Topic:
Classroom Interaction
Name:
Patel Kinjal
Paper
Name: English Language Teaching - 1
Paper
No:
12
Roll
No:
14
STD: M.A
2
SEM: 3
Submitted
to:
Department of English Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University
Introduction
The term
classroom interaction refers to the interaction between the teacher and
learners, and amongst the learners, in the classroom. Earlier studies of second
language classroom interaction focused on the language used by the teacher and
learners the interaction generated, and their effect on L2 learning. More
recent studies have begun to investigate the underlying factors which shape
interaction in the classroom – e.g. teacher and learner beliefs, social and
cultural background of the teacher and learners, and the psychological aspects
of second and foreign language learning – providing further insights into the
complexities of classroom interaction.
In
olden days, the classroom was occupied by the teacher. The teacher acted as the
head of the classroom. The teacher dictated the class. The teacher played the
major role in the classroom interaction. The teacher spoke most of the time.
The student were mere listeners. The
students had very small role to play.
They simply answered when asked. This way the teaching learning process became
monotonous. The students were scared of asking. They did not actively participate
in the classroom studying.
The
late 19th century brought the change in the classroom scenario. The
role of students became more important. Many classroom interaction activities
were designed. New ways were introduced for the students’s active participation
while learning second language. Students are facilitating where necessary now.
The students are given various tasks to solve. The students take their own time
in completing the task. Previous classroom teaching forced the learner to
finish the boring task in the class at a time but various task based activities
encourage them in taking part.
Definition:
Classroom
Interaction is a practice that enhances the development of the two very
important language skills which are speaking and listening among the learners.
This
device helps the learner to be competent enough to think critically and share
their views among their peers.
Classroom
interaction and learning:
This theme addresses the climate of communication between the
instructor and students in class. Lessons where students have multiple
opportunities to communicate with the teacher are essential for the effective
construction of student knowledge. By welcoming curiosity and encouraging
students to raise their own questions about the content or claims being
discussed, the instructor can guide students to develop habits of mind for
framing and answering questions. When an instructor creates a climate of
respect in the classroom and encourages students to generate their own ideas
involving scientific ways of thinking, students are more likely to think deeply
and persist in the face of challenges (AAAS, 1989; Weinstein et al., 2006). The
Pedagogy in Action module on Interactive Lectures can provide guidance for drawing students into the
lecture by engaging them in working with the material.
Characteristics of
classroom interaction:
Classes with an emphasis on lecture are effective for
delivering large volumes of content in limited time but provide few
opportunities for student-instructor interaction. While this teaching method
may appeal to a few highly motivated students, it can often leave much of the
class disengaged from the content. Such classes are often characterized by
instructors who take the first shout-out answers to questions (often from the
same few students) or answer their own questions too quickly.
In contrast, more student-centered classes provide adequate time during activities for students to think about concepts, receive feedback, and/or participate in discussions that may guide the direction of the lesson. Some activities may allow students freedom to engage in their own learning (e.g., online search for relevant information) and/or may involve the students using the instructor as a resource to provide information as needed. This "guide-on-the-side" model is indicative of highly reformed, student-centered classrooms.
In contrast, more student-centered classes provide adequate time during activities for students to think about concepts, receive feedback, and/or participate in discussions that may guide the direction of the lesson. Some activities may allow students freedom to engage in their own learning (e.g., online search for relevant information) and/or may involve the students using the instructor as a resource to provide information as needed. This "guide-on-the-side" model is indicative of highly reformed, student-centered classrooms.
Structuring
of classroom:
·
Contains activities where the instructor can receive student
feedback to determine if there is a need to adapt the direction of the lesson.
·
Have multiple opportunities for interaction between the
instructor, individual students, small student groups, and the whole class.
·
Capitalizes on the diversity of student experiences to generate
alternative solutions to (open-ended) problems and to explore student ideas
within the context of the lesson.
·
Includes sufficient time to have meaningful discussions around
student activities and arrive at fully realized responses.
Clues for improving
classroom interaction:
·
I want to use specific teaching strategies so that I can adapt
the lesson on the basis of student feedback.
o To
achieve this goal, it is necessary to provide opportunities to hear student
voices and act on ideas originating with the students.
o Immediate
low stakes, formative assessment of concepts can be readily achieved
using ConcepTests, conceptual
multiple-choice questions about themes from the lesson mingled with peer
instruction. The use of clickers can facilitate this technique.
o More
detailed feedback that will be sufficient to shift the direction of the lesson
to meet key student learning needs will often require open-ended questions that
allow students to identify what they already know and where the instructor can
best invest time and resources. Techniques such as cooperative learning or gallery walks may support this
approach.
·
I want to capitalize on the diversity of student experiences to
generate alternative solutions to problems and/or encourage different ways of
interpreting evidence.
o The
more structured and organized a task, the less opportunity there is for
students to bring their experience and creativity to bear on finding a
solution. Activities that provide the problem, procedures the students should
follow, and type of analysis to be conducted leave little room for the students
to contribute original thought. Consider adapting open-ended questions where
the problem is presented but some combination of procedures, method of
analysis, and/or communication of results are left for the students to design.
o Exercises
such as structured academic controversies may
provide a model for this type of cooperative learning strategy in which small
teams of students learn about a controversial issue from multiple perspectives
and attempt to come to consensus. Alternatively, case studies may provide a
mechanism for encouraging creative solutions that synthesize content.
o In
these more student-centered learning environments, instructors can serve as
resource persons, navigating the room to keep groups on task and provide
assistance in guiding discussion.
·
I want to provide sufficient time to have meaningful discussions
around student activities and arrive at fully realized responses.
o It is
necessary to provide sufficient time for students to process class information
and transfer it to new problems. Such efforts ensure that learning is happening
during class. One simple method to begin this process is to provide structured
breaks for students to be reflective in their response to questions. Whether
using techniques such as Concept Tests or think-pair-share, indicate how long
students have to work before requiring an answer (30 seconds to a few minutes).
o Longer
activities will typically allow for greater student creativity and encourage
synthesis of more concepts. Building these activities into a traditional
lecture class will require some lesson redesign. For example, some material may
simply be omitted; other items may be shifted to pre-class readings or
post-class homework.
Objective
·
To help the learners to identify their own learning methods.
·
To guide the learners to communicate with their peers easily.
·
To help the learner to come face to face with the various types
of interaction.
·
To aim at meaningful communication among the students in their
target language.
·
To aim at probing into the learner’s prior learning ability and
his way of conceptualizing facts and ideas.
·
To help the teacher to have a detailed study of the nature and
the frequently of student interaction inside the classroom.
Interaction:
Types of classroom
Interaction:
·
Collaborative Learning
·
Discussions and Debates
·
Interactive sessions
·
Loud Reading
·
Story – telling
·
Soliloquies
·
Conversation with learners
·
Role play
Two major types of talk in EFL:
·
The teacher’s usually in the form of a question, or a request to
practice a structure.
The second language learners:
·
Usually a straight answer to the question posed by the teacher
or a drill – type operation.
Real interaction:
Interaction
happens when the L2:
·
Direct the dialogue at one another
·
Disagree with or challenge
·
Don’t have to be invited to speak
·
Speak when there is a short silence
·
Comment immediately interrupt one another
·
Use
·
Are relaxed as possible
Use
the personal pounces “I” and ‘you’.
Session
objectives:
In this module we will
·
Consider the nature and importance of interaction in the languages
classroom
·
Consider a framework for exploring
interaction in practice
·
Reflect on how interaction for languages
teaching and learning can be enhanced in your owe context and practice.
Before
setting the framework of classroom interaction nature and importance should be
investigated. The types of interaction practice are suitable or not could be sorted
out before moving ahead. The selected exercises are selected in order to
benefit classroom interaction. Now before moving ahead let’s see
Nature of interaction:
·
Aspects of the Language pedagogy standard
specifically addressed in the module are
·
(To) create a culture of learning… which
fosters interests in languages and cultures and encourage learners to accept
responsibility for their own learning?
·
(use)… a range of methodologies for languages
and culture teaching and in their practice select from these in a principled
way, taking into consideration the learners, the learning context, curriculum
goals, and the aspect of language being taught.
An atmosphere enhancing the learning is
created keeping a particular culture in mind. The students are attracted to
learn the language on their own. The goals are set up in such a way that
students take their own responsibility of learning the second language in
classroom interaction. For this purpose range of approaches and methods are
considered according to the targeted goals and aspects.
Importance
of classroom:
Studies
conducted on classroom interaction have shown that student talk accounts for an
average of less than 30 percent of talk in ‘teacher fronted’ classrooms. Yet
studies on language and learning have shown that children not only learn to
talk but they also talk to learn.
This
can be seen from the fact that children are persistent questioners; it is by
asking questions that they explore and learn about the world around them.
However, studies have shown that the number of questions asked by children
drops significantly as soon as they enter school. Now, after discussing
importance of talk and interaction we will see its importance.
Tsui – 1995
The
importance of classroom talk and interaction:
The importance of classroom talk and
interaction:
Let’s reflect on the following questions
in relation to the classroom.
·
What kinds of interactions are typically
found in our classroom?
·
What are the purposes for different types of
interaction?
·
What kinds of participation are best for
student learning?
·
Is it important that all students
participate?
·
What is the nature and frequency of student
questioning in our classroom?
·
How does identity affect interactions in our
classroom?
·
Why is interaction in our classroom the way
that it is?
Considering
interaction in practice now, we shall see who participants are:
·
Teacher – class
·
Teacher – student
·
Student – student
·
Other , including members of the target
language speaking community
Resources:
·
Teacher – students
·
Text book, text, technologies, tasks
Considering interaction in practice now let’s see the
types of interaction.
Goals of classroom interaction are to
·
Promote meaningful communication in the
target language
·
Provide a meta language for talking about language and
culture
·
Engage learners with concepts and process for
language and culture learning
·
Probe learner’s prior learning and
interpretations of new concepts about language and culture.
·
Engage learners with texts and resources that
reflect language and culture in context
·
Engage learners in task that deepen their experience and understanding of
the target language and culture
If the goals of classroom interaction are fulfilled the
learners will be able to deal with the language easily in the atmosphere other
than the native or regional atmosphere.
Recent studies have paid more attention to learner talk,
examining not only to the teacher, but also their communication strategies, and
the relation between task types, learner and opportunities for negotiation of
meaning. The study of language and interaction in the classroom is not peculiar
to L2 classrooms. In the 1960s educationist in the UK emphasized the importance
of language across the curriculum. The below given points highlight the
language use in classroom.
Language use in
classroom interaction:
Language classroom have at least two languages for use
·
Need to consider the nature, timing and
frequency of target language use in the classroom
·
Use of English / first language provides a
basic for deeper cognitive engagement at times
·
Hybrid forms can support target language use
An important dimension of classroom interaction is
teacher questions, which has received attention in both ‘L’ and L2 classroom
studies.
When teachers fail to elicit any response from the
learners, they often need to modify their questions. Long and Sato (1983)
identified a number of modification device used by teachers including syntactic
modifications and semantic modifications.
Examining the role of
the teacher in interaction:
Some features of the teacher’s role
·
Creating a learning culture/ environment
·
Eliciting learner interpretations
·
Building on learner contributions
·
Negotiating meaning
·
Providing feedback and promoting refection
It
was found through various researches that compared to teacher fronted
interaction in whole class- work, both pair work and group work provide more
opportunities for learners to initiate and control interaction. Hence, tasks
involving small number of participants are believed to facilitate better SLA.
A
major concern of L2 teachers is how to generate rich and meaningful interaction
in the classroom which will facilitate SLA. Many teachers find it difficult to
engage students in interaction especially in teacher fronted settings. When
students fail to respond it may be because the questions were too complex
inappropriately phrased or contained difficult vocabulary items. After
discussing teacher’s role now let’s move to reflection and investigations.
Reflection and investigations:
“… Teachers
must be mindful of their instructional goal and prepare questions with those in
mind. Adequate preparations ahead will also reduce the amount of in class ‘trial
and error’ time. That’s is to say, the less trying to figure out what they are
doing as they are doing it, the more time there will be for teachers and
students to be engaged in actual learning.”
…Hall 2001
Reflecting
on our practice
In
study of teacher’s action research it was found that excessive lengthening of
wait time exacerbated anxiety amongst students. To alleviate L2 learning anxiety,
from which many learners suffer, the teacher can provide opportunities for
learners to rehearse their responses to a teacher’s question by comparing the patterns
with the group and so on.
·
Consider how the notion of ‘interaction’ may
be of benefit in our own teaching?
·
Are there any particular issues for languages
and cultures teaching in terms of interaction?
What further questions do we have about?
·
Interaction I the languages classroom
·
Interaction in our own classroom?
The way a teacher allocates turns in the classroom can
also affect student’s classroom interaction. In classrooms where interaction is
highly controlled by the teacher, as in many Asian classrooms, patterns of
turn- allocation is an important factor. The teacher needs to be sensitive to
the psychological state of the students and to be supportive and appreciative
of any effort made by the students to learn the target language. Only then
teacher would be able to generate meaningful and enjoyable learning.
Conclusion
Classroom interaction research started off with the aim
of investigating the effectiveness of teaching methodologies and the behaviors
of effective teachers. Such investigations revealed that classroom processes
are extremely complex and research focus soon shifted from prescription to
description, from evaluation to awareness- rising.
Reference:
student-instruction classroom interaction
Mrs.yaowarin dowsakul
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