ELT journal july 2009

NEW from OXFORD More support for your Young Learners classroom An international journal for teachers of English to speakers of other languages NEW EDITION n Ready-made grammar activities to suit different learning styles n Fully revised with new ideas and stories n Strengthens grammatical accuracy in a fun and purposeful way n n Focus on grammar through drawing, storytelling, songs and games Guidelines on combining stories with drama, poems and music, cross-curricular studies and personal development n Selection of ready-to-tell stories, photocopiable worksheets and easy-to-draw pictures
Volume 63/3 July 2009 ELTB Articles Reviews ‘Very good’ as a teacher response The value of a focused approach to written corrective feedback Traversing the lexical cohesion minefield Critical reflection in a TESL course: mapping conceptual change Challenges in teaching ELF in the periphery: the Greek context Why and how textbooks should encourage extensive reading Teaching Other Subjects through English Cross-Curricular Resources for Young Learners Uncovering CLIL Developing and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence To Get to Know Each Other Leads to Better Mutual Understanding Teaching Modern Languages to Young Learners Teaching Foreign Languages in the Primary School Literature and Stylistics for Language Learners Oxford Learner’s Thesaurus Building a Validity Argument for the Test of English as a Foreign Language™ Form-focused Instruction and Teacher Education Point and counterpoint Process-oriented pedagogy Text messages A tale of two songs Websites review IATEFL Cardiff Online 2009 Comment ELT and the challenges of the times oxford www.oup.com/elt July 2009 Storytelling with Children Volume 63/3 Grammar for Young Learners ELTB NEW in association with C Every effort has been made to trace the owners of copyright material in this issue, but we shall be pleased to hear from any copyright holder whom we have been unable to contact If notified, the publisher will attempt to rectify any errors or omissions at the earliest opportunity © Oxford University Press 2009 All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be produced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without either the prior written permission of the Publishers, or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1PS 9HE, or in the USA by the Copyright Clearing Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, Massachusetts 01923, USA UK ISSN 0951-0893 (print); 1477-4526 (online) Typeset by TnQ Books and Journals Pvt Ltd., Chennai, India Printed by C.O.S Printers Pte Ltd, Singapore Advertising Inquiries about advertising should be sent to: Linda Hann Oxford Journals Advertising 60 Upper Broadmoor Road Crowthorne RG45 7DE UK Email:: lhann@lhms.fsnet.co.uk Tel: +44 (0)1344 779945 Fax: +44 (0)1344 779945 Website Article titles, abstracts, and Key concepts appear free online through the ELT Journal website: http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org The Editorial Panel David Bell Ohio University, USA Sue Garton University of Aston Laura Grassick British Council, Egypt Carol Griffiths British Council Teacher Training Project, DPRK Peter Grundy IATEFL Graham Hall Northumbria University Éva Illés Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest Barley Mak The Chinese University of Hong Kong Jonathan Marks Leba, Poland Alice Oxholm Sheffield Hallam University Annamaria Pinter University of Warwick Barbara Skinner University of Ulster Jane Spiro Oxford Brookes University Melinda Tan University of Central Lancashire Key Concepts Editor Alan Waters University of Lancaster Text Messages Editors Jill and Charles Hadfield Abstracting and Indexing British Education Index covers ELT Journal Editorial Front Office Jane Magrane The Advisory Board Michael Carrier ELT Adviser Consultant to the Editors Cristina Whitecross Simon Greenall IATEFL Catherine Kneafsey Oxford University Press Norman Whitney ELT Consultant The Editor Keith Morrow The Reviews Editor Philip Prowse Consultant on Research Design Catherine Walter Department of Education, University of Oxford Aims ELT Journal is a quarterly publication for all those involved in the field of teaching English as a second or foreign language The journal links the everyday concerns of practitioners with insights gained from related academic disciplines such as applied linguistics, education, psychology, and sociology ELT Journal aims to provide a medium for informed discussion of the principles and practice which determine the ways in which the English language is taught and learnt around the world It also provides a forum for the exchange of information among members of the profession worldwide The Editor of ELT Journal is supported by an Editorial Advisory Panel whose members referee submissions Their decisions are based upon the relevance, clarity, and value of the articles submitted The views expressed in ELT Journal are the contributors’ own, and not necessarily those of the Editor, the Editorial Advisory Panel, or the Publisher Contributions Contributions are welcome from anyone involved in ELT Contributors should consult the current Guide for contributors before submitting articles, as this contains important information about the focus and format of articles Articles not submitted in accordance with the Guide will not be considered for publication The Guide can be obtained on request from the Editor, and is now available online See our website: http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org If you wish to write a review for ELT Journal, please contact the Reviews Editor Unsolicited reviews cannot be accepted for publication Correspondence e d i t o r i a l : The Editor, ELT Journal, Homerton House, Cawston Road, Reepham, Norwich nr10 4lt, UK Email: editor@eltj.org re vi e w s: The Reviews Editor, ELT Journal, po Box 83, Cambridge cb3 9pw, UK Fax +44 (0) 1223 572390 Email: reviews@eltj.org ELT Journal Volume 63/3 July 2009 ª The Author 2009 Published by Oxford University Press; 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This offer is available to established not-for-profit educational institutions from qualifying countries based on country incomes as established by the World Bank Report 2006 Access is either free or greatly reduced depending on which list they appear in For full details see: http://www.oxfordjournals.org/access_purchase/ developing_countries.html Back issues Subscribers to E LT Journal have access online to articles, features, and reviews from 1996 to the present—together with ‘advance access’ to forthcoming articles You can search the archive by author, title, or by any keyword: http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org Some institutional subscribers (e.g university libraries) may also have subscribed to the Oxford Digital Archive, which gives online access to every issue of ELT Journal from Volume 1/1 (1946) to the present Individuals, or institutions not wishing to subscribe to the whole Digital Archive, can get access to articles and features from 1981 to 2006, and to reviews from 1998 to 2006, by purchasing an archive C D - R O M This is searchable by author, title, or by any key word: http://www.nichepublications.co.uk E LT Journal Volume 63/3 July 2009; doi:10.1093/elt/ccp049 ª The Author 2009 Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved Contents ELT Journal Volume 63 Number July 2009 Articles Jean Wong and Hansun Zhang Waring John Bitchener and Ute Knoch Iain McGee Thomas S C Farrell Nicos Sifakis Dale Brown ‘Very good’ as a teacher response 195 The value of a focused approach to written corrective feedback 204 Traversing the lexical cohesion minefield 212 Critical reflection in a TESL course: mapping conceptual change 221 Challenges in teaching ELF in the periphery: the Greek context 230 Why and how textbooks should encourage extensive reading 238 Point and counterpoint William Littlewood David M Bell William Littlewood Process-oriented pedagogy: facilitation, empowerment, or control? 246 Another breakthrough, another baby thrown out with the bathwater 255 OBE: a coin with two sides or many different coins? 263 Text messages Andy Kirkpatrick and Andrew Moody A tale of two songs: Singapore versus Hong Kong 265 Comment Chris Lima ELT and the challenges of the times 272 Reviews Steve Darn Silvija Andernovics Simon Smith Amos Paran Stephen Coffey Teaching Other Subjects through English by S Deller and C Price, CrossCurricular Resources for Young Learners by I Calabrese and S Rampone, and Uncovering CLIL by P Mehisto, M J Frigols, and D Marsh 275 Developing and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence: A Guide for Language Teachers and Teacher Educators by I La´za´r et al (eds.), and To Get to Know Each Other Leads to Better Mutual Understanding by M Bedynska et al (eds.) 277 The TeMoLaYoLe Book: Teaching Modern Languages to Young Learners by M Nikolov et al (eds.), and Teaching Foreign Languages in the Primary School by C Kirsch 280 Literature and Stylistics for Language Learners: Theory and Practice by G Watson and S Zyngier (eds.) 284 Oxford Learner’s Thesaurus: A Dictionary of Synonyms by D Lea (chief ed.) 288 Jesu´s Garcı´a Laborda Darren Elliott Building a Validity Argument for the Test of English as a Foreign Languageä by C A Chapelle et al (eds.) 291 Form-focused Instruction and Teacher Education: Studies in Honour of Rod Ellis by S Fotos and H Nassaji (eds.) 295 Websites for the language teacher Diana Eastment IATEFL Cardiff Online 2009 297 Correspondence 300 IATEFL 302 Please visit ELT Journal’s website at http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org ‘Very good’ as a teacher response Jean Wong and Hansun Zhang Waring Much scholarly and pedagogical attention has been devoted to corrective feedback In this paper, we turn to positive feedback, and in particular, call for a reconsideration of teachers’ use of explicit positive assessments such as ‘very good’ Based on examples from an ESL classroom, we show that utterances such as ‘very good’ may have the potential of inhibiting learning opportunities within particular pedagogical contexts We then broaden our discussion by offering a range of suggestions for managing the complexities of positive feedback in the language classroom Introduction An integral part of language teaching is giving feedback As Fanselow (1987: 267) writes, ‘to teach is to provide feedback’ Over the past three decades, we have made great strides in understanding the various facets and strategies of feedback in language teaching Much of the scholarly inquiry, however, has been devoted to feedback giving when something goes wrong, i.e negative or ‘corrective’ feedback (Gass and Mackey 2006) In this paper, we ask what kind of feedback teachers should give when nothing appears to be going wrong What we say when a student has just produced a correct response? To many, the answer may be obvious, uninteresting, or unimportant We argue otherwise To that end, we will first introduce some background on positive feedback and its related practice of ‘praising’ We will then briefly show how the use of ‘very good’ may inhibit learning opportunities in a particular pedagogical context Finally, we will offer some teaching suggestions on responding to correct student contributions in ways that possibly promote learning Background In contrast to the large body of literature on corrective feedback, work on positive feedback is difficult to find Allwright (1980) categorizes positive feedback such as ‘fine’ or ‘good’ as part of the ‘quality judgements’ integral to the guidance we give as teachers in the language classroom Some empirical work on positive feedback has addressed how it is done Based on data gathered from English language classrooms, Seedhouse (2004: 206–7) claims that positive evaluation is often implied in the absence of feedback in the initiation–response–feedback sequence (Sinclair and Coulthard 1975) By examining 25 hours of classroom discourse, Hellermann (2003: 88) shows that positive assessments done in teacher repetitions are characterized by: rhythmical placement synchronized with student response, falling pitch contour, E LT Journal Volume 63/3 July 2009; doi:10.1093/elt/ccn042 ª The Author 2008 Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved Advance Access publication August 20, 2008 195 mid-level pitch, longer duration than student responses Others have considered what positive feedback really accomplishes According to Mehan (1979: 64), positive evaluation is a ‘terminal act’ that marks the final boundary of a sequence (cf Schegloff 2007) Utterances like ‘very good’, for example, can merely signal that it is time to move on to the next person (Fanselow op cit.) or the next activity (‘transition ritual’ in Brophy 1981: 18) One function of utterances such as ‘very good’ is to praise—a way of reinforcing a student’s giving of a correct response, which, in the context of language teaching, means reinforcing correct comprehension or production of a language structure, for example Notably, the correctness of a student’s response is not necessarily a key consideration in whether a teacher offers praise Brophy (op cit.) maintains that teachers sometimes offer inappropriate praise, lauding students for incorrect answers as well as correct ones In citing O’Leary and O’Leary, Brophy (ibid.) indicates that three features must be present in order for praise to function as reinforcement First, the praise must be contingent on the actual execution of the behaviour that is being reinforced Second, the praise must be specific about the behaviour being reinforced Third, the praise must be sincere and addressed to the particular context in question For example, one problem with the use of ‘very good’ in a second language teaching context, according to Fanselow (op cit.), is that if a teacher uses the phrase ‘very good’ in response to a student’s utterance, ‘I extremely happy’, to what does the teacher’s praise refer? Fanselow (ibid.) argues that the precise target in this case may be ambiguous It may be that the teacher is pleased that the student is happy, or the teacher may be overjoyed that the student has produced a response at all Alternatively, it is conceivable that the teacher is only responding to the portion of the utterance that is correct, despite the fact that the utterance produced by the student is not fully accurate (Fanselow ibid.: 281) Clearly, feedback giving, and in our case, positive feedback giving, is not a straightforward task More experienced teachers, however, may be better equipped to manage its complexities Forgas and Tehani (2005), for example, report that experienced feedback givers are mindful of the impact of mood on feedback and, accordingly, they give more positive and polite feedback when they are in a sad mood They remain alert and compensate for their sad mood in giving proper feedback In sum, even a simple item like ‘very good’ has its many faces A plethora of issues surround its use The cases discussed below are used as a point of departure for rethinking how a language instructor should respond to students’ correct answers or responses, at least, on some occasions like the ones displayed in the ensuing discussion Examples of ‘very good’ from the ESL classroom While the role of assessment such as ‘very good’ in marking sequence closing has been noted before (Mehan op cit.; Schegloff op cit.), we would like to take a step further in suggesting that its use may in fact result in the 196 Jean Wong and Hansun Zhang Waring unintended effect of shutting down learning opportunities by signalling not only sequence closing but also ‘case closed’ In particular, we show a few instances of classroom data in a form-focused check-homework context, where the focus is on checking learners’ ability to use ‘present perfect’ or ‘present perfect progressive’ The brief analysis given below is derived from a more detailed conversation analytic treatment of a much larger amount of relevant data (see Waring 2008) The transcripts presented below have been simplified for readability The only notation unfamiliar to the reader may be the two sets of vertically aligned brackets, which indicate simultaneous talk or overlapping non-verbal conduct (indicated in double parentheses) by different participants In the first instance, the relevant exercise item is: Wow, I didn’t know you were married How long _? (Purpura and Pinkley 2000: 73) In Extract 1a below, Miyuki raises a question regarding this item: Extract 1a Miyuki I have one [ques]tion, Teacher [Yes.] Miyuki Number three is if without ‘be’ is not good? Teacher How long you’ve been marrie[d? Miyuki [Have you married have you married This sequence spans 75 lines of the transcript and lasts two and a half minutes It turns out to be the most complicated error correction sequence in the two-hour class Briefly, Miyuki has treated ‘marry’ as a verb, in which case its correct present perfect form would be ‘have married’, except that the punctual aspect of ‘marry’ is ill-fitted to the duration query of ‘how long’ (that is ‘marry’, like ‘find’ or ‘explode’ and unlike ‘sleep’ or ‘work’ are verbs that entail no duration) Since the form of ‘married’ may be either a verb or an adjective, Miyuki’s confusion is not surprising One wonders, however, why Miyuki did not raise her concern much earlier when the ‘married’ item was first being dealt with Here is what happened four exercise items and 66 lines of transcript earlier: Extract 1b Teacher Number three Kevin Kevin ‘Wow I didn’t know you were married’ ‘How long have you [been married’ Teacher ] [((encouraging nods))] ((emphatically)) Very good How long have you been married ((smiley voice)) Very good Number four Mai, ‘Very good’ as a teacher response 197 formal school environment for learning German at home as a way of practising and consolidating their learning I was also intrigued by children’s views on how languages should be taught Both boys and girls placed a high premium on intercultural aspects of language learning, social interaction, and of the importance of a supportive language learning environment (p 78) Chapters 6–11 signal a change in direction, with the main thrust of the book turning to look at practical ideas for teaching languages Chapter considers how to introduce children to foreign languages It pays attention to the physical environment of the classroom, teacher’s use of the target language, using rhymes, songs, games, and stories, and making cross-curricular links I found the core of this chapter extremely uneven, as it progressed from incorporating great detail and clear examples of songs, rhymes, and games, to stating rather brief generic advice on the benefits of using stories with children Chapter considers ways of developing children’s listening and speaking skills I thought the explicit focus on strategies the teacher can use to teach vocabulary (pp 109–10) might be particularly helpful for pre-service teachers or early years’ specialists new to teaching foreign languages I was a little worried though that Kirsch promotes task-based instruction (TB I ) as an ideal way to teach listening and speaking The first reason for this concern is that TBI appears rather suddenly for the first time in this chapter I wonder if analysing it in the earlier chapter on methods and approaches might have provided a more solid platform for discussing it in relation to teaching, listening, and speaking The second concern relates to Kirsch’s advocacy of it without acknowledging that other approaches may also be useful or that TBI itself may not be without problems when used with young learners (see Carless 2002) Chapter focuses on reading skills at word and sentence level and writing skills at word, sentence, and discourse level I was not sure about the reason for this anomaly The chapter is particularly well illustrated with examples of children’s work, but as with Chapter 1, I was not sure the chapter conclusions were sustainable A conclusion advising that the teacher should ‘help pupils develop realistic expectations of what they can achieve’ (p 137) seems fairly uncontroversial, and the claim that ‘authentic materials should be used whenever possible’ (p 138) certainly arguable, but neither of these points seems to correlate with the content of the chapter Reviews Chapter introduces the concept of knowledge about language (KAL ), the premise of which is that children can improve their own language proficiency if they have an understanding of how languages work Kirsch then goes on to examine what language knowledge entails, focusing mostly on aspects of lexis and syntax, and giving examples of language tasks which in her view help children to develop KAL So far, so good However, I found the thread of argument confusing once more, as Kirsch cites two reports which are equivocal at best about the benefits of K A L (p 152), but concludes from these that children who have an understanding of how a foreign language works are nonetheless more likely to produce meaningful and accurate utterances than those who not This may well be the case, of course, but I feel she needs to substantiate her argument She might achieve this perhaps through discussing the relative merits of embedded and explicit K A L approaches with regard to cognitive characteristics of the children she has in mind and the amount of support and challenge offered to them within each respective K A L approach Chapter 10 discusses the development of children’s intercultural competence Her breakdown of elements in intercultural competence and explanation of different routes into intercultural competence in the classroom are well explained and effectively illustrated with case studies, suggested tasks, and examples of children’s work Chapter 11 focuses on language learning strategies Kirsch clarifies what language learning strategies are, why they are important, and illustrates strategies used by the case study children discussed in Chapter She suggests a cyclical model for helping learners to develop learning strategies, similar to the plan-doreview framework suggested by Brewster, Ellis, and Girard (2002: 61) The balance of background theory and practical applications in this chapter seemed to me to work very well Chapter 12 deals with assessment and transition to secondary school Given that part of her target audience is trainee teachers, I found her definition of assessment extremely loose in comparison to the clear definitions of learning strategies and intercultural competence Though clear principles of good assessment are outlined, links to national and European assessment frameworks are made, and concepts of formative, summative, and selfassessment are clarified, I felt that more on how to observe children and keep records of findings would be relevant for her focus age group I found the short discussion on transition informed and well structured I was particularly struck by the inclusion of 283 children’s views on transition (pp 198–9) and by the practical ideas for effecting transition I found the style and layout of the book accessible and reader friendly, and the topics very well chosen, but the handling of content seemed to me rather patchy The chapters based most closely on Kirsch’s PhD thesis, ‘What children say about learning foreign languages’ and ‘Developing language learning strategies’, were for me the most authoritative and well organized Some of the content of other chapters seemed to me less consistent or coherent I also felt that the age under discussion could be clearer in most chapters, notably in Chapter The book uses boxes to signpost and structure content and reflection well, but overall, would benefit from far more rigorous and attentive editing The pictures used to show examples of children’s work or wall displays are an excellent idea, but they are sometimes dark and slightly out of focus, especially in Chapters and 10 The text contains typos on pages 46, 47, and 50, misspelling of names on pages 91 and 142, and different dates given for the advent of mandatory primary foreign language learning in England (p and p 198) On page 38, Kirsch makes mistakes with the languages focused on in the study by Dulay and Burt (1974) of language acquisition order and on page 53 about timing of the impetus for audiolingualism There are some problems with references, too On page 3, for instance, Kirsch informs us that ‘the latest studies have shown that there is a growth of the area responsible in the brain for language development from the age of six to puberty’, while on page 37, she encourages us to read further on neurolinguistics, giving outline details of recent findings References are not given in either case, however In addition, the work of Jones and Coffey is frequently cited in the chapter on intercultural competence and looks well worth consulting Unfortunately, it does not appear in the Bibliography Despite these reservations, I was very pleased to have read Teaching Foreign Languages in the Primary School, as I feel its strengths outweigh its weaknesses I think Teaching Foreign Languages in the Primary School will be of great interest to pre-service teachers and to those who are interested in primary M F L thinking and practice in England This feeling broadly matches the publishers’ claim in the blurb on the back cover At a time when children are starting to learn a foreign language, often English, at an increasingly young age (see Education, Audiovisual Culture and Executive Agency 2008 for example, http://eacea.ec.europa eu/portal/page/portal/Eurydice/ 284 Reviews showPresentation?pubid¼095EN), I feel that it is important that policy decisions on early start are based on evidence rather than anecdote or political expediency TeMoLaYoLe provides a wealth of data from the teacher’s perspective, while the great strength of Kirsch’s book is that it gives frequent examples of what children believe and feel about learning a foreign language For these reasons, I think both books are well worth reading for anyone interested in teacher education, teaching young learners, or both References Brewster, J., G Ellis, and D Girard 2002 The Primary English Teacher’s Guide (New Edition) Harlow, UK: Pearson Education Limited Carless, D 2002 ‘Implementing task-based learning with young learners’ ELT Journal 56/4: 389–96 Dulay, H and M Burt 1974 ‘Natural sequences in child second language acquisition’ Language Learning 24: 37–53 Education, Audiovisual Culture and Executive Agency 2008 Key Data on Teaching Languages at School in Europe Brussels, Belgium: E AC E A Available at http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/ portal/Eurydice/showPresentation?pubid¼095EN The reviewer Simon Smith is a freelance teacher and teacher trainer He has lived and worked in Sudan, China, Saudi Arabia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Poland He is currently based in Britain and is a tutor and supervisor on the University of York’s MA (by distance) in Teaching English to Young Learners He also works on training courses for the Norwich Institute for Language Education and Sue Leather Associates He is especially interested in trainer training and in working with young learner teachers who teach in low-tech classrooms Email: simon.rsmith@btinternet.com doi:10.1093/elt/ccp041 Literature and Stylistics for Language Learners: Theory and Practice G Watson and S Zyngier (eds.) Palgrave Macmillan 2007, 248 pp., £56.00 isbn 4039 8799 Forget the title of this book: although, of course, it primarily deals with literature and stylistics, it also 284 Reviews offers valuable insights into language-focused pedagogy, into teaching at secondary and higher education levels, as well as into the teaching of literature It is hard for me to assess its value to stylisticians, but as a teacher this volume continuously engaged me in thinking about pedagogy It strengthened my perception of the crucial importance of the organization of learning by the teacher, even in these days of learner autonomy, learner-centredness, and the alleged post-method condition In addition, the importance of this volume lies in showcasing the ways in which, increasingly, the claims made for literature in language learning are beginning to be examined empirically For some reason or other, stylisticians often seem to be on the defensive The first sentence of Ronald Carter’s foreword to this volume confirms this: ‘Stylistics has always had a hard time of it’ (p vii) As Carter points out, it is often seen ‘as neither one thing nor the other or, much worse, as all things to all men and women’ (p vii) Where L2 learners are concerned, there definitely has been controversy (see Paran 2008 for a very brief history of this), and I have also previously suggested (Paran 2000) that it is possible that only advanced learners may benefit from some of the aspects of stylistics Having said that, much may depend on the way the approach is used and modified, and there are examples of how it is possible, with appropriate choice of text and a careful attention to pedagogical issues, to use certain elements of stylistics with learners at intermediate or lower levels (for example McRae 1991/2008; Lazar 1990, 1994) Cue the title of the volume under review: the three areas—literature, stylistics, and language learners—converge The book is divided into five sections Two papers make up the first section, ‘Theoretical perspectives’ Chapter 1, ‘Stylistics in second language contexts: a critical perspective’ by Geoff Hall, presents some of the general preoccupations of this volume, including the value of stylistics for L2 learners and L2 learning Importantly, Hall provides a detailed discussion of a number of studies which have shown how literature can be used successfully in L2 learning settings (for example Boyd and Maloof 2000; Kim 2004), as well as a survey of the variety of analytical tools that researchers can use to show the contribution of literature and literary discussion to language learning The second chapter, ‘On Teaching Literature Itself’, by Peter Stockwell, is an analysis of Ozymandias, providing insights into the poem through a description of a teaching session spent reading and discussing it Reviews The following four sections go on to address the practice of stylistics and the practice of teaching stylistics The second section, ‘New approaches’, includes two case studies of teaching stylistics at university level in the United Kingdom (by Joanna Gavins and Jane Hodson and by Urszula Clark), a chapter on using film in an English Philology course in Spain (by Rocio Montoro) and a chapter by John McRae on narrative point of view The third section, ‘Corpus stylistics’, opens with an account by Donald Hardy of using discovery procedures with a corpus of Flannery O’Connor’s fiction This is followed by ‘Literary worlds as collocation’, by Bill Louw, and the section ends with a chapter by Mick Short, Beatrix Busse, and Patricia Plummer in which they describe student reactions to the same stylistics course when run (with some variations) in Lancaster, in Mainz, ¨nster and in Mu The fourth section, ‘Stylistics, grammar, and discourse’, opens with David Gugin’s discussion of Flannery O’Connor’s use of pseudo-clefts; it continues with Paul Simpson examining activities for raising awareness of the Hiberno-English Emphatic Tag (for example ‘so it is’ or ‘so they are’ tagged at the ends of sentences); and it ends with an impassioned chapter by Judit Zerkowitz on using Grice’s maxims to explore the multiple meanings of a short short story The final section, ‘Awareness and cognition’, includes three empirically based chapters from three very different contexts David Hanauer presents a comparison of two teaching methods to develop learners’ ability to interpret modern Hebrew poetry; Willie van Peer and Aikaterini Nousi discuss prejudice against Germans in learners of German as a Foreign Language; and Sonia Zyngier, Olivia Fialho, and Patricia Andre´a Prado Rios present research on raising literary awareness in a Brazilian university This brief survey will have given the reader a taste of some of this volume’s strong points, which are mainly the expressions of a broad and expanded remit for literature and language This is evident in many ways: a broad geographical spread (including Brazil, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Spain, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom), a fairly broad genre spread (poetry, novels, films, short stories, detective fiction), and a broadening of the geographical origin of writers discussed (including Germany, Hungary, India, Israel, and Nigeria) Finally, we have languages other than English—Hebrew as L1 and German as L2, as well as different Englishes Possibly the strongest point of the book is the variety of approaches and topics covered, with some chapters focusing on a detailed discussion of one 285 poem in the space of one lesson (Stockwell), others focusing on a description of a teaching tool (Louw) or procedure (Hardy), and others discussing a whole programme of study (for example Gavins and Hodson; Clark; Short, Busse, and Plummer) Many of the chapters present pedagogies that are transparent and transferable Of these, two stand out for me Gavins and Hodson’s chapter, ‘When students become the teachers: a practical pedagogy’ presents a clear pedagogical issue: the connection between abstract theoretical discussion and practical application of the theory discussed The solution found—student presentations—is not new; what is new is that the audience for the presentations was not the students’ peers but first-year students embarking on the same programme The authors, thus, created the gap in expertise and knowledge needed to make this a true learning experience for both presenters and audience; importantly, both groups reported that they felt the benefit of the exercise I particularly enjoyed this chapter because of the real feel that the authors give of their classrooms Another transferable solution to the problem of theory–practice linkages is Clark’s description, in the chapter ‘Discourse stylistics and detective fiction: a case study’, of the way in which the tools introduced in the first part of a module are then applied in case study fashion to detective fiction in a four-week series of lectures, each accompanied by a workshop It is precisely this transferability of pedagogies that is the focus of the chapter by Short, Busse, and Plummer The paper deals with a specific course, ‘Language and Style’ and its different iterations in three different locations (and, in one of the locations, three iterations in three different years) It specifically attempts to gauge student reaction to the web-based element of the course Unfortunately, the course never takes on a real feeling, and the detail that is provided is of little relevance to the reader and much more suitable for an internal evaluation report than for a published paper Comparisons of the percentage of students who said they were ‘interested’ versus the ¨nster, percentage that were ‘excited’ in Lancaster, Mu and Mainz may have meaning for the course tutors But for me, it would have been much more interesting to read more about the students in the two latter locations who ‘saw that stylistics could help them develop their analytical skills’ (p 121) and to hear their voices saying that Student reactions to the webbased element of the course are much better handled in Plummer and Busse (2006) Other chapters focus on text rather than pedagogy I enjoyed Stockwell’s discussion of Ozymandias, a chapter which achieves its effect through the 286 Reviews narration of a session; to quote John McRae in his contribution to this volume, ‘the veracity of the narration is achieved by the author’ (p 41)—in this chapter done through telling the story of workshops where this analysis has been presented It is valuable, though I am not sure that I would know how to go about reproducing the success of the writer John MacRae’s own chapter is also text based; entitled ‘‘‘The Shudder of the Dying Day in Every Blade of Grass’’: Whose words? Voice, veracity and the representation of memory’, it looks at narrative point of view in three novels: Dickens’s Great Expectations, Ken SaroWiwa’s Sozaboy, and Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things As McRae says, this comparison and the contrasts between the three works ‘illuminate questions rather than provide answers: question of immediacy, narratorial self-awareness, innocence and experience’ (p 45) What is being advocated here is the importance of comparison and contrast as a way of raising issues and questions about texts and about our readings of these texts The most interesting and provocative part of the book is the final section, ‘Awareness and cognition’, with its emphasis on the empirical orientation in stylistics All three papers in this section point the way forward to an engagement with stylistics and literature that goes beyond theorizing and reflection and attempts to understand whether our predictions and intuitions actually hold when examined more rigorously In Chapter 13, ‘Attention-directed literary education: an empirical investigation’, David Hanauer tests his model of literary education through a comparison of two types of teaching: an explicit modelling group, where the students were presented with models of analysis of the poet being discussed, and an implicit instruction group, who were asked to read the poet’s works and compare it to poems by other poets of the same generation and to discuss their comparisons in groups The study found evidence that ‘explicit instruction of literary patterns enhances students’ abilities to use these patterns in independent interpretations of novel poems’ (p 179) Chapter 14, ‘What reading does to readers: stereotypes, foregrounding and language learning’, by Willie van Peer and Aikaterini Nousi, looks at the way in which exposure to literary texts can combat prejudice and stereotyping of Germans by non-Germans The researchers compared a control group (who did not read the texts) with two experimental groups One read two literary excerpts connected with resistance to the Nazi regime during World War II and discussed them in a 90-minute session; the other group read the excerpts, but this was not supported by any discussion Although both experimental groups showed a change in attitude towards Germans after reading (in of 14 measures), there was no difference between the two groups The researchers interpret this as suggesting that it is the reading of the text, rather than the discussion that follows, that causes attitude change in readers, and suggest that ‘we can save the time often spent on discussing literary texts in class’ (p 192) The last chapter in the book, by Sonia Zyngier, Olivia Fialho, and Patricia Andrea Prado Rios, ‘Revisiting literary awareness’, looks at empirical evidence from a literary awarenesss programme at a Brazilian university (It is interesting to note that, like Gavins and Hodson, the researchers enlisted the help of more advanced students as part of the teaching programme on the course.) The data consisted of written reports which the students handed in as part of a portfolio The researchers define three levels of awareness: absence of awareness, signal of awareness, and presence of awareness, and show how the students moved from an overall absence of awareness to a state where 50 per cent of the texts produced showed either signal or presence of awareness Importantly, the greatest change occurred at the beginning of the programme Interestingly, the papers in this section, too, raise issues of pedagogy Although I am not totally convinced by the evidence presented by Hanauer and by van Peer and Nousi, these two chapters address important questions regarding the efficacy of group work and group discussion, strengthening my conviction that task design and the type of instruction provided to students are crucial (see Paran 2008 for an extended discussion of this) Taking this pedagogical perspective to examine other chapters in the book, this meant that I was wondering whether Montoro’s task was clear enough or whether it was an example of a task that, if students could it, they did not need it, but if they could not it, there did not seem to be much help forthcoming (though a structure was provided) Thus, I ended up preferring the teacher-dominated but structured approach described by Stockwell to the focused but possibly too open group task presented by Montoro And it is also important to remember that there are different ways of modelling What the papers by Clark and by Gavins and Hodson seem to be doing is modelling on a very long timescale, combining it with wellscaffolded discussions of the topics introduced Taking this aspect on board, it would be interesting to research and see whether there are types of guided group work which would raise awareness and sensitivity to poetry better than both the type of modelling that Hanauer provided and the type of group work that his participants engaged in Reviews The variety and topic inclusiveness of the volume does, however, present problems I was not sure that the chapters fitted neatly into the sections—for me, Short, Busse, and Plummer would have fitted more into the ‘New approaches’ section, rather than into ‘Corpus stylistics’, and I was not sure of the difference between this latter section and the one entitled ‘Stylistics, grammar, and discourse’ (where two of the three papers dealt with corpus approaches) There is also quite a noticeable variation in the quality of the chapters, and I personally might have omitted one or two: but this will happen in any edited book, is hard to control, and is probably not really important But it was odd to find one chapter that did not touch upon literature at all; more importantly, of 15 chapters, only seven deal in any way with L2 learners I cannot be alone in interpreting ‘language learners’ in the title as second language learners, even if we take the view that all of us continue to learn our L1 throughout our lives The distinction must be made: it would be very odd not to differentiate between university students taking a stylistics course in English in Lancaster and ¨nster taking the same course students in Mainz or Mu in English In fact, the issue of not being able to automatically assume that approaches successful in the L1 classroom will transfer successfully to L2 learning is raised by Hall in the opening chapter (p 5) Hall also calls for ‘more longitudinal case studies of learners and classrooms exposed to such approaches’ (see Hall 2005 for an extended discussion of the types of research possible in this area) These omissions are therefore important Possibly the best definition of the aim of this volume is in Geoff Hall’s opening chapter, the need to understand ‘the possibilities for stylistic interventions in our own classrooms and curricula’ (p 3) Even if I feel that more attention could have been paid to L2 learners, the book does fulfil this aim, and as I hope I have shown, it also provides insights into pedagogy and teaching in general, and therein lies much of its value References Boyd, M and V M Maloof 2000 ‘How teachers can build on student-proposed intertextual links to facilitate student talk in the ESL classroom’ in J K Hall and L S Verplaetse (eds.) Second and Foreign Language Learning through Classroom Interaction Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum Hall, G 2005 Literature in Language Education Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan Kim, M 2004 ‘Literature discussions in adult L2 learning’ Language and Education 18/2: 145–66 287 Lazar, G 1990 ‘Using novels in the language-learning classroom’ E LT Journal 44/3: 204–14 Lazar, G 1994 ‘Using literature at lower levels’ ELT Journal 48/2: 115–24 McRae, J 1991/2008 Literature with a Small ‘l’ Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan/Nottingham, UK: CCC Press Paran, A 2000 ‘Survey review: recent books on the teaching of literature’ E LT Journal 54/1: 75–88 Paran, A 2008 ‘The role of literature in instructed foreign language learning and teaching: an evidencebased survey’ Language Teaching 41/4: 465–96 Plummer, P and B Busse 2006 ‘E-learning and ¨nster’ Language Language and Style in Mainz and Mu and Literature 15/3: 257–76 The reviewer Amos Paran is a senior lecturer at the Institute of Education, University of London, where he is the course leader of the MATESOL by Distance Learning His main research interests are reading in EFL, literature in language learning, and distance education Email: a.paran@ioe.ac.uk doi:10.1093/elt/ccp040 288 Reviews Building a Validity Argument for the Test of English as a Foreign Languageä C A Chapelle, M K Enright, and J M Jamieson(eds.) Routledge 2007, 370 pp., £25.99 isbn 13 978 8058 5456 The Test of English as a Foreign Languageä (T OE FL Ò) is probably one of the most significant tests in many people’s lives around the world The test is intended to provide evidence of a student’s Reviews 291 ability to communicate and understand oral and written language in an academic setting of an English-speaking country Therefore, it is intended to provide information to all the different stakeholders not only of the candidate’s language proficiency but also of their expected capacity of language use The TOE FL has undergone significant variations in this millennium First was the computer-based T OE FL (C B T ) and since 2005 the internet-based TOE FL (TO EFL iBT) The recent appearance of the T OEF L iBT has brought about the need to understand how the test has changed, why it has done so and, more importantly, what the steps in this change have been While a number of papers on different issues related to the test can be found in research journals such as Language Testing, it seemed necessary to have a more comprehensive volume to address the changes in the new test However, little or no explanation of the changes undertaken in the test have been given to the different stakeholders other than those presented on the Educational Testing Service (ET S ) website (http://www.ets.org) Since this book’s primary audience is ‘applied linguists and measurement specialists, who [ .] might provide backing’ (p 346) or rebuttals to the information presented in the volume, it is worth mentioning that if any teacher is looking for more specific information they might visit the website above, the article by Zareva (2005), or simply the first and last chapters in the volume by Chapelle et al This volume is a valuable asset for those who might be interested in seeing the implementation process of the new test, its fairness, and, overall, whether the process has accounted for all the various aspects that intervene both in the language assessment process and in the identification of communicative competence in an exclusively academic environment At this point, it should be stressed that the test designers did not have in mind assessing the students’ competence in other contexts (for instance, in a social context) as the only aim of the test is to provide evidence of the student’s capability to adapt and work in college Thus, the relevance and use of the final score is limited by and to the use and context of the test and would not be relevant for other purposes such as an assessment for immigration or working purposes This book, which forms part of the Routledge E S L and Applied Linguistics Professional Series, is composed of a preface, an introduction, nine chapters, three appendices, and the topic index A bibliography is included at the end of each chapter All through the book, the authors point out their experience in the research of designing, assessing, and validating the 292 Reviews new TO EFL iBT This book is unique in its scope and contents Very few books have attempted to summarize and make accessible to international audiences all the research undertaken in a project such as the implementation of the new TOE FL test However, readers may want to take a look at the Studies in Language Testing—Cambridge University Press/Cambridge ESO L series for other valuable examples Although the intended audience is mainly specialists, Chapter facilitates the terms and notions which are necessary to understand the rest of the book while the final chapter provides a comprehensible summary of the book’s content The first chapter, by all three editors, serves as an introduction presenting the basis of a test that guarantees that a student will be able to communicate in an English-speaking academic context To so, the authors address topics such as language proficiency, what is measured and why; score interpretation; and interpretation arguments; however, their application of ‘multiple types of inferences’ is especially interesting The writers present this application as a metaphor of three bridges covering four main stages: observation, observed score, expected score, and target score This inference is the basis for later extrapolation of test results in order for the different stakeholders to take action and make decisions In fact, this process guides all the research that is presented later in the book This chapter also states a list of needs for the T OEF L project The chapter concludes with a description of the interpretative argument for the T OEF L which includes six interpretative arguments: domain description, evaluation, generalization, explanation, extrapolation, and utilization This is probably the most illustrative and reader-friendly chapter in the book It is also more accessible to general audiences (including regular teachers and raters who may find the rest of the book either too complex or of little interest to their jobs) The second chapter recounts the evolution of the T OEF L , its initial scope and purposes, what it was supposed to measure, and how the paper-based test evolved into the C B T and finally into the internetbased test (TO EF L iBT) It also explains how and why the Test of Written English (T W E ) and the Test of Spoken English (TSE ) were introduced and how they were used and progressively evolved to be integrated into the current test This chapter may be of great interest to those who took those tests and may even have had problems understanding their construct and delivery The chapter concludes with an excellent bibliography that summarizes much of the research undertaken over the years by ET S for the test Chapter 3, ‘Frameworks for a new TO EF L’, explains how the needs in language testing, communicative competence, and university students’ profiles have changed in the last ten years In the late nineties, this change could be observed in the need to redefine the test’s theoretical construct, to include more complex abilities (integrating all four skills), and take into account the relevant contexts The last part of the chapter is devoted to explaining what is expected from a student who is going to perform in an Englishspeaking academic setting It also introduces the concept of integrated tasks as those which require a combination of different skills to be answered (for example, listening plus multiple choice plus writing) and briefly addresses the administration conditions A more specialized section begins with Chapter 4, ‘Prototyping new assessment tasks’, that presents the development and design of the pilot tasks for the test as ‘the first empirical stage of development of a new T OE FL’ (p 141) The paper presents evidence that the computer-based delivery should not represent a problem for the prospective students The evaluative meaning and inference of these tasks was obtained through working with expert testers and raters In this way, and by analysing the responses in the pilot studies, the rubrics for the speaking and writing measures were obtained This stage concluded that further research on the variables that could affect task difficulty was necessary This is the first of a number of chapters specifically designed for experts If the three previous chapters were accessible to teachers, from this chapter to the last, a certain degree of specialization is necessary It also requires one to be familiar with testing principles However, for those in the field, it provides significant suggestions for approaching design and implementing language tests It also suggests alternative tasks for each skill and ways of integrating different skills into each task It makes an interesting distinction between the different expected outcomes according to the task’s final goal (whether it is for finding information, basic comprehension, for information, or for integration) and how to implement computer-based speaking tasks By Chapter 5, ‘Prototyping measures of listening, reading, speaking, and writing’, readers will learn of procedures to validate tasks through research This chapter addresses how the tasks were actually validated though experimentation and trialling with students This chapter and the following address the importance of field testing both the tasks and the test itself to define the rating scales, observe the student’s performance as compared to previous versions of the test, to see whether the different parts of the test may Reviews be put together creating the test format and construct, and observing whether it is appropriate for collecting the right information about the candidate It is also at this point where performance comparison across cultures, English as a first or other language, or many other variables, is analysed Chapter 7, ‘Finalizing the test blueprint’, deals with rating and obtaining evidence of language proficiency in the test The chapter begins with a short summary of the previous step followed in the test design and how to generate parallel items for the number of tests required each year This part will certainly appeal to those who need to develop items or test tasks for other high stakes tests The middle part of the chapter compares the C B T and TOE FL iBT blueprints very systematically and with clear and meaningful diagrams The chapter also concludes with a brief mention of the computer-based delivery system and a short explanation of how the online rating is carried out, including not only the test rating but also how it is done on the internet In this section, I missed a brief mention of the e-rater system (Chodorow and Burstein 2004) that is currently used along with the human rating Obviously, it is hard to know if it was operational at that time but it could have been a very valuable addition to this chapter Chapter 8, ‘A final analysis’, deals with the psychometric properties of the test and the transition between the current versions of the test The chapter explains how the measurement properties of the test were obtained and how the test specifications were revised and planned for equating and scaling The authors present first the research questions related to the test’s assumptions underlying warrant of the different TO EFL interpretative arguments (as seen in the first chapters) The second part of the chapter deals with the final field study of the final TOE FL iBT version Throughout this chapter, the authors make clear the importance of relevant and sound research in trialling and implementing the test This chapter basically confirms and validates the results obtained during the research and development period It also stresses the importance of scaling and the test’s internal consistency Especially important, but not fully explained in the test, is the Generalizability theory (Bennett and Rock 1995) The last chapter, ‘The TOE FL Validity argument’ summarizes all the stages described in all the previous chapters As opposed to most other chapters, it is accessible to most readers Perhaps the only problem would be that if the reader had not gone through all the contents of the book and some aspects related in this chapter may be not totally clear (for those who have not read the section that Chapelle 293 addresses) However, Chapelle still insists that this chapter is aimed at applied linguists and specialists in measurement At the beginning of the chapter, the author establishes a difference between the ‘validity argument’ (as the evidence that supports the design of a prospective test) and ‘accumulation-of-evidence’ (as the evidence that supports a test that has already been implemented) (p 320–1) and goes one step further by ‘presenting the research in terms of its role in an interpretative argument’ (p 320) That is to say, relating validation and the meaning of its argument through ‘statements that summarize findings that support inferences’ (p 321) about the candidate and that can be meaningful to the different stakeholders In the following pages, Chapelle reviews what has been presented as domain definition and inferences (evaluation, generalization, explanation, extrapolation, and utilization) The chapter concludes with a diagram that briefly summarizes all of these This book establishes a totally new approach to language test design and implementation The need to set the guidelines and define the circumstances in which the test takes place serves as a guide for other test designers who may find relevant experiences, methodology, and ideas for their own projects However, many readers will feel overwhelmed not by the abundant evidence but by the way in which this validation stage is done The book reflects many years of valuable experience, research expertise, collaborative work among different groups such as computer engineers and linguists, and, most importantly, financial means that cannot be found in other contexts However, since many examinations (sometimes even high stakes ones) need to be trialled, this volume will be a valuable asset on most test designers’ night tables The volume has much to offer in terms of research methodology and ideas to validate new tests The only question that has not been addressed is technological design Designing a computer tool that basically has the features of the new TOE FL does not seem to be extremely difficult and some of the current commercial and non-commercial computer-assisted language learning (and testing) platforms would fit the T OEF L’ s tasks However, research is meant to be spread and used and many readers will certainly miss a chapter devoted to technology In this sense, Fulcher’s (2003) paper on interface design or the volume by Chapelle and Douglas (2006) on computer language testing not seem to add much that is new In conclusion, this book, although dense and hard to follow at times, may become a cornerstone in testing 294 Reviews research not because of its novelty but because the authors, especially in the last chapter, have been able to open up a path to follow for other researchers For the prospective reader, it would probably not be advisable to read it thoroughly from beginning to end, but to try to identify the chapters that may be of most interest or use according to their particular needs Either way, it is important the reader does not miss the first two or the last chapters Readers may not expect ready-made solutions to their particular situations but to show ‘a useful example’ (p 350) that most likely will bring ideas to their minds and ‘identify areas of agreement or disagreement’ (p 350) in this excellent piece of research References Bennett, R E and D A Rock 1995 ‘Generalizability, validity, and examinee perceptions of a computerdelivered formulating-hypotheses test’ Journal of Educational Measurement 32/1: 19–36 Chapelle, C A and D Douglas 2006 Assessing Language through Computer Technology Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Chodorow, M and J Burstein 2004 ‘Beyond essay length: evaluating e-raters’ performance on TOE FL essays’ (TO EFL Research Report No RR-73, ETS RR04-04) Available at http://www.ets.org/Media/ Research/pdf/RR-04-04.pdf (accessed 31 January 2009) Fulcher, G 2003 ‘Interface design in computerbased language testing’ Language Testing 20/4: 384–408 Zareva, A 2005 ‘What is new in the new TO EF L- iBT 2006 test format?’ Electronic Journal of Foreign Language Teaching 2/2: 45–57 Available at: http:// e-flt.nus.edu.sg/v2n22005/zareva.htm (accessed 31 January 2009) The reviewer Jesu´s Garcı´a Laborda is Associate Professor in the Department of Applied Linguistics and full researcher in the Camille group of the Universidad Polite´cnica de Valencia He is involved in low stakes language testing and technology in education and currently lectures on ESP for Tourism He has coordinated two regional research projects about the feasibility of the implementation of a computer-based university entrance examination in Spain Email: jgarcial@upvnet.upv.es doi:10.1093/elt/ccp044 Form-focused Instruction and Teacher Education: Studies in Honour of Rod Ellis S Fotos and H Nassaji (eds.) Oxford University Press 2007, 288 pp., £26.00 isbn 978 19 442250 If you are not familiar with the name of Rod Ellis, then you probably have the wrong journal in your hands His work over the last 30 years or so is celebrated in this festschrift, centring on form-focused instruction (FFI ), a key aspect in much of Dr Ellis’ research into second language acquisition (S L A ) The book is organized loosely into three sections, with several chapters in each The first section serves to introduce the reader to some of the pedagogical, linguistic, and cognitive theories surrounding ‘focus on form’ The second section surveys the work of Dr Ellis and others and how it relates to classroom practice, with the third and final section covering the theme with attention to teacher education The editors establish the context in their introductory chapter and lay out their rationale by defining teacher education as ‘the flexible development of professional knowledge to be applied when needed’ (p 8) Defining FFI is, as you might expect, more problematical, but a well organized and swiftly paced taxonomy did a better job of fixing the basic concepts in my mind than several university S L A classes had FF I is, fundamentally, any method used to draw the attention of the learners to language forms, a balance between traditional study of discrete grammar in isolation, and meaning-led communicative methodologies Whether the focus should be implicit or explicit, pre-planned or reactive, is discussed at great length in subsequent chapters According to the editors, the book is an attempt to help practising teachers understand ‘the role that formal instruction plays in communicative contexts’ (p 1) and to address the gap between S L A research and teaching with a book provided by ‘S L A experts who are language teachers or teacher educators’ (p 8), ‘written from the viewpoint of language teachers’ (p 4) I hope to assess the achievement of these aims in this review N C Ellis takes the first chapter ‘proper’ after the introduction and creates an immediate conundrum for the reviewer His contribution (Chapter 2, ‘The weak interface, consciousness, and form-focused instruction: mind the doors’), is a densely packed and precisely worded examination of FF I , drawing in research from various related fields It is not an easy read, but this is not an easy subject, and with that in Reviews mind, the author has conveyed his message with great clarity The conundrum is this: should one only judge a book by the standards of its own stated goals? Classroom teachers are certainly capable of understanding academic texts and of making links between those texts and practice But this is a very challenging opening section if the target audience is ‘the many teachers (that) acknowledge the importance of S L A research (yet don’t) regularly read such research’ (p 8) Lantolf explores sociocultural theory in the third chapter (‘Conceptual knowledge and instructed second language learning: a sociocultural perspective’) and, in particular, considers how explicitly and accurately grammar concepts need to be explained Skehan (p 55) alludes to the inevitability of an ‘uneasy relationship’ between research and pedagogy at the start of his chapter (Chapter 4, ‘Task research and language teaching: reciprocal relationships’), and it is a key chapter in highlighting this discrepancy Researchers, he claims, need to limit their focus in order to state their findings with any degree of confidence, whilst pedagogues feel pressure to react to real-world variables He demonstrates this dilemma with a fascinating and practical analysis of the differing interpretations of task research conducted by both ‘pure’ researchers and teacher researchers The second section (‘Focus on form and classroom practices’) moves from the general into the more specific, and opens with Swain and Lapkin’s wellconsidered study of a young learner of French (Chapter 5, ‘The distributed nature of second language learning: Neil’s perspective’) The authors base their thinking in distributed cognition theory; the idea that ‘our cognitions and memories may be distributed across the individual, artefacts and people with whom the individual is interacting’ (p 74) It is the kind of framework which has a lot of currency through the likes of Vygotsky these days (also cited in this chapter), perhaps partly attributable, despite its complexity, to its warm and commonsensical feel In this study, the early teenage participants took part in a multitask activity involving videotaped mini-lessons, narrative writing, written reformulation by a native speaker, noticing, and stimulated recall and rewriting followed by reflection It is an enlightening case study, although I wonder how any adaptations to the process for practical purposes would impact on its effectiveness Chapter (‘Recontextualizing focus on form’) seems quite obscure at first reading, but on careful 295 consideration yields gold Batstone posits that discourse patterns, both verbal and non-verbal, indicate phases in a lesson which predispose students to focus on either form or meaning As ‘attention is a limited resource’ (p 98), the teacher needs to watch the direction of discourse closely Loewen, in Chapter (‘The prior and subsequent use of forms targeted in incidental focus on form’), demonstrates just how difficult it can be to assess effectiveness through pre- and post-testing when correction is unplanned Nonetheless, the findings of this very thorough survey indicate that teacher correction and recasting has value According to Nassaji (Chapter 8, ‘Reactive focus on form through negotiation on learners’ written errors’), this is actually a more controversial conclusion than you might expect, with some scholars suggesting that corrective feedback is damaging, not merely ineffective (Truscott 1996, cited p 117) This is not Nassaji’s conclusion, although he does qualify this by pointing out the value of negotiation in achieving learning Fotos and Hinkel follow on neatly with the final chapter in this section (Chapter 9, ‘Formfocused instruction and output for second language writing gains’) The final six chapters are grouped together as ‘Focus on form and teacher education’ After Richards’ rather broad overview of the research/materials development paradigm (Chapter 10, ‘Materials development and research: towards a form-focused perspective’), comes Pica’s examination of some of the most commonplace and unremarkable communicative activities widely used in classrooms today (Chapter 11, ‘Time, teachers, and tasks in focus on form instruction’) However, when set in the context of the earlier chapters and developed so thoughtfully by Pica, ‘spot the difference’ and ‘information gap’ tasks become vital and important again I found this chapter in particular achieved the goals of the book, and demonstrates why teachers should persevere with the study of challenging research-based material (like the earlier chapters of this book) to inform their classroom practice Whilst retaining academic integrity, these final chapters certainly have a more practical emphasis In Chapter 12 (‘Using form-focused discovery approaches’), Tomlinson promotes learner-centred approaches over teacher-centred instruction in forms and leads in to a study of teacher attitudes to his techniques Rea-Dickins tackles assessment in an EAL setting in Chapter 13 (‘Learning or measuring? 296 Reviews Exploring teacher decision-making in planning for classroom-based language assessment’), and Hedge returns to writing feedback, this time as loop input in teacher training (Chapter 14, ‘Learning through the looking glass: teacher response to form-focused feedback on writing’) In the fifteenth and final chapter (‘Explicit language knowledge and focus on form: options and obstacles for TE SOL teacher trainees’), Elder, Erlam, and Philp present both native and non-native teachers with a chastening message; before we decide to focus on form, we had better get ourselves a thorough understanding of explicit grammar rules and metalinguistic terminology To clarify what may have appeared as a criticism earlier in this review: although the early chapters might be daunting for some in the target audience, the reader will be rewarded for perseverance, as the theoretical grounding is connected to the classroom later in the text It is also a credit to the editors and authors that the book is cohesive without being repetitive While this sounds like damning with faint praise, it is no mean feat in a thematically linked collection of papers The volume as a whole rarely addresses teacher education directly, but in its broader sense, it is certainly about teacher development There are no simple answers in this book, there are a number of contradictions, controversies, and unanswered questions, but that is not the fault of the researchers, authors, or editors involved For their continued commitment to solving these questions, on the other hand, we should thank Dr Ellis and his colleagues References Truscott, J 1996 ‘The case for ‘‘the case against grammar correction in L2 writing classes’’: a response to Ferris’ Journal of Second Language Writing 8/2: 111–22 The reviewer Darren Elliott (MA ELT, DELTA) has taught at universities in the United Kingdom and Japan and currently teaches at Nanzan University in Nagoya, Japan He is also a freelance teacher trainer He has published and presented on learner autonomy, teacher development, and reflective practice, particularly guided by internet technologies Email: delliott@ic.nanzan-u.ac.jp, darrenrelliott@gmail.com doi:10.1093/elt/ccp045 Correspondence From Michael Swan I am sorry that Luke Prodromou (ELT Journal 63/2) was upset by my review of his book English as a Lingua Franca: A Corpus-based Analysis (ELT Journal 63/1: 78–81) He complains that ‘at certain points, Swan seriously distorts the arguments of the book’ I not believe this is the case However, English as a Lingua Franca is a long and diffuse book, and even after two careful readings I had some trouble in understanding exactly where the argument was going, so I may well have misunderstood the odd point If so, I apologize It is not my purpose here to reply to Prodromou’s catalogue of grievances in order to further justify my criticisms; this would be tedious and unconstructive Readers who are sufficiently interested and have £75 to spare can buy the book and make up their own minds I however need to take issue with the first of his objections, as this has some general importance Prodromou’s preferred term for people speaking a language which is not their mother tongue is ‘L2-user’ In my review I refer to such people as ‘nonnative speakers (NNS)’ Prodromou regards this terminological choice as having wide and unacceptable implications By using my own term I ‘foist’ on him views that he does not share ‘Nonnative speaker’, he says, is ‘deficit-laden’ and ‘anglocentric’ The difference between the two terms is that my term sees people as agents who make use of the language in their own terms whereas the negative prefix in non-native speaker reinforces the view that non-L1 users are failed ‘native-speakers’ whose English is riddled with errors perpetual learners who are forever deviating from ‘native-speaker’ norms ‘Non-native speaker’ is a commonly-used expression in linguistic research, and it has of course no inherent pejorative connotations—any more than the ‘2’ in Prodromou’s ‘L2-users’ implies second-class status Prodromou is entitled to use whatever language he chooses, but he is not entitled to insist that everyone 300 else conforms to his preferences, nor to foist (to use his own loaded expression) on the rest of us his idiosyncratic interpretations of professional terminology Part of his problem, in fact, seems to arise from a simple confusion about the meaning of an English prefix Words beginning with ‘non-’ not necessarily incorporate negative value judgements—take for example ‘non-metallic’, ‘nonproliferation’, ‘non-aggressive’, ‘non-judgemental’, ‘non-sexist’, or Prodromou’s own expression ‘non-L1 users’ Granted, if someone happens to believe that native speakers are superior in some way, then for them ‘non-native speaker’ will have dismissive implications, just as, no doubt, some vegetarians contrive to put a pejorative spin on ‘non-vegetarian’, or some professional soldiers may sneer at ‘nonmilitary’ attitudes But that is another matter, and it has nothing to with the core meanings of the words themselves I am not sure what to make of Prodromou’s other non-canonical (as he might put it) interpretation of a prefix, in ‘anglo-centric’ ‘Anglo’ is commonly used, often disparagingly, for people who are considered to be ethnically British or North American To use the term to express disapproval of someone who wishes to talk about native and non-native speakers of a language which is the mother tongue, in its many different varieties, of people who live on and between five continents—now that really is anglo-centric Prodromou’s principal concern is clearly to defend non-native speakers of English against prejudicial attitudes arising from the nature of their language use This is wholly admirable, and it is a pity that his knee-jerk reaction to my terminology leads him to see disagreement in an area where, as it happens, we hold very similar views I have no sympathy with the kind of value-judgement which bothers him, and which is often nourished by perfectionist attitudes in language teaching that I believe are seriously counterproductive When teachers and examination systems prioritize accuracy at all costs, in a deranged utopian attempt to make foreign learners virtually indistinguishable from native speakers, then these learners are indeed made to feel that they are failures E LT Journal Volume 63/3 July 2009; doi:10.1093/elt/ccp036 ª The Author 2009 Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved whose language is ‘riddled with errors’, ‘forever deviating from native-speaker norms’ Communicative revolution or not, there is still far too much of this about, and whatever the confusions exhibited by discussions of ‘ELF’—which are often considerable—the current interest in lingua franca use of English is doing a great deal of good by encouraging a more realistic view Probably quite a small proportion of those who learn English need a close approximation to native-speaker accuracy; the rest may well achieve their communicative aims perfectly successfully even if they deviate from the less important native-speaker norms, dropping thirdperson -s, using articles in a non-standard way, or not using the present perfect for the same range of meanings as native speakers would So, if teachers, educational authorities, examiners, and others can bring themselves to fuss less about these things—up to a point at least—everybody will be better off It is important, however, to distinguish statements about language users from statements about the language they use Non-native speakers of a language may well be successful communicators, using their personal variety of that language validly for their own purposes, and with no need to approximate nativespeaker norms any more closely than they This does not, however, mean that linguists should be barred from studying non-native varieties of English and analysing for their own purposes the ways, systematic and other, in which these differ from mother-tongue varieties Whether such differences Correspondence should be called errors, deviations, or non-canonical variations depends on a number of factors But none of this implies that value judgements are being made about the speakers themselves Even the words ‘failed’ and ‘deficit’, to which Prodromou objects (and which I did not use), are employed quite nonjudgementally in linguistics: for example by generative grammarians in relation to parameter setting in second language acquisition To see proficient non-native speakers/L2 users as ‘agents who make use of the language in their own terms’ is a perfectly valid stance But it makes little sense to extend this to the bizarre view that their English is therefore an independent variety which owes nothing to mother-tongue English ‘Swan’s choice of terms’, says Prodromou, ‘confirms the anglo-centric view he expresses elsewhere in his review that NNSs’ English ‘‘is directly or indirectly derived from one of the several NS models’’’ But of course it is Where else does non-native speakers’ English come from? Hungarian? Cantonese? An unbroken line of non-native speakers stretching back to the Norman Conquest? As I suggested at the end of my review, confusion about terminology can lead us into a more general failure to achieve a clear view of the issues we are discussing It is sad that Prodromou has fallen into precisely this trap Michael Swan Didcot, UK 301 [...]... hang together.2 Even though lexical cohesion is the more pervasive in creating textual cohesion, it is 212 E LT Journal Volume 63/3 July 2009; doi:10.1093 /elt/ ccn040 ª The Author 2008 Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved Advance Access publication July 29, 2008 neglected in ELT (as noted, for example by Flowerdew 2006: 209) Halliday and Hasan classify lexical cohesion in the following... 15 different linguistic error categories were sometimes included in these studies so it was likely to produce too much of a cognitive overload for learners to attend to By 204 E LT Journal Volume 63/3 July 2009; doi:10.1093 /elt/ ccn043 ª The Author 2008 Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved Advance Access publication August 13, 2008 comparison, oral corrective feedback research (for... participants come to any teacher education programme with prior assumptions and beliefs, sometimes called preconceptions, and experiences about teaching and learning (Shulman E LT Journal Volume 63/3 July 2009; doi:10.1093 /elt/ ccn058 ª The Author 2008 Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved Advance Access publication November 10, 2008 221 1987) In language education, many of these... support of written corrective feedback’ Journal of Second Language Writing 17/2: 102–18 Bitchener, J and U Knoch 2008 ‘The value of written corrective feedback for migrant and international students’ Language Teaching Research Journal 12/3: 409–31 Bitchener, J., S Young, and D Cameron 2005 ‘The effect of different types of corrective feedback on E S L student writing’ Journal of Second Language Writing... Columbia University, where she teaches Conversation Analysis and Speaking Practicum, among other courses Her work has appeared in Applied Linguistics, Journal of Pragmatics, Research on Language and Social Interaction, Discourse Studies, Text and Talk, and Journal of Sociolinguistics She is currently interested in using CA to examine instructional practices and their relevance to learning opportunities... correction in L2 writing classes A response to Truscott (1996)’ Journal of Second Language Writing 8/1: 1–10 Ferris, D R 2003 Response to Student Writing: Implications for Second Language Students Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Guenette, D 2007 ‘Is feedback pedagogically correct? Research design issues in studies of feedback on writing’ Journal of Second Language Writing 16/1: 40–53 Kepner, C G... writing’ Journal of Second Language Writing 16/1: 40–53 Kepner, C G 1991 ‘An experiment in the relationship of types of written feedback to the development of second-language writing skills’ Modern Language Journal 75/3: 305–13 Lyster, R 2004 ‘Differential effects of prompts and recasts in form-focused instruction’ Studies in Second Language Acquisition 26/3: 399–432 Muranoi, H 2000 ‘Focus on form through... Generating and Exploring Alternatives in Language Teaching New York: Longman Forgas, J P and G Tehani 2005 ‘Affective influences on language use: mood effects on performance feedback by experts and novices’ Journal of Language and Social Psychology 24/3: 269–84 Gass, S and A Mackey 2006 ‘Input, interaction and output: an overview’ AILA Review 19: 3–17 Hellermann, J 2003 ‘The interactive work of prosody in... refers back to the lack of mass transit, the use of private cars, and the use of air conditioning This phrase is not a particularly common one in standard English: it is interesting that the student felt that he had to use the plural (‘situations’) to refer to the preceding information An additional concern in this text is that ‘situations’ does not seem to be the best noun to use: ‘uses’ or ‘means... use of cohesion in writing’ Reading Research Quarterly 25/1: 47–65 Flowerdew, J 2006 ‘Use of signalling nouns in a learner corpus’ Lexical Cohesion and Corpus Linguistics (Special issue) International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 11/3: 227–47 Halliday, M A K 1985 An Introduction to Functional Grammar London: Edward Arnold Halliday, M A K and R Hasan 1976 Cohesion in English Harlow: Longman Hasan, R