All Talk: Teacher’s notes
Public talk - Job done
Comments and questions
Worth knowing
Many occupations have special language features, some
of which are related to very particular expectations about
interaction, others to do with specialist terminology.
However, coverage in some general accounts of language
tends to focus on more unusual examples, such as air traffic
controllers, or emergency doctors. Consequently, it can
be easy to make generalisations about occupational talk
that have more to do with highly specialist vocabulary, and
less to do with the routine, everyday matter of interaction
with other people. This requires complex repertoires, from
technical description and formal presentation to small talk
with customers and banter with colleagues. This is true for
jobs of many kinds, not limited to prestige or high-pressure
professions. This makes spoken language repertoire and the
ways we build rapport at work more productive ideas for
working with this topic with students at GCSE and A Level.
Video and transcript
The video recordings were filmed on the streets of London
and in a hair salon. In the first case, we stopped people on
the street, found out what job they did and invited them
to be interviewed on camera about talk in their work. The
finished film consists of edited clips from these interviews.
In the second case, we filmed two hairdressers, Sam and
Jules, at work in Sam’s salon, with invited clients, Patrick
and Sid, who were happy to be filmed. Jules and Sid know
each other; Sam doesn’t know Patrick, but knows his father.
This footage was shot with no interruptions, staying as close
to the idea of naturally occurring spoken language as it is
possible to get when the participants have two cameras
pointing at them and a radio mic on. Parallel clips from the
two interactions have been edited together for the finished
video. This has been transcribed using the punctuation
conventions of written English, in order to keep the focus
for GCSE students on the idea of repertoires and in order to
provide A Level students with an opportunity to re-work this
into a transcript suited to their study purposes.
Assessment and other outcomes
Employers value highly the ability to use a wide spoken
repertoire in different workplace situations. Providing
students with the opportunity to investigate this is likely to
be of broad educational value, as well as of value to spoken
language study. One way of building student engagement
with this would be to encourage investigation of spoken
language repertoires during work experience placements.
Observation of this over a week or two could provide rich and
engaging data for a Controlled Assessment.
Classroom questions
How many different kinds of talk do you think a teacher
needs to be able to do? Who do they need to talk to? What
do they need to get done?
Where next?
• Comedy Coach offers scripted examples of
a football coach at work.
• Trouble talk offers scripted examples of a
teacher at work.
All Talk: Teacher’s notes
Public talk - Job done
Sources and resources
Books
Carter, R. and McCarthy, M (1997) Exploring Spoken English Cambridge: Cambridge University Press [Book and audio
cassette]
Cockcroft, S., (1999) Investigating Talk Oxford: Hodder & Stoughton (especially Chapter 4 Talking in Public: Unplanned
Speech)
Koester, A., (2004) The Language of Work London: Routledge
Notes:
All Talk - Job done