The Making of Authentic
Materials From Conversation Analysis-
A new direction for authentic
materials
Jhu Cin Jhang
Graduate
Instructor,
The influence of authentic materials in
language classrooms has been growing since its onset in 1980s, which was
related to the development of the communicative teaching approach.
Practitioners and researchers in language pedagogy have since then argued that
authentic materials, which are abundant in valuable cultural, pragmatic and
linguistic knowledge, can promote learner’s communicative competence.
Despite the recognition, we still observe an
insufficient use of authentic materials in the relatively new field of Chinese
as a Second/ Foreign Language (CSL/CFL); there is still a strong preference to
use the less ideal pedagogically designed materials, and thus this paper
proposes a new method of authentic materials creation for CSL/CFL.
The other issue this paper deals with is what
authentic materials are used, how and for what they are used.
Authentic materials are often mistaken as authentic “written texts” by
many, thus limiting the use to mainly reading activities. Even with the trend
of using visual material (e.g. YouTube video), there
is a lack of thorough study on how materials should be analyzed, incorporated
and presented. This problem roots in the misconception that
authentic materials guarantee the learning of communication, and learners learn
communication with the exposure to large bulks to authentic materials.
However, for second language learners, learning
to engage in ordinary conversation is actually one of the most difficult
tasks. Only when properly studied and analyzed could authentic materials yield
the valuable communicative knowledge. This paper looks into the authentic
materials with Conversation Analysis (CA), the study of talk-in- interaction to
investigate conversationalists’ intentions and how they manage to maintain
their relationship through various techniques. When applied to language
pedagogy, CA can help us look very closely into the structures of interaction
and thus draw findings about conversation techniques to teach to the learners.
The paper transcribes and analyzes a recorded
naturally-occurring conversation between two female Chinese native speakers.
The conversation contains various everyday topics, such as student life and
weather. The analysis focuses on how the conversationalists manage topics
change, the various types of techniques utilized, and their timings and the
functions. For example, details are given about how gaps and pauses are treated
in the conversation, how phatic functions are
applied, how disagreements contributes to the change topic change, how
conversationalists the repair their talk, etc.
The paper will then provide implications for
making classroom materials with these findings of conversation techniques, the
original recording, and the transcription. Here is one example. First, students
discuss and list how they think topic-change is accomplished in daily
conversation. Second, they read the transcription of the topic changes and
write down how they are accomplished, and then compare it with their own list.
The teacher will guide the discussion of the comparison, and make sure students
notice and understand those techniques. Last, students act out the
transcription.
In conclusion, authentic materials should be more widely used in CSL/CFL, and a better method should be adopted to analyze and utilize the materials. Moreover, we should focus on a long-neglected aspect of the teaching of conversation in order to make authentic materials account for the promoting of communicative competence.