Teaching Response Tokens Through Story Telling Tasks

Silvana DushkuUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

s-dushk@illinois.edu

Definition & Classification• Response tokens (RT) are high-frequency turn-initial lexical items which

occur in responses in everyday spoken genres, and which reveal various levels of the listener’s interactional engagement (McCarthy, 2003, p. 4)

• Minimal RT • Non-Minimal RT:– Non-minimal RT without expanded content (NM-EC)– Non-minimal RT plus expanded responses (NM+ER)– RT with pre-modification– Negated RT– Clusters

(Ibid. pp. 21-35)

Overview

• Goals• Data Collection and Methodology• Findings• Pedagogical Implications

Goals

• Develop a better understanding of students’ current level of interactional competence and their needs through the investigation of their use of engagement tokens (assessment and surprise tokens) (Schegloff, 1982)

• On the basis of needs analysis, develop task-based materials that can lead to awareness raising and gradual appropriate production of these engagement tokens in conversation

Data Collection and Methodology • Video and digital recordings of free 25-minute

conversations over the Thanksgiving Break: – Four triads of 2 NNSs and their NS Conversation Partner– Four triads of 3 NS graduate students and new

graduates• Written survey of both groups’ participants:

responding to 8 Thanksgiving Break-related situations designed to elicit surprise (4) and evaluation (4)

• NNS students’ survey results rated on appropriateness/inappropriateness by 4 NS ESL teachers.

Data Collection and Methodology • Data transcription (first 10 minutes) and analysis (transcription coding

key, O’Keeffe, McCarthy, Carter, 2007)

• Identification and classification of surprise and assessment tokens used by both NNSs and NSs according to FORM (McCarthy 2003 classification) and descriptive statistical analysis

• NNSs’ use of surprise and assessment tokens (6 video excerpts) rated on appropriateness/inappropriateness by 18 trained NS university students

• Inter-rater reliability measured for both groups of raters:– 4 NS raters : Cronbach’s Alpha = 0.913 – 18 NS raters: Cronbach’s Alpha = 0.870

• Analysis of CONTEXTS and FUNCTIONS: kinds of inappropriateness in the use of surprise and assessment tokens by NNSs

Findings

• Analysis of assessment tokens in 10-minute conversations:– Significant differences (p value < 0.05) found in

the use of:• All assessment tokens • Non-minimal assessment tokens without expanded

content • Non- minimal assessment tokens with expanded

response– Less complex assessment tokens used by NNSs.

Mean Number of Assessment Tokens in Ten-Minute Conversation

Findings

• Analysis of surprise tokens in 10-minute conversations:– Significant difference (p value < 0.05) found in the

use of:• Minimal surprise tokens (extended foreign

vocalizations)

Mean Number of Surprise Tokens in Ten-Minute Conversation

Findings

• Analysis of assessment and response tokens in surveys: – Significant difference (p value < 0.05) found in the

use of:– Pre-modified assessment tokens:• Too + adjective• So + adjective

– No significant difference found in the use of surprise tokens

Mean Number of Assessment Tokens in Survey Component

Mean Number of Surprise Tokens in Survey Component

Findings – Inappropriate Uses• Prosodic:

• Extended foreign vocalizations (E.g.: Ahh!)• Non-native fall-rise (instead of the typical

exclamatory fall in English – Wells, 2006) in vocalized exclamations of surprise

Findings – Inappropriate Uses

• Pragmatic:– Factual recount of events with little or no engagement

from the listener: • Dry, depersonalized responses

– Use of extended foreign vocalizations to express convergence, acknowledgement, or information receipt

– Pragmatic competence deficiency to demonstrate surprise, sympathy/ empathy, and interest/excitement

– ‘Cultural’ verbal and gestural responses– Inappropriate question responses

Findings – Inappropriate Uses

• When listening, students often failed to anticipate clues – Listening-response relevance moments (LRRM) (Erickson & Schultz, 1982; McCarthy, 2003) - in the native speakers’ conversation– While-listening strategy deficiency – how to ‘tune

in’ to the clues– Insufficient ability to make a pragmatic inference

and plan the response

Findings – Inappropriate Uses• Lexico-Grammatical: – Use of “it” instead of “that” referring to past events in

assessment tokens by the listener• E.g.: It’ s terrible!

– Use of present tense instead of the past in assessment tokens• E.g.: It’ s nice!

– Failure to give a yes/no response to a speaker’s question before using a response token or a statement• E.g.: A: Did you have a good time? B: I have enjoyed skiing.

– Ungrammatical questions attempted to show engagement• E.g.: A: I lost my passport at the airport! B: How did you do?

Pedagogical ImplicationsTeaching approach:– The three ‘Is’ (Illustration-Interaction-Induction) approach

(McCarthy and Carter, 1995 (also 2005, 2007):

– Illustration – through authentic data samples– Interaction – discussion of language features observed in the

samples– Induction – discovering rules through observation and

analysis

– the ‘explicit’ approach (Huth and Taleghani-Nikazm, 2006)

– ‘Language awareness-based’ approach (Fung and Carter, 2007)

Pedagogical ImplicationsSuggested teaching goals (intermediate level):

• Identify and practice the tenses of narration (past/past progressive in statements and questions)

• Identify and practice high-frequency (minimal and non-minimal) response tokens to show surprise and assessment

• Recognize the exclamatory fall in exclamations• Practice ‘It”- and “That”- initiated responses showing assessment or

surprise• Analyze conversation clues that trigger possible listener

responses/reactions:– Identify facts in a news story - the 5 Wh-s – Identify opinion discourse markers

• Review how to maintain conversation in narrative discourse:– Explain how to formulate appropriate Wh- questions– Explain how to use continuers

• Analyze cultural differences in expressing assessment and surprise in conversation narratives

Pedagogical ImplicationsNeeds Analysis– Teacher recounts her holiday/Break travel

experience, students digitally record their reactions to the story

– Students tell holiday/Break stories to one another, record them and their reactions

– Students complete a questionnaire with holiday/Break situations requiring them to continue the conversation by verbally reacting to the situation

Pedagogical Implications – Textbook-Supplementary Task Examples:– Task I – Observation

• Students tell their holiday stories (that would elicit expressions of affect) to NSs,

• record the NSs’ responses, and discuss them in class

– Task II – Noticing Lack of RTs in Responses• Students look at a bookish and dry conversation,• discuss what is missing,• suggest other ways to respond (use the language they noticed

in NSs’ conversation?) – Task III – Noticing Appropriate Responses

• Students analyze teacher-selected clips from video/MP3 recording and authentic transcripts of NS’s use of engagement tokens and other engagement strategies in conversation (according to teaching goals selected)

Pedagogical Implications – Task IV - Noticing Inappropriate Responses &

Controlled Practice of Appropriate Responses• Students analyze excessive vocalizations in a funny

movie clip,• Replace them with response tokens from a given list, • explain their choice,• role-play the situation

– Task V – Analysis and Discussion of Students’ Own Responses• Students in pairs analyze their own, previously

recorded narratives using an evaluation rubric

Pedagogical Implications

– Task VI – Analysis and Controlled Practice• Students in pairs watch a movie clip of an unusual

event,• record the story elements according to a 5-Wh-

questions’ list,• identify conversation clues that trigger possible listener

responses/reactions,• plan appropriate responses/reactions to them, • tell and react to the movie story following a role play

scenario

Acknowledgements

• Many thanks to – The UIUC IEI administration, students, teachers,

and Conversation Partners – for making this research possible

– Dr. Irene Koshik, Dr. Numa Markee, Dr. Andrea Golato, Dr. Fred Davidson– for their invaluable guidance and input

– Professor Michael McCarthy and Professor Ronald Carter – for the tremendous inspiration in this undertaking

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