Assignment 7.2

Introduction

The language point chosen for this assignment was the use of the past simple, past continuous and past perfect in narrative tenses. In order to assess the students’ existing knowledge, I began the lesson with a dictogloss activity, following up with an inductive presentation of the target language based on the dictogloss text. This was the first time I had ever used a dictogloss in class.

Language Analysis

Meaning

Narrative tenses are used when talking about events, situations and experiences which occurred in the past. The three most common narrative tenses are the past simple, the past continuous and the past perfect simple.

The past simple is used to talk about (i) completed actions that occurred at a definite past time, (ii) events which take place consecutively or in chronological order, (iii) to express past habits, and for (iv) occurrences which interrupt longer actions in progress around a specific time in the past:

(i, ii) I woke up and I felt much better and I started to write….

(iii) They played in the Cavern Club before they were famous.

(iv) I was working at my office when he rang.

The past continuous is used to describe the background situation in which the events of the narrative occurred, for longer actions in progress at a point in time, and for repeated or temporary situations. In combination with the past simple, its use is commonly linked to interrupted or unfinished actions.

One night, when the Beatles were breaking up and I was feeling depressed…

I was living in Hamburg (= for a short time)

The past perfect simple is used to talk about something in the past which happened prior to another action or event, showing which of the two actions occurred first and emphasizing that one action finished before the second commenced. However, the past simple is more commonly used when the sequence of actions is already clear – when the second action follows as a result of the first, for instance, or when time conjunctions such as until, before and after illustrate the sequence without requiring the use of the past perfect. In such cases, the past perfect can be used to provide greater emphasis on the completion of the first action:

As soon as they saved up enough money they got married.

As soon as they had saved up enough money they got married.

There is a tendency for students to over-use the past perfect in situations where the past simple can be more naturally used with time conjunctions, or when the sequence of events is not in doubt. When teaching narrative tenses, it is therefore important that learners understand the past simple is by far the most common narrative tense, due to its range of uses and less complicated structure.

Form

1 Affirmative sentences in the past simple are formed using the subject + past tense verb. Regular past tense verbs are made by adding –ed to the infinitive.

When I woke up I felt much better and I started to write Let it Be.

Negative sentences are formed using didn’t + infinitive or wasn’t / weren’t + noun phrase / adjective.

Interrogatives are formed using (question word +) auxiliary + subject + infinitive for object questions:

Where did you go? Did you have fun?

In subject questions (when the subject is also the question word) word order is the same as in affirmative statements:

Who was the lead singer of the Beatles?

Short answers are formed by using yes / no + subject + auxiliary (Yes, I did)


2 Positive sentences in the past continuous are formed using subject + was / were +
present participle.

I was feeling depressed because the Beatles were breaking-up.

As with the past simple, the negative is formed using wasn’t / weren’t.

I wasn’t watching TV

Interrogatives are formed using (question word +) was / were + verb + ing:

What were you doing?

3 The past perfect simple is formed using subject + had + past participle:

I saw my mother, who had died when I was 14.

Negative sentences are formed using hadn’t + past participle.

Interrogatives are formed with (question word +) had + subject + past participle:

(Why) Had they left?

Phonological Features

The main phonological feature of the past perfect is the reduction of had to the weak form /d/. Similarly, in the past continuous were is reduced to /wə/ and was to /wəz/.

In the past simple, the regular –ed ending is pronounced as the syllable /ɪd/ when it follows /t/ and /d/ sounds (needed; wanted), /d/ after all other voiced sounds and /t/ after unvoiced sounds. One common error, particularly among speakers of phonetic languages, is to erroneously apply the first rule to verbs such as worked
( / wɜ:kɪd / rather than / wɜ:kt / ).

Stress may be applied to auxiliaries or main verbs in cases where they serve to emphasize statements or carry new information:

She wasn’t very happy. / w ɒ z /

I had seen her before. / hæd /

Class Profile

The lesson was taught to a Level 1 class at South Tyneside College which meets for three three-hour sessions each week. Of the twelve students present, approximately half were Iranian, with the remainder a mix of nationalities including Angolan, Sri Lankan, Bangladeshi and Polish. With a few exceptions, the grammatical knowledge of the students is relatively weak given the level of the class. The regular teacher had been preparing for the Cambridge Speaking & Listening exam, in which the students’ oral use of narrative tenses will be assessed. The class had previously studied the use of the present perfect simple to talk about past experiences and the difference between the past simple and past continuous.

Using a Dictogloss

Dictogloss is an activity in which short pieces of language are read out at normal speed to students, who take down the key words and then attempt to reconstruct the passage using their short term memory, their general understanding of the text, and notes they take while listening. A dictogloss commonly uses the following procedure:

Preparation: introduce the topic and key vocabulary.

Dictation: Read the text aloud at normal or near-normal speed, allowing students to orally reconstruct in small groups afterwards. On the second reading, students note down key words.

Analysis: Students attempt to reconstruct the text in their own words, first in pairs and subsequently in larger groups. The students will be utilizing their existing grammatical and lexical knowledge, practising their ability to record and extract the main ideas in a text, working collaboratively to produce a legible written record, proof-reading and revising work, and as a by-product justifying their opinions and asking questions to check and clarify information.

Feedback / Correction / Evaluation The completed texts are checked for meaning and accuracy.

As befitting its origins as a grammar teaching methodology, one of the primary benefits of a dictogloss is to reveal gaps in the students’ prior-knowledge and inter-language – hence its popularity as a diagnostic tool. Increasingly, however, the technique is being used as a more learner-centred form of dictation, leading in to work on areas such as pronunciation, lexis, functional exponents and spelling. Unlike traditional dictation exercises, in a dictogloss the emphasis is on the students’ ability to communicate in order to re-convey the meaning of the text, as opposed to re-producing it word for word. Tasks can be graded by giving ‘skeleton texts’ (the key nouns, for example) to the students before the first reading, by variations in the reading speed, or by decreasing the length of the text to be reconstructed (with the caveat that all texts should be of sufficient length that the students are not able to store it word-for-word in their short-term memory).

Lesson Self-Evaluation

Despite some problems with the presentation stage, the aim of the lesson – to revise the use of narrative tenses when orally relaying past experiences – was achieved.

The warmer served its purpose in getting the students to talk about famous people, and the lead-in, though not as active as I had anticipated, successfully elicited the name of Paul McCartney and resulted in a brief student-led discussion of Let it Be and the assassination of John Lennon, activating schemata and stimulating interest in the dictogloss topic.

The dictogloss itself threw up several interesting language issues. Each of the eventual three groups was able to successfully recreate the essential meaning of the text, and all of the final drafts included examples of the past simple and past continuous (I was feeling depressed; The Beatles were breaking (up). However, in all three cases the past simple was substituted for the past perfect in the sentence ... I saw my mum, who (had) died when I was 14. This omission could be attributed either to a gap in knowledge or a misunderstanding about the chronology of events in the narrative: subsequent concept checking showed that, for the majority of the class, knowledge of the past perfect was confined to an awareness of form rather than usage.

The dictogloss activity worked well as a diagnostic tool, highlighting pronunciation errors in the past simple and the need to revise the use of the past perfect. The pacing was adequate and the groupings had a good mix of abilities, resulting in a fun and challenging activity which succeeded in motivating the students for the presentation stage. The analysis stage didn’t work quite as well, mainly because I didn’t spend sufficient time focusing on the completed texts before moving on to the presentation. As a result, the next stage felt repetitive. An alternative would have been to use the students’ texts as a basis for an inductive presentation, perhaps highlighting a few key sentences such as the use of the past perfect on the board.

The checking of form was good, with the structure displayed on the board and the meaning concept checked with reference back to the dictogloss. The drilling of weak forms in the past perfect and past continuous (the past simple had been covered during the dictogloss analysis) included both choral and individual drilling, although I could have made more use of stronger students to model the sounds after my initial demonstration and choral practice.

The guided practice activities successfully re-enforced the structure and meaning of the target language, but perhaps relied too heavily on the students’ reading skills, especially when combined with the dictogloss. I chose to switch the pairings after the first guided practice, which improved the dynamics of the later activities.

The less-guided activity worked well. The topic, modeled with a personal story, was one the students were able to speak at length about, and the grid helped them to structure their narratives using all three tenses.

The free-er practice exercises provided an enjoyable and active end to the lesson, enabling the students to personalize the target language and moving away from the earlier dependence on reading skills.

Conclusion

Narrative tenses are often a problematic language area to cover with students at Level 1. Potential difficulties include the pronunciation of weak forms, the structural organization of narratives, and confusion between the meaning and use of the three main tenses, in particular the past perfect to look backwards from a point in the past. The dictogloss provided a good initial summary of the students’ abilities, exposing a lack of knowledge about the past perfect and allowing them to revise the difference in meaning between the past simple and past continuous.

Set-up correctly, a dictogloss is a useful and enjoyable method of presenting new language, as well as checking existing knowledge. It allows students to practise their proof-reading, writing, speaking and listening skills, gives the teacher an opportunity to diagnose gaps in knowledge, and raises the students’ awareness of their own strengths and weaknesses, aiding the process of reflective learning. It also utilizes many of Krashen’s theories on language acquisition, providing interest in the subject by means of a problem-solving activity, using language as the medium of instruction and exposing learners to language that is slightly beyond their current level of comprehension in a fun, low-stress manner. (Krashen, 1998)

Bibliography

Resource Books for Teachers: Grammar Dictation – Ruth Wajnryb (OUP, 1990)

How to Teach Grammar – Scott Thornbury (Longman, 1999)

Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition – Stephen Krashen (Prentice Hall, 1987)

Word Count: 2,018