- 110 - Sakander: 7 years 2 months - 7 years 5 months;
Fehdah: 7 years 1 month - 7 years 3 months; Shvinder: 6 years 11 months - 7 years 1 month;
Humira: 6 years 8 months - 6 years 11 months; Sheiba:
6 years 5 months - 6 years 8 months; Aqeel:
5 years 9 months - 6 years 0 months; Shazia:
5 years 7 months - 5 years 10 months. Although we can use this information to make age-related inferences, it should be pointed
out that there is no significant correlation between the age of the subjects and their language ability in English. This is not surprising in view of the small, perhaps unrepresentative,
sample chosen. We would expect some degree of agreement between age and ability in an L2 if we had sampled the whole infant school population. But here the fact that Fehdah is
ranked third in age and eighth in ability, and Shvinder fourth in age and first in ability, is sufficient to skew the results, even though, with these two excluded, the rest are ranked in
the same order for both age and ability. After experimenting with two separate, clip-on microphones, we found that the children
behaved more naturally when we used one single, desk-top microphone in the middle of the table; this picked up the voices of both partners reasonably well. The only real
drawback to this arrangement was the amount of background noise which was also picked up by the microphone, and this interfered with the instrumental analysis of some of the
data.
4.2.2 Materials and Procedure
It was decided to collect three different kinds of performance data: instruction-giving, narratives and simple dialogues. This decision dictated the choice of activities and materials
to be used in the recording sessions and the way the individual sessions were organized. Only the narrative data are described in this study, although it is hoped that the rest will be
used at a later date. Accordingly, three separate, but interrelated, activities were planned for each recording
session: a drawing activity, a story retelling activity, and free conversation using puppet characters. As indicated above, we decided to produce our own materials for each activity.
The inspiration came from seeing six designs for simple knitted dolls in a craft shop. These
- 111 - dolls are designed with their arms by their sides; consequently, there is a limit to the
amount of physical activity they can be made to engage in by their eager manipulators, and so, for our purposes, they were ideal. They were only required to speak A friend provided
odd balls of wool and the dolls were knitted, and then the six stories needed for the retelling activity were woven around the six characters they represented: Father Christmas,
a Snowman, a Chinaman, an Eskimo, a Footballer and a Cowboy. Each story has just two or three participants and is about 700 words long. For the drawing activity, two different,
brightly coloured representations of the six characters—twelve pictures in all—were drawn on stiff card and covered with a protective film of plastic. The characters seemed to appeal
to the children, and they enjoyed handling both the dolls and the picture cards. The stories generally went down well too. See appendices 1 and 2.
The sessions normally lasted about 45 minutes and took place in a small room off one of the main school staircases. The children felt comfortable working in there. The only real
drawback was the lack of soundproofing. Extraneous sounds we had to contend with included traffic noise from a busy main road, the clatter of children’s feet on the stairs,
strains of music from the school Steel Band and the occasional singing lesson wafting up the stairs from the hall below. Each session followed more or less the same pattern, even
though there were some unavoidable interruptions. The drawing activity always came first; for this, the speaker held a picture card of one of
the characters and was asked to tell the interlocutor how to draw him. Some children used a descriptive style e.g. “he’s got brown hair...”, but most speakers gave the expected
instructions to their interlocutors e.g. “draw some brown hair...”. The picture itself was only revealed to the interlocutor once the drawing had been completed. This was perhaps
the easiest of the three tasks. It was certainly the most time consuming, and also the most popular. It provided a useful warm-up to the main activity, the retelling of the story. The
storytelling activity was the most difficult and hence the least popular. The story was read to both children together, in as interesting and informal a way as possible, and some
discussion was allowed, but the aim was to avoid any distractions which could cause the children to miss the point or some of the details of the story they were listening to. Both
children were given the opportunity to tell the story, but, wherever possible, the speaker was encouraged to go first. The more popular puppet activity was always kept until last, as
a final treat. Some interesting conversational exchanges were obtained, and also a mixture of conversational and narrative discourse was used.
- 112 - Before going on to discuss the analysis of the narrative data, we will reproduce the Model
version of Story A to give some indication of the type of stories which were used. Model Story A: Mr. Wong and the Sack of Rice
Mr. Wong was a Chinaman and he had a smart little Take-away in the middle of the High Street where he sold fried rice, sweet-and-sour pork, beansprouts and oodles of
noodles. People liked coming into his shop to buy take-away meals. But one day something dreadful happened. Mr. Wong ran out of rice This wouldn’t have
been quite so bad if it hadn’t been the week before Christmas. Poor Mr. Wong was very worried—very worried indeed
He tried ringing the wholesaler; the first time he dialled the wrong number and got the garage instead, and then the number was engaged. When, at last, he did get through, the
wholesaler said he could not deliver the rice because the weather was too bad. “What will my customers do?” he wailed down the telephone.
“That’s your problem,” answered the wholesaler. “You should have ordered it before.”
That night Mr. Wong could not sleep. He kept seeing the disappointed faces of all his customers—no fried rice, no savoury rice, no Take-away “Specials” for Christmas
What could he do? There must be something he could do But no ideas came. The next morning he got up very early and looked out of the window. To his surprise and
delight, he saw what looked like a big sack of rice right outside his front door. So the wholesaler had delivered the rice after all But why had he done it at night? And the
weather was still bad; there was thick snow everywhere. Mr. Wong went down to investigate. Funny The sack seemed to be split and some of it
was missing altogether; all that was left was some odd bits of black, red and yellow sacking. Yet the rice looked O.K.
So he fetched a big bowl and a very large spoon and was just about to scoop up a spoonful when the “rice” spoke to him.
“I beg your pardon” exclaimed Mr. Wong, dropping his bowl and his spoon in amazement. He must be dreaming—rice can’t speak
- 113 - “You’ve got it wrong, Mr. Wong.”
“What do you mean? I need rice and I’m scooping it up to put in my bowl,” announced Mr. Wong crossly.
“But I’m not rice—I’m snow—a snowman, in fact.” “You mean this—you—are not my rice after all? Who are you then?” asked
the bewildered Mr. Wong. “My name is Mr. Walter Kristel. I have come from the Frozen North—from
the land of polar bears, seals and Father Christmas,” the Snowman announced grandly. “Who’s Father Christmas?” queried Mr. Wong.
“He’s the one who makes children happy at Christmas. Children write letters to him and ask him for their favourite toys: if they’ve been good, he gives them what they
want.” “Oh” said Mr. Wong thoughtfully. “Does he give grown-ups what they want
too?” “I don’t know. But you could always try,” encouraged the Snowman.
So Mr. Wong wrote a note to Father Christmas. “Dear Father Christmas,
Could you deliver a sack of rice for Christmas Day? This would make my customers very happy. Thank you very much.
Mr. Wong.” Then he looked at it in dismay. How would Father Christmas get it in time? He didn’t
even know his address. Mr. Walter Kristel looked at him kindly, as if reading his thoughts.
“Look, I’ll deliver it for you. I’m going that way. It’s too warm here—I’m beginning to melt already. I must get back to the Frozen North as quickly as I
can.”
- 114 - So Mr. Wong found an envelope and tucked the letter into it. He gave it to the
Snowman. Then Mr. Walter Kristel slowly stood up and lumbered off down the High Street.
Mr. Wong never saw him again. But, on Christmas Eve, a large sack of rice came tumbling down his chimney and put out the fire. But Mr. Wong didn’t complain. His
customers could have their Take-away “Specials” after all And they did. They enjoyed them very much indeed.
4.2.3 Analysis of the Narrative Data
