A comparison of classroom discourse in two countries

MA-Thesis / Master von Katrin Strobelberger

Introduction:

In our world of internationalisation and globalisation, teaching and learning take place in a transnational and global context. It is a proven fact that children spend significant periods of their lives in school and it is widely acknowledged among teachers as well as researchers that classroom discourse plays a crucial part in the process of learning. Language, after all, is which the business of schooling is primarily accomplished in. Learning takes place to a great extent when interacting with fellow students or the teacher.

Therefore, classroom language studies, investigating what classroom discourse actually looks like (instead of stating what it should be), are of great importance. Nowadays language studies are to be seen as ‘social and cultural practises embedded in a comprehensive and potentially global process’. The study of classroom language and interaction is central to the study of classroom learning. Analysing classroom discourse in order to highlight its characteristic features, therefore, constitutes a worthwhile task since its findings may be used to improve teaching. In this way teachers might become more aware of the way teachers and learners jointly create learning opportunities, and subsequently classroom discourse might be adjusted in order to enhance learning. Interestingly in this respect is Walsh’s reference to teachers’ interactional awareness, characterised as the use of meta-language, critical self-evaluation and more conscious interactive decision making. A detailed analysis of classroom discourse possibly helps heighten teachers’ awareness with regard to classroom interaction.

In conclusion, the increased importance of language in our multicultural societies calls for a detailed investigation of features of classroom discourse with the overall aim of improving teaching and consequently learning. Analyzing classroom discourse is at the heart of the study presented here. The central idea of my enquiry is to compare classroom discourse in two countries. Comparatively studying classroom discourse in two countries will reveal different pedagogical traditions and their underlying social values. The focus of my study is on classes of English as a foreign language taught by a team of a non-native teacher and a native assistant. This analysis of teacher-assistant collaboration, a frequent yet under-researched form of practice, will also help to improve teaching. More background information on my study will be provided in chapter 2. In chapter 3 I will review the existing literature on classroom discourse, in particular in foreign language teaching, but I will also refer in more depth to the concept of communicative competence as well as cultural differences in pedagogic traditions. Chapter 4 is concerned with the methodology applied in my study, thus discussing the research question, the research strategy and design, as well as the methods of data collection and data analysis applied. The data of my study will then be presented and analysed in great depth in chapter 5. Finally I will conclude this paper by some final remarks in chapter 6.

Table of Contents:

Text Sample:

Chapter III. 3. 2, Communicative foreign language teaching:

While Coulthard still claimed that ‘language teaching has until recently been concerned with grammatical rather than communicative competence’, twenty-five years later the methodology of Communicative Language Teaching has generally been adopted in EFL classes in most European countries. In contrast to traditional teaching, this approach focuses more on the learners’ role in active classroom interaction and reduces the teacher’s role to that of a facilitator assisting in the process of classroom communication. Based on the assumption that the communicative features of the classroom are those used outside the classroom, communicative feature of the EFL classroom have been proposed, such as the use of referential questions, the correction of the learners’ mistake only when they impede comprehension, the use of speech modifications, and rephrasing to facilitate learners’ comprehension. Indeed, these features are exactly those that we as EFL teachers have been instructed to use in class. Exclusive or excessive use of display questions, form-focused feedback and echoing students’ responses have often been regarded as non-communicative features.

In the language classroom, negotiation takes on a special value, since some of the input made comprehensible through interaction may be absorbed into the learners’ language knowledge. There are various ways in which teachers modify input. Input modifications can be observed with regard to vocabulary (e.g. use of more common vocabulary, avoiding idioms, use of nouns rather than pronouns), grammar (e.g. less complex sentences, increased use of present tense), pronunciation (e.g. slower speech, less vowel reduction, more and longer pauses) and non-verbal communication (e.g. increased use of gestures and facial expressions). All these modifications have been observed in the talk of native speaker teachers or those with near-native competence. However, modification of the interaction between teacher and students is more crucial to the provision of comprehensible input than modification of teacher talk in terms of grammar and vocabulary.

The three most frequently used interaction modifications are confirmation checks, comprehension checks and clarification requests. Foreign language teachers are said to be ‘very skilled at judging learners’ level of competence’ and adjusting the complexity of their speech accordingly. They obviously modify their language more for intermediate and elementary than for advanced learners.

While negotiation of meaning aims at the comprehensibility of the message, negotiation of form aims at accuracy and precision in form. Whereas Long and Sato still argued that ‘display questions will always dominate over referential questions, since most teachers put form above meaning and accuracy above communication’, this is, in my opinion, not the case anymore since the concept of Communicative Language Teaching has been fully embraced in most European countries. However, teachers often face the dilemma of how to focus on content and at the same time provide clear messages about language form. Lyster, for example, suggests that ‘recasting clearly provides teachers with efficient ways of advancing the lesson by keeping students’ attention focused on content in spite of gaps in L2 proficiency.’ Therefore, in foreign language classroom talk, two complementary modes, the natural and the pedagogical mode, interact. The pedagogical mode refers to talk with a pedagogical goal (e.g. focus-on-form talk), while the natural mode refers to talk without a pedagogical goal (e.g. focus-on-meaning talk). Since the main objective of classroom discourse is to teach and learn, Gil argues that these two modes can mingle and overlap. Repair, an important way to negotiate meaning as well as form, differs in its use inside and outside the classroom since ‘the school as an institution, (…) the goals teachers and pupils are supposed to achieve, and (…) the resulting actional and interactional patterns’ exert socio-interactional constraints. In general, other-initiated other-repair predominates in classroom settings. Kaspar, distinguishing eight types of repair, found significant differences in repair between the content-centred and the language-centred phase of lessons due to differences in the teaching goal of the two phases.

Although modification devices are most frequently used by the teacher, the students – accounting for less than 30% of talk in teacher-fronted classrooms – are also actively involved in the process of negotiating comprehensible input. However, students’ reticence is much higher in EFL classrooms than in other classrooms, possible reasons being a low English proficiency and the fear of losing face, a lack of confidence in their proficiency, very short wait-times on part of the teacher, or the teacher’s subconscious choice to allocate turns to ‘brighter’ students.

III.3.3, Communicative Competence:

As already mentioned, nowadays, the overall aim in EFL teaching is the development of ‘communicative competence’, which comprises linguistic, pragmatic and strategic competence. In contrast, Canale describes communicative competence as composed of four areas, namely grammatical, sociolinguistic (appropriateness of meaning and form), discourse (cohesion and coherence) and strategic (composed of verbal and non-verbal communication strategies which enable speakers to handle breakdowns in communication) skills. Risager, arguing from a language and culture pedagogy perspective, takes the idea of competence a little bit further.

‘Apart from developing the students’ communicative (dialogic) competence in the target language, language teaching ought also as far as possible to enable students to develop into multilingually and multiculturally aware world citizens’.

To be successful as an ‘intercultural speaker’, that is, ‘a language speaker, who does not strive to attain the hopeless ideal of approaching native-speaker competence linguistically and culturally, but who develops his or her ability to meditate between a number of cultural perspectives and between the target language and the first language,’ one needs ‘intercultural communicative competence’, defined by Byram as ‘a competence that enables a person to interact with others whilst talking a foreign language (second language)’. Risager develops Byram’s concept of intercultural communicative competence, made up of linguistic, sociolinguistic, discourse and intercultural competence, even further and arrives at a model of ten components of linguistic (languastructural) competence, languacultural competence and resources.

Obviously, the aspect of interculturality has become extremely important in recent years. At the same time there has been an attempt to harmonise language teaching at the European level, resulting in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) set up by the Council of Europe (cf. Council of Europe 2001). Risager criticises it for its lack of theoretical foundation.

‘CEF is based on a view of language that is integrative and pragmatic in orientation, but its conception of the relationship between language and culture, and that between language teaching and culture teaching, is unclear and without theoretical foundation.’ Nevertheless, the CEFR has been a major influence as a guideline document for language teaching and assessment throughout Europe and continues to be of great importance.