telling tails for developing our materials

telling tails

1. Theme : Telling Tails

2. What is a tail ? Tail structures are a prominent feature of the CANCODE corpus and are not adequately treated in conventional English grammars. They are almost exclusive to spoken language and are selected in written English to give it a spoken character, presenting a challenge for materials designers.

3. What is spoken grammar ? Frequently-used grammatico-lexical features of conversational English that have been noticed by teachers and described by corpus researchers , but haven’t yet become part of our everyday teaching syllabuses .

4. Examples : 1. It’s a great place to visit ,  Barcelona . [ Barcelona   is a ‘ tail ’, which allows a speaker to position key information at the end of an utterance . 2.  That friend of yours , did you see her again ? [ That friend of yours   is a ‘ head ’, which allows a speaker to position key information at the beginning of an utterance .

5. The sting in the tail: modifying the authentic This chapter discusses the use of authentic speech data in language classroom materials , comparing it to scripted dialogues . It discusses the challenges of balancing authentic and concocted data , and the differences between corpus-informed and corpus-driven materials .

6. Heads ’ and ‘ tails ’ are features of conversational English where bits of language are placed outside the normal clause structure , either at the beginning ( heads ) or the end ( tails ). Here are typical examples : The people over there   ( head ) , what are they waiting for ? What are the people over there waiting for ? (normal word order) It’s a great place to go for a weekend , Brighton   ( tail ) . Brighton’s a great place to go for a weekend . (normal word order)