Module 7: Topics, situations, notions, functions

Unit One: Topics and situations

Question 1 Have a look at a locally-used coursebook. Is each unit in fact based on a

clearly definable topic, or situation, or both? Is there a general ‘base’
situation which is maintained throughout the book (for example, the
doings of a particular set of people)?

Question 2 Look through the techniques suggested in Box 7.1. Are there any you
would not use? Can you add more?

BOX 7.1: SOME IDEAS FOR PRESENTATION OF NEW TOPICS OR

SITUATIONS

– Write the name of the topic in the middle of the board and invite the class to
brainstorm all the associated words they can think of.
– Write the name of the topic in the middle of the board and ask the class
what they know about it and/or what they would like to know.
– Describe a communicative situation and characters and invite the class to
suggest orally what the characters will say.
– Give the title of a text and invite the class to write down sentences or
expressions they expect will occur within it.
– Define briefly the opening event and characters in a communicative situation
and ask the class to imagine what will happen next.
– Present a recorded dialogue and ask the class to tell you where they think it
is taking place and who the characters are.
– Present a text and ask for an appropriate title.
– Express your own, or someone else’s, opinions about a topic and invite
discussion.
– Teach a selection of words and expressions and ask the class what they think
the situation or topic is.

Task Peer-teaching
Choose one of the following topics or situations: the first two are
appropriate for a relatively young, elementary class, the next two for an
older, more advanced one.

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 Teaching chunks of language: from text to task

1. School
2. Two children discussing their favourite lessons
3. Education
4. A teachers’ meeting about a problem student
In small groups, plan how you would introduce your chosen item to your
class, perhaps utilizing some of the ideas in Box 7.1; then one
representative actually presents it to the rest of the full group. Continue
until each small group has ‘taught’ its topic.
Then discuss the presentations: how interesting were they? How well do
you think the learners would have understood the material?

Unit Two: What ARE notions and functions?

Task Have a look at the items listed in Box 7.2. Can you sort them into separate
lists of notions and functions? And can you then suggest which of the
functions would be likely to be ‘binary’, i.e. followed or preceded by a
complementary further function?

BOX 7.2: NOTIONS AND FUNCTIONS

location offer request

obligation promise spatial relations
advise the future food
threat crime instruction
apology the body remind
probability expression of opinion

Unit Three: Teaching chunks of language:

from text to task

Task Different interpretations of the same text

Imagine you are teaching the function of offering help and accepting. You
have selected the dialogue shown in Box 7.3 to exemplify it. Having
learned it by heart, what sorts of different interpretations would you or
your students suggest in order to consolidate learning and vary its
performance? For example, you might wish to suggest different situations
or contexts for the dialogue; different kinds of characters; different
relationships between them; different attitudes to the problem about
which help is being offered.

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 7 Topics, situations, notions, functions

BOX 7.3: OFFERING HELP

A: Can I help?
B: Oh yes, please, I don’t know what to do . . .
A: What’s the matter?
B: He doesn’t understand what I’m telling him!
A: Would you like me to explain?
B: Please do!
(adapted from Alan Maley and Alan Duff, Variations on a Theme,
Cambridge University Press, 1978, p. 46)

Task Looking at a coursebook

Select a coursebook you know that uses texts based on communicative
events or situations. What are some of the tasks through which the book
gets the learners to engage with the topics, situations, notions and
functions within the texts? Do these tasks limit learner activity to the actual
words of the text, or do they lead into further variations, other ways of
expressing similar themes? Have you any suggestions of your own for
supplementing the tasks set by the book?

Unit Four: Teaching chunks of language:

from task to text

Task Role play

One member of the group role-plays the teacher; the rest are not very
advanced learners who have been studying the foreign language for, say,
a year or two at school.

Stage 1: Role play

The ‘learners’ divide into pairs and do the following task. Each member of
the pair has a different pair of characters in front of them (either Box 7.4.1
or Box 7.4.2), and describes each in turn: the partner has to try to draw the
people from the description. (Put a piece of paper or a book over the
picture your partner is describing so that you can’t see it.) As you work,
remember how limited you are in your knowledge: ask the ‘teacher’ for
new language as you need it.

Stage 2: Discussion
Discuss the following questions.

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https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511732928.009 Published online by Cambridge University Press

 Teaching chunks of language: from task to text

1. How did you feel doing this activity? Do you have any particular
comments, positive or negative, as teacher or learners?
2. The objective of the task was to produce and use language growing out
of topics and notions connected with parts of the body, clothes and
accessories and of situations and functions connected with describing
and explaining. Did the task in fact achieve this objective?
3. Was this language noted down – or could it have been – by the teacher
or students and used as a basis for further practice?
4. What would you suggest doing next in order to engage further with the
target language functions, notions, etc.?
5. Do you feel the need for a prepared written or spoken text? If so, what
sort of text might you use? Would you prefer to use it before the task or
after?

BOX 7.4.1: PEOPLE TO DESCRIBE

BOX 7.4.2: PEOPLE TO DESCRIBE

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https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511732928.009 Published online by Cambridge University Press

 7 Topics, situations, notions, functions

Unit Five: Combining different kinds of

language segments

Task Coordinating different categories of language in a teaching

programme
In the table shown in Box 7.5 each column represents a different basis for
selection of language: situation, function, vocabulary, etc. In each row one
of these is filled in; can you fill in some suggestions for the others? Note
that pronunciation has been omitted, since any specific aspect of
pronunciation can be linked to a very wide range of other categories, and
the decision about which to concentrate on will be to some extent
arbitrary. In the vocabulary column put only a sample of the kinds of
words and expressions you would teach, or a definition; you do not have
to list them all.
You do not, of course, have to fill in every single box; but try to fill in as
many as you can in, say, twenty minutes. Then perhaps compare your
table with another participant’s.

BOX 7.5: COORDINATING DIFFERENT LANGUAGE CATEGORIES

Situations Topics Notions and Grammar Vocabulary

Functions
Getting to
know
someone
Road
accidents
Making
requests
Future
tense
farmer,
secretary, etc.
( jobs)

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https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511732928.009 Published online by Cambridge University Press