English Language Teaching in its Social Context

EVALUATION OF CLASSROOM INTERACTION 295In the above cases thc uptaken items have themselves, however briefly, become the ostensibletopic of the conversation rather than being simply a part of classroom discourse.The episodesdealing with these particular features are also seen to be terminated by some feedback fromthe teacher which might be expected to be interpreted by learners as indicating that an itemis worth paying attention to.The difference between the fourteen (1 1 per cent) and 1 12 (89 per cent) items claimedto have been learned during the sessions under study is that the latter had, to a greater orlesser extent, been the specific topic of instruction by having their meaning, their spelling,their pronunciation and sometimes two or all three aspects treated by the teacher and/orby the learners. In the case where learners provide their pcers with guidance in one or otherof the aspects, the teacher is seen to intervene by approving the provision of information.It must be emphasised however that this does not necessarily mean that the claimeditems were intended to be taught prior to the lessons. Many of them, as the followingexamples show, arose incidentally in the course of events and became topics in discourseterms.. . . Bob/bought/five books and George did too.6: L:T:L:Bob? What did he do? [Teacher interrupts]Five booksT: What did he do?L: /bought/LL: Bought [correct pronunciation]T:L:Bought. Which verb is that?To buy.T: To buy, bought bought7 T: . . . OK. Did you like it?L: Yes, yes, I likc it.T: Yes, I?L: Yes, I likcd it.T: Yes, I liked it or I did.It appears, then, that within the limits of the analysis so far of the uptaken items, instructionhas exercised a rather positive impact on the subjects since 1 12 out of the 126 items claimedto have been learned for the first time during those observed lessons have become, howevermomentarily, teaching points. However, a close examination of the data suggests that theabove statement alone is far from establishing the instructor’s supremacy as a learningfacilitator. A further investigation was necessary to find out the proportion of the topicaliseditems that are claimed as new acquisitions in relation to those which have apparently bcenthe subject of similar intentions and treatment but which failed to lead to any claims on thepart of the subjects.To evaluate the proportion of what has been claimed to be learned from what has beenpedagogically focused upon in some way during those six instructional sessions, the sumtotal of the topicalised items was counted independently of whether they had been claimedas new or otherwise on the learners’ uptake charts. The results are summarised in Table18.2 where column 1 indicates the total number of items topicalised in each lesson. Column2 presents the total number of items which are both focused upon and also claimed by atleast one learner to have been learned. Column 3 introduces those which have not led toany positive assertion on the part of the subjects despite the attention paid to them, andcolumn 4 displays the total number of items which have been claimed to be partly orcompletely familiar already and therefore ‘ineligible’ for learning claims in the context of