Teaching Language as Communication. H. G. Widdowson

utterances of sentences of this kind are of relatively rare occurrence as instances of use.

      1.3 Usage and use in classroom presentation

      I want now to consider some examples of how language is presented in the classroom and how this presentation, in concentrating on usage, may sometimes involve an inappropriate use of language. The following is an example of a familiar oral drill in which the learner is required to repeat a sentence pattern by using different ‘call-words’

      What is going on here? We have a series of responses to a verbal cue but these responses are not replies in any normal sense. The pupils are demonstrating their knowledge of usage by manipulating the sentence pattern but they are not doing so for any other purpose.

      Let us now adjust the drill so that we get what appears to be a more normal question and answer sequence:

      Here we can recognize that some account is taken of use. To begin with, for the pupils to give an answer there must be a book on the table and a bag on the floor: there must be some simple situation to refer to. The pupils are not simply spinning sentences out without any reference to what the words mean, as they are in the first drill. But although there is some concern for use in this respect, it is still usage which has the dominant emphasis. Although the pupils’ response is a reply to a question and not just a reaction to a prompt, the form of the reply is inappropriate. We can compare the drill with the following exchanges where the replies take on a more normal appearance:

      A: What is on the table?

      B: A book.

      A: Where is the bag?

      B: On the floor.

      Even in this form, however, the language cannot necessarily be regarded as demonstrating appropriate use. To see why this is so, we have to ask ourselves: ‘Why does A ask this question?’ If a book is seen to be on the table, and a bag seen to be on the floor, and if everybody is aware of the location of these objects, then why does A need to ask where they are? If there is a book on the table in front of the whole class, then, as has been pointed out, the question is contextualised to the extent that it refers to something outside language and is not just a manipulation of the language itself. But by the same token, the fact that there is a book on the table, visible to everybody, makes it extremely unnatural to ask if it is there. Thus the provision of a situation may lead away from usage in one respect but lead back to usage in another. Only if the pupils know that the teacher cannot see the bag and is genuinely looking for it does his question as to its whereabouts take on the character of natural use. The following classroom exchange, for example, would commonly take on this genuine quality of real communication:

      We may say that the realization of language as use involves two kinds of ability. One kind is the ability to select which form of sentence is appropriate for a particular linguistic context. The second is the ability to recognize which function is fulfilled by a sentence in a particular communicative situation. Let us look again at our examples.

      If this is part of a drill and there is a book on the table which everybody can see, then the teacher’s question is not fulfilling a normal function since in ordinary circumstances we do not ask questions about something we already know. So the teacher’s question and the pupils’ answer do not fulfil a communicative function in this particular situation. Furthermore, a question of this form does not normally require a response which takes the form of sentence which the pupils give, so their reply is not appropriate in this particular linguistic context. This exchange, then, illustrates both inappropriate function in relation to the situation and inappropriate form in relation to the context. Let us now consider a second example:

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      For accounts of these distinctions and their relevance to language teaching see:

      J. P. B. Allen: ‘Some basic concepts in linguistics’ in The Edinburgh Course in Applied Linguistics (henceforth ECAL) Volume 2: Edited by J. P. B. Allen & S. Pit Cord

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For accounts of these distinctions and their relevance to language teaching see:

J. P. B. Allen: ‘Some basic concepts in linguistics’ in The Edinburgh Course in Applied Linguistics (henceforth ECAL) Volume 2: Edited by J. P. B. Allen & S. Pit Corder, Oxford University Press, 1975, pp. 37–40.

D. A. Wilkins: Linguistics in Language Teaching, Arnold, 1972, PP. 33–6.

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Notice that if one defines skills in this way as distinct from (though related to) abilities, then there is a case for adopting the conventional ‘behaviourist’ view that they can be acquired by mechanical repetition as a set of habits. The danger is that if skills are not clearly defined in this way, it might be assumed that abilities can also be acquired like this. Consider, for example, the following comment: ‘The single paramount fact about language learning is that it concerns, not problem solving, but the formation and performance of habits.’ N. Brooks: Language and Language Learning, Harcourt, Brace & World, 1960, p. 46.

‘Behaviourist’ attitudes like this to the learning of language are passed under critical review in Wilga Rivers: The Psychologist and the Foreign Language Teacher, Chicago University Press, 1964.

A thorough discussion, from a psychological point of view, of the kind of issues I raise in this chapter with regard to skills and abilities, is to be found in a later book by Rivers:

Wilga Rivers: Teaching Foreign Language Skills, University of Chicago Press, 1968.

In general one might say that a behaviourist orientation to psychology will tend to describe language learning activity in terms of skills and a cognitive orientation will tend to describe it in terms of abilities.