English Language Teaching in its Social Context

Chapter 18Assia SlimaniEVALUATION OF CLASSROOMINTERACTIONNTIL RELATIVELY RECENTLY, THE TRADITION in the field ofU language teaching and learning has been to expect a better understanding of thetcaching/learning phenomenon by making a broad comparison between the learningoutcomes and the teacher’s plan. The focus was set on the extreme poles of the situationunder investigation: those of methods and outcomes. What happened during theimplementation of the method was largely ignored when it camc to the evaluation of thelearning outcomes. This approach is illustrated by the large-scale projects conducted byScherer and Wertheimer (1964) and Smith (1970), who focused on outcomes and paidrelatively little attention to process.This chapter proposes to analysc and evaluate what is claimed to be learned fromclassroom interaction. The method, which will be described later, allows a detailed studyof the classroom interactive processes in attempting to uncover and evaluate the quality ofinteraction which leads to learners’ claims of uptake. (Uptake is defined as what learnersclaim to have learned from a particular lesson.)Importance of the study of classroom interactionAllwright (1 984a) suggests that a hgh proportion of apparent mismatches betwccn tcachngand learning could be explained if instruction is perceived as being the product of bothteachers’ and learners’ contributions. Learning outcomes are not necessarily the reflectionof the teacher’s plan since, in the process of accomplishing instructional objectives,interactive work takes place among the participants and leads to the creation of a wholerange of learning opportunities, many of which are perhaps unexpected.The observation of language classes typically shows that the discourse is not somethingprepared beforehand by the teacher and simply implemented with the students. Instead, itis jointly constructcd by contributions from both parties so that learners are not justpassively fed from the instructor’s plan. They can have preoccupations or goals on thcirpersonal agendas that they attempt to clarify during interactive work. Teachers know fromexperience that a lesson does not often take the direction it was planned to take, or, if itdoes, it might nevertheless include or excludc aspects that neither the teacher nor thelearners have anticipated. Problems, queries, perhaps various unexpected teacher’s andlearner’s comments, influenced by the teacher’s as well as the learners’ psychological and