UMEI004C Spring 11 1
Observing Academic Communicative Competence II
Observing Academic Communicative Competence
Lecturer Name:
Name:
Date:
Time:
Sociocultural
Class setting (number of students, gender distribution, seating arrangement, lighting, technology, audio-visual materials)
Class identities/participant roles (e.g. facilitator, elicitor/questioner, elaborator, collaborator, competitor, clarifier, etc.)
Nonverbal behavior/body language
Values/beliefs shared by participants (e.g. critical thinking, domain knowledge/expertise, genre knowledge, literacy, openmindedness, respect, competition, cooperation, collaboration, etc.)
Notes:
Cognitive
Outside class reading/writing preparation/tasks (e.g. chapter, article):
UMEI004C Spring 11 2
Observing Academic Communicative Competence II
Outside class listening/speaking preparation/tasks (e.g. lecture, film):
In-class reading/writing/listening/speaking tasks (e.g. article, text excerpt, writing prompt, lecture, group discussion, etc.):
In-class academic tasks (e.g. comprehension, analysis, synthesis, evaluation, elicitation/questioning, elaboration, argument, counterargument):
Sequencing of academic tasks:
Class discussion/lecture topic(s):
Sequencing of discussion/lecture topic(s):
Notes:
UMEI004C Spring 11 3
Observing Academic Communicative Competence II
Pragmatic
Genres used to organize class discussion(s). Note: genres are related to communicative purposes, and academic speech commonly
uses more than one genre to accomplish its communicative goals. What genres are used to organize the discussion(s)/lecture(s)?
□Summary
□Comparison/contrast
□Summary/Response
□Narrative
□Exposition
□Classification
□Extended Definition
□Argument
□ Exemplification
□Problem/Solution
□Analogy
□ Description
Lexicogrammatical
Lexical bundles/fixed expressions . Record the most common lexical bundles or fixed expressions used in the speech you hear. (The
last page has a list of some of the most commonly used in academic speech according to MICASE)
i
Grammatical
Which grammatical structures were most commonly used? Why do you think this is the case?
□Passive voice
□Present tense narrative
□Active voice
□Past tense narrative
UMEI004C Spring 11 4
Observing Academic Communicative Competence II
□Modality
Which were the most common forms of modality used to express degrees of certainty? Why? What does modality tell us about the
discourse community?
Prosodic/Music
Intonation and pitch
Intonation and pitch communicates a very important part of meaning. Which intonation and pitch patterns were most prevalent in the
discussion? Why?
□Falling (statements)
□Falling (commands)
□Rising (incomplete thoughts across an utterance chunk)
□Rising (questions)
Notes:
Register
What register(s) were most prevalent in the discussion? Why?
□Formal/general academic
□Formal/discipline-specific technical
□Formal/discipline-specific scientific
□Informal/general academic
□Informal/conversational
Notes:
Examples of common lexical bundles/collocations in academic discourse from MICASE
□you can see
□and so on
□and in fact
□in your mind
UMEI004C Spring 11 5
Observing Academic Communicative Competence II
□what I mean
□in this case
□I was like
□you don’t know
□so you have
□point of view
□you know what I mean
□you don’t know
□all of these
□the first/second, etc. one
□does that make sense
□how do you know
□other
□in the book
□it doesn’t matter
□do you see
□what I’m saying
□how do you know
□so that’s why
□in this class
□in this one
□it turns out
□in some sense
□in the same way
□look at it