How to Teach Language Functions Effectively: Strategies and Examples

Introduction

It is essential to know, as a language teacher, how to teach language functions effectively. Language functions refer to the specific purposes we use language, such as inviting, complaining, apologizing, or asking for advice. Therefore, understanding how to teach language functions is crucial for students to develop communication skills.

Teaching functions may be challenging because it requires setting the appropriate context, deciding upon the appropriate level of formality, and following specific lesson stages with smooth transitions.

But before dealing with how to teach functions, let us first define what functions are.

What are language functions?

Functions are part and parcel of language teaching components. The other components are grammar, vocabulary, reading, listening, speaking, and writing.

A language function is the reason why we communicate. When we speak or write, we use language for a purpose.

For example, if you are preparing a wedding party, you will have to use the appropriate language to invite people. Likewise, if you are stuck with a problem you may want to ask for advice. So inviting and asking for advice are examples of language functions.

We use different functions to express specific purposes, depending on the context and the degree of formality.

Traditional methods, like the Grammar Translation Method and the Audiolingual method, overlooked the importance of using language. They even banned context from teaching. While they avoid language functions, they focus instead on grammar structures in isolated sentences.

However, since the advent of the communicative approach, textbook designers have become more and more concerned with language functions.

Examples of functions

Some examples of language functions include:

• Agreeing/disagreeing
• Analyzing
• Apologizing
• Clarifying
• Complaining
• Complimenting
• Congratulating
• Defining
• Describing
• Evaluating
• Expressing agreement or disagreement
• Expressing feelings
• Expressing gratitude
• Expressing a lack of understanding
• Expressing hopes and fears
• Expressing opinions
• Giving advice
• Giving and receiving feedback
• Giving instructions
• Hypothesizing
• Introducing oneself and others
• Justifying
• Making comparisons
• Making promises
• Making suggestions
• Narrating a story
• Negotiating
• Predicting
• Refusing
• Requesting
• Speculating
• Summarizing
• Suggesting
• Synthesizing
• Warning

What are language exponents?

If language functions refer to the reason why we use language, such as inviting, complaining, inviting, offering, etc., the language items needed for these functions are called exponents or realizations. One function can be expressed through different exponents.

Let’s take an example:

Giving advice is a function that can be expressed using these exponents:

• Why don’t you…?
• If I were you, I would…
• You’d better…
• You ought to/should…
• If you take my advice, you…
• It might be a good idea to…
• I advise you to…
• Have you thought about….

As you can see, despite changing the exponent, the function (purpose) is the same: giving advice.

Likewise, exponents with a specific grammatical structure may also serve different functions. The following conditional sentences have different functions in spite of their grammatical similarities:

• If you do that, you’ll be in trouble. (Expressing a warning)
• If you lie down, you’ll feel better. (Giving advice)
• If it rains, I’ll take a taxi. (planning)
• If you pass the driving test, I’ll buy you a car. (promising)

Now that we have defined what functions and exponents are, let’s look at how to teach language functions.

Functional language lesson plan

The best way to teach functions is to provide them in context. In a functional language lesson plan, it’s essential to show students how functions are used in real-life situations. You can use different materials such as newspapers, magazines, or videos to provide context to your lessons.

For example, if you are teaching how to give advice, you can provide students with a dialogue where a friend needs advice. Based on the situation, you can proceed by raising their awareness about this function, practicing it, and then using it.

How to teach language functions in 3 steps?

Here is an example of the structure of an effective functional lesson plan.

Step 1: Presenting functions

After warming your students up and preparing them for reading the conversation, you can proceed by following these steps:

• Provide a conversation with natural/authentic language that contains exponents of the target function.
• Ask them to do a short comprehension task so that they can understand:
  • The situation
  • The roles of the participants in the conversation (friends, strangers, father, etc.)
  • Degree of formality between the participants.
• After the comprehension task, it is time to draw their attention to the target function:
  • Invite them to underline the phrases (exponents) that express the target function.
  • Ask them to put them in a chart (for example with headings such as asking for advice, giving advice, etc.)
  • Ask them to work in groups or pairs to add more phrases/exponents that express the same function if possible)

Once the presentation is done, it is high time for students to practice the target functions.

Step 2: Practicing functions

The exercises in the practice stage should start from easy to more challenging ones. Here are some examples:

• Matching exponents with what they express.
• Gap-filling exercises: students fill in the blanks with the right expression.
• Sentence completion.
• Completing a dialogue.

The practice stage trains the learners to use the target function. It also paves the way for less controlled activities where they have to produce an exchange using that function.

Step 3: Production

In the production stage, the students are given situations where they have to use the target language. Depending on the function you taught, here are some examples of potential production activities:

• Job interviews. (Asking for and giving personal information)
• Deciding on a holiday destination. (Making suggestions)
• Booking a hotel room. (Making request)
• Complaining about the bad quality of a dish at a restaurant. (Complaining)
• Inviting friends and relatives to a wedding party. (Inviting, accepting, or declining invitations)

Students have to work in pairs or groups to do the task. At this stage, the teacher just monitors, facilitates, and guides students if needed.

Tips for Teaching Functional Language

At the presentation stage:

• Authentic interactions between real speakers should be chosen for language teaching.
• Avoid artificial dialogues and focus on situations that occur naturally.
• The target function should be the one used most frequently by native speakers in that situation.
• Use dialogues to have students discover instances of the target function and underline them.
• Make sure the learners understand the context and the interactions in the dialogue.
• The relationship between the speakers should be established and indicated.
• Extract the linguistic forms of the target function from the dialogue and arrange them by formality level.
• Learners will have to complete a chart or grid to visually display the language forms related to the social variables of the situation.

At the practice stage:

• Provide exercises that focus on the linguistic forms of the target function in the practice stage.
• The practice stage exercises have to range from easy to more challenging.
• Use a variety of tasks: matching, gap filling, sentence completion, dialogue completion, etc.

At the production stage:

• Design appropriate situations for students to use the target function.
• Give realistic tasks based on exchanges that native speakers would engage in.
• Ensure that tasks require students to understand the meaning of the exchange, not just supply the correct linguistic form.
• Use pair and group practice whenever possible to encourage active student participation and interaction.
• To encourage production, try to achieve a balance between the use of the correct linguistic forms (accuracy) and the focus on meaning and communication (fluency).
• Sample activities for practicing language functions include information gap tasks, opinion gap tasks, role-play (drama simulation), games, interviews, and discussions.

Examples of activities to practice language functions

Communicative drills:

Communicative drills allow students to provide their own information and can be used to teach language functions and promote communication skills.

Example:

• To distinguish between levels of formality when using specific functions you may proceed by giving examples of expressions. The students have to say whether the expressions are formal or informal.
• Alternatively, ask students what to say to a friend, a teacher, or a stranger:

Commands	Answers
How do you request a pen from your closest friend?	Lend me your pen, please.
How do you request a pen from your teacher?	Could you please, lend me your pen?

Information gap:

Information gap activities create a situation where one learner knows the information while the other does not, encouraging active decoding and reaction from the listener who then becomes the informant.

Example:

• Student A has a list of healthy lifestyle tips.
• Student B has specific health problems.
• They interact to ask for and give advice.

Role play:

Students simulate identities such as customer and shop assistant. They interact using appropriate functions to make a transaction.

Dialogue writing:

This involves providing a situation. Students work in pairs or groups to discuss and develop dialogues based on a specific context using the target function.

Strip story:

Strip story is a technique where a story is presented part by part on small slips of paper, promoting communication and interaction among students and helping to develop problem-solving skills.

Example:

• Provide a set of pictures of people at a restaurant.
• Then, ask your students to sequence them and prepare a scenario.
• The scenario should involve learners in using specific expressions, such as phrases that express complaints.

Problem-solving activities:

Problem-solving activities in groups promote interaction and the use of different language functions such as requesting, describing, questioning, and refusing.

Communicative games:

Communicative games, such as oral games, guessing games, and puzzle-solving, are designed to provoke communicative activity among learners and motivate them to learn and use language functions.

Presentations:

presentations or oral speech encourages the use of different language functions and promotes the development of communicative skills in language learning.

Conclusion

We hope this article provided detailed information about how to teach language functions. As it has been mentioned before, teaching language functions based on the communicative language teaching approach requires presenting the function in a dialogue, highlighting the target functions in that dialogue, and practicing these functions in a meaningful and realistic way. Your students will become more proficient in using language functions if they are incorporated into your teaching.

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