English Language Teaching in its Social Context

~ (1983)~ (1EVALUATION OF CLASSROOM INTERACTION 301We should not be afraid occasionally to provide input which is explicitly geared toward. . . the form of grammatical teaching, of correction, or otherforms Ofemphasis onparticular structures [my emphasis]; at worst, it will be ignored and at best, it may trigerchange in the acquisition system. (White 1987: 108)Bringing particular linguistic features to the class’s attention appears to be a rather valuablecharacteristic of uptake as most of the uptaken items were focused upon during instruction.The fact that most of the ‘lost’ items were error correction does not necessarily contradictthe effect of topicalisation. Learners may not be ready to internalise particular structuralfeatures despite their persistent explanation and correction. Correction is often seen, inthis study, to be provided in an erratic and confusing manner. The study revealed that whilesome uptaken featurcs were products of the teacher’s plan, others were by-products of theplan or perhaps of the classroom interaction.These uptaken items, which represent 44 per cent of the participants’ interactiveefforts, are revealed to be highly idiosyncratic. The detailed analysis of the interactiveprocesses has shown that different features of the same event have been uptaken by differentlearners. Very few items were claimed by all or even most learners. Moreover, while manyof the claims could be traced in the transcripts as having received some kind of emphasison the part of the participants, mostly of the teacher, others merely occurred as part of theclassroom interaction or did not feature at all in the text, suggesting that learners reactedwith some autonomy to what went on during the interactive event.Viewing input as co-produced by the participants has highlighted idiosyncrasy andtopicalisation as particularly relevant to evaluation studies which generally tend to assesslearning outcomes on the basis of the teacher’s objectives: these objectives are subsequentlyassumed to be learned by most learners in the class. A test based on the teacher’s objectiveswould have taken into consideration the features which the teacher planned to treat. Sucha test would, by its nature, ignore the very many other features which incidentally aroseduring the actual classroom interaction, some of which learners claimed to have bcnefitcdfrom.Because of the finding that what actually gets topicalised during the claw-oominteractive work is different from the teacher’s plan, and because uptake is stronglyidiosyncratic, it is therefore not helpful to use the teacher’s plan as a measuring rod for whathas been uptaken from the lesson. In fact, a consideration of the actual classroom interactivework which characterises second language instruction and a study of learner idiosyncrasymight help us gain a better understanding of the complexities of second language teachngand learning. This understanding might subsequently inform the improvement of evaluationsof what actually gets learned from language programmes.ReferencesAllwright, R.L. (ed.) (1975a) ‘Working papers: languagc teaching classroom rcscarch’ .Dcpartment of Language and Linguistics, University of Essex, England.Allwright, R.L. (1975b) ‘Problems in the study of the teacher’s treatment of learner error’, inBurt and Dulay: 96-109.‘The nature and function of the syllabus in languagc teaching and learning’.Unpublished mimeograph. Department of Linguistics and Modern English Language,Lancaster University.984a) ‘Why don’t learners learn what teachers teach? The interaction hypothesis’, in