ACORD

Subsemnatul/a , profesor
la , specializarea
sunt de accord cu depunerea lucrării metodico-științifice
pentru obținerea gradului didactic I, elaborată de
, profesor/institutor/educator, cu titlul

Profesor coordonator,
Data,

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 CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………… .. 3
1. STYLE AND REGISTER IN ENGLISH
1.1 Language and society………………………………………………….5
1.2 Register use in English……………………………………………….. 9
1.3 Register classification…………………………………………………13
1.4 Style and style shifting……………………………………………… 15
2. FORMAL AND INFORMAL LANGUAGE MARKERS…
2.1 Discourse markers……………………………………………………..19
2.2 Lexical markers………………………………………………………..24
2.2.1 Lexical bundles in conversation………………………………...28
2.2.2 Lexical bundles in academic prose……………………………...29
2.3 Grammatical markers…..........................................................................32
3. TEACHING REGISTER-RELATED MARKERS COMMUNICATIVELY
3.1 The communicative approach………………………………………….41
3.2 Communicative activities………………………………………………47
3.3 Register and Communicative Language Teaching……………………..60
3.3.1 Classroom activities for formal and informal language…………64
4. TRAINING UPPER-INTERMEDIATE LEARNERS AWARENESS OF
REGISTER
4.1 Preliminary statements…………………………………………………69
4.2 Research template………………………………………………………70
4.2.1 Problem identification……………………………………………70
4.2.2 Preliminary investigation…………………………………………70
4.2.3 Hypothesis formation……………………………………………..74
4.2.4 Plan intervention………………………………………………….74
4.2.5 Initiate action and observe outcomes……………………………..74
4.2.6 Identification of follow-up problems……………………………...90
4.2.7 Second hypothesis………………………………………………...95
4.2.8 Second round action and observation……………………………..95
FINAL CONCLUSIONS………………………………………………………………...96
BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………......98

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INTRODUCTION

The aim of this paper is to present the various ways one can express formality in
English as well as suggest ways of helping students internalize the huge variety of register-
related markers.
Register offers an immense manoeuvre space to an array of language users: from
the very playful communicator to the sophisticated smooth talker, from the most exacting
form seeker to the poetic dreamer and all the way to the simpleton-type of common street-
vendor. What makes language register special is the horizons it broadens for such an
unbelievably wide range of Earth inhabitants knowing English for some reason, in the
sense that one can express oneself with maximum flexibility, reaching tinges and shades of
meaning otherwise simply inaccessible.
Thus, it becomes a much easier task for us to explain what has attracted our interest
and commitment in raising students’ awareness of register in the classroom with the
underlying intention to fill my students’ lungs with force of expression and their minds
with analytical power to decode situations they are in every day. Giving them the tools
with which to convert mental states, attitudes, beliefs, assumptions, suggestions and so on,
into words became an engaging and mind-awakening mission.
Every time we write or speak, we are faced with a myriad of choices: not only
choices in what we say but in how we say it. The vocabulary and grammar that we use to
communicate are influenced by a number of factors such as the reason for the
communication, the context, the people with whom we are communicating and whether we
are speaking or writing. Taken together, these choices give rise to systematic patterns of
use in English. Depending on who one speaks to and in what circumstances the message is
delivered, one will select one’s manner of verbalizing one’s ideas. For example, in his
attempt to call his deskmate’s attention to something, Mihaita might say: “Hey mate, can
you check this out?”, whereas if talking to the Ambassador of France at a cocktail party he
would very likely switch to: “I was wondering if you could direct your attention to this
here”. I have felt that not always do students, even those ranked as users of a more
polished English, realize the necessity of adaptation to the particular circumstances they
are in.

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 As it is well known, the “world” of register is not by far a “user-friendly one” and
one very often finds oneself in the embarrassing situation of actually saying one thing (e.g.
Don’t go!) when on one’s mind was a totally different thing (e.g. I would be pleased if you
didn’t go!). Persistent efforts, in-depth study and permanent language awareness are
necessary in the process of internalizing structures, meanings and contextual differences.
We often draw our students’ attention to the fact that language is not used just to
exchange information by making simple statements and asking questions. Sometimes we
want to make requests, offers or suggestions, or to express our wishes or intentions. We
may want to be polite or tactful, or to indicate our feelings about what we are saying. It is
for such communication necessities that we have the tool of formality/informality at hand.
Register-related markers are mainly used when we want to indicate our attitude
towards what we are saying, or when we are concerned about the effect of what we are
saying on the person we are speaking or writing to. This materialises in the attitude we
have to information, intentions or people. For instance, when we are giving information to
a friend, we sometimes use colloquial language, but when it comes to talk to a stranger, the
language changes and we almost unconsciously start using ‘shaped’ words.
We have found it equally important to stress to students that when one uses
language, one is responding to and affecting a particular person or audience. Register-
related markers are often used to produce a particular effect, and the word/expressions
chosen depend on several factors, such as the relationship one has with one’s listener, the
formality or informality of the situation, and the importance of what one is saying. For
example, it would normally be rude to say to a stranger “Open the door!”, although one
might say it in an emergency, or one might say it to a close friend or a child. Normally, one
would say to a stranger “Will/Would/Could you open the door? depending on how polite
one wants to be.
It is an undeniable fact that register-related markers represent a wealth of means of
expression, as it is undeniable that learners of English, of all categories, from the more
hesitant to the more daring, are constantly troubled by a certain degree of lack of
perception they manifest when having to manipulate utterances based on aspects of
formality. With gradual, persistent assistance and by constantly raising awareness of the
problem, a good command of this sociolinguistic area can be attained by all willing
students.

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 CHAPTER ONE
STYLE AND REGISTER IN ENGLISH

1.1 Language and society

Since the Tower of Babel, when all the languages were mixed up, language has
evolved at the same time with the society and the words have been used as means of
communication. It does not really matter if you are rich or poor, male or female, adult or
child, you simply express your feelings or thoughts using words, so the language we use is
the best tool we have to communicate and it helps us make sense of the world.
We are all aware of the fact that one cannot learn a foreign language without taking
into consideration its social and cultural background because there is a very strong
relationship between them. Social factors as well as cultural ones are of great importance
in language teaching and language learning, as they are closely linked.

For over a century language teachers have repeatedly been drawn to teach
language as a purely formal system and then had to remind themselves that their students
need contact with native speakers, and that the language class should provide an
introduction to a country and its people. (Stern, 1983: page 19)

There are several possible relationships between language and society. One is that
social structure may either influence or determine linguistic structure and/or behavior. . . .
A second possible relationship is directly opposed to the first: linguistic structure and/or
behavior may either influence or determine social structure. . . . A third possible
relationship is that the influence is bi-directional: language and society may influence
each other. (Wardaugh, 2005: page 67)

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 The science that studies those properties of language and languages which require
reference to social factors for their explanation is called sociolinguistics. One such
property is variation, meaning any particular way of speaking. We can identify different
ways of speaking the same language, such as speakers with different dialects or accents.
Some linguists make the following distinction between dialect and accent: an
accent consists of a way of pronouncing a variety, but a dialect varies from other dialects
of the same language simultaneously on at least three levels of organization: pronunciation,
grammar and vocabulary (notably, Romaine, 2000).
G.B. Shaw characterized England and America as two nations divided by a
common language. We argue that educated speakers of American and British English share
the same grammar, but differ in terms of vocabulary and pronunciation, such as:

Level of analysis American British

Pronunciation: ate /eit/(rhymes with ‘mate’ /ᵋt/ (rhymes with ‘Met’)

Grammar Jane had gotten used to it Jane had got used to it (past
participle of ‘get’)

Vocabulary Sam got the elevator Sam took the lift rather than
rather than the stairs... the stairs.

In a fairly stereotyped way, British people are more communicative than the
American ones, they regard silence as being awkward, but this is not true in all English
communities. For instance, in Belfast, a neighbor may visit another and be silent for more
than an hour. That would be weird for a British, who would feel he has to say something,
just to keep the conversation going and the safest subject for this is the weather, which is
quite an impersonal topic that can be discussed between two strangers who don’t want to
be too friendly.
Enlarging upon the topic, you can get someone’s attention in many ways in
English, but only one of them may satisfy societal expectations. If you say ‘Hey!’ to your
mother or father, you only express a bad attitude, lack of respect, and saying 'Sir!' to a 12-
year-old probably expresses inappropriate deference (Grover, 2000).
Let us take three more examples:

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 George stole the computer.
George may have stolen the computer and
George is alleged to have stolen the computer.

The first sentence indicates that whoever says it, he or she is more than sure of the
fact. He or she may have seen George stealing the computer. The second statement creates
some degree of uncertainty about the situation because of the word ‘may’, used here. In the
third sentence, the word ‘alleged’ indicates that we can’t say who stole the computer.
By examining the three statements above, one can understand what is meant by
language style.
Furthermore, language style can also be applied to accommodate individual knowledge
of language. For example, if you are an English speaker, but you are speaking to a person
who does not speak English very well, one tends to change the style of language one
normally uses, simply to suit the person one speaks to.
For example, if you are to show a direction of a local internet café to the tourists
who have less proficiency in the official language you may say

Here, go straight; one fifty meters turn left; big yellow building turn right – there
the internet café.

In this case, one can find that we need to use a certain style of language, similar to
that used with children when we speak to people who are not fluent in the language.
Style is language variation which reflects changes in situational factors, such as:
setting, task, addressee, emotional involvement. People tend to talk differently to the very
young, for example, baby talk, and to the very old, and they also adapt a different style
when talking to the upper class and to the lower class.
On the other hand, another important element in communication is register. By
definition, register is a variety of a language used for a particular purpose or in a particular
social setting. For example, it would certainly be inappropriate to use language and
vocabulary reserved for a boyfriend or girlfriend when speaking in the classroom. Thus,
the appropriate language register depends upon the audience (WHO), the topic (WHAT),
purpose (Why), location (Where) and time (WHEN).

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 It is common knowledge that in English, not only do we have to learn the grammar,
vocabulary, pronunciation, etc.  We also need to make sure we use it appropriately and in
the right context. Consider the following sentences:

Would you like a cup of tea?

Jessica – coffee? and
Can I get you a coffee?

It is not difficult to imagine the people to whom each of these question phrases are being
addressed to. For the formality involved in the first question, one can say it is addressed to
their boss. While the second question is informal, it could be addressed to someone you are
very close to especially a friend. But the last question could be the type of language we use
for someone we do not know very well. That is how formal, informal and neutral play a
major role in our everyday language use.
In what follows, we have another scenario: Your close friend has just bought a
brand new sport bicycle and you would like to borrow it. Which one of the following
would you use?

Lend me your bicycle, will you?

I was wondering if I might use your bicycle.
Could I borrow your bicycle?

The first (informal) will probably get the answer ‘No’ (or worse) - remember the bicycle is
new and special. The last (neutral) request might be more appropriate in this situation. If
your friend is unlikely to want to lend it then you may need to try the second, which is the
most formal. The three things to consider here are: the relationship, the nature of the
request, how difficult it would be for the person to agree, offer, perform etc.
In the examples above, the relationship is very close but the nature of the request is
difficult and the person may be reluctant – the bicycle is both new and fancy, as it is
described as a sport bicycle therefore this would make the other person reluctant to offer it
to lend.

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 In conclusion, in order to communicate well in English, it is important to master the
basics of correct register use, to be able to distinguish the context.

I.2 . Register use in English

While a dialect is mainly based on a geographical area, a register is based on a job
or an activity. The concept of register has been around a long time, as it was introduced in
the 1950’s. Joos outlined it clearly in his 1961’s book “The Five Clocks’ and it has been
quoted and referred to by many others: Cheryl Carter, Suzanne Romaine, and also Ruby
Payne in her book: A Framework for Understanding Poverty.
We mark and judge people immediately upon speaking to them. We sometimes make
judgments about:
 Their education
 Their income
 Their background
 Their intelligence.
We adjust ourselves in our relationship to them, according to each piece of linguistic
information we receive. We expect people in authority to speak a certain way, using the
formal register.
 Businessmen
 Politicians
 Supervisors, administrators
 Professors, teachers
 Professionals (doctors, lawyers)
 TV Newscasters.
We would be disappointed and disconcerted and distrustful if they did not. A group of
people have a common interest or employment and use specialist language to describe their
activity. Common choices of vocabulary and common expressions consolidate common
understanding and reinforce the group membership. They also tend to keep out those for
whom the register is unfamiliar, which again reinforces the solidarity of the group.
The unwritten rules used when speaking English, can be named register use, as they
help you communicate effectively, especially with strangers or with your superiors.
The components of the situation are the key elements when it comes to define register:

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 social setting (who I am addressing to?)
 situation
 addressor
 addressee
 topic.
If you do not come to use register properly, you can send a wrong message to your
addressee, or people can ignore you. It is not an easy task for many learners of English to
use register correctly, that is why we have to focus on different contexts when register has
to be used properly.
Some examples of correct register use include:

Mother to child:
Hi sweety, how was your school day?
Great, I’ve got an A at Maths.
Well done!
Pass me the salt, please.
Here you go

Friend to friend:
Hi Carol, can you help me?
Sure Mary. What’s up?
I can’t finish this paper.
Oh, let me see!

Subordinate to superior:
Excuse me John, we seem to be having a problem with the Jones account. We’d better
solve the problem as soon as possible.
That’s a good idea Miss Amons, would 4 o’clock suit you?

Man speaking to stranger:

Pardon me. Do you think you could give me the time?
Certainly, it’s ten thirty.

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Thank you.
Not at all.

As you can notice in the examples above, the language used becomes more formal as the
relationship becomes less personal.
Some examples of *incorrect register use:

Mother to child:
Hello. How was your school day?
Fine, thank you .I was rewarded with an A at Maths.
Congratulations.
Would you mind passing me the salt?
Here you are.
Thank you so much.

Friend to friend:
Hello Mrs. Jones. Could you, please, help me?
Certainly. How may I help you?
Could you please help me with this paper?
I’ll be happy to help you.

Subordinate to superior:
Good morning, Frank. I need a raise.
Really? Well, I don’t really care about it.

Man speaking to stranger:

Hey, you! Tell me where cinema is!
There!

As you can observe, the formal language used by the mother or by the friends is much too
exaggerated for day to day speech. The language used in the last examples shows that

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direct language is impolite when used with strangers or with your superiors, that’s why it is
so important to master the basics of correct register use.
We use different language register for different types of writing, just as we speak
differently to different people. We would not speak to the President of the United States
(“Good morning, Mr. President. We appreciate your visit.”) the same way we would talk to
a friend (“What’s up? It’s awesome that you came to visit!”).
In the following examples, the same message is expressed in five different styles,
from an extremely formal written style, to the very informal spoken style. Note in
particular how the colour coded word groups evolve. (The information expressed in the
following examples is necessarily quite technical, as formal jargon levels of expression are
totally inappropriate for non technical communication).
a) Jargon, very formal. This is the style of language used in official reports,
technical studies, etc. It is exclusively a style of written English, full of verbal nouns,
technical words and passives.
Consequent to the appreciation in the exchange value of Sterling against other
currencies, necessary fiscal measures were introduced by the government in order to
reduce the likelihood of an import-led consumer spending surge.
b) Written, formal, clear.
This is clear, written English, as found in the press or in documents aimed at ordinary
educated readers.
After the international value of Sterling rose, the government was obliged to take
fiscal measures to reduce the likelihood of a surge in consumer spending led by cheaper
imports.
c) Written style for the general public, discourse, scripted radio or TV news
style.
As the value of Sterling increased compared to other currencies, the government was
forced to take tax measures to head off a rapid increase in consumer spending spurred on
by cheaper imports.
d) Formal spoken style - radio, seminar, talk.
As Sterling's international value went up, the government had to take tax measures to
head off a consumer spending boom spurred on by cheaper imports.
e) Relaxed, informal spoken style: discussion.

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 There is plenty of use of prepositional verbs. All actions are now expressed through
verbs, not verbal nouns
As Sterling went up in value, the government had to put up taxes to stop consumers
splashing out on too many cheap imports.
f) relaxed, simplified, chat, very informal spoken style;
Note the addition of repetition and fillers.
And you see, Sterling went up and up in value, so as a result, the government had to
go round putting up taxes, you see, to stop everyone going out and splashing out, spending
all their cash on cheap imports.(please visit: http://linguapress.com/grammar/styles-of-
english.htm)

I.3 Register classification

We mentioned in the subtitle above the importance of the correct usage of register, but
a classification is also required. In other European languages (Italian, French, German, etc)
formality can be expressed through the formal/informal “you’. In English, register is a key
element in expressing degrees of formality. Register can be separated into four categories:
(see Joos, 1961; Montano-Harmon, 1995).

1) Familiar or casual
This register is used between people who know each other well (husband and wife,
boyfriend and girlfriend, parents and children) and it is characterized by a lack of grammar,
spelling, punctuation and it usually contains slang or jargon. It is used to signal belonging
to a given group. One must be a member to engage in this register (buddies, teammates,
chats and e-mails, blogs and letters to friends, phone texts, short notes, diaries an journals):
What’s up, Jack?, Hey, Later, etc

2) Frozen or static
Language that does not change, it is often scripted, printed unchanging language.
This is standard business and educational language which features complete sentences and
specific word choice, often contains archaisms. e.g.: The Lord’s prayer, The Alma Mater, a
bibliographic reference, laws, etc.

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3) Formal/Academic
A formal register is neither personal nor colloquial, it is mostly used in academic
writing, as it is impersonal. Strong opinions can be expressed using this register, it does not
break any of the rules of written grammar, it is often used to show respect. It can be used
in: sermons, announcements, business letters, letters of complaint, reports, professional e-
mails:

I hope you don’t mind my stating that the service is unsatisfactory, I would like a refund!

Learning formal register is not that easy. It is like learning a new language.

4) Consultative
This is a standard form of communication, it is formal and used in conversation,
sentence structure need not be complete, since non-verbal assists, hand movements and
body language, are often used to convey meaning. 
It is used when strangers meet, in the communication between a superior and a
subordinate, doctor and patient, lawyer and client, teacher and student:

Hello, Mrs. Smith. How are you this morning?

Excuse me, Miss Anderson. As I understand the task, we need to focus on improving our
delivery times rather than blaming our suppliers.

5) Intimate
This communication is private, it is reserved for close friends and family members
or intimate people: lovers, husband and wife, etc.:

I’m sick and tired of your crap!

You’re so good. I’m crazy about you, Honey!

6) Neutral
The neutral language register is used with non-emotional topics and information.
Neutral writing is not necessarily formal or informal. It is not usually positive or negative,

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but non-emotional and sticks to facts. A neutral register is used to register facts. Writing in
the neutral language register includes:
 Reviews
 Articles
 Some letters
 Some essays
 Technical writing.
In the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) the entries are classified according to the use
of an expression in different language situations. Generally, all entries are classified as
standard. Some expressions are categorized differently according to the particular contexts
in which they are appropriately used. The main register labels in the Oxford Thesaurus of
English (2006) are the following:
 Informal: normally used only in contexts such as conversations or letters between
friends
 Vulgar slang: informal language that may cause offence
 Formal: normally used only in writing such as official documents
 Historical: still used today, but only to refer to some practice or article that is no
longer part of the modern world
 Humorous: used with the intention of sounding funny or playful
 Archaic: very old-fashioned language, not in ordinary use at all today
 Rare : not in common use
(Oxford Thesaurus of English 2006: ix)
One can usually switch from one language register to another without encountering
repercussions, but skipping one or more levels is considered inappropriate and even
offensive.

I.4 Style and style shifting

In any language, different styles of expression are appropriate in different situations.
We can go from the formal to the informal, the written to the spoken, from technical
language (or jargon) to slang. Style is the way in which something is spoken, written, or
performed.

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 Style-shifting is a term in sociolinguistics referring to alternation between styles of
speech included in a linguistic repertoire of an individual speaker (Eckert, Penelope;
Rickford, John, 2001: page 87).
It is considered a voluntary act of an individual, produced in order to respond to
changes in sociolinguistic situations (e.g. interlocutor-related, setting-related, and topic-
related).
According to Labov, there are two types of spoken style:
 casual or informal- which requires the least amount of conscious self-monitoring,
being often related to as responsive (produced in response to normative pressures)
 formal style - characterized by a scholarly vocabulary, and a consistently serious tone,
it does not include contractions, slang ,or humor. It is often technical.
and three types of reading style:
 a reading passage
 a word list
 a minimal pair list.
There has also been taken into consideration the initiative dimension of style shifting,
which occurs when speakers proactively choose among various linguistic resources (e.g.
dialectal, archaic or vernacular) in order to present themselves in a specific way.
There are no single style-speakers, that is why a classification is required:

 Casual to Formal
Shifts of this kind occur in specific contexts and are characterized by the elimination of
non-standard speech features (such as double- negatives) and the use of slang. Speakers
may add more formal features.

 Formal to Informal
This type of shift in characterized by an increase in informal speech features and a
decrease in formal ones and by the use of certain informal markers such as: ‘ain’t’.

 Shifts in dialect
This refers to shifting from one regional, ethnic, or social variety to another From a
positive point of view, this shift may be a way to indicate that the speaker identifies or is

16
familiar with a particular speech community or its values, but from a negative point of
view, it is used to mock a speech community. This shift is often met in media texts or in
ethnic jokes.

 Performance speech
It is associated with a speaker’s attempt to display for others a certain language or
language variety and it may be performed as part of cultural rituals for the benefit of
visitors or language investigators. Most often, these performance speech shifts are not
accurate or complete. Speakers will use a few selected features or develop rote phrases that
highlight a number of the features of the archaic speech or dialect.
Many of these style shift types involve hypercorrection, which is

a non-standard usage that results from the over-application of a perceived rule of

grammar or a usage prescription. A speaker or writer who produces a hypercorrection
generally believes that the form is correct through misunderstanding of these rules, often
combined with a desire to seem formal or educated. (Labov, 1972: 126).

Linguistic hypercorrection occurs when a real or imagined grammatical rule is applied in

an inappropriate context, so that an attempt to be "correct" leads to an incorrect result:

I heard a good one on the preacher last week. You know somebody got into his barn a
while ago, and stole every blessed chicking he had to his name. (Pattee, 1905)
Hypercorrection is sometimes found among speakers of less prestigious language varieties
who produce forms associated with high-prestige varieties, even in situations where
speakers of those varieties would not. Some commentators call such production
hyperurbanism. (Merriam Webster's Dictionary of English Usage, 1994, page 59)

Shifts of style seem to be like code-switching in invoking contrastive implications

of the linguistic features. One important element in style shifting is the addressee, meaning
that the change in language is induced by the change in participants. A good example of
this can be heard when a speaker is overheard talking to a child or a relative from another
region on the telephone.

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 Shifts can be affected by stereotyped registers, rather than feedback
accommodation alone, as in cases of baby talk to children, or hypercorrection to
interviewers or teachers. Such adjustments begin very early, in vocal shifts, and by four
children can change syntax according to age of addressee (see Shatz, Gelman, 1973).
Speech conditions. Circumstantial shifts can change features not because of
addressee behavior or stereotypes about the addressee, but because the psycholinguistics of
production and feedback are altered. The contrast between speech and writing, planned and
unplanned speech, face-to-face conversation and speech to a crowd are examples. These
changes can deeply alter the possibilities to monitor speech and they are usually considered
situational shifts for they may be accompanied by social norms contrasting language type
in writing and speaking (notably, Eckert, Rickford, 2001).

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 CHAPTER TWO
FORMAL AND INFORMAL LANGUAGE
MARKERS

Vocabulary, tone, and syntax are all things that change depending on the style you
intend to adopt. Informal language is not always a 'taboo' though. Creative pieces and
persuasive pieces can be written informally, for example, if it is a personal diary or an
advertisement respectively. If you are unsure, the easiest way to separate the two is to
question whether or not you would say the phrase in real-life conversations. If it is a yes,
then it is most likely informal language, that is why we are trying to analyze the markers
that make a text formal or informal.

2.1 Discourse markers

Sociolinguists are concerned with the characteristics of different spoken and written
registers. There are different registers and they can be distinguished from each other by
their so-called co-occurrence features (a set of linguistic features that commonly occur
together in texts). Studies in register variation examine linguistic features in order to
describe the nature of written and spoken registers.
The figure below presents an additional dimension including involvement versus
information features. As you can see, we can locate different registers on a two-
dimensional scale, thus showing their degree of involvement and narrative character.

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(Source: Finegan, 1998 page 357)
In the 1960’s linguists realized that the use of language was not reduced to the
structures of invented, isolated sentences, but needed analyses of structures ‘beyond the
sentence’ and of whole texts. (see Van Dijk, 2007).
Spoken registers are apparently limited in the kinds of complexity they can exploit,
while written registers reveal much greater differences among themselves with respect to
both their kinds and extents of discourse complexity. While analyzing the linguistic
complexity of texts produced by different social groups, both structural and lexical features
were taken into consideration.
Biber (1988) uses an exploratory factor analysis to identify six basic dimensions of
variation among registers in English. The study analyzes the distribution of 67 linguistic
features across 481 texts taken from 23 spoken and written register (e.g., academic prose,
press reportage, conversation, radio broadcasts). The dimensions have both linguistic and
functional content. The linguistic content comprises a group of linguistic features (such as
pronouns, hedges, present tense verbs) that co-occur with a markedly high frequency in
texts. On the first dimension, causative subordination, sentence relatives, and WH clauses
co-occur with interactive and involved features (as opposed to features marking
informational integration); on the second dimension, present participial clauses co-occur
with narrative features; on the third dimension, WH relative clauses function to mark an

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explicit and elaborated style of reference (as opposed to situated reference); on the fourth
dimension, infinitives and conditional adverbial clauses co-occur with modals and
persuasive verbs marking an overtly persuasive and argumentative style; on the fifth
dimension, past participial postnominal clauses and past participial adverbial clauses co-
occur with passive constructions and conjuncts as markers of a technical, impersonal style;
and on the sixth dimension, that complement clauses to verbs, that complement clauses
to adjectives, and relative clauses on object position co-occur with demonstratives, final
prepositions, and existential there, reflecting an on-line informational focus. The texts used
in the study are taken from 23 registers:

Distribution of texts across 23 registers

Register _________________________________________________No. of texts
Written - Registers 1-15 from the LOB Corpus
1. Press reportage__________________________________________________44
2. Editorials_______________________________________________________27
3. Press reviews 1__________________________________________________17
4. Religion________________________________________________________17
5. Skills and hobbies ________________________________________________14
6. Popular lore _____________________________________________________14
7. Biographies _____________________________________________________14
8. Official documents ________________________________________________14
9. Academic prose __________________________________________________80
10. General fiction __________________________________________________29
11. Mystery fiction __________________________________________________13
12. Science fiction ___________________________________________________6
13. Adventure fiction ________________________________________________13
14. Romantic fiction__________________________________________________13
15. Humor __________________________________________________________9
16. Personal letters ____________________________________________________6
17. Professional letters ________________________________________________10

21
Spoken - From the London-Lund Corpus
18. Face-to-face conversation ___________________________________________44
19. Telephone conversation_____________________________________________27
20. Public conversations, debates, and interviews ___________________________22
21. Broadcast________________________________________________________18
22. Spontaneous speeches______________________________________________16
23. Planned speeches__________________________________________________14
Total 481
Approximate Number of Words 960,000
(Source, Biber, 1988: page 131)

The features in the following table directly represent increased discourse

complexity.
These fall into four major groups:
 integrated structure (features that enable a large amount of informational content to
be packed into relatively few words),
 lexical specificity (features that reflect a careful word choice and words having
relatively specific semantic content),
 passive constructions, and
 dependent clauses.
The category of dependent clauses, which is the feature most frequently associated
with
structural complexity, actually comprises five subgroups:
 modifying clauses,
 attitudinal clauses,
 complement clauses,
 adverbial clauses and
 participial clauses.
As noted in the table, these are not exclusive categories (e.g., certain participial clauses can
also be considered passive constructions).

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I. Features Associated With Reduced Complexity
A. Structural reduction
1. That deletions
2. Contractions
B. Less specified reference
3. Pro-verb Do
4. Pronoun It
5. Demonstrative pronouns
C. Fragmented structure
6. Clause coordination
II. Features Associated With Increased Complexity
D. Integrated structure
7. Nouns
8. Prepositions
9. Attributive adjectives
10. Nominalizations
11. Phrasal coordination
E. Lexical specificity
12. Word length
13. Type/token ratio
F. Passive constructions (cf. past participial constructions)
14. Agentless passives
15. fly-passives
G. Dependent clauses
Gl. Structural elaboration of reference – post-nominal modifiers (cf. participial post-
nominal clauses)
16. WH relative clauses on subject position
17. WH relative clauses on object position
18. "Pied piping" relative clauses
19. That relative clauses on object position
20. That relative clauses on subject position
G2. Attitudinal clauses

23
21. Sentence relatives
G3. Complement clauses
22. WH clauses
23. That complement clauses to verbs
24. That complement clauses to adjectives
25. Infinitives
G4. Adverbial clauses (cf. participial adverbial clauses)
26. Conditional adverbial subordination
27. Causative adverbial subordination,
28. Concessive adverbial subordination
29. Other adverbial subordination
G5. Participial clauses,
30. Present participial post-nominal clauses
31. Past participial post-nominal clauses
32. Present participial adverbial clauses
(Source: Biber, 1988 page 133)

2.2 Lexical markers

The type of speech situation (either formal or informal) has influence on the choice
of words used in this situation. We take the case of a person who has had too many
alcoholic drinks: pickled, high, drunk, intoxicate. All these lexical terms differ in their
degree of formality and their use depend on the degree of formality of the speech situation:
first or family name (Jane or Mrs. Jones), family name plus preceding title, second person
pronoun, deferential terms (Sir, Madam), but also terms showing disrespect (bastard,
lunatic, etc) (please visit www.zentrum.virtuous.ous.de).
To best illustrate that a particular type of speech situation is associated with the
choice of a characteristic linguistic variety (register), we take the following example of a
courtroom dialogue:

Judge: ‘I see the cops say you were pickled last night and were driving an old jalopy down
the middle of the road. True?’

24
Defendant: ‘Your honour, if I might be permitted to address this allegation, I should like to
report that I was neither inebriated nor under the influence of an alcoholic beverage of any
kind.’
(So
As we all know, a law court is a formal setting with clearly defined social roles of
the interlocutors and a use of language that should correspond to these roles. These include
the choice of specific vocabulary. While the defendant uses very formal vocabulary in an
exaggerated way (allegation, inebriated, alcoholic beverage), the judge is much too
informal than expected (cops, pickled).

To better exemplify the appropriate lexical variety for a certain situation, we should
take one more example, so we have to consider two excerpts from the talk of a young
woman (‘Jane’) who recorded herself speaking to her parents and to her boyfriend. In both
cases, she was discussing a story she had already discussed with her classmates in a college
class earlier in the day. In the story, a character named Abigail wants to get across a river
to see her true love, Gregory. A river boat captain (Roger) says he will take her only if she
consents to sleep with him. In desperation to see Gregory, Abigail agrees to do so. But
when she arrives and tells Gregory what she has done, he disowns her and sends her away.
Students in the class had been asked to order the characters in the story from the most
offensive to the least. In explaining to her parents why she thought Gregory was the worst
(least moral) character in the story, the young woman said the following:

To parents at dinner:
‘Well, when I thought about it, I don’t know, it seemed to me that Gregory should be the
most offensive. He showed no understanding for Abigail, when she told him what she was
forced to do. He was callous. He was hypocritical, in the sense that he professed to love
her, then acted like that. Later that night, in an informal setting, she also explained to her
boyfriend why she thought Gregory was the worst character.’ In this context she said:

25
To boyfriend late at night:
‘What an ass that guy was, you know, her boyfriend. I should hope, if I ever did that to see
you, you would shoot the guy. He uses her and he says he loves her. Roger never lies, you
know what I mean?’
(Source Hawkins, 2004, page 16)

As we can notice, Jane uses a different language when talking to her parents and to
her boyfriend. We could say that she is using two different grammars, two different
languages. She carefully says to her parents: ‘I don’t know, it seemed to me’, but when
talking to her boyfriend she makes her claims straight out. She uses formal terms when
talking to her parents: ‘offensive’, ‘understanding’, ‘callous’, ‘hypocritical’ and to her
boyfriend she uses informal terms: ’ass’ and ‘guy’. The sentence structures are more
formal when talking to her parents: ’it seemed to me that’, ‘He showed no understanding
for Abigail, when’, ‘he was hypocritical in the sense that..’, than she does to her boyfriend:
’that guy, you know, her boyfriend’, ‘Roger never lies, you know what I mean?’ Jane
addresses him as ‘you’, noting his social involvement as a listener, but she doesn’t do the
same when talking to her parents, so she uses different social languages, that allow her to
make visible and recognizable two different doings, two different socially-situated
activities. (ibidem)
We cannot talk about lexical markers without mentioning lexical bundles which
are ‘sequences of word forms that commonly go together in natural discourse’. (Biber et
al., 2007: page 65). Both conversation and academic prose use a large stock of lexical
bundles, but conversation uses a larger stock than academic prose.
Conversational examples building on I don’t know why:

I don’t know why he didn’t play much at the end of the season.
I don’t know why Catherine finds that sort of thing funny.
I don’t know why Colin came.
I don’t know why I did it.

Academic noun phrases completing the lexical bundle as a result of:

his work, this change, centuries of experience, trials over a period of three years.

26
Here is a list of the most used lexical bundles used in formal and informal registers:
 Most common lexical bundles used in academic prose: in order to, one of the, part of
the, the number of, the presence of, the use of, the fact that, there is a, there is no, in the
case of, on the other hand.
 Most common lexical bundles used in conversation: I don’t know, I don’t think, do
you
want, I don’t want, I don’t know what, have you got, what you do, I said to, I want to, you
want to, you have to, do you know, you know , have you got, what do you, I’ve got, I can’t,
I didn’t, that’s what, you don’t, that’s right, are you going to, I mean I, I have a look,
that’s right, isn’t it, it’s not, it’s a.
Conversation uses a considerable amount of local repetition, repeating expressions
from the immediate context: I want to know, ‘Well, that’s what I ‘(conversation), I went to
the (conversation), in the case of (academic), at the same time (academic).
Both conversation and academic writing make frequent use of lexical bundles, but in
conversation the large majority of lexical bundles are clause segments: either declarative
structures or interrogative structures.

Declarative clause segments in conversation:

I don’t know what I don’t want to
I said to him I would like to
I don’t know how well, you’ll have to
I don’t think I you might as well
I thought it was

Interrogative clause segments in conversation:

Can I have a What are you doing
Have you got any What did she say
Do you know what What’s the matter with
Do you want to How do you know
Are you talking about

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Most lexical bundles in academic prose are composed of nominal or prepositional
elements:
The end of an increase in the
One of the most as a result of
The result of the in the case of
The way in which on the basis of
The extent to which
The fact that the
The relationship between the

2.2.1 Lexical bundles in conversation

In conversation, there can be distinguished 12 major categories of informal lexical
bundles:
 Personal pronoun + lexical verb phrase: I don’t know what, I don’t know how, I
don’t think, I don’t want to, I said I, I tell you what, I would like to, I’m going to do,
I’m going to have, ‘But I mean I suppose it’s true…..’ I mean I don’t know, but I
just….’
 Pronoun + noun phrase + be +…: it used to be, it’s going to be, it’s a bit of, it’s a lot
of money, it’s nothing to do with, ‘So ok. Let’s hope it’s going to be nice’, Well, I don’t
know, it’s up to you.’
 Verb phrase + active verb: have a look at, have to have a, go to the toilet, get on with
it, get rid of it, put them in the, see if I can, want a cup of, ‘I’ll have a cup of tea’,’I
haven’t got a clue where I’m going.’
 Yes-No question fragments: Can I have a.., have you got a…,do you know what, do
you want to, are you talking about, do you want to take, ‘ Do you want me to send them
today?’
 Wh-question fragments: ‘what are you doing’,’ what did you do’, ‘what did you say’,
‘what do you mean’, ‘what do you think’, ‘how do you know’, ‘how do you spell’,
‘what are you doing here?’
 Lexical bundles with wh-clause fragments: I don’t know what, what I’m going to,
what I was going to say, ‘He wouldn’t know what to do’

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 Lexical bundles with to-clause fragments: to be able to, to get rid of, to go and see,
‘You want me to go and get it for you?’
 Verb + to-clause fragments: think I’m going to, said I don’t know, ‘Well, I thought it
was a good film.’
 Adverbial clause fragments: if you want to, if you don’t want, as long as, ‘But like
it’s different if you’ve got a really bad cold;’
 Noun phrase expressions: the end of the, the back of the, the rest of the, the other side
of the, ‘Cause I want nothing to do with her’.
 Prepositional phrase expression: at the end of, in the middle of, for a couple of, for
the rest of, on the other side, in the first place, ‘I get paid at the end of the week’.
 Quantifier expressions: all of a sudden, all over the place, ‘All of a sudden my little
boy screams.’

2.2.2 Lexical bundles in academic prose

There can be found 12 categories of such bundles in formal writing:
 Noun phrase with of-phrase fragment: the end of, the beginning of, the development
of, the point of view of, the aim of this study, the first part of the, ‘The plant, therefore,
draws its nutrients from near the surface of the soil’. ‘The use of a constant inner
diameter is often found in industrial units.’
 Noun phrase with other post modifier fragments: the way in which, the degree in
which, the difference between the, an important part in, an increase in the, the extent to
which the, ‘The difference between the two weights is equivalent to the weight of the
equal volume of water.’
 Prepositional phrase with embedded of-phrase fragments: as part of the, as a
consequence of, as a matter of, in the presence of, for the development of, as a result of
the, from the point of view of, ‘As a result of these two factors, molecules of both A and
B have a greater tendency to escape.’
 Other prepositional phrase: between the two groups, in such a way as to, of the way
in which.
 Anticipatory ‘it’: it is possible to, it may be necessary to, it is not surprising that…
 Passive verb + prepositional phrase fragment: is based on the, is known as the, is to
be found in.

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 Copula ‘be’ + noun phrase/adjective phrase: is one of the, is part of the, was no
significant difference between.
 Verb phrase + that clause fragment: should be noted that, can be seen that, that it is
the.
 (verb/adjective) + to-clause fragment: is likely to be, may be able to, can be used to.
 Adverbial clause fragment: as we have seen, as we shall see, if there is a…
 (pronoun/noun) phrase + be + (): this is not the, there were no significant differences,
there is not doubt that, this is not to show that.
 Other expressions: as well as the, as well as in, than that of the, may or may not.

Another category of lexical markers are idioms. Idioms are occasionally used in fiction
and rarely in conversation. Most verbal idioms are relatively colloquial, with less frequent
use in conversation:

Escape was out of the question. (fiction)

‘When are you going to do it? Take the bulls by the horns. (conversation)

Many colloquial idioms are sometimes used in news reportage:

‘The triumph came as a surprise to many.’

‘It is important for parents to be aware and keep an eye on their children.’

Although conversation has few idiomatic phrases formed with the verbs have,
make and take, the phrase ‘have a look’ is common in British conversation. In particular,
idiomatic phrases formed with make and take are more often used in written English:

This did not merely contradict experiment; it made no sense at all. (academic)
The hearing will take place in London, on 7th May. (news)
The question made no sense. (fiction)

Common phrases formed with have tend to be more colloquial. The phrase have
time is found in all four registers, but it is less found in news and academic prose:

30
I don’t have time to play. (conversation)
One never had time to think about it. (fiction)
They themselves had insufficient time to offer this kind of support. (academic)

The phrase have no idea is used commonly in fiction and occasionally in news with
colloquial meaning:

He has no idea what we will do next. (fiction)

Mr. Jone’s remarks reveal he has no idea what he is talking about. (news)

Coordinated binominal phrases

Binominal phrases consist of two words of the same grammatical category coordinated by
‘and ‘ or ‘or’:
 noun and noun - fish and chips, mum and dad, night and day, health and safety,
accident and emergency, age and sex, growth and development, strengths and
weaknesses, rights and duties, science and technology, time and place, theory and
practice, etc. These binominal phrases are most common in academic prose and news.
 verb and verb - go and get, come and sit, wait and see. They occur more often in
conversation, rather than in news and academic prose.(e.g ‘My dad wants to go and see
a film.’ ‘Shall I come and help you?’). Conversation and fiction have some recurrent
noun and noun binominal phrases: husband and wife, father and son, women and
children, ladies and gentlemen, bread and butter, salt and vinegar, food and drink,
years and years, day and night, flesh and blood, bits and pieces, name and address, life
and death.
 adjective and adjective- black and white, nice and warm, formal and informal, safe
and effective, rich and famous, social and cultural, economic and political. These
binominal phrases are most common in fiction and only a few are used in conversation,
such as: black and white, lovely and warm, nice and warm.

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 adverb and adverb - back and forth, in and out, there and then, now and then, up and
down, again and again, on and off, sooner or latter. They are mostly used in
conversation and fiction. (ibidem)

Linkers are words used to join phrases, sentences and paragraphs together.
Formal linkers:
 as a result, therefore, consequently - are often used at the beginning of a sentence:
‘It snowed hard all night. As a result the airport was closed the following morning’.
 because, as , since due to, owing to- are used to introduce clauses giving a reason:
‘Flight 342 has been delayed due to/owing to adverse weather conditions.’
 So as to, in order to- introduce a clause of purpose:
‘I did an English course in order to improve my English.’
 Yet, nevertheless - are a formal way of introducing contrast:
‘Agnes was attracted to the stranger. Nevertheless, something in her head was telling her
not to get close to him.’

Informal linkers:
 So is the most common way of introducing a clause of result:
’It was raining, so I took an umbrella.’
 Because of is an informal way of introducing reason:
’The plane was late because of the fog.’
 But - is the most common and informal way of introducing contrast :
’We enjoyed the concert, but we didn’t have very good seats.’

2.3 Grammatical markers

A formal style is not necessarily better than an informal style, rather each style serves a
different purpose, so writing for professional purposes requires the use of a formal style,
although individual communication uses a more informal style.
Registers show grammatical variation, meaning that they differ in their use of certain
grammatical structures, that is why a close look at the markers that make the difference is
requested.

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 Lexical word classes vary across register. Nouns are more common in news (and to a
lesser extend in academic prose). They are by far least common in conversation. Verbs and
adverbs are most common in conversation and fiction. The register with the highest
frequency of nouns have the highest frequency of adjectives. The low frequency of nouns
in conversation is due to the low density of information and the frequency of pronouns.
There are important differences in the reliance of noun versus pronoun across registers.
There is a dense use of pronouns in conversation, as the participants are more involved, but
in academic prose and in news the need for information is higher and this brings a much
more frequent use of nouns and a less frequent use of pronouns.
Personal pronouns are used more often than the other pronoun types and they are most
common in conversation.
 I, me, you - are far more common in conversation and less used in fiction (‘Me and her
mother split up two years ago.’)
 He, him, she –are most common in fiction and less used in conversation. The masculine
pronouns (he/him) appear more often in all registers than the corresponding feminine
pronouns (she/her)
 It and they/them-are more used in conversation, in news and academic prose
 We, us – are frequently used in news and academic prose to make generalizations and
to refer to the author. By using first person plural, the author avoids drawing attention
to himself, the writing becomes more formal (‘When we start talking, we often cease to
listen.’)
First and second person pronouns (referring to the speaker and the addressee) are naturally
very common in conversation as the participants are in immediate contact.

Possessive pronouns are used for a much wider range of relationships than possession:

Examples:
His was not the kind of face to reveal weakness by showing surprise but his eyes widened
fractionally. (fiction)
The manager was told when he was appointed that his was a pressure. (news)

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Corresponding to the personal pronouns, there is a series of possessive determiners and
possessive pronouns.

Possessive determiners
o my, your, his, her are most common in conversation and fiction
o our is more frequent in the written registers (including academic prose) than in
conversation.

Demonstrative determiners - this, these are more used in written registers (especially in
academic prose) than that/those.

Semi- determiners
o some, other, such, certain- are frequently used in academic prose. The high frequency
of many semi-determiners in academic prose agrees with the high degree of precision
required in this register.
o last, next - are more common in news.

Indefinite pronouns are commonly used in conversation and fiction and least used in
academic prose.
o Pronouns ending in ‘-body’ are most common in conversation
o Pronouns ending in ‘-one’ are preferred in written registers.
Definite and indefinite articles – are least common in conversation and most common in
academic prose. The definite article (the) is more frequently used in written registers than
the indefinite one

Phrasal verbs - there are two main categories of phrasal verbs: intransitive phrasal verbs
(break down, come along, come on, hold on, shut up, etc) and transitive phrasal verbs
(bring up, carry out, find out, point out, take out, turn on, etc). These verbs are rarely used
in academic prose, as they are colloquial in tone, but in fiction and conversation phrasal
verbs occur almost 2000 times per million words.

Examples:

34
You go and sit down!
No, he came over to the study!
Come on, let’s go!

Tense and modality - Present Tense verbs are used more often than Past Tense forms,
especially in academic prose and in conversation (it expresses a wide range of meanings),
in contrast with fiction, which prefers past tense forms.
Present Tense
o is used to refer to events in the past, to present states, to present habitual behavior, or to
future events. Academic prose, on the other hand, uses present tense to imply a lack of
time restriction.
o Is strongly associated with verbs denoting mental and logical states.
o many of the mental verbs associated with the present tense (bet, care, doubt, fancy,
know,
mean, mind, reckon, suppose, thank, want) express emotion or attitudes, mostly in
conversation:’ I don’t want one.’
Past Tense
o is strongly associated with verbs denoting events or activities, especially bodily
movements and speech acts.
o many of the verbs strongly associated with past tense describe human activities: bend,
bow, eye, glance, grin, lean, nod, park, pause, sit, set off, shake, shrug, sigh, smile, stare,
turn away, wave: ‘She just shrugged her shoulders.’

Modals and semi-modals - modals and semi-modals are most common in conversation,
and least common in news and academic prose.
o Can and could are relatively common in all registers
o Can is extremely common in conversation and academic prose
o Could is particularly common in fiction
o May is extremely common in academic prose and rare in conversation
o Must and should are relatively common in academic prose
o Will is very common in conversation and news reportage

35
o Would is extremely common in conversation and fiction
o Be going to and have to are the most used semi-modals in conversation
o The semi-modals (had) better, (have)got to and used to are relatively common in
conversation.

Active and passive voice

o We often use the passive when we are interested in what happened rather than in who
did
the action.
o Passive voice is especially common in scientific writing, especially in describing
processes:

’First the metal is heated to a temperature of 500 degrees, then it is poured into a large
container.

o In conversational English, we often use the passive with ‘get’ instead of ‘be’:

‘Take a map, in case you get lost.’

The get passive is extremely rare. It occurs only in conversation as it is a recent innovation
in English:

‘My head got stuck up there.’

‘She got married when she was eighteen.’

o The short passive is in fact far more common than the long passive, and is widely used
in
academic writing to omit mention of the specific researcher. It might be regarded as the
expected style typical of much academic writing:’ The test object clause will allow any
object to be tested.’ (ibidem)

36
Contractions - contractions are frequently used in both spoken and written English,
especially in informal contexts. A contraction is a combination of two words into a
shortened form with the omission of some internal letters and the use of an apostrophe. If
one wants his text to have a more informal, conversational tone, then he should use
contractions, but when one is engaged in formal writing it is suggested not to use
contractions in order to portray a professional, respected image.
Affirmative Contractions
Pronoun + to be +/ would +/ will
I- I am I’m I’d I’ll
You- you are you’re you’d you’ll
We -we are we’re we’d we’ll
They -they are they’re they’d they’ll
He -he is he’s he’d he’ll
She- she is she’s she’d she’ll
It- it is it’s it’d it’ll
There- there is: there’s there’d there’ll
That -that is that’s this’d this’ll
Negative Contractions
Verb + not
do not- don’t
does not- doesn’t
did not -didn’t
is not- isn’t
are not- aren’t
was not- wasn’t
were not -weren’t
has not -hasn’t
have not -haven’t
had not- hadn’t
will not- won’t
would not -wouldn’t
can not -can’t

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could not -couldn’t
should -shouldn’t

Negation
According to the Longman Grammar of spoken and written English negations are more
used in conversation than in writing and this is due to a number of factors:
 There is a great deal of repetition in conversation, including repetition of negative
forms
 Certain structures that include negative forms are characteristic of spoken
discourse: question tags and multiple negation
 Conversation is interactive and invites both agreement and disagreement, opposed
to writing which presents the perspective of a single author or author group
Aren’t and Ain’t
These are the present tense form of ‘be’ . Aren’t I is preferred by many grammarians and
is rarely attested in natural conversation, opposed to ‘ain’t I’ which is the predominant
form of the two.
‘I’, good, aren’t I?’ (conv)
‘Aren’I supposed to understand?’(fiction)
‘Ain’t is regarded as non-standard, but is wide-spread in use. It applies to all persons:
‘There ain’t a tape in there’(conv.)
I’m whispering now, ain’t I?(fict.)
Inversion
Inversion is a main-clause phenomenon: over 90% of all inversions in conversation,
fiction and news occur in main clauses.Inversion is strongly conditioned by context, being
more frequent in the written registers than in conversation, with the highest frequency in
fiction. Conversation is a spontaneous act and leaves less room for planning and varying
the use of language resources.
The strong association of inversion with main clauses can be interpreted as follows:
independent clauses are the main means of carrying the communication forward. Their
syntactic independence correlates with greater possibilities of internal variation and
adaptation to context. Dependent clauses, on the other hand, must fit into the super-
ordinate syntactic structure and are less free to adapt to contextual requirements. The

38
preference for dependent-clause inversions in academic prose reflects the greater
opportunity for careful planning in that register.
Reporting clauses are used for different purposes in fiction and news. There is a much
higher frequency of reporting clauses in fiction, because dialogue is central in that register,
and there is a constant speaker shift. It is notable that reporting clauses are more often
placed in initial position in news than they are in fiction:
Last night an executive director of Bond Corp, Peter Lucas, Attacked the NAB
Move:’If that’s the way business can expect bankers to behave, God help
Australia.’(news)
A Regional Health Authority spokesman said: ‘It is superior in design to older
models.’(news)

Reporting clauses are more frequently used in fiction than in news and they occur mostly
in final position and often contain expansions of different kinds. Final reporting clauses
often have right expansions, including time adverbials (said yesterday), manner adverbials
(asked patiently), a specification of the addressee (told her), and –ing clauses. The last type
is particularly common in fiction:

‘That’s the whole trouble’, said George, laughing slightly. (fict.)

‘Answer the private line for me, Alice, ”Mattie said, throwing off her coat.(fict.)

In contrast, initial reporting clauses often have less expansions, which can also include
time adverbials, place adverbials, a specification of the addressee, and –ing clause:
To the mother she said: ‘You should be happy, they bring luck to the
household.’(fict.)
After new talks succeeded, Bell said: ’Sometimes agents’ demands exceed what the
players want.’(news)
(source: Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English, page199)

All things considered, spoken and written languages are obviously different, with
different purposes. Written language is permanent: the reader can go back over it again and
again if the meaning is not immediately clear. This is not possible with speech, which is

39
fleeting and ephemeral. Writing does not usually involve direct interaction, except for
personal letters and perhaps some computer based communication such as e-mail.
Children learn to speak before they learn to read and write. Learning to speak
appears to happen naturally within the home, whereas learning to read and write is usually
associated with the beginning of formal schooling. Thus, we often assume that written
language is more difficult to learn, and we perceive speech as less complex than written
language. This is not the case: oral language is just as linguistically complex as written
language, but the complexity is of a different kind. The inevitable differences in the
structures and use of speech and writing come about because they are produced in very
different communicative situations.
The greatest differences between speaking and writing are those between formal
written texts and very informal conversation. Because it is permanent, writing provides
opportunities for more careful organization and more complex structures. (please visit
http://englishonline.tki.org.nz/English-Online/Exploring-language/Speaking-and-Writing)

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 CHAPTER THREE
TEACHING REGISTER-RELATED
MARKERS COMMUNICATIVELY

3.1 The communicative approach

The communicative approach could be said to be the product of educators and
linguists who had grown dissatisfied with the audio-lingual and grammar-translation
methods of foreign language instruction. They felt that students were not learning enough
realistic, whole language. They did not know how to communicate using appropriate social
language, gestures, or expressions; in brief, they were at a loss to communicate in the
culture of the language studied. Interest in and development of communicative-style
teaching mushroomed in the 1970s; authentic language use and classroom exchanges
where students engaged in real communication with one another became quite popular.
In the intervening years, the communicative approach has been adapted to the elementary,
middle, secondary, and post-secondary levels, and the underlying philosophy has spawned
different teaching methods known under a variety of names, including notional-functional,
teaching for proficiency, proficiency-based instruction, and communicative language
teaching.
Communicative language teaching makes use of real-life situations that need
communication. The teacher sets up a situation that students are likely to encounter in real
life. Unlike the audio-lingual method of language teaching, which relies on repetition and
drills, the communicative approach can leave students in suspense as to the outcome of a
class exercise, which will vary according to their reactions and responses. The real-life

41
simulations change from day to day. Students' motivation to learn comes from their desire
to communicate in meaningful ways about meaningful topics.
(please visit: http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/gallow01.html)
Communicative language teaching can be understood as a set of principles about
the goals of language teaching, the way learners learn a language, the kinds of classroom
activities that best facilitate learning, and the roles of teachers and learners in the
classroom.
One of the most characteristic features of communicative language teaching is that
it pays systematic attention to functional as well as structural aspects of language,
combining these into a more fully communicative view.
The structural view of language concentrates on the grammatical system, describing ways
in which linguistic items can be combined. For example, it explains the operation for
producing the passive ‘The window has been broken’ rather than the active ‘Somebody has
broken the window’ and describes the word order rules that make us interpret ‘The girl
chased the boy’ differently from ‘The boy chased the girl’
Just as a single linguistic form can express a number of functions, the same way
can a single communicative function be expressed by a number of linguistic forms. For
example, the speaker who wants somebody to close the door has many linguistic options,
including ‘Close the door, please!’, ‘Could you please close the door?’, ‘Would you mind
closing the door?’ One factor determining the speaker’s choice of language is the
knowledge that he assumes the hearer to posses. Another important factor is his
interpretation of the social situation in which communication is taking place: language
carries not only functional meaning, but also social meaning.
The hostess who puts her head round the door and calls ‘Ready?’ to her guests, is
signaling her view that the situation is an informal one. On a more formal occasion she
would have said: ’Would you like to come and eat now?’
As well as the social situation determines the nature of the language, the same way the
language can help determine the social atmosphere of the situation. For example, the use of
informal speech reflects the development of a personal relationship.
There are four main domains of skill that make up a person’s communicative
competence:

42
 1. The learner must develop skill in manipulating the linguistic system, so that he can
use it spontaneously and flexibly in order to express his intended message.
2. The learner must distinguish between the forms of his linguistic competence and
the communicative functions that they perform
3. The learner must develop skills and strategies for using language to communicate
meanings as effectively as possible in concrete situations.
4. The learner must become aware of the social meaning of language form.
(Source:Littlewood, 1981)
Communicative language teaching sets as its goal the teaching of communicative
competence which is defined in terms of the expression, interpretation, and negotiation of
meaning and looks to both psycholinguistic and socio-cultural perspectives second
language acquisition research to account for its development .
Communicative competence includes the following aspects of language knowledge:
 Knowing how to use language for a range of different purposes and functions
 Knowing how to vary our use of language according to the setting and the participants
(e.g., knowing when to use formal and informal speech or when to use language
appropriately for written as opposed to spoken communication)
 Knowing how to produce and understand different types of texts
(e.g., narratives, reports, interviews, conversations)
 Knowing how to maintain communication despite having limitations in one’s
language knowledge (e.g., through using different kinds of communication
strategies)
(see Richards, 2006, page 2)
In recent years, language learning has been viewed from a very different perspective. It
is seen as resulting from processes such as:
 Interaction between the learner and users of the language
 Collaborative creation of meaning
 Creating meaningful and purposeful interaction through language
 Negotiation of meaning as the learner and his or her interlocutor arrive at
understanding
 Learning through attending to the feedback learners get when they use the language
 Paying attention to the language one hears (the input) and trying to incorporate new

43
 forms into one’s developing communicative competence
 Trying out and experimenting with different ways of saying things
We use language to express meanings, and the language we use is different in different
situations and with different people. We might ask a friend to ‘Pass us the newspaper, will
you?’ but to a stranger in the doctor’s waiting room we are more likely to say, “Excuse
me. Could you pass me that copy of The Times?’ Knowing the grammar of the language is
often little help in forming expressions such as these; students should discover what is
appropriate to say in a certain situation. They also need to learn some complete fixed
expressions.
A grammatical analysis of English divides the language up into separate grammatical
items. Alternatively, we can divide the language up in a completely different way- in terms
of ‘communicative function’- the language we use to express particular ideas or to achieve
particular results in particular situations. We are looking at the purpose of an utterance
rather than analyzing its component pieces. The sentences or examples of language used
are known as exponents of a function. Thus ‘Have you got the time on you’ is an exponent
of the function of ‘asking for information’.
Here are some exponents:
 I wish I’d done it!
 If only I hadn’t gone there!
 Why didn’t I buy it when I had the chance?
The function of these exponents is ‘expressing regret’
Stress and intonation are two important factors. A change of stress and intonation can
make an exponent change its function. For example, ‘I’m awfully sorry’ could be a
genuine apology or a sarcastic expression of anger. A lot of work in the area of function is
to do with common sense and common politeness- and most of all to do with the awareness
of the audience. We can help students become more aware of appropriacy by getting them
to consider:
 Who are you talking to? How well do you know them?
 How formal/informal is the relationship?
 Where are you? What unwritten rules or conduct apply?
(see Scrivener, 1994, page 139)

44
As mentioned above, the communicative function is in close relationship with the
situational context. A further step in providing connections between structure and function
is to contextualize the language and ask learners to practice responses which would be
realistic ways of performing useful communicative acts in situations they might expect to
encounter at some time. For example:
Your friend makes a lot of suggestions but you feel too tired to do anything.

A: Shall we go to the cinema?

P: Oh, no! I don’t feel like going to the cinema.
A: Shall we have a swim?
P: Oh, no, I don’t feel like having a swim.

Structurally, the learner is here practicing the use of the gerund. Functionally, he is
learning ways of making and rejecting suggestions. He is also learning to relate language
to its communicative functions.
Students must also learn to relate language to the social meanings that it carries and to use
it as a vehicle for social interaction. Furthermore, it is necessary to increase their sense of
performing in a meaningful social context, rather than simply responding to prompts. A
first step in this direction is to free the activity from dependence on the teacher or tape, so
that learners begin to interact as equal partners in an exchange rather than reacting to
stimuli.
The new communicative approach to teaching prompts a rethinking of classroom
teaching methodology. It is argued that learners learn a language through the process of
communicating in it, and that communication that is meaningful to the learner provides a
better opportunity for learning than through a grammar-based approach.
The principles of communicative language teaching methodology can be summarized
as follows:
 Make real communication the focus of language learning.
 Provide opportunities for learners to experiment and try out what they know.
 Be tolerant of learners’ errors as they indicate that the learner is building up his or
her communicative competence.
 Provide opportunities for learners to develop both accuracy and fluency.

45
  Link the different skills such as speaking, reading, and listening together, since they
usually occur so in the real world.
 Let students induce or discover grammar rules.
(see Richards, 2006, page 13)
In applying these principles in the classroom, new classroom techniques and activities
were necessary, and new roles for teachers and learners in the classroom. Instead of
making use of activities that demanded accurate repetition and memorization of sentences
and grammatical patterns, activities that require learners to negotiate meaning and to
interact meaningfully were required.

The teacher’s role in communicative activities

Teachers in communicative classrooms will find themselves talking less and
listening more-becoming active facilitators of their students' learning . The teacher sets up
the exercise, but because the students' performance is the goal, the teacher must step back
and observe, sometimes acting as referee or monitor. A classroom during a communicative
activity is far from quiet, however. The students do most of the speaking, and frequently
the scene of a classroom during a communicative exercise is active, with students leaving
their seats to complete a task. Students are, above all, communicators. Teachers give
students the opportunity to express their inner-side by sharing their ideas and opinions
Because of the increased responsibility to participate, students may find they gain
confidence in using the target language in general and they become more responsible
managers of their own learning (Larsen-Freeman, 1998).
If students cannot cope with the demands of a situation, the teacher can offer help,
by providing necessary language items; he is available as a source of guidance.
While students are performing, the teacher can monitor their strengths and weaknesses. If
the main aim is to get students to speak, one way to help that, would be for teachers to
reduce their own contribution. The less they speak, the more space it will allow the
students. It could be useful to aim to say nothing while the activity is underway, and save
any contributions for before and after.
Thus, a basic procedure for a communicative activity might be:
 Teacher introduces and sets up activity(teacher centre-stage)
 Students do activity(teacher out of sight, uninvolved)

46
 Teacher gets feedback, does follow-on work(teacher centre-stage again)
Some ideas for correcting work after a fluency activity:
1. The teacher writes up a number of sentences used during the activity and discusses
them with the students.
2. The teacher writes a number of sentences on the board. She gives the chalks to the
students and encourages them to make corrections.
3. The teacher invents and writes out a story that includes a number of errors he
overheard during the activity. She hands out the story the next day and the students, in
pairs or as a whole group, attempt to find the errors and correct them.
4. The teacher writes out two lists headed ‘A’ and ‘B’. On each list he writes the same ten
sentences from the activity. On one list he writes the sentences with an error, on the
other he writes the corrected version. Thus, the correct version of sentence 2 may be on
either list ‘A’ or ‘B’ and the other list has an error.
5. The teacher divides the students into two groups and hands out the appropriate list to
each group. The groups discuss their own list and try to see if their version of the
sentence is the correct one and if it is not, they correct it. After discussing all the
sentences, the groups can then compare the two sheets.
(see Scrivener, 1994)

The role of the students’ native language

The use of students’ native language is allowed in Communicative Language
Teaching. Sometimes, the teacher can discourage students from resorting to their mother
tongue in moments of difficulty. Whenever possible, the target language should be used
not only during communicative activities, but also for explaining the activities to the
students or in assigning homework, making them aware that the target language is a
vehicle for communication, not just an object to be studied.

3.2 Communicative activities

Since the beginning of Communicative Language Teaching, teachers and materials
writers have sought to find ways of developing classroom activities that reflect the
principles of a communicative methodology.
The purposes of communicative activities:

47
 They provide ‘whole-task’ practice
 They improve motivation. The learner’s motivation to learn is more likely to be
sustained if they see how their classroom learning is related to taking part in
communication with others.
 They allow natural learning. Language learning takes part inside the learner and many
aspects of it are beyond the teacher’s pedagogical control.
 They can create a context which supports learning. Communicative activities provide
opportunities for positive relationships among learners and between learners and
teacher.
Littlewood, in his book ‘C.L.T’ makes a classification of the communicative activities:

Pre-communicative activities Communicative activities

Structural activities Functional communication activities
Quasi-communicative activities Social interactional activities

Functional communication activities require students to use their language resources to

overcome an information gap or solve a problem. Social interactional activities require the
learner to pay attention to the context and the roles of the people involved, and to attend to
such things as formal versus informal language.

Information-Gap Activities
An important aspect of communication in Communicative Language Teaching is
the notion of information gap. This refers to the fact that in real communication, people
normally communicate in order to get information they do not possess. This is known as an
information gap. More authentic communication is likely to occur in the classroom if
students go beyond practice of language forms for their own sake and use their linguistic
and communicative resources in order to obtain information.
In so doing, they will draw available vocabulary, grammar, and communication
strategies to complete a task. The following exercises make use of the information-gap
principle:
Students are divided into A-B pairs. The teacher has copied two sets of pictures.
One set (for A students) contains a picture of a group of people in a classroom/laboratory.

48
The other set (for B students) contains a similar picture but it contains a number of slight
differences from the A-picture. Students must sit back to back and ask questions to try to
find out how many differences there are between the two pictures. Students practice a role
play in pairs. One student is given the information she/he needs to play the part of a clerk
in the railway station information booth and has information on train departures, prices,
etc. The other needs to obtain information on departure times, prices, etc. They role-play
the interaction without looking at each other’s cue cards.

Jigsaw activities
These are also based on the information-gap principle. Typically, the class is
divided into groups and each group has part of the information needed to complete an
activity. The class must fit the pieces together to complete the whole.
In so doing, they must use their language resources to communicate meaningfully
and so take part in meaningful communication practice. The following are examples of
jigsaw activities:

49
 The teacher plays a recording in which three people with different points of view
discuss their opinions on a topic of interest. The teacher prepares three different listening
tasks, one focusing on each of the three speaker’s points of view. Students are divided into
three groups and each group listens and takes notes on one of the three speaker’s opinions.
Students are then rearranged into groups containing a student from groups A, B, and C.
They now role-play the discussion using the information they obtained.
The teacher takes a narrative and divides it into twenty sections (or as many
sections as there are students in the class). Each student gets one section of the story.
Students must then move around the class, and by listening to each section read aloud,
decide where in the story their section belongs. Eventually the students have to put the
entire story together in the correct sequence.

Pairs interview
This activity is useful at the start of a course to help people get to know one another
and to create a friendly working relationship. It also establishes the fact that speaking is an
important part of a course right from the start.
Put the students into pairs. They should interview the other students, asking any questions
they wish, as long as these are formulated in a polite way (respecting the formal register).
When finished, they introduce the person to the rest of the class. If you are not sure that
they master the language that makes the difference between formal and informal, you can
start the activity by eliciting a number of possible formal and informal questions from the
students.

Planning a holiday
Collect together a number of advertisements or brochures advertising a holiday.
Explain to the students that we can all go on holiday together, but we must all agree on
where we want to go. Divide the students into groups of three and give each group a
selection of this material. Their task is to plan a holiday for the whole group. Allow them a
good amount of time to read and select a holiday and then to prepare a presentation in
which they attempt to persuade the rest of the class that they should choose this holiday.
When they are ready, each group makes their presentation and the class discusses and
chooses a holiday.

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Drama and role-play
Drama is an excellent way to get students using the language. It essentially involves
using the imagination to make oneself into another character, or the classroom into a
different place. It can be a starting point for exciting listening and speaking work and it can
be utilized as a tool to provide practice in specific grammatical, lexical, functional or
phonological areas.
The teacher can bring the outside world into the classroom, providing useful practice
( in cafes, shops, banks, streets, parties, job interviews) that would otherwise be
impossible. There are six types of drama activities:
1. Role-play Students act out small scenes using their own ideas and information on role-
cards
2. Simulation This is really a large scale role-play. The intention is to create a much more
complete, complex world( of a theatre, television, business company, etc)
3. Drama games Short games that usually involve movement and imagination
4. Guided improvisation A scene is improvised. One by one the students join in
character, until the whole scene comes alive.
5. Acting playscripts Short written sketches or scenes are acted by the students
6. Prepared improvised drama Students in small groups invent and rehearse a short
scene or story that they perform for the others

Other Activity Types in Communicative Language Teaching

Many other activity types have been used in CLT, including the following:
 Task-completion activities: puzzles, games, map-reading, and other kinds of classroom
tasks in which the focus is on using one’s language resources to complete a task.
 Information-gathering activities: student-conducted surveys, interviews, and searches
in which students are required to use their linguistic resources to collect information.
 Opinion-sharing activities: activities in which students compare values, opinions, or
beliefs, such as a ranking task in which students list six qualities in order of importance
that they might consider in choosing a date or spouse.
 Information-transfer activities: These require learners to take information that is
presented in one form, and represent it in a different form. For example, they may read

51
 instructions on how to get from A to B, and then draw a map showing the sequence, or
they may read information about a subject and then represent it as a graph.
 Reasoning-gap activities: These involve deriving some new information from given
information through the process of inference, practical reasoning, etc.
For example, working out a teacher’s timetable on the basis of given class timetables.
 Role plays: activities in which students are assigned roles and improvise a scene or
exchange based on given information or clues. Role-play provides students with a wide
range of experience, helps them to practice and experiment with a wide range of
vocabulary, structures, functions, intonation patterns and it raises students’ awareness
about the relevance of ehat they are doing in the class to real life They have to integrate
all language knowledge.
 Debate: the students share the same knowledge about the issue but have different
opinions or interests. At the end of the activity they have to reach an agreemrnt. It
increases motivation and stir students’ imagination, giving them the opportunity to
develop their social skills.
Most of the activities discussed above reflect an important aspect of classroom tasks in
CLT, namely that they are designed to be carried out in pairs or small groups. Through
completing activities in this way, it is argued, learners will obtain several benefits:
 They can learn from hearing the language used by other members of the group.
 They will produce a greater amount of language than they would use in teacher-fronted
activities.
 Their motivational level is likely to increase.
 They will have the chance to develop fluency.
Teaching and classroom materials today consequently make use of a wide variety of
small-group activities. (see Richards, 2006). These kind of activities are the most common
way the teachers can implement the view of learning as a social activity. Cooperative
learning offers second language teachers many ideas for their students, by asking them to
work together in pairs or groups.(see Farell, 2010)

Accuracy versus fluency activities

According to Richards, one of the goals of Communicative Language Teaching is
to develop fluency in language use. Fluency is natural language use occurring when a

52
speaker engages in meaningful interaction and maintains comprehensible and ongoing
communication despite limitations in his or her communicative competence. Fluency is
developed by creating classroom activities in which students must negotiate meaning, use
communication strategies, correct misunderstandings, and work to avoid communication
breakdowns.
Fluency practice can be contrasted with accuracy practice, which focuses on
creating correct examples of language use. Differences between activities that focus on
fluency and those that focus on accuracy can be summarized as follows:
Activities focusing on fluency
 Reflect natural use of language
 Focus on achieving communication
 Require meaningful use of language
 Require the use of communication strategies
 Produce language that may not be predictable
 Seek to link language use to context
Activities focusing on accuracy
 Reflect classroom use of language
 Focus on the formation of correct examples of language
 Practice language out of context
 Practice small samples of language
 Do not require meaningful communication
 Control choice of language
The following are examples of fluency activities and accuracy activities. Both make
use of group work, reminding us that group work is not necessary a fluency task.
Fluency Tasks
A group of students of mixed language ability carry out a role play in which they
have to adopt specified roles and personalities provided for them on cue cards. These roles
involve the drivers, witnesses, and the police at a collision between two cars. The language
is entirely improvised by the students, though they are heavily constrained by the specified
situation and characters.
The teacher and a student act out a dialog in which a customer returns a faulty
object she has purchased to a department store. The clerk asks what the problem is and

53
promises to get a refund for the customer or to replace the item. In groups, students now
try to recreate the dialog using language items of their choice. They are asked to recreate
what happened preserving the meaning but not necessarily the exact language. They later
act out their dialogs in front of the class.
Accuracy Tasks
Students are practicing dialogs. The dialogs contain examples of falling intonation
in Wh-questions. The class is organized in groups of three, two students practicing the
dialog, and the third playing the role of monitor. The monitor checks that the others are
using the correct intonation pattern and corrects them where necessary.
The students rotate their roles between those reading the dialog and those
monitoring. The teacher moves around listening to the groups and correcting their
language where necessary.
Students in groups of three or four complete an exercise on a grammatical item,
such as choosing between the past tense and the present perfect, an item which the teacher
has previously presented and practiced as a whole class activity. Together students decide
which grammatical form is correct and they complete the exercise. Groups take turns
reading out their answers.
Teachers were recommended to use a balance of fluency activities and accuracy
and to use accuracy activities to support fluency activities. Accuracy work could either
come before or after fluency work. For example, based on students’ performance on a
fluency task, the teacher could assign accuracy work to deal with grammatical or
pronunciation problems the teacher observed while students were carrying out the task. An
issue that arises with fluency work, however, is whether it develops fluency at the expense
of accuracy. In doing fluency tasks, the focus is on getting meanings across using any
available communicative resources. This often involves a heavy dependence on vocabulary
and communication strategies, and there is little motivation to use accurate grammar or
pronunciation. Fluency work thus requires extra attention on the part of the teacher in
terms of preparing students for a fluency task, or follow-up activities that provide feedback
on language use. While dialogs, grammar, and pronunciation drills did not usually
disappear from textbooks and classroom materials at this time, they now appeared as part
of a sequence of activities that moved back and forth between accuracy activities and
fluency activities. And the dynamics of classrooms also changed. Instead of a

54
predominance of teacher-fronted teaching, teachers were encouraged to make greater use
of small-group work. Pair and group activities gave learners greater opportunities to use
the language and to develop fluency.

Mechanical, Meaningful, and Communicative Practice

Another useful distinction that some advocates of CLT proposed was the
distinction between three different kinds of practice – mechanical, meaningful, and
communicative.
Mechanical practice refers to a controlled practice activity which students can
successfully carry out without necessarily understanding the language they are using.
Examples of this kind of activity would be repetition drills and substitution drills designed
to practice use of particular grammatical or other items.
Meaningful practice refers to an activity where language control is still provided
but where students are required to make meaningful choices when carrying out practice.
For example, in order to practice the use of prepositions to describe locations of places,
students might be given a street map with various buildings identified in different
locations. They are also given a list of prepositions such as across from, on the corner of,
near, on, next to. They then have to answer questions such as “Where is the book shop?
Where is the café?” etc. The practice is now meaningful because they have to respond
according to the location of places on the map.
Communicative practice refers to activities where practice in using language
within a real communicative context is the focus, where real information is exchanged, and
where the language used is not totally predictable. For example, students might have to
draw a map of their neighborhood and answer questions about the location of different
places, such as the nearest bus stop, the nearest café, etc. (See Richards, 2006)
Exercise sequences in many CLT course books take students from mechanical, to
meaningful, to communicative practice. For example:

Superlative adjectives
Superlative adjectives usually appear before the noun they modify.
The funniest person I know is my friend Bob.
The most caring individual in our school is the custodian.
They can also occur with the noun they modify
Of all the people in my family, my Aunt Ruth is the kindest.

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Of all my professors, Dr. Lopez is the most inspiring.
Superlatives are often followed by relative clauses in the present perfect.
My cousin Anita is the most generous person I’ve ever met.
The closest friend I’ve ever had is someone I met in elementary school.

A Complete these sentences with your own information, and add more details.
Then compare with a partner.

1. One of the most inspiring people I’ve ever known is …

One of the most inspiring people I’ve ever known is my math teacher. She encourages
students to think rather than just memorize formulas and rules.
2. The most successful individual I know is …
3. Of all the people I know …. is the least self-centered.
4. The youngest person who I consider to be a hero is …
5. The most moving speaker I have ever heard is …
6. The most important role model I’ve ever had is …
7. Of all the friends I’ve ever had …. is the most understanding.
8. One of the bravest things I’ve eve done is …

B Use the superlative form of these adjectives to describe people you know. Write at
least five sentences.
brave honest interesting smart generous inspiring kind witty
C Group work
Discuss the sentences you wrote in Exercises A and B. Ask each other follow-up
questions.
A. My next-door neighbor is the bravest person I’ve ever met.
B. What did your neighbor do, exactly?
A. She’s a firefighter, and once she saved a child from a burning building …
If students read and practice aloud the sentences in the grammar box, this constitutes
mechanical practice. Exercises A and B can be regarded as meaningful practice since
students now complete the sentences with their own information. Exercise C is an example
of communicative practice since it is an open-ended discussion activity.

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 Current approaches to methodology draw on earlier traditions in communicative
language teaching and continue to make reference to some extent to traditional approaches.
Thus classroom activities typically have some of the following characteristics:
 They seek to develop students’ communicative competence through linking
grammatical development to the ability to communicate. Hence, grammar is not taught
in isolation but often arises out of a communicative task, thus creating a need for
specific items of grammar. Students might carry out a task and then reflect on some of
the linguistic characteristics of their performance.
 They create the need for communication, interaction, and negotiation of meaning
through the use of activities such as problem solving, information sharing, and role
play.
 They provide opportunities for both inductive as well as deductive learning of
grammar.
 They make use of content that connects to students’ lives and interests.
 They allow students to personalize learning by applying what they have learned to their
own lives.
 Classroom materials typically make use of authentic texts to create interest and to
provide valid models of language.
Approaches to language teaching today seek to capture the rich view of language and
language learning assumed by a communicative view of language.
Jacobs and Farrell (2003) see the shift toward CLT as marking a paradigm shift in our
thinking about teachers, learning, and teaching. They identify key components of this shift
as follows:
1. Focusing greater attention on the role of learners rather than the external stimuli learners
are receiving from their environment. Thus, the center of attention shifts from the teacher
to the student. This shift is generally known as the move from teacher centered instruction
to learner-centered instruction.
2. Focusing greater attention on the learning process rather than the products that learners
produce. This shift is known as the move from product-oriented to process-oriented
instruction.
3. Focusing greater attention on the social nature of learning rather than on students as
separate, decontextualized individuals

57
4. Focusing greater attention on diversity among learners and viewing these difference not
as impediments to learning but as resources to be recognized, catered to, and appreciated.
This shift is known as the study of individual differences.
5. In research and theory-building, focusing greater attention on the views of those internal
to the classroom rather than solely valuing the views of those who come from outside to
study classrooms, investigate and evaluate what goes on there, and engage in theorizing
about it. This shift is associated with such innovations as qualitative research, which
highlights the subjective and affective, the participants’ insider views, and the uniqueness
of each context.
6. Along with this emphasis on context comes the idea of connecting the school with the
world beyond as means of promoting holistic learning.
7. Helping students to understand the purpose of learning and develop their own purpose
8. A whole-to-part orientation instead of a part-to-whole approach. This involves such
approaches as beginning with meaningful whole text and then helping students understand
the various features that enable texts to function.
For example: the choice of words and the text’s organizational structure.
9. An emphasis on the importance of meaning rather than drills and other forms of rote
learning
10. A view of learning as a lifelong process rather than something done to prepare students
for an exam. Jacobs and Farrell suggest that the CLT paradigm shift outlined above
has led to eight major changes in approaches to language teaching. These
changes are:
1. Learner autonomy: Giving learners greater choice over their own learning, both in
terms of the content of learning as well as processes they might employ. The use of small
groups is one example of this, as well as the use of self-assessment.
2. The social nature of learning: Learning is not an individual, private activity, but a
social one that depends upon interaction with others. The movement known as cooperative
learning reflects this viewpoint.
3. Curricular integration: The connection between different strands of the curriculum is
emphasized, so that English is not seen as a stand-alone subject but is linked to other
subjects in the curriculum. Text-based learning reflects this approach, and seeks to develop

58
fluency in text types that can be used across the curriculum. Project work in language
teaching also requires students to explore issues outside of the language classroom.
4. Focus on meaning: Meaning is viewed as the driving force of learning. Content-based
teaching reflects this view and seeks to make the exploration of meaning through content
the core of language learning activities.
5. Diversity: Learners learn in different ways and have different strengths. Teaching needs
to take these differences into account rather than try to force students into a single mold. In
language teaching, this has led to an emphasis on developing students’ use and awareness
of learning strategies.
6. Thinking skills: Language should serve as a means of developing higher-order thinking
skills, also known as critical and creative thinking. In language teaching, this means that
students do not learn language for its own sake but in order to develop and apply their
thinking skills in situations that go beyond the language classroom.
7. Alternative assessment: New forms of assessment are needed to replace traditional
multiple-choice and other items that test lower-order skills. Multiple forms of assessment.
For example: observation, interviews, journals, portfolios) can be used to build a
comprehensive picture of what students can do in a second language.
8. Teachers as co-learners: The teacher is viewed as a facilitator who is constantly trying
out different alternatives, i.e., learning through doing. In language teaching, this has led to
an interest in action research and other forms of classroom investigation.
These changes in thinking have not led to the development of a single model of CLT that
can be applied in all settings. Rather, a number of different language teaching approaches
have emerged which reflect different responses to the issues identified above. While there
is no single syllabus model that has been universally accepted, a language syllabus today
needs to include systematic coverage of the many different components of communicative
competence, including language skills, content, grammar, vocabulary, and functions.
Different syllabus types within a communicative orientation to language teaching employ
different routes to developing communicative competence. We will now examine some of
the different approaches that are currently in use around the world and which can be
viewed as falling within the general framework of communicative language teaching.(see
Richards, 2006)
3.3 Register and Communicative Language Teaching

59
 The communicative competence involves the mastery of different types of text. Text
here is used in a special sense to refer to structured sequences of language that are used in
specific contexts in specific ways. For example, in the course of a day, a speaker of
English may use spoken English in many different ways, including the following:
 Casual conversational exchange with a friend
 Conversational exchange with a stranger in an elevator
 Telephone call to arrange an appointment at a hair salon
 An account to friends of an unusual experience
 Discussion of a personal problem with a friend to seek advice
Each of these uses of language can be regarded as a text in that it exists as a unified whole
with a beginning, middle, and end, it confirms to norms of
organization and content, and it draws on appropriate grammar and vocabulary.
Communicative competence thus involves being able to use different kinds of spoken and
written texts in the specific contexts of their use.
According to Feez and Joyce (1998), Task- Based Instruction is based on an approach
to teaching language which involves:
 Teaching explicitly about the structures and grammatical features of spoken and
written texts
 Linking spoken and written texts to the cultural context of their use
 Designing units of work which focus on developing skills in relation to whole texts
 Providing students with guided practice as they develop language skills for meaningful
communication through whole texts
Learners in different contexts have to master the use of the text types occurring most
frequently in specific contexts, according to the degree of formality for each situation.
These contexts might include: studying in an English-medium university, studying in an
English-medium primary or secondary school, working in a restaurant, office, or store,
socializing with neighbors in a housing complex.
The grammatical items that are needed in order to master different text types:
 Adjectives, adjectival phrases, and clauses
 Adverbs and adverbials
 Connectors to do with time and sequence
 Direct and indirect speech

60
 Nouns, noun phrases, and clauses
 Prepositions and prepositional phrases
 Pronouns
 Tenses to express past time
 Verbs and verb phrases
Feez and Joyce (1998, 28–31) give the following description of how a text –based
approach is implemented:
Phase 1: Building the Context
In this stage, students:
 Are introduced to the social context of an authentic model of the text type being
studied
 Explore features of the general cultural context in which the text type is used and the
social purposes the text type achieves
 Explore the immediate context of situation by investigating the register of a model text
which has been selected on the basis of the course objectives and learner need. An
exploration of register involves:
 Building knowledge of the topic of the model text and knowledge of the social activity
in which the text is used( job seeking)
 Understanding the roles and relationships of the people using the text and how these
are established and maintained, e.g., the relationship between a job seeker and a
prospective employer
 Understanding the channel of communication being used, e.g., using the telephone,
speaking face-to-face with members of an interview panel
Context-building activities include:
 Presenting the context through pictures, audiovisual materials, realia, excursions, field-
trips, guest speakers, etc.
 Establishing the social purpose through discussions or surveys, etc.
 Cross-cultural activities, such as comparing differences in the use of the text in two
cultures
 Comparing the model text with other texts of the same or a contrasting type (comparing
a job interview with a complex spoken exchange involving close friends, a work
colleague or a stranger in a service encounter)

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Phase 2: Modeling and Deconstructing the Text
In this stage, students:
 Investigate the structural pattern and language features of the model
 Compare the model with other examples of the same text type
Feez and Joyce (1998, page 87) comment that “modeling and deconstruction are
undertaken at both the whole text, clause, and expression levels. It is at this stage that
many traditional ESL language teaching activities come into their own.”

Phase 3: Joint Construction of the Text

In this stage:
 Students begin to contribute to the construction of whole examples of the text type.
 The teacher gradually reduces the contribution to text construction, as the students
move closer to being able to control text type independently.
Joint-construction activities include:
 Teacher questioning, discussing and editing whole class construction
 Skeleton texts
 Jigsaw and information-gap activities
 Small-group construction of tests
 Dictogloss
 Self-assessment and peer-assessment activities

Phase 4: Independent Construction of the Text
In this stage:
 Students work independently with the text.
 Learner performances are used for achievement assessment.
Independent construction activities include:
 Listening tasks, e.g., comprehension activities in response to live or recorded material,
such as performing a task, sequencing pictures, numbering, ticking or underlining
material on a worksheet, answering questions
 Listening and speaking tasks, such as role plays, simulated or authentic dialogs

62
 Speaking tasks, such as spoken presentation to class, community organization, or
workplace
 Reading tasks: comprehension activities in response to written material such as
performing a task, sequencing pictures, numbering, ticking or underlining material on a
worksheet, answering questions
 Writing tasks which demand that students draft and present whole texts
The teacher should talk to the students about how we use speech, like clothing, to suit
the occasion. For example, we might wear shorts and a tank top to a picnic but probably
not to apply for a job. We might wear a jacket and tie to receive a special award from an
organization, but not to run to the store for cat food.
Similarly, we often use different styles of speech for different occasions. If a person
says “ain’t” when talking to a friend at a party, the friend probably won’t care. But if a
person says “ain’t” at a job interview, the employer may rank that person below another
applicant who uses more “proper” English. Sometimes the employer may not even be
aware of why he or she is doing so.
When people can change their speech to suit the occasion, there is no problem. The
problem comes when they are unable to change, or when they are not even aware that their
speech is sometimes inappropriate. (see Thurston, 1991)
Teachers should expose students to different language varieties in listening and reading
texts, so that they can hear someone else’s voice, too. This will prepare students for the
times when they come into contact with different language varieties. Of course, exposing
beginner students to too many varieties and accents will be counter-productive since they
will already be facing the difficulty of coming to terms with just one variety, but as their
level improves, they will need to have opportunities to encounter more and different
varieties of English.
Different genres of writing and speaking need different language use. Scientific articles
emply passive more than general ones; academic essays require a style of discourse and
particular expressions which would be out of place in everyday speech, such as dealing
with dissatisfied costumers that they may encounter. (see Harmer, 1983)

3.3.1 Classroom activities for formal and informal language

63
 The first thing students need to be able to do is to identify the two kinds of
language. One nice game for this is giving each student one card with “Formal” on it and
another with “Informal” on it. They listen to phrases the teacher reads out like “Wassup?”
and “I hope this email finds you well” and hold up the cards to indicate what they think
about the formality they hear. They can then label the same phrases on a worksheet and try
to draw up rules for formal and informal language from those examples.
You can also introduce common mistakes when doing this point, this time giving
them cards that say “Informal” and “Wrong” to hold up when they hear “Looking forward
to hearing from you” and “I look forward to hear from you”.
There are several other ways of taking this kind of TTT (Test Teach Test) approach.
 One is to give them mixed up formal and informal conversations or emails to sort out.
This can be a formal exchange and an informal one to divide from each other and then
put into order, or an email exchange (that gets more and more informal as it goes on)
that you ask them to put into chronological order. The worksheets should be designed
so that the students can use meaning and context clues to help them even if they are
unsure about the differences in formality. They can then work together to identify the
points that make the differences in formality obvious.
A simpler version of the activity above is to just give them phrases or emails and their
responses (e.g. “Hiya. How’s it going?” “Great. You?”) that they should match up from
formality and meaning clues.
 If there are certain formal and/or informal phrases that students are likely to need often,
there is also a memory game that they can play. Make a set of about fifteen to twenty
cards that have a formal sentence on one side and an informal version of the same thing
on the other (e.g. “Dear Mr Smith” and “Hi John”). Students lay them in vertical line
on the table in front of them, representing the ladder that they must climb. It doesn’t
matter which side is showing. They climb the ladder by guessing/remembering the
exact wording of the other side of every card, moving all the way from the bottom to
the top. Any mistakes mean play passes to the next person, and all players must start at
the very bottom each and every time. Cards remain turned over if they guess correctly,
meaning the next person must change the formality the other way round.
 A more well-known activity is to get students correcting formality mistakes. I find this
works best if the formality problems are mixed up with spelling mistakes, paragraphing

64
 problems, etc. You can give them a conversation or email exchange with a mix of such
problems to sort out, or give them a succession of tasks that just have a single kind of
problem that they should identify and then correct. For example, the first email and
response you give them has 15 spelling mistakes; then once they have found and
corrected all of them you give a similar worksheet with 15 formality problems on it.
 Another activity for presenting or practicing formality is to give students very informal
sentences that they should complete to make more formal ones, such as going from
“Pass me the salt, will you?” to “Could you possibly pass me the salt for just a
moment or two, if it’s not too much trouble?” . When they give up or the last sentence
was actually less formal than the previous one, the last person gets a point and they do
the same thing with a different sentence.
(Please visit http://www.englishclub.com/)
Fair or not, people form opinions of others based upon their speech habits, just as they
form opinions based upon their style of dress. To help students see the impact speech
habits can have on others, try the exercise “With Slang / Without Slang”. The exercise
includes two versions of a mock television interview, one with sloppy, “slangy” speech
and one without. Choose some students to rehearse the interviews and perform them before
the class.
1. Conversation #1
TALK SHOW HOST: I’d like to introduce our next guest, Lila Harrington, who is here to
tell us about her new book, American Schools Today. Welcome, Ms. Harrington.
AUTHOR #1: Dude! What’s up? Glad to be here!
TALK SHOW HOST: Can you tell us why you wrote your book, Ms. Harrington?
AUTHOR #1: Sure. Well, see, like, it was a couple a years ago and I was, like, teaching
in a school, a middle school. I was, you know, really gettin’ into it—teaching, I mean.
Then, see, one day I read this article about all the bad stuff going on in schools—you
know, like drugs and violence and kids not learning nothing and stuff like that. And I’m
totally like, “That’s not my school.” So I go, “You know, maybe I oughta write a book.”
So, like, I did!
TALK SHOW HOST: I see. And what is your book about, exactly?
AUTHOR #1: Well, it’s about, like, good stuff, you know, good stuff going on in schools.
It gives you a real good picture of kids today.

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TALK SHOW HOST: And how do your students feel about the book?
AUTHOR #1: They’re like, “Wow! Ms. Harrington! That’s, like, awesome!” They’re
really, like, soooooo blown away that I’d do something like that.
TALK SHOW HOST: I’m afraid we have to go now, Ms. Harrington. Thank you for
speaking with us today.
AUTHOR #1: Thanks a lot. Later!

Conversation #2
TALK SHOW HOST: I’d like to introduce our next guest, Lila Harrington, who is here to
tell us about her new book, American Schools Today. Welcome, Ms. Harrington.
AUTHOR #2: Thank you.
TALK SHOW HOST: Can you tell us why you wrote your book, Ms. Harrington?
AUTHOR #2: Yes. Two or three years ago, I was teaching at a junior high and really
enjoying it. Then one day I read a newspaper article about all the negative things
happening in schools today—drugs, violence and so little learning taking place. I found
myself thinking, “That’s not my school!” I knew a lot of very positive things were going on
in my school and in schools where my friends taught. So I came up with the idea of writing
a book myself.
TALK SHOW HOST: I see. And what is your book about, exactly?
AUTHOR #2: It’s about all the positive things that are happening in schools today. I
wanted to show the world a more optimistic view of education.
TALK SHOW HOST: How do your students feel about the book?
AUTHOR #2: They think it’s wonderful. They are so impressed that one of their own
teachers would write a book—a book about them.
TALK SHOW HOST: I’m afraid we have to go now, Ms. Harrington. Thank you for
speaking with us today.
AUTHOR #2: Thank you for inviting me.
The students should be able to see that Author #1 and Author #2 have quite different
effects upon the audience. Ask the students the following questions:
Judging by what you have seen during the interviews, which person has more credibility?
Which seems smarter?
Which is a better writer?

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Which would you be more likely to take seriously?
There are many other classroom activities that can help students become awareof
the importance of speech. Here are just a few ideas:
• Have students write two versions of a conversation between an employer and a person
interviewing for a job. In one conversation, the person being interviewed should use poor
grammar and a lot of slang. In the second, the person should use neither. Have volunteers
read aloud some of the conversations, and let the class compare the impressions created.
• Help students learn to recognize “word puffiness.” Word puffiness is the use of a lot of
words to say very little. Most of the words are empty words and phrases, such as “you
know,” “like” and “well.” Here’s an example of word puffiness:
She like, you know, wanted to go to the mall or, well, somewhere, you know, where
there would be friends that she could like, you know, talk to.
• Have some volunteers (perhaps for extra credit) write out several examples of “puffy”
conversations.
They might want to make an audio recording of friends—with their permission—
in order to come up with material. They might want to take notes while people are talking
at lunch. Or they might want to jot down what people say in answer to questions during
classes. Type the conversations. Then have the class reduce the conversations to clear,
direct communication.
• At some point, students are likely to insist that they can stop using slang any time they
want. See if that is true. Go on with class, but point out every example of slang used during
discussion. If someone says, “We need more time to, like, study,” ask, “Like study, or
study?” Call attention to every cheesy, lame, dude, and totally used as slang. Have each
student who uses slang start over, trying to eliminate the slang. Keep a sense of humor
about this, of course. The point isn’t to embarrass anyone. Chances are that conversation
will come to a grinding halt. No one will be able to complete a sentence before someone
points out that he or she is using slang. Students are likely to be surprised by how much
slang they are using, and don’t be surprised if you find out how much of it you use
yourself.
• Pick out language pet peeves. Share your own and have students share any they might
have, or any their parents or friends have. Examples: these ones instead of these,
babysitted instead of baby-sat, ain’t got no instead of doesn’t have any. Many students

67
may actually be unaware that there is anything substandard about words and phrases they
frequently use.
Be sure students understand that slang is an important part of our language and that there is
nothing wrong with using it in the right circumstances. In fact, there are situations in which
it wouldn’t make sense to use anything but informal speech that includes slang.
Have students think of those situations. (Examples: when trying to make friends at a new
school, watching a football game, talking on the phone with your best friend, etc.) Then
have students think of situations in which it would be wise to use more formal language.
(Examples: giving a speech, interviewing for a job, taking phone messages at work,
meeting your mother’s boss, etc.)
• Talk about the importance of choice—the ability to choose what kind of language to use,
according to the circumstances. When a person hasn’t learned anything but sloppy speech
patterns, that person doesn’t have a choice. He or she must talk the same way in all
circumstances, and that can have unfortunate consequences. Have the students brainstorm
some of those consequences. (Examples: creating a bad impression with a date’s parents,
having some people think you are less intelligent than you really are, being unable to get
certain jobs, like radio announcer, television reporter or public information officer)
(Source: Thurston, 2009, page 114)

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 CHAPTER FOUR
TRAINING UPPER-
INTERMEDIATE LERNERS
AWARENESS OF REGISTER

4.1. Preliminary statements

It is important for teachers to make learners aware of the processes involved in
language learning and to help them find environments that suit their needs best. Learners
should be helped to find their own learning style in a gradual way. Therefore a balance
must be found between providing opportunities for the learners to take control over their
learning while at the same time supporting those learners who are not ready or who don’t
feel ready to take on this responsibility for themselves.
Being aware of what actually constitutes a “language”, is critical. “Knowing a
language” implies the ability to use a linguistic system: the ways in which sounds combine
into words and these take endings and function words to become groups which can be
placed in clauses and used to convey meaning according to culturally specific social
purposes etc. To acquire fluency in a second language requires learners to build knowledge
of all these different fields and this takes many years of study.
Educators who have developed “language awareness” have developed their
understanding of the reason of language and its role in all classroom learning. Their
awareness of language assists them to highlight language and languages in their
conversations and planning, as they are aware of the potential for success  in using
particular language(s) for a variety of purposes and in a range of contexts. Teachers should
encourage learners to reflect on the learning process, by using new strategies, evaluating
them in terms of preference, sharing experience and giving reasons for their preferences.

69
Language awareness favours language(s) learning because it promotes positive attitudes
towards language as a cultural construction and it also gets students to respect people who
have a different linguistic or cultural background.

4.2. Research template

Our research goal is to raise upper intermediate students’ awareness of using
English language registers appropriately, according to the socio-cultural context.
At the intermediate and upper-intermediate levels students are aiming to do more
than simply communicate and be understood in English. Many of them are at the onset of a
period when they need to pass some kind of written examination. One of the main
difficulties of teaching an upper-intermediate or intermediate class is that students have
different abilities, learning styles and levels of motivation, as well as different attitudes to
and expectations of learning. There is an imbalance in how good they are at different skills.
Good speakers and weak writers may well be in the same class as weak speakers who are
good writers. Reconciling these differences is one of the main problems for us, teachers.

4.2.1. Problem identification

10th grade pupils have difficulty in using the appropriate language markers in order
to communicate according to the social context.
4.2.2. Preliminary investigation
Sampling
The object of the research carried out on the subject of expressing formality and
informality is testing and comparing the results of two different 10th grade classes of
students(10th A-20 students and 10th B 23 students) after they have been introduced to
register-related markers.

PRE-TEST design and administration

10 points granted
I.Put the verbs in brakets into the Past Simple or the Present Perfect.
1. We…..(arrive) two days ago but we ….(not/see) any of the sights yet; so far we……
(spend) our time just relaxing.

70
2. I…….(be) so busy lately that I…….(not/have) time to do anything. I……..(go) out last
night for the first time in weeks!
3. Bob …..(fly) to Rome yesterday. He ……(go) on a business trip and I really miss him;
it’s the first time we…..(be) apart since we….(get) married.
(10x1,9p=19p)

II. Listen. Write what you hear in each space. Use contracted forms, but also think about
what the non-contracted forms would be.
1. I’d’ve bought some more coffee if……….known……..run out.
2. The film……….started yet, so……….got lots of time.
3. I suppose…………closed by now, so……….come back tomorrow.
4. …………………..gone if………been anything good on Tv.
5. A:……………..had that last slice of pizza. B: I told you……..make you feel sick!
(10x1,9p=19p)
III.. Read the following letter and replace the underlined formal phrases with more
appropriate informal ones.
I felt obliged to write to inform you how everything is going here in Spain since I started
university. Please accept my sincere apologies for not writing sooner but I’ve been so busy
I really haven’t had a suitable opportunity.
I managed to find a nice place to live. It’s a small flat just around the corner from the
university. I’m sharing the flat with a girl called Anita who seems really nice and has been
here for a year.
I have become familiar with my surroundings and have been practicing my Spanish, which
is improving considerably every year.
I hope to return home for Christmas once the examinations are over. It will be wonderful to
see everyone again, I do get homesick, You know. I look forward to hearing from you
soon.
Yours sincerely,
Julie
(8x1,5p=12p)
IV. You have received an invitation to a birthday party. Write a letter accepting the
invitation and suggesting that you organize the music. (120-180 words)(40 p)

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Marking scheme
Total: 100 points
10 points granted
Item 1: 19 points – 1.9 points/correct variant
Item 2: 19 points – 1.9 points/correct variant
Item 3: 12 points -1.5 points/correct variant
Item 4: 40 points
- range of formal/informal markers – 8 p
- range of lexical structures – 8 p
- organisation – 12 p
- impact on the reader – 12 p

Data interpretation
The grades awarded to students in the 10th A at the pre-test were the following:
Grade Number of students
4 0
5 0
6 1
7 9
8 8
9 2
10 0

The 10th A class

 20 students present
 Average mark: 7,55
 Mark statistics:
1. 1 student got 6, 9 students got 7, 8 students got 8 and 2 students got 9
2. Item I: 7 students did the whole of it correctly;
3. Item II: 14 students did it correctly;
4. Item III : 9 students did it correctly;
5. Item IV: 12 students did it correctly;

72
 10th A

30
No of students

25
20
15
10 9 8
5
1 2
0
6 7 8 9
Grade

The grades awarded to students in the 10th B at the pre-test were the following:
Grade Number of students
4 0
5 0
6 1
7 4
8 12
9 6
10 0

 23 students present
 Average mark: 8,00
Item I: 11 students did the whole of it correctly
Item II: 9 students did it correctly;
Item III: no student did it correctly;
Item IV: 8 students did it correctly;

73
 10th B

No of students 30

20

10 12
4 6
0 1
6 7 8 9
Grade

4.2.3. Hypothesis formation

All in all, the students in the 10th B did slightly better than those in the 10thA, due
to the fact that they have 3 classes of English per week. Another conclusion that can be
drawn is that the students showed better knowledge of things that had appeared during the
course of years of studying English, as compared to those they only found out about in the
previous year of study, such as the difference between formal and informal markers. It
means that students need motivation and time in order to be able to fully understand the
new structures.

4.2.4. Plan intervention

The teacher has the task to exploit a wide range of methods, strategies and
techniques to raise the students’ interest in the targeted language area and enhance higher
attainment. The teacher should be prepared to adapt the lesson plans to train students for
both oral and written communication. Therefore such problems must be revised from time
to time to help students achieve better performance.

4.2.5. Initiate action and observe outcomes

After analyzing the results of the tests, the teacher should rely her teaching on
communicative activities that will help students have a better acquisition of language.
The range of communicative activities includes: reaching a consensus discussion
(the buzz group, controversial topics, debate), communicative games, simulation and role
play, reconstruction, etc. Written communicative activities vary from writing
formal/informal letters and advertisements, self-correcting to writing e-mails, etc.
Activities

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 When talking in an informal situation, or when writing a letter or an e-mail to a
friend, one has the tendency to use contractions. In informal speech, the contractions
‘d (had) and ‘ve(have) are sometimes left out in the verbs had better:

You’d better apologise to her.

The following activity is designed to make students understand the informality of

language when using contractions.
The students are asked to underline the words which could be contracted in the following
sentences:

1. Those are too big, but these will fit.

2. There is no butter, but this will do instead.
3. I am sure Ann would help if she could.
4. How did they know we would be there.
5. What will you do if Tom has already gone?

After underlining the words, the students are asked to read the sentences aloud, with
contracted forms. This type of activity might be boring for students, but what the teacher
can do to make it more appealing is to find lyrics to songs thy like as the lyrics to pop
songs often contain contracted forms. The students could work in groups and have a
contest ‘Which song contains the most contracted forms? Can you say (or sing) them
fluently?
In spoken English we often leave out words when they are obvious from the
context. This process is called ellipsis. Being aware of ellipses, can help you understand
spoken English and using it can make you sound more natural and fluent. Ellipsis and near
ellipses happen in informal speech in most languages.
You can start by asking students to read the following sentences in pairs:

A:’What time will we get there?

B:I’m not sure./Not sure/’m not sure

75
A:What’s the curry like?
B:It’s really hot/Really hot/’ts really hot

A: What’s wrong with your camera?

B: It’s broken./Broken/’ts broken

An appropriate follow-up exercise would be this one:

Listen to these conversations. Press ‘pause’ before each B part and read it aloud.(Use near
ellipsis of the word/words in bold. Then press ‘play’ again and compare your
pronunciation with what follows.

1. Have you heard from Paul recently? B: I’ve just phoned him.
2. A: My shoes feel tight. B: Have you got the right ones?
3. A: I retired last year. B: What are you doing now?
4. A: We are having a barbeque tonight. B: It’s a good job, it’s not raining.
5. A:Marcos got a new job. B: What does he do?
6. A:Do you like my new hat? B: Is that a hat?
7. A: Pat looks really ill. B: She’s got a terrible cold.
8. A:What time is it? B: It’s half past.
9. A:We got the painting in Spain. B: Do you remember exactly where we bought it?
10. A: Have you taken my money? B: What are you talking about?

Some consonant sound tend to be left out in conversation. For example:

I was almost left behind. I practiced football with him.
In the informal speech of some speakers, a /t/ sound is commonly replaced by a glottal
stop, a sound made by stopping the flow of air by closing the vocal cords. It would be
useful for students to get authentic recordings of people with regional English accents.
The teacher asks students to work in groups of four and listen to a few sentences and focus
on the highlighted /t/ sounds. The students have to write the number of the sentence in a
table according to what happens to the /t/ sound.

1. Almost there. 7. Most Europeans agree.

76
2. Have you passed your test?
3. I asked her to leave.
4. Just a bit.
5. We must be nearly there.
6. Tell us what you did.
8.I expect an answer soon.
9. She stopped playing.
10. Next year.
11. My left ankle hurts.
12. I can’t wait

A. No change to B. /t/ left out C. /t/ replaced D. /t/+ /j/ said

/t/ to glottal /t∫/
stop

Follow up practice:
Say the following sentences allowed and cross out any letters representing/t/ at the end of
words that you think are likely to be left out.

Example: Next Monday.

1. He wrote it 8.We reached Berlin.
2. A published article. 9. We crossed over.
3. It’s in first gear. 10. I’ll contact Ann.
4. It was just him. 11. He finished first.
5. Take a left turn. 12. I slept badly.
6. They kept quiet
7. It looked good.

After finishing the exercise, the students are asked to choose a spokesperson who has to
say the sentences aloud, as they are said on the recording.
When we ask a question, we might be trying to find out information that we do not
really know. Alternatively, we might ask a question in order to make sure that information
we think we know is, in fact, correct.
Finding out questions usually end with a falling tone:

‘What part of Spain were you in?’↓

How much are they? ↓

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Making sure questions usually end with a rising or fall-rising tone:
‘Was BRIan there? ↑
DOESn’t she WORK with you?↓↑
However, Wh- questions can have a rising or fall-rising tone when they are making sure,
and yes/no questions can have a falling tone when they are finding out:

WHEN’s your birthday? ↑ (a rising tone shows that I’m checking the date; it might be
polite to suggest that I do know but have temporarily forgotten.)

A fall-rising tone often sounds more polite than a rising tone. In particular, a fall-
rising tone is often preferred in questions asked for social reasons; that is mainly to be
polite and friendly rather than to check information:

Do you WANT to take your COAT off? ↓↑

In informal English we can also use positive yes/no questions, particularly to

express criticism. These often have a rising tone:

Are you CRAzy? ↑

Have you gone MAD? ↑

After introducing this information to the students, the teacher should bring students
a recording of an episode of a ‘soap opera’. Students are grouped four by four and asked to
listen and write down the first ten yes/no questions that are spoken. After listening twice,
students are asked to decide if the last tone in each question is a rise, a fall or a fall-rise.
This activity can be really motivating.
Follow up practice:
Listen and decide whether each question is asked mainly for social reasons (with a fall-
rising tone) or to make sure( with a rising tone). Underline ↓↑ or ↑
1. Can I get you another drink? ↓↑ / ↑
2. Have you been here before? ↓↑ / ↑
3. Wasn’t Don at the meal? ↓↑ / ↑

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4. Can you see it more clearly now? ↓↑ / ↑
5. Would you like me to fetch it for you? ↓↑ / ↑
(source: Hewings , 2007, page 39)
An important marker used to suggest the formality or informality of a situation is
the use of the indefinite pronoun one/you. To make students aware of this, the teacher can
start by writing a few sentences on the board and ask students :‘Who might be the
subject?’ Except for other, obviously ungrammatical, subjects, the students will probably
try to provide subjects such as ‘everyone’, ‘anyone’, ‘everybody’, ‘every driver’. If they
do, the teacher explains that these subjects are not accurate because not everyone drives a
car in Britain, not everyone makes pizza, etc. It should be pointed out that the subject in
each of the above examples is impersonal ‘one’, which substitutes everyone to whom it
applies.
After this presentation, the teacher tells the class to think about typical everyday
activities :’What does one do in the morning?’
Elicit: One gets up, one has breakfast, one cleans teeth, etc.
The teacher continues with similar questions about things one does in the afternoon, after
dinner, at night, etc.
After introducing ‘one’ in this meaning, the teacher tells the learners that the same idea can
be expressed with ‘you’, which is less formal.
Follow up activity:
Show the class the list of typical behavior patterns in Pillutia, an exotic country in
another galaxy. Here is the list:
1. soft drinks not drunk in pubs
2. only bicycles in the streets
3. no window opening before dark
4. work:10:00- 14:00
5. silence everywhere after 20:00
6. marrying age: 16-18
7. gloves obligatory
8. vegetables not eaten
9. only maths and psychology at universities
10. people buried in the sea

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Tell the class to transform the rules, or patterns of behavior into full sentences beginning
with one or you: One doesn’t/ you don’t drink soft drinks in pubs. As a follow up, the
learners may consider if they would like to live in Pillutia or not, and justify their
decisions.
Rules of polite behaviour
Divide the class into small groups. Give each group a different institution, or
context: the church, a wedding party, the prison, the school, the army, the library and ask
the students to write down patterns of behavior typical for this institution, or context. The
sentences should begin with one, or you: ‘One doesn’t eat in the church.’
What should you know about my country?
Tell the students that they will have to prepare information about Romania (rules of
behaviour, customs, eating habits, politeness rules, etc, for a visitor coming from an exotic
country. The visitor knows nothing about Romania and the rules of behavior in his country
are very different from Romanian ones. The student should take into account everything
that may seem strange to the visitor, paying special attention to politeness and how it is
expressed in Romania. The information should have the form of general statements
beginning with ‘one’ or ‘you’: ‘One kisses the women on the hand in Romania’.
In a feedback session the group should exchange the information they have compiled.
(source: Anna Sikorzynska, 1996)
There are various types of letters, such as: letters of complaint, letters asking
for/giving information, letters of request, letters asking for/giving advice, letters of
invitation, letters accepting/refusing an invitation, letters giving news, letters of apology,
letters of application for a job, and letters to the editor providing solutions/suggestions.
The teacher could start this activity by asking students how often do they write
letters and after answering they are asked to work in groups of five or six and write down
the criteria for writing a good letter. The answers will be written on the board:
1. An appropriate greeting(dear Peter, Dear Mr. Ford, Dear Sir, Madam)
2. An introduction clearly starting the reason you are writing
3. A main body in which the subject is developed. Begin a paragraph for each main point
4. A final paragraph in which you sum up the topic or express your wish for something to
be done

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5. An appropriate ending(Yours/best wishes+first name, Yours sincerely,/ Yours
faithfully,+full name)
After accomplishing this activity the teacher raises students’ awareness of formal
/ informal style by handing them out a list that contains the characteristics for each of
them:
The characteristics of formal style in letters are:
 The greeting (Dear Mrs. Lee, Dear Sir)
 Frequent use of the passive
 Formal language(complex sentences, non-colloquial English)
 No abbreviated forms
 The ending(Yours sincerely,/Yours faithfully..)
The characteristics of informal style in letters are:
 The greeting (Dear Tom, Dear Dad,)
 Informal language and style(idioms, colloquial English)
 Abbreviated forms, pronouns omitted
 The ending (Yours/Love/Best wishes/Regards, Mary)
Follow up activity:
Read the following sentences. Which are formal and which are informal? Which
sentences are beginnings and which are endings of a letter? What kind of letter does each
sentence belong to? Work I pairs!
1. We would be honored if you could attend a reception for Ambassador Sarah Jacobs.
2. I can’t wait to see you again, and don’t forget to let me know if there’s anything I
should bring to the barbecue.
3. I’m writing to inform you about some changes in the schedule for next term’s courses.
4. We’re organizing a party and would be really glad if you could come.
5. Once again, I can’t tell you how awful I feel about missing your birthday party.
6. I’m writing to complain about the products I received from your company.
7. I look forward to receiving your advice on this matter.
8. Looking forward to seeing you and catching up on all your news.
9. Your thoughtful gift was greatly appreciated. Once again, thank you for your
generosity.

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10. I am very sorry but unfortunately you won’t be able to use my summer house during
the first week of August.
11. I’m so happy for you! Write back soon and tell me all about your new job.
12. Hope this advice help!
In order to make students become aware of mistakes they make when writing letters,
the teacher gives them a letter which contains mistakes. They have to read the letter
carefully( group-work) and correct the mistakes. They have to write above each mistake S
for spelling, P for punctuation, WO for word order, G for grammar or WW for wrong
word.

Dear Jenny,
How are you? I hope you’re very well. I’ve got so many to tell you that I don’t
know where to begin! Visitting Kenya was fantastic so far!
The beaches are absolutely wonderfully. The sea is like glass and the sand is as
soft like powder. I’ve collected loads of shells already and yesterday I have ridden on an
elephant. The local people also are very friendly and almost every night we had the
opportunity to watch traditional dancing. You’d love africa. The most excited part of the
holiday was the hot-air baloon safari last week. It was amazing! We floated quietly above
all these teams of wild animals. The scenary absolutely was breathtaking. I have never
seen nothing like it before. As soon as I will get back, I’ll phone you and tell you all about
it. Till then, take care.
Love,
Fiona

After students have received enough practice of using certain markers that define
formality/informality, they must be involved in communicative activities so that they can
use English more creatively and improve their accuracy in speech. Here is a type of such
activity that I have noticed students enjoy quite a lot. It is called Agony aunts.
The students work in small groups. I give each group a problem. They have to write a letter
to an agony aunt, giving details and asking for advice.
Group A, you are a wife with husband problems.
Group B, you are a husband with wife problems.

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Group C, you are parents with adolescent child problems.
Here are some possible factors to consider.

depression, alcoholism, unemployment, drugs, unfaithfulness, mortgage, pregnancy,

nagging, TV, telephone, money, untidiness, friends, possessiveness

Students are told to pass the letter to another group after they have finished it. They
also write a reply to the letter they have received, giving advice about how to solve the
problems. Then they return the letter and their reply to the original group. They are asked
what they think of the advice they have received. The teacher invites them to read out the
letters and replies. An extension to this activity would be to ask the students to work in
groups of three – a husband, a wife and an adolescent child from the same family. They are
asked them to imagine that their family life is suffering because of the factors above. They
are meeting to agree on some rules for making each other’s lives more bearable (informal
style).
A very interesting communicative activity for upper-intermediate students is when I
ask them to role-play. In the context of raising their awareness of formality, I give them
cards which contain five situations and divide the class in five groups. They have to study
the situations and, using appropriate expressions (formal/informal), offer advice to each
person.
1. Your friend wants some advice on what she should take with her on her first trip
abroad.
2. Your boyfriend/girlfriend has asked you for advice on how to impress your parents the
first time he/she meets them.
3. A colleague at work has asked you to advise him how to gain a promotion.
4. You are a doctor and a patient needs adice on how he can successfully lower his high
cholesterol level.
5. Your brother would like some advice about what to look out for when buying a second-
hand car.

What you should do is …

In small groups, students take turns to give each other advice for these situations using
should and ought to:

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My car doesn’t start. I’m bored. My husband/wife snores. My boss shouts at me. The roof
is leaking. I’m going skiing. I feel very tired these days. I want to learn to speak Arabic.
I’m losing a lot of weight. The neighbors are always arguing. I want to get fit. I feel dizzy.
A – My car doesn’t start. B – You should check the battery. C – You ought to get a new
one.
Or, in small groups, they agree the best way to continue the following tips, and they write
their ideas down. They swap them with another group and see if they agree with their
advice.

To look after your heart you should (not) …

To be happy in life you should (not) …
To learn a language you should (not) …
To drive safely you should (not) …
To bring up children well you should (not) …
To get on well with people you should (not) …

Emergencies
In pairs, students agree what they should do if someone … is choking, has a fit, is
burnt, has hypothermia, goes into labour, stops breathing, has swallowed something
poisonous, has been electrocuted, has been bitten by a snake.
Doctor, doctor!
Students write some advice from a doctor to a patient leaving hospital using these words:
bed, TV, food, work, exercise, medicine, injections, alcohol. In pairs, they role-play a
conversation between the doctor and patient, taking turns to be the doctor. After each piece
of advice, the “patient” tries to find a way to avoid accepting it.
e.g. D – You should stay in bed for three days.
P – But I have to go to work and the office will fall apart.
D –Well, it’s very important that you get some rest.

Advice for a novice (use of all kinds of modals to give advice)

Procedure: Ask students to write down any advice they would give a student entering
the school for the first time: the kinds of things they should or shouldn’t do, or must or
mustn’t do.

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You must come to school on time. / You shouldn’t make private phone calls on the office
phone.
Help individuals with new vocabulary as needed. Then hear their suggestions, list them on
the board, and decide with them which are the most important three – or five – pieces of
advice.
As a variation of this activity, you can ask each student to tell you one field of interest, or
hobby, or profession, which he or she knows quite a lot about and could give advice on;
write it on the board, by the student’s name. Then each student chooses two or three of
these topics that they know little or nothing about, but are interested in, and prepare some
questions to ask about them. Questions might begin with phrases like: Must I … ? / Can
one … ? / Should I … ? / Might you … ? After about ten minutes of preparing questions,
students then go to the “experts” in the class to find out the answers; each one will be both
asking (as “novice”) and answering (as “expert”). Later, students describe, orally or in
writing, interesting things they have learnt about the various topics, using formal language.
Another useful activity designed to make students better understand when and how
to use formal/informal language in letters is the following:
Read the two letters bellow and fill in the gaps with expressions from the list. Then answer
the following questions: a) Which letter is formal and which informal? b) What is the
reason for writing each letter? c) What is the topic of the final paragraph in these two
letters? d) What complaint had been made in each situation?
1. to apologise/ to say how sorry I am
2. bad behavior/disgraceful conduct
3. I know/ I realize
4. sort out the problem/resolve the matter
5. Due to my absence/Because I wasn’t there
6. but/However
7. severely reprimanded/properly told off
8. be sure/rest assured
9. what happened/this incident
10. put you off/deter you
A.
Dear Mr. Johnson,

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 I am writing to you1)…………….for the…….2)of a member of our staff towards
you on Saturday April 23rd. 3)…….how much this must have upset you, and I hope that we
can4)……….agreeably.
5)……at the time, I was unable to apologise to you in person. 6)………, I always
take such incidents extremely seriously and, following your letter of complaint, the
member of staff has been 7)………. . You can 8)……that he will be treating our
customers quite differently in future.
I hope that 9) ……will not 10)…….from using our store in future. In an attempt to
make up for the inconvenience caused, we are sending you a complimentary gift.
Yours sincerely,
Peter Brown (Manager)
B.
Dear Belinda,
I’m writing1)… for my son’s 2)…..last week. 3)…..how upset you were and I
thought I’d write to you to try and 4)………
5)….when you called round, I didn’t realize what had happened straight away,6)
……when I got your letter, I promise you that he got 7)…. . You can 8)…..he’ll never
speak to you like that again.
I hope 9)……won’t 10)….coming round to our house again. I’d like to make up
for my son’s behaviour by inviting you to dinner on Thursday so that he can have the
chance to say how sorry he is himself.
Love,
Joanne

Follow up exercises:
1. Read the letter below and answer the following questions. Who is going to read this
letter? Is it formal or informal? What is the topic of each paragraph? Read the letter again
and underline the opening and closing remarks, then replace them with other appropriate
expressions.

Dear Ann and David,

We’re writing to invite you to our house-warming party on May 26th.

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 Our new house is wonderful; it’s semi-detached town house with three bedrooms and a
small back garden. The kitchen is huge, and is fitted with wooden cupboards that make you
feel as if you’re in a country kitchen. All three bedrooms are rather small but very cosy.
The living room is quite big and has lovely French windows which open onto a terrace.
You shouldn’t have too much trouble finding the house, but here are a few directions
so you don’t get lost. Take the A27 road for Lewes and turn right at the roundabout where
there is a signpost for Hawkstead. Drive through the town until you get to the post office
then turn left into Potter’s Lane. Our house is nr. 23 on the right- hand side.
We hope you’ll be able to make it to our party. Looking forward to seeing you then.
Love,
Billy and Laura

2. Read the letters below and answer the following questions. a) What kind of letters are
they? B) What style is used in each? C) What is the topic of each paragraph in these
letters? Read the letters again and underline the opening and closing remarks, then replace
them with other appropriate expressions.

A. Dear Richard and Judy,

Thanks for the invitation to your Christmas party on December 18th.
John and I were really pleased to receive it and we’d love to come. It’s lucky for us that
you chose the 18th, actually, as it’s the only day of that week that we’re free.
It’s been such a long time since we’ve seen each other so it will be great to get together
and catch up on all the news. Please let me know if there’s anything I can bring or anything
I can do to help.
Oh, one other thing. Will it be all right to bring Samantha? I am not sure if we can get a
baby-sitter on that day.
Thanks again, and see you on the 18th.
Love,
Ann and John

B. Dear Richard and Judy,

The Christmas party you invited us to on December 18th sounds lovely.

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 Unfortunately, we won’t be able to make it as it is John’s mother’s birthday on that day
and she is having a small family party to celebrate. She’s almost eighty years old and still
as strong as ever – it’s amazing!
It’s such a pity because we haven’t seen each other for ages. You must give us a call so
we can arrange to get together another time instead. Perhaps we’ll throw a party on New
Year’s Eve so we can see everyone. We’ll let you know.
Thanks for the invitation, and hope the party goes well.
Love,
Ann and John

Considering the fact that most teenagers choose to leave abroad after graduating
highschool, either to apply for a job or just because they want to go to college, it is
important for them to know how to write a letter of application.
Identifying the job for which you would like to apply is only the beginning of the job
search process, and when that search has to be conducted in a second language, confusion,
frustration and discouragement are often the dish of the day.
The teacher can use ‘the buzz group’ as a way of introducing students to the
characteristics of a letter of application. Students are asked to predict the markers related to
writing such a letter. Students work in groups and try to write down as many markers as
possible before listening to a cassette recording.
Read the following table, then listen to the cassette and tick the correct information.
Using the notes, say what details the person applying for the job included in her letter of
application. Is the letter formal or informal?

Job advertised Full-time sales assistant

Part-time sales assistant
Applicant’s qualifications and training Two A levels in art and maths
Two A levels in maths and geography
Applicant’s experience Six months/ local corner shop
Six months/ central coffee shop
Applicant’s qualities and skills Responsible and trustworthy
Decisive and energic
Applicant’s additional information and Enclosed CV/available for interview

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 reference Enclosed a photo/available for
interview

Read the letter bellow and underline the formal expressions. Then replace them
with similar expressions from the table above. Finally, give the topic of each paragraph and
say what kind of letter it is.

Dear Sir/Madam,
I am writing to apply for a place on the Archeology MA course which commences
this September at Macbriney University.
I am 25 years old and I have completed a Bachelor’s degree in Archeology at
Drakeham University, where I received first class honours. Prior to this I was a pupil at
Berkeley Comprehensive where I obtained 9 GCSEs and three A levels in History,
Geography and Latin.
Since the completion of my BA I have spent two years working as assistant
archeologist on a site in Egypt. During this expedition, I have assisted in the discovery of
several interesting artifacts. This work was extremely enjoyable and I am now anxious to
specialize by gaining further qualifications before embarking on my chosen career in this
field.
I enclose a detailed Curriculum Vitae in the hope that you will consider my
application for entry. I look forward to receiving your response in the near future.
Yours faithfully,
Jill Holland

4.2.6. Identification of follow-up problem

The effectiveness and efficiency of a series of listening, oral and written
communicative activities for teaching register to (upper)-intermediate students is critically
examined.

POST-TEST design and administration

I.. For questions 1-13 read the following guidelines about visits to places of historical
interests. Use the information in the guidelines to complete the numbered gaps in the

89
memo to teachers which follows. Use no more than two words for each gap. The words
you need do not occur in the guidelines.

Admissions policy and other information

Thank you for your interest in bringing your students on an educational excursion to one of
our historic properties. Please read the following information carefully before completing
the application form.
1. Free admission is granted to educational establishments providing that it can be shown
they are not commercial organisations. Language schools do not qualify for the free permit
but we are glad to offer a 20% discount for groups of 15 or more students, with free
admission for the accompanying group leader.
2. Excursions must be pre-booked to avoid disappointment. Upon confirmation of your
booking we will give you an arrival time. If for any reason you are unavoidably detained
please telephone the office as soon as possible. Otherwise it may not be possible to admit
your group.
3. Some of the sites are unstaffed during lunchtimes. If you are having lunch off-site please
remember to retain entry tickets as proof of payment/re-entry.
4. Historical sites, whilst of educational value, can be dangerous. Young people under the
age of 16 must be closely supervised at all times.
5. Please complete the application form over leaf and send it to arrive at 14 days before the
proposed excursion.

MEMO TO TEACHERS
To: Liz (Team Leader)
Re: Hawthorne Castle

We've had the go-ahead for the school (0) (visit/trip/outing/day out) to Hawthorne Castle.
I've had a (1)... at the notes they sent and here’s the info you need to know before I…..(2)
and post it. It doesn’t look as though we’ll get in…..(3) but we’ll be able to get a reasonable
discount if we can take….(4) 14 students.
As team leader you’ll be…(5) of the group so you won’t need…(6).

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They want us to book…(7), which is fair enough, but they are a bit fussy about us…(8) on
time.
If you find yourself running a bit late (e.g the minibus breaks down!) you’ll need to give
them…(9) or you’ll might not be…(10) when you arrive.
Can you tell the students to bring their own lunch and to make sure they (11) to their tickets
at all times? Obviously you’ll need to keep ..(12) on the younger students so we don’t have
any accidents.
That’s about all, apart from needing to know before I book the exact day…(13) on
going(13X1p=13p)
(source: http://www.flo-joe.co.uk/cae/students/writing/register/grammar.htm)

II..Read the letter below and put the verbs in brackets into the correct tense. What is
being described in this letter?

Dear Gemma,
Remember I .1……(tell) you that as part of my college course I would have to
spend some time on a farm? Well, I .2….(arrive) here two days ago and have been
spending my time learning lots of new things.
Yesterday I .3 ….(lean) to milk a cow. I .4…(sit) down, ….(put)the bucket under
the cow and fill it with milk, then..5 …….(watch) as the cow…6..(kick) the bucket over. I
bet the farmer…7...(see) that happen plenty of times to the students he…8...(teach!
Another thing..…9...(learn) to do is drive a tractor, which I….10 (find) really easy
– it’s just like driving a car. This morning I….11...(get up) at 6.00 am and …12..(feed) all
the animals. I also……13..(collect) fresh eggs from the hen-house.
Staying on the farm is a wonderful experience, and I …14…(enjoy) every minute
of it, though being a farmer is certainly a much harder job than I …15..(think) it was!
Fancy joining me next time I come?
Love,
Sue
(15X1.4p=21p)

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III..In the conversation below, the complete forms of the sections in bold are given.
Listen and decide when the speakers actually use ellipses(write E) or near ellipses(write
NE)

1. 1. What are you making? NE

B: It’s a cake for Richard’s birthday. …….
A: It’s amazing, isn’t it?..........
B: Do you think he will like it? ………..
A:I’m sure he will, although he is a bit fussy about food, isn’t he? ……..
B: Have you seen this? ……..
A: Wow! Is that a real flower? ………
B: No, it’s made from sugar. ………
A: When does it have to be ready? …………
B: It’s his birthday tomorrow. Do you know where he is now? ……..
A: I’ve no idea. …………..
(source: Hewings , 2007, page 63)
(10x1.6p =16p)

IV. Write the following letter in the appropriate style using 120-180 words
You have promised your boss that you will work some extra hours next weekend. Due to a
family problem, you will be unable to fulfil your promise. Write a letter of apology to your
boss explaining your reason and promising to make it up to him/her.
Marking scheme:
Total: 100 points
10 points granted
Item 1: 13 points – 1 points/correct variant
Item 2: 21 points – 1,4 points/correct variant
Item 3: 16 points -1,6 points/correct variant
Item 4: 40 points
- range of formal/informal markers – 8 p
- range of lexical structures – 8 p
- organisation – 12 p

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 - impact on the reader – 12 p

Data interpretation
The grades awarded to students in the 10th A at the post-test were the following:
Grade Number of students
4 0
5 0
6 0
7 8
8 9
9 3
10 0

10th A

30
No of students

25
20
15
10 9 9
8
5
0
7 8 9
Grade

The average test score of grade 10h A is 7.55

The grades awarded to students of the 10th B at the post-test were the following:
Grade Number of students
4 0
5 0
6 0
7 3
8 13
9 7
10 0

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 10th B

30
No of students

25
20
15
13
10
7
5
3
0
7 8 9
Grade

The average test score of grade 10th B is 8,17

4.2.7. Second hypothesis

10th grade students show less difficulty in using formal/informal markers
appropriately in different situations, either written or spoken. With both sample grades,
main progress is related to accurate and fluent use of register-related markers.
Developing an appropriate communicative method and being highly motivated
through using authentic materials during the classes, students can improve their language
skills .

4.2.8. Second round action and observation

The communicative approach can be of great help for those students who need to
shape their English in their attempt to become better English speakers.
Monitoring and observation will take the form of teacher’s long-term progress
report and learners' progress logs (self-evaluation of learning progress and attainment of
goals).

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 FINAL CONCLUSIONS

Connecting the learners to the ‘world wide web’ of English language must, in my
opinion, include the following components:
BOTH CONTROLLED AND COMMUNICATIVE PRACTICE
While students expect and need to learn the formal rules of a language, it is crucial
that they also practise new structures in a variety of contexts in order to internalise and
master them. To this end, any textbook should desirably provide an abundance of both
controlled and communicative exercises so that students can bridge the gap between
knowing grammatical structures and using them. Textbooks should facilitate learning
process without imposing a rigid method, they should take into account the diversity of
individual learning styles and develop effective individual strategies
The communicative activities will provide opportunities for critical thinking while
enabling students to personalise what they have learned. These types of activities help
students better focus on the exchange of information that takes place in different socio-
cultural contexts and help them master the markers related to register.
AN EFFECTIVE FOUR-STEP APPROACH
STEP 1: GRAMMAR IN CONTEXT. New grammatical and lexical structures should be
“hidden” in context, in order to present them in their “natural habitat”, such as articles and
conversations, taking the shape of eye-catching reading or listening activities.
STEP 2: REGISTER PRESENTATION. There should be a way to present the structures
and the “mightily frightening” rules in clear and accessible linguistic charts, notes and
example, using authentic materials, both written and recorded. Students need to become
aware of the importance of register in real life situations
STEP 3: FOCUSED PRACTICE. A lot of this, highlighting both form and meaning of the
new structures, should be provided in numerous and varied controlled exercises. Students
need challenging and motivating activities, to have their attention captured, otherwise they
get bored and lack interest.

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STEP 4: COMMUNICATION PRACTICE. This stage, allows students to use the new
structures freely and creatively in motivating, open-ended activities. The communicative
approach practices a good deal of modeling and controlled practice, but also pays a lot of
attention to motivation and to self-expressions, encouraging motivation among the pupils.
THOROUGH RECYCLING
Underpinning the scope and purpose of any English class and teacher is the belief
that students need to use target structures many times, in different contexts, and at
increasing levels of difficulty. For this reason new grammar and vocabulary should
constantly be recycled so that students have maximum exposure to the target forms and
become comfortable using them in speech and in writing.
It is our firm belief that, with the appropriate combination of perseverance,
lucidity and open-mindedness especially on the teacher’s part, and desirably on the
students’ too, with authentic resources, with an untiring sense of humour floating about
during classes, and generally with an English class having its windows wide open to the
real lives students and teachers alike live, the socio-linguistic progress and competence, as
well as a constant process of growing of both students and teachers will be ensured.

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WEBOGRAPHY
http://linguapress.com/grammar/styles-of-english.htm)
www.zentrum.virtuous.ous.de
http://englishonline.tki.org.nz/English-Online/Exploring-language/Speaking-and-Writing)
http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/gallow01.html
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http://www.flo-joe.co.uk/cae/students/writing/register/grammar.htm

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 DECLARAŢIE DE AUTENTICITATE PE PROPRIE RĂSPUNDERE

Subsemnatul (a) _________________________________________________, înscris (ă)

la examenul pentru obţinerea Gradului didactic I, seria _______________, specializarea
__________________________________________, prin prezenta, certific că lucrarea
metodico-ştiinţifică cu titlul
_______________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________
conducător ştiinţific_______________________________________________________,
este rezultatul propriilor mele activităţi de investigare teoretică şi aplicativă şi prezintă
rezultatele personale obţinute în activitatea mea didactică.
În realizarea lucrării am studiat doar surse bibliografice consemnate în lista
bibliografică, iar preluările din diferitele surse, inclusiv din alte lucrări personale, au fost
citate în lucrare.
Prezenta lucrare nu a mai fost utilizată în alte contexte evaluative – examene sau
concursuri.
Data: _____________
Semnătura:
________________________

102