Dydaktyka, UR, rozdział, 6

16 Classroom interaction

elear, is unsuccessful in eliciting answers, probably because it is too abstrac: difficult; even a competent native speaker of the language might have troubk answering. It is, thus, not very ‘available’, and certainly does not elicit exten -answers. This teacher, however, ąuickly realizes her mistake and rephrases, twice. The ąuestion that demands a concrete example from experience is mu better on all counts, and predictably receives immediate and fairly fuli responses. But then, what is going to happen with the next item?

Exchange 3

There is no indication of pauses after the ąuestions, and the answers are basically correct in content; the ąuestions seem fairly elear, interesting and available to most of the class, but their value in providing for learning is lowered because of the difficulty of the learners in expressing their answers ir. the foreign language. The teacher might have been able to help by giving sorr.r ‘scaffolding’, or modelling answers, in her ąuestions: ‘Was it about a man, a woman, an animal...? It was...Yes, Claire?’

Exchange 4

Here the teacher makes it very elear what kinds of responses she is reąuesting _ providing examples. She also implies that she expects a number of answers (‘extension’). The combination of these two strategies makes the ąuestion far morę ‘available’: the sheer number of student responses to the single cue lookr like being relatively large, and the weak student ($3) ventures a response baseć on the examples (of the teacher and of previous speakers) which he or she would not have done if only one response, without illustration, had been reąuested. The sheer number of responses contributes significantly to the effectiveness of the desired practice of the target language as a whole (see Module 2: Practice activities for a discussion of the characteristics of good practice activities).

► Unit Three: Group work

In group work, learners perform a learning task through small-group interaction. It is a form of learner activation that is of particular value in the practice of orał fluency: learners in a class that is divided into five groups get five times as many opportunities to talk as in full-class organization. It also has other advantages: it fosters learner responsibj.lity and indep_endence, can improve motivation and cóntnbute to a feeling of cooperation and warmth in the class. There is some research that indicates that the use of group work improyesjearning outeomes (see Furtber reading).

These potential advantages are not, however, always realized. Teachers fear they may lose control, that there may be too much noise, that their students may over-use their mother tongue, do the task badly or not at all: and their fears are often well founded. Some people - both learners and teachers - dislike a situation where the teacher cannot constantly monitor learner language.

The success of group work depends to some extent on the surrounding social

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