Mrs Doyle, in Father Ted, always knew when to offer a nice cup of tea.
Frequently in ‘real’ communicative situations, even between mother tongue speakers, there is the need to reformulate what we say to make our meaning clear. It is common to ask for clarification of what has been said.
In his book ‘How Conversation Works’, Ronald Wardhaugh wrote that “much that is said in conversation is so ambiguous as to be virtually incomprehensible outside the framework in which it occurs“.
Therefore, we should not be surprised when students of English as a second language find most of the so called ‘realistic’ dialogues hard to follow or even unintelligible.
A lot of listening material places students in the role of eavesdroppers where they are expected to comprehend conversations which they are : (a) certainly not part of and (b) probably not remotely interested in. Continue reading
