English Language Teaching in its Social Context

LEARNING A NEW REGISTER 265session, the teacher introduces the term repel at a time when students had already cxprcsscdthis meaning in familiar everyday language, using terms such as it pushes away; it feels like astrong wind. There is some parallel here to the principle within bilingual programs whichsuggests that learning should occur first in L1 as a basis to learning in L2, but here the issueis one of register rather than language.Stage 2 textsDriver makes the important point about science education that ‘activity by itself is notenough. It is the sense that is made of it that matters’ (Driver, 1983: 49). In Stage 2 textswe see the teacher working with the children to ‘make sense’ of the activities in which theyhave been engaged, by helping them reconstruct their experiences and develop sharedunderstandings through language. Wegerif and Mercer suggest that it is through beingencouraged and enabled ‘to clearly describc cvents, to account for outcomes and consolidatewhat they have learned in words’ that children are helped to ‘understand and gain access toeducated discourse’ (Wcgerif and Mercer, 1996: 53).Text 2 illustrates one type of situationin which this process can occur.The teacher’s role in these episodes was crucial; the texts show how her interactionswith individual students provided a ‘scaffold’ for their attempts, allowing for communicationto proceed while giving the learner access to new linguistic data. InText 2, the interactionbetween teacher and students is different in several small but important respects from thetraditional IRF pattern, but these modifications appear to have significant effects on theinteraction as a whole. Typically, the IRF pattern is realised in fairly predictable ways,frequently involving a teacher known-answer question, followed by a student answer (oftenbrief), and followed by a teacher evaluation relating to the correctness or otherwise of theanswer. InText 2, the interactions approximate more closely what occurs in L1 adult-childinteractions outside of the formal teaching context (see for example, Halliday 1975; Wells1981 ; Painter 1985). The teacher begins the exchange with inviting students to relate whatthey have learned, rather than with a ‘known answer’ or display question. While teachers’questions are often framed in ways which do not allow for students to make extendedresponses (Dillon, 1990), here, by contrast, the teacher sets up a context where it is thestudents who initiate the specific topic of the exchange. As Ellis (1996) shows, when learner?initiate what they wish to talk about, language learning is facilitated because they enter thediscourse on their own terms, rather than responding to a specific request for informationfrom the teacher. In &us text, the student takes on the role of what Berry refers to as ‘primaryknower’ (Berry 1981). Although of course it is the teacher who is in control of theknowledge associated with the overall thematic development of the unit of work, theindividual exchanges locate that control in the student.The reciprocity and mutuality in thespeaker roles leads to Hannah producing longer stretches of discourse than often occurs inclassroom interaction. As is typical in these rcporting sessions, the teacher ‘leads frombehind’, and whilc following Hannah’s lead and accepting as a valid contribution theinformation she gives, the teacher also recasts it, providing alternative linguistic forms toencode student meaning in more context-appropriate ways.It is also clear that teacher-guided reporting encourages learner language to be ‘pushed’.(As one student commented as she struggled to explain what she had done: I can’t suy itMISS!). Hannah is going beyond what is unproblcmatic for her but, because she is allowed asecond attempt, she has an opportunity to produce more comprehensible output. Hannah’ssecond attempt at her explanation is considerably less hesitant and syntactically morecomplete than her first, and is produced th~s time without the help of the teacher.Vygotsky’s