TOPIC 5:

ORAL COMMUNICATION:
ELEMENTS AND NORMS IN THE
ORAL DISCOURSE. ROUTINES.
FORMULAE AND STRATEGIES.

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TOPIC 5: ORAL COMMUNICATION: ELEMENTS AND NORMS IN THE ORAL

DISCOURSE. ROUTINES. FORMULAE AND STRATEGIES.

1. INTRODUCTION

2. ORAL COMMUNICATION

3. ELEMENTS IN ORAL DISCOURSE

4.- NORMS OF INTERACTION

5.- EVERYDAY ROUTINES AND NEGOTIATION SKILLS

Routines

o Information routines

o Interaction routines

Negotiation Skills

o Negotiation of meaning

o Management of interaction

6.- FORMULAE AND STRATEGIES

o Achievement or compensatory strategies

o Avoidance or reduction strategies

7.- CONCLUSION AND TEACHING INFERENCES

7.1 New directions from an educational approach

7.2 Teaching implications

o Speaking

o Listening

8.- BIBLIOGRAPHY AND WEBLIOGRAPHY

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1.-INTRODUCTION

In learning, there are four macro skills that we must deal with in order to communicate effectively.
Macro skills refer to the primary, key, main, and largest skill set relative to a particular context. We can
identify four major skills: speaking and listening, which are said to relate to language
expressed through the aural medium, and reading and writing which are related to the
visual medium.

Speaking and writing involve some kind of production on the part of the language user,
they are thus said to be productive skills (output). Listening and reading are receptive
skills(input) in that the language user is receiving written or spoken language. Very
often the language user is involved in using a combination of skills, so that a participant
in a conversation, for example, is involved with both the speaking and the listening
skill.

Communication is an extremely complex and ever-changing phenomenon. But there are

certain characteristics which have particular relevance for the learning and teaching of
languages. By effective communication we mean that there is a desire for the
communication to be effective both from the point of view of the speaker and the
listener. Some generalisations characterise oral and written communication:

a) the speaker wants to speak,

b) he has some communicative purpose and wants something to happen as a result of

what he says, and

c) he selects the language he thinks is appropriate for this purpose.

When we try to organize communicative activities we will try to ensure students to

achieve an objective, and this objective or purpose should be the most important part of
the communication.

2.- ORAL CONMUNICATION

Oral communication is a two-way process between speaker and listener and involves the
productive skill of speaking and the receptive skill of understanding or listening with
understanding. As I have already said we have two productive and two receptive skills.
It is important to say that receptive doesn’t mean passive; both in reading and listening,
language users are actively involved in the process of interpreting and negotiating
meaning. The speaker has to encode the message he wishes to convey in appropriate
language, while listener has to decode it. The message itself contains a good deal of
redundant information, i.e. it contains more information than the listener actually needs
in order to understand, so that he is not obliged to follow with the maximum attention.
At the same time the listener is helped by prosodic features (related to patterns of stress
and intonation), as well as kinetic features (facial and bodily movements) which are part

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of the spoken utterance. We should also note that in contrast to the written language,
where sentences are carefully structured and linked together, speech is characterised by
incomplete and sometimes ungrammatical utterances and by frequent false starts and
repetitions.

The methodology for teaching receptive skills must reflect these facts about real life,
therefore the task the teacher asks students to perform must be realistic and motivating
and the material designed to foster the acquisition of receptive skills must be at least
simulated-authentic.

The fact that comprehension can develop

ahead of production is something that
should be recognized and exploited in
language teaching. Another point to bear in
mind is that language acquisition is based
on a rich, varied and intensive contact with
language, and a rich exposure to language
can only be provided through extensive reading and listening.

3. ELEMENTS IN THE ORAL DISCOURSE

Dell Hymes (1972) uses the term speech event for activities that are directly governed
by norms for the use of speech. As speech events, conversations can be contrasted with
other types of speech events such as lectures, discussions, sermons, courtroom trials,
interviews, debates and meetings. We recognize each of these speech events as distinct
by virtue of differences in the number of participants who take part in them, as well as
through differences in the type and amount of talking expected of the participants. In
fact Hymes recommends that for every speech event, we must provide data about their
contributive elements.

1. Setting:

All speech events occur at a specific time or in a specific place. Sometimes it is one of
the defining criteria of an event. Hymes stresses that the ethnographer must also take
note of the psychological setting of an event.

2. Participants:

Traditionally speech has been described in terms of two participants, a speaker who
transmits a message and a listener who receives it. In conversations participants change
roles frequently and rapidly.

3. The purpose: All speech events and speech acts have a purpose, even if occasionally
it is only phatic. Sometimes several events share the same style and are distinguished
only by purpose and participants or setting. Brown and Jule (1983)classify the
functions of language as:

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a. Interactional uses of language. Those in which the primary purposes for
communication are social. The goal for the participants is to make social interaction
comfortable. Examples of interactional uses of language are greetings, making small
talk, telling jokes, giving compliments, making casual chat.

b. Transactional uses of language are those in which language is being used primarily
for communicating information. Accurate and coherent communication of the message
is important as well as confirmation that the message has been understood. Examples of
language being primarily for a transactional purpose include news broadcasts, lectures,
descriptions and instructions.

4. Key:

Within key Hymes handles the ‘tone, manner or spirit’ in which an act or event is
performed. l-le suggests that acts otherwise identical in setting, participants, message,
form, etc., may differ in key as between mock and serious, perfunctory and painstaking.
Hymes emphasizes the significance of key by observing that when it is in conflict with
the overt content of an act, it often over-rides it. Thus ‘how marvellous’ uttered with a
‘sarcastic’ tone is taken to mean the exact opposite.

The signalling of key may be non-verbal, by wink, smile, gesture or posture, but may
equally well be achieved by conventional units of speech like the aspiration and vowel
length used to signal emphasis in English.

5. Channels:

Under channel the description concerns itself with the ‘choice of oral, written,
telegraphic, semaphore, or other mediums of transmission of speech'.

6. Message content:

Hymes suggests that ‘content enters analysis first of all perhaps as a question of topic,
and change of topic. For many events and acts topic is fully predetermined and
invariable, though for others, particularly conversation, topic is relatively unconstrained.

7. Message form:

Obviously the starting and finishing point of studies of speech events is the form of
individual utterances; as Hymes (‘l972a) stresses, ‘it is a general principle that all rules
of speaking involve message form, if not by affecting its shape, then by governing its
interpretation. We have to pay special attention to the grammatical and lexical
composition of individual utterances since ‘how something is said is part of what is
said’. In relation to the code, we must consider:

7.a Code: another element to consider in relation to speech events is the variety of
language used in the individual utterances.

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7.b Genre: all genres have contexts or situations to which they are fitted and in which
they are typically found. Some genres, like ‘conversation’, can occur appropriately in a
wide range of situations, some, like ‘prayer’, are highly restricted; however, it is a
defining criterion of a genre that it is a recognizable style and therefore can be used in
inappropriate situations.

4. NORMS OF INTERACTION

All communities have an underlying set of non—linguistic rules which governs when,
how and how often speech occurs. The characteristics and conventions of conversation
as the most frequent kind of speech event are learned by language learners and ought to
be describable. It is to this which we now turn.

1.- The Cooperative Principle Conversation is more than merely the exchange of
information. When people take part in conversation, they bring to the conversational
process shared assumptions and expectations about what a conversation is, how
conversation develops, and the sort of contribution they are expected to make. When
people engage in conversation they share common principles of conversation that lead
to interpret each other. The philosopher Grice (1975) described four Maxims or
Principles of Cooperative Behaviour which speakers observe in conversation:

1. Maxim of Quantity: Make your contribution just as informative as required.

2. Maxim of Quality: Make your contribution

one that is true.

3. Maxim of Relation: Make your contribution

relevant.

4. Maxim of Manner: Avoid obscurity and

ambiguity. Be brief and orderly.

2. Adjacency Pairs. lf we take the central

problem of conversational analysis to be the
discovery of connections between utterances
and interaction, we may begin to uncover the
coherence of conversation by identifying sequencing rules which apply to utterances as
interactional acts. One way in which meanings are communicated and interpreted in
conversation is through the use of what has been called adjacency pairs. Adjacency
pairs are utterances produced by two successive speakers such that the second utterance
is identified as related to the first as an expected follow-up. The two form a pair, the
first utterance constituting a first pair part and the next utterance constituting a second
pair part. Coulthard(1977) describes adjacency pairs as ‘the basic structural unit in
conversation. Some examples of adjacency pairs are:

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(a) Greeting-Greeting A: Hello. B: Hi.

(b) Summons-Answer A: Jimmy! B: Coming mother.

(c) Question-Answer A: ls that what you mean? B: Yes

(d) Farewell-Farewell A: OK, see ya. B: So long.

According to Schegloff and Sacks (1973), the basic norm of, adjacency pair operation
is that when a speaker produces a recognizable first pair part, that speaker should stop
talking and the conversational partner should produce a recognizable second pair part.
Adjacency pairs thus provide for turn—taking, and also prescribe the type of talking
that the next talker can do.

3. Turn-taking. Conversation by definition involves two or more people. But the

distribution of talking among the participants is not merely random. It is governed by
turn-taking norms, conventions which determine who talks, when, and for how long. A
speaker with poor management of turn-taking rules is one who "doesn’t let you say a
word". A speaker who doesn’t contribute to a conversation arouses negative evaluations
too, or may make the conversation terminate abruptly. Sacks describes the way turns
take place in conversation. One of the basic rules is that only a person speaks at a time.
Norms for turn-taking differ according to the type of speech event. In classrooms a
pupil raises a hand to talk. In debates , the chair allots turns. In informal conversations
turn taking is somewhat affected by rank, and assertion of the right to talk is an
indicator of the power or status of the speaker and the degree to which the participants
in the conversation are in the same or different ranks. Turn taking is one way in which
roles and status are negotiated in conversation. Turn taking is also related to topic
nomination, since one reason people take a turn at talking is when they have something
to contribute to the topic or when the wish to change the topic. Successful management
and control of the turn-taking system in conversation involves a number of strategies:

1. It involves knowing how to signal that

one wants to speak, by using appropriate
phrases or sounds, or even gestures.

2. It means recognizing the right moment

to get a turn.

3. It is important to know how use one’s

turn properly and not to lose it before
finishing what one has to say.

4. One has to be able to recognize other peoples signals of their desire to speak.

5. One needs to know how to let someone else have a turn.

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4. The role of topics The way topics are selected for discussion within conversation and
the strategies speakers use to introduce develop or change topics constitute another
important dimension of conversational management. Coherent conversation respects
norms concerning the choice of topics. What is tellable of course depends heavily on
cultural norms. But even within a particular culture, topics are constrained by the speech
event or activity in which talk occurs. The topics which may be raised in a meeting are
limited, and may be specified in advance through a printed agenda.

Winskowski (1977, 1978) refers to topicalizing behaviour, by which is meant bringing

up topics, responding to other people’s topics, mentioning something, avoiding the
mention of something, carrying the discussion one step further, and so on- the creation
of topic in the activity. With this focus on topic as process, we can see that topic
behaviour often consists of rounds of topical turns which are reciprocally addressed and
replied to.

5. Repair. The process of conversation involves monitoring to ensure that intended

messages have been communicated and understood, and this involves correction of
unsuccessful attempts where necessary. The term repair refers to efforts by the speaker
or the hearer to correct problems in conversation. Repairs may be initiated by either the
speaker (self-repairs) or the hearer (other repairs).

Is a dollar all right or will l need more than that for the p.. . to cover the postage?

Other repairs are carried out by the hearer:

A: She married that guy from Australia, . . what was his name?...Wilson ...Tom?

B: Don Wilson.

A: Yeah, Don Wilson.

These are self-initiated repairs and requests for assistance which occur when the speaker
is trying to express concepts for which target language vocabulary is lacking.

The concept of repair in second language communication can be extended to include

what Tarone (1977) and others have referred to as communication strategies.

6. Formal features of conversation: Conversational discourse is also recognized by

formal features, which distinguish it from written language:

a. Syntax: written language exhibits a different syntax from spoken discourse. In the
written mode, clauses are linked in complex ways, with a main clause often followed by
or linked to subordinate clauses. This is not possible in spoken discourse. Spoken
language is less dense than written language.

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 b. Styles of speaking: An important
dimension of conversation is using a style of
speaking that is appropriate to the particular
circumstances. Different styles of speaking
reflect the roles, age, sex, and status of
participants in interactions. Lexical,
phonological and grammatical changes may
be involved in producing a suitable style of
speaking. Different speech styles reflect
receptions of the social roles of the
participants in an event. Successful management of speech styles creates the sense of
politeness that is essential for harmonious social relations.

c. Conversational routines: Another feature of conversational discourse is the use of

fixed expressions or ‘routines’ which often have specific functions in conversation.
Native speakers have a repertoire of thousands of routines and their use in appropriate
situations creates conversational discourse that sounds natural and native like. But l will
deal with them later.

7.- The notion of fluency: The overall goal of a second language learner is to produce
fluent speech. The concept of fluency reflects the assumption that speakers set out to
produce discourse that is comprehensible, easy to follow, and free from errors and
breakdowns in communication, though this goal is often not met due to processing and
production demands.

Accuracy is here seen as a component of fluency, rather than as an independent

dimension of conversational skill. The kind of discourse speakers produce and the
degree of fluency they achieve, however, depend upon the task the speaker is attempting
and the context for communication.

5.- EVERYDAY ROUTINES AND NEGOTIATION SKILLS

In spoken interaction, speaker and listener do not merely have to be good processors of
the spoken world. It is also useful if they are good communicators, that is, good at
saying what they want to say in a way which the listener finds understandable. To
appreciate what is involved it can be useful to think of the communication of meaning
as depending on two kinds of skills:

Firstly, in many circumstances speakers organize what they have to communicate in

typical patterns. These patterns correspond more or less to typical kinds of message, and
so deal with recurring cognitive problems. These have been called routines. Examples
of routines include story telling or joke telling; descriptions or comparisons, and
instructions.

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Secondly speakers also develop skills in solving all sorts of communication problems
which can be expected to occur in spoken exchanges. These we will call negotiation
skills. They consist of skills which are used to enable speakers to make themselves
clearly understood whatever the interaction, and to deal with communication problems
that may occur. Negotiation skills are common to all kinds of communication. For
example, they include the ability to check on specific meanings, to alter wording, to
correct mistaken interpretations, to find words or accepted phrase for ideas for which
the speaker does not already have any.

5.1 EVERYDAY ROUTINES

They can be defined as conventional ways of presenting information. Because they are
conventional, they are predictable and help ensure clarity.

There are two main kinds of routines: information routines and interaction routines.

o Information routines. By information routines we mean frequently recurring

types of information structures, stories; descriptions of places and people;
presentation of facts; comparisons; instructions. information routines may be
identified as expository or evaluative.

-Expository are those which involve factual information hinging on questions of

sequencing or identity of the subject. Brown and Yule 1983 suggest that the principal
types of expository routines are narration description, and instruction.

- Evaluative. They are often based on expository routines. Evaluative routines typically
involve explanations, predictions, justifications, preferences and decisions.

o Interaction routines are based not so much on information content as on

sequences of kinds of terms occurring in typical kinds of interactions. Routines,
thus, can be characterized in broad terms occurring in situations, and the order in
which the components are likely to occur. Thus "service encounters", telephone
conversations, interviews, situations, casual encounters, conversations at parties,
lessons, radio or television interviews, all tend to be organized in characteristic
ways.

As with informational routines, the proof that interactional routines exist can be found
in the fact that speakers can get parts wrong. incompetence can be recognized when one
of the speakers is brusque or rude or disorganized because he or she starts talking
without producing initial greeting. In so far as politeness conventions are based on
common sense, these routines can also be seen as logical. However the logic followed is
based on what it makes sense to say before you go on to say anything else. For example,
greetings sensibly come at the beginning of a conversation and farewells at the end.

5.2 NEGOTIATION SKILLS.

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Apart from the knowledge of routines, there is also the area of skills involved in getting
through the routines on specific occasions, so that understanding is achieved. There are
two main aspects to this. One involves the management of interaction, and the other
consist of the negotiation of meaning. Both of these are affected by the fact that the
listener is on the spot, and can influence in many ways what shape the interaction takes.

5.2.1 By negotiation of meaning it is understood the skill of communicating ideas

clearly. This includes the way participants signal understanding during an exchange,
and is an aspect of spoken interaction. In written discourse, there is nothing that either
the reader or the writer can do about the other one’s mistakes.

5.2.2 Management of interaction is the second kind of interaction skill, it refers to the
business of agreeing who is going to speak next, and what he is going to talk about.

Interaction management has at least two aspects; agenda management, and turn-taking.
The first refers essentially to control over the content, that is, the choice of topic and
exchange, while turn-taking relates to the obvious aspect of who speaks when and for
how long.

a. Agenda management essentially covers the participants’ right to choose the topic and
the way the topics are developed, and to choose how long the conversation, should
continue. Here then we are concerned with the basic freedom to start, maintain and end
a conversation without conforming to a script, and without the intervention of a third
party. The business of what topic is to be spoken about is partly a matter of the interest
of the participants, and partly a matter of what is appropriate in given circumstances.

b. Turn taking. That I have mentioned before in relation to the norms in oral interaction.
The speaker has to be efficient at getting a turn and to be good at letting another speaker
have a turn.

In order to ensure understanding, there are two important factors. First of all, there is the
question of choosing a level of explicitness and detail which we think is appropriate to
our interlocutor. The second factor concern the procedures used for ensuring
understanding.

1. Level of explicitness

By this we are referring to the speakers’ choices of expressions in the light of what our
interlocutor knows, what he or she needs to know or can understand. The listener wants
neither too much information, nor too little. The important point is that the degree of
explicitness necessary for a given message varies according to the person one is talking
to. Lack of explicitness may appear arrogant and aggressive, and very often
uncooperative. The second type of problem, that of too much explicitness leaves the
listener with too much redundant language to process, too much detail. As a
consequence, he may feel bored, provoked or confused. To find the right level, speakers
have to predict, often guessing what the interlocutors know.

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2. Procedures and negotiation

It concerns the procedures which speaker follows to ensure that understanding

takes place. Negotiation of meaning concerns not only how much information is
communicated, but also how specific we are in what we say. This can involve various
strategies of communication that we are all very familiar with. For example it includes
paraphrase, metaphor, and the use of vocabulary to vary the degree of precision with
which we communicate.

6. FORMULAE AND STRATEGIES RELEVANT TO ORAL COMMUNICATION

FORMULAE

There are two types of formulae: "routine" formulae (how do you do?, see you later!)
and "speech" formulae (are you with me? do you know?).

The former, as their name suggests, are used recurrently in various kinds of social
encounter (introductions, greetings and
farewells) and may be performed without
much, or any, supporting verbal context.
Speech formulae, by contrast, typically
occur as part of a complex verbal
interaction, and often, too, function as a
comment on a preceding statement made
by the speaker or the listener. They are
expressions, typically of sentence length,
used in organizing discourse, conveying a
speaker's attitude to other participants and their messages and generally easing the flow
of interaction. Some more examples include: you know what I mean, I beg your
pardon? and you don't say!

Since at least the 1960s in the East European tradition, it has been customary to
recognize a distinction between "semantic combinations," which function syntactically
at or below the level of the simple sentence -as predicates, noun phrases, prepositional
phrases and the like - and contribute to their referential meaning, and "pragmatic
combinations," which operate sententially as proverbs, catchphrases and slogans.

Examples of the semantic type are break one's fall and curry favour (collocation and
idiom, respectively), and of the pragmatic type many hands make light work (proverb),
if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen (catchphrase), and Heineken refreshes
the parts that other beers cannot reach (slogan).

STRATEGIES

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Any person who is not a mother-tongue speaker or a true bilingual must necessarily rely
on some incomplete and imperfect competence- this corresponds to the present stage in
his or her interlanguage system.

Studies of learners’ communication strategies have examined the ways learners deal
with communication problems. According to Elaine Tarone (1983) communication
strategies include the following:

o Avoidance or Reduction Strategies. They imply a change of goal. When using

reduction strategies, speakers reduce their message so as either to bring it within the
scope of their knowledge or else to abandon that message and go on to something they
can manage.

-Message abandonment-leaving a message unfinished because of language difficulties.

- Topic avoidance: avoiding topic areas or concepts which pose language difficulties.

o Achievement or Compensatory Strategies Learners attempt to solve

communicative problems by expanding his communicative resources, rather
than by reducing his communicative goal. By using an achievement strategy
she/he will attempt to compensate for her language gap by improvising a
substitute. This involves attempting to find a way of conveying her message.

-Circumlocution: describing or exemplifying the target object or action (e.g., the thing
you open bottles with for corkscrew).

-Approximation: using an alternative term which expresses the meaning of the target
lexical item as closely as possible (e.g. ship for sail boat).

- Use of all-purpose words: extending a general, empty lexical item to contexts where
specific words are lacking (e.g., the overuse of thing, stuff make, do, as well as using
words like thingie, what-do-you-call-it).

- Word-coinage: creating a non-existing L2 word based on a supposed rule (e.g.,

vegetarianist for vegetarian).

- Use of nonlinguistic means: mime, gesture, facial expression, or sound imitation.

- Literal translation: translating literally a lexical item, an idiom, a compound word or

structure from L1 to L2.

- Foreignizing: using a L1 word by adjusting it to L2 phonologically (i.e., with a L2

pronunciation) and/or morphologically (e.g., adding to it a L2 suffix).

- Code switching: using a L1 word with L1 pronunciation or a L3 word with L3

pronunciation in L2.

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- Appeal for help: turning to the conversation partner for help either directly (eg., What
do you call...? ) or indirectly (e.g., rising intonation, pause, eye contact, puzzled
expression).

7.- CONCLUSION AND TEACHING INFERENCES

7.1 New directions from an educational approach

According to Hedges (2000), since the introduction of the communicative task-based

approaches to the teaching of a foreign language, effective communication in English
has become one of the main goals in European Foreign Language Teaching.

According to the CEFR, the development of the communicative and pragmatic

competences are emphasized. Section 4.5 of CEFR lists the processes that come into play
when we communicate, making references to the four skills.

The multicultural competence is also important in order

to make our students aware of their own culture and to
enrich themselves with different cultures.

Oral skills have become an essential part of learning a

foreign language. LOMCE emphasizes the mastery of
oral skills when learning a language. RD 1105/2014
(LOMCE) and Decree...... (111 in Andalusia) have
established this organization of contents into four
blocks which coincide with the four skills. Therefore,
the newest trends and legal references are giving more and more prominence to the four
skills in order to organize contents when learning a foreign language. It should be
noticed that they distinguish between talking (interact) and speaking (individual).

Regarding these oral skills, there is a need to create classroom conditions which match
those in real life and foster acquisition, encouraging listening and speaking. Some of
this motivational force is brought about by intervening in authentic communicative
events. The Ministry of Education proposed several projects within the framework of
the European Union:

- Erasmus +: way to experience sociocultural patters in the target country and establish
personal relationships which may lead to keep in contact through oral skills
(videoconferences through skype, for instance).

- Plumier: uses multimedia resources in classroom setting where learners are expected
to interpret and produce meaning with members of the target language.

- E-twinning: The eTwinning action promotes school collaboration in Europe through

the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). Students will have e-
pals to practise the language.

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The way listening and speaking are being taught is changing dramatically with the new
technological devices.

The emphasis is nowadays on the use of multimedia( tablets, mobile phones, laptops
and computers) to promote language in context: listening to realia in the net (podcasts,
songs...), watching videos in youtube, talking to someone via skype, etc. Educational
applications such as "busuu" or "learn English" can be downloaded in your mobile
phones or tablets easily and are very effective. Many more possibilities can be found in
http://www.eduapps.es/. The use of interactive whiteboards is also motivating and offers
many possibilities for these skills.

7.2 Teaching implications

o SPEAKING

Students have often a passive attitude towards speaking and writing. So we must
encourage them to talk in a meaningful context in the classroom. We should take into
account that many students need a 'silent period' before producing their own messages.

As far as teaching the productive skill of speaking is concerned, we have to say that the
main goal in teaching the productive skill of speaking will be oral fluency. To attain this
goal two complementary levels of training are necessary:

a. Practice in the manipulation of the fixed elements of the language (phonological and
grammatical patterns, together with vocabulary).

b. Opportunities for the expression of personal meaning.

Although in the classroom situation it is often necessary to concentrate at certain times

on developing one of the oral skills rather than the other, we must not lose sight of the
fact that oral communication is a two-way process between speaker and listener.

Normally in a conversation, speaker and listener are constantly changing roles and
consequently speaking responding to what has been heard. In this case, speaking is an
integral part of listening. It is this particular kind of interaction which is difficult for the
learners.

The development of oral ability is a good source of motivation for most learners.
Cyberspace productions, for instance, are very encouraging for them . Some points to
pay attention to are:

a. Try to find ways of demonstrating to the learners that they are making progress in the
language all the time.

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b. Ensure that controlled practice, when you will monitor and want to correct the
learners’ performance, is matched by opportunities for free expression, when the
learners should not be discouraged by correction.

c. Show the learners how to make the best use of the little they know.

d. Let them acquire fluency. Error correction should not interrupt communication.

o LISTENING

In the teaching of listening comprehension we can consider the dimensions of

conceptualization, planning and performance. These are referred to as approach, design
and procedure (Richards & Rodgers, 1982).

1. Approach offers an outline of some of what is known about the processes involved
in listening. Two kind of processes are involved in listening comprehension, which are
sometimes referred to as “bottom-up" and "top-down" processing (Chandron and
Richards,1988 ).

Bottom-up processing refers to the use of incoming data as a source of information

about the meaning of a message. Examples of bottom-up processing in listening include
the following:

1. Scanning the input to identify familiar lexical items.

2. Segmenting the stream of speech into constituents.

3. Using phonological cues to identify the information focus in an utterance.

4. Using grammatical cues to organize the input into constituents. The listener’s lexical
and grammatical competence in language provides the basis for bottom-up processing.

Top-down processing on the other hand refers to the use of background in

understanding the meaning of a message. Background knowledge may take several
forms. It may be previous knowledge about the topic of discourse, it may be situational
or contextual knowledge, or it may be knowledge stored in long term memory in the
form of ‘schemata’ and "scripts-plans" about the overall structure of events and the
relationships between them.

Examples of top-down processing in listening include:

1. assigning an interaction to part of a particular event, such as storytelling, joking,

praying, complaining.

2. assigning places, persons, or things to categories.

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3. inferring cause and effect relationships.

4. anticipating outcomes.

5. inferring the topic of a discourse.

6. inferring the sequence between events.

7. inferring missing details.

When learners first encounter a foreign language, they depend upon a top-down
processing. At the same time, fluent listening depends on the use of top-down and
bottom-up processing. The extent to which one or the other dominates reflects the
degree of familiarity the listener has with the topic, the kind of background knowledge
he or she can apply to the task, and the purposes for which he/she is listening.

2. Design. The level of design includes an operationalization of the component micro-

skills which constitute our competence as listeners. Design thus refers to the
operationalization of information and theory into a form that will enable objectives to be
formulated and learning experiences planned. The design phase in curriculum
development consists of:

a. Assessment of learners needs This refers to the type of listening skills the learner
requires according to situations and purposes the listener will encounter. Listening
purposes vary according to whether learners are involved in listening as a component of
social interaction, listening for information, academic listening, or for some other
reason.

Needs assessment procedures may involve interviews with learners, participants

observation, questionnaire, literature surveys of related research, and other measures
designed to obtain a profile of learners needs and to establish among them.

b. Isolation of micro-skills, from the information obtained from needs analysis and from
an analysis of the features of the target language discourse that the learner will
encounter, particular listening skills are isolated which correspond to the listening
abilities the learner requires. The product of this operation is skills taxonomy.

c. Diagnostic testing From proficiency or diagnostic testing, a profile is established of

the learner’s present listening abilities. Particular micro-skills from the skills taxonomy
are them selected.

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d. Formulation of instructional objectives. Using information from diagnostic or
proficiency testing, instructional objectives for a listening comprehension program can
be developed.

3. Procedure. At the third level, procedure, questions concerning exercise types an

teaching techniques are examined.

In teaching listening, we can manipulate two variables, both of which serve to develop
ability in particular skill areas. We can either manipulate the input, that is, the language
which the learner hears controlling for selected features such as grammatical
complexity, topic and rate of delivery, or we can manipulate the task we set for the
learner. Manipulation of either (or both) is directed toward developing particular micro-
skills.

In teaching listening skills our aim is to provide comprehensible, focused input and
purposeful listening tasks which develop competence in particular listening abilities.
The following criteria serve as a check list to develop listening tasks.

- Content Validity: This question raises the issue of whether the activity adequately or
actually makes use of skills and behaviour that are part of listening in the real world.

- Listening Comprehension or Memory: Does the activity reflect a purpose for listening
that approximates real life listening? Do the abilities which the exercise develops
transfer to real life listening purposes or is the learner simply developing the ability to
perform classroom exercise?

- Testing or teaching: A great deal of listening activities are test, rather than teach. The
amount of preparation the learner is given prior to a listening task is often important in
giving a teaching rather than a testing focus to an activity. Pre-listening activities
generally have this purpose. They activate the learner script and set a purpose for
listening.

Activities that teach rather than test may

require much more use of pre-listening
tasks completed as the student listens,
than post-listening tasks to check if they
understood.

- Authenticity: authentic learning

experiences should provide an
opportunity for acquisition, that is, they
should provide comprehensible input
which requires negotiation of meaning

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and which contains linguistic features a little beyond the learner´s current level of
competence.

8.- BIBLIOGRAPHY AND WEBLIOGRAPHY

- BYRNE, D Teaching Oral English. Longman 1976, 1986

- BYGATE, M. Speaking. OUP. 1987, 1991

- LITTLEWOOD, W. Teaching Oral Communication. Blackwell, 1992.

- LONG, M.H. Methodology in TESOL, A Book of Readings. Newbury House

Publishers New York, 1987

- MC CARTHY, M. Spoken Language & Applied Linguistics, C.U.P. 2000.

- PINTER, H. Teaching Young Language Learners, OUP, 2011

- RICHARDS, J.C. The Language Teaching Matrix. CUP, 1990.

- WALKER, R. Teaching Pronunciation of English as Lingua Franca, OUP, 2010

- http://www-01.sil.org/linguistics/topical.html (Linguistic links)

- http://linguistlist.org/ (International linguistic community online)

http://www.oapee.es/documentum/MECPRO/Web/weboapee/servicios/documentos/
documentacion-convocatoria-2008/compendium05en.pdf?
documentId=0901e72b8000447e (Education and Training 2010, European Comission)

- www.eduapps.es : guía de aplicaciones educativas

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