1/9

The Republic1 of ELT

From Linguistic Competence to Communicative Competence
From Segregation to Integration
By Mathiam Thiam, Igen, Fastef

Introduction
Communicative Language Teaching has always sought legitimacy in its
attempt to bridge the enduring gap between linguistic competence and
communicative incompetence built up through overemphasis of linguistic
manipulations and sheer neglect of actual use that integrates all the
skills, micro and macro as in real life situations.
In this paper, this malfunction will be reviewed metaphorically in a
pedagogical allegory inspired by the values that pervades American
political history, from the Declaration of Independence to the election of
an African American to the highest office in the world.
The Constitution
The groundswell of support that ushered Barack Obama into the White
House reflects a culture of republican idealism and law abiding
citizenship. By electing him, the American people have lived up to the
promises of equality entrenched in the Declaration of Independence and
the Constitution of the USA. This second Revolution after the War of
Independence would not have come about, had the laws of the land not
been upheld by people who believe that the ideals and the values of the
Republic cannot accommodate second class citizenship advocated by the
“Separate but equal” doctrine of segregation until 1954 (Brown Vs.
School Board of Topeka), that the law of the land is integration.

1
Hutchinson & Waters compare ELT alternatively to a tree and a City. Here it is identified with a republic.

MThiam, 2008
 2/9

These landmarks of American political history go to show that a republic

will be viable as long as its citizens subscribe to the rule of law and live
by the values and ethos of their constitution. If English Language
Teaching (in Senegal) can be considered to be a Republic endowed with
a constitution, the compelling questions that require unequivocal
answers are:
Do Senegalese practitioners of ELT have a constitution? The answer is
an adamant yes: it is the National Syllabus!
Do the citizens of the Republic, i.e. the teachers, abide by the law of the
land? The answer is an outright no! Therefore there must be something
rotten in the Republic, to parody Shakespeare!
Breaking the laws
The Constitution of our Republic, the National Syllabus, makes it
abundantly clear that the goal of ELT in Senegal is achieving
Communicative Competence through integrated, interactive, authentic,
task-based and process-oriented activities, which are otherwise
considered the “self-evident truths” that give substance to
Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), from Widdowson to Savignon,
not to mention Nunan. Notwithstanding, a great majority of practitioners
of English Language Teaching (ELT) still favor a segregationist 2view of
ELT that relies heavily on the presentation and transformation of discrete
items and isolated sentences bereft of any context of situation. Such
practices and the separation of reading from writing, of linguistic forms
from their communicative functions are indeed tantamount to gross
violations of the Constitution. High school exam papers are rife with such

2
The segregation/integration dichotomy, first introduced by HG Widdowson, is
metaphorically reviewed by Rebecca Oxford as a tapestry of interweaving strands, integrating
all the skills.
MThiam, 2008
 3/9

lawlessness perpetrated by advocates of segregation! Let us consider the

evidence from these samples:
A. Re-write the sentences in the passive voice.

They grow rice here: .................................

Father has bought new computers: ................................

B Put the appropriate question tags.

I can hardly believe my ear, ................?
Stop complaining, ………………?

C. Ask Questions corresponding to the underlined words.

She often borrows her sister's bicycle.

He left his car in the garage.

D. Reformulate the sentences using the prompts given.

He regretted divorcing his wife.

He wished ..................________________________________________

He will never let you bring cleaning sticks into our country.

Never.................. ___________________________________________

It's 10 o’clock; the children must go to bed.

It's 10 o'clock; it's high time the children ...________________________
E. Turn the following; sentences into reported speech.

"1'll be a farmer when I leave school" he said.

"Don’t slam the door," he ordered him.

MThiam, 2008
 4/9

None of these activities would pass muster in a court of Communicative

Competence in the Republic of ELT! As it were, they violate the law of
the land and challenge the values that the Republic is grounded on,
namely: interaction, integration, discourse, information transfer,
information gap, discovery, opinion gap, unpredictability, authenticity
and purpose.
Considering that the samples of discrete items and isolated sentences
above are attached to a reading passage dealing with the use of cleaning
sticks in oral hygiene, one can legitimately equate them with an assault
on CLT pedagogical wisdom. What are the logical connections between
“Divorcing one’s wife”, “The car in the garage”, “Daddy buying new
computers” and oral care? Is there not a more communicative, intelligent
and creative way of testing grammar other than the manipulation of
“disembodied sentences”? Can we not intelligently incorporate the issues
and facts from the reading passage into the grammar activities
meaningfully? Critics of integrated skills – the segregation camp - argue
that if students do not understand the text they would not be able to
perform well in grammar nor integrate reading and writing.
The sentimental appeal of such a contention is not strong enough to
overrule the scientific, religious and pedagogical cases for integration.
The case for integration
Indeed, if atoms were not integrated into molecules thanks to the
electromagnetic force and molecules into matter, life would not exist as
we know it today. Computer science and its multiple high technology
spin-offs are born of binary calculus, which is based on the computation
or integration of two digits: zero and one! As far as Islam is concerned,
integration and interaction are the essence of life: “Everything that the

MThiam, 2008
 5/9

earth produces is created in pairs” (Yasin, Verse 36). Human language is

a system of interdependencies that relies on integration, too. No one can
use the present perfect without prior knowledge and integration of the
irregular verbs. Nor could they satisfactorily fill out a summary cloze
without understanding the reading passage it is based upon3. Likewise,
an information transfer activity requires the reader to use information
from a text to label a picture, a diagram, to fill out a table or follow a
route on a map. Both language tasks would be unthinkable in an
isolationist-segregationist framework that ignores the reading passage!
Furthermore, newspaper readers often react by writing to the editor
articles that integrate the issues in a given article, which amounts to a
post reading activity. In much the same way, a journalist listening to a
press conference will react either in speaking by asking questions or in
writing by composing an article based on the press conference, which
corresponds to a post listening activity: the performance of all these real
life tasks are predicated on a number of prerequisites. In all them, we
definitely integrate micro skills and macro skills to communicate. Why
should it be otherwise in the classroom if we want to teach authentic
language behaviour?
Upholding the Constitution
As a law abiding citizen of the Republic of ELT, I wish to make two
modest proposals that hopefully observe and protect the Constitution:

3
A reading passage is summarized by the tester and then gaps are left for completion by the
reader. (Hughes, 1997)
MThiam, 2008
 6/9

PROPOSAL ONE
SITUATION: Read the text on Cleaning Sticks and complete this argument between an
American and a Senegalese who is chewing a cleaning stick enthusiastically. They are at a
New York bus stop4.
American: Stop spitting all over the place, ______________?
Senegalese: You never clean your teeth, _______________?
American: You know, in America, _______________________________
__________________________________________________________
Senegalese: _________________________________________________

PROPOSAL TWO
TASK: The Senegalese Oral Care Association (SOCA) has asked your
school to design a brochure for oral hygiene5.
Fill in the outline below with information from the text. Do NOT write
beyond the space provided.

4
This mild clash exemplifies the type of communication breakdown that can arise from the lack of Intercultural
Communicative Competence (Aptekin).
5
Tasks are defined as activities that can stand alone as fundamental units and that require
comprehending, producing, manipulating, or interacting in authentic language while attention
is paid to meaning rather than form.
MThiam, 2008
 7/9

There are many good reasons for using chewing sticks:

1. ________________________________________________________

2. ________________________________________________________

3. ________________________________________________________

4. ________________________________________________________

However, be careful because vigorous brushing might

1. ________________________________________________________

2. ________________________________________________________

3. ________________________________________________________

Whether you use a chewing stick or a toothbrush, have your teeth ________________
________________
regularly by __________________: they will give you proper advice.

This brochure has been sponsored by S.O.C.A:

www.socare.Com
www.socare.Com
For more information, ________ 800 800 toll free.

MThiam, 2008
 8/9

Conclusion
In this pedagogical allegory, I have tried to show that a professional
body needs a code of conduct similar to a constitution that “draws its
just powers” from the knowledgeable compliance of the citizens with the
rule of law. In the case of ELT in Senegal, the law of the land is
embodied by the National Syllabus greatly inspired by the concepts of
integration and interaction. Isolating grammar from a context of
situation or separating reading from writing is closer to pedagogical
expediency than to principled teaching practices. The former is a
shortcut to anarchy; the latter is the path to the rule of law in the
Republic of ELT.
Mathiam Thiam
Faculté des Sciences et Technologies de l’Education et de la Formation
(Fastef), Inspecteur Général de l’Education Nationale
mathiamthiam@yahoo.fr
December 2008

References:
1. Nunan, D. (1989). Designing Tasks for the Communicative
Classroom. Cambridge: CUP
2. Hughes, A. (1997). Testing for Language Teachers. CUP
3. Integrated Skills in the ESL/EFL Classroom. (ERIC Digest#EDO-FL-
01-05). Author: Rebecca Oxford, University of Maryland
http://www.cal.org./ericcll/digest/0105oxford.html

Appendix
Cleaning Sticks

MThiam, 2008
 9/9

"There are several documented studies which suggest that the cleaning sticks are at
least as effective as normal toothbrushes and paste in maintaining routine oral
health," Christine D. Wu, Professor and Associate Dean for Research at the University
of Illinois College of Dentistry, told Reuters. She said some laboratory studies
indicated plants from which some of the sticks in Africa are cut contain protective
anti-microbial compounds that act against the bacteria in the mouth which cause
tooth decay and gum disease. "And if these sticks do contain fluoride, as plants do,
then this would be beneficial for caries prevention," Wu said, although she stressed
much more research needed to be done on the sticks and their use by humans.
The World Health Organization bas encouraged the use of chewing sticks as an
alternative source of oral hygiene in poor countries where many cannot afford
commercial dental products. ln mostly Muslim Senegal, people say there is religious
precedent for the use of the chewing sticks. ln holy Islamic writings known as the
Hadiths, the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) recommends its use as part of cleaning
rituals that are an essential element of daily prayer. "For prayers, you have to get
really clean, and that includes the teeth," said Diop, an invalid whose left leg is
deformed _ a childhood injury sustained when a sharp twig pierced his bare foot in
the bush and the wound became infected. Although commercially made toothbrushes
from leading international brands are available in Dakar supermarkets and
pharmacies, many people say they prefer the chew -sticks. "It's better because it's
natural. I used to use a brush, but it made my gums bleed," said Alassane Sy, an off-
duty police officer, stopping to buy a stick from Diop. Price helps too. While a
manufactured toothbrush can cost upwards of 300 CFA francs (60 cents), a chew-
stick costs only 25 or 50 CFA, Diop said each type of stick had different stories and
origins associated with them. For example, the one named Matou-kel was believed to
bring luck. It is named after the tree it is cut from where bush deer _prized in
Senegal for their tender tasty venison -like to feed and rest. Another wood variety,
Soumpou, was traditionally used to provide a liquid used to cook a fortifying dish,
Laakh, which is made with millet. "lt gives energy," Diop said. But Wu had a word of
warning for stick chewers: don't overdo it, as too vigorous scrubbing can push back
the gums, causing gum recession exposing teeth roots to damage and decay.

htm :// www .seneweb.com/news/article/10848.php .PBUH stands for: Peace Be Upon Him

MThiam, 2008