Conference programme and book of abstracts
4-6 June, 2014
Santiago de Compostela (Spain)
Spoken english
ICSE 2014
International Conference on
Descriptive and Applied Perspectives
Conference programme and book of abstracts
Spoken english
ICSE 2014
International Conference on
Descriptive and Applied Perspectives
1 Organizing committee
Chairs:
F. Javier Fernández Polo Mario Cal Varela
Secretaries:
Ignacio Palacios Martínez M Luisa Roca Varela
Treasurers:
Lidia Gómez García Yolanda J. Calvo Benzies Committee members:
Rosa Alonso Begoña Jamardo Paula López Rúa Paloma Núñez Pertejo
Student assistants
Cristina Blanco García Zeltia Blanco Suárez Tamara Bouso Rivas Eduardo Coto Villalibre Iria de Dios Flores Tania de Dios Miguéns Aleksandra Kaverina
Tamilla Mammadova Paula Márquez Caamaño Beatriz Mato Míguez Alba Pérez González Iria Gael Romay Fernández Mario Serrano Losada Iván Tamaredo Meira
Scientific committee Carlos Acuña Fariña Marian Amengual Gisle Andersen Isabel Balteiro Sally Burgess Jenny Cheshire
María Luisa Diez Arroyo Teresa Fanego Lema Ana Fernández Dobao Inmaculada Fortanet Pilar García Mayo Maurizio Gotti Gäetanelle Gilquin Elise Karkkainen María José López Couso
Rosa Lorés Anna Mauranen Ana Martínez Insua Belén Méndez Naya Javier Pérez Guerra Esperanza Rama Sagrario Salaberri Elena Seoane Posse Sali Tagliamonte Cristina Suárez Gómez Scott Thornbury Eivind Torgensen Roberto Valdeón Eduardo Varela Ignacio Vázquez Orta
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
FLOOR PLAN OF CONFERENCE VENUE ... 7 CONFERENCE PROGRAMME ... 9
CONFERENCE ABSTRACTS
(Listed in alphabetical order, according to the surname of the first author)
PLENARIES ... 13 Epistemic legitimisation, commitment and evasion in discourse:
The case of Tony Blair. Juana Marín Arrese ... 15 Academic dialogue: Co-constructing knowledge in English as a
lingua franca. Anna Mauranen ... 18 Features of discourse foreign language teachers live by.
Sagrario Salaberri ... 18 So like you know what? Spoken English entering the 21st century.
Sali Tagliamonte ... 19
FULL PAPERS ... 23 The teaching of spoken English in secondary education and state
language schools. Rosa Alonso & Patricia Argibay Suárez ... 25 An exploration of the varieties of the ESL Speakers’ Pronunciation.
Hmoud Alotaibi ... 26 Improving students’ oral competence through the reform of high-
stakes tests. Marian Amengual & Jesús García Laborda ... 27 Pronunciation in Spanish EFL materials for advanced learners: An
evaluation of activities and a remedial programme.
Yolanda Joy Calvo Benzies ... 29 Starting Skype conversations: Pragmatic features and strategies in
an ELF context.
Stefan Diemer, Marie-Louise Brunner & Selina Schmidt ... 31 A study of the discourse connective 'Yeah No' in Hiberno-English.
John Donnelly ... 34 Using telecollaborative learning projects to promote communicative
competence in English in Sri Lankan primary schools.
Thushara Gamage ... 34 Fostering oral skills in the primary EFL classroom via Desktop
Videoconferencing. A pilot study.
Araceli García Fuentes ... 36
4
What does it happen in the ZPD during paired speaking tests?
Jesús García Laborda & Nuria Otero de Juan ... 38 Discourse Analysis in the CLIL Classroom. The Effects of
Teaching Activities on the Learning Process.
David González Gándara ... 40 Talking the talk: ‘real world’ speech in relation to the ‘speaking
activities’ in Portuguese produced English language teaching
coursebooks. Nicolas Hurst ... 43 When do we rectify? Rectification in contemporary spoken British
English. Aleksandra Kaverina ... 44 Discourse markers in university lecture settings: Enhancing
communicative competence. Elena Kruglikova ... 46 On ‘Standard Cases’ of verbal irony in spoken English.
Claudia Lehmann ... 49 What makes a contraction: The import of speech rate on the
realization of 'have to'. David Lorenz & David Tizón-Couto ... 50 The treatment of English conversation grammar in modern
advanced EFL textbooks. Tamilla Mammadova ... 52 Code-switching as a communication strategy in private ELF
conversations. Kaisa Pietikäinen ... 54 Oral English needs in Spanish professional settings: Different
perspectives. Lourdes Pomposo ... 56
‘Dude—This weed is DANK!’ Spoken discourse as the locus of
lexical semantic change. Kurt Queller ... 57 From boardroom meeting to minutes: The oral-written continuum.
Rosa Rabadán, Isabel Pizarro & Marlén Izquierdo ... 59
‘So what does the Porsche have man?’ Discourse markers as cues
to topic structure in conversation. Marine Riou ... 61 Speech verbs in nineteenth-century English fiction: Or how the
narrator is responsible for the orality of his characters.
Pablo Ruano ... 63 Approaching multimodal discourse analysis to students’ training in
academic contexts: Understanding questions in guest lectures.
Mª Noelia Ruiz Madrid & Inmaculada Fortanet ... 65 Assessment criteria for spoken interactions in ESP (English for Law
Enforcement) target language use situations.
Sonsoles Sánchez-Reyes & Gabriela Torregrosa ... 67
5
CLIL and educational games in primary school. Lidia Santos ... 70 A contrastive analysis of tense in spoken ENL and ESL.
Elena Seoane & Cristina Suárez Gómez ... 72 Let’s hear it for the past: Visual input for better pronunciation.
Harun Serpil & Leslie Kelly ... 74 Left-dislocated NPs across the ‘speech-like’-‘written’ genre
continuum in the recent history of English.
David Tizón-Couto ... 75 Exploring the oral-written continuum by means of a comic strip:
'Basic Instructions' by Scott Meyer.
Eduardo José Varela Bravo ... 78 A Critical review of corpora for studying grammatical changes in
spoken English. José Ramón Varela Pérez ... 80 Beyond language: Discussing social issues in the EFL Costa Rican
classroom. Vivian Vargas & Vera Madrigal ... 82 Word order in matrix Wh-questions in Cajun Vernacular English.
Richard Winters ... 83
POSTERS ... 87 Are our students speaking English? Use of English in non-academic
settings. Alba Gutiérrez Martínez ... 89 Fluency and the use and functions of highly frequent lexical
bundles in spoken texts by Norwegian non-native speakers of
English. Hege Larsson Aas ... 89 EFL learners' use of phrasal and phrasal prepositional verbs in
spoken English: A preliminary corpus-based study.
Martiña Piñeiro ... 91 Learner corpora of spoken English: analysis of Czech university
students' performances. Ježková Šárka ... 93
WORKSHOP ... 95 CASE - The Corpus of Academic Spoken English.
Stefan Diemer, Marie-Louise Brunner & Selina Schmidt ... 97
LIST OF PRESENTERS ... 100
6
FLOOR PLAN O
7
OF CONFEERENCEE VENUEE
8
9
CONFERENCE PROGRAMME Wednesday 4
09:00 – 10:00 Reception of participants
Representing orality (Room 7)
Testing (Room 8)
10:00 – 10:30
Eduardo José Varela Bravo (Universidade de Vigo)
Exploring the oral-written continuum by means of a comic strip: 'Basic Instructions'
by Scott Meyer.
Jesús García Laborda Nuria Otero de Juan (Universidad de Alcalá) What does it happen in the ZPD during
paired speaking tests?
10:30 – 11:00
Pablo Ruano
(Universidad de Extremadura) Speech verbs in nineteenth-century English
fiction: Or how the narrator is responsible for the orality of his characters.
Hmoud Alotaibi (Shaqra University)
An exploration of the varieties of the ESL Speakers’ Pronunciation.
11:00 – 11:30
Kurt Queller (University of Idaho)
“Dude—This weed is DANK!” Spoken discourse as the locus of lexical semantic
change.
Marian Amengual (Universitat Illes Balears)
Jesús García Laborda (Universidad de Alcalá) Improving students’ oral competence through the reform of high-stakes tests.
11:30 – 12:00 Coffee break
(Cafeteria)
12:00 – 12:15 Opening
(Main Hall)
12:15 – 13:30
Plenary talk Sali A. Tagliamonte (University of Toronto)
So like you know what? Spoken English entering the 21st century (Main Hall)
LUNCH
Communication strategies (Room 7)
CLIL (Room 8)
15:30 – 16:00
José Ramón Varela Pérez
(Universidade de Santiago de Compostela) A critical review of corpora for studying grammatical changes in spoken English.
Vivian Vargas Vera Madrigal
(Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica) Beyond language: Discussing social issues
in the EFL Costa Rican classroom.
16:00 – 16:30
Kaisa Pietikäinen (University of Helsinki) Code-switching as a communication strategy in private ELF conversations.
Lidia Santos (Universidade de Vigo)
CLIL and educational games in primary school.
16:30 – 17:00
Stefan Diemer Marie-Louise Brunner
Selina Schmidt (Universität des Saarlandes) Starting Skype conversations: Pragmatic features and strategies in an ELF context.
David González Gándara
(Universidade de Santiago de Compostela) Discourse Analysis in the CLIL classroom.
The effects of teaching activities on the learning process.
17:00 – 17:30 Coffee break
(Cafeteria)
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Wednesday 4 (cont.)
Poster session (Lecture Hall)
17:30 – 18:30
Alba Gutiérrez Martínez (Universidad del País Vasco)
Are our students speaking English? Use of English in non-academic settings.
Hege Larsson Aas (Høgskolen i Hedmark)
Fluency and the use and functions of highly frequent lexical bundles in spoken texts by Norwegian non-native speakers of English.
Martiña Piñeiro
(Universidade de Santiago de Compostela)
EFL learners' use of phrasal and phrasal prepositional verbs in spoken English: A preliminary corpus-based study.
Ježková Šárka (Univerzita Pardubice)
Learner corpora of spoken English: Analysis of Czech university students' performances.
19:30 Short guided tour
(meeting point: Obradoiro Square)
20:30 Reception
(Pazo de Fonseca)
Thursday 5
Varieties of English (Room 7)
Pronunciation (Room 8)
09:00 – 09:30
John Donnelly (Trinity College Dublin)
A study of the discourse connective 'Yeah No' in Hiberno-English.
David Lorenz
(Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg) David Tizón-Couto
(Universidade de Vigo) What makes a contraction: The import of speech rate on the realization of 'have
to'.
09:30 – 10:00
Elena Seoane (Universidade de Vigo)
Cristina Suárez Gómez (Universitat Illes Balears)
A contrastive analysis of tense in spoken ENL and ESL.
Rosa Alonso (Universidade de Vigo) Patricia Argibay Suárez The teaching of spoken English in secondary education and state language
schools.
10:00 – 10:30
Richard Winters
(University of Louisiana at Lafayette) Word order in matrix Wh-questions in Cajun
Vernacular English.
Harun Serpil Leslie Kelly (Anadolu Üniversitesi) Let’s hear it for the past: Visual input
for better pronunciation.
10:30 – 11:00 Coffee break
(Cafeteria)
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Thursday 5 (cont.)
Workshop (Lecture Hall)
11:00 – 12:00
Stefan Diemer Marie-Louise Brunner
Selina Schmidt (Universität des Saarlandes)
CASE - The Corpus of Academic Spoken English.
12:15 – 13:30
Plenary talk Sagrario Salaberri (Universidad de Almería)
Features of discourse foreign language teachers live by (Main Hall)
LUNCH
Discourse and pragmatics (Room 7)
Teaching materials (Room 8)
15:30 – 16:00
Marine Riou
(Université Paris 3 Sorbonne-Nouvelle - Université Paris 7 Denis Diderot)
"So what does the Porsche have man?"
Discourse markers as cues to topic structure in conversation.
Tamilla Mammadova (Universidade de Santiago de
Compostela)
The treatment of English conversation grammar in modern advanced EFL
textbooks.
16:00 – 16:30
Claudia Lehmann (Universität Osnabrück)
On ‘Standard Cases’ of verbal irony in spoken English.
Nicolas Hurst (Universidade do Porto)
Talking the talk: ‘Real world’ speech in relation to the ‘speaking activities’ in Portuguese produced English language
teaching coursebooks.
16:30 – 17:00
Aleksandra Kaverina
(Universidade de Santiago de Compostela) When do we rectify?: Rectification in contemporary spoken British English.
Yolanda Joy Calvo Benzies (Universidade de Santiago de
Compostela)
Pronunciation in Spanish EFL materials for advanced learners: An evaluation of
activities and a remedial programme.
17:00 – 17:30 Coffee break
(Cafeteria)
17:30 – 18:45
Plenary talk Juana Marín Arrese
(Universidad Complutense de Madrid)
Epistemic legitimisation, commitment and evasion in discourse: The case of Tony Blair (Main Hall)
20:30 Gala dinner
(Hotel San Francisco)
12 Friday 6
The oral-written continuum (Room 7)
ESP (Room 8)
09:30 – 10:00
Rosa Rabadán (Universidad de León)
Isabel Pizarro (Universidad de Valladolid)
Marlén Izquierdo (Universidad del País Vasco)
From boardroom meeting to minutes: The oral- written continuum.
Sonsoles Sánchez-Reyes Peñamaría Gabriela Torregrosa Benavent
(Universidad de Salamanca) Assessment criteria for spoken interactions in ESP (English for Law
Enforcement) target language use situations.
10:00 – 10:30
David Tizón-Couto (Universidade de Vigo)
Left-dislocated NPs across the ‘speech-like’-
‘written’ genre continuum in the recent history of English.
Lourdes Pomposo (UNED)
Oral English needs in Spanish professional settings: Different
perspectives.
10:30 – 11:00
ICTs
(Room 7) Mª Noelia Ruiz Madrid
Inmaculada Fortanet (Universitat Jaume I) Approaching multimodal discourse
analysis to students’ training in academic contexts: Understanding
questions in guest lectures.
Araceli García Fuentes
(Universidade de Santiago de Compostela) Fostering oral skills in the primary EFL classroom via Desktop Videoconferencing. A
pilot study.
11:00 – 11:30
Thushara Gamage (Macquarie University, Sydney) Using telecollaborative learning projects to promote communicative competence in English
in Sri Lankan primary schools.
Elena Kruglikova (Siberian Federal University) Discourse markers in the university
lecture setting: Enhancing communicative competence.
11:30 – 12:00 Coffee break
(Cafeteria)
12:15 – 13:30
Plenary talk Anna Mauranen (University of Helsinki)
Academic dialogue: Co-constructing knowledge in English as a lingua franca (Main Hall)
LUNCH
15:30 Excursion to the Galician coast
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PLENARIES
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Epistemic legitimisation, commitment and evasion in discourse: The case of Tony Blair
JUANA MARÍN ARRESE
(Universidad Complutense de Madrid)
This paper examines the use of epistemic stance resources as strategies for the legitimisation of assertions, and as strategies for the obfuscation of speakers’
responsibility and accountability in supporting or justifying the veracity or validity of their assertions (Marín-Arrese 2011a, 2013). Speakers make strategic use of epistemic stance expressions, thereby seeking to legitimise the truth or validity of a representation and overcome hearers’ cognitive mechanisms for epistemic vigilance (Sperber at al.
2010, Hart 2011, Marín-Arrese 2011b). Since epistemic stance expressions are by default indexical of the speaker's subjective and intersubjective positioning, the use of these resources may also involve strategies for the mystification the speaker as conceptualizer, by means of intersubjective and implicit indexing or by the evocation of a virtual or generalized conceptualizer (Marín-Arrese 2011a, 2013).
The conceptual domain of epistemicity comprises the subcategories of evidentiality and epistemic modality and pertains to the expression of epistemic support and evidentiary justification for the communicated proposition (Boye 2012). The framework for the analysis of stancetaking is based on a model which posits two macro categories of stance, effective stance and epistemic stance, which are systematically related to the indexing of inter/subjectivity (Marín-Arrese 2009, 2011a). In characterising the categories, I draw on Langacker's (2007, 2009) distinction between the effective and the epistemic level in discourse, which involves a systematic opposition between striving for control of relations at the level of reality and control of conceptions of reality. The category of epistemic stance includes epistemic modals, evidential and pseudo- evidential expressions, and expressions of cognitive attitude and factivity (Chafe 1986, Palmer 2001, Marín-Arrese 2009, 2011a, 2013). The model likewise relates epistemic stance to the dimension of subjectivity/intersubjectivity, in terms of the degree of salience of the conceptualizer role indexed by these resources (Langacker 1991), and the degree to which they evoke personal responsibility of the stancetaker for the communicated information or intersubjectively shared responsibility (Nuyts 2012).
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Epistemic stance resources reflect different forms and degrees of commitment of the speaker towards the communicated information. Speakers have a vested interest in justifying their assertions, especially in the context of a public inquiry, since they may be held politically accountable for their assertions. Witnesses will ‘strive for epistemic control’ (Langacker 2009) in the discourse, by attempting to manipulate the perceptions of hearers and defeat their epistemic vigilance, and may thus make conscious choices to either enhance or mitigate the force of their assertions. Mitigation involves decreased commitment, which may be effective in both managing accountability for the information and in maintaining an appearance of cooperation (Berlin 2008). In oral testimony the use of aphonic stance markers (Brandt 2004), or ignorative uses of language (Donaldson 1980), also allows the politician to distance themselves from a position of responsibility by claiming ignorance or lack of sufficient information. These forms of evasion or slipperiness, which have been explained in terms of face management in political interviews (Bull 2008), may however prove damaging to their credibility as witnesses in a public inquiry.
The paper presents a case study on the expression of stance and inter/subjectivity in the oral evidence given by Tony Blair, as British Prime Minister, in the Hutton Inquiry (August-October 2003), and to the Select Committee of the Iraq War Inquiry (2009), as former Prime Minister. It will be argued that Tony Blair’s intended discursive legitimation of events will be reflected in the pattern of use of epistemic stance resources and in the expression of inter/subjectivity. The paper aims to establish whether the stancetaking patterns in the two inquiries reveal particular preferred legitimising strategies, which may relate to differences in Blair’s perceived political involvement and interests, and thus in his coercive rhetorical goals.
References
Boye, Kasper. 2012. Epistemic meaning: A crosslinguistic and functional-cognitive study.
Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Berlin, Lawrence N. 2008. “I Think, Therefore ...”: Commitment in political testimony. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 27/4: 372-383.
Brandt, Per Aage. 2004. Evidentiality and enunciation. A cognitive and semiotic approach. In Juana I. Marín-Arrese (ed.) Perspectives on evidentiality and modality. Madrid: Editorial Complutense: 3-10.
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Bull, Peter. 2008. “Slipperiness, Evasion and Ambiguity”. Equivocation and facework in noncommittal political discourse. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 27/4:
333-344.
Chafe, Wallace. 1986. Evidentiality in English conversation and academic writing. In W. Chafe
& J. Nichols (eds.) Evidentiality: The linguistic coding of epistemology. New York:
Ablex: 261-272.
Donaldson, Tamsin. 1980. Ngiyambaa: the language of the Wangaaybuwan. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Hart, Christopher. 2011. Legitimising assertions and the logico-rhetorical module: Evidence and epistemic vigilance in media discourse on immigration. Discourse Studies 13/6: 751-769.
Langacker, Ronald W. 1991. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar, Vol. II. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
——— 2009. Investigations in Cognitive Grammar. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
——— 2013. Modals: Striving for control. In J.I. Marín-Arrese, M. Carretero, J. Arús & J. van der Auwera (eds.) English modality: Core, periphery and evidentiality. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter: 3-55.
Marín-Arrese, Juana I. 2009. Effective vs. epistemic stance and subjectivity/ intersubjectivity in political discourse: A case study. In A. Tsangalidis & R. Facchinetti (eds.), Studies on English modality. In honour of Frank R. Palmer. Berlin: Peter Lang: 23-52.
——— 2011a. Effective vs. epistemic stance and subjectivity in political discourse: legitimising strategies and mystification of responsibility. In C. Hart (ed.). Critical discourse studies in context and cognition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins: 193-223.
——— 2011b. Epistemic legitimising strategies, commitment and accountability in discourse.
Discourse Studies 13/6: 789-797.
——— 2013. Stancetaking and inter/subjectivity in the Iraq Inquiry: Blair vs. Brown. In J.I.
Marín-Arrese, M. Carretero, J. Arús & J. van der Auwera (eds.) English modality: Core, periphery and evidentiality. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter: 411-445.
Nuyts, Jan. 2012. Notions of (inter)subjectivity. English Text Construction 5/1: 53-76.
Palmer, Frank. 2001. Mood and modality. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sperber, Dan, Fabrice Clément, Christophe Heintz, Olivier Mascaro, Hugo Mercier, Gloria Origgi,
& Deidre Wilson. 2010. Epistemic vigilance. Mind and Language 25: 359-393.
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Academic dialogue: Co-constructing knowledge in English as a lingua franca
ANNA MAURANEN (University of Helsinki)
Academia is made up of endless spoken interaction that constitutes, reconstitutes and develops it as an abstract, aggregate institution: academics talk to their peers in conferences, in meetings, coffee-rooms and laboratories, and socialise generations of students by talking to them in lectures, seminars, field trips, and consultations. Practices vary across national and regional cultures, disciplines, and even institutions, but interactional talk is omnipresent. It shapes our identities and our understanding of academia and our disciplines. All this has become increasingly global, swiftly altering our linguistic environment: not only do we publish and run conferences in English, but a growing proportion of higher education programmes in non-English-speaking countries are now carried out in English. In all these international contexts, English is used as a lingua franca, with a minority of speakers for whom it is their native language. In these circumstances, understanding what academic discourses are like and how they take shape, it is crucial to look into the ways in which we speak English as a lingua franca.
This paper looks into English as a lingua franca in multi-party academic discussion. In addition to the linguistic and discursive processes enabling the coming together of participants’ widely diverse points of departure, the specific focus is on dialogic discourse in the co-construction of knowledge, and the role of metadiscourse in this collaborative achievement.
Features of discourse foreign language teachers live by SAGRARIO SALABERRI
(Universidad de Almería)
Certain discourse features used by teachers of English as a foreign language when interacting with students in the performance of language learning tasks will be analysed, with a focus on: a) the relationship between language and thought; b) discourse in the classroom as a mediator that contributes to the construction of shared meaning. The samples presented have been collected in the interaction between teachers and students
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in primary and secondary schools. Aspects of “Teacher talk” that will be discussed include: episode markers, turn taking, codeswitching, types of questions, clarification requests, comprehension checks, confirmation checks, repetitions, and expansions.
So like you know what? Spoken English entering the 21st century SALI TAGLIAMONTE
(University of Toronto)
Spoken language is notoriously full of non-standard features; particularly forms such as so, like, you know which typically occur on the left periphery of sentences, as in (1-5):
(1) Well, some of the girls, their home was in North Bay. (KL, F, 89) (2) So, we lost our stripes, we lost a mickey. (NB, M, 89)
(3) Like, you don’t find this stuff in Canada. (SP, F, 16) (4) Oh it was alright. I was cabin-girl. (TS, F, 93) (5) Ah, he didn’t take that lightly. (KL, M, 20)
Research targeting these features has typically focused on their textual and interpersonal functions (e.g. Aijmer 2002; Jucker & Ziv 1996; Schiffrin 1987); however, considerable research has also established that they also carry social meaning such as speaker age, sex, social class and education (e.g. Denis & Tagliamonte to appear, Dubois 1992, Pichler 2009, Pichler & Levey 2011). I began by focusing on right periphery items and constructions (Tagliamonte 2006), including phenomena such as general extenders (Tagliamonte & Denis 2010) and utterance final particles (Denis & Tagliamonte to appear). These analyses revealed dramatic patterns of obsolescence and innovation across the 20th and into the 21st century and social correlates such as speaker age, sex, social class and education, which are well known to be important indications of linguistic change (e.g. Cheshire 2005, Labov 1972, Trudgill 1974). My research on socially stratified corpora of spoken Canadian English is beginning to map the nature of these factors, however, there is still no consensus on what type of mechanism underlies these types of changes. Are they the result of lexical replacement, i.e. new form; old function, or grammatical development, new function; new form?
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A largescale analysis of over 100 individuals across five communities in Ontario, Canada reveals that this area of Canadian English is undergoing substantial reorganization. For example, well tends to be an older person’s usage, while like, increases among youth, particularly women. In contrast, the most frequent form, so, seems to operate outside social evaluation and is used across the age span. Once discourse-pragmatic function is accounted for, the trajectories of change in apparent time reveal stability of form and function for well and so, obsolescence for you know, but grammatical development for like.
The fact that both change and stability is evident in the data suggests that these left periphery forms are both systematic and hierarchically organized. Moreover, they offer multiplex insights into variation and change but crucially discourse and syntax. I will outline these tantalizing issues in my presentation.
References
Aijmer, Karin. 2002. English discourse particles, Evidence from a corpus. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Cheshire, Jenny. 2005. Age and generation-specific use of language. In U. Ammon, N.
Dittmar, K. J. Mattheier & P. Trudgill (eds.). Sociolinguistics: An introductory handbook of the science of language and society. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter:
1552–1563.
Denis, Derek & Sali A. Tagliamonte (to appear). Innovation and change right?
Utterance final tags in Canadian English. In H. Pichler (ed.). Discourse- pragmatic variation and change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dubois, Sylvie (1992). Extension particles, etc. Language Variation and Change 4/2:
163-203.
Jucker, Andreas H. & Yael Ziv (eds.). 1996. Discourse markers: descriptions and theory. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Labov, William. 1972. Sociolinguistic patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Pichler, Heike. 2009. The functional and social reality of discourse variants in a northern English dialect: I don't know and I don't think compared. Intercultural Pragmatics 6/4: 561-596.
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Pichler, Heike & Stephen Levey. 2011. In search of grammaticalization in synchronic dialect data: General extenders in north-east England. English Language and Linguistics 15/3: 441-471.
Schiffrin, Deborah. 1987. Discourse markers. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press.
Tagliamonte, Sali A. 2006. "So cool, right?": Canadian English entering the 21st century. Canadian English in a Global context. Theme issue of Canadian Journal of Linguistics 51/(2,3): 309-331.
Tagliamonte, Sali A. & Derek Denis. 2010. The stuff of change: General extenders in Toronto. Canada. Journal of English Linguistics 38/4: 335-368.
Trudgill, Peter J. 1974. The social differentiation of English in Norwich. Cambridge:
University of Cambridge Press.
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FULL PAPERS
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The teaching of spoken English in secondary education and state language schools
ROSA ALONSO
(Universidade de Vigo) PATRICIA ARGIBAY SUÁREZ
English is the most widely spoken foreign language in Europe. Nevertheless, students in Spain are generally not able to speak English fluently by the end of compulsory secondary education (henceforth SE). Foreign languages can also be learned in State Language Schools (henceforth EOI). Since EOIs specialize in second language learning, they are expected to devote greater attention to the teaching of speaking than SE schools. However, to the best of our knowledge, no study has thus far compared the teaching of this skill in the two kinds of institutions. The purpose of this paper, then, is to fill that gap through ascertaining which type of institution typically pays more attention to the teaching of speaking skills; the study has been carried out in Galicia, a region of north-western Spain. Three key issues are addressed: (a) the time teachers devote to teaching speaking and to the practice of speaking activities, (b) the attention they pay to the assessment of the different components of speaking (accuracy, fluency, pronunciation) and (c) the type of speaking tasks carried out. A total of eighty participants have taken part in the study: forty SE teachers and forty EOI teachers. The analysis of the role of the teacher in the teaching of speaking was based on a questionnaire about their personal background and classroom management. The data were classified and processed using a Wald-type test for comparing proportions. The results indicate that although SE teachers are more experienced, they report devoting less time to the teaching of speaking while EOI teachers appear to be more engaged in the teaching of this skill. In terms of assessment, the EOI group puts more emphasis on accuracy and although both groups undervalue the assessment of interaction with native speakers, for EOI teachers it is seen to be a more relevant issue. In the use of speaking activities, the EOI group uses less-controlled speaking activities more and they promote interaction, while SE teachers opt for more controlled speaking tasks. Apparently, more attention should be paid by both groups to improve students’ motivation to speak in the L2. On the other hand, accuracy is considered an important element to be assessed by EOI teachers, but not by the SE group. Besides, EOI teachers appear to promote learners’ autonomy by practising less-controlled speaking activities which aim at using
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not only given linguistic patterns but also new vocabulary and formulaic expressions that can improve fluency.
Keywords: speaking, teaching, State Language Schools, secondary education, Galicia.
An exploration of the varieties of the ESL Speakers’ Pronunciation HMOUD ALOTAIBI
(Shaqra University)
The most significant constructs of ESL pronunciation models are accentedness, intelligibility, and comprehensibility (Derwing & Munro 2005, Jenkins 2000, Pickering 2006). It is clear though that the assessment of these characteristics shows no consideration for the potential affection of the assessor towards the speaker. Thus, the study presented here proposes a notion named “likeability” (L) to examine whether the ratings of listeners are determined in part by the esteem in which they hold the speaker.
A questionnaire compiled by Murphy (2012) was given to 11 US and 11 ELLs.
Participants were provided with three YouTube links of interviews of Nelson Mandela, a former President of South Africa, Ban Ki-Moon, the current Secretary-General of the United Nations, and Bandar Bin Sultan, the former Saudi ambassador to the United States. The first hypothesis of the study is that the American raters would be harsher in their judgments of Ban Ki-moon and Bin Sultan due to the political conflict and the dramatic events that have been associated with them in the past but this would not be the case with Mandela, who has many ardent admirers in the U.S.A. The second hypothesis is that the participants among the international group who share the language background of the speaker would rate that speaker more highly than the others.
Unexpectedly, however, both US and ELL listeners rated Mandela the lowest in terms of comprehensibility and Bin Sultan the most comprehensible. All the participants in the international group provided similar ratings regardless whether they share the language background of the speaker. The paper concludes with a suggestion for more thorough investigation of the concept of likeability in selecting ESL speech models, particularly with assigning speakers with different professional fields, ethnicity, and language
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background. This investigation is crucial in finding the most suitable models for pronunciation teaching.
Keywords: pronunciation, lingua franca, foreign accent.
References
Derwing, T. & Munro, M. 2005. Second language accent and pronunciation teaching: A research-based approach. TESOL Quarterly 39: 379-797.
Jenkins, J. 2000. The phonology of English as an international language. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Murphy, J. 2012. New models for pronunciation instruction: High-achieving, accented, intelligible, comprehensible ESL speakers. Unpublished manuscript.
Pickering, L. 2006. Current research on intelligibility in English as a lingua franca.
Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 26: 219-233.
Improving students’ oral competence through the reform of high-stakes tests
MARIAN AMENGUAL (Universitat Illes Balears) JESÚS GARCÍA LABORDA (Universidad de Alcalá)
Since the arrival of the communicative movement in the early 1970s and the late 1980s, communicative language teaching approaches and language testing have continued to be encouraged. The global requirements brought about by the Bologna Process (1999) and the establishment of the European Higher Education Area, which enables the academic recognition of studies taken in any European university and encourages students’
mobility to study and/or work in Europe, have also led most current English language teaching approaches to highlight the role of communication, particularly learner’s oral communication skills (see Roca-Varela and Palacios 2013). One effective way of encouraging the implementation of communicative teaching seems to be related to the manipulation of tests, especially high-stakes tests. Thus, high-stakes tests have recently started to be exploited to deliberately produce beneficial washback and support desired teaching and learning practices (Chapman & Snyder 2000, Cheng 2004, McNamara
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2001, Saif 2006, Shohamy 2001). To this end, the Spanish education authorities put forward the design of a new English Test, included in the Spanish University Entrance Examination (PAU), which required the obligatory evaluation of an oral component.
This initiative was welcomed by many secondary teachers and researchers who criticised past ET examinations for preventing students from acquiring more productive skills not evaluated by the test (Amengual 2009, 2010). The Baccalaureate Final Evaluation (BFE) that will foreseeably substitute the current PAU also plans to include a speaking component in order to increase the current oral competence of Spanish students (see Laborda & Martín-Monje 2013), and meet the ever-increasing demand for more communicative English tests. In 2012, the National Institute of Educational Evaluation conducted a pilot test in seven regions in Spain to assess the feasibility of the introduction of an oral component in the PAU. This study investigates the opinion of 14 secondary teachers (out of a total of 15) who participated in the implementation of the pilot oral test in Majorca (Balearic Islands). The participants evaluated a total of 125 secondary students in May 2012. Results, collected from a questionnaire, reveal that teachers hold a positive view on the organization, structure and design of the oral test.
In addition, most participants believe that the inclusion of an oral component in the test would affect teachers’ methodology ensuring that this skill is taught and practised in the class in order to prepare students well for the examination (Amengual 2010). Although both language teaching and learning are expected to benefit from this initiative, some concerns are also raised over gains obtained due to coaching for the examination.
Finally, and despite its potential benefits, most teachers question the feasibility of conducting this test due to the current economic situation of the country.
Keywords: Oral tests, high-stakes tests, washback, communicative language teaching, communicative language testing.
References
Amengual-Pizarro, M. 2009. Does the English test in the Spanish university entrance examination influence the teaching of English?. English Studies 90/5: 582-598.
——— 2010. Exploring the washback effects of a high-stakes English test on the teaching of English in Spanish upper secondary schools. Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses 23: 149-170.
Bologna Declaration. 1999. The European higher education area. Joint declaration of the European ministers of education. Bologna, 19 June 1999.
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Chapman, D. W. & C. W. Snyder, Jr. 2000. Can high stakes national testing improve instruction: Re-examining conventional wisdom. International Journal of Educational Development 20: 457-474.
Cheng, L. 2004. The washback effect of a public examination change on teachers’
perceptions towards their classroom teaching. In L. Cheng, Y. Watanabe & A.
Curtis (eds.). Washback in language testing. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: 147-170.
Laborda, J. & M. L. Martín-Monje. 2013. Item and test construct definition for the new Spanish baccalaureate final evaluation: A proposal. In L. Cerezo & M. Amengual (eds.) Second language testing: Interfaces between pedagogy and assessment.
Monograph issue of International Journal of English Studies 13/2: 69-88.
McNamara, T. 2001. Language assessment as social practice: Challenges for research.
Language Testing 18: 334-339.
Roca-Varela, M. L. & I. Palacios. 2013. How are spoken skills assessed in proficiency tests of general English as a foreign language? A preliminary survey. A proposal.
In L. Cerezo & M. Amengual (eds.) Second language testing: Interfaces between pedagogy and assessment. Monograph issue of International Journal of English Studies 13/2: 53-68.
Saif, S. 2006. Aiming for positive washback: A case study of international teaching assistants. Language Testing 23/1: 1-34.
Shohamy, E. 2001. The power of tests. Washington DC: National Foreign Language Center.
Pronunciation in Spanish EFL materials for advanced learners: An evaluation of activities and a remedial programme
YOLANDA JOY CALVO BENZIES
(Universidade de Santiago de Compostela)
The teaching of pronunciation has undergone many changes in recent decades (Morley 1991, Scarcella & Oxford 1994). Broadly speaking, it has moved from a traditional approach to a research-based one (Scarcella & Oxford 1994). In the former model, the main aim was to attain a native-like pronunciation; EFL teachers focused only on segmental aspects, with phonetic descriptions being an important element of pronunciation lessons. In contrast, in the research-based approach, the emphasis is on intelligibility rather than on sounding native-like, both segmental and suprasegmental
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aspects are addressed, and phonetic descriptions tend to be used only when absolutely necessary. The types of exercises used for teaching pronunciation are also said to have changed in this period, from simple drills of isolated words to tasks that involve some form of communicative action. However, is this so in Spain? Spanish students of English tend to have serious problems with English pronunciation (Kenworthy 1987, Alcaraz & Moody 1999, Estebas 2009, Walker 2010) since there are many differences in the phonological systems of both languages and Spanish follows a regular system of correspondences between spelling and pronunciation whereas no such regularity exists in English. The aim of this paper is to identify and analyse the type of activities found in a representative sample of EFL textbooks widely used at advanced levels of education, and in this way to ask whether they follow a research-based approach or, rather, they continue to use traditional kinds of activities. Features such as the frequency, type and format of the different pronunciation activities will be taken into consideration. Our research questions are: (a) How many different types of activities (such as discriminations, repetitions, fill in the blanks, multiple choice, productions, transformations) are used to focus on pronunciation, and which of these are found most frequently? (b) Do the activities in these textbooks share a similar format or do they include a wide variety of formats? Findings show that pronunciation continues to play a low-priority role in these EFL materials, with relatively few sections and activities for practising pronunciation; furthermore, the majority of these follow a repetitive format, mainly drills and repetitions. Hence, in some ways Spanish EFL textbooks continue to resemble the so-called traditional approach towards the teaching of pronunciation, rather than emphasizing a research-based model in which oral communication is the principal focus of attention.
In the second part of this paper we will suggest alternative types of activities to help advanced Spanish learners of English overcome their main difficulties with pronunciation; these suggestions will emphasise authenticity, integration of pronunciation within other language skills and a high degree of both perceptive and productive oral language, aspects that currently used EFL textbooks at advanced levels seem to lack.
Keywords: pronunciation, EFL materials, advanced Spanish learners, remedial programme.
31 References
Alcaraz, E. & B. Moody. 1999. Fonética inglesa para españoles. 4th ed. Alcoy: Marfil.
Estebas Vilaplana, E. 2009. Teach yourself English pronunciation: An interactive course for Spanish speakers. Oleiros: Netbiblo.
Kenworthy, J. 1987. Teaching English pronunciation. New York: Longman Group UK Limited.
Morley, J. 1991. The pronunciation component in teaching English to speakers of other languages. TESOL Quarterly 25/3: 481-520.
Scarcella, R. & R. Oxford. 1994. Second language pronunciation: State of the art in instruction. System 22/2: 221-230.
Walker, R. 2010. Teaching the pronunciation of English as a Lingua Franca. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Starting Skype conversations: Pragmatic features and strategies in an ELF context
STEFAN DIEMER,MARIE-LOUISE BRUNNER &SELINA SCHMIDT (Universität des Saarlandes)
This paper is concerned with conversation organisation features documented in CASE, the Corpus of Academic Spoken English, compiled at Saarland University in 2013/14, comprising roughly 150 hours of Skype conversations between EFL speakers from four different countries (Germany, Bulgaria, Italy and Spain). By describing the pragmatic features and strategies used in this multimodal academic context we endeavour to contribute to the exploration of spoken English as a lingua franca. English in an international academic context has developed distinct features in lexis, syntax and pragmatics (Diemer & Schmidt 2014, Conrad & Mauranen 2003, Mair 2003, Meierkord 1996). Several corpora have been compiled in this field, such as the English as Lingua Franca in Academic Settings corpus (Mauranen 2008) and the Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English (Seidlhofer 2013). Recently, international spoken varieties have been attracting attention (e.g. Jenkins et al. 2001) as English plays a central part in academic and private computer-mediated communication (CMC), frequently between nonnative speakers. CMC research has not yet explored the domain of Skype conversations due to the lack of respective specialised corpora. We aim at
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providing a resource that allows research in such varied areas as English as an international language, CMC, error analysis of learner language, pragmatics and lexical innovation. The particular focus in this paper is on pragmatic features and strategies in Skype conversation starts, as documented in CASE. We conceive of conversation starts as not only openings as categorised by Schegloff (1968), but also the ensuing introduction of the first topic. Conversation openings have been extensively researched in telephone conversations (Schegloff 1986, 2004, Couper-Kuhlen 2001) and, recently, in some computer-mediated communication (CMC) settings, such as vlogs (Frobenius 2011); however, not in a dialogic CMC setting using Skype. Openings in CASE generally follow Schegloff’s classification, but have to be adapted to the international CMC environment. Topic introductions were researched by Geluykens (1993) whose structural categories can also be identified in CASE. Additionally, we propose a preliminary content-related classification of topic introductions in CMC spoken settings, distinguishing between assigned, task-oriented, and random topics, as well as hybrids. Another key issue in first contact situations between non-native speakers of English is rapport management. While several researchers comment on face-to-face rapport (Spencer-Oatey 2002), a CMC situation introduces several new factors, e.g.
novelty and situational delicacy caused by CMC features. In the international English context, pragmatic competence is also essential. Learner mistakes and errors may influence conversational sequence and organisation, leading to misunderstandings and resulting in repair or accommodation. Finally, Skype as a medium influences both conversational content and structure, as speakers have to deal with echoes, lags and interferences.
Keywords: English as a lingua franca, Corpus of Academic Spoken English, pragmatic strategies, computer-mediated communication, spoken English, academic English.
References
Conrad, S. & A. Mauranen. 2003. The corpus of English as lingua franca in academic settings. TESOL Quarterly 37/3: 513-527.
Couper-Kuhlen, E. 2001. Constructing reason-for-the-call turns in everyday telephone conversation. InLiSt: Interaction and Linguistic Structures 25.
[http://www.inlist.uni-bayreuth.de/issues/25/]. 10 June 2013.
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Diemer, S. et al. Forthcoming. CASE Sofia-Saarbrücken: Corpus of Academic Spoken English in an international context. Saarbrücken: Saarland University / Sofia: St Kliment Ohridski University. Web.
Diemer, S. & S. Schmidt. 2014. Ja, also, can you see me now? - Designing and compiling a corpus of computer-mediated international academic English.
ICAME Journal 38.
Frobenius, M. 2011. Beginning a monologue: The opening sequence of video blogs.
Journal of Pragmatics 43: 814-827.
Geluykens, R. 1993. Topic introduction in English conversation. Transactions of the Philological Society 91/2: 181-214.
Jenkins, J., M. Modiano & B. Seidlhofer. 2001. Euro-English. English Today 17/4: 13- 19.
Mair, C. (ed.). 2003. The politics of English as a world language. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Mauranen, A. 2008. ELFA. The Corpus of English as a Lingua Franca in Academic Settings. [http://www.helsinki.fi/englanti/elfa/index.html]. 23 November 2013.
Meierkord, C. 1996. Englisch als Medium der interkulturellen Kommunikation.
Untersuchungen zum non-native-/non-native speaker-Diskurs. Frankfurt: Lang.
Schegloff, E. A. 1968. Sequencing in conversational openings. American Anthropologist 70: 1075-1095.
——— 1986. The routine as achievement. Human Studies 9: 111-151.
——— 2004- Answering the phone. In G. H. Lerner (ed.). Conversation analysis:
Studies from the first generation. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins: 63- 129.
Seidlhofer, B. 2013. VOICE. The Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English (version 2.0 Online). [http://www.univie.ac.at/voice/page/index.php]. 23 November 2013.
Spencer-Oatey, H. 2002. Managing rapport in talk: Using rapport sensitive incidents to explore the motivational concerns underlying the management of relations.
Journal of Pragmatics 34: 529-545.
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A study of the discourse connective 'Yeah No' in Hiberno-English JOHN DONNELLY
(Trinity College Dublin)
This study examines the use of the discourse connective Yeah No in Hiberno-English.
Data was collected personally by recording one-on-one conversations with participants;
75 tokens were recorded. The aim was to identify, label the characteristics of Yeah No, explain its functions within a Relevance Theory framework and also to establish if there were links between duration and positional aspects of Yeah No and its functions. It was found that Yeah No appears to have four sub-functions of a general function of inference constraint which are: topic return, eradicating doubt, agreeing with a negative and delay device. Further analysis on features of duration and utterance position of Yeah No uncovered significant results linking extended duration of Yeah No with the delay device function and mid-utterance production with the use of Yeah No as a topic return.
It is argued that Yeah No encodes a procedure and through a combination of contextual background, duration, and position of Yeah No in an utterance, the discourse connective functions to signal to a hearer how to interpret an utterance and guide them to the relevant inference.
Keywords: discourse, connectives, Hiberno-English, Relevance Theory.
Using telecollaborative learning projects to promote communicative competence in English in Sri Lankan primary schools
THUSHARA GAMAGE
(Macquarie University, Sydney)
In outer circle countries like Sri Lanka, there is a growing need to learn to speak in English due to its growing role in education, governance and popular culture (Kachru and Nelson 2001: 11). Despite colonisation in 1796, English was not introduced into schools until 1830; when it was felt that the 'natives' should in time 'qualify themselves for holding some of the higher appointments' (Raheem and Ratwatte 2004: 93). By 1832, there were a significant number of private and missionary schools using English as the main medium of instruction (Kirpatrick 2007:91). By 1948, this situation had changed dramatically, following the introduction of free education in both mother
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tongues, Sinhala and Tamil, to reduce socioeconomic inequality, with enrolment rates soaring, resulting in 93 percent of students in state schools using the mother tongue as the medium of instruction (Kirpatrick 2007:91).Thus, English became a second language in most schools across the country.
Although The Ministry of Education and The British Council in Sri Lanka have taken the initiative to promote English language programs in primary schools in Sri Lanka, it is not evident if these projects have specifically focused on promoting communicative competence in English in Sri Lankan classrooms. Telecollaborative projects which have been defined as online communicative tools that bring together learners from different countries have been used to exchange collaborative projects and intercultural exchanges that support language learning (O’Dowd and Eberbach 2004). A recent study by Gamage and Chappell (2013) indicated that there are favourable classroom and socio- institutional conditions between primary schools in Sri Lanka and Australia to use telecollaborative projects to promote communicative competence in English in primary schools in Sri Lanka. This is due to the potential to integrate these projects into the school curriculum as a spoken English activity.
Therefore this paper will evaluate how two specific telecollaborative projects using two popular online communicative tools for schools - Edmodo and Voicethread - have the potential to be used as social and artefact mediations to promote communicative competence in English in two primary schools in Sri Lanka. This will be discussed using two case studies which are currently being implemented as educational interventions between two primary schools in Sri Lanka and a primary school in Australia as an International School Award (ISA) project facilitated by the British Council in Sri Lanka and a communicative English language designed by the researcher and teacher participants.
Keywords: communicative competence, telecollaborative learning, mediation, innovation .
36 References
Edmodo. 2013. [https://www.edmodo.com/].1 November 2013.
Gamage, T. & P. Chappell. 2013. Exploring the potential to promote online learning.
The University of Sydney Papers in TESOL 8/3: 57-98. Web. 2 November 2013.
Hall, D. 2001. Materials Production: Theory and Practice. In D. R. Hall & A. Hewings (eds.) Innovation in English Language Teaching: A Reader. London and New York: Routledge: 229-240.
Kachru, B. & C. Nelson. 2001. World Englishes. In A. Burns & C. Coffin (eds.) Analysing English in a Global Context: A reader. London and New York:
Routledge: 9-25.
Kirkpatrick, A. 2007. World Englishes Implications for International Communication and English Language Teaching. Web. August 2012.
O’Dowd, R. & K. Eberbach. 2004. Guides on the Side? Tasks and Challenges for Teachers in Telecollaborative Projects. Cambridge Journal 16/1: 5-19. Web 30 June 2012.
Raheem, R. & H. Ratwatte. 2004. Visible strategies: invisible results: language policy and planning in Sri Lanka. In S. M. A. T. S. Mansoor (ed.). Language Policy, Planning and Practice - A South-Asian Perspective. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Web.30 June 2012.
Richards, J. C. & T. S. Rodgers. 2001. Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Web. 30 June 2001.
The British Council. n.d. Accreditation and awards – International School Award (ISA).
Web. July 7 2012.
The Ministry of Education. 2011. English as life skill. Web. July 30 2012.
Voicethread. 2013. [http://voicethread.com/]. 1 November 2013.
Fostering oral skills in the primary EFL classroom via Desktop Videoconferencing. A pilot study
ARACELI GARCÍA FUENTES
(Universidade de Santiago de Compostela)
The present paper describes a pilot study set out to determine the effects of synchronous and asynchronous oral Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) through voice
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recordings and videoconferencing exchanges, in the acquisition of oral skills by very young learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). This study presents a brief literature review on the field, as there is almost no research, to my knowledge, on the use of videoconferencing with young learners. Advantages and disadvantages of the use of oral CMC in the EFL classroom are discussed.
This study analyses the participants’ oral skills development qualitatively and quantitatively. Data have been collected through daily observation, video-recordings of the sessions and students’ performances, and pre and post tests – administered before and after the study, respectively. Participants filled in questionnaires to know their perceptions and opinions about the use of Desktop Videoconferencing (DVC) in the EFL classroom. The researcher also provides practical strategies to those educators interested in the use of DVC in the EFL classroom with very young learners.
This investigation aims at answering the following research questions: 1- Has the use of oral CMC any benefits in the development of oral skills in foreign language learning (FLL)? Are the possible technical problems that may occur worthwhile? 2-What are the participants’ experiences and perceptions regarding the use of DVC and asynchronous audio/video tools? Will motivation increase when using these tools in the classroom? 3- Is it feasible to use DVC in the EFL classroom with such a group of learners to foster oral skills?
The participants in this study are: 1 teacher-researcher and 52 seven year-old EFL learners from a State Primary School in Galicia. They are distributed into 3 groups:
group A (18 students) and B (16 students) are experimental groups (using CMC tools) and group C (18 students) acts as a control group; the latter group also has a different English teacher who does not make use of CMC in the classroom.
This study consists of the development of 5 didactic units dealing with topics included in the EFL curriculum established for the first cycle of Primary Education in Galicia. At the end of each didactic unit and, prior to the videoconferencing meetings, students will be asked to speak in English and they will be recorded performing asynchronous CMC tasks. With these recordings the teacher will carry out different listening activities in the classroom. These tasks will serve as a rehearsal for the videoconferencing session of the following day.
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Preliminary results indicate that willingness to speak in the FL increases when talking to a real partner. With a high degree of motivation, students will be more fluent in the FL.
The researcher expects participants to show an improvement in their oral skills and more motivation to use the foreign language (FL) in and out of the classroom. She also hopes to help other EFL teachers in the use of DVC with young learners in the classroom.
Keywords: EFL, oral skills, young learners, videoconferencing, Computer-Mediated Communication.
References
Banegas, D. L. 2013. ELT through videoconferencing in primary schools in Uruguay:
First steps. Innovation and Language Learning and Teaching, 7/2 .Web. 5 June 2013.
Gruson, B. & F. Barnes. 2012. What is the impact of videoconferencing on the teaching and learning of a foreign language in primary education?. Eurocall-langs.org.
Web. 2 June. 2013.
O’Dowd, R. 2000. Intercultural learning via videoconferencing: A pilot exchange project. ReCALL 12/1:49-63. Web. 3 May 2013.
O’Dowd, R. (ed.). 2007. Online Intercultural Exchange: An Introduction for Foreign Language Teachers. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Warschauer, M. 2001. Online Communication. In R. Carter & D. Nunan (eds.). The Cambridge Guide to Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 207-212.
Whyte, S. 2011. Learning to teach with videoconferencing in primary foreign language classrooms. ReCALL 23/3: 271-293. Web. 12 May 2013.
What does it happen in the ZPD during paired speaking tests?
JESÚS GARCÍA LABORDA &NURIA OTERO DE JUAN (Universidad de Alcalá)
Tests have mostly been associated to individual cognition (Weir 2005, Chapelle, Enright & Jamieson 2007). This may well contrast with the current communicative theories of language learning. It is just a matter of a simple question: If students
