English Language Teaching in its Social Context

294 ASSIA SLIMANIby the learners. The instructor also appeared much more rclaxed after the first hour ofobservation. Prior to deciding which teacher was to be part of the project, I felt someresistance and avoidancc on the part of the staff members who alluded to the fact that ‘really,not much is going on in our classes right now’. The procedure discussed in this chaptcr waspart of a doctoral project and this made the teachers particularly apprehensive at havingtheir lessons ‘dissected’ and looked at through ‘magnifying’ lenses for research purposes.However, I persisted in spite of their anxiety as their refusal could mean the end of my plans.Therefore, I remain indebted to the ‘chosen’ teacher who, knowing that he could not openlyrefuse me without losing face, gracefully adjusted to my persistent presence in the back ofhis classes.The rcst of the chapter will describe some of the tentative findings (see Slimani 1987for a fuller report) which might help us understand the relationship betwcen the classroominteractive processes and uptake, and their conscquences for evaluation studies. Twointeresting characteristics of uptake emerged in the investigation of thc lcarncrs’ uptakecharts. The first characteristic is that most of the learners’ claims were topicalised duringinstruction. The second is that learners’ uptake is strongly idiosyncratic. Both aspccts willbe discussed in detail bclow.Importance of topicalisation on uptakeA thorough study of the informants’ Uptakc Charts and Uptake Identification Probes showedthat a total of 126 items were claimed to have been learned.These items were vcrbs, nouns,adjectives, adverbs, connectors, auxiliaries, models and some set phrases. Almost all (1 12items or 89 per cent) of what the respondents claimed to have seen and learned for the firsttime in those six observed lessons, had, in one way or another, been focused upon duringinstruction. 1 12 out of 126 were given some sort of prominence by being the topic ofconversation while the remaining fourteen items or 11 pcr cent happened as part ofclassroom interaction with no particular cmphasis brought upon them. The followingexcerpts illustrate the various means used to focus upon or topicalise those items claimedto have been learned: ‘least’, ‘list’, ‘like’, ‘look after’, ‘look like’, ‘match’, ‘in order to’.T:T:L1:L2 :L3 :T:L4 :L5 :T:L6:T:T:r..What’s the dflerence between least and list?[pointing at both items written on the board].The mother looks after her son at home. Canyou use another word or expression insteadoflook after?Don’t worry.Not worried but uh the same uh.Uh, take care.OK. When I say uh this car is like that one, what does ‘like’mean?Similar.Almost the same.OK. Now, John’s new car looks almost the same. What is ‘looks’?To see . . .To see, uhuh. So, canyou replace ‘to look’here by ‘to see’and say yohn’s new car sees almostthe same?Let’s see the instructions given here and see if they match. To match, that’s a newword, I think [writes it on board]. To match. [A long explanation with attempts tojndsynonyms follows.]OK, in order to. What does that mcan!