Problems in students’ speech act production

The role-plays posed various difficulties for the participants. Here I discuss three

and overcoming lack of vocabulary. First, some of the difficulties stemmed from the nature of the task, mainly the inability to perform a role-play and to say monologues instead. Some students reflected on this issue in the follow-up study (see section 7.1.2).

Extract 22 illustrates this point:

Extract 22:

Richárd: Eh, my name is Richárd, eh, yes … do you like this rock band? Eh, I like Metallica because I was born in Illinois and I’m an American person so I like American rock music. So what about you, where do you come from?

Here Richárd asked me to stop the tape because he did not understand whether he should

“just speak” or talk with his partner. After I explained to him that the activity was a role-play (which was clearly indicated at the beginning) and that they are supposed to carry on a conversation, he and his partner performed a successful dialogue, which actually is the second longest one in the pre-test sample.

Second, I observed confusion about the roles in the interaction in some instances.

Some students seemed to be intimidated by the fact that they had to find out who their partner was. Again, I discuss students’ reflections on this issue in the follow-up study in section 7.1. In all but one case students overcame these obstacles. There is one dialogue in the pre-test sample, presented in Extract 23, that contains appropriate opening and closing adjacency pairs, but everything in between reveals the confusion of the participants, who are not able to understand each other’s intentions and make an arrangement.

Extract 23:

Judit: Hello.

Erzsi: Hello. I’m a pop musiker … eh.

Judit: What are you doing here?

Erzsi: I make a concert but I don’t know eh … I want to make a concert in summer but I don’t know when because my pop eh … my group don’t … don’t have any time.

Judit: And you … [unclear whisper] What the group’s names?

Erzsi [laughs]: U2. But I haven’t got any time in July but I must, I must make a concert.

Judit: And where do you go vagy when … honnan jöttél?

Erzsi: I live in Hungary. [whisper: Magyarokat keresel?] Why do you … why are you here?

Judit: I love rock and I saw the concert.

Erzsi: Thanks. Goodbye. [pause] Nem köszönsz el?

Judit: Goodbye.

It is especially Judit who seems to be confused about the situation, and we can see Erzsi’s feeble attempts at prompting her to reveal her intentions marked by code-switching (“Magyarokat keresel?”) and, when they both realize their failure to make an arrangement, to close the conversation (“Nem köszönsz el?”).

Third, some vocabulary items posed difficulty for the students, such as koncertszervező, turné, and zenész. It was not our specific aim to place challenging items in the text, but in hindsight, these instances provided for an interesting investigation. In some cases I observed how the lack of strategic competence caused a communication breakdown: students froze and were speechless, unable to continue their turn. In most problematic instances, however, participants tapped into their strategic competence in order to overcome these difficulties. Some students asked their conversational partner for help, such as Dorka did in Extract 24:

Extract 24:

Dorka: Hello!

Gabi: Hello! What are you doing here?

Dorka: I am a ... [whispering to Gabi] Mi az, hogy zenész?

Gabi: Do you have a rock band? Are you here because of this or why?

Dorka: [overlap] Yes. Because I want to go to other cities, countries, but ... I ...

don’t know my band’s program.

Interestingly enough, Gabi realizes that it would be inappropriate to simply provide Dorka with the needed English word, yet she comes to her rescue by asking questions that enable Dorka to continue her turn, which she does eagerly.

In some cases, I observed the effect of other foreign languages on participants’

speech production in English. In these dialogues, students resorted to their vocabulary in another L2 or used borrowed words, as in the following example. Here Kriszta also used paraphrase or circumlocution (terminology from Dörnyei & Thurrell, 1991) when she could not think of the word musician and said I play on guitar instead.

Extract 25:

Kriszta: Yeah. I am a ... I play on guitar ... eh ...and I would like to nach America, eh, in America.

[laughter]

Viki: Eh, maybe I can help you, because we have some ... around the world festivals. I give you my number and you can call me if you have time to speak about this.

Kriszta: OK, I have Freizeit ... nem Freizeit, I have free time in summer.

Although Kriszta used two German words in two successive turns (which obviously lead to some amusement), in both cases she self-corrected successfully. In other exchanges, however, participants switched to their mother tongue signifying that they were unable to solve a communication problem. Extract 26 illustrates this phenomenon:

Extract 26:

Bea: Hello, how do you do!

Eszter: Eh ... So I’m ... I want to [pause] Nem jut eszembe a szó, szervez. Eh, organizing an ... concert in London. What do you ...doing here?

Bea: Hmm?

Eszter: What do you do here?

Bea: I would like to go to a rock concert. Eh, and I have a band ... Úristen, hát ez ... [long pause] And ... I want to ... I want of you ... [laugh] ... Ez nem jó.

Here both Eszter and Bea used Hungarian when they encountered a vocabulary problem or realized that they are unable to express their thoughts in English. Fortunately after these turns they overcame their difficulties and carried out a successful arrangement and closing sequence.

In sum, students had to face various problems when completing the pre- and post-test tasks. The cause of these difficulties was two-fold: the nature of the role-plays and students’ lack of appropriate vocabulary. In most cases, participants were able to overcome these obstacles successfully. In the post-test role-plays I observed fewer instances where these problems manifested themselves. I attribute this result to both the familiarity with the task and the effect of the treatment.