Running head: INTERACTION IN THE CLASSROOM

Interaction in the classroom: Considerations for every language teacher Elizabeth Watson University of Southern Mississippi

Author Note Elizabeth Watson, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Southern Mississippi. The information presented in this position paper was gathered from the research studies of various authors, including Rod Ellis, Kris Van den Branden, Jane Ellis, etc.

Interaction in the classroom Abstract

Interaction and communicative activities are key components to any language classroom. Without interaction, language would cease to perform its most fundamental functions, and learners must learn how to communicate with other speakers if they wish for their proficiency to be more fully developed. However, the teacher plays a key role in the development of students interactive and communication skills, as learning styles, teacher behavior, feedback, and a host of other factors all influence how well a student interacts with his/her classmates. Key words: learning styles, scaffolding, anxiety, communicative strategies, textbooks, pragmatics, teacher interaction, language production, feedback, final outcomes

Interaction in the classroom Interaction in the classroom: Considerations for every language teacher

Interaction is an integral aspect of communication; without it, languages cease to serve a major function in society. Classroom interactions are no different, as students must acquire the skills necessary to communicate with other speakers. I believe that interaction plays a vital role in classroom discourse, and a teachers failure to effectively incorporate it into instruction can be a serious detriment to students overall L2 linguistic development. Learning Styles and Activity/Lesson Planning First of all, it is important to consider the role that learning styles play in interaction. Obviously all students learn in different ways, but the foreign language teacher should also consider the impact that these learning styles have on the language classroom. In 1983 Howard Gardner published his theory of multiple intelligences, which include bodily/kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, logical/mathematical, naturalist, musical/rhythmic, verbal/linguistic, and visual/spatial. Tahriri and Divsar use Arnold and Fonsecas (2004, p. 120) summary of Gardners theory: These various intelligence types reflect a pluralistic panorama of learners individual differences; they are understood as personal tools each individual possesses to make sense out of new information and to store it in such a way that it can be easily retrieved when needed for use (Tahriri & Divsar, 2011, p. 116). I, too, believe that each student has different intelligence types that enable them to interpret and produce knowledge and information in different ways. Keeping this in mind, I believe that language teachers should diversify interactive and classroom activities in order to provide for as many learning opportunities as possible. Very few students can acquire a grammar structure or vocabulary term in the first few attempts of producing it in speech, and for a language teacher to have such high expectations for students is unrealistic and far too demanding. The Importance of Scaffolding

Interaction in the classroom

After considering the different types of learning styles and multiple intelligences that students have, I believe that a teacher should analyze the content area associated with interaction. While it is true that a students success is partially dependent upon linguistic competence, there are a host of other factors that determine how successful a student will be on a specific task. In their article The Motivational Power of Internet Chat, Douglas Jarrell and Mark Freiermuth refer to Brislins (1981, p. 70) social and cultural determinants of interactive success, including: a. knowledge of subject matter; b. language skills; c. communication skills and key non-verbal behaviors; d. taking advantage of opportunities and an ability to pursue ones own interests; e. ability to use traits, which demands knowledge of everyday behavior; and f. ability to complete ones task (whatever is required of the speakers) (Jarrell & Freiermuth, 2005, p. 60). Given all of these factors, one may conclude that interaction is not as simple of a task as one may think. However, teachers can remedy any possible difficulties from these kinds by properly scaffolding lessons and materials for students to foster more language production. Ellis refers to Lantolf and Aljaafrehs (1995) research findings, who affirm that the right amount of scaffolding is crucial to augmenting students success: Sometimes he [the expert] provided more scaffolding than was required, thereby failing to push the learner towards greater autonomy. In other studies, however the expert sometimes fails to provide the support the learners needed to accomplish the task (Ellis, 2003, p. 192). In other words, students should be sufficiently guided so that they can complete a task on their own without encountering a number of overwhelming difficulties.

Interaction in the classroom Teaching communicative strategies

Part of successful interaction with other speakers is knowing how to explain oneself or interpret another speakers thoughts using speaking and listening strategies. I believe that language teachers are responsible for assisting students in developing these types of strategies. Ellis lists six different communication strategies, including paraphrasing, approximation, and word coinage (2003, p. 74). Although these three strategies are perhaps the more difficult strategies to teach and to learn, they are also the most useful skills that learners should know when interacting with other speakers. When in a target culture, language students must be able to communicate, simply because there are few to no speakers of the L1 to assist them in common interactions. Therefore, having these types of skills allows for greater communication in the classroom and real-world settings, and these strategies (paraphrasing, approximation, and word coinage) are more likely to be understood by native speakers of the L2. The textbook conundrum: Whats a teacher to do? One of the most common complaints that foreign language teachers have against textbooks is that the videos included in the textbook materials do not reflect natural discourse (Grant and Starks, 2001, p. 40). While this is true to a degree, I do not believe that teachers should disregard textbook video dialogues to stimulate discussion and facilitate comprehension. I think that the initial stages of learning a grammar structure or vocabulary topic are well-served by textbook materials, as they provide a valuable stepping-stone experience to more complex, native speaker-oriented listening materials. Teachers should expect and plan to incorporate their own listening materials to foster discussion, and if carefully selected, videos, songs, and advertisements from the Internet can be extremely helpful to students as they continue their language studies. Naturally the next argument is that it is difficult to collect samples of natural discourse (Grant and Starks, 2001, p. 40). While it may require some research on the Internet,

Interaction in the classroom

over time a Spanish teacher can collect numerous audio/video samples. Listservs also afford numerous opportunities to share information with colleagues, and if used properly, a teacher will never run out of activity resources and ideas. Dont forget the pragmatics! Sometimes our greatest shortcomings in teaching interaction pertain to pragmatics. While it is challenging to move students forward in their proficiency, this is not a valid excuse to avoid teaching basic language and cultural behaviors. Failure to do so will only lead to awkward and even contentious conversations with native speakers. Grant and Starks quote Thomas (1983, p. 96), who affirms the importance of teaching appropriate cultural behavior: It is the teachers job to equip the student to express her/himself exactly the way s/he chooses to do sorudely, tactfully, or in an elaborate polite manner. What we want to prevent is her/his being unintentionally rude or subservient (Grant and Starks, 2001, p. 42). In short, interaction cannot be limited just to appropriate grammar rules or proper pronunciation; rather, interaction should encompass all aspects of communication, including behavior and proper forms of address. The teachers interactions with students In addition to pedagogical struggles, classroom teachers also find it difficult to motivate lackadaisical students. However, prior to simply concluding that students are lazy and unwilling to learn the target language, I believe that teachers should consider how they interact with their students. Lee and Ng refer to Tsuis (1996) research findings: teachers ways of interacting with students, i.e. intolerance of silence, uneven allocation of turns, incomprehensible input, and short wait-time, are factors contributing to reticence in classrooms (Lee & Ng, 2010, p. 303). Although Americans are uncomfortable with longer pauses, I believe that language teachers should bear in mind that silence does not necessarily equate to a lack of interest. We must remember that there are several processes going on in students minds as they formulate

Interaction in the classroom

responses to speaking prompts, and providing adequate comprehensible input and being patient with students as they assimilate information is key to students overall motivation and success in the target language. Related to teacher interaction with students in the classroom is the notion of the teacher as a monitor. Although it is difficult, teachers should not assume a helicopter role during interactive student activities. Rather, teachers should observe and listen for language play, comprehension, and overall communication instead of correcting every grammatical mistake that a student makes. Although teachers should listen for grammatical errors when initially teaching a concept, the kind of teacher behavior mentioned above should be practiced during extended discourse (in other words, once students have had numerous opportunities to practice a certain grammar structure or set of vocabulary words). Jane Willis offers sage advice regarding how teachers can serve as monitors yet avoid being overly intrusive: Resist the temptation to go around and help (or should we say interfere?), for example, by correcting pronunciation or suggesting better ways of doing the task. Observe and encourage from a slight distance. If the mother tongue crops up in one group too often, quietly go over and suggest an English rendering. If one pair is hopelessly stuck, help them out, but then withdraw again (Van den Branden, Bygate, and Norris, 2009, p. 227). By not hovering around students as they engage in the target language, the students will feel more at ease and therefore more likely to use more of the target language. Through these types of non-interferential activities, one may conclude that students are also permitted more opportunities for negotiation of meaning, making the communication exercise more meaningful. Van den Branden advocates this practice and even claims that teachers are the ones who are sometimes the most reluctant to give students challenging tasks: teachers reluctance to give

Interaction in the classroom

students challenging tasks may be closely linked totheir reluctance to accept that student difficulties with understanding and speaking a foreign language can in fact be conducive to language learning, especially when these difficulties lead to negotiation of meaning, a focus on form, or to other forms of interaction (Van den Branden, Bygate, and Norris, 2009, p. 415). Hence, teachers do not necessarily have to control every aspect of classroom discourse; rather, language learners sometimes need to experiment with the target language not only to determine what they can and cannot do in interactive activities, but also to allow teachers to evaluate the students overall progress. How teachers can reduce anxiety Anxiety has a tremendous influence over students, and it can determine how much a student learns in the language classroom. However, teachers have the power to control this issue to some degree. One way in which teachers might reduce the anxiety associated with speaking and interacting in class is through small group discussion. Students who are not as strong as their classmates in terms of their L2 abilities may feel more pressure to be more grammatically accurate or eloquent in speech. Ho discusses this phenomenon, citing Kims 2006 research results: Her findings reveled that leading class discussion and participating in whole-class discussion caused the biggest apprehension among the students (2011, p. 438). Rather than forcing students to perform a linguistic task in front of other learners without any prior practice, I think that students are best served when they practice in a small group format, collaborate with their peers to negotiate meaning and share opinions, and then share their ideas with the class as a whole. In their book How Languages are Learned, Lightbrown and Spada refer to Long and Porters (1985) research findings: Overall, Long and Porter concluded that although learners cannot always provide each other with the accurate grammatical input, they can offer each other genuine communicative practice that includes negotiation of meaning (Lightbrown & Spada,

Interaction in the classroom 2006, p. 152). In other words, even if complete grammatical accuracy is not present in a

students speech sample, there are still other aspects of communication (i.e., negotiation of meaning) that are still occurring in a speaking activity. Furthermore, while small group settings may not completely eliminate any apprehension associated with speaking in front of the class, it can greatly reduce the stress of speaking in general. Language production, final outcomes, and feedback Similarly, a persistent focus on grammatical perfection or a final product is not conducive to advancing students proficiency in interactive activities. Communication is dependent upon several factors, and grammar is only one of these factors. The main purpose of communication, from my perspective, is to provide a message to an intended audience. From a linguistic standpoint one may think that parts of speech (specifically verbs) must be 100% accurate in order to achieve communication, but in reality this is not true. In discussing teachers beliefs about writing instruction in an EFL setting, Melketo (2012) explains that one of the three teachers interviewed for his study stated that feedback does not have one sole focus: feedback on students writing should not focus on grammar alone, but also on the contents of writing (2012, para. 23). Although Melketo studied teachers perceptions of writing in the L2, the same rationale behind feedback can also be applied to speaking activities. Simple sentences and words have the potential to establish communication, even if it is limited and the verb conjugations are not completely accurate. Therefore, if speakers and their intended audiences can understand these types of interaction, then classroom discourse, interactive activities, and feedback should not only focus on grammar, but also on overall meaning. Ellis confirms the importance of focusing on meaning: learners need the opportunity to practise language in the same conditions that apply in real-life situationsin communication, where their primary focus is on message conveyance rather than linguistic accuracy (2003, p. 113).

Interaction in the classroom Conclusion

10

In short, I believe that interaction is a real-world skill that must be included in language instruction. A students grammatical accuracy in various interactions is by no means the only factor that teachers should grade; rather, overall communication and meaning should have an equal amount of importance in interactions. In teaching interactive skills, teachers should remember that learning styles must taken into consideration, and communicative strategies should be incorporated into instruction as a means of maintaining dialogue in the target language. The teacher is by far the single greatest factor in the development of a students interactive skills, and it is a role that should not be taken lightly.

Interaction in the classroom References

11

Ellis, R. (2003). Task-based language learning and teaching. New York: Oxford University Press. Grant, L., & Starks, D. (2001). Screening appropriate teaching materials. Closings from textbooks and television soap operas. IRAL: International Review Of Applied Linguistics In Language Teaching, 39(1), 39-50. Ho, M. (2011). Academic discourse socialization through small-group discussions. System: An International Journal Of Educational Technology And Applied Linguistics, 39(4), 437450. doi:10.1016/j.system.2011.10.015 Jarrell, D., & Freiermuth, M. R. (2005). The motivational power of internet chat. RELC Journal, 36(1), 59-72. doi:10.1177/0033688205053482 Lee, W., & Ng, S. (2010). Reducing student reticence through teacher interaction strategy. ELT Journal: English Language Teachers Journal, 64(3), 302-313. doi:10.1093/elt/ccp080 Lightbrown, P. & Spada, N. (1999). How Languages are Learned (3rd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Melketo, T.A. (2012). Exploring tensions between English teachers beliefs and practices in teaching writing. The International HETL Review, 2(11). Retrieved from http://hetl.org/all-categories/exploring-tensions-between-english-teachers-beliefs-andpractices-in-teaching-writing/ Tahriri, A., & Divsar, H. (2011). EFL learners' self-perceived strategy use across various intelligence types: a case study. Journal Of Pan-Pacific Association Of Applied Linguistics, 15(1), 115-138. Retrieved from http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/EJ939943.pdf

Interaction in the classroom

12

Van den Branden, K. (2009). Training teachers: task-based as well?. In K. Van den Branden, M. Bygate, & J.M. Morris (Eds.), Task-Based Language Teaching (401-429). Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Willis, J. (2009). The TBL framework: the task cycle. In K. Van den Branden, M. Bygate, & J.M. Morris (Eds.), Task-Based Language Teaching (227-242). Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.