SPOKEN GRAMMAR IN TEACHING ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

20 February 2019 Last Updated: 20 February 2019

Hanna АPALAT

(Kropyvnytskyi, Ukraine)

As a result of emphasis on spoken communication a lot of researchers have begun to focus on describing features of spoken grammar in a great number of works [1; 4; 7; 8; 10]. But there is a controversy as to how spoken grammar should be taught and whether we should teach it. Due to current trends emphasising communicative language teaching and authenticity, recognizing the classroom role of spoken grammar it is more important than ever before [3].

Unlike written English, spoken English is usually spontaneous and unplanned and produced in real time with no opportunity for editing [2]. Besides, speech usually takes place face-to-face. Therefore, the nature and characteristics of conversational English itself lead to several distinct grammatical features of spoken English as speakers try to fulfill the interpersonal and interactive functions of spoken English in real time [3].

Not learning features of spoken grammar can impede students’ ability to speak fluently and appropriately [5]. Learning about characteristics of spoken grammar and ways to teach them empowers teachers to improve their students’ overall fluency and face-to-face conversation, increases the authenticity of speaking lessons and prevents students from speaking English like a textbook.

The features of spoken grammar include ellipses, heads, tails, fillers, backchannels, phrasal chunks.

Ellipsis is defined as omission of elements normally part of a certain structure.

Heads, also known as left-dislocation, are a way to introduce and orient listeners to a topic before giving information on the topic [2, p. 366]. Heads allow speakers to highlight the topic they want to talk about before commenting on it, giving both the speaker and the listener more processing time in real time communication [2].

Tails, also known as right-dislocation, are comments that are added to the end of a phrase. Tails have a range of functions, including clarifying a comment, expressing a personal attitude to an item [12]. Tails enable speakers to deal with a real time processing and instructiveness of speech by allowing speakers to both edit their comments and give evaluative statements of topics [6].

Fillers are words and utterances like “er”, “well” etc. that do not have specific meaning but rather fill time and allow the speaker to gather his or her thoughts [13]. Backchannels are words and utterances like “oh”, “I see” etc. that are used to acknowledge what the speaker is saying and encourage him or her to continue [9].

Phrasal chunks are fixed words or phrases that can combine with other elements but act as ready-made lexical units of language, just as words do [2]. Phrasal chunks can create vagueness “sort of”, “kind of”, modify and show politeness “a little bit” and mark discourse structure “I mean”, “you know”. All of them can act as conversation fillers, allowing the speaker to pause and think about what to say under the constraints of real time [2].

Even among researchers who support teaching spoken grammar to English as foreign language students, there is no consensus on the approach teachers should accept or the extent to which they should teach features of spoken grammar. The issues of spoken grammar include the need for authentic materials, the necessity of teaching spoken grammar for developing students’ spoken communication skills in all contexts and the question whether to teach production or to focus on the recognition of spoken grammar characteristics.

Spoken grammar doesn’t receive much attention in English Course books. Nevertheless there are some exercises devoted to the use of Vague Language and Ellipses in Speakout Advanced. Thus the students listen to the dialogue, do some comprehensive tasks then they are asked to look at the examples of vague language from the conversation. The students should answer the questions: Why do the speakers use vague language? Does it sound formal or casual?

Afterward there is classification of vague language (vague nouns: thing, stuff, bit; vague numbers around, about fifty, more or less, fifty or so; vague quantifiers: one or two, a couple of, loads of, plenty of, a few; generalisers: sort of, kind of, you know; list of completers: and stuff, and so on, or something (like that).

The next task is to correct mistakes in the sentences. After that there is a speaking task: Work in pairs, describe and discuss the portraits below. Use the following questions to help you.

Ellipsis is another element of Spoken Grammar represented in this course. The students are to read the conversation and answer the questions:

What words have been left out where you see▲? Why is this?
Look at the words in bold. What words do they replace?

Then the students are asked to read the rules and to answer the questions: which words have been left out of the phrases/ questions below?

Ever been to Spain?

See you.

So a “three I’s” methodology of teaching spoken grammar is preserved: illustration, induction and interaction, where spoken data is first presented, spoken grammar is highlighted, and learners are then encouraged to draw their own conclusions about and develop their capacity to notice features of spoken English [1].

So, spoken grammar is merely highlighted in the above given examples. The majority of activities are noticing tasks [11]. For that reason this course emphasizes noticing and awareness-raising activities rather than production activities.

Evidently, there is a lack of production activities. The emphasis on phrasal chunks over syntactic structures common to conversation is ignored, making the coverage of spoken grammar incomplete.

References:

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Rühlemann C. Coming to terms with conversational grammar: ‘Dislocation’ and ‘dysfluency’ // International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 11(4). – 2006. – P. 385-409.
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