A Plea to Think More of the Language-Learner's Situation 15

can be expected to benefit from material of the type described. But

where these pre-conditions are met, it seems to provide a stimulating
and direct way of developing communicative competence in 'real'
situations.
Note. The work described in this article took place while the author was on
the staff of the Colchester Study Centre.

Why? When? What? How?

A Plea to Think More of the
Language-Learner's Situation
EGON FOLDBERG

THE TITLE of this article, based on a paper given at the IATEFL

conference held in 1974, needs no explanation, since anyone can
see that in that particular context those four words represent queries
about the reasons for learning a foreign or second language, the
best time to begin doing so, what language and what type of it to
choose, andfinallythe approaches or methods most likely to succeed.
It will be the contention of this article that answers to these four
vital questions, which take into account the motivational aspect,
i.e. are based on the learner's needs, wishes, and abilities, are more
likely to be found satisfactory than answers to questions which do
not.
Let me state as my firm personal belief that once the first question
has been satisfactorily answered, the remaining three will, at least
partly, take care of themselves. I think of true, inner motivation as
the be-all and end-all of successful language learning, but when I
hear certain people speaking of 'motivation' I am irresistibly reminded
of the way some petrol companies advertise their additives as the
final touch to an otherwise perfect product. I do not regard motivation
as an additive but as the fuel. As someone at the conference put it:
1 oz. motivation = 1 ton pedagogy. Although this was said half in
jest, there is much truth in it, for without true motivation on the
learner's part pedagogy works in a vacuum.
Perhaps it should also be stated categorically that the answer to
the question of whether children and other learners in Denmark,
or similar countries, should learn a foreign or second language at
all is taken to be Yes, although No as a possible answer is not
excluded. Where my own country is concerned, the affirmative
16 Egon Foldberg

answer was given many years ago, bat perhaps for different reasons
from today. In what follows I restrict myself to the situation as it is,
and only include such future developments in educational policy
as may to some extent be relied upon to come about. My point of
departure is the situation of a relatively small linguistic community,
like Denmark, and I will draw heavily on my national experience
when it comes to examples. A diagram of the Danish educational
system up to age 19 will perhaps illustrate some of my points better
than words. Apart from a few experimental classes, most Danish
children begin learning English in the fifth form.
Survey of the Danish School svstem

Special
Preparation education
lor higher Grammar p
education school llV
(Gymnasium) ^~

Real
school

CD
Nine-year
H
course of
education
(compulsory)

CD
Nurserv school
rr
Three factors which led to the talk that forms the basis of this
article were, in order, the reading of The School Pd Like (edited by
Edward Blishen), my fellow-countryman Paul Christophersen's
Second-Language Learning, Myth and Reality, and, last but not
least, a Bill, which in December 1973 one could still believe was
shortly to be enacted, containing a decision to aim at making
 A Plea to Think More of the Language-Learner's Situation 17

Denmark bilingual, with English as the L2, a project involving

compulsory across-the-ability-range English teaching from age 10
with no provision for streaming at any point up to age 16.
That was how it looked then. But governments change, and
sosometimesdoes educational policy. What was halted, however,
was a large-scale school reform, and the legislation concerning
English may still be carried through, because that particular bit is
part of a Scandinavian language-teaching harmonisation scheme.
However that may be, I will still not have to answer the question
'Should they or should they not ?' That has been answered emphatically
for me and for anyone else who takes an interest, such as for instance
the schoolchildren. But the people who took that decision have not
really bothered to answer the question WHY, or if they have, then
only in terms likely to satisfynot the consumers, the learnersbut
themselves asrepresentativesof society. This, I claim, is because these
people (and I include myself among them)curriculum developers,
textbook writers, teachers, and teacher trainershave relied too
long and too heavily on an assumption that their students have built-in
motivation to learn a foreign language. This assumption was not in
much danger of being proved wrong when foreign-language learners
were a chosen e"lite. In this day and age, however, when it is a matter
of universal education, the hunch can no longer be relied upon,
although the first two years of language learning seem to support it.
Still, it is doubtful whether an answer to the WHY question can be
found that will satisfy the non-adult learner. There may be one; but it
is certainly not the answer usually found in syllabuses and curricula.
Syllabuseswith a few outstanding exceptionsare normally
written by adults who use their own train of reasoning to 'prove'
that it is necessary, even desirable, to be taught that particular subject.
They cannot help basing their assumptions on society's needs and
their own wishes that some substantial part or all of the population
should be taught, let us say, one or more foreign languages for the
greater good of the country. It is something of a truism in smaller
countries that unless a sizeable portion of the population learns at
least one foreign languagegenerally Englishat least to intelligibility
level, the country will go to rack and ruin. This kind of argument is
all right for those actively involved in foreign trade, and for those
who teach them. But these are a small minority.
Yet it seems to be insidiously implied in foreign-language syllabuses
that it is mainly this category of language users that we are to cater
for. What about the rest of the population? Why should they learn
English? Do they really want to? The answer to that last question
is 'Yes, they do'. Answers to a questionnaire that I have circulated
among about 500 Danish schoolchildren of different ages, some of
them under the age at which they begin to learn English, indicate
beyond doubt that they are indeed enthusiastic about this subject.
18 Egon Foldberg

Sadly enough, however, the answers to that questionnaire also

seem to show that it takes somewhat less than two years to deaden or
completely kill the enthusiasm of the majority, and the few that do
not lose their enthusiasm are either dedicated to all their school
work or have some out-of-school use for English, e.g. radio amateurs.
Under the present Danish system streaming takes place at the age
of 14, and at some time after this point there seems to be a revival
of interest in English. I shall not speculate on the reasons for this,
but some people would undoubtedly ascribe it to the not-so-distant
prospect of the Danish equivalent of O-level examinations.
Incidentally, the school reform bill I mentioned does away more or
less with examinations. The aims of the reform are: 'to provide
greater opportunities for children and young people, to extend the
length of compulsory schooling, to break down selective or elitist
practices in order to provide more comprehensive schooling, to
strengthen relationships between the school and the community,
and to relate education more to the needs of the individual and the
community in a society where many changes are taking place'.
'To relate education more to the needs of the individual. . .'
Words like these can be found in most present-day pleas for educational
change, the majority of themat least ostensiblyfounded in a
desire to create more equal opportunities in education, irrespective
of class, environment, creed, or colour. The words quoted happen to
be taken from a speech by Mr Max Morris, recently President of the
National Union of Teachers of England and Wales, but they might
well have been of Dutch or German or Danish origin.
The catch-phrase is universal education, and if we really want that,
then some radical thinking has got to be done. I hope to be proved
wrong, but it seems to me that where English teachingat least in
Denmarkis concerned, the needs of the community have been
placed above those of the individual every time. And the result has
been and will be that a lot of pupils who have demonstrated their
ability to learn their LI to something that we in foreign-language
teaching would be happy to call perfection, have already suffered,
and certainly are going to suffer, a shattering defeat on English,
unless something is done about curricula, methods, approach and
teaching materials.
So far it seems that nobody has troubled to ask the learners(-to-be)
whether they think they should learn one or more foreign languages,
and if so, for what purpose, and indeed what foreign language(s).
If you do ask, you may get some surprising and some predictable
answers, as I did. Many children in southern Denmark, where
German TV can be picked up, will answer, 'German, of course!';
and if asked why, they indignantly comment, 'To understand German
telly, you dope!'
If you ask a fair selection of schoolchildrenlearners-to-be and
 A Plea to Think More of the Language-Learner's Situation 19

learners at various stages of Englishwhether and why they should

learn English, you get varied answers from those who have not
started yet, ranging from 'Because I think it's going to be fun', an
answer which should delight any English teacher, to 'If I don't learn
English I can't be a jet pilot'.
Out of 180 at various stages of their English course whom I asked,
177 answered the question why in something like these words,
'Because English is a world language', which is all very nice and
much the kind of answer you or I would give. The statement, however,
is somewhat invalidated by the fact that the first picture in their
English textbook is a world map with the English-speaking areas
marked in red, looking like a case of galloping English measles.
They did not, as one might have expected, answer that they needed
English to understand a 'Persuaders' film. Because they don't. If
they watch one on Danish TV there are Danish sub-titles, while on
German TV they are dubbed.
So, as I see it, any 'need' apart from natural curiosity and the
pressure of various mass media (such as TV, gramophone records,
and cassette tapes) that they may feel to learn English, is mainly
foisted upon them by syllabuses, teachersoften extremely good and
persuasive onesexaminations, and the like.
Considering the power that the professional products of television
have over our prospective learners' minds, it seems silly not to try
to learn some of the tricks of the trade from the pro's of television,
and perhaps even use some of their products for our own ends in
language teaching.
As a case in instance, I would like to report on the remarkable
success of an experiment that German TV is still conducting. Once
a week they show a straight English version of 'Sesame Street'.
Danish children who are privileged to live in southern Denmark will,
irrespective of agewhich is significant, because 'Sesame Street'
is a pre-school programmelie flat in front of the set, absorbed by
the fun and games on the screen, happily unaware that in so doing
they are learning English. Because they want to make sense of what
these characters like Big Bird and The Monster are saying and doing.
This is what I understand by truly natural motivation, and the series
is remarkably successful, because it complies with that first and last
must of successful pedagogy, that of catching and holding the learner's
attention. I must confess to something that amounts to an addiction
to this series. Let me add that in my opinion most of the English-
teaching materials employed today, even at beginners' stage, are so
sadly lacking in elementary value that if you were exposed to something
like them, you would be bored to tears very quickly.
This and many other things seem to me to indicate that though
there may not be much natural motivation to learn English at school,
yet there is hope. For one thing, at the outset there is a great deal
20 Egon Foldberg

of curiosity about the new subject. So thought must be given to

how to preserve that atmosphere. Any 'need' established in the
classroom away from the natural L2 surroundings is bound to be
artificial, so it must be carefully considered what you can build and
heighten motivation on. The distant promise of reward at the end
of the course held out by some syllabus and textbook writers is
certainly not enough to keep things going indefinitely, because even
if the children should have got to the point where they begin to catch
a glimpse of the distant reward, they are likely to lose sight of it
again as they get bogged down in a morass of mechanical drills,
substitution tables, and unimaginative pattern practice, as the answers
to my questionnaire seemed to indicate.
What can I suggest, then, by way of motivating forces? I suggest
that syllabus developers and textbook writers should try to a much
greater extent to build on the natural drives towards investigation
and problem-solving activity which are present in all learners, and
which hold theirrewardin themselves and give it here and now.
If we take a look at the factors which regulate the 'processing'
of a language learner, we see that in many cases and on most levels
the concept of motivation has not been kept in mind, with the result
that children are not met where they stand, but where somebody
wants them to stand.
Theseregulatingfactors include:
(1) Aims general and subject-specific. The aims should be more
closely related than they are to whatever mental and linguistic ability
and whatever expectations the learners may have at the outset and
later.
(2) Content of the course. English is seen too much in its own
light, as 'English' on the timetable. In an attempt to dissociate itself
from the status of a mere tool subject, English has cut off connections
with other subjects. These connections must now be re-established.
Opportunities should be created to organize teaching periods differently
from the 45- or 50-minute dose a day.
(3) Examinations. Exams should be so devised that they relate
closely to aims. Exams affect the teaching of a subject If they do not
even begin to measure reliably whether the aims have been reached,
their effect on teaching is clear. What often happens is that exams
and the ability to pass themhowever irrelevant they may be
become the true aims of a course.
(4) Teaching materials: textbooks, slides, tapes, pictures, etc. These
should relate more accurately to the realities of life in English-speaking
communities. It is unfortunate when even pupils of a tender age
who know more about foreign countries than we didcan tell at a
glance that their textbook reflects an English or American way of
life that does not exist. This kind of thing is more detrimental to
 A Plea to Think More of the Language-Learner's Situation 21

motivation than anything else, and tends to support the view widely
held among learners that there is (a) school English (b) the real thing.
The kind of middle-class to upper middle-class English family they
see reflected in their textbooks does not agree with what they know
is typical. If we are to hope for anything remotely like Lambert's
integrative motivation, there should be more about ordinary people
in the textbooks.
(5) Structures. To begin with, they should preferably be those of
the spoken language. The emphasis on speech should be maintained
somewhat longer than is normal nowadays. It is of special importance
for the teacher to have the patience to wait until listening
comprehension is well established before he goads unwilling speakers
into utterances in the foreign language.
(6) Grammar. To speak of grammar-less language teaching is
obviously nonsense. But most of the theory of grammar should
stay where one hopes it is, at the back of the teacher's head. When
rules are called for, they should be rules that relate primarily to the
spoken language: production rules, as it were, instead of control
rules. In thisfield,more than any other, provision should be made for
individualised learning.
(7) Pronunciation. The teaching of pronunciation should be less
finicky; one should aim at intelligibility rather than perfection.
Once a reasonably good standard of pronunciation has been
established, it is good sense to try to uphold it, but not at any price;
and with plenty of 'sound' evidence from records, tapes, radio, and
television, it is more than useless to try to produce Received Standard
in the face of native Received Southern Standard speakers and,
for instance, turn down American-type pronunciation as unEnglish.
This is anti-motivational and unnecessarily widens the gap between
school English and 'English as She is Heard*. Let me refer you at
this point to a recent article in ELTJ by James and Lloyd Mullen,
and also to the views expressed by D. Abercrombie in Problems and
Principles of Language Study. (From a practical point of view, by
the way, it seems that American English pronunciation is easier for
Danes to acquire.)
To sum up what I consider as anti-motivational in English teaching
at present, there seems to be:
Too much dependence on the printed word, even at an early stage;
Not enough use of the various kinds of speaking picture, such as slides+tape,
cineloop films, 8 mm and 16 mm sound films, and videotape;
Too few tapes for imaginative and creative use of language in the language
laboratory;
Too few materials with built-in activating mechanisms;
Too few reading-books which are interesting enough to close the gap between,
say, a 10-year-old child's mental and linguistic abilities. (The only way in
22 Egon Foldberg

which language bombardment through the printed page can be carried through
effectively is by means of high-quality texts which are read in quantity for
their own sake and interest.)
In most textbooks too few problems that need a bit of thought, too little
that appeals to the child's cognitive functions.

So in order to preserve and perhaps even heighten the learner's

interest beyond the two years that it normally takes to wear down
even the keenest, I think that drastic measures must be taken within
the entirefieldof L2-teaching, to relate it more closely to the learner's
desires, needs, mental capacity, attitude towards foreign language
learning, etc. In taking such measures, we may come to fulfil society's
wishes more effectively and at the same time may give the individual
greater satisfaction.
Curriculum developers, advisers, textbook writers, teacher trainers,
and teachers should know more about child psychology, motivational
psychology, concept formation, and general and applied linguistics,
with practice and theory walking closely hand-in-hand, or, in brief,
realise that they are working for and with children.
But more than anything else, a change in attitude is needed towards
foreign- and second-language teaching and learning, and towards
mother-tongue teaching and learning, with more emphasis laid on
effective oral and written communication. And perhaps even a change
in attitude towards the school system, with the emphasis laid on what
the school can do for rather than to the learner.
Then, perhaps, at the end of their first two years of English, the
children will (to quote the terminal aims of an as yet unpublished
English-teaching system): (1) bear goodwill towards English as a
school subject, with the belief that it is not just a subject to be learned,
but a tool for useful and interesting activity; (2) have confidence
and some fluency within a relatively modest range of English;
(3) have developed the ability to listen to and understand the gist of
extended English speech.
Also, the English lessons should have contributed to their
educational development, to their (1) socio-geographical awareness,
i.e. 'who speaks English where'; (2) self-awareness, through
comparisons with other cultures; (3) language awareness; and (4)
knowledge and appreciation of some differences and similarities
between their own culture and the cultures of English-speaking
countries.

Bibliography
Abercrombie, D . : Problems and Principles in Language Study, Longman.
Achtenhagen, F.: Dldaktik des fremdsprachlichen Unterrichts, J. BaJtz.
Adams, P. (ed.): Language in Thinking, Penguin Modern Psychology.
Atkinson, J. W.: An Introduction to Motivation, Van Nostrand, N.Y.
Blishen, E. (ed): The School That I'd Like, Penguin.
 An Analysis and Arrangement of Verb Patterns 23

Borger, R. and Seaborne, A. E. M.: The Psychology of Learning, Penguin.

Britton, J.: Language and Learning, Penguin.
Christophersen, P.: Second-Language Learning, Myth & Reality, Penguin Modern
Linguistics Texts.
Herriot, P.: Sprogpsykologi, Gyldendals paed. bibliotek.
Holt, J.: How Children Learn, Pelican.
Holt, J.: How Children Fail, Pelican.
Lee, W. R.: Language Teaching Games and Contests, Oxford University Press.
Murray, E.: Motivation and Emotion, Prentice-Hall.
Madscn, K. B.: Almen psykologi, Gyldendals paed. bibliotek.
Peters, R. S.: The Concept of Motivation, 1958.
Pride, J. B. and Holmes, J. (ed.): Sociolinguistics, Penguin Modern Linguistics
Reading.
Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech and Svartvik: A Grammar of Contemporary English,
Longman.
Yardley, A.: Exploration and Language, Evans.

An Analysis and Arrangement of

Verb Patterns
R. A. CLOSE

IN A. S. Hornby's monumental contribution to English teaching,

a prominent feature has been his work on verb patterns. His achieve-
ments in that respect are linked with those of H. E. Palmer, with
whom he collaborated at the Institute for Research in English
Teaching in Tokyo in the 1930s. Both those great pioneers realised
the importance of presenting and practising verbs in appropriate
syntactic structuresthe importance, for example, of teaching
hope as in / hope to go, I hope (that) you win, I hope so, Fm hoping for
something to turn up; of teaching want as in / want my tea, I want to
go, I want you to go too, Your hair wants cutting, and so on. However,
Hornby soon adopted his own approach to the problem. 'Palmer,'
he told me,1 'was fascinated by word order rather than by function.'
For Palmer, come to see, happen to see, want to see, identical in surface
structure, all belonged to the same groupVerb Pattern 15 in A
Grammar of English Words.2 Hornby, encouraged by Jespersen's
*In an interview he kindly gave me recently, Hornby explained the difference
between his and Palmer's attitude to verb patterns in a talk on The Life and Work
ofH. E. Palmer, summarised in IATEFL Newsletter No. 10, July 1969.
Published in 1938 by Longmans, Green & Co. (London).