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"Get to the Point, Will You Please?"

Requesting the Main Point in the Classroom

Yi Yuan
National University of Singapore, Singapore

Level: Intermediate

Time: 30–45 minutes

Goals: To enable students to correctly and appropriately request the main point and interpret the function of different linguistic forms


Description of the Activity
This activity has been used with pre-university students who have gone through a 6-month intensive English program and are at the beginning of a 6-month bridging course designed to further strengthen their English, mathematics, physics, and chemistry before they enter university. We use Mosaic 2 as our English textbook (Ferrer-Hanreddy and Whalley 1997).

The book has a section on "Requesting the Main Point." We may need to request the main point when a speaker or interlocutor, intentionally or unintentionally, rambles without getting to the point. Requesting the main point is a form of the speech act of request and, therefore, requires the requester to consider how his or her words will be perceived by the hearer, specifically with regard to "face," politeness and imposition. The activity described here is designed to supplement the lesson in the textbook.

The teacher first needs to assess how much their students already know about requesting the main point, specifically:

1. Are they aware of the need for linguistic variation in requesting the main point, depending on the situation?
   
   
2. How do they request the main point in their first language?
   
   
3. What linguistic forms in English do they use to request the main point?
   
   
4. Are they able to vary their requests to meet different situations?
   

To find out answers to 1 and 2, the first thing the teacher should do is ask students questions, such as, "What would you say in your native language if you want your teacher, professor, best friend, or little brother to repeat or summarise what he or she has just said?" If students indicate no variation in their linguistic forms regardless of whom they are talking to or what the circumstances may be, the teacher could provide examples of authentic language from movies or novels illustrating the language variations used to make such requests.

The next step is to let students brainstorm in order to create a list of the different linguistic forms in English that they think they can use to request the main point. Write their input on the blackboard, and then ask them the meaning and function of the different forms and when each is used. Add to the list any request formulas the students might have missed, and continue the discussion. (See the list below.) Students can discuss when to say Get to the point, will you please? and when to say I didn't quite understand what you were saying. Could you please go over it again? A written list of possible request forms can later be given out to students. To supplement the initial student-generated discussion, discussion can be generated in which distinction is made between explicit and implicit request forms. Following are some examples of explicit request forms:

1. Get to the point, will you please?
   
   
2. I don't get it. What are you talking about?
   
   
3. What are you trying to say?
   
   
4. What's your point?
   
   
5. Excuse me, but I didn't quite catch the point. Can you go over it again?
   
   
6. I'm sorry, I didn't understand the point you were making. Could you
   possibly say it again, please?
   

It is clear that, like other forms of request, requesting the main point in an explicit way necessarily consists of what Blum-Kulka and Olshtain (1984: 200) call the "Head Act" and optionally "Adjunct(s) to Head Act." For example, in 5 above, the Head Act is Can you go over it again? However, the Adjuncts to Head Act include both the "Attention Getter" Excuse me… and the "Grounder" …but I didn't quite catch the point (terms taken from Blum-Kulka & Olshtain, 1984). The teacher could point out this structure to the students to raise their awareness of the different parts that make up requests.

It is also possible to request the main point in an indirect way, with Adjuncts to the Head act alone. In such case, the illocutionary force of the request is only implied or hinted at. Examples of implicit request forms include:

1. I don't quite understand what you are trying to get at.
   
   
2. I'm sorry I didn't catch what you were saying. The line (over the phone)
   is not clear.
   
   
3. Sorry, I wasn't paying close enough attention to what you said and missed your point.
   
   
4. Pardon me, but this is such a new field to me that I don't think I can sort out the central idea of the lecture by myself.
   

Students can discuss the meaning and function of the various request forms in small groups. This will naturally lead to further discussions about the various factors that may influence speakers' choice of linguistic forms (question 4). Some possible factors include the age, gender and social status differences between the speakers, the presence of third parties and their social status, and the setting where the interaction takes place.

If time permits, students can do role plays in pairs. Have a few situations pre-written on cards and let each pair choose one. Students can prepare the role play for two minutes before they try it in front of the class. They can comment on each other's performances and suggest how to improve them. Some possible situations are listed below.

Situation 1: A friend of yours has to leave home for a few days, but she does not have anyone to look after her dog while she is away. She wants you to do her a favour but she knows it is a big imposition on you, so she keeps on telling you about the place she is visiting and why she cannot take her dog with her. You interrupt her and ask her what she is trying to say.

Situation 2: One of your star employees is doing his annual report at a group meeting. He summarises what he has achieved over the past year, but you missed a few. You ask him to go over those points again.

Situation 3: Your history professor has just given a lecture on the French Revolution, but you didn't understand the first part of it. You want to ask him to recapitulate the main point for you.

Procedure
The activity can be carried out by the following procedure:

1. Introduce to students the need to request the main point. Situation 3 in the previous section can serve as an example.
   
   
2. Ask students to reflect on their native language: What would they say in their native language if they want their teacher or professor, their best friend, or their little brother to repeat what they just said? The result should be a set of different expressions. If the teacher does not speak the language of the learner, the learner may translate the forms in his native language into English. The teacher can then make note of any linguistic variations in one or more languages and draw students' attention to them. This activity is meaningful whether or not students are a homogeneous group. Asking students to reflect on their native language can usually arouse their interest in the activity and enable them to see the point more clearly.
   
   
3. In small groups, students list all the English forms that they think can be used to request the main point. Each group then reports to the class while the teacher writes the forms on the blackboard.
   
   
4. Discuss the different meanings and functions of the forms on the blackboard and when to use which form with whom. Prepare a list of some possible request forms for this purpose (see examples given in the previous section) so that students can differentiate explicit from implicit request forms and note down important points next to the forms. Highlight the important role that intonation plays in communicating one's intended meaning. For example, a polite request form, such as 5 above, can sound much less polite when said in a falling intonation. The teacher can ask students to demonstrate this point by going through the list of request forms using different intonations.
   
   
5. In groups of three or four, discuss the possible factors that may cause differences in the use of the different forms; have each group report their findings to the class.
   
   
6. Divide students into pairs. Each pair role plays a hypothetical situation (written on cards) requiring one member of each pair to request the main point from the other member.
   
   
7. End the activity by summarising why the activity was important. This is the time to highlight the fact that knowing English grammar alone is not enough. The appropriate use of the language matters more. For example, if a student says to his professor, Get to the point, will you please? he or she will be viewed as impolite, even though there is nothing grammatically wrong with the utterance.
   

Rationale
The purpose of the activity described here is twofold: (1) To raise students' pragmatic awareness and (2) to provide students with an opportunity to practise the language. Pragmatic development has been shown to lag behind grammatical development. Yet, as Bouton (1993) has shown, when pragmatics is explicitly taught to second language learners, they can acquire this essential skill faster. It is therefore important for language teachers and curriculum designers to incorporate pragmatics into textbooks and classroom activities.

The need to request the main point may occur in both casual conversation and in academic settings. The teaching of this language function will equip learners with necessary skills to communicate with other English speakers more appropriately and effectively. The linguistic forms students learn through this activity and the social connotations that go with those linguistic forms can be easily applied to other requesting situations, so that students actually acquire more than just one speech act.

Alternatives and Caveats
Instead of starting with requesting the main point and expanding the scope to general requests (a bottom-up technique) the teacher can reverse the process, that is, start with general requests before narrowing down to requesting the main point. This top-down technique is especially appropriate if the teaching of pragmatics is arranged by speech acts, such as apologies, requests, compliments, and so on.

This activity has been tried out in the ESL setting of Singapore. When used in an EFL situation, however, more time can be allocated to looking at the similarities and differences between students' native language and English, since the student population is more likely to be homogeneous in such a setting. Students usually participate more enthusiastically when their native language and culture are brought into play (Bardovi-Harlig et al, 1991).

References
Bardovi-Harlig, K., Hartford, B. A. S., Mahan-Taylor, R., Morgan, M. J., & Reynolds, D. W. (1991). Developing pragmatic awareness: Closing the conversation. ELT Journal, 45, pp. 4–15.

Blum–Kulka, S., & Elite Olshtain, E. (1984). Requests and apologies: A cross-cultural study of speech act realisation patterns (CCSARP). Applied Linguistics, 5, pp. 196–213.

Bouton, L. F. (1993). Developing NNS skills in interpreting implicature in American English: Can explicit teaching speed up the process? Paper presented at the 22nd UWM Linguistics Symposium, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Ferrer-Hanreddy, Jami, & Elizabeth Whalley (1997). Mosaic two: Listening/Speaking skills book. 3rd. ed. New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

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