BRITISH JOURNAL OF
LANGUAGE TEACHING
formerly
AUDIO-VISUAL LANGUAGE JOURNAL
ORGAN OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR LANGUAGE TEACHING
Editor: A. P. Dyson, Language Teaching Centre, University of Oxford
Vol.XXIII Autumn 1985
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Contents
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membership:
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61
PAUL McGOWAN — La plume de ma
tante and all that revisited
AMY HENSHAW — Latin rules!
S. F. WHITAKER — Give me a long
sentence
DAVID CROSS — The Monitor Theory
and the Language Teacher
BRIAN HILL — Adult Language
Learners: The Way Ahead
IAN
MASON
—
Communicative
Grammar and Exploitation of the Lyon
Corpus. The SUFLRA Lyon a la une
Project.
TUNDE AJIBOYE — Achieving Oral
Fluency in French: Principles and
Techniques
CLARE MAR-MOLINERO — An
Approach to Teaching Post-beginners'
Level Spanish to Adult Learners.
NOTES AND VIEWS
Honours for Members of BALT
BOB POWELL — Fixing the Options:
The Only Solution?
Sdelai Sam
Eric Hawkins Prize
English Quarterly
Le Français dans le Monde
REVIEWS
Achieving Oral Fluency in French:
Principles and Techniques
by Tunde Ajiboye,
Department of French,
College of Education,
Ilesha, Nigeria.
The purpose of a foreign language
course, according to Leonard Bloomfield, is to
prepare a student for "a command of the
spoken forms of the language. This command
includes the ability to speak the language
fluently, accurately, and with an acceptable
approximation to a native pronunciation"? The
case of French in the developing countries
could not afford to be different. It is all the more
important for Anglophone students of this
foreign language — French — to emphasize
oral fluency insofar as the target interest of
foreign language acquisition (as opposed to
second language acquisition) is to be able to
converse, with minimum hitches, with other
speakers of that language. In a teacher training
department or institution such as the College of
Education in Nigeria, the need becomes
particularly significant when we realise that
these teachers-in-the making are soon to be
called upon to teach the foreign language at a
lower level and with less material equipment.
Oral fluency is the learner's first immediate
token of his competence in the language as his
ability or skill in other language areas is often,
albeit unwittingly, determined by his oral
competence or lack of it. If, on another plane of
reflexion, language is considered by the
behaviourist school as social behaviour,
learning how to speak well should be seen by
both teacher and pupil as an attempt at
"behaving well".
It is pertinent to note, however, that oral fluency
in language, generally speaking, is difficult to
achieve. Not only does it demand time, willpower, interest and environmental stimulus, it
presupposes a situation of near native-like flow,
both from the point of view of effortless sound
appreciation and skilful presodicisation. Now
this situation, needless to say, represents a
language height which is attainable to only a
few foreigners. Yet it is
desirable. Harlan Lane and Roger Buiten2,
treating fluency as predicate to social
acceptance, have summarised the foregoing
observation as follows:
"The achievement of native-like fluency in a
second language is as uncommon and arduous
as it is essential to effective social behaviour in
a foreign land."
Not only is oral fluency difficult to achieve, it is
difficult to assess objectively. More often than
not what teachers assess is not oral fluency but
grammar. Conscious of this flaw and of the
need for a speaking test to meet the criteria of
validity, reliability, ease of administration, and
objectivity of scoring, P. Pimsleui3, one of the
foremost names in oral testing, developed
between 1958 and 1959 what he called FSPT
(French Speaking Proficiency Test). He did not
delay in accepting his shortcomings
Perhaps it is for these two reasons" (difficulty of
attainment and difficulty of assessment) that the
teacher's effort in Nigeria to achieve oral
fluency in French has been characterized by ad
hoc arrangements and procedures largely
based on the intuition and insight of the
individual teacher. Collective guidelines seem
to be missing and principles seem to be
determined and governed by practice. It is the
considered opinion of the present writer that a
few points of interest could be harnessed that
will constitute a body of guidelines for the
collective use of all teachers irrespective of
their background and their methods of teaching
other areas of learning in French. These points,
one must hasten to add, are proposals based in
part on experience and in part on what others
have reported. In any case, even though the
proposals are far from being either final or foolproof, the guidelines emanating therefrom will
most probably
93
meet most of the demands of oral fluency in
French in an environment such as ours, and will
well serve as a satisfactory substitute for the
current practice.
For the avoidance of doubt, the
present practice emphasises learning of
phonetic symbols and French alphabets. It
emphasises classroom drills through passages
read aloud by teacher and/or student, dictation,
language
laboratory
practice,
debates,
systematic turn-taking in conversation practice.
The present practice approves full sentences
"phrases completes" and condemns those
without finite verbs. Expressions appropriate to
the occasion, meeting the "mood of the
moment" of the speaker, are hastily corrected
on the grounds that they are colloquial. Thus,
students cannot say 'bon ben', 'je ne sais pas
moi', 'comment dirai-je', 'voyez-vous' without
fear of being penalised for being jerky. The
present practice is very much in favour of the
student standing in front of the class while
speaking, a position that increases insecurity. In
brief, the teacher conducts the oral French
class as if it were a teaching class where his
intervention is the rule rather than the
exception:
In the course of this article, it will be
clear how the foregoing, even though a
quick'bird's eye-view of the situation at present,
represents a less than desirable atmosphere for
the promotion of oral fluency in French.
The teacher's role
The first principle, in our opinion, is that
the teacher should see oral fluency in French
as unattainable unless he brings himself to
believe that his role in this class is
fundamentally different from his role elsewhere
as teacher of grammar, vocabulary building,
essay writing or written comprehension. His
role in this case is that of an observer, or at
best an umpire who does not intervene unless
there is a crisis of norm. Robert Damoiseau4
has described the teacher's role, for the
purpose of building oral skill in the learner, as a
"meneur de jeu". While his presence is
important, the use to which he puts his
presence is of utmost pedagogical relevance.
He is there not to "faire le pedant en corrigeant
les maladresses d'expression, mais pour
ranimer la conversation au besoin, pour la
maintenir s'il le faut dans les limites de la
courtoisie
et du bon ton, ou pour eviter les pieges des
discussions sans issue" (Damoiseau op cit). In
other words, his role is to monitor with
discretion the spread, balance and flow of the
conversation
He should also remember to use the
language as regularly as possible as a means
of teaching the other areas of learning. He
should avoid translation and this is possible if
he talks less. The use of French is "un principe
qui ne saurait etre mis en question"5, yet it
should enjoy such judicious use as will take
care of the level of the learners.
In monitoring the activities of thelearners, he should not be upset if the
unexpected happens, if the discussion seems
to be drifting into areas not clearly relevant to
the scheduled. It is worth the trouble to allow
this to go on for a few minutes, for there
motivation is for the moment richest.
Constituents of oral activity
To achieve oral fluency in a learner of a
language one must get the learner to speak
and to practise speaking over and over again.
Agreement seems to be total about this.
Nobody would seriously suggest that the
learner's writing skill be developed to achieve
the same result. Nor would anybody consider
that listening alone would bring about the
miracle. However, for a discussion or
conversation to be meaningfully sustained, it is
necessary for the topic or subject matter to be
of sufficient interest to the participants. This is
where the skill of the teacher is expected to be
highly manifest. There will be little room for
inspiration if the teacher selects a topic that is
far from the immediate social experience of the
learners. The learners had better stay in their
history class if the topic to be discussed — and
in a foreign language — is 'La traits des negres
— causes et effets'. Imagine how artificial a
discussion on a well-worn cliche: "L'argent ne
fait pas le bonheur" will be to a learner who
knows that school fees are now being
introduced hi almost all States of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria!
For spontaneity, it is suggested that
teachers do not come to the classroom with a
cut-and-dried topic. It is probably better to allow
the class situation to determine what to discuss.
A common objection to this method is that it
may affect learners'
94
performance adversely since, it is argued, they
may not have had time to prepare adequately.
The premise of this objection may not be as
solid as it appears on the surface, when the
objection is valued against how the learner is
expected to perform in situations of
spontaneous conversation. How often do we
carry our dictionary about in order to perform
well in a verbal encounter?
Where a topic has to be chosen, it is
useful for the learners themselves to help the
teacher to arrive at one, more so that the
exercise is for these learners in the first place.
The teacher may sound out the learners'
readiness for a topic by introducing the subjectmatter through a question. For example, age is
a powerful social factor in African society and it
is often used for or against people. So, a
question like this may be asked: "Faut-il cacher
son age?" Another example which is most likely
to be of interest to learners is: "Le professeur at-il toujours raison?" In a class made up of
learners of both sexes a topic on the role of
either of the two sexes is stimulating. One
imagines that to the question: "Est-il vrai que la
femme fait et defait la maison?" there will be a
scream of "Non!" "Pas du tout!" "Ce n'est pas
vrai!" from the females while the males will be
expected to react in their own way. The fire of
discussion has been lit and all that remains is
for the fire to be kept within bounds.
Mode of oral activity
As has been hinted earlier, most
teachers in Nigeria believe that, as a matter of
routine, learners ought to stand up when it is
their ('learners') turn to speak. Apart from the
fact that this act may jeopardise spontaneity, it
is our considered view that it may seriously
affect the much-needed self-confidence of the
learners. It is even worse to suggest that they
come to the "sacred" front to speak, often
without the reassuring touch of the teacher's
table. Not only does this waste time and give
room for the so-called side attraction, the
learners' performance becomes largely artificial
and, to that extent, unreliable
The discussion yields more satisfactory
fruit if it is based not on systematicized turntaking but on a brisk and discrete, appreciation
of the intuitive drive and the 'speaking pressure'
of the learners.
Secondly, a round-table ring made out of the
class gives an impression of equality and
absence of the tension usually associated with
routine learning. Of course, sitting down to
speak is considered to be far easier and more
comfortable than standing.
It has also been observed earlier in this
article that discussion, be it in form of debate or
symposium or sheer conversation, is often
interrupted in an understandable effort to
correct errors. This practice is, to our mind,
better replaced with that of reserving comments
till the end of the day. Again evaluation of the
learners' performance may not be based on
grammatical mistakes alone but on the ease
with which he finds the right word for the right
occasion, and on how he manages to fill the
gap in the chain. In this regard, it is desirable
that expressions that could constitute "memory
fill-ups" such as: "bon ben", "eh bien",
"vraiment", "voila", "que sais-je", "et cetera et
cetera", "alors", "n'est-ce pas?" be allowed to
stay or be sanctioned with minimum severity,
since it is they that sustain the contribution of
the participants. There is of course a real
danger in not sanctioning them at all, for with
tune they may grow as stiff and unpleasant
mannerisms in future.
It may be noted here that discussions
may not be in full sentences although it is
laudable if it is so. Insisting on full sentences, in
a subject + verb + predicate fashion will have
offended against the principle of natural
speech. Unfortunately, because learners are
being prepared for many things at the same
time, it is no surprise that while the teacher is
striving to enhance the oral fluency of the
learners in as natural a setting as possible, he
is also striving to meet the demands of public
examinations
that
insist
on
"phrases
completes". (The W.A.E.C. (West African
Examinations Council) is known to be
particularly J.n favour of 'phrases completes' in
O level Oral French.)
Allied to the mode of discussion is the
length of contribution from each participant. For
how long does a participant speak in
contributing to the discussion of a topic? The
present practice is, generally speaking, to
regulate intervention of each participant through
timing. Sometimes, this works very well as it
clips the wings of talkative pupils. But
95
because the latter are often fewer in a foreign
language learning situation, the arrangement
often falls short of expectation. Time allowed for
contribution becomes suddenly too long and
too boring for the available speech reflexes.
Sometimes the time becomes too long to be
natural too. Compare the case of two students
quarrelling or reporting the sight of a snake.
Material resources for oral activity
Learners' hearing and comprehension
should be ascertained before they can be
expected to imitate speech effectively. Yet not
until the learners attempt imitation can one
ascertain hearing and comprehension. It is a
major paradox that leads to the important
position that repetition is demanded not only of
the learner but also of the teacher to solve the
problem posed by auditory discrimination. Yet
oral fluency, it should be noted, is not so much
linked with individual word pronunciation as
with word boundaries. A major problem for the
learner is the fact that, with him, learning
started with attention paid to words and not to
syllables which should have technical
implications for word boundaries, hence for
smoothness of speech. Apparently to make
matters worse, the "French utterance does not
contain any clues as to where the word
boundaries are . . ." Politzer (1965). A
comparison of the two representations (graphic
and phonemic) of the idea: "LES ETUDIANTS
N'ONT PAS D'ARGENT EN LJQUIDE" shows
that familiarity with an utterance in writing is not
an automatic key for knowing what it is in
speech:
graphic representation — les etudiants
n'on pas d'argent en liquide
phonemic representation —
lezetydjanSpadaRga alikid
In spite of the difficulty of investing the
written utterance with the right prosodic
realisation, it is absolutely profitable to use
reading as a resource for perfecting skill in oral
delivery of French. But reading should be done
aloud. Among the five reasons advanced by N.
Beattie in his article "Reading Aloud" (1973) in
support of reading aloud are (i) that it paves the
way for improved pronunciation and (ii) that it
instils confidence in the learner. It is worthy of
note that once confidence is gained, improved
pronunciation is guaranteed, in the same way
that fluent
reading is expected to influence fluent
speaking.
The teacher's choice of "textes
d'appui" is crucial. The passages do not have to
be long; nor is the idea that of making the
learners acquire new lexical items now. It is
expected that, having succeeded hi dissociating
as much as possible Reading a text from
Writing it in a way to suggest how to behave for
each skill, the teacher would allow his
knowledge of the level of the class, the target of
the lesson, and the skill to be acquired to
determine choice of texts. A common approach
is to pick up passages from the works of great
authors. The language has been found to be "si
litteraire parfois qu'il parait impossible de
parvenir avec un tel support a 1'etablissement
du dialogue pourtant essentiel entre le maitre et
les eleves .. ."s It is much more helpful if the
written form assumes the status of the spoken
language where "je", "nous", "vous" will triumph
over "il".
Two books strike me as being
extremely useful in the choice of texts:
1.
A vous de parler by F. Honle —
Grosjean, A. Honle, and K. Mengler. E.
Arnold 1973.
2.
Ecouter et Parler by Dominique G.
C6te, Syria Narins Levy and Patricia
O'Connor Winston 1970.
In the first book, subtitled Initiation a la
conversation francaise, is the provision of the
necessary setting for a good and natural
conversation in French. This setting is
particularly useful for the Nigerian situation
where meeting with Francophones is not a
common experience and the real need to use
French among learners is limited, except in rare
cases, to the classroom. The second book is
fascinating because the authors have
succeeded not only in bringing together the
various social contexts of French usage in an
overwhelming mass, but, more importantly,
because of the fact that each chapter has within
it a sub-section called Practice in Reading
French where expressions such as "Avec
plaisir", "Bien sur", "tiens!" "quand meme",
"voila tout", "ou pa?" are used with persuasive
relevance. As learners are being exposed to
this kind of text, dictee should be welcome as a
tool for the evaluation of auditory discrimination
of sounds. But dictee is certainly not the only
means of evaluation
96
at this level. Difficult sound sequences in
specially derived sentences could be set out
as drills. Here are a few examples:
1.
Ton the a-t-il 6te ta toux? (Politzer)
2.
Qui avez-vous vu couvrir votre verre?
3.
Cher chaffeur cherche-nous des
chênes a Sherry!
4.
Oui, c'est lui qui a envoyés Louis dire
5.
Aujourd'hui, c'est jeudi, les jeunes
gens n'ont pas d'argent.
The language laboratory has been
identified as an important resource for oral
fluency in French. The language laboratory
provides not only the tool for practice but also
the materials for practice. The lessons are
usually graded in such a way as to allow for
collective progression. Yet, there is room for
every individual learner to progress at his own
pace. There is above all the advantage that the
master's voice is usually the authentic one, the
voice of the native speaker of the language. In
this way the highest standard possible is put at
the disposal of the learners for imitation.
The year abroad
For some time now, it has become
normal practice to send French students in
Nigeria to France or to an African country of
Francophone tradition. This practice has
crystallised into what is summarily referred to
nowadays as the Year Abroad. The purpose of
the Year Abroad is obvious: to promote the
chances of the students' fluency and
understanding of the French language. The
objective is, to say the least, laudable and one
is little surprised that in spite of mounting
economic recession, the government generally
supports the programme.
But it might amount to hypocrisy if we
fail to realise or point out that a number of
factors stand menacingly between the end and
the means. One wonders if, in reality, given the
same social climate and the basically same
language need, all students come back better
(in spoken French) than they went. If the Year
Abroad is to be different from what Henry L.
Chabert6 calls it: "des colleges en reduction"
then something must be done to ensure that
the entire foreign language needs of the
students are fully met. At present, participants
in the programme, who in any case are from
different parts of the world,
have only one thing in common — poor
French. And they have no choiceTaut to use it.
As a way of making the end justify the
means, we would like to propose the following
in addition to the amalgam of suggestions that
may have been made elsewhere:
(a)
limit home teachers' interference
except, in rare cases, where the
native speaker is the teacher.
(b)
avoid, as much as possible, sending
all students to the same institution
abroad.
(c)
let some of the classes they attend be
a little lower than their age and
scholarship to facilitate fluency of
thinking and, therefore, of speech.
In conclusion, the task involved in
achieving oral fluency in French is a
responsibility to be snared in the right
proportions by both the teacher and the
learner. The basic principle guiding the task
should, however, not be lost sight of: the
desire to imitate natural speech in contexts
that simulate natural responses to natural
stimuli. In this regard, factors that are most
likely to ressuscitate the feeling of artificiality
often linked with formal classroom situations
should be discouraged. Here, the teacher finds
himself in an unusual situation, where he
wears the garb of a judge but cannot judge.
Perhaps it is this imagery that translates the
reaction of Fleck when, commenting on
Learners' Communicative Competence in
Spanish, he says, inter alia:
"Teachers must resign themselves to
hearing
less
than
grammatical
conversation if there is to be
conversation at all in the classroom."7.
References
1
Bloomfield L. Outline Guide for the Practical Study of
Foreign Languages. Baltimore. Linguistic Society of
America. 1942.
2
Lane Harlan and Buiten Roger. "A self-instructional
device for conditioning Accurate Prosody" in Valdam
(ed.) Trends in Language Teaching McGraw-Hill
Inc. 1966 p. 159-174.
3
Pimsleur P. "French Speaking Proficiency Test" in
French Review Vol. 34,5.1961.
4
Damoiseau Robert "La classe de conversation" in
Reboullet A. (ed.) Guide Pedagogique pour le
professeur de français, lange etrangere. B.E.L.C.
Hachette 1971 p. 123-33.
97
5
Bouton Charles P. Les mécanismes d'acquisition du
français langue étranger chez Vadulte. Librairie
Klincksieck Paris 1969. p.590.
6
Chabert Henry L. "Faits et Fictions de 1'enseignement
des
langues".
Federation
Internationale
des
Professeurs de fran;ais. Bulletin 4-5, 1972.
7
Fleck A. "Achieving Communicative Competence in the
Beginning Classroom: some suggested conversational
activities" in System Vol. 10 No. 1. 1982. p. 47.
Bibliography
1
Seattle L. "Reading Aloud" in Audio-Visual Language
Journal Vol. 11 No. 3 pp. 201-205,1974.
2
Bouton Charles P. Les mécanismes d'acquisition du
français langue étranger chez, I'adulte. Librairie
Klincksieck Paris 1969.
3
Brann C. M. B. "The teaching of French in Nigeria"
Afrique Actuelle Paris No. 34 Dec. 1968.
4
Cote D. G., Levy S., N., and O'Connor P. Ecouter et
Parler (Revised Edition) Holt, Rinehart and Winston
1970.
5
Dyson A. P. Oral Examining in French. Modern
Lang. Association 1972.
6
Fleck A. "Achieving Communicative Competence in the
Beginning Classroom: some suggested conversational
Activities" System Vol. 10 No. 11982 p.45-51.
7
Honle-Grosjean F., Honle D., Mengler K. A vous de
Porter Edward Arnold, London 1973.
8
Huebener,
Theodore
How to teach Foreign
Languages effectively New York Univ. Press 1959.
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Mathieu G. (ed.) Advances in the Teaching of Modern
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Ojo — Ade Femi The French Abroad: A back-home
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Pillet Roger A.
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Politzer Robert Teaching French: An Introduction to
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Politzer Robert "Training Foreign Language Teachers
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14
Reboullet Andre Guide Pédagogique pour le
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Seibert G. &Crocker L. Skills and Techniques for
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Valdman A. (ed.) Trends in Language Teaching
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108