Hanna (Hania) Kryszewska is a freelance teacher, teacher trainer, trainer of trainers and mentors, and former senior lecturer at the University of Gdańsk, Poland. She is a senior faculty trainer at Pilgrims TT, ELTTS trainer at University of Oxford and OTA trainer with OUP. She is an author of many ELT articles, resource books, course books, teacher training resources and online asynchronous TT courses for Orient BlackSwan. Since February 2006, she has been the editor of website Magazine Humanising Language Teaching.

 

Background

Paul Davis, Pilgrims trainer and co-author of our book The Company Words Keep (DELTA Publishing) loved this cartoon. 

We wanted to use it in our book but there were some copyright issues. Besides we were not sure how much explaining the cartoon would take with learners in the 21st century and how much background information they would need. 

To be fair, we could start with showing this clip and then giving all the background information or having the learners do their own research online. After all it is probably as famous as “Play it again Sam”. But we gave up on Tarzan, however, I still think it is a great  cartoon.

Nevertheless, it inspired a fun activity for lexical routines.

 

Some useful information regarding linguistic routines and why they are important

Linguistic routines are fixed, predictable phrases or patterns of language used in specific social situations. They are a crucial part of communication, contributing to politeness, social interaction, and language acquisition. These routines, also known as conversational routines or formulaic language, provide a sense of security and structure in communication for both the speaker and listener.

 

Examples of linguistic routines:

• Greetings: "Good morning," "How are you?"

• Apologies: "I'm sorry," "Excuse me"

• Requests: "Can you please...?" "Would you mind...?"

• Farewells: "Goodbye," "See you later"

• Conversational fillers: "You know," "Like," "Um" 

 

Why are they important?

• Politeness and social interaction:

Routines help reduce social friction and maintain positive face in interactions. 

• Language acquisition:

They provide a scaffold for language learning, especially for children, by offering predictable language structures and vocabulary within familiar contexts. 

• Communicative competence:

Mastering linguistic routines is an important aspect of developing communicative competence in a language. 

• Cognitive efficiency:

They allow speakers to focus on the content of their message without having to constantly construct sentences from scratch. 

In essence, linguistic routines are the building blocks of smooth and effective communication, contributing to both social harmony and language development. 

Source: The Internet

In the cartoon, our dear Tarzan used all the resources he had stored in his head for greetings, but then resorted to the one that made him famous linguistically. And not only. 

Also,  we know that a person idiolect is characterised by the favourite chunks or routines they use or cannot avoid using. And bingo. Here is Tarzan’s  case. So, how can we harness  this linguistic knowledge we have and help our learners expand their linguistic repertoire of situational routines.

 

Activity 

Collect phrases used to apologize. 

Ask the student to suggest their own. 

Write them on slips of paper or use the list below.

1 “I apologize.” ...

2 “My apologies.” ...

3 “I can't apologize enough.” ...

4 “Please accept my sincerest apologies.” ...

5 “I owe you an apology.” ...

6 “I'm regretful.” ...

7 “Pardon me.” ...

8 “Please forgive me.”

9  “I take full responsibility.”

10  “I’m at fault.”

11  “My bad.”

12  “My mistake.”

13  “My fault.”

14  “Sorry about that.”

15  “Oops/whoops.”

16  “I messed up.”

17  “I feel terrible.”

18  “I didn’t mean to.”

19  “How can I make it up to you?”

20  “Let me make this right.”

Redistribute the slips to pairs or groups of students. 

They prepare small pieces of drama where the punch line is a routine they worked with. 

They perform the scene and when the punch line comes all the students together decide on what it is and shout it out.

 

Variations

Use any sets of routines around a situation of your choice.

 

Coming soon! Please check the Pilgrims in Segovia Teacher Training courses 2026 at Pilgrims website.

Please check the Pilgrims f2f courses at Pilgrims website.