101
Comments on Part A
102
is something we have always known but have rarely acknowledged in coursebooks. Though a number of applied linguists have been advocat- ing for a long time that learners themselves should be invited to make discoveries about how English is actually used from investigations of authentic texts (e.g. Bolitho et al. 2003; Bolitho and Tomlinson 2005;
Tomlinson 1994, 2007, 2009, 2010).
A question frequently asked these days (and at least implied in all three chapters in this section) is how much of the reality of language use do learners really need to be faced with? It can be argued that pedagogic simplifications of real language use are necessary in order to protect the learner from the apparent chaos of reality and to provide the security of apparent order and systematicity. Learners need to start learning what is simple; learners need rules; learners need to get things right. But learn- ers also need to be prepared for interaction in the real world. They need to be aware of the intentions as well as the meanings of the speakers and writers they interact with; and they need to be able to produce language which is not only accurate and appropriate but which is effective too.
They need, therefore, materials which are designed to facilitate system- atic progress but which at the same time provide them with encounters with the reality of target language use. In my experience, learners have no problem with this if they are first helped to reflect on the variability of grammatical patterns in their first language, if they are not duped at the beginner stage into thinking that the target language is consistently rule-bound and if they are helped to see how languages follow princi- ples and develop patterns rather than obey rules.
All three chapters in this section argue persuasively for the need for language-learning materials to be informed by data from corpora of authentic language use; all three warn that it is not enough to present samples of the data to learners and hope that they learn from them; and all three consider a language awareness approach to be the most profit- able way of helping learners to gain from exposure to the reality of lan- guage use. I would agree with all three points and would particularly endorse the value of helping learners to invest energy and attention in discovering patterns and tendencies for themselves from guided inves- tigations of samples of authentic language. In my experience, learners can gain confidence and curiosity by making discoveries for themselves from the earliest stages of language learning. The awareness they gain can then make them more attentive to salient features of their input and this can facilitate language acquisition, increase confidence and self- esteem and help the learners to become more independent.
One very effective way of helping learners to make use of their language discoveries is to help them to write their own grammars of the target lan- guage. The teacher provides language awareness activities from which
Comments on Part A
103 learners make generalised discoveries and then record them with illustra- tive authentic instances under pattern headings in a loose leaf folder (or better still in a computer document). The learners are encouraged to revise and develop their generalisations as they encounter further evidence dur- ing and outside the course and occasionally their developing grammars are monitored by the teacher. At the end of the course each learner has a grammar of the target language written by themselves which they can take away and develop, if they want to, from their post-course encounters with the language. Another way of getting learners to make use of their own discoveries is to get them to produce a text to achieve a particular purpose (e.g. a story to amuse children; a list of rules for players new to a game;
spoken instructions for making a meal), get them to make discoveries from an equivalent authentic text and then get them to improve their own text by making use of the discoveries they have made (Tomlinson 2003).
To date, published language awareness materials have tended to use constructed examples to lead learners to discoveries about the gram- matical and semantic systems of languages (e.g. Bolitho and Tomlinson 1995). Useful though these materials are in encouraging learner invest- ment and facilitating learner discovery, there is a strong argument for the development of materials which help learners to develop pragmatic awareness (Tomlinson 1994) through critical analysis of authentic dis- course, and in particular of the strategy use of the participants in the discourse. Learners need not only to know what the grammatical and lexical options are but also what strategies might be effective in what situations. Such strategic awareness activities can be devised for class- room use, but even more profitable can be activities which guide learn- ers to make discoveries from real world exposure about how users of the target language achieve their intended effects. Such investigations for many learners would focus on how successful non-native speakers (or SUEs as Prodromou (2003) calls them) achieve intended effects.
The focus of Part A is on analysis of authentic language data, but it is very important that learners experience language in use as well as by investigating it. In other words, there should be times when their attention is on meaning and on their communicative role in an inter- action rather than on the language being used. If there is no target language use in their environment, then they will need their teacher and/or materials to involve them in meaningful encounters with the target language in authentic use through extensive reading, listening and viewing, through accessing comprehensible input from the Internet and from encounters with proficient users of English. This is true for all learners but especially so for those many learners whose preferred learning style is experiential rather than analytic. Language awareness activities can be extremely valuable but they can never be sufficient.
Comments on Part A
104
References
Bolitho, R. and B. Tomlinson. 1995. Discover English, 2nd edn. Oxford:
Heinemann.
2005. Discover English, 3rd edn. Oxford: Macmillan.
Bolitho, R., R. Carter, R. Hughes, R. Ivanic, H. Masuhara and B. Tomlinson.
2003. ‘Ten questions about language awareness’. ELT Journal, 57(2): 251–9.
Prodromou, L. 2003. ‘In search of the successful user of English’, Modern English Teacher, 12(2): 5–14.
Tomlinson, B. 1994. ‘Pragmatic awareness activities’. Language Awareness, 3(2 and 4): 119–29. Clevedon, Avon: Multilingual Matters.
2003. ‘Developing principled frameworks for materials development’.
In B. Tomlinson (ed.), Developing Materials for Language Teaching.
London: Continuum.
2007. ‘Using form focused discovery approaches’. In S. Fotos and H. Nassaji (eds.), Form-Focused Instruction and Teacher Education: Studies in Honour of Rod Ellis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2009. ‘What do we actually do in English?’ In J. Mukundan (ed.), Readings on ELT Materials. Petaling Jaya: Pearson Longman.
2010. ‘Helping learners to fill the gaps in their learning’. In F. Mishan and A. Chambers (eds.), Perspectives on Language Learning Materials Development. Oxford: Peter Lang.