English Language Teaching in its Social Context

THE SOCIAL CONTEXT FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING 131Learners in a class will obviously vary with regard to their relative dependence upon externaland internal criteria. However, one of the prevalent features of the culture of the classroomis the establishment of overt and covert criteria against which its members are continuallyjudged. In other words, the culture of the classroom re+ the persons who participatewithin it into “good” learners and “bad” learners, “good” teachers and “bad” teachers,“beginners,”“advanced,”“high” participators and “low” participators, etc., etc. Put bluntly,the language class is a highly normative and evaluative environment which engages teacherand taught in continual judgement of each other, less as persons, but as members whoare supposed to learn and a member who is supposed to teach. This highly normativecharacteristic of classroom life implies for the researcher that we need to discover the overtand covert group criteria (and members’ individual interpretations of these criteria) againstwhich learning behaviour and progress are judged. To infer, for example, that a teacher’serror corrections are consistently based upon objective linguistic criteria or are otherwiseapparently random would lead to a superficial analysis of phenomena which, though opaque,are deeply significant for a teacher and learners in the particular classroom.The culture of the classroom is asymmetricalBecause teachers are expected to know what learners are expected not to know, certainsocial and psychological consequences inevitably obtain for the human relationships in theclass. The culture of the classroom insists upon asymmetrical relationships. The duties andrights of teacher and taught are different. More significantly, both teacher and taught maybe equally reluctant to upset the asymmetry of roles and identities to which these duties andrights are assigned. In most societies - perhaps all, despite some relative variation ~ anegalitarian relationship between teacher and taught is a contradiction of what a classroomshould be. Teachers and learners are very familiar with the experience of graduallyestablishing the precise degree of asymmetry which enables them to maintain a relativelyharmonious working group. As teachers, we are also familiar with a class which erodes whatthey perceive as being too democratic or too authoritarian an approach on our part, eventhough we ourselves may perceive our teaching style as consistently something else entirely!Here is a paradox. Learners give a teacher the right to adopt a role and identity of teacher.And a teacher has to earn particular rights and duties in the eyes of the learning group.However, the history of the tribe marches behind the teacher, and a teacher through theunfolding culture of the particular classroom group will similarly allocate rights and dutiesto learners. Indeed, one of the rights and duties of a teacher is to do precisely that! However,asymmetrical relationships do not only exist between teacher and taught. Sub-groupingswhch are asymmetrical with the dominant classroom culture also emerge and prosper, suchas anti-academic peer groupings or certain learners who identify themselves as moresuccessful or less successful and even groups who share a common identity (such asfriendship groups) outside the classroom. Thus, not only is the culture of the classroomindividually differentiated yet collective, it is also made up of subgroups which develop forthemselves mainly covert, though sometimes overtly expressed, roles and identities whichare potentially asymmetrical with both the dominant culture and with other sub-groupingsin the class.Asymmetry of roles and identities, and of the rights and duties they bear, derives fromand further generates conceptual and affective dissonances. Asymmetrical relationships veryoftcn entail disagreement in beliefs, in attitudes, and in values held. The collective natureof the classroom culture and the negotiated compromises which permeate the teachinglearningprocess often hide within themselves ~ sometimes with difficulty and often only