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Teaching Refusals in an EFL Setting

Sachiko Kondo
Akenohoshi Women's Junior College, Japan

Level: Intermediate

Time: Eight lessons, 90 minutes each

Resources: L1 dialogues for comparisons

Goals:

1) To raise awareness of differences in making refusals between Japanese and English speakers

2) To make learners aware of what they know already and encouraging them to use their universal or transferable L1 pragmatic knowledge in L2 contexts

3) To teach the linguistic forms that are likely to be encountered in making refusals in English

 

Description of the Activity
This chapter presents activities to help learners become familiar with refusals in English. The lesson is organized progressively in five phases: 1) Feeling, 2) Doing, 3) Thinking, 4) Understanding and 5) Using. These phases help students to realize that "speaking is doing," to think about their own language use, and to discover common and different aspects of conducting speech acts between Japanese and English speakers. The activities in this chapter are based on the chapter on refusals from Yoshida, Kamiya, Kondo, and Tokiwa (2000) which covers a range of speech acts.

Feeling (Warm-up) phase
The listening comprehension task in this phase is designed to help students get a feel for making a refusal. The students hear two different dialogues and are asked to answer questions about what is happening and why they prefer one dialogue over the other. One of the dialogues represents how Japanese learners of English typically refuse an invitation (Dialogue 1) and the other represents how Americans typically refuse one (Dialogue 2).

This activity raises students' awareness that this speech act can be realized in different ways. At this phase I ask students to raise their hands to indicate which dialogue they prefer; usually Japanese students prefer Dialogue 1. I then ask why they chose one over the other. Some students will say that they chose Dialogue 1 because Shinya apologizes frequently. I do not tell students which dialogue is the American or Japanese way at this point because that is for them to find out in the latter part of the lesson.

Doing phase
The students are presented with another situation (Situation 1), this one involving a refusal. They are asked, first, to write responses similar to a discourse completion task and, second, to role-play the situation with their classmates.

The aim of this phase is to see what each learner can do with his/her present knowledge prior to any instruction in cultural differences and pragmatics.

Thinking phase
In this phase students are asked to analyze various ways to perform refusals. These ways are simplified versions of Speech Act Sets, which are often used in the analysis of interlanguage pragmatics research. With these, learners can examine the strategies they used in Situation 1 in the Doing phase. For example, learners are given a rule of thumb, such as "Most refusals include expressions stating why you are refusing. The following types of expressions can be used together with expressions stating the reason for refusing." After the rule is presented, the following five types of strategies and expressions for each strategy are introduced.

 

Strategy	Examples
Type A: Positive Opinion	That sounds wonderful, but … I'd like/love to, but … I wish I could, but …
Type B: Thanking	Thank you for the invitation. Thanks, but …
Type C: Apology	I'm sorry, but …
Type D: Alternative	Maybe some other time. Perhaps next time.
Type E: Direct Refusal	I can't go. I can't make it.
+ Reason	I already have other plans. I have to …

First a listening exercise is provided to help students understand which expression falls into which type. In their analysis of their performance, students can choose more than one type of strategy, depending on what they said in Situation 1. At the end of this phase I conduct a quick survey of refusal types by asking students to raise their hands so they can see which type was most commonly used among them.

Understanding phase
In this phase the learners are encouraged to discover the characteristic differences that exist in Japanese and English when various speech acts are performed. The data presented here in a graph come from the following three groups of college students who filled out Discourse Completion Tasks for Situation 1 (see Yoshida et al., 2000).

1) 50 Americans speaking English (A)
2) 50 Japanese learners speaking English (JE)
3) 50 Japanese speaking Japanese (J)

Students meet in groups and are asked to compare these three groups of speakers and discuss similarities and differences in their way of making refusals. The use of the five types of strategies introduced in the Thinking phase is shown on the graph.

* One person may use more than one refusal type.

The task is designed so that learners can be actively thinking, instead of passively reading about descriptions of cultural differences. Analyzing the graphs also has the merit of helping the students avoid extreme stereotyping, as the graphs show certain tendencies, rather than the "either... or" patterns. After the small group discussion, I ask group leaders to share what they talked about with the rest of the class. My students realize that their performance in the Doing phase is similar to the JE group in the data and that sometimes they may experience pragmatic transfer from their native language. For example, they discover that a strong Japanese preference for the apology strategy in refusals may be reflected in their English refusals as well. They also realize that they sometimes cannot do what they can in their native language when they speak in English because of their linguistic limitations. Some students express reluctance to use certain strategies because of their cultural values. Such discussions enabled my Japanese students to raise their pragmatic awareness.

Using phase
Having gone through the four phases, the students now have sufficient knowledge of how to use the vocabulary and expressions related to refusals naturally. The aim of this phase is to provide sufficient oral practice based on the knowledge students have acquired up to this point.

In the Using phase, model dialogues are presented for listening and role-playing. This exercise helps students use appropriate linguistic expressions in performing refusals. I ask them to pay special attention to rhythm and intonation as they read the dialogues aloud so they can put appropriate feeling into the words.

After reading the dialogues, the following two new situations are given so that the students may practice writing responses and creating their own role-plays.

I encourage students to go around the classroom and find many partners so that they can have sufficient practice. If time allows, students are asked to think of other situations for further role-play practice. The students end their practice not by memorizing and repeating "an ideal model dialogue," but by creating their own dialogues, ones which reflect their individual identity. As Giles, Coupland, and Coupland (1991) put it, "Successful communication is a matter of optimal rather than total convergence." The last phase of activities offers students opportunities for optimal convergence.

Procedure
1. Feeling (Warm-up) phase
Listening to two different dialogues and answering questions

2. Doing phase
Discourse Completion Task and role-play

3. Thinking phase

(a) Looking at the classification of different types of refusals

(b) Listening to dialogues and writing down key expressions used in each type

(c) Analyzing one's own speech act performance according to types

 

4. Understanding phase

(a) Looking at the graphs and making comparison of speech act performance by Japanese, Americans, and Japanese learners of English.

(b) Discussion in class

 

5. Using phase

(a) Listening and role-play practice of model dialogues

(b) Discourse completion and role-play tasks in new situations

 

Rationale
Instruction in pragmatics helps students realize that "speaking is doing," to think about their own language use, and to discover common and different aspects of conducting speech acts across cultures. Various class activities, such as listening comprehension and role-plays, help students improve their linguistic skills as well. For example, the graph-reading activities allow learners to come to their own conclusions about speech act realization in difference cultures and it reinforces an analytical skill often taught in ESL/EFL academic courses. Asking learners to reflect on their feelings about trying out patterns of speech act production typical of another culture encourages them to reflect on how far they want to go in adapting or adopting the target language realizations. Some students express reluctance to use certain strategies, such as apologies or saying excuses, because of their cultural values.

Alternative and Caveat
The basic format for this teaching unit contains five phases-1) Feeling, 2) Doing, 3) Thinking,
4) Understanding and 5) Using), that can be used with any speech act (see Yoshida et al., 2000) or with a wide range of conversational features. Because I teach English in Japan, these lessons are specifically designed for Japanese EFL students, but the format can be modified for groups with other first backgrounds. In a mixed first-language group, as found in ESL classes, students can be responsible for bringing in representative L1 dialogues. I have used the technique of having students write down their role plays before acting them out (this also results in a written record for later comparison).

References
Giles, H., Coupland, J., & Coupland, N. (Eds.). (1991). Contexts of accommodation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Yoshida, K., Kamiya, M., Kondo, S., & Tokiwa, R. (2000). Heart to Heart: Overcoming Barriers in Cross-Cultural Communication. Tokyo: Macmillan Languagehouse.

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