10 Review Study Questions and Discussion

Q.  In this book you sometimes use the expression "communicative competence" and at other times "transactional competence."  Is there a difference?  And if so, what?

A.  This book was written over a three-year period.  The parts written earlier use the expression "communicative competence" while, more recently, we've preferred to use the expression "transactional competence." (Note: The chapter orders do not reflect relative order of writig over the three year period.)

The reasons for our preference for "transactional competence" are discussed in the early parts of Chapter 7.  We find communication theory too restrictive since the ordinary uses of language are not chiefly oriented tot he transmission of information but rather to the structured display of rituals in the form of transactional moves and replies.

Q.  Why does the language teacher have to concern himself with the theoretical sophistications outlined in Part III of your book?

A.  We discuss this problem in chapter 5.  As long as the language teacher is a consumer of the basic research generated by psychologists and linguists, he must defer to their authoritative conclusions since the register of their research reports are too esoteric and technically specialized to permit evaluation by the teacher.  We have argued that basic research techniques are not effectively productive for generating applied knowledge.  The latter must be produced by the person who is going to use it and is closet to the data, namely the teacher himself.

Q.  Is there a connection between your "transactional engineering analysis" and Eric Berne's "Transactional Analysis" or "TA?"

A. No connection whatsoever.  Transactional Engineering analysis of TE derives from Erving Goffman's work on the transactional ritual of everyday interactions and its approach is based on the ethnomethodological perspective as developed by Garfinkel, Sacks, Schegloff and their coworkers.

Q. What, then, is "educational psycholinguistics?"

A. The ethnomethodological perspective is offered as a new paradigm in contrast to the traditional psycholinguists of the other paradigm.  Because our focus has been on the investigation of the instructional register, we refer to this new paradigm as "educational psycholinguistics."  The chief premises that this new perspective entails include the following:
1. Teaching as conversation
2. Conversation as transactions
3. Transactions as moves and reply moves.
4. Transactional moves as generated by a register
5. Register as a  subsystem of rules appropriate for specialized functions.
6. Classroom interactions as governed by the instructional regiser.
7. Analysis of the instructional register through observation of ongoing classroom activities.

Q. What is the relevance of educational psycholinguistics for FL teaching?

A. There are two relevant aspects.  On the one hand, the FL teacher is a teacher, and, therefore, must concern himself with the effective engineering of appropriate instructional transactions.  On the other hand, the topic or content of the FL course involves the transactional components as displayed in the target code.  Thus, the FL teacher must be familiar with the methods of educational psycholinguistics in order to teach the content and structure of transactional performance in the target code.

Q. What is the relevance of "authenticity" for FL teaching?

A. The authenticity of a transactional move depends on the shared awareness on the part of coparticipants of the interpersonal significance of the move beyond its visible content.  Thus, expressing compliance to a request, for instance, may signfy, beyond the compliance itself, a dependency role relationship, or it may not, and to the extent coparticipants are aware of these implications to that extent the transaction has an authenticating context.  Inauthentic contexts cooccur with manipulative, competitive and victimizing moves in ordinary settings.

The FL teacher who adopts this new conception of teaching places emphasis on the facilitation of enacted transactional performances in an authentic context rather than on pacing or visible demonstrations of skills for test purposes.  His style of teaching changes.  He becomes more toleratnt of incomplete or incorrect utterances and is more aware that the practicing student is involved in the execution of his enacted performacne as well as in the aceptability of his display.  He finds dull practice intolerable and avoids it in favor of the integrity of the ongoing authentic interaction trusting that each individual student will react according to his own timetable of acquistion and attempted performance.  He avoids the loud talking register whereby he tries to teach others a point of lesson under the guise of talking to Johnny in the presence of others.  

Instead, the authentic FL teacher performs in the classroom the authentic use of the target code, thereby providing the relevant learning opportunity for practicing the target skills.

The authentic FL teacher avoids emphasis on the cognitive aspects of FL studey in favor of its experiential aspects.  Thus, he minimizes linguistic explanations (except where the student has a specialized interest in it) and linguistic practice exercises and assignements.  Instead, he finds ways of increasing the student's performative practice of authentic language use.  He does this in a number of ways.  By talking to each student in a personally relevant way.  By splitting the class into dyads or triads so that each student has the opportunity to perform.  By enlisting the help of student aides, parents, and paraprofessionals.  By making use of the mass media and audio visual aids as stimulants for subsequent authentic interactions (discussions, projects, games).

The current dilemma of the Fl teacher is not the lack of opportunity for creating authentic transactions within the school context but the rigidity with which she tends to adhere to the necessity of linguistically oriented practice, an attitude that is reinforced, often demanded, by the administrative setting.  The latter orientation is supported by existing insitutional procedures including teacher training, curricular program that become well entrenched, commercially produeced packages of materials, standardized norms on a small number of widely used tests, the literature adn ongoing research, the convention speeches, and so on, and so on.  It's the heavy machinery of enmeshed institutional gears creating the inertia of precedent and organized control over progressivist innovations.

Fortunately, all of this need not necessarily impede the FL teacher from engineering authentic instructional transactions in the clasroom.  The increasing use of behavioral objectives as a predefined assessment program can readily be employed in the service of authentic FL teaching by defining behvaioral objectives in terms of specified transactional performances, thus providing the Fl teacher with a convenient substitute for the current despotic influence of nationally standardized discrete point tests of knowledge of a second language.

We believe that FL teachers are going to play a special and unique role in the innovation of novel and creative froms of authentic teaching.  The future of FL teaching, seems to us, is even brighter than its distinguished past.

Q. Where can one obtain information about Transactional Engineering Workshops for FL teachers?

A. By writing to: Transactional Engineering Corporation, 48 Palm Island, Miami Beach, Florida, 33139.

Q. What is the relevance of the concept of "authenticity" to the teaching of a second language?

A. There are two relevant aspects.  One derives from the fact that can gain in efficiency through the greater awareness obtained when using techniques of transactional engineering.  But in addition to this, the FL teacher stands to profit from this approach in a special and unique way because transactional engineering analysis provides him with a taxonomy of transactional moves and registers that he can use as content for his lessons on the target code.  This notion was specifically elaborated in Chapter 4.

The concept of authenticity, furthermore, clarifies for the FL teacher, the nature of desirable conversational practice in the FL course.  Simulated restricted dialogues and an exchange of directed replies constitute insufficient conditions for practicing the authentic use of language.  Knowledge of transactional engineering analysis allows the FL teacher to engineer conversational interactions in the target code that are real and genuine uses of language, hence promoting faster learning.

Q. What is your belief on the relative advantages of structured and unstructured teaching?

A. To us, the expression "unstructured teaching" is a contradiction in terms.  The activity of teaching, if the term is going to retain a meaning that distinguishes this activity from other activities, implies structuring a sequence of instructional activities.  Now, of course, there are innumerable ways of structuing instructional activities, and the question arises "Which way is best?"
Q.What does the master FL teacher know which the run of the mill sort doesn't know?

A. We would change the emphasis from "know" to "do", for it is not necessary for an effective teacher to "know" wherein his effectiveness lies.  The master FL teacher places his confidence in the actuality of the instructional transactions that are ongoing rather than in the alleged power of the method he uses or the alleged learnability of the materials.  He views FL learning, not as exercise or practice or homework or study or anything else, but, specifically and sufficiently, as the on going transactions in the target code during his interactions with the pupils.  The other usual activities associated with FL study are products or concessions to a particular approach to FL teaching which has evolved by precedent in the public educational system.

The FL teacher who adopts this new conception of teaching places emphasis on the facilitation of enacted transactional performances in an authentic context rather than on pacing or visible demonstrations of skills for test purposes.  His style of teaching changes.  He becomes more toleratnt of incomplete or incorrect utterances and is more aware that the practicing student is involved in the execution of his enacted performacne as well as in the aceptability of his display.  He finds dull practice intolerable and avoids it in favor of the integrity of the ongoing authentic interaction trusting that each individual student will react according to his own timetable of acquistion and attempted performance.  He avoids the loud talking register whereby he tries to teach others a point of lesson under the guise of talking to Johnny in the presence of others.  Thus, he avoids inauthentic directed questions like "What is your name?""Can you tell me who threw the ball to Jane?" and so on, which are fake questions that have no part in the target skills to be learned.

Instead, the authentic FL teacher performs in the classroom the authentic use of the target code, thereby providing the relevant learning opportunity for practicing the target skills.

The authentic FL teacher avoids emphasis on the cognitive aspects of FL studey in favor of its experiential aspects.  Thus, he minimizes linguistic explanations (except where the student has a specialized interest in it) and linguistic practice exercises and assignements.  Instead, he finds ways of increasing the student's performative practice of authentic language use.  He does this in a number of ways.  By talking to each student in a personally relevant way.  By splitting the class into dyads or triads so that each student has the opportunity to perform.  By enlisting the help of student aides, parents, and paraprofessionals.  By making use of the mass media and audio visual aids as stimulants for subsequent authentic interactions (discussions, projects, games).

The current dilemma of the Fl teacher is not the lack of opportunity for creating authentic transactions within the school context but the rigidity with which she tends to adhere to the necessity of linguistically oriented practice, an attitude that is reinforced, often demanded, by the administrative setting.  The latter orientation is supported by existing insitutional procedures including teacher training, curricular program that become well entrenched, commercially produeced packages of materials, standardized norms on a small number of widely used tests, the literature adn ongoing research, the convention speeches, and so on, and so on.  It's the heavy machinery of enmeshed institutional gears creating the inertia of precedent and organized control over progressivist innovations.

Fortunately, all of this need not necessarily impede the FL teacher from engineering authentic instructional transactions in the clasroom.  The increasing use of behavioral objectives as a predefined assessment program can readily be employed in the service of authentic FL teaching by defining behvaioral objectives in terms of specified transactional performances, thus providing the Fl teacher with a convenient substitute for the current despotic influence of nationally standardized discrete point tests of knowledge of a second language.

We believe that FL teachers are going to play a special and unique role in the innovation of novel and creative froms of authentic teaching.  The future of FL teaching, seems to us, is even brighter than its distinguished past.

Q.  How does the master FL teacher promote the authenticaiton of classroom activites?

A. Every ongoing activity must be authenticated properly by insuring that the participants have and explicit awareness of its instructional function.  We call this "performative learning" and it si the counterpoint to performative teaching.

Q.  You have questioned the traditional classification of FL teachinginto the four basic skills of listening, Speaking, reading, and writing.  What's wrong with it and what's a better way of classifying it?

A.  The so called four basic skills remind us of the Holy Roman Empire that was neither holy, nor roman, nor an empire.  True, tests of "listening comprehension" continue to be widely used, along with tests of the other three alleged types of skills, but this practice only reflects the past as well as current curricular orientation of language tests, which is what these tests were designed to do, given that course grades and achievement were used in their preparation and validation.

Q.  How would you define the basic skills to be learned in a FL course?

A.  We do not find the notion of basic skill a productive one.  It begs the issue unnecessarily and we can get along better without it.

If we look upon the problem of FL teaching as the teaching of transactional performance in the target code, then it is  only necessary to have an adequate taxonomy of transactional components as the target achievement, and in that case, everything is as important as everything else.  True, there may be particular sequences that are easier than others, but such a learnability scale would vary from learner to learner and cannot be predetermined.

Q.  Since the school represents a restricted social environemtn, is it then possible to engineer authentic transactions that duplicate the outside settings?  And if not, is it possible to develop natural conversational ability in the classroom?

A. It is obviously not possible to replicate outside settings in the classroom and still maintain authenticity.  Fortunately, authenticity in classroom interactions need not depend on the duplication of outside conditions.  After all, the child of three is a skilled transactional performer, even though his direct contact with the outside is drastically limited.  This would not be possible were it not the case that the child's use of language is consistently authentic within the home environment.

Q.  You have presented an analysis of the teaching learning process which appears to be a significant reformulation of the current widespread view.  What is the significance of this reformulation for the FL teacher?

A.  The reformulation is based on the ideas of Carl Rogers, to whom we have dedicated this book.  The self authentication of the teacher's role affects not only his self evaluation and feeling of wellbeing but also alters the basic contract betwen teacher and pupil.  The most visible aspect of this change is a new orientation towards the student, one that is centered in the individual learner, not in the instructional task or the topical content of the acquired knowledge.

The FL teacher who adopts this new conception of teaching places emphasis on the facilitation of enacted transactional performances in an authentic context rather than on pacing or visible demonstrations of skills for test purposes.  His style of teaching changes.  He becomes more toleratnt of incomplete or incorrect utterances and is more aware that the practicing student is involved in the execution of his enacted performacne as well as in the aceptability of his display.  He finds dull practice intolerable and avoids it in favor of the integrity of the ongoing authentic interaction trusting that each individual student will react according to his own timetable of acquistion and attempted performance.  He avoids the loud talking register whereby he tries to teach others a point of lesson under the guise of talking to Johnny in the presence of others.  Thus, he avoids inauthentic directed questions like "What is your name?""Can you tell me who threw the ball to Jane?" and so on, which are fake questions that have no part in the target skills to be learned.

Instead, the authentic FL teacher performs in the classroom the authentic use of the target code, thereby providing the relevant learning opportunity for practicing the target skills.

The authentic FL teacher avoids emphasis on the cognitive aspects of FL studey in favor of its experiential aspects.  Thus, he minimizes linguistic explanations (except where the student has a specialized interest in it) and linguistic practice exercises and assignements.  Instead, he finds ways of increasing the student's performative practice of authentic language use.  He does this in a number of ways.  By talking to each student in a personally relevant way.  By splitting the class into dyads or triads so that each student has the opportunity to perform.  By enlisting the help of student aides, parents, and paraprofessionals.  By making use of the mass media and audio visual aids as stimulants for subsequent authentic interactions (discussions, projects, games).

The current dilemma of the Fl teacher is not the lack of opportunity for creating authentic transactions within the school context but the rigidity with which she tends to adhere to the necessity of linguistically oriented practice, an attitude that is reinforced, often demanded, by the administrative setting.  The latter orientation is supported by existing insitutional procedures including teacher training, curricular program that become well entrenched, commercially produeced packages of materials, standardized norms on a small number of widely used tests, the literature adn ongoing research, the convention speeches, and so on, and so on.  It's the heavy machinery of enmeshed institutional gears creating the inertia of precedent and organized control over progressivist innovations.

Fortunately, all of this need not necessarily impede the FL teacher from engineering authentic instructional transactions in the clasroom.  The increasing use of behavioral objectives as a predefined assessment program can readily be employed in the service of authentic FL teaching by defining behvaioral objectives in terms of specified transactional performances, thus providing the Fl teacher with a convenient substitute for the current despotic influence of nationally standardized discrete point tests of knowledge of a second language.

We believe that FL teachers are going to play a special and unique role in the innovation of novel and creative froms of authentic teaching.  The future of FL teaching, seems to us, is even brighter than its distinguished past.