elt journal

Contents

ELT Journal Volume 62 Number 3 July 2008

Articles

Richard Cullen Teaching grammar as a liberating force 221

Gary Barkhuizen A narrative approach to exploring context in language teaching 231

Simon Evans Reading reaction journals in EAP courses 240

John Macalister Implementing extensive reading in an EAP programme 248

Shosh Leshemand Rivka Bar-Hama

Evaluating teaching practice 257

Fumiyo Nakatsuhara Inter-interviewer variation in oral interview tests 266

Point and counterpoint

Ramin Akbari Transforming lives: introducing critical pedagogy into ELTclassrooms 276

Colin Sowden Theres more to life than politics 284

Ramin Akbari Education is filled with politics 292

Survey review

Hitomi Masuhara,NaeemaHann, Yong Yi,

and Brian Tomlinson

Adult EFL courses 294

Reviews

Mara Luz C. Vilches How to Teach English (Second Edition) by J. Harmer 313

Bev Davies The Oxford ESOL Handbook by P. Schellekens 316

Linda Scott The CELTA Course by S. Thornbury and P. Watkins 318

Sandie Mourao 500 Activities for the Primary Classroom by C. Read 320

Gregory P.Glasgow Teacher Language Awareness by S. Andrews 322

Websites for the language teacher

Diana Eastment Open access 325

IATEFL 329

Please visit ELT Journals website athttp://eltj.oxfordjournals.org

Teaching grammar as a liberatingforce

Richard Cullen

The idea of grammar as a liberating force comes from a paper by HenryWiddowson (1990) inwhich grammar is depicted as a resourcewhich liberates thelanguage user from an over-dependency on lexis and context for the expression ofmeaning. In this paper, I consider the implications for second language teaching ofthe notion of grammar as a liberating force, and identify three key design featureswhich, I propose, need to be present in any grammar production task inwhich thisnotion is given prominence. These are: learner choice over which grammaticalstructures to use; a process of grammaticization where the learners applygrammar to lexis; and opportunities tomake comparisons and notice gaps in theiruse of grammar. I then discuss, with practical examples, types of grammar taskwhich exhibit these features. These tasks all derive from traditional ELT practice,but have been revitalized to support an approach to teaching grammar whichemphasizes its liberating potential.

The liberatingpotential of grammar

In an essay entitled Grammar, and nonsense, and learning, Widdowson(1990: 86) wrote:

. . . grammar is not a constraining imposition but a liberating force: itfrees us from a dependency on context and a purely lexical categorizationof reality.

Given that many learnersand teacherstend to view grammar as a set ofrestrictions on what is allowed and disallowed in language usea linguisticstraitjacket in Larsen-Freemans words (2002: 103)the conception ofgrammar as something that liberates rather than represses is one that isworth investigating further. In this paper, I first explore the implications ofthis statement for our understanding of the nature of grammar and the roleit plays in communication, and then go on to discuss how thisunderstanding might inform approaches to teaching grammar in secondlanguage classrooms.

Widdowsons conception of grammar as a liberating force may be a strikingimage, but what he meant by it is not contentious. Without any grammar,the learner is forced to rely exclusively on lexis and the immediate context,combined with gestures, intonation and other prosodic and non-verbalfeatures, to communicate his/her intended meanings. For example, thethree lexical items dog eat meat could be strung together in that order tocommunicate the intended message that the dog has eaten the meat (which

ELT Journal Volume 62/3 July 2008; doi:10.1093/elt/ccm042 221 The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.Advance Access publication March 15, 2008

we were going to cook for dinner), provided there is enough shared contextbetween the interlocutorsthe empty plate, the shared knowledge of thedog, the meat and our plans for dinnerto allow the utterance to beinterpreted correctly. With insufficient contextual information, theutterance is potentially ambiguous and could convey a range of alternativemeanings, such as:

1 The dog is eating the meat.2 A dog must have eaten the meat.3 Dogs eat meat.

It is grammar that allows us to make these finer distinctions inmeaningin the above examples, through the use of the article system,number, tense, and aspect. It thereby frees us from a dependency on lexisand contextual clues in the twin tasks of interpreting and expressingmeanings, and generally enables us to communicate with a degree ofprecision not available to the learner with only a minimal command of thesystem. In this sense, grammar is a liberating force.

Notional andattitudinal meaningsin grammar

The above examples illustrate how grammar is used to indicate differencesin notional meaning (Batstone 1995)that is differences in semanticcategories, such as time, duration, frequency, definiteness, etc. Theliberating power which grammar gives usto transcend the limitations oflexis and context in the communication of meaningis also deployed inexpressing attitudinal meanings, such as approval, disapproval, politeness,abruptness, and social intimacy or distance, etc. (Batstone op. cit., Larsen-Freeman op. cit.). The following example from Batstone (ibid.: 197)illustrates how a writer might deliberately contrast two tenses to indicateapproval and disapproval towards the respective subjects of the verb:

Smith (1980) argued that Britain was no longer a country in whichfreedom of speech was seriously maintained. Johnson (1983), though,argues that Britain remains a citadel of individual liberty.

Commenting on this example, Batstone (ibid.: 198) suggests that the use ofthe past tense

signals that Smiths argument is no longer worthy of currentinterest . . . it is (in two significant senses) passe,

whereas the contrasting use of the present tense in the following sentenceshows that

Johnsons argument is held to be of real and continuing relevance.

The writer is here using grammar to signal something about his attitudeto the ideas he is discussing.

Central to the notion of grammar as a liberating force is the view of grammaras a communicative resource on which speakers draw to express theirintended meanings at both levelsthe notional and the attitudinal. As suchthe use of a particular grammatical structure is a matter of speaker choice.As language users, we may wish to be very clear about what we want to say,or deliberately ambiguous, or non-committal. We may wish to sound polite,distant, direct, or even rude. We may wish to convey formality or informality

222 Richard Cullen

according to the context in which we are operating. To do all these things,speakers use the linguistic resources which the grammar of the languagemakes available to them: grammar is thus at the service of the languageuser, and the teaching of grammarespecially if we wish to presentgrammar to our learners as something which is liberating andempoweringshould aim to reflect this.

Focus on form andoutput tasks

The kind of liberating force attributed to grammar so far lies in its intrinsicnatureas a resource to enhance power and precision in thecommunication of meaning. However, there is another sense in whichgrammar might be termed a liberating force, and that is in its potential asa focus of second language instruction to drive forward learning processesand so help to liberate the learner from the shackles of the intermediateplateau. There is a considerable body of evidence in second languageacquisition research (see, for example, Long 2001; Ellis 2005) to suggestthat a focus on formthat is, a focus on specific grammatical forms as theyarise in contexts of language useis an essential ingredient to raise theultimate level of attainment (Long op. cit.: 184). In particular, secondlanguage researchers such as Swain (1995) and Skehan (2002) haveargued strongly that output tasks which are both system-stretching, inthat they push the learners to use their full grammatical resources, andawareness-raising, in the sense that they allow learners to become awareof gaps in their current state of interlanguage development, are crucialelements in a pedagogy designed to provide the required focus on form.One of the practical implications of the notion of teaching grammar asa liberating force, therefore, would be in the design of production taskswhich challenge learners grammatically, and also lead them to notice gapsin their knowledge of the target language system.

Threedesign featuresin teaching grammaras a liberating force

From the foregoing discussion, I propose that an approach to teachinggrammar as a liberating force should include the following threeelements:

1 Learner choiceGiven that the deployment of grammar in communication invariablyinvolves the speaker or writer in making a free and conscious choice(notwithstanding the fact that having chosen a particular grammaticalstructure there are conventions to observe regarding its acceptableformation), the first element is that the learner must have a degree ofchoice over the grammatical structures they use, and deploy them aseffectively as they can to match specific contexts and meet specificcommunicative goals. In this respect, an emphasis on grammar asa liberating force would favour a process rather than a product approachto teaching grammar (Batstone 1994; Thornbury 2001), whereby learnersare not compelled to use a particular grammatical structure which hasbeen preselected for themit would be difficult to conceive of grammarbeing genuinely a liberating force if they werebut rather they choose fromtheir stock of grammatical knowledge to express the meanings they wishto convey.

Teaching grammar as a liberating force 223

2 Lexis to grammarIf grammar liberates the language user by enabling him/her to transcendthe limitations of telegraphic speech (using lexical items alone), thereshould be a progression from lexis to grammar both in the way languageand materials are presented to learners, and in the language we expect themto produce. A grammar production task would typically require the learnersto apply grammar to samples of language in which the grammar has beenreduced or simplified, as typically found in notes of a meeting ora newspaper headline, where the meaning content is conveyed primarilythrough lexical items. Such tasks, where the learners are in effect asked tomap grammar on to lexis, involve a process known variously asgrammaticization (Batstone 1994) or grammaring (Thornbury 2001). Byengaging in this kind of activity, learners experience the process of usingtheir grammatical resources to develop the meaning potential contained inthe lexical items and express a range of meanings which the words alonecould not convey. Such a process is not dissimilar to the processes involvedin first language acquisition whereby the child moves from communicationthrough telegraphic utterances involving strings of lexical items to thegradual deployment of morphemes and function words. It is not, however,a process promoted in traditional approaches to grammar teaching such asthe presentationpracticeproduction format, where the learners aretypically asked to move in the opposite directionthey begin witha preselected grammatical structure, and then have to slot lexis into it.

3 Comparing texts and noticing gapsThe third element in teaching grammar as a liberating force derives fromwell-established principles of task-based pedagogy (for example, Willis1996; Skehan op. cit.) and relates to the importance of allowing the learnersto focus on grammatical forms which arise from their communicativeneeds, and in particular as a result of noticing gaps in their own use ofgrammar. These gaps are noticed through a process of comparing theiroutput on a language production task with that of other learners or moreproficient users, for example, a sample text, or a written transcript of nativespeakers doing the same task (Willis op. cit.). The focus on grammar is thusreactive rather than proactive (Doughty and Williams 1998), because itarises from the specific communicative needs which the learners discover inthe processes of doing the task, reviewing their performance and comparingit with others. In this way learners experience the liberating potential ofgrammar, not just to help them express their meanings in a particularactivity with greater precision, but over time, through a sustainedprogramme of comparing and noticing gaps and differences, to enablethem to develop their proficiency and sensitivity in the target language toincreasingly more advanced levels.

Task types forteaching grammar asa liberating force

Four task types which exemplify these different elements are discussedbelow. At the outset, I should point out that I do not claim any originalityfor them, since they all involve classroom activities which have been in usefor many years, particularly as exercises to develop writing skills. Indeedsome, I would suggest, have partially fallen into disuse. What I am aimingto do here is to show how fairly standard techniques, which have stood the

224 Richard Cullen

test of time, can be revitalized and adapted to support a more contemporaryapproach to teaching grammar.

Task type 1: Grammaticization tasksIn these tasks, the learners use their grammatical resources to develop andexpand information presented in the form of notes in which grammaticalfeatures are reduced or even omitted altogether. The example in Figure 1shows a grammaticization task using newspaper headlines, based on anidea in Thornbury 2001. The three elements are clearly present in this typeof task: first, the learners have a free choice over which grammatical featuresto use to expand the headlines, either individually or in consultation withothers; second, they start with lexis and add grammar to it, as well as anyadditional lexis that may be required to develop and elaborate the story; andthird, after doing this, they compare their texts with one another and withthe original paragraph in the newspaper, and in this way naturally focus onand discuss some of the differences between their use of grammar and thatof the original text, as well as differences in content. They can also be askedto look for any patterns in the way grammar is used in the openingparagraphs in all four stories, for example in the use of the present perfecttense, relative clauses, clauses in apposition, and the use of the passive.

Other grammaticization tasks, suitable for higher-level studentsacademicwriting classes, for examplecould include the use of bullet points takenfrom PowerPoint presentations prepared by the students themselves. Thesewould be used to cue the writing of short paragraphs and summaries,thereby giving practice in essay writing skills.

Task type 2: Synthesis tasksSynthesis tasks (Graver 1986) are variations on grammaticization tasks andtake the form of exercises which start with a short text, consisting of a stringof short, non-complex sentences which the learners are required to combinein some way so as to reduce the number of sentences and create a morenatural piece of text. The technique is a traditional sentence combinationtask done at text rather than sentence level, and requires the use of variousgrammatical devices needed for the construction of complex sentences,such as relative clauses, purpose clauses and subordination, as well ascohesive devices such as linking words. An example is given in Figure 2.

figure 1Grammaticization taskusing newspaperheadlines. (Headlines 1,3, and 4 from The Times,London, 31 August 2007;headline 2 from theAshford Express, KentMessenger Group, 16August 2007.)


Again it will be seen that the task combines the three elements noted above:the learners have choice over the grammatical devices they think are neededto reconstruct the text in the most effective way, drawing on their ownknowledge of the language. They compare their versions with one anotherand with the teachers own version and so have the opportunity to expandtheir own knowledge. Finally, although the task may not, strictly speaking,move from lexis to grammar, it certainly moves from a text where thegrammar has been artificially reduced or simplified to one in which it ismore elaborated. The task also develops sensitivity to writing style and whatmakes a coherent, fluent narrative.

Task types 3 and 4: dictogloss and picture compositionThese two task types are variations on the same procedure, in that theyrequire the students to reconstruct an original text by supplying moregrammar to it, and then comparing their new versions with those ofothers. In dictogloss, or grammar dictation (Wajnryb 1990), learnershave to listen to and take notes on a short text read aloud to them, beforetrying to reconstruct the text from their notes. Dictogloss clearly meetsall three criteria for designing tasks which emphasize the liberatingnature of grammar. The students move from lexis to grammar as theystrive to grammaticize the notes they made while listening to the text;they choose from their own grammatical resources while reconstructingthe text; and finally they compare their versions with one another in orderto improve and refine them (Thornbury 1997), before comparing themwith the original version. A particular advantage of dictogloss is that thetexts selected (or specially written, as in Wajnrybs 1990 book) can be ofany typedescriptive, narrative, argumentative, etc.depending onthe aims of the lesson and needs of the learners. The example in theAppendix is a paragraph from a Wikipedia entry about the HubbleTelescope, which, if used with an upper-intermediate level academic

figure 2Synthesis task (adaptedfrom an idea in Graver1986)

226 Richard Cullen

writing class, perhaps as part of a unit on space exploration, could lead toa focus on various grammatical features such as the use of the presentperfect tense in descriptive texts of this kind, structures used withsuperlative forms of adjectives, and word suffixes (astronomy, astronomer,astronomical).

Picture composition is another traditional technique used in teachingwriting which lends itself to this approach to teaching grammar. In orderto provide for the lexis to grammar dimension, the sequence of picturesused would need to be accompanied by key words (provided either by theteacher or negotiated with the whole class). In addition, some languagecan be built into the picture sequence itself, as is typically found ina cartoon strip. The procedure shown in Figure 3 begins by followinga fairly traditional sequence (Steps 1 to 3) based on a similar task foundin Ur 1988 (see the example in the Appendix), but adopts a morestructured procedure for focusing on form at Steps 4 to 7, one which ismore consistent with the task-based cycle of teaching described by Willis(op. cit.). I have made the element of comparing texts deliberately less directin this task, in order to avoid giving the students the impression that thestories which they composed in Step 1 and edited in Step 4 are less worthy orinteresting than the other groups stories or the teachers version,presented at Step 6. The teachers version in fact is only a composite of theindividual group versions (and it is important that it is presented as such)and is available as a source for comparison at the end of the process when thestudents correct any errors in their own texts.

figure 3A procedure for a picturecomposition task


Conclusion In this paper I have identified three elements which I see as being central toan approach to teaching grammar which emphasizes its role as a liberatingforce (as defined in Widdowsons essay), and have gone on to show howthese elements can be incorporated into the design of grammar productionactivities in the EFL classroom. As has been pointed out, the approachwhich these activities exemplify is task-based in design, in that the focus onform comes after a freer activity in which the learners use whateverlanguage resources they can muster: the teaching progression is thus fromfluency to accuracy rather than vice versa. The activities also follow a processapproach to teaching grammar, in which grammatical items are not selectedand presented in advance for learners to use, but rather grammar is treatedas a resource which language users exploit as they navigate their waythrough discourse (Batstone 1994: 224). Gaps in their knowledge arenoticed later through the process of matching and comparing so that workcan begin on trying to fill them.

There are two further observations about the task types presented herewhich need to be made. Firstly, given the scope of this paper, I have lookedonly at types of task which require learners to produce language and havenot discussed receptive grammar tasks designed to raise awareness of thevarious notional and attitudinal meanings which can be expressed bygrammar. Such tasks would involve considering the effects created bychanging some of the grammatical features used in a text, or asking learnersto make grammatical choices in a given text, for example, between activeand passive verb forms, and then comparing their choices with the originaltext. Such awareness raising activities would also have an important role inteaching grammar as a liberating force since they emphasize the notion oflearner choice in the use of grammar. Secondly, all the task types presentedhave involved the learners in the creation of written texts, and are derivedfrom fairly standard guided writing tasks. This emphasis on writing isdeliberate: writing is generally done with more care and attention togrammatical accuracy than speaking, while having a written text to studyand compare with another written text makes it easier to focus on form andto notice and record features of grammar which might otherwise beoverlooked.

Finally, although I have argued in this paper that a process-orientedapproach to teaching grammar is more consistent with the notion ofgrammar as a liberating force than a product-oriented approach, I am notclaiming that such an approach is inherently superior, and preferable at alltimes and for all levels of student. There are many circumstances where itmay be necessary and desirable to pre-select language items for attentionprior to setting learners loose on a task, particularly for lower-level students,and as a general policy a balanced combination of the two approaches islikely to be the most effective teaching strategy to adopt. However, if we areserious about emphasizing the notion of grammar as a liberating force inour teaching, we need at least to provide opportunities for our learners toexperience its liberating potential through the kind of process-orientedgrammar tasks described here.

Final revised version received October 2007

228 Richard Cullen

ReferencesBatstone, R. 1994. Product and process: grammarin the second language classroom in M. Bygate,A. Tonkyn, and E. Williams (eds.). Grammar and theSecond Language Teacher. Hemel Hempstead:Prentice Hall International.Batstone, R. 1995. Grammar in discourse: attitudeand deniability in G. Cook and B. Seidlhofer (eds.).Principle and Practice in Applied Linguistics. Oxford:Oxford University Press.Doughty, C. and J. Williams. 1998. Pedagogicchoices in focus on form in C. Doughty andJ. Williams (eds.). Focus on Form in Classroom SecondLanguage Acquisition. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.Ellis, R. 2005. Principles of instructed secondlanguage learning. System 33/2: 20924.Graver, B. 1986. Advanced English Practice (thirdedition). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Larsen-Freeman, D. 2002. The Grammar of choicein E. Hinkel and S. Fotos (eds.). New Perspectives onGrammar Teaching in Second Language Classrooms.Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbawm Associates.Long, M. 2001. Focus on form: a design featurein language teaching methodology in C. Candlinand N. Mercer (eds.). English Language Teaching in itsSocial Context. London: Routledge.Skehan, P. 2002. Task-based instruction: theory,research and practice in A. Pulverness (ed.). IATEFL2002: York Conference Selections. Whitstable: IATEFL..

Swain, M. 1995. Three functions of output insecond language learning in G. Cook andB. Seidlhofer (eds.). Principle and Practice inApplied Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Thornbury, S. 1997. Reformulation andreconstruction: tasks that promote noticing. ELTJournal 51/4: 32635.Thornbury, S. 2001. Uncovering Grammar. Oxford:Heinemann Macmillan.Ur, P. 1988. Grammar Practice Activities. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.Wajnryb, R. 1990. Grammar Dictation. Oxford:Oxford University Press.Widdowson, H. 1990. Aspects of Language Teaching.Oxford: Oxford University Press.Willis, J. 1996. A Framework for Task-based Learning.London: Longman.

The authorRichard Cullen is Head of the Department of Englishand Language Studies at Canterbury Christ ChurchUniversity, UK. His research interests includeclassroom discourse, teacher and trainerdevelopment, and the teaching and learning ofgrammar, with a particular interest in spokengrammar. He has worked for the British Council onteacher education projects in Egypt, Bangladesh, andTanzania, and has also taught and trained teachers inNepal and Greece.Email: [email protected]

Appendix1 Dictogloss text

Students are given the first sentence of the text. They have to recover therest by taking notes as it is read aloud to them (twice) and thenreconstructing the text from their notes.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a telescope in orbit around the Earth. It isnamed after astronomer Edwin Hubble, famous for his discovery of galaxiesoutside the Milky Way and his creation of Hubbles Law, which calculatesthe rate at which the universe is expanding. The telescopes position outsidethe Earths atmosphere allows it to take sharp optical images of very faintobjects, and since its launch in 1990, it has become one of the mostimportant instruments in the history of astronomy. It has been responsiblefor many ground-breaking observations and has helped astronomersachieve a better understanding of many fundamental problems inastrophysics. Hubbles Ultra Deep Field is the deepest (most sensitive)astronomical optical image ever taken.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope


2 Picturecompositionmaterial

(The sequence of pictures is taken from Ur 1988: 218)

230 Richard Cullen

A narrative approach to exploringcontext in language teaching

Gary Barkhuizen

In recent years there havebeenpersistent calls for teachers to explore their teachingcontexts in order to becomemore aware of them and to understand them. Doingso would enable teachers to make more informed decisions about their practiceand their students learning. This article outlines a narrative approach for exploringcontext. A narrative inquiry case is presented to provide a framework for thediscussion. Emerging from this narrative case are three levels of story applicable tothe participant English teachers lives. A brief description of these levels is provided,and is followedbyan illustration of eachusing extracts from thewritten story of oneof the participating teachers.

Introduction I discovered the power of narrative inquiry while interviewing Afrikaans-speaking teachers from South Africa who had immigrated to NewZealand.My aim was to discover their language-related experiences as immigrantsliving and working in a new country, and so I prepared a series ofappropriate questions to ask during the semi-structured interviews. I soondiscovered that the interviews took on a rather different shape from what Ihad planned and expected. Instead of a basic question-answer format, theinterviews lookedmore like conversations; the sort of casualdiscussions onehaswith friends and family about familiar topics. Furthermore, a lot ofwhatthe teachers said took the form of stories. Below is an extract from one ofthese. In this extract, the primary school teacher tells of a timeback inSouthAfricawhen, as a result of recent language-in-education policy changes, shewas required to use both English and Afrikaans as the languages ofinstruction in her classroom. She ends by saying that this early experienceprepared her for teaching in New Zealand, even though, at first, shestruggled in this new English-only context.

So I had all of a sudden to be able to talk Afrikaans and English at the sametime. Itwas ratherhard to change, theworstwas to be able to tell a kid off inEnglish. Youwoulddo thewhole thing inAfrikaans and the kidwould lookat you and, could you please translate that? It is a hard thing to be able totell akidoff or togetmad inEnglish insteadof inAfrikaans.But itwent verywell and someofmy senior classes I had to speakAfrikaans andEnglish inthe class at the same time, which gave me a good ground to come here,a good starting point even though I smashed it all up when I came.

It is easy to see how this extract from the interview is a story. Firstly, there arepeople or characters in the story; the teacher herself, the South African

ELT Journal Volume 62/3 July 2008; doi:10.1093/elt/ccm043 231 The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.Advance Access publication May 29, 2007

students in junior and senior classes, and the students inNewZealand. Thestory also refers to different times; when she was teaching in South Africa,when she first started teaching inNewZealand, and currently at the time oftelling the story. Finally, the story is located in different places; broadly SouthAfrica and New Zealand, but also more specifically in schools andclassrooms.

These three elements (characters in interaction, time, and place) interrelateto produce what Clandinin and Connelly (2000) refer to as a three-dimensional narrative spacewhich provides context for any particular story.The three dimensions are as follows:

1 the participants in the storytheir own experiences and theirinteractions with others;

2 the time during which the story takes place, including its temporalconnections to history and the future; and

3 the physical settings or places in which the story is located.

Anystory ispositionedwithin thematrix or space that these three interrelateddimensionscreate, and it iswithin this context that the story isunderstood, byboth the teller of the story and the narrative researcher. As Phillion andConnelly (2004: 460) say, context is crucial to meaning making.

I very quickly became aware of this during my interviews with theimmigrant teachers, and decided to explore further how other teachers andteacher educators had engaged with narrative in their work. My findingsrevealed that there is a relatively long history of narrative inquiry in generalteacher education. (See, for example, Gudmundsdottir 1997, a special issueof the journal Teaching and Teacher Education which focuses on narrativeperspectives on research in teaching and teacher education.) Furthermore,in the field of language teacher education, there is a fast growing interest innarrative inquiry (Bell 2002; Johnson and Golombek 2002).

In this article, I argue that a narrative approach to exploring ones teachingcontext leads to a good understanding of that context. This, of course, hasimportant implications for teachers, in terms of their own practice andconsequently in terms of the learning outcomes of their students. I presenta narrative inquiry exemplar (Lyons and LaBoskey 2002) located withina South African university context to provide a framework for mydiscussion. Emerging from this narrative case are three levels of storyapplicable to the participant English teachers lives. I illustrate these storylevels with narrative data from one of the teachers.

Claims of narrativeinquiry in teachereducation

There are substantial claims made about the value of narrative inquiry forteachers in both the theoretical and empirical literature on language teachereducation. These can be summarized as follows:

1 Narrative inquiry is reflective inquiry. Through constructing, sharing,analysing and interpreting their teaching stories, teachers get theopportunity to reflect on their own practice and to articulate theirinterpretations of this practice. Constructing and thinking about storiesin this way, therefore, involves both introspection and interrogation.

2 And the consequence of this ismeaningmaking; inotherwords,makingsense or gaining an understanding of ones teaching knowledge andpractice.

232 Gary Barkhuizen

3 The result of this deeper understanding is change; change within selfand ones practice. Johnson and Golombek (op. cit.: 4) make this point,saying, inquiry into experience . . . can be educative if it enables us toreflect on our actions and then act with foresight. When teachersarticulate and interpret the stories of their practice, their own practice,they develop their personal practical knowledge to the extent that they actin the future with insight and foresight.

4 As we know, this is not always easy to do. Any teaching situation isa complex, dynamic arrangement ofmany factors. In constructing storiesteachers bring together many of these, and in reflecting on the storiesthere exists the potential for them, therefore, to see the whole picture. So,as opposed to focusing on only one or two isolated variables in a particularcontext, stories include many of these linked together, and the process ofmaking sense of the stories means unravelling this complexity.

5 Narrative inquiry is contextualized inquiry. Calls for a context approachto language teaching highlight the necessity of placing context at theheart of the profession (Bax 2003: 278), which involves teachersexploring the numerous aspects of their particular, local contexts such asthe needs and wants of their students, the teaching resources andfacilities available, the school and community culture, existingsyllabuses and language-in-education policies, as well as the widersociopolitical context (even at the level of the state) in which the teachingand learning take place. The aim here is to emphasize the particularityof teaching, one aspect of what Kumaravadivelu (2006: 69) callsa postmethodpedagogy: Particularity seeks to facilitate the advancementof a context-sensitive, location-specific pedagogy that is based on a trueunderstanding of local linguistic, social, cultural, and politicalparticularities.

The purpose of such a particular, context-sensitive approach is for teachersto make sense of their own working situations and thus to practise ina contextually-appropriate way. The reasoning behind such an aim is thatteachers teach best and learners learn best in situations that are compatiblewith their backgrounds, beliefs, and expectations. I am suggesting in thisarticle, as others have done elsewhere, that one way to achieve thisunderstanding is toundertake narrative inquiry in the formof constructing,interpreting, and reflecting on ones personal teaching stories.

A narrative inquiryexemplar

To explore narrative inquiry in language teacher education further, beyondthe literature, Ihad theopportunitywhile visitingSouthAfrica to collaboratein an inquiry with English teachers in the context of a universitypostgraduate ELTcourse. I was the lecturer on the course, and its focus wason recent issues to do with language teaching, generally and in the SouthAfrican context. There were only two students in this class, one with 20years English teaching experience (Ill call her Roxanne), and the other,a recent graduate with no classroom experience (Ill call her Betty). Theintensive course ranover theperiodof amonth,with two-hourmeetings23times a week.

These conditions appeared to me to be ideal for engaging with narrativesystematically for the first time. The potential for interaction was high andthe content of the course lent itself to debate and open-ended discussion,

A narrative approach to exploring context in language teaching 233

especially since the two students came from very different cultural andeducational backgrounds. Roxanne completed her teacher education inawestAfrican country, taught English there, and thenworked in a southernAfrican country before moving to South Africa. Betty too was educatedoutside South Africa, in a different southern African country, and went toSouth Africa to complete her first degree and to study for an Englishteaching qualification.

Our narrative work involved the following:

1 The students were required to write a series of three personal narrativesor stories (about 1000words each) which togetherwould formone long,connected story. The stories were to be submitted to me as part of anassignmentsee below. The following topics were suggested to providesome focus to the stories:a Introduce yourself and tell the story of your interest in English teaching.b What are your ideas regarding the process of becoming a languageteachergenerally, as well as personally?

c What are some of the desires, fears, concerns, moments of joy thatlanguage teachers experience?

2 Opportunities were created in class for the students to share theirstories with each other and with me. This was done in an informal way,and these conversations, together with those stories which stemmedfrom them, as well as entirely new stories, contributed to the data ofthe inquiry.

3 Of course, I too was part of these conversations, and so shared my ownexperiences of English teaching and being a teacher educator.

4 All these stories were integrated with our more formal discussions andinterpretations of the theoretical literature we were reading during thecourse, including that on narrative inquiry in the field of languageteaching.

5 My independent involvement included keeping narrative notes of myexperiences during the course. In these notes, I recorded what I waslearning about narrative inquiry, how our story telling and sharing wasprogressing, and what we were learning, both individually andcollectively, about language teaching and language teacher education inthe contexts in which we lived and worked.

6 Lastly, as part of their assignment (see point 1 above), the students wererequired to conduct a content analysis of the three stories theyconstructed; that is, analysing the stories for themes, and thenorganizing the themes into categories meaningful to themselves as(prospective) English teachers (Ellis and Barkhuizen 2005;Polkinghorne 1995). To do so, they were encouraged to use Clandininand Connellys (op. cit.) three dimensional contextual space to guidetheir analysis and interpretation.

Three interconnectedlevels of story

When I analysed all these narrative data I noticed that our stories seemed toreflect context at different levels. In other words, our exploration of thecontexts inwhichwehad taught,hadbeen taught, andhadobserved teaching,revealed that our personal stories of these experiences interconnected withother stories, those at varying levels of remove from our own. The importantword here is interconnected: the stories mutually construct each other.

234 Gary Barkhuizen

I represent these levels as followssee Figure 1:

1 The inner circle consists of a particular teachers story. This story ispersonal, and embodies the inner thoughts, emotions, ideas and theoriesof teachers, aswell as themany social interactions inwhich they takepartduring their teaching practice. This story is constructed in teachersimmediate contexts, for example, during classroom lessons, during one-on-one conversations with students and colleagues, and in teachingjournals or portfolios.

2 A second level of Story (with a capital S) spreads wider than theimmediate psychological and inter-personal context of the teacher.Included in this Story are consequences of decisions typically made byothers in the work environment, as well as their attitudes, expectationsand prescriptions; for example, a schools language-in-education policy,the wants and needs of the community from which the students come,and the methods and materials which teachers are required to use bytheir supervisors and budget-conscious administrators. At this level ofStory teachers usually have less control; less power to manipulate thecomplex arrangement of variables that construct their practice, andconsequently their stories.

3 A third level of STORY (in capital letters) refers to the broadersociopolitical context in which teaching and learning takes place. Hereteachers have even less power tomake decisions about conditionswhichinfluence their practice. Examples of STORIES include nationallanguage-in-education policy, imposed curriculum from Ministries ofEducation, and socioeconomic circumstances in a region. The use ofcapital letters to refer to this level of STORYmerely signifies a wider,macro context and the power often associated with it. In no way does itdiminish the worth of any individual teachers story.

figure 1Three interconnectedstories


These levels of story are obviously interrelated, and at times it may bedifficult to distinguish them. This is to be expected, since the three levels ofstory are very much interconnected. For any particular teacher, it would beimpossible to make sense of any one level without considering the others.Exploring context in language teaching, therefore, necessarily meansexploring all three levels of story.

Roxannes story,Story, and STORY

In this section, I illustrate the three story levels by presenting extracts fromRoxannes story constructedduring ournarrative inquiry exemplar inSouthAfrica.

storyRoxanne taught English at primary and high schools in a west Africancountry (where shewas born) beforemoving to another country in southernAfricawhere she taughtEnglish at university level. She thenmoved toSouthAfrica and continued her teacher education by embarking on a furtherqualification. The following extract from her written narrative clearlysuggests context at a personal level; specifically her inner thoughts aboutherphilosophy of teaching and her goals for her students.

I desire to impart knowledge effectively to learners in amanner that theywill clearly understand each topic of discussion and develop a love forEnglish as a second language. This desire motivates me to prepare verywell before going to the classroom to teach. There is also the desire inmeformy students to develop proficiency in the language and display this byparticipating actively in class activities, perform well in tests and exams,but more importantly, for them to acquire lifelong skills in effectivecommunication (both in written and spoken) in English in differentsettings.

Roxanne remarked in her analysis of her narrative (the second part of theassignment) thatwriting her storywas the first time she had articulated thispersonal dimension of her teaching life: it has givenme the opportunity toreflect critically on some important aspects of my life that I have not givenserious consideration to previously, especially my learning/teachingexperiences in the [west African] ESL context.

StoryAt this level,Roxannes story connectswithStoriesgoingonat a level outsideher immediate domain; that is, the context is such that her control of herpractice within it is not as intimate and secure as at the level of story (witha small s). The following extract illustrates this contextual level:

School inspectors (experienced teachers) from the Department ofEducation also come regularly to inspect the teaching/learning activitiesgoing on in the schools. All of these are done to ensure that the requiredstandard ismaintained. I learnt a lot from all these experienced teachers.

Here, Roxanne reports on an external monitoring process, and hercomment suggesting that she learnt much from such surveillance isevidence of the storyStory connection. The next extract is part of a longerstory which relates her experiences of teaching a literature-based Englishcourse for the first time, in an unfamiliar cultural context. In the final

236 Gary Barkhuizen

sentence she once again connects this wider context to her own personalpractice.

I had a more mature group of students from an entirely differentcultural background, more numerous in number than each of theclasses I had taught previously and a new course, Literature and Society,which I had to relate to their society and culture. It was quite challengingat first.

STORY

Throughout Roxannes narrative she makes connections to STORIESwhich relate closely to her own. For example, the bad economic situation inher country meant that she had to put off her teacher education for a fewyears.

I had to work after high school in order to save some money for myuniversity education because of the economic situation ofmy family andmost families in [the country] under military dictatorship. During thisperiod, the economy of [the country] was in a very bad shape and manyworkers were retrenched from work without any benefits.

Once she qualified as an English teacher the government EducationDepartment deployed her (as it did all graduates) to teach in a locationdifferent from where she lived:

Aprogramwas designed topromoteunity to someextent.Graduateswhoqualify . . . are sent to states different from their states of origin in orderfor them to be introduced to different cultures and languages in the otherpart of the country. Since I hail from [name of] state and speak [name of]language, I was posted to [name of] state with a language and culturedifferent from mine.

In order to qualify and work as a teacher in the context of this STORY,Roxanne had to go along with these conditions. She had no power to resistthem.

Conclusion Roxanne ends the analysis of her three personal stories by commenting onher experience of writing them during the course.

I have come to learn how to continuously identify problems in myteachingbeliefs andpractice and . . . to reflect alwaysonmypast learning/teaching experiences and think of how I canmake the needed changes inorder to become a better language teacher in the future.

Our collaborative narrative inquiry, therefore, was productive for her. Shebecame aware of the importance of critical reflection andmeaning makingwhen writing her story; reflection which brought together the threecontextual dimensions of place (her west African country of origin, SouthAfrica, different schools and classrooms), time (past, present, and future)and the many social interactions in which she engaged (with inspectors,colleagues, students), as well as reflection which spanned the three levels ofstory, Story, and STORY.


Although I have presented only Roxannes experience of our narrativeinquiry in this article, Betty too found the experience useful. In her analysisof her narrative writing she remarks:

From doing this narrative exercise I have learnt a lot about what it is thatmotivates my interest in language teaching. My past plays a huge role inthe decisions that I havemade and it is amazing to see how teachers frommy high school years have had such an influence on my growth andinterest in language education. . . . Another reality thanks to this exerciseis that my personal values have surfaced. It is evident that I am in a placeof transition in my life where all the puzzle pieces have not been puttogether. I am in the process of doing that though.

Betty was a pre-service teacher with no English teaching experience.However, this extract clearly shows that through her narrative reflectionsshe has begun to interpret and understand her current development asa language teacher. She does this particularly bymaking connections to herpast experiences as a language learner in high school.

I suggest that contextual explorations through narrative similar to those ofRoxanne and Betty would be equally productive for other English teachersworking in different contexts. Roxanne and Betty constructed, shared, andanalysed their stories as part of a course assignment requirement, but theycould just as easily have done so as practising teachers in their own schoolsaway from the constraints of any assessment.

The same applies to other English teachers. There are many ways that theycould do this: they couldwrite their teaching life histories; they could recordin story form significant or problematic teaching and learning events intheir classrooms; they could relate to each other in scheduled conversationsthe desires, fears, expectations and personal meanings they experience intheirdaily teaching lives.Bydoing so theywouldnecessarily engagewith thecontext of their teaching, and through the telling, re-telling, andinterpretation of their stories they might begin to impose order andcoherence on the stream of experience and work out the meaning ofincidents and events in the real world (Carter 1993: 7). This real world isthe context that somany in thefield of language teaching are urgingus all toexplore.

Final revised version received December 2006

ReferencesBax, S. 2003. The end of CLT: a context approach tolanguage teaching. ELT Journal 57/3: 27887.Bell, J. 2002. Narrative inquiry: more than justtelling stories. TESOL Quarterly 36: 20713.Carter, K. 1993. The place of story in the study ofteaching and teacher education. EducationalResearcher 22/1: 51218.Clandinin, D. J. and F. M. Connelly. 2000. NarrativeInquiry: Experience and Story in Qualitative Research.San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Ellis, R. and G. Barkhuizen. 2005. Analysing LearnerLanguage. Oxford: Oxford University Press.S. Gudmundsdottir (ed.). 1997. Teaching and TeacherEducation 13/1: 1136.Johnson, K. E. and P. R. Golombek. (eds.). 2002.Teachers Narrative Inquiry as ProfessionalDevelopment. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.Kumaravadivelu, B. 2006. TESOL methods:Changing tracks, challenging trends. TESOLQuarterly 40/1: 5981.

238 Gary Barkhuizen

Lyons, N. and V. K. LaBoskey. 2002. Why narrativeinquiry or exemplars for a scholarship of teaching?in N. Lyons and V. K. LaBoskey (eds.). NarrativeInquiry in Practice: Advancing the Knowledge ofTeaching. New York: Teachers College Press.Phillion, J. and F. M. Connelly. 2004. Narrative,diversity, and teacher education. Teaching andTeacher Education 20: 45771.Polkinghorne, D. E. 1995. Narrative configuration inqualitative analysis.Qualitative Studies in Education,5238/1.

The authorGaryBarkhuizenworks in theDepartmentofAppliedLanguage Studies and Linguistics at the Universityof Auckland in New Zealand. His teaching andresearch interests are in the areas of languageteacher education, learner language,sociolinguistics, and all things narrative.Email: [email protected]


Reading reaction journals inEAP courses

Simon Evans

This paper looks at two specific problems faced by second-language universitystudents attending courses in English for Academic Purposes: expository texts andreading-to-write tasks. A reading reaction journal (RRJ) can provide a forum forstudents as they activate a variety of reading strategies when reading expositorytext and in addition, can provide a focal point for students as they critically respondto text(s) before engaging in formal reading-to-write assignments based on thetext(s). Responses from one group of students who used RRJs appear to confirmthat the journals can indeed fulfil such a purpose.

Introduction Students in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) programmes are oftenrequired to read and write about expository texts. Such texts presenta number of specific difficulties to the first language (L1) reader (Merkleyand Jefferies 2001). For the second language reader (L2) we may assumethat these difficulties are similar (if not magnified), and thus the process ofreading, noting, and writing up the notes is a fairly well-established EAPactivity. A reading reaction journal (RRJ) is a notebook in which studentssummarize and react to texts they read. In essence, the RRJ plays a bridgingrole in the reading-to-write process. Thus, the RRJ provides a focus for EAPstudents as they activate metacognitive reading strategies, note the contentof a text, while at the same time, providing a focus for students to recordtheir ongoing critical reactions to the ideas presented in a text beforeaddressing formal writing tasks.

Reading reactionjournals andexpository textsProblems posed byexpository texts

Expository texts present a number of difficulties for L1 readers, and itmay besafe to assume that L2 readers face similar problems. At the micro-level,thereare issues ofmarked language structures, uninterestingwriting styles,and specialized vocabulary. At the macro-level, there is a need to activateprior knowledge, and the fact that the concepts in the textmay be completelynew to students. Two further macro-level issues are particularly relevanthere. First, the rhetorical structure of a text may be unfamiliar forinexperienced readers, with ideas and concepts presented in a specialway toshow relationships, such as comparison and contrast (Merkley and Jefferiesop. cit.). The reader also needs to be familiar with the organization ofexpository text, such as the key role of the abstract and/or introduction inindicating the purpose of a text at an early stage. Secondly, surveys oftextbooks reveal that ideas are often poorly explained, with connections

240 ELT Journal Volume 62/3 July 2008; doi:10.1093/elt/ccm018 The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.Advance Access publication April 17, 2007

between ideas seldom made explicit (Hyona, Lorch, and Kaakinen 2002).It is these two issues which can be specifically addressed by RRJs.

Metacognitivereading strategies inreading reactionjournals

L1 studies indicate that the depth of cognitive processing by the reader is ofkey importance in the process of comprehension (Oded andWalters 2001).Furthermore, the deeper the cognitive processing, themore likely that ideaswill be retained in memory (Friend 2001). Thus, there is growingrecognition that the process of successful reading is dependent upon theactivation of metacognitive reading strategies, as outlined by Allen (2003):

1 Deciding important points.2 Relating ideas to readers lives.3 Summarizing.4 Filling in points not explicitly made.5 Making inferences.6 Asking questions.

Outlines (often referred to as diagrams, concept maps, frames, knowledgemaps, vee diagrams, and graphic organizers) are visual representations ofthe overall rhetorical structure of a text. Detailed outlines note the ideascontained within a text, and how these ideas relate to each other. Outliningin the RRJ can incorporate the metacognitive strategies of deciding themost important points (strategy 1), filling in points not explicitly made(strategy 4), and making inferences (strategy 5). Outlines can also begin toaccommodate a greater range of cognitive learning styles, particularlywith regard to students preferences for visual, as opposed to written,representations of ideas. In addition, a written summary (paraphrase) toaccompany an outline should activate strategies 1, 3, 4, and 5, and can helpconfirm the source texts main ideas, andmay involve further selection anddiscrimination of relevant information.

To assist deeper cognitive processing of the ideas presented in a text,students need to go beyond outlines and summaries. Slotte and Lonka(1998) distinguish between knowledge telling, where ideas are repeated,andknowledge transforming,where ideas are applied to realworld contexts.Thus, students need to note their reactions, and relate ideas to their ownexperiences, consistent with metacognitive strategy 2.

Allen (op. cit.) notes that student questioning of a text is important(strategy 6). However, she does not discuss the nature of the questions, andthe distinction between display and referential questions is important.With display questions, questioner and respondent probably know theanswer. Such questions dealwith surface issues, requiring only that readersrefer back to the text, seldom demanding deeper cognitive processing.Referential questions involve a genuine request where the questioner maynot know, or is unsure of, the answer. Theremay not be an answer as suchquestions are likely to seek justification and opinion. Referential questionsdemand greater cognitive involvement with the text and are normallydependent upon the reader finding gaps in the writers ideas, and/or thereaders understanding of them.Suchquestions can serve to activate severalmetacognitive reading strategies and, written in the journal as the text isread, play an important part of in-class peer discussion, and can stimulateideas when writing about the text. Thus, RRJs allow for the simultaneous

Reading reaction journals in EAP courses 241

activation of metacognitive reading strategies to assist the L2 reader withunfamiliar rhetorical structure, and poorly explained relationships. (SeeTable 1.)

Reading strategy Activity in the RRJ

1 Deciding important points Outlining/paraphrasing/referentialquestioning

2 Relating ideas to readers lives Applying ideas to real world contexts/referential questioning

3 Summarizing Paraphrasing

4 Filling in points not explicitly made Outlining/paraphrasing/referentialquestioning

5 Making inferences Outlining/paraphrasing/referentialquestioning

6 Asking questions Referential questioning

table 1Summary ofmetacognitive readingstrategies (Allen 2003),and ways to activatethem in the RRJ

Reading reactionjournals and readingto writeProblems posed byreading-to-write

The difficulties posed by expository texts are especially significant forstudents required to write papers based on assigned texts; if the set text hasnot been properly understood, follow-up writing tasks become that muchmore difficult. Such reading-to-write tasks are particularly demanding asstudents are required to summarize, analyse, synthesize, and presentopinions on ideas contained in the set text(s) in an academic genre. In otherwords, students need to critically engage with the set text(s) before formalwriting assignments are addressed. Thewriting process in general has beenmuch discussed and researched, while the reading-to-write process hasreceived little attention (Ruiz-Fines 1999).

The reading-to-writeprocess and readingreaction journals

RRJs can help students as they engage in the reading-to-write process. Asone writer has observed, good writers are reader-centred, revise what theywrite and focus on meaning and on communicating their message to theintended audience (Ruiz-Fines op. cit.: 47). This interpretation considersreading-to-write as one of drafting and rewriting as part of a process toa final product. However, reading-to-write also requires students to thinkcritically about the ideas in a text. Students not used to such criticalengagement can find this especially challenging. Furthermore, thinkingcritically should not be seen by students as a one-off activity for a writingtask, and should be viewed as an ongoing approach in academic discourse.Thus, RRJs can fulfil an important bridging function as students developa critical response to a text before addressing formalwritten tasks (suchas anessay), and can also help train students to develop a critical thinking habit.

Reading reactionjournals in oneEAP classProgramme of studyat InternationalChristian University(ICU), Tokyo

First-year students at ICU are required to enrol in the English LanguageProgramme (ELP), which trains students in critical thinking, readingexpository texts, and argumentative writing. Students read set texts whichform the basis of their Academic Reaction Papers (ARP), where theysummarize a writers arguments and ideas, before presenting a criticalresponse. (See Fearn and Bayne 2003.) Students later write argumentativeessays based on the set texts. Thus, set texts and formal written responsesare core aspects of the programme.

242 Simon Evans

Student engagement in the reading-to-write process in my classes isillustrated in Figure 1. With set texts as a base, students in the Spring termwrite three ARPs, leading to the argumentative essay. The set text is thefocus for the RRJ entries, hence the solid line connecting these nodes.In writing ARPs, students are encouraged to draw upon the notes andcomments already made in their RRJs. When writing essays, students areencouraged to draw upon previous work in the ARPs and RRJs; referenceto the set text remains an option at all times. Students may decide not tofollow this advice, hence the broken lines connecting the set text andformal written assignments.

figure 1Helping L2students cross thereading-to-writeinterface at ICU

Implementingreading reactionjournals

Students needguidance inhow to keep theRRJ, especially at the beginning,and guidelines can help. (See Appendix.) Examples of previous studentsjournal work provide a valuable opportunity to observe the range ofstrategies that can be employed. Without such exposure, students are lesslikely to explore other learner styles, tending to produce paragraph-levelnotes as opposed to outlines, colour coding, abbreviations, and so on.Students are encouraged to experiment until they find a style that theyfeel comfortable with, and they may also require guidance in makingoutlines of a text. Exposure to example RRJs quickly enables students toidentify some of the basic functions of the journals. Students areinformed that each time a reading is set, they are to use their RRJs, and thatthey need to bring the journals to each class as a basis for peer groupdiscussion. How well students are noting the ideas in a text can bedetermined in-class by content questions where students are only allowedaccess to their RRJ.

Student reactions to the ideas and arguments presented in a text areextremely important. Students need to give reasons and examples tosupport their reactions, and oneway to encourage this is to have at least one


session a week where students exchange journals so that they read, react,and respond to each other in writing (this can be done in class or as atake-home exercise). Peer review is not only motivating for most students,but also less threatening than if the teacher reads and reacts. Changingpartners regularly exposes students to a variety of views through the term,and students can simultaneously witness other ways peers are keepingthe RRJ.

As discussed earlier, the dichotomy between referential and displayquestions is important, and students are encouraged from the start to recordreferential questions in the RRJ. To help distinguish between the two,I present a number of referential and display questions and ask the studentsto decide which they findmore interesting. Students invariably choose thereferential questions and I tell them that it is these types of questions thatI would like to see in their journals, and which they should be asking eachother during their in-class discussions.

Student perceptionsof reading reactionjournals

To investigate the effectiveness of RRJs, I surveyed students who usedthem during a course of study. The 24 students in this survey (16 female,8male)were streamedby theELP into ahigh intermediate/advancedgroup,with five classes per week in a ten-week term. Students were informed thattheir responses might be used as part of my ongoing research, and wereasked to signa consent form. In total, 22students participatedanonymously(names and identification numbers were not on the questionnaire).Students were asked two open-ended questions regarding their use andperception of the RRJs. (See Tables 2 and 3.)

Function Number Example comments

n An aid to comprehensionsimple comprehension

6 It helps us to understand thearticleshelps us think logically.

organization/structurewriting as comprehension.

5 To make clear the organizationof the writing.

3 You cannot write if you dontunderstand.

n A review tool. 8 You could reread your way ofreactions toward the issue.

n A prompt for in-classpeer group discussion.

5 Im not used to discussion inEnglish, so this kind ofpreparation is very helpful.

n An aid for academic writing(ARP and essay).

4 A rough ARP.

n Accommodating differentlearner styles.

3 Can visually see the main points.

n Writing skill practice. 2 Improving summarizing skills.

n An aid to memory. 1 Also, you remember morethan mere reading.

table 2Student responses to:In what way(s) do youthink that the RRJ isuseful? (n 22)

244 Simon Evans

Answer Number

Yes 15Not sure 5No 2

table 3Student responses tothe question: Do youuse your journal whenwriting your ARP? Why?(n 22)

With questionnaires, students may report what they believe the instructorwants to hear. In addition, responses may have been primed by therationale provided in the RRJ guidelines given at the start of term. (SeeAppendix.) However, before answering the questions, it was stressed thatgenuine responses were sought and that these might well influence futureclasses. For example, if the responses were overwhelmingly negativetowards RRJs, then I would reconsider using them in future. The range ofthe responses goeswell beyond the rationale provided in theRRJ guidelines,suggesting that the guidelines had a limited influence.

Several of the metacognitive strategies assisting comprehension asidentified byAllen (op. cit.) are implicit in the students responses; decidingimportant points, summarizing, filling in points not explicitly made, andmaking inferences. Students identified a range of functions associatedwiththeir work in their RRJs, andmost were able to identify at least two ways inwhich the journals were of use, suggesting that these functions were seenas connected, rather than discrete. That two-thirds of students identifiedcomprehension as a function of the RRJ may be significant as it appearsto support the notion that deeper cognitive processing of text is importantfor comprehension. It is also interesting to note that four students reportedthat the RRJ helped them with reading-to-write tasks, with commentssuch as, A rough ARP.

Oneofmy initial beliefs about the functionsof theRRJ is that theywouldnotonly assist comprehension of the set expository texts, but in addition, wouldalso help students deal with reading-to-write tasks. Thus, question twoaimed to see if students were using the RRJs for such a purpose. (When thequestionnaire was given, students in the study had not started their essays,and responses refer only to the use of RRJs when writing the ARPs.)

Itmay be significant that fifteen students reported that theRRJ helped themwith reading-to-write tasks. Typical examples include:

Because in my journal there are many criticisms that can be used towrite discussion part. (of the ARP)

Journal has my comments and main points. So, when I write ARP,I can develop some of my comments from journal.

Yes, because I write comments in the journal and when I write the ARP,it reminds me of what I was thinking when I read the section.

Students who responded not sure provided some interesting comments.One reported that theRRJ didnot help develop ideas and therefore, theyhadto reread the source text. This suggests that perhaps this student was notmaking adequate summary notes in the RRJ. Similarly, another reportedthat s/he seldom used the journal as it was not useful yet. Two studentsnoted mixed feelings to the RRJ because their opinions changed:


Yes, but not too much. Because when writing an ARP, I expand mynotes over again so I dont really go back to my journal cos journals arethoughts at that time, not now.

Partly. Sometimes I come up with a reaction that I didnt write in thejournal while writing ARP.

These responses are particularly revealing as the students are reflectingupon their initial reactions. Presumably, they are comparing their originalthoughts as recorded in the RRJ with those held at the time of writing theARPs, and finding their reactions have changed. Such appraisal of beliefsand reactions is crucial to critical inquiry and is to be encouraged andapplauded. Thus, reactions noted in the RRJs should not be viewed bystudents as final and should be open to reassessment, a point that needsto be made clearly in future classes.

Conclusion EAP students face considerable challenges in reading, and reading-to-write.RRJs go beyond the conventional read, note, write up the notes, requiringthat students engagewith texts at deep cognitive levels, helping them todealwith some of the problems posed by expository texts. The perceptionspresented here of one group of L2 university students in a content-basedcourse indicate that RRJs can be used as students activate metacognitivereading strategies necessary to begin successful reading comprehension,with particular reference to the structure of a text, and the relationshipbetween the ideas presented in it. Responses also indicate that the RRJ canhelp students to cross the reading-to-write interfacewhen assigned texts areto be used in writing assignments. An important part of this process is theability to think critically about the ideas presented (including reactionsand questioning), a skill requiring nurture and practice. The RRJ can helpstudents to develop this skill in a less structured format than an ARP oressay, and at the same time, allows them to explore and use other learningstyles, and provides an important basis of peer discussions. The insightsprovided by this group of students regarding their perceptions of theusefulness of RRJs suggests that the RRJ can be a valid and useful tool inEAP programmes.

Final revised version received October 2006

ReferencesAllen, S. 2003. An analytic comparison of threemodels of reading strategy instruction. InternationalReview of Applied Linguistics 41: 31938.Fearn, F. and K. Bayne. 2003. An introduction toAcademic Reaction Papers. ICU Language ResearchBulletin 18: 1945.Friend, R. 2001. Teaching summarization asa content area reading strategy. Journal of Adolescentand Adult Literacy 44/4: 3209.Hyona, J., R. F. Lorch, Jr., and J. K. Kaakinen. 2002.Individual differences in reading to summarizeexpository text: evidence from eye fixation patterns.Journal of Educational Psychology 94/1: 4455.

Merkley, D.M. andD. Jefferies. 2001. Guidelines forimplementing a graphic organiser. The ReadingTeacher 54: 3507.Oded, B. and J. Walters. 2001. Deeper processingfor better EFL reading comprehension.System29/3:35770.Ruiz-Funes,M. 1999. Theprocessof reading towriteused by a skilled Spanish-as-a-foreign-languagestudent: a case study. Foreign Language Annals 32/1:4562.Slotte, V. and K. Lonka. 1998. Using notesduring essay-writing: is it alwayshelpful? Educational Psychology 18/4:44559.

246 Simon Evans

The authorSimon Evans is an instructor at the InternationalChristian University, Tokyo, teaching academicreading and writing to first- and second-yearstudents.His current interests relate to fostering andframing critical thinking skills in EAP programmes.

He has also run workshops for MATESOLcandidates at ColumbiaUniversity, Teachers College(Tokyo) on developing critical reading and writingskills through reaction papers.Email: [email protected]

Appendix

Reading reactionjournal guidelines

Rationale

n Taking notes is an important skill you will need all through youruniversity life.

n Notes show that you are talking to the text. Such conversationsshould be more meaningful to you, and improve your understandingof the text.

n Your journal should be a great help and should save you a lot of timewhenyou write your reaction papers and the essay.

n Your reactions, questions, and notes will form the basis of discussions inclass.

What you should do

n Note the writer, year of publication, and where the text came from(i.e. bibliographic details).

n Note the structure and basic content of the text. Try using visuals to dothis.

n Each time you read part of a text, or all of a text, write a one sentencesummary.

n Concisely summarize the text.

n Use page numbers.

n Quote important points.

n You dont need to use sentences. Notes and abbreviations are fine.

n Try to make connections between different writers.

n Very important: React towhat you read. Do you have any experiences thatrelate to the writers idea(s)? Do you agree with the writers ideas orarguments? Remember to give reasons.

n Raise questions about what you read.


Implementing extensive readingin an EAP programme

John Macalister

Formore than twenty years the benefits of extensive readinghave beenproclaimedto the ELTcommunity, but the inclusion of extensive reading in ELTprogrammes isfar from universal. Extensive reading appears to be particularly absent in highereducational and English for Academic Purposes settings. This paper reports on theimplementation of an extensive reading component in a pre-university study EAPprogramme. Learners responded positively to the loss of teacher-centred class timeand a non-EAP focus for part of each lesson. While the implementation ofextensive reading will vary from setting to setting, this action research projectshows that extensive reading can have a place in an EAP programme.

Introduction Ever since the report of the results of the book flood experiment in Fiji(Elley and Mangubhai 1983), many EFL and ESL teachers have promotedextensive reading to their students. As Hafiz and Tudor noted (1989: 5)teachers find it intuitively plausible that extensive reading will havea beneficial effect on language proficiency. Intuition has, however, beenbacked up by research. Various studies have identified the impact ofextensive reading on different skill areas including listening, readingcomprehension and speed, writing, vocabulary, examination performance,and attitudes to reading in the target language. (For a summary of twelvestudies, see Day and Bamford 1998.)

Research into vocabulary acquisition (Nagy, Herman, and Anderson 1985)has also reinforced the belief that extensive reading will have a positiveimpact on the rate at which learners acquire the target language. As thereare so many thousands of words a learner needs to know, particularlyif the learner intends to pursue a course of academic study, it is clearlyimpossible for every word to be taught in the classroom. Thus, mostpractitioners expect that vocabulary will be acquired incidentally duringextensive reading. This is a view neatly captured in the reported commentsof a teacher who asked that her class be included in Mohd Asraf andAhmads Guided Extensive Reading programme (2003): At least, shesaid, the reading would help them improve their vocabulary, and perhaps,they may gain other benefits from the program as well.

Despite this background, however, extensive reading as a component of anEnglish language teaching programme remains the exception ratherthan the rule. It tends to be present as a recommended, extra-curricular

248 ELT Journal Volume 62/3 July 2008; doi:10.1093/elt/ccm021 The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.Advance Access publication April 13, 2007

activity. Yet advocates of extensive reading need to be aware of the fact, aswere Mohd Asraf and Ahmad (op. cit.), that without incorporatingextensive reading as part of a class program, the students might not readEnglish books on their own. Students are likely to use their free time foractivities other than reading. Even teachers recognizing this and wishing toincorporate extensive reading into the teaching programme may beconstrained by concerns that, for instance, silent reading is not perceivedas teaching or that reading can only have a limited role in an integratedfour-skills class.

The teacher, then, is faced with a dilemma. On the one hand, there is theresearch and the intuitive belief that extensive reading will have beneficialeffects on the learning of the language. On the other hand, however, thedemands of the syllabus, the constraints of time, competition from otheractivities, whether curricular or extra-curricular, and possible doubts aboutthe impact of extensive reading in a course of relatively short duration mayconvince the teacher that advocating extensive reading is the best that canbe done. There is also, perhaps, the unspoken belief that extensive readingis most appropriately integrated into the elementary or junior secondaryschool teaching programmes. It is certainly the case, as Hermann (2003)remarks, that [comprehensive reading] agendas seem to be rare in foreign-and second-language classrooms in higher education, presumably becausemany language teachers at this level feel apprehensive about incorporatingreading time into the course syllabus. The time commitment is alsorecognized as one of the limitations on the use of extensive reading inEAP contexts by Grabe, who suggests that the role of extensive readingneeds to be examined more closely for its potential contributions to studentsuccess in advanced EAP settings (2001: 26).

Introducingextensive readinginto an EAPprogramme

This paper presents a teacher-initiated action research project carried out ina university in New Zealand. Eighteen students (nine female and nine male)in a 12-week university preparation EAP class participated in this study. Allexcept one were in the 1924 year-old age band, and none was over thirty.Four of the learners came from South Korea, one from Indonesia, andthe remainder from Peoples Republic of China. The class was one of nine,and students placement in this class was determined by a combinationof vocabulary, dictation, and cloze scores from a university-developedplacement test. This class was ranked as the second-lowest proficiencyclass. To give a more internationally recognizable indication of the classslevel, the ten students who had also taken an IELTS examination hadachieved overall scores ranging from 4.5 to 5.5. Although the course wasdesigned to prepare students for university study, only twelve were planningto enter undergraduate or Foundation programmes in New Zealand. Ofthe remainder, five were intending to return to their home countries andone to study in Australia.

The teachingprogramme

This EAP programme was a theme-based course of up to 19 contact hoursper week.1 Fourteen of those hours were with the main class teacher, threewith a co-teacher, and two with an elective teacher. Every class sharedcommon features, including work on study themes, preparation for andreview of a weekly guest lecture, and the development of formal speaking

Implementing extensive reading in an EAP programme 249

skills through seminars. Time was also explicitly dedicated to each of thefour skills, and to vocabulary. Within this framework, the main teachers hadsome flexibility in determining the teaching programme for individualclasses, in particular the allocation of time to different areas of skilldevelopment. For this class a considerable emphasis was placed on reading,with speed, intensive and extensive reading all being scheduled in theweekly programme. Students read from a range of genres including themedia and theme-related readings. The most unusual aspect of the classprogramme was the inclusion of 20 minutes of sustained silent readingat the end of each morning, with the teacher modelling good readingbehaviour by reading silently during this time. The teacher was notengaging in other activities, such as marking, or moving around theroom, or in any way overtly monitoring the students.

At the start of the course the principles of and rationale for extensivereading were introduced, and fitted naturally into the first theme of thecourse (Introduction to Learning a Language). Learners were introducedto the resources of the Language Learning Centre, particularly its libraryof graded readers, which had been catalogued into bands of difficulty.Learners chose their readers from this library and read for pleasure only;there was no activity related to the reading included in the programme.Learners were regularly encouraged to read in their own time, and to readas much as possible but at least two graded readers a week, with remindersof opportunities to renew books. Most students had no trouble inremembering to bring their graded reader each day, nor to return andrenew their readers. A set of New Zealand School Journals was kept in theclassroom and a copy given to any student without a book to read, so no onewas ever without reading material.

In the implementation of the extensive reading component of this teachingprogramme, therefore, the key features of extensive reading as usefullyset out by Day and Bamford (2002), and listed below, were identifiable.

1 The reading material is easy.2 A variety of reading material on a wide range of topics must be

available.3 Learners choose what they want to read.4 Learners read as much as possible.5 The purpose of reading is usually related to pleasure, information,

and general understanding.6 Reading is its own reward.7 Reading speed is usually faster rather than slower.8 Reading is individual and silent.9 Teachers orient and guide their students.10 The teacher is a role model of a reader.

The reason why learners were encouraged to read graded readers was alsorelated to these principles, particularly the first. Results for this class fromthe Vocabulary Levels Test (Nation 1990), which was administered at thestart of the course, indicated that two-thirds of the class did not have masteryof the 2000-word level and therefore reading centred around academictexts would not have been successful in extensive reading terms. Learnerswould have been encountering too many unknown words in such texts,

250 John Macalister

and this in turn would potentially have interfered with the fourth, fifth,and seventh of Day and Bamfords principles. The use of graded readersdoes not, however, signal a focus on reading literature as both fiction andnon-fiction are represented in such schemes, and students were free tochoose their own reading material.2 Further, while students wereencouraged to read graded readers in class, no restrictions were placed onmaterials they read in their own time.

As a result of this commitment to extensive reading, the learners spentaround 100 minutes a week reading silently for pleasure in class whichequated to between 16 and 17 hours throughout the course, allowing forevaluation and assessment days at the beginning and end of the course.In other words, almost one week of teaching time was dedicated toextensive reading. Of key interest was whether the students would acceptthis dedication of class time to such a non-academic activity as readingfor pleasure.

Students responseto extensive readingin an EAP class

No overt attempt was made to gather qualitative data relating to studentsacceptance of the loss of teacher-centred class time and a non-EAP focusfor part of each lesson, primarily because the students were well aware thatthe class teacher was enthusiastic about the benefits of reading, and thuswere likely to answer direct questions with that in mind. However, datawas gathered from a variety of sources.

Pre-coursequestionnaire

Initial information about the students, their English language learningbackground, and their goals for the course was gathered by a seven-itemquestionnaire. One question asked students to indicate the importance oftwelve different course components using a six-point scale. Analysis of thevalid responses suggested that Writing practice was most important to thelargest number, followed by Learning new words. Reading practiceappeared to be the third most important to the largest number, followedby Listening practice and Speaking practice with identical results. Ifnothing else, this question showed that students could be expected toview reading activities positively.

Interviews During the course, every student had two one-to-one interviews with theclass teacher. The interviews covered students learning goals, theirprogress, and their strategies for independent study. Attention was paidto the extensive reading programme in these interviews, as a means ofmonitoring the reading suitability of readers chosen, and of encouragingfurther reading. No direct questions were asked about attitudes to reading,but sometimes comments were offered. In the initial interview, theseranged from the positive (I like reading, its my hobby) to theunenthusiastic (I dont like reading, it makes me sleepy).

The initial interview also produced a slightly different picture from thepre-course questionnaire of the importance learners attached to differentcourse components. In the interviews, of twenty-five skill area mentions,reading was mentioned only three times. Most mentioned were listening(9) and writing (7), with speaking having one more mention than reading.This suggested that the learners may not have been as open towards a strong

Implementing extensive reading in an EAP programme 251

emphasis on reading in the teaching programme as the pre-coursequestionnaire responses indicated.

Responses during the second interview suggested that learners had notshifted their perceptions of what was important to them greatly. The mainexception was one student (M2)3 who remarked that he no longer thoughtthat writing was the most important for him, but that all skill areas wereequally important. On the other hand, it may not have been the case thatwhat students said necessarily equated with what they did. For example,there was a clear dissonance between the stated important skill area ofanother student (M3) and his actions; while maintaining that listening wasthe most important skill for him to improve, he told the interviewer that hepractised writing in his independent study. Students who spoke aboutreading sometimes made interesting comments, suggesting a developingawareness of their individual learning processes. One (M4) said that he hadtaken to reading and then rereading his graded readers. Another (M6), whowas reading about one book a week, acknowledged that reading speed wasan issue for him.

Mid-coursequestionnaire

Standard practice in the course is the administration of questionnaires tostudents at the mid-point and the end. The mid-course questionnaire isparticularly important as it provides a snapshot of students opinions of thecourse to date, and allows changes to be made if necessary. One questionlisted twelve components of the course and asked students to rank themfor usefulness on a scale of 1 to 5. The daily extensive reading time wasincluded on this list and emerged with the vocabulary programme as thesecond most useful component, on 4.38 out of a possible 5. This suggestedthat students regarded the twenty minutes a day of sustained silentreading positively, and was taken as encouragement to continue with thepractice in the second half of the course. In addition, in another question,which asked about the skill area of greatest improvement, readingwas most often identified (6 mentions). Comments under this itemincluded:

Reading. Because we do lots of reading and twice a week speed reading.

Reading, because we read it everyday.

Daily reading and five minute seminars. Because it is very useful to me.

This questionnaire also gave students an opportunity to say what they wouldlike more, and less, of during the remainder of the course. Four studentssaid they would like to spend more time on reading, while two said theywould like to spend less. Such a response is, perhaps, not surprising. AsHitosugi and Day (2004) have observed of an extensive reading project inJapanese, the project appealed more to some than others.

Mid-courseletters

After the mid-course break, students were required to write a letter to themain teacher, talking about the independent study they had been doingin the first half of the course, and what they planned to do in the secondhalf. There was no directive to discuss reading habits, but the majority o

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