Practical transactions

Learners are able to cope with transactional situations in everyday life. At Vantage level, learners are able to deal more flexibly with these situations than at Threshold level, when they are problematic or take an unexpected turn. With enriched language resources (especially a wider vocabulary), learners are able to express their needs and intentions more precisely, with less (though still some) need for compensatory strategies.

Contacts with officials

Note In all contacts with officials learners are able to ask for repetition, clarification and explanation, etc. of any information, questions or documents not understood, and are able to ask for the services of an interpreter and/or legal adviser in case of serious difficulty (cf. Chapter 12).

Immigration

Learners are able to understand and complete necessary documentation.

Learners are able to understand and answer questions concerning:

• personal identification (cf. Appendix A, section 1)

• the duration and purpose of their visit

Customs officers

Learners are able to understand and complete necessary documentation.

Learners are able to understand and answer questions concerning:

• whether they have dutiable items to declare

• the contents of their luggage and the value of items

• where they have come from and where they have acquired items of property

• whether items are for personal use or as gifts or for commercial use

Security officers

Learners are able to understand and answer questions covering:

• the contents of their hand-baggage, pockets, etc.

• whether their baggage contains specified items (e.g. electronic equipment, real or toy weapons, etc.)

• who has packed or handled their baggage

In relation to Threshold, Vantage is characterised by a relaxation of constraints. A major constraint at Threshold level is that the ability to deal with written and spoken texts that is expected of learners is related – and confined – to texts relevant to certain specified situations and to certain specified topics (see Threshold 1990, 3.3). At Vantage level the limitation to preselected situations and topics is abandoned (see also Chapter 7), and this means that, in principle, the understanding of texts relevant to any situation and to any topic may be required. Yet, Vantage is an objective for a particular target group – however large this group may be and however heterogeneous its composition – and it is still significantly lower than what is often referred to as ‘near-native level’. Consequently, in describing communicative ability at Vantage level we have to provide criteria for the delimitation of the range of texts that learners may be expected to be able to deal with.

These criteria are contained, explicitly or implicitly, in the following description of the relevant part of the objective:

The learner can understand the gist and relevant details, and identify the communicative intention, of written and of spoken texts which have the following characteristics:

1. 1 they are directed at a readership/audience of average educational development;

2. 2 they have a clear structure, both conceptually and formally;

3. 3 the information contained in them is, on the whole, offered explicitly but may be implicit in transparent cases;

4. 4 their understanding may require some familiarity with common features of the foreign culture;

5. […]

This appendix is a listing of lexical exponents of specific notions which those concerned with the raising of communicative ability up to Vantage with regard to the ‘themes’ of Threshold might wish to consider. The exponents listed here are not presented as a defined lexical syllabus, nor even as ‘recommended exponents’. They represent stimuli which may be found useful by those involved in the development of theme-related ability to Vantage. Together with the common-core elements listed in Chapters 5 and 6 under ‘language functions’ and ‘general notions’, the lexicon contained in this appendix should provide learners with a significantly more advanced linguistic apparatus for dealing with the themes of most likely general interest to them than was available at Threshold level.

In accordance with its intended role the list presented here is to a large extent open-ended. The majority of the lexical items contained in it are listed as members of open classes, to be reduced, expanded, or otherwise altered as may best suit the needs and interests of the learners. To remind the user of this, they are invariably preceded by e.g. following the general indication of the class. Thus, those wishing some guidance as to which ‘names of birds’ (2.8) to consider for inclusion in a Vantage programme will find those which the authors of the present specification think may be particularly useful to them without, however, wishing to impose any selection on them.

• As visitors to, or residents in, a country where the foreign language is used for general communication purposes,

• when dealing with foreign visitors or residents in their own country, using English as a common means of communication,

• in contact with native or with non-native speakers of English in another foreign country,

• when encountering written or spoken texts in the foreign language,

the learners will be able to use the foreign language in such a way as to cope with the (principally linguistic) requirements of those situations they are likely to find themselves in, particularly:

• situations involving practical transactions in everyday life;

• situations involving personal interaction, enabling the learners to establish and maintain social contacts as well as to engage in meaningful relations in various domains of public life (e.g. business, education, welfare, entertainment);

• situations involving indirect communication, requiring the understanding of the gist and relevant details of written or spoken texts.

Introduction

The Vantage learner, like the Threshold learner, is one who wishes to use a language (in our case English) to transact the business of daily living and enter into relations with the other speakers of that language in the situations which bring them together. For this reason there is no fundamental difference between language functions at the two levels. Threshold already covers a very wide range, though it does so with highly restricted means. To a large extent, the Vantage learner will cover the same broad range. Thus both Threshold and Vantage learners will need to assert facts, describe people and things and narrate events (cf. Section 1.2). However, the range of declarative sentences which a Vantage learner will be able to use will be much greater. That is, however, largely a matter of the means for expressing general and specific notions rather than of the function itself. (It should not be forgotten, of course, that the material for the exponence of functions is also available – often by no more than a change of person or tense – for referring to them in the course of a narrative or description. ‘I am in a bad mood’ expresses ill-humour. ‘I was in a bad mood’ or ‘he is in a bad mood’ reports rather than expresses that state of mind.)

Accordingly, we have seen no reason to change the broad categories in which language functions are classified.Beyond some minor reorganisation – seeking and granting permission have, for instance, been treated together with requests rather than under modality, while self-correction and hesitation fillers have been moved from Section 5 to 6 – the principal developments in a learner's expected ability to express functions are:

• a more sensitive sub-categorisation of functions

• […]

Introductory

It is a basic characteristic of the model used in the description of Waystage, Threshold and the present objective that the linguistic apparatus required by the learners is derived from what the learners have to be able to do in and with the foreign language. In order to make this derivation possible in a systematic manner, the categories of language functions and notions were set up, language functions denoting in a general way what people do by means of language and notions indicating the concepts that people handle while using language. We furthermore distinguish general notions and specific notions. General notions are those which a learner may need to handle whatever the situational context in which a communication act may take place and are largely concerned with abstract, relational concepts, whilst specific notions are those which deal with more concrete details of the here-and-now. They are likely to occur particularly in certain situational contexts and, more specifically, in relation to certain transactions and certain topics.

The consideration of how the various language functions are performed and how the general notions are expressed provides us with the systematic core of the linguistic apparatus required. General notions are concerned particularly – though not exclusively – with its grammatical component, including closed lexical-grammatical categories such as prepositions and conjunctions. The specific notions form the basis for determining the more concrete vocabulary that the learners may have to be familiar with.

In a different context (Learning to learn, see Chapter 13) we noted that, in addition to enabling the learners to satisfy their estimated needs, a course designed for Vantage will ‘inevitably do other things as well’. Some of these things may (have to) be deliberately planned for in the course. ‘Learning to learn’ is one of these; the acquisition of adequate compensation strategies (see Chapter 12) is another. Other things, however, will automatically follow from the experience of learning for Vantage without any provisions having been made for them in the course offered to the learners and even without their having been explicitly included in the objective concerned. They are simply what we may regard as ‘by-products’ of a successful learning experience. This does not mean to say that they could not figure more centrally, or even be the main concern, of other objectives for foreign language learning with a different orientation from that of the Waystage–Threshold–Vantage series. In the present chapter, by way of exemplification, we shall briefly discuss two of such by-products: literary appreciation and mediation skill.

By ‘literary appreciation’ we mean here ‘the ability to understand literary products and to experience – possibly even to evaluate – their impacts’. In the objective for Vantage, notably in Chapter 9 (Dealing with texts), nothing is said about literary texts. Nor, however, are they explicitly excluded.

Pronunciation

Communication depends upon mutual intelligibility. That is to say that it is only possible if the language forms produced by the speaker are identified and understood by the listener. It is therefore the responsibility of speakers to pronounce them as intelligibly as possible, and it is also the responsibility of listeners actively to seek to identify what has been said and to use appropriate repair procedures if they are unable to do so. The ease of communication depends largely on the extent to which speaker and listener share a common practice. Speakers of the same dialect understand each other without difficulty, but widely separated dialects may well be mutually unintelligible. For purposes of national (or international) communication standard languages with standard pronunciations have generally developed, based usually on the speech of educated people in capital cities, or that of some other prestigious social group. The standard language is widely used in the education system, in the serious media and in middle-class life and culture. This is not to say that all users of a standard pronunciation sound alike. The speaker's socio-regional provenance may be clearly marked and easily detectable by an experienced listener. It may well be important to the individual's sense of identity that this should be so (e.g. Scottish English), but conformity to national norms is sufficient to ensure ready mutual intelligibility on a national scale.

Vantage is the third level in a series of specifications of learning objectives developed within the Council of Europe's programme for the promotion of language learning in Europe. The series is intended to offer guidance and support to the many ‘partners for learning’ whose co-operation is necessary to the creation of a coherent and transparent structure of provision for effective learning relevant to the needs of the learners as well as of society, which normally provides the resources. Without setting up bureaucratic mechanisms of control, it provides a series of reference points, common objectives towards the achievement of which all can work independently but in harmony – curriculum planners, examining and qualifying authorities, course designers and materials producers, teacher trainers and last but by no means least the teachers and learners through whose interaction organised learning takes place.

The series is directed towards those – probably the great majority of ordinary language learners – who want to use another language for communication with people who speak it, both for transacting the business of everyday life and for exchanging information and opinions on private life and public affairs.

It therefore sets out to define in some detail what such an objective means in practice: what users of a language are most likely to wish or need to be able to do in the communication situations in which they take part and consequently what they have to know and the skills they have to develop in order to be able to communicate effectively in those situations.

Vantage, like its predecessors Threshold and Waystage, is conceived as a contribution to improved communication, particularly among Europeans of all backgrounds. A communicative approach aims to enable the learners to use a foreign language for their own purposes. What these purposes are, depends on the personality, the circumstances, the needs and interests of the learners themselves. They are never fully predictable, but, starting from a particular target group, however heterogeneous it may be, we can make an attempt to identify those things that all of them are at least very likely to need or wish to be able to do in the foreign language. In order to do this in any useful way we have to try to determine in what situations they are most likely to use the foreign language, what roles they will play in these situations, and what matters they are most likely to have to be able to deal with in the foreign language. Determining all this – especially if we want to arrive at a fairly detailed description – is, in a way, a matter of guesswork. However, we can make at least better educated guesses if we make use of our collective experience, our knowledge of the world, and of whatever amount of consensus would appear to have been – explicitly or implicitly – achieved. In fact, the information on this that is available by now is by no means negligible.

Vantage is an objective derived from the estimated needs of the learners as communicators. A course – that is the sum total of the learning experiences offered to the learners – designed for Vantage will have to enable the learners to satisfy these needs. Yet, it will inevitably do other things as well. Depending on its design and presentation it may give the learners pleasure or hardship, it may promote, maintain, or reduce their motivation for learning, it may bolster or diminish their self-confidence, it may stimulate their interest and sensitivity to the world around them or it may cause them to withdraw into themselves. In short, it may benefit the learners far beyond the basic objectives of the course or it may limit itself to these and, possibly, it may even harm the learners as individuals. All these effects – positive or negative – are independent of the learning load that is represented by the content of an objective; they are produced by the impact upon particular learners of the forms and the manners of the presentation and the practice of this content. At the same time they may affect the learners' impression of the learning load in making this load appear to be more demanding or less so.

The experience, then, of learning for Vantage will affect the learners in various ways beyond the acquisition of a certain learning content.