Dear colleagues,

I think it always takes time for the impact of new research to filter through into course materials. And that is quite right. There are always dangers in moving too fast from such findings to the classroom and even more so in moving too fast through into classroom materials. Look how long it has taken for the evidence provided by large multi-million word corpora to appear in materials for teachers and students. This is quite proper as teachers need to be convinced that there are real pay-offs for them and materials writers and publishers need to feel that there has been sufficient trialling and evaluation before taking these kinds of steps. In the case of work on spoken grammar too there is the problem of the very big investment made in existing grammars in which, until recently, examples have been mainly based on written text or where the written language is privileged.

There is also the wider ideological question raised by Wayne and I think you are quite right to raise it. While there are clear standards and norms for communication through written language, in the case of spoken language there is bound to be more variation and rules are more difficult to prescribe. Spoken language is by definition more direct and face-to-face and altogether less impersonal and, much more so than in writing, how we choose what to say depends on the context we are in. Also more cultural and intercultural factors impact on spoken communication as speakers negotiate different realities. We sometimes have to speak of probabilistic rules rather than absolute rules, that is, rules are more likely to be the case in specific contexts.

Of course, we need to be sure therefore that we are not imposing a mode of communication that is specific to one culture. In some cultures English operates primarily as a lingua franca; and in such contexts it may be inappropriate to impose a norm from a native-speaker or first language environment. Such decisions are generally best taken locally by teachers who are able to assess the different needs of their students. However, even though we should recognise the role of English internationally as a lingua franca and the significance of the English language not being the property of native speakers, there are many students around the world who are interested in studying how the language is used in first language environments and how it is used by expert speakers of a language. This is where evidence from corpora is very valuable and where we do need to find the best ways of helping learners to have the choice of deciding what kind of spoken variety to embrace.

In this connection, I agree with you, Leandro, that the best first steps are to devise really good pedagogic activities that help learners to explore differences between spoken and written and formal and informal varieties of English and to do so primarily by means of awareness-raising and consciousness-raising tasks. Some steps have been taken in Carter, Hughes and McCarthy Exploring Grammar in Context and in McCarthy, McCarten and Sandiford's Touchstone course book. There are many excellent ideas too in work by my predecessor in this 'Ask the Author' series, Scott Thornbury, especially the book with Diana Slade entitled Conversation: From Description to Pedagogy.

I would say in reply to Fernando that the ability to move confidently and fluently across the domains of spoken and written English, adjusting in the process to different levels of formality, is the mark of a more advanced user of the language wherever that user wishes to place him or herself culturally and politically. I agree that there is a lot of work still to be done in specifying what this entails in terms of a syllabus. It is also necessary for us to get more evidence and to build corpora that display language in use by all successful users of English internationally and not just native speakers. In this respect, it will not be until we have more of this kind of evidence that we can begin to define better what words like 'fluent or 'advanced' or 'successful' mean. But my co-author, Mike McCarthy and I, do hope that, with its balanced approach to spoken and written English and a CD-Rom that allows learners to listen as well as to read examples, the Cambridge Grammar of English is a first step towards helping us better understand these processes.

Ronald Carter

References

Carter, R., Hughes, R. and McCarthy, M. Exploring Grammar in Context (Cambridge University Press, 2000)
Carter, R. and McCarthy, M. Cambridge Grammar of English: A Comprehensive Guide to Spoken and Written Grammar and Usage (Cambridge University Press, 2006)
McCarthy, M., McCarten, J. and Sandiford, H. Touchstone (Four levels) (Cambridge University Press, 2004–6)
Slade, D. and Thornbury, S. Conversation: From Description to Pedagogy (Cambridge University Press, 2006)