Negotiation of meanings and Communicative Competence
1) What's the comic strip about? Write a brief passage explaining the story and the main conflict. Why happens what happens? 2) What is the connection between the story, negotiation of meanings and communicative competence?
Task 2: from October, 17th to October, 23rd 3) Recognizing the importance of negotiation of meanings in SLA, does it always help in an EFL context? Why? Why not? 4) Imagine the scenario for the comic strip is not a street, it is not a neighborhood, but your EFL class. What would you have done, being you the man shown?
It is widely argued that engaging in communicative language tasks helps a learner develop in an L2 in several ways. Tasks provide an opportunity not only to produce the target language, but also, through conversational adjustments, to manipulate and modify it. Checking and clarifying problem utterances (‘negotiating for meaning’) ensures that task participants receive comprehensible input and generate comprehensible output, both of which have been claimed as crucial to second language acquisition (SLA). Task type is considered sign ificant, with those tasks requiring an exchange of information most likely to prompt negotiations for meaning. (However, some papers report) a classroom observation of the language produced by intermediate EFL students engaged in required and optional information exchange tasks in both dyads and small groups. The results show no clear overall effect for task type or grouping, though there was a discernible trend for dyads doing a two-way task to produce more negotiated interaction. However, it was noticeable that many stud ents in the small groups did not speak at all, many more in both dyads and small groups did not initiate any negotiated interaction, and very few students in either setting produced, any modi fied utterances. Such positive results as were obtained seemed to be due to the disproportionate i nfluence of a small number of the students, and so were not typica l of the group as a whole. The setting of the study within a classroom, as opposed to a venue especially arranged for data collecting, is suggested as a significant variable, with important implications for group work research methodology. It is also suggested, contr ary to much SLA theorizing, that ‘negotiating for meaning’ is not a strategy that language learners are predisposed to employ when they encounter gaps i n their understanding. (Foster, P. 1997. A Classroom Perspective on the Negotiation of Meaning. Applied Linguistics. Volume 19. Issue 1.OUP)
This comic strip is an example of “absence of understanding” on the part of the characters. So, as they do not realize that there are more means of communication besides "gesturing", as seen, they fail to communicate NOT simply because they speak different languages or because they belong to a different culture, but because they do not negotiate meanings. Even though they both "speak", they do not fully "interact".
What is to communicate effectively? It is to exchange and negotiate information through the use of verbal and non verbal symbols, oral or written modes and production and comprehension
processes (even you are not a master in a foreign language, that is to say if you are not communicative competent, which is nearer native-like competence). Information is assumed to consist of conceptual, affective, sociocultural and other content (Skehan, 1998, in DG CyE. Subsecretaría de Educación. Introducción al Diseño Curricular: Inglés). This nego tiation of meaning is supposed to be constantly changing and to be affected by further information, context of communication, choice of forms and non verbal behavior. It involves permanent evaluation and negotiation of meaning on the part of the participants. To consider communication as negotiation of meaning is in brief to focus on language as a process, not a product. Source: DGCyE. Subsecretaría de Educación. Introducción al Diseño Curricular: Inglés. Hope this is of help. The best! Eugenia
Good morning Dr. Falabella and dear classmates, Negotiation of meaning plays an important role when it comes to the acquisition and learning of a Second or Foreign Language, yes it is very useful in an EFL environment / our classroom. It is by asking and interacting among students that they will understand and of course use the language (grammatical structures, vocabulary, etc) to succeed. Students wil l ask for clarification, resquests, share different opinions,when working in pair or in small groups. Pica (1986) expalins that negotiation of meaning provides non-native speakers the opportunity to use the language; for example, in the classroom, we can use many activities which can help students, for example info gap activities, listening tasks, cooperative strategies, creating stories in which the members of the group will be given the opportunity to use the language for communicative purposes and of course in a dynamic way so students cannot get bored. Thinking about this situation in m y classroom (intermediate students), I would probably first show a couple of videos similar to the comic so that students can discuss critically and then provide the same comic and ask them to infer what they understand, explain similarities and differences between the videos and the comic. Can't wait to see your comments dear classmates.I encourage you to share what would you do in your classroom with your students. Have a wonderful Monday! Arzamendi. J., Palacios, I., Ball, P. Second Language Acquisition. Formacion Universitaria: FUNIBER Rees, David.(2016) The negotiation of meaning in EFL learning in the language laboratory. Pages 283 - 309 www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/negotiation-meaning
This cartoon shows us a tourist arriving to a foreign country. From my point of view, he does not comprehend its oficial language because when others talk to him, he does not reply back verbally. He only uses his body language and gestures to answer back.
However, when he arrives to his hotel, he sees someone who hurts himself with a hammer uses the same utterance. In that moment, he realizes that instead of being nice to him, people were rude. This strip shows how non verbal communication must match with the verbal one so the real meaning or intention can be really understood by the person who receives the message(receptor). The real negociation of meaning is not perceive at all in this comic because there is not interaction between the speaker and receptor so the construction of new language is affected. In addition to this, the differences in cultures can also affect communication because some ways of greeting and body language can have different meanings in each country, that is why it is important to adapt ourselves to a new culture.(Shumann, 1978) I invite the other members of the group to start an interesting debate on this issue. Arzamendi, J., Palacios, I., Ball, P. (2016). Second Language Acquisition. Formación Universitaria: FUNIBER. SHUMANN, J. (1978). The accualturation model for second language acquisition in Gingras (ed.).
As Claudia wrote it, the comic strip is about a man who travels to a country where a different language is spoken; a language he definitely does not understand based on the end on the story and also as she says, on his lack of a verbal reply which he tries to compensate by raising his hat. Additionally, I would say that the man thinks everybody is saying hello or welcoming him based on their body language, people seem to be friendly and smiling. However, he acknowledges he had misinterpreted what people had said to him when he enters to the hotel and the same expression is being used to express anger and pain. All this misinterpretation takes place because he does not speak the language, he does not bother to find out what they are telling him and just relies on what their body language probably expresses in his culture, not taking into account that culture varies from one place to the other and what he associates with politeness might mean the opposite in that place; as Liddicoat, Papademetre, Scarino and Kohler (20 03) define it as “a complex system of concepts, attitudes, values, beliefs, conventions, behaviors, practices, rituals and lifestyles of the people who make up a cultural group, as well as the artefacts they produce and the institutions they create.” (p. 45). Regarding the connection between the story, negotiation of meanings and communicative competence, once again as Claudia said; “the negotiation of meaning is not perceived” and it is crucial for communication to happen since through negotiating the spea kers can actually understand each other. The negotiation of meaning could have been reached if the man had confirmed what he thought they were saying or asked for clarification. My dear colleagues, What else can be said regarding this matter? I´ll be looking forward to your comments to continue our debate. Arzamendi, J., Palacios, I. & Ball, P. (2016). Second Language Acquisition. Fundación Universitaria Iberoamericana. Ho, S. T. K. (1999). Addressing culture in EFL classroom: The challenge of shifting from a traditional to an intercultural stance. Electronic Journal of foreign Language Teaching , 6(1), 63-76. Liddicoat, A.J., Papademetre, L., Scarino, A., & Kohler, M. (2003). Report on intercultural language learning. Canberra ACT: Commonwealth of Australia.
