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Humanising coursebook dialogues

Ivor Timmis

To cite this article: Ivor Timmis (2016) Humanising coursebook dialogues, Innovation in
Language Learning and Teaching, 10:2, 144-153, DOI: 10.1080/17501229.2015.1090998
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INNOVATION IN LANGUAGE LEARNING AND TEACHING, 2016
VOL. 10, NO. 2, 144–153
[Link]

Humanising coursebook dialogues

Ivor Timmis
English Language Teaching, Leeds Beckett University, Headingley Campus, Leeds LS6 3NN, UK

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

In this article, I argue that the most important thing about coursebook Received 27 May 2015
dialogues is not whether they are ‘authentic’ or ‘inauthentic’ but Accepted 4 June 2015
whether they are plausible as human interaction and behaviour.
KEYWORDS
Coursebook dialogues are often constructed as vehicles for various kinds Coursebooks; dialogues;
of language work and even sometimes as vehicles for socio-political creativity; noticing
messages [Mukundan, J. 2008. “Agendas of the State in Developing
World English Language Textbooks.” Folio 12 (2): 17–19.]. As a result,
smiles are abundant, problems are few, and reality rare in the world of
the coursebook dialogue [Carter, R. 1998. “Orders of Reality: CANCODE,
Communication and Culture.” ELT Journal 52 (1): 43–56; Cook, V. 2013.
“Materials for Adult Beginners from an L2 User Perspective.” In
Developing Materials for Language Teaching, edited by B. Tomlinson,
289–309. London: Bloomsbury]. In this article, I suggest how we can
humanise the coursebook [Tomlinson, B. 2013. “Humanising the
Coursebook.” In Developing Materials for Language Teaching, edited by
B. Tomlinson, 162–174. London: Bloomsbury] through some relatively
minor adaptations to dialogues based on processes such as: (1)
extending the dialogue, (2) changing the register, (3) changing the cast
of characters, (4) changing the mood, (5) changing the ‘plot’, and (6)
‘unscripting’ the dialogue. Applying such processes, I argue, potentially
brings a number of benefits. These benefits include ‘varied repetition’
[Maley, A. 1994. “Play It Again, Sam: A Role for Repetition.” Folio 1 (2): 4–
5]; intensive listening practice; sensitisation to differences between
scripted and ‘authentic’ speech; scope for creativity and humour. The
longer-term benefit of such an approach, I argue, is that it develops the
important habit of noticing.

1. Introduction
Dialogues have a long history in language teaching and show no signs of disappearing; so we need
strategies for exploiting them. While our concerns are with the present, a short journey into the past
can illuminate the present; so the past is where we begin. The excerpt below is from probably the
earliest known language teaching dialogue, ‘Aelfric’s Colloquy’ (cited in Howatt 1984), written in
the eleventh century to teach Latin to Anglo-Saxon speakers (the translation is by Ann Watkins). In
this excerpt, the teacher passes from interrogating an oxherd to interrogating a hunter, but he
goes on in similar vein to interview a variety of tradesmen over a number of pages.

(1) Teacher: Is this man, here, one of your comrades?

(2) Oxherd: Oh, yes he is.
(3) Teacher: Do you have any skill?
(4) Hunter: Yes, I have one skill.

CONTACT Ivor Timmis [Link]@[Link]

© 2015 Taylor & Francis
 INNOVATION IN LANGUAGE LEARNING AND TEACHING 145

(5) Teacher: What is that?

(6) Hunter: I am a hunter.
(7) Teacher: In whose service?
(8) Hunter: The King’s.
(9) Teacher: How do you perform your skills?
(10) Hunter: I take my nets with me … .

Looking back on this dialogue a thousand years later, we notice a certain artificiality in that it is
entirely a question and answer dialogue with the teacher in the interrogative role. However, in an
era where ‘authenticity’ was (as far as I know) not a buzzword in language teaching, it is not, I
would argue, totally implausible as human interaction (and in terms of linguistic authenticity, we
note an example of ellipsis in line 8). After this early Latin-teaching dialogue, we have to wait a
little longer for English language teaching (ELT) dialogues to appear on the scene. The first ELT dia-
logues appear in the 16th century for the benefit of Huguenot refugees fleeing France for England in
response to religious persecution (Howatt 1984). The following dialogue between ‘the master’ and
‘the neighbour’ is from a book called Familiar Dialogues written by Bellot (1586) and cited in
Howatt (1984):

The master: What news?

The neighbour: There is no other news but of the sickness and the death which be nowa-
days throughout all France.
The master: Is the number of them great, that are come over into this country?
The neighbour: Very great, and there be many of them which do live very hard, so great is
their poverty.

As with our initial example from Aelfric, this dialogue is not totally implausible as human interaction.
On a linguistic level, we see two examples of ellipsis: ‘What news’ in line 1 and ‘very great’ in line 5. In
terms of content, it is worth noting that we also see something you very rarely see in contemporary
coursebooks, that is, bad news (sickness and death). Having established the ancestry of contempor-
ary coursebook dialogues, we will leave history behind for the moment, though the notion of plausi-
bility as human interaction raised in relation to these dialogues will remain with us, as will the
question of whether language teaching dialogues have actually improved as teaching devices
over a period of a thousand years.

2. What is the use of dialogues?

The fact that dialogues have such a long history in language teaching suggests in itself that they have
an important role to play in the classroom. Indeed, coursebook dialogues are such a familiar part of
the language teaching landscape that we have probably given up asking why they are there. The
question of the purpose of dialogues is, however, a question highly relevant to this article. Most cour-
sebook dialogues, I would argue, are designed to fulfil one or more of the following functions:
(1) Providing models of new grammar, vocabulary, and functions.
(2) Providing models of interaction.
(3) Providing models of discourse sequences, for example, making an appointment at the doctor’s.
(4) Providing listening practice.
(5) Providing pronunciation practice.
(6) Providing speaking practice.
(7) Transmitting socio-political messages.
Functions 6 and 7 above require a little explanation. Firstly, there is the question of whether the kind
of dialogue practice often seen in classrooms does actually constitute speaking practice. The
146 I. TIMMIS

intensive memorisation and oral repetition of dialogues I have observed in classrooms in China, for
example, may be of use in allowing the teacher to control large classes, but it is far from being real
speaking practice as the learners have no control of either medium or message. Making English
noises is not the same as speaking English.
With regard to the role of materials, including dialogues, in transmitting socio-political messages,
Mukundan (2008) has drawn attention to the way coursebooks can be commandeered in nation-
building in developing countries by acting as vehicles of cultural and national values. In the Malaysian
context, for example, Mukundan (2008) argues that ELT coursebooks are designed (among other
things) to promote specific state agendas, particularly the Five National Principles. As an example
of this kind of influence, Mukundan (2008) observes that the state agenda to promote inter-racial
harmony is reflected in units where representatives of different ethnic groups come together to
resolve a problem in an atmosphere of cordiality and co-operation.
Of course, a given dialogue does not always have to fulfil all the seven functions above simul-
taneously, but I am going to suggest that all too often dialogues try to fulfil too many functions at
once, to the point where the life is squeezed out of them. In this article, I would like to illustrate
how these multiple and sometimes conflicting functions can kill dialogues and to discuss how we
might resurrect them. It is worth clarifying at the outset that I am not criticising coursebook dialogues
per se: they can be designed to be motivating and they can be effectively exploited. I am not making
sweeping judgements about coursebook writers either – I am aware of the constraints they work
under in most contexts. My overall aim in providing a critique of dialogues is to be constructive
and to discuss how we can best exploit even the most unpromising dialogues which confront us
from time to time.

3. Dialogues and the plausibility factor

3.1. Linguistic plausibility
We can evaluate the plausibility of dialogues, I argue, along two broad dimensions: linguistic plausi-
bility and human plausibility. A linguistic comparison of text book and authentic interactions was
carried out by Gilmore (2004, 363), who summarises his findings thus:
… textbook dialogues differ considerably from their authentic equivalents across a range of discourse features:
length and turn-taking patterns, lexical density, number of false starts and repetitions, pausing, frequency of term-
inal overlap or latching, and the use of hesitations devices or back-channelling.

Typically, speakers in coursebook dialogues have a fairly equal number of turns of fairly equal length
(presumably to ensure that different learners get equal practice when they are used for repetition,
etc.). Features of authentic interaction noted by Gilmore above (e.g. repetitions and false starts)
are more often than not absent from coursebook dialogues. Though one of the reasons for omitting
such features of authentic interaction is presumably to make coursebook dialogues ‘tidier’ and easier
to understand, it is arguable that this policy sometimes backfires. Repetition in authentic dialogues,
for example, sometimes functions to clear up misunderstanding, while the tendency in coursebook
dialogues to follow written norms leads to higher lexical density, that is, coursebook dialogues can
actually be more challenging than authentic dialogues because learners have a wider range of voca-
bulary to contend with in the scripted dialogue.
In addition to specific language features they may contain, we need to consider the length and
tone of dialogues. Gilmore (2004), for example, observes that authentic service encounter dialogues
are twice as long as the equivalent coursebook exchanges. It seems reasonable to suppose that one
reason for this is that authentic dialogues, unlike most coursebook dialogues, are not problem-free;
for example, they may involve clarification, repetition or misunderstandings; furthermore, authentic
service encounters are not necessarily rigidly transactional and may include interpersonal aspects
such as comments about the weather interspersed with the transactional elements (Carter 1998).
 INNOVATION IN LANGUAGE LEARNING AND TEACHING 147

We see evidence of this heavy focus on the transactional in a comparison of authentic and course-
book direction-giving sequences carried out by Scotton and Bernsten (1988) who note that:
Naturally-occurring direction-giving typically has a number of parts: an opening sequence, the direction them-
selves, a pre-closing and possibly a closing. Further, the directions are frequently preceded by, or are interrupted
with, orientation checkers and parenthetical comments. Confirmation checkers occur throughout the exchange.

Coursebook direction-giving sequences, by contrast, typically have only three parts: a request for
directions, a set of directions as the response, and a statement of thanks from the direction-seeker
(Scotton and Bernsten 1988). As was the case with the service encounters, it appears that the inter-
personal element is filtered out of the direction-giving sequences.
We have to keep in mind, of course, that coursebook writers often operate under constraints
imposed by publishers and other stakeholders, even down to page space allocated for specific activi-
ties. I am reminded at this point of an experience as a member of a team writing coursebooks for
China. We received feedback from the commissioning authority that the dialogues we had written
were ‘too long’. ‘Too long for what?’ was our response; ‘Too long for the learners to memorise’
was the reply. It had never occurred to me that the dialogues would be used for that purpose, but
I did learn that materials are not always put to the use for which they are designed. Despite these
design constraints on dialogues, I would support Gilmore’s (2004, 367) argument:
If our goal in the language classroom is to prepare learners for independent language use, then surely we are
obliged at some stage to present them with realistic models of discourse, messy and unpredictable as it is.

In response to these observations of the differences between coursebook and authentic dialogues,
and the call for ‘realistic models of discourse’, it can be objected that, as all classroom materials
and tasks are ultimately contrivances for learning, true authenticity is out of the question (Widdowson
1998). On the other hand, we can say that the potential to motivate is the sine qua non of materials
and that dialogues which are consistently linguistically (and humanly) implausible will fail to achieve
that. We can add that learners need to be prepared for real-life communication, and it is difficult to
see how that can be done on an exclusive diet of highly artificial dialogues.

3.2. Plausibility of dialogues as human interaction

In terms of our second criterion for the evaluation of coursebook dialogues, the plausibility of course-
book dialogues as human interaction, a number of commentators have pointed to the unnaturally
harmonious world portrayed in coursebooks: Mukundan (2008, 19), for example, laments ‘the
horror of explicit niceness in adolescent characters in Malaysian ELT textbooks’. More broadly,
Carter (1998, 47) observes a ‘can-do’ society where communication is always smooth and requests
are never refused:
… the language of some coursebooks represents a ‘can do’ society, in which interaction is generally smooth and
problem-free, the speakers co-operate with each other politely, the conversation is neat, tidy, and predictable,
utterances are almost as complete as sentences, no-one interrupts anyone else or speaks at the same time as
anyone else, and the questions and answers are sequenced rather in the manner of a quiz show or court-
room interrogation.

Real-life communication is not always ‘can do’. In my own case, I have faced an Italian ticket clerk who
had decided he could not understand me well before I spoke, a French football trainer who resolutely
refused to accommodate when he spoke to me, and a Turkish barber who spoke to me for 15 minutes
during which the only two words I understood were ‘Bobby Robson’. The presentation of a ‘can do’
society is understandable in that a secondary school coursebook might reasonably want to present
models of good social behaviour. However, we need to keep in mind that there are times we need to
deal with misunderstandings and less than perfect behaviour through the medium of a second
language. The result of a focus on the transactional in a can-do world is often ‘banal, painfully
obvious and often dull dialogues’ (Schewe and Shaw 1993, 9) while Cook bemoans the triumph of
148 I. TIMMIS

‘mundane transactional discourse’ over ‘playful, creative discourse’ (Cook 2000, 157). The line of cri-
tique we have outlined above is neatly summed up by Wajnryb (1996) who describes the world of the
coursebook as ‘safe, clean, harmonious, benevolent, undisturbed, and PG-rated’.

4. A case study in plausibility

To draw together the different factors we have considered in coursebook dialogues, it will be useful
now to look at a specific example, in this case an example taken from an Indonesian secondary school
book. It is not the worst dialogue I have ever seen, but I have chosen it as it illustrates a number of the
linguistic and human plausibility issues we discussed above, and so makes an interesting case study
both for analysis of its limitations and for discussion of how it might be improved. The fact that it is
from a state-approved secondary school book also provides us with a challenge: it is unlikely that the
teachers would simply be able to dispense with it.

(1) Karlos: Dear friends, I have a serious problem now. But I haven’t found the solution yet.
I’m confused. Can you help me?
(2) Upik: Tell us what it is!
(3) Karlos: Yeah. Next month I must stop my studies because my father retired three
months ago. So he cannot pay my school fees.
(4) Lidya: Take it easy. It’s not a serious problem.
(5) Karlos: What? How can I solve the problem?
(6) Lidya: Okay. I reckon you ask for a letter from the authority saying that your family can’t
afford the school fees. Then you submit the letter to your school or to the parents’
representative.
(7) Upik: In my opinion you can also request a scholarship. I think you are the best.
(8) Karlos: Thanks a lot for the suggestions. I’ll try to do that.
(9) Lidya: Good luck.

4.1. Linguistic plausibility – a critique

Line 1: It is implausible that Karlos would use four separate sentences in this turn, especially if he is
upset. There might even have been some repetition or hesitation.
Line 4 and Line 8: ‘Yeah’ and ‘I reckon’ are typical features of spoken language, but incongruous in a
dialogue which, as a whole, is anything but colloquial.
Line 7: ‘How can I solve the problem?’ sounds incongruously formal as spoken language among teen-
aged friends. I am 56 and I cannot remember anyone ever asking me that question.
Line 9, 10, 11: ‘submit’, ‘request’, and ‘in my opinion’ are all incongruously formal expressions for
school children to be using amongst each other in conversation.
Throughout the dialogue, there are none of the performance features we associate with authentic
interaction, for example, repetitions, hesitations, or overlaps, and there is no real back-channelling.
The dialogue does not score well on linguistic plausibility. We now turn to the plausibility of the dia-
logue as human interaction.

4.2. Plausibility as human interaction – a critique

Line 1: ‘Dear friends’ as an oral greeting strikes me as very unusual and, to be honest, even comical. It
is important to note that this may well be a reflection on me: I am English and not aware of local
cultural norms. Indeed, in an era of international use of English, a case has been made for setting
materials in local contexts and the use of ‘Dear friends’ in this situation may be culturally appropriate
in the local Indonesian context. However, if we accept that part of language teaching is to broaden
 INNOVATION IN LANGUAGE LEARNING AND TEACHING 149

learners’ cultural horizons, and that Indonesian children are unlikely to speak English to each other,
there is a case for using a greeting which would be serviceable outside the local context.
Line 3: ‘Tell us what it is’ is a rather bald imperative and seems incongruously blunt here. Something
gentler would surely be appropriate, even if we stick to imperatives, for example, ‘Sit down, take your
time and tell us what it is.’
Line 6: ‘It’s not a serious problem’ could be seen as pragmatically inappropriate in appearing to be a
little dismissive of Karl’s problem.
Lines 8, 9, 10, 11: Would these children really be so well informed about government scholarships? If
Upik and Lidya are so well informed, why is Karlos not? Surely the exchange about scholarships would
be more plausible between a child and an adult.
Line 11: ‘I think you are the best’ is syntactically well formed but makes no pragmatic sense at all here:
what is Karlos the best at and what has he done to earn this praise?

5. From autopsy to resurrection

5.1. Autopsy
If we were to perform an autopsy on this earnest dialogue, we would have to say it died of stress: the
strain of including advice and suggestion language while transmitting a government message about
scholarships was simply too much to bear, especially as the dialogue was simultaneously trying to
maintain written norms and a harmonious atmosphere. There is nothing particularly wrong with
any of the objectives in isolation: it is the combination that is lethal in this case. While, for
example, conveying a message about government scholarships is laudable, and an English language
coursebook is one vehicle for such a message, it seems to me that this dialogue between school chil-
dren is not the right vehicle.

5.2. Resurrection
Tomlinson (2013, 139) reports dispensing with materials which ‘didn’t sufficiently take into account
the resources of the learner as a human being’ but goes on to observe that teachers often have no
choice but to use a coursebook in lessons. In such cases, he argues, ‘they can humanize it by reducing
the non-humanistic elements of the book and by expanding and adding to those sections which
invite the learners to think, feel and do in order to learn’ (43). Below I outline some options which
reflect, I argue, Tomlinson’s observations above. Three points need to be made before we look at
examples of these options in action:
(1) It is very useful, though not absolutely essential, if teachers are in a position to re-record the
dialogue.
(2) The principles can be applied initially by the teacher and then, increasingly, autonomously by the
learners.
(3) The options are not mutually exclusive; for example, ‘extension’ may involve other principles such
as changing the cast or the mood of the dialogue.

5.2.1. Extension
The addition of a single line before, after, or within a coursebook dialogue can enliven proceedings,
particularly if it is used to subvert the harmonious atmosphere which usually prevails in coursebook
dialogues or if the addition is used to pass a sotto voce comment on one of the characters, for
example,
A line could be added before line 1 or after line 13 to pass comment on Karlos’ apparently earnest
character, for example,
Line 0: Upik: Here comes Karlos. He looks very serious as usual.
Line 14: Lidya: That boy is far too serious. He needs to relax.
150 I. TIMMIS

A more elaborate extension of our dialogue would be to get learners to script and role play the
dialogue between Karlos and his parents when he gets home with the good news about the scholar-
ship opportunity.
Tomlinson (forthcoming) suggests the addition of a complication to the plot. In our dialogue, for
example, the following scenario might be set:
Upik wants to spend time alone with Lidya and so is impatient with Karlos’ interruption. Lidya likes
Karlos and wants to keep the conversation going.

5.2.2. Change the mood

Given that we have commented above on the ‘can do’ society which prevails in coursebooks, there
are opportunities to change the mood of dialogues to something less Utopian. Stage directions
describing the mood and manner of the utterances can be added, for example,
Line 3: Upik (impatiently): Tell us what it is!
Line 6: Lidya (bored) Take it easy. It’s not a serious problem.
Another option is to add thought bubbles to the dialogue (Tomlinson 2013) which reveal the true
feelings of the protagonists in the dialogue, for example,
Line 3: Upik (Oh no, not Karlos and his problems again).
Learners can then act out the dialogues following the stage directions and/or the mood of the
thought bubbles providing some practice in varying intonations to express feelings.
Tomlinson (forthcoming) suggests that this kind of adaptation can be done on a whole class basis
with half the class given the ‘stage directions’ for one character and half the class ‘stage directions’ for
the other character (with appropriate mathematical adjustment dependent on the number of char-
acters in the dialogue).

5.2.3. Change the cast

A new character in the dialogue can be a vehicle for introducing a different register or variety of the
language, a change in the mood, or a change of cultural perspective. In our dialogue, the inappropri-
ately formal tone of lines 8, 9, 10, 11 could be made more realistic with the following change in line 8:
Lidya: Here comes our form teacher, let’s ask him.
Lines 9, 10, and 11 would then come more naturally from the mouth of a teacher.
A change of cultural perspective could come from the addition of an Indonesian school boy who
has lived in the USA, for example,
Line 14: Angga: That’s great. They don’t have that scholarship system in the USA.

5.2.4. Change the register

It would not be difficult to make this dialogue less formal. Some intensive listening practice could be
provided by changing the register of just 2 or 3 words or phrases and asking learners to listen and
‘spot the difference’, for example,
Line 1: Change ‘I have a serious problem’ to ‘I’ve got a bit of a problem’.
Line 9: Change ‘submit’ to ‘hand in’.
Line 11: Change ‘request’ to ‘ask for’.
Ask the learners to listen and note down the changes. This could then lead to a discussion of when
it is appropriate to use which form.

5.2.5. Describe the characters

Useful vocabulary work can be generated through questions about the characters in the dialogue
and about the situation presented, questions which require a certain degree of inferencing. In our
example, the following questions suggest themselves:
. What kind of person do you think Karlos/Upik/Lidya is?
. How does Karlos feel at the start/at the end of the dialogue?
. Do you think his problem is really serious?
 INNOVATION IN LANGUAGE LEARNING AND TEACHING 151

. What advice would you give?

This kind of information can then feed into re-scripting and/or acting out the dialogue.

5.2.6. ‘Unscript’ the dialogue

We noted above that coursebook dialogues often lack the kind of ‘imperfections’ typical of authentic
conversation, for example, hesitation, repetition, and interruptions. We do not need to commit our-
selves 100% to authenticity or to become involved in the vexed debate about ‘whose authenticity?’ It
may be appropriate to adopt the more moderate position that at some point learners need to be
exposed to less scripted English. One way to achieve this is to present the basic scenario and the char-
acters of the coursebook to some colleagues and ask them to act it out, perhaps using simple prompt
cards. Learners can then be asked to listen to the new dialogue and compare it with the original.

6. From practice to principles

Thus far I have provided a critique of coursebook dialogues and suggested practical ways in which we
might enliven particularly dull examples. I would like to argue now that the options discussed are
principled as well as practical and can be justified with reference to language teaching theory, high-
lighting the following principles: affective engagement; noticing; pushed output; bottom-up proces-
sing; and varied repetition.

6.1. Affective engagement

We have already noted the crucial importance of motivation and the proposed activities have poten-
tial for at least one aspect of motivation, affective engagement. The vital role of affective engagement
is stressed by Tomlinson (2013, 12):
Learners who are stimulated to laugh, smile, feel joy, feel excited and feel empathetic are much more likely to
acquire communicative competence than learners who are restricted to bland, safe, neutral materials which
do not stimulate any emotional response.

There is potential for this kind of affective engagement, I argue, in the activities where learners have
the scope to add to or amend the dialogue, perhaps with a little mischief or subversion where circum-
stances allow, perhaps even aided and abetted by the teacher. There is also scope for creativity in
adapting the dialogue.

6.2. Noticing
The activities which involve the learners making comparisons between different versions of the dia-
logue, or which involve learners reformulating the dialogues themselves, have the potential to
promote ‘noticing’ as they encourage the learners to pay conscious attention to the input. As Thorn-
bury (1997, 326) points out: ‘Learners must attend to linguistic features of the input that they are
exposed to, without which input cannot become “intake”’. ‘Intake’ does not necessarily lead immedi-
ately to productive control of the feature, but it is a prerequisite for it. The learner will be primed to
notice the feature in future input and thus one small step closer to acquiring it. Far more important
than learners noticing any single feature, I would argue, is that learners develop the habit of noticing
and develop an awareness of differences between coursebook language and naturally-occurring
language.

6.3. ‘Pushed output’

Activities which require the learners to add to or amend the dialogues are likely to stretch the lear-
ners’ productive capacity as they have to exploit their current resources to the full and perhaps seek
152 I. TIMMIS

further resources. This kind of ‘pushed output’ can foster language acquisition by leading learners to
notice the gap between what they want to say and what they are easily able to say (Swain 1995). The
key role for the teacher in this respect is to set an achievable challenge and to be on hand to provide
the resources when learners notice the gap. As a personal aside, one of the most satisfying moments
in teaching for me is when a learner is highly motivated to say something and I am able to provide
the missing link.

6.4. Bottom-up processing

Activities which require the learners to listen for differences in phraseology in two versions of the dia-
logue encourage ‘bottom-up processing’, that is, decoding from the part to the whole by moving
from phonemes to syllables to words to phrases. While bottom-up processing went out of fashion
for some time with the advent of communicative language teaching, there is increasing recognition
of its importance in effective listening. Rather than a dichotomous approach where top-down and
bottom-up never meet, we now see an interactive model where both top-down and bottom-up strat-
egies can be called upon according to the needs of the moment.

6.5. Varied repetition

The value of varied repetition is promoted by Maley (1994) and the approach to dialogues I have pro-
posed here offers just that opportunity as the same dialogue may be revisited a number of times but
from different perspectives. Maley’s (1994) proposal accords well with my own philosophy, learned
from experience, which is that the key to language teaching is the number of times you can
repeat a text, activity, or language focus without boring the learners (easier said than done!).

7. Conclusion
In conclusion, we return to the idea that 1000 years after Aelfric’s colloquy, dialogues still play an
important role in language teaching. Indeed, it is particularly interesting that in a contemporary cour-
sebook which is in many ways more original than most (e.g. Outcomes by Dellar and Walkley (2010)),
constructed dialogues embedding the target language of the unit play a driving role: they appear on
the first page of every unit. One of the authors, Dellar (2004), points out that in a coursebook which
promotes conversational ability, dialogues which resemble natural conversation deserve a leading
role. He is not attached to absolute authenticity, arguing that we have enough experience of conver-
sations to be able to simulate authenticity well enough using our intuition. The important point here
is clarity of purpose: the dialogues in this coursebook, while loaded with target language, are con-
structed to provide working models for learners to adapt and adopt for their own conversations.
They are not designed to be learned by heart, to demonstrate written grammar, to transmit socio-
political messages, or to provide models of good social behaviour (though they are perhaps too
consistently cheerful). McCarten and McCarthy (2010) have a different perspective, suggesting that
conversations in corpora can be a starting point for dialogue writing, arguing, somewhat in contrast
to Dellar (2004), that common features of spoken language can actually escape our intuitive feel for
conversation. They offer the following guidelines for adapting conversations found in corpora:
. Keep turns generally short, except for narratives. Where one speaker ‘holds the floor’ build in lis-
tener back-channelling and non-minimal responses … .
. Allow speakers to react to the previous speaker … .
. Do not overload speech with densely packed information; ensure a balance of transactional and
relational language, and an appropriate lexical density.
. Include some repetition, rephrasing, fragmented sentences, and other features of speech, but
maintain transparency.
. Keep speakers ‘polite’ and not confrontational or face-threatening.
 INNOVATION IN LANGUAGE LEARNING AND TEACHING 153

These design criteria are applied in the Touchstone coursebook series (McCarthy, McCarten, and
Sandiford 2005). I do not propose to set up an opposition between the Outcomes/Touchstone
approaches here. As Richard Holloway, a former Bishop of Edinburgh, once observed, rather than
seeing a contest between good and evil, it can sometimes be instructive to see a contest as being
between two competing ‘goods’. Whichever approach we adopt, the main thing is to aim for linguis-
tic and human plausibility – then we might produce dialogues of which old Aelfric would be proud.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor
Ivor Timmis is Reader in English Language Teaching at Leeds Beckett University where he teaches on the MA in ELT and
supervises PhD students. His research interests lie in corpus linguistics, with a particular focus on spoken corpora and in
the relevance of corpus findings for ELT practice. These interests are reflected in two books he has recently completed:
Corpus Linguistics for ELT; Materials Development for TESOL (with Freda Mishan). He has travelled to over 20 countries,
including the USA, China, Ethiopia, and Cuba, for conferences and projects. Currently, he is working on a project studying
spoken language in the 1930s.

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