Question:

Submitted by Kemal, Turkey

Should we ask learners to produce whole sentences when answering questions? For example, when I ask “Who is late for school?” they only say “James”.

Dr. Richards responds:

Short responses are more natural than complete sentences, since a complete sentence repeats information the speaker already knows. One of the maxims of conversational interaction is to provide sufficient information to be understood but not too much information. Providing too much information sounds pedantic. An adult who does this is known as a bore.