A Discourse-Based Approach

 

 

Luciana

D. A. Aruan

 

 

Speaking is one of fundamental skills essential to master in learning a foreign language. Not only does it bear a highly communicative value but also it is generally regarded as the parameter of one’s proficiency in a foreign language. Owing to such as a prestigious status, students’ being able to produce the language becomes the ultimate goal of the teaching of the spoken language. Bound to its nature as a productive skill, it is absolutely a goal to attain.

 

Yet, understanding how they produce the language and how the teaching can nurture their oral second language development would be the first concern teachers to have before attaining the goal. We are interested in discussing the issue as based on our observations, many teaching practices fall into the trap of what so called ‘patchy teaching paradigm’. Speaking courses designed even at college level tend to hold ‘bottom up processing’, putting the emphasis on morphosyntactic and functional aspects of language manifested in language chunks or routines. For example, it is not uncommon where students are to learn some expressions in different degree of formality. Despite their undeniably paramount importance to develop students’ spoken language ability, these aspects are likely to construct only a partial episode of the whole intricate process of producing a foreign language. How language is conceptualized, formulated, and articulated based on contextual factors, like purpose, audience, and the utilization of language elements, such as its lexico-grammar and pronunciation characterize the underlying production of the spoken language. Accordingly, given this delicate nature, its teaching should address both bottom-up and top-down processing. It is at this juncture, a discourse-based teaching would shed light on the process of speaking.

 

This paper discusses how teaching can be developed based on discourse-oriented processing. In the first place, the nature of the spoken language as opposed to the written is laid. Following this, more specifically, the distinct processes of second language production are addressed. On these theoretical grounds, the concept of discourse-based teaching for speaking is presented.  

 

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Luciana, & Aruan, D. A. (2005, March). A discourse-based approach. Paper presented at LIA International Conference, Jakarta.

 

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