Discourse Patterns in First Language Use at Hcme and Second Language Learning at School: an Ethnographic Approach

Interpretation I 164

this distinction, and fluency is supposedly developed through role play
on the basis of the Dialogue Texts. The problem is that fluency work,
besides being given less emphasis, status and classroom time than
accuracy work, is also based on inadequate material, and the result is
that it is neglected altogether: teachers complain that children do not
'interpret* the characters but merely learn the script by heart, and
teachers themselves are not sufficiently trained to use texts creatively
or invent activities conducive to language use in communicative
situations.

Vhy are the Dialogue Texts not suitable as basis for role play and
fluency work ?

- they do not allow for propositional development beyond the exchange
level and sometimes even beyond the utterance level <see page 152), so
that the flow of conversation is impaired by the difficulty of
predicting the next utterance and the tacit prohibition to ask for
clarification; language then is imitated, not used, as the meaning
structure is built over several contributions;

- they attribute restricting roles to both parents and children, so that
the dynamic of Interaction is consequently restricted to severely
limited scripts. If ^,... the functions which utterances perform are
reciprocal and depend upon the roles of the participants in the
interaction* (Veils 1985:380), so do patterns in the sustaining of
discourse. As long as children only respond to directives without the
possibility of challenging them, no conversation is likely to develop
(in this aspect Dialogue Text 11 is a good example of a child asking
questions, see Annex 3.5). Directives are appropriate in other
language-learning activities (see page 145) when the situation offers
the clue for interpretation of the meaning, for example when
instructions are given in physical education or games.

Furthermore, the use teachers make of Dialogue Texts for role play is not
likely to develop fluency because:

- learners' communicative resources are restricted to the particular L2
lexical items and structures introduced in the unit, and the use of
other communicative resources like non-verbal communication or Ll is
not allowed;

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