Book retroview: Talk English

Jonathan Marks

Jonathan Marks has recently contributed to the Macmillan English Dictionary webzine, the Macmillan Phrasal Verbs Plusdictionary, the onestopenglish website, and has co-written a set of grammar companions for Inside Out. He is working on a pronunciation course and a(nother) Polish-English dictionary, among other things.
E-mail: jonathanmarks@wp.pl

"It was late in the evening when K. arrived. The village lay deep in snow. Of the castle hill, nothing could be seen; it was shrouded in fog and darkness, without even the faintest gleam of light to hint at the great castle. K. stood for a long time on the wooden bridge which led from the road to the village, looking up into the apparent emptiness."

This is the opening of The Castle by Franz Kafka, who has always been one of my favourite writers. The suffix '-esque' can be attached on an ad hoc basis to any name, but 'Kafkaesque' is particularly well-established, and used relatively frequently, even by people who haven't read Kafka. It's used to mean various things: bizarre, surreal, illogical, confusing, contradictory ..... But perhaps the most fundamental sense of 'Kafkaesque' relates to the existential struggle of the individual in a world which is enigmatic, unpredictable, bureaucratic, impervious, intractable, at best indifferent and at worst malevolent.

What's all this got to do with English language teaching? Well, once upon a time there was a coursebook which teachers often called Kafkaesque - some in approbation, others in disapproval. It was called Talk English, it was written by T. C. Jupp, John Milne & Piers Plowright, and it was published by Heinemann in 1970.

A 'coursebook' in those days was something very different from the kind of product we know today. Here's a sample from one of the best-known from that era - and a pioneering work in its time - Louis Alexander's First Things First:

Bill: Look, Bob. This is a photograph I took during my trip to Australia.
Bob: Let me see it, Bill.

Bob: This is a good photograph. Who are these people? .
Bill: They're people I met during the trip.

Bill: That's the ship we travelled on. .
Bob: What a beautiful ship!

Bob: Who's this? .
Bill: That's the man I told you about. Remember? .
Bob: Ah yes. The one who offered you a job in Australia. .
Bill: That's right.

Bill, Bob, Jim, Mr and Mrs Sawyer, Father, Mother, Betty, Jane, Pauline and so on appear in everyday situations that learners might also find themselves in, and model an idealised version of the language that learners might use to negotiate those situations. The situations and the dialogues are generally straightforward, though sometimes with a mildly humorous twist, and any ambiguity or complication is soon resolved.

So what's different about Talk English ? The sub-title is 'Conversation situations and oral practice for intermediate students'. The cover blurb says: "This highly original course takes universal human situations with a strong element of dramatic surprise and uses them as a basis for teaching spoken English. Students of English are often given drills and substitution tables or polite and banal conversations and are told that they are then "talking English". However Talk English uses intriguing human situations as the setting for a series of dramatic dialogues from which varied classroom work is developed."

It consists of twelve 'situations,' each of which comprises four dialogues (with recordings) which together make a short 'play'. Seven of the situations have titles which recall Kafka's The Castle and The Trial:

The Caller.
The Ladder.
The Box.
The Gate.
The Bed.
The Tree.
The Stranger

The other situations are:

Waiting.
In the Money.
Neighbours.
When do we get there? .
Don't tell a soul!

The 'theme' of each situation is given in the teacher's notes - e.g.:

"People react in different ways when they find something strange and unknown" "So many of the things people are forced to do take up a lot of time and are in the end pointless" "Many people expect that one day all their problems will be solved for them by someone or something".
"If a man wants to do something he really believes in, he must overcome many difficulties and temptations."

Each situation starts with some preliminary language work to highlight and practise the grammar points embodied in the dialogues. The methodology for working with the dialogues themselves is basically 'listen and repeat', though there are various other further practice activities.

But the individuality of the book lies in the style and content of the dialogues. The characters are identified simply as 'A', 'B', 'C', etc. - even when they refer to each other and address each other directly:

"There's a man playing a trumpet." .
"X plays the trumpet. Is it X?"

"Hello C. I didn't expect to meet you."

The same applies to places:

"[.....] what time do we get to Z?" .
"Ah well I'm not sure. You see I'm getting off at W. That's several stops before Z."

We learn practically nothing about these characters and their backgrounds, and the locations and situations they find themselves thrown into are only minimally hinted at:

"A man is standing beside a ladder. Another man asks him what he is doing. This man decides to climb the ladder." .
"It's early in the morning. B wakes A up. But A refuses to get up and go to work." .
"Two men wonder why a stranger has come to their town. They decide they must find out about him." .
"A man wants to go through the gate, but he can't because he hasn't got a pass."

The book, printed in black and white, has minimalistic cartoon-style illustrations by Piers Plowright, showing characters who are literally faceless.

To give you a flvour of what the dialogues are like, here's Dialogue One from 'The Gate':

[An office near the gate] .
B Next please. .
[A comes in] .
Sit down. .
A Thank you. .
B What can I do for you? .
A I want permission to go through the gate. .
B Why do you want to go through the gate? .
A To visit some friends on the other side. .
B I see. Have you got a pass? .
A No, I haven't. .
B Oh. That's a pity. If you had a pass, I could give you permission straight away. .
A You could give me permission straight away with a pass, eh? .
B Yes. .
A Well - Where do I get a pass? .
B Have you got a car? .
A No. .
B Oh. That's a pity. It'd be easier for you with a car. .
A Why? .
B I'm afraid you've got to go back to the town to get a pass. .
A Back to the town? .
B Yes. .
A But an official there told me to come here. .
B Well, he was wrong. .
A I wish I hadn't listened to him. .
B You must have asked the wrong pers.
on. A Well, I'd better go back to the town. .
B Yes - if you want to go through the gate today, you'd better hurry. .
A How am I going to get there? Is there a bus? .
B No, I'm afraid there isn't. .
A Can I ring for a taxi? .
B I'm afraid the telephone's out of order. .
A Oh. So I'll have to walk. .
B Yes, I'm afraid so.

We don't find out where The Gate is, or which domains it divides, or why A needs a pass to go through it. In dialogues two, three and four, various other bureaucratic complications arise and, needless to say, A doesn't manage to get through the gate - not yet, at least. In the end, nothing is resolved or explained.

The Introduction says: "The authors believe that this book offers students the chance to talk real English rather than to imitate artficial language drills or unconvincing and clichéd conversations."

Real English? Consider these extracts from 'The Bed':

(from Dialogue One) .
B What about your coffee? It's getting cold. .
A I don't want any coffee. .
B But you always drink coffee before you go to work. .
A I hate drinking coffee in the morning. .
B You used to like drinking it. .
A Well, I don't now.

(from Dialogue Two) A There's nothing wrong with me. I like lying in bed, that's all. I enjoy lying here, listening to the people in the street and dreaming. So stop wasting your time and go away. .
C Now listen A. Try taking these pills. They'll do you good. .
A I don't need any pills. Take them away and leave me alone. I hate being bothered by doctors.

(from Dialogue Three) .
D Now what's all this I hear. You don't like working, you prefer staying in bed, you enjoy doing nothing. You refuse to get up. .
A That's right. I'm staying in bed today. I've decided to do nothing today.

(from Dialogue Four) .
[Sound of trumpets. B rushes into the bedroom] .
B A! A! .
A Stop shouting. I'm enjoying my dream.
B But A!!
A Stop jumping up and down.
B But A!!
A Please stop shouting. Now try speaking softly. What's the matter?
B The Director's coming.
A Really?
B He's on his way.
[Louder trumpets]

What's real and what's artificial? Well, the term 'real English' has more recently been associated with language realia: texts which have actually occurred. Nowadays, even when coursebooks present constructed texts, they tend to be texts about real places and real people, or plausible, simulated real places and people, often with colour photos to validate them. There's often a grammatical point being illustrated, but you generally have to dig around a bit to find it. What you get in Talk English is a different kind of reality: a heightened reality of stripped-down, archetypal situations without distracting detail, and with transparent grammatical highlighting and exemplification (not just grammatical, but functional, too - several years before the emergence of the 'functional' approach.) For me, at least, this kind of reality is often more engaging and memorable than a lot of language realia. And for me, there's a parallel with Cuisenaire rods: because they are almost totally devoid of characteristics, they have a peculiar power to command attention, to embody language unambiguously and to become a repository for learners' wildest and most divergent interpretations.

A Talk English for the 21st century would be substantially different, of course. It would be able to benefit from all sorts of insights about language and learning that weren't available in 1970. But still, I think this old material hints at a long-buried seam that could be profitably mined by materials writers today.

The notes 'To the private student' end with "Good luck!" But in the light of what happens to some of the characters in the 'situations', even this apparently innocent valediction seems to take on other implications. It's as if learning English is like getting through The Gate, or climbing The Ladder, or finding out what's in The Box, or taking the train to Z, and the message is: "Good luck. You're on your own. You don't know quite what you're letting yourself in for. You'll need to keep your wits about you. And be wary of relying too much on other people's help."