If you're doing Delta Module Two, have a look at the following example of a background essay written for a Language Skills (Speaking) Assignment by one of our June 2015 candidates, Jane Sabey, and focusing on developing fluency. And see here for an example of an essay focusing on Language Systems
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Improving intermediate (CEFR B1) learners’ ability to tell anecdotes using a planning and rehearsal approach
A. Introduction
My interest in anecdote telling using a planning and
rehearsal approach was piqued by observations made by Brown and Yule (1983),
and Thornbury (2005) and the scaffolding sequences that I have seen in lessons
taught by DELTA tutors. Firstly, Brown and Yule (op.cit) advocate dedicating
more class time to long turns over short turns based on their claims that, even
for L1 speakers, an ability to hold short turns does not automatically
translate into the ability to hold a long turn successfully. Secondly,
Thornbury (2005) uses an anecdote told by an L1 speaker to draw attention to
the level of automaticity involved and notes that this is partly due to the
telling and re-telling of the same anecdote several times.
The legitimacy of these claims appears to find confirmation
in a recent episode in my B1.1 classroom. A student wanted to tell the story
behind an absence; however, significant lexical input and reformulations were
needed to give shape and meaning to the story. Furthermore, this reminded me of
the silent planning, rehearsal and re-telling sequence witnessed in lessons
taught by DELTA tutors; this sequence provides a scaffold for students and
allows them to polish their story through repeat tellings.
B. Analysis
Anecdotes and
storytelling
Storytelling occupies a substantial and frequent place in
every day interactions (Cortazzi 1994); in an informal survey, Jones (2001)
identified more than 40 instances of personal stories in his interactions with
family, friends and colleagues over a 7-day period. As storytelling is such a
large part of our daily lives, it makes sense that it has found its way into
the English language classroom and can be used “to encourage learners’
interest, to help them develop their own voices, and to raise levels of
confidence and participation.” (Cortazzi 1994:157)
Anecdotes typically involve an account of an unusual
situation or event that is amusing or surprising in some way. While anecdotes
may appear to be examples of monologic discourse, the listener is far from a
passive observer. Anecdotes serve particular purposes in human interaction, one
of which is “to elicit an emotional response” (Thornbury and Slade 2006:169). Therefore,
listeners play an active and essential role in moving the anecdote forward by
showing their involvement. Back channelling (the listener’s feedback) may be
non-verbal, e.g. laughter, and sighs whereas typical verbal realisations include
‘mm’, ‘yeah’, ‘oh’ and similar
noises. Furthermore, feedback satisfies various other functions, for example,
the listener would like to show understanding or give an assessment of their
interpretation of events (Gardner 1994 cited in Thornbury and Slade 2006).
It is worth noting that anecdotes do not occur in a vacuum; the
context in which they occur impacts not only the lexico-syntactic choices of
the speaker, but also the choice of story. An anecdote told between friends in
an informal setting will certainly differ from an anecdote told during a job
interview or within a lecture, as would the level and type of participation
from the listeners. This assignment will limit itself to the most salient
linguistic and organisational features of anecdotes occurring in informal
conversation as this is the most relevant for my learners.
Organisational
features
Even simple anecdotes are formally constructed. One of the
most widely acknowledged models for analysing the structure of spoken
narratives is that of Labov et al
(Labov and Waletsky 1967; Labov 1972, 1981; Labov and Fanshel 1977 cited in
Cortazzi 1994). This model established a 6-element framework; each element
provides different information:
Abstract. This
optional element introduces the anecdote giving the listener(s) an idea of the
content.
Orientation. This
gives details regarding time, place and participants.
Complication. This
part covers the main event(s) and the crisis or turning point of the situation.
Evaluation. This
reveals to the listener(s) the point of the story, and emphasises the teller’s
reactions and feelings.
Result. This is
the solution to the crisis or turning point.
Coda. This
optional stage signals the end of the story and returns the listener(s) to the
present.
Cortazzi (1994) notes that these elements may occur in a
different sequence and even in different combinations. It is worth noting that the
evaluation may not be a defined stage,
rather it may be a recurrent thread that runs through the narrative (McCarthy
1991). However, the evaluation is
essential and it is “the crucial part of the narrative as it shows what kind of
response the teller desires” (Cortazzi 1994:160). Furthermore, Thornbury and
Slade (2006) note that anecdotes generally lack a sense of resolution as the
shared cultural context often makes this clear.
Linguistic features
Anecdotes involve the recounting of a past event, therefore various
past verb forms are used to shape the events of a story. Thornbury and Slade
(op.cit) note that while the historic present (present tenses with reference to
past time) does occur in order to inject a sense of immediacy, past verb forms occur
more frequently, particularly, the past simple. The progressive aspect sets the
temporal scene around the main events for which the past simple is used. While the
perfect aspect in its past form in anecdotes is rare (Thornbury and Slade
op.cit), it does occur in order to give temporal depth to the main events in
the past simple. The anecdote from Thornbury and Salde (op.cit 92) demonstrates
the interplay of past and present verb forms:
I came
out I was filing the sheets and I’d done up to the 50s and I was
coming out for a cigarette and I sit
down, and the minute I sat down, lit up a cigarette, she looked
out of the window and she can see me
so I just sort of slid behind the boxes where all our papers are.
As previously stated, the purpose of anecdotes is to elicit
an emotional response, and one way of achieving this is by using intensification
adverbs and adjectives. This type of evaluative language allows the speaker to
inject her attitude into the events or situations that she is describing, as in
the example taken from Thornbury (2005:22) below:
It’s one of
those ridiculously old-fashioned dishes that they make you cook in
domestic science.
However, general features of spoken English will also be
present in anecdotes, for example, the use of fillers (e.g. er, ah, um etc). Such devices serve to
fill pauses while the speaker, under the demands of real-time processing,
formulates what she wants to say. However, the speaker may also use them to
alert the listener that she has not finished speaking.
C. Issues for
learners
Brown and Yule (1983) note that L1 English speakers can have
difficulty in holding a long turn successfully and therefore assume that L2
speakers will also have difficulties, and would benefit from focussed practice on
this skill.
Issue 1
For the most part, spoken English takes place in real time
with little or no prior planning. The simultaneous strategic decisions that speakers
must make regarding lexis, syntax and the overall macro-structure of the
anecdote may result in a cognitive overload for CEFR B1 learners. This overload
may lead to a bare skeleton of a story with little in the way of evaluation from the speaker or the
listener (McCarthy 1991). My group of Italian learners, while adept
communicators, often sacrifice form for meaning in communicative tasks.
Issue 2
Many anecdotes are, in fact, the fruit of several previous
tellings. Multiple tellings afford the speaker the opportunity to make changes
to the anecdote; over time, some details, even language choices, may be
modified for dramatic effect, and yet our learners are often not given this
opportunity and are expected to ‘perform’ perfectly the first time. Such expectations
cause difficulties for learners from countries where English language teaching
places great emphasis on grammatical accuracy and gives little opportunity for
speaking practice, e.g. Korea (Swan and Smith 2001).
Issue 3
Narrative structure is not universal and therefore may be
unfamiliar to students from a different narrative tradition. Zhang and Sang
(1986 cited in Cortazzi 1994) identified two Chinese narrative patterns, both
of which differ significantly from Western models; such differences may create
difficulties for Chinese learners.
Issue 4
CEFR B1 speakers of languages with no progressive aspect,
e.g. Swedish and German (Swan and Smith 2001), may still have difficulty using
the past progressive successfully. This could also include Italian speakers
because while Italian does have equivalents to the progressive aspect, it has a
limited usage (Swan and Smith ibid).
Issue 5
The evaluation
element of the anecdote is essential and it can be expressed with intensifying
adjectives and adjectives. This can cause problems for Polish learners who
often use adverbs where adjectives are necessary (Swan and Smith 2001).
Additionally, Polish has no linking /j/ which means that adverbs ending in –y
followed by an adjective starting with a vowel would be pronounced separately,
leading to an unnatural pronunciation (Swan and Smith 2001).
D. Suggestions for
teaching
Unfortunately, anecdote telling activities feature
sporadically in many ELT materials. For example, in the intermediate texts
available to me there are only two story-telling opportunities in Cunningham
and Moor (2005), and just one in Oxenden and Latham-Koenig (1999). Furthermore,
they often appear at the end of a language-focused cycle as an afterthought
with the purpose of providing free practice with no real scaffolding.
However, my students’ current coursebook Speakout Intermediate (Clare and Wilson
2011) provides a number of anecdote telling activities with the following format:
i) a listening text with detailed comprehension questions; ii) an exercise on
key phrases from the text; iii) students make notes on their anecdote using
some of the key phrases before telling their partners (Appendix 1). As the
materials show, the main aim is for students to use the target structures of ex
C while telling their story.
The coursebook materials could quite easily resolve some of
the learner issues detailed above, for example, ex A provides a narrative model
(issue 3), while ex C provides a narrative framework with input on verb form
usage (issue 4) for learners. Sticking
with the coursebook format, as an alternative to the recorded anecdote, the
teacher could tell an anecdote as the basis for a dictogloss. The students
compare their version of the reconstructed anecdote with the original; this
could be used to raise students’ awareness of different points, including the
use of intensifying adjectives and adverbs (issue 5); the use of the past
progressive as a context-setting device (issue 4); and the structure of
anecdotes (issue 3).
Yet it is my view that this format does not reflect what we
actually do when we tell anecdotes and stories in our L1 and that this can only
be achieved by using the coursebook materials with a planning and rehearsal
approach.
While Clare and Wilson’s (2011) format incorporates planning
time which is an integral part of the approach, it is in the form of written
notes. In my experience, given adequate time and the possibility of making
notes, many learners fall into the trap of writing full sentences as opposed to
notes and key words and which could negatively impact the success of the
activity. Firstly, learners are unlikely to plan completely their anecdote which
may mean that they miss essential key vocabulary and which, in turn, leads to a
short and skeletal story. Secondly, learners will be tempted to read from their
notes leading to loss of eye contact with the listener and unnatural intonation.
And finally, spoken language often differs significantly from the written
version for a variety of reasons.
Therefore, I would adapt the materials present in Appendix 1
following Swift’s (2006) sequence that emphasises planning and rehearsal:
a) Silent planning. The teacher reads out the
questions in ex C until all students show signs (smiles and nods) that they
have thought of a story. They then have planning time to ‘tell’ the story
silently in their heads. After a few minutes of planning, the students have the
opportunity to ask for lexical and structural help for ideas they were unable
to express (issue 1). If a student does not ask for during this input stage,
but then becomes stuck while telling the anecdote, he or she needs to wait for
the next cycle of feedback and input.
Rationale. The prompt questions help to activate
students’ schemata and think of their own story. In addition, giving students planning
time before a task to prepare what to say and how to say it may guard against
careless fluency (Skehan 1996). Planning time can lead to higher fluency with
fewer pauses, a higher number and wider range of complex structures and a
greater lexical variety (Foster 1996). The majority of language learners at all
levels often know more lexical items and syntactical structures than they are
capable of using fluently and planning time may give them the opportunity to access
that knowledge (Ellis 1987 cited in Foster 1996). Moreover, as students ask for
lexical and structural help in plenary, this may stimulate others to ask and be
more adventurous in their output. The set-up of the silent planning is also a
way of training learners how to think in English and to identify gaps in their own
language.
b) First telling and feedback. As the learners tell
their anecdotes in pairs, the teacher makes notes on successful and
unsuccessful language use for a delayed feedback session. During this plenary
session, learners may also ask for additional language to help them with
language gaps that they identified during the first telling (issues 1-5).
Rationale. Once again, this trains learners to become
aware of and identify gaps in their own language. Students also receive
significant and focussed error correction depending on the emergent language
issues that occur.
c) Repeating the anecdote and feedback. Students
repeat their anecdote to a different partner integrating the error correction
and language input (issues 1-5).
Rationale. A repeat telling allows students to
‘polish’ their story. In a small study, Bygate (1996) found that task
repetition, like pre-planning, has a beneficial effect on performance including
the level of accuracy; the variety of structures and lexical items; and greater
fluency.
d) Final telling. Students change partners and either
i) tell their anecdote again, or ii) tell one of the stories that a previous
student told them. Once again, they integrate language input from the previous
feedback stage.
Rationale. Weaker students will have the benefit of a
repeat telling which will increase their confidence, whereas stronger students
can challenge themselves by telling the story of a previous partner. All students
have expanded their vocabulary via input and repetition. All students have been
exposed receptively to new vocabulary through their partners’ stories. Stronger
students who tell a partner’s story have had the opportunity to use the new
lexical items productively.
Finally, it is likely that the planning and rehearsal
approach is not something that the students will ‘do’ successfully the first
time; in fact, they may not appreciate the value of the silent planning stage.
As a follow-up, I would ask students if they have any questions about the rationale
and the benefits behind this approach.
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NB : The appendices mentioned in the text have not been included for reasons of copyright
