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9Р.Ф. Фортеса Фернандес
К ВОПРОСУ О ФОРМЕ ВЫБОРА
КОНТЕКСТНО-ОПОСРЕДОВАННОГО ЗНАЧЕНИЯ
ПРИ ОБУЧЕНИИ АНГЛИЙСКОМУ ЯЗЫКУ КАК ИНОСТРАННОМУ
Ключевые слова: лексикограмматика, контекст, выбор формы иностранного языка, подход, исходные данные, прием, результат обучения.
Аннотация: Статья рассматривает подход к преподаванию лексикограмматики английского языка как к системе конструирования значений путем выбора форм, ограниченных языковым контекстом. Основой для разработки так называемого «контекст - форма - значение» (КФЗ) подхода послужили положения системно-функциональной лингвистики и теории В. Левельта, а также исследования в области психолингвистики и хорошие педагогические практики в преподавании грамматики. Подход КФЗ описывается относительно того, что делать во время этапов презентации, тренировки и употребления новых языковых форм на уроках иностранного языка; описание подхода сопровождается соответствующими упражнениями. В заключение приводится оценка целесообразности и эффективности применения этого подхода в изучении иностранного языка.
Introduction
Teaching English as a Foreign Language has become an unlimited market for materials that include all types and varieties of courses. Those that promise learning without effort and in a short period of time have markedly commercial character, whereas others show a serious effort on the part of the authors to tackle successfully such process. The advent of information technology, on the other hand, has made the task for both the teacher and the students much easier regarding access to real target language models and variety of approaches. Nevertheless, how to learn and use the L2 proficiently still poses a serious problem for the learner. In other words, language learning is and will always be difficult and effort-demanding.
According to Crystal [1; p. 472-473], "The language system is constituted by the phonological, grammatical and semantic systems." Each of these is integral to the expression of meaning in communication and "accounts for all the semantically relevant choices in the language as a whole" [ibidem]. A pedagogical implication follows the above: though for teaching learning purposes the systems are usually separated, such process must also allow for opportunities to integrate them into meaningful language output.
On the one hand, grammar instruction not always results in improved accuracy in communication; this fact on which much has been written in the specialized literature is still an actual problem in language classrooms and accounts for precious time in language practice with no apparent solution. Language teaching only focused on grammar rules and usage with no, or very little, reference to context, compromises the potential of meaning-making learning for this deprives the learner of the chance to see how it integrates with the others and why one language form is preferred over another in relation to context. This leads , in Mannes's words [9; p. 88], "... to the phenomenon known as 'structured speech', a pejorative term sometimes used to describe the output of learners who are structurally competent but communicatively incompetent."
From a philosophical viewpoint, grammar is the empty meaningless form (i.e.: NP + VP + NP). The lexical system is the content which transforms such form into a meaningful expression: "Roald Dahl is my favorite author" which would only be possible if I am engaged in talking about writers. According to Grice's maxim of quality for conversations, I could also say he was a prolific, best-selling, British writer—the choice of tense indicates he already passed away. In such a situation, all the adjectives collocate with Dahl as author. However, published and anonymous while also collocations of author would not be possible: the first would be a redundancy; the second, the veracity of the statement. Moreover, the information given does not yet justify why he is my favorite author; I would have to say why to comply with the British philosopher's principle of quantity, and probably add some more things. In other words, the context constraints what I can say and how I say it.
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As natural languages, English and Russian can express the same meanings to describe objective and subjective experiences; they, however, do it in different ways. For instance, the fact that Russian motion verbs revolve around the means of transport and the completion or not of an action give rise to imperfective and perfective verbs, both of which combine to express past, present and future, the only three tenses in the language pose great difficulties to the language learner when he realizes these notions are expressed differently in English. To make things worse, the Russian foreign language learner expects to be given very detailed grammar rules that they try and memorize—not always successfully--and apply to exercises, which is not bad at all, if they did not rely on translation as a means and as an end to learn, regardless of the student's language level. In class, these two problems combine and the following picture arises. The student after having done well in the practice section goes into communicative practice and produces kind of completely inaccurate, context-divorced Russian-like English. Therefore, the feasibility of teaching of vocabulary and grammar as a unique system of the English language was established as a possible approach to deal with the above problems.
The present article is aimed at reporting on a context-form-meaning (Henceforth CFM-approach) focused approach used for the teaching of lexicogrammar to cope with problems of choice vs. meaning in different Russian foreign language classrooms.
1. Linguistic, Psycholinguists and Pedagogical foundations of the CFM- approach
Lexicogrammar is a level of linguistic structure where lexis, or vocabulary, and grammar, or syntax, combine into one. At this level, words and grammatical structures are not seen as independent, but rather mutually dependent, with one level interfacing with the other. The term is related to systemic functional grammar (henceforth, SFG), a theory of meaning as choice which interprets language as "networks of interlocking options: 'either this, or that, or the other', 'either more like the one or more like the other' and so on [3; xv]." The Australian scholar cited above also asserts: "The relation between the meaning and the wording is not, however, an arbitrary one; the form of the grammar relates naturally to the meanings that are being encoded [ibidem; xvii]."
From this perspective, an utterance first encodes an 'experiential' meaning in which the doers and receivers of actions either carry out or are the objects of actions. Second, such an utterance also comprises an 'interpersonal' meaning, which in turn describes the relationships between the participants in the exchange. Third, these meanings are organized as text, 'a textual' meaning, through the choices made in language to show how it fits with previous messages. Therefore, choice of form determines meaning, and "helping learners to integrate forms and meaning creates their [the students'] metalinguistic awareness, and increase the noticing capacity all of which ... promote successful intake processing and ultimately language development (Doughty, 2003, quoted by Kumaravadivelu [6; p. 65])."
Eighty years ago Malinowski [8; p. 22] draw attention to the role of context in language when he wrote:
Our task is rather to show that even the sentence is not a self-contained, self-sufficient unit of speech. Exactly as a single word is save in exceptional circumstances meaningless, and receives its significance only through the context of other words, so a sentence usually appears in the context of other sentences and has meaning only as a part of a larger significant whole. I think that it is very profitable in linguistics to widen the concept of context so that it embraces not only spoken words but facial expression, gesture, bodily activities, the whole group of people present during an exchange of utterances and the part of the environment on which these people are engaged.
Hasan puts it in the following way: "To explain why anyone says anything one has to appeal to the context which exerts pressure on the speaker's choice of meaning; and to explain why
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these patterns of wording appear rather than any other, one has to appeal to the meanings which, being relevant to the context, activated those wordings." Immediately after, she adds, "Semantics is thus an interface between context and linguistic form [4; p. 170]." In teaching, all the above is particularly essential because "If learners are not given opportunities to explore grammar in context, it will be difficult for them to see how and why alternative forms exist to express different communicative meanings [11; p. 102-103]."
Look at from a psycholinguistic point of view, the CFM-approach has its foundations on Levelt's model of speech production (1989), whose processes fall into three broad areas called conceptualization, formulation, and encoding. From top-down, the process of conceptualization involves determining what to say while formulation translates this conceptual representation into a linguistic form. Two major components of formulation are: to select the individual words that we want to say; that is, lexicalization, and to put them together to form a sentence; that is, syntactic planning. Eventually, execution involves detailed phonetic and articulatory planning.
During the conceptualization phase, the speaker conceives an intention and selects relevant information from memory or the environment in preparation for the construction of the intended utterance; in other words, what the speaker is going to say is constrained by the context of situation; otherwise he would be out of co-text. The message level involves interfacing with the world, the speakers with whom he is interacting and with semantic memory.
From the pedagogical viewpoint in its design, the CFM-approach takes into consideration the criteria of good pedagogical practices in grammar teaching [9; p. 85]:
• truth: i.e., conforming to ( and not contradicting) real English usage
• clarity: i.e., explaining and exemplifying in plain English and not obfuscating by unfamiliar metalanguage
• simplicity: i.e., revealing the critical features of a rule
• comprehensibility: i.e., within the learner's current competence
• process-oriented: i.e., the rule is capable of being uncovered by inductive
means
• usefulness: i.e., having predictive value, as in, for instance, defining form meaning relationships
2. The CFM-approach
Consisting of four, recurring, inter-connected moments or steps in the grammar lesson, the CFM-approach has been used either in teaching grammar as subject matter in teacher and linguist education or English language courses with adolescent or adult students training for general English or international academic exams such as TOEFL or IELTS. These four moments correspond closely to the three phases into which a grammar lesson has traditionally been divided: Presentation, Practice and Production.
The approach functions as a cycle where the teacher does not go into the next phase until evidence in class confirms that the students can comfortably handle the learning material; that is, language output shows learning has taken place. In the first phase, the students become familiar with the content; in the second, they are able to reproduce it with or without a model; in the third, they can apply it to different situations; and finally, they can make use of it creatively. At any of these learning phases, language output may show problems in intake. In this case, it is necessary to provide feedback, either with the whole group or individually. The approach consists of actions conceived and implemented by the teacher to facilitate learning the lexicogrammar. This implies it is focused on learning rather than on teaching.
2.1 Setting the grounds and constructing the system
Objective: To familiarize the student with new lexicogrammar structures.
Traditionally new lexicogrammar is presented in the form of dialogs or written passages followed by exercises to ensure comprehension, treat new vocabulary and grammar. As most cours-
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es today come with a teacher's book, it is the actual teacher who has to decide whether or not to follow, adapt or change the methodological guidelines offered to their particular classroom situation. This is reasonable for they are the only ones who really know what the students need.
Familiarization with the new lexicogrammar includes drilling whose main feature is that it has to be meaningful and varied. This means the students have to know what they are saying as opposed to mechanic drilling where they do not. Stressing the importance of knowing what one is saying is essential to connect language and thought in the L1. For instance, as all my students know my Russian is very limited, I tell them that if someone jokingly told me "измелать"4 means "to get up early", I would be ready to ask questions "ты измелаешь каждый день?" or even talk about my parents "мои родители измелали рано всю свою жизнь", without knowing I was not communicating anything. Variety includes oral and written exercises in different types of situations whose main focus is accuracy in output.
A second feature of drilling is that comparison with the mother tongue without recourse to translation whenever possible may be very useful to show how the same meaning is expressed in Russian and what makes the two languages different for the same thing. Translation must be avoided for instead of fixing the lexicogrammar of the L2, the students will invariably think in Russian and try to translate the message into English.
The L1 must be used judiciously when teaching L2 new words, phrases or expressions as well as proverbs. If a word has a material representation in the form of an object, picture, a known synonym or antonym, or its meaning can be deduced from context, there is no need to translate it into the L1. Moreover, words function in collocations. Whereas English uses two verbs do and make as in do a favor and make coffee, Russian uses one (с)делать. However, presenting the meaning to the learner and making them internalize it are two different things. To internalize a word the student has to know its pronunciation, spelling, part of speech, meaning(s)—both literal and metaphorical as well as its derivations and inflections, and collocations.
A third characteristic of any drilling activity is that it must have a context. For instance, the new structure is the present perfect to refer to actions carried out at no specific point in the past. The students are already familiar with the past participle form of verbs. The vocabulary is that referring to travelling.
Situation .1: The teacher gives the students pictures of different places where they students supposedly might have been as tourists. The students are not to show their pictures to each other. This aspect creates an information gap where real communication is fostered. If one knows the answer beforehand, one rarely asks a question.
T.: "Where have you been lately?" St.1: "I've been to Egypt."
T.: "Where have you stayed" St. 1: "I've stayed at the Hilton-Hurgada."
T.: Have you been there on your own?" St. 1: "No, I have gone there with my parents."
T.: (Addressing the rest of the class) "What can you tell me about St. 1 last trip?
Once the basics of the drill have been clarified, the teacher can switch the role becoming a participant and encourage the students to ask each other the questions.
A fourth feature is that drills focus on accuracy in the use of the lexicogrammar but at the same time on controlled communication. The same set of pictures above can be used, for example, to develop role plays or simulate interview for the school newspaper. The issue is avoiding boring mechanic repetition. The teacher is first a facilitator and then becomes a participant in the practice. His role as controller of language output is essential for it is the moment of making immediate corrections to language mistakes related or not to the main drill focus. The example bellows illustrates this idea.
In carrying out the same drill above, a student once said "I have been in an island for two weeks". The author immediately asked him: "What's the name of that island?" To which, he said
4 An imaginary Russian verb
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he thought it was Saetia. "So, you've been on Saetia Key in Cuba for two weeks." After which an explanation of the use of in and on in reference to islands, keys and the like followed.
2.2 De-constructing the context
Objective: To understand how context mediates language structures
The teacher has to be aware that comprehension precedes production and even in cases when thorough comprehension has been achieved the student is not able to produce the new language items. Understanding the context in which the lexicogrammar item occurs enables the student to interiorize it and contributes to develop communicative competence. As communication is context-dependent, knowing not only dictionary/grammar meaning is nothing if the rules that determine the appropriateness or otherwise of utterances in context are neglected. For Hymes [5; p. 278]: "There are rules of use without which the rules of grammar would be useless." These rules of use refer to appropriate use of language in context.
Ethnographically speaking and based on Hymes' ideas on the categories of language events, the following questions may use to deconstruct and analyze a speech event, either a dialog or passage:
1.Who is the speaker/sender/addressor? Who is the receiver/audience/addressee? What is their relationship?
2.How does the communicative event take place? Is it a dialogue/monologue or a written text? How is the message delivered? In the spoken language as in a radio program or a conversation; or in writing in the form of advertising, a notice, or a newspaper article?
3.What is the situation/setting/scene? Where are the participants in the exchange? What are they doing? What for? Are they alone? How do you imagine the place?
4.What is the exchange about? What are they talking about? What is the content of the message?
5.Is the language formal, neutral or informal? Are they using any specific variety of English? How is this signaled in the language?
6.What are the purposes of the exchange/outcomes? Are there any other specific intentions? Are they arguing/narrating/describing/persuading/requesting/ordering?
7.How do 1-6 determine the lexicogrammar?
To deconstruct the system for meaning means to recreate the utterance's context of situation. For instance, "I have been teaching university level English since I finished college in 1980" may very likely be the answer to:
i. "What do you do for a living?"
ii. "What's your job?"
iii. "What have you been doing all these years?"
iv. "What could you tell me about your work experience?"
The first two questions may be just small talk between two persons who have just met; the construction of the third question suggests the participants in the conversation have not seen each other for a long time. Perhaps they have been friends since childhood, and may have even studied together but for some reason have not kept in touch with each other. The fourth is the kind of question one is asked at a job interview.
Looked at from a Pragmatics viewpoint, the answer comprises several intended meanings, all relevant and not easily perceivable at first sight. The first is that this person has been doing his job nonstop for quite a long period of time; second, university level English suggests his knowledge and proficiency in the English language are unquestionable and that he or she very likely has either a master's or a Ph.D. degree. Nevertheless, the utterance sounds a little bookish. The context of situation for the first two questions (i-ii) suggests that "I teach English" is the most likely answer. For the third question (iii) "I have been teaching English since 1980" or simply
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"teaching" are quite possible answers—the second more than the first-- unless this person is arrogant, in which case, "university level English" will not be omitted to boast about success. Therefore, the utterance, as presented initially, is the most likely the answer to question iv, which provides the necessary information the interviewer may need, allowing for all the interpretations stated above and suggesting further questions such as "Why should I hire you?"
The examples below illustrate this point further:
v. A: "I heard you and Mary moved in together."
B: "Yes, now I live with the in-laws." Or "Yes, I am living with my in-laws."
B's choice of the present simple indicates a permanent situation whereas the present co n-tinuous indicates that this is a temporary situation and, at least, he hopes to have his own place at some point in the future.
Situation: In a country house, the owner and two visitors are having dinner:
vi. A: "Look! Seems it's going to rain."
B: "It might, yes, but it's been the same for all the week we've been here"
C: "Come on, city boys! Let's check the windows."
Who is the host? How is A's opinion different from B's? Who is C? What does 'Let's check the windows' mean? How and why do the visitors' opinions differ from that of their host? Why does A's utterance is without a subject? Why does he use 'seem'? are just some of the questions the teacher could ask in class to illustrate contextual use.
From a psychological point of view, the learners need to take in new information and fit it into their pre-existing cognitive schemas, all of which entails two different connected processes: assimilation and accommodation. The first occurs when they encounter new or unfamiliar information and refer to previously learned information in order to make sense of it. The latter is the process of taking new information in one's environment and altering pre-existing schemas in order to fit in the new information, which is the aim of the next phase of the technique. In other words, the students may have understood how to build the new lexicogrammar in context; however, this amount of intake is not enough to enable the student to use it in communication.
2.3 Interiorizing the relationship
Objective: To interiorize the relationship between form and contextual meaning.
To do so, the students need plenty of opportunities to exercise in a variety of contexts. Completion with the correct form of a verb in parentheses and underlining the correct form from three or four different possibilities to complete sentences or matching sentences are the exercises textbooks generally suggest. Nothing is wrong with these exercises insofar as the focus is not only on the form, but also on its meaning through context deconstruction as advised above. The following are just instances of exercises to illustrate how this could be done in class.
vii. John was very hungry when he left the office. When he got home, his wife a) cooked b) was cooking c) had cooked dinner. What did John do in each of the cases?
viii. "We shouldn't have bought a new car with a crisis on our doorstep."
In which context may you hear such an utterance? Who is more likely to be saying that, the husband to the wife or the other way around? Is the person complaining about a situation, regretting something or praising another person? How do you imagine their economic situation? Is this their first car? Why do you think they bought a new one?
ix. Read the following newspaper headlines. What do you expect to read about in each piece of news?
a) President to sign new agreement with EU
b) Winter Olympic Torch travels the country
c) Floods killed thousands in the Philippines
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x. There are many missing parts in the diary entry below. How would you
complete it?
Dear Diary,
I want to tell you what happened yesterday at Mary's birthday party. When I arrived at the party,
_. Her brother,
who is just a couple of years older than I am, greeted me at the door and
, but I couldn't because I don't know how to dance. So I
I have always had a crush on him. This is never going to happen again. I'll talk to mum. I don't know how they are going to do it, but next week
Once you have completed the entry. Answer the following questions:
a) Who is writing and to whom? Why?
b) Whose brother is the writer talking about?
c) Who are they? What does it mean?
d) What are the writer's future plans?
e) How would you describe the writer?
xi. What is wrong with these sentences? Correct them and say in which
context(s) might they be possible?
a) He gave me and then went.
b) I can't have married a man who drinks sensibly.
c) It is legally forbidden to sell cigarettes and alcohol to the underage in our country.
d) Thousands were victims of terrorist attacks for the last two years.
e) Wait a minute! I taste the soup.
Teaching how to mean in speaking and writing and what others have meant when listening or reading is not a simple task. Context and shared knowledge as well language competence among other factors play a very important role, let alone imagination during interpretation. In other words, teachers only know if a language item has been learned if the student can put it into use. This is the aim of the last moment or step of the technique discussed so far.
2.4 Extending and giving feedback
Objective: To foster communication
Only through the production of new learned material in new situations after presentation and practice can the students polish what they have learned in class. The production stage also involves the professor's control over whether learning has been achieved or not and over decision making on adequate ways to provide feedback.
Extending implies giving the students the chance to use language meaningfully in and out of the classroom. Tasks combining receptive and productive skills fostering real communication are very beneficial for this purpose. After all, "[lexico]grammar5 teaching involves any instructional technique that draws learners' attention to some specific [lexico]grammatical form in such a way that it helps them either to understand it metalinguistically and/or process it in comprehension and/or production so that they can internalize it [2; p. 7]." Therefore, extending does not mean doing more [lexico]grammar exercises about the same language item, as sometimes happens.
5 The brackets are mine
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Hitherto as the teacher has largely held the reins of the language used in class, the need to provide for independent use of the lexicogrammar arises. Therefore, it would be important to distinguish two phases of extending. The first moment (controlled communication) implies loosening such reins while still exercising some restrain on output for the teacher to know how much intake has been taken place to provide feedback. The second (free communication) presupposes it is the student who holds such reins and allows the teacher to provide more feedback. Both phases are discussed below.
Controlled-communication is defined as context specific interactive activities in response to some type of language stimulus. The key to controlled-communication is to interact with the student.
xii. Phrasal verbs
a) How do you get along with your boss? Why do you say so?
b) Do you know anyone who usually shows off at work? What do you think about this type of attitude?
c) How often and in what cases do you look up for words in a dictionary? What type of dictionaries do you have? What do you focus on when you consult a new word in a dictionary?
xiii. Question forms:
a) Which are some of the usual questions you may be asked in a job interview?
b) What are some you are not likely to be asked?
c) Have you ever been asked about unexpected topics?
d) Has someone ever asked you any extreme question in a job interview?
Activities in writing could be, among others, answering a letter or a mail, posting an advertisement to sale or buy something, writing a letter of complaint for a service received.
It is no use telling the student they have to read, watch films without subtitles or listen to the radio as well as find native speakers to talk to; in one word: practice the L2. They rarely do it, if at all. At the same time, historically most course books stop short at this stage of the L2 teaching learning process.
In-class free communicative activities, on the other hand, are absolutely essential in L2 environments for the compelling reason that it is usually only the classroom where the student may have the chance to engage in meaningful communication. The students, for instance, may criticize, praise, or recommend a film, a book, a university or evaluate the social, economic or political situation. They may be asked to write a blog, a classroom bulletin, a piece of news, or a letter to the major. In short, anything with real communicative purposes will turn formal learning into an open discussion forum. The success of in-class free communication depends on careful preparation on the part of both teachers and students.
A word on feedback
Feedback can be defined as any activity to correct the teaching learning process following evaluation or diagnosis.
Feedback is essential because classrooms are made up of particular individuals, each of which has their own personality as a result of their historic-cultural development, the outcomes of which have a strong influence on how they learn. On learning styles Mariani [10; p. 47] rightly asserts, "Each learner has a more or less general approach to learning, a consistent way of reacting to learning tasks." This implies that if feedback is accommodated to the student's learning style, it is more effective.
Giving feedback is an art. The crucial point of any type of feedback is assessing the particular situation. That is, is it necessary to focus on form or on meaning, accuracy or fluency? The when and how varies from classroom to classroom and from teacher to teacher. Another im-
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portant question is the student's individual characteristics: is the student outgoing or shy? Does the mistake affect communication?
Feedback is usually given after performance in the presentation and practice stages because of their focus on accuracy whereas it is delayed during production to avoid interruption of fluency in communication. Some teachers prefer to correct the students' mistakes themselves while others prefer to engage the students in the process. It can be done with the whole group or individually. That is, is the mistake a problem the whole class has or is it the problem of an individual student? What is the nature of the mistake? Is it an incorrect generalization or overgenerali-zation? How will the individual student react to correction? In short, the best feedback is the one which best adapts to a particular teaching learning situation, not ready-made formulas.
As stated somewhere before, the CMF-approach resulted from the application of multi-disciplinary theory and research and the author's expertise; notwithstanding, how effective it is in social practice is obviously the pertinent question at this point. Two factors have led the author not to test the approach validity on the assumption that positive changes in learning correlate positively with the use of the approach. The first is that though language achievement and proficiency tests are similar in construction, the former is based on a syllabus, and the later are applied for selection purposes and no syllabus bases. The second is that the approach has been put into practice with broad variety of students. However, practical evidence suggests it does influence the efficiency of the learning process.
Achievement tests applied at the end of two grammar courses taught at the Ural State Pedagogical University and English language practical courses developed at the Ural Federal
University yielded positive results (X = 4.01 and X = 4.23) respectively. At the same time, three former students passed their academic proficiency exams for iElTS with satisfactory results and two are on their way to pass TOEFL.
Nonetheless, these by no means can be seen as conclusive results. Individual background such as L2 previous experience, motivation and learning style must have influenced the outcomes of the tests. The students who focused more on communication than on language forms performed better in their tests as well as the ones with integrative motivation. However, those with a strong instrumental motivation who sought direct, regular contact with the L2 performed almost as successfully as the former. Finally, among those who worried more about accuracy in speech, the ones who obtained the poorest marks were the ones who relied more on translation from the L1.
From a qualitative point of view, the CMF-approach seems to have a positive effect on learning by increased awareness of contextual factors and their effects on meaning leading to improved lexico grammatical accuracy in communication. This resulted in growing interest, and thus, motivation in how the L1 and l2 differ as well appropriating how the L2 is used in real life situations.
Conclusions
Though separated for linguistic analysis the lexicosemantic and morpho-syntactic systems are psycho-linguistically realized as one in the form of choices within each system and as such are learnt and ought to be taught. At the same time, language is only meaningful in the context it is produced. Therefore, contextual constraints as lexicogrammatical choice regulators become a must in the language classroom.
Resulting from the above multi-disciplinary point of view in the application of theory and research as well as expertise achieved through classroom practice, the CFM-approach for the teaching of English lexicogrammar fills in the existing gap between the intake of the L2 forms and how they are actually put into meaningful-focused communication. To achieve such outcome the learner is to be given enough opportunities to touch and feel the new items before being led to interiorize, produce and finally fit them into their cognitive schemas creating their own inter-language. In all this process, feedback plays different roles and takes different forms, each of
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which is determined by the particular assimilation level, individual student and classroom situation. The CMF-approach seems to be a feasible tool to improve in language teaching. However, it must undergo the necessary natural transformations and adaptations to the ever-changing teaching environments in which it put into practice.
References
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3. Halliday, M.A.K. (1985). An Introduction to Functional Grammar (2nd ed.). London: Arnold.
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