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Application 3: Animals and Things

Stick figures are not limited to people and their actions and living conditions. Animals and other things can also be included in the list. Consider the following:

A situation (as presented by Dora Moussatché):'

Alice has a flower. José has a dog.

1. Dora Moussatché. "How to Use the Blackboard." English Teaching Forum, 10, 6 (November-December 1972), p. 29.

Composition, Learning Strategies, and Inadequate Materials

CHRISTINE SCHULER
DE ALVARADO
University of Panama

Students often face composition class with mixed feelings, if not outright anxiety. They may not know what to write or how to begin. Often, they believe they are not capable of expressing themselves in written form. Composition class may also cause anxiety for the instructor, especially if she is faced with a lack of texts, readings, and means of reproducing appropriate models.

Yet, students are capable of short compositions even at the beginning level. It is a source of self-confidence for them to discover that they can write effectively. It is the responsibility of the instructor to help them realize their potential with this skill.

An untapped resource

An instructor without adequate materials may be at a disadvantage, but she is by no means without resources. The students themselves are a valuable resource. Not only can they actively contribute to the class, but their collective contribution can determine the content of the compositions that are written.

When I have found myself in the above situation, one technique in particular has helped my students and me to begin the composition class. This technique can also furnish relatively free composition exercises as an alternative to the strictly controlled exercises in modelrewriting texts.

Besides being simple to employ and requiring no materials, this technique has several further advantages. It encourages the students to participate actively as a group, it reduces the frustration so common at beginning levels, and it shifts the focus of the class from the teacher to the students. It is one means by which an instructor with inadequate or insufficient materials can employ personal-learning strategies in teaching composition.

The technique is most suitable for writing simple descriptions, although it can be adapted to process writing and other types. It can be described as a series of steps:

1. The instructor names a place that all the students are familiar with. The school library will be used for this example.

2. The students are asked to name things and actions that can be seen in this place. The instructor writes the vocabulary on the board, separating (but not labeling) the different parts of speech.

Students will often describe something they cannot name, such as the card catalogue or the checkout desk. Other students or the instructor can supply the correct terms.

3. When enough words have been listed, the instructor begins asking questions about the library, using structures she wants to stress. Three or four useful structures, written on the board, will suggest patterns of expression and encourage the students to vary their writing with several sentence structures.

4. Now, the students are asked to describe the physical condition of the library, and tell what actions occur there. As the students speak, the instructor selectively writes some of the sentences on the board. When necessary, the instructor may ask questions to suggest certain activities or things that should be included. The number of sentences should be limited to ten or twelve.

5. Next, the students read all the sen

Christine S. de Alvarado has lived and worked in Latin America since 1970, with the exception of

two years in the United States for graduatc study. She has taught ESL, TESL. ESP. Spanish, and French in a variety of situations and at a variety of levels. At present, she is a fulltime instructor at the University of Panama while also teaching parttime at the Universidad Santa María La Antigua.

tences. They or the instructor may comment that some sentences describe the physical condition of the library, while others describe people and actions. This, then, is an appropriate topical organization for the composition. The students are asked to divide the sentences into these two groups.

6. Students then discuss the best way to order the sentences in each group.

7. After suggesting that an introduction and conclusion are needed, and discussing the functions of these two parts, the instructor can accept and write on the board several sentences for each.

8. The following step-uniting the various parts into a coherent whole-is particularly important. The instructor may list several connectors and transition words and phrases. Students and instructor reread the composition, conjoining or subordinating sentences, adding transition phrases or topic sentences where needed. This can be done at the board, with students trying out various possibilities before deciding on one of them.

9. Students copy the completed composition.

10. The class is divided into groups of two or three students each. The instructor mentions another place they are familiar with and asks each group to write a short composition describing the place, using the previous composition as a model.

In this way, the students actively contribute to writing their own model composition. In smaller groups, each student will have more of an opportunity to discuss and contribute to the second composition. The instructor can circulate among the groups, offering advice when needed, but otherwise allowing the students to work on their own.

Following this joint effort, the students should be prepared to write short descriptive compositions individually, with minimum dependence on the instructor. In fact, this would now be an appropriate out-of-class assignment. If the assignment is met with confident smiles instead of confused and frustrated expressions, the instructor may indeed believe her students have made progress.

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POLAND

Are You Really Teaching English? ALEKSANDRA RÓŻYCKA

IX Liceum Ogólnokształcące im. J. Kawalca, Katowice

teach

From my modest experience as a young er, I'd like to share with FORUM readers a technique I learned from an older teacher. This technique is very useful in teaching beginners aged seven to twelve, especially when they need to learn a list of words by heart, which can be a boring and tiresome task. In order to make it more interesting I use a ball-just an ordinary, medium-size ball like the ones the children use to play with in the schoolyard.

A game and variations

This technique combines playing with learning, and that is why it appeals to the pupils. It involves throwing a ball to a pupil instead of calling him by name or pointing to him with the finger. The game is a sort of "silent" competition, and the pupils' eagerness to win stimulates them to work hard at home in order to do better than the other pupils in the classroom. A few minutes before the end of the lesson, after presenting orally and in writing the items to be memorized, I take the ball and throw it to a pupil, at the same time saying a word in English to which he must respond with the Polish equivalent or vice versa. If he cannot answer quickly, he must throw the ball to a friend who knows the answer. If the ball is dropped, the pupil who gets hold of it first gains the right to answer the question.

During the next lesson, in order to review the material, I again take out the ball and repeat the procedure. I usually do this several times until the words are well fixed in the pupils' memory.

This procedure can be varied in a number of ways according to the preferences of the individual teacher. For example, the teacher can use it when giving a partial sentence that a student is to finish, or when the pupils are to answer questions from their textbook with their books closed. Any oral drill can be done in this way. When the learners have become accustomed to one way of using the ball, the procedure can be changed. After a while, the pupils can take the teacher's role, throwing the ball and asking the questions.

Additional benefits

A little earlier in this article I used the word "silent" to describe the competition. I would like to point out that one of the advantages of this technique is that the teacher does not repeatedly call out the names of the pupils who

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do the best or who answer the most questions. It is, after all, only a relaxed game in which everybody has a chance to say some words in English.

Such a game reveals more quickly than the usual classroom procedures the character of each boy and girl. Some children catch the ball unhesitatingly and always answer correctly; some have difficulty in pronouncing correctly or in remembering the words in the proper order (for example, the names of the months), and they quickly discover which skills they need to improve. Finally, there are some pupils (though these are rare cases) who avoid catching the ball. This is an indication that they are not well inclined toward English, and they need special attention from the teacher.

If you march into the classroom some day with a ball in your hand, don't be surprised if you hear amazed teachers of geography, chemistry, or gym say, "Are you really teaching English?"

SAUDI ARABIA

Features of Clipped Words
THOMAS W. ADAMS

University of Petroleum and Minerals,
Dhahran

ESOL students are doubtless aware of the profligate use of acronyms in English, ranging from AAA to USA. Equally as pervasive, yet less recognized, is the phenomenon known as clipping-that is, the reduction of full forms of words through syllabic deletion. These clipped forms fall into several categories. My aim here is to identify those categories, to discuss certain characteristics of clipped forms, and to address the question of their treatment in the classroom.

Four categories

Type 1, by far the largest group of clipped forms, consists of words formed by retaining the first syllable, or first two syllables, of a

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Type 2 is the inverse of the preceding type; it consists of words formed by retaining only the final syllable, or last two syllables of the word:

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1. EDITOR'S NOTE: Note that in each case the new spelling represents the normal or more frequent spelling of the sound represented. Delici- is not possible, since -ci- represents the // sound only in medial position. never at the end of a word; neither narc nor nuc look like" English words: and a final (silent) e must be added to vib- to retain the "long" sound al/. The word bike has an additional change, in that the sound of the second c (k) rather than the first c (/s/) is retained in the clipped form.

2. EDITOR'S NOTE: Notice that hankie is an "exact" reduction of handkerchief, which is pronounced without any trace of the d (found only in the written form). Hubby, on the other hand, drops the s (orally /z/) of the full form.

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The process of clipping is not new in English, and many now standard words were originally clipped forms (cabriolet-cab, omnibus-bus, pianoforte-piano). Why certain words rather than others have evolved in this

way is not easy to say. Some possible explanations: the cumbersome length of some words (mononucleosis-mono); a connotative shiftboth positive and negative-achieved through clipping in others (obituary-obit, teacherteach); the attempt by groups to be esoteric (including many examples in academia: chemistry-chem, dormitory-dorm, economics-econ, graduate-grad, mathematics-math, physical education-phys ed, preparatory school-prep school).

Our intent should not be to have students memorize lists of clipped words, but simply to expose them to the phenomenon of clipping in order to arm them for the time when they will encounter these forms. For info(-rmation) like this, while a prof(-essor) may never test it on an exam(-ination), will turn up in a mag(-azine), in pop(-ular) music, in a (news-) paper, or anywhere English is spoken.

The author would be happy to send a complete list of his compilation of clipped words in English to interested readers in exchange for examples of clipped words in other lan

guages or, if none exist, a statement to that effect. Write to:

Thomas W. Adams

University of Petroleum and Minerals #1763

Airport Box 144
Dhahran, Saudi Arabia

VENEZUELA

The Barquisimeto Composition Course: Evaluation and Discussion

TONY JAMES

Instituto Universitario Pedagógico Experimental, Barquisimeto, Lara

This article brings up to date information on work that was outlined in “An ESP Approach to the Teaching of Composition" (English TEACHING FORUM, July 1981). It describes the way in which ideas about the composition course at the Instituto Universitario Pedagógico Experimental, Barquisimeto, have evolved and started to crystallize over the initial year and a half of its development.

During the foundation work on the Barquisimeto Composition Course, there was much soul-searching over the reasons for teaching the subject-the justification for the course's existence. All the programs of the English department were, in fact, being reviewed, in an attempt to apply some of Munby's ideas on Communicative Requirement Analysis to a "typical" student of the department. We were unable to come to any satisfactory conclusions, mainly because English is taught at our institute for three main reasons, which are not in all respects compatible:

1. For internal servicing. Because all classes in the department are given in English, the students need English to keep up with their classes. Furthermore, they require Grammar in order to study Composition, Conversation in order to ask questions in the Linguistics lectures, Composition in order to write coherent answers to Literature questions, etc. This "internal servicing" (as I have called it) is reinforced by a system of prerequisites whereby a student cannot proceed to a particular subject until he has qualified in the necessary prerequisite subject or subjects.

2. As the working material for secondaryschool teachers of English. The students are here to be trained as English teachers, and therefore must learn something about the language for this purpose. (This does not mean that they have to be particularly good at

3. EDITOR'S NOTE: Obit is an informal variant of obituary, speaking, reading, and writing English, be

which is fairly widely used, by journalists and others. The noun teach, on the other hand, is a very informal term sometimes used by students (or others) with a jocular or derogatory intent.

cause the classes in the secondary schools are all too often grammar/rote-learning biased, and are given predominantly in Spanish-not

a desirable situation, but an unfortunate reality.)

3. For idealistic reasons (which must be taken into account). In teaching English just for its own sake, the members of the faculty believe that the standards should be considerably higher than would be necessary to satisfy the two preceding purposes—that is, the secondary-school situation and the merely utilitarian requirements of internal servicing.

By rethinking our approaches in the light of these various considerations, we are coming to a kind of consensus of what might be called the "broadly definable” aims of our courses. (James, forthcoming).

Two different achievements

One of the problems in teaching composition in an EFL situation is the teacher's feel ing that his students should aim at “getting it correct," without his being quite sure what "it" is. In an L, situation, one hopes to train one's students to write good (?) English, develop a good (?) style, and show some evidence of creative ability. Many of the students in such a course will not achieve the required standards, and by these criteria will "fail" the course. A group of second-language learners can (other things being equal) be expected to have the same range of potential creative abilities, style development, and ability to handle language and ideas, and can therefore. theoretically, be expected to pass, or fail, in the same proportions as native speakers. But there is an important difference: since they are attempting to function rhetorically in a foreign language, it is possible for them to "fail" on a scale that measures their creative ability, and "pass" on a scale that measures their rhetorical ability (that is, the ability to function as a "native speaker," though not necessarily a well-educated one)—and, perhaps more importantly, vice versa.

It follows from this that in teaching composition in English as a foreign language, we must take two things into account: (1) we should help the students develop rhetorical ("native speaker") skills in English; (2) it is unrealistic to expect what the students produce to be well written (though it is gratifying if it is). Since few people become really skilled at writing in their first language, why should we demand, or even expect, this of our foreign-language learners?

Strict guidance

An outline of the material used in our composition course was given in my previous article. Although we have since made some changes, we have kept to the principle of rigidly guiding the students in both the form and content of their written work, all of which is on the subject of English teaching. Not until the very last examination are they asked to expand on a subject by presenting some of their own ideas, and even then the exercise is

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Tony James recently completed an M.A. in ESOL at the Institute of Education at London University, and is, at present. cngaged in developing a technical writing course. He taught physics. chemistry, and mathematics in Uganda. Italy. Australia. and England for eleven years before entering the field of English teaching. He has taught in Iran and Venczucla.

more an extended précis than a free composition.

A possible criticism of this kind of course is that it gives the student little opportunity for creative writing. This is a deliberate policy. however, justified on the following grounds: (1) There is little evidence that the abilities a student draws on to write creatively (i.e., to develop ideas) in his native language are equally available in a second language, except at a very high level of second-language competence. (2) Our students are well above average in intelligence, and can therefore be expected to have well-formed and original opinions on topics of interest to them; nevertheless, when faced with the task of expressing these ideas in a second language they suffer from the "translation syndrome" (James 1980): they think through their ideas in their native language and then attempt a translation, because of their inability to function at a sufficiently high rhetorical level in English. (3) A corollary of (2) above is that until the students can think their ideas through in English they will not be able to produce a wellwritten text in English. (Kaplan's [1966] work on cultural thought patterns is relevant to this problem.)

The real source of difficulty

We are, admittedly, taking a very "conservative" approach to the teaching of composition, carefully guiding the students through each stage of the program, and not letting them attempt to write freely in English. Experience has shown that for our students this is a very necessary approach. Although our students are (statistically, at least) among the better educated of the population, have studied English (grammar, with a small amount of conversation) for six years, and, having completed the prerequisites to the composition course, must be considered "advanced" in English studies, yet we find that they cannot write extended rhetoric in English, because it requires much more than the stringing together of grammatically well-constructed sentences. This is one of the reasons for devoting a large part of the course to "analysis," biased towards recognizing when a piece of discourse

in English is "correct," i.e., acceptable to a native speaker (which means that the criteria of acceptability are not necessarily grammatical), and investigating how the discourse coheres.

In using this approach, we began to realize that it was not, as we had thought, a lack of intelligence that was making it difficult for our students to answer our searching questions (although they were as we thought, following closely our carefully prepared notes, handout, or set-book), but rather that they were applying to the texts rhetorical principles that were very different from those we expected them to apply. (Looked at from this point of view, "understanding the language" takes on an entirely new meaning.)

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A realistic goal

It may sound as if I am making a plea for the training of students who will write badly in English. What I am really suggesting, however, is that we aim for a course that trains students who will make, and hopefully recognize, "English" errors, i.e., native-speaker errors, in their writing, rather than a course that has the much more unrealistic (and less necessary?) aim of training students to write good error-free English, without knowing when or why it is correct. The course that we have developed here at the Instituto Universitario Pedagógico Experimental, Barquisimeto, was prepared with this idea in mind. I cannot yet say whether or not it is completely successful, but the prognosis so far-judging from the results of the eighty-plus students who have completed it-is good. There remain many problems to be solved, and the course is still being reviewed, continuous reassessment being an integral part of course development. What I have tried to argue here-and what I hope the course shows-is that it is possible to take a "rhetorical" approach to the teaching of composition to learners of English as a foreign language with some hope of success if the parameters of success are chosen with sufficiently careful consideration.

Specific

REFERENCES

James, Tony. Forthcoming. English for definable purposes.

1980. An analysis/synthesis approach to the teaching of the writing of English composition. Paper presented at the first National Convention of English Teachers, Barquisimeto, Venezuela, April 1980.

Kaplan, Robert B. 1966. Cultural thought patterns in intercultural education. Language Learning, 16 (1966). General

Munby, John. 1978. Communicative syllabus de

sign. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Widdowson, H.G. 1978. Teaching language as communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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I applaud Lillian Groebel for her gentle reminder that it is wise to look carefully before jumping onto the newest bandwagon come to town (FORUM, July 1982, "Humanistic Education in Action: A Practical Problem"), but she chose a poor example to warn of the dangers of inviting students to discuss their feelings.

Why should anyone feel embarrassed to talk about his arranged marriage when arranged marriages are still the custom in a good part of the world? What would you say? Half? One-third?

Myself, I would be fascinated to hear firsthand feelings about this kind of marriage. Certainly I would not want to leave any student of mine with the misapprehension that our custom of marriage-partner choice by romantic love is superior. I know of no evidence for that.

Ms. Groebel's choice of loaded words, "compelled to reveal," bespeaks an attitude on her part which does not seem to allow a humanistic leeway for differing customs of marital choice.

In general, I found her cautionary warnings sound and useful, but this particular example I found alarming. I wished to express my dismay lest there be many others who consider arranged marriages too painfully embarrassing to talk about.

Yours truly, EARLINE M. REID Lettrice

L

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My concern in English teaching lies with those members of the profession who will not read this issue of FORUM, or any other magazine, and with the division that appears to be developing between the "English teachers" and the "applied linguists."

To some extent, this division occurs because teaching English to nonnative speakers has now reached the stage where it is beginning to develop its own subsections. In the United States, this has meant the growth of TEFL as opposed to TESL, while in Britain the reverse process has taken place. In both countries, however, we have seen the development of ESP, EST, English for academic purposes, and business English. The counterproductive element in all these programs has been a growing bewilderment among many teachers actually in the classroom.

The problem is that the wealth of material on all aspects of English teaching is now such that it cannot be published by any one type of magazine. This has caused the establishment of specialist regional journals like Al Manakh in Kuwait and Cross Currents in Japan, and other journals concerning themselves exclusively with ESP or EST. But such magazines are frequently attacked as obscure by those not concerned with these particular aspects of teaching.

Unfortunately, however, it is the misguided attempt by some publishers to combine articles on specialist theory with more practical teaching material that is the root cause of teacher hostility. An assortment of teaching ideas and research findings is an attempt to be all things at once, and will inevitably displease both audiences.

In FORUM, the arrangement of general articles, followed by news and ideas from specific areas, is a format that other magazines could do well to copy, but the onus is really upon us: the teachers who value their teaching jour

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Please find enclosed a brief essay which I am submitting to you for consideration for publication in the October issue of the FORUM.

As an EFL teacher currently on assignment in Saudi Arabia, I appreciate the opportunity to state my views regarding what I find the most rewarding about teaching EFL. Sharing is, for me, the key to successful foreign-language teaching. Once the rapport has been created between student and teacher, the possibilities for success in language teaching/ learning are endless. If published, I hope my brief statement will encourage new English teachers to be very open to what students may have to say about their own cultures and languages.

Thank you again for this opportunity to share my views. I look forward to reading your October issue of FORUM.

Yours sincerely, LUQMAN NAGY

WHAT BEING A TEACHER OF ENGLISH MEANS TO ME

I first started teaching English as a foreign language more than ten years ago in Lisbon,

Portugal. Since then, I have been fortunate to have taught in Turkey, Iran, and Afghani

stan.

The most rewarding aspect of my teaching career has been the ability to openly share my thoughts, ideas, and experiences with my students and for them to be able to reciprocate. Over the years I have sat as a student in many foreign-language classes and, as a result, am now in a position to empathize with each group of new students I teach. I never fail to become excited the moment a student joyfully realizes that, at last, he has mastered the rudiments of the target language and can unhesitatingly attempt to say anything he wish

es.

The rewards of being an EFL teacher are innumerable, but the positive communicative interaction between teacher and student is, for me, the most valuable of all. So often we classroom instructors fail to remember that learning is not the prerogative of students alone. Some of my most memorable in-class hours have been totally student-centered. With full encouragement from the teacher, EFL students at a very early stage can, in effect, be teaching us! Mastery of the target language may be a program's objective, but, in order to reach that goal, let's never forget the wealth of information from the L, culture(s) that eager students are only too pleased to present to us either orally, or in written form. I have found that this two-way sharing between teacher and student has been, and continues to be, my most rewarding experience as an EFL teacher.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: Although written and postmarked in February 1982, the above letter and enclosed essay, submitted for the Teachers Talk section of our October 1982 issue. apparently went astray in inter-office mails and failed to reach us in time for inclusion in that—or the following-issue. We are sorry that these unusual circumstances prevented our consideration of Mr. Nagy's essay earlier. and present it here for the interest of our readers. Mr. Nagy is a Canadian and holds degrees in education and EFL from the University of British Columbia.]

The ENGLISH TEACHING FORUM, a quarterly journal for the teacher of English outside the United States. is distributed abroad by American embassies. Questions about subscriptions should be addressed to the American Embassy in the capital city of the country in which the inquirer resides. Only manuscripts and letters to the editor on topics other than subscription may be sent to Room 752, 1717 H Street N.W., Washington, D.C. 20547. To be considered for publication, manuscripts should be typewritten, double-spaced, and have margins of at least three centimeters.

Any copyrighted articles appearing in the ENGLISH TEACHING FORUM are reprinted with the permission of the copyright owners These articles may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the written permission of the copyright owners, except as otherwise authorized by applicable copyright law

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