Functional Categories of Language

Mary Finocchiaro (1983, p. 65-66) has placed the functional categories under five headings as noted below: personal, interpersonal, directive, referential, andimaginative.

Personal = Clarifying or arranging one?s ideas; expressing one?s thoughts or feelings: love, joy, pleasure, happiness, surprise, likes, satisfaction, dislikes, disappointment, distress, pain, anger, anguish, fear, anxiety, sorrow, frustration, annoyance at missed opportunities, moral, intellectual and social concerns; and the everyday feelings of hunger, thirst, fatigue, sleepiness, cold, or warmth

Interpersonal = Enabling us to establish and maintain desirable social and working relationships: Enabling us to establish and maintain desirable social and working relationships:

? greetings and leave takings

? introducing people to others

? identifying oneself to others

? expressing joy at another?s success

? expressing concern for other people?s welfare

? extending and accepting invitations

? refusing invitations politely or making alternative arrangements

? making appointments for meetings

? breaking appointments politely and arranging another mutually convenient time

? apologizing

? excusing oneself and accepting excuses for not meeting commitments

? indicating agreement or disagreement

? interrupting another speaker politely

? changing an embarrassing subject

? receiving visitors and paying visits to others

? offering food or drinks and accepting or declining politely

? sharing wishes, hopes, desires, problems

? making promises and committing oneself to some action

? complimenting someone

? making excuses

? expressing and acknowledging gratitude

Directive = Attempting to influence the actions of others; accepting or refusing direction:

? making suggestions in which the speaker is included

? making requests; making suggestions

? refusing to accept a suggestion or a request but offering an alternative

? persuading someone to change his point of view

? requesting and granting permission

? asking for help and responding to a plea for help

? forbidding someone to do something; issuing a command

? giving and responding to instructions

? warning someone

? discouraging someone from pursuing a course of action

? establishing guidelines and deadlines for the completion of actions

? asking for directions or instructions

Referential = talking or reporting about things, actions, events, or people in the environment in the past or in the future; talking about language (what is termed the metalinguistic function: = talking or reporting about things, actions, events, or people in the environment in the past or in the future; talking about language (what is termed the metalinguistic function:

? identifying items or people in the classroom, the school the home, the community

? asking for a description of someone or something

? defining something or a language item or asking for a definition

? paraphrasing, summarizing, or translating (L1 to L2 or vice versa)

? explaining or asking for explanations of how something works

? comparing or contrasting things

? discussing possibilities, probabilities, or capabilities of doing something

? requesting or reporting facts about events or actions

? evaluating the results of an action or event

Imaginative = Discussions involving elements of creativity and artistic expression

? discussing a poem, a story, a piece of music, a play, a painting, a film, a TV program, etc.

? expanding ideas suggested by other or by a piece of literature or reading material

? creating rhymes, poetry, stories or plays

? recombining familiar dialogs or passages creatively

? suggesting original beginnings or endings to dialogs or stories

? solving problems or mysteries

Total Physical Response

Asher, J.C. (1979). Learning Another Language Through Actions. San Jose, California: AccuPrint.

James J. Asher defines the Total Physical Response (TPR) method as one that combines information and skills through the use of the kinesthetic sensory system. This combination of skills allows the student to assimilate information and skills at a rapid rate. As a result, this success leads to a high degree of motivation. The basic tenets are:

Understanding the spoken language before developing the skills of speaking. Imperatives are the main structures to transfer or communicate information. The student is not forced to speak, but is allowed an individual readiness period and allowed to spontaneously begin to speak when the student feels comfortable and confident in understanding and producing the utterances.

TECHNIQUE

Step I The teacher says the commands as he himself performs the action.

Step 2 The teacher says the command as both the teacher and the students then perform the action.

Step 3 The teacher says the command but only students perform the action

Step 4 The teacher tells one student at a time to do commands

Step 5 The roles of teacher and student are reversed. Students give commands to teacher and to other students.

Step 6 The teacher and student allow for command expansion or produces new sentences.

The Natural Approach

The Natural Approach and the Communicative Approach share a common theoretical and philosophical base.The Natural Approach to L2 teaching is based on the following hypotheses:

1. The acquisition-learning distinction hypothesis

Adults can "get" a second language much as they learn their first language, through informal, implicit, subconscious learning. The conscious, explicit, formal linguistic knowledge of a language is a different, and often non-essential process.

2. The natural order of acquisition hypothesis

L2 learners acquire forms in a predictable order. This order very closely parallels the acquisition of grammatical and syntactic structures in the first language.

3. The monitor hypothesis

Fluency in L2 comes from the acquisition process. Learning produces a "monitoring" or editor of performance. The application of the monitor function requires time, focus on form and knowledge of the rule.

4. The input hypothesis

Language is acquired through comprehensible input. If an L2 learner is at a certain stage in language acquisition and he/she understands something that includes a structure at the next stage, this helps him/her to acquire that structure. Thus, the i+1 concept, where i= the stage of acquisition.

5. The affective hypothesis

People with certain personalities and certain motivations perform better in L2 acquisition. Learners with high self-esteem and high levels of self-confidence acquire L2 faster. Also, certain low-anxiety pleasant situations are more conducive to L2 acquisition.

6. The filter hypothesis

There exists an affective filter or "mental block" that can prevent input from "getting in." Pedagogically, the more that is done to lower the filter, the more acquisition can take place. A low filter is achieved through low-anxiety, relaxation, non-defensiveness.

7. The aptitude hypothesis

There is such a thing as a language learning aptitude. This aptitude can be measured and is highly correlated with general learning aptitude. However, aptitude relates more to learning while attitude relates more to acquisition.

8. The first language hypothesis

The L2 learner will naturally substitute competence in L1 for competence in L2. Learners should not be forced to use the L1 to generate L2 performance. A silent period and insertion of L1 into L2 utterances should be expected and tolerated.

9. The textuality hypothesis

The event-structures of experience are textual in nature and will be easier to produce, understand, and recall to the extent that discourse or text is motivated and structured episodically. Consequently, L2 teaching materials are more successful when they incorporate principles of good story writing along with sound linguistic analysis.

10. The expectancy hypothesis

Discourse has a type of "cognitive momentum." The activation of correct expectancies will enhance the processing of textual structures. Consequently, L2 learners must be guided to develop the sort of native-speaker "intuitions" that make discourse predictable.

Source: Krashen, S.D. , & Terrell, T.D. (1983). The Natural Approach. Hayward, CA: The Alemany Press.

Click here for a PPT slide presentation on the Theoretical Basis for the Natural Approach

Date: 2016-06-12; view: 240