English Language Teaching in its Social Context

~ isTHE SOCIAL CONTEXT FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING 129The culture of the classroom is interactiveThe language class involves all its participants in verbal and non-verbal interaction of certainkinds. This interaction exists on a continuum from ritualised, predictable, phaticcommunication to dynamic, unpredictable, diversely interpreted communication. Ofcourse, human interaction will be relatively located on this kind of continuum in all socialsituations. One special characteristic of classroom interaction, however, is that it is motivatedby the assumption that people can learn together in a group.This mean3 that a high premiumis placed upon consensus whilst misunderstandings, alternative interpretations, andnegotiable meaning will paradoxically be the norm, and from which participants will seekto make their own sense and upon which participants will impose their own purposes.Thisis not to say that the observable interaction will not be patterned or constrained, but thatit is very likely to be patterned differently in the interpretations invested in it by each personin the class. Therefore the researcher needs to be wary of assuming that the patterns ofinteraction which wc perceive as significant have the same salience for both teacher andtaught. A special characteristic of the language class is that interaction is further motivatedby the assumption that people can objectify a language and talk about it and analysc it inways they may not naturally do if left alone. The language class implies metalinguisticinteraction. However, it is often further assumed that the language class can provideopportunities for genuine interaction through the new language code. A language classentails interaction about language and interaction through languages in continualjuxtaposition.All these and other characteristics of the interactive process of the language class mayor may not be efficient or optimal for language learning. However, all represent the inherentauthenticity of the interaction within a language class given the external constraints of space,time, participation, etc., which typify any classroom devoted to any subject matter.A significant paradox for the language teacher ~ a paradox of which teachers are well awarethat the established interaction which is evolved and maintained by the culture of theclassroom group often conflicts with efforts towards communication through the newlanguage. Communication in the new language requires the temporary suspension of thosecultural conventions governing the everyday interaction of the particular classroom group.It requires communication which is, in fact, inauthentic to the interactive context inwhich it has to occur. This implies that one of the conventions assumed to be honoured byparticipants in the culture of a language class is the willingness and capacity to suspenddisbelief, to participate in simulated communication within classroom specific interaction.’The culture of the classroom is diflerentiatedAlthough the language class may be one social situation, it is a different social context for allthose who participate within it.The culture of the classroom is an amalgam and permutationof different social realities.This means that the content of lessons (the language being taught)and the procedures of teaching and learning (the things being done) are both continuallyinterpreted differently as the life of that language class unfolds.The classroom is the meetingpoint of various subjective views of language, diverse learning purposes, and differentpreferences concerning how learning should be done. Such differentiation brings with itpotential for disagreement, frustrated expectations, and conflict. The culture of theclassroom docs not erase thcsc differences; it contains them. A major challenge for teacherand learners is the maintenance of a fine balance between conflicting internal social realities(a kind of subjective anarchy!) and an external reality which has to be continually negotiated.