Nelda Rose Lucas Pinnace

Ms. Linda Carolina Perdomo

Didactic of Literature

October 28, 2017

1.1 What's the comic about?

This man arrives to a foreign region, althought, hes not familiar with there

language and the culture. As soon as he gets off the train, a man addresses to

him in a polite way and raises his hat, gesture that may mean helloor

welcome to the traveller. He associates the phrase with the gesture as a

greeting and answers back to that message in the same way during the whole

strip. But When he arrives at his hotel, the receptionist is using the expression

to express he is angry. So re realizes that the meaning of this expression is not

what he thinks it is.

The conflict relies on the fact that the foreigner does not understand the

spoken language. He misinterpreted the message as meaning was incorrectly

established from the beginning. There was no negotiation of meaning at all.

The man could have asked questions to clarify the information, but he didnt.

He just assumed the meaning of the gesture as part of his own culture.
 1.2 Recognizing the importance of negotiation of meanings in
SLA, does it always help in an EFL context? Why?
Negotiation in meaning is a process that speakers go through to reach a clear

understanding of each other. Conversational interaction between a more

competent interlocutor and the person who does not understand is essential.

Through the interaction both speakers modify their speech and interaction.

Modified interaction leads to negotiation of meaning which makes input

comprehensible. If negotiation of meaning does not occur, Second Language

Acquisition does not happen. So, negotiation of meaning always helps in an EFL

context.

Negotiation of Meaning (the repeating, rephrasing, and restructuring of phrases

between learners) is essential for SLA, as long as it provides students with

comprehensible input, opportunities for modification of output, and manipulation

of L2. It is considered necessary for the acquisition of the target language because

this interaction generally develops inter language (Krashen: 1982). In order to

enhance communicative competence, EFL contexts should provide learners with

maximum exposure to the TL since these places are the only communicative

contexts in which language is both the means and the end of communication.

Although studies by Foster (1997), analyzing cognitive and sociocultural

perspectives on negotiation of meaning, have discredited its helpfulness, in

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academic settings, new ideas, theories, diversity, culture, classroom environment,

and tasks should be considered. (Foster, 1998)

Negotiation of meaning, Foster (1998) studied intermediate English as a foreign

language (EFL) She found little evidence for negotiated interaction and modified

utterances and concludes that contrary to much (SLA) theorizing, negotiating,

for meaning is not a strategy that language learners are predisposed to employ

when they encounter gap in their own understanding. For second language

acquisition (SLA), having access to language input is critical. Although the

theories of SLA attach different importance to the role of language input, they all

acknowledge the need for it. Learners of English as a second (ESL) or a

foreign language (EFL) are always encouraged to avail themselves of all

forms of authentic language input within the classroom and beyond. In

contexts with limited social interaction in the English language, however, various

audiovisual technologies are available to be utilized as sources of authentic

language input for enhancing language learning in both formal and informal

learning settings. In the same line, the present aims at considering the role

of language input for SLA development in informal setting. (Eli, 2008).

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 1.3 What would you do have done, being you the man shown?
Its okay for you to be mad, but its not okay for you to be mean. I am so sorry

that I hurt your feelings. That was truly not my intention. I would try to explain to

him that that it was my fault that didnt ask what that expression means before

doing; there was no negotiation of meaning because I adopt the meaning I thought

was the right one.

All countries refer to being competent communicator when talking about second

language acquisition because of the crucial importance of communication in the

information society. Chomsky separates competence and performance; he

describes competence as an idealized capacity that is located as a psychological

or mental property or function and performance as the production of actual

utterances. In short, competence involves knowing the language and

performance involves doing something with the language. The difficulty with

this construct is that it is very difficult to assess competence without assessing

performance. In order to focus learners more on the doing part of learning, a

more communicative approach to teaching can be used. (Unisa, 2009).

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 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Eli, H. (2008). New Perspectives on Grammar Teaching in Second Language Classrooms.
New York London: Taylor & Francis.

Foster, P. (1998). A Classroom Perspective on the Negotiation of Meaning,

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Pauline_Foster/publication/239745192_
A_Classroom_Perspective_on_the_Negotiation_of_Meaning/links/553f6a7d0cf
2574dcf628224.pdf.

RICHARDS JACK. (2009, 4 23). cambridge. Retrieved from Communicative-Language:

http://www.cambridge.org/elt/teacher-support/pdf/Richards-Communicative-
Language.pdf

Unisa. (2009). Language, Culture , http://www.tllg.unisa.edu.au/lib_guide/gllt_ch2.pdf.

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