The discourse manifestations of analytic, functional-analytic, and experiential language activities for intermediate to advanced learners of English

[摘要] This study has two principal aims. First, the descriptive aim is to describe the patternsof discourse that characterize three language teaching styles referred to by Allen(1987) in his variable focus curriculum scheme as structural-analytic (Type A),functional-analytic (Type B), and non-analytic (Type C) teaching, showing that thesepatterns differ significantly because they are the product of distinct speech exchangesystems. The justification for this study is that, although Allen (1983; 1987; 1989) hasdescribed the features of Type A, Type B, and Type C teaching at length, few data areavailable on how these styles are reflected in actual classroom practices andprocesses. Moreover, although Allen et at. {1984) have developed a coding schemewhich they refer to as the COLT procedure to distinguish between analytic andexperiential language activities, it does not document the verbal exchangescharacteristic of analytic teaching. Secondly, the applied linguistic aim is to show howthe findings of the analyses conducted in this study may be used to improve aspects ofteacher training as well as materials design and evaluation. As these aims indicate, thestudy of classroom discourse is not regarded as an end in itself, but as a means ofpromoting teachers' awareness of classroom processes so that they can makeinformed decisions in the language classroom. In order to achieve these aims, threecorpuses of classroom data are analysed either in terms of Sacks, Schegloff andJefferson's (1974) rule system for tum-taking in natural conversation, or in terms ofMcHoul's (1978) recursive rule system for classroom discourse. Due to the limitationsof the Conversation Analysis perspective, aspects of the Discourse Analysisperspective of the Birmingham school (Sinclair and Coulthard, 1975) are used in theanalyses.These analyses show that the discourse patterns that occur in Type A, Type B, andType C language activities differ significantly because they are founded either on (i) apre-allocated system of turn-taking, (ii) a Jocal-allocational system of turn-taking, or (iii)a combination of Jocal-allocational and pre-allocational means.Finally, the implications of the findings for teacher training as well as for materialsdesign and evaluation are discussed, and, at the same time, future areas of researchare briefly outlined.

[发布机构] University of the Free State