© 1997 by Oxford University Press
Articles |
Raising the pedagogic status of discourse intonation teaching
Senior lecturer in TESOL at the Centre for Applied Linguistics (CALUSA) at the University of South Australia in Adelaide. His interests include phonology and interlanguage studies, and he has published a number of papers on his research into the communication strategies of second language learners from a classroom discourse perspective. In 1994 he was awarded the M.A.K. Halliday Scholarship for his work in classroom discourse research. He is currently coordinating the MED studies TESOL course at CALUSA, as well as developing aural/ral materials for EAP programmes.
At the heart of many cross-cultural misunderstandings lie problems associated with intonation features of learner English. Failure to make use of the appropriate pragmatic discourse features of English intonation may result in serious communication breakdown between native and non-native speakers of even advanced levels of proficiency. This article sets out a case for teaching the pragmatic (discourse-based) features of English intonation to overseas students studying on tertiary-level ELT courses, in order to improve cross-cultural communication at both receptive and productive stages. Drawing on data from advanced level EAP learners, it advocates a systematic approach to the teaching of the pragmatic and discourse functions of English intonation through a consciousness-raising methodology that uses authentic academic oral texts.