Communicative Teaching Of Grammar

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UNIVERSITATEA „DUNĂREA DE JOS” GALAȚI

FACULTATEA DE LITERE

SPECIALIZAREA: LIMBA ENGLEZĂ

LUCRARE DE LICENȚĂ

2017

COMMUNICATIVE TEACHING OF GRAMMAR

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CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

1.COMMUNICATION AND COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE

1.1.DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN COMMUNICATION AND BEING COMMUNICATIVE

1.2.ESTABLISHING RELATIONS BETWEEN COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE AND GRAMMATICAL COMPETENCE

1.3.COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING

1.4.COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH TO GRAMMAR TEACHING

2.ON THE TEACHING OF PROGRESSIVE

2.1.THE PROGRESSIVE MEANING

2.2.HISTORY OF THE PROGRESSIVE ASPECT

2.3.DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE ROMANIAN AND ENGLISH ASPECT

2.4.ASPECTUAL CLASSES OF STATE VERB PHRASES

3.VALUES OF THE:

3.1.PRESENT SIMPLE/ PRESENT CONTINUOUS TENSE

3.1.1.THE PRESENT SIMPLE TENSE

3.1.2.THE PRESENT CONTINUOUS TENSE

3.2.PAST SIMPLE/ PAST CONTINUOUS TENSE

3.2.1.THE PAST SIMPLE TENSE

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3.2.2.THE PAST CONTINUOUS TENSE

4.TEACHING OF ENGLISH TENSES

4.1.TEACHING GRAMMAR

4.2.DEFINITION OF ASPECT VS TENSE

4.3.SOME SPECIFIC PROBLEMS IN THE TEACHING OF GRAMMAR

CONCLUSIONS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, the most accepted instructional framework in a language programs is Communicative Language Teaching, whose main goal is to increase learners’ communicative competence. This theoretical term means being able to use the linguistic system effectively and appropriately in the target language and culture. The implementation of a communicative methodology is not an easy task since it requires an understanding of the integrated nature of the theoretical concept of communicative competence.

Developing communicative competence has been in the forefront of classes for decades. Since Hymes introduced the concept into the world of linguistics in his pioneering work, a number of attempts have been made by theoreticians and empirical researchers to create models and specify its components, with the aim to provide theoretical bases for language teaching and testing practices.

In 2005, Farhady argues that communicative competence is complex in domain that speakers may not achieve it. Developing language learners’ communicative competence has been the ultimate aim of language teaching for more than four decades and the concept has served as the basis for working out communicative curricula.

Grammatical, or linguistic competence is of utter importance and certainly teachable which has been dominating communicative classrooms at the expense of the others. Language teaching approaches and methods as well as the content of coursebooks and the education of teachers have designated this direction.

As regards strategic competence, viewpoints differ. Since communication difficulties will arise even when the tongue is used, communication strategies develop through language. If adult learners enter into the learning situation with a developed strategic competence, there is no need to develop it. Others argue for the inclusion of strategy training into the language classroom on the ground that if strategic competence exists independently of the other components, it should be possible to cultivate it separately.

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Furthermore, achievement or resource expansion strategies, for example, circumlocution or time- gaining devices, are very useful in communication and enhance oral performance.

The real challenge is the development of sociolinguistic / pragmatic competence. A number of studies have addressed the issues of dealing with it in language environments, having come to important conclusions. One is that acquiring and teaching socio- pragmatic competence is rather problematic when compared to the acquisition and teaching of the other two, linguistic and strategic competences. The other conclusion is that besides easily causing miscommunication, deficiencies in socio- pragmatic competence receive more negative judgement from speakers.

In response to grammar method and audio- lingual method, the British linguists introduced Communicative language teaching (CLT) in 1960s which became a dominant language teaching approach in 1970s. Initially designed for ESL context, CLT was applied in English speaking countries where English teachers supported a skill- based, discovery- oriented, collaborative approach to education.

This thesis will demonstrate the developing of communicative teaching of grammar, through the implementation of communication and communicative competence, which includes relations between communicative competence and grammatical competence, Chomsky`s, Canale & Swain’s perspective on competence, sociolinguistics perspectives, communicative language ability, the role and guidelines of communicative competence in teaching, values of tenses and a communicative methodology, which includes the teaching of english tenses.

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1.COMMUNICATION AND COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE

1.1.DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN COMMUNICATION AND BEING COMMUNICATIVE

Communicating in a language requires the student’s good understanding of linguistic, sociolinguistic and socio- cultural aspects of that language. This understanding will enable him to use the right language in the right context for the right purpose and then he can be referred to as communicatively competent.

The realization of this level of knowledge and understanding is always a challenge for foreign language learners. They often struggle through their journey towards the achievement of this goal and met with many obstacles. Therefore, many arguments have been raised against designing language courses and programmes for foreign language contexts to achieve this goal.

The term ‘communicative competence’ was first introduced by Hymes in (1972) as a sociolinguistic concept in reaction to the concept of ‘linguistic competence’ which was proposed by Chomsky in 1965. Chomsky’s concept was “concerned with the tacit knowledge of language structure” but “omits almost everything of socio- cultural, significance”.1

According to Hymes (1972) ‘communicative competence’ refers to the level of language learning that enables language users to convey their messages to others and to understand others’ messages within specific contexts. It also implies the language learners’ ability to relate what is learnt in the classroom to the outside world. From this perspective, Hymes (1972) described the competent language user as the one who knows when, where and how to use language appropriately rather than merely knowing how to produce accurate grammatical structures.

1 D. Hymes, On communicative competence. In I.B.Pride & J. Holmes (eds.), Sociolinguistics, UK. USA: Penguin Books Ltd, 1972: 269-293.

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Hymes’ ideas about the ‘communicative competence’ were developed by Canale and Swain in 1980, who introduced a theoretical model of ‘communicative competence’. Their concept of ‘communicative competence’ refers to “the relationship and interaction between grammatical competence, or knowledge of the rules of grammar, and sociolinguistic competence, or knowledge of rules of language use”.2

Canale and Swain’s model of ‘communicative competence’ consists of three domains of knowledge and skills. They are ‘grammatical competence’, ‘sociolinguistic competence’ and ‘strategic competence’. Grammatical competence refers to accurate knowledge of sentence formation and vocabulary. Sociolinguistic competence refers to the language user’s ability to produce and understand language in different social contexts. Strategic competence refers to the ability of using language to achieve communicative goals and enhance the effectiveness of communication.3

The complexity of the notion of communicative competence increased by the development of the term Communicative Language Ability by Bachman in 1990. This term refers to both “knowledge, or competence, and the capacity for implementing or executing that competence in appropriate contextualised communicative language use”.4 Bachman suggested a framework for ‘Communicative Language Ability’ consists of three components including ‘language competence’, ‘strategic competence’ and ‘psychological mechanisms’.5

12 M. Canale & M. Swain, Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language teaching and testing. Applied Linguistics, 1980: 6.

13 M. Canale & M. Swain, Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language teaching and testing. Applied Linguistics, 1980: 28-31.

14 L. Bachman, Fundamental considerations in language teaching, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990: 84.

15 L. Bachman, Fundamental considerations in language teaching, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990: 107.

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He classified ‘language competence’ into ‘organizational competence’ and pragmatic competence’. The former includes ‘grammatical competence’ and ‘textual competence’. The last two types of competencies “ compromises those abilities involved in controlling the formal structure of language for producing or recognizing grammatically correct sentences, comprehending their propositional content, and ordering them to form texts”.6 The ‘pragmatic competence’ was divided by Bachman into ‘illocutionary competence’ and ‘sociolinguistic competence’. He explained that ‘illocutionary competence’ can be used for expressing the language to be taken “with certain illocutionary force” and for interpreting these language ‘illocutionary forces’.7 He defined the ‘sociolinguistic competence’ as the “sensitivity to, or control of, the conventions of language use that are determined by the features of the specific language use context”.8 In other words, it enables us to use the language appropriately to achieve certain functions in certain contexts. A distinctive feature of this framework is the inclusion of the neurological and psychological factors in language use through the introduction of the component of psychological mechanisms which refers to “neurological and psychological processes involved in the actual execution of language as a physical phenomenon”.9

Macaro (1997) referred to four popular beliefs among language teachers that facilitate the realization of the level of ‘communicative competence’. These beliefs include: giving more attention to speaking and listening skills than reading and writing, practicing more in communicating new information rather than ‘already known’ information, enhancing students’ involvement to overcome passive learning and focusing on practising the language in meaningful situations rather than on producing well- formed sentences or in individual words.10

6 L. Bachman, Fundamental considerations in language teaching, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990: 87.

7 Ibid: 92.

8 Ibid: 94.

9 Ibid: 84.

10 E. Macaro, Target Language Collaborative Learning and autonomy, Clevedon: Multilingual Masters LTD, 1997: 42-43.

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However, it should be noted that seeking the objective of developing students’ ‘communicative competence’ should not lead to focusing more on speaking and listening than reading and writing skills. The good command of any language requires reaching sufficient understanding of all the language skills.

In 2009, Moore introduced the concept ‘field language communicative competence’. He insisted on the importance of working within the field of language and pointed out the little research conducted on this aspect of communicative competence. Based on the findings of his research which was conducted in West Africa, he concluded that field language communicative competence “is dependent on more than the knowledge of and ability to use a given field language in ways that are grammatical and socioculturally appropriate”.11 This argument may put the goal of developing language learners’ communicative competence in terms of speakers through formal education which does not involve field language experience into question.

Despite the popularity of the term ‘communicative competence’ many teachers often find it a far reaching goal for language contexts.12 Therefore, many arguments have been raised against designing language programmes for contexts to achieve this level of competence.13 This is due to the challenges that have been encountered by both teachers and students in these contexts since the introduction of this concept. The language teachers in these contexts will face difficulty in choosing what skills are to be taught for students and in identifying the effective methods for developing students’ communicative competence.14

11L. C. Moore, On communicative competence, Commun., 2009: 9.

12 M. Sano, M. Takahashi & A. Yoneyama, Communicative Language teaching and local needs. ELT Journal, 1984: 170-177.

13 C. Alptekin, Towards intercultural communicative competence, ELT Journal, 56, 2002. 57- 64.

14 N. Huda, Language Learning and Teaching: Issues and Trends, Malang, Indonesia ; Ikipmalang Publisher, 1999.

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Another difficulty may result from teachers’ misunderstanding of the concept of ‘communicative competence’. In 2003, Nunan reported that three teachers had distinct views about this concept and were not able to distinguish between its ‘broader’ and ‘narrower’ meaning.15 In 2005, Butler pointed out the lack of clear definition about what constitutes communicative competence and about what teaching for achieving this aim constitute. He argued that implementing communicative activities in classrooms would not necessarily lead to enhance students’ learning.16

Another significant challenge which may encounter teachers in teaching language programmes aiming at developing students’ communicative competence is the high proficiency level required for the effective teaching of these programmes. In line with this argument, teachers’ proficiency level is always reported as an impediment for implementing communication methods for language teaching and learning.17

A relevant issue could be related to the difficulty of measuring language learners’ communicative competence or communicative language ability as there are many factors more than the language ability we intend to measure can affect the language user’s performance.18

15 D. Nunan, The impact of English as a global Language on educational policies and practices in the Asia-Pacific Region, TESOL Quarterly, 37, 2003: 589.

16 Y. Butler, 2005. Comparative perspectives towards communicative activities among elementary school teachers in South Korean, Japan and Taiwan, Language Teaching Research, 9 (4), 2005: 442.

17 S. Orafi & S. Borg, Intentions and realities in implementing communicative curriculum reform. System, 37, 2009: 243-253.

18 L. F. Bachman, Fundamental considerations in language teaching, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1990: 24.

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These difficulties and challenges led Alptekin (2002) to criticize the validity of the conventional model of ‘communicative competence’ in terms of speaker norms for contexts. He suggested redefining the concept of ‘communicative competence’ in terms of its use in language settings into “intercultural communicative competence”.19 This argument was later advocated by Sowden.20 It seems that complexities of the skills and the high proficiency level required for achieving communicative competence make it unrealistic objective for speakers.

These arguments suggest that course designers for language contexts have to be realistic in their expectations and aims when they design language courses or plan learning programmes. The formulation of the aims of these courses in terms of Alptekin’s (2002) concept of “intercultural communicative competence”21 can be a successful model.

Through setting attainable goals and selecting appropriate methodologies we can enhance the success of language learning programmes in language contexts.22

Reflecting on these arguments, the development of the communicative competence for foreign contexts in terms of the native speaker’s level seems to be a far-reaching goal. This could be due to the low language proficiency level of students and teachers’ in these contexts which is often reported as a major challenge. Setting the objectives of language learning in these contexts should be guided by the realities and specifications of these contexts. The complexity of the tasks which the FL learner needs to perform in learning the language through communication should be considered.

19 C. Alptekin, Towards intercultural communicative competence, ELT Journal, 56 (1), 2002.

20 C. Sowden, Culture and the ‘good teacher’ in the English classroom., ELT Journal, 61 (4), 2007: 304.

21 C. Alptekin, Towards intercultural communicative competence, ELT Journal, 56 (1), 2002: 63.

22 L. Segovia & D. Hardison, Implementing education reform: teachers’ perspectives, ELT, 63(2), 2009: 154-162.

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Klein (1986) explained that the language learner “must learn the language by which he intends to communicate” and “must communicate by means of the language he intends to learn”.23

However, integrating communication and learner as two complementary aspects of language instructional strategies may lead to improving students’ communication skills. The active participation of students in carrying out communication activities such as pair and group work, role- plays, games and problem- solving independently can develop their communication skills in order to be able to apply what they learn in classrooms in the outside world. Most importantly, these activities should offer the opportunity for students to learn about the sociolinguistic, grammatical and strategic aspect of the ‘communicative competence’. However, conducting English classes through teacher instruction may not lead to improve students’ communication skills.

The limited time devoted for students’ talk during these classes would not make any improvement on their communication skills.24 Moreover, it is not always possible for language learners to have the opportunity for living the field language experiences which Moore (2009) believed as an important condition for developing communicative competence.

There is a lack of consensus about what the term ‘communicative competence’ means. But in broad terms, it refers to the speaker’s ability to use the language appropriately in different linguistic, sociolinguistic and contextual settings. The realization of this level of language use requires a good command of all language skills.

Many course designers design language courses to end up with students’ development of communicative competence. However, the realization of this objective is not feasible for all language learners, especially the foreign ones. Many of them end their language courses without developing the required level of the communicative

23 W. Klein, Language acquisition, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1986: 146.

24 L. Cuban, How teachers taught: constancy and change in American classrooms 1890-199, . 2nd ed. NewYork : Teachers College Press, N.Y, 1993.

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competence. Different factors may contribute to this failure including teachers’ and students’ language proficiency, the traditional teaching methods with teacher centred instruction, the lack of opportunities for active language practice and the high expectations regarding the development of the communicative competence in comparison with native speakers. Another fundamental factor could be related to the lack of including field language experiences living with native speakers’ community for language learners to observe how native speakers use their language and how they interpret messages.

In language contexts, it is better to develop a model of communicative competence that takes into account the specific contextual, social and linguistic factors of the speakers. Therefore, local experts need to be involved in the process of designing the language learning materials for their own contexts.

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1.2.ESTABLISHING RELATIONS BETWEEN COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE AND GRAMMATICAL COMPETENCE

In 1965, Chomsky defines linguistic competence as speakers who could produce all of the grammatical sentences of a language. Chomsky refers to linguistic theory as primarily concerned with an ideal speaker- listener, in a completely homogeneous speech-community, who knows its language perfectly and is unaffected by grammatically irrelevant conditions as memory limitations, distractions, shifts of attention and interest and errors in applying his knowledge of the language in actual performance. In fact, Chomsky sets the goal of linguistic theory as description of the ideal speaker- hearers competence, his knowledge of grammaticality or sentences are part of his language. In short, Chomsky argues that the prime concern of linguistic theory is with the underlying knowledge, the competence of the ideal speaker- hearer, which underlying competence is the same for all native speakers and therefore can be studied in the productions of anyone individual, usually the linguist himself, who proceeds by introspection, checking potential sentences for grammaticality against his intuitions.25

Chomsky points out that the grammar of a language purports to be a description of the ideal speaker- hearers intrinsic competence. Furthenmore, a fully adequate grammar must assign to each of an infinite range of sentences a structural description indicating how the ideal speaker- hearer understands this sentence. Thus, by generative grammar, Chomsky means a system of rules that in some explicit and well defined way assigns structural descriptions to sentences. It should be clear that Chomsky's main concern is with the knowledge the speaker has about his language and not about how the speaker uses that knowledge. Therefore, Chomsky makes a distinction between what the speaker actually knows, such as competence and what the speaker does, such as performance about his knowledge.26

25 M. Coulthard, An Introduction to Discourse Analysis, Longman, London, 1988: 2.

26 N. Chomsky, Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, The M.I.T. Press, Massachusetts, 1969: 8.

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Chomsky's distinction of competence and performance is related to the langue-parole distinction of Saussure in Holdcroft.27 According to Holdcroft, Saussure's natural language (langage) is divided into langue (particular language) and parole (speech). The distinction between langue and parole can be explained in terms of their relations with each other, by means of a set of contrasts that Saussure makes:

Langue – Social; Essential; with no active individual role; Not designed.

Parole – Individual; Contingent; with an active role; Designed.

Parole is what people say in a language and langue is 'the social side of speech, outside the individual who can never create nor modify it by himself. Therefore, Rivers argues that grammar is not a description of parole, with its infinite and unpredictable possibilities of variation, but of the coherent system of patterning in langue.28

Nevertheless, Chomsky's distinction between competence and performance rejects Saussure's concept of langue as a systematic inventory of items and according to him returns rather to Humboldtian conception of underlying competence as a system of generative processes.

For Chomsky, competence is the speaker- hearer's knowledge of his language and is distinct from performance, which is the actual use of language in concrete situations. By way of clarifying this distinction, Chomsky uses the term 'acceptable' to refer to utterances that are perfectly natural and comprehensible without paper- and- pencil analysis, and in no way bizarre or outlandish. However, he points out that the notion 'acceptable' is not to be confused with 'grammatical', acknowledging that 'acceptability' is a concept that belongs to the study of performance, whereas 'grammaticalness' belongs to the study of competence.

Chomsky argues that the more acceptable sentences are those that are more likely to be produced and more easily understood more natural. Therefore, the sentences

27 D. Holdcroft, Saussure: Signs, System, and Arbitrariness, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991: 20.

28 W. M. Rivers, Teaching Language Skills, Chicago University Press, Chicago, 1981: 69.

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are low on the scale of acceptability but high on the scale of grammar. In other words, the generative rules of the language assign an interpretation to them in exactly the way in which they assign an interpretation to the acceptable sentences. Chomsky emphasises that grammaticalness is only one of many factors that interact to determine acceptability. This echoes Chomsky's conclusion that performance is a direct reflection of competence.

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1.3.COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING

The communicative language teaching begins in the early 1980s, in North America and Great Britain. Canale and Swain (1980) make a general distinction between grammar- based and communication- based approach to language teaching. Grammar- based or the grammatical approach is organized on the basis of linguistic, or grammatical form and emphasizes the way in which these forms may be combined to create grammatical sense.

A communicative approach is organized on the basis of communicative functions, for example apologizing, describing, inviting, promising that a learner needs to know and emphasizes the ways in which particular grammatical forms may be used to express these functions appropriately. There is a third approach made earlier by Morrow (1977) called the situational approach, which can be either grammatical or communicative. Although the communicative approach is approved, learning a language also requires knowledge of formal aspects like grammar and syntax, both approaches being important in language teaching. For example, Allen made a distinction between meaning- based, form- based and form- and meaning- based instructions, suggesting that both approaches ‘form’ and ‘meaning’ are important in education.29

There are different communicative language teaching methodologies, in which the principles of Communicative Language Teaching can be recognized: Use tasks as an organisational principle; Promote learning by doing; Input needs to be rich meaningful, comprehensible and elaborated; Promote cooperative and collaborative learning; Focus on form; Provide error corrective feedback; Recognize and respect affective factors of learning.

Developing students’ communicative competence provides arguments that sustain the adequacy of this research project by contrasting the details of the research projects that have taken place either in our country or abroad. A key point in this research constitutes the way in which language and communication are context bound.

29 B. Allen, New development in curriculum: the notional and the structural syllabus, Vancouver, B.C., Mimeo, 1978.

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Namely, in order to read a message sent by interlocutor one negotiates the message by taking into consideration the characteristics of the socio- cultural context. Therefore, when learning or teaching a language one should keep in mind the fact that language represents both a linguistic and a social phenomenon.

Through education in formal contexts, students are often encouraged to discover and relate to the culture of that specific culture. Because intercultural communication have become a norm in different fields of activity, in business, politics, economy it is fair to take into consideration its impact in education. Relating this matter to the field of teaching foreign languages, there is a new approach to teaching English and training students within their pre-service teacher training practice. Therefore, in order to be able to handle in an appropriate manner the intercultural contact, some changes are needed both as regards the methodology of teaching students and the teachers’ professional development stages. Likewise, both teachers and students should be trained in order to become intercultural competent speakers who have acquired a certain degree of intercultural communicative competence, intercultural knowledge, skills and attitudes.

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1.4.COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH TO GRAMMAR TEACHING

The communicative approach to grammar teaching can be supported by using Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL), which is any computer- based process by which learners improve their language skills.

Because represents a socially connected and technology driven generation, the implementation of Web 2.0 applications, such as social networking sites, blogs, wikis, video sharing or those applications that facilitate participatory and collaborative interaction between users, can encourage communicative language learning outside of class. This can promote the formation of language learning outside the classroom giving learners additional opportunity to interact socially and participate in the language. Collaboration and not competition, becomes the focus of the learning environment. These tools also allow language learners to interact and socialize with members of the target by using such technologies as skype, blogs, facebook, wikis, which serves to motivate learners in interacting using the target language within a culturally rich social online environment.

When used appropriately such technologies, because they are prevalent and widely used social tools, can help increase learner motivation outside of class and draw students back into the grammar and language outside of the classroom. Due to the nature of portable technology devices and smart phones, many students now have unlimited online access and can be reminded, throughout the day, of the target language. Implementing into the language curriculum those things that already interest language students can increase both participation and motivation.

CALL is an invaluable tool in assisting language students in developing certain language literacy such as reading, writing, cultural and digital literacy. CALL offers an increased potential to access input in the form of authentic literacy text. The Internet affords language teachers and learners easy access to virtually limitless sources of authentic texts and genres of literature. Studying this authentic literature is an important element of successful second language acquisition as it gives language learners a glimpse into authentic

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language production and provides a living example of how language is done.30 Written literature serves as a positive motivator and traditionally has been introduced in the language classroom in the form of print, but more recently has been introduced via YouTube, blogs, wikis, and other digital media. Genres of authentic literature include story- telling, personal narrative, prose, poetry, short stories, novels, drama, and even song lyrics. Each of these can provide valuable reading material for language students and can serve as the basis for lessons, activities and homework assignments.

30 D. Hymes, On communicative competence, Directions in Sociolinguistics. New York, NY: Hold, Rinehart and Winston, 1970.

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2.ON THE TEACHING OF PROGRESSIVE

2.1.THE PROGRESSIVE MEANING

Nowadays the progressive meaning is often defined in terms of the general linguistic concept of aspect, more particularly the contrast between perfective and imperfective aspect: a progressive verb form signals imperfective aspect with certain qualifications a non- progressive verb form typically signals perfective aspect. This is the view of Comrie (1976) and of many others who have looked into these matters recently.

If a situation is referred to perfectively, the whole situation is referred to in its entirety, without regard to its internal temporal structure. In the imperfective case, on the other hand, the reference is explicitly to the internal temporal structure of the situation and there is no implication of the situation being completed. In ‘I crossed the street when I noticed her.’ we are referring to the whole action of crossing the street – the reference is perfective – whereas ‘I was crossing the street when I noticed her.’ does not imply that I completed the action of crossing the street: I may have turned back when I noticed her, in order to talk to her, or perhaps in order to avoid having to talk to her; hence the reference is imperfective.

Leech and Quirk are more concrete in their definition of the meaning of the progressive. Both publications describe this meaning in three points: the progressive indicates duration; it indicates limited duration and it indicates that the happening, need not be complete.31

31 G. Leech, Meaning and the English verb, London: Longman, 1971: 19.

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2.2.HISTORY OF THE PROGRESSIVE ASPECT

The historical origin and development of the progressive construction in English has been discussed, by Dal (1952), Jespersen (1931), Mossé (1938), Nehls (1988), Nickel (1966), Traugott (1972, 1992) and Visser (1973). There seems to be general agreement that at least as far as form is concerned it derives most directly from a construction in Old English with parallels in many other early Germanic languages, which also consisted of a combination of a BE verb and a present participle, in Old English generally taking the ending -ende. According to Jespersen, this construction was more common in translations from Latin, especially of complex Latin verb forms, than in original Old English texts.32 The use of the Old English equivalent of the Modern English progressive is illustrated by „… æt scip wæs ealne weg yrnende under segle.” (From ‘The voyages of Ohthere and Wulfstan’); ‘… that ship was all the way running under sail.’, as translated by Traugott.

It may be noted that the translation also has the progressive, although in this context it does not seem mandatory in present- day English. As many have observed, the Old English construction often expressed a general durative meaning rather than the limited duration characteristic of the present- day progressive. Traugott quotes two Old English instances of the BE plus present participle construction where present- day English would have the non- progressive.

of Danai ære ie, seo is irnende of nor dæle ‘from Danai that river which is running (which runs) from northern- part’

æt seo ea biD flowende ofer eal Ægypta land ‘that this river is flowing (floods) all Egyptians’ land’

In Middle English two things happened: the BE plus present participle construction, never particularly frequent in Old English, became even less frequent and the form of the present participle changed, from taking the ending -ende to taking -ing, to

32 O. Jespersen, A modern English grammar on historical principles . Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard, 1931.

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coincide with the nominal verb form known as the gerund, also ending in -ing. This meant not only that the construction of BE plus present participle became more similar to the progressive construction we are familiar with today; it also meant that the Middle English construction of BE plus present participle became more similar to another construction that occurred in Old and Middle English, with BE followed by a the preposition on, plus the gerund, as in Old English

„ … ZyrstandæZ ic wæs on huntunZe … „..

Here huntunZe is the nominal verb form, the gerund, corresponding to Modern English hunting. The meaning of this construction was not different from that of the modern progressive: ‘Yesterday I was hunting.’

In Middle English similar constructions began to be common with just a light a before the main verb, as in ‘He was a- hunting.’, generally seen as a remnant of the full preposition.

If the preposition was not only reduced but dropped altogether, there was no longer any formal difference between the two constructions: that with BE followed by the present participle or by the gerund, without any intervening preposition.

At the same time that this levelling of the difference between the two constructions became widespread, at the transition from Middle to Modern English at around A.D. 1500, the combined construction consisting of BE plus an -ing-form seems to have started to increase in frequency.

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2.3.DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE ROMANIAN AND ENGLISH ASPECT

The grammatical correspondences which can be identified between Romanian and English languages have occurred as a result of adapting some linguistic concepts, ideas, which initially had been applied to the English grammar by their initiators, famous American or British linguists, to the Romanian language.

The new Romanian grammar, elaborated under the auspices of “Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rossetti” Institute of Linguistics, of the Romanian Academy from Bucharest, is remarkable for its profound reorganizations and a visible reconsideration, both of morphology and syntax. This thing proved to be a generator of difficulties for the teachers, used to focusing on another perspective upon grammar and for the students, who had learnt the old way of approaching grammar.

People who are not conversant with the subtlety of the English language cannot easily identify the origin of these changes, but for a graduate of the Faculty of Letters (English / Romanian specialization), interested in the grammar of the two languages, the English influence upon the new Romanian approach is obvious.

The inclusion of some parts of speech in types of classes is a structuralist idea, initiated in 1933 by L. Bloomfield who suggests that the parts of speech should be framed into morphological classes and he names four types of classes (class 1 words – nouns, class 2 words – verbs, class 3 words – adjectives, class 4 words – adverbs), the other parts of speech being considered form / functional words meant to help the classes of words function accordingly.33 Having as a starting point this idea, the new Romanian grammar suggests that all parts of speech and some categories should be included in classes and subclasses and names the class of inflexions, pronouns, numerals and quantitatives, determinants, proforms, substitutes, deictics, connectors and junctors.

33 L. Bloomfield, Language, New York, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1933.

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Another idea taken from the structuralist linguistic school is that of the identification of the two basic components of the sentence, called then immediate constituents, the Noun Phrase and the Verb Phrase and of the other subphrases: noun phrase, noun phrase substitute, prepositional phrase, adjectival phrase, adverbial phrase. Both in English and in Romanian, the phrase represents (in relation with the part of sentence) a component of the sentence whose basic characteristic is that it associates the word (the centre of the phrase) with all its determinatives.

Generative Transformational Grammar (GTG), through Noam Chomsky’s Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, initiated in the 60’s, proposed a set of subcategorization rules, meant to identify, at certain parts of speech, the existence (+) or not (-) of some features.34 For example, the noun dog may be characterized by the following features: Common, Mass, Concrete, Animate, Human, Male. On this basis, the new Romanian grammar tries to apply this principle, considering, for instance that a noun like apa may be described as having features such as: Materie, Abstract/ Concret, Animat, Masc.

Referring to the morphological category of gender, the English grammar mentions the existence of three basic genders: masculine, feminine and neuter, to which a fourth one may be added – the common or dual gender for nouns such as: doctor, teacher, parent. The Romanian grammar also mentions that the basic types of gender are: masculine, feminine and neuter, but the examples given in English are included in the class of epicene nouns. It is admitted the existence of some nouns of common gender, in which examples such as: mutulica, gura- casca, încurca- lume, pierde- vara are included.

In the taxonomic description of the nouns, a type of classification refers, in English, to Countable/ Count Nouns and Uncountable- Mass Nouns. The new Romanian grammar mentions the existence of uncountable nouns, such as: calm, curaj, importanta, but it also distinguishes a special category, that of the massive nouns (substantive masive < mass nouns), considered a semantic subclass of common nouns, designating undifferentiated material, such as: alama, apa, nisip.

34 N. Chomsky, Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press, 1965.

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The morphological category of aspect, specific to the English verbs (Indefinite/ Common for usual, repeated actions, Continuous/ Progressive for actions taking place in a certain moment, Frequentative and also Perfective/ Non-Perfective) is found in the Romanian grammar vision as well, which makes distinctions between the aspectual significations of the verb, between perfectiv (sa fi citit) and non- perfectiv (sa citesc) and between the aspectual value unic (Am citit cartea.), iterativ – repetitiv ( Am citit cartea de trei ori.) and frecventativ ( Am citit cartea saptamânal ).

Causative is a very debated term in English linguistics, because some linguists consider that it denotes or characterizes a voice or an aspect. Since in an example such as: I had my car repaired; the subject causes the direct object to suffer an action performed by someone else (by the agent) and the meaning is closer to a passive voice, it would rather be considered a type of voice, a subtype of the passive voice. In the Romanian grammar, the term is also found, presented causative – factitive reorganization with a pendant syntactic effect of the passive. The examples given in the Romanian grammar resemble the English ones: Efortul îl face pe sportiv sa oboseasca.= Spotivul e facut sa oboseasca (de efort).

A new category of subordinate clauses occurs in the new Romanian grammar, that of relative clauses, which owe their name to the introductory relative element. They can be restrictive and non- restrictive. In English, the term relative clause designates the attributive clauses, besides the two types: restrictive and non- restrictive, there is a third type, the sentential relative clauses, which no longer determine one word (a noun), but a whole clause or sentence.

Rom.: Baiatul [care vorbeste] e Mihai.(restrictive relative clause) Baiatul acela, [care e îmbracat în rosu ], e Mihai. (non-restrictive relative clause)

Engl. : The boy [who is speaking] is Mike. (restrictive relative clause) That boy, [who is dressed in red], is Michael. (non- restrictive relative clause) The boy is always crying, [which makes me angry]. (sentential relative clause).

In English, there are three different names for the Romanian term complement: object = Complement Direct, Indirect and Prepozitional, adverbial = Complement

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circumstantial and complement = Complementul subiectului (Numele predicativ), al adjectivului si al complementului direct (Complementul predicativ al obiectului). This last syntactical function, that of object complement has been introduced in the Romanian grammar, under the name of complementul predicativ al obiectului (CPO), with similar values to the English language: They elected him president.

The distinction between the Indirect Object (always in Dative) and the Prepositional Object (in Accusative), known under the name of Prepositional Indirect Object in Accusative (Complement indirect în Ac. cu prepozitie) is also due to the English influence, which makes distinction among Direct Object, Indirect Object (D) and Prepositional Object (Acc.)

Some of the English influences are adapted to the specific of the Romanian language, for example the correlation with the discourse analysis, referent, reference domain, while others are still unfit, being taken over from a language, English, which has nothing to do with Romanian (for instance the massive nouns). On the other hand, some ideas could have gone into the grammatical matrix of the Romanian language, but they were completely ignored, for example, although it is admitted that the predicative resembles the class of complements and that its relation implies both the verb and the subject, the Romanian grammar hasn’t taken the English term of subject complement, but that of predicative.

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2.4. ASPECTUAL CLASSES OF STATE VERB PHRASES

The progressive is typically used with dynamic rather than stative verbs, although the distinction is sometimes difficult to draw and there are quite verbs which would have to be classified as stative but which combine with the progressive in English. Some of the verbs combining with the progressive are nevertheless such as to draw attention to themselves when considered from the viewpoint of present- day English, because the verb is stative of a kind that would not be expected to appear in the progressive today. Here are some examples:

Therefore that which is in its Nature differing from the chief Good, cannot be said to be the Good it self.

I know you expect I should tell you what is become of the money I brought along with me: and I will gladly satisfy you in any thing. Some of it is yet remaining in my hands.

There is not any of the batcholers in this country are inclineing to marry this yeare that I heare of.

In all these constructions the progressive would seem questionable in present-day English, although not necessarily altogether impossible. In fact, in some such constructions the -ing-form might alternatively be seen as adjectival and be analysed as a subject complement: ‘to be differing’, in the first sentence is the same as ‘to be different’, and ‘to be inclineing’ in the third sentence, not very different from ‘to be inclined’.

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