A survey on techniques of teaching conversations in textbooks for secondary school students in phu yen province m a 60 14 10

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HOCHIMINH CITY
UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES & HUMANITIES
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE

A SURVEY ON TECHNIQUES OF TEACHING
CONVERSATIONS IN TEXTBOOKS FOR SECONDARY
SCHOOL STUDENTS IN PHU YEN PROVINCE

Submitted to the
Department of English Linguistics & Literature
in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL

By
LE VAN THINH

Supervised by
Dr. LE THI ANH PHUONG

HO CHI MINH CITY, MARCH 2012
i


RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS
I hereby state that I, LE VAN THINH, being the candidate for the degree of
Master of Arts in TESOL, accept the requirements of the university related to the
retention and use of Master’s Thesis deposited in the University Library.
I agree that the original of my Master’s Thesis deposited in the University
Library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance
with the normal conditions established at the Library for the care, loan and
reproduction for theses.
Ho Chi Minh, December 2011.

Signature ………………………..
LE VAN THINH

ii


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and above all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my
thesis supervisor, Dr. Le Thi Anh Phuong, for her insightful comments, patience,
great care and constant encouragement throughout the research process. Without
her guidance and comments, I would not have completed my thesis.
My gratitude also goes to all the English teachers at the University of Social
Sciences and Humanities for their valuable instructions during the course, as well
as other staffs at this university for their helpful support during my studies.
I would like to express my special thanks to all the secondary school
teachers who kindly allowed me to observe their classes and shared their opinions
in the interviews, as well as those who enthusiastically responded to the
questionnaires. They contributed an essential core that makes up the major content
of the study.
I am also indebted to the board of the principals in 14 secondary schools in
Phu Yen, who had granted me permission and support to conduct the research. I
am thankful to all the academic staff who gave me helpful information during
process of collecting data.
Finally, I thank my family and friends for their great support and assistance
in completing this work.

iii


CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I hereby certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled:
A SURVEY ON TECHNIQUES IN TEACHING CONVERSATIONS IN
THE SECONDARY SCHOOL ENGLISH TEXTBOOK IN PHU YEN
PROVINCE in terms of the statement of requirements for Theses in Master’s
Program issued by the Higher Degree Committee.
This thesis has not previously been submitted for the award of any degree or
diploma in any other institutions.
Ho Chi Minh, December 2011.
LE VAN THINH

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS ............................................................ ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................................... iii
CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY ....................................................................... iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS .......................................................................................... v
LIST OF ABBRIVIATIONS ................................................................................... ix
LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................... ix
ABSTRACT .............................................................................................................. x
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ....................................................................... 1
1.1 Background to the study .................................................................................. 1
1.2. Secondary school context ............................................................................... 2
1.2.1. Students .................................................................................................... 2
1.2.2. Tests and exams........................................................................................ 3
1.3 Aims of the study ............................................................................................. 3
1.4 Significance of the study ................................................................................. 4
1.5. Definition of key terms ................................................................................... 4
1.5.1. Techniques................................................................................................ 4

1.5.2. Conversations ........................................................................................... 4
1.6 Constraints of the study ................................................................................... 5
1.7 Organization of the thesis ................................................................................ 5
Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW....................................................................... 7
2.1 Communicative competence............................................................................ 7
2.2 Competence and performance ......................................................................... 8
2.3 Language skills ................................................................................................ 8
2.4 Speaking skills ................................................................................................. 8
2.4.1 Accuracy and fluency .............................................................................. 10
2.4.2 Spoken and written language .................................................................. 11
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2.5 Features of conversations .............................................................................. 12
2.5.1 Conversation units ................................................................................... 12
2.5.2 Vocabulary and grammatical features ..................................................... 12
2.5.3 Discourse features ................................................................................... 13
2.5.4 Non-verbal expressions ........................................................................... 14
2.5.5 Acquiring L2 conversational competence ............................................... 14
2.6 Role of textbooks and textbook conversations .............................................. 15
2.7 Teaching speaking skills and techniques in teaching conversations ............. 16
2.7.1 Objectives of teaching conversations ...................................................... 17
2.7.2 Approaches in teaching conversations .................................................... 18
2.7.3 Teaching language components .............................................................. 21
2.7.3.1 Teaching vocabulary ......................................................................... 21
2.7.3.2 Teaching structures ........................................................................... 22
2.7.3.3 Teaching pronunciation ..................................................................... 24
2.7.3.4 Previous studies on teaching speaking in Vietnam ........................... 26
2.8 Summary ........................................................................................................ 27
CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY ........................................................................ 28

3.1 Research questions......................................................................................... 28
3.2 Research methodology................................................................................... 28
3.2.1 Research instruments ............................................................................... 30
3.2.1.1 Classroom observation ...................................................................... 30
3.2.1.2 The interview .................................................................................... 31
3.2.1.3 The questionnaire .............................................................................. 31
3.2.2 Subjects ................................................................................................... 33
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3.2.2.1 Subjects for classroom observation and interviews .......................... 33
3.2.2.2 Questionnaire subjects ...................................................................... 33
3.2.3 Description of the English textbook involved ......................................... 34
3.2.4 Description of the conversations ............................................................. 36
3.2.5 Guidelines for teaching conversations .................................................... 37
3.3 Data collection procedures ............................................................................ 38
3.3.1 Classroom observation ............................................................................ 38
3.3.2 Interviews ................................................................................................ 38
3.3.3 Questionnaire........................................................................................... 39
3.3.3.1 Pilot questionnaire ............................................................................. 39
3.3.3.2 Main questionnaire ............................................................................ 39
3.4 Data treatment ................................................................................................ 40
3.4.1 Classroom observation ............................................................................ 40
3.4.2 Interview data .......................................................................................... 40
3.4.3 Questionnaire data ................................................................................... 40
CHAPTER IV: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION .................................... 41
4.1 Results ............................................................................................................ 41
4.1.1 Teaching objectives ................................................................................. 41
4.1.2 Teaching conversations ........................................................................... 44
4.1.2.1 Teaching activities ............................................................................ 44

4.1.2.2 Time distribution ............................................................................... 49
4.1.2.3 Teaching vocabulary ......................................................................... 52
4.1.2.4 Teaching structures ........................................................................... 54
4.1.2.5 Teaching pronunciation ..................................................................... 56
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4.1.3 Difficulties in teaching conversations ..................................................... 62
4.2 Main findings ................................................................................................. 64
5.1 Conclusions.................................................................................................... 67
5.2 Recommendations.......................................................................................... 69
5.2.1 To the course book writer........................................................................ 69
5.2.2 To the principals ...................................................................................... 70
5.2.3 To teachers .............................................................................................. 70
5.2.4 To students .............................................................................................. 72
5.3 Contributions ................................................................................................. 72
5.4 Recommendation for further researches ........................................................ 73
REFERENCES........................................................................................................ 74
APPENDICES ........................................................................................................ 82
APPENDIX 1: QUESTIONNAIRE ..................................................................... 82
APPENDIX 2: OBSERVATION SHEET ............................................................ 90
APPENDIX 3

QUESTIONS FOR INTERVIEW ...................................... 102

APPENDIX 4

THE CONTENT OF THE TEXTBOOK ............................. 103

APPENDIX 5

SAMPLE CONTENT OF ONE LESSON .......................... 106

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EFL

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
English as a Foreign Language

MOET

Ministry of Education and Training

LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Research design ...................................................................................... 30
Table 2: Questionnaire contents............................................................................. 32
Table 3: Basic information about respondents ..................................................... 34
Table 4: Typical time frame of a unit .................................................................... 36
Table 5: Comparison of data on teaching objectives ............................................. 43
Table 6: Comparison of data on core teaching activities. ...................................... 47
Table 7: Comparison of data on additional activities ........................................... 49
Table 8: Time distribution in observation data ...................................................... 49
Table 9: Time distribution in questionnaire data ................................................... 50
Table 10: Comparison of data on techniques in teaching vocabulary ................... 53
Table 11: Comparison of data on teaching strutures ............................................ 55
Table 12: Pronunciation received most attention .................................................. 58
Table 13: Pronunciation practice ........................................................................... 61
Table 14: Comparison of data on number of students reading aloud in class ....... 61

Table 15: Difficulties in teaching conversations ................................................... 63
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ABSTRACT
Teaching English in context is generally very important and in high school
textbooks, conversations are often used to introduce grammar and vocabulary for a
new lesson. However, few investigations can be found on how these conversations
in EFL school textbooks are taught in Vietnam. This study was an attempt to
explore this practice in Year 8 in 14 junior high schools in Phu Yen, a small
province in Central Vietnam, with the hope of reflecting one aspect in EFL
teaching situation in this province. The data for this research came from 20
classroom observations and the subsequent interviews with 10 teachers, in addition
to questionnaire responses from 50 teachers of Year 8 in 14 secondary schools.
The results showed that EFL teachers in these junior secondary schools followed
major steps as recommended in their teachers' book for teaching these
conversations. These included introducing the context of the conversation, letting
students listen to the conversation, helping students practise pronunciation through
role-plays before asking them to answer questions about the conversation.
However, some aspects in their teaching should be revised to help students
develop listening and speaking skills more effectively. For example, teachers did
not spend enough time for students' practice of English pronunciation, or they still
used a lot of translation in teaching vocabulary, rather than adopting a wide variety
of other useful techniques. Recommendations were given to school administrators,
teachers and students in improving the teaching and learning of English, in
particular the development of listening and speaking skills for students in junior
secondary schools.

x

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
This chapter presents the background, secondary school context, the aims,
key term definitions, as well as the significance of the study. It also specifies the
structure of the thesis and the constraints of the study.
1.1 Background to the study
In a globalised world, English plays a crucial role and this explains why
many people try to become better communicators in English. Their main aim is to
successfully participate in daily conversations (Thornburry and Slade, 2006) which
are considered a "fundamental, universal and default form of language" (Meddings
and Thornburry, 2010: 8). Thus, conversations are the main way to "conduct
human affairs’ (Crystal, 1987:116) and maintain their relationship (Liddicoat,
2007:1).
There is no doubt that conversations also form the ‘foundation of language
learning’ (Wong and Waring, 2010: 1) because they provide learners with samples
of spoken language and show them how people interact (Byrne: 1986a:28).
Therefore, conversations form a big part in English textbooks for lower levels.
Also, teaching conversations is ‘of critical importance for language teachers’
(Wong and Waring, 2010: 1).
As English is used in various fields, such as science, technology, tourism
and business, it has become a compulsory requirement for university graduates and
a compulsory subject for high school students in Vietnam. Observations show that
secondary school teachers, especially in small cities and in the countryside, often
focus on knowledge of grammar and vocabulary so that their students can do well
in the school exams while listening and speaking skills, especially conversational
skills, tend to be largely ignored. As a result, students in high schools in Phu Yen
often meet a lot of difficulties in speaking English, especially in pronunciation.
1

Therefore, it is important to know how conversations are taught in secondary
schools so that adjustment can be made in order that students can improve their
listening and speaking skills.
1.2. Secondary school context
1.2.1. Students
Students in Grade 8 in Phu Yen province have generally studied English for
five years; however, like other students in Phu Hoa and Tuy Hoa are less
motivated to study English because there aren’t many foreigners for them to
practice English, and they may not see the important roles that English can play in
their lives and work in the future. A low motivation in learning English might
affect the way of teaching and learning English a lot; especially, this investigation
was carried in a poor district and a small city. Year 8 students have been chosen to
be

research subjects for this investigation as they have got used to learning

English in junior high schools for some years and they do not experience the
pressure of the final exams that students in year 9 often have to suffer from. The
choice for students from both a district and the city was made to reflect more
comprehensively the teaching situations of both the city and the country which
may have differences due to differences in economic conditions which may
influenced the teaching and learning of English. In a district, students may have
had more difficulties because some of them may have to study and work to help
their parents at the same time, so they did not have much time to study, especially
English. In the city, the facilities at school are better than those in the district and
parents often pay more attention to their children’s study, which might improve
students’ motivation of English.

2

1.2.2. Tests and exams
As other students in secondary school, students in Grade 8 are at the
elementary level and they study English for three periods a week. For every term,
besides regular revisions of a former lesson done at the beginning of a lesson, there
are at least, two fifteen minute tests, two one-period tests and one end-of-term test.
The structure of one-period tests and end-of-term tests consists of three parts:
listening (20%) grammar and vocabulary (25%), reading (25%), and writing
(30%). Thus, speaking skills are not assessed, and tests mainly focus on grammar
and written language and this affects the way of teaching and learning English.
Therefore, teachers focus much on grammar and reading comprehension and pay
less attention to oral skills.
1.2.3. Textbook
‘Tiếng Anh 8’ is the third book in the textbook series for secondary school
which consists of 4 books. These textbooks follow the same format and each unit
in a textbook has seven parts such as getting started, listen and read
(conversation), speaking, listening, reading, writing and language focus.
Therefore, an investigation of teaching conversations in ‘Tiếng Anh 8’ would give
the researcher a clear idea of the way of teaching conversations in a secondary
school textbook in Phu Yen.
1.3 Aims of the study
This study was aimed to 1) find out how conversations in textbooks are
taught in secondary schools, 2) identify effective practices in English teaching as
well as improvements to be made and, 3) provide recommendations for necessary
adjustment in English teaching in high schools in Phu Yen province.

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To carry out the above aims, the following research questions were raised:

1. What were the objectives of teaching the conversations in Year 8
textbook?
2. How were these conversations in this textbook taught?
3. What were teachers’ difficulties in teaching these conversations?
1.4 Significance of the study
Hardly can non-native speakers of English be regarded as fluent if they can
not converse naturally enough for other people to understand without any
difficulties. In other words, conversational skills are vital in learning a language.
Therefore, an investigation into teaching conversations for students at secondary
school students would be a great urgency. It was hoped that the findings could
serve as a reference document for secondary school teachers to improve their
teaching practice, especially in teaching conversations.
1.5. Definition of key terms
1.5.1. Techniques

According to Brown (1994:37) techniques refer to ‘various activities in the
classroom. In other words, techniques include all tasks and activities’. In this
thesis, the researcher would like to investigate the activities and tasks carried out
by teachers when teaching conversations.
1.5.2. Conversations
Many definitions about conversations can be found in different dictionaries.
According to Collins’ Cobuild Advanced dictionary (1995), conversations involve
talking to someone "in an informal talk situation”. Conversation is also defined as
“informal talk in which people exchange news, feelings, and thoughts” (Longman
Exams Dictionary, 2006). Another definition is that “conversation is spoken and it
is planned and produced spontaneously" (Thornburry and Slade, 2006). These
4


definitions suggest that conversations are spoken, interactive, informal, and

expressive.
As ‘the most basic and widespread linguistic means of conducting human
affairs’ (Dogme, 2010), conversation is used to exchange information, create and
maintain social relationships, negotiate status and social roles (Nolasco, and
Arthur, 1987:5). Conversations, therefore, have many functions and its primary
purpose is probably social.
1.6 Constraints of the study
This investigation aimed at exploring how the conversations introduced at
the beginning of each unit was taught. This was closely related to how new
language was introduced by the teachers, rather than a focus on teaching the
speaking skills which was emphasized more in a later part of a lesson in Year 8
textbook. Therefore, though this investigation was somehow connected to
speaking skills as it involved the conversations, it explored the initial stage of
teaching these speaking skills. Also, the study was conducted at 6/8 schools in Phu
Hoa district and 8/15 schools in Tuy Hoa city (Phu Yen province) with 50 English
teachers of Grade 8 in these schools. Therefore, though the findings and the
recommendations could be useful to secondary schools in Phu Yen and relevant to
other similar school settings in Vietnam, they might not be generalised to other
teaching contexts.
1.7 Organization of the thesis
The study consists of five chapters. Chapter I provides (1.1) the background
(1.2) the aims, (1.3) the significance, (1.4) secondary school context, (1.5)
definition of key terms, (1.6) the constraints, and (1.7) the organization of the
study. Chapter II gives an overview of related literature about communicative
competence (2.1), competence and performance (2.2), language skills (2.3),
5


speaking skills (2.4), features of conversations (2.5), roles of textbooks and
textbook conversations (2.6), teaching speaking skills and techniques in teaching

conversations (2.7), and summary (2.8). Chapter 3 states the research questions
(3.1) and research methodology (3.2). It also describes the data collection
procedures (3.3) and data treatment (3.4). Chapter 4 shows the results of the data
(4.1) related to research questions raised, together with subsequent discussion.
Chapter 5 presents conclusions to the study (5.1), recommendations for teaching
English in general and teaching conversations in secondary schools in particular
(5.2), some contribution of the study (5.3) and its recommendation for further
researches. (5.4)

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Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
The chapter presents literature review about communicative competence
(2.1) competence and performance (2.2), language skills (2.3), speaking skills
(2.4), features of conversations (2.5), roles of textbooks and textbook
conversations (2.6), teaching speaking skills and techniques in teaching
conversations (2.7) and summary (2.8). All these issues are relevant to the topic
under research in this study and they can provide useful insights to the
understanding of the thesis.
2.1 Communicative competence
In order to be successful language users, it is considered essential to have a
communicative competence. According to Richards, Platt and Weber (1985:49),
communicative competence includes knowledge of grammar and vocabulary, rules
of speaking, speech events and appropriate language use. Canale and Swain
(1980:29) provide a more concise definition for communicative competence with
four specific components of linguistic, sociolinguistic, discourse, and strategic
competence. According to these scholars, linguistic competence is defined as "a
knowledge of lexical items and of rules of morphology, syntax, sentence,
grammar, semantics, and phonology" while discourse competence is the ability to

"connect sentences in stretches of discourse and to form a meaningful whole out of
a series of utterances"(Canale and Swain, 1980: 29). Sociolinguistic competence,
as they specify, is the knowledge about sociocultural rules of language and of
discourse while strategic competence is "the verbal and nonverbal communication
strategies" that can be used in case of communication breakdowns. (Canale and
Swain, 1980: 30).

7


2.2 Competence and performance
According to Brown (2007), while competence refers to individuals'
‘underlying knowledge of a system, events, or facts", performance is ‘the overtly
observable or concrete manifestation or realization of competence’. In other words,
language competence is the knowledge of grammar rules, vocabulary, and
pronunciation while performance is actually production of language via the four
skills of speaking, listening, writing or reading.
2.3 Language skills
There are four language skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing.
While reading and listening are considered receptive skills, speaking and writing
are productive skills. Of these skills listening and speaking are the most often used
skills in human communication (Brown, 1994) because some people may not
know how to read and write but they do know how to speak and listen to
communicate in the community. Language skills are often used together (Harmer,
1991: 52) for daily communication; therefore, language teachers integrate different
skills in their teaching (Brown, 1994; Harmer, 1991).
2.4 Speaking skills
Speaking is a productive skill considered very important for English
learners to acquire. Speaking is more than creating grammatically correct
sentences and needs to be developed and practiced independently of the grammar

curriculum (Thornburry, 2005). According to Brown and Yule (1983), speaking
skills involve three separate areas of knowledge about mechanics (pronunciation,
grammar, and vocabulary), functions (transaction and interaction) and social and
cultural norms (turn-taking, rate of speech, pauses, and participants’ roles).

8


Speaking skills are influenced by a lot of factors which, Hymes (1972b)
believes, can help learners to use the language correctly, and to make their
messages clear and their communication effective. These factors involve not only
setting, participants and aims, but also other elements.
S

P

Setting

temporal and physical circumstances

scene

subjective definition of occasions

participant

speaker/ sender/ addressee/ hearer/ receiver/ audience/
addressee

E

ends

purposes and goals and outcomes

A

act sequence

message form and content

K

key

tone, manner

I

instrumentalities channel (verbal and non-verbal; physical forms drawn from
the community repertoires)

N

G

norms

specific properties attached to speaking and interpretation

of interaction

interpretations of norms within cultural belief system

genre

textual categories

Speaking gives language learners the chance to rehearse and get feedback
from the teacher so that they have enough confidence and satisfaction. (Harmer,
1998) Speaking takes place in real time, and speakers are under the pressure of
time and often make some ‘mistakes’ (Thornburry, 2005) while still making their
messages understood. Therefore, speaking emphasizes fluency more than
accuracy.

In teaching speaking, teachers have to raise awareness of these

differences and let students practice features of spoken English. (McCarthy, 1998)

9


2.4.1 Accuracy and fluency
Accuracy is ‘the ability to produce grammatically corrects sentences but
may not include the ability to speak or write fluently’ (Longman Dictionary of
Applied Linguistics, 2010: 223). Fluency refers to communicative proficiency
which includes ability to produce language with ‘good but not necessarily perfect
command

of

intonation,

vocabulary,

and

grammar’

without

causing

comprehension difficulties. (Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics, 2010:
223). According to Thornburry (2005:7), the appropriate pauses and lengths of run
are two factors that evaluate the fluency of English. Fluency is measured by speed
of production and by the number of hesitation whereas accuracy is judged by the
number of errors (Nation and Newton, 2009).
As Thornburry (2006: 214) states, being good at grammar does not
guarantee good speaking skills because ‘the ability to carry on conversations is not
just a reflection of grammatical competence’. In other words, speaking skills are
not the exact realization of grammatical competence. Accuracy focuses on
phonology, grammar, and discourse while fluency emphasize on speech flow or
message content

(Brown, 1994). The question is whether accuracy or fluency

should be prioritized by language teachers. According to Byrne (1986), the teacher
should focus on accuracy more with students at elementary level, but more fluency
with intermediate or advanced level students because students at elementary level

need to build the knowledge of vocabulary, and grammar as quickly as possible,
whereas fluency activities create more opportunity for intermediate and advanced
students to express themselves. Therefore, language activities should be selected or
designed to suit different learning purposes and students' levels.

10


2.4.2 Spoken and written language
Spoken language is different from written language (Brown and Yule, 1991;
McCarthy, 1998; McCarthy, Matthiessen, and Slade in Schmit, 2002; Thornburry,
2005). These authors specify a number of differences between these registers.
First, spoken language contains less lexical items and packs less information than
written language. Second, the syntax of spoken language is less structured than
that of written language because written language uses ‘heavily pre-modified
nouns, an extensive set of meta-lingual makers’ and passive structures while
spoken language use more direct referent and a great deal of general expression
such as a lot of, got, do, thing, nice, stuff, place, etc. Thornburry (2005:21)
provides a detailed list of differences between spoken and written grammar as can
be seen in the following table.
Written grammar

Spoken grammar

Sentence is the basic unit of construction

Clause is the basic unit of construction

Clauses are often embedded

Clauses are usually added (co-ordination)

Subject + Verb + Object construction

Head + body + tail construction

Reported speech favored

Directed speech favored

Precision favored

Vagueness tolerated

Little ellipsis

A lot of ellipsis

No question tags

Many question tags

No performance effect

Performance effects, including:
Hesitations
Repeats
False starts
Incompletion
Syntactic blends

Corson (1997) states the lexicons used in the spoken discourse are less
varied and new in nature than those in the written discourse. The spoken discourse
11


is also characterized with less lexical density than written discourse (Ur, 1971) and
to Halliday (1992), this lexical density is only half of the written discourse.
Besides, spoken language is often ungrammatical or grammatically incompletes.
Sometimes the speakers deliberately omit the language items such as subject or
verb, which is called ellipsis, and ‘ellipsis is pervasive in spoken discourse’ (Carter
and McCarthy, 1997:14). Therefore, in teaching speaking, teachers have to raise
some awareness of spoken features and give students enough opportunities to
practice these features (Dornyei, 1995; McCarthy, 1998; Kasper and Rose, 2002)
2.5 Features of conversations
2.5.1 Conversation units
Sinclair and Coulthard (1975) divide the conversations into units called
exchange. Each exchange consists of three parts: a question, an answer and a
comment. Each of the part is called move. In other words, there are three moves in
an exchange: an opening move, an answering move and a follow-up move. Here is
an example of exchange
A: What is the time? (an opening move)
B: Six thirty

(an answering move)

A: Thanks

(a follow-up move)

2.5.2 Vocabulary and grammatical features
It is common to find relexicalisation and repetition in conversations.
Repetition is that the speaker repeats the same words more than once in the
conversations. Relexicalisation is the speaker's employment of appropriate
synonyms rather that repeating a word (Schmitt, 2002).

Besides, the high

occurrence of fixed expressions is also another lexical feature of the informal
spoken discourse. (McCarthy, 1998). Moreover, vague language such as ‘stuff like
that, and things, and this, that and the other, etc’ (Thornburry, 2006: 55) is a type
12


of spoken language which serves ‘interpersonal function of conversations’
(Thornburry: 2006:55)
Discourse markers and fillers such as right, now, anyway, well, oh, y’know,
I mean, etc. used to ‘fill a momentary hesitation" (Thornburry: 2006:56) are also
other features of the language in conversations. Because of its informal nature and
the constraints of real-time production, the language of conversations is
characterized by shorter and simple clauses (Biber et al., 1999:964) and short
responses called non-clausal unit (Biber et al. 1999). Since conversations take
place in a ‘shared temporal and spatial context’ (Thornburry, 2006:85), speakers
usually use the deictic expression such as here, there, this, that, these, those, etc.
(Thornburry, 2006:85). Moreover, present tense is most commonly used in casual
conversations (Biber et al., 1999:457).
Conversations have interpersonal meaning and "modality is strongly
associated with the expression of interpersonal meaning"(Thornburry, 2006:95).
The modal verbs such as can, will, and would are very common in conversations
whereas modals such as may, shall, and must are less common in conversations.

(Biber et al., 1999)
2.5.3 Discourse features
There are two types of spoken discourse: informal and formal. The informal
spoken discourse with the personal purpose is more interactional then formal
spoken discourse to transfer information or factual propositions. Therefore, the
previous is spontaneous and begins with false start, hesitations, interaction or
overlap while the later one is turn-taking orderly in more controlled topic.
(Schmitt, 2002:58) Formal conversations such as job interviews or interactions in
the bank ‘are aimed at closure and completion’ whereas casual ones are used to
sustain and maintain ‘social relationships’ (Thornburry, 2006).
13


2.5.4 Non-verbal expressions
Non-linguistic means such as body posture, facial expressions, gestures, etc.
and paralinguistic features such as pitch, intensity, and duration are also used in
the conversation to convey emotive and attitudinal stance meanings (Biber at al.
1999). They play very important functions in inferring meaning of the utterance.
Sometimes the facial expressions show the opposite the meaning with the sense of
words in the utterances. However, it is different from culture to culture and very
complicated. However, it is worth to observe your students and give them
feedback on how they appear to others. (Nolasco and Arthur,1987 )
Because of these features, conversations can be used to focus students on
specific vocabulary, stress and intonation, organization, socio-cultural rules, topic
shift, as well as performance effects and communication strategies (Thorburry,
2005:49).
2.5.5 Acquiring L2 conversational competence
Conversational competence is more than just grammatical competence as
remarked by Schmidt and Frota (1986, cited in Thornburry, 2006:214) ‘The ability
to carry on conversations is not just a reflection of grammatical competence’. In a

real world, being exposed to the language can help the learner to acquire
conversational competence (Schmidt, 1983). However, students have limited
exposure to authentic input so they seem to ‘underuse formulaic language, relying
instead on their grammatical knowledge generate well-formed but essential
unidiomatic language’ (Thornburry: 2007:219). Therefore, explicit instruction of
conversations were useful in providing students with a more richly varied, more
interpersonally active repertoire of gambits and strategy types (House, 1996).
Kasper and Rose (2002) also suggested that explicit instruction should be

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combined with a lot of practice. Thus, teachers' instruction and textbooks play an
important role in improving students' conversational competence.
2.6 Role of textbooks and textbook conversations
Materials play a crucial role in language teaching because they supply the
basis content of the lesson. Teaching materials are considered as ‘a key component
in most language program’ (Richards, 2001:251) and ‘as an aid to teaching and
learning a foreign language’ (Littlejohn, 1998:192). Both scholars emphasized the
roles of materials as the language teachers, and text book can be used as a resource
for presentation materials, a source of activities for learners and teachers to present
and practice, a syllabus to realize the intended objectives, a support for less
experienced teachers, and a reference resource for learners for self-study.
(Cunningsworth, 1995)
As stated by the above authors, the textbook provides language lessons,
together with activities for students to practise the language and it guides the
teachers in teaching activities. Therefore, textbooks could benefit both teachers
and students; however, no textbooks can satisfy the needs of all the students in the
class and any textbooks would be more suitable for some than others. Also, each
textbook focus on aspects of language or language skills at the expense of others.

For example, as remarked by Tran Thi My (2002), although English 6 textbook
covers four skills of reading, speaking, listening and writing, it does not have
separate lessons to practice individual sounds, word stress, sentence stress, some
aspects of intonation, weak forms and connected speech. The same is true with
English 8 textbook which does not have adequate pronunciation activities. Do Thi
Song Tuyen (2005) found out that though conversations were important in
developing students' skills, English textbooks used in Vietnamese schools mainly
focused on the reading skills and grammatical practice.
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