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VOLUMES MENU
T E S O LVolume 1 March, 1967 Number 1
Table of Contents To print, select PDF page nos. in
parentheses
Editorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . ( 3 )
TESOL and the Journal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Harold
B. Allen ( 4 -7 )
Teaching the th Sounds of English. . . . . . . Elizabeth B. Carr
(8-15)
The Language Laboratory in a Small TESOL Program . . .Janet Ross
(16-24)
The Place of Dictation in theLanguage Classroom . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . Kenton K. Sutherland
(25-30)
A Second Look at Teaching Reading and Composition . . . . Donna
H. Carr ( 3 1 - 3 5 )
The Need for Materials for Teaching Englishto Southwestern
Indian Speakers . . . . . . . . . . . .Mary Jane Cook ( 3 6 - 3 8
)
A Decade of Experimentation in Teaching Englishto
Spanish-Speaking Children in the Southwest . . .Le Roy Condie ( 3 9
- 4 4 )
Current Trends in the Teaching of Englishin France . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . George Rathmell
( 4 5 - 5 2 ) ( 5 3 - 5 5 ) Curriculum Trends in TESOL . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Clelia Belfrom
English for Speakers of Other Languages: ProgramsAdministered by
the U.S. Office of Education . . . .Richard L. Light
Publications Received . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . .
2
3
7
15
24
30
35
38
44
52
55
63
( 5 6 - 6 3 )
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EditorialIt is with a great sense of pride in accomplishment for
the profession
that we present the first issue of TESOL QUARTERLY, a journal
for teach-
ers of English to speakers of other languages. Since word first
went out that
articles were being considered for publication, the field has
responded gen-
erously, and the Editorial Advisory Board has been busily
selecting manu-
scripts for this issue. Because we will be serving readers who
have varied
backgrounds and interests, the content of the journal will be
varied. It is
our intent to provide something of value for each reader in
every issue.
Although the major emphasis will be on practical matters, our
interpretation
of what constitutes practicality is broad. We feel, for example,
that a better
understanding of linguistic theory or of contrastive cultural
patterns or of
the problems involved in administering second-language programs
may ulti-
mately become, for the individual teacher, as important as a
specific class-
room exercise. To be sure, the classroom exercises and specific
techniques
will be here, but we would like to think that our readers are
being led to
search a little more deeply into the why of certain drills and
the where-
fore of certain techniques.
A glance through this issue will reveal the heterogeneity of our
contribu-
tors and the varieties of TESOL programs which they
representschool
teachers, college professors, curriculum supervisors,
administratorsall of
them deeply concerned with TESOL.
We plan, in later issues to review newly published texts and
materials,
and we invite our readers to submit questions for an exchange of
ideas
section where a forum kind of discussion can be carried on. But
most of all
we invite your comments and suggestions, and your
manuscripts.
BWR
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Vol 1 No 1 March 1967
TESOL and the Journal
Three out of four of the hundredsof teachers responding to the
TENESnationwide questionnaire in 1965asked for a journal that would
helpthem in their work of teaching En-glish to non-English
speakers. Theproportion was only slightly smalleramong college
instructors than amongelementary teachers.
But a journal without a member-ship organization to support it
cannever quite adequately reflect thehopes and desires of its
readers; itnever can quite satisfactorily meettheir needs. A
subscription list is nota membership list. Without the im-plicit
and explicit participation of anorganization in the affairs of a
journal,that journal never quite becomes thecollective voice of its
readers.
Nor without an organization can alarge number of people with
commoninterests effectively further those in-terests. Without an
organization,teachers having a common disciplineand a common
subject matter willnot easily come to consider themselvesa
professional group.
Now, within a year, we have boththe organization and the
publication.We have TESOL and we have itsjournal. Better: we are
TESOL andwe have our journal.
Not often has an association beenformed so auspiciously; not
often hasa journal been founded in response toso specific and
positive a demand.Fortunate in having not just two par-ents but
rather the five that spon-sored the preliminary ad hoc
nationalconferences in Tucson, San Diego, andNew York, TESOL began
life as so
Harold B. Allen
sturdy an infant that within sixmonths it had an executive
secretaryand now, within a twelvemonthafterfirst editing the Third
TESOL Con-ference proceedingspresents the firstissue of its
journal. TESOL owes muchto the generous support and coopera-tion of
the officers and leaders of thosefive organizations: the Center for
Ap-plied Linguistics, the English Associa-tion of the National
Association forForeign Student Affairs, the ModernLanguage
Association, the NationalCouncil of Teachers of English, andthe
Speech Association of America.Yet what they laid a foundation for
isonly a beginning. To be, to exist, isnot the be-all and the
end-all.
As TESOL ends its first year, westill dont know how many
personsin North America are involved inteaching English to speakers
of otherlanguages. But certainly all too fewof us are as yet aware
that this in-volvement is with activity calling forprofessional
training with specializedknowledge and special skills. All toofew
of us are yet moved by a feelingof professional unity.
Yet until a wide and deep awarenessof professional unity based
upon aprofessional discipline becomes generalamong us all, we
cannot move aheadupon a wide front toward the goal ofbetter
teaching. Only a professionalgroup acutely conscious of itself as
agroup of professionals can wisely planfor growth and improvement
within adiscipline. Those who teach Englishto a mixed group of
foreign studentsin a college, to adult emigrs in ametropolitan
area, to French-speaking
3
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4 TESOL QUARTERLY
pupils in a northern Maine elementaryschool, to Cuban refugees
in a Miamihigh school, to the indigenous Spanish-speaking children
in New Mexico, toEskimos in the Yukon, and Slavic-speaking children
in Saskatchewanall these have in common what is sobasically
important that it should bethe essential concern of one
commonprofessional association. TESOL canbe that association.
What all of us have in common isconcern for the English language
andfor the people to whom we would teachit. As a professional
discipline, then,English as a second language reliesupon English
linguistics and culturalimplications for its subject matter andupon
the psychology of language learn-ing and language teaching for
itsmethods.
To improve the teaching of Englishas a second language we must
firstencourage recognition that such teach-ing is a specialized
field, a disciplineby itself. This recognition must arisein schools
and colleges with non-English speaking students, in schoolsystems
and state and provincial de-partments of education, and
particu-larly in the national governmentinWashington and in
Ottawa.
The three concerns that so urgentlyrequire more intensive and
extensiveresearch, better teaching materials,and expanded and
improved prepara-tion of a much greater number ofteachers are
concerns that cannot bedenied. One is the concern sharedwith all
the English-speaking world,that of teaching English as a secondor
as a foreign language overseas. TheUnited States alone has
commitmentsall over the world through the Agencyfor International
Development, the
United States Information Agency,the Fulbright and Smith-Mundt
visit-ing lecturer program, the teacher ex-change program, and
various privatefoundations and agencies. Particularlyimportant are
those commitments inthe developing countries where theneed for
English as the language ofcommerce and education constitutesan
immediate emergency. But, asProfessor Albert H. Marckwardt
re-cently estimated in a study for theNational Advisory Council on
Teach-ing English as a Foreign Language,by 1970 the demand for
professionalscompetent to direct teacher-trainingprograms abroad
will be ten timesgreater than the foreseeable supply.His report
added that an almostequally critical need exists for middlelevel
specialists to work abroad onshort-term assignments as
teacher-trainers of foreign nationals.
The second concern is that of teach-ing English to the more than
100,000foreign students in the United Statesand Canada. Although
the increasinguse of the TOEFL tests has helped toraise the level
of English competenceamong newly admitted foreign stu-dents, the
need to improve that com-petence after admittance still existsfor
most of them. The TENES surveyrevealed that in many colleges
anduniversities adequate programs for im-proving that competence do
not existand that more than half of the instruc-tors are without
any professionaltraining in the discipline.
The third concern is that of teach-ing English as a second
language tothe several million American residents,most of them
native-born Americancitizens, both children and adults. Itwas the
looming consciousness of this
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TESOL AND THE JOURNAL 5
concern that underlay the creation ofTESOL and of this journal.
Instruc-tion of these millions desperately callsfor professional
training and bettermaterialsmaterials prepared for theIndian
children of the Southwest, theSpanish-speaking children of
Texas,the Eskimos of Alaska, and the im-migrant adults from many
lands withmany languages.
What can TESOL and the journaldo? Here is a quick and
incompleteglimpse into the future for TESOL andits influence.
First, TESOL itselfhopes to accomplish these goals:
1.
2.
3.
4.
A central office, with a TESOL li-brary that can serve as a
resposi-tory for TESL textbooks andother materials and hence will
beable to cooperate with the Centerfor Applied Linguistics as a
clear-inghouse for the profession. Thisoffice is already beginning
to func-t ion under the leadership ofthe executive secretary, James
E.Alatis.Development of the journal as thecentral organ of the
entire pro-fession, with articles reportingresearch and experiment
and class-room practice, with special depart-ments for readers
questions, bookreviews and criticisms, and withdescriptions of new
programs andother significant developments.A newsletter reporting
all kinds ofevents relevant to the TESL field,including information
about insti-tutions and organizations and news-worthy persons.A
national register of competentpersonnel, one indicating the kindof
training and experience of everyindividual registered, as well as
hisavailability for temporary or long-time assignments elsewhere,
espe-cially in foreign countries. It wasthe need for this register
that ledto the appointment of the ad hoccommittee that planned the
estab-
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
lishment of TESOL and drew upthe draft of the constitution.A
publishing program which, inaddition to the journal and
thenewsletter, will offer to the profes-sion pamphlets, reprints,
specialstudies, recordings, and other ma-terials not likely to be
made avail-able by commercial publishers.A speaking and consulting
programthrough which leaders will be avail-able to colleges and
schools formeetings, workshops, in-service pro-grams, and the
like.The annual national convention asan opportunity for the
exchange ofinformation and for meeting peoplein the field, with
additional pre-convention study groups to con-sider specific
problems. TESOLSfirst convention in Miami Beach,prepared so
excellently by the sec-ond vice president, David Harris,is only a
forerunner and a modelfor future conventions that willhave to be
planned for a member-ship five times as large.A planned program of
regional andlocal meetings, perhaps with thecooperation of
affiliate groups, thatwill bring together local teachersand
administrators unable to at-tend the national
convention.Organizational cooperation withother organizations and
institutionsrelated to our central purpose, notonly the five
sponsoring organiza-tions and the newly formed sis-ter organization
in England butalso governmental departments andagenciesnational,
state, and local.
Second, through the influence ofTESOL, the following may be
accom-plished:
1. Appointment of a TESL specialistin a high position in the
U.S. Of-fice of Education, one charged withresponsibility for
English as a sec-ond language on all levels of edu-cation and
hence, desirably, asso-ciated with the office of thecommissioner
and not with specificdepartmental alignments such as
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62.
3.
TESOL QUARTERLY
those for research and for college,secondary, and elementary
edu-cation.Appointment of a TESL specialistas an
English-as-a-second-languageconsultant in every state where theTESL
problem exists, and, simi-larly, of such a specialist as a
top-level consultant in every major citywhere the problem
exists.Recognition of the problem by eachrelevant school
administration interms of time, materials, and prepa-ration
peculiarly required becauseof the special needs of students
4.
5,
learning English as a second lan-guage.Establishment of national
guide-lines for the preparation and, per-haps ultimately,
certification ofteachers of English as a secondlanguage.Increased
research in the specialpedagogy of English-as-a-second-language
learning and pedagogy.
The future of TESOL and ourprofession demands much of its
lead-ers and of its members. But it is afuture with rich
rewards.
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
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Vol 1 No 1 March 1967
Teaching
There isteaching the
the th Sounds of English
nothing boring aboutancient and honorable
th sounds of Englishthe phonemeswhich are so characteristic a
part ofthe stream of speech in English butso rare among the other
languages ofthe world. If instructor and learnerskeep even a few
bits of informationabout the structure of English in mind,these
lessons can be the most success-ful effort of a semester.
Zipf reported, some years ago, thatin the stream of speech the
word theoccurs once in every eleven words;that is, in a large
enough sampling ofspoken English, the article the is usedonce for
every other ten words.1 I fthis is true, it is immediately
evidentthat the voiced th has an extraordi-narily high frequency in
English. Thishigh frequency of occurrence is astimulating idea for
a teacher, leadinghim to think that if he is able to de-velop the
// even in the word thealone, his efforts will be well spent.But
this is not the only exciting sta-tistic connected with the voiced
th.Black tells us that among the fiftymost frequently used words on
thecollege campus, there are six wordswhich contain //. They are t
h e ,that, they, this, there, and with. Thesesix words make up
twelve percent ofthe list of the fifty most frequentlyused words.
In the next fifty mostfrequent words are five more wordscontaining
the //: them, these, thing,then, think. 2
1George Kingsley Zipf, The Psycho-Biology of Language (Boston:
HoughtonMifflin Company, 1935), pp. 44-48.
2John W. Black and M. Ausherman, TheVocabulary of College
Students (Bureau ofEducational Research, Ohio State Univer-sity,
1955), pp. 26-28.
Elizabeth B. Carr
This high frequency of occurrencegives us a reason for learning
as muchas we can about several possible ap-proaches in the teaching
of the voicedfricative sound in these words and
foreign students, especially Asianteachers of English as a
second lan-guage, get satisfaction from framinglessons that grow
out of a knowledgeof structure. However, Asian teachers,who have
themselves been schooled inEnglish literature only, tend to
placeliterature on such a high pedestal thatthey find it
undignified and almost in-sufferable to use intensive repetitionof
simple (and to them childish)phrases. A clear presentation of
thereasons for intensive drill with thesesmall empty words may help
tobreak down a mental block thatmakes some Asian learners
despon-dent.
If we begin, then, with the conceptof the voiced th, not as an
isolatedentity but as a part of words andphrases that occur
constantly in thestream of English speech, we havetaken a step. The
futility of drillingon the isolated sound alone should bepointed
out, or of relying too heavilyupon single-word drill, except,
ofcourse, in the necessary minimal-pairwork to assist in the
perception ofcritical contrasts and in the ability toproduce
contrasts. It is essential toremember, before framing lessons,
thatthe // occurs as often inside a breathgroup (macrosegment) as
at the be-ginning of one. The manner of mak-ing the close juncture
with othersounds, especially other consonantsounds, is of
importance and of in-terest. The th sounds, being made
7
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8 TESOL QUARTERLY
with the tongue further toward thefront of the mouth than for
any othersounds, naturally require a somewhatspecial adjustment to
other sounds inthe flow of speech.
In spite of the decision to presentthe th sounds as much as
possible inconnection with other sounds, wemust still put first
things first andlook carefully at the point of closureand manner of
articulation of thesounds themselves. Foreign studentsneed initial
information and methodsby which they may make lessons vividto their
own students back in thehome countries, by verbal descrip-tions and
visual aids. The skilled in-structor of young teachers wishes
toassist them in their search for libraryand laboratory aids. Here
there is aproblem. When we look for collateralreadings to suggest
to our classes,dealing adequately with the physio-
sounds, we uncover the discouragingfact that available texts
used inAmerica are somewhat confusing andoften in disagreement.
Well-knownand currently popular phonetics booksin America seem to
be slanted towardthe native speaker of English and togo under the
assumption that he al-ready knows how to make thesesounds fairly
well or needs only a lit-tle brushing up. They are employedmainly
to train teachers of speechtherapy, to upgrade pronunciation,and to
study various dialects of En-glish. Textbook writers with the
na-tive speaker in mind have the habitof describing the tongue
placementfor two allophones of the th soundsand letting the learner
take his choice.The alternatives are the post-dentaltongue-tip
position and the interden-
tal one. However, for foreign studentsor foreign teachers of
English it isimportant to present the interdentalplacement, for the
simple but vitalreason that the post-dental placementleads directly
to the substitution of/t/, /d/, /s/, or /z/ for the Englishth
sounds.
Bronstein, the author of a populartextbook, says, The fricative
con-tinuant th sounds are tip of tongue-teeth sounds, emitted
orally. Theyare made with the tongue-tip in con-tact with the inner
surface of the up-per teeth, or with the tongue-tip be-tween the
upper and lower incisors.3
He does not attempt to describe orto suggest the manner in which
thefricative effect is brought about. Ofhis two alternatives as to
placement,neither seems exact and meaningfulenough for the foreign
learner. If thetongue-tip is in full contact withthe inner surface
of the upper teeth,then the sound is likely to come outas a dental
stop, linked as it is con-stantly with other stop consonants inthe
stream of speech. The light clo-sure and slit-like opening for
fricativeemission is not hinted at. As to thesecond alternative,
the words thetongue-tip between the upper andlower incisors is not
a precise de-scription, since it says nothing aboutthe point of
constriction and the kindof opening necessary for the
particularfricative emission which will give theacoustic effect we
expect of the thsounds. Foreign students, and indeednative
speakers, deserve a more me-ticulous description than this
one.Bronstein devotes a scant page to the
3 Arthur J. Bronstein, The Pronunciationof American English (New
York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., 1960), p. 85.
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TEACHING THE th SOUNDS OF ENGLISH
th sounds, with no mention of theirrelative frequency and with
the blamefor inadequate production set down tocarelessness.
Thomas is considerably more help-ful, although not entirely
adequate.He writes:formed by placing the tip of thetongue against
either the cuttingedges or the back of the upper teeth,and forcing
the breath between thetip and the teeth, or through thespaces
between the teeth, or throughboth openings.4 This descriptionadds
the fricative concept to the meretongue placement. It is difficult
to ex-plain to foreign students, however,what is meant by forcing
the breaththrough the spaces between the teeth.(Not all speakers,
by any means, havespaces between the teeth. It is con-ceivable that
Thomas meant to writespace.) Thomas, like Bronstein,gives
alternative positions for thetongue: (1) tip against cutting
edgesof upper front teeth (which is an in-terdental position,
necessitating thatthe upper and lower teeth be slightlyaparta
valuable point to stress forAsian students who often tend toform
English sounds with an almost-closed mouth); (2) tip of tongue
incontact (presumably light contact)with the back surface of the
upperfront teeth.
Thomas recognizes the difficultiesof these sounds for foreign
students.He adds: The dental articulation of[t] and [d]
characteristic of mostEuropean languages makes it difficult
from [t] and [] from [d]. Some-
4 Charles Kenneth Thomas, An Introduc-tion to the Phonetics of
American English,2nd ed. (New York: The Ronald PressCompany, 1958),
pp. 77-80.
times he makes too firm atween tongue and teeth;he substitutes
[s] or a
and [z] or afor [].5
9
contact be-more oftendental [t]dental [d]
Wise goes considerably further inpicturing the fricative nature
of theth sounds. However, he does not givethe interdental
alternative positionwhich is helpful for Asians. Of thevoiced th he
writes: The consonant[] is a voiced, dental, fricative con-tinuant.
It is made by placing thetip of the tongue in light contact withthe
back surfaces of the front teethand passing a stream of vocalized
airthrough the constricted spaces be-tween the tongue and the
teeth. Thevelure is closed and the sides of thetongue are in
contact with the uppermolars. He adds a warning, Par-ticularly they
[foreign students] willneed to avoid substituting [d] or[z] for it.
They should also avoidprotruding the tongue in an exag-gerated
interdental position.6
Carrell and Tiffany are helpful in
The sound is made by placing thetongue on, or very close to, the
cuttingedge of the upper central teeth anddirecting an unvoiced
breath streamthrough this light closure. Thelower teeth usually
touch the under-surface of the tonguetip. Velopharyn-geal closure
is complete, or nearly so.What is heard is the friction
soundcreated by passage of the breath streambetween the tongue and
the upperteeth.
The facial chart presented with thisdescription is one of the
most helpfulto be found, showing as it does the
5 Ibid., p. 61.6 Claude Merton Wise, Introduction to
Phonetics (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey:Prentice-Hall, Inc.,
1957), pp. 134-135.
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10 TESOL QUARTERLY
upper and lower teeth as definitelyapart, and the tongue as
clearly in aposition to be visible to the eye ofthe listener and
observer.7
Among writers of textbooks forspeakers (or teachers) of English
asa second language, there are severalwhich should be reviewed. The
textby Brigance and Henderson, althoughwritten some years ago, was
createdwith problems of Asian speakers ofEnglish (or
second-generation Asian-Americans) in mind and has hadmany years of
use in Hawaii, in highschool and in college. The authorscarefully
avoid the post-dental closurein their description of the
formationof the sounds in question: Sides [ofthe tongue] pressed
against the upperside teeth; tip pressed against theedge of the
upper front teeth. Breathforced out gradually between tongue-tip
and teeth with a friction-likesound.8 This is the only text
whichhas come to light in which the exactadaptation of the th
sounds to othersounds is dealt with. The sections en-titled
Plosives followed by fricatives,Nasals followed by fricatives,
Fric-atives followed by plosives, Fric-atives followed by nasals,
and Fric-atives followed by fricatives areparticularly
valuable.9
Black, a recent writer on foreignstudents problems, is far less
me-ticulous in his description of eitherthe point of closure or the
manner ofarticulation. He says:
7 James Carrell and William R. Tiffany,Phonetics: Theory and
Application inSpeech Improvement (New York: McGraw-Hill Book
Company, Inc., 1960), p. 188.
8 William Norwood Brigance and FlorenceM. Henderson, A Drill
Manual for Improv-ing Speech, 3rd ed. (New York: J. B. Lip-pincott
Company, 1955), pp. 29-31.
9 Ibid., pp. 88-105.
The fricatives . . . are formed bypartial stoppages of the
breath streamand in a manner to produce one oranother amount of
swish-like or fry-ing noise. . . . The unique characterof the
particular hissing or fryingsound of the fricatives is determinedby
the place at which the partial ob-struction to the air flow occurs
andthe size of the opening through whichthe air escapes. The places
of articu-lation are: . . .tongue between the teeth; orfor
somespeakersagainst the upper teeth orthe gum, at about the point
at whichthe teeth and the gum join.10
Dr. Black seems to be speaking to thenative speaker rather than
to the non-native one, who needs a more precisedelineation of the
features of this pairof sounds.
Shen, who is the most painstakingof all writers in the United
States inregard to point of closure and mannerof articulation, adds
the concept airescaping over the top of the tongueand a small
diagram of the front viewof the articulators (as they appear tothe
listener) to her clearly interdentalrepresentation of the tongue
position,given in a second side-view diagram.11
Her front-view diagram makes excel-lent sense. We usually look
at thespeaker addressing us, and it is saidthat we are all
unconscious lip-readersto a certain extent. As listeners wedo not
profit by the time-honoredside-view diagrams, which are
actuallyX-ray-eye-views.
It is probably clear from the surveyjust given that available
reference ma-
10 John W. Black, American Speech forForeign Students
(Springfield, Ilinois:Charles C Thomas, Publisher, 1963), p.
59.
11 Yao Shen, Articulation Diagrams ofEnglish Vowels and English
Consonants(Ann Arbor, Michigan: Braun and Brum-field, 1958), pp. 5,
46.
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TEACHING THE th SOUNDS OF ENGLISH 11
terial is less than adequate for use asoutside reading for
foreign studentsneeding to improve their own con-cepts of these two
consonant pho-nemes or wishing to glean ways andmeans of teaching
them across thesea. The instructor in TESL classesin the United
States should be awareof this inadequacy and give definiteguidance
in the matter, recommend-ing such a careful description of thepoint
of closure as Yao Shen gives andsuch clear indications of the
mannerof articulation as Carrell and Tiffanyor Brigance and
Henderson give.There seems to be no foundation atall for the fear,
sometimes expressedby older writers, that the tongue mayprotrude
awkwardly. There is muchgreater danger that the post-dentalposition
may initiate and reinforcethe substitution of [t] and [d] forthe
voiceless and voiced th soundsrespectively.
Neither the Japanese nor theKorean language possesses the
thsounds in its inventory of phonemes.Native speakers of these
languages
/z/ for //. In training or retrainingJapanese or Korean teachers
of En-glish it is a good thnig to convincethem that they should
make, and usein class, tape-recordings of nativespeakers of English
pronouncing min-imal pairs of words to show the con-trasting
features, acoustically, of thesepairs of phonemes.
Teacher-traineesneed to become familiar with thetape-recorder and
with the making oftaped lessons for student use. Theyneed,
urgently, to have opportunitiesto practice using this material
beforea group of learners. Such a tapeshould begin quite simply:
This is
a lesson contrasting /z/ as in Z e nwith // as in then. Please
listen. Donot repeat. Zoe-though; Z-thee; Zen-then; close-clothes;
breeze-breathe;bays-bathe; sees-seethe; shes-sheathe;rise-writhe;
tease-teethe; lays-lathe.Now please repeat after me. Zoe(pause)
-though (pause); Z (pause)-thee (pause); Zen (pause) -then(pause);
close (pause) -clothe (pause);etc. Now please repeat the two
wordstogether. Zen-then (pause); Zoe-though (pause); Z-thee
(pause); close-clothes (pause); breeze-breathe(pause); bays-bathe
(pause); sees-seethe (pause); etc. Now listen andrepeat, one person
at a time. Theinstructor calls on individual studentsto repeat
after the tape to display theability to make the contrast. Heshould
teach the student-teacher howto stop and start the recorder
skill-fully when extra time is needed forpractice.
Even a brief drill with minimalpairs of words should be planned
sothat it ends with a discriminationtest. For example, the
instructor mayindicate on the blackboard that wordscontaining /z/
will be called No. 1and that words containing the sound// will be
called No. 2. The voice onthe tape will pronounce only one ofthe
words of each minimal pair. Thestudents are to listen closely and
toreply One or Two. The tape thenreads: l. Zoe 2. thee 3. though
4.Z 5. clothe 6. breeze 7. bathe 8. sees.The tape may also give the
answers,to allow for immediate checking bythe students themselves.
It shouldread: Your answers should be asfollows: 1. No. 1; 2. No.
2; 3. No. 2;4. No. 1; 5 No. 2; 6. No. 1; 7. No. 2;8. No. 1. A
similar routine may then
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12 TESOL QUARTERLY
be worked out and put on tape for
Even if the instructor is a nativespeaker of English and usually
givesthe minimal-pair drill directly, withhis own pronunciation, he
may wishto make a tape-recording of the drillalso. Students may use
such a tapefor extra practice in their dormitoriesor in the
laboratory, and they maydub it off to take to their home coun-tries
for use in teaching or for re-fresher work in keeping their
ownpronunciation up to a high point ofperfection. If foreign
teachers of En-glish are assisted to take a supply oftapes home
with them, made by na-tive speakers, they will not fall intothe bad
habit of relying upon theirown pronunciation as a model fortheir
classes. Foreign teachers oftenfear that tapes are too hard to
makeand that native speakers must alwaysbe paid for pronouncing the
materialfor a lesson. These fears can easily bedispelled while the
student-teacher isstudying in the United States, and hecan return
home with a supply oftapes and the knowledge of how tomake
more.
In Thailand and in Laos the sub-
likely to be /t/ and /d/ respectively.Thai students seem to have
more dif-ficulty with the // than with itsvoiceless counterpart.
This is possiblyan illusion brought about by thegreater frequency
of // in the streamof speech in English. Minimal-pair
trasting /d/ and // should be under-taken and continued with
diligence.
During many hours of observingEnglish classes in Thailand, the
writernoticed that, although some young
teachers were familiar with the con-trastive analysis of Thai
and Englishand with the minimal-pair method ofworking on critical
points, they wasteda great deal of time and lost momen-tum in their
class lessons by turningaway from their students and writinglong
lists of pairs of words on theblackboard. A suggestion which
wasoffered there is repeated here. Min-imal pairs of words may be
printedby hand on double flash cards, inheavy black ink or paint,
with thewords one above the other on a card.Thus sets of cards
might be made forThai problems with pairs of words onthem as
follows:
dine day die load read seedthine they thy loathe wreathe
seethe
There is another quite hilarioustechnique called the object box.
Ashoe box should be filled with minia-ture objects for which the
Englishname contains one of the th sounds.There may be a
thermometer, athumb tack, a thimble, and a calen-dar showing
Thursday, the third ofthe month, the thirteenth, and thethirtieth.
There may be a small paste-board birthday cake and a
diminutivesignpost showing north and south.There may be a piece of
cloth. Suchan object box may immediately sug-gest small children,
but its use neednot be limited to nursery school.Used along with
pattern practice, forforeign students of almost any age, ithelps
with the lesson in two ways. Itprovides amusing visual cues for
thepattern practice. It makes a bridgebetween pronunciation and
grammarthat is highly desirable. A greaternumber of Asian teachers
of Englishfeel confident in teaching patternpractice than in
teaching pronuncia-
-
TEACHING THE th SOUNDS OF ENGLISH 13
tion. If object boxes containing ob-jects to cue in special
words for thepattern substitutions are used, thedrill on such
difficult sounds as the
the grammar drill.Time and thought should be spent
on framing drills for listening and re-peating in connected
phrases. Onlyby hearing and speaking words in con-nected
breath-groups can the stu-dents become accustomed to linkingthe th
sounds with adjacent sounds.Such linking (close juncture) is
ofparticular importance with these pho-nemes, since their point of
closure isfurther toward the front of the mouththan in the case of
other sounds. Theadjustment of other sounds to them(and of them to
other sounds) is alittle more exacting than in the link-ing of
other sounds. The nativespeaker produces these junctures
au-tomatically, but the second-languagespeaker may be taught to
make themwith near-native effect. A good begin-ning is with phrases
containing al-veolar stops and nasals before the//. The
prepositions at, in, on, andsuch words as send, mend, end,
bendprovide material for the following drillphrases, linking
tongue-tip-alveolarconsonants to the //.
In these phrases the /t/, /d/, and/n/, by a kind of regressive
assimila-tion, adjust themselves to the ap-proaching //. Fronted
allophones ofthe alveolar sounds are used. Thiscan be explained
quite simply to thestudents by giving the direction:
Make the closure for the /t/, /d/,and /n/ with the blade of the
tongueon the gum-ridge, and the tip of thetongue already in the
position for theth sound. Students should watchthe teacher produce
this juncture,then should proceed with the listening-repeating
method. (This is a casewhere hand-mirrors may be used forthe
moment.) The teacher shouldcall for individual production,
check-ing the position of the tongue to seethat the tip is visible
as the junctureis made. This routine is valuable forJapanese
students, if they can becajoled into doing it, because
suchexercises help in achieving flexibilityof jaw-movement. Many
Japanesespeakers try to produce English soundsin the same way in
which they pro-duce Japanese speech soundswithteeth nearly closed.
They feel a greatdeal of embarrassment about partingthe teeth and
showing the tongue. Al-though it may be impossible to bringabout
change in some individual cases,still, many younger Japanese
learnerswill try to copy the muscular habitsof English. Many Asians
of theyounger generation are becoming en-thusiastic about
linguistics and con-sequently are ready to notice and toaccept the
marked differences in struc-ture between their languages
andEnglishand even to find these dif-ferences interesting.
Linguistic knowledge tends to be aboon to both teacher and
student inthe learning English as a second lan-guage operation. It
gives the teacherknowledge on which to base lessons.It gives the
student a broader point ofview about languages and their
dif-ferences, and it may possibly implantan enthusiasm in him which
will make
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14 TESOL QUARTERLY
him want to speak English in the eleven words, on the average,
he mayEnglish way. If a bright foreign stu- possibly rise to the
challenge and con-dent knows that he is going to pro- quer the
English phoneme //.nounce the article the once in every UNIVERSITY
OF HAWAII
-
Vol 1 No 1 March 1967
The Language Laboratory in
A Small TESOL Program
The value of a language laboratoryin teaching modern languages
in ourhigh schools and colleges has beenwell established, and the
languagelaboratory for classes in French, Ger-man, or Spanish has
become partof the equipment of the up-to-dateschool. However,
although audio-visual courses for English as a for-eign language
have been developedand language laboratories are used inlarge-scale
English-teaching programsin this country, perhaps less use ofthe
language laboratory has beenmade in a small TESOL programthan in
other modern language teach-ing in our schools. One reason forthis
may be that fewer students areusually involved in a TESOL pro-gram
than in the foreign languageclasses for native students,
exceptperhaps in areas with a large foreignborn population. A more
importantone may be that the opportunity thatthe laboratory
provides to hear nativepronunciation is not felt to be socritical
for the student who is livingin an environment where the languagehe
is learning is being spoken allaround him by native speakers.
Inmany small schools a language labora-tory provided for the larger
numberof American students of foreign lan-guages may already be
used tonearly full capacity, leaving littletime or room for
students in theTESOL program, and the purchase ofadditional
expensive electronic equip-ment for a small number of studentswho
do not need it in order to hear
Janet Ross
the language spoken by natives is notfelt to be justified.
Perhaps the mostdeterring factor, however, is the timeand effort
involved in developing auseful language laboratory programwith
materials suitable to meet theneeds of the particular group
beinginstructed. Commercially preparedtape recordings and records
designedto be used in learning English as asecond language are not
plentiful, andthose that do exist have largelybeen planned for
beginning instruc-tion. The college TESOL programenrolls students
with a fair amountof proficiency in English, but withweaknesses in
varying areas. Somemay need work in discrimination andpronunciation
of certain sounds; somemay need to develop mastery of cer-tain
structure patterns; still othersneed to improve listening skill.
Thetask of the instructor in preparing hisown material to meet all
these vary-ing needs is difficult and as time con-suming as
teaching another class. Set-ting up procedures for use of
thelaboratory and supervising it to insurethat the students do more
than pas-sively play the tapes adds anotherchore. Thus the teacher
of Englishas a foreign language may concludethat while the
laboratory may havevalue, the value is not great enoughto be worth
the time and trouble, andthat no machine can really replacethe
teacher.
These are valid objections. And itis also true that a language
labora-tory, whether for English as a foreign
15
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16 TESOL QUARTERLY
language or for any other foreign lan-guage, that is
inefficiently used, thatis used merely as a time-saving sub-stitute
for a class period of goodteacher instruction, or that is
carriedout with inadequate supervision, orprovided with material
that does notmeet the instructional needs, fails toreinforce
instruction. Yet the lan-guage laboratory properly used isa
powerful teaching device in theTESOL program, as it is in
othermodern language programs, if theteacher is prepared to spend
the timeand energy to make it successful.
One value of the laboratory is thatit provides a structured
approach tolistening. Although the foreign stu-dent in the United
States does hearEnglish all around him, and althoughthrough the
medium of television hehas an opportunity to hear it withvisual
stimuli to interpret and rein-force meaning, he does not hear
thelanguage in the structured, system-atic way that is possible
with the lab-oratory. The lab gives him an oppor-tunity to train
his ear by hearingmeaningful sound distinctions re-peated until he
can discriminatethem, to listen to repeated structurepatterns, and
to drill systematicallyon points of difficulty. But if thegood
teacher provides an opportu-nity for this structured approach
tolanguage through class instruction,wherein lies the advantage of
theuse of electronic equipment? Whilea class period of instruction
solely bymeans of a tape recorder may not bea substitute for a
class period ofteacher instruction, one advantage ofthe tape
recorder in the classroom isin its use when material is to be
re-peated. Listening comprehension ex-
ercises can be played over and overin class until sound
distinctions be-come clear or structures are mastered,thus saving
effort on the part of theteacher. Furthermore, difficult pas-sages
can be singled out for specialattention. But the greatest value
ofthe tape recorder or of a languagelaboratory is its use outside
of classto supplement the class instruction.In this way, not only
does the studentget additional hours of practice in lis-tening to
language structures pre-sented in a systematic manner,
butinstruction can be individualized.
This individualized instruction is asecond value of a language
labora-tory. Outside the classroom the stu-dent can work on the
particular prob-lem of pronunciation or structure inwhich he is
weak as he cannot in agroup situation. Or he can developthe skill
in which he is deficientpronunciation, listening comprehen-sion, or
the ability to use patternsof grammatical structure. The
oppor-tunity to do this is especially impor-tant in classes made up
of studentsof varied language backgrounds andvarying levels of
proficiency in En-glish in general, or with proficiencyin different
language skills. Suchclasses pose a real problem in collegeor
university programs, particularlyin smaller schools, where the
enroll-ment does not justify differentiatedclasses.
Another value of the laboratory isits directness. The student
workingby himself in the language laboratorybooth has other aural
stimuli cut toa minimum, and he can concentrateon the sounds coming
directly to hisears, especially if earphones are used.Thus he can
often distinguish finer
-
THE LANGUAGE LABORATORY 17
sound differences than he can in theclassroom situation.
Depending onthe type of equipment used, he alsohas the distinct
advantage of hearinghimself and directly comparing hispronunciation
and use of structurepatterns with that of a native speaker.
How can a language laboratory fora small program be set up and
oper-ated so that the maximum value willbe realized, and the
considerable time,labor, and expense involved to makeit successful
be justified? Some sug-gestions will be offered here, basedon
procedures used in a small pro-gram in which the author has
beenconcerned.
Selection of equipment is the firstpoint to consider, though the
equip-ment itself is less important than thematerials, method, and
approach. Ifa well-equipped language laboratoryis not available for
the TESOL pro-gram, a great deal can be done withthree or four or
even with one taperecorder with which students workindividually.
Exercises must be de-veloped according to what the equip-ment will
allow. With some types,listening only is possible. With othertypes,
the individual student has nocontrol over stopping the machine
orreplaying portions according to hisparticular need. In some
laboratorieshe can record, but cannot play backthe original tape
and his recording.If a machine is to be used by itselfwithout other
expensive laboratoryequipment, a four-track machine witha headset
including a microphone ismost versatile. By four-track ismeant a
machine on which two chan-nels can be played on each side of atape.
One channel thus becomes themaster channel on which the record-
ing is made and the other the channelon which the student
records his re-sponses. The advantage is that afterhe has recorded,
the student can playback the tape and hear both the mas-ter channel
and his own recording andthus compare the two. Then by againsetting
the machine at record hecan do over again the items on whichhe has
errors. When the student isnot recording, the double-track fea-ture
becomes less important. Anytape recorder that can be controlledby
the student individually, that isnot geared to a master machine
playedby someone else, has the advantageof allowing the student to
replay por-tions of the tape which he did notunderstand or on which
he needs ad-ditional drill. Many of the materialsto be described
here, however, can beadapted to the particular kind ofequipment
available.
In a program in which the writerhas used the laboratory, an
averageof twenty-five to thirty foreign stu-dents are enrolled in
two classes.While these classes represent twolevels of instruction,
the students ineach one are most heterogeneous intheir abilities
and needs. The labora-tory consists of six booths or posi-tions
with partitions rising aboutfour feet from the floor. They
wereconstructed by the physical plant ofthe school from material
that hadbeen used in another office. Each po-sition is equipped
with a four-tracktape recorder and headset with micro-hone. The
machines have been wiredwith a switch that can be turned offso that
the master channel will notbe used by the foreign students
torecord, as by so doing they woulderase the master tape. A device
has
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18 TESOL QUARTERLY
also been added to each machine sothat an extra headset can be
pluggedin for monitoring purposes. This kindof laboratory permits
only one stu-dent to work on a particular tape atone time unless
the tape is played tothe whole group at once without theuse of
headphones. This system isadapted to a small program. If a
largenumber of machines were used, a dif-ferent system might be
more effective.
A greater chore than selection ofequipment is the preparation of
tapedmaterial. Commercially prepared ma-terials are expensive and
may not fillthe needs of a particular class, or ofcertain students
within the class, es-pecially at the advanced levels. Withstudent
help in preparation of scriptsand in recording, and with time todo
the work involved, an instructorcan develop his own material.
Certain types of exercises lendthemselves to use in the
languagelaboratory. To aid in mastering pro-nunciation, the
instructor can tapeexercises in sound discrimination usingminimal
pairs to be listened to or re-peated by the student. He can
alsotape phrases and sentences for imita-tion of stress patterns.
For structuredrill, transformation exercises are suc-cessful and
involve more active stu-dent response than exercises callingfor
mere repetition. After the stu-dent gives his response, the
correctresponse may be given on the tape,and a second pause
provided, so thatthe student may correct his error orrepeat the
correct response. For moreadvanced students a passage may
berecorded containing a number of ex-amples of the structure to be
mas-tered. After hearing it, the studentsmay answer questions
either orally or
in writing which call for using thestructures in the passage. A
greatvalue of the tape recorder is its usein listening
comprehension. For thispurpose short passages may be tapedto be
played over and over, and ques-tions provided to test
understanding.Scripts are useful with listening ex-ercises to
establish the relationshipbetween sight and sound. More
often,however, students concentrate merelyon the sound. For
advanced students,taped classroom lectures provide prac-tice in
note taking. Or a short essaymay be read to an advanced class
onwhich the students take notes inpreparation for writing a summary
oranswer to an essay-type question thefollowing day. The essay is
also taped,so that the student who has difficultymay listen as many
times as neces-sary. Use may also be made of dia-logues about
practical situationsbuying a shirt, ordering a meal, mak-ing a
telephone call, etc. The studentlistens to the entire dialogue,
thenrepeats after the master tape. Thenhe takes one of the parts in
the dia-logue and replies to the voice on themaster channel.
Examples of exer-cises of various types will be found atthe end of
this article.
Much of this material can be pre-pared in advance of the
beginning ofthe course. Other material will beadded as the class
progresses in orderto supplement instruction if the needarises. In
the preparation, use canbe made of student help. In
writingstructure or pronunciation tapes, theinstructor can set up
the pattern tobe followed, and a student assistantcan supply
further examples. Or theinstructor can select passages to beused
for listening comprehension, and
-
THE LANGUAGE LABORATORY 19
student assistants, under guidance,can write questions on them.
Stu-dents can also compose passages il-lustrating the points on
which struc-ture drills will be based, such as theuse of have plus
the past participle(have given, have seen, etc.) or theplacement of
adverbs. They can alsocompose dialogues. If students dothe
recording of the master tapes,they may need some instruction
inenunciation and timing, and in theformat in which the exercises
are pre-sented. For the laboratory describedhere, much of the
material was writ-ten by the instructor, who was givena reduced
teaching schedule for thispurpose. Much of it was written bya
graduate student working closelywith her. Some exercises were
devel-oped from class assignments in acourse in methods in teaching
Englishas a foreign language. The recordingwas done almost entirely
by studenthelp. Not all programs will be fortu-nate enough to have
this assistance.
With good equipment and mate-rials, the success of the
laboratorydepends ultimately on how the ma-terials are handled and
how the lab-oratory is run. Sending the studentsto listen with
little supervision isoften a waste of time. How can theinstructor
insure that the studentreally listens or that he reproducesthe
patterns correctly, without spend-ing more time in the laboratory
thanhe perhaps spends in teaching hisclasses? A partial answer is
to havethe taped exercises culminate in writ-ing. For example,
after the studenthas listened to the tape and producedthe correct
responses orally, he canbe asked to write them, or he canwrite the
answers to questions on pas-
sages he has listened to, as suggestedearlier. Pronunciation
tapes can endby having the students indicate ona check list whether
pairs of soundsthey hear are alike or different, or byhaving them
mark stress patterns. Inthe program described, each studentis
provided with a booklet of dittoedwritten exercises based on the
tapes,and the use of the written exercisesseems to be particularly
effective. Aspecific assignment is made to eachstudent, and the
written exerciseserves as visual proof that he hasdone it.
Even with this check, however, su-pervision is needed. The
describedprogram has been fortunate in havinga graduate student as
laboratory su-pervisor who has herself learned En-glish as a
foreign language and whoplans to return to her native countryto
teach English. The course in-structors give her an assignment
sheeteach week indicating what exerciseseach student is to do. She
keeps aschedule sheet for each student onwhich the student
indicates in theproper square the hour he came tothe lab and the
exercises he com-pleted. She monitors the oral re-sponse when
necessary, and the writ-ten exercises are turned in to her.Part of
the success of the programmay lie in the fact that she checksthem
immediately with the student,and if she feels he has not
masteredthe material, she gives him back thetape to be done again.
At the end ofthe week she hands in a report to theinstructors of
the English classes tell-ing what each student has done.
Anundergraduate student or, in a highschool program, a competent
sen-
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20 TESOL QUARTERLY
ior could do a great deal of thissupervision.
Is the language laboratory worththe time and money? It increases
in-struction time by providing additionalcontact with the language
under con-trolled conditions. A TESOL programmust take care of
individual differ-ences not only in level of proficiencyin English
but also in language back-grounds, and the laboratory makes
itpossible to do this in a way that itcannot be done in the
classroom. Forexample, Japanese students can drillon the /r//l/
distinction which is dif-ficult for them, the Latin Americanson
/b//v/, the Germans on voicingfinal consonants. There are
uniqueinstructional features inherent in thelaboratory method of
presentation.Yet the use of a language laboratoryis time consuming,
and the inexperi-enced teacher may be at a loss as tothe best
procedures. Material onceprepared must be constantly revisedas weak
points become apparent, asstudents tire of the material, or asnew
points that need drill are identi-fied. Some of the procedures
outlinedhere, however, have lessened theproblems in the program in
whichthey have been tried.
BALL STATE UNIVESITYMUNCIE, INDIANA
Sample Exercises
A. PRONUNCIATION
1. Distinguishing Vowel SoundsI will pronounce the groups of
words in Section A of your script.In each group circle the word
thatcontains a different vowel sound.I will pronounce each group
twice.Here is an example:
Tape: fit, bean, bin, pit.You should have circled the
wordbean.1. bin, key, eat, people2. sit, bin, build, fee3. right,
steak, height, by4. lays, says, led, friend5. back, cat, ten,
plaid6. ton, cup, fear, does7. hear, fur, her, sir8. cop, heart,
are, care9. car, ought, law, or
10. fool, good, cool, boot
First I will read the pairs ofwords in parentheses in the
sen-tences. Then I will read the sen-tences on your script choosing
oneof the words in parentheses. Checkthe word you hear. This is
anexample:
Tape: knit, knotI like to knit that yarn.You should have checked
knit,the first word of the pair.
1.2.
3.4.
5.6.
8.
9.
I saw the (mate, mat) first.I looked up at the (stairs,stars).I
(went, want) to do it.Paul lay down on his (cot,coat).The officer
was (cut, curt).There is no place for the(sheep, ship).He (bet,
bit) a silver dollar.The (boat, boot) was notclean.Put the meat in
the (pit,
7.
pot) .10. The general thought his men
were (fit, fat).2. Distinguishing /l/ and /r/
Listen to these pairs of words.I will say one word in the
pairtwice. On your script circle theword which you hear twice
andthen repeat the pair. For example:late, rate, late
(Circle late on your answer sheet.Then repeat late, rate.)
1. rate, rate, late
-
THE LANGUAGE LABORATORY 21
2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9.
10.
rung, lung, rungtell, tear, telltale, rail, talelock, lock,
rocklane, rain, rainroad, road, loadwall, war, wallland, ran, rana
roof, a roof, aloof
(The students are provided withscripts for these exercises.
Thestudent script for this last exer-cise will contain only pairs
ofwords.)
B. STRUCTURE1. Passive Voice
a. Transformation ExerciseYou will hear a sentence in the
active voice. You will change it tothe passive. For example, you
willhear: John ate the apple. Y o uwill say: The apple was eaten
byJohn; or The apple was eaten. Thepassive is often used when it is
notimportant to name who did theact. For example: Someone foundthe
letter yesterday. The passiveis: A letter was found yesterday.Now
begin the exercise.1. The present wrote a letter yester-
day.(Pause for student response.)
A letter was written yesterdayby the president.
2. Someone painted the house white.(Pause.)
The house was painted white.(Pause.)
3. Someone mailed the letter yester-day.
(Pause.)The letter was mailed yesterday.
(Pause.)4. Someone finished the work by six
oclock.(Pause.)
The work was finished by sixoclock.
5. John turned on the light.(Pause.)
The light was turned on by John.(Pause.)
b. Listening and ResponseExercise
I will read a short passage thatmakes use of the passive
voice.You will answer questions on it,using the correct form of the
verb.Listen to the passage as manytimes as necessary in order
toanswer the questions. Here is thepassage:
(The tape contains a page-longpassage beginning: In 1849 goldwas
discovered in California)
I will now re-read portions ofthe passage, and then ask
ques-tions on the portion I have read.Answer these questions, using
com-plete sentences. After you haveanswered the questions, you
willhear the correct answer.
In 1849 gold was discovered inCalifornia. By that time, the
regionhad been explored by the Spanish,and they had given it its
name,which means heat of the ovens.1.
2.
3.
2.
When was gold discovered inCalifornia?
(Pause for student response.)Gold was discovered in 1849.
(Pause for student repetition.)By whom had the region been
ex-plored?
(Pause for student response.)The region had been explored bythe
Spanish.
(Pause for student repetition.)By whom had the region beengiven
its name?
(Pause for student response.)The region had been given itsname
by the Spanish.
(Pause for student repetition.)Combining Sentence Patternswith
WhoIn this exercise I will give you
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22 TESOL QUARTERLY
two short sentences. Insert thesecond sentence into the first
oneby substituting who for the subjectin the second sentence.
Forexample:
The man came back. The manwent away. If you combine
thesesentences with a who, this is the re-sult: The man who went
away cameback.1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
The man left.The man was here.
(Pause for student response.)The man who was here left.
(Pause for student repetition.)The boy likes school.The boy
makes good grades.
(Pause for student response.)The boy who makes good gradeslikes
school.
(Pause for student repetition.)The dog bit the man.The dog
barked.
(Pause for student response.)The dog who barked bit the man.
(Pause for student repetition.)The girl is the president.The
girl is waving.
(Pause for student response.)The girl who is waving is
thepresident.
(Pause for student repetition.)The boy had an accident.The boy
drove fast.
(Pause for student response.)The boy who drove fast had
anaccident.
(Pause for student repetition.)(The students are not provided
withscripts for these structure exercises. )
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Cordner, S. Pit. The Language Labora-tory: English Language
Teaching, XVI(1962), 184-188.
Council of Chief State School Officers, andOthers. Purchase
Guide for Programs inScience, Mathematics, and Modern For-eign
Languages; Supplement to PurchaseGuide for Programs in Science,
Mathe-matics, and Modern Foreign Languages.
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Dimension in Lab-
oratories, Language Learning. XI(1961), 147-152.
Gravit, Francis W., and Albert Valdman,eds. Structural Drill and
the LanguageLaboratory. Report of the Third Labora-tory Conference
held at Indiana Univer-sity, March 29-31, 1962.
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Hayes, Alfred S. Language Laboratory Fa-cilities: Technical
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Washington: National EducationAssociation, 1964.
Hok, Ruth. Oral Exercises: Their Typeand Form, Modern Language
Journal,XLVIII (April, 1964), 222-226.
Huebner, Theodore. Audio-Visual Tech-niques in Teaching Foreign
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1960.
Hutchinson, Joseph C. The Language Lab-atory. . . How Effective
Is It? U.S. De-partment of Health, Education, and Wel-fare, Office
of Education. Washington:U.S. Government Printing Office, 1964.
Hutchinson, Joseph C. Modern ForeignLanguages in High School:
The LanguageLaboratory. U.S. Office of Education Bul-letin 1961,
No. 23, OE-27013. Washing-ton: U.S. Government Printing
Office,1961.
Ingram, S. R. Audio-Aids in Modern Lan-guage Teaching, Visual
Education (June,1961) , 5-8.
Lado, Robert. Language Teaching: A Sci-entific Approach. New
York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1964.
Lorge, Sarah W. Language LaboratoryResearch Studies in New York
City HighSchools: A Discussion of the Programand the Findings,
Modern LanguageJournal, XLVIII (November, 1964), 409-419.
Marty, Fernand. Language LaboratoryLearning. Roanoke: A-V
Publications,1960.
Marty, Fernand. Programming a BasicForeign Language Course:
Prospects forSelf-Instruction. Roanoke: A-V Publica-tions,
1962.
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THE LANGUAGE LABORATORY 23
Modern Language Association of Ameri-ca. A Dozen Dos and Don'ts
for Plan-ning and Operating a Language Lab oran Electronic
Classroom in a High School.New York: MLA Materials Center,
nodate.
Morton, F. Rand. The Language Labora-tory as a Teaching Machine.
Ann Ar-bor: University of Michigan Press, 1960.
Najam, Edward W., ed. Materials andTechniques for the Language
Laboratory.Report of the Language Laboratory Con-ference held at
Purdue University, March23-24, 1961. Bloomington, Indiana:
Pub-lication of the Indiana University Re-search Center in
Anthropology, Folklore,and Linguistics, No. 18, 1962.
Oinas, Felix J., ed. Language TeachingToday. Report of the
Language Labora-tory Conference held at Indiana Uni-versity,
January 2223, 1960. Blooming-ton, Indiana: Publication of the
IndianaUniversity Research Center in Anthro-pology, Folklore, and
Linguistics, No. 14,1960.
Scherer, George. The Use and Misuse of
Language Laboratories. Language ofLearning: The Individual and
the Process,ed. Edward Najam. Report of theIndiana
University-Purdue UniversityForeign Language Conference held
atIndiana University, March 11-13, 1965.Bloomington, Indiana:
Publication of theIndiana Research Center in Anthropology,Folklore,
and Linguistics, No. 40, 1966,214-224.
Spencer, Richard E. and Edmond L. Sequin.The Relative
Effectiveness of Earphonesand Loudspeakers as a Means of
Present-ing a Listening Test in a Foreign Lan-guage, Modern
Language Journal,XLVIII (October, 1964), 346-349.
Stack, Edward M. The Keating ReportA Symposium, Modern Language
Jour-nal, XLVIII (April, 1964), 189194.
Stack, Edward M. The Language Labora-tory and Modern Language
Teaching,rev. ed. New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1966.
Turner, Daymond. Occupation: LanguageLaboratory Director, Modern
LanguageJournal, XLVIII (March, 1964), 151-154.
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Vol 1 No 1 March 1967
The Place of Dictation in the Language Classroom
For a long time now, languageteachers have made extensive use
ofdictation as a teaching device. Indeed,many teachers almost
always reservea portion of class time for this activity,rarely
questioning its validity as aneffective language-teaching
technique.In observing and consulting dozens oflanguage teachers
over the past dec-ade, I have been surprised to find thata majority
of them have been unableto tell me why they use dictationex-cept
that they have always done soor exactly what their students
learnfrom it. The purpose of this article,then, is to examine
critically the pos-sible uses of dictation as a language-learning
activity, and to point out sev-eral parallel pedagogical
principles.
The past abuses of dictation, itseems to me, have occurred
mainlybecause instructors have, more oftenthan not, used the
technique incor-rectly and at the wrong time. WhileI would agree
that dictation can onoccasion be used effectively in mostlanguage
classrooms, such effectivenessdepends to a large extent on (a)
whenit is used, i.e., at what stage in thesequence of
language-learning activi-ties, and (b) how it is handled. Thesetwo
important considerations can bediscussed only if we agree on the
pur-poses of dictation which, in my mind,are at least two:
1. Dictation is the transference of pri-mary auditory language
symbols(speech) into secondary graphicones (writing). It would seem
tofollow that one purpose of this ac-tivity is to serve as a
learning device
Kenton K. Sutherland
which promotes this ability to de-code sequences of oral symbols
intowritten ones.
2. A concurrent pedagogical purposewould be to serve as a
testing deviceto check on student progress.
Dictation exercises, it would seem,ought to help an instructor
identifyspecific problems in the ability to com-prehend, retain
briefly, and immedi-ately write down brief stretches oflanguage, in
the assumption that suchability is closely related to general
lan-guage performance. It should be men-tioned that this
assumptionthat acorrelation actually exists between theability to
take dictation and generallanguage performancehas not, to
myknowledge, been scientifically proved.Indeed, many of my
colleagues havequestioned the usefulness of the activ-ity at all in
their enthusiasm for atotal aural-oral, or audio-lingual,
ap-proach, and perhaps not without rea-son. The only answers I can
give suchcritics are necessarily impressionisticones: It has been
my observation thatstudents who are exposed to properlyhandled
dictation exercises not onlylearn to recognize the relationship
ofspeech to writing at an earlier stage,but also improve more
rapidly in theirability to comprehend stretches of spo-ken
materialtheir ears, so to speak,become more sensitive and
discrimi-nating.
The ability to write and compose ina foreign language also
improves, Ihave found, from the experience andpractice of having
copied down good,clear models. As an important side
24
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DICTATION IN THE LANGUAGE CLASSROOM 25
result, students with exposure to dic-tation activities also
learn to be moreat ease with such graphic landmarksas
capitalization, punctuation, spelling,and contractions.
Perhaps more important, however,many students begin to
realizeaftera short exposure to dictated mate-rialthat the omission
or misuse ofsmall function words is a serious error,that such
devices are highly importantto the grammatical signaling systemof
the language. Many students ac-tually never hear certain
unstressedsyllables and one-syllable functionwords and, according
to the authorsof one article on the subject of dicta-tion, they
never fully realize theirproblems in incorrectly identifyingwhat
they hear. They may be able toread and spell a word, but they
dontrecognize it when it is spoken, or theyconfuse different words
or phrases withthe ones they are hearing. 1 The stu-dent, in other
words, discovers thethings he doesnt hear 2 via dictationexercises.
In short, dictation activitiesseem to help students to become
moreconscious of the structure of the lan-guage, and as teachers
point out howfunction words are being obscured andcompressed, so
can they teach theirstudents to hear them better.
Since dictation employs a secondarygraphic form of language, it
would fol-low that effective utilization of the ac-
1J. Sawyer and S. Silva, Dictation inLanguage Learning. Language
LearningXI, 12 (1961), 41. This worthwhile articlecontains a
discussion of several types of dic-tation activities, e.g.,
phonemic text vs.orthographic text dictation, as well as
goodsuggestions for handling them in the class-room and for marking
dictation papers.
2 Ibid.
tivity as a teaching-learning devicewould necessarily proceed
from pri-mary to secondary forms, from speechto writing. What this
means is thatstudents should be requiredat leastin the early stages
of language learn-ingto take dictation only after theyhave had
plenty of practice with thespoken form of language. To be
sure,dictation can also be used occasionallyto provide a change of
pace, a newfocus, for students who have becomeweary of oral
drilling, but it is impor-tant that the activity followratherthan
precedeoral practice of the pat-terns to be dictated, and that it
pro-vide the students with additional prac-tice in using language
correctly, ratherthan with a tricky guessing game inwhich they
mostly make mistakes. Asfor the place of dictation in the
manip-ulation-communication scale of class-room activities,
Clifford Prator haspointed out that it is a chiefly manip-ulation
activity, involving decontrol ofall the mechanical elements of
writingbut preserving strict phonological andgrammatical controls.3
As such, dic-
3 Clifford Prator, personal letter and nota-tions on previous
article, January 10, 1966.Professor Prator is Vice-Chairman of
theDepartment of English, University of Cali-fornia, Los Angeles,
as well as head of theCertificate Program for Teachers of Englishas
a Second Language of the same institu-tion. For a discussion of the
manipulation-communication scale, see his Developmentof a
Manipulation-Communication Scale inThe 1964 Conference Papers of
the Associa-tion of Teachers of English as a SecondLanguage of the
National Association forForeign Student Affairs, ed. Robert P.
Fox(New York, 1965). Professor Prator is cur-rently at work on a
book to be entitled ten-tatively The Three M's of TESOL:
Matter,Methods and Materials for Teaching En-glish to Speakers of
Other Languages, whichcan be expected to contain additional
refer-ences to the manipulation-communicationscale.
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26 TESOL QUARTERLY
tation would certainly be one of thefirst writing activities
that we wouldwant to have students engage in. Thesuggestion that
dictation should besubstituted for composition, largely ifnot
wholly, during the earlier stages ofinstruction 4 is not a new
idea.
In considering the classroom me-chanics of dictation, we can
derivesome valuable pedagogical insightsfrom looking at the
activity from thepoint of view of programmed instruc-tionthe theory
upon which teach-ing machines are based. Most read-ers will
probably recall that pro-grammed learning owes its existencemainly
to Harvard Universitys bril-liant behavioral psychologist, B.
F.Skinner. His life work has been an in-vestigation of the learning
process andan attempt to pin-point the lawsthat govern it. While
experimentingwith pigeons, Skinner discovered hisbirds could be
taught to accomplishmany astonishing featssuch as whirl-ing in a
circle or pecking out a tuneon a toy pianoproviding each stepof
their behavior was rewarded witha grain of corn. Psychologists call
thisprocess of rewarding reinforcement,and reinforcement is central
to Skin-ners theories about programmed in-struction. In 1954
Skinner publishedan article in which he argued that peo-ple could
be taught the same way hehad taught his pigeonsthat is, theycould
be reinforced each time theytook a correct step toward masteringa
subject. The article signalled thebirth of programmed
instruction.
4 Edward S. Joynes, Dictation and Com-position in Modern
Language Teaching,Modern Language Association Publications,XV, App.
I (1900), xxV-xxx.
In a program for people, the rein-forcement factor is not corn
but a moreoblique kind of encouragement. Thestudent is rewarded at
each step bybeing told instantly that his answeris correct. That is
why a programmerarranges his material in a tightlygraded series of
small steps so as al-ways to invite a correct response.Getting
things right, says Skinner, isa pleasant experience which will
en-courage the student to learn more.
If a student commits an error on aprogram, it is considered the
fault ofthe program, not of the student.There are no wrong answers,
runsthe programmers sloganonly wrongquestions. 5
Certainly the basic elements in pro-grammingthe idea of breaking
upthe material into small steps, askingthe student to respond to
each item,and rewarding him for correct an-swershave been practiced
by goodteachers for centuries. And it is pre-cisely these elements
that will produceresults in language classrooms as wellas in
self-instructional teaching-ma-chine programs. We can see that
indictation, for example, the student isimmediately reinforced by
his ownand frequently the teachersobserva-tion that his sentences
correspond tothe ones dictated. As the teacher ob-serves the
ability of his students to
5This discussion of programmed instruc-tion is taken from an
article by RichardMargolis entitled Programmed Instruction:Miracle
or Menace? in Revolution inTeaching: New Theory, Technology
andCurricula, eds. Alfred de Grazia and DavidA. Sohn (New York:
Bantam Books, 1964),pp. 108-120.
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DICTATION IN THE LANGUAGE CLASSROOM 27
perform this task, he is able to adjusthis instructional
programby speed-ing up or slowing down, jumping aheador going back
to review previous mate-rialaccording to the performance ofthe
group, perhaps better than a ma-chine can.
In order to take advantage of pro-grammed learning techniques in
class-room dictation activities, it seems tome that language
instructors need tokeep several important principles inmind: 6
The Principle of Specific Objectives.This principle tells us
that a dictationshould be planned as an activity whichinvolves
specific structures and vocab-ularyand possibly even
specialsoundsfor specific purposes (at leasttwo of which were
stated earlier inthis article).
The Principle of Appropriate Prac-tice. In dictation, this means
that thestudents must have had sufficient pre-vious practice with
the elements thatenter into the sentences to be dictated,including
written practice, before theycan be expected to perform
acceptably,and that they must receive, via the dic-tation activity,
plenty of additionalpractice with correct forms. A dicta-tion,
therefore, should never be usedas a way to catch students in as
manyerrors as possible, but rather as an-other way to provide them
with asmany successful language experiencesas possible.
6 For a more complete discussion of theseprinciples see W. James
Popham, TheTeacher-Empiricist, A Curriculum andStudy Supplement
(Los Angeles: AegeusPress, 1965). Another very excellent volumeon
the subject is Robert F. Mager, Prepar-ing Objectives for
Programmed Instruction(San Francisco: Fearon Publishers, 1962).
The Principle of Individual Differ-entiation. In giving a
dictation, a lan-guage teacher needs to recognize thatthe speed and
performance of the stu-dents will vary greatly. He shouldnot
attempt, therefore, to dictate an-other phrase or sentence until he
hasobserved that all (or nearly all) ofthe students have written
down thepreceding one. Careful observation ofthe performance of the
students is alsonecessary so that future classwork anddictations
will reflect the various ob-served weaknesses and strengths intheir
performances. Recurring errorsand problems should be pointed out
tothe class, and persistent individualproblems should be dealt with
throughindividual conferences, planned reviewsessions, and special
assignments.
The Principle of Immediate Rein-forcement. This is perhaps the
mostcrucial principle to the effective out-come of dictation and
the one mostcommonly violated by language teach-ers. If we can
learn anything at allfrom Skinners work, it is that a stu-dentif he
is to learn from his per-formanceis going to do so right awayand
not an hour or a day or a weeklater. As Goodwin Watson has
pointedout :
Behaviors which are rewarded (rein-forced) are more likely to
recur. Thismost fundamental law of learning hasbeen demonstrated in
literally thou-sands of experiments. It seems to holdfor every sort
of animal from earth-worms to highly intelligent adults.The
behavior most likely to emerge inany situation is that which the
subjectfound successful or satisfying pre-viously in a similar
situation. Noother variable affects learning so power-fully. The
best-planned learning pro-vides for a steady, cumulative sequenceof
successful behaviors. Reward (rein-
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28 TESOL QUARTERLY
forcement), to be most effective inlearning, must follow almost
imme-diately after the desired behavior andbe clearly connected
with that behaviorin the mind of the learner. The simpleword right,
coming directly after agiven response, will have more influ-ence on
learning than any big rewardwhich comes much later or which isdimly
connected with many responsesso that it cant really reinforce any
ofthem. Much of the effectiveness ofprogrammed self-instruction
lies in thefact that information about success isfed back
immediately for each learnerresponse. A total mark on a test theday
after it is administered has littleor no reinforcement value for
the spe-cific answers.7
Except in testing situations, then, dic-tations should be (a)
corrected imme-diately (b) by the student himself. Ifthe teacher
wants to pick up the pa-pers for his own information, he shoulddo
so only after the students have hadthe chance to learn from their
own re-sponses. Indeed, most dictation activ-ities would probably
be even moreeffective as reinforcement if the stu-dents were
allowed to check their workas soon as they had copied down
asentence, rather than waiting until theend of the entire
dictation, since thelearner cannot improve until he hasbeen
informed whether or not eacheffort has been successful.
The Principle of Graduated Se-quence. As in oral drilling,
dictationexercises will proceed most effectivelyfrom simple to
gradually more com-plex forms, and to progressively moreand more
effort on the part of thestudents. The teacher needs to pacethe
increase in the speed and size of
7 Goodwin Watson, What Do We KnowAbout Learning? Revolution in
Teaching,pp. 82-83.
graduation so that it is consistent withthe students ability to
perform, never,of course, breaking up phrases morethan in normal
speech. Although moststudents would probably like teachersto slow
down on dictationssomewould even prefer to have them givenword by
wordit is important thatthe teacher keep the students reachingahead
by dictating larger and largerportions of material in a series of
con-tinuous sequences, allowing as muchtime between word groups as
may beneeded for writing. While the speed ofdictation should always
be normal,most language teachers would probablyagree that beginning
students shouldbe dictated to in a slow-normalspeed rather than in
a super-fast speedwhich would hardly be appropriateeven for a
trained stenographer takingdictation in his own native
language.Earl Stevick suggests here that dic-tating this way
without distortion isa valuable skill that requires prac-tice and,
for most people, some coach-ingthat it is not just somethingthat
comes naturally to any nativespeaker. 8
In summary, I suggest that thesefive educational principles can
directlanguage teachers toward the more ef-fective use of dictation
in their class-rooms. The actual way that dictationsare handled
will, of course, have a greatdeal to do with the level of
instruction
8 Earl Stevick, notation on previous ver-sion of article,
January, 1966. Dr. Stevickis a resident linguist and specialist in
Afri-can languages at the Foreign Service Insti-tute. He has
published several works in theteaching of English as a second
language,including Helping People Learn English(New York: Abingdon
Press, 1958) andA Workbook in Language Teaching (NewYork: Abingdon
Press, 1963).
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DICTATION IN THE LANGUAGE CLASSROOM 29
and with the ages of the students, aswell as with the
personality and clev-erness of individual instructors. Ithink it is
safe to say, however, thatas long as these principles are
incor-porated into a dictation activity, posi-tive results will
necessarily follow forany level and for any teacher.
An interesting final suggestion forthe use of dictation as a
self-instruc-tional device is made by Leonard New-mark who, in
commenting on an earlierversion of this article, wrote the
fol-lowing:
Since you talk about dictation in termsof programmed
instruction, why nottalk about it as a device that lends it-self
well to self-instruction with a tape-recorder? Nothing about the
techniqueyou describe requires a live teacher andcertain of the
principles You mentione.g., The Principle of Individual
Dif-ferentiationare better served by atape-recorder which allows
the slowstudent to play the dictation over asmany times as he
needs, without forc-ing the good student to listen to un-needed
repetitions; the poor studentalso benefits by not being forced
tocompete in the exercise against thegood student. Correcting the
dictationagainst the original script can be donein the laboratory
as well as in theclassroom. Of course, the teacher canbe used as an
expensive substitute fora machine, but I dont quite see whyhe
should be so used. If you feel thatvisual cues (lip movement and
handgestures, for example, are necessary foroptimal dictation
training, I suggest
you consider the possibilities now madeavailable by
videotape-recorders.9
This should prove to be an interestingexperiment for those
readers who haveaccess to tape- and/or videotape-re-corders. Anyone
care to try it?
In conclusion, here are six dictationtechniques suggested by
Earl Stevick,which are arranged in approximate or-der of
difficulty. Which are suitablefor your group? he asks: 10
Dictation with key words written onblackboard.
1. Each phrase or sentence repeatedwithout limit.
2. Each phrase given only twice.3. Each phrase given only
once.
Dictation without key words given. 11
4. Unlimited repetition.5. Each phrase given twice.6. Each
phrase given once.
COLLEGE OF THE DESERTPALM DESERT, CALIFORNIA
9 Leonard Newmark, personal letter, Janu-ary 12, 1966. Professor
Newmark is chair-man of the Department of Linguistics, Uni-versity
of California, San Diego. He is oneof the co-authors of Using
American En-glish, a highly teachable approach to dia-logues and
written material from an entirelyfresh viewpointthe learning and
use oflanguage wholes rather than as a patchworkof features. (New
York: Harper and Row,1964) .
10 A Workbook in Language Teaching, p.68.
This heading is listed as Dictation withkey words given. Dr.
Stevick has informedme, however, that this was a typographicalerror
and that it should read Dictationwithout key words given, as shown
here.
-
Vol 1 No 1 March 1967
A Second Look at Teaching Reading and Composition
It may be that some of our assump-tions about the teaching of
both read-ing and composition to non-nativespeakers of English and
the relation-ship between these two skills needs tobe re-examined.
While this articlemakes no attempt at a
comprehensivere-examination, it does, hopefully, offersome
suggestions that may be con-sidered in future explorations.
Up to now many of us have assumedthat the proper approach to
teachingcomposition to non-native speakers isone that goes step by
step from writingsentences to writing paragraphs towriting full
length compositionsinthat orderand that there should beconsiderable
mastery of each step be-fore the student proceeds to the nextone.
To be sure, this is a logical orderof progression and does point in
thedirection a student must proceed, butin following these steps,
we are forcedto assume or at least to proceed as ifwe assumed that
because a studenthas learned to manipulate English sen-tence
patterns, he has somehow orother learned to handle the ideas
ex-pressed in them. Unfortunately thisis not true.
All too frequently we find studentswho are able to write
beautiful sen-tences but who come up with some-thing almost
unintelligible when askedto compose a paragraph, or studentswho
seem to have mastered the sim-ple paragraph but who explode into
achaotic discourse when asked to com-pose a full length essay. At
the sametime, students who can read and an-alyze a sentence, word
for word, but
Donna H. Carr
who can not comprehend the idea ex-pressed are not anomalies in
our class-rooms. And to these same students aparagraph can be
equally incompre-hensible even though they understandeach sentence.
Such students appearto lack the ability to relate the
ideasexpressed and frequently pick outsmall, insignificant facts as
the maintheme.
Perhaps some of the students dif-ficulties stem from a confusion
on thepart of the teacher between sentence-building exercises and
compositionexercises. In sentence-building exer-cises the emphasis
is on correctlywritten sentence patterns. The stu-dents concerns
are with words, wordorder, and grammar. But in composi-tion
exercises, the emphasis must beon the logical arrangement of
ideasinto paragraphs and full length com-positions. It therefore
doesnt followthat because a student can write sen-tences, he can
compose. These twokinds of skills must be differentiated.
When a teacher reinforces patternsdrilled orally by having her
studentswrite these patterns several times, herstudents are
building sentences. Whena teacher asks her students to writeseveral
sentences patterned after amodel, again her students are
buildingsentencesthey are not composing.Even when a teacher asks
her stu-dents to turn sentences into questionsor questions into
sentences or to re-write a paragraph putting the verbsinto another
tense and making allnecessary changes, she is still askingher
students to concentrate on sen-
30
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TEACHING READING AND COMPOSITION 31
tence building. The emphasis is stillon word order and
grammar.
The teaching of composition to non-native speakers, then, simply
stated,must be concerned primarily withgetting students to relate
and to or-ganize ideas, and to express them inEnglish paragraph and
essay patterns.And it follows, of course, that com-position
exercises must be exercisesthat emphasize and concentrate on
thedevelopment of these particular skills.That such exercises are
much harderto develop and to handle in the class-room than are
sentence-building exer-cises goes without saying, and mayaccount
for their scarcity. Neverthe-less, they must be developed and
theymust be properly used.
With this definition of teachingcomposition in mind, it now
becomesquite clear that the teaching of com-position is only
distantly related tosentence building. It also seems rath-er
obvious that the teaching of com-position quite probably has an
affinitywith the teaching of reading compre-hension. Reading, too,
is concernedwith ideas and their relationships asexpressed by their
authors in para-graphs and essays.
That there is a relationship betweenreading comprehension and
composi-tion is not a new and startling dis-covery. In fact it has
never beenquestioned. However, this relation-ship has never been
sufficiently ex-ploited in the classroom nor perhapseven clearly
defined. It has frequentlybeen pointed out that a
compositionassignment or exercise should beginwith or should be
based on a readingthat serves as a model. But just howa reading is
to serve as a model andwhen the student is ready for this
sort of exercise is not always clear.As many have discovered, it
is not asimple read and then write process.Perhaps the following
explication willsuggest some possibilities.
First of all, the reading model is tobe read intensively, that
is, an-alytically. To read a selection an-alytically, two basic
steps are re-quired: first, the student must gleanfrom the reading
the ideas the authoris discussing; and second, he mustextract from
the reading the organiza-tional pattern the author has used
toexpress his ideas. It may be that forour non-native speakers, the
first stepcannot be successfully accomplisheduntil the second step
has been. Thusthe importance of this second stepcannot be
overemphasized. It is thissecond step, the extracting from
thereading the organizational pattern,that plays such a vital role
in both theteaching of reading comprehension andthe teaching of
composition. And, un-fortunately, it is this second step thatis
usually omitted.
Any student, native or non-native,will find it extremely
difficult to under-stand completely the ideas an authoris
expressing until he can understandthe organizational pattern the
authorhas used to express them. For manynative speakers, but by no
means allof them, the organization patternsused in the
English-speaking cultureshave become so well established thatthey
use them or accept them withouteven being aware of their
existence.But for most of our non-native speak-ers, these patterns
are alien, and untilthey have been taught these patterns,they will
have difficulty with bothread