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Context and Contextualized Language Practice in Foreign Language Teaching

Author(s): Joel Walz


Source: The Modern Language Journal, Vol. 73, No. 2 (Summer, 1989), pp. 160-168
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the National Federation of Modern Language Teachers
Associations
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Context and Contextualized Language
Practice in Foreign Language Teaching
JOEL WALZ
University of Georgia

RECENT LITERATURE ON LANGUAGE TEACH- language feature being taught. A natural pre-
ing has contained much information on and sentation approximating true discourse would
support for language "practice," especially in require a substantial amount of time and text
exercises that have been contextualized (Bene- to introduce, for example, the six persons of
vento; Bragger: 7; Omaggio: 48). The purpose eight to ten verbs of a class of present-tense
of this article is to examine this technique as regular verbs. Furthermore, the additional lan-
it appears in college-level French language text- guage forms needed to make communication
books published in the United States and as it natural would likely obscure the very pattern
fits into classroom instruction using a com- that makes "regular" verbs regular. Thus, for
municative approach and to suggest improve- pedagogical reasons, teachers and materials
ments. I writers have judged it worthwhile to "postpone"
Many exercises that allow for language prac- for a short time communicative language use,
tice are mechanical; the textbook (or teacher) when students will express original ideas while
presents a sample phrase or sentence in the perhaps making more grammatical errors, until
target language, then requires that the learner students are able to manipulate the feature
make changes that may be automatic. Other under consideration. Ariew (p. 25) refers to this
exercises and activities necessitate an under- as doing enough "calisthenics" to identify neces-
standing of the sentences by the learner or even sary forms before using the forms in authentic
permit a certain amount of free response. Gen- communicative activities. Omaggio recom-
erally, the range of language forms is very mends moving from drill to communication "as
limited so that the learner will "see" the mor- soon as possible" (49: p. 96).
phological or syntactic pattern, understand, The contrast between drill and communica-
practice, and learn it. Drills of this type have tive language use is best summed up by terms
long been a staple of foreign language teach- made popular by Rivers (56): "skill-getting" and
ing. A product of the audio-lingual method and "skill-using." Before students can use the for-
the habit theory of language learning (Cook), eign language in a communicative way, they
the idea of practicing language has survived must learn the forms that make up its various
almost thirty years of upheaval in the profes- parts. A problem with this approach to lan-
sion, virtually intact in some teaching mate- guage teaching is ascertaining what will lead
rials. Originally designed to be the primary students through the "skill-getting" stage most
focus of classroom teaching, drills have now efficiently. Cook has pointed out that the in-
assumed a secondary role, at least as described formation processing required by a structure
in theoretical treatises. Several textbooks on the drill is not at all the same as that of a conver-
market still limit exercise material to mechani- sation (p. 323). Others suggest doing away with
cal drills in which students have no choice in this type of activity altogether (Terrell: 76;
their answers; many do not. Krashen: p. 26; Chastain).
One of the most important justifications for One answer to the question of "skill-getting"
the use of exercises is to provide a very eco- currently recommended is to contextualize text-
nomical presentation and use of all forms of the book exercises. The idea of providing a con-
text for drills has a long history. Bruton re-
ported twenty years ago that the technique was
The Modern Language Journal, 73, ii (1989) in vogue in Great Britain. In the United States,
0026-7902/89/0002/160 $1.50/0
the first French textbook to contextualize is
?1989 The Modern Language Journal
probably the first edition of Valette & Valette

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Context & Contextualized Language Practice 161
(1976). Some scholars have emphasized that textualized exercises as "passe" (p. 129). Few
sentences within a drill should be related have disagreed. Stevick points out that per-
(Galloway: p. 46; Rivers, 59: p. 110). Uncon- sonalized exercises, which have a type of con-
nected, non-contextualized sentences give text involving students in the class, take more
strange juxtapositions making meaning harder time and may seem artificial (p. 71), while
to grasp because of what Hieke calls "semantic Chastain objects (p. 163) that a context does
disorientation" (p. 210), as in this example: not necessarily force the learner to make choices
as true communication does.
A. Placez l'adverbe dans la phrase.
3. Ily a un examen le vendredi. (gineralement) One problem in this area is that the defini-
4. Tout le monde a un nez. (naturellement)2 tion of context seems to have changed over the
years. Context is the situation in which com-
Connecting sentences with the same situation,
munication is taking place: the who, what,
theme, or semantic field may help students re-
when, where, why (Scott) of basic journalism.
tain the material better:
A context is crucial to understanding in the
B. Vie quotidienne. Faites des phrases completes. Utilisez domain of reading, for example (Phillips: 52;
les verbes indiquis au temps convenable. Schulz: 67). As Frank Smith writes, ". . . what
1. Le dimanche, nous / se reveiller / tard. Mais le makes meanings and individual words become
week-end passi, nous /se lever /assez tot /et nous /
transparent to us is context, which means the
se promener / le parc.
general sense in which the element is em-
2. Autrefois (Formerly) ma soeur /se coucher / avant
minuit. Maintenant elle / se prdparer / d passer /
bedded" (p. 111). Even in science fiction,
examen. potentially the most decontextualized of all
forms of communication since authors can
A context provides additional information: invent any reality they choose, readers find
people and activities or descriptions.3 themes and myths familiar to their own culture
C. A la plage. Your group went to the beach last and thus understand more easily (Scholes-&
Saturday. Tell what happened by putting the Rabkin). Likewise, a context is absolutely
following sentences in the passi compost Be sure essential with the other receptive skill, listen-
to use the correct reflexive pronoun in each ing comprehension (Byrnes; Rivers, 57: pp.
sentence.
162-65). Another area where a context is ex-
1. Nous / se reveiller / tdt tremely useful is vocabulary learning (Rivers:
2. Meme (even) mes camarades de chambre /se lever
/ vite
58; Rosenthal; Wallace), although it may not
3. On / s'habiller be essential (Cunningsworth).
4. Hilhne / se dipecher / pour prendre l'autobus
When one suggests that contextualizing a
mechanical exercise is the same as adding a
Students completing this exercise would not context as defined above, the meaning of the
only practice reflexive verbs, but would also term has changed. The frequent references
create a ten-sentence story in chronological (e.g., Oller: 45; Slager) to Jespersen's 1904
order. lament about unrelated sentences in textbooks
Another use of contextualization not fre-
of his time cannot be taken as an argument for
quently mentioned is the possibility of combin- contextualization of grammar drills because he
ing culture with other aspects of the curricu- was referring to reading passages, not gram-
lum (here, language practice), as Lafayette mar drills (31: p. 11). At the time, readings
(p. 9) recommends. For example: were strings of sentences designed to show mor-
D. In France the week begins on Monday; in the phological variations. Since they carried no
U.S. it begins on Sunday. Say where the fol- content, they had no context. His contempo-
lowing days fall (in the week) in the country rary, Gouin, would be a better example since
given in parentheses ... his Series Method relies on sentences that are
1. Monday (United States) not only related, but that must be in chrono-
3. Sunday (France)
logical order.
Littlewood recommends contextualization,
The latest impetus for contextualizing exer- but does not refer to the creation of imaginary
cises has come from the proficiency movement, people and events. For him, drills should take
where it is given as a basic rule for developing the form of a conversation between students,
oral proficiency (Bragger, 7: p. 66; Omaggio, but with predetermined answers. In this way,
49: p. 51). Benevento has described non-con- the functions of asking and answering questions

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162 Joel Walz

exist in a context of the classroom and specific exercises are series of isolated sentences on the
students, but the content of the exchange does same topic; the sentences may be related, but
not necessarily have a context. When Omaggio they are almost never connected. Connected dis-
(49) recommends a drill of the subjunctive course involves a logical progression, a reprisal,
using various made-up political figures because and a continuity of thought. On a grammatical
"the use of the subjunctive . . . is . . . bound level, one often finds an elaborate system of
to occur naturally in a political context" (pp. pronouns and also connecting words, such as
94-95), she separates context from contextuali- conjunctions. Some sentences in connected dis-
zation. Frank Smith gives the ambiguous sen- course are not even comprehensible without in-
tence --"The police were ordered to stop drink- formation that precedes or follows. On the
ing after midnight" (cited in Kellerman: p. other hand, textbook sentences, even related
32)- to show how it is impossible to understand ones, if produced by a testee, would be rated
what you are reading without a context. intermediate, not advanced. Of course, the stu-
Omaggio (49) states that her example "links dents are not producing these sentences; they
forms with meanings" (p. 95), but the link is read or repeat them. But these exercises rarely
weak because no inherent relationship exists be- represent connected discourse:
tween the context of politics (and especially E. Habitudes matinales. Chacun a ses habitudes le matin.
imaginary politics) and the subjunctive mood Faites des phrases compltes pour les dicrire.
in French as there does with a natural text and
1. Sylvie / se regarder / longtemps / dans / le miroir
its content. Contextualization in this case 2. tu / se brosser / dents / avec / dentifrice
makes thematically related sentences, but it 3. nous / se lever / du pied gauche
does not force students to understand (Chas-
tain; Ellis & Roberts; Scott). Even example C above, which contains a recog-
Contextualization, especially with respect to nizable chronology, does not show connected
mechanical drills, does not seem to be the same discourse. Rare exceptions exist, of course,
as creating a context, which is the topic and such as the traditional passages used to test the
situation of a communicative act that are neces- differences between the passe compose and the
sary for understanding. To evaluate the prac- imperfect. There nevertheless seems to be a
tice of contextualizing exercises, I analyzed misuse of the idea of connectedness; instead of
twenty-five textbooks for the teaching of begin- developing an idea through natural discourse,
ning French on the college level published or most exercises present groups of non-isolated
re-issued between 1984 and 1988.4 I assume sentences.6 Since true first-year students could
that any situation at the beginning of an exer- not hope to produce advanced-level speech, this
cise created by textbook authors that goes problem is one of theory rather than
beyond simple directions and that attempts to practicality.
add realism is a contextualization. While some Second, contextualization seems to have re-
of the examples below may be criticized as not introduced repetitiveness in drills since it has
having true contexts, I believe that the authors the potential of limiting an exercise to one sub-
intend for us to interpret them as contexts. ject or one subject and verb:
Three of the twenty-five textbooks examined
F. Quels pays visiter? Agnes is talking about the
contextualize virtually all drills, thirteen con- countries she would like to visit. What does she
textualize many or most, and nine had none say?
at all.
Moddle: Italie Je voudrais aller en Italie.
In contrast with the positive aspects of con- 1. Portugal; 2. Grice; 3. Mexique; 4. Japon; 5.
textualized exercises mentioned above, I find Chine; 6. Norveige; 7. Canada; 8. Tunisie; 9. Russie;
seven problems with them. I will discuss each 10. Sindgal; 11. Egypte; 12. Etats-Unis
finding in order of increasing importance in my
opinion and provide examples.5 Although students may appreciate the isolation
First, Omaggio (49) states that non-contex- of elements because the drills are much easier
tualized exercises would be improved if the sen- to do than when two or more elements change,
tences were "connected to one another in a logi- highly repetitive drills do not correspond to the
cal sequence or relationship" (p. 94). The ability integrative nature of language emphasized by
to connect sentences is an important criterion proficiency theorists.
in the ACTFL scale, indicating the difference Third, because a context limits each exercise
between the intermediate and advanced levels to a specific topic, the writer may have to
(20: p. 134). This analysis shows that textbook stretch the limit of the students' vocabulary.

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Context & Contextualized Language Practice 163
G. D'autres questions contemporaines. Composez un Chastain points out that contextualization
slogan pour exprimer votre opinion sur les sujets often does not force students to make choices,
suivants selon le moddle. as one must in communicative situations. To
MODELE: . . .
test this statement with respect to French text-
1. l'alcoolisme au volant* (drunk-driving) 2. la
books, I examined twenty contextualized drills
faim dans le monde 3. l'analphabitisme (illiteracy)
(mechanical and meaningful) chosen at random
4. la riduction des impdts (taxes) 5. I'essor (soaring)
from five of the most widely-sold books. I found
du budget militaire 6. I'ouverture des frontieres
(borders) aux immigrants 7. la ligalisation de la two drills where outside information (realia ac-
marijuana 8. la course aux armements (arms race) companying the exercise) was essential in order
9. le sexisme to give the right answer, but this type of ac-
*le volant (steering wheel) tivity is not very different from comprehension
questions on a reading passage. With only one
While this exercise is meaningful and even of the one hundred exercises did the context
communicative if students give true opinions, force the student to make a choice (it is example
six of the nine suggestions have to be translated, D above). I will cite additional examples below.
with one having a translation in parentheses Fifth, Stevick mentions that non-contextual-
and another partial one as a footnote. ized exercises take less time than ones that have
Fourth, even though a context creates mean- a context. With many exercises, the context
ing, it does not change the nature of a mechani- places a true burden on the class:
cal drill. Jeffries' statement that "mechanical
J. Diffirences. Laurent aime icouter de la musique en
drills can be made more meaningful by adding
faisant autre chose. Colette priferefinir son travail pour
a context and a sentence combination task"
pouvoir mieux se concentrer. Quant a Nadine et Paul,
(p. 18) is questionable. According to the clas- ils sont trop impatientes pour attendre. Quand Laurent,
sification system developed by Paulston (50 & Colette, Nadine et Paul ecoutent-ils de la musique?
51), a drill is only meaningful if one has to Moddles faire mes devoirs
understand it to accomplish the task. Hosenfeld Laurent icoute de la musique en faisant ses
demonstrates that students will do the absolute devoirs.

minimum to get the right answer including not et Colette icoute de la musique apres avoirfait ses
devoirs.
even reading the entire sentence (much less the
et Nadine et Paul icoutent de la musique avant de
directions). Cohen discovers that, at any given
faire leurs devoirs.
point in class, half the students are not even
1. lire lejournal 2. aller a l'universiti
paying attention (he uses the more diplomatic
"attending to content"). To counteract these If the goal of this exercise is to enable students
problems, a context must do more than embel- to use present participles and infinitives in
lish. The following exercise has a long context, order to talk about what they themselves like
but the answers are automatic:
to do, then we need a quicker route to that skill
H. II a seche" (cut) le cours. Marc a seche" le cours de than this exercise provides.
philosophie hier matin. II vous demande de lui preter Sixth, contextualization can mask the dis-
votre cahier, vos notes de classe, etc. Comme vous etes tinction between mechanical, meaningful, and
une personne ginereuse, vous voulez bien l'aider. Avec communicative activities. I first noticed this
un(e) camarade de classe, jouez les deux roles. Suivez
le moddle.
problem when observing beginning teachers
using a textbook that had non-contextualized
MODELE: Marc: Tu me prites tes notes de classe?
Vous: Oui, je te les prite.
mechanical drills, contextualized meaningful
Marc: Alors, prete-les-moi.
drills, and communicative activities. The teach-
1. Tu me pretes ton cahier? ers consistently spent their time (after grammar
2. Tu me donnes ta copie de la confirence? discussions) on the mechanical and meaningful
ones with no time left for communication. The
Students do not need to listen to or read the reasons they gave were that they thought they
directions (or context) to give a correct answer. had to do the exercises in order and that they
Even at Paulston's meaningful level, students can did not realize the difference in importance in
often perform the task without the context:'7 talking about imaginary people and talking
I. Cours de Traduction. Le professeur a demand6 a ses about the students in class. Deyes finds through
itudiants de traduire les phrases suivantes. Comment an analysis of his own teaching that students
faut-il les traduire? have very little time to speak during class. After
4. I stayed in the sun for two hours. analyzing the interaction in 864 middle and
5. They got married a week ago. high school foreign language classes, Nerenz

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164 Joel Walz
reports that only 0.4 percent of available time of sentence two (teacher or student) is obviously
is spent on communication.8 Nunan analyzes not returning from Amsterdam.
the instruction of several highly trained, experi- Another example:
enced ESL instructors who thought they were L. Je viens de . . . Use elements from each column
engaged in communication when they actually to tell ten things that you have just done.
spent more time on drill. He cites five other Moddle: Je viens d'arriver a Chicago.
studies that found the same problem. Rogers changer de 1'eau
agrees that beginning teachers often fail to dis- voyager d Chicago
tinguish between mechanical and communica-
tive exercises.
The model sentence, which means "I have just
arrived in Chicago," is not only not a context,
The problem of untrained teachers on the
it is semantically impossible and destroys the
college level is enormous. One large, midwest-
meaning of the expression being practiced, venir
ern university reports that forty-one percent of
the students taking the first course in beginning de--to have just. In fact, few of the eleven pro-
French in the fall of 1987 had teachers with no posed actions in this exercise are even remotely
possible.
pedagogical experience or training (other than
In conclusion, the notion of context as back-
an orientation program).9 In the author's de-
ground information essential for understanding
partment, the figure was sixty-one percent. Al-
comes from theories of reading, listening compre-
though this problem would not be as great at
hension, and vocabulary building. When changed
the school level because of required practice
to the contextualization of practice exercises,
teaching nor in small colleges where faculty
which represent morphological changes pri-
teach the elementary levels, it is cause for con-
marily, it is simply added on. In other words,
cern. Many teachers still do not use communi-
having several lexical items for different parts
cative methods in class, and teacher trainers of a car in the same exercise makes the items
will have to renew efforts to help novice teach-
easier to learn. Knowing the mechanics of how
ers recognize what is communicative and what a car works makes it easier to understand a
is not. Rogers describes one successful ap-
reading passage or a conversation on the topic,
proach, which I will discuss below.
but no evidence exists that any specific context
Seventh, contextualization frequently im-
makes morphological changes, such as verb
poses a false reality or situations that are con-
endings, easier to remember.
trary to fact, thereby contradicting any notion
Nevertheless, we have just seen that French
of authentic communication. Rivers (59) points
out that traditional exercises "often show dis-
textbooks and the broader-based pedagogical
literature place considerable emphasis on con-
regard for reality" (p. 108), or what Wolfe less
textualized language practice. For example,
charitably calls "forc[ing] students to lie" (p.
Omaggio presents a sample lesson plan to teach
175). Contextualization often does not correct
partitive and indefinite articles in the negative.
this fault, but can aggravate it by adding a false
She recommends twenty-seven minutes of con-
notion of reality. For example:
textualized manipulation and only eight min-
K. Your tour group has had one week for indi- utes of conversational practice (49: pp. 420-
vidual travel. Members of the group are now 21). Surely this plan is out of balance in a pro-
returning to Paris. Say where each one is re- gram designed to develop oral proficiency.
turning from by filling in the blank with the
correct form of revenir.
I would like to recommend a two-part ap-
proach to improve the teaching of foreign lan-
1. Jacqueline de Rome.
2. Vous d'Amsterdam. guages with respect to drill and communication
in the areas of teacher (re)training and peda-
We often hear the statement that teachers gogical materials. Regarding teacher training,
should not ask students to put the same sen- supervisors need to emphasize the importance
tence in the affirmative and negative, because of communication in the classroom. Rogers de-
it is unrealistic to do and not to do the same scribes a situation where detailed explanations
thing at one time (Schulz: 68; Slager: p. 39). are necessary and recommends providing les-
So if the reason for adding a context is to in- son plans with that type of activity prepared
crease meaning and realism, how can we ignore in advance along with furnishing cultural mate-
the fact that the meaning of exercises such as rials, all to be followed by informal discussions
K is often wrong? No one is named "Jacqueline" with the supervisor about what worked in class.
who is returning from Rome, and the "Vous" Experienced teachers need not be convinced of

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Context & Contextualized Language Practice 165
the necessity of including communication ac- if one or two of the sentences gave bad advice
tivities in classroom teaching. Instead, more (deleting the ne pas from sentence two, for
information is needed on why many teachers example). In an annotation to this exercise, the
do not seem to use them. Perhaps more self- authors recommend asking students to formu-
analysis would help. Moskowitz describes train- late their own advice, which is the best way of
ing beginning teachers in interaction analysis eliminating mechanical responses because it
to sensitize them to what is going on in class, allows the class to progress smoothly from a
including obtaining original responses from stu- meaningful to a communicative activity. It is
dents. Medley describes other strategies for an activity that will take more time and be more
self-evaluation. interesting than the original exercise, and it will
With experienced teachers in in-service probably increase understanding. But teachers
courses and seminars, it would be appropriate believe in drills also. Therefore, they must be
to re-examine the value of contextualized exer- made aware of the distinctions between drills
cises. Unless the context forces students to and communication.
choose among alternative responses, it does not Since the contextualization of mechanical
increase the meaning of the items (Chastain; drills can mask their true nature, we need con-
Stuart Smith). It is quite surprising that so few texts that must be understood to accomplish the
textbook drills require such a choice since they task, as in the revision of example M; such
are easy to create. Abbs co-authored textbooks exercises are currently almost impossible to find
ten years ago that contain many such drills. in college French textbooks. Pedagogical mate-
Omaggio (48) gives an example of verbal rials would profit most from the following for-
expressions as appropriate or inappropriate mat: 1) sentences in mechanical drills should
conduct for guests in someone's home, which be related in meaning and introduced with a
permits students to practice affirmative and brief title in the directions, as several books now
negative commands (pp. 56-57). Chastain rec- do (see examples B and E above); 2) contex-
ommends (p. 164) giving students verbal ex- tualized meaningful drills must have very short
pressions and having them indicate which ones directions and must force students to make a
are commonly done in class, thereby practicing choice when providing a response. By Paul-
verb morphology and negation. Stuart Smith ston's definition, a meaningful drill must
suggests listing foods and having students indi- require comprehension. This improvement
cate whether a vegetarian would eat them, would take advantage of the potential for in-
which allows students to practice partitives. creased meaning for some students; 3) most of
The "forced choice" is essential to requiring the activities should be neither of the above,
comprehension, and it makes an excellent ac- but should be communicative, where the con-
tivity for teacher training classes, seminars at text is the students' experience and opinions.
professional meetings, or Academic Alliance Since the textbook cannot predict student
gatherings. Teachers can pick a few contex- answers, annotations for the teachers can sug-
tualized exercises in the textbooks they use and gest avenues to follow to elicit natural ex-
determine how to change the directions to force changes and encourage interaction among stu-
the students to listen or read for meaning. For dents. Several books do this now, but the class-
example: room interaction studies mentioned above do
M. Longe'viti. Quel est le secret des centainaires not show that foreign language classes have
(100-year-old persons)? Jouez le role de Jean availed themselves of these opportunities.
Laviolette, un centainaire, et donnez des conseils aux
Almost twenty years after the profession
gens qui veulent vivre longtemps. Suivez le modle.
began discussing communicative competence,
Modle: Il est important de bien manger. Il est impor-
tant que vous mangiez bien!
very few textbooks have enough activities to
allow communication to dominate class time.
1. Il faut prendre un peu de vin a chaque repas. 2.
Il est essentiel de ne pas fumer. 3. Il est necessaire One reason is the time in class/space in text-
de rester calme en toutes circonstances. books that drills take up. Contextualization, as
it is currently done, is not an adequate solu-
The exercise is mechanical according to Paul- tion to the need for more realism because many
ston's classification system because all the of the drills take too much time, confuse drill
advice is good, thereby permitting students to and communication, and encourage inappro-
convert the sentences without having to under- priate meanings or no meaning at all. Higgs
stand them. A forced choice would be possible and Birckbichler point out that no textbook can

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166 Joel Walz
interact in a communicative manner with stu- contexts that will encourage communication,
dents as the other people in the same class can. and to do so, they will have to avoid delaying
Teachers have the responsibility for creating this moment in the learning process.

in these books line by line to find the most striking examples.


NOTES I believe that the problems I discuss are prevalent and not
isolated cases.

6I am grateful to an anonymous referee for the MLJ for


1This is a revised and amplified version of part of my suggesting this term. An obvious criticism of this analysis
talk, Grammar vs. Proficiency-Based Syllabi: Is There a Differ- is that the teacher plays a vital role by implementing the
ence?, given at the annual meeting of the American Council exercises and perhaps may overcome some of these prob-
on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, Atlanta, GA, lems. I point out elsewhere (81) that textbooks must stand
November 1987. Throughout this article, I will follow the alone in an analysis as we have no idea what teachers will
common practice of using the term exercise to refer to mate- do. Unless we adopt this position, no critical evaluation
rial designed to help students practice language forms, and of textbooks is possible (p. 16). Ariew, for example, believes
activity to refer to material that allows them to use the lan- that teachers follow many aspects of a textbook because
guage communicatively. redoing them requires an excessive amount of work (p. 17).
2As I explain later in this article, all the examples I use Rogers feels that inexperienced teachers simply do what
are taken from the current editions of textbooks designed is in the textbook.
to teach elementary French on the college level. I will fol- 7Stevick writes that contextualized exercises can seem
low the policy of my earlier article (81) of not identifying annoying as well as artificial (p. 71). I felt that this is too
the exact source because this is to be an evaluation of a subjective a finding to add to the seven other problems I
teaching technique as much as an evaluation of textbooks. propose, but it does have merit. Example Icould be a case
I have shortened the exercises because of space limitations, in point, since the "context" does not relate to the meaning
but have not changed their basic nature. The numbers of of the sentences that follow. I think that exercises such as
individual sentences within each example are the original this one are the result of two marketing, not pedagogical,
ones, as are any translations. decisions: to keep all types of exercises (here, translation)
3See, for example, Bialystock; Bragger, 8; Jeffries; Oller, in a book to appeal to as broad a clientele as possible and
44; Slager; Clyde Smith; Stevick. a conflicting desire to advertise that every exercise in the
4See the following references in the bibliography: 4, 9, book is contextualized. The result is so artificial that it
10, 13, 19, 24, 25, 26, 30, 33, 39, 41, 46, 53, 54, 55, 60, reduces the importance of contexts in other exercises.
61, 64, 65, 74, 77, 78, 79, and 82. 8Nerenz did not have a specific category for "communi-
5I would like to emphasize that the exercises quoted below cation" in her analysis. I am using the figure from "free
are offered only as examples of my findings and not as proof. conversation." The only other possible category is "warm
By reading a corpus of this size and choosing selectively, up," but she describes it as primarily teacher talk.
one could demonstrate many points. On the other hand, 9Personal communication.
I did not read the ten to fifteen thousand pages contained

& Michael H. Long. Rowley, MA: Newbury


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