English Language Teaching in its Social Context

102 LEO VAN LIERfor utterance design, as well as reactive resources other than repair. Repair is thus only oneamong many forms of negotiation of meaning.A fourth and final consideration goes to the very foundations of learning and its relationto the environment. Almost all the work in applied linguistics that addresses the role ofinput and interaction (see Ellis ( 1 994) for an overview) assumes an input-output model ofcommunication and learning. This model is based on a view of language use as the transferof linguistic matter from one person to another and largely ignores issues of reciprocity andcontingency. Being basically a transmission model (as words like input and output indicate),it does not address learning as transformation and language learning as grammaticalization(the development of grammatical complexity in the organic sense, outlined, e.g., byRutherford (1 987)). It is likely that the true role of interaction in learning and the truesense of whatvygotsky meant by the zone of proximal development can be revealed onlythrough an organic or ecological approach (see Gibson 1979; Bowers and Flinders 1990).In such an approach, notions like contingency and symmetry will be central, and overt actsof repairing will be epiphenomena1 (Marcus and Zajonc 1985; Graumann 1990; Platt andBrooks 1994). Linguistic matter in the environment, to the extent that the learner has accessto it (see van Lier (1996) for a detailed discussion of access), provides affordances to theactive and perceptive learner (Gibson 1979; Dcci and Ryan 1992).’Whether or not suchaffordances are packaged as repair sequences is likely to be a minor issue.A theoretical conclusionI have discussed two different types of interaction in language learning, teacher-learnerinteraction in the IRF mode and learner-learner interaction, to illustrate equality andsymmetry. I have suggested that interaction is particularly beneficial for learning when it iscontingent. Symmetrical interaction is naturally contingent in a variety of ways, butasymmetrical interaction is deficient in contingency. Unequal discourse partners tend tofind it more difficult to orient their interaction toward symmetry; as a result theirinteractions often look like IRF sequences or interviews where one of the partners takes acontrolling role.Two questions remain: What are some ways in which unequal discourse partners - suchas teachers and learners or native speakers and nonnative speakers -- can engage insymmetrical and contingent interaction, and how would that engagement benefit learning?What are the pedagogical benefits of various forms of asymmetrical discourse, such aslectures and IRF exchanges?Language learning depends on the access learners have to relevant language material(affordances) in the environment and on internal conditions like motivation. Social interactionis the prime external condition to ensure access and Icarncrs’ active engagement.Contingent interaction provides an “intrinsic motivation for listening” (Sacks, Schegloff,and Jefferson 1974). Learners’ natural learning processes, through the desire to understandand be understood, synchroni~e with efficient perception and focusing. Learners will bevigilant toward linguistic features and will make an effort to be pragmatically precise yetambiguous where ambiguity is needed. Grammaticalization is thus a natural by-productof contingent interaction. To put this idea in the strongest possible (though of coursehypothetical) terms: the organic, self-regulating process of contingent interaction is anecessary and sufficient condition for language development to occur. In the absence ofappropriate research, this is of course a speculative hypothesis.But that is only one side of the coin. To the extent that the target of language learning