Page 183 - Beyond Methods

Fostering language awareness 171
7.2.5 Help them (with leading questions, if necessary) to think why many people fail to notice doublespeak even though it is so common in public discourse and in private conversations.
7.2.6 Help them (again with leading questions, if necessary) to think of ways in which a critical awareness of doublespeak and its function can help them in their role as language learners, and in their role as ed- ucated citizens.
7.2.7 Give them a suitable take-home assignment. For instance, have them read a newspaper or a news magazine of their choice for one week. Ask them to make a list of what they consider to be instances of doublespeak, and bring this list to class on a specified day.
7.2.8 In class, form pairs and have them exchange their list with their partner’s. After a brief conversation between partners, ask them to share some of their interesting examples with the class.
7.2.9 Based on the class discussion, ask them to draft a letter to the editor of the newspaper or the news magazine, drawing the editor’s at- tention to doublespeak. Help them revise the draft, and encourage them to actually send the letter to the editor.
Exploratory Projects
I present ideas for a two-part exploratory project focusing on gen- eral and critical language awareness. Both parts deal with the con- cept of speech acts—what people actually do with language, like ordering, persuading, informing, instructing, negotiating, insult- ing, soothing, etc. Specifically, the project pertains to apologizing as a speech act, because the way people apologize differs from context to context, language to language, and culture to culture. This proj- ect then is aimed at creating language as well cultural awareness among L2 learners about the language of personal and political apologies.
Project 7.1: The Language of Personal Apologies
7.1.0 The objective of this part of the project is to design a classroom activity to make learners explore the language of personal apology in formal and informal contexts. Here are some suggestions for designing such an activity: