Interjections in the EFL classroom: teaching sounds and sequences

Reber, Elisabeth

doi:10.1093/elt/ccq070

Cited by 25 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Other lexical items, such as interjections ('Oh', 'Well', 'Erm'), are only used occasionally in the textbook material. Reber (2011) has found that interjections such as 'oh' and 'mmm' can be found in EFL textbooks in constructed conversation examples, but that 'the meaning and use of the interjections are not always adequately explained' (pp. 366f.).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teaching how to apologize: EFL textbooks and pragmatic input

Limberg

2016

Language Teaching Research

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Learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) are exposed to a collection of materials and communicative activities in the classroom through which they learn to use the language competently and appropriately. Textbooks, in particular, are a rich source of input, offering a variety of opportunities to acquire and practice pragmatic competence in specific areas of language use. One such area concerns apologies. As a ubiquitous and routinized pragmatic speech act, apologies are important to master for learners who have violated a socio-cultural norm. This study examines how German textbooks for EFL learners provide input on apologies and what tasks as well as exercises they suggest to practice and perform this act in the classroom. Teaching apologies -like any other speech act -should be based on rich, meaningful and authentic input and tasks in order for learners to appreciate and make use of this competence in real-life communication. The analysis of textbooks for secondary schools in Germany reveals the existence of some apology input, but also a lack of variety in terms of apology expressions. In addition, a noticeable difference between (implicit) input and (explicit) tasks exists, which can have an influence on the development of learners' apology competence. EFL teachers need to be aware of what textbooks can and cannot offer, and then they need to adapt input and tasks for their teaching.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teaching how to apologize: EFL textbooks and pragmatic input

Limberg

2016

Language Teaching Research

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“…Although the interjections usage did not result in misunderstandings or serious face-threatening situations in the samples of BATTICC, the meaning of these interjections is not always clear (and some of them are not appropriate). Reber (2010) suggests that EFL teachers should teach the sound patterns and usages of interjections on the basis of naturally occurring discourse rather than referring to invented conversation examples. In this way, learners would gain some knowledge about when and how to display affectivity and appropriate responses in spoken interaction.…”

Section: Findings and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using key part-of-speech analysis to examine spoken discourse by Taiwanese EFL learners

Lin

2014

ReCALL

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This study reports on a corpus analysis of samples of spoken discourse between a group of British and Taiwanese adolescents, with the aim of exploring the statistically significant differences in the use of grammatical categories between the two groups of participants. The key word method extended to a part-of-speech level using the web-based corpus analytical tool, Wmatrix, highlights those linguistic domains which deserve particular attention. Specifically, it reveals the lexical and grammatical categories that occur unusually frequently or unusually infrequently in the English learners’ discourse when compared with the language used by the native speakers of English in the sample. The research findings delineate the pedagogical merit of key domain analysis and thus help to inform English as a foreign language teachers and materials developers in the design of courses emphasising spoken interaction.

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“…Where exposure to authentic input is not possible outside of the classroom, we would like to encourage textbook writers to analyze samples of authentic conversations and introduce them to students as transcripts, audio samples, or video clips (see, for examples, Barraja-Rohan & Pritchard, 1997;Reber, 2011). 19 Teachers should be encouraged to provide students with exposure to authentic interactions and opportunities to practice them.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ordering Fast Food: Service Encounters in Real-Life Interaction and in Textbook Dialogs

Nguyễn

Ishitobi²

2012

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In this paper we compare authentic fast-food ordering transactions with EFL textbook dialogs in order to assist teachers and materials writers in the development of students' communication skills. Using conversation analysis (CA) and drawing on the concepts of communicative competence and interactional competence, we first provide a detailed description of a small sample of real-life transactions and then compare these with the dialogs in textbooks used in Japan, including some successive editions. We demonstrate that the textbook dialogs differ from the recorded real-life interactions in the sequencing of actions and completeness of actions. In the context of the findings, we suggest implications for language teaching and materials development.

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Interjections in the EFL classroom: teaching sounds and sequences

Cited by 25 publications

References 9 publications

Teaching how to apologize: EFL textbooks and pragmatic input

Teaching how to apologize: EFL textbooks and pragmatic input

Using key part-of-speech analysis to examine spoken discourse by Taiwanese EFL learners

Ordering Fast Food: Service Encounters in Real-Life Interaction and in Textbook Dialogs

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