A01 cohe4573 01 se fm. Qxd

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F U R T H E R I S S U E S I N L E A R N I N G , T E A C H I N G , A N D A S S E S S M E N T
In order to make the taxonomy more “real” for you, we would like you
now to undertake Activities 12.1 and 12.2 (below). Activity 12.1 will give
you an opportunity to do some actual gathering of L2 speech acts data from
a competent speaker of an L2, drawing as necessary from the “Strategies for
the Initial Learning of Speech Acts” section of the above taxonomy of learner
strategies for acquiring speech acts. Activity 12.2 will give you a chance to
perform a speech acts interaction and to observe the strategies that you and
your partner use.
Activity 12.1 Collecting information on L2 speech acts
Objectives
1
You will be able to use strategies to collect information about an L2 speech act.
2
You will be able to identify the strategies that other participants have used to
gather data for learning and performing speech acts.
Suggested time:
45 minutes.
Materials:
■
Task sheet, “Speech acts data-gathering tasks,” with several speech acts
situations for which to collect data;
■
the “Strategies for the Initial Learning of Speech Acts” section from the Taxonomy
of Learner Strategies for Acquiring Speech Acts in this chapter.
Directions
1
Select one of the two speech act situations provided in the task sheet and think
through the issues on your own.
2
Find a competent speaker of the L2 you identify as a “consultant” for an L2
speech community that you are not familiar with, and gather information from
that person as to how to perform the speech act tactfully. (More guidance is
provided under point 1 in the task sheet below.)
3
If possible, make the session two-way by having your partner collect data from
you on how to perform a speech act tactfully in your L1 (say, if the person is a
native speaker of Italian and you a native speaker of English). If you cannot find a
competent speaker of the L2 which you are learning, you could serve as “advisors”
in this data-gathering process, making suggestions to both the data gatherer and
the consultant who is providing the information.

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S T R A T E G I E S F O R L E A R N I N G A N D P E R F O R M I N G S P E E C H A C T S
2 4 1
4
While in the data collection phase, have “Strategies for the Initial Learning 
of Speech Acts” from the Taxonomy of Learner Strategies handy and select
strategies from it to assist you in completing the task. Bullets 2 to 4 include
strategies that could be particularly relevant to your probing for information.
5
When the data collection phase is over, each group is to report back to the whole
group as to insights gained from the task.
Discussion/wrap-up
Looking back over the processes that you went through in this activity, consider the
extent to which the exercise helped you to identify the strategies involved in perform-
ing a speech act effectively. What were the challenges associated with this type of data
gathering? How might you encourage your students to use these strategies in their
future language learning?
Task sheet: Speech acts data-gathering tasks
1 Gathering information about complimenting
You are by nature a friendly person and like to compliment people on how they look
and on the things they do well. The following are two kinds of compliments you are
likely to give to your colleagues:
(a) Hey, ____________ , that ______________ looks really good on you! Where did
you get it?
(b) Hey, ____________ , your talk was really good. You had a lot of interesting
things to say.
Notwithstanding your desire to pass on well-deserved compliments, you have been
advised that in the L2 speech community in which you are now living, it is possible to
offend people unintentionally when you mean well. You have heard, for example, that
depending on your age, your status, or your gender, an intended compliment, at worst,
may be taken as an insult and, at best, may be considered inappropriate coming from
you to that person.
2 Gathering information about refusing
You are living in an L2 speech community where you find people making requests of
you that you want to refuse. The problem is that your L2 textbook did not teach you
how to refuse tactfully, and your teacher did not cover it either. The following are two
of the typical situations:
(a) You are invited to a friend’s party, but you don’t want to attend because there is
usually a lot of smoke, noise, and drinking. In addition, such parties usually go on

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