CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION
The present study aims to examine causative verb constructions in senior high English textbooks and to provide pedagogical suggestions for textbook writers and language teachers. This introductory chapter provides an overview of several aspects of this study, including its background, motivation, purposes, research questions, significance as well as its organization.
Background
Traditionally grammar is viewed as a set of sentence-based rules that can be detached from context and language user (Hughes & McCarthy, 1998). The problem with this view is that so few grammatical rules can be applied without reference to meaning and context (Celce-Murcia & Olshtain, 2000; Larsen-Freeman, 2002). Even within the limited set of context-free rules (e.g., the use of am for first person singular subjects), a choice still exists with respect to when to use the forms governed by such rules (Larsen-Freeman, 2002, p. 105). In other words, grammar is not a set of arbitrary rules governing forms; instead, it should be considered “a set of strategies that one employs in order to produce coherent communication” (Givon, 1993, p. 1).
Consistent with the functional view on grammar, teaching grammar means not only to familiarize language learners with grammatical forms, but also to enable them to use the forms to convey meanings appropriately (Larsen-Freeman, 2001). To achieve this goal, recent research has stressed the need to “focus-on-form” within a meaning-based or communicative approach (Doughty & Williams, 1998; Ellis, Basturkmen, & Loewn, 2001; Long, 1983, 1991, as cited in Celce-Murcia & Olshtain, 2003). That is, learners’ attention is drawn to “linguistic forms (and the meanings they realize) in the context of activities in which the learner’s primary focus of attention is on meaning” (Ellis, 2002, p. 17).
Motivated by the current view on grammar teaching, some studies have been
conducted to investigate the effectiveness of teaching grammar to EFL learners in Taiwan through a more communicative-based approach (e.g., Huang, 2004; Lee H. &
Wang, 2002; Yeh, 2002). Others have been conducted to explore local English teacher’s beliefs in grammar instruction under the influence of current communicative view on grammar (e.g., Hsieh, 2005; Lai, 2004). Lai’s (2004) study, for example, indicates that high school English teachers’ beliefs in grammar instruction have changed from sole focus on linguistic structures to dual focus on structures and meanings at the same time. Despite their beliefs in the importance of teaching grammar with reference to meaning and context, most high school English teachers’
practices of grammar instruction have still been found to rely on traditional deductive and explicit approach (Lai, 2004). This discrepancy between beliefs and practices may be attributed to contextual factors such as student expectation and pressure of teaching to the tests (Lai, 2004). However, this compromise is problematic because traditional grammar instruction often fails to assist language learners in acquiring semantic and pragmatic meanings of a given linguistic structure (e.g., Chiu, 2006; Shih, 2004;
Wang, 2005; Wang, 2005). As a result, EFL learners in Taiwan are often not able to use linguistic structures to convey their meanings appropriately.
The goal of this research is therefore to highlight the importance of teaching grammar, particularly causative verb constructions, with reference to semantic and contextual considerations. The next section will discuss the motivation behind the selection of causative verb constructions as the focus of the present study.
Motivation
English is a language that shows greater differentiation in the area of causation (Wierzbicka, 1998, p. 148). Causative verb constructions1 are one of the linguistic
1 Causative verb constructions discussed in the present chapter are limited to two-part constructions with a matrix verb and a complement verb (e.g., Alison made the door open). Chapter 2 will provide a more detailed account of how this type of constructions is referred to in linguistic literature.
devices for encoding causative situations, in addition to other devices such as causative conjunctions (e.g., because) and prepositions (e.g., because of) (Comrie, 1989; Stefanowitsh, 2001; Wolff, Song, & Driscoll, 2002; Wolff & Song, 2003). Of the various causative expressions in English, causative verb constructions have received much attention not only from linguistics and applied linguistics literature (e.g., Givon, 1975, 1993; Goldsmith, 1984; Stefanowitsch, 2001; Wierzbicka, 1988, 1998) but also from EFL/ESL grammar instruction. They are frequently presented and explained in various ESL/EFL grammar practice books (e.g., Ellis & Gales, 1998;
Elbaum, 2006; Frodesen & Eyring, 2000; Werner & Spaventa, 2002). Ellis and Gales (1998), for example, recognize L2 learners’ difficulty with the make- and the let-causatives and provide several activities to help language learners to distinguish
between the two causatives.
In school English education in Taiwan, causative verb constructions are also treated as one of the major grammatical points. The make-, have- and let-causatives are introduced to EFL learners in Taiwan early in junior high schools (see Table 1) and subsequently reviewed and expanded in senior high schools with the addition of other causative constructions (e.g., the get-causative).
Table 1. Causative Verbs Presented in a Junior High English Textbook She
Mr. Black
lets/ let makes/ made has/ had
Joy Us
play the piano.
cook dinner.
However, even after years of formal instruction, EFL learners in Taiwan are often found to overuse or misuse the make- and the let-causative constructions. As indicated by Liu and Shaw’s (2001) study, Taiwanese college or university students tend to overuse verbal complements with the make-causative in their essay writing where their native counterparts prefer the use of adjectival complements, as shown in (1).
(1) It makes my family become better and better. (Liu and Shaw, 2001, p. 180)
Like the make-causative, the let-causative is also prone to misuse and overuse. A pilot study conducted by the researcher2 reveals that even advanced EFL learners showed a tendency to misuse and overuse the let-causative construction when an alternative would be more appropriate to convey their intended meaning, as in (2a, b).
(2a) He let me know that I was so shallow.
Æ He made me realize that…
(2b) Her attitude toward work let me want to be a successful woman like her.
Æ Her attitude toward work encourages / inspires me to…
The above inappropriate uses of the make- and the let-causatives may be partly due to faulty presentation and incomplete explanations in instructional materials. A preliminary investigation suggests that the presentation of causative constructions in senior high English textbooks is not much different from that in junior-high English textbooks. Typical presentation comprises simplified sentence patterns followed by sentence-level examples, as exemplified in (3).
(3) make / have/ let + O + V
1. If I don’t like it, that makes me feel there’s something wrong with me.
2. The teacher had his students visit the art museum this weekend.
3. Let me give you some tips on how to survive
Although the simultaneous presentation of syntactically similar or identical causative constructions seems to be simple and straightforward, it may result in learners’
interchangeable use of these constructions if no functional explication is provided.
The use of oversimplified rules and sentence-based examples is also prevalent in the teacher’s manuals and references books accompanying senior high English
2 A pilot study was conducted prior to the present tudy to investigate advanced EFL learners’ use of causative verb constructions in their essay writing. Twelve freshman English majors at a public university in Taipei participated in the pilot study. The two example sentences were extracted from two participants’ short essays.
textbooks. Little attention has been paid to the semantic and pragmatic dimensions of causative verb constructions. The only semantic treatment seems to be the provision of Chinese translations. This treatment, however, may mislead Taiwanese EFL learners to form semantic configuration of the target causative constructions different from that of native speakers (cf. Liu & Shaw, 2001; Helms-Park, 2001). As shown in (4), both the make- and let-causatives are translated into the causative ‘rang’ in Chinese. Without receiving proper instruction in the semantic differences between the two causatives, Taiwanese EFL learners are likely to misuse the let-causative for the make-causative (see 2a).
(4) make / have / let + O + V
1. What you said yesterday made her feel sad.
你昨天說的話讓她很傷心。
2. Let me go. I don't want to stay here anymore.
讓我走。我再也不想待在這裡了。
In sum, the preliminary observations suggest that causative verb constructions, though regarded as one of the major grammatical points, are often not well presented and explained in the instructional materials for Taiwanese EFL learners. Such inadequacy may have negative effects on the learning of causative verb constructions.
However, little research has been done on this issue.
Purposes and Research Questions of the Study
To provide research evidence for the preliminary observations, this study first intends to examine the input that instructional materials provide for the teaching and learning of English causative constructions. Two types of instructional materials were investigated: three commonly-used senior high English textbook series and their accompanying teacher’s manuals. The rationale behind analyzing textbooks is that they serve as the main source of guidance for both teachers and students in an ELT
class (Ariew, 1982; Macian, 1986, as cited in Skierso, 1991) and more specifically as
“a reference source for learners on grammar” (Cunningsworth, 1995, p. 7). Similarly, teacher’s manuals can also exert a considerable influence on how a given grammatical structure is taught and, in turn, on how well the structure is learned. Thus, the two types of instructional materials were examined with regard to their presentation, practice, and explanations of causative constructions.
Moreover, the study attempts to ascertain the effectiveness of the instructional materials in promoting the learning of causative verb constructions. Based on the preliminary observations, it is hypothesized that the materials are inadequate to help senior high students learn the constructions, especially their semantic and pragmatic features. Therefore, the study attempts to propose an alternative method to address this inadequacy, i.e. to provide sufficient information on the meaning as well as use differences among the target causative constructions. Two intact classes from a senior high school participated in this study, with one class as the control group and the other as the experimental group. The control group was given an instructional treatment designed on the basis of the materials under examination, while the experimental group on the basis of the proposed method. Results from the quasi-experiment are expected to stress the importance of teaching causative verb constructions with reference to semantic and contextual considerations.
More specifically, this study aims to answer the following research questions:
1. Which causative verb constructions (CVs) are selected as target grammatical structures in the senior high English textbooks? How are they presented and practiced in the textbook grammar activities? How does such presentation and practice correlate with the textbook reading and conversation texts?
2. How are CVs presented and explained in the teacher’s manuals accompanying the senior high English textbooks?
3. Are the textbooks and their teacher’s manuals effective in promoting the learning of the form and meaning/use of CVs? If not, is the proposed method an effective alternative?
Significance of the Study
This research is of significance to both textbook development and classroom instruction with regard to grammar teaching in general and causative verb instruction in specific. As revealed by recent corpus-based studies, EFL/ ESL learners’ use of causative verb constructions is often different from native speakers’ (Altenberg &
Granger, 2001; Gilquin, 2006; Liu & Shaw, 2001; Wong, 1983). Even advanced learners show little awareness of the properties of a particular causative verb construction and hence use the given construction in an awkward and unidiomatic way (Gilquin, 2006). While various studies have identified learners’ unidiomatic use of causative verb constructions in English, little research has been conducted to examine the input that textbooks and their teacher’s manuals provide for the teaching and learning of causative constructions. Nor has there been research conducted to investigate the effectiveness of teaching causative constructions with reference to semantic and contextual considerations. This study is expected to provide textbook writers and teachers with information on how to improve causative verb instruction.
Organization of the Thesis
This thesis is organized as follows. Chapter 1 gives an overview of the present study. Chapter 2 reviews both linguistic and applied linguistic accounts of causative verb constructions to provide theoretical basis for this study. Chapter 3 reports data collection and analysis procedures. Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 present and discuss the results of the study, respectively. The last chapter concludes the thesis with a summary of the major findings, pedagogical implications, limitations of the present study and suggestions for further research.
