resources through which the stages of a narrative are realised. Cognitively, narrative is the most frequent and powerful mode of discourse in human communication which is present in social interaction (Bruner, 1986). From a cultural perspective, we cannot but agree with Martin (1985:4) who states that
“only our memories and the stories we pull out of them keep life from disappearing almost as it happens. We use language to keep the past alive”. By building second language writing skills on this genre, we can give the learners the opportunity to give expression to their thoughts, feelings, perceptions and to write about what they did, how they felt and what they thought so that the L2 system does no longer appear alien to them (Astorga, Kaul and Unsworth, 2003). “Story-telling appears to be an essential part of the human condition. It is not confined to the creation of literary narratives, but extends to our daily construction and conversational telling of personal stories” (Shepherd, 1995:355). Martin and Rose (2007:38) acknowledge that “stories are central genres in all cultures, in some form in almost every imaginable situation and stage of life”. SFL has expanded and refined the models initiated by Labov & Waletsky (1967) and others to identify and account for variation in types of stories. Martin and Rothery (1980, 1981, 1984 in Rothery and Stenglin, 1997:231) point out that “story is not a homogeneous social process but rather a typology where a range of story genres can be distinguished”. Martin and Rose (op. cit.:39) refer to these genres as the 'story family', of which narrative is one member. The schematic structure of a typical narrative includes the following obligatory stages: the orientation, the complication and the resolution; there can be two optional stages, which are the abstract and the coda.
ESL instructors should make trainee teachers aware of the value of the visual images which are as illustrative of content as words, to trigger the students' output. Many specialists have shown the value of pictures as tools to elicit writing tasks. For example, Scholfield & Katamine (2000: 9) observe that pictures “control the essentials of the content to be conveyed”. Linnarud (1986: 40) states that “use of pictures is preferred to allowing the learners to write on a free subject for the following reasons: to ensure as much uniformity as possible in the content of the compositions, as well as to stimulate the imagination of writers with a low creative ability”. The visual images selected to elicit the writing tasks were assessed in order to identify the narrative and descriptive images (Astorga, 1999) depicting the characters, events, settings, and objects that the learners would have to verbalize.
Specialists in IL communication notice that one of the problems the researcher has to face in the analysis of learner language is to determine what exactly L2 learners had attempted to communicate in the target language (Selinker, 1992; Ellis, 1997).
We contend that visual images have the value of allowing the researcher to establish how close the L2 learners come to their intended meanings by comparing their actual messages to the meanings communicated in the visual text. This comparison is fundamental for the researcher to be able to classify the communication strategies employed by the learners in relation to their intended meanings (Tarone, 1983).
A communicatively competent language user conveys and interprets messages, and negotiates meanings in specific contexts (Hymes, 1972). Several components make up a speaker's overall communicative ability, and one of them is especially concerned with the functional aspect of communication: strategic competence (Canale, 1983). It occupies a pre-eminent role in the understanding of communication, as it includes communicative strategies which are called up to enhance the effectiveness of communication. As Brown (2000, 248) states,
“strategic competence is the way we manipulate language in order to meet communicative goals”. The utilization of communication strategies is evident at all levels and in all fields of action, whenever a language user needs to accomplish an act of communication.
A strategy is considered as a specific “attack” made on a given problem (Brown, 2000). The field of second language acquisition distinguishes communication strategies as the means by which speakers productively express meaning, how we deliver messages to others. However, it must be clarified that those strategies that are based on the knowledge of the target language have been found to possess a higher potential for successful communication (Haastrup and Phillipson, 1983) than those based on the knowledge of the speaker's native language. Research has shown that for example, paraphrase and approximation, two L2-based communication strategies, usually lead to communicative success, since the speaker tries alternative, creative ways to achieve her intended meanings in the second language, thus not abandoning her message in spite of a temporary breakdown during communication.
In order to illustrate how the employment of paraphrase and approximation demonstrated the speakers' resourcefulness in the face of a lexical linguistic
problem, the following few examples taken from learners' narrative texts will serve:
Speakers' output: Reconstructed message:
-“lightning turns night into day” - lightning lights up the sky -“crypts” - tombs
-“the dog had the tie around his body” - the rope got shorter and shorter -“flashlights” - lightning
In view of the success of the application of certain communication strategies, it can be inferred that if language users regularly make use of the right strategies, they may be said to have reached autonomy in the use of a certain target language.
According to Skehan (1998), the operation of communication strategies is believed to be useful when the latter become part of a regular process and consequently are successfully retrieved for future use.
The analysis of the lexico-grammatical features of a text, at clause level, can provide insightful information about the way the learner communicates the meanings of the story. We can begin by analysing the verbal groups of the story, for example, were fishing, fell down, slippted*, started to drank*, told, jumped, started to swim, caught, swam, were. As it can be seen, although the student has succeeded in using the types of verbs required by the image provided for the story, some mistakes are found in the construction of these verbal groups.
In the same way, if we consider the nominal groups to represent the participants of the story, we can see how exhaustive or not the learner has been in describing them. For example, in the story the learner described the participants as two friends, the two friends. However, they could have been described by means of a more complex noun group such as the two close friends. In the case of this learner, she mainly tends to represent both human and non-human participants by means of a nominal group with a simple structure that consists of a deictic plus thing.
Similarly, this analysis can be applied to the circumstances used in the story. On the one hand, an assessment can be made as to the relevance of the circumstances used in relation to the picture presented. On the other hand, the circumstances can be analysed in relation to their grammatical structure deciding whether they
are mainly prepositional groups, adverbs or nominal groups. To illustrate this with the student's output, we can see:
One sunny day: location-temporal, nominal group In the river: location spatial, prepositional group
At this point, it is important to highlight that the evaluation (interpersonal meaning) is very important in the narrative and as such, it is not considered as a single stage, but as spread throughout the text. The narrator may need to resort to evaluative language in order to convey meanings about the characters, people, places and feelings and attitudes. These meanings are usually expressed by means of relational processes which are powerful tools to build the world of stories. This can be seen in the following example:
Sunny: appreciation (positive)
Don't be panic*: affect (insecurity, apprehension) Fortunately: affect (positive)
Safe: affect (security, confidence)
Students can communicate meaning/content in many different ways.
However, it is the teacher's task to provide them with tools such as the visual images and lexico-grammatical features that could enhance and enrich their language in order to be able to communicate their message more accurately and successfully.
CLIL is considered by specialists to promote communicative competence as it provides students with the ability to communicate by enabling them to do things with language by means of the application of pragmatic skills. In this way, learners' self-confidence is boosted as they realize they manage to get their meanings across in a foreign language (Marsh, Marsland and Stenberg, 2001).
As has been shown through the two approaches dealt with above, language can be learned through authentic though 'scaffolded' situations in order for language users to develop a variety of competences and strategies essential to handle everyday events ((Marsh, Marsland and Stenberg, 2001). Also, interpersonal communication skills and cognitive language abilities are likely to be activated if
learners are immersed in a rich CLIL setting, as for example, in the context provided by visual images whose role is to support the learners' oral and written output, making it understandable and meaningful. Similarly, learners' creativity is enhanced when they apply communication strategies, since their cognitive ability to overcome linguistic problems is put into motion in response to a still incomplete knowledge of the target language.
It is our contention that EFL instructors and learners can benefit from the application of new teaching methodologies that contemplate the use of language in a way that encourages interactivity, engagement, motivation and linguistic creativity.
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