2.5. Television and language skills
The importance of television in the classroom context has to a
certain extent been handled in Section 2.4.3. Here I want to emphasise the role
of television in assisting learners to activate their knowledge in English in
general and to develop their language skills in particular. This section
especially explores some aspects of language skills that are directly concerned
with the language the learner-viewer draws from the television. The debate is
done in line with the second subsidiary research question (i.e. How can
television materials be used in the English class?)
The language skills that are my concern in this study are
listening skills in the first place and speaking skills in the second. The NUR
English programmes contain courses that aim at developing these skills. The
problem that this mini thesis addresses is that television materials are not
exploited in these language classes to reinforce the input learners gain from
tape recordings they normally deal with. From students' views though, former
EPLM students were sometimes exposed to TV materials in their classes. Why
can't this be done in the Faculty of Arts where English students need more TV
to develop their language skills? The answer to this question is tackled in
subsequent chapters, particularly in Chapter 4 which analyses the data.
Developing language skills is a broad topic in the field of
language teaching and learning. This mini thesis deals only with aspects of
the class setting where a number of language skills can be enhanced. Such
aspects could be, for example, classroom activities or tasks that should be
designed around given television material (i.e. news, documentary). The latter
constitutes the core unit of planning the instruction. Hence, specific language
skills like listening skills might be developed. Other points that need to be
tackled here are processes that are central to listening comprehension (i.e.
top-down and bottom-up processes) and Brown and Yule's model (1983) of
interactional and transactional functions of language.
Research on the role of television in language learning has
been carried out by several scholars. Work by Sherrington (1973) paid attention
to television and language skills. Others like Schroenn (1987) and Choat and
Griffin (1989), elaborated on using television in the primary schools. All
three of them acknowledge the importance of developing EFL learners' language
skills through television.
Concerning television's contribution to language teaching in
general, Sherrington (1973:25) argues that the medium enables us to structure
for the viewer the contexts within which language behaviour occurs. In this
case, television touches upon the listening skill in that the viewer's
comprehension depends on the degree of integration of sound and vision.
Besides, experience of television can be an effective means of integrating the
skills we plan to develop, such integration is vital if we are to find time and
place to fit television viewing experiences into English teaching and learning.
Schroenn (1987:13) stressed that we have to ensure that we do not lose sight of
the language skills to be developed, and that we do not neglect our central
concern with promoting our pupils' language competence. Choat and Griffin
(1989: 15) support the view held by Schroenn in the sense that children need to
be encouraged to look and listen carefully to television and talk about what
they have seen. The writers advise teachers to guide their pupils wisely into
treating television appropriately in order to achieve success.
Debate over which language skill to promote using television
ranges from an emphasis on speaking skills on the one hand to reading skills on
the other. According to Choat and Griffin, it appeared that stress was put on
reading skills (1989:26). It is obvious that the medium of television fits with
receptive skills (i.e. listening in particular). Thus, as Sherrington explains,
watching any television programme itself involves a receptive ability on the
part of the viewer, to understand what he sees and hears (1973:66). Choat and
Griiffin on the other hand, report on other peoples' assertions on the
development of reading skills using television. They believe that television
exercises and develops reading skills such as shape recognition, initial letter
sounds, word combinations and difficult spelling combinations (1989:26)
The following section focuses on learning principles and
approaches to listening and speaking that promote English comprehension and
support interactional and transactional functions of the language. These are
issues that are related to the language the viewer (i.e. NUR second year
English students) comes across on television and is supposed to take hold of
for various purposes, including academic purposes. In the section below, I deal
first of all with speaking skills.
2.5.1. Speaking skills.
To begin with, it is necessary to be aware of what a skill is
and how speaking can be referred to as one. According to Bygate (1991:3) it is
obvious that in order to be able to speak a foreign language there is a set of
requirements that one has to fulfil, such as knowledge of vocabulary and
grammar. Knowledge is not an end in itself in the teaching and learning
process. There is also a skill and the distinction between the two is crucial.
Knowledge in this case can be for instance making decisions on how to produce
language and adapt it to circumstances involved. On its part, a skill may have
to do among other things with imitating and practising what you know.
In this respect, Bygate gives a brief background on two common
and basic skills that have attracted scholarly attention for years and that are
closely linked with oral skills and /or speaking skills: motor-perceptive
skills and interactional skills. The first has been associated with the
audio-lingual approach to language teaching, the kind of skills that involve
perceiving, recalling, and articulating in the correct order sounds and
structures of the language. (1991:5) The second type of skill is referred to
as controlling one's own language production and having to make one's own
choices (Wilkins cited in Bygate,p.6). Bygate (1991:6) has the following to say
about interactional skills:
Interaction skills involve making decisions about
communication, such as what to say, how to say it, and whether to develop it,
in accordance with ones' intentions, while maintaining the desired relations
with others ...
The scholar suggests two kinds of skill when one has to
communicate meaning as part of the overall objective of the interaction.
Firstly, people organise what they have to communicate and secondly they
develop skills in solving problems which arise from spoken exchanges (1991:22).
With regard to speaking, Florez (1999:1) defines it as an
interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing and
receiving and processing information. Exploring the scope of the skill, she
recommends what should be the learners' requirements as far as speaking is
concerned. She says that speaking requires that learners not only know how to
produce specific points of language such as grammar, pronunciation, or
vocabulary (linguistic competence), but also that they understand when, why,
and in what ways to produce language (sociolinguistic competence) (1999:1) (see
Section 2.3.4 on Communicative approach to language teaching).
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