Annual Review of Education, Communication and Language Sciences, Volume 1, 2004
COMMUNICATION
STRATEGIES AND MESSAGE TRANSMISSION WITH ARAB LEARNERS OF ENGLISH IN JORDAN
GHALEB RABABAH AND PAUL SEEDHOUSE
Abstract
This article reports on
empirical research into the relationship between L2 learners' target language
proficiency/task type and their ability to transmit comprehensible messages to
their listeners. In order to test the assumption that even low-level English
learners can transmit comprehensible messages despite their limited linguistic
resources by using communication strategies (henceforth CSs), a sample of 30
Arab English majors at Yarmouk University in Jordan were asked to perform 3
‘communicative’ tasks: Picture story telling, Object-identification and
Role-play. The performance of the subjects was transcribed and analysed. The
results indicate that transmission of comprehensible messages varies according to
the learner's proficiency level and the task type. These findings lend further
support to the hypothesis that even low level English proficiency learners can
communicate and pass comprehensible messages to the interlocutor by resorting
to communication strategies (CSs) despite linguistic errors.
Introduction
Developing second language learners’ communicative competence is the ultimate goal of foreign/second language teaching. One essential component of this competence is ‘strategic competence’. According to Tarone and Yule (1989), there are two areas related to strategic competence: the learners' skill in transmitting messages to a listener or comprehending transmitted messages and their use of communication strategies to compensate for the linguistic problems that arise in the transmission process.
There has been extensive research into communication strategies, but the skill
of the learner in transmitting and comprehending messages has received little
attention. Tarone and Yule (1989 p.103) maintain that “As far as we know, very
little attempt has been made to investigate the first area, the learner’s
overall skills in strategic competence”. The research that has been done in
this area was carried out with native speakers. For example, Brown and Yule
(1983) developed a task-based methodology to evaluate the communicative
effectiveness of adolescent English native speakers. Some transactional tasks
were developed, such as narrative, picture description and instructions, where
the learners were asked to transmit information to a listener who needed the
information to complete the task (e.g., Green 1995) who investigated both areas
of strategic competence). Thus, the aim of this research is to find out the
Arab English learners’ ability to transmit comprehensible and successful
messages through the use of communication strategies.
Literature review
Why do people
communicate? They communicate in order to pass certain messages to the
listener. During the communication process, second language learners face
linguistic problems, so they resort to CSs to solve them. Tarone and Yule
(1989, p.107) state "in the interest of successful communication, learners
seem to attempt to build in redundancy, to send a bigger signal, perhaps to
ensure that the basic message does get across". Research into communication strategies has
made an important contribution to research into second language acquisition. CS
researchers began their research by defining, identifying and classifying
communication strategies, resulting in a number of taxonomies, which are
reviewed in Rababah (2001). In order to investigate communication success and
the effectiveness of CSs in achieving the communicative goals of the learners,
some researchers have set up a task for the learner in which the successful
transmission of a message is 'criterial' (e.g., Bialystok & Frohlich 1980;
Chen 1990; Ellis 1984), but other researchers have not attempted to study
whether or not the messages transmitted were successful (e.g., Khanji 1996; Yarmohammadi
& Seif 1992; Poulisse & Schils 1989).
Bialystok and Frohlich
(1980) examined oral communication strategies for lexical difficulties. To
elicit CSs, they used a reconstruction task and picture description task. They
examined the communicative effectiveness of the CSs. In the first task, the
subjects were asked to describe a picture in French, to a native speaker of
French. The communicative effectiveness of the strategies used by the speaker was
spontaneously assessed by the reconstructor (native speaker) who provided
feedback by selecting either the correct item or an inappropriate object. The
information given by each subject was given on separate cards to a native
speaker whose job was to rank-order all the cards in terms of their
effectiveness in conveying the meaning of a certain item. In the second task
the subjects were asked to describe the picture in detail.
Chen's (1990) method for examining the effectiveness of the use of CSs to convey meaning was that each concept was evaluated by the native speaker during the interview and by an independent native speaker who listened to the tapes later. The subjects’ communicative effectiveness was assessed by a native speaker. Green (1995) measured the learners' success in message transmission by anticipating the information bits that each task might produce. In order to assess the comprehensibility of the subjects' performance, 44 erroneous utterances were chosen from the production of a number of German pupils. 109 native speakers of English were asked to "judge whether the meaning of each item was "clear", "vague" or "distorted" (Green 1995, p.109). Then the judgements were reduced to "clear" and "unclear". Choosing only 44 erroneous utterances (Green 1995) for analysis is not an ideal procedure to give us a clear picture of whether CSs are successful for transmitting a comprehensible message or not, because a certain utterance which includes a particular CS may be successful on one occasion by one particular learner, but may be unsuccessful on a number of occasions when used either by the same learner or by another learner. A further strand of research (e.g., Poulisse & Schils 1989) demonstrates that strategy use is related to the type of task used.
Objectives and methodology
The major objective of this
study is to answer the following questions:
1. 1.
Are the English majors at Yarmouk University successful in getting their
message across to achieve their communicative goals by means of their use of
communication strategies (CSs) and despite the linguistic errors committed?
2. Are advanced
learners of English better at transmitting comprehensible messages?
3. Can low-level
learners transmit comprehensible messages?
4. Does the task being
performed have effect on message transmission and comprehension?
Sampling
For this
purpose, a sample was obtained of 30 English majors (freshmen, sophomores,
seniors and graduates) who were studying English at the Department of English
at Yarmouk University. They all lived with their parents where the home
language is Arabic. At the time of data collection, the subjects had been
learning English as a foreign language for between 9 and 12 years. To make our
classification of English majors reliable, an adapted TOEFL test of 60 items
was used to identify the subjects’ proficiency level (low, intermediate and
advanced). Ten subjects were randomly selected to represent each proficiency
level. The purpose of having three different levels in the sample was to enable
us to examine the effect of proficiency on the learners' ability to transmit
comprehensible messages. According to the test results, the subjects were
classified into three levels.
Table (1) Levels of English Language Proficiency
|
Test Score |
0 - 20
|
21 – 40 |
41 - 60 |
|
Proficiency Level |
Low |
Intermediate |
Advanced |
Tasks
The
following three tasks were given to the sample in order to answer the research
questions posited earlier. A detailed rationale for task selection and design
is provided in Rababah (2001). Briefly, three different tasks were used to
cover different degrees of control over the content of subjects’ oral
production, ranging from controlled to free. Tasks were designed according to
principles of communicative language teaching to be suitable for classroom
implementation as part of a communicative language teaching programme. The
interaction was audio-recorded and transcribed.
Object-identification / naming Task
This task consisted of 15 pictures of different objects taken from everyday real life such as: escalator, lift, pushchair, broom, vacuum cleaner, etc. These objects were chosen because they represent real-life objects that learners encounter now and then in their houses, in streets, at shopping centres and at the university. The subjects were asked to say what the objects were and if it was not possible to name the exact target items, they were asked to describe them in any way they liked to get their message across to the listener. First, the subjects were asked to name the objects in their native language, Arabic. Then, they were asked to look at the photographs one by one and to make it clear in English which object they saw either by naming it, or in any other way, so that any one who would read their description later would be able to identify the objects or name them.
Picture story-telling task
This task was a series of six pictures taken from Heaton (1966, pp.33-34) that tell the story of an accident. The learners were asked to tell the story, imagining that the researcher was their friend. The purpose of using pictures was to restrict the content of the learners’ production without affecting the language used to tell the story. This task represents what we do in our daily life, since we generally tell our friends about what has happened to us or to others at work, while driving to work, etc.
Role-play task
A foreigner (learner A) who
has just arrived in London for the first time is having some problems he has to
solve. He has met someone who has been in London for a long time (learner B)
and knows it very well. The foreigner wants to solve his problems with the help
of the resident. The two speakers were guided with a chart that explained their
roles. This task was taken from John Soars and Liz Soars (1996, pp.5-6). The
purpose of this task was to see how English majors perform language functions
and how successful they are at passing and comprehending messages. The learners
were given a chart that showed each partner the speech acts that he was
supposed to perform. This was also done to control the content, not the
language used. Learner A was given a chart to fill in the messages that received
from his partner. The purpose was to measure message comprehension.
Findings
The key
words, key events and speech acts that were expected to be produced by the
subjects were prepared in advance. They were examined by the researcher and two
native speakers of English to decide how many key words, key events and speech
acts were attempted by the subjects, and whether their transmitted messages
were successful and comprehensible or not. If two of us agreed that an attempt
was comprehensible, this attempt was considered successful.
Object-identification task
In the
object-identification task, all pictures were attempted due to the nature of
the task. All the picture descriptions were studied to decide whether they were
comprehensible or not. The following table shows the results:
Table (2) Number of incomprehensible
description instances
|
Picture No. |
Low Level |
Intermediate Level |
Advanced Level |
|
1 |
9 |
4 |
4 |
|
2 |
9 |
5 |
0 |
|
3 |
4 |
3 |
0 |
|
4 |
3 |
1 |
0 |
|
5 |
4 |
4 |
0 |
|
6 |
2 |
3 |
0 |
|
7 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
8 |
4 |
2 |
0 |
|
9 |
8 |
7 |
1 |
|
10 |
7 |
5 |
2 |
|
11 |
3 |
2 |
0 |
|
12 |
7 |
4 |
0 |
|
13 |
6 |
6 |
2 |
|
14 |
5 |
1 |
2 |
|
15 |
3 |
2 |
0 |
|
Total |
75 |
47 |
11 |
The table shows that
75 attempts of the low-level learners’ (of a total of 150 attempts) were
incomprehensible and unsuccessful. In the cases of the intermediate learners,
47 attempts were incomprehensible. The advanced learners’ descriptions were
almost all comprehensible, apart from 11 attempts. The data also show that 10
pictures were attempted successfully by all the advanced learners and that
their attempts were all comprehensible. All low level and intermediate learners
attempted picture 7 successfully.
Story-telling task
The following tables show the distribution of unattempted key events in the story-telling task for the three proficiency levels.
Table (3)
Distribution of unattempted key events by low-level subjects
|
No |
Key event |
Student Number |
Total |
|||||||||
|
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
7 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
|||
|
1 |
A boy was riding his bicycle. |
|
|
|
|
|
Ö |
|
|
|
|
1 |
|
2 |
A driver was driving very fast. |
|
Ö |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1 |
|
3 |
He honked the horn. |
Ö |
Ö |
Ö |
Ö |
Ö |
Ö |
Ö |
Ö |
Ö |
Ö |
10 |
|
4 |
He knocked the boy off his bicycle. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ö |
|
1 |
|
5 |
The driver did not stop. |
|
|
Ö |
|
Ö |
|
Ö |
|
|
|
3 |
|
6 |
He set off on (went) on his journey. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
7 |
The car broke down. |
Ö |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1 |
|
8 |
The boy rang the bell |
Ö |
|
|
Ö |
Ö |
Ö |
Ö |
Ö |
|
Ö |
6 |
|
9 |
He kept on without helping the car driver. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Total |
3 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
24 |
Table (4)
Distribution of unattempted key events by intermediate level subjects
|
No |
Key event |
Student Number |
Total |
|||||||||
|
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
|||
|
1 |
A boy was riding his bicycle. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2 |
A driver was driving very fast. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ö |
1 |
|
3 |
He honked the horn. |
Ö |
Ö |
Ö |
Ö |
|
Ö |
Ö |
Ö |
|
Ö |
8 |
|
4 |
He knocked the boy off his bicycle. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ö |
|
1 |
|
5 |
The driver did not stop. |
|
Ö |
|
Ö |
Ö |
|
|
Ö |
|
|
4 |
|
7 |
He set off on (went) on his journey. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
6 |
The car broke down. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
8 |
The boy rang the bell |
Ö |
Ö |
Ö |
Ö |
Ö |
Ö |
Ö |
Ö |
Ö |
Ö |
10 |
|
9 |
He kept on without helping the car driver. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Total |
2 |
3 |
2 |
3 |
3 |
2 |
2 |
3 |
1 |
3 |
24 |
Table (5) Distribution of
unattempted key events by advanced level subjects
|
No |
Key event |
Student Number |
Total |
|||||||||
|
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
|||
|
1 |
A boy was riding his bicycle. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2 |
A driver was driving very fast. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
3 |
He honked the horn. |
Ö |
Ö |
Ö |
Ö |
Ö |
Ö |
Ö |
Ö |
Ö |
Ö |
10 |
|
4 |
He knocked the boy off his bicycle. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ö |
|
1 |
|
5 |
The driver did not stop. |
Ö |
|
|
Ö |
|
|
|
|
|
|
2 |
|
7 |
He set off on (went) on his journey. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
6 |
The car broke down. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
8 |
The boy rang the bell |
Ö |
Ö |
Ö |
Ö |
Ö |
Ö |
Ö |
Ö |
|
Ö |
9 |
|
9 |
He kept on without helping the car driver. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Total |
3 |
2 |
2 |
3 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
22 |
The above
tables show that low-level and intermediate-level learners registered the same
number of key events that were not attempted, a total of 24 cases each. The
advanced level learners registered 22 unattempted key events. It is notable
that the two key events which were not attempted by most learners were key
events 3 and 8, which required deductive skills on the part of the learners,
since these two key events were not very clear in the pictures, except for the
drawings for the sound of the horn and the bell.
After studying the events attempted, it was found out that few learners transmitted incomprehensible messages. It was found that the advanced learners’ attempts were all successful and comprehensible. Some of the low-level learners’ attempts, however, were not successful or comprehensible. They registered 5 incomprehensible messages transmitted by three learners. The intermediate level learners’ attempts were all successful and comprehensible except for two cases where two subjects transmitted one incomprehensible message each.
Role-play task
In the role-play task, speech acts were decided in advance and given in a chart to the subjects. In order to decide whether the learners playing role B were good at comprehension, two native speaker judges and the researcher studied the charts filled in by each learner. It was found that the low-level subjects registered a total of 8 incorrect pieces of information. That is, LS5 registered 4 incorrect pieces of information, LS7 registered one case and LS9 registered 3 incorrect pieces of information on the chart. Only one learner from the intermediate level (IS1) registered 1 incorrect piece of information on the chart. The advanced learners did not register any incorrect information. This means that they comprehended all the messages transmitted to them. As has been noted, the lower the language proficiency level of the subject, the higher the possibility of producing incomprehensible messages or not comprehending transmitted ones. The results of this analysis show that all the subjects were good at comprehension, especially the advanced subjects, despite resorting to communication strategies in their production. We can conclude also that advanced subjects were more successful at the tasks than low-level subjects.
Discussion
There was
a correlation between success in message transmission and the subjects'
proficiency level. The higher the level, the more the comprehensible and
successful the messages will be. For example, in the role-play task, it was
found that the advanced learners’ attempts were all successful and
comprehensible, but that some of the low-level learners’ attempts were not
comprehensible and therefore unsuccessful. The intermediate level learners’
attempts were all successful and comprehensible except for two cases.
In the
object-identification task, all the pictures were attempted due to the nature
of the task. All the descriptions were studied to decide whether they were
comprehensible or not. It was found that about 50% of low-level learners’
attempts were not comprehensible and therefore unsuccessful (75 out of 150
attempts). With regard to the intermediate learners, 47 attempts (of 150) were
incomprehensible, accounting for 31%. The advanced learners’ descriptions were almost
all comprehensible, except for 11 attempts.
In the role-play task,
speech acts were decided in advance and given on a chart to the subjects. It
was found that two subjects did not attempt the question about the bank working
hours and that consequently there was no response.
Sometimes, success or
failure of message transmission is related to the type of strategy used. For
example, language switch proved to be an unsuccessful strategy when heard by
the native speakers of the target language. Sometimes it depends on which
subjects used which strategy. For example, circumlocution strategy was judged
for one learner as successful and for another as unsuccessful.
These findings support Bialystok and Frohlich (1980), who found that language switch was the least successful strategy used by their subjects. Another finding was that a strategy was found to be the least effective and the most effective, depending on the item transmitted and the subjects' proficiency level. This also supports Chen (1990) who found that repetition was the least effective strategy because it did not add any new information. Chen also found that CSs used by high-proficiency learners were more effective than those used by low-proficiency learners.
Conclusion and implications
This study has had the
following five major conclusions:
1. English language majors at Yarmouk University make use of communication strategies, such as literal translation, circumlocution, code-switching and avoidance to help them pass comprehensible messages to the listeners.
2. Even weak learners were good at transmitting comprehensible messages due to their use of communication strategies.
3. There is a relationship between the task being performed and message comprehension. For example, in the picture identification task, there were 133 instances of incomprehensible messages whereas there were 7 cases in the story-telling task and about 4 cases in the role-play task. Because the picture-identification task requires difficult vocabulary, many of the transmitted messages were incomprehensible.
4. There is a relationship between the learners' proficiency level and message comprehension. For example, low-level learners in the object identification task registered 75 incomprehensible cases, whereas intermediate learners 47 cases and the advanced 11 cases. Most of the registered unsuccessful attempts were produced by low-level subjects, 50% whose attempts were a failure.
5.
This study suggests that about 90 percent of the messages transmitted can be
comprehensible and successful because of the learners' use of CSs. The use of
CSs is a means of solving communication problems with the aim of passing
comprehensible messages to the interlocutor. About 97 per cent of transmitted
messages in the role-play and story-telling tasks were judged as comprehensible
and successful as a result of the use of CSs, but this depended on the
learners’ proficiency level. This means that the use of communication
strategies helped the subjects to communicate their messages effectively and
successfully. About 73 per cent of the subjects’ descriptions in the
object-identification task were judged as comprehensible and successful.
The
teachers’ role is then to orient the learners and focus their attention on the
strategies that help learners to communicate.
This can be done by explaining the nature and types of CSs to their
learners and illustrating them with examples. Students should also be
encouraged to take risks and to use CSs. This means that learners should use
all their available resources to communicate language resources without being
afraid of making errors. This conscious-raising is very important as it leads
to learning and as CSs are part of language use. The use of a communication
strategy also is not an indication of communication failure; on the contrary,
it can be very successful in compensating for the lack of linguistic knowledge.
Furthermore, students can be asked to perform communicative tasks and have it
video-taped to be viewed later on to see their performance.
As the results of our research showed that even weak learners were good at transmitting comprehensible and successful messages, which is probably a result of the use of communication strategies, university students and school learners should, therefore, be aware of these strategies and understand their value. Weak learners will like the idea as it makes things easier for them and helps them to solve their communication problems.
About the
authors
Ghaleb Rabab'ah ( ghalebra@hotmail.com ) holds a PhD in
TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language) from the University of Newcastle
upon Tyne/UK. Currently, he is an assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics in
the Department of English and Literature at King Saud University in Saudi
Arabia. His main research interests are second language acquisition, strategic
competence and communication strategies.
Paul Seedhouse ( Paul.Seedhouse@newcastle.ac.uk
) is Postgraduate Research Director in the School of Education, Communication
and Language Sciences at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne.
References
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lexical difficulties. Interlanguage
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BROWN, G. AND YULE, G., 1983. Teaching
the spoken language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
CHEN, S-Q., 1990. A study of communication strategies in interlanguage
production by Chinese EFL learners.
Language journal, 40 (2), 155-187.
ELLIS, R. 1984. Communication strategies and the evaluation of
communicative performance. English language teaching journal, 38
(1), 39 - 44.
GREEN, P., 1995. The use of communication strategies by German school
students of English. Thesis (PhD). University of York.
HEATON, J., 1966. Composition
through pictures. London: Longman.
KHANJI, R., 1996. Two perspectives in analyzing communication
strategies. International review of
applied linguistics, 34 (2), 144-154.
POULISSE, N. AND SCHILS, E., 1989. The influence of task and
proficiency - related factors in the use of compensatory strategies: a
quantitative analysis. Language learning,
39 (1), 15-48.
RABABAH, G., 2001. An investigation into the strategic competence of
Arab learners of English at Jordanian universities. Thesis (PhD). University of
Newcastle upon Tyne.
SOARS, J AND SOARS, L., 1996. Headway, upper-intermediate, student's
book. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
TARONE, E. AND YULE, G., 1989. Focus
on the language learner. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
YARMOHAMMADI, L. AND S. SAIF., 1992. More on communication strategies:
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Appendix
I
Role - Play Task
Role ( A )
You have just arrived in London for the first time.
You have come for a holiday and to learn English. London seems a little strange and you need to ask for help.
These are some of your problems:
You may ask for more information about the address, telephone, etc.
1. You need to change some traveller’s cheques, but you don’t know where to find a bank, or what time the banks open and close.
2. You need to buy some stamps and postcards.
3. You would like to buy a newspaper from your country.
4. You want to find a good English language school.
5. You want to ask about accommodation and how much it costs.
You meet someone who lives in London and who seems friendly, so you ask for information.
Prepare what you are going to say.
Role (B)
You
live in London and know it quite well. You meet a foreigner who has just
arrived, and who seems to have some problems.
Look at the information here and try to help him \ her.
For all
newspapers. If we haven’t got it, we’ll get it. Closed all
day Saturday
RACHMAN’S INTERNATIONAL
NEWSAGENTS
Also
cigarettes, confectionery, gift shop souvenirs.
Barclays Bank
Opening
hours
Mon – Fri 9:30 –3:30
HIGH STREET POST
OFFICE Opening hours Mon. 9. 00 - 5.30 Tues. 9. 00 - 5.30 Wed. 9.00 - 1.00 Thurs. 9.00 - 5.30 Fri. 9.00 - 5.30 - 9.00 - 1.00
Appendix II
Role (A) Student’s Sheet
Please fill in the following chart during the conversation.
Name of the Bank
The Bank's Opening
and Closing Hours
Name of the
Post Office
Name of the Newspaper
Agency
Name
of the School
Name of the
Accommodation
Cost of Accommodation Per Week
Appendix III
Appendix III
Object-identification
Task (Key words)
Picture No.
1. Vending Machine
2. Detergents
3. Pushchair
4. Hoover/ Vacuum Cleaner
5. Broom
6. Fire Extinguisher
7. Telephone booth / call box/
Public phone /Public telephone
8. Lift / elevator
9. Escalator
10. Baby Walker
11. Cutlery
12. Zebra Crossing/ Pedestrian crossing
13. Chandeliers
14. Speedometer
15. Thermometer
Appendix IV
List of Key and Subsidiary events in the Story- telling task
A. Key Events
1. A boy/a cyclist was riding his bicycle.
2. A car driver was driving very fast.
3. He honked the horn.
4. He knocked the boy off his bicycle.
5. The car driver did not stop.
6. He set off on (continued) his journey.
7. Then the driver’s car broke down.
8. The boy rang his bell
9. He kept straight on without helping the car
driver.
B. Subsidiary
Events
1. The road was narrow.
2. The boy fell down.
3. The boy was unhurt.
4. The boy fixed his bike.
Appendix V
List of Speech Acts in the Role-play Task
Student
A
1- Inquiring about where to change cheques.
2- Inquiring about time when banks open and close.
3- Inquiring about where to find stamps.
4- Inquiring about how to get a newspaper from his country.
5- Inquiring about an appropriate school for him to learn English.
6- Inquiring about accommodation.
7- Inquiring about the cost of accommodation.
Student B
1- Information about the bank: name.
2- Information about working hours of the bank.
3- Information about where to find stamps and post cards.
4- Information about Rachman’s International Newsagents.
5- Information about an appropriate school
6- Information about accommodation.
7- Information about the cost per week.