 Dimensions Considered in Teaching and Researching L2 Writing

Dimension Example techniques Language structures controlled composition, gap-filling, and substitution Text functions narration, description, argumentation, and exposition Themes, topics chronology, cause, effect, comparison, contrast, classification, etc. Creative expression reading for writing, pre-writing, journal writing

Composing processes brainstorming, planning, multiple drafting, peer collaboration, giving feedback, delayed editing, portfolio assessment

Content extensive and intensive reading, group research projects, and cooperative learning

Genres and contexts contextualizing, modeling, negotiating, construction cycle, rhetoric, consciousness-raising, analyzing moves

Computers and network use use of e-mails, blogs, online journals, lists, podcasts, software, etc.




Emphases on these dimensions have resulted from changes in perspectives in language teaching. Focus on “language structures” in L2 writing is the consequence of the influences of the behavioristic psychology and the structural linguistics of the 1960s (Silva, 1990). Grammatical accuracy in writing is practiced through techniques like controlled composition, gap-filling and substitution. No overt attention to important aspects of good writing like context, function, content and purpose is evident in this dimension. Focus on “text functions” is the result of work on rhetorical organizations (Kaplan, 1966). Text organization patterns like narration, description, argumentation and exposition are practiced through techniques like imitation of parallel texts, writing from tables and graphs production of paragraphs with clear topic sentences, supports and conclusions. Here again, purposes, contexts, personal experiences of the writer, and many other features of good writing are ignored. Focus on themes and topics to develop written pieces based on rhetorical formats like chronology, cause, effect, comparison, contrast, classification, etc., is also the main focus of many writing classes.

Focus on the dimension of “creative expression”, unlike the above dimensions, shifts the attention of the teachers, researches and students from the written text to the writer himself (Elbow, 1991). Techniques like reading for writing, pre-writing, journal writing, multiple drafting, and peer critiques are the main ones when focusing on this dimension. A neglect of the cultural background of learners, social consequences of writing and the purposes of communication, according to Hyland (2003), can be mentioned as the main drawbacks of focusing on this dimension. Emphasis on the cognitive nature of language learning has led to a focus on “composing processes” where cognitive processes are central to L2 writing activities. Influenced by Flower and Hayes (1981), the original planning-writing-reviewing model has led to techniques like brainstorming, planning, multiple drafting, peer collaboration, giving feedback, delayed editing, portfolio assessment and similar techniques when focusing on this dimension. Difficulties of getting inside writers’ heads to explore and strengthen mental processes and the nonlinearity of the act of writing are the main hurdles in focusing on this dimension.

Finally, content-based instruction has led L2 writing teachers to focus on the “content of writing”. Work on the importance of schemata has led to an emphasis on the subject matter resulting in pedagogic techniques like extensive and intensive reading, group research projects and cooperative learning (Hyland, 2003). Pedagogic techniques in teaching L2 writing like contextualizing, modeling, negotiating, construction cycle, rhetoric consciousness-raising, analyzing moves, and matching moves and linguistic realizations are the ones writing teachers use when they focus on “genres and contexts”.

Discussion and Conclusions

The outline of the history of L2 writing research presented above indicates that different theoretical perspectives and parent disciplines have informed research and instruction in L2 writing. History has shown that these approaches emerge, develop into alternative forms and reappear to help researchers explore the L2 written product, the L2 writer, the L2 content, and the reader of the L2 text. The social dimensions of L2 writing have not been emphasized in the earlier approaches and the social dimensions of the L2 writer himself/herself have received the least amount of emphasis so far. Syllabi for L2 writing should strive to present a balanced combination of the sub-skills that make the writing skill based on the literature. How these varied approaches, methods and dimensions may be reconciled or how much of the truth about L2 writing lies in each or in all of these, is yet to be uncovered and explained in the relatively new field of L2 writing. Evidently, unidirectional


research looking at only some of these areas will not allow for a clear picture of the products and processes of L2 writing. It can also be counterproductive for L2 teachers to focus on the development of a particular dimension of L2 writing following a particular approach. The present work has presented a general overview of what has been going on in L2 writing research and instruction to illustrate that: (1) There are different theoretical perspectives and parent disciplines that contribute to the understanding, researching and teaching of L2 writing; (2) History has shown the emergence and reappearance of different approaches for the exploration and teaching of L2 writing that focus on different dimensions of writing; (3) The areas of focus in writing research and instruction have been varied and included the product, the writer, the content and the reader in different period of the history of scholarly work on L2 writing; (4) Social considerations in terms of the text, the reader, and the processes involved in L2 writing have been reflected in the history of research; and (5) Only recently have scholars highlighted the significance of the social identity of the L2 writer and social factors affecting the L2 learner in his/her writing processes and products need further attention in research and instruction.

In developing L2 writing skill, teacher should bear in mind that all dimensions of writing are social. It is not only the language or the conventionalized discourse of a specific type that is social. The construction and the constructor of the L2 written texts are also social in very significant ways. Teaching L2 writing is teaching social individuals using socially-mediated processes to produce socially-meaningful texts for socially-aligned audiences. This means that different kinds of knowledge need to be communicated to L2 writers when they attempt to learn different types of writing. Hyland (2003) mentioned five kinds of knowledge (content, system, process, genre, and context knowledge) necessary for the creation of effective texts by L2 and EFL (English as a Foreign Language) writers. Similarly, Grabe and Kaplan’s (1996) listed dimensions of the setting, purpose, content, intended audience, and reader of the text, the general expectations and conventions for the text, the background knowledge necessary

for the text, and the relationship between the text and other genres. These are the dimensions that should also be considered when L2 writing becomes the independent or dependent variable of a research study.

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N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.


Training Learning Strategies to Develop Listening

Comprehension in Interpretation for Non-English Majors∗

YU Jun-ling, TAO Yu University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai, China

This study intends to examine the problems that affect non-English majors in listening comprehension and in

interpretation, and the potential factors that could influence their listening achievements, and puts forwards some

possible solutions for the improvement in terms of the relationship between learning strategies and listening

comprehension. An interview as a guide and a close-ended questionnaire were administered to 30 students of

non-English majors who had chosen the optional course for interpretation in the University of Shanghai for Science

and Technology. Findings provide evidence that we could and should train L2 (second language) learners strategies

to gain language competence.

Keywords: interpretation, listening comprehension, learning strategies

Introduction

Listening is an extremely important stage in communication especially in interpretation. During the L2 (second language) teaching and learning, the ultimate goal is to train students’ skills on listening, speaking, reading, and writing, among which listening and speaking is the most important and difficult. Especially for listening, it is one of the goals of L2 teaching and learning as a competence, it is also an inevitable road to master L2 as a tool of learning. Moreover, with the reform and opening-up policy and the development of the economy in China, international communication in terms of economics, politics and culture plays a more and more important role. Language as a tool for communication is essential for students in China to master it and learn how to use it. However, listening comprehension has been a big headache for Chinese students even English majors because most of them are from a grammar-translation method and book-based culture and educational background. Thus, this study is to find out problems in listening comprehension and to provide some solutions.

Literature Review

The research on learning strategies for SAL (Second Language Acquisition) began in the 1970s. In 1975, Rubin published her article “What Good Learners Could Teach Us” in TESOL Quarterly and summarized seven

∗ Acknowledgements: This research was funded by the project The Practice and Research on Interpretation Teaching, sponsored by Chinese Foreign Language Education Fund (Research Grant No. ZGWYJYJJ2010A25) and the project The Research on Business Interpretation Teaching Mode sponsored by Social Science Fund of University of Shanghai for Science and Technology (Research Grant No. 11XSY 17).

YU Jun-ling, MEd, lecturer of Department of Foreign Languages, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology. TAO Yu, lecturer of Department of Foreign Languages, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology.

TRAINING LEARNING STRATEGIES 566

strategies of good language learners. Since then, learning strategies for L2 have become a hot issue in the field of applied linguistics. In the past, on one hand, all the teaching methods such as audio-lingual method and audio-visual method in the 1960s, cognitive approach and communicative approach in the 1970s, silent method, and response method recently could not achieve satisfactory effects. The researchers suggested that it was natural for the failure of all the teaching methods because we only attached importance to teaching not to learning, emphasized teachers not students themselves. On the other hand, the renewal of knowledge posed the challenge for education. Students could not only learn what to learn, but also should learn how to learn. Once students know how to learn, they could learn any new knowledge and new techniques and face the new challenge. Those were the reasons why the researchers shifted the center of study from what to learn to how to learn and from teaching to learning. Those were also the reasons why learning strategies came into being and were developed.

As for the definition of learning strategies, different researchers such as Stern (1983), Rubin (1987), Oxford (1989), O’Malley and Chamot (1990, p. 43) gave different ones. In summary, learning strategies refer to how the learner accumulates new L2 rules and automatizes existing ones by attending to input and by simplifying through the use of existing knowledge (Ellis, 1985). They are used to process, store and retrieve the “input” (Brown, 1987).

O’Malley and Chamot (1990) classified learner’s strategies into three main categories according to the theory of information processing: Metacognitive strategies, which are used for evaluating, managing and monitoring the use of cognitive strategies; cognitive strategies, which refer to specific learning tasks and involve more direct manipulation of the learning material itself such as resourcing repetition, keyword method, elaboration, transfer, etc.; social mediation, which are supplying more chances for L2 learners to contact language, including questions for clarification and cooperation. Oxford (1990) classified leaning strategies into direct and indirect strategies according to the relationship between strategies and language materials. Cohen (1990) classified learning strategies into language learning strategies and language using strategies according to the goal of strategies.

Since 1980s, the research of learning strategies has shifted to the study of relationship between application of strategies and language learning proficiency. According to many researchers such as Oxford (1990), O’Malley and Chamot (1990), etc., through experiments, the use of language learning strategies is related to increased language achievement and proficiency. Learning strategies play an active and important role in L2 learning.

Participants

The participants in this study were 30 students of non-English majors who had chosen the optional course for interpretation in the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology during the 2011 spring semester. They were from different municipalities directly under the central government. Those 30 students aged from 17 to 20 with the average being 19 years old, including 13 males and 17 females. They are from different departments and grades and formed an optional class for interpretation. All participants experienced the college entrance examination. They had few listening training during middle school and high school. They received their secondary education when the grammar-translation teaching method was the trend. Some of the students are from remote places and they only began to have listening courses when they became college students in the university.

Methods

The instruments in gathering information in this study were a student interview as a guide, which contained


questions on the difficulties in listening comprehension during SLA, daily communication and interpretation. Then, the questionnaire based on the result of the student interview guide, including 18 factors affecting listening comprehension including general intelligence, practice opportunities, educational level, etc., was for students to pick out six most important factors affecting their listening proficiency.

Objectives

The primary of this study is to investigate the subject’s learning process and to teach some focused learning strategies and try to answer these research questions: (1) What are the problems for subjects? (2) How do the problems affect subjects’ listening proficiency? And (3) What can be done to solve all those problems? To be exactly, how to use learning strategies to develop listening comprehension?

Procedures

Qualitative investigation of the subjects was designed as a conversational interview with some open-ended questions such as “Do you have any problems in listening comprehension in interpretation?”, “What do you think are the most difficult problems in listening comprehension in interpretation?”, between one interviewer and all the subjects and it lasted 20 minutes during one period of listening course.

The questionnaire of 18 problems based on interview which were all in English, was written on the blackboard for students to choose six most influential factors for the rest 25 minutes.

The data including the numbers of the students in different items, the percentage and the sequence were counted and worked out by the researcher.

Results

The problems found emerging during listening comprehension for subjects are shown in Table 1.

Analysis of the Data According to the results of this study, the problems for subjects are all about the internal factors and external

factors affecting listening comprehension. The six most influential problems for subjects are accordingly vocabulary, pronunciation, speed, ability to

attend and concentration, culture knowledge, and educational level and background. For listeners’ limited vocabulary, it is the biggest obstacle in listening. On one hand, for non-English majors,

they lack of vocabulary on a whole. On the other hand, the lack of vocabulary for listening should arouse much more attention; we usually define vocabulary in reading, while listening vocabulary which means knowing meaning only by listening is not the same with reading vocabulary. They tend to regard all the words they could not understand through listening as new words. In fact, some words students regard as new words are from some external factors such as pronunciation, speed rhythm, tone and intonation.

Choice of vocabulary is in the hands of the speaker not the listener. The listener has to do the best he/she can to follow. Sometimes, the listener can deduce the meaning of a word from its context. This naturally and frequently occurs in native language listening when a word is not understood or not heard clearly. For people listening to a foreign language, an unknown word can be likely dropped barrier causing them to stop and think about the meaning and thus making them miss the next part of the speech. It is believed that this tendency to stop


listening and concentrating on the immediate problem often results, when learners have been taught their English in a way which has given more emphasis to accuracy than fluency and which has been more concerned with mastery of the forms rather than with how it is used. This style of teaching leads students to follow and focus on language word by word, which is called bottom-up strategy, while according to O’Malley and Chamot (1990), effective learners often used top-down strategy in listening comprehension.

Table 1 The Problems Found Emerging During Listening Comprehension

Items Students’ numbers of choosing

Percentage of choosing (%) Sequence

Memory 18 60.0 Familiarity with topic/subject matter 17 56.7 Note-taking ability 17 56.7 Interference from mother tongue 16 53.3 Ability to distinguish between main and supporting points 18 60.0 Attitude to speaker 8 26.7 Motivation 7 23.3 Knowledge of speaker 10 33.3 Vocabulary 27 90.0 1 Culture knowledge 20 66.7 5 Speed 23 76.7 3 Pronunciation 24 80.0 2 Background information 12 40.0 Listening and practice opportunities 18 60.0 General intelligence 11 36.7 Educational level and background 19 63.3 6 General ability in English 18 60.0 Ability to attend and concentrate 21 70.0 4

Pronunciation, including natural rhythm, intonation, accent, some overlap between speakers including interruptions, normal rate of delivery, relatively unstructured language, incomplete sentences, hesitations, background noises and voices, and natural starts and stops, is the second obstacle in listening. The reason is students are not used to listening to the authentic spoken English which means English produced in response to real life communicative needs rather than as an imitation of real life communicative needs.

Speed is the third problem. Many English language learners believe that the greatest difficulty with listening comprehension, compared with reading comprehension, is that the listener cannot control how quickly a speaker speaks. They feel that the utterances disappear before they can understand or sort them out from the brain. They are so busy working out the meaning of every word individually because they firmly believe that if they listen to every word and remember every word they could understand everything. Indeed, determination to listen to what is coming and letting things that have passed go rather than hesitating, often gives surprisingly good results. Especially speakers often say things more than once, or rephrase them, or another speaker’s words will explain what has been said. Professor H. H. Stern (1983) said that the good language learner is the one who can tolerate vagueness and incompleteness of knowledge. This is especially the case for good listeners.


The inability to attend and concentrate could be caused by a number of things. Even the shortest break in attention can seriously impair comprehension. If students find the topic interesting they will concentrate easier, while sometimes even when the topic is interesting, students still find exhausting when listening, because they make a great effort to follow what they hear word by word. Outside factors may well make concentration difficult too. If recorded material is being used, an inferior machine or poor recording can make it very hard for students.

Sharing common meanings and assumptions makes communication concerning culture background possible. Students who are unfamiliar with the culture and context may have considerable difficulty in understanding and interpreting the words they hear even if they know the surface meaning. Therefore, culture introduction, inducing customs, way of thinking, psychological culture, history, etc., is essential for listening comprehension.

The most important factor affecting subjects’ listening proficiency is educational level and background. The subjects are non-English majors who are from different departments, majors and areas. They are often in a complicated state. Some of them have a sense of “loss” for failing to enter university and feel inferior to university students. Besides, most of them were majoring in science and technology, so their English foundation is rather weak. That is the reason why they pay much attention to educational level and background. As for this factor, the teacher can explain the frustrations that may accompany attempts to comprehend the spoken L2. We need to build up students’ confidence in their own ability.

Solution What can be done to solve all those problems? How to use strategies to develop listening comprehension? For all those factors affecting subjects’ listening proficiency, most of them are caused by bottom-up strategy.

That is, in the process of comprehension, listeners may make use of an external source—the incoming language data itself and construct meanings by proceeding from the smallest units of language to the largest ones. This strategy processing focuses on sounds, words, grammatical structures and other components of speech. However, listeners cannot control the speed of acoustic input, if they only use bottom-up strategy, they will find listening difficult because it may overload and break down memory. Thus top-down strategy should be encouraged. It means on the basis of listener’s real word knowledge, listeners make predictions and inferences, confirm them when language data comes in and make new predictions and inferences. It focuses on the activation of schemata and on global understanding and interpretation of a text. According to O’Malley and Chamot (1990), good language learners often used top-down strategy in listening comprehension.

Besides, other listening strategies should be trained, inducing the following points:

Self-monitoring which means checking one’s listening comprehension or production while it is taking place; selective attention which means deciding in advance to attend to specific aspects of language input or situational details that will cue the retention of language input; elaboration which refers to relating new information to other concepts in memory; inferencing which means using available information to guess meanings of new items predict outcomes, or fill in missing information; note-taking which refers to writing down the main idea, important points and outline or summary of information presented orally or writing. (O’Malley & Chamot, 1990)

In addition, teachers need to expose students to a range of listening experiences. This can be done by using a lot of different listening materials such as stories, conversations, descriptive talks, etc., which incorporate a variety of language no matter formal or informal, spoken by native speakers or foreign speakers, delivered slowly or quickly. All those could make students familiarized with real and natural listening material, thus, to some


extend, problems like pronunciation, speed, culture, etc., could be no problems any longer. Then, we need to establish students’ learning habits. Traditionally, teachers have aimed to teach their

students to understand everything in the English lesson, and have gone to some trouble to ensure what they are listening by repeating and pronouncing word by word carefully and by speaking slowly and pausing frequently. That is the reason why students are worried if they fail to understand a single word or phrase and become discouraged and frustrated by failure of listening. Therefore, we need to train students to listen as a whole. Students need to listen to language in a continuous conversational exchange in which previously learned materials are recombined in different contexts.

In short, the students should be trained focused listening strategies and need practice in listening to L2 in communicative contexts so they can use their language ears to listen to the rhythm and sounds of the language. They need to be made aware of many aspects of “vocalic communication” and be provided sufficient experience so that they can anticipate and expect “what is going on next”.

Conclusions

This study has found out some main problems, which affect non-English majors’ listening proficiency. It has put forwards some learning strategies for solution.

If we do so, the strategies will enhance students’ listening comprehension, especially for non-English majors who are majoring science and technology. For L2 teachers, they need to do more research on learning strategies, especially different learning strategies used by good language learners and poor language learners to find the best learning strategies.

References Anderson, A., & Lynch, T. (1988). Listening. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Brown, H. D. (1987). Principles of language learning and teaching. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Chamot, A. U., & McKeon, D. (1984). Second language teaching. Rosslyn, V.A.: National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education. Chamot, A. U., O’Malley, J. M., & Kupper, L. (1992). Building bridges: Content and learning strategies for ESL (Books 1, 2, 3).

Boston, M.A.: Heinle & Heinle. Cohen, A. (1990). Language learning: Insights for learners, teachers, and besearchers. New York: Newbury House. Littlewood, W. (1990). Foreign and L2 learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. O’Malley, J. M., & Chamot, A. U. (1990). Learning strategies in second language acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press. O’Malley, J. M., Chamot, A. U., & Kupper, L. (1989). Listening comprehension strategies in second language acquistion. Applied

linguistics, 10(4), 418-437. Oxford, R. L. (1989). Use of language learning strategies: A synthesis of studies with implications for strategy training. System,

17(2), 235-47. Oxford, R. L. (1990). Language learning strategies: What every teacher should know. New York: Newbury House. Rubin, J. (1975). What the good language learner can teach us. TESOL Quarterly, 9, 41-51. Rubin, J. (1987). Learner strategies: Theoretical assumptions, research history and typology. In A. Wenden & J. Rubin (Eds.),

Learner strategies in language learning. Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall. Stern, H. H. (1983). Fundamental concepts of language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.


The Influence of Communicative Teacher Talk on College

Students’ Interlanguage∗

QU Ying Harbin Engineering University, Harbin, China

In the process of L2 (second language) learning, students tend to meet the problem of interlanguage—a transitional

language system existing between target language and learners’ mother tongue, which will severely affect students’

image of language. Teacher talk as a special language closely related to students’ English learning, exerts

unignorable influence on students’ interlanguage. This paper will start from the analyzing four types of teacher talk,

and go further to deal with the relationship of communicativeness in teacher talk and interlanguae. Then it ends by

proposing some points that teacher talk should note.

Keywords: interlanguage, teacher talk, communicativeness

Introduction

What will you respond when you hear someone greeting you by saying “Good morning, teacher!”, or arguing with you by using sentence pattern like “You drink more, you feel more excited.”? If you are used to language like that and are using them on a daily basis, then unfortunately, you are confronted by the problem of interlanguage.

The concept of interlanguage was raised up by American applied linguist Larry Selinker (1972): “In a given situation the utterances produced by the learner are different from those native speakers would produce had they attempted to convey the same meaning” (p. 229). It refers to a kind of transitional language system, which exists between mother tongue and target language, and is approaching towards the target language gradually. Most Chinese learners know well by heart almost all the grammatical rules in English, and they can do quite good job in both reading and writing, but when it comes to speaking, the errors accompany them all the time. If the errors are not dealt with in time, they will fossilize (i.e., become permanent part of speaker’s language system). One reason that fossilized interlanguage emerges more often in spoken language is when in a discourse, the period of language formation in brain is relatively short, and no matter how good the level of learners’ grasp of language knowledge is, when confronted with stressful situation, they tend to repeatedly utter some wrong patterns, which are usually implanted with the structure of their mother tongue. Needless to say, the harm done by fossilization of students’ interlanguage is tremendous: The speaker of such language can barely improve his/her proficiency in spoken English, and will thus be easily recognized as beginners by native speakers. In consideration of that, this ∗ Acknowledgement: This research is supported by the project “The Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities” (No. HEUCF111201).

QU Ying, lecturer of English Department of Harbin Engineering University.

THE INFLUENCE OF COMMUNICATIVE TEACHER TALK 572

paper will propose some ideas about the influence of teacher talk on college students’ interlanguage.

Four Types of Teacher Talk

Teacher talk refers to the specific language used by language teachers to organize classroom activities. Its special function results in the difference from the natural language in speed, tone, diction, syntax as well as speech structure, which will exert influence to the students’ acquisition of language. It aims to make the class activities run smoothly and thus the following four types are commonly observed in class activities:

Informative Teacher Talk It means that teachers deliver their opinion, fact as well as some concepts through their words, and students

process the information by their brain to absorb it as an innate part of their knowledge system. Too simple teacher talk cannot trigger students’ desire to learn, or affect students’ old language schemata, thus students will not build up new one in mind, which means that their language system cannot be further developed. However, too complicated teacher talk will impose on students great difficulties to comprehend. According to Krashen, there is only one way to acquire language, which is, starting from comprehending the input language, and then getting immersed in comprehensible input language context (“i + 1”, i.e., the comprehensible input language should be a little above the current language level or the capability of language learner) (Marina, 2005, p. 15). Either too simple or too complicated teacher talk will not fulfill that task. In traditional language class, English teacher plays a role of the lecturer, which usually results in a kind of over formal and incommunicative teacher talk.

Directive Teacher Talk An indispensable function of teacher talk is to direct the activities running in the classroom, needless to say,

the accurate application of directive language can render the teaching efficient and effective. It is commonly observed in the following four conditions: (1) To suggest, or to urge students to think about or answer certain questions, and so on, for example, “Maybe you can use the sentence patterns we learned in previous class.”; (2) To initiate some activities. Example is like “Now work in pairs, discuss the news.”; (3) To switch to another topic: “That’s enough, now let’s move on to the next chapter.”; and (4) To maintain the order of the classroom, or to call the attention of students back to the current content of the class. Sentence like “Your attention, please!” is most frequently used. Generally speaking, directive teacher talk is both essential and simple, which makes it easy to handle.

Eliciting Teacher Talk The eliciting teacher talk aims to inspire students, and further obtain their answer in class. In current

classroom teaching, the top priority is usually to fulfill the teaching schedule, thus, the informative language occupies the main part of language, while the design and use of eliciting language is largely ignored. Even when some eliciting questions are put forward, owing to either too simple or too predictable nature of those questions, the good answer cannot be always triggered.

Feedback to Students’ Answer The way teachers respond to students’ answer is not as simple as it appears to be. An proper feedback from

teacher can enhance students’ confidence and imitativeness, however, some negative and straightforward ones will only frustrate students and make them feel a loss of face. Thus, the positive commenting words like


“Wonderful!”, “Marvelous!”, “Terrific!”, and “You’re great!”, are highly recommended for teachers, while some teacher talk can be both a blow to students and a demeaning of teacher’s image, such as “Are you retarded?”, “How come you fail to answer such a simple question!”, “You cannot follow me?”, and “Just sleep in the class, but try not to make any noise.”. It is easy to imagine the consequence brought about by such language: Students will tie their tongue, thereafter shut down the communicating door with the teacher; some may even totally lose the interest in the target language, and their interlanguage will fossilize.

Among the above division of four types of teacher talk, the communicative aspect of language is mostly embodied in eliciting teacher talk and feedback. By talking about the communicativeness, it means, in this paper, the talk which can initiate the exchanging of ideas and concepts and can imitate the real life talk to the largest degree. The communicative language teaching can largely activate the class atmosphere, so it is more and more emphasized in current English classes. However, it is still questionable that it is all of benefits to students’ interlanguage.

Communicativeness Vs. Interlanguage

According to Cullen (1997), “In the era of communicative language teaching, analyses of teacher talk typically focus on the characteristics that make, or fail to make such talk ‘communicative’” (p. 179). However, in the perspective of defossilizing interlanguage, it seems that the priority and focus of communicativeness can sometimes become a hindrance to the improvement of the students’ language quality. Its negative influence can show in the following aspects.

Sheer Focus on Communicativeness Ensures the Flow of the Talk While Sacrificing the Accuracy of Language

Almost all the English teachers ever experienced such a dilemma: To interrupt students on the spot and correct their errors or save all of them for later. Undoubtedly, more and more people begin to oppose the former practice because it will disrupt students’ logic train and initiative, even make some students feel “losing face”. As to the latter method, it is totally feasible for some students with good English competence, who make fewer mistakes and whose mistakes can be easily summed up. However, for most students in engineering major, English is usually their weakest subject, and the more they talk, the more errors are involved, which run from their pronunciation to grammar, and from Chinglish to a mix talk of Chinese with English. It will be a challenging task for teachers to store all these errors in mind, process the content of students’ account and comment on what they have said all at the same time. Most probable situation is, most errors are let go or ignored, and the focus of both teacher and students are put on the communicative aspect of language, or the content of language rather than the language itself.

Sheer Focus on Communicativeness Encourages Free Expression While Resulting in “Instant English Sentence Patterns”

To realize the goal of communicativeness in the context of English class, the teachers should allow as much room as possible to students’ free expression to make sure students have exhausted their ideas. Free talk can fully motivate students and improve classroom atmosphere to a great degree. However, this practice has a problem, especially in Chinese language learning classroom, which is, when students get encouraged or excited, they


usually become very eager to give whole account of their stories, which are sometimes long-winded and sometimes lacking in logic and pointless. What is more, their fasting running brain has little time to process language, thus, a lot of “instant English sentence patterns” in Chinese structure are produced. For example, the word “let” is usually correspondingly matched with a Chinese word “让” (pronounced as [ràng], which covers a

wide range of meanings), and the instant patterns with “let” can be heard a lot in free expression, such as “My mother lets (asks) me call back.” and “The doctor lets (advises) me stay in bed for three days.”. The result of such free expression is: The expression desire of students are thoroughly satisfied, while the main task of the class-language is not improved at all, and on the contrary, some interlanguage patterns are used, heard and even reinforced by the whole class.

Sheer Focus on Communicativeness May Lead to Overgeneralization In order to talk more fluently, students are easily tempted to use a form of language with less sophisticated

rules than target language. The fact that they can achieve equivalent communicating effect wtih less effort exerted further encourages them to overgeneralize the language. The overgeneralization may range from vocabulary to the grammatical rules. For example, they may overuse the word “good” in all kinds of positive expressions, and create many sentences like “My father is a very good person.”, “My health is good.”, “His appearence is good.”, and so on. Some students may apply the past tense “-ed” form to all the verbs, regularly, or irregularly, producing sentences with incorrect verb forms like “Last year, he teached us English.” and “He eated the apple.”. It can be easily predicted that if a language learner has resorted to overgeneralization as a solution in his communication, little progress will be made in his language learning.

Sheer Focus on Communicativeness Results in the Formation of Interlanguage Since both teachers and students put the focus on communicativeness, even when students are using some

nonstandard language patterns, teacher’s indulgence or delayed interference will give them an implicit agreement which will results in their repeated use of similar patterns in future time. It is when interlanguage comes into shape, and if the situation goes on, with the repeated reinforcement of such interlanguage, the fossilization will take place.

The Three Things Teacher Talk Needs to Note

Does that mean communicativeness in the L2 classroom should be absolutely abandoned and a kind of “fake conversation”, which is awkward and broken owing to teacher’s constant interference, should be allowed to go on instead? The answer is no and yes. No, because, undoubtedly, an important characteristic of teacher talk is its communicativeness, which is crucial to making the class run smoothly. But if it is the whole story, then the teacher will be just called an interlocutor, who can contribute new line of thought rather than offer the language modifying information. So, yes, the conversation in language class has to be broken and teacher needs to cut in on students’ narration time and time again, not only to help with topic transition but to suggest more reasonable sentence patterns. By doing so, some other things of teacher talk need to note included.

Improving the Quality of Teacher Talk In class, students will naturally imitate and absorb the sentence patterns that language teacher uses. If the

teacher is speaking a substandard language on a daily basis, then it is almost impossible to expect any


breakthrough from his/her students’ part. This improvement of quality should be embodied both on the language itself and on the way of thinking. Let us take the interjection “what” as an example. The following is a pretty common scene on English class: Student A has just said something unclearly, and teacher asks in puzzle: “What?!”. Then the student repeats his/her idea. This seemingly normal conversation actually contains a big cultural problem. “What” in Western culture is a quite strong and rude word, and it is usually used when the user feels greatly surprised or irritated. In some situation, it may implicate the beginning of the clashes: “What? What’s your problem? What’s wrong with you?”. In view of that, the other options like “I beg your pardon? Pardon? Pardon me?” should be more reasonable choices in above-mentioned context. Only when language teachers have uplifted their proficiency level to both aspects of language structure and native-like way of thinking, can their students become good cross-cultural learners.

Encouraging Rather Than Shutting Up Students When and how to cut in on students’ talk sometimes can bring about quite different results. An abrupt

interruption will damp students talking mood, and after the teacher’s correction, the talk cannot be kept up. And improper way of cutting in will do more severe damage to students’ initiative. Some body language can be used as cushion to the interruption. For example, through exaggerated frowning and eye contact, teacher can give the student a psychological preparation for the following correction. During the correcting, avoid using very absolute and blunt denial as “No. You are wrong. You cannot.” and so on. Instead, try to be gentle and encouraging, and phrases like “You’d better…”, “You may try…” and “Why not…” would be more preferable.

Differentiating Students With Different Personalities It is very commonly seen in a language classroom that some outgoing students occupy most of time in class

by their active participation and endless talking; while some introverted students would rather listen silently. In consideration of that, teacher should think about more evenly distributing of class time among students. Firstly, students’ personality and language level should be taken into consideration of disposition of questions, which should include degree of difficulty, order of answering as well as whether preparation is needed. Secondly, teacher talk should not just be the voice-over, instead, it should play the role of guide and supporter, that is to say, when students exhaust their word stock or when their vocabulary comes to a dead end, teacher should cut in with the “right word” for reference or infuse new content or new angle. In a discussion, teacher should roughly regulate the general direction when talkative students have run too far away, drag them back or “repress” them a little, then throw the question to silent students. In a debate, teacher can even form a temporary alliance with the “weaker” students and fight together with them against aggressive ones. In one word, it is essential to differentiating students with different personalities and then dealing with them accordingly.

Balancing Between Communicativeness and Modifying Function In fact, few language teachers are obsessed with the question of whether to interfere with the errors in

student talk or let them go all the time. What they usually do in class is, listening with attentiveness, assessing and storing improper places, then commenting. Somehow, in the process, they are abiding by some implicit rules actually. Firstly, do not interrupt a student with ongoing train of thought, and cut in on him/her only when he/she has come to a short break. Secondly, do not interrupt an introverted student until he/she has exhausted his/her ideas. Thirdly, do not deny students’ ideas so long as they are not too far-fetched or absurd.


In traditional English class, the teachers dominate most of the time in class, which surely will do no good to students’ spoken language. To make the class communicative, language teachers should change their role and build up students-oriented class atmosphere, but in the meantime, they should avoid the students’ dominance, which usually leads to a seemingly merry but actually ineffective class.

Conclusions

Before students have been a master of the L2, to produce the creative ideas should not be the foremost task in the era of L2 class. As a Chinese proverb goes, “The old wine is contained in a new bottle”, which means the idea or method lacks originality. The old wine stands for our outlook towards the world; new bottle represents the L2. Here we can just reinterpret it this way, if the new bottle is not polished yet, there is no time and ground to be picky with old wine. Only when the condition ripens, that is to say, the expression in the L2 becomes nearly as effortless as that in mother tongue, we can see the necessity of cultivating fresh ideas for the sake of promoting students innovative mind. It does not mean that communicative teacher talk should be abandoned, because it is indeed both essential and beneficial in language class circumstances. However, what teachers should do is to rein the communicativeness a little without letting the free idea exchanging go too far-fetched, and implant the target language pattern in students schemata by language immersing and modifying. By doing so, it will contribute greatly to defossilizing students interlanguage. Of course, the sources of interlanguage are diversified, which include influence of structure of mother language, studying strategy of learners, and so on, and that caused by teacher talk is only a small edge of the iceberg, so we still have a long road to go.

References Cullen, R. (1997). Teacher talk and the classroom context. Oxford Journals, Humanities, ELT Journal, 52(3), 179-187. Marina, D. (2005). Artificial intelligence in second language learning—Raising error awareness. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters

Ltd.. Selinker, L. (1972). Interlanguage. International Review of Applied Linguistics, 10, 209-241. Tarone, E. (2001). Interlanguage. In R. Mesthrie (Ed.), Concise encyclopedia of sociolinguistics. Oxford: Elsevier Science.


The Role of Non-verbal Behavior of Teachers in Providing

Students Corrective Feedback and Their Consequences

Emre Guvendir University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, USA

Considering the primary focus of corrective feedback literature on verbal-correction provided by teachers and lack

of attention to the role of other forms of corrective feedback in FL (foreign language) classroom interaction, this

paper demonstrates how essential teachers’ non-verbal communication and stance display are in making students’

errors noticeable for them by providing samples from videotaped data. The findings in this study provide insights

into the use of non-verbal behavior in providing students with corrective feedback. This study shows that research

dealing only with verbal corrections provided by FL teachers cannot fully define the classroom interaction in terms

of teachers’ use of error correction techniques and student notification and uptake.

Keywords: corrective feedback, verbal communication, non-verbal communication, student noticing

Introduction Corrective feedback has been a matter of major concern for SLA (Second Language Acquisition) research

for many years. Numerous topics have been studied from multiple perspectives by researchers to date. For example, research has been conducted on feedback types and learner uptake (Lyster & Ranta, 1997; Lyster, 1998, 2001; Panova & Lyster, 2002; Ohta, 2000; Nabei & Swain, 2002; Mackey & Philip, 1998; HAN, 2002; Ferris & Roberts, 2001; Chandler, 2003), the relationship between feedback and student noticing (Mackey, Gass, & McDonough, 2000; Philp, 2003; Mackey, 2006), cultural differences in teachers’ and students’ ideas about error correction (Schulz, 2001), fine-tuning and corrective feedback (HAN, 2001), teacher beliefs and classroom applications (Oskoz & Liskin-Gasparro, 2002), error correction and classroom affect (Magilow, 1999), comprehensible input (Krashen, 1981, 1982, 1985; Long, 1981), and pushed output (Swain, 1985, 1995; Nobuyoshi & Ellis, 1993). Corrective feedback represents a noteworthy aspect of SLA since these studies demonstrate that it directly influences students’ linguistic development.

In the feedback literature, the source of correction most often considered is teachers, which coincides with Krashen and Terrell’s (1983) claim that teachers are primary sources of linguistic feedback for students. Nevertheless, when the studies dealing with the feedback strategies used by teachers are examined, it is clear that the primary concern is teachers’ verbal performance; the role of their non-verbal behavior in providing feedback has been minimized.

This generalization also applies to FL (foreign language) studies. As Allen (2000) stated, “systematic observational studies conducted in FL classes over the past three decades have focused almost exclusively on verbal behavior” (p. 156). However, focusing on teachers’ verbal performances and isolating the embodied

Emre Guvendir, Ph.D. at Department of Applied Linguistics, University of California Los Angeles.

THE ROLE OF NON-VERBAL BEHAVIOR OF TEACHERS

578

displays of communication may not suffice to characterize classroom interaction, because various studies show that non-verbal accommodations may actually dominate classroom interaction. For instance, according to a study by Kellogg and Lawson (1993), 82% of all teachers’ communication attempts are non-verbal. Similar results were obtained in Bancroft’s (1997) study, which suggested that about two thirds of human communication is ruled by non-verbal behavior. Moreover, teacher talk also includes non-verbal adjustments, and communication in the classroom is not based solely on verbal exchange (Hatch, 1983; Dornyei & Scott, 1997). Correspondingly, studies dealing with non-verbal behavior and its functions in everyday speech provide rich data which show that human interaction is not only composed of producing sounds; interaction also includes related non-verbal behaviors which serve to convey communicative messages for the participants. (Goffman, 1964; Goodwin & Goodwing, 1986; Goodwin, 2000, 2002, 2003; Schegloff, 1984; Kendon, 1994; Streeck, 1993; McNeill, 1992). Goodwin’s (2000) study is an especially good example for the occurrences of multiple semiotic modalities such as body orientation, talk, gesture, and talk and how they construct action together.

However, when the corrective feedback literature in SLA is considered, non-verbal behavior is hardly mentioned and disregarded in studies which dominate the field. This is problematic since corrective feedback and the learner response cannot be fully grasped without taking into account teachers’ non-verbal behavior and its outcomes. For instance, Lyster and Ranta’s (1997) frequently cited and applied classifications of corrective feedback types are based on transcripts which ignore non-verbal behavior in the classroom discourse, thereby creating a chain of studies which build on their analysis of corrective feedback without paying attention to non-verbal behavior of students and teachers in the classroom. Thus, the fact that, the limited literature which dominates the study of corrective feedback ignores the role of non-verbal behavior in the classroom, served as the catalyst for this research. This study uses video samples from the ESL (English as a Second Language) classrooms to focus on the role of teacher’s non-verbal behavior in providing feedback for students and determine whether it should be a concern of corrective feedback literature or not.

Literature Review Corrective Feedback in FL Classrooms

Since the mid-70s, teachers’ correction attempts in L2 (second language) classrooms have been studied under the rubric of corrective feedback. With the rise of CLT (Communicative Language Teaching) in SLA classrooms, students started to be trained in meaning-focused interactional settings which were quite different from form-focused traditional language teaching applications (Galloway, 1993). Nevertheless, some researchers found depending only on communicative classroom applications problematic, because students in meaning-focused classroom applications lacked accuracy in their L2 output (Leeman, Arteagoitia, Fridman, & Doughty, 1995; Harley, 1993). Studies by Leeman et al. (1995) and Lightbown and Spada (1990) found that corrective feedback was helpful in drawing students’ attention to form in communicative classroom settings. These findings increased the popularity of corrective feedback as a research topic. With these findings in mind, corrective feedback researchers have focused on various topics and investigated the consequences of corrective feedback and its connection with language acquisition.

When the research about corrective feedback types and learner uptake is considered, it is obvious that Lyster and Ranta’s (1997) study, which analyzed different types of error correction provided by teachers and their influence on students, had a huge impact in the SLA field. Their study mainly focused on the frequency of the feedback types that teachers used and what types of feedback resulted in learner uptake. Feedback types


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were classified as “recasts”, “explicit correction”, “clarification request”, “elicitation”, “metalinguistic feedback”, and “repetition” (Lyster and Ranta, 1997, pp. 46-48). In the following years, their study gave inspiration to several researchers and their feedback categories were frequently cited (Doughty, 2001; Ohta, 2000; Nabei & Swain, 2002; HAN, 2002; Philp, 2003; Lyster, 1998; Oskoz & Liskin-Gasparro, 2002; Panova & Lyster, 2002).

However, none of these studies paid particular attention to non-verbal behavior used by teachers during error correction and its role in student noticing. This was also a common case for “(FL) foreign language” studies. As mentioned by Nikazm (2008), Lazaraton (2004) and Allen (2000), the majority of FL research on teacher talk dealt mainly with the verbal input provided by language teachers. Lazaraton’s (2004) study also provided evidence for the general tendency of FL research by focusing on seven major linguistic textbooks. Lazaraton’s (2004) findings indicated that non-verbal behavior was not considered as a crucial topic in these books and it was only mentioned in the context of animal communication. This lack of focus on non-verbal behavior might have caused researchers to miss various correction attempts used by teachers and subsequent student uptake. In order to show the centrality of non-verbal behavior for human interaction and relate it to corrective feedback, the next section of the study will focus on the related literature dealing with the role of non-verbal behavior and its importance in human communication.

Non-verbal Behavior and Human Communication In order to define non-verbal behavior and understand its role in human communication, it is important to

clarify the notion of communication. When Warren and Shannon’s (1963) model of communication is considered, communication can be defined as a transfer of information from one participant to the other; the model is a mathematical representation of how information is transmitted in an interpersonal relationship. However, what is going on in communication is more than transfer of information from one participant to the others; it also entails co-construction of meaning and building of social actors within relevant activities (Goodwin, 1979, 2000, 2003). As Linell (2003) suggested, “Communication is not a transfer of ready-made thoughts. Knowledge is largely communicatively constructed, in the socio-historical genesis of knowledge, language, communicative genres (routines), etc.” (p. 3). In other words, it is not simply one person saying something to somebody else: It is a much more complex social process in which embodied actors and meaning are built up cooperatively. This co-construction of embodied actors and cooperative meaning requires understanding not only verbal utterances of participants but also certain actions which display their cognition during communication and help them to determine whether communication has been achieved or not. So, by observing the actions of other participants, speakers can spot the next course of activities; this suggests that action is a cognitive means of influencing the sequential organization of communication. In this sense, communication is not dominated by verbal cues all the time; certain non-verbal behaviors also contribute to the co-construction of meaning, and interpreting action is also part of the nature of analyzing non-verbal behaviors, along with the verbal productions of participants.

Non-verbal behavior is not something peculiar to human beings, because when studies related to animal communication are considered, it is clear that most animals use different types of non-verbal behavior such as gestures to communicate. Gesture is something common in apes and other primates in the form of gestures with limbs and hands. This also suggests that our ancestors’ first linguistic utterances were not in the vocal but in the gestural domain (Kenneally, 2007). Studies dealing with non-verbal communication in human beings show that


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we still share certain communicative mechanisms with our primate relatives. In a study which focused on the importance of non-verbal behavior in human communication, Mehrabian and Ferris (1967) found that during communication, 55% of its impact is determined by body language, postures, gestures and eye contact, 38% by the tone of voice and 7% by the content or the words used in the communication process.

In a related study by Argyle, Alkema, and Gilmour (1971), non-verbal cues were found to be six times more important than verbal cues. Although these percentages may vary due to the subjective and contextual factors and it cannot be said that one type of cue is clearly more important than another all the time, they still prove that non-verbal behavior is a significant means of communication for human beings just as for other primates.

Despite the fact that non-verbal communication started to “become a legitimate and identifiable area of scholarship in the 1970s” (Burgoon, 1980, p. 179), its conceptual identification can be traced back to the work of Darwin (1873), as seen in his publication The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. In this study, Darwin claimed that all mammals displayed emotion in their faces. Although he did not use the term non-verbal communication, his claim was nevertheless a conceptual argument for it. The term “non-verbal communication” was used for the first time by G. W. Hewes in his “World Distribution of Certain Postural Habits” (Calero, 2005). In its simplest form, non-verbal communication can be defined as the conveying of messages through various means other than words (Mehrabian, 1972). When considered broadly, it is a means of communication which occurs in various manifestations, such as facial expressions, gestures, gaze, touch, paralinguistics, mannerism, humor, language of touch, etc. (Gupta, 2008). For DePaulo and Friedman (1998), non-verbal communication is a dynamic process which is important when emotions, identities and status roles are significant; it is also important in situations in which verbal messages are untrustworthy, ambiguous and difficult to interpret. For Goffman (1959), non-verbal communication is unintentional and includes the process of sending signals that may be either correctly or incorrectly interpreted by other participants. Although non-verbal communication may be unintentional in Goffman’s terms, it is central to human communication in the sense of being an inherent and essential part of message creation and interpretation (Burgoon, 1994). Moreover, non-verbal communication is universal in the expression of emotions such as anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness and surprise (Ekman, Friesen, & Ellsworth, 1982). However, these emotional displays can be understood better by the members of the same national, ethnic or regional group (Elfenbein & Ambady, 2002), which emphasizes the importance of shared common knowledge and collaboration in interpreting certain semiotic symbols.

All these various approaches and definitions are helpful in understanding non-verbal behavior’s centrality to human communication and its commonality in various forms in mankind. In this context, as human beings, we are faced with thousands of non-verbal cues and behaviors every day and we interpret them in order to communicate with other members of society. We know what a facial expression, eye gaze or gesture expresses and we even classify people according to their attitude and approach them accordingly. In this context, communication includes interpreting and producing non-verbal cues, in addition to producing and paying attention to linguistic items.

Data The data consist of five hours of videotaped English FL classroom interaction at a college in Turkey. The

English language teacher who was recorded is a nonnative speaker of English. The level of the college students was upper-intermediate. The classroom interaction was recorded by using a video camera, which was initially


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positioned to record the behaviors of the teacher, since the main concern of the paper is the non-verbal behavior of the teacher and its role in giving corrective feedback. Sections, in which teacher used non-verbal behavior, were transcribed by using Jefferson’s (1984) transcription model. Moreover, in order to show the frame-by-frame development of action, related pictures in which teacher used non-verbal behavior were included into the data analysis.

Data Analysis Coherent Non-verbal Display of the Teacher in Providing Corrective Feedback

In the relevant data, the teacher was observed to perform coherent forms of non-verbal behavior accompanying his verbal error correction (see Figures 1-5). Especially, “leaning forward” is a frequently applied non-verbal behavior of the teacher which accompanies his verbal corrective feedback. The teacher uses the action of leaning forward in order to create heightened focus and draw the attention of the students to their performance errors. While leaning forward, he leans towards the student who makes an error and uses his bodily displays in order to draw the student’s attention to that error. While providing the verbal correction, his body helps to create heightened focus and highlights the problematic part. In this sense, the teacher uses both verbal and non-verbal means to construct meaning and provide corrective feedback for students. In the following instance (see Transcript 1), students are working on unknown vocabulary and the teacher is asking them the meaning of unknown words. At this point, one of the students mispronounces the word “steer” (Line 08). The teacher corrects the student’s pronunciation error twice by repeating the correct pronunciation of the word “steer” (Line 011). When considered in terms of Lyster and Ranta’s (1997) feedback categorization, such a correction would be considered as a “recast” since the teacher provides the verbal correction without providing any other explicit verbal signals of correction than the correct pronunciation itself. However, while providing the second verbal correction, the teacher leans forward (see Figure 3) and stays in that position, and then returns back to his former position (see Figure 4). Following the teacher’s action and verbal correction, the student correctly pronounces the word, which is considered as student uptake in the corrective feedback literature. Student uptake is followed by the teacher’s verbal and non-verbal confirmation.

Transcript 1 (college data). 01 T: So (.) the meaning of [panel.] 02 S: [es ]es 03 T: Like jury? ((changing the gaze and making a hand gesture)) 04 S: Yesss 05 T: Ok, panel is like jury:? 06 S: Like commission, 07 T: Right, okay and 08 S: Ster 09 T: (0.6) ((Changing the body position, orienting toward the student and facially expressing confusion)) 010 S: ster 011 T: Steer, steer ((leaning forward)) 012 S: (Steer) 013 T: (.) ((Leaning back and returning to the initial position)) Ok ((nodding))


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Figure 1. Changing the gaze and making a hand gesture.

Figure 2. Changing the body position, orienting toward the student and facially expressing confusion.

In the second instance (see Transcript 2), the classroom discussion is about the role of women in the society and equality between men and women (see Figures 6-10). One of the students, who is sharing her ideas about the topic, utters the sentence “Womens are more sensitive than men” (Line 01), which is grammatically incorrect since the word “women” is already plural and does not require a plural suffix. In order to correct the student’s error, the teacher repeats the error (Line 02), which is categorized as a repetition in Lyster and Ranta’s (1997) classroom corrective feedback model. However, the teacher again leans forward (see Figure 6b) while repeating the student’s error verbally (Line 02). As in the first instance, he moves back to his former position after the error correction (see Figure 6c). His repetition is also followed by laughter (see Figure 7). The teacher’s correction attempt results in student uptake and the student corrects the grammar error which she has recently produced. She says “Women are more sensitive than men” (Lines 03 and 05), which is confirmed by the teacher’s hand gesture (see Figure 8).

Transcript 2 (college data). 01 S: Men and women are different both physically and mentally, eehhh womens are more sensitive than

men, and men 02 T: Womens ((leaning forward and leaning back and smiling))

a b c

a b c


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03 S: [Wo(h)men a(h)re] [ mo(h)re] = 04 T: [((Laughing))] [((hand gesture and laughing))] 05 S: =[Se(h)ns(h)itivetha(h)n me(h)n] 06 T: [((Laughing))] ((directing his gaze to other students))

Figure 3. Leaning forward.

Figure 4. Leaning back and returning to the initial position.

Figure 5. Nodding.


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Figure 6. Leaning forward and leaning back and smiling.

Figure 7. Laughing.

Figure 8. Hand gesture and laughing.

b ca


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Figure 9. Laughing.

Figure 10. Directing his gaze to other students.

In the third instance (see Transcript 3), the student mispronounces the word “mathematics” (Line 01) and the teacher corrects this error by directly producing the correct pronunciation of the word (Line 03), which is classified as a “recast” in the corrective feedback model of Lyster and Ranta (1997). However, similar to the previous two instances, the teacher again leans forward and non-verbally signals the problem in the student’s pronunciation (see Figure 11b). Following the correction, the student correctly pronounces the word, which is confirmed by the teacher’s nodding (see Figure 12). This confirmation is finished with the verbal confirmation of the teacher when he says “okay” (Line 05).

Transcript 3 (college data).

Figure 11. Leaning forward and nodding.

a b c


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Figure 12. Nodding.

01 S: international studies place 15 years old Koreans first in science and second in matamatics 02 (0.3) 03 T: mathema:tics ((leaning forward and nodding)) 04 S: [mathema:tics] 05 T: [((nodding))] okay In the fourth case (see Transcript 4), the student mispronounces the word “scribble” (Line 01) and again

the teacher first repeats the student’s error (Line 02) and then provides the correct form while leaning forward (see Figure 13).

Transcript 4 (college data). 01 S: Scrables and (other meanings) 02 T: Scra-sc↑rable? scribble ((leaning forward))

Figure 13. Leaning forward.

In all these instances, the teacher frequently uses a particular non-verbal semiotic resource (leaning forward) while verbally correcting the students’ errors. Moreover, it is evident that the teacher’s frequently used non-verbal behavior is considered by the students as indications of corrective feedback since students attempt to correct their errors by considering the semiotic resources that the teacher provides. Whatever the correction type is, the non-verbal behavior makes explicit the fact that the teacher is engaged in correction, since the non-verbal behavior is an action and resource frequently applied by the teacher in the classroom discourse. Through participating in the same classroom over time, students can learn what their teacher’s actions indicate and this


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may help them identify and comprehend corrective feedback and structure their output accordingly.

Other Forms of Non-verbal Behavior Provided by the Teacher and Student Noticing In addition to the frequent use of certain non-verbal behaviors accompanying verbal correction, the teacher

in the related data also made use of some other forms non-verbal behavior in order to provide corrective feedback for students and make them adjust their linguistic output.

In the data (see Transcript 1), after the student mispronounces the word “steer” (Line 08), the teacher changes his body position and comes closer to the student (see Figures 2). Meanwhile, he makes a head movement which expresses confusion (see Figure 2c) and as a result of these bodily displays, the student again repeats the word but once again he cannot pronounce it correctly (Line 10). The teacher next provides a verbal correction (Line 11) which is accompanied by the non-verbal behavior of leaning forward (see Figure 3), as was discussed in the previous section. In this case, the teacher does not consider verbal correction as the initial means of drawing the student’s attention to the linguistic error. He uses embodied resources to indicate the student’s problematic output and these attempts result in student noticing since the student repeats the word again. Only after the student’s second incorrect attempt does the teacher resort to verbal correction. If the non-verbal behaviors of the teacher are not considered in Line 09 and Line 10 in Transcript 1 can be considered as a “self-initiated repair” by the student (Schegloff, Jefferson, & Sacks, 1977) which fails. However, it is the teacher’s non-verbal behaviors in Line 09 which allow the student to attempt do the repair in the stream of the talk. In this sense, the teacher’s actions in Line 09 are non-verbal signals of repair which could be also considered as “other initiated repair”, a term which was used by Schegloff et al. (1977) for the first time. Schegloff et al. (1977) approached the term “other initiated repair” from a conversational analysis perspective and focused on verbal conversation between the participants. However, since this paper focuses on how action is constructed through both verbal and non-verbal semiotic resources, the teacher’s non-verbal behaviors in Line 09, especially facial expression of confusion, are considered as initiations of repair. The teacher changes his body position and orients towards the student which displays his focus of attention. As the teacher turns his body towards the student and approaches towards him after the student’s performance error, he non-verbally makes it observable that his concern is the student who has just made an error. His facial expression of confusion together with the change in body position and orienting towards the student sets the stage for the student to understand that his performance is unsuccessful and makes him attempt to self-correct. When the student’s attempt of self-correction fails, the teacher provides a verbal correction accompanied by leaning forward, as was discusses in the former section. The student succeeds in pronouncing the word correctly, which is confirmed by teacher’s verbal and non-verbal confirmation. The action of nodding functions as a signal of confirmation.

In the second instance (see Transcript 5), the student makes a pronunciation error and mispronounces the word “selling”. Instead of “selling” she says “sailing” (Line 01), which suggests that she is confused about the pronunciation of both words, the teacher does not correct the student’s error verbally right away. He makes the verbal correction six seconds after the student’s incorrect pronunciation. However, during these six seconds, he first produces a “s” sound (Line 02), but he stops suddenly and does not provide an exact correct pronunciation. Instead, he frowns, moves his lips (see Figure 14) nods his head three times (see Figure 15) to indicate that her pronunciation is incorrect, which makes the student repeat her sentence again (Line 03). His frowning action expresses his confusion and dissatisfaction with the student’s performance. However, the student again repeats the same error, which results in the teacher’s verbal correction (Line 06). The teacher says “Not sailing, selling”


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and makes an explicit correction in terms of Lyster and Ranta’s (1997) corrective feedback types. However, before that the teacher nods, but he nods upwards, which again indicates that the student’s correction attempt failed. Again, the teacher’s actions could be considered as non-verbal indication of repair, which again takes us back to the term other initiated repair. The teacher provides signals of repair non-verbally before he provides a verbal correction.

Transcript 5 (college data). 01 S: They can not do the cosmetic stuff sailing 02 T: ((frowning and moving the lips)) 03 S: Cosmetic [stuff sailing] 04 T: [Nodding] 05 S: They can not do 06 T: Not sailing, selling

Figure 14. Frowning and moving the lips.

Figure 15. Nodding.

In all these cases, the teacher employs various forms of non-verbal behavior such as changing the body position, nodding, hand gestures and facial expressions to draw the attention of the students to their problematic linguistic output. The teacher changes his body position and orient towards the students in order to display their focus of attention. Nodding is frequently used for confirmation after the students correct their problematic output. In one case, the teacher nods upwards to indicate that the student’s correction attempt failed. He also uses facial expressions such as frowning to display confusion and these facial displays make it visible for the student that he made an error.


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In the first two instances, the teacher uses non-verbal behavior independent of verbal behavior, and his non-verbal communicative resources result in student noticing. Only after the students’ next attempts are incorrect does the teacher provide a verbal correction. These examples show that corrective feedback provided by the teacher is not solely composed of verbal input but also various forms of non-verbal behavior which results in student uptake and noticing. Therefore, corrective feedback literature in SLA which ignores the role of non-verbal communication in the classroom and focuses only on verbal communication may provide inadequate results and because it cannot accurately reflect the classroom interaction in terms of error correction.

Conclusions This study mainly discussed the role of non-verbal behavior in providing students with corrective feedback

and their consequences. An initial review of the corrective feedback literature showed that in SLA studies the major concern was the verbal correction provided by teachers. With this in mind, studies examining the centrality of non-verbal behavior for communication were reviewed here, and human communication was defined with a holistic perspective by considering both verbal and non-verbal communication. In the light of this information, studies dealing with the commonality and the importance of non-verbal communication in second language classrooms were reviewed and it was concluded that teachers used non-verbal communication frequently in various situations. The importance of non-verbal behavior for human communication and its commonality in FL classroom discourse served as the foundation for the data analysis portion of this study. Using recorded data and the transcriptions of these data, the role of non-verbal behavior in giving corrective feedback and its influence on student noticing and uptake were demonstrated. In the context of the findings, it was suggested that the FL teacher relied on coherent forms of non-verbal behavior frequently to indicate that he is correcting the students errors or providing them clues to make them self-correct. Moreover, it was also found that the teacher in the relevant data often did not directly correct the students’ errors verbally, but displayed various non-verbal behaviors to give the students the chance to review their problematic output and most of the time turned to verbal correction as the last resort.

Although the findings in this study are restricted to the data under consideration, they provide insights into the use of non-verbal behavior in providing students with corrective feedback. This study demonstrates that research dealing only with verbal corrections provided by FL teachers cannot fully describe the classroom interaction in terms of teachers’ use of error correction techniques and student notification and uptake. In this sense, it is possible to conclude that further research on the role of non-verbal behavior in the provision of corrective feedback is warranted.

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Panova, I., & Lyster, R. (2002). Patterns of corrective feedback and uptake in an adult ESL classroom. TESOL Quarterly, 36(4), 573-595.

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Warren, W., & Shannon, C. E. (1963). The mathematical theory of communication. Urbana, Chicago: University of Illinois Press.


Rovai’s Classroom Community Scale and Its Application in

Chinese College English Class∗

ZHANG Yan-yang, LIN Xiao, XU Ming Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

The purpose of this study is to introduce the CCS (Classroom Community Scale) established by Rovai (2002) and its

application among freshmen in China with regard to how well their college English class builds a sense of classroom

community. In addition, the reliability of CCS as applied in face-to-face classroom setting and the influence of

gender and graduating high school of students on their perceptions of classroom community are also examined.

Keywords: CCS (Classroom Community Scale), connectedness, learning, gender, graduating high school

Introduction

The notion of community is of significant importance in current academic field and is central to any language learning. Magnan (2007) pointed out that Hymes’ original definition of communicative competence was the ability to participate in a community by being able to communicate within it. The emphasis was on language in context used for a purpose, not just language for its own sake. It is through the process of sharing information and experiences with the group that the members learn from each other, and have an opportunity to develop themselves personally and professionally (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Based on the classification of McMillan (1996), Rovai and Lucking (2000) divided classroom community into four components: spirit, trust, interaction and learning. Then Rovai has developed the CCS (Classroom Community Scale) to measure the learners’ sense of community, which has been widely observable. As recent education of foreign language overemphasizes the communicative function of language itself, it appears to be urgent to promote students’ sense of classroom community by means of the CCS. In this study, we desire to investigate the CCS in several aspects to see whether it can be applied in Chinese college English class.

Rovai’s CCS

Learning Community and Classroom Community Learning community is a key concept in contemporary research field of learning. Currently, as a contextual

learning community with social constituents, learning community has been widely understood and accepted by more and more people. However, the definition of learning community can hardly reach a consensus. According ∗ Acknowledgement: This research is supported by the project “Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities” (No. GPA105046).

ZHANG Yan-yang, graduate student of College of International Studies, Zhejiang University. LIN Xiao, Ph.D., lecturer of College of International Studies, Zhejiang University. XU Ming, lecturer of College of International Studies, Zhejiang University.

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to Cross (1998), learning community is a group of people who devote themselves to the intellectual communication with the desire to make progress in learning. Dufour (2004) regarded learning community as a concept that people use to describe all the possible combinations of individuals who are interested in education. Additionally, Gardner (1989) believed that learning community endows its members with certain sense of identity, belongingness and safety. Usually, we believe the notion of learning community stems from psychology. The concept of psychological sense of community, which dated back to Seymour Sarason (1974), has won widespread influences in the field of community psychology. McMillan and Chavis (1986) defined sense of psychological community as “A feeling that members have of belonging, a feeling that members matter to one another and to the group, and a shared faith that members’ needs will be met through their commitment to be together” (p. 9). Gradually, this concept has been applied more in the field of education.

Lenning and Ebbers (1999) divided the learning communities in higher education into four categories, one of which is classroom learning community. Classroom learning community is based on the classroom and established through cooperative learning method and group learning activities. Markowitz, Ndon, Pizarro, and Valdes (2005; as cited in Singh, Basom, & Perez, 2009) defined classroom learning communities as ones that foster: an appreciation of the value of student differences (culture, language, gender, expertise, age, etc.) in promoting classroom learning; a willingness of students to take intellectual risks within the learning environment; a shared objective of continually advancing the collective knowledge and skills; and a connectedness among students that lead to a common identity and a sense of belonging.

As community can exist online or in real life, Hill (1996) and Rheingold (1991) pointed out that sense of

community is setting specific and one such setting is classroom, which shares the common ground with the ideas of the previous researchers. In recent years, the researchers have begun to pay much more attention to the field of community and language learning and research focus has been shifted from cognition-centered to multi-directional, such as the attention to the relationship between L2 (second language) learning environment and community.

Development of Rovai’s CCS With the purpose of exploring the factors that influence students’ community experiences so as to facilitate

course design and instructional delivery, Rovai (2002) developed and field-tested the CCS to study community in virtual classrooms.

The initial set of CCS consists of a self-report questionnaire of 40 items, 10 items of which for the four subscales. This initial CCS is examined by a group of experts consisting of three university professors. After the factor analysis and relevance study, two factors appear to become salient with the final refinement of reordering the 20 remaining items, namely feeling of connectedness and learning. According to Rovai (2002), connectedness represents the feelings of connectedness, cohesion, spirit, trust and interdependence, while learning stands for the feelings of being involved as they pursue the construction of understanding and sharing values and beliefs as their educational goals and expectations are being satisfied. Consequently, the whole CCS falls into two subscales: the connectedness subscale and learning subscale, whose scores can be calculated by adding the odd and even items of the total community scale respectively.


Then Rovai (2002) set out to field-test the refined version of CCS. Participants for Rovai’s study consist of 375 students enrolled in 28 online education and leadership graduate courses, of which all these volunteers can be divided into three ethnic groups: White, African-American and the others. All courses are delivered to students during the span of a 16-week semester via the Blackboard.com e-learning system. Quantitative research methods are applied to testify the validity and reliability of this test instrument and the Cronbach’s coefficient of 0.93 and split-half of 0.91 indicate desirable results. Factor analysis of the data is conducted using direct oblimin rotation with a rotated loading of over 0.3, which finally confirms the latent dimensionality as well as construct validity of classroom community.

Implementation of Rovai’s CCS in Chinese College English Class

Research Objective Up to now, little research has systematically examined the construct of sense of community that applied into

school and classroom settings. Rovai (2002) also concluded that the CCS can also be administered to other populations, especially teenagers taking courses in a geographical classroom setting. Thus, we are inspired to investigate the perceptions of freshmen in China with regard to how well their college English class builds a sense of classroom community. We used Rovai’s (2002) CCS to measure students’ sense of community, connectedness and learning. Accordingly, this study responded to the following research questions: (1) How reliable is the CCS when applied in the face-to-face college English classroom in China? (2) Does gender or graduating high school of students affect their perceptions of classroom learning community?

Participants and Method Participants. Participants of this study consist of 250 students enrolled in seven college English classes in

Zhejiang University, among which 142 are males and 108 are females, representing 56.8% and 43.2% of the total participants respectively. Although they come from different majors, those freshmen are supposed to stay at the same level of English competence of Band Three considering their entrance examination grades. As for the type of their graduating high schools, 11 are from foreign language school, 186 and 34 are from key schools at the provincial and city level, and 15 are from ordinary high schools.

Research method. This study is administered using a questionnaire format at the end of 2010, after courses from September to December, 2010. The questionnaire includes information about participants’ gender, type of graduating high school, entrance examination grade and 20 items of CCS.

Evaluation method. The questionnaire includes Rovai’s (2002) CCS with 20 items all in all. Following each item is a five-point Likert-type scale of potential response: strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree and strongly disagree. Among them, the most favorable choice is assigned a score of four, while the least favorable one zero. Half of the total items are negatively worded (e.g., I do not feel a spirit of community), which require the scoring of the responses to be reversed. Participants are supposed to choose the option that best reflects their inner desire.

Statistical method. We analyze all the data collected in this study using SPSS (Statistical Product and Service Solutions) 15.0 and the statistical methods including factor analysis, KMO (Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin) and one-way ANOVA (ANalysis Of VAriance), just to name a few.


Results Validity analysis. Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy acts as a figure to interpret whether

these items are fit for factor analysis. We can safely draw the conclusion that 0.879 indicates a desirable result to apply this method in this scale. Besides, the result of Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity (巴特利特球形检验法) showed whether factor analysis can be adopted from the mutual-independent perspective within the variables. If the significance is above 0.005, we had better quit the idea of factor analysis. Fortunately, the figure of 0.000 proves a desirable choice of factor analysis in this case once again. After a principal components confirmatory factor analysis with varimax rotation, the 20 items of CCS fall into two categories, one with items 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17 and 19, the other with 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 and 20. The results of two subscales and the items they constitute respectively are just identical with Rovai’s CCS. As Figure 1 shows, the scree plot can explain vividly the eigenvalue of each factor.

Figure 1. Scree plot of the CCS.

The total classroom community scores range from a low of 23 to a high of 79, with a mean score of 51.03 (S.D. (Standard Deviation) = 9.548). As in Figure 2, 81% of the responses are at or above the midpoint of 40 and 54% of the responses are 50 and above. It means four fifths of the total responses are 40 and above and more than half are 50 and above. So it is undoubtedly that classroom community is strong in this study indicating cohesive learning communities.

Reliability analysis. Quantitative research methods are used to testify the reliability of this test instrument when applied in Chinese classrooms. For the full CCS, Cronbach’s coefficient is 0.877 and split-half coefficient is 0.869, indicating good reliability. In addition, Cronbach’s coefficient and split-half coefficient for connectedness subscale are 0.811 and 0.775, and for learning are 0.79 and 0.775, also within the acceptable levels of reliability.

Influence of gender factor. Table 1 shows the descriptive statistics for the total CCS and for each subscale by gender and by total participants. An independent t-test is conducted to determine whether classroom community differs by gender in these classes. The test is not significant: P(250) = 0.292. It just proves that there is


little significant difference between male and female participants in terms of the perception of classroom community. Comparatively speaking, female students possess a little higher sense of classroom community (M = 51.76, S.D. = 9.862) than their male counterpart (M = 50.47, S.D. = 9.299), which is similar to the result in Rovai’s (2002) study.

Figure 2. Percentage of CCS by range (N = 250).

The significance of the connectedness scale is 0.813, indicating almost balanced result between male (M = 26.23, S.D. = 4.856) and female (M = 26.38, S.D. = 5.439) students as well. Nevertheless, significance of the learning scale counts to be 0.095, which manifests absolute gender difference with regard to the perception of learning. To be more specific, female students (M = 25.38, S.D. = 5.379) are still equipped with higher notion of learning than the male ones (M = 24.25, S.D. = 5.220).

Table 1 Descriptive Statistics for the Community and Each Subscale by Gender and by Total Participants Gender Community Connectedness Learning

Male Mean 50.47 26.23 24.25 N 142 142 142 S.D. 9.299 4.856 5.220

Female Mean 51.76 26.38 25.38 N 108 108 108 S.D. 9.862 5.439 5.379

Total Mean 51.03 26.29 24.74 N 250 250 250

Influence of origin factor. Then we use one-way ANOVA to examine the influence of five types of graduating high schools on the participants. Obviously, the significance of 0.114 provides the evidence that five types of graduating high schools exert certain influence on the participants’ perception of classroom community. As Table 2 shows, the key provincial schools rank first, and then followed by FLS (foreign language schools), ordinary high schools and key city schools. The data 0.379 of the connectedness scale indicates that their different types of origins have little to do with their perceptions of connectedness. However, the significance of 0.043 manifests that the different types of high schools do have an obvious impact on the students’ perceptions of

[60-70]12%

[50-60]38%

[40-50]35%

[30-40]9%

[20-30]2%[70-80]

4%


learning. From the learning subscale, we can draw the conclusion that students from FLS are apt to perform better than the rest of students.

Table 2 Descriptive Statistics for the Community and Each Subscale by Origin

Origin N Community Connectedness Learning

Mean S.D. Mean S.D. Mean S.D. 1 11 51.00 12.272 25.27 8.150 25.73 4.671 2 184 51.64 9.213 25.07 5.047 26.57 5.066 3 36 49.39 8.942 24.06 4.739 25.33 4.934 4 15 50.53 11.160 23.87 6.151 26.67 5.912 5 4 39.75 12.093 17.25 5.737 22.50 6.455 Total 250 51.03 9.548 24.74 5.308 26.29 5.106 Notes. “1” stands for foreign language schools; “2” stands for key provincial schools; “3” stands for key city schools; “4” stands for ordinary high schools; and “5” stands for others.

Discussion and Conclusions

The purpose of this study is to introduce the CCS established by Rovai (2002) and verify whether this instrument can be applied in the face-to-face college English classrooms in Zhejiang University, China. Via investigating the perceptions of 250 freshmen enrolled in seven college English classes with regard to how well their college English class builds a sense of classroom community, we can figure out the effects of gender and graduating high schools on students’ perceptions of classroom learning community.

In this study, both Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy and Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity testify the desirable choice of factor analysis. Then the CCS is proved to possess good reliability and the data for the connectedness and learning subscales also fall within the acceptable levels of reliability. These high coefficients altogether provide sufficient evidence that the CCS can be adopted in the face-to-face college English classroom setting.

From the functional perspective, strong feelings of classroom learning community are apt to enhance the flow of information, the degree of cooperation, the pursuit of common goals, and the sense of satisfaction among the community members. Accordingly, equipped with high perceptions of classroom learning community, learners are apt to have a motivated and responsible sense of belonging and their active participation will finally satisfy their needs. As a result, in the face-to-face college English classrooms, students’ involvement in their study and development of relationships with other members tend to gain favorable educational achievements in language learning to a large extent. In addition, it also sheds some light on foreign language teaching by inspiring group or pair work to cultivate participants’ sense of classroom learning community, which will definitely improve the educational effect to the utmost. Hymes defines communicative competence as the competence of participants in a certain community with emphasis of language development for a specific purpose rather than mere language training. Compared with previous group or pair work in foreign language teaching which aimed to improve learners’ capacity of spoken English, it is of significant importance for us to explore communicative teaching through the group activities with emphasis of the cultivation of classroom community.


In the future, we can deepen the research of the CCS by discussing the profound reasons that cause the different performance between genders and origins. Additionally, we are also inspired to take other factors into consideration, with the expectation to broaden the academic horizon. To be more specific, we can examine the influence of community perception on students’ grades as well as other learning achievements they obtain.

References Cross, K. P. (1998). Why learning communities? Why now?. About Campus, 3(3) (July-August), 4-11. Dufour, R. (2004). What is a professional learning community?. Educational Leadership, 61(8), 6-11. Gardner, J. W. (1989). Building community. Teaching and Teacher Education, 6(3), 227-241. Hill, J. L. (1996). Psychological sense of community: Suggestions for future research. Journal of Community Psychology, 24(4),

431-438. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lenning, O. T., & Ebbers, L. H. (1999). The powerful potential of learning communities: Improving education for the future.

Washington, D.C.: The George Washington University, Graduate School of Education and Human Development. Magnan, S. S. (2007). Reconsidering communicative language teaching for national goals. Modern Language Journal, 91, 249-252. McMillan, D. W. (1996). Sense of community. Journal of Community Psychology, 24(4), 315-325. McMillan, D. W., & Chavis, D. M. (1986). Sense of community: A definition and theory. Journal of Community Psychology, 4(1),

6-23. Rheingold, H. R. (1991). Virtual reality. New York: Summit Books. Rovai, A. P. (2002). Development of an instrument to measure classroom community. Internet and Higher Education, (5), 197-211. Rovai, A. P., & Lucking, R. A. (2000). Measuring sense of classroom community (manuscript submitted for publication). Seymour Sarason, S. B. (1974). The psychological sense of community: Prospects for a community psychology. San Francisco:

Jossey-Bass. Singh, K., Basom, M., & Perez, L. (2009). Democratic learning communities in educational leadership programs. Retrieved from

http://cnx.org/content/m19571/1.3/


Application of Multimedia Assisted Instruction (MAI) in Junior

High Schools English Classroom Teaching

LI Na Zhenjiang Watercraft College of People’s Liberation Army,

Zhenjiang, China

WANG Chun-yan Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, China

In a view of the current problems of English teaching in junior high schools, this paper introduces MAI

(Multimedia Assisted Instruction) of English teaching and explores the functions of MAI. Through actual using

MAI in the teaching of listening and speaking, reading and writing classes in the junior high schools, it is concluded

that application of MAI is not only feasible but also effective.

Keywords: English teaching, MAI (Multimedia Assisted Instruction), listening, speaking, reading, writing

Introduction

With the rapid development of the information and economy, English is becoming more and more important. As for English teaching, the focus is on how to arouse the learners’ interest and help them to learn more

efficiently. But, for many years, traditional approaches of English teaching in classroom have been dominated by the

teacher; teacher keeps imparting knowledge all the time, while students are being passive recipients. So, the shortcomings become apparent. After learning English for a few years, students have good linguistic competence, but are lacking in communicative competence. “Dumb English” is a good case in point.

The aim of the paper is to put forth a method of instruction, giving consideration to students’ needs and teachers’ goals, which would yield favorable results in improving language competence. By reviewing the overall situation of TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) in China and analyzing the features of

multimedia-network, this paper points out the necessity of integrating multimedia-network resources to English teaching. In this paper, computers are applied as a tool to achieve the final goal.

Problems of English Teaching in the Traditional Classroom

It has been the actual situation for long that English teaching in China’s junior high school classrooms only overstresses giving of the language knowledge and overlooks the cultivation of the students’ overall abilities of using the language in their daily life so as only to produce mute English learners with lower abilities accompanied by high scores. In the middle of the 1980s, an official survey in 15 cities and provinces revealed that

LI Na, teaching assistant of English Department, Zhenjiang Watercraft College of People’s Liberation Army. WANG Chun-yan, student of English Department, School of Foreign Language, Jiangsu University.

APPLICATION OF MULTIMEDIA ASSISTED INSTRUCTION (MAI)

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junior high school students found it hard to use the English they had learned for communication. One key reason was that the traditional approach to language teaching passed down from the 1930s still dominated junior high school classroom teaching. Most of class hours were spent with the teacher lecturing and the students watching and listening in the traditional approach to teaching. In such an environment, the students passively learn English without ideal results, which have led to the incomplete development of the students in their English learning. Students, although were not bad in written examination, could not communicate with English native speakers after several years’ English learning in junior high school. In a word, the traditional English teaching has made little success, which means this teaching approach is not suitable for most students. New Curriculum Standard for English Teaching in China requires teachers to change the traditional teaching methods and students to improve their learning.

The Functions of MAI (Multimedia Assisted Instruction)

Computer educators of USA, Alfred Bork (1984) predicted that, at the beginning of the 21st century, learning interactively by the use of the computer will become the main studying methods of almost all types of schools and all kinds of subjects. In the 21st century, Bork’s prediction has turned into reality. MAI has great functions because of powerful functions of the multimedia. The MAI in English classroom can create the life-like instruction environment. The multiple modality of the multimedia can construct active classroom atmosphere, and arouse students’ interest fully. The MAI will promote the cultivation of students’ innovative ideology and the spirit of the exploration because of powerful functions.

Through analysis of relevant research about MAI at home and abroad, it can be concluded that: (1) MAI gives learners the power to explore and manipulate information, and enables individuals to construct their own “knowledge base” by integrating the written text, sound, drawings, diagrams, animated drawings or diagrams, still photographs, other images and video clips, which will help to develop learners’ language ability and culture capacity by means of multisensory stimulation; (2) MAI can construct a real and favorable English communicative context to promote language learning for second or foreign language learners. In the classroom of MAI, abstract contexts will become lively and active, which stimulate learners to take part in instruction, arouse their learning activity, dig their potential ability, and then attain excellent results; (3) MAI can offer learners much more information concerning the subject matter; (4) MAI can stimulate learners’ motivation and control learners’ attention by multimodal sensory stimuli; and (5) MAI can promote interaction and construct an active and positive teaching atmosphere.

Application of MAI in English Classroom Teaching in Junior High School

Application of MAI in the Teaching of Listening and Speaking There are several steps in the teaching course as follows: Step 1: Before having the class, the teacher prints the important contents in this unit on the screen: some new

words and phrases about translation; some sentences about how to get to places; be able to write a composition with new words and phrases about translation. This is the requirement of this unit. Then, everyone clicks the content according to own’s condition (In order to respect each student’s feeling, the teacher never says what A should do, what B should do, or what C should do before the whole class). Then, let the student practice the


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conversations in the textbook after the student listens and speaks for 10 minutes. Step 2: When these pictures are showed on the screen of the computer, some students cannot help crying, “A

plane!”, “Trains”, “Cars”, “Boats”… Certainly, they speak in Chinese. The teacher must watch the computer when all of the students learn through the computer. The teacher could give the help in time if students need help. Certainly, if some students do not learn on the computer, the teacher gives them warning through the computer.

Step 3: Let students practice the conversations in this unit in pairs after the students learn through the computer for 10 minutes.

Step 4: Ask the students to listen and read the text in this unit for 10 minutes. The teacher continues supervising the work.

Step 5: In the last 10 minutes, let the students speak freely. The Greek philosopher Epictetus (AD 55-AD 135) ever wittily said: “Nature has given man one tongue

and two ears that he may hear twice as much as he speaks”. From the saying, we can learn how important the listening is in our daily life. To understand others is a basic purpose in English teaching, and teachers often train the students’ listening accordingly. In this process, if the MAI is used, the effect will be better. When beginning a new lesson, the teacher narrates the story’s outline with the help of MAI. The sounds and pictures may help. The spoken language is one of the important ways to communicate, so we should try to develop the students’ abilities of speaking. Generally speaking, the MAI can arouse and sustain the students’ interest of learning and using English.

Application of MAI in the Teaching of Reading Read the article. Then read the statements about the article. Write “T” (for true) or “F” (for false). (Notice:

These questions are printed in the test paper.) (A) How do students around the world get to school? In North America, most students go to school on school bus. Some students also walk or ride bikes to school.

In other parts of the world, things are different. In Japan, most students take trains to school, although others also walk or ride their bikes. In China, it depends on where you are. In big cities, students usually ride bikes to school or take buses. And in places where there are rivers and lakes, like Hongshanhu and Kaishandao, students usually go to school by boat. That must be a lot more fun than taking a bus!

(1) In America, not all students take the bus to school. ( ) (2) Other parts of the world are different from the United States. ( ) (3) In Japan, most students take trains to school. ( ) (4) In big cities in China, students usually ride bikes to school or take buses. ( ) (5) Students in Hongshanhu have to take a subway to get to school. ( ) There are several steps in the teaching course as follows: Step 1: To project the passage through the computer with some vivid pictures and sounds. Step 2: Let the students do the content in accordance with the request. The teacher could control the time of

finishing the task through clicking the mouse in time. Step 3: After 10 minutes, the teacher gives the correct keys ((1) T (2) T (3) T (4) T (5) F) to all of the

questions of the passage. And then the teacher explains the skills of doing the questions. Let the students read the


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passage by themselves in the last 10 minutes. The purpose of junior English teaching is to train the students’ preliminary ability of using spoken and

written English. In the junior high school, we lay emphasis on the reading ability that serves the students’ further study. Here we mainly mention the helpfulness for reading aloud. Reading aloud helps the students to get a correct pronunciation and intonation and to develop the combination of vocabularies’ pronunciation, spelling and meaning. Furthermore, it also helps the students to find out the article’s internal feelings and appreciate the beauty of the language. A linguist ever said, “A poem is not a poem until it is read”. Reading aloud is basic in the junior high school, and the teachers should make full use of body language to develop the students’ ability of reading aloud.

With the help of MAI, students can solve the problems much more easily. In a word, the vivid flash and lovely tongues together with the fluent English can create a good circumstance of learning, which will surely play an active part in improving the students’ reading ability.

Application of MAI in the Teaching of Writing

There are several steps in the teaching course as follows: Step 1: Give three different pictures to students; let them imagine what have happened in different pictures. Step 2: Tell the whole class to finish the task according to the requirement within 20 minutes. Step 3: After 20 minutes, the teacher shows the correct keys on the computer through clicking the mouse. Step 4: To explain writing skill with 10 minutes. Step 5: Let the students read the compositions freely in the last 10 minutes. Writing is one of the four basic skills of learning language, and it is a so important skill that we can even say

that people cannot communicate with others without it. Not only should the students get some English knowledge and vocabularies, but also the ability to communicate in spoken and written English as what is mentioned in the teaching programs. To some extent, writing is much more important than speaking, for it can spread without the limitation of space and time. Since the students learn English as a media for communication, they should have the ability of writing.

To get rid of the students’ feelings of being dull and tiring, an English teacher has to use every possible method. This is the same as the writing. Teachers use different methods in order to improve the students’ ability of writing, among which, the application of MAI can deepen the object impression, such is magnificent in developing the students’ writing ability.

The linguist Franklin (1758) ever said, “Tell me, I’ll forget; teach me, I’ll remember; involve me and I’ll learn”. If we asked the students to write an unfamiliar composition, they would probably be unable to write and feel discouraged. However, the students can write excellent articles if they watch the story happen. In and out of class, we should ask the students to participate some English-related activities, and then ask them to write it down. Take “The first snow in winter” for example, having enjoyed themselves in the beautiful snowing scenery and being given some hints, the students can write a much better composition.

Conclusions

MAI has great functions because of the powerful functions of the multimedia. Recently, MAI is widely used in the classroom teaching, especially in English classroom teaching in junior high schools in China.


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Sharon and James (2005) stated the steps of the application of MAI in the classroom in 2005. First step is the analysis of the learners. It determines their various levels of experience by using multimedia. Second is the statement of objectives. Teachers need to explore how to use multimedia in support of students’ learning, and then state objectives and take with the content and what materials one will use. Next is the choice of methods, media and materials. The fourth step is the utilization of the media and materials. It will facilitate learners’ learning by means of modifying each material’s use to fit learners’ needs. Furthermore, it needs to concern about the learners’ participation. Teachers need to have the learners do specific activities that rely on their ability to use multimedia. Lastly, it is the evaluation and revision. Teachers should consider how materials that rely on multimedia help students to interpret the teaching contents.

However, when most teachers use MAI to help with their teaching procedure, there still emerge some problems that suggestions are given more concern.

Firstly, teachers should provide students enough interactive space, and discussion in groups or in pairs should be paid more attention to in MAI classroom. Secondly, teachers should analyze the needs and interests of different students before designing the PPT (Power Point) courseware. The amount of the materials do not need too much. Thirdly, teachers should follow the principles of the design of courseware. Moreover, teachers should select proper media materials according to their functions, because different materials have different functions.

The application of MAI can meet the need of each student, improve the whole grades of the class greatly and diminish the spilt of the students. Teaching is a far more particularly complicated issue because of many different elements that contribute to it, such as learners’ factors, the setting, the role of the teacher, etc., all of which overlap and influence each other. So, this small-scale paper is far from enough, and the authors will continue this research in their teaching practice in the future. But they still hope that they can give some help to our junior English teaching.

References Beatty, K. (2003). The importance of interaction in second language classroom learning: Applied linguistics. Shanghai: Shanghai

Foreign Language Press. Betty, K. (2005). Teaching and researching computer-assisted language learning. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and

Research Press. Chomsky, N. (1990). The English teaching and learning methods: Debski primary school students’ perceptions of interactive

whiteboard. Computer Assisted Learning, 4(2). Lewis, R. (1940). Computer-assisted language learning. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 1(1). LIAO, X. Q. (2001). The theory of task-oriented teaching and classroom practice. Primary and Secondary Schools Teaching, 11. Michael, J. D. (1987). The international encyclopedia of teaching and teacher education. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Paris, S. G., & Winograd, P. (1991). The basic technical training in English teaching. Hangzhou: Hangzhou University Press. Sharon, E., & James, S. (2005). Teaching technology and media. Beijing: Higher Education Press.


Wendy As a Feminine Principle (Quicksilver)

of the Alchemical Great Work

Violeta Cvetkovska Ocokoljić, Tatjana Cvetkovski, Ana Langović Milićević Megatrend University, Belgrade, Serbia

Novel Peter Pan and Wendy (1921) is primarily intended for children but it can be interpreted much more broadly.

This paper deals with the Wendy as a female archetype. This is a Jung’s archetype of anima, ancient the Great

Mother and fertility. Also, in context of alchemy Wendy could be interpreted as one of key elements in the

transformation, i.e., Quicksilver. Transformation is a motif that runs throughout the entire novel. This

transformation can be interpreted as a process of growing up, traveling and transformation of metals as well as a

resurrection (physical and spiritual). The beginning of the journey is related to nigredo stage, the blackening and

the decay where the soul leaves the body to be purified once again united with it.

Keywords: Wendy, alchemy, the great mother, Quicksilver, fertility

Introduction

Novel Peter Pan and Wendy (1921), is designed for children but its stratification requires interpretation of different aspects, or from different angles. One of the aspects is certainly the alchemical one which can be analyzed through the concepts of Sulphur and Quicksilver but from the angle of the symbolic and mythological expression. The entire novel could be set as alchemistic condition ludus puerorum, or the rotation of the spirits or circulation, where everything that was up is now down and vice versa, and this is Quadrangulum secretum sapientum of Hermes (Jung, 1984, p. 136) in which there is a circle surrounded by sunlight, that is, Neverland surrounded by the golden arrows1. Peter Pan and Wendy are Sulphur and Quicksilver (Mercury), King and Queen and other children are the elements that occur in the Great Work. The basic hypothesis of this study is that girl Wendy has transformed in the Great Mother by switching to a different world. She is Quicksilver, passive state which needs an initiator, or Peter Pan (Hermes Psychopompus), interpreted as Orpheus who “had certain talents, such as the ability to find philosopher’s stone and enter and leave unscathed the kingdom of dead” (Battistini, 2007, p. 143). Also, switching to a different world she is no longer an ordinary Quicksilver which is found in the nature, but becomes a philosopher’s Mercury which is united with the philosopher’s Sulphur, or Peter Pan. “The Living Silver dissolves the adjoined pure Sulphur” (Trismosin, 1920, p. 38). They become king and queen, or

Violeta Cvetkovska Ocokoljić, Ph.D., assisstant professor of Faculty for Culture and Media, Megatrend University. Tatjana Cvetkovski, Ph.D., full time professor of Faculty for Business Studies, Megatrend University. Ana Langović Milićević, Ph.D., full time professor of Faculty for Business Studies, Megatrend University.

1 According to Franz (1980, p. 166), philosopher’s stone has to circulate through all seasons, the qualities and the elements and has to go from earth to heaven and back again to the earth.

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albedo and rubedo. Also alchemical aspects, represented in the European countries, are deeply rooted with the Greco-Roman mythology and Hellenized Egypt.

Fundamental Concepts of Alchemical Analogy

The concept of analogy applied in the studying of novel Peter Pan and Wendy starts from Jung’s interpretation of the analogy as “the secret identity” (1984, p. 364) that could be found in the world around us or in nature. Although Jung discussed form of interpreting the world in the context of medieval man, this concept can be applied equally today. So there is a parallel between the chemical experiment and process that take place in the alchemist. While the matter is transformed, at the same time in a performer mental processes take place.

If we start from Empedocles’s theory of the existence of external fire, a kind of objective flux that carries forms and colors, and internal fire which could be understood as a spirit or soul (Pavlović, 1977, p. 38), then the mutual intertwining between observer and observed is always happening. Permeation power will be increased to the extent in which alchemist pay attention to observed. Describing the incorporation of the viewer with what is seen, Plotinus said that the soul does not need to look outside, if contains in itself a subject that sees (Jaspers, 1988, p. 65).

Based on the hypothesis that during the chemical transformation of matter at the same time transforms the alchemist, the paper presents an analysis of the mystical journey in the Neverland. Novelist while shaping the story from the world of ideas creates events and forms, and the reader is transformed as it goes through phases of transformation of the main characters in the novel. Also, the paper analyzes the symbolic of elements and characters of the novel in accordance with Jung’s (1984, p. 255) statement that the real secret is not hidden, but speaks in the hidden language.

The Peregrinatio in the Novel Peter Pan and Wendy

The metaphor of journey is widely used in understanding the alchemical process. The big journey (peregrinatio) is a mystical pilgrimage. Beginner starts as an ignoramus, a child, growing up on the road to alchemical work and becomes the adept who has been initiated into the sacred mysteries. Children point to a motive of dwarfs (homunculi, cabirs) or indicate the child’s condition is still going on (Jung, 1984, p. 209). Also, the dwarf form implies a kind of limitation and suggests a naturalistic vegetation-numen sprung from the underworld (Jung, 1981, p. 226) and the visible expressions of the creative strenght incarnate in man (Jung, 1931, p. 130). According to Jung (1931), the dwarf form leads to the figure of the divine boy, the puer eternus, the young Dionysus (p. 133) and also, Peter Pan.

Transition: Between the Worlds and Chemical Conditions Peter stepped out of his world, the world of dreams or the dead to the world of the living (people). Wendy also

makes the step from the living world (with her two little brothers), from her home to the world of Peter Pan. This is a trinity ternarius (Jung, 1984, p. 134), i.e., spirit and soul are separated from the body, which is equal to death, in order to return again to the body purified. They come out the window and fly in the Neverland, so they transfer itself to another, altered state. In alchemy, the spirit comes out of matter, it happens in the form of evaporation, but the procedure for his restraint is very serious. In particular, it warns that the vessel must be sealed properly so the spirit of matter would not escape. Therefore, the spirit (in the form of three earthly and bodily creatures) came out of


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the first alchemical phase known as the nigredo. Also, this event can be interpreted as a failure of alchemists. Spirit escaped through the window of the house (children’s room) because vessel has not been sealed properly. Thus, a state of nigredo is prolonged and children go to the Neverland. These are metals that are still in mystical alchemical vessel or soul separated from the body in the process of purification. Also, there is the view that all of the stories “actually negotiate the journey from infancy to maturity” (Byrd, 2004, p. 52). However, regardless of whether it is about growing up, a spiritual transformation or transformation of matter is always about journey, a mystical process of change. Tying a dog, called Nana, before the trip also could be understood as restraining the lower instincts. Although Barry says that animals have no soul unlike humans (Barrie, 1921, p. 18), this claim is inconsistent with the idea of the alchemists who believe that there is a soul in everything, the essence (Quintesence). It is in men, metals, plants and animals.

Nigredo and Metamorphosis in Alchemical Vessel Children go to the Neverland, so the imaginary fairyland that is located in the vision of each child. When

Barrie (1921) described the Neverland, he said “For the Neverland is always more or less an island” (pp. 5-6). He (1921) mentioned that each child has his own fairyland and that “Of course the Neverlands vary a good deal” (p. 6). But, the island was out looking for them (p. 47). However, he said that all the Neverland somehow similar. In them there is neither space nor time. Describing this magical world MacKillop (2004) said that “mortals taken to fairyland may pass as much as 900 years there, thinking it only one night” (p. 201).

This small round country, surrounded by water, contains all the good and bad memories and it is prone to metamorphosis. Neverland could be seen as the original material, massae confusae. Given that the Neverland is an island surrounded by dark waters, it may be identified with “the Primeval Mound, the first land to emerge at Creation from primodrial waters” (Leeming, 2010, p. 502). Also, it is Vas Hermetis of alchemist, round and oval vessel in which the Great Work is realizing. “The opus begins in the darkness of the depths of the earth, the realm and domain of the obscura foemina” (Berk, 2004, p. 239). It is also the uterus, womb and black cavern from which a living and bringing a child into the world. Thus, a man born in the dark and primordial water, the formless mass, taking shape by drawing a ray of light: “Son, extract the ray from his shadow” (Berk, 2004, p. 239). The first phase of the alchemical processes, nigredo, appears in several occasions. First, when children leave the household with Peter Pan, that is when the spirit of matter comes out of the bottle. Then in the character of Peter Pan who is a symbol of guide to the world of the dead, so to speak the guide through alchemistic decay, or active substance that stimulates the alchemical process. Neverland is a glass container in which the process takes place. It also contains nigredo aspect because, according to Berry’s words: “The Neverland had always begun to look a little dark and threatening by bedtime. Then unexplored patches arose in it and spread; black shadows moved about in them” (Barrie, 1921, p. 48). Decay occurs in the apparent death of Wendy as well as in the true death of fairy Tinker Bell2, which, of course, comes to life because we are not talking about physical death but about a transformation.

2 According to Barrie (1921), Tinker Bell is poisoned because he drank a mysterious yellowish drink (liquid quite unknown to science) that is made Hook “blended of all the death-dealing rings that had come into his possesion” (p. 137).


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Creation of a Hermaphrodite: Mariagge of Sulfur and Mercury In the Neverland is all subject to the imagination3. So, there is a change and transformation, which among

other things, observed from the Mercurian aspect of transformation through the make-believe aspect of Neverland. The wonderful substance known as thiriak or thiriaka (panacea) has a remarkable similarity with make-believe medicine in the Neverland. Wendy was giving this medicine to Peter and the other boys. “Of course it was only water, but it was out of a calabash, and she always shook the calabash and counted the drops, which gave it a certain medicinal quality” (Barrie, 1921, p. 124).

About Peter Pan, as the guide to another world, is discussed in following words: “When children died he went part of the way with them, so that they should not be frightened” (Barrie, 1921, p. 7). There is also the fairy, which also symbolizes the guide to another world. Bell appears as the guardian of the first threshold or a good fairy: “When the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies” (Barrie, 1921, p. 31). According to mythology:

They prefer to live underground, especially under a hill, in a cave or burrow, or in a heap of stones. (...) Their prefer colour in green, not only for dress but sometimes for skin and hair as well. (...) Fairies are not generaly malevolent or harmful, but they are feared as abductors of children and as administrators of the fairy storke, which may render the wictim speechless. (...) (MacKillop, 2004, p. 200)

In earlier belief, it was a female demon which used to take children to their deaths. Vikan (1984) mentioned the magic formula that is used to protect against this demon, and both Spier (1993) and Vikan (1984) associated with the female figure archidemon who has over 40 names: Lilith for the Jews, Alabasdria in the early Byzantine Egypt, Gyllou for the Byzantines and Abyzou or Obizuth in The Testament of Solomon4. Also, Spier (1993) gave hystera (womb) formula “womb, black, blackening (...)” (p. 25) on the gems deriving from the syncretistic magical tradition that emerged from Hellensitic Egypt. “To spare their own children, fairies were thought to seek out human infants, especially the unbaptized” (MacKillop, 2004, p. 201). Parallels can be found in Barrie’s (1921) words on the sentence that has befallen the stars: “Stars are beautiful, but they may not take an active part in anything. (...) It is a punishment put on them for something they did so long ago that no star knows what it was” (p. 23). In the context of The Testament of Solomon, “The astrological entity [stars] does not belong to the demon, or the demon to it, but is the demon” or the stars are thought of as “living beings” (Mc Cown, 1922, p. 46). Punishment of which Barrie says it could be interpreted in the Christian context as a punishment was executed over the fallen angels.

The fairy Bell, with loveliest tinkle as of golden bells, is the counterpart of Peter Pan in Neverland world. She is as well as Peter Pan a guide to another world. She is his female nature. However, Wendy is also his female nature, material and human being. She is separated from him but he is in lack of her. In alchemy, it is the spirit that longs for the body. They are two matters of Stone, Sol and Luna, formed together in a proper marriage (Silva, 2005). Also there are the gold and silver, sulfur and mercury and male and female. Their fusion is the beginning of the end, this is the first death. It happens at the beginning of the novel just as Barry says: “Two is the beginning of the end” (Barrie, 1921, p. 1). 3 According to Jung (1984, p. 177), imagination is actively causing internal pictures. On the contrary, according to Wellek (1941, p. 192) ignorance and superstition, so opposite to the real interests of human society, are the parents of imagination. 4 Mc Cown (1922, pp. 45-46) listed the names of 36 decans, which includes Abyzou, governing Sublunary world and bring different challenges and problems to people.


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Transfiguration: The Quintessence Motif of flower that Wendy picked at the beginning of the novel and which is not specifically defined, could

be likened to a magical flower that intoxicates, puts to sleep and also kills and the dead backs to life5. When Wendy goes in the Neverland, she becomes Xecate, “Mistress of the occult arts and guardian goddess of crossroads (symbol of the many roads reserved for the soul after the body dies) (...) transformed version of Isis, Great Egyptian Mother who dispensed life and death and nourished the souls of the dead” (Battistini, 2007, p. 190). The motif of food here is especially important because Wendy in the world of the dead becomes the Great Mother and worry about lost boys and feed them. However, Peter is also the one who determines between the life and death. This is particularly evident in Berry’s words when he describes, among other things the Neverland: “There is a saying in the Neverland that every time you breathe, a grown-up dies” (Barrie, 1921, p. 121). Peter was so full of wrath against grown-ups and he breathed intentionally quick short breaths at the rate of about five to a second. Five in one is also alchemical mystery. It is five elements in one body, or the four basic elements from which the fifth, Quintesence, is arising.

Issues concerning the closeness of that other, unreal world on the edge between fantasy and reality, and even death are discussed in the following: “(...) But in the two minutes before you go to sleep it becomes very nearly real” (Barrie, 1921, p. 7). It was Virgil’s (1890) “the home of sleep and slumberous night” (p. 201). Peter Pan as a psychopompos has “characteristic that determines his essence as one of generation and transformation of all things” (Battistini, 2007, p. 279). This transforming aspect of him could be seen in the Neverland where Peter Pan together with boys imagines and in that way materialize things. If Peter was Sulphur, then Hermes’ words match his description: “It will receive the powers of the highest and lowest planets, and with its force it penetrates solid things, it overcomes all matter and all precious stones” (Trismosin, 1920, p. 25).

Wendy’s Life in the Make-Believe Land

The stone of philosopher is in the earth of which must be removed and cleaned. Accoding to Trismosin (1920), alchemist continued his work there where nature left off:

He who will proceed properly in this Art, shall according to all Philosophers, begin where nature left off. It is at the same time a way of producing effects and a vessel wherein all things multiply themselves, because of the adjustment of all things comprised in nature. (Trismosin, 1920, pp. 18-23)

According to the alchemical understanding of quest for the philosopher’s stone, adept moves out from the cave6 and returns back to it. So in that way the cave symbolizes man’s inner state, his unconscious and his microcosmic potential but as well as the cosmos itself (Ulansey, 1991). Also, it is at the same time a wonderful vessel (vas mirabile) and the human body and caves. The darkness of the cave or blackness actually is not only the alchemical nigredo7, the initial state of the adept, but also the characteristic of the original matter (massae

5 A magical plant that the dead back to life, more details in Budge, 1901. 6 In this case, it is the Neverland, unknown world and the underground home of Wendy, Peter and the other boys. 7 Ancient Egyptians employed quicksilver in the processes whereby they separated the metals gold and silver from the native ore and from these processes there resulted a black powder. For this substance, they believe that was possess the most marvelous (magical) powers, and to contain in it the individualities of the various metals (Budge, 1901, p. 21). Death of the base material aimed at achieving a black more black than black itself (nigrium nigrius nigro) a substance called nigredo (Dalton, 2000, p. 199).


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confusae). Although, Trismosin (1920) warned students not to direct their search for the cave, the cave itself get its significance and meaning just in the allegory” (p. 17). According to Jung (1984, p. 364), analogy to the medieval man is not as logical character as the secret identity. He believed that Art can produce extraordinary things out of aforesaid natural beginnings such as nature of herself would never be able to create, i.e., does not produce things whereby imperfect metals can in a moment be made perfect.

When Wendy, the Quicksilver, arrives in Neverland, the vessel (vas hermetis) is transformed. Firstly, she falling to the ground in flight, lost consciousness and apparently dies. Thus, reversed her materijal, human nature and awakening into the underworld as the Mercury (the chthonic mother). According to Greek mythology, she is the Crone Goddess or dark mother (Graves, 1992) but also Persephone, missing daughter. When they seemingly shoot Wendy, they build “a tiny house around her like a tomb” (Gilead, 1992, p. 97). Red walls of Wendy’s new house has a parallel in symbolism with ancient Greece considered as color of dead, so the walls of tombs ware colored in red (Graves, 1992). The red also symbolizes the color of cinnabar obtaining form Quicksilver ore.

Button from the acorn which she received as a gift from Peter Pan when they met saved her life in Neverland. It is a kind of pass into another world. In that other world, she is simultaneously a little mother and the Great Mother and Peter is “the Great White Father”8 (Barrie, 1921, p. 109). He is free of mortality. “Death is the strategy of refusal in the self’s war against biological and generational processes” (Gilead, 1992, p. 96). He becomes the father of the lost boys and she becomes their mother. This is alchemical allegory of the marriage of the dual princliples in the work. Their make-believe the roles of parents are reflected in their mutual addressing. Peter addresses Wendy with the words: “Ay, old lady” (Barrie, 1921, p. 112). Also, rejecting the idea that could really be the father, Peter said to the children: “It would make me seem so old to be their real father” (Barrie, 1921, p. 114). On the other hand, Peter is simultaneously father, husband and her son. When Wendy asks him what he feels for her on he answers: “Those of a devoted son” (Barrie, 1921, p. 114). Their make-believe children are in fact their redundant elements in the minerals, a kind of impurity. They are an integral part of them, but in the process of purification they must be separated from them. On the other hand, Peter is eternal boy while Wendy is a girl who takes over the role of mother in the Neverland. It speaks of the duality of their nature. Peter is the captain of the lost boys and Wendy, and two brothers are entering their world. Wendy is the first female human being who comes into this world. Therefore, she is mercury that is added to sulphur and then nigredo process begins.

When Wendy wants to return to world of living, boys become aggressive and they suggest putting her in chains so she would not escape. Here an attempt to keep the spirit that disappears from the vessel appears again, but now in the form of alchemical process of final transformation. Wendy seeks help from Tootles. Tootles is a code name for alchemical tartar. His reaction is harsh and deadly: “He drew his hanger; and for that instant his sun was at noon” (Barrie, 1921, p. 122). According to Trismosin (1920), “When the Sun is in Leo, then it indicates the Second Grade, which is hotter because the great coldness of the Water being under the rule of the Air” (p. 37). Wendy invites the boys to go with her into the world of living and they gladly accept. The Queen is now entirely spiritual “and has power to turn all servants into kings” (Roob, 2009, p. 80), or to return the boys to the world of the living. At that moment, pirates attack the Redskins on the island. So, that is the struggle between

8 Albedo is mentioned in the context of Wendy being mistakenly shot by an arrow as “a great white bird” (Barrie, 1921, p. 66).


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nigredo and rubedo. Describing the strategy of attack of redskins Bari actually corresponds to condition known as rubedo, which takes place at the dawn and announces enlightenment:

By all the unwritten laws of savage warfare it is always the redskin who attacks, and with the wiliness of his race he does it just before the dawn, at which time he knows the courage of the whites to be at its lowest ebb. (Barrie, 1921, p. 127)

The pirates captured the boys and Wendy while Peter slept peacefully and black Captain Hook watched it. “The son is missing. He has conjoined with the father (...) the dusty lapis is added as an enzyme to the base metals” (Roob, 2009, p. 80). Incorporating of father and son, eventually ends up with father’s killing: “The son (Azoth) kills the father” (Roob, 2009, p. 76).

Berry’s description of “bacchanalian dance” (Barrie, 1921, p. 146) of pirates on board reminds of the ceremonies in honor of the Greek god Dionysus and the Roman Bacchus. Also, the ship is the embodiment of hazardous games: pirates gamble and play cards. However, with occurrence of the terrible tick-tack of the crocodile”, children who were victims are now changing role “from being actors they suddenly become spectators” (Barrie, 1921, p. 150) and eventually take over the ship.

Transitional chemical state of Peter Pan (sulfur) also is pointed out in Berry’s words, when Peter from the land (dry) enters into the sea (wet): “(...) his legs encountering the water as if quite unaware that they had entered a new element” (Berrie, 1921, p. 151). Captain Hook “seemed to have a charmed life, as he kept them at bay in the circle of fire” (Barrie, 1921, p. 158) or “fiery nature of lapis lowers itself to the ground. The water turns into clouds9” (Roob, 2009, p. 49).

Conclusions: Return

In the children’s novel Peter Pan and Wendy, the process of the restratification of the elements in the alchemical vessel is described. This process “occurs by repeatedly extracting the mercurial spirit and then pouring it back” (Roob, 2009, p. 46), and it is also known as the alchemical Saturnine phase, compared with children’s games. “Wherefore is this art compared to the play of children, who when they play, turn undermost that which before was uppermost” (Trismosin, 1921, p. 39). This alchemical operation is similar to the event in the novel, when Peter teaches Wendy and boys to fly: “Up and down they went, and round and round” (Barrie, 1921, p. 40). This is “an artificial process that aims to bring nature’s work to perfection” (Battistini, 2007, p. 366). Fluctuation of elements in the alchemical process is also reflected in the return to the world of living matter. Peter does not want to let children and Wendy to leave the Neverland. On fraud, he tries to keep them closing the window. The process of escaping the spirit from matter is repeated. However, when seeing Mrs. Darling in tears, Peter re-opens the window and lets them to go home. Tears are an important element in the story. At the beginning of the novel, Peter Pan was in tears when he failed to bond his shadow with soap and so woke Wendy. Now when he saw Mrs. Darling crying he decided to let the children to return home. Peter’s tears will also awake Jane, Wendy’s daughter. In alchemical terms, tears are adhesive of the world (glutinum mundi), that is, the mediator between mind and body (Jung, 1984, p. 170). Incorporating element with the Neverland, that is, Peter Pan is expressed through the material make-believe stuff also. At the end of the first year, “she flew away with

9 Captain Hook gets into jaws of crocodiles, which symbolizes water or moisture.


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Peter in the frock she had woven from leaves and berries in the Neverland” (Barrie, 1921, p. 177). Alchemical analogies frequently have been found in nature, because study of nature was an integral part

of adept’s work. Renewal cycle of nature is implied in the latter part of the novel, where first Wendy and then her daughter and daughter of her daughter go with Peter for a week every year to do his spring cleaning: “When Margaret grows up she will have a daughter, who is to be Peter’s mother in turn; and thus it will go on, so long as children are gay and innocent and heartless” (Barrie, 1921, p. 185). This is also a process of circulatio. Also, according to Jung (1931, p. 377), the parallel for the motive of death and resurrection is the motive of losing and finding. The motive appears in religious rites in spring festivities where the image of god was hidden and found again.

Peter and Wendy, as mentioned above, are sulphur and mercury, that is, the sun and the moon. Said in alchemical words: “The Sol or Sun of the Philosophers of Mercurial Origin is the Fixed, while the Moon is the Unfixed part of Matter of the Great Work” (Trismosin, 1920, p. 96). Peter is the Mercurial tail-eater, that is symbolized in form of Uroboros. Wendy is a little girl, almighty goddess in form of youth and ancient goddess of fertility. As all ancient deities, both of them have a human characteristics and dual nature: passive and active, mortal and immortal and material and spiritual. Also, Wendy and Peter represent duality of human nature and duality in everything what surround us. In form of Wendy, Barrie (1921) described a growth and maturity of one person or generation of raw matter into a philosopher’s stone. Also, according to alchemical interpretation, Wendy’s journey spring and ending in enclosed space of parental home (enclosed hermetic vessel). Journey between these two final stages is a process of transformation and transfiguration.

Adoption of six boys from Neverland at the end of the novel marks the alchemical stage of reproduction. The elements are united and the work is completed.

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