English Language Teaching in its Social Context
English Language Teaching in its Social Context
English Language Teaching in its Social Context
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NAVIGATING THE DISCOURSE 311are not directed at particular <strong>in</strong>dividuals but serve as a k<strong>in</strong>d of communal monologuedirected by the teacher at the whole class where<strong>in</strong> learner contributions are woven by theteacher <strong>in</strong>to his or her own text.Chaudron’s (1988) review of research on teacher talk <strong>in</strong> the language class furtherreveals that a good proportion of teacher <strong>in</strong>put made available to learners has very specificcharacteristics.Tcachers appear to have two-thirds more practice <strong>in</strong> the target language thanall the learners put together. They also modify their speech <strong>in</strong> ways similar to thecharacteristics of caretaker speech to young chddren or native speaker speech to non-nativespeakers. Interest<strong>in</strong>gly, such teacher modification appears more emphatic when address<strong>in</strong>glearners whom they regard as hav<strong>in</strong>g lower proficiency (Dah1 1981, Griffiths 1991, HamayanandTucker 1980, Henzel 1979, Kliefgen 1985, Ellis 1985, Wong-Filmore 1982). In otherwords, the degree of modification <strong>in</strong> a teacher’s direct <strong>in</strong>teraction with an <strong>in</strong>dividual learnermay signal to that learner the tcacher’s judgement of his or her capabilities.A crucial feature of the text of lessons is teacher feedback on learner utterances. Becauseof the fast flow of lessons, teachers are understandably <strong>in</strong>consistent <strong>in</strong> their reactions tolearner errors with the result that different learners may either fail to dist<strong>in</strong>guish a teacher’scorrection from other k<strong>in</strong>ds of teacher utterance or assume that almost all teacher responsesto what they say are some form of judgement or correction (Allwright and Bailey 1991,Edmondson 1985, Nystrom 1983,Van Lier 1988). Underl<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>gVan Lier’s observations aboutthe teacher’s discursive control of the text of lessons, research reveals that a remarkablyhigh proportion of teacher utterances are <strong>in</strong>terrogatives (Johnston 1990, Long and Sat01983). And a very high proportion of these arc closed display qucstions <strong>in</strong> which learnersare required to provide <strong>in</strong>formation which the teacher already knows rather than openreferential questions which genu<strong>in</strong>ely seek <strong>in</strong>formation from the lcarners (Long and Satoop. ut.).Although acknowledg<strong>in</strong>g the centrality of the teacher <strong>in</strong> the orchestration of classroomdiscourse, Van Lier (1988) suggests that the text of language lessons constantly shifts dueto <strong>its</strong> be<strong>in</strong>g generated by four types of <strong>in</strong>teraction: teacher <strong>in</strong>structions, teacher’s highlystructured elicitations of student responses, and procedurally structured learner activitiessuch as small group or dyadic tasks, all of which arc occasionally punctuated by small talkor student asides. Van Lier suggests that these different types of talk reflect different degreesof teacher control over topics or activities. From this we may also deduce that each of thefour types of <strong>in</strong>teraction will facilitate or delimit particular discursive practices on the partof learners.There appear to be features of the text of language lessons that may be dist<strong>in</strong>ctive ascompared with other types of lessons. We might describe this as thc <strong>in</strong>ter-textual nature oflanguage <strong>in</strong>put <strong>in</strong> classroom talk. Allwright (1980) analyses classroom talk <strong>in</strong>to three types:‘samples’ or <strong>in</strong>stances of the target language, ‘guidance’ where communication occurs aboutthe target language, and ‘management’ where<strong>in</strong> procedural talk facilitates the optimaloccurrence of samples and guidance. It seems, therefore, that the data made available to thelearner <strong>in</strong> the classroom is an on-go<strong>in</strong>g amalgam of three dom<strong>in</strong>ant and <strong>in</strong>ter-weav<strong>in</strong>gdiscursive practices: communication through the target language, metacommunication aboutthe target language, and communication about the teach<strong>in</strong>g-learn<strong>in</strong>g process, <strong>its</strong> proceduresand classroom rout<strong>in</strong>es. And, as participants <strong>in</strong> the discourse, learners have to navigatethrough <strong>its</strong> <strong>in</strong>ter-textuality identify<strong>in</strong>g the textual cues which signal a transition from onek<strong>in</strong>d of talk to another. It is vcry likely that different learncrs will be more or less skilled <strong>in</strong>such navigation.We might concludc from these general patterns <strong>in</strong> the contributions of teachers to the<strong>in</strong>teractive text of language lessons that learners are not actually required to do much overt