The Language Teacher
02 - 2002

We Used to Do This and We'd Also Do That: A Discourse Pattern for Teaching the Reminiscence Story

Robert E. Jones

REJ English House

If you have recently attended a family gathering, staff room party or other social event, it is likely that a number of stories will have cropped up in the course of conversation. Eggins and Slade (1997) note that many of these stories take the form of simple anecdotes of a remarkable event about which the narrators wish to share their reaction. These anecdotes may include stories about life's misfortunes, dangerous or amusing situations in which someone has been involved, or amusing tales we have read about in the newspapers.

This article proposes a strategy for teaching a particular narrative pattern often found in one type of anecdote I shall refer to as the reminiscence story. This type of story is situated in the narrator's past, e.g. early childhood, schooldays or a first job, and concerns a particular event that took place during that period. It is often introduced by phrases such as "I remember when we were kids and we used to. . . ." In the pattern I describe, the verb forms used to and would work together to provide essential background information to the central event described in the story.

Before describing the teaching procedure, I wish to address the role of the two verb forms in the creation of the story. I feel such an account is important for two reasons. First, I feel that teachers and students should have a clear understanding of this pattern, since it is a common one which has attracted the attention of several linguists (Suh, 1992; McCarthy, 1998) and can provide a useful tool for students as they construct their own reminiscence stories. Secondly, it has been suggested that certain misconceptions may exist regarding the relationship between used to and would. Willis (1990) and McCarthy (1998) both warn that some published EFL materials may have misguided their users with the erroneous claim that would as an indicator of past habit is less frequent and more formal than used to. An unfortunate consequence of such a claim which is that some teachers may place a heavier emphasis on the teaching of used to and relegate would to a more secondary role. This would seem to be a serious oversight for, as McCarthy demonstrates, their relationship seems to "have nothing to do with formal/informal distinctions" but, rather, has a discoursal function, as they are found to co-occur "in the same highly informal discourses" (1998, p. 98).

It is the co-occurrence of the two forms, the way in which they work together within the discourse, which is the essential feature of the pattern as it occurs in reminiscence stories. I will describe the pattern with reference to the framework for describing the structure of spoken anecdotes developed by Eggins and Slade (1997) and demonstrate how it relates to a particular reminiscence story in which the used to/would pattern occurs, before describing the teaching procedure.

Generic Features of the Conversational Anecdote

Based on a framework originally proposed by Labov and Waletzky (1967; Labov, 1972), Eggins and Slade (1997) demonstrate that conversational anecdotes typically move through five stages: abstract, orientation, remarkable event, reaction and coda. With the exception of abstract, we can see all of these stages at work in the text below. In this anecdote, transcribed from a BBC television documentary, Ray Bradbury, the American science fiction and short story writer, is sitting on a bench with a woman called Betty Williams for whom, during his youth, he harboured an unrequited love.

The remarkable event which Bradbury wishes to relate concerns the night he met Betty unexpectedly after forty years and finally achieved his long-cherished aim to give her a smooch. His story begins with an orientation in the form of background information about his younger days and the feelings he had for Betty during that time. He then relates the remarkable event itself and follows it by expressing his reaction: "And then we fell apart laughing." The anecdote finishes when Betty joins in and supplies the coda: "I'm sure you met the right woman; she was wonderful."

Ray and Betty's reunion

<Commentator> Although she didn't know it at the time, Betty Williams was Ray's first love.

<Ray> ooh well.

<Betty> I never knew. ((laughing))

<Ray> We knew each other fifty five s- fifty [<Betty> heh heh] six years ago and I used to take her to movies and on the way home from the movie, I'd say, 'Okay, Ray. When we get to her house, she opens the door, you grab her elbows and you give her a big smooch. Okay?' So we'd get to her house, she'd open the door and I'd say, 'Ni-ight' ((makes a hand-waving gesture)) you know [<Betty> heh heh] and then I'd walk down the street saying, 'Dummy! Dummy! Dummy!' ((striking his forehead three times)). This [<Betty> heh heh] happened three or four times so I never not- never got to kiss her goodnight. So, about twenty years ago I was lecturing down town at the Unitarian church, I looked in the front row and there's Betty sitting there looking up at me. [<Betty> heh heh] She came up after and said, 'E:r, y- I hear you don't drive.' I said, 'That's right.' She said, 'Can I give you a ride home?' I said, 'Yes.' So she drove me home. When we got in front of the house, I reached over, grabbed her elbows [<Betty> heh] and gave her a big smooch. And then we fell apart laughing. I said, 'I should have done that forty years ago,' but maybe it's just as well hah.

<Betty> Yeah heh heh I'm sure you met the right woman; she was wonderful.

<Ray> Well --

Used to and would

Bradbury's anecdote also provides an excellent illustration of the used to/would pattern at work. In the orientation, we find the habitual past being expressed by used to and would. Then, when the narrator enters the remarkable event stage, there is a switch to simple past.

In their commentary on used to and would, Celce-Murcia and Larsen Freeman (1999) cite Suh's corpus-based study of the relationship between the two forms and note that:

In collecting many instances of spontaneous oral narratives with past habitual time references, Suh (1992) noticed that the temporally more explicit used to tends to mark an episode boundary or set up a frame for an habitual past event, whereas the more contingent would (or 'd) marks the details or elaborates the topic. (p.169)

McCarthy draws similar conclusions in his examination of data from the University of Nottingham's CANCODE corpus, noting that: "The whole used to + would sequence may function as "orientation" . . . for a particular, one-off event or set of events" (McCarthy, 1998, p. 97).

The sequence McCarthy describes is evident in Bradbury's anecdote. We note that he establishes a "frame" or, as McCarthy prefers to call it, a general situation with used to: "I used to take her to movies" and then switches to the contracted form of would as he describes the habitual events within that frame: "we'd get to her house, she'd open the door and I'd say. . . ." Then, as previously stated, he switches to simple past tense when he begins to talk about the event itself.

Both McCarthy and Suh provide numerous examples of this pattern in use. It appears to be common in spoken English and when taught to students of EFL, can be used to structure reminiscence stories of their own. The next section will outline a classroom approach that I have used with both senmon gakko students and the adult intermediate students in the language school where I work.

In the Classroom: Introducing the Reminiscence Story

I usually introduce Bradbury's anecdote to students in the form of a split story. This approach, described in detail by Deacon (2000), involves telling the students a story, but stopping at a crucial point and inviting students to provide their own imaginative ending. Using Bradbury's anecdote, I stop at the point where Bradbury sees Betty looking up at him in the church. Students then work in pairs or small groups and try to think of a possible ending to the story. After a few minutes, they share their imagined endings with the rest of the class; I then distribute the transcript and we read it to find out what actually happened.

After this, the focus switches to the language itself and students complete some consciousness-raising activities (Willis and Willis, 1996) to enable them to notice and start thinking about the particular features of the pattern. I normally set two tasks to help students focus on used to and would. The first task is to answer the question, "Why does Ray use the word so?" (underlined in the dialogue). This task is designed to help students notice where the orientation ends and the remarkable event sequence begins. So, as it is used in this particular case, marks the boundary between these two stages. The second task is to take three coloured pencils or highlighter pens and mark all instances of used to, would (or 'd) and simple past using a different colour for each of the three forms. This task focuses on how used to, would and simple past are distributed in the anecdote and how they work together to help structure the discourse. The visual impact brought about by the use of the three colours is designed to give the students a vivid and clear representation of this.

While the used to/would pattern is the feature on which I place most emphasis when I examine Bradbury's anecdote, I also like to draw attention to other features of Eggins and Slade's model, which are applicable not only to reminiscence stories but to a wide range of story types (see, for example, Jones, 2001 on their use in misfortune anecdotes). Attention can be drawn to the reaction stage with a question like "How did Ray and Betty react to the smooch?" -- they fell apart laughing. Attention can be drawn to the coda by asking, "What does Betty say to round off the story?" The teacher should point out that, while the coda is optional, the orientation, remarkable event and reaction stages should be present in order for an anecdote to be effective. Teachers might also note how a dramatic tone may be given to reactions by the use of figurative language such as, in this case, fell apart, and also give or elicit alternatives such as "burst out laughing," "exploded with laughter."

Consolidation and story production

As demonstrated in the preceding section, Bradbury's anecdote can be used as a vehicle for introducing reminiscence stories and the used to/would pattern. In order to give further exposure to and help consolidate the pattern, I then invite the students to examine a few more examples of the pattern at work. The following example is taken from McCarthy:

<S01> When I lived in Aberdeen years ago erm we were in a cottage in the country my then wife and I you know and erm the people that lived there before used to see apparitions.

<S 02> Oh.

<S 03> Did they.

<S 01> Yeah ten o'clock on a Friday night regularly they would hear somebody and they'd be sitting in the living-room watching telly and at ten o'clock every Friday they'd hear someone walking up the stairs.

<S 03> Yeah.

<S 01> They'd go out there and there'd be nobody there you know.]

(McCarthy, 1998, p. 97)

Students are encouraged by reading examples produced by their peers in other classes. Two simple examples are given below:

Example 1: When I was at elementary school, we used to play dodge ball. Every morning when the recess bell rang, we'd run down to the playground and (we would) divide into two teams. Then we'd try to throw the ball at the people in the other team. But I wasn't very good at dodge ball so I told my father and he offered to help me. So, every night I practised dodge ball with my father and soon I started to get better. Then I could enjoy playing with the other children.

Example 2: When I was a child, I used to go swimming in the river. My friends and I would climb a high rock and jump into the water. We would also have races and (we would) challenge each other to see who could stay under water longest. Then one day, we heard that a child had drowned in the river. My mother told me I couldn't go swimming there anymore and, so, I had to stop swimming in the river.

Stories like the examples above can increase and strengthen students' awareness of how the pattern can be used in storytelling. The next stage is to start them working on their own reminiscence stories. First, I use the used to + would sequence to tell them one of my own stories. One, which I often use and the students appear to enjoy, is the story of the teacher with three birthdays (seen in the following text).

Teacher with three birthdays

<Bob> This is a story about a teacher who used to work at the same school that I worked at in England. And this teacher used to do three twelve-week courses every year. And in the second week of each course, he would do a lesson about horoscopes. And he would ask every student when their birthday was and then he would tell them when his birthday was. And he always fixed it so that his birthday appeared in the fourth week of the course. And then in the third week of the course, he would do a lesson about shopping. Everyone would talk about the things they liked to buy and he would tell them how he liked going shopping for his favourite brand of malt whisky. And then, in the fourth week of the course, when the students thought it was his birthday, he would always get a bottle of this particular brand of malt whisky. Anyway, this went on for about three years and then, one year, he was doing his course and in the second week he did the horoscope lesson and he told them when his birthday was and one girl put her hand up and said "Excuse me, but when I was in your class two years ago, you said your birthday was in October." And he sort of went, "Oh, yes, well, you see erm . . . yeah . . . I actually have two birthdays, you see, and er . . . ." Anyway, I'm not sure what happened with the other students, but I can tell you one thing: he ended up marrying that girl.

After telling this story, I distribute a transcript and ask the students to notice once again how used to and would are used in the story. Although my main emphasis is on the used to/would pattern, I also draw attention to other key features: the use of "anyway" as a boundary marker (cf. so in Bradbury's story); the teacher's reaction when he is finally exposed; and how drama is added by the use of direct speech and his bumbling "Oh, yes, well, you see . . . ." I also draw attention to the final coda: his marriage to the student.

In the final stage of preparation, I suggest some topics for students to consider. Two which work quite well are: a particularly strict or eccentric teacher they may have had during their elementary or middle school days, or a group of childhood friends with whom they used to get into mischief. I then allow them some time to think about the topic and, using a technique suggested by Susan Kay (2001), ask a few leading questions to help them to jog their memories and marshal their thoughts. If, for example, they opt for the teacher story, I ask them questions like:

For those who choose the mischief-making story, a similar framework can be proposed with the remarkable event focusing on some occasion involving an act of mischief that they particularly enjoyed or which went terribly wrong.

Conclusion

In this article I have attempted to describe the used to + would sequence as it occurs in spoken narrative and then suggest how EFL students might first be made aware of the pattern and then be encouraged to use it in telling stories of their own.

All of us, teachers and students, can recall little episodes from our childhood or adolescent years about which we have stories to tell. An important point for the language classroom is that when students tell such stories, they are using the language being taught to say something interesting about themselves. Swan (1985) comments that encouraging students to talk about themselves can provide a much stronger "basis for genuinely rich and productive language practice" than talking about "fictional characters in their course books" (p. 84).

In other words, we should not underestimate the valuable classroom resource that the learners' own life experiences can provide. I would add that giving our students the opportunity to reflect on their past in order to tell stories of their own, and focusing on features such as the used to + would sequence to help them do so more effectively, may have an added bonus: If they can be helped to appreciate that they have a stock of interesting stories which they can tell in English, they may feel more motivated to tell these stories to others outside the classroom. When that happens, we have truly done our students a valuable service.

References

Celce-Murcia, M., & Larsen-Freeman, D. (1999). The grammar book. Massachusetts: Heinle and Heinle.

Deacon, B. (2000). Sp-Stories-lit. The Language Teacher 24(7), 32-33.

Eggins, S., and Slade, D. (1997). Analysing casual conversation. London: Cassell.

Jones, R. E. (2001). A consciousness-raising approach to the teaching of conversational story telling skills. ELT Journal 55(2), 155-163.

Kay, S. (2001). Anecdote activities. English Teaching Professional 19, 9-10.

Labov, W. (1972). Language in the inner city: Studies in the Black English Vernacular. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press.

Labov, W., & Waletzky, J. (1967). Narrative analysis: Oral versions of personal experience. In J. Helm (Ed.), Essays on the verbal and visual arts. Seattle: University of Washington Press.

McCarthy, M. (1998). Spoken language and applied linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Suh, K.T. (1992). Past habituality in English discourse: Used to and would. Language Research 28(4), 857-882.

Swan, M. (1985). A critical look at the communicative approach (2). ELT Journal 39(2), 76-87.

Willis, D. (1990) The lexical syllabus: A new approach to language teaching. London: Harper Collins Publishers.

Willis, D., & Willis, J. (1996). Consciousness-raising activities in the language classroom. In J. Willis and D. Willis (Eds.), Challenge and change in language teaching. Oxford: Heinemann.

Robert E. (Bob) Jones has an MSc in TESP from Aston University and an RSA Dip TEFLA. He has taught EFL in Japan since 1990 and has also taught in Spain, Sweden, Malaysia and the UK. His main academic interest is in conversation analysis and its implications for the language classroom. Since 1998 he has been running his own school, REJ English House, in Ena City, Gifu.


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