Matching headings with paragraphs

· Step 1. Survey the whole text.

· Step 2. Look over the 8 headings given in the table.

· Step 3. Skim each paragraph to identify the topic.

Match the given 9 headings with the 9 paragraphs of the text:

Identifying where to find information

· Step 1. Survey introductory and concluding paragraphs, and identify the core ideas of the passage.

· Step 2. Skim the rest of the passage to make sure.

· Step 3. Scan the text to find the correct wording of its main idea, the topic, and the purpose, write out the key words from each paragraph.

· Step 4. Skim the text for examples of descriptions, step-by-step explanations, directions, comparisons and contrasts, analyses, analogies, and definitions.

a/ The main idea is what the author has in mind when s/he is writing a text. Which one of the sentences given below most closely renders the main idea of the text?

1. Lingua franca isa vehicular language, i.e. a language for communication.

2. Lingua franca is potentially more neutral than regional or national languages since they are not directly connected to the primary lingua-culture of any fixed speech community.

3.ELF should be viewed as a flexible mode of communication rather than as a fixed code.

4. Being a variable intercultural adaptation based on English, ELF is determined by accommodative strategies between the speakers.

5. ELF is not bad or deficientEnglish – it is different in formfrom native speaker English and serves different functions.

B/ The topic is the subject area the author chooses to bring her/his idea to the reader. Identify the main topic of the text.

1. Intercultural communication.

2. Equal communicative rights for all English language users.

3. The intercultural communicative situation..

4. Accommodative strategies between the EFL speakers.

5.Historic development of the most prominent lingua francas.

c/ The purpose of the text is what the author wants the reader to believe in. Does the writer want you to believe that:

1. ELF speakers are not merely learners striving to conform to native-speaker norms but primarily users of the language?

2. Non-native speakers largely outnumber native speakers?

3. The Crusades used a mixed vehicular language?

4. Esperanto is an agglutinating language, largely based on Romanic, but also on Germanic and some Slavic elements?

5. ELF is a ‘contact language’ for people of different first languages for whom English is the chosen means of communication?

Reciting and reviewing the text.

· Step 1. Basing on the above formulated main idea, main topic, and main purpose of the text take 2-3 minutes to recite it.

· Step 2. Select 3 key words out each paragraph making it 27 key words for the whole text.

· Step 3. Limit the number of selected key words down to 10.

Identifying patterns of text organization.

Identify description, step-by-step explanation, directions, comparison and contrast, analysis, analogy, and definition in the following paragraphs:

1. ELF is not bad or deficient English – it is just different in form from native speaker English and serves different functions. It does not in principle lack the potential to be effective for all the communicative purposes it is appropriated for. It can occur in any kind of intercultural communication ranging from the most rudimentary utterances to highly elaborate arguments.

2. ELF is essentially a ‘contact language’ for people of different first languages for whom English is the chosen means of communication, including native speakers of English when they engage in intercultural communication. However, ELF is emphatically not the English as a property of its native speakers, but is democratized and universalized in the ‘exolingual’ process of being appropriated for international use.

3. ELF is individually shaped by its users and by implication not 'the English language'. Rather, it is a variable intercultural adaptation based on English, ... ELF does not represent a restricted language resource. It can potentially take any form - from simplified to complex – and can potentially fulfill any function – from a basic interaction to the most elaborate argument. It is 'non-territorial' in the sense that it could take place everywhere, in any constellation. It potentially integrates all speakers of English who use it in an intercultural mode.

Section 2. Grammar workout

Errors involving plural forms of numbers and measurement

Some errors involve numbers + measurements: They went for a 6-mile walk. They walked 6 miles. In the first sentence, the number + measurement is used as an adjective, and the measurement is singular. In the second, the measurement is a noun, and is therefore plural.

Numbers like hundred, thousand, and million may be pluralized when they are used indefinitely – in other words, when they do not follow other numbers:

Seven (many, a few, several) thousand acres – (many, a few, several) thousands of acres

five (many, a few, several) million dollars – (many, a few, several) millions of dollars

Example

The U.S. president serves a maximum of two four-years terms. Incorrect – When used before a noun, a number + measurement is singular.

Thousand of antibiotics have been developed, but only about thirty are in common use today. Incorrect– The plural form thousands should be used.

Some errors involve many + nouns: Many artists come here but Many an artist comes here.

Verb errors involving tense

Most tense errors involve the Simple (Indefinite) Present Tense, the Simple Past Tense, and the Present Perfect Tense.

The Simple Present Tense is a general-time tense. It usually indicates that a condition is always true or that an action always occurs. It may also indicate that an action regularly occurs.

The Earth rotates round the Sun.

The atmosphere surrounds the Earth.

John often stays at this hotel.

Generally, the lectures of this professor are very interesting.

The Simple Past Tense indicates that an action took place at a specific time in the past.

They moved to Simferopol five years ago. This house was built in the 1990s. Dinosaurs lived millions of years ago.

The Present Perfect Tense usually indicates that an action began at some time in the past and continues to the present. It may also indicate that an action took place at an unspecified time in the past.

Mr. Brandon has worked for this company since 1990. Mary hasn't been to a doctor for a year. Nick has recently returned from the US.

For a Ukrainian/Russian speaker it is often difficult to see the difference between the Simple (Indefinite) Tense and the Progressive (Continuous) Tense. Compare the following sentences:

John often stays at this hotel (in general). John is staying at this hotel (now, this week, this summer).

John drives to his office (usually). John is driving to his office (now, today, in the immediate future).

If you want to state a fact you will say: The Earth rotates round the Sun. If you want to emphasize that it is an everlasting process you will say: The Earth is permanently rotating round the Sun (with the adverbs always, constantly, ever, permanently).

If you want to state a fact you will say: She is beautiful. If you want to sound humorous or critical about much effort she takes at the moment to try and look beautiful you will say: She is being beatiful.

Unit 1-4. RECEPTIVE MULTILINGUALISM

Section 1. Guidelines for intensive reading of ESP texts

Context clues

Students often believe they must understand every word in order to read English. In fact, good reading means the ability to process chunks of language larger than single words, so striving for word-for-word recognition will actually slow students down and interfere with their overall comprehension. Rather than reaching for the dictionary every time they do not recognize a word, they should use the context of the passage to understand it.

Context clues include use of functional definitions, as in " Receptive Multilingualism has a far-reaching potential for achieving congruent understanding in various multilingual constellations, applied alone or in combination with other modes." where the meaning of "congruent " (adequate, similar or fitting together well) can be inferred from the words “a far-reaching potential for achieving ...”.

Context clues also include understanding the meaning of the other words in the sentence and applying such understanding to infer the meaning of an unknown word or phrase. For example, students can be taught to infer a negative meaning of the word " sloppy" in the sentence "Codeswitching tends to be frowned upon as a sign of deterioration of the language, as a type of sloppy speech."

Text 1-4.RECEPTIVE MULTILINGUALISM

(Abridged from the Toolkit for transnational communication in Europe. Copenhagen Studies in Bilingualism. University of Copenhagen, 2011)

1. The concept of Receptive Multilingualism, or 'Lingua Receptiva' (LaRa), focuses upon understanding processes in intercultural and interlingual interactions in which the participants use different languages/varieties as speakers or as listeners; the term is broadly explained in Rehbein, ten Thije and Verschik (2010). Insights into cross-linguistic understanding go back to the Russian semiotician Troubetzkoy and to Voegelin & Harris and were discussed under the notions of intelligiblity of closely related languages, semicommunication, intercompréhension, and, last but not least, receptive multilingualism (ten Thije & Zeevaert 2007).

In contrast to these previous approaches, the Lingua Receptiva lies emphasis on the receptive component in cross-cultural and cross-linguistic communication, which also is crucial to grasping the notions of understanding and misunderstanding. In LaRa, specific receptive mechanisms in linguistic, mental, interactional as well as intercultural competencies are looked at, which are creatively activated when interlocutors listen to linguistic actions in their 'passive' language or variety. In particular, speakers apply additional competencies, or repertoires, in order to monitor the way hearers activate their 'passive knowledge' and thus attempt to control the ongoing process of understanding.

2. In LaRa, one distinguishes between hearer's and speaker's competencies. The hearer's component of LaRa consists of all processes that actualise and intensify the hearer's competencies. These linguistic means comprise nonverbal signals that steer the speaker's production,prosodic elements expressing the whole range from agreement to disagreement, formulaic expressions (e.g. 'I don't understand', 'What do you mean?', 'What?'), echo questions, and other linguistic elements).

On the other hand, the speaker's LaRa lists strategies such as reformulations, repairs, recapitulations, rephrasings and other types of meta-discourse elements. Accommodation processes, in particular, lead to lexical and morphological adaptations towards what speakers imagine hearers would be able to better understand in their recipient language. In conclusion, these creative verbal elements within LaRa are often the result of receptive multilingual discourse, which is why their analysis will provide new insights into the emergence of contact varieties, too.

3. All these elements mentioned above occur in communication under normal conditions and can be observed on the surface of communication, both mono- and multilingual. LaRa seems to be an effective mode in various multilingual constellations and thus has a potential for solving communicative problems both by overcoming ideological asymmetries and establishing discursive interculture(s). It also promotes the idea of cultural and linguistic diversity in addressing two languages simultaneously: speakers of community languages (i.e. minority and immigrant languages), for instance, maintain or even revitalise their first language and yet could be integrated into 'dominant' society once LaRa become an accepted mode of communication. Finally, LaRa has been compared to other multilingual modes, e.g., codeswitching, and it has been concluded that this mode has a far-reaching potential for achieving congruent understanding in various multilingual constellations, applied alone or in combination with other modes.

4. Codeswitching is the use of two, sometimes more, languages in the same conversation. This way of speaking is common in many bi- and multilingual communities the world over, especially in informal settings. It comes in many different forms; the specific form it takes is dependent on many factors, including how well the speaker knows the two languages, to what degree the two languages involved resemble each other, how formal or informal the conversation is, and what attitudes people in the community have about the two languages and about mixing them.

5. The two main forms codeswitching takes are referred to as insertion and alternation (see Muysken 2000). In insertion, the sentence is clearly in one of the two languages but one or more of the words is from the other language. An English sentence with a French word in it is a case of insertion. Most of the time, the inserted words will be a content word, i.e. a noun, verb or adjective. This betrays one of the main reasons why people use this way of speaking: the words from the other language name useful concepts that the base language has no word of its own for. The grammar of the sentence, including the order of the words, and all the grammatical words and parts of words, will be in the base language (see Myers-Scotton 2002).

Alternation, the other main form of codeswitching, takes place when parts of a conversation are in one language and other parts in the other. Bilingual speech often shows a pattern of regular alternation between the languages, often at the boundary between two successive sentences. A French-English bilingual, say in Canada, may alternate between English and French sentences, for example.

6. Whether insertion will dominate in bilingual speech or alternation is dependent on many factors. One of the most important ones has proven to be proficiency. If a bilingual is clearly dominant in one of the languages, codeswitching will often be of the insertion kind, with the dominant language functioning as the base language. Balanced bilinguals, on the other hand, tend to prefer alternation. That doesn't mean they won't use any insertion, though. The reason is that insertion is motivated by factors that can always play a role, primarily the need to use the best word available, le mot juste, for a particular concept one wants to say something about.

7. But there are various other factors that influence the kind of codeswitching one gets. One is the degree to which the languages are different. If languages are closely related, such as German and English, there are many more places within a sentence at which it is easy to switch, and often this happens inadvertently: the languages resemble each other so much that many words are shared between the two systems, and their use may well trigger a switch to the other language than the one that was spoken up until that word.

This means that when closely related languages are mixed, the number of points within a sentence at which you will find switches is much greater than when the languages are not related. Insertional codeswitching of German words in a Turkish sentence, for example, in the speech of Turkish immigrants in Germany, mainly involves nouns and verbs or larger chunks inserted into particular places in the Turkish sentence. Often these words have relatively specific meaning, which illustrates why they are used in the first place.

8. Another important factor is the nature of the conversation. Codeswitching is particularly common in everyday informal conversation between bilingual friends. Though the specifics are different for every community, the freedom to switch tends to be much smaller if the conversation is formal, if not all participants are well-known to each other, and especially if not all of them are judged to be good at both languages.

In addition, codeswitching tends to be frowned upon as a sign of deterioration of the language, as a type of sloppy speech. When attitudes like that prevail, it will generally only be found in informal speech. Also, it will often be flagged in a way, as if the speaker is apologizing.

OVERVIEW QUESTIONS: MAIN IDEA, MAIN TOPIC, MAIN PURPOSE, ORGANIZATION OF THE TEXT, AND CONTEXT CLUES

Instruction:A summary of Context clues includes: a) Numerical statements, b) Rhetorical questions, c) Introductory summaries, d) Development of an idea, e) Transitions, f) Chronology of ideas, g) Emphasis of ideas, h) Summary of ideas.

Students are asked to complete these five activities:

1) to survey; looking over headings, reading introductory and concluding paragraphs, and identifying a definition of the LaRa and codeswitching;

2) to formulate answers for the questions asked in the headings matching assignment;

3) to make a conscious effort to identify description, step-by-step explanation, directions, comparison and contrast, analysis, analogy, and definition in the text as they read;

4) having read the second section, to look away from the book and try to recite the manifestations of lingua francas;

5) to take notes, characterising LaRa and codeswitching.

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