Language Awareness: Use/Misuse of Loan-words in the English Language in Japan

Andrea Simon-Maeda
Ichimura Gakuen Junior College (Inuyama, Japan)
KFA05374 [at] niftyserve.or.jp

1. Introduction

The following quiz appeared in the Asahi Evening News (Mon., Jan. 9, 1995):

Exotic English quiz

Try matching the product names in the left-hand column with the goods they represent in the right-hand column. Answers are below:

     1. Clean Life, Please      A. soft drink
     2. I've                    B. chocolate candy
     3. Love-love               C. coffee creamer
     4. Volume Up Water         D. cigarettes
     5. Hope                    E. cleaning gloves
     6. Mouth Jazz              F. electric razor
     7. Pocari Sweat            G. condoms
     8. Creap                   H. mouthwash
     9. Meltykiss               I. hairspray
    10. Super Winky             J. shampoo

  Answers: 1E, 2J 3F, 4I, 5D, 6H, 7A, 8C, 9B, 10G

In the same article it is noted that Japanese employees at the advertising agencies write most of the English slogans because they know what will appeal to the Japanese consumer. A top agency president is quoted as saying that "English words are being used as a creative device rather than for their pure communication value", he continues, "What they do is put English words in a Japanese syntax. They're thinking Japanese but speaking English" (p.4).

Even after twenty years residency in Japan the above slogans still manage to provide a constant source of amusement and therefore, in some way, fulfill the intention of the advertisement -- to catch my attention. As an English language teacher, however, I can't help but be 'aware' of the misuse of the language on both the written and spoken level in and out of the classroom situation.

The misuse of English loan-words in Japanese is another vexing problem for both the native English speaker studying Japanese and the native Japanese speaker studying English. In both cases, new pronunciation, usage and meaning must be re-learned, mostly on a colloquial level.

In this paper I would like to present more examples of the above followed by a possible pedagogical solution to enhance greater and more 'correct' English language awareness for the NNS (Non-native speaker).

2. Examples

At Dr. Ron Carter's Language Awareness Workshop at Temple University in Osaka (Japan) one of the Japanese participants expressed her dismay at not being able to interpret more than two meanings for "A car for the 90's". I thought one or two was a formidable feat considering that the native speakers had trouble with three or four. Should slogans and advertisements be a part of language instruction in our EFL classrooms? Dr. Carter referred to Guy Cook's categorization of the above as literature (with a small "L) being different from Literature (with a big "L", books, plays, etc.), and as such, a starting point for incidental language awareness. Jokes and puns as literature could also be included in the initial stages of language learning rather than being saved for the advanced learner.

The following headline appeared in The Temple Voice, the student newspaper for Temple University in Osaka.

Wada Encourages TUJ students "Get your ticket!"

We can understand Chris Wada's intention after reading the article, but a native speaker might have interpreted the headline in a completely different way, i.e. Mr Wada wants the students to get out of Temple University right away because of something bad that they did! The word 'ticket' is misused again in a non-native-like fashion in the second paragraph. We can't be sure if these were the speaker's actual words or an editorial mistake, in either case, a more careful choice of words would have enhanced the passage. In the same issue (p6), however, there is a perfectly acceptable headline:

Roots and Shoots Begins to Take Root at TUJ

Let's hope the editorial staff pursues a more consistent editing policy. The English language newspapers in Japan provide a good model of a better use of English idioms and puns. It seems that the lower the caliber of the newspaper, the more frequent use of the above because, I assume, the editors believe that this is what its main reading audience, the international community in Japan, favors. To take just one example:

Ponytail of woe: Boy fights for his hair in school

An EFL learner would have difficulty interpreting this headline. One would have to be familiar not only with the referential meaning of 'ponytail' but also of the pun on the phrase 'tale of woe' which may be unfamiliar to even some native speakers. There is another play on words with the phrase 'fights for his hair' which is usually 'fights for his life'. We teachers must try to direct our students' attention also to the representational meanings of words, providing them with variations of vocabulary usage as the occasion arises. The English language newspapers in Japan would be an excellent source of teaching materials for this purpose.

As I mentioned above, the misuse of English loan-words is a problem which EFL teachers in Japan are constantly faced with, in and out of the classroom. There is a useful dictionary to help the native English speaker living in Japan (Webb, 1990) in which loan-words are categorized as follows:

1. compound words which do not exist in English, for example: en-suto ('engine stop'), gattsu-poozu ('guts pose'), gooru-in (goal in'), etc.
2. shortened words, for example: katsu ('cutlet'), hoomu (platform'), waa-puro ('word processor'), etc.
3. words whose pronunciation is very different from the pro- nunciation of the original English word, for example: biniiru ('vinyl'), shinnaa ('thinner'), kaabu ('curb'), etc.
4. words whose meaning or usage is different from the original English word, for example: manshon ('mansion'), saidaa ('cider'), sutairu ('style'), charenji ('challenge'), etc.
5. words derived from English words which are not common, for example, kurakushon ('klaxon'), maikurobasu ('microbus), mootaa-puuru (motorpool'), etc.
6. words derived from British English words which are not used in America, for example: bonnetto ('bonnet' of a car), seroteepu ('sellotape'), supana ('spanner'), etc.
7. words borrowed from European languages other than English, for example: abekku (French 'avec'), zemi (German, 'Seminar'), koppu (Dutch 'kop'), etc. (p7-8).

Webb reminds the user of this dictionary that "many words have acquired colloquial meanings which are quite different from the meanings given in dictionaries (e.g. burando , foroo, yankii, etc.)" (p8).

This latter point, I feel, provides the most headaches for the EFL teacher. Our students recognize the word as a loanword but are familiar only with its colloquial meaning and usage in Japanese. For example, the item chaamu-pointo (charm point) is commonly used among my junior college female students to refer to an attractive quality of a person's physical makeup, for example:

        Kanojo no chaamu-pointo wa?
        Her charm point is what? (literal translation)

The students most often assume that the use of the loanword in the English translation would be acceptable and are surprised to learn that this is not the case. Acceptable substitutes must then be taught to undo the damage, for example, 'What is her most attractive feature?' or 'What do you find attractive about her?', etc. Occurrences of this misuse of loan-words are prevalent in both oral and written work in the EFL classroom. The foreigner, on the other hand, must learn the above loan- words as part of the target language( Japanese) to be able to communicate successfully.

For both the EFL student and the native English speaker learning Japanese, I feel that Webb's dictionary is a valuable tool.

Let's look at one entry in detail:

    naisu-midoru  (nice-middle)
    well-dressed, attractive middle-aged man

    Furansu ryooriten ni wa wakai onna no ko
    o tsureta naisumidoru ga imashita.

    In the French restaurant a young girl
    brought by a nice-middle was there.
    (my literal translation)

    There was an attractive middle-aged man with
    a young woman in  the French restaurant.
    (Webb's acceptable English translation).

Students who are familiar with this word would use it in an English sentence, as in my translation above, disregarding the impossible English syntactical arrangement. By providing many more examples of the correct adjectival function of this word, hopefully, students would come to an 'awareness' of the proper usage. In the slogans which were cited in the introduction, the English words are used in a similar indiscriminate manner and produce just an effect rather than any kind of communication, just as the agency president said. This may be the desired outcome of the advertising company, but a nightmare for the language teacher.

3. A pedagogical solution

Using the suggested technique of course-book 'situations' including interactions between non-native speakers, or between non-native and native speakers (McCarthy and Carter, 1994) I would like to propose the following as a language awareness activity: (The vocabulary items could be selected from A Handbook of Loanwords):

Junko: I think Mary's charm point is her beautiful hair.
Andy: Charm point? If you're referring to Mary's most attractive feature, her hair, then I certainly agree.
Junko: Yes, right. She also has a very charming personality.
Andy: Yes, she does.

In constructing this dialogue, I have tried to incorporate the model described by Varonis and Gass (1985) in which there is a "negotiation exchange" between interlocutors indicating a misunderstanding. The model (p151) is worth quoting here:

"Our model consists of four primes: (1) a trigger (T), which stimulates or invokes incomplete understanding on the part of the hearer; (2) an indicator(I), which is the hearer's signal that understanding has not been complete; (3) a response (R), which is the original speaker's attempt to clear up the unaccepted input (this is often referred to as a repair); and (4) a reaction to the response(RR), an optional element that signals either the hearer's acceptance or continued difficulty with the speaker's repair.

The example in 1 above, which we repeat here, illustrates all these elements.

    1. NNS1: My father now is retire. --T
       NNS2: retire?-- I
       NNS1: yes. -- R
       NNS2: oh yeah. -- RR "

Their data show how an indicator of incomplete comprehension is often expressed "by echoing a word or phrase of the previous utterance" (p154).

In my original dialogue above, the NS's difficulty with the NNS's use of charm point is indicated by echoing the loanword in question form. As a language awareness exercise for my students, I would have them first listen to the dialogue and try to pick out the misused loanword and the manner in which it was repaired by the NS. They could then look at the transcript and, using the model mentioned above (after an explanation from the teacher), place the symbols for trigger(T), indicator(I), response(R), and reaction to response(RR) at the appropriate places, for example:

Junko: I think Mary's charm point(T) is her beautiful hair.
Andy: Charm point?(I) If you're referring to her most attractive feature, her hair, then I certainly agree.
Junko: Yes, right.(R) She also has a very charming personality.
Andy: Yes, she does.(RR)

I think the above exercise would help focus students' attention on the use/misuse of loan-words in their own speech, especially on the indications of misunderstanding or acceptance in an exchange with a NS. The alternative, correct usage (most attractive feature) would hopefully develop their awareness of the necessity to know the many variations of a certain lexical item. This type of dialogue is a more realistic exchange than the dialogues which appear in most EFL textbooks in which there always seems to be complete understanding which is an unrealistic occurrence.

Although the native English-speaking population of Japan represents only a small percentage of the consumer market I think a bit more 'language awareness' on the part of the slogan creators would make the products more appealing to the international community. As McCarthy and Carter p115) state, it is impossible to "separate culture from linguistic expression"; one cannot just stick English words into a Japanese context without concern for the appropriateness of the linguistic result.

References

Gass S, Madden C (editors) 1985 Input in Second Language Acquisition . Newbury House.

McCarthy MJ, Carter R 1994 Language as Discourse: Perspectives for Language Teaching . Longman.

Webb J 1990 A Guide to Modern Japanese Loanwords . The Japan Times

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Is Gairaigo English?

James B. Brown
jbbrown [at] keiwa-c.ac.jp
Keiwa College (Niigata, Japan)

Editor's Note: Gairaigo is the Japanese word for "loan-words".

In an earlier study done to determine whether or not Japanese students make active use of their "latent" vocabulary of English words which have been borrowed into Japanese, we determined that words borrowed into Japanese from English were more easily defined than words that had not been borrowed. The first round of experiments involved the playing of recordings of the English words which the students were asked to listen to over their headsets. Then the students were asked to define them by chosing one from among four definitions, in Japanese, that we projected onto a classroom television monitor. Each of the units of the experiment: the repetition of the word, the projection of the definitions, and the students marking their answer sheets took about 15 seconds. There were 100 units, or vocabulary items, in all.

The vocabulary constituents were carefully selected but were presented to the students without any context, i.e. they simply heard the words repeated twice, before they were asked to mark their answer sheets with the letter of the definition that they felt was closest to the correct one for the word that they had just heard.

The results of the early tests were interesting, but we felt that a study that omitted the loop in Japanese, might prove to be even more productive. With that notion in mind, we designed a second round of experiments which we administered to our freshmen English classes at Tohoku Gakuin University, a group which closely paralleled one of the two groups that were the subjects of our earlier series of experiments.

We decided to avoid using Japanese in the experiment itself from the outset, and agreed that the written medium, rather than the spoken, might prove to be more interesting. We felt that the reading skills of the subjects might be more developed than their listening comprehension talents, and since the first round of experiments involved, essentially, listening comprehension, we wanted to see if similar results could be obtained through reading. In addition, we felt that should the outcome prove to be as significant as that of the first series of experiments, the pedagogical implications would be clearer than they were with the earlier study.

We designed our experiment around twenty problems. Each problem consisted of one sentence in English with one word missing, a fill-in-the-blank type of testing procedure. Since the fill-in-the-blank type of question is one with which most of our subjects were familiar, we felt that the experiment might prove to be less threatening than the listening comprehension one, but would still test the variables that we were interested in, namely, whether or not Japanese students of English make unconscious use of their "latent" English vocabulary of borrowed words.

Each sentence with its empty blank to fill in was followed by four vocabulary items, one of which was to be selected for insertion into the empty space in the sentence. Each of the choices was correct, in that any of them, a random selection, for example, would result in a correct English sentence. Only one of the four, however, was a word which had been borrowed into Japanese. No particular effort was made to control the word level of the vocabulary items used, as had been the case with the earlier experiments. Generally, we tried to avoid overly simple words, but kept the contextual environment rather simple in grammatical terms. (See Fig. 1.) As with the first experiments, we did not know, unfortunately, the word level of the borrowed words in Japanese, a potential weakness in the experiments.

4.  The students were very __________ .

  a.  bored
  b.  curious
  c.  alert
  d.  active*

 5.  She was well known because of her __________.

  a.  expertise
  b.  achievement*
  c.  accomplishments
  d.  deeds

7.  In Hong Kong tourists can buy a lot of __________ name brand goods.

  a.  exceptional
  b.  cheap
  c.  foreign
  d.  imitation*

Fig. 1: Sample problems [borrowed word marked with an *]

Unlike the first study in which the students were expected to hear the words, read the definitions in Japanese on the classroom monitors, and mark their answer sheets in about fifteen seconds per item, in this study, no special time limit for finishing the "test" was set. The subjects, 97 freshmen English majors at Tohoku Gakuin University in Sendai, about seventy percent of whom were women, however, were not given unlimited amounts of time to complete the problems. Students who finished quickly began to talk amongst themselves, thus putting some pressure to "get it over with" on those who were still working on the experiment.

Since any choice from among the four would have resulted in a correct English sentence, there was no single "right" answer. We wanted to see if students, perhaps unable to decide between at least two, or from among as many as four alternatives, would "gravitate" towards the words which were also borrowed into Japanese as gairaigo.

In analyzing the results, we decided to follow two paths. Since a random selection of answers would result in a score of 25 percent, any one of the four being correct, we compared the actual results to a random score. The average number of answers, out of the total of twenty, in which the borrowed word was chosen was 9.92 or 49.6 percent of the total.

This result was obviously significant, but we were concerned that since students don't, and presumably didn't, just select answers at random, that these conspicuous results might not stand up against a different form of analysis. Also, in some of the problems, the non-borrowed words were chosen far more than the borrowed word in the same group of four. To further analyze the significance of the results, we made three groups of twenty words each out of the three words with each sentence that were not borrowed into Japanese, and compared the results of the borrowed group to a random selection as well as to those of each of the randomly created groups of non-borrowed words. Since some of the groups contained non-borrowed words which were chosen more often than any of the borrowed words, we thought that this might result in a more useful, and perhaps not so one-sided comparison as had been achieved with a random selection. As might be expected from the overwhelming "gravitation" towards the borrowed words, however, only one of the three artificial groups scored close to what would have been achieved by a purely random selection. See Fig. 2.

Twenty-five of the papers, roughly a quarter of the total, were selected to analyze and the number of answers for each word was totaled. A random selection of the words to insert in the blanks would result in 6.25 selections per word for the group of 25 students shown in the RANDOM column in Fig. 2. 25 students divided by four, the number of possible choices, results in the figure 6.25. As previously mentioned, from the words that had not been borrowed into Japanese, we made three other groups. These are GROUP A, GROUP B, and GROUP C, respectively, in Fig. 2 above. The bar labeled BORROWED GROUP is the group of twenty words which have been borrowed into Japanese. The totals of Group A, Group B, Group C and the Borrowed group add up to the number of subjects, twenty-five.

A statistical analysis of the results shown in Fig. 2 reveal the following results:

Fig. 3

Fig. 3 shows the results of comparison of all five groups shown in Fig. 2 together. The probability (p) of these results happening by chance is no greater than one in ten thousand, a highly significant indication that we can reject the null hypothesis with confidence.

Breaking down the results in pairs of groups, since the RANDOM GROUP scored higher than any of the others except the BORROWED GROUP, a statistical analysis was conducted comparing each of the groups to it.

Fig. 4

Fig. 4 shows a comparison of RANDOM GROUP and GROUP A as shown in Fig. 2. Since a probability factor of .01 is what was selected for demonstration of high significance and .05 as moderate significance, these results show that the difference between these two groups falls in between the two standards, since the p factor is greater than .025 but may not be as high as .05. We can say, therefore, that there is a moderately high level of signifance involved in the difference between RANDOM GROUP and GROUP A.

Fig. 5

Fig. 5 shows a comparison of RANDOM GROUP and GROUP B as shown in Fig. 2. These results indicate that there is no significant difference between the group of non-borrowed words called GROUP B and a random selection of answers.

Fig. 6

Fig. 6 shows a comparison of RANDOM GROUP and GROUP C. Clearly a random selection of answers is significantly better than the selection of the non-borrowed words represented by GROUP C.

Fig. 7

Fig. 7 shows a comparison of RANDOM GROUP which "outperformed" all the other groups, usually significantly, with BORROWED GROUP shown in Fig. 2. The probability of these results happening by chance are no greater than five in one thousand, a highly significant result, considering that a p factor of one in a hundred is the standard set for "high significance."

In addition, suspecting that men and women might score differently on the problems, independent analyses on the scores of two groups divided only by sex was made. As interesting as it would have been had there been some divergence in the scores, the two groups scored almost identically. There was no significant difference between men and women.

The implications of the second experiment proved to be even more dramatic than those of the first. In a fill-in-the-blank exercise, the students quite clearly felt more comfortable with the use of the words that had been borrowed into Japanese than with words which had not. This suggests that reading texts, built up around the many words that have been borrowed from English into Japanese, might prove to be effective tools in the development of English vocabulary among Japanese university students. The results also suggest that the Japanese teacher of English might be positioned to best take advantage of the "borrowed word recognition phenomenon" which was unequivocably demonstrated in our two series of experiments. The Japanese English teacher is generally more aware of these borrowed words and is often better able to focus on them in the classroom, knowing which are similar in meaning to their English antecedents and which have diverted widely from their original English meanings. The borrowings from English into Japanese have been extensive and continue at a rapid pace. These words clearly constitute a "latent" English vocabulary base. It remains to the classroom materials developers to take full advantage of it, but for the student, a borrowed word approach to vocabulary development might prove to be a rapid way to increase word power.

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Lexical Attrition of Some Arabic Speakers of English as a Foreign language: A Study of Word Loss

Hassan Al-Hazemi
hghazemi [at] hotmail.com
King AbdulAziz Military Academy (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia)

This study investigates the loss of English vocabulary knowledge (both general and specialized military) of some Saudi military officers in the Saudi Armed forces. The study investigates the lexical loss during 12 years of English disuse after leaving King AbdulAziz military academy in which those lexical items are previously learned. The study will examine the loss of the receptive vocabulary, which was claimed to suffer greater loss than productive vocabulary ( Nation, 1988).

A descriptive statistic is conducted to determine any statistical differences in the subjects' mean scores which can be attributed to attrition (word loss).

INTRODUCTION

In the past few years, different studies were carried out on Arab learners of English as a foreign language, aimed at looking into vocabulary knowledge (Al-Hazemi,1998) and word recognition ( Al-Hazemi, 2000a ). Al-Hazemi argued in those studies that the inability of some Arab EFL learners to recognize some words was due to the fact that certain words might have been forgotten. Many words were also hard to recognize even when clues were given. The phenomenon of word loss, however, was not investigated with adult Arab learners of English to support the above arguments.

This study intends to investigate words' loss of some Saudi officers at the Saudi armed forces who must have studied both general and military English at the military academy before joining the army. The study will shed light on how their vocabulary knowledge is affected after 2-12 years of disuse. Some studies ( Ginkel et al, 1996) show that the process of forgetting probably occurs later than three or four years after the university degree.

It has been argued that lexical knowledge is probably the most vulnerable aspect of the language system (Weltens et al, 1993) to word loss. According to Weltens et al, forgetting is different than attrition in that during forgetting an information can be retrieved as a whole when clues are given, whereas during attrition learners might be able to retrieve part of the information. According to psychologists, forgetting occurs as a result of either the influence between target and other learned materials or as a result of memory decay ( cohen, 1989: 136). The views outlined above about the nature of attrition and word loss have lead some linguists and psychologists to study this issue. Cohen (1989) studied the lexicon of his two trilingual children. He found out that L2 or L3 vocabulary became week as L1 words utterances interfered with L2 words. In another study, Cohen also found attrition of productive knowledge, especially nouns. Cohen (1986) believes that when there is a lot to learn in learning words, there is much that can be forgotten in the forgetting process (p. 146). This claim was supported by Ebbinghaus (1885), who believed that the more you know, the more you forget ( quoted in Welten et al, 1993). Olshtain (1989), conducted a similar study to that of Cohen (1989) on Hebrew -speaking children. The results show that disuse of English results in attrition of lexical knowledge.

In another study, Bahrick (1984) tested the retention of school-learned Spanish, and concluded that students lose fixed amount of knowledge over a given period of time, regardless of their total knowledge. Berman and Olshtain (1983) found greater quantitative and qualitative loss of English as a second language among 5- to 8- year-old Hebrew speakers than among older children experiencing similar disuse of the language. This suggests that children suffer greater language attrition in the same period of time than older ones (Cohen, 1989).

Other studies on lexical attrition demonstrated that lexical knowledge attrited easily than phonology and morpho-syntax (Seliger, 1985), since the vocabulary of a language is relatively unstructured ( Welten et al, 1993).

It can be noticed from the above review of studies on attrition that most studies dealt mainly with children, and few of them tackled this problem with adult learners. This study will examine the problem of word loss of adult EFL speakers of English.

The study

The present study investigates word attrition (word loss) ; it addresses the following questions: What is the state of vocabulary (both general and military) of Saudi military officers after 2- 12 years of disuse ? Is it heavily lost, or does it remain partially intact?

Methods

Subjects

The subjects of this study were 60 officers in the Saudi armed forces ranking from Lieutenants to Majors. They were all male native speakers of Arabic. Prior to their work in the armed forces, they were cadets at King AbdulAziz Military Academy in Riyadh. In this Academy, they were taught both general and military English as part of the general curriculum. The officers participating in the study are now members of staff in King AbdulAziz Military Academy.

Test and testing procedure

The materials used in the study were 40 vocabulary items, 20 of which were general English words ( words encountered in the daily situations or in books) and 20 related to military terminology. All words were randomly selected from the materials that the subjects had studied when they were cadets at the military academy. To make sure that these vocabulary items were learned by the officers 2-12 years ago, they were shown to a number of senior civil instructors at the academy, as well as to some senior officers to check their accuracy. Words that were not taught to the officers earlier when they were cadets were discarded.

A multiple-choice test was designed using the 40 words. The distracters were carefully selected to make sure that they were also understood by the subjects. The test was then shown in its earlier format to the same group of senior teachers at the academy to check for any possible difficulties.

The test was handed out to the subjects, and they were told that this was merely a study for experimental purposes and had nothing to do with their carrier. Instructions were written on the front page of the test sheet. The subjects were instructed as follows:

1. Not to write their names on the test sheet, in order to reduce their fear of exposing their weak knowledge of English and to insure better results. Instead of the subjects' names, numbers would be used to label each case of the data.
2. Not to resort to any help of any kind ( friends, books, dictionaries, etc.) while taking the test.
3. To circle only one answer on the test sheet for each item of the test. The test was then collected and graded by giving one mark to each correct answer. Any double or blank answers would be marked as wrong ones.

Analysis

Descriptive statistics was used to determine any differences in the means of the row scores of the subjects . The SPSS Statistical Package Program (V.7) for windows was used to run the analysis.

Results

The data that concern us most was the differences in the means between the three groups' scores ( lieutenants, captains , and majors) . The data would show us whether the length of time of English disuse had caused a greater loss to English words learned by the testees during their learning stage at King AbdulAziz Military Academy (KAMA). The data is summarized in table (1).

The table clearly shows that there was no difference in the subjects raw scores. The slight rise in the scores of the second groups (Captains) was due to the fact that some of the testees in this group had an English training course in some English institutes. This in turn, enhanced their vocabulary knowledge that helped them to score around 80% on the test. However, the mean scores of the three groups represent less than half of the words being tested. This means that each group knows only half of the words presented to them on the test. Besides, each group tends to forget more than 50% of the given words, regardless of the period of English disuse.

DISCUSSION

The results of this investigation demonstrated that the ability of the subjects to recall words (both general and military) that have been learned few years ago is certainly low. Less than half ( about 45 %) of the words given on the test were known to the subjects. Even newly graduated subjects (Lieutenants) seemed unable to recognize the words on the test which they had learned two to three years before, which is not a long time compared to Captains and Majors. The results also indicated that all three groups, who participated in the test, (Lieutenants, Captains, And Majors) had about the same lexical knowledge, regardless of the period of disuse of English. This loss of word knowledge by these subjects is a serious problem indeed, which seems to suggest that there may be other hidden problems in learning English that lead to attrition. The environment in Saudi Arabia, for instance, in which foreign languages is acquired by the subjects has an important effect on the retention of words. The attrition or word loss of our Saudi subjects, which is clear from the results, may have been attributed to lack of language environment ( i.e. the regular use of language in daily situations, and lack of language input). The continuation of language feedback in some countries in Europe is one factor of enhancing word knowledge of the learners of English and of reducing the degree of word loss. Saudi learners suffer from what is called " the retrieval-failure" (Loftus& Loftus, 1976). This simply means the inability to remember certain words and recall their meanings. Some Saudi learners of English forget most of what they learn gradually as no practice or enough exposure to the English language is available to them. However, when given clues in their native language about forgotten words, the information about those lost words would come back again and the retrieval - process is reactivated. Clues in English (i.e. context) about certain words could add to the problem as more words in the clues need to be understood before the target word's meaning is achieved ( see Al-Hazemi, 2000b).

It should be emphasised that the length of the period of disuse of English by the subjects of this study accounts only for part of the loss of the words presented in the test .The larger part of attrition, however, can be attributed to the environmental factors as stated above.

The results reported so far may also provide an indication that the testees proficiency in English is low, which in turn reflects on the amount of attrition. This provides a good support to the claim of the classical theory (Ebbinghaus, 1885), namely that proficiency level determines to a large extent the amount of knowledge that will attrite (Weltens & grendel, 1993: 145).

One would argue that the test items used in this study were so small to provide reliable evidence of word lose. It is very important to note, however, that due to the officers (participants of this study) tight daily schedule inside as well as outside the academy, it was difficult to administer large number of words, though we believe that more words would have produced more data about attrition. It should also be born in mind that providing a large number of words (say 150 words) in a multiple choice format would have produced more than a ten- page test, which would have required more time from the officers than they could have given to this study. Therefore, it should be understood that even if the outcome of this research produces some insights regarding word loss, it cannot make claims for statistical generalization.

The collection of data is another obstacle in this study. The data gathering was time consuming. It took quite sometime for some of the subjects to agree to take the test. This was because some of the subjects pretended to be so busy, and most of them were reluctant to do the test. The reason being: firstly, they fear to make mistakes which in their views could ruin their reputation as officers. Secondly, The subjects got the feeling that the test was going to be difficult and most of them chose not to do it, or hand in their test blank. Another group just denied that they had learned those words when they were cadets. Those subjects had, indeed, studied the words in the test, but had forgotten or could not even remember that they had seen them. This situation occurred as a result of long time of disuse or poor proficiency in English."

The question remains to be answered is: which lexical items are more susceptible to loss, general items or military ones? Future research will, hopefully, shed light on this issue.

Implications:

The results of this study have some implications for teachers as well as for officers dealing with English as an essential part in their military life. The loss of vocabulary shown by the subjects in this study is a serious problem. Officers faced great difficulties in communicating in English with their fellow officers from other nationalities during the Gulf War. This problem arises from lack of proficiency in vocabulary which result from the loss of most of the words they have learned when they were cadets or from not having acquired enough words during their academic and military life.

It should be born in mind that attrition occures quickly, about 25% during the first year of disuse ( Bahrick, 1984), so constant follow up of what was learned is necessary to maintain a good knowledge of new and old words to express ourselves. This would lead us to outline some recommendations to tackle the issue of vocabulary loss and encourage vocabulary build up.

Recommendations

The recommendations to be mentioned in this research are of two kinds: The first part concerns the officers; the second part concerns the institutions to which these officers belong.

Officers:

The way to build up good vocabulary and develop good command of English should arise from the desire of the officers themselves to seek the proper way to learn. In other words, they must be willing to learn English, and not put the blame on others for not being able to communicate effectively. To this end, officers should be willing to accomplish the following:

1. Seek all avenues possible to learn and keep what they learn alive through constant practice. This can be done through simple reading materials, which can be found in bookstores or public libraries.
2. Enroll in an English language center in the evening; language centers are now available in many towns and cities around the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
3. Make use of some of the computer English programs available in the markets today (i.e. Learn to speak English, Al-Kamel). Other Learning programs are also available in bookstores (i.e. BBC series, Cambridge learning course, etc.).
4. Find an opportunity to go abroad to see how native speakers speak the language, and practice what had been learned in real situation. While in an English- speaking country, they should visit places like museums, markets, shows, and they should go sightseeing to acquire more words and keep records of all new words. They need to make sure that when they return home, they will have collected good materials for practice and use in their daily life.
5. Learn how to use the internet and exchange ideas with people in the same area. Check web sights and browse some topics related to travel, science, education, medicine, or any topic of their choice.
6. During communication with others, they need to ask them what they mean if they don't understand certain words or phrases. They should not pretend to understand if they don't.
7. Listen carefully to native or native-like speakers of English to correct words which they misheard or mislearned in the past. In this way they would be able to correct any mispronounced words.

Institutions:

Another responsibility lies in the government institutions and military academies, i.e. to encourage the officers to develop their English language skills by sending them abroad and arranging exchange visits with other institutions in the U.S and Europe. This would allow the officers to see how language is used effectively.

In addition, Military institutes need to adopt what is new in designing English courses and developing programs. They should also use new technology to create new media for teaching and learning the language. Last but not least, they should establish training centers in cooperation with other Universities and language centers within the kingdom and around the world.

CONCLUSION:

In this study, attrition or word loss of some Saudi military officers was investigated. The results indicated that more than 50% of the items tested were forgotten by the subjects . The latter were not able to provide the correct answers to all the vocabulary items given on the test.

The period of English disuse did not seem to have any great impact on the amount of lexical items lost. All the three groups of officers who participated in the test produced equal scores. This was an indication of a similar level of lexical proficiency, regardless of the period of disuse.

The researcher suggests that further research needs to look into the attrition phenomenon of Saudi learners of English, using more subjects and larger vocabulary items in future testing. The research should also look into which vocabulary items are forgotten faster by the officers , general items or military ones. Some implications and recommendations were also outlined.

REFERENCES:

• Al-Hazemi, H. A. (1998). Vocabulary acquisition of Saudi learners of English as a foreign language : A study of lexical development. Journal of faculty of education 22/1: 1-11. Ain Shams university, Cairo.
• AL-Hazemi, H. A. (2000a). Listening to the Yes/No vocabulary test and its impact on the recognition of word as real or non-real. IRAL 38, 89-94.
• Al-Hazemi. H. A. (2000b). The effect of word in isolation and word in context on vocabulary recognition of Arab learners of English as a foreign language. To appear in Damascus University Journal for Arts and Human Education Sciences, Syria.
• Bahrick, H. D. (1984). Fifty years of language attrition : Implications for programmatic research. Modern language journal, 68 : 105-118.
• Berman, R. & Olshtain, E. (1983). Features of first language transfer in second language attrition. Applied linguistics, 4, 222-234.
• Cohen, A. D. (1986). Forgetting foreign language vocabulary. In: B. Weltens, K. De Bot, & T. Van Els (Eds.), Language attrition in progress. ( pp. 143-158). Dordrecht, Netherlands: Foris.
• Cohen, A. D. (1989). Attrition in the productive lexicon of two Portuguese third language speakers. Studies in second language acquisition, 11: 135-150.
• Ebbinghaus, H. (1885). Ubr das Gedachtnis. Untersuchungeen Zur experimentellen psychologie. Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot.
• Ginkel C. I. and E.H. Van der Linden. 1996. Word associations in foreign learning and foreign language loss. In K. Sajavaara & C. Fairweather (eds.) Approaches to second language acquisition. Jjvaskyla.
• Loftus, G. and E. Loftus. 1976. Human Memory: The processing of information. Hillsdale, NJ:Erlbaum.
• Nation,I.S.P. (1988). Teaching and learning vocabulary ( Occasional publication No. 7) .Wellington, New Zealand : English language Institute , Victoria University of Wellington.
• Olshtain, E. (1989). Is second language attrition the reversal of second language acquisition ?. Studies in second language acquisition, 11 : 151-165.
• Seliger, H. W. (1985). Primary language attrition in the context of other language loss and mixing. Unpublished Ms . queens college, City University of New York.
• Weltens, B., & Marjon G. (1993). Attrition of vocabulary knowledge. In: R. Schreuder & B. Weltens (Eds.) The bilingual lexicon. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

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Using Films to Develop Learner Motivation

Stephen Ryan
ryamu [at] twics.com
Athenee Francais (Tokyo, Japan)

This article is based on observations and experiments conducted within the Japanese tertiary sector. It takes a very broad look at some of the theory relating to language learning and motivation. It identifies a problem relating to motivation in the Japanese education system and goes on to present possible solutions to the problem. The article then illustrates the possible solutions with a practical example of how movies may be employed in the classroom in a manner which both facilitates language learning and further encourages motivation

Introduction

As a teacher operating within the 'motivational wasteland' (Berwick and Ross 1989:206) of the Japanese tertiary education system I have often felt a kinship with marathon runners hitting 'the wall'. In my case 'the wall' being a sea of drooping eyelids drifting towards the displays of none too carefully concealed mobile telephones. For anyone involved with language teaching there can be few more professionally demoralizing experiences than a class totally lacking in motivation; so much valuable time and energy spent on an, often fruitless, search for stimulating teaching materials. This article is a product of years of such time and energy; as such it aims to share with other teachers a possible avenue which may encourage learner motivation.

The Problem

Much has been written about motivation and language learning, and a lot of what has been written focuses on the distinction between instrumental and integrative motivation. Motivational factors in Japan are confused by the country's position on the periphery of the English speaking world and the high, some might say unrealistic, educational demands of a developed economy at the core of the international business system. It is this contradictory position which leads to conflicting aims at the macro level of curriculum planning. As interesting as this may be, it is not our concern here; we are interested in how this contradiction leads to a motivation problem at the classroom level, and how we might tackle this problem. We are interested in the kind of bizarre, yet I suspect far from infrequent, situation which leads to students barely able to articulate their home telephone number grappling with complex texts concerning the morality of genetic engineering. Our interest is curriculum demands which fail to recognize the reality of communicative competence leading to, at best, frustration and, more often than not, antipathy.

What Is the Teacher to Do?

Faced with this situation, what is a teacher to do? I would suggest that a teacher has three options.

• One option is what we might term total surrender; this entails acknowledging that better people than yourself have been there and failed, conceding that the level at which change needs to be made is beyond your reach, and putting your own physical and mental well-being first concluding that the fight just is not worth it.
• The second option could be termed an honorable retreat; this would involve a thorough resetting of the teacher's goals, with the aim of the class shifting from language learning to a kind of mental aerobics session whereby all parties aim to keep themselves busy and pass the allotted time as painlessly as possible.
• The third option, and this is the one which we shall pursue in greater detail, is the Peace Treaty. This 'peace' involves negotiations between teachers and learners which aim to re-focus the scope of the class, which attempt to align tasks compatible with the level of the group and the needs of the curriculum.

A good illustration of our problem can be found in the use of film in the classroom. Students will often express an interest in using movies as a medium for language learning, then proceed to sleep through any movie shown. Such a case presents a nice little cameo of our wider problem; the original intent is both worthy and genuine, but when limited linguistic competence is faced with a dense input of L2 material, boredom is often the result. The challenge for the teacher becomes; how to harness the original good intentions with tasks that are possible, tasks that set a clear goal and leave learners with a sense of achievement upon their completion.

Classroom Applications

To illustrate possible classroom applications of our approach it might be appropriate to present a typical example.

Group Profile

• Learners: College Students (ages 19/20)
• Number: 30
• Motivation: Varied but generally low
• L2 Competence: Beginner/Elementary
• Background Information: Learners reluctant to volunteer opinions or interrupt, adhering to strict patterns of turn-taking tend to focus on form rather than meaning; aim for accuracy above communication
• Raw Materials: Movie

In this case the group has expressed an interest in watching movies in English. The teacher's task is to manipulate this enthusiasm in a way that develops a positive attitude towards language learning. The challenge is obvious; if learners can tackle tasks related to a full-length movie then their confidence and self-esteem will be boosted, on the other hand the teacher is aware that a full-length movie is way beyond this group of learners, and there is a danger that showing it may prove counter-productive. In such a case the key lies in the successful exploitation of raw materials, in the construction of challenging yet achievable learning tasks.

• Step 1
  A movie is chosen which both represents the wishes of the learners and conforms to institutional constraints such as content, timing and availability.
• Step 2
  The whole movie is shown in its subtitled version. The reasoning behind this is that to show the whole movie without subtitles is likely to prove de-motivating; the language content being far too difficult for the group. Such a showing should also create the welcome by-product of a pleasant environment conducive to learning. The teacher is also storing 'good will' credit with the group. Such a showing obviously has few direct pedagogical merits, but it is hoped that the short term sacrifice will be amply rewarded in the long run.
• Step 3
  The movie is shown without subtitles. Before this viewing the students are divided into small groups of three and given the task of noting any short scenes involving three protagonists.
• Step 4
  The students then choose one of their noted scenes as the basis for a role play/ listening activity. The students are given the task of finding their scene and the opportunity to view the scene as many times as they wish. The aim of this repeated viewing is for them to script a version of the scene. At this point it needs to be made clear to students that the aim is not to produce a verbatim transcript of the scene but something which approximates to the context and the action on the screen.
• Step 5
  Students then make an audio recording of their version of the scene, each taking the role of one of the protagonists.
• Step 6
  The students' version of the scene is then played back with the video accompaniment minus sound. (If technically possible, the students' version can be directly dubbed on to the video tape.) By doing this students will hear their own voices 'in synch' with a movie they have enjoyed.

Obviously such a project requires a massive investment of time. Does the return merit such an investment? At a basic level the students should enjoy such an activity making them more positively disposed towards language learning, if not immediately then perhaps at some time in the future. Anything which helps to remove negative attitudes to language learning should not be undervalued. The activity gives learners a clear goal, and a goal that is achievable; there are no right or wrong answers, as long as the script fits the scene. Learners are encouraged to use the linguistic tools they have available to solve an immediate problem. The activity also practices both extensive and intensive listening skills, in addition it allows student to use the non-verbal clues which make video such a rich medium for language learning.

Summary

We started by painting a very bleak picture of the monolingual teaching environment, perhaps the case was overstated a little. Nevertheless there can exist a clear motivation problem. The signals can be confusing for learners; constant news of internationalization and the global economy point to English language skills being essential, yet daily social interaction, often backed by strong historical and cultural factors indicate otherwise. This is a contradiction which can run throughout the system, from the highest planning levels through to the classroom . Our challenge as teachers is to somehow bridge that contradiction by developing materials and tasks which take into account both the high expectations and the low motivation. Our challenge is to foster and develop motivation by providing clear goals and achievable tasks using raw materials which might otherwise be beyond the linguistic capacity of our learners.

References

• Berwick R. and Ross S (1989) "Motivation after Matriculation: Are Japanese learners of English still alive after exam hell?" JALT Journal 11, 193-210
• Brumfit C. J. (ed) (1990) Video Applications in English Language Teaching Pergamon Press/Bristish Council
• Casaneve C. P. and Simons J. D. (eds) (1995) Pedagogical Perspectives on Using Films in Foreign Langusge Classes Keio University SFC: Tokyo
• Gardner R. C. and Lambert W. E. (1972) Atttitudes and Motivation in Second Language Learning Newbury House:Rowley, Mass
• Kachru B. B. (1982) The Other Tongue Pergamon Press:Oxford

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The Internet TESL Journal, Vol. IV, No. 11, November 1998
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Comprehension Hot Spots in Movies: Scenes and Dialogs That Are Difficult for ESL/EFL Students to Understand

Donna Hurst Tatsuki
tatsuki [at] kobeuc.ac.jp
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Sparta/8610/

When students are given control of a video or laser disk player, it has been my observation that they stop and repeat the viewing of certain passages. The reasons they would give for stopping or repeating a section was usually that they could not understand or they felt lost. I started explicitly asking the students to keep a log of these "hot spots" so that I could see how much overlap there was among the class members and to see if there were any patterns in the kinds of things that would cause auditory breakdown. Based on three years of student logs, the following factors appear to contribute to listening hot spots. The examples were gathered from student logs made while viewing the movies,The Graduate and Raiders of the Lost Ark using laser disk video players.

Interacting Factors Contributing to Hot Spots

Many of the points where learners reported breakdown are similar to the sources of "slip of the ear" phenomena. Slip of the ear is when you mishear what is said for a number of reasons (inattention, preoccupation with another topic, sound distortion) and the mishearing leads to either misunderstanding or incomprehension. The examples cited from the student logbooks capture one or more of the following features:

1. Phonological misperception of consonant and vowel segments - loss, addition and substitution

A common type was a simple mistake in segmentation. For example in I>The Graduate, Mrs. Robinson asks Benjamin "Did you know I'm an alcoholic?" Several students reported hearing "a nalcoholic" and thus were confused because there is no such word in the dictionary. This is similar to "phonologically based language changes that occurred in the past due to widespread errors of misperception" (Celce-Murcia, 1980, p. 208). For example, an eke name became a nick name, a norange (narancia in Spanish) became an orange, a napron, became an apron, and a nadder became an adder, to list just a few.

2. Misperception based on loss, deletion or substitution of entire syllables, especially if weakly stressed

A number of students reported being confused when Mrs. Robinson quietly said to Benjamin "Do you want to get us a room?" One of the renderings of this sentence was "Do you want to get a swim?" In this case, the unstressed article "a" was omitted, and the remaining words were incorrectly segmented yet preserved much of the phonological shape.

3. Misperception of proper nouns

Learners are not familiar with the full range of English proper names, especially when they have gone out of popular usage. In Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones goes looking for his former teacher Abner Ravenwood. The name Abner is not very common these days. Many of the learners mistook Abner for the name of an object related to a missing headpiece. The word was often rendered, "arbner" or "arpner". Another misperception centered on a clue to find the lost ark. Indy was looking for the "map room" but many learners heard this as "Maprum" which they assumed was a city or the name of a location. In another situation the name "Marcus" (Indy's friend and sponsor) was confused with "Marrakesh" the possible place that Belloq would sell his stolen goods. Both words occurred in the scene and the listeners confused one for the other.

4. Misperceptions of foreign words and expressions

A unit of measurement in Raiders of the Lost Ark was the "kadam" (about 30 centimeters). Although Indy and Sallah explicitly define the kadam in the scene, the learners were unable to connect this foreign word with its definition. Also, when Belloq said, "It was not meant to be, Cherie" and then bid "adieu" to Marion, the learners asked if her name was "Sherry" or if he had said "It was not meant to be actually".

5. Misperceptions based on phonological dialect or foreign accent differences

Although vowels are main problem in different dialects and regional varieties of English, speakers of English as a second or foreign language can be difficult to understand because of both consonant and vowel changes. In Raiders of the Lost Ark, several characters are speakers of English as a second or other language. They are much more difficult for learners to understand and are the source of many comprehension problems. The villain Belloq, for example is a French archeologist. Not only does he speak with a stereotyped French accent in English, his vocabulary is full of less frequent words with Latinate roots. The first sentence he utters is "Dr. Jones, again we see that there is nothing you can possess that I cannot take away." Several students caught only "Dr. Jones, again ___ nothing you _____." The "th" was pronounced as a "z" sound in "that" and "there", syllable stress and prosody was not native like and "possess" was an unexpected word choice when "have" could suffice. Other characters in the movie include Sallah (Indy's Egyptian friend), Imam (the ancient writing expert, an Egyptian), Toht (the Nazi Gestapo agent, a German) and various minor characters of Spanish, West Indian or other speaking backgrounds. The student logbooks abound with questions about the utterances of these characters.

6. Misperception based on the listener's strong and immediate word images

In Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Gestapo agent Toht points to Indy who is fighting with another man and makes an announcement. The learners see the smile of amusement on his face and many render his utterance as "ShowTime. ShowTime both". In reality he has said, "Shoot them. Shoot them both" but the way he pauses and jokingly delivers the line leads the learners to look for an alternative.

7. Misperception based on the listener's current preoccupations

In this situation there is a mismatch with conversational context. The listeners assume relevance and depend on a "here and now principle" but the conversation is not about here and now. For example, in one of the final scenes of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Belloq and Dietrich (the Nazi commanding officer), who are both foreign speakers of English, discuss an upcoming scene while standing on the deck of a submarine. Dietrich expresses his discomfort with Belloq performing a "Jewish ritual". The learners invariable came away from this conversation with no clue as to its content and unsuccessfully try to link it to the previous submarine trip or with something to do with the port. In another scene, the director gives a little bit of stage business to an extra that caused trouble for learners. The extra simply put an apple on Indy's desk at the end of his lecture as he left the room. The action was of no consequence to the scene. It was just a filler before Indy and a minor character could get together to speak. Nevertheless, every student remarked on it and wondered what the action meant.

8. Misperception based on what the listener expects or does not expect the interlocutor to say

In some cases the character will take some action that the learners do not understand or can find no motivation for. The learners find it difficult to suspend belief at times and ask things like how Indy knew about a trap or could find his way out of a dangerous situation. Also, lies and false behavior can bring comprehension to a stop. For example, in Raiders of the Lost Ark, a small monkey is a Nazi collaborator (the enemy). After the scene of Marion's death, the monkey cries and acts sad. Many learners commented that this did not seem consistent with the facts and wondered if they had missed something.

9. Misperception based on what the listener's lack of information (or correct information) with respect to the topic under discussion

One memorable scene in The Graduate occurs during Ben's graduation party. A guest who is an old family friend (Mr. McGuire) takes Ben outside for a confidential talk. He exhorts Ben to listen carefully to what he is about to say and then pronounces the word "plastic" and later clarifies, "there is a great future in plastic". Ben looks justifiably confused because he was expecting rather more practical advice. However, the learner misses the humor and "artificiality" of Mr. McGuire's character by not knowing the extended range of meaning for the word plastic.

10. Misperception based on the speaker's use of idiom or a colloquialism

Some characters are built on their unconventionality. Indiana Jones is a wisecracking, down to earth man who just happens to be a skilled academic. He uses slang, colloquialisms and idioms frequently in his speech and this leads to great difficulty for language learners. For example, he calls his friend Sallah "The best digger in Egypt" where the word "digger" is a nickname for an archeologist. Also, he comments that "This is where Forrestal cashed in", meaning "This is where Forrestal died". The proper name poses its own difficulty, but paired with the idiom "cashed in" most of the learners in my class were at a loss. In The Graduate, Mr. Robinson is a one-man cliche festival. This is of course meant to make his character less sympathetic and more banal. Some of the phrases he uses are "Sow a few wild oats", "I bet you are quite a ladies man" and "You look to me like the kind of guy who has to fight them off." They all show him for the pervert that he is but are stumbling blocks for second language learners.

What to Do About Comprehension Hot Spots

1. Provide contextualized help

The listener needs to have access to information relevant to the hot spot at them moment of listening breakdown. My learners used Sony View system laser disk player that used an on-screen control panel. A modified control panel was created to include context-dependent help. This meant that if a student was having difficulty with a word or phrase, he or she could stop the disk and click the right-hand mouse button. On the screen some hint or a partial gloss of the dialogue at that spot would appear. A low-tech alternative would be to include a partial transcript of the scene for reference in a study guide or textbook. The learners could even fill in a cloze exercise based on the transcript to draw their attention to the trouble spot. Because learners sometimes can make out the initial sound of a problematic word, it can be helpful to provide a short alphabetized list of words to listen for in the scene. This list can be compiled by the instructor, based on his or her hunch of possible hard to hear spots or based on actual student log keeping. Student logs are the best way but they take time to collect and then compile.

2. Pre-teach foreign words, technical language, idioms and colloquialisms

The teacher should go through the script and look for vocabulary items that are not likely to be known and that have relevance to the story. Many movies have screenplays available, both commercially and on the internet. A caption decoder can be used to print out dialogue in closed captioned movie versions. If no script is available, the teacher may need to make his or her own transcript or at least become very familiar with the scenes to detect potential troublesome words and phrases. Once these items have been compiled there are many ways to pre-teach. Some examples include, matching activities, cross words, and cloze exercises. Matching activities include word-definition matches both in L2 and L1, picture-sentence matches, idiom-definition or idiom-synonym matches.

3. Sensitize learners to varieties of spoken English

It is sometimes hard for even skilled English listeners to understand speakers that of an uncommon variety of English, or speakers who have foreign accents. However, since there are often regularities in the ways these speakers differ from so-called "standard" English, these should be pointed out. For example, a stereotypical French character may use "z" instead of "th". A Spanish character may use /iy/ in the place of /i/ and will appear to say "sheep" instead of "ship". The point is that foreign or stereotyped non-standard English speakers are quite predictable if the learners are given a de-coding key ahead of time. A de-coding key could be a short list of words that are likely to be mispronounced by the character. In one column the English word with the standard pronunciation could be listed. In the next column the character's version of the word could be listed.

4. Encourage observation of the situation and other contextual cues that may assist comprehension

This is perhaps the most important tool for the learner. Before viewing a scene, it is valuable for the learners to activate their own knowledge of the situations that will be coming. This can be done without giving away the point of the scene. For instance, in The Graduate, the main character checks into a Hotel. The scene is supposed to be funny but if the learner is over taxed with trying to understand all that is being said, there is not much processing capacity left for catching or even understanding the inanity of some of Ben's actions. My approach is to get the students to construct the possible interaction between a guest and a front clerk. When the students have done this, they are ready to watch and enjoy the scene. The deviance from what one expects is what makes the scene funny.

When comprehension breaks down, often the answers are right in front of the viewer's eyes. Ask the "who, what, where, when and why" questions and then treat the comprehension problem as something to solve like a mystery rather than an obstacle. For example, one student could not understand what Mrs. Robinson meant when she said, "Did you get us a room?" even after he was able to correctly identify all of the words. I asked him to consider where Ben and Mrs. Robinson were having their drink (a Hotel) and then to think about what plans they might have for afterwards. When all of the pieces clicked into place, the student and I shared a good laugh.

Conclusion

The hot spots that were described in this article are mainly concerned with misperceptions at the linguistic level. When learners hear incorrectly or can not make sense of sounds, they panic and the result is a comprehension breakdown. The same kind of comprehension breakdown can occur when the learner sees unexpected behaviors or when the scene to so full of information that they have difficulty knowing what to focus on. Because many of these problematic spots can be predicted, it should be possible to prepare more effective study guides and supplementary materials.

Reference

• Celce-Murcia, M. (1980) On Meringer's corpus of "Slips of the Ear". In V. Fromkin (ed.). Errors in Linguistic Performance. New York: Academic Press.

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