Methodology in Language Learning: Linguistic Behaviors

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Functions are the linguistic behaviors associated with regularly occurring tasks in one’s daily personal and professional life. Some typical functions are meetings and greetings, making purchases, using public and private transportation, making telephone calls, and the like. Every function has a “script” – a standard set of phrases that people use to transact that function. A script for meeting and greeting would include the greeting itself, asking after someone’s health or affairs, and replying to such questions. There is a limited range of formulistic expressions that are generally used – at least, until the communication enters into the truly personal sphere or into another type of communication. For this reason, even someone who has no knowledge of the language can more or less successfully get through a specific transaction by memorizing a few of the key phrases it requires. Most textbooks will teach you the scripts that go with functions. This is pretty standard fare, regardless of the teaching methodology underlying the textbook. By the time you reach intermediate levels of proficiency, you will probably be able to handle most daily living functions

 

By informal conversation, we mean any two-way or multi-party interactions on any social or professional topic. Informal conversation is a complex form of communication that can have many registers. In conversation, people exchange information, solve problems, express their attitude towards what has been said, and reveal their emotions. Conversation goes beyond the more easily managed scripts associated with specific functions. There is much unpredictability in informal conversation. This makes it difficult for a foreign-language student to hold up his or her end of the conversation.


A formal oral presentation is monologic (at least, in the presentation portion, although almost always there are questions that follow and, in some cases, questions that interrupt). A formal presentation almost always requires serious preparation both for content (except in the case in which you are sharing something that you do or have done) and for language. Because of its monologic nature, a presentation is an unusual mode of interaction, especially for non-native speakers, since the audience cannot react to any language mistakes that are made, only to errors or confusion.

 

Another significant feature of a presentation is that it is, as a rule, complex in content and, therefore, complex in form. For this reason, the presentation is very often more linguistically complex than informal conversation. Depending on how presentations are made in the culture you are studying, you may need to use language that is considerably more formal than conversation (i.e. that resembles written vocabulary, grammatical expression, and syntax). A formal presentation will be effective only if it offers a clear, logical exposition of a subject or a concept, organized using culturally appropriate discourse structure.

 

Bibliography:

 

1.    Brown, H.D. (2000): Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. White Plains, NY: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. Gass,

2.    S.M. I L. Selinker. (2008): Second Language Acquisition. An Introductory Course. New York: Routledge. VanPatten,

3.    Leaver, B.L; Ehrman, M; Shekhtman, B. (2005): Achieving Success in Second Language Acquisition. CUP

4.    B. i J. Williams. (red.) 2007: Theories in Second Language Acquisition. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publisher

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