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Notional-Functional Inventory

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Introduction

This inventory provides teachers with one way of organizing language by language functions and notions. It's a useful way to find your way around a language when you're putting together a lesson or a syllabus. You can use it to select teaching points from. This inventory is not complete yet, but when it's finished the categories at the bottom of the hierarchy (the leaves) will contain relevant lexical items, situations, and grammar.

One purpose of inventories like this is to separate the content or the language points being taught from the process and products of language lessons. Dubin and Olshtain (1986) define content as "the specific matter to be included," process as the "manner in which language content is learned," and product as the "outcomes such as the language skills learners are expected to master." (p. 45)

If process is separated from content, the process can be generalized into activity templates for different types of activity. These activity templates can then be used to extend or adapt an activity type to new language teaching points. Computer software can be used to carry out this adaptation in a timely fashion and reduce teacher preparation time. XML and XSL, the text markup languages that are to form the basis of the next generation of browsers (e.g. Internet Explorer 5), will be the best tool for doing this.

Some people worry that maps such as these, particularly when combined with computer tools, could lead to a cookbook style of teaching. Although this is definitely a possibility, such tools open up a range of possibilities that also include a more creative use of material. These computer tools could also be used as a brainstorming machine to enhance the imagination of the teacher and not just a cookbook machine.

Research into computer aided lesson planning could help break the dependence of teachers' on monolithic published ESL resources such as series of course textbooks by giving them the tools to essentially craft their own textbooks on the fly. As Lewis (1993) notes large textbook series often take a very conservative approach to the material they provide.

Another benefit of separating process from content is that it forces the teacher to be explicit about the teaching points that are being covered in a lesson or an activity. Too many activities are not explicit enough in this respect. Inventories like this also provide teachers and students with a more global view of the whole language.

The citations to the right of each entry correspond to activities in the series of photocopiable activity books by Jill Hadfield: Elementary Communication Games (Longman, 1984), Intermediate Communication Games (Longman,1990), Advanced Communication Games (Nelson, 1987), e.g. "2.10" means the 10th lesson in the intermediate book.

The basic categories of language functions used in this list are based on those in the book "Function in English" by Blundell, Higgens, and Middlemiss (Oxford, 1982) as well as other sources such as Gambits (Canada,1976), Chapman's thesaurus (Harper Collins,1994), Wordnet, Cambridge Word Routes, The European Council's Threshold Level, and the great grand-daddy of them all Searle's categories of speech acts.

Please note that this is a work in progress and subject to change.

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Social formulas:

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Information:

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Opinions (2.15, 2.17, 3.25, 3.30)

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Actions

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Bibliography

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