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Article Title
     Designing Consciousness-Raising Tasks for an Economics English Course

Author
Renata Suzuki

Bio Data
Renata Suzuki currently works at Sophia University teaching Economics English. She has extensive experience working with all levels and ages during her twenty-one years in Japan as an EFL teacher/lecturer. She has designed courses combining environmental awareness with English education, and published a free book of ecosongs for kids available at http://www.onegreenleaf.net. She is interested in peace education, learner autonomy, environmental EFL curriculum design, and internet tools in the classroom (CALL), including particularly blogs for classroom observation and professional development. Visit and comment at her blog http://grankageva.blogspot.com/. She can be contacted at renate@zaa.att.ne.jp

Abstract
A confusing trend in the field of second language acquisition (SLA) is the importing and applying of fashionable scientific jargon, which, in the course of being cited, seems to lose any definite meaning it may once have had. Rutherford (1987) mentions one such term, “consciousness-raising” (C-R): “The history of consciousness-raising in language pedagogy is…as long as the history of the field itself. Moreover, … C-R does not necessarily mean the same thing for different researchers and practitioners.” (p.100)This paper retraces the steps of this teacher researcher applying C-R theory to teaching English to Economics Majors in Japan. It sketches the literature for links between theoretical C-R and teacher beliefs on four fundamentals in learning: ownership, responsibility, autonomy and empowerment. Having established a conceptual framework of C-R, a case study is presented of two C-R activities designed to: a) motivate fluent English learners to approach an Economics field in the language by sensitizing them to collocation, and b) help students voice an opinion on Economics topics in a business-like discussion by sensitizing them to modal patterns of agreement. Finally, analyzing student feedback, the four-point fundamental framework (ownership, responsibility, autonomy, and empowerment) serves to evaluate how far C- R activities were profitable to students in meeting learning goals.

Key Words: consciousness-raising, expanding learning options, second language acquisition

Issue

As a British teacher in Japan who has recently begun postgraduate professional development in TEFL/TESL, researching into my university level English for Economics course is an endeavor to relate directly to student needs and challenges they face. Shulman (2002) in a recent interview has referred to this issue: “What is it about what I'm teaching now that will be of value, of use, a source of understanding, or of pleasure to my students at some point in the future, when they're in a situation that is not identical to the one they're in now?”.

My query was to explore how consciousness-raising (C-R) could be applied to scaffold learning in my Japanese class, with two diverse student profiles: Group A are relatively fluent in colloquial English owing to their previous study abroad, and group B are interested in Economics rather than language learning. First, I consulted the literature to investigate if C-R offers students the four fundamentals in the learning process: ownership, responsibility, autonomy and empowerment. What then, were the distinctive features of C-R, and what can it offer the learner?

Relevant Literature

Like Rutherford (1987), Sharwood Smith (1981) explicitly uses the word C-R for grammar teaching: He defines C-R as “the conveying of a rule….to draw the learner’s attention to structural regularities….revealing some pattern or system in the target language….the learner is being made conscious of some aspect of the language itself, but the manner varies.” (p.160-162). His definition suggests that by providing form-focused activities, teachers guide learners in creating personal knowledge of patterns and rules in language. C-R is learner exploration of grammar as a tool in the service of meaning.

Sharwood Smith’s (1981) definition of grammar teaching places learners very firmly at the centre of the grammar learning process. What does such a shift in grammar teaching effectively mean for the learner? In order to be of potential value for my students, C-R should offer the learner ownership of the language, responsibility for the learning process, autonomy of learning, and empowerment. These four criteria constitute a framework to judge the applicability of C-R to the teaching context in Japan.

Does C-R promote ownership of language? Willis and Willis (1996) explain that under grammar-translation there was “generally a very restricted range of C-R techniques” (p.63). Using a broader range of deductive, inductive, communicative, task-based and data-driven learning (DDL) techniques, grammar becomes accessible to a wider spectrum of learner intelligences and learning styles.
Learners do not produce language immediately, but make connections, notice, hypothesize and digest. Ellis (1994) writes: “…in consciousness-raising activities the learners are not expected to produce the target sentence...” (p.643). Giving time validates interlanguage development as a personal process. Indeed, Johns (1994) suggests that a DDL approach “give(s) direct access to the data so that the learner can take part in building up his or her own profiles of meaning and uses” (p.297).

Rutherford (1987) expands the concept of grammar as the “on-line processing component of discourse” (p.104) and insists on grammar as a process in the service of coherent textual meaning: “It is C-R in the service of a concept of language in which the notion of relationship is held to be paramount” (p.100). In doing so, Rutherford places grammar back in the cognitive domain of adult learners, who seek effective communication and who, according to Skehan (1998), prioritize meaning. Studying grammar and making sense of language, the learner attains meaning.
Does C-R promote learner responsibility for the learning process? If grammar is a tool in service of contextualized meanings, learners can no longer rely on teacher or grammar book as a final authority. The responsibility to discover, hypothesize and extrapolate meanings from authentic contexts rests with the learner. In other words the teacher must design C-R activities which build experiences to facilitate this realization. According to Rutherford (1987), the teacher is merely a guide, C-R a tool to facilitate “nothing less than the illumination of the learner’s path from the known to the unknown’ (p.21).

Secondly, Skehan (1998) suggests that being explicitly conscious of focusing on grammar, “awareness of the learning itself, and of what is to be learned” (p.56), may be beneficial for learning. This being C-R, or a direct effect of C-R on a macro-level, such a meta-cognitive, conscious awareness of striving to focus on language form may create a sense of learner responsibility and involvement in learning. Moreover, this increased sense of responsibility means the learner is aware of effort and progress, which can have a powerful motivating influence. 

Does C-R promote learner autonomy? The learner’s native language offers a foundation from which to engage in learning a new language. Ellis (1994) mentions that “(e)vidence for transfer in all aspects of language - phonology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics - is now abundant” (p.29). In other words, students bring to the learning situation all the strengths of their first language. Sharwood Smith and Rutherford (1985) argue that what they call “differential” C-R may be effectively applied as students compare differences in languages (p.279). That is, C-R techniques build on prior strengths relating to learner knowledge of their first language and how it functions, and use these as a springboard for autonomous learning.

Some grammar rules are so specialized they may not facilitate student comprehension but add another learning hurdle, or have only limited application.　In discussing how students defer in judging correct usage to teachers, and teachers to grammarians, Odlin (1994) notes, “…there are limitations on the ability of teachers and linguists to provide reliable judgments” (p.271). Thus, C-R shifts power structures in the classroom away from teacher or grammar-book. With data-driven authentic C-R tasks, students can apply their own labels/terms to explain rules/phenomena. Johns (1991) suggests a discovery sequence of C-R, “Identify-Classify-Generalize” (p.4) so that students, using analytic and comparative skills, can become “researchers” creating language rules autonomously. Ellis (2002) points out that discovery C-R “can lead to powerful insights about the grammar of a language that cannot be found in any published descriptions” (p.165). By offering students C-R tasks which support observation, querying and hypothesizing, students gain an autonomous voice in creating the language of grammar.

Does C-R empower the learner? While some learners have natural aptitudes for language learning, Skehan (1998) argues that supporting the analytic pattern finding process - in other words, C-R - may actually reduce the importance of such aptitude-related learning strengths and offer equal opportunities to all learners. “In fact, classroom learning, because it helps make structure salient and organize memory, auditory input actually means a natural aptitude to perceive patterns becomes less important in the classroom” (p.206) (my italics).

Both Hawkins (1999) and Willis and Willis (1996) acknowledge the “generalizable” nature of language learning. Hawkins (1999) writes that the reason for learning a foreign language at school is “a language apprenticeship on which later study of a different foreign language can build” (p.138).  Willis and Willis (1996) refer to “learning habits which will pay valuable dividends whenever and wherever the learner encounters language” (p.64). C-R activities train skills of pattern analysis and hypothesis formation conducive to learning any language which a learner in our multicultural global society may choose to learn.

In summary, C-R activities can be designed as the exploration of grammar as a tool in the service of meaning while facilitating cognitive processes in learning. C-R is a continuum ranging from explicit teaching to discovery learning which places the learner at the centre of the language-learning process. C-R offers the learner ownership, responsibility, autonomy and empowerment in creating personal knowledge of patterns and rules in the language, guided by the teacher.

How could C-R theory be sensibly integrated to meet learner needs in this researcher’s teaching situation? Who were the learners? How could C-R be designed according to the learning framework to provide Japanese Economics Majors a sense of ownership, responsibility, autonomy and empowerment? Two original C-R sequences focusing on two areas of the conceptual framework, responsibility and empowerment, will be described as follows.

Procedures

This case study describes a procedure implemented in two sequences carried out in two Economics English courses offered to Economics Majors at a private four-year university in Japan. In order to design a C-R procedure by which students can be sensitized to and discover meanings, I focused on two particular aspects of the learning framework: responsibility and empowerment. In the first sequence, to support students in taking responsibility for their own learning, a three-step activity was implemented: 1) activating prior knowledge of collocation; 2) grammatical contextualizing of lexis with authentic examples; and 3) discussing hypotheses with peers. In the second sequence, which emphasized empowering students to gain a voice, a modal ranking C-R activity used authentic text to sensitize students to expressing levels of agreement and disagreement politely in Economics-related discussions.

Most Japanese university students have studied English for six years upon entering university. They have knowledge of two languages, a mother tongue and English. This means they possess great resources on which to draw for autonomous hypothesizing about language.

Japanese students are used to teacher-fronted, deductive, rule-driven grammar-translation instruction methods. However Willis and Willis (1996) suggest a wider range of C-R activities such as identifying patterns, semantic or structural classifying, hypothesis building, cross-language exploration, reconstruction, recall and reference (p. 69).  Implementing more varied techniques offers students ownership: a new learning experience, helping them to reorganize data and making previously experienced grammar salient or noticeable.

Would more varied C-R be as effective as traditional Japanese grammar teaching methods? Fotos (1993) has suggested C-R cloze exercises and dictation tasks for Japanese university students to highlight target structures of indirect object, adverb and relative clause placement.　Her research using grammatical noticing frequency counts indicates that for Japanese students C-R techniques were as effective as traditional formal instruction in promotion of subsequent noticing of structures.

 Some of the Economics Majors students considered here are relatively fluent in colloquial English towing to their previous study abroad. They no longer feel the need to be in an English classroom, lacking awareness of the need to study Economics-related terminology and concepts as a discipline. The first C-R sequence of searching for and identifying patterns of collocation aimed to help students notice differences in vocabulary and register compared with everyday spoken language, providing incentive for them to refine their already good command of English. C-R can thus enhance students’ responsibility for their own learning.

A second type of high-intermediate learner is not interested in the English language per se. They wish to focus on the field of Economics, discussing and applying concepts. In class, Economics Majors discuss Economics-related issues and articles in groups. Often when their opinion is the same as that of another peer, Japanese students feel they have nothing new to say and can therefore not contribute. An empowering C-R sequence raises awareness of how to manipulate modals and phrases, agreeing and disagreeing in response to a prior opinion. This second C-R sequence, ranking modals, has an empowering, career-related purpose beyond the immediate acquisition of English grammar, leading to enhanced discussion and negotiating skills.

These two learner parameters guided choice of C-R sequences, which focused on: a) noticing how to differentiate between colloquial use of words and Economics-related use of those same words, and b) exploring how use of modals creates a polite (and therefore socially more acceptable) way of agreeing/disagreeing when discussing Economic ideas.

Authentic texts taken from “The Economist” magazine and “The Economist” sub-corpora of the Bank of English were collated in two teacher-prepared worksheets. Also student cell-phones and electronic dictionaries were used to implement two C-R sequences. A follow-up questionnaire is attached in Appendix A.

I developed the first C-R sequence (accessing prior knowledge of collocation, grammatical contextualizing of lexis and hypothesis exchange) to encourage learner responsibility for hypothesizing and pattern analysis, and sensitizing students to how collocation and differing grammatical use color lexical meaning.

Originally I had approached noticing differences in meaning and use of the same lexical item by asking one student to look up the meaning of the word “bond” and tell the class what its meanings are. In Japanese this word is frequently used to mean “glue”, the first meaning, along with “tie”, which appears in student electronic dictionaries. This student was then asked to scroll down the screen and report the Economics-linked meaning, for instance in the Kenkyusha’s English-Japanese Dictionary for the General Reader, the meaning listed under “3b” - in other words not immediately available on the initial screen. Realizing they have to scroll for different meanings sensitized students to checking for specific Economics-related meanings of vocabulary. However, this only offered students passive awareness in differentiating usage, judging from general situation (the Economics classroom) or text genre (an Economics textbook). The first C-R sequence was therefore designed to emphasize student responsibility for the learning process.

The first step of the C-R sequence accesses learners’ prior knowledge of collocations (Table 1). Most young Japanese people use cell-phones for text-messaging. Japanese cell-phones employ collocation and frequency principles to suggest a selection of possible Japanese characters (meanings of words) and subsequent phrases to the user. Responding to first input, the cell-phone offers ten to twenty of the most frequent possible characters, but once an initial choice is then made, it is possible for the phone to suggest a complete message. Consequently, instead of pushing buttons twenty odd times, you push twice or three times to complete. This speeds up an otherwise laborious input process, since there is no keyboard. In other words, students benefit from using collocations daily without noticing.

Table 1: Accessing Prior Knowledge of Collocation

Table 2: Grammatical Contextualizing of the Lexis

Below are some examples of the word “trough” taken from “The Economist”.
1. Find “trough” and highlight it. What does it mean in Japanese?
2. Please classify: Is it a noun/ adjective/ verb/ adverb? How can you tell? Does this help you understand the meaning?  (Hint: Look at the endings, -s, -ed, -ing, -ly, or  determiners: “a”, “the”. Is “trough” at the beginning, middle or end of the sentence?)
3. Circle or highlight other words always close to/ before/ after “trough” in the sentence. Do these words help you understand the meaning?
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Next, the teacher assigned equal numbers of participants into groups A and B. These small groups applied the activated knowledge, highlighting, classifying and examining two different sets of authentic sentences chosen from the Bank of English “The Economist” sub-corpora (Table 2). Group A researched colloquial or core meanings of “trough”, and Group B the technical, or Economics-related meaning. (Table 3).The selection of authentic items (Table 3) was based on Bank of English t-score and MI scores. MI scores provide information on ‘fixed’ co-occurrences of lexical behavior and t-scores confirm the reliability of the collocation. According to Hunston (2002), MI scores of 3 or higher and t-scores of 2 or higher can be taken to be significant (p.71). Potter (1999) maintains “There is no absolute guide to how high a collocational score needs to be in order to be considered significant…” (p.38). Even though some were below t-scores of 2, they were the highest t-scores for collocations of “trough” in “The Economist” sub-corpora and were therefore chosen as frequent collocations in Economic contexts.

Finally, learners were responsible for exchanging ideas and hypotheses (see Table 4) with groups who had researched different data. Willis and Willis (1996) propose that after a series of C-R activities, learners should make a “personal record of points they have covered” (p.76). This is successfully integrated with the sharing pair-work information-gap suggested in Table 4, and may be helpful for auditory and kinesthetic learners.

Table 3: Sample Sentences of Authentic Items

Group A
Colloquial Usage of Trough
By the end of the decade, more than 1,200 had their snouts in the trough.
Britain is not keen to lose its rebate, or even to allow other snouts into its trough.
Eurobuzz: Snouts to the trough/ Who will be in the new European Commission?
A feeding trough for big government, cried the conservatives.
…they became a feeding trough for companies and lobby groups.
Group B

Technical/Economic Usage of Trough
The peak-to-trough decline in the Tokyo stock-market last year was 48%.
The total peak-to-trough fall in GNP in America may be as little as 1.2%.
Japan’s industrial production plunged 13.5% from peak to trough.
Economists reckon that America’s recession has now reached its trough.
GDP actually reached its trough in the second quarter of 1992
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Table 4: Hypothesis Exchange

Group A
Circle any of the following words you think may be found with “trough”. Can you suggest more yourself?  Pigs / cattle/ animal/ feet/ noses/ slurping
Explain your findings to a B group member and take notes on their results.
Group B

Circle any of the following words you think may be found with “trough”. Can you suggest more yourself?  Approaching/ entered/ falls/ deep/ predict/ 1990
Explain your findings to an A group member and take notes on their work.
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In summary, presented C-R activities were specifically designed to raise learner awareness of differences between colloquial and Economics English and particularly to motivate fluent English learners to approach a specialized field in the language. The task sequence features concordance lines from “The Economist” sub-corpora of the Bank of English. Students take responsibility for discovering grammatical patterns and features of lexis in authentic data. They can extrapolate this technique as they realize how grammatical situation and cohesive context influence meanings.

The second C-R sequence in the procedure of sensitizing students to meanings within an empowering framework explores manipulating modals and phrases to indicate polite agreement/disagreement. The aim of this C-R activity is to empower students to voice an opinion on Economic topics in a discussion and to offer career-oriented students facility in discussing their field in a business-like manner.
In both Economics courses, ten teacher-designated groups of three or four were given a Modal Ranking task-sheet (Table 5) to explore discourse patterns and become sensitized to use of modals in agreeing. All examples were lifted by the teacher from authentic phrasing in The final piece (in “The Economist”, April 24th 2004), part of the homework reading material for that day. Economics students are both familiar with the state of Japan’s economy and interested in the information because it relates to their lives and future career prospects. A three-step pattern can be observed in the modal ranking task-sheet (Table 5). Students are sensitized to indicating their degree of agreement in beginning phrases, second, reconfirming what they agree or disagree with by paraphrasing and repeating including modals, and finally adding further supporting comments or information.

Table 5:Modal Ranking Task-sheet

1. When people agree, they may repeat the same thing in different words and possibly add. Find and highlight the five ways they repeat below:

Japan’s economy is looking up: According to the Economist, household spending in Japan is up by 5.2%, year on year, in February this year.

1. That’s a good point. I agree things are looking up. The Bank of Japan’s governor declared spending was ‘edging higher’.
2. I suppose so. The economy may be improving. More people seem eager to travel abroad for Golden Week.
3. Exactly.  Japan’s economy is on the move. Ito Yokado is boasting bumper profits.
4. Absolutely. Things are definitely looking up. Japan’s big manufacturers have boosted profits by combining deep cost cuts with rapidly growing exports to China.
5. You may be right, there, the economy does look more positive. According to the most recent Tankan survey, small and mid-sized firms were feeling cheerier.

2. Which agree strongly, which agree mildly? Please rank from 1-5. What is the difference in the words and verbs used? Please fill in the table below.

    Strongest agreement=1, Mild agreement=5

3.Do you agree? Is the economy looking up? Can your group add another agreeing/disagreeing statement?

Results
First, I address noticing meaning-related collocation and grammatical differences in use of the same lexical item. Initially students were surprised to type text messages in class. They also found the English task-sheet (Tables 1-4) confusing. However, with mother-tongue scaffolding and individual group coaching both classes were able to finish the task sequence. Including a whole class pooling of results, this C-R sequence took approximately forty minutes: longer than expected. About twenty students per section (21 students and 22 students respectively) handed in post-task questionnaires (Appendix A). Three students were interested “To use cell phone to teach something”. (Note: student quotes are given in italics with original spelling and punctuation). Four mentioned making principle collocation links between Japanese and English, “Both English and Japanese are same”. Twenty-three percent replied they had learned “Trough has two meanings”. Fourteen of the forty-three respondents (33%) cited learning an understanding of collocation principles. Written comments such as: “Same word has completery deferent meening depends on the words come up with”, suggest the C-R aim, sensitizing how to differentiate between colloquial and Economics related use of same items, was successful. Six students per section (28%) noted they learned how to study vocabulary effectively. These results indicate that the activity meets C-R framework criterion of promoting learner responsibility for the learning process as was intended.

Next, let us consider C-R focusing on modals as polite agreement/disagreement. During the Modal Ranking activity (Table 5), 100% of groups ranked sentences correctly and found beginning phrases. However, many learners were not sure what a verb was, even after checking the Japanese meaning. They did not become aware of the change of modals or list significant information in the third column. The groups’ agreeing statements (Item 3, Table 5) used adverbials, not modals, suggesting that more time is necessary for them to be noticed, digested and processed.

In a teacher-fronted whole group follow-up to this C-R, I explicitly highlighted at the blackboard changes in the use of “is” to “seems” and “may be” as agreement weakens.  This was an effective way of promoting ownership of the material for a wider range of learning styles. Two weeks later, students followed up the C-R by preparing agreeing or disagreeing statements on eight theories of the business cycle, using the tripartite pattern: 1) beginning phrase, 2) repeating with modality and 3) adding supporting information. Students worked in round-robin groups, one reading a theory statement and three others responding in turns. During this follow-up task students were empowered to speak, realizing that similar opinions are acceptable in group discussion.

Reflection

Having considered C-R theory in light of a framework of teacher beliefs in the nature of learning, and specifically designed two original C-R activities to meet criteria of responsibility and empowerment, the effectiveness of the procedure must be reviewed. Did Japanese Economics Majors appreciate group work C-R as a new way of learning? Although results showed students were sensitized to meaning-related lexico-grammatical context and discourse patterns, how could C-R sequences be improved? Were students given enough support in new techniques of exploring collocations in corpora examples?  

The young adults in this course welcomed the chance to explore grammar in a novel way. In a final course questionnaire 74% of students answered whether assignments supported their learning and they learned to work more independently, “Absolutely” or “Well”, compared to 21% who responded, “Fairly” and only 2%, “Not at all”. Responding to “I consider what I learned valuable for my future”, 28% ticked “Absolutely”, 51% checked “Well”. Only 2% checked “Not at all”. One student writes, “I got many information in this course that no professor told us in their classes.” Another commented, “I learned how to make decision or think of things.”

At times, teacher-led C-R may be preferable, particularly when class time is limited. Moreover, some students prefer it: 33% polled on group-work after C-R activities (Appendix A) expressed dislike, citing reasons such as “I had better do the both myself, I think”, and “otagai kichinto rikai shitenai to muzukashii” [It is difficult if both parties do not understand clearly]. However, 7% thought either group or teacher-led work was good, and 56% clearly answered “yes” to liking group-work. Particular group-work advantages mentioned were “Because I learned new dimensions of one thing in many ways” and “Because we can teach each other”, suggesting that students both gain ownership via a wider spectrum of processing, and appreciate the autonomy and responsibility afforded by group-work C-R activities.

In order to ameliorate the second C-R sequence (Table 5), explore modal differentiation, and develop autonomy and responsibility aspects of the C-R heuristic, a listening task activating prior knowledge, building confidence and processing elements of language in advance could be supplemented. Students simply mark if dialogue partners agree or disagree, listening to patterns such as “Me, too.”, “I don’t”, and more complex versions. Building on prior schemata supports student autonomy in the C-R process. Furthermore, responsibility for discovery and processing might be scaffolded by C-R pair-work discussing teacher-crafted minimal pairs (Table 6). Equally, repeated exposure to short C-R differentiating exercises may be successful in encouraging learner autonomy during the hypothesizing process. Table 7 is an example small group activity discussing choice of appropriate verbs for different meanings.

Table 6: Differentiating Minimal Pairs

Look at the example below. Which way of disagreeing is more polite during group discussion? Why? What is different about verbs in B and B*?
A: Japan’s economy is looking up: According to ‘The Economist’, household spending is up by 5.2%, year on year, in February this year.
B: You have a point. The economy may be looking up, but the jobless rate is still rising.
B*: You’re wrong! The economy is really bad, and the jobless rate is rising.

Table 7: Verb Selection

Choose the appropriate verbs in the following dialogue. How does the meaning change?
A: “Oil prices won’t go higher than fifty dollars a barrel.”

In short, features such as the teacher-made listening activities, ranking tasks, minimal pairs and modal discrimination exercises suggested above further encourage ownership, responsibility and autonomous student-led discovery, and are worth utilizing with Economics students in the new academic year.

Nevertheless, the C-R framework of ownership, responsibility, autonomy, and empowerment expects much of the learner. Were my students given enough support in working with the new techniques? Ellis (2003) reports learners may not be used to problem-solving, analytical skills and linguistic comparisons, and may feel overwhelmed (p. 166). With regard to corpus data, for instance, the added requirement of extrapolating meanings from snippets may overload the attention capacities of students and detract from their ability to focus attention on form. Stevens (1991), however, who has successfully worked with corpus data for university students, argues that the skill of extrapolating “holistically” from fragmentary evidence should be promoted. 

 In the light of these arguments, C-R tasks presented here were designed to contain a limited number of corpus examples, to gradually initiate students into autonomous pattern-finding techniques. Sentence versions of original corpus examples or teacher-crafted examples based on authentic data were chosen to provide coherent context in a familiar sentence format. Nevertheless, the activity caused some confusion in students and took forty minutes, double the expected time.

Skehan (1998) states: “At the input stage, noticing cedes priority to strategic processing” (p.62). In other words, according to Skehan, task demands on processing resources have strong implications for C-R: “The assumption is that more demanding tasks consume more attentional resources simply for task transaction, with the result that less attention is available for focus on form. As a result, the scope for “residual benefit” from the task is reduced (p.97). Put simply, as learners become accustomed to discovering patterns in the language and group-work, C-R becomes more effective.

It follows that repeating further collocation C-R activities in the same information-gap pattern as an extended problem-solving cycle throughout the course may be worthwhile. A majority (77%) of follow-up questionnaire responses (see Appendix A) indicated positive interest in further activities. These may require less time, and the number of examples can gradually be expanded. Appendix B suggests how C-R activities may also be used in a testing situation later in the term.

Nevertheless, the amount of teacher time required to find authentic articles and make C-R materials is a problem, even though the burden of producing material is spread out over a course.  While lexis from the financial field, “hedge”, “stake”, “bond”, “drop”, “return”, “trust” and “spread”, all lend themselves to this type of interactive C-R activity, there was insufficient teacher time available to make follow-up worksheets in one academic year.

Conclusions
 To sum up, this article offered a case study of two C-R sequences designed to encourage student responsibility and empower the learner by expanding learning options according to a heuristic framework of ownership, responsibility, autonomy and empowerment in the Japanese University English for Economics context. Naturally, a traditional analytic method is still effective in teaching functions and lexis in this case. As can be noted, students are used to it, and it may be less time-consuming. Nevertheless, this paper has argued that C-R techniques may be equally effective as traditional formal instruction (Fotos, 1993) and widen the spectrum of available teaching techniques (Willis and Willis, 1996). Particularly in the modern business world which these Economics students are aiming for, interpersonal skills, such as an ability to work in teams, negotiate with, respect and learn from peers, are vital. Interpersonal skills are rarely polished in a traditional lecture environment. Moreover in most executive and further education courses advertised in ‘The Economist’, for example, building on personal experience and developing critical analytical skills together with enhancing personal flexibility are also stressed.

It follows that the challenges offered by a task-based discussion C-R approach may be more conducive to building not only linguistic fluency, but also the leadership parameters of a skilled individual required in today’s challenging world. In other words, since the C-R sequence scaffold students’ learning processes, accesses prior knowledge, builds student confidence, offers hands on experience with authentic texts, and provides students with interactive modes of learning, it specifically meets Japanese university-level ESP learner needs. Moreover, it is thus transferable to other fields not only in terms of content, but also method. It can be argued that C-R is valuable for teachers and a pleasure for students when approached in this way.

Ellis (2003:167) notes that C-R activities must always remain a “supplement” to communication activities. However, this teacher/researcher gained a deeper understanding of C-R as a grammar-exploration framework in which learners own the process, are responsible for own learning, have autonomy of discovery and are empowered by acquired knowledge. In conclusion, C-R is no mere “supplement” to communication activities, but an integral part of a holistic learning experience.

Acknowledgement:

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