Teacher talk and classroom interaction

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Teacher talk and classroom interaction
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Your trainer

• Wendy Arnold

• MA in Teaching English to Young Learners (TEYL)
• Freelance teacher, trainer, writer, researcher
• IATEFLs YL SIG committee
• Specialist in reading for young learner literacy
• 15 years experience teaching Chinese young
  learners

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What do you know?

• Interaction

• Teacher talk

• Features of teacher talk
• Principles of giving instruction and feedback

• Name the different types of classroom interaction
• Explain the role of interaction, input, output

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questions and answers
dialogue
projects
role play
PAIRWORK
GROUPWORK
games
songs/chants
surveys
WHOLE CLASS
DID YOUR LIST LOOK LIKE THIS?
TEACHER TALK
giving instructions
asking and answering questions
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Summary of the relationship between interactions,
comprehensible input, output and language
acquisition
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Example of pairwork (video)

• Students

• Teacher

• What are they doing?
• Are they engaged?
• Do they understand what they are doing?

• What are they doing?
• Are they supporting anyone? How?

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WHAT MAKES THE INTERACTION EFFECTIVE(??)?
WHAT ARE THE PROBLEMS(??) OF THE INTERACTION?
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Example of groupwork (video)

• Students

• Teacher

• What are they doing?
• Are they all engaged?

• What are they doing?
• Are they helping anyone?

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WHAT MAKES THE INTERACTION EFFECTIVE?
WHAT ARE THE PROBLEMS OF THE INTERACTION?
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Example of whole class activity (video)

• Students

• Teacher

• What they doing?
• Does everyone know how to do it?
• How successful are they?

• What are they doing?
• Are the instructions clear?
• Are they supporting anyone? How?

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WHAT MAKES THE INTERACTION EFFECTIVE?
WHAT ARE THE PROBLEMS OF THE INTERACTION?
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Feedback

• Teacher

• How are the teachers giving feedback?

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The Nature of interaction
a. The teachers interactional adjustment
b. The pupils interactional behaviors
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Input and interactional adjustments (?????) The
most commonly used strategies to make the
language input more comprehensible are
1. Repeating
What do you think of these strategies? Have you
identified other strategies in the video clips?
2. Simplifying questions
3. Switching to Chinese
4. Setting an example
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Atkinson (1987426) worries that the teacher
and/or the students will feel that they have not
really understood any item of language until it
has been translated.
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Output and interactional adjustments The most
commonly used strategies to elicit language
output are
1. Provide the beginning of a sentence and let
pupils continue. Elicit by starting the sentence
For example Heres the
2. Set a model and ask pupils to repeat. Give
requirement You must say or provide the
expected answer.
Have you identified other strategies in the video
clips?
3. Use rhetorical (??)questions Example
Ss Wheres the marker? S
Heres the pencil sharpener.
T Pencil sharpener?
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Walsh (2002, cited Wacaro, 2003198) identified a
number of features which obstructed(??) learning
potential(??).

• The teacher completes the turn for the student.

• The teacher interrupts(??) the students turn in
  order to correct.

• No negotiation(??) of meaning is detectable via
  clarification requests(??), confirmation
  checks(??).

• The teacher echoes(??) the student response even
  if it is correct.

• IRF (Initiate-Response-Feedback) turn-taking
  structure as the dominant (??)pattern.

Can you give examples in the video clips?
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• The pupils interactional behaviors
• the reduction behavior
• the achievement behavior
• (Faerch and Kaspar, 1980, cited in Ellis, 1985).

Did you see both behaviors in the video clips?
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the reduction behavior the learner missing a
turn by keeping silent, choosing to be out of the
task by saying no or I dont know, and other
similar utterances, switching topics or imitating
part or the whole of the teachers previous
utterance.
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the achievement behavior learners respond
actively to the teachers utterance by using
their first language, miming, requesting
assistance or guessing.
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A demonstration lesson

• Work in groups and complete one of the following
  tasks
• Group 1 Count the time used for different types
  of interaction PW, GW, IW, CW
• Group 2 Find out teachers interactional
  adjustment strategies
• Group 3 Find out pupils interactional behaviours

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A demonstration lesson

• Group 4 Write down all the questions asked by
  the teacher and find out the features of this
  teacher.
• Group 5 Write down the language used for praise
  and feedback and comment on it.

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Cross group discussion Each person 2 Time
limit 15
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Lets discuss what makes effective and dynamic
interaction!
Theory into practice Krashen Comprehensible
input Vygotsky ZPD (?????) social
interaction Bruner Scaffolding (??)
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Want to have another look...?

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