English Language Teaching in its Social Context

EVALUATION OF CLASSROOM INTERACTION 299which have been persistently dealt with but still remain largely ignored by some learnersduring verbal interaction (see Slimani 1987 for further quantitative and qualitative analysisof error treatment in this setting).Learners’ idiosyncraciesThe second characteristic which emerged from the investigation of the learners’ claims isthat uptake is highly idiosyncratic. The fcaturc is particularly revcaling for evaluation whichgenerally assumes the effect of instruction is somehow uniform for most members of theclass. Such evaluation takes as its starting point the teacher’s plan which is expected tocontrol what learners would sec as optimal in the teaching. Even though the teaching in thisparticular setting was not differentiated in any obvious way, i.e., in the sense that differentlearners were given different tasks, it appears that typically only very few learners at anyone time happened to take the information in. Table 18.3 illustrates the extremeindividuality with which learners react to instruction. It prcsents thc total number (N) ofitcms or linguistic features (1 26) reported to have been learned during the observed sessionsas well as the percentage of claims associated with them and the number of reporters thateach case has attracted.Tohle 18.3 Percentage of claims madc by reporters on each linguistic featureN of items (1 26) I % of claimsN of reporters47202775103312137.30%15.872 1.42Total 74.59%5.553.967.932.382.38I Total 22.20%0.791.580.791523491011Total 3.16%The results point to thc fact that as many as 74.59 per cent of the total number of claimsare reported by no morc than three learners at a time, and no fewer than 37.30 per cent of thetotal are reportcd by only one person at any one time. A negligible percentage (3.16 per cent)of claims is simultaneously made by nine, ten or eleven subjects.These figures express the highlevel of ‘individuality’ and ‘autonomy’ with which some subjects might face instruction. The