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Understanding
and Using Tag Questions
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Teaching English majors in a non-native
environment for over thirteen years has acquainted me with the fact that, no matter how
proficient a learner might become, he will always use- when trying to get his meaning
across-those constructions of the foreign language that are closer to the ones he makes
use of in his mother tongue.
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Therefore, in conversation, where turntaking is
fast and spontaneity is the main characteristic (Tanner 1989), it is no wonder that Cuban
majors of English frequently ask questions confirming their assertions with hybrids such
as "That's an interesting book, no?"
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The English equivalent pattern to be used in
such a case is a tag question, which most grammars define as a type of question appended
to a statement-an important element of everyday conversation. (Crystal 1939; Quirk
1982:37-53)
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However "dispensable" tag questions
may be, the construction is not taught to our students, other than as a grammar point. Yet
the existence of utterances like the one above, or others like: "You've never been
abroad, do you?"; or "The consonantal sound /p/ belongs with the occlusives,
isn't it?", are proof of the inefficacy of the approach given to the teaching of tag
questions.
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The cause probably rests on teachers' relying on
the gradation of the textbooks, which usually propose generalizing tag questions, only in
the last units of the course.
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True as it may be that the students already know
the basic English tenses, the inversion of subject and verb for questions and the use of
do or did for present and past simple respectively, it is also a fact that in the process,
we have overlooked the sound teaching principle of mingling tenses in the above examples.
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The principle at stake is the separate
presentation and practice of items that a syllabus or course presents indiscriminately
(Abbot et al. 1981), and the one we go against when we teach tag-question grammar together
with the meanings that intonation gives tags.
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Approaching the teaching and practice of tag
questions with that principle in mind, it occurred to me that I could ensure my students'
learning to use the structure beyond a simple understanding of the grammar.
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Having analyzed all the aspects involved in the
formation of a tag question, I decided to approach the issue by:
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- Practicing the formation of the pattern in the tense introduced by the syllabus or
course in each unit.
- Separating the introduction and practice of the meanings achieved through intonation.
- Separating the presentation and practice of the formation of the tag: Affirmative
statement + negative tag; negative statement + affirmative tag.
- Supplementing practice material from real life situations (classroom or school
situations).
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To implement my approach I still had to decide
whether to teach falling intonation for confirmation, or rising intonation for real
questions first. Though it might have interfered with the focus on the common rising
intonation of yes/no questions, I chose to start with the meaning conveyed by falling
intonation, as it seemed that asking for confirmation to keep a conversation going was
more beneficial to communication. Besides, some functions that should be taught rather
early in the course called for asking for confirmation: asking someone's, opinion,
clarifying something, agreeing or disagreeing, for which tag questions provide the medium.
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I decided to supplement practice material from
real life situations since the syllabae or textbooks usually propose series of sentences
for the students to reproduce or provide with a tag with the common hindrance of a mixture
of tenses.
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Again, it is quite more encouraging to speak
about one's personal experiences than about the best picture, even a good picture! Thus,
as Roscoe, Janice and Helga were my students at the time, I used their names and facts
about them and asked my students to do the same in our practice.
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Roscoe is a nice boy, isn't he?
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Yes, he's nice and good-looking.
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Helga is a pretty girl, isn't she?
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Yes, she's pretty and intelligent.
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Janice is absent today, isn't she?
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They repeated these and similar minidialogues,
and created their own, with my help whenever necessary:
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Our campus is nice, isn't it?
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Yes, it's full of trees and birds.
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The coffee in the cafeteria is terrible,
isn't it?
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Dialogues like the above ones were my students'
first attempts to use the pattern. Still working with falling intonation for confirmation,
we tried the construction negative statement + affirmative tag after three units of
practicing that of the affirmative statement + negative tag.
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After having worked with both constructions
together for some units, I introduced the second meaning: Real questions through rising
intonation. The students were overjoyed! Did it mean they did not have to change
affirmative or negative elements into non-assertive ones for the common yes/no question
any more?
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They were warned against making excessive use of
the pattern in either meaning to avoid sounding insecure or aggressive, respectively, if
they asked too many falling intonation tags or rising intonation tags. And as they were
already aware of the objective of my experiment-which they regarded as their own-the
students were really cooperative.
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I would hate to seem too proud of my results. I
have approached tag questions in this way for two courses and the outcome of my work has
been equally satisfactory in both. Though some mistakes persist-mainly in the realm of
intonation and specifically due to the interference of our native Cuban-Spanish accent-the
mixing of tenses is not frequent and, more significantly, students monitor themselves and
one another for accuracy.
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It is also very rewarding to listen to them use
the pattern now and then, far more frequently than I remember I used to as a student, and
without having substituted it for Yes/No questions, or the above mentioned hybrid.
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I do not think that the approach that has worked
for my students should be the only one on this issue. In fact, I intend to reverse the
order of the practice of the different meanings in the forthcoming course, to verify its
effectiveness.
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Indeed, each group should be taught what it
needs to learn, and it is the teacher's task to make it easier for them, and more
efficient.
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The importance of the pattern in everyday
communication makes this procedure more than worth the effort.
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- Abbot, G. 1981. The teaching of English as an international language. Edic>n
Revolucionaria. La Habana, Cuba.
- Allen, W. S. 1971. Living English structure. Editorial Pueblo y Educac-on. La Habana,
Cuba.
- Bygate, M. 1987. Language teaching: A scheme for teacher education. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
- Crystal, D. 1989. The Cambridge encyclopedia of language. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
- Giering, G. 1974. English grammar: A university handbook. Akademieder Wissenschafter des
DDR, Berlin.
- Omaggio, A. 1986. Teaching language in context: A proficiency oriented instruction.
University of Illinois. Heinle and Heinle Publishers.
- Quirk, R. 1982. International communication and concept of nuclear English. In Style and
communication in the English language.
- Richards, J. 1985. The context of language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
- Tannen, D. 1989. Talking voices: Repetition, dialogue and imaginary in conversational
discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Widdowson, H.G. 1983. Learning purpose and language use. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
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