https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED217698.pdf

Functional-Notional Concepts: Adapting the Foreign Language Textbook. Language in Education: Theory and Practice, No. 44.

This case study has reported the corpus-based materials development research and argued that the Corpus-Based materials developing stages deserved more attention in the whole process of teaching and learning. The empirical research was conducted with four teachers and 180 third-year medical students. The participants’ comments regarding the functions of corpus-based supplementary materials and activities as a supplement in learning the ESP language skills were analyzed and juxtaposed with the observation data for participants. The significance of this study are multi-aspects: Enriching medical teaching materials; promoting participants’ teaching and learning efficiency, quality, and enhancing the relationship between teachers and students; as well as diversifying the Medical English pedagogy. Results indicated that a well-arranged, concise, and convenient Corpus-Based English Supplement (ECBES) is very useful for both teachers and students. They had benefitted from the pedagogical implications of using the ECBES in-class and in their daily learning life.

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A Case Study of Corpus-Based Materials Developing Stages for Medical Students

In recent years, we have seen a sharp increase in the number of new users wanting to learn computing skills. Many of these users come from fields which, traditionally, have not made great use of the computer as a research or data processing tool. In our own academic setting, this includes such fields as the Humanities, Arts, Home Economics and Foreign Languages. Administrative and secretarial personnel also account for a large percentage of these users. Many of these people use the computer as a text-processing tool rather than as a tool for research and data collection. This shift in the requirements of our new users is accompanied by a change in the type of computing skills they need to acquire. These changes challenge us to provide a relevant and well-planned course of instruction.In this paper, we describe a model of course development used in the area of second language teaching. We then describe a computer short course sequence based upon this approach and, finally, supply a bibliography of further references.

The new user: Teaching “computerese” as a second language

The motivation to develop this article came from the influx of over 150,000 adult immigrants into Florida during the past year. Since that time Florida educators have been seeking the most effective ways to give these new arrivals large doses of ESL instruction, survival skills, and vocational training. Although the functional/notional syllabus seems to address the special needs of adult ESL students, few structured and systematic classroom techniques have been developed to teach it. Microcounseling is one of the most widely used and systematic methods of developing interpersonal communication skills. By modifying this approach to include lexical, syntactic, and cultural components, we too can use this method to teach ESL students to communicate effectively. ESL teachers are certainly aware of their students' need for communicative competence, yet most ESL methods and materials more traditionally emphasize manipulating phonemes, morphemes, and verb phrases. Although it is reasonable to include some discrete-point teaching in any ESL course, it is not reasonable to assume that students will somehow magically integrate these language components into meaningful and appropriate messages without our help. Consider, for a moment, the tens of thousands of recent adult immigrants from Indochina, Cuba, and Haiti to the U.S. These people enter here with little or no proficiency in English, virtually no knowledge of U.S. customs, and, worse, few job skills. Although English is extremely important to adult immigrants, the more basic needs for survival and an immediate job often take precedence. An ESL program for adults should include discrete-point grammar teaching, as well as opportunities for the students to integrate the discrete points into meaningful messages which will aid them in developing interpersonal communication skills. These skills will both enhance their employment prospects and enable them to develop satisfying relationships with Americans.

Communication Skills for the Adult ESL Student: A Microcounseling Approach

cophone Public Servants learning English in the language training program of the Canadian Government. The paper assesses the suitability of a modular curriculum for integrating functional and core language learning. The development of the module involved ad hoc analysis of telephone discourse. This analysis revealed a complicating factor in applying the concept of function to real speech. The literature and taxonomies of the functional approach create the impression that utterances (utterance here defined as everything one person says before someone else begins to speak) have single functions. An examination of telephone discourse shows an interplay of functions within individual utterances. It may not yet be clear if the same functions exist in all languages. What seems clearer is that functional interplay at the utterance level, and the combinations and sequences, may be far from universal. That idea has important implications for the development of functional techniques. A number of techniques, including Function Frames and Function Dials, are described in this paper. 1. Background

James Fox

Papers

TELEFUN: A Pragmatic Approach to Functional Learning Materials Development