paragraphs. This repetition contributes to the cohesion of the text. Writers
also create cohesion by referring back to things they have mentioned before.
By asking learners to look at these aspects of the text, you can raise their
awareness of strategies that they may be able to use in their own writing.
8 Look at vocabulary. If you have selected a text from a specialist area, it
may well contain vocabulary items that your learners particularly need to
know. And either a specialist or a general text will contain examples of
collocations—that is, words which typically go together. Some of these
examples will be fixed lexical phrases, like a long time ago or what it’s all
about. By concentrating on these, you can give learners a new angle on how
the language works.
9 Look at tense use. Especially in non-narrative text, writer choice—as
opposed to language rules—determines a lot of tense use. This may come as
a surprise to many learners who have learnt rigid ways of distinguishing the
use of tenses from each other. Looking at tense use, and discussing possible
alternatives, can help learners become more open-minded and receptive to
the examples they see and hear.
10 Consider creating a computerized mini-corpus. The written texts you use
can be stored on computer and then you and the learners can use a
concordancing programme—a programme which shows some patterns
which typically cluster around particular words—to study them. You can
also add any transcribed spoken texts to your mini-corpus. By studying texts
using a concordancer, learners can get information about some common
language patterns—and they can begin to learn to do some of the research for
themselves.23 Exploiting authentic spoken texts
Our definition of the term ‘authentic’ needs to shift a little here. It can include
texts from broadcast sources, produced for purposes other than language learning.
But we’d also like to include as ‘authentic’ unscripted spoken texts that teachers
themselves record—even if the situation was deliberately set up. The following
suggestions should help you get the most out of using all kinds of spoken text.
1 Decide what sort of text you want. Are you looking for planned or
semiplanned data (a TV speech, a radio interview), or spontaneous data—a
chat between friends or colleagues? And are you looking for monologue or
dialogue? Spontaneous dialogue can be particularly valuable because it is
often under-represented in teaching materials, even though learners
obviously need to cope with it in the world outside. But then, it is also the
most difficult to record.
2 Work with meaning first. Let your learners hear the text in real time, and
do something with it, before they look at its language in detail. One of theLANGUAGE WORK IN THE CLASSROOM 43