English Language Teaching in its Social Context

94 LEO VAN LIERTaking a closer look at teacher-learner interaction in the language classroom, I ignoresuch common types of teacher talk as the lecture, the story, and various forms of explanationand instruction, since my focus is on social interaction. But I do not deny the importanceand potential value for learning of these more monologic forms.The initiation-response-feedback exchangeTeacher: What is this called?Learner: Plastic.Teacher: You called it plastic. Good! It’s plastic. Rut it’s got another name too . . .transparency.. . . aThis exchange between a teacher and a learner is unmistakably classroom talk. Itcontains the following steps:1 The teacher, holding up an overhead transparency, asks a question to which the teacheralready knows the answer.2 The teacher wishes to see if the learner has some particular piece of knowledge andcan display this knowledge.3 The learner responds effectively and efficiently, but also elliptically, using just oneword.4 The teacher evaluates the learner’s response, approving of it, but then suggests thatthere might be another, more felicitous, answer.This particular form of classroom interaction, the teaching exchange, is considered amongthc most frequently occurring types of teacher-student talk in the classroom (Sinclair andCoulthard 1975; Mehan 1979; van Lier 1988; Wells 1993) and is usually called an IRFexchangc, since it consists of these three parts (or moves): initiation, response, feedback.In the IRF format, a number of different things can be accomplished. At the mostmechanical, rote-learning end of IRF, the teacher’s questions require the students merelyto recite previously learned items. IRF may also be used by the teacher to see if studentsknow a certain word or linguistic item. IRF can demand more, challenging students to think,reason, and make connections. At the most demanding end of IRF, students must bearticulate and precise; they are pushed by successive probing questions, to clarify,substantiate, or illustrate some point that they made previously.Teacher-learner interaction in the three-turn format of IRF therefore occupies acontinuum between mechanical and demanding, as shown in the figure below.Given the variety of pedagogical work that the IRF format permits, it would be amistake to dismiss it altogether as bad practice. Every case must be examined on its merits.As a rule of thumb, the precise nature of the IRF being employed in a particular instance isrevealed in the third turn,3 since this is where the teacher typically reveals the purposc ofthe question or sequence of questions. After the following question-answer pairFigure 5.1 IRF continuumRecitation-Display Cognition-Precision- Depth of processing