An outline of
"Teaching Students Implied Meaning for TOEFL Preparation
Listening"
Presented by:
Michael Buckhoff
Derrick Taberski
Sydney Rice
Instructors, American Culture and Language Program
Calfornia State University, San Bernardino
TESOL/CLAD Conference UCR
I. Introduction
A. A STUDY OF THE EXPLICIT TEACHING OF IMPLICATURE TO ESL STUDENTS AND ITS
EFFECT ON THEIR PERFORMANCE ON THE LISTENING
B. Teaching Implicature at the Intermediate/Advanced levels
C. Teaching Implicature at the Lower/Beginning Levels
II. Grice’s theory on Conversational Implicature
A. Make your conversation contribution such as is required, at the stage at
which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in
which you are engaged (45).
B. Under the CP there are four maxims:
1. Quantity
a. Make your contribution as informative as required (for the current
purposes of the talk exchange).
b. Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.
Speaker A: Who broke the vase?
Speaker B: Sandy did. She wasn't wearing her glasses.
2. Quality
a. Do not say what you believe to be false.
Speaker A: Jeff just borrowed your new Lexus.
Speaker B: Frank: I like that.
b. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
3. Relation: Be relevant
Speaker A: Where is my chocolate?
Speaker B: John was in your room this morning.
4. Manner Be perspicuous.
a. Avoid obscurity of expression.
b. Avoid ambiguity.
c. Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).
d. Be orderly
Speaker A: You still feel the same toward him?
Speaker B: I just don't trust that guy.
Speaker A: Why he's a great trouble shooter.
Speaker B: Trouble. Period.
III. Why is Conversational Implicature to non native speakers?
A. Grice’s theories enable one to explain how native speakers work out
the implied meanings of their interlocutors.
B. Speakers rely heavily on the cooperative principle when interpreting
utterances that involve implicature. The speaker assumes that the listener
will be able to work out the implied meaning as to Grice’s maxims (Pfaff
291).
C. A reliance on the CP and its maxims is a strategy that must be learned
by NNS if they are to be ‘discourse competent’. (Adamson 26).
D. A knowledge of implicature is assumed on standardized English
proficiency tests such as the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language).
1. The teacher is responsible for teaching the culture of English to
raise the students’ awareness of culturally specific implicatures.
2. Students must be taught how to work out utterances involving
implicature and/or idiomatic/ figurative expressions by direct application
of Grice’s cooperative principle if they are to answer the short and
extended conversations of the TOEFL with any degree of success.
IV. A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
A. Bouton (1988)
The conclusions of the study suggest that a student’s unawareness of a
particular culture may cause the student to derive different interpretations
of culture-specific implicature.
B. Bouton (1990)
1. Bouton found that almost no attention at all is spent on rasing the
students’ awareness of implicature.
2. He contended that implicature can and should be taught in the
classroom. Since the textbooks did not include such instruction, he
suggested that it be the responsibility of the instructor to develop
suitable materials.
C. Bouton (1994)
1. He found that the nonnative speakers chose the same interpretation of
imlpicature upon arrival in 1986 79.5% of the time and 91.5% of the time in
1981.
2. Nonnative speakers can interpret implicature better after 17 and 33
months in the US.
a. Second group who stayed in the US for 33 months only scored slightly
higher than the first group who stayed in the US for 17 months.
b. Students reach their level of proficiency in interpreting
implicature by 17 months.
3. Students who had six hours of explicit instruction of implicature
improved more than the other group that had received no instruction of
implicature.
D. Chen and Harris (1993)
1. ESL instruction without explicit instruction of implicature does not
help a student in his or her ability to interpret implicature.
2. It does seem to help in a student’s overall linguistic competence as
measured by the Michigan Test.
E. Chen and Harris (1994)
1. Explicit instruction of implicature did seem to help, though not all
of the students improved equally.
a. The students who were the most limited in their overall English
competency at the beginning of the quarter seemed to make the most
improvements by the end of the quarter.
2. The "quality" and "manner" implicatures were
easier to teach than the "quantity" and "relation"
implicatures.
3. The study confirms Bouton’s findings in his pilot study.
V. A STUDY OF THE EXPLICIT TEACHING OF IMPLICATURE TO ESL STUDENTS AND ITS
EFFECT ON THEIR PERFORMANCE ON THE LISTENING SECTION OF THE TEST OF ENGLISH
AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE
A. Hypothesis
The experimental group receiving the explicit instruction of implicature
would improve significantly higher (P<.05) on the TOEFL than the control
group that received no such instruction.
B. Subjects
1. 25 international students enrolled at the American Culture and
Language Program at Cal State San Bernardino for the 1996 Spring and Summer
Quarters.
2. The students’ TOEFL scores were between 346 to approximately 470.
3. The students were taking 25 hours of ESL instruction in the ACLP at
the time they participated in the study. The TOEFL Preparation class met for
four hours a week for ten weeks for the two consecutive quarters in which
the study was conducted.
C. Treatment
1. Experimental group (n=12)
a. Seven hours - which was spread out over six class sessions - of
explicit instruction of Grice’s theories. This was done in addition to the
regular TOEFL curriculum instruction.
b. Searle’s theories of direct and indirect speech acts (McManis, C. et
al. 225-231).
2. Control group (n=13 only received the regular TOEFL curriculum
instruction without the seven hours of instruction on implicature.
V. Results of the Study
A. The experimental group mean change was 7.09.
Pretest mean=21 post-test mean=28.3
B. The control group mean change was 3.69.
Pretest mean=21.3 post-test mean=26.167
C. Variable = PRETEST
Even more significant results would be found if additional students were
used. Twenty-five additional subjects would add more statistical power to this
study.
This study makes definite contributions to the study of ESL and how explicit
instruction of implicature impacts a student’s listening comprehension
abilities. Outright, I can claim that the seven hours of explicit teaching did
not adversely effect the students scores. The students in the experimental group
did improve by increasing their scores on average from 20.58 to 27.67 during the
ten weeks of instruction. The fact that the students increased their scores 7.09
points is encouraging. The mean of 7.09 points should be seen as an approximate
gauge in which an ESL instructor can measure the success of the improvements of
a class as a whole. In contrast, the control group improved 3.69 points higher
on the post test than on the pretest.
My study indirectly coincides with Hymes (1971) who pointed out that
understanding a language involves much more than understanding the syntax and
phonology of a language. It also involves understanding how to use the language
appropriately. I am in line with Long who went on to outline implications of
Hymes theories and how it would affect teaching (1976). In addition to that,
statistically quantifying the explicit teaching of implicature by looking at its
effects on students listening TOEFL scores is extending the work of Bouton
(1990) and Chen and Harris (1993, 1994).
