Observing Learning and Teaching
in the Second Language Classroom
Chapter 5
Differences Between Classroom Settings
and Other Settings
•What is special about 'natural' language learning?
•Can we create the same environment in the classroom?
•Should we create the same environment in the
classroom?
•Are there essential contributions that only instruction
and not natural exposure can provide?
NATURAL AND INSTRUCTIONAL SETTINGS
•Natural acquisition contexts
• Structure-based instructional environments
• Communicative content-based
• Task-based instructional environments
Natural Acquisition Contexts
Where can we find natural acquisition contexts?
•Exposure to TL at work or in social interaction
•Child school situation where most of the other
children are native speakers of TL
•Where the instruction is directed toward native speakers
rather than toward learners of the language.
Structure-based Instructional Environments
What are the main characteristics of the structure-based
instructional settings?
•Language is taught to a group of second or foreign
language learners
•Focus is on the language itself, rather than on the
messages carried by the language
•Teacher's goal is to teach students the vocabulary and
grammatical rules of the TL
•For some, classroom is the only contact with TL
•For some, the goal is to pass the course/test
Communicative, content-based, and task-
based instructional environments
•Goal is learning the language itself
•Style of instruction places the emphasis on
interaction, conversation, and language use,
rather than on learning about the language
•Topics are often of general interest to the learner
(e.g. how to reply to a classified advertisement from
a newspaper.)
•In content-based instruction, focus of a lesson is
usually on the subject matter (e.g. History or
mathematics)
Communicative, content-based, and task-
based instructional environments
•Emphasis is on using the language rather than
talking about it
•Language not selected solely for the purpose of
teaching a specific feature of the language, but
also for interaction
•Students' success measured in terms of their
ability to 'get things done' in SL, rather than
accuracy
Observing Schemes
Why are they used?
•to look at how differences in teaching practices are
related to differences in second language learning
•to train new teachers
•For professional development of experienced ones.
Classroom Comparisons: Teacher-student Interactions
Characteristics of input and interaction:
Classroom A
Errors
•Very few on the part of the teacher.
•have some peculiar characteristics typical of this type of teaching
(e.g. The questions in statement form-often asked with dramatic
rising intonation: 'You don't know what it is?').
•Students don't make too many errors because they say very little
and what they say is usually limited by the lesson.
Classroom Comparisons: Teacher-student Interactions
Characteristics of input and interaction:
Classroom A
Feedback on Errors
Yes, whenever students do make errors, the teacher reacts
Genuine Questions
•Yes, a few, related to classroom management
•No questions from the students
Display Questions
•Teacher's questions
•Students sometimes interpret display questions as genuine
questions (T: What are you doing, Paul? S: Nothing)
•How the teacher's pragmatic intent can be misinterpreted by the
student
Classroom Comparisons: Teacher-student Interactions
Characteristics of input and interaction:
Classroom A
Negotiation of meaning
•Very little
•Learners have no need to paraphrase or request clarifications, and
no opportunity to determine the direction of the discourse
•The teacher is focused only on the formal aspects of the learners‘
language
Metalinguistic comments
•Yes, this is how the teacher begins the lesson and lets the students
know what really matters!
Classroom Comparisons: Teacher-student Interactions
Characteristics of input and interaction:
Classroom B
Errors
•Yes, students make errors
•Even the teacher says some odd things
•Her speech also contains incomplete sentences, simplified ways of
speaking, and an informal speech style
Feedback on Errors
oYes, sometimes the teacher repeats what the student has said
with the correct form (e.g. 'he bugzz me' emphasizing the third
person singular ending).
oCorrection is not consistent or intrusive as the focus is primarily on
letting students express their meanings.
Classroom Comparisons: Teacher-student Interactions
Characteristics of input and interaction:
Classroom B
Genuine Questions
•Yes, almost all of the teacher's questions are focused on getting
information from the students.
•The students are not asking questions in this exchange. sometimes
intervene to change the direction of the conversation
Display Questions
•No, because there is a focus on meaning
Negotiation of Meaning
•Yes, from the teacher's side
Metalinguistic Comments
•No. Even though the teacher clearly hopes to get students to use
the third person ending, she does not say so in these words
Classroom Comparisons: Teacher-student
Interactions
Although the activities in the two transcripts are both teacher-
centered , the transcripts are very different from each other
Corrective Feedback in the Classroom
The Issue of Uptake: how students immediately respond to
feedback
pp.103-113
Explicit Correction
Recasts*
Clarification Requests
Metalinguistic Feedback
Elicitation
Repetition
Studies on Corrective Feedback: Studies 1-4
Modification of output most likely to occur in language-focused
exchanges
Studies on Teacher’s Questions: Studies 5-8
(Display vs. Information-Scaffolding-Open vs Closed- Wait time)
Ethnography
• Another way of observation without predetermined categories
• Observer can be a participant or non-participant
• Broader in scope
• Focus on social, cultural and political realities as well
