English Language Teaching in its Social Context

itswill134 MICHAEL P. BREENinteract with the particular classroom culture’s definitions of cach of thcsc things. If strictlyindividualised or autonomous language lcarning is desirable or even possible then theclassroom is nccessarily antithetical towards it. The language I learn in a classroom is acommunal product derived through a jointly constructed process.The culture of the classroom is immediately signijkantWhat is overtly done in a classroom and what can be described by an observer arcepiphenomena; they are reductions of classroom reality. How things are done and why thingsare donc have particular psychological significance for the individual and for the group. Theparticular culture of a language class will socially act in certain ways, but thcse actions areextensions or manifestations of the psychology of the group, its collective consciousness andsubconscious. Individual perceptions and definitions will, of course, feed into and evolvefrom those of the group. However, the socio-cognitive world of the class ~ culture ~be a world other than the sum of the individual worlds within it. What is sipjcant for learners(and a teacher) in a classroom is not only their individual thinking and behaviour nor, forinstance, a longer-term mastery of a syllabus, but thc day-to-day interpersonal rationalisationof what is to be done, why, and how. Thc immediate significance of the experience ofclassroom language learning resides in how individual priorities (teacher and learnerdefinitions of what, why, and how) can be given social space here and now. It is precisely thisinterplay between the individual, the individual as group member, and the group whichrepresents and generates the social and psychological nexus which I have proposed as theculture of the language classroom. Most oftcn the flow of classroom life is actually under thesurface. What is observable is the rim of a socio-cognitive coral reef! Classroom life seems torequire that many learners spend surprising amounts of time doing little, whilst a teacherspends equally surprising amounts of time trying to do too much. As researchers we candcscribe such ovcrt peculiarities, hut we also need to explain them. We have to ask whetheror not such phenomena arc true, and we must doubt the integrity of the observable. If wedo, then we are led towards discovering what is, in fact, immediately significant for the groupof peoplc we started to observe. The search for the significance which a person, learner orteachcr, invests in moments of classroom life (and for the significance granted to thesemomcnts by the classroom culture) is neither trivial nor avoidable, though it may be complexand subtle. Wc will never undcrstand classroom language learning unless we explore itsIesson-by-lesson significance for those who undertake it.Reviewing the classroom as cultureI have offered brief descriptions of eight features of the genuine culture of the languageclassroom in order to achicvc two purposcs. First, to illustrate thc potential of classroomlife itself, its social and psychological richness. The particular features I havc selected areoffered with no evaluative intent. I would not wish to suggest here that such features are“good” or “bad” aspects of a classroom. They are the incvitable characteristics of the socialevent in which most people learn a foreign language. My second purpose has been to drawattcntion to significant social and psychological variables which we seem to be neglectingin our current research in language learning. My main argument would be that, if wc wishto investigatc language learning, these variables must be contained in whatever metaphorwe have for that special social location from which a great deal of language learning actuallyderives.”